As we continue our series through Joshua’s conquest of Jericho, we’ve pretty much established who’s in charge here: Jesus, then Joshua. We have a leadership in place. But what about the people. There’s something really interesting between the lines in Joshua 6: the people don’t do anything extraordinary. The only people who are responsible for the everyday marching and trumpet blowing are the armed men, the priests, and the trumpeters. The others are expected to wait until the seventh day…when they are to shout in celebration.
Here’s the thing: on those days in between, they are to go about their business as usual. Like we discussed yesterday at Harmony, their role in the conquest of Jericho was to do the day-in, day-out things with intentionality. The trumpeters/priests/soldiers needed sustenance and rest. The homes had to be ready when they returned. Meals had to be cooked. There was a lot going on behind the scenes of the marchers that was necessary to make it happen.
That being said, as God works in our city, it will not be because of Day Seven, an Easter Block Party, Worshipfest, or Embrace ECU (our upcoming love war of the campus). God uses events like these to rally the troops. But where the battle is either won or lost is with the people. God will bring revival to our city not through large-scale events, but by everyday people doing the mundane with Gospel-intentionality. We expect that God will bring waves of random people by our events (which is possible, and I am praying for), but the probability goes up astronomically when we are living our lives in light of the Gospel: forming relationships intentionally and inviting people to chase Jesus with us. For more on this topic, I encourage you to grab the podcast from yesterday when it goes up at HarmonyGreenville.com. For the next month (no church on Mother’s Day), Justin Boulmay and I will be teaching on living missionally. Joshua’s people understood that it took not marching, but the mundane to make things happen. If we grasp the same concept, who knows what Jesus will do?