Skip to content Entering the Promised Land | Joshua 3:1-8 | Pastor Joel Holm Feb 6 · 39 min ...more
Entering the Promised Land | Joshua 3:1-8 | Pastor Joel Holm
February 6, 2025 · 39 min
Series Patria Sermons February 6, 2025 · 39 min · Patria Sermons
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Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
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In this video 0:00 Entering the Promised Land36:26 Invitation to Salvation
1:47 the Israelites to say, you wanna walk into the promised land? That's available for you. I've got a dream for your life. I've got an answer to that prayer. But you have to position yourself. And as we study
1:59 this handful of verses, use it as a way, a blueprint to do a self assessment on your own life. Am I positioned, am I prepared, am I ready to walk into
2:11 the promised land that God has for me? Open your Bibles to Joshua chapter 3 and here's the verses we're gonna read starting in verse 1. Early in the morning,
2:23 Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After 3 days, the officers went throughout the camp giving orders to the people. When
2:35 you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never
2:47 been this way before. But keep a distance of about 2000 cubits between you and the ark. Do not go near it. Joshua told the people, Consecrate yourselves, for
2:59 tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. Would you like that to be true for yourself? Consecrate yourself for tomorrow the Lord will do
3:10 amazing things among you. Verse 6, Joshua said to the priests, take up the Ark of the Covenant, pass on ahead of the people. So they took it up and went ahead of them. And then the Lord said to Joshua, today I will begin
3:21 to exalt you in the eyes of all the Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, when you reach the edge of the Jordan waters, go and stand in
3:33 the river. Amen? Amen, you may be seated. All right, picture this because you may not be picturing it accurately. Here's all the Israelites. They need to get into the Promised Land, but
3:45 the Jordan River is dividing them from the Promised Land. But it's not just a river. When it's just a river, it's maybe a hundred yards wide. When it's a certain season and the river is at flood
3:56 stage, it can be a half mile wide. It's this raging flood and God has them come and then camp in front of the raging flood
4:08 for 3 days. The spies say we can go in and they travel. The current is 40 miles an hour. Why would God do that? Why would he literally make
4:20 them sit for 3 days and almost like fear just rises up inside of them? Every morning they wake up and they see this raging river that they have to
4:32 get through. Watch this flood because he wants to impress upon the Israelites how important it is that they be in the right position to
4:44 enter the promised land. Because he says, you've never been this way before. When you break into something new that God has for your life, you've never been that way before and you
4:56 gotta be ready for it. Oftentimes the new that we think that God has for our life, we get kind of minimized the new. Worship was amazing tonight because it really brought a thread of this theme.
5:07 God's new is not just more of the old. It's actually new. Something you've never experienced before. Something that will blow your mind and enhance your life in such a great way. And he
5:19 says, I want you to be prepared for it. Because if you're not prepared for it, you can walk across the Jordan river. But you actually won't go into the promised land the way God has set it up for you. And He has a
5:31 dream for you and your promised land the way He did for the Israelites. But He wants you to be positioned and prepared for it. And in this story, there is a pattern.
5:43 And this pattern has 3 very important pieces to it for yourself. Well you gotta ask yourself tonight, am I ready? Am I ready to enter the promised
5:54 land? Have I positioned myself for the new that I've never had before in my life? A new revelation of God, a new level of generosity, a new level
6:06 of blessing? Here's the first thing. The first thing we have in the story is the ark. And he's really, really specific about the ark. Now the ark in the Old Testament
6:18 was a tangible, visible manifestation of God. When the ark was there, God was with them. And he says if you're gonna go into the promised
6:30 land, you gotta keep your eyes on the ark. You cannot really fully enter into this new life and the promised land that God has for you
6:42 if you do not do it without the presence of God. You could probably make it into Jordan, but if God's presence isn't fully there for you to see, things will happen that you don't wanna
6:54 happen. This ark is mentioned 10 times just in this passage. And then he's really clear why. He says, when you are following the ark, stay 2000 cubits behind it.
