P.O.V. | Joshua 6:15-25 | Pastor Sanaz Mesa

Amen, we'll welcome to Fresh Start Service. Family. Are you

excited to be here tonight?

I am two very excited. I'm excited about Friday, shameless plug.

Women, come on out. So you don't know me, my.

Name is Pastor Sina's. I'm one of the teaching pastors

here at Patria. And it's an honor to be here

to girls go hard for each other, right, so it

is an honor to be here. We are going through

the Book of Joshua, and tonight we are going to

be in chapter six, the second half of chapter six.

This is the big dramatic fall of Jericho.

Now, this might.

Be your first time ever even diving into the Bible,

and you don't know about the story of the fall

of Jericho. And I'm so happy that you're here, and

I'm so happy that I get to be a part

of you learning about this story. But you might also

be here and you've heard this story one hundred times,

maybe even a thousand times. It is a pretty popular

story in the Bible.

But what I'm.

Asking of you tonight is that you understand that this Bible,

it doesn't change, it stays the same, It does not move,

it does not waiver, but it is alive.

And what that.

Means is that no matter where you are, no matter

how many times you've read the same story, you can

learn because God is continuously breathing on this for you

and so that you can continuously go and walk this

thing out. It's the same story, but it is fresh

and it's new. It's like having a different perspective and

seeing something from a different angle.

And you know, that point of view.

Is so important because a lot of times when we

read the Word of God, we're looking at it from

whatever our circumstance is, whatever our position is in our

life at the time. Imagine if you are at a

sports game and you know you wherever you're sitting, where

you are positioned, that's what you can see, and you're

limited to what you can see based on your position.

Imagine for a moment that we're at a baseball game together,

and when you go to the baseball game, you're sitting

kind of behind the catcher, and so there's somebody who's

coming in and they're sliding into home base and the

catcher catches the ball and goes to tag them out.

But you are limited in what you can see based

off of your position. But then you look at the

JumboTron and there's a camera from a completely different point

of view, and you're able to see something.

That you weren't able to see before.

Same exact play, nothing changed, but because of the position,

you're able to have a different point of view that

you didn't have before.

So tonight, what we're asking is that.

God just shifts our perspective a little bit. More so,

the word of God that does not change. There is

something that we can see that we've never seen before.

It's important for us to open up our eyes and

see that POV, that point of view. So in order

for that to happen, what I'm gonna do before we

even pray, before we even read, I'm gonna give you

our three points because I want you to look at

it from that lens so that we know what we're

looking for.

Are you ready? P o V. Do you see what

I did there? When God's promises.

Meet our obedience, we have the victory.

Are you ready for tonight? All right? So let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for what

you have prepared for this evening. We thank you for

reminding everyone in this room and everyone watching online to

open their ears, open their eyes and lean into what

you have to say.

We pray that we are going to walk.

Out differently, move me out of the way, talk to

your children tonight.

In Jesus' name, we pray amen.

So, if you have your Bible, Bible app or your

Joshua journal, or you simply just want to follow along

and look at the screens, we're going to open up

to Joshua chapter six, and we are going to start

in verse fifteen. Now, let me set it up for

you because this is the second half of the chapter.

So the first half of the chapter.

Pastor Aaron got that last week and he taught us

about walking, giving us a word to walk in warfare,

and it was a wonderful sermon if you were here.

But let me set up the first half of Joshua

for you so that we're ready for tonight. The first

half of Joshua, verses one through fourteen, describes the beginning

of the Israelites conquest into Jericho under Joshua's leadership. The

chapter opens by noting that Jericho was tightly shit because

of the Israelites, and then God gives Joshua specific instructions

for taking the city for six days. The Israelites are

to march once around the city every single time, led

by seven priests carrying trumpets in front of the ark

of the Covenant. The people are to remain silent during

the march, and the verses that we learned about last

week describe the Israelites obediently carrying out the unusual command

for the first six days, setting the stage for the

dramatic fall of Jericho that we are going to learn

about tonight. So we just finished walking around the walls

of Jericho for six days once a day, mouths shut.

