Bible Recap Week 13

In this week’s episode, Pastor Eric walks through Joshua and wrestles with a challenging question: why do some people phase out in their faith?

As God promises the land to Israel, He also calls them to go and take it. The promise is given—but action is required. In the same way, we are called to step forward in faith, not sit back in comfort.

This week is a reminder that God isn’t here to serve us—we are here to serve Him. He is faithful to give, but we are still called to go.

Transcript

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Hey everyone, and welcome to the Water's Edge Bible Recap Podcast. This is Pastor Eric, and I'm really glad you're listening. This podcast is one of the tools that we're using this year as we read through the Bible together. It's a chance for us to think about last week's reading. What's standing out to you, what's confusing, what might God be saying to us along the way? One of the things that we are focused on in the reading is what does our reading say about God? We call them God shots. How is it helping you trust God? I believe relationships move at the speed of trust. So the more you build a relationship with God, the more you know God and the more you trust Him. My hope is that along with this podcast and other tools that you're using, you're gonna grow in confidence. God is a missionary God, which means He sends us out to live and to love like Jesus. So see this time as a workout, a workout that builds muscle so you can live like Jesus. Love like Jesus. I love spending time in the Word with you like this. So let's get started. Well, friends, let me begin by saying we are in our sixth book of the Old Testament. And whether you're on schedule or running a little bit behind, or maybe you're just jumping in, um I am proud of you for wanting to get to know the holy inspired, powerful, um, God-breathed, spirit-breathed Word of God. This week we continue to see really what Moses was warning about um two weeks ago in Deuteronomy, and we're beginning to see these things uh surface. And it really begs the question: why do some people start step into what God has for them and stay with it while others will step in for a moment and stall out? Why is it that some have strong starts and then sometimes collapse? As a matter of fact, I've seen I've seen someone make a commitment on on a Sunday morning or in a small group and they are all in. And I'll get a call that next week and says, hey, um, we're yeah, we're probably gonna be looking for a different place. And I'm like, wait a minute, what you just why are you collapsing? Today, I want to focus on our reading in Joshua. Um according to my calendar, it's Joshua 1 through uh chapter 21. And really what I'm extracting out of this week um has a lot of, again, spiritual formation running through it. And so I want to kind of focus in on some of those things. Um the first idea that the first idea that um that uh that hit me this week was God's promises still require our activity. Um God's promises still require that we obey Him. Think of it as a relationship that that has a lot of if-then statements. Um, if you will do this, then I will do that. Um, even we talked last week about when Jesus said, um, if you love me, you'll you'll obey my commandments. Um it could even be, if you obey my commandments, then you're demonstrating your love for me. Um, or if you love me, then you will obey my commandments. And really we see this coming throughout all of our reading, but specifically, um I I jotted down Joshua 1. Um it's uh when when Joshua says, now then go, that a gos God says, now then go. I'm giving you every place, but you people have to go. So if you go, then I will give you every place. Um a great story in Joshua in Joshua 6, uh favorite story, Sunday school story, or whatever, uh, is Jericho. And God says, I'm gonna give you Jericho, but you have to go march. Um, Joshua 10. God fights for them, but you still have to show up for battle. So God promises the land, but Israel still has to step in and fight for it and walk it out. And as someone that is uh not a fighter, um me, I would rather back down, I'd rather not fight, I don't like to fight, um, I'd rather apologize, even if it's not my fault, and move on. But God says, no, you have to fight for what I will give you. And the tension in our reading with that kind of thinking is everywhere. God's gonna give this to you, but you have to go. God's gonna fight for you, but you have to engage. God's promises are for you, but you have to act upon it. And it it might beg the question for for some of you that might ask, well, why doesn't God just do it? Why doesn't he just, why doesn't God just take the people out and give them the land? Why does it matter if if we cooperate with God? Why doesn't he just do it? Well, many people are waiting on God for things in their life, and he's already told them what the next step is, but if they don't do it, God is not going to show up. That's not what a love relationship looks like. Otherwise, we wouldn't have our own self-will. God wants us to obey him, God wants us to love him, and if he wants to do something for us and he asks us to do something for him, we as servants of God will do it or should do it. Remember, God is not here to serve us, we are here to serve God. And um, I've noticed a lot of times there's a there's a spiritual um slowness or passiveness, and and it's often disguised as, you know, I'm just waiting on the Lord, just waiting on the Lord. And and it's really because they're afraid to make a decision. Um any type of breakthrough or any type of growth in one's life usually, usually looks like obedience before it looks like victory. And so so many individuals will just have this compromise, and we're gonna talk about that in just a minute, that there's a compromise into their decision. Um, and so the the application question that I wrote down are um, am I hesitating or on something that God has already made clear for me? Is there some type of hesitation in my life that God has already made clear? What steps have I delayed because I'm waiting on God a little bit longer, a little bit more certainty, even though I I know what I'm supposed to do. Um those are some questions I wrote down. And then the the the the next big idea that hit me this week is um whenever we compromise, whenever one compromises, that compromise leads or leaks, leaks downward. Um Israel's greatest threats were not external armies, they were internal compromise. And friends, that's true in our life, it's true in our church at Water's Edge, it's true in my family, it's true in your family. When we compromise God's plan for your life, when we want our life, when we make decisions and we don't spend time in prayer, when we compromise what we know is true or what should happen, um it doesn't just affect you. Um there are there are decisions that I made as the leader of my home, as the husband of Lisa or the father of my girls, and they were they were decisions that I didn't pray about because I knew if I did, God would shut the door. And so I and and