When Your Walls "Come a' Tumblin' Down" - Uncommon Courage

Everybody in this room has a Jericho.

What do I mean by that?

Well, I say that Jericho is whatever stands between you and what God wants to give you, and there's something that does.

There's something God wants to do in your life or through your life, and there is an obstacle.

Hello, Jericho.

We should be very interested.

And Josh fit the battle of Jericho and the walls come and tumbling down, because yours can too.

I want to find out about that.

Two kinds of Jerichos.

We're moving fast, folks.

Two kinds of Jerichos What is in front of you and one is inside you.

We're going to start with the Jericho inside you.

Then we'll talk about the Jericho in front of you.

And a strategy for bringing both down.

Because the book of Joshua, applied to our Jericho, shows us how we can overcome both.

Bold choice number five.

By the way, I'll give you a sneak preview.

Tomorrow morning, it's called A Legacy Light, Legacy Living.

And we're going to look at how Joshua, his strategy for getting the next generations to live for his God.

Because I think you've got next generations you want to have that happen with, don't you?

We're going to look at the strategy, the amazing Joshua strategy for trying to insure some eternity insurance for the next generations, whether you they're your own or others that you influence.

We'll talk about that tomorrow.

But right now, here's the bold choice tonight.

I will confront my strongholds.

I will confront them.

I will not leave them there.

I will by faith confront my strongholds.

Let's go to 2 Corinthians chapter 10, where we visit the word stronghold.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, and actually I'm going to list some of those for you in a few minutes.

The weapons of our warfare are not of this flesh, but divinely powerful. for the destruction, and the Greek word can either be fortress or stronghold, and my translation happens to say strongholds, but the destruction of fortresses or strongholds.

We are destroying, now this is what the strongholds are, speculations, and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God.

It's like these flesh fortresses that defy the control of Christ in your life.

And most of us have a fortress of flesh that's still defended against the Lordship of Christ.

And it's usually fairly subtle, because we got rid of the obvious stuff already, usually.

And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

The word uh stronghold, the Greek word Um means a uh a a fortified uh military stronghold A strong walled military fortification.

In other words, this is not going to go down easy The dictionary, what my definition is a well-fortified, largely unchallenged flesh fortress That keeps me from God's best.

This is the stronghold inside you.

And there are two dark forces that make our stronghold have a stronghold on our life.

Our husbanding, our wifing, our parenting, our our uh our judgment calls, our decisions, our temper, our attitudes.

First of all is untamed passions.

Untamed passions.

Let's look at verse 3 again.

Let's bring that one up again.

We uh walk in the flesh.

We do not war according to the flesh.

The flesh is the Greek word is sarx, and we know that if you go over to Galatians chapter 5, and we will, we see that Walk by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh that is always wanting what the enemy wants us to have.

For the flesh sets us desire against the spirit.

And the spirit said to So how many of you know this war?

Are you familiar with this war between the spirit and the flesh inside of you?

I am how many times a day does my flesh Tell me to do one thing and the spirits tell me to do something else.

These are in opposition to one another, so you may not do the things that you please.

You're pretty much in the battle between these two.

Untamed passions , let me think about some of those.

The passion for attention for recognition.

I do my life to be noticed, to try to get significant It's an untamed passion.

It's not like a drug addiction or I'm addicted to drugs or or I'm shoplifting or I'm beating somebody up.

It's more subtle than that.

It's structural.

It's systemic.

That I have this untamed desire that defects so much what I do that's trying to get the focus on me.

Or to get even.

The drive to even the score with people who've hurt us.

Or the wandering eyes That spend too long checking her out and looking where we shouldn't look.

Remember what brought Aiken down.

He just saw, and then he wanted And then he took, and then he hid, and then he paid.

Maybe the stronghold of untamed passions is more money, more stuff?

More approval.

Some of us are approval junkies.

And we're trying to get everybody to punch our to validate our ticket.

Hey, am I okay?

I'm okay?

Like me?

Like all these likes on Facebook.

Hilarious.

Um Hey, I got I got 10,000 friends.

Yeah.

Why do you need something, baby?

Okay, we'll see what kind of friends there.

So unt perhaps there is in you a stronghold of an untamed passion.

Maybe it's a deep-seated anger that comes out even to people who really didn't do anything, but your glass is full from stuff in the past and you've never emptied out your your your glass and so the stuff from the past keeps spilling when somebody just puts a drop in it And the person who was the last one to put a drop in it is the one who gets the blast from you.

Untamed passions, stronghold.

Now, another dark force that makes our stronghold so strong is wrong ways of thinking.

And you see the 2nd Corinthians said that basically a stronghold is a wrong way of thinking.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God.

