Real Life Selkirk
**October 18** A Legacy of Faith (Joshua 1:1-9)

  • Sermon

    Key Passage

    Joshua 1:1–9 NIV
    After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

    Series Introduction

    We are at an exciting point in our life as a church. It is a very exciting point.
    Over the next month, we will be breaking ground on our new church building as well as celebrating 20 years as a church in this community.
    We wanted to take a few weeks and celebrate what God has done and look ahead to what he has for the future.
    I remember coming up here for the first few weeks of services. For those of you who don’t know the story, my wife and I offered to volunteer to watch children during a video venue service of Real Life Post Falls.
    Within a few months, that turned into me standing in front of everyone giving a welcome and pressing play on the DVD player.
    I didn’t realize that God had led me to this place until I was asked to take this location on as a full-time job.
    In my struggle and battle of trying to decide if I should step out in faith or stay where I was in life I realized the importance of listening for God’s direction in these situations.
    It wasn’t that God was audibly speaking to me, but I definitely believe that God made it evidently clear that He had plans in Newport, and I needed to operate in faith.
    I had to answer the question of allegiance and trust: Was God speaking? Would I obey?
    I quit my job, we sold our house and moved to this place. The risk was high, but we believed that we were following God’s direction and we needed to be obedient.
    It was around that time that I realized how little I knew about church. To me, church had been a place to go and learn about God. It was largely academic.
    Now, I felt I had been entrusted with the Body of Christ and I didn’t know what to do.
    Here is an in-church secret: I still don’t really know what to do.
    But, I began to look at Jesus as a model. What did Jesus say? What did Jesus do?
    The only model we have for church is following Jesus.
    Here is the outcome: We must teach the words of Jesus and follow the model of Jesus.
    We can’t come up with our own truth.
    We can’t come up with our own methods.
    This is His church and we must obey Him and stand on His Gospel.
    I truly believe that the church needs an Almighty, All-knowing, Ever-Present being in charge.
    Too often, we look at that as the pastor or ministry teams.
    It has to be God. That is why His plan is the only plan that matters
    He called us to make disciples. Discipleship is what Jesus used as the vehicle to transfer the truth and methods of Jesus from one generation to the next.
    Discipleship is the Legacy of Jesus and it has been passed to us.
    We must take care to pass that legacy on to the next generation behind us.
    We have entitled this series, “Building a Legacy”
    As we navigate this series I want you to know that we are not simply going to learn. There has to be application throughout this series. It will be a challenge for us all.
    On one regard, this series is highlighting the vision that we chose to carry through our building campaign.
    As we spoke about here over the last two weeks, we know the church is not the building. The church is the “called out ones”. People saved by the grace and mercy of Jesus.
    That is you and that is me.
    But we have a responsibility as a church to unite in movement, not just existence. During this series, we will be talking about our move to the Selkirk Way property in Oldtown.
    But I don’t want you to just think that this is a series designed to fit to our building project.
    This is a series that I am passionate about that will apply to our entire lives with or without a building project.
    We don’t need to grow in the maturity of a building
    We need to grow in maturity in all areas of our life and that is the desired outcome of this series.
    We will be referencing our Building a Legacy building project. However, this is not the space for all of the details of that project.
    I encourage you to go to our website for more details. We have put a bunch of content and videos on the website that hopefully answer your questions.
    The website looks like THIS:
    SHOW WEBSITE
    In this series we will follow the Israelite nation in the book of Joshua as they prepare themselves to move into the promised land.
    The principles of obedience and preparation will be challenging and eye-opening for us.

