This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day two of week five, our last week of the book of Joshua together.
We're talking about how you and I possess God's promises in our daily lives, how
we drive out the enemy, how we yesterday anticipate God's presence. That's how
you possess God's promises.

Today we look at a third principle, and that is you act upon assurance. You act
upon the assurance of God's presence. You anticipate it beforehand, and then
when you get in the situation, you act upon the assurance of God's presence.

The thing to remember about this is that God's promises come with an address on
them, and it's yours. It's your life. It's what God wants to do in you and who
you are.

We miss so much of what God wants to do in our lives because we read other
people's names into God's promises. That one's addressed to my pastor. That
one's addressed to my children.

That one's addressed to my neighbor. We have to allow a truth from Joshua to
sink into our lives so that we begin to see our names attached to God's
promises. In chapter 21, verses 43 to 45, there are some amazing verses about
what God did for the people of Israel all through this book of Joshua.

They fully express these verses, the faithfulness of God. They give us the
assurance of his willingness to carry out his promises in our lives even today.
But embedded in these words of assurance are some key attitudes that you and I
must have, we have to have, if we're going to act on this assurance in our
lives.

So let me read for you verses 43 to 45. Listen for the attitudes, and we'll go
back and look at three or four key phrases. So the Lord gave Israel all the land
he had sworn to give their forefathers, and they took possession of it and
settled there.

The Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he had sworn to their
forefathers. Not one of their enemies withstood them. The Lord handed all their
enemies over to them.

Not one of all the Lord's good promises to the house of Israel failed. Every one
was fulfilled. Now that is a life of victory.

That's a life of enjoying God's promises. That's really the end of the story in
many ways of the book of Joshua before the next story begins. God fulfilled
every one of his promises.

Look back with me at three key phrases in this fulfillment that is talked about
in these verses. First, the phrase the Lord gave. The Lord gave Israel all this
land.

It's a reminder that if I'm going to anticipate God's promises and then act upon
the assurance of his presence, I have to realize it's something that's given.
Promises come gift-wrapped, not in pay envelopes. They don't come in pay
envelopes.

Maybe you're trying to deserve God's promises. Maybe you're trying to build
assurance for receiving God's promises upon your works. Even if they're
spiritual works, how often I go to church, how much I read the Bible, how many
verses I've memorized, that is the wrong foundation to build on.

Sometimes we have this payday attitude towards God's promises. "Lord, I'll go to
church every Sunday if you'll do this for me. Maybe I'll be good enough to
receive God's promises in my life.

" Or the worst, "When I'm like him, when I'm like her, then I'm going to have
the same experience of God's promises. " Is your picture of receiving God's
promises some kind of payday, spiritual payday? It's the wrong picture.

Promises come gift-wrapped. They're more like Christmas Day than payday. Picture
in your mind a gift with your name tag on it when you picture a promise.

Now yes, promises have conditions, but those conditions are always about trust
to receive and not being perfect enough to earn the promise. So God gave. They
were involved in what God gave.

They had work to do, but God gave. He gave the land, He gave them rest, He gave
them victory over all their enemies. The place you live, the rest you get, the
victories that you have, do you see those things as God's gifts?

The place you live, the rest you get, the victories you have, do you see those
as God's gifts? That attitude is vital for the kind of assurance that acts on
God's promises. The vital difference is then our assurance rests squarely upon
His grace and not on our shoulders, which are pretty weak, the Lord gave.

Then there's a second phrase, "As He had sworn to their fathers," to their
fathers. This promise did not come about in a day. Their fathers did not see the
fulfillment even of this promise, but they did.

This is a reminder that promises take time. Israel had waited about 500 years to
re-enter this promised land. Individually, as you look back through the history
of Israel, Abraham waited 25 years for the promised son, Isaac.

Joshua and Caleb wandered 40 years in the desert waiting to get back in to
receive the promise. Jesus waited 30 years to begin His public ministry. And
we've been waiting almost 2,000 years for Jesus' second coming.

