Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / March 16, 2025 | Joshua - The Blessing of Obedience

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March 16, 2025 | Joshua - The Blessing of Obedience · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Morning to everybody who isn't on a spring break trip.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Glad you could be here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't know how many of you grew up in a in a household that had a curfew, okay?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or or established one when you had kids in the home.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: But um the typical thing with a curfew was that uh as long as you followed the rules in the house, generally speaking, that leash got extended a little bit.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if you struggled to follow the rules in the household, that leash was sort of pulled back.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, it it uh it does not affect the love of anybody in the home, but yet the ability to uh, let's just say, experience the full blessings of the household were in danger when we are disobedient.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: That rules uh, and uh even if we could take a step away from that, just following the desire, in that case of our parents' heart, um, it did more than just sort of do well for us.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: It also allowed us to grow and to prosper, to find peace, to find happiness in the home and contentment.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: Everything was better when everybody's following the rules.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the nation of Israel in the book of Joshua does not have that lesson down.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're really struggling with it.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, their curfew is kind of being pulled back a little bit here.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as we're going through this book of Joshua, we we've had this long section at the beginning of the book where we were talking about all these battles, right?
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: The nation of Israel, they've been rescued from Egypt.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to go to the promised land.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: They disobeyed God, they wandered for 40 years, now they are finally taking over this land that God had promised back way back in Genesis to Abraham.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the beginning, like the first half of Joshua, it's been the story of these battles and uh God's faithfulness to his promises, uh the fact that he was giving them victory, and if they would just trust in the Lord, if they would rest in his promises, then they would experience that victory.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: But as we got to that halfway point of Joshua, things just change a little bit.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And last week we I kind of said it was a part one a little bit, so all those spring breakers are just stuck because they're gonna miss part two.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: I know they're really kicking themselves in Gulf Shores or wherever they're at.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um the idea with part one is that um we have full rest when we trust in the promises of God.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one who brings victory, he is the one who brings success, he is the one who ultimately brings salvation, and trusting in him for Israel brought physical rest, but ultimately God was pointing towards this idea that they could rest spiritually with him, eternally.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: But there's an additional part to that story, and that's what we're gonna look at this morning, which is that God's rest that he intended for Israel to have, in order for them to experience it fully, the way that God had would love for them to see it, it required their obedience.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And lacking that, lacking that obedience, they would not ultimately experience the full rest and blessing that God had intended for them this side of heaven.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: So let's kind of start, just we're gonna go back just a little bit to a pop or kind of a um necessary verse from last week.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: In the middle of Joshua, it says, So Joshua took the entire land in keeping with all that the Lord had told Moses.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua then gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: After this, the land had rest from war.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't know, Israel is made up of tribes, twelve of them.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, what's going on in the middle section in Joshua is now that the the like main kings have been taken care of, there's thirty-one kings that they beat, um, and the land has sort of been subdued.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now the job is to start dividing that amongst the tribes.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's, boy, if you really want to get into it, there's all that the land is divided up.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: The different sizes has more to do with the fact that Israel has a lot of mountains that aren't good for farmland or ranching, and so somebody gets a lot bigger section of land, but maybe it doesn't have as great of cities.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's also based on their population.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to remember any of the lines here, okay?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's no quiz at the end.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: But what you do need to understand is that as we've made this transition, as the Lord speaks to Joshua and he says, Okay, it's time to divide it up, it's time to go in.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: God has given them rest from their enemies in the sense that all of the big bad guys have been taken care of.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was chapter 12, this list of 31 different kings.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: But that does not mean that every single Canaanite, Amorite, and so forth in the land has been sort of pushed out.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: There are still these pockets, these kind of strongholds.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the idea is that the tribes would get their land, and then tribe time, they would go in and they would push out the people, the very last bits, okay?
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: None of the battles would be like the ones we've talked about earlier in the book of Joshua, nothing like Jericho, nothing like Ai, anything like that.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the purpose here is that Joshua would give it to them, and then, you know, for instance, like Benjamin would go in here, and they would drive out everybody from their land, and Asher would come up here and drive out you get what I'm saying, right?
