The Will to Win | Joshua 7 & 8

Good morning. How are you feeling today, St.

City? Hey, I tell you what, I am fired

up about our first Easter. I hope you get you one of these

cards at the tent after service that you would be in prayer for

the people in your life that need to be here and here.

Jesus Christ has come to planet earth to die for the sins of all

who call upon his name. It is the best thing going is

that Jesus Christ grace is available to any and all who

want it. So I want to invite you to join

in on the Easter egg hunt. Man, what an opportunity we got

to go to a Target or wherever, get some Easter egg, get some

candy. Let's be generous.

Let's be cross shaped in our generosity.

Let's pour it out on this for the sake of this neighborhood,

for this city. As your pastor, may I just say

it fills me with such encouragement and joy to see us

all linking for the mission of the gospel here in Tempe and

beyond. So please grab some cards,

invite some people. We are pumped to do it.

But hey, let's get into God's word.

We'll be Joshua Chapter 7 Today we're in the middle of a series

Joshua 7 · chapter mention

called Not Even 1, highlighting the theme verse of Joshua that

not even one of God's promises has ever failed.

It'll be on page 182 in the Bibles in the seat for you.

If you see Bibles on the floor, I promise we respect the word of

God. We just don't have like little

inserts for them on the chairs. But those are actually it's for

you to get your eyes on the Bible.

But also if you don't have a Bible, feel free to grab it.

Take it. It is now yours.

Congratulations gift to you. That Bible.

It's yours. We're going to be Joshua Chapter

Joshua 7 · chapter mention

7 and chapter 8 today. So we got to get through a lot

of the text. But before we do, I got

something I got to get off my chest.

Y'all, some people out here, maybe, maybe you, some people

would say that they do not mind losing.

I don't believe you, I just don't.

I believe that everybody either likes to win or hates to lose.

It is one or the other that it is not.

Maybe you're not the most competitive person in the room,

but I think inside each and every one of us that we have

what I would call what my friend Alex growing up would refer to

as that TWTW, the will to win. We called that TWTW.

And we would use this all the time going about our life like

we would be, you know, driving across town, you know, up to

shenanigans, hood rat stuff with our friends.

You know, that's what we do out in high school.

And we would see two people on the streets and they would be

driving their cars And all of a sudden we would see them like

race in the middle of a street, their cars as if they were in

Fast and furious Tokyo Drift. And he would point out, he goes,

they got that TWTW. You know, that will to win.

They're trying to beat the light, they're trying to beat

the person next to him. We would do it when we would see

little 7 year olds that would coach flag football.

There would just be some of them that I mean they get emotional

with defeat, like I mean tears, screaming because they wanted to

win. They had the will to win.

It would be like card games in study hall.

Instead of doing our homework, we would often times play euchre

and we would not want other people to be our partner because

they didn't have that TW TW. That TWDTW is a big deal because

athletes feel it, businesses feel it.

Even the uncompetitive people among us today still want to win

in some area of their life. But with Joshua Chapter 7 and

Joshua 7 · chapter mention

Chapter 8, it's going to show us something surprising today.

That just because you have that will to win that TWTW doesn't

mean you experience spiritual victory.

That just because you want to win, it means you can still lose

spiritually. Here's a main thought for us

this morning. A big idea.

Spiritual victory is 1 on the battlefield of obedience.

How does spiritual victory happen?

How do we win as Christians? How do we have that TWTW?

Well, spiritual victory is 1 on the battlefield of obedience.

That's what we're going to learn in two chapters of the Bible.

We're kind of speed reading it a bit today.

Bible maxing, perhaps? College students, We're trying

to get through two chapters. We're trying to let it know that

it is profitable for your life and get you through the main

themes of these two chapters of Joshua.

But before we do, I want to pray one more time for us and for our

hearts and our minds as we interact with and engage with

God's words. Would you join me as I pray?

Lord, this moment, these people are for you, and they are your

people, and I am just but a messenger.

