[0:00] Joshua chapter 8, verses 1 and 2. The Lord said to Joshua, Do not be afraid or discouraged.! Take all the troops with you, and go attack I. Look, I have handed over to you the king of I, his people, his city, and land.
[0:14] Treat I and its king as you did Jericho and its king, except that you may plunder its spoil and livestock for yourselves. Set an ambush behind the city. So, the word of the Lord has come again to Joshua.
[0:27] And, as I mentioned before, this is following that pretty embarrassing defeat there at the hands of this small people in I, that, by all accounts, Israel should have been able to handle without any issue.
[0:42] But, if we remember, the reason for their failure was because they were unfaithful to the Lord. The Lord told Joshua that the people of Israel had been unfaithful.
[0:53] They had taken things that were set apart for the Lord's treasury for destruction. And, it was this one man, his name was Achan, who took what did not belong to him.
[1:04] He took what he was not supposed to take. He took what was supposed to be set aside for the Lord. And so, because Achan sinned, he was destined for punishment.
[1:15] His family was destined for punishment. And, by effect, the people of Israel were set apart and cursed. The Lord had left them. It says in Joshua chapter 7, verse 12, This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies.
[1:33] They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you what is set apart.
[1:45] The Lord made it clear that the people of Israel were not under his hand of protection anymore. And so, after the period of this trial, this public trial, where Joshua and the people of Israel had to come forward tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, man by man, and they established, the Lord revealed to them that it was Achan who had stolen, who had taken the things that were set apart.
[2:12] The people of Israel were obedient, and they punished him, justifiably punished him for the sin that he had committed. And because they had punished him, the Lord's anger had now turned.
[2:23] His wrath had been satisfied. The end of Joshua chapter 7, verse 26 says, Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, that place is still called the Valley of Achor today.
[2:34] And this reality of the Lord turning his anger from the people of Israel, and now coming back, right, in the sense to the people of Israel to protect them and to lead them, sets us up for a two-fold truth that we're going to look at as we go through this text.
[2:52] And the first is, the Lord himself is essential for any victory or success that we hope to see. The presence of God, the power of God is necessary for every success, every human endeavor, every victory that we hope to see.
[3:08] The presence and power of God is necessary. As I mentioned, the people of I were small people. I mean, it was 12,000 people in total who were killed by the people of Israel.
[3:19] So we know it wasn't a massive place. It wasn't a huge standing army. And they should have been able to handle it. The spies went and did their reconnaissance, and they came back and told Joshua, we only need a few thousand.
[3:30] Don't send everyone. Just send a few. And so they were really confident, because they had seen the victory that the Lord had given before. And then they went, and they suffered this devastating blow, this embarrassing loss.
[3:44] And they did so because the Lord wasn't with them. See, the Lord is necessary. His presence and His power is essential for any victory that we might want to see.
[3:57] I was reading a commentary this week by a man named Dale Ralph Davis, and Davis put it like this. He said, How utterly dependent God's people are upon God's power for any success.
[4:10] And the second truth that we can take from this passage as we look through it is that not only is God essential and necessary for victory, but also when we experience defeat in the past, it cannot impact negatively our obedience in the future.
[4:31] Defeat cannot affect our obedience. See, the Lord said to Joshua, Take all the troops and go and attack I. But before He told him to take the troops and attack I, He says, Do not be afraid or discouraged.
[4:47] Which sounds a lot like something we read at the very beginning of Joshua. The Lord's message to Joshua a few times there in the first chapter, Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid.
[4:57] Do not be dismayed. Don't be discouraged. See, Joshua had this struggle that I think a lot of us face, which is when we face defeat, we expect or fear the same result in the future.
[5:11] We're a little bit hesitant or timid to approach the same problem or the same issue because we've already experienced defeat and we don't want to experience it again.
[5:23] It's a temptation to let the past defeat paralyze future action. Joshua was discouraged and we often face the same fear in our lives and in the church, but we cannot let fear drive our obedience.
[5:40] We have to remain obedient to the word of the Lord apart from any defeat that we've faced in the past. The Lord had called His people to take this land.
[5:52] And then the promise to Joshua is, Look, I have handed over to you the king of Ai and his people, his city, and his land. So the Lord not only has called His people to take this land, but he's actually done the work for them.
[6:06] His power, his presence is going before them to give them victory. So with all confidence and with all courage, Joshua can lead his people into battle, into the battlefield where they lost, where 36 men died, because he knows now that the Lord was with him.
