Joshua 1:1-9

Transcript

Good morning. It is certainly great to be back here at CCBC, and as I look around, I can’t help but notice a definite change to the sanctuary where I grew up attending every Sunday. The carpet has been updated. Large televisions now adorn the walls to display Powerpoint presentations. I parked this morning on a smooth parking lot where I remember a large jungle gym used to sit, next to a gym that used to have chain link fences instead of walls. I jokingly said to a friend of mine recently, “Times change, and I seldom do.” And I wonder if you are like me.

Certainly some change is incredibly exciting. You may think back to the newness of your marriage, or the delivery of your firstborn, or the day your youngest child finally left the house. Or if you’re younger, you may think of the freshness of a new grade, or the birth of a younger sibling, or a first date as an exciting change. Or, if you’re me, you wait in eager anticipation for the new Mountain Dew flavor that releases every Summer, Halloween, and Christmas. And to be clear: all of these changes are good, but we often find ourselves all too resistant to change. How often do our new year’s resolutions start off well-intentioned only to be dropped by mid-February? How many times have we told ourselves that this time we are going to finally quit that bad habit, read our Bibles and pray every day, be more patient with those we love? And how many of these promises have we promised before? The reality is that all too often you and I are resistant to change when we find ourselves content in whatever lot we find ourselves in.

I think the changes that I mentioned earlier are things that we’re excited for because we so quickly see the benefit, and it is so great that any drawback is minimized in our own minds. But if the good is not so immediately evident, I do wonder if you are like me in saying to yourself, “Times change, and I seldom do.”

Our passage this morning is in the book of Joshua, chapter 1, verses 1 through 9. Perhaps you are familiar with verse 9, which is often quoted as a means of encouragement. But looking at the entire passage, we’re going to see the result of past consequences, a future commitment, and a present commission for the people of Israel before they possess what the Lord has given them. Let’s read the text together.

“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, ‘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. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. 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. 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. Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do 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. 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. 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.’”

It’s remarkable how this passage begins in what could be seen as very bleak circumstance. “After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord.” Can you imagine how unenviable a position Joshua must have found himself in? Moses, as you recall, had been leading Israel through the exodus of Egypt. He had given the people God’s Word at Sinai. He had been with them throughout their forty years of wandering. He had judged for the people, chastised the people for lack of obedience, been the mouthpiece of God. In fact, if we go back just one page to the last few verses of Deuteronomy, here is what is said of Moses (Deut. 42:10-12): “Since that time no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, for all the sign and wonders which the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, all his servants, and all his land, and for all the mighty power and for all the great terror which Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.” This Moses, of whom all this is spoken of, is now dead. And suddenly it’s Joshua’s turn to lead. Any volunteers to eagerly swap places?

Perhaps as I described such a circumstance you began to feel anxious as the weight of what all it entailed set in. And I do wonder if that anxiety is a new feeling, or one with which you find yourself well-acquainted. Does the thought of a firstborn child born to you fill you with a sense that you have no idea what you are doing? Do more responsibilities that come with a promotion at work give you cause to be restless? The reality of our newfound responsibilities are often cause for great concern, and if we’re honest with ourselves, perhaps we find ourselves content to remain as we are, if only to not have to deal with such an expression of anxiety. If that is you this morning, let me assure you: there are others like you.

These circumstances described in Joshua chapter 1 are not simply the product of some great man doing great things. They’re the product of God enabling a man to be great, and do great things as God has commanded and ordained. We have much to gain when we realize that we serve a Lord who is in control. There is a great sense of relief when we look back at the words and works of Moses knowing that the Lord knew from the moment of the exodus that it would be Joshua who would be standing before Israel in this moment before the promised land, not Moses. It is not always the case that we understand why the Lord does what He does. But the cure for anxiety in light of frightening circumstances is the realization that it is the Lord who is sovereign, and no man. We find confirmation of this reassuring fact in the latter half of the first verse. Look with me now. “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.”

Any hesitation, any doubt, and fear was undoubtedly washed away when the Lord Himself confirmed that He had ordained for Joshua to lead Israel at this time. God had given Joshua both the wisdom to listen, and the words of comfort he needed. One commentator put it this way: “When God’s servants take time to listen, He always communicates.” That Joshua heard the voice of the Lord before this great commission was a confirmation that he was exactly where the Lord wanted him to be. This principle is true of life. The Word of God can always be used to confirm whether or not we stand within the Lord’s will. The Lord spoke to Joshua, and His first few words were an acknowledgement of the change of circumstance. “Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise.” God Himself acknowledges the transition. He was fully aware of the difficulty that Joshua was undoubtedly wrestling with, and reminds him that it is He who is in control. Moses’ death did not take the Lord by surprise. The Lord could have very well chosen to continue to use Moses, whose eyes had not yet dimmed nor had his vigor abated, though he was 120 years old. Yet the Lord saw fit to use Joshua, and in His kindness He reminds Joshua that it is He who was in control.