And now we are going to continue in verse fifteen,

and before you stand in before we read, what we're

going to do tonight is we're going to read the

first five verses of the rest of the chapter because

those five verses are going to match up with our

first point, which is about God's promises. Now, there are

five directives, five instructions that he gives us in those

five verses, and we're going to look for them as

we read. So if you would mind standing for the

reading of the Word of God as we begin. In

verse fifteen, it says on the seventh day, they rose

early at the dawn of day, and marched around the

city in the same manner seven times. It was only

on that day that they marched around the city seven times.

And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown

the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, shout, for the

Lord has given you the city, and the city and

all that is within it shall be devoted to the

Lord for destruction. Only rayhad the prostitute, and all who

were with her in the house shall live, because she

hid the messengers whom we send. But you keep yourselves

from the things devoted to destruction. Lest when you have

devoted them, you take any of the devoted things and

make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and

bring trouble upon it. But all silver and gold, and

every vessel of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord.

They shall go into the treasury of the Lord.

You may be seated.

So the five instructions to recede God's promise were as

they were marching.

They were going to blow.

The trumpets, shout, capture the city, save Rahab, and get

all the precious metals for the Lord's treasury. Those are

the five things that God had asked them in this part,

after they had watched six times. Going into the seventh day,

the Israelites already marched for seven days, and we jump

in on the seventh day.

And I want to tell you the number seven is.

Very special in the Bible, very special in the Bible.

What it represents, its perfection and completion. It's very significant.

And this being the seventh day and they march seven times,

and there being seven trumpets and seven priests and seven trumpets,

this means that God was going to do something really big,

that he was going to perfect something, he was going

to complete something. There was going to be something that

was going to happen at the end of this.

This was a promise.

But you see, God does not just command something to

be done without there being a promise. He asked for

five things to happen, but there was a promise behind it.

But in the Bible, this promise starts far beyond the

story of Joshua going into Jericho. It starts in Genesis twelve,

and it starts with Abraham. It starts when God promises

this promised land to Abraham back in Genesis, and then

he not only gives it to Abraham but also re

confirms it, reaffirms it in Genesis twenty six to his

son Isaac, and then again in Genesis twenty eight to

his grandson Jacob, and then in Exodus to a burning bush,

he tells Moses of the promised land and then reaffirms

it to Moses again in Exodus chapter six, verse eight,

where he says, I will bring you into the land

that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and

to Jacob. I will give it to you for your possession.

I am the Lord. God is a god that keeps

his promise, but sometimes the promise doesn't always appear the

way that they think it's going to appear.

They came to conquer Jericho.

And there was an obstacle in the way, a literal

wall in the way. The Bible describes the Wald of

Jericho as very imposing and heavily fortified. It wasn't just

a little brick wall. Archaeological evidence shows that it was

actually it's suggests that it was a double walled system,

outer wall being a stone retaining wall about twelve to

fifteen high feet high, and then a top mud brick

wall on the embankment that was estimated to be twenty

to twenty.

Six feet high.

At first glance, it might appear that this is an impossibility.

There's just no way.

But we serve a God who can do the impossible,

and we serve a God who is a promise keeper,

because in verse sixteen it says, shout, for the Lord

has given you this city.

It was already done.

The Lord had already given the city to the Israelites,

even though the promise didn't appear how they expected. Hebrews

ten twenty three says, let us hold fast to the

confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised

is faithful. You know, about a month ago, I bought

a vanity table because I'm a girl and I do

things at a vanity desk.

And so there it is. She's beautiful, okay.

So I bought her and it got to my house

and this is what it looked like.

That's not what I bought.

So could you imagine if I picked up the phone

and called the place that I bought it and said,

excuse me, false advertisement, You did not give me what

I ordered.

They would have said, ma'am, this is Amazon.

There's an asterisk at the bottom of your order, and

it says, assembly required. But see, that's what happens. We

ask God to give us a promise, and God promises

us something, and he gives us everything that we need

to know, and he says, there's an asterisk at the

bottom of my promise, and is that obedience is?

It's required.

