Camping At Gilgal

So I picked up last week. A lot of times I don't really prepare a week in advance, very rarely ever, but Pastor Seth preached last week. So usually while he's preaching, I'm getting a word from God on where to go next for next week. And really God last week is he traveled through how many chapters we covered in Joshua, like 20 last week or 24?

Like yeah, his wife says a lot. Yeah. We hit, I just ran across Joshua 512, and God really highlighted that verse to me. And so I kind of worked from there backwards a little bit.

But I want to talk today, the title of my message is Camping at Gilgal. Camping at Gilgal. Here I am turning around and see if the PowerPoint's working. It's not.

But camping at Gilgal. And so what do we know about Gilgal? As the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, the first place that they set up camp was a place called Gilgal. It was about 6.25 miles past the Jordan River, and it's still about 1.25 miles or 1.25 miles from Jericho, which would be the first place, the first city that they would go.

You remember they walked around seven times in the Wall Straw. And so this place, Gilgal, essentially it was like a military headquarters. It's the place that they launched their military expeditions as they went into the Promised Land, as they conquered cities and territories. They would come back to Gilgal to regroup.

But today we're going to look at the place that they launched from. The first time it says they camped at Gilgal. And the word camped in the Hebrew, it means to set up tent. Anybody ever set a tent up?

Most people have. It means to set up a tent. And when you set up a tent, what do you do with the tent? You sleep in it, right?

So to camp in the Hebrew, the word means to set up tent literally means to, hey, it means to rest or to lie in a tent, to rest or lie in a tent. It means to dwell. It means to abide. And it means to remain.

And so that when they set this place up, Gilgal, that becomes their military headquarters for the expeditions that they would go out and do, it becomes this place that they come back and regroup at. It becomes a place that they come back to and they get refreshed. And they rest. And they get re-encouraged and re-inspired and motivated to go back for the next conquest.

And so there's some things in Gilgal I want to talk about today that it becomes a place that we camp at, but not really the camp at for the purpose of staying there forever, but the place that we come back to. And if you ever had one of those vacation spots, maybe as a kid, for me it was Ocean City, Maryland. We would go to 118th Street, it was called the Carousel Hotel. It was a disaster 40 years ago.

I can't imagine now, but we went there every year. It was the place that we would go as a family and kind of regroup. And so today I want to invite you as a family that I want you to take a trip with me to Gilgal and see a few things that God wants to show us that as we go out, as we take territory for the kingdom, as we advance the gospel in Cumberland, Maryland. And around the world that we have a place of foundational truth that we can anchor our faith in, that we can be refreshed in.

And so three things I want to show you today about Gilgal. One is it's a place of remembrance. It's a place of remembrance. Two, it's a place of removal.

And the last thing is it's a place of renewal. It's a place of remembrance. It's a place of removal, and it's a place of renewal. And we're going to eat a lot of scripture today, so be ready.

We're going to read more than I typically read, but I want you to get some of the flavor of the story. So we're going to read through in three stages, Joshua chapter 4, verses 20 through 24. And then we're going to flip the chapter 5, verses 1 through 9, and then also chapter 5, verses 10 through 12. So all in, it will be Joshua 4, verse 20 through Joshua 5, verse 12.

So if you have your Bibles, or you can look up online now, that's amazing. It says, these stones shall be a memorial to the children of Israel forever. A memorial is this. It means reminder.

It means remembrance. It means that it's something you look at that stirs up thoughts and pictures of something that happened in your life. And as they come out of the wilderness, they cross the Jordan River. God tells Joshua, he says, select 12 men, have them go down into the river, pull out 12 stones.

These were big stones because it'll tell us they had to carry them on their shoulders. And he says, they bring them to a certain place, and Joshua assembles them. These 12 stones, one for every tribe of Israel, he assembles them in this monument, this memorial that has some significance. And it says here, it says, these stones will become a memorial.

And in verse 20, it says this. It says, in those 12 stones, which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua, set up in Gilgal. And when he spoke to the children of Israel saying, when your children asked their fathers in time to come, what are these stones? So it was a memorial for them, but also this is a memorial for subsequent generations.

