Don't Just Merge... Yield!

All thinking on the same vein. Is yielding to another person fun? Is yielding to another person fun?

All you have to do is watch a mother working or a parent working with their children to see that yielding is not fun. Maybe it's that child that is wanting to touch something hot in the house and the parent encourages them to pull away and, no, don't touch it, and they give instruction and that child still somehow maneuvers their way through in that direction and they maybe more sternly say, no, don't touch the stove, and yet that child or that young child will somehow finagle their way through and eventually touch what was hot and they learn the hard way, the lesson that the parent was trying to teach. Or maybe it's that child that's running down that steep embankment, maybe a concrete driveway, and the parent is saying, no, don't run, don't run, and maybe even the parent swoops in and sweeps them off their feet right at the last minute and saves them from from injury. But that child, more times than not, thought that was a game. They think it's still something fun that they would like to do, and they, once again, somehow figure their way to get away from the parent. They run down that steep driveway and those little legs just can't keep up with the speed, and skin hands and skin knees are the outcome.

The child just wouldn't yield. And as children of God, have we ever done anything similar?

So let's see a show of hands. How many people enjoy yielding?

Yeah, I didn't expect to see any. I, a lot of times, don't enjoy it either. It's part of our nature to go our own, to go our own way. But herein lies the problem, which we'll talk about today.

Human nature wants to merge with God, but God wants us to yield. Human nature wants to merge with God, but God wants us to yield. Let's turn to James 3 verse 17 as our opening scripture today. James 3 verse 17. And while you're turning, I'll set up a couple visuals for you. I think last time I was here, I used similar types of visuals.

And you'll understand where I'm going here in just a minute.

I'll put this one up here so it can be seen. This is the important one, as you're already picking up on. So we have a merge sign and we have a yield sign. Let's start off in James 3 in verse 17.

But the wisdom that is from above is first pure and then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy.

The wisdom that is from above is willing to yield.

As human nature, as human beings, our human nature wants us to merge our lives with God, but God wants us to yield our lives to His way and His teachings. A visual example that I saw for many years was a construction project near our house. It was the interchange of a highway and a divided highway that they were completely changing and redoing to make it safer and to make allow more traffic through. And in this interchange that I went through daily on my way to work, as many times, they make the situation more dangerous before it's better and you've got to be even more careful as you go through it.

But I would always be taking the divided highway and taking an on-ramp to go north onto the other highway. And it's just a normal ramp that goes off. And before they started changing the intersection, it was a normal clover leaf. So every lane was their own and you never had to worry about merging traffic really until you got onto the highway.

But what they did is they had to change this interchange to make it more safe. So they added a couple stoplights on a divided highway. So that traffic wanting to go the same direction that I did now has to turn through this traffic light. And so while the project was going on, the ramp that I normally take that's never had a sign before, they had to construct two yield signs. Two yield signs for me because they were now allowing traffic to turn at a stoplight and come up the same ramp or the same...

we're going to come together. They're coming up a ramp. I'm coming up one. And in this construction project, like so many, they don't give you room to merge. It's just they shoot you straight on out.

We've all seen that. They shoot you straight on out. There's no room to maneuver or anything. So they put these two big yield signs. And it's not just one because trust me, one was not enough driving behind some people. Yeah, one wasn't enough. They constructed two. And as we know how yield signs work versus merge, yield signs mean if the traffic is too much, you may be required to stop, not just to push your way in or to figure out how to get into the flow.

You may be required to stop. And a lot of the times, this is a similar way with God, too, that we are all a construction project to God and that we're in a transformation, a conversion of our hearts and of our minds. And God wants us to also yield and advises us to follow His road signs as we go through life.

So as we think about this mentality, let's think about the merge sign for just a moment. As we've journeyed across this country, we've seen and encountered people that treat yield signs more like a merge sign. And like I said in that construction project, following other cars, I've seen some that just shot right by that yield sign and straight in the traffic and cars swerving to try to avoid. I was thankful to never witness an accident, but many times I was hanging on behind because I'm like, oh, this is not going to go good. But people maneuvered, people avoided them. There were times there were accidents there. But we've all seen people who treat merge signs or treat yield signs more like a merge sign and they just come on straight on out into traffic.

