Follow the Promises: God's Path to Victorious Life

Start with a claim that reframes everything: the promised land isn’t heaven. It’s a life of victory now, with real battles and real breakthroughs, led not by the law or your willpower, but by Jesus—our Joshua—who brings us into what God already promised to give. We walk through Joshua 1 as both history and a living guide, exploring how God’s promises move us from wandering to purpose, from pressure to presence, and from self-reliance to Spirit-led courage.

We trace the arc of promise from Genesis to Joshua: a God who pledges to crush evil, calls a family to bless the world, rescues slaves by grace, and reveals that the law exposes need but cannot grant life. Then we stand on the riverbank with Israel and hear the language of gift: I will be with you, I will not forsake you. That presence is the guarantee. Victory isn’t earned through religious hustle; it’s received by faith as Christ lives in us. We talk about what it means to “meditate day and night,” not as performance but as staying close to the voice that steadies our steps. Faith becomes active—taking ground promise by promise, step by step.

You’ll also hear how Joshua foreshadows Jesus—Yeshua by name—and why only He can lead us across our Jordan. We confront the modern wilderness of try-harder spirituality and replace it with be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. Along the way, we highlight the power of community: helping one another into rest until everyone has possession of what God has given. If you’ve been stuck between fear and effort, this conversation offers a clear path forward: fix your eyes on Jesus, receive His indwelling life, and move with courage grounded in promise.

If this message meets you where you are, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage today, and leave a review to help others find it. Then tell us: which promise are you standing on this week?

Transcript

Setting The Theme: Promises And History

SPEAKER_01 0:53

So today we're studying Joshua chapter one. Uh and the the title of today's sermon, as well as the entire study, is Follow the Promises, God's Path into Victorious Life. Okay, so follow the promises is what we're going to be talking about. So the Old Testament is history. Okay. It records things that actually happened. Many of them are verifiable. My wife can testify. I'm always watching YouTube videos on new archaeological discoveries that always prove the Bible, right? It's amazing. Every time they find something, it shows that this stuff actually happened. And we'll actually talk about some of the crazy stuff that they found that's actually from the book of Joshua as we go through this book. But there was war that happened, and that really happened. And we'll talk about that. There's miracles, there's other stuff that we'll see. But all of it is also a foreshadow of Jesus. So you got to look at the Old Testament, especially these books like Joshua, as two levels. There's the stuff that happened, and there's the foreshadow of what it means to us or how it can apply to us. Because it foreshadows Jesus and all that he would do for us on the cross, all the deliverance that he would do for us. Because there's this idea of redemption. Okay, so the the people of Israel, they were redeemed out of Egypt, right? They were in slavery, they were enslaved by the big old mean Egyptians. And they were there, and Moses, God used Moses to lead them out, and there was that whole story. And in our lives, we were also slaves. We were slaves, not of people necessarily, we were slaves of sin. No matter what we did, we could not escape, we could not free ourselves until God set us free. When you heard the good news about Jesus and you believed on him with all your heart, you are set free immediately from all the slavery, born again. And so that's the beginning of what we're gonna see. The story of them coming out of Egypt and into the promised land is parallel to the story of God working in your life and setting you free and taking you into the promised land. Well, I don't believe you. Show me the proof. Here's the proof. 1 Corinthians 10 11. We just studied this verse about 10 weeks ago. It says, Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition. He's talking about the Old Testament books upon whom the ends of the ages have come. So all this book was supernaturally put together. God gave Joshua the words that he wanted, he he told him how he wanted it to be written down. And it was because it was all part of a bigger plan. So this book is about your life. And I want you to see it that way. Yes, it's recording Joshua and the children of Israel and Aiken and all these people that we can't pronounce their names. But it's okay because it's really about your life. And it was written for you. It's a story with real significance. It's like a movie that really matters to you, a very personal, and it's gonna unfold for us the path to the promised land. What is the promised land? Swing low. You guys heard that song? Sweet cheria. What is everyone talking about when they swing that song? Or sing, swing that song? Sing that song. They're talking about going to heaven, right? You sing it at your funeral, or you know. Actually, biblically, the promised land is not about heaven, guys. Okay? The promised land in the Bible is about the victorious Christian life. It's your life here. How do we know that? Because in heaven, there's not going to be any wars and any battles and anything you have to overcome with faith. But in the promised land, there's all kinds of wars. There's all kinds of baddies around. They're everywhere. And God promises victory to them. And so the promised land is about your life now and the life that God promises you can have now, which is a life of victory. Does it mean everything's always gonna be easy? No, there's gonna be crazy battles, there's gonna be awesome tests, there's gonna be all kinds of stuff, but God promises you will have victory through Him and by faith. You will have victory. So that's what the Promised Land is about. And we're gonna be talking about the Promised Land a lot. So if you want to get a tattoo, a new one that says promised land, you go for it. Because we're gonna be here for a while. So let's set the context of where we're at in the story of history and why this book was written. Okay, so the Bible starts in the book of Genesis, where God creates man. Man sins and is separated from God. Okay, so God makes a promise to Adam and Eve.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