These are for their kids because there's things that happen in all of our lives that our children need to know about. My kids need to know about how God moved in my life, how God rescued me, how God delivered me, how he picked me up out of a pit and set my feet on the rock. There's things our kids need to know. And he says, when your kids come and they say to you, what are these stones?

What are these stones? Questions a lot of time become an inconvenience. But I want you to think of questions not as an inconvenience but as an opportunity. Questions are an opportunity.

Too many of us want to give people an answer for a question they never asked. Like we would want to vomit at the mouth, diarrhea of the mouth, I didn't ask your opinion. But when somebody asks a question, all of a sudden that's an open door. It's an opportunity to say something.

I was telling my wife there a day, people say there's no such thing as a what? Dumb quite, well there is. There are dumb questions. I could retire on dumb questions.

There's lots of them. This isn't one of them. He says, when the children ask, what are these stones? Then you will let the children know saying Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land.

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan before you until you had crossed over as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up before us until we had crossed over. So this memorial stone is for the purpose of inspiring a question. And when the question comes, Joshua says, I want you to tell your kids not only about the Jordan River us crossing on dry ground, but also that our ancestors, the generation before us crossed the Red Sea on dry ground, that all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord that it is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever. So think about this.

These stones, the kids say, Dad, what's that stone? What do these stones mean? And he says, I want you to tell them that we crossed over the Jordan River and the Jordan River we crossed over on dry ground. And then the generation before us, they crossed the Red Sea, they too crossed on dry ground.

Here's as I meditated on that this week, we have two different stories. We have two different bodies of water, the Red Sea and the Jordan. We have two different men of God. We have Moses and we have Joshua.

We have two different methods that God employed to work a miracle in their life. The Moses said, I want you to stretch your hand with the rod of God in it. I want you to stretch your hand over the Red Sea. And to Joshua, he gave a different method.

He said, I want you to take the priest that are carrying the ark of the covenant and the moment the priest's feet touch the water, the waters will roll back. And not only was it two different methods, but there's two different manifestations or two different outcomes. The Red Sea rolls up like a wall on the left and on the right. So as they're walking through, there's a wall of water on either side.

The Jordan River doesn't roll up on the left and the right, it rolls back. It rolls upstream. And so we have two different ways. But in each case, they walk through on dry ground.

And here's what I want to say to you today. It may be a different season. It may be a different situation. God may use a different man or woman of God in your life.

God may employ a different method. The outcome might be different. But no matter how different the situation is, God is the same. It's the same God that did both feasts.

It's the same God that showed up in that midst. There was two different reasons. One, they're escaping Egypt. The other, they're entering the Promised Land.

Like it's two different groups of people, two different generations, two different situations. But God was the same. He says, I want your children to know this. That all the people, two things, that all the people of the world may know the hand of God that it is what?

I'm going to point to it right here. That it is mighty. The hand of God. He said, I want you to know the hand of God.

See the hand of God through Scripture, it means different things. It can mean blessing. It can mean favor. It can mean provision.

And actually sometimes it means God forbid it means correction. But in this instance, he says, I want you to know the power of the hand of God. I want you to know that God is powerful. That his hand is to deliver.

No matter what the situation, you serve a powerful God. I think it's interesting that he wants all the world. It says all the people of the earth may know. Well, all the people of the earth didn't ask the question.

Who asked the question? The children. So what is happening here? He says, when your children ask you, oh, your children, an experience with the Almighty God so that they can go out and in turn let the people of the earth know.

And you shall be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. We owe our children an experience with the power of the mighty hand of God. He says, all the people of the earth that they may know the hand of God that it is mighty and that you may do what? Fear the Lord's your God forever.

The fear of God doesn't mean that you're afraid of God. It means that you reverence God. It means that you're in all of God. When I consider what God just did, that he split the Red Sea, that he rolled back the water of the Jordan, that we walk through on dry ground that's never been exposed to air ever, but it's dry.

And I understand the power and the might in the hand of God that's available. It shouldn't spot, like there should be an awe of God in me, a reverence of God in me. I like the amplified version. I don't have it, but it says that you may fear and worship and obey the Lord.

See that at its purest sense, fearing the Lord manifest itself as obedience and trust. They go hand in hand. If I trust God, I obey him. If I obey God, I want you to tell your children this.

