Pastor Luke: 00:07

Heavenly father, this morning, I asked that you would open our eyes to see you more clearly. That as we just pause, that your holy spirit would be active in our hearts, our minds, and our spirits, that you might be speaking to us a word that we need to hear today. Lord, I pray that you would be giving pastor Cameron, filling of your spirit, that he might be sensitive to your leading, that you might be blessing the preparation and work he has done on this message. Lord, we ask that you would expand our vision of you in your faithfulness today. In Jesus name, we pray.

Pastor Luke: 00:51

Amen.

Pastor Cameron: 00:53

Amen. Thank you, pastor Luke. Good morning, conduit. How are you? Good.

Pastor Cameron: 00:57

It's good to see you all. Grateful to be back with you after the Christmas season and holiday. And like pastor Luke said, it was a little confusing as to, like, what day actually is it here? But I'm grateful to be here with you and, wanna come behind what pastor Luke had said about specifically about the, family dinner and get together. Really, like, some someone asked me after first service, you know, like, well, I mean, I haven't been at Conduit for a super long time.

Pastor Cameron: 01:31

Is, like, is that something for me? Like, should I come to that? And my I like, my response to them and my response to you is if, like, you're hearing the announce if you're hearing about it and you want to be there, we want you to be there. And so if you feel like, well, yeah, that's, that that's that's not for me. That's for, you know, other people, other kind of that's not the case.

Pastor Cameron: 01:54

We would love for you to join us there. As, pastor Luke said, that's gonna be a night, in, a lot of ways that looks backwards and looks forward. We wanna look backwards on the last year and remember, the things that the Lord did and who the Lord showed himself to be in our midst throughout the year. The stories and testimonies of God's transformation of people's lives, of work that was done in, certain ministries at the church, to just once again celebrate what God has been doing and what we hope, pray, and anticipate God will continue to do in the future. We also want you, as pastor Luke said, to be kind of in the know about what is coming in the in 2025.

Pastor Cameron: 02:52

We are almost always praying into, what is next. What, god, where where are you taking us? What do you want us to do? Where do you want us to be? What do you want us to do in ministry and in, in the body, in the life of the church here?

Pastor Cameron: 03:10

Help us to know, and we're gonna do our best to do it. And we we I I covet your prayer discernment over those things that we think are, like, forecasted on the horizon and ask that you would join us in prayer to discern whether or not that would be the direction we go as a church or or not. Because it's not like pastor Cameron or pastor Luke or whatever does the ministry does ministry, and then you guys are just kind of, like, along for the ride. We are a body united together by our faith in Jesus Christ, each one of us having a specific part in that body with a specific role, with specific gifts, with specific purpose. And we desire that the whole of the body join in spiritual discernment and prayer discernment over the direction, of conduit as a family for the new year.

Pastor Cameron: 04:12

Because I I am like, man, if if you're if y'all are just relying on me having the right answers about next steps, we are in trouble. Okay? We are in trouble. So if you would if you would join us, we'd I'd love to share with you some of the things that we're thinking about, praying about into the new year, and to get you praying alongside of us as we kind of discern what God's next step, is for us. And that that type of thing for me is an exciting thing.

Pastor Cameron: 04:46

I don't know about you. I have I have said this, I think, year after year after year, to you here at Conduit. So this is your first time hearing it. You'll learn learn something a little bit new about me this morning is that I am a self described new year's junkie. I love New Year's.

Pastor Cameron: 05:05

I really do. I I love the start of a new calendar. I love flipping over to January. I love even if it exists in, like, your mental space because what I mean, what is January 1st? It's just another day.

Pastor Cameron: 05:21

Right? It's just a Wednesday. And there'll be many Wednesdays that we celebrate throughout the year. There's nothing particularly special about it, but I do feel that the start of a new year has some like, there is some spiritual power and some anticipating and expecting and momentum that is created when you intentionally step out of an old season into a new season. And I just love new year's because I feel like it gives a built in moment of pause, reflect, remember,

Pastor Cameron: 06:09

move forward. A lot of times when

Pastor Cameron: 06:12

we talk about, when we talk about, you know, like, moving forward into new things, kind of the almost almost in a form of what what you could almost say is, like, toxic positivity is, hey. Don't look behind you. Only look forward. Only look into the future. Don't worry what's behind.

Pastor Cameron: 06:35

Don't worry what happened. Just move forward into the what what we're what we mean when we say that is, like, hey. Let's not focus on all of the things that have happened back here that have been unfortunate or that we wish we could've, avoided or circumstances that went sideways or relationships that broke down or we got sick or something happened and it happened back, and we just wanna forget about it and move on. I understand. I understand that.

