Thank you, God, that you call us to be a part of your great mission in the world, to be strong and courageous as you called Joshua to do that. I pray that we would follow in his footsteps and ultimately make much of King Jesus. We pray in his mighty name. Amen. Amen.

May be seated. Well, good morning. Kids are invited to go to children’s church this time. So, thanks for joining us, kids. All right.

Well, as Kelly mentioned, we are in a new series, starting a new series called Battle Ready and getting into the book of Joshua. The book of Joshua. And there is so much I love about Joshua. I think it’s especially appropriate for me because Joshua begins with a a new leader taking a new post and being commissioned by God. And of course, this is coming on the heels.

I’m now your freshly commissioned senior pastor here at Graceoint. I’m very humbled and and thankful. I know that it takes an army of faithful servants of the Lord to make all of that come about. I know so many of you were contributing in the background and and also just making making that possible. So, thank you.

I’m truly grateful and I I hope you came away from that time thinking about also not just this is a time to celebrate, but this is this is a weighty thing that God is moving Grace Point forward and and here we are. We’re we’re in this together. We’re we’re in the great commission together. And it’s very much like what happens with Joshua. He’s called to lead his people into the promised land.

Joshua is a powerful book also because it teaches us how to live out the Christian life with strength and courage. There are many fiery darts that come our way as Christians. There are many things that oppose us and could discourage us and bring us down. And before we know it, it’s very easy for us to have low expectations of what God can do in and through us because we see so many things that are a problem or so many things assail us personally. Joshua reminds us to be battle ready for all those seasons.

And most of us, if we’re honest with ourselves, I I think we sense that there is a battle happening just under the surface in our lives. There’s an unseen force or unseen forces I should say that want to discourage, disable, and destroy us. We are in a battle. And that’s something as Christians, we we are called to have that mindset that we’re not just here to coast along and and just be comfortable and and hope for the best. We’re to have a battle mindset that says in the Lord, in his strength, in the courage he gives, we can move forward.

Joshua is called at this crucial time in Israel’s history to be their leader, their godly leader. And I was thinking about this. You know, there are a lot of books out there on leadership. You can fill a whole library just books on leadership. And a lot of those have some very good principles and I would say that you can learn a lot from them.

But as a follower of Jesus, I think that we should have a unique perspective on leadership. We should remember that the best followers, excuse me, the best leaders are those who first learn to be good followers. We follow King Jesus and then out of that our leadership is shaped. It’s by him. And here’s the big idea this morning.

The godly leader is called to be strong and courageous through God’s power, promises, presence, and people. Power, promises, presence, and people. And so if you would please stand for the reading of God’s holy word. Joshua chapter 1. And we’re just going to read the first nine verses of Joshua.

Coming on the heels of Moses’s death here. And this is what we read. God’s holy word. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’s assistant, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, this river, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.

Every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the great sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you. All the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Thank you.

You may be seated. Joshua, the book of Joshua, in many ways it reads like a war epic. There are lots of battles and conquests that unfold. To be honest, there are also some less exciting passages that read more like a property deed when lands getting divided up. But many people wonder, you know, what is this book that’s full of violence and and battles?

What what is this doing in the Bible? How is this relevant for me today? Do we really need to pay attention to what happened to Joshua 1500 some years ago? Or more than that, I should say 3500 some years ago. Well, I would say there’s a number of reasons why Joshua is relevant to us today.

Number one, Joshua points us to Jesus. One of the things that proves to me that the Bible is a supernatural book is that you have what is really a library of 66 books written by about 40 different authors over the course of 1,500 years. And yet what is undeniable is that when you read this book, there is one story of redemption going through it. One author and and ultimately one focus. The Bible is not a how-to book of how to become a better person.

It is a book about Jesus. It’s about his redemption of sinful mankind. Joshua is a military captain and conqueror, but he’s really just a type. He’s a picture of Jesus, the greater Joshua. Jesus is called the captain of our salvation and the one who has conquered sin and death for us.

Joshua’s given name was Hosa, which just means salvation. But Moses changed Joshua’s name to Joshua, which means Yahweh is salvation. Making it personal, recognizing where salvation comes from. Now, if that sounds familiar, that’s because Joshua or Yeshua is the Hebrew form of the name Jesus. And you remember when Jesus was given that name, the angel said, “You shall call his name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.”