So when they have this experience, they understand and you take them back to this memorial in your life that it'll produce an awe in their life of the mighty hand of God that they'll actually put their trust in him for the next time something happens in their life. It should inspire that. See, we have to have memorials in our life. Kate, today is a marker in your life.

It's a marker. Today's a marker. Today's a memorial. Today's the day that you put a stake in the ground on August 17th, 2025, and it's a day that you can point to.

And you can say, let me tell you about the God and how mighty his hand is. Because I was going to kill myself. I didn't want to go on. I didn't have a purpose.

I was mad at God, but he loved me, and he saved me, and he delivered me. See, it's a marker. It's a place that we go back to to remember. Like, we don't go back there.

We don't live at the memorial. If I get down to Washington, DC, look at the Washington monument or any of the memorials in DC. We don't live there, but it's a place that we go to reflect to remember. Remember what happened.

So you've got to have markers. You've got to have memorials in your life. And you've got to be ready to give an answer. It says, be ready in season and out of season to give an answer.

When people come to my house, I love to tell this story. And some of you have heard this story. So we have this staircase in our house. If you've been there and asked about it, I've told you.

If you haven't asked, I haven't told you. And if you ask now, I'm not going to tell you because I'm getting ready to tell you right now. Somebody asked me about the staircase. Okay, I'm going to tell you.

Dave, I'm glad you asked. I'm going to tell you. So we have this staircase in our house that goes up two levels and it has three turns in it. And the middle platform, the middle landing is not supported by anything.

It's literally a floating staircase. There's nothing that holds it up. And if you know anything back in 2007, my wife and I were designing our house. We worked with an architect.

Well, occasionally architects draw things that engineers don't recommend. Like they draw things that look good on paper, but in real life, they don't work. And that's what happened in this case. We had an architect draw.

He's plans up. He drew this beautiful floating staircase. But when we go to build the house, the builder comes to me one day. Now this guy's 70 years old.

He's been building houses for 45 years. And he said, Fred, I don't know what to tell you, but there's no way to build this staircase. The weight of the landing will not support. And if you step on it, it'll just fall to the basement.

I said, well, that's not good, right? He said, no, that's not good. Because I'm like, I'm not Mr. Fixit.

I'm not that guy. My wife's that woman. Like she's the fixer in the family. She's the techno person too.

And so I'm like, what do we do? He goes, well, we can't build it. He said, I've checked with other builders in the area. I've asked them engineers.

Nobody can figure out how to make this work. I said, well, that's not good either, right? He said, no, because we can't build it. And so I'm not going to take that for an answer.

So I went to bed that night. And as I laid down, I said, God, you gave David the plans to build a temple. You gave him the plans. He drew them out, and they built the temple from the plans that you gave him.

Could you give me the plan on how to build this staircase? I woke up at 3.34 o'clock in the morning with a vision of how to build this staircase. I took out a piece of paper. I sketched it down.

I went back to sleep. I get up the next morning and I hand it to the builder. He looks at it. And he was more of a grunter than a talker.

He goes, hmm, hmm. I'm like, is, hmm, good or bad? And he goes, hmm, good. And he says, where did you get this?

He said, where did you get this? I said, if I told you, you wouldn't believe me. He goes, no. I said, I asked God in a vision of the mill of night.

He gave me a sketch of it out. He goes, this will work. I'm like, what? He goes, this will work.

Are you sure? I'm like, I don't know anything about building. I don't know anything about structural engineering. But God gave me the plans to the staircase that was built in 2007 and 8.

And it's still standing to this day and it's never moved to millimeter. That's the kind of God that we serve. And I have memorials in my home that when things get challenging and I don't have an answer, I look at that staircase. I look at the staircase and I say, God, there was a time in my life when nobody in this world knew what to do, but you did.

And you gave me the answer. And if you gave me the answer, then you can give me the answer now. David says in 1 Chronicles 29 verse 12, he says this, in your hand is power in might. In your hand is power in might and in your hand is to make great and to give strength to a few.

Oh, it's in his hand. See, when you know the hand of God, the hand of God is just not for me. It's not just for my wife. It's not just for Curtis or Kim or Whitney.