Obedience is required to receive the promise. We can sit

there and we can say, God, you promise that you

can restore my marriage, and he.

Says, but I need you to be obedient and.

Not in that closet watching pornography. I need you to

be obedient when you ask me to heal your body

and not go to McDonald's the next day.

Where is the obedience.

I can promise you, and I can heal you, and

I can give you a miracle, but you have to

show me the obedience that you can handle the miracle

that I'm going to give you. When God gives us

a promise, obedience is required because it is when God's

promises meet our obedience that a real miracle can happen.

The promise was given by God and instructions were laid out.

Do you remember what those five instructions were in those

verses that we just read to blow the trumpets, to shout,

to capture the city, to save Rayhab, and to get

all the precious metals for the Lord treasury.

So now what we're gonna do is we're gonna read

the next five verses and see what happens.

It says starting in verse twenty, So the people shouted,

and the trumpets were blown.

Check. Check.

As soon as the people heard the sound of the trumpets,

the people shouted a great shout, and the wall fell

down flat.

This is news. That's brand new information right there. But

let's keep reading.

So that the people went up into the city, every

man straight before him, and they captured the city. Then

they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men, women, young,

old oxen sheep, donkeys with the edge of the sword.

Check. Capture the city done.

But the two men who had spied out the land,

Joshua said, go into the prostitute's house and bring out

from the woman all who belonged to her and swore

to her. So the young men who had been spies

went in and brought rahabn her father and her mother,

and her brothers, and all who belonged to her. Check.

And they brought them all.

The relatives, and they were outside of the camp of Israel,

and they burned the city with fire and everything in it.

Only the silver and the gold, and the vessels of

bronze and iron they put into the treasury of the

House of the Lord. Check all five instructions. They were obedient.

This is an amazing example of what happens when we

move in obedience. The instructions were clear the part where

the Israelites were to do. What was unclear was how

they were going to capture the city.

But as long as they were to.

Remain obedient, a miracle took place and the walls fell down,

and they were able to continue with the assa. They

made a way for God to keep his promise by

being obedient.

See the Israelites of the past were known for doubting

God and his promises.

At the Red Sea, they panicked, they complained about the

provision when they were hungry, and they were thirsty, they

worshiped a golden calf because they were impatient.

But by the time they reached.

Jericho and Joshua chapter six, a new generation had risen.

Those who had not rebelled in the wilderness. When God

gave them unusual instructions, marching around the city for seven days,

and all of the things that they were asked to

do in this chapter they obeyed precisely, without grumbling and

without questioning. This shows faith in God's power, not on

their own strength. It shows a unity and discipline under

Joshua's leadership, and it showed a new era of trust

and obedience as they entered into the Promised Land. So

while Jericho wasn't the first moment of obedience, it was

a major milestone that marked a shift in the Israelites'

attitudes towards God's commands. Charles Stanley says, God's commands are

not burdensome when we trust his heart. Let me go

back to my little vanity over here that I'm building.

You see, along with all of these pieces that were

given in order to create something that we want, they

give something called instructions.

Look at and for.

People like me, they put it in a big orange envelope,

so you don't miss it.

Okay, But here's the thing.

You have to start at one and you have to

go step by step in order.

So when you're putting this piece and this piece.

Together, and then you start to create something, and so

all of a sudden, I'll be like, hey, I think

I'm building a shelf, and then all of a sudden,

I turn the page and it tells me to put

these things down and then move over here and start

something here. But what happens is I'm like, but I

started to create something. I want to finish this, and

I start to get ahead of myself and I'm not

following the instructions the way the creator of this item

has instructed me to do, so that I get ahead

of myself based on my own understanding, and I start

to get to a place, and now.

My pieces won't fit.

That's what happens when we start building stuff and getting ahead.

You see the Israelites, they just obeyed one step at

a time, and in the middle of that they were

looking and they're like, I don't know how we're gonna

capture the city, but they just kept obeying. When the

creator gives us instructions, we have to realize that he

knows more than we know. That even if we think

we know how to do it on our own, that

when we are given instructions, and we are given an

instruction manual with everything that we could possibly need in

order to walk this life out that this has been

tried and true and proven to be the only way

that we should be living our life. You see, there's

so many examples in the Bible where God performs a miracle.

