To Trust God (Joshua 1:1-9) [Sermon script]

To Trust God (Joshua 1:1-9) [Sermon script]

Given on 6/26/2011

I'll admit, I have been negligent in posting here, but i'm back for a bit with a little for you again :) I hope it is a blessing to you. I recently had the opportunity to give the sermon at my church, and I want to share it with those of you who are interested. Below is a link to the manuscript. Please keep in mind this is a manuscript and a rough one at that meant for me and my notes. It was not intended as a paper, so I have not refined it grammatically... Sorry for all my grammar Nazi friends.

Enjoy: To Trust God

6/29/11

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

joshuaspromise.blogspot.com

Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Joshua 24:23)

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Joshua 24:23

"Then put away the foreign gods that are among you and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel."

(Joshua 24)This is near the end of the book of Joshua, where Joshua urges the Israelites to once again commit themselves to the LORD. God had just delivered them and shown His worth all throughout the book, and Israel acknowledges that and pledges their commitment and obedience to Him. After Joshua doubting their commitment and them reassuring him he urges them to set themselves up for success.

Joshua 24:21-23

²¹And the people said to Joshua, "No, but we will serve the LORD." ²²Then Joshua said to the people, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the LORD, to serve him." And they said, "We are witnesses." ²³He said, "Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the LORD, the God of Israel."

As a part of obedience to God the Israelites were to remove the other Gods. In addition as part of the covenant commands from God, they are to put His name on everything (Deut. 6:4-9). There were even certain dress standards used for the same purpose (Deut. 22:12; Num 15:38-39)[I'm thinkin' WWJD bracelets :) ]. That purpose is to call us to and remind us of obedience.

Whether or not we are aware of it, what we see and are around every day effects what we do and think. Our surroundings promote and encourage what they are most closely associated with. Psychology calls this "triggers". If we are used to coming home and watching TV then when we walk in and see the television, there are psychological reactions that make us want to sit down and watch. Or another one is when you lie down on your bed to read, you quickly find yourself setting down the book for a nap. These are a couple examples of triggers and reactions.

In the Israelites case this is the purpose they are told to remove these gods, idols and trinkets included. It is not something that they were to let themselves get distracted with. How many times do we find ourselves sit down to a task and find ourselves distracted by something because we see it lying around and we think "I'll just be a minute" and end up neglecting our original task all together? If Facebook isn't your homepage, you won't go there half as much. If the ice cream is in the basement freezer, you may save yourself a couple of pounds. If we keep the Bible and journal on the nightstand or table it won't be so often neglected. What are you getting distracted by and how can you make it less distracting?

Believe it or not, God is in the know of how our minds work and were created. These commands were to help us serve Him. What if we set up our dorm/house/living room sothat when we walk in the first thing we see is a bookshelf instead of a TV? What if the TV is out of the way and hard to get to it? Look around and consider changes or additions that you should make to enable you to better live for Christ. This could mean changing a background or homepage, putting the TV in a back room or put some sticky notes with Scripture on them. I think it's an easy thing to overlook, but the environment we put ourselves in can either be an asset or a hindrance. Aim to keep triggers to bad habits, sin and distractions out of sight and out of mind.

3/29/11

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

joshuaspromise.blogspot.com

Hypothetical life situation #1

Greetings all.

I was recently talking with some friends about various things, and one of them sprung a question. At first, I thought it would be a much simpler answer and conversation then it ended up being. I was taken off guard, because we ended with very different answers along with very different rationale. He brought up several very legit questions and points, and I became curious as to how other people would respond to this question. I put up two polls on the side of my page (joshuaspromise@blogspot.com), please answer both of then. For those of you who are willing, please take a moment to explain some/part of your rationale (including Scripture); I would highly appreciate it. The situation, dilemma and questions are as follows:

You are a father, and a man with a gun has broken into your house. He has grabbed your child and has put a gun to his head. In our hypothetical situation the only way you can save your child is by shooting and killing the man if you do not, he will kill your child. There are no other options either you kill him or your child dies. As a Christian, what would you do?

Now, even more hypothetical... If Jesus was the father (with all and no more abilities and resources that/than you have), would he kill the man about to kill his child?

The polls are on the right side of my blog page (joshuaspromise@blogspot.com). I would really like to hear what goes through some of your heads, please answer the polls (both of them, hit the 'next' button to get to the next) and comment below.

1/06/11

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

joshuaspromise@blogspot.com

(Shedding Skin) Regarding: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Greetings all, again.

