Experiencing God - Reality 5

All right.

Well, as you grab your Bibles, we'll be in Exodus 4 today, and we're continuing our sermon series, Experiencing God.

We're continuing with reality number five, which is a crisis of belief.

God's invitation for you to work with him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

And that sounds exciting, right?

A crisis of belief, that as you start living a God-centered life, as you start to accept his invitation in your life for living a life that would be pleasing to him, that you're starting to shift away from the you-centered life and starting to shift into the Christ-centered life, and that leads to a crisis where you say, Oh man, this is harder than I thought it was going to be.

Like it's it's not, hey, follow Jesus.

Everything is going to get way easier for you if you say yes to Jesus.

No, Jesus doesn't promise that.

You might hear that in some churches and they're lying to you.

That's not a biblical idea that things will get easier for you as you say yes to Jesus, as you follow him.

Actually, it's going to make you say, This is different.

I'm less in control because I'm trusting the sovereign King of Kings to lead, to provide, and I'm living on the edge of faith where if I'm praying for these impossible things to be answered, and I'm waiting for him to respond, I might look really foolish if he doesn't show up here.

We're at the edge of this Red Sea moment, right?

Where it feels like at the last second we need God to step in and provide him.

We say, Where are you?

This is harder than I thought it was going to be.

But this series has all been about us understanding a framework of how do we relate to God.

It's not like here's the formula, go follow the formula.

It's saying here are biblical patterns that we can follow, and we can't expect God to show up as we look for Him to continue to be the same God.

The same God yesterday, today, and forever.

Jesus Christ never changed.

He never changes.

And I love these books that they don't necessarily teach us something new, but they remind us of these truths that we can't forget.

They help us to articulate these truths that we see repeated over and over and over again in Scripture.

And so as we learn these ways to recognize how God is working around us, it allows us to then join Him in His work instead of doing whatever we want and then saying, God, would you bless this thing that I'm doing?

Would you bless it my way?

No, I want to do it your way first.

And it's this reorienting of our lives where we say, God, you are King and you are Lord, and I want to live for you instead of my own ways.

And so we got a picture of the seven realities together.

There's that one.

Can you give me the other picture instead?

Sorry.

The black, black background.

There you go.

Perfect.

So God is always at work around us.

He invites us first to have a love relationship with him.

We tend to flip this around and say, it's all about what I get to do.

No, it's about a relationship first.

And then he invites us into his work as he speaks to us, which leads us to this crisis of belief.

And then that's going to lead us to some adjustments that we have to take.

And then eventually in two weeks, we'll talk about how we can experience God as we obey him.

That we're going to be most full of joy as we're abiding with him the most, as we're most obedient to him.

It's not, hey, do whatever you want, and then just that's freedom.

No, freedom is living for him and then trusting him with the results, living for him first, saying, You have your way in my heart.

Ruin all the idols, destroy everything that I'm worshiping instead of you, and let me live for you first.

Because you were made to experience God in very real and tangible ways.

And the main way that we've been tracking with this has been with the life of Moses.

And the truths that we cover are foundational to who we are as a church and who we are as disciples of Jesus.

Our prayer as elders for this sermon series is that you would continue on this journey, that you'd be changed to be more like Jesus Christ personally and then collectively as a church, that we would experience him together.

We've been talking about first that there's this prerequisite that first you've got to know, have a relationship with God for you to experience God.

Romans 3.23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

Romans 6.23 says the wages of sin is death.

We've sinned, we've fallen short, we deserve death, but God demonstrates his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

And then how do we receive that gift?

Romans 10 9, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

All who call upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Romans 10 13.

And so, first, if you haven't put on Jesus, our encouragement is very simple.

Jesus lived the perfect life that you could never live.

He died the death that you deserve on the cross, he rose from the dead, so that anyone who would believe in him would have the right to become a child of God by grace through faith, not because of anything you could do, because you could never earn it.

Every other religion would say, work and perform, and maybe, maybe God will be okay with you and let you into this way.

But Jesus says, No, you could never perform enough.

So I lived the perfect life, you could never live.