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is the tactic that God has given to the nation of Israel.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And this is exactly what God says to Joshua.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was old, advanced in age, and the Lord said to him, If you didn't know already, you've become old, advanced in age, but a great deal of the land remains to be possessed.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of rest and trust in God is something that is going to require their obedience in order to fully experience the blessing that God has for them.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I've given this land to you.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: You have seen through all of these battles.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is five to seven years after these may uh the main campaign began.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Joshua, it's it's time for you to transition into another role.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Joshua will lead the nation of Israel as kind of this wise, um, they don't have a king, but sort of this wise um elder for 20 to 30 years after this point in time.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: So Lord's certainly not done with him.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: But he says, Your time fighting is coming to an end.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're gonna hand it off to the tribes.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I've basically set this test before them.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Will they be obedient to me?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: And as the enemies are scattered, they need to go in and they need to possess the land.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so, to say it one more time, in order for Israel to experience the full blessing that God had for them, they needed to be obedient to his will.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Had nothing to do with God fulfilling his promise, because he had told them that he would provide it for them if they would simply be faithful.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: The great news here, though, is that this was God's plan all along.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Way back in Exodus, some like forty-five, forty-seven years earlier, God speaks with Moses here and says, I will cause the people ahead of you to feel terror and will throw into confusion all the nations you come to.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's obviously talking about what we're reading in Joshua.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: I will not drive them out ahead of you in a single year, otherwise the land would become desolate and wild animals would multiply against you.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: I will drive them out little by little ahead of you until you have become numerous and take possession of the land.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: They must not remain in your land, or else they will make you sin against me.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you serve their gods, it will be a snare for you.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: So God would drive fear into the hearts of the Canaanites, something we saw in the story with Rahab, right, in Joshua 2.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, drive out the main force and leave the remaining battles to be handled by Israel as they grew in size.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like when you're giving clothes to a small kid and you buy them things that they will grow into.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Israel was too small to occupy the whole land at this time, right?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God was giving them a land that as they would be faithful and be fruitful and multiply, they would grow into and fill out in time.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so part of this is God's mercy to them.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if if you drew drove out every single person immediately, if they just scattered into the four winds, he's like, these cities, you don't have enough people to hold them.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like it would be a problem for you.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: The wild animals would take you over there.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so he says, What's going to happen by design is that you will do this slowly, incrementally, and as you push them out, as you grow, I will give you this land, I will be with you, and then you will you will take it.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Excuse me.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: But notice sort of the end of that section there, right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or I should say at the beginning, how the first part of this plan is, oh God, I will, I will, let's see, I will.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: All of the I wills, but then it changes into they must not remain in your land, or else they will make you sin against me.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you serve their gods, it will be a snare for you.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: This concept that there is a joint purpose in the taking of the promised land, God's promise and his rest, and Israel's obedience.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is all part of the plan.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And in Joshua 14, you might say, Well, what does this look like to do it well?
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we get this beautiful story of a figure that you haven't heard about for about two years.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you were with us as a church as we went through the book of Numbers uh two springs ago, you might remember a guy named Caleb.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: Caleb uh, along with Joshua, were the only two spies back in Numbers 13 who went into the promised land in a group of twelve.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when they came back, they were the only two that were faithful.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is 45 years earlier, and said, Hey, we can take them.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the other ten were like, They're huge.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I don't think we can.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Their cities are big, their armies are uh well stocked, well fortified, but those two, Joshua and Caleb, were the only ones that said, Hey, I think we can do this thing.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Lord blesses them.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, Joshua, we're reading about him.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: He becomes the leader of the nation of Israel, takes over for Moses, and is the heads their military campaign.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: But Caleb, way back in the book of Numbers, got a promise too.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: God said, I'm gonna take care of you, Caleb.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna take care of you.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that happens is even though everybody in that generation, right, if you're familiar with the story in Numbers, everybody who was over the age of 20 after they left Egypt died in the desert.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It was the next generation that went into the promised land, except for Caleb and Joshua.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: They were the ones who were able to live.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So the other thing that happens is Caleb and Joshua are like way older than everybody else here.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're the only guys, they're the octagenarians in the group, okay?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: They're they're rolling here on their senior discounts, right?
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Caleb comes in, though, he is still filled with life and vigor, and he's going to basically come to Joshua now that the time has come to divide up the land, and says, I'm cashing in sort of the IOU that God gave me.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: The descendants of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb, son of Japannah the Kinesite, said to him, You know what the Lord promised Moses, the man of God at Kadesh Barneah, about you and me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: That was the location where the spies came back to, where Israel was camping.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was forty years old when Moses, the Lord's servant, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to scout the land, and I brought back an honest report.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: My brothers who went with me caused the people to lose heart, but I followed the Lord my God completely.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: On that day Moses swore to me, the land where you have set foot will be an inheritance for you and your descendants forever, because you have followed the Lord my God completely, right?
