[Slide 1]
Be Strong and Courageous
Well, hello, it is such a blessing to be finally here! It feels like forever in the coming, but since I have been here now nearly three weeks it seems like nothing has stood still.
We have had moving, getting our eldest into school, going on retreat, ordination itself, leading a service at St Mary’s, funeral visits, baptism visits, funerals, meetings and more names than I can possibly remember!
And now here I am, standing with you, here to look at this particular aspect of discipleship...Being Strong and Courageous.
I have been listening to the other sermons in this series and it is just great to hear such talented and clearly gifted speakers talking about discipleship, what it means to follow Jesus and to live our lives more and more like him.
When I think about courage and strength I think of...[Slide 2] this person...can anyone tell me who this is? Superman.
Superman that’s right. Here is a little clip, from Man of Steel, one of the newer versions of Superman, pay close attention....there will be a pop quiz afterwords [Play clip].
Question 1: Can you tell me what Superman calls himself when he is ‘in disguise’?
Clark Kent
Question 2: Can you tell me who Superman’s girlfriend is?
Lois Lane
Question 3: What is Superman’s greatest weakness?
Kryptonite
Question 4: this one is a toughie — What is it that gives Superman his powers?
The yellow Sun
So, we aren’t Superman, but I would argue that actually we are a lot closer to Superman than we think. Just like him, our strength, our courage, isn’t our own, it comes from something else, it comes from someone else. Our courage and strength comes from God, from Jesus and the Holy Spirit that lives inside you and me.
Jesus said “I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” We know that he is with us, the source of our strength is with us. Unlike Superman, we always have the Spirit there with us as our helper.
Being Strong and Courageous often means being able to trust in and receive the strength and courage that God wants to give us. It isn’t necessarily some superhuman degree of strength rather than a supernatural god-given importation of strength that we need to trust God for.
But that trust can take practice...as we act on God’s strength, as we trust in God and act in courage, God has a weird way of providing for us.
Slide 3 — Joshua’s situation...
For Joshua on the banks of the Jordan, [slide 4] this meant being ready to receive the gift that God had already determined to give them and having the faith in God’s promises to step into that world.
He had a number of voices trying to tell him that this was a bad idea I am sure:
• The people had already been in this place, on the verge of taking possession of the land, before and had lost heart telling tales of giants;
• The great leader of the people, Moses, had passed away, leaving Joshua to pick up the mantle of taking possession of the land;
• They were a ragtag bunch of slave descendants who had been wandering in the desert, what did they know about conquest? And yet these people were to cross the Jordan and take possession of the land.
When John told me that I would be preaching this close to starting my curacy I said ... “OK” but deep inside my bones I have to admit I was more than a little terrified at the prospect. I had voices going on inside my head: “you don’t know what the place is really like, you don’t know what the people need to hear, you don’t know if you will be any good...you probably won’t be any good” I am not trying to garner any sympathy here. It is just the process we all go through from time-to-time when we are given a task to do.
But sometimes doubt can consume us, can’t it? What has God given to you to do? Are there voices even now that are telling you that you can’t do it?
God had a task for Joshua, to be the one who leads his people to take possession of the land. To lead his people into receiving God’s promises. Yet, God can also see Joshua is frightened. It is God speaking when he tells Joshua to be strong and courageous. He deals with each of Joshua’s concerns and he speaks directly to us through this too.
God reminds Joshua:
1. Who he is;
2. Whose he is; and
3. To put his faith into action.
1. Know who you are — Slide 5
Moses had gone, leaving Joshua, his assistant to lead the conquest. Joshua isn’t Moses, he is not the great ‘servant of the Lord’ that Moses was. He can’t do this can he?
But Joshua is a chosen person of a chosen people. He is Moses’ assistant. You don’t get to be Moses’ assistant without being a good follower. He has seen the land (Numbers 13) and he knows it is good. He has had to wander for the past 40 years knowing that the land is good but he holds that vision as part of who he is.
To be a good leader you need to first be a good follower. Yes Moses was a great leader, but God is the real leader and Joshua knows this. Moses may have passed on, but God never will.
And it is God who tells him who he is: verse 6 ‘... you shall put this people in possession of the land that I swore to their ancestors to give them.’ God has appointed Joshua to do this, that is what he is, he was the assistant of Moses, he is now the servant of the Lord.
It’s happened recently so I have to mention it... there may have been a football match recently. [slide 6] Yes, we managed not to make it to the final itself. But I was reminded about how much we need to know who God has called us to be now by looking at this picture. [slide 7 - Gareth Southgate]
On the right we see Gareth Southgate after having missed that crucial penalty in 1996, lost, dejected. But it is only through that pain, through that failure, that he is able to be the person he is now: Consoling the Colombian player after he missed his crucial penalty against England, the team Gareth is head coach of. He knew that person’s pain, because he knew his own pain. He was confident in who he is now because of what he had been through. And he was able to step out of the usual and into a place of ministry for that poor player. Consoling the inconsolable. Gareth Southgate, knows who he is now. And that helped him to take a step beyond the normal.
We are beloved children of God, called holy, made children through the blood of our saviour Jesus Christ. Yes we have been in places of pain, we may even be in those places now. But we know our Father loves us. We can be confident in his love for us.
2. Know Whose you are — Dwell on God’s promises [Slide 8]
We need to know the source of our strength. The psalmist puts it clearly:
Psalm 28:7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts; so I am helped, and my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him.
