Joshua 1 - Pastor John Harmon - July 5th, 2026

Join us this week as Pastor John Harmon continues our Sunday morning study "Ordinary People, Extraordinary God" looking at Joshua. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Well, good morning. I am as always excited to have the opportunity to stand before you this morning and share the word of the Lord with you. I'm also excited that we're in this new series that Kyle began last week called Ordinary People, and then the subheading of Extraordinary God. And as Kyle talked about last week, we're gonna spend the next several weeks looking at biblical figures that have no special characteristics about them except for one. And that is they believed what God had to say. They trusted it and they walked in it. I love series like this because uh the students can tell you I often talk about the idea that we we find ourselves venerating biblical figures as somehow special compared to us. That they they they have something that we don't have, and therefore that their their faith is easier or or more informed or more involved. But the the same God that is involved in the pages of scripture that we read that calls and inspires the people that we read about in scripture is active today. And he is active in the life of the believer today. But we we often, as believers, use the excuse well, they they had something different. And what I want you to hear first and foremost before we look at our biblical figure today is we who are in Christ are no different. We have the same God available to us today, and He wants to use us for His work and will in the world today. And what we're gonna see today, I think, is really interesting as we study God's word because in order to understand our biblical figure today, we have to start with an extraordinary God and then look at our figure. This morning we're gonna look at Joshua. I love Joshua. Uh, he has a lot of really interesting moments in his life, and we're gonna look at a few of them, and we're gonna focus on one. So if you would turn in your Bible to Joshua chapter one, we're gonna study the whole chapter today, but we're gonna read the first nine verses together. If you are able, if you would stand in the honor of the reading of the word of God. We're gonna begin in verse one of Joshua 1, and this is what the word of the Lord says. 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 and 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. 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 you 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 that Moses, my service 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 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. Let's pray together. Gracious Lord, we are grateful to be able to gather now to study your word. God, I pray now that you would use me as you see fit. That you would empty me of any worldly intelligence or opinion, and that through the power of your Holy Spirit you would speak through me as a mouthpiece of truth. That you would speak to the hearts and minds of those that are here and those that are listening, God, that they may see your truth and your word, and that they may be changed in heart and mind to be more like you. And God, above all else, would you receive glory in all that takes place in this time? We ask all this in your name. Amen. You may be seated. We find ourselves immediately in a major turning point in the life of the people of God. We find ourselves just as Moses has died. And if you know the story of Moses, you know that Moses chose his own path at a point in his life, believing he understood what God wanted for him. And because of that, Moses was revoked the opportunity to enter into the promised land. And in this moment, Moses has died, and God immediately speaks to Joshua. And that's where I want to begin today. Before we study who Joshua is and what Joshua does and the ordinary character of Joshua displayed, we have to look at these first nine verses of Joshua 1, because I believe they inform the entirety of the understanding of how an ordinary person trusts and follows an extraordinary God. If you're in here this morning and you are a believer, my heart's desire is that your heart's desire is to follow what God has for your life. Now, each person in here, that's different for. We talked about this the last time I preached. I think it's interesting that it comes up now. The last time I preached was back in May for grad Sunday, and we talked about the will of God. And we talked about a twofold idea that, yes, there is a general will of God for all who believe, and that is that our life would bring honor and glory to him, and that we would use our life as an instrument for his glory and for the gospel going forth to all nations. But there is also a will of God for your life individually, and I want to look here at the first nine verses because I want you to see a twofold idea that I believe is so important, but I think is clear here. And it's this I feel like so often believers find themselves saying, I'm confused about what God wants me to do. I'm confused about the path that I'm on. I'm confused about the direction God wants me to walk in. And I want you to see that we're going to look at these verses and see. And what I want you to hear is if you are in Christ, you do not serve a God of ambiguity and confusion. That God does not exist. The God of the universe that loves you, the God that has called you, the God that has saved you through the power of Christ is a God of clarity and specificity. He is not calling you into confusion ever. Confusion is a work of the enemy. And I believe God shows us this here in Joshua when he gives Joshua clear and concise information. Now, Joshua's not the only evidence of