Are You Living The Abundant Life God Promised? | Robby Gallaty | Joshua 1

Welcome to Long Hollow, welcome Gallatin Campus. If you're joining us at Gallatin, or if you're incarcerated, or if you're here in the worship center or the chapel, we're glad you're here. Today, I wanna give you a question that will set the tone and the theme for our time together, and that's this question. Are you, as you assess your life, are you living the abundant life that God has promised you? Or are you just getting by? Don't answer out loud, just think about that. Right now, and I'm reading, if you're still reading with us. Right now, Joshua is about to enter the promised land. This is 40 years in the making. He's got about a million and a half people behind him. They're on the precipice of the Jordan River. They're about to walk through. Up to this point, I don't know if you've ever thought this before, but think about this. Up to this point, what the book of the Torah is, it's a 40-year funeral procession, watch this, where everybody who left Egypt will die in the wilderness because of their disobedience. Now, you don't think of it that way, but I want you to think about this, and I did the math and the numbers. If that's the case, let's say a million and a half

left Egypt, two million on the high end, one million on the low end, every adult is going to die in the wilderness before they make it to the promised land, including Moses, their leader. On average, it's hard to wrap your mind around. On average, that is 90, about 90 deaths a day. They have 90 funerals a day, people dying, people dying, people dying, and then Moses is gonna cap it off, right? The man who led them out of the bondage of Egypt is gonna die on Mount Nebo, and so now he gives it to Joshua, he's like, Joshua, you gotta go in, and the question that's looming in the air back then is the same question that is here today for us, and the question is this. God has given a promise, are you gonna go in and take it? Are you gonna receive it as your own? Here's what we discover in our own lives. You can own something, but never enjoy it. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Like, you can have a full bank account and not access that bank account. God has given them the land, but it's up to them to go possess it and to own it, so if you have a Bible, turn with me to Joshua chapter one. Joshua chapter one, how many people still reading with us the F260 Old Testament? Give yourself a hand, we made it out the Torah. Amen, amen. Torah was good, actually, by the way. I enjoyed our time.

Some of you are like, well, I don't know, I felt like I was in the wilderness, too, in Leviticus. Amen, you made it. Joshua chapter one, verse one, so this is the beginning of what is called the Nevi'im, or the prophets. This begins the second section of the Old Testament Hebrew Bible. Verse one, after the death of Moses, the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, and he said, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now you and all the people prepare to cross over the Jordan to the land I am giving the Israelites. I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads, just as I had promised Moses. Your territory will be from the wilderness and Lebanon, if you're there, if you're here, it's Lebanon. No, I got corrected, believe me, I got corrected. I'd say, where are you from, Lebanon? They said, no, Lebanon. So anyway, Middle Tennessee joke. Okay, from Lebanon to the great river, the Euphrates River, all the land of the Hittites, and then west to the Mediterranean Sea, no one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you, just as I was with Moses, and I will not leave you or abandon you. I wanna give you three insights of how do we live this abundant Christian life. Number one is this, we must possess God's promises.

We must receive, possess, assimilate God's promises in our life. Now, up to this point, we've been journeying. The people of Israel do not deserve this land they're about to receive, amen? They definitely weren't faithful enough. They had a PhD in complaining. They were cynical, they were judgmental, they were always falling away from God, and yet God decides to still give them the land. Now notice this, God doesn't say this line. You would expect God to say, one day in the near future, I'm gonna give you the land that, it's not what he says. Notice the text, look at your Bible. God says, I have already given you the land, but it's up to you to go in and take it. So you have it based on a promise, but it's up to you to possess it. God is going to teach us a principle today for our own life, it's a spiritual. Principle, and here's the principle. You can own something that's yours, but you may not reap the benefits of the thing you own. How many people know what I'm talking about? I bring it close to home. Don't raise your hand out of shame, but how many people own gym equipment right now in your home that you haven't used in a while, or better yet, ever since you bought it?

