Joshua: Be Strong & Courageous! Reconciling Faith & Fear
This week Pastor Gene takes us to the book of Joshua as we reconcile faith and fear.
Video can’t be displayed
This video is not available.
Sermon Transcript
Auto-generated by YouTube
good morning you ever answer someone with you too just automatically happy father's day that would be okay i almost said it to a woman this morning you too you too oh we need your if you're new here among us my name is gene and i serve here at c3 church as your lead pastor if you're not new here among us you know that i was not here last week so i want to thank the body of christ the participating members here who make it possible for us to get some much needed rest the staff and ed who delivered a great message last week i look forward to seeing more of ed in the future he is great if you're not new here among us you can probably guess where i went on vacation here's a running joke we only go to disney if you want to find me you can look at my house a couple of local pizza places here the church or disney that's where i am that's it those are the only places we go we've added miami to the list so now you've got a 50 50 shot of guessing if you guys are taking bets but we love disney and it's not about mickey mouse i was describing it to someone this morning they own like a whole county in each theme park or like multiple cities you could just stay at one of the resorts there and that's it you don't have to go into the park they have multiple restaurants it's pretty amazing it's a fascinating place so for us it's more than just the rides the amusement park rides it's about the food as that noted the pizza via napoli and epcot center makes like the best pizza in the whole world if you're new here among us you probably already know everything you need to know about me i love pizza it's an important part of my life speaking of rides is there anyone else here besides me who is afraid of certain rides if you're being honest do certain rides cause you a little anxiety like no thanks i don't want to go on that one now most of the rides at disney are pretty tame like space mountain all right if you've ever seen that roller coaster with the lights on you might be embarrassed that you were ever afraid of it because it's actually like a kitty coaster it's just in the dark so it makes it feel like it's doing more than it really is now i don't mind roller coasters for the most part what i do mind is plummeting i don't like plummeting i don't like heights but i don't like drops i discovered this in my early to mid 20s a group of me and my friends we went to disney world and we came upon the tower of terror now right there it's telling you you should be afraid of it it's in the title right so i don't know any people who are well sane and say terror is a feeling that i really want to experience today today i'd like more terror in my life if that's you we can schedule an appointment and i'll see you in my office this week terror right but i'm with my friends right so i don't want to say i don't think so today no i go on the ride at first it's okay it's all seemed like 1920s hotel or something like that they got the bellhops everyone's in character they're really good at that at disney you go on it there's an elevator and at first it's kind of like your average dark ride everything's okay until boom the doors open up and you are at the top of this building you can see jerusalem from there you're at the pinnacle and you plummet it drops you several times in random sequence so you can't prepare for it ever again or figure it out i was a little bit terrified i got off the ride it was okay everything was fine somebody in the group asked you want to do it again i said nah i'm good let's do dumbo so i was good until i got home that evening and tried to go to sleep and i felt like i was on the tower of terror over and over and over and over again apparently i have a bad equilibrium vertigo something like that so now when we go there and someone asks me if i want to go on the tower of terror i say no thanks and i am happy to wait for you in the gift shop of shame well just wait there i don't care now my wife and daughter they don't have this problem so they can go on all the rides and i wait in a lot of gift shops this is what happens right there's the rockin roller coaster that's a little crazy too i don't need to experience that so i'll wait for them to gift shop a shame but they're not scared of too much at disney but i think it's safe to say that my wife doesn't like a certain ride i'm not going to say that she's afraid only god knows what's in her heart and so that's not for me to judge he doesn't like dinosaur the dinosaur ride does not like it now if you've never been on it i'll briefly explain this to you it's really cool i think it's a really cool ride because of the ride vehicle it not only just doesn't just go on a track it goes everywhere so it moves you around like you're really going over the terrain and the wilderness and everything the premise is that you're being shot back in time to when a meteor is about to hit the earth and destroy everything the time of the dinosaurs right and you're supposed to save this baby iguanodon or something like that yes i got the dinosaur name right and so you're going around and you build a lot of excitement all right we're not going to make it we're not going to make it they're they're tiny it's a really short ride 90 seconds you're not going to make it you know so we're looking for this thing there's dinosaurs and it's not too bad it's dark but they're not too close to you yet and then maybe you know 60 seconds we're not gonna make it pterodactyl comes a little too close and then we're stuck and all of a sudden like tower of terror you get the reveal right this dinosaur is on you it's huge the first time i went on the ride i got off the ride i was like i could smell what it had for breakfast it smelled like captain crunch