Don’t Stop On Six
In my second year of college,
I had a good friend of mine
who had joined the lightweight crew team.
The crew team was the guys who rowed
those long skinny boats
that look kind of like a cigar with 8 legs.
And my friend talked me into joining the crew team.
Now, I'd never rowed before,
so when I started I was way behind everyone else.
We'd take out 4 or 5 boats each day,
with 8 oarsmen in each,
and I was the guy nobody wanted in their boat,
because I was still trying to learn how to row.
In fact I only had one advantage.
I'd run long distance all through high school,
so I had great endurance and leg muscles.
And crew is all about endurance and leg muscles.
So anyway I stunk at rowing,
but I refused to quit,
and I slowly throughout the fall I started to improve,
And then when the winter came, I really shone,
because we couldn’t do any rowing in the winter,
it was all running and weight training,
and that was my forte,
I'd come in first on all the 10 mile runs.
And then we got to the Spring
and we're back to rowing again,
and I still stunk, but I kept with it,
and slowly, slowly I was improving.
and Spring is the big racing season, for crew,
so we started racing against
Princeton, and Harvard, and Penn,
And I wasn’t in a Varsity boat, no surprise,
because this was my first year rowing,
and I wasn’t near as experienced as the other guys.
But I kept with it, I persevered.
And then came the breakthrough.
The number 2 varsity boat had a guy in it,
that was way better at rowing than me,
he was a junior with lots more experience,
but he didn’t have near the endurance I did,
I'd come in first on all the runs and he came in last,
and the coach decided
that boat needed somebody who would be strong
at the end of the race,
and still have endurance left,
and so he took that guy out of the boat,
and put me in for the last few races of the season,
and I ended up being one of the first sophomores at the Naval Academy to earn a varsity letter,
in the very first year I ever rowed.
I was shocked,
everybody else was even more shocked,
my friend who talked me into joining the team was even more shocked,
because he didn’t make it into a varsity boat.
But that was one more lesson for my life…
If you persevere
even when its not going very well,
even when you're working hard and its not happening,
if you persevere,
you may attain more than you ever expected.
Hebrews 10:36
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Notice, you need to persevere
why?
So you will receive what he has promised.
Did you know that God can make you a promise,
that you will never possess,
if you don’t learn how to persevere.
When I was in the Navy, we had a saying called the 7 p's.
Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Performance.
You might say, Ken that's only 6 p's.
There was a 7th one in the middle that I edited out because we're in church.
But anyway, I thought of the 7 p's
when I was writing this message,
because there's 3 p's right here.
God can make you a promise,
that you will never possess,
if you don’t learn how to persevere.
And that's true in relationships,
Its true in families,
it's true in churches and in businesses,
it's certainly true in our spiritual growth,
And I believe there are people here this morning,
and you know that you have stopped short
or else you're on the verge of stopping short,
of something that God put inside you,
something that he spoke to you,
or maybe a dream or goal he gave you.
You're ready to give up,
you're ready to give in,
but you need to persevere,
or you may lose out on the promise of God.
I want to look at a story from the OT.
So turn to the book of Joshua,
it’s the 6th book in the bible,
and turn to the 6th chapter.
This story takes place when
the people of Israel had left Egypt,
wandered in the desert for 40 years,
and now have finally entered the land
God promised them,
but the only problem is
there's a bunch of enemies there,
so now Israel has to figure out how to take the land.
And I think a lot of our Christian life is like that,
because scripture says that
God has made you and I some promises.
He's got a promised land for us, too.
The bible says…
God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, in heavenly places in Christ.
That means that,
whatever is in Christ
is supposed to be working in my life,
the peace of Christ,
the joy of the Lord,
the strength of God,
its all supposed to be working in my life.
But just because God promised it
doesn’t mean that I possess it yet.
So now in Joshua 6 we see God's people
as they're about to take possession
of the promise God gave them.
Josh 6:1-5
Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
Then the Lord said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in."
So God tells them,
you're finally gonna get
what I've been promising for centuries
to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph,
all the way down to Moses
But even Moses
didn’t get to take possession of the promise,
he didn’t get to go into the promised land.
But Joshua you're finally gonna get the promise,
but first, you’ve gotta march for 6 days.
