You set your love on us. You chose us. You said to us, “You will be my child.” And thank you, Lord, for that adoption, for making us your own, for sending your son, the firstborn from the dead, Jesus, our Lord, to die and rise for our sins, to rescue us. We’re eternally grateful and we pray that you would open our hearts and minds this morning that we might hear something powerful from your word.

Lord, we didn’t come just to go to church. We came to encounter you. We pray in your son’s mighty name. Amen. Good morning.

You may be seated. Well, we are in the series called Battle Ready looking at the book of Joshua. I was talking with a good friend of mine just recently who was telling me just a little bit about his story. He was saying how hard sometimes it is to live faithfully for Jesus and his workplace and the decisions he has to make and he does not want to compromise his faithfulness, but it’s hard. And the the exact words he said were, “It’s a battle.

It’s a battle.” And maybe you can relate to that. Maybe you can sense in your own life there’s times where it feels like there’s a lot up against you that the enemy wants to squeeze you into the world’s mold and and it feels like you’re oppressed. It feels like you’re being attacked. You know, the devil wants to play off our weariness.

And a lot of times it’s it’s when we’re most faithful to the Lord, when we’re most seeking after him that sometimes he will come after us. We see this in the book of Joshua that there’s a battle to be had. But thank God we have the victory in our Lord Jesus Christ. The tomb is empty. So if you do have your Bibles, go and open to Joshua chapter five.

Joshua chapter 5. Paul famously puts this war, this real war that we’re all engaged in the right terms. He says this in Ephesians chapter 6. For we are not fighting against flesh and blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world and against evil spirits in the heavenly places. And then he says this, “Therefore, put on every piece of God’s armor so you will be able to resist the enemy in the time of evil.

Then after the battle, you will be standing firm.” And the first piece of the armor, the equipment that we’re to put on is the belt of truth. Because apart from truth, we have nothing to stand on. We have the truth. God has given us the truth of his word.

And without the truth, we can’t be prepared against the devil’s lies. So, here’s the big idea we’re going to see this morning. Because when you prepare for battle, you want to know who are you living for? Who or what are you living for? And then whatever you give your heart to is your functional Lord and Savior.

That’s what we’re going to see here. So, if you would please stand for the reading of God’s holy and perfect word if you’re able to. And we do this because we’re coming under the authority of God and we’re acknowledging we need to hear from God. It’s not enough to get man’s opinion. We need to hear from God himself.

So, this is from Joshua chapter 5. This is what it says. As soon as the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the Lord had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over. Their hearts melted, and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel. At that time, the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel a second time.”

So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibth Harle. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them. All the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war had died in the wilderness on the way out of Egypt on the way after they came out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they came out of Egypt had not been circumcised. For the people of Israel walked 40 years in the wilderness until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt perished because they did not obey the voice of the Lord.

The Lord swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the Lord had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So it was their children whom he raised up in their place that Joshua circumcised, for they were uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. And the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the people of Israel were encamped at Gilgal, they kept the Passover on the 14th day of the month in the evening on the plains of Jericho. Go and jump down to verse 13. When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked. And behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?”

And he said, “No, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord. Now I have come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my Lord say to his servant?” And the commander of the Lord’s army said to Joshua, “Take off your sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.

Thank you. You may be seated. So God has promised the nation of Israel the land of Canaan. For the last 40 long years, they’ve been wandering in the desert. They’ve been enduring the heat and the barren wasteland.

But now God tells them, they finally come to this time. They’ve crossed over the Jordan and God tells them the time is now to go in and take the land, this land of plenty, land flowing with milk and honey. It’s for you, he says, and Joshua will lead you in. I was thinking about that phrase, a land flowing with milk and honey. So apparently, if there’s a lot of milk and a lot of honey, there must be a lot of cows and bees in this land, too.

But I don’t think it has the same ring to say a land with lots of cows and bees. So, it’s the land flowing with milk and honey. But God tells them, “There are wicked nations in this land, and you are going to drive them out. They have defiled the land.” That’s what God says to them.

This is why you’re going in. God basically tells them, “If you will obey my word, I’ll give you everything. Everything in this land is yours. It’s your inheritance because you belong to me.” But God does have one requirement before they take the land.

The men need to go under the knife now. To our modern ears, requiring circumcision at this point sounds a bit bizarre. Right? But this time, at this time at least, it was a sign that marked God’s people out. It was what Abraham had been told by God.

