The Pathway To Success Pt. 14

Amen. Amen. Joshua chapter one verse eight is our theme verse for this series. It says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate in the day and night that you may observe 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. Everybody say good success. One more time. Good success. Amen. Good success. The kind of success that I don't have to hide the blessings of the lord makes us good success. The kind of success I ain't got to do nobody dirty to get it. Good success. The kind of success that won't have you in jail. Amen. Good success. The kind of success is not selfish but brings other people up too. Good success. Amen. Amen. Amen. You may be seated. Joshua chapter one verse eight is houses both commands and promises of god. There's one

command that's in three parts as we call it three commands and then there are two promises. The commands are this and it's basically all the commands in the verse that are Joshua's pathway to success are all about the bible. God says this book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth. You know what he's saying? Keep the word in your mouth. Amen. Keep the word in your conversations. Keep the word in your interactions. It said just be on your mind. Meditate on it day and night. Keep it on your mind. Keep it on your thoughts. Make sure the word is what you repeat to yourself. Why are you having conversations with yourself? Make sure it's biblio centric and then the word needs to also be in your actions and your behavior and your movement. That's what sometimes we miss it because we we might read the word and

we might come to church and hear the word but we don't apply it to our life. You can't have good success like that. You you don't get to disconnect the word when you get to your real life. What is real life? That's, you know, no, no, no. This is the word. It would govern your life. It governs your actions. So he says, I need it in your mouth. I need it in your mind. I need it in your movements. And that's and he says, and that's the that's the command. Here's the promise. When you do that, put the verse up. When you do that, then you will make your way prosperous. Then you will have good success. The promise, the prerequisite to the promise is Joshua's intimate relationship with God's word. It's in his mouth. It's in his conversations. It's on his mind. He thinks about it and it controls the way he acts.

I'm observing to obey the word. When you do that, he says, you'll end up with prosperity. You'll wake your way prosperous and you'll have good success. Does everybody understand that? Now, what I want you to understand is I'm a double down on this again today is that the context in which God says, this is Joshua, this is Joshua is very important because God says, this is Joshua doing a crisis. It is a pivotal moment and when God's when God's trying to get our attention the most is when we're in crisis. When you're in crisis, you don't go with what you know. You have to go with God knows. They're in a crisis. Moses has died. Their leader, their hero. They didn't really treat him like a hero while he was living, but people, people's, people's value gets elevated when they did.

We just treat them better when they did. We think so. Think the world of Moses, but they would talk about Moses behind his back while he was living, but now Moses is gone and the promise hasn't been fulfilled. So, the people are between what where they were in bondage and slavery in Egypt. They still haven't gotten to the promised land. Their leader is gone. There's a lot of uncertainty and God says to Joshua in a moment of uncertainty, in a moment where he needs direction. The first thing God says to Joshua is, I need you to be acquainted with, deeply committed to, and acting on my word. Now, this is significant when you think of who Joshua was. Joshua was by nature and by profession, a fighter. He was a warrior. He was the commander of the army. Fighting was his thing. How

many of y'all know families? You ever grew up in a neighborhood with families and there's a family in the neighborhood everybody knew could fight? I ain't talking about the brother. I'm talking about that family's sisters could fight. They had a sister named Scrap. When your sister named Scrap, that means the whole family ready for it at all times. They just, they just, them kind of people don't talk much. They ain't got nothing to say. In fact, if you say something, they say, say something else. How many know what I'm talking about? Say something else out your mouth. Say it again. That's the kind, that's who Joshua was. Where's the fight? Where's the enemy? Let's rumble. So, here's how we know he's the man for the job because that's what's needed now.

