Latest / Saint City Chapel / Rest Through War | Joshua 11 & 12

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Rest Through War | Joshua 11 & 12 · Saint City Chapel

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You can turn in your Bibles to Joshua Chapter 11.
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If you don't have a Bible, there's going to be the
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scriptures on the screen today as well as there's a Bible in
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front of it. You can just have that one.
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It's on a floor in the seat nearby, and you can just turn to
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page 184. We'll be there in just a moment.
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But seriously, if you don't have one, consider that our gift to
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you. Don't go buy a Bible.
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We bought it for you. Congratulations.
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I'm like Oprah today you get a Bible.
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Hey, during World War 2, I don't know if you knew this, but when
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Nazi Germany started bombing Europe, they started bombing
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like literal cities with civilians.
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And when London was being bombed night after night thousands of
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people would flee from the bomb scene.
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They would leave their homes, and where they would go is down
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into the subway stations underneath London.
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And these people, these families, they would lay out
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blankets. They'd be shoulder to shoulder.
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They would do whatever they could to just find a piece of
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the subway where they could lay their head, where it would be
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muffled, the sounds of war up above them.
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And somehow, some way through the tears, through the shouting,
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through the bombs literally exploding overhead, through war
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happening above them, people would fall asleep.
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Now, I am a heavy sleeper. I am known to sleep through TV
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shows, known to sleep through all kinds of noise in my house,
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including screaming children coming into my room to watch the
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chagrin of my wife. My, I'm a heavy sleeper.
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My wife, Maddie, a very light sleeper.
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Whether there's a light on in our room, whether I mean when I
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say light, I mean like this much light, you know, whether it's a
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noise from our kids. She's a light sleeper.
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And I don't know where you fall on the sleep spectrum, whether
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you're a heavy sleeper, A lightsaber.
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I can tell you this, a sleeping with war going on around you
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would be tough. Finding rest in the middle of a
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battle scene feels impossible, like resting in the middle of a
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war zone. I don't know how they did it.
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I don't know how they found rest in the middle of a war zone.
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But what I believe is that right now on planet Earth, those of us
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who are here right now, guess what?
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We're in the middle of an actual spiritual war waging all around
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us. And not only are we in a fight
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against our sin, against Satan, against death, but we are
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experiencing this war. And internally we have conflict
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happening inside of us still. Anxiety and worry, depression
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and fear, anger and doubt. Just real.
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Spiritual exhaustion, real turmoil, real conflict that's
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hard to imagine. We find rest from that.
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There can be relief in the war. I want to give you this
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definition for rest that I think Josh was going to help us see
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today. He can help us find it.
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In fact, rest is just this in the Bible.
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It's a supernatural settledness despite internal external
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conflict, that if we're going to find real rest in a war zone
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ourselves, if we're going to find that supernatural
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settledness in our spirits, in our minds and in our hearts,
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guess what? We have to turn to the one who
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can give it. We have to actually find the
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place of refuge, find the subway station, so to speak, where we
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can actually lay our head down in the anxieties of today can
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pass, where our mind can turn off for just a moment so we can
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actually go to rest. Joshua 11 and 12/2 chapters
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today. There's a lot, so we're not
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going to go through it with a fine tooth comb, but we are
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going to explore the main idea of it, which is this, answering
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this question, how do I experience the rest God gives in
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the middle of a war, Not just a war, the war, the spiritual war
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over sin, Satan, and death. How can we live between the
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victory of Joshua 12, which we will see the rest of Joshua 12,
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and the war of Joshua 11, the conquest, because we're still
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fighting inside of Joshua 11. How can we experience the rest
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that God gives? I want to show it to you in the
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text today through three points, but I want to start reading the
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Bible for you in Joshua Chapter 11.
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It's the big bold 11 in your Bible there.
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It's on the screen behind beside me, and it says this when Jabin,
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King of Hazer heard this, This is after Joshua has defeated us
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all, southern Canaan. This is after Joshua has seen
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the sun stand still. He's the people of Israel have
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crossed the Jordan River. They've beaten Jericho.
