The Next Step

Time to play “David” says (as opposed to “Simon Says”). David says, “Lift your right hand and wave it in the air.” Good. “Spin around in circles.” Nice. “Shout Jesus”. Excellent! “Stick your thumbs in your ears and wriggle your fingers” “Stick out your tongue.”

Jesus says “go into the world and make disciples”.

Why are we willing to do all of these other things – we’re ready to follow what anyone else says even if it’s a bit embarrassing but we are not willing to follow what Jesus says?

Jesus says “Leave all you have and come follow me”

Jesus says “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you”

Jesus performed miracles, fed thousands, healed cripples, controlled the weather, performed impossible feats and yet after his death, we see that there are only 150 people who continued to follow him. All the others went back to their old ways, went back to living in the world, went back to their easy religion. People have always been like this. Even after all the things God has done for you, you still go back to the old ways or you take on the values and ways of the world around you, living like your neighbor who doesn’t know the True God.

Joshua 24:1-15

God did great things for the Israelites

• Things done right before their eyes
• Things done to others (their ancestors) that they knew about

How great is God?

• All the miraculous things He did
• Took Abraham from serving other gods to serving the One True God
• Brought Isaac into the world – remembering that Abraham was 100 years old and Sarah was barren and over 90.
• Saved the family by bringing them into Egypt – the one land that was able to provide during the famine
• Got them out of Egypt by bringing the 10 plagues
• Opened the Red Sea so that the Israelites could walk across
• Sent darkness until they go through
• Put the sea back as it was so as to destroy the Egyptian army
• Sustained them in the wilderness for a long time (40 years)
• Destroyed the Amorites and gave them the land
• When evil tried to curse them, God brought them blessing instead
• Opened the Jordan so they could cross into the Promised land
• Gave all the existing nations into the hands of the Israelites

Based on all these things, we are commanded to fear the Lord

• Yare – fear, hold in awe, respect
• How can we not see all these things that God has done and not be in awe? How can we hear about all the things God is doing and not respect Him? How can we not give Him all He has asked us for, our time, our hearts, our lives?

God forgive us for knowing what You have done, who You are to be able to do these things, and to still give our time and efforts to everything and anyone but You. We have not respected You. We have not held You in awe. We have given lip service to You and have given You Sunday morning, but we have not given You the rest of the week, our lives, our trust. We have put our faith in ourselves and the ways of the world.

And so it has been with me. For years, I have been teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. I’ve been faithful to teach the truth, not to water down the gospel, to ensure that people know that they are sinners and that the only way a sinner can enter into the Kingdom of God is by the forgiveness of their sins that only comes through belief that Jesus is God from God, True God from True God, who died on the cross to shed his blood so that he who had no sin could become sin for us and so that by trusting in his work on the cross, our sins can be forgiven and we can enter into heaven. And yet, during this time of preaching the Good News of Jesus, I have seen many brothers and sisters enter into difficult times.

Achan

• Joshua 6:1-5; 16-19; 7:1-5
• Achan was unfaithful and so the Lord allowed distress to happen all of Israel
• Although Ai was small, the mighty Israelites found that they could not overcome them
• God was not with them

Over the past 6 months, I have been imploring you to give your lives to God, to allow Him to be the one you depend on instead of yourselves. To let Him be the center of your life, the one who sits on the Throne. To take the next step without worrying about what would happen next and to trust God to take care of you. During this time, I have become frustrated that I haven’t seen the growth I would have expected of people who were listening. I haven’t seen people increase their attendance on Sunday, start coming to Bible Study on Tuesday, give their two mites as tithes and offerings. Instead, I saw people continue spending their time as they did before, spending their money as they did before. I saw a lot of agreement in minds, but not a lot of change in behavior. I was looking at the fruit and it all looked green or non-existent.

I asked God to show me – what do I have to do to get the people to change? Give me the words to say. Am I casting pearls to swine? Why did no one come up to ask when we will do our all-night prayer meeting or when will we do our weekend retreat? I struggled tremendously knowing that God had given me this flock and I was incapable of leading it. I was embarrassed when I found that after years of teaching about what will get us into heaven, there were still people who weren’t sure if they are going. I was frustrated when I had to end Koinonia night because only one other person was coming other than Jackie and me. God, why? What’s wrong with these people?