When you get into the Greek, it's basically, well, I'm thinking wrong about something.

Well, what would be some of those things?

Well, um I I've listed some that I just, from my experience in ministry, are very common.

First of all, my trust in human solutions Many of us, without realizing it, our our real trust, uh certainly our theology is our trust in God, but our default position is to trust a human way to get it done.

I'd suggest to you that most of us Though we say we trust God, trust in the five powerless peas.

Are you ready?

These are what I think are some of our weapons of the flesh.

Programs?

Personalities.

Actually, I got six.

I just birthed one.

I just thought of one.

Okay.

Programs.

Personalities.

Persuasion.

Promotion?

Politics or planning?

That's kind of where we go.

We s we we we pray, but our trust is often in a program to get it done or a personality. persuasion, promotion, politics, or planning.

I'm with King David.

King David said, some trust in chariots.

Everybody in the Middle East militarily did.

Some trust in chariots, some in horses.

Not me.

No, we trust in, I trust in the name of the Lord my God.

Did you ever hear the next verse?

I never noticed it until I looked at it again this afternoon.

They, that is the people who trust in horses and chariots, are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.

If you got your trust in the right place It's not going down with an election.

It's not going down when the program doesn't get it done.

Where's our trust really?

It's a stronghold if you keep reverting, you think, human solutions.

Did David burn his chariots?

Did he sell his horses?

I think he kept them.

He just didn't depend on them.

Or I think maybe perhaps we are one of our strongholds is wrong thinking about those who've hurt me.

The people who've hurt me.

Some of us carry that very deeply in us.

Rachel's going to come up here in just a minute because she has a story to tell you about this.

But as she does, I want to take you to God's word.

Hebrews 12. 15 is a very sobering verse because of the way it starts.

Hebrews 12.

15 It says, see to it that no one falls short of the grace of God.

Well for heaven's sake.

I don't want that.

How do I miss the grace of God?

I'm nothing without that.

Here's how.

You let a bitter root grow up.

To cause trouble and defile many.

Did you know that bitterness and grace cannot coexist in the same heart?

Either bitterness pushes out grace or grace pushes out bitterness.

Which is it for you?

And some of us have seriously wounded, as many of our on Eagles Rings warriors have.

We still carry that, and we keep replaying the video Why do we watch a video we hate over and over again?

When Colossians 3. 13 says this Bear with each other.

It doesn't say be a bear with each other.

It says bear with each other and forgive one another.

If any of you has a grievance against someone, read the next part out loud with me.

Forgive, oh boy, as the Lord forgave you.

That means I do not treat you the way you treated me, I treat you the way Jesus treated me.

Oh my goodness.

That's humanly impossible.

That takes bringing down a stronghold with spiritual weapons.

And that stronghold is brought down by forgiveness.

Rachel, come on up.

Any of you ever been in a three-legged race?

It's the dumbest thing.

Sunday school picnic.

Everybody's a klutz.

I'm on level ground in a three-legged race.

Because everybody's dumb and looks like a fool doing it.

You know how they tie your leg to somebody else's leg in case you've missed this thrill.

I don't don't uh look forward to it.

And you're going straight and you're running like this, you know, and you're you're trying to get up speed and look cool and not spastic and you can't you get you know what you're never gonna run full speed as long as you're tied to somebody else you know what unforgiveness does Ties you to the person you can't stand.

It ties you to the last person you want to be thinking about.

And you'll never be able to run full speed as long as that stronghold, your Jericho, is in place Rachel, this is a battle she has fought and by God's grace has won.

And I asked her to just briefly tonight draw some hope from her story.

Rachel?

Um yeah, just like Ron was saying, I this has been a long battle I think ever since I met Ron, um way a long time ago, I'm not gonna say.

Um but um I Okay.

I experienced a lot of uh physical and fix physical abuse from my own mother.

And a lot of you know my story of how as a young girl my mom would grab me by my hair uh pull me across the room, tell me things like you'll never be anything, you'll never amount to nothing, and I wish you would die.

And growing up hearing that every single time from my own mother And experiencing a lot of the hurt and the pain that was caused through my own mother, and later on in my life I um actually my yeah long story short, my mom met a boy f her boyfriend and I really trusted him.

I really grown to trust him as a father, but in return he he betrayed me.

And at the age of 16 I was sexually molested by him And that changed that changed my whole that changed me.

And I I cried about it a little bit because I remember the pain But I also remember the victory because of my choice, because the spirit leading me, because my flesh was like Go hurt him, go hate him, go, you know, go do this or do that to him, but God really saw my heart and called me to obedience through his spirit and telling me you need to forgive him.

And so uh growing up on the Navajo reservations, you're not to talk about your pain.