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Like they've seen some miracles happen in Joshua.
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And now these people in northern Canaan, the promised land,
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they're like, Oh my gosh, what are we going to do?
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How are we going to stop these guys?
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How are we going to stop the Israelites?
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And if you are new to the Bible, this is about 1400 years before
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Jesus. So we're well before Jesus comes
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to the scene. But we're here in Joshua Chapter
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11, verse one, and there's this king named Jabin.
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He hears of Joshua conquering a bunch of people.
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He sends to Jobab, the king of made on and to the king of
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Shimron and to the king of a name that you can't pronounce
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either. And to the kings who were in the
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northern Hill Country, in the Arab US, South of Chinaroth in
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the lowland and an Apath door on the West, to the Canaanites in
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the east and to the West the Amorites, the Hittites, the
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Parasites, the Jebusites in the Hill Country, and the Hivites
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under Hermann in the land of Mizpah.
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And they came out, all these troops, all these kingdoms, they
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come out in a great hoard, in a number like the sand that is on
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the seashore, with very many horses and Chariots.
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And all these kings joined their forces and came and camped
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together at the waters of Miram to fight against Israel.
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Pause. Israel is completely outgunned
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by all these people. They are completely outnumbered
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by all of these armies. Their only choice now is to
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unite against Israel. And I want you to get a sense of
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it's like one against 100. Israel should stand no chants
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against this fight. It should feel impossible.
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It should feel inevitable that they lose, but Israel's got 10
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chapters worth now of watching God win battles for them,
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watching God do the impossible part rivers and make the sun
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stand still. They've watched their leader
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Joshua lead them time and time again to victory.
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And they have confidence not necessarily in their leader, but
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in their ultimate leader, God. And while these armies can't
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camp against him with numbers outnumbering the sand on the
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seashore, the Lord says to Joshua in verse 6 what he says
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to him time and time again in the book.
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Do not be afraid of them, for tomorrow at this time I will
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give over all of them slain to Israel.
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Here's what I want you to do, Josh.
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I want you to hamstring their horses and burn their Chariots
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with fire. So Joshua and all his warriors
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came suddenly against them by the waters of Rome and fell upon
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them. And the Lord gave them into the
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hand of Israel, who struck them and chased them as far as grace
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and on in that other city, and he sweared as far as the valley
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of Mizpah. And they struck them until he
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left, none remaining. And Joshua did to them, just as
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the Lord said to him. He hamstrung their horses and
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burned their chairs. The fire underline that verse
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we're going to come back to in just a second.
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Joshua turned back at the time he captured Hazer and struck its
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king with the sword. For Hazer formerly was the head
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of all those kingdoms, and they struck with the sword all who
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were in it, devoting them to destruction.
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There was none left that breathed.
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And he burned Hazer with fire. And all the cities of those
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kings and all their kings Joshua captured, and he struck them
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with the edge of the sword, devoting them to destruction,
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just as Moses the servant of the Lord, had commanded.
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But none of the cities that stood on mounts did Israel burn,
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except Hazer alone that Joshua burned.
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And all the spoiled these cities and the livestock and the people
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of Israel took for their plunder.
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But every person struck, they struck with the edge of the
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sword until they destroyed them. And they did not leave any who
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breathed. Let's stop there for a moment.
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That doesn't feel like rest, that feels like war.
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But notice they were not afraid even in the midst of a battle.
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They still had rest in their hearts, even though around them
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there was a great fight. So how do we experience God's
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rest? What's the principle we can
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grab? We'll jot this down.
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I experience God's rest as I fight sin fiercely.
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This is what Joshua 11 means for us in 2026.
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We are not out there to conquer northern Canaan.
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We're not trying to take people and devote them to destruction.
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Quite the opposite, in fact. We're intended to have a war
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waging against our sin. That is what we fight fiercely,
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Saints, that we fight sin fiercely.