He said,”Abraham, all of your descendants are to be circumcised. This is what will show. This is what will be a sign that you belong to me.” So when they came out of Egypt, the problem was that the males were not circumcised. Now, were they supposed to do it?

Yes. But they didn’t do it. And what this comes down to is a failure on the part of the fathers. It wasn’t the son’s fault. It was the father’s fault.

They were not stepping up. They were not doing what they had been told to do. This really shouldn’t surprise us because this is the same generation. You’ll remember that way back in in the time of Moses at the the time of Mount Si, they were the ones that worshiped the golden calf. At the very same time that God was receiving or that God was giving the ten commandments to Moses, they were worshiping an idol.

And it’s the same generation who 40 years again before this, they were told to go in and take the promised land and they shrank back. They failed because of unbelief. So now this is 40 years on and that whole generation of men has died except for Joshua and Caleb. And so you have to understand this new generation, this younger generation going into the promised land has had to live with the consequences of their father’s failure for 40 years. They were wandering in that desert because their fathers had failed to go in.

In many ways, they were living in the shadow of their father’s failure. And maybe you can relate to that. May maybe there are times where you’ve looked back and you said, “It’s because of these things that I haven’t been able to have that that sense of God’s presence.” Or whatever it might be. Maybe your parents didn’t teach you the word of God.

Whatever it might be, maybe you’ve been able to relate to them. They they said, “You know what? God told our fathers to go in and they didn’t do it. They didn’t obey.” And this touches on our identity.

So, this is what we’re called to do. Fight generational sin in your notes by accepting your new identity as a child of God. Fight generational sin. One of the repeated themes in scripture is that a parent’s decision, a parent’s action has an impact on the generations that come after. There’s always going to be an impact.

And there are many sociological and psychological studies that have looked at this and seen that yes there’s this there’s this inevitable aspect where one generation has an impact on the next generation and sometimes that carries forward for multiple generations. That’s why fathers in particular but mothers too are called to take the initiative and teach their children the word of God to teach them the gospel to teach them about Christ. Our kids come into this world as sinners with no Bible knowledge. And so, parents, we’re called to evangelize and disciple our kids. Ephesians 6:4 says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

So, fathers, first and foremost, are called to be loving teachers of the truth. They’re called to not be overbearing and not heavy-handed, but to lovingly discipline and teach the truth to the next generation. I’m a big believer in being more focused on the relationship with your kids than establishing a whole pile of rules. But there’s still an importance to teaching teaching the next generation. In this case, there’s a sense in which the generation that came out of Egypt had had failed their children.

They had failed as fathers because of their unbelief. And unbelief is a serious sin. You know, we we sometimes think of sin as a mistake or sometimes people will call it a you know, bad judgment, but the Bible is very clear and calls sin what it is. It’s an offense to a holy God. It’s not something to be excused.

It’s not something to be toned down. And it’s something to be shown for what it is so that we can repent and be forgiven and to be washed away by the blood of Jesus. The story is told of a church elder who was a little agitated because the pastor kept talking about sin and he came to him and he confronted him and said, “You know what? You you preach too much on sin. You really should say something like it’s a it’s a lapse in judgment.”

I think people would receive that a little better. And the pastor got up and pulled a bottle of rat poison down from the shelf and he said, “What would you have me do? Put the label of essence of peppermint on this.” Now see the point is anytime you change the label or you tone down the label, you actually make the poison more dangerous. And so we are called to talk about sin because sin is serious.

We want people to be spared from the consequences of sin. This generation that was in the desert, they did not take it seriously. They did not obey God. And because of that, they wandered in the desert for 40 years. Can you imagine being raised and all you’ve known is wandering in the desert.

And you’re reminded every time a year goes by, no, we’re not there yet. Because our fathers didn’t go into the land. That’s why we’re out here. That’s why we are struggling. That’s why we’re in this wasteland.

Generational sin is a real thing. That’s why certain addictions will show up in the next generation. These tendencies to to the these certain proclivities will show up in the next generation because there’s always an impact. Every decision we make, sin is not a a isolated private thing. It’s something that carries forward.

It impacts the next generation. It’s why we need the redemption that Christ gives. But it’s also true of integrity. It’s not just sin. If you commit to integrity, if you choose to follow God’s way and you commit to teach that to your children, that has a tremendous impact on the next generation.

See, it’s not just your negative choices. It’s your right choices, your godly choices that will benefit your family and impact them. So, like this generation with Joshua, we all have a choice to make. We can’t say, “Oh, well, my parents made these choices.” You know, we don’t have we don’t have the the decision.