So would you make me so gloriously small, so you can be

so infinitely big, that your words and your power and your

might would be on grand display, and it would remove me as much

as possible in the process that they would behold the glory and

the majesty of Jesus Christ as revealed to us in two chapters

of the Bible. God, would you give heat where

hearts have grown cold? Would you bring light where

minds are dark, so that people would know who Jesus is and what

he's done for them in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. All right, Joshua Chapter 7, the

Joshua 7 · chapter mention

big bold 7 on page 182. Just to catch you up, if you are

new to the story of Joshua, Joshua is the successor to a man

you might have heard of called Moses.

This is about 1400 years before Jesus walks the face of the

planet and a few things have happened.

He's been appointed most successor.

They have met this woman named Rahab who's a prostitute in the

city of Jericho. She saves a couple of their

spies. They cross the Jordan River to

go conquer her city called Jericho.

Last week in chapter 6, we learned that the Israelites

after walking around the city, that God completely annihilates

the city of Jericho and they take it by divine force, divine

demolition you could say, and Rahab and her family are spared.

This is the story of Joshua thus far.

And with the battle of Jericho, you have two people highlighted

in between the battle. You have Rahab in chapter 2 and

you have Aiken who are about to learn about in Chapter 7 and we

get to verse one. It says this, but the people of

Israel, after conquering the city of Jericho, they broke

faith in regard to the devoted things.

I want you to underline that. We're going to talk about that a

good deal here in a moment because here's what happened.

Aiken, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, son of Zara of the

tribe of Judah, what did he do? He did a no no.

He took some of the devoted things and the anger of the Lord

burned against the people of Israel.

So Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI.

Now this is not a ChatGPT. This is not clawed.

Like I feel like I'm one of the first preachers ever to have to

explain that. That is a difference in the

text. It is an ancient city called AI,

which is near Betheven east of Bethel.

And he said to them, go up and spy out the land.

And the men went up and they spy out the city of AI.

They returned to Joshua. They said to him, hey, don't

have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand

men go up the hill and attack the city of AI.

Do not make the whole people toil up there for they, the

people of AI are few. So about 3000 men went up there

from the people, and when they get there they lose.

They fled before the men of AI and the men of AI killed about

36 of their men and chased them before the gate as far as

Shabarim and struck them at the descent.

And the people of Israel, their hearts melted and became as

water. Up until this point, that phrase

has only been used of the Canaanite people, of the people,

not of God. But now the people of God are

feeling what the Canaanites felt.

They're saying, whoa, our hearts are melted.

We are fearful. We are dismayed.

We are in big, big trouble. Now, this city of AI, it's about

15 miles away from Jericho. It's smaller.

It's literally only about a couple acres.

Like it's not that big of a city of the people of Israel.

Joshua sends them up and though their army is the one who they

felt like maybe conquered Jericho, they're realizing real

quick it is not them that conquered Jericho.

It was their God that they capture that city not because

they were big and strong and powerful, but because their God

was. And they get to this new city of

AI and they're realizing, wait a second, though, we might want to

win. At AI, though, we think we've

only experienced victory since the wilderness.

We just experienced defeat and loss and it didn't go the way we

thought it would go. And I think this is helpful for

us that if we're going to experience spiritual victory on

the battlefield of obedience, then here's the question I want

to answer with us today is how do I win in my walk with God?

Because if there's a way to lose, I want to know how to win.

I want to have that TWTW with my walk with God.

How do I win my walk with God? Well, let's say it like this.

If I want to win spiritually, first, don't hide my sin.

If you want to win spiritually, if we want to win spiritually as

a people of Saint City, what do we have to do?

We have to be a people who do not have secret sins, who do not

have hidden sins because it has grave consequences, life

altering consequences. If we want to win spiritually.

If you want to win spiritually, do not be a person who hides

your sin. Akin who he'd heard in those

first couple verses. Here's what he disobeyed back in

chapter 6, verse 18. But you keep you, people of

Israel, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction.

God set aside portions of Jericho for himself, the first

fruits of their treasury and their coats and their goods.

He said, hey, those things are devoted to destruction.

The Hebrew word for it is called the harem.

