The 'if' of Covenant

Yesterday I preached my penultimate sermon in our Joshua series: Living Life Without the Fear. (See videos here) My focus was on Joshua's final words to the Israelite leadership in Joshua 23.

After stressing the importance of an individuals final words using the illustration of the scene of the frog king in Shrek 3 where he draws Shrek close to him to tell him essential words. I called the people of X1 to heed the emphasis of verse 11 in this chapter:

"So be very careful to love the LORD your God."

The words here talk of a 'cleaving' to God. The verse speaks of a steadfast, diligent and applied watching of our relationship with God in order not to fail in our fulfillment of our part in our covenant relationship with the Lord. I spoke of the many warnings and exhortations in the NT not to turn away, or fall away from God, or to entertain temptation by not resisting the devil written not to unbelievers but to believers.

Joshua speaks here of God being astonishingly faithful to His part of His covenant with the Israelites but also of the dire consequences that come from not ' being very careful to love God.' Tragically, and I feel the words I'll quote now are some of the saddest in all of scripture, the Israelites do not listen and intermingle with the destructive spirituality/immorality of the nations surrounding them with this result

"The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel...After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel." - Judges 2: 7, 10

This is so possible for us as the people of God in a generation virtually devoid of a God-consciousness saturated in consumerism and materialism and pluralism (all faiths are the same). He can have, and does have, such stunning promises and grace towards us to live life truly abundantly in the power of the Spirit, but we can forget to 'be very careful to love the Lord our God' and not enjoy any benefits of relationship with Him.
We will not lose the justification that comes from our being renewed by Him in new birth but we certainly can live out a life of mundane, legalistic, apathetic, guilt-ridden obedience earthed in human striving instead of Spirit-empowered joy filled loving obedience and we must be careful to heed the words of Joshua and the other biblical authors to ensure that does not happen.

Seek strength in His Spirit, as Jesus said, "If you love me you will obey what I command."

Simon

On NOT speaking on 'Tithing.'

This week at X1 I had the joy/challenge of speaking, or NOT, speaking on tithing to our people. The reason it is a challenge is twofold really, I feel.
Firstly, you are entering into a great emotionally charged/ 'do not invade' space of the western believer's psyche. This is one of those 'do not go there' areas of our walk. The personal area where it is hard to determine how a church leadership displays any God-given authority.
Secondly, as I mentioned to the people of X1 on Sunday, it is a definite Spiritual Warfare battleground because we are confronting a very significant idol in the Western world. As a preacher and leader entering into this territory it is a case of 'get locked and loaded,' put on that 'heavenly armor' and get ready for some attack. As I suggested to the congregation it is akin to confronting biblically people from my home country of Zimbabwe about Ancestral Worship (African Traditional Religion) and declaring that these idols are to be knocked off their perches by the only true, living God. Some of you may know how that goes - speaking about money here is engaging in similar combat but the enemy here appears to wear far more inconspicuous clothing and one wonders where he is actively gunning people down.

My preaching was out of Joshua 21 continuing on in our series in Joshua - 'Living Life without the Fear.' Here we see the Levites given their cities out of the inheritance of their fellow Israelites and the obvious point is that without the God-honoring, other-centered obedience of the Israelites there would be no Levite cities to speak of.
Without them giving 48 of their cities and giving of their grain, livestock and income there would be no places of Spiritual input and direction within the nation of Israel. These Levite cities were the Spiritual Communities offering TRUTH, JUSTICE & MERCY within the Israelite community - which like any other human society (as seen by the tragic and dreadful Cumbria shootings of last week) was/is fragile and fractured and prone to soul-atrophying, rebel-making distance from God.

We too as God's people have the great joy and privilege (According to Paul in II Cor. 8 & 9) to give generously as tasters of God's grace in Christ to the building of Levite cities within our own fractured and fragile communities. And nowhere is it meant to be 10% - the NT makes absolutely no obligation along the lines of a percentile of your income it is purely as an overflow of being transformed by the grace of God and wanting true 'equality' for all people and 'investing' in such through their local 'home of spiritual sustenance' and hub for God's mission - the local Church.