7:05 Now a cubit was about a foot and a half. So he's saying when you follow it, I want you, oh, I don't know, to be about 10 football fields away from it. Because what he
7:17 wants them to do is he wants them to be able to see everything. He wants them to experience what God is going to do. He wants them to see the broader view. It becomes
7:29 really important for them to understand that this ark is God's presence. It's a picture of Christ and you need to fix your eyes on God, not on
7:40 the river if you're gonna walk through into the promised land. But you gotta be able to see it. Now let's be honest, here's the challenge. How do you see God's
7:52 presence? It's easy for them. They had a physical ark. They could move away from it. 10 football fields and they could keep seeing it and they could keep following it and when they saw it
8:04 they would know. Okay. There's the ark. I am seeing God's presence. But now we're thousands of years removed. God is spirit which means most of the time he's invisible. How do I
8:16 see him if part of entering into the promised land for my life is to visibly see God's presence as I enter
8:28 into the promised land? How does that work? In the old testament, it was material. It was the ark. It's a picture of Christ. So then you get
8:40 into the new testament and here's what Colossians 2 9 says. Says this, for in Christ all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form. So the New Testament says, listen,
8:52 Jesus that's God. Well that's great if you walked the earth 2000 years ago and your name was Matthew or John or James because then you can see God in bodily form. But then
9:04 Jesus ascends to heaven and we're stuck with the same problem. If I want to enter into the promised land, I gotta see God. But God is spirit.
9:16 How do I see something that's invisible? Well he's not technically fully invisible because the New Testament teaches that the New Testament body of Christ,
9:28 the church is a picture of who God is. Ephesians 1 verse 22 and 23, look at it on the screens. Christ rules the church. The church you see is not peripheral
9:40 to the world. The world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body in which He speaks and acts by which He fills everything with His presence. So the Bible says listen, there is a
9:52 promised land waiting for you, but if you're gonna go into it, you gotta position yourself where you can see God. But you will not see God if you are not looking at his church. If you are not a part of the church, if you
10:04 are not in 1 of those small groups with the cards, don't expect that you'll be able to fully go into the promised land if you're not seeing God. And God is shown through the
10:16 church. So you say, I gotta get connected. I know God is something new for me. But the way he's wired it, it'll never
10:28 come to me alone. And then the bible in the new testament adds another wrinkle to it as to how we see God. Paul wrote this in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 17 and 19. Here's what he wrote. I
10:39 keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of
10:51 your heart, did you know you have 2 sets of eyes? You got your physical eyes, which is what we almost only use to try to see God. And then you have eyes in your heart
11:04 that are used to see. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, may be open, may be visuals be able to see in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glory,
11:15 inheritance in his holy people and his incomparably great power for us to believe. He says, listen. I've given you eyes and I've made you part of a community of
11:27 faith. And as much as the Israelites in the Old Testament could literally see the presence of God and how that was critically important for them to walk into
11:39 a new place they had never been before, their promised land. If you want to walk into your promised land, you gotta see God. And you see him together
11:51 as his church and you see him through the eyes of your heart. See the ark and follow it. Because if you don't see the ark, God tells the
12:02 Israelites, you will be consumed by the raging river. Some of you and I don't say this lightly, you have a raging river in your life right
12:14 now. And I am sorry for that. But it is the reality. And that river can be a relationship that is just devastating you. It can be a financial
12:26 crisis. It can be a cloud of despair that just hovers there. It can be an anger that's unresolved. But there is this raging river and the same principle of the pattern in the
12:38 book of Joshua applies today. If you do not see God, you will only see the raging river. And some of you know what I'm talking about. It's like we see the river, we glance at God. We see the river, we
12:50 glance at God. He goes no, look at me. Keep your eyes on me. But you do that in the church and through these eyes. Why does this matter so much?
13:03 Because we have a different filter by which we see life in reality than the world does. I had a good friend and he wanted to really break into his promised land.