It just means this thing, it's set apart so that God can

destroy it. He wants it, therefore it is

his. He technically owns the whole

city, but he wants this part to be designated and devoted to

destruction. Aiken gets inside of Jericho and

he goes into somebody's closet. Apparently he's like, oh, I like

me that coat. So he takes a guy's coat.

Not only does he take a man's coat, he takes a pile full of

money. He says, I like that silver.

I like that gold. I'm going to take all that that

was supposed to be set aside to God, but it was devoted to

destruction. But I want it.

So not only does he take it, but as you read the chapter on, go

to verse 12 with me, Joshua rose.

Oh, excuse me, I'm in chapter 6 still.

Then verse 10. Then the Lord said to Joshua,

get up. Why have you fallen on your

face? Israel has sinned.

They have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them.

They have taken some of the devoted things they have stolen

and lied and put them among their own belongings.

Akin doesn't just sin personally, he sins against a

holy God. He goes against what God has

says, and he learns a painful lesson here, that the pain of

concealing your sin is far worse than the pain of confessing it.

The chapter will go on to say that he goes and he buries it

underneath his literal tent. There's a hole in the ground, a

secret basement of sorts, of all the plunder he took that wasn't

his to have, but it was God's to have.

And he buries it inside his tent and his family knows about it.

And he's going to learn gravely that the pain of concealing your

sin is far worse than the pain of confessing it.

He's actually, the writer of the book, is trying to help us see

that you have Rahab, who has faith and is saved from

destruction. Meanwhile, you have an Israelite

named Akin who disobeys and is destroyed.

That's how serious sin is. That's how serious disobedience

is. That's why it's a battlefield of

obedience is because there's casualties in a war and the

world gets understandably upset at Christians who hide their

sin, who are hypocrites with secret sins.

If you are new to Saints City, let me just tell you, we are a

place full of people who sin. There's not a single perfect

person in this room. In fact, no perfect people are

allowed at Saint City because we only worship one of them and his

name is Jesus. OK, He died for your sins so

that you wouldn't have to live in bondage.

You can live in freedom and unto Him forever more.

But the world gets upset with Christians because we will say

one thing like we have no sin, but the Bible says we would

deceive ourselves if we say we don't have sin instead we have

it. So why do we try to hide it?

I think it's so interesting here.

Is that akin sins against perfect and holy God?

I think there's a few attributes I want to highlight about God

that I think we miss in the middle of our moments of sin and

disobedience. First verse 11, go back to it

with me. Israel has sinned and they have

transgressed my covenant that I commanded them.

They have taken some of the devoted things.

First attribute of God I want to highlight for you is that God is

omniscient, which means He knows everything.

There's not a thing he doesn't know or a thing he has

forgotten. He only knows because he only

knows. He is the knower of things.

And Aiken thought he could hide his sin, but he can't hide it

from a God who is omniscient. He has taken the devoted things.

Aiken thought it was hidden. It was not hidden.

There's a God who he sinned against who is omniscient.

But not only that. Verse 12.

Therefore, the people of Israel cannot stand before their

enemies. They turn their backs before

their enemies because they have become devoted for destruction.

I will be with you no more. It's one of the saddest

sentences in the Bible. Anytime God's presence leaves

somebody in the Old Testament because of their sin, it's

tragedy. But an attribute here that you

have to understand about God is His righteous jealousy.

You see, He's the greatest thing going on planet earth.

He is the Lord Almighty. There is no one as sweet as Him,

no more as loving as Him, no one as powerful as him.

And God, when He says to not do something, He expects to be

obeyed, and he wants your full affection.

And by aching going to those goods, by going to that coach,

by going and stealing that pile of money, by trying to hide it,

he was saying to God subtly, hey, God, guess what?

I love these things more than I love doing what you say.

I love these things more than I love you.

And God is right to be jealous. He's the only one who can be

unsinfully jealous because jealousy is wrongly wanting

something that is not yours to have.

God is right in wanting your affection.

He's right in wanting your worship because he's fully

deserving of it and a can sinned against a God who told him to

destroy the devoted things. So he's omniscient.

He's got righteous jealousy. Verse 13 he's got holiness is

who who he sinned against. He tells the people, Hey,

consecrate yourselves for tomorrow.

