A Strong Beginning

A Strong Beginning

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As we ended our time last week in our previous sanctuary, I talked on our need to have a great ending. And my opening statement was, “A good start needs a better ending, and a good ending needs a better start.”

In other words we need to have good ending so that we can have a strong beginning. If we start off weak, then we’ll never get traction so we can move forward in this life of faith God has called us upon, this journey to spiritual transformation, so we can become those disciples of Jesus.

Last week we looked at the end of King David, the Apostle Paul, and Jesus Christ’s lives and how we can likewise have a great ending, and today I’d like to look Joshua and his leading the children of Israel into the Promise Land. And through this study I hope we can learn what it takes to have a strong beginning that will see us enter into the Promises and God’s Promised Land.

So to have that strong beginning, we’ll be looking at the steps we need to take, from what God said in Joshua chapter one, as Joshua took over the leadership role for Israel.

1. The Past Is Over

“Moses My servant is dead.” (Joshua 1:2a NKJV)

There’s a popular saying, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

The past is an important reminder and instructor as to how we are to live in the present, and into the future. But I want to look again at something I said last week that we should also consider. And that is that “We’re far too consumed with what has taken place in the past that we make adjustments to our present to compensate. But the problem is, that in making these adjustments we never considering what they may bring to our future.”

We are to learn from the past, but we cannot let our past dictate or control our present or our future.

Far too many people are living their lives based upon what has happened, rather on what God has in store for them. And so God sometimes has to be abrupt in some of the things He says, like here when He said, “Hey Joshua, Moses is dead.”

The Apostle Paul tells us that we must be willing to forget the things of the past.

The problem has been that too many Christians are living under condemnation because they can’t forget, and therein lies the problem. We can’t forget. It’s virtually impossible.

Has anyone ever told you to forget something? What’s the first thing you do? Remember it!

And Satan has a way of reminding us. I’ve been driving down the street, minding my own business, thinking of nothing in particular and all of a sudden Satan brings back to my memory something that I did 30 or 40 years ago.

So, how can we forget? We do so by choosing to no longer remember it in our daily lives. We are choosing to no longer remember those things that have happened, the hurts, pain, and even the suffering we may have gone through. And unless we choose to no longer remember them and what someone else may have done, then the hurt will just continue.

And when we make that decision, it breaks the chains that continue to keep us in bondage.

With this in mind, let’s take a look at what the Apostle Paul said.

“One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:13b-14 NKJV)

Paul knew where he was going, but he also knew that if he kept remembering those things that have happened to him in the past he would never get there. In other words, he wouldn’t have that great ending we talked about last week.

God has a calling for all of us; He’s got plans to prosper and not harm us, and to give us a future hope (Jeremiah 29:11). But if we’re clinging to the past, then the past is dictating our future, not God.

And so, while the past is valuable to teach us, we cannot dwell upon it, because when we do, we’ll never move forward into the future God has for us. We need to realize that what use to be is no more so we can move forward into God’s calling.

This is what Joshua and the children of Israel were now facing. All they knew was their wilderness experiences, but now a new chapter in their life was to begin, and while what happened was beneficial to remember, they must realize that God had something new.