You're not to talk about Your bitterness, you don't have to talk about anything of those things.

You're a prideful person, you need to hold your shoulders up and you deal with it.

And so I I grew up like that and uh I actually it's been a long process with with Ron and Mama Hutch.

Um one of the biggest things that when I when I fully forgave my mom and I said, you know mom, you've hurt me.

You've done this and that, you've done horrible things to me, but I looked her in the eye and I said, I have forgiven you.

And she sat there and she didn't know how to take it, and the whole time I was praying, praying.

And something happened in her heart And uh looking back before Mama Hutch had passed away, Mama Hutch had really helped me through this process where I remember I woke up and I got a phone call and uh it was my little sister had told me that my abuser had died.

And I didn't know how to feel, I was angry, I was thankful, and I had so many feelings about it, and I said, Lord I don't want this to be about me.

I have forgiven him.

Now show me how to deal with this.

And so My mom had been completely excluded from our family because of her choice to stay with him.

My my sisters, my brother, they made the choice to not talk to her, basically push her out And so during that time I had to take time away from all of that and say, God, I need your healing.

I need your, I need you.

And so during that time I had I received a lot of um healing from him.

And actually my mom was by herself at his funeral.

And nobody was there, nobody was there for her because they knew what had happened.

And God has spoken to me about this.

Was like, you need to be there And I was like, God, you want me to be there at that man's funeral?

And I thought that was crazy, and I was like, that's not, I'm not ever gonna do that But thankfully through the praying and through Mama Hajj and Ron, because of those steps of forgiveness that I first took, it's been a long road.

But through that process, when I've when my flesh wanted to hate and wanted to do things, but when I was faithful, when I was obedient.

The interesting thing is through this whole process, my whole family members, all my sisters and my brother have really accepted Christ into their life.

And some of you have have met them on the team And now my mother is currently pursuing God herself.

Woohoo. touches any part of your life, ask Rachel to pray with you.

You'll be glad you did.

She'll understand.

You won't have to say much.

Let's talk about a few of these other ways of wrong thinking, about satisfying my sexual desires.

That's another stronghold, and it's a stronghold.

Proverbs 5.

15.

Let's look at these verses in Proverbs real quick.

Drink water from your own cistern That means your lifetime love.

Drink water from your own cistern, running water from your own well.

Don't go anywhere else May your fountain be blessed.

By the way, certain commands of Scripture are very challenging to follow.

Some are more are easy to follow, this is one of them.

Rejoice in the wife of your youth.

A loving doe, a graceful dear, may her breast satisfy you always.

May you ever be intoxicated with her love.

That's a little easier one, I think.

Some people are like God talks like that?

Does he know about this?

He made this.

Yeah, he knows all about it The evil deeds of the wicked man ensnare them.

The cords, this is talking about sex, the cords of their sin hold them fast.

For lack of discipline they will die, led astray by their own great folly.

Let me just say this.

We had a fireplace in our house in New Jersey.

Our kids loved it when I built a fire in that Brad especially, a little pyro, he really enjoyed where we had the fun.

And um so uh if I had a hard time getting the family together in a house, all I do is turn down the thermostat It got kind of chilly in the house, built a fire, they all somehow gravitated the fireplace.

That was very shrewd.

And well and Brad Brad's room was upstairs.

He did love he really did love a a fire in the house.

What if he came, what if I came home one day while he was still living at home and I smelled smoke upstairs and I said, Brad, what are you doing?

He says, well Dad, you know I love that fire in the fireplace.

I put one in my room.

Houston, we have a problem.

There's a fireplace in his room.

You see fire in the fireplace where it belongs will warm your life.

Fire outside the fireplace.

You'll get burned.

You get it?

The way the King James puts it is Let her satisfy you.

You make a choice.

She will always be enough.

I'm not going to look anywhere else I'm not going to let my desire or my eyes go anywhere else.

That's a whole way of thinking that is a strong hold Or about my marriage.

Maybe wrong thinking about your marriage.

Ephesians 5, 22 and 25.

I always call this the elbow passage of scripture.

You know, if you're with your your spouse, you go, yay.

This is for you.

Are you listening right now?

You taking notes.

What's really nice is because one verse later it's going, well you better listen.

This is for you.

Nobody listens for themselves, you listen for the other one.

Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands.

Do I see any elbows?

You as you as you do to the Lord.

And then husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church, and literally laid his life down, poured out his life for her.

It's not going to be hard to submit to a man who is making a woman feel that safe, that's for sure.

So we get kind of get mixed up on our marriage roles and Malachi chapter 2 is Ormalachi for the Jersey folks.

Another thing you do, you flood the Lord's altar with tears.

You weep and wail.

He's not listening.

