No Map No Worries - Uncommon Courage

If you look in your notes, or we are going to actually have a session, you'll see the words goof-proof GPS.

The ultimate global positioning system is called the will of God.

And that has always been a blessing and somewhat of a mystery and it's always like, you know, thy will be done, thy kingdom come.

We pray it all the time.

You will be done.

It's a little easier to believe in than to figure it out We are all in favor of it.

It gets confusing sometimes what that is.

We are going to take a look today.

This is called no map, no worries, because I believe that each of us in some area of our life is headed into some unmapped territory.

I honestly must say, as you know, I mean on a very macro scale, life without my wife is a road without a map for me.

I uh I don't know how to do this.

So uh I have mine, you have your own unmapped territory out there.

We all are headed, even by virtue of the world we live in, what it means to be a Christian in our country, in this world, at this time, it's all.

There's there's a whole new world out there.

So it's a good time to go to Joshua chapter 3, and we have a few challenges here as they head into unmapped territory.

Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shidem and went to the Jordan where they camped before crossing over.

Last night, they were told to embrace this new season, to be strong and courageous, go get in and take possession of the land.

After three days, the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people.

When you see, God move, basically.

His visible resident presence, of course, in the Ark of the Covenant at this point.

When you see God start moving, when you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it.

Then you will know which way to go since you have never been this way before.

You need to look at that sentence for folks I want you to claim that as much as I'm claiming it right now.

You will know which way to go.

Since you have never been this way before.

Is that helpful to anybody here?

You will know which way to go, since you've never been this way before.

No map.

You just have me.

You're following you're following the presence of God who needs a map Keep a distance of about 2,000 cubits between you and the Acton Aqua near it, of course.

Now, Joshua told the people, I love this, consecrate yourselves.

For tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.

That's a big verse for us on OEW.

Joshua said to the priests, Take up the Ark of the Covenant, and pass on ahead of the people.

So they took it up And went ahead of them.

Realize the river is still overflowing.

The river is just uh rushing.

And um and so today he said, the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel.

So they may know that I am with you.

Here we go again.

I am with you, as I was with Moses.

Challenges.

You have a flooded river, you have a million people, and you have a daunting road ahead if you get across.

Bold choice number two.

Last night, your first, your bold choice in living with uncommon courage in pretty scary times. was to say, I will embrace the new season, knowing that God, all seasons are God's seasons.

Today it's the second choice is this.

I will follow him By faith alone.

I will follow him where I have no reason to follow him, except that I trust the one who's leading me.

I know his track record.

We used to um Sometimes we'd get the kids in the car and I'd say, uh they'd say, where are we going, Dad?

Especially one child would say where we going, Dad, several times.

Where are we going, Dad?

And um I don't think it'd be fair to identify him because he now leads praise and worship and I don't want you to think any less of him.

But uh and and he would continue to go, he would just go, where are we going, Dad?

Well that was the first of about 20 questions Because I would say, today's a mystery trip.

I thought that was fun.

He hated it.

He hated mystery trips Yeah, oh and I 'll tell you there's no police sergeant who could knows more about interrogation than that boy.

Where we going dad?

What are we gonna eat?

How soon we gonna eat?

What are we gonna do there?

What is there to do there?

What if I don't like what we do there?

How soon are we gonna be Who's going?

Can I take somebody with me?

Is Lisa gonna be car sick again?

Um wait no.

So here we go.

I'm like, I every time we go on a mystery trip, there's an interrogation And I just had a two-word answer.

Just let this go on for a little while, and I'd just turn around and I'd look at the three kids in the back room fighting for space, and I would just say Trust me.

We've been on mystery trips before.

They were good.

Trust me.

By the way.

I just want to show you that God is a God of justice.

Doug now has a son.

Who has mastered the art of interrogation?

I love it.

God is so good.

Parents get the children they deserve.

That's my theory.

So So anyway, so God I think is going saying we're going on a mystery trip right now.

My son, my daughter, we're on a mystery trip.

You're like, well, I have a thousand questions.

He just turns around and says, trust me.

I will follow him by faith alone.

Here's five secrets of courage.

Five secrets of courage on a road you've never taken.

When it's new ground, number one is a listening heart.

A listening heart.

I want you to get some insight into this man Joshua.

We met him, or we meet him in the book of Exodus, as I told you, as a warrior.

He is leading uh a victorious fight against the brutal Amalekites.

This is in the wilderness, long before they get to Canaan.

But I want you to see behind the scenes what kind of heart the warrior has.

The Lord would speak to Joe Moses. face to face, this is in the what they call the tent of meeting, which was right in the center, where everybody would they would get up and they'd watch Moses go.