Now all the word about the promise, we are going to the promised land, but every land we possess, we going to have to fight. It's a fight and we need a fighter. Respectfully, Moses wasn't a fighter. The one fight Moses in, he jumped somebody while they wasn't looking, killed him, left him in the sand. But that's Moses' only fight. He won an O, but it was a sneak up jump. In fact, it wasn't even his fight, he jumped into a fight with a man that was already tired of the fight and beat him up. Moses was a praying man, amen. You got to know what you do right, you know what I'm saying? These hands are for prayer. In fact, when there was a war going on one time, Joshua was down there fighting, guess where Moses was? He's up on the mountain praying, in a seat. He up there in a seat, and as long as his hands was up, you think that don't matter? Intercession matters. I said intercession matters. Long as his hands was up, they was winning. When his hands got tired, they was getting beat up. It was so important, his intercession was so important, they sent Moses down on the rock,

they sent two men next to him, two men on either side of him to hold his hands up because his intercession and Joshua's fighting was working together. So we know Joshua was the man for the job because we need a fighter, but when God came to him in the crisis, he says, I ain't talking to you about fighting, I'm talking about my word. You already know how to fight, what you're missing is what Moses had, you're not spiritual enough. And I'm talking to thousands of you listening to me today across campuses and online, some of you, your next move's going to have to be spiritual. I know you can fight, I know you can write, I know you can sing, I know you can speak, I know you have all of these talents, and these abilities, but what you're lacking is, is a commitment to the everlasting, eternal, life-changing word of God. This is your next move. You gotta know the word, Joshua. I need you to understand the word. And see, some of you are saying, well why, you know, it's gotta be in your mouth, it's gotta be on your mind, it's gotta be in your external conversations, your conversations should be Biblio-centric, your conversation with yourself's gotta be Biblical,

your lifestyle needs to be Biblical, all of this is important, and you say, well Pastor, why I gotta be all that into the Bible? I ain't no preacher, I'm not a minister, I'm not a missionary, I'm not a prophet, I'm not an evangelist, it doesn't matter what you are. You can be a producer, you can be an entrepreneur, you can be a hairstylist, you can be a mechanic, you can have a trucking business, you can be an educator, it doesn't matter, you need God's word, why? Because his word is a lamp to your feet, and it's a light to your path. His word has the, this has the whole counsel of God in it, and when you don't have that, you're missing something. See, God's trying to give you good success, you want natural success, but God's trying to give you supernatural success, and you're gonna only get it when you get in this book. You need this book, and I mean all of it, not just the cute psalms you like to read. Let me go on back to my favorite psalm. Let me look at my favorite scripture about Jesus. No, the whole thing, Nahum, Obadiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, all them people, you gotta read this word, because when you read the word, you find out what he likes, and what he dislikes, what he loves, and what he doesn't love, what he rejects, and what he receives. You learn who you are, and what you can have, and what you don't have to accept,

and what pleases God, and what displeases God, and if you don't know that, you can be talented, you can be skillful, you can be creative, you can be gifted, but if you're missing this, you might have a level of success, but you will never get to his level of success, because you need his word. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Gotta have it. Amen. Amen. Why would God say we about to fight, and we ain't gonna talk fight? It would seem like if God was logical, the first conversation would be, we need to talk about flanking maneuvers, and we need to talk about guerrilla warfare, and we need to talk about ambushing, and we need to talk about military tactics, and we need to talk about military strategy, because I'm gonna send you to fight. No, he ain't talking about none of that. I need you to get in my word, because I'm gonna do some things for you supernaturally that all your natural tactics will not be able to do. I'm gonna be giving you victory. One of the victories I'm gonna give you,

the reason why you need to be in my word, and know me, because one of the victories, you ain't gonna even pick up a weapon. You're just gonna march around a city. Good God. You're gonna march around a city once a day, like I tell you. Then you're gonna do it the next day, like I tell you. Then you're gonna do it the next day, like I tell you. Then you're gonna do it the next day, like I tell you. And then on the seventh day, you're gonna shout, and the whole city gonna collapse, because I am the God that can do the impossible, but you must have a relationship with me and my word. I know you wanna get up on AI. I know you want marketing and sales strategies. I know you wanna be better at infrastructure and systems. I know because some of you have lost a Moses in your life, something precious to you you lost, or maybe you were thrust into a position of authority that you weren't anticipating. or you were moved into a position of responsibility and there's a lot of weight on you. And I'm telling you, stop leading to your own understanding. You gotta go deeper into the Word because God's Word will prepare you for what you're facing now. You need my Word. Here's why. Joshua, you can fight,