For thus says the Lord, there are devoted things in your

midst. O Lord, you cannot stand before

your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among

you. God's holiness is His utter

perfection. He is set apart.

He cannot be near sin. He's incapable of being

otherwise. It would compromise the reality

that He is holy. He can't be near sin.

His presence can't dwell there in His presence, His Holiness.

Excuse me? In order to get into the

presence of a holy God, you need a holy one to go before you.

You need a sacrifice for your sin because the wages of sin,

the payment for sin is death, and God is holy.

And when you sin against him, you are not just sinning against

another person, you are sitting against an eternally infinite

holy being. Your sin is that serious.

Verse 15, we learn He has the authority, He who was taken with

the devoted things shall be burned with fire.

He and all that he has because he has transgressed the covenant

of the Lord and because he has done an outrageous thing in

Israel. That is a strong phrase.

I think when we get to a text like this and we see God

executing judgement, we get a little like off a rocker, a bit

like kind of uneasy, like, wait, God.

I wouldn't have put that in the Bible if I were you.

That feels like it's disjointed. It feels like that's not the God

that I understand him to be. I don't know if you guys watch

Survivor, but it's one of my favorite shows.

And what happens every season in Survivor is a bunch of people

get on an island and they film it 24 hours a day, seven days a

week until the conclusion of the days that they're supposed to be

on the island. And what's interesting to me is

there's a room that happens after they film it all, where

the editors put together an edit of the story they want to tell

for this season of Survivor. So some people get what we call

a villains edit where they're looking really mean and

deceitful and bad. You get a hero edit where you're

like, oh, this person is pure. You get the Comic Relief at it.

You get all these edits. And I think sometimes as

Christians, we look at God and we get kind of squeamish about

the Bible. Like God, why would you talk

about your judgement like this? Why would you do it?

Why would you not edit this out? Listen to me.

God is making no apology for the reality that hey, here's who I

am and here's how the world works.

He's saying, hey guess what people, we are sent.

You are sinful before me, you are unholy before me.

There is not even one good person.

But guess what? I want to make a way so we can

have relationship again. I want to offer you obedience so

we can be in relationship again. He's saying to you, hey guess

what? All of humanity stands condemned

under my judgement because I am holy and you are not.

Not one of you is. And he doesn't edit this out

because all of us stand under judgement.

So He is always right to execute His judgement whenever he sees

fit. And in his his patience and his

grace and His love and His mercy, that withholds the

judgement. So when God does what he's about

to do, when he's about to annihilate a whole city and he's

about to kill off Akin for his sin, guess what?

He is right to do so. He has the authority to do so.

You sinned against him and by letter of the law, the wages of

sin is what death. This is who God has taught us

for who He is. So you have to understand God to

understand what's happening in Joshua, because if you

misunderstand God, you would think He's unloving, unkind, and

unjust to take life. But it is His life to take and

it is to judge. In fact, that's the right.

The last category of his character I want to highlight

for you. It is His right to judge.

Joshua says in verse 25, why, Aiken, did you bring trouble

upon us? The Lord brings trouble on you

today. And Israel stoned him with

stones, and they burned his family with fire and stoned them

with stones. Sin is more serious than you can

even possibly realize. Even something as seemingly

small as swiping a coat and some silver from the Lord has grave

consequence. And God is showing us something

here, something He knows to be true, that you are as sick as

your secrets. Aiken realized just how

devastatingly consequential sinning against God was, and

he's serving as a warning for us and for any who'd read this

passage. It is God's loving kindness to

show us this is what happens when you sin against God is you

are becoming devoted to destruction.

You become the harem. That's what you become.

So there's no need to hide your sin.

He's saying, bring it to me and I will deal with it.

I will make it paid for. I will foot the bill for your

sin, but don't think you have it in yourself to fix it.

In fact, I think the enemy whispers lies into all of our

ears about sin here. Lies that we believe, lies like

sin is not a big deal. That's not that big a deal that

I watched that it's not a big deal that I said that it's not a

big deal that I felt that, that I thought that it's just not a

big deal. Which plays into the second lie

that we believe that nobody else is affected.

