 How you doing? Open your Bibles with me to Joshua chapter one. Turn Old Testament, book of Joshua chapter one. When I sat down just a second ago after making that comment about football, my head usher, he says, next week we should get all the ushers and have half of them take their shirts off with white and the other with orange like radiant and have them sit in the front row for you while you preach. I'm just like, that would be disturbing. I'm not sure that that would fly, but this morning we're continuing in the series that we started a few weeks ago called Heroes as we're looking at Old Testament heroes of the faith, looking at their lives and drawing lessons from their lives that will help us further on in our journey of faith and following the Lord. And this morning we're gonna talk about a man that if you've been around church any length of time or if you're like me and you grew up in church, very familiar. We grew up learning about Joshua, but also singing about Joshua because after all, Joshua fought the battle of? Say it again. Say it again. Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came. So you guys know, but what you don't know oftentimes is that there's always a back story to the man who led the great victory to possessing the promised land, possessing Jericho, defeating the enemies and actually helping Israel to gain their inheritance. And so because of that, we're entitling this message this morning, Joshua the possessor, Joshua the possessor. And so look with me here at chapter one, beginning in verse number one, we're gonna read the first nine verses here about Joshua. And it says, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, the son of none, Moses is assistant. Moses, my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon, I have given it to you just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the great sea towards the going down to the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. And just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give to them. Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. So Joshua, who is this young leader who has spent 40 years serving as the assistant to the man of God, Moses is now commissioned by God to do what Moses was unable to do, which is to bring the children of Israel who've been wandering in the wilderness for the last generation and to bring them ultimately across the Jordan into the promised land, Canaan land that God had promised to Abraham 400 plus years earlier that he would bring his descendants back into there. He says, I want you to rise up, lead the people into the promised land and help them to gain their inheritance. Now this is a massive challenge for Joshua because as we know come to the back story before Joshua became the leader of Israel he started off in obscurity as just a servant. The Bible describes him as an assistant to Moses. Actually, if you go back even further Joshua started off as a slave, just like all the rest of the children of Israel did for generations, the children of Israel served as slaves in the land of Egypt. And then God as Pastor John, so well, I mean, it was a great message last week talked about how one moment in a burning bush during the voice of God changed the trajectory of Moses' life. And because he was willing to turn aside and hear the voice of God and make time for that God used Moses to be a delivery marches back into Egypt. He confronts Pharaoh, he leads the children of Israel out he delivers them out of Egypt. And Joshua was one of those slaves. Joshua quickly though was drawn magnetically to Moses as a leader and serves him as his assistant. He's mentored by Moses. And so for 40 years, he sees the pattern of Moses' life and the pattern of Moses' leadership. He sees Moses go up on the mountain of Sinai and meet with God face to face, receive the law. Everybody else drew away from the presence of God Moses drew near. And Joshua followed him up onto the mountain and for 40 days he waits for Moses to come out of the cloud which was a physical manifestation of God's divine glory where God spoke and gave the law to Moses. Joshua was there, he's waiting. Joshua was there when Moses held his staff out over the Red Sea when they're pinned in between the wilderness between the armies of Egypt and the Red Sea. He saw God keep his word and part the Red Sea and the children of Israel marched through the Red Sea find themselves in the wilderness. And he was there as he and watched Moses in response and in obedience to God's strike the rock in the wilderness so that water came out. There's about two million children of Israel imagine providing enough water to quench the thirst in the desert of all of these millions of millions or hundreds of thousands of people. He was there when he seen it and he was there when the manna appeared in the morning to feed the people of God every single day. He was there when Korah rebelled against Moses. He was there when Moses brought the children of Israel through the Red Sea and led them into the wilderness right up to the borders of the Promised Land. I mean right up to the borders from Egypt to the Promised Land should have taken 11 days. But it ended up spending 40 years in the wilderness. So he was there when Moses brought them right up to the border of the Promised Land and Moses selects 12 spies. He says I want you to go into the Promised Land. I want you to check it out scout it out. And 10 of them came back and were petrified. 