[6:23] And there's this trend that we see in the church, and maybe you've experienced something like this before in your church life, where you're really excited about a potential ministry or service opportunity, and you start to talk to some people about it, and then you ask, Hey, what do you think?
[6:40] And then you hear this. Has anybody ever heard this? Oh, we tried that before and it didn't work. You ever heard that? Charles, yeah? Yeah? I've heard that a thousand times.
[6:51] I mean, it's part of life, right? Oh, we've tried that before. It doesn't work. Oh, we've tried it before and we failed. We tried it before. And so then, because things didn't work in the past, now, for whatever reason, that means they'll never work in the future.
[7:03] That may or may not be the case. You know, in the case of the people of Israel, though, the reason that their defeat happened, the reason that they lost that battle there at Ai, wasn't because they weren't good soldiers.
[7:15] It wasn't because they didn't love the Lord. It was because one person's sin affected the entire group. One person's sin brought a curse on the entire group. And so can I just suggest that maybe things didn't work in the past in church spheres and in church life because maybe there were people whose sin impacted and influenced the way that things went?
[7:36] I don't think that that's too far-fetched at all. I think that instead of looking at things through the lens of whether or not it worked in the past, we should look at things through the lens of where are we today and is the Lord in this and is he leading us to do it?
[7:49] Right? In the same way that the people of Israel back here with Joshua, they had to take into consideration, okay, why did we lose? Oh, the Lord wasn't with us. We punished the sin. And now, why can we go fight?
[8:01] Because the Lord is with us. He's in this. He's called us to do this. And he's given us this land. And he's given us this victory. The difference between the first battle and the second is not a better plan, but it's the reality of God's presence.
[8:18] Victory is not won by brute force or human cleverness, but by the Lord fighting for his people. So we cannot let defeat dictate the future.
[8:29] Defeat reminds us how badly we need the Lord's presence. And that's true on the personal side of things as well, isn't it? When we fall in sin, when we fall into temptation, when we cannot live up to God's holy standard that we know from his word, it's a reminder how badly, how much we need his presence, his constant strength, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
[8:56] But as we move through this text, I want you to see five key words. I know it's normally three words. Yeah, I'm not a complete Baptist because I don't also give you a poem every week.
[9:08] But it's normally three points, right? But there's five key words that I want you to take from this passage. Five key words. And I believe that these five words will serve as a guide for us as we move forward individually and corporately into whatever God calls us to do.
[9:24] So individually, whether God's called you to be a spouse, an employee, a child, a friend, a servant in the church, whatever God has called you to do, these five words kind of provide the roadmap for success instead of failure.
[9:41] All right? And the first word that I want us to take from this passage is patience. Patience. Everyone's favorite fruit of the Spirit, right? And I've heard it said, and I'm sure you have too, don't pray for patience because God will give you opportunities to be patient, right?
[9:58] Yeah, it's never fun. But patience. Verse 2 says, Treat I and its king as you did Jericho and its king, except that you may plunder its spoil and livestock for yourselves, set an ambush behind the city.
[10:14] You see, the problem here was that Achan was impatient. Achan was impatient. He took what wasn't his because he was trying to seize the blessing for himself instead of waiting for God's provision.
[10:32] If he had been patient, he would have seen that the Lord was generous and kind and looking to, from his own benevolence, from his own goodness, from his own generosity, he was looking to bless his people.
[10:46] But Achan tried to get the blessing on his own through his own strength. As bad as he wanted the spoils in Jericho, as bad as he wanted that really cool robe from Babylon, you know, the fashion statement that he could wear, as bad as he wanted the silver and the gold, as bad as he wanted those things, if he had been patient, he would have known even more blessing from the Lord through the battle of Ai, the victory at Ai.
[11:12] Right. Excuse me. My bad. He tried to take the blessing for himself instead of receiving it as a gift and kindness from the Lord.
[11:24] And so the problem that Achan possessed is a problem that we still possess today. We need to be patient. We need to wait and see the good things that God desires to give us.
[11:35] God doesn't desire for us to be, you know, like, without. Without, he desires to bless us. He's kind. He's loving. He's generous. But the issue is that we tend to act like Achan.
[11:47] And we try to rush the hand of the Lord. You know, like, I really want this promotion at work. And so I'm going to just switch jobs and jump over here to this other, you know, this other place so I can have a higher position. Maybe that's not where God wants you to be.