Pastor Cameron: 07:04

I understand that there are things that we would rather, like, not remember or dwell on or have, like, a part of our life moving forward. But that's not the same thing. Dwelling on those things is not the same thing as looking back and recognizing what happened. Allow the Lord to reveal himself to us in what happened and root us in his faithfulness

Pastor Cameron: 07:34

so that we have hope and faith moving into a future that is unknown but

Pastor Cameron: 07:40

with a known God. Because God has delivered us in powerful ways and provided for us and shown himself to be faithful and good and compassionate and merciful and loving in our life in, we'll just say, 2024. So when we can look back upon those things, we can say, oh, yeah. That was meant to destroy me, but god, God saw me through. That was meant to break me, but God put me back together.

Pastor Cameron: 08:11

That was meant to kill me, but I am still here. God is good. God has been faithful. God has provided. When we can look back on those things and recognize the work of God in our heart, the work of God in our lives, then it gives us a place to root our feet in faith that God will continue to do so into the next unknown season.

Pastor Cameron: 08:37

Whether that just be the next unknown season of tomorrow or whether that be the next unknown season of 2025. And so I love New Year's because it's just like one of these things where I'm like, oh, jeez. What happened this year? And what did I learn? And how did God change and transform me?

Pastor Cameron: 08:55

And how what did I learn through the good things? Because you learn all you can learn a lot about through the good circumstances in your life. Normally, like, we learn we learn the most both about ourselves and about the Lord, through the bad things, the things that we would have chosen to avoid if we could have. It is in those situations when we embrace God's work in our God's pressing work in our lives, that it's in those pressing moments that God really truly reveals his character into our hearts. And we are truly transformed in the moments that we would have rather avoided if we could.

Pastor Cameron: 09:34

But looking back on them being like, ah, yeah. I would have loved to not have dealt with that. But I am so grateful for what god has done in me now because of it. That's what I think I love about New Year's, because I certainly don't like staying up till midnight. That's for the birds.

Pastor Cameron: 10:00

So I said all that to say, I think it's important that we look

Pastor Cameron: 10:03

backwards. To not just look forward,

Pastor Cameron: 10:07

to look backwards. I wanna share with you one of my favorite stories from the Old Testament, that I think displays and communicates some of these, important points and realities.

Pastor Cameron: 10:22

And and and rev

Pastor Cameron: 10:24

I think reveals that God not only wants us to look backwards, but he actually commands us to look backwards sometimes. K? So we're gonna read from the book of Joshua this morning, a pretty lengthy part of the the book of Joshua. And so if you open up to Joshua chapter 3, if you have your bible with you if you don't, it'll be on the screen. But Joshua chapter Joshua the book of Joshua comes right

Pastor Cameron: 11:00

after, what was the kind of ending of

Pastor Cameron: 11:08

the nation of Israel's exodus out of or, like, path out of slavery in Egypt. Alright? So kind of like Reader's Digest condensed version of nation of Israel. We're gonna do a big whole long series in the book of Exodus in the new year. So not trying to preach the whole thing right now.

Pastor Cameron: 11:31

K. But Israelite people, the people of God, chosen by God to be a blessing to the world, to be holy, to carry the covenant. Alright? Enslaved in Egypt for 100 of years. God delivered them out of slavery, out of captivity in Egypt, and said, I'm gonna fulfill the promise that I made to your father, Abraham, to give you your own land where, I will prosper you.

Pastor Cameron: 12:04

I will bless you so that you can be a blessing to the world. But you're in Egypt, so you gotta walk there.

Pastor Cameron: 12:13

Follow my covenants.

Pastor Cameron: 12:17

O obey me and worship me only, and I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse those that curse you. And I will be my god be your god, and you will be my people, and I got you, he says, just hold tight to me. And so the story, in the book of Exodus is the whole story of them coming out of slavery in Egypt. And then the the the journey that they took, both geographically the journey that they took, but also spiritually the journey that they took between what god had promised to give them and between the actual fulfillment. And I don't know if you've lived any life lately, but a lot can happen the in between of what God promises and what God fulfills.

Pastor Cameron: 13:08

A lot of life can be lived,

Pastor Cameron: 13:11

and a lot of that is dependent on us, and a lot of

Pastor Cameron: 13:14

that is what God desires to do in us. But we can walk through some pretty serious seasons of life between the promise that God gives to us and the actual fulfillment. But if we remain faithful to him and keep our eyes fixed upon him and are obedient to him, then we are safe always. And so the Israelites had been out of captivity and and Moses, this guy named Moses, you probably heard about him, you know, 10 commandments and everything. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 13:46

He was the leader of the Israelite people that led them out of Egypt and was leading them to the land that god had promised them, except except Moses was like, hey, or god was like, hey, Moses,

Pastor Cameron: 14:01

just wanna let you know you're not gonna enter the promised land. Too much has happened and, you're gonna lead the people kind of

Pastor Cameron: 14:12

right to the threshold of

Pastor Cameron: 14:13

the promised land, but you're not gonna go in. Moses

Pastor Cameron: 14:17

is like, I don't like that plan, lord. It's not not not not signed up for that one, Lord. And God is like, well, you know, I don't care, and raise up another leader because it's not gonna be you. K? And, this is an important lesson for all spiritual leaders, by the way.

