Joshua 5: Courageous Losing (Ai)

Welcome to Family Worship with the church body of Eastern Hills! Whether you’re here in the room or online this morning, we’re glad you’ve decided to be a part of our worship and celebration of Jesus. Thanks praise band for leading us in songs of worship and commitment this morning.

If you’re a guest in the room today, I’d like the chance to just meet you briefly and thank you personally for being here after service is over, if that’s okay. After the benediction verse at the end of the service, would you mind just coming down and introducing yourself if we haven’t met yet? That’s also a great time to give me your welcome card, that you can find in the back of the pew in front of you. You can also put those in the boxes by the doors after the end of service if you don’t have time to come and meet me. If you’d rather fill out our digital communication card, you can get a link to that by texting 505-339-2004.

Announcements

NMSMO. Goal exceeded! ($11,685) You can still give toward the goal through next week, and we’ll let you know the final total on November 5.

Endeavor update:

New furnace/AC units here in the sanctuary are fully operational!

We ALMOST opened the front doors for everyone this morning, but we decided that because of the remaining construction on the schedule, we would keep them locked up until we can open them for good: if we had opened them today, we still would have had to close them for at least next Sunday, and probably the Sunday after that. The concrete and asphalt work that has to be done over the next couple of weeks will require us to keep the drive and doors blocked due to the presence of major tripping hazards.

Opening

We’ve cleared the halfway point in our eight week series in the Book of Joshua, where we are taking a closer look at the boldness, courage, and obedience of Joshua and Israel, and making comparative application to our own lives (especially evangelism) through what we see in them. One of the things that I love about the Bible is how real and raw it is. Even as we study a figure as bold, courageous, and obedient as Joshua, and understanding that the primary historical focus of the book of Joshua is the taking of the Promised Land, we find that both Joshua and Israel are incredibly genuine. They were real people, and they had many of the same issues, hangups, and failings that we have. Over the last two weeks, we looked at their courageous faith, how they miraculously crossed the Jordan, and then trusted God for the defeat of Jericho, instead of their own military prowess and strength. But they didn’t always win. And sometimes, it’s in losing that we must have the most courage.

As you are able, let’s stand together in honor of the Word of God as we look at a piece of our focal passage—Joshua 7:1-9

Joshua 7:1–9 CSB

1 The Israelites, however, were unfaithful regarding the things set apart for destruction. Achan son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of what was set apart, and the Lord’s anger burned against the Israelites. 2 Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and told them, “Go up and scout the land.” So the men went up and scouted Ai. 3 After returning to Joshua they reported to him, “Don’t send all the people, but send about two thousand or three thousand men to attack Ai. Since the people of Ai are so few, don’t wear out all our people there.” 4 So about three thousand men went up there, but they fled from the men of Ai. 5 The men of Ai struck down about thirty-six of them and chased them from outside the city gate to the quarries, striking them down on the descent. As a result, the people lost heart. 6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell facedown to the ground before the ark of the Lord until evening, as did the elders of Israel; they all put dust on their heads. 7 “Oh, Lord God,” Joshua said, “why did you ever bring these people across the Jordan to hand us over to the Amorites for our destruction? If only we had been content to remain on the other side of the Jordan! 8 What can I say, Lord, now that Israel has turned its back and run from its enemies? 9 When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will you do about your great name?”

PRAYER (Word of Life Baptist Fellowship, Rio Rancho, Pastor Kevin Haney; pray for peace and justice in Israel, and in the U.S.)

We all know what it’s like to lose, and sometimes we lose poorly. When I was probably about 9, my uncle actually gave a piece of advice to my cousin Charlie (7 at the time) when he was losing poorly that I’ve never forgotten. Charlie and I were playing Atari Home Run at our grandparents’ house in Joliet, Illinois. If you didn’t ever play Home Run, it was the first “baseball” video game, which was actually nothing like baseball. It was more like a home run derby where you had to run the bases, and there were only at most three fielders, but you couldn’t throw the ball to tag a runner out. Any of you remember that game? Anyway, I was destroying Charlie at this game that night. And he did what we now would call “rage quitting,” throwing down the controller and storming off. And my uncle Bub (his dad), when Charlie went to complain about it, said, “Well… sometimes you lose, and sometimes you lose big.” He explained that we likely won’t win every time, and sometimes we’re really going to lose. It’s how we respond to losing that matters, not how bad the score is.