The hand of God is for all. It's in his hand, power in might to make great and give strength to every single person. He's available for you. And David says in Psalm 115, I think it's verse 11, he says this, he says, all you that fear the Lord.

Trust the Lord. If you fear the Lord, if you have reverence and offer the Lord, then your only options do this. Trust them. Trust them.

I encourage you to set up memorials in your life. Markers in your life. Places where you put a stake in the ground at a time that God did something awesome. Don't forget about it.

Don't forget about it. Number two is this, a place of removal. Oh, there we go. It's not just some stack of stones.

It's a prophetic pillar pregnant with destiny, aldering ability to impart faith into future generations. Like don't look at those, oh, well, just a staircase. That's not, if you come to my house, I will fight you if you say it's just a staircase. That's not a staircase.

It's a prophetic word. It speaks to me today. It speaks to people that talk to me today and like, tell me about that. I've got them all through my house.

And if you ask about something, there's probably a story connected to it. In business, there's stories connected to businesses that we've developed where God gave me a word here or a connection here or something. And they're memorials in my life that encourage me, but they speak into future generations. Number two is this, it's a place of removal.

The new century version says it this way, says, as slaves in Egypt, you were ashamed. But today, I have removed your shame. As slaves in Egypt, you were ashamed. But today, I have removed.

Removed it. It says a lot of causes for shame in life. Could be trauma as a kid. Could be bad decisions.

It could be failures. Mistakes, bad choices. Could be comparison. But when God removes shame, if it's still in your life, it's there illegally.

It says the shame that you had in Egypt, I have removed. I think what's interesting to me also about that is earlier in this chapter, it says, everyone that came to me, this chapter says, everyone that came out of Egypt died because they didn't obey the Lord. And now the ones that are in the Promised Land were the ones that were born in wilderness who were never in Egypt. But the shame carried from their parents into them.

And sometimes people carry shame that came from a prior generation that you were never meant to carry. I want to tell you today, today is the day that God has removed your shame. God has removed your shame. Joshua chapter 5 verse 1 says this.

It says, so it was when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea heard the Lord, that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we had crossed over, that their heart melted and there was no spirit in them no longer because the children of Israel. Now militarily this was suicide. They're coming out of the Jordan and they're camping a mile from the enemy. That's suicide, but God's going to be suicide 2.0.

He's ramping it up. He's really going to have to trust God now. It says at that time the Lord said to Joshua, make Flynn knives for yourself and circumcise the sons of Israel again the second time. I can tell you once is bad enough.

So Joshua made Flynn knives for himself and circumcised the sons of Israel at the hill of Four Skins. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them. All the people who came out of Egypt who were males, all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the way after they'd come out of Egypt. For all the people who had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness on the way as they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised.

For the children of Israel walked 40 years in the wilderness to all the people who were men of war who came out of Egypt were consumed because they did not obey the voice of the Lord. To whom the Lord swore that he would not show them the land which he had sworn to the fathers that he would give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. Then Joshua circumcised their sons whom he raised up in their place for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. So it was when they had finished circumcising all the people that they stayed in their places in the camp until they were healed.

Now there's a story earlier about a city that was overtaken because they talked to men into getting circumcised and on the third day while they were healing they went in and took the city. So here it is. They circumc- not only they won mile from Jericho, but they're sore. They're not able to go to war.

And it says that they stayed at the camp until they healed because God forbid they might be walking like this. It's not going to be productive. It says verse 9, the Lord said to Joshua, this day I have rolled away the reproach. It's the same way we looked earlier and said the new century version says I have removed the chain.

He says this day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you and therefore the name of this place is called Gilgal to this day. Gilgal means wheel or rolling. And therefore as he says I've rolled away the reproach of Israel. There's a little play on words there that that's why they called it Gilgal.

Moses when it said that they had to circumcise them a second time is because everybody that was in Egypt had been circumcised. The ones born in the wilderness hadn't been and the ones that come out of Egypt all died. And so now they have an entire group of Israelites that are in covenant with God but have no sign or symbol of the covenant that God made with them. So God made a covenant with Abraham and Genesis 17.

He says to Abraham he says I'm going to make your name great. Matter of fact I'm going to change your name from Abraham to Abraham. You're going to be the father of many nations. Nations will come out of you.

