Living in Victory

So I'm preaching through the Book of Joshua, right?  I started the book in September and I'm up to chapter six.  We might be in for a long, long journey.  It's great though...I've gotten a ton out of it and hopefully Calvary is feeling like it has been a worthwhile study.  So we're up to chapter six, verse two when God tells Joshua how He's going to take down Jericho.  God is laying down the battle plan (which really isn't much of a military strategy).  In fact, there is no military strategy at all and I think that is what makes this passage so interesting.

So God says in Joshua 6:3-5:

"You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days.  "Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets.  "It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat..."

So the  battle plan was to march around the city for seven days, take seven priests with you who will blow seven horns on the seventh day thereby causing the walls of Jericho to fall down.  WHAT???  Can you imagine Joshua's initial reaction to this message?  Joshua, warrior, commander of the armies of Israel, go on a hike around the city and yell and blow trumpets.  This had to seem crazy to Joshua...it had to be somewhat disconcerting to think that for all of Joshua's planning, all of his strategizing, this would be how God would accomplish the task of conquering Jericho.

Today, battles are still being fought.  The war is over, but the enemy has not yet conceded defeat.  I've heard that as the War of 1812 ended, the Battle of New Orleans did not end until a few days after the war with British was officially over.  Men were dying when they didn't have to...the war was complete but the soldiers didn't get that word.  Honestly, I don't know if Joshua reacted in the way that I described earlier.  The Bible says that he was a man of "strength and courage".  But as Followers of Jesus today I think that too often we react  in the way that I imagined Joshua's response.  "That's not going to work Lord!"  "I'm a person of action...enough praying, let's just take the fight to the enemy!"  The truth is, we've gotten the word haven't we?  The war is over.  1 John 3:8 states, "The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work."  The author goes on to say in 1 John 5:4-5:  "For everyone born of God overcomes the world.  This is the victory that has overcome the world,  even our faith.  Who is it that overcomes the world?  Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God."  Jesus declared victory through His death and Resurrection; Jesus declared victory in the knowledge that He had defeated sin and death.  We can live victorious lives "through Him who loved us".

My challenge to you this week is to live as if you were already victorious.  Leave behind defeat, leave behind fear, leave behind sadness...live as if our God actually won the war.  I want you to live lives of victory because if you belong to Him, you are.  The war is over...praise God that we were given that Word!!