and people it's really invasive if we're being honest it's kind of scary and big but i'm used to it now my wife does not like it she doesn't feel the same way so she's built in shields for herself to deal with this ride she doesn't want to say i'll wait for you in the gift shop now she knows that the moment this reveal happens they take a picture of you all right so that's a problem what are you going to do you know we we play around me and sophie were at the dinosaur so we think it's funny because when in the gift shop they have all the pictures of what you look like at this reveal right you can buy them we're too cheap we just take pictures of the picture but now they have things over it like disney don't don't take pictures of the picture actually give us money so anyway this is in the gift shop of shame and you can see how silly everybody looked glad i didn't do it but we prepare for it sophie and i know heather also prepares for it what she does is she makes sure that she's on the opposite side of the ride vehicle and i'm right under the dinosaur that's one that's her first you know shield wall of people that she sets up for herself the other one is quite clever quite clever she has what i like to call another shield and it's not like the ephesians 6 kind of shield of faith it's kind of the opposite i refer to it as the hair shield of fear very interesting if you know heather you know she puts her hair up a lot if she's at work she does it with the pencils and stuff like that but i don't think they allow the pencils in disney world maybe they saw john wick we'll move on she uses hair clips and i like them because they're like dinosaurs so she doesn't allow me to play with them anymore so she puts them in her hair but before she gets on this ride that hair clip comes out and she does like the superhero move all right and i can hear the wonder woman theme song playing she gets her hair ready puts the clip on her bag at the moment in which the ride vehicle gets stuck she goes forward and of course the hair shields her face you can't see it now i'm told that this time heather was strong and courageous she said i didn't hide myself this time well we got off the ride and mysteriously little picture things were out of order now conspiracy theory you can read about it on the internet but i think she was on her phone texting dustin and asking him to hack the photo machine before the ride but i'm told she was strong and courageous speaking of strong and courageous some of you know where i'm going today we're going to be in the book of joshua we're going to do the whole thing so we'll get out of here about two or three o'clock i'm just kidding try to get you out of here for food afterwards we fellowship and eat together we're in a series called the rest of the story if you're new and this is where we're looking at parts of the bible that sometimes aren't really talked about a whole lot kind of like the rare stuff or the hidden stuff have you ever done the story as a church if you've been in church for a while they leave out a lot so we're really concentrating on that stuff and kind of reviewing the typical stories that are told in church just to get to the full counsel of god's word we're connecting a lot of dots today we will connect a lot of dots two weeks ago so ed's was a standalone we were in the book of numbers and deuteronomy where we were wandering the wilderness with the israelites we see that moses dies the people 20 years old and older are not allowed to go to the promised land flowing with milk and honey why because of their sin and disobedience they scouted out the land 10 of the 12 people that scouted out were too scared they didn't trust the lord so fine you will all die in this wilderness after wandering for 40 years moses he's disobedient he strikes the rock in anger instead of speaking to it so that the water comes out so we saw that moses died and now he has a successor so at the end of deuteronomy we read this deuteronomy 34 9. now joshua son of nun was full of the spirit of wisdom for moses had laid his hands on him so the people of israel obeyed him doing just as the lord commanded moses so joshua is an interesting book about half of it is concerned with the allocation of the division of the land right so all these promises are made previously in the previous books now we are in the fulfillment of it so it's almost like repeating itself a little but they're actually doing it and so you get to a place in joshua's about halfway through where there's a lot of names and this is where a lot of people for being honest quit because it's just a whole list of a bunch of names or so it seems that we can't pronounce very very difficult so it's kind of like numbers remember we're talking about that where numbers can be very difficult because it's the registration of all these different people very monotonous if we're being honest but the cool thing about joshua is it also has stories that are easy to remember these accounts but they're front loaded so that's what we're going to do today i'm going to take you through these stories briefly i'll be like a tour guide stopping the ride vehicle at certain points and pointing things out to you but we won't talk about dinosaurs so the beginning of joshua this is what the lord says to him joshua 1 6 be strong and courageous for you are the one who will lead these people to possess all the land i swore to their ancestors i would give them be strong and very courageous be careful to obey all the instructions moses gave you do not deviate from them turning either to the right or the left then you will be successful in everything you do study this book of instruction continually meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do this is my command be strong and courageous don't be afraid or discouraged for the lord your god is with you wherever you go so we see the typical theme there been in church for a long time you would say the