FBC Adult Bible Study

There are two extremes in the matter of holiness, and both of which are errors. One of them is kind of like the let go and let God attitude, the attitude that says we don't have to do anything when it comes to the matter of holiness, we just have to kind of take our hands off and God will do everything so we don't have to do anything.

The other extreme is kind of like a, I guess what I would describe it as a rigid legalism which says we have to do everything, we have to figure out how to put so many parameters around our lives so that we don't do anything wrong, so that we don't err, we don't go off the rails or anything like that, so you got these two extremes.

But the book of Joshua God gave to us not only to give us some history but to explain some spiritual truths. And the big picture spiritual truth in the book of Joshua has to do with the living out of the Christian life and growing in the Christian life.

The children of Israel crossing the Jordan River, going into the promised land is not a picture of going to heaven and crossing over the chasm of death, it is instead a picture of entering into the Christian life.

And it's a life that is entered into by God's grace and through his power, just as in the crossing of the river. But then it's a life lived in the, and let me give you a couple of terms also that are kind of, may sound like those are two-bit terms, I don't need to know those, but they're good and helpful.

Monergism and synergism. The ergism part of it has to do with work. So like ergonomics, ergo has to do with working. Synergism would mean to work with, to work with. Monergism means to work alone. When it comes to our salvation, when it comes to the crossing of the Jordan River, the opening up of the way, that's a monergistic work.

This is what God does in saving us. That's God's work. You know, you and I don't, we don't contribute anything to the work of salvation. That's God's work. Synergism is a way we can look at sanctification.

Where we work together with God in the growth of sanctification. And that's what the book of Joshua teaches us, illustrates for us through history. And we started this last week and looked at one side of it, and we've got this paradox that is illustrated in Joshua.

And the paradox is that when it comes to sanctification, every advance in sanctification depends upon God, and every advance in sanctification depends upon us. So every advance depends upon God, and it depends upon us.

And so last week we looked at the fact that every advance in sanctification depends upon God. And we talked about the three components of God's part in the process. First of all, his promise, his promise.

God's promised victory, just like he did in Joshua. He said to the Israelites, I have given you. He's looking, they're looking at Jericho. And he says, I have given you this city. We're looking at the land as a whole.

God says, I have given you this land. Now go in and conquer it. I have given it to you. So it's, from God's, from God's part, in God's part, the promise is that it's good as done. It's already yours. And that's true also for the Christian life.

God has promised victory over sin. And pointed out, as Barrett said in the book we're using for this series, he said the first step in sanctification is to know that God has both purposed and promised victory for every believer.

So one component is God's promise. The second component is God's acts, his acts, A-C-T-S, his acts, what God has done, his works. Sometimes, as we saw in Joshua, his work is obvious. And any work on the part of the Israelites is incidental.

So like the Battle of Jericho. You know, that, there was so much of the work of God there that was obvious. What did the Israelites do? They marched around the walls, you know, once for seven days and then seven times.

And then blew some trumpets and the walls fell down. Well, did the marching around cause the walls to weaken, the mortar to come apart or something like that? Did the vibration of the trumpets, is that what caused the walls?

No, it was God's work. And so sometimes God's work is obvious. Sometimes God's work is obscure. He works behind the scenes. And he gives the victory, he ensures the victory, but he does so subtly and in ways that are not so obvious.

And we also saw this in terms of the Christian life. 1 Corinthians 10, 13 tells us that with every temptation, God provides a way of escape. But he doesn't provide a way of escape by, you know, you're stepping your foot in a river and all of a sudden, boom, you know, the water's part.

It's not that obvious. It's usually a lot, his role, his behind the scenes work is a lot more obscure. And we also pointed out that God providentially protects us and delivers us from destructive temptation in ways that we don't even realize.

I mean, I'm sure everyone that's been walked with the Lord for any length of time can look back in your life and you say, you know, I could have gone this route. I could have done this thing. But, and the opportunity was right there in front of me.

And I didn't even necessarily choose not to do it. It's just that the way God worked behind the scenes, and I wasn't even aware of it, I didn't end up going that route. I didn't end up doing that thing.

And if I had, my whole life could have taken a completely different trajectory. So God's promise, God's actions, and then God's method. What is the ordinary method that God uses to effect our sanctification?

Ordinarily, God's work is not direct. It is rather indirect. And he uses secondary agents to accomplish his purpose. Let me explain. God came to Joshua and he gave directions to Joshua. And he told Joshua, this is what the people are to do.

Joshua turned around and said to the people, this is what we are to do. This is what you are to do. Think again, for the example, the Battle of Jericho. God told Joshua what the people are to do to conquer that city.

