What a powerful display of God’s power! What a glorious event that displayed God’s
faithfulness too!
Let’s look at the events that led up to this moment. Read Joshua 9-10:14.
Joshua made a mistake. Israel was commanded to drive out all of the people in the Promised Land (Deuteronomy 20:16-18; Exodus 23:32-33).
The Gibeonites deceived Joshua into making a covenant with them.
This happened because Joshua trusted in his own understanding and did not “inquire of the Lord.”
But what was the result of his failure?
While there were surely natural negative consequences to being near the Gibeonite people, we see God turn Joshua’s error into a chance to glorify Himself and display His power for Israel (His people).
God displays His power, His grace, and His trustworthiness through Joshua’s sin!
The kings mentioned in Joshua 10:5 all turned on the Gibeonites. 5 Kings against Israel and Gibeon. The odds seem impossible, and God takes an increasingly active role in destroying these nations and defending the covenant His people made in error.
Look at the battle!
Look at the measures God takes to preserve a covenant His people made which He commanded should never even happen! God is completely trustworthy!
- “The Lord threw them into confusion before Israel, so Joshua and the
Israelites defeated them completely at Gibeon.” (Joshua 10:10) - “…the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them, and more of them died from the hail than were killed by the swords of the Israelites.” (Joshua 10:11).
- “The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since” (Joshua 10:13-14).
Despite Joshua’s sin and despite Joshua’s failure (with good intentions), God glorified Himself.
Despite this error, God revealed His trustworthiness.
Despite this mistake, God revealed His wonderful grace and saved imperfect Israel and the Gibeonites who deceived them.
Look at what this article from Ligonier states, “The Gibeonites did not deserve to live, but they received grace even though they had deceived God’s people. This grace would later bear even more fruit. Eventually, the Gibeonites were fully assimilated into Israel, as seen in their being among the Israelites
who rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem after the exile (Nehemiah 3:7).”
Isn’t our weakness and our inability to control things one of the factors that drives our anxiety?
God magnificently uses us and lives with us despite our weakness.
Do we not get dragged into obsessing over whether we are doing things correctly and into fearing failure?
With God as our Lord and Savior we cannot fail!
Do you often feel like you have failed in presenting the gospel to somebody?
It is not our words that saves people – God saves people.
Sure, we sin. Sure, we mess up.
Sure, we never do things perfectly. But this is the whole point of the Gospel (which we will explore in depth in week 3), despite our weakness, God saves!
Even if we are weak, He is strong!
God is in the business of using flawed people who make mistakes to bring about good things. Simply, “…seek first His kingdom and His righteousness…”
You are doing that through reading God’s word this morning.
With God, you no longer have to fear failure. You can make decisions confidently because God is in charge of bringing about success through our imperfection and He has given us wisdom in His word to know the correct moral decisions to make. (Note, God’s plan involves both highs and lows, temporary falls and victories, but none of these take you out of His overarching will which involves God’s glory, our good, and true success). You are in good hands.
Consider this passage,
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” – Ephesians 2:10 NASB1995.
When making decisions, pray and ask for guidance and God’s involvement, read the scriptures to make sure your decisions do not go against God’s wisdom, seek counsel from wise Christians, then move forward boldly knowing God is with you and will bring you to the place you need to be.
God’s good will is not thwarted by our failures, so we do not have to cling to control anymore. Accept your shortcomings and place your trust in the one who never fails you.