    Sermon Introduction

    After writing, I feel the sermon has drifted from the word “faith” interject this concept into each point
    As we open the book of Joshua, we find ourselves feeling like we dropped in the middle of a story, and we have.
    I want to preface our passage this week and throughout the series with a brief background to what has happened that led to this place.
    Genesis to Abraham
    Since sin entered the world, there has been a separation between man and God
    He is Holy. He is higher than us.
    We see a God who desires relationship with His people.
    The OT revolves around the nation of Israel and their times of following God and their times of seeking to follow other things.
    God always desired for them to leave the other things and follow Him.
    He calls us to do the same thing today. He called the disciples to leave their nets and follow Him.
    He desires relationship, but we must leave our dependencies in the world to become dependent on Him.
    Here is something that we often get wrong in our current culture
    We are called to put our faith in Jesus.
    We often say that means that we simply have to believe He exists, or believe a series of theological statements.
    Faith is a posture of dependence and surrender. My life is now guided by Him
    Faith=obedience, not my own plan for life.
    So when we put our faith in God, there will be a new calling on my life. It is no longer following my ways, my paths, and my wisdom through life. It is dependent on Him.
    Church is not about a “Called Pastor”. We are all called to follow Jesus and that means we all have a calling to obedience and a calling to discipleship. A calling to using the gifts He has given to us.
    Abraham
    We get to this guy, Abraham. Abraham is known as a man of faith and we can see this as he is introduced in the Bible.
    Genesis 12:1–4 NIV
    The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
    Abraham was a man who had faith in God.
    That faith in God meant that his calling was whatever God asked of him.
    Obedience was the natural overflow of faith.
    A few chapters later, we see that God highlights this event and continues to move and challenge Abraham.
    Genesis 15:7 NIV
    He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.”
    Genesis 15:12–14 NIV
    As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions.
    In this, God makes a covenant with Abraham.
    In this covenant, he says that the descendants of Abraham will be slaves for 400 years
    During that 400 years, they will be formed into a nation
    In a way, it is a picture of our lives as well.
    As slaves, they were entirely helpless and worthless. They did not have the same value as a regular Egyptian human being. They were a piece of property.
    God took them in their helplessness and hopelessness and formed them into a nation.
    As we step into Joshua 1 we see that this is a continuation of God’s work with His people
    It isn’t a prophecy-fulfillment-end of story.
    There is always a continuation to the story. There is always another step of obedience so He can be seen and glorified in this world.
    Every step along the way is a struggle of obedience.
    Every step is a step of faith.
    Our passage has been read today and I want to navigate a few things that we must know about God if we are to Build a Legacy of Faith.