Joshua turned around and told the people. And then it was the responsibility of the Israelites to do what God told Joshua to tell them to do. And if they did it, they would know success. If they didn't do it, they would know failure.

And we saw that, for example, at the Battle of Jericho, when God said, completely destroy everything. Don't take anything for yourselves. Just destroy it all. And Achan didn't do that. Then what happened at Ai?

Disaster.

Why?

Because of Achan's sin. All right, so God's ordinary method is to use secondary agents to accomplish his purpose. In the New Testament context, God uses the church and his word, ministered through the church, through his servants.

This is not to argue against the priesthood of the believer. It's a very valuable truth that we hold, especially as Baptists. I think any real Christian would understand that and accept that, that we are priests and that we have the ability to read the word and God in his grace gives us the ability to understand the word.

But nevertheless, God has given to the church the gifts of, and in Ephesians 4, 11 to 13, you have those gifts, he's given evangelists and prophets and apostles and pastor teachers for the building up of the church, for the edification of the church, that the church might do the work of the ministry.

So in the same sort of way as God used Joshua to give his word to the Israelites and they were to do it, you come together on the Lord's day and you sit in a Bible study time and you sit in a morning service and you hear God's word taught and preached and you didn't do any study behind the scenes beforehand to prepare for that, but here you are, right?

And why? Because God's given gifts to the church. And then how are we, as the people of the church, how are we to respond? We're to hear that word and yes, like the Bereans, we evaluate and make sure, yeah, that's exactly what God's word says and here's God's servant, God's given us this word, we're to obey, we're to obey.

And that's God's ordinary method. So we talked about the fact that every advance in sanctification depends upon God. And this morning, I'd like to wrap that up by pointing out that every advance in sanctification depends upon us.

So let's turn to Joshua chapter 11 and see this illustrated. Dr. Barrett points out that God's sovereignty and providential government are never advanced in contradiction of man's responsibility and willful action.

In other words, another way of putting that is God in his sovereignty and his providential government employs that government and his sovereignty, he employs that with the use of the seemingly free actions or willful actions of human beings, of men.

So every advance depends upon us. All right, now look at Joshua 11 in verses one through five. You discover that the Canaanites are, they are willful in stopping the Israelites from conquering the land.

And Israel has to fight against that Canaanite willfulness. All right, so it says, it came to pass when Jabin king of Hazor heard these things, he sent to Jobab king of Madon, the king of Shimron, the king of Aksav, to the kings who were from the north and the mountains and the plains south of Chinneroth in the lowland and in the heights of Dor on the west, to the Canaanites in the east and in the west, the Amorite, the Hittite, the Perizzite, the Jebusite in the mountains and the Hivite below Hermon in the land of Mizpah.

And so what you've got going on here is you've got this king of Hazor who seems to be like a key figure in the whole region. He sends dispatches to all of these other city states and regions and the peoples of those regions.

He says, hey, we gotta fight against these Israelites or they're gonna come and pick us off one by one. I mean, they were successful at Jericho. It was just against Jericho. They were successful against Ai.

That was just Ai. But if we all get together, even though we're not all that friendly toward one another all the time, let's unite together against a common enemy, these Israelites, and let's defeat them.

There's strength in numbers. And so that's the approach that they take. But this willfulness on the part of the Canaanites to retain possession, we've got to retain possession, they think, puts the Israelites in a position of having to fight against this Canaanite willfulness.

So in verses six through eight, the Lord comes to Joshua and he says to him, don't be afraid of them for tomorrow about this time I will deliver them all slain before Israel. There's God's promise again.

But here is Israel's responsibility. You shall hamstring their horses and burn their chariots with fire. What if they don't obey? You say, what if they don't obey? Are they going to advance in sanctification, in the conquering of the land, in the acquiring of that which God has promised?

So what did they do? Verse seven, Joshua and all the people of war with him came against them suddenly by the waters of Merom and they attacked them. All right, so Joshua and the Israelites, they had to advance, they had to fight.

And they didn't sit around waiting, standing there with their hands in their pockets, say, okay, God, it's all up to you. It's all up to you. Now does God sometimes do that? Yeah, God sometimes worked miraculously.

But not normally. And here's a classic example of this. And it illustrates for us that advancing in sanctification depends upon us. We need to trust and obey, just like the Israelites did. And what happens when they don't trust and obey?

Barrett points out, he says, possessing their possession was contingent upon how they responded to what God had done and promised to do. If they were going to advance in the conquering of the land, it depended upon how they responded to what God had done and what God promised to do.

