1 CHRONICLES 5 HOW TO BE FAITHFUL TO GOD IN 20192019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: 1 Chronicles 5 How To Be Faithful To God In 2019

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Does anybody remember this game? Donkey Kong, right? Can anybody do the sound effects? I couldn't either. I had to look them up and then I was like, these don't even sound familiar. So I didn't put them in the message. But

I was thinking about this game as I was preparing for our time together this morning because, well, Donkey Kong was a game where your objective was to reach the top, right? That's where the princess was. You had to save her. But as you're working your way up, then, well...

the Donkey Kong is throwing barrels at you, and so you have to jump over them, dodge them, hit them with the hammer, you know, or kind of time it so that they pass by, and then, you know, you go, and going up and down, and back and forth, and you're going through all of this effort, and

trying to reach the top without being destroyed. And I think that's a good picture for us to start with and to think about this morning as we look ahead at what God has in store for us and the life that is in store for us in 2019.

I think Donkey Kong maybe paints a little bit of a good picture for us of what spiritual life really is like. In a similar way, we have the objective to get to the top, right? To grow in our relationship with God, to draw near to God, to be victorious in our Christian life, to become more like God. We have this objective that we are working towards, but we also have an enemy who's throwing barrels at us.

seeking to sabotage us, seeking to destroy our progress and to set us back to the beginning and seeking to destroy our lives. And the enemy will be throwing some barrels at us this coming year as we seek to walk with God. And you have to jump and you have to dodge and you have to, you know, overcome

These obstacles that come and these hurdles that present themselves before you in order to progress and to go forward in the life that God has called you to. This morning, I've titled the message here in 1 Chronicles 5, How to Be Faithful to God in 2019.

And it's something that we need to consider as we get started this year. It's the first Sunday of the year and well done. You are here this morning to spend some time with God and we'll partake of communion together. It's a great way to start the year. But really what I'm asking you to consider is how will you end the year?

When it comes to December 2019, and maybe you don't wanna think that far ahead, right? But when it comes to December 2019, how will you make it that far in your relationship with the Lord, in your progress, and in all that God desires for you and desires to accomplish in your life? Looking ahead at 2019, there is no question that God will be faithful to you. For sure, without a doubt, without question, God will be faithful to you in 2019.

But the question I would ask us to consider this morning is, will I be faithful to God in 2019? Will I progress? Will I walk with God in the way that he has called me to? And maybe you can begin considering that question by looking back to 2018. Were you faithful to God in 2018?

Did you end the year having the relationship with God that, well, he desired for you to have and that he had established and made available for you? Did you end the year at the place where God wanted you to be? And as you go forward now with a new start in 2019, will you end this year with the place that God desires for you and has established for you?

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And this particular chapter deals with these three. And what we see happen here is there's great victory that takes place. They go to battle. They're in the midst of the battle and there's a great victory. It tells us in verse 20, because they cried out to the Lord and they put their trust in him, they accomplished this great victory.

But then it's interesting to consider, here you have this group of people who are God's people, who experienced great victory, and then you get down to verse 25, and it says, and they were unfaithful to the God of their fathers. And it should give us pause. It should cause us to consider, how do you go from being people who trust God and have great victory to people who are unfaithful to God? And to the point that in verse 26, it goes on to tell us that

They were carried off into captivity as a result of their unfaithfulness to God. So they didn't just kind of, you know, miss a step or blow it in a form and then get back on track. They persisted in unfaithfulness until they were actually taken into captivity by the Assyrian Empire.

How do you go from great victory, trusting in God, to unfaithfulness to the point of captivity? And that's the thing to consider as we look at these three tribes together.

This morning, because that's what happened to them. Now, as we start considering these three tribes and what that means for us, I'd like to just kind of do a quick refresher on the geography of the land of Israel to help you kind of put in perspective some of these things. So first of all, this is a look at the land of Israel and you have the Mediterranean Sea, uh,

there on the left-hand side, and that's the border of the land of Israel on one side. And then on the other side of the nation of Israel, you have the Sea of Galilee with the Jordan River and then the Dead Sea. It's kind of the water features that kind of shape the boundaries of the land of Israel.