theme of joshua is be strong and courageous fair enough in the lord we'll look at that today so here what they're going to start doing is they're going to start preparing for the conquest of this promised land they're going to cross the river jordan and then they're going to conquer the land for themselves as the lord promised them we're going to say that the lord is fighting for them but first they prepare so you're going to see in the book of joshua some practical preparation and some spiritual preparations so it's not one or the other it's a little bit of both so first joshua sends out to spies to spy out the first city that they're going to conquer the lord is going to conquer for them jericho you're probably not story we'll go over it briefly today he sends out the spies the king there gets word of it he's looking for them they end up at rahab's house rahab is a prostitute the king approaches her she says yeah they've been here but they took off maybe you can go catch up with them but she's hidden them on the top of her house underneath some flecks she goes and approaches them everybody hears about these crazy things that are going on god is fighting for them so she wants some kind of security hey i saved you essentially so what are you gonna do what kind of pledge well we'll pledge with our own lives we won't harm you okay great so her house is kind of a part of the wall of jericho and she lets them down the wall with this scarlet rope and they say well keep that rope dangling from the windows we know where you are in there keep all you and your family in the house you won't be killed okay fine now maybe a bible study will get into it there's an interesting story about rahab she actually connects to ruth and she makes it into jesus's genealogy a story of redemption in there very very interesting so worth noting so we keep going and now they're going to cross the river jordan now this should remind you of the exodus with moses it's kind of like that but a little different no one's pursuing them this time so the levites these are like the priests just say for short they bring the ark of the covenant into the river and it stops up so that they can pass through on dry ground and they do so they get some memorial stones out of the river 12 of them they set them up so that everyone your children will remember what the lord did for you today the ark leaves the waters overflow the banks of the jordan river again they re-established the covenant the covenant with the lord so this whole time the younger people hadn't been getting circumcised they got to do that now again preparation for these victories so we see they get flint knives and they're circumcised to prepare themselves they heal up they celebrate passover there's no more manna bread from heaven now the land will give them that provision so you see they start eating from the land again it's all in preparation for these successive battles we even see a little more fulfillment there was from some foreshadowing to come moses and the burning bush if you remember in exodus 3 he's approached by the lord the same thing aboutish is said to joshua it's an angel of the lord the commander of the lord's army he says take off your sandals for this is holy ground same thing that was said to moses so there's a little full circle going on right there and now we get to jericho so a few things about jericho you cross the river jordan and jericho is really close that's like basically the first city there they're kind of going to travel west northwest a little bit and we'll see some more battles so the thing about jericho the main point is that the lord is securing the victory not them so there are very specific instructions to show that the lord is doing it so you have the levites again carrying the ark you have the pre seven priests with the ram's horns the trumpets blowing the trumpets in front of it soldiers on the front and back in this procession and they're told there to walk or march around the city one time a day you go around don't speak don't say anything just the ram's horns going around the city for six days then the seventh day go around it seven times and then shout the walls will come down sure enough they do the lord does it but here's the thing it's a tithe to the lord we have an offering video that mentions this the plays i don't think it's going to play today but they make a pretty good point it's the first city and there to just not plunder anything they have to destroy everything certain amount like the gold and silver that can go in the lord's treasury but everything else gets destroyed you're not to take anything for yourself and so this concept is in the law of moses the idea of a tithe the first fruits you're giving the first of everything to the lord acknowledging that it's because of him and so we do this practice no we're not under the law of moses in church today i tie they give ten percent of my paycheck before i get it it's a pledge i'm saying to god putting my money where my mouth is that it's not mine it's his it's because of him so again this is the theme even in the tithe it's all because of the lord has nothing to do with what the israelites are doing if you remember the blessings and the curses there's the rest of the jericho story here we see that joshua curses the city of jericho it's kind of interesting because a lot of people never talk about it and then they never notice what happens later he puts a curse on it he says the oldest son essentially of the person who lays the city's foundations again basically he'll die the youngest son of the person who raises the gates will die and it connects we'll see it in the rest of the story to give you a little glimpse into this we see it in first kings chapter 16. you may have heard even if you've never read it about ahab and jezebel right jezebel's not usually a good name for a woman it connotates something but these are these evil people evil king and queen they're