Walk by Faith

_E

I. Faith Trusts who God is

2. Faith Obeys even with limited Understanding

3. Faith finds Salvation from Judgment

Introduction:

My name is Charlie Wagner,

I am an Elder at Hutong Church in Haidian.

Your Elders asked if I could come and speak today to you both of God’s words in Joshua, which will be our focus today,

but also what God is doing at Hutong Church and how you can possibly be a part of it. Most of you hopefully know this already,

but City Church planted Hutong last year.

We just celebrated our one year anniversary two weeks ago and it was incredibly exciting.

We have seen God work in Amazing ways.

If you live in the Haidian area, we would LOVE to have you join us next week.

I know trying a different church is difficult.

My wife and my biggest concern when we went was losing our friendships built here.

But I want to encourage those in here who either

1. Live in that area,

2. Have a heart for church planting, or

3. Just feel led to help out,

to come join us next weekend. Pastor TJ suggested,

and I think this is a great idea,

to suggest people commit to 6-9 months of coming faithfully each week to services and small groups,

serving with your gifts to help the Church grow and God’s be shown in that part of our city.

I will be around after service to answer any questions you may have about Hutong Church. You can also scan the QR code on the screen and get more information about us that way as well.

For some, this may be an obvious move because of where you live.

You may be excited to learn there is a Bible teaching Church closer to your home.

For others, it may be more of a leap of faith.

Change can be scary.

But by God’s great providence, that is exactly what we are talking about this morning From God’s word.

as Brother/sister was reading the passage, I hope you were seeing the great faith of Rahab and Israel.

As I was studying their faith this week, and spending time reflecting on my own faith, and the faith of those at Hutong,

I began to see more and more the need to have the child like faith Jesus spoke about in the New Testament.

For those who have really young children, you know that your child is fully dependent on you for all things. there is an implicit faith and trust a child must have in their parent, even when things don’t make any sense.

Imagine a child in the doctor’s office.

The nurse enters with a needle, and the tears start flowing.

To that child, the whole thing seems cruel:

“Why would my mom or dad let this happen to me?

“This hurts!”

From their perspective it feels unnecessary, even foolish.

But the parent knows something the child doesn’t:

this painful moment is protecting them from something far worse.

All the child can do is trust that their parent knows best, even if they don’t understand.

Faith doesn’t always make sense in the moment.

It can look foolish to the world.

Yet faith chooses to trust that God knows what we cannot see,

and that His ways, regardless of how they look in the moment,

are always good.

Now, this parent illustration can break down though.

Some of you may have already caught this.

Earthly parents, on occasion, be wrong. Some parents can even be harmful.

In a room this size, some of you likely had abusive or harmful parents.

And if that is you, I’m sorry.

That is wrong and not how it should be.

But praise be to God,

that is not our relationship with our heavenly Father.

He never fails,

never errs,

and never works outside His perfect will.

That is the faith we see in Israel and Rahab is it not?

They both had faith in a God who never fails.

As Hebrews 11 declares,

“By faith the walls of Jericho fell…”

and

“By faith Rahab did not perish” (Heb. 11:30–31).

So this morning,

from the Jericho account,

we’ll see three movements of true faith:

Faith trusts who God is.

Faith Obeys even with limited Understanding.

Faith finds salvation from judgment.

In each of these, we will see..

how Rahab was an example to us,

how Israel was an example to us,

and how we can apply these examples to our lives today.

I. Faith Trusts Who God is.

With that in mind, let’s begin where faith always begins,

not with us,

but with God Himself.

But it may come as a little bit of a surprise when we see who we are using as an example here.

A. Rahab’s Faith

When we meet Rahab in chapter 2,

she is the last person you’d expect to be an example of Godly faith.

She was a Canaanite,

part of a people under God’s judgment.

She was a citizen of a city doomed for destruction.

And on top of that, she was a prostitute.

so From every angle, she was disqualified.

And yet when the spies arrived, listen to what she confessed in chapter 2 verse 9.

“I know that the LORD has given you the land…

and in verse 11

for the LORD your God, He is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath”

Show the wowness

what a powerful statement of faith.

Out Of all the people in Jericho,

the clearest confession of Yahweh came not from a king,

not from a soldier,

but from a lowly prostitute.