I said that word really slowly and carefully so that you would think about it.

Exodus To Promised Land Parallels Our Lives

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Promise is the key word of the book of Joshua and of the whole story of the Old Testament, and Jesus is the fulfillment of all the promises of God. This is amazing, okay, when you see it. So God makes a promise to Adam and Eve. He's like, I'm gonna smush this snake's head. I'm gonna destroy his head. He'll he'll bruise your heel, but and what this promise means way back in Genesis chapter two or three, I think it's two, is I'm gonna send a man who will destroy what Satan just did here. He brought sin, and I'm gonna send a man who will destroy that sin and destroy what Satan accomplished. Okay? So he God makes this promise to Adam and Eve that he's gonna destroy the Satan Satan. Well, man gets more and more evil until God wipes out the world with a flood. You guys heard about that? That really happened. Noah, he was saved by grace and his family when God made him a promise to never flood the earth again. Okay, then man grows evil again, and so God divides all the languages at the Tower of Babel. And then God chooses one man to make a new promise to. He chooses Abram, changes his name to Abraham, and makes a promise to him that one of his descendants is gonna bless the entire world and he's gonna save the world through one of his descendants. And Abraham believes that. And he's like, then kill your son. Sacrifice your son to me. And Abraham's like, Well, I believe you, God. And so God called him to sacrifice his son to show that he believed the promise. And then God stopped him before he actually did it and said, You know what, Abraham? Thank you. I know that you believe the promise. I am going to sacrifice. I'm gonna take care of my own sacrifice. I'm gonna take care of the sacrifice that's needed. You're not gonna have to do it. In fact, you couldn't do it. This sacrifice wouldn't save anybody. So I just wanted you to understand what I am going to do for you because I am a promise-making God. He's a promise-making God. So Abraham says, yeah, and so Abraham um uh has a son named Isaac, Isaac has Jacob, Jacob is renamed Israel, Jacob has 12 kids who are the children of Israel. They become the 12 tribes of Israel, and God makes promises to each one of these people, all kinds of promises, all through the book of Genesis. He keeps making promises to each member of this family. Joseph, one of those kids, he becomes prime minister of Egypt, and God takes the entire family from where they were in Canaan down to Egypt to save them. And then you get to the book of Exodus. So 400 years pass. Those 12 people became 70 people, they became a couple million people after 400 years. So they're there in Egypt, and as God promised they would be, and then Pharaoh begins to treat them terribly. God raises up Moses and promises to redeem them from this evil slave master that they got going on. So God appears to Moses in a burning bush and he makes more promises to him. And Moses has a 10-round fight with Pharaoh.

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God wins, and they leave Egypt.

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Egypt's army tries to chase them down, so they get to the Red Sea. God parts the Red Sea, lets Israel go through on dry land, and God drowns the Egyptian army in the sea behind them. God provides manna from heaven for them to eat as they're going along in the desert. He provides water from a rock to drink. He's a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire for them to keep them warm at night. Then they get to Mount Sinai, where God appears to them and gives them ten commandments, and then he makes another, what do you know, a promise to them. He says, if you keep all these ten commandments, you're gonna be blessed. If not, you're gonna be cursed. And this is called the law. Then they were supposed to go into the promised land. It was supposed to take them a grand total of 21 days to get from Egypt to the Promised Land.