And the majority of Israel was established within those borders, within those boundaries. And you might remember under the leadership of Moses, the children of Israel came up from the south

They came up from the wilderness after coming out of Egypt. They were going to go to the promised land and they got right to the border. That was the Jordan River. And then God said, Moses, you're not going in. Joshua is going to lead them from here. And it's Joshua who, you know, takes the leadership at that point. They cross the Jordan River and begin to conquer the promised land and inhabit the land that God had given to them. And so here is the land of Israel, the land promised to the people of Israel, to God's people.

Now before they crossed over the Jordan and began to take over that land, the inhabitants on the side of the Jordan that they were on began to attack the people of Israel. And so God through Moses led them to battle against those peoples and they accomplished a great victory there. And as they accomplished victory on the east side of the Jordan, these three tribes, Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh decided, you know,

We just conquered this territory. We like it a lot. It's really nice. It's perfect for our families and our flocks, and we could just really see the potential here. So how about this? How about we inhabit this side of the Jordan? We'll take this territory that we just conquered, and then the rest of you can go into the rest of the land, and that is what happened.

And so these three tribes settle on the east side of the Jordan. The rest of the people of Israel cross over the Jordan and settle on the west side of the Jordan there between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea. And so the reason why these three tribes are different and distinct is because they settled a little bit differently. They planted themselves a little bit differently. They stayed on one side of the Jordan and the rest of the tribes of Israel crossed over to the other side.

Now what's interesting and important to consider about that is that these three tribes later on would turn away from God. We see that unfaithfulness here, which all of the nation did. In fact, all of Israel went into captivity as a result of unfaithfulness. But what's interesting to note about this is that these three tribes were engaged

went into captivity first, the soonest, the fastest. They, as a result of perhaps some things that we can consider this morning, their location and some of those factors, they were the first to turn away from God and the first to go into captivity. Now again, how do you go from one place to the other? How do you go from great victory because you trust in God to unfaithfulness that leads to captivity? But

Even though that might be kind of curious for us to look at and consider, it is the pattern that many people follow. Even today, I would say people in the church, that there is a similar pattern where there is a great victory and then it

Well, it doesn't end in great victory. That just is the beginning. And the end is unfaithfulness that brings captivity. Paul tells us that the accounts that are recorded here in the Old Testament are for our benefit so that we have an example sometimes of what not to do. Sometimes we learn examples, you know, good examples, follow this, worship God like this. Sometimes we learn this is some cautions and some warnings for us so that we don't go down the same path.

I would suggest these three tribes here set themselves up for failure. And we can learn from their example how to not do that and instead set ourselves up to be faithful. As we look again at the year ahead, there's no question that God will be faithful to you in 2019. But will you be faithful to God? And so let's walk through a few things looking at these tribes and what we can learn from them. Point number one, as we look at this passage and these tribes this morning is keep putting your trust in God.

If you want to know how to be faithful to God this year, it's a very simple answer right here in the first point. And that is you need to continue and keep yourself perpetually trusting in God. Not just a one-time thing, not just for a big victory, but in an ongoing way. Looking again at this passage, I'm going to jump into verses 18 through 20 and here's what it says.

Verse 1.

He heeded their prayer. Why? Because they put their trust in him. Why was it that God heeded their prayer? It specifically tells us because they trusted in God. Here is these three tribes joined together for battle. We don't know exactly the timeframe and when this happened, but they joined together for battle against some surrounding enemies that are around them.

And what this passage is highlighting is the fact that they were a very small army in comparison to the enemy. The enemy they faced were much larger. We don't know the exact numbers of the enemy. We know their numbers. It tells us in verse 18, they had 44,760 men in their army. Now that's a good amount of people, right? If you have a stadium full of 44,000 people, you understand that's a lot of people, right? Definitely a significant amount of people.

But it's not significant when you're going to battle against an army of 100,000 or more. And that's what they were facing. If you'll notice in verse 21, it tells us as they, it describes the spoils of war as they get to walk away from the victory with all the rewards. There's all this livestock described and 50,000 camels and, you know, this abundance. But then at the end of verse 21, it tells us also 100,000 of their men died.

So they went away from this battle with 100,000 captives. There's 100,000 of the enemy's camp who survived this battle, which means there was more than 100,000 to start with. In verse 22, it says, So how many were in the enemy's army? We don't know. At least 100,000. And at the very least, that's two to one odds, right? They had double the army of these three tribes, right?

