Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Trust God's Will | The Life of Joshua | Joshua 6

Starting point is 00:00:05 Welcome to Tim Minna Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. My name is Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now, we're going through the Book of Joshua. Also, if you want to connect with us, follow us on Twitter at TMBT podcast. You can also check out our hashtag, hashtag, Ask TMBT, where you can ask us anything, and we'd love to connect with you. Do you think God could use you to further his kingdom? or do you think God is looking for people who are more impressive than you, people who maybe have more

Starting point is 00:00:38 together in their life than you do in your life? Does God use spiritual heroes to make a difference in this world? You may know that I'm a pastor to church and that I was part of the team that started that church back in the summer of 2000. For the past 21 years, we've experienced God's goodness over and over and over. We've seen God change lives. Some of those lies have been changed pretty quickly and dramatically. Others much slower, incrementally. They've taken years to change. We've seen God use our church to bring people who are very far from God into a relationship with him. Our staff team is made up of incredible people who love Jesus and are very talented. And to be honest, they could do just about anything in their life, but they choose to stay here and work at our church together on our

Starting point is 00:01:25 team. We've seen God use the church in our community to participate in conversations about racial justice or unifying churches of different denominations and sizes or helping the poor. It's truly been an amazing 21 years. But here's what happens. People see the church's success and think highly of me or one of the other pastors or one of the other leaders in our church. They say and think things like, you guys are smart or wise or strategic. And that's completely understandable. when we see good businesses or good teams or good families or good nonprofits or even good churches, we instinctively give credit to the leaders. That's completely understandable and completely wrong.

Starting point is 00:02:09 If you only knew how ordinary we are, you wouldn't be impressed with us at all. Honestly, I think you'd be unimpressed with us, but very impressed with God. You can say a lot of things about God. He is gracious and kind and loving and forgiving, and the list goes on and all. on. But I think you could add this to your list. God loves to use ordinary people to do extraordinary things. God loves to use the weak and the poor and the average and the ordinary because that way he gets the glory, he gets the honor, he gets the credit for all the good that comes out of their lives. So just to bring it back to where we started, if you came to our church and left thinking there

Starting point is 00:02:49 are some really sharp men and women behind that church, you would have completely missed the point. or to be more specific, you would have completely missed God. God chooses to work through ordinary people so that everyone will know that he's the one who should get the attention and the praise and the glory. In Joshua chapter 6, Israel captures the city of Jericho in an unusual way, but it's completely in line with God's way of doing things. Here's how Joshua 6 starts. Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites.

Starting point is 00:03:21 No one went out and no one came in. Jericho was a military city. It had fortified walls and a secure gate. And when Israel came to attack it, they closed the gate in a way that didn't allow anybody in or out. So as we read this verse, what we're supposed to wonder is, how in the world is Israel going to take Jericho? Verse 2. Then the Lord said to Joshua, see, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting. men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carried trumpets of ram's horn in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout. Then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up. Everyone straight in. Okay, this is crazy on a number of levels. First of all, he talked. He talked. as though Jericho has already been given to Israel. He says, see, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, past tense. But that's not the case at all. Israel is outside the gates wondering, how are we going to

Starting point is 00:04:36 take this city? So it hasn't happened yet. And then the strategy he gives to take the city, well, it sounded silly to a military strategist or really just someone with common sense. I mean, you're going to do what? You're going to march around a city. them blow horns, and that's the way you're going to defeat it? Israel was faced with a question that I think you and I are faced with all the time, and that is, will I trust God's will? Will I trust God's word? Will I trust God's way? Even though it doesn't make sense to me? We face that with our money, with our time, with her sexuality, with our attitude, with our relationships, with how we handle conflict. The list kind of goes on and on. Well, I trust God's way, God's will, God's word,

Starting point is 00:05:22 even when it doesn't make sense to me. Well, Israel followed God's instructions, and God kept his promise, the walls fell down, and the city was taken. That's an unconventional military strategy to say the least. But remember, God loves to work in people, and he loves to work in ways that bring credit and honor and glory to him, and not to us. When God appeared in the burning bush and spoke to Moses and called him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Moses said, who am I? I can't do this. And God kind of agrees with him. In other words, he doesn't say buck up, Moses, you're better than you think you are. He says, yeah, I get it, Moses. I made you. I know your weaknesses. But here's the deal. I'm going to go with you. This doesn't depend on you, Moses. It depends on me. In the book of judges,

Starting point is 00:06:12 Gideon faces a mighty army made up of soldiers that are far more numerous than his soldiers. He's got a small little band of men that he has to fight the Midianite army with. And yet, listen to what God says to Gideon, you have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into your hands, or Israel would boast against me and say, my own strength has saved me. So Gideon is already outnumbered, and then God says, hey, look, you've got too many men. You're like too many. There's no possible way I have too many men.

Starting point is 00:06:45 And God says, here's the deal. I can't deliver Midian into your hands because you're going to say your strength has saved you. So if you follow the story along, God cuts his small ban in half. And that way, when God wins the battle, God gets the credit. Or think about David fighting the giant Goliath. And David says this battle belongs to the Lord. He knew the battle didn't depend on him, but to God. You see, we have a tendency to put our trust, our hope, our confidence in ourselves, or in our circumstances, or the people we can recruit, or the money we can raise.

Starting point is 00:07:23 We put it in something other than God. And so in Psalm 33, God reminds us, he says, no king is saved by the size of his army. No warrior escapes by his great strength. A horse is a vain hope for deliverance. Despite all its great strength, it cannot save. But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those who hope in his unfailing love to deliver them from death and keep them alive and famine. You begin to see what it means when we say that the most powerful person in the world is the person who's yielded to God, the person who's surrendered to God, because that means that God can work in and through his or her life. Think of Jesus' death. God won through sacrifice. He won by giving you.

Starting point is 00:08:11 his life, for dying for his enemies instead of trying to defeat them. Think of the apostles. They were incredibly ordinary people. In fact, the Jewish leaders at the time were so surprised that these apostles were the ones who were turning the world upside down, preaching the good news of Jesus in Jerusalem. They literally said, these are unschooled, uneducated, ordinary people. And yeah, that's the whole point. That's the kind of people that God loves to you. use so that he gets the honor and he gets the glory and he gets the credit. 1 Corinthians 1. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this

Starting point is 00:08:56 world and the despised things and the things that are not to nullify the things that are so that no one may boast before him. If we understand who we are, we won't boast before God. We won't boast before our peers, we won't even boast in our own heart and our own mind if we see that we are the weak, right? We are the lowly. We are the things that are not, and that God has used us in ways that we didn't deserve and that really we shouldn't get the credit for. Back to the story in Jericho. Hebrews 11 says this. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell after the army had marched around them for seven days. When we put our faith in God's promises, what we're saying to God and to ourself and anyone watching is, we can't do this, but God can. So remember I started by asking if you believe that

Starting point is 00:09:51 God would use you, or if you think he uses people who kind of are more spiritually impressive than you, have a better spiritual resume, have more of life together. And the reality is he loves to use people who are broken. Second Corinthians four, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. So if you know your weaknesses, if you know your inability, if you know your powerlessness, if you know that you lack, but you put your hope and trust in a God who works, and a God who moves, and a God who changes lives, starting with your life and then moving out to others. Well, that's exactly the kind of person that God wants to use.

Starting point is 00:10:37 He wants to use those who know better than to trust in themselves, but instead trust in God. How does God want to use you? Are you open? Are you willing? Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps others find this podcast more easily. Also ask yourself who you could share this podcast with.

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Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - How to Trust God's Will | The Life of Joshua | Joshua 6

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