Strength & Courage

Joshua | Joshua 1:1-9

Transcript

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I distinctly remember a raging debate that constantly took place between my friends and I on the schoolyard playground. It was a debate that every little boy in my class took very, very seriously. And it always got started when someone had the audacity to utter the words my dad could beat up your dad. It always got started that way. And in my experience, that statement had a unique ability to ignite a fire in the souls of my friends and I, because I think to one degree or another, most little boys just see their dad as this larger than life figure. Most little boys see their dad kind of as Superman. So the idea that somebody else's dad could beat up your dad is preposterous. It's unthinkable. I'll admit I like to play into this a little bit with my own kids. So whenever my boys ask me if I could beat somebody up, I always give the exact same answer every time. I always just say, probably. Dad, could you beat up the rock? Probably. Could you beat up Goliath? Probably. Could you beat up a grizzly bear? Probably. It drives them nuts, but I still do it anyway. And this reality, it also plays itself out in other ways besides just playground debates between friends, because it also affects the way that a child interprets certain situations when their dad is there to protect them. For example, my uh when I was like 10 or 11 years old, my family and I, we were dropping off my older brother at college in downtown Chicago, and we were passing through a rough part of the city at nighttime, and our car broke down. And in that moment, the only option that we really had back then was to get out and walk to go find a phone so that we could call a taxi and a tow truck. And I recall very clearly being pretty scared while we walked the streets of Chicago late at night through a rough part of town. It was very unsettling for me. But I also recall very clearly really having one main reason why I still felt somewhat safe even in the midst of that fear. And it was because my dad could beat up your dad. And my 11, my 10 or 11-year-old brain, even though I was scared, even though it was unsettling, I still felt somewhat protected because my dad was there leading our family down the street towards safety. Well, we are starting a new series this morning in the book of Joshua, which we're going to be in for the duration of the summer. And in the opening verses of this book, we're given a glimpse into the significance of the personal presence of a protector. But on a much grander scale than earthly fathers and their families, because the book of Joshua records the events of God bringing his people into the land of promise with his personal presence and protection guiding them all along the way. Now, as the sixth book of the Bible, Joshua comes to us immediately after the Pentateuch, which is what we call those first five books of the Bible. And here at Hope Church, we have spent a decent amount of time preaching through the Pentateuch over the last few years. Four years ago, we spent 15 weeks in Exodus. A couple years later, we spent 40 weeks in Genesis. Earlier this year, we did 12 weeks on the life of Moses with certain passages from Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. So in the first five years of Hope Church, we've spent a decent amount of time in the first five books of the Bible. And in doing so, we have seen how God's plan of redemption slowly unfolded from the Garden of Eden all the way through the wilderness to the edge of the promised land. Because in the beginning, God created everything. And when he created everything, he was dwelling with our first parents, Adam and Eve, in a special garden where God's presence and man's presence shared the same space. But after they sinned against the Lord, Adam and Eve were removed from the garden because sinful people cannot dwell in the presence of a holy God. So they were banished from Eden. But just before being removed, God made a promise in Genesis 3:15 that someday in the future an offspring of Eve would be born, who would ultimately crush and defeat the devil who had deceived them. And so from that point forward, the Pentateuch records the events of how God's promise was passed down through the generations, from Adam down to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Jacob's sons, and then all the way down to Moses. And during that process, God promised Abraham that he was going to bless him and bless the whole world through him, and that he was going to give him offspring and land. And that initial land of promise was a place called Canaan. And at certain points in time, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all dwelt, lived, wandered as sojourners in the land of Canaan, but they never fully secured it for themselves. And then if we fast forward in the story, eventually God's covenant people are enslaved in Egypt for 400 years until he delivered them from slavery through the Exodus with Moses as their leader, which then led to them wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. And so the book of Joshua comes to us at the end of that 40-year period of wandering, with the Israelites finally now on the cusp of inheriting and possessing that land that was promised to Abraham all those generations ago. So as we kick off this new series this morning, we're only covering the first nine verses of chapter one, but as we do so, we are going to see that in verses one through four, God gives and sends. And in verses five through nine, God goes and sustains. So first God tells Joshua that he is finally going to give them the land of promise, but he also tells them that he is sending them in to go take it. And then, secondly, God says that he is going with them into the land, and that it will be his word that will sustain them in the land if they live in obedience to it. He gives and sends, and he goes and sustains. So we'll start with part one of our passage and see how God gives and sends in verses one through four of Joshua chapter one. We'll read it again. