Transcription
Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. Good morning. Well, I want to bring greetings to all my people at home who are watching, and greetings Daystar audience, and those watching online. I feel pretty, pretty fired up about this message this morning, and I want to use all my time to encourage you from God's Word. It's been an amazing week, hasn't it?
So, I just want to show you real quick the notebook. This is the notebook that I had been writing in when we were packing for the trip. I decided, I said, "I want to pack my big notebook because I'm expecting God to do big things." Oh, and I want plenty of room to write in. And so, I hope He's been doing big things in your life. Sometimes you don't always know how big it is until later, because it comes in the form of a seed, and then it becomes a big tree that all the birds can nest in. So, I just know that what you've been hearing and experiencing is going to make a difference.
I thought that what I heard Pastor Bryan speak yesterday, right before the lunch that we didn't have before our fast, was was one of the most masterful presentations of grace and truth in regards to culture and church, and it's so helpful. And that's just, that's just the, the beginning of what God has done in my heart. I thank God for the day that I got to meet Pastor Brian and Bobby Houston. Holly and I are way better than we were before that happened, and our hearts are just bigger, and we take ourselves less seriously, and we think about things differently. And it's very humbling to be your friends and to get to preach at your conference. So, thank you.
Okay, let's get to work. I'm gonna preach hard this morning, but that doesn't mean you have to shout back or anything like that. You can receive the message on whatever level you need to, because I feel that God gave me an assignment today to help somebody who's about to stop short of something that God promised to you. And I think He's given me something from His Word that's gonna keep that from happening in your life. With His help, I'd like to read you two scriptures. One's really short, and one's really long. First, this short one: Hebrews chapter 10, verse 36. Read this from the New Testament. And then I want to illustrate it with an Old Testament scripture that you probably be familiar with. Hebrews chapter 10, verse 36. The writer says, "You need to persevere, so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised." This doesn't sound like a suggestion. It has the tone of a command, an admonition. He said, "You need to persevere." Go ahead and wake up your neighbor and tell them what you need to do is persevere. It means that it's possible to do God's will, or begin in God's will, and not finish, therefore not receive the full extent of what He promised you in your life. You need to persevere.
Perseverance is the link. And I guess when you start out as a pastor, you're impressed by people who have the faith to start stuff. It's like, really exciting when somebody steps out and starts something, and you applaud that, and you preach about people stepping out and starting stuff. But after you've done it just a few years, like I have, I'm only on year number nine of being a pastor now, but that's long enough that what impresses you changes. It no longer impresses you just if somebody has the faith to start something. It really impresses you when somebody has the fortitude to finish it. And that's why I like coming around a ministry with with a solid foundation and and learning from this. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what He has promised.
Now, let's illustrate that from the Old Testament. The book of Joshua, chapter 6. Joshua, incidentally, is the sixth book of the Bible. And I'm going to share something from the sixth chapter of the sixth book of the Bible. Yay! This also happens to be the sixth general session of the conference, according to my count. "Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred up because of the Israelites. No one went out, no one came in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of ram's horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets, and when you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud..." Very good for a morning session. Excellent. Exceeding every expectation so far in energy. You are loud. Shout. "...then the wall of the city, then the wall of the city will collapse, and the army will go up, everyone straight in."
So, Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it." And he ordered the army, "Advance, march around the city with an armed guard going ahead of the Ark of the Lord." And when Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the Ark of the Lord's covenant, representing His presence, followed them. The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rearguard followed the Ark. All this time, the trumpets were sounding. But Joshua had commanded the army, "Keep your mouth shut until the day I tell you to shout, then shall know no Savior." Shout, he said. Save your shout for the end of the message. So, he had the Ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there. Joshua got up early the next morning. The priests took up the Ark of the Lord. The seven priests carried the seven trumpets, went forward, marching before the Ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them, and the rearguard followed the Ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. So, on the second day, they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.
Here's the title of my message, and I need you to touch seven people and tell them my title. The title of this message is: "Don't Stop on Six." Would you find seven people in this arena and tell them, "Don't stop on six"? Don't stop on six. That should have been plenty of time for seven people. I don't know what you're talking about at this point.
