Rest Through War | Joshua 11 & 12

You can turn in your Bibles to Joshua Chapter 11.

Joshua 11 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's going to be the

scriptures on the screen today as well as there's a Bible in

front of it. You can just have that one.

It's on a floor in the seat nearby, and you can just turn to

page 184. We'll be there in just a moment.

But seriously, if you don't have one, consider that our gift to

you. Don't go buy a Bible.

We bought it for you. Congratulations.

I'm like Oprah today you get a Bible.

Hey, during World War 2, I don't know if you knew this, but when

Nazi Germany started bombing Europe, they started bombing

like literal cities with civilians.

And when London was being bombed night after night thousands of

people would flee from the bomb scene.

They would leave their homes, and where they would go is down

into the subway stations underneath London.

And these people, these families, they would lay out

blankets. They'd be shoulder to shoulder.

They would do whatever they could to just find a piece of

the subway where they could lay their head, where it would be

muffled, the sounds of war up above them.

And somehow, some way through the tears, through the shouting,

through the bombs literally exploding overhead, through war

happening above them, people would fall asleep.

Now, I am a heavy sleeper. I am known to sleep through TV

shows, known to sleep through all kinds of noise in my house,

including screaming children coming into my room to watch the

chagrin of my wife. My, I'm a heavy sleeper.

My wife, Maddie, a very light sleeper.

Whether there's a light on in our room, whether I mean when I

say light, I mean like this much light, you know, whether it's a

noise from our kids. She's a light sleeper.

And I don't know where you fall on the sleep spectrum, whether

you're a heavy sleeper, A lightsaber.

I can tell you this, a sleeping with war going on around you

would be tough. Finding rest in the middle of a

battle scene feels impossible, like resting in the middle of a

war zone. I don't know how they did it.

I don't know how they found rest in the middle of a war zone.

But what I believe is that right now on planet Earth, those of us

who are here right now, guess what?

We're in the middle of an actual spiritual war waging all around

us. And not only are we in a fight

against our sin, against Satan, against death, but we are

experiencing this war. And internally we have conflict

happening inside of us still. Anxiety and worry, depression

and fear, anger and doubt. Just real.

Spiritual exhaustion, real turmoil, real conflict that's

hard to imagine. We find rest from that.

There can be relief in the war. I want to give you this

definition for rest that I think Josh was going to help us see

today. He can help us find it.

In fact, rest is just this in the Bible.

It's a supernatural settledness despite internal external

conflict, that if we're going to find real rest in a war zone

ourselves, if we're going to find that supernatural

settledness in our spirits, in our minds and in our hearts,

guess what? We have to turn to the one who

can give it. We have to actually find the

place of refuge, find the subway station, so to speak, where we

can actually lay our head down in the anxieties of today can

pass, where our mind can turn off for just a moment so we can

actually go to rest. Joshua 11 and 12/2 chapters

today. There's a lot, so we're not

going to go through it with a fine tooth comb, but we are

going to explore the main idea of it, which is this, answering

this question, how do I experience the rest God gives in

the middle of a war, Not just a war, the war, the spiritual war

over sin, Satan, and death. How can we live between the

victory of Joshua 12, which we will see the rest of Joshua 12,

and the war of Joshua 11, the conquest, because we're still

fighting inside of Joshua 11. How can we experience the rest

that God gives? I want to show it to you in the

text today through three points, but I want to start reading the

Bible for you in Joshua Chapter 11.

Joshua 11 · chapter mention

It's the big bold 11 in your Bible there.

It's on the screen behind beside me, and it says this when Jabin,

King of Hazer heard this, This is after Joshua has defeated us

all, southern Canaan. This is after Joshua has seen

the sun stand still. He's the people of Israel have

crossed the Jordan River. They've beaten Jericho.

Like they've seen some miracles happen in Joshua.

And now these people in northern Canaan, the promised land,

they're like, Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?

How are we going to stop these guys?

How are we going to stop the Israelites?

And if you are new to the Bible, this is about 1400 years before

Jesus. So we're well before Jesus comes

to the scene. But we're here in Joshua Chapter

Joshua 11 · chapter mention

11, verse one, and there's this king named Jabin.

He hears of Joshua conquering a bunch of people.

