It's Not All About Me

Your future, it can seem mysterious and frightening. But there's good news. God has a promised land for you to move into, courageously and fearlessly. And the book of Joshua shows you how it can happen, how to live your promised land life.

Well, good morning, everybody. How are you doing today? Good morning. Good morning here in the auditorium. Good morning to everybody who's watching online and over in the venue service as well. It is great to have you all with us. My name's René. I'm one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church. And we are continuing our weekend series in the book of Joshua.

Now, I've been away a couple of weekends. And I just want to say before I start, hearing Adrian and hearing Mark, I was so stoked. Do we not have a great preaching team here at Twin Lakes Church? They really did a great job. We're so blessed. We were away because Lori and I were celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary. Thank you. She deserves a trophy for living with me for 30 years.

But we actually were able to fulfill a dream and go to Rome, Italy. It was phenomenal. I just almost can't believe we were able to do this. But I want to tell you a true story. Our first night there, we were holding hands on an evening stroll. And I'm not into the selfie culture, but I even got somebody to take a picture of us because I wanted to preserve this memory.

And here's why. I was telling Lori in this moment, our first night, I said, do you realize that this is the first big trip we have taken, just the two of us, since the kids were born, 26 years ago? I mean, we've traveled together on mission trips. We've traveled on other church group trips, for example, to Israel, but never just the two of us on a big trip in all that time.

And so I was holding Lori's hand. In fact, I remember the exact place. We were standing in front of Bernini's fountain of the Four Rivers, beautiful location, so romantic. And I told her, let's just treasure this rare week that we get to spend thousands of miles away from anybody. And then I could have sworn I heard, Pastor René. And I thought, it's got to just be my imagination, right? Pastor René.

And I kind of looked around furtively. Somebody from behind gave me a big bear hug and said, it's David Edie from Scotts Valley. And my wife took a picture of that very moment. They said, what a surprise to see you. Let's hang out. And my wife pushed them into the fountain. Not really. It was actually super fun to see them there. Well, not super fun. It wasn't super fun. But it was pretty fun. And we had a great time. And it is great to be back with you.

Hey, grab your message notes from your bulletins that look like this. And you can also, if you have the TLC app for your iPhone or Android device, you can also download them on that. That is a great way to take your notes and be able to preserve this. If you're watching online, you can download them too.

We've been in this series in the book of Joshua. So let's do a quick recap. And let's start by reading out loud the key verse for this series. It is that great verse, Joshua 1:9. And I want you to read this out loud because someone here in this room needs to hear this word today. And I want you to take this—the multitude of voices here, almost as if it is God's voice because we are reiterating God's word. So let's listen to this promise. Let's say it together.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. For somebody here today, we could just stop right there. But what we've been seeing in this study of Joshua is how this theme plays out each week. Be strong and courageous. Why?

Well, week one, we saw God telling the people, I have a future for you. I have a purpose. I have plans. God has a future for me. That's why I can be strong and courageous. Then week two, Joshua 2, Rahab story, Adrian did such a good job on this. God can redeem me no matter what I have done. My mess can become part of God's message.

And then week three, last week Mark did a great job on chapters three and four, Crossing the Jordan River. God is always with me. And these are such important truths. Do you believe these truths? Then let me hear you say them out loud like you mean them. Let's say all three together. Ready, here we go. God has a future for me. God can redeem me and in fact has redeemed you in Christ. And then let's say the third one out loud together. God is always with me. Amen?

Amen. All this is true but a warning. It is possible to believe all this and be really messed up theologically. It is possible to believe every one of these things and believe every word we have studied so far in the book of Joshua and have your faith sour into a self-indulgent, self-oriented, self-righteous mess. And that is why God adds the truth that we're going to see in the three verses we study today.

Because if I just focus on these truths, it is possible to believe these and get the idea that God just exists to sort of make me happy. God's kind of like my personal genie. I make my wishes and he grants them. And so in week four, God reminds Joshua, it is not all about me. Let's say that out loud together. It's not all about me.