Now, then, by way of illustration, and I just thought of this illustration and remembered it yesterday in the breakout session that I taught on leadership. But at this point in conference, it can be, it can be tempting to have high faith and good intentions, but then we've got to start now. The sixth session, general session, start pushing toward the actual action that will make the promise come to pass. Yeah. So, my oldest son, Elijah, asked me two years ago. He was six at the time. It was a defining question that a little boy asked his dad. He said, "Daddy, what did video games used to be like?" And somehow, I knew when he asked me that that I was in a different stage of life now. And he, he wanted to know about old-school video games. So, I lose a lot of the audience with this. I lose a lot of the young and free. But I started to tell him about the Nintendo Entertainment System, because kids these days don't know, don't know anything about Super Mario Brothers, and and Donkey Kong, and and Contra, and the, and the secret code to get 30 more lives on Contra, which is all the anointed people remember: Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start. If you knew that code, a blessing be upon your head now and forevermore.
But when I really wanted to tell him about The Legend of Zelda, and I decided to punch it in YouTube to see if it would come up. And I found out something you can do on YouTube if you want to. You can go on YouTube and watch a walkthrough of a video game. A walkthrough is interesting because you get to watch somebody play a video game and beat every level. And so, I, I was watching this on the, on my phone with Elijah, and Holly wasn't there. And so, a lot of time passed. And we watched Zelda, then we watched Mike Tyson's Punch-Out, and then we just kept going. And two hours or so had passed, and I didn't really realize how ridiculous what I was doing was until Holly walked back in and asked me, "What are you doing?" And when I had to explain to her what I was doing, I realized how sad it was, because what I had to say was, "We're watching video games." To which she responded, "You mean you're playing a video game, right?" So, wish we were playing a video game. We're watching somebody else pretend to do something. Do you realize how many layers removed from reality this is? A video game is already a simulated environment. It's already not a real thing. Now you're watching somebody else do something that's not a real thing.
But if you're not careful, and I was trying to fix it in the middle of the sentence, but I said, "if you're not conference." And I couldn't figure out any way to back out. Carl, if you have any ideas on how it could be better executed, please let me know. But I'll start over. If you're not careful, conference can become a walkthrough for you. They put the walkthroughs online not so you can just watch somebody play, but so you can learn what to do if you're stuck on a level, and then you can go do it. And so, this is a walkthrough. We're here, we're preaching, Louie's doing this thing, we know God is big, we remember that its perspective. But, but, but life is not a walkthrough. And the point of all of this isn't that you would marvel at what they did here, but that you would receive something in here that would enable you, by the same spirit of faith that was released in here, to do what you've got to do back there. Touch somebody, say, "This isn't a walkthrough."
Okay, so in the passage, Joshua was six. And I preached this passage on the weekend where, of the, of the eight years that I've been preaching, it was the weekend I wanted to quit the most. Last year, our church started going through some, some controversy in our local media. And the weekend that I had to get up and preach after that had begun, the Lord had already given me this message from Joshua 6, and it preached me through it. And in, and I identified three reasons that people stop short. When I say stop short, I don't necessarily mean that you're on the verge of quitting your ministry. I mean that you're on the verge of losing your passion and keeping your ministry. I think you can often keep your ministry position and forfeit your ministry because you lose your passion for what you're doing. And so, we're talking about stopping short. We're talking about going into a maintenance mode where you're fine to sustain. And God promised some things in our text. Joshua is going into Jericho after 40 years of wilderness wandering, leading the people to possess God's promise. Now, we don't have a Promised Land, so to speak, like Joshua did. But we have what Peter called in the New Testament, "exceeding great and precious promises." We have what Paul called "every spiritual blessing in Christ." And so, we have some promises. And Jericho represents the first city that Joshua would have to conquer in order to lead the people into their promised land. And it wasn't a very big city at all. In fact, you could walk around it in just an hour. But what it had that the Israelites were used to, were really high walls. And that was their only defense, because they knew the Israelites were, were, were fighting with God's authority and wind at their back, and God's strength in their swords. And so, they had, they had high walls that were locked up.