Uh uh they would stand outside their tents and watch as if Moses is about to meet with God.

Moses going to the ten of meeting.

It was like awesome.

And the glory would come down.

Then Moses would return to the camp.

But His young age, Joshua, son of none, did not leave the tent.

The warrior is first a worshiper.

He said the glory of the Lord comes to this place and I want to be around the glory.

The warrior must be a worship worshipper first.

Oswald Chambers , who has some potential possibly as a devotional writer, in my utmost for his highest, said this, unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment First waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day.

But if you will swing the door of your life fully open, And pray to your Father who is in the secret place.

Every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God.

People won't know why, but they'll know there's something about you because you have been with the glory.

You have been with God.

You have You have been in the presence of the one who's in charge.

The doctor's not in charge, your boss is not in charge, the economy is not in charge, the president and the Supreme Court and the Congress are not in charge.

You have been with the one who's in charge I love Psalm 11, verse 3.

The more things you're shaking in your life, the more you need that verse, it says, it asks this question.

It says, When all the foundations are shaken, what shall the righteous do?

What will we do when all of everything we've ever d hold on to is shaking?

What do we do?

What do we do?

God's answer.

Next verse.

It's verses three and four.

Next verse.

The Lord is In his heavenly temple, holy temple, the Lord is on his heavenly throne.

Well wait a minute, I ask, what can the righteous do?

His answer?

Nothing to do.

The throne didn't move.

God didn't move.

Same person was in charge yesterday is in charge today.

Same person was in charge 10,000 years ago, 6,000, 5,000, 1,000 days ago.

Same God's in charge.

A follower who recognizes his leader's voice.

That's what you have to be first.

You have to be able You have to be able to know what your leader is saying and that and then you shape your day around what I call God's keynote address.

God's keynote address each morning.

What you should be coming away with when you open the Bible is not just more information.

That you have some more biblical information.

A verse you can quote.

No, what should be happening is that you God will lead you to a verse that is what you are supposed to be thinking about all day long.

Meditate.

What did he say to Joshua in chapter 1?

Meditate in it day and night, all day long.

What you hear from me when you chew on my word.

I want you that if you will just you don't know what you're gonna have today.

I'm down the road.

I know what's gonna be there.

I know this is what you need to be thinking about all day today.

Keep this in your mind and you will do my will today It's his keynote address.

It's as if God was saying to you, my name is Jehovah God.

Hi, I'm Jehovah God, and I'd like to have a word with you today about I do a radio program like that, except it's God who does the award with you really.

He says, I want to give you an award with you, and people will say, Ron, I can't believe somebody shared with me this morning how exactly what I was in the middle of, what came on the radio this morning.

Well, I have nothing to do with that.

How can I do that?

I'm not that smart.

I can't do that But God wants to do that through his word every day.

So you share this is why Joshua is in a is an is a courageous leader because he's heard a word from the Lord in the morning that is the keynote address that shapes his day.

Now meditate.

You see in your notes, chew on what God says until you know what you need to do today because he said it.

Sometimes our my grandson Taylor and I will sit down on the front porch swing on our front porch and I'll just go, Taylor, it's just us.

Let's not talk.

Let's just be absolutely quiet.

We're out in the country.

See, we all get nervous when there's nothing going on like that, see?

I said, listen.

Listen to the bird symphony.

You hear it?

You hear those little critters in the pond doing their little thing?

Listen.

Wait, I think there's an airplane out there.

You think it's getting closer?

It's amazing when you're totally quiet, you can hear things that you normally would never be able to hear.

God says, I want that kind of attention from you.

Stop everything.

Put the phone away.

Put your to-do list away.

In fact, before you ever get to that.

Sit and listen quietly.

You will hear things you would never hear any other way.

Be still and know that I am God.

Implication, you are not.

I forgot.

What a relief.

I was acting like I was I uh did you Joe go out on your porch today and and I I was very disturbed.

The lake was gone.

Someone took the lake overnight, did you notice?

I was gonna get a refund from Big Cedar or at least a discount.

I mean, what you took the lake away overnight?

What is that?

Just a set?

She when you came to breakfast?

You saw?

I knew the frog wasn't gonna win.

Oh it's kinda it's kinda cool scene, but But I love Proverbs.

I don't know if you know this verse.

Proverbs 418.

This is an awesome verse.

Listen, how many of you are sunrise people?

How many of you have you seen a fair amount of sunrises?

How many of you are like, what's that?

I thought it was just always up in the sky.

Listen to this.

Get this picture.