And so Joshua like Jesus is a deliverer. Jesus is the greater deliverer. But Joshua is a picture of the coming one. The second big thing we see in this book is the predominance of the land. The land which of course today even now 3,500 plus years later we are looking at so many so many conflicts happening in the Middle East so much war is happening over land and even back then we see that the land was predominant the book of Joshua is all about Israel taking the promised land if you look at chapter 1:es 3 and 4 talks about how Joshua was told you shall go in and take the land.

It’s yours, Joshua. It belongs to my people. You just need to go in and take it. So, it’s called the promised land because of those promises made to Abraham and his descendants. Those promises, by the way, came by sheer grace.

Abram, at the time before he was Abraham, he was a pagan living in a pagan land. He hadn’t earned this land. There was nothing drawing God to feel obligated to do this for Abram. It was simply because of grace. God showed his grace to Abram.

And because of that, he made this promise to his descendants that they would have this land. But up until this point, those promises hadn’t been fulfilled. Moses had led the people for 40 plus years. They’d been wandering in a desert. But now we come to the time where Moses is now dead.

God had said to Moses, “You can go to Mount Nebo and you can look out on all the land of the promised land, all the land of Canaan that I’m going to give to Israel, but you yourself don’t get to go in.” See, Moses had dishonored God’s holy name in one particular instance. And God said that as as punishment, you don’t get to go in. You’ve led this people. You’ve longed to go into this land.

It’s not going to be you, Moses. It’s going to be Joshua that takes the people into the land. So, here’s why the land promise matters so much even today. God promised that a savior would be born in this land. He promised that there would be a baby born of a virgin.

He said that this would happen from the line of King David and the tribe of Judah and it would be at a particular time in a particular place, a city in this land. And so we need to see that all of the gospel promises, everything we cherish about Jesus, all those promises, in order for them to be fulfilled, they had to be in the land. So, it really matters that Israel with Joshua went into the land as they did. And one more thing we’ll see in Joshua is how we are to fight the battles we face. We are assailed on every side.

We have the enemies we call the the world, the flesh, and the devil. We talked about this even at table talk yesterday. We have enemies, real enemies, not not fictional enemies, real enemies that want to bring us down and want to discourage us. And so if we’re aware of that, we’ll be prepared for the battle. Joshua has been summoned to lead the people into Canaan.

This great task. Here’s what he tells God tells Joshua. Verse two, Moses, my servant, is dead. Therefore, the time has come for you, Joshua, to lead these people across the Jordan River into the land that I am giving them. Just imagine for a moment how Joshua felt at that time.

Here he is. He’s coming on the heels of Israel’s greatest prophet. We’re talking about Moses. Moses here. You know, Moses, the guy who went up on the mountain, received the law of God.

He was there with all the plagues in Egypt. He led the people through the Red Sea, big white beard. That Moses. And and Joshua is supposed to fill his sandals. I can just imagine how he feels.

In fact, I think I can relate to him a little bit. I’m coming on the heels of pastor Steve who was leading this church for 31 years which by the way that is awesome. That is a rare thing for a pastor to faithfully remain at his post for that long. So praise God for that. But you think about Joshua.

He’s thinking of all that Moses did. Moses spoke with God face to face and yet here he is. He’s called to the front so to speak. You can’t hang out in the back, Joshua. You’re not just Moses’s assistant.

You are to lead this people, Joshua. And this is where the godly leader is to look for strength. Number one, the godly leader knows we are at war and is strengthened by God for the battle. We are in a war. And I’m not talking about anything going on in the Middle East.

I’m talking about something in the spiritual nature. Now if if you have been told you know maybe you were some people were told this if you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior your life is going to go so well you know it’s going to be health, wealth, prosperity, sunshine, and lollipops. If you were told that I’m going to I’m going to let you down easy. You were lied to. That was a bald-faced lie because everything that Jesus said about following him would tell us you are now enlisted for war.

Amen. You’re now my follower. Which means if they came I came into this world, Jesus says, “I got crucified.” Do you think it’s going to be a walk in the park for you? To be a Christian is to be engaged in the battle.

And see, to be unaware of that you’re in a battle is to leave yourself unprepared for that day of battle. That’s where we don’t want to be. Paul urged Timothy, “Fight the good fight of the faith.” Then he later says,”Join with me in suffering like a good soldier of King Jesus.” He tells the Ephesians, “Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.”

So according to the Bible, we are in a war that is spiritual in nature. Now the problem is a lot of people, they hear that word spiritual and they immediately think, “Oh, well this war then is less real.” It’s the exact opposite. This is the real war. Th This is the war that has been waging since the dawn of time.

