How We Win

INTRO

-WELCOME BACK!!!

-I missed you all so much and can’t wait to see what God has for each of you individually and what He has for our community!

-As 2020 was coming to a close God put a word and a passage on my heart for our community. Over the next month we will be looking at this word and person in the Bible that lived this word out so well.

-The passage for the year is Joshua 1:5-6

Joshua 1:5–6 NIV

5 No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

-As I meditated on this passage the concept of God leading His to a landed hoped for but not yet seen felt so powerful. For generations, Israel was enslaved and lost in the wilderness. However, Joshua had the audacity to believe that God still had a hope and dedicated land for them to flourish in. Despite his circumstances, prior leadership, and community, Joshua believed in the hope of a promised land.

-I sat back and thought, “man, what a word for our world today.” I believe we still have hope of a promised land that doesn’t root itself in the brokenness of the past, but instead in the beautiful hope of the future promised by God. Despite unstable circumstance, chaos, and communities polarized against one another, we can still be a community DEDICATED to God and his promises.

-SOOOOOOOOO our word for the year this year is DEDICATED.

-I’d love to start our year by praying and hearing from Him.

PRAYER

HOW WE WIN

-I wanted to start this series by talking about how we win.

-The new year is a fun time! It’s exciting and full of change. We make resolutions or we pretend like we are too cool for resolutions and make fun of the people who do.

-However, I was listening to a book called, Atomic Habits, by James Clear and he mentioned early on in his book that simple changes like reorganizing your bedroom, changing where you work and fresh start like a new year can be the I love his take on creating new habits because he says the best way to create a new habit is to form it on the identity level. For example, instead of not eating the donut because it doesn’t fit your crash diet; you live in constant consideration of the identity you are striving to live by asking yourself, “what would a healthy person eat in this scenario? The donut or the smoothie?”

-I love this concept because I see it as a great example for how we can live as Christians seeking to understand our identity in Christ. We shouldn’t live a life focused on avoiding sin because the diet prescribed to us by overbearing parents, judgey friends in our community, or a pastor that talks to much said so. Instead we should live in constant consideration of the identity our God knows us by; asking the question, “how would a son or daughter of the most high King live?”

-I believe we find the perfect example of this question through the life of Joshua. TBH he was a thug that beat the hell out of people, but I mean it is what it isssssssss.

Joshua 6:1–5 NIV

1 Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. 2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. 3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. 4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. 5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”

“Let God Define Success”

-If learned anything in 2020 it was that I am an utter and complete loser when I am the one that defines success in my life.

-What you will see all through the book of Joshua is a man humbly dedicated to WHATEVER God calls him to.

-Who is defining success in your life?

-You see the best part about God to define success in your life is it only requires your obedience to His call and often His call leads you places you would have never dreamed of.

-When you allow a mind with only an understanding of this broken world to control your success, you will be limited by the standards of this world. Your success will look and sound like the American dream. Your success will have an unhealthy attachment to a world and a kingdom that will die one day.

-Success defined by God is unimaginable. It builds an eternal Kingdom. It puts your focus on eternity.

-Lastly, success defined by you will often lead you to feeling burnt out in the pursuit, depressed in the failure or underwhelmed in the accomplishment.

-However, success defined by God will always build rhythms of health, hope in

“Only Losers Live in Comparison”

-Joshua is an amazing leader 1st because of his dedication to God but 2nd because of the absence of comparison in his life.

-Joshua never once comes to God saying, “We need to be in the promised land already! I see all these other nations with great homes and we are still without one.”

-Instead of getting lost in how foolish they would look marching around the great city of Jericho, Joshua locked in on the promise God gave him.

-At that time Jericho was one of the most powerful and sought after cities in that region, but Israel was never meant to live in the city of Jericho.

-Imagine if they would’ve gotten wrapped up in being like the city of Jericho. Building a fort around their little camp. Trying to build a wall like Jericho. They would have completely missed what God had for them.