Don't raise your hand. A lot of us in here, right? Dumbbells in the upstairs bedroom. You have a flat bench in the garage. Babe, we're gonna use it, I promise. One day, you know, we're gonna go. A treadmill that has now become a makeshift closet in the guest room. Can I get an amen, right? And here's the reality. You bought those pieces of equipment with good intentions. You really did. But good intentions do not produce a healthy body, right? You're not gonna be well and healthy and lose weight with good intentions. Here's the point. The equipment belongs to you, but you never reap the benefits until you assimilate, until you enjoy it, until you possess it, until you use it once in a while. And as a result, you're never gonna experience the benefits of a healthy body unless you step on the treadmill. And I know this is a sore subject, but that's how the promises of God work. Here's how God works. God has promised you victory over pornography. God has promised you victory over sin, over temptation, over your enemies, but some of you are still living defeated lives

and filled with anxiety as a Christian, worry and shame and pain from the past and guilt in your life. And here's the thing. It's not God's problem. The victory is yours. The challenge is, have you possessed it? Have you walked in it? Have you assumed it yourself? I heard a story about a young man who had saved up all the money he had to make the trip across the ocean from England to America. He was gonna start a new life. He was a young boy and he packed everything he had in one suitcase. He got on the ship and he didn't have much money and didn't have any extra money. Actually, he just had just enough for the food that he rationed that he would need to make the trip. And that was two or three things of crackers, a thing of cheese and a little bit of water. That was his meal. And he was gonna ration that out because he didn't have a lot of money. When he got on the boat after purchasing the ticket, he realized that as he was unwrapping his cheese every day and his crackers and he would pour a little bit of water in the corner by himself, he noticed that people were filing into a dining hall and that most of the passengers were enjoying

this huge buffet and this spread on a table while he, in the distance, morning, lunch and dinner, ate his crackers, gnawed on his cheese and drank his water. Well, the smell, if you can imagine, and the full bellies of the people leaving got to it. He started to smell the aroma. And one day he decided to ask the waitress who was working and he said, hey, excuse me, ma'am, how much just, if I were to buy a ticket to have one meal for a day, that's all I want is one meal, how much would that meal cost? And the lady said, show me your ticket to get on the ship. He pulled out his ticket and he showed it to her. And the waitress said, sir, with this ticket, all the meals are included. You've already paid for all the meals. You could have eaten at the banquet dining hall table the entire time, but you settled to starve off of scraps. Here's the thing, think of the shame of this man at this point. Instead of scoffing on cheese and crackers, he could have sat at a banquet table for a feast on the ship. You know what's even worse? Christians who have access to a spiritual bank account in heaven for victory and the abundant Christian life, and yet we settle for the ditch and the dirt debris of the world. Friends, God has made these promises to us. It's up to us to go in and possess those things.

God has given you, don't miss this, victory over sin. God has given you victory over the addiction that plagues you and the alcohol you keep returning to. God gives you victory over pornography, immorality. God has given us, but here's the problem. We settle to wallow in those things. God has given you a new identity to walk in, and yet we let the lies of Satan creep in our minds to give us a new identity from the world. Here's the point, we have to possess the promises that God has made to us, right? Just because God makes promises and we don't assume them don't mean we'll live in them. So the first thing God says is, all right, you want the land, and by the way, we don't take the land, but we could take property and influence in the world today, so it's not the same. But God says, if you want to enjoy the abundant life, you have to possess what was promised. Number two, you have to obey my word. So when you get in, you're gonna be tempted, but I want you to obey and obey my word. Now this is odd, because they're about to go in the land and decimate the enemies by war, and God's gonna give them the plan. Look at verse six. Be strong and courageous, for you will distribute the land I swore to you, or swore to their ancestors, to give them as an inheritance.

Above all, be strong and very courageous. I mean, come on, God. It's like God's a broken record sometimes. You ever notice that? Like they're hard to hear. He says the same thing over and over. You ever notice that? Why is it? It's not because God forgets, it's because the people forget like us. God's like, be strong and, oh, by the way, above all, be strong and courageous to observe or obey carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you, the Torah. Do not turn from it to the right or the left so that you will have success wherever you go. This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth. You are to meditate on it, circle that word, day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. Now here's what's surprising, which is pretty crazy. Think about this. God doesn't give the Israelites tactics for taking out their adversaries. You gotta understand, they're going into the land to level it, to take it over. You would assume God giving Joshua a battle plan for winning. He doesn't give him any of that. You know what he gives him instead?

