The First Step to Grow to Go

rad too but in all seriousness it is the first step to it because what we've been talking about is specifically our roles in the church as individuals those were the first three weeks where we looked at investing inviting and impacting and I'll talk a little bit about that today um and then kind of how that flows into what we do as a church collectively here in Indianapolis in the country um and then ultimately to an unreached people group um around the world all of those things are great and all those things in a lot of ways are very applicable to our lives and what we're

supposed to do and how we engage and what we do with our time and our talent and our Treasures um but at the end of the day I I still think there's something that I hope today's message will help us with I think there's something that oftentimes blocks us from actually doing it actually engaging in the ministry that God has called each one of us individually to because sometimes it's easy for us to say well it's the pastor's job or it's the leadership's job sometimes we say we want to be a part of a movement we want to be a part of a church but

we don't want to move we don't want to play our part in the church we just hope that it happens and my hope today is that as what we see in scripture from what God has called us to that it actually provides for us the substance that we each individually need to begin the first step of growing individually so that we can grow collectively as a church so that we can grow the gospel in its presence in Indianapolis which then continues to multiply out to our country and eventually to an unreached group around the world and that's why for a couple of weeks you've heard

me reference the quote from Bobby Harrington which says Miracles follow movement and I've continued to show you from scripture how God brings about his plan and purposes for his people God is the one who of course is the one who performs The Miracle but it is usually after God has required movement on our part A step of faith if you will in other words God requires us to step out in faith in order to see God's faithfulness that's why in 2 Kings 4 what we looked at a couple of weeks ago God promised to provide for the Widow but required the Widow to go out

and borrow jars in order for God to fill them with the oil for her to sell in Acts one God promised to send the Holy Spirit to empower the disciples but required them to go to the upper room and pray for the spirit to come in Acts 8 God promised to save and seek the lost but required philli to go south and get in an Ethiopian officials Chariot and share sh the gospel with him in Genesis God promised to save Noah and his family but first required him to build an ark when there's never been a flood much less even the mention of rain in

the gospels before Jesus feeds the 5,000 people he requires the disciples to find the boy with Five Loaves and two fish and bring them to him over and over and over again the play we see run in scripture is that God is requiring us to step out in faith before God steps in to perform a miracle and the passage I'm going to show you today from The Book of Joshua is no different so turn with me to Joshua 1 Old Testament here this will be right after the Exodus Joshua one I'm going to show you how God provides a destination how he requires discipline and

then gives us Deliverance so yes 3DS for your alliteration today it's like a good Baptist preacher so beginning with destination to orient you a little bit on where we are in the story of God and his people the Israelites it really begins in Genesis 12 with Abraham who has a son Isaac Isaac eventually has a son Jacob Jacob has lots of children but particularly 12 sons and become who become the 12 tribes of Israel which makes up God's people they moved to Egypt due to a famine and there the people of God begin to multiply among the Egyptians the Egyptians get nervous about that and

so they then therefore enslave the people of God uh because of their great numbers Moses eventually Rises up and leads the people out of Egypt and out of slavery via The Exodus in the Red Sea that that most of us know about they then send spies into Canaan which was going to be again the promised land that God is providing for them but they reject the report because 10 of the 12 Spies gave a discouraging report regarding what they saw in the land this led to them wandering in the wilderness or desert for 40 years and just to put a little bit of perspective for

you in regards to this this is a side note but the reason for wandering was because of their lack of faith and Disobedience all right so so God didn't just wander them for Spiritual maturity sake it was their lack of faith and Disobedience and not only that on top of that where they spent the majority of their time is a location called the cyani peninsula which was about 200 miles from Canaan from the promised land which means that for 40 years they were no more than a two weeks Journey away from the promised land 40 years no more than two weeks away from the promised

land but remained wandering because of lack of faith and Disobedience this is where they receed the law and they build the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant Moses after the after the 40 years once the people start eventually moving towards step of Faith moving towards obedience Moses ends up dying because the Lord's not going to allow him to come into the promised land I'll actually talk about that here in a moment as well but then Joshua assumes leadership of the people just outside of the promised land at what we call the Jordan River so now the only thing that separates them from Canaan the

promised land and where they are coming out of the wandering in the desert is again another water that must be parted so let's pick it up there in the narrative in the story Joshua 1 looking at verses 1-3 after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord the Lord said to Joshua the son of nun Moses's assistant Moses my servant is dead now therefore arise go over this Jordan you and all this people into the land that I am giving to them to the people of Israel every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon I have given to you just as