Once again I have failed to be as frequent as intended, and (especially) since we are coming upon the holiday season, I will not even attempt to try to foresee the time between entries. Regardless of the space between them, I do very strongly intend to continue this blogging endeavor. I apologize for any who have wished there was less of a delay, but alas for the time being: another entry.

These thoughts were inspired by C. S. Lewis' book: The Cronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

More so than the other books in this series, it is presenting situations that directly mirror our Christian walk. Many people regard the Narnia series as allegorical to some level, and these passages especially seem to be so. You may find it helpful to re-read the sections mentioned (or read them for the fist time) to better interact with my monologue. The passage I would like to reference is:

Chapter 7: How the Adventure Ended

Shedding skin.

For those who never knew or have forgotten, Eustace was a dreadful rotten little brat up until this point in the story. What had happened to change him? Well, he was changed into a dragon and Aslan saved him. I think it is apparent and clear that Eustace's transformation into a dragon was simply the result of his inward rottenness. Lewis supports this by saying "Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself (Ch. 6)." So it seems that the dragon appearance of the boy was his heart manifesting itself as his body.

After much humiliation, regret and pain Eustace is more than ready to become a boy again. One night Aslan comes to him and offers him salvation from his beastly form, and although this is his first time meeting (or believing in) Aslan, he obeys. Aslan commands him to remove his skin (like a snake shedding). He does this only to find another layer of scales, and repeats this process a couple more times. After several repetitious and futile attempts to remove himself from his scaled form, Aslan says that Eustace will have to trust Aslan and let him do it. The boy describes the process as a very painful one that is mixed with an odd pleasure, compared to picking a scab. Regardless, unlike his futile attempts, Aslan's is successful.

This passage strongly reminds me of struggles with sin and self improvement. When there is some vile thing in our life, it will continue to grow until it either catches our attention or hinders/ruins things in our life (usually not in that order) be it plans or relationships. It is often here where we know there's an opportunity for obedience, but it isn't an easy process. When one who is seeking to be clean of some filth in there life tries to achieve righteousness on their own without first receiving Christ's aid, insisting that they can do it them-self, they usually do as good of a job as Eustace managed. They do a whole lot of work, and feel as if they have made progress, only to realize, when they look back at their task they are no better of than when they started, having wasted both time and energy.

When the Lion told Eustace that he would have to trust him to do what he would. Eustace job was to be patient and obedient through the challenge. I think it is clear in here that it presents that we are never the one who actually makes the changes in our life. We must be obedient, and we must be willing to trust God. Without Him doing the pealing of the skin, we will never find real improvement. The two concepts I am highlighting are first that we must be willing to let God work, and secondly that it is God the one who does the transforming.

Joshua 24:15 ...choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Ezekiel 36:26 "And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh."

Galatians 5

This one is short, yes I know, but it was on my mind. It is likely (no promises) that I will do another post in reference to Narnia. We can pretend it is in tribute to the movie release, but it is more just because I am reading the series.

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

12/4/10

Joshuaspromise.blogspot.com

Fear and Trust

It has been a month and a half since my last post, I apologize. That is 3 posts that did not get created, for as I have said before: my aim is to post twice a month (that is about every other week). When I moved, about a month and a half ago, I happened to leave most of my motivation of productivity behind. One of my friends has worded it "transition depression". I personally thing that is a little strong of a phrase for it, but at the time it was a phase of laziness that I knew would pass the more I became situated back home. Enough about my negligence...

This time I would like to throw some ideas out there concerning the ideas of Fear, Trust and Obedience. This will both be less practical and exegetical then usual and more philosophical and logical. On this post more than others, I want to start conversation and hear your thoughts. Tell me what you disagree with and give me arguments and support for the way you understand these topics. Please, post sharing your ideas.

These issues have been stirring in my head for quite a while now, for most of the time since I started in Joshua about a year ago, actually. A couple of my earlier posts hit on this issue as well Acting in Confidence of God's Faithfulness and Reader's Question Regarding Fear. I have had the opportunity to have some conversations with some friends about this as well, and they have challenged me to consider aspects I hadn't before. Anyways, without further ado...

Fear, and Trust.

Joshua 1:9

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord you God is with you wherever you go."

The question driving me in pursuit of this topic is thus: "Is God commanding that we* act in despite of our fear/being frightened or is He commanding that we do not even have fear."

