Getting our Feet Wet by Faith | Robby Gallaty | Joshua 4

We're grateful for you, and we do not take your sacrifice lightly. But as thankful as we are for the freedom we have in this country, there's a greater freedom that no flag can represent and no armies can secure. It's a freedom that was not fought on a battlefield, but was won on a cross of cavalry. You see, 2,000 years ago, Jesus laid down His life so that we could have freedom today, not just for a lifetime, but for eternity. Amen? That's good news today for all of us as believers. And here's the thing about freedom. God never sets us free to stay where we are. God always sets us free to take us to a place that He has planned for us. So if you have a Bible, turn with me to Joshua chapter 3. Joshua chapter 3, we're going to talk about why it's important to get our feet wet by faith. Why it's important for us to get our feet wet by faith. As you turn to Joshua 3, you realize up to this point, the people have finally gotten to the precipice of the promised land, 40 years in the making. They're about to go into the land that was promised. But there's one more lesson God is going to teach them, and it's a lesson I think all of us should learn today. And I want you to lock in for this lesson. Why? Because they find themselves between celebrating the past and the potential of the future. That is where they find themselves, and God is going to show them something that will serve them well the rest of their lives and our lives today. So if you're there at Joshua chapter 3, would you like to say word at Long Hollow? The word of the Lord. When the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the Ark of the Covenant ahead of the people. Now remember that. The presence of the Lord is before them. Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the Ark reached the Jordan River, their feet touched the water at its edge. And the water flowing downstream stood still, rising up in a mass that extended as far as Adam, a city next to Zarethon. The water flowing downstream into the Sea of Arabah, the Dead Sea, was completely cut off. And the people crossed opposite Jericho. The priests carrying the Ark of the Lord's Covenant stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed on dry ground until the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan. The people now face, once again, another water barrier. If you've been reading up to this point, you realize they entered the wilderness crossing a waterway, so the waterway on the back end bookends the waterway on the front end. So the entire 40-year wandering was bookended by water. And God miraculously, once again, parts the waters. I want you to notice something key in the text before we move on. Notice it was the priest

who carried the Ark ahead of the people. Now why is this important? You see right away, the nation of Israel is not following a plan. They're following God's presence. See this? They don't have a strategy written up on a whiteboard on the wall. They are following the presence of God, and they are stepping into the water. Now I want you to see this. As soon as they stepped in the water, by faith, the water stopped. And it was at that point that the people crossed over into the dry land. God is gonna take this moment and make it a spiritual marker in their life they will never forget. But here's what they don't know. They don't realize that walking across the water is taking them into a new season that is very different than the past. And that's what God loves to do. God is gonna fulfill one vision of the past in order to give us another vision in the future. That's why I said they are between the progress of the past, celebrating that, and the potential of the future, and they have a choice in the middle. And I believe in a group this size, there are some of you right now who are standing on the banks of a big decision. And you're gonna need to hear this in order to help you move into the water. First thing he teaches is this. Write this down if you're taking notes. Number one, God says it is important to celebrate the past. It is important to celebrate the progress up to this point. There's nothing wrong with doing that. Notice what God does after they cross the waters. Go over to chapter four, verse two. After crossing the water – whoa, whoa, whoa – God said, choose 12 men from the people. One man for each tribe and command them, take 12 stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing. Carry these stones with you and set them down at the place where you will spend the night. They may be one I wonder, why in the world would God say, carry the stones? Well, I'm glad you asked. Look at verse 21, watch what he's gonna tell us. In the future, when your children ask their fathers, what is the meaning of these stones? You should tell your children, Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the water of the Jordan

before you until you had crossed over, just as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we had crossed over. Lock in. This is so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord's hand is strong and so that you may always fear the Lord your God. God's doing three things here. Did you know stones preach, by the way? You have to know this when you're hearing this. I hadn't done a lot of research. You can do it on your own, but you have to believe there's a connection here between when Jesus said, if you don't worship God, the stones, remember this? The rocks will cry out. Well, we're probably saying, how do rocks cry out? Well, these do. These do. Rocks preach. They do three things. Number one is this. Stones, spiritual stones in the ground, strengthen our faith as believers. When doubt creeps in and doubt is coming, they're gonna face hardship and turmoil and trouble. When doubt creeps in, return to the rock pile. Now, what is the rock pile? The rock pile is a, now, you're probably saying, well, I don't have a rock pile in my backyard.

