The Christians Hour

Ben Cachiaras: Welcome to The Christian's Hour. Thank you for joining us today. It's a pleasure to have you with us. The Christian's Hour is a ministry of Gospel Broadcasting Mission where we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through radio and media all around the world. Well, let me ask you, what motivates you? You know, like what gets you going? Maybe it's different things at different times. Maybe it's reaching a goal or accomplishing something you've worked hard for or simply seeing progress. When it comes to education, maybe you've been motivated in the past to get straight A's, make that honor roll, or see your GPA climb.

But what happens when reaching the goal is actually the easier part and maintaining is more difficult. Or maybe your goal is getting into shape. You work out, you reach your target, you feel great about the progress you've made. But then comes the hard part, staying there, continuing to put in the work day after day. And what about your faith? Maybe when you first came to Christ, you were deeply motivated. You wanted to know God. You wanted to spend time in his word. You were engaged in his church, serving others, praying and growing in your relationship with him.

But can I ask, are you still there? You know, sometimes continuing is harder than beginning. It can be easy to settle in, become comfortable, or simply become complacent without even realizing it. But God doesn't call us to simply begin the journey of faith. He calls us to continue faithfully. In the book of Joshua, Israel had entered the promised land. They had experienced incredible victories and seen God fulfill his promises. But the journey wasn't over. There was still work to be done. There was still land to possess. And years into the battle, Joshua needed to continue leading God's people forward.

Well, today, Pastor Rick Atchley of The Hills Church in Fort Worth, Texas, concludes our series on courage with a message entitled The Courage to Continue. He'll show us through Joshua's story what it looks like to keep moving forward in faith even when the journey has gone on longer than we expected. Well, here's Rick to share more.

Rick Atchley: So, an old man in Phoenix calls his son Jack in New York City and says, Jack, this is a hard call to make. Uh but your mom and I have decided after 45 years we're going to get a divorce. Uh 45 years is a long time to suffer. I'm tired of the misery and I'm tired of talking about it. So, call your sister. And he just hung up. Jack couldn't believe it. He called his sister in Chicago and said, Dad just called and said he and mom are going to get a divorce. She said, no, they're not.

She immediately called her father and said, I don't know what you two are thinking, but Jack and I will be there on the first flight in the morning and you don't do a thing until we get there. Do you understand? The old man put the phone up, turned to his wife and said, Okay, the kids are coming for Thanksgiving and they're going to pay their own way. Because getting people motivated is a great challenge, but keeping people motivated is an even greater challenge. Now, that even greater challenge of keeping people motivated is the story of the last half of the book of Joshua.

And in the first half of the book, you see the story of their entering and beginning to possess the land. But in the last half, you see them needing the courage to continue to complete what they had started. And I feel like in many ways we are exactly where the nation of Israel was at that time because we've kind of entered and it's over, but it's not over. And we need the courage to continue. So, let me set the context. The very first battle in the book of Joshua is in chapter 6 when they fight the fortress of Jericho.

Then in chapter 10, we saw last time there was this amazing story where God gave the nation more hours of sunlight. And what proceeds in chapter 10 is the account of how they went to war against the kingdoms in the southern part of the land of promise. Then in chapter 11, you read about how they went to war against the kingdoms in the northern half of the land of promise. So, that when you get to the end of chapter 11, the nation of Israel has basically become the dominant nation in the land of promise. And the last verse of chapter 11 reads like this.

So, Joshua took the entire land just as the Lord had directed Moses. And he gave it to uh gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal divisions. Then the land had rest from war. Because the land was now in the control of Israel. And what they had accomplished was absolutely stunning. A nation that had been former slaves and very inexperienced in warfare has now become the dominant power and a very critical part of the world. And in chapter 12, you have a list of all of the kings and the kingdoms that they had gone against and prevailed against.

The chapter starts like this. Uh these are the kings of the land whom the Israelites had defeated, 31 kings in all. And you can read that chapter. They went and conquered this king in this place and this king in this place and this king in this place. So, their first battle is in chapter 6 and by the end of chapter 12, they've defeated 31 kings. And you'd think just reading that maybe this conquest was quick and complete. But neither was true. Because a few verses earlier, it says that Joshua waged war against all these kings for a long time.

This was a lengthy campaign to take your army and wage war against one king, deal with all the issues of subduing that nation of people, and then going to the next part of the land and doing it all over again. And so, although Israel uh controlled the land, they were getting tired of fighting. You understand that, don't you? That great efforts, no matter how worthy they are, can get exhausting if they take a long time. And the great challenge is to keep people motivated. So, the very next verse of the next chapter says, When Joshua had grown old, the Lord said to him, you are now very old and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over.