Nothing's getting through.

What is this?

I'm at the altar.

I'm at the altar.

I'm weeping.

He no longer looks with favor on your offerings.

He doesn't accept them with pleasure from your hands.

Like I'm doing everything right.

I'm doing all the spiritual stuff.

What's the problem here?

Then he tells the problem.

You ask why?

It is because the Lord is the witness between you and the wife of your youth.

You've been unfaithful to her, though she's your partner.

The wife of your marriage covenant.

See there was another witness that didn't sign the marriage license.

See, God was a witness at your at your wedding.

And you may have forgotten your vows, but he hasn't.

He still thinks you mean those or should.

Should listen to your wedding vows and see what you promised every once in a while.

Because as far as God's concerned, that was a contract with him.

And anything less than that, he says, I got a problem with you because you're not doing what you said you would do with her or with him.

So the guy who married us was a wonderful brother's president of Youth for Christ at the time, and he didn't do marriage counseling We made it anyway somehow.

I I I believe in marriage counseling.

But um he uh as we're about to leave the church he says, oh Ron, he said, I feel so bad.

Your life's so busy, my life's so busy, we didn't do marriage counseling, I'm sorry He said, but I have, he said, I'll just leave you with three words before you go.

Tonight and every time and every day of your life from now on.

This is my marriage counseling Put her first.

In her case, put him first.

How you doing on that?

That's a pretty good summary.

If you only got three words, do marriage counseling.

Who's who you putting first?

Wrong thinking about your anxieties.

Wrong thinking about your anxieties.

Philippians 4, 6 and 7.

You know, Jesus, you are disobeying.

You are breaking a direct command of Jesus.

Do not worry, do not worry, do not worry, he says three times in Matthew 6.

How are you doing on that one?

It's not on the list of the dirty dozen sins, but it's in the s it's one of the do-nots.

Do not be anxious about anything.

How are we doing?

But in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

What are you doing with this?

God's got this.

What do you got it for?

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

You do the holy handoff.

You know, I've told you before that we had this great mechanic who would work on our vehicle, Dave, uh, and um and I could I could take it to him and say, Dave, the brakes are squealing and the the transmission doesn't seem to be shifting quite right.

Um And uh uh um it doesn't always start right away in the morning.

So uh uh and he's writing all that down, he says, okay, good, and then I drive away.

I'm going, doggone it, this transmission still isn't working right and and and the brakes are still squealing and and um what kind of a mechanic is this?

I told them everything was wrong with it.

You say, well you dummy You can't just tell them about it, you have to leave it with them.

You say, well, I prayed about it.

Yeah, you told them about it.

If you walked into the throne room of God like this, carrying this thing, and you walk out like this You like me driving away and leaving taking the car from the mechanic and just telling them what I needed what it needed done Wrong thinking about my anxieties that I gotta fix everything is a stronghold.

Or about your value, my value.

Where do you get your value from?

Is it your performance?

Do you perform to be worth something?

Many of us do.

A lot of us are pleasers, firstborns.

I speak for myself especially.

Some of you have had a hard time believing you're worth what God says you're worth.

You are God's workmanship, Ephesians 2.

10.

Each of my grandchildren, I said this to them at the hour of their birth, basically.

I held them in my arms and I said, you are God's workmanship.

Created in Christ Jesus, for good works God prepared in advance for you to do.

And they all remember that vividly.

I do.

Galatians 1.

10.

Now, am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God?

Or am I trying to please people?

If I were still trying to please people, well this is strong.

I wouldn't be the servant of Christ.

If I'm a people pleaser, I'm not a Jesus pleaser.

Whoa!

What's the other verse?

We've got another verse here Yeah.

Because you are his sons, God.

You know what?

I think I've got the wrong.

That's nice.

It's a great verse.

The spirit who calls out Abba Father.

Oh, and in him you have been made complete King James, you are complete in him.

There is nothing anybody else can do to add to your worth.

No one on earth gave you your worth and no one on earth can take it away.

Did you get that?

No one on earth gave you your worth.

You got it when you were conceived.

And no one on earth can take it away from you.

No no no critic, no abuser, no, no uh attacker, no nothing.

Um anybody like my $20 bill?

Dave, would you like my $20 bill?

It's a little rough in the construction business these days, right?

You want some?

Well, wait a minute.

Really?

After this?

You know where the shoe has been?

I don't okay.

You wanna?

Not too sure.

You're not too sure?

You would take it.

If I walked down there and handed it to you, you would still take it.

I don't even want to hold it anymore.

You know why?

Because no matter how it's been treated, it's still worth as much.

So are you.

And you may have been you may have been crushed, mistreated.

You 're stomped on, and you're still worth everything your creator built into you when you made you.