She knew the walls of Jericho could not save her.

She knew the armies of her city could not save her.

She knew her gods were completely inadequate to save her.

So in verse 12-13, she did the only thing she could do…begged for mercy:

She tells the spies

“Please spare me and my family”.

And when the walls came down in chapter 6,

God in His glorious Grace,

saved Rahab;

B. Israel’s Faith

Israel also had to learn the same lesson.

In chapter 6, they faced Jericho, one of,the most fortified city in Canaan.

Humanly speaking, this would be impossible.

But before the first trumpet ever blew, God said to Joshua in chapter 6 verse 2:

“See, I have given Jericho into your hand” Joshua 6:2

what an amazing declaration of God!

The victory was already declared. Do you see the magnitude of this statement from God?

And this came after they had failed before.

Forty years earlier,

ten spies looked at the land and said,

“The walls are too high,

the people are too strong.”

They trusted what they saw instead of who God is.

That is why they wandered in the wilderness.

And now,

standing before Jericho again,

they had to trust that victory comes not from their numbers,

not from their strength,

but from God Himself.

And when the walls fell,

it was not because Israel was mighty, it was because God is faithful.

C. Your Faith

And that is where it comes home for us as well.

Because the Same character of God who Rahab put her faith in has not changed.

The power and faithfulness that led Israel to March around a cities walls for seven days is the same power and faithfulness we use to trust that God today.

Faith is never about

our status,

our strength,

or our past.

It is always about who God is.

About His status as Lord of Lord and King of Kings.

About His proven strength and Power to accomplish His will for our lives.

About His past, where He has proven Himself time and time again.

Faith simply clings to Him and His revealed nature.

So let me ask: Where are you tempted right now to lean on your own strength?

Your career?

Your ministry?

Your reputation?

Your family?

Faith begins by laying all of that down and resting in who God is and what He has promised.

And if faith truly trusts who God is.

then the natural outflow of that trust is going to be obedience in all things,

even when are are like the child getting a shot,

fully ignorant of how it is for our good but trusting God through it all.

That’s exactly what we see next in Rahab’s scarlet cord and Israel’s march around Jericho.

II. Faith Obeys even with limited understanding

But before we go any further, I must make one thing clear.

Yes, true faith obeys despite understanding,

but this is not blind faith.

Christian obedience is reasonable trust, built on God’s revealed character and proven power.

We obey because the God who parts seas,

topples kingdoms,

Saves souls,

Answers prayer,

And gives victory over sin

Is a God worth trusting our lives to.

Our obedient faith is a faith that trust a God who has proven Himself worthy of our trust.

And again, that is the same thing we see with Rahab and Israel is it not?

A. Rahab’s Faith

Rahab’s obedience grows out of truth she’s already embraced about God.

She heard what the LORD had done,

knew who He is,

and then, by faith,

acted accordingly.

First, recognize how radical this is.

Rahab chooses the God of newcomers over

her own gods,

her own king,

her own culture,

Her own national identity,

and even those mighty walls that at one time seemed impossible to conquer.

Joshua 6:1 tells us…

Joshua 6:1 (ESV)

1 …..Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in.

The fear of God and His people filled the city,

They too had knowledge of the power of God. but their response to this fear was to put their trust in their own power and doings instead of repenting and turning to God.

They could have repented as Nineveh Repented.

They could have responded in faith as Rahab responded in faith.

Instead, they seek to fight against the people of God and begin searching for the spies.

When the king demands that Rahab hand over the spies,

she risks her life in order to protect them.

Much of Chapter two is her acting in faith in ways that would have been incredibly risky to her and her family.

Verse 6: “She Hid them with the stalks of flax”

Verse 15: “She let them down by a rope through the window”

Next, she follows God’s appointed sign with no edits and no delays.

Verse 18 gives the command:“Bind this scarlet cord in the window”

Verse 21 gives the obedient respnose: “She tied the scarlet cord in the window”

Humanly speaking, trusting a cord during a siege sounds foolish.

Battles are incredibly chaotic, how could she trust that the Israelite soldiers who took her section of the city would know of her agreement with the spies?

How could she be sure that Her section of the wall wouldn’t be crumbled, and her home along with it?

notice though that this was not just some spur of the moment act.

She had to wait.