They're coming out one way or another and they're going to come out on their timing. But for those of us who do understand how to merge, merging takes cooperation with the other cars around us. It's kind of like a song and a dance. You get your car up to a similar speed that the traffic is flowing and then you look for an opportunity to insert yourself into that flow of traffic. And if the other drivers are recognizing that you're instructed to merge, they usually try to create a little bit of a space for you to join in.

Notice I say they normally try to create a space. That's the way it's supposed to work, right? You guys got this all worked out here. It's only the people in Ohio, right? It's not so high once they can't figure out how to merge. But that's how it's supposed to work. It takes some cooperation. It takes some almost contact, sometimes eye contact, with others. It takes turn using your turn signal to notify the other person your intention. And they try to give you some space and you insert yourself into the flow.

That's the way that merging is supposed to work. And at times, it can seem like we want our lives to merge with God's life or in His instruction for our life. We understand that there are benefits to living God's way. Clear, cut, and dry.

No one here is going to argue this one with me today. We understand that God's way works and we do work hard to live the proper way of life.

But then there's sometimes we run into a difficult situation in life. And this is where I believe our merge mentality kicks in. Maybe it's somebody at work that we're having a difficult time with. And maybe we've been really patient with that person time after time after time and we've worked with them and we've tried to just turn the other cheek when something bad happened.

But then they catch you on a bad day. Bad day for yourself. And you decide, you know what, God?

You need to merge with me a little bit here. You need to give me a little bit of a gap here to to let my righteous anger out because I've done so many things over time, God, right? I've followed you. I've been patient with this person. But just like that car merging mentality, I need you to back off a little bit here, God, and let me merge my human nature a little bit with your righteousness.

Have we ever done something like that? I'll be the only one to raise my hand today because it has happened. Where we try to justify in our own mind that this is okay for this behavior this time because we've done everything we can. But is God on the same playing field that we are? That's the big question today. Is he on like an equal car, similar maker model to us, that we can turn our turn signal on and that they're supposed to give a little bit of leeway? Is that the type of God that we worship and we follow? It's not. God is God. His way stands solid and true. Our lives and our attitudes are never ever to merge with God. Our lives are to yield to Him in His way. He is the way and He is the truth and the light and we are to always, always yield our lives to His instruction in His way, never to try to merge. Yielding allows something external to have control over to us. We can either choose to yield to sin or we can choose to yield to the Holy Spirit working vitally in our lives. This isn't a sometimes I'm in control, sometimes you, God, are in control type of way of thinking. This isn't a I've submitted or yielded this time, so next time I get to do what I feel I need to do, God. There is never a time in life when we should not want to yield to God, and through the Holy Spirit we are being led by God and Jesus Christ daily. So let's talk about the yield sign for a few minutes. Just as we do in that construction zone, we have a choice to either obey the yield sign or to not obey it. It's a choice, and we've all seen that person that avoids, that either missed the sign, maybe they were distracted, maybe they didn't see it, maybe the children were roughhousing in the back seat or whatever, and they missed that sign, or maybe they just chose to ignore it. Maybe they just had that idea today. At times we drive through life missing those yield signs as well, and sometimes we miss those because we may have blinders on that we can't even physically see the sign. Life sometimes has a way, a tricky way of putting blinders on us, and if we do not obey that yield sign, we may make it out okay still, right? Just like those cars that would come up to the yield sign, two of them there, and just just blow right through that yield sign, many times they were okay because no traffic was in the flow. They just blew right through onto the highway on their way, may not have even been thought another thing about it, or may never even noticed it.

And maybe they do that again the next day, for whatever reason, and the next day, and they continue to not deal with the consequences of their action. This can lead to a searing of their minds and our minds, too, when we don't yield to God because of there not being a consequence or something. We feel like maybe we chose this or didn't choose it, but nothing happened, and so if something happens again and the same situation happens again, and it can lead to a searing of our conscience. We see this in 1 Timothy 4 verse 1, where it reads, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, when something is seared, it develops a tough callous type of skin on it, like whether it's a steak or your finger, if you burn that, it develops, and it's not as sensitive to feeling and to other things anymore. It's the nerve engines are damaged, and over time the searing can get worse and worse, the callous can build up, and all of a sudden to the point you can't even feel anything anymore, and on that moment where that spot where your hand has been seared. It does our response in a spiritual stance to the fact that what we are doing is dangerous and it's harmful to us, and it can provide a false sense of security saying, well, this has continued to happen, but I've made it out okay, kind of like that car that just shoots right on in traffic. I'm okay, nothing has happened, and just like that driver, we become comfortable ignoring the yield sign until bam, that accident happens, right? We've seen those, we might have been in some of those in our own lives, and many times when those accidents happen, it's a clobbering, it's a sudden awakening of what's happened and how it occurred. It's rude, it's sudden, it's shocking at times, and maybe we only injure ourselves when this happens, physically or spiritually, but so many times others around us are injured as well, and many times those closest to us, those that we love the deepest, are also injured when these events happen. These are the consequences of our actions. Maybe through life there are times we don't yield when we know we should, but we can't live this type of life because it's dangerous, it's reckless, and it's sinful before God. So you may think, when do I have blind yourself? When do I ignore the yield sign? But we all have to have to ask ourselves that question. Am I really heeding the sign and truly yielding to God? Mike Phelps has to ask that question, too. Am I really heeding the yield signs from God and truly heeding them?