10 of them came back and said the land eats its inhabitants, it's massive, it's too big for us. There's giants in the land, they're gonna destroy us. There were only two of the 12 spies that came back with a positive report. Two of them came back and the Bible describes them as having a different spirit. One's name was Caleb, the other's name was Joshua. Joshua and Caleb came back and says man the land is good, there's homes, there's neighborhoods, there's vineyards, I mean they brought a cluster of grapes back that was massive. They said that the Lord is gonna give us this, it's incredible, let's go right now, let's go possess it. Only two came back with a good report. The people believed the 10 and not the two. They had doubt and they had unbelief in their heart. They said in numbers that said that when we saw the giants in the land, we were like grasshoppers in our own sight and so were we in theirs. And they had such unbelief and such doubt in their hearts. Listen, God easily got them out of Egypt but the harder thing was getting Egypt out of them because of their slave mentalities. It took a whole generation, 40 years, God said you can't go in, so everybody 20 years and older, they just wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, in circles, camping, God provided for them until a generation died out and a new generation rose up that did not know slavery had a different mentality but they had their own issues. All they had ever known in their life was just enough. They had never known slavery but they had never known prosperity. They had only known just enough, just enough manna, just enough water, just enough shade and they lived intense their whole life. And now just before they're about to go into the Promised Land, God tells Moses you're not going in, there's gonna be a different leader that I'm gonna raise up. I'm gonna let you see the Promised Land, Moses but you're not going in. So Moses goes into the hill country and he dies. It's an interesting backstory of that in the New Testament where it talks about even Michael the Archangel and Satan argued over the body of Moses after he died. I mean, it has absolutely no application but it should just intrigue and pique your interest to actually read the Bible because there's some crazy stuff in there. And in the midst of that moment, God then speaks to this young man named Joshua who's been the assistant to Moses this whole time, 40 years of watching all of these things. And here's what he says to him. Moses, my servant, is dead. You know what he was saying? He was saying the days of you playing backup are over. Joshua, it's your turn. It's your turn and you're going to do what Moses was unable to do. Do you know what a tall task that was? You're saying, whoa, wait a second. You're saying Moses couldn't get the children of Israel prepared and ready and believing enough to go in and possess the promised land. How in the world am I going to do it? Imagine what that must have felt like. It's interesting, Joshua's original name was Hosea which means victory or salvation. His name was changed later to Joshua which means victory is in the Lord or in Yahweh. Moses' name, Moshe in Hebrew means one that is drawn out and it was because he was drawn out of the Nile River but it described his ministry that he would take people out of Egypt. But Joshua was different because his name was victory, salvation, victory. It's interesting when you read the Exodus story, Matthew or excuse me, Moses and Joshua and the book of Exodus and the book of Numbers and then Joshua as well. There's three characters of leadership. There's the Moses kind of leadership which can get you out of something but can get you into something. There's the Aaron type of leadership that gives the people what they want because when Moses was delayed, they said to Aaron make us a golden calf like they worshiped in Egypt and take us back to Egypt because Moses is gone and they rose up to play and they partied and Moses came down and he was the first law breaker when he broke the tablets of stone. That was a joke, you should laugh. It worked for John, I don't know why. But Aaron just gave them what they wanted and they wanted to go back into Egypt. Joshua was a different kind of leadership because Joshua was able to possess the promised land. He was able to take them in to possess the promised land. To cross the Jordan, prepare their hearts and as we know, they fought the battle of Jericho but then they fought many other battles and the 12 tribes of Israel were able to possess their land once and for all. The reason why Joshua was able to do that is because of the things that he learned in following Moses for all those 40 years. And there are some significant lessons from the life, from the leadership of Joshua that he learned from Moses that I think are found in Joshua chapter one that are so significant for you and I today. Now, I have three of them in my notes and if you're following on your version, you have three of them. The last two services I've only gotten through one of them. So we're gonna believe for a miracle today that I can pull all three of them off. So let me share with you these three significant things about possessing the promises of God because make no mistake about it, there are some promises that God has for you and I as covenant people, some land for ourselves to possess, some inheritance for us but it's not just going to happen by default. So first significant lesson is this that we find here is that authority to possess the promises is activated by our obedience. Authority to possess our promises is actually activated by our obedience. If I were to ask you right now, how many of you would love to live a life where you are walking in the supernatural favor and blessing of God in every area of your life, raise your hand. If you would like that, you