this morning we have the incredible privilege of looking at the book of Joshua again chapter 8. So if you would please stand for the reading of God's word, Joshua 8.
Please turn to chapter 7 verse 26 through chapter 8 verse 9 and then on down to 24 through 35. And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of A Corp. And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear and do not be dismayed. Take all the fighting men with you and arise, go up to A. See I have given into your hand the king of A and his people, his city and his land. And you shall do to A and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. Only at spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves. Lay an ambush against the city behind it. So Joshua and all the fighting men arose to go up to A and Joshua chose 30,000 mighty men of valor and sent them out by night and he commanded them, behold you shall lie an ambush against the city behind it. Do not go very far from the city, but all of you remain ready and I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. And when they come out against us just as before we shall flee before them and they will come out after us until we have drawn them away from the city. For they will say they are fleeing from us just as before. So we will flee before them. Then you shall rise up from the ambush and seize the city. For the Lord your God will give it to you and to your hand. And as soon as you have taken the city you shall set the city on fire. You shall do according to the word of the Lord. See I have commanded you. So Joshua sent them out and they went to the place of ambush and laid between Bethel and A to the west of A but Joshua spent that night among the people. And now verse 24. When Israel had finished killing all the inhabitants of A in the open wilderness where they had pursued them and all of them to the very last had fallen by the edge of the sword. All Israel returned to A and struck it down with the edge of the sword. And all who fell that day, both men and women were 12,000. All the people of A but Joshua did not draw back his hand with which he stretched out the javelin until he had devoted all the inhabitants of A to destruction. Only the livestock in the spoil of that city Israel took his plunder according to the word of the Lord that he commanded Joshua. So Joshua burned A and made it at forever a heap of ruins as it is to this day. And they hanged the key king of A on a tree until evening and at sunset Joshua commanded and they took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones which stands there to this day. At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord the God of Israel on Mount Evil just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel as it is written in the book of the law of Moses and altar of uncut stones upon which no man has wielded an iron tool. And they offered on it burned offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And there in the presence of the people of Israel he rode on the stones a copy of the law of Moses which he had written. And all Israel sojourner as well as native born were their elders and officers and their judges stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priest who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord. Half of them in front of Mount Mount Gharazin and half of them in front of Mount Evil just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at first to bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law the blessing and the curse occurred according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel and the women and the little ones and the sojourners who lived among them. This is a word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Father, Son and Holy Spirit we raised the sales of our heart Lord as we seek to understand your word. We ask for your wisdom Holy Spirit please lead us into all truth in your kindness reveal Christ to us. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. There is a bit of a struggle when you leave the valley of trouble. The valley of a core is the valley of trouble. It's a place where they actually had to stone one of the members of their very own flock. And anytime you leave a place of struggle in a place of discipline it's very likely that you would be discouraged. It's likely that you would wonder what what do we do now? We have this valley of trouble behind us with this heap of stones and in front of us we have these people we've worn against them once and we've lost. So where do we go? We're between a rock and a hard spot if you will and they're overwhelmed and they don't know how to move forward and in their discouragement they're frozen. It's as if they can't move forward. It's as if if they go back they're afraid of the Lord's wrath. If they move forward they're afraid of their enemies they have this sense of trouble upon them. And what does the Lord do for his people? He engages them. He re-engages them and he speaks the word that they need to hear. Listen to what he says. And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear and do not be dismayed. He ties this present moment to the past and you know their minds, Joshua. His mind immediately sifted back to Joshua chapter one. Do you remember when Mark started our study in Joshua chapter one? You remember the words of God to his servant Joshua? He said these words after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord. The Lord said to Joshua the son of none. Moses is assistant. Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise. Go over this Jordan. You and all this people into the land that I am giving to them. To the people of Israel every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon. I have given to you just as I promised Moses from the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the Great River to the River Euphrates all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun. Shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life just as I was with Moses. So I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous. For you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them only be strong and very courageous. And then verse nine. