The God Nudge

Somebody say momentum. So like I told you, we're going to be jumping in to Joshua chapter five, which means, if you've been keeping up with our series, which I know everybody has, everybody's so interested in what God is doing in the local church, I know you go home and you pour over the messages, and you pour over the notes that you take. Because we are note takers at Mercy City Church. Y'all know what I'm talking about. In fact, we believe that when you go to heaven, if you take your church notebook, you will get to the front of the line in heaven. You know what I'm talking about. Some of y'all like, I'm good with being in the back. You I listen. Well, let's be note takers, everybody. So I know that you've noticed that we're skipping over two chapters. We're skipping over chapter number three, and we're skipping over chapter number four, and so I just want to fill in some of the blanks of what have taken place in these couple of chapters as we jump in to number five. So Rahab, we talked about last week. She helped hide the spies. Well, the spies returned to the camp, and when they returned, they gave the report. And upon the report, Joshua decided, let's get going. And so that morning, the Bible says the next morning, Joshua began to prepare the people to cross over the Jordan into the land that God had promised them. Let's not forget that the the Jordan River represents a season of change or transition. Everybody. How many of y'all know that in order for you to get to one place from the place where you are, it's going to require some change. It's a dirty word, especially in the church. We don't like to change. We don't like when things change. However, change will be required in seasons of change are the most difficult seasons there are, because you're sowing new seed for the new land that you're going to but you're still reaping the harvest from the old season that you've been in. They're frustrating, aren't they, because you have a new vision, and you know, God's promised you something new, but you're still reaping the harvest of the old life, that old way, those old decisions, and it's difficult. Nevertheless, the children of Israel crossed over this Jordan and Joshua gave very specific instructions based on the Word of the Lord. He gave instructions of who should lead, how they should lead, who should follow, how they should follow, who was to step in the river, first, how far they were to go and what they were to do when their feet got in the river. There was a lot of instruction, which I think is so fascinating. And many of us would say, I wish God would give me step by step instructions. God doesn't give step by step instructions. He gives step instructions. And when you take step one, then he'll give you step two. The problem is, we want a through z we want one through 23 that's not how it works. He gives you one, you step then he'll give you two. Praise the Lord. Finally, they cross over into the promised land. And let's not forget that in the Scripture, the Old Testament, is outer and physical, and so they were promised a land, but in the New Testament, the promise is spiritual. It's inner and spiritual. It's a life. It's not a land, it's a life. God wants us to live a promised life. Chapter number four, God told the people, once they got into that promised land or life, to establish and build a memorial so that they would never again forget his work, that the people that he had accomplished in his people listen to me, everybody, an entire generation, was sent on an 11 to 14 day journey. They were stuck there for 40 years. You know why they were stuck there for 40 years because the promises of God were not in their hearts in such a way that they would share them from one generation to the next. So an entire generation had to die off in order for people to walk in the promised life that he had given them. And he said, Hey, let's not do that again. Can I encourage us as believers. Now let's not be the people who spend an entire lifetime wandering on a journey that God has for us. Let's not forget to trumpet to champion the goodness of God, in the good, in the bad and in the ugly. Come on. Some of us try to cover up our. Stories. We try to hide our stories. We try to hide from the things that God has done. God has done significant things. Some of the most significant things I've shared with my kids throughout the course of my life, or their lives, are some of my greatest failures, but I was able to give God glory in the midst of them. Come on, your kids, don't need the PG version of the greatness of God. They need the whole version of the greatness of God. That wasn't even my notes. I feel like that was good. I expected to get a white boy there. Anyway. So here's what God did. Here's what God did. He told the people to establish that memorial and that they would be responsible for sharing the good things of God from generation to generation, they were living in the Promised Land. That's where we pick up in chapter number five. Come on, everybody. You ready? Let's read it when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings who lived among the Mediterranean coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross. They lost hearts. Let me say they lost heart, and they were paralyzed with fear. We want to make note