Which Way To The Milk And Honey?
Joshua 1
Intro:
How often do you feel like you have life under control? Like things are humming along, generally the house is in order, the stuff of life reasonably organized and manageable, the “to do list” feels accomplishable, and things are generally in control.
I’ve been missing that feeling lately! There has been a lot of change for Joanne and me in the last couple of weeks, with me returning to work full time and Joanne cutting back to 3 days/week, moving my office from home to here, this past week being concerned again with Thomas possibly getting sick. Then I look at the task ahead for us as a church, and it is easy to start to feel overwhelmed. Inadequate. Unable. It feels a little out of my control, and because of my personality I’m not particularly comfortable with that! I don’t want to know just what the next step is, I want to know all the steps between A and B, I want to have plans in place to get from here to there, I want to know the obstacles and pitfalls along the way and be prepared to meet them.
And then there is God. He says to me, “Trust me.” And I say, “ok, lay it all out in front of me and I’ll trust you.” God says, “Trust me for step one.” I say, “but…”, and He says, “trust.”
I feel like God has told us where to head as a church, what He wants us to be in terms of a hospital, greenhouse, and festival. But how do we become those things? How do we get there from here? How do we make changes to get on God’s agenda?
And in my own life, and in your life, what does it mean to walk with God? What does it mean to be one of His children? How do we live daily letting Him be in control, letting Him be Lord?
I want to take these questions with us into Joshua 1, and see from there what God reveals through His word.
1. The Promise (vss. 1-5):
The story begins with a transfer of leadership and an affirmation of the promise. There are a couple of things worth noticing:
A. It was not a new Promise (vs. 3b):
God reaffirms His commitment to His original promise. The promise recalled here was the one to Moses, “every place where you set your foot,” a promise first made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (mentioned in vs. 6). For the Israelites, that specific promise was the land, the territory. God had promised to bless Abraham’s descendants and to bring them into “The Promised Land,” a rich land flowing with milk and honey and prosperity. This was a major promise, one which dominates much of the early part of the OT. The promise was the sustaining vision in the many years of wandering, the promise finally of a home and a nation.
As much as the land was promised, there are two other promises in vs. 5 which I believe are for us today as much as they were for Joshua and the Israelites.
B. The Promise of Victory (5a):
This is not strictly an OT promise, to a specific person at a specific time. Compare this to Paul’s words in Romans 8:31b-37:
If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died--more than that, who was raised to life--is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written:
"For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered."
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Paul’s words for us are that we are more than conquerors through HIM. I wonder how our lives might be different if we lived that reality – if we walked around knowing that victory was assured. If we went into every situation claiming the promise that “no one will be able to stand up against you.”
I don’t know what situations you are up against in your life today, but I do know God has promised victory. He has promised triumph. Whatever need you have, whatever battles you are engaged in, God has already dealt with. We are more than conquerors through HIM!
That last phrase is the significant one. We aren’t mighty warriors on our own – it is not that we are so skilled and capable and able to manage everything. On the contrary, we are weak, helpless even. Kind of like the people Joshua was leading – a bunch of people whose parents were brick-making slaves, and who they themselves had known nothing but desert wanderings. How could they fight against strong, fortified cities, full of warriors and the latest in battle technology and training? And yet, just like the promise in Romans to us, the story of the conquest of the promised land is the story of God fighting for His people, as we shall see in the weeks ahead.
Here is the secret to this promise – the battle isn’t ours, the battle is the Lord’s. If we try to fight it on our own, we will lose. But if we rely on Him, trust Him, obey what He commands us to do, whatever struggle we face – whatever attack we come up against, we will see God’s victory.
The promise of victory is the first promise for us. There is also a second:
C. The Promise of God’s Presence (5b):
What incredible words of comfort. Joshua had walked next to Moses long enough to have seen how God was with him, and now God makes the same promise to Joshua. It is the promise of God’s presence.
This is the same promise that Jesus made to us, after His resurrection and just before He ascended into heaven: “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28:20b). Just as the Israelites under Joshua didn’t enter the promised land alone, so also we don’t enter the events of our lives on our own either. We get up in the morning; Jesus is there. We go to work or school; Jesus is there. We come home, go about our evenings, go to sleep; still Jesus is there.