It’s not in our power to choose who our parents are. I’m thankful that I had godly parents who loved me and taught me the word of God. But maybe that’s not your story. Either way, we each in our generation have a choice to make. What am I going to do with the choices I’m given?

How am I going to walk? They could have said, you know what? It’s our father’s fault that we’re in this position. You know, we’re we shouldn’t have to go through this. It’s all their fault.

But God doesn’t call us to be victims. He calls us to be victors in Christ. That’s the mindset we’re to have. Before I got married over 13 years ago, a pastor named Jim Cece came to our church’s men’s retreat and he spoke on purity. And I remember he he spoke especially to the young men at that conference and he said, you know, the world, the flesh, and the devil will do everything they can to defile one of God’s sons.

And he said, ‘But you are called to walk in purity, not just for your sake, but for the sake of the next generation because you’re called to be a generation builder. And I remember that was just like the voice of God speaking to me right then when he said, “You are called to be a generation builder.” So don’t don’t be so fixated on what’s come before. That’s the same thing that the Israelites were tempted to do. Don’t focus on what your fathers have done, right or wrong.

Consider what you are called to do in your generation. This is what God calls men to do. To step up, to follow Jesus so you can bless and lead families. When people have a poor relationship with their fathers, they tend to project that on their relationship with God. For example, if someone had a father who was always angry, they will they will tend to see God as always angry, disappointed with them.

Or if you had a a father that wasn’t really around, you’ll tend to think of God as uncaring, not concerned about your situation. Or maybe you’ll deny God as real. Many people today, whether they realize it or not, are living out a view of God based on their earthly father. But we’re called to get a view of God from scripture. To not translate what our fathers were like into what God must be like, but to translate who our good and perfect father is from the word of God and have that be our vision for who the father is.

We are called to belong to him. He adopts us. See, God is a good and perfect father and he he makes us his own and he says, “I love you. I redeem you from the past.” In the multi-generational church, you have brothers and sisters who are called to bless one another.

Outside the church, generations are often pit against one another. People look at all the differences between generations and they they think, “Oh, this is a negative aspect of that generation or or here’s what this generation does wrong.” In the church, we’re to see every generation contribute something valuable. We can learn from every generation. And every generation has benefited from being around other generations.

And so the Israelites, these younger generation now comes forward and they accept God’s calling. They say, ‘You know what? Our fathers blew it, but we’re going to commit to do what God asks. This is a new beginning for our nation. And this generation is committed to obedience.

That’s what they say, even if it’s going to be a painful commitment. Verse eight says, “When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, everybody, think of that, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Now, this was a major act of faith because again, they had already crossed the Jordan River. They are now in enemy territory. This is a dangerous place to be.

If you’re thinking of just earthly perspective, in the military sense, this would be a very dangerous place to be. And now they’re all they’ve had surgery, so they’re all very vulnerable. And yet, it says that the people of Jericho were paralyzed with fear. See, God had this all worked out. He was watching over them.

And he was protecting them and he had put the fear of them in the hearts of the people of Jericho. I love this next statement in verse 9. Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.” So that place has been called Gilgal to this day. Gilgal sounds like rolled away in Hebrew.

So, we’re called secondly to fight the enemy’s shameful lies by embracing the truth about God’s grace. I want to take some time to expand on this idea. God says, “Today I have rolled away the shame of your slavery in Egypt.” And in the New Testament, we read that the events of the Old Testament were written down for us, for us today, so that we would know how to follow Jesus better because of what the Israelites went through. We can learn from that.

1 Corinthians 10 says, “Now these things happened to them,” that’s Israel, as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come. So all that happened to Israel was written down to help us follow Christ. The Exodus from Egypt is frequently compared to our redemption in Christ. Just as they were in bondage to slavery, we we were born in bondage to sin. And the same God that set them free from Egypt sets us free.

The Passover lamb, the lamb that was given for us who shed his blood, Jesus. He’s the one that the Passover lamb back then pointed to. And here God says there is a shame associated with the slavery you once lived in. And it’s true that sin is shameful. It has a defiling effect on us.

That’s why every time somebody sins or or sometime they’re sinned against, there’s this sense of shame that comes with it. It’s inevitable. And there’s this shame that comes with slavery. But God says, “I have rolled that shame away. I’ve completely removed it.