Even though Israel was in control of the land as the mightiest nation, you read in chapter after chapter in the second half of the book that this tribe went to inherit their land, but they did not dislodge the Canaanites. And the next tribe did not dislodge the Canaanites. I'm sure they were thinking, you know, we've been at war a long time. And we have had a lot of success and we have defeated a lot of kings and we're tired. Why don't we just settle for what we have? We don't need to fight for more. And here's what Joshua thought.

Joshua asked them, how long are you going to wait before taking possession of the remaining land the Lord, the God of your ancestors has given to you? Joshua was saying, Yes, we've come a long way. Yes, we've done some mighty things. But we can't stop now. We must have the courage to continue. Because everyone knows that the enemy of victory is complacency. Or to put it another way, sometimes the greatest obstacle to a great finish is a good start. When I was in college, I played tennis for my club one time in intramurals. And it was an important match for our club.

And I was better than the guy I was playing. In fact, in tennis, six games makes a set. I was ahead five to zero. And I began to feel sorry for the guy I was playing because I was embarrassing him in front of his friends. So, I decided to let up for a little bit. I wouldn't serve quite as hard. I wouldn't try to hit passing shots. I would just knock the ball back so we could play it. He won a couple of games. No problem. I will just turn it back on and finish the match.

Well, guess what? I couldn't turn it back on. I lost the match. I was ahead five zero cuz I did not steward my good start. Maybe you've rooted for a popular football team or basketball team and they dominate in the first quarter and you think this is going to be a route, but then they take the foot off the pedal and they wind up getting beat by an inferior team. Or maybe you've had a favorite politician and all the polls say they're way ahead. But the campaign loses momentum and on election day, there's a upset and they lose.

And I've seen this happen to churches. They launch a new program. They invest in a new ministry. They get excited about a new mission effort and they have an awesome start and they celebrate and they should. But you come back a month or a year later and the enthusiasm has waned. Because it's very very hard to sustain the energy and the momentum of a big start. Let Joshua teach us this morning three important principles in the last half of the book. Number one, Let's be grateful for the victories we've already had. You see, Joshua was a proponent of using past victories to fuel courage to pursue future victories.

Remember when the sun stood still and the five kings hid in the cave, it says and they rolled up rocks to keep them there till they finished the battle. Then they come back, took the rocks away, pulled the kings out, and Joshua had the men put the kings down on the ground then said to his commanders, come put your feet on the necks of these kings. Here's why. Joshua said to them, do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.

In other words, you see, we got more fights ahead. Remember this moment. Remember that God let us put our feet here because God has more places for us to put our feet. That's why you have chapter 12 in Joshua. All that list of names and places that might seem boring to you, but it was not boring to the Israelites because every single name and place of a king was a reminder of the faithfulness of God and it was a motivation to add more names to the list. Because one way to bat complacency is to remember that the places where God has allowed us to set our feet are memories going to motivate us to say, that's enough.

Or are they going to motivate us to ask, what's next? Where's the next place we're going to set our foot as a church? What's the next name of a king we're going to put on the list? Because let's face it, we still have battles for our future. We got to be mindful as Joshua reminds us of the challenges that are still ahead. See, Joshua knew the enemies of Israel had been vanquished, but they hadn't vanished. And we know the same thing. We know that this church has an enemy that will always try to discourage us.

His name is Satan. Scholars have noticed for years that the book of Joshua has a counterpart in the New Testament called the book of Ephesians because both talk about inheritance and about warfare. And here's how Ephesians starts. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us in the heavenly realm with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Our inheritance is profound. Everything we need to live mighty in Christ God has purchased for us. That's how it starts. This is how it ends. Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. I thought that's where our blessings are. They are. The enemy is always going to be in the place where God wants to give you a blessing. The enemy is always going to contest every possible blessing that God wants the church to possess. The enemy will try to dis- courage us. And we must be ready and resolute to reject every attempt of his to give us to give in to impatience, to become critical or jealous or just ready to settle.

I was inspired by an article I read recently about a man named Michael Mohamed, 39-year-old man from Venezuela. Michael was born with a condition similar to muscular dystrophy. It took him 20 hours to finish the marathon. He didn't cross the line until 4 in the morning. Why did he do it? He said he ran to honor the Boston Children's Hospital that had shown him such care when he was a child. And what I won't forget in the article is he said, when you run a marathon, you need to know why. Because in the last part of the race, the marathon will ask you.

And we were running a marathon. This is a long race. It won't finish till Jesus comes back. But we know why. We exist as a church to make and to grow as many followers of Jesus as we possibly can until we die or he comes back. Let's be faithful to the mission. We must always pursue. There is no ground the enemy occupies that is off limits to God and the spirit of God will never say to the church of God, that's enough. You don't need to go any further. Jesus told us, go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation.

