True discipleship isn’t perfection but direction | Pastor Will Hawk | October 5th, 2025

A single question threads through ancient battlefields and modern routines: who are we choosing today? We walk through Joshua 5–8 to trace a pattern that feels uncannily current—kneel before the Lord, experience the joy of obedience, face the wreckage of hidden sin, and return to renewal. Along the way, we hear Jesus’s clear, present-tense call from Luke 9: deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow. The contrasts are vivid: Joshua meets the commander of the Lord’s army and discovers that the point isn’t “Whose side is God on?” but “Are we aligned with Him?” Jericho’s walls fall through trust, not tactics. Achan’s secrecy shows how private choices fracture a public community. And on Mount Ebal, the whole nation—women, children, and sojourners—gathers to remember and recommit under God’s Word.

We connect these scenes to everyday discipleship. True assurance doesn’t rest on a dusty memory of a card or aisle; it shows up in today’s footsteps. Time, difficulty, and change test roots. When the wind rises, do we release the aroma of Christ? We lean into a practical, grace-filled framework for examining direction over perfection—habits in Scripture, prayer, community care, and humble celebration of others. The good news holds the center: Jesus is the better Joshua who stepped beneath the stones we deserve, so we can stand on rubble by grace. Repentance is not meant to end in despair but to lead to remembrance, reaffirmation, and recommitment—at the table and in our rhythms.

If you’re hungry for a faith that’s honest about failure and stubborn about hope, this conversation is for you. Join us as we choose today—at home, in conflict, in fatigue—to say yes to Jesus again.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Scripture Reading: Luke 9
• 3:19 Framing Joshua’s Central Question
• 5:41 Commander of the Lord’s Army
• 9:46 Jericho: Obedience and Victory
• 14:41 Achan: Hidden Sin Exposed
• 20:16 When Wind Blows: Tests of Faith
• 23:56 Promise, Warning, and the Gospel
• 28:36 Mount Ebal: Remember and Renew
• 34:16 Choose This Day: Daily Allegiance
• 39:46 What Is a Disciple? Practical Rubric
• 44:46 Direction Over Perfection

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Please turn to your Bibles to Luke 9, 18 through 20 and 23 through 25, which is on page 867 in the pew Bibles, and follow along as I read God's Word. Now it happened that as he was praying alone, the disciples were with him, and he asked them, Who do the crowds say that I am? And they answered, John the Baptist, but others say Elijah, and others that one of the prophets of old has risen. Then he said to them, But who do you say that I am? And Peter answered, The Christ of God. And he said to all, If any one would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 1:50

Amen. Thank you, Lord. Well, guys, we are going to mix it up just a little bit, probably not as much as you would imagine. You'll notice you didn't turn to the book of Joshua when Laura came up here to read. We will be in the book of Joshua, but this morning we get to do something that I've actually been looking forward to since we opened the book of Joshua. In fact, there is something that I have wanted to talk with you about since we began it, and I have tucked it in as a phrase that I think God would have us wrestle with. Certainly, I think we as a church, a reader of the book of Joshua, should be wrestling with, but I don't know if I have made it abundantly clear. In fact, I intentionally have not. So here is where we are. We uh over the past few weeks read Joshua 5, 6, 7, and that is where we would be right now. However, I want to hit pause because there is something uniquely special about these four chapters in the book of Joshua. Four things that if you were to miss this, you would miss out on what I think would be the main push and theme of the entirety, not only of this book of the Bible, but how it actually connects with the New Testament as a whole. Also, let me hit a timeout real quick. I'm looking for Will Chambliss because I was supposed to tell y'all if we have gluten-free and if so, where it is right here and right here. Okay. If you need thank you, Will, much appreciated. If you need gluten-free communion, it'll be right there and right there. Gotcha. All right. All that being said, let's jump back into Joshua. Joshua 5, Joshua 6, Joshua 7, and Joshua 8. Now, you don't have to remember what happened in each of these chapters. We have been doing about a chapter a week every Sunday, but Joshua 5 would have looked something like this. Joshua sees a man with a sword drawn, and he walks toward him with all the confidence and all the boldness in the world, and he asks him a question. He asks him, Are you for us or are you for our enemies? And when this begins, what is being brought up is the theological question throughout the entirety of the book of