I died the death that you deserve on the cross.

I rose from the dead so that you could freely, by grace through faith, receive that gift.

And so every week we have this very plain explanation of the gospel that uh we don't grow out of that.

Like we have this tendency to say, well, now that I'm saved, I can I can work really hard and I can do a lot of good things.

No, stop.

Like you will never be loved more when you perform more for God.

He's not calling you into that.

You're gonna experience more joy by living for him more, by experiencing his peace, by experiencing his love as you live for him.

So, first have a relationship with Jesus.

In our first reality, we talked about how God is always at work around us.

And I'm not gonna belabor these points because our sermons are getting longer and longer as we explain all the realities, but God is at work around you.

Remember that.

That he was at work around Jesus as well, and that's why he was able to say, I'm not able to do anything except for what I see the Father doing, and that's why I'm focused on doing what the Father would have me to do.

Week two, God pursues a love relationship with you.

It's about the relationship first.

Receive that love unconditionally from God.

Three, God invites you to become involved with Him in His work, that He's prepared good works beforehand that we could walk in them, that we should walk in them.

Week four, last week, we talked about how God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal himself, his purposes, and his ways.

That uh the way that you can hear from God is you read his word out loud.

That's the most surefire way for you to understand what God's voice even sounds like.

For you to say, God, I want to hear your word.

I want to know your Bible.

And then for us to pray with him, for us to interact with him regularly, then for us to look at our circumstances, where is he leading us?

What is he giving us a passion or a burden for?

And those are often the ways that he's leading you to serve him, the ways that he's leading you to live for him.

And then the church, like other believers filled with the Holy Spirit, not just this church, not just Taylor Bible church, but other individuals that have the Spirit of God in them, can instruct you, can guide you.

And we should be asking, like, hey, I think I'm hearing from the Lord on this.

And then as we talk about that, some people might be able to lovingly check us and say, No, I think you're just one doing what you want to do, and then you're saying that God's leading you there.

No, and we need each other.

We need to check each other, we need to balance that with one another, especially as we start to say, I'm here, I've heard this from God.

And when he speaks, he's doing three things he's revealing himself, his purposes, and his ways.

He tells us, he shows us who he is, he shows us what he would have us to do, he shows us how he would have us to do it.

And then we we even talked about this filter of how do I know that it's God's voice?

How do I know that it's him?

That if I have an idea, a thought, or a feeling, if God's word affirms that, I can go right into action, I can go right into obedience.

If I'm still not sure, then I need to pray and I need to spend time laboring in prayer for that decision.

And then I'm gonna look at my circumstances as well, and then I'm gonna articulate and talk to other believers.

These don't necessarily always have to be sequential, one, two, three, four, but often this is the best way to go because if you're jumping straight to four and you haven't even looked at God's word, you're gonna be dependent on other believers, which it's good for us to be depending on each other, but it's also good for us to wrestle with God because you're gonna have to own that decision that you that you're saying yes to.

So you need to know that this is what God's word's calling you to do, not just what James told you to do.

Right?

Make sense?

And so today, God's invitation for us uh to work with him always leads us to a crisis of belief.

And as I was talking with uh the guys this week, uh, one of the things that uh Tim was telling me is that this is his favorite week because it most plainly articulates this reality that as we follow Jesus, that we do have a crisis of belief moment.

That as we start to say yes to God, it leads to this crisis of belief where now I'm living his way instead of my way, and there's gonna be a moment where it's difficult, where things are harder because I'm doing it God's way instead of my way.

And then I have to decide, am I gonna take the control back and say, let's go back to my way?

We tend to do that, right?

We, God, I'm gonna lay this at your feet.

Well, let me just pick it back up for a second.

Let me just, I just want to take a little, can I just guide us a little bit more this way?

And he's saying, No, trust me.

And it will lead to a moment of, is it worth it?

You you'll you'll ask yourself, is it worth it?

Can God really show up and provide in this crazy way?

Um and and one of the ways that uh I was encouraged hearing about this this week is uh we were talking in the men's experience in God group is uh the first Hand and Harvest Thanksgiving event.