When I began to consider this passage I began from the perspective of the former, that is, it seemed to me that God was telling us to act in despite of our fears and emotions. As time has passed and I have further considered what God did and showed in the book of Joshua and as I held conversation with various people, I have swayed to hold that this is a command to not have fear (of emotion), period. Regardless the position one is currently holding to, the first question must first be: "what is fear?"

This is where the challenge in answering the first question is because there are at least 2 types of fear:

[1] Fear as an emotion: This is a feeling; something like the apprehensive feeling we get about something we are unsure of or cannot control.

I.E. when going in for a Job interview, when a spider lands on us, when we hit a patch of black ice on a corner in the winter etc...

[2] Fear controlling action: This is a motivator/demotivator.

I.E. I see being a productive member of my community worthwhile (thus I desire to avoid [fear] not to be one), so I go to the job interview; I don't want to get cavities, so I brush my teeth; I desire not to developing lazy habits, so I set my alarm even on the weekends.

Thus the original question is: Which of these two is God commanding against?

It seems to me that the command is against the fear of emotion*** I do believe, though that this will inevitably start with acting in spite of our emotional fears as well as in the end include it. That is, we begin to dissolve the fear of emotion by acting despite our fears. In a sort of testing way, which is the only way we can act in obedience despite our emotions. here is an example:

Lets say Sam is a young girl who has a very loving and strong father. If Sam's father told her to fall back with her eyes closed, he would catch her. Sam would in no way ever doubt that he would not catch her because He has shown (through previous experiences) that he is both able to catch her and faithful to follow through on his word to protect her. In this case Sam would have no fear (emotional) and she would have no fear (of motivation to avoid being dropped); However, this was not always so. When Sam was first born, she new nothing about her father, but after the years in countless times and in countless ways her father has shown her that he not only has the ability to care for her, but he loves her in a way that he will always protect her (and thus be faithful in promises).

Now let's say it is the same man, but he has adopted an 8 year old boy, we will call him Steve. The father has the boy do the same thing, but the boy is hesitant. The first time, as soon as Steve starts to fall he catches himself, but after some prompting, he cautiously falls into the fathers hands. As he does this though, he turns his head as he is falling to assure himself that the father is still there. Steve may see that the father is able to catch him, but he obviously not trust the faithfulness and willingness of the father to catch him. As they continue on this process of Steve trusting the father, Steve will have less and less emotional fear with each passing.

Sam did not have the fear of emotion and thus did not have the fear of motivation.

Steve at first had both the fear of emotion and the fear of motivation to begin with, but soon had only the fear of emotion. He had come to the point where he was acting in spite of his emotional fear for the sake of testing the father's faithfulness.

Sometimes we act despite our fear on the basis of minimal trust (like Steve), but is that 'trust' in spite of our fear actually more of a test of trustworthiness and ability towards the one who gave the promise? There is then a 'trust' that is a 'test' just as much as there is a 'trust' that removes 'fear'. These two trusts are leagues apart, as much different than the trust between two strangers shaking hands on the street and two trapeze partners flying above the audience together. It seems that if one were to truly in the purist and deepest sense trust, then the fear would dissipate, since the feared result would be (to the person) so unlikely it would be a non-issue (like Sam).

This, I believe is why I can say that God is commanding us to have no fear of those who oppose him: He is able to do what He promises, and He is faithful to do what He promises.

How do we come to that "true" trust in God that will keep us from fear as he commands in Joshua 1:9? Well, just like with anybody else, we learn (in the most thorough sense) about the ability and faithfulness of the person that makes the "promise". This happens through the experience and being informed by a trusted source. In the simplest answer it means to continue to study the Scriptures, that is hearing from a trusted source of His faithfulness and ability, and to continually act in obedience despite our emotional fears, so that He will prove Himself.

Once again, I would love to hear discussion on this. What do you agree/disagree with and why?

For those on facebook please click & post: http://joshuaspromise.blogspot.com/2010/09/fear-and-trust.html

9/14/2010

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

joshuaspromise.blogspot.com

*I realize that this passage is directly being spoken to Joshua, but know that the promises and commands in this passage are shared with all who are people of the Kingdom of God. If you want more info on this, as me for my paper "The Commissioning of Joshua and Its Relationship to the People of God's Kingdom"

** When people reduce the world to only physical and scientific causes then (at least in their minds) eventually they will be deceived into believing it and in their deceit nothing will be not understandable (catch the double negative) and if we (supposedly) understand everything, we can thus control everything. So then, is suppressing the belief of God primarily an attempt to escape fear? (and thus try to be maintain control. As opposed to an all powerful ruler and judge having it.)

