Theological Proposition/Focus: God is much bigger than any mistake God overcomes mistakes and turns them into blessings because God is committed to His people.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: God's people regularly get themselves into trouble but this does not mean that God has abandoned them, rather from the midst of trouble God's people should cry out for help.

Introduction:

Image:

Need: We need to understand that God has committed himself to us and we can depend on Him.

Subject: Commitment

Preview: Today we are going to look at an important battle in the book of Joshua as we look at this battle we will see that we can place our confidence in God, we can depend on God, and we can call on God.

Text: Joshua 10:6-43

Setting the Stage:

Recall that the theme of the book of Joshua is that God is the one who delivers Israel. God is the one who is leading Israel. It is all about God!

Before we dig into Joshua chapter 10, I want to remind you of

Background: The rushed decision of Joshua 9.

Recall that out of fear

the Gibeonites chose to trick Israel into a treaty.

and Joshua told Israel that they needed to keep the oath they had made despite the false pretenses. So we find ourselves in a situation where Joshua and Israel are allied with a city within the land of Canaan.

This sets us up for the ability to study the first five verses of Joshua 10 and understand the situation that Israel had found themselves in.

Background: The situation of Joshua 10:1-5.

Note: Read Joshua 10:1-15.

When word of Gibeon's treaty reached the king of Jerusalem the king realized he had a major problem. Israel had destroyed AI and Jericho, now with Gibeon on their side it seems Adoni-Zedek figured a preemptive joint strike was in order. No longer would Israel be faced with fighting a lone fortress, now alliances has formed in opposition to Israel. The first step in this allied attack was to cut off Israel's ally.

Body

Today we are going to do something a little different. Instead of taking one section at a time, I am going to take the entire passage and then pull out three main ideas that you can use in your life.

God's people can place their confidence in Him (6-15).

God expects His people to confidently act with integrity.

What does this look like? Two ideas come to mind

God expects us not to be conformed to the world but transformed (Romans 12:2)

God expects us to hold not just to the letter of our word, but the idea behind our word.

When I think about living the letter of the law verse the idea behind the law I am reminded of my childhood.

Image: PKs are experts at following the rules "to the letter" and no further.

I grew up as a pastor's son and I will tell you that being a pastor's son, I worked really hard at following the letter of the law and finding every possible loophole.

My mom would tell us we each needed to go out and pull 100 weeds, grab a handful and count the roots.

No running in the church sanctuary so we played walking tag.

Bottle rockets were illegal so what did we do? We strapped fireworks to arrows and shot them into the air.

We worked to find all the loopholes we could find. When I consider what happened to Joshua with the Gibeonites and now the alliance formed against the Gibeonites I would have been tempted to declare. Ok, here is my loophole I am going to let the other nations wipe out Gibea.

Instead, Joshua boldly stepped out to honor his commitments.

God reminded Joshua that he should not be afraid.

We see Joshua mustering the entire army together and marching through the night. We see God approaching Joshua to remind him that he has nothing to fear because his confidence is in God. God places special emphasis on the complete victory He has assured by stating that non one of them will be able to withstand Joshua.

Then, in complete faithfulness, we see that.

God provided complete victory.

We are going to skip a lot in 28-43 but look at verse 40.

It seems that God used the attack on Gibeah the spark through which all the dominos might fall.

Previously Joshua had conquered two cities, now they were all falling like dominos.

So, with this in mind, I want to remind you of Pauls's command in 2 Timothy 1:6-12.

We should be loyal to Christ and the Gospel (2 Timothy 1:6-12).

Paul, writing from prison reminds timothy of what loyalty to the Gospel looks like.

Exercise and fortify Spiritual giftedness.

through power, love, and self-discipline.

Join in suffering for the sake of the Gospel

Embrace the humility implicit in the Gospel

Keep the message of the sound teaching.

Guard the truth of the Gospel.

MTR: Search your life for any areas where your loyalty has wavered.

God's people can depend on God even when they get themselves into trouble (6-15).

Image: Getting out of trouble you got into, pulling a camper.

Have you ever gotten yourself into enough trouble that you needed help to get out of trouble? The first time I pulled a larger trailer behind my truck was a few years ago.

God threw the enemy into confusion.

God directly attacked the enemy.

We should trust God's patient commitment to us (Matthew 14:28-32).

MTR: Ask yourself, where do I need to ask God for help?

God's people should boldly call on God (6-15).

Joshua's bold request was unbelievable.

Joshua's bold request was answered.

We should be known as a people who call on the Lord (Phil 4:6).

Image: Bold prayer, amazing answers.

MTR: Pray specifically, pray boldly, look for answers.

Conclusion: God's people can trust God to faithfully fulfill his promises (16-43).

Joshua 10: Committed

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