I can only hope the people of X1 will arise to give much to see X1 truly be a Spiritual Community offering refuge, hope and direction to the community in Watford. It should not be my compulsion but a resposiveness to their tasting of the abundant, lavish grace of God.

Blessings
SLJ

Joshua's Gilgal and Calvary

A true joy of being called to 'feed' the flock God has enabled us to lead as an Eldership here at X1 is that of searching deeply multiple resources to provide the most beneficial sustenance possible. I love this, even when it is a chore (as it can be demanding spending 10 - 15 hours a week preparing a sermon) as the input it gives to me personally is great - I only pray it will have the same effect on those who hear the sermon weekly.
With that said I want to highlight a brilliant quote from one of the commentaries I am using for the "Living Life without the Fear" series here at X1 in relation to the camp of Gilgal as a 'Spiritual Home Base' for the Israelites. The quote is from the British Expositor Alan Redpath and it gives a 'fascinating parallel between Gilgal and Calvary:

"May I remind you of the great words of NT truth and salvation which have their roots deeply imbedded in Gilgal. Here they are; refresh your memory. It was a place of rememberance, where all of God's people together went down unto death; it was a place of resurrection, where together they came up with their leader into life. It was a place of renunciation, where they cast off the carnal existence of the wilderness; it was a place of restoration, where they came again into fellowship with the lord. It was a place of realization, where they began to taste of the strong food of the land; it was the place of revelation, where they met their captain with a drawn sword.
The Christian life has its own roots firmly imbedded in Calvary, the place where we died with Jesus and rose with Him, where we have deliberately renounced carnality and have entered into a living fellowship with our Lord, where we have begun to take the strong food of His Word and to realize every moment of our lives that the Captain of the Lord's hosts is with us."

Yes o Yes - the great victory of Calvary!

Simon

"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

"Living life without the Fear" Week 8

An overview of this week's sermon at X1 Watford in our series, "Living Life without the Fear"

RAHAB: FREED THROUGH FEARLESS FAITH!
This week as we return to Joshua 2 we will turn our attention from the select missional men who encountered an ‘awakened seeker’ within the walls of Jericho and look at this woman RAHAB who hid them from the King’s army.

OUR CENTRAL FOCUS – HER FAITH
As we look at this woman, what stands out about her, what distinguishes her from the other people in Jericho?

• NOT HER NATIONALITY
• NOT HER RELIGIOSITY
• NOT HER SUPERIOR MORALITY

It is not our goodness; it is not our attendance, it is not our morality, our likeability, our nationality, our superiority, not even our good works or anything of ourselves that causes God to look upon us and say well you deserve all my lavish love, affection and grace here is eternal, abundant life. NO! It is one thing and one thing alone and we see it here in the life of Rahab – FAITH. The apostle James makes that clear (Ja. 2: 24)

With this in mind I want us to clarify 3 fundamental elements of faith seen in the life of Rahab...

FAITH RECEIVES
Rahab heard the messages that were being rumoured throughout the streets of Jericho, she listened in attentively to the fearful retelling of tales by the fear – bound soldiers frequenting her establishment. Upon that testimony, on hearing these facts Rahab states, “I KNOW...” “She heard, she believed, she acted upon that belief...”

FAITH RESCUES
I know we are told to never turn to the last page of a good story as it will spoil the whole thing, we all know there is nothing worse than ‘that guy’ who cannot help but tell you what is about to happen in a movie while you are watching it. But, turn with me to Jo. 6: 22 -3 and see the outworking of this amazing ‘deal’ between two ‘missional’ men and an Amorite harlot. She is rescued from the crumbling Jericho!

FAITH REVEALS
This is for those of us who have received this message (or maybe think we have) who have been rescued from a life without life and been made alive by the inner working of the Spirit of God who has given us abundant life. Make sure you know this: Faith reveals itself.

Read the words of the 15th century Italian reformer Benedetto –
“Faith imprints us with a certain violent love of good works.”
Here is another way of saying that,
“We are justified (declared right before God) by faith alone, but the faith which justifies is inevitably accompanied by works: which are the evidence of that faith!” – Peckham

The faith that saves the soul is the faith that gives that soul holy affections, spiritual energy to serve God for the coming of the Kingdom. It is visible, and active!