[11:59] Maybe God wants you to learn patience in the workplace instead of trying to take for yourself the blessing of that promotion. You know, it's easy in church because we know verses like Romans 8, 28. You know, God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose.
[12:14] We love verses like that in church. But then in practice, in the real world, it becomes really hard to remember that. And we let selfishness take over the same way that Achan did. And I have personal experiences.
[12:25] I know that you do too, of times where I needed to be patient and I needed the Lord to show me my need to be patient. All right, so before I became the pastor here at First Baptist Lewisburg, I'll be 100% honest with you, there were times where me and Audrey were talking.
[12:39] It's like, I just really feel called to be a pastor. Like, I want to be a lead pastor of a church. And so I would try to like throw out resumes to these churches like, hey, maybe they'll be interested in me. And through that time, actually hearing back from a handful of churches and interviewing with a handful of churches, God made it really clear that none of those moves were the right move.
[12:59] And what I needed was to be patient where I was and wait for the Lord to open the opportunity. And thankfully, a year ago, God opened that opportunity and we've been blessed to be here in Lewisburg. But we have to be patient and trust the Lord's kindness and trust that he is looking to bless his people from his own kindness.
[13:17] I quoted Davis earlier, but he also said something that I think explains the challenge of patience. He says, it is only as his people lose sight of his generosity, his provision, his goodness, that the cancer of covetousness consumes them.
[13:35] Indeed, this is one of the first principles of serpent theology. For the tempter in the Garden of Eden was sharp enough to place his emphasis on the restriction God has imposed rather than on the riches he had lavished.
[13:50] See, Achan was only focused on what God said he couldn't take. Eve was focused on what God said she couldn't eat. The focus was on the restriction that God imposed instead of the riches of blessing that God had given.
[14:03] And we struggle with that. At least I do. Maybe y'all don't. I struggle with that. Where I focus so much on where I shouldn't be or what I shouldn't have instead of where God has me and I need to learn the patience and to trust the Lord.
[14:18] Trust God's goodness and his generosity. Rushing ahead of God, as Achan is an illustration of, often leads to more curses than blessing.
[14:29] But the second word that we'll pull from this text is wisdom. All right? Wisdom. Joshua 8, 3 through 9, it says, So Joshua and all the troops set out to attack I.
[14:42] Joshua selected 30,000 of his best soldiers and sent them out at night. He commanded them, Pay attention, lie in ambush behind the city not too far from it, and all of you be ready.
[14:53] Then I and all the people who are with me will approach the city. When they come out against us, as they did the first time, we will flee from them. They will come after us until we have drawn them away from the city, for they will say, They are fleeing from us as before.
[15:08] While we are fleeing from them, you are to come out of your ambush and seize the city. The Lord your God will hand it over to you. After taking the city, set it on fire, follow the Lord's command, see that you do as I have ordered you.
[15:21] So Joshua sent them out, and they went to the ambush site and waited between Bethel and Ai to the west of Ai, but he spent the night with the troops. You're like, Joseph, the word wisdom isn't there at all.
[15:33] Where is wisdom coming from? Well, I want you to see, God gave Joshua a specific, wise strategy for how they ought to take the city of Ai. Verse 2, At the end of it, the Lord says to Joshua, Set an ambush behind the city.
[15:47] And we can assume that God gave Joshua the rest of the details because Joshua then told the troops what the plan was. Be wise in the strategy that you employ when you see the Lord's calling in your life.
[16:01] Individually and corporately as a church, we have to be wise to employ the strategies that God has outlined in his word for success. And what I mean by that is a commitment to his truth, following his word every step of the way.
[16:19] Wisdom is seen in obedience to God's word. So don't approach your service to church, your marriage, or the way that you approach raising your children or your employment.
[16:30] Don't approach anything with less than the wisdom of the Lord. How are you supposed to be a father? Seek the wisdom of the Lord through his word. How are you supposed to be a mother, a child, an employee?
[16:43] How are you supposed to live life? Seek the wisdom of the Lord in his word. Joshua heard from the Lord and obeyed it completely. So there's wisdom in adhering to God's word.
[16:59] And the third word I want you to take home is timing, timing. When the king of I saw the Israelites, the men of the city hurried and went out early in the morning so that he and all his people could engage Israel in battle at a suitable place facing the Arabah.