Because this life has a deceptive way of sneaking blinders onto us without us even knowing that they're wrong. Situations around us can influence and cause us to think differently.

We can open our minds to ways that sound right, make sense, but go against God's instructions.

So it's not just about removing the blinders in life when they are revealed to us. It's about maintaining that close relationship with God so we can have revealed to us when those blinders sneak into our lives. And this is one of the aspects that's so great about our spiritual family that we have here and that we have in other congregations that we fellowship with, is that we should be able to, in loving attitudes and approaches, help each other when we recognize that somebody has a blinder on because that person most likely doesn't even realize they have it.

And if we can approach them in love and try to help them and say, listen, I've noticed this has been going on. I've seen this a couple times. Is there anything going on in your life? This is something we can do as a family. And it's not always easy. And sometimes a person walks away, maybe even upset with us, for approaching them about this. But we're still asked to do it. And it can still, more times than not, that person walks away and they think about it. And God avows that seed that maybe we planted, that we pointed out to grow, and that they pray about it. And they come back maybe weeks, maybe longer, back to us and say, you know what? You were right. I did have a binder on. I had no idea it was even there. I have been doing this behavior, or I have had this problem. And when we're a family, a spiritual family, just like your physical families, we can help each other. And it's not always the easiest thing to do. But God does ask us to do this. Let's look at 2 Timothy 2, verse 25. 2 Timothy 2, verse 25.

We'll actually start in verse 24. We'll just read the intro to 24 and then hop into 25. And the servant of the Lord, well, we'll just read it all, must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach impatient. This is what I'm wanting to get at. In humility, correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. In humility, we are to go to each other and to help when we see that someone has a binder on in their life, that they're no longer yielding to God's instructions, but we're to do it so that they can be close with God again. And we should always do that in love and concern for the other person, recognizing that it's tough to be on the receiving end of correction. No one enjoys that. And so we have to understand that it's a difficult situation to be in. But we can also remember if we are ever approached by someone else, and we feel those feelings coming up of maybe being upset with the other person, that if they're doing it out of love, and let's say they're not doing it out of love. Let's say it's a little more pointed. God still says that we are to respond to that, and we still have a responsibility to acknowledge the yield sign that he has now brought to our attention. And through that, we can draw closer to God and closer to his son.

At the midpoint of this message, let's review five points on what yielding involves in the Christian life. Five points on what yielding involves in the Christian life. Point number one, a heart to obey God. Let's turn to Colossians 3, verse 9 and 10. I'm trying to be...I feel like I'm shouting today, so I...with the air conditioners running, but I like the air conditioners running. So please don't feel like I'm shouting. I'm just trying to make sure it makes...I think you guys have one on the...on in the back as well. I'm just making sure everybody can hear me. Plus, I was at camp this week with the whole 13, 9, and 10-year-old boys, and so I think I'm kind of used to this type of talk, so you'll have to forgive me for that. But let's look at Colossians chapter 3, verse 9 and 10 as we as we examine a heart to obey God.

Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of him who created him. Notice that we have passed off that old man, and with that goes that old way of thinking, goes with that our old human nature. And we have put on the new man that comes with a heart that wants to obey God. This is a heart that yields to God's instructions and commandments in our lives. We are working to change out that stony heart, that negative heart of man, and replacing it with a heart that is soft, a heart that is pliable, one that will yield and obey God.