Uh they had prepared food for about 150 individuals, and that was gonna be huge.

It was gonna be so exciting to serve 150 individuals in greater Texas, uh Greater Taylor, Texas that needed a Thanksgiving meal, that needed to come and have a place in our community to say, hey, your family stuff might be a little weird.

Come and be come and eat with us, come and sit with us, come and uh commune with us in this way.

And so as they prepared, there were moments where it's like, I don't know if uh all the food is gonna show up.

I don't know if all of the people are gonna show up, all the volunteers that sign up, because people can sign up and they're good at that, but are they always good at showing up when they said that they're gonna show up?

Are they always good at bringing all of the things that they committed to bring?

And so there's these moments of saying, God, are you gonna provide here?

Are you gonna show up?

Are you gonna do that thing that you do when you do something that's impossible for us humanly, but it's so easy for you, the God of everything, the God of the universe, to show up and provide.

And so, as they had food uh that they had logistically planned for 150 people, they got to the end of the night and they had uh the same stack of plates that they've got a count on, and they had given out food for 300 people.

There was food on paper for 150 people, but God fed 300 people, so much so that we had extra plates that we were able to bring uh to the community and find uh folks that were unhoused, folks that uh needed to be encouraged, and we were able to deliver these meals above and beyond what we could ask for or imagine, because God's people were willing to say yes.

God's people were willing to show up.

Not like none of us on our own have like this, uh we're not glowing in our face like we just spoke with the Lord, like Moses, we see that.

Uh but we just say, God, I want to do what you're calling me to do.

And if he gives us a burden, if he shows us where he's already at work and we join him, there might be a crisis of belief of will you show up?

But he's gracious to meet us there.

And he shows us his love in this incredible way of look at what you did, God.

There's no way I could have done that on my own.

There's no way that any of the planning team could have done that on their own.

That was all God.

And we give him all the glory.

We say, God, would you show up and meet us at this Red Sea moment and would you get all the glory for it?

Because it's not about us, it's not about Taylor Bible Church, it's not about hand and harvest, it's not about us individually, it's about making much of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord who is worthy to be praised.

Amen?

And so as we get to the edge of this, when we're having a crisis of belief, he's calling us to an assignment that often we can't do without him.

That assignment will often have God-sized dimensions, it will often be beyond your own capabilities.

If you could do it by yourself, would it require any faith?

No.

He asks you to do something that you cannot do, and you face a crisis of belief.

And you have to decide whether you really believe that God is the sovereign, King of kings, Lord of Lords, who has uh a thousand uh cattle on a thousand hills.

He's got limitless resources where he's able to show up and provide above and beyond what we could ask for or imagine.

Can he and will he do what he says he wants to do through you?

What do you do in response to his invitation?

It reveals what you believe about God, regardless of what you would say.

In other words, do you believe God can use you?

Do you believe that God will fulfill his purposes through you in this way?

And before we jump in, there I'm gonna just give you the five biggest ways that we wrestle with God in this.

One, comfort, uh, that it's uncomfortable when you're in the middle of a crisis of belief.

And we need to die to our own comfort.

We need to lean into the uncomfortable, we need to experience the supernatural grace of God in that place that's past our comfort zone.

Two, we have doubts.

Maybe we say, This isn't really clear, God.

I don't understand.

We need to trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge Him, and He will make our paths straight.

He will provide, He will allow us to do it, even when it's unclear to us.

Often it's unclear to us because we're 10 steps ahead and we're saying, give me the next 10 steps what that looks like, instead of what do you want me to do right now?

Three, fear.

Our eyes are on ourselves, on our own inadequacies and not on God, and our fear cripples us.

We say, I can't.

So maybe we say I'm uncomfortable, maybe we say I don't understand, maybe we say I can't.

But Jesus would say, with man this is impossible, but not with God.

All things are possible with God.

Like he can show up and heal miraculously.

He can show up and feed the 5,000 miraculously and have leftovers for self-sufficiency.

We claim our securities in Christ, but then we rely on everything but God.

We say, Let me take care of this.

