thank you very much good morning everybody good morning well I want to bring greetings to all my people at home who are watching and greetings Daystar audience and those watching online I feel pretty pretty fired up about this message this morning and I want to use all my time to encourage you from God's Word it's been an amazing week hasn't it so I just want to show you real quick the notebook this is the notebook that I had been writing in when we were packing for the trip I decided I said I want to pack
my big notebook because I'm expecting God to do big things oh and I want plenty of room to write in and so I hope he's been doing big things in your life sometimes you don't always know how big it is until later because it comes in the form of a seed and then it becomes a big tree that all the birds can nest in so I just know that what you've been hearing and experiencing is going to make a difference I thought that what I heard pastor Bryan speak yesterday right before the lunch that we
didn't have before our fast was was one of the most masterful presentations of grace and truth in regards to culture in church and is so helpful and that's just that's just the the beginning of what God has done in my heart I thank God for the day that I got to meet Pastor Brian and Bobby Houston Holly and I are way better than we were before that happened and our hearts are just bigger and we take ourselves less seriously and we think about things differently and it's very humbling to be your friends and to get
to preach at your conference so thank you okay let's get to work I'm gonna preach hard this morning but that doesn't mean you have to shout back or anything like that you can receive the message on whatever level you need to because I feel that God gave me an assignment today to help somebody who's about to stop short of something that God promised to you and I think he's given me something from his word that's gonna keep that from happening in your life with his help I'd like to read you two scriptures ones really short
and ones really long first this short one Hebrews chapter 10 verse 36 read this from the New Testament and then I want to illustrate it with an Old Testament scripture that you probably be familiar with Hebrews chapter 10 verse 36 the writer says you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what he has promised this doesn't sound like a suggestion it has the tone of a command an admonition he said you need to persevere go ahead and wake up your neighbor and tell them what you need
to do is persevere it means that it's possible to do God's will or begin in God's will and not finish therefore not receive the full extent of what he promised you in your life you need to persevere perseverance is the link and I guess when you start out as a pastor you're impressed by people who have the faith to start stuff it's like really exciting when somebody steps out and starts something and you applaud that and you preach about people stepping out and starting stuff but after you've done it just a few years like I
have I'm only on year number nine of being a pastor now but that's long enough that what impresses you changes it no longer impresses you just if somebody has the faith to start something it really impresses you when somebody has the fortitude to finish it and that's why I like coming around a ministry with with a solid foundation and and learning from this you need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God you will receive what he has promised now let's illustrate that from the Old Testament the book of Joshua chapter
6 Joshua incidentally is the sixth book of the Bible and I'm going to share something from the sixth chapter of the sixth book of the Bible yay this also happens to be the sixth general session of the conference according to my count now the gates of Jericho were securely barred up because of the Israelites no one went out no one came in then the Lord said to Joshua see I have delivered Jericho into your hands along with its King and it's fighting men march around the city once with all the armed men do this for
six days have seven priests 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 and when you hear them sound a long blasts on the trumpets have the whole army give a loud very good for a morning session excellent exceeding every expectation so far in energy you are loud shout then the wall of the city then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up everyone straight in so Joshua son of nun called the priest and said
to them take up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it and he ordered the army advance march around the city with an armed guard going ahead of the Ark of the Lord and when Joshua had spoken to the people the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward blowing their trumpets and the Ark of the Lord's covenant representing his presence followed them the armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets and the rearguard followed the Ark all this time
the trumpets were sounding but Joshua had commanded the army keep your mouth shut until the day I tell you to shout then shall know no Savior shout he said save your shower for the end of the message so he had the Ark of the Lord carried around the city circling at once then the army returned to camp and spent the night there Joshua got up early the next morning the priests took up the Ark of the Lord the seven priests carried the seven trumpets went forward marching before the Ark of the Lord and blowing the
trumpets the armed men went ahead of them in the rearguard followed the Ark of the Lord while the trumpets kept sounding so on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp they did this for six days here's the title of my message and I need you to touch seven people and tell them my title the title of this message is don't stop on six would you find seven people in this arena and tell them don't stop on six don't stop on six that should have been plenty of time for
seven people I don't know what you're talking about at this point now then by way of illustration and I just thought of this illustration and remembered it yesterday in the breakout session that I taught on leadership but at this point in conference it can be it can be tempting to have high faith and good intentions but then we've got to start now the sixth session general session start pushing toward the actual action that will make the promise come to pass yeah so my oldest son Elijah asked me two years ago he was six at the
