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Preacher: Pastor David Ball
Scripture: Joshua 17
Joshua 17 tells us that the people of Manasseh “could not” drive out the Canaanites from the promised land. They reality is that they were not wrong. They couldn’t, but in the process of obsessing over their inabilities they forgot the prevailing promise and hopeful future that God had promised them. The truth is that we all fail to obey God’s call in our lives, but by the Grace of God through His Son Jesus Christ He has proved that we can trust him fully and hope in the beautiful future that He has secured for us. Armed with this Gospel of Grace we are free to risk what we “cannot do” in faithful obedience to the God who can and will do on our behalf.
Transcript
So I’ll share with you uh the title of uh of this sermon I don’t often share the title until it gets sent out by uh you know by email and the weekly eblast are posted online uh but I but I thought this was good and would probably lighten your uh your spirits you can’t do it
it’s the probably the worst selling uh motivational speech right you can’t do it but my question uh it’s a rhetorical one uh but my question for you um is this has God ever called you to do something that you just couldn’t
do has God ever called you to do something that you just couldn’t do now if you can’t think of something because the answer should be uh yes right that yes there’s plenty of those things if you can’t think of something uh and you want to say no to that uh that you always do everything that God has ever told you to do uh either you’re not listening very well um or you’ve just been ignoring the times that uh the and you’ve just tune the Lord out when he has as asked you to do something uh you know what is that Lord I couldn’t quite hear you you know what what were you what were you asking me to do uh you know maybe it was something big like the Lord was calling you to the mission field but you just couldn’t do it but most likely it’s something far less dramatic than that right those are those are the big things and there are things like that in our lives but most likely it’s something less dramatic something that can seem a bit smaller uh like uh like God calling you to reach out maybe to a person in your life that you have had a falling out with where there’s a broken relationship and the Lord’s called you to to be an agent of reconciliation but you just can’t do
it last week we covered how all of us every single one of us falls short of the glory of God every single one of us
um we all fall short of God’s glory which which means all of us fail to be obedient 100% of the time uh and we talked about how partial obedience is actually Disobedience there is no partial obedience it’s just Disobedience to the Lord uh but this evening I want to talk about the other ways that we fail to obey God God’s calling in our lives ignoring the the call to to reconciliation ignoring the call to to share share our faith uh with others uh in our lives and around us how about ignoring the the call to forgive and to receive forgiveness for others and the human Mind Is Crafty we’re incredibly crafty we can justify uh almost every decision that we can make we can justify it right and in our minds we will come up with every reason possible why we were unable to obey God’s call in our lives and so after a while we just believe it how we just could not have possibly done what God was asking us to do you know we come up with physical reasons there’s physical reasons right I’m too old now I’m too old to do that I can’t do that Lord anymore or maybe it’s the other side of it maybe it’s I’m too young I’m too young to do that Lord or maybe it’s just too dangerous or maybe we just don’t have enough money to be able to take that kind of risk in our lives and that at this time if I were more stable uh then then then maybe I could take that kind of risk for what you’re calling me to Lord or maybe it’s not physical maybe it’s emotional or or psychological reasons that we come up with to justify uh why we we just can’t obey what the Lord’s calling us to do maybe it would just be too
painful or it would make us vulnerable if we did it or it would leave us weak and exposed or maybe you have that feeling of you know I’ve just faced way too much disappointment in my life I could not possibly take another let down I just couldn’t do it or maybe I’m just too angry I’m just too angry with with with that that person or with those people I couldn’t possibly go to them you know that’s that’s the story of Jonah right or how about my life is way too stressful I I’m way too anxiety ridden right now uh I couldn’t possibly follow where you’re lead where you’re calling me to go right now Lord I couldn’t do it but there’s also spiritual reasons uh I don’t really have any hope that doing what the Lord’s asking me to do is really going to make for a better future for me or I don’t think that I can trust God by taking this risk or I don’t think that if I obey it will bring me the real joy and purpose and meaning and contentment that my heart’s really longing for and those are just some of the excuses or the rationals that our minds conjure up for why we just can’t oy God obey God with what he’s calling us to do so we play it safe and we think that if we disobey God and we we just think and we disobey God by thinking that it’s going to be for our good that we’re going to be better off for it but the reality is that the disobedience is never for our good it’s always in the end destructive to our lives in the long run well the hope of the Gospel is that God to be bring us children of Disobedience to Glory he sent his perfectly obedient son into this world to Die the death that we deserve and to give us new and unending life through his resurrection from the dead that’s the hope of the gospel and the fruit of that gospel in our lives is a newfound life of trust in God who loves us that he would do enough that he would do that for us and a newfound hope for the future that we now know our future is all wrapped up and assured through Jesus’s victory over sin and death and the devil hope is always before us always and that kind of trust and that hope the fruit that the gospel brings into our hearts and lives it gives us a freedom and a newfound courage to dare to obey God’s call in our lives no matter how difficult or dangerous or scary it might seem to us in any given moment and that my friends is the gospel message that I believe is being born out of Joshua 17 the way that Joshua 17 is pointing us to the cross and it’s pointing us to the