Joshua. This is what it would have looked like in scripture. When Joshua is by Jericho, this is before Jericho falls, this is before Achan's sin. He's there, he sees it, God has called him, he lifts up his eyes and he looks, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us, option one, or for our adversaries? Option two. And the commander of the Lord's army says, Nope. You have missed the main option. The main option is not if I am for you, it is not if I am for your adversaries. I am the commander of the army of the Lord. It almost comes across as, you little thing, what are you asking? I'm the commander of the army of the Lord, and I have come. And Joshua falls on his face to the earth and he worships and said to him, What does the Lord say to my servant? Now I'm not going to re-preach this entire thing, but don't miss the word worship. Nowhere in Scripture are humans allowed to worship angels. This could come across as an angelic being. But this is something bigger than that. This is the commander of the Lord's army. This is what many people believe is. Starts with a TH. It is a very theological word. I said it once four weeks ago. Let's see if anybody remembered it. This is what we would call a theophany, way to go. If you didn't know that, you just learned a new word, where God kind of steps into the pages where we see potentially Jesus walk into the Old Testament with a sword in his hand. And in this moment, Joshua chapter five, we are given the theological question for the entire book of Joshua. Will God's people live by obedience and faith? And what does Joshua do? He falls on his knees and he calls Jesus Lord. Special thanks to Thomas for presetting us up in the theology of Jesus being both fully God and fully man. Now I just want you to put your eyes on the screen for a moment. This is the question throughout the whole book of Joshua, but is this also a question throughout the entire book of the Bible? Is this not the biggest question of the book that makes up the pages and chapters of your life? Will God's people live by faith and obedience? And the great news is we turn the page in chapter five and we get to chapter six. And they walk up on Jericho, and what is the answer? Are they going to be faithful? Are they going to be obedient? Yes or no? One, two, three. Yes. I could tell there was going to be hesitance there because we're so used to saying no. We're so used to being like, we're not faithful, we're not obedient. Christians, heads up for a minute. Sometimes you get it right. Peter went fishing many times and caught fish. He happened not to catch it when Jesus was out there so Jesus could prove a point. But Christians, you do get things right, okay? Uh, this is one of my favorite and biggest pet peeves of you as a congregation. Can I tell you what it is? I knew I was going to get positive feedback on the sermon last week. I had two things come through in text message more than anything else after last week's sermon. One of them you would guess, one of them you would not, okay? The first one, y'all know what it was because we've talked about it. The first one was, brother, that was such a good sermon. Just hit me right between the eyes. Hidden sin. And I just know y'all love to get beat up. You guys are like Bruce Willis in every movie. It doesn't count if you're not bloody by the time you make it to the door. If I taught you about victory in Jesus and overcoming and the delights of the life to come, y'all are right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But tell me how bad I am if you really want it to count. I just want you to know that about you. Scripture is full of delight and difficulty, of gravity and gladness, okay? There are good things that are good things because they're good. The second thing was all of these text messages about the young military guys who filled up the front two rows. That was my second favorite thing. To include fathers with single daughters, like, hook me up, let me know what's going on over there. That was a secondary thing. So when we turn to Joshua chapter six, this is a great chapter. This is a win. Jericho comes tumbling down because God's people threw stones at it. No. They win because they were the best fighters? No. Why did they win? Because God's people answered this question. We'll be obedient, we'll be faithful. You want me to do what now? Walk around a city? That's it? Yeah, do that for six days. Uh okay, sure. Six times. Day seven comes. Do that, run it again, do it seven times. Uh okay. I mean, doesn't make any sense. Nobody's ever won a battle this way, but God, you did just rip open a river to let us walk across. So sure. Seven times they go around, they shout, massive victory in chapter six. And then chapter seven. Now, before we go there, enjoy the win. I I try to tell people this in life, in marriage, in parenting. If you get a win, enjoy it. Take the W. Build on it. Everything that is yet to come in the book of Joshua. 