Now in this story, we're gonna see 3 reasons
why people stop short,
why they don’t receive what God has promised,
why they don’t persevere.
The first reason is because
OUR PERSPECTIVE GETS BLOCKED.
I was studying about Jericho.
How many of you have heard of the story
of Joshua and the battle of Jericho.
Almost everyone has heard that story.
Maybe you even sang the song about it,
Joshua fought the battle of Jericho… and the walls came tumbling down.
and there's some hand motions that go with it,
but I can’t remember what they are.
You know what?
I think if Joshua heard that song,
he wouldn’t like it.
Because it simplifies so much what happened.
There was a lot that happened
before those walls came tumbling down.
Like I said, Jericho was the first city in the promised land
that they had to take,
if they wanted to receive the promise of God.
It was the first battle.
Often the first battle is the hardest.
How many of you know that
getting started is the hardest part sometimes.
Kathy and I go to the gym a couple times a week,
and the hardest part by far is getting started.
We'll both get home from work,
and I'll ask her, are you going to the gym?
And I'm hoping she says no,
because I want an excuse not to go.
I'd rather sit in my recliner and veg,
but I know I should exercise, and I feel guilty,
so I ask her if she's gonna go.
and she always comes back and says,
I don’t know, are you gonna go?
Because she doesn’t really want to go either,
and she's hoping I'll talk her out of it.
but then we finally do go,
and after the workout we walk out and tell each other,
aren't you glad we went.
Yeah….
After we're going its fine,
but the hardest part is always getting started.
And you see, the simple little song about Jericho
and the walls tumbling down,
doesn’t tell you about the 40 years
Joshua spent in the wilderness, wandering,
because the generation he was part of,
didn’t have enough faith to go in.
He waited 40 years to even get the opportunity to go in.
So Joshua is watching us sing our little song about him,
and doing the hand motions,
and I think he'd say,
Hey, would you quit with the hand motions.
It wasn’t as simple as you make it sound.
Because sometimes when we see somebody else's victory,
we oversimplify their process.
And we assume it was easy for them.
Now, Jericho was not a very big city by todays standards.
In fact, you could march around the whole city
in a little bit over an hour,
so about 4 miles in circumference,
But the challenging part about Jericho
was not the size of the city,
but the height of the walls.
Some of the stuff that's not happening in your life,
Some of the stuff that God's promised you
that you haven't received yet,
Some of the stuff that you're intimidated by,
its not that its really bigger than you,
because God is in you,
and he's bigger than anything you face,
but its just that your perspective gets blocked
by how high the walls are.
In fact, that’s why you're so wise to come to church,
even in June when our attendance is always down,
good job getting here this week,
because one of the great things about church attendance is,
it lifts your perspective
to see beyond the walls of your problems.
it lifts your perspective to see beyond
the obstacles and opposition.
If all you can see in your life is walls,
and honestly that’s what most of us do
for 6 out of 7 days,
We're looking at walls,
looking at setbacks,
looking at deficits,
looking at problems with our kids,
problems with our spouse,
looking at our past,
looking at walls…
but when you come to church
you get around other people,
and you start worshipping and praising God
with other people,
and when you do that
it reminds you that,
I'm not alone in this,
I'm not on my own in this,
I've got other people that are pursuing God with me.
And there's something about
making an effort to get in Gods presence
that will elevate your perspective
so you can see past your problems.
And when you see past your problem,
you can see that
the enemy you were intimidated by,
was actually intimidated by you all along.
But you'll never see that
unless you can look over those walls,
by elevating your perspective.
Josh 6:1
Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
Then in verse 2…
Then the Lord said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands,
Now, those verses don’t seem to go together.
In verse 1 the gates are securely barred.
but in verse 2, God says,
See, I've already given it to you.
Joshua's saying,
See what?
I don’t see.
All I see is locked up gates and walls.
Have you ever felt like what you see in your life
doesn’t match up with what God has said in your heart?
Have you ever felt like God is speaking to you about victory,
but you feel defeated?
Have you ever felt like God is speaking to you about healing,
but inside you feel broken?
Have you ever felt like God is speaking to you,
to tell somebody about Christ,
but inside you have your own doubts about God?
Have you ever felt like God is telling you to give something,
but at the same time you have needs yourself?
Have you ever felt like what you hear from God
doesn’t match up with what you see with your eyes?