And this is what we are working on towards daily in our lives, this type of a heart, that heart that will obey God. Point number two of what yielding involves in a Christian life is humility. Humility. As we open our minds more fully to God's words and ways, we continually understand that we don't have all the answers. Our way doesn't work. And you can just trust me, because I'm sure you haven't tried it. I've tried it my way, and it doesn't work. We've all done that.

The only thing that works in our life is when we follow the yield sign that is before us, and we yield to God in His way. It takes humility to yield to someone other than ourselves.

We just love to follow the beat of our own drum. As the saying goes, it's my way or it's the highway.

There's many times in life we see that the world encourages people to be unique. Be different. Stand out. Do things your own way. Yet God gives us the way to walk. He gives us the instructions that will bring happiness, peace, and joy to our lives. We see this in 1 Peter, verse 5.

1 Peter chapter 5, actually. 1 Peter 5, and we'll read verses 5 through 7.

We'll actually step into the verse and skip the beginning of verse 5. We'll start at 1 Peter 5, verse 5. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Therefore, humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him for He cares for you.

Humble yourselves to the mighty hand of God. It's what we're instructed from Peter here.

God doesn't ask us to humble ourselves to His will because He wants to keep His thumb on us. Weak human beings. He just wants to be this past master of our lives. That's not the God that we serve. He asks us to humble ourselves because without humility, He knows we will just follow and listen to our own hearts in our own ways, our own selfishness, our own pride. He knows we won't listen to anyone else if we don't humble ourselves to Him. So He says, Have a humble, yielding heart and follow my ways. And so we do.

Point number three of what yielding involves in the Christian life. Personal Responsibility. Personal Responsibility.

With personal responsibility comes the understanding that we each have to account for our decisions and actions in this life.

So what we allow to dominate or control our mind or actions is my responsibility and mine alone. We have understanding that Satan is constantly working to trip us up and to tempt us. And we live daily in a world surrounded by Satan's evil influences. But we're instructed to take personal responsibility for ourselves in this world.

I'll reference Romans 6 verse 13. And I'm referencing it because I'm going to read it from the modern English version. So it'll differ from your Bibles that you most likely have with you today. But this is Romans 6 verse 13. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead and your bodies to God as instruments of righteousness. Yield yourselves to God as instruments of righteousness. Doing this takes us acknowledging that we have a choice, and that choice is ours alone.

Do I yield to myself? Then I'm a slave to my own human nature. Or do I yield to God?

And then I'm a servant of the Most High. It's a choice that we get to make. Because Romans 6, 16 says, you are that one slave whom you obey. So do I obey myself?

My own human nature when it pops up and says, Mike, this is the way to go?

Or do I follow God and serve Him? This is personal responsibility. The fourth point of what yielding involves in the Christian life is giving control over to God. Giving control over to God. So it's when we reach the point of having that changed heart, realizing that we don't have the answers and that we have a personal responsibility, that this point that we can give control of our lives over to someone else. With our human side working strong inside of us, this is many times easier said than done. We humans really, really like being in control of our lives. And giving up that control is really uncomfortable for a lot of people. To some, it can be frustrating to deny self and to deny what we want to do. Yet we do willingly yield to external things in our life every day, whether it's that yield sign on the road that we obey and we follow, or whether we give control over to other people in our lives, or whether we allow people to influence or even possibly control us. We also give control over to pride and selfishness. This leads us to living a life as a slave to ourself. So we do give control many times over to other external factors in our life, but God wants us to give control over to Him. Let's look at John 10 and we'll read verses 1-4.

John 10.

verses 1-4.

Think about the concept of giving control over to God as we read through this.

John 10 verses 1-4.

Most assuredly I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs up some other ways the same as the thief or a robber, but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out, and when he brings out his own sheep he goes before them and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. I've read a few accounts of shepherds who care for sheep, and they talk about the trust sheep have in them being the shepherd, but that even if another shepherd who owns sheep from, let's say, a next-door farm comes over, the sheep won't follow that shepherd. They don't have that relationship. They don't have that trust. Even if that other shepherd shows up with food, the same food that they normally feed, because as you know some shepherds go on vacation and they have to have someone else come in and kind of take care of their animals, so even if another shepherd comes in with the same food, the sheep are a little bit leery of that other shepherd and they stand afar off. They don't follow that shepherd's lead, and here is Christ as our true shepherd, leading us, and we know his voice, and we hear him, and just like physical sheep today will lead and follow the shepherd, we are to give our life, give control of our life over to God and to follow his Son and the example that has been said. We are his sheep, and he should have control over our lives. Will you and I let God lead and control our lives?