7, 8, and following, here's what you must know God will accomplish his purposes. He will. Unchanging, unchallenged, always true. God will accomplish his purposes. He's gonna do it in Joshua's life, he's gonna do it in yours. He will do these things. The question is will God's people align with him in obedience? And as that question is being asked, this is my favorite picture, but you have to look closely to really appreciate it. We get to chapter 8. And in chapter 8, we have more stones falling, but instead of God's people standing upon them in victory, somebody stands below them in defeat. Christian, this is your life. This is it. Your life displayed in four chapters of the Old Testament millennia before you learned how to read these very pages. And when we get to Joshua chapter 7, we are jolted awake. Why? Because Achan outwardly looked like every other Israelite warrior. Two thousand people, two million people made up God's people, tens of thousands of soldiers, and he looked just like them. Looked probably just like you would on a Sunday morning if he had lived thousands of years later. But inwardly, his allegiance was elsewhere. He chose to serve himself, he chose to serve his desires, he chose to serve his cravings. Now, his particular craving, security, and wealth. Spoiler alert, many of us struggle with those same two things. And here is what it would have looked like in the pages of Scripture. Oh, where is it? But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. Watch this. For Achan, this is the guy's name, son of Carmi, son of Zabbi, son of Zara of the tribe of Judah, all of those things are listed because of how God selected him and made it on display. Took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against, watch carefully, the people of Israel. Right in the midst of the people of Israel is this one man who sins, and it costs the entire nation, because sin does not stay contained. Sin always spreads, usually to the people that you love or say that you love the most. And in the midst of this sin, God's word would ask us this question: Do you realize that you can be standing in the camp of God's people? Do you realize you can be singing the same songs? You can be attending the same gatherings and be an absolute fraud. And your fraudulence of soul does not just affect you. I think that last part is very pertinent for us because we have such an individualistic view of our faith. We think if I'm faking it with God, that's just between me and God. But the reality of it is everybody around us, before, behind, those we are going toward and those we are walking from, our sin affects all of it. And so what we find is that our allegiance is not really about appearance, but about an inward reality expressed in outward action. I know that's a bit wordy, so I'll leave it up there for a minute. What your allegiance to God is about, well, your allegiance to uh a sacrifice savior who overcome death, what it's really about is not appearance, but this inward reality expressed in outward action. If I were to put it differently, I would probably say, in calm weather, every tree looks strong. In calm weather, every single tree looks strong. And then a storm comes. And I apologize if I've repeated this story. And a storm comes through and it knocks over the one tree on your property amidst the many that your deer stand is in, and it blows it to the one side of the tree that your deer stand is on, and it absolutely demolishes it. Now, did God need to do that for the purposes of illustration? I hope not, but I am still trying to learn from whatever it is that the Lord was trying to teach me in that moment. Every one of us looks strong until the wind blows. And this is how we would see it in the New Testament. Now, this is John looking back many years later in his life, and he's looking at the church. He's looking at something much more like this than what Achan would have seen, but the same reality that Achan lived, John sees thousands of years ago. And he writes this sort of cryptic phrase. They went out from us. When it says us, this would mean the church. They went out from the church, but they were not of us. So they were here, they looked like us, they sang the same songs, they went to the same small groups, they wore the same Bible memory bracelets, they looked just like us, but they weren't of us because if they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it, please don't miss this, might become plain that they all are not of us. All right, if you like getting beat up, let me beat you up a little bit. Some of you are faking it. Some of you are faking it in a way that you have been faking it for a very, very long time. You're not just faking it today to try to get through a Sunday. You fake it every time you walk in. You fake it every time you part, you fake it every time you walk into a small group. Could be hidden sin like Achan, could be pride that you don't want to kneel like we see in Joshua 5 