13:15 And it had to do with finances and it had to do with his career and his vocation and we were praying and believing together. And then he rang me up 1 day and said, Joel, you're not gonna believe this. They laid me
13:27 off. I lost my job. He was interpreting losing his job as the raging Jordan River. He couldn't see the
13:39 ark. He couldn't see God's presence in the middle of it. The reason why God tells the peace, priests stand in the water. I want the people to see that I am right in that water when it takes place. And I told my friend, I
13:50 said, how do you know that losing your job is actually a bad thing?
13:56 How do you
13:56 know that God isn't working through this circumstance to bring about a greater reality of your promised land. But he would never know it if he
14:08 couldn't see God. And he would never see God if he wasn't around fellow believers pointing it out to him. If his eyes of his heart were flourishing? So the question for us, and I told you this would be challenging. Do
14:20 you see God? Not just know, yeah, I know there's a God. Do you literally see God? Christ was the manifestation of God in bodily form. The
14:32 church is now the manifestation of God through each other brothers and sisters. And the eyes of our heart which we nurture and we see God and it gives us a whole different filter. Some of you,
14:44 you're the reason why you haven't moved into the promised land. It's like God and the ark, they're right there in the middle of the raging river but you don't see them. And there's no
14:56 condemnation and there's no judgment but the glorious news of this passage in his love and in his beauty he is saying, open your eyes.
15:09 I'll be really practical. Much of breaking into a promised land oftentimes is the people that we end up doing life with. Those people may be in a
15:21 small group somewhere. And a year from now you're gonna go, wow, my life has been so revolutionized by being a part of this life group and how much God has
15:32 brought to me. And my promised land has exploded and there's so many new things. Why? Because you're seeing God through the church, through brothers and sisters. So we discover this first principle. You
15:44 gotta be able to see the ark. You gotta be able to see God and you do that kind of self assessment. If I'm not really seeing God, if I'm only seeing the raging river, the prayer is God open. Open the eyes of my
15:57 heart and ingrain me into the church. Do you know how many miracles are taking place at Patria these days? Everyday. Everyday stories come in. Everyday there's all these miracles.
16:09 And that's God at work. But if you're not ingrained in it, you don't see it. And your faith isn't built that way. Alright, here's the second 1. Now he says something else. He says, consecrate yourself. This is 1 of my
16:20 favorite verses in the Bible where he says, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. But what does he mean by consecrate yourself? The word literally means be holy,
16:33 be set apart. You can enter the promised land when you are prepared for God's blessings in your life. The challenge is, are you
16:45 ready? And we would all go, I'm ready. No. No. No. Are you really ready? Let's say you go home tonight and you walk into your house or your apartment and you open the door and there on the
16:57 floor is an envelope and there's no writing on it. You don't know how it got there. You don't know who gave it to you. And you open up and there's 20 grand in the envelope. Dollars 20000 cash and your first response is
17:07 to go, hallelujah. Dollars 20 grand, thank you Jesus. Or is your first response to go Lord, what do you want me to do with
17:19 this? Why would you trust me with this? Some of you are praying for a financial miracle and God as a loving
17:30 father wants to give it to you, but he's actually holding it back because he knows it'll hurt you. It'll mess you up. Because you're not
17:42 ready for it yet. And Joshua says listen, there is a promised land that is amazing, but you gotta prepare yourself. You have to consecrate yourself. Paul put it this with second Timothy two:two. Here's what he
17:54 wrote. He said, if you cleanse yourself, you will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master and prepared for every good work. You see the promised land is not just about what you
18:06 get. It's about how you are positioned to be able to be used for God and there's a certain couple of areas that become really important. If we're prepared for all that God wants
18:18 to break us into, relational integrity. Because when you come into the promised land, it affects your relationships. You get a new job, there are new relationships. You get more money, it affects those
18:30 relationships. However God blesses you, it's gonna affect your relationships. And if you don't have relational integrity, those relationships will get hurt. They did a survey.
18:41 60 per I still can't believe this but it's true. 60 percent of people who win the lottery wish they hadn't 3 years later. 60 percent. And our response to go, yeah, but that's not me.
