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If you got a Bible open to Joshua, chapter one. Joshua, chapter one. I got a word stirring in my heart for you, and I'm going to give you the title of this message. If you're taking notes, note takers are history makers, world changers, culture shapers. The title of the message today is Victory starts inside. Victory starts inside. Before you can have victory on the outside, you got to have victory on the inside. If you don't win in here, you won't win out there. If you don't win between the ears, you won't win outside of your body. Here's the key that we see in the story of Joshua is that God is gonna speak first to Joshua's mind, his heart, his spirit, before he speaks to his feet. God is gonna remind Joshua who he is and what he's called to do. Because identity precedes activity. Who you are is more important than what you do. The man of God that you are, the woman of God that you're becoming. That's why this year, the most important thing you can do is get faithful, founded in the word of God. Get your life in church. Get your life in his presence, around God's people. Those of you that were here last week, you already got perfect attendance this year. You're killing it in 2026. Those of you that joined us this week, come on, this is your year. This is your year to have victory. You didn't step foot into victim church. You stepped foot into victory church. This is not your defeated year. This is not your losing year. This is not surviving year. This is your victory year. And victory starts here. Victory starts on the inside. Victory starts inside. Joshua, chapter one, verse one. God speaks to Joshua. He says, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of none. I think this is really important. Just because you might be the son of none doesn't mean you're the son of no one. Just because you're the son of an anonymous dad or someone you don't even know, or maybe he was absent, doesn't mean you don't have a heavenly father who has marked you with a purpose, who has put the anointing on you, who said you are here on purpose because you have a purpose. You may not know your earthly father, you may not have seen your earthly dad around, but you have a heavenly father that's cheering you on. And God begins to speak to Joshua. Now here's the interesting thing. The book of Joshua is not the beginning of Joshua's story just because Joshua, chapter One sounds like it's the start of Joshua's story. Joshua was alive all the way back in the book of Exodus, the second book of the Bible. Joshua was a teenager when God sent Moses to Pharaoh to let his people go, right, to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt. God had sent Moses on this assignment. He said, I want you to go and set my people free and lead them to the promised land. Take them to the promised land. Well, Joshua was a teenager. He was like 16, 17, 18. Watching God do these miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, watching God part the Red sea. And this 18 year old Joshua, whose book had not started yet, whose story wasn't really on the spotlight, like he wasn't in the front row. No one knew who he was, but he was following Moses. He was watching. He was looking at his mentor, his pastor, his shepherd. Don't underestimate the power of your preparation time. Preparation time is never wasted time. The Bible says that Joshua would sit in the tent of the tabernacle and he would stay in the presence of God. When Moses would leave, Joshua would stay and he would worship and he would pray. And he was one of the spies that was sent in the Book of Numbers to go and spy out the land, to see what the promised land looked like. And he came back with a good report. Him and Caleb said, man, this is a land flowing with milk and honey. We can take this land. We are well able. God is with us. But 10 other guys talked themselves out of the victory. They talked themselves out of the miracle. They said we look like grasshoppers in our own eyes. That's why victory starts inside. How you see yourself will determine how you see what God can do through you. Your self image and your God image. How you see God inside you. So Joshua waits for 40 years. By this time, he's 60 years old when his book starts. He's not a teenager. He's not in his 20s, not in his 30s. He's not 40. This man is 60. And he has been waiting for this moment. But I love what God says. Next in verse 2, Joshua 1, verse 2, he says, Moses, my servant is dead. Hold up. Joshua knows this. Moses died in the book of Deuteronomy, like Joshua saw Moses die. Why is God telling Joshua something he already knows? Because it's not just a physical sentence, it's a metaphor. What God is saying is, Joshua, the past is over. Goodbye yesterday. He died a long time ago. He died months ago. But it's almost as if you're carrying his corpse with you at some Point. You have to detach from the past. You can't take hold of your destiny if you're still holding on to your history. You can't grab hold of the victory in front of you if you're still dwelling on the victories behind you. It wasn't even that Moses was bad. Moses was great. But for this moment in Joshua's life, God was trying to tell Joshua, Joshua, Moses season is up. His generation died in the wilderness. They missed out on the promise. It's time for you to rise up. It's time for you to let go of what you can't change. You can't relive 2025. You can't rewind it. You can't go backwards and fix anything. You can't change anything about the past. The past is dead. Your past is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift. Kung Fu Panda. So open it up and celebrate it. Seize the day. Carpe diem. Victory starts in here. God was trying to tell Joshua, stop living in the past. If you keep your eyes on the rearview mirror your whole life, you're going to crash into cars that are in front of you. Look up. Look forward. Be here. Be right now. Victory starts. And by the way, the past was good. And a lot of people live on the victories of their past. They build museums, and they're like, oh, the glory days. When Moses was alive, the Red Sea parted. The ten Commandments were written. He went on Mount Sinai. We saw the ten plagues unleashed in Egypt. It was incredible. And people camp out in the past when God has so much more in their future. So much more in front of them. During Christmas break, I took my kids to go see the David cartoon movie. Did anyone see this movie? So good. I cried. It was so good. But I took them to a theater I hadn't been in a while. And as I'm driving there, I was like, guys, this