The Faith to Move Forward

[Applause] [Music] hey everybody howdy I'll see that's cool they don't say howdy in DC so I just had to try it and it worked that's awesome it's so great to see you it is awesome to be back here because I just love faith bridge so we're gonna jump in like Ken said to the series we've been in but I just want to say it's always so fun to come back and see friends and really to have my faith grow just by looking at God's faithfulness to this place it's awesome and you know it's been fun to be in DC like inside I'll probably maybe tell some stories in the course of the sermon but you know it's been a wild ride this last few months it's an amazing Church we meet right in the center of Washington DC so if you go where do you meet just get a picture of the dime at a DC throw a dart at the center that's where we are we mean in a club right in the middle of it so it's Church in the club and you never of course sometimes the party's still going when we come to set up you know I'm not kidding we've had to move people offstage who were sleeping like you don't have to leave but I do need you to scooch right there but it has been absolutely incredible DC a third of the people in the city are between the ages of 20 and 35 so I don't know if that encourages or terrifies you to know that your governments run by twenty year olds but it is and our church is full of them and we love it it's been an absolute honor to get to minister to that community our setup and security team includes all four branches of the military multiple members of various intelligence agencies and at the Pentagon so we are the safest Church on the planet I am not worried about that at all but one thing I do think about all the time is you know churches aren't built on the gifts of a few it's on the sacrifices of the many and you can't launch a church and think that people there are going to give to make it happen they don't know you and it's just starting and so Ken rallied all of you a a few years ago to put the first money in to launch us and so I just want you to know I think about faith Virgil because we exist in DC because of you and the fruit that we're seeing you have a piece of that because of your faithfulness so I wanted to say thank you before I jump into the text to you and I specifically want to honor your pastor Ken there's there's a few things you look back in life at and go you know that didn't work I thought it was that that worked out okay that was a surprise hit and I had no idea as a 22 year old one of the best decisions of my life was being made when I decided to follow that man and trust him you have an amazing pastor and he continues to be an amazing pastor to me and I just want to honor him and say what an amazing place it's fun to be back so if I sound hoarse is because I did chaplet am apparently not aggressively enough we didn't have a good day but if I start yelling at you you'll kind of know where that's coming from but and anyway so let me jump in I want to read to you from numbers 13 and 14 that's where we are in the series and so I'm gonna read kind of a big block of the story of where we are now so we can get it loaded in our heads and then we'll comment on it as we go so numbers 13 if you'd like to turn there there's Bibles available if you don't have one or you can turn yours to numbers 13 or just listen carefully and I will read it to you so numbers 13 beginning and verse once is this the Lord spoke to Moses saying send man to spy out the land of Canaan which I'm giving to the people of Israel from each tribe of their fathers you sell send a man everyone a chief among them and Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said to them go up into the Negev and go into the hill country and see what the land is and whether the people who dwell in it or weak or strong and whether they're a few or many and whether the land they dwell in is good or bad whether the cities they dwell in our camps our strongholds whether the land is rich or poor whether they're trees in it or not be of good courage and bring some of the fruit of the land now that time of season was the first ripe grapes and at the end of the 40 days they returned from spying out the cities or spying out the land and they told him when we've come to the land in which you sent us it's clothes with milk and honey and this is its fruit however the people who dwell in the land are strong and the cities are fortified and very large and besides we saw the descendants of anak there the Amalekites dwell in the land of the Negev the Hittites Jebusites and amirite dwell in the hill country and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and along the Jordan but Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said let's go up at once and occupy it for we are well able to overcome it then the men then the men who had gone up with him said we are not able to go up against these people they are stronger than we are so they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out saying this land to the which we have gone to spy it out as a land that devours its inhabitants all the people we saw in a tower of great height there we saw the Nephilim the sons of anak who came from Nephilim and we seemed like grasshoppers and so we seemed to them then all the congregation raised a loud cry the people wept that night and all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron the whole congregation said to them would that we have died in the land of Egypt or would do we have died in the wilderness why is the Lord bringing us into