We think to ourselves that sin doesn't act.

It only affects us. It doesn't affect others.

But look at this. Look back at the text with me

Akin the son of Karmi, the IT says in verse one, the people of

Israel broke faith. The whole nation of Israel, the

people of God were affected by one man's sin.

I just don't think we have a high enough view of what sin

does. It affects people whether or not

you see it. Your sinful choices have grave

consequences. And I think we also believe the

lie that nobody will find the sin out, it's not a big deal,

nobody else is affected, and that nobody else is going to

find out. I've got this covered.

I'm smart enough to hide it. I'm smart enough to cover it.

I'm smart enough so nobody else sees it.

Numbers chapter 32, verse 23. Here's a promise God has kept.

Numbers 32:23

Remember, not even one of his fails.

Here's a promise He made Israel. Be sure your sin will find you

out. Be sure, be certain, be

confident that God will reveal your sin.

It's not an if, it's a when nothing that is hidden won't

come to light in our backyard, I'll often go check with a

black, black light flashlight for the critters of Arizona

known as scorpions. I've learned first hand that

those are a little bit dangerous to young kids.

So I go out and I'll go mark for.

And I think it's so fascinating that if you go out with a black

light, they might think they're hidden, but the second you pull

out that black light flashlight, they are exposed.

They are no longer hidden. They are no longer a threat

even, and I will gladly go take a blowtorch to them or a boot.

I will do something to eradicate them from my presence.

Get out of here. Be gone, scorpions.

When we believe those lies, we're forgetting who God is.

Listen to me. God sees and hears everything,

and He has the power and authority and judgement seats to

do something about it. You know what that creates in

US? It's something the Bible calls

the fear of the Lord. That's a good thing.

That's not a bad thing. Some of you were like, maybe you

would fall in Jesus. Like, wait, I think the Bible

says. I've seen it on like an

Instagram post before. Do not be afraid.

Yeah, generally do not be afraid.

The Bible's about to say that in chapter 8, verse one, too.

Don't be afraid. But there is a holy fear that

exists and it's a fear of the holiness of God because anytime

you get near the holiness of God is a Sinner.

Guess what, you are deserving of punishment and judgement.

But God is saying, guess what, you don't have to be afraid of

me in the sinful sense, but in the holy sense that guess what,

I am king of kings, I am Lord of Lords, I am higher than you.

I have thoughts that are higher than yours.

And if you would hear my voice today, he says, guess what?

You have to know that sin is that gravely consequential.

Do not hide it, it will get exposed otherwise.

God says to you like he says in Chapter 7 verse 12, I will be

with you no more. Don't hide your sin, deal with

it. Don't hide your sin.

Don't leave it undisclosed to God and to others.

That's what I mean by hiding it. Deal with it.

That is a path to spiritual victory.

That is a path to obedience. That TWTW is good when it comes

to obeying God. So here's the way we try to deal

with it though that Akin and the people of Israel deal with it.

Look at now at chapter 8, chapter 8, verse one and the

Lord said to Joshua, do not fear and do not be dismayed.

You've taken care of Akin. You've taken care of the sin in

the camp. Now take all the fighting men

with you and arise go up to AI and your pizza phrase you said

about Jericho to Joshua here. See, I have given you past

tense. It's already happened.

It's as good as done. The city is yours.

I have given into your hand the king of AI, his people, his city

and his land. And you shall do to AI and his

king as you did to Jericho. And it's king only its spoil and

its livestock. You shall take us plunder for

yourselves. Here's how I want you to.

I want you to lay an ambush against the city behind it.

What do we learn about God here? What do we learn about winning

spiritually here? How do we win in our walk with

God? I think chapter 8's going to

show us something in these first 2 verses that's helpful on how

to win spiritually. It's second, don't look within.

If I want to win spiritually, I don't just not hide my sin, but

also I don't look within. Joshua's going to serve in

contrast now to the people of AI.

He's going to serve as an example of what it looks like to

appeal to God's mercies and depend on God for salvation

rather than his own wisdom, his own might, his own strategy.

He's saying, hey, God, what do you want me to do?