Try to picture this.

He says, the path of the righteous.

Okay, where is he going to take me?

How does he reveal it?

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn.

Have you been up for the first gleam of dawn sometime?

Seen the, you know it's darkest right before the dawn?

That's not just a saying.

It really is.

And you notice how the sky suddenly starts, there's this kind of beautiful glow, just a little bit of a glow, just most it's still really, really dark, but there's just it doesn't light up much.

It just lights up a little piece on the landscape out there The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn.

It's dark out there.

I can't see anything.

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn growing ever brighter Till the full light of day.

What we watched happen from our porch this morning is how God unfolds his will for you even on a daily basis.

Then it's like this first gleam of dawn.

He says, I want you to walk in the little light I've given you.

Step where I've put the light This is all you know.

It's still mostly dark.

But the path of the righteous is going to be like the first gleam of dawn and that sun comes up and eventually you can see everything.

That's what happened this morning.

The fog inevitably will lose.

The sun will inevitably win.

Your rising sun, look at Luke chapter 1.

I'm not just making up this analogy.

Luke chapter 1, before Jesus was born, right before.

Because of the tender mercy of our God by which the rising sun will come to us from heaven to shine on those living in darkness.

It's been dark.

I don't really know exactly where I'm going. and in the shadow of death to guide our feet into the path of peace.

The sun's coming up, boys.

It's been dark, but the sun's coming up.

You'll be able to see where you need to go.

You like that verse?

I really love that picture because I'm a sunrise freak kind of.

So when when he says meditate day and night, what happens is this, as you do that, your situations trigger scripture As you're in the middle of a situation, because you have marinated in God's word, when your your lens through which you view what just happened to you during that day becomes something from God's word.

There's a uh I I'm thinking of examples of um the other day um I I've had some pretty overwhelming responsibility lately and it's been tough on many fronts And we've we've gone through a rugged stretch here.

Of course, with Kieran's home going , a summer of hope without her.

Amazing summer of hope, but we were drained going into it.

We pretty much had an empty tank when you really need a full one to go to battle in Native America.

And uh and and we came back and not too long after that um another one of our team uh died of cancer.

And uh I did her funeral not very long ago And the just as the vision, God has planted a tremendous vision in my heart and pushed the start button.

We were going through the toughest time financially we've had a number of years.

And so I was kind of whiny.

I was all by myself.

Fortunately you didn't have to hear the whiny me, but I was kind of Just like I was all way down, you know, oh man.

And I pick up the Bible and And his praise shall continually be on my lips.

I'm like, that's not much on my lips.

I'm not, that's not what I'm thinking about.

That's not what I'm talking about.

And God just reshaped my day with simply saying that the situations I'm in right now, he's going, praise your way through this run.

Don't plan your way, don't worry your way, don't don't don't gripe your way through, don't be Eeyore.

Yeah, be Tigger.

Well, I didn't feel like Tigger, but I didn't feel like Eeyore anymore either.

See it it your situations trigger scripture and you handle them godly Because you're doing God thing.

God's keynote address becomes a lens through which you view what and who happens to you that day.

Nothing accidental, nothing random, all planned by God.

So here's the question of the day.

Asked by Joshua himself.

This is the question I suggest you learn to ask heaven each new morning.

As he is literally outside the walls of Jericho talking to the one who identifies himself as the commander of the army of the Lord.

Look at that question.

What message?

Does my Lord have for his servant?

He knows who God is.

He knows who's who's bigger than Jericho.

My Lord.

He knows who he is.

I'm servant to that Lord.

What message, I would challenge you each new morning to wake up with that question.

What message, what message does my Lord have for his servant?

I know you got something for me.

What's the keynote address for today, Lord?

And you shape your day around his keynote address.

It's exciting.

I believe that's how Joshua lived.

By the way, I would really recommend a journal.

You may not be a writing type person.

That's okay.

For this it might be worth trying.

Just to write what you hear from God and what you want to do differently because he said it.

I cannot tell you now what my journals mean in a time like this to go back and see the long leading of God and the ongoing voice of God and what he's been saying.

It's tremendous I suggest you journal it.

A listening heart.

Alright, now that's kind of fundamental.

So we took a little time on that one.

Let's go quickly to this next one.

Five secrets of courage.

Number one is a number two is a risk-taking faith A risk-taking faith.

Let's go on with the story.

Joshua 3.

9.

So we're getting the uh ready to go.

Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God This is how you will know the living God is among you.

The living God is among you.

He will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Stalagites, wait, um, Perizites, Gergeshites.

Amorites and the Termites.

And then it says this.

See the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord of all the earth.