I'll call you back to verse 1 for a moment, where it says, "Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in." And verse 2: "I looked for tensions in the text when I preached. That's where I really get my sermons from. I look for tensions in the text." And there's a lot of tension between verse 2 and verse 1, because verse 2 says, "Then the Lord said to Joshua, 'See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands.'" See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands. Two tensions. Number one: God is speaking in past tense about a battle that Joshua hasn't even fought yet. Only God can do that. "See, I have..." Like, if we wanted a gospel parallel of this, it would be where Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 1, where he said, "He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of Christ Jesus our Savior, who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." So, I want you to know today that God speaks in past tense about the battle that you're currently fighting. That's His heavenly perspective on whatever you're facing. But we stop short. And if I'm thinking about reasons we stopped short, and reasons we give up, and reasons we settle down, and reasons we flame out, the first one has to be this: because your perspective is obstructed. Your perspective is obstructed. More simply put, your perspective is blocked. But I wanted to say obstructed because all of the other points I'm gonna make have "O" in the second word of the outline. And I like to preach pretty when I can. So, your perspective gets obstructed.
God says, "See." Here's the second tension: "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands." Now, imagine you're Joshua. God says, "See, look at Jericho. I have delivered it into your hands." In other words, you've got this. You've got this. I've got this. Therefore, you've got this. So, Joshua looks up, and what does he see? Go back to verse 1: "The gates of Jericho were securely barred." So, God says, "I've given it into your hands." Joshua sees a city that is securely barred up. What are you doing? What you see looks nothing like what God has said. It had a good question: When, when, when what you see in your situation doesn't look anything like what God is saying in your spirit? When you're looking at a city, it wasn't the size of Jericho that made it a big battle. It was the size of the walls around Jericho. But, but verse 1 also gives us a clue as to what God saw that Joshua couldn't see, because God sees beneath our situation and sees what we can't see. And here's what God could see that Joshua couldn't see, and you and I might not be able to see when we're looking at problems. It says that the gates were securely barred, why? Because of the Israelites. In other words, they were so scared of God's people that they were so desperate that all they could do was lock down the city and hope that the Israelites wouldn't come in. Here's what I wrote down for you: The intensity of the opposition in your life is proof of the power of God's promise in your life. Think about it. The reason the gates were locked, the reason the walls were high, is because the enemy was intimidated. And, and that's why I thank God for this immersive environment that we're in this week, because as we praise God and sing the songs until we're singing them in our sleep, you know, just walking around singing them, not even knowing you're singing them, just in the elevator. I'm watching some of you just singing. You don't even know I'm watching you, but you're just singing. Oh, you can't sing, but I didn't stop you. And by the end of the week, you've actually convinced yourself that you sound good. But you don't. You just have a perspective that you do, because you've been in this atmosphere. But because praise has a way of lifting your perspective and getting you above walls and helping you to see past problems, that's why you're very wise to be here this week. I know some people think you're crazy for taking a week off of work and taking your vacation to be in a conference, and you've already registered again next year. No, you're very wise to come into this place, because praise will lift your perspective and show you what God sees beneath the situation that you can't see. Past the eyes of your heart might be open, that you might see, no, comprehend the plan and the purpose, be reminded of what God has for you. Much more we could say about that.