And I'm going to do it. Whereas the people of AI are

going to think they're big enough, strong enough, powerful

enough to overcome God's might and power and his judgement.

Joshua looks to the Lord for rescue, whereas the people of AI

look at their own selves for strength and might.

They looked within another way to say this would be

self-reliance, which is the number one roadblock to

following Jesus. So verse one, the Lord says to

Joshua, don't be feared to be dismayed.

Take all the fighting men with you and arise.

Go up to AI. See, I've given into your hand

the king of AI. Do you know what attribute

you're seeing there of God? His mercy, His mercy.

God didn't owe this to Joshua, the people of Israel.

He could have wiped out this generation and started over

again and fulfilled his promise with another generation.

He could have done that. But his mercy says, hey, it's

new today and guess what? This city, it's still yours.

We're going to keep taking the promised land, the land that I

promised your forefathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

It is going to be yours. And I've given you in, given

into your hand, the king of AI, his people, his city, his land.

And that is God's mercy, which strengthens us believers.

God's mercy is one of the most strengthening forces this side

of heaven. Grace and mercy kind of go hand

in hand. Grace is getting something you

don't deserve, OK, but mercy is not getting something you do.

You do deserve it, but you don't get it.

It's withholding. They deserved the people of

Israel under Joshua deserve to not get the promised land.

They deserved judgement and God withheld it.

And he said, you know what? Here's the land of AI, and then

we see God's creativity. Verse 5, lay an ambush against

the city behind it. This is really interesting

because the rest of the chapter is going to highlight for us

just how the sequence goes. Like he says, hey, here's how

the ambush is going to work. Joshua, you're going to come at

from the front with some people. Then you're going to act scared,

then you're going to run away. And meanwhile, there's going to

be people right here when they go and chase you, when you

retreat, they're going to set the city on fire.

And that's God's plan. God's like, hey, here's how I

want to win this battle. And so the people of Israel

executed the men of AI that are trapped between the two

Israelite forces and they get defeated and Israel does what

God says. They kill the remaining

inhabitants. They listen to God and execute

his judgement through them, which is not our responsibility

anymore. By the way, this is the book of

Joshua in the Old Testament. God has made our enemies

different nowadays where we get to love them and pray for them.

Those who persecute us, totally different categories before

Jesus's arrival. Sorry, that's the Bible.

Side note, just want to make sure we know we're not waging

holy war. That's not our job.

But this time, unlike Jericho, God explicitly allows Israel to

take some of the livestock and the spoil.

That's the only difference between AI and Jericho.

And what we see here on grand display is God's power, which we

are intended to yield to. We are intended to yield to his

power. I think a lot of the world

follows DJ Khaled's the theologian, I might add, DJ

Khaled, his mantra for how life goes, that all I do is win no

matter what. Got money on my mind, I can

never give it up. Yeah, I think the world actually

thinks that all they do is win. I think that's the way the world

often thinks, that he captures it actually really helpfully.

And I think he actually captures what the people of AI thought is

they beat Israel the first time, they're going to beat him again.

And I think that if you were in the city that day, you would

have heard things like this, that the people of AI, but their

famous last words, thinking that they were victorious, that

they're like, you know what, I'm working on myself right now.

I don't got to worry about turning to this God of Israel

yet. I don't, you know, need to

become a better version of me. I need to become a better

version of me. I don't feel like that God helps

me do that. That they're sitting there going

through their life in the city of AI and they're convincing

themselves of self-reliance. They're looking within saying,

you know what? We've lasted this long without

this God. We can keep lasting without this

God that if we beat them, they, oh, they weren't so big, they

weren't so strong, they weren't so mighty.

What the heck? We shouldn't be afraid of them.

We shouldn't be afraid of their God.

And they looked within, not realizing that it was God's

grace and patience giving them a chance to, like Rahab, turn from

their sin and repent and say, God, no, you are the strong one.

You are the mighty 1. You are the powerful one that

we're intended to listen to and obey.

Every other world religion thinks this way.

AI is a picture of what it looks like to believe in anything

other than Jesus for salvation. My growth will save me, My

effort will save me. My strength will save me.