Now it is true that we don’t always feel His presence – we aren’t always aware of God being right with us and right beside us, but that doesn’t mean this promise of God’s is not true. Think of it this way: there are a whole bunch of radio stations broadcasting all the time. Right here, right now in this sanctuary, we are surrounded by the presence of sound waves on all kinds of different frequencies. We can’t hear them at the moment, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there. See, at the moment we aren’t tuned in to them. We don’t have our radios on, we aren’t picking up the signal. But they are still there. That is just like God – His presence is always with us, but we aren’t always tuned in to it. We aren’t always listening for His voice, we aren’t always seeking to understand what He is doing around us and through us.
I tried to imagine what it would be like to live constantly in tune. Would life be easier? Probably not… But would it be better? Absolutely. Would I be more full of love, and joy, and peace, and all the other things the Holy Spirit longs to bring? Definitely. Would I see God’s Kingdom strengthened and growing as I used the gifts He has given me in His power? For sure. I wouldn’t find myself on the edges looking in – on the periphery. I would find myself right in the middle of the action. And though sometimes that’s hard, it is a good place to be.
The $1 000 000 question is, How do we tune in and stay tuned it? For that, let’s look at the next section of Joshua 1.
2. The Price and the Presence (vss. 6-9):
The next thing we hear God say is a command to Joshua to “be strong and courageous.” It is a command repeated four times in chapter one – God repeats it three times and the people say the same thing to Joshua at the very end of the chapter. That is both an encouraging command, but also kind of a scary one. When do we need courage? Not when life is easy. Not when things are humming along smoothly, and we are in control of everything. We need courage when we are facing danger, facing opposition. And when do we need strength? Not for an afternoon of watching football on TV. Not for a pleasant stroll through a comfortable flower garden. We need strength when we are joining a battle, we need strength when facing difficulties, we need strength when enemies surround us and threaten us, we need strength not to sit in the bleachers but to get down on the field and into the game.
What is the basis of our courage and our strength? It is the same thing we just discovered in the last promise of vs. 5 – it is the presence of God. That is the message that is repeated in the last part of vs. 9. We don’t need to be afraid because God is with us. We don’t need to tremble because He will not leave us. We don’t need to fear the battle, because the battle belongs to the Lord. But once again, how do we “tune in” to His presence with us? Verses 7 and 8 are the key.
Verse 7 gives us the first key – it is obedience. We learn how to walk with God by obeying His commands. And notice what the Scripture says: “obey ALL the law…”, and a little further, “do not turn from it to the right or to the left.” Obedience is the first key to knowing the presence of God in our daily life. Sometimes that comes automatically, sometimes we have to persist in being obedient before we start to experience God’s presence more fully.
Verse 8 is the second key, and it answers a question you might have had from verse 7: “How do I know what to do to obey?” God tells Joshua very plainly – meditate on My law. Immerse yourself in it – surround yourself with My words all day and all night – let them be constantly on your lips.
If you desire to experience God’s presence more fully in your life, ask yourself how much time you spend in God’s word. Not just in reading it, but in soaking in it, meditating on it, memorizing it, carrying it with you all day long and mulling over the depth of meaning and how to live out what it says. I can guarantee that if the only time you spend in God’s Word is at a worship service, you aren’t experiencing the presence of God as fully as He desires you to.
The other side of that is that when we are immersed in God’s word, reading and meditating on it, we experience the nearness of God and His power for our lives. Let me give you just a simple little example: Friday morning I was working on outlining this sermon series. I started to get frustrated and bogged down, and just about decided to give up. Instead I paused to pray – and in those few brief moments I felt God’s presence and His encouragement to just stick with it and plow on through, and He promised to be with me and speak to me as I slogged through. I picked up my pen, and was able to get past the place I was bogged down and made some progress. All because I took just a few simple moments to focus on Him, to become aware of His presence, and to listen to what He had to say.
Just before leaving this thought, I wonder if you need to make a decision on this. I know I do – I’ve recognized more than ever my need to be spending more time in God’s word, and so I am going to make some changes in my daily schedule this coming week to plan it in. I know it won’t happen by accident, I have to be deliberate in blocking out the time, and so I’ve done that. I want to challenge you to do the same. If you need to do this in your life, decide right now when that will be in the coming week. And then stick with it!