But let's talk about the second thing. I think often we stop short because our progress isn't obvious. Our progress isn't obvious. Okay, you got to imagine this miracle like you never heard it. I don't know if you heard the kids' song growing up. I used to sing it: "Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho, and the walls came tumbling down." Not only is that like a little bit out of sequence, because he actually, the walls came down, many fought the battle, but it's also overly simplified. I have a friend who fights in UFC. He's a Go-See fighter. He breaks people's noses for Jesus. He's a Christian. And he's been knocking, he's been knocking fools out in the first round all of his last fights. And the last time he did it, he's like, knocking people out within one minute. And the last time he did it, I said, "Vitor, man, you, you, you don't even look like you've been in a fight." We were facetiming the next day. "Hey, you even look like you've been in a fight?" I said, "It was so easy, I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to see more of a fight. I said, it wasn't even hard." And he said, "You know what?" He's a Brazilian guy. He said, "You know what, Pastor? I never want to hear you say that again. He said, 'I know it looked easy to you, but it took me six months of training to make it look that way.'" And so, look, look, I love like the fact that this is a children's Bible story. But if all you think is just about the battle, about Jericho, the walls came, I think Joshua was safe. Wait a minute. I don't ever want to hear you sing that song again. 40 years. 40 years of wandering. And then, and then, and then when I finally thought I was gonna get to go in, 40 years of wandering for, for somebody else's lack of faith, I might add. And then when I finally thought I was gonna get to go in, God had a meeting with me the day before and said, "Now, I want you to take seven days of exercise." Where's that in the song? Okay, all the walking. Now, now think about this. God is a master motivator, right? He knows how to motivate us better than anybody because He made us, and He's in us, and He knows what He wants from us, and what He planned for us. So, so if you're God, and you're, and you're orchestrating this miracle in a way to motivate Joshua, because it's kind of a senseless act of obedience to walk around the walls seven days in a row, and then a shout's gonna bring it down. Can we all agree that's unorthodox? And, and, and so if you're God, and all these people are trying to, first of all, you can't see God, so there's that thing that you're having to walk by faith and not by sight. And then there's the fact that this feels really silly. And, and, and then, and then there's, there's the fact that as you're walking around the walls, you're not even gonna knock them down with a wrecking ball, you're gonna shout them down. So there's all that. But then I'm thinking, if I'm God, and I'm orchestrating this miracle, and I'm trying to keep Joshua and the Israelites motivated, each time they take a lap, I'm gonna take out a few bricks of the wall. You know, like, one-seventh of the wall comes down every day. Okay, you take one lap. It's kind of like Tetris. I'm an old-school video game. Pray for me. But it just, do you beat that level? Do it. Be motivated. Then I could take another lap, and down comes another level. And then I take another lap, and down comes another line. Read the text, bro. That's not what happened. For seven days, nothing moved. Like, not a brick fell. Nothing, nothing, nothing.
Okay, this is why I hate exercise. And if you love exercise, I hate you. And this is why, this is why, because I want the progress of the work I'm doing to be apparent immediately. I think that would be so helpful. Like, in the middle of the plank that I'm doing, my abs start to pop. Just pop, pop, pop, every minute, pop, pop. I could do a plank all day if I could see something. But we walk by faith and not by sight. So, the question becomes here: Will you keep walking even when it doesn't seem to be working? This is the question of faith. If you prayed, and the answer came while you were praying, you'd be bumping into stuff, praying all day. But when you pray, and nothing moves, this is the question: Can you believe that God is moving even when the wall hasn't moved at all? When the situation hasn't changed a bit? Can you keep preaching with passion? I have a passion for preachers who are preaching, and your gift seems bigger than your church, and your vision seems bigger than your church. Can you keep preaching when the church isn't growing? Can you, can you keep forgiving? It'd be great if every time you forgave somebody, they immediately reciprocated. You know, you obey God, you forgive them, and immediately they change, and the relationship opens up and goes to another level, and they apologize, and you can, and you can forgive all the... But it's when I forgive, and they do it again, and forgive, and they do it again, and forgive, and they end up going, "God, if you could just let me see one brick fall." But the first day comes, the first day goes, a brick hasn't moved. The second day goes, the bricks haven't moved. The third... And I was wondering, why did God set the miracle up? There's this way, why, why would God make them march and not give him a little sign that it was working? Like, "You're on the right track. You're not crazy. You, you weren't just hearing things. Joshua, Joshua, Joshua hasn't been smoking something, snorting something, like he's really doing what I told him to do." Why, why wouldn't God just let him see a little bit of progress? And God said, said to me, "Obedience is your responsibility. Outcome is Mine." The real faith that will finish and endure and receive the promise, whatever that promise is, I'm talking about the promise that God made to you through His Word, to you, through His Spirit, to you in His presence at Hillsong three years ago, to you, to you in that place, to you ten years ago, to you ten months ago. That, that promise, will you have the faith to believe that God is working even if it is, it's working? It is whatever you're doing. You know, like obedience is that fastest. I think sometimes we're so consumed and obsessed about the battle that we want God to win for us, that we don't realize that the most important battle is the one He wants to win in us. And maybe if God has you like circling today, maybe there's a battle that He has to win in you before He can win the battle for you. Because it's in the walking, it's in the wandering, it's in the wandering, it's in the weakness, it's in the "how much longer?" that my faith is developed. That, that, that God is doing stuff in me. Just because your progress isn't obvious doesn't mean your faith isn't working. Doesn't mean your love isn't working. Doesn't mean you're giving isn't working. Doesn't mean there's a, it doesn't mean you didn't hear from God. God told me to tell somebody at Hillsong Conference today: The promise still stands. The promise still stands. I know some things have happened that have caused you to question, but the promise still stands. I meant what I said. The promise still stands.