Notice he keeps reminding them who they're following.

What do you call him?

The living God, the Lord of all the earth.

We okay here, guys?

This is just one river.

This is one river in his earth that he's Lord of all of See the ark.

So now then choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.

I want ownership of this miracle in each tribe.

And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, here he goes again, remember what Lord we're talking about, set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream, will be cut off and stand up in a heap.

And so, we're talking risk taking faith here.

I want the priests, if they go down, we've lost our spiritual leaders If they go down, we've lost the Ark of the Covenant.

It's gonna go, it's gonna be floating away in the Jordan River.

So I want to, so I've got, well Lord, this is going to be awesome.

Listen, you part those waters, I'll be right in.

He says, no.

You be right in, I'll part the waters.

Whatever happened to turn around, don't drown?

I mean the weatherman says that all the time.

He's like, no, don't turn around and you won't drown.

Whoo!

That's risk-taking faith, man.

That's walking in expecting God to keep his promise Nothing in your common sense, nothing in your survival instinct would tell you to do this.

I was thinking about the concept of risk-averse faith.

Many, if not most, American Christians have a risk-averse Christianity.

I will go as far with Jesus as I feel safe.

As I have control , if I can quantify it, calculate it, add it up.

Well, let me tell you what risk-averse faith is.

It's an oxymoron.

With the emphasis on moron.

It can't be faith if it's risk-averse.

Faith is walking just based on a promise.

There would have been no RHM if I had succumbed, as I would like to have at the time, to risk-averse faith.

We were part of a national organization that wanted me to take national leadership.

We had a support base.

We had an office in New Jersey for the New York area.

I mean and really humanly speaking, my efforts had been what God used to build all that.

And then God's saying, Ron, do you understand that there's a ministry that has grown up of radio and potentially Native America and worldwide this and that and you can't do it in the vehicle that you're in right now.

You and I was told by elders who counseled me, Ron, there has to be a dedicated vehicle.

You've got to wake up and see what God is saying to you, man.

It took me two years to answer the wake-up call.

And I said to Karen, honey, this is a risky obedience.

This point in our life to start all over again?

And then they hit me.

There's no such thing as a risky obedience.

That's another oxymoron.

There's only a risky disobedience.

And so we didn't have money, we didn't have an office, like Brad said, he lost the house he thought he was gonna own as a senior in high school with everybody gone.

No , we didn't have money, we didn't have a staff.

We left the money that I'd raised with the other ministry because that was ethical.

Thank God would you look at what's happened today?

Risk taking faith.

Right after we finished with OEW this summer, I cannot tell you, you can probably imagine how drained we were and how how absolutely spent We went in spent.

And uh while you're with Arn Eagles Wings and doing 20-hour days, uh day after day in full combat mode every day, you don't necessarily have time for extreme exegetical study of the Greek language and what the words meant.

Um you have a very you just like Lord please talk fast today, okay, because it's like this is like uh the uh the gospel minute or something, but but I got back to the study I'd been doing Right after uh I hung out with Brad and his family out there in the northeast where we'd been and and we took a few days of downtime and we checked into a hotel in our old stomping grounds in Wayne, New Jersey And all I wanted to do was sleep, and it was early in the morning, and God woke me up.

And I I had the day before resumed my ongoing regular Bible study where I had left off when we went to Warrior Leadership Summit.

And the verse I read, I just picked up in Isaiah where I had been.

Enlarge the place of your tent.

Stretch your tent curtains wide Do not hold back.

Those words leaped off the page.

Do not hold back I don't have my wife anymore, Lord.

I'm beat Do not hold back.

Strength lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes, for you will spread out to the right and the left Your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.

Do not be afraid.

Here we go again.

You will not suffer shame.

Do not fear disgrace.

You will not be humiliated I jumped out of bed, which I didn't feel much like doing, because I had to grab a legal pad And I just started writing.

I'm sharing with you, but I've only shared with our leadership team right now.

And I started to write because God was saying, this is what I mean by do not hold background.

This is where we go now.

It was too big for me.

It was too big for us.

And as we have obeyed the Lord, and by the way, this verse was the launching verse for modern world missions.

I don't know if you know that.

William Carey was the first modern foreign missionary, went to India, quite a dramatic story, back in the early 1700s.

And this verse was the launching pad for one of the great missionary movements of all time.

Enlarge the place of your tent.

Get ready for more people.

Get ready for a lot more people to be coming in.

Enlarge the place of your tent.

Stretch your tent curtains wide.

Do not hold back.

Do not hold back.

