Takers, Part 7

know what those qualifications are in Scripture? And I realize that that might be a tough question to answer because it depends on the promise. But for the person who says, okay, here's a promise in Scripture, how do I know if I can meet those qualifications.

history and context. So when you look at what God has said, okay, so let's just apply it to Israel, how would they know that's their promise because of the if then conditional clause. So what would they have to do in order to have God forgive their sin and heal their land? Well, let's go to the New Testament. Let's go. So he said, that's the Old Testament. Can't you give us a New Testament illustration? Sure. One we need. Well, let me speak for myself. I know everybody's saying, speak

for yourself. Don't speak for me. All right, I will. First John one nine. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Do I want him to forgive and cleanse me? Then the condition is I must confess my sin. Homologeo say the same thing about it that God says about it. So it wouldn't be, quote unquote, like same sex marriage. It would be same sex sin.

And then God would forgive and and cleanse. And most of us want cleansing, but are we willing to let go of the sin?

suicide on several occasions. He was molested by his mother's friend, and prior to that, on three different occasions, he had been molested by men who should have been protecting him, but instead were exploiting him. So he had a very, very damaging childhood. He didn't complete high school, but later on in his adult years, he did get a GED. Uh, the only bright spot in his life is that his mom was a church goer. She knew the Lord and was a pleasant person, and she took him to church

all the time. And at an early age, like at some of the funerals, he accepted Jesus Christ. And that was a bright light in his life. It was a simple piece of advice That started to change for Emmett. Quote. Take back what was taken from you. Take charge of your own life. You can't control what happened to you in the past, but you can take charge of your future right now. And that started him. The words went

on to encourage him to start writing a journal. And so Emmett began to write a series of soul searching letters to himself as he journaled, the letters that he wrote to himself were full of pain. But in time, because of his relationship with Jesus Christ, they became a healing catharsis. And all of those individuals that had done

things to him in the past, he forgave them. Now that journal became the basis for his future and him taking charge of it because from his writings was birthed a God fearing, supposedly gun toting, pot smoking, loudmouthed grandmother who would greet you with good morning! You've guessed it, because at 16, Emmet changed his name to Tyler because he did not want to have the name of the man who was supposed to be his father but was

abusing him. And so Tyler Perry wrote 13 plays, 18 movies, nine TV shows, actor, director, producer and owns his own 200,000 square foot studio in Atlanta. 25 NAACP Image Awards. And on and on. And the list goes on and on. All I'm trying to get you to see is that the transition for him happened when he became a taker and all that he went through. And some of you know it. He took all of his life savings to

do his first play, and it was a flop. And it was years before he had his first successful play. We know that he lived under a bridge at one time, that he lived out of his automobile. At another time that he actually ended up living in a homeless shelter. But look at him now. All because somebody said you could take back what the devil has stolen from you, that God can restore the years that the locust and

the canker worm have eaten. And I just came to tell somebody that if it happened to him, it can happen to you. Because God is no respecter of persons, that whatever the devil has taken from you, God says, take it back, take it back, take it back now, now, now, now, now. A lot of people want to live at the top. Uh, but they don't want to make the climb that's necessary to get there. Are you. Are you hearing me now? Are you hearing me? It is. It is, uh. We

want their glory, but we don't know their story. That's right, that's right. And many people paid a price to get where they are. And folk look at it and think, oh, wow, they got it going on. Big baller shot caller number one stunner. Play a player from the Himalayas. Wow. But what did they go through to get where they are? Oh, come on now. You you know I'm telling the truth. Uh, a lot of you want a good marriage. Uh, but you won't invest in what it takes to make it better. Amen. Amen. Uh,

you know, folk talk to me all the time, you know? Man, man got a good marriage. Yes, I do, I praise the Lord, I do, I do, I do, I do, but I paid, I invested time energy. As a matter of fact, I did a marriage seminar yesterday and a single seminar on Friday. Let me tell you what I told both of them. I said, here's my motto. This is it. In my marriage. This is my motto. It is the me I be is the wife. I'll see. Did you hear that? Let me say it again. Because

they weren't listening on this side. The me I be is the wife. I'll see whatever I want her to be. That's what I gotta be. I want her to be more loving. Then I gotta be more loving first. I want her to be more giving. I gotta be more giving first. Whatever. I want her to quit spending all the money. I gotta quit spending all the money first. That's it. Because I have learned that if I want a better wife, the best way to get one is to be a better husband. Yeah. All the women are

saying Amen. The brothers ain't saying nothing. They ain't saying nothing. And so that's it. I mean, you know what I'm saying? You want better grades so that you can have a brighter future. Will I tell you it'll never happen? As long as you won't get off Facebook and get into your school book. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It's like, yeah, you want a better church, but you won't upgrade your commitment.