This is the craziest thing, man. You know, right after I preached this message, our church was going into a, kinda like Hillsong does, Hartford, the House, our annual offering called "Banner Years." We take it out of 1 Samuel 7:12, where he said that he took the stone and named it Ebenezer and said, "Thus far the Lord has helped us." And it's a, it's an offering of remembering what God has done. You know, a banner year. We say, like, and when we were going to take the offering that year, we had just been going through what I told you about. And I was starting to wonder, like, "Oh, like, did our church have like seven good years, and now we're gonna have seven bad years like Joseph told you know, like fat cows and skinny cows? Is just gonna, are we done? Was it just a good little we do to get started? We're not gonna..." The night that I got up to announce the Banner Years to our church, and I walked outside after preaching, you're not gonna believe what was in the sky over our church on Saturday night in Charlotte, North Carolina. Not just a rainbow. That have been cool. It's like a banner. You know, a rainbow means promise. There's like seven colors in it. It's like a lot of cool stuff for somebody who's a nerd like me that looks for all these connections. It was two rainbows. Two. In the scripture, a sign of covenant. Moses, Moses, take off your shoes, the place where you stand is holy. And I looked up, and I'm about to do Banner Years, and I'm wondering, like, "Has this circle, is this thing, is this it? Is this, is this, is this it over?" Because it felt that, it can feel that way. But don't look at me like you've never wondered, "Is it over? Is this the end of this house? Is this how it's gonna be?" I looked up at the sky, and I'm hoping you'll look up to heaven today and get the same message. God, God showed me something. I don't know if the rainbow was there for me or somebody else across town, but I just stole it, okay? It was my moment. I just took it. And God said, "The promise still stands." It still stands. Even if the wall is still standing between you and the promise after six laps. I want you to know that if I be for you, who can stand against you? The promise still... I feel it. If nobody else does, the promise still stands. Touch six people, tell them, "The promise still stands." The promise still stands. The promise still stands. Oh my God, this is gonna help somebody. This is gonna help somebody. This is gonna help somebody.
So, we've imagined, we've imagined. I'm gonna do one more thing. One more thing. We've imagined we were Joshua, and we've imagined that we were God. You know, how we would do the miracle. If we were God, how we'd feel for Joshua. But we haven't talked about the people that we ought to feel the most sorry for in this passage. How about the people that Joshua was commanding? I don't know why, but we always imagine the story. We always imagine it's just about the battle of Jericho, the walls came tumbling down. God told all the people what was gonna happen, but He didn't do that. If you read verse 1, one more time, actually verse 2, it says, "Then the Lord said to Joshua," and He tells Joshua, "Okay, here's over into Joshua. It's gonna be cool. Six times, nothing. Seventh time, BAM! Be cool. Then you'll all go straight in." The amazing. But then when Joshua calls the people together, watch how different it is what he tells them and what God told him. He called him in verse 6 and he said, "Take up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord." So, He is reminding them of His presence. And have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it, reminding them of praise. Verse 7: "And he ordered the army, 'Advance, march around the city with an armed guard going ahead of the Ark of the Lord.'" Notice what's not in that verse: Nothing about seven times. Nothing about walls falling down.
