Well, if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a teacher. I teach school, so that probably gave it away.
But before I start, this morning we were having our quiet time, our devotional time, and we heard about the brothers and sisters that came in from New York. We heard a little bit about the problems they had with some documents, or not having certain documents, and I could relate to that because when I got to the airport yesterday, I didn’t have my virtue certificate. So I sympathise with you.
So the thing is, when you guys came, you were coming to worship the Lord, and you were coming to seek the Lord. From what I understood, there was a sympathetic heart there that freely let you guys come across here.
And it reminded me of the prophet Daniel. When Daniel had set his heart to seek the Lord, and he said, “Gee whiz, you know, I don’t want to eat this food. It’s going to defile me,” he found a sympathetic heart. The commander of the eunuchs said, “I don’t know if I could do this,” but when he saw that Daniel was really set on pleasing the Lord, he said, “Well, okay.”
And because of that, you know, the Lord—in the same way—the Lord opens up ways. We are seeking Him to come and meet us. So let’s just turn our hearts to the Lord right now.
Lord Jesus, I do want to thank You that You have called us to Yourself because You want to make Yourself known to us.
Now, Lord, I know when you come in, you sit down, and you see a lot of things written on a board, it could be discouraging. But, Lord, these things are saying about You lighting a fire. I pray that these things up here will be sticks of kindling so You can light a fire that You want, and can fan a flame and do what You want to through this week that we’re here.
Lord, I pray that in no way will I hinder Your speaking because of who I am, and I would hide myself in the Lord Jesus. Now I pray that You would take Your Word and minister it to our hearts. Lord, breathe on it, make it Your own, and speak personally to each one of us. I ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.
What I want to do during these three times that I’m going to speak here is speak from a base in Joshua. I’m not going to cover the book of Joshua; I’m going to use some verses from Joshua. And I just want to let you know why I chose Joshua.
The Lord put Joshua in my heart because Joshua was in a place where he was coming into the land and the promises of what God had for him. And you, in the same way, are coming into your own. You’re reaching that age where you are no longer children; you are coming into being adults.
Now, you’re doing that physically, but in the same way, there’s a spiritual coming into adulthood also. And so that’s what we want to look at.
Now, I want to read a couple of verses from Joshua and expand on that a little bit. Then we’ll get into these things in Joshua Chapter 1.
In Joshua 1:2, it says:
Moses My servant is dead;
now therefore arise, go over this Jordan,
thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them,
even to the children of Israel.
And then in Joshua 1:8, which is my theme for this morning:
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth,
but thou shalt meditate therein day and night,
that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein:
for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous,
and then thou shalt have good success.
Now, as we are seeking to come into spiritual adulthood, we cannot come into it through our parents. Our parents can’t bring us into adulthood. And, you know, that’s true even in a physical sense.
I have two daughters, and one of my daughters—my oldest daughter—she’s just coming into high school. And I can’t make her an adult, and believe me, I’ve been trying to over the summer.
But she has to come into a place on her own. She can’t be pushed into it; she can’t be pulled into it. There has to be a maturing thing on her own. That’s the way she really comes into her own adulthood.
And the same with us. We can’t expect other people to pull us into spiritual adulthood, or into spiritual maturity.
When Joshua came to this place here, Moses was dead. Now, Moses, for forty years, had led the Israelites through the wilderness. They had become a people who just trusted in everything he was doing because he had a connection with God that none of the others had.
And so they had come to trust him and figured that whatever they needed, they always went to Moses. Snakes? Everybody goes, “Let’s go to Moses.” We need bread? “Let’s go to Moses.” Oh, we’re thirsty? “Go to Moses.” And so they had come to depend on Moses, but now Moses is dead.
And it’s the same thing for us. We have to think that, you know, people that have pushed us up to this point, or brought us up to this point, their time has finished now.
And now it’s our time, because God wants to get us on our own. And so He brings Joshua to the point before they cross over Jordan. He brings him there and says, “We’re going there. Moses is dead because you’re going here.”
Now, today we want to look at our coming into spiritual adulthood, our coming into maturity. And then on the last time I share, I want to talk about, once we start to get there, how to stand there. And that’s what the Lord put on my heart for this time.
But this morning, coming into maturity, I think it starts with this verse in Joshua 1:8, and it has to do with the Word of God. And you can see I’ve written all these high school things up here.
But when we look at the Word of God, it has an integral part in our life as Christians. Now, I know we say, “Yeah, I know that. You know, we read the Bible.” But we want to take a look at it as far as, you know, we feel like this is one of the things that Christians do. Right? “Yeah, do you read the Bible?” “Yeah, of course I read the Bible.” Okay?
But, on the other hand, this is also something that God wants us to do, because it’s through this that we come to draw near. Remember, I shared yesterday out of Psalm 32. It says, “Come near.” There’s an understanding. So we want an understanding of why the Word of God is so important to us.
So there’s nothing here that I’m going to share with you that is new. There is no new revelation I’m going to give you. What I have is just that these things are to give us an understanding of what the Lord is desiring for us.
So let’s take a look at one of these things. There we go. Okay, in John Chapter 1. I wrote these up here so that I wouldn’t have to be telling you when to turn, and such. You don’t need to turn to them; you can read them later, but I will read them to you.