What we see in the remaining verses is the Lord reminding Joshua of a threefold promise intermingled with a threefold call to action. Let’s take a look at verse 2. The Lord says, “Moses, my servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving them, to the sons of Israel. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. 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. 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.” Did you catch the threefold promise?

The most obvious of the three is the promise of the land. There’s a remarkable detail here that you might miss if you don’t read carefully. The promise of the land as given to the sons of Israel from the Lord is conveyed in the past tense in verse 3. “I have given it to you.” It’s conveyed in the present tense in verse 2. “Which I am giving to them.” And it’s conveyed in the future tense in verse 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.” This land had been promised to Abraham all the way back in Genesis 15, and this promise was reiterated to Moses in Deuteronomy 1. Israel had been foreigners their entire history, and the time had finally come for the Lord to deliver them their promised inheritance. And what certainty must have been conveyed that the land was theirs that the Lord saw fit to convey it in all three tenses! Though the land was theirs already, the Lord was currently in the process of delivering it to them, so that they would possess it in the future. Before them all was the culmination of the promises of God’s blessing, and God was calling them to action to take what He had given to them.

Second, God promised stability. For this entire generation, none would be able to stand against Joshua and the Israelites. There were battles and conquests set before this generation. The people of the land were not keen to simply hand over their land, livestock, winepresses, and fortified cities to the Israelites. It was this intimidation by the current occupants that disqualified the Israelites of a prior generation to occupy the land themselves. If you’ll recall, Joshua himself was one of only two spies that had scoped out the land with all its benefits who encouraged the former generation of Israel to go in and conquer the land. The rest of the congregation of Israel were ready to abandon God and return to Egypt, and their punishment came in the form of the forty years of wandering until they had all died off. Remarkably, the Lord gives this new generation a reassurance that the fear of their parents was for naught. None would be able to stand against them, and they would see success in their endeavors. What a grand display of the Lord’s patience in this moment. He tells the sons of Israel that they need not worry about that which their parents could not get over. They would prevail. And why would they prevail? Because of the Lord’s third promise.

The Lord Himself would be with them. And to be clear, this was not a new promise. Just as the Lord had been with the prior generation, just as the Lord had been with Moses, so too would He be with Joshua. Had the Israelites initially been obedient back in Numbers 14, all of these promises would undoubtedly have come to pass a generation earlier. God’s presence was no new thing. He had led the congregation of the sons of Israel in a pillar of cloud and fire. They had built Him a tabernacle so that He could have a dwelling place that was close to His people. The Lord’s reminder came in a moment of great anticipation of what was to come, and the sons of Israel needed to understand why they would be able to stand firm under opposition. Put simply, the Lord was for them, and no man could be against them.

It can often be difficult to live in light of God’s promises, and when reading texts like these, it’s tempting to see God’s direct speech to Joshua as an unattainable familiarity that enables faith. But the reality could not be farther from the truth. If you’re here this morning and are a Christian, God is present with you unlike a way He was with Joshua. His Word, His promises, are readily available to you through the Bible, and His Spirit resides within you, ready to remind you of the promises of God. What we find within the words of Scripture is a God who is consistently portraying Himself as a God who loves to be trusted, a God who is faithful to do all that He has said, just as He has promised. The older I’ve gotten, the more I’ve come to love hymns. And there’s a hymn that I grew up singing here at CCBC that I thought summed up exactly this point. Verse 2 says this, “Standing on the promises that cannot fail, when the howling storms of doubt and fear assail, by the living Word of God I shall prevail, standing on the promises of God.” If we trust that God is faithful to His Word, we will always come to realize how things work for His glory and our good. There exists no circumstance so dire that the Lord is unable to sovereignly work it for His purposes, and if we recognize that, our perspectives can more easily shift from an earthly one to a heavenly one.

Joshua and the sons of Israel did not stand on the other side of the Jordan without hope and purpose. They stood there clinging ardently to the promises of the One who had delivered them before, and would deliver them again. They had the very words of God to be their confidence. How much more then, do you and I have confidence that the Lord will be faithful to us? He who promised the sons of Israel land, stability, and His presence has promised us life and life abundant and eternal because of His Son. We can stand in confidence that when the Lord looks upon us and our sin, He sees only the covering blood of Christ. If you’re here this morning and you’re not a Christian, I implore you to reflect upon what it could look like to have the confidence of Joshua and the Israelites for a far greater promise than occupying land. Just like another hymn that we sing here states, “Sin and despair like the sea-waves cold threaten the soul with infinite loss; grace that is greater - yes, grace untold - points to the Refuge, the mighty Cross. Marvelous, infinite, matchless grace, freely bestowed to all who believe! All who are longing to see His face, will you this moment His grace receive?”