And and in reality, whether you’ve lived one decade or multiple decades, you were dropped into the battlefield, so to speak, of a war that has been going on for a very long time. And so, I’m calling this series in Joshua Battle Ready because we need to recognize that we are in a battle and that we do need to armor up. I want you to think of some of your favorite fictional stories. Maybe a a movie you watched or a book you’ve read. Think about what made that story so compelling.

I’m going to bet that there was some conflict in that story. There was some somehow something went wrong in Paradise, right? There was good at the beginning and something went wrong. And I’m going to bet that there was also a villain. And and you can think of some of your favorite movies.

These have a villain in them almost always and there’s a reason for that. Whether it’s Darth Vader or Thanos or Mr. Potter from It’s a Wonderful Life, these stories engage us. They feel compelling because they’re a picture of reality. They’re just a dim reflection of the fact that we are actually in a conflict and that there is a villain.

There’s an enemy that opposes us. That’s why they resonate with us. The Bible calls our enemy the serpent, the dragon, the adversary, the accuser, the Satan, and the devil. He is a real enemy. The devil is real.

Don’t believe the lie that, you know, he’s just this madeup character. It runs around in a red jump jumpsuit and, you know, pitchfork and and he comes and, you know, he shows up at Halloween or whatever. No, the devil is real and he’s a personal enemy that opposes us and he has hordes. According to the Bible, there are hordes of demonic forces on his side. The Bible doesn’t give us every detail of how he came about, all the details of the origin of evil, but the Bible tells us kind of with these dim pictures that he was created as an angel of light and then he rebelled against God in his pride and became the prince of darkness.

And because God because he opposes God and wants to rob God of glory, Satan comes after us because he can he can get to us, so to speak. He he can get to us and we remind him of God because we bear the image and likeness of God. You say, “How does the devil get at us?” Well, the Bible calls him a schemer. He he is not just popping in and out without any reason or rationale.

He has a strategy. The Bible talks about this. He schemes his way and he makes these strategies of deception. He uses lies. And one of the key ways that he will do this is he’ll he’ll lie about God.

He will distort our understanding of who God is. He will want you to believe the false picture of God. He wants you to believe there’s more pleasure in sin than in God. The devil wants to deceive you and discourage you. He wants you to think that you’re in a fight, yes, but you’re on the losing side.

He wants you to feel like a failure and a victim, not a victor. And so, we do need to know that we are in a war. And according to the Bible, this war is still going on. It’s been going on from the beginning. But that is why this explains so much when you think about it.

It explains why if at times you felt like your marriage is under attack or maybe you felt like other relationships there was something that was causing there’s this opposition going on there. Maybe you felt discouraged at work or maybe you feel like you’re constantly assailed by temptation. Where is that coming from? Why? Maybe you feel defeated by the state of our culture or you just feel like you’re up against something bigger than yourself.

That’s because we are in a war. And it’s a very real war. It’s a spiritual war. But I’ve got some good news. Jesus Christ has already defeated the devil.

The victory has already been secured. He won it at the cross and resurrection. And so what we are called to do now is to live in that victory that Jesus achieved for us. To not believe the lie that we are victims or failures or have no hope in this battle because we have every reason for hope. His victory is certain.

And so the godly leader in your notes knows we fight with assurance of victory in Jesus Christ. The Bible says in Christ Jesus we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. Ultimately the war is already decided. We don’t know every detail of how the war will come about, but we do know the outcome. We know that Jesus wins in the end.

And because of that, we don’t have to fear. The reality is even the devil knows that he’s going to lose. That that’s why the Bible says this. It says that he is not only does he know that he’s headed for the lake of fire, the Bible says because he knows his time is short, he’s filled with wrath. And so he’s causing as much damage and chaos as he can until his final condemnation.

And so we need to learn how to fight the good fight by relying on Christ. God tells Joshua from the beginning that he can be assured of victory. Look at verse five. No one, I love that. No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live.

And this is why. For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you. We need to let that truth sink in. As long as we know that Jesus is with us, as long as we are living under his authority, living under his kingship, his reign over our life, if we’re bowing the knee to Jesus, we will have victory.

But the moment we start to come out from under his authority and we start to live like the world and live as if he’s not our authority, well, that’s when we’re doomed to fail. As it’s been said, one with God is a majority. And so, as we study Joshua, and by the way, let me just encourage you to in the next week or so, read the first 10 chapters of Joshua, and you’ll get a picture of where we’re going in the series. As we study Joshua, we will see principles for disciplehip today. We’ll see that this book really matters.