That's why God places
pastors and teachers and small group leaders
around you,
so that as you listen to teaching,
your perspective is elevated
and you can start to see over the walls around you,
and see past the walls to the promise of God.
That was the situation for Joshua.
God tells Joshua,
"See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands,
Only God can speak in past tense
about a battle you haven't even fought yet.
Joshua's going,
Uh God, we haven't even started the battle.
God says,
its already done,
"See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands,
Because Joshua, I live outside of time,
I'm not limited by what you can see right now,
I'm not stressed about what you're stressed about,
I'm not popping Prozac about the economy,
I've got this thing worked out already,
and if you'd get on with the plan,
you can have the victory,
because my purpose will prevail.
The second reason a lot of us stop short is,
OUR PROGRESS ISN'T ALWAYS OBVIOUS.
God speaks to Joshua and says,
March around the walls for 6 days,
on the 7th day march 7 times,
its gonna be awesome,
the walls are coming down.
So Joshua calls the people together,
Verse 6
So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it." 7 And he ordered the army, "Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord."
8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward, blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord's covenant followed them.
9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark. All this time the trumpets were sounding. 10 But Joshua had commanded the army, "Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!"
11 So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.
Now, you remember how God told Joshua,
march around once for 6 days,
and on the 7th day march around 7 times,
and then the walls are gonna fall?
Joshua knows all that…
But guess what Joshua did not tell the people.
He didn’t say a single word about
how long they were gonna be doing this.
The only thing he told the army is in
Verse 7
And he ordered the army, "Advance! March around the city…
…and keep your mouth shut.
He doesn’t tell them how long
He doesn’t tell them how many laps.
So they finish the first day,
Verse 12
Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord. 13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets. The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding. 14 So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.
Now think about what these people must have felt.
On that first day,
they thought they were about to charge into the city
and wage war.
But it didn’t happen.
2nd day it didn’t happen,
3rd day it didn’t happen.
For 6 days, all they did was end up taking a walk.
And Joshua hasn’t told them the plan,
so its not like they can say,
only 5 more days of this.
only 4 more days of this.
For all they knew, they were gonna take a walk every morning.
For all they knew, Joshua had lost his mind.
For all they knew, Joshua decided to start a marching band.
Joshua, I didn’t sign up for the marching band.
I got enough of that in high school.
Enough with the trumpets,
I want to use my sword.
Now let me tell you,
if I were God
and I was planning how to do this miracle,
and I had a group of fighting men,
and I wanted them to walk around the walls
6 days in a row,
and the 7th time I'm gonna let the walls collapse,
but I want to be sure that they stay motivated,
let me tell you what I'd do…
I would give them a little sign,
every time they made it around one lap.
I would give them a sign,
that they're doing a good job,
and they're making progress,
just to keep them motivated.
So, you walk a day,
and maybe a little bit of that wall starts to crumble,
and some bricks fall off the top,
some cracks start to appear.
the second lap around,
maybe you lose a whole row of bricks off the top.
In fact, I'd make it like Tetris.
Anybody here ever play Tetris?
You let the bricks drop into place,
and when you complete a whole row,
the row disappears.
You march around for a day,
and a row disappears.
That’s how I'd work it if I was God,
so they can start to see it happening,
and stay motivated,
and see some progress.
And the reason I'd do it like that,
is I know what I'm like.
And I need to see some progress,
if I'm gonna stay motivated.
Anybody else here like me?
Hey, I don’t mind working hard,
I don’t mind sacrificing,
I don’t mind putting up with stuff,
but I gotta know that my pain has a purpose,
I gotta know that there's a point to this,
and that I'm making some progress.
But in this story,
it doesn’t say they walked around the first day,
and a little bit of the wall fell down.
And then the next day a little more fell down.
That would have been so motivating.
If I was there and saw that,
I'd be asking, hey Joshua, this is so cool,
can we do a few more laps today?
We'd look over at that wall,
and say, Hey guys, look what we did today.
We're on the way, this is gonna be great.
Instead, if you're one of these fighting men,
you come home to your wife after the first day,
and she asks,
How'd it go honey?
Are we gonna win?
What was the battle like?
Was it amazing?
How many did you kill today?
