“You have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you.”
– Joshua 23:3
So much here in Joshua 23:3. Let’s start with the last part. It is the Lord your God who has fought for you. God’s people had just taken the promised land. This is the conclusion of the Book of Joshua. They’re looking back and the conclusion of all that has happened is the Lord fought for you. I read that and I just think about all the ways that at every single step in my life, I see God fighting for, me working for my salvation. Ultimately of course, in the gospel, sending his son Jesus to die on the cross and to rise from the grave.
Joshua 23:3 Leads Us to Praise Jesus for the Cross
Jesus, we praise you for dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the grave in victory for us.
Talk about fighting for me, fighting for you. Jesus has conquered sin and Satan and death for us. We could just stop right there. But then even more so, how the Lord in his love fought through my rebellion against him, your rebellion against him, pursued us, opened our eyes by his spirit to his grace toward us has saved each of us from our sins and works for us, fights for us on a daily basis, keeping us from sin, responding to our prayers.
Oh, the thought that the God of the universe fights for us, promising to be with us, to give us strength and courage and joy and peace amidst all kinds of challenges, all kinds of battles in this world. He is with us, for his people, for all who trust in him, who cling to him, who do all the things we prayed in Joshua 22:5, who serve him with all their heart and soul and love him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength and cling to him and obey his commandments.
Joshua 23:3 Reminds Us of What God has Done for Us
The beauty is that’s only possible because God is working for us. Life in God is only possible because God fights for us, works for us. So that’s the whole picture there in Joshua 23:3, the Lord your God has fought for you. This is the description of their lives. They are where they are because God has fought for them. Then the first part says, you’ve seen all the Lord your God has done to all of these nations for your sake.
Now, put this together with the great commission we have in the New Testament. Jesus has commanded us to go and make disciples of all the nations. We pray all the time on this podcast knowing that there are still many nations, tribes, peoples, thousands of them that are unreached by the gospel. God has called us to go and make disciples among all of them, to lead all of them to know his love. Jesus tells us right at the end of the great commission, what words? Surely I will be with you always to the end of the age. In other words, I will work for you. I will help you as you make disciples of all the nations, as you make my love and my mercy among all the nations, I will give you everything you need to do.
This Verse Leads Us to Praise God
So put it all together, and God, we praise you for fighting for us. Jesus, we praise you for dying on the cross for our sins and rising from the grave in victory for us. We praise you for your victory over sin and Satan and death for the power we have over any temptation that comes our way today for the strength we have amidst any trial we have, we face in our lives today, tomorrow.
We praise you that you fight for us. You fight for all who trust in you. We praise you for that reality today. God, we pray that you would help us not to do disconnect your promises to us from your commands to us, specifically here, your command to make disciples of all the nations, to go and make your love and your grace and your mercy known among all peoples of the world.
God help us to be faithful to obey your commands, knowing that you will help us in every way we need as we do it., we pray today for the Mohana Sindhi of Pakistan, almost half a million of them, little to no access to the gospel right now. Most of them never even heard about your grace and your love. God, we pray that Mohana Sindhi people would be reached with the gospel.
We pray that you would raise up laborers who would take the gospel into Pakistan, to this people group. God, we pray that you would fight for them. God, obviously not in a Joshua 23:3 sense of physical battle, but God, in the sense of spiritual battle. This half million people for so long have been kept in the dark by the adversary from knowing your grace and your love and your mercy.
This Verse Leads Us to Pray for the Unreached
God, we pray that you would cause the gospel to go forward in power to the Mohana Sindhi of Pakistan. God, we pray that disciples will be made and churches will be planted and multiplied in Pakistan for your glory. So we pray, oh God. We trust in you today, tomorrow in each of our lives to work on our behalf, for our good, for our sake. And we praise you, oh God, that you work for our sake. God, we pray that you would use our lives as you work for our sake, for your sake, for your glory, for your glory right around us and our lives, our families, our churches, our workplaces. God, we pray that you would use our lives for your glory among the nations. We pray this according to Joshua 23:3 in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