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness of this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the great sea, toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. Alright, so if you were to turn your page the page of your Bible just one page to the left, you would find yourself at Deuteronomy chapter 34. And in that final chapter of the Pentateuch, we are told that Moses went up on Mount Nebo to get this elevated look of the promised land, and that while he was up there, God told him, This elevated view from up here is the closest you're gonna get. You personally will not be going into the land with the people. And the reason for that is because back in Numbers chapter 20, Moses disobeyed the Lord in a pretty aggressive way. The people were grumbling in the wilderness about being thirsty and needing something to drink. And so God told Moses to go gather everyone together and to speak to this giant rock and tell it to bring forth water so that everybody could drink. But rather than obeying God's instruction to speak to the rock, in this moment of anger and frustration and disbelief, Moses struck the rock twice with his staff, which, symbolically speaking, was basically like striking the Lord twice in the face. And so God told him that due to his disobedience and his disbelief, he would not be the one to take the people all the way into the land. That assignment was going to be for somebody else. And it turns out that that someone else was a man named Joshua. In fact, out of all the original adults in the wilderness who came out of Egypt in the Exodus, there were only two people who ultimately were allowed to enter the land. Joshua and Caleb were the only two people who were not afraid after spying out the land and who trusted the Lord and who did not give themselves over to disobedience and grumbling. And because of that, the the second generation of wilderness wanderers was about to inherit the land alongside Joshua and Caleb, but the rest of that first generation was now dead and gone. But a couple times in Numbers and Deuteronomy, we are told that God specifically chose Joshua to replace Moses as the leader of God's people. And now here in the opening verses of this book, the Lord is officially now commissioning Joshua for the task at hand by saying, Moses, my servant, is dead. Now, before we go any further, I do think it's worth noting the fact that this whole subject, this subject of the conquest of Canaan and the Israelite people going and taking the land from the people who lived there, is severely misunderstood by a lot of people. Oftentimes, this story gets painted as an evil injustice on the part of the Israelites, almost like they were just these greedy bullies who saw a spot on the map that they wanted, and there were people in their way, and so they just decided to go in and get rid of those people and take the land away from those people because they saw something they wanted and they wanted, or and they were going to go take it from the sweet, innocent people who live there. But that is not the case. A few weeks from now, we'll see what happens when they actually do cross the Jordan and go take the land. So I'm going to save some details for when we get there in the narrative, but for now I do want to just give two quick reasons why that is an incorrect interpretation of the conquest of Canaan. Just two quick reasons. Number one, taking the land was God's idea, not theirs. All the way back in Genesis 12, when Abraham first arrived in Canaan, the Lord told him he was going to give him that land as a gift for his offspring. See, the Bible is very clear that God created the world, and everything in it, the fullness thereof, belongs to him. There is not a single speck of creation that is not his. He owns every destination on every map, so he can give any piece of land to whomever he wants. And not only did he promise the land of Canaan to Abraham's offspring, but in Genesis 15, God told him his descendants were going to be slaves in a foreign land for 400 years, but after that they would come back to the land of Canaan when the sin of its inhabitants was fully complete. In other words, God chose to delay his judgment against the Canaanites for several hundred years, but eventually the cumulative total of their sins would reach its limit, and God was going to take action against them and ultimately give the land to Abraham's descendants. Which leads to my next point. Number two, the sin of the Canaanites was heinous beyond belief. Repeatedly throughout the Pentateuch, we are told that the people groups who lived there were utterly shameless in their way of life. They had no moral boundaries. Instead, they were known for practicing unlimited child sacrifice, unhinged sexual perversion of every kind, unmitigated idolatry in every direction. It was a place of complete and utter evil, which is why in Leviticus 18, God told Moses to tell all the people, you shall not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not walk in their statutes. So the Israelites were not greedy bullies who just saw something that they wanted, and there were people in their way, so they just overpowered those people to get what they wanted. No, the land belonged to God, and he promised to give it to Abraham as a gift for his offspring. And the evil of the Canaanites was so extreme that after several hundred years of patience, the Lord finally took action against them and sent the Israelites into that land. And so Joshua receives his marching orders from the Lord. Go over this Jordan with all the people of Israel into this land that I am giving them. And so we see here that God both gives and sends. He gives them the land as a gift. In fact, he actually says in verse 3 that he's already given it to them, past tense, because when God makes a promise, it's as good as done. But he gives them the land and he also sends them to go claim it. See, in theory, there is nothing stopping God from just giving them the land unilaterally, just like that. He is all powerful, he is sovereign over everything. If he wanted to, he could just remove the Canaanites himself, usher his people right in there, just like that, without them ever having to lift a finger. He could do that. But instead, he's telling them to go take it. Which means he is requiring his people to step out in faith and obedience and trust in his covenant promises. The land is ready and waiting, it is theirs for the taking, and God is promising that he is going to give it to them. But in order to actually secure it and actually possess that gift, Joshua and the Israelite people will have to put some skin in the game and go get it. Now, just to be clear, this was a specific promise at a specific time in redemptive history, so we should be careful not to overly map this story over our lives in such a way where we think that God will just give us whatever we want every time we step out in faith if we just believe enough. No, God made a specific promise, and