That’s not who you are anymore. You aren’t defined by who you were in Egypt when you were in bondage. You are now defined by who you are as my people, the redeemed people of God, who are to go in and take the inheritance. When it comes to spiritual war warfare, one of the devil’s favorite tactics is to attack us with lies about who we are. The devil will come and he will whisper ideas like, “You don’t belong here.

You know, you’re a disgrace. You call yourself a Christian, but look at how you live. You you think God could love you. Look at the way you live. That’s the devil.

He will put thoughts in our head and he will make you think that they’re your own ideas or worse that they’re God’s ideas. Someone says, “Does Satan really put thoughts in our heads?” Yes, he does. There’s an example in the early church, Ananas and Safh. You remember that when they had lied about giving a certain amount of money to the church and Peter confronts them and he says this ananas why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land.

And even today will Satan will try to do that. He will try to put lies in your heart and in your mind that lie about who you are in Christ. Deceptions about whether or not God loves us. Or if we’re saved, he will try to convince us that if you’ve had a struggle with sin for a long time, then it’s something you just have to live with. It’ll never go away.

But see, Satan is a liar. He He trades in deception. He’s his natural language is lying. He wants you to think of yourself still as a slave spiritually, even though you’ve been set free in Christ. The truth of the gospel is that when you put your faith in Jesus, God rolls away your shame.

Everything that was attached to your your name because of your sin, because of your past, because of your your heritage, whatever it might be, God rolls that shame away. And he says, “No, you have a new identity now. You are my child.” And there is no shame associated with being my child. See, what happened is when Jesus carried his cross through the streets, it was all done to mock him, to shame him.

People spat on him. They they mocked him when they stripped him of his clothes and and they nailed him to the cross. It was all to to make to to shame him, to heap shame on him. And see, when Jesus was hanging from the cross, he was laid bare in our shame. He was taking not just our guilt from our sin.

He was taking our shame on himself so that we wouldn’t have to be covered in shame. The New Testament says that Jesus saw through all the shame to the glory of what he was accomplishing. Hebrews 12 says that for the joy that was set before him, Jesus, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus endured all the shame of our sin and he endured it completely. And yet he had his eyes on what he was accomplishing when he would sit down on the father’s right hand and all that he had done was completed.

Grace cancels our shame and rolls it away. So when Satan does come and he tries to plant lies in our hearts about who we are, about what God thinks of us, we can claim the truth of God’s grace. That’s why we need to stay in the word because we need to know what God thinks of us. We need to know the truth about what God says of us. In Joshua 5, it says that God no longer was going to feed the people mana from heaven.

They had lived on this steady diet of mana and quail sandwiches for about 40 years. It was probably getting pretty old, I’m guessing. But God says now you’re to live off the land. And see, this is a reminder that sometimes God will say, you know, even though you’ve already been or or you’ve always been in a certain place and and it seems right because it’s comfortable, I’m actually going to move you forward because I’ve got better things in store for you. I don’t want you to stay where you are.

You you’ve had that mana for a long time. I’ve got something better for you and it’s the land that you’re going to possess. And then we read about a unique encounter. Joshua is out scouting the land. He’s looking at that mighty city of Jericho with those towering walls and he’s wondering how is God going to give us this city.

He’s not doubting God, but he’s wondering what what is what is God going to do for us here? Says in verse 13, “When Joshua was by Jericho, he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, a man was standing before him with his drawn sword in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, “Are you for us or for our adversaries?” So, Captain Joshua, right? He’s the military leader.

He’s by the enemy city. It makes sense that he would wonder if this man that he sees is friend or foe. He’s got a sword drawn. Means he’s ready for battle. And so Joshua, he’s a tough guy.

He’s probably about ready to draw his own sword. He says, “Are you for us or against us?” He might be thinking, you know, this is it. It’s either him or me. It’s going to come down to this.

The man responds, “No. Now, some translations like the NIV or NLT feel that that sounds a little bit awkward. So, they’ll they’ll translate it as neither. I’m neither for you nor against you. But actually, the the word is no.

I think the ESV gets this right. He simply says no. It’s the wrong question. That’s why he says it that way. Verse 14, no, but I am the commander of the army of the Lord.

Now, I have come. There’s a statement of authority. I have come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, “What does my lord say to his servant?” Joshua falls on his face and he worships this man.

Which again, the people of Israel know you you don’t worship a man. You only worship God. In the book of Revelation, there’s a time when the Apostle John is visiting this angel. And because even angels are so amazing and impressive and majestic, he falls down and he starts worshiping him. And the angel says, “Stop doing that.