But he first asks for obedience.

To Moses, he said, raise your staff and stretch out

your hands. And he parted the red sea to Nayman

who had leprosy. He told him to wash in the

Jordans seven times and he'll be healed, and he was.

Jesus told a paralytic man at the pool of Bethesda

to stand.

Up, take up his mat, and walk, and he did.

I can go on and on and on about the

miracles in here, but if you look deep enough at

the miracles, you will see that there is a call

to obedience in order for that to happen. Tewod Corinthians

one twenty says, for all the promises of God, find

there yes in him. That is why it is through

him that we utter our amen to God for his glory.

It's imperative that we remain obedient to every step. There

was five instructions, every single one of them essential. The

obedience didn't stop after the miracle occurred.

There were still things.

That God asked them to do, and they still had

to remain obedient. There was two other things that were

still to be done. They still had to save Rahab,

and they still had to store all of the gold

and the silver and the bronze and the iron into

the Lord's treasure because God said that they were holy.

Now we're going to get to Rayhab in a moment,

but I do want to talk about that last one,

and before I talk about that, I want to I

want to talk about the whole chapter for a moment,

because there were five instructions in this half of the

of the chapter, but there was a couple in the

beginning of the chapter that we talked about last week

that they had to march and they had to be silent.

That means that God asked for seven signs of obedience,

and then on the seventh day, after the seventh lap,

with the seven trumpets, he brought those walls down.

This makes me believe that those.

Seven acts of obedience are essential to the will of

God in our life, including that last one, which is

uncomfortable for people to talk about. Because Jericho was the

first territory that they captured in the Promised land. Jericho

was the first. Jericho was the beginning. And now we're

taking all that is worth, the metals and.

The gold and the silver. They're taking it and putting

it into the Lord's army.

This is the first fruit of the promise, and this

is essential when we talk about our walk with God.

Now, I could sit here and I can give.

You the road map of God's will for your life

in seven steps. But if you don't take that last one,

if you are not giving what God.

Calls to be holy, which is our first fruits.

And giving it back to God, because it says give

it to the Lord's treasury, the first fruits, all that

you see.

And give it back to God.

If you're not doing that, then the road map that

God is giving you you will take.

Every turn except for the last one.

You will be a block away from the promise, and

you will be looking at everybody a block away saying,

why do they have their miracle and I don't have mine?

Because you're close enough to see, but you're not close

enough to receive. I understand that not everybody likes that one.

So we're going to keep moving on. When God's promises

and our obedience come together.

We have the victory.

The victory happens because of the continued obedience of the Israelites.

But God's the one who performed the miracle. God's the

one who got the victory. Imagine what happened when the

Israelites thought that they were just going to.

Walk around the wall and with a shout upon.

Completion, the wall just falls. Imagine what they were thinking.

Because they were just being obedient. They had no clue

how they were going to capture this city, and all

of a sudden, out of their obedience, the wall just

comes down. They saw first hand the miracle of God

and how God stepped in to give them the victory.

Our obedience ignites the power of God. They could not

take the walls down and invade Jericho on their own

strength and on their own ability. When God makes a promise,

he asks us to do everything that we can do

so that He can do everything that we cannot do.

That is where God steps in. That is where God

gives us the victory. See, God is like the last

lap in the race, and he stands there and he's waiting,

waiting for the baton to be passed. But we have

to be the ones obediently getting the baton to him,

so that he can go, and he can run this

race and finish out the race for us.

Paul writes of Abraham in Romans four twenty and twenty one.

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God.

But he grew strong in his faith as he gave

glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to

do what he had promised. Is that going to be

our position tonight? Can we know that God will always

fulfill his promises when we are obedient to him as

we discover the victory. Let's read what I consider to

be the greatest victory in this entire story, verse twenty five.