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. It's as if the Lord God took Joshua back and he said remember remember you don't know what to do and you are overwhelmed but remember I promised you you see Joshua continues to find himself between a promise and a possession and as he's in the process of possessing that which the Lord has given him their struggles. There are struggles do you have any? There are struggles when we walk in the midst of God's promises. We have struggles from outside if you will and struggles from inside. This passage that I had the kings read is framed by a couple piles of rocks. Ebeneasers if you will. There are seven stone monuments built in the book of Joshua. We read about number two three and four and the majority of this story takes place between these two piles of rocks. One looking back at the sin of acon they had internal strife and then one looking forward to this outside struggle this struggle against their enemies. That's the way we live our lives as well, isn't it? We have our domestic problems and we have our foreign problems. It's our struggle. It's our struggle against the devil and the world and our very own sinful flesh. How does God deal with that? He tells us don't be afraid. Fear is a common theme within the heart of man. Every person struggles with fear. This word dismayed means you're so afraid and you're so confused. You don't know how to move forward. You just stand there. You just stand there. Here comes the car and you're in the middle of the street and you're overwhelmed and you just stand there staring at it like a deer in the headlights. That's what God is saying. He's saying you don't have to be that way. I'm re-engaging and you know what happens to Joshua? This re-engagement with God cultivates a fresh faith in him. A fresh faith, a new courage. It's almost as if he's saying well if I'm with the Lord and the Lord's with me we can do this. We can go forward and you can almost feel Joshua melting. You can almost feel this sense of his heart getting soft again and the Lord is literally encouraging him. He's placing courage in him and Joshua is standing up not in his own strength but in the strength of the Lord. He has this new courage based on God's promises and based on God's fulfillment. He's brought him to this point. Hey, they're across the Jordan. They're in an enemy territory that's now becoming their own. What's the second thing God does? He engages them with a plan that includes their active obedience. The first thing God does is he engages his people by connecting their present situation in light of his past promises and in light of future possession. What's the second thing he does? He engages us with a plan that includes our active obedience. Listen to what he says. He says to him, I have given into your hand the king of A and his people and his city and his land. Listen to this and you shall do to A and its king as you did to Jericho and its king. See, he's remembering and Joshua is getting stronger again. He's like, oh, I remember that. You took that whole city down and he says only its spoil and its livestock you shall take its plunder. Do you know what he just did? He said, what you capture you can have. You can literally possess it. You can take that plunder and it can be yours. It's a great motivation for an army. Great motivation. I want you to notice one of the things that the Lord does here. He tells him, take, I'm in verse 1, take all the fighting men with you. Take all of them. In other words, when God engages his people in his work, he wants us to come with full strength. Now I know in our particular tradition, we would probably lean more to sitting and watching than we would be an actively obedient. Why? Well, for a number of reasons, one is we want to make sure that we don't confuse our own obedience with the all sufficient work and obedience of Christ. And in order to be as careful as possible, many of us do absolutely nothing. Now Jesus, we know it's all you. So just to let everyone know I believe it's all you, I'm just going to kind of stay on the sideline. You know what the Lord does? He huddles us. I don't know if you watch the Dallas Cowboys on television. Sometimes I'll record the game. When I record the game, I usually fast forward through the huddles. If you came to my home and you watched me focusing on the huddles, you say, what are you doing? You're focusing on the huddles. Why don't you watch the game? Now you know where I'm going with this and at the moment we're huddled. We're huddled and I personally believe that our corporate worship is the most important thing we do all week. So don't miss what I'm insinuating here. What we're doing right now is critical in our walk with Christ. You know sometimes at the end of a play that ends in a touchdown, the team re-huddles in the in zone. They all gather in the in zone to celebrate and that's part of our worship too, isn't it? We celebrate what Christ has done for us. We take such great joy in him. Now I'm going to take a bit of a risk this morning, Mark. I'm going to need your help and Morgan, I'm going to need your help and um, Steph, I need your help. If y'all would just come over and stand with me and George, please come over here. We're going to huddle and um, what I want to do in this huddle is just give you some instructions for the week. George, I want you to lead Mary in the family devotions this week. Okay. If you would do that, that would be great. It's not only for her sake but for yours, okay? And I know that children are gone, but follow through on that if you would. Okay. Stephanie, I'm going to ask you to love Stephen well this week to receive his love as, as the bride receives the very love of Christ and to treasure him and to enjoy him all week long every day this week. Okay. Morgan, I'm going to ask that you would rest in Christ this week in the midst of transition in the midst of struggle. Lord, I'm with you and you're with me and I'm not afraid and I have strength and I have courage from you. And Mark, I want to ask that you'll continue to pursue the Lord above anything else. I'm so thankful to the Lord for the way he's using you. It's such a joy. Continue to pursue him with your whole heart because we're being so blessed. Okay, ready? Break. Go on back. Now, this week we're going to video them and we're going to watch and see what they do. Right? Because if they've been asked, Clantan, you were on my team, you just missed it. I was going to ask you to go