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21 days. Forty years later, they're still not there.

Promised Land Defined As Victorious Living

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Why? Well, they sent him some spies, but they didn't have faith to trust in God. We're gonna talk about that later. So they wandered for 40 years in the desert because they were scared. Because they were scared, because they could not have faith till all that generation was dead except Joshua and Caleb. Why? Why is all this important? You see, God delivering them from Egypt was only preparation for them to enjoy the promised land of Canaan, of what's going to be called the land of Israel. And in our life, in our Christian life, we were brought out of sin. You have been set free from sin. You've been washed free, you've gone through the Red Sea. That's what going through the Red Sea pictures is you being baptized, you being saved, you being, you're like all your sin being washed away in the blood of Jesus. You have been saved. Not to wander around and do nothing in your life. But you've been saved for a reason, for a purpose, for a destination. You've been saved because Jesus wants to bring you into the abundant life. Jesus said, I have come to give you life and to give you an abundant life. He didn't say, I came to give you a rule-filled religious drudgery of a life. But that's what people think God does. But no, he said, I came to give you the most incredible, abundant life you could ever imagine. The wilderness is never what God intended for the children of Israel, and it's not what God intended for you either. You don't need to walk around for 40 years not knowing what is going on in your life. Yet somehow we wander for years before we learn how to enter the promised land. Many Christians even die without ever knowing the victory that God's given them. It's not a guarantee that you'll enter into the promised land. They are dry, thirsty, unsatisfied, not what God intended at all. And so many people are like, if this is the Christian life, then I'd like to go back to Egypt and have fun at least. Hmm. But Jesus promises us an abundant life, a promised land. And that brings us to the star of our show, which is Joshua. He is the leader that can lead the people into Israel, uh Israel, the promised land. Okay, now here's the big, big, big lesson through the book of Joshua. If you lived 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born, he you wouldn't call him Jesus because you you'd be speaking Aramaic. Okay.

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Or Hebrew. But his name was Yeshua. Right? Yeshua.

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And if you turn to the fifth book of the Torah, the fifth book is called Joshua for us.

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But if you read it in Hebrew, guess what it's called? Yeshua. Jesus is the name Joshua. It's the same name.

SPEAKER_01 14:18

It's the same exact name. And when you realize this, it's like the symbology is not that hard to figure out. Okay. Moses, he represents the law in the Ten Commandments. He could not bring them into the promised land. Yeah, he he was used by God to get them out and to help them begin a relationship with God. But once they're in the desert, only Joshua, only our Jesus can get us into the promised land. Whatever Israel received in the promised land, they receive through the hand of Joshua. Okay, he does it all for them. Whatever we receive from God in this life, we receive from our Joshua, Yeshua, who is Jesus Christ. Okay? So that's the big arching context of this book. Joshua is a picture and a type of Jesus. Okay, so let's start. Chapter 1, verse 1. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of Nun. That doesn't mean he didn't have any kids, or he didn't have any parents. Other way, the son of Nun. Get it? It's a good joke. He was Moses' assistant, saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, that's the river, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Okay, so let's break it down. He says, After the death of Moses, Moses represents the law, the Ten Commandments. Okay? If you ask people, what does it mean to be a Christian? You know what a lot of people are gonna say?

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Well, you slap up a picture of the Ten Commandments and you do your best to follow them. Boo. That's not what it means to be a Christian.