You did not say that with as much conviction as those other three truths. So let's say it again. It is not all about me. Have you learned this yet? It really is not all about you. Life is about more than your goals, your wishes, your hopes, even your happiness. You were not made, or God rather, was not made for you to just fulfill your dreams. It's the other way around.

And that's what Joshua learns here in Joshua 5. As I said, we're just gonna look at three verses today, three crucial verses though. Joshua 5:13–15, if you have your Bibles, you can crack them open to that. And if more believers read and applied these three verses, you know what? We would have far fewer annoying Christians. We would have far fewer arrogant Christians and we would have far fewer Christians that fall into what some have called the prosperity gospel where they think God has just made to grant all their wishes if they just claim to be a Christian and say the right words and they get so disappointed that God's not answering their prayers the way that they really demand them to be.

And if we had more Christians studying and understanding these three verses, we would have more true, godly, humble, meek Christians. These verses are so important. So let's walk through these and then I'm gonna wrap up with three truths that are so powerful they could revitalize your whole life if you learn them from these verses.

Joshua 5:13 says, "Now when Joshua was near Jericho," and very quickly just press pause right here because I want you to be able to imagine this. I want you emotionally to be able to understand where Joshua was at. What does this phrase mean? What's behind this phrase? What was he doing near Jericho? Apparently, as we'll see all by himself.

Well, quick recap. Remember, the people of Israel had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years and then God leads them out and they come back to their ancestral homeland but while they had been away, other people had moved in. And God says, "You're gonna go back in there" and Moses sends 12 spies in and they bring back massive fruit from this land of plenty and they say, "Good news, this place is amazing. Bad news, we could never take it. We can't do it." And only two of the spies, Caleb and guess who else? Joshua say, "We can do it. Come on, God promised this land to us."

But the people get scared and end up wandering around in the desert free but aimless. Is that a picture of your life sometimes? Free but aimless. Free but not moving forward into the life that God wants for you. Well, 40 years later, they are back, headed into Canaan. They get a pep talk from God. They cross the Jordan River and the first big Canaanite city they get to is Jericho.

Now, we don't know how old exactly Joshua was here, but the Bible says Caleb was 85 years old, so Joshua might've been in his 80s. Now, remember he was a spy 40 years before, so let's say he could've been as young as 20 and served as a spy, so he would've been at least in his early 60s. And now he is the general and he crawls out, probably at night, to look at the first major city that they've got to conquer if they wanna get into the promised land, Canaan, and it's Jericho.

And it looked very much like you imagine a castle looking. In fact, next weekend, we are going to look at what archaeologists say about this. Don't miss it. It's fascinating stuff, and some of the archaeological discoveries there we'll look at next weekend are very recent, but are you getting what is happening emotionally in this first phrase? Joshua looks again at the city he last saw 40 years before, and he had to have been remembering how the spies were there before and how the people were afraid before, but he is sensing how different the emotional atmosphere is of the Israelites now.

They are not afraid now. They are not faithless now. They are riding this crest of confidence in God and new conversion and sort of national patriotism. They're all pumped. And while he's out there looking at Jericho, he has this amazing experience. It says he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand.

Now don't miss that detail. The sword is drawn. It's out of the scabbard. This man is ready for action. I want you to see that because that means it's remarkable that Joshua doesn't run away. It says Joshua went up to him. And this is a figure of speech scholars say that in Hebrew kind of translates to our English idiom, gets in his face. Joshua, this guy's got a drawn sword, and Joshua gets in his face and challenges him. Now that tells you something about Joshua. Doesn't it?

This senior citizen sees this man and he is definitely pumped about going into the promised land. He's like, he says this. He says, you have two options. Are you for us or for our enemies? What I think is happening is he's trying to get this guy enlisted into his army. He sees somebody with a sword and he says, are you gonna join us or are you on their side? You got two choices.