You have a spiritual rock pile in your head. How many people would say, I could tell you one story right now, if I put a mic through the audience or online. Robbie, right now, I could tell you when God worked in the past. Raise your hand. Anybody have that? I think we all should have that. How many would say, I remember when God walked with me through a tough time. I remember when God came through on his promises. That's a rock pile, okay? May not have a physical, although you can, but a spiritual rock pile. Number two, stones shape your family. I could say stones disciple your family, but spiritual stones shape your family. When God moves, mom, dad, listen, grandparents, it's important to pull over and park and tell your children what I call about the divine opportunities or sovereign moments in their life. We need to point our children to the mighty acts of God. Hey, hold, hold, listen. Rick, the reason you got this part, Ryder, the reason you're playing in the game, the reason God came through with this gift, it's God did that. Let's stop and pray and thank the Lord.

You see, you're trying to build in them this reflex to realize that everything they have is from who? God, that's what James says. Every good and every perfect gift comes from the Father of lights above, from God. Number three, and this is the big one, stones speak to the world. I could say preach to the world, but I like the S's, so sorry. For those who are wondering, we alliterate the grocery list. Anyway. Not really, but close. Okay, here's what these stones did. God says, it's not even about you, Israel. It's not about the Jewish nation. It is about the world. The world is gonna see these stones and they're gonna ask you, what's the rock pile for? And you're gonna be able to say, this is a pile in remembrance of what God has done for us. Now, here's the sad reality. A pile of stones becomes a pile of rocks when one generation stops talking about them. Feel the weight of that as parents and grandparents. It's important for us to celebrate in our church, in our country, in our community, in our family, where we've come from. It's not boasting in oneself. You have to boast in the Lord.

Let me show you the difference. There's a difference between gratitude and pride, okay? There's a big difference. Gratitude is the outward posture of one's life facing upward, right? It looks back over the past season of your life and it says, look what God has done. You see how it is? The glory is directed upward and outward. Write this down. The stones that God says place in the ground were a monument to God's power, never a trophy to Israel's courage. Nobody got through the, man, I'm so glad I was smarter. And by the way, I was gonna preach this passage, but I chose this one instead. But they're about to, in the next chapter, chapter six, go to Jericho and they're gonna walk around walls and nobody picks up a sword. They pick up a trumpet. And when the walls come, you're gonna love this. When the walls come down, nobody says, hey, John, way to hit the high C, bro. Thank God you held that note on the, no. When the walls came down, what did they say? Only God. Pride is different though. Pride is an inward-focused posture. Here's what pride does. Pride looks back over your past and says,

look at what I did. Pride is inward-directed. Pride makes you think that everything you have, your intellect, your bank account, your situation in life is from you. Now here's the main difference. The main difference between the two is subtle. It's two differences. Number one is, it is the posture of your heart that leads to the direction of the credit. It's twofold. The posture of your heart and the direction of your credit. When you stop celebrating wins in a church, in a staff, in an organization, in a business where you work today, in your family, what happens is, here's the flip side. People stop showing up. And I don't mean presently. I mean just like, they don't care anymore, right? They lose heart. They get weary. They start to check out. Now you know this because you're like, wow, you just described my workplace, right? I mean, some of you are like that. Nobody gives credit anymore. But here's the thing. It's important for us to celebrate what God has done. And I don't know if you know this. If you've been here any length of time, I think you do.

But God has done nothing short of miraculous at our church, particularly over the past decade, but he's been doing it for almost 50 years at Long Hollow. I don't talk about numbers a lot, if you've been here for a length of time. And the main reason is this. I don't want to celebrate a false goal to think, want you to think that that's the only way we celebrate numbers. I always talk about this with pastors when I teach them, and I always say the challenge in the American church is that we allowed business metrics to gauge biblical maturity. Yeah, you can gauge certain things, but biblical maturity takes time. So I don't want to do it all the time, but I want to do this to boast in God, and I just want to give you a history of what God's done, particularly over the last decade, or even the last few years. Our incarceration ministry right now is pretty miraculous what God is doing. Over the last two years, we have gotten on the Pando app. The Pando app, right now, we are broadcasted into over 650 churches, 42, some of you are like, yeah, that's me, I'm watching now. 42,000 people watch and worship every week behind a jail cell or a prison wall with Long Hollow, just like you. Isn't that great?

