“We are journeying unto the place of which the Lord said, I will give it you: come thou with us, and we will do thee good: for the Lord hath spoken good concerning Israel.” Now, our invitation is the invitation Moses gave: Come and go with us. And if you’re listening to me today and you’re not a child of God, by faith in Jesus Christ, you can join the party. And we’re marching. We’re on the way; we’re going to the presence of Christ. We’re not a group that are marching because we’re better than anyone else, because we’re not. We’re sinners, saved by the grace of God. If you see yourself as a sinner and you need a Savior, turn to Him—by simple faith trust Him; join the march.

The Lord, when He redeemed us, He redeemed us by the blood of Christ; He paid a price. And now He’s given us as a gift back to the Lord Jesus Christ. We belong to Him. Now service to Him, friends, does not rest upon rules and regulations and laws. That’s not the way you serve the Lord Jesus. You serve Him now because you love Him. You’re in a new relationship to Him. You’ve been joined to Him; you’re part of Him. And what a thrill it is now to know you’re serving Him. And you’re not following little rules and regulations. You’ve been brought to a high place, and you want to please Him. How wonderful this is.

“At the commandment of the Lord the children of Israel journeyed, and at the commandment of the Lord they pitched: as long as the cloud abode upon the tabernacle they rested in their tents.” So that Moses is not the one who decided whether they would march today or tomorrow or whether they’d stay in camp on the third day. God decided that. And we need to recognize that today. That the Lord Jesus Christ is head of the church. He should be the One to lead. He can’t even keep up with His church today; it’s going its own way. Men are having their own way, making their own decisions. But Christ is still head of His church, and those that are His will follow Him.

Friends, let’s understand this very clearly. Oh, you can sing a solo. You can preach a sermon. You can teach a Sunday school class. You can be an officer in the church, but you’re not effective. I’ll tell you right now—I don’t know who you are. But you’re not effective until you walk in the light of the Word of God, until you’re cleansed, until you have been to Him for cleansing. You see yourself in the light of the Word of God. You know you come short. And you go and make confession of your sin, and you know He forgives you.

Now I’m of the opinion that many of us today are missing a great blessing. Suppose you’re going through a particular time of trial, trouble, why not set yourself aside to God? You’re a Christian, and you don’t want to get hurt in all of this. You want to live for God, don’t you? And so you set yourself aside for God in a very definite way, to walk closer with Him. And it will make the trial—now it won’t remove the trial, but it will make it more bearable, let me say. And He says, “Take my yoke upon you; learn of me, I am meek and lowly,” and it’s nice to be yoked up with Him.

You want to come into a closer walk with Him? An act of dedication? Now, you can’t consecrate yourself. Only God can. Actually, what it means is to come to God with empty hands. We offer Him nothing. We haven’t anything really that He has to have or He takes particular delight in. We’re sinners, saved by grace. And when we come to Him, we just offer ourselves to Him—our devotion, our worship, our love, our service, our time, and we’re to find our joy in Him and the things of God.

In John 17:6, He says, “I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Thine they were and thou gavest them me, and they have kept thy Word.” You’ll notice that the church has been given to the Lord Jesus. The believers have. And then again in verse 9: “I pray for them. I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me for they are thine.” And so we have been given as a love gift from the Father to the Son. And some of us may feel like He didn’t get very much, but it’s not what we are; it’s what He’s going to make out of us that’s important.

We’re told that by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, and when you’re put in the body, you’re put in as a member. Paul says, “As the body has many members … so is Christ.” That is, the church. So that today when He puts you in the body, why He puts you in to serve. Every believer has a gift. You have a gift. And it is the exercise of that gift that’s Christian service. Why I’m told that there are 20-some-odd bones down in your foot; just think of the gifts there must be in the church. My friend, you have a gift, and God wants you to exercise it.

I have a question for you today. It’s a rather personal question. Can you declare your pedigree as a Christian? Well, somebody said, “Why, I didn’t know whether I could or not.” Absolutely. You become a son of God by faith in Christ. There’s no other way. I want to say to you: You can be born again by the blood of Christ and be in the family of God, and that’s the only way. How can you make sure? Take God at His word. If you trust Christ, then you take God at His word. And He says that you’re His son by trusting. “Now are we the sons of God.” Are you a son of God? You are if you’ve trusted Christ, and you can believe God.

Now He saved us by His infinite, marvelous, wonderful grace, but you and I are in a world today—and it’s a wicked world and it’s a rough world. And like the children of Israel out in the wilderness, this world is a wilderness as far as God is concerned, and sin is in the world. And God saves us by His marvelous grace. But then we’re told that we have a fight and we have an enemy. And Paul said to a young preacher in 2 Timothy 2:3, “Thou therefore endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” And he said again, “Fight the good fight of faith.”