I promised to Moses so the destination for the people of God is the land that God promised to them aka the promised land that we always talk about you've heard about in church growing up the destination answers the question where are we going where are we going and this is where Vision comes into play this is where Vision clarifies where we are where we are going and even how we are going to get there they must they know where they were wandering in the desert they know where they're going the promise land and they know how they're going to get there God tells them you're

going to cross over the Jordan River well we and I'm going to at times I'm going to pause from the story and interject us into it as far as what we are doing as a church we need a vision we need to know where we are going we need to know where we've been we need to know where we're going and we need to know how to get there because if we don't all we're going to do is just do ministry activity and be frustrated because we don't know what our goal is we don't know where our destination is we don't know what we're actually

coming to accomplish and so we need a vision for this year we need a vision for the next 5 years we need vision for the next 30 50 years and what I would love to see for the district Church where we are going is this and I've talked about the vision for this year it's Vision 25 it's what's on the um connect table outside it's what we talked about at the last member meeting this year we want to see 2500 invites which is basically we want you inviting randomly 10 people per month to come to the district church this could be waiters waitresses this could

be anybody that has a heartbeat this could be I mean just walking past someone down the road you just I mean just sling a card at them you know slide it in their pocket without them even know I don't know I'm just saying figure out a strategic way to invite 10 people per day or per month me I think that will lead to if 2500 people are invited it'll lead to kind of doing a 10:1 ratio one of them that actually considers coming to the church for the first time which would lead to about 250 firsttime guests this out of that 250 firsttime guest 10:1

ratio we believe that God will save 25 people which would allow us to have 25 baptisms by the end of 2025 which is why it's called Vision 20 5 over the next 5 years we want to see that ramp up we want to see that continue to increase instead of 250 firsttime guests this year over the next five years we would love to see that grow to 3,000 firsttime guests who come to the district to see what it's about to see what Jesus would have for them we believe that'll lead to 300 baptisms and it'll eventually lead to 30 people sent on missions by 2030

now again if you've heard me talk over the past few weeks what are some of our goals what would we love to see if we're following an acts 18 strategy which is being Witnesses in Jerusalem Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the Earth a goal for our church is that we would be Witnesses in Indianapolis which is basically saying we've witnessed Jesus we've experienced Jesus we know that he has saved us and forgiven us and we want to provide that we want to tell someone El someone else this is what I've witnessed this is what I've experienced so I want you to have

the same forgiveness and Grace that I've received from Jesus and so we want to tell Indianapolis what Jesus has done for us that's what it means to witness beyond that we want take it to the country there's lost people in the United States it is not a Christian Nation let's just be honest it's not and so it needs to be reached and we have strategies in which we do that partner with multiple church planting networks that are planting churches all over the United States part of our giving goes out to church planting networks upwards of 5 to 7% of our giving goes straight out to

just seeing other churches planted but at the same time we want to start doing short-term mission trips to those Church plants to be able to help them in their context text see the gospel continue to spread and then beyond that if he's telling them I want you to go to Indian or Indianapolis Jerusalem Jude and Samaria and the ends of the Earth the ends of the Earth gets them beyond their Samaria which gets us beyond our country and we want to see an unreached people group reached there's over 3,000 unreached people groups in the world I would love in the next 30 30 to 50