Give control of your prayer life over to God. Ask him to show where you are failing to yield, and he will show you. It's one of those prayers that if we pray that prayer to God, he is happy to show us these type of things because it's a soft heart that is coming to him saying, help me change, help me grow, and he will be merciful in not showing Mike Phelps everything he could see, everything I could see, but he will answer that prayer for me and show me the things where maybe this isn't where you've been yielding lately. Yeah, that's probably right.

We can go to God in our prayer life and ask him to help and to show us, but we have to be willing to give this control over to him, giving control over to God.

And the fifth way that we can yield or what yielding involves in the Christian life is discipline.

A willingness not to just look at what you need to yield to, but then to physically or spiritually yield to that item. It's kind of like when we know we need to work out. We haven't been working out in a while. We haven't been getting that exercise we need to and it's tough. I just don't feel like getting that exercise into takes discipline.

Or maybe that restaurant we go out to and then sitting in the counter there is a nice piece of pie. Yet we know we really haven't been eating that well that week, yet that pie is staring us right in the face. We're just really wanting that pie. It takes discipline in these situations to do what we know we should do. These are those moments when it takes discipline to make the best decision. It's the same with God. The Holy Spirit is a gift from God that is a huge benefit to our lives. Huge is an understatement. Let me just state that. It's a huge benefit to our lives.

This power that can prompt our thoughts and to get our attention, but it won't force us to yield if we refuse to do so. And with everything in life, Jesus Christ gave us the perfect example of discipline. He was and remained in complete control, never wavering on who He was yielding to while on this earth. We know this from John 6, verse 38, where Christ says, For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. That is John 6, verse 38. Christ was disciplined completely in all aspects of His life. And so the bar has been set high, but we also must strive for discipline in our own lives. It takes work to yield our will to God's will for us. But over time, as we yield, and as we yield, and as we yield again, we can make changes and discipline will start to become part of our life. This leads us to better decisions now, and it leads us to better yielding over time as we continue to do this. But on that same vein, what happens when we yield to our own human nature? And then we yield again, and we yield to our human nature again. We can get in a rut of making poor decisions, of yielding to the wrong force in our lives. Yielding is a process over time, and proper yielding leads to discipline, which leads to growth. And that's what we are all shooting for, is growth. And this growth doesn't happen just because we're good people. This growth happens because God is living inside of us with His Holy Spirit as a power that can help us to more properly yield, to build more proper discipline, which then all leads to growth. You don't just wake up one day and say, okay, I yielded once, here I am to growth. I've achieved it. I'm done. Check that thought. That's not how it works. We all know that. Just like an athlete training, that's what the Olympics coming up. They don't just go out one day, get in a good run, and say, you know what, I'm ready for that marathon coming up, coming up here. It takes discipline to get up every day. It takes discipline to keep your mind focused. And it's hard, and it's work. But it's good work, and it's work that leads to growth, and it leads to a better way of life. There's a neat account in Joshua. I'd like us to spend some time looking at today. We started off the sermon at in Joshua, and we're going to keep it keep it going. Joshua is a great example. It's one of my more favorite stories in the Bible, because it's an exciting story. It's a time when God was working powerfully in a lot of people's lives, in fulfilling his promises that he had made all the way back to Abraham. And there's some accounts in Joshua that I even maybe personally hope that I would be able to to meet up to if these events ever happened in my life. To have the faith, to have the confidence that Joshua had in leading God's people.

I'm having a hard time finding them right now.

Jumping way too far ahead.

Some background where we're going to look in Joshua chapter 5. And some background to bring us up to chapter 5 is, so Israel has now entered the Promised Land, and they've crossed the Jordan River. Their first major obstacle they're coming to is the city of Jericho. This is a big walled city with many people inside of it. The people inside have heard about Israel and this army, and they've shut all the doors, they've locked all the windows, they've sealed themselves in tight in this walled city of Jericho. I kind of think back in the medieval days, like if there was a drawbridge and a moat, they've shut the drawbridge and they're trying to lock themselves in. There was no moat that I'm aware of, but that's the image that we can capture from this with Jericho. And now here we have in verse 5, Joshua we see is contemplating as he looks off onto Jericho what he's about to do. Let's look at this in Joshua 5 verse 13.

Joshua 5 will start in verse 13.