In our passage today, we find Israel losing big. They had just come off of a decisive victory with no recorded losses according to Scripture, where God showed up and defeated fortified Jericho through His miraculous intervention. Joshua’s name and fame were spreading, according to Joshua 6:27, and all seemed to be going well. The next outpost that they needed to take was on the way to Bethel: a small town called Ai (really probably pronounced “aye,” like saying “yes” with a Scottish brogue).

But they had a problem that Joshua wasn’t aware of: they had been instructed in Joshua 6:18 not to take any spoils of any kind from Jericho.

Joshua 6:18 CSB

18 But keep yourselves from the things set apart, or you will be set apart for destruction. If you take any of those things, you will set apart the camp of Israel for destruction and make trouble for it.

As we saw last week, to violate this command was to trade places with the thing set apart for destruction, and to bring trouble on the entire nation of Israel. A guy named Achan did exactly what he wasn’t supposed to do, taking things that were supposed to be dedicated to the Lord.

The problem is that Joshua didn’t check with God before taking action against Ai. He sent some spies, who reported back that Ai would be a walk in the park, and only to send 2,000-3,000 soldiers to take the city. However, when they attacked, the men of Ai were more than they could handle, and before they knew it 36 Hebrew soldiers had fallen, and the Israelites were fleeing for their lives with the Ai soldiers in pursuit. Two battles into the Promised Land, and they were losing big.

As we saw in the passage that we read, the people were greatly discouraged (in fact, they “lost heart...” which is too tame: the Hebrew says that their “hearts melted and became like water.”) Joshua even joined in the grieving, going into mourning by tearing his clothes and falling down on his face before the Lord along with the elders, throwing dust on their heads in despair:

Joshua 7:7–9 CSB

7 “Oh, Lord God,” Joshua said, “why did you ever bring these people across the Jordan to hand us over to the Amorites for our destruction? If only we had been content to remain on the other side of the Jordan! 8 What can I say, Lord, now that Israel has turned its back and run from its enemies? 9 When the Canaanites and all who live in the land hear about this, they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth. Then what will you do about your great name?”

God answered Joshua clearly, telling him that the issue was Israel’s disobedience: they had taken for themselves that which belonged to God. God prescribed how Joshua was to handle the sin that has been committed, saying that He would reveal the one who has brought this trouble on Israel, and that that person was to pay with his life and the destruction of everything that belonged to him.

As Joshua always did when he had to undertake something serious, he got up early the next day and did as the Lord commanded. Achan was revealed as the problem party, and Joshua confronted him:

Joshua 7:19 CSB

19 So Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and make a confession to him. I urge you, tell me what you have done. Don’t hide anything from me.”

And Achan admitted his sin. He had found a Babylonian cloak, some silver, and a block of gold, and he coveted them, took them, and hid them in his tent. Then Achan, along with the things that he took, all of his livestock, and his entire family were taken out to the Valley of Achor (literally, the valley of disaster), stoned to death, burned, and then had a pile of rocks raised over their bodies as a testimony of their sin.

The Lord then renewed His command to Joshua, since the sin had been removed from the camp:

Joshua 8:1 CSB

1 The Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid or discouraged. Take all the troops with you and go attack Ai. Look, I have handed over to you the king of Ai, his people, city, and land.

At God’s instruction, they used a different tactic against Ai: they sneaked a large force past the city at night, and then drew out the Ai forces through another frontal assault on the city, from which they began to flee. Once everyone had chased them far enough, Joshua signaled for the ambush to be sprung, and the sneaky force captured the city and set it ablaze. The army with Joshua turned back around to fight as the Ai force saw smoke rising from their city.