They waited several times that for His first coming into this world. Part of the
assurance to act upon God's promises comes from the willingness to wait on God's
promises. God's will does not blossom in a day, but neither does it wilt in a
week.

It is solid, it is secure, but sometimes we must wait for it. And promises are
more like oak trees than mushrooms. Mushrooms can sprout up quickly in your yard
and in a day all of a sudden you have a mushroom.

But an oak tree grows slowly, but once it has grown it is solid, it stands firm.
God is building toward eternity. That is something worth remembering in our
instant society.

There's no such thing as an overnight express promise. God, could I get that
sent overnight express? There's no such thing.

God's promises will sometimes show themselves to be real in your life
immediately. There's no doubt about that. But it's just as likely that they will
take time to find their fulfillment in your life.

And some kind of an express, male expectation tied to God's promise will quickly
destroy your assurance. Because you'll think, "God, you promised, but you're not
doing it. " And God is saying, "Yes, I'm doing it.

It's not in your timing, though. It's in my timing. " And a willingness to wait
is a cornerstone of trust.

God gave, remember it's a gift. As He had sworn to their fathers, remember it's
a gift that we have to wait for sometimes. But then a third phrase, in fact a
third set of words.

You see as you read through these verses the words "all" and "every" and "all"
and "everyone" of the promises. Don't miss the real eyebrow elevator in these
verses. All, every, all, all, not one failed, everyone was fulfilled.

God promises with a view to accomplishing what He has promised. He may do it
through your life, through somebody else's life, but God promises with a view to
accomplishing what He has promised. God's promises are more than some spiritual
carrot dangling in front of the Christian to get you to take the next faith step
you need to take.

They're real. God wants to do something in this world. He wants to do something
in this world through your life.

They're a banquet table that's set and spread and intended for eating. God wants
to be at work. To have an assurance to act upon God's promise means you have to
have an expectation that God is at work in this world, that God wants to do
something through your life to make a difference.

That old phrase, those who shoot at nothing always hit it. The question is what
are you expecting? I know too many believers who tell themselves they're not
going to really reach for God's promises because then they might be
disappointed.

They'll just live a sort of a normal, they say, Christian life, knowing God
loves them, but they're not going to really reach, and so they settle for quiet
lives of defeat and sometimes even despair. I would rather have the
disappointment of not reaching a promise of God than the despair of sitting
waiting for nothing to happen. I'd rather have that any day, but the amazing
thing is that's not what happens.

When you begin to reach forward with expectation that God will do what he has
said he will do, we find not disappointment, but fulfillment. We find struggle
too, because he doesn't do it when we want him to do it, and he doesn't do it
how we want him to do it. No doubt you will struggle with it, but in the end
there's this deep fulfillment.

God is working in this world, and I got to be a part of it. What are you
expecting God to do? Are you expecting him to forgive?

Are you expecting him to give abundant life? Are you expecting him to make your
burdens light? Are you expecting him to give you wisdom and direction?

Are you expecting him to change your habits and attitudes? Are you expecting him
to save you for eternity? You expect based on the promises of God, and then you
act based on that expectation.

So based on this teaching from Joshua, right now take up a new assurance
regarding God's promises. Expect that what God says will happen will happen. Be
willing to wait for what God says will happen to happen, but then realize in the
end it's not about me, it's about God and him accomplishing what he wants to
accomplish in this world, and my privilege of being a part of it.

And let that new assurance challenge you to act in faith today. Jesus, that's
what I want. That's what we want.

We want to be people of faith, not controlled by our circumstances or our
worries, but instead led, directed, guided by your promises, by your presence,
by your power. So let that be true in our lives today. Lord, when we have to
wait, give us the patience we need.

When we need to step forward, give us the courage that we need. And in all of
it, help us to remember it is about you and what you're doing in this world and
not about us. We ask this in Jesus' name, amen.

Tomorrow we're going to look at the importance of our words when it comes to
receiving God's promises.