[17:14] But he did not know that there was an ambush waiting for him behind the city. Joshua and all Israel pretended to be beaten back by them and fled toward the wilderness. Then all the troops of I were summoned to pursue them.
[17:25] And they pursued Joshua and were drawn away from the city. Not a man was left in I or Bethel who did not go out after Israel leaving the city exposed while they pursued Israel.
[17:38] And listen to this, verse 18. Then the Lord said to Joshua, hold out the javelin in your hand toward I for I will hand the city over to you. So Joshua held out his javelin toward it.
[17:51] When he held out his hand, the men in ambush rose quickly from their position. They ran, entered the city, captured it, and immediately set it on fire. Patience and wisdom together produce a great dependence on the Lord's timing.
[18:04] Doing things at the exact time that God sets it in motion. Right? Instead of rushing the process, instead of, you know, okay God, I'll follow you to this point and then we'll take it from here.
[18:15] Thank you. You know, instead of backing away from the Lord's instruction, it's a follow through, a trust, a dependence on God's word, on his timing.
[18:26] So the Lord told Joshua there in verse 18 to hold out the javelin in his hand and he'll hand over the city to him. And that was the signal for the people in ambush to move.
[18:38] Right? They were waiting for the signal. You've seen this in battle movies, right? You know, like whenever you see the flaming arrow, then take, you know, like this was the signal. This was it. This was the charge from Joshua chapter 6 when he told the people to shout.
[18:50] Right? This was the moment where he sent them into the city. And God told Joshua to do that at just the right time. Joshua, running from the people of Ai, would have had no way of knowing when the city was completely empty.
[19:04] He would have had no way of knowing when the soldiers weren't there defending their post in the city walls. But God knew. And so at the right time, God told Joshua to hold out his javelin and send the men in ambush into the city.
[19:18] Trusting in God's timing requires the spiritual discipline of discernment. Okay? So I want to be really clear. When I say the timing of the Lord, when I say to trust the Lord's timing, I do not mean that in the colloquial way that we often use it today.
[19:34] Right? I didn't get that promotion at work or something bad happened to me today. I guess it just wasn't in the Lord's timing. In his timing, that'll happen. In his timing, this will happen. You know, here's the thing.
[19:45] Sometimes when things don't happen, God is saying no. He's not saying it's not the right time. Sometimes he's saying no. Right? This requires the spiritual, you know, gift, the spiritual sensitivity of discernment.
[19:58] Understanding when the Lord is speaking and when the Lord is leading and then acting faithfully in obedience. It's not as simple as it's not in the Lord's timing.
[20:08] I mean literally wait for God to show you that the door is open and he wants you to walk through it. And that, again, that requires discernment. And how do we discern the word of God?
[20:20] Well, through scripture. The Holy Spirit indwells believers and illuminates our minds as we study his word that he has inspired. So as we seek to know when to act, where to act, what we're called to do, the place to find those answers is in God's word.
[20:37] It's a deep commitment and reliance on the word of God. We have to learn the spiritual discipline of discernment to hear the word of the Lord and act when he leads.
[20:52] Just because we want something in our hearts does not mean that it's God's will. So discern where God is leading and when God is leading and then act. In Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2, Paul says that we should live our lives, we should present our lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to the Lord.
[21:09] This is our spiritual worship so that as we are living sacrifices, that means laid out on the altar, living completely for God, as we are living sacrifices, submitting our lives to the will of God, we can discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.
[21:26] So discernment is a gift for all believers to be able to know when God speaks and then the follow-up is the obedience, right? Knowing when the Lord speaks and then obeying.
[21:38] And that's what Joshua did. And what I want you to see as we look at the fourth word, which is observance, I want you to see that Joshua observed the word of the Lord faithfully all the way through the fight.
[21:50] Look at verse 26. Joshua did not draw back his hand that was holding the javelin until all the inhabitants of Ai were completely destroyed. By the way, does that sound familiar?
[22:02] The leader of the Lord's people holding out a staff so that his people could have victory? It should. In Exodus chapter 17, right after the people had left Egypt, they were attacked by this group called the Amalekites.
[22:20] The Amalekites saw this disparaged people and they were trying to take advantage of them and get some easy plunder. Well, when Moses was on top of the mountain and held out his staff, the people of Israel were winning the fight.