And this man looks at him and says, neither. I love the old King James version where it just says, no. Are you for us or against us? No. Joshua's like, I've given you two choices. Yeah, and I reject them both. But as commander of what? The Lord's army. The army of the Lord I have come. In other words, you don't command me. To ask me am I for you or against you is the wrong question. The question is are you for me or against me? And Joshua hits the dirt.

Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence. It's the word used there for worship and asked him, what message does my, what? Lord have for his servant. In other words, I tried to command you. No, you command me. And it's interesting the command that this commander has for Joshua. It says the commander of the Lord's army replied, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy. And Joshua did so.

Okay, what in the world is this story all about? Why is this even in the Bible? And what does this have to do with you and me today? Well, I think to understand that you have to answer the question everybody has probably when they read this passage and that is who is this man? Who is this mysterious figure that Joshua approaches here? Now, a lot of people through Christian history have said, well, that's an angel. That's like the obvious conclusion, right? Well, it's an angel.

I believe based on the authority of God, there's one thing that certainly this is not and that is an angel. It can't be an angel. Not if you remember the most important thing the Bible teaches about angels and it's this, angels never accept worship. They never do all throughout the Bible. At the very end of the Bible in the book of Revelation, a similar situation, the apostle John sees someone who looks something like this and it says, and when I had heard and seen these things in Revelation 22:8, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me, but he said to me, what? Don't do that. I'm a fellow servant with you and your fellow prophets and all who keep the words of the scroll. That's kind of cool. Angels consider us fellow servants. Worship who? God.

The angel actually gets upset with John. What would make an angel upset that someone bows down before him? And so back in Joshua 5, if this was an angel, what would he say? Get up! But he doesn't say that. This man basically says, thank you for worshiping me and now I'd like you to go one step further and worship me more intensely. Take off your shoes. This is holy ground.

Now here's another question that helps identify who this is. Do those words sound familiar to you? This is exactly what is said to Joshua's predecessor, Moses, through the burning bush years before Exodus 3:5, do not come any closer. God said to Moses, decades before, take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground. Now this voice is identified in Exodus three. Who does it say it was speaking to Moses? God, that's right. And so I believe in Joshua 5 because the baton is being passed from Moses to Joshua. God repeats the pattern. God does the same thing again. Take off your sandals because this is holy ground.

So who is this? I believe it's God appearing in the form of a human. Let me give you a new word for some of you. Theologians call this a theophany. Theophany, T-H-E-O-P-H-A-N-Y. And that's what happens in the Bible often when it says nobody can see God's glory unfiltered. And so God sometimes appears to us human beings in a manner that we can comprehend. But the idea of the theophany goes even further than that. It's sort of like a preview of coming attractions. That one day God will actually come to us as a man, as Jesus, to be technical, this is a preliminary manifestation of the time that God was born of a woman and literally became a man. What I'm saying is Jesus was showing up to Joshua.

Okay, that's pretty cool. Kind of mind blowing, but why? What is the point of this story? Remember where the Israelites are at. They are far from fearful at this point. They are getting very pumped about going into the promised land and God has told them all the things we read together at the beginning of this message. I'm with you and I can redeem even the worst person and I've got a wonderful future for you. But it's very easy to go from that and to cross over the line from God loves me unconditionally as a wonderful plan for my life to I am God's favorite and he is against everybody else.

Let me ask you this specifically. Do human beings ever think God's on the side of my team and not their team? Or God's on the side of my country and not their country? Or God's on the side of my political party and not their political party? Getting uncomfortable here, maybe I've gone too far, right? I think there's times we all do this in one way or another, maybe we wouldn't put it this bluntly but we imagine God's for us and against those other people. We get this us versus them mentality and that's why this is in the Bible.

God knew the temptation would be for Joshua to think we are the chosen, that means they are not the chosen. And anytime you think you know what category other people fit into and you start acting like you are God and you're able to judge where other people fit in terms of God's chosen-ness of them or not, anytime you think God is for me and therefore against them, you are going to get messed up. You are going to be judgmental, you're going to be miserable, you're going to be self-righteous and you're gonna be confused by the way about why God is not answering all your prayers with a big yes. And you will just feel the joy draining out of your heart.

