"Be Bold" - Women's Bible Study - Jada Edwards - Message 3

trying to find out the like unsung civil rights heroes and the little-known heroes the people you don't hear about because we all have some big names in our heads that come to mind i was trying to find some people that maybe haven't heard of and uh i read about a woman named joe ann robinson and ms joanne robinson is probably someone you've not heard of before but she was instrumental 18 months before rosa parks ever refused to give up her seat joanne robinson has started a bus boycott in montgomery and she was instrumental in working through her local church and establishing a women's political council i mean this woman single-handedly printed like 50 000 flyers to pass around her city and she got the attention of the city councils that when rosa parks got arrested the day after she got arrested the official boycott actually started but that's because months before joanne robinson had been doing things to put put um feet to the action to to make things happen and so it's fascinating that she's the person that gets the passing mention or no mention at all um and i was thinking about what that really means and that's why i talked about miss data saying she maybe has served zero right now but that's okay because you don't know joanne robinson either but she was the catalyst for the montgomery bus boycott and so i was reading about that thinking about what would drive a person to do that it was so different from what they were experiencing obviously during that time she had a boldness that was driven very much by a belief that something needed to change it was not a self-centered belief but it was a god-centered belief because she was a woman of faith and she wrote about what drove her and ultimately her boldness her belief drove her to do something that was against what the culture was standing for at that time and so tonight i want to show us how joshua teaches us that to be bold you have to be counter-cultural if you want to be bold you have to be counter-cultural now our last time together we talked about the fact that being bold is a command it's a command from god his voice and his direction it's a command for god his purpose and his people and it's a command fueled by god uh his word and his truth before that in our very first lesson we talked about the building blocks to boldness knowing what your calling is getting on the path to your calling uh making sure your character is right and understanding that you're a follower of jesus christ so you got these building blocks i'm a believer in christ jesus i'm on my path to purpose trying to figure out what my calling is i'm opening up myself to what god wants to do we talked about working on the weaknesses and our character letting god get in there and do some work in our hearts because that lays the foundation for boldness we don't want god to give us a platform only to embarrass him because our character the the things that are cracks and small cracks in private become chasms in public right and so we want we want to invite god into the cracks and into the corners into the dark places so that when he elevates us if he chooses to exalt us for his namesake we can do his name justice and then the fact that being bold is a command and so tonight i want to talk about the fact that to be bold you have to be counter cultural and and that is not as easy as you might think it is because the bible is going to show us how the actions of three important three sets of characters actually four people but three sets of characters joshua the two spies that he sent out and our dear friend rahab they're going to teach us all a little bit about what it means to go against the culture so i want you to turn with me to joshua chapter one and we're gonna read through most of these verses as we kind of lay the groundwork for our passage tonight joshua chapter one i read from the new american standard the nasb and i'll just read this for you joshua chapter sorry chapter two joshua chapter two i know some of y'all scholars were out there like that's the wrong it's the wrong chapter but she'll figure it out thank y'all joshua chapter 2 says then joshua the son of nun sent two men and spies secretly from shettims saying go view the land especially jericho so they went and came into the house of a harlot whose name was rahab and they lodged there and verse 2 says it was told the king of jericho saying behold men from the sons of israel have come here tonight to search out the land and the king of jericho sent word to rahab saying bring out the man who've come to you have entered your house because they've come to search out the land but the woman rahab said who had taken to me and she'd hit him she said yes they came to but i don't know where they were from and it came about when it was time to shut the gate at dark that the men went out i don't know where the man went pursue them quickly for you'll overtake them but she had brought the men up to the roof hidden them in the stalks of flats which she had laid in order on the roof so the men pursued them on the road to jordan to the forwards and as soon as they were pursuing them as soon as those who were pursuing them had gone out they shut the gate verse 8 says now before they lay down hold on before you get comfortable she came up to them on the roof and said to the men i know that the lord has given you the land and that the terror of you has fallen on us and that all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you for we have heard how the lord dried up the water of the red sea before you when you came out of egypt and what you did to the two kings of the amorites who were beyond the jordan et cetera et cetera skip down to verse 12. it says now therefore please swear to me by the lord since i have dealt kindly with you that you will also deal kindly with my father's household and give me a pledge of pledge of truth and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters with all who belong to them and deliver our lives from death so the men said to her our life for yours if you do not tell