was the premier movie theater when I was a kid. In 1991, my mom took me to go see Beauty and the Beast at this theater. And so they were kind of like, okay, cool, you know? And we're pulling up, and Liam goes, dad, are you sure about this being the premier theater? He's like, this looks a little shady. And I go, well, Listen, in the 90s, it was incredible. He goes, we're not in the 90s anymore, dad. It's 2026. He's like, Somewhere along the line, they stopped taking care of it. And those words kind of stood out to me. Somewhere along the line, they stopped taking care of it. Somewhere along the line, this marriage stopped paying attention to each other. They stopped dating each other. They stopped going to church. Somewhere along the line, people got stuck in the past. They hung on the glory days. Just because you had a victory in 1991 doesn't guarantee you're gonna have a victory in 2026. This is why God was telling Joshua, joshua, Moses had his victory. Moses had his moment. He's gone. He's dead. You need to wake up and move forward. And that's hard to hear. I remember when my father passed, and I didn't want to run forward. I didn't want to take another step forward. I was still thinking about him being where he was. I was still missing that. He was gone. And God was like, Paul, your dad served his generation. His body is in the grave. His spirit is in heaven. But you need to live right here, right now. Don't live off of his moments in the past. Don't build a museum and just celebrate the glory days of Billy Joe. You have a calling right now. In this season. Everybody say, right now. Right here. God says, moses is dead. Now you. Everybody say, now you. Now you. And all these people, get ready. Somebody say, get ready. Get ready. Get ready. In other words, this is preparation time. I'm about to take you somewhere. You're going to cross over the Jordan river into the land I'm about to give. God was giving the Israelites the land that he had promised to their great, great, great grandfather, Abraham. By the way, the promises of God don't expire. God promised this land to Israel, to Abraham, and the land still belongs to Israel. Like God didn't change his promises from the river to the sea, God gave this land to the Israelites. And God was telling Joshua, as I promised Abraham, as I promised Isaac, as I promised Jacob, as I told Joseph when he was in the pit and when he was in the palace, as I told Moses, I'm telling you, Joshua, this land is yours for the taking. But you gotta take it. I'm giving it to you. The fight has been fixed. But you gotta get in the ring. You got the victory. The victory is yours. But you gotta possess the land. Friends, half the battle is just showing up to something that God's already fought for you. If you'll just show up to church, if you'll show up to your job, show up to the relationships, show up in the discipleship class, show up to the counseling session, show up to the things that God's asking. Like, outcome is God's job. Obedience is our Job, God says, I've taken care of the outcome. I've already given this to you. But I'm waiting on your obedience, friends. Your obedience unlocks God's outcome. Man, I'm preaching to y'. All. I need to hear a little bit better from you guys this morning. He says, get ready. I'm giving it to you. Now watch verse three. He says, I will give you every place where you set your foot. As I promised Moses, I'm giving it to you. Your territory will extend from the desert, from the great river, from the Hittite country to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one, verse five. No one will be able to stand against you. No weapon formed against you will prosper. God was saying, no one will steal the success from you. No one will stop the victory that I put inside you. I just speak that prophetically over someone this year. God has already given you the victory. All you have to do is show up to the fight. All you have to do is announce to the enemy, I'm here. And the enemy is already trembling. The enemy is already afraid that you might find out who you really are, who your dad really is, who's really on your side. Come on. When the enemy is talking, you should hear what the enemy's saying behind your backs. What Joshua didn't know is that everybody in Canaan had been talking about Israel. He hadn't heard about it yet, but they were trembling. The walls of Jericho were tall, but everyone inside the city was afraid of Israel. God was telling Joshua, I will be with you. No one will be able to stand against you, as I was with Moses. So I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Now, when I read this verse a few months after my dad passed, we were in a really hard season as a church. People had been leaving our church by the thousands in this moment, not because of anything that was wrong with victory, but they missed my dad. And I missed him, too. And my mom missed her husband. And it was hard. It's just a hard season. And I remember opening this Bible verse in Joshua, chapter one. And I want to give it up for my mom, who has been one of the greatest pastors and leaders and pioneers and trailblazers, who has stayed faithful, who has fought through the hardest seasons as a widow to keep our church strong, and has prayed and stayed here fighting with me and Ashley. But I remember taking this verse. Joshua, chapter one, verse five. And I sat on this stage, and the lights were out, and all I had was my phone. I don't know where my phone is right now, but I had my phone, and I had that flashlight on my phone, and I was holding that flashlight and I looked at that verse, and tears are coming down my eyes. And it says, as I was with Moses, and I wrote down. I pulled out a pen and I wrote down, as I was with Billy Joe, so I will be with you. Now, those of you who don't know who Billy Joe is, you're like, who's Billy Joel? The singer? No, it was my dad who pastored Victory. And in my eyes, he was like Billy Graham. He was like Lester Sumrall. I mean, he was like Peter, Paul, James, John. He was like a mighty apostle, warrior, pastor, preacher for God. And I heard the Lord say, as I was with him, so I will be with you. And some people in the room, you might go, well, I don't know if God's going to be with you the exact same way he was with Billy Graham. Well, what Bible are you reading? Because the same God that was with Moses was with Joshua, and the same God that was with Joshua was with Esther, and the same God that was with Esther was with Gideon, and the same God that was with David was with Solomon, and the same God was with Solomon was with Peter.