Pastor Cameron: 14:39

And so when they get to the banks of the Jordan River so the Jordan River, if you look at a map in the back of your bible, right, you have, the Sea of Galilee up in the north, and you have the Dead Sea or the Great Salt Sea in the south, and then you have a river that connects them. And that is the east and west bank of, the nation of Israel. Right? The geographical nation of Israel now. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 15:05

And so they were on the east bank of the Jordan River getting ready to cross over the Jordan into the promised land where god had promised them, And the leader at that time of the Israelite people was a guy named Joshua, who was an interesting leader because Moses himself was a spiritual leader. Right? And Joshua was not a not a spiritual leader by, like, by on paper. Joshua was just he was the general of the Israelite army. He was a he was a military leader.

Pastor Cameron: 15:42

And knowing what the knowing what the Israelite nation was gonna face as they crossed over the Jordan, God raised up a leader that they needed in that season in order to lead effectively. And, and so they were getting ready to cross over the Jordan river to go into the land that God had always promised them. But in that time, like this, this this moment came up where the Lord was like, but, hey, Joshua, before we go over, before all

Pastor Cameron: 16:18

of the people go into the land, there's something that we need to do. There's like, I want you to I want you

Pastor Cameron: 16:25

to know that there's kind

Pastor Cameron: 16:26

of, like, one more thing that needs to happen before the kind of

Pastor Cameron: 16:31

this promise is fulfilled. So we're gonna pick up that story in Joshua chapter 3 starting at verse 14. We're gonna read the rest of chapter 3, and then we're gonna read all of chapter 4 together. K? It should be on the screen for you as well.

Pastor Cameron: 16:48

So Joshua chapter 3 starting at verse 14. So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Now the ark of the covenant, at that point, represented and symbolized the very presence of God himself. K? It was the mercy seat where sacrifices were made.

Pastor Cameron: 17:12

The ark itself had, a jar of manna, the staff of Moses, the 10 Commandments. Right? It had it had the things that represented the presence of God with them. Right? And so the priests carrying the ark of the covenant across the Jordan was like the presence of the Lord leading the Israelite people over the Jordan River and into the land.

Pastor Cameron: 17:37

The priests carrying the ark and the covenant went ahead of them. Now the Jordan is at this point at flood stage all during the harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap in a a great distance away at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarephathion where the water flowing down into the sea, the great salt sea was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite of Jericho.

Pastor Cameron: 18:16

The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the lord stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground. So the ark of the covenant comes into the Jordan River, carried by the priests, and far upstream in the Jordan, It's like the it's like the Lord put, like, the the water, it says, piled up in a big heap and stopped flowing. And it wasn't like the the the ground then of the river was really mucky and muddy like it would actually be in real life, but it says that the ground was dry and suitable for them to walk on. Because when you say when you talk about the nation of Israel crossing the Jordan River, might not have a conception of how many people that actually is. It's not like a, oh, it's like kinda like a church.

Pastor Cameron: 19:07

You know, there's 150 of them. They're just crossing over. We're talking hundreds of thousands of women men, women, and children, all of their possessions, all of their livestock, everything that they had. Like, it's a big group of people.

Pastor Cameron: 19:20

Big, big group. Chapter 4. When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the lord said to Joshua, choose 12 men from among the

Pastor Cameron: 19:32

people, 1 from each tribe, and tell them to take up 12 stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priest stood, and to carry them over with you and to put them down at the place where you stay tonight. As you're crossing through the Jordan, one man from each tribe wants you to pick up a stone from where the priests were. Carry it with you. When you get to the other side of the Jordan in the promised land, you can all put them together. Okay.

Pastor Cameron: 20:01

Interesting story. Here we go. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder according to the number of tribes of is of the Israelites, for 6, to serve as a sign among you.

Pastor Cameron: 20:17

In the future, when your children ask you, what do these stones mean? Tell them that the flow of

Pastor Cameron: 20:26

the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. Now you can read through the rest of the chapter here.

Pastor Cameron: 20:57

It just kind of describes they did exactly as the Lord had commanded them through Joshua. The people hurried over. They grabbed the stones. They brought them to that side. You go over to chapter 4 verse 15, catch up with the story.

Pastor Cameron: 21:17

Then the lord said to Joshua, command the priests carrying the ark of the testimony, like all the nations through. Right? They're all on the other side of the Jordan. Now the priests can come up out of the Jordan. So Joshua commanded the priests, come up out of the Jordan, and the priests came up out of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of the lord.

