Main Character Energy

Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Whew. We are gonna be

looking in Joshua chapter five, so I'm glad that you're

already opened there. Before we get into the text, I

want to just acknowledge that if I avoid kind of

focusing on this section over here while I preach, it's

because that's where the Kentucky Wildcat fans are sitting. Yeah.

I'm still a little salty, but anyways. You know, this

time that we've gone through in our world, we've got

a lot of different trends that have happened, and one

is this whole Marvel Avengers trend. I don't know if

you went through it as much as I did, but

I even went through a phase where I watched every

movie in sequential order and all of that good stuff,

but The reason I bring up these movies is because

at the beginning, there's always this thought that I have

that when the bad guy, when the bad guy, the

villain or the enemy is being revealed, there's usually some

experience or happening that is a cause of mass destruction.

Like a building is knocked over or something is just

completely destroyed. And every single time they put a shot down,

like on the street level, and there's people walking around, right,

as this massive catastrophic event is about to happen. And like,

usually it's like maybe like a man and a wife

or a couple walking down the street, and then the

building gets destroyed and this massive stone falls and it

just wipes out the couple. We don't pay much attention

to the couple in the movie because we're like, well,

Iron Man is still alive. He's gonna fix this. But

what about the couple? I mean, you ever thought about them?

They might've had kids, probably had friends, family, jobs. I mean,

who knows what they were doing with their lives? But

in the movie, it was like, boom, it's over. For them,

the story is over at that point in some real sense.

But we keep watching and we're like, yeah, go, whoever.

I don't know, maybe it's just me, but sometimes I

think about that and I think about all of these

people and I'm like, they're just what we call NPCs,

non-player characters. And it means they don't really, they're not

really the star of the show. So there's collateral damage.

And I really think about that sometimes because the reality

exists in our own lives where you and I can

think about our own lives and our own experiences as

if we're like the main character of the story. And

you know what we call that? We call it main

character vibes, right? Now stop looking around at others thinking like,

oh yeah, we know who that is. That person's got

main character vibes. In reality, it's mostly you and me.

We all fall into the trap where we have our

lives where we're walking along, we're working along, we're toiling,

we're building families, we're making things happen. And we have

these things that are in front of us, these responsibilities,

these obligations, these relationships, and all of these things that

we are to be doing in this life while we're here.

And so many times we can get kind of blinders

put on to where all we see is my stuff.

And then the story becomes about us. Our problems become

the main problems of the story. Our victories become the

main victories of our story. The work becomes the main

work of our story. In scripture, we see something completely different.

And so as we go through the text today, as

we go through the story in Joshua 5, I'd love

for us all to be thinking about what it means

To live a life of faithful obedience. And maybe you

can just jot down the question, what makes faithful obedience faithful?

What makes faithful obedience faithful? We'll go ahead and skip

to the end of the movie and just tell you

that faithful obedience is for the glory of God and

his renown. Faithful obedience is for God's glory and his renown.

Setting the stage just very briefly, Israel has been promised

this land in Canaan. They've been going there. It's been

a windy, rough trip, 40 years. A generation has passed.

A new generation has risen up. The generation that is

going to be given the land of Canaan. Joshua is

the leader. Throughout these 40 years, God had been providing

with his presence through the Ark of the Covenant, the

pillar of fire, the pillar of smoke, going with them

in the tabernacle. And he's been providing daily manna and resources,

everything they need. Water comes out of rocks. Breakfast comes

down out of the sky. In this moment, they have

celebrated the Passover. They have crossed over the Jordan River,

much like they did the Red Sea. Walls of water,

Ark of the Covenant, they placed memorial stones, and they're

coming in, and on the eve of battle, we see

a shift where the manna stops. The manna stops. Breakfast, lunch,

and dinner is no longer falling from the sky. Now

it is time to work the land again. and reap

the fruits of the labor in the land that God

has provided. So many questions can come to mind as

God's provision in certain ways can change. These questions might be,

is God still here? Is God still with us? Is

God still for us? What is God doing? Even when

day after day they complained about the manna. In this case, Joshua,

and this is kind of like an aside story to

the grand narrative of the book, where it's kind of

like this side story and Joshua is standing out over

Jericho and we see him have an interaction. So let's

go ahead and look at that. In Joshua 5, starting

in verse 13, I'll read from God's word. And God's

word says, when Joshua was by Jericho, He lifted up

his eyes and looked and behold, a man was standing

before him with his drawn sword in his hand. Joshua

went to him and said to him, are you for

us or for our adversaries? And he said, no, but

I am the commander of the army of the Lord.