in like a civil war now they're in samaria and there's this guy heil who decides he's going to build the city of jericho or rebuild it and sure enough his oldest son dies his youngest son dies and it mentions joshua there so it's a pretty long way out a lot of these things come full circle the point is only through their faithful obedience did the lord cause these victories but now there's a.i so if you keep traveling and you go well north west they're going to run into this city ai it's right near bethel bethel's just right near and a lot of you know what that is formerly luz they lose the battle they again scout it out the guys come back and they say two three thousand guys should be enough to do this we're gonna win okay so they do it and they get chased away 36 of them are so die now they're praying to the lord before the ark of the covenant why lord why did this happen the lord answers because oneia wasn't so obedient apparently there's a guy named aitkin during jericho he had taken some stuff for himself so now they have him killed he's stoned and burned to death along with all his stuff and his family remember though they were told don't keep any of this stuff for yourself so now that they've purified themselves in this way they can now defeat a.i again practical and spiritual the lord does say set up an ambush they're going to do something a little different this time but joshua make sure he takes not three thousand guys this time thirty thousand so he's gonna make sure they win takes thirty thousand people with them but then five thousand wait between bethel and ai on the side and they're going to set up an ambush so joshua's going to take the main army out he knows the king is going to see him out we'll defeat him again and they're going to chase him out they pretend like they're retreating so that everybody leaves the city of a.i and then the ambush happens they destroy the city and now ai is surrounded and now they can plunder it's no longer a tie they can take some of the stuff for themselves we see the fulfillment here of what we talked about two weeks ago the blessings and curses remember we talked about that theme that occurred all the way from balak and balaam through deuteronomy we looked at deuteronomy 27 8 the blessings and the curses and they were just instructions they weren't happening then here's where they do it on mount ebell mount gerrism they proclaim the blessings and curses or curses and blessings for what will happen to them for not being disobedient joshua says this 8 34 joshua then read to them all the blessings and curses moses had written in the book of instruction every word of every command that moses had ever given was read to the entire assembly of israel including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among them take note of that every word of every command was read to them and you guys say i use a lot of scriptures that's interesting we see that they're tricked people in the land are so scared the gibeonites are very afraid they know what's going on if you look at a map the gibeonites live pretty close to ai they're just a little bit i think south west from there not far but they pretend that they've come from a land far far away so they get dressed up in rags and they have stale bread with them and they pretend like they've gone on this long journey like this bride was fresh when we left and now it's all moldy and rotten and so they say make a treaty with us they're no threat well the israelites do but here's the problem they were told back in exodus after the ten commandments three chapters later don't make any treaties with anyone the main point here is they're going to lead you to idolatry you're going to worship their god so don't do that well they don't consult with the lord and so they end up breaking one of his commands despite this israel secures more and more and more victories all by the lord's power that is the point here big theme in the book of joshua lord make sure people know it hell comes down on some of their enemies the sun stands still at one point while joshua is killing five of the southern kings he tells the israelites joshua 10 25 don't ever be afraid or discouraged joshua told his men be strong and courageous for the lord is going to do this to all your enemies again the lord does it why important point many people miss joshua 11 15 as the lord commanded his servant moses so moses commanded joshua and joshua did as he was told carefully obeying all the commands that the lord had given to moses and so they were able to defeat giants the the descendants of anac this is the reason the 10 10 of the 10 or 12 scouts were afraid they saw giants we were like grasshoppers to them they said they thought the same thing they were too afraid they didn't trust in the lord this is the reason they got punished now they defeat them if you remember balaam who couldn't pronounce the curses right but you know he was hired out to do it he pronounced blessings instead even he dies in this account 1322 and now we get to the division of the land and here's where you all stop because it can get monotonous with the names most of the rest of the book of joshua is about the allocation the division of the land to the 12 tribes of israel joshua and caleb himself we hop forward just a little bit into judges and we see this about joshua after joshua sent the people away each of the tribes left to take possession of the land allocated to them and the israelites served the lord throughout the lifetime of joshua and the leaders who outlived him those who had seen all the great things the lord had done for israel joshua son of nun the servant of the lord died at age 110. if you're paying attention that sounds like someone else with a jain name they buried him in the land he had been allocated at tim not natsera in the hill county of ephraim north of mount gash now we often associate the book of joshua with the phrase be strong and