I came back and shared with our leadership the daunting challenge, but the what I believe the demand for obedience from us.

I'm in the thick of risk-taking faith right now.

Greatly challenged by the numbers today.

But knowing we've heard from God and we are proceeding only on a promise.

It's an exciting and scary place to be.

But the greatest things God has ever done in my life is when I've taken the greatest risks based on the God I serve.

Do not hold back.

I'll bet all of you can think of a risk that God asks you to take in your life.

And you're glad you did.

I'll bet you most of us could think of a risk God asked you to take sometime in your life.

And you wish you had.

Risk taking faith is at the heart of uncommon courage.

So here's God's will lessons from an uncrossable river that we just read about.

That uncrossable river Number one, those who insist on staying where it's safe will almost surely miss the will of God.

Seldom will the will of God leave you in your comfort zone.

It will require you walking into a flood.

It will require you confronting a walled city.

You say I will make comfort and safety and security and I can figure it out and I can control it, my deciding factor, you will miss God's will.

He's seldom going to leave you there.

Number two, only by moving out will you know which way to go.

What did he say?

Move out And you will know which way to go, though you've never been this way before.

But how are you gonna , before you're gonna know where to go, you're gonna have to move out from where you are and take the step you know you need to take.

Even if that's taking you into deep water.

Third lesson is God responds to faith that is demonstrated, not just declared.

Oh Lord, we I believe you could you could you parted the Red Sea.

We heard that from Heard that from my grandmother before she died.

I believe you could part the Red Sea.

Sure, you can you can walk into it.

That's another story.

God does not just want us to quote our theology and quote our verses.

He says, I want to demonstrate it.

I want you to act like that what I said is going to happen, that I will keep my promise.

God responds to demonstrated faith, not just declared faith.

He's a Nike God.

Just do it!

And obstacles that could stop you become opportunities for God to amaze you.

Thank God for something this huge.

I'm about to be amazed by God.

We used to love to go up as a family to Middlebury, Vermont when we lived in New Jersey because a friend owned an inn up there where he let us stay.

It was great.

And we'd of course if we could get up to the fall foliage, it'd be wonderful.

And Middlebury is in uh interesting.

You leave one mountain range in New York State behind you over here, and then over here uh are the mountains of Vermont and uh beautiful and skiing and all that stuff And Milburg's kind of in this valley, and I thought, here we are, you know, beautiful mountains over there, mountains over here.

There's the mountains we've come from, there's the mountains we still have to climb, we still have to get over those.

I don't know why just the Lord showed me this.

I said, well, he said, Ron, this is how your walk with me is.

You always live between two mountains.

Over here, there's always something to praise him for.

You look at the place you've been that he brought you through, there's always something to praise him for.

But over here in the mountains you still have to climb.

And there's always something to trust him for.

Today, I'm betting.

There's something to be to praise him for and something to trust him for.

He's going to keep it that way until you see him.

There will be always something to praise him for on this side.

And there will always be something to trust him for over here.

But because you do this first, you've got the confidence to do this.

Because you remember his track record.

He's not going to be a different God the next time.

George Mueller, the great giant of faith, had this very interesting observation.

I hope it's not true of any of us here, but probably sometimes it has been.

Other times we're on the right side of it.

The reason more people do not see Jordan Rivers parting in their lives.

And in their ministries is because they waver at the riverbank.

Only God knows how many miracles spiritual leaders have missed.

Because they turned away from the river just before God planned to part the waters.

Oh my goodness.

Here's your third step here, and that's a flexible spirit.

Third secret of courage, a flexible spirit Notice the key word verse 3.

Have we got verse 3 real real quick here guys?

Here was the key word that took them to the miracle.

You are to move out and follow, follow.

What was the what was the recurring invitation of Jesus to people?

You know, two words.

Follow me.

Follow me.

Okay, I have to I have to anything that's um abstract, I don't know if this is a guy thing or just me.

I have to make it concrete to really get it Okay, I I'm not even the word follow, I'm like, what does it mean to follow Jesus?

It's the fundamental thing a disciple does follow me what is follow I had an experience that helped me with this and it's you see it here I was speaking for a pre-Billigram Crusade event in Philadelphia years ago, and there were two leader, Christian leader rallies that I was supposed to speak at.

One was in downtown, right in the inner city, and one was out in the suburbs.

I was speaking the inner city one first, and then they raced me.

I was supposed to race out and they sing another verse or something until the speaker gets there, and I was supposed to speak for the one out in the suburbs.

It was pretty tricky to do this.

And um so uh Karen was driving our car, but we didn't know where we were going, we didn't know Philly.