God, I know you you might be a little busy up there, so let me let me take the reins, let me take care of this so you don't have to worry about it.

I'm gonna find a way to get it done my way.

And often my way is not God's way.

So we have self-sufficiency challenges.

And five, maybe some of us it's just disobedience.

We say, I don't want to.

There's a way that seems right to a man, but in the way, its end is the way to death.

Each of these crises or crises or decisions made, uh, one thing is the same.

There's a lack of faith, a lack of trust, a lack of belief that rejects obedience and action.

And so uh we're gonna see some voices of objection as God is calling Moses into his work.

He's gonna call him to lead the greatest exodus in human history, of saying, Let my people go to the Pharaoh, of going and confronting uh the biggest power in the world and saying, We're gonna get out of here.

We're gonna, we're gonna go.

And it's gonna require Moses to work with God, and he's gonna have a little bit of a crisis of belief that God's gonna call him to do something, and he's gonna say, There's a lot of better people than me.

Uh let me should let me look, give you all my excuses here.

And he has valid excuses, right?

Because the Hebrews know him as the guy who was raised by the Egyptians.

The Egyptians know him as the betrayer, as the murderer, and so he's got valid excuses, but not to God.

Valid excuses to man, but not valid excuses to God.

God said, I chose you, I've called you to do this work, let's go.

And so we're gonna look at the end of Exodus three and at the beginning of Exodus IV and see part of Moses' story here, how God is calling him and what excuses he gives to God.

So uh chapter 3, verse 11.

And we've got it on this, we can put it on the screen.

There you go.

God's invitation for Moses to work with him led him to a crisis of belief that would require faith and action.

Basically the same as this reality, but with Moses' name in there instead of you.

God's invitation for Moses.

And his first excuse in verse 11 is, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

He said, uh, and God said, But I will be with you, and this will be the sign for you that I have sent you when you brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

Verse 13.

Then Moses said to God, If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they asked me, What is his name?

What shall I say to him?

And God said, I am who I am.

And he also said, Say this to the people, I am has sent me.

So God is giving him the answers to every objection that he has.

These first two, uh, he's saying, I don't have all the answers.

People won't believe me.

Verse, chapter four, verse one.

But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, The Lord did not appear to you.

He's saying, I'm not equipped.

They're not gonna believe me, I'm not the guy.

They're not going to believe me, they're gonna shut me down.

And sometimes when you're being obedient to what God has for you to do, people are gonna say, I don't know if that's God.

I don't know, I don't know if you're hearing the voice of God or if you're just doing your own thing here.

And so we need to have this idea, this ability to recognize what is God's voice, what is he directing us to do.

And then be obedient to that and be able to rest in this is where the Lord is leading me, and I'm gonna follow him no matter what the consequences are.

Verse 10.

Oh my Lord, I'm not eloquent either in the past or since you've spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and tongue.

He had uh a speech impediment, a speaking disorder where he wasn't able to articulate what he wanted to articulate, and he was having trouble, and he's wrestling with God saying, I I am struggling to speak.

I don't know if I'm the guy.

Surely you can send somebody else.

But it's it's doubt, it's fear, it's discomfort that's causing him to say, anybody but me, anybody but me, God.

Verse 13, oh my Lord, please send someone else.

All of these voices of objection come from his belief about God being lacking in this moment.

Saying, anybody but me.

I I'm slow of speech and tongue.

And I love that God says, Hey bud, uh, who made your mouth?

Like, you you forget what I can do, you forget how I can provide.

Let me show you.

I can provide.

But all these ways that he was doubting, all these this crisis of belief that he had, uh, he would miss out on being able to be the spokesperson in some ways.

Like, in some ways, God said, Okay, I'll use Aaron too.

Bring Aaron along, you two together can go and lead this thing.

And he he was missing out because of his unbelief, because of his doubt.

What do we do with this crisis of belief?

This message today, it's about our trust and our belief in God.

Having faith that God is who he says he is, that he's actually right, that he's actually good as he's leading us, as he's guiding us.

Trust that God knows what he's doing and that he will be glorified, that he's guiding us.

That we can trust that God is who he says he is.

