Preparing for Promise: The Call to Consecration

Good morning, City Wide!

We're gonna try one more time because it's about 10, and everyone should have had a coffee and a bagel, right? We have delicious coffees every week and bagels from the best place in Trumbull, JB Bagels. Shout out to Jen!

So we're gonna get started with worship, and I'm gonna say this one more time: Good morning, City Wide!

That was better. So, Lord, we just love you. God, we thank you. God, we thank you for this time that we're able to all just come together and worship you. We pray that you come and have your way. Lord, Father God, that you anoint the voices, that you open up the hearts and open up the minds, Father God, that you fill every single seat. Lord, we pray for online church that they just feel your presence. Lord, Father God, bless you, Taisha. We love you, Lord, and we just honor you.

We're gonna have an amazing service. Amen, amen. You're worthy, Jesus. Hallelujah.

Let's just take a moment and just reverence the Lord. We welcome you guys as we walk into this place. Jesus, you're worthy to be praised. Worthy is your name, Lord. Hallelujah. We honor you, Jesus. Thank you, Father. We love you, Lord, and we just honor you. We're gonna have an amazing service. Amen, amen.

I want to share a quick story as we transition into our worship with our giving at this time.

Have you ever gone to the bank and there's a long line? So, I'm from New York, and that line was long. There was an older man in front of us. I want to say he was retired on a fixed income. He puts his debit card inside the machine, he gets a piece of paper out, and the piece of paper he crumbles and throws it out. He puts his debit card in one more time.

At this point, there are about six or seven people standing behind me, and you know New Yorkers, we get frustrated, right? We're like, "Hurry up, we gotta go." So I could already see the crowd, and I'm pretty patient, so I'm like, "It's okay, my card doesn't work sometimes too," trying just to mellow it out because we're not gonna disrespect this older man in front of me. We can't do that, right? I'm not gonna see that.

We serve a mighty God that will never fail us.

I remember standing in line at the bank, feeling a conviction to give if I had it. As a Christian, I want to serve people and take care of needs when I see them. To my surprise, when I checked my bank account, there was a whole lot of extra money. I took out a little bit of extra cash because God had never failed me.

When I left the bank, I saw a man who had dropped a piece of paper with money in it. Out of nervousness, I grabbed the paper, crumbled it up, and put the money back in. I ran to my car and watched as his demeanor completely changed when he realized what had happened. I was thankful that I had followed the conviction to give if I had it because it would have been a sin not to.

At Citywide, we want to connect with our guests. We have a connect card in the front and a first-time gift that can be collected. We also have several ways to give, including texting, Venmo, mailing a check, and Push Pay.

We pray that God will bless this offering and allow us to advance the kingdom and reach more territory. We thank God for every giving heart here.

I was like, "Wow, God, the lyrics to the song are so powerful." Sorry, guys. I realized I never want to take what Jesus did for me on the cross for granted. It was something that was definitely not light, and I just encourage you guys right now in this moment to just think about what Jesus did for you, what he did for us. It holds weight; it's eternal. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Jesus.

Good morning. This is forever. We think, "Oh, that's fine, the Holy Cross." It was more than enough. Thank you for breaking the bread of your body.

Father, let this be our prayer all week long. Let this be our intercession of Thanksgiving. Let us consistently, as believers, remember the cross of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice that you made. Let that not be a miss on us, Lord Jesus, that we would stay in a place of gratitude and Thanksgiving for the high price Jesus paid for each and every one of our lives.

With that gratitude, we praise you and we worship here. With that Thanksgiving, we lift you up. In Jesus' name, we pray. And all the church says, "Amen."

Come on, greet a few people around you before you take a seat. It's good to see them in the house of God. Come on, bless them.

Good morning, Citywide. Is anybody excited to be in the Church of Jesus Christ this morning? I pray that you are excited to serve a living God who is still alive. Somebody said he's living; he is living.

Listen, in case you've been living under a rock and you don't know this, last night at midnight, Citywide worship dropped their first album. Amen. I told first service that next week when we come to church, you pull into the parking lot or you walk in, you gotta pull out your phone and show us that you have downloaded the album on Spotify or Apple. You don't have to buy it, just download it, praise a little, stream it, and if you don't pass the live chat, we're gonna give you a list of other places to go. Praise the Lord.

I'm totally kidding, but not kidding. Amen. Praise God. But we would love for you to download it, check it out, stream it.

With that generosity, Lord, I just pray that you never fail them in whatever financial stuff that they're facing. Amen.