The Thread Of God’s Promises Through Genesis

SPEAKER_01 16:17

That's what it means to be religious. But Moses couldn't get them into the promised land. He died, his way died with him. The Ten Commandments will never set you free. You can't keep the Ten Commandments, I can't keep the Ten Commandments. It is impossible. When Jesus came along and he said, if you think the Ten Commandments are just judging what you do on the outside, you're you're in for a wake-up call because it actually judges what you even think in your head and what you want in your heart. It judges all that stuff. And so, man, it's it's it's not a feasible way to get salvation. You will never get saved by trying hard to be a good person. God never asks you to try hard to be a good person. The Ten Commandments are there to say, you're not a good person. Wow, I went to church and said, I'm not a good person. The Bible said it, not me. We have to understand that first before we can be set free to understand what Jesus has done for us. So Moses has to die. The law has to die. In other words, my hope and confidence that I will ever stand before God and say, God, shine the light on me, look in my life and see, did I impress you with everything I ever did? And he'll be like, No. No, you didn't. You didn't keep it perfectly because the law doesn't say, Oh, you did 90% good. A plus. The law says you did one thing wrong, and God is infinitely holy, and one tiny little smidgen of sin cannot be in his holy presence because his presence is so holy, it's like a fire that would just burn away any sin at all. So if you die, there's no place for you in God's presence. Just like in the garden, they could they he put an angel to keep Adam and Eve out of there so they wouldn't draw near to his presence because they had sin now. So the law, it does not save. In the New Testament, the Bible gives much proof to tell you and to prove that you cannot be saved by trying to be a good person. There's only one way to be saved, and that's through Jesus and what he did. He kept the law perfectly. And he says, Hey, I'll share with you all of my righteousness. I got bags and bags of righteousness, and I'm willing to give it to you. I'm willing to share it with you. All I'm asking you to do is put your faith in me, put your trust in me, put your confidence in me, and it will be yours for free. You don't do anything to get it.

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It's just faith. It's a big point here. Why does this matter?

SPEAKER_01 19:07

Because so many Christians and people are burned out and dying in the wilderness in this in Texas in 2025. There's so many Christians that are just at the end of their rope and ready to say, I am done. I have tried so hard to be a Christian. And Jesus is like, Yes, yes, now we're getting somewhere. Stop trying. Stop trying. Receive what I'm about to give you. Receive grace. They're in the wilderness and they're looking for the law to lead them out. When the law is literally dead, God's in his grace and mercy said, Moses, you're gonna die here because I don't want them confused on what's leading them into the promised land. So Joshua's gonna lead us in. People are confused because they think, I what can I do to deliver myself? Man, I'm addicted to this. What can I do to deliver myself? Man, I struggle with that. What can I do to deliver myself? Do I go to church? Is that the solution? Do I give more? Do I cry more and just weep and be sorrowful more? Do I try harder? Jesus is like, none of that is the path to victory. I'm gonna teach you the path to victory. The path is me, and the path is faith in one thing Jesus. He will lead the way. Then he says, Go over the Jordan. So the river, this river Jordan, blocked their way to get into the promised land. And they thought it was kind of impossible to pass, and they were afraid. So Joshua here, he's commanded to lead them over it, and Joshua. He's going to be enabled to do that. We don't have to look at ourselves or to the size of the challenge in front of you. Just keep your eyes on Jesus because He has been commanded to carry you through to victory. That's his mission. It's his responsibility. God says to Jesus, You lead the people into their promised land. Jesus is like, Yes, sir, here we go. Everyone, eyes on me. Let's go. And we're like, what am I supposed to do? And then God says, I'm gonna give. I'm giving to them, the children of Israel. That give, you're gonna see, give is the language of grace. God is always a giving God. He wants to give you victory. Can you pay for something that's given to you? No, it's against the rules. It would be earned in that sense. But no, it's always given, never earned. And notice how God always calls him the children of Israel. I like that. Because God wants us to see him as a father who wants to bring his kids to the place where they can have joy. He's the best father. You know, he's not a self-centered father. Maybe you had an example of a dad who was self-centered or mean or condescending or a monster who abused you. That is not what we have to settle for with God. God is not that. He is a true, kind, real, loving, providing, protecting, delivering, redeeming, awesome dad. Verse 3. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses. So God repeats the promise. God has no problem repeating promises. There's many, many, many promises in the Bible. And I want you guys to become skilled at reading your Bible. When you read your Bible, you're just looking for promises. And every time you see a promise, you write down the promise or you highlight the promise and you take that promise with you. That's what we're learning. God repeats the promise. The land has already been given. I'm giving it to you. But they're gonna have to take what was given. Okay? They're gonna have to take what was given. How do you take what's given?