of that as we read the Scripture today. At that time, the Lord told Joshua make flint knives. Let me say, Make flint knives and circumcise. Y'all didn't want to say that circumcise this second generation of Israelites. So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the entire male population of Israel at that place, Joshua had to circumcise them because all the men who were old enough to fight in the battle when they left Egypt had died in the wilderness. Those who left Egypt had all been circumcised, but none of those who born after the Exodus during the years of the in the wilderness have been circumcised. Here's why this is important. Everybody. God told his children to practice this law of circumcision. Why? To indicate that they were the children the people of God, there was something physically that they did cutting away of what was normal for everybody else, so that they were marked somebody, say, marked as a chosen generation, God's people. But when they went out into the wilderness, or when times got tough, they forgot to remember that they were God's people. Y'all hear what I'm saying. You ever been in the middle of a tough situation, and you forgot how good God was. You've been in the midst of walking through hell, and you forgot to champion and trumpet the goodness of God anyway, anybody, of course, you have this is not just a Bible thing. This is a people thing. We forget to remember how good God is. This was the thing that set these people of God apart. It's what made them different. It's what made them marked. What God was telling Joshua is, I cannot send a generation of people into the promised land or the promised life that I have for them if they're not marked with the covenant of God. Y'all hear what I'm saying. So we circumcised him. The Israelites had traveled in the wilderness for 40 years until the men who were old enough to fight in battle, when they left the whole deal, for they had disobeyed the Lord, and the Lord vowed he would not let them. He would not let them enter the land or the life that he had sworn to give us a land flowing with milk and honey. Why? Because they forgot to remember their covenant. They forgot to remember that they were marked. Come on, you're walking through hell. Don't forget to remember that you're marked. God has chosen you. He set you apart. Come on. I know that things are difficult. I know that things are hard, but when we have life's momentum, God on our side, let's talk about the things of God. So Joshua circumcised their sons, dads, moms, parents, grandparents. Can I just encourage you, don't make somebody else do what you were meant to do. Now thank God for men and women who will step up and they will be a father or a mentor or a voice to the next generation if they don't have it. But can I just young men, old men, young women, old women, can I just encourage you, don't let somebody else be the voice of God for your responsibility. Let me just keep reading. I didn't expect this message to come out quite like this. Those who have grown up to take their father's places, but. They had not been circumcised on the way to the Promised Land. After all, the males had been circumcised, they rested in the camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, today, I've rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt. You're not defined by your past anymore. You're defined by something new. So that place was called Gilgal, even to this day, while the Israelites were camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, they celebrated Passover on the evening of the 14th day in the first month the very next day, began to eat unleavened bread and roasted grain harvested from the land. No manna, let me say no Manna appeared on that day. Remember the whole 40 years they were in the wilderness, manna would God would miraculously provide for them, but now that they're in the Promised Land, there's no Manna available, and it was never seen again. So from that time on, the Israelites ate from the crops of Canaan, or the promised land. Whoo, there's a lot in here that I want to talk to you about as we're thinking around this idea of momentum and acceleration. Number one thing that I want to bring out, and this is not necessarily the first point, but one of the first observations is there was a community of people that were heading in the same direction. And one of the things that I love about what God spoke to us when we moved here is that there would be a core value of community. And so we do city groups. We've talked to you about city groups. We say, hey, get in a group. But what is happening in this scripture, I think, is so beautiful. He says, hey, there was a community of people that were gathered around forgetting the things of God, and now there's going to be a community of people that are gathered around remembering the things of God. What's he saying? Get in a community of people that are heading in the same direction and actually do life with them. Aaron already told you, I'm sure your location. Pastors and leaders told you as well. It's not too late to get connected to a group. It's not too late to get your feet dug in. It's not too late to get your arms linked. It's not too late to get connected in a city group. Come on, we're people of community, just like God is encouraging