The army of Ai found itself between a rock and a hard place, as the bulk of Israel’s army was now behind them as they tried to return to the city, even as the ambush forces came out to meet them on their way back. The Ai army was completely wiped out, and the Amorite city was plundered of animals and wealth (with God’s permission), and then completely destroyed, according to chapter 8, verse 28:

Joshua 8:28 CSB

28 Joshua burned Ai and left it a permanent ruin, still desolate today.

Joshua and the Israelites may have lost big, but they lost courageously, because they were willing to seek the direction of God and then to make the adjustments necessary to flip the script on Ai. We can see three vantage points for applying this passage of Scripture in our modern context: That the story of Ai is a community narrative, an individual narrative, and a Gospel narrative.

1: The story of Ai is a community narrative.

Literally the first thing that we notice in the passage about Achan, the dedicated things, and the defeat at Ai is that Achan doesn’t originally get the blame for the problem. The entire community of Israel does. Look at how God speaks about Achan’s sin in collective terms until things are sussed out:

Joshua 7:1 CSB

Yes, Achan is named second (and we’ll look at that in a moment), but the community is named first. And when the Lord responds to Joshua’s prayer after the defeat, look at what He says:

Joshua 7:10–12 CSB

10 The Lord then said to Joshua, “Stand up! Why have you fallen facedown? 11 Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant that I appointed for them. They have taken some of what was set apart. They have stolen, deceived, and put those things with their own belongings. 12 This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you what is set apart.

God doesn’t even give Joshua the name of the person who has done this. He makes all of Israel be a part of the ceremony to discover the identity of the thief, as they select the one tribe from the twelve, and then watch as clans and families are selected, on down to Achan (verses 16-18).

But the application here is clear: as one member of the community failed, the whole community failed.

This concept is borne out in the New Testament as well in the body of the church. The biblical concept of the church shows the same level of community impact in the life of the single member:

1 Corinthians 12:26–27 CSB

26 So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it.

For a fuller view of this, I recommend reading 1 Corinthians 12:12 through chapter 13, along with Romans 12:3-15:9.

I think that this idea of communal responsibility is one place that the modern church has failed. And we’ve failed because we’ve decided that each person can do their own thing, and we shouldn’t… actually, that we can’t have any say in the lives of our brothers and sisters in the church, and conversely, they can’t have any say in my life. Why is this a failure?

See, my sin affects the church, and not just because I’m the pastor. I’ve been a member of Eastern Hills for 34 years. Even before I was on staff, my failures had an impact on the church that I didn’t realize.

How? By making me not function in the body the way I am called to function. Think about your physical body—a bunch of separate parts all supposed to be working together for the whole. And if one part is out of whack, the whole rest of the body has to deal with it. If you stub your toe in the dark in middle of the night, your whole self responds. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.

I’m likely going to step on some toes right now (pun intended). How effective do you think your body would be if only 20% of your parts functioned? I’m going to predict not well. Well, just as your physical body needs 100% participation and engagement from your various parts in order to be and do all that it is supposed to be and do, so the church body will function best when there is 100% participation among its various parts in the various works of the ministry that the church body does.

Last week at Pastor’s Bible Study on Sunday night, we talked about the need for the whole church body to be involved in Kingdom work. Not necessarily doing things at the building, but engaging in what God would have you do for His purposes. There’s an old adage that 20% of the people do 80% of the work in a church. And I’m not certain whether that number is perfectly accurate for Eastern Hills, but it’s probably not far from wrong. Which part are you?

We’re called, as part of participating in a church body, to take responsibility for the church’s health, growth, and well-being. That means caring about each other well. It means being in actual relationship with others in the body, so that we can know what’s really going on in their lives. It means praying for one another and holding each other accountable to the commitments that we make together as a church body. It means engaging in the ministry of the church through your presence and your participation. We should ALL be looking for a place of service. The church isn’t a club that you join. It’s a body that you are an integral part of.

Are you a part of God’s work in this world? Are you a part of God’s work in and through this church family? As I thought through this, I know that Eastern Hills doesn’t have a very clear path for getting involved in some ways, something that I hope to fix in the coming year. But the best way to find out is to ask. What skills do you have that you could bring to bear in the work of the church? What abilities do you possess that you could use in ministry outside of these walls?