It’s very important that we know what happened with Joshua and we know what how God assisted him or or helped him to defeat the battle. We’ll we’ll know how it is that he became a victor. If we study this book in football, teams will study the game film of the opponent they’re going to face the following Sunday. And we should know this that Satan has been studying the game film of humanity for a very long time. And so in many ways he knows he knows the game film of his opponent.

But the good news is that we also can study the game film of our opponent by reading the word of God. And the Bible gives us a strategy for warfare. Ephesians positions us in Christ and says all the spiritual blessings of God are found in Christ. You want to have victory, you need to live under Christ in union with Christ. They’ve all been purchased by the the blood of Christ at the cross.

But the Bible says we also need to appropriate those blessings. It’s not enough just to know that they’re out there. We need to live in that victory. Live as conquerors. And so that’s why Paul tells us to put on the armor of God.

See, it’s it’s not just go into that battle guns blazing. You know, you got this. That message is all wrong. It’s you got to take up the armor of God. You need to wear the armor that God has for you.

Otherwise, you will fail in that battle. I want us to see by analogy that our Canaan is all the spiritual blessings we have in Christ. So Joshua and Israel, they’re called to go into Canaan. That’s where the blessings are at. The land of abundance.

Moses said it’s a land flowing with milk and honey. That’s a picture of of abundance in life. And in the same way, we are called to go deeper into our relationship with Jesus to be appropriating the blessings we have in him. So they were to come to a land. We come to a person.

Jesus is our promised land. That’s where abundant life is found. And I want you to think about where Joshua comes in the story of scripture when God worked all those wonders and he brought his people out of Egypt. You remember that before all this that that wasn’t the end. God had told them that he was going to bring them to a land.

So it wasn’t just it wasn’t enough just to get them out of Egypt. They need to to get in to Canaan. They needed to get out so that they could be brought in. And it’s the same for us. It’s not enough for us to know what we’ve been saved from.

We need to know what we’ve been saved for. We’ve been saved from hell, but it’s not enough to know that Jesus saves us from hell. We need to see that Jesus saves us for union with himself. And as we live in that union and experience the blessings of that union, we have victory. Many Christians will settle for getting out of Egypt, not realizing that we’re called to go into Canaan.

Otherwise, we’re just going to wander in that spiritual wasteland, going in circles for 40 years. But to go into Canaan is to recognize that we need to do battle. That’s what came with Canaan. The enemies were in Canaan. They had to do battle with the enemy if they were to experience the blessings.

Because again, Satan does not want you to recognize all that is yours in Christ. He would love it if you thought that Jesus is just my ticket out of hell and that’s it. If he if he had his way, he would not let us know about any of the blessings, any of the the joys, the peace, the the overcoming that is ours in Christ. So, I’d encourage you even now to take inventory in your own life. Think about it.

Are you right now would you say that you are experiencing spiritual defeat or spiritual victory? Does it feel like you’re in a spiritual wasteland or does it feel like you are going into the promised land? Where does the godly leader go? Everything depends on God’s presence with him. So in your notes, the godly leader protects his integrity by living before the face of God.

God wants Joshua to understand this. You’re not alone in this fight, Joshua. You’re you’re called to this great task, but you’re not doing it alone. It’s not just Israel, the armies with you. I am with you.

That’s what makes all the difference. He says in verse six, “Be strong and courageous, for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land I swore to their ancestors I would give them.” And God is going to tell Joshua that three times. Be strong and courageous over and over. And you might wonder, well, why does Joshua need to hear that just over and over?

Be strong and courageous. And I think it’s good to remember that these people in the Bible, they were not superheroes, right? They weren’t, this isn’t, this is Captain Joshua, not Captain America. And we need to remember that they were people like you and me. And so he probably sometimes struggled with feelings of inadequacy.

He he struggled with knowing if he was the right one. And so Joshua is told by God, “Be strong and courageous, Joshua. You need to hear this. I am with you and you are the one for the job.” The Bible always urges us to press on.

Not to sit idly, but to press on toward the upward calling that is ours in Christ Jesus. Some people think our job as Christians is to have a fortress mentality where we just kind of hold down the fort until Jesus comes back. Instead of thinking of how the gospel needs to advance and the kingdom needs to grow and expand like that mustard seed becoming this massive tree, we’re not just to hunker down until Jesus comes back. We are to be soldiers ready for battle. Joshua has that mindset.