this, obviously. We can look at almost any moment that God calls someone in Scripture, and we can see that God is clear, that God wants them to understand what He has for them. But as we look, we immediately see in verse 2, God gives clear instructions to Joshua. He says, Arise and go. Get up and get the people ready. It is time. Now that time is substantially significant because if you know the history of the people of Israel, then you know that they have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, waiting for this moment. This moment, a moment that had been promised to them, and that their fathers had forsaken that promise, and as a result, there was punishment. They've been waiting and wandering. And God says to Joshua, the time is now. Get up and go. Go into the land that I'm going to give you. But God is not only a God that is clear and specific, he's a God that explains exactly how he is going to involve himself. This is so important in the life of the believer. Because if we only got the instructions and no guidance along the way, how many in here think they'd find their way themselves? I don't think so. I think I would end up wandering. I think I would end up confused. Again, because that is the goal and the work of the enemy to confuse, to cause the wandering. But he tells them every place that you go, I have given it to you. And then he tells them all the places. Now, as we when you study Joshua 1, you likely have studied a phrase over and over again. It's not a phrase we're going to spend a lot of time on this morning, but it's a phrase that we hear a lot. What phrase is it? What's in Joshua's 1? Oh, come on, you know it. Be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous. We see it verse first in verse 6, because you will inherit the land that I swore to you. In verse 7, we get the third key point that I want you to see about God. God in the life of the ordinary person, there's a calling of obedience. There's not just a calling of obedience to the task that God has called you to. There's a calling of obedience to the life that God has called you to. But then we have this moment where he reminds Joshua that task obedience is not the ultimate goal of the Lord in your life. It's a life of obedience. And we see it in verse 7. He says, Be careful to do according to all the law of Moses. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left. The law was the understanding in the time of the people of Israel of what it meant to follow God, what it meant to pursue holiness, what the standard was of what it meant to follow the Lord. And you can study most of this Old Testament, and you will find a whole lot of men who were really good at task following. But they were really bad about following the Lord with their life. They were really bad about following the standard that God had set out. Now, as New Testament believers, we understand that the law is an unattainable standard. We understand that its existence only serves to show that we are incapable. But it still serves as a standard of understanding of a pursuit of holiness. And what God tells Joshua is above the idea of doing the task that I've called you to. Promises that our world likes to twist and skew, but real promises from the Lord that if you do these things, that God will give you good success, that he will prosper you in his context. You can't apply those things to the context of this world because the terms of success and prosperity have been skewed and twisted to mean other things. I'm not going to stand up here and promise you that if you walk obedient to the Lord, your wallet's going to overflow. God doesn't say that. I'm not going to tell you that your house is going to grow three times bigger. I'm not going to tell you that you're never going to wonder what is coming up ahead. I'm not going to tell you that you're not going to have health scares and uncertainties because God never promised those things. What God did promise is that obedience would lead to prosper and success in Him, in what He has for you, in the way that He would have you to walk and go. This is the extraordinary God that informs the ordinary people of Scripture. So, what does that inform about Joshua? Well, I want to point to four points in Joshua's life today. Some you would know well, but I want to begin where we first see Joshua referenced in Scripture. It's a story you may know well, but you probably don't know it well because of Joshua. It takes place in Exodus 17. You can turn there if you want. I'm going to summarize it for you. It's the moment that Israel faces battle with Amalek. And you would know this story because it famously has a fascinating process of victory. It involves the necessity of Moses' hands not coming down. We know this story. We know that Moses grows tired and he sits, and then men on either side of him stand and hold his arms up because as long as Moses' hands are up, Israel continues to win. But what you may not know as you study that passage is that it's Joshua that's leaving them on the battlefield. In Exodus 17, 8, it says that Amalek comes and fights, and Moses says to Joshua, choose for us men and go out and fight with Amalek. We can see in this moment that Joshua is already a figure in the people of Israel of high authority, of high trust. You may call him a general at this point. He is who Moses goes to and says, You go find me an army to go out and face Amalek tomorrow. I need you to do that. And it shows us that verse 13, as we know that Moses' hands have been being held up. It says that Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword. But there's a moment in this passage that fascinated me as I studied Joshua. It's what happens after the victory. It's in verse 14. It says, Then the Lord