Kings will come out of you. I'm going to give you the land in which you now stand as a possession forever to your descendants. And he says so he's telling him all these great things. And Abraham's like man that's great.

That's awesome. Man that's great. What do I got to do? Well you got to circumcise yourself.

Talk about a buzzkill. Is that even a term anymore? I feel like that was an 80s word. It was like an MTV word from the 80s.

But here's Abraham at 99 years old. And his son Ishmael that was born in his house at the time is 13. And Abraham obeys at 99 years old. He says he makes a flint of stone and circumcised himself, circumcised is Ishmael.

And he circumcises everybody born in his house that had come that were slaves or servants at the time. And so he walks in obedience. And this sign God said this will be a sign. He says this is the name of the covenant that I've made with you.

And so here we have all these Israelites that are descendants of Abraham that don't have the symbol of the covenant. So God said I want you to recircumcise them, circumcise them again so that there's a symbol of the covenant I've made with them. But if we look in the New Testament, circumcision as it pertains to the flesh, Paul says in Galatians doesn't mean anything. Doesn't matter if you're circumcised, not circumcised.

It avails nothing. There's no profit to it. But he talks about in Romans chapter 2 verse 29, he says there's a circumcision of the heart comma in the spirit that there's a spiritual circumcision that God performs through Jesus Christ, in which he cuts around that old sin nature and removes it. There's a removing, a removing of that old man.

And Paul says this, he says in Romans chapter 4, he says, not only was this circumcision a sign of the covenant that Abraham had, but it was a sign of this, that he was righteous by faith. That's what it was a symbol of. See when Abraham and Genesis 15 and 16, it says he believed God and it was accounted or credited to him for righteousness. It wasn't until 14 years later.

That was when he was 84. I'm sorry, 85. And then when he's 99, it's when God confirms the covenant with the sign of circumcision. 14 years later after he was credited with righteousness.

So that's what this is speaking to. It says we say that faith was credited or accounted to Abraham for righteousness, how then was it accounted, while he was circumcised or uncircumcised. Not while he was circumcised, but while he was uncircumcised. He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still circumcised.

So he is declared righteous as an uncircumcised man. Not until 14 years later does he get the sign or the token of it. So his being righteous had nothing to do with the thing that he did, the thing that he did pointed back to the fact that God had declared him righteous. It said while he still had uncircumcised, though he might be the father of all who believed though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness.

Because Abraham was credited with righteousness by faith, we too can be circumcised in the spirit by Christ as we're going to see in Colossians chapter 2 that we too can have that same symbol. It says in him speaking of Christ, you were circumcised. So are we getting circumcised or we have been? So this is a past tense.

If you've accepted Jesus Christ as your Savior, this took place just after the moment that you said yes to Jesus. It says with the circumcision made without hands, putting off the body of sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Now I forgot to tell you that Joshua is a picture of Jesus Christ. The word Joshua is the same Hebrew word as the Greek word Jesus.

So Joshua is a big picture of Jesus, buried with him in baptism which you also raised through him through faith in the working of God to raise him from the dead. You being, and this is important, I'm doing here. You being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcised in your flesh, he has made a life together with him having done what? Forgiven all of your trespasses.

See when Jesus performs this surgery on your heart, he cuts away that old man. Paul says that you can't be married to Jesus if you're still married to the old man. And so you become dead to the old man so that you can be married to Christ. It says in Romans chapter 7.

And so Jesus cuts this away. But when he cuts it away, it's a symbol that you've been, that his righteousness, his right standing has put on your account because he's forgiven all of your sin. See, to the degree that you still think you have sins that need to get under the blood is the degree to which you will carry shame in your life. See when you get a full revelation of the extent and entirety and fullness of the forgiveness that Jesus offers is the extent that you can let shame go.

See just because you have feelings of shame doesn't mean that they're shame on your account. See it's important to know that God has forgiven every single sin past, present, and future. Even the ones you haven't committed yet. Like well how could he do that?

Well he did it 2,000 years ago because the sins that you committed yesterday or tomorrow or three days ago were all future in comparison to his payment that he made once and for all time on the cross. I want you to see this picture in Joshua chapter 3. I love it. It's basically Joshua.