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By faith. That's the key.

From Egypt To Sinai To Wandering

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That's the lesson of the entire book spelled out right here at the very beginning of chapter one. It's to take what God has given you, to receive the present and open it up and rip it apart for Christmas morning. You just have to believe that He gave it. Faith is is an action, okay? Some people think it's really passive. Oh, I just working on my faith, you know. Faith is active, it's not passive. In fact, it's the most active way you can give life, you can live life because you're constantly taking these steps that you don't know in a worldly sense what's gonna happen, but you're just trusting in something God promised you in the Word of God. God could have eliminated all the big bad giants in the promised land, all the mean people, all the horrible, wicked, evil monsters. He could have just wiped them all out before they got there. So when they got in, they just partied the whole way in. God didn't do that. This book would be very short if that happened. Why didn't he do that? Because God has determined that he loves to share victory and the process of victory with his kids. He loves for his kids to partner with him and participate in doing something new, building a new kingdom, a kingdom based on love and grace. He loves to participate to have participation. All right, verse 4. From the wilderness to the to uh and this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, and all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea going towards the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you, nor forsake you. Okay, so God spells out the specific boundaries. This isn't some pie in the sky idea, no made-up life. God has promised you a specific life He has for you. He wants you to have a blessed marriage and family. He says, I'm gonna be with you in the things that you do, and this is what your life should look like. There should be blessing there. Jesus calls it the abundant life, and it's all a free gift. It's all given by promises. And what does God say? He says, I will be with you. This is the guarantee. And he says, not because you guys are great, not because you're big, not because you're awesome, not because you try hard, not because you fight hard, not because you do everything right, not because you go to church, and no other measure of performance either. There's one key to victory, and God says, it's my presence with you. And guess what? The same thing holds true today. There's no reason why you have to struggle and struggle and struggle to get victory. But God says, All you need is my presence in you and with you, and you will walk in freedom and victory. It is that simple, and that's that's the promises of God. That's what's amazing about this. God's work in your life isn't accomplished by the flesh. What does that mean? By your effort. It doesn't matter how smart you are or how hard you try, God's victory is always a gift of grace. You are free from the pressure of feeling like, I gotta figure out my life. No, you don't. I gotta stop doing this, I gotta start doing that. It's not about that, it's about what you believe and who you put your trust in, receiving that victory by grace. It's the presence of God, God in you, that makes this work. I'm gonna read to you Colossians chapter 1, verse 27. Look at this. This is incredible. To them, God willed, God wanted people to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles. So there's this mystery, and God wants you to understand something really important about this mystery. He says, it which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So the whole New Testament was written to help you understand that all the victorious life, all the promised land, it hinges on one thing, which is Jesus will live in you, and Jesus will live your life for you through you as you surrender to him in faith.

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That's how it all works. So is it in you?

Saved For Purpose: Abundant Life

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Is the living God alive in you? Is the risen Christ alive in your soul? Well, it's really easy to know. Just ask this question Do you believe that Jesus died on the cross for your sin and rose on the third day? If you believe that, you have entered into a relationship with God. You didn't make yourself believe that. If you believe it, God is already working in your heart, God is already alive in you, and you ask Jesus, forgive me, and you are it's done. You're forgiven forever. And you've entered into this relationship with God where He lives through you, He takes responsibility for your life. You can have confidence and assurance. And God has made this promise to every person, you included, He will not leave us or forsake us when we choose faith in Him. That is crazy. How many times have you felt like if I was God, I would kick me to the curb because I have made so many horrific blunders in my life. God's love and God's commitment to this grace way is so extreme that we think he's crazy. You can't you can't stay with me when I'm that terrible. You can't stay with them. Look at what they're doing, look at what they're doing. And when we're tired of looking at other people and we look at ourselves, ooh, that's when we really have a hard time believing. All right, look at verse nine. God tells Joshua, be strong and of good courage. Be strong and of good courage. You should underline that, highlight it, tattoo it, whatever you need to do to remember that. For to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous. He's really digging in here, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law that uh shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it, for then will uh you make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage, do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. So this is God commissioning Joshua to lead the people of Israel into the promised land. Here's the problem. When someone tells me to be strong and courageous, I look to myself for that strength.

