Baptism Weekend | Menlo Church Live Stream

That's not your imagination. It's the God of the universe who has been chasing you not just your whole life but before the history of the world is finally catching up. Don't talk yourself out of it. Think about this story. The priests, they didn't wait till they felt ready. They stepped in, and you can step in too. Here's what I wanna invite you to do. If you've never given your life to Jesus, if you've never committed to follow him, you can do that right now, right here, wherever you're sitting. You don't have to have it all figured out. You don't have to have your life all cleaned up. As a matter of fact, you can't do that. You just have to say yes. [00:49:29] (36 seconds)  #SayYesToday

Get ready. Tomorrow is not a normal day. Tomorrow, God is going to do something that you have never seen. So go to bed tonight expecting something to happen tomorrow. Don't hit the snooze button. Don't walk through your morning routine. Wake up ready to see God move. And to be honest, I think that's a great principle just for us in life. Certainly, as we gather as people of God, I wonder how many of us, we walked in here this morning actually expecting God to do something. Not to just sing some songs and listen to a message and go to brunch, but to actually have God meet us here, to have God move in our midst. [00:33:37] (37 seconds)  #ExpectGodToMove

The bank can feel safe. It's predictable. The bank is dry. The bank is where you can keep your options open, your dignity intact, and you have good reasons. You can explain why a way why you can't take that radical step by like, No, no, no, God. Is that really what you're asking me to do? No, I gotta keep up appearances. I gotta manage the outcome. I've gotta do it my way. And I know it's not working, but someday it will. And I'm just telling you, the bank is where you can keep saying someday. It's where you can keep saying almost, but it will never get you to the other side. [00:37:03] (31 seconds)  #StepOffTheBank

And so after four hundred years of waiting, they're less than two weeks away from where they're headed. But if you know the story, you know it didn't take them two weeks. It took them forty years. And it wasn't because God got lost. It's because they did. They grumbled. They doubted. They complained. They built golden statues while Moses was up on the mountain getting commandments from God himself. They actually begged to head back into slavery because the predictable dysfunction was better than the unpredictable promise. I'm sure none of us have ever felt that way before. [00:29:12] (34 seconds)  #ChoosePromiseNotComfort

A whole thing could have been risk free, but he waited until obedient feet touched cold water. And I think God does that a lot for us. He doesn't usually clear the path before you step. He clears the path as you step. He doesn't usually remove the risk before you obey. He honors the obedience that takes risk. Faith is not what we feel on the bank. Faith is what you believe enough to get your feet wet with. And I know that that's hard because the bank is safe. Your current circumstances, as dysfunctional as they might be, are familiar dysfunction. That was true for Israel, and it's way true for us. [00:36:18] (44 seconds)  #StepAndPathOpens

Moses dies on a mountain overlooking the land that he never got to enter. The last thing that he sees is the place that he almost made it to. And now it's Joshua's turn, his successor. Joshua, he walks this new generation, the children of the wilderness. The kids who grew up eating manna, the supernatural provision that God gave to Israel in the wilderness, they grew up eating manna and burying parents. That was their task, right up to the edge of the Jordan River. On the other side is everything that God has been promising to his people for four centuries. [00:30:42] (36 seconds)  #NextGenCrossOver

Some of you, you've been standing on the bank for years. You've prayed about it, you've journaled about it, you've talked to a friend about it, maybe you've talked to a counselor about it. Maybe you've even talked to God about it. You said, God, if you just make this a little easier, a little more obvious, if you'd move the obstacle first, then I'd do the thing that I know you're calling me to do. But see, for God, He's not trying to part the water at a distance. He's trying to do it once you take the step. He's saying, I'm on the other side. Come on over. [00:37:34] (32 seconds)  #GodIsOnTheOtherSide

Now stop and think about that for a second. An entire generation died in the almost of what God had next for them. They could see it. They were days away at different points from the place that God was calling them. They knew the stories. Their parents had walked out of Egypt. They'd heard about God's faithfulness. Their kids would grow up in Canaan, but they themselves, the people who heard the promise themselves, never crossed. Moses is one of them. The greatest leader that Israel had ever known. The man who talked with God like a friend would talk to a friend. [00:30:09] (33 seconds)  #DontDieInTheAlmost

Because the people who cross are the ones who show up expecting God to move. That was true thousands of years ago. It's still true today. Verse eight tells us that for them it says, and as for you, command the priests who bear the ark of the covenant, when you come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan. Now I want you to feel the weight of that moment. Remember, the priests, the spiritual leaders of the nation, are told to walk into a flood stage river carrying the presence of God on their shoulders. They are not told that the water is going to part first. [00:34:14] (34 seconds)  #ShowUpExpectingGod

They are not told that the water is going to part first. They are not told that the path will be made clear. They are told to walk into the river with the object that they had once been in an incredible temple and probably felt like all they had left of their god, now heading into the unknown, the dangerous unknown. That's where we find ourselves in verses fifteen and sixteen. These are the verses that if you're gonna circle something in your bible or take a screenshot and keep it with you, here it is. It says, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan [00:34:45] (33 seconds)  #WalkIntoTheUnknown