said to Moses, Write this as a memorial in a book, and recite it in the ears of Joshua. This is long before Joshua will ever take over the people of Israel. Long before Joshua had ever even considered that he would one day be the person to lead Israel to the promised land. But God knows. God knows exactly what is coming in Joshua's life. And he starts now. Experts would estimate that Joshua is 20 years old here. He is a young man. And God tells Moses, I want you to record exactly what's taken place today, and I want you to remind it to Joshua. I want you to tell him exactly what I did today. The word recite, I don't believe, is a word that has a singular understanding. I think it was understood here that God was calling Moses to constantly remind Joshua who he is and what he can accomplish. This is a beginning of a foundation that is necessary in the life of Joshua. The next time that I want to look at is a time that you probably know well in the life of Joshua. It's in Numbers 13. Numbers 13 is the moment when Moses sends spies into the promised land. He sends one spy from every tribe. Interestingly, here Joshua's name isn't initially listed as Joshua. It's listed as Hoshea. The end of it, of the calling, we see that Moses calls Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua. But he sends these men into the promised land to spy. And they go up and they look. And if you know the story of this moment, you know they come back and they tell the people of Israel how incredible the land is. How amazing God's promise is for them. All that he has. All 12 men say this. All 12 men rave about how great the promised land and how much incredible things there are for them there. And then 10 of them say, but we can't go. They're too strong. There's too many of them. They're too big. We can't do it. If you know the story, you know that two men pipe up and say, Whoa, whoa, whoa! We have God on our side. He has promised us this land, and we can take it. That's Joshua and Caleb. I wonder as I read this passage with the context of Exodus 17 in my mind. Does Joshua having been reminded, I give you some timeline here, Caleb eventually will later recall the moment that he sent as a spy, and he tells his age exactly. He says he's 40 years old when he sent as a spy. If we see that Joshua and Caleb seem to be contemporaries throughout their entire life together, we can estimate that Joshua is somewhere around 40 years old as well. 20 years it's been since Joshua led a battle against Amalek. Twenty years Moses at the command of God has reminded Joshua what God is capable of. And Joshua comes out of that moment with Caleb and says, We can go in. We can take the land because God has gone before us, and God has promised us the land. I want to turn back to Joshua 1. This is where we're going to spend a substantial amount of time looking at Joshua. And I want to look and read to you the second half of Joshua 1. God has just given Joshua all the instruction, the specific task, the calling to holiness, the calling for strength and courage because of who God is. A point that we now know that Joshua knows well. I'm going to give you some context. Joshua is believed to be in his late 80s. We know that he's wandered for 40 years. There's some timeline within that of the beginning of the wandering and the end, how long it actually takes them to get to this point. But Joshua has been reminded again who God is, what God has called him to, and the task that God has for Joshua. Picking up in verse 10, this is what it says. And Joshua commanded the officers of the people, pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan, to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said, Remember the word that the Moses that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest, and will give you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan. But all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers, and shall help them, until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you. And they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession, and shall possess it, the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise. And they answered Joshua, All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your word, whatever you command him shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous. Now there are two people groups that Joshua speaks to in this text. And I think it's important that we understand that we're talking about two different people. But first I want you to see something that is so important. I understand that we don't, we can't see how this took place, but the understanding of this text shows an immediate obedience of Joshua. We don't see a section of text where Joshua says, but God this or but God that, or says, Hey, let me rest and pray. Let me consult the other leaders and see what they think. Joshua hears the instruction from God. He is encouraged by God to pursue holiness. He is encouraged by God that God has gone before him into the land that is promised. And Joshua then commands the people and says, Go and tell the people that we're going. Pack up, it's time to go. That's what Joshua says. If you understand the scale of Israel at this point, three days is not a long time to pack everything up. They would move from place to place, they would set up and tear down and move and go and wander. But there is a large contingent of the people of Israel. And they have livestock and they have tents and they have a means in which they are meant to move, commanded by God. And Joshua says, You've got three days. God has said it. Now we're going to do it. That's his instruction to the people of Israel. That's only verses 10 and 11. But he also speaks to a people that they have picked