But these three tribes were victorious. Why? Even though they were outnumbered two to one or three to one. Why were they victorious? Because they cried out to God. Because they trusted in God. He heard their prayer. He heeded their prayer and gave them victory. Now the way this is described, it doesn't look like God told them to go to battle.

We don't see God instructing them, all right, mount up and go to war. He may have, and it's just not recorded, but we just don't know. But the way it's described, it looks like they went to war, they got in over their heads, and when they realized they're in over their heads, then they cried out to God saying, we're outnumbered, you know, we need God's help here. And then as they cried out to God, then God listened and gave them victory.

Either way, it's a good thing for us to consider because both things happen in our lives. Sometimes God leads us down a path and sends us in a direction that is, well, we end up over our heads. And sometimes we just go ourselves and get ourselves in a crisis situation and we're in over our heads. And either way, we have the opportunity to cry out to God and trust in God and

And God is able to work in our lives. I like the way that Matthew Henry says it. He says, And that last line is pretty powerful to consider. God never yet failed anyone who has trusted in him.

Of course, as we look back on our lives, we can see the truth in that. Now, we can also see that, well, God answered our prayers differently than maybe we had expected or what our preference might be. You know, he might have done things differently, but when God is at work, it is always for our benefit. And later on, even if we don't see it in this life, we'll see it in eternity. It's for the better. And

It is true. God has never yet failed anyone who has trusted in him. And here they are in the midst of this crisis and perhaps by their own doing, and as they cry out to the Lord, God heeds their prayer and gives them victory because they trust in him.

It's really a great example for us, trusting in God in the midst of this impossible situation. But again, the question here for us with these tribes is, okay, so they had this great victory. They trusted in God into this great degree, but how did they get from there to turning from God? And I would suggest to you the answer is pretty simple. They didn't continue to trust in God in that way. They trusted in God that one time. They had that one occasion, that great victory, and they told stories about it for years to come. But

But they didn't continue that. And why did they not continue that? Well, perhaps there's a couple clues here in the passage. As you look at verse 23, it says, so the children of the half tribe of Manasseh dwelt in the land. Their numbers increased from Bashan to Baal Hermon, that is to Seneir to Mount Hermon.

First of all, I would say we can consider that one of the reasons perhaps that they did not trust God in the continuing manner is that their numbers increased. At first, they had to trust God because they were outnumbered. Their enemies outnumbered them. They had to trust God. They cried out to God because they were in over their heads. But when their numbers increased and they weren't outnumbered any longer, well, there's a great temptation in those circumstances to

feel like I don't have to trust God like I used to because we have the numbers now. We have enough people now. We have it established now. So there's not the need to cry out to God and trust God like I used to.

Not only that, but in verse 24, it goes on to describe their leadership. These were the heads of their father's houses. These different guys, I won't try to name them again, but it says they were mighty men of valor, famous men, and heads of their father's houses.

Not only did they have greater numbers now, but they had greater men. They had famous men. Hey, we don't need to trust God. We've got famous people leading us. We've got great leaders who are making Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh great again. And so, you know, no need to trust God. No need to call out to the Lord and rely upon the Lord. We have greater men. We have greater numbers. And

It's easy to see that because that is a pattern that is common even for us today. And you've probably experienced this kind of pattern in your life where there's a situation with desperate need and you cry out to God and God brings deliverance and he does a work. But then in the aftermath of that, there is that walk in the victory and there can be a comfortableness that develops a complacency in us.

So that we're not trusting in God like we were because, well, we don't have the crisis at hand. And you probably have experienced then staying in that comfortable place and it leads you to a point of drifting away. Because, well, you're not trusting in God the way that you used to.

It's easy to stop trusting in God in that way. It's easy to stop crying out to God in that way when you don't see the desperation of the situation at hand. Now, our need for God never changes, but our perception of our need for God changes all the time. Sometimes we just don't feel like we need God that much.

And so we're not crying out to him. We forget how much we need God when things are going well, when money's in the bank and things are not threatening us. And we can, in those situations, begin to rest and trust in our resources and in ourselves and in what we have instead of trusting in God. Now, how can we avoid that pattern? How can we protect ourselves from slipping into that complacency that comes from victory?

