He left nothing undone

Text: Joshua 11:15

Intro:

I believe Joshua was a shy, timid young man.  Repeatedly Moses told him to have “good courage”.  I believe that he was initially hesitant and without boldness.  Yet he developed into a great leader and a great servant of God.  How can a timid, shy, withdrawn believer rise to such heights?  I believe that our text reveals the answer.  He left nothing undone of all that the LORD commanded Moses.  He left nothing undone of what he was told to do.

1. Nothing undone requires some things to be done.

1. Notice the progression in verse 15.
2. Moses is commanded of the LORD.  Joshua is commanded of Moses of the LORD.
3. In order to leave nothing undone, Joshua had to get some things done.
4. We fail because we do not see things to be done.
5. We fail because we do not see things to their completion.  How many “start/stop” believers I have met along the way!
6. Verse 23 tells us that “Joshua took the whole land, according to all that the LORD said unto Moses.”
7. Do you have a “to do” list?  It is certain that if you don’t set out to do some thing that you will do no thing (or nothing).
8. Admittedly, it requires purpose and planning.
9. Joshua had purpose and plan and did.
10. Rom. 12:1, 2 “your reasonable service”.
11. Ill – Florence Nightingale at thirty wrote in her diary.  “I am thirty years of age, the age at which Christ began His missions.  Now no more childish things, no more vain things.  Now, Lord, let me think only of Thy will.”

1. Nothing undone requires some things to be undone.

1. Here is the heart of the matter.  In order to get everything done on your “to do” list, there are some things that must go undone.
2. If your “to do” list includes an hour prayer that is an hour in which you do “no thing” else.
3. If your “to do” list includes faithful attendance, that is time in which you cannot do other things.
4. David Livingstone – “I have found that I have no unusual endowments of intellect, but I this day resolved that I would be an uncommon Christian.”
5. I purposed to go to college.  I was not the athlete.  I was not the brilliant scholar.  I purposed to pass the SAT (college entrance exam).  I purposed to make good grades.  Consequently, when others were playing baseball and football I was studying and doing homework.  When others took weekends off from school, I continued to study.  I was able to enter college because of what I did do as much as what it was that I didn’t do.
6. Ill – When Handel composed “The Messiah” he withdrew himself for twenty-three days.  We enjoy the music, but we can appreciate it more when we realize what he did not do so that he could do what he did.

• Nothing undone requires priorities.

1. Reread verse 15.
2. The priority of Joshua was to do what the LORD had commanded.
3. The will and word of God must be the priority setter, if you are to leave no thing undone.
4. Read Joshua 1:8
5. True success is when we are obedient to the will of God.
6. The only way to resolve to leave nothing undone is to allow someone or something to set the priority.  Joshua allowed Moses to set the priority.  Moses allowed God to set the priority. 

1. Nothing undone requires redeeming the time.

1. Eph. 5:16 “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil”
2. Jonathan Edwards made several resolutions to live by.  One was “Resolved, never to lose one moment of time, to improve it in the most profitable way I can.”
3. TR – “I am only an average man, but I work harder at it than the average man.”
4. On a tomb “Here rests a man who never rested here.”