In fact, from the very first time we meet Joshua in Exodus, we see that he’s a fighter. He is battling right away. But he’s a faithful fighter because he recognizes how badly he needs God. The book of Numbers records a time when 12 spies are sent out to to spy out the land of Canaan. And they go out and they see, man, this land is amazing.

It’s flowing with milk and honey. There are giant grapes. There’s also giant people. And 10 of those spies come back and they give bad news. They say, “Oh man, we don’t stand a chance.

We’re going to get squished like grasshoppers out there.” That’s bad news. How many of you are tired of hearing bad news? You turn on the TV, bad news. You look at your phone, so much bad news is out there.

But we of all people should know that we have the greatest news imaginable. Jesus is alive. Amen. There is forgiveness of sins available, eternal life with him, adoption into the family of God. We have everything we need in Christ.

We have the greatest news imaginable. And so when people see us, they shouldn’t think, “Oh, there’s those Christians. They’re always saying how bad everything is.” No, we are to be good news people because we know Jesus. We want to tell them, “Look, Jesus has changed my life.

Would you like to know him? The other 10 spies have only bad news to share. Joshua and his buddy Caleb come back and they say, “Look, if God says we can take the land, we can take the land. That there’s nothing stopping us. If God is with us, we can do this.”

But they are the minority report. And so because of that, the the 10 other spies persuade the masses and they’re ready to stone Joshua and Caleb. So think about this. That was 40 years before now Joshua is leading. This same nation is getting ready to stone Joshua and Caleb.

But then God tells Moses he’s going to judge them and make them wander in the desert for 40 long years because of that disobedience. And of course, then they change their tune and they say, “Oh, wait, never mind. You know, we were wrong. Yeah, we’re ready. Let’s go fight.”

And Moses says, ‘N no, don’t you go fight because you will get squished like bugs now because God is not with you. And so the principle is this. Without the Lord, failure is guaranteed. With the Lord, we can only succeed. When we reject the Lord’s guiding presence, we will cut corners.

We will sacrifice our integrity. Will damage relationships because we’re not living before the face of God. But if we live before the face of God, victory is certain. God tells Joshua in verse 7, “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the instructions Moses gave you.

Do not deviate from them, turning either to the right or to the left. Then you will be successful in everything you do.” Notice God tells Joshua not just to hear all his instructions, but to obey all his instructions. We are called to be not just hearers of the word, but doers of the word. And no matter how clever and wise we might become, there’s just no substitute for obedience to the word of God.

There’s no getting around that. There’s no third way of of avoiding obedience to God. I think of the film Apollo 13. There’s this lunar mission that is sent on this mission to go and land on the moon. And midway through the film, there’s this accident.

One of the oxygen tanks explodes and they realize their spacecraft is not going to make it to the moon. And so they they have that famous line, Houston, we have a problem. And mission control gets in touch with them and they say, okay, this is what you have to do. We’re going to give you the instructions on how to bring you back safely to Earth. And the astronauts have to think about this because they really want to go to the moon.

And one of them even begins to question, you know, maybe mission control knows we’re not going to make it and and this is all a sham. And so they have to decide, are we going to listen to mission control or not? Their life is on the line. Thankfully, they do listen to them and mission control is able to guide them safely home. And each day you and I have to decide, are we going to listen to mission control?

Are we going to obey all his instructions or just some of them? Are we going to do the ones that make sense to us right now in the moment or are we going to say, “Lord Jesus, you are king. Whatever you say goes, lead on.” See, only if we believe God is good, will we want to obey him. This is why Satan wants to distort our view of God.

He wants us to believe that we are missing out every time we obey God. He wants us to believe that that there’s there’s better things for us outside of Christ. He only has lies. And that’s why the Bible calls us to renew our minds. How do we do that?

Well, one way we do that is through what God tells Joshua here in verse 8, meditation on scripture. He says, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night.” Now, to meditate, it’s interesting because meditation often has kind of an Eastern mysticism connotation in our world today, but meditation isn’t emptying your mind. The the biblical meditation that you see in scripture is feeding your mind. It’s filling your mind.

And you know to think about it like this. When you read and study God’s word, that’s good. But to meditate is even better. It’s like the difference between eating a piece of chocolate, which you get to enjoy for, you know, a minute maybe, and sucking on a hard piece of candy. See, when you read the word of God, it’s good.

It tastes sweet, but you might forget what you read an hour later. But if you meditate on scripture, it’s like it’s like when you have that peppermint candy in your mouth and you’re savoring it. You’re you’re turning the truths of scripture over and over in your mind and you’re seeing how does this apply to my life? What does this mean to me today? What does this say about God?