And it starts out with John 1:1, and then 1 John. There we go. I’m not nervous. I’m okay.
In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
And then in John 1:14, the first part of it:
And the Word became flesh,
and dwelt among us,
and we beheld His glory.
Now, the purpose of God giving us His Word—He’s given it to us for a purpose. And the first and foremost purpose is that He wants to reveal Himself to us. This is the utmost thing in the Word of God: He has given it to reveal Himself to us.
He shows what He’s like. If you read the Scriptures, you see how God acts. You see how God feels. You see what He desires.
And, you know, Philip, I think, said to the Lord Jesus, “Just show us the Father; that’s enough.” And the Lord Jesus said, “Philip, have I been with you so long, and you haven’t seen? Don’t you know the Father? Didn’t you see Me? You see the Father.”
Well, it’s the same thing. We look at the Word. It’s not just these words on a page, but in it there is a revelation of God to our hearts. And this is a revelation that we need, because this is how God’s going to make Himself real to us.
But it’s not just this Word alone. Okay, if you just put these things in your head and they stand by themselves, that is not enough. Because just to have God revealed to us is just to say, “Well, I know stuff about God.”
As a teacher, we used to kid around about standardised testing. And the kids would say, “What are you teaching?” or, “What did you learn?” “Oh, we’ve learned a bunch of stuff.” And I poured my heart out for you, you know, and I got “stuff.”
Well, it’s the same thing here. Sometimes, you know, we just leave it to ourselves. We just know a lot of stuff. There’s nothing—it’s just stuff. You know, you put stuff in the closet. You put stuff in an attic. Just leave it there. Look in your attic; it’s a bunch of stuff.
And sometimes the Word of God can just be stuff to us. But you have to realise that in it is a revelation of God, and the revelation of God is meant for something. It is not meant just to stand by itself.
When you go home, sometimes—you guys are taking notes. It always trips me out when I see people taking notes, because I know what I do with notes that I take from conferences: they go on a shelf. Once in a while, I look at them, but they become stuff for me.
So, you know, it can’t stand by itself. It’s meant for something. Now, why does God reveal Himself to us? Is there some purpose for His revealing Himself to us?
Well, let’s look at another Scripture here in Romans Chapter 10, verse 17. Now, you have to take this in the context that it’s given. Paul is talking about the preaching of the gospel and how people will know about the gospel.
And in Romans 10:17, it says:
So belief cometh of hearing,
and hearing by the word of Christ.
So another purpose for God giving us this Word is that it would inspire us to have faith in Him. Now, let me explain a little bit about what I mean by faith.
Faith doesn’t mean that we just believe. “Oh yeah, I believe that. I believe that’s true. God’s wonderful. I believe God can do that.” But faith is like this.
Now, you guys are all sitting in chairs, right? Okay. We could say that, if we looked at this—and please bear with me in this illustration—you could look at that chair and say, “It’s been revealed to me. This chair has been revealed to me, and I know the nature of this chair. I can tell you everything about this chair.”
“Look, it’s got metal legs, and, if I can be so bold here, look at the welds on that. These are tremendous welds. That tells you of the strength this chair has, and the way it distributes its legs makes it able to hold the weight over the whole section of the chair. And then, for comfort, you can rest comfortably in it. It’s okay, so it can just pull a little back, just a little bit. And that’s great.”
So I can know the nature of that chair. So what good is that nature of that chair? I’m tired, and I just go, “Well, I just know the nature of that chair. It’s a wonderful chair, and you can use it by sitting in it, and you can have rest by sitting in it. That’s a wonderful chair.”
Well, you just know the nature of the chair. Faith is when you sit down and say, “Yes, I understand that everything of its nature is true.”
I don’t see any one of you worried about falling over in your chair. First of all, none of you are tipping them, and second of all, because you have complete confidence that that chair will hold you.
Now, for some of you, you might think, “Oh, of course, it’s a lightweight anyway.” But, you know, here I am. I’m a tenth of a ton. That sounds really heavy, doesn’t it? But I’m a tenth of a ton. I had no problem sitting in this chair this morning.
And that’s what faith is. God wants you to not just know the chair, but He wants you to experience the chair.
And in the same way, when He reveals Himself, it’s not just so that you know about Him, but He wants to bring you into an experience with Him.
And so the Word kindles. When we read things about the Lord, and then we come into a situation in our life, the Lord quickens something and says, “You know, remember this?” And then we say, “If He did it there, has He changed?”
Now, another thing about this chair: I don’t think, all the while we’re here, that these chairs are going to change when I go. No one’s going to come in here and paint them. No one’s going to take a leg off. They’re going to be the same every time we’re here.
And so, when we know God, we also know that He’s the same. His revelation is the same, so we can trust Him. So the thing is, He wants us to trust Him. He wants us to experience that He is faithful. He wants us to experience His nature for ourselves.
And so He has not left us saying, “Just know about Me,” but, “Experience Me also.” And a lot of times, that’s the part of our Christian life that we leave out. We make it a religion, not an experiencing of the living God.
Next—and I want to lump these two together. I learned from A. W. P. Anybody counting? I’ve got seven. I learned that from A. W. P. You need to go to seven times, because I guess that’s a spiritual thing to do. So I had my seven points there.