So uh what happened was they assigned the chairman of the crusade to drive us out there.

He was my wheel man.

Judge Diaz.

Judge.

Judge.

Karen gets to follow him.

Amazing guy.

Karen 's only hope of getting there is to follow Judge Diaz wherever we go.

Well, we had to hurry.

I I for some reason I got them I couldn't have been the speaker who spoke too long.

They must have just sung too much.

So anyway, we gotta get him there.

So we take off Now, in order to follow him, Kieran had to do a few things she really wasn't interested in doing.

He would do three lanes.

He was speeding sometimes, so they stop him.

I'm the judge.

And so he's like, but he he's he to get there, he's navigating the Philly morning traffic and he's in and out and he's getting over this ramp and he's he's slowing down, he's changing lanes, she he changes lanes, she changes lanes, he speeds up, she speeds up, he slows down, she slows down, Hiko goes three lanes, she goes three lanes to get up on a ramp So in the way you can follow.

That morning I learned what follow means.

Two things.

Focus.

You've got to look at one person.

It doesn't matter what anybody else is doing.

It doesn't matter anything in the environment.

It's only the one who's taking you where you need to go that you got to keep your eyes on.

Lots of distractions.

Lots of things that could get your attention, but you don't dare.

You better stay focused on the one you're following.

Secondly, flexibility.

If you say, I don't want to drive this fast, fine.

Fine, you're lost.

I want to drive faster.

He's not going fast enough.

Fine.

You're lost I don't want to get off here.

Fine.

You're lost.

You can't be rigid and be a good follower.

You've got to be willing to move when your leader moves.

Slow when he slows.

Stop when he stops.

Speed up when he speeds up.

So a flexible spirit.

A flexible spirit is that is that third secret of uncommon courage.

The focus one, okay, the flexibility is hard for some of us.

There might be uh uh one or two control freaks here in the room somewhere.

Okay?

All right, well from the laughter possibly three or four.

Possibly more.

We really like to there's there's some pretty successful people in this room.

We like to control things.

That's why we've been successful, control him, right?

Well, when when you're following the leader, you're not in control.

And he's an unpredictable God He really is.

He's a god of surprises.

Back in 1989, there was a 6. 9 earthquake in California.

And uh there are two bridges there that had two different fates.

First was the Bay Bridge.

Do we have a picture of the Bay Bridge?

Did we find that?

This is the Bay Bridge with a cow went boo-boo in it.

See?

Because when the quake hit the Bay Bridge went collapsed.

Well but there was another bridge.

You may have heard of it.

We got that one?

The Golden Gate Bridge.

It was fine.

It looked like that after the quake What was the difference?

Bay Bridge was rigid.

Golden Gate actually has one foot on the San Andreas Fault.

But they say it's one of the safest places you could be in a quake.

It didn't feel like it, but it is because it's going to move when things start shaking.

Man, I'll tell you what, which bridge are you?

I'll tell you what, if you're rigid, you're probably gonna lose Jesus somewhere along the way there.

You're not gonna be following.

And you're probably gonna crack and break.

It's going to drive you crazy.

When God moves, you move.

When God stops, you stop.

A right person, a rigid person, will lose sight of the one they're following Just one example of how God, how you have to be flexible, right out of the book of Joshua.

When God told Joshua to go into Jericho, he told them two things.

He said, first of all, just play the horn and shout.

That's the strategy.

And when you go in, don't keep anything.

Next next community, AI So if I'm Joshua, I'll be like, oh I got this.

We march around, play the horns, right, and don't keep anything.

Got this.

Actually, no.

What I want you to do is I want you to Plan an ambush.

It was pretty they still study Joshua's tactics at West Point, by the way.

The way he divided Canaan in two, split it, went right across the center, so the northern kings and the southern kings, they could not uh they could not work together And the strategy guy gave him was to lure those people out of the city of AI with a decoy force and then go in and take the city and get these guys, and it worked.

Oh, and he said, by the way, you can keep what's there.

Almost totally opposite strategy for that.

Now, if if Joshua said, okay, I know how God wants to do this.

This is how God works.

They're not going to win.

God is always we don't serve a status quo God.

Just write that down.

We don't serve a status quo God.

So if you try to stay status quo, I suspect he's moving in, you're not.

Or he's going another direction Number four, a step-by-step obedience.

A step-by-step obedience.

Joshua 3.

15.

As soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, that's when the water parted.

God literally, literally led them on the earth one step at a time into the river.

Now let's look at some other references here.

Psalm 37, 23 says this.

The steps I love this.

Sort of my anchor verses.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.

Where are we going, mystery trip?

