The coyote always loses because the author decided he would — and the same is true of you, except the Author is for you.
Central Image
The Wile E. Coyote measuring stick: which yardstick you apply to why he keeps losing tells you everything about how you're reading God's story, including your own.
The Turn
We keep thinking the outcome depends on getting the strategy right — but in both battles of Ai, the strategy was irrelevant; the Author had already decided who was going to win.
Outline
Why the Coyote Always Loses
Toby opened with the Roadrunner cartoon and his longstanding sympathy for the coyote — the innovator, the engineer, the guy with no quit. The question of why he always loses depends entirely on what measuring stick you bring. Bad plans? Bad equipment? Roadrunner too fast? Toby's answer: the author decided he would lose. That's the measuring stick he's applying to Joshua 8.
The Battle of Ai — Round Two
Israel's first defeat at Ai wasn't a strategy failure; it was divine judgment because of Achan's sin. After repentance and purging, God tells Joshua to go back. They run a clever ambush — 30,000 troops up front, 5,000 hidden on the far side — and the king of Ai takes the bait, empties his city chasing the Israelites, and gets caught between both forces. It's a rout. But Toby's point is: they didn't win because the ruse worked. They won because God decided they would. The plan just gave them something to walk into.
The Rule and the Ruler
Joshua had a book — the Torah — and was supposed to follow it. That's the rule. But a ruler implies a Ruler. Toby said we find it easier to hold one or the other: either lean on the rule as a system that works if you work it, or assume the Ruler has already decided so the rule doesn't matter. The sermon's argument is that the Bible holds both and refuses to let either go. God's sovereignty and human choice aren't enemies — they're friends who've never actually fought.
Mount Ebal — Everything Has Been Building to This
The battle of Ai, the annexation of Bethel, all of it existed to clear enough ground so Israel could gather at Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim and hear the covenant read aloud. Toby traced this back to Genesis 12 — Abraham built an altar near Bethel and Ai at the very beginning. The whole conquest was getting them back to where God's promise started. At Ebal, Joshua builds an altar, whitewashes standing stones, and writes the law on them so everyone can see it. The words will eventually rain off, melt off the plaster, and sink into the ground — not disappearing but going into the land that will bless or vomit them out depending on whether they live by that word.
God's Not Trying to Trick You
Toby's old professor Tom Gear told him this and he'd never heard it before — had grown up half-expecting to get caught out if he didn't add everything up exactly right. The sermon's logic here: if God were trying to trick you, you couldn't win. Nobody outsmarts God when he's working against you. So if he's not trying to trick you, then maybe he's on your side. And if the word is given by a God who's for you, then the instructions aren't traps — they're how you live when you're in his hand.
The Living Word and the Curse
The landing move: Christ is the living Word. He declares us his people (as God declared Israel his people at Ebal). He shows us how to live as his children. And he took the curse — the curse that was supposed to fall on everyone who broke the covenant. So we can hold the standard in full, admit we don't always meet it, and still walk into it without shame, because the victory was already given by the Ruler.
The Landing
The word of God is not just a measuring stick for what you do — it's the measuring stick for what you think and what you feel, including whether God is for you. If you feel like he's against you, the word says you're wrong, and the word is the standard. Bring whatever part of you has pushed back on that into the open.
Questions to Think About
- Toby opened with the coyote — said he always roots for him, not the roadrunner. Who do you identify with more in that cartoon, and why?
- Toby said Israel didn't lose the first battle of Ai because their attack plan was bad, and they didn't win the second battle because their strategy was good. What was actually driving the outcome both times?
- Toby drew a line between "the rule" and "the Ruler" — the word God gave and the God who gave it. What's the difference, and why does he think it matters which one you're leaning on?
- He said it's easy to slide into one of two ditches: either "if you don't get it all right you've already lost," or "God's decided everything so it doesn't matter what you do." Which ditch do you find yourself closer to, and what got you there?
- His old professor Tom Gear told him "God's not trying to trick us" — and Toby said he'd never heard that before, that he'd grown up half-expecting to get caught out. Does that land for you, or does some part of you still operate like God is setting traps?
- Toby said the word isn't just a standard for what we do and think — it's a standard for what we *feel*. That feelings like "God is against me" are just wrong and need to get in line. Is that freeing or does it feel like one more thing to get right?
- The words Joshua wrote on the stones at Ebal were going to melt off in the rain and soak into the ground — Toby said they didn't disappear, they went into the land. What does it look like for this community to have God's word actually absorbed into us rather than posted on a wall?
- Toby closed with a straight invitation: if there's something in your heart where you've rejected the word — pushed back on it, said "that's stupid" or "that's not fair" — come clean about it this week. Pick one place where that's true for you and name it to someone you trust.