would just say, man, that's awesome, I would love it. Not many people would say, hmm, I don't have to think about that. The blessing of God, that's God's bias for you. But do you know what the Bible says in Isaiah? I think it's chapter one, it's very interesting. God says to the people of Israel, he said, if you are willing, that's all of us, and obedient, you will eat the good of the land. Notice it's just not willingness that we need to be blessed and to be favored and to walk in purpose and to walk in all the goodness of God. We have to be willing, that's the starting point, but then we also have to be obedient. And obedience is what actually activates God's authority in our life to be able to possess the territory. It shows up in Joshua chapter one in verses two and three. Look at what God says. He says, now therefore arise, Joshua, go over this Jordan, you and all this people into the land that I am giving to them to the people of Israel, listen, every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon, I have given it to you just as I promised to Moses. So God says, and he lays out in chapter one, the parameters. He says from Lebanon, all the way to the south from the Euphrates River, which is in modern day Iraq, all the way to the Mediterranean Sea. That is the land that I promised Abraham and that's the land that you can possess. But it was only the land that the foot, the soul of their foot would actually touch that activated the authority to possess. The territory in their life, the territory in the promised land that they were unwilling to go and actually step foot on was actually territory that by default, they would never inherit. They had to step into it in order to inherit it. In other words, so here's what's interesting. God gives the parameters for their inheritance. Lebanon, that's Syria, all the way down to the south near the Egyptian border, Mediterranean Sea, all the way over Iraq, do you know this? Israel never, not even in the golden age of David and Solomon, they never possessed all the territory. God gave it to them, they just never possessed it. It's because authority only works when authority is present. It's your jurisdiction, but unless you enforce it, it's somebody else's by default. And so God was telling Joshua, Joshua, you're going to have to lead these people across some obstacles, you're gonna have to take them across the Jordan, you're gonna have to lead them in to the promised land and you're gonna have to fight some battles. Everywhere that you go, everywhere that you're willing to go and step your foot onto, that is, I promise you, it's yours. But you're gonna have to go and you're gonna have to step into it and possess it. You can't possess it by proxy, by just saying, hey, I claimed that over there. I've gone to conferences that are absolutely maxed out. And a lot of times they'll let you save seats. And so you get in early, everybody lines up at the conference and they wanna rush in and save your seat and once you get that seat, it's yours for the day. And when you have 1,000 seats in a room and 1,200 people that are at the conference, you wanna make sure you get a decent seat. So Jane and I would go to these conferences, be there two hours early, waiting in line for the doors to open and then you wanna rush in and get a seat. And then you run in and then there's one guy that came from the hotel with like 20 different Bibles and he starts stacking them for all of his friends who are back at the hotel eating a continental breakfast. And I'm just like, no, baby. I almost lose my salvation, not quite, but close. And there's like, oh no, this is for my friend, I'm saving the seat. Listen, there ain't no saving the seats in the kingdom of God. If you ain't stepping into it, you ain't possessing it. No saving seats, you can't be, oh, that's my blessing over there, that's my blessing. I'm gonna show off a little bit later. I'm gonna live over here for right now, but that's, no, don't work that way. If your foot ain't there, it ain't yours. Bad grammar, good theology. There's an authority that God has given. He said to Joshua, no man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Why? Because just like I was with Moses, I'm gonna be with you. So there's an authority. He says, I want you to take the authority and I want you to step into what I've told you you can have and actually possess it. But let me tell you the New Testament version of that. The New Testament version of that is Hebrews 10, 36. It says for you have need of endurance, which means strength. You have need of strength, staying power so that after, listen, after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise. We oftentimes try to make deals with God that says this, because let me just say, you and I, there are promises all throughout scripture that apply to you and me today, spiritual promises that God has given to you and I. They are there, they are written in black and white and sometimes red. Jesus paid for them with his blood. They belong to you. But you won't possess them by default. You don't get to save seats for a blessing. We oftentimes, here's the deal that we wanna make with God. God, if you'll bless me, then I'll believe you. So here's an area that oftentimes this shows up and it's real practical. It's our money. We say, God, if you would bless me financially, I would be a giver. I can afford to give now, but if you'll bless me, then I'll give and God says, you got it backwards. The way that you experience supernatural blessing in your finances is by obeying me today when it's hard. How many of you know obedience always has a price? Obedience is never found on the sales