to the commander of the army of the Lord, to the one who says, It is not your way or their way, it is my way or the highway, there is no other way, except for the way of hell. So walk away from that way. That's what would be said. But please notice these three words. John wants you to know this will become plain. How does it become plain? I'll give you three ways time, difficulty, and change. Every tree looks strong until the winds begin to blow. What is it that shakes us? Time. Faking it for too long when we can't keep up with the lies, whether it's inside or outside, change, because it is difficult. And we want security. We want to know what tomorrow brings. Difficulty because we do not want it, and we are like sponges. For the good and for the bad, by the way. Christian, when you get squeezed, the aroma of Christ comes out. This is the sacrifice of the saints of God. Martyrs are a beautiful fragrance to the Lord, as gruesome as it sounds to us. Christian, when difficulty squeezes you, when the brokenness of the world, when the people around you, when those who are opposed to you squeeze you, the expectation of Scripture is the aroma of Christ comes out. But when we are squeezed and other things come out, it is God making it plain that we have not yet arrived. For some of us, it's, hey, I just need to make plain there's some more sanctification that needs to happen. You've trusted in God as your Savior, but you're not done yet. By the grace of God, he isn't finished with you. That is a good thing. That is a good time, difficulty and change he has brought. But for some of us, he brings it to squeeze us to show us there really is no life inside of us. We can put it on like Achan, but eventually it will become plain. This is one of the best times for you to assess it. Over time, through change, and with difficulty. And this theological question through the whole book of Joshua, will God's people live by faith, is putting something in front of us. It isn't just this question, it's also this one. Are you gonna live by obedience and faith, or are you gonna drift into rebellion and self-will? This is why chapter six and chapter seven are side by side. Do you want to know what obedience looks like and what the rewards of obedience are? It is you standing upon the rubble of the brokenness of this world victorious. But do you want to know what rebellion and going about life your own way looks like? It is not you standing upon the stones, but being held beneath them. Now, typically I would point to Jesus later in the sermon, especially on a communion Sunday, but I can't not do it right now. This in Joshua 6 is a promise. In Joshua 7, what we have is a warning. This is the gospel in short form. Do you want to trust God's way? Do you want to recognize that Christ has obtained the victory? Do you want to even go one step further and realize that the person on display here is Joshua and here is Achan? And do you want to realize that Jesus is very much like Joshua and Joshua, like Jesus? Their names are literally the same. You see Jesus written in the Greek and Joshua written in the Hebrew, but it is the same thing. Joshua is somebody who is obedient, who is faithful, who is a leader, who is sacrificial. And what do we see when we live life that way, standing upon the rubble? But what do we see with our own selfishness and self-will? We stand beneath the pile. And what does Jesus do? Achen, meaning trouble, trouble like you and me, those of us who live in it and many times create it. Jesus steps under the stones. He says, I love you enough to see that these stones are coming. They will crush you. Your sin is real, your brokenness is real. So you get to decide. Do you want me to stand beneath it and take the wrath of God so you can stand on top of it? Or do you just want to take the blows as they come? This is why Isaiah points to Jesus as one being crushed. He was pierced for our transgressions. Every sin that we commit, not just the biggies, the little ones too. Isaiah is prophesying every piercing, hand, hand, thorns coming down, spear in his side. He was pierced for your transgressions. What Isaiah wants you to feel is hey, I love you, but you did this. You're the reason stones are being thrown. And Jesus was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed beneath the weight of our iniquity. Upon him was the chastisement that brings us peace, but only if we will receive it. The craziest thing to me in the entirety of the Bible is how simple it is for your entire eternity to be changed. It's the simplicity of not just saying magical pixie dust words, Lord, I pray that you would forgive me of my sins, but you realizing I need a Joshua 5 reality. I need to bow down to the Lord of all creation. I need to know that He has secured the victory. Chapter 6. I need to realize that chapter 7, what I deserve is to be beneath a pile of rubble, which is why I bring us to Joshua 8. What happens in Joshua 8? When we have this