Last night, we had our album release party, and it was absolutely amazing! I want to give a shout out to the hospitality team led by my wife who put that food together. The Lord was there, and there was so much food that I felt sinful just walking by. The house of God should do things with excellence, and so we're in an awesome, tremendous season as a church, and we're believing the Lord for promises.

I don't know about you, but I just feel like there are certain seasons where you want to believe that God is in everything that we do, but there are times where you don't know if God is there, and you just go on in prayer and blind faith.

We are in a season of promises, and as we transition and as we are in the process of closing on the new facility, the prayer of the church should be, "Lord, how do we go into that new place?"

We are living in a culture that does not honor God, and there is such biblical illiteracy that people don't want to live holy for God anymore. Individuals think that holiness is whatever you make it to be, and people are pushing the limits of sin and the limits of scriptural context to see what they can get away with and still have grace. Many in the church have abandoned a holy lifestyle and have embraced materialism, syncretism, and carnality. Jesus Christ is looking for a people who will honor Him and live a holy lifestyle.

I'm a budget nerd; I love budgeting, and I'm gonna talk to you about budgeting today.

Every few months, I sit down at my laptop, or while I'm in bed, or in the kitchen, and I bust out my trusty, handy-dandy budget sheet, and I set up my budget for the next few months. If anybody knows me, you know I'm a budget nerd, and I love budgeting.

The Bible says that Jesus is looking for a group of people when he returns that have no spot or wrinkle. What does it mean in 2023 to walk into promises, number one, but then to live holy for the Lord in a season in the culture that dishonors God and is pushing the limits of sin in every single area?

Over these next couple of weeks, we're going to talk about holiness, being set apart, and getting our lives together for the glory of God.

Joshua chapter 3, verse 1 is my text from the ESV, and it reads, "Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and they set out from Shittim, and they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. And at the end of three days, the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, 'As soon as you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.'"

To the person next to you, we haven't gone this way before.

Verse 5 is our centerpiece for the sermon today. Then Joshua said to the people, "Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow, meaning in a season to come, the Lord will do wonders among you.

Let's bow our heads and go before the Lord in prayer.

Living a life with a budget is something that every man should do. Jesus said no man should build a tower and not count the cost, lest they start building it and are unable to finish it. When you're a pastor on a fixed income, you have to make sure that you have all your ducks in a row.

Every few months, I set my budget up. The first column is generosity, setting apart money for the Lord Jesus. The next column is the building fund, setting apart money for the City Legacy project. I also set up money for my future, investing heavily in retirement funds, Roth IRAs, and mutual funds. After that, I start paying bills one by one. I also set apart money for my kids' needs, such as clothes, sneakers, extracurricular activities, and vacation. I also set aside money for oil changes and car taxes.

When I receive my money, I take everything that I have set apart and put it in the buckets, proverbially speaking, of where it goes. When you set apart your life for God, you are agreeing with his design for your life and allowing him to use you for your original intention.

Joshua, the son of Nun, was leading the people of Israel. Israel was the nation of God, the people of God, who had come out of slavery 40 years prior and had spent 430 years in Egypt in slavery. Moses went in, and if you see the movie "The Ten Commandments," you know he sends the plagues by the hand of God. All this stuff happens, and Israel leaves Egypt and they end up in the wilderness to meet with God.

But they begin to sin, and we look at Israel and we think to ourselves, "All that God did for them," and they start making a golden calf in the wilderness, and they start complaining and bickering and murmuring against Moses and against God. I think that sometimes we underestimate how hard that season was for them, and we overestimate how we would have reacted.

God said, "If they ain't for me, take them out of my life now." I'm getting real personal. They called you up and said, "It ain't working for me," and then you started praying, "God, I know that's my man. Oh, I don't ask my wife; we should bring them back, Lord." He said, "I J, you just asked me." Some of y'all got schizophrenic prayers, bipolar prayers, devil personality prayers, and God's like, "I'm trying to do something in your life that's new, but you're still stuck in the old."

Israel was stuck in the old, and they began to spy out the promised land, the land that God had promised to Abraham 430 years prior. They begin to sin because they think they can't take the promise. Except for Joshua and Caleb, these two guys had serious faith in God, and they're like, "We can do it!" Everybody else is like, "Nah, bro, we can't do it."

So what happens? What the scripture says is that God grew angry with them. They muttered against God; they bickered, they complained. But don't worry, you've never done that. They spent 40 years in the wilderness because they complained.