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because only the twelve of those spies of that group, they were the only people who went into the promised land until the story of Joshua.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Not even Moses had been able to go in.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: So Caleb goes and scouts out this like huge section, this fortified city, which we later find out is Hebron.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where some of the biggest, baddest guys are at.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he still comes back and he's like, I know we can take them.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: I trust in the Lord.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: He has said we can.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: I know we can.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: But the other ten, they turn the hearts of Israel.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: They say, Lord, why have you brought us here to kill us?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: And God says, Definitely didn't do that.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of the opposite, was trying to bless you.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but instead, you are now going to live out what you thought was going to happen.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to die in the desert.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Your children will take this land.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, Caleb and Joshua, this is a painting that's in the Louvre.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, picture there's a section in Numbers 13 where it says they brought back a bunch of grapes from the valley of Eshkol.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what you're seeing.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have more on that.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but as Joshua is doing this, though, he says, Okay, well, now I'd like some of this land.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: As you see, Caleb says, The Lord has kept me alive these 45 years as he promised.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: 45 years.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about Moses waiting 40 years, right?
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: We talk about Abraham and Sarah waiting twenty years for all of their promises.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Caleb, waiting forty-five years.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel was journeying in the wilderness, here I am today, eighty-five years old.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am still as strong today as I was the day Moses sent me out.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: My strength for battle and for daily tasks is now as it was then.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, give me the let me tell you why he's talking about how strong he is.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Give me this hill country the Lord promised me on that day, because you heard then that the Anakim are there, as well as large fortified cities.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out as the Lord promised.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then skip a little bit.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: After this, the land had rest from war.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: That last little phrase there, you might recall from last week how important that is.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's God's desire for the people.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so Caleb is lifted up as this amazing example.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'll talk more about this in the podcast, but uh, long story short, Caleb asked for the hardest task.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: He asked for the biggest, baddest group of people to go ahead and drive them out.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that's exactly what he does.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like he had a sort of a vendetta against them.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: The people that he had seen 45 years earlier that had scared everybody.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: They said we're grasshoppers compared to them.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: Caleb's like, calling my shot.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: He is Babe Ruth.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I that's where I'm going, that's where I'm gonna take them out, and I want you to give that land to me.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh Joshua does, he gives them this land, gives Caleb specifically uh the city of Hebron and the surrounding areas, and then you see the summary.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: We don't hear about the battles, we don't hear about all it's just Caleb went forth, we know what is involved, and because of him, because of his faithfulness to God's promises, the land had rest from war.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: You have to see in Caleb's life the fact that he's holding both this rest and this obedience in both hands, right?
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like he he mentions here, he's like, perhaps the Lord will be with me and I will drive them out as the Lord promised.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I know it is God who gives victory, and yet, like, let me take them on.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: Let's roll.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Caleb's this example of what it looks like to be at rest in God's promises and be faithful to him.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um sadly, you might have expected where this was going.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: That is not what the net rest of the nation of Israel tends to do.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Throughout the next couple chapters, we get a few different um summary statements.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the descendants of Judah could not drive out the Jebusites who lived in Jerusalem.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: However, they did not drive out the Canaanites who lived in Geezer, the descendants of Manasseh could not possess these cities because the Canaanites were determined to stay in this land.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, okay, well, they couldn't drive them out, they were determined to stay in the land.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like they put up a good fight.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not the point of mentioning that, because if you've read the book of Joshua, nobody has had any problem fighting the people as long as they trusted in God and were obedient to him.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so what ends up happening, and this is laying the groundwork for one of the most significant problems in the Old Testament for the nation of Israel, is that they let the people who worship other gods remain in the land.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as it stands right here in the book of Joshua, there are these sort of like scattered fugitive bands who they don't really pose much threat, right?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: From their perspective, they'd be like, look, they're kind of off in the fringes.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not doing anything.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's we've got the land, it's we've got it taken care of.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: They're not threatening us.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is not so much that they're not threatening them right now, it's what happens as they grow over time and gain strength again.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, as these little small compromises grow, they become normal.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so what starts out as sort of complacency becomes apathy until not very far in the future.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, just in the next book, in Judges, we see that they're buddies with each other.