Now think about that, you know, in the morning service, we've been in the book of Judges. And what have we seen in the book of Judges? And especially that first chapter. They were not able to drive out the Canaanites in the lowland because they had chariots of iron.

And yet God had said, you can't, you will drive them out even though they have chariots of iron. You will be, you will conquer them. We can't conquer them. In other words, they did not trust and obey.

They didn't even try to fight against the Canaanites with their chariots of iron. Not until the Deborah and Barrett thing, right? And when Deborah and Barrett went against them and Barrett in obedience to what God had told him to do, meticulously obeying what God had told him to do, even though those Canaanites had chariots of iron, what did God do?

He sent rain, he sent floods, and the chariots of iron got bogged down in the muck and the mire of the mud and the Israelites were able to destroy them. So it's a matter of trusting and obeying. Is it any different for the New Testament Christian?

I don't think so. Turn with me to 1 Timothy chapter six, 1 Timothy six. Again, our author, he said, enjoying and experiencing the divinely accomplished victory as God promised us victory in the Christian life, yes, but enjoying and experiencing that divinely accomplished victory depend upon our actively dying to sin and living to righteousness.

Now, Paul, writing to Timothy, he challenges him in this way in verses 11 and 12. He says, but you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness, fight the good fight of faith, laying hold on eternal life to which you were called and confessed a good confession.

Notice this, flee these things, you gotta run away from some things, and you need to pursue godliness, pursue godliness. And that term or that verb, pursue, suggests an intense resolve to catch and conquest.

It's kind of like even this morning, went out about six o 'clock on the back patio when it finally got light enough to be able to read, you know, got out on the back patio. As soon as I open that door, the dog wants to go out too.

So, you know, we go out, and I'm on the patio, and I'm sitting there reading and so forth, and the dog will typically just lie down on the concrete pad, and he's just lying there. And all of a sudden, you see his ears perk up, and he stands up, and he is riveted.

I mean, he is riveted, and he's got his eyes focused on this squirrel that's milling around by the bird feeder. It's about 25 yards away from where he is, and he sees this squirrel, and the squirrel's just kind of looking for fallen sunflower seeds that have fallen out of the bird feeder.

And so Berkeley's just, he's looking at this thing, and then he's, he never takes his eyes off of it, and he just very slowly moves forward a little bit, and then when he thinks in his mind, I can get him, he thinks he can get him.

He thinks he's close enough. He thinks the squirrel's distracted enough. Then he charges after that squirrel, and he, I mean, this dog is like 13 years old or something like that, but he runs like he's three, chasing after this squirrel, and he'll chase that squirrel till the squirrel runs up on the fence and gets up on the thing, on the top of the fence, and he'll run across the squirrel.

We'll run across the top of the fence, and Berkeley's just trying to, he just wants to get up there and get at that thing, and then the thing climbs on a telephone pole on the other side of the fence, and he stands there at the telephone pole, and he's looking up at that thing, and he's wanting to get up there and get it.

That's pursuit. That's pursuit. That's the kind of thing Paul is talking about here when he says pursue godliness, be focused on it, be riveted on that, and be determined, urgent, resolved to catch and to conquer.

So we must pursue and fight for godliness, but we must pursue and fight for godliness by faith, by faith, not in ourselves, not in ourselves. The object of our faith is not our ability by any stretch of the imagination.

Barrett puts it this way, he says, faith lays hold of the truth of God's word and acts accordingly. Faith is the means of appropriating the promise and living as though it's really true. This is exactly what the Israelites had to do when God said to them, as Joshua and the Israelites are looking over this sea of Canaanites that have come out to fight them, and God said, I've given them to you.

You've already defeated them. Now, what you're gonna have to do is attack them, and when you attack them, then you capture their horses, your hamstring, and so on. They then had to, by faith, attack the next day when it was time to attack.

Well, likewise, we must pursue and fight by faith. And the object of our faith is not ourselves, it is our savior, it is Christ. Christ is the object of our faith. His person, who he is, his work, what has he done?

He's already purchased our victory. What has he done? What has he promised? What power has he given to enable us for the pursuit? He's given us the gift of his spirit. Christ is the object of our faith, and God's word is the fuel for our faith.

John 10, 17. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. That word is the fuel for our faith. And again, you can see this illustrated in Joshua 11, right? Again, the amassed Canaanites, a sea of them out there.

Joshua, the Israelites, they see the sea of Canaanites, and there's silence, there's silence. God says nothing, God says nothing. What are we to do? How in the world are we ever gonna defeat? We can't defeat these Canaanites.