Blessings
Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 7

Wow, seems silly how time passes by on occasion. I realize I have not updated this blog the last two times I have had the joy of preaching at X1 in our series: "Living Life without the Fear" from the book of Joshua. These past two times have been rooted in chapter 2 of the book and have been extremely helpful to us as a church. Here is an overview of week 7:

FEARLESS MISSIONAL IMMERSION – ‘GET IN!’
This passage of scripture catches us up in the Missio Dei - God's mission to restore, heal and redeem!

SELECT MISSIONAL MEN
These two were Joshua’s Special Forces providing essential Human INTEL.

These men are chosen to engage with a pagan culture, to live out their faith in the midst of a hostile, impure culture because -
OBEDIENT - Joshua would have known the character of these men.
PURE - Able to engage with non-faith culture but not get sucked into the seedy underworld driving it.
FAITH - FILLED - Unlike 10 of the spies sent 40 years earlier these men were full of faith even when encountering any opposition, they knew the power and delivering work of God. (Jo. 2: 14)

If we are to be 'missional', if we are to be those willing to engage with secular culture around us, we must be Obedient, Pure & full of Faith.

Will you be an anonymous missional warrior refusing all self-comforts, self-glory that this world seeks to force feed you for the great glory of the saving power of God to bring the lost and broken to new life?

THREE PEOPLE TYPES YOU WILL ENGAGE
If you are willing to take on the ‘Missional’ battle; if you are willing to let the power and work of the Holy Spirit to mould you then be aware of the ‘people types’ you will engage:
1) Aggravated authorities - 'King of Jericho'; the enemy Himself will conspire against you, authorities of mind and world-views ( Dawkins etc)
2) Spiritual Masses - ‘We have heard...” “For forty years God had been giving the people of Canaan an opportunity to turn to Him.” Now we can see that for 1900 years the story of Christ has been ‘out there.’ But people will reject and ignore it because they want life their way.
3) Awakened Seekers - And then the glorious marvellous truth that there will be those that our Powerful God is awakening: asking the deep questions, feeling new feelings, certain ‘there is more to this!’

GO! SECURE IN GOD’S SOVEREIGN SAVING GRACE
God’s infinite grace and power to restore the broken and the lost to himself cannot be thwarted. No matter how ‘impossible’ it appears for some to know Christ, we see here that God can change the heart and transform the life of anyone!

God can and will transform the lives of even the most ‘lost’ people that we will encounter if we are willing to faithfully, obediently, purely engage them missionally. If you think I am pushing a personal theology here, why don’t you turn with me to John 4 to see another missional warrior engaging a lost soul that God had freely, gracefully and mercifully wanted to know

GOD’S IRRESISTABLE LOVE & GRACE TO RESTORE THE UNCHURCHED – HIS PEOPLE
Why am I so certain that we should be engaging with those immersed in a secular culture with only a media-governed view of Christ? Simple because the immense love and grace of God is irresistible to those He awakens, and there are more than we can estimate outside the walls of the church.

Get into culture, be pure, be obedient, be bold, be fill of faith, God will change lives!

Simon

Here are the Joshua series Videos Part IV - thanks Vimeo

11-10-2009 - Simon LJ - Joshua - Part 1 #1 from X1 Video on Vimeo.

"Living life without the Fear" Week 5

So 5 weeks in, and I feel as if we are barely scraping the surface of this 'immense' book of Scripture.
This week was one of those weeks when a preacher is acutely aware of the challenging nature of what Spirit has given him to share. I felt certain not to rush on from the first nine verses of the first chapter as there was one more notable command from God to Joshua (and very much to us today) that seems to me a pivotal condition of him enjoying the fruit of the 4 promises noted last week.

I entitled the message: FEAST ON THIS FOOD FOR FAITH FOR FEARLESS LIVING

At a point where Joshua would surely be expecting some divine strategy or superior elemt of war with which to encouter the enemies within 'The Promised Land' God says only this:

"Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful."