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're no longer enemies.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: They're letting their sons and their daughters marry one another, they're exchanging cultural practices, things are flowing in the wrong direction.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And this ends up being a really, really big deal.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: So as this is going on, right, we need to remind ourselves that um uh this uh lack of obedience is keeping Israel from experiencing the full blessing that God intends for their life, right?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: His promise of what um he would do has been fulfilled, and they can, you could even say like access it, they could be a part of it, they can run with it as long as they would then do the things that God had set before them to do.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: But absent that obedience, they are going to experience a whole host of problems.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Later on in Joshua's life, some you know, 20 to 30 years later, Joshua died when he was about 110.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Joshua is speaking, we'll talk about this the next couple weeks, he has these great sort of final sermons for the nation of Israel.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But they're given during a time where some of these small compromises and disobedience, they're sort of beginning to show their fruit, right?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so at the end of his life in Joshua 23, he says, If you ever turn away and become loyal to the rest of these nations remaining among you, the fact that that could even be considered, right?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And if you intermarry or associate with them and they with you, know for certain that the Lord your God will not continue to drive out these nations before you.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: They will become a snare and a trap for you, a sharp stick for your sides and thorns in your eyes, until you disappear from this good land the Lord your God has given you.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is sad how accurate Joshua is.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not surprising, but this ends up being the story of Israel.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: These short-term compromises becoming long-term impacts.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a lot of information, right?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of moving parts.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what I want you to see.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: God wanted Israel to have rest, and initially they did.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to fully embrace the life that God intended for them, Israel needed to be obedient.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: These two things worked together.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you're kind of a visual learner, you can think of it sort of like a chart, right?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Rest and obedience.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Last week we talked about rest.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is the idea of living in the promises that God provides and understanding that He is the one who ultimately brings victory.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we we drew that out to the point where full, complete rest is when Jesus says that we can have rest for our souls because we trust in God as the Savior who has saved us from our sins and our depravity and our recklessness and our disobedience.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like God has given us this pathway into a full, complete relationship.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: His promise to us is that if we would trust in Christ as our Savior, we would be at rest.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that rest was ultimately about a soul deep rest that we can have when we are with Him in eternity.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are difficulties in this life, but if we trust in God, we can be at rest.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so we want to be kind of at the top end, right, of that.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be people who are at rest.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: But this morning we're saying that we also need to be obedient to God.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Following God's will brings peace, purpose, and growth to our lives.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Obedience to God brings about some of life's greatest blessings as we align ourselves with His plan.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Failure means that we are forfeiting blessings on this side of heaven.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be careful, right, how I Walk around this because obviously we are not saved by our good works.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not really in question here.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what we're talking about.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: But if you just look at the story of Israel, you say, Man, if they would have done the things that God had called them to do, their lives would have been so much easier.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: God's will brings peace, purpose, and growth to our lives.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so you could say, well, where do we want to be?
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be like Caleb.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be people who are at complete rest in the promises of God.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: He brings victory, he brings success.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: I trust in him.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And also people who say, like, give me, give me the hill.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let me take it.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like, Lord, let me go and do the thing that you have called me to do.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: You have made me, you have designed me, you have gifted me to do the things that you have called me to do.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let me go and do it.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know I can because you're with me.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in so doing, Lord, I will bring, in Caleb's case, rest to the land, and I will bring peace to the people, and I will have the full blessing.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the story of his life for sure.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you could say a far greater example is Jesus, right?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus, who has a perfect peace at resting in the Father's will, has a perfect understanding of what it means to be at rest.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he is the one who said last week, you can have rest for your souls by following me.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: My burden is light.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: He is the one who knows that the promise of God is worthy to be trusted, and that he is the one who brings victory.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then also, one of the most dramatic statements and truths about Christ's life is that he was perfectly obedient.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: He did not sin, and ultimately he was obedient all the way to the cross.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: His life is this beautiful combination of trust in God and resting in his promises, knowing that the Father is carrying out his will, and the Son is a part of that, following after it as best that he can and perfectly obedient, he did it as well as God himself could.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we see these things, we recognize though there are a few ditches, right?
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: And if you hate graphs, this is my last slide on it, okay?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: But there are two ditches here, right?