42,000 people, that's hard to wrap your mind around. That comes to, in two years, over 3.1 million sermons watched. 3.1 million, and this is crazy, almost 5,500 of those incarcerated have accepted Christ through the ministry of our church, Long Hollow. Is that not, praise the Lord, right? Amen. We praise the Lord for that. Secondly, we have been led by a church to be a part of End Hunger and Sumner. What we realized a couple years ago is that, oh, I'm sorry, let me go back to the jails, too. Not only, sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. Not only do we have the jails online, we actually have nine campuses at Long Hollow, Long Hollow campuses, in our community, in prisons and jails around the South, that comes to around 1,250 people in nine campuses who worship live every week with Long Hollow, just like you. Is that not hard to wrap your mind around? From 2000, this is another one, again, numbers just to boast in the Lord. From 2022, I had a fact check, because, you know, I wanted to believe. I was like, are you serious? Our church has grown by 87% since 2022, 87%. Some of you are like, who came here, raise your hand, since 2022, raise your hand high. 2020, okay, so it's all of you.

But anyway, apparently, but I say that to say, praise the Lord for what he's done. Okay, End Hunger and Sumner, really, you should tell I'm excited about this initiative. We realized as a church that not on our watch should any child go hungry in our community. And what we found out is there were over 550 students in Sumner County, some of which sit next to your students, your children every day during the school year, and they don't even know it. And so our church got behind this, you did. Your generosity makes this possible. Right now, we realize there are 52 schools in Sumner County. God's grace here, 22 of those schools have been accounted for and checked off the list to the tune of 250 students right now that we're reaching. It comes to about $10,000 of food that goes through Long Hollow every week to scratch off 250 kids who don't go home hungry anymore. Amen, we praise the Lord. for that as well. Thank you for your support. In addition to that, we just started a foster care and adoption ministry. I think we have over 12 people in the pipeline, a little over a dozen in the pipeline. We're excited in August, our missions team is starting a refugee ministry in our community in Nashville to really reach out to those

who would consider themselves refugees. And then in January, two years almost in the making, we're gonna launch a marketplace ministry for you as men and business owners, and business men and women who work in business or business women who can figure out how to lead people and use your ministry as an opportunity in the workplace where you live, work, and play. So we're gonna help you and equip you in that. So that's pretty exciting. This is a final one too. New families that have come to Long Hollow since January. 838 families have visited Long Hollow since January. 523 people in our church have followed through with salvation or baptism. And this is another really cool stat. 118 students accepted Christ for the first time at camp this summer, amen. So we praise the Lord for that as well. Missions-wise, we support in our yearly budget 58 local and global partners, either internationally or nationally. 12 people in seats like yours 12 people in seats like yours not long ago heard a call from God to surrender to full-time missions on the foreign mission field, and we have launched 12 over the past few years. And over the last decade, we have planted, you, us, 18 church plants all over America.

So we praise the Lord. We praise the Lord for that. 3,900, almost 4,000 people have been baptized since the revival began in 2021. So all that to say, it's important to celebrate God, amen. It's important to celebrate what God's done. We praise the Lord. Yeah, we can thank the Lord for what he's done. Now here's the, but here's the key. The key is to celebrate the past, but the challenge is don't stay in the past, okay? Because it's important for us to recognize the potential of where God is leading us, okay? The potential is the gap between where you are and where God wants to take you. Before the dust settles on the crossing of the Jordan, reality sets in. And what the people are realizing is they are about to adopt a new vision, a very different vision than the one who got them here. They're gonna step into a new season. And somebody needs to hear this because that's where you are now. So instead of wandering in the wilderness, they're about to wage war in the promised land. Very different skillset to be behind the Lord. Look at chapter five, verse 11. Go one chapter over. And I wanna show you two lines that pack a lot of theological insight.