Pastor Cameron: 21:36

No sooner had they set their feet on dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before. It's like the lord was like, hey. Look. Into this unknown future and this unknown place, I will go first.

Pastor Cameron: 21:56

My presence is going first, and I am going to hold back the floodwaters until you are through it. And then I will come and join you, right, and the floodwaters will return. This is essentially how the story is being told. Verse 19. On 10th day of 1st month, people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on

Pastor Cameron: 22:21

the eastern side eastern border of Jericho, and Joshua set up at Gilgal the 12 stones that had taken that they had taken out of the Jordan. He said to the Israelites, in the future, when your descendants ask their fathers what do these stones mean, tell them, Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground. For the lord your god dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The lord your god did, your the lord your god did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up until before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the lord is powerful, and so that you might always fear the lord your god.

Pastor Cameron: 23:15

Earlier in the story of a verse that

Pastor Cameron: 23:16

I skipped, let's see. Joshua 4 verse 9 says, Joshua set up

Pastor Cameron: 23:23

the 12 stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant have stood, and then he says this, and they're still there to this day. Now I don't know to what day jot they were referring, but I'm gonna believe in faith that somewhere on the west bank of the Jordan River, just outside of Jericho, there's a pile of 12 stones that the lord has sovereignly in his sovereignty, not allowed to be moved yet. And we were we were kinda making semi plans in first service to take a field trip over there, like, go to the West Bank of the Jordan River, try to find the stones, be reminded of what God did in that moment and deliver Israel to the Jordan River into the promised land. Maybe we'll do that. But this story is a really, really poignant example of how the Lord was like, I'm about to bring I've brought you through the desert.

Pastor Cameron: 24:24

I've brought you through a whole generation of disobedience to me, to the threshold of the land that I had promised to give you. And now I'm gonna bring you through the last obstacle into the, across the Jordan River, and I'm gonna lead you by my own presence in the ark of the covenant. And then when we get there, I don't want you to ever remember anything that happened back behind us. Just look forward. New futures.

Pastor Cameron: 24:50

Right? The new new year, new you. But the Lord's like, no. Actually, what I want you to do is I want you to literally take a physical memorial of what laid behind you and set it up in your

Pastor Cameron: 25:07

life in the future so that you never have to wonder if I am powerful to deliver you and if my faithfulness and my presence is with you. Because there will come times where generations after you will look at that pile of stones and say, what's with the pile of stones?

Pastor Cameron: 25:32

What hap what's what's going on over here? And you're gonna have the opportunity to say, oh, I'm so glad you asked. I'm so glad you asked. Let me tell you about the deliverance of the Lord. Let me tell you about the power of our God.

Pastor Cameron: 25:52

Let me tell you what the Lord brought me through. Let me tell you what the Lord God did in the face of our enemies, in every obstacle, when everything was against us. We got I've got this built in reminder to be like, oh, yeah. God delivered us with his powerful and mighty hand. God was faithful to the end.

Pastor Cameron: 26:17

He will be faithful to what? In the future as well. What is interesting here is we often think or we may be reading that story. When I read that story, fur the first time I've kinda, like, wrestled with the story, I was like, oh, okay. Yeah.

Pastor Cameron: 26:33

I get it. The lord wants us to pick up these stones and to place them on the bank of the river to, like, build, like, an altar to him where we worship him on the altar. We give sacrifices on the altar, but, actually, it's really clear that the stones were not for the Lord. It's really clear that the Lord was like, no. No.

Pastor Cameron: 26:56

No. No. No.

Pastor Cameron: 26:57

No. I don't need reminding of what I did. You need reminding of what

Pastor Cameron: 27:04

I did. These are to be, it says, a memorial to the people of Israel forever in chapter 4 verse 7. These stones are to be are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. Because what happens in our lives, right, is we experience the deliverance of the lord. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 27:25

We experience the goodness of the Lord. We experience the faithfulness of the Lord. We experience the compassion or the love of the Lord. And because we generally

Pastor Cameron: 27:37

we generally have very short term memories is, is when we have the next really negative or painful,

Pastor Cameron: 27:49

or hard circumstance, situations, sickness, broken relationship, loss of job, internal struggle, mental, emotional struggle. We become consumed in the moment of the struggle, and we tend to forget the generational faithfulness of God to deliver us from everything else.

Pastor Cameron: 28:17

We forget it. The Lord doesn't forget. The Lord remembers it all. He is faithful to complete in in in us the things that he has

Pastor Cameron: 28:27

started. But when we run up against the next difficult thing, it becomes it becomes consuming mentally and emotionally and spiritually to us. And in God's mercy to us, in God's grace to us, in God's faithfulness to us, he was like, what I want you to do every time you pass through the river on dry ground is to pick up a stone and make it put it in a little memorial of my faithfulness to you. So that when you're tempted to believe that you're all alone, you will see the pile of stones once again and remember for generations upon generations how I delivered you back then, and I'm gonna deliver you now. It was a it was a gift from the Lord.