So, now we're the soldiers. You go out the first day. You're excited. "We're gonna take Jericho." Okay, you put it on your schedule. "Take Jericho." And you put it on for Monday. "Take Jericho." You go out to take Jericho. You march for an hour. You go home. I know they probably didn't go home. They probably had a camp set up. Or for the sake of the illustration, they go home. And their wives say, "So, honey, how was it today? Did you take Jericho?" And every man knows that when your wife says, "How was your day?" is code for, "Share with me the most intimate details of your soul, and then ask me how was my day, and then prepare to listen for an unlimited amount of time because I want to tell you about how on the way to the grocery store I saw Susan, and Susan and Robbie aren't doing so good in their marriage, and I don't know if it's gonna last much longer, but, you know, their son is on drugs, and we need to pray for him because he's so..." So, how was it today? "Was it day?" "How was it today?" "It was interesting." That's a word we say. If anybody ever tells you, "It was interesting," that's code also. "It's interesting." "So, what'd you do?" "Well, I think the day Joshua just wanted us to get a feel for the lay of the land. Want us to..." "So, so we just took a walk today. Had some lunch. Tomorrow we're gonna take Jericho." Day two, Tuesday. Come home. "So, my big strong warrior, who to kill today? Did you bring me home a head?" You know, it's disgusting. You know, it's really weird. I don't know. But we, we walked again. They did this, verse 14, "for six days." Here's a long time. But when you're following a leader that might have turned into a lunatic, six days is a long time. Now, if Joseph Prince were here, he would tell you anytime you see six in the Bible, that represents the number of man. Seven, on the other hand, represents perfection. Six is your number. Seven is God's number. So, they did it for six days. Why six days of marching? You know, I feel like it would be easier to march six days if you knew on the seventh day the walls were coming down. But they didn't know how long it would be like this. See, I can, I can go really hard if I know it's gonna happen. But there's somebody in here who's on lap, lap three, year four, year five, years six. And for six days. See, we stop short because our perspective is obstructed, because our progress isn't obvious, and because the process is open-ended. "How long, Lord?" But that's the burning question in somebody's heart. "At conference, like, I don't mind walking, God. I'll serve You. But, but, but I'm limping now. Anything it would take this long? How long is it gonna hurt like this? How many people are gonna leave me in my life? Hello? How long? 'Cause I don't mind walking, but I just need to know. I just need to know that this is working. I just need to know why, why am I going around these walls? Why am I continuing to watch my kid make bad decisions? Why am I continuing to chauffeur? Why am I, why am I walking and it's not working?" And God says, "Because if I let you in on the first lap, you would think it was your walking that brought you in. You would think it was your shout that brought the wall down. So, I need you to have the faith to take another lap. Just another lap. Just another lap."
Look, look, in North Carolina, we have a sport called NASCAR. Now, NASCAR is people driving their cars around the track, okay? Very American sport. At the top corner of the screen on NASCAR, I'm not a fan of NASCAR. I don't want you to hate me. But, but on the top corner, it has a little box that says "Laps Left." And when there's one lap left to go, they wave a white flag to let the drivers know, "This is it. This is your last lap." Wouldn't it be great if life had a "Laps Left" box in the top corner, just to let you know, like, "Oh, God, you're so close"? Wouldn't it be wonderful if life would wave a white flag to let you know, "You've got one lap left"? Just one more month, if you can stand up under it. For one more day, if you can push through one more time. But, but life doesn't wave its white flag. So, then we wave our white flag of surrender to say, "God, I can't do this anymore." And God says, "Good. Now you're ready to go in, because now you know it wasn't because you walked so good that I did so much, but it's because He who began a good work in you will be faithful." I'm prophesying now. He'll be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ. I'm encouraging somebody.
[Music] Take a little lap. [Music] When you pick you. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Wouldn't be a shame for you to come this close? Be a shame for you to fight this hard only to quit? Under somebody is on six and you don't even know it. You are so close. You are growing. You are maturing. I know you're still addicted, but, but you are growing. You are changing. I know they still haven't come back to you, but you are growing. You are changed. It is working. This might be your last lap. But what if it's not? What if it's not? Here's my advice to you: Walk like every lap is your last, and one day you'll be right.
Jesus says they marched around the city seven times in the same manner. They do the same stuff, except on that day, everybody say, "This day." Except on that day, something different, something exceptional happened that day. They circled the city seven times, and the seventh time around, the seventh time around, the seventh time around. Touch seven people, tell them, "Don't stop on six." Get it in their vocabulary. Did it in your spirit. Don't stop. The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army. [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] How cool was that? Come on, let's thank God. Thank Pastor Stephen for the word.