It isn't just that he will do what he says he'll do, but also that he is who he says he is.

How do you view God?

Do you have an accurate understanding of God?

When he calls you to do something God sized, does that cause you to shrink back or do you lean into that?

What if the reason we have doubt is not because we wrestle with clarity, but because we wrestle with confidence?

What if we have doubt because we uh we don't Have the confidence that he is who he says he is, that he'll do what he says he'll do.

Because Moses had plenty of real objections that from a human lens would make sense.

God would say, Go back to Egypt.

He'd say, I don't I can't do that.

Who am I going to tell?

They're not going to believe me.

Tell them my name.

He says, I don't have any power.

God says, I'm going to give you the supernatural power to make this happen.

Well, I don't speak very well.

Objection after objection after objection.

And God says, Finally, that's fine.

Take your brother along.

You guys can do this together.

In each case, Moses is actually doubting God more than Moses is doubting Moses.

Is God really able to do what he says he will do?

God finally would convince Moses that he can be involved in his deliverance of Israel.

Once God let Moses know what he was about to do, that became his invitation to join God and his work.

Some of us are like Moses pleading with God, saying, anybody but me, send someone else because we feel inadequate.

But it's not about your adequacy.

Like if anything, no, you're not adequate, but God is adequate and he will use you in your inadequacies.

He uses you in your shortcomings.

He uses the weak to shame the strong.

And he is able to be glorified through us, not trying to have it all together, but through us saying, I need help.

I'm a mess on my own.

Would you even use me to accomplish your purposes here?

He's gracious to meet us in our inadequacies.

He even gives us the faith that we need to say yes, to get through the crisis of belief.

One of the other testimonies I heard this week was from Mike and Anna when they were pastoring, he was pastoring a church in a small north town, tech North Texas town.

And it felt like opposition after opposition after opposition that they were encountering, that some of the leaders within the church that he had been brought on to be the pastor of, they were kind of leaders for their own reasons.

And I don't need to go into all the details, but they were leaders for their own reasons.

And he had been there for five years and just continuing to have a spiritual battle after spiritual battle after spiritual battle where some of the other individuals in the church were making it very personal, like trying to personally attack them and remove them from that season, from that appointment, from that being able to serve there.

Longtime members of the church who claimed to be Christians were now in positions of authority and consistently showed they had these deep levels of prejudice, of self-interest, and a tolerance for evil.

They were exhausted and thinking it was time for them to say yes to another calling, and that was where God met them through this experiencing God material.

They went to this camp in New Mexico and they met Henry Blackby and he walked them through the seven realities.

And they did counseling with him, and they felt strongly that the Lord was telling them actually to stay in the terrible ministry assignment where people were out for blood trying to attack them, trying to get them out of there, run them out of town.

God said, I have a purpose for you to stay there.

And you're like, God, why?

Why would you have me stay in the place where I'm persecuted?

Why would you have me stay in the place where uh we're under attack constantly?

And it's almost like his ways are higher than our ways, that his thoughts are not our thoughts.

And when he says stay, you stay.

When he says go, you go.

We need to be able to hear his voice and say yes to him.

And after uh they counseled with him, they felt that God was indeed telling them to stay.

This call for a crisis of belief on their part.

Will we trust and obey, or will we do the easier thing of leaving, getting out of town?

And then the leadership of God's Spirit allowed them to stay in that assignment for two more years after that.

And the conflicts would get worse, but God would protect Michael.

He said, Yes, things got worse.

He stayed.

He continued to persevere in the hard thing.

Anna was tempted to doubt God's will, but he reminded her what he had told them so clearly, that he was and is our refuge, our protector, our savior, and our sovereign lord.

Like that's the kind of faith we were praying that we experience here together.

To say, yes, even when it's hard, even when the world would say, What are you doing?

You need to run from that.

That God would say, I got you.

I'm gonna protect you, I'm gonna provide for you.

I'm the sovereign Lord, the King of Kings.

I got you.

So God's invitation for you to work with him leads to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

And there's some there's some slides from uh there's some other verses that are really key for this.