The story of Ai is definitely a community narrative. But to be fair, it also boils down to one man’s sin.

2: The story of Ai is a personal narrative.

Yes, God originally held the entire Israelite nation responsible for the one man’s sin. This is because the instruction He had given in the conquest of Jericho was for the whole community. Achan violated the commandment, and therefore the whole community did. But when it all came down to it, Achan and his family were the only ones ultimately punished for their sin.

A pastor that Trevor and I know uses a phrase for dealing with our sin:

“When you mess up, fess up, then stand up, and move on.”

What do you think would have happened with both Israel and Achan had he repented before the ill-fated first assault on Ai? Could the outcome have been different? But he didn’t. He was so focused on himself and his own desires that, even in the face of being found out, he didn’t confess.

I find it really interesting that in verses 13-15, Joshua is instructed to consecrate all the people by telling them to consecrate themselves for the next day (just like Joshua 3:5, but for a sadder reason here in 7), even giving them the reason for getting right with God:

Joshua 7:13–15 CSB

13 “Go and consecrate the people. Tell them to consecrate themselves for tomorrow, for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There are things that are set apart among you, Israel. You will not be able to stand against your enemies until you remove what is set apart. 14 In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe the Lord selects is to come forward clan by clan. The clan the Lord selects is to come forward family by family. The family the Lord selects is to come forward man by man. 15 The one who is caught with the things set apart must be burned, along with everything he has, because he has violated the Lord’s covenant and committed an outrage in Israel.”

Achan knew what he had done. He knew what was going to happen (if he assumed God was moving and would indicate the right information to Joshua). He even knew what his sin had caused. And still he didn’t come forward to confess and repent. He knew all of this was his fault, but he just didn’t care.

Even though we have the community responsibility for the church, we also have an individual responsibility in our individual walks with the Lord—not so that we can BE saved, but because we ARE saved. We are called to imitate God, and to put aside those things in our lives that don’t match up with who God has called us to be, to offer ourselves to God fully and completely as what Paul calls “living sacrifices:”

Romans 12:1–2 CSB

1 Therefore, brothers and sisters, in view of the mercies of God, I urge you to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God; this is your true worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

Ephesians 5:1–4 CSB

1 Therefore, be imitators of God, as dearly loved children, 2 and walk in love, as Christ also loved us and gave himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. 3 But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. 4 Obscene and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks.

Again, I’d recommend reading Ephesians 4:17-6:20 for a more comprehensive examination of this individual responsibility for our Christian walks.

We are to be people who keep short accounts with God, people who confess our sins readily and repent by turning away from the things that are displeasing to God. We should walk in trust, knowing that our confidence is in the Lord, and that He will never leave us or forsake us, as Christ Himself said. We should be constantly ready and willing to obey Him, prepared to make the adjustments to our lives necessary to follow Him, including having both the desire and the readiness to share the message of the Gospel of Jesus with those who are lost. And we should lives lives of contentment with what He has provided—not that we should have no desires or ambitions, but that we would gratefully accept the provision that God makes in our lives. These are all individual aspects of our walks with God that we should be growing in.

I’m going to tell you that I wish I had this all down perfectly. But I don’t. I struggle in all of these areas. But I long to grow in them, and by God’s grace, someday I will live out in practice the holiness that I’ve already been declared to have, clinging to Paul’s example as he wrote in Philippians 3:

Philippians 3:12–14 CSB

12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

Some days I might do well. Other days, I might lose big. When I mess up, I fess up, then I stand up, and move on. I can keep going because of the grace that God has given me through the message of the Gospel. Which brings us to our last point:

3: The story of Ai is a Gospel narrative.

Lastly, this narrative points us to the concept of the Gospel through its use of the biblical concepts of sin, consequence, response, and redemption. All of Scripture—from the Fall in Genesis 3 on—reflects these concepts over and over again. And this is a way that we can use the narrative parts of the Bible as a means of sharing the truth of what Jesus has done for us.