A book of his instruction. Doesn't say here's a battle plan. He's like, no, no, this is the thing. And this is what I want you to get if you get nothing else. This is what Joshua learns and it's something we have to learn today. Joshua's greatest battles will not be won through human might on his own. What he's showing Joshua and he's showing us, the greatest battles in our life are not fought with weapons of this world. They are fought on a spiritual realm. They are rooted in God's word, not our power. I don't know about you, I have to repeat this class because every time I'm like, God, I got this, I think I can, okay, I'm done, I just messed up. God, can you step in? Anybody done that before? I always like to go first and God's like, hey, I'm gonna step back. When you're ready, call me. See, what Joshua's learning is their success was not physical, it was spiritual. Now here's the catch. In order to obey the word of God, which is the challenge here, you have to know the word of God. And not just know the word of God, you gotta live the word of God, right? And we only know it by meditating on it

and marinating on it. It's not implied, but memorizing the word of God. Now, I don't know about you, but it's very discouraging to know we live in a literate culture. We can read the word and yet we are illiterate to the word of God. See, it's not that we don't have access to the word, it's that we don't care to read the word of God. You gotta remember, back then, if they wanted to understand the word of God and live the word out, they didn't have copies of Bibles in their hands by their beds. They didn't have iPhones or iPads in their pocket to call up you, they couldn't do that. If they wanted, watch this, if they wanted to take the word from here to their home, they had to hide it in their heart and mind. If not, they had nothing. So they had to meditate and marinate. Now, the word meditation, I just wanna share with you, has been hijacked by our culture, okay? Because a lot of people think meditation is the lotus position, closing the auras of the energy fields, hum, ask me how I know that, unfortunately, but anyway, tried everything, right? And I was into this early on, I didn't know any better, but because I thought meditation was quieting the ripples

of the soul in order to look within myself to find answers. That's what meditation is in the world. Unfortunately, it's not biblical. Biblical meditation, watch this, is not looking within for anything, because Paul tells us, Romans 7, verse 18, watch this, the proof text, for I know that nothing good lives inside of what? Me, that is, in the flesh. For the desire to do what is good with me, there is no ability to do it. Paul says, I'm trying to do what's good, but I can't do it within, for I do not do what's good, the good I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. Paul's saying, the things I don't wanna do, I do, the things I do wanna do, I don't do, what a wretched man I am. So biblical meditation is not looking within, why? The only thing you'll find within, write this down, is sin. So it's not. Mental passivity, it is mental activity or mental focus or clarity, you could say it this way. Here's what biblical meditation is. It is focusing on something or someone as you allow time to settle your soul in order to hear the voice of God or be in the presence of God. You could be focusing on God.

You could focus on his word. You could focus on his attributes. You could focus on his qualities. You could focus on the person and work of Jesus Christ. The best definition of meditation, I'll give it to you from a Hebrew perspective and I'm gonna give you an illustration. The word meditation, write this down, can be translated as to reflect on something in your mind, to rehearse something in your head, to whisper, which is an interesting one, my favorite too. It's to coo like a dove. Interesting, it's the idea of cooing like a dove. Why is that? That repetitive nature when the dove cooed. But my favorite one is, and I just wanna prepare you, to chew cud like a cow. That's what meditation means to the Hebrew mind. Now, I don't wanna get too graphic, but I understand this because years ago, I decided when I moved to town, what does a guy from New Orleans do when he moves to middle Tennessee? He starts a farm, buy animals, to which my son was asking me yesterday as we were working out together. He said, dad, can you tell me again why we bought all these animals? I'm like, son, don't ask dumb questions. I don't have an answer to that.

I don't know why we bought all these animals. That's a good question, right? I don't know why we bought these animals, but you know me, it's gonna surprise you. When I get into something, I'm pretty much, yeah, I mean, I had three sheep, I had a pig that did tricks, I had a donkey, I had two goats, or I had three goats, I had a horse, a mini horse that had a bum leg, and then I decided, what else do I add to the family? Let's add two Scottish Highland cows. That'll make a good pet, right, on the farm, and so here they are, yeah. Now, they are cute, they were cute, I have to be honest with you. The girl on the right, her name was Corrie, after Corrie Ten Boom. Thanks, Justin, you got that. And our buddy on the left was the male, his name was Fred, just because. I mean, I ran out of names, but eventually, they lasted about a year. Now, they're cute, I'll tell you, but they don't stay that way, I promise you. Eventually, they got to about 500, 600 pounds, and after Ryder got kicked, my youngest, and after I got kicked, we moved them out after way too many times. But here's the thing I wanna tell you.

