Only Be Strong and Be Courageous
Joshua 1:1-11 2 Corinthians 5:11-21
All of us have faced a challenge of some sort in life in which we wondered if we were capable of doing the job. It may have been trying out for a team, going away to school, getting a promotion on a job, enlisting in the military, getting married, having a child, surviving a divorce, or losing a life partner.
Sometimes we may choose what’s happening, but other times situations are thrown upon us. Some of us were nervous and afraid of what might go wrong. It’s in these circumstances that God comes to us with the message, only be strong and be courageous. God has our back.
I want to introduce you to a man name Moses. Moses was chosen by God to go and lead God’s people out of Egypt where they were all slaves. He was to lead them into a land that was both rich and fertile which would seem like a touch of heaven.
Moses didn’t want to go, but God left him with little choice after overcoming all of Moses excuses. Moses had to speak directly to Pharaoh, who was ruler of Egypt and didn’t care much for Moses or his God.
God allowed Moses to call forth all kinds of plagues upon the land of Egypt to get Pharaoh’s attention. There were gnats, flies, frogs, locusts, hailstorms, death of animals, darkness, and sores. Moses would announce these things were coming and they would come, and they would not leave until Moses asked God to stop them. The one thing that got Pharaoh’s attention was the death of the first born of his son, and all of the males in Egypt along with the animals. He then let the people go.
Once Moses led them out of Egypt, God used Moses to split the Red Sea to keep the Egyptians from backing them into the river. Moses closed the sea with his hands. This Moses asked God for food in the desert and God sent Manna from heaven. He asked for meat and God sent quail. He asked for water and God sent it out of a Rock.
In a major battle as long as His hands were up his people were winning, but when they came down the other side started winning. He spoke to God face to face upon a mountain to get the 10 commandments. He spoke to God in the tabernacle so that when he came out of the tent, his face was shining with the glory of God.
He put down all kinds of rebellion against his authority. He had led the people right up to the promise land God wanted to give them, but because they got a bad report of how strong the enemy was, they refused to go into it. They later blamed Moses for having to be in the desert for 40 years and at times wanted to get rid of him and go back to Egypt. There was never again a leader like Moses who did all kinds of miracles until Jesus came.
One person who was watching Moses go through all these mighty moments with God as well as watching him handle all the discouragement and abuse he was getting from the people was his aid Joshua. Moses was the pinnacle of a great leader in the eyes of Joshua. But now Moses has died, and people think Joshua is going to step into his shoes.
When Lebron James left Cleveland, could you imagine the Cavalier’s owner coming to you and saying, “we know you have been watching Lebron in all the games he played, and now that he’s gone, we want you to take his place.” How many of you know, Cleveland is about to be greatly disappointed if you say yes to the job. Ticket sales would most likely plunge.
Moses has died, because the 40 years of wandering in the wilderness is up, and its time to go into the promised land. God has called Joshua to lead the people into the promised land. He’s terrified because he knows that he is no Moses. The first thing that God has to do, before he can get the people to move forward, is to reveal the reality of what their situation is.
About six years ago, God called New Life At Calvary into existence, and we marched with the same kind of enthusiasm to become a people of God as the children of Israel did as they came out of Egypt. Like them, we have great testimonies of God doing things we could not have expected. They received manna from heaven. We received almost a half million dollars from the Nelson fund to feed us.
They recommitted themselves to the truth of God’s word with the 10 commandments, we recommitted ourselves with the essential tenets of beliefs by joining ECO. They saw God do some miraculous healings by looking up at the image of the pole. We have seen people healed by looking to Jesus.
They marched up to the entrance of the promise land and didn’t go in and we marched up the hill to our promise land, but didn’t go in. They spent time in the wilderness, and we’ve spent time in the wilderness. Their top enemies were fear and complaining, and our top enemies are fear and complaining.
80% of churches in America are dying, declining or stagnant in their growth. 50% of the churches that existed 50 years ago in America, no longer exists. Many downtown churches have their closed their doors because they couldn’t change with the times. When we look at ourselves, we have to ask, “are we being faithful to what God has called us to do.”
The last time we had real growth in our tithes and offerings was 2015.