He sends to Jobab, the king of made on and to the king of

Shimron and to the king of a name that you can't pronounce

either. And to the kings who were in the

northern Hill Country, in the Arab US, South of Chinaroth in

the lowland and an Apath door on the West, to the Canaanites in

the east and to the West the Amorites, the Hittites, the

Parasites, the Jebusites in the Hill Country, and the Hivites

under Hermann in the land of Mizpah.

And they came out, all these troops, all these kingdoms, they

come out in a great hoard, in a number like the sand that is on

the seashore, with very many horses and Chariots.

And all these kings joined their forces and came and camped

together at the waters of Miram to fight against Israel.

Pause. Israel is completely outgunned

by all these people. They are completely outnumbered

by all of these armies. Their only choice now is to

unite against Israel. And I want you to get a sense of

it's like one against 100. Israel should stand no chants

against this fight. It should feel impossible.

It should feel inevitable that they lose, but Israel's got 10

chapters worth now of watching God win battles for them,

watching God do the impossible part rivers and make the sun

stand still. They've watched their leader

Joshua lead them time and time again to victory.

And they have confidence not necessarily in their leader, but

in their ultimate leader, God. And while these armies can't

camp against him with numbers outnumbering the sand on the

seashore, the Lord says to Joshua in verse 6 what he says

to him time and time again in the book.

Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will

give over all of them slain to Israel.

Here's what I want you to do, Josh.

I want you to hamstring their horses and burn their Chariots

with fire. So Joshua and all his warriors

came suddenly against them by the waters of Rome and fell upon

them. And the Lord gave them into the

hand of Israel, who struck them and chased them as far as grace

and on in that other city, and he sweared as far as the valley

of Mizpah. And they struck them until he

left, none remaining. And Joshua did to them, just as

the Lord said to him. He hamstrung their horses and

burned their chairs. The fire underline that verse

we're going to come back to in just a second.

Joshua turned back at the time he captured Hazer and struck its

king with the sword. For Hazer formerly was the head

of all those kingdoms, and they struck with the sword all who

were in it, devoting them to destruction.

There was none left that breathed.

And he burned Hazer with fire. And all the cities of those

kings and all their kings Joshua captured, and he struck them

with the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction,

just as Moses the servant of the Lord, had commanded.

But none of the cities that stood on mounts did Israel burn,

except Hazer alone that Joshua burned.

And all the spoiled these cities and the livestock and the people

of Israel took for their plunder.

But every person struck, they struck with the edge of the

sword until they destroyed them. And they did not leave any who

breathed. Let's stop there for a moment.

That doesn't feel like rest, that feels like war.

But notice they were not afraid even in the midst of a battle.

They still had rest in their hearts, even though around them

there was a great fight. So how do we experience God's

rest? What's the principle we can

grab? We'll jot this down.

I experience God's rest as I fight sin fiercely.

This is what Joshua 11 means for us in 2026.

We are not out there to conquer northern Canaan.

We're not trying to take people and devote them to destruction.

Quite the opposite, in fact. We're intended to have a war

waging against our sin. That is what we fight fiercely,

Saints, that we fight sin fiercely.

And notice how Joshua did it. He fought his enemies one how

God told him to, just as God commanded was repeated over and

over again. Why?

Because Joshua was meticulous in his obedience, just as the Lord

commanded Joshua did. He didn't just do it because God

told him, though. He did it with others.

This is the people of Israel fighting fiercely.

I want you to look back at verse 11 and 14.

And they struck with a sword all who were in it, devoting them

destruction. There was none left that

breathed verse 14, and they did not leave any who breathed.

Joshua fought so fiercely. There were no survivors.

There should be no surviving sin in our life.

That's how aggressive, how fierce we must be in our fight

against sin. That same mentality is ours to

possess. And putting to death all that is

in us that goes against God, that's sin.

But believers, here's what we'll often do.

We'll often keep for ourselves pet sins, even though the Lord

has demanded no survivors with our sin.

We keep sin in our lives because we're blind to it, or we keep in

our lives because we're comfortable with it.

But listen to me. Here's what sin wants for you.

It wants to steal, kill, and destroy your life.

It wants to steal everything good.

It wants to kill and take you out.

It wants to destroy all that is going right in your life.