this land to fall by the sword our wives our little ones will become a prey would it not have been better for us to go back to Egypt and they said to one another let us choose a leader and go back to Egypt then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the Assembly of the congregation of the people of Israel and Joshua son of nun and Caleb the son of Jephunneh who were among those who had spied out the land they tore their clothes and said all the congregation the people of Israel the land which we passed through to spy it out is an exceedingly good land if the Lord delights in us he will bring us into the land and give it to us land that flows with milk and honey only do not rebel against the Lord do not fear the people this land their bread for us their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us do not fear them then all the congregation said to stone them with stones that's called a rough day of preaching but the glory of the Lord appeared at the tent of the meeting to all the people of Israel and the Lord said to Moses how long will this people despise me how long will they not believe me in spite of all the signs I've done among them say to them as I live declares the Lord which you have said in my hearing I will do to you your dead bodies will fall in the wilderness and all of your number listed in the census from twenty years old and upward who have grumbled against me not one shall come into the land where I swore that I would make you dwell except Caleb the son of Jephunneh and joshua the son of nun but your little ones who you said would become a prey i will bring in and they shall know the land that you have rejected let me pray for us father thanks for the few minutes we have around your word help us understand how to have the faith to move forward and i would invite all of you if you're willing to just take a minute maybe you haven't done this in a while but i want you personally to talk to god and you ask him if you mean it lord please teach me today from your word and then if you would please pray for me that the lord would use me and i'd be helpful to you well father we love you and we trust you use this time and we pray that in Jesus name Amen well several years ago I had the opportunity to navigate an obstacle course on a Navy SEAL base and by obstacle course really what it was was a series of ropes suspended about 10 15 feet above an Olympic sized swimming pool and so you would negotiate these ropes until your forearms burned out and you would plummet into your failure but as I got there the way you start the thing is they have you climb this high dive and then from the high dive there is a rope that you're meant to swing from and then exit from and grab onto a cargo net looks pretty crazy and as I stood there with the guy who brought me maybe steel I was looking at this place and I was like that's nuts he's like yeah I know but here's the deal he said the mechanics of that rope if you just try to Tarzan swing you're not gonna make it to that cargo net he said here's the deal when you get on that high dive jump off he said but you need to kick your feet up and your head back throw your legs around the ropes we'll be swinging backwards and upside-down but it's fine because it's the rope crest to its height you will suddenly emerge on top of the rope then you release the momentum will throw you forward and you grab on to the cargo net and continue and I was like yeah alright let's do it this fight and so we get up there and I'm standing on that high dive like woah woah woah this is taller than I thought and sure enough he's like now let me show you and he just grabs it and does this like Cirque de Soleil move and grabs the cargo net and I'm like um and so I grab it I'm like this is crazy I don't want to do this and I remember as I looked at it I thought forget it man I think I've got it I think I just got a choke up on the Rope a little bit I'm gonna do a bends way relax I got this and so I grabbed it and did the little Tarzan thing BAM hits the water right away and remembers I hit the water I was confused like why did this not work and I was frustrated until the thought dawned on me I'm at the Navy SEAL obstacle course maybe I should listen to the Navy SEAL as crazy as it sounds I decided I'm gonna try it so I got back up there and was like I gotta do this you can't just say no thanks that's scary you know I was like alright I have to and so I grabbed the rope and sure enough jumped through my head back through my leg over it swinging backwards and upside down and sure enough as the road began to crest I looked up and there was a cargo net I'm like you've got to be kidding me I released and the momentum threw me for it and I grabbed it I was like did you see what I just did tell me someone filmed this I was amazing and I got to have this incredible new experience why because of faith that's why the only reason I got to experience that that's because of faith it's faith that moved me forward that's what this message is about faith to move forward that's how it works right that if you want to experience blessing you got to embrace belief if you want to experience reward you got to embrace risk I won't get where I want to go unless I trust you as crazy as it sounds let me trust you cuz you know better and if I embrace faith that's gonna move me forward and why am I saying this cuz a lot of people I talk to in the world today feel stuck and frustrated particularly at my age as I approached middle age a lot of guys wonder where their life's going they feel stuck they feel