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Follow the Ark


The Best is Yet to Come: Follow the Ark

Dr. Mark Batterson

September 4/5th

“2021 is an outrageous time to dream!” - Pastor Mark Batterson

Proverb 29:18

Joshua 3

4 Focuses

1.

2.

3.

4.

Get Up Early

Follow the Ark

Consecrate Yourself

Step into the River

1. Get Up Early

Joshua 3:1

EARLY in the MORNING Joshua and all the Israelites SET OUT from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where

they camped before crossing over.

TIME is measured in MINUTES but LIFE is measured in MOMENTS. All of us are given the same amount of

time every single day—1,440 minutes. Time management is a STEWARDSHIP ISSUE.

How are you managing the minutes and the moments, the chronos and the kairos?

You don’t FIND TIME, you MAKE TIME. You have to identify the TIME WASTERS and TIME MULTIPLIERS.

How you START THE DAY sets the pace, sets the tone, sets the table.

It starts with when you set your alarm and why?

Psalm 57:8

You can be a morning person by discipline if not by nature.

Biography about D.L. Moody said that Moody felt a twinge of guilt if the blacksmiths were up hammering before

he was up praying.

Every day of his life he arose very early in the morning to study the Word of God way down to the close of his

life. Mr. Moody would rise about four o’clock in the morning. He would say, “If I’m going to get in any study, I

have got to get up before the other folks get up.” And he would shut himself up in a remote room in his house

along with his God and his Bible. - R.A. Torey

2. Follow the Ark

Joshua 1:2-4

The Ark of the Covenant symbolizes the presence of God and the power of God. FOLLOW THE ARK. With

this addendum: keep a distance of 2,000 cubits. That is the same distance the Jewish people were allowed to

walk on the Sabbath. The principle is this: DON’T GET AHEAD OF GOD.

Are you following the Ark or are you following the crowd?

We are spirit-filled and spirit-led.

“The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without

Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven

without hell.” - William Booth

3. Consecrate Yourself

Joshua 3:5

Our job is consecration. If we do our job the Lord will do His job.

The Hebrew word for CONSECRATE is qadash and it means to sanctify, to purify, to set something apart.

You are ANOINTED and APPOINTED by God.

We are MOST ALIVE when we are MOST DEAD TO SELF.

A.W. Milne

When he came there was NO LIGHT.

When he left there was NO DARKNESS.

Have you packed your coffin?

Consecration is DEATH TO SELF.

Consecration is DETRONING YOURSELF.

It’s going ALL IN with God.

It’s His Will, His Way.

It’s giving the Holy Spirit VETO POWER.

It’s SEEKING GOD first.

It’s MY UTMOST for HIS HIGHEST.

“The world has yet to see what God can do through one man fully consecrated to him. By God’s help, I aim to

be that man.” - D.L. Moody

Why not you, why not now?

1Timothy 4:5

Hebrews 4:12

The primary purpose of prayer is to change me, to consecrate myself.

4. Step into the River

Joshua 3:8

This is where most of us get stuck. We are waiting for God to part the river, while God is waiting for us to get

our feet wet.

We want God to go first because that doesn’t require any faith. Faith is taking the first step before God reveals

the second step.

What step of faith do you need to take?

Joshua 3:15-16

We think RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW.

God is thinking NATIONS and GENERATIONS.

We have a hard time believing God for CITIES.

God says, “Ask of me and I will give the NATIONS.”

God’s vision is so much bigger, so much better, so much longer.

The miracle always happens 16 miles, 16 years upstream. You are the answer to someone else’s prayer.

It’s time.

You can look back on today and say it was an outrageous time to dream, but it was the day that decades

happened.

The Best is Yet to Come

A PRAYER to PRAY:

Our Father in Heaven thank you for the ability to not only pray for our children and our children’s children, but

to also acknowledge that we are the answer to prayers prayed well in advance for us. Thank you that the

miracles of the future can begin today with my prayers and my decisions. Thank you for the family members,

loved ones, and friends who prayed for miracles that today we are the beneficiaries of those prayers. God

Your ways are better than anything we could think of or imagine on our own. It’s time to get our feet wet, in

Jesus’ name Amen.---ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Sign up for a Group: ncc.re/groups

For more info about following Jesus, go to ncc.re/followJesus---To dig deeper:

Sermon Discussion Guide: ncc.re/discuss

Upper Zoom: ncc.re/upperzoom

We live at the intersection of two theologies, two realities. The faithfulness of God is pursuing from the past—SO FAR SO GOD. And the sovereignty of God is setting us up for the future. We live forwards, but God is working backward. God is ordering our footsteps. God is preparing good works. We live in a fallen world, a broken world, but heaven is invading earth right here, right now.


We don’t believe in happily ever after. We believe in something so much bigger and better and longer—happily FOREVER after. THE BEST IS YET TO COME.


Sermon begins at 16:15.



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