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And notice how Joshua did it. He fought his enemies one how
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God told him to, just as God commanded was repeated over and
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over again. Why?
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Because Joshua was meticulous in his obedience, just as the Lord
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commanded Joshua did. He didn't just do it because God
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told him, though. He did it with others.
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This is the people of Israel fighting fiercely.
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I want you to look back at verse 11 and 14.
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And they struck with a sword all who were in it, devoting them
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destruction. There was none left that
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breathed verse 14, and they did not leave any who breathed.
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Joshua fought so fiercely. There were no survivors.
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There should be no surviving sin in our life.
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That's how aggressive, how fierce we must be in our fight
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against sin. That same mentality is ours to
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possess. And putting to death all that is
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in us that goes against God, that's sin.
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But believers, here's what we'll often do.
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We'll often keep for ourselves pet sins, even though the Lord
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has demanded no survivors with our sin.
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We keep sin in our lives because we're blind to it, or we keep in
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our lives because we're comfortable with it.
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But listen to me. Here's what sin wants for you.
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It wants to steal, kill, and destroy your life.
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It wants to steal everything good.
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It wants to kill and take you out.
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It wants to destroy all that is going right in your life.
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Listen to me, believer. We must fight sin fiercely with
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this level of aggression. We cannot keep our sin as pets
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that we think will not hurt us. In fact, I don't have you ever
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heard the story of Travis the chimp?
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He's from about 20 years ago. And Travis the chimp was a chimp
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that was adopted by a woman who you know what she's like, Hey, I
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want I saw MVP, that kids movie. Let me just have a chimp for my
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pet. And she's like, let me let me
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just have a chimpanzee like a child.
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I'm going to raise it. I'm a domesticated, I'm going to
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potty train it. It's going to wear clothes and
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everyone for a moment thought this is good, this is good.
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She's got a pet chimpanzee. She's like Ross on Friends.
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You know, he's different, he's safe.
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But one day out of nowhere, he went feral.
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She had a friend over and she in the chimpanzee, Travis
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completely dismembered and disfigured her face.
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And then he turned on the owner. Despite the owner trying to stop
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Travis, despite the owner speaking to him like he
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shouldn't be hurting somebody or destroying somebody, he did not
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have reason. It was a sudden and devastating
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violence. That's what sin will do to you,
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too. If you think you can just let
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your sin hang out in your life and coexist with you, it's
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coming at you sooner or later, and it's going to wreak havoc on
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your life. It's going to want to take you
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out. We must fight sin fiercely, just
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as Joshua fought the enemies of Israel.
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Then we must fight the enemy of God now in sin and death
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forever. We must fight it fiercely.
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We must put it to death. I just want to take a moment
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this morning and have like a little scorecard check.
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You know, like at AUFC match or a boxing match.
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Even though boxing matches are rigged, they will have a real
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scorecard where judges will go through and they will evaluate
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how the fight went. And I think 1 to 10.
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If we get a scorecard ourselves on some sins this morning and
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our fight against them, I think we could have a real reality
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check for our level of ferocity and going after sin.
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I'm calling this a fighting scorecard.
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The first sin would be pride, which is elevating yourself in
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the place of God. If a one would be.
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You are not fighting back at all.
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You are just letting pride pummel you and destroy you.
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You are losing the fight and A10 being you are the one actually
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bearing pride and you are fighting at every step.
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You can rate yourself one to 10 on pride, elevating yourself in
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the place of God. Maybe it's greed.
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Greed is the unsatiable desire for more.
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Are you at A1A4A7A10 in your fight against it?
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Are you deleting the apps that make you greedy?
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Are you cleaning up the closet so you're less greedy?
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What is your fight against it? Is it lust that you need to
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think about fighting? Lust is just turning a person
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into an object for one's own gratification.
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Are you at A1A5A10? Is it envy?
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The desire for somebody else's life?