incredible promise and then this victory and then this failure, what is it that comes next in Scripture? Well, Mount Abal comes in Scripture. I'm not going to do the entirety of chapter 8, but I would like to give you four verses from it. At that time, Joshua built an altar to the Lord. There are rocks everywhere in these four chapters. And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and they sacrificed peace offerings. We have sinned. We have failed. And that means we need to do something. For us, it isn't building an altar or slaying an animal. It is us slaying our own self-will and our own rebellion and bowing to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And afterward, I want you to imagine this. Okay. There are two million people in God's nation at this point, and children get invited to the church service on this Sunday. I'm using our vernacular. It wasn't Sunday, most likely. But I just want you to imagine church today on this Sunday in verse 34. And afterward, some of you guys are like, y'all cover a lot of scripture in a week. Challenge accepted. And afterward, he read all the words of the law. Please show up to that church service and leave with a good response. Five stars would recommend again. We read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It was a banger. That's what this is playing out. They read the blessings, the chapter sixes, and the curses, the chapter sevens. Midree, did you see what just happened? They were celebrating both the good and the bad. The two by fours that build things, and the two by fours that hit you between the eyes. Both good, both very good. Today, hopefully, is building. According to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded. And Moses could talk. He stuttered a bit, but once he got going, he had some things to say. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, in the event that you need to know what that means. It goes into more detail to include all of Israel, including the women and the little ones and the sojourners. Okay? This is amazing to me. Like we have a cry room right back there through those plated uh glass windows. In case you don't know, if you have a kid who starts crying, we did what we could to help. You can walk out on the back. You can still see what's going on in here. We have music playing. We also have like a room that's ladies only, by the way. Don't be the creepy guy who has a six-month-old and just bebops on in there. It's a nursing room, too. But we have it to make this sort of functional. Can you imagine an entire nation with all of the children gathering to listen to this? Why? Because God's word really, really mattered to them. It mattered enough to deal with the distraction. It mattered enough to deal with the difficulty. It mattered enough to lean into the time. It mattered enough to desire the change. And by the way, I love the fact that it says the sojourners and not just Rahab. It could, it could, I mean, keep in mind we're only two chapters away. Why doesn't it say, and the little ones and Rahab and her family? Because it's probably grown since then. Because there are probably more people in the family of God that were not born as ethnic Jews who are now gathering around. And so this is the picture. This is Joshua 5 through 8. And the reason that I want you to see this is because we are called to do what they did at Mount Abel. We are called to do this. Why? Because if you're a Christian, you have submitted to the Lordship of Jesus. If you are a Christian, you have seen victory. If you've been a Christian for five minutes, you have also recognized your own failure. And as a result, chapter 8 is incredibly necessary, where we gather together and we remind ourselves of the law of God, even if you have heard it for 50 years. We remind ourselves of this. How do we do this? Well, we do it many times through communion. Remember these things. Remember the body that was broken, remember the blood that was shed. This reminding, this movement is showing us that repentance isn't supposed to end in despair, Christian. Chapter 8 is not about sadness. It is about recognizing our brokenness, giving it to the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, and realizing that he is going to bring about the winning of the battles of life and ultimately the war over sin and darkness. In other words, when you see this, what you ought to see is an upward trajectory of loving Jesus. That's what you ought to see. To put it differently, true discipleship, a word for following Christ, is not perfection but direction. If it was perfection, we'd get rid of this one and we'd probably get rid of this one. Except that's not true life. That's not your flesh, that's not your soul, it's not the way you make decisions. And so instead, we are called to true discipleship, true following of the Lord. And it is not about your perfection, but it is about your direction. So I will ask you this. Are you, specifically