The Secret to Winning Life’s Battles (Joshua 6)

Introduction

There is an episode of The Office that opens with Kevin saying the phrase, “Why use lot word when few word do trick?” He then proceeds to try and communicate using the least amount of words possible and it confuses everyone.

My struggle this week wasn’t crafting a message I am passionate about sharing with you. It was cutting almost 1000 words out of the first draft in a way that wouldn’t create confusion, but let’s us make it lunch on time. There is so much in the passage for today, and I wanted to share it all, but I had to be choosy even about the verses we look at.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me catch you up. Over the last month, we’ve been walking through the first six chapters of Joshua while underlining one very core principle seen in these chapters: Strong and Courageous Starts with Surrender and Obedience. Joshua has modeled strength and courage, not through force, but through surrender and obedience to God. Because of this, he has led Israel into the land God promised them 500 years earlier. We are going to chapters five and six to see the first battle in the land.

Start with Worship

Imagine our opening scene with me for a moment. Joshua, who already had experience leading the military to victory in battle before they entered the promised land, is surveying Jericho from atop some of the surrounding high points. Some translations say ‘one day when’, which makes me think he’s been climbing hills around the city looking at it from all different angles trying to figure out how this nomadic people with no siege weaponry he is leading are supposed to defeat a fortified city. After all, their only battle experience has been head-on fighting on plains and valleys.

As he stands there alone, this happens. Joshua 5:13 When Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua approached him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” “Neither,” he replied. “I have now come as commander of the Lord’s army.” Then Joshua bowed with his face to the ground in homage and asked him, “What does my lord want to say to his servant?” The commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did that.

As he stands there alone, someone appears holding a sword. I can almost see Joshua gripping his own as he asks are you for me or against me? The tension is thick. The person responds very unexpectedly, “Neither. I am the commander of the Lord’s army.” This was shocking, not just because of what was said, but because of who said it. Is this a high-ranking angel of some sort; one that has been given authority by God to lead the rest of the angel army? There are plenty of commentary writers and Biblical scholars that hold that view, but the more prevalent view is this is Jesus showing up before His incarnation when He became human, which is called a Christophany. Why do I think this is Jesus? The biggest reason is Joshua’s response. He worships this being. In scripture, when people bow down to worship angels who have appeared before them the angels redirect their worship toward God. That doesn’t happen here. Instead, this being accepts Joshua’s worship and then follows up with a command for Joshua to remove his sandals, which is meant to remind us of Moses before the bush that burned but wasn’t consumed. Who spoke from that bush? God.

This also would have been shocking to Joshua because we’ve seen several instances since the book of Exodus that have highlighted Joshua and brought much attention to him, especially Joshua 3. But This moment reminds Joshua, and us, that this isn’t Joshua’s story. It’s God’s story. This story may highlight Joshua’s role, but the story isn’t about him. Nor is it about Israel. This story is about God. So Joshua does the only sensible thing. He falls down in worship because God Stories Should be Filled with Worship. Worship is always the appropriate response to God at all times. Even before He acts, worship is the right response. Why? Because of His loving goodness, His infinite power, and His distinct otherness that so clearly shows Him as above us and as due our awe and respect.

Falling down in praise-filled worship was Joshua’s first act of worship, but it wasn’t his only act of worship. Notice what he does next. He asks what the LORD has to say to him, he listens, and he obeys. Joshua is the sixth book in our Bible and the first five have made it abundantly clear that the core of having faith in God is the willingness to listen and obey Him. The act of looking to God for direction and then actually following His direction is a big part of what it means to be His. It is the clear act of worshipping God with your whole life. Worship isn’t just a portion of a Sunday gathering or a song you listen to in your car. Worship is living surrendered and obedient to God; listening and obeying. With that in mind, we should ask ourselves, “Do I live in surrendered obedience? Do I live listening for and obeying God through prayer, engaging scripture, and wise followers of Jesus?”