I'm so proud of you,
my little warrior…
And you're going,
well, actually baby, uh,
we didn’t really fight today,
I mean, we were ready to go,
but it was more like we went for a (cough) walk.
But I'm sure we'll get at it tomorrow,
we were just spying out the walls today,
and getting acclimated to the conditions,
and loosening up our muscles,
but I'm sure tomorrow Joshua will let us fight.
But then you come home day 2,
and your wife asks the same thing,
how was your day,
which by the way men,
is really code from a woman for…
ask me how my day was,
and you better sit down
because this will not be a short answer.
But I digress.
You come home the 2nd day,
How was your day?
You know babe,
That Joshua,
somebody needs to talk to him,
but he won't let us talk.
He told us we all had to keep our mouth shut,
we can’t say anything,
we had to march in silence.
By the way,
why do you think Joshua told them not to talk
while they were marching?
I think its because Joshua remembered 40 years earlier,
when he was one of the 12 spies
sent into this same promised land.
and it was what 10 of those spies said
about their situation,
that kept them from receiving God's promise,
and Joshua knew that
when it comes to receiving God's promise,
your mouth is often your own worst enemy.
your thoughts are often your own worst enemy.
And I know you have to talk to people about your problems,
you have to get advice,
you have to express how you feel,
but sometimes the best strategy,
is shut your mouth and march.
So they march for 3 days.
4 days,
5 days,
6 days and still no action.
Why did God make them wait?
Because God didn’t want the people
to trust in their own effort
or their own progress,
but instead to have faith in his promise.
You see sometimes God lets you walk around
in a situation where
what you're doing doesn’t seem to be working,
because he wants you to learn to trust…
that He's working,
even when what you're doing
doesn’t seem to be working.
He wants to know…
Will you still pray when the answer hasn’t come for 6 days?
Will you still serve God when nobody appreciates you?
Will you still show up when you're not sure if its making a difference?
Will you still give even if you're not seeing the provision flow back to you?
Will you still do the right thing, when nothing seems to be happening.
Will you still march around those walls,
just because God told you to?
Not because you can see the benefit,
Not because you can see the progress.
I'm willing to bet that we would all do the right thing,
we'd all exercise,
we'd all eat healthy,
we'd all live right,
if we could see the immediate results of doing it,
right as we're doing it.
Wouldn’t that be amazing.
Eat some broccoli,
Whoh, I just lost two pounds
and my blood pressure went down.
You’d be snorting cauliflower if it worked like that.
But sometimes God wants you to know,
I'm working,
when what you're doing doesn’t seem to be.
So, can you trust me?
That’s the essence of faith.
And that leads to the 3rd reason we stop short,
because
WE DON’T KNOW THE ENDPOINT.
I like to ride long distances on my bike.
A few weeks ago I rode with Wayne Stone
to Columbus on Friday,
and then Portsmouth on Saturday,
a little over a 100 miles each day.
My record for one day is 206 miles.
And when I ride,
I generally don’t just meander along at an easy pace,
I'm not just sightseeing and relaxing,
I like to push myself, I like to race,
So I'm working hard.
But in order to keep myself working hard,
I've gotta have a goal,
and I need to know where that goal leads me,
and about how long its gonna take me to get there.
When I did my 206 mile ride about 7 years ago,
it was a race called Calvin's Challenge,
where you have 12 hours to ride as far as you can,
and the one who rides the farthest is the winner.
And I knew going into the race
that anyone who made it 200 miles in the race,
got a medal.
So my goal was, get the medal.
Whatever it takes,
I want the medal.
And I had it figured out in advance.
If I ride for 12 hours straight
without getting off the bike,
I have to average about 17mph,
to make it 200 miles.
So as I'm riding, I'm looking at the clock,
and I'm looking at my odometer,
and I'm tracking my progress the whole way,
and I've got the end in sight that whole way,
that 200 mile goal and the medal
is driving me on.
How many of you know that,
there is no way I would have ridden that hard,
for that long,
if there was no goal, no medal, and no plan.
If somebody else like Joshua,
told me do go out and ride my bike around the city of Hamilton,
and just keep riding and riding,
and he'll let me know when to stop,
but I have no idea what the goal is,
I have no idea how long or how far
or what the endpoint is,
I would be very demotivated.