but here's one thing God did for Joshua in Joshua chapter 10. There were wars that Joshua was winning that would normally take days and weeks and months. It took them seven years to get all the land, to fight for all the land and distribute it. One day in Joshua chapter 10, because he followed the Word, whether it was the Word spoken to him by God or the Word spoken through the Word, the Bible says Joshua conquered like five kings in one day. Five kingdoms. That's unprecedented. You know why? Because God says, I'm gonna give you victory, unprecedented victory, because I'm gonna make it stay daylight all day and all night. See? The Bible says that God made the sun, S-U-N, stand still. I wish I was a better student in school. I could preach this better, but I'm just gonna reach out there and tell you what I think. In order for the sun to stand still, you know that the sun doesn't rise and set, right? The sun doesn't move. The sun stays where it is. The reason why it looks like it rose and set is because of where we are at the time

when it looked like it went down and the time when it looked like it went up. Earth is rotating on an axis. Every 24 hour, we make one revolution around the sun. It is amazing because we're 93 million miles away from the sun. Amazing. In Him, we live and move and have our very being, that God is the one who holds all things together. If we were any closer to the sun, we burn up. If we were any further away from the sun, we freeze up, but He keeps it all together right where it needs to be. And every day, when we rotate on that axis, sometimes we're above the sun. It looks like the sun set. Sometimes we're below the sun. It looked like the sun went up. It didn't move. We're just rotating around it. Now, while the earth is rotating, there's a chemistry. There's a symmetry that happens because we're moving right now, but we're not dizzy. But you have to understand, if the earth ever stopped moving, that would be cataclysmic because the earth could stop, but everything on it would keep moving. You'd think we had a ice storm. Imagine if everything just started moving. Planets would run into each other. Buildings would fall apart. People, you understand what I'm saying?

God kept everything still for one man in one fight that was on one mission, and He says, I'm gonna make the sun stand still. Why are you gonna do it, God? I'm gonna do a miracle. Sometimes the miracle that God did for you, you don't even understand the supernatural. Sometimes God is holding up something supernatural to do something, what you think is in your life, it's big to you, it's even bigger than you even know what He did. I don't even know how to really preach this really like I want to. It was important to say daylight because Joshua was fighting enemies in enemy territory, and when it gets dark at night, that's when strangers are at a disadvantage because we don't know the land. We don't know where the traps are. We don't know where the dark places are. We don't know where the enemy is hiding. We can't see them at night, and so the enemy can actually get an advantage at night because they know their land. If I come over your house, and it's dark in your house, and I'm looking for you, and we're in some kind of conflict, you have the advantage because I don't know where the table is, and I don't know, I'm gonna be walking. You ever walked into a space, and it was dark,

and you didn't know what was there, what was around you? That's what it would be like for Joshua and the Israelite soldiers, but God says, I'm gonna keep it light so you can see who you're fighting against all the time. I'm gonna give you that victory, so I'm gonna do for you in one day what could have took you two years to get done, and what I'm trying to tell some of y'all, y'all keeping God out of it, and you're studying strategies, and listening to podcasts, and doing all that, but you're skipping the Word, so you're getting smarter because you're listening to all these business gurus, and these speakers, and these singers about how to do things, but if you don't get in this Word, it might take you years to do what God will do for you. Y'all ain't talking to me in here. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. It doesn't mean your skills don't matter. Joshua could.