the children of Israel to be people of community. Now there's lots of things we can find community around. Let's find community around the things of God in Jesus name. That's not even in my message, but I just thought it was really good. So here's what we're going to do. I'm going to share three thoughts this morning on the second phase of momentum. Remember, I'm talking to you about the God. Nudge. The God nudge. Look at your neighbor and say the god nudge. Alignment and acceleration. Alignment and acceleration. Here's the first thought. An enemy's fear doesn't always mean it's time for acceleration. Verse number one. I loved verse number one, it said that the kings of the land had literally lost heart. Now, if you're the commander of the Lord's army, and I'm the commander of the Lord's army, and God's telling me, go take the promised land, and I hear that the kings are full of fear, so much so that they're paralyzed, I'm about to go kill everybody. You know what I'm talking about? Like I'm showing up on your doorstep and I will cut your head off. That's what I'm going to do because God told me there's a land for me to go and take. There's a land for me to go and take. There's a land for me to go and live in. There's a life for me to go and fight for. And so if I'm hearing that there is fear gripping the heart of people in such a way that they're literally paralyzed, I'm about to go fight. But what we have to understand is that an enemy's fear doesn't always mean it's time for acceleration. God's voice means it's time for acceleration. What God says is what we do. We don't read the situation and see okay, this is no no, Lord, what do you want me to do here? We are in the Promised Land. We have crossed over. We have seen this season of change through. We have transitioned from the old life to the new life. This new life looks like we're about to conquer some stuff, and I got enemies who are standing on my doorstep, but they're paralyzed in fear. Now is the time for me to go and overtake them. And God said, Nope, because, just because, just because an enemy is afraid doesn't mean it's time for you to accelerate. It doesn't mean that you've actually arrived in the place of acceleration. It might mean that you've actually arrived in the place of alignment. How many of y'all know that when I told you the story a couple weeks ago about my 1976 AMC Pacer, my very first car. Some of y'all Google, what's a pacer? You found some pacers for sale. If you want to buy me one, I'll take you gladly. I would absolutely drive it, not in the snow, though, a real, real forget about it anyway. But that old car, that old car. Car it was, it was a piece of junk, okay? And I told you had acceleration issues. You put your foot on the gas and it wouldn't go. But the other thing was, when it did finally go, you had to crank the wheel off to one side because it was so far out of alignment. Y'all know what I'm talking about. And what happens when your car is out of alignment. It makes your tires wear unevenly, right? And so you ruin your tires, you you ruin your car, you ruin a lot of stuff, and it's really, really dangerous when you try to accelerate before you're in alignment,
right? So the second phase is acceleration, which we get excited about, but you can't accelerate until you're in alignment, because if you accelerate without being in alignment is dangerous. So we misinterpret, often times, the enemy's fear for acceleration, but the enemy's fear means that we need to search our hearts one more time and make sure that we're in alignment. And enemy's fear does not always mean it's time for acceleration. The second thought is this alignment always precedes acceleration. So the enemies have lost heart, right? They're paralyzed in fear, right? So what does Joshua do? He makes flint knives. He says, I'm about to circumcise all y'all. We're getting rid of this stuff. We are going to be marked for the Kingdom. We're going to be marked for the covenant. We're going to be marked as the men of God. We're not carrying our old life into this new life. Now, what does the Bible say in the New Testament, in the book of Romans, it talks about circumcising our hearts, right? We don't we don't have to be bound by the outer and physical. We're now bound by, or bound to the inner and the spiritual. We don't have to worry about external things. We now get to worry about through Christ internal things. So this old life gets to be trimmed away. This old life gets to be cut away. I get to align my heart to the things of God. That's why we do things like the heart check. That's why we do things like Tuesday morning prayer. So we're all coming together, and we're aligning our hearts back to God. Because if truly, this isn't a season of acceleration for the life of our church, what it means truly, it's a season of alignment, otherwise it's going to become dangerous. Nothing is more dangerous than a zealous Christian who doesn't search their heart. Nothing's more dangerous than a man or a woman of God who has an incredible giftedness, great charisma. You a sense that God is doing something great and he's accelerating their lives, but they don't align their lives. First, nothing is more dangerous. I've seen it time and time and time again, I've been this in seasons past, somebody who's