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13710 Gluttony, which is the overconsumption driven by a
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deeper emptiness? Where you at?
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Wrath, uncontrolled anger that seeks to harm rather than heal,
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Taking God's role in judgement. Are you fighting it fiercely,
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Sloth, which is the idea of avoiding what God has called you
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to do? May I just confess to you, this
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is the one that I felt like I was not fighting nearly enough
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in my life. This is the habit that I feel
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like I'm just let to sit in my life and let me take me down.
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I'm slothful at times, my own personal Bible reading.
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I'm slothful in my spiritual discipline, my physical
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discipline. I am just lazy as a parent that
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I can be slothful and I'm taking more punches than I'm giving.
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But this week, God has called me to the mat, and I want to fight
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sin fiercely. I'm not going to let
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slothfulness stop me from getting up early and getting
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with God anymore. And maybe some of you need to
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hear that today too. You're not alone in that fight.
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But listen to me, You do need to fight every single one of those.
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There might be a day where the habit you thought you'd never
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break, the reaction you'd never stop having.
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Guess what? By the power of God, you can
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conquer. You can Vanquish, you can fight
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and win, You can experience God's rest in your fight against
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sin. But not only that, the second
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thing that we can experience God's rest in.
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I can experience God's rest as I second follow God faithfully.
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Not only am I fight against sin, but also as we follow God
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faithfully. The second part of Chapter 11
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first starts the verse 15, saying that just as the Lord had
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commanded Moses his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua and so
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Joshua did. Joshua left nothing undone of
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all the Lord had commanded Moses.
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That's amazing. God commands Moses and now God
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is commanding Joshua. And what it means for you and I
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is something really profound and really helpful that the leader
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is actually replaceable. The leader it is, is not nearly
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as relevant as who's in the God they serve that if they're
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following God, guess what? That's relevant because they're
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replaceable. God's commands are not in Saint
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City. We don't ultimately follow
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myself or any other spiritual leader, but we follow God
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faithfully here at Saint City. That's why I preached from His
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word. That's why there's going to be a
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plurality of elders here one day, because it's not one man or
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one gift in his guess what, It's God on the throne of Saint City,
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1 shepherd that we all follow. He's the chief shepherd.
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He's the leader of here and we go as he goes.
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We do as he says and now in the Bible it does offer us like hey,
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it says to the church, it says, hey, submit to your leaders.
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So there's no obedience in following the visible authority
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myself, that I am following the invisible authority.
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It helps you know that you are following God.
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Yes, there is an honor and a submission to that, certainly.
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But we must know that I am basically the backup quarterback
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in the game right now. Like I'm only here for not here
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for a long time. I'm here for a good time.
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Just try not to lose the game while I'm in it.
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Just try not to, you know, mess this thing up.
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Just trying to listen to what the coach says.
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In my eardrum, that's me. I've got the best job in the
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world. But just as the Israelites went
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from Moses to Joshua, the reason they could do that as they were
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following God faithfully. Not one single leader.
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And following God faithfully can be difficult for some of us,
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difficult to follow leaders because we've experienced
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difficulty. We've experienced mistakes from
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our leaders. Back a few years ago, Maddie and
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I were driving from Chicago to Michigan.
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And I'm doing it with my hands right now because what I just
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did was I was supposed to go around Lake MI.
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More on that in a second. The GPS told Maddie and I to go
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north to Wisconsin on a highway that did not make sense.
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And you know what? I was a good boy.
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I listened to Waze that day, despite my better judgement.
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I was listening to Waze and that it took me on a highway I knew I
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shouldn't have been on. And as I'm getting closer to the
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Wisconsin border, I look at Maddie and I say, are we going
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the right way? I've been to Michigan, West
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Michigan, enough times to know Wisconsin's not the way to
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Michigan. She looked at the GPS again.
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Despite our trusting and following it, it had an idea for
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us. That day.
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We were going to take a ferry across Lake MI.
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And from henceforth, I've never used Waze ever again.