He gonna have to fight. He got skills. Joshua don't even have fighting skills. He got leadership skills. I believe Joshua was high on the Clifton Stress. He had command, and he was strategic, very strategic. That was probably in his top five, but it don't matter if you got woo, you got strategic, you got learner, you got achiever, you could be a overachiever. You got activator and a jerry curl to go with it. If you don't have God's Word, This is that see that's that's what levels are playing for you know what levels of playing field for us this word I Don't have to have more skill than you I got I got more God I got I know what God's up to I know My pattern I don't have to be zigzag And I know that the way he makes my way playing for me if I trust in the Lord with all my heart And I lean not to my own understanding if all my ways acknowledge him He'll make my path straight so you might be you might be smarter, but my path straight You might be stronger, but my path is straight. You might know more people, but my path is straight. You might be white I'm black, but my path is straight You might be a Democrat or Republic don't make no difference to me my path is straight Who am I talking to in here the Word of God will make your path straight? His word Let me say this also because I Can't overemphasize how important it is that you become for being with his word because his word Emphasis his word he says keep the word in your mouth Which means you got to be reading it and repeating it to yourself, but you also got to keep it in your mind a Lot of successful people most successful people don't think like regular people Some of you the hurdle to your success is your thinking So

You need you to do you need to fix your thoughts When the car's not running right you got to fix the car so I can run right your mind ain't running right you need to Fix your thoughts so your mind can run, right? Go Philippians 4a says this Philippians 4a says Now dear brothers and sisters one final thing fix your thoughts everybody say Lord fix my thoughts On What is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise We think too low How can you live high and think low you can't it's oxymoronic It's like it's like it's like trying to it's like having drag on a plane that you're trying to get up Your drag is your brain Thinking negatively having dark thoughts having hopeless thoughts and those hopeless those hopeless thoughts and those negative thoughts feed in the way you Feel and they feed in the way you talk Everybody say speak up Speak up up up Stop talking down stop talking low stop talking broke stop talking negative stop talking demonic Stop talking about your past Stop talking about what's behind you forgetting those things what you're behind reaching forward to those things before I press on Toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I don't just press with my feet I press with my mouth Stop talking about who you used to be and how you used to be and what you used to be in God has delivered you talk delivered talk up speak up everybody say speak up Look at this I want you to see the pattern between your your time in the word and in your mouth on your mind and your movements the Way you think and the way you speak Luke 6 45 says this It's what it starts with what is in your heart good people have good things saved in their hearts. That's why they say good things Those were evil have hearts full of evil, that's why they say things that are evil

What's the bottom line what people say with their mouths comes from what fills their hearts The reason why we talk crazy is because we fill our hearts with crazy stuff and evil stuff So we always listen to music that is evil Some music in the church ain't even really sacred. It's just It's just it's just sprinkled. It's just got a little Sprinkles in it, but it's really talking about stuff. That's over So we listen to stuff like That that doesn't feed us this desk low and we own social media listening to stuff and watching stuff that's low most of it's just critical and negative and People around here time up We need a whole new County Council and we need more new electric fishers with liquid they did to the snow They need remove the snow. How you crazy? They know that ain't snow That wasn't snow when it fell Do you know what snow is? Snow is fluffy. It's powdery. You can sweep snow You ain't got a shovel if it's loner you can sweep snow if it was snow step on it and your footprint will be there I dare you to step on that you go on like this. You expect, how come the snow plows in? That ain't snow. Man, look at my, look at our street. They don't care nothing about it. You move it. You try to move that ice. I've seen a piece of ice on our street. That sucker is... The only thing that'll move that is the mercy of God that sent enough heat to melt that stuff and stay melted. You just gonna have to wait. So I'm saying, if you want to sit around people and say, this county's some trash.

These people's some trash. The state's attorney's trash, the county executive's trash, the governor's trash, everybody's trash. I move away from conversations like that because that's a down conversation. It's a down conversation. It's a low conversation. It doesn't fix anything. You're sitting in the hair salon, sitting in the beauty shop. All they're doing is talking down. What's wrong with that? Did you hear about Siobhan Cuitcher? You know what she... And he the one... Listen, you have to learn how to dismiss yourself from conversations that continue to pull you down into ratchetness and hopelessness and darkness. You guys say, oh, you know what? I got to go. I'm sorry. I got to leave here because if I can't change the conversation, I'm going to change my location. You understand what I'm saying? Because I need to be in conversations that are up. I said, I need to be talking to people that are up. I got stuff to do. I got to have up conversations. Who am I talking to right now? I need you to think up and pray up and believe up and speak up. Somebody say up. Amen. Yeah, I'm up. I'm up with it. I'm up with it.

