Finishing Strong
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We ended in Joshua 10 and we that Joshua is a picture of Jesus!
From Joshua 10:28 - Joshua 12, we see a summary of conquests.
When we get to Joshua 13, then we begin a new section of Joshua, where Joshua is now tasked with dividing the land that they have conqured.
But Joshua is nearing the end of his life and there is a lot to do…and in this chapter we see God implore him to finish strong…and there are three principles that we can glean from this text.
I want to say briefly, that this is a written account of the history of Israel. It doesn’t apply to the New Testament church. However, when we see what God is saying in the Old Testament, there are times when we can view that on the other side of the cross.
That is, we can see what God was doing then, and with sound and biblical application, we can make it useful for us in the New Testament Church. So it’s not that the promise of Canaan or the instruction that God gave Joshua are the instructions for us, but if we will apply Godly wisdom, we can see how God is teaching us from the failures and successes of the past.
The first principle I want you to see is…
I. Urgency
I. Urgency
Joshua at this point is old. And so God says, “Joshua, you are old.” Joshua says, “thank you Lord.”
God tells Joshua that he is advanced in years because Joshua still has a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to get it done!
Now Joshua was old, advanced in years. And the Lord said to him: “You are old, advanced in years, and there remains very much land yet to be possessed.
Joshua had a calling to fulfill. He was running out of time. He needed to act with urgency.
What was the job?
This is the land that yet remains: all the territory of the Philistines and all that of the Geshurites,
from Sihor, which is east of Egypt, as far as the border of Ekron northward (which is counted as Canaanite); the five lords of the Philistines—the Gazites, the Ashdodites, the Ashkelonites, the Gittites, and the Ekronites; also the Avites;
from the south, all the land of the Canaanites, and Mearah that belongs to the Sidonians as far as Aphek, to the border of the Amorites;
the land of the Gebalites, and all Lebanon, toward the sunrise, from Baal Gad below Mount Hermon as far as the entrance to Hamath;
all the inhabitants of the mountains from Lebanon as far as the Brook Misrephoth, and all the Sidonians—them I will drive out from before the children of Israel; only divide it by lot to Israel as an inheritance, as I have commanded you.
There was the land left to be conquered. There was the land left to be divided.
A. Commendation
A. Commendation
In the opening verse, God tells Joshua that he is running out of time. It could be that God is reminding Joshua that he won’t be in charge forever.
Our lives pass us by far too quickly. When we have the time it appears that we look around and see things unfinished.
But I want you to take heart, because life passing by to quickly is not an end to the work that God is doing and it isn’t an end to the work God wants us to do.
B. Keeping the vision
B. Keeping the vision
When God sent Joshua out, he gave Joshua four encouragements.
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.
Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go.
This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
and now God is reminding Joshua about the work that God gave him to do. He is in effect telling Joshua, “Keep the vision that I gave you.”
Don’t give up! Don’t get side tracked! You are advanced in years and now it’s time to live with some urgency.
And whether we want to apply this to our physical ages or if we want to apply it to the time in which we live, we need to act with urgency. The work that is required of us is great, and the time is short. God is ready at any moment to return and to take us home, and we have much land that needs to be possessed.
We have to keep this vision in mind as we pass through life like sand through the palm of our hands, that we are commissioned and tasked with bringing light and truth into a dark and a dying world.
C. Walking With the Lord’s Strength
C. Walking With the Lord’s Strength
And our God is good. And He will strengthen us to complete the task just as He promised Joshua. That even as the days of Joshua were drawing to an end, Joshua could rely on the strength of God to carry him through.
God considers the frame of his people, and would not have them burdened with work above their strength.
Our Father knows us, and He knows our needs. And so whatever we walk through and wherever we are walking to, we can rest in assurance that God is going to strengthen us for the journey.
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’
For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Old Age
Old Age
There are some, who fit in the earthly category of Joshua. God has given you an assignment, and He has given you a vision. and you wonder if there is time enough for you to see it through. But the Bible doesn’t command us to worry about the fulfilment of these things. The Bible only instructs us to be faithful to what God is calling us to do in this present day.
The truth is that what God has put into our hearts and the vision we have for our life, in the life of our family, and in the life of our church may never meet our eyes, but we can safely trust that God is using us to move His plan forward. That God knows the intent of our heart and He knows that with each passing breath that we are faithful to Him.
And so many of you are.