Look at all of them, look at us, look at their weaponry, look at ours, we can't do this. Silence, God says nothing. And understandably, the Israelites would be shaking in their sandals, right? And they'd be like, how are we gonna do this,.

What are we gonna do?

But there wasn't silence, was there? What was it that enabled them the next day to move forward and attack? The word, the word. The word was the fuel for the faith that moved forward and marched and attacked.

Likewise with us, God's word is the fuel of faith. Obedience is the evidence of that faith. Obedience is the evidence of that faith. And again, we can use that illustration of the chariots of iron, right?

God said, attack, destroy. Oh, but they have chariots of iron. We can't go after them. So the Canaanites dwelt among them to this day, judges tells us. And they caused the Israelites all kinds of grief.

They caused oppression and so on and so forth. They saw, they heard the word, they did not trust, and therefore they did not obey. But then in Judges chapter four, same chariots of iron, same, well, different, set of Canaanite soldiers probably, but still Canaanite soldiers that are manning these chariots, and they're told go attack down by the Kishon River.

And they did. They obeyed. They trusted and they obeyed. And what happened? They destroyed, you see. So the evidence of the faith that God is going to give us the victory is seen in obedience. It's seen in obedience.

So let me close this section of this particular lesson in this way. It is by the grace of God and the power of His Spirit, it is by the grace of God and by the power of His Spirit that we, by faith and by fighting, pursue our possession.

So it all depends on God and it all depends upon us. We advance by the power of God. We advance through faith-filled obedience. All right, now let's shift gears a little bit and talk about avoiding the greatest sin.

What is the greatest sin? Let's just turn to Mark chapter 12 to deal with that. I mean, are there some sins that are greater than other sins? Well, all sin is sin and all sin is offensive to God, but I think the way you can answer that question about is there a great sin, that is, is there a sin that's greater than others, by asking the question, is there a command that's greater than others?

A lot of commands in the Bible, right? I mean, and you just think of the 10 commandments. You got 10. Which is the greatest? Jesus was asked that question in Mark chapter 12 by one of the scribes. He asked at the end of verse 28, which is the first or the primary, the premier, the greatest commandment of all?

Jesus answered him and said this. The first of all the commandments is, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.

This is the first commandment. And the second, like it, is this. You shall love your neighbors yourself. There's no other commandment greater than these. All right, so the greatest commandment is to love God with all of your being.

So the greatest sin would be not to fulfill that commandment, not to obey that commandment, would be not to love God. So to transgress that first great commandment, that then opens the floodgate for all other sins.

First John five verse three tells us that to love God is to keep his commandments. To love God is to keep his commandments. What does this look like in real life experience to keep that great commandment, to avoid the greatest sin?

Well, let's talk about the principle of that greatest commandment, and I want us to see just, you know, big picture principle of this commandment is that it is a logical demand. To love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, as Jesus puts it here, is a logical demand.

And it's logical for two reasons. One of them is because of who God is. So look at verse 29. Verse 29, the first commandment is here, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Now this is, of course, a quote from Deuteronomy. We'll look at that in just a minute. But what that statement communicates, which then serves as the basis for the command itself, what that communicates is that our God is the unique, there is no other, exclusive only, and sovereign savior.

There's none that can compete against him. There's none that can overpower him. He is the unique, exclusive, and sovereign savior. He is our personal God. The Lord our God, the Lord is one. The word Lord, the name Lord, in the Hebrew, from which Jesus is quoting, it's the word, the name Yahweh.

That's the personal name, the personal covenant name of God. Who is our God? He is the personal God. He is a relational God. He is the Lord our God. That communicates a lot, that by virtue of his sovereign grace, he has entered into a relationship with us by which he says to us, you are my people, and we say to him, you are our God.

So he is a relational God. And then, thirdly, we can say he is the exclusive Trinitarian God. The Lord is one. Now, there's a lot encapsulated in that statement, and just to summarize it, I'll just put it this way.

It refers to the fact that our triune God is one God in three persons, the Father, Son, and the Spirit, but he is one. He's not three parts, three different gods. He's one God, one God. So this command to love him is logical because of who he is.

It's also logical because of what he has done. Now, at this point, let's go back to the book of Deuteronomy, chapter five, Deuteronomy chapter five. And here in chapter five, Moses is repeating the Ten Commandments, the Decalogue, that was originally given on Mount Sinai in the wilderness shortly after leaving Egypt.

It's recorded in Exodus, in the book of Exodus. You read about it in chapters 19, 20, and so forth about the giving of the law, the Ten Commandments. Here we are, 38 years later, roughly, or nearly 40 years later, on the east side of the Jordan River.