It's like an orange slide.

There you go.

Without faith, it is impossible to please God, since the only the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and he rewards those who seek him.

Hebrews 11 6.

Just before that, faith is the reality of what is hoped for, the proof of what is not seen, that we would walk by faith and not by sight.

These are some key verses, but oftentimes we we get distracted, and sometimes we we get distracted because we're looking around at what God has given to other people around us as their assignment.

We say, that assignment looks a little bit better.

I I would like I would like it to be a little bit easier, and we don't know the full depth of their situation either, but from afar it's all it's like, oh, the grass looks nice and green over there.

Let me go and be a part of that.

God, give me that ministry, give me that family, give me that child that's just an angel over there.

But uh, it's not about things being easier, it's about you being obedient wherever God has placed you.

You being obedient to say yes to Him, where He's brought you.

Did He give your friend a larger house?

Did He heal your friend's loved one and not yours?

Did He allow your friend to receive appreciation and praise for their work while you remained anonymous?

Did God allow another Christian to remain close to her family while I'm far removed from mine?

This crisis of belief is a turning point at which you must make a decision.

You must decide what you really believe about God.

Uh next slide here.

What do you really believe about God?

This there's an encounter with God that requires faith and action, right?

Like when Brian was saying, I heard from God, turn around.

There's a choice in that moment.

Do I keep walking down the street and avoid the uncomfortable conversation with the guy who's sketchy and might hurt me?

Or do I turn around and be obedient to what God has for me?

And sometimes we trivialize those things, but when God is speaking, we need to listen.

We need to be obedient because when we don't, that's when our conscience is seared.

That's when our hearts are callous to not hear from God the next time He speaks to you.

So there's joy in the obedience.

And the encounter, it's often God-sized.

Our world won't see God because uh they're not attempting to do the things that only God can do.

Like if it doesn't require faith and you can do it on your own, are you gonna give God the glory in that?

Are you gonna recognize that as God has provided in this way?

And we'll we'll look a little bit at Gideon's story where uh there's an army of 32,000 going up against an army of 135,000.

And God says, Hey, that 32,000 army, it's too big.

Because when you when I give you the victory, you're gonna say it was you.

Oh, we can take, we could take five guys each, we're gonna be okay.

And so God whittles that army down.

He says, Send home the cowards, the 10,000 of them leave.

He says, Uh, now I want you to go and bring them to water and see how they drink, and take the ones that are animals, take the ones that drink like dogs in the water.

They just put their mouth right up to it and lap the water like a dog.

Those are the guys I want you to take into battle.

So he takes 300 crazy dudes into the fight instead of the 32,000.

And you say, 32,000 is still uncomfortable.

It's still not likely.

But you want me to take 300 instead?

And Gideon is willing to say yes because he has this moment where he's got to say, Am I gonna believe God will provide?

Or not?

And Gideon wasn't perfect, but in that story, he actually listened and he obeyed.

And right before that, he had the fleece moment where he said, Okay, make the fleece wet and the ground dry, and then oh, do it in reverse, please.

Let me see that too.

So God had given him some help in getting to that place where he could be obedient.

But oftentimes we need to see God provide in a way that uh only God can.

And it'll take some wrestling on our part.

And so what you do in response to God's invitation reveals what you believe about God.

We've said this already.

What you do in response to God's invitation reveals what you believe about God.

That your faith isn't just, oh, I trust that it's all gonna be okay.

No, your faith is in a person, Jesus Christ.

That is where your faith can rest.

That's where you can build your life on Jesus.

And it's complete, fully finished providing life for us.

But true faith is gonna require action.

It's gonna call us to uh to work, to live for him in a way that would honor him instead.

And there's a couple of examples here uh of a crisis of belief that Gideon we just talked about, that God would say, Hey, I want you to trust me, take 300 into a fight against 135,000, and watch me provide.

Watch me give the victory, because if you I did it any other way, you're gonna try to take the credit.

Joshua in the walls of Jericho, also very counter-cultural, counter what you would think.

If I say, hey, go and take the city, uh, hey, how about you just go start walking around it with trumpets?