And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand. And Joshua went to him and said to him, Are you for us? Are you for our adversaries? So he said, No, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped him and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant? Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take your sandal off your foot for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so.

This is a pretty amazing account for Joshua to actually, as we see here, it says the Lord's army. This is the Lord, which is Jesus Christ here in presence with Joshua here.

It's pretty amazing to put yourself into Joshua's shoes for a moment and think through this. How could Joshua have been able to yield himself to God and to Jesus Christ in this way to lead Israel, to do the things that he's about to be asked to do, had he not had complete control of his life, complete faith and complete yielding this to God? I feel like that's kind of set up in chapter one if we go back there. Because in the beginning of the book of Joshua, we see and we can read that God himself commissioned Joshua to lead Israel. And that when he commissioned him, he gave him some encouraging words. Let's read those in Joshua 1 and I believe... Yep, 1-5. Verse 5.

No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life, as it was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. And then verse 9. Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Joshua knew that this promise was true. This isn't just, I'll probably be with you wherever you go, or yeah, if you do the right things, I'll be with you wherever you go. God said, Joshua, I know your character and I know your heart. And if you keep your heart soft and looking towards me, I will be with you wherever you go. If you yield to my ways, I will be with you wherever you go. And he says the same thing in turn. This is a promise for us. As we follow God and as we are baptized and commit our lives to him, he says, if you follow me and you yield yourself to me, I will be with you wherever you go. It's one of the promises listed here in the Bible that we can hang our hat on and know is true. So understanding that this encouragement that Joshua gave, that God commissioned Joshua with and gave to Joshua here, and now if we flip back to chapter 5, what I'd like to do is slow down and read through those verses again. And this time to think a little bit more about just what was it like to be Joshua at that moment. Personally, I'm someone who a lot of times when I talk with somebody and I hear about your career and it's something I've never done, it starts opening a lot of questions to my mind. And because I kind of think, well, what would I do if I was in that situation? Or how would I handle your job? It's interesting to me. I like to a lot of times put myself in your shoes. And so I'd like to go walk through this with you because the first time I read through this, who knows how many times, I never realized the depth of information that's just in the few short verses. But to put ourselves in Joshua's shoes and kind of think through about and the concept of yielding as we do this. So let's read verse 13 of chapter 5 again. And we'll stop and pause from time to time. And it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho that he lifted his eyes and looked.

So here we have Joshua. I like to kind of visualize because we know Joshua was the leader and it doesn't say that anyone else was with him here. So I kind of envision that Joshua was probably standing in a tree line, maybe a few trees deep, and staring through an open field at Jericho. Here's this walled city that he has been asked to take. And as we know, many times, leaders, they say being a leader is the loneliest job in the world because many times you're by yourself and you have to make the tough decision. And we don't know why Joshua was out here. I'm speculating. But maybe he was by himself contemplating like this. I've got to lead God's people. We've got to take this walled city. How am I going to... how are we going to do this?

And he's staring at Jericho as he's thinking through these things. And he's thinking through. And it says here that he lifted his eyes. And so he must have been looking down at the ground. Sometimes I do that when I'm thinking. Instead of looking off, I'll look down and if there's a rock, I might play with it with my foot a little bit, moving it left and right as I continue to think. Was Joshua meditating? Probably. Was he praying? Probably. There's probably a lot of things that was going through Joshua's mind at this time, recognizing that they had entered God's promised land to them. They'd cross the Jordan. There is no turning back. And then here's Jericho. And they know he's there. So there's no sneak attack coming. They know he's there and they've walled themselves in tight. And so I'm just picturing Joshua here trying to figure out how he's going to lead God's people. And let's continue to read. And says, And he lifted his eyes and looked, and behold, a man stood opposite him with his sword drawn in his hand. So here's Joshua. He looks up and there's this man standing before him with a sword.