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And then I try to be strong and then I fail. Has anyone else done that? Yeah. I'll never do that again. Anyone ever said that? I'm so far above that, I'll never go back to that.

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The reason it doesn't work is because God's world is humility and pride. That's the way grace works. I wanna I wanna read to you this one. This isn't in the notes, this is free. You don't have to pay extra for this one.

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Second Timothy 2 1. It says, You therefore, my son, be strong in going to church and keeping all the rules. That's not what the verse says. Who said, nah uh-uh-uh. Alright, 30 Jesus points for you.

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Good job. And my wife not shook her head condescendingly, so I knew that you also knew that was not the word of God. It says, you therefore, my son, be strong in voting the right way every week. No?

SPEAKER_00 32:45

Oh, sorry. I my glasses are you therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.

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That's what it is. Where does strength come from when he's telling him, be strong and be very courageous? Oh, I just choked on spin. Is he saying? I got really excited. Did you hear it?

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It was like oh he's not saying pull yourself up by your bootstraps. Let's go, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

Guys, have you been to a Christian conference recently? It seems like the entire Christian world has been turned into this raw, raw motivational speaking. Just try a little harder, do a little more, here's a little thing to unlock a little effort, more effort, more giving. And that is never where victory comes from. Paul told Timothy, don't worry about being strong and keeping all rules. He said, be strong in the grace that is in Jesus. What is grace? That Jesus lives in you. He wants to live through you. Grace says, I will be with you and I'm not gonna forsake you. How does that work? By humility and faith. Humility says, I cannot depend on myself because I know I'm gonna screw it up. I'm gonna mess up. So my eyes are gonna be on Jesus. And where do you find Jesus? In the Word of God. When you find a promise and you believe it, what you're believing is Jesus. He is the word. He is the promises. He is the word of God. In fact, when John comes, he just starts writing a book and he says, in the beginning was the word, and then that word in verse 14 became flesh and dwelt among us. Guess what? He just calls Jesus the word. Because that's how equal these things are. When you believe a promise of God, what you're believing is Jesus said this, and he is good for it. Jesus is the word of God. That verse I just referenced was John 1.14. The word became flesh, dwelt among us. We beheld his glory. The glory was the only begotten of the Father, full of making sure we go to true uh church all the time and keeping all the rules all the time.

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Didn't say that. He says he was full of grace and truth.