Just trust that I'm gonna I'm gonna take care of you.

Doesn't give them all of the how, all of how he's gonna provide in that way.

Just start walking around.

We let's look at some of those verses real quick.

Um Joshua 6.

Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel.

None went out, and none came in.

There was fear, so they weren't moving anywhere.

And the Lord said to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the mighty men of valor.

You shall march around the city, and the men of war going around the city once, and do that for six days.

Seven priests shall bear trumpets of ram's horns before the ark, and on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.

And when they make the long blast with the ram's horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.

He's giving them these little insights.

Hey, here's what I want you to do.

And Joshua might have said, God, that sounds ridiculous.

Uh they're gonna they're gonna whoop us.

Why would we do that?

But Josh, he's a man of faith, that he believes that God is faithful, that he who calls you is faithful, that he will surely do it.

That God would never call us to do anything without faithfully keeping his word and enabling us to do it.

And so when God calls you to the impossible situation, he's gonna give you the faith to walk through that.

When he calls you to that, he's going to keep his word and guide you as you do it.

This makes no sense for us to walk around the city with trumpets to defeat it.

But God calls him to do it, so he does it.

Almost like he trusts that God is faithful.

And God proves then, as he always has, that he is faithful to every word that he speaks to his children.

And then near the end of his life, uh Joshua also with his uh buddy Caleb, they would be the one, the courageous spies that before this, when they saw uh the giant people, they weren't terrified of them.

He said, No, uh, God can do anything.

And so this is the same Joshua that knew God was faithful then.

He knows God is faithful when he's walking around the city with the trumpets in a way that doesn't make sense.

And then before he goes in Joshua 24, there's this long speech where he talks about all the ways that God was faithful.

Often we don't, we're not willing to walk in what God is calling us to because we've forgotten God's faithfulness.

So, like, keep a journal of God's faithfulness and remember the ways that He's provided for you.

Remember the ways that He's shown up.

That uh like a little over three years ago, we had no idea where we were gonna meet as a church.

And we were praying because we thought it was gonna be 701 Davis Street.

We thought it was gonna be in uh the side building over there, and then we showed up there and it was hot in that building, and the building was falling apart, and we were uh the Lord clearly led us out of there, but we said, okay, we've got to walk by faith and we've got to find where God would have us to meet.

And God met us in that seeking and that searching in that place, and that's where we said, okay, Lord, we'll try to look at a different time of day.

We'll try to say, maybe, maybe now we can meet at 4 p.m.

in another church that's already set up that we won't have as much setup to do.

But we just need a place to meet and for us to invite people into experience the life-changing reality of Jesus Christ.

And he meets us in that place of saying, I can't, I can't provide a place for me to meet.

The places that I thought, I've already tried them all, and they've been a clear no.

But in his wisdom, he's able to open doors that previously were closed.

He's able to give us the ability to do things that on our own are not possible.

So then Joshua looks back, he reminds the Israelites of God keeping his promise, that they had experienced numerous victories and had enjoyed his provision for every need.

God may have spoken to you about something, the way to raise your kids, directions for your job, and you've obeyed him.

But now you face this Jericho Walls moment.

It seems like, God, what what are you doing?

I I thought you were gonna do it this way.

You need to trust in the character of God, that he's faithful.

No matter how bleak your current circumstances are, don't lose hope.

Don't give up.

He hasn't given up on you, don't give up on him.

No one has ever experienced the unfaithfulness on God's part.

Maybe we've misunderstood his provision in certain ways.

No matter how bleak your circumstances are, don't lose hope.

Someday you'll reflect on what God has done and you'll praise him for his absolute faithfulness to you.

And part of that is getting your focus off of yourself and off of your problems.

Because when we're too focused on ourselves, that's when we often spin out, and that's when we're often uh like crashing out, we're out of control because we're so focused on ourselves.

No, you need to focus on God and trust him, and then your confidence in him won't waver.

He keeps every promise.

You can rely on him and his faithfulness.

If you're in a crisis, hold on to the promises of God.

He won't forget his promises to you.

Look back over your Christian life, recount the ways that he's been faithful to you.