this business of ours and it shall come about when the lord gives us the land that we will deal kindly and faithfully with you the men proceeded to tell rahab how to hold her promise by holding out a scarlet rope down her window so they would be able to know who she was and the chapter ends verse 23 and 24. verse 23 says then the two men returned and came down from the hill country and crossed over and came to joshua the son of none and they released him they related to him all that had happened to them in verse 24 it says they said to joshua surely the lord has given all the land into our hands moreover all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before us so we see all kinds of scenes playing out here we think about being bold that it means to be counter cultural there's four things i want to talk about with that tonight and i know my note takers i got messages from my note takers who were like thank you so much for telling us all the points in advance so if you run out of time we still know other points and then we can figure it out later um so i'm gonna y'all want all the four points in advance i'm gonna tell you all the four points so you know i'm not making it up as i go the four points if you're going to be counter cultural that means you're going to have to do things that are unprecedented you're going to have to do things that are unprecedented that means you're going to have to go unlikely places you have to go unlikely places it means you have to interact with unlikely people that's number three you have to interact with unlikely people and number four you'll become a part of an unlikely purpose if you want to be counter-cultural with your boldness you're going to have to do something that's unprecedented you're going to have to go to unlikely places and interact with unlikely people and you'll find yourself a part of an unlikely purpose so doing what's unprecedented at the very start of chapter two we see that joshua is already setting a precedent it says then joshua the son of nun sent two spies two men and spies secretly and he told them to go and view the land jericho specifically he says now this is already different because if you recall this is almost like a do-over and that's what god will do he this is this is a parallel in many forms to how moses handles spying out the land in numbers 13. when god said look i've promised you the land i want you to send some man god told him i want you to send 12 men some men one man from every tribe i want you to go out spy the land moses goes out and he sends out his 12 and we see the difference that because joshua just sent out two so i don't know why he sent out two probably because only two out of the 12 came back knowing what they were talking about so he was like let's just start with the two okay you know he was one of the two that's how he became who he who he is to us in the bible but moses and i 12 joshua sent out two now moses is fine they traveled a large territory if you read through numbers they went through the wilderness through the valley they scoped out the entire land of canaan they were trying to get a good assessment of everything happening all over the land but joshua did something unprecedented he said even though god has promised this huge territory to us i just want you to focus on jericho and it's going to be interesting as to why he did that now moses despised it says at the end of their journey they brought back fruit they brought back literal fruit that was hanging from the trees because god had told them i'm going to give you the land of milk and honey he had explained to them that canaan was just blooming with fruit it was fruitful and in a desert place that was a big deal to have a land that was flowing with milk and honey and had all this vegetation and so the men brought back the physical fruit but didn't have any faith so they brought back the evidence of what god said but they still didn't believe and joseph spies never brought back anything in their hands but they had a story of faith and they said yes the lord has given us this land and so moses as far as they they reported their findings to the congregation and if you read through numbers 13 and 14 you will realize that did not go well they reported their findings because they came back and said oh no we will be like grasshoppers to them they are going to overtake us even though god said go spy out the land not to see if you can conquer the land but because i've already given you the land they still came back with a different report saying oh no this is not going to work and so if you read through the rest of the numbers then in chapter 14 the children of israel are like what it's not gonna work you went and looked at the land you brought back this fruit and all these nice snacks but you're saying we cannot win the war and so the people began to grumble and it created an outcry joshua learned from that mistake he said okay you two when you come back just talk to me we don't need a public report i don't know how many of y'all grew up did y'all how many of y'all grew up in churches where they would have those public business meetings do y'all remember those some of those you were just like this this should be in private because you don't have to you don't need to report everything back to the congregation because they don't always understand and very often when god is especially calling a leader to be courageous or be bold it's not going to make sense to everybody and so you have to be wise you have to be strategic and so joshua doing unprecedented things he's only sent two spies he focused on one city he their his spies bring back a word of faith he chooses to be the only one to receive this report moses spies went out and they really had the premise of a possibility because the fact that god had said something they came back with something different means they didn't believe him in the first place but joshua spies went out on the premise of a promise they said yeah what god has said is true and it's going to be interesting how they come to that conclusion as we walk through chapter 