    Sermon

    Joshua 1:1–2 NIV
    After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.
    1. God’s Ways are Higher than Our Ways
    Biblical Understanding
    We tend to think of God’s work as beginning and ending with us.
    Obedience must directly impact us or we have to wiggle and worm our definitions of God’s actions into something of a defense of Him.
    God made a promise to Abraham. But that promise was not for Abraham. Nor, was it about Abraham.
    God’s promise was about Him and for Him.
    It involved Abraham, but it was not about Abraham’s glory.
    If it was for Abraham and about Abraham, we might think that God let Abraham down.
    But God didn’t.
    If God’s promises were for Moses and about Moses, then God is too slow in keeping his promises.
    We have to look at all of this from a much higher view.
    Abraham had to sacrifice and trust God.
    Moses had to sacrifice and trust God.
    But neither of these guys had the promises fulfilled in their lifetime.
    God’s work was not for them. It was for Him.
    It was not in their lifetime, but they still had faith and lived out that faithfulness so God could be glorified in His way.
    This is what it means to follow God.
    We want all of the good results and all of the glory in our time.
    But God is bigger than that. He is here just as much for the last generation as He is for us. And He is here as much for us as He is in the next generation.
    We must realize that when God works, it is on a much bigger timeline than we are familiar with.
    God is a God of legacy, not of a generation.
    The servant, Moses, died, but the promise didn’t.
    Opposition
    This is a great point in theory, but can you imagine if this part of history was being played out in our time?
    If I don’t see the finish line, then I don’t need to participate.
    I want to see action, or I’m going to take my ball and go home.
    Our world screams at us to be all about us.
    What do I get out of this?
    Jesus said “Your kingdom come, your will be done”
    Also, Jesus had two names for the Kingdom:
    Kingdom of God
    Kingdom of Heaven
    Neither say, “Kingdom of me”
    Real Life Today
    As we step forward as a church, we know that the results of our obedience may never be seen in our time.
    Are we ok with that?
    We have to understand that our next steps as a church are not for us, nor are they about us.
    A few weeks ago, I went to the funeral of Bill Putman.
    Some of you may know who Bill was, but many of you do not.
    Bill was a guy with a vision and a very short attention span.
    He was at church in Post Falls and saw people from Newport coming to church in Post Falls and said, “We need to do something.”
    So Bill created the plan, built a team and came to Newport to build this campus.
    I was a part of that team.
    Bill died last month. He never saw our 20th anniversary
    He never lived to see our building
    In fact, because of his health, he never even got to visit our church over the last 10-12 years.
    But Bill didn’t do what he did so that he could say, “Look! I planted another church.”
    Bill had the vision and came up here for you.
    He never knew you. He never met you. He never even saw you.
    But he prayed for you. He gave his money for you.
    He loved you.
    We celebrate 20 years as a church in a few weeks and Bill wrote us a letter that I am going to read at that celebration.
    I use this to make the point that we are not on our own timeline.
    Our obedience is not for us. It is for the Kingdom of God and God’s work in our world
    If the Kingdom is that important, am I willing to obey for the Kingdom, not for me?
    Joshua 1:3–4 NIV
    I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.
    1. God’s Ways are Higher than Our Ways
    2. God Keeps His Promises
    Not only does God see things on a different timeline that we do. God is always faithful in keeping His promises.
    God’s promise doesn’t change with a new leader. “As I promised Moses...”
    God isn’t giving Joshua a new promise. Joshua is stepping into God’s promise
    It doesn’t start with him. It won’t finish with him. It isn’t about him.
    He gets to be a part of something much bigger than himself.
    God is saying, “You are walking into a promise that is being fulfilled. You will do the walking into the land I promised someone else.”
    Joshua didn’t decide the promise. God decided the promise and Joshua trusted that promise.
    Our world today
    God’s promises are not ours to invent.
    There is a version of Christianity that is running around out there that is trying to discover some specific promise of God for every circumstance in their lives.
    God promised me this job
    God promised me a relationship
    God promised a financial outcome
    God promised me that this outcome is going to work
    There are times that God does direct us in our specific circumstances, but we need to be very careful about putting words in God’s mouth that He didn’t say.
    Biblical faith is not about deciding what God should do for us, then believing with a deep intensity that He will do it.
    Biblical faith is discovering what God has already said and actually trusting Him to be who He says He is.
    God’s promises are for His glory and our good. We don’t need to create promises for God to fulfill
    God promised Abraham and kept the promise
    God promised Moses and kept the promise
    God promised David that through his line would come the Messiah and kept the promise
    Did you also notice one of God’s promises that we talked through earlier was about 400 years of slavery?
    God promised the Israelites that they would be slaves for 400 years!
    Do you think the Israelites stood on that promise and claimed it for themselves?
    Jesus promised, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world.”
    Who has trouble? We all do
    That part of the promise is fulfilled
    But he has overcome the world!
    This is a promise that we can hold on to.
    Example (Try it on)
    God, which job do you want me to take?