And now I have come. And Joshua fell on his

face to the earth and worshiped and said to him,

what does my Lord say to his servant? And the

commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, take off

your sandals from your feet for the place where you

are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. Joshua is

contemplating his next steps. He's contemplating those steps through the

lens of obedience to God. As I said, it's a

new generation. He's been commanded to do certain things. But

God has said, I'm with you. I'm giving it to you.

It's done. So even in that scenario, Joshua is still contemplating,

what is my next step? What am I going to do?

And he's out surveying this place and this interaction. It

does something for Joshua. It serves as a moment kind

of outside of the story, even for him, where there's

something happening internally that's going to impact the way he

lives externally. It's kind of like a pause, right? in

the busyness of life. And so what we're going to

look at today through this passage is we're going to

be looking at the faithful obedience of Joshua that is

based upon the presence of God and the promises of

God for the glory of God. And there's three transitional

moments that happen. These three moments of change of orientation

in Joshua. that's going to help us look at what

faithful obedience looks like in our life and where we

might need to have one of these moments or maybe

many of these moments as we seek to walk faithfully

as well in obedience. The first one is this. It's

very simple. There's a change of attention. A change of attention. See,

Joshua is not walking up to this area that he's

standing near Jericho with his eyes closed. I don't think.

I mean, it doesn't tell us, but it seems pretty

evident that Joshua is walking and surveying this land, this

city of Jericho. He's on the eve of battle, and

he's probably in his mind as the commander of the armies, thinking, well,

I need these troops to go there. I'll station these there.

These need spears. These need swords. These need shields. We're

going to attack at this angle. We'll flank here. Making

all of these plans, not bad, because in fact, God said,

I'm giving the land to you, so you've got to

go take it. So his eyes aren't closed, but they're focused.

They're focused on what's right in front of Joshua. And

yet scripture says that he lifted up his eyes. He

lifted up his eyes. He took a moment, so to speak.

He saw something that was not in his field of

vision before, not something that he was focused on, but

he took a moment to acknowledge what was around him.

And when he did, he saw this soldier standing with

a drawn sword. I would imagine a pretty big fella,

probably looking really strong, intimidating. But the point is is

that he took a moment, a pause, and he sees

something that he wasn't seeing before. How many times do

we find in the lives that we live where we

could probably afford to take a moment to lift our

eyes and see what we're not fixated on. You see,

in this situation, I think of the times where I

might be driving down the highway, headed home from work maybe.

I'm driving down and there's cars driving the other direction

on the highway. There's cars driving the same direction as me.

They're not doing it as well as me. They're cutting

me off, making me upset. Maybe I'm cutting them off

and making them upset. Either way, we're not happy that

we're all driving on the road, but we all have

things that I'm thinking about in that car, in that moment.

What's happened in my day leading up to that moment?

Maybe I'm exhausted and I'm just happy to be going home.

And then I'm driving home and remember, oh, wait, I

actually need to exit because I'm supposed to pick Caroline

up for volleyball practice. Oh, and then I've got to

go start dinner Well, Kim's getting home from her stuff,

and I'm thinking about all these things that are going

on in my life. They're all very, very important to me.

They're all right in front of me. But then I

take a moment and kind of notice the cars. See,

because the people in all the other cars, maybe it's you.

Sorry for cutting you off. All of the cars have

people in them that have the same workday on their minds.

the same homes they're going back to, the same places

they're going, the same type of tasks and obligations that

they're going back to. And so there's all of these

other people around us. We could even look around this

room and think, well, I'm here and I'm listening to

the word being preached and man, it's speaking to my

life right now. We'll not be thinking like that, but

look around. There's so many of us in here. How

often do we take a time of pause to see

what's around us, to see outside of our singular field

of vision. And also, how do we do that? How

do we do it? Well, I've got good news and

bad news. There's no silver bullet. Well, actually there is.