This is really cool. The day after the Passover, they ate unleavened bread and roasted grain from the produce of the land. And the day after they ate from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. Let me say that again. After the day after they ate from the produce of the land, the manna ceased. Three words you look over if you're not careful. Since there was no more manna for the Israelites, they ate from the crops of the land of Canaan that year. Now, why is this a big deal? For us, it doesn't seem like a lot. For them, it's a big deal, why? For four decades, God planned the menu for the people. Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, God delivered it every morning as snowy-like substance on the surface of the ground. They never had to worry as a nation for 40 years where their next meal came from. They never had to prepare. They never had to plant. They never had to till. They never had to pull weeds. They never had to harvest. They never had to hunt. They never had to do anything except go out and gather. God prepared the table every day. They just got invited to the table, and then one morning, stops. Now, here's the point.

The nation has a choice, and you do too. When you're on the precipice of a new season, potential for the future, celebrating past, you have the same choice. You can either A, look at this as a problem, or B, see it as potential. You can do this with everything in your life. Now, the first time, let's go back to the first time when they left Egypt and they made it into the Promised Land and God says to Moses, hey, God's got you. He's gonna take care of you. He's gonna give you manna every day. And what do the people say? Remember this in Exodus? Oh, thank you, God. You're a good God who, is that what they said? No. They said, what manna? Who wants manna and quail? This is chewy and nasty. Who? They complained. Now, did you notice this time, when they come into the Promised Land, the test. is glaringly silent. We don't know, were they happy, were they sad, were they mad, we don't know. So we're left to fill in the gaps. I don't know what they did, but let me ask you personally.

How do you respond, look at me, how do you respond when you're standing between the goal God's taking you to and the gap between? How do you respond when you get from progress of the past to the potential of the future? Let me say it another way. How do you respond when your marriage falls apart? How do you respond when a relationship fizzles out? How do you respond when a ministry doesn't pan out like you want it to? How do you respond when a leader falls to immorality or impropriety, whatever it is? How do you respond when a job is removed? How do you respond when an opportunity is taken away? How do you respond when you're fired from your job? We only have two choices. We can either complain when we're in this new season. Well, I guess God's just abandoned us, you know? Where is he? I mean, golly, I've served him all this time. He can't be with us, we can't go any further. Of course, we need to go back. I want manna, that's what we say sometimes. I want manna. Or you have another option. You can respond and say, okay, if God is with me, and I know he is, then God must be doing something new in my life. Now, I don't fully understand it, but I'm gonna trust by faith because I know he's working,

so I'm gonna step in with new faith, why? Because new faith always responds to a new season. So you need to ask yourself right now, because some of you are there, I'm speaking to you. What is God inviting you to step into right now? Where is he taking you right now? Not what is he taking you from the past, what are you losing? The question is, what are you stepping in by faith to gain? Friends, write this down. God never promised a lifestyle of manna. God promised a land of milk and honey. And that's the problem with Christians. We wanna go back to the manna, because the manna was a means to an end. Here's the choice, listen to me. And I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying it's simple, but I'm saying it's by faith we trust the Lord. The choice is yours. You can look at this new season and be riddled with anxiety and pressure, or you can be filled with anticipation. God knows the people like he knows us. God has to remove the manna from their life, not because they failed, you're gonna love this. God removes the manna because the vision is finished. God's like, no, no, no, that's old. God's not punishing them, he's promoting them to the next level. But what are they?

They wanna go back, man, things used to be better. And I wanna go back to, no, no, God is doing a new thing. Did you know God loves to sing new songs? Anybody knows that? God loves to do, y'all with me? God loves to do new things. He loves to take you to new places. God loves to test our faith in new seasons. Here's the challenge though. The number one paralyzer of potential in your life, write this down, numero uno. The number one thing that cripples us from stepping in the water by faith is fear. Fear. We would rather keep the mess of our past than to trade it for the unknown future of tomorrow. That's where we live, right? We're like, ah, I'd rather keep this. We would rather stay where we are than step out in faith for what God has for us. Now listen, you're probably saying, Pastor Robbie, I'm all about reaching new people as long as I'm not gonna give up my assigned seat on Sunday that I've had for 20. I'm good, just don't take my seat, amen? Some of you laughing. Pastor, I'm all about a new campus on Main Street. That's awesome, as long as I don't have to go. That's what some of you are thinking. That's great, I'll give to it, I'll support it,