18:54 And every 1 of the people who said I wish I didn't, wasn't it? Is because family relationships broke down. Friendships broke down. They didn't have relational integrity to be able to
19:06 do that. And how we treat each other when we break into something new with God really reflects who God is. The Bible talks about 1 most important 1 and I'm gonna be really practical with you. It's the
19:18 area of unforgiveness. Consecrate yourself because God's got this whole new blessing for you, but you cannot walk into your promised land if there is unforgiveness in your heart.
19:31 If there is a relationship where you have been hurt and you have been mistreated and you have let bitterness come into you, it
19:43 becomes a block to walking into all that God has for you. It becomes a block to your prayer life. And when Joshua teaches you gotta consecrate yourself. There's
19:55 this faith that says God, I know you have something great for me. I know you have forgiven me so help me to forgive that person. Relational integrity, kingdom priorities. Because
20:07 our promised land always has a greater purpose. And whatever you are gonna walk into, finances, a new career,
20:19 a relationship, greater influence, whatever it may be, There's always a kingdom purpose that's attached to it. I was driving here, down the 2 10 I think it was and I saw a big billboard. And I think the the
20:31 lottery now is like 3 10000000 dollars And I went, wow. And you have that thought, what would I do if I won 310000000 dollars Of course, I would be generous and I would give some to the church, but what would I do with
20:43 309000000 dollars Consecrate yourself. Do you have God's kingdom
20:55 priorities where you would say, God, I want to break into all that you have for me. But you cleanse my heart so it's actually not
21:06 just about me but it's about your purpose through me. I don't remove me from faith because you bless my bank account.
21:18 Cause me to keep trusting you, relational integrity, kingdom priorities, and personal holiness. And we have to
21:30 talk honestly about this. Not in the religious way where a religious leader stands up and condemns you and convicts you for not following the religious moral code. That is not what Joshua is
21:42 teaching. When the Lord says consecrate yourself, he's saying be honest about your personal holiness. Because what I'm gonna bless you
21:54 with in my presence and my identity is gonna be so great but it will tempt you. And it will tempt you to step away from me where the very blessing of God
22:07 can become a curse. Let me explain how this works. God comes to Abraham. He's gonna break him into the promised land. Whole new life, Abraham's gonna have a child. Abraham dreamed of having a child. It's his 1 big
22:19 prayer and he has Isaac and it's amazing. God has blessed him just like you want God to bless you. And God watches Abraham. He watches his dad hold his boy
22:30 just beaming with pride and God wonders to himself. Have I lost some of his heart? I used to have all of his heart. But have I lost some of his
22:42 heart? And God comes to Abraham and says, Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your boy. God asks the unimaginable. I want you to take the blessing I gave you and I want you to give it back to
22:54 me. Kill your son. But God never wanted Isaac. He wanted to make sure he still had Abraham's heart. Because he watched
23:06 Abraham as Isaac grew up as a teenage boy and he saw Isaac out hunting and killing his first deer and just the buttons off of Abraham's vest popping in great pride. Just how glorious and amazing his son is and
23:18 God wonders. I used to have all of his heart. Have I lost some of his heart? When I was pastoring a man in our church, really good guy. He said,
23:30 Joel, I'm really believing for this promotion. Would you pray with me? And we prayed together at the altar that he would get this promotion and he got it. And then over the months he didn't show up in church as often.
23:42 Because he had bought a boat and he loved his boat. And the very blessing of God became a curse because it began to remove him
23:54 from God. That's why God makes it really clear to the Israelites and to us, I want you to step into your promised land but you gotta consecrate yourself. You gotta make
24:06 sure you're good. Your motives are good. Your place is good. You gotta make sure that you are transparent and honest in
24:18 this. Verse 5, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you. Why does this matter? You can never earn the
24:30 promised land. But you need to prepare for it. Because the Bible teaches that with every blessing comes a burden.
