Time

INTRODUCTION – PREACHING PREDICAMENT

I have known about preaching today for quite a little while now as its been on the roster for a couple of weeks -. But boy have I struggled with what to preach on.

From grace to eternity, from Jesus to Jehoshophat, from Genesis well ok I must admit not quite to Revelation - for the past few weeks I have been asking God to just let me know what it is that He needs us to talk about this morning. I don’t often struggle with this. I mean knowing what to say doesn’t usually allude me. I get myself into hot water because my mouth engages long before my brain is even awake. But in finding something to share with you today - I struggled.

STRUGGLED BECAUSE GOD WORKING – CONVO IN HEAD

Maybe I struggled more than usual because over the last month God has really been working on things in my life. You know what that’s like, when you have so many conversations in your head that you get confused between what was said and what was said for real.

ASKED FOR HELP – MEN DON’T

Being a man of course didn’t help much as you know we are not allowed to ask for help. But I mean desperate times call for desperate measures and so I asked for help. Not that it helped much. Asked three people got three totally different answers.

PREACHERS BLOCK

And so I sat – preachers block.

Oh I had enough of what God was doing in my life to fill a whole lot more than an hour of preaching, but I just didn’t know what to say to you.

I begged God to talk to me – show me, tell me do whatever but get me a message.

TAKE A BREAK

And so sitting in front of my laptop I decided to take a break. Go outside and have a swim, put the curtain rails up that Leanne had been asking for me to do for a few too many weeks. Take your mind of it I said.

IT CAME – DID NOT WANT DAY TO END

And then I got it. You ever just had such a good day that you pray it never ends. It does not necessarily have to be a day of extra-ordinary proportion. In my case it was swimming with my kids and working around the house. But I did not want it to end. It was a family day for a change and I was enjoying it. Lord I kind of don’t want this day to end. As I said that to the Lord, maybe you can guess what I thought. I thought of Joshua 10:12-13.

IT CAME TO ME – QUESTION

And God answered me by asking me – What would happen if we all took time to simply be with Him?

If we all asked to Suns to stand still, communities to rebuild, crime to relinquish its grip, unbelieving hearts to turn, healing to occur– what would happen if we all prayed and took the time to hear from God.

INTRO JOSHUA – 30 INSTANCES

Joshua was indeed one of the finest leaders of the OT. But in going through the book of Joshua, there are over 30 instances of where Joshua speaks to the Lord. He had some serious prayer life going on.

But as I looked through this book, I noticed that despite there being these 30 instances of Joshua talking to the Lord, there were way more than that of where God spoke to Joshua.

JUST TOO BUSY

In Psalm 46:10 we read, "Be still, and know that I am God . . ." Joshua would have had to be still, take the time to hear what God was saying.

How many of us actually sit still long enough to worship the Lord and hear him speak to us?

Most of us seem to be very busy people. We’re always in a hurry. We walk fast, we drive fast, we talk fast, we eat fast, and after we eat we all too often stand up and say, "Excuse me, but I’ve got to run."

Someone once observed that we are the only species alive that has a fast lane. Some of us are so obsessed with our schedules that we are sitting here this morning thinking about what we have to do at work this week or what we have to get done after church –

We are so time oriented that we oftentimes forget to be God oriented and God centred. – And unfortunately that takes time.

NO DRIVE THRU TO GOD

It takes time to speak, but it takes more time to hear, it takes more time to listen. Drive through mentality can not be applied to truly building a sound Joshua like relationship with God.