Israel is ready to go in and conquer the land, but Moses has to die first. And before Moses passes off the scene and before Israel passes into the land of Canaan, he repeats for Israel the law. And here is where he repeats the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments.

But notice the preamble to the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments begin in verses six through 21, but notice the preamble in verse six. He says, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

You shall have no other gods. So the preamble, the first commandment is verse seven. The preamble is what God has done. This is why you are to do what you are to do. What has God done? Verse six is talking about the redemption that he has secured, God's sovereign, gracious redemption.

And let's understand this when it comes to obedience. We do not obey in order to earn redemption, right? We obey because we have been redeemed as a response to redemption. And that was true with the Old Testament Israel as well.

God did not give the law so that Israel could become the people of God. God brought them out. He redeemed them from the land of Egypt. That was his gracious redemption. And then he says, on the basis of my redeeming you, do these things, do these things.

So the obedience to the commands is tied to redemption. And that's true for the New Testament believer as well. You have been bought with a price, First Corinthians six tells us. Therefore glorify God in your whole being.

So the logic of this command is based on who God is and what God has done. The demand of the command itself, look at chapter six, Deuteronomy six and verse five. The demand of this commandment is an imperative, a command of total devotion.

Verse five says, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength. Now this is a rather unexpected command from our, well, to our modern ears, isn't it?

I mean, we don't normally talk about, we don't normally command people to love, not in our modern way of thinking. We think of love as something that you fall into as like an emotional thing. Like you don't have any choice in the matter.

You know, how many silly married people have gotten a divorce because they said, I just don't love you anymore. Which, and they're talking about the emotion and the romance. And, or they say, I now love so and so.

I just, I can't help it. I've just fallen in love with so and so. And if I'm going to be happy, I just have to, I just have to go after this so and so that I now love. And it's just like something we have absolutely no control over, and we just, eh, and here we go.

But that's not a biblical, that's not the biblical concept of love. The biblical concept of love is it's something you can command. It is a term that is primarily volitional, choice. Barrett puts it this way.

He says, it is a conscious exercise of the will expressed in desire, inclination, preference, and choice of the loved object. This love requires a conscious rejection of every competitor. So that's why we say in the wedding vows, we don't talk, in the wedding vows, we don't talk about, you know, I have such a deep, romantic, emotional feeling for you.

But what we do say is that, we do say, we do communicate, we promise that in choosing you, in choosing you, I forsake all others. That's a matter of the will, you see. And that's the love that is being talked about in scripture, like when God says, Jacob have I loved, Esau have I hated.

He's not talking about how I felt about these men. He's talking about what choices he's made related to Jacob and Esau. I have chosen to enter into a relationship and a covenant with Jacob. I have rejected entering into a covenant relationship with Esau.

So it is an unexpected command, but this demand of the greatest commandment, notice, is a reciprocal act. First John 419 tells us, as New Testament believers, we love him because he first loved us. So here's the deal.

Because God, in his sovereign grace in eternity past, chose a people, we were chosen in him before the foundation of the world. This boggles the mind. But that was his, watch this, his choosing his people before the foundation of the world was the expression of the love of God, right?

I mean, we say, well, God loved the world and he gave his only begotten son, yes, yes. But let's go back further than that. Let's go back further than that. Before the foundation of the world, God chose his own, his people.

Again, we can't figure all this out because we can't comprehend eternity. But that's what the scriptures say. God's choice, his love was expressed before the foundation of the world, before the world ever existed, before we ever existed.

Now, what do we do with that? We respond in love. We respond with choosing. Now, here's the thing, Barrett points this out, and it's, if you don't get anything else, get this right now. True believers may fluctuate in the degree of our devotion, the heat of our heart, if you will.

True believers may fluctuate in the degree of their devotion, but true believers do not renege on that choice. They do not renege on that choice. We love him. We choose him because he first chose us. And then it's an all-inclusive act, and with this, I'll end.

It's an all-inclusive act. We are to love him with all of our being. We choose him. We set our affection upon him with all of our being, with our whole heart, soul, and strength. It's just a way of expressing the all-inclusive nature of that choice.

So this is the demand of the greatest commandment. Obeying that great commandment enables us to avoid the greatest sin. Let's love him. Father, bless these thoughts to our hearts this morning. I pray that you would encourage us by your word,.

Through your word,.

To realize the responsibility we have to pursue godliness and to love you with all of our being. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. All right, got about a dozen minutes before the service begins, so enjoy the fellowship with one another.