he's giving Joshua specific instructions for how to go secure the gift of that specific promise. However, it still remains true that God wants his people to step out in faith and obedience and to trust in him. The Christian life is not a passive endeavor. It is not a journey where we never have to lift a finger. The Lord gives us his forgiveness and he gives us eternal life as gifts of his grace, but then he sends us into places and lands as messengers of his grace. He expects his people to put some skin in the game and go push back evil and darkness in this world by serving the creator of this world. There is no such thing as a Christian who is not sent. Every Christian is sent. Everywhere we go, we are sent to represent Jesus by providing a faithful Christian presence in that place. It starts in our homes, first and foremost, with our individual families, and it flows outward from there to the places we go for work or for fun or for recreation, the places we go as citizens or consumers or community builders. Everywhere we go, we are sent as messengers of the Lord's gifts of grace. And we should go to those places with intentionality, believing and trusting that God is still working through his people. He's still saving. But in order to see these realities play out in our lives and in the lives of those around us, we must step out in faith and obedience and go and trust him. God gives and sends. But that's not all. As we move into part two of our passage, we also see that God goes and sustains. In verses five through nine, we read, No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for I shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law, all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For when for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. There's a saying in sports that maybe you've heard before next man up. So when a player gets injured and he cannot perform anymore, instead of the coach kind of panicking and not knowing what to do, he'll just say, Next man up, because the game must go on, the season must go on, and there's a player that's been sitting on the bench waiting for an opportunity, and they better be ready to step up and compete when their name gets called. Because they've been practicing and they've been preparing for this moment for a long time, and now their team is counting on them to step up and perform. And when reading the book of Joshua, I think it's easy to assume that this is just kind of a simple next man up situation. It's easy to read it as though the transition of leadership from Moses to Joshua was no big deal. Moses dies, Joshua steps in, bada bing, bada boom, the next man up, no big deal. Especially when you read the very short obituary that God gives Moses. He just says, Moses is dead. Moving on. So it feels like it's just this very simple thing. After all, he's been practicing and preparing for this moment for a long time. Well, yes, it is true that Moses has been faithfully preparing Joshua to step into this role, and he's probably somewhat ready for it. But nonetheless, we cannot forget that for the past 40 years, multiple generations of Israelites have had one primary leader. One main leader from the Exodus out of Egypt all the way to the edge of the promised land. For four decades, it's been one man, the man about whom we read this in Exodus 33, that the Lord spoke to Moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend. So, in one sense, yes, it was technically a next man up situation because God had chosen Joshua to be the successor of Moses, and he was somewhat prepared to step into that role. But at the same time, we should not miss or downplay the fact that Joshua had some big sandals to fill. Replacing Moses was no small task. And I think God is well aware of this fact, and he intentionally comforts Joshua with these words. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. See, Moses was just a man. He was a man who sinned and screwed up and made a mess of things on more than one occasion. He's just a man, so really the only thing that makes him truly unique is the personal relationship that he had with the Lord. God was with Moses, he spoke with him face to face. God strengthened Moses, God never left Moses. And now Joshua is being told that this will be true for him as well. The Lord will be with him, the Lord will strengthen him, the Lord will never leave him. In fact, that reality is the basis for the strength and courage that he is being called to possess. So you may have noticed that three different times in these verses, God tells Joshua, be strong and courageous, but the strength and courage he's being called to show is not based on his own abilities. He's not being called to pull himself up by his bootstraps and muster up as much of his inner whatever he possesses inside of himself, his own strength, his own credentials. It is specifically based on one thing and one thing only, and it is the personal presence of his protector. He is told to be strong and courageous while he pursues the task at hand, because God will be with him the entire time, just like he was with Moses. Also, this strength and courage is specifically connected to something. The Lord tells him in verse 7 be strong and courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you. So that this strength and courage is directly tied to the obedience of God's word and living faithfully by God's word. The strongest, most courageous thing that God's people can ever do is to live in faithful obedience to his word. In a world that opposes truth and opposes Scripture, God's people must stand on the truth of Scripture with strength and courage in every generation. And what's interesting is that this particular generation of Israelites was the first generation of God's people who were going to live according to the written word of God. Moses wrote the Pentateuch during their time in the wilderness, but now Moses is gone. So in order to obey the Lord and be faithful to the Lord's and to the law, they could no longer just rely on Moses' instruction anymore. Instead, from now on, they would have to devote themselves to following and obeying everything that Moses wrote down for them. And so God tells Joshua, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. And notice that for ancient Hebrew people, meditation is actually connected to the mouth, not just the mind. He says, the law shall not depart from your mouth, but instead you shall meditate on it day and night, which means for them, meditating on scripture involved