Impossible. Difficult. Breakthrough.
Courageous • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 5 viewsIn today’s message, we will see the importance of following God even when he calls us to do things that seem impossible.
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Transcript
Handout
October 19th 2025
Series: Courageous
Sermon Title: Impossible. Difficult. Breakthrough.
Topic: Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land - Story of Jericho.
Key Passages: Joshua 6:1-17,20
Topic: Courage, Joshua, Jericho
Sermon Blurb: In today’s message, we will see the importance of following God even when he calls us to do things that seem impossible.
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***Yellow means what is yellow will be on the screens and in the handout.
Dedication, Baptism, or Ministry Highlight (1st Sunday, every even month):
Sermon:
Hello, Family Church!
Welcome, whether you are here in person or online.
Family Moment –
Start with something personal from your family life recently to help people get to know you.
Celebrate salvation / rededications / baptisms last week.
Celebrate new disciples and disciple-makers.
PAUSE
If you are new to Family Church, you are SO happy you are here today!
It’s Missions Month!
And every year, we set aside one month to share what God is doing all over the world through Family Church and all of our partners.
And this month is going to be a fun one!
This series, which we are calling Courageous, is about learning from the courageous things our teams have done while on mission trips.
The courageous things our missionaries are doing in the Congo.
The courageous things happening in the Amazon Jungle,
El Salvador,
Kenya,
and right here in West Michigan.
PAUSE
One word that describes our missionaries - Courageous!
It takes courage to leave what is comfortable and follow God’s call on your life.
In fact… Let me show you a video of our courageous missionaries…
Example of courageous missionary - video? HIGHLIGHT: All of our ministries:
Surrounded (Fight My Battles) Missionary Video
Isn’t that a crazy testimony!
Talk about being courageous!
ADD HOW YOU FOUND IT TO BE COURAGEOUS
.
PAUSE
Our focus for Missions Month this year is being courageous.
In week one, we encouraged you to refocus on the reality that our lives are a training ground that God uses to prepare us for the work He has called us to do.
Work that requires strength,
courage,
commitment,
and obedience.
Last week, we saw how God can work through ANYONE, no matter how messed up we might seem.
And if you are here today and think you are TOO far gone for God to EVER work through someone like you….
Well…
Listen to last week’s message on our website FamilyChurch.app or on our app, just search in any app store from FamilyChurch.app.
Or subscribe to our Podcast on your favorite Podcast store.
PAUSE
Today we are going to continue in this story about Joshua taking God’s people to Isreal.
Let’s pick up the Bible in Joshua chapter 6.
If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, open it up to
Joshua 6
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Simply download the app and click "Sermon Notes" on the main page.
PAUSE
Before we read this story, I want to share our first point…
I share this before because I want you to see it come alive in the message.
Write this down.
Every GREAT move of God begins with what seems impossible, but when we push through the difficult, it will end with breakthrough.
(Repeat)
And we did not come up with that point…
It comes from Hudson Taylor, the great missionary in the early 1900s who started China Inland Mission and said,
“There are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done.” Hudson Taylor
I’d like to encourage you this morning with this thought.
There’s a 100% chance you won’t always agree with God.
Let me say that again.
There’s a 100% chance you won’t always agree with God.
Share a personal example here of how you didn’t agree with what God was asking you to do, but you did it anyway and how God showed up.
Let me give you an example from my life.
Some of you know my story and some of you do not.
But in High School I was told I would be a pastor one day and I said “NOPE…never going to happen…”
I did NOT agree with God or what people told me God told them to say to me.
In College God clearly told me to get a ministry degree and I said, “NOPE…never going to happen…”
I did NOT agree with God.
And let me explain what that means…
I did NOT hear the voice of God.
But when I switch majors from Med to Business.
I clearly had this thought…Adam you should get a ministry degree…
And I said I have no idea why I would think that.
And I could NOT get that idea out of my head.
I did NOT agree with God so I did NOT get a ministry degree.
When I got into the business world we lived in almost 10 states before we turned 30 as I was climbing the corporate ladder and in EVER state the pastor would tell me…
Son…you have a call on your life and so go to Seminary.
And 9 times I said, “NOPE…never going to happen…”
I did NOT want to do what God was calling me to do!
But in 2009 I finally decided to listen to God and started getting my Masters in Divinity…
And later went into ministry.
God was right..
I was wrong…
This is my best life!
And our desire at Family Church is to help ALL of you discover who God created you to be so you can live your best life!
PAUSE
What seems IMPOSSIBLE…
Like me going into ministry.
I was NOT a good kid!
I partied in college!
I was not a perfect person!
What seems IMPOSSIBLE…
If we PRESS through the difficulty of following God…
We will experience a breakthrough!!!!
I want that for all of you!
And let’s see that come to life in the Bible today!
PAUSE
Joshua Chapter 6…
Let me give you a little background because we do not want anyone to feel like an outsider at church.
In this chapter Joshua takes God’s people to the famous battle of Jericho.
The people of Israel had just crossed over the Jordan River into the land of Canaan.
This was the land God had promised to Abraham over 500 years earlier.
After spending forty difficult years wandering in the desert of Sinai, the people of Israel were now on the eastern banks of the Jordan.
Their challenge: take the land of Canaan, the Promised Land.
However, their first obstacle was the city of Jericho, an unconquerable, walled city.
PAUSE
Let’s start reading at verse 1.
Joshua 6:1-20 1 Now the gates of Jericho were securely barred because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
2 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.
3 March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.
4 Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark.
On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.
5 When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have the whole army give a loud shout;
then the wall of the city will collapse and the army will go up, everyone straight in.”