time it was a defining question that a little boy asked his dad he said daddy what did video games used to be like and somehow I knew when he asked me that that I was in a different stage of life now and he he wanted to know about old-school video games so I lose a lot of the audience with this I lose a lot of young and free but I started to tell him about the Nintendo Entertainment System because kids these days don't know don't know anything about Super Mario Brothers and and Donkey Kong and
and contra and the and the secret code to get 30 more lives on contra which is all the anointed people remember up up down down left right left right B a start if you knew that code a blessing be upon your head now and forevermore but when I really wanted to tell them about The Legend of Zelda and I decided to punch it in YouTube and see if it would come up and I found out something you can do on YouTube if you want to you can go on youtube and watch a walkthrough of a
video game a walkthrough is interesting because you get to watch somebody play a video game and beat every level and so I I was watching this on the on my phone with Elijah and Holly wasn't there and so a lot of time passed and we watch Zelda then we watched Mike Tyson's punch-out and then we just kept going and to two hours or so had passed and I didn't really realize how ridiculous what I was doing was until Holly walked back in and asked me what are you doing and when I had to explain to
her what I was doing I realized how sad it was because what I had to say was we're watching video games to which she responded you mean you're playing a video game right so wish we were playing a video game we're watching somebody else pretend to do something do you realize how many layers removed from reality this is a video game is already a simulated environment it's already not a real thing now you're watching somebody else do something that's not a real thing but if you're not conference your your your your your you're gonna have
that experience I meant to say if you're not careful and I was trying to fix it in the middle of the sentence but I said if you're not conference and I couldn't figure out any way to back out Carl if you have any ideas on how it could affect better executed that please let me know but I'll start over if you're not careful conference can become a walkthrough for you they put the walkthroughs online not so you can just watch somebody play but so you can learn what to do if you're stuck on a level
and then you can go do it and so this is a walkthrough we're here we're preaching Louie's doing this thing we know God is big we remember that its perspective but but but life is not a walkthrough and the point of all of this isn't that you would marvel at what they did here but that you would receive something in here that would enable you by the same spirit of faith that was released in here to do what you've got to do back there touch somebody say this isn't a walkthrough okay so in the passage
Joshua was six and I preached this passage on the weekend where of the of the eight years that I've been preaching it was the weekend I wanted to quit the most last year our church started going through some some controversy in our local media and the weekend that I had to get up and preach after that had begun the Lord had already given me this message from Joshua 6 and it preached me through it and in and I identified three reasons that people stopped short when I say stop short I don't know Sara Lee mean
that you're on the verge of quitting your ministry I mean that you're on the verge of losing your passion and keeping your ministry I think you can often keep your ministry position and forfeit your ministry because you lose your passion for what you're doing and so we're talking about stopping short we're talking about going into a maintenance mode where you're fine to sustain and God promised some things in our text Joshua is going into Jericho after 40 years of wilderness wandering leading the people to possess God's promise now we don't have a Promised Land so
to speak like Joshua did but we have what Peter called in the New Testament exceeding great and precious promises we have what Paul called every spiritual blessing in Christ and so we have some promises and and Jericho represents the first city that Joshua would have to conquer in order to lead the people into their promised land and it wasn't a very big city at all in fact you could walk around it in just an hour but what it had that the Israelites were used to as really high walls and that was their only defense because
they knew the Israelites were were were fighting with God's Authority and wind at their back and God's strength in their swords and so they had they had high walls that were locked up I'll call you back to verse 1 for a moment where it says now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites no one went out and no one came in and verse 2 I looked for tensions in the text when I preached that's where I really get my sermons from I look for tensions in the text and there's a lot
of tension between verse 2 and verse 1 because verse 2 says then the Lord said to Joshua see I have delivered Jericho into your hands see I have delivered Jericho into your hands two tensions number one God is speaking in past tense about a battle that Joshua hasn't even fought yet only God can do that see I have like if we wanted a gospel parallel of this it would be where Paul told Timothy and second Timothy chapter 1 where he said he has saved us and called to a holy life not because of anything we
have done but because of his own purpose and grace this grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time but it has now been revealed through the appearing of Christ Jesus our Savior who has destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel so I want you to know today that God speaks in past tense about the battle that you're currently fighting that's his heavenly perspective on whatever you're facing but we stop short and if I'm thinking about reasons we stopped short and reasons we give up and reasons we