God basically says to him

“THIS, THIS Joshua! (Scripture) If you want to be ‘prosperous & successful’, if you long to enjoy the stunning array of promises that I have just laid before you then READ THIS, STUDY THIS, LIVE THIS LOVE THIS EAT THIS!”
Joshua was to feed on (meditate) the words of the book of the Law that Moses had been entrusted and inspired by the Holy Spirit to write.
Within the verses ( 7 - 9) you can see there appears to be a four part 'way' by which to feast on Scripture, the food for fearless living:
1) ‘know God’s word’ – Be constantly looking at in order to fulfil command of having it as guide; Joshua would need to get it from ‘ark of covenant’ often
2) ‘talk about God’s word’– (Josh. 1: 8) Clearly Joshua was to be conversing about the bible in his normal day-by-day contacts with family, soldiers, friends.
3) ‘meditate on God’s Word’– Meditation implies reasoning about the Word & deducing things from it. Meditation has application as its goal.
4) ‘obey God’s Word’– The last element in this list of requirements is the most important... Not only know it, speak, obey it...he was also and chiefly to obey it. NOT TURNING TO LEFT OR RIGHT. Keep on Line determined by God’s word.

It is impossible to over-emphasize the need for us as 21st Century believers to apply this command and this process to our lives. I say this because, and I quote my words from Sunday:

"Feeding on God’s word is absent from so many of our lives, it is an afterthought after glutting ourselves on the lies of our culture through media over-saturation...People are more willing to believe the ‘fiction’ of Dan Brown, the quasi-biblical teachings of 80% of the Christian world over and above the profoundly glorious truth of scripture!
And it’s wreaking havoc! We become emaciated, withered followers of Jesus being kicked about by our enemies and unable to engage in the battle necessary for us to claim the glorious promises offered to us in Christ!"

Feast on the divine truth of God for faith for fearless living!

Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 4

Ok, we finally entered the magnificent book of Joshua for real this week. We have spent 3 weeks trying to give a helpful background to this time in the life and history of the Israelite people, this man Joshua, and of course the stunning relevance to our own lives and situation.

I intended to preach one sermon from the first nine verses but of course on deeper investigation discovered that there was more than enough Spiritual Meat to chew on for 2 weeks.
So we entitled this weeks sermon

NOTE THIS: GOD'S PRECIOUS PROMISES FOR FEARLESS LIVING NOT DELIVERED WITHIN REALITY VACUUM

The major emphasis of the sermon was as follows

THE IMMENSITY OF GOD'S PROMISES:

Within these few verses God gives 4 Immense promises to Joshua in preparing to enter the promised land that are so real for us as New Covenant believers. Those 4 are -
BEING IN THE WILL OF GOD -right there, right then God had Joshua exactly where he wanted him. We too have this promises if we respond to the leading of the Spirit.
THE POWER OF GOD - Vs. 3 & 4 All the power made available to Moses in his leading the people is promised to Joshua. This power is promised to us, see Acts 1: 8; I Jn. 4: 4; II Cor. 10: 4; Col. 1: 11.
THE PRESENCE OF GOD - Vs. 5, 8 Far greater than the promise of Power was this glorious promise of the actual presence of the 'I Am', YAHWEH the living, redeeming, covenant keeping God. That promise is for us see Acts 2; Heb. 13: 5; MAt. 28: 20
THE SUCCESS OF GOD - Vs. 8 Not to be reduced to human, narcissistic terms. The success of God is the joy of living in such a way that our lives draw other to His glorious love.

Note: These promises are made to a people on mission.

THE INDISPENSABILITY OF STRENGTH & COURAGE

"...see here that Joshua receives promise and assurance one after the other and then suddenly he is told he needs to be STRONG & COURAGEOUS. In fact God is almost like a stuck record on this one see vs. 6, 7, 9 (x2), Deut. 31: 6, 7, 8, 23.
Why is this the case? Surely after these magnificent words spoken to him he could have sat back on his camel-skin couch, munching on some dates and catching up on his favourite episodes of ‘Survivor: Sinai Desert ’ on his Sky+ box.