Well, I would encourage you this morning to keep putting your trust in God. Notice in verse 22, as it's describing the victory, it says that many fell dead because the war was God's. They had victory in this battle. They had victory in this war. Why? Because they cried out to God and this was God's war. This was God's battle that they were involved with.

And because they were involved in God's battle, they had great victory. I think this reveals for us and reminds us of an important principle in our lives. And that is we need to keep ourselves in God's war. To keep putting your trust in God is going to involve you not just trusting in God in the time of crisis that happens upon you.

but also you making some deliberate decisions to pursue a path because God has called you to. A path that requires you to trust God. I often share this quote from Pastor John Corson. He says that every Christian should be involved in something that will fail unless God is involved. And the idea there is that we need to continue to take steps of faith.

And continue to walk with God in a way that we are involving ourselves in God's war, in the work of God, in the call of God, whether that be an aspect of ministry, whether that be a new job opportunity, whether that be some new relationship in some way, but that we are doing things because God has called us to it. We're participating in the work of God, the kingdom of God. And the way that God works in our lives when he's leading us and calling us

He's also stretching us. And so those things often involve, well, steps of faith and things that we're uncomfortable with and things that we can't accomplish on our own, but that will fail unless God intervenes. And so in order to maintain our faithfulness, we need to have these kinds of things in our lives that we are purposely making a decision to respond to God, to be involved in God's war. What are you doing today?

In your life right now, what are you doing that is because God told you to do it? That you have to rely upon God, to trust in God in order for there to be victory in that area. Listen, there's no question that God will be faithful to you this year. The question is, will you be faithful to God?

And that starts with you putting yourself in a place where you continually put your trust in God, where you don't just rest on successes and victories and resources that you have, but that you continue to listen to God and seek out what God desires for you, that you would trust in him, take steps of faith.

Try new things. Be led by the Lord in new ways and things that are greater than you and over your head. For me personally, I shared with you over the past several weeks that the Lord really ministered to my heart while I was in, while Kim and I were traveling about doing worship on Wednesday evenings.

And for me, this is one of those areas where, you know, it's not my gifting, it's not my calling, it's not my battle, but God's called me to it. And so for my sake, I'm going to engage in that battle and I'm going to be leading worship on Wednesdays for that reason.

not because I need to show Ronnie how it's really done, right? That's not the reason. That's not, you know. No, no, no. This is because God wants me to be involved in something that's going to fail unless he rescues, unless I trust in him and he delivers. And we all need those kinds of things in our lives, and it may take different forms or shapes, but what

But what are you doing in your life that you're doing it because this is what God has called me to and it's causing you to continually put your trust in him? Well, moving on to consider the second point for this morning, and we're not really working our way verse by verse, but point number two this morning is put away unnecessary obstacles.

As we consider these three tribes and consider what caused them, what happened in their life where they went from great victory and trusting in God to unfaithfulness leading to captivity, I would suggest that they had some obstacles in their lives that didn't need to be there.

Listen, as we face life this year, life is going to throw some barrels at you. There's going to be some doozies. There's going to be some things that come from seemingly out of nowhere. There's going to be some issues and a crisis. And there's going to be news and things that happen that you're going to have to jump over and hurdle and work with and all of that. Life is going to throw those things at you. But not only that, your enemy, Satan, he's going to seek to destroy you this year.

He's going to throw some barrels at you and try to trip you up and cause you to fall. Your own sinful nature is going to throw some barrels at you. And you're going to deal with things that, you know, you wouldn't have expected. The battle is within. And here it is, all of a sudden, out of nowhere is this obstacle, this issue. You have life throwing these things, Satan throwing these things, your own sinful nature throwing these things at you. Listen, you don't need any other extra obstacles in your life.

There's plenty that's going to be thrown at you this year to challenge your faithfulness to God. You don't need extra hurdles to get over just, you know, to strengthen yourself or for fun. You need to clear out as many obstacles as you can. There's going to be enough challenges that you'll face without adding to it. And I think that's demonstrated here as we look at these three tribes. Again, considering the geography and the natural division that was there.