but I ain't going. What about this one? I know I live and drive in Gallatin, Tennessee, but I'm not interested in helping build a campus to reach people where I live. Everybody okay? See, here's the thing. God knows the people like he knows us. God has to stop the manna in order to catapult them into a new season. And here's what he wants you to know. Is it scary? Of course, but watch this. The greater the potential, the wider the gap between the goal where you're going, the greater the opportunity for our God to work. And I don't know about you. I love seeing God work. Can I get an amen? I love that. Write this down. down, you can never farm the future land by fixating on the past. You will never be able to farm a future land or prosperous land that God has for you by fixating on the past. Let's be done at our church once and for all with praying small prayers to a big God, amen? Let's stop doing that. In a sense, we insult God by doing that.

God wants to do a new thing in our church. He wants to do a new thing in our life. He wants to do a new thing in our community. He wants to take us to a place we've never been before. He wants you to enter an intimacy you've never experienced before. He wants you to have a life you've never believed even possible before. But in order to do this, watch this, you need to let go of the past and you need to be open to the future. Our son, Ryder, I'm happy to say he made it through five days of driver's education class on his summer break. Can I get an amen for that? Y'all know what I'm talking about, some of you? Yeah, 8.35 every day, came home the first day. He said, dad, this guy's teaching us about speedometers and these dials with these arrows moving. And he's like, our cars are digital. I was like, pfft. I said, be nice to the guy. He's been teaching the class for 30 years, son, be nice. If that's you, we love you. He passed, barely, couldn't miss another one, but he passed, thank you, Lord. Can I get an amen? Like his dad taking that, but anyway, he passed. But here's the thing about Ryder, he learned this week like you know. There is a reason the front windshield in your car

is 10 times bigger than the rear view mirror. You ever notice that? Because you don't drive a car looking backward. You drive a car looking out the mirror and you check backwards every now and then. And that's how God works. God says, listen, it starts, your future starts with the first step in the water, which is the last point I wanna leave you with. It's time for you and I to get our feet wet by faith. It's time for us to get our feet wet. Did you catch this? The Jordan waters didn't part from the priests praying. Did you catch that? Hey, let's get a prayer service going. Now, I'm not saying we shouldn't, but let's pray for the, God says, that is not how it's gonna part. They didn't part the waters from a subcommittee meeting. They didn't put a committee on committees to get a committee. They didn't part from strategizing. The waters didn't part from a plan. The only way, get this, I mean, this water is raging. I mean, you gotta remember, it's not just able-bodied men who can fight. It's women, children, senior saints, they all have to cross, okay? That's a big deal. And God says, hey, listen, I want you to get in the water,

the water's not gonna stop until the moment, don't miss this, your foot steps in. Faith, don't miss this, gets its feet wet before it gets answers. Say that again. Faith, our faith, gets its feet wet before God ever gives answers. The miracle doesn't come before obedience. The miracle actually comes after the first step. And I want you to look at the timing. God could have had them cross any time in the year. I mean, they've been wandering for 40 years. Just pick a month, I mean, it could have been any month. But it's this month, which is Passover, which is high tide. So think of the rushing, a Koi River. I mean, this thing is rolling. And God says, hey, I want you to cross, not at low tide, at high tide. And verse 16 says, it was flood stage. The banks were overflowing. And God waits till it is impossible. And the people are like, now? And God's like, hold, hold, hold. Now, and then God says, step in, it's time. Isn't that how God works in our life? Friends, God doesn't part the waters of your life for spectators. He parts the water for steppers. And sadly, some of you have been paralyzed on the bank of faith your whole life,