I've gotta know how its gonna end,
if I want to persevere on my bike.
Unfortunately, when it comes to life,
we don’t know the end of the story.
We don’t know how long the race goes on,
for some of us it could end tomorrow,
for some it'll be 70 years from now.
And we don’t know where the road is gonna take us,
before the end of the race.
Wouldn’t it be nice if God put a clock on your dreams?
Wouldn’t it be nice if God put an odometer on your prayers,
to let you know,
Hey I know you're tired of praying,
but you only have 2 miles to go.
Keep going, you're almost there.
I know almost everybody else your age is married,
and you're not yet,
but if you can stay pure for 2 more years…
You’d be going,
all right God, 2 more years, I can handle that.
I could do 2 years.
I can do it, if I know the endpoint,
and how long its gonna take.
But God doesn’t tell us that.
So I've got 3 things working against me,
making me want to stop short in life.
I've got walls,
so I can’t even see what I'm fighting for,
and what its gonna be like when I get it,
I've got all these problems and barriers in my life
that are like walls.
Second, I've got no sure sign
that I'm actually making any progress.
I keep marching
but nothing seems to be happening.
And third, I can’t see the endpoint,
I don’t know the future,
so even though the victory might be
right around the corner.
I don’t know it
But there's a reason to persevere,
even when you don’t see the endpoint,
even when you don’t see progress,
even when all you see are problems...
You see, it was walking around the walls of Jericho,
that would prepare God's people to fight
the huge battles that were to come,
as they took the Promised Land.
Within a couple months after Jericho,
they'd be fighting a battle against
5 different kingdoms at once,
who'd all joined together against them.
God is preparing them for the bigger battles ahead,
by making them trust him
in the small battle now.
You see, it was all about what God was doing in them.
We get so focused on what God is doing for us,
we think that’s the most important thing,
but we miss what he's doing in us.
I wonder if sometimes God doesn’t send us
walking around walls
because what he wants to do in us
must come before
what he wants to do for us.
We're gonna close in a second,
but I believe God wants you to know,
Some of you are on lap number six,
and you don’t even know it yet.
But you're on lap 6,
you're almost there,
just persevere a little longer.
I heard someone talking about Nascar drivers,
and they have a little screen printout that tells them,
"Laps left,"
and they use that to know how to pace themselves.
But life doesn’t tell you how many laps you have left.
Because of that,
I wonder how many people gave up on their marriage
gave up on their kids
gave up on their goals
gave up on God
and you were on lap 6,
you were almost at the finish line,
and you didn’t even know it.
Don’t stop on 6!
That’s the most important thing I'll say today.
Don’t stop on 6!
You're closer than you think you are.
Don’t stop on 6!
You might be tired, it might not make sense,
you might look foolish to some people,
but Don’t stop on 6!
You see if you walk every lap like its your last,
believing that what God has promised
he will perform.
if you walk every lap like its your last,
one day, you'll be right.
Did you know that 6 is the number of man,
but 7 is the number of God.
The 6 laps that show us
that we don’t have the strength,
prepare us for the 7th lap
where God shows His strength,
so that we will give him all the glory,
when it comes to pass.
Lets end with the verse we started with…
Heb 10:36
You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.
Lets stand for prayer:
I believe there's somebody here today, you're on the verge of quitting something that God has promised to you.
God brought you here today so you could hear, this might be your last lap, and with every lap you walk but the walls don’t fall, God says, there's something I'm building in you, I want to teach you to trust me.
So I want to pray for you today if you're on the verge of giving up.
Father I thank you that your strength has come today to encourage the weary, to sustain those who want to quit. God I pray that what you're doing in us will become more important to our hearts than what you're doing for us.
Give us the strength to persevere.
Now maybe there's some people here this morning,
and you feel like you've been marching and marching, but you're doing it on your own, same addictions, same efforts, same failures and sins over and over, you don’t have the power of God in your life, you're not sure that the Holy Spirit is living in you, you're not confident that he's doing his will in your life, or that you have a personal relationship with him,
The bible says,
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
I want to lead you in a simple prayer right now. Just pray along with me in your heart.
Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son and the savior of the world. I believe he died to forgive my sin, and rose again to give me new life. I turn from my sin, and I receive you Jesus as my Lord and Savior. I want to follow you all the days of my life.