more than just thinking about it. It involved speaking it and repeating it and talking about it day and night, as it says in Deuteronomy 6, you shall teach these things diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down and when you rise all the time, day and night. So we see here that God goes and sustains. His protective presence is going with his people into the land, and his written word will sustain his people in the land if they live in obedience to it. In other words, Joshua is being told that his strength and courage has both a why and a how. The reason why he should be strong and courageous is because God is going with him, and the manner how he can practice that strength and courage is by obeying God's word. Sometimes living in obedience to Scripture can be scary. When you find yourself surrounded by individuals and organizations and societies and cultures and systems that are completely opposed to the Word of God, remaining steadfast and obedient is not easy. In fact, most of the time the easiest thing to do is actually just to put your head down and sync up with society. So whichever direction the cultural tide is going, just kind of ride that wave and don't rock the boat. Go along to get along. That is by far the easiest thing to do, but the Christian life is not supposed to be easy. It's good, it's glorious, it's built on truth and it's full of grace and mercy, but it is not easy. Which is why it's good news that God goes and sustains, because the presence of our protector emboldens us to obey his word so that we can be sustained by it, even when doing so feels scary. See, the personal presence of God produces strength and courage in the people of God. The personal presence of God produces strength and courage in the people of God. So not unlike how in my 10 or 11-year-old brain, the even though I was scared on the streets of Chicago at nighttime, I still felt somewhat protected because my dad was there leading our family down the street towards safety on a much grander scale. When God's people know in our very bones that the Lord is with us, it motivates us to be strong and courageous enough to surrender our lives to the truth of Scripture. And the reason that we do know in our very bones that the Lord is with us is because in his infinite grace and mercy the Lord chose to put on flesh and bone. As the person Jesus Christ, who is also called Emmanuel, which means God with us, and being fully God and fully man, he proved himself to be the true and perfect leader of God's people who laid down his life to pay for our sins, but rose again on the third day, and before ascending into the throne room of heaven, he told his disciples this in Matthew 28. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. The risen and reigning Jesus is always with us. He never leaves us, he never takes a day off, he never needs a nap, he never wants a coffee break. We constantly have the personal presence of our protector through his spirit, through his word, and through his church. And here is what that means: it means that just like he did all those years ago on the edge of the promised land, even today, God still gives and sends, and he still goes and sustains. If you have placed your faith in Christ, then in light of the fact that God has given you forgiveness and eternal life as gifts of his grace, the question is then, where is he sending you to be a messenger of those gifts? Some people are sent across the globe, others are sent across the street, others are just sent across the hall. But wherever you live, wherever you work, wherever you shop, wherever you spend your time, wherever you go for fun, everywhere we go, we should do so intentionally, believing and trusting that God is still working through his people, that he still wants to save sinners and that he is still redeeming his creation and remembering that the Christian life is not a passive endeavor. And there is no such thing as a Christian who is not sent. So, where is God sending you? Also, in light of the fact that the risen Jesus said that he always goes with his people till the end of the age, that reality should make us strong and courageous enough to be sustained through obedience to God's word, but we cannot obey something we do not know. So the other question is: do you know God's word? Do you know the truths of Scripture well enough to identify lies when you hear them? The Lord told Joshua to meditate on it day and night and to be careful to do all that was written in it. And remember, that involves more than just thinking about it. It involves studying it and speaking it and repeating it and talking about it constantly, not to give us a big head, but to give us big hearts that deepen our love for our Savior, so that when you find yourself surrounded by people and organizations and cultures and systems and politicians and whomever that despise the word of God and stand opposed to it, you can remain faithful and obedient to it, knowing full well that Jesus is with you. Do you know the truth of Scripture? God still gives and sends, and He still goes and sustains. You know, there's a scene in The Lion King, which I grew up on, fabulous movie. Early on in the movie where Mufasa rescues Simba and Nala from some hyenas who attacked them, and afterwards the hyenas are standing around complaining to each other about Mufasa, and one of them says, Man, I just I hear that name and I shudder. And the other one says, Mufasa. And she starts to shudder, and then she says, Do it again. And he says, Mufasa, Mufasa, Mufasa, Mufasa, and then all of them tremble and shiver together at the mere sound of Mufasa's name. Well, that is the kind of power that your protector has. The mere sound of the name of Jesus makes evil and darkness shudder and tremble with fear. And the names Joshua and Jesus are both derived from the same Hebrew name that means the Lord saves or the Lord is salvation. And that is because Jesus Christ is the greater Joshua who is strong and courageous enough to defeat sin and death and secure our eternal promised land for all God's people. And someday we will dwell with him together in a new heavens and a new earth and walk with him in the cool of the day, the way Adam and Eve did in the Garden of Eden. But until that day comes, the presence, the personal presence of God produces strength and courage in the people of God. Which means these final words from verse 9 potently apply to every single day of the Christian life. Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Thanks be to God, let's pray.