and you're like, man, is the water gonna go down? God's like, no, no, no, the water has to be here, because the moment you take a step, I'm gonna work. And if you know anything about our church, for the last 48 years, two years from now, God willing, this is very cool, God willing, when we build a campus on Main Street, we will launch the campus the same year our church is 50 years old, which is really a cool stat to think about. But right now, our church is 48 years old. Started with a faithful group of people in a home, and moved to Buchanan Hall, which is where Legacy Coffee is now. And one of the things, I mean, look at that good-looking crew right there. I mean, that's a good-looking crew right there. Look at us, folks. How many people are in this, there are some people still here. How many people are in this photo right now? Anybody? Raise your hand high. I can't see. Anybody? Yeah, let's thank the Lord. Praise God. Praise God, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Now here's what you have to understand about this photo. The faces are different, but these people are in a similar position like us. Why? Because you and I right now realize that the manna of last season was never meant to feed the next one. Let me say that again. The manna we feasted on in the past, us, is not meant by God for the generation to come. God is doing a new thing which challenges us to step out with fresh new faith. Let me say it another way. Yesterday's manna can't feed today's mission, okay? That's exactly where our church is, and that's where I was years ago. I was standing, staring out water, when the Jordan River was a tank. It was a baptismal tank that was over there right when the revival, before it started. We had one tank. It was right over there. And I had been, and you know the story, I'd been sitting with the Lord on the porch for 10 months leading up to this moment trying to discern the voice of God. And frankly, I'll tell you the back story, I was done. I was done with the pressure of trying to please people. I was done with a siloed staff that was infighting. I was done with the country.

If you remember the country, racial tension, political land, I mean, there was a lot of stuff going on. And I was out of answers, and I was out of strategies. And I had literally said, Lord, I've done it all. And God's like, okay, that's a good place to be because I need you to check out. I need you to stop, because that's what I did up to that point. And then God spoke to my heart when I had basically said I'm out of answers. God spoke to my heart and said these words. Offer to your church spontaneous, two words, baptism. I didn't have a plan. All I knew, watch this, I didn't have a plan. All I knew was that I had to take that next step of obedience to the Lord. And so what did we do as a church? We took it together. It was crazy at the time. Now it looks like, you know, obviously we know because hindsight, but at the time it was crazy. And so we offered spontaneous baptism on, at that moment, the lowest attended Sunday in the history of the time I'd been at Long Hollow for five years, still to this day. Nobody showed up, because I don't know if you remember December 20th, for those who were here, we were leading the country in middle Tennessee in COVID cases.

Not the award you wanna win in America, okay? Not to mention we sent an email out that week and said, if you come to church, if you're sick, stay home. If you come to church, wear a mask. Half of you were, sorry, not y'all. Those people who obviously out there, they were mad. Half of those people were mad, right? No, but you couldn't win back then. And so we set up a scenario when nobody was there and I offered baptism just like this, Sunday morning. Nobody was here, nine o'clock, 11 o'clock. We only had two services. And I offered spontaneous baptism. It's a big ask. I'll show you how big it is. Brother, I know you didn't come prepared to be baptized, but I'm gonna ask you to come right now. We have a chain. That's a big, sister, I know you're not prepared to be baptized, but I need you. You see how, you're like, whoa, me? That's a big ask when you're not prepared. So I didn't know who would come. I walked over to the tank. I said, if you've been sprinkled like me as a child and haven't been baptized on the right side of your salvation, or you got wet as a child, fell away from the Lord and eventually came to Christ later and haven't followed through with baptism, I'll meet you at the tank.

I stood there and nobody moved. And I'll be honest with you, but you go back and watch the video. I think it's still online. For like a minute, I'm thinking, all right, Lord, I'm looking like an idiot right now. I mean, maybe I didn't hear you, I don't know. And then all of a sudden, by God's grace, one move, two move, three. At the end of the first service, I'm gonna tell you the backstory I haven't shared publicly before. At the end of the first service, we baptized 25 people. Now, for me and for a lot of us, I'd never seen anything like that. 25 spontaneous people, oh, by the way, in bacterial-filled water, okay? That's the miracle of the baptism revival, okay? 25 people. So I go back in the room back here with my staff, because back then, we were social distancing. And so I'm sitting in the room, about halfway through our time, get a knock at the door. One of my staff members walked in, they said, hey, pastor, don't mean to bother you, but there's a girl who drove in from across town. She wants to know, can you baptize her between the services? I'd never done that before. I said a joke.