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I'm out on Waze. I trusted you, I followed you,
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and you did me wrong. You did me dirty.
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It's exactly how some of us approach God.
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Like we followed things before. We followed voices, leaders,
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instincts, we followed advice and it LED us the wrong way.
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And therefore it gives us a hesitation, A cynicism and
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trusting God. Again, listen to me.
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Here's the difference. God is not like your GPS.
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He is not mistaken. He does not mess up.
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When God gives counsel, when God gives wisdom, when God gives
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plans, they are good and they are the right direction.
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They are the plans for your life.
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And so when his commands feel confusing or inconvenient, it's
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not because he's mistaken. It's because he has something
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good and great in mind for you. He's leading you somewhere
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better. He's leading you to rest.
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Every other voice in your life might fail you, but if you
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follow God faithfully, listen to me, that will never, ever be a
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bad move. Following God faithfully, taking
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Him at His Word is always the right move.
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We must follow Him faithfully. And Joshua provides for us a
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great example of how he does that, that phrase, He left
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nothing undone. That should be something that
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you think in your life about how to follow God faithfully.
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What have you left undone in your life?
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Because Joshua left nothing undone, Listen to how he leaves
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nothing undone. Verse 16, he takes all the land,
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the Hill Country, and then again verse 17, he captures all the
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kings. Verse 17, again he puts them to
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death. Verse 18, he makes war a long
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time with them. Then he devotes them to
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destruction. Then in verse 22, he crushes
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what's called the Anakin. No, that is not the name of a
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Jedi. That is the name of the people
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that when the Israelites came here a few decades earlier and
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they saw a bunch of giants, that's these guys.
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These are the guys and they looked at them.
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They said there's no chance we can beat them.
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These guys were built for the NFL, for the NBA.
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They're Giants and Joshua and the people crushed them because
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Giants to a God are grasshoppers.
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He took the whole land, verse 23, just as God promised, God
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promised something. This land is yours and he
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fulfilled it. Now I recognize that in this war
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scene, there's a lot of bloodshed.
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And some of you are feeling that right now that, wait a second,
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there's a lot of violence happening, and you're just like
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kind of glossing over the fact that God, God gave Joshua
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permission to do this. So the skeptical side of you is
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right now is like, hey, is God still loving?
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Is God still good? Because what he just said to do
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feels like a violation of justice.
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I need to remind you of something.
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I need to teach you something. If you don't know, these
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Canaanite people for hundreds and hundreds of years were
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disobeying God. They were dishonouring God.
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They were hating God even when they heard reports of how good
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he was. They were like the person who
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commits a crime time and time again in front of a cop.
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The cop is like sitting there at the Apple Store and you they
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just kept taking the stuff and walking out of the store.
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And the first time, the cop is pretty gracious not to arrest
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them, is he not? The second time, merciful.
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The third time loving. The fourth time, more gracious,
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more patient, more loving. Think about this.
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For hundreds and hundreds of years, God is the one sitting
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there watching them steal, watching them hurt, watching
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them sin, watching them hate him.
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But the day that God decides to step in and give justice, it's
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not that he's unloving. It's that He's finally making
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them pay for the sins and the crimes that they've committed.
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This is God saying it's time. It's time.
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It's time to give you justice for your actions.
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And He is in that moment, not unloving, but fair and just
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because the punishment for that crime was not just going to
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prison, it was death. That's what sin does.
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Like I said, it wants to kill you.
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It is the punishment for sin is death.
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And so Joshua did what God asked, He left nothing undone,
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pointing to us, to the reality what was going to come 1400
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years later. Yeshua, that's another name for
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Jesus, the better. Joshua, he was going to leave
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nothing undone as well. He's going to take on every
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injustice, take on all of God's wrath, take on all of your sin
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in your place on a cross that you might have forgiveness, and
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He left nothing undone. Every sin of yours is paid for
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in full. Satan is going to be beaten and
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beaten in completely. Death is done for that.
