Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is Anything Too Small for God? | The Life of Joshua | Joshua 5:13-15

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Should we go to God for our basic needs? Have you ever thought God was "too big" or "too busy" to answer your small prayers? In today's episode, https://twitter.com/TanyaWillmeth (Tanya) describes how a seemingly small occurrence in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%205&version=NIV (Joshua 5) points to a bigger picture of God's story, and how God could be doing the same thing in your own life. Interested in more content like this? Check out https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-are-you-holding-back-from-god-life-solmon-tanya/id1477778533?i=1000524763376 (What Are You Holding Back From God?) and https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-story-are-you-a-part-of-my-favorite-verses-hebrews-12-1-3/id1477778533?i=1000520036354 (What Story Are You a Part Of?) Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit ourhttps://www.thecrossingchurch.com/ ( website) and follow us onhttps://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks ( Facebook),https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ ( Instagram), andhttps://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast ( Twitter) @TheCrossingCOMO and @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Social Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks ( https://www.facebook.com/TenMinuteBibleTalks) Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/ ( https://www.instagram.com/thecrossingcomo/) Twitter:https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast ( https://twitter.com/tmbtpodcast) Passages https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Joshua%205&version=NIV (Joshua 5) Related https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-are-you-holding-back-from-god-life-solmon-tanya/id1477778533?i=1000524763376 (What Are You Holding Back From God?) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/what-story-are-you-a-part-of-my-favorite-verses-hebrews-12-1-3/id1477778533?i=1000520036354 (What Story Are You a Part Of?) Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. One of our favorite things to do is invite on our friends to be guest hosts for 10-minute Bible talks and share about their favorite verses. So, here you go. Sometimes I wonder if we ask things of God that are too small. I don't mean too small for God because, well, we know he's involved in every detail. rather, I mean, too small for us, as in too small because maybe our view of God is sometimes too small. You've probably heard about the Battle of Jericho and about how Joshua and his army

marched around it every day for seven days until they shouted and played trumpets and the city walls fell. It's a pretty magnificent story, and hang on to the podcast because we're going to get to that next week. But first, we have a lesser-known, but really magnificent paragraph that serves as an interlude between the Jordan crossing and the Battle of Jericho. We pick up still in Joshua 5, just after the people have crossed the Jordan. They were obedient to the Lord through circumcision, and they just celebrated the Passover feast for the first time in their new land. The man has stopped, and they got to eat a real meal from this land of their new home.

God has been faithful to every detail, big and small. But now Jericho stands before them, and God is promised in this city, but in reality it's a fortified place. It's protected by a wall, and it's home to a very real enemy. The narrator shifts focus from the nation of Israel to one man, and we see Joshua head out toward Jericho, kind of on a reconnaissance mission of sorts. Maybe he wants to see the city for himself, so he can make a plan for the attack. Joshua 513. Now, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, are you for us or for our enemies? Neither he replied, but as commander of the

army of the Lord, I have now come. Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence and asked him, What message does my lord have for his servant? The commander of the Lord's army replied, Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. It isn't clear at first for Joshua, if this is the Lord himself or an angel of the Lord, But it is eventually clear to Joshua and to us as the reader that the message comes directly from Yahweh. The encounter reminds us of a similar time where God appeared to Moses through a burning bush to prepare his heart for a time of leadership. So at first, Joshua asks, are you for us or for our enemies? Joshua wants to know if this commander is going to be fighting on his side or the other side.

And the answer he receives is far more compelling than the actual question, because the commander says, neither. It's as if he's saying to Joshua, you've asked the wrong question. I haven't come to take sides. I've come to take charge. I haven't come to join in and follow your plans, but to command and instruct your plans. Without knowing the answer to his first question, Joshua asked the next one, What message do you have for me? And the answer, take off your sandals for your standing on holy ground.

So now Joshua sees who he's talking to. And on his face before the Lord, Joshua's view of Yahweh is more real and more accurate. It's wider and deeper as he realizes that God has not come to take sides, but to direct operations. Joshua's been invited to abandon self-trust and self-love and self-leadership to join in God's battle and to be on God's side, to follow God's charge into the battle of Jericho. The God who appeared to Joshua is our living God. So as Joshua walked toward Jericho to view the situation before him, so we bring our questions before the Lord, and he expands and deepens our view of him. We asked questions, we walk forward faithfully, and through the power of the Holy Spirit,

he lets us hear his voice and follow his commands. We whitewater rafed with really young kids, a few years ago in the Arkansas River in Colorado. And as we were getting fitted for our gear, the guide gave us a speech that made me want to turn around a bail. It might not sound like a big deal to you, but I'm afraid of moving water and our kids were little, so the combo was a little much. Basically, it went something like this. People die every year, because they don't listen. So do what I say, and you'll be fine. If I say left, put your pedals on the left. If I say right, put them on the right. And otherwise, hang on. The speech is intentionally crafted to scare you a little bit. So you lose some pride and have a willingness to follow the guide and

listen. So after literally tying in our five-year-old with a rope around her waist and then his, all six of us went down the river fearfully listening and obeying our guide until we were also fearfully and excitedly obeying our guide. He was the only reason we made it through the river without losing at least one of us, probably in the rapids. So Joshua will fearfully and humbly follow the Lord's rather strange game plan for Jericho. But he will do it with the peace of knowing the emphasis is on God. He will do it with the assurance that the burdens aren't carried by him alone. God took Joshua's humble question about the battle he was walking into and revealed a bigger picture of the kingdom's soil he was walking on, and the bigger king that was on the throne.

The Bible is packed with stories of God doing more than answering our basic needs and concerns. Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 6. So do not worry saying, what shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things. and your Heavenly Father knows you need them, but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Are you coming to God with your questions?

And do you have space in your life to hear His Word? And have your view expanded from yourself and onto Him? I think what I'm trying to say is, if we don't have a relationship of some sort with God's word, we need one, it's the way we hear his voice today, like Joshua heard it way back then. We have questions about,

where to live, what to say, who to date, when to make changes, when to say yes and when to say no, among a million other things. We contemplate the pros and cons and the if-thens of our situations and sometimes get stuck, wondering if God will be with us on that side or this one. But as we faithfully encounter God through His word, we most likely won't find answers not to these specific questions. and that's a really good thing, because if that was the case, the Bible would be simple, and God's thoughts would be more like ours.

Rather, what we find with God is so much more. We discover the truth about where we live and who lives in us. We see the truth about His holiness and power and understand the vastness of his kingdom. We find our obsessions shadowed by the awe of his identity. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we learn to recognize and listen to God's voice. I hope we come to his word to have our minds renewed and our perspectives enlarged.

I hope we bring our small questions to him so he can show us his larger story. If you want to start a relationship with God's word, you're in a good place. You can start by following along in the book of Joshua. You can start in the Psalms. You can listen on an app. You probably know how. But I hope you'll remember it's worth it to make it happen. And I hope that I will too.

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