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Because we say, well, what if we are high rest, if you will, and low obedience, right?
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you could technically call it libertinism or antinomianism, don't worry.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: But you could also say it's Israel in the book of Joshua, right?
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is what it looks like to say, hey, Lord, we trust in you, we love what you're doing, we're huge fans of what you've got going on.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: But also, I'm just gonna hang back, okay?
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for the land, thanks for what you've given to me.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Really enjoy it.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Love the fact that the vineyards were already planted, didn't have to do any of that.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna go in here and just take it as it is.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Paul in Romans 6.1 changes this idea just a little bit and he says, What would it look like?
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paraphrasing here, but he says, What it what does it mean for us to abuse the grace that God has given to us?
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: What does it look like for us to receive the grace and mercy of Christ, and then to say, I have no real desire to do the things that God has called me to do?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, that that doesn't really equate one with it, he says, if you understand what Christ has given to you and the gift that he has given to you, and the full blessing that he wants you to experience, even if we're just talking about this side of heaven, he's like, then you also understand that you have been called to this greater thing and to step aside from that, to pull back from that.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Man, that's that's like abusing the grace that God has given to you.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look in the other ditch and you say, Well, what does it look like to have high obedience but low rest?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh man, this is what Jesus was dealing with a lot in the gospels with the Pharisees, right?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: People who thought that their own works could bring about righteousness.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: Even Israel actually was warned about this back in Exodus.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: God says, Listen, I'm gonna drive out the nations in front of you, but you need to be really careful that you don't think this is happening because you are righteous.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you need, it is definitely not because you have been doing all the things that I've asked you to do that I'm going to drive out these people.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, it's because I promised it.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's because I am bringing victory.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Pharisees often thought that, and this is Jesus' criticism of them.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, You're whitewashed tombs, right?
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're the vipers.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: You are people who think that you are righteous because of your own good works and look down upon those who are disobedient.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he goes, If only you kept, this is the passage what Jesus says to the Pharisee who was tithing the uh the spices in his garden.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: He says, If only you were still obedient and yet trusted in the promises of God, wouldn't that be wonderful?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where we want to be in the green.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be people of high rest.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: God has taken care of it in high obedience.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is the healthiest place for us to be as we are pursuing both of these things.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, for some of us, uh, there's, or I should say, probably for all of us, there's going to be one of these areas that we struggle more with.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Either you struggle more with the idea that God has promised you, um, made promises to you of this rest that you can have through Christ, of the blessing that you can receive by trusting in Him and having a relationship with Him as your brokenness is forgiven and as your sins are washed away.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And some of us just have a real hard time with believing that that is true and resting in the promises of God.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And others of us, we have no problem trusting in God's promises, but obedience, right?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the thing that's so hard.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to talk to that group for a second.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Obedience is hard.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Only Jesus has ever done it all the way, right?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're in good company.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: None of us have been able to follow all the things that God has said, and this is one of the points of the cross, Romans 3.23, that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to draw out three brief things from the lesson of Israel and the book of Joshua for those of us who are daily struggling with obedience.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first is that small compromises become big problems.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, unless you flew here today, you hit a pothole on your way to church.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And all respect to the public servants who are working in our city to repair these.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's happening, but it's a patch job, right?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is actually a picture from Topeka, right?
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this is not Google, you know, this is I could have picked it from my own street.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the point here is that potholes, right, there are this problem, if we just pave over them, right, they're going to end up being a problem again, either a couple months down the line or at the very least next season.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a permanent fix.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it's easy to say that we will handle it later.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's nice to look at the quickest solution, the thing that just sort of gets it out of our head, sort of moves it out of our field of vision, so that we just don't think about it for a while.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: But ultimately, as we push these things out to the side and out to the fringes and don't deal with them, they become bigger problems later.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: They don't go away.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: Potholes do not just disappear, and the things that cause them don't just disappear.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: When we allow sin to linger, it takes root and it festers in the dark, eventually leading to much greater struggles.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things to think about with obedience is that why don't you be nice to your future self?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you do things today that will help yourself in the future?
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that is handling the small things that are going on.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: You could say, how are you, or you could ask the question rather, how are you creating tomorrow's big problems today?
