-this morning for some of you, and in a few weeks for the rest of you, you got to hear me tell one of my favorite Bible stories.
-tonight, we’re going to look at someone in the Bible, one of my favorites, to see how God can use you for greatness
-Joshua was the guy who took over when Moses died.
-so when they get into the Promised Land, which is now where Israel is, Joshua is the one in charge.
-basically, he gets to be the one to lead all the cool battles and drive out all the giants that lived in the land. Definitely fun.
-but there’s a reason God used him. There were certain things he had to do.
1. MEDITATE ON THE WORD
-one of his instructions from God.
**Josh. 1:8 -> 8Always remember what is written in the Book of the Teachings. Study it day and night to be sure to obey everything that is written there. If you do this, you will be wise and successful in everything. (NCV)
-think about that. Read your Bible day and night (over half the people in America have a problem with once a week). It’s not a request. It’s not a good idea. He is told to do it.
-remember Joshua is now Moses. All those 613 laws in the Old Testament, Joshua is now the one in charge of knowing them and taking care of disputes and arguments over them. He has to know them backwards, forwards and sideways.
-just because you don’t have people coming over to you arguing about what happens if you eat a goat on Sunday doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be reading the Bible either. Notice the promise he’s given. You will be wise and successful in everything, all if you read the Bible and hold onto it.
-this is your holy book. If you ask a Muslim what’s in the Koran and where it is, generally they know. You say you believe it, but do you know what’s in here?
-but there’s more. What good is it just to read the Bible? You have to do what’s in it!
**Deut. 11:27 -> 27You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. (NLT)
**Luke 11:28 -> 28Jesus replied, “But even more blessed are all who hear the Word of God and put it into practice.” (NLT)
**Ps. 119:4-12 -> 4You have charged us to keep Your commandments carefully. 5Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect Your principles! 6Then I will not be disgraced when I compare my life with Your commands. 7When I learn Your righteous laws, I will thank You by living as I should! 8I will obey Your principles. Please don’t give up on me! 9How can a young person stay pure? By obeying Your word and following its rules. 10I have tried my best to find you - don’t let me wander from Your commands. 11I have hidden Your word in my heart, that I might not sin against You. 12Blessed are you, O Lord; teach me Your principles. (NLT) (that must have been a fun song to sing)
-you gotta do what’s in it, and to know what to do, you have to read it.
2. TALKED WITH GOD
-Joshua talked with God all the time. Tons of prayer.
-the very first verse in the book.
**Josh. 1:1 -> 1After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses aide: (NIV)
-Joshua wastes no time. Throughout the book, God talks to him all the time. Before a battle, after a battle, during a battle, about a family. I’m not going to pull out every single prayer that Josh has with God, it would take a while,
-but that comes in with the next point, and one we’ve hit on before.
3. JOSHUA DID WHAT HE WAS TOLD
-sometimes we have to trust and obey. Both parts. Have to do it.
-in chapter 3, to cross the Jordan, God tells Joshua to take the Ark of the Covenant (the God Box) and have the four people carrying it just walk out into the middle of the Jordan River. The ground will dry up and you can walk across.
-he tells them to and it works! He did what God asked. God even told him to get 12 people, one from each tribe to grab a rock from the middle so they can make a remembrance on the side of the river, so people don’t forget.
-just one example.
-what about Jericho, God tells him not to attack, just walk in a circle and when I tell you, yell. And they win!
-God tells him to attack Gilgal after walking all night, so instead of resting Joshua does it. How do they win, God sends huge hailstone from the sky and makes the sun and moon stand still so it’s day an extra 24 hours, giving them the chance to see their enemies (and probably stay awake).
-why I love this book, there’s tons of stories like this in there.
-we talked about this a few weeks ago with Stewardship. If you do what God asks, He will take care of you, just like He did for Joshua, no matter how crazy it is.
4. HE WAS TRAINED
-God didn’t put Joshua in charge and then tell him what to do. That’s not how life works.
-all through the times of being in the desert, Moses was in charge but Joshua was his apprentice, not something we do very much any more. Kind of like interning or job-shadowing.
-when Moses went up on Mount Sinai, God gave him the ten commandments. Where was Joshua? On the mountain with him.
-Moses and God are talking about the Golden Calf on the mountain.