Highlight God as the One Who Fights and Wins

Joshua 6:1-2. Now Jericho was strongly fortified because of the Israelites—no one leaving or entering. The Lord said to Joshua, “Look, I have handed Jericho, its king, and its best soldiers over to you.“I have handed Jericho over to you.” What a statement! Joshua just went from racking his brain on how to attack a fortress city to worshipping God standing before Him. I’ve gotta assume he was hoping God was about to give him the battle plan and detailed instructions of what to do. Instead, God declares victory. Before a single arrow is shot, a single spear is thrown, a single sling is slung, or a single sword is swung God is letting Joshua know that the battle of Jericho is already won. Can you Imagine Joshua’s relief at being told the victory was guaranteed and that it didn’t depend on his mastery as a general? Sure, Joshua had fought some battles, but this is the very city that caused the twelve spies back in Numbers 13 to be so fearful that they refused to follow God into the promised land. This is the city that caused the Israelites to have to wait 40 years and watch an entire generation die off. I suspect Joshua had his fears and concerns of what He could do. Thankfully though, God Stories Highlight God as the One Who Fights and Wins. What kind of relief it is to know that we serve the God who can confidently proclaim victory even before a battle is fought in our lives. The reassurance it gives me to know when God says there will be a victory means I don’t have to live in constant questioning mode. I get to live in faith that God will do what He said He is going to do. But that doesn’t mean everything you desire, or even what God calls you to it, will look like victory as we define it. Both the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Jeremiah were given a message and told expressly by God that no one was going to listen or repent. Jeremiah 7:27, "When you speak all these things to them, they will not listen to you. When you call to them, they will not answer you." Yet, there was still victory in both their callings because the victory wasn’t the short-term battle in front of them. It was listening and obeying with trust in the long-term story God was telling through them and many others. You and I get to live in confidence that the biggest battle, the battle for our souls, has already been won.

Joshua 6:3-5. “March around the city with all the men of war, circling the city one time. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry seven ram’s-horn trumpets in front of the ark. But on the seventh day, march around the city seven times, while the priests blow the rams’ horns. When there is a prolonged blast of the horn and you hear its sound, have all the troops give a mighty shout. Then the city wall will collapse, and the troops will advance, each man straight ahead.” He did get a battle plan from God, but I feel confident it wasn’t what he expected. Marching around the city once a day for six days and then on day seven marching around the city seven times and yelling was not on Joshua’s potential attack plans list. This plan doesn’t make any natural sense. Some over the centuries have tried to explain the walls of Jericho falling by saying there were structural issues with the walls that the loud yelling exploited. Others have talked about earthquakes happening at the same time as the yelling. But none of the explanations really explain it. At best the natural things were used by God, but the implications are clear, the walls fell because God orchestrated for them to fall at that moment. After all, He’s the one fighting and winning the battle.

Invite Participation

Question: Could God knock down the walls without marching and shouting? Yes! Would God knock down the walls if Israel didn’t march and shout? Nope! God Stories Invite Participation. Since God first put humans in charge of the Garden of Eden He has been continually inviting us to participate with Him in the work He is doing. Honestly, the only two stories that God doesn’t invite participation in Scripture: Creation and Salvation. Everything else is a story of God choosing to partner with humans even though He doesn’t need to. How wild is it that the infinite God who created the universe with His words would choose to limit Himself by working with finite and broken creatures like us? How loving is it that God cares for us enough to want us to be a part of what He’s doing? I imagine it much like a good parent who has an important task to do but is willing to slow down and let their child be involved even though it is going to take longer, require more work, and be a lot messier.

For Israel in Joshua 6, participation probably felt nonsensical. If you are random guard number 1,256 by day 5 you are seriously questioning if Joshua is full of crap. Even those with faith that God would give them Jericho probably still struggled with the patience and self-restraint to not shout and run toward the city to fight immediately. After all, God promised victory, so why wait? But remember, God is never in a hurry and His timing is never off. What if cultivating patience and self-restraint for not only this battle, but the rest of their lives was exactly what God was doing? What if that is what he’s doing in your life? Are you willing to trust God’s leading even when you don’t understand his reasoning?

Saturated with Salvation

Joshua 6: 20-25. When they heard the blast of the ram’s horn, the troops gave a great shout, and the wall collapsed. The troops advanced into the city, each man straight ahead, and they captured the city. They completely destroyed everything in the city with the sword—every man and woman, both young and old, and every ox, sheep, and donkey. Joshua said to the two men who had scouted the land, “Go to the prostitute’s house and bring the woman out of there, and all who are with her, just as you swore to her.” So the young men who had scouted went in and brought out Rahab and her father, mother, brothers, and all who belonged to her. They brought out her whole family and settled them outside the camp of Israel. They burned the city and everything in it, but they put the silver and gold and the articles of bronze and iron into the treasury of the Lord’s house. However, Joshua spared Rahab the prostitute, her father’s family, and all who belonged to her, because she hid the messengers Joshua had sent to spy on Jericho, and she still lives in Israel today.

