Sun Stand Still
Series: Crossing Over: Life on the Edge of Faith
“Sun Stand Still”
Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Sept 1, 2013
Text: Joshua 10:1-15 // Series: Crossing Over: Life on the Edge of Faith Family Inclusive
Well, good morning. If you are new or visiting with us, welcome. My name is Brad and I am part of the teaching and leadership team here at JRCC. How was your summer? I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but (SNL voice) teachers and students, on Tuesday, you will find yourself affronted with the harsh new reality of getting up early and heading back to class! I hope you had a great summer and were able to get out and explore some interesting things. I know we did some of you did because we posted on our Jericho Ridge Facebook page earlier this week and invitation for you to send through a photo of the most interesting natural wonder you saw on your holidays this summer. Here’s one that came through from the Schroeder family – it’s a great shot of the Hoodoos in Drumheller, Alberta. You guys know what these things are? This is the result of crazy erosion… And so here’s a shot of Ryan and Logan on top of some of the hoodoos in southern Alberta. Ruth Ellen & Jared – Needle Peak [2 photos]…
Well today, we are going to look at an amazing account in the Old Testament book of Joshua as we wrap up our summer series here at Jericho Ridge. We’re going to see what is perhaps one of the most amazing natural wonders that has ever taken place – the sun standing still in the sky. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s go back to the beginning of the story, which starts one chapter earlier in Joshua 9. Turn there in your Bibles or on your YouVersion.com app on your phone. Now, last weekend, we looked at part 1 of this story, the story of how a group of people named the Gibeonites tricked and deceived Israel into making a peace treaty with them. You can see this art piece by Josh Groom that depicts a Gibeonites – they dressed up in super old clothing, the brought along moldy bread and worn out sandals and they said to Joshua “we are from a far country – make peace with us” and Joshua 9:14 says that the leaders of Israel smelled the bread and they looked at the clothes and sandals but do you remember their fatal error? They did not consult the Lord. They were taken in by the Gibeonite ruse and they made a peace treaty with them. Well, fast forward to chapter 10 and we begin to see why this treaty was such a bad idea. Let’s begin reading at 10:1-6 …
Now, here’s where things start to get interesting. Because remember, the treaty that the people of Gibeon made with the Israelites was rooted in deception. And the whole back half of chapter 9 involves the people of Israel trying to figure out if they should honour the treaty or not. In the end, they gripe and they grumble but they decide that since they made this swore to this agreement before the Lord and it was their own darn fault that they didn’t ask God for input, that they need to stick by it.
But I don’t think they anticipated that the treaty with Gibeon would be tested so quickly afterward. Gibeon is now suddenly under attack by a huge army and since they are as of a few days ago, an ally or really servants of the people of Israel, they send for help. Because one of the deals with a treaty is that you have to help out the people or nation you make a treaty with. If you are being attacked, they are obligated to come to your aid and visa versa. But what would do if you were in Joshua’s place receiving this request for help from Gibeon? If I was him, I would be so tempted to send a message back “sorry Gibeonites… we’re really busy planning for a big military campaign to take the whole of the southern half of Canaan. This is really not a good time for us to send relief to a bunch of tricky double-crossing weasels. The covenant is off.” But surprisingly, Joshua doesn’t respond in this way. Even through the treaty may be flawed, he recognizes that he gave his word. Not only that, but the oath that he swore to protect and defend was also made to the Gibeonites in front the whole of the people of Israel and most importantly, in front of God. So there’s no going back on his word.
So in Joshua 10:7-8, we read the following… God makes a promise to Joshua. Not only that God will be with Him and so Joshua does not need to be afraid, but also that God Himself will give Joshua the victory.
But the battle scene doesn’t go the way you might suspect so I’m going to need a few volunteers to act out various parts here in our battle scene. I need Joshua and an Israelite army person. I need 5 people to be the Ammorite Kings and their army. I will also need a person to play the part of the sun (yellow sweatshirt). Perfect! OK, let’s set the scene up. The Ammorite kings have come and surrounded Gibeon (I’ll be Gibeon). I send for help from Joshua and his army. And so Joshua and the army march all night – 32 kms – from their camp to Gibeon, and they arrive and they take the Ammorite Army by surprise. And verse 10 says that the Lord threw the Ammorites into a panic (this is your time to panic) and the Israelites killed a great number of them at Gibeon. (Let’s kill one). So the Ammorites begin to retreat and as they do, the Lord intervenes again on behalf of Israel. God begins to destroy the Ammorite army with a terrible hail storm which kills more of the enemy than the Israelites kill with their swords. So I have some sample hail here, I’m going to get the sun to throw it down, cause its coming from the sky. Don’t worry Ammorites, these are just Styrofoam so make sure you have a good death scene ready when you are hit and killed by the giant hail. Perfect! Joshua and his army chase them for 20 miles.