We're talking about what's up. Some of your prayers are low. You know, Job... People don't like you talking about Job because he was a great man, but his prayers were low. Every day, Job would pray fearful prayers about his children. He was so afraid about his children's behavior, he would go burn sacrifices to the Lord saying, I don't know. Maybe they cut up. I don't want nothing bad to happen to them. When all 10 of his children died, and the devil did that, we already know the devil did it because he asked God, could he do all that stuff? When the devil killed all 10 of his children, after that, Job said, that which I feared the most came upon me. You know what that tells you? You know what Job was saying? Please don't let my kids die. Please don't let my kids get in a car accident. Please don't let my child get abducted. Please don't let that happen to my child. You got to stop praying. You'd be surprised what you can speak into your life by your own fears. I don't pray like that no more. I pray my kids are going to live and not die. They're going to declare the words of the Lord. I don't look at what I see. I look at what I believe. I ain't saying that sometimes it don't get blurry. Even if the behavior doesn't match what I believe, I'm still speaking what I believe. Amen. I'm not speaking death over my children.

I'm not speaking. I'm not praying that. I'm not praying nothing about a tragic car accident. I hope that, yeah, they're going to be there safely. They're going, stop it. You might be living, you're praying, but you're praying scared prayers, and you're thinking scared thoughts. Up, up, up, up. Bring your prayers up. Bring your faith up. Bring your belief up. Think about yourself. Some people talk themselves out of serving God because an accusation would come to your own mind. I know you ain't bothered to be in the ministry. I know you ain't even thinking about it. You done broke up two marriages. Ooh, that hit ... I felt that. I felt that in section two. Amen. I don't know what's happening where you are, but in section two ... I know you ain't. Do you know whenever you hear accusations about yourself, you know where that comes from? That's demonic. The Bible says in Revelation that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. Satan just tries to accuse you so you can believe the accusations so you can live off of it. Watch this. What you did is not who you are. Stop talking about what you did.

Stop remembering what you did and remember what God did. God brought me out of darkness into the marvelous light. God forgave me. Watch this. My sin is not stronger than his blood. His blood has redeemed me. His blood has repositioned me. If I confess my sins, he's faithful and just to forgive me and cleanse me. What qualifies me to serve God is not do I have a perfect past. I have a perfect God who has a perfect love, who has perfectly redeemed me, who has a perfect price. He's paid for my sin. Speak up. When my father was 51 years old, he stopped using drugs and he had gotten arrested. This is a funny story and he knows if he's listening, he knows it's true. So he got locked up. I was in the ministry and the suit he got arrested in for drunk driving. He gave it to me. I want you to use this. I'm around here preaching in a drunk driving suit. I didn't know, but anyway. So early on, this is before my father really knew the Lord, he started saying, hey, would you go to meetings with me? I didn't know what he meant. I didn't know what a meeting was, but it was AA meetings where you go in and he would go to Howard University, these meetings. Now I'm gonna preface this because some of y'all gonna get mad and get upset. I support AA, NA meetings.

I believe that stuff and I think it's helpful and I also want to have it in our church. I've been wanting to have it for years. I think we need everything we can to help people move in the right direction. While I applaud that, I'm gonna tell you something that I don't applaud. In the meeting, I remember this, everybody had to go around the room and say, hey, my name is Mac Battle and I'm an alcoholic. My name is Eric Davis and I'm an addict. My name is this and I'm, they may not have had a drink in 12 years, but they had to keep saying they were what they did. The devil is a liar. I ain't talking backwards. My name is Keith Battle. I ain't gonna tell you what I did. I'm gonna tell you who I am. I'm a child of God. I'm a chosen generation. I'm a royal priesthood. I ain't talking about what I did because if I keep talking, because you have what you say and you ain't gonna make me say something that God has redeemed me from. I ain't gonna keep calling myself what he did. I ain't gonna keep calling myself. What good is it to keep talking about,