When I would go out to see them and feed them at night, what I noticed is there was never a time that they were not chewing the cud. And here's how it works, without getting too graphic, but this is a wonderful picture, and God uses pictures. What the cow does is it chews this tough grass or grain, and it breaks down this material in its digestive system. But then after a while, it brings it up to chew on it again, why? Because it wants to ruminate on it to squeeze out or to maximize the nutrients within. What does that have to do with us? That is exactly how we should read Scripture. See, many of us hear a sermon, it goes in, and we never marinate, we never saturate, we never memorize or meditate on the Word of God. Friends, when we chew the Word of God, both mentally and spiritually, it begins to go deep into our soul, and it changes the way we live. If you're not doing this, let me encourage you, at least start doing this with the Word of God, why? Because when we know the Word, we start to obey the Word, and then God says to Joshua, here's the promise, and when you do that, you will inherit the kingdom of God. Now, don't hear me, I'm not saying we inherit a land in the Middle East, yeah, the principle's the same, but that's not, he's talking about prosperity, and you'll see it's not what we think. Look at verse, look at verse eight.

We will inherit God's kingdom, for then, if you do these things, you will prosper. It's a great word, again, hijacked by the culture and prosperity preachers. You will prosper and succeed. Circle those two together. In whatever you do, haven't I commanded you, be strong and, come on, God again? Yeah, yeah, you're gonna forget. So let me tell you again, be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you, where? Wherever you go. Now, God is promising here prosperity. When you and I hear the word prosperity, if you're raised in the 80s, 90s, like me, you hear things like this, bling on a wrist. Prosperity is exotic cars in a garage. You hear, your house makes it on MTV Cribs. Can I get an amen? Everybody remember that show back in the day? Or for those wiser senior saints, the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Y'all haven't heard that in a while, right? But here's the thing, that is not what prosperity means in the Bible, okay? In fact, I did a little research this week. I was going to say never, but I want to never say never, but it's close to never.

It's like one or two outliers, maybe. All the time God uses, most all the time, God uses the word prosperity. It's going to shock you, but prosperity in the Old Testament, it is never about financial success, ever. Because God knows finances come and go. God knows those things are temporal. When God envisions, and this is going to encourage somebody today. When God envisions success and prosperity, he's talking about succeeding in life's endeavors or the plans that he has for your life. That's success for God. When you and I get to heaven, God's not going to say, man, show me your bank account. I'd like to see how many cars you own. Show me how big Long Hollow was. Show me the, he's not going to say that. He's going to say, this is what God's going to ask you and me. God's going to say, I don't care how big Long Hollow was. Were you faithful to me? But look at my big company. I don't care about that. Were you obedient to me? What does that mean? Write this down. Again, if you get nothing else, this is it right here. Success in the kingdom of God is measured not by grandiose, big, outward actions.

It's measured by small steps of obedience today. Man, it's so freeing. Because you used to think, man, if I'm not on a stage like this, I can't be used by the Lord. If I'm not singing to thousands, if I'm not on a big platform or a big follow, I can't, that is garbage. That's not how God measures success. And some of you right now, I just want to say, and again, I say this with love. I want you to hear my heart. I'm not trying to throw stones. We all have issues in our life. But for some of you, let's be honest, you're living with someone right now who is not your spouse. And you've justified it. Well, we can't make it. I can't pay the bills and we share an income. I get all that. You know it's wrong though, but you haven't made a step to move on. Some of you right now are returning to Broadway every Friday and Saturday night, or maybe in your locker or closet to drink on the weekends or worse every night. And you know it's destroying your family and your relationships. And you know this addiction you have is overwhelming, but you can't stop.

You keep indulging. Some of you are viewing pornography on your phone or your computer or on your iPad. And you know this is wrong and it is ruining and rewiring your brain for every future relationship in the future. I mean, that's the worst, by the way, of all of them, is sexual immorality, because it's like drinking poison for your soul. Here's my point, whether I mention your sin or your flavor of sin or not, here's the point. If God convicts us of sin, He will always, here's encouraging news, He will always provide a way out. Here's how God works, okay? Victory is never our responsibility. We can't save ourself, we can't win ourself. Victory is our, write this down, our response to God's ability. See the difference? Where's the emphasis? The first one is me, my ability. And by the way, listen, if anybody thought they were smart enough to get out of drug addiction, I thought I was. Of course, I was prideful, but like, I can work my way. I'm smart enough, I'm strong enough. And it led me out of control. Anybody know what I'm talking about? An addiction is manageable until it becomes unmanageable. It's our response to God's ability.