That stronghold of what you've thought about your value has got to come down because the lies about it have dominated your life.

The walls we build around our Jericho stronghold, they stay there because we rationalize it, we excuse it.

We blame somebody else, we compartmentalize it, and just kind of put it over here somewhere.

We deny it, we compensate for it.

We got to get rid of that stronghold.

Did you see the Lord of the Rings trilogy at all?

I don't know if you did.

But there's this really weird character named Gollum.

And you know, they've got the the ring, which has all the whoever has it has the power, but the problem is the power has them And the power he he turns from a normal person into this monstrous being as it goes on the law.

Oh he's got the ring. and he won't let go of it and it's destroying him and he just he just goes he just goes it's my you remember my precious I do that pretty well, don't I?

I can it's a little scary that I could do that that well.

This is my precious.

Some of us have a precious.

A stronghold is destroying you slowly but surely, but you will not let it go It has a strong hold on you.

So how do you demolish that stronghold?

Let me give you a quick action plan.

Get honest.

1 John 1.

9 It says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just who will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

Confess.

Homo, legeo, homo, same, legeo, word.

You call it what God calls it.

You say the same word as God does.

You don't excuse it, you don't put a nice little word on it and soften the blow.

What God calls it, you call it.

You name the sin, what God calls it, and first of all, you get honest about it and quit excusing it and dressing it up or rationalizing it uh or somehow making it go it's dressed up sin.

Secondly get desperate.

Romans 7 24, listen to Paul.

He says, what a wretched man I am.

Who will rescue me from this body?

that is subject to death.

Remember he kept saying, the good I want to do, I don't do, the bad I want to I don't want to do, I do, and all of that.

He's gotten desperate for rescue.

When we we hadn't moved to Harrison yet, but we drove down there in an old van that we had, and it got as far it we we'd had probably on the hills going uh going there uh getting there and we got as far as um the intersection where Taco Bell is there in town.

And um and suddenly it just started smoking uh and and uh and it and I mean it just came to a uh total it was dead.

It died right there at the stoplight.

Well you you you know Dave who is a mechanic who used to have that place right there.

Well Dave Dave's Christian guy and he knew me from radio I guess and so he had a toad over there and he's and I said well can you fix this?

He said Uh no, he said, um it's gonna have to have a whole new engine.

I'm like, and that's how much?

And he said, that's that's two thousand dollars.

Okay, um what shall we sell?

We can't do this.

We can't go anywhere.

And we can't pay for this.

Next couple of days God did a miracle.

And Christian people in that community just kept coming to him and giving them money.

That's the kind of town we're in.

And that thing was paid for by God's people.

But the only way that we could really get and we could we had a more powerful vehicle than we'd ever had and we drove out.

But you know what it took to get that?

It had to be broken for it to be fixed So do you.

And for many of us, the stronghold will not go down until we allow God to break us over it.

Because when you're broken, he can pour everything into that brokenness.

Get desperate.

God, I'm done with this.

I hate this part of me.

Get back up.

Get back up.

Ecclesiastes 4.

Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.

Pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.

A court of three strands. and not quickly broken.

In other words, you've got to get somebody to help you, hold you accountable.

Maybe your spouse.

Honey, I need you.

I cannot win this battle alone.

I've got to have you in this with me.

Maybe you you need it to swallow your pride and see a counselor to get free of this and get healed.

Get some backup.

Get scripture.

Ephesians chapter 6.

Sword of the Spirit.

Part of the armor of God.

The sword of the Spirit, the next verse says in verse 17, is the Word of God That's a spiritual weapon that brings down a you need to memorize scripture about your stronghold.

Get a concordance, find the verses, and every day You just keep saying those.

If you can't remember them, read them out loud, put them somewhere, put them on the mirror in the bathroom, put them in the car, somewhere, wherever, and just Keep saying it to yourself, to God, and to Satan.

Keep saying scripture.

That is spiritual weapons.

Against that stronghold.

And then get away.

2 Timothy 2. 22 says.

Fight the evil desires of youth.

If your Bible says that, you need to get another one.

It doesn't say fight them.

It says flee them.

Don't even get close to what makes you that way.

Get away.

Um I hope that helps.

That's a fast forward, but um and by the way, once you've broken to a stronghold Take a cue from Joshua chapter 6.

Look at what he did with his Jericho.

Then he burned the whole city and everything in it.

Don't let your stronghold get be rebuilt again.

Once it's broken, don't give it a chance to rise again.

I mean, Joshua said, it ain't going to never be a Jericho again.

I'm going to make sure of it.

And you know what happens when the wall comes down?

Well, we talked about it this morning, Acts 3.

19.

Repent and turn to God.