Joshua As A Type Of Jesus

Moses And The Law Versus Grace

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Does Jesus care if your life is full of sin? Absolutely, he cares. He wants your life to be full of truth. He wants your life to be full of righteousness, but he knows you can't do that. So he says, I do it for you, through you. You look to me, I share my life with you, I live through you. Now you hate sin. You won't walk in sin because you're my kid. And you I'm living through you. It's no longer even you who live, but I live through you. That's true courage. And when you hear the word courage, I want you to equate it to faith. It's courage, faith takes courage. It's the only courageous way to live in this life. Courage isn't just jumping out of a plane, it's choosing to trust in Jesus when you could have so easily trust in yourself and trust in what this world says you should want. This world says you should want to be happy and live for pleasure and live for this, that, or the other, fame and security and what all this stuff. And Jesus says, none of that is where you'll find life. You'll only find life in me, but man, is it an abundant life? It is such an abundant life. And he says, then this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate upon it day or night. Wow, what a beautiful word. And this is really God's promise to them. He gave them these commandments and these opportunities. All these commandments were opportunities for them to trust in God. That's how their relationship with God was established. God gave them these commandments and they could trust God. The problem is we could never keep the commandments because we had this, they have and we had this sin heart. So they couldn't ever keep the command. But when we're born again, God kills that sinful heart and he replaces it with a holy, righteous spirit. And now what you most deeply desire is to keep God's commands, is to follow him. But you can't do it by trying to do it. You can only do it by keeping your eyes on him. That's living by faith, not by flesh. All right, so Joshua, our Jesus, he keeps this law for us, and he gives us this new spirit and shares his life with us. So people say, man, you guys always preach against the Ten Commandments. No, we don't. We just understand why God gave the Ten Commandments. He gave the Ten Commandments not to tell you how good you are or to give you a pattern of what to try to imitate. He gave you the Ten Commandments to show you how not good you are and how much you need Jesus. And then through Jesus, we can follow his commands. But we don't need Ten Commandments. We have a spirit that guides us by our heart, and we can just live according to what we know brings our Father joy, what is righteous. So for them and for us, success depends completely on trusting in God's word. That's it. God, he says, I am your redeemer, you trust in what I've promised you in my word, and you shall be redeemed. Look at verse 10. Joshua commanded the officers of the people, saying, Pass through the camp and command the people, saying, Prepare provisions for yourselves, for within three days you will cross over this Jordan and go to possess the land which the Lord your God is giving you to possess. Interesting. I wonder if you'll come across another three-day promise in the Bible somewhere. Think about that. And then to the Reubenites, like the Gadites and half the tribe of Manasseh, Joshua spoke, saying, Remember the word which Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, The Lord is giving you rest and is giving you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land which Moses gave you on this side of the Jordan, but you shall pass before your brethren, armed, all your mighty men of valor, to help them until the Lord has given your brethren rest, as he gave you, and has also taken possession of land which the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and enjoy it, which Moses, the Lord's servant, gave you on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrise. So they answered Joshua, saying, All that you commanded us we will do, and whatever wherever you send us, we will go. Just as we heeded Moses in all things, so we will heed you. Only the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your command and does not heed your words, in all that you command him shall be put to death. Only be strong and of good courage. So there was this small group of people, half a tribe and two other little groups that were hanging on, uh, that settled on the east side of the Jordan River. And basically, Moses or Joshua says, Remember, you promised that you would come help us. And so do you remember way back in the beginning of Genesis, uh Cain killed Abel, and God came to uh Cain. By the way, do you know how long Cain hated his brother? As long as he was able. Yes, I got the booze. He said God came to to Cain and he's like, Hey, where's your where's your brother?

SPEAKER_00 41:09

And and he's like, I don't know, am I my brother's keeper? Right?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

Well, it's kind of like the same thing here. He's saying, guys, you gotta come help your friends, you know, care about your your family. Um, and then again, these guys are even like Joshua, make sure you are strong and good courage. And that again means faith. Keep your faith in the promises, the promise in the word, and that's the foundation of this book that we're studying. This is how we are gonna go into our promised land, one-two church, and anyone else who's listening by faith. We're gonna learn to take each step by faith, and each week there's gonna be some crazy challenges, and we're gonna see God comes through in every single one of them, and in your life, maybe this week, you will have some crazy challenges, and God will be faithful every single time. Only be strong and of good courage, meaning do not look to yourself, but look to Jesus Christ. And maybe you've been afraid to die, maybe you've been afraid. Am I righteous before God? If I died right now, would God cast me out of his presence? I want you to know right now, if you look to Jesus Christ, you can have assurance that you will be saved in your whole life. All your sin can be washed away. Just say, Jesus, I believe you came from heaven, you were born a man, you became a man, took my sin upon you. I believe you died on the cross. I believe you rose again, proving that you were God and that you will come live inside me. Please forgive me and live inside me, and you can have all the confidence in the world. That's how you can look to Jesus today. That's how you can begin this life relationship with Jesus. That's how you can have courage today. And then when you leave here and the first challenge hits you, just take a moment and look to Jesus and say, Jesus, live through me. I'm gonna say what you want me to say. I'm gonna do what you want me to do. Amen. Amen. Let's all stand.