*** I realize, yes, there are legitimate emotional fears, but they are to be kept in check. The do not fear hear is "do not fear, God will do and get done what he says he will do and get done."

The Importance of Empowerment

This is a document I wrote for a ministry I was involved in a while ago. I find empowerment a powerful and important skill to learn. Please enjoy :D

The Importance of Empowerment

I consider this an important part of Ezra’s Creed, leadership and sustaining the ministry. In the most basic sense, it is important because if we do not train up people to follow us, then whatever we are doing will fall to ashes and be forgotten. If one values the cause to which they are following, they will understand that for the cause to continue, they must empower others. It also weighs on the desire to develop people, both in character and skill. This will be carried out by continuously passing off responsibilities and delegating. Our goal is not just to carry out our responsibilities, but also to teach someone else to do it.

Accepting volunteers is also affected by this. I would encourage that we should always give people the opportunity to prove themselves. Even if I think someone will be unable to do what a task or position requires, if they show a desire to carry out the responsibility, I would often let or encourage them to do it. Some people can end up surprising you.

Yes, you will at times come across an occasion when somebody fails to fulfill what they commit to, but frankly, I do not believe we should allow our paranoia to prevent us from giving them an opportunity to be challenged and grow. It is important to remember the purpose of Ezra’s Creed, that is, to present the Word of God as the Word of God. We are to approach it with personal reverence, not as a professional presentation.

Randy Sims in his book The Greatest Among You defines Empowerment as “the act of endowing someone with the knowledge, tools, motivation and authority to continue the mission of the team.”[1] In his definition he lists four things:

The first is Knowledge, this is the how to, if we merely give somebody a to-do list and say ‘have at it’, that is far short of empowering them and enabling them to be successful. Knowledge without ability, purpose and authority can do nothing. For example pretend there was a surgeon (let’s call her Alexandra) who had been practicing for 12 years. On one operation on a patient’s heart, she made a critical error and the patient ended up dying. Even though it was a mistake Alexandra feels deeply personally responsible for the incident and thus never wants to risk hurting somebody again by a potential surgical mistake. Now Alexandra still knows how to do surgeries, but she neither has the medical lab to work in and because of regrets of the mistake she never wants to do surgery again. She has the knowledge, but it does no good. Knowledge is a must, but we do a great injustice if that is all we give people. Without the knowledge nothing will get done, but knowledge alone will not get anything done.

The second is the tools. Suppose somebody named Jack was trying to learn how to assemble a car’s engine he took apart with the desire to aspire to be a mechanic. Jack went to a trained mechanic and asks for his help and instruction and empowerment to be able to assemble and install an engine. The mechanic agreed, but all he ever did was give Jack permission to use the tools in his shed. After a month of trying Jack got irritated and gave up, not only on the engine but also on the aspiration of becoming a mechanic. Did the mechanic at all empower Jack? No, in an afternoon he could have easily guided Jack in assembling the engine telling why each piece was important, and eventually the mechanic could have given Jack the authority to work along side him within his shop and they both would have gained from the empowerment. Thus empowerment is more than just supplying the tools. In our case these could be seen as our chapel opportunities, the Tent supplies and even our campus and church connections.

The third thing listed is motivation. The best motivation is intrinsic motivation that is there is something in ourselves that simply enjoys and sees value what we are doing without being concerned with the success or failure of that. This is the kind of motivation we desire to inspire in people, and the only way to do that is enable them to see what we do as valuable. I believe this is done a lot by personal testimony, personal experience and looking at the Scriptural importance of our task. Motivation is probably the hardest part of empowerment to provide, but it is the most essential. If somebody has strong enough motivation but no knowledge, tools, or authority, they will do everything they can to seek out what they need to fulfill their motivation. This is not to say that it is not important to provide the other parts of empowerment as well. If we give somebody motivation and motivation alone, they will waste much time learning and gathering what we have already learned and gathered. I think the most obvious example of this necessity is education: When people desire to learn they go to a place where the resources to learn are and the information to learn is. In short if we pass on motivation but nothing else, we are causing great waste and excess effort.

The last part of empowerment is authority. If somebody has the knowledge, the tools, and the desire to do something but they do not have any authority where they can make use of such things, they are like a caged bird. What good is a bird’s ability to fly if it cannot use it because it is kept in a cage that is too short to be flown in? Also, if one can never make use of knowledge, tools and motivation without some authority, then how can they ever grow those three? For this reason we must eagerly, but appropriately give people authority.