[22:32] You remember this? And if his staff lowered, they would lose the fight. And then Joshua was the one in the battle leading the charge. And now Joshua, as the new leader of God's people, is the one holding out the javelin while God's people take this fight.
[22:48] That's pretty amazing. He listened, he observed the word of the Lord the entire time. Verse 27, Israel plundered only the cattle and spoil of that city for themselves according to the Lord's command that he had given Joshua.
[23:03] Joshua burned Ai and left it as a permanent ruin, still desolate today. He hung the body of the king of Ai on a tree until evening and at sunset, Joshua commanded that they take his body down from the tree.
[23:14] They threw it down at the entrance of the city gate and put a large pile of rocks over it, which still remains today. As we're living our lives, as we're living out the calling that God has placed on our lives and discerning his call, discerning his timing, we have to faithfully observe his word.
[23:33] And we have to faithfully observe the entirety of his word, I would add. You know, there's that interesting thing there in verse 29, and it's still up on the screen, but in verse 29, where they hung up this king's body and they left it on this tree, it's like, well, that's kind of dramatic, kind of gory, isn't it?
[23:50] Well, there's actually specific instruction about this in the book of Deuteronomy. If you look at Deuteronomy 21, it describes that someone who's under the curse of the Lord because they've broken God's word so, you know, so drastically, that they're put onto a tree, they're hung on a tree, and it says that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed.
[24:11] But that law also says that you don't leave that person hanging up overnight. You take him down because it will defile the land. So Joshua observed the word of the Lord as they faithfully routed I and destroyed everything, as they rightly, justifiably punished the king of I for his disobedience and his defiance against the Lord God himself.
[24:32] And then, they even observed the word of the Lord by taking down the king's body and burying it that day. So we have this call to total obedience, total observance.
[24:46] We cannot pick and choose which parts of God's word that we want to obey. We can't pick and choose which parts sound convenient for us to follow. We have to observe the complete counsel of God's word.
[25:00] There's a reason that we preach, that I preach from the Old Testament. The Old Testament is still God's word and still applies to our lives. All right? Like, I'm not saying that we're under the old covenant.
[25:11] Thank God we're under the new covenant. Jesus has fulfilled the law. But as new covenant believers, we should still apply the truths of God's word, the entire counsel of it, to our lives. And that observance of God's word actually takes us into the fifth and final word that we'll look at as we close here today.
[25:28] And it's worship. And why worship? I mean, this is a story about conquest. And as you saw with the king there in Ai, it's pretty violent, right? It's pretty brutal.
[25:39] So how is this worship? I want you to see that this victory is a story of worship. I'm going to ask you a question, okay? And, you know, it's okay if you don't know the answer, but who remembers what happened in Joshua chapter 5?
[25:56] Joshua chapter 5? That went about as well as I thought it would. I'm just kidding. Joshua chapter 5 was when they entered the land and they observed the covenant, you know, the covenant acts of circumcision and Passover.
[26:11] They observed the covenant rituals of circumcision and Passover. So when they entered the land, before they went and took any city, before they went and conquered any place, before they shed any blood, they worshiped together as a community.
[26:27] And then now, here as we get to the end of Joshua chapter 8, they've taken these first two cities, they've established a stronghold in the land. What's their response? They go to the mountains at Shechem and they worship.
[26:41] They worship together. Verse 30 through 35 says, At that time, Joshua built an altar on Mount Ebal to the Lord, the God of Israel, just as Moses, the Lord's servant, had commanded the Israelites.
[26:57] He built it according to what was written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no iron tool has been used. Then they offered burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed fellowship offerings on it.
[27:10] There on the stones, Joshua copied the law of Moses which he had written in the presence of the Israelites. All Israel, resident alien and citizen alike with their elders, officers, and judges stood on either side of the ark of the Lord's covenant facing the Levitical priest who carried it.
[27:27] Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and the other half in front of Mount Ebal as Moses, the Lord's servant, had commanded earlier concerning the blessing of the people of Israel.
[27:38] Afterward, Joshua read aloud all the words of the law, the blessings as well as the curses according to all that is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read before the entire assembly of Israel including the women, the dependents, and the resident aliens who lived among them.
[28:00] You know, there's a reason that when we gather together to worship, we read God's word at the beginning of the service. There's a reason that we come together to learn and hear the word of God preached.
[28:13] It's because the people of God have to center their lives on His truth, on His word. It was true for the people of Israel. After they had these great victories, they had to go and remember that it's the Lord who called them, the Lord who led them and the Lord who provided the victory.