Here's what God did. God waited for every adult in Israel to die and for the next generation to rise up to take the promised land. Only two remained; not even Moses made it. Joshua and Caleb.

Now Joshua was the one who was leading Israel, and that's where we find ourselves in this text. Joshua was groomed by Moses himself, and he saw firsthand how God worked. He was there when Moses had his encounters with the Lord. If you read the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Numbers, you'll begin to see.

Joshua was always with Moses when they met with God. At the foot of the mountain, Joshua instructed the people to follow the Ark of the Covenant as the Levites, the priests of God, began to move through the camp. Previously, God had guided Israel through the word of Moses or through a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night.

When Joshua came to the promised land, he said there was a new way that God would lead them. He challenged everyone to be aware that when they step into places of promise and seasonal shifts in their life, God might not talk to them the same way. He might use a co-worker, a billboard, or something else to communicate with them.

Joshua said to stay far from the presence of God because they were following a new way they hadn't gone before. He said to consecrate themselves, to purify themselves, for tomorrow the Lord would do wonders among them.

James, the brother of Jesus, says, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." So we have to do the work of consecration; we have to do the work of purifying our lives, and that's why we do the ritual cleansing of our body before we cross over.

Before we cross over, we must do the ritual cleansing of our body. This is because the Lord wants to work miracles among us. We must consecrate our lives before the Lord if we, as a church, are to go into places of promise. Holiness is not something we achieve, but something we receive when we are justified and sanctified and made right with the Lord.

Our job at that point is not to live for holiness, but to live from holiness and to have a holiness of the heart. We cannot tell God that we are saved by Jesus Christ but have a point collection at home. We must purify our lives. This is a theme throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament. We must draw near to God and cleanse our hands and purify our hearts. This is why we do the ritual cleansing of our body before we cross over.

In the book of Joshua, they were still living in sin and they were still living in disobedience, so the cleansing was not just a physical cleansing; it was a spiritual cleansing. And it's the same thing for us today. We have to cleanse our hearts and our minds and our spirits and our souls and our bodies and our relationships and our finances and our emotions and our thoughts and our attitudes and our actions and our words and our behavior and our lifestyle and our habits and our addictions and our strongholds.

In the book of Judges, one of the saddest verses of scripture is found in chapter one. After God freed the Israelites from slavery and gave them the promise of the land of Joshua, they still fell away from God and served false gods. This exemplifies that people, before they encounter God, would always go through a process of purification and consecration.

In Exodus 19, they encountered God at the mountain, and this tells us that every place of promise and presence comes with a process.

Many believers today don't like the process of God because it is often uncomfortable, painful, and challenging. However, the process of God is for our good and benefit. We cannot push against this process of God. For Israel, He processed them in the wilderness to get the slave mentality out of them, and He processed them again right before the promise.

The problem with the church nowadays is that many believers have abandoned orthodoxy and traditional beliefs. We are engaging in sin but don't think it's sin for us. We should be setting standards for what we put into our bodies and what we watch. If we have an addicted personality, we shouldn't be having anything that can challenge our mental well-being. Gossip, drunkenness, debauchery, immorality, and premarital sex are still sins. Paul says when he became a man, he put away childish things. We should all be doing the same and chill with the immaturity and indirectness.

Lord, I'm gonna hate what I once loved, and I'm gonna love what I once hated.

I checked my horoscope this morning, but I'm not mixing that with Jesus. We can't engage in what the world does and think that we're going to be separate. We think that just because we don't do it in public, we're all right.

Can I challenge you that private sins lead to a public health? My father would say to me all the time, "There's a high price to pay for low living." You have to make sure you're living your life right. You have a job. Jesus is the answer, but Jesus, grace, and trample on the grace of God.

Oh, I know I was wrong, but I'm just grateful for grace. Where's the brokenness of heart? Where is the repentance that should come when we fall into sin? And why have we become so comfortable with compromise?

Can I tell you that your unforgiveness is still a sin? That your bitterness, rage, and anger that leads to you acting out and sin is still wrong before the eyes of God? Romans 13:14 is still a command for the church to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh.

I remember years ago I struggled heavily with smoking. I love Lewis Burgos, and I have said this all the time; he loves smoking cigarettes. Some of you don't want to agree with that because you know you did too. Praise the Lord. But that's fine. I used to love me some cigarettes; that was my thing.

Then I said to myself, "Well, I'm just not going to buy packs anymore." So instead, I was being smart, and I went to the corner store and bought Lucy's instead. But then I realized that buying Lucy's is more expensive than buying the pack, and I was paying a higher price for the same sin.