But Rayhab, the prostitute, and her father's household and all

who belonged to her, Joshua saved alive, and she had

lived in Israel to this day because she hid the

messengers whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho. God remembered Rehab.

See back in chapter two.

Reyhab boldly hid the Israelite spies, and when people came

and asked where they were, she lied, and she really

put herself out there.

It was very dangerous. She was very bold.

She was very very She was putting herself out there

because she knew that their God was truly God, and

she was going to do what she needed to do,

and all she wanted was just to make sure that

her family would be safe. And God remembered her, and

her obedience saved her and her family out of that day.

But can I be honest with you, there's something that

always irked me about this story.

And I know now that.

It was because I came from a place of being

a woman and having a shameful past and carrying that shame.

And now that I have been fully freed through Jesus

Christ of anything in my past, I can read this

with full clarity. But it used to really bother me

that out of all the good that she.

Did, she was a hero of faith. She was somebody

who was so strong and so bold that even in

this verse we still called her Rahab the prostitute.

It bothered me, But maybe maybe God kept that in

that story to remind us that we don't have to

be an intellectual or to reach a certain say status,

or to be a Christian for a certain amount of time,

or to just simply be obedient, because that's all he

asked was for obedience.

Maybe it's also to remind the.

Pharisee type of people, you know, the people who who

put the law above of the love, the law above

the love.

They don't treat people with respect. Is but you just

have to follow the rules.

They're the religious types, but they don't understand the grace

of God, and they don't treat people with like how

Jesus would treat them.

Maybe it's to teach the Pharisees.

Every once in a while, they had to keep repeating like, oh, yeah,

by the way, the greatest miracle at all.

Yeah, yeah, came through a hooker.

So what do I mean by the greatest miracle of

all time? Because later on Rahab, who was saved, she

went to Israel. She lived in Israel, and she later

on had a son named Boaz, and then As had

a son named Obed, and Obed had a son named Jesse,

and Jesse had a son named David, you know King

David and David many generations goes down. And they had

a son named Joseph, and Joseph had a son named Jesus,

and Jesus would die on across for you and for

me so that we could have victory in Him forever

and ever. That is who ray haveb had it not

been for obedience from a prostitute that brought me so

much joy, something that used to bring me shame.

When I would read that and be like God, why

don't we keep calling her a prostitute? And God reminded me,

because if I can do it for her, I can

do it for you.

See, this is how we come to God. We come

a bunch of broken pieces. But the victory is that

when we allow God to use us through our obedience,

that he takes these broken pieces and He begins to

put us together through all of the things that we

have to say, here's the problem. We don't He doesn't

discard this. He doesn't say, oh, that's your past. He

doesn't do that. He says, no, I am going to

take every part of you. I am going to build you,

and I am going to create something in you using

every part of you for my glory, and we finally

will have purpose in our life, regardless of what we've

been through in our past. This is what it means

when we read verses like Romans eight twenty eight that

says all things, all things work together for good for

those who are called according to His purpose all things.

It's a promise. It's a promise. We come like this

and God creates something so beautiful, but it requires obedience.

That's our part. That's our part, is the obedience. It's

a promise.

And I want to tell you today, the greatest promise

that has ever been made was the promise when God

gave us a son so that we.

Can spend eternity with him, so.

That we don't have to live in our shame, and

that he would die on a cross and pay for

our sins. He promised that. But there's a call. There

is a call. There's a call to obedience. I'm going

to give you two verses, the two verses that are

so important to know when we're talking about salvation. The

most common would be John three point sixteen. For God

so loved the world that he gave his one and

only son. Here's the obedience that whoever believes in him,

and here's the promise, shall not perish but have everlasting life.

The obedience and the promise go hand in hand, that

whoever shall believe in him. And the second verse is

found in Romans ten, verse nine. Says, if you declare

with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and you believe

in your heart that God raised him from the dead,

the promise you will be saved.

I don't know.

How many broken, shattered pieces you came in here today representing.

I don't know how far into the building project you

may be. But I just want you to know that

it cannot be done. It cannot be done unless we

are obedient to answer the call that God has called

us to, which is to accept Jesus Christ into our lives,

to declare that he is Lord and that he died

on a cross so that we can live. And when

that happens, God and create victory in our lives because.