The mandate is clear. And Jesus is using his church to pursue it. It's not about the church having a mission. It's about does the mission of Jesus have a church? And so, we must have the courage to continue instead of settling for something so much less than we were created to be. That makes me think of a whale. A whale named Keiko. And if you had parents in the 1990s, you knew this whale. He was a star of all the Free Willy movies. The irony is Keiko wasn't free. Keiko lived in a tank at an amusement park.

And so, the thought was we should free Keiko. And so, at a cost of $500,000 a month for four years, they tried to train Keiko to live in the wild where he was created to be. They let him loose off the coast of Iceland. He immediately swam straight to a harbor in Norway to find people to feed him. He never bonded with the other whales. He was afraid to swim under the ice to get food. And not long after he was released, Keiko died. He had become so tamed and so domesticated. He was too afraid to become who he was created to be.

85% of the churches in America are in decline. I say that with great sadness. Because they've traded a mission mandate for a membership mandate. In other words, rather than battling for more, they're settling for maintenance. They've become tame, domesticated, and fearful. And when expansion is no longer the goal, extinction is the inevitable outcome. That's not just true for churches. That's true for individual followers of Jesus. God is not calling you to settle in your journey with Christ. God's calling you to boldly pursue the life that Jesus is calling you into. It ought to take courage to follow Jesus.

And it ought to take more courage to keep following Jesus. And if the kind of discipleship you are pursuing can be successfully pursued timidly, then your version of discipleship is counterfeit. On Sunday, my daughter brought me a card. There's a Ferris wheel on front and it says, do one thing every day that scares you. And she has a beautiful note to me where she's thanking me for asking our church to be brave. And at the bottom, she put a verse that really stirred my heart from Isaiah 50 verse 7. Because the sovereign Lord helps me, I will not be disgraced.

And therefore, I have set my face like a stone, determined to do his will. And I know that I will not be put to shame. So, hear my word to you. Stay courageous. God's work has got to continue in you. And I believe it will. I believe there are so many more places where we have to set our feet. And you know what you call a bunch of rhinos? A crash. Here's why. That magnificent beast weighs several thousand pounds. And it can run 30 miles an hour. But it has bad eyesight. It can only see 30 feet in front of it.

But the rhino doesn't care. Because whatever is 31 feet in front of it had better move. That's the church of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. And so, God, the race is long. The race is hard. The race is so good. Deliver us from any spirit that would give fear a sway in our lives. Deliver us from any spirit that would make timidity normal or even acceptable. Make us courageous, God. Courageous in our holiness, courageous in our stewardship, courageous in our witness, courageous in our hope. Because Jesus is worth it. And we pray in his name. Amen.

Josh Wright: Maker of the stars, author of the day, you breathed and life was born for all. Sender of your son, victor of the grave, our sins washed over by your grace. Pour out your power, move through us now. Lord, hear our prayer. Make us bold enough to speak your name. Make us bold enough to change our ways. Let your Holy Spirit work through us. Share what we know and make us bold. Make us bold. Flame and tongues of fire upon your faithful ones. You sent the helper to us all. Giver of our words, shaper of our hearts, you call the broken near to you.

Pour out your power, move through us now. Lord, hear our prayer. Make us bold enough to speak your name. Make us bold enough to change our ways. Let your Holy Spirit work through us. Share what we know and make us bold. Make us bold. Bold enough to see you move. Bold enough to trust in you. Bold enough to see you move. Bold enough to follow you. Bold enough to follow you. Oh, bold enough to see you move. Bold enough to trust in you. Oh, bold enough to see you move. Bold enough to follow you. Make us bold enough to speak your name.

Make us bold enough to change our ways. Let your Holy Spirit work through us. Share what we know and make us bold enough to speak your name. Make us bold enough to change our ways. Let your Holy Spirit work through us. Share what we know and make us bold. Make us bold. Make us bold. Make us bold. I'm bold enough to see you move. I'm bold enough to follow you.

Ben Cachiaras: Well, how about you? Are you still moving forward in your walk with Christ or have you settled into a place of comfort and complacency? Joshua reminds us that even after experiencing great victories, there is still more work to be done. Following God isn't simply about where we started. It's about continuing to trust him, obey him, and remain faithful. So, take a moment. Remember where you've come from. Think about who you were before you walked with Christ. Maybe that was a few weeks ago or maybe that was a few decades ago. Think about the ways God has changed you, the things he has brought through you, and the ways you've seen his faithfulness.

Write some of those things down. Remember them. Don't allow God's work in your life to become a distant memory. Let his faithfulness encourage you to keep going, to keep growing, to keep serving, to keep trusting, and to continue with courage. Well, our thanks to Rick Atchley for that encouraging message today. And our thanks as well to Josh Wright for providing today's music of worship. If this message impacted you in any way, we'd love to hear from you. Would you send us an email and let us know more about it? You can do so at the Christians Hour at gmail.com.

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