stalled out and I talk to people all the time that they feel like they can't move forward I want to accomplish more in life I want to experience more of a thrill in life I want to have a life that has a sense of purpose and mission I want to wake up every day believing I'm a part of something big that was like do you want to step out beyond the life you're living now yeah well if you always do what you've always done you'll always be where you always are let me say that again if you always do what you've always done you will always be where you always are you want to step into something new you have to step into something new you want to move forward that requires faith you and experience blessing that requires belief you want the reward you got to take the risk and that's where we are today in this text and we all know this by the way incidentally that this is how life works this is what God does to us you got to trust me and extend you did this with your children I just recently did it with the three of mine they're all moving around now but I remember teaching them to walk and I remember looking them and saying okay here's the deal I know you love crawling but I'm gonna stand you up on these two little appendages and I want you to try to walk across the room and you see in their face it strains your credibility in their eyes all right you want me to do what walk them no no I get more coverage this way I'm gonna crawl in you're like look trust me humans have been doing this for years it's gonna open up a whole new world of possibility if you'll try it and they have to trust you and if they do and begin to waddle forward a whole new life of mobility opens up I remember for me riding bikes I was getting really frustrated as a kid because I would always get too smoked by all the other kids on my street and I member finally going to my mom and saying I don't understand it why I keep getting beat I understand when the older kids can out bike me I don't understand why these younger kids are passing me and I remember she was like well Ben it's because you still have the training wheels on and she said it's gonna be that way till you take him off and I remember when she said that I was like no no I have four wheels they have to I I should be doubly crushing him I have twice as many wheels I remember just thinking like you don't know what you're talking about lady and after a while I realized but I can just keep doing it my way and get beat or I can try something new and maybe enter a new existence you see it it's only by faith we're gonna move forward and some of us maybe you're back here in church because you're realizing hey the way I'm living life the way I'm raising my kids the way I'm making decisions isn't working my marriage isn't working how do I move forward and let me tell you something I'm not just telling you to have faith in something nondescript right I don't want you to have strong faith in a weak object that's a dumb thing to do right well I'm just gonna trust this three-year-old to fly the plane bad choice I'd rather you have a week trembling faith in a strong object then strong faith in a weak object but what I really want for you is strong faith and a strong object and let me tell you something you are meant to live by faith the Bible will say that all things are made by God and and most people actually believe that but then Colossians goes on to say and all things are made for him augusten says our hearts are restless until they rest in him and some of us we're trying to find our rest in so many other places when he says in him you want to find out what your life's about you weren't made for that job you weren't made for that relationship you weren't made for those accolades you weren't made to be famous you were made for me by me for me and if you trust me I will lead you and I will use you and get you places you never dreamed possible but you got to trust me you need to have faith to move forward and that's where we are in this text back in Genesis when humanity walked away from God and everything broke it was the great tragedy of Genesis 3 our dislocation from the heavens you feel dislocated in the world you are we are not connected to God the way we're meant to be and yet God grabbed little Abraham and said I want you to trust me and go for a walk leave your daddy's business leave the safety and security of your home take a walk with me I'm gonna lead you to the center of the known world literally what was called the navel of the nations with cities all around here I'm gonna put you at the center of the world not in a safe place Abraham but a strategic place and I'm gonna lead you there and if you trust me I'm gonna bless you with a kid and your kids are gonna bless the whole world and Abraham followed him and then in Genesis 15 God told him hey you were gonna have a kid he's gonna have a kid that kid's got a lot of kids those are gonna become tribes of kids that tribe of kids is gonna become slaves in Egypt for 400 years told them that back in Genesis and he said in 400 years later I'm gonna set them free and I'm gonna lead them into this land of promise and through you there will come a seed that will bless the whole world and that happened and so as we've gone through this series you saw these tribes of the nation of Israel these children of Abraham were enslaved in Egypt and then God rose up a Moses let my people go and he led those people out and God made a way I'm gonna March it open to a Red Sea there's no way across and then I'll hold staff out the sea parts and I will lead you