settle down and reasons we flame out the first one has to be this because your perspective is obstructed your perspective is obstructed more simply put your perspective is blocked but I wanted to say obstructed because all of the other points I'm gonna make have oh in the second word of the outline and I like to preach pretty when I can so your perspective gets obstructed God says see here's the second tension see I have delivered Jericho into your hands now imagine you're Joshua God says see look at Jericho I have delivered it into your hands
in other words you've got this you've got this I've got this therefore you've got this so Joshua looks up and what does he see go back to verse 1 the gates of Jericho were securely barred so God says I've given it into your hands Joshua sees a city that is securely barred up what are you doing what you see looks nothing like what God has said it had a good question when when when what you see in your situation doesn't look anything like what God is saying in your spirit when you're looking at a city
it wasn't the size of Jericho that made it a big battle it was the size of the walls around Jericho but but verse 1 also gives us a clue as to what God saw that Joshua couldn't see cuz God sees beneath our situation and sees what we can't see and here's what God could see that Joshua couldn't see and you and I might not be able see when we're looking at problems it says that the gates were securely barred why because of the Israelites in other words they were so scared of God's people that they
were so desperate that all they could do was lock down the city and hope that the Israelites wouldn't come in here's what I wrote down for you the intensity of the Opposition in your life is proof of the power of God's promise in your life think about it the reason the gates were locked the reason the walls were high is because the enemy was intimidated and and that's why I thank God for this immersive environment that we're in this week because as we praise God and sing the songs until we're singing them in our sleep
you know just walking around singing them not even knowing you're singing them just in the elevator I'm watching some of you just singing you don't even know I'm watching you but you're just singing oh you can't sing but I didn't stop you and by the end of the week you've actually convinced yourself that you sound good but you don't you just have a perspective that you do because you've been in this atmosphere but because praise has a way of lifting your perspective and getting you above walls and helping you to see past problems that's why
you're very wise to be here this week I know some people think you're crazy for taking a week off of work and taking your vacation to be in a conference and you've already registered again next year no you're very wise to come into this place because praise will lift your perspective and show you what God sees beneath the situation that you can't see past the eyes of your heart might be open that you might see no comprehend the plan and the purpose be reminded of what God has for you much more we could say about
that but let's talk about the second thing I think often we stopped short because our progress isn't obvious our progress isn't obvious ok you got to imagine this miracle like you never heard it I don't know if you heard the kids song growing up I used to sing it joshua fought the Battle of Jericho Joshua fit the Battle of Jericho Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down not only is that like a little bit out of sequence because he actually walls came down many fought the battle but it's also overly
simplified I have a friend who fights in UFC he's a GoSee fighter he breaks people's noses for Jesus he's a Christian and he's been knocking he's been knocking fools out in the first round all of his last fights and the last time he did it he's like knocking people out it within one minute and the last time he did it I said Vitor man you you you you don't even look like you've been in a fight we were facetiming the next day hey you even look like you've been in a fight I said it was
so easy I was kind of disappointed because I wanted to see more of a fight I said it wasn't even hard and he said you know what he's a Brazilian guy he said you know what pastor I never want to hear you say that again he said I know it looked easy to you but it took me six months of training to make it look that way and so look look I love like the fact that this is a children's Bible story but if all you think is just about the battle about Jericho the walls
came I think Joshua was safe wait a minute I don't ever want to hear you sing that song again 40 years 40 years of wandering and then and then and then when I finally thought I was gonna get to go in 40 years of wandering for for somebody else's lack of faith I might add and then when I finally thought I was gonna get to go in God had a meeting with me the day before and said now I want you to take seven days of exercise where's that in the song okay all the walking
now now think about this God is a master motivator right he knows how to motivate us better than anybody cuz he made us and he's in us and he knows what he wants from us and what he planned for us so so if you're God and you're and you're orchestrating this miracle in a way to motivate Joshua because it's kind of a senseless act of obedience to walk around the walls seven days in a row and and then a shouts gonna bring it down can we all agree that's unorthodox and and and so if you're
God and all these people are trying to first of all you can't see God so there's that thing that you're having to walk by faith and not by sight and then there's the fact that this feels really silly and and and then and then there there's there's the fact that as you're walking around the walls you're not even gonna knock them down with a wrecking ball you're gonna shout them down so there's all that but then I'm thinking if I'm God and I'm orchestrating this miracle and I'm trying to keep Joshua and the Israelites motivated
each time they take a lap I'm gonna take out a few bricks of the wall you know like one seventh of the wall comes down every day okay you take one lap it's kind of like Tetris I'm an old-school videogame rut this morning pray for me but it just do you beat that level do it be motivated then I could take another lap and down comes another level and then I take another lap and down comes another line read the text bro that's not what happened for seven days nothing moved like not a brick fell