What's the most famous verse in the Bible? John what? 316. I want you to remember Joshua 316.

Can you do that? Joshua 315 says this. It says, in those who bore the ark came to the Jordan and the feet of the priest who bore the ark dipped in the edge of the water for the Jordan overflows all its banks during the whole time of harvest. And the waters which came down from upstream stood still and rose in a heap very far away.

Where at? At Adam. It's a city, but it's prophetic in its meaning. Viewer lies that shame never entered the earth until Adam sinned in the Garden of Eden.

Genesis 2.25 says and they were both naked and unashamed. That there was in the context of living in the fullness of what God provided in his presence. There was no shame before sin entered. But then you flip to Genesis chapter 3.

The serpent comes in to sieves Eve. She gives it to Adam. And the first thing they do go do is says their eyes were open, which means the eyes of faith closed and their natural eyes opened. It says their eyes opened and they realized they were naked and went and hid themselves and so fig leaves to cover themselves.

And God comes along walking in the cold the afternoon and says, Adam where are you at? And he goes, well I'm hiding because I'm afraid because I'm naked. See, bless you, shame didn't enter until Adam sinned. Jesus is the last Adam where one man's disobedience because of one man's disobedience death passed upon all men.

But because of the obedience of one man Jesus Christ, righteousness is available to everybody. Look at this, it says, as those who board the ark, and I'm not going to have a lot of time to teach on this, the ark of the covenant is a type and shadow of Jesus Christ. As the priest who bore the ark, it says that the ark went where? Into the what river?

Jordan River. The word Jordan in Hebrew means descender. It means to go down. It means to descend.

It says as the priest who bore the ark walked into the Jordan, the waters rolled up in a heap all the way back to who? Or what? Adam. Jesus, the ark of the covenant, as the ark of the covenant steps into Jesus Christ as he descends, what does Paul say in Ephesians 4?

It says that he ascended and gave gifts to men, and who is he who ascended? Is it not also who he who descended into the lower parts of the earth? That Jesus Christ, the ark of the covenant, descended into hell? And once and for all time was made alive, rose again, and rolled sin all the way back to Adam.

Like if I'm the only one that gets excited about that, like that's exciting to me. That Jesus didn't roll it back. It says that he rolled it back very far all the way to Adam. That every sin was taken care of by Jesus Christ.

See righteousness is this. It's this gift from God that gives you the ability to stand in the presence of a holy God. That you can literally stand in God's presence without a sense, a sense without a feeling of guilt, of shame, of inferiority, or of condemnation. If you feel that today, then you don't have a revelation of what Jesus did yet, but God give it to you.

Romans 8-1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. The very last thing is this, Gilgal being a place of remembrance, Gilgal being a place of removal that Jesus has removed your sin and removed your shame. So in 1-0-3 says, as far as the east is from the west. Like when sin went, shame went with it.

It's gone. And the last thing is this, it's a place of renewal. And the man of ceased the day after the aid of the produce of the land. The man of ceased.

Romans tells us this, it says not to be conformed to this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. See, renewing is different than when you're in Christ, you're a new creation. A new creature that's never existed before. Kynos is the word.

This is a different word that includes Kynos, but it means to renovate. So it's not new, it's renovating the old. It's renewing and renovating. He says that it lets you be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove or prove or put on display what is the good and perfect and acceptable will of God.

That there's things that, like unless I renew my mind to what God has said, what God's saying, what, what, all those things, I can't actually put God's will on display. There's things that God has for me, that God has for you, that God has for this church that apart from the renewing of your mind, you're not going to get there. Here's what I want to tell you today is, manna was a mindset. Manna was a mindset.

Experts tell us it takes 66 days to form a habit. Anybody ever done anything, 66 days in a row? Okay. Anybody got some good habits in their life?

Anybody got any bad habits? Anybody got any thought, patterns, and need rewired? See what happens as you do something and do something and do something and do something. These neural pathways in your brain get formed and you can't think outside of that.

There has to take time of God's word and the Holy Spirit transforming the way you think. Because what happens, we're not talking 66 days here, we're talking 12,480 times, they went out and picked up manna. Six days a week because on Friday they picked up enough for Saturday to Sabbath. Six days a week, 52 weeks a year, 40 years is 12,480 times of picking up manna.