Impossible…
That is NOT how war works.
That is NOT how battles work.
That is IMPOSSIBLE.
Joshua was at one of those moments when there was a 100% chance he should NOT agree with God on how the battle of Jericho should play out.
The city is surrounded by a wall.
Walls do not just fall.
What do we do when God says…do something impossible?
Ponder that as I show you something cool.
PAUSE
If you are a skeptic of the Bible…
That is cool.
One of the things I LOVE about the Bible is that the more we look into it the more we find out how it is accurate.
Let me show you two pictures.
Here is one of ancient Jericho.
See the walls…
Ya, those are what God said would fall.
And if I were a skeptic, I would say…
If that happened, we should be able to find the evidence.
Well…look at this second picture of Jericho.
Notice how that shape matches the prior picture?
They have found ancient Jericho.
And here is something cool…
Skeptics lean in.
Excavations there reveal that its fortifications featured a stone wall 11 feet high and 14 feet wide.
At its top was a smooth stone slope, angling upward at 35 degrees for 35 feet.
There it joined another MASSIVE stone wall that towered even higher!
Which would have been virtually impossible to break through!
I love how archiology just confirms the Bible the more we dig!
PAUSE
Here is the point you are about to see church…
Write this down..
With God, impossible things are possible.
(Repeat)
Let’s keep reading…
Verse 6
6 So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them,
“Take up the ark of the covenant of the Lord and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it.”
7 And he ordered the army, “Advance! March around the city, with an armed guard going ahead of the ark of the Lord.”
8 When Joshua had spoken to the people, the seven priests carrying the seven trumpets before the Lord went forward,
blowing their trumpets, and the ark of the Lord’s covenant followed them.
9 The armed guard marched ahead of the priests who blew the trumpets, and the rear guard followed the ark.
All this time the trumpets were sounding.
10 But Joshua had commanded the army, “Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!”
Joshua…And all the people CHOSE to follow God.
And it is a CHOICE.
You can follow God or not.
They CHOSE to.
Verse 11…
11 So he had the ark of the Lord carried around the city, circling it once. Then the army returned to camp and spent the night there.
12 Joshua got up early the next morning and the priests took up the ark of the Lord.
13 The seven priests carrying the seven trumpets went forward, marching before the ark of the Lord and blowing the trumpets.
The armed men went ahead of them and the rear guard followed the ark of the Lord, while the trumpets kept sounding.
14 So on the second day they marched around the city once and returned to the camp. They did this for six days.”
Difficult…
In ancient warfare, cities were either taken by assault or surrounded, and the people starved into submission.
Invaders might try to weaken the stone walls with fire or by tunneling.
Or they might simply heap up a mountain of earth to serve as a ramp; the Romans did that often, if you study history.
Each of these methods of assault took months or longer.
PAUSE
However, the strategy to conquer the city of Jericho was unique in two ways.
First, the strategy was laid out by God Himself.
And, second, the strategy was a foolish plan from human perspectives.
Being willing to follow God’s plan, which was so incredibly different than anything Joshua had ever done, must have been difficult.
Imagine Joshua gathering the priests and the armed men and giving these orders:
Here’s the plan.
We’re going to have the priests blow their horns while we all walk around the city.
We won’t talk at all while we march.
Everyone needs to be SILENT all day long.
And we are going to do this for 6 days straight.
Then on the 7th day.
The priests will blast on the trumpets.
Then the whole army will give a loud shout.
And the wall of the city will collapse.
And the army will go up.
And the city will be ours without even a battle.
PAUSE
If I were in that military I would think Joshua was crazy.
But let’s say…day one… the army likely appeased Joshua and went along with the plan.
2nd day… they were probably thinking… ok, we’re still doing this...
Day 3… really another day of silent walking.
Day 4… Ok this is getting OLD.
Day 5… What is going on? We still can’t talk!?
Day 6… When are we going to DO something?
PAUSE
Here is the point church…
Write this down…
Difficult obedience strengthens our faith.
(REPEAT)
Let’s keep reading…verse 15
15 On the seventh day, they got up at daybreak and marched around the city seven times in the same manner,
except that on that day they circled the city seven times.
16 The seventh time around, when the priests sounded the trumpet blast, Joshua commanded the army, “Shout! For the Lord has given you the city!
17 The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord.
Only Rahab the prostitute and all who are with her in her house shall be spared, because she hid the spies we sent.
20 When the trumpets sounded, the army shouted, and at the sound of the trumpet, when the men gave a loud shout, the wall collapsed;
so everyone charged straight in, and they took the city.
BREAKTHROUGH!
Day 7 - The walls came tumbling down, and the Israelites took the city.
Every GREAT move of God begins with what seems impossible, but when we push through the difficult, it will end with breakthrough.
See here is the point church…
As believers, we must be more than spectators; we must be men and women who live by faith.
(Repeat)
Joshua stepped out in faith and led all of God’s people to do the same and they got to experience God do AMAZING things!
I want all of you to learn to follow God like that…
So, you can help others see God.
Get out of the spectator seat and into the game!!!!
ADD PROMO PIECES HERE?
PAUSE
Let me give you your life application today.
If you are new, or newer, to Family Church, we LOVE to end our messages with something for you to talk about with someone else.
Something to help you apply the message to your life.
So here is this week’s Life Application…And yes…it will sound a lot like the last weeks…
Life Application: What impossible work is God asking you to pursue? Trust that God’s plan is best and He will walk through the impossible and difficult situations with you so you can experience a breakthrough!
As a result of today’s message, I will _________________________.
Prayer:
Make sure to do a salvation call!
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