And this is Jesus Christ in some sort of physical or at least visual aspect before Joshua. So we know that God's not going to... Jesus Christ isn't going to present himself as some weak human being, barely able to drag the sword along behind him. No, this says that he was a man standing before him. And so here Joshua is contemplating, now am I going to take this walled city? And all of a sudden, here's this man with the sword drawn before him. And what did Joshua do? Did he do what I might have done and say, Whoa, whoa, whoa, where'd you come from? I'm going to run back, tell the guys there's some guy with the big sword over here. I don't know what his intentions are. Let's get a group together and go see if we can find him and talk. Did Joshua do that? No, it says he approached the man. Let's read that. He said, And Joshua went to him, and he said to him, Are you for us? Are you for our adversaries? It's a fair question to ask. He wants to know just what's going on here, like who is this person and what his intentions are. But Joshua approached him, and I believe it's because he knew he could yield to God because God's promises earlier in his commission to him are true. They were solid. Be strong and of good courage, for I will be with you wherever you go. And so here he is, following that, yielding himself to that commission, and he's approaching this man with a sword. And then verse 14, So he said, No, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped and said to him, What does my Lord say to his servant? Of course, Joshua would be yielding to God at this moment, recognizing who he was. Joshua recognized that while he was commissioned to lead Israel, he wasn't the top dog in the grand scheme of things. God is always higher. God is always our ultimate leader. And that's for us to always remember today, regardless of what role we have in life, of our families, of our careers, or in the church, regardless of what that is, God is ultimately always in control in our leader, we must always yield to his way. And so Joshua does this with no hesitancy, no delay, he yields and says, What does my Lord say to his servant?

Then the commander of the Lord's army said to Joshua, Take your sandal off your foot, for the place where you stand is holy. And Joshua did so. Joshua, in this account, consistently yielded his will to the Lord. And if we were to read on, we would see that the Lord instructed him how to take the city, which he was probably contemplating and trying to figure out how he was going to do himself. And in the instructions, they were to walk around Jericho for six days, walk around at one time silently, walk around at once each day for six days. And on the seventh day, they were to walk around at seven times and at the end, give a great shout, and the wall is going to fall down. It's kind of crazy if you just sit here and think about it from that stance, right? I mean, if I was in Joshua's shoes, and I'm thinking like, well, can't we just kind of skip ahead to day seven, just we'll go out there right now and walk around seven times, we'll get that shout. Let's just put it to the end. Let's just do that. Or maybe he could have said, well, you know, date by day three of us just walking around one time and then waving, they're going to be laughing pretty good at us when we show up on day four. And there's two more days still after that that we got to do this. Is there a different way that maybe we could do this, like do one, two, and then skip to seven? I mean, we can work something out, can't we, God? Was he trying to merge maybe that idea? We don't see any example of this in the account here. There's no walk going back and forth with God. There's no questioning. There's nothing. There's only obedience. There's only following God's instructions. And when they executed them, they worked perfectly because God is perfect. The wall came tumbling down and they took the city.

It's a powerful account to just think through and to realize that here we have Joshua, a man of faith and courage and strength, yet he yielded his life completely to God, never faltering, never faltering on that at all. And when we do these things, our lives change.

What happens in our lives is powerful. I had a, like I said, I went to camp this past week and in a small little glimpse of a way, I was able to experience something similar to this. And that when working with nine and ten-year-old boys, it's not always easy going. You guys all know that, especially when you get 13 of them together and they're all having a good time at camp and they're punching each other and laughing and doing all kinds of things, you know, you know how boys get, who are often jokes, this is my boy time of the year that I get every year, I get to go to camp and get my boy side out up there with them. But it wasn't always peaches and cream. It wasn't always easy because, as you know, boys will be boys. There's times where there's disobedience. There's times where they were kind of, what would you say? Just not the encouraging words to each other that we try to build in the zone at these camps. And I went into it recognizing that I don't have the wisdom to handle every situation. I don't know what situations are going to come. I don't know the backgrounds of a lot of these boys. I don't know the difficulties they've had or the parent structures that they have at home. I don't know everything, but God does. God does. And so I specifically prayed, give me the wisdom that I don't have. Give me the knowledge that I can't even begin to gain so that I'll have more patience and that I can show more love and that we can be organized and so the kids can have a good time. And while I mention this, I don't mention it out of pride or anything, but I mention it because it was an encouraging moment that I came back from camp and we had some difficulties, but I came back from camp spiritually lifted. I was sustained. I was able to look back and had very little regrets. I'm still human. There were things I wish I could do differently, but for the most part, God answered those prayers. He helped me through that camp experience and those working with these boys so that I could come back encouraged. I could come back feeling good. We came back and we got home at 11 30 at night on Wednesday, and I sat up with Gora till 2 a.m., telling her all these things that happened. God's answered prayers here and these things that he did. That was not because I'm some kind of great counselor, because I'm not. That's just the truth. It's because God works mightily in those lives that will submit themselves and yield themselves to him, that recognize that we don't have all the answers in our lives from our human stance. The things that we think are right and the things that we think should be the way that we handle our lives, they don't work, but his word works. When we trust on him and we rely on him, and we yield ourselves to his ways, things work out in miraculous ways as it did with Joshua.