He says, but I can tell you what, get in the car.

You can get in the car.

That's the first step.

Get in the car.

The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.

And he delights in his way.

Let's go on to the next verse.

Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.

How many of you have ever done tent camping?

Any of you been tent camping?

Tent camping?

Well, you all kind of went this like Hampton inn's kind of my idea of camping.

Um well we did that a lot, especially in uh early years together with the kids.

And you know, uh if you've ever been out you know how that goes because we were in some now the campgrounds are like you know circuses, but But they were n back when we started camping they were not lit or anything like that, you know, and it was real it was really camping, not this other suburban stuff.

And so um you know and you you take a little while get everybody in, get everybody in their sleeping bag and you zip them up and and you and you zip up the tent and you tie the flap and you get into your sleeping bag and get all settled in and suddenly the the the quiet, the stillness of that campground is broken by just one sound.

I gotta go party.

Unzip the sleeping bag, unzip the kid's sleeping bag, untie, unzip the tent, go out, can't see anything, and there's a bathroom here somewhere.

And there are trees.

And it's dark.

But there is a bathroom here somewhere, preferably the bathroom.

And I have my Coleman lantern.

And it didn't show me the bathroom.

It just showed me a step.

But how many steps could it take anyway?

I could only take one at a time.

And it showed me, and if I just kept following that, guess what?

I ended up at the destination where the path went.

That's how God says he leads you.

Your word will light up the next step.

It will not light up the destination, probably, but it will light up the next step.

If you're waiting for the whole thing, you won't get it because you won't.

He says, take a step, see a step.

That's how you find God's will.

Take a step, see a step.

Write it down.

Take a step, see a step.

Take a step See a step.

That's how God's plan is revealed.

Psalm 119, 133 says this.

Direct my footsteps, my footsteps according to your word, let no sin rule over me.

Here's the last secret of uncommon courage.

A promise-driven life.

A prom You've read a you remember?

Rick Warren had a bomb bombshell, a blockbuster, right?

The purpose-driven life?

Good.

I got a better idea.

I'm not going to write a book.

The promise-driven life.

The promise-driven life.

That my life is literally steered by what God has promised.

Joshua chapter 3, verses 9 and 10.

It says this Going into the unknown out there.

Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.

And here's what he said This is how you will know that the living God, he certainly will drive out.

How did he know he will certainly drive out?

Because God said had said in chapter 1, I will drive out all those people ahead of you Basically what he's saying is we're walking into this river, headed for those walls, based solely on a promise.

Many of you in this room did this years ago on a smaller scale.

Karen and I would have fun listening to the old cassette tape of our wedding ceremony.

We knew so much about love.

We were real experts on love.

You were we were so smart at 20 or 21.

We had so much to learn.

But it was interesting to listen, you know what?

Karen said to me, forsaking all others.

I take you.

She made me a promise.

I made a promise to her Forsaking all others.

And like my ring says, till Jesus comes.

I didn't know.

I'd probably meet other women that I could have been interested in in my lifetime.

She probably other guys that might be interesting and forsaking all others It's you.

It's just you.

I based my whole life on that promise.

Just a promise.

She based hers on a promise.

God says, I want you to live your whole life like that.

I want you to base your decisions and everything on a promise by one who's always a promise-keeper. 11 times in the book of Joshua, it says these words, as the Lord your God promised you.

And the word promised, it just happened.

God's promise becomes the foundation on which you base all your decisions.

Chapter 3, verse 17, I just like, this is what hit me.

I wrote this in my journal.

The priest who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan.

I think I kept going.

Just in case this doesn't last long.

They stopped and stood on dry ground.

Look at your notes.

You know what it hit me?

Before they stood on dry ground, they stood on God's promise.

You will not stand on dry ground in the middle of your flood unless you stand on God's promise first.

That's when you stand in miracle country then.

We don't have time to really talk much about Caleb, but I love this guy.

He is exhibit A of the promise-driven life.

The word Caleb, do you know what it means in Hebrew dog?

Now I'm not quite sure why a mother would name their son dog.

Oh yes I am Because you know what he says over and over again in Joshua 14 as he comes to claim what he's believed in for these 40 years of wandering in the wilderness because of the dufuses who wouldn't believe God It says, I wholly follow the Lord my God.

I wholly follow the Lord my God.

I wholly follow the Lord my God.

Then it says Caleb wholly followed the Lord his Brad had a little shihtzu puppy named Missy, and she would just she would kind of just collapse and look dead until he got home.

Life didn't matter much without Brad.

She knew when Brad got home before we did.

She could tell the sound of his vehicle pulling in the driveway.

