Running From Victory Series

Note: Glory Days by Max Lucado was used as a reference for this message.

Title: Running From Victory

Theme: Show how God has already given us the victory, we don’t need to go after it and fight for it, it is ours.

Text: Joshua 1:1 – 6

Prayer Time

Prayer Time – Don’t Just Bow Down

Revelation 19:9 Then he said to me, "Write: 'Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb!' " And he said to me, "These are the true sayings of God. 10 And I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, "See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy."

Don’t get so distracted by the activities that you miss who we came to worship. It is easy to worship the music or the people or the preaching. How do we know? By that which distracts us or makes us angry. That which affects us.

Offering

Jos 1:1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord,

I wonder how this must have felt to Joshua. Moses had led this nation for 40 years.

Deuteronomy 34:10-12 sums it up, “ But since then there has not arisen in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, (11) in all the signs and wonders which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, before Pharaoh, before all his servants, and in all his land, (12) and by all that mighty power and all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.”

Joshua was now charged with the task to lead. What was he going to do? Was he going to spend time mourning or being upset?

it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying:

Joshua 1:2 "Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them--the children of Israel.

Reasons that Joshua can say “I can’t”

#1 Moses is dead

# 2 These people that he was to lead in an war torn land was not soldiers

# 3 The Canaanites eat people like breakfast

Joshua never declared defeat not only because of who he was; 12 spies sent in and only 2 said lets take the land Joshua and Caleb. But mostly because who God is.

Listen to these words again, “to the land which I am giving them – the children of Israel”

Joshua was not afraid because he was courageous but because God was bigger.

“Greater is He that is in me, than he that is in the world”.

I am great when I have God in me.

It was done. This land was a gift from God.

Jos 1:3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. 4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. 5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

Did you get that word? This is why Joshua could stand firm in the face of the enemy. When things seemed to be impossible. This one word “inheritance”.

Did you know this word appears nearly sixty times in Joshua alone.

Over and over again God commands His children possess the land.

Nothing has changed. IF you are a child of God you have been given an inheritance.

Ephesians 1:3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,

In Christ

This may be the best kept secret of Christiandom Some Christians view conversion as just a removal of sin. You go in as a mess full of sin and come out cleansed and that is it. But I am here to tell you that when you became a part of the kingdom Christ gave you power. Freedom. Hope. And inheritance in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.