Learning from Joshua
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If you are not local (or missed church yesterday), I thought I would give you a few key principles from Sunday. I preached out of Joshua 1:1-9. You can click here to read it. God was instructing His people for preparation of entering the land that he had promised them!
Several meaningful principles emerged from this text. In order for us to enter the land that God has destined for us as a church, we must:
- Get going! ...because every square inch matters. Let's not miss out on a sliver of what he has ordained for us. Every square inch matters....every life matters!
- Toughen up! God found it necessary to say "be strong and courageous" THREE TIMES in nine verses. Hint, hint. Possessing the land must not be easy work if God has to tell us 3 times to toughen up.
- Live Scripture! If we stay close to the word of God, the God of the word will stay close to us.
Perhaps the most powerful word from this passage for CCF yesterday was this...
We must not wait (40 years) for a disobedient generation to die off for us to enter the land that God wants to give us! God's chosen people did!
Too many churches are either all old or all young. All black or all white. All traditional or all contemporary. I think that God has a unique call for us as a unique church to embrace our great elders and our great history and proceed into our great future as a church. And the mission is too important to delay 40 years over grumbling and complaining (like the Israelites did).
I think that this is a bold word for lots of churches...get along, get your focus off yourself and get going....there is land to possess...and the mission is too urgent to wait 40 years.
--Noah