courageous but there is another key phrase that is often overlooked and attached to it if you were picking up what i was putting down you caught it if you obey yeah be strong and courageous if you obey you will prosper if you obey go back to joshua 1 it says study this book of instruction continually that's a lot meditate on it day and night so you will be sure to obey everything written in it only then will you prosper and succeed in all you do if you obey in other words maybe you shouldn't be so strong and courageous if you are not being obedient saw that at ai right before joshua dies he tells the israelites this joshua 23 14 soon i will die going the way of everything on earth deep in your hearts you know that every promise of the lord your god has come true not a single one has failed but as surely as the lord your god has given you the good things he promised he will also bring disaster on you if you disobey him he will completely destroy you from this good land he has given you if you break the covenant of the lord your god by worshiping and serving other gods his anger will burn against you and you will click quick sorry quickly vanish from the good land he has given you excuse me did you know that in the greek joshua is jesus i'll give a little reminder but i encourage you if you're new and you haven't seen it yet watch the introduction to this series you can do it through the app or you can do it online really important the introduction and the bible study following it where i told you guys that the bible of the early church was all in greek the earliest manuscripts that we have of the christian bible are all in greek old testament and new testament the early church fathers believed that it was a superior translation that better pointed to jesus throughout the series i've been showing you how it does that we get more prophecies that way a lot of people don't understand that greek is very very important both old and new testament now i want to show you what it looks like and i don't expect you to be able to read any of that except the stuff up top in blue but it's interesting there we see the greek old testament joshua chapter 2. so it's talking about the spies and so he's going to send out the spies the second word there is actually like apostle to send someone out but the circled word is jesus but our versions read joshua that's weird but then you go to matthew this is jesus being sent in the wilderness to be tempted there's jesus that's weird what's that all about well we've talked about languages a lot in this series and so we do our best to try to pronounce the things and then translate them into another language so in greek it's like isus right so we do jesus they don't have like the j sound jesus is sounds similar well in hebrew which is what most modern bibles now we're coming around a little bit used for the base text of the old testament it says yeshua that's what it says yeshua so they made it sound like joshua but that's not what they were reading in the early church and so we get another connection by using the bible of the holy the early church we get a pre-figure of jesus and if you were in the early church if you saw it that way ah it would be a little more obvious to you that he was a pre-figure interesting little side note for the nerds out there if you go to numbers 13 and you look it says that joshua's name is hoshea or hosea and then if you keep reading it'll say that moses calls him if you're reading it in greek it says jesus pretty interesting but again a little more obvious if you're reading the bible of the early church that joshua was a type of christ he points to jesus he was a foreshadowing in leading the people through the river jordan an emblem of baptism or of afflictions or death itself in which christ is with his people he carries them through and saving rahab and her family christ also saves the worst sinners in receiving the gibeonites who submitted to him christ receives all who submit to him in his conquest of the several kings of the canaanites so christ has conquered the spiritual enemies of his people in bringing and settling the people in the land of canaan their rest and dividing it among them so christ brings souls into the true eternal rest joshua is a foreshadowing he is a type of christ but only one of them is our savior if we go to the best commentary that we have on the old testament that is the new testament we see this hebrews 4 8 now if joshua had succeeded in giving them this rest god would not have spoken about another day of rest still to come so there is a special rest still waiting for the people of god for all who have entered into god's rest have rested from their labors just as god did after creating the world so let us do our best to enter that rest but if we disobey god this is new testament mind you as the people of israel did we will fall you see because they weren't completely obedient they didn't completely conquer the land you can be strong and courageous if you are obedient and that obedience applies to us as well says god's word we like to kind of throw that away right the greasy grace thing i'm saved jesus got me so i don't need to obey not what god's word says we don't like obedience do we it's kind of hard it's a bad word in church isn't it it's like saying repent obedience we hate obedience we don't like it our culture tells us not to be our culture preaches rebellion to us the opposite we're not supposed to obey anyone or anything that's not what god's word says and you know what for being honest it can be hard to be strong and courageous can't it it can be hard sometimes we're afraid aren't we if we're being honest but it's okay to have fear of certain things i'll show you this like roller coasters or dinosaurs the word of god says we should have fear at times a lot of people don't know this it's not popular in the modern church but it's in hebrews this is what it says just before this for one we should