It's just not one that has not been told to

you before. It's just one that we don't make proper

use of most of the time. And that is the

fact that we have the ability to pause through prayer.

You see, what prayer does is it's an acknowledgement. You think,

I think sometimes, I need to pray because I need

God to do something. But I want us to think

just for a second about what prayer is. Prayer is

us communicating with God. What's implied prayer? necessarily in that

is that God is here and listening. So many times

we get hung up on using the right words in prayer,

but let me tell you one of the most important

parts of prayer is the mere acknowledgement that God is here,

that he is listening. That's why sometimes, and many times,

our words don't even matter. And he'll give us the words.

but just stopping and pausing and saying, God, you're here.

I want to pause and lift my eyes spiritually to you,

and I want to see what you're doing. I want

to acknowledge your presence. I want to acknowledge your work.

I want to acknowledge your power. I want to acknowledge

all that you are doing, and more importantly, I want

to acknowledge your glory. And so we can do that.

We can take a moment like Joshua did, change our attention,

but changing the attention doesn't just stop there with just, okay,

I've acknowledged God's there. What's next? See, when Joshua lifted

his eyes and saw the soldier, it didn't just change

his attention out of his field of focused view, but

rather than it led to a change of perspective. So

look here in verse 14, actually at the end of

verse 13, Joshua asked him a question. He goes up

to the man and Joshua went to him and said

to him, are you for us or for our adversaries? Now,

can we pause just right there for a second and say,

we know the end of the story. So we know

how silly that question is. It's pretty silly. It's the

exact wrong question. See, so many times when we're focused

in and we haven't taken that moment to see that

our perspective is changing, acknowledging that God is here and

what he's doing in us, so many times all of

the formulas we're thinking about are just what we can

come up with that make logical and rational sense to us,

but are absolute foolishness to the ways of God. And

so he asks him a question that's like a true-false question.

It's like a multiple-choice question with answers A and B.

There is no other option, just the two in Joshua's mind.

Are you on our side, Team Israel? Are you on

their side, Team Jericho? Because the answer to that question

is going to have implications for me. But the soldier

doesn't answer with option A or C. He answers with

option W. Like, not even on the Scantron, y'all. Okay?

He says, no. But I am the commander of the

army of the Lord. Now I have come. And what

does Joshua do? He says immediately he falls down on

his face and worships. falls down on his face and worships.

Change of perspective for Joshua was he had a question

for this person, but he was asking the wrong question.

He wasn't focused on the right things because he was

only focused on his things, not on God's things. And

this is where Joshua comes up with what we have

called main character vibes. Because here's the reality. The reality

is Joshua's got a battle coming up. We're not denying that.

He's leading an army into Jericho, but though it may

be true that the battle is his, it isn't really.

It isn't really. And so with this, Joshua's perspective needs

to change. It needs to change so that he's not

focused on his own options of what to do, on

his own plans, but he needs to be focused on

the presence, the work, and the story of God himself.

And this change happens, and when it does, Joshua hits

his face in worship. It's the natural reaction to a

change of perspective of knowing this isn't all about me,

it's all about him. And our face hits the ground.

And his natural next question is, well, it's natural, but

we'll get to that in a second. Because when we

talk about, well, what does it look like for me

to change my perspective to eternal things rather than temporal

things so that I can clearly see the will of

God for me in this moment? There's another silver bullet,

but it's not a new one. It's meditating on God's word.

Meditating on God's word. See, when we meditate on God's word,

what are we doing? We're listening. I want to caution

against this. You may have heard some people sometimes can say, well,

I've got a problem. I've got a decision I'm trying

to make. I've got an issue. I've got a frustration.

I've got something I'm trying to fix. And I've heard

that the word of God will communicate to me some

solution to this. And it certainly will. The Bible is

all sufficient for all things of life. But it doesn't

work like rubbing the genie lamp. You don't say, I've

got this problem, let me open randomly. Well, that's an

awkward answer to my question. Or taking a verse out

of context and saying, should I go try to jump

off the roof of my house and land on my pinky? Well,

Philippians 4.13 says, I can do all things through Christ

who strengthens me. No, no, no. It's not about seeking

what you want to find. It's about listening to God.