years to be able to say that the district Church through the efforts of being Witnesses of the Gospel what he has done for us we go and take it to others that we would be able by the end of our lifetime to say we reached a group that was once unreached that'd be amazing it'd be amazing we need to have Vision we need to have destination in Joshua 1 God's promised a destination a land that he has given to his people and has even provided the route for them to get there crossing the Jordan River if we don't know where we are going we don't

know the route we are going to take to get there then it doesn't matter how much effort we put into it it'll never come to fruition you'll never cross the finish line it'll feel like unending busyness without any Victory it reminds me of the story of the Winchester Mansion I know I've shared this with our leadership team before I don't know if I've shared it with our church at large but I love the story of the Winchester Mansion because I just like weird odd historical stories and this is one where um back about um I can't actually don't remember the date of when it happened

uh I want to say it was like mid 1940s 1950s but anyways um Sarah Winchester was the wife of the the rifle Tycoon like the the Winchester um I'm drawing a blank I think it's William but I'm drawing a blank on his name it doesn't matter he own Winchester rifle all right started the whole thing incredibly wealthy man well he dies and because she was um Sarah Winchester was really kind of drawn to spiritualism she went and visited with a medium and the medium told her hey uh you're inheriting 51% of your husband's company I mean she's ridiculously wealthy at this point uh you're receiving

an a daily income that's going to be far more than you would ever need but you're going to be haunted by every ghost or spirit that has died by the hands of a Winchester rifle which at this point is a lot and so she said basically asked the the medium what what should I do then and the medum says what you need to do is you need to move west as far west as you can go so she lands in California and you need to start constructing a home and as you construct this home the only way to ward off any of these unwanted wanted

Spirits or ghosts is that you need to construct the home 24 hours a day for 7even days a week and never stop as soon as you stop it actually allows the ghost to come in and haunt you and she believes it and so she moves you can see this in San Jose California you can visit it today it's now a museum the Winchester Museum um where there are hallways that lead to dead ends there are doors that open to walls there are stairs that lead up to se feelings I mean it is the most wonky looking house that you could possibly imagine but it's also

it's it's an architectural nightmare but it's because all she wanted to do was make sure that there was busyness happening without any architectural design without any Vision put forward without any uh uh room to figure out how this is going to function it was just keep building and if we don't have a destination if we don't have a vision but we're just doing Christianity that's what it's going to feel like is we're doing a lot of ministry activity but we're frustrated because it doesn't make sense it's not actually leading to any goals that God is calling us into and so we need to make sure

that we have a destination before us Ministry activity without a destination again will make you feel like like you're wandering in a desert for 40 years just like the Israelites experienced God has given the church a destination Make Disciples of all Nations and he's given them a discipline preach and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ be a witness of Jesus Christ and in doing so he will build his church the Deliverance that's the promised land for us but what is it going to take from you to see the vision come into being is God asking you to step out in faith before God moves to

reach the destination what is the discipline turn with me to Joshua 3 as we look at discipline here's why I like the word discipline because at the core of it at the root of the word is the word disciple disciple discipline refers to the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior it involves self control regulation it involves a systematic approach to learning or achieving something a disciple refers to a follower or student of a teacher a leader in the Bible it specifically refers to the followers of Jesus Christ in Christianity you realize the word Christian is only used about three

times throughout the scriptures so when looking for a term to refer to his followers it's not just Christian a badge of honor that we whereare it's disciple which is an activity which is an action on our part which is an engagement of us learning from our teacher but abiding by what our teacher commands of us and so what's the connection between discipline and disciple a disciple is someone who adheres to the discipline taught by their leader or teacher therefore a disciple is not a mere intellectual belever but an active follower and participant in the cause of their leader to be a disciple of Jesus means

that you don't come in here and sit and spectate what God is doing you actively engage and participate in what God is doing and he has asked of you and I say that in a nice way he has actually commanded of you to engage and participate in what he is doing being a disciple involves discipline as it requires commitment learning and following the teachings or principles set forth that's why I went with the term discipline that's why again Matthew 28:1 19-20 tells us to make disciples of all Nations baptizing them in the name of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them