Pastor Cameron: 29:23

It was a way in which they were able to root their feet in God's faithfulness towards the future.

Pastor Cameron: 29:33

By picking up the stone and taking it with them.

Pastor Cameron: 29:39

See, I think that God commands us to remember. Commands us to remember. This is essentially what happened with Joshua. Right? The Lord told Joshua what to do.

Pastor Cameron: 29:54

Joshua commanded the, the tribes of Israel to do it. Commanding you to do this because this is from the Lord.

Pastor Cameron: 30:05

That the Lord wants us, not just wants us, but demands that we remember his faithfulness. Don't forget this, he says. Whatever you gotta do. If you gotta carry a literal stone on your shoulder it says that they had to carry up out

Pastor Cameron: 30:22

of the river the stones on their shoulder. In verse 5, each of you should take up a stone on his shoulder according to

Pastor Cameron: 30:29

the number of tribes. What size stone must you carry on your shoulder? Not a small one. Right? A big one.

Pastor Cameron: 30:41

So it's like heaving up this stone. Like, no mistaking it. It would it's not going to be there there there's you're not just picking up a stone and putting it

Pastor Cameron: 30:51

in your pocket, forgetting it forgetting that it's almost there. Right? It's, like, it's gotta be big.

Pastor Cameron: 30:56

It's this stone's gonna be big enough for you to like, there's no way you're gonna forget his existence. Right? The Lord commands us to remember it. This was all God's idea. This is something, like, why I say, like, the idea of, hey.

Pastor Cameron: 31:16

Just look forward. Just look forward. Don't look back. Don't look back. Is I understand the sentiment of that, But what what what I see in scripture is that the Lord pretty consistently calls us to remember, to look back.

Pastor Cameron: 31:40

When, when Moses, and Aaron were leading the people in the wilderness in the book

Pastor Cameron: 31:44

of Exodus, right, and they had the

Pastor Cameron: 31:46

10 command they were given the 10 commandments, all of these commandments about what

Pastor Cameron: 31:53

to do and what to not do. Right? Do not take the lord or, you know, worship only the lord your god. Right? Worship no other god.

Pastor Cameron: 32:01

There should be no other gods before me. And then a bunch of do nots. Do not do not murder. Right? Do not commit adultery.

Pastor Cameron: 32:11

Do

Pastor Cameron: 32:11

not make any graven image. Do not covet. Right? Do not steal. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 32:18

And at the end, there was there was a commandment that had nothing to do about what, like it was not a do not do or do this language. It was it was what? And remember what?

Pastor Cameron: 32:35

The Sabbath day. Thank you. Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy. God actually gave us in our weekly rhythm, the normal rhythm of our life, a built in place where we are to stack up all the stones of his

Pastor Cameron: 33:03

faithfulness from the week to remember his goodness and deliverance of what he has brought us through. Remember the Sabbath day. Don't forget, god god has created an environment for us to reflect and remember on his goodness and his deliverance because he knows the fickleness of our hearts to continue in chaos, all gas, no breaks, no opportunity to stop and look behind us to remember his deliverance.

Pastor Cameron: 33:43

To remember his goodness. And then as a whole culture, we we, we we sit and we wonder, why am I always so discouraged? Why do I not feel God's presence? Why do I feel so so far away from the Lord?

Pastor Cameron: 34:03

Why haven't I seen the Lord move in my life? Why don't I feel him? Why don't I know his love? Why am I still suffering under this weight of x, y, or z? Largely, not the only reason.

Pastor Cameron: 34:19

Right? But largely, it's because we have adopted a view of, like, well, the devil doesn't take any days off so neither am I. Listen. The devil is a really bad role model.

Pastor Luke: 34:31

Mhmm.

Pastor Cameron: 34:33

Jesus rested.

Pastor Cameron: 34:38

Jesus took time. Jesus had space to remember, to worship, to pray, to celebrate, to see the faithfulness of God in his life, and we need space to remember too. God wants to

Pastor Cameron: 34:55

give us the tools to remember his goodness in a world that only wants to drown him out. God wants us to know and remember his powerful hand of deliverance. This is interesting too is that, like, what we see here in the story of Joshua is that the remembering of God's faithfulness and deliverance

Pastor Cameron: 35:20

of the Israelite people didn't just affect them. It also affected the people around them. K? When when God shows up

Pastor Cameron: 35:31

in our life in a like, generationally with faithfulness and goodness and provision and love, alright, we then develop a testimony of God's continued faithfulness in our lives that does not just minister to us, but it now ministers to the people around us. God's faithfulness in our lives develops a testimony that points other people back to him and literally affects the environments and the relationships in our lives, sometimes in a negative way. People are like, I just don't get why you're so joyful through all things through all these things. I don't I I really don't get how you can remain a person of faith with all that you're going through. I just I I don't get it.