Listen to me, believer. We must fight sin fiercely with

this level of aggression. We cannot keep our sin as pets

that we think will not hurt us. In fact, I don't have you ever

heard the story of Travis the chimp?

He's from about 20 years ago. And Travis the chimp was a chimp

that was adopted by a woman who you know what she's like, Hey, I

want I saw MVP, that kids movie. Let me just have a chimp for my

pet. And she's like, let me let me

just have a chimpanzee like a child.

I'm going to raise it. I'm a domesticated, I'm going to

potty train it. It's going to wear clothes and

everyone for a moment thought this is good, this is good.

She's got a pet chimpanzee. She's like Ross on Friends.

You know, he's different, he's safe.

But one day out of nowhere, he went feral.

She had a friend over and she in the chimpanzee, Travis

completely dismembered and disfigured her face.

And then he turned on the owner. Despite the owner trying to stop

Travis, despite the owner speaking to him like he

shouldn't be hurting somebody or destroying somebody, he did not

have reason. It was a sudden and devastating

violence. That's what sin will do to you,

too. If you think you can just let

your sin hang out in your life and coexist with you, it's

coming at you sooner or later, and it's going to wreak havoc on

your life. It's going to want to take you

out. We must fight sin fiercely, just

as Joshua fought the enemies of Israel.

Then we must fight the enemy of God now in sin and death

forever. We must fight it fiercely.

We must put it to death. I just want to take a moment

this morning and have like a little scorecard check.

You know, like at AUFC match or a boxing match.

Even though boxing matches are rigged, they will have a real

scorecard where judges will go through and they will evaluate

how the fight went. And I think 1 to 10.

If we get a scorecard ourselves on some sins this morning and

our fight against them, I think we could have a real reality

check for our level of ferocity and going after sin.

I'm calling this a fighting scorecard.

The first sin would be pride, which is elevating yourself in

the place of God. If a one would be.

You are not fighting back at all.

You are just letting pride pummel you and destroy you.

You are losing the fight and A10 being you are the one actually

bearing pride and you are fighting at every step.

You can rate yourself one to 10 on pride, elevating yourself in

the place of God. Maybe it's greed.

Greed is the unsatiable desire for more.

Are you at A1A4A7A10 in your fight against it?

Are you deleting the apps that make you greedy?

Are you cleaning up the closet so you're less greedy?

What is your fight against it? Is it lust that you need to

think about fighting? Lust is just turning a person

into an object for one's own gratification.

Are you at A1A5A10? Is it envy?

The desire for somebody else's life?

13710 Gluttony, which is the overconsumption driven by a

deeper emptiness? Where you at?

Wrath, uncontrolled anger that seeks to harm rather than heal,

Taking God's role in judgement. Are you fighting it fiercely,

Sloth, which is the idea of avoiding what God has called you

to do? May I just confess to you, this

is the one that I felt like I was not fighting nearly enough

in my life. This is the habit that I feel

like I'm just let to sit in my life and let me take me down.

I'm slothful at times, my own personal Bible reading.

I'm slothful in my spiritual discipline, my physical

discipline. I am just lazy as a parent that

I can be slothful and I'm taking more punches than I'm giving.

But this week, God has called me to the mat, and I want to fight

sin fiercely. I'm not going to let

slothfulness stop me from getting up early and getting

with God anymore. And maybe some of you need to

hear that today too. You're not alone in that fight.

But listen to me, You do need to fight every single one of those.

There might be a day where the habit you thought you'd never

break, the reaction you'd never stop having.

Guess what? By the power of God, you can

conquer. You can Vanquish, you can fight

and win, You can experience God's rest in your fight against

sin. But not only that, the second

thing that we can experience God's rest in.

I can experience God's rest as I second follow God faithfully.

Not only am I fight against sin, but also as we follow God

faithfully. The second part of Chapter 11

first starts the verse 15, saying that just as the Lord had

commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua and so

Joshua did. Joshua left nothing undone of

all the Lord had commanded Moses.