    God says, “You don’t read your Bible, you don’t pray, you look lustfully at women, you are impatient with your wife and kids, and that is why you go golfing on the weekends. It doesn’t matter which job you get.”
    The question isn’t the job, the question is the person taking the job.
    God says, “I want to expand my kingdom and in the Spiritual world, you are a little two year old with no armor and a bubble blower against an enemy with tanks and infantry. We’ve got to do some work on you before you can expand my Kingdom. When you decide to mature and grow as a disciple, then I’ll put you somewhere where you can expand my Kingdom.”
    Sometimes we are far more concerned about the specifics of our temporary world thinking that it is the foundation for our eternal lives.
    The opposite is true. The eternal things lay the foundation for our temporary problems and decisions.
    Opposition
    I don’t want you to swing the pendulum to a non compassionate view of life.
    Our circumstances are real. Our pain is real. Our fear is real.
    It is hard for us and it is hard for the people around us.
    We can buy into the belief that because we feel it, it is the most important thing in the world.
    But we can never let our circumstances dictate our destination in life.
    Satan will tell us:
    If God were with you, this wouldn’t be happening
    If God loved you, you wouldn’t hurt
    If God heard you, your prayer would be answered
    If God were leading, it would be easy.
    Scripture doesn’t teach this. In fact, Scripture teaches the opposite.
    World: Good circumstances means things are going well. Bad circumstances means things are going bad.
    Bible: Regardless of your circumstances, God’s character remains the same.
    Matthew 28:19–20 NIV
    Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
    here is a promise we know:
    In this passage, Jesus makes a promise to us. What is the promise?
    He will be with us always, even to the end of the age.
    When we feel like we know what He is doing? He is with us
    When we feel like God hears our prayers? He is with us
    When we feel like the Bible is jumping off of the page? He is with us
    When we feel alone and like God is a million miles away? He is with us
    When we are so confused we cannot take a step? He is with us
    When we trip up our lives so badly, we lose the faint glimmer of hope we carry? He is with us
    We often try to be so specific to our circumstances about God and what He wants to do with the temporary things in our lives.
    “God wants me to have this job...”
    Sometimes I think God doesn’t care what job you have. He cares about who you are regardless of where you get a paycheck.
    Becoming mature is hard.
    But when we strive to be His church, we will see His promises fulfilled.
    In spite of all of these hardships that we are promised, it isn’t always bad.
    He also promises that He will be with us always.
    We are going to read in the next passage, “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” It is the same promise. I will be with you always.
    God keeps His promises
    His character is more reliable than our circumstances
    Joshua 1:5–6 NIV
    No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
    1. God’s Ways are Higher than Our Ways
    2. God Keeps His Promises
    3. God Will Be With Us Always
    Biblical Understanding
    I’ll tell you, I love that phrase, “Be strong and courageous.” Entire books have been written about this phrase.
    But I want you to see that God doesn’t lead with that.
    He leads with His presence.
    His presence is the promise behind the courage.
    God says, “No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life”
    I love this. Does it say that no one will stand against them? No.
    It says no one will be able to stand against them.
    God will take out the giants
    God will take out the walled cities
    This isn’t a promise that God will do whatever we want. This isn’t even a promise that God is going to win every battle.
    Joshua went to Ai and was beaten.
    But the big picture here is that “Nothing will stand in the way of God doing what God wants to have done”
    This is His promise, His power and His activity in this world.
    The presence of God is our source for courage
    Not courage because of our strength, but courage because we know the presence of God is with us.
    Here is my problem with being strong and courageous.
    I want to know the “how” not the “who”
    God, I know you are with me, but I’m going to worry until you give me the “how”.
    If we feel that we have to have a plan for God’s part
    Opposition
    I want to walk this out like Joshua was me.
    I want you to know that this is not a theoretical struggle. This is my life.
    If I’m Joshua, I would have fear.
    God, You haven’t given me a burning bush or a Nile river full of blood.
    I’m not that guy.
    I’ve felt this before.
    I haven’t been to seminary,
    I’ve only taken one college class on public speaking...and I got a C...minus.
    If God were going to be dependent on me, then God would be in trouble.
    But God is with us. We are not with God.
    One provides supernatural outcomes
    The other is a mess.
    Uncertainty produces paralysis. Paralysis is the greatest weapon the enemy can yield.
    Think about a military unit that will not advance because they are afraid.
    They will never win the war.
    The enemy cannot change God’s faithfulness. So the enemy will try to change our confidence in God’s faithfulness.
    The presence of God gives us the ability to be Strong and Courageous.
    This is a pivotal time for us as a church.
    We are at this crossroads. It is meaningful to look back and see the people, the work, and the faithfulness of God. It builds a confidence in our trust of who He is and that He will walk through the next steps with us for His Kingdom.
    This church building is not for us. It isn’t. It is for His Kingdom. He will rule, He will use it, and He will expand His Kingdom.