Pastor Cameron: 36:29

And, like, and listen. You will see people separate themselves from you as you begin to develop an increasingly deep relationship with the Lord because you're like, man, he has done too much in my

Pastor Cameron: 36:51

life for me not to believe that he will continue. But look in,

Pastor Cameron: 37:05

at the end of chapter 4 and the beginning of chapter 5 of Joshua, where where the story says that it was like he did all of these things in order to to ensure that other people knew that he was powerful and that

Pastor Cameron: 37:22

he was a deliverer. Verse

Pastor Cameron: 37:25

24 of chapter 4 Joshua 4, he said this. He did this or, like, I I suppose some context. If you go to 23 for the of chapter 4, for the lord your god dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. That's the thing that he's talking about. The lord your god did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over.

Pastor Cameron: 37:54

So the Lord provides deliverance and passage through the water of the Jordan. Right? That's the thing that he did.

Pastor Cameron: 38:03

And then in verse 24, he did this, he did that, he provided that deliverance so that all of the people of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful. And so that you might always fear the Lord your God.

Pastor Cameron: 38:28

The Lord dried up the Jordan River to give safe passage to the people of Israel so that all peoples on earth would know the deliverance and power and holiness of the God that the Israelites served. It was not just meant for their own personal encouragement in the faithfulness and presence of God. It was meant to be like a a beacon, a testimony, a loud speaker, a lighthouse of God's power, of God's deliverance, of God's holiness that all peoples on earth would know who this God is. And what we see is that's exactly what happened. The first verse in chapter 5 says this, now when all of the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all of the Canaanite kings along the coast this this is the this is the peep these these are the people groups that already were living in the area that the Lord had given to

Pastor Cameron: 39:31

the Israelite people. The Israelites knew they were gonna have to

Pastor Cameron: 39:35

go over the Jordan, and they were gonna have to push out the people who are already occupying the land that God had given to them. And they knew that they were gonna have to go over and do it through military action. It's why the specific tribes that are listed in chapter 4 went first, because those were the military tribes of Israel. They went first. But what's it say in in chapter 5 verse 1?

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Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until we had crossed over, their hearts melted, and they no longer have the courage to face the Israelites. So the testimony of god's deliverance led to, like, more than just an encouragement of their hearts. Now why why why preach on a passage like this at a time like this? Well, because I believe that there is great power, that there is purpose, that there is, that there is that there is learning and revealing that can be done in our lives. When we look back on what God has brought us through in the last year, And we recall his faithfulness and we recall his goodness and we recall his compassion and we recall his mercy and we recall his glory and we recall his power.

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To look just forward into 2025, I think, is only half of the

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story. Because if

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you just look forward into 2025, forgetting everything that was behind you, you go forward in a kind of a latent sense of hopelessness of, like, well, I hope this is a good year. I hope it works out. I hope things happen the way that I want to. Listen. You don't have to go through with kind of, like, this empty sense of hopelessness and darkness about what's coming forward.

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You can be like, I am moving forward in the confidence of the God that has sustained me year after year after year after year knowing

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that the one who went before me then is going to go before me now. Gonna go before me. And it is a it is a I'm gonna if you would take some time this week to engage in this, spiritual

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practice, I am confident that the Lord will reveal himself to you and his faithfulness in new ways as you kind of, like, plan and prepare and walk into 2025.

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If you look back to 2024 and you're like, alright. I'm gonna pick up that stone from January. Remember

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what god did there? I'm carrying that with me, and I'm putting it over here for 2025. And pick up this stone from February and this stone from March April, and I'm gonna I'm gonna have a whole story of god's faithfulness through the year that is like the foundation for my belief moving forward in this new year.

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Now practically speaking, if you're anything like me and I were you were

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to ask me to be like, hey, Cameron, what was the most significant thing, spiritual lesson, moment with the Lord, that you learned from in January 2024?

Pastor Cameron: 43:29

We're like, January? That was, like, a whole year ago. I don't have I don't remember what happened to me in January. Like, it's all kind of, like, just a blur to me.

Pastor Cameron: 43:45

I don't know. You might you might be like that where, like, I I have no idea. You might be

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like my wife, forgets to bring

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her water upstairs with her every night. However, if I asked her what she wore February 3, 2022, what we did on that day, who we talked to, the events that we did, the conversations that we had, like, iron trap

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of a memory for months months months forgets our water just about every day. Yeah. I don't know which one which side of the equation that you're on. If you're like, I don't remember what happened to

Pastor Cameron: 44:25

me in January, so I don't know that I could do this practice. Or whether you're like, yeah. I remember it all, and I don't need this helpful if you're like me and I wanna remember, like, geez. What was life like even in January?