That's amazing. God commands Moses and now God

is commanding Joshua. And what it means for you and I

is something really profound and really helpful that the leader

is actually replaceable. The leader it is, is not nearly

as relevant as who's in the God they serve that if they're

following God, guess what? That's relevant because they're

replaceable. God's commands are not in Saint

City. We don't ultimately follow

myself or any other spiritual leader, but we follow God

faithfully here at Saint City. That's why I preached from His

word. That's why there's going to be a

plurality of elders here one day, because it's not one man or

one gift in his guess what, It's God on the throne of Saint City,

1 shepherd that we all follow. He's the chief shepherd.

He's the leader of here and we go as he goes.

We do as he says and now in the Bible it does offer us like hey,

it says to the church, it says, hey, submit to your leaders.

So there's no obedience in following the visible authority

myself, that I am following the invisible authority.

It helps you know that you are following God.

Yes, there is an honor and a submission to that, certainly.

But we must know that I am basically the backup quarterback

in the game right now. Like I'm only here for not here

for a long time. I'm here for a good time.

Just try not to lose the game while I'm in it.

Just try not to, you know, mess this thing up.

Just trying to listen to what the coach says.

In my eardrum, that's me. I've got the best job in the

world. But just as the Israelites went

from Moses to Joshua, the reason they could do that as they were

following God faithfully. Not one single leader.

And following God faithfully can be difficult for some of us,

difficult to follow leaders because we've experienced

difficulty. We've experienced mistakes from

our leaders. Back a few years ago, Maddie and

I were driving from Chicago to Michigan.

And I'm doing it with my hands right now because what I just

did was I was supposed to go around Lake MI.

More on that in a second. The GPS told Maddie and I to go

north to Wisconsin on a highway that did not make sense.

And you know what? I was a good boy.

I listened to Waze that day, despite my better judgement.

I was listening to Waze and that it took me on a highway I knew I

shouldn't have been on. And as I'm getting closer to the

Wisconsin border, I look at Maddie and I say, are we going

the right way? I've been to Michigan, West

Michigan, enough times to know Wisconsin's not the way to

Michigan. She looked at the GPS again.

Despite our trusting and following it, it had an idea for

us. That day.

We were going to take a ferry across Lake MI.

And from henceforth, I've never used Waze ever again.

I'm out on Waze. I trusted you, I followed you,

and you did me wrong. You did me dirty.

It's exactly how some of us approach God.

Like we followed things before. We followed voices, leaders,

instincts, we followed advice and it LED us the wrong way.

And therefore it gives us a hesitation, A cynicism and

trusting God. Again, listen to me.

Here's the difference. God is not like your GPS.

He is not mistaken. He does not mess up.

When God gives counsel, when God gives wisdom, when God gives

plans, they are good and they are the right direction.

They are the plans for your life.

And so when his commands feel confusing or inconvenient, it's

not because he's mistaken. It's because he has something

good and great in mind for you. He's leading you somewhere

better. He's leading you to rest.

Every other voice in your life might fail you, but if you

follow God faithfully, listen to me, that will never, ever be a

bad move. Following God faithfully, taking

Him at His Word is always the right move.

We must follow Him faithfully. And Joshua provides for us a

great example of how he does that, that phrase, He left

nothing undone. That should be something that

you think in your life about how to follow God faithfully.

What have you left undone in your life?

Because Joshua left nothing undone, Listen to how he leaves

nothing undone. Verse 16, he takes all the land,

the Hill Country, and then again verse 17, he captures all the

kings. Verse 17, again he puts them to

death. Verse 18, he makes war a long

time with them. Then he devotes them to

destruction. Then in verse 22, he crushes

what's called the Anakin. No, that is not the name of a

Jedi. That is the name of the people

that when the Israelites came here a few decades earlier and

they saw a bunch of giants, that's these guys.

These are the guys and they looked at them.

They said there's no chance we can beat them.

These guys were built for the NFL, for the NBA.

They're Giants and Joshua and the people crushed them because

Giants to a God are grasshoppers.

He took the whole land, verse 23, just as God promised, God

promised something. This land is yours and he

fulfilled it. Now I recognize that in this war

scene, there's a lot of bloodshed.

And some of you are feeling that right now that, wait a second,

there's a lot of violence happening, and you're just like

kind of glossing over the fact that God, God gave Joshua

permission to do this. So the skeptical side of you is

right now is like, hey, is God still loving?

Is God still good? Because what he just said to do

feels like a violation of justice.

I need to remind you of something.