But the battle isn’t over and it certainly isn’t won. It’s beginning to get dark [MEDIA: Turn light banks out one at a time but keep a few on] and in the ancient world, when the sun goes down you stop fighting. The battlefield was a messy and confusing place, you can’t see who was on your team and who is the enemy. And so as it begins to get dark, Joshua is afraid that if the enemy gains the cover of night, they could slink away, re-group and the battle would be lost forever. So he does something extraordinarily bold. He prays. But this is not just a regular “help me” kind of prayer. This is perhaps the boldest prayer ever uttered by a human being. In front of all of the people of Israel, you can see them in Hannah Smethurst’ s painting here, Joshua prays “SUN STAND STILL” And 10:13 says “So the sun stood still and the moon stayed in place until the nation of Israel had defeated its enemies. Is this event not recorded in The Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the middle of the sky, and it did not set as on a normal day. There has never been a day like this one before or since when the Lord answered such a prayer. Surely the Lord fought for Israel that day! [Joshua, you and your army can finish off the Amorites] Then Joshua and the Israelite army returned to their camp at Gilgal.”
Let’s thank our volunteers for their participation in our drama this morning.
What an absolutely amazing story of God’s intervention. In order to fulfill His promise to Joshua and to His people, God does the impossible and makes the sun stand still in the sky. It doesn’t set as it would on a normal day in response to Joshua’s prayer.
Now, I know what some of you might be thinking. “The sun standing still?! Yeah right… That’s impossible – that the sun would park it in the sky for a day or half a day?!... That the laws of nature would be suspended and the rotation of the earth stopped… I’m not sure I can get there in my head. What was happening here? Some kind of weird solar eclipse or a refraction of light?” It’s a good question – what are we to make of this phenomenon? Well-intentioned scientists with a faith-perspective have gone hard after this, attempting to prove that there’s an extra half-day in the life of the earth, etc. But intriguingly, this isn’t where the text points us. As modern rational people, we tend to think to ourselves “isn’t that quaint. A nice little story about a kid named Josh and his little army and after marching all night, they are so tired but they fight and they fight and it just seems like a really, really long day to them so they chalk it up to the sun standing still in the sky. How naïve and un-scientific of them! If only watches had been invented they would know that time doesn’t really stand still – it probably just felt that way to them.” But again, this isn’t the conclusion that the narrator of the book of Joshua comes to.
As modern people, we are tempted to explain this away as an ancient misunderstanding. But notice where the text takes us… It takes the focus off of what happened in the sky and our questions of “how did the sun stand still and for how long” and the text asks what is perhaps a much more primary and salient question: “why did this happen?” The narrator of Joshua 10 wants us to focus our eyes not on what is happening in the sky, but what is happening on the ground. That a human being prayed this kind of bold, audacious prayer and God responded! It is not stunning to the narrator that God hears prayers or that the God who created the universe itself would intervene in the natural order in supernatural ways. What is seen as amazing is the magnitude of Joshua’s request. That God would hearken to or obey this kind of bold ask is seen as without precedent. “There has never been another day like this one before or since where the Lord answered such a prayer. Surely the Lord fought for Israel that day.” The focus of the text isn’t on the sun standing still so much as on the faith of the man who dared to ask God for the impossible. Joshua possesses a Sun Stand Still kind of faith. He trusts so completely in the promise of God that “not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you” that he is willing to be bold and audacious in his request.
You see, Joshua has been through it all. All of the stories that we have covered this summer. He’s grown up in Egypt. He’s experienced what it felt like in that season, where God seemed distant. Where it felt like God didn’t’ care about the plight of His people. But then Joshua saw God intervene in supernatural ways with the 10 plagues, where He confounded the natural order and overpowered the magic of the Egyptians. Where God did the absolutely impossible and parted the waters of the Red Sea so that His people could walk through on dry land. Joshua has lived through famine and parched desert wanderings only to see God bring water out of a rock and quail to feed a hungry multitude. Joshua has seen people cross over into places of faith in God only to slip back into complaining and unbelief again and again. Joshua knows what God is capable of. He knows that God deeply desires to intervene in human affairs. That God is not distant or unwilling to care about your life and mine. Joshua knows that God listens to our prayers and that He responds. And so like his predecessor Moses, Joshua dares to ask God for the miraculous. He dares to lift his eyes to heaven and with boldness, he approaches the throne of Grace with confidence to find help in a time of need, as it says in Hebrews 4:16.