And that's what people don't realize; they're paying a higher price for the same sin. Because once you know, and once the Lord speaks to you, and you continue in that sin, you're paying a higher price.

And what began to happen in my life was I had to choose at some point, am I going to love this more or am I going to love God more? Because I have to be an example. That repentance is me hating what I once loved. It's not me going back to my sin like a dog to its own vomit. It was me saying, "Lord, I'm gonna hate what I once loved, and I'm gonna love what I once hated."

God, I want you first. I had to live set apart for you, but I had to say, "God, whatever you want of me."

You see, many people want God to use us and to utilize us, but they don't want to be clean. They don't want that no more. When I go to the corner store and I watch them cook me a sandwich, I check the grill real quick. When I go out to eat, I check the cups; I check the forks because if the cups, the forks, and the plates ain't clean, what's happening in the back?

And sometimes I'll be that person, "Can I get a hot cup of water and stick my fork in there to make sure that there's nothing in there?"

How is it that only in the church? I don't care how good the food is in the restaurant; if the plate is dirty and the fork is nasty, I'm not gonna partake of it. The world does not care how good God can be if his vessels are filthy, if his vessels are dirty.

I'm walking up your street right now because you understand that in any area of your life where you know there is unconfessed sin or a pattern of sinful behavior, then you have to say if I'm going to be used by God and I want to be a part of a congregation that is going places with God and God's doing something special and new in them, then I have to consecrate myself and set myself apart.

I have to repent from known sin; I have to walk away; I have to stand before God and say, "God, what do you have for me? What should I change? Where in my life should I shift some things? What Bible is my mind on this?"

Well, I'm pretty practical in my life; I think I'm pretty practical, and I would think that if we're crossing over into a promised land and we're about to fight a bunch of nations that are already there, because only God will give you promises that somebody else owns, right?

Sharpen your sword and make sure your shields are ready, but God's not concerned with practical; he's concerned with spiritual. He didn't care about how sharp their swords were; he didn't care about how well maintained their shields and their armor were; he wants to know about your spiritual condition.

He said it's more important for you to not sharpen your sword but for you to sharpen yourself. It was more important for Joshua to have a people cross over who were not only prepared for battle but they were prepared for worship.

So many of you are ready for war, but you're not ready for worship. You're ready to fight, but you're not ready to be faithful. Somebody insults your church; you're willing to fight somebody in social media; you don't care.

I'll leave that there. Praise God. The church can't have a gang mentality; we're not a gang. We are a people, a royal priesthood after God's heart. A royal priesthood after God's heart; that's who and what we are. We have to have that mentality.

He says to us, "Are you ready to cross over?" Because if you are, you have to consecrate. If you're going to go this way, you have to do that.

You might say, "Well, how do I consecrate?" The basics. First John 1:9 tells us if we repent, he is faithful and just to forgive.

Maybe you need to sit before the Lord and ask Him what is in your life that is not ultimate. As I've been preaching, some of you know exactly what is in your life. You know, and if you're sitting here saying, "Get him, Pastor, get him," I'm talking to you.

What is in your house? What is in your life? What are you watching? What are you partaking of? What are you doing? Because even that negative thinking towards others is sin in itself.

Maybe you have that older brother prodigal syndrome where you're the older brother in that story, and you are self-righteous, and you think you have it all together.

If you're sitting here saying, "I'm so excited about this holiness series, but everybody else around me because they don't need this," Richard, they... I know a couple of people; I'm gonna be invited. Invite yourself because if you invite other people who don't know Jesus and they look at you and say, "This is all about you; your pastor's on it," I'm gonna leave that alone. Praise God.

Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.

You know, all across the country, people are calling out for revival. They're crying out to God to show up in churches. They want revival. We hear this language in church and in Christendom a lot. We need a reformation. We need an awakening. We need all these things, but people are calling on God as filthy vessels.

We have people wanting the presence and the power and the purpose, but not the processes of God, and they don't want to do the hard work of aligning their lives, repenting, and turning from sin. They don't want to do the hard work of getting before God and purifying ourselves.

Tomorrow, Joshua says, "The Lord will do wonders, wonders among you." I want to challenge you that the Lord desires to do manifestations of power in the church. The Lord desires to be a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the church.

When the Lord sends manifestations, he calls for consecration in the house of God. Here's point number three: God calls for consecration before he sends manifestations.

The church wants manifestations, and then they will do the consecration. If God shows up, I'll clean my act up. Man, if the power of God hit the room, I'd probably run from every sin. You should run from it still.