I said, can we even do that? They said, well, you're the pastor. We'll do whatever you want, you know? So I was like, okay. So I walked just around here, out that curtain, walked down to that little baptistry, and I would ask this young lady two questions that I would ask every single person who would be baptized all the way to July of that year. First question was this, where are you from? Second question was, why did you come? And that girl looked at me and she said, I drove here from Jolton, Tennessee, which is about an hour away. And she said, I watched online the service and I drove in. Now, you know, if you've been here before, I never said one time, drive in, fly in, come in. And so I asked her the second question. And by the way, the first question I asked her was Jolton. But I would hear over the next six or eight months, Maine, Portland, Oregon, I flew in last time, really? New York, what? Las Vegas, Nevada, Los Angeles. And then I followed up the question with this. Well, why did you come? There are a lot of churches between there and here. Why did you come? And this was the answer they gave me. All 1,600 people over the next 18 months from 17 states, only God, the thread that was woven

through every single testimony was this. The Holy Spirit of God compelled me to come. I had to come. And that's when I realized no sermon series can do that. No strategy, no door hangers. That was a God sent revival. Now, here's the part I'd never told you before. Walk back in the back room, service about to start. 10 minutes before the service starts, I get another knock on the door. They said, pastor, don't mean to bother you again. You're never gonna believe this. A guy on a Harley just drove up in the parking lot. He has a biker vest on. He wanted to know if you could baptize him. And when I walked out the second time, the Lord spoke to my heart and said, this is not business as usual. You're about to enter a new season as a church, and you have no idea what's coming. Here's the point I want you to leave with. Watch this. I didn't part the waters. Nobody did. God parted the waters. We just got our feet wet by faith, and God did the rest. I'm not telling you this story to boast in what we did or what I did. I'm telling you this story, Long Hollow, so we can remember what God did, amen?

Because the same God who flooded the tank with people who needed to stand on the edge to enter into the next season is the same God who said to Joshua, Joshua, I know this looks crazy. I know it doesn't make sense. I know it doesn't seem real, but I need, hey, I need you to come in. Step in by faith, Joshua. The water is fine. God willing, we're going into a new season. In the fall, I'm gonna explain it all to you. God's grace, we're gonna build a new campus on Main Street. It'll be the first peripherally of 10 campuses over the next 20 years, God willing. Main Street, we're gonna build this campus. We're gonna renovate Hendersonville with life groups and kids and expansion. We're gonna renovate Gallatin to make it look and feel like Hendersonville. We're doing this for more square footage. I want you to hear this. We're doing this to reach more people who are wandering, who haven't stepped into the promised land, their potential themselves. And here's the reality. There are 65,000 people, Middle Tennessee, in our community, 65,000 who have no church home. That should bother us. Out of the 36,000 students in Sumner County, 5% of those students have a church home.

5%. So here's what I want you to leave it. The future plans are not a building project. It is a baptismal tank waiting to be filled by God. The future plans are about legacies being changed long after you and I are gone from this place and from this world. So here's a question I want us to consider as a church and as an individual. Here's the question. Will we stay where we are with what we know? Which I'll be honest, it'd be easy and comfortable to just say, hey, this is it, you know. But if we're not done reaching people, don't miss this. The question is this. Will we step out by faith and trust the Lord? And some of you are like, man, I'm standing right now on the precipice right now. Some of you right now are standing there. And I wanna challenge you. Stop insulting God by praying small prayers to a big God. Let's start trusting God for greater things ahead, amen? And some of you are there. You're standing on the bank of a big decision right now. You're tempted to complain and say, man, this is crazy. We can't do this. You're tempted to say, man, let's just go back to the way things used to be. You could even be saying, well, Robbie,

the water's at flood stage. There's no way we can cross this place. And God's like, no, no, that's exactly where it needs to be. I just need you to step in and trust me. Friends, today is the day, if you're standing on the bank, to put aside fear and walk by faith and trust God. Why? Because I think it's time for you, I'm talking to you personally, I think it's. Time for you to finally get your feet wet by faith. Father, I pray right now for our church. For those who are paralyzed by fear, those who look at the waters and the waves and the wind and think, man, there's no way. Reminded of Peter, when everyone else cowered back, Peter said, God, you call me, I'll come, I'll follow. And I know right now, God, personally, individually, you're calling people to a new season. You're calling them to a new level of trust. You're calling them to a new faith. You're calling them to a new potential. And we can't experience all that you have for us if we stay on the shore, on the bank. So I'm praying for that for our church right now. Is it scary? Of course. Is it, does it require sacrifice? Yes. But God, nothing worth doing for you will be easy, but it will be worth it for eternity.

We love you, Lord. We ask it in Jesus' name. Everyone said.