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We will have immortal life because of what God has done for
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us in Jesus. He has left nothing undone for
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us. Every single thing you need for
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salvation is paid for by the life, death and resurrection and
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ascension of none other than Jesus Christ.
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And his invitation to you is to say, hey, you can't pay for your
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sins. You can be like Canaan.
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You could ignore me. You can think that I'm just
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going to keep delaying, but well, listen, listen, listen.
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He's saying, hey, guess what? I have a hope for your soul.
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I have my love for you on display in Jesus.
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If you just turn from your wicked ways, turn from your sin
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and embrace my work on the cross by faith, you could have eternal
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life. Jesus Christ left nothing undone
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and your battle against sin, Satan and death.
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And that's why he is fully deserving of following him
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faithfully. He kept every single one of his
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promises. Every promise finds it's yes and
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it's Amen, meaning that's right in who in Jesus, every single
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one. So following him faithfully is
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going to mean for us that we keep a close watch on ourself
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and his promises. Now God has two kinds of
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promises. He has unconditional ones and
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conditional ones. I want to show this to you in a
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chapter in the Bible called Romans chapter 8.
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Romans chapter 8 verse one says, therefore, there is now no
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condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
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This is what is called an unconditional promise, that if
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you are a believer, if you have turned from your sin and you've
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embraced Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, guess what, you have
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this, this is a category that you are now.
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It's unconditional. Verse 13 is an example of a
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conditional promise, which is this, that if by the Spirit you
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put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.
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Do you see that word if there? It's literally a conditional
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statement. It's saying if you do this by
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the Spirit, if you put to death, if you fight sin fiercely, guess
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what? You will live.
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You will have rest, You will have the life that God wants to
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experience fully. That's a conditional promise,
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unconditional. An example here in the text was
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that God was going to give Israel to his people.
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He was going to give them the land, the promised land.
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Moses didn't get to experience it because he disobeyed.
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Joshua did. That's the obedient 1.
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So to just fill you with some faith this morning, let me just
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give you 3 more unconditional promises first or two more.
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Excuse me, Joshua, excuse me, Philippians chapter one, verse 6
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that he who began a good work and you will bring it to
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completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
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Listen to me if you're discouraged right now, if you're
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not moving forward as much as you want, if you look at that
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scorecard and you feel a you hang your head in shame.
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Listen to me. He who began a good work will
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bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
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You will be changed. You will be moved.
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You can accelerate it by God's work in your life, but listen to
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me, it is done. It is unconditional.
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You will bring it to completion. The second promise I want to
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give you this unconditional is John 1028 and 29.
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It says that Jesus says that if I have them in my hand, nobody
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can snatch them out of it. That Jesus's grip on your
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salvation is strong. If you are saved, if He has you,
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nothing else can get you. No one can snatch you out of His
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hand. So if you're saved, you're
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saved. Nothing can stop that.
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But conditional promises like Romans 813, I think would give
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your heart some ammunition this week in the fight.
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James chapter 4, verse 8, draw near to God and he will draw
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near to you. One of the reasons that you feel
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far from God is not because He left you, but because you
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wounded away from him. Draw near to God, He will draw
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near to you. God will feel near in the
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moments that you draw near to him.
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So open up your bibles, spend time praying, meditate on his
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word fast spend time in the practices that draw near to God
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discipline yourself for godliness.
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Train yourself is the way Timothy puts it in the Bible
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draw near to God, he'll draw near to you.
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And also first John 19 if you confess your sins, he is
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faithful and just to cleanse you from all unrighteousness.
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If you confess your sins, if don't live a life without
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confession, experience the joy and the rest of following God
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faithfully and look for the things that God's revealing in
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your life. These are just two examples, but
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there might be more that you're getting in your own time in the
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word follow God faithfully. I would just like to confess
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here too that this week God once again just grab me.
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I'm in Luke chapter 10. I'm hearing this story of Mary
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and Martha. I've heard the story a million
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times where Mary and Martha, one sitting and one serving 1 is
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like sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to his teaching.