to observe which is to be disciplined in the commands of Jesus and so in essence being a disciple inherently involves a form of discipline as it requires dedication to the teachings of Jesus if we say Jesus is Lord if we say that then we are in essence submitting to and surrendering to his lordship of our lives and therefore by faith and trust we are telling Jesus I'm here to be and do whatever you command of me that's what a disciple is I'm telling Jesus I'm here to be and do whatever you commanded me I'm at your service I'm at your service and so what did

the Lord require of Joshua and the Israelites in order for them to enter into the promised land what was the discipline in order to get them to their destination Joshua 3 looking at verse 7 the Lord said to Joshua today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel that they may know that as I was with Moses so I will be with you and as for you command the priest who bear the Ark of the Covenant when you come to the brink of the Waters of the Jordan you shall stand still in the Jordan and Joshua said to the people of

Israel come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God that's a good pastor by the way a good pastor is going to tell his people come and listen and hear the words of God and when the souls of the feet of the priest bearing the Ark of the Lord the Lord of all the Earth shall rest in the waters of the Jordan then the Waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one Heap the big idea here is that before God is going toart the Jordan River he is requiring them

to step into the water and get their feet wet I like to think that's where that phrase comes from get your feet wet originates but no one actually knows but the big idea before God is going to move he requires a step of Faith from the Israelites to get in the water and then God will perform the miracle that's the discipline a step of Faith doing something that doesn't make seem like it would make sense but I don't want you to miss this the Israelites have already experienced The Parting of the Red Sea right they've already experienced it they know what God is capable of

doing when they come to the Jordan River or do they why then ask them to step into the water why would God ask them to step into the water If I Was An Old Israelite who had been there since the Red Sea I'd say just wait guys watch what he's about to do just wait and watch but that's actually not what took place that was 40 years ago at this point an entire generation has passed literally they died they died the Bible even indicates that those who were 20 years or older at the Red Sea were not allowed to enter into the promised land because

of their lack of faith and disobedience Obi the only two from the original that saw the Red Sea part there were only two who were allowed to go into the Jordan or go past the Jordan River into the promised land and it's Joshua and Caleb those are the only two Moses even did not get allowed in but he did get to see it at least I mean that was always interesting it's like Moses you you know you also had lack of faith you were also disobedient you killed a guy like we got to deal with some of that you're not going to get to come

into the promised land but come up on this mountain and I'll let you see it at least I'll let you see it little Grace of the Lord there but at this point it's 40 years it would be like me telling my sons hey uh 24 years ago this thing called 911 happened they weren't there even though it's within our 40-year window the people who who are going into the promised land are the ones who were born in the wilderness they didn't experience Egypt they only experienced the Wilderness and so what God is doing here with this new generation who was born in the wilderness God

is going to establish a new way of delivering them to the promised land a step of Faith a step of Faith trusting God that he will provide for them a way through with this new generation God is going to do this the point is this God is going to continue asking us to step out in faith to trust him so that it reminds us of who God is and what God is capable of Le let's be honest God is not asking you to move because he needs something from you God does not ask them to step into the waters because them stepping into the waters

creates the dam needed in order for the waters to stop he doesn't need their feet to stop the waters he can start he can part the waters whenever he wants however he wants but the way that he does it is by requiring of them a step of Faith why does he do that not because he needs them but because he wants their heart he wants their trust he wants their faith that we will follow whatever you require of us this is why I keep saying Miracles follow movement Bobby Harrington actually gives a limiting belief to go along with this point here's the limiting belief I'll

move when God moves which honestly sounds spiritual sounds biblical it sounds principled but it's heretical especially if God has already commanded us to do something and then he will do something it'd be like the Israelites saying God part the waters and then we'll walk through them who's giving the commands in that relationship that actually promotes laziness and worse lack of faith lack of trust lack of belief in God's promises that's what produced the wandering in the desert for 40 years you reap what you sow and if we as a church say We'll engage when the church starts growing we'll give when it starts growing then