So as you see, each of the four parts of empowerment (knowledge, tools, motivation and authority) are essential to properly empower others. If any of them are missing, then it will be like a flat tire, yeah it goes for a while, but pretty soon the car will stop and major repairs will be needed…

“and what you have head from me… entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” ~ 2 Timothy 2:2

5/1/10

~Andrew Voigt

Joshuaspromise@blogspot.com

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[1] The Greatest Among You by Randy Sims. Page 143

An Example from a Widow's Obedience (1 Kings 17:8-16)

An Example from a Widow's Obedience (1 Kings 17:8-16)

I had the opportunity to teach a lesson on 1 Kings 17 and here are some thoughts that stuck in my mind as a result.

Just a note for sake of context we are going to start in 1 Kings 16:29-30, 17:1-7.

So, King Ahab was an evil man who was rebellious and leading Israel in rebellion against God with his and his wife's false gods and their prophets. God declared a drought through Elijah, and this seems to be in response to Ahab's evil leadership. Once the drought was declared God sent Elijah into hiding with a promise to provide him via ravens and a stream. After some time (as happens in droughts) the stream dried up. This is where we come in.

We are going to put most of our attention on the passage 1 Kings 17:8-16

Elijah is told to go to Zaraphath where a widow would feed him, so being that his water supply has run out, he gets up and goes to Zaraphath. He sees the widow who was working on gathering some sticks for burning, and he commands her to bring to him a drink in a vessel. She begins to answer when he adds that she is to also bring him some food. She responds that she has nothing made and is at the very end of her supplies to make bread. Her and her son are on the brink of starvation and were about to cook up their last bit of bread so that they can go sit in a corner and starve to death. (v.8-12)

Elijah's response to this was first "do not fear" followed by telling her to do what she had planned but first make him his food. Only after that should she make her son and herself something. Then he shares a promise from God that the oil and flour supplies (which would be used to make the bread) would last throughout the entire drought. She was obedient, and God was faithful. Neither her flour nor her oil ran out throughout the entire three year drought. (v.13-16)

This was a fascinating act of trust and faith by the widow, take a moment to consider this. She was asked to give away her last bit of food which she had planned on eating with her son as their last meal. That would take an incredible amount of trust, but that was likely part of the reason for the format of Elijah's promise.

He began with "do not fear", which of course brings us back to the commissioning of Joshua . :) Joshua 1:9 - "Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. do not be frightened do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." Here in the 1 Kings 17 passage we see fear once again being associated with actions. If the widow would have feared for the sake of her life as opposed to trusting God, she would have found herself dead along with her son. Instead she was given the grace to trust God and to feed Elijah.

This obedience would have been completely impossible without that trust she had. If she did not trust the words of the prophet and God, there would have been no way that she would have given this man her food. If on the other hand (which happened) she did trust God and this prophet there is no way she would not have obeyed the promise. I think this is an exceptional example that we should strive to follow. All through Scripture God is giving us instructions and guidelines for proper living, and along with these instructions come promises. If we fully trust God there is no way we would not obey, but if we do not trust God there is no reason why we would trust God.

Hebrews 11:6-11 expresses that it is essential that we trust and as a result obey God. I understand this as an integral part of the connection between faith and deeds in James 2:14-26. Apparently I'm about to get off topic, so let me revert a little to the beginning of this thought. As the widow in a time of utter hardship was willing to trust God on the basis of a promise of provision, so should we trust God in all circumstances, striving to love God and others, storing up treasures in heaven. (Matthew 22:37-40, Matthew 6:19-20)

It is crucial to remember that God's instruction is not there to confine us and make us miserable, but instead He instructs us because He loves us. C. S. Lewis said in Mere Christianity, "Moral ruses are directions for the running of [the human] machine. That is why these rules at first seem to be constantly interfering with our natural inclinations. When you are being taught how to use any machine, the instructor keeps on saying, 'No, don't do it like that,' because, of course, there are all sorts of things that look all right and seem to you the natural way of treating the machine, but do not really work." God gives us guidance because He loves us, and promises us great things is we turn and seek to know and obey Him.

We are to obey God because He is trustworthy. The source of our disobedience is our lack of trust in the ever faithful God... we would rather trust in the inconsistent me's of the world.

Joshua 1:9 - Trust God because He is faithful (see previous blog post).

"Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."

7/11/10

For the King,

~Andrew Voigt

joshuaspromise.blogspot.com