So here's how we work. And I don't know what your sin is that you're struggling with, everybody's got one. When God gives you a command to obey, God gives you a plan and strength to carry out that command. Let me say it another way, and again, I want you to get this with love, but you can't or you won't experience God's blessings tomorrow if you keep living disobediently today. God, I want you to bless me, man. I wanna find Mr. Right, I wanna find that person. I want you to bless. God's like, okay, let's start now. Let's start with this. And here's what I tell people, don't worry about all this stuff out there. Start obeying what God is convicting you of today. There's a lot of issues in our life. Believe me, when I got saved, there was a lot. But start obeying. Here's what I tell people, walk in the light revealed in front of you. Does that make sense? Walk in the step God has prepared before you. You can't tackle every issue. but you can do, and listen, some of you are like, man, Holy Spirit's banging on my heart right now, because you know the issue. You know what it is. Yours is different than mine, maybe, but we all have them.

I'm not standing up here, sanctimonious. I got them, believe me. Pride, and taking credit, and jealousy. I mean, I struggle with these things. The one I struggle with when I got saved, and it's one, again, let me just say, I'm not ashamed of this. I'm just giving this as an example. Here's what I learned about salvation. This is a cool line, write this down. What I learned about salvation is this. When God saves you, God changes your heart immediately, but it takes a lifetime to change your habits. You know what I'm talking about? Because we come into the Christian life with all these habits, like bad habits. So God changes your heart, but you bring these bad habits in, right, right away, and that's called sanctification. It takes a lifetime. One of the bad habits, again, I'm not proud of this. One of the bad habits I had was my language. Four, my favorite adjective was a four-letter word. Not gonna mention here in church. Jeremy Brown, our security director and friend who shared Christ with me in seminary tells people this line. Robbie knew how to cuss for two minutes and never repeat the same curse word. I said, come on, Jeremy, really?

He said, no, no, no. It was fluent cursing. I was like, I didn't know that. He said, no, that's why you were so good. I mean, that's how bad, again, I'm not proud of this, but that was my speech. And when I got saved, you can imagine, I was pretty overwhelmed because the last thing I wanted to do was be in church one Sunday and drop a bomb on, or worse, a Bible study, you know what I'm saying? Can't hide when everybody's looking at you. So man, I would just pray, God, watch my tongue, watch my tongue. And I started to pray, and God's like, all right, prayer time is over. Time to act, because you can pray forever and do nothing. So I'll just pray, God, help my tongue, change my tongue. Don't let me curse. All right, here's the action. The action step is, God led me to saturate my mind and heart with his word. Here's the thing I want you to get. Why is that important? Because when Jesus is on your mind, he tends to come out of your mouth. That's the reason you have a cursing tongue, and you lie, and you're always down, because Jesus is not on your mind. In fact, Jesus said it this way.

Out of the abundance of the heart, the what? The mouth speaks. Here's the way I like to say it. A cursing tongue reveals a corrupted heart. Did you catch what Joshua was told? God told Joshua, do not let the book of the law depart, what, shall not depart from your mouth. He didn't say from your heart and mind. He could have said that, but he says your mouth. What does that mean? Here's what he's showing us. There is power in the words we speak. Did you know this? I can give you life or death just by the way I speak or Landon or Amandricus or Brant. I could speak life or death to Rod. That's the way it works. There's power in our words. There's power, not just when we think it or read it. There's power when we speak it. Do you agree with that? Have you ever heard of the book, Pilgrim's Progress? Anybody ever heard of this book? Interesting book. Shaped the lives of believers for centuries. In fact, at one time, it was written by a guy named John Bunyan. At one time, it was the number two bestselling book in the world behind the Bible. Pretty impactful book.

We got to go to England last year with our church and we went to the gravesite of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress in England. Now, a lot of people know John Bunyan's work, but they don't know how John Bunyan got saved. Anybody know how he got saved? Fascinating story. John Bunyan, according to him, was a hardened sinner who had a foul mouth, was a metal worker, and he would curse all the time, and he was cynical and judgmental of everybody around him. And so someone invited him to church, and he started to go. He said, man, I was trying to do better, his words, was white-knuckling my way into heaven. I was trying not to curse. I was trying to be self-righteous. I was trying all these things to no avail. He said, one day, I was leaving. I was walking through the town of Bedford after work, and he said, I stumbled upon these four poor ladies, his words, on the street that were sitting outside enjoying the afternoon sun on their doorstep. And he said, being the man I was who liked to debate theology, because he still didn't know if he believed it, so he liked to debate, he said, I started to eavesdrop on the conversation just to listen to these ladies talk. And he said, as he listened, his heart sank