And here is where I think the story challenges me and you today. I think that Joshua’s example invites us to look at our own experiences. To mine our own stories and ask “where has God intervened in your life?”
As I think about the story of my life, I can identify times where God has intervened in supernatural ways. I think of times where God protected me supernaturally from crazy accidents where I should have died, but I walked away unscathed. Because it’s September, I think of the plan I had for my life to go to university in Ontario and get a nice degree and settle down in suburbia and make lots of money, but when I came out here to Langley to visit a friend, God spoke to me as clear as if you were talking to me and He said “Brad, this is where I want you for the next 4 years” and so I packed up and headed to Bible college. Think about your story… Where has God intervened in your life? You see, if you call to your mind a history of how God has intervened supernaturally in the past, it gives us a kind of confidence to come to him in conversation and ask great and mighty things of him. It deepens your faith. This is one of the reasons why I keep track of my prayer requests in the back of my Momentum Journal. When God answers something, I cross it off or make a little note and when I flip through, I am reminded of how many times God has listened to the prayers that people have been praying.
Writing my prayers down also causes me to ask another question of myself and of you today: “Would you characterize your current prayer life as boring or audacious?” As I was preparing this message, I began to become more aware of the kinds of things that I usually pray for and to tell you the truth, it was convicting. “Lord, thank you for this food. We pray for safety. Help us have a good day. Bless us. Be with us. In Jesus name, Amen.” Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with those prayers but one of the things I began to reflect on is how difficult is it really for God to answer those boring kinds of prayers. We live in one of the most richly blessed places in the world. It’s not hard for God to bless the food – He’s kinda done that already! We live in a place where we have safety laws for practically everything. Yes, it’s dangerous out there, but it seems a lot easier for God to keep me safe in Langley that it does in Guatemala or Tanzania or China. And maybe that’s the point… maybe we don’t ask God audaciously for things because we don’t really need Him.
I was reminded this week of a conversation that Meg and I had with Andrew and Colleen Burkinshaw when they came back from their time in Nepal. Meg asked Andrew “what do you miss about Nepal?” thinking he might name some people they met or part of their work. But he surprised both of us with his answer: “I miss the struggle” he said. “Life was such a challenge there in Nepal that we HAD to depend on God for anything and everything. Here, life seems so, easy. My prayer life is beginning to suffer.” When you are in the middle of a struggle, your conversations with God are alive and full of passion and boldness and audacity. Jesus invites us in John 14:13 “You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father.” God’s desire is to bring glory to Himself in your life and in His church… but when things settle down, our prayers become mundane and boring. So let me ask you “What kinds of things are you asking God for these days? If you are praying for boring stuff, what has held you back from praying with audacity and boldness?”
For me, what sometimes holds me back is that the “easier” prayers come to my mind more quickly. I forget to ask God for the bigger, bolder things because they seem, well, impossible. And so I aim a lot lower. But the challenge today is to begin to raise our vision and to see what happens as individuals and as a community when we begin to raise the audacity level of our prayers. As a church family, I want us to see what happens when we dare to ask God for the impossible. When we pray for those impossibly broken family relationships to be restored. When we pray for those people who we think will never be open to God to come closer to faith. When we pray and ask God for the wisdom to deal with that impossibly complex parenting situation. What would it look like to ask God for His provision for your family in a fresh way and to actually trust Him.
So here’s what I want you to do… As Ruth Ellen and the team come to lead us in songs that stir up our faith, I want you to think about an audacious prayer that you are wanting, needing to pray. That will take a kind of sun stand still kind of faith to see God move in miraculous ways. And I want you to Come and grab one of the ‘suns’ and write out your own SUN STAND STILL prayer. It can be one or two words – family saved; lost found; job needed… Or it can be something longer. We want you to take these home with you and put them somewhere you can remember to approach the throne of grace with boldness and audacity like Joshua did. Remember that the prayer team is available for you this morning so let me invite you to stand and let’s let faith begin to rise up in our hearts, church, as we seek God for greater things this morning and in this season.
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