    He isn’t on a throne somewhere a million miles away saying, “You’d better get it right.”
    He is here with us right now saying, “Watch what I can do through a group of people surrendered to my authority and presence.”
    Joshua 1:7–8 NIV
    “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
    1. God’s Ways are Higher than Our Ways
    2. God Keeps His Promises
    3. God Will Be With Us Always
    4. God Will Give Direction
    I want you to see where God points Joshua.
    Not to a battle plan. Not to a military strategy. Not to a training regimen.
    He points Joshua to the Word:
    Be careful to obey
    Do not turn from it
    Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips
    Meditate on it day and night
    Be careful to do everything written in it.
    God’s direction for Joshua is much deeper than what Joshua should do.
    God’s direction for Joshua is about who he is and how he is to be used in God’s Kingdom
    It is like sometimes we see our problem and we start hollering for God to help with our problem.
    God what do you want me to do?
    Then you go to church and hear a sermon about forgiveness.
    Or loving your enemy
    Or making disciples
    Or speaking the truth IN LOVE
    or walking with integrity
    or loving your spouse
    or raising Godly children
    or serving
    or giving generously
    or prayer and fasting
    or the pursuit of holiness.
    And we are saying, “God, I need direction!”
    God’s saying,
    I wrote a book!
    Your life is more about your heart than your circumstances.
    And as we surrender our heart in the things that don’t seem to matter, we start to find that they do matter.
    We often want God’s whole roadmap. God often gives us the next step and asks to trust Him.
    We must remain dependent on Him.
    For many of us, if we were to see the whole roadmap, we might say, “Well, I don’t want to go that way, I want to go this way.”
    Or we memorize the map and start to brag about how well I can follow the map.
    Jesus said, “Follow Me”
    He doesn’t give us the destination. He gives us the pilot car.
    You don’t get to determine your destination, or your speed, or your lane. You just have to follow the pilot car.
    We will often find that God will guide us, but our part is less about where we go and what we choose.
    It is more about who we are. When our eyes are focused on who we are before Him, He has a way of guiding us through these steps in life.
    We don’t need a new mission.
    There are all sorts of decisions on the table every week. Building decisions. Planning decisions. What tilt the parking lot should have to move the water to a big pipe decisions.
    Guys, those are important, but we are here to prepare ourselves for the opportunity of how God is going to use our future.
    We are here to make disciples. Simple.
    We will disciple our way to the volunteers we need
    We will disciple our way to the leaders we need
    We will disciple our way into our house payment
    We will disciple our way into every possible future for the church God has given us.
    Keep first things first.
    Joshua 1:9 NIV
    Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
    1. God’s Ways are Higher than Our Ways
    2. God Keeps His Promises
    3. God Will Be With Us Always
    4. God Will Give Direction
    5. God Will Give His Strength
    This is why it is so important to be who God calls us to be.
    It is Him who conquers the Giants
    It is Him who opens the Jordan River
    Not us.
    When we place our faith in Him and strive for obedience in His direction, He is glorified, not us.
    When this happens, we become living examples of His power in this world.
    During Paul’s lifetime, he said that the whole known world had heard of Jesus.
    That is without phones, internet or even a postal service.
    It was purely because to the early church, faith was more than just believing in something.
    It was belief, it was obedience, and it was entrusting that obedience to the hands of God.
    God was glorified through it all.
    We cannot fulfill the mission God has for His church or even our church in our own strength.
    The church needs a God and it isn’t us.
    Right now, I feel a lot like I did when I quit my job and sold my house.
    This next step from God is so big. So scary. So uncertain.
    But I also know God is eliminating the options around us and giving us only two paths: Rebellion or obedience. And the crossroads are becoming more and more clear.
    I want you to know I am preaching this message to myself just as much as I am preaching it to you.
    This reminds me of the truth that every step we take in trusting God will always be a scary step.
    It is always scary when we only see a little bit down the road.
    It is always scary when we see the cost of failure
    It is always scary when it seems too big for us.
    I am preaching this not just for a building.
    It certainly applies there, but I am hoping that we don’t sit and talk about the legacy of faith that was handed to us, but never take that step of faith in our time.
    This is the case for every one of us.
    I hope and I pray that some of us are challenged in a way that you step out in faith of what God is pushing you toward right now.
    This is the church, not just a church project.
    If we are not growing in our trust in God, then we are not growing.
    We can talk about growing, but somewhere down the line, we need to do it.
    We are responsible for the quality of obedience we give.
    God is responsible for growing the church.
    God is responsible for the results. We are responsible to be obedient.
    Am I walking in a way that it can only be God?
    Three times in this passage, God says, “Be strong and courageous.” Why did He have to do that?
    They were scared to death.
    This is no different than us today.
    God will bring you to a place where God says, “Do you still trust me?”
    1. God’s Ways are Higher than Our Ways
    2. God Keeps His Promises
    3. God Will Be With Us Always
    4. God Will Give Direction
    5. God Will Give His Strength