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Where is sin taking root?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that Israel struggled to recognize.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They made small compromises because they were satisfied with what they had.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: And as we go forward, and in fact, not very far at all, next spring will be in the book of Judges, we'll see, boy, a lot of big problems that come about here.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, what we tolerate becomes our new normal.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um we are in Kansas, so unless you live by a lake, not many of us have boats.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but especially out in the ocean, right, they get barnacles and they get sort of biological uh or what is it called?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh bio.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I looked it up.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I live in Kansas, I forgot.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: You get barnacles on the bottom, is what I'm talking about.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a special name for it.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Biomatter, I think.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, it's not important.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: But what is important is the fact that if you have something on the hull of your boat which is supposed to be smooth, you need to constantly be cleaning it up cleaning it off.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: On some of the huge vessels that are always going back and forth, uh, cargo ships and things like that, up to 40% increased costs for fuel and energy because they have these rough bottoms.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so it makes a lot of sense to be working all the time to be making sure that the hole is smooth as possible.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: Over time, Israel accepted the presence of the Canaanites and their other enemies instead of removing them.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Their initial good intentions, right?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to believe that they walk into the land with uh, you know, they're kind of jazzed up.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, yeah, we're gonna go be obedient to the Lord, let's go.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like we have come off of this huge campaign, and God has given us victory on every side, and he says, we're gonna go take them out, let's go take them out.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: And then they get into the land and they're like, oh, but man, this couch is nice.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have been at war for seven, five to seven years here.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, can I just take a break?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Man, can I just take it easy for a moment?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're way off over there.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: But different than that first point about small compromises here, is that the fact that they had they were on a mission and they had something to do and that God had called them to more began to shift and change in their minds until what was wrong then became the new normal.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: The floor was moving, right?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so then what was the new normal, even though it was wrong for them, it desensitized them to even worse things that were happening.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because then that floor began to move as well.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at the problems that Israel has, it is not the fact that they think that what the other nations are doing is good.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: They never really get to that point necessarily.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: There's always this remnant that goes, Do you see what's going on?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: This is a problem.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is what God has talked with us about, okay?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: There's thorns in our sides and in our eyes and all that stuff, right?
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: But what they do is they stop thinking it's as bad as it really is.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're just like, they're just, you know, worshiping their false gods in our backyard.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, our children, they have two gods.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Our children are worshiping them, and then but then they come over here and do this too.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're just we're just joining in marriage with them.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: We they're our neighbors.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why don't we and we go back to this stuff at the beginning, we're like, oh, man, you missed it.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like that was that's what God warned you about, that was what Moses warned you about, that's what Joshua warned you about.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is why you have problems.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: What we tolerate becomes our new normal.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, what compromises have you allowed to become normal?
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: What are the things that are going on in your life that you know the Spirit is wrestling with you, you know are not right.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: They are not life-giving, they are not leading you to life in Christ, and yet it just feels so normal because it's been going on for so long.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: What are the areas that God is calling you to address and clean off these barnacles from your underside?
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, obedience unlocks God's full blessing.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_00: The best athletes, the best performing athletes in the world are those who have been given God's gift.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I can't swim like Michael Phelps could, even if I was a fish, okay?
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Have been given God's gift, but they also practice.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: They also train.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: They take God's gift and they, not to make a pump, but they run with it, right?
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can think of this like star track athlete or whatever sport you want to, and understanding that God has given you everything that you need to do all that He has called you to do.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: And yet there's still a part for you to play there, right?