These three tribes settled on the east side of the Jordan River. And there was a natural division. You had the Sea of Galilee at the top, the Jordan River that went all the way down to the Dead Sea. There was no way to get to the rest of the tribes, to get to the other side without either crossing the river or crossing the Sea of Galilee or crossing the Dead Sea or going all the way around on the top or the bottom. There was a natural division.

between these two pieces of land. Now, not that these were huge divisions. When we're talking about the Jordan River, we're not talking about some raging, uncrossable, impossible to get over river. But it is significant enough that, well, God parted the Jordan River for the children of Israel to walk across under the leadership of Joshua, right? So there was some significance to the river. It wasn't just a little creek that was no big deal, but also it was crossable. It wasn't impassable.

It wasn't huge. It wasn't too big, but it became an obstacle. And think about this, for these three tribes settling there on the east side of the Jordan, where was the tabernacle going to be? Remember the tabernacle, that's the place God said, here is where I'm going to meet with you. And it's going to move about from place to place while we're in the

but then in Israel, when I bring you into the promised land, I'm going to choose a place, put my name there, and that's where you're coming off of your sacrifices. That's where you're going to come and worship me. That's where you're going to be forgiven of your sin. That's where I'm going to meet with you. All of your relationship with me is going to take place there. Where was that going to be? Well, they didn't know at that time exactly the location where it would be. They didn't know. But one thing they could know for sure, it wasn't going to be on the east side of the Jordan.

For sure they could know. It's not going to be on that side because God's called his people to cross the Jordan into the promised land and the tabernacle is going to be set up there on the other side. And so wherever the tabernacle is set up, now they have this natural division, this obstacle that every time I decide, hey, I want to go meet with God, I have to think about how am I going to cross the river?

Not impossible, but hey, it's something to think about. How am I going to get my family across? How am I going to get the lamb that I need to go sacrifice across? How am I going to get my cart across? Oh man, I don't like getting wet. The water's cold this time of year. It's really hard to get across. And now there's all of these natural reasons for them to neglect that aspect of their lives because...

There's this obstacle. They have to cross the river. Now this wasn't God told them, you guys have to camp out and live on this side. Numbers chapter 32 describes the situation. They saw the land. They liked the land. They asked, hey, can we stay here? We don't want to cross over. We want to stay here. And Moses allowed it. God allowed it. God lets you make your choices. And if you put obstacles in your life that hinder yourself,

God allows that. If that's your choice, if that's what you decide to do. We are constantly battling our own natural tendencies when we try to seek God and walk with God. Our natural tendency is not to seek God. If we're left to ourselves, we do not walk after God and seek after God and grow in a relationship with God. We have to purpose by the strength of God.

to draw near to God, by the grace of God, to walk with God. The last thing that we need is extra hurdles in our way or obstacles in the way between us and a relationship with God. That's the last thing we need because we're already inclined not to do it. And so now if we have to jump over hurdles and go through these things, well, it's going to discourage us even more.

from drawing near to God and walking with God. And so what kind of obstacles are those that we face? Well, I would refer you to Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. The author of Hebrews there says, Here the author of Hebrews describes two unnecessary obstacles.

One is sin and the other he describes as weights. Now sin, I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. Sin is obvious. It's the things that the scripture forbids. The Bible says thou shalt not, you shall not do this. Or it says you must do this and you don't do it, then it's sin. So we have the clear documentation of the Lord. This is sin. And practicing sin is like setting up roadblocks in your path to God.

You still have access to God, but you're keeping yourself from God because you're pursuing that practice of sin. So lay those aside. Repent of sin. You don't need that in your life. That's only going to cause damage. It will never help you. But then he also says we need to lay aside the weights. And that's interesting to consider because weights, you could think of it as, it's not necessarily, you know, specifically forbidden as sin in the scriptures, but

but it's just something that holds you down. It's something that hinders you, that holds you back from where you need to be. And so I would ask you to consider what hinders you from spending time with God? What holds you back? What holds you down? What hinders you from trusting in God? What obstacles do you face? What do you have to climb over in order to spend time with God and His Word?

