The Battle Is In God's Hands | New Ground | Pastor Joaquin Pardo

Are you struggling to trust the Lord in the midst of your battle? In the book of Joshua, we see faith is the overwhelming and unwavering trust one has in God. It's overwhelming to it's enemy and unwavering to its circumstances. This weekend, Pastor Joaquin continued our series, NEW GROUND, by reminding us that the battle is in God's hands!Joshua 6:16...And at the seventh time, when the priests had blown the trumpets, Joshua said to the people, “Shout, for the LORD has given you the city."1) Your promise is a part of His purpose.God made a promise to Abraham 430 years prior to its fulfillment. Why would God make a promise to a man that wouldn't be around to see it? Because his promise to Abraham was always a part of a greater purpose that would outlive him. What was the greater purpose? To redeem the world.2) God overwhelms the enemy.Joshua 6:1Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. Jericho, the place that was known to be an impregnable city with mighty skilled warriors, was completely locked down because of the people of Israel. In Joshua 2, Rahab, a woman who was a part of the land of Jericho, gives more insight as to why. Joshua 2:9-10 ...“I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt 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..."The enemy was overwhelmed by the miraculous stories they heard about God and his people. They knew they didn't stand a chance against a powerful God!3) We fight from victory, not for victory.This story starts off by God speaking in past tense about an event that had not yet occurred. Joshua 6:2And the Lord said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor." The reason God can do this is because the battle belongs to him! It is his victory that he hands over to us but what he asks of us is to trust his strategy. For the Israelites, that meant to circle around the walls of Jericho, blow a horn and give a shout, a strategy that would appear to be strange for battle. Yet as we see in this story, God doesn't ask for OUR best strategy, but instead to trust HIS!