Do you think they had a manna mindset? We're not talking about two months of activity. We're talking about doing the same thing every day for 40 years except on a Sabbath. See what happens when we develop a manna.

See manna was just enough for the day. It was sustained me for today. It wasn't enough for tomorrow. So God would, it's amazing he did this miracle in response to their complaining.

They're complaining, we're going to go back and die in Egypt. Okay, we're going to send a manna in the morning and quail an evening. So every morning comes this manna and the first thing they say, they say, what is it? And what is it?

It means manna. They actually called it, what is it? And so we're eating some, what is it? What is it today?

Hey, what's for breakfast? What is it? What's for breakfast tomorrow? What is it?

Like I felt like when I was 15 and I went to Brazil on a mission strip. What's for breakfast? Rice and beans. What's for lunch?

Beans and rice. What's for dinner? Rice with beans. Like it was just switching the words around.

And so they picked up enough for the day. And if they picked up too much, it would stink the next day and develop maggots. If they didn't pick it up, what was left on the ground and said it melted when the sun came out. And so it's never enough for tomorrow, it's just enough for today.

And what happens is we tend to, this thought process permeates the church where we live from, so we live from miracle to miracle to miracle to miracle. And I'm the first person, I love miracles. But God's best is never a miracle. God's best is that you walk in the blessing and provision that he's already provided.

See, it's much better to walk in health than it is to need to get healed. I love healing. I love to pray for people. I love when God does the miraculous.

But in order for you to need a miracle means you need a mess to start with. And what happens is we go from crisis to miracle, crisis to miracle, crisis to miracle, and we live like this like we're riding the roller coaster of Christianity. That's not God's best. A miracle is merely a temporary suspension of a natural law.

It ends. There's an expiration date on a miracle. This particular miracle, the miracle of the manna lasted. It was the longest recorded miracle in history.

40 years. A 40 year miracle, but it came to an end. It didn't even end when they got in the Promised Land. It actually followed them in the Promised Land because they had the mindset, oh, well, we get here day one.

What do we do when we get up? We go collect manna. It said the manna didn't cease until they ate of the produce of the land. See, you can live from miracle to crisis, miracle to crisis, miracle to crisis, but until you eat of the crops of Canaan, you're going to be living in a crisis situation always needing a miracle.

That's not God's best. God has better. God, see, the wilderness was the place of just enough. Egypt was not enough.

The wilderness is the place of just enough. Canaan is the place of more than enough. There's more that I need there, but this doesn't stop until I eat from that. See, I got to get rid of this manna mindset.

Let me tell you this. This is going to sound, don't get up and run out, okay? This is going to sound blasphemous, but I want to speak this into you. Trying to think how to set this up to soften the blow.

Oh, I know we'll do it. We'll read the passage first. I forgot to read this. Let's read this.

Verse 10. It says the children of Egypt, the children of Israel camped, here they camped again. They camped in Gilgal. They kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month.

Remember the Passover? They're remembering being accessed from Egypt. On the 14th day of the month, the twilight on the plains of Jericho, they ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread, parched grain on the same day. The manna ceased on the day after they'd eaten of the produce of the land, and the children of Israel no longer had manna, but they ate of the food of the land of Canaan that year.

See, some of you need to quit holding on to manna. It's good, but it's angels' food. Don't you want some saints' food? Like, it's okay.

See, here's what happens early in Jesus' ministry, Luke chapter 11, also Matthew 6, but Luke 11 once says this, the disciples say, Lord, the only thing they ever asked Him to teach Him to do, what was it? Teach us to, didn't tell you how to do miracles? They didn't say teach me how to raise the dead. They said, teach us to pray.

Luke 11, 3, and also Matthew 6, 11 say this. This is what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer, but it wasn't because it was in the disciples' prayer. Verse 11 and Matthew 6, Luke 11, 3, give us this day our what? Daily bread.

He said that to people that were learning how to pray. It's a good prayer for a baby Christian. Oh, it's Lord prayer. It's a good prayer for a baby Christian.

It'd be like an adult bird sitting in the nest three years old waiting for momma to come bring it to worm. You'd be like, that's an idiot bird. See, there's some things in life that God builds on. We need daily bread, but daily bread is not in abundance.