Days passed, and the walls still stood.

She didn’t know when the city would be taken.

She was not given God’s full plan.

Yet, in faith she brought her family into her home and kept them there,

knowing that God would do as He said He would do,

even if she didn’t know when or how.

None of this was blind.

It was logical faith,

It was trust built on the real, revealed God she in verse 11 confessed as the….

“God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath”

Her obedience would have looked foolish to Jericho,

but it was the wisest choice because it was the choice that aligned with the reality of who God is and what He has said and done.

B. Israel

We see Israel’s obedience also growing out of truth that they’ve already embraced about God.

First though, let us see how unlikely their victory would be in human terms.

Humanly speaking, Jericho was virtually impenetrable:

It sat about 260 Meters below sea level in the blazing Jordan Valley, making the walk to the city be a march in an Oven.

It rose on a steep slope with a stone base and a high mudbrick wall on top. This made Jericho was in essence a Two wall city.

They had a fresh spring inside the walls,

meaning it could sustain an incredibly long siege.

The city was built tight together, making it easy to defend.

So what was God’s great strategy to defeat this impenetrable city?

Did he have Israel create great siege towers?

Did they build great powerful rams for the gates?

Ropes and ladders to climb the walls?

Let’s see in verses 3-5 what great and grand strategy God gave the Israelites to obey and do.

Joshua 6:3–5 ESV

3 You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. 4 Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5 And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him.”

WHAT???

Militarily, this sounds absurd.

This is not how Armies conquered.

This plan wouldn’t work on even a weak city.

It wouldn’t even work to conquer this ball room.

I can imagine the soldiers face when their officers told them the plan.

I’m sorry, we are doing what?

Let’s be honest, most of us would laugh and assume Joshua had gone mad.

But this was a people who had seen God providing in the wilderness.

This was a people who had already seen God conquer their enemies on the other side of the river.

This was a people who had seen the waters flow up beside them as they crossed not on muddy ground, but dry ground.

They looked back on the works God had done in their lives, the works they had heard God do in the lives of those who came before them,

They looked back to the stones by the river set as a reminder of the Power of their God

and said that this God was worth trusting in,

even when they couldn’t possibly understand it in human terms.

They did not suspend reason;

they simply submitted their reason to God’s revealed character and proven power.

And the walls fell exactly as He said they would.

C. Your faith

So the question now is do we trust in the revealed character of God?

Obedience may look “foolish” in the world’s eyes.

- practicing sexual purity when compromise seems normal

- Giving generously when keeping our money feels prudent in uncertain times

- Choosing Christian community over party culture even if it costs popularity or advancement opportunities.

- Standing up to an increasingly woke culture that pushes sinful behaviors as new societal norms.

-Telling the truth in marketing, contracts, and finance forms.

-Observing healthy boundaries with alcohol and work dinners when excess is the norm.

-and lastly,

for some of you,

not all,

but possibly some,

choosing to make Hutong Church your home to help grow what God is doing on the west side of the city.

That can be a huge leap of faith, especially when you have so many close friends already at City Church.

My point in all of this is we don’t obey God blindly or in the dark.

We obey because we know the God who speaks

saves,

and sanctifies.

Our faith is intelligent trust rooted in God’s attributes and anchored in His promises.

So find whatever areas there are in your life where you are not being obedient in, either in action or inaction, and repent of them.

In Faith, seek the Lord’s forgiveness and begin to submit to His perfect will. But there is more to our faith than just obedience isn’t there? We see throughout the Bible and in both of our text this morning that faith finds salvation both from and through Judgment.

III. Faith Finds Salvation through Judgment

although both Rahab and Israel were saved both from and through judgment, we will examine being saved from judgment in Rahab and being saved through judgment with Israel.

A. Rahab

So first, we see although rightful and just Judgment was coming to Jericho,

God made a way of mercy.

Rahab hung the scarlet cord as the the sign the spies appointed under God’s providence in Joshua 2:18.

She gathered her whole household into that house and waited.

Trumpets sounded.

Walls fell.

But the house marked by the scarlet sign stood,

and

Rahab, along with all who were hiding under the cord in her home were spared from God’s wrath and judgment.

That cord was not magic.

God back then, today, and throughout redemptive history

always saved by grace through faith.