And your sins are wiped out and the times of refreshing come from the Lord.

I don't know if you've ever confronted that systemic dark part of you with a real strategy of spiritual weapons to fight it.

You may not win it by tomorrow morning, but get started in the battle.

Your Jericho's got to go down.

Because you got to tear down the stronghold because it's the key to going into the promised land.

See if Joshua can't get rid of Jericho, he can't get the promised land.

It's the big fortress standing in the way.

You can't get any farther in your promised land until the stronghold goes down.

Now let's talk about the other stronghold.

The stronghold in front of you.

We got the one inside you and the one in front of you.

That's Look at what it says.

In a major step of faith, if you're taking any major step of faith or obedience in your life, there is a Jericho blocking the way.

Joshua shows us what can bring down those walls.

Number one, blank paper.

Your number one way to bring it down is blank paper.

Joshua 5, 14.

Look at this.

Joshua is outside Jericho.

He's looking up at 46-foot high walls.

He asks the suddenly the commander of the army of the Lord is in front of him with a drawn sword.

Most theologians believe This was a pre-Bethlehem appearance of the very Son of God, a Christophany.

And when because the reason we think the angel of the Lord, the commander of the Lord's army was actually the one who would come and be Jesus is because he this angel accepted worship and no angel accept worship.

They wouldn't.

So we believe that this was Jesus and Joshua, Jesus and Yeshua.

Commander of the army of the Lord, I've now come.

I'm not on your side and I'm not on their side.

That must have been disconcerting.

Then Joshua fell face down to the ground in reverence And asked him, what message does my Lord have for his servant?

Notice this.

I'm sure that Joshua, when he said, Whose side are you on?

Was hoping he would say, well, I'm on yours, of course.

You're God's people.

God doesn't come to take sides, he comes to take over.

You know how you which you first thing you gotta do to get your Jericho, whatever in the way, out of the way, is you gotta give God a blank piece of paper and tear up your contract.

You give them a blank piece of paper and say, whatever you're gonna do, what message does my Lord have for his servant?

Most of us come to God with a contract and say, God, not I really want you would you just and I uh well whatever you want, but I do just make sure that I don't have to and make sure that there's and uh uh you can and then would you just sign right here, G O D?

No, you sign a blank piece of paper and give it to him.

Blank paper.

That was how Joshua got his answer, first of all.

Secondly Unseen armies.

Oh, I love this.

Commander of the army of the Lord.

Do you know that 280 times in the Bible God is called the Lord of armies, angel armies.

Remember Elijah?

You know that story.

His servant and they've got the Syrian army's coming to surround and take him in.

He's got a whole army versus one guy, and his servant Gehazi is going.

Uh we're done.

We're cooked and and in the in the Hebrew toast.

And then then uh got and and and Elijah said, look around.

There's an army, a whole army out there.

He's like, I don't see anything He says, we are surrounded by an angel army.

Change the whole course of events.

Joshua, you know what?

I think they knocked down the walls.

I think the angel army is who knocked down the walls.

He said, I'm the commander of the Lord's army and I have showed up for your battle.

Realize this that that army of the Lord surrounds you and will show up to accompany to accomplish the agenda of Jesus.

Well you know what that means?

When you calculate the odds of that Jericho moving, you really can't calculate the odds.

Because there's no way to calculate the unseen army's impact on your battle.

When you go to the Battle of David and Goliath, it wasn't much of a battle, and little Goliath comes in with his uh little little Goliath, yeah, that's right.

Um, when David comes in with his little slingshot and his rocks And Goliath has got his javelin and this nine-foot monster is there that has defied an entire army and this little guy comes along.

He comes and um and and he he just It says he ran to the battle.

He ran to the battle.

He ran at Goliath.

And he said, I come in the name Of the Lord Almighty, the Lord of armies.

Not these cowards, not these chickens back here.

They got a chicken coop called the Israeli army.

No, he said, you can't see who I'm coming with.

You can't see him.

But I come from in the name of the Lord of armies.

You have got a force in your equation that cannot be equated.

Unseen armies a major major factor in a in a in a stronghold going down.

Look it says they totally invert every human calculation.

Number three is divine orders.

Divine orders.

When Joshua gives him Instead of a contract, if it's on a blank piece of paper, says whatever you want, well, what happens is he gets his orders.

Look.

And they probably what would he expect?

March around the city once with all the R men.

Do this for six days.

And then they're gonna play the trumpet and it's gonna be so bad it's gonna make the walls fall down.

No, what is this Horns and and marching is going to bring down the walls.

It's an unusual strategy, but he gives him the plan, and that obviously brings about the miracle.

Uh when Brad was um Uh he loves it when I'm hear he hears his name.