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The other is a busy body ignoring him.
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And Jesus says, hey, the one who's sitting at my feet, she's
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the one that I that is doing it right.
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And I realized in all my work toward Easter last week, all my
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effort that guess what, I was so busy serving, I wasn't sitting
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with Jesus. I need to follow him faithfully.
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I'm not perfect in this either, any of you, but I have a Savior
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who was, who has left nothing undone even when I do so.
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Follow Him faithfully this week and your soul will be settled,
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even if conflict is all around you. 3rd And finally, the way to
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experience God's rest is this. I experience God's rest as I
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feast on His victory fully. How else can you experience it?
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Not just following Him faithfully, not just fighting
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sin fiercely, but we experience rest, we experience victory in
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our life when we feast on His victory fully.
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Look at Joshua chapter 12. Now this Joshua chapter 12 is
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just literally a list of 31 kings who Israel goes on to
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conquer. 31 kings and feasting is what you do when the work is
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over, when the war is won, you have a victory feast.
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And Joshua 12 is more than a bite of God's power.
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It is a feast for us to realize just how victorious God is.
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It is more than a bite, it is a feast. 31 nations like that
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beaten end of Chapter 11 says this.
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Joshua gave it foreign inheritances according to the
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tribal allotments, and the land had rest from war.
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Now these are the kings of the land, chapter 12, whom the
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people of Israel defeated and took possession of their land
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beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.
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First, the first part of chapter 12 is the first two nations that
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get beaten when by Moses, before Joshua even took the helm,
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before they crossed the Jordan River, Moses got to beat 2
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nations. So now Joshua's got 29 left
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undone and he takes care of them.
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The rest of the chapter is literally just highlighting for
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us all the kings beaten by Joshua and the people of Israel
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on the other side of the river. This is quite literally God's
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receipt saying, hey, guess what, 2026 believer, if you don't
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think I win, if you don't think that you can fight sin fiercely,
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if you don't think that you can rest from the battle, look
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again, I win, I don't lose. It's a detailed account of
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everything and everyone that God beat.
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For an era of my life, I was a waiter at Chili's, and one of my
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jobs then was to learn the menu at Chili's.
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Now Chili's at the time, I mean, they got burger bites.
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Fantastic. By the way, fajitas, which some
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of you are known for, when they come by the table with that
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smoke, Oh my goodness, I'm still in on it.
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And my personal favorite, the chips and queso, you not only
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had to learn what was on that, but on the burgers, you had to
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learn which burgers came with Mayo, which burgers came with
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this BBQ sauce? Which burger came with this
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cheese? Hey, this steak, what sides come
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with that automatically? Which ones can you substitute?
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Oh, and then you also need to learn, hey, which Margarita was
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going to be a good time on a Friday night, right?
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Like, hey, you want an El Presidente, You want an El Nino
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today. What do you want with your
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burger? Can I please ring up your bill a
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little bit higher so I can get a bigger tip?
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You know, that's that's what they're doing.
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They're not selling you more comments on that are going to
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have to be saved for another time.
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The point is, is it a menu is a detailed account of everything
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that you can expect that you could be prepared for.
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A menu tells you how much it costs.
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It tells you the receipt of what you can expect.
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And listen to me, That's what Joshua 12 is.
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Joshua 12 is in your Bible. So you could have a detailed
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menu of all that God has done, and so you could feast upon it.
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Not just a bite, a feast. And we can feast fully now.
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We don't have to wait for the feast.
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Feast fully now that Jesus conquered sin and death forever.
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You can feast upon the identity that you are holy and blameless
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before Him. You can feast now that you're
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hand picked to be part of the greatest family in the world,
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His Bride, the Church. You can feast now that God has
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an amazing revealed plan for your life.
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You can feast now that you have a purpose.
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You can feast fully now. And the full record of God's
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self disclosure of mankind is right here.