What hinders you from spending time with God in prayer and having a consistent time in communication with the Lord? What hinders you or what obstacles do you have to get over in order to serve the Lord and fulfill some things that he's put upon your heart and do the things that he's called you to? These are some important things for us to consider. Now, because weights are not sins that are, you know, listed and we can't point to chapter and verse for every weight, we

Because, well, we have sins that are described and given to us. We have that very clear. But weights are very personal. Everybody's weights are different. Things that are weights in your life may not be weights in somebody else's life. Things that hinder you and hold you back may not be the same for the person right next to you. Everybody's weights are different. And so there is a need, and I would encourage you to spend some time in prayer and invite God to show you if you've allowed some unnecessary obstacles in

To be set up so that now to walk with God in the way that he's called you to, you have to go through this obstacle course and jump through these hoops and get through these things. And I'm going to share a few examples just to kind of get the wheels spinning, but these are not, you know, all of the limit of, you know, what these things are, but just a couple things to start you thinking about these things. Sometimes spiritual disciplines can become weights or obstacles in your life. Now that might sound weird coming from me, but sometimes

You remember a few weeks ago, I encouraged you to consider stepping it up a little bit, right? Maybe an extra shovel full, time with God, an extra shovel full of time in the word, time in prayer, and progressing in your devotional life. And I stand behind that exhortation. I would still give that exhortation. But at the same time, I've seen it happen in my life and in many others' lives that sometimes we have this sense, okay, I need to spend more time in prayer. And we take it in a legalistic way, right?

And we go farther than what God is actually calling us to. But, okay, I need to spend time in prayer. So what I need is the system, and I need to, let me start collecting prayer requests. And now I've got 400 prayer requests. And now I wake up in the morning to spend time in prayer, and I go, 400 prayer requests. I mean, I could do five, maybe 10. Like, how do I get through 400? I don't know how to get through 400 prayer requests. How do I pray for all these things? Lord, I just pray that you'd work in all these situations, and then I move on, right? That sometimes, sometimes,

I can overcommit to something and then now I feel guilty because I haven't been praying like I should be praying because I have all these 400 things I'm supposed to be praying for. But I'm not praying like I'm supposed to be praying. So I don't pray because I'm afraid of the guilt that comes from praying because I know I'm not praying, you know, what I committed to pray. All of these things. Same thing happens with reading the scriptures, right? I used to love, I still encourage people to spend time daily in the Word of God.

We used to encourage everybody in a one-year program, right? And I still do a one-year program. I would encourage you to consider a one-year program. It's a good challenge for you. But at the same time, that might be way too much for you. And there's a lot of people that start the one-year program, and by the time February hits around, you know, it's like, I don't read the Bible anymore.

Well, why not? You're so excited you're going to read through the Bible in a year? Well, yeah, but I got behind a couple days, and then I didn't have time to read the six chapters instead of the three chapters, so I didn't read today because I can't read, I can't, you know, catch up, and then it builds up, and I'm so, I haven't read, you know, for a couple weeks now, and so there's no way I can catch up. I'm way behind, and now I've sabotaged myself.

None of this is what God lays on us, right? That's why I always encourage people, listen, just read today what God has scheduled for today. Let go of that. That's lost. Just let go of it. Just read today what God has scheduled for today because sometimes that becomes an obstacle. Well, I need like four days of straight reading the Bible to catch up on all that I've missed. No, you don't. Just start reading today a little bit that God has scheduled for today.

And so sometimes these spiritual disciplines, we mean well when we start them, but we take them in a legalistic way that God never intended, and it becomes actually something that hinders us and holds us actually back from spending time with God and walking with Him. Another avenue, another aspect to consider, obstacle that might be taking place in your life, it's called candy crush. Familiar? Yeah.

Candy Crush, maybe yours is Toon Blast or, I don't know, Bejeweled or Bedazzled or whatever. One of those, you know, sometimes, hey, there's no sin in playing Candy Crush, but if it begins to dominate your life, which sometimes that can happen,

You're not spending time with God. You're not involved in your relationship with God. You're not pursuing, you know, God like you should because, you know, you have a limited number of lives and a limited time to use it. And you got to get that time in and your teammates are relying on you and, you know, all of these things. And it can become an obstacle that messes you up. And along with that, I would say, consider your cell phone notifications. And the tech guy in me would say, listen, you have control. You get to tell your device that

I don't want to be dinged or buzzed for that. I only want to be dinged or buzzed during these time periods. And you know how it is, you know, you sit down to pray and then ding and buzz. And here it goes, you know, there's distractions and things, obstacles. I have to get over this. And hey, if you set yourself up to, well, I'm going to do my Bible reading on my phone. And then that is a problem for you because every time you pick up your phone, you have all of these other things to deal with and you never actually get around to spending time with God. Well, that's a problem. It doesn't mean that

People cannot spend time with God on their phone, you know, reading through the scriptures in that way. But if that becomes an obstacle for you, it's an issue. It's a weight. It holds you back. It weighs you down. We can be weighed down or have obstacles in a variety of ways. You could go down the line, TV, sports, kids, schedules, life, whatever, careers. You need to pray.