you, remembering, reaffirming, and recommitting yourself to the Lord? We're called to do this through communion. We're called to do this in our marriages, we're called to do this with our children. We are called to do this throughout many, many portions of our life. Are you constantly doing this? When is the last time that you pause to remember? You pause to reaffirm, God, you are Lord of my life. You can recommitted yourself to being a Christian who walks with the Lord. This is why we stop here in Joshua 5, 6, 7, and 8. Because what Joshua is wanting you to do is the same thing Jesus wants you to do. And I've put it up there from week one. Choose this day. Choose this day. We often think I chose Christ once, so I'm good. I went down at an altar call at summer camp. I was baptized many years ago. I prayed a prayer on my dorm room floor many years ago. But Joshua ends the book like this. Choose, this is uh chapter 24, the last chapter. Choose this day whom you will serve. Whether the gods of your father, the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Quick question. Do any of you guys have this on like a doily in your house? I just want, show of hands, this exists somewhere in your home right now. Like the most coffee cup verse for something that's gonna end up in a picture frame, it's this one. And some of you grew up walking past it in the kitchen or looking at it in the restroom or on a frame next to your parents' bed. For me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And we made it a declaration. I'm putting this four by six thing up, and none of my kids are gonna stray. All right, now time out. Do you realize that there is a predicate to the part we all like? For me and my house, we will serve the Lord. How do you get there? You pick it every single day. That's how you get there. If I were to read this, this is the exact same text, but I'll tell you how it pops when Will's eyes hit the page. This is what I see. Choose today who you're gonna serve. For me and my house, it's gonna be the Lord. Now notice the options that Joshua tucks into the middle. Lowercase G gods of your fathers before, lowercase g gods of the Amorites in front of them. What is he saying? All of the things in your past and all of the things in your future, all of the little g gods, all of those things that your heart used to go to, are you gonna go back to them? Are you going back to alcohol and drunkenness? Are you going back to loose living? Are you going back to a wasted life in front of a screen? Or are you going back to foolishness? Or is your antenna up so that you don't go towards the little gigs you don't even know are coming? The winds that are gonna blow in the days ahead to show if you are strong, the squeezing that is going to come so that the sponge of your soul would exude what? The aroma of Christ. And Joshua says, Me, me, and my people, it's Jesus, it's the Lord, it's the all caps L O R D. This is The King of kings and the Lord of Lords. For me, for my house. Why? Because the life we live affects the people around us. It is Jesus. It is Him. But you don't get there with one decision. It is choosing this day who we are going to serve. The reason I've wanted to pause here, the reason I've been looking forward to this sermon the entire time we've been in the book of Joshua for two months is because this is the Christian life. It's the Christian life 2,000 years before Jesus asked somebody to follow it. It's the Christian life before you even understood the words of justification and sanctification. It is the Christian life of promise leading to victory, you being warned of your sin so that you wouldn't end up beneath it, but then knowing that when you do, there is an invitation to come to the Lord, to recommit, and to draw near to him. Kneel, chapter 5. Let God be God and the Lord of your life. Celebrate, chapter 6, the victories that he has already accomplished in your life, and the ones that you're doubting, that he wants to see victory end. Be warned. There are gods behind you and gods before you who want to put you under a pile of stones. Jesus already got under them. There's no need for you to be there and be invited back. That when you do fail, there is hope. You see, Joshua is not a book about choose this day. Jesus would be the one who says, Choose this day. And if you need me to prove it, I'll give you some of his words. And Jesus said to everybody. Sorry. If anyone, this is what you would call a universal claim. This is Jesus opening the doors as wide as he can open them and saying, hey, if you've got ears to hear, can you hear me right now? I'm talking to anyone and everyone. If you want to come after me, deny himself and take up his cross every single day and follow me. When you wake up in the morning, I want you to follow Jesus. When you are tired and worn out, I don't want you to go to coffee. I want you to follow Jesus. When you are getting in your car on your way to work or on your way home, I