gifted, somebody who's zealous, somebody who wants to advance the kingdom, but totally unaware and forgetting To remember the covenant that God's marking me with alignment. Always proceeds, always proceeds. Acceleration. In week one, I told you that I truly believe we're in a season as a church, that the hand of God is giving us a divine nudge down the pathway of life, where, both corporately and individually, we're literally on the doorstep of a wave of momentum where we're going to move forward exponentially, and it's going to happen with ease. I believe that we're in that season. But in order for us to experience the fullness of that season, we've got to first align. Last week after service, I had a gentleman stop me rather aggressively after service, and he was just pumped to talk to me about momentum. He started using some terms that I didn't really understand. He was talking to me about physics, and I got to be honest with you, physics was not a good three years of high school for me. It just wasn't. It really wasn't. So he was, I was just nodding like he. So passionate and so aggressive. And he said something that really stuck to me, though. He said, in order for momentum to really take place, it has to be initiated. And he balled up his fist, and he punched me in the chest, like, punched me in the chest. And I was like, Where is security at right now? I guess he didn't look very intimidating, but he punched me in the chest. He said, it's got to be initiated by force. It's got to be initiated by force. And immediately I thought that really seemed excessive. But isn't that what many of us think when God gives us that nudge, that that punch in the chest when he when he begins to highlight our addiction, when he begins to highlight our marital issues when he begins to highlight the way that we talk, the things that we watch. Well, God, can't we just cover that up? Can't we just not pay attention to that? Wouldn't this be so much easier? See, some of us have been limping along in life out of alignment, and we're wondering why the acceleration that we're experiencing is so painful. There's nothing easy about it. It's because we're out of alignment, and God continues to nudge us with some force in the chest. Hey, it's time to come back into alignment. It's time if you're going to experience the fullness that I have for you in this season. See, we always think that everything with God is just a walk through the fields of flowers. Oh no, that's not true. That's not true. Sometimes God will put His holy hand in our chest and say, Son, Daughter, I'm trying to get you to move forward with momentum, accelerating by with ease, but some force is required. See, we want the new marriage, but we just want to cover up the old stuff. God says no, go in a different direction, like if your marriage is going to be new, it's a new direction that you're going to have to go in. We can't just cover up the old stuff. Let's address the old stuff. If we want to move forward in health, we're going to have to change our lifestyle. Do y'all hear what I'm saying? I don't want to be too like, I know. See, we're we're feeling the discomfort of this season, and we think that there's no momentum, but God's saying, no, no, there's momentum. We just thought that it was going to be easy. Well, yeah, it's easy once you respond to the force that divine nudge. I think, I think the divine nudge, the divine nudge, is a fist in your chest. That's how much God loves you. Alignment always precedes acceleration. This is an opportunity for alignment. Here's the third and final truth, I think, that we see in this portion of Scripture that I know many of us are not going to like daily miracles don't equal acceleration. See, we look at the children of Israel as they were wandering in the wilderness, and we think God miraculously showed up. They must be experiencing acceleration. No, they're experiencing the miraculous. Miracles do not equal acceleration. Promise life equals acceleration. When you have to live from miracle to miracle to miracle to miracle. Can I tell you what it should point out for you that you're misaligned and there are some dysfunctions about you that need to grow. I always tell stories about growing up, we experienced the miraculous Hand of God consistently over and over and over and over. I grew up very poor, grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. My parents divorced, nobody thought it would ever really amount to anything. But my mom, she had us in church. She taught us the things of God. Now I ran hard from God, but we saw the miraculous power of God. I saw my mom pray and somebody miraculously deliver me deliver groceries. I saw my mom pray and a check would show up. We've prayed. We've been desperately in need. We've prayed and a check would show up in the mail. And I'm thankful for the miracles of God, but what the miracles of God should show us is and exposed to us is the dysfunction that we've allowed to call functionality. God. We want your miracles. We want your miracles. We want your miracle. Can I tell you something? God's goal for you is not miracles. God's goal for you is promise. He doesn't want you to live in the wilderness and rely only on the miraculous all the time. He wants you to live in the Promised Land, where every day is a promise. Now