At one time in our life, we were all sinners and enemies of God, but while we were sinners, Jesus Christ died for us that we may have our sins white queen and no longer be enemies of God but his children. God is great and his love for us is never-ending, and in his love he desires so strongly that we yield to him into his way of life. It's not out of control, like we talked about earlier, it's not out of control or wanting to keep us down that he asks us to yield. It's through love that he asks, knowing that if we do, we will live a joy-filled and peaceful life.

It's like that a parent, those of us who are parents. We don't ask our children to obey us, just because we want them to just, boom, do what I say, sit down, whatever, because we want to be in control and just demand that. We do it because it's what's best for them. We ask them to follow our instructions because we want them to lead a happy life, to be healthy, to be strong, to be well-developed, and that's the same thing God wants for us. He wants to give us everything that he has, and he's offering everything that he has to us. And so with that comes instruction, with that comes yielding. And it's in this love that he desires to give us all things, and it's in this love that he looks down on us as a wonderful Father. So let's look at a couple last sections of the Bible. Let's turn to Ephesians as we consider this aspect of God's love for us and why he desires that we yield to him. Let's look at Ephesians 1.

Ephesians 1 and we'll start in verse 7. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace, which he has made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself, that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. And skipping to verse 13. And in him you also trusted, after you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory.

God gave his only Son for you and for me, and he gave him so that we would have this close relationship where we can go to him in prayer and ask him for his help and for him to be active in our life. And with that, we can yield our lives to God as he points out the areas that we should yield and the ways that we should live, because he wants us part of his family. This is the God that we serve, and this is the love that he has poured out by giving his own Son and to preserve us, to sanctify us, and to keep us until he returns. It's a special calling that we have, and to be able to have the Holy Spirit working in our lives is precious, and he's given us these things, not out of a God who wants to keep his thumb on us, because there's no way this God would do that. He does it because he loves us, and he wants the best for us, and he just desires everything to be given to us. Let's look at 1 Peter also. 1 Peter 1, as we consider the same aspect of why he wants us to yield to him. 1 Peter 1, and we'll read verses 3 through 9.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that it does not fade away.

Reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time, in this you greatly rejoice. 3 Throw though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see him yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. This is what God wants us to give us, and this is our hope right near the hope of our inheritance, of everything that he has he wants to give us, and everything that he is, he desires to be in us. And so this is why we yield, not because we have to, not because we are trying to gain something, we yield to God because he wants to give us everything, and he wants us to be happy, and he wants us to be full of joy, and he recognizes that this world is not his world, it's Satan's world, and he wants us to yield to him so that we can make it through this world, and that we can find that growth, that we can strive to be closer to him, that we can love one another, we can support each other, we can encourage each other. These are the things that he wants us to yield to him so that all these things can be completed in this lifetime, and the future one that we will have with him. This is the God that we get to serve.

And even if we've been struggling lately with yielding to God, he desires that we come back to him. Let's turn ahead to 2 Peter chapter 3 verse 9. 2 Peter 3, and we'll read verse 9.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promises as some count slackness, but is long suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

God recognizes that sometimes we trip up. Sometimes we either are blinded by the yield sign, or we just choose to ignore it. Yet he still says, come back to me. Come back to me, because I am so much I want to give to you. So much. He's long suffering towards us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. It's a special relationship that we have with our Father. One where he says, follow me, because I want the best for you. So as we drive through life and we see those yield signs, remember we're yielding because we want to. We have a choice, but we're also yielding because it's the right things to do and it's best for us. Keep that in mind as we go through life with our Father, and we encounter difficult situations, whether it's with people or whether it's with ourselves, because we can create problems just as easily with ourselves. Remember that we can yield to God. We can lean on Him and His way, and when we do so, we are building fruit in our lives that are reflective of God, that we're building better character, that we're bringing on happiness, and it's building and leading to a stronger hope in the future. So how do we emulate Jesus Christ? As we've read through some of the things that we've done today, all this comes by humbling ourselves and yielding to the power of the Holy Spirit working mightily in our lives.