It's Time to Move

It’s Time to Move

Joshua 1:1-9

What is your New Years resolution? What are your personal goals for 2024? According to USA Today the most popular New Years resolutions are always the same. People want to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthier, and spend more time with family and friends. All those things are great but where does your relationship with God fit in to that?

Are all your goals in life physical desires that come and go with each passing year, or do you have spiritual goals? Do you have goals of living a life of meaning and purpose. Do you have goals of drawing near to God and growing in a relationship with Him?

Some suggestions I have is, maybe you resolve to read through the bible in 2024. There are a lot of good reading plans out there and if you dedicate yourself, in about ten minutes a day, you could read through the entire bible.

Or what about spending more time with God in prayer? There is a lot of good Christian literature on prayer, and you would be amazed at what spending a few quiet moments with God at the beginning of each day will do for your spiritual health and well-being.

Or what about becoming intentional in sharing your faith. What if you looked for opportunities to tell someone about Jesus and the difference He has made in your life.

You see there are a lot of things we could make a resolution to do in the coming year, but unless God is included in your plan, it’s not going to have any eternal significance.

It’s time to move. It’s time to step out in faith and without fear claim the promises of God for your life. That is what we are going to see in this story. God commands Joshua to step out in faith and lead the children of Israel into the promise land. Joshua had to trust God’s plan for his life. He is an example for all of us who want a deeper more meaningful relationship with God. (Read)

1 Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ servant, saying,

2 “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.

3 “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses.

4 “From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the Great Sea toward the setting of the sun will be your territory.

5 “No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you; I will not fail you or forsake you.

6 “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.

7 “Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go.

8 “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.

9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” (Pray)

In our passage this morning, the children of Israel have come to the edge of the promise land for the second time. They now stand with their feet firmly planted on the east side of the Jordan river. They are looking across into God’s promises for their life. Forty years earlier, after they were delivered from slavery in Egypt, Moses led them to this very spot, but they were too afraid to go in.

God’s promise was that He was going to give them the land as an inheritance. All they needed to do was to go in and possess it, but instead they did nothing, and they ended up wandering in the wilderness for forty years and dying. Only Caleb and Joshua from that generation were still alive.

Now their children have the same decision to make. Will they trust God’s plan, or will they allow fear to prevent them from moving forward? Well, we have that same decision to make every day.

I pray your New Years resolution would be to trust God’s plan for your life. To step out in faith and without fear claim His promises. But, to do that there are some things we need to understand about God’s plan. I want to give you 4 examples from this passage of things we need to understand.

1. We need to understand God’s plan does not depend on other people, Vs. 1-2. God had a plan for Joshua’s life. And it didn’t depend on Moses. It depended on Joshua’s ability to trust God and trust himself. And the same thing is true in your life and mine.

Notice, twice in these verses, God tells Joshua Moses is dead. As if Joshua didn’t know that, by the time we come to the book of Joshua, the children of Israel had been mourning the death of Moses for 30 days. He passed away at the end of the previous chapter in the book of Deuteronomy. God allowed Moses to see the promise land, but he wasn’t allowed to go in.

That’s important because that tells us the way Joshua felt. He was afraid, He felt all alone, he felt inadequate to do what God was calling him to do. And we see that later in the passage when God must encourage him with the three-fold command to be strong and courageous.

But you can’t blame Joshua Moses was a strong leader and the people depended on him; Joshua depended on him. How could Joshua ever live up to the man Moses had been?

Don’t forget it was Moses who stood up to Pharoah in Egypt, the most powerful man in the world and said, let my people go.” It was Moses who God used to part the Red Sea, and then drown the Egyptian army. It was Moses who climbed to the top of Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments. It was Moses who received the instructions from God and built the tabernacle in the wilderness. It was Moses who prayed and interceded for the people every time they got in trouble and turned their backs on God.

But now Moses was dead, and it was time for Joshua to lead, and he had to trust God and he had to trust himself. For some of you here today it’s time for you to lead. It’s time for you to step out in faith and be courageous, and do what God is calling you to do.

When I was a young man in the faith, I attended the same church where my dad had been the Pastor. He was a respected man of God and there was a certain amount of respect that came from being his son. But it didn’t take long for people to figure out I wasn’t my dad. And the time came when I had to own my own faith.

And the same thing is true in each one of our lives. No one can live for God for you. When you go to the bank and take out a loan, they don’t expect someone else to make the payment. Well in the same way God doesn’t expect someone else to read your Bible, or to do your praying.

Listen, it is good to have mentors. It’s good to have people we respect and look up to. But we tend to rely on other people too much. You must own your faith, because there are battles in this life to be fought that only you can fight.

Notice the main idea in this text is that God spoke to Joshua. We don’t know how God spoke. In the Old Testament God would speak through visions and dreams and sometimes He would speak audibly, but what’s important for us is what God said. He said “arise.” In other words, get up, get moving. The time for sitting around Joshua is over. And the same thing is true for us.

We need to become intentional about living for God. And what better time to start than right now. The new year is like a new chapter in life. It gives us the opportunity to be committed to serving the Lord. So, the first thing we need to understand is God’s plan doesn’t depend on other people.

2. We need to understand God’s plan does not change, in Vs. 3-4. What we see in these verses, is God telling Joshua the boundaries of the land He is going to give them. And essentially, there are no boundaries. That’s what He means by the land of the Hittites. At one time the ancient Hittite empire ruled over that part of the world.

So, God tells Joshua, “Everywhere you put your foot down as a nation is going to belong to you. From the north to the south, and from the east to the west, from the river Euphrates to the Mediterranean sea. It is all going to be your land.”

This was a promise God made to Abraham nearly 800 years earlier. Before Israel was ever a nation God promised the land to Abraham’s descendants.