I need to teach you something. If you don't know, these

Canaanite people for hundreds and hundreds of years were

disobeying God. They were dishonouring God.

They were hating God even when they heard reports of how good

he was. They were like the person who

commits a crime time and time again in front of a cop.

The cop is like sitting there at the Apple Store and you they

just kept taking the stuff and walking out of the store.

And the first time, the cop is pretty gracious not to arrest

them, is he not? The second time, merciful.

The third time loving. The fourth time, more gracious,

more patient, more loving. Think about this.

For hundreds and hundreds of years, God is the one sitting

there watching them steal, watching them hurt, watching

them sin, watching them hate him.

But the day that God decides to step in and give justice, it's

not that he's unloving. It's that He's finally making

them pay for the sins and the crimes that they've committed.

This is God saying it's time. It's time.

It's time to give you justice for your actions.

And He is in that moment, not unloving, but fair and just

because the punishment for that crime was not just going to

prison, it was death. That's what sin does.

Like I said, it wants to kill you.

It is the punishment for sin is death.

And so Joshua did what God asked, He left nothing undone,

pointing to us, to the reality what was going to come 1400

years later. Yeshua, that's another name for

Jesus, the better. Joshua, he was going to leave

nothing undone as well. He's going to take on every

injustice, take on all of God's wrath, take on all of your sin

in your place on a cross that you might have forgiveness, and

He left nothing undone. Every sin of yours is paid for

in full. Satan is going to be beaten and

beaten in completely. Death is done for that.

We will have immortal life because of what God has done for

us in Jesus. He has left nothing undone for

us. Every single thing you need for

salvation is paid for by the life, death and resurrection and

ascension of none other than Jesus Christ.

And his invitation to you is to say, hey, you can't pay for your

sins. You can be like Canaan.

You could ignore me. You can think that I'm just

going to keep delaying, but well, listen, listen, listen.

He's saying, hey, guess what? I have a hope for your soul.

I have my love for you on display in Jesus.

If you just turn from your wicked ways, turn from your sin

and embrace my work on the cross by faith, you could have eternal

life. Jesus Christ left nothing undone

and your battle against sin, Satan and death.

And that's why he is fully deserving of following him

faithfully. He kept every single one of his

promises. Every promise finds it's yes and

it's Amen, meaning that's right in who in Jesus, every single

one. So following him faithfully is

going to mean for us that we keep a close watch on ourself

and his promises. Now God has two kinds of

promises. He has unconditional ones and

conditional ones. I want to show this to you in a

chapter in the Bible called Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 8 verse one says, therefore, there is now no

Romans 8 · chapter mention

condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.

This is what is called an unconditional promise, that if

you are a believer, if you have turned from your sin and you've

embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, guess what, you have

this, this is a category that you are now.

It's unconditional. Verse 13 is an example of a

conditional promise, which is this, that if by the Spirit you

put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.

Do you see that word if there? It's literally a conditional

statement. It's saying if you do this by

the Spirit, if you put to death, if you fight sin fiercely, guess

what? You will live.

You will have rest, You will have the life that God wants to

experience fully. That's a conditional promise,

unconditional. An example here in the text was

that God was going to give Israel to his people.

He was going to give them the land, the promised land.

Moses didn't get to experience it because he disobeyed.

Joshua did. That's the obedient 1.

So to just fill you with some faith this morning, let me just

give you 3 more unconditional promises first or two more.

Excuse me, Joshua, excuse me, Philippians chapter one, verse 6

that he who began a good work and you will bring it to

completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

Listen to me if you're discouraged right now, if you're

not moving forward as much as you want, if you look at that

scorecard and you feel a you hang your head in shame.

Listen to me. He who began a good work will

bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.

You will be changed. You will be moved.

You can accelerate it by God's work in your life, but listen to

me, it is done. It is unconditional.

You will bring it to completion. The second promise I want to

give you this unconditional is John 1028 and 29.

It says that Jesus says that if I have them in my hand, nobody

can snatch them out of it. That Jesus's grip on your

salvation is strong. If you are saved, if He has you,

nothing else can get you. No one can snatch you out of His

hand. So if you're saved, you're

saved. Nothing can stop that.

But conditional promises like Romans 813, I think would give

your heart some ammunition this week in the fight.