There's another religion that's very prominent here locally that

claims to be Christian, and in their literature it says that it

is by grace through faith that you are saved.

After all you can do. Listen to me.

That is not good news. That is not the gospel, because

there you can never do enough to be saved.

It is not of your own doing, but God being rich in mercy because

of the great love which He loved us, made us alive together with

Christ. And it is by grace through faith

that you have been saved. And this is not of your own

doing. It as a free gift of God so that

no one may boast. Listen to me.

This is the good news of Jesus. This is how you become alive.

This is how you get spared from destruction.

This is how you are spared of God's judgement upon your life

for all of eternity. You turn to him and say God, I

need you to save me. I need you to rescue me.

I need you to deliver me. You don't look within, you look

to the Lord, because if you are looking in for salvation, you

will not find it there. You cannot save yourself.

It breaks my heart to read the story of AI and picture the

people in our life right now who are devoted to destruction

because they believe that lie that they can save themselves.

Salvation is found in no one else, only Jesus Christ and His

blood. That's it.

Can't look within. We have to look to the Lord.

And if we want to win spiritually, here's the third

and final thing. We have to trust in Him.

It's a trust in Him. It's a faith in Him, in who God

says He is, in doing what he says for us to do.

It's trusting His wisdom. Joshua goes out into the

battlefield in verse 18 and God told him to shout stretch out

the javelin. Excuse me?

He's like, hey, stretch it out and put it down when I tell you

to. So that's what Joshua does.

I picture like Peter and Narnia, except saying for Narnia, he's

like for Israel. And then like the whole city

collapses and he holds it out there awaiting God's judgement

upon the city. And in verse 34 and 35 at the

end of the chapter, something awesome happens.

And afterward, Joshua, after they've beaten the city, after

they've set it ablaze and they've executed God judgment,

they've listened to him word for word, following his wisdom,

obeying what God has said, winning the spiritual victory,

because they obey God again and again and again and again and

again. Look what he does next.

And afterward, after the victory, what does he do?

He worships. He reads all the words of the

law, the blessing and the curse according to what is written in

Genesis through Leviticus, through Numbers and Deuteronomy.

He reads the whole book. That's how I know this.

Look at verse 35. There was not a word of all that

Moses commanded that Joshua did not read.

That would be like me getting up after Easter Sunday and going,

hey, service is not done yet. Let me read for you the book of

Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.

Did I miss one? Thank you, Miss Leviticus.

See, keeping you on your toes out there, I would read 5 books

of the Torah for you. That's what Joshua, as the

spiritual leader says, you know what?

We're going to make sure we know who God is, what he says to do,

and we're going to worship even after the victory.

And there's a phrase there that you might have missed.

He reads it before all the assembly of Israel.

The women are there, the little ones, and listen to this and the

sojourners who lived among them. That's the Bible giving you a

hyperlink to this idea. God was saving more than this

Israel, even then, that in Genesis 12 when he asked

Abraham, when he told Abraham he's going to make him a

blessing to all nations, that there were people, there were

people from AI who were spared of the wrath of God.

Why? Because they realized they

couldn't look within. They had to look to God.

There were sojourners like Rahab among them, aliens, people who

were not of Israel. And he says, hey, here's who we

are, here's who our God is, here's how we live.

And he tells it to all of them and they all turn to God in

trust. Do you know what trust looks

like? It looks like Jimmy Chitwood.

Now, I just said a name that I would guarantee most of you have

no idea who I'm talking about, and that's OK Come explain.

Jimmy Chitwood is the best basketball player that you've

never heard of because he's from the movie Hoosiers.

Now, Hoosiers is an old basketball movie that maybe your

dad or your grandpa depend on your age or you like.

My dad's favorite movie was Hoosiers growing up.

So I've seen it a couple times. And in this movie, The sports

classic, the whole championship comes down to one play, one

shot, one player, Jimmy Chitwood.

And then in the huddle, they're trying to determine how they're

going to win the game, how they're going to win the state

championship in Indiana. And Jimmy just says one phrase.

I'll make it. And he says it in the most like,

Indiana farm boy way too, like, I'll make it.