Listen, again, if you wanna revitalize your faith today, here's how to do it, get back to a bigger view of God than just some tribal God, God is for my tribe. Get back to a view of God far beyond human division, far beyond our categories. Now this is raising a lot of questions for you, we'll get to some of those. In three short verses, what God does is give us three truths to reorient ourselves to who he really is. And this is the key to happiness, this is the key to revitalizing your spiritual life, this is the key to really finding strength in worship. So jot these down, number one is this, God is about his agenda, not my agenda.

God is about his agenda and not my agenda. The other day I was reading a book by a woman named Anne Lamott, now I don't agree with everything this author says all the time, but I gotta say, I read a phrase, she was telling a story about talking to somebody and this came up in conversation and this phrase just taught me cold and I wrote it down, I loved it, she said, "You can safely assume you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do." And that's true, isn't it?

What's amazing in Joshua 5 is that God is speaking of the Israelites and the Canaanites. And we would assume that God is for the Israelites and against the Canaanites, but God is saying to Joshua, you really don't get it. This conquest of the promised land is not some material, militaristic, imperialistic, colonialistic, you know, man's kingdom-oriented conquering. This is something completely different. We're gonna see this as the series goes on.

He says that what I am doing in Canaan is far beyond what you see, Joshua, my plans are far longer than you can perceive and I want all Canaanites who are willing to do so to repent and join the people of God, I am not against them. Listen, there is a moment in our spiritual lives if we wanna have an authentic relationship with the real God where at some point we're going to hear God say, "No, neither. Your enemies are not necessarily identical with my enemies. Your agenda, not necessarily my agenda. Your will, not always my will. Don't put me in your puny categories.

I heard somebody once say, "In the beginning, God created man in his own image and man has been returning the favor ever since." Isn't that true? You know, in Joshua's day, people had trouble with idolatry, making God literally in your own image and back in Joshua 5, we tend to think of these pagan idols as these massive statues in a big temple. But did you, do you have your car keys with you? Do you have them in your pocket or something? Can you take them out and just hold them up like this? Look at these car keys. This was about the size of most idols in those days. They could fit in your pocket. In fact, archeologists have found thousands and thousands of these in that area. This is what they looked like and they were about this tall.

People didn't put these in a temple and go worship them. They put them in their pocket, kind of like a good luck charm. I got my little pocket God with me. He is for me and against everybody else. And I can fit him right in my pocket and he's kind of like a lucky rabbit's foot. And my life is gonna go better because I claim to follow this God, but really it's about having this God on my leash. And all throughout the Bible, God keeps saying, "I do not fit in your pocket."

Now some of you are saying, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Doesn't God hate evil? Yes, the Bible says he does. Doesn't God stand against injustice? Absolutely, he hates evil, but he loves the evil doers and wants the whole world to know his love, Israelite, Canaanite, whoever. And this is the message we really have to get across in our churches today. Listen carefully, Christians today, especially right now in this moment, need to learn to live like this, where especially in the context of a church worship service, if people are asking themselves, are they on our side or their side? Are they for the Democrats or the Republicans? Are they for this tribe or that tribe? That what the answer they perceive from us is neither.

We are for an agenda that is beyond that, where we say we will not get pulled into any hate-filled argument on the left or the right, where we're able to distance ourselves from the people who are doing their best to divide us, where we think carefully about whether something we say publicly or post publicly is going to advance the kingdom of God or just the temporary kingdoms of men, and where we participate in God's overriding agenda that goes past the lifespans of even human kingdoms and tribes to reach the whole world with his love.