you was a pimp and you ran the streets and you had 10 women and you had 14 baby daddies. Who cares? Who are you now? Right now, we are the sons of God. I'm a daughter of the king. Right now, I'm his chosen generation. I am the one. Somebody give him praise for what you are now. What I am ain't what I did. I am not what I did. I am not what I did. I am not what I did. Excuse me, you don't get to put that label on me. That's down. Somebody say up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up, up. I speak up. I believe up. I pray up. I hope up. And if I don't do that, shut up. What God am I? You ain't got something up to say, shut up. Amen. When you on the phone with somebody talking down, every now and then, you say, hold on, somebody calling me. You can lie, I'm giving you permission to lie. Say, I'm gonna have to call you back. Somebody on the other line. You know what's on the other line?

Up, up, up, up, up. I got to put you down. Some of y'all listening to so much down. You ever got off the phone with somebody, you was feeling good for that conversation. Amen. No, I ain't talking about that. We over with that. Amen. You got to catch yourself thinking down, praying down, talking down to yourself. That's when it really matters. What you say around here is just entertaining. Yeah, child, you know I'm more than a conqueror. And then you get in your car and the devil say, you should kill yourself. And you don't even talk back to it. You don't even tell him he a liar. You a liar. I'm gonna kill myself. God's in control of this life. Even when I'm down, I'm winning. I am more than a conqueror. What you gonna say when the devil's talk to you? That's the conversation that matters. You ain't in church. This service ain't even two hours. You got 22 hours to say the right stuff. Somebody say, speak up. Interrupt your down conversations

and your backwards conversations. Amen. How do you speak up? You got to think up. How do you think up? Get that word in you. Because the word will tell you who you are. And the word will help you make a distinction between what's a lie and what's the truth. When I worked here, believe it or not, I used to work here. I was a cashier at Kmart that was here. I was never employee of the month. I wasn't in my lane. Yeah. Remember, we was a cashier. I remember they was telling us about counterfeit money. This is in the 90s. And I've told you all this, just act like you ain't never heard it before. And I said, and you know, in the training, I asked the question, well, can we see what it looks like? And the manager would never show us counterfeit money. money. And I was confused about that. So one day I asked him, how come you never show us the fake money? He says, I want you to get so used to seeing real money that when you see fake money, you'll know it's not real. And you know what? The way you know what's true and what's fake, you get so used to being in his word that you can say, nah, that ain't God. That ain't even sound like God. I don't care what everybody's saying online. I don't care what's trending. I don't sound like God to me. That ain't in alignment with what he says, because what he says is a representative of who he is. Amen. So since we talking about

speaking up and praying up and believing up, now I'm going to need you to stand up. Everything is up. Up. Amen. Everything is up. Everything is up. We need to love each other enough. The people you love just say, flip their thinking. It's okay to weep with those who weep, but we also got to rejoice with those who rejoice. But every now and then, just help people see the other side. They start talking down, down, down, down, like life is just terrible. And they just remind them, man, but it's so good. Man, it's cold out. Man, it's 10 below, man. It's just 10 below. Ain't it nice to have heat? Is your heat on? Yeah, my heat is on. Ain't you grateful for that? That's up talk. Both are facts. Then you go away, leave 10 degrees below, and you go somewhere, and you say, how you feel? Man, it's in the 90s, man. I want 74. Get yourself together. Fix your thoughts. Ooh, that's so good. Fix your thoughts. See, you can control that. You can control that. I know the therapist told you that you can't, because of the family you came from. That's a down thought. That's backwards. Instead of continuing to talk about what family you came out of, and what your mental health diagnosis is, how about your spiritual diagnosis? That I am redeemed. That he has given me power, love, and a sound mind. And I can do all things through Christ who's driven me. I'm not saying that the diagnosis is not true. This one is too. And to me, your life will follow what you speak the most. Amen. I'm betting on God. I said, I'm betting on God. Anybody with me? I'm betting on God. I don't care how it looks. I'm betting on God. He will come through. He going to come through. While you're standing, I'm going to turn the service over to minister Dumasani, Pastor Sean Mason, Pastor Celeste Kennedy, Pastor Monica Chavis, as they lead us to what to do now.