want you to choose Jesus. When you're in the midst of an argument with a friend or a spouse, I want you on that day, in that moment, to choose Jesus. When you're overwhelmed to the place that you just want to scream or drive your car into a ditch, I want you to choose Jesus. When you are crumbled in depression and anxiety, I want you to choose Jesus. Why? Because God wants you to choose Jesus. When daily by this we may know that we are in Him. How do I know that I'm a Christian? How far can I go with my girlfriend? Has it changed? No. Same three questions. I didn't get asked about the boyfriend. They would talk to my wife about that. I would have had the conversation. Here is one of the three questions I've been asked more in ministry than anything else. Well, how do I know that I'm in Jesus? I'll be honest with you, there are some times when I doubt my salvation. I doubt my faith. Do you realize Jesus hasn't has answered that question definitively? And he doesn't answer it the way we do. Do you know how we answer it? We say, Yeah, well, you remember I filled out that card. I talked to the pastor. Hey, well, how can I know that I'm a Christian? Well, I walked down the aisle. How can I know that I'm a Christian? I prayed that prayer with tears with my mom and with my dad. How can I know that I'm a Christian? You're not gonna see that here. Do you know what you're gonna see? Whoever says he abides in him, in Jesus, ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. Do you know what Jesus is saying? What Jesus is saying is, if you want to know if you're in me, does it look like you're walking with me today? Now, yes, you respond to the gospel once, and it does cover you for all time. But how do we know if what we did was a true response to the gospel? We walk with him over time, through difficulty, amidst change. Christian, I can't tell you how often I get this question, and the answer is simple. I know that I'm a Christian because I repented of my sins when I was nine years old and I got baptized, and I'm still repenting. And if you leave out those last four words, you're trying to live the Bible without actually living the Bible. You're trying to live one piece of it. This is how we know that we are in him. I am walking with him because true discipleship is not perfection but direction. Now, this whole thing has been set up because I kept having the same conversation with people. People at the church who had been walking with the Lord for 50 years, people who were new to Jesus, and I would ask them this question. Are you a disciple of Jesus? And almost without thinking, every response I got was, Yes, it's okay. I can tell y'all are a little timid now. You're like, you're gonna pull, you're gonna pull the rug out from under us, aren't you? We can tell. You're gonna do it, aren't you? I'm not. I'm not. The question was, am I? I would say, hey, are you a disciple of Jesus? Yeah, of course I'm a disciple of Jesus. I've grown up in the church, so did Aiken. I've sang the songs and done Phoebe. Yes, I've I've memorized scripture, so did Achan. Will I I okay, okay. So, yes, I'm a disciple. And then I would say this, how do you know? And that was the best moment because they would go, and if their answer pointed to one thing, it means we are not understanding our Bibles. Am I a disciple of Jesus? Yes. How do you know? Uh, let me point to this one thing I did this one time. That's not what the Bible would say. And I looked at so many people that I knew were Christians as much as one can, and they couldn't answer the question. So as we started going through Joshua and I wanted to put in front of you this concept of choose this day, we decided to start working on it as a staff. I'm not gonna send you there now, but if you wanted to go to our church website, we just put something up. This little question, it'll be on the top header if you want to check it out, called What is a Disciple? If you want to go there now, you can, but don't worry, I've already got you covered because I printed not the article. There's an article for you to read, but a little checklist, a little rubric for you to look at. Additionally, I now need the help of everybody who is sitting on the left side of their pew. If you look under your pew, you will find a brand new card. Now you'll find a little stack of papers. I just want you to take those and pass them to your right. Why? Because we're trying to get you guys to practice so that we can do offering in the future? No, because I want you to be able to have this piece of paper in front of you. Now, look, if you do not know me and if you do not know Midtree, your antenna is going to be up for can I trust this? It is important that you hear this from me. I am not giving you a religious checklist. I don't want you guys to look like Akins. But what I do want is for you to have some way of knowing, am I a disciple of Jesus? By the way, let me get your eyes. I can tell you're already on the