Now listen, don't get me wrong. I've got my own political opinions, and in my house and with my friends, I talk about them and debate them and so on, and sometimes I change them, but if people walk into this place and hear from us our own personal politics, in my opinion, that is a fail. What they need to pick up on is the only thing that is going to heal our country and the only thing that is going to heal their hearts, and that is the gospel. Are you for us or for them? No, neither. And listen, that all leads to the second big truth here. Jot this down. God is my Lord, not just my assistant.

God is my Lord, not my assistant. You've heard me quote Tim Keller several times, but I love something he says. He says when he was a teenager, he decided to commit his life to Christ when he heard somebody do this example. He said, "I believed in God," sort of his life. "Yeah, God's gonna help me get what I want out of life." And he said a woman who was speaking at a camp that he was attending used this illustration.

She said, "Listen, if the distance between the earth and the sun, which is 96 million miles, was just the thickness of a piece of paper, then the distance from the earth to the nearest star would be a stack of paper 70 feet high. And the diameter of our galaxy would be a stack of paper 310 miles high. And yet our galaxy is a speck in the universe. And the Bible says in Hebrews 1 that Jesus Christ holds all this together with the word of his power. It's not even an effort. Just with a word with a breath. He holds all that together." And she asked the student she was speaking to, she said, "Do you ask somebody like that into your life to be your assistant?"

It's like Mark said last weekend, "God is not your co-pilot." It's so easy to slip into that though, isn't it? I'm probably gonna offend somebody here, but I saw these little statues that they make for kids, that Jesus is my coach collection. And here's some of 'em, Jesus is my basketball coach. It just kinda looks kinda funny to me, but. Jesus is my football coach, and I love the way he's handing Jesus the ball because he can split the B like he can split the C, you know, so he's good at that.

Why do you believe in Jesus? I trust Jesus because he helps me with my golf swing. Look at this next one, I don't know. But Jesus is my hockey coach, is another one of them. Jesus is my karate coach, he's good at that, he's already got the robe, but listen, here's the thing. Maybe things like this are fine as a way to teach children, right, about how Jesus is with them at all times. But a lot of us as adults, listen carefully, we stop at Jesus is my coach. He exists to kinda help me do what I wanna do.

In fact, I think everybody comes to God like this at first, right, everybody comes to God saying, "I got an agenda, God, that I want you to help me with," like Joshua, everybody does it, everybody starts their spiritual journey with some problems, that's how we start. I've got self-esteem problems or anxiety problems, or I just broke up with somebody, or I just had a big loss in my life. You come to God with this problem and you say, "God, I need you to help me with it, I need you to coach me out of it." But at some point, if you want your relationship with God to deepen, you've gotta have this Joshua moment where you realize it's actually not about you enlisting God in your service, it's about you bowing before God and saying, "Just lead me wherever."

And that's what gets us to our final and third reorienting truth and that's this, God is good, not tame. God is good, not tame. There's a very famous line in the Chronicles of Narnia where one of the characters talks about Aslan, the great lion who represents Jesus in those stories, and a character is kinda scared of Aslan and says, "Well, Aslan is a tame lion, isn't he?" And another character says, "No, Aslan's not tame, he is good, but he's not tame." And that is the same thing God is saying here to Joshua, "I'm good, but I am not your pet God, I'm not your pocket God, do not domesticate me."

I love how it says Joshua saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. If this isn't, we all wanna picture Jesus, gentle Jesus, meek and mild, kinda like Mr. Rogers in a robe, right? But if this is not part of your picture of Jesus, you do not have a complete picture of Jesus according to the Bible. Again, end of the Bible, Book of Revelation, it says in Revelation 19:11, "I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse whose rider is faithful and true, and with justice he judges and wages war." It's the commander of the Lord's army. It's the same exact person Joshua is meeting.

And later in this chapter, it identifies him as Jesus Christ. We like to think of Jesus as kinda like my buddy, my bestie. But think of who it is that you are worshiping. The drawn sword is in his hands. Real, honestly, I think it's only when you see Jesus for who he really is, the man of God, the commander of the Lord's army with the drawn sword that what he did in humbling himself on the cross really crackles, really pops with meaning for you.