rack. There's no discounts on obedience. Partial obedience is still disobedience. So God says, if you'll, you know, Peter walked on water. We all like, yeah, that's awesome. You know, he had to step out of the boat first. The only way that you walk on water is when you step out of the boat. The only way you get into promised land is when you take a step. And God says, no, the financial blessing that you want to experience in your life, my overflow, my grace in your life, is found when you put me first in little things and you put me first when it seems impossible. Well, it's like we say to God, God, that's hard. And God says, that's faith. Because faith comes first, then the promise of God. Wherever the soul of your foot will walk, that is yours to take. I just want to ask you, are there places in your life that God has a corresponding promise connected to that area of your life that you're not yet experiencing the blessing of God because you're unwilling to go there with the authority that you have in the kingdom? Are there areas in your life where it's, I'm not talking about salvation issues, you're saved, you're on your way to heaven. I'm just talking about the resources that heaven has being released into your now, come on the other side of your faithfulness. When it's hard, how many of you know, life is hard. You get to pick what you're gonna, what hard you're gonna lean into. And every new stage of life, let me just say this to you, every new stage of life requires us to go all in again in the kingdom of God. It just does, it requires, you know, wilderness experiences. Joshua was leading the people out of the wilderness, but they had spent 40 years in the wilderness. The wilderness was not grounding of the people of God because they were bad. It was God developing a generation of warriors who could actually go in and possess it. The wilderness is not about punishments, it's not punitive, it's preparatory. We look at it as wasted wandering, as pointless wandering, but God sees the wilderness as purposeful preparation for winning. Joshua is the leader that he is because of the wilderness. It's what we learn in the wilderness that makes us able to go in and possess the promises. And in the wilderness, what do we see? In the wilderness, we see the goodness of God. In the wilderness, we see him make a way where there is no way. It's in the wildernesses of our life. That, and in the wilderness, our wilderness is a type of a transition. Temptation always comes in transition, but so does revelation. In other words, a fresh understanding of who God is and who he's made us to be. No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Wait a second. I've lived all my life in the shadow of Moses, but now you're saying I'm at the front of the line and no man will be able to stand before me. I don't have Moses to hide behind anymore. The authority to possess your promises and there's promises over every area of your life. It comes when you activate it by obedience. God, I'm gonna do it your way. Let me tell you most of the time when we're living in disobedience, because we know when we're disobedient. Most of the time when we walk in disobedience to God, it's not so much out of pure rebellion against God, but it has everything to do with our fears. This is how the enemy trains us. See, the enemy, the devil trains you like a slave. Jane, let me illustrate like this. Jane and I just got, we have two dogs, if you don't know that, talked about it before, but we have a big dog and a little dog. So our big dog is Boaz, the golden retriever. He's my buddy, I named him after a biblical character, Boaz, isn't that just a sweet name? And he's an awesome golden retriever. He's happy all the time. He's my best friend in the animal kingdom. When I come home after a long trip, Jane's like, oh, it's good to see you. And he's like, oh, I can't believe you're home. It jumps all over me. It's like, oh, I love you, Boaz. And then we got a little dog for Jane. It's a little Boston Terrier. Her name is Stella, but she actually liked me. I don't know what went wrong. Wires got crossed, but she likes me too. So I got this little dog. And she's like a dominator of Boaz. She like puts him in his place. She's like, it's just a little Tyrannosaurus Rex. I mean, she's just, so we got these two dogs. So recently we're just like, we're tired of them chasing squirrels and people in the streets. So we're going to get an invisible fence. Anybody got an invisible fence? They come out, they put the lines around your house and then they put shock collars on your dog. So as they get close to the lines, they begin to hear a beep and there's white flags. And then if they cross the line, she gives them a look and then they back up. So we paid it. We're like, oh, this is going to be great. Stella will never get it cause she's the little T-Rex, but Boaz is so kind and gentle, he'll get this. And so they install it and then the trainer comes up and says, oh, I'm going to take each one of the dogs out there and walk them around. And what I want to do is walk them up to the flag, tell them, no, they're going to hear the little beep and they'll feel, we're going to turn the dial way down here and they're going to feel the pulse. And then they're going to realize, oh, that's bad. And then they're going to back up. All right, good. So he walks Stella out there and she hears the beep and it scares her. Oh, this little vicious terrorist dog is scared by a beep. She won't even go near that thing now. She was trained like that. He says to me, I want you to stand on the other side of the line, on the other side of the flags, I'm going to bring Boaz up. So he