These Walls will fall 4/4 conclusion

Intro

• Illustration/Story: Have you ever met someone who says one thing but does another? This kind of person is just inconsistent, they’re not dependable, and in a worst case scenario, you would consider them a hypocrite. Tell a story about a person like this that you’ve had an experience with — to the best of your ability, keep it lighthearted.

• The truth is, we all value consistent people, people who do what they say they are going to do! Consistency builds trust. If your parents asked you to clean your room, and you said you would, but never did, you would break trust. Obedience does the opposite — it builds trust and causes your words to carry more weight.

• Tension Question: Is the way you live consistent with God’s will and His ways? Obeying God is a key ingredient in our walk with Him. Obedience to God brings protection and breakthrough to our lives. Ultimately, the walls of Jericho came crashing down because of this most important part of the story — they obeyed God.

• Scripture: Joshua 6 — Quickly summarize the series of events surrounding this passage of Scripture: the Israelites, God’s chosen people, got a promise from God that they would enter the Promised Land, and here they are ready to claim it. There’s one problem. The walls around the land, Jericho, are high. How are they supposed to take hold of everything God promised them if they can’t get past the walls?

. • Obedience unlocks blessing & breakthrough in our lives. Just like the Israelites, when you walk in obedience what God has called you, you will experience breakthrough. • Bottom Line: When you walk in obedience, you will see the walls in your life fall.

• Sometimes obedience means stepping out and doing something that seems crazy to us. The Israelites must have felt crazy walking around the walls of Jericho all those times, but they were committed to obeying God no matter how crazy it seemed.

So what does this look like for us as New Testament believers? Let’s look at a story where the walls fell for someone in the New Testament. Flip over to Acts 16.

Acts 16:22–33 KJV 1900

And the multitude rose up together against them: and the magistrates rent off their clothes, and commanded to beat them. And when they had laid many stripes upon them, they cast them into prison, charging the jailor to keep them safely: Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, and sang praises unto God: and the prisoners heard them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened, and every one’s bands were loosed. And the keeper of the prison awaking out of his sleep, and seeing the prison doors open, he drew out his sword, and would have killed himself, supposing that the prisoners had been fled. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do thyself no harm: for we are all here. Then he called for a light, and sprang in, and came trembling, and fell down before Paul and Silas, And brought them out, and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. And they spake unto him the word of the Lord, and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night, and washed their stripes; and was baptized, he and all his, straightway.

We are going to see three ways that Paul and Silas obeyed God and as a result, their prison walls fell.

In order to see walls fall, you must walk in obedience.

1. Pray (v. 25)

Preach on prayer

1 Thessalonians 5:17 KJV 1900

Pray without ceasing.

Prayer is a choice!

2. Praise (v. 25)

• A lot of people think praise only happens in the context of worship music going at church, but that’s not true. We can be in a place, even a worship service, where music is going, but there’s no praise involved. Praise happens when we actively express our admiration of something. This can happen in worship or many other atmospheres

• Tension Question: How’s your praise game? Do you actively and regularly express to God who He is to you and how much He means in your life?

Back in Joshua 6, the Israelites were praising God when they were marching and chanting and blowing their trumpets around Jericho

• There was power and purpose in their praise and there’s power and purpose in yours. • They praised, not because it just seemed like a good idea, they praised because God told them to. God knew that praise would be their breakthrough. • The Israelites’ outburst of praise signified that they believed their God was bigger and more powerful than the walls they faced. The same is true for the walls you face. • Bottom Line: When you walk with praise, you will see the walls in your life fall.

We see here that when they start to praise God, their chains are unlocked! • Not only are their chains unlocked, everyone in their vicinity, everyone who had been listening to their praise, was also set free.

• Being bound in chains is an impossible situation — it’s a wall or obstacle that they encountered. But they met their wall with praise, and God set them free. • Our praise isn’t what brings the walls down. Our praise moves the heart of God and He is the one who breaks down the walls and breaks off the chains.

Praise is a choice!

They did not stop there though:

3. Preach (v. 31)

explain story again

Preach on witnessing as obedience

Preaching is a choice!

Conclusion

Obey God even when it doesn’t make sense .

Are you struggling with a wall in your life that just wont come down? Do you feel bound by some sort of chain that you just can’t break free from? How is your prayer life? How is your praise? How is your witness to others? If you focus on those three things in your life, those walls will fall.