Uh, No You Don’t

Today I had the pleasure of preaching my first sermon as the Pastor of Arbuckle Community Church. I have spoken many times from the front; just last year I preached about 20% of the sermons, but this time it was different. No, I am not talking about being the Pastor and having more authority, I am talking about the fact that I am the Pastor and I have more responsibility.

So I wanted to make sure that we began this year with the right perspective. This perspective is clear in Joshua 1:1-11. Here we see a new leader, we find the true source of power and the children of Israel entering the promised land. Through this, we find three things that are important for us to know.

• God has a plan
• God has the power
• We get the prize

The most important part of all this is that we can only be strong and courageous, as Joshua is told to be by the Lord, by tapping into the power of God. We cannot do anything alone. I grew up watching He-Man and I remember when Prince Adam would draw his sword and say “By the Power of Grayskull,…I have the Power!” As a child, I always took this as an inner power that was being unleashed by Castle Grayskull. But through the lens of God, I see the Power not coming from but through He-Man. The source of power lies somewhere else.

Only by trusting in God’s plan, meditating on and obeying his word, and by allowing Him to have worth in our lives can we accomplish anything of importance. Otherwise, we are just spinning our wheels.