2. and so we see that in the very beginning with the very first line of this chapter joshua is doing something unprecedented because when god is calling you to be bold to be courageous and you have to be counter-cultural you're going to have to do something that's not been done before that means that while it's great to be influenced by people god is not calling you to imitate anybody he's saying people can mentor you people can pour into you people can guide you but there's only one you and that's why chapter one starts off by saying look moses my servant is dead now it's time for you joshua to take the lead he didn't say moses my servant is dead now let's see if you can continue to try to be like moses to the best of your ability he said i was with moses but that time is over and so if you're going to do something unprecedented that means you've got to let go of trying to live somebody else's life now i know a lot of us have made our life decisions and chosen our life course because we've got somebody else's goals in our head because our mama or our daddy said go to this school take this profession no don't do that that doesn't make enough money choose this and so then we pass that on to our kids and it becomes driving forces in our lives as opposed to saying you know what god maybe you've called me to be counter-cultural maybe you've called me to do something unprecedented i'm not here necessarily to repeat the the path of another or to take input from everybody else and make you second god is saying if you're gonna do something different if you're gonna be bold that means you have to do something unprecedented something that's never been done before because if you don't what will happen is what happened to moses and spies what you see with your eyes will distract you from what god said what you see can distract you from what god said and so many times god is going to give us a promise a truth or a direction and the things that we see with our eyes are not going to always confirm it but he's saying a promise is is just what it is i guarantee that it's going to come to pass i didn't tell you all the stepping stones along the way to the fulfillment of the promise and so just because you see stone number two stone 10 and you don't know where you are in the journey it doesn't negate that what god said is true so if you're not willing to do something unprecedented you'll let the thing that you see distract you from what god has said you need to know that your story is uniquely yours it's uniquely yours and sometimes you have to tell people that it doesn't make sense to you but i know exactly what god has called me to do see that was all the setup see now chapter one is gonna make more sense when god told joshua many times be strong and courageous he didn't say why but he knew that illogical unexplainable unlikely unprecedented things were coming and so god will plant a word of truth in us that's why one of our challenges and our last lesson was to get your one two or three scriptures in your head that are the foundation to what god's called you to because he will plant truth in you sometimes way before you start to see transformation and he'll speak things into you and that has to be rooted in you so that the things you see don't distract you from what god has already said so if you want to be counter culture that means you have to do what's unprecedented secondly you have to go to unlikely places being counter-cultural means going to unlikely places now if you look at the rest of verse one we still in verse one if you look at the rest of verse one it says so they went and came into the house of harlot whose name was rahab and they lodged there now you would think that the unlikely place was the place of the harlot but that was not and she was not an inn keeper or a hotel manager like some people try to scrub it and sanitize it she was a harlot she was it harder doesn't he define what a harlot is okay she was a harlan she was not like the night manager at the hilton she was a heartless don't try to sanitize it because then you're minimizing the miracle that god's gonna work you you have to can i just say real quick if you try to see this is not this is not in my point but every time i study this passage i always run across commentators who are like well the word just really means woman and she's probably was a professional innkeeper no she was not no all many many many writings even secular writings that are not christian in nature support the fact that her profession was prostitution and and what happens is if you try to sanitize and scrub clean the story the ugly and the dirt then you don't understand and you begin to trivialize what god had to do to clean it up and see if i do that with rahab certainly i'll probably do it with my own life that's why you know you have your testimony that's in your journal you got three testimonies only one of them is the truth you got your testimony that's in your journal the testimony you share at your life group and you got the truth in your heart and one day at the right moment you'll find yourself in a conversation telling the whole truth and then somebody will be like my god is real you're like yes serious yes he is yes he is because if your greatest testimony is that you just used to struggle with pride girl go somewhere come on you know you got a testimony and so it is so funny how every time i read through this i'm like it's okay that she was a harlot because that becomes significant it says there is no one out of the reach of redemption i don't want her to be kind of already okay by herself i want her to be absolutely fully who she was because that reminds me that when i was that way and it might not have been the exact story but when i was in that same place i'm not out of the reach of redemption that she became a key point to israel's salvation part of the lineage of our savior so they lodged in the house of a harlot but that's not the unlikely place it might seem like it is but it's not because in that day part of strategy if you were a spy was you went to places that you would not be found