He knows it's gonna be very nice.

Um but when Brad was in junior high, you understand were any of you like the third in line in your family?

You had a couple sibs ahead of you.

Okay.

Well, you know that it's very hard to get moms and dads attention.

You're like third in line, and the older brother and sister really are really good at getting the attention, occupy all the attention And so by the time you get around they get around to you, you're like you might as well figure it out yourself.

So you become a planner.

Brad turns out as he grows up to be a tremendous mission strategist.

That's because he was third in line and had to figure out figure out the plan for himself.

He come to us in junior high.

He said, I want to go to the mall tonight.

But and he he we're we're all ready to go.

No, no, he goes Uh Mrs.

Gazudi is going to drive and she's going to chaperone us and she's going to pick us up at 9 o'clock and I'm going with the following list of friends.

And he gives us the whole rundown.

I said, have you asked the friends?

Yes, we're all lined up, ready to go.

He had learned from watching what his brothers and sisters were gonna know for how to plan a bulletproof plan.

Except we say no to him, we're saying no to seven people.

Very nice.

What are you laughing about, Lisa?

You learned it from your mistakes.

Well, you know, a lot of people come to God like that.

They got the plan all done.

They just want him to bless it.

Especially those of us who are planners by gift and by instinct.

You don't make your plans and then consult God.

You wait for his orders and I can tell you you follow God's strategy whether it makes sense or not and it probably won't. it probably will not seem to you like it will seem like an inadequate response to the size of the walls Marching and playing the horn does not seem like a proportionate response to the walls of Jericho.

But you do it the way God says it.

George Mueller said, when it seemed impossible that help could come, help did come.

For God has his own resources.

He is not confined.

In 10,000 different ways and at 10,000 different times, God may help us.

Just remember to get your orders from the Lord and then whatever he says.

Act on his plan.

Now number four goes right with that.

Crazy obediences.

I know maybe that's a dumb way to put it, but it I mean that was a crazy obedience.

Chapter 6 again, verse 15.

Look On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak, marched around the city seven times in the same manner, except that on that day they circled the city seven times.

That's how we got.

Okay.

So you know that's the strategy.

It's crazy.

You gotta ever can you picture being them And you've got, I don't know if they're all doing it, if there's a million people traipsing around, that takes a little while for people to get around there and to march around the city and you're like This is it are we actually uh winning?

You can imagine the the derision from the walls.

I mean the Canaanites are probably like, this this is really an impressive army.

Here they go again They just walk around all day long, keep walking, walking, walking.

How is walking going to bring down a wall, for heaven's sake?

Well, that was a crazy obedience, but um then they shouted The walls came down.

Um I have I hope I have this quote.

It is really uh oh man.

Uh it it basically um I think it was from Hudson Taylor or somebody, but he said, uh did the shout bring down the walls?

No.

But if they didn't shout, would the walls have come down?

No.

See It isn't that what we do creates the miracle.

But if we don't do what he tells us to do, the miracle doesn't happen.

It's all through the Bible He says to the guys, Jesus says to the guys at the wedding feast, he says, bring out the water pots.

Now, fill the water pots with water.

How is this going to help a wine situation?

Well, they do what he said.

And Mary, who's lived with this boy for 30 years, she gives a very simple she whispers to the guys with the pot, she says, um, do whatever he tells you I'm his mother, I know.

Do whatever he tells you.

Because she's learned after 30 years, it may not make sense.

I don't know.

Filling water pots with water is gonna help us have wine But they did what they could do, and Jesus did what only he could do.

When they get to the feeding of the 5,000, he says, he doesn't just suddenly poof make bread and fish.

He could He says, go find a lunch.

They're like, what are we gonna do?

Send them home, Jesus.

This is terrible.

They're gonna have a food riot on our hands.

He said, uh go find some for go find a lunch Okay, is this gonna go find a lunch is gonna do something for 5,000 people?

They find a lunch.

Then he says, now I want you to have them sit down in groups of 50.

Wait a minute, we're gonna organize them for a picnic With one lunch?

We're good all we're doing is creating expectations here.

They're gonna kill us.

We have we have a sandwich for y'all right here.

One sandwich.

Then he says, I want you to start handing it out.

That had to be a hoot.

I just okay.

We got one little Two little, three little.

And the the there's a I love God's sense of humor.

Did you know?

After they're all done, everybody says we're stuffed.

It says he told them to pick up the leftovers.

You know how many baskets of leftovers there were?

One for each disciple.

It was like No no no no.

It's kind of like every one of them walks away with leftovers like uh wow do you notice Did did finding one lunch do the miracle?

No.

Did sitting them down do it?

No.

Did handing out food do it?

No.