Remember the road to Emmaus in Luke 24? Jesus was walking with these two disciples who didn’t recognize who He was, and hadn’t understood the Scriptures about Jesus. And it says in verse 27:

Luke 24:27 CSB

27 Then beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.

So how do we point to the Gospel from Joshua 7 and 8? We can follow the same pattern of the biblical concepts of sin, consequence, response, and redemption.

Sin

Achan’s sin was clear: he coveted and took things that were dedicated to the Lord. In doing this, he was implying several things: that God’s instructions were merely suggestions that he could choose to ignore; that he, not God, was in charge of his life; that his desires were more important than God’s desires; that valuable stuff was more important than God, more important that his people, more important than his family, more important than his integrity. He had been clearly told what awaited for anyone who violated the Lord’s command, and he did it anyway.

Is our sin any different? Sure, it might not be as blatantly obvious as taking valuable things that have been dedicated to God; but that doesn’t mean that it’s not the same at its core. It’s disobedience to God, rebellion against His rule, and a rejection of His authority. It’s worshiping something other than God (usually ourselves), so it is idolatry. Sin is us saying that we know better, are more important, and are wiser than God. And the Bible says that we are all sinners:

Psalm 14:1–3 CSB

1 The fool says in his heart, “There’s no God.” They are corrupt; they do vile deeds. There is no one who does good. 2 The Lord looks down from heaven on the human race to see if there is one who is wise, one who seeks God. 3 All have turned away; all alike have become corrupt. There is no one who does good, not even one.

This is a radical problem. Because of the nature of sin as rebellion and idolatry, and the nature of God as holy and just, there must be a consequence for sin, because if there wasn’t, God wouldn’t be just.

Consequence

So in Joshua, God then brought about a necessary consequence in order to correct the sin in Israel. This necessary consequence was exactly what God had said that it would be: trouble for the people. They lost a battle against a substantially smaller force, and turned tail and ran from them after suffering what could perhaps be considered minor losses. But given that we didn’t read of a single lost soldier in the attack on Jericho, this failure at Ai was very different, because we don’t read of Ai losing a single solider in the first assault, but Israel lost 36. So the community faced their collective consequence, and so did Achan face his own consequence.

Achan was singled out for destruction in order to remove the sin from Israel. He paid the penalty that he owed because of his sin. It was an incredibly steep price, one that we might struggle with today. But the reality is that God is God, and we are not. He had set apart the nation of Israel as His people, and they were supposed to display the fact that they were set apart through their obedience. They couldn’t afford to turn a blind eye to idolatry, and God was unwilling to do so because of His holiness.

The consequences of our sin likewise have both a community and individual aspect as well, as we have seen. Unfortunately, in the culture that we currently live in, we tend to think that people should just mind their own business, even in the church. We might think that our sin only affects us, but this is just not true. Sin affects not just the sinner, but our families and friends, and if we are believers, our sin affects the church family as well.

I’ve already touched on the way our sin impacts the body through the analogy of stubbing our toes, but there’s a relational aspect to it as well: just like in the Garden of Eden, when we sin, we hide from others. We reduce the intimacy and honesty that we have in our relationships. We allow things like jealously and envy sneak in. Since we have become idol worshipers worshiping ourselves, we begin to see people as resources to be used, instead of fellow image bearers of God, which will lead us to estrangement from others.

There are also the individual consequences to our sin. Sometimes those consequences are natural and logically flow our of our sin: we tell a lie and get caught; we overindulge in food or alcohol and our bodies pay the price; we commit adultery and divorce follows. But the consequences of our sin go beyond that. God will not ignore our sin. If you are not a believer in Jesus, then God’s wrath already resides on you, according to Scripture:

John 3:36 CSB

36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who rejects the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.

Either you can receive the wrath that your sins deserve, or you can trust in what Jesus has done to cover your sins. Those are the only two options. If we do not belong to Jesus through faith, then we are forever spiritually dead because of our sins. Only through believing in Christ, surrendering to Him in faith, can we escape the eternal punishment that we deserve.

If we are in Christ and are beset by a particular sin, then God will bring correction and discipline for our good. We might not enjoy that correction, but it is loving and right for God to bring it. This brings us to the question of response.