through it I'll lead you into a desert where there is no water and I will strike a rock and have water come forth I'll lead you out where there's no food and I'll have dust become bread on the streets and I'll have quail just land right next to you just whoa whoo and you'll just I'm gonna take care of you so that's step by step by faith you move forward to get you to the promised land why was it called that because it was promised to Abraham I want you people there because from there they're gonna bless the whole world and where we are today as they walk up right to the edge of the land of promise and God says now you're about to culminate what I've been calling you to to take your rightful place rise up my people and step forward and all that God has to you have the faith to go forward trust me I've been working on this and then something goes wrong they said let's send some spies in let's send them in to check it out and they go in there and they check out the land and they say hey this land is as good as he said it is it is filled with milk and honey it's got livestock it's got beautiful agriculture it's fantastic what's interesting though is all through the Old Testament as this lands mentioned it was called the land of milk and honey that God has promised to his people they get there and they say this is a land full of milk and honey however these guys are big and they're scary and everything he said was awesome but the sons of anak are their anak means netbeans I hear some tall dudes in there and there's Hittites living in the hill country they moved into Fredericksburg and bought up all the property rather than step out in faith they start calculating all their fears rather than trusting the words of God they begin to listen to their worry anybody ever heard of that it's just something that happened the Old Testament anybody else experienced that I run into it all the time when I talk to people their perspective is skewed because they focus on their problems rather than on God's promises and I hear it all the time people come up and say Ben I'm wrestling with doubt maybe I grew up reading this maybe I grew up with this and I don't know if it's true or not I don't know if I believe it I don't know if God's there for me I don't know if God cares and it's a messing with my sense of identity I'm really wrestling and so I'll quote to them the words of God Ephesians 4 says we are members of one another so let's speak the truth to one another in love and in doing that by all things we will grow up into the head who is Christ into the full maturity of the sons of God therefore we will no longer be blown back and forth by every wind and wave of doctrine you are shaken up by all these competing philosophies that rise up today and will be gone tomorrow and how do you get stability he has shown you O man what is good he's told you that we are members of one another speak the truth to one another in love you need to get into a community where you speak the truth to one another you need to prioritize being around the people of God this is the appointed means he has given you to grow and they'll say through you told me to go to church yes well I tried a church I didn't really like it did you give up on dentistry because you ran into a bad dentists no so don't give up on church because you went to one you didn't like find it every one while I walked in there and I didn't know anybody right so you meet them and get in the community with them and risk that maybe God's Word is true and that his appointed means is what he uses to build you up and yet a lot of people that social fear keeps them out and particularly a lot of men and they come up with other reasons I'm too busy it's like no you're not you're just scared and it's hard to say that it's and I understand it I'm an introvert I'll show up in my own church sometimes and be like oh man but every time I go in I'm glad I'm there and so I understand it but I get two people to say no I want a strong faith well God shown you how to do it the community speaks the Word of God to each other well I don't want to do that I just want to get it from home why won't God just strengthen my faith why won't he take my doubts away he's giving you the way to get it it's through his word in his community well I don't want to submit to that to me that's like somebody's saying well man I really want you to sandwich but I don't want to use my arms well I want to just jump into my mouth come on man hey we love the passive salvation gun and we should I'm not talking about earning your salvation the people of Israel were slaves and God said you'd be still and watch me work that's what he said at that Red Sea he said you sit still you watch me and I will set you free I will break the bonds of your slavery I will name you my children and I will lead you into freedom and that was a picture of what he does to us in Jesus you're bound to your sin you can't fix you everyone in here's a mess Jesus came to live that perfect life you could not to break the power of sin by burying it in the grave and rising victoriously and giving you a new name you are not defined by your past your failures your addictions anything you are known as a son and daughter the king by the finished work of Jesus he's adopted you into his family you are known and loved by him that's true of you if you're in Christ and you didn't do a thing that's why the Bible uses birth imagery little babies don't help mom come into the world they're entirely passive participants and they come out because of the pleasure of their parents