Are you gonna be faithful to God this year? He's gonna be faithful to you. There's no question about that. But don't approach your spiritual life expecting everything to always be easy. You need to understand there's gonna be some challenges and so you need to clear away anything unnecessarily that is difficult or hard when it comes to drawing near to God and fulfilling what it is that he's put upon your heart. You don't need those extra obstacles. Life has plenty that it's gonna throw away.

The enemy has plenty he's going to throw. Your sinful nature has plenty. You're going to deal with obstacles. You don't need the extras. And maybe it's time to lay aside some weights. For sure, sin, that easily ensnares, yeah, you need to lay that aside. But also pray over some other things that maybe are not specifically sin. God lets you make a choice. It's your choice to make. But

You need to allow him to show you if those things are not things that are beneficial to you in your walk with him. For me personally, as I shared earlier about this job offer that I received and the opportunity, my biggest prayer, I think, in regards to this is, is this an obstacle?

I mean, it looks great. It meets so many things. It's like awesome in so many ways, but Lord, will this end up being a distraction from what you want from me and what you have in store for me? And so that's what we're praying over is, is it of the Lord? If it's of the Lord, great, but if it's not as great as it looks, we, well, could be setting ourselves up for danger and problems if we move forward in that direction.

And so we need to put away those unnecessary obstacles. Finally, point number three to consider this morning, and that is stay close to God's people. Again, this year, life is going to throw some barrels at you. Satan's going to throw some barrels at you. Your own sinful nature is going to throw some barrels at you, and you're going to need God's help to overcome those. But you're also going to need the help of God's people. You can't face all of these things alone. You're not designed that way. You're not equipped for that.

As we look at these three tribes, again, looking at the geography, I would describe it this way. They distanced themselves from the rest of God's people. Again, it's the same natural division. The Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River, the Dead Sea. It wasn't huge. It wasn't insurmountable, but it was just this natural barrier. Every time I want to go see my friend, I have to figure out how am I going to cross the river. And, you know, I'm not going to cross the river.

This time of year it's cold or it's hot or the water's moving fast and, you know, what am I going to do? How am I going to? And it's an extra step. It's an extra thought. It's an extra obstacle that separates these people from the rest of God's people. It started causing problems right away when they made this decision.

In Joshua chapter 22, it describes a situation where they were headed back to their land across the Jordan and they set up an altar on the banks of the Jordan and the rest of Israel misunderstands what that altar is all about. They rise up, they're about to go to battle against their brothers and they work it out. They explain, no, no, no, we built this to remind you guys that we're on the other side and we're part of you.

You misunderstood, but already there's miscommunications because there's this separation and division between. They built an altar on both sides of the Jordan. And it explains there in Joshua 22, I think they're pretty naive actually in their explanation. They say, we're building these altars to remind you, the rest of Israel, that we are part of you. And the reason why I say they're naive is because they didn't think that they needed the reminder to

They thought other people need the reminder, but not us. Listen, if you need that reminder, let me remind you, you need God's people and you're part of other people. Christians were never designed to be alone and by themselves. It's not good for man to be alone. That's not just doctrine for single people. That's doctrine for us as believers. That's why we're described as members of the body of Christ. Listen, if I dislocate this,

My hand from my body, what happens? What would you expect? My hand to go on and live a long, prosperous life? No, you would expect it to lay there, rot, and decay, right? The same is true for us as Christians. If a member of the body is detached, it starts to decay. When we distance ourselves from the people that God has placed us next to and linked us with,

It deteriorates in our lives if we're detached. I'm not just talking about attending service. That's a piece of it, but I would ask it this way. How is your life intertwined with the lives of other Christians? God has designed it not just that, you know, we show up and see each other's face once a week, but that we're a significant part of each other's spiritual development and walk with God.