[28:33] And we have to do the same thing as a church today. Moses had commanded that when they went into the land, and this is in Deuteronomy 27, when they went into the land to have this exact worship service take place.
[28:47] Moses told them you need to do this. And why? Well, because it's so easy when we're in the middle of great victory to forget that God is the one who provides the blessing. It's easy when we're hurting and when we're in great need to turn to the Lord and beg Him for help and beg Him for assistance.
[29:05] But then when things are good, you got that promotion, you're making good money, you don't have to worry about anything, the kids are healthy, life is good. It's in those times that it's hard to remember that God is the one in control and the one who calls.
[29:21] And so the people of Israel had to gather together in this place, Shechem, which is a really important site, by the way. You know, when Abraham in Genesis 12, when he came into the land of Canaan, he worshipped and built an altar there at Shechem.
[29:34] Jacob, when he encountered God on his way out of town, he worshipped and built an altar there at Shechem. This is an important religious site and here, the people of God now in the land, ready to take the rest of it and live where God has called them to live, they pause to worship and remind themselves of their covenant relationship with the God who gives the victory.
[29:59] So, as a church, we have to be committed to unified corporate worship surrounding the word of God. God's word is life-giving.
[30:12] God's word is essential. It is authoritative. God's word is one that we cannot live without. we have a responsibility to listen and apply God's word the same way that the people of Israel did back then.
[30:29] We don't get to forego or forsake any part of the Lord's word. And here's the thing, as a people, right, like they saw that God's word was faithfully followed and in that faithful following they saw this victory there at this battle.
[30:44] when we see the people of God together following the word of the Lord, living out faithfully God's word, it will lead, it will produce a greater, more sweeter corporate worship than we could possibly understand.
[31:03] Right? As we apply God's word to our lives and live it out faithfully, then we get to come together and faithfully worship the Lord as the body of Christ. Christ. As we look at this text, I can't wrap it up without pointing us ahead to Jesus because, I mean, you can't do that, right?
[31:20] Like, the text, this is God's word which points to Jesus and there's a few ways that this passage, that these passages, Joshua 7 and 8, point us to Christ. Number one, Achan sinned and because of his sin he was under a curse that required punishment.
[31:35] And our sin requires punishment. The same way that Achan sinned and required punishment, our sin requires punishment. The difference is that Jesus Christ has given his life as a ransom to redeem us so that we don't have to pay for our sins on our own.
[31:50] We don't have to take the punishment for our sins that we deserve. Right? So that's one. Number two, the people of Israel, they face defeat. But we serve a God of second chances. God gave them the ability to root out the problem and then to face this challenge again and see great victory because God is faithful and if we have put faith in Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit living within us, God gives us the second chance to seek him for forgiveness, to repent of our sin and to live faithfully unto him for the rest of our lives.
[32:24] So here's the thing, if you have not put faith in Jesus, then all of this is kind of useless. But if you have put faith in Christ, then this is life giving. It's a reminder that the victory in our church, the victories in our life, the success that we want to see, it is all rooted on faithful adherence to God's word and faithful worship, corporate worship of the person Jesus Christ who came and conquered sin and death so that you and I could have life by faith in him.
[32:53] So because of Jesus, because of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have the courage and the confidence that Joshua might have lacked to obey God and face future challenges knowing that the ultimate victory is secure and also knowing that temptation doesn't have to overtake us.
[33:10] By the grace of God, we can see victory as we face challenges. So if you have not put faith in Christ, again, that doesn't mean anything to you, but don't leave here today without establishing, without knowing for certain that you have a relationship with the one who redeems, the one who saves, the one who took the punishment for your sin so that you don't have to face it on your own.
[33:33] We're going to sing a closing song. I'm going to pray for us, we'll stand. I want you to reflect on God's word and think about how this word applies to your life and where there might be areas that you need to confess and repent and turn to Christ for forgiveness.
[33:48] Let's pray together. God, thank you for who you are. Thank you for your word. Thank you for this church. Oh God, I pray that as we study the story of your people seeing great victory, that we would be encouraged and strengthened in our faith and our walks with you.
[34:09] God, that our church would be committed to serving you faithfully, that the individuals in this room would be committed to observing your word carefully the way that you desire us to.
[34:21] We love you, Lord Jesus, and we praise you in this place and we pray all of these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.