It is not a treasure hunt. It is laying prostrate

in the dirt on your face saying, whatever it is,

speak to me. Just speak to me. You have a

change of perspective to where you are listening You're not

seeking something specific. You're just seeking him. He is faithful

to provide. Provide all the things that you need. You

just need to listen. Listen for his presence. Listen for

his work. Listen for his power. Listen for his glory.

What we might find in those moments is that what

we're fixated on is It may not be important at all. However,

it might be important. It might be important. What you're

dealing with, I don't want to minimize it all the

way down to zero. I actually want to place it

in its right place to say that no matter what

you are facing, no matter what decision in life, no

matter what step of obedience you're seeking to take faithfully

in the Lord Jesus, it is important infinitesimally insignificant compared

to the work, the power, and the glory of God.

That does not mean that he does not care. It

just means that he cares for his glory. You see,

we hear sometimes in the church that God works for

our good and for his glory. I'm gonna change just

one little word there. He works for our good, for

his glory. And it's important for us to really comprehend

that and let it sink deep in as we listen

to him, knowing that he is his story, not ours.

This leads to the deepest change of orientation of all,

and that is the change of reality. The change of reality. See,

in Romans chapter 12, verse 2, we see this kind

Romans 12:2

of culmination of theological instruction to where Paul writes, do

not be conformed. to the patterns of this world, but

be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Don't be

conformed to the world. Be transformed by the renewing of

your mind. What does it look like for your reality

to completely be flipped on its head from a worldly

perspective to an eternal perspective? Three things that I can

think of that I think we should pay attention to.

Number one is ownership. Ownership. Well, let's talk about that

for a second. Verse 15, or actually the end of

verse 14, Joshua fell on his face to the earth

and worshiped and said to him, what does my Lord

say to his servant? That's a great question. And the

commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take off

your sandals from your feet, for the place where you

are standing is holy. And Joshua did so. Take off shoes. Now,

I was raised in the deep south, but I did

not grow up in a home where we had to

take our shoes off. It's not because my parents were

dirty people. but it does mean that, I'll make my

apologies to you later if you're one of these, but

it means when I do take off my shoes, I

do look around on the floor and I still see

the cat hair, the dog hair, and think my shoes

really wouldn't have made that big of a difference. Why

do we take shoes off? What is with this command

that is similar to what Moses was told on Mount Sinai,

what Joshua is told here? He's laying in dirt, Most

likely on a hillside overlooking a city that's on dirt.

Take off your sandals, the commander says. Sandals are routinely

removed as a sign of reverence and respect. Notice that

the commander says, for the ground you stand on is holy.

Why is it holy? It's just dirt. It's dirt. It's

holy because it's his. It's holy because he is here.

He is present. It's not about where you're going to

track dirt or grime or any of those things. It's

about what the Bible calls consecration. It's about saying, I

am in the presence of a holy and righteous God.

It's all his. It's all his. And see, it's not

just that the earth is his, although he is the

creator of all of the heavens and the earth. Everything

that exists, his. His creation, his possession. But guess what?

We're his creation too. So it's not just the earth

that is his, it's us. It's us. Our lives, every

part of our lives, every second of our lives, every story,

every redemptive story, every bad story, it's all his. He

owns it all. And he owns it for his glory.

And that's a massive change of reality that we need

to face, that Joshua was facing. So if you don't

think that or know that or recognize that, Maybe it's

time for you to take your shoes off, metaphorically speaking. See,

in the New Testament, we see in Galatians that it's

no longer I that live, but Christ in me. All

of it is his. The second thing that we have

changed in our new reality is efforts. Everything we do,

everything we're working for, it's all different. It's not for

what I can gain. It's not the American dream of

if I just work really hard, I can be whoever

I want to be. I can get whatever I want

to get. It's never a fulfilling strategy, by the way.

But rather that our work is meant for him and

his glory. Because ultimately, it's ours. It's our work to do,

but not really. We do all things as if doing

them for the Lord. Why? Because we are. For his glory.