3. The Preparations (vss. 10-18):
So we’ve seen the promises of God, for victory and for His presence, and we’ve seen that the key to experiencing His presence is to spend time meditating on His Word. The last 8 verses of chapter one describe the preparations Joshua and the people make to follow God’s command to cross over and take the promised land. He gives them three whole days to pack up everything and prepare to move.
There is a fascinating point to be made from vss. 12-15. Joshua addresses a significant portion of the nation of Israel, the portion that had already been granted their land on the East side of the Jordan. They were ready to settle down, their land was already secure. But Joshua reminds them that they have to cross over and fight for their brothers – in fact, they cross over ahead of their brothers. That stuck out for me as applicable to us. We have to fight for one another. You know, it is not enough for us to have our own lives under control, our own battles fought and won – we have to fight for one another. Sometimes we fight with one another, sometimes we think all we have to do is fight our own battles and not pay attention to what is going on with others around us. But neither of those are right – we have to stand shoulder to shoulder and fight for one another. Especially at times of relative peace in our own lives, especially when we are doing all right.
Especially those of you who are a little older than many of us, who have done a lot of things in the past, who have fought a lot of battles already and now just want to sit back and rest – we need you especially to fight for us, and we need you to do that through prayer. We don’t need you to be the ones teaching the 5yr olds (though we’d love to have you if you’re still up to it!), but we need you to pray for those teachers. We don’t need you to knock on every door in our neighborhood looking for opportunities to serve and to witness, but we sure need you to pray for our coworkers and friends and family members who don’t yet know Christ. We don’t need you to feel like you have to run the whole hospital, plant every seed in the greenhouse, coordinate all the food for the festival, but we sure need you to pray that God would put the right people in each of those places. And by the way… don’t be surprised if, as you do pray, God says that YOU are the person for one of those places, even if you don’t think you’re up to it…
The passage ends with the people making a commitment to follow their leader. They recognize the need for someone to coordinate the battle and make some decisions for the nation, and so they pledge to follow. And they make a fairly strong commitment to follow – they affirm that anyone who disobeys “will be put to death.” We were having a bit of fun with this thought at our staff meeting this week, wondering how to inspire that kind of following. At least until Matt pointed out that the Israelites promised to obey Joshua “just as we fully obeyed Moses”… remember how fully they obeyed Moses? – the golden calf, the whining about the manna, the lack of faith at the Jordan river the first time…
Conclusion:
As I look at this passage, and at this period of Israel’s history, and try to draw the analogy to today in our history, there is one piece that still isn’t entirely clear to us. What is it that God has promised us? What is our “promised land?” We know that is where we are headed, but which way to the milk and honey? It was really clear to Joshua – “every place you put your foot…”. What is it for us? Where are we headed as we cross the river?
I’m not yet sure that I can paint a convincing picture. I know a few parts of it, and I’m happy to share that with you, but I don’t think the picture is complete yet, and as I shared at the beginning I’m learning to trust for one step at a time.
I do know that the promised land for us is a deeper experience of the Kingdom of God. What is that? First, it is joy. Now I don’t mean a light, fluffy happiness, but the kind of deep joy that comes from being in the midst of a struggle and knowing you have done the right thing with integrity regardless of the cost. It is a Kingdom of Joy. Second it is a place of freedom. Freedom to do what is right instead of being choked by sin, freedom to stand clean and holy before God and each other, freedom to express our feelings without fear of rejection or scorn, and freedom to minister to our world effectively. And that leads to the third characteristic I see of our “promised land”: It is a Kingdom of Power. And by that I mean the Power of God – power to see people come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, power to see them change habits and patterns that are destructive to themselves and to us, power for us to use our gifts in service to our world and our church.
The reason it is difficult to articulate the “promised land” is because it isn’t a physical kingdom, it is a Spiritual Kingdom. And that is why the two promises we discovered earlier remain so crucial – first the promise of victory, and second the promise of God’s presence. I see those promises being fulfilled in the images God has given us of a hospital, greenhouse, and a festival, and I’m still waiting on Him to fill in the details on how to get there from here.
But this I do know, and with this thought I’ll close: The same God who spoke to Joshua speaks today. The same God who promised them the land of Canaan promises us a share in His new Kingdom. The same God who promised Joshua victory over his giants promises you and me victory over the giants we face. And the same God who promised to be with Joshua promises to be with you each moment of each day. My prayer for us is that we would be in tune to Him every moment, and that we would see His Kingdom come, His will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Amen.