nothing nothing nothing okay this is why I hate exercise and if you love exercise I hate you and this is why this is why because I want the progress of the work I'm doing to be a parent immediately I think that would be so helpful like in the middle of the plank that I'm doing my abs start to pop just pop pop pop every minute pop pop I could do a plank all day if I could see something but we walk by faith and not by sight so the question becomes here this will you keep
walking even when it doesn't seem to be working this is the question of faith if you prayed and the answer came while you were praying you'd be bumping into stuff praying all day but when you pray and nothing moves this is the question can you believe that God is moving even when the wall hasn't moved at all when the situation hasn't changed a bit can you keep preaching with passion I have a passion for preachers who are preaching and your gift seems bigger than your church and your vision seems bigger than your church can you
keep preaching when the church isn't growing can you can you keep forgiving it'd be great if every time you forgave somebody they immediately reciprocated you know you obey God you forgive them and immediately they change and the relationship opens up and goes to another level and they apologize and a unique nuba we could forgive all the I'm but it's when I forgive and they do it again and forgive and they do it again and forgive and they end up going God if you could just let me see one brick fall but the first day comes
the first day goes a brick hasn't moved the second day goes the bricks haven't moved the third and I was wondering why did God set the miracle up there's this this way why why would God make them March and and not give him a little sign that it was working like you're on the right track you're not crazy you you you weren't just hearing things Joshua Joshua Joshua hasn't been smoking something snorting something like he's really doing what I told him to do why why wouldn't God just let him see a little bit of of
progress and God said said to me obedience is your responsibility outcome is mine the real faith that will finish and endure and receive the promise whatever that promise is I'm talking about the promise that God made to you through his word to you through his spirit to you and his presence at Hillsong three years ago to you to you to you in that place to you ten years ago to you ten months ago that that promise will you have the faith to believe that God is working even if it is it working it is whatever
you're doing you know like obedience is that fastest I think sometimes we're so consumed and obsessed about the battle that we want God to win for us that we don't realize that the most important battle is the one he wants to win in us and maybe if God has you like circling today maybe there's a battle that he has to win in you before he can win the battle for you because it's in the walking it's in the wandering it's in the wandering it's in the weakness it's in the how much longer that my faith
is developed that that that God is doing stuff in me just because your progress is an obvious doesn't mean your faith isn't working doesn't mean your love isn't working doesn't mean you're giving isn't working doesn't mean there's a it doesn't mean you didn't hear from God God told me to tell somebody at Hillsong conference today the promise still stands the promise still stands I know some things have happened that have caused you to question but the promise still stands I meant what I said the promise still stands this is the craziest thing man you know
right after I preached this message our church was going into a kinda like Hillsong does Hartford the house our annual offering called banner years we take it out of 1st Samuel 712 where he said that he took the stone and named at Ebenezer and said thus far the Lord has helped us and it's a it's an offering of remembering what God has done you know a banner year we say like and when we were going to take the offering that year we had just been going through what I told you about and I was starting
to wonder like oh like did our church have like seven good years and now we're gonna have seven bad years like Joseph toll you know like fat cows and skinny cows like is just gonna are we done was it just a good little we do to get start we're not gonna the night that I got up to announce the banner years to our church and I walked outside after preaching not gonna believe what was in the sky over our church on Saturday night in Charlotte North Carolina not just a rainbow have been cool is it
like a banner you know my rainbow means promise there's like seven colors in it it's like a lot of cool stuff for somebody who's a nerd like me that looks for all these connections it was - rainbows - in the scripture is a sign of covenant Moses Moses take off your shoes the place where you stand is holy and I looked up and I'm about to do banner years and I'm wondering like has this circle is this thing is is this it is this is this is it over cuz it felt that it can feel
that way but don't look at me like you've never wondered is it over is this the end of this house is this how it's gonna be I looked up at the sky and I'm hoping you'll look up to heaven today and get the same message God God showed me something I don't know if the rainbow was there for me or somebody else across town but I just stole it okay it was my moment I just took it and God said the promise still stands it still stands even if the wall is still standing between you
and the promise after six laughs I want you to know that if I be for you who can stand against you the promise still I feel it if nobody else does the promise still stands touch six people tell them the promise still stands the promise still stands the problem the promise still stands oh my god this is gonna help somebody this is gonna help somebody this is gonna help somebody Oh so we've imagined we've imagined I'm gonna do one more thing one more thing we've imagined we were Joshua and we've imagined that we were God
you know how we would do the miracle if we were God how we'd feel for Joshua but we haven't talked about the people that we ought to feel the most sorry for in this passage how about the people that Joshua was commanding I don't know why but we always imagined the story we always imagined it's just about the velum Jericho the walls came tumbling down God told all the people what was gonna happen but he didn't do that if you read verse one one more time actually verse 2 it says then the Lord said to