Thirdly is our purpose. Our purpose. What is our motivation

in this new reality? The motivation is that I'm not

doing this I'm not doing this for this person, that person. Look,

loving God and loving others are the two greatest commandments

that we find in the New Testament. Jesus pronounces this.

And so loving others is important, but we love others

for his glory. And so, our ownership, our efforts, our purpose,

what they really point to is the fact that when

we come to points of transition or the need for

a decision in our lives where we're looking for his

will in them and we follow this pattern that we

see in Joshua, what it leads us to is taking

the next step without worry. Well, then you think, well,

that's just easy to say How do we actually do that?

How do we live without worry? Well, what is it

that we worry about when we're seeking to walk faithfully

obedient to Christ? The first one that I do is

I worry that I won't be effective. I worry that

I won't be effective. I can even have the right motive,

but I think, man, I'm not going to get it

done exactly right. Or maybe I'll just do it completely wrong.

I do worry about that as well. Then I also

worry that I might choose wrong I work with our

students here, Crossway students, and It's only natural when you're

facing moments of transition in your life and you're thinking,

what is it that I should do? What college should

I go to? What line of work should I go into?

What degree plan should I go for? And it can

be a paralyzing form of anxiety that seizes the person.

And maybe for the adults, it's, I don't know if

I'm in the right profession. I have this opportunity to

go work somewhere else. I don't know what to do.

I wanna make the decision that's pleasing to God, but

I don't know what to do. And I'm terrified that

I'm going to make the wrong decision As if choosing

the wrong degree plan, taking the wrong job opportunity is

actually going to affect the plans of God himself designed

for his glory. Our worry in those moments is rooted

in our unbelief. It's rooted in our unbelief that he's present,

that he's working, and that he's working for his glory.

His sovereign will will be worked out whether we see

the ingredients and the pie put in the oven or not.

It's gonna be worked out. So don't be discouraged in

your weakness. Why? Precisely because he is present. He is present. See,

in the Old Testament, we have soldiers show up. We

have angels appear. We have God make a pronouncement. The

Lord will be with you. I will be with you.

We see it all throughout the book of Joshua, in fact,

and I'll just briefly walk through. It says here in

chapter 1 and verse 2, he's telling them, I'm giving

to them, the people of Israel, the land. Later in

verse 3, I have given it to you just as

I promised Moses. And then we see down in verse 5,

I will be with you. I will not leave you

or forsake you. Here's the command, be strong and courageous.

Be strong and very courageous. Being careful to do to

all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Then

in verse eight, the book of the law shall not

depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it

day and night so that you may be careful to

do according to all that is written in it. And

then down in verse nine, the coffee mug verse, be

strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not

be dismayed. Your second coffee mug for the Lord your

God is with you wherever you go. How can we

fear not? How can we be strong and courageous? How

can we walk confidently in faithful obedience? We acknowledge that

God is here. We take the perspective that he's at

work and we have our reality change that everything is

working together for his glory. And that confidence... We find

that we're not alone. It's not just the presence of

God where it's some individualistic thing, but the third application

that we need to remember is that the third silver

bullet is that we live in community. We live the

word and speak the word. We live the word and

speak the word to each other, for each other, with

each other, from each other, all to the glory of God.

We are on this path together. And we need to

remember that in every command in scripture that God gives us,

it is accompanied by his presence. Every command carries with

it the promise of his presence. Any things, Josh, making

that up? You might be on chat GPT right now,

fact checking me. Let me give you one of the receipts,

Matthew 28, 18 through 20. We have what we call

the Great Commission. Go and make disciples of all nations,

baptize them, teach them. The very end. For I am

with you, even to the end of the age. God

with us. God with us. Differently from an angel showing

up a soldier today, but rather we have the seal

of the Holy Spirit in us right now, forever, and always.

So we don't have to look around and see, God,

where are you? Cry out, God, where are you? Like

the psalmist did. He's here. Do we acknowledge him? Do

we meditate on him? Do we let him change every

part of our reality knowing that everything, everything, everything, he

is working for our good, for his glory. Because faithful

obedience is for his glory and his renown. So we

get to walk confidently in faithful obedience. Will you pray

with me?