You have to see that he's holy, and listen, and requires holiness. You know, there's this phrase, "Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy." Question for you, why didn't the sword come down on Joshua? How is it that unholy Joshua was able to stand on holy ground? It's not because he took off his shoes. That's always the problem, I was wearing shoes. No, that's not it. This is a symbol. The Bible says the wages of sin is death. And anybody who tries to kinda get into the presence of the holy, who is the slightest bit unholy as we are, will be sort of vaporized. It's like matter and anti-matter meetings.

So why didn't the sword come down on Joshua? Because this same person, the Lord of hosts chose to give his life for Joshua and for you and me. The Bible says Christ made us right with God. He made us pure and holy. The very one who holds the drawn sword is also the one who laid down his life for you. Jesus is this warrior king and he humbled himself on a cross. Jesus is the holiest of beings and he took on our unholiness. He's the commander of the Lord's army and he came to be the servant of all. Why? So we can stand on holy ground in his presence. Man, that is mind blowing.

See, until you see the might of God, you can never really understand the love of God. Until you see the might of God, you can never really understand the love of God. If you see God as kinda like your pocket God, kinda like your good luck charm, then people tell you, you know God loves you and that's no big deal, right? Of course he loves me. I'm pretty lovable back in my pocket, you know?

But if you understand your unholiness in light of God's holiness, when you go, I am way out of my league when I come into this presence, then your love and appreciation for the love of God really comes alive. So my question for you today is this. Have I had this reorientation? This moment when you hit the deck and say, "God, command me," I submit to your will. Or do you still see God primarily as kind of your life coach, your assistant, as for you and against them?

I wanna close with a story. You see this kind of reorientation moment happening all through Christian history in people's journals and diaries in a Christian literature. And I found this the other day in the diary of Blaise Pascal. He was an amazing scientific genius. When he was 12 years old, he was solving math problems that had never been solved before when he was 12. He actually worked on some of the foundational principles for the theory of probability, which came 300 years later. He was one of the first people that we know that ever developed a mechanical calculator. And did I mention he did all this in the 1600s? He must have just seemed like a person out of the future.

But like some scientists, he found himself drifting from his childhood Christianity for a number of years and really doubting it all. And then something intrigued him and he got back into reading the gospels again and he began to pray, "God, if you're there, show yourself to me." And then he had an experience. He dated it. It was specifically on November 23rd, 1654, where he had what he called his conversion. And I love the way he wrote about it. It's the Joshua experience. It's meeting the man with a drawn sword, realizing you're on holy ground, and then realizing he welcomes you in.

Listen to how he describes this. He says, "From about half past 10 at night until about half past midnight, fire, God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob, not of the philosophers and of the learned, certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace, forgetfulness of the world and of everything except God, who is only found by the ways taught in the gospel. Joy, joy, joy, tears of joy. This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God and the one you sent, Jesus Christ. Oh, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ. I left him, I fled him, renounced, crucified. Let me never be separated from him. Renunciation, total and sweet, complete submission to Jesus Christ."

And this intellectual genius met the God who blew his mind. Have you had a reorientation where you present your categories to him and hear him say, "No, neither." And you hit the dirt and you take off your shoes because you're on holy ground. I pray that God brings you to that moment. In fact, let's pray together right now. Would you bow your heads in hearts with me?

Lord, I pray that some people here in this room are gonna have that experience. And it's not about emotion, it's about truth, realizing these twin truths that you are mighty and merciful, that you're holy and make a way for our unholiness, that you are great and gracious, that you are as you are, not as we make you to be. And we just hit the ground and worship because of your mercy given through Jesus Christ. God, I pray that there are some people even now in this room who say, "I don't understand all this, but I guess that's kind of the point, you're beyond understanding." But I choose to believe what you chose to reveal that you've made a way through Jesus Christ. So I bow before you today and receive Him. It's in His name we pray, amen.