there will be seasons that you embrace and you I need a miracle in my health, okay, great, but the goal is to identify the dysfunction or the misalignment that your body is in. And so we can be praying about, how do we align more to your word God and walk in promise physically in my finances, if I need miracles all the time, I always need a check. I always need some. And this is the life we live for years and years and years. And I used to joke the way that everybody jumped. Well, you can't expect to make much money in ministry, but the truth was, I had learned to function in a place of dysfunction, and God was trying to expose in me, even while he was being gracious and merciful, Matt, there's dysfunction that you're settling in to be functionality, and you're priding yourself on the fact that I keep showing up for You, but I need you to learn son, that that's dysfunction, and because God is gracious and he's merciful and he's kind and he's good, he will show up for us time and time and time and time again. But his goal isn't for us to rely only on the miracles. His goal is for us to go to the place of promise, that life of promise in our finances, in our marriages, in our businesses, in our lives. Y'all hear what I'm saying. We look at the children of Israel, we think, how awesome would it be for manna to show up every morning. God is so miraculous and mighty in power, and he is is. But that was the wilderness. This is the promise, and all of us are going to experience different seasons where we're walking a promise and the wilderness at the same time, the goal is, when we're desperate for the miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle is to see the misalignment. And it's not always our fault. Sometimes it's an attack of the enemy, but we're misaligned, and it gives us the directives to pray and to trust God and to come into alignment with God. Does this make sense in our bodies, in our finances, in our marriages, if you're praying God, I need a miracle. There are areas of our life right now we're praying for a miracle. It's an indicator that there's misalignment, whether it's by choice or whether it's by ignorance, it's still my responsibility to come into alignment if I want to accelerate. Does this make sense? Everyone I know this is a really hard point. I knew that one wasn't going to be fun. I at the end of the day, God is a God of covenant. He's a God who keeps His word. And just because you're walking through tough things doesn't mean that you're limited. It means that you now can identify the dysfunction or the misalignment so you can come back into alignment, and he can begin to accelerate you into this next phase of momentum. Come on, everybody, stand up on your feet. All of our locations. Let's stand on our feet together.
Some of us in our rooms, we've been priding ourselves on seeing the miraculous Hand of God. And there are some seasons, man, we're going to celebrate the miracles. When God heals your body, when God comes through financially, we are going to celebrate the miracle, but we don't want to live okay. Now I need another miracle. Now I need another miracle. Now I need another miracle. That miracle is an indication that I want to align more to God's Word so that I can walk in the promise we're all going to need the miracles of God in one way, shape or form. But the goal is to stay there. The goal. Is to change, cross the Jordan and live in the prophecy or life. Y'all hear what I'm saying. I probably should have let out with this. When I started the series 24 years ago, I was at a freedom weekend event, and this, this old lady. She was one of those, you know, you ever know, like y'all familiar with, like, a church mama, like she, she was bad, she, you know, she was, she was bad with a bone. She was a prayer lady. Her name, her name was, Miss Pam, she came up to me. She said, man, like the Lord said that there is a Joshua anointing on your life. She put her finger in my chest, Joshua anointing on your life. Joshua anointing on your life. And I was like, I'm 20 years old. Miss Pam, I don't know what Joshua anointing means at all. Can I tell you what I believe it means? Today, we'll make some flint knives. We're going to circumcise the whole lot of us marking our lives for the things of God, remembering the promises, the plans, the purposes of God, not outer in physical anymore, but inner in spiritual. Listen, I see fear in the eyes of the enemy. I see parallel to paralyzed in the in the eyes, the lives of the enemy. But it is not time for us to move forward. It's time for us to align so that God can accelerate us in the places that he's called us to be. This is a time to realign, to remember that he's a God of covenant and he's a God of promise. So if that's you, this morning, he said, Yes, man, there are areas of my life that are not in a life, and today I need that on the outer pieces of my heart to cut away the old things the whole life of my past give me in my past. If that's you, would you just lift your hand. Lift your hand. Come on all across our roots. No more long life, no more long marriage, no more long thinking, no more old ways. We're going to be marked by Heaven. We're going to be marked by the Spirit of God. We're going to be marked by the truth of God. We're going to be marked by the covenant
of God.