Then God showed me that it wasn’t everyone else. It was me. I was holding everyone back. I was still depending on myself and not depending on God. All the struggles that people have had – their health, the loss of jobs – it was because I had not done what God had asked. I was Achan, allowing the fears and concerns of my own heart and my own desires take the place of obedience to God.

As I traveled up to Massachusetts this past Tuesday, I knew I was missing Bible study. I knew I was going where I was not supposed to be going. I knew that I needed to be back with my brothers and sisters here. I asked myself why I was going up there rather than stay down here if I knew this was true. That’s when it hit me that I had been walking the wrong way and putting my job, my bills, my comforts above the will of God. God forgive me. I almost turned around in Rhode Island. But instead, I finished the trip and determined that this was the last time. I was going to move out of this comfort zone and take the next step.

When I got back on Thursday night, I spoke with Jackie about these things and she was completely in agreement that it was time to step out. So the next day on Friday, I gave my notice. In two weeks, I will have worked my last day in that job. I will have set my mind on things above and not on earthly things. I will have placed the kingdom of heaven first and will trust in Him to provide all those things for us.

And I expect that He will. I expect that we will struggle. I expect that we will have many very hard times. God cannot use us if we are comfortable. When He uses us, we will go through trials and difficulties. If we are comfortable, we are probably not being used by God. I do not go into this thinking that now that I have taken the next step, I will be blessed by God and will receive all the blessings I could imagine.

Joshua 8:1-2a

After God took care of Achan, He told the Israelites to go back to Ai and to take the city. He promised that all was back to the way it was. He was back in control and He was going to make things right again. With that as my model, I recognize that though I might struggle, I am expecting God to do great things for you. He is telling you to get back into the battle. He is telling you that those promises He has made are still true. I expect to see renewed health. I expect to see new jobs come in. I expect to see higher attendance on Sundays, a packed house on Tuesdays nights and for everyone to ask me when we will be doing our retreat.

At the end of our passage, we see that Joshua speaks to the people asking them who will be their God. He gives them choices. Are they going to worship the god from where they came from? Are they going to worship the gods of the land they were now living? Or will they worship the True God who has done all these miracles? Although Jackie and I have taken this step, I recognize that not everyone is going to take the exact same step. God has not asked all of you to take the exact same step at this time. But He has asked you to take a step that He has determined for you right now. Will you take it?

The Israelites were at the same crossroads. See the choice they had:

• To go back. God had taken them out of Ur, had taken them out of Egypt. Often, the Israelites complained that they wished they had never left or that they could go back. This is always a choice for us. Do we leave the true faith, the gospel of Jesus Christ? Do we turn from the true God and go back to the life we were living before we came to Jesus? Going back is always an option, though it is rarely a good one.
• To take on the god of where we live. There are many gods all around us in this place we live. They come to us in spiritual forms such as other religions like the Muslims, Hindus, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. They come to us in non-spiritual forms such as family, jobs, houses. Politics has become a great god to many Christians. Materialism is probably the greatest god in the land. In Revelation 3:17, speaking to the church in Laodicea, which represents the church in the age we live, we read, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.”
• To go with the True God. The church today has forsaken the Lord. He is a blessing that is sprinkled on our life once a week. Even for those who do more than just go to church once a week, we do not live in His presence, we do not give unto God that which is God’s. We are satisfied to be good Americans but not so much to be good Christians. God is not to be a sprinkling in our life. He is to be the center of our life. He is not just the cherry on top of the sundae; He is the Ice Cream, chocolate syrup and whipped cream.

We all have the same choice today as Joshua had thousands of years ago. The same choice that people had the day Jesus was crucified. We can choose to go back, we can choose to live like those in the land we are now living in or we can take the next step and choose the Lord. But know, if you choose the Lord, there will be hard times. It will take faith. You may not see the completion of the work. But know that if you choose the Lord, you will have chosen the only choice where miracles and blessing can truly occur and you will have stored up your treasure in heaven and not on earth.

Are we going to trust Him?

• For me and my house, we will serve the Lord

Send mail to david@TheArkNY.org with questions about the church or comments about this site.
Last modified: May 22, 2011

The Ark Church - Ronkonkoma, Suffolk County, NY - A non-denominational church for Jesus Christ