He gives us.

He gives us, as we talked about during our miracle moment,

he gives us a helper called the Holy Spirit.

When we invite him into our hearts. Life doesn't get easier.

But what happens is this begins to speak to you,

and your pellet begins to change, and the obedience becomes

something that you crave rather than something that you're running from.

Just as I mentioned earlier, when I read and I

felt shame when I would read about rehab, and now

I can read it and I can jump for joy

because God did that for me, and there's.

No hurt, there's no pain because God has.

Freed me from all of that, and I pray, I

pray that freedom for you. So what I'm going to

ask is that everybody just bow their heads and close

their eyes, and I'm going to lead you in a prayer.

And if you're somebody here who you're saying snaws, that's me.

I'm broken. I'm broken and I need Jesus to put

me back together.

I know that He's promised life to me, and I

just want to be obedient to the call. So I'm

going to say yes to Jesus today because that's what

he asks us to do. Maybe you're somebody you've you've

walked with Jesus before, Maybe you grew up in church.

Maybe you've had a really bad season.

And you feel more broken than you've ever felt before,

and you've said, Jesus, where are you?

God? Where are you?

But you now realize, through this message, through God's word,

that you you've been holding yourself back because God's.

Always been there and He's always wanted to be next

to you.

God is so good that he says, I'm right here,

just come back. So if you're either one of those people,

you're somebody who you want to give your life to Christ,

or you're somebody you want to come home, I want

to tell you Jesus says, welcome, and I'm going to

lead you in a prayer, and all of us are

going to pray this prayer. But it's not the words

that transform you, and it's not the words.

That save you.

It's your heart posture as you are declaring that. Because

if you only knew the passion that God says I

love you when he says I love.

You to you, you want to have that same passion

for Jesus. So let's pray. Dear Lord Jesus, I thank you.

That I could come to you broken and you are victorious.

I believe in my heart that Jesus is Lord and

that God raised him from the dead. Lord save me

today in Jesus' name, we pray.

Amen. Amen, Amen.

Well, I'm gonna ask you to do something bold and

I normally don't do this, but you know what, I

believe that God wants us to be bold in our obedience.

So if you are somebody who answered that call. You

gave your life to Christ. You rededicated your life to Christ.

We want to celebrate that with you. So I would

love right now for you to just raise your hand

and say I answered that call. One, two, three, raise

your hand. If you answer that call, I see those hands,

I see that hand, I see that hand, I see

these hands. Christ, God Heaven is rejoicing. You will never

be the same. You will never be the same knowing

that you have Jesus with you, the Holy Spirit walking

alongside you. You have a church community who you can

come to. You may not know what to do now,

but if you go to grow dot faith, that will

give you some information. It's written by our founding pastor,

Pastor Diego. It's like, Okay, I gave my life to Christ.

Now what what do I do? That'll be able to

tell you. But come to church, start saturating yourself in

the Word of God. Start meeting people around here, come

to the events that we have, get some friends.

We're here for you.

And eventually you'll just be a part of the family

like all of us are.

You could be a part of the family tonight. But

we want you here.

We want to walk alongside you and so we just

want to say thank you for answering that call, and

we're here for you for whatever you need. I'm going

to pray, and if you are in need of additional prayer,

there's going to be some wonderful prayer warriors from our

prayer team up here and.

They will be able to stand in agreement for whatever

it is that you're believing for.

But let's not forget what our role is as we

walk out this thing called faith, that we are to

one day at a time, and one step at a time,

and one instruction at a time, simply be obedient. Thank

you Lord for this amazing night. Thank you for revealing something,

giving us a different POV point of view, vantage point

of a scripture that maybe we've read a million times.

Thank you for reminding us what our role is to play.

Thank you for instructing us in the ways of the Lord.

Thank you for reminding us how we're not alone, that

we can come to you broken, and that through our

obedience and your promise that we can truly have victory.

In Jesus' name, We pray, Amen, have a blessed evening.

Everybody,