    Conclusion

    John 15:5 NIV
    “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.
    Real Life in Action
    Is God calling you to obedience in some area of your life?
    Is there an area of your life that you have not surrendered? I think most of us have that spot of our lives.
    Spend time in prayer. Align this with the Word of God.
    If you have faith in God, then His direction is the calling on your life.
    Count the cost and take up your cross.
    Obedience will always be at the expense of something in our lives. We have to reject something here to grow in Him.
    Understand that there will be a struggle, but know that God will never leave you.
    Trust Him and take action today.
    Will we fail? Yes. Abraham did. Moses did. Even Joshua did. But faithfulness
    Read and re-read Joshua 1-6

    Conclusion

    There is a danger in a sermon like this.
    We can walk away thinking, “Okay. I need to be stronger. I need to be more courageous. I need to have more faith. I need to obey more. I need to do something bigger for God.”
    And if that is what you hear today, then we have missed the point.
    Because this was never about how strong Joshua was.
    It was about the God who was with Joshua.
    It wasn't Joshua who made the promise.
    It wasn't Joshua who parted the Jordan.
    It wasn't Joshua who brought down the walls of Jericho.
    It wasn't Joshua who guaranteed the outcome.
    Joshua's responsibility was to trust God, remain faithful to His Word, and obey.
    And ours is the same.
    Jesus puts it this way in John 15:5:
    “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.”
    Apart from Him, we can do nothing.
    We can build a building without Him.
    We can raise money without Him.
    We can create programs without Him.
    We can fill a calendar without Him.
    We might even be able to fill a room without Him.
    But we cannot produce the fruit of the Kingdom without Him.
    We cannot build a legacy of faith apart from Jesus.
    And that is why the most important thing about the next chapter of Real Life isn't the building we are going to construct.
    It is the people we are becoming while we build it.
    Are we remaining in Jesus?
    Are we listening to His Word?
    Are we surrendering our lives?
    Are we making disciples?
    Are we trusting Him enough to obey when obedience costs us something?
    Because twenty years from now, I don't simply want someone to stand here and say, “Look at what those people built.”
    I want them to be able to look back and say:
    “Look at what God did through people who trusted Him.”
    That's legacy.
    Abraham had his part.
    Moses had his part.
    Joshua had his part.
    People before us had their part.
    And now, for this moment, we have ours.
    God's ways are higher than our ways.
    God keeps His promises.
    God will be with us always.
    God will give direction.
    God will give His strength.
    Our responsibility is not to control the outcome.
    Our responsibility is to remain in Him and obey.
    So here is the question I want us to sit with:

    Where is God asking me to depend on Him?

    Don't answer that for somebody else.
    Don't just answer it for our church.
    Ask it about you.
    Maybe there is something you already know God has told you to do, and you have been waiting for more information.
    Maybe fear has kept you from taking the next step.
    Maybe there is an area you have protected from His authority.
    Maybe you have been trying to accomplish in your own strength what can only happen through dependence on Jesus.
    Bring it to Him.
    Open His Word.
    Pray.
    Count the cost.
    And when He makes the next step clear, take it.
    Not because you know everything that comes next.
    Not because you are strong enough.
    Not because you can guarantee the outcome.
    But because He is faithful. He is with you. And apart from Him, we can do nothing.
    So we remain in Him.
    We trust Him.
    And then, we take the next step of obedience.

      • Joshua 1:1–9ESV

      • Genesis 12:1–4ESV

      • Genesis 15:7ESV

      • Genesis 15:12–14ESV

      • Joshua 1:1–2ESV

      • Joshua 1:3–4ESV

      • Joshua 1:5–6ESV

      • Matthew 28:19–20ESV

      • Joshua 1:7–8ESV

      • Joshua 1:9ESV

      • John 15:5ESV

      • Joshua 1–6ESV

Real Life Selkirk
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