**Ex. 32:17 -> 17When Joshua heard the noise of the people shouting, he said to Moses, “There is the sound of war in the camp.” (NIV)
-Josh was on the mountain with him. He probably wasn’t in on all the conversation, but he was still there.
-later, God talked to Moses in a tent, where was Joshua?
**Ex. 33:11 -> 11Inside the Tent of Meeting, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. Afterward Moses would return to the camp, but the young man who assisted him, Joshua son of Nun, stayed behind in the Tent of Meeting. (NLT)
-when God talked to Moses, Joshua was there. Then after Moses left, Joshua was still there. What did he and God talk about?
-he spent time with God, he knew God.
-for the entire 40 years in the desert, Joshua was being trained. God was getting him ready to lead.
-that’s the order of how it works, not the other way around, like I’ve said before but like we always want it to be.
-if you want to play for the NBA, you don’t sign a contract, then start learning the rules, how to play, doing foul shots. You practice hard on your own, then you make it.
-they had a great commercial for Sydney Crosby during a hockey game. It showed his senior prom, his Thanksgiving, his summer vacation, his year overseas, and it was all hockey rinks. He didn’t make it into the NHL at 19 by sitting at home doing nothing.
-if you want to do something, for God or not, you have to start doing it now. All you little budding guitarists that want to make it famous, you practice now, get good now, learn stuff now, then you will get asked to play a concert somewhere.
-God does the same thing with us. If you aren’t talking to God and reading the Bible to learn more about Him, you’re not going to be ready if and when He wants to use you.
-in a minute I’m going to mention something by Rick Warren, a pastor of a church of 22 000. You know how many he had in January 1980 at the first service? His wife, and one family. That’s it. We have more than that here. Think God can turn this youth group into 22 000?
-God can. He’s just got to get us ready…
5. JOSHUA DIDN’T LET SET-BACKS AFFECT HIM
-Joshua messed up. Welcome to life. He’s human. We read these stories and put these people on pedestals and forget that they were all people like us.
-God told Joshua to go and wipe out everyone in their land. To take care of them all. It was the Israelites’ now and they are to get everyone out.
-the Gibeonites, a group of people living there, hear all about what God’s doing to everyone else and they decide to fake out Joshua. They pretend to be travelers from a long way away and ask for a peace treaty. What did Joshua do?
**Josh. 9:14-15 -> 14The men of Israel looked them over and accepted the evidence. But they didn’t ask God about it. 15So Joshua made peace with them and formalized it with a covenant to guarantee their lives. The leaders of the congregation swore to it. (MSG)
-he messed up. The high and mighty man of God (which he was) still wasn’t perfect and made a mistake.
-mistakes are not the end of the world.
-what that Pastor Rick Warren said:
-Because we value success so much, we tend to exaggerate the effects of failure. But failure isn’t the end of the world. You won’t die from it. With failure -– you fail, you pick yourself up and you go on.
-One of the best ways to bounce back from failure is to redefine it.
-Failure is not failing to reach your dreams. Failure is not having a dream.
-Failure is not setting a goal and missing it. Failure is not having a goal.
-Failure is not falling down. Failure is refusing to get back up.
-If at first you don’t succeed, big deal! It’s usually the second, third or fourth time you actually get it right. You are never a failure until you give up. Remember, everybody fails.
-Failure has benefit.
-Did you know that one of God’s primary tools in making you the kind of person he wants you to be is failure? He uses it in your life to mold you, shape you and develop your character. While we rarely learn from our successes (because we typically attribute it to our sheer natural talent!), we can learn from our failures.
-We usually think of failure as being a negative experience, but wise people learn from failure and use it to their advantage. They learn from it and grow from it. They use it as a stepping stone.
-one of the biggest lessons I learned about failure was actually from that great theological cartoon Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Shredder was wanting some machine or something (like every show) and he was telling off one of the scientists. The scientist was saying how they failed, but they’ll get better and Shredder said, “Failure is not an option.” The guy replied, “Then you wouldn’t make a very good scientist.”
-Thomas Edison made more than one thousand experiments on filaments when he made the light bulb. When asked how he could keep going after failing a thousand times, he said, “I didn’t fail a thousand times; I learned a thousand ways that didn’t work.”
-God uses people, just like you and me, that are not perfect. Just like Joshua.