The opposite is true. It is exactly because there were such promises to claim, so much to be possessed that Joshua would need all the strength and courage imaginable. To embrace all the joy and the fruits of this new place there would need to be constant conflict against and eradication of all that would deny that.
It is exactly the same today! Every great promise of Ephesians 1 and which are distributed on almost every page of scripture are not delivered to us devoid of living within the reality of a fallen, secular, fear-inducing culture."


So that was the gist of it. There are stunning promises available but as is promised in II Tim. 1: 7, the need for Faith-inspired Strength & Courage to posess the promises.

Simon

Here are the Joshua series Videos Part II - thanks Vimeo

27-09-2009 - Simon LJ - Joshua - Intro Pt 2 from X1 Video on Vimeo.

Here are the Joshua series Videos - thanks Vimeo

20-09-2009 - Simon LJ - Joshua - Intro Pt 1 from X1 Video on Vimeo.

Living Life Without the Fear Videos

Yo yo people, starting to host our videos on the brilliant Vimeo.com.
Check out this url to have a look http://tiny.cc/0PI23

Be blessed

Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 2 - Quotes

Here are some quotes from several of the books studied in preparation for this series;

“ [In the defeat of the Amalekites] Joshua & Israel clearly understood that the victory was accomplished by God, not the strength of the army. Joshua’s military action in the valley was necessary but it was not sufficient in itself to defeat the enemy.” - Downey

“[Joshua] did not selfishly desire personal advantage. There was no lust for selfish gain. His life was characterized by obedient faith, dauntless courage, indomitable perseverance and a total dedication to God & his word. He revealed cheerful confidence in the face of difficulties. Others gave him high honour because of his unselfish disregard of his own personal interests...In every circumstance he displayed a supreme desire to know the will of God...”

“ Joshua was [acutely aware] of the seen and the unseen worlds. There is no vast chasm between them; the unseen world is right here. The unseen world is always immediately present, not far off. Above everything and overshadowing everything is the reality of God in His glory. It obviously stood Joshua in good stead many times for Him to understand that God was close at hand, that HE is the God who exists and who is ‘here.’” – Schaeffer

“He has seldom been given the full credit he deserves as perhaps the greatest man of faith ever to set foot on the stage of human history. In fact, his entire brilliant career was a straightforward story of simply setting down one foot after another in quiet compliance with the commands of God.” – Phillip Keller

Hope these help.

In Him
Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 2

Week 2 of our Joshua series: "Living life without the fear!" Still in Joshua 1: 1 so we could be here for a while.
Whereas in the first week we noted some principles as to why the book Joshua was so important for us this week we sought to discern why Joshua was a

'3500 year old model for living life without the fear'

One thing I noted was this

"I think one definite reason so many of us get sucked into the culture of fear that surrounds us, a primary factor that draws us into living life according to the principles and fear-inducing beliefs of our time is the NEED to be someone and of course in a ‘celebrity-obsessed’ media-saturated culture that someone is better looking than us, more famous than us, more wealthy than us, more ‘happy’ than us."

Then I made this point -

WE ARE DESTINED TO INFERIORITY

Joshua to could have lived his life defined by inferiority, starting off as a slave and then living constantly in the shadow of Moses the great Jewish 'celebrity.' But he didn't he became a fearless leader who delivered the people of Israel into their promised land.

There are FIVE FACETS FOR FEARLESS LIVING that I believe we can glean from his life that will 'equip' us as followers of Jesus (or not) to live our lives without being sucked into the fear-culture in which we are immersed.
Here they are:

LIVED LIFE AGAINST THE FLOW – One of only 2 (Caleb) to actually survive the wilderness wanderings. (Nu. 13 & 14)
All 12 spies return with the same story. It is just that 10 spies “focused on the difficulties rather than on the promise of god...” See also Ex. 24 – 32 and the events detailed there.
While all Israel rebel & pursue idolatry again Joshua stands with Moses and for the Lord against the masses.

ENGAGED THE BATTLE– Ex. 17: 8 – 9 this is seen also in his report from Canaan.
In this he would have learnt that a life of following God is a lifestyle of warfare. (Eph 6: 10 – 18) “Victory is always possible but always depends on both faith in God & obedience to His commands.”