Don’t worship me. Worship God.” But this heavenly visitor doesn’t tell Joshua to stop. That’s because this is actually the pre-incarnate son of God, the second person of the Trinity who we call Jesus Christ. In various times in the Old Testament, we learn about this heavenly visitor who will show up and he often gives this powerful message.

And sometimes he’s called the angel of the Lord. And then they they realize after the encounter that was actually Yahweh. I saw God. They’ll say those kinds of things. This is the Lord himself in a visible form.

Now, people might say, how could this be Jesus in the Old Testament? Jesus wasn’t born till the New Testament. But the thing that makes Jesus so unique is he is the eternal God who enters time. He is the only one who’s ever done that. He became a man at a point in time.

But he’s always existed. There never was a time. There never was a point when Jesus did not exist. When the son of God did not exist. He created all things.

All things were created by him and for him. Jesus is God. And he makes the invisible God visible. The Bible says Jesus is the image of the invisible God and the exact representation of his being. When you look at Jesus, you are seeing the living God.

Many Christians are intimidated by the Old Testament. But here’s something that can help. When you read the Old Testament, look for Jesus Christ. Because Jesus himself said, “You will find me in these pages.” It’s about me.

The whole thing is about me. It all points to Jesus. And here Joshua worships Jesus. Every cult and false religion out there will refuse to worship Jesus as the unique son of God. That they will always have a lesser view of Jesus.

They may even say he’s a son of God. Sure, we’re all kind of in that same boat. No. Jesus is the unique son of God. He is the eternal creator become man.

Not long ago, I talked to a Jehovah’s Witness and he told me, “We have the same Jesus.” And I asked him, “Do you worship Jesus?” And he said, “No, it wouldn’t be right to worship Jesus.” But if Jesus is the eternal creator come among us, the one that the angels right now are worshiping. He is the one seated at the right hand of the father and and for all eternity he has been worshiped.

It is right for us to worship him. He deserves all glory. Further proof that this is Jesus is that he tells Joshua to remove his sandals because he’s standing on holy ground. That will sound familiar if you know the passage of the burning bush. Moses was told the exact same thing.

That was an encounter with God. This is an encounter with God. Joshua is standing on holy ground because he’s in the presence of God. And it’s interesting that here in Joshua, Jesus identifies himself as the commander of the army of the Lord. When Abraham was a sojourer and he was visited by the pre-incarnate Jesus, Jesus came as a traveling stranger.

When Jacob the schemer was visited by Jesus, Jesus showed up as a wrestler. And when those three Hebrews were thrown into the furnace for their obedience, Jesus was with them and he appeared as one of them with them in the furnace. See, Jesus shows that he he meets people where they are at. He connects with people on the level that they can understand. And here that’s why Jesus confronts the military captain Joshua as a commander bearing a sword ready for battle.

And Joshua meets Jesus. He says, “Are you for us or against us?” Jesus says, “No.” But it’s not that Jesus is against Joshua. It’s that Joshua is asking the wrong question.

See, Jesus didn’t come to merely take sides. He came to take charge because he’s the king of kings. Jesus doesn’t answer to Joshua. Joshua answers to Jesus. It’s the same with you and me.

The same Jesus who met with Joshua there meets with us today. Whenever we encounter Jesus, we too are on holy ground. The Bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He is the unchanging God. The question isn’t is God on board with what I want to do.

The question is, am I on board with what God wants to do in and through me? Most importantly, we know that in Jesus, God is for us. That’s what the book of Romans says. But we’re called to first acknowledge our need for him, to come to him as Joshua did, to kneel down and surrender, and to commit our life to Jesus Christ. God is not the cosmic bellhop that many people think that he is.

He’s not there. He doesn’t exist for us. We are made for him. We belong to him. And so, it’s important that Jesus meets face to face with Joshua like this.

Remember, Joshua is about to lead his army to conquer peoples that have forsaken the living God to go after idols. They’re worshiping idols. And this is a theme that shows up in the Old Testament over and over. People of Israel will do this. They’ll forsake the living God for idols.

And idolatry is just this constant theme. Idols aren’t merely graven images or statues. An idol is anything that takes the place of God. Anything where you you look to for all your hope, for your peace, for your security, for your ultimate happiness. That is the thing that you serve as a god.