brings Boaz up to it, it's beep, beep, beep, beep. Feels a little shock. He just walks right over it. And he takes the sustained shock because he wants to be by me. Or he's dumb. I don't know, one of the two, but he's just taking it. He's like, whoa, brings them back over because it doesn't stop shocking. He's like, well, I need to turn that up a little bit. So he turns it up, does it again? Turns it up again, does it again? He's like, in all the years I've done dog training, I've never had a dog do this. He really wants to be by you. And I said, or he's dumb. So he says this, he says, I hate to do this. I have to crank it up to the highest. This is what we do for like, Rottweilers. It's like, it's a golden retriever. He's like, turns it up to 11, little spinal tap. Turns it up and he walks him over to the line and he beep, beep, beep, bam. I mean, he gets a shock and he just screams. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's crawling back to the house. I mean, like you would have thought he was shot. And I'm in the middle of my yard, in the middle of the day, those almost-in-tears thinking, and the neighbors think we're crazy. Boaz is just, I mean, he is, he won't even go in the front yard now. He just, he comes in the front yard and he like jumps all over me, please dad, please don't make me go in the front yard. He sees a flag and it's like the worst thing. I mean, he is scared. He learned by fear and pain that then created his boundary markers for him. Here's what the enemy does. God says to you, your kingdom borders are defined by my word and my word alone, but oftentimes we live more like slaves because the enemy puts flags in our life and says, no, you can only go this far. And he uses the pain of our past, the memories of our slavery to sin, our bondage and our fears that we can't trust God to come through to limit the borders of our Christian experience. And so we live in this little square. We come up to this line, it's like, if I step over that, bad things are gonna happen. I remember, if I trust again, if I were to get involved and served and somebody's gonna reject me, I'm gonna be neglected or if I really go all in and serving Jesus, I'm single and I'm believing God to get married and if I just say, God, I'm only gonna date Christians, well you know what, I'm gonna end up 90 years old married to some guy playing Scrabble, his name's Bob and you know, that's not the life I want. Can I really trust God with my dating? Can I really trust God with my finances? If I really tied and put him first with the first 10%, I'm not gonna have enough at the end of the month. And you know, all it is is the enemy has set flags in your life and then set beepers off and he's used the pain of the past to shock you into obedience. He uses fear to train us and so what happens is we stand on this side of our Jordan River looking over into our promised land. Every time we read our Bible and we read about the promises of God, the supernatural blessing of God, the fact that we were created for purpose, that God is trustworthy, but yet we're motivated by our fears of the worst case scenario and we live small lives and the kingdom doesn't expand. You see, you aren't here to just be cute and take up space for 70 years. You are here to be an arrow in the hands of God to defeat and destroy the works of the enemy. You, wherever God has positioned you, in your workplace, in your neighborhood, in this city, in our community, in the schools, you are a weapon in the hands of God of righteousness. God's just got to get you to believe that. But see, listen, God doesn't train us by fear, God trains us by faith. You see, what happens is in the wildernesses of our life, God says, I want you to step out wherever the soul of your foot will tread, that's yours to take. And so, because we've seen God's faithfulness, Psalm 34, taste and see that the Lord is good, we take a step that's beyond our comfort zone and God meets us there in his faithfulness. And we say, God's trustworthy. I can trust him. And he says, yeah, take another step. And we see that God's good and he's faithful. You see, the Bible says about Moses in Exodus 33 verse 11, it says, God spoke face to face with Moses like a man speaks to his friend. You see, a friend is someone you've built a trust relationship with, because you meet somebody and you're on your best behavior, but the more you get to know them and the more that you learn that you can trust them, you build a relationship and a friendship and then you let your guard down. And then the closer your friend is, the more dependable you know that they are. It's like I can trust them. I know if I'm in a battle I can call, there's certain people in my life, Jane and I have walked together with friends long term, we have friends that are in ministry, we call them right now and we know they would drop everything for us. That's friendship. And friendship trains you in a different way. It trains you to believe, it trains you to step out. It trains you to believe, especially in a relationship with God, that God does have promises and he would never call me to step into a territory that he was not going to back me up in. He said, I will be with you. Don't be afraid, be courageous, be strong, because I am the Lord your God. Listen, here's what he says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. This is what he says to Joshua. I will never leave you nor forsake you. In other words, leave you means I'll never physically leave you. You will never be without me, but forsake you means I will never emotionally let you down. I'm going to be there for you. Do you know that God has emotions and God cares