I mean let me just give you uh a simple one. Um I I had a terrible problem with trading cars. Um uh I I have I've owned so many cars when I was younger, and I don't I don't know why. I don't know why I just had to have a new car all the time. Um it didn't have to be brand new, but I just I had to, my my first brand new car was was when the church um at at that time, Shorewood Church of God, said, um, instead of giving you mileage, we want to uh we want to provide a car for you. And that was my first brand new car. It was a Toyota uh Camry. And um but and thankfully at that point it slowed down, but but I was compromising. And you know, you can tell everybody in the world that you got a good deal on your car, but I knew in my heart I was compromising and it was leaking down into our everyday finances. Let me give you another example, much bigger and impactful. The Church of God, um uh the the movement, the church of God, in which the water water's edge is a part of, started with um in the very early uh years in the 1880s and and such, we started with a great and powerful decision that um was recognized by uh so many individuals, and that was white people and black people worship together. Now I know uh Pastor Julie talked about this a few weeks ago in her message, but we were one of the few organizations that started with a purpose of seeing people, all people, as created in the image of God. That's the Imago Deo. And and we believed that people were created in the image of God. So whether you were black or white or brown, whether you were male or female, um, it didn't matter. We were we were one body. And and that's how the Church of God existed for the first, oh, probably first 20, 25 years. And then when then we started um getting threats by the Klu Klux Klan. You see, the the KKK headquarters um in Indiana was less than 20 miles from Anderson, Indiana, and that's where the Church of God uh would gather each year for our camp meeting. It's it was the home of our publishing house. It was the home of our school, Anderson Um uh Bible uh school. It was it was the home of some of our strong churches in in uh at the beginning the beginning of the Church of God movement. And so with the threat of KKK being so close, and they were threatening and they were you know burning things and catching things on fire, the leadership of the Church of God at the time said to our black brothers and sisters, out of out of concern for you, maybe you should go somewhere else and have your own camp meeting. Um, you know, we love you all, but but some of our white people aren't coming to our meetings because they're afraid of the KKK. So out of our concern for you, which really sounds more like out of our concern for us, go find your own campground. And they did. And uh today that is uh called West, it's in West Middlesex, Pennsylvania, and um it's called Zion's Hill, and it is a it's a beautiful campground built on the side of a hill, and people own uh their own cottages and homes there, and that's where they still gather for their own uh camp meeting. But friends, it was a compromise in the Church of God that still has is leaking down um through the ages. We we really have struggled since then to see ourselves as one. And now, in in my era, um, I have heard and have been a part of conversations when they have said, you know, all you know, the white folks are saying to the black brothers and sisters, oh come on, don't be separate. You know, we're never gonna be seen as one if you don't come back to us. You don't need your own place. We are one, you are the one now causing division. And and our our black brothers and sisters are are like if especially if they know the history, there's they say, Well, wait, wait a minute, you you can come to us and worship with us, but why should we get rid of our home base? Why why should why should we get rid of of the land that that we came to because you told us to go get your own home. And now you want us to get rid of our own home. And why um it didn't mean for that to be a compromise. Um I I believe the the white leaders at the time they were afraid. Uh they were being cautious, they were, they were maybe even being good stewards. But if you read the history, it was also because many of the black leaders were becoming stronger leaders than some of the white leaders, and they were some of the stronger voices and certainly stronger preachers, and there was this compromise, and it leaked out, and uh, even today, and even though nobody else is alive that remembers the decision that was made, it still affects us as a movement. Um, in the in the readings today, I'm thinking of two specific um compromises with Achan when uh when he was hiding his sin, um, and then the Gibeonites who um were making decisions but they weren't seeking God. They they were prayerless, we call prayerless decisions, and those decisions leaked um leaked downward, and it impacted so many others than just those who were making those decisions. Um and that is still true today. Small disobedience, small disobedience leads to major impact. When when a person does not seek God first, I don't know if we always realize that that is a decision you're making. Um when when we do not seek God first, that's not just a oops, I forgot to pray. It's a decision that we're making. And I think the lesson for me um this week is this. Um don't hide, don't justify, don't ignore sin. Keep your heart right at all times. Seek first the kingdom of God. Above all things, seek God first. The the other thing I think of as kind of a big nugget of truth is integrity matters. Integrity matters more than intensity, um, integrity matters more than skill, integrity matters more than intelligence, integrity matters more than talent, integrity matters more than your pedigree. Um I don't I don't remember where where I read this or I heard this, but um I think of it often, and I want to close with this statement today. Um someone said again, I I don't remember where, but it it's what you tolerate in private. What you tolerate in private will eventually show up in public. Disobedience matters, and we see this in Joshua over and over. Um, and it leads, it just leads me to uh to really lean into Matthew 6.33. Seek first the kingdom of God and all of his righteousness, right? Just seek first God. I can't tell you how many meetings I've gone into and I haven't I haven't prayed first, or decisions that I've made as a husband or a father or a pastor or a state pastor, and I've made these decisions, and afterwards I'm like, man, I don't, I didn't even seek God on that. And and friends, it's a compromise. I don't want to live that way. God is not here to serve me, I'm here to serve Him, and I want to do that well, and I know you do too. God bless you. Thanks so much for listening to the Water's Edge Bible recap. I look forward every week to walking in the Word with you. You can find more information about Water's Edge Church at www.watersedge.faith. And you can listen to our weekly message on any platform under the Water's Edge website or by downloading the Water's Edge app.