James chapter 4, verse 8, draw near to God and he will draw

James 4:8

near to you. One of the reasons that you feel

far from God is not because He left you, but because you

wounded away from him. Draw near to God, He will draw

near to you. God will feel near in the

moments that you draw near to him.

So open up your bibles, spend time praying, meditate on his

word fast spend time in the practices that draw near to God

discipline yourself for godliness.

Train yourself is the way Timothy puts it in the Bible

draw near to God, he'll draw near to you.

And also first John 19 if you confess your sins, he is

faithful and just to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.

If you confess your sins, if don't live a life without

confession, experience the joy and the rest of following God

faithfully and look for the things that God's revealing in

your life. These are just two examples, but

there might be more that you're getting in your own time in the

word follow God faithfully. I would just like to confess

here too that this week God once again just grab me.

I'm in Luke chapter 10. I'm hearing this story of Mary

Luke 10 · chapter mention

and Martha. I've heard the story a million

times where Mary and Martha, one sitting and one serving 1 is

like sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to his teaching.

The other is a busy body ignoring him.

And Jesus says, hey, the one who's sitting at my feet, she's

the one that I that is doing it right.

And I realized in all my work toward Easter last week, all my

effort that guess what, I was so busy serving, I wasn't sitting

with Jesus. I need to follow him faithfully.

I'm not perfect in this either, any of you, but I have a Savior

who was, who has left nothing undone even when I do so.

Follow Him faithfully this week and your soul will be settled,

even if conflict is all around you. 3rd And finally, the way to

experience God's rest is this. I experience God's rest as I

feast on His victory fully. How else can you experience it?

Not just following Him faithfully, not just fighting

sin fiercely, but we experience rest, we experience victory in

our life when we feast on His victory fully.

Look at Joshua chapter 12. Now this Joshua chapter 12 is

Joshua 12 · chapter mention Joshua 12 · chapter mention

just literally a list of 31 kings who Israel goes on to

conquer. 31 kings and feasting is what you do when the work is

over, when the war is won, you have a victory feast.

And Joshua 12 is more than a bite of God's power.

It is a feast for us to realize just how victorious God is.

It is more than a bite, it is a feast. 31 nations like that

beaten end of Chapter 11 says this.

Joshua gave it foreign inheritances according to the

tribal allotments, and the land had rest from war.

Now these are the kings of the land, chapter 12, whom the

people of Israel defeated and took possession of their land

beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.

First, the first part of chapter 12 is the first two nations that

get beaten when by Moses, before Joshua even took the helm,

before they crossed the Jordan River, Moses got to beat 2

nations. So now Joshua's got 29 left

undone and he takes care of them.

The rest of the chapter is literally just highlighting for

us all the kings beaten by Joshua and the people of Israel

on the other side of the river. This is quite literally God's

receipt saying, hey, guess what, 2026 believer, if you don't

think I win, if you don't think that you can fight sin fiercely,

if you don't think that you can rest from the battle, look

again, I win, I don't lose. It's a detailed account of

everything and everyone that God beat.

For an era of my life, I was a waiter at Chili's, and one of my

jobs then was to learn the menu at Chili's.

Now Chili's at the time, I mean, they got burger bites.

Fantastic. By the way, fajitas, which some

of you are known for, when they come by the table with that

smoke, Oh my goodness, I'm still in on it.

And my personal favorite, the chips and queso, you not only

had to learn what was on that, but on the burgers, you had to

learn which burgers came with Mayo, which burgers came with

this BBQ sauce? Which burger came with this

cheese? Hey, this steak, what sides come

with that automatically? Which ones can you substitute?

Oh, and then you also need to learn, hey, which Margarita was

going to be a good time on a Friday night, right?

Like, hey, you want an El Presidente, You want an El Nino

today. What do you want with your

burger? Can I please ring up your bill a

little bit higher so I can get a bigger tip?

You know, that's that's what they're doing.

They're not selling you more comments on that are going to

have to be saved for another time.

The point is, is it a menu is a detailed account of everything

that you can expect that you could be prepared for.

A menu tells you how much it costs.

It tells you the receipt of what you can expect.

And listen to me, That's what Joshua 12 is.