What is he calling you to do to be faithful now?

Would you remember that?

Would you say yes to him?

We're gonna skip the Gideon story since we already talked about it a bit, but uh it's incredible how he provided in that way.

If 300 verses, 135,000, do the math.

It's not humanly possible to win that way, but God does what only God can do.

We don't need to overcomplicate God's will or feel confused about what he wants us to do.

If there's a specific command in Scripture, we need to obey.

So there were there were a few war stories with David and the Philistines.

There were a few uh Gideon and uh his opponents that uh Joshua and his opponents, uh, and then there's also this Peter and Jesus story, where uh there's a tax collector that shows up, and it's Matthew 17, 24 through 27.

Uh they come to Capernaum.

The collectors of the two drachma tax went up to Peter and said, Does your teacher not pay the tax?

He said, Yes.

And when he came to the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, What do you think, Simon?

From whom do kings of earth take toll or tax?

From their sons or from others?

And when he said, From others, Jesus said to him, Then the sons are free.

However, to give no offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook, and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth, you will find a shekel.

Take that and give it to them for me and yourself.

You want to pay your taxes, uh, just go fishing, and Jesus will provide a coin right out of the mouth that you can give to pay both for him and for Jesus.

Uh, this is a crisis of belief of, hey, if I go fish and Jesus doesn't provide, I look like a crazy person.

What are you doing fishing when you were just asked to pay your taxes?

You you look disrespectful, you look crazy.

Uh, but this wasn't the first time that God had asked Peter to cast for fish.

See, before in uh Luke 5, uh Peter had been out all night fishing, and he had caught nothing.

He said, We've worked hard all night and haven't caught anything, but because you say so, I will let down the nets.

Like Peter, master fisherman, he knows how the waters work, he knows how to fish.

He says, I don't understand it, but I'm gonna do it for you, Jesus.

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.

So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them.

They came and filled both boats, so they began to sink.

And when Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus' knees and said, Go get away from me.

I'm a sinful man.

He had already experienced God in this way of saying, Hey, cast your net, cast the hook, go fishing, and I'm gonna provide in a crazy way for you.

The first time he begrudgingly responded, but God changed his heart through this invitation.

When we act in faith, we get to experience this rich relationship with our God.

He wants to meet us there in that place of the unknown, in that place of not trusting our own strength, not trusting our own ways, but trusting Him to provide in a way that only He can.

What does God want to do in the lives of those around you that relies on your trust in Him, your the removal of your doubts?

Don't hide your doubts, don't hide your questions.

Give them to Jesus.

Say, I believe, help my own.

Would you meet me here in this place of unbelief and help me to follow you even when the world says it's silly?

I want to be obedient to you.

And so for our application, we've got uh two questions to end with.

One, what is your crisis of belief right now?

Do you have a crisis of belief?

Because part of this is evidence that you are experiencing God, that you're saying, I want to do it your way and not my way.

What is he leading you to do that's created a crisis of belief?

Are you sharing that with others so that they can be praying with you that you would experience God as you uh are joining him in his work?

Where's that difficult?

Where is he inviting you into his work?

Just because it's difficult doesn't mean that you've heard him wrong.

It you will face troubles, but we can take heart because Jesus has overcome the world.

Like he says, You will have troubles.

It's gonna be hard.

It's gonna be difficult, but take heart, for I have overcome the world.

What is he calling you to do?

Is he calling you to spend more time with him?

Is he calling you to forgive someone?

Is he calling you to serve in uh the local body?

Is he calling you to serve in church?

Is he calling you to uh sign up for the Thanksgiving community event with Hand and Harvest that we're gonna not have church that Sunday because we're gonna be serving at?

Is he calling you to be there and for you to show up and for you to say yes to him there?

Is he calling you to have a hard conversation?

Is he calling you to surrender your life to him?

Would you ask God for boldness to do what he's calling you to do?

And then the second question is this what faith and action is he calling you to take?

Which is part of what we were just talking about.

But what faith and action is he calling you to take today?

Will we follow him?

Will we walk by faith and not by sight?