24:42 Every blessing carries a burden. Somebody gives you 100000 dollars that's a blessing. But there is a burden. God, what do you want me to do with this? Best example of
24:54 blessings that are burdens, you got kids? Amazing blessing, a bit of a burden. Every blessing God gives us, there's a burden that comes. You get
25:06 a gift, a gifting in you that you can serve, that's a blessing. You can serve, you can have a meaningful life but there's a burden. God's gonna put people on your heart, broken people. And because every
25:18 blessing carries a burden, if you are not consecrated holy before him with pure motives, then that burden will begin to mess you up. But if you consecrate yourself, you can't earn it. You say
25:29 God, I'm here. I'm yours. Cleanse my heart Lord and he will do that. Now you are ready to go into the promised land and God goes, oh this is
25:41 somebody I can trust. This is somebody I can dump my blessing into because I can trust them. That's why we consecrate ourselves. And the honest question for you is, do you need to consecrate
25:53 yourself? Do you need to say a prayer to the Lord? Do you need to find a trusted friend? And
26:05 let him know some of the stuff that's going on in your heart or even in your actions? Because you can hide it from us
26:17 but you can't hide it from God. And he's not up there with a hammer. He's desperately wanting you to know there is a promised land waiting for you.
26:29 He wants to do amazing things. But you gotta come before him clean going, Lord, I'm yours. Cleanse me
26:41 so that as I receive all your blessing, it won't mess me up. But my life will bring you honor and glory. Then here's the third thing they do. First you gotta keep your eyes on the Ark. Secondly you gotta
26:53 consecrate yourself. But then he says this, he says walk to the flood. He literally says, I want you to walk to the flood. If you're gonna enter the promised land, you have to confront that barrier to your promised
27:05 land. He says, preach, you go first. When your feet get wet, then the miracle will come and there's like this barrier. There's a block. Isaiah 57 14 puts it this way on the screen. It says,
27:17 prepare the way, build by removing the barrier out of the way. We always talk about building by adding and adding. I'm adding this to my life. I'm adding more vision. I'm adding more faith. God says well think about
27:28 removing something. What is in your life right now that's actually blocking you from walking into your promised land? What is that blockage that's there? And here's what you have to
27:40 do according to this pattern. Number 1, you gotta know your barrier. You gotta name it. For some of you, it may be fear. I just have this fear. So I won't step into a space
27:52 of relationships, a small group. I won't step into a space of ministry because I have a fear I'll just look stupid to people. And that's a fear and that blocks you from entering into the promised land. For some of
28:03 you it's pride. And pride, what are people thinking about me? Becomes to be that block. Discouragement can be a block where you're just like, I'm just tired of
28:15 this raging river and there's a discouragement that paralyzes you. And the first thing you gotta do is you gotta name it. Because naming it takes it out of darkness and brings it into light so God can
28:27 conquer it. So you name it. Then you confront it. He says, listen. We're gonna name it. It's a raging river. Walk to it. You gotta confront
28:40 whatever it is that is your obstacle just like the Israelites have to do. For some of you, it may be confronting the fear by signing up for a
28:52 small group. It may be making a phone call to that person who you need to forgive. It may be applying for that job that you're completely sure you're never gonna get.
29:04 But you walk and when you walk, you know God's gonna show up somewhere because when your feet get wet, then the miracle comes. The
29:16 miracle never comes when your feet are dry. Here's what we do. We see the raging river. We know what it is, we name it and we walk to it, but we stop in a
29:27 safe place 5 feet away from the raging river. And then we say God fix it and make it continually safe for me to go in. But we're not actually trusting him with the
29:39 block. We're not in a partnership with him. We're just gonna say, you take care of this and then I'll go through when it's all easy and safe. He's going, no, no, no. I want your feet to get wet. Walking
29:51 into God's promised land requires you get a little uncomfortable. But if you are willing to trust him, because faith is just discomfort. If you
30:03 are willing to trust him, then the miracle comes. What does it look like for you to get your feet wet?