Pastor Cameron: 44:39

I don't remember. I did this a little bit last night as

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I was going over my sermon. And I was like, how like, so let me see if this works for me, and it does work. Okay? I took out my phone, and I went to my camera app or my cam or, like, my, pictures. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 44:55

And I hit the search function, and I just searched 2024 in my pictures and pressed enter. And it brought up all the pictures, all the videos, all the screenshots, whatever, that I took all throughout the year. And I scrolled back to January, and I was like, oh, yeah. Okay. And listen, not everything is, like, a really memorable picture.

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I have more unmemorable pictures than than really memorable pictures. Right? Well, what it did was it helped me to recall what was happening in life at that time, and it helped me to recall, like, what life was like. And maybe you don't take a lot of pictures on your phone, but maybe you have a calendar that you carry with you or a calendar in your phone where you can look back and be like, oh, yeah. I did that in January.

Pastor Cameron: 45:43

We went to that party or had that event or I went to that appointment. I remember now what was happening around that time of life, and I can go back now and remember what God did. Here's an example from my a couple examples from my life. So I went back and I couldn't remember, but I looked back and I I looked at my pictures from, like, January February. And we went through, like, a 6 to 8 week period in January, February in my family.

Pastor Cameron: 46:08

I've got 5 kids. Right? Where where we could just not, for the life of us, get healthy. It was like fever, after strep throat, after stomach flu, after cold, after strep throat again, after feeb like, it was just a miserable, miserable existence. I typically don't get very sick, but I came across a pitcher that my wife took of me, and I was laying on I was I was laying on the kitchen floor, high fever strep throat using a jumbo package of toilet paper from Sam's Club as a pillow, passed out in, like, this fever strep throat, fever that I had.

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And a bunch of people from FirstService were like, oh, yeah. We remember that picture. So I don't know who it got sent to, but just delete it now. But then I came across pictures of, like, all of our kids spread out in the living room, all with, like, blankets and thermometers and Gatorades and stuff like that. I'm like, oh, yeah.

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Oh, okay. Now I remember what happened then. We were so sick. And at that time, we we were so discouraged and we were so tired and we were so, like, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

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And and, well, like, that's not a good thing. Why would you wanna remember that? I don't wanna remember that. I don't. But what I can do and want to do is now remember, like, and give thanks to God for 1, bringing us through it.

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Because in that season, you never you

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think it's never gonna end. Right? This is gonna last forever.

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These kids are never gonna go back to school.

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Like, we're gonna be sick. We're gonna be sick forever. Right? And you're and you're questioning your sanity, and you're questioning the goodness of God, and you're questioning the mercy of God. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 48:15

But now, on the other side of God's deliverance and healing and provision, I'm able to stand in a place

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of being like, Lord, thank you for my physical health. Thank you

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for the health of my family. Thank you, Lord, for thank you, Lord, for an opportunity to display that seasons come and go, and you are still good, and you are still faithful, and this too shall pass.

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Thank you, lord. Thank you, lord, for that moment that allowed me the perspective to to now know that you are faithful and good for the next time. Right?

Pastor Cameron: 48:57

So some of the somewhat some of those things you learn in the bad circumstances, and some of those things you look back and it's a stone that you pick up from a really positive circumstance. Like, this July, Sherry and I, like, saw the pictures again. I didn't need reminding, but, like, saw the pictures that this July, Sherry and I, celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary. And it was like I saw pictures celebrating that. We got some Stacey Clark took some really nice pictures of us, and it was like it was a great opportunity for us to remember.

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What like, so what is the stone from a moment like that? Well, the the beauty of god's of of the covenant of marriage that god has established, a life lived together, intimacy and vulnerability and compassion and and, partnership and friendship and family and love, like, and it gave me an opportunity to say, lord, thank you for your faithfulness to sustain our family, to sustain our covenant, to be to bring us joy. And I mean, not just joy, but happiness in our lives together and to track the the journey of our marriage and our family. Lord, thank you for this. We can do this on a corporate level too, like talking about starting a second service downstairs and wondering how that is gonna how that is gonna work out.

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Is it gonna flop? Is it gonna fail? Is god gonna show up? Is god gonna continue to move? Is he gonna show us his faith in face, and it's been, like okay.

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I should've taken a picture to show you. Like, there's 65, 70 people down there this morning. Right? We wouldn't have room if we moved them all up here. It was like the goodness of God over and over and over and over again.

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I'm gonna end with this because I recognize that sometimes this, you know, like, I feel really positive about this time of year, but some I know that some

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of us feel kind of icky about this time of year. Like, because it's full of regret, It's full of things we didn't accomplish that we wanted to. It's full of, like, missed expectations or dreams, things we wanted to

Pastor Cameron: 51:06

see happen, relationships that we wanted to see grow or restore or move to health, or we wanted to be somewhere else with our business or financially or in our health or whatever the case may be. And for whatever reason, we're just not there. And so we're kind of sitting again in this moment of, like, I don't really care to think about the future because I'm still back in the past of everything that didn't happen. I wanna be really sensitive to that, saying that I understand and that I have compassion for that and, like, minister I wanna minister to you in that. Also, knowing that as much as I could stand up here and tell you that, hey.