it's never going to happen we're going to continue wandering in the desert of Broad Ripple so if the promised land for us as God building the district Church in Indianapolis in order to reach the city the country and an unreached people group what is God asking you to do to step into the water before God Parts them well as we've talked about it's invest it's invite it's impact your giving fuels the mission this is true your giving fuels the mission the elders set the vision but the church sets the pace Vision can only go as far as our generosity takes it and addition to that

we've called you to invite and invite has a couple of different things here we want you to invite 10 people per month to the church but we also want you to invite one person per month to Jesus we want you to get people here so they hear the preached and proclaimed word of God because that's how the majority of people get saved throughout the New Testament but we also want you like philli going south getting into a Ethiopian chariots um Chariot we want you to also personally engage someone and teach them the gospel of Jesus Christ Kyle Mercer pastor of two City Church in won

Salem challenged his church with this question what would it look like what would it look like if you took risks in your life to bring Christ into your relationships what would that look like we want to do it but what's the plan behind it what's the like think about the destination like you know where you're standing and the destination is I want my neighbor to come to know Jesus Christ I want my coworker to come to know Jesus Christ I want my family member to come to know Jesus Christ what's crossing the Jordan River it's you taking the step of faith and entering into that

relationship in a very strategic way to begin to approach the conversation about who Jesus Christ is and whether or not they know him are we willing to take that step of Faith what's the promised land of your relationships and then there's also the impact impacting is leveraging your time your treasure your talents to serve in the church and Community that's why Jesus calls it a body of Christ which only moves when each of its members function properly a broken leg can't walk a broken arm can't carry a broken heart can't love a broken mind can't teach we each must be healthy in leveraging the time

God has given us the treasure God has entrusted to us and the talent God has equipped in us to serve the growing Body of Christ in a dying world that's what it means for you to make an impact as well again between the people of God and the land promised to them is a river river that God is going to part but before he does he commands them to trust him take a step of faith and step into the water ask yourself what might God do if we step into the water what might God do through the district church if we step into the water

let's see what happens with Deliverance look at verse 14 of of chapter 3 so when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priest bearing the Ark of the Covenant before the people as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan and the feet of the priest bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water this is parentheses now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest the waters coming down from above stood and Rose up in a heap very far away at Adam the city that is beside zeran

and those flowing down toward the Sea of the araba the salt sea were completely cut off and the people passed over opposite Jericho now the priest bearing the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the Nation finish passing over the Jordan guys after 40 Years of wandering in the desert the people of God were literally delivered to the promised land delivered to it I mean like an Amazon package brought to the doorstep of its new home they were delivered after they trusted the Lord

and stepped into the waters which is just a beautiful story a beautiful story but I want to hold up a minute here because it wasn't as beautiful as we may Envision it we may Envision it like the cartoons of the Red Sea where they're standing there and they've got you know the troubles following them the Egyptians are running after them and they're you know nervous and then all of a sudden just the waters you know and then they just start walking across no they first got in and we might think about that in terms of like man I've I've come a creek before and kind

of dipped my toe in and kind of walked in and got it up to my calves and like all right Lord I did exactly what you told me to do that parenthesis changes everything that parentheses gives us the context in which God was requiring them to step into the water and have faith look back at verse 15 again now the Jordan over overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest what's that little tidbit about why include what seems to just be a meaningless detail well it's not meaningless have you ever seen a river overflowing its banks maybe not if you've never left Indiana but

in Tennessee the Cumberland River which flows through Nashville in May 2010 flooded the city of Nashville the Cumberland River Rose 53 feet which you think about that that's over five stories the River Rose and then went over 15 feet of the flood level which is almost another two stories above what they would consider the flood level I served on a disaster relief team at the time in Middle Tennessee and I could literally um they created kayak teams who would basically kayak through the city or kayak through build bus in order to look for people that were trapped and so the location that I was tasked