up along the way, the half tribes, and tells them, there's a land that's promised on the other side of the Jordan for you that Moses has promised you as you have walked with the people of Israel. But your men must first fulfill their obedience to God and come with us and conquer the land. Your wives and your livestock and your children are going to stay here where you've been promised. And when you have fulfilled your duty to the Lord, you can return home. And it's these people that reply to Joshua and say that we will do as you have commanded, just as Moses commanded, we will be obedient, and anyone who is not, we will put to death. That's harsh. That's a reality. But it's in this text that I want you to see the two key ideas of Joshua that are prevalent as an ordinary person. The first is one that we see everywhere we look at Joshua, and that is Joshua is a man of faith in God. Joshua takes God at his word. He believes what God says, and he trusts when God calls him. We can see that as he goes out to fight a battle that maybe in the moment, as you can understand looking at Scripture back in Exodus 17, clearly Amalek was stronger. Because when Moses' hands weren't raised, when the power of God was not being called upon, if you go back and study that, you'll see that Amalek was overpowering the armies of Israel. They were winning. And it was only in the moments that Moses' arms were raised when faith was put in God to provide that they were successful. What's interesting is we don't know that Joshua knew that on the battlefield. We don't get a picture of the battlefield scripted out in scripture where we can see, oh, well, Moses is standing here. The armies can see him, they understand. It's very possible the people of Israel are just trying to fight. And they don't know why this tide is shifting. But Joshua is confident in the Lord and he steps out into battle. We see that obviously in the moment of the spies, that Joshua trusts God. Joshua knows what God says is what is. God says the land is ours. I don't care how big and strong the people in there are, they're not bigger or stronger than my God. Let's go. Overruled ten to two. But faith, even when it's not the popular faith. And then here we see it again. We see God tell Joshua what to do, how to do it. And Joshua immediately says, God said it, let's do it. I trust God. I believe that what God has to say is what is true. But there's another characteristic of Joshua that I believe is very clearly shown here. And that's leadership. We can clearly see leadership in the life of Joshua because he calls the people to do something. And you know what happens? They do it. They pledge their allegiance to Joshua under the command of what God has called. You see, biblical leaders, leaders in the church, leaders in the faith, do you know the number one reason you can trust a biblical leader? It's if you know that biblical leader is following God. Joshua isn't trusted here because of himself. Joshua is trusted here because who Joshua is trusting in. Because if you're following them for any other reason, it's the wrong one. If you're following the leaders and pastors of this church because we speak good, wrong reason. If it's because we're eloquent or kind, those are good things. They're not the right thing. I hope that those of you in here that have students in our student ministry, trust me with your students because you believe that I'm following God. I hope that you come here on Sunday mornings to hear the word because you believe that Pastor Kyle is following God. And that is the first and foremost reason that you have trusted his leadership. That is what leadership is for. If you have been given a position of leadership within the context of the church or outside the context of the church, my hope and prayer is that your leadership is modeled first in the understanding of following Christ. Because that's that's Joshua's MO. I leave because I'm following the one that we're meant to follow. That's who Joshua is. Turn with me to Joshua twenty-four. I love Joshua twenty-four. It's the last chapter of the book of Joshua. We won't read the entirety of it because it's it's quite long, but I want to sum up for you and read a few verses that stand out. Joshua gathers the tribes together in Joshua 24. A lot has happened in the book of Joshua. We've seen the Lord give the land, conquer the land. And he gathers them together and he tells them a history story first. Speaks of Abraham being called by God from beyond the river to Canaan. Speaks of Isaac and Jacob and Esau. Speaks of Jacob's children into Egypt, and he speaks of Moses and Aaron. He speaks of the Exodus. He speaks of the conquering of the people groups of the promised land one by one. And then we come to verse 14. Joshua says, Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it's evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I want to pause there because we see. I think Caleb was 118 when he died. 110 years. Over the course of the passage we've looked at today, we've seen 90 years of Joshua's life. And in this moment, we see Joshua once again at the end of his life displaying a faith in who God is. Displaying a trust that in spite of all the other available ideas, we choose to trust God. I love that he builds the context of their history there. We talk about this a lot. We talk about it in worship, we talk about it in scripture. The people of faith that is strong that we know. I would encourage you, think of someone that has a strong faith. And if you've never done it before, ask them to come sit with you and tell you about their life. Because I can venture to guess that it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows. I bet there's been hard times. I bet there were moments