Dig Deeper - Sunday 25th January
Sermon Reflection Questions - Strong and Courageous - a Journey through the book of Joshua: Bold faith invites God’s miraculous intervention
Joshua 10:1-15
As we had a guest speaker from one of our Mission partners - Open Doors at our 10:30 am service, this week’s Dig Deeper notes are based on the 9 am sermon, which unfortunately isn’t livestreamed. If you’d like to listen to the Open Doors message from the 10:30 am service, you’ll find the link below.
Dig Deeper notes from Sunday 25th January service:
Let’s recap on the journey so far. In Joshua 1, Moses had died, and Joshua faced an overwhelming task. God's words were simple but powerful: "Be strong and courageous… for the Lord your God will be with you." Courage came not from Joshua's ability, but from God's presence.
In Joshua 4, the people crossed the Jordan on dry ground. Twelve stones were set up as a memorial so future generations would remember what God had done. Faith was strengthened by remembering God's faithfulness. And then the conquering of Jericho, where victory came not because they fought harder, but they won by trusting God and obeying Him, even if His commands appeared very strange.
The writer to the Hebrews 11:30 reflects on this moment: "By faith the walls of Jericho fell."
Jericho reminds us that the greatest obstacles in our lives are not overcome by strength or willpower, but by trusting obedience. Indeed, the book of Joshua is all about God interacting with His people - leading, teaching, rebuking and restoring – and in this we find reminders that our unchanging God continues to interact with us today, leading us on life’s journey till we land safely on Canaan’s side.
Chapter 10 tells of another great victory for Joshua’s army as fulfilment of God’s promise to give His people the land of Canaan.
Chapter 9 tells us about the treaty that Israel was fooled into making with the city of Gibeon. The Gibeonites deceived Israel into thinking that they came from faraway; in reality, they lived relatively close by. In Joshua 10, we are shown the immediate consequence of this treaty. Being faithful sometimes makes life more complicated! The surrounding cities and kings were upset because Gibeon was an important city, which had defected to Israel’s side. So, the alliance of kings decided that they would punish Gibeon for their defection.
The people in Gibeon knew they were no match for this alliance of five kings, so they begged Joshua for help.
We can imagine Joshua giving a heavy sigh when he received the message. His alliance with Gibeon was already causing trouble! How easy it would have been to say, “O great! We really don’t need this.” Maybe this is a familiar feeling for us when we face unexpected obstacles and surprises along life’s Christian journey.
There are four miraculous acts of God in this account.
First, God gave the soldiers the strength and stamina to travel 25 miles during the night and then gave them the continued stamina to fight all day and into the night. And God is still doing that in the lives of believers all over the world, facing challenging situations, including extreme persecution and yet who are buoyed by a strength that comes from their faith.
Second, we are told that “God threw them (the armies of the kings) into confusion.” He made them unable to fight back. God often works in our circumstances to create opportunities for us if we recognise them.
Third, as the armies were seeking to escape, God caused large hailstones to fall on them! We are told that the hailstones killed more soldiers than the Israelite army.
Then, fourthly, there is the most renowned miracle of the Old Testament. The Israelites were pursuing the armies, but it was getting late in the day. If darkness came upon them, the battle would effectively be over, and the men would be able to get into their fortresses and possibly regroup. So, Joshua prayed, asking God to stop the descent of the sun! In other words, he asked that it remain daylight for a longer period of time. And God answered this prayer: indeed, it says: There has never been a day like it before or since, a day when the Lord listened to a man. Surely the Lord was fighting for Israel! (13-14). Faithful prayer was and is powerful.
God acted in accordance with His promise to a faithful, prayerful Joshua. He gave them the victory because they trusted and obeyed Him. Joshua could have ignored the request for help and said to the Gibeonites, “This is not my problem.” Instead, he, in faith, rallied the troops and headed off to rescue the people. And why did Joshua do that? We are told that the Lord said to Joshua,
Do not be afraid of them (the alliance of five kings); I have given them into your hand. Not one of them will be able to withstand you.” (v. 8)
It was bold faith that led to victory.
Time to Reflect:
What do you think of when you hear the word victory? Clearly, in Joshua, we read of battlefield victories with the opponents scattered and defeated.
There are a lot of such scenes in Joshua as it recounts the conquest of Canaan, which can cause problems for us these days. It describes an often brutal conquest, confiscation of land of an indigenous people and acts of wholesale slaughter. But we need to accept the context of a God who is holy – sin is abhorrent, and whilst He had been patient over centuries, giving these people opportunities to repent and change, they were deeply sinful with entrenched evil customs and practices which ultimately a holy God had to deal with – the accounts in Joshua are accounts of God’s judgement on their sin. Maybe a problem for us is just that we don’t actually take sin seriously enough – we don’t grasp the awfulness of sin in God’s eyes enough. There have to be consequences of sinful behaviour. The Book of Common Prayer’s words of invitation to confession seem far stronger than modern versions and reflect more powerfully the seriousness of sin: the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness, and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God. This is indeed powerful language not favoured today, but while in our daily lives now the battles may look different, the truth of the deadly effects of sin remains the same. And just as the Israelites had victory only through trusting in God, we need to continue to trust in Him – because if we do, we can claim for ourselves the wonderful words of Paul written to the Corinthians: Thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our lord Jesus Christ 1 Cor 15 v 57. That’s the heart of our faith because it reminds us that victory over sin and death is already ours through the resurrection of Christ. Because of His sacrifice on the cross, we’re no longer striving for victory; it’s already been given to us as a gift from God. What a powerful reminder of our final victory in Jesus! Our victory isn’t based on what we do, but on what our Saviour has already done.
This truth changes everything about how we see our struggles. It’s hard to imagine the pain Jesus endured, yet His sacrifice was always part of God’s plan. Let’s turn our eyes to Jesus Himself, the One who fought the battle for us and became our victory. We can embrace the victory that Christ has won for us and live in the freedom of His grace. And like Joshua, we can be bold because we already have the victory over sin, so we can share this message of hope with others, inviting them into the transformative power of Christ's victory over sin and death.
Let’s pray:
Heavenly Father, we thank You for the victory we have through Jesus Christ. Help us to live as victorious children, free from sin and unshaken by the fear of death. Empower us to proclaim Your victory to the world around us. In Jesus' name, Amen.