You complain in the light about what you're doing in the dark, and you refuse to go from membership to discipleship. You refuse to go from excuses to execution. You refuse to go from apathy to action. You refuse to go from just being present to being a participant. You refuse to go from complacency to commitment. You refuse to go from pouting to prayer. You refuse to go from tipping to tithing. And you wonder why our church is in such a mess. Well, look at your neighbor and say

neighbor can't build with moving bricks. Amen. Amen. Amen. And some of you. Some of you. You want a better dating relationship? Look, you find enough to drawing, but you don't have the character to keep them. Yeah, you rap good enough to draw her, but you ain't got the job to keep her order. No, no no, no. God gave Adam a job before he gave him a wife. Amen. Don't be looking for a woman. You ain't got a job. Lord. And so I like what Howard Thurman said. Does anybody

know who Howard Thurman is? Okay, now listen to me. Google Howard Thurman and let's see what Wikipedia says about him. He's one of one of our great heroes. Okay, so so Google who you going to Google. Howard Thurman brilliant brilliant educator. Here's what he said. He was a pastor and an educator. Here's what he said. He said we must saddle our dreams before we can ride them. Did you get that? We must saddle our. Here's all he's saying.

He's saying that people want the product without the preparation and the process that's necessary to bring the product. Okay, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. And here's what I want to see. How many of you are going to come to my office. I'm going to put a sign over my door that says James Ford, Junior, M.D., medical doctor. Anybody coming in, I'm going to I'm only going to charge $125 an hour. Can I get some people to come in? What, you going to come in?

But I don't have a degree. I just got to sign because I didn't go to school and prepare myself for what I'm saying I want to do. Oh, let me just move on. Let me just move on. Let's just go and move this thing on, alright? I sure will. And so here's, here's what's going on in this text. God is saying, listen, Joshua, I want you to be a taker. I want you to saddle your horse so that you can ride in on the dream that I've given you. And I've given you a dream team. It's

the children of Israel. And now I want all of you to go into this land and to possess your God given possession.

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will give you the manifestation of his revelation. When you meet his qualifications. That is, God already has given us the revelation, the promise. We don't get the product or the manifestation of it until we meet the qualifications for what God has said we can have. And so then we have looked at and said, how do we do that? Six qualifications. Let me run them. I'm only going to get to one more today, that's all. Uh, respond to God's plan, verses one and two. Uh, and then verses

three and four rest in God's promises. And then verses five and six rely upon God's protection. And then verses seven and eight readily obey God's precepts. And then verse nine, realize God's presence, and then ten and 11 recruit God's people. And so we looked at two weeks ago. And let me just remind some of you who may not have

been here in verses one and two. Listen to it now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua the son of nun, Moses minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even the children of Israel. Now notice this just as a way of recap, here's what he's

telling them. The time for procrastination is over. The time now is for decisive action that we've got to do what God has called us to do. One person, put it this way yesterday is a cancelled check. Tomorrow is a promissory note. But today is cash. Spend it wisely. See? Too many of us are the victims of the ready. Ehm ehm ehm ehm ehm ehm ehm. Syndrome. We never fire, we never fire. Anybody ever heard Edgar Guest's poem tomorrow? Okay. What? Are you going to hear it now? He was going

to be all that a mortal could be tomorrow. None should be kinder or braver than he. Tomorrow a friend who was troubled and weary. He knew who'd be glad of a lift and who needed it to on him. He would call to see what he could do tomorrow. Each morning he'd stack up the letters he'd write tomorrow, and thought of the friends he would fill with delight tomorrow. More time I'll give to others, he'd say. Tomorrow the

greatest of workers. This man would have been tomorrow. The world would have known him had he ever seen tomorrow. But the fact is, he died and faded from view. And all that he left here when living was through was a mountain of things he intended to do. Tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow. And so we looked at two weeks ago, we said, When God says move, you have to move. In spite of three things, you got to move in spite of people.