The cord was faith’s obedience to God’s promise.

And that scarlet cord points beyond itself as a picture or type of something even greater.

Like the lamb’s blood on Israel’s doors at Passover,

the scarlet cord foreshadows the blood of Jesus, the true and better sign of rescue.

The message is simple.

when judgment falls,

those under the blood of Christ are safe.

But now let’s look at Israel as an example of being saved THROUGH judgment.

B. Israel

We often see Israel’s conquest of Canan as simply making room for Israel to take the promise land. This leads to a lot of confusion on how this was just and right of God to do to those living already in the land.

I want you to see however that the People of Canan,

including those in Jericho deserved the wrath of God upon them in the judgment they received.

Their great sins and injustices were an evil blight before the eyes of a Holy and Righteous God.

So you see, Jericho’s fall wasn’t random violence,

The city was already devoted to the LORD for destruction.

It was God’s holy judgment against horrible wickedness so that He could purify a place for His people to live with Him.

So Israel’s coming into the land was the same act as God’s judgment on the land, because the land needed to be purified first.

The same trumpet blasts that signaled Jericho’s doom signaled Israel’s deliverance.

when the walls collapsed,

Israel didn’t survive instead of judgment but through judgment.

God’s act of judging Jericho’s sin was the same act that give His people life in the land.

And this pattern runs through the Bible:

Israel through the sea as Egypt is judged;

the church saved at the cross where judgment lands on Christ;

and one day, final salvation when Jesus returns to judge evil and free His people fully from its presence.

So Church I encourage you not to blush at or ignore God’s judgments;

No, we worship through them because His judgments are also a means of Grace.

And This is important for the Church today to understand.

C. City Church

Because God’s judgment against sin is real.

It was Real against Israel when they wondered the wilderness for forty years.

and in chapter 7,

you will see next week that it was real when someone coveted what was to be given to destruction.

It was real against the sins of Jericho and the other cities of Canan.

And it is real against the sins of you and me.

But His mercy in Christ is just as real, and it is offered today.

Give em that there Gospel Charlie:

Outside of Christ, we face judgment.

This is the natural consequence of our sins.

Romans tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.

That none is righteous, no not one.

You see, We are like Rahab fully deserving of Wrath and judgment.

We are like Rahab, completely unworthy of salvation from wrath and judgment.

Romans 6 23 tells us that the wages of sin is death.

This is physical death,

but it is also spiritual death, meaning eternal seperation from God.

So where do we turn?

What Hope do we have?

We must be as Rahab and see that there is salvation no where but in the one true God.

Our works can not save us.

Our culture can not save us.

Our families can not save us.

Our national identities can not save us.

Only the blood of Jesus Christ can save us.

The scarlet cord points us to the cross, Jesus’ blood shed for sinners. just as Rahab and her family could only be saved from the judgment they too deserved when placed under the protection of the scarlet cord,

just as Israel could only be saved from the judgment of God in Egypt when placed under the protection of the lamb’s blood placed on the doorpost,

So too can we only be saved when placed under the scarlet blood of Jesus Christ.

Who’s blood was poured out for the forgiveness of sins.

so what is our response City Church?

Turn from sin.

Repent and Trust Jesus as Lord and Savior.

This is not a blind faith.

This is a trusting in the greatness and goodness of God revealed to us in scriptures and affirmed through the Holy Spirit as He opens our eyes to the truth.

So I ask each of you,

have you trusted on Jesus Christ for Salvation?

If not, I urge you to do so today.

Come talk to me, one of your City Church Elders,

the prayer team that will be up front after the sermon,

or a trusted Christian friend here today.

don’t wait.

If you have trusted on the redeeming work of Christ,

I ask who in your life can you urgently bring into the house with you?

You can’t save them.

It is only by the work of Christ within them that they can be saved.

But just as Rahab’s family had to choose to come into her home, those whom we share the Gospel with must come to Him as well. It is simply our job to tell them the truth of His great Mercy and love.

He will do the rest.

let us pray.

benadicrion:

We have worshiped God in…

Prayer

Song

Giving

The reading and teaching of the word

And communion.

so now Cuty church,

Let us continue this worship throughout the week.

Prayer team

Hub

Newcomers

1 Peter 5:10–11 “And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.”