about your emotions and he understands how strong the pull of fear, how strong the fear of the unknown is in our lives. God's created us and he's wired us and in the middle of that he says to you and I, I wanna be your friend. Jesus said in John chapter 15 to his disciples, which is the same as saying it to you and I, no longer do I just call you servants, but I call you friends. He wants to be your friend. When we begin to experience God that way, we begin to trust him and we step out into territory that we've never been in before. Every new season of our life is a recall to go all in all over again. You don't get to say, well I'm just gonna put a little bit in and not risk anything. Faith is spelled R-I-S-K. It's risk. And you know what, when you're 25 years old and you and your wife and a couple of small kids, you move down to Kalamazoo to plan a church and you don't have much. Risk is one thing, but you don't have much to lose. But when you're 47 years old and you've worked most of your life to build something and you've gotten some measure of success, you know it's easy to get into a posture and I'm talking firsthand, where you just wanna coast safe. You know what, I don't feel like that's not the faith walk. Last couple months I've just been sensing God just saying Lee, I want you to risk it all over again. I want you to take some face steps all over again. I want you to believe me like you did when you crossed the Jordan or when you crossed the Kalamazoo River. And I know that takes a little faith. End up with extra hands and missing eyes or something. Cross that river into the city, says I want you to risk like that. I remember 1996 when we planted the church, God said I want you to plant a praying and a worshiping church. And I had a dream years and years ago that someday when radiant grew that we would be a radiant city. Not just pastor a church but we would impact our city. We would not just be the church gathered on Sunday but we would be the church scattered throughout the week. That would be salt that we'd be light all over the city. Thousands and thousands of people living like Jesus, for Jesus pointing to Jesus. And I remember drawing in my journal, I don't know when it was, but long, long time ago, a picture of downtown in a diagram of, I just dreamed of a prayer center in downtown Kalamazoo that would be like an engine room, a boiler room, that there would be worship and prayer around the clock coming from downtown that would impact the spiritual atmosphere of Kalamazoo. No Lord reminded me of that a while ago. Said, do you remember that? And recently, I didn't say this in the first service but recently Jane and I were going on a prayer walk on Western's campus. We were walking between Kalamazoo College and Western's campus and we noticed a building we had never seen before. It was a house of prayer. Except it had a grocery store in the front, a restaurant, it had another store, it had houses around it so the international students who are there from around the country or around the world could live there and make it to the prayer meetings. This prayer house has five prayer meetings a day. The problem with that prayer house is it's a mosque, it's Islamic. Sincere, people that are searching for God, but on Western's campus, one of the largest property owners is a house of prayer to a false God and that provoked me. I thought to myself, you know what? It is not right that out of the core of our city that the name of Allah is louder more often than the name of Jesus. And God reminded me of writing, drawing that picture. He said, do you remember when we dreamed of a prayer house and I resolved in my heart and I want you to know we're already searching for it right now. We are going to have a location in downtown Kalamazoo. It's gonna be a prayer center. We are gonna lift up the name of Jesus. We're gonna have worship. We're gonna have prayer around the clock. We're gonna be equipping people to be ministers of Jesus Christ, not just in the church but the church scattered throughout the city because we are here to possess the territory. We are not here to live off in a corner. We are here to bring salvation to the North, to the South, to the East and the West. We're here to bring the name of Jesus to Western Michigan University. We're here to bring it to Kalamazoo College, Kalamazoo Institute of Art, Kalamazoo Valley Community College, Kellogg Community College, every high school, every middle school, every elementary school, every business place, every art community. We're here to bring the name of Jesus to the Muslim, to the atheist, to the agnostic, to the broken, to the sick, to the black, to the white, to the brown, to the every ethnicity, to the young, to the old because there's only one name given under heaven by which we must be saved and it is the name of Jesus. Come on, let's stand up together. Come on, let's lift up the name of Jesus in this place. I declare it. I don't even know where we're gonna get it. So if you got a building downtown, give it up. We need it. I just feel like God just said, don't quit, don't quit dreaming, possess the promises. How many of you will just pray that God will lead us in the right direction, bring, just imagine a building downtown Kalamazoo, beautiful brick building of some sort that there are musicians and intercessors lifting up the name of Jesus, declaring salvation and healing. Imagine classrooms where we can equip and train people to be marketplace ministers, to witness, to share, to pray for the sick. Imagine that, imagine being a presence right in the hub of where every governmental decision is made establishing the kingdom of God in