The scripture says, "Make no provision for the flesh." Just like old Lewis had to find out, if I stopped buying the cigarettes, I wouldn't have them to smoke. Make no provision for the flesh. Don't go to the websites. Don't call the people that you fall into sin with. Don't do those things. Make no provision.

What are you providing for in your life that God says provide for me over that? God wants to send the move of his spirit. I believe that with all my heart. God wants to move in the church in a way that it was designed to carry the glory of God, the Shekinah of God, the weight of his presence.

God wants that in the earth. God wants a power-filled church, not one that puts it all over social media for look at us, but if there's a genuine move of God, the power of God in your life, a genuine move of God.

God wants to do something in our lives, but we can't do it with a bride that is not consecrated and set apart for the purposes of God.

Is Jesus the leader of your life, or is he just like an additive? Is he just the extra in your life? Is he really leading? Does God have every area of your life set apart for him to use?

I want to encourage and challenge you that God desires to do something in your life. He doesn't want to just use people with titles; he wants to use every believer in the body, every son and every daughter filled with the Spirit of God.

But in order to see this, you have to turn from unrighteousness and sin in your life. I challenge you as young adults not to settle for good enough, close enough, or similar. If God has promised you exact, don't settle.

Don't settle for going to church, praying, reading the Bible, and giving, but still sleeping around. Could we not do the whole thing the whole way for the Lord Jesus? Could we not live in drunkenness and be fully available to God? Could we not be a walking contradiction and not be hypocritical?

Don't settle for being close enough. Say, "God, I want everything that you have for me. I want to see you move and shift in our life and be in alignment with the Lord Jesus."

It's only the mercy and grace of God that has covered us, but there is coming a day in the church where the Lord desires to bring a power and a Spirit-filled atmosphere that cannot be carried when you have compromise in your life.

Let us take a moment to worship and have a time of prayer. Scripture commands us that if we know this sin and a lot, we should come and repent, give our lives to the Lord, surrender, and do all types of stuff.

Among those things, we are called to do repeatedly is to repent and bring our hearts before the Lord. If the Lord is speaking to you about any area of your life that is out of alignment with his, don't be distracted.

Double challenge number one: Repent and bring your hearts before the Lord. Double challenge number two: Don't settle for anything less than what God has promised you.

My encouragement and challenge to you is that you repent from it today.

Secondly, my challenge is this: Often in church, we never want to come to the altar because that's for the sinner. But I want to tell you that that is just a step of faith. Saying, "God, there's something privately happening in my life, and I want to publicly walk it out."

I want to show that there's something happening. I want to touch and agree. Can you repent from your sin? Absolutely, unequivocally you can. But there's something about taking a public step.

The scripture calls it, Paul calls it a race. They were running this race of Christianity's race of faith. My hope and prayer as your pastor is that you would race to the altar in seasons of your life.

God, I don't want to have to wait for the first person to come, but I'm going to be the individual. So in just a moment, I want to pray, and I want to encourage and challenge you that there's an area, no matter how long the line is, that is out of alignment in your life that you submit to Jesus, that you submit to God.

Give God in your heart and in your mind and in your life a fresh, clean start. Because God's doing something in the house, but what God's doing in the house calls for consecration. It calls for holiness.

Come on, let's pray.

Father, we thank you. Lord, there are so many of us in this room with areas where we need to submit to you, areas where we haven't been faithful, we've been knowingly walking in sin, or we've been knowingly compromising.

Father, I just pray that you would speak to every life, that every person in this place would respond to your call today. Father, if there be any who don't know your son Jesus Christ, that they would come to know him today. They would surrender their hearts and their minds to him.

Father, do it and have your way. In Jesus' name, come on, if that's you, just come. We're gonna pray, we're going to worship here, we're going to believe God for a touch on your life. Don't delay; you come.

Thank you. Thank you!

Lord, we just ask you to keep at the forefront of our heart and mind that you have called us to set ourselves apart from the world. That you have called us, Lord Jesus, to walk in holiness and righteousness.

Father, let this not just be a sermon we hear, but something we apply to our hearts and to our lives that as we go forth, Lord God, you would purify us into the image of Jesus Christ.

Father, be with us, protect us, cover us, and guide us. In Jesus' name we pray.

Come on, all the church says, "Amen."

Just a reminder to all of our volunteers, this Friday we do have an all-volunteer meeting at 6:30 here. Don't forget to pick up the album on all the music streaming platforms.

In Jesus' name, amen. God bless you guys; we love you guys.