"Living life without the Fear" Week 12

Finally made our way back into the book of Joshua after a break for Advent and early January. We have got to chapter 4 after 12 weeks in the book, strangely although that may seem like slow progress there is much more content in those first 3 chapter we could have lingered over.
I took this week speak to our church quite personally as I saw this moment in the life of the Israelites and their Godly leader Joshua mirroring our situation currently.
Here is a break down of the sermon:

LIVING LIFE WITHOUT THE FEAR
I reminded us again that we live in a 'culture of fear', check this quote out as a reference to exactly that

“The culture of fear is not a spontaneous reaction by the public to a truly dangerous world. The worldwide anthrax panic sparked by a handful of anthrax-related deaths in America shortly after 9/11 was not caused by a genuine and widespread mortal danger facing US and European citizens. Our propensity to panic about everything from child abductions to mobile phones does not come from the fact that modern life contains more risks than ever before - on the level of everyday reality, the opposite is the case. . . . The culture of fear comes from the top down. It comes from society's leaders, and their inability to lead. . . .” – Jennie Bristow

If we allow fear to enter our faith relationship with Christ, if we are drawn into our fear culture and defined by such rather than being transformed into the likeness of Christ - we will not know the Spiritual blessings in Christ

Fear is a grave enemy of faith!

A MIRROR MOMENT
At this time I recognized that there is immense theological significance in this passage but that at this time I wanted to highlight how this moment mirrors our life as a church.
We as a church have set aside this year to seek Greater Health through Greater Impact and one of the core values we have as a church that needs to be embraced, owned, is this
“WE VALUE THE GIVING OF OUR LIVES, OUR TIME, AND OUR MONEY TO GOD’S MISSION”
If we become a serving people, caught up in the mission of X1 to fulfill the mandate of Christ in Matt. 28 then we will know joy, but as in this passage some things need to be in place -

LEADERS LED BY ‘THE’ LEADER
4: 1 – 3 “The Lord said to Joshua...” Here we see that Joshua is not the real, ultimate leader of the Israelites. And that is so true of X1 as a people. We, your elders are not the leaders of this church. We are a leadership that, like Joshua, are led by Jesus Christ who is actually the leader of ChristFirst.

ANONYMOUS, OBEDIENT & UNIFIED SERVANTS OF THE MISSION
4: 4 – 8 “So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them...”
Here the scripture expose a stunning truth about leadership – Any great Christian leader is surrounded by obedient, unified, co-warriors working together to fulfil the mission for the glory of God and the joy of the people. (Ps. 84: 10; I Cor. 12;Eph. 2: 14 – 22)
These 12 men were anonymous – they are never named – but get this they were absorbed into the building of a sign that would testify to the faithfulness, mercy and awesome power of God to future generations.

SELFLESS SERVANTHOOD
4: 10 – 13 “The men of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over, armed, in front of the Israelites...”(1: 12 – 13; Deut. 3: 18)
These men who had already claimed their inheritance served the mission and joy of the other Israelites.
This has been true of the initial core group of people who came with us to VUe cinema but...
It is time now for us all to rise up and claim our inheritance: To live a life of joyous, obedient mission, realizing the stunning life there is to be had in giving our all to see a church that actually affects the culture of a whole town.

The call to serve the mission of X1 - GET IN!

Simon