Fulfillment of our Salvation in in Jesus Christ for you and for me so how do we get there from Joshua 17 uh well last week in in Joshua 16 for those who who weren’t here or might have missed or didn’t go back and listen uh Joshua had uh two sons uh and the people of Joshua of of mean the people of Joseph uh who uh who part of Ephraim and Manasseh have come to get their allotment to receive their inheritance after the uh the conquest of the land and last week we talked about the inheritance that was given to the people of Ephraim and how they did not drive out the Canaanites as God had commanded them to do instead they forced them into uh into uh indentured servitude we talked about the fact that they did not that’s what the text told us they did not drive them out and they didn’t do it because uh because they thought that there was a better way that’s why they decided not to obey and to fully carry out they they wanted they were partially obedient to the Lord uh but they weren’t wholly obedient and therefore they were
disobedient and the devastation that that
Disobedience would bring into their lives will last for Generations in devastating ways as read the whole book of judges in Joshua 17 we turn to the people of Joseph Joseph’s first son Manasseh and the people of Manasseh also failed to obey God but but they do it in a little bit different way a little bit different but the diff difference is subtle but it’s important in verses 12 to 13 we were told this yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities but the Canaanites persisted to dwell in the land now when the people of Israel grew strong they put the Canaanites to force labor but did not LLY drive them out so last week while the people of Ephraim did not drive out the Canaanites as God had commanded them the people of Manasseh here in Joshua in Joshua 17 were told could not drive out the Canaanites from the cities as God had commanded them to do it’s a distinction right it maybe a small distinction but there’s definitely a distinction uh and however insignificant that distinction May seem uh for the people of Ephraim it was a matter of will that they did not obey the Lord and for the people of ma manasse it’s a it’s a matter of ability it’s a matter of ability at least according to to Joshua 17 they could not the people of Ephraim did not because it seemed more advantageous as we talked last week to not do it and to force them into uh indentured servitude it would work that they beli to their benefit in the long run but the people of Manasseh could not and the reason they could not at least uh what the word means itself is because they didn’t have the strength to do so that that’s what the the Greek word means that we translate as could not it means they were not able they did not have the power or the strength but the Greek word can also be translated like this that they could not end endure they could not endure and I like that that translation uh for for one reason that because it implies that it’s more than just a lack of physical strength there was more going on here than that they were just weak or they didn’t have the the right numbers or their strategies weren’t as uh as good as those of the Canaanites it tells that there’s there’s more going going on here it speaks to a lack of not only physical ability but emotional psychological ability and a lack of ultimately the spiritual ability to obey the Lord and to continue to to wipe to push out the Canaanites alt together the people of manasse could not do it it was too much for them it was too hard it was too grueling it was too painful perhaps it was too hopeless in their minds to even try and and I think we can understand that I think we can relate relate to that at least if we’re we’re honest with ourselves but while it said the people could not if we go all the way back to Joshua 1 where this whole thing began it seems like a long time ago now doesn’t it a long long time ago uh and Joshua 1 verse two when when God’s calling Joshua these were the words of promise that he spoke he said Moses my servant is dead now therefore arise go over this Jordan you and all the this people into the land that I am giving them to the people to the people of Israel you notice he didn’t say go into into the land that I am giving them except those cities of manasseh’s inheritance he didn’t give an exception did he no he said this is the land that that I’m I’m giving them these are the people that I’m going to drive out before you no all of the promised land God promised he God promised that he would give all of the promised land to his people as a gift it was a gift from him to his people so Joshua 17 tells us that the people of manasse could not that they didn’t have the ability which is TR actually
true they couldn’t they didn’t have the ability we have no reason to doubt uh what we’re being told here they didn’t have the physical they didn’t have the emotional the psychological or the spiritual strength to take possession of those cities and to cast out the Canaanites as God had commanded them to do that’s
true but what they had was something much greater what they had was something much greater than their own ability they had the promise of God all they had to do was to trust God’s promise and to risk it to risk it for the future hope that awaited them that God had laid out before them and had given them but they didn’t do
it because they let the little fact that they couldn’t do it get in the way of all that God could do and promis that he would do for