But if they don't do the crazy obedience. .

The miracle doesn't happen.

You do what God asks you to do.

It will not be enough to get the job done.

But you be faithful in what he tells you to do.

And if it's a crazy obedience, crazy obey.

And let him do the rest.

This is how Jericho's come down.

Throughout God's word, miracles happen to a synergy of divinely prescribed human effort And humanly impossible divine intervention.

And then patient faith.

Patient faith We saw them and we won't go to the scriptures, but you know, marching around, marching around, marching around.

One lady, one lady who could not come, but sent me her promise.

She said her promise was Galatians 6.

9.

She's in the pregnancy care ministry.

And she wrote to me and she wrote me her promise And she said, this is my promise, because this is a hard work.

We see little fruit.

The society doesn't want us to do what we're doing.

She said, it's really hard.

Her verse is Galatians 6. 9, which we have.

Let us not become weary in doing good for our proper time.

We will reap.

That's your promise you hang everything on.

We will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

That's a great promise.

Patient faith means this.

When the stronghold isn't moving, when the thing blocking you from the thing God wants to give you isn't going down, you keep marching.

And keep marching.

And keep marching.

And go around another time.

It's going down.

But you're going to have to have patient faith.

And then really the kind of the end of the stronghold story for Jericho is God's glory.

Joshua 6 says That this is going to be the bottom line.

You're going to shout for the Lord has given you the city after the trumpet blast.

It goes on to say that this has happened for two reasons.

One That the lost people will know that the Lord is God, and secondly, so his people will reverence the Lord their God.

In other words He said, the reason I'm going to do this is so they will know and you will bow.

They will know and you will bow.

When I do this miracle, the lost people will know I am the Lord, and you, my people, are going to bow in reverence to me.

That's the purpose of the miracle, not just to get walls out of the way.

It's to bring God ultimate glory.

By the way, there's two way two words for horn trumpet in the in the Bible in the New Old Testament and one Hebrew word is the silver trumpet that summons you to battle.

The other one is the shofar, the ram's horn, that summons you to worship.

Guess which one is the which the one they used?

They didn't use the the battle trumpet.

They used the worship trumpet Because the whole point of Jericho wasn't about walls coming down, wasn't about meeting your need, getting that thing taken care of in your life.

The whole point of it was to bring worship to God.

That's always the point of a miracle.

So let me wrap up by telling you where the battle for Jericho is won before the battle of Jericho is won.

Joshua 5. 14 is the answer.

Look.

It says Joshua fell face down on the ground in reverence.

There's a lot of examples in the Bible of men being face down before the Lord.

Joshua was.

Solomon says was face down before the Lord because he had a job bigger than he could do.

Maybe you do Moses was faced down before the Lord because he had a load that he said was overwhelming.

Elijah was faced down before the Lord because he was challenging darkness head on.

The Apostle John was face down before the Lord because he saw Jesus as he'd never seen him before.

You know what's significant about that?

I was speaking to the Cove when I talked about this one time.

Man came up to me and said, Ron, I've got a black belt in four martial arts.

I said, I have a black belt too.

But this was different.

I didn't earn mine.

And I thought, man, four martial arts.

I can't even name four martial arts.

And he said, um He said, Ron, you know, I can defend myself from every position, any position I'm in, except one.

Face down Because I'm powerless.

If I'm face down.

Can't do a thing to defend myself.

You know what was going on here?

General Joshua was having to give up control And render himself powerless before the commander of the army of the Lord.

In other words, the general who always won Had to surrender to win.

So do you Face down means you have surrendered your most deeply entrenched stronghold.

Control.

We are controllers.

And you have no control when you're face down before the Lord.

Bottom line, before the conquest of Jericho must come the conquest of Joshua Before the conquest of your stronghold, must come the conquest of you.

And the walls of your Jericho will start to crack when God sees your white flag Let's pray.

Lord, what a marvelous uh picture from your word.

I'm pretty sure I was right at the beginning.

Everyone in this room has their Jericho.

And when we come to that, we must hear your echoing command.

Be strong and courageous.

Hazakamatz, be strong, courageous, do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go, and I will drive them out before you.

Only be careful to obey every word.

I pray, Lord, that you would give my friends and my brothers here tonight and myself.

Courage, uncommon courage, against what seems like something that has will never move.

A hard heart.

A wound.

Opposition critics, no money to get it done.

A lifetime of allowing a dark corner in our life that has poisoned our attitudes and our relationships. and our and and and limited our our our experience of you.

So it is a bold choice, Lord, to say I will confront my stronghold.

And I will no longer tolerate it standing in the way of what God wants to give me.

I pray, Lord, that for someone in this room, their Jericho will start to crack tonight.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you.