and it's the same with the gospel you are born into God's family by His grace not by your efforts but as soon as you enter his family he says that was a free gift but now I want you to grow and so by faith I'm gonna make you move forward because if I don't force you to use your legs you will always be a weak person and I don't want weak kids it's love that sets you on the floor and makes you learn how to walk now he doesn't walk away such an employer figured out good luck and leave he's like I'm with you but I'm gonna make you rise up child and I'm gonna make you trust me and I'm gonna make you listen to me and I'm gonna make you walk with me so I have people who come and say man I got conflicts in my relationships I got this person I heard my feelings and I'm thinking about all the day and I'm kind of ruminating on it and I'm frustrated I show up to work all bitter and resentful I was like you know what Jesus talked about this in the Gospels he said if anyone sins against you go to him in private and if he repents you've won a brother over and if he doesn't take another brother and that doesn't work take more and God's giving you actually a program of reconciliation with people who've hurt your feelings you got to go confront them and I'll tell people that no yeah no yeah you know well Jesus told you that's how to solve relational conflict by not coming in arrogant but coming in and in love but confronting not to destroy but to win back that's what you're meant to do and do it in privacy don't shame them don't just blast them online passive-aggressively you go talk to them they go I don't want to make it awkward well is it awkward now yeah okay so right now you're standing in guaranteed awkward what you got on the Word of God is potentially awkward or potentially awesome that you could reconcile the relationship and win a brother back if you're willing to listen to Jesus and I meet people go I don't want to do that then you're not going to move forward you're just not I talked to people that are locked up in addiction and I say I need to get off this I got into some things and I can't get out of them and James was very clear confess your sins one to another and pray for one another that you might be healed it's fascinating you know at pornography addiction is a big deal I run into that constantly in DC you see the stark picture of meth addiction on the streets every day I was talking with a counselor about it the other day and he was like once people go down that road it's almost impossible to get off it I was like how do you get off it he's like well you know there's doctors and medication but you have to have a strong community around you brothers and sisters that love each other and you have to feel like a contributing member of that group not just the little passive victim they carry you have to be a strong committed member of a community that's helping each other walk into healing and I'm like that's what James said it's all I talk to guys who are stuck in addiction I was like you got to confess not just to the Lord for forgiveness you have that confess your sins one to another that you might be healed what's hurting you is you want healing and God's giving you an appointed means called us so step into that relationship step into the risk of sharing with somebody everybody struggles with temptation here's mine and I'll talk to people they go no I don't want to do that you know that's the doorway out so if you don't want to walk through that doorway you're not gonna get out but God has shown you O man what's good and if you focus on the size of your problems you're gonna stay locked up in fear but if you focus on the size of your God you can step out and move forward in faith and that's what he's calling him to here they get locked up in the fear they get locked up in the concern about what's going to happen if they walk in there and did you notice what happens to them the more they focus on their problems the more it amplifies their fear when they first came in they were like I don't know the Amalekites there's some big boys some Gebbie sites in there there's some Hittites in there and caleb speaks up which i love Caleb because Caleb just goes and lets go and there's no like theological argument it's not much to preach at Caleb he's just like yeah right and you know I love that guy I like him you want him on your team but as he says that to them they start to freak out and did you notice that's when they were like well they're not just malachite Sarah they're nefeli we don't know they were never there and Nephilim were the demigods of Genesis chapter 1 and here were like this there's no flame in there the the ground itself is devouring people the ground eats people and we were like grasshoppers to ourselves and even to that base AUSA's grasshoppers mark I thought you were spies they saw you like don't worry about that they're gonna kill you they're gonna kill your family and kill your kids we're all gonna die and you know everyone starts to freak out the more you focus on your problems the more you amplify your fears and some of us that's what keeps us stuck we just focus I'm just not gonna work second words they're gonna you know I talk to people about that man I really want to have a healthy godly relationship I want to I want to walk with the Lord I'm dating somebody though that doesn't want to do that I'm like you know what the Bible talks about that don't be unequally yoked don't bind yourself to somebody that doesn't want to walk with you towards the glory of God and the biggest things of life