It's just daily. See, God has more. That was early in Jesus' ministry. At the end of Jesus' ministry, what did He say?

The night before He goes to the cross. He says, up until now, you haven't asked me anything. But in that day, the day after I raised from the dead, the day after I descended, been made alive, been resurrected, have ascended to the Father, have made payment on the mercy seat with my blood. In that day, you will ask the Father whatever you want.

See, we get stuck in the man of mind and said, You made us stay by daily bread. That's great for kids. But there comes a time when you've got to go from daily bread. You can't feed anybody with daily bread.

If I only was worried about daily bread, you wouldn't get fed. See, there comes a time Jesus says, the thief comes not except for the steal, kill and destroy, but I come that they might have. Life and have more abundantly. See, He doesn't bring life just for enough for today.

He brings life in abundance. So the abundance that I have is not for me. It's for you. The abundance you have is for me.

Like, to pray for God to just me, your need for the day is a selfish prayer. Because it doesn't include anybody but you. Start praying the whatever prayer. Start praying anything you ask the Father in my name.

You know why we can do it? Because earlier in John 16, Jesus says, He says, all things that the Father has are mine. That's why I said the Holy Spirit will take from what is mine and declare it to you. See, all that Jesus has, the fullness of the Father, the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Jesus bodily.

It says in John 1 of His fullness, we have all received. Like, it's available for you to have more than just what you need for today. We've got to get writ of the manna mindset. Here's what I want to tell you.

Drop the manna mindset and pick up a messiah mindset. Because Jesus Christ has paid and provided everything you'll ever need. I'm not saying to get rid of the daily bread. See, there's things that Jesus says in John 15, He says, He says, I no longer call you servants, but I call you friends.

Because servants don't know what the Master's doing, but because you're friends, I'm going to tell you a little bit more. See, when He promotes them from servinghood to friendship, it doesn't mean that they no longer serve. They just serve from the platform of being a friend instead of being a servant. And when God elevates you from daily bread to whatever the Father, whatever you need in my name, it doesn't mean we get rid of this, we build upon it.

But as long as you stay here, you're going to get stuck looking for manna every day of your life, and you'll get by. It'll even taste good. It said it tasted like wafers made with honey. Not bad, but there was a guy that wrote a book from Good to Great.

He said, good is always the enemy of great. Like, you don't settle for what's good when it's in God's hand to make great. It's in His hand is power in my in His hand to make great and give strength to all. What I put up there, stop waiting for the wilderness wonder bread.

I'm an 80s guy. Remember the wonder bread had like yellow blue dots on it in the white clear plastic? Man, I love some wonder bread when I was a kid. But there's something better.

It's called pepperaged farms, multigrain. Like, you, as much as I like to remember wonder bread, I'm not going back to it. Because I moved on. I'm eating the pepperaged farms now.

Now, I can, for a grilled cheese, I can't be wonder bread for grilled cheese. But for that turkey, Swiss, mayonnaise, you want a little texture on that bread, not the kind that sticks to the roof of your mouth. Like, I probably still got a piece of wonder bread from 1982 stock up there somewhere. It's like glue.

Stop waiting for the wilderness wonder bread and start eating from the crops of Canaan that have already been abundantly provided. Let's close with this verse. The spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God and children of the heirs of God and join heirs with Christ. Christ means Messiah.

I want you to have a Messiah mindset. I want you to think that God just doesn't want to pull you out of the pit. He wants to elevate you to the heavenly. He wants you to realize that you're seated.

You're not just standing on a platform out of the pit that you're seated in heavenly realms at the right hand of the Father. That God has more for you. That God loves you. Don't settle for average.

We don't do it in life. I don't know anybody gets up and says, what do you want to do? If I'm interviewing somebody for a job, of course they always give me a bunch of poop. I've learned not to believe the first thing they say.

But nobody ever says, well, I just want to set, I really have a goal in life to be average. I just want to be a sea guy. I don't want to rough one of your fathers. I just want to be out now.

Everybody, if you're honest, aspires to more. It's built in you. It's built in you. It's part of your DNA that Jesus puts in you.

I want you to think like that, that Jesus has more for you. Let's pray.