them friends how much have we missed out on because we just couldn’t do it
because we’re too old or because we’re too young we got some young ones in here they’re not listening to me but they’re here right
Eliza or too
weak or we’re just too poor we can’t do it or we’re just too scared I just can’t we can’t do it or we’re too stressed or we’re just too
angry or we’re just too busy that’s a big one isn’t it I’m just too busy right now there’s too many other things that I’ve got to do because the truth is all of those things are true they are true but the biggest obstacle of all to obediently following where God is is leading us and where he is calling us in our lives is that we just in our heart of hearts don’t believe that we can trust
him and we cannot see the Hope in following where he leads because if those two things were rooted in our hearts there’s nothing that would stop us there’s nothing we wouldn’t
risk I was watching an interview uh yesterday with with Jordan Peterson uh that he did with Elon Musk which is incredibly two very smart people talking to each other uh which uh if you can understand half of it it was uh it was incredibly interesting uh it was fascinating and they were talking about having children you know it’s a big big topic if you ever follow things that Elon mus talks about and he has 12 of them um if you follow some of the big topics and how culture sees children as a burden and not a blessing how our culture sees CH having children is a hardship and not a joy uh but in the midst of their their dialogue uh as they were kind of coming to agreement about this you know this issue uh Jordan Peterson said something that was really simple but at the same time I thought was incredibly profound uh he said the future is always a challenge and having children is a vote for the
future it was pretty simple but it was incredibly profound and it connects to this in a deep way because it got me thinking in a postchristian worldview a postbiblical worldview culture that that we live in uh which rejects God’s truth right which rejects God’s truth claims what God has revealed to be true uh and things like God’s called to us in creation to be fruitful and multiply that that’s part of God’s call to us or in Psalm 127 right children are a Heritage from the Lord the fruit of the womb a reward like arrows in the hand of the warrior are the children of our yous blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them that’s what God’s revealed about children right but instead in our culture we see children as a burden and a hardship so so what’s happened though if you look at what’s happened in the culture is two things one the obvious and that is a distrust and ultimately a rejection of God and his revealed truth right so a distrust of God and what God has said is good and what God has said is a blessing but the second of it is this a lack of hope for the future it’s a lack of Hope for the future when hope for the future is gone what happens is it’s replaced by fear it’s replaced by fear and out of
fear we cannot possibly do the things that God has called us to
do and the reasons are endless the people of manessa lost hope in the future God had promised they lost hope in a future the way that God had told them it would be and out of fear they allowed their own inabilities to be the justifying cause for their Disobedience or their partial obedience right which we talked about last week is really just Disobedience friends we do the same thing we look at the broken relationships in our lives and just despite God’s clear word that we are called to forgive and that through Christ we have been given the ministry of reconciliation that’s God’s word or Jesus’s word about coming to the Lord’s table that before we come first you better be reconciled with your brother right these These are commands these are God’s calls and yet we just can’t do it again this is just one example and we justify that we can’t do it because it’s too hard maybe it’s been too long maybe we’ve just been hurt too often or we’ve been taken advantage of just too much or it’s going to make us feel and look weak and vulnerable and guess what all of that is probably true
but the Lord who has called you to this work is the same God who sent his one and only son into this world to die for you to reconcile you to him and me to him and through his work of re reconciliation we have the ultimate hope for the future and we can trust the one who would not even spare his own son to reconcile us to him to bring about the reconciliation of our broken relationships friends when you put your trust in Jesus’s work of reconciliation your future is sure and it is
certain and under the protection of Jesus and the hope of the future that we have in him we’re free we’re free to both boldly risk for the work that God’s calling us to do no matter what that may be in your life right now whether it’s to go out onto the mission field uh maybe to France we need you in France we need you here too I’m not just judging France but after what we saw this week we need you in France the gospel needs to be proclaimed but maybe it’s not just being on going onto the mission field maybe it’s just to share your faith with your coworker that’s a scary thing it could be a risky thing but if God’s calling you to do it you’re free to trust him you’re free because your future in your hope of a future is secure we’re free to risk pursuing healing of reconciliation of those broken relationships in our lives we’re free need to admit to our children which is probably the hardest thing in the world to do right at least it is for me uh that we’re wrong and to hum humbly ask them for
forgiveness no matter what he is calling you to be obedient for and to do you can’t do it but he is mighty and he is able and he will Empower you to trust him who can and to give you the hope of future that you need to be freed to live into that calling you cannot do it but God can and will and has provided you with a hope and a future that nothing in this world can destroy praise God Amen