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that part does not mean that we take credit for victory.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: That part does not mean that we think we are the reason for success.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: That part, uh, no matter what happens in our life as we experience those blessings, it's supposed to be this like feedback loop that we're thanking the Lord, uh, that he has brought us victory.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is part of living in his rest.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also our obedience.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's this thing that's driving us forward.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Obedience unlocks God's full blessing.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Our salvation is not determined by our efforts, but if you desire to experience the fullest extent of God's blessings on this side of heaven, one of the things that you can do to make that happen is pursue obedience to the best of your ability.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a guarantee that your life will be easy because we live in a fallen world.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with the book of Proverbs.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not, you should become familiar.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: The book of Proverbs is filled with ways that we can be obedient to God, and all things being equal, your life is going to go a lot easier.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_00: Your life is gonna go a lot smoother if you follow the things that God has set before you to do.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: It does not mean that everything is perfect because there's still sin in this world.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: There is sin that you commit, that I commit, that our friends commit.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: There is a creation that is groaning because of this fallen world.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is never going to be perfect.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: But if you desire to, like that sort of curfew example, to um have let God give you the greatest extent of those blessings you can experience in this life, you have to understand that God is saying, I have given you victory, but you need to go and pursue it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, though, the greatest shift that we can put on our minds, and when I, if there's one thing you take home, this will be it, is that when I talk about full blessings, I'm not talking about your health, I'm not talking about your bank account, and I am not talking about you having friends.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: I am saying, and my question for you is where has sin holding you back through this disobedience from experiencing all that God has for you in his kingdom.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, okay, that seems like you shifted the target a bit there, Connor.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all, not at all.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I'm getting at here is the thing that will give you the greatest sense of purpose and fulfillment is when you live to the fullest extent the person that God designed you to be.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: When he was knitting you together in your mother's womb, and he gave you all the gifts and talents and treasures that he did.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then you've trusted in Christ, which I hope you have, and you've received the Holy Spirit, which certainly has given you everything that you need to be able, with his power, to do all that he has called you to do in his good book.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, well, what is the mission that God has set before me?
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, now we're thinking like Israel should have.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: What does God have before me to do for his kingdom?
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about me just having fun.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't about me just feeling good.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is about me doing the thing that God has always designed me to do.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when you are running in that lane, there is nothing that feels better.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that feels more fulfilling and purposeful, life-giving and joyful than when you do the exact thing that God has called you to do.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are some of us, right, and I get it, who go, man, obedience has always been a struggle for me.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the last thing that I want this to be is something that brings you shame.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you've trusted in Christ, you are forgiven of your sins, right?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: And what you need to understand is that no matter how much Israel messed up, and they messed up a lot, no matter how much Israel messed up, God never stopped loving them.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: He never stopped giving them opportunities, he never stopped calling them to return to him and to experience the full blessings that he had in his kingdom on this side of heaven through their obedience.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you need to understand, too, that God's gift to you, his promise to you, it doesn't matter how many missed opportunities you have had in your life, it doesn't matter how much disobedience has been a part of your story, it doesn't matter how far off the beaten path you feel like you are right now, there is always a return path that God has cut for you.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like walking through the jungle and Jesus has the machete, and he's like, just follow me.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get back to the road eventually, right?
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: Through faithful obedience and abiding in my will, like we will get back to where we're supposed to be, and you will realize how much more life-giving it is than anything else you've been pursuing.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's really a choice in front of us, right?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God had set before Israel a test.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, God says, Will you continue to lead a life marked by missed expectations?
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or will you be obedient to all that I have called you to do?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: The offer of Christ, even for the biggest rebels, never changes.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: But our ability to see all the beauty of life on this side of heaven, that can be changed by how closely we choose to follow God's plan for our life.
• 40:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so my prayer for all of us here is may the Spirit, who empowers us to do all of the things we just talked about, may we recognize and follow after his urging.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that one of the things that takes place in our church is today and every day is that we would listen to what he is saying.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: As God who rests in us, for those who've trusted in Christ, that you would hear those words that are just itching at your brain, right?
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_00: That just go, you know what is best, and you know that you're not really doing it right now.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to experience all that God has for you?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you have called us to a place and equipped us to be there.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Where, Lord, we can find the truest and greatest blessings of your kingdom on this side of heaven.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we know that salvation by Christ is through your grace and mercy and not because of something that we do.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: We can never measure up.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: But Lord, isn't it true that you have set before us beautiful things if we would just be obedient to your will?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: God, help us to understand that some of the most treasured things in this life are not a bigger bank account, not more friends, not greater health.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And those are beautiful things, Lord, that you give as blessings to your people.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: But yet, God, what brings us fulfillment is when we, like Caleb or Jesus, can walk in the purpose that you have for us, Lord.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: You have designed us, you have set us forth.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: Ephesians, Lord, you have said that you have prepared in advance good works for us to do.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_00: Let us run into them.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, let us pursue them.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: Let us take advantage of the opportunities that you have given to us, the gifts and talents, your spirit most of all.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, let us be faithful people.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do not let us just sit in your rest and be disobedient.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do not let us just be obedient and sit outside of your rest, but help us, Lord, to pursue all that you have for us in this life.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's many treasured things, God, is you have given us and desire for us to follow in your will.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for this, Lord.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: Love you.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: See you next week.