when the people around them didn't have faith. There are probably those in their life that have wandered away that at one point were strong beside them. There's probably a network of people they have built close for encouragement and growth. Joshua recounts all that God has done for them as a people all the way back to Abraham. All the ways that God has been faithful. All the ways that God has shown himself to be who he says he is. And a God who does what he says he will do. But me and my family, we've made our choice. And then it picks up. Verse 16, then the people answered, Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. For it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the people through whom we passed. We see leadership again. We see Joshua calling the people to something. Interestingly, here, Joshua doesn't call the people, regardless of how they feel, to serve God. He calls them to serve God if and only if they will serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. He says, if you can't do that, serve someone else. But they say, far be it from us. And then Joshua gives them a warning. He says, You're not able to serve the Lord. He's a holy God, he's a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you and having done you good, after having done you good. And people said to Joshua, No, but we will serve the Lord. Now this passage is sometimes hard to read because we live in a time where we know what's coming next. And what's coming next is a whole lot of not serving the Lord. Right? The book of Judges comes next, and the key words of that book are and the people did what was right in their own eyes. Over and over and over again. But Joshua. At the end of his life is still calling the people of God to faith and trust and obedience in who God is. Because he knows who God is. And he has known who God is all of his life. I look around this room and I see infants. I see children. I see teenagers. I see young adults. I see young parents. I see parents that have kids that have grown up and left the house. I see grandparents and great-grandparents. And can I tell you, the God who is faithful is faithful in every stage of your life, just like he was in Joshua's. He doesn't start being faithful at a certain age, and he doesn't stop being faithful at a certain age. From your first breath on this earth to your last breath on this earth, you who are in Christ serve a God who is who he says he is and will do what he says he will do. And he calls you to holiness and faithfulness. He calls you to serve him and to trust him, just like Joshua did. And the difference between you and Joshua is nothing. Nothing. And you would say, Well, Joshua got to hear the voice of the Lord. You have the word of God in your hand right now. Joshua saw the Lord work in miraculous ways. I can sit here and count people who have come from death to life in Christ across this room. You want to talk about miracles. Salvation is the greatest miracle that will ever be. You are no different than Joshua. So the question then is, are you living differently than Joshua? The first question is simply this: Do you know that God loves you, that he is unchanging, that he is calling you, that he is who he says he is, and he'll do what he said he'll do. Do you know those things to be true? If you don't, the knowledge of that truth is only found in a relationship with Christ Jesus. It is only found in the regeneration through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. And if you are in here and you are in Christ, the question then becomes are you living as if God is who he says he is? Are you living in the truth that God does what he says he will? Are you living in faith? And if not, my question is: what is your excuse? The reality of a life in Christ, the reality of following after God and pursuing holiness and pursuing faithfulness is whatever excuse just popped into your mind, it's not good enough. That may sound harsh, it may sound direct, but it's the reality. There is no excuse that you can come up with that excuses you from the life that God has called you to. Then there is a necessity for a regeneration that only comes through the truth of the gospel. In the truth that you are a sinner that is separated by your sin from God. But God loved you so much that he sent his son to die for you. That Christ came and lived a perfect life, a sinless life, died a death he did not deserve, shed blood to forgive you of your sins, rose again to give you hope for a future. If you're in here this morning and you would say, I need to know who God is, I need to know the truth of the gospel, the pastors down front would love to talk to you about that this morning. If you're in here this morning and you are in Christ, then the example of Joshua leaves you with two questions. Are you living in the truth of who God is? Are you living in faith? Are you pursuing holiness? This is the calling on the life of the believer. And there's one other question. It's a question that points all the way back to the first thing God says to Joshua. Joshua gives God clear instructions. As I said, God is not a God of confusion or ambiguity, he's a God of clarity and specificity. Maybe there's someone in here this morning that knows that God has called you to something and you've been telling God no. My prayer for you this morning is you would stop running from God and say yes to what he's calling you to. Because running from God is exhausting and meaningless and pointless and will get you nowhere. But surrender is the greatest thing. It is the best thing, and it's what he's calling you to. Whatever the Lord is doing in your life in this time, would you respond? The altars will be open, there'll be pastors down front. Let's pray together.