For those who are here this morning of which that is already true, we too have instructions from this text. Though God is faithful to His promises, we see starting in verse 6 that God has expectations for those whom He will bless. Let’s look at the text again. “Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. 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. 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. 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.”

After a threefold promise, the Lord gives to Joshua a threefold commission on what he should do. With the whole expanse of the promised land before them, these are the final words from the Lord to the people, those crucial words that they should have in the back of their minds as they proceed. First, to be strong and courageous. This command is the only of the three to be repeated multiple times, and one has to wonder if this repetition is meant to counteract Israel’s fearful reluctance that they had previously displayed. The Lord had already previously promised the people that He would be with them, and though a repeated command to be courageous and strong may seem gratuitously repetitive, if one sees it instead out of an overflow of the Lord’s kindness, it makes sense that the Lord would want to emphasize this. Lest we forget, the Lord had brought the previous generation out of slavery because He saw their afflictions and heard their groaning. The Lord took no delight in their perishing in the wilderness. And so it is fitting here that He would give reminders of His faithfulness and direct commands to take heart. The Lord delights in blessing those whom He loves. It’s clear that the Lord desired to make for Himself a people out of Israel, and in this pivotal step of establishing that nation, the Lord, knowing the fragility of the people, is kind in His giving of reminders and encouragements. When we are discouraged, the Lord encourages us. When we are fickle, He is faithful. We see this time and time again in Scripture, finally culminating in the death of Christ upon the cross. The Lord gives gentle reminders that He will fight for His people, they need only be strong and courageous in the face of odds that seem insurmountable to the human eye.

Next the Lord calls for obedience. And importantly, this command has the consequences announced with it. “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.” The Lord is good and just when He punishes, but retaliation is not the heart of the warning. It is not so much, “If you do this, then I will do this,” but more that “when you do this, the natural consequences are this.” Obedience yields blessing because the Lord knows what is best for His people. Disobedience yields failure because the Lord has already revealed the way to success. There’s a well-known story arc in the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes” where young Calvin locks his babysitter Rosalyn out of the house. Naturally, when Calvin’s parents get back, they’re furious. But listen to what Calvin’s mom, in the midst of her anger, says to her son. She says, “Listen closely. Locking Rosalyn out of the house wasn’t just mean, it was dangerous. If you hurt yourself or if there was a fire, she wouldn’t have been able to help you.” Disobedience is often dangerous because the natural consequences of disobedience rarely announce themselves prior to their arrival. As Charles Ryrie put it, “Every warning God gives comes from an omniscient Being, so we should be extremely sensitive to them. He does not warn us on the basis of only guessing what might happen. He knows.”

Finally, the Lord calls for the discipline required to be obedient. He gives them the means by which they can know how to be obedient, and it’s by constant meditation on His Word. There is a world of difference between knowingly disobeying an explicit command and unknowingly disobeying an implicit command. Having been raised in my mom’s house for all of my childhood, I understand what is meant when she says causally, “The dogs haven’t been let out in a while,” or “the trash is getting pretty full.” These statements on their own carry no weight of expectation, but because I know and love my mother, I understand that she is prompting me to act without being directly asked. Unfortunately for my younger brother who moved in after I had gone to college, this form of communication was foreign to him. To him my mother’s observations were simply observations. She could have said, “It looks like it’s going to rain,” for all the good these comments did. And she would get frustrated when the dogs would remain cooped up, and the trash would remain full. I had to explain to my mother that if she were explicit in her communication, my brother would know what expectations are laid upon him. And here the Lord is giving the formula for knowing what His explicit expectations are! He does not expect us to know His character and will without it first being revealed to us in His Word. In fact, He commands us to read His Word, meditate upon His Word, be transformed by His Word. It is only through knowing God’s Word that we can know what God expects of us, and so obedience requires discipline.

As a teenager I often set lofty new year’s resolutions to read my Bible more. But let me give a word of caution. It’s admirable and right for you to want to read your Bible more. But you have to build discipline before you can expect consistency. Ask any teenager that’s gone to church camp how far motivation can get you alone when it comes to Bible reading. My advice is start at a manageable pace, to read consistently around the same amount each day until the habit is well established before adding more discipline. And for those who are already in God’s Word daily, here are a few practical ways to mediate on it. You can commit it to memory. Christ had Scripture memorized, and it served Him well in the time of His temptation. You can read it multiple times. You can think of cross-references, where else Scripture speaks to the same issue. If you’re not a fan of new year’s resolutions, I implore you to think about if all you knew about God’s Word was that which you read last year, and if that would tell you what you need to know about who God is and what He expects.

And finally, the Lord gives to Joshua one more promise at the end of our passage. “The Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” What an incredible promise. The Lord is with us when we walk through the good and the bad of life. We can always count on Him to be faithful to His Word. So to those who, like me, think to themselves, “Times change, and I seldom do,” consider this new year what offers the promises of God have to shape your life, and how His commands enable you to live a life more pleasing to Him. Let’s pray.