long. But God right now, maybe speaking to your heart, we're huddled here doing the most important thing we do all week like I said. But we also, when we leave, we do something very important. We're engaged in worship all week long. Are we gone? What if we followed one another and we only videoed the acts of obedience? So right there, you have a little calm and say, oh, don't video my acts of disobedience. But what if we video your acts of obedience? What would that look like? Not just as Stephanie receives the love of her husband all week long enjoying and reflecting on the love of Christ for her. What's God called you to do? I don't pretend to have some prophetic gift to be able to tell you what to do. But I will tell you one thing. God has actively engaged you in his service. And he demands active obedience. Just imagine if we broke the huddle and the ball was hiked and Mark had the ball and he's looking around and everyone just standing around. No one runs a pattern. Nobody blocks. Maybe an offensive lineman kneels in prayer. I'm all for prayer. But that offensive lineman needs to block. And so I want to ask you a question. Are you actively involved in God's kingdom throughout the week? Do you know that the victory that these folks were going to win was dependent on their active obedience? Now God doesn't always do it that way. In fact, when he saved us, all of our salvation is based on the work of Christ. But the act of sanctification, I know that's a big word. What's that mean? This act of growing in Christ is a cooperative effort. And for some of you, you might need to ambush your sin the way Israel ambushed A. And you need to cut off the supply line to that sin and stop bowing and worshipping that sin and look up instead at your savior. The last thing I would like to say to us this morning is not only that God engages his people, not only that God engages his people in active obedience, but I want you to know he gives us victory that culminates in restoration and renewal. He gives us victory that culminates in restoration and renewal. Any of our obedience only points toward the perfect obedience of Christ. And as we begin to understand that, not lazily but actively pursuing the Lord, pursuing his righteousness, these victories that we have in Christ, we celebrate and it culminates in this sense of restoration and renewal. Can you sense the restoration and renewal in the people of God when they've completed this battle in the power of the Lord? He used them, he engaged them, and when you're engaged, you own it, you want it, you care, you cry, you laugh, you pray. The prayer that we have for our family devotional, this beautiful prayer and challenge to use spiritual weapons, not just physical weapons, and it culminates in this marvelous service. So we start with a pile of rocks over the body of one of our very own. We move to a pile of rocks over the king of AI and then we come to this gorgeous time of restoration and covenant renewal where God's Word is read. You know God has a big vision. He's going to take over all of Canaan with these people. If you think in a geographic way, you know that they've split Canaan in half and now they're going to systematically take over these areas and then they're going to move to the north. And I want you to know it's not just something physical that's going on, there's something spiritual going on because God is taking over every inch of their hearts. It's not just an external battle of gathering land, God's gathering the people's hearts to himself, and that's what he's doing to you right now, and that's what he's doing to me. And then in this process we see this beautiful ground that Christ gains in our life and we worship Him and we praise Him. I want you to understand something that maybe you've never understood before. God owns every part of your heart. It belongs to Him. The reason they erected those piles of stone is to remember. And if they ever started to go back it kind of blocked them and said, oh remember, oh remember what God did? And it blocked them from this rebellion and I want to say to you, what are the areas of your heart, these darling sins that you're holding onto? You don't want God in that territory in your heart. You know in World War II, whenever our military wanted to take over an island in the Pacific, they would fly over and take aerial photographs. And then they would bring in their big warships and they would fire these warships to kind of loosen the battlements there on the island. And then they would get a little closer and begin firing armaments to tear down the strongholds of the enemy. And then they would land with the Marines and establish a beachhead. And the Marines would land in this beachhead and they would systematically take over the island. I want you to know that this picture of Joshua is a spiritual picture of what God is doing in our hearts right now. He's taking over our hearts, parcel by parcel and he will not stop and he will never be removed. And so I want to say to you,
do not fear and do not be dismayed for our God has made promises that he has fulfilled completely and Christ. And the Holy Spirit's work is to continually illuminate and renew our minds and our hearts so that we understand, I am the Lord's even in the midst of confusion. And so the Lord calls us to worship him, to worship him here this morning in this holy huddle, if you will, but to worship him during the week with our active obedience as the Lord works to win our heart for himself and for his glory because we belong to him and you are his trophy,
you are his trophy to his glory and to our good. Let's pray. Father, we do indeed live our lives between these Ebeneasers. Lord, we live in these valleys and we walk mundane lives, mundane lives that include things like carpool and grocery shopping and cooking and loading the dishwasher and trying to find a job or trying to find a deal that might bring in enough money to pay the bills. Lord, we serve you in the mundane and we celebrate you daily in the mundane lives you've given us, but oh Lord, may you allow us to see our lives or spiritual eyes to know, you are actively at work, winning our hearts and winning us a new for you, for your glory and for our good. Oh Lord, we do gaze at these Ebeneasers and we think of our one true rock, the Lord Jesus Christ and whose name we pray, amen.