PRIORITIZED GOD’S AGENDA – His agenda, his comfort was not primary. Humble submission to the leading of God to undertake the mission of God was what marked him. It is the same for us, if our agenda or comfort is primary we will get sucked into and tainted by the ‘fear-culture’ that surrounds us.

OBEDIENT TO GOD– He learned the lesson of “the terribleness of sin” in the camp Ex. 32.
Resisting the temptations of living in a secular culture and standing against the pressure to live according to its agenda is far better than disobedience & the destructive consequences of that lifestyle.

PURSUED INTIMACY WITH GOD – He knew the ‘reality of God’ & the ‘glory of God.’ (Ex. 33: 11)
Joshua loved lingering in the presence of God.
There is simply no more effective way of counteracting ‘the fear’ than a deep, personal intimacy with Christ. See John 15.

Are you willing to be a Joshua in your generation?

Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 1 - Further Quote

Here is another great quote which gives some background and insight to the strength of the book of Joshua to speak into our Christian lives:

"The book of Joshua has a very practical application to the believer today. The Promised Land cannot be a type of heaven since heaven is not a place of conflict & conquest. Heaven is received as a gift of the grace of God. Rather, the Promised Land represents the place to which believers are brought right here in this world today. The book of Joshua corresponds to the Epistle to the Ephesians in the NT where we see that the believer is blessed with all spiritual blessings. The practical possession and experience of them depends upon conflict and conquest. These are never attained through the energy of the flesh, but through the power of the Holy Spirit in the yielded life of the believer."

Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 1 - Quotes

I will share three quotes that I mentioned on Sunday morning (in fact one I did not get to share) as a help for all of us considering the book of Joshua and what it means for us today.

“Spiritual victory comes through obedient faith... [T]he believer who wants to defeat the enemies of his soul – the world, the flesh, and the devil – must believe God’s promises & obey God’s instructions.” - Paul Downey (click author's name for link)

“While wandering in the wilderness in fear & disobedience may characterize the lives of many believers, it is not normative Christian living.” – Paul Downey

“While in the wilderness, although they had been redeemed by blood, they were not in the place of their appointed inheritance... Because they did not believe that God could give them the land in the face of all the giants and walled cities they died in the wilderness... Like them, through unbelief and disobedience we too can miss the wonderful fullness and the blessed nearness of the Lord Jesus, indwelling and enthroned, possessing, controlling and motivating our lives. We too can die in the wilderness of blighted hopes and unfulfilled aspirations, of inward battles and outward failures, of sad defeats and wasted years... That weak, ineffective Christian life is most certainly not the inheritance which we have in Christ.” - Colin Peckham

Hope these help.

Simon

"Living life without the Fear" Week 1

Well we have kicked off what I believe will be a truly significant series for us as a church but hopefully for many individuals beyond the walls of screen 7 of Vue Cinema Watford. It is quite a landmark for me as a pastor as it will be the first time I have committed to take on a whole book of Scripture. It can be an ominous thing as you carry concern that people may see it as oncoming monotony - "What a whole Old Testament book of scripture?" - and their dread that they are destined for hours of sleep on Sunday mornings at X1. Also it is extremely demanding of the preaching & teaching elder(s) of a church to earnestly, faithfully, and effectively draw out of a book of scripture the life changing, transcendent truths that are most certainly within the text.

I hope we had a good start. We did not even complete Joshua 1: 1 as we introduced this series. Videos will start going up at Vimeo.com in the very near future and I will be sure to give relevant links if you have any desire to join us on this journey with this great OT man of God, Joshua, both an inspiration and provocation to living life without the fear that stains, and drains so many of us in our faith.

I am fully certain that Joshua's embracing of the challenges and the warfare necessary to delight in the fruits of the 'promised land'is a type and a picture of the faith-filled, obedient, conquering lifestyle essential for us as 21st century Followers of Jesus to live out our Faith without being overcome by 'The Fear' grasping the culture in which we are immersed.

Join us, if you'd like.

SImon