Since then, our tithes and offerings has dropped by $22,000 and has remained flat. The Nelson money we had runs out in 2020. We have cut pastoral staff, office staff, music staff, maintenance staff, and cleaning staff. We have been unwilling to increase our giving to afford the insurance on the building which is $22000. I say unwilling because only about 30% of us actually give 10% of what we earn to the Lord. We are afraid of changing our lifestyles to be able to tithe.
In 2014 we had 305 members today we have 239 a lost of 22%. Yet God has been good to us in that even with the loss of membership, God has sent us money through other avenues to keep us doing ministry.
The disappointing thing about our attendance is that it has been about the same in the first service, our attendance in the second service has decreased from an average of 175 to 200 in a month to our current average of 116. That means 40% of our covenant partners are not making it to worship each month. At the heart of our problem has been the same as the children of Israel, complaining and forgetting what the main thing was.
The main thing for them was to go into the promised land. They forgot the main thing and complained about a lot of things such as, how much meat they could eat, how long they could listen to the voice of God without getting scared, how hard it would be to go into the land and whether or not Moses was doing a good job of leading, and who else should get a chance to lead. They even complained the flavor of the manna was getting boring.
The main thing for us according to Jesus was to” go into the all the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you until the end of the age.
How many of you have heard somebody complaining about the church, the pastors, the music, the kids, the length of service, the adults or the food? When was the last time somebody complained and got upset because the church wasn’t sending them out to make disciples of all nations? How many have threatened to leave because we forgot the main thing?
If you look at the attendance for the second service, you will see a straight line almost. 119, 118,117, and 113. What does it mean when you’re hooked up on a machine and the line goes flat? As hard as it may seem to accept, we can’t get healthy until we realize that we are dead or dying, and that we are killing ourselves. We have to make the decision to do things differently if we are going to be obedient as a church.
We are all standing in the place of Joshua. God wants to use Joshua to lead the people into the promised land. But Joshua is afraid. He knew how Moses had tried and failed. He didn’t want to fail. If only Moses was here, surely this time the people would listen to him.
So often we think the answer to our problem is back in the past of what we use to do, how we use to plan and how we used to worship. But the answer may lie in the present and in the future.
God knew Joshua was hoping for some kind of a miracle that Moses would come back to life. That is why God told him in verse 1-2 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.
God is saying to us, the old ways of New Life At Calvary, of Glenville and of Calvary are dead. You and all these people get ready to cross Euclid Avenue and East 79th Street into the land I am about to give you.
Three times God says to Joshua, Be strong and courageous. He also tells them to not fear. God tells us the same things because it is hard to accept changes in order to serve God to reach people who are lost.
We must remember, we can never change the message of the gospel. That is God loves you and God loves you in your best moments and your worst moments in life, because Jesus Christ died on a cross to save you from your sins even before you knew God. Jesus rose from the dead on the third day to give you life and to give it to you more abundantly. People need to know that they can do nothing to save themselves except to put their faith in Jesus Christ. It is through believing in Christ that a person is saved.
God told Joshua “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.” We likewise will be committed to accepting the Bible as the Word of God no matter what our society says. We will not compromise the truth of the Word of God to make the Gospel more appealing.
Joshua chose to believe that God had called him, and that God had equipped him to lead the people. So he gave the command to the officers of the people, “Get yourselves together, because in 3 days we are going over the Jordan to take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
Joshua was preparing the people for a relaunch of their mission. There wasn’t a going to be a debate and a discussion this time around, nor would anyone be sent into the land to see if it was going to be easier this time around. In 3 days they were going in.
We believe the best way to save New Life At Calvary, is to let it die so that it can rise again to a new life after a relaunch. God told Joshua that Moses was dead, because God knew he was getting ready to do something new and was going to relaunch them from a wandering group to a prosperous nation.
God’s getting ready to do the same for us. But we need to prepare for the relaunch. We want the right people in the right places for ministry so that we can be both effective for God and to do things with excellence.
Next Sunday we are going to help you discover the spiritual gift that God has placed inside of you to move this church into a deeper relationship with God and to reach others for Christ.
The following Sunday, we are going to help you discover your leadership temperament and style so that we will know whether you are a Moses, a Deborah, A David, A Martha, a Peter or a Paul. The Sunday after that, we are going to have a big Ministry Fair, in which you will match your gift and your leadership with serving in some of the ministries of the church. Every ministry will have a table for you to offer your gift.