now if you're already bound together in marriage don't get out there's different set of texts for you but if you're dating you guys that person doesn't want to follow the Lord y'all are going different directions don't bind yourself together with them but I'll talk about like oh well I think this is the best person I'm gonna get and so if I break up with him what's gonna happen if I break up with them maybe they're the best person to come along so maybe I'll be alone maybe I'll be the long list of my life oh you know buddy like maybe I'll be like Miss Havisham and Great Expectations sitting alone in a wedding dress eating a moldy cake like that man well well well stop don't let that focus on your problems amplify your fears don't let it do it because man you will miss out you will drown out the Word of God and something like that hey I want to go and confront a brother in love but he's gonna reject me and then I'm gonna be friendless and a loser and alone and it's gonna be horrible and go no man no you trust the Lord and you let him lead you trust him follow him he knows what he's doing this isn't a mistake what he's doing here you want to prosper you want to flourish you walk humbly with your God you walk humbly with your God the sad thing is they're gonna amplify their fear and when they amplify their fear they start to point fingers you notice that they don't say well you know what it is it's our insecurities Moses because of our lack of maturity in the faith they say God sent us here to kill us Moses is a bad leader they start to just point fingers at everybody else the community unravels the more we give in to fear and fear becomes finger-pointing and the whole thing unravels and by the end of it they're ready to stone they're very leaders but Joshua well his sad thing just to end that depressing note God gives them what they want God's like you don't want to go into the land of promise you'll have to go you want to start walking back to Egypt start walking you want to keep wandering in the desert you'll wander in the desert and that's the harsh reality I remember sitting in a whole hospital room was a guy that it's multiple rounds of being in the hospital with addiction to alcohol and for him it was just robbing his health and robbing him of so much and people tried to help him surround him support him he just kept in the cycle of deteriorating health and I was standing in the hospital room when this Russian doctor walked in and you know normally there's that gentleness now we language what we need to drink fluids he just walked in he was like do you want to stop drinking or not what you want to stop drinking or not you want to stop we help you I said we'll all help you you don't you go home call in a bottle you Dyson and it was so arresting we would just all sat there in silence but it was true he says I have the path out do you want it if you want it we'll be with you we'll be with you in the fight if you don't want it that path does not lead to life and God looks at them and says I'm trying to lead you into something more you want to follow me I made you I have your path before you trust me and all your ways acknowledge me I will make your paths straight but I say we don't want that he's like then you're gonna wander in the wilderness and that's it and I'm gonna I'm gonna look to your children in the next generation and I just don't want that for you I don't want you to miss out on the blessings of God in your life because fear has kept you locked up when faith wants to call you forward and some of you you can't even see what God wants to do in your life how he wants to make you a mentor of young kids in this community how he wants to make you a friend to hurting people how he wants to use you to help some of the addiction crises in our city how he wants to leverage your influence to bring healing in your office some of us don't even have a vision of how much God wants to use you because we're so locked up and know life's gonna stay like this and if you always do what you've always done you'll always be lit always are but God is calling you forward when you trust me will you read my word and believe it will you excel at the revealed things will you walk with my community and you watch how I will use you to change your life what's the focus that'll help us well let's not look at the Israelites anymore they didn't you end up in a good spot let's look at Joshua because he gives us two ways to walk by faith and not fear Joshua tells him to look at the past he says look at the past Deuteronomy chapter 1 he says this way don't be in dread the Lord your God goes before you he himself will fight for you he says just as he did in Egypt before your eyes in the wilderness where you'd seen how the Lord your God carried you as a man carried his son all the ways that you went up you came out of this place that's one way to settle the fear and rise in faith he said look to the past look at God's faithfulness in the past did you trust him with your soul then you can trust him with your relationships did you trust him back then to take care of your family and now you have a family did you trust him back there to provide for you and maybe it didn't always go the way you wanted but you're provided for you're here can you look to your past and see his faithfulness and will that give you the faith to go forward and then you look to his promises he has promised us this land he will lead us into it if you look back and say God's been faithful to me and then God promises me in his word he'll take care of me that will