The author of Hebrews describes it this way in Hebrews 3. Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God. But exhort one another daily while it is called today, lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. He issues a warning, watch out. There is a danger of unbelief. There's a danger of departing from the living God. There's a danger of unfaithfulness like Reuben, Gad, and Manasseh. But you can protect yourself from that danger. How? By exhorting one another daily.

We can protect ourselves by staying close to God's people. And that involves the gathering together. Again, Hebrews, he tells us to not neglect the gathering of ourselves together. That's important. If there's some distance, some hurdles, if you have to drive 30 minutes to get to church, I would encourage you to consider maybe God wants you to do something different. That's not a law. God may call you to commute three hours to church, and that's fine. He can do that. But

But if you're holding on to things because you've got this attachment and you know, I can't leave my church, but then you don't go on Wednesdays because well, it takes me 30 minutes to get there and then afterwards I have to go 30 minutes and it's such a long day already and so I don't go to church because it's too long to get to my church. Well, you need to find another way then to connect with God's people and get involved where God wants you to be involved. Speaking of which, I would encourage you guys, listen, Wednesday nights is largely a women's Bible study these days. Where are you guys?

You need to be around. You need to be gathered together with God's people wherever it is that God has planted you. But beyond attending service, you also need to develop relationships and have friendships and pray together and talk about the things of the Lord together and walk together in the things of God and serve God together. You need to have those kinds of relationships and attachments. You need to reconcile. Hey, if there's any division between you and other members of the body of Christ, you need

Like any division that happens in your body, it needs to be addressed. It can't just be left. Well, I'll just make new friends. No, no, no. You need to go and reconcile. Do your best. We see that all through the scriptures. Look at Philippians 4. Look at Matthew 18. Stay close to God's people. Make amends. Work things out. Reconcile. There's no question that God will be faithful to you in 2019. Will you be faithful to God? A large part of that will be determined by your relationship with the people that God has placed in your life.

These three tribes distanced themselves. Disconnected people can be surprised when they fall away, but it's really not surprising. When you pull a fish out of water, it's not a surprise if it doesn't survive because it wasn't designed to be out of water. In the same way, you weren't designed to be on your own. You were designed to be engaged with and connected with other people. Stay close to the people of God. And so here we have some insights in how to be faithful to God, to learn from their example of what not to do.

We need to keep putting our trust in God, keep stepping out in faith and putting ourselves in situation where we trust God and walk with God. We need to clear out of our lives anything that's unnecessary as far as obstacles, things that hinder us and hold us back from the life with God and the relationship with God that he has called us to. And we need to make sure that we establish and maintain those relationships with the people that God has placed around us.

And as we engage in these things and walk in these things, there's great opportunity for us to walk with God in a way that is faithful. And life's going to throw its barrels and Satan's going to throw his barrels. And sometimes we'll get hit by a barrel and knocked out, but we have unlimited lives by the grace of God to get back up and to get walking again. And this morning we have the opportunity to do that as we partake of communion together. We're going to close out. Ronnie, if you want to come up and lead us in a closing song, the ushers are going to pass out the bread and the cup and

At any time during the worship song, you are free to partake and Ronnie will give you an opportunity to partake at the end if you haven't. But this morning as we prepare for communion, I would encourage you to consider Jesus Christ came, he gave us these elements, the bread and the cup to remind us of his blood that was shed, his body that was broken, that we might have extended to us the grace of God and the forgiveness of God so that even when we are unfaithful, he's still faithful.

And we have, you know, another quarter to put in the game and we can start again and try again and get back up and begin to trust in God and to begin to clear out those obstacles and develop those relationships with God's people. We have opportunity, unlimited grace for seeking after God and getting to know God and walking with God. And so I would encourage you this morning to allow God to minister to your heart about those things. If there's anything that's holding you back,

Now's a good time to lay that aside as we remember what Christ has done for us. Let's let this be a new devotion of ourselves to God that we're going to walk with God. Not perfectly because we're not perfect, but we're going to walk with God. We're going to receive his grace and we're going to set ourselves up for faithfulness that we would be victorious in the life that God has called us to.

And so let's worship the Lord together. And again, you can partake of the bread and the cup anytime during the song as the Lord is moving on your heart and you're ready to do so. Let's worship him together. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.