I didn't know he was home.

Missy knew he was home.

She's at she's not dead anymore.

She's at the back door.

Brad comes in.

Boy, I'll tell you what she's all he she he goes in the basement.

She goes in the basement.

He goes upstairs, she goes upstairs.

He's upset, she goes outside.

She didn't care where she went, she just wanted to be where master was.

Nothing more loyal.

And that, you know, man's best friend, all that stuff about the dog.

What God was saying was I want to know what to name this boy because he will be like God's puppy.

He will follow me everywhere.

And he will become a great warrior for me because he follows me when there's no reason to.

He will follow me.

Look, a lifetime warrior for God Almighty is defined by four words, with all your heart.

With all your heart.

Whatever you do, you do with all when you pray, you pray with all your heart.

When you study, you study with all your heart.

When you when you uh listen to somebody, you listen with all your heart.

When you work, you work with all your heart.

When you rest, you rest with all your heart.

When you goof off, you goof off with all your heart Whatever you do That was the secret of this guy Caleb.

We do need to look at uh let's look at chapter 14 and I'm going to just do a couple highlights here out of this passage because there's something in here that's You know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God.

Now this is Caleb.

You remember what Moses said at Canaesh Parmia?

That's 40 years ago.

Let's go.

I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Cape Ishparnia to explore the land.

And I brought him back a report according to my convictions.

But my fellow Israelites who went up with me, Dufus, made the dark hearts of the people melt in fear.

I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly.

So on that day, Moses swore to me, the land on which your feet have walked, you were a scout, remember you checked it out.

The land you walked on was going to be yours.

And that of your children forever.

Now then just as the Lord promised, let's go on.

Just as the Lord promised, that's one of the times that appears, He has kept me alive for 45 years.

Since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness, I've been walking in circles for these 45 years.

So here I am today.

I'm 85 years old.

And I'm still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out.

I am just as vigorous to go out to battle as I was then.

Oh, I love this guy.

He is not defined by his age.

He got his ARP card a long time ago, but he is not defined by his senior discounts.

No way in the world, man.

He is ready to go take the giants.

He says, give me that mountain.

He is a warrior to his dying day.

And I want to tell you, Caleb is a model of somebody who never retires.

You never retire from serving the Lord.

You retire, you put on new tires so you can go farther.

That's how you retire.

Living proof, Caleb is living proof that your greatest victories, get this, may come in the later chapters of your life.

Did you get that?

That means the best may not be behind you.

Your greatest exploits for God may not be behind you because of the birthdays you've had.

No, both Caleb and Joshua.

Then the last fourth quarter of their life is when their greatest exploits for God take place Too many veterans allow themselves to be defined by their age, by their associates, by their adversaries, or by just an attitude.

One reason it's important to base everything on the promise.

There's no way to the promised land except through the wilderness.

Somebody needs to hear that today.

There is no way to the promised land.

You say, man, I don't this is no promised land right now.

I'm in the wilderness.

Just ask Jesus.

Just ask Joshua, just ask Moses, just ask Caleb.

There is no way to the promise.

Can I skip the wilderness?

You cannot.

The wilderness you are in now is the path to the promised land.

Don't think God's forgotten you.

Don't think God's not keeping his promise.

You have to go through the wilderness to get there.

You have to go through Good Friday to get to an Easter.

There's no way to a good good Easter except through a Good Friday.

I'm going to leave you with Psalm 119, 140.

I love this verse.

Read it out loud with me.

Your promises have been thoroughly tested and your servant loves them.

You have thoroughly tested them.

Generations before you have thoroughly tested them.

Christians around the world, some of them in very dark and persecuted places, are testing them.

These promises have been tested and passed every test in every life.

Ah, your Sherman loves them.

The promise-driven life is a life of uncommon courage.

And the payoff for risk-taking faith, you see it, consecrate yourselves.

And I want you to take this personally.

Consecrate yourself.

For tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things.

If you hear the trumpet right now, the bugle, it's not blowing, retreat.

It's not blowing surrender.

It's revely, you're hearing.

Wake up.

And it's charge.

Let's pray.

I believe, Lord, there is an obedience that will take risk taking faith you're going to call upon every one of us in this room to take.

It will not add up.

We'll only know a next step.

That's all we'll know.

And we won't know any more unless we take this step.

I pray that every person in this room will know the next step.

Would you reveal Holy Spirit, who you promised Jesus, will guide us into all truth.

I pray everybody here will know the next step of risk taking faith.

To take them closer to the land you want them to possess with the days they have left.

I pray that in Jesus' name.

Amen.