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So you could feast every single day of your life.
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You're invited to the table of God's blessing and kindness and
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goodness so your soul might be satisfied and at rest.
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You can feast fully now. But listen to me, this is just a
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glimpse of what is to come. We can feast fully forever.
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And Revelation 19 Guess what happens for every St.
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Whoever lived, every person ever called upon Jesus, We are
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invited to what's called the marriage supper of the Lamb.
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There is a day where we soon coming and eternity soon coming
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where we can feast forever. The best kind of feast ever.
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Imagine the joys of eating without calories.
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Imagine the joy of eating once again with loved ones you have
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lost. Imagine the laughter at the
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stories we would tell together. And imagine the simple and
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wonderful mercy of being with Jesus at the table.
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I can't wait to have a meal with Him, and we're going to eat
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there that day fully forever. And on that, at that dinner
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table in the New Jerusalem, guess what?
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There is no weeping. There's no disappointment.
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There's no hurting. There's no more pain.
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There's no more cancer. There is nothing that would hurt
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our appetite for anything other than God.
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Because we can feast fully forever.
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We have the hope of Jesus forever.
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We can feast fully now and forever.
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So here's the hope and the big idea from Joshua 11 and 12.
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Right this down. God brings his people from war
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to rest by doing this, by winning the victory for them.
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How do you actually move from war to rest?
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It's not you doing more things. It's by God winning the victory
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for you and you resting in what He's achieved.
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It's received, not achieved. And so you fight sin fiercely.
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Yes, you follow him faithfully, but then you feast, You take and
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eat. You delight in who God is and
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what he has done, and in return you get a supernatural
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settleness despite any internal or external conflict.
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You move from war to rest by God, winning the war, winning
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the victory for you, no matter what conflict is around you.
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There's a scene in an old movie called Back to the Future 2
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where a guy named Biff gets a hold of a book with all the
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future sports results in it. So when he gambles, he's not
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guessing. He already knows how it's going
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to turn out. Some of you are like, can I get
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that book? Don't have it for you, my guy,
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Sorry. That kind of certainty changes
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how you live. That the outcome was not in
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question. The victory is certain.
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You're not anxious, you're not worried, you're not angry.
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You're not panicked because you know how the game ends.
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You know how the story ends. Listen to me.
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You can truly rest in a war zone, London style.
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Not because the war is over, but not because you figured
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everything out, but because God has already won.
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He's already won the victory for you.
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It's done. It's finished, so we obey
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knowing the outcome is solved, done, and that's our
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responsibility is obedience. God's job is the outcome.
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So we will fight sin fiercely, we'll follow him faithfully, and
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we'll feast. We'll feast upon his victory
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fully because God has done for us we could not do for
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ourselves. He's won US the victory forever,
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fully, and now God brings his people from war to rest by
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winning the victory for them. Would you pray with me, Lord?
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Thank you for your word. Thank you that we have hope in
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Joshua 11 and 12, that we can have rest in the middle of the
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war, that we, God, can experience rest, settled, miss.
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That's supernatural. Even though bombs might be going
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off around us, explosions nearby in US and around us in the war
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against sin and death. But God, guess what?
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We can still have peace. We can be like you sleeping in
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the boat in the middle of that hurricane, a supernatural
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settledness. And we don't need noise
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cancelling hair headphones, God, to get through it.
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We need actually your voice in our ears telling us it's going
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to be OK. I'm going to win.
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I have one. What a piece that brings God.
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The outcome is not in question. There will be a day where that
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habit is no more. There will be a day where we
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don't react that way as fast. There will be a day, God, where
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the sin and shame we carry dissipates because right now the
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truest thing about us is that we are dressed in your
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righteousness and that when you see us, you don't see our sin,
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you see your Son. What a gift that is that we can
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sit at the table and feast upon who Jesus is and what he has
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done, regardless of what we've done.
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So Lord, help us to experience your victory more and more this
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week in Jesus name, Amen.