And an idol isn’t usually a bad thing. An idol is almost always a good thing, but it’s turned into a God thing in your heart. See, every day people look to things in this world to give them what only Jesus can give them. They they think that this satisfaction they’re hungering for, that the thing that will fill that emptiness within is something out in the world. And all the while, only Jesus can fill that void.

The way to find true satisfaction in life is to first bow before the Lord Jesus just like Joshua did. Why has our nation become so spiritually lost? It’s because Jesus is no longer acknowledged as the Lord that he is. Why have so many churches drifted away and and become apostate churches that no longer even preach the gospel? It’s because they no longer surrender to Jesus as Lord.

Why have so many families and individuals lost their way? It’s because they didn’t first bow the knee to Jesus. Joshua bowed the knee to Jesus. And your life will always be out of alignment. Nothing will will make sense.

There will always be that missing portion of who you are and who you need to be when you don’t first acknowledge Jesus as your authority. So Jesus had to meet with Joshua and get his full surrender and have him understand, I’m the one in command, Joshua. And Joshua, you know, as a military commander, he might have been tempted to to, you know, make an idol out of his military conquests. And so Jesus had to meet him at the beginning and say, “Everything that you’re about to accomplish, it’s in and through me. It’s for me, Joshua.

You’re serving me as your commander.” and Joshua bowed the knee gladly. The same is true for us. We are called to fight idolatry by seeking ultimate satisfaction in King Jesus. That’s in your notes.

Fight idolatry by seeking ultimate satisfaction in King Jesus. Now, how do you locate where you may struggle with idolatry? Where where might be some hidden idols in your life? Well, what do you look to to give you hope? What is it when you when you think about this will make me happy?

This will give my life meaning. What is that thing you’re looking to? Everybody’s living for something. It could be your career. Now, having a good career is a good thing.

It’s a wonderful thing. But if your career becomes the center of your life and everything revolves around your career and you’re willing to sacrifice your family on the altar of career, you’ve made a god out of a good thing. Or what about family? The family is a wonderful blessing of God. Christianity is very pro- family or so thankful for families.

But are you ever tempted to put your family even before obedience to God? Are you living first for your family or for Jesus? See, Jesus demands that we live first and foremost for him. And when we bow and surrender to him as our king, to him as our lord, and we live for him first and foremost, everything else will come into its right place. It doesn’t mean you’ll love your family less.

It doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy your career less. It means you will love them in the right way because you love Jesus first. And so the question I want to leave you with is where are you looking for heart satisfaction? Like Joshua, we are called to lay our idols at the foot of the cross to to ask the Holy Spirit to to show us where where is our heart being tugged in a direction it shouldn’t be. Where do we need to lay things before the Lord and acknowledge he is the supreme one, not something else?

Let’s pray together. Father God, we thank you that you sent Jesus to be our savior, to rescue us from the shame of sin, to bring us into your family, to make us your children through faith in his sacrifice. And Lord, we also thank you that he is our commander, that he is the commander of the Lord’s army, that he is the one we serve. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. And I pray Lord that if there is any idol that we have been clinging to in our hearts, something that has taken the place of God that should not be in that place, I pray that we would repent.

That we would lay it down at the foot of the cross and recognize you are open armed, accepting us, welcoming us, forgiving us, and washing us clean of all those idols because you love us as a father. We thank you and pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Would you join us as we talk as we sing about seeing that victory that God will bring us? Please stand and join us.

The weapon may be formed, but it won’t prosper. When the darkness falls, it won’t prevail. Cuz the God I serve knows only how to triumph. My God will never fail. No, my God will never fail.

I’m going to see a victory. For the battle belongs to you, Lord. I’m going to see a victory. For the battle belongs to you, Lord. There’s power in the mighty name of Jesus.

Every war he wages, he will win. No, I’m not backing down from any giant. I know how this story ends. Oh yes, I know how this story ends. I’m going to see a victory.

For the battle belongs to you, Lord. I’m going to see a victory. I’m going to see a victory for the battle belongs to you, Lord. Death could not hold you. The veil tore before you.

You silence the boast of sin and grave. The heavens are roaring. Praise of your glory for you are raised to life again. You have no rival. You have no equal now and forever.

God you reign. Yours is the kingom. Yours is the glory. Yours is the name above all names. I’m going to see a victory.

For the battle belongs to you, Lord. I’m going to see a victory. For the battle belongs to you, Lord. You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good. You turn it for good.

You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good. You turn it for good. You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good. You turn it for good. You take what the enemy meant for evil and you turn it for good.

You turn it for good. I’m going to see a victory. For the battle belongs to y

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