Joshua 12 is in your Bible. So you could have a detailed

menu of all that God has done, and so you could feast upon it.

Not just a bite, a feast. And we can feast fully now.

We don't have to wait for the feast.

Feast fully now that Jesus conquered sin and death forever.

You can feast upon the identity that you are holy and blameless

before Him. You can feast now that you're

hand picked to be part of the greatest family in the world,

His Bride, the Church. You can feast now that God has

an amazing revealed plan for your life.

You can feast now that you have a purpose.

You can feast fully now. And the full record of God's

self disclosure of mankind is right here.

So you could feast every single day of your life.

You're invited to the table of God's blessing and kindness and

goodness so your soul might be satisfied and at rest.

You can feast fully now. But listen to me, this is just a

glimpse of what is to come. We can feast fully forever.

And Revelation 19 Guess what happens for every St.

Whoever lived, every person ever called upon Jesus, We are

invited to what's called the marriage supper of the Lamb.

There is a day where we soon coming and eternity soon coming

where we can feast forever. The best kind of feast ever.

Imagine the joys of eating without calories.

Imagine the joy of eating once again with loved ones you have

lost. Imagine the laughter at the

stories we would tell together. And imagine the simple and

wonderful mercy of being with Jesus at the table.

I can't wait to have a meal with Him, and we're going to eat

there that day fully forever. And on that, at that dinner

table in the New Jerusalem, guess what?

There is no weeping. There's no disappointment.

There's no hurting. There's no more pain.

There's no more cancer. There is nothing that would hurt

our appetite for anything other than God.

Because we can feast fully forever.

We have the hope of Jesus forever.

We can feast fully now and forever.

So here's the hope and the big idea from Joshua 11 and 12.

Right this down. God brings his people from war

to rest by doing this, by winning the victory for them.

How do you actually move from war to rest?

It's not you doing more things. It's by God winning the victory

for you and you resting in what He's achieved.

It's received, not achieved. And so you fight sin fiercely.

Yes, you follow him faithfully, but then you feast, You take and

eat. You delight in who God is and

what he has done, and in return you get a supernatural

settleness despite any internal or external conflict.

You move from war to rest by God, winning the war, winning

the victory for you, no matter what conflict is around you.

There's a scene in an old movie called Back to the Future 2

where a guy named Biff gets a hold of a book with all the

future sports results in it. So when he gambles, he's not

guessing. He already knows how it's going

to turn out. Some of you are like, can I get

that book? Don't have it for you, my guy,

Sorry. That kind of certainty changes

how you live. That the outcome was not in

question. The victory is certain.

You're not anxious, you're not worried, you're not angry.

You're not panicked because you know how the game ends.

You know how the story ends. Listen to me.

You can truly rest in a war zone, London style.

Not because the war is over, but not because you figured

everything out, but because God has already won.

He's already won the victory for you.

It's done. It's finished, so we obey

knowing the outcome is solved, done, and that's our

responsibility is obedience. God's job is the outcome.

So we will fight sin fiercely, we'll follow him faithfully, and

we'll feast. We'll feast upon his victory

fully because God has done for us we could not do for

ourselves. He's won US the victory forever,

fully, and now God brings his people from war to rest by

winning the victory for them. Would you pray with me, Lord?

Thank you for your word. Thank you that we have hope in

Joshua 11 and 12, that we can have rest in the middle of the

war, that we, God, can experience rest, settled, miss.

That's supernatural. Even though bombs might be going

off around us, explosions nearby in US and around us in the war

against sin and death. But God, guess what?

We can still have peace. We can be like you sleeping in

the boat in the middle of that hurricane, a supernatural

settledness. And we don't need noise

cancelling hair headphones, God, to get through it.

We need actually your voice in our ears telling us it's going

to be OK. I'm going to win.

I have one. What a piece that brings God.

The outcome is not in question. There will be a day where that

habit is no more. There will be a day where we

don't react that way as fast. There will be a day, God, where

the sin and shame we carry dissipates because right now the

truest thing about us is that we are dressed in your

righteousness and that when you see us, you don't see our sin,

you see your Son. What a gift that is that we can

sit at the table and feast upon who Jesus is and what he has

done, regardless of what we've done.

So Lord, help us to experience your victory more and more this

week in Jesus name, Amen.