[slide 9] Desmond Tutu, knows whose he is. I heard a fantastic story about his courage: that belief in the vision from God, often in the face of the evidence... until God changes the evidence.
During the deepest, darkest days of apartheid when the government tried to shut down opposition by canceling a political rally, Archbishop Desmond Tutu declared that he would hold a church service instead.
St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa was filled with worshippers. Outside the cathedral hundreds of police gathered, a show of force intended to intimidate. As Tutu was preaching they entered the Cathedral, armed, and lined the walls. They took out notebooks and recorded Tutu’s words.
But Tutu would not be intimidated. He preached against the evils of apartheid, declaring it could not endure. At one extraordinary point he addressed the police directly.
“You are powerful. You are very powerful, but you are not gods and I serve a God who cannot be mocked. So, since you’ve already lost, since you’ve already lost, I invite you today to come and join the winning side!”
With that the congregation erupted in dance and song.
The police didn’t know what to do. Their attempts at intimidation had failed, overcome by the archbishop’s confidence that God and goodness would triumph over evil. It was but a matter of time.
Desmond Tutu, knew whose he was. He knows the God that he serves. A God of Love and Justice, who is faithful to his promises.
[slide 10] I have been very fortunate in having some great friends who share verses with me every now and again. Through college there were two that have had a huge impact on me
and made me realise that it isn’t me, but God who accomplishes all:
Proverbs 3:5-6 — Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
1 Thess 5:24 — The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.
We have a faithful God. A God in whom we can put our trust. Even when we think the odds are against us, even when the storms of our life are raging, we can trust that our faithful God will make good on his promise to us. His promise to be with us in the darkness his promise to lead us into light and life. That promise acts like a compass for us, keeping us pointing in the right direction.
For Joshua, the importance of hearing God’s promises in his word are at the heart of what God is asking him to do.
In his second urging of Joshua to be Strong and Courageous, God tells Joshua to act — but not in terms of conquest. God tells Joshua to meditate on the divine law, to never let it leave his mouth, to be obedient to it. He has already told Joshua that every place where he treads God has already given to him. In meditating and being obedient to the law Joshua is being asked to remind himself whose he is.
As God’s servant, he needs to be acknowledging God as his King. To put his whole body, soul and mind into his devotion to God. That is what his obedience demonstrates, a loving response to God’s grace which offers back everything we are, because it is already his. That is why Jesus holds up Deuteronomy 6:4-5 as the greatest commandment in Matthew (22:36-40); Mark (12:28-34) and Luke (10:25-28).
When Joshua rehears God’s word he is pointed back towards God and neighbour. Friends, how often do we remind ourselves of God’s promises
to us by opening the Bible and just reading it out loud? How often do we refer to the compass of God’s word in our lives? This is the King of the universe, and he promises to be with us always. We can forget that so often, but we can remind ourselves with Scripture.
3. Faith in Action [Slide 11]
God tells Joshua to take action. He says that he will be with him ‘wherever you go.’ It is this going, this faith in action, that we need to think on. God has given Joshua a specific task, to lead the people into the promised land.
This is doable: because they are loved by God and God is the one who will deliver this promise to them.
All they need to do is trust in Him, to step out in faith, to act on God’s promise.
Similarly we need to take what God has given us and act in faith.
[slide 12] This is one of the World’s strongest Man competitors. Cmdr Grant Edwards of the Australian Federal Police Force... now I am pretty certain I don’t want to commit a crime in Australia if that is what their police are like!
Here he is practicing for the competition...practicing! By pulling a C-12 Huron weighing in at 3,520kgs (I don’t know what that is in old money but it is a lot). He didn’t start there he kept on stretching himself, testing the limits of what is possible, until at some point he must have thought — ‘I am going to have a go at pulling this plane.’
I bet at first it didn’t budge more than a few milimetres, but he patiently persisted until he was able to pull it further and further. Each time getting better and better.
Jesus talks about a master who leaves his servants with different amounts of money. They all do different things with it, two of them invest it and the third one buries it because he is scared he will lose it. In the end, it is those who invest the money, who put it out into the real world and ‘give it a go’ who are rewarded. The one who
buries his money has it taken away from him it isn’t what they had, but what they did with it that mattered. And those that did something with it, were given more to do more.
We need to look at what we are doing with what God has given us. Are we burying our talents? What is God asking you to do, and how can you work to stretch yourselves to it?
[Slide 13] Strength and Courage
If you are thinking to yourself, but this has all been about identity and trust...not Strength and Courage. You are right! We need to know that it
is God who is our strength and who gives us courage. The great news is that in knowing who we are, knowing whose we are and acting in faith, we are being Strong and Courageous because that is flowing from God into us.
[Slide 14] This is a picture from the end of my drive. It is just across that road. I know that God has a clear vision for what he wants to happen there. I know that I have been asked to lead a group into that land so that God can claim that corner of Stockton for his own again. I know that prophecy has been spoken in this church which relates in part to that, that God is calling us on an adventure as a church.
That road is my Jordan.
As I look across to that place each morning I remind myself of God’s promise to be with me wherever I go. Each time doubt gets me I remember who I am, whose I am, and that I am to act in faith.
What is your Jordan? What promise lies on the other side? Perhaps you don’t know, perhaps you have lost sight of it. Or perhaps you need reminding of God’s promise for you.
There may be one or two of you who are really excited about what God has in store for you and want to grab it and run with it. We really want to pray for you off the back of this, we want to bless you. If you want someone to pray with after this then there is prayer ministry. But lets pray now....