30:14 Depends on what that barrier is and what that obstacle is. In verse 8, he says, go and stand in the river. Why does this matter? And catch this, because you don't wanna just
30:26 walk into your promised land. You wanna be able to live in the promised land. Because what happens a lot of times, you go, oh, I wanna break through from God and we kinda step into it but nothing's really changed inside
30:36 of us and it's not sustainable. And then the fear comes back and the insecurity comes back or the pride comes back and then we're back on the other side of the river again. He goes, no, no, I want to transform you. So
30:46 when I move you into the promised land, it's a new you that's going in there with a faith and a hope and a joy and a victory that's there. But you have your part. Because 1 of
30:58 the things the Israelites learned, going into the promised land did not end the challenges they faced in the wilderness. In the wilderness, they were facing challenges of rebellion and faith
31:10 and trust and other armies coming against them. They had all those same challenges in the promised land. But now they're in the promised land with God.
31:22 Somehow I pray the spirit of God would impress upon you. There is a new place that you have not been to yet that he wants to take you to.
31:36 And you know in your heart what I'm referring to. And you go, Joel, I would love to step into that place.
31:49 See God. Ask God to show himself to you. See him through his body of believers. See it.
32:01 Consecrate yourself. Ask that prayer. Be transparent with a trusted friend. Say, I'm tired of the dual life.
32:14 I wanna be clean and holy and right before God so he can trust me. I think God is in heaven just with this vat of blessings waiting to dump
32:26 it into us when we show ourselves trustworthy. And he knows, oh, I can give you a lot of resource. Oh, I can give you a lot of grace because you're gonna have
32:38 some hard times as you are a light of the gospel. Oh, 0, I can give you a lot of revelation because you will not become puffed up with knowledge, but you will have a humility to share that. Oh, 0, I can give you,
32:50 and there's just this vat of blessing. But you gotta be in a position. And you gotta know that obstacle, and you gotta walk to it. Would you bow your heads with me for a second?
33:02 I just wanna close by giving you 30 seconds with the Lord. That you in your heart have a dream. You have a prayer.
33:14 And it's not a small prayer. It's unique to you but you have this prayer, God. That prayer is like your promised land. And
33:26 you need to know first and foremost that you have this amazing father in heaven who wants to give you such good gifts. And this Joshua
33:38 passage teaches us there is an opportunity to walk into your promised land. For some of you in here, it may be the ark piece. You're trying to
33:50 do this all alone. And the gracious message of the Lord to you tonight is get with spiritual friends. Be a part of the
34:02 church. See the Lord. For some of you, it honestly may be that consecration piece.
34:15 I say this with all humility and all grace but you are just hidin' stuff. And as long as you're hidin' stuff in the dark it will never be healed. And there is such a freedom and
34:27 such a liberty, and I know that it can be very difficult. But if you trust a good father and you say, I gotta talk to somebody about this. I wanna consecrate
34:38 myself so he can trust me with his blessings. And for some of you there is a block. It could be a insecurity, it could be fear, it's something that's a block.
34:50 And the Holy Spirit wants to give you direction how to remove that block by walking straight at it. That your action of faith is I'm gonna face this thing
35:02 head on. But there may be some of you in here and that fear element is you need to lead a small group. I'm gonna face it head on, I'm gonna remove that block.
35:14 Lord right now would you, as only you can, would you speak to us? I thank you for each person here. I thank you for those who are watching online. I I
35:26 thank you that you are such a good father. And like the Israelites, you want to lead us into your promised land. I pray
35:38 Lord that there would be a sense of hope and expectation that rises up inside of us. That as we follow this pattern and reposition ourselves, we would
35:50 begin to experience breakthrough. We would begin to experience the blessing that comes with the promised land. We would begin to experience a whole new you and a whole new life in a way that we have never
36:01 been before according to Joshua. So help us Lord. Help us to see you. Help us to consecrate ourselves. And help us to
36:13 face that raging river knowing you are so faithful and you will give us more and more and more. We pray this in the precious name of Christ.
36:25 Amen and amen.Show more
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