Kalamazoo. I believe, I really believe revival is coming to Kalamazoo County and I'll tell you what, revival will happen when God's people pray and we're gonna be out worshiping in a praying church. That's what we are and that's what we're going to be and guys, we're just going all in. I'm so far off script right now, I don't even matter, so. We're gonna possess the promises of God. So how many of you will pray and believe, write that down, will you pray for us in that? And if you won't, just raise your hand anyway and lie to me, God will deal with your heart. I just need to know, we got this prayer base because it's gonna happen. It will happen. You wanna know why it's gonna happen? It's because he's trustworthy because I can take you back. Because I can take you back to places where there wasn't a way and he parted the Red Sea. I could take you back where we couldn't afford buildings. God opened doors that no man could close because I could take you back to meetings with people we had no business meeting because I could take you to places that alters on Monday through Friday where I prayed and God made a way. The very room that we're standing in, we were never supposed to be able to build or afford. We built it 11 years ago. Do you know that over 10,000 people have received Jesus Christ in this room in the last 10 years? It's because he's faithful. Because he's faithful. We can trust him. He's good. He's our friend. And he's not in heaven going, oh, look at what's going on in Kalamazoo. That's kind of neat. He's here. His presence is with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. And let me just tell you, friend, if he will do that for us as a church, he will do that for you individually. Sorry for crying. I just got a little choked up. Did you guys bow your heads with me all over this room? Just feel the tenderness of the Lord. I feel like this morning there's some people here. You right now are in a place where there, it just seems impossible. An impossible situation, an impossible barrier, an impossible river to cross. And you've almost lost hope. If that's you, I just want you to lift your hand. It's just, it feels insurmountable. It might as well be the Jordan River. It might as well be a mountain to cross. I just want you to know, if you've got your hand raised right now, you're not alone. You are not alone. I want everybody to look, and if there's somebody in front of you that has their hand raised, if you raise your hand, keep it up for just a second. Just close by real, real gently. I want you to just reach out and just put your hand on their shoulder or their arm. I want them to know they're not in this alone. Don't leave anybody out. Don't leave anybody out. There's some lady in the back right to my left. Gentlemen over here, guys, wherever you're at, if you don't have your hand raised, I want you to find somebody close by you and just put your hand on them. We're a family. And right now in the name of Jesus, we just call upon you, the God who is our Savior. And I just pray deliverance. I pray for your promises to be yes and amen over their lives. And God, I pray that you would part the Jordan that they're standing in front of right now. Lord, that there would be an unleashing of your favor, an unleashing of your grace, a reversal of decisions right now. In the name of Jesus, we declare doors that have been locked to swing wide open right now. Lord, for decisions that have been made, verdicts that have been made to be overturned in the courts of heaven right now. Lord, that you would make a way where there is no way. Lord, to intervene where there's medical reports right now, we pray, Lord, that there would be release of supernatural grace and healing. Miracles right now released, activated in people's lives where there's a need of provision right now. Financial provision, resources right now. We just pray, Lord, that you would be a good, good father and release every need, every need right now in the name of Jesus. And Lord, we lean on you, we trust in you. We want to possess the promises of God. We wanna be people of your presence, in Jesus' name. I'm gonna invite our prayer ministry team if they would come and make their way down front this morning, care elders, care ministers, they would come and here's how we're gonna dismiss. Maybe you just raise your hand, you're in one of those type of situations, or maybe you're here and you've not surrendered your life to Jesus, to God. You don't have a living, thriving relationship with Jesus Christ. Or maybe you've had one and you've walked away from it, you've just gotten cold. Your relationship with God's turned to ice and you're just living as if he's not there. You know in your heart, you need to come home. You need to get right. Or there's something that you're believing in. You're a Christian, but you're just believing for God that just seems illogical, irrational, impossible. And you've stopped asking. But maybe God is stirring this morning for you to believe again, to possess the promises. As we dismiss this morning, if any of those apply to you, just gonna ask you, just come because we're gonna pray, we're gonna put our faith together. And listen, the prayer of faith activates the authority to release the impossible. And if you need a miracle, whatever it is, we're just gonna invite you to come and receive. Lord, send us from this place today full of hope, full of authority, full of obedient radical hearts to serve Jesus with everything that we have. And we thank you for your kingdom come and your will being done in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. You're dismissed. Come forward if you would like prayer.