(Began sermon with a background on the life of Joshua. . .modeled after the old TV series, "This is Your Life")
JOSHUA – THIS IS YOUR LIFE
A favorite Bible character of mine.
The story picks up in Exodus 24:9 (read through verse 18).
Joshua was with Moses as they descended the mountain and found the Golden Calf being worshiped in the camp.
Intimate relationship between God, Moses, and Joshua – Exodus 33:7-11.
The most famous of reports – Numbers 13-14 (read 14:6 through verse 9)
Caleb & Joshua are sole survivors of plague against the spies.
40 Years in the Wilderness – the passing of generations
Numbers 27 – Moses lays hands on Joshua, and pronounces him the next leader of Israel.
Don’t miss this – Joshua spent the entire 40 years in the wilderness with Israel.
Our "want it now" society often misses the journey God will take us on to prepare us for His mission.
- Moses
- Joseph
- David
- Even Jesus!
TWO QUICK COMMUNITY OF FAITH LESSONS:
1. Our faith, or lack there of, impacts each of us. We are not an island. N.T. Examples of Jesus healing (Luke 5:20, Matthew 13:58)
2. The lack of faith of those around us does not change God’s call upon us. Example of Pastoral Call.
God’s sense of humor – Moses & Joshua presented before God
God’s Future Forecast - Deuteronomy 31:14 (read through verse 18)
Moses continues the vision – Deuteronomy 31:24 (read through verse 29)
Joshua must be thinking, “I can’t wait to be in charge!”
Moses dies – Deuteronomy 34:5 (read through verse 9)
The stage is set. Leadership has changed hands. After more than forty years, Joshua is finally going to enter the promised land.
The heart of the passage – Joshua 1:1 (read through verse 9)
Six lessons from this passage. It should probably be six sermons with one lesson, but the calendar does not afford me that much time. So we will get them on paper, and I’ll encourage you to reflect and explore each of them deeper in your personal Bible Study, or maybe even in your Connection Groups.
First one, verse 2 says, “Now Moses My servant is dead.”
I am not trying to be disrespectful, but could God have said anything more obvious at this point? Does anyone in the nation not know that Moses is dead? Is Joshua, his closes confident, not aware that Moses has passed? Why in the world would God even bring it up again?
Let me suggest one possible reason. One reason might be that God knows us well. And he knows that. . .
1. WE KNOW THE PAST IS PAST, BUT SOMETIMES WE HAVE TO BE REMINDED.
Because you can’t live in the past, while walking in the present. We, humans, and we, the church, have proven time and time again that we are not capable of spanning time with our mindsets and actions.
Paul’s words to the Philippians.
If we live in the past, we miss the present and have no hope for the future.
If we live in the future, opportunities that are right in front of us pass us by, and we fail to learn from past mistakes.
Ever heard the quote, "Some people are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good."
Don’t get me wrong. As we embark on another conference year, we can celebrate what God has done in our history. We can envision what He wants to do through us in the future. But we better not get so consumed with the past or the future that we fail to be active in the present.
After 40 years of wandering God says, “Moses is dead. Now it’s time to move.”
Lesson number two. . .the rest of verse 2 (read). Lesson number two. . .
2. YOU HAVE TO GO TO THE LAND, TO POSSES THE LAND
That was the call God put on my heart, while sitting in the little town of Bartlesville, OK, back in November of 2003. God called me to go to the land of central Kentucky. To cross over to the land He desired to give to us.
You don’t have to agree with me on this. You don’t have to buy into this. But I sure hope you will. I believe that is a promise God wants to give our church today. A promise that if we will go to the land, we will posses the land. And the land is the city and lost souls of Lexington, central Kentucky.
Anyone remember that great baseball movie “Field of Dreams?” What was the famous line from that movie? "If you build it, they will come.”
I think churches today are operating more as “Field of Dreams” than as the army of God. That is why most of our dreams never seem to become reality.
“If you build it, they will come.” That isn’t how the church is supposed to operate. That isn’t how God provides promises in His word. He doesn’t declare, if you build something great, they will come to you. He says, “If you go, I will give you the land.”
Churches today say they have a heart for the lost, and a heart for their cities. And they say you can testify to that because of the great children’s ministry facilities they have invested in. Or because they are building a vibrant youth ministry. Or because they offer a great, modern worship experience. Or they point to countless other things that they are doing on their campuses that point to the heart for the lost, and their heart for the cities.
But they are all efforts, and most of our efforts and dollars are spent trying to build something that they, those people out there, will want to come to.
That isn’t the method of possessing the land that you find in the Old Testament. It isn’t even the method of reaching the lost that you read about in the New Testament. Remember Luke 15 – going to find the lost sheep, searching for the lost coin, the prodigals father running out to meet him.
Later on Paul getting on ships and sailing the seas in search of new works, new opportunities, the chance to reach new cities with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are to go to the land that God desires to give us, and then He will enable us to posses it.
You have to go to the land to posses it.
Now, as we venture further into this chapter we begin to see a repeat of the mindset, the mental approach we are to take while going into the land. And we see this phrase, or a variation of it multiple times, “be strong and of good courage.”
So before we look at these occurrences of this phrase, we need to know what these words mean. How do we go into the land “strong and courageously?”
That first word, strong. It means, “to prevail. . .win. To press. Be urgent.” One of the most common translations of this Hebrew word is to “hold” or “take hold of.”
If you think about the context of the day, it only makes sense that this word would be a battle word. A warfare word. It is about victory. It is about taking hold of something. Winning it. Conquering it.
This is where spiritual competitive language is okay. It is us against the enemy.
When God begins to repeat this idea of being strong, He is saying, "Win the battles. Take the land. Prevail. Enough wandering and wondering. It is time to press in with a sense of urgency until the land is yours. Be strong."
And it gets partnered with this other word – courage. The most common translation of this word is “strong”. Almost a redundancy. Why? To emphasize the importance of being strong.
Then some others translations of this word include to be bold and brave. One of my favorite translations is to be determined.
This is how we are to enter the land. This is how we are to go in to the city. A totally different contrast to the approach and mentality of the other people when Joshua and Caleb first spied out the land. There was no strength or courage in that scene, so God gave them a 40 year vacation in the wilderness. Now God says, let’s try this again.
Dutch Streets has a book entitled “Authority in Prayer: Praying with Power and Purpose.” How’s that for a good title. You may hear more about this book during our fall 40 Days of Prayer which is going to be centered around the Power of Prevailing Prayer. But in this book he writes, “The church of Christ is not supposed to be a group of harmless, irrelevant, mind-your-own-business worshippers who gather once a week, tucked away from anything public, just to practice their form of religion. Nothing could be more unbiblical. The purpose behind this satanically inspired dogma is to keep the Church from being the Church - the ekklesia.”
You know what that word for the church, the ekklesia, means? It is a derivative of two Greek words. . .ek and kalew, which literally translated means called out. It is the body of Christ, called out. Out from our walls. Out from our buildings. Out from our comfort zones. Called out to go and posses the land.
So God calls us out to take the land with strength and courage. We will look at the remaining four lessongs from this passage next week.