tremble with fear that some of you may fail to experience it and i've heard a lot of bad teachings on this well that fear you know in the original language is really like reverence it doesn't really mean fear wrong someone who can read the greek is speaking right now phobia think of it like that fear it's just fear and trembling that's the word for tremors shaking with fear and it's not just there it's in other places not going to be the verse of the day anytime soon philippians 2 12 work out your salvation with fear and trembling same type of literally fear not reverence work out your salvation with you know just a little bit of reverence for god that's okay no fear him it's in ephesians 6. ah we love the armor of god don't we go back coming from five there's no chapter breaks in the original he's talking about familial relationships then children chapter 6 goes to slaves obey your masters with fear and trembling look it up ephesians 6 probably verse 5. again same word new testament over and over and over again it says we should have fear of the lord in fact proverbs tells us it's the beginning of wisdom to have fear in the lord it helps us to obey proverbs 14 16. here's an interesting one a lot of you may never have noticed that that's because it's footnoted the wise are cautious and avoid danger fools plunge ahead with reckless confidence a little footnote i'm glad they put it there but i wish they just would have translated what it actually says the wise fear the wise fear both in the hebrew and the greek it's phobia in the greek don't know hebrew very well fear and that's not even in the context of fearing the lord it's like ephesians 6 the context is fearing your masters there are things that we should have a little intelligent fear over the word of god says that's okay but here's the thing we must confront it and not lie about it there's this like little christianese thing right the bible says don't fear this many times right it says do fear a lot too both sides of the coin here so what we do though if we're not educated if we have not read the full counsel of god's word if you do not have a pastor a teacher teaching you the whole thing all of it not just selected verses that make you feel good you haven't heard this many people in church have never seen these verses at all and so what do we do we pretend ah well i'm not afraid because i'm a christian i'm doing what the bible has commanded me to do wrong told you you should have some intelligent fear sometimes especially of the lord but we pretend and when we pretend not to have fear we all have fear of something we pretend and now we have a culture of fake faith that's what we've developed in the modern church fake faith it's a shame unlike jesus who took his fears to the father it was logic you don't have to read these verses if you know the story you know what happened what did jesus do garden of gethsemane what does he do the night before he knows he's going to get crucified would you be scared excruciating they had to make up a word it's so bad he knows it's going to happen to him what does he do father if it's possible take this cup of suffering from me i'll translate that for you i don't want to do this it says he's horrified and distressed it's a good translation of that home christian really good i don't want to do this luke dr luke a physician writing the gospel of luke no it's a medical condition he has he sweats blood you don't sweat blood because you are happy you do it because you're terrified he was terrified but here's the thing our lord was faithful and obedient to that task he faced his fear and he gave it to the father this is what we need to do we can't be fake we can't lie about it we have to acknowledge it let our brothers and sisters come around us pray for us help us through it instead of being liars instead of being fake we have to be like jesus who is real give it to the father in prayer that's how we overcome our fears jesus was faithful and obedient the word of god defines faith as such hebrews 11 1 faith shows the reality of what we hope for it is the evidence of things we cannot see through their faith the people in days of old earned a good reputation if we keep reading the best commentary that we have on the old testament we see this it was by faith that the people of israel marched around jericho for seven days and the walls came crashing down it was by faith that rahab the prostitute was not destroyed with the people in her city who refused to obey god for she had given a friendly welcome to the spies we must start by acknowledging our fear we must then face it so that we can overcome our fears complete the task god has set before us with the confidence of christ if we keep reading the book of hebrews it says therefore since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith let us strip off every weight that slows us down especially the sin that so easily trips us up and let us run with endurance the race god has set before us how we do this by keeping our eyes on jesus the champion who initiates and perfects our faith because of the joy awaiting him he endured the cross disregarding its shame now he has seated in the place of honor beside god's throne think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people then you won't become weary and give up we get to the promised rest by fixing our eyes on jesus we must follow his example take our fears to the father pick up our cross as he commanded that which we were afraid of and carry it knowing we're enduring knowing the joy that awaits us we must follow his example in faithful obedience we must be strong and courageous by fixing our eyes on christ all we need is faith true faith in him he who has and always will be faithful jesus christ the lion of judah the leveling of jericho the alpha the omega the beginning the end our messiah our savior jesus christ because hebrews 13 8 jesus christ is the same yesterday today and forever amen