Response

Joshua’s first response here is to the consequences of Achan’s sin. He cries out to God from his ignorance. He doesn’t understand what has happened. But once he does understand, he walks in obedience. He makes the changes necessary to both remove the sin from Israel and to defeat Ai.

One amazing aspect of the Gospel is that the response to the consequence of our sin—the fact of our eternal spiritual death because of our rebellion—the first response has been made by God, not by us. By His own choice in grace, He sent His Son Jesus Christ to die to take the punishment for our sin so that we could be rescued from the penalty that we deserve.

Romans 5:6 CSB

6 For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly.

In fact, notice one interesting point between Joshua and Romans. In Joshua, we find the entire “righteous” community standing against the one sinful man so the community can be saved. In the Gospel, we find the entire sinful world standing against the only One who is truly righteous, so that the sinful world could be saved.

And another amazing aspect of the Gospel is that the response that we bring is merely an acknowledgment of our need for Jesus’s saving grace, and belief in Him as Savior and Lord. It’s not that we fix ourselves, because we can’t. It’s not that we earn our salvation, because we couldn’t. We need Jesus, because it’s only in Christ that we can experience eternal redemption.

Redemption

And this is the point where losing becomes courageous—when the reversal takes place and the victims become the victors because they trusted God. Joshua and the Israelites, who had failed in multiple ways between their victory at Jericho and their defeat at Ai, don’t wallow in their loss, but turn to God in repentance and faith, listen to His Word and obey it, and experience His deliverance from the trouble they had faced. Ai is taken. Israel’s shame is removed. Hope is restored because relationship is restored.

When we trust Christ, this is what happens: we go from victim of our sin to victor over it! Instead of being conquered by death, we conquer it!

Romans 8:36–39 CSB

36 As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In coming to Christ, it may look like we lose. The world might hate us. The devil might attack us. We might seem like sheep being led to the slaughter as Paul quoted from Psalm 44:22. But no! In Christ, the reversal happens and our losing becomes courageous, because truly nothing can separate us from the source of our hope—not even death. We need forgiveness, Jesus purchased it. We need hope, Jesus provides it. We need peace, Jesus promotes it. We need love, Jesus personifies it. This is the truth of the Gospel! In coming to Christ, we “lose,” but we WIN, as Jesus said in Luke 9:

Luke 9:23–24 CSB

23 Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. 24 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.

Can you see how this passage can be one that points us to the hope of the Gospel? But more importantly, for those who are here or listening this morning who have never trusted in Jesus: can you see how trusting in Jesus’s death and resurrection sets us free from the punishment and penalty of our sin, and provides a way of being right with God through faith? I call you right where you are this morning to believe the Gospel, trust Jesus as your Savior and Lord, and be made new as you follow Him.

Closing

This morning, I want to issue several calls of commitment in response to this text. I’m not going to call these to be public responses, because I don’t want to manipulate anyone into responding. However, if you feel a need to respond publicly, you will have that opportunity, so please do so.

First, for the believer, will you recommit your life this morning to walking with Jesus both individually and corporately, giving yourself for His purposes both for you and for the church body? Will you commit to seeking out ways to serve, if you aren’t already doing what God has called you to? Will you see that your personal life of holiness has an impact in the life of the church, and recommit to striving to be more like Jesus this morning? You might already be a believer, but not a member of Eastern Hills. That recommitment might look like taking the step of joining in formal membership today.

If you’re not a believer, will you believe the Gospel and trust Christ for your salvation, surrendering your life to Him in faith?

The band is going to come down and lead us in a song of invitation, and that invitation is for all of us. How is God calling us to respond today? Respond in that way, and if you need to do so publicly, then come and do so. I’ll be here along with Trevor, Rich, and Kerry to receive you, or you can come and pray at the steps or right there in your pew.

PRAYER

Closing Remarks

Bible reading (Psalm 132)

Pastor’s Study (Eph 4)

Prayer Meeting

ERLC Table in the foyer

Tithes and offerings

Instructions for guests

Benediction

Philippians 3:20–4:1 CSB

20 Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. 21 He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself. 1 So then, my dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown, in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.