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Tomorrow is a new day. The like, God has a God God has a new plan for tomorrow. God's mercies are new to that there's there's no amount of words that I can say from my mouth that rest that will restore your hope for the Lord into the future. That that can only come from your willingness to allow the word of God spoken and read over you to take root in your heart so that you believe what it says and it can produce fruit for you in the next day. I think a lot of times I didn't say this for a service.

Pastor Cameron: 52:27

I probably should've because I feel it right now. I think a lot of times, there is an expectation, right, that you come to church, you hear the word, and you expect that the things that I would say would be the things that would bring transformation in your life. This is just kind of a rehashing of we just need more spiritual information in order for the transformation to happen. And as much as I appreciate that level of confidence, right, I'm here to tell you that there's nothing that comes out of me that is life transforming. It is everything that comes out of the word of God and the spirit of God internalized to you that transforms you.

Pastor Cameron: 53:13

Right? And so if you're looking for the silver bullet, like word of inspiration and advice from the pastor at the front of the room to flip the switch in your life, you're not going to find it here. But if you come in a spirit of expectancy and anticipation that the Lord has something to say to you, that the Lord desires that your word take root in your that his, word take root in in your heart, and that his spirit transform you, and that his spirit convict you of sin, bring you to repentance, and move you in transformation so that you're more like Jesus tomorrow than you are today, if you come expecting the Lord to move in your life, he will.

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And if you come here expecting that I'm going to say something that changes you, I won't. I can't even change myself. I can't change myself. The Lord has to do that. His word does that.

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His spirit does that. I don't have

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the power to change who I am. The Lord has to change the Lord changes me. I participate in the Lord's transformation by surrendering myself to him, by crucifying my flesh that I might be resurrected to new life in the spirit of

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the living God. But I don't do it. He does it in me. And so if I can't do it for myself, I can't do it for you.

Pastor Cameron: 54:56

But what I can do is read confidently over you the word of the lord, confident to every with every fiber of my being down to every speck of, like, cell in my body, that the word of God, the spirit of God, faith in Jesus Christ holds everything you need to transform every aspect of your life, every relationship, every circumstance, every situation, every thought pattern, every disease, every sickness that the law every that here contains all you need for life and godliness. And so I will continue every day, every week, with every fiber of my being to show up and proclaim to you that the mercies of the Lord are new every morning. Then in Lamentations just I I said all that to get

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to this verse. Okay? Lamentations chapter 3 verses 22 and 23. Because of the Lord's great love, We are not consumed. Not the waters of the Jordan, not the enemies on the other side

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of the bank, not the 40 years of walking through the wilderness, Not 2024, which tried to destroy us,

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but now here we are. Because of

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the lord's great love, we

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are not consumed by any of it. For his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, every moment, every minute, every second. Great is your faithfulness. God is ready to restore

Pastor Cameron: 56:51

and renew his compassion and mercy in your life for the next moment, for the next day, despite what you walk through in 2024, despite what you walked through yesterday, God is a God of compassion and mercy. You will not be consumed. He is faithful to the future. Let's pray. Heavenly father, lord, I pray that we are consumed by your compassion,

Pastor Cameron: 57:32

that we are consumed, lord, with mercies that are new.

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Let lord, that no circumstance that we would walk through in 2025 would derail us, lord, from the fulfillment of your promise in our life. Lord, we thank you

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from this story from the book of Joshua. We pray, Lord, that this week, you would help us to look back,

Pastor Cameron: 58:05

maybe look back on our pictures, look back on our calendar, just recall in our memory the tremendous ways that you have delivered, provided, shown your love, been faithful to us, and that, lord, we might make a record of it. Lord, I pray that you would give us the grace this week to do to to follow through with that spiritual practice, follow through, Lord, with the practice of recalling your goodness in our lives throughout this last year, to make a memorial somewhere where we would not walk away without remembering your faithfulness. Lord, great is your faithfulness. Great are your mercies. They are new every morning in Jesus' name.

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Amen. Heavenly father, we worship you Yes. For you are holy. We worship your son, Jesus,

Pastor Cameron: 58:59

and we express our faith in him, lord. That by our faith in him, your spirit lives and dwells in us,

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one faith, one god and father of us all, one spirit living in us, uniting us, lord, together.

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We thank you. Father, your faithfulness has sustained us through generations, and we know, lord, will continue in us what you have stolen. In Jesus' name, amen.

Pastor Cameron: 59:33

Kinda, you are loved. Have a great week, and we'll see you next time.