help you silence the fear and move forward in faith I promise it will for me that's where I've been living I gotta tell you starting this church in DC was scary for me there were so many times I thought it would be so much easier if I would have just stayed in Houston I know people in Houston I know buildings in Houston I know where money is in Houston I've got none of that in DC and I'm not saying people in Houston don't have faith or something I don't believe that at all but the more I sought the Lord I was like you know what I think God has put some clear things on my heart to minister to young people and to take his word to the lost and I look around Houston and men like Ken are just crushing and you look in DC and I remember when Dunn and I showed up there we're like there's some amazing churches in DC but not at the volume of a city like Houston and so you know what there's a need you're 40% of the churches in my neighborhood which is Capitol Hill called that because it's the same Hill the Capitals on 40% of the churches closed over the last 10 years I can drive you buy them they're all condos once about to be a nightclub and yet I show up there and it's all young people and it's young people that you'd have to set up a portable church in and I've been ministering to young people through a portable ministry for over 10 years and I realized this karate kid' moment God has built me for this oh my gosh I'm supposed to be doing this and Donna and I of fear came in and we started to realize we didn't want to be in Houston because we loved the people of Houston that's true we were wanting it because it's safe and that's the batteries to make that decision but the more we prayed and sought counsel them always thought we believed this is where God is calling us and as we stepped out in faith let me tell you it's scary to throw a party and not know if anyone's gonna come if you ever wonder what does Church feel like it feels like when you throw a party at your house and you go did you check the RSVPs again how many feels said they were gone do we have enough chips oh my gosh and it's just freaky every Sunday it's like oh are they gonna come and when you show up in a city you don't know anybody that's a real question mark but I it's probably every single week my mind instantly goes back to viii bridge in the living room and the first time I walked in wearing a suit because no one told me the rules so I walked in in the suit to Dona moças living room and they're all sitting around and like shorts and flip-flops I'm like oh man and the pastor was on the keys and Ken led worship and I'll never forget he led the last song he was like but don't pump okay everyone open your Bibles I was like oh man he's doing it all today this guy's working and he went from playing those keys to teaching us the Word of God and he just relied on the two simple things we have speaking the truth in love we will in all things grow I'm gonna give you the Word of God and he would just open up the word and teach it to people and then we loved people really well and we had some flyers they were a little cheesy we got Claire but it wasn't like people were like man I got to get in club I got to check that place out you know it's like eventually got a middle school but you know what we had we had the Word of God and we had the people of God and I watched God grow a church and I watched ken lead and for me when I started building this thing I just think back to the men I watched trust God and watch God care for them and it bolsters my faith to step out to believe to say I'm gonna live like that I want to be a part of what I saw God do the more I look at the past the more it calms my fear and raises my faith that's the story I want to live I want to run like that and then I look to the promises of God he's been faithful in the past he will be faithful now for me I remember when it came time I've got an opportunity to write a book I didn't I had a book I wanted to write and I sat for three months trying to write it I couldn't do it sat staring at a page but then I remember wants to give myself a mental break I thought God had called me to these young people and they're so hurting because their relationships are a mess and so just as a mental break I sketched out a 12 chapter book on dating for young people and I was like oh no I think God wants me to write this book I'm like I don't want to be the dating guy I don't I do not want that but every time I tried to study this nothing when I tried to study this everything when I was reading the Word of God it's just blowing up to me the heard of these kids and I've I felt what Jesus felt when he saw the crowds they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd he had compassion on them so he taught them many things and that verse just kept hitting on me look at these lost people I have a word that can help him so who cares about my reputation I want to write something that will help these sheep they're harassed and helpless so I wrote a book on dating and then moved to Washington DC and I thought the book was my swan song to college student something here's the best I can do for you good luck you know and then I moved to Washington and I remember that maybe the second time in life I put a suit on walked into the Capitol sat with the chief of staff of a senator there and said how can I serve you how can I serve your people and he went nobody knows how to date [Laughter] he said it's a town full of single people in their relations our mess and so I even married people the relationships are messy