But why is that important for Joshua to know at this moment? Well because Joshua’s circumstances had changed. And he needed to know God’s plan had not changed.

When our circumstances in life change, we often fail to trust God. And God wanted Joshua to know and us today that He is unchanging. No matter what is going on in the world around us God is the one constant we can rely on.

Just like every day you wake up, you can count on the sun rising in the East and setting in the West, you can count on the promises of God. They were true yesterday, they will be true today, and they will be true tomorrow.

Psalm 46 says, “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; Though its waters roar and foam, Though the mountains quake at its swelling pride. There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, The holy dwelling places of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she will not be moved.”

What the Psalmist wanted us to know is no matter what is going on in the world around us it doesn’t change who God is. God will always be God!!

So, as we look at everything that is going on in our world; the war overseas, the attacks on our faith, the protests in the streets, we don’t need to worry or be afraid. We can trust the plan of God because it does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

3. We need to understand God provides the power to accomplish His plan, Vs. 5-6. Have you notice, throughout this passage God doesn’t give Joshua an explanation of how he is going to accomplish this. God doesn’t give us explanations. He gives us promises and expects us to trust Him and step out in faith.

God never intended Joshua to rely on himself to accomplish anything. God was going to conquer the enemy. God was going to fight the battle.

Notice what He says in Vs. 5. “No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.” God is the one doing the conquering. And by no man, God means no army, no people are going to prevent you from accomplishing my plan. What a promise from God that for the rest of your life Joshua, you will never be defeated.

This was important to Joshua because he had been to the promise land. When he was young, he was one of twelve spies Moses sent into the land. Joshua knew the land was full of fortified cities and battle-hardened armies. He knew that God’s plan for the people was going to be difficult. God had to reassure Joshua the battle belongs to Me, not you.

He reassures us of the same thing today. The Apostle Paul write in Romans 8, “If God be for us who can be against us, and we are more than conquerors through Him who loves us.” Jesus Himself said, “In this world you will have trouble but be of good cheer I have overcome the world.’ And when we put our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, there is nothing in this world that we can not overcome.

Notice the promise of God’s presence at the end of Vs. 5, he says, “I will not fail you or forsake you.” Whenever God gives us a command or calls us to do something, it is always accompanied by a promise. God’s promise to Joshua was that he would always be with him. He would never have to go through it alone.

This is a promise that is true to us today. Jesus is Emanuel, God with us. He said in Matt. 28, “Lo I am with you always even to the ends of the earth,” and the author of the book of Hebrews quotes this very verse in Hebrews 13:5. God says, I will never leave you or forsake you. God’s promise to us is that He will accomplish His plan.

I can’t help but think about how this reminds me of when I was a teenager growing up in Dearborn Heights. I had a group of friends that would go to the park, and we would challenge kids from other neighborhoods to basketball games, or any other kind of sporting event. It didn’t matter because we knew we were going to win.

But it wasn’t because me and my friends were good at sports. It was because one my friends was a kid named Jerry Foster. And Jerry was about 6’3 and 230 pounds in the 7th grade. It didn’t matter what we were playing. If Jerry was on your team you couldn’t lose. Well, the same thing is true about God. When God is on your team you can’t lose. It doesn’t matter what you face in life you have already won the game. We need to understand that God provides the power to accomplish His plan.

4. We need to understand the requirements of God’s plan, vs. 7-9. What does God require of us? “Be strong and courageous.” Three times God gives Joshua this command, and each time it is progressive in nature. In other words, each time God gives Joshua a little more instruction of how He expects him to be strong and courageous.

This word “strong” in the Greek means to seize, to grasp, to take hold of, and the word “courage” is to be brave and to prove yourself. God is literally telling Joshua and us today to seize the moment and prove yourselves. But prove yourselves to be what?

Faithful and obedient to the Word of God. Look at verse 7, He says, “be careful to do according to all that is written in the Law.” When the Bible speaks of the law it’s talking about the Word of God. All that Joshua had was the first five books of the Bible. The books written by Moses. We call those the books of the law.

Today we have the complete revelation of God’s Word. If we want to know who God is and what He thinks about any given subject, we have the scripture.

Notice in Vs. 8, Joshua is given three imperatives that are just as important for us today. He says, “Don’t let this Word depart from your mouth, meditate on it night and day, and be careful to do all that is written in it.” In other words, we are to speak the Word of God, pray the Word of God, and practice the Word of God.

(Jesus, Matt. 28:20. Paul, 1 Thessalonians 5:17 James 1:22.)

Notice the end of Vs. 8. Again, God follows His command with a promise. He says, If we put the Word of God into practice, It will make our way prosperous and then you will have success. Now this doesn’t mean we are going to be successful by the standards of the world. That is not the way that God operates. But what this means is you will have treasures in heaven. It means you will one day hear “job well done good and faithful servant.” And that is the kind of success we should be searching for.

So, in closing today I want to challenge you to make your new year’s resolution to trust the plan of God. Step out in faith and without fear claim His promises for your life. I gave you four examples of things we need to understand.

1. We need to understand that God’s plan doesn’t depend on other people. It is up to you to own your faith. It is up to you to live for God.

2. We need to understand that God’s plan does not change. He is the solid rock of stability we can cling to when the whole world is falling apart.

3. We need to understand that God’s plan is accomplished in His power. God doesn’t need me to accomplish His plan, but He invites me to come along for the ride and enjoy the victory.

4. We need to understand that God’s plan has a requirement. It requires courage and faithfulness to His Word.

So, as we begin this New Year, it’s time to move. It’s time to be committed to living for God.

the question is how will you do that? Will you look to the cross? Will you seek forgiveness and grace? Because that is the place to start.