So the whole team does what they're supposed to do in that

moment. They put their hope into action,

into one man, and that's the picture of the gospel, of what

it looks like to trust in Jesus for salvation.

Jimmy said I will make it, but Jesus said I'll make a way.

Don't you see? There is no other way to be

spared God's judgement other than through Jesus Christ and

His blood. Because God is so holy that your

sin cannot hide from Him. He is so just that sin must be

dealt with, it must be judged. But God is merciful, He is

gracious, and He sends Jesus 1400 years later to enter into

creation. He says, hey, guess what, I'm

going to make a way. I'm going to live the life they

couldn't live. I'm going to die the death they

should have died and I'm going to do it so they might have life

with me forever more. I'm going to send to heaven

never to die again. And this is the way of Jesus.

And he says if you put your full trust in me, if you put your

full weight of your eternity and your faith in my salvation,

guess what? You will not be devoted to

destruction. You will have life and life

eternal. This is why we're teaching

Joshua 7:00 and 8:00 because I want you to see there is hope

for every akin. There is hope for every Rahab,

and his name is Jesus Christ. He is the only hope for eternity

for you, and you must turn from your sin and embrace Him by

faith. You cannot hide your sin or look

within. You must trust in Him and Him

alone for salvation. This passage is a loving

passage. Why?

Because it's a warning passage for anyone who would not trust

in God. You have to trust God.

And if your life looks no different than the world around

you, if God is mostly an afterthought, if church is a low

priority, if His Word is not something you crave, that I

would wonder if you actually trust Him.

Work out your salvation with holy fear and with trembling.

Do you trust God? That's how you win spiritually

is by trusting in Him to do 2 things First, deal with your

sin. And we'll close with these two

thoughts. You trust in Him to do 2 things.

First, deal with your sin. This is the idea of confession

and repentance. Because once sin is dealt with

numbers, excuse me, Joshua 726 Then the Lord turned from his

burning anger. He was no longer angry, but he

was gracious and merciful and loving toward them.

Confession is this. It's naming and owning your sin

to God and others. That's a confession is it's

naming it, calling it what it is.

It's not a struggle, it's a sin. It's not a weakness, it's sin.

That's how serious it is. You name it that to God and to

others, and repentance is the idea of this, to turn away from

that sin and toward Christ. Running away from the sin and

running towards Jesus, that's repentance.

The best place to do that, St. City is what we call community

groups. If you want to get one, go to

the Next Steps tent, the orange tent after the service.

They will happily get you connected to our staff team.

We'd love to get you in a group so you can name your sin, you

can confess it, and you can repent of it regularly so that

you don't have to have hidden sin in your life.

We wanted to set you free from that.

She trusted him first to deal with our sin, pay for it with

his blood on the cross, but second to bring victory through

obedience. Spiritual victory is 1 on the

battlefield of obedience. First Timothy 47 drop down that

reference. It says for us to discipline

ourselves for godliness, to train to strive for godliness.

That means it's going to take some intentionality on how to

obey God. So This is why it's so important

that we're in the Word. It's why it's so important that

we spend time praying. It's why we spend time fasting

and praying and journaling. Like these are all things that

God has asked us to do. These are spiritual disciplines,

meaning you're choosing what you want most over what you want now

so that you might have what you ultimately want, which is

godliness in your life. Or another way of saying that is

more obedience. I want us to be the greatest

obeyors in the city of Tempe of God that when people hear about

Saint City, they go wow, they take God's word seriously and

they listen to it and they do what he says to do and perhaps

you're like, man, I just it's hard for me to get in the word

because I'm tired or because of my job or because of my family.

Listen to me. Don't make those excuses.

Obedience is serious and spiritual victory is 1 on the

battlefield of it. Get in God's word, get to know

him and love him. Your life will be filled with

triumph and victory as a result. That's God's promise for us.

I want us to all have that TWTW spiritually that will to win.

We go after the things of God with all we've got.

We're not trusting in ourself. We're not hiding our sin.

We're trusting in Him and obeying Him because spiritual

victory is 1 on the battlefield of obedience.

Would you join me as I pray, Lord?