And so he said, Moses is dead. And so Moses was large and Moses was in a very miraculous period. And God did signs and wonders and, and opened up Red sea and all of that. And remember, we talked about the fact that one of the problems for Joshua is that he's young and somebody could look at him and despise his youth, and they can say to him, you know what? When Moses was the pastor, this was a rod stretching church. We didn't put our foot in

the water. And sometimes there are people who are looming too large. And we looked at that. We looked at Uzziah, uh, and we looked at Uzziah in Isaiah's life, that he didn't see the Lord fully until Uzziah died. And remember we said, some of us have some uzziah's and they gotta die before we can possess our possessions. But then, in spite of the past, uh, because, you know, it's amazing to me, uh, that some people are chained to

their past. There's some things that are very painful. I know in your past, but at some point, the past got to be in the past. And God. Moses represents the past the way we used to do it and all that. No, no. We gotta prepare for the future. Amen. Now, I don't know about you, but I've been doing it for the last ten years saying, listen, I'm preparing to pass the baton to, you know, for the future. Because the future church doesn't look like anything that it looks

like now. And we've got to get ready for the future. Then he said, in spite of problems, he said this. Jordan, what is he saying? He's saying, okay, now I need you to look at this, Jordan. God is pointing out the Jordan to Joshua. Why? Because that's what he has to cross. Well, what's going on there? The Jordan is over swelling its banks. So God is pointing to the problem that has the possibility for progress to the promised Land. Why would you point the problem out? Because some people

see a problem in every opportunity. And some people see an opportunity in every problem. Joshua, I want you to look at it. It's running over its banks. But I want you to know it cannot stop you from your promise. Get over it. Get over it. Now respond to God's plan. Now, now get this, get this, get this. We didn't talk about this. He's showing him the Jordan, but he never tells him what he's going to do to get him over it. You know what? You know why. You know why.

Because it takes faith to believe the promise. Apart from understanding how he going to do it. And that's the problem with us. We want to know, well, how are you going to do it? When are you going to work? How is this going to work? And God says, what did I tell you to do? Just get to stepping. That's all. Get to stepping. And once we get to stepping, we're walking by faith. God says, okay, now. Now you're here. Watch what I do. Boom! That's what he does all

the time. And here's our problem. We never get to stepping. God, I'm waiting on you. I'm waiting on you. But I'm waiting on you. But I'm waiting on you. But I'm waiting on you. Why are you waiting on me, God? Because I will not do what you can do. I will only do what you can't do. So once you do everything you can do and you get to the end of your rope, let go! I'll catch you. I'll provide. That's it. And so let me give you some principles I didn't give you last week. Here's what you need

to do. Here's what you need to do. Start today. Start now. Start today. I say I want to write some more books. And God has given me favor with a woman who's worked for 20 years for Urban Ministries, the top senior editor at Urban Ministries. And now she's helping me with my book. She takes my sermon DVDs and writes them out, and she she did me a book in two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. I've had it six weeks doing the redacting to it, you know, and she called me up. She said it only took

me two weeks to put everything together. What's taking you so long? And then my wife said. My wife said, honey, you ain't doing this right. You know what you need to do? What? She asked me this question. What are you doing every day. That is determining what you'll be tomorrow. You say you want to be a prolific author. Put some of the stuff that you've had in more books. But if you ain't writing. So she told me, she said, okay, here's what I want you to do. Go on in

that office right now. So you're talking to a woman. I'm talking to you. Go into the office right now and for the next two hours, work on that book. I said, don't be telling me what to do. And I went in my office, and I worked on that book for two hours. Amen. And she told me now every day, because that is a investment on your future. So every day, two hours. But what are you going to have at the end of a week, 14 hours

of writing? What are you going to have at two weeks, 28 hours and on and on and before you know it? But if you do that now to the end of the year, you may have five books, baby. Start now, start now, start now. And the second thing you ought to do See the opportunity in the opposition. That's what he's telling him. This. Jordan. Thirdly, quit running from problems that should be fixed and can be fixed by you.

Treasure Truth radio.org and clicking on the contact link. Thanks for doing that and thanks to our producer, Amy Rios for Pastor Ford, I'm Steve Hiller. Treasure truth is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.