with was um if you've ever been to Nashville the grand old OPI uh as well as Opry Land Hotel and then there's a mall right next to it called Opry Mills so me and about 20 other guys brought kayaks and we just kayak through the mall which is just so apocalyptic um but we kayak through the mall and then I got to kayak through the grandle opery and then eventually kayak through oery Land Hotel um it's insane it was inane what we saw and witnessed in regards to a river overflowing even just last week uh we were in Tennessee we had a hard rain um

that came through I mean it was hard enough to where even my truck the engine got so damp that it actually uh messed up my distributor to where we had to fix it because it wouldn't start in order for me to come back home but so we had to send Kelsey cuz we were different Vehicles so Kelsey left about an hour before me she started going down the road of my parents um where my parents live out in kind of rural country and she could not get to the main road because a creek a small Creek that and I'm familiar with this Creek it's no

more than maybe 8 ft wide the creek Rose overnight to where whitewater rapids were literally going over the road that she was trying to cross to where she could not cross it we even have it on video I'll show you after service um but when rivers overflow it's not something you want to get into it's not something you want to mess with maybe the only structured way that you ever can is if you go white waterer rafting and kind of experience what that is like for 40 years they wandered in a desert no more than two weeks away God in his sovereignty could have picked

any any time for them to cross the Jordan River he could have waited for a famine waited for a drought he could have sent a drought he could have said hey guys the river usually is about 30 40 feet wide right now it's 10 feet wide go get a tree throw it across walk like he could have chosen any time at any circumstance for them to cross the river and he chose the worst time the most difficult time for them to be delivered Harrington goes on to add that often times in our Christian walk in the ministries of our church chaos precedes breakthrough but to

keep you with the alliteration of our points I'll change it to difficulty precedes Deliverance here's a false belief for you we sometimes believe if things are difficult it must not be God's will if things are difficult it must not be God's will if it's hard well then we don't need to go that route if it's difficult well then that must mean God's closing that door the worst part comes right before the best part have you ever delivered a baby not to down play it it looks difficult but it's just before the joy one of the greatest moments of your life ever done a co cold

plunge I don't care if you do a cold plunge every day for a year the first day of the next year right before you get through you still don't want to do it it never gets easier and here's the reality of our Christian Walk With Jesus what he causes to step into and being Witnesses of his never gets easier difficulty precedes the Deliverance it's going to be difficult I just got a call this week someone in the neighborhood called the city because they don't like the signs which got the city involved and now the city has determined that these signs are not up to code

and so we have to take the signs down we have until March 26 well that's not easy that doesn't feel like well hey Lord you've called us to this community you've called us to reach people with the gospel here we put these signs up which has allowed VA to be able to know that our church exists which caused her to come here on a Sunday which caused her to hear the gospel preached which caused caus her to get baptized and guess what the enemy doesn't like that and tapped on someone's shoulder and said hey why don't you make a Ruckus about those signs over there

difficult and it's just going to continue to be difficult but that doesn't mean that we don't step into it when things are difficult you have to get your feet wet before you can walk on dry ground having faith to step into the fear takes courage it takes courage I was having a robust dialogue with Chris Keller this week because I like to do that with him if you don't know what robust dialogue is that's a fancy way of saying we were arguing in a good positive loving way but we were talking about one of the things that like what why is it hard for us

to share the gospel with other people and he's right and so write it down he is right I told him he wasn't right but he is right it's because you're afraid the reason why the majority of you don't share the gospel with your neighbor is because you're afraid you're afraid do you think these Israelites were afraid to step into the Jordan River that was overflowing its banks that looked very chaotic that looked like if we get in it that's probably going to kill us do you think they were afraid you want to to know something I know for a fact they were afraid you want

to know why because before we get to Joshua 3 we get this lovely coffee cup verse that most people know about but they don't know the context for Why God gives them this verse joshua9 so turn there with me do not be discouraged Joshua 1:9 picture it in Joshua 1 is when he brings them to the Jordan and says you're going to cross over it and they're looking at it and they're seeing hey it's the time of harvest this thing is up and it is Raging and you want us to step into it before you part it have you forgotten who you are you're God