The following Sunday we are going to have a time of praise, prayer and repentance for getting away from the main thing and allowing the Spirit of God to begin a new work in our lives as individuals and as a church. The following Sunday we will have one joint service in which we relaunch our new congregation into one truly reaching the world for Christ by going forth making disciples of all nations.
We even want to do a relaunch with our building. We just got a new roof at no cost to us. We want you to help us paint from the fellowship hall to the sanctuary so that we know we are relaunching. If you can’t paint, then donate $5 for a brush or $20 for a can of paint.
We want to utilize your gifts not only in the ministries of the church, but in ways which we can serve our community. We know that there is way too much violence in our community that leaves a trail of broken lives behind. Our goal is to become the arm of compassion to those victims left behind. We want a presence at vigils serving refreshments and offering words of hope to those who are there. We want a team that will take a meal to the home of those who have been hurt through violence.
Session has already voted to make our facilities available free of charge for those who have been killed by violence for funerals and repasts. We want our ushers to volunteer to serve in those services. We want to have volunteers willing to serve at the repast meals if the families need our help. We want them to know the church of Jesus Christ cares about them and that God has not forgotten them. God is saying, sure you may encounter all kinds of people, only be brave and courageous and be not afraid.
With an abortion clinic across the street from our church, we know that women and men need help to give life to these unborn children. We want to establish a ministry in which we can provide some real help. We’re considering having our own home for pregnant women and devising our own programs for helping young fathers take their responsibilities seriously.
You may say Pastor Rick didn’t you say you were in need of money for the church. I believe when we do what God tells us to do in the way God tells us to do it, God opens doors that we didn’t know existed.
We want every organization in the church to realize that it has a responsibility to reach the lost because that still remains the main thing. Every ministry is to do an audit and see if it is doing anything to reach those who don’t know Christ. The ministry will either need to change and include reaching the lost or it should come to an end and discover what Christ is calling it to do.
We want our worship services to be even more Christ centered and more open to the freedom of the Spirit as God speaks to us. We don’t just want to have church, we want to have the supernatural power of God in our midst. When Joshua told the people that they were going to cross the Jordan, no doubt some of them wanted to build a boat, some of them wanted a few swim lessons firsts, and some of them used it as an excuse as to why they didn’t want to cross.
But all they had to do was simply show up. When the priests stepped into the water, instead of the river running down, it started running up and backed up so that people crossed on dry land. Sometimes we don’t know what God has in mind until we just get there and do what he tells us to do.
We want prayer to become a more central part of the life of our church. Why not have more prayer walks and prayer vigils for our community. If Joshua could weaken the walls of Jericho by marching around the city, who knows what God may want to weaken as we engulf our community in prayer. I do know there are strongholds that need to come down. There are addictions that need to be broken, and there are lives that just need a little hope and a little love that we might be able to give.
We want to become a New Testament Church which sends others to start New Churches. Pastor Banaci wants to start the process of River of Life becoming an ECO congregation. God has placed it on the hearts of several of our members to start a congregation on the west side called Legacy City. God has already touched other churches to come alongside Legacy City with money, buildings and other resources.
I know it looks like we can’t afford to send anybody out, but if God is calling people to reach others, how can we stand in their way. Their vision is to send a tithe of their future church back to New Life At Calvary. So that we can become even stronger. Fear of losing people can never keep us from allowing the Spirit to work however he chooses in our midst.
We want the world to know that we are not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ for it is the power of salvation for those who believe. God’s word tells us that we are to be ambassadors for Christ announcing the ministry of reconciliation.
We are to let people know God is not angry with them, but rather in Christ, God is reaching out to them so that the broken relationship can be restored. Everything can be forgiven in Jesus Christ. Every person can be made whole, whether you are homeless on the street or living as a CEO in a penthouse. You still need to come to the foot of the same Jesus and the cost is still the same. Your life for his.
Being an ambassador for Christ can be an intimidating thing, because we don’t know who or where God may be sending us to. Ambassadors don’t have their own agenda. They come with the message from the nation that have been sent. We represent the kingdom of heaven.
We need to claim the promise that God gave to Joshua to be strong and courageous and to claim the promise that Jesus gave to us at the end of his command to go, which was to remember that he was going to be with us always to the very end of the age. Let’s not pray that God simply make us bolder in our faith. Let’s pray that we can love people more as God loves people.