Jericho is easy to miss as a salvation story, but it is. Salvation permeates this story because God Stories are Saturated with Salvation. I know it is easy to focus on the destruction of Jericho, but let’s take a moment to think about the larger implications of Rahab’s salvation. Rahab placed her faith in God because she heard of His might and care for His people. That same opportunity was given to everyone in Jericho and the land of Canaan, the promised land. They had generations of opportunities to do the same. All the way back in Genesis 15:13-16 God told Abraham, the generational father of all Israel, “‘You can be sure that your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land, where they will be oppressed as slaves for four hundred years. But I will punish the nation that enslaves them, and in the end, they will come away with great wealth. As for you, you will die in peace and be buried at a ripe old age. After four generations your descendants will return here to this land, for the sin of the Amorites does not yet warrant their destruction.’” Instead of seeking salvation, the Amorites, a representative group of the Canaanites, became more wicked. By the time of Joshua, their culture celebrated regular child sacrifices. Still, God gave a final opportunity to surrender and flee from the coming battle through the six days of marching.

As God told Abraham, judgment and destruction eventually come for all who choose not to listen and obey, but instead try to live their own way. This is the part of the story I don’t like and didn’t particularly want to talk about, but to skip it wouldn’t be faithful to the text. Verse 21 says, “They completely destroyed everything in the city with the sword—every man and woman, both young and old, and every ox, sheep, and donkey.” Knowing that God gave hundreds of years worth of opportunities for the people in the promised land to stop living evil, wicked, sinful lives doesn’t make it much easier to hear that everyone in the city was killed. This is an extremely complicated topic. While this raises tough questions that I don’t have all the answers to, here are some key things to consider.

We’ve already talked about God’s patience before He brought justice for the actions of these people, so here are three other things to think about. First, the conquest of Canaan happened in the context of God’s Divine Judgement. It was a specific, limited event in Israel’s history, that was never repeated. It is not indicative of an ongoing divine endorsement of violence. It was not ethnically motivated, as evidenced by Canaanites like Rahab and the Gibeonites integrating into Israel when they surrendered to God. Second, Biblical descriptions of total destruction often employ hyperbolic language. For instance, while Joshua 10 mentions there are no survivors in Hebron and Debir, later Joshua 15 indicates Canaanites still lived in these areas. Using hyperbole to demonstrate victory was a common practice in that time period. Finally, we have to square this with God’s character best seen in Jesus. While the conquest was part of Israel’s history, Jesus reveals that God’s ultimate plan is not war but peace. Rather than inflicting violence, Jesus took it upon Himself, demonstrating that God’s justice and love are fulfilled in His own sacrifice. Ultimately, while the conquest of Canaan is challenging, it must be seen within the larger biblical story of God’s patient justice and self-sacrifice to prevent judgment for any who accept His salvation.

Charlie Westbrook illustration? 71st birthday. Almost 15 years in assisted living because of health struggles. Before that served in vocational ministry. It would be easy to doubt and be bitter – but he is always full of joy and wisdom. Still pursues to know God deeper and to serve Him where he is.

Conclusion

The Book of Joshua is telling a true story, but it isn’t telling a story about Joshua. The book of Tyler tells a story too, but it isn’t about Tyler. The same is true of you. Instead, all the stories are about God. And God’s story is filled with worship that enables us to appreciate God fighting the battle for us. But we aren’t idle, He invites us to participate and join Him in His work of salvation.

Are you living in courageous surrender to God’s salvation? If not, what is holding you back? Come and speak with one of our ministry team members as the gathering ends in just a few minutes. If you have, what does it look like for you to worship God in gratitude for your salvation not just through songs on a Sunday, but through the way you live and speak every day? Where can you better listen for His voice through prayer or engaging scripture, whether that is alone or with others? Your story, like every story before it, is part of the greatest story ever told, the one God is telling. Today you get the chance to make your part a beautiful chapter worth telling by trusting Him and taking your next step.

Originally Preached 3/9/25