you can stop it but you want us to get into it yes because I want your heart I want your trust I want your faith I want you to step in so that you can see that you can trust me that when you take that step of faith I will stop the waters and bring you over on dry ground and therefore he tells them have I not commanded you be strong and courageous do not be frightened and do not be dismayed or discouraged for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go so when you step in those Waters the Lord your God is

with you when you step into the fear when you step into that relationship next door or with your co-worker and you want to share Jesus with them Jesus is with you and he wants to forgive them he wants their heart he wants to save them and he wants you to take the gospel to them and he's telling you you're going to be afraid but don't be don't be discouraged because when you take that step of Faith watch me save them watch me forgive them when you share the gospel with them we need people walking with God courageous and strong willing to step into the Raging

River before God Parts the waters bringing us safely to the other side full of joy Triumph and receiving God's promises I mean how do you think the Israelites felt once they got to the other side I don't think they were discouraged anymore I think they were ecstatic excited exuberant full of joy and worship you want to know what they did when they got to the other side they set up 12 Stones if you continue reading the story which is their act of worship so that they always come back to the Jordan and they remember what God did that's what they did we want to have

those same stories in this church where we come back and we come back to Days January 26 Ezra baptized February 2nd Vita baptized we want to come back to those stones and remember that as we step out in faith and as we invest and as we invite people and as we impact their lives through the ministry of the church God Saves people he does that are we willing to step in to the waters so that we can grow to take the gospel to the Nations by our going let's pray together father we thank you so much for your good news to us we thank you

for the work that you do but God we also thank you that you include us in the work that you include us in participating in what you are doing God it is terrifying I know that there's parts of us that get so nervous when engaging your ministry when sharing the gospel with somebody when telling someone about Jesus when bringing up the topic of church makes us nervous and there's probably some validity to that we're scared that we're going to harm relationships that they're going to think we're narrow-minded bigots that they're going to think we're radicals that they're you know we got this good relationship going

and now we're nervous that we're going to break the relationship and to be fair that might happen but what if they come to know Jesus what if they come to know Jesus and because of you stepping into the water their sins are forgiven and they get to know their Sav they get to know their creator they get to join a family of Believers what does it look like for us to take risks in our life to bring Christ into our relationships I'm forever grateful for the individuals that shared the gospel with me I want others to feel the same thing when we share the gospel

with them be strong and courageous do not be frightened do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go it's in Jesus name we pray amen would you please stand with me as we enter into this time of communion as we come to communion this morning Jesus Jus stepped into the waters which was our world in order for God to forgive us of our sins to do something for us that we could not do for ourselves he broke his body he shed his blood which is what we were supposed to do because of our sins he took the first step

which brought us through which is actually why when you more story of Moses and Joshua it's actually a reflection of Jesus in the church that Jesus was the one who came down and was baptized like the Israelites through the Red Sea that Jesus was the one who then entered into to the 40 days of the Wilderness just like they wandered for 40 years and then before being able to enter into the church realm Jesus had to die in order for the church realm to be birth the church era to be birthed he died not entering into his promised land yet because his promised land is

going to be an inheritance that includes his bride and so just like Moses died before being able to cross in Jesus dies and then ushers in the leadership of the church with the apostles referenced by Joshua and Caleb and the 12 tribes all of it is a picture a typology of what Jesus has accomplished throughout history for us and just as Moses died Jesus died breaking his body shedding his blood so that we don't have to so that the Next Generation has an opportunity to go into the promised land so that for us the next generation of Christians Disciples of Jesus might hear the gospel

and come to know him and be forgiven by him we keep looking back to what Jesus accomplished for us that then fuels us to step into the Waters of our world and so if you believe that Jesus Jesus died on the cross for you that he broke his body he shed his blood to forgive you of your sins to bring you into the promised land then I invite you to come down grab the elements bring them back to your seats and as we sing this song I want you to take this to be a moment to ask yourself in communion with the Lord what is

he asking me to step into what is he asking me to step into it's going to be difficult but difficulty precedes Deliverance so come [Music]