so do you think you'll talk about dating and I was like about a month later I got called from the chaplain of the Senate and before the church even started I was in a suit speaking in the Senate and I'm like what what am I doing here I remember we started community groups and we would just teach the Gospels show people Jesus and sit him in circles and people would walk in and rally there's no music no not today there's no music like you were to sit and talk about our feelings and I've never had a girl come up to me afterwards and she was like I just knew this wasn't gonna work she's like the minute you stood up there was like hey guys we're just gonna read the Bible and then get in community and talk to people she was like this guy doesn't get DC at all she's like I couldn't get out fast of like you don't know what you're doing people here don't talk about their feelings and she said but sure enough you asked people to discuss the Word of God and this girl opened up and she said and then the next thing I know I was hearing myself talk and I hadn't even stopped to think about my life and then I'll never forget what she says she said it was light I suddenly realized I was starving to death but I didn't even know how thirsty I was until you took that glass of water and said in front of us and it was like all the years of thirst came right when a glass of water was put in my hand and she said this is my church I'm coming back and we weren't cute we weren't hip but we have the Word of God and we have the people of God and we had people saying that's not gonna work but now we're running out of space and every now and again I look at that and I'm like where are we gonna get a building how are we gonna do it how are we gonna afford her works gonna help I'm looking out of a cautionary tale and I'm like wait a second no no no he's been faithful in the past you know be faithful now we trust him and let me tell you I know some of you go I don't have a past where I can look to the faithfulness of God I don't have a can in my past I got wreckage in my past well you just keep looking further back Joshua it's interesting a lot of time to go into all this but his name was not Joshua till this moment my name was Xhosa means salvation Moses changed his name you can do that when you're Moses well it's just that no said I'm not calling you anymore he said I'm calling you Yeshua he changed a little bit it doesn't mean salvation it means Yeshua the Lord saves Yeshua is Hebrew in the Greek translation which most of New Testaments written it's translated Yaesu when you Anglican eyes it and throw a bunch of J's in you can say Joshua same letters what we used to pronounce Jesus Jesus the Lord who saves he does it I don't have to figure out how to plant a church in DC I gotta figure out how to follow him and as I've presented people Jesus they're living lives of faith in lives of changing and can I tell you something study the life of Jesus walk with the people of Jesus stay into his word and walk step by step with him try it try speaking kindness instead of cursing try meditating on his word instead of meditating on the sports channel every day just pick one day say I'm gonna meditate on his word in the car I'm gonna read a verse and just think about it see what it does to the way your mind works begin to get around his people and risk building friendships and a lonely isolated culture risks swimming against the stream risk walking with him learning about him look back at the person of Jesus see his promises for you and then walk on trembling legs into the future with him I promise you there's blessing in the belief if you trust him thank you Lord then we don't have to be perfect but you were though we don't know how to save us so you sent a savior that we are children and you're a good father and so thank you Lord that the way this whole thing starts is not with us getting up our courage it's with us coming to you in admitting I need a rescuer I need a Joshua I need yes you I need Jesus to come help me I'm the Sheep harassed and helpless that's who I am and this whole relationship starts like a child into the world it is completely by the power of the parent so you look to Jesus today friend and tell him I want you save me I want you rescue me I want you forgive me adopt me you put your faith in him today and then God for those of us who would say I'm a person of faith I'm a man of faith I'm a woman of faith I have faith in Jesus let us not say it and then not do it you told us why do you call me Lord Lord and then not do what I say it doesn't make any sense if you believe me I want you to believe me if you trust me I want you to trust me with your relationships with your career with your money with your mouth with your decisions with your ego I want you to trust me and I just wonder if across our rooms right now he he's bringing something to your mind that you can tell him I want to trust you in this area I've been saying I'm a person of faith but I haven't had any faith in this part of my life I want to trust you I want to let your word speak to me here I want to believe you here and not let fear drown out your voice I don't want to just say I'm a person of faith I want to walk by faith I want my children to see me walk by faith tell them that today let's let faith rise in this house today [Music] you

Channel: Faithbridge

Views: 9,817

Rating: 4.9047618 out of 5

Keywords: faithbridge, ben stuart, faith, moses, promised land

Id: AKIczm9QlQs

Length: 43min 10sec (2590 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 22 2019