so that was actually kind of normal that they would look for a woman's house who might have had a similar profession she not only was a harlot but her wall her house was strategic because it was on the wall of the city and they're trying to take down the city so it was all kind of strategy going on there now what's what's really unlikely is not that they're at a harlot's house and not at their house on the wall on the fortress what's really unlikely is that they're at jericho to begin with because you got to know that jericho was one of the smallest cities in canaan so why in the world did joshua send the two spies to spy out all of canaan and sent them just to jericho because moses was like well if we taking all the canaan we need to walk through all of canaan joshua was like no let's just go to jericho even though it was a small city you need to understand jericho was the most fortified city in canaan and so if you understood how to conquer jericho then you could take the land not only that one of the reasons that jericho was so fortified so uh difficult to attack but easy to defend is because it was then and is still today the lowest city on earth jericho was about 846 feet below sea level that's not the lowest piece of land that's the dead sea jordan area but jericho is the lowest city today on earth that's why it was difficult for you to attack that city and easy to defend because they were kind of in a sunken place and so fortresses were even taller and it was more difficult for the enemy to attack but it was hidden so even though it was small it was hidden it was fortified it was the key to capturing canaan sometimes god will send you to the lowest place because it's the key to capturing your promise and you might wonder why he sent you back into a place that you really don't want to go and he's saying this thing this area is is a low place in your life and it's so fortified it's so built up it would be easy for you to scout out the hill country like moses and spies did it'd be easy for you to go through the other planes in the valleys but i want you to go to your jericho because if you find the key to that to that pattern of thinking to that stronghold to that behavior to that lie to that wrong mindset to that false approach if you find the key to that and you conquer that you have the key to the promise so do not be surprised if you're going to be bold and be counter cultural god is going to send you sometimes into the lowest place because it's the most fortified it's the most built up and don't we all know that we protect our low place that when we come to the lord we're like you can take my pride and yeah i'll go ahead and start tithing lord but there's some things in secret that you're like hold on don't touch that and we fortified and we build it up so he sends you sometimes into an unlikely place and it's the lowest place because even though it doesn't feel good going there he knows that if you conquer that you'll have the key to the promise now your jericho might be a lot of different things it might be an emotionally low place for you it might be a spiritually low place for you sometimes do you know that god might send you into a city that's not even yours they didn't even belong to jericho because they're scattering enemy territory sometimes your low place is the heart and heart of somebody that you know you're trying to win the christ he's sending you into the low place of your child's heart the hardness of your spouse's heart and he's saying no i'm sending you in there i want you to do something if you can represent me here that's the key to the promise if you want to be bold and be counter-cultural it's not just oh let me pray for you back here it is how can i go in here and penetrate these walls and do battle in the name of jesus he might send you into an unlikely place emotionally spiritually sometimes he sends us literally into a physical unlikely place he has uprooted some of you from some cities and from some jobs and from some places and you don't you how many of you got to texas whenever you got here and did not know why you were here didn't have job the first sitting there like what and then people say well why are you going to texas huh huh god said go right and for every 12 people you talked to 10 of them thought you were crazy and only two believed you but that's okay because the same thing happened to joshua and now he's in his season because god will send us into unlikely places if you're gonna be counter-cultural ladies you're not god is not gonna send you to church to witness he's not he's not he's not if you if you are singing your worship loudest on sunday that's i mean it's great but but bump it when you have to stop light let the windows down because i guarantee you everybody else out there got their windows down so you can hear their music god is saying look i if you're going to be counter culture you got to go in unlikely places and it might be an inward place for you emotionally where god is saying we got to clean that up be bold about that thing first before you're trying to change the world maybe a spiritual place where he's sending you amongst colleagues and co-workers and family members who need to know the lord and it's a low place and it is fortified and you're like i don't know how i'm gonna ever break through these walls they they have known me in my old life or maybe they don't want to listen to me anymore or they think i'm judgmental and god is saying it's okay if you would trust me i'll send you there and when you use my power and you remember that i've told you to be strong and courageous to be bold when you break down this fortress you have the key to the promise so if you're going to be bold and be counter-cultural that means you have to do unprecedented things that means you have to go unlikely places and you know what it means you're going to meet unlikely people you're going to interact with some unlikely people

Channel: One Community Church

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Length: 25min 5sec (1505 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 29 2016