Joshua and he tells Joshua okay here's over into Joshua it's gonna be cool six times nothing seventh time BAM be cool then you'll all go straight in the amazing but then when Joshua calls the people together watch how different it is what he tells them and what God told him he called him in verse six and he said take up the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord so he is reminding them of his presence and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it reminding them of praise verse seven and he ordered the army
advance march around the city with an armed guard going ahead of the Ark of the Lord notice what's not in that verse nothing about seven times nothing about walls falling down so now we're the soldiers you go out the first day you're excited we're gonna take Jericho okay you put it on your schedule take Jericho and you put it on for Monday take Jericho you go out to take Jericho you March for an hour you go home I know they probably didn't go home they probably had a camp set up or for the sake of
the illustration they go home and their wives say so honey how was it today did you take Jericho and every man knows that when your wife says how was your day is code for share with me the most intimate details of your soul and then ask me how was my day and then prepared to listen for an unlimited amount of time because I want to tell you about how on the way to the grocery store I saw Susan and Susan and Robbie aren't doing so good in their marriage and I don't know if it's gonna
last much longer but you know their son is on drugs and we need to pray for him because he's so so how was it today was it day how was it today it was interesting that's a word we say if anybody ever tells you it was interesting that's code also it's interesting so what'd you do well I think the day Joshua just wanted us to get a feel for the lay of the land want us to so so we just took a walk today had some lunch tomorrow we're gonna take Jericho day to Tuesday come
home so my big strong warrior who to kill today did you bring me home ahead you know it's disgusting you know it's really weird I don't know but we we walked again they did this verse 14 for six days then sound very long but when you're following a leader that might have turned into a lunatic six days a long time now if Joseph Prince were here he would tell you anytime you see six in the Bible that represents the number of man seven on the other hand represents perfection six is your number seven is God's
number so they did it for six days why six days of marching you know I feel like it would be easier to March six days if you knew on the seventh day the walls were coming down but they didn't know how long it would be like this see I can I can go really hard if I know it's gonna happen but there's somebody in here who's on left left to lap three year four year five years six and for six days see we stopped short because our perspective is obstructed because our progress isn't obvious and
because the process is open-ended how long Lord but that's the burning question in somebody's heart a conference like I don't mind walking God I'll serve you but but but I'm limping now anything it would take this long how long is it gonna hurt like this how many people are gonna leave me in my life hello how long cuz I don't mind walking but I just need to know I just need to know that this is working I just need to know why why am i going around these walls why am i continuing to watch my
kid make bad decisions why am i continuing to chauffeur why am i why am i walking and it's not working and God says because if I let you in on the first lap you would think it was your walking that brought you in you would think it was your shout that brought the wall down so I need you to have the faith to take another lap just another lap just another lap look look in North Carolina we have a sport called NASCAR now NASCAR is people driving their cars around the track okay very American sport
at the top corner of the screen on NASCAR I'm not a fan of NASCAR I don't want you to hate me but but on the top corner it has a little box that says laps left and when there's one lap left to go they wave a white flag to let the drivers know this is it this is your last lap wouldn't it be great if life had a lapse left box in the top corner just to let you know like oh god you're so close wouldn't it be wonderful if life would wave a white flag
to let you know you've got one lap left just one more month if you can stand up under it for one more day if you can push through one more time but but life doesn't waive its white flag so then we wave our white flag of surrender to say god I can't do this anymore and God says good now you're ready to go in because now you know it wasn't because you walked so good that I did so much but it's because he who began a good work in you will be faithful I'm prophesying now
he'll be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ I'm encouraging somebody [Music] take a little lamb [Music] when you pick you [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] wouldn't be a shame for you to come this close be a shame for you to fight this hard only to quit under somebody is on six and you don't even know it you're so close you are growing you are maturing I know you're still addicted but but you are growing you are changing I know they still haven't come back
to you but you are growing you are changed it is working this might be your last laugh but what if it's not what if it's not here's my advice to you walk like every lap is your last and one day you'll be right assess his says they march around the city seven times in the same manners they do the same stuff except on that day everybody say this day except on that day something different something exceptional happened that day they circled the city seven times and the seventh time around the seventh time around the seventh
time around touch seven people tell them don't stop on six get it in their vocabulary did it in your spirit don't stop the seventh time around when the priests sounded the trumpet blast Joshua commanded the army [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] how cool was that come on let's thank God thank pastor Stephen for the word