because he didn't hear what he expected to hear from four ladies that afternoon. He said, I was expecting to hear gossiping. I was expecting to hear criticism of the church they attended. I was expecting to hear them talk about all the things they hate about the country. What I heard instead, he said, blew me away. He said, I heard these four ladies go on and on about the beauty of Christ. about the glory of God, about the reality that them as sinners were saved by Christ their Savior. They couldn't believe that, they couldn't get over it. They would talk about the peace that sustained them through every trial of life. And so what Bunyan said is it caught him off guard. He stood there frozen and he realized the power of words spoken by these women. It was foreign to him. He wrote in his journal, I quote, here's what he said. He said, these ladies spoke as if joy made them speak. It was as if they had found a new world that was foreign to him. Therefore, I would often make it my own business to be going again and again into the company of these poor people. For I could not stay away from their conversation. Come in real close, look at me for a moment. If someone eavesdropped on your conversation

would they walk away as a Christian? Just by the words you speak, just by the conversation, just by the seasoning on your conversations. Would they see it in the way you live your life, the way your life is displayed? Would they see it because you've saturated your mind? They should, by the way. Friends, here's what I wanna leave you with. You and I will never experience victory in our life unless God's word is in our minds, God's word is on our lips, and God's word is lived through our life. Now thankfully, God's great, not at once, but over time, thankfully, my vocabulary has changed. By God's grace, I haven't, Candy will attest to this. I don't even wanna say this because I'm gonna mess up and curse in a moment, but I haven't cursed in 23 years. Candy will tell you, God's grace. Yeah, I haven't cursed, yeah, 23. God, I'm not saying that to boast to you because I'm gonna screw up right now and say something, but here's how it worked, okay? I'm not saying that to be sanctimonial, but here's what I'm saying. It was a progression, and here's how it started. It started with God, as I saturated my mind with the word, it started where I stopped cursing out loud. Then, but I still cursed in my head. Anybody know what I'm talking about?

That blankety blank. Then I cursed in my head, and then I began to pray and saturate the word, and then eventually I stopped cursing in my head, and the final step was, over time, I stopped cursing in my dreams. Anybody know what I'm talking about? That's how I knew over time. This is the work, my friends, of sanctification. It is God working together alongside of us working. Here's how it works. God does his part in our life, but it's up to us to respond by reading and meditating and memorizing and speaking the word of God. It's called sanctification. Here's what St. Augustine said. He said, you need to live and pray as if everything depended upon God, but you need to work as if everything depends upon you. That's sanctification. So here's what that means. Today, if you're weak, look at me, you can say to God, I'm gonna choose to be strong. You could say, God, I feel like a coward. You can choose this day to be courageous. God, I'm a sinner. You can choose this day to be obedient to the Lord. God, I don't know how I'm gonna have courage, but I'm choosing courage and I'm walking out and trusting you by faith.

God, you said I can change. You said I don't have to wallow in this addiction or this habit. I'm gonna walk by faith and trust you. So here's the question as we close. I want you to think about this. If that's you, if God has revealed the light of sin in your life, will you say to the Lord, just a moment, God, I'm committing to change today. And I'm gonna start walking obedience to them. I don't know how it works. I don't know how it's all gonna work out, but I'm gonna trust you in the moment. Join me as we come to the Lord and pray right now for that. I know in a group this size, you would say, man, pastor, you spoke right to me. I've lived fearful. I've lived anxious. I've been plagued with worry. And you're a Christian. I'm talking predominantly to Christians. Yeah, I know there are people far from God, but just to the believers, because that's who was standing on the shore of the Jordan River. That's who was standing in the crowd. It was those who had professed to follow God, and yet God had to remind them, listen, you're gonna be weak. You're gonna shrink back.

You're gonna wanna cower down. You're gonna wanna shut up. You're gonna be overwhelmed with fear and anxiety and guilt and shame, and don't do that. Trust me. Lord, I pray right now for those who are here today and are saying, that's me. Pastor, you really spoke directly to me because I haven't been strong and I haven't been courageous in my faith. In fact, I've been just the opposite. I've been quiet. I've been inclusive. I've been fearful. I've been weak, if I'm honest. I haven't trusted you like I should. Just confess that to the Lord. But God, I know the promises that are written in your word and I don't have to wallow in this addiction any longer. I don't have to be set back by this sin in my life. So just confess that to the Lord. God, I need your help. I need your support. And I'm gonna walk by faith, not by sight, because by sight it doesn't make sense. But I'm gonna trust in you, I ask it in Jesus' name. And everyone said, amen.