paper. I'll get there in a minute. Let me get your eyes. I said it too soon. All right. The elders meet once a month and we answer questions similar to this, but a little bit more intimate, if I can be quite honest, okay? It is not because we're trying to look good or be religious. It's because we want to make sure we are being the thing that we are claiming to be and believe we are called to be. If you are a Christian, I submit to you that the three things that we have designed from the early days of the church, that we want to be a church that is solid theology and warm community, members who shepherd one another through the delights and difficulties of life and families where everybody has a place and pitches in. Tucked into those three things are ways for you to know if you are a disciple. We are handing these things to you so that you can realize this is the Christian life and begin to answer this question. Will we choose this day to be discipled by Jesus? This is what I've been wanting to get to since we got into chapter seven. Hey, can I borrow one? Gina, will you let me borrow yours? I forgot to bring one up. Thank you. The goal is not for you to get all A's, you A-type people who forget how much grace you need. The goal is honesty. By the way, we're not taking these up. We're not giving out grades. Like, don't come up and be like, here you go, Will, here's mine. Like, I if you're giving it to me, I already know you did well. All right, whatever. The reason we put never and always is so that it would be a scale. The concept here is you would kind of grab your pen and maybe you do this once a month. Maybe you do this a quiet time every Sunday after communion. That's why we made it an article, because I know half of these are gonna get lost. But the thought was you would look and say, Am I regularly in God's Word? Well, between never and always, where am I? Why? Because the goal is not perfection, it is direction. Christian, make sure that you understand this. So we hand this to you so that when someone walks up to you and says, Are you a disciple of Christ? You can joyfully say, Yes. Well, how do you know? Well, because I'm more in the word than I used to be. And I sit and I listen under it. How do I know I'm a disciple? Because part three, number one, at Sunday, I'm not just seeking personally to connect. I want to help people in the body connect as well. When I sit down in a pew, I'm not just thinking about me and Jesus, though I need to. I'm wondering about the people around me. I'm praying silently for the person that I don't know that is sitting near me. That's one way that I know that I'm a disciple. How do I know part two, number two? I'm celebrating other successes instead of selfishly only looking for my own. I submit this to you not as something that is supposed to be a wait, but something that is supposed to be an encouragement. This is a toolbox Sunday. We as pastors and as a staff are trying to equip you for the Christian life. So I wanted to end it on the positive. Will we choose this day to be discipled by Jesus? I hope your answer is yes. And if you have not chosen to trust in Jesus, I hope today will be the day that you do. Where you go back to Joshua 5 and you say, the first thing I need to do before I find victory or overcome difficulty is I need to bow the knee to Jesus. And here is the great news. Are we going to choose this day to be discipled by Jesus? Well, I'll tell you this, I'm sure of it. I am confident that the vast majority of the answers will be yes. And I am confident that many of you are going to literally walk this out. Why? Because the Holy Spirit is confident. He's confident in himself and in his ability to sanctify you and make you like Christ. I am sure of this: that he who began a good work in you is going to complete that work in you. He's going to complete it at the day of Jesus Christ because he's completing it every day until the day of Jesus Christ. So I give you two things to ponder on and think on as we get ready for communion. But I want you to know I am banking on the surety of God that this is going to happen. And that is encouraging to me. So I give you two things to ponder on. One of them is in your hands and one of them is on the screen. I don't know which one you need to look at, maybe both. Do you need to remember what Christ did to bring you into his family? Do you need to reaffirm yourself? Do you need to recommit yourself? Because that is not only Joshua, it is the Christian life. Do you need to navigate that little handout? Am I being a disciple today? Whichever it is, I am sure of this. He who began a good work in you is going to complete it. So let's choose today to take steps toward him this morning. If you need to talk with the pastor, there will be a couple of us on the back porch. If you want to sit, sit. We told you where to find communion, but you don't have to rush to it. But let's respond as the Spirit leads and pursue the Lord together.