What does this say about my relationships? Where am I not living this out? That’s meditation. And meditation, according to what God says to Joshua, is how you will win those battles. You need to get the word into your mind.

You need to see it changing the way you think about everything. The reason biblical meditation is so important in spiritual warfare is because so much of the battle takes place in your mind. It’s what you think about. It’s what you watch, what you read, what you listen to, the things that you love, what you give your time to. Whatever just captivates you.

That’s that’s the battleground for spiritual warfare. And so as we fill our minds with God’s word and we meditate on God’s word a and we sink our roots deep into this stream of living water, we will be able to have victory like Joshua. The last thing I want you to see in Joshua’s leadership is that he doesn’t just receive instructions from God. He encourages faith and obedience in the people he leads. And he’s encouraged by others.

In fact, when he calls on the tribes of Gad and Reuben to keep their promise, these were tribes that were were told ahead of time, when you go into the promised land, they the other 10 tribes are going to need you to fight alongside them. And he tells them this and he he basically calls them to fulfill their oath. And they agree. They say, “We will follow you.” And they they repeat the same words again.

So Joshua, be strong and courageous. So, what I’d like to do at this time is invite the band up to the stage because what I’d like us to do is think about this. Spiritual war is something that affects all of us whether we’ve been aware of it or not before today or maybe we’re very aware of it and we’ve been aware of it for some time. One of the best things we can do as a church is to pray for one another. To pray for one another.

And so I’m going to invite you if you’re going through something right now and and you can say this is a battle. This is something right now where I am in the the throws of a battle for sure. I want to invite you to come forward and we’re going to be just praying together and I’m I’ll have the prayer team is available and they’re going to be happy to pray with you. But it could be anything. It could be that you’re going through a a serious health challenge.

It could be something where it’s related to finances and and you’re you’re needing it feels like an uphill steep climb and you you’re asking for God to come and be a part of that to help you in that battle. It could be something related to marriage or relationship, whatever it might be. We’re just going to ask you in this time just take some time to to think on what God is calling you to do, where that battle is at. And if you’d like to come up here, we do have some pillows available for kneeling down, but we invite you to to come up and pray. Father God, we are coming before you humbly recognizing that we are in a battle and the battle is bigger than us.

We know that apart from you, we cannot succeed, but with you, we can have victory. Ask that you would touch those who are in need of prayer right now in a special way. Those who are hurting, I pray that you would wrap your arms around them. Those who are feeling so beat down that you would lift them up. Those who feel like they are caught in the middle of the crossfire, that you would protect them, that you would be their shield of strength, that you would give them courage to walk forward, whatever it is, that they would recognize that you are with them just as you were with Joshua and the people of Israel.

That they would see that their promised land in Jesus is available to them. They just have to go forward and take it to live in the blessings that are ours in Christ. And Father, I’d also ask if there is anyone here who doesn’t have a relationship with Jesus, I ask that they would give their heart to you right now. That they would surrender to the King of Kings, Lord of Lords. And if that’s you and you’re you’re hearing this right now and you’re thinking, you know, this this is the day I haven’t yet given my life to Jesus.

I’ve been putting it off for a while, but I I sense the Holy Spirit is drawing me near. I want that eternal life. I want that friendship with God. I want to know him. I want to be in covenant with God.

Then all you need to do is tell God even in your heart that you have sinned, that you have fallen short, that you need his forgiveness, that you have put your trust in Jesus, the son of God, who died for you on the cross, bore all your guilt, all your sin, and rose from the dead. And now he gives you the victory. He shares that victory with you as the King of Kings. I pray that all of us would recognize the great gift it is to be a follower of Jesus, to be counted among the saints. And I pray that you would be with Grace Point.

Give us your shield of protection. Lord, help us to walk in grace, to share that grace with others. We pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Would you join us and stand as we close?

You hear me when I call. You are my morning song. Though darkness fills the night, it cannot hide the light. Whom shall I fear? You crush the enemy underneath my feet.

You are my sword and shield. Though troubles linger still. Whom shall I fear? I know who goes before me. I know who stands behind.

The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever. He is a friend of mine. The God of angel armies is always by my side. My strength is in your name.

For you alone can save. You will deliver me. Yours is the victory. Whom shall I fear? I know who goes before me.

I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is always by my side. The one who reigns forever. He is a friend of mine. The God of angel aries is always by my side.

And nothing formed against me shall stand. Y

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