When I began this message series on Joshua, I wanted to encourage those that would consider yourselves to be old that God is not done with you, and that God has already used you mightily in the life of this church. And even though I wasn’t here at the time, I often reflect on those who have passed through and gone to be with Jesus to consider their Godly and holy impact on the life of this community.
I like to envision those great giants they faced, those walls of Jericho they tore down, and those great battles they won. And I look around this church so often and I see generations of people stirred by the Spirit of God to carry the torch of faithfulness into the next generation.
I hear those children rumbling through the church and those babies crying and have a vision of a new generation of believers that must be trained and equipped to handle the responsibility that will be given to them.
I hope this book has been an encouragement to those who identify with Joshua when God tells him that he is old in age. But Joshua still has work to be done. He has new life there in that camp of Israel that must be fostered. He has land to conquer and he has land to divide. His work isn’t finished and neither is yours.
End of All Time
End of All Time
Then there are those who don’t consider themselves here at this present state with Joshua. Joshua was around 100 years old here.
But age isn’t the only factor as we are looking at this chapter on the other side of the cross. There is the reality that Jesus is coming again. There is the reality that people are lost and dying and many in the world are lost and dying. It may not be our task to save the entire world. We give and we send others out who have been tasked with that.
But the reality for us is that there are people in our community that still need to know Jesus Christ. I have seen it with my own eyes the spiritual starvation that exists here in our community. When I have the awesome privilege to share the gospel here on our campus, I know that God’s Holy Spirit is moving through this community.
It’s as the Bible says
Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.”
And we cannot be too long in reaching those around us.
As some of these older saints will testify, the time to say “I love you”, the time to say, “Jesus died for you,” comes and goes in the blink of an eye. Pretty soon we are old and without energy to share with passion and clarity those things that we know to be so true.
For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Joshua, here in chapter 13 knows this well. And I pray that we will be wise to acknowledge this to be true.
Jesus will come back at any moment. He gives us this somber warning and instruction.
“But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.
Take heed, watch and pray; for you do not know when the time is.
It is like a man going to a far country, who left his house and gave authority to his servants, and to each his work, and commanded the doorkeeper to watch.
Watch therefore, for you do not know when the master of the house is coming—in the evening, at midnight, at the crowing of the rooster, or in the morning—
lest, coming suddenly, he find you sleeping.
And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!”
That is to watch and to pray, expecting the Lord to return any moment.
God has given us this wonderful blessing we know as the church. The church is a lot of things, but most importantly for this message, it is the avenue in which we reach the lost with the truth of God’s word.
If we do not understand these truths, that life passes by far too quickly, and that our Master and Lord will also return quickly, then we run the risk of complacency.
Even now, it’s possible that some of you are not as passionate about seeing others come to know the Lord as you used to be. You’ve stopped inviting others to church, you’ve stopped sharing about the hope that is in you, you have neglected to make it your mission to seek and to save the lost.
In other regards, churches far too easily vacate their mission in this, and they begin to remodel their buildings and expand their storehouses for the benefit of the members and not as a testimony to the lost.
Our testimony to a lost and dying world is this, God loved us, and we love you, and we want you here. We are throwing a party for our Lord on Sunday and we want you to come!
When those that you have been inviting will not come, the Bible instructs us to go out and find anyone and everyone who will come to come.
Jesus said this about the Jewish nation, but it applies to us in principle:
Then the master said to the servant, ‘Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.
For I say to you that none of those men who were invited shall taste my supper.’ ”
The Jews rejected Jesus, and God gave the gospel to the Gentiles.
And my encouragement to you is to stop focusing on those who will not be wise and come to dine with us, and start going out to find those who will! The days are short, and the harvest is plentiful.
D. Defining Urgency
D. Defining Urgency
God informs Joshua that time is short. This should spur Joshua to have some urgency in his life.
Urgency does not mean to move quickly, frantically, or to live in a state of panic.
Urgency means to move with intense direction.
When a matter is urgent, we drop everything else we’re doing and take care of that situation.
Well, I am telling you now that winning the lost to Christ is urgent. And through this wonderful church, we are to accomplish nothing else other than reaching the lost and encouraging each other to reach them as well.
This comes through education, encouragement, fellowship, teaching, and preaching. It comes through programs and buildings, organization and process…but make no mistake that it is all about reaching the lost.
This is similar to the life of Joshua, he was organized, he was in command, he lead with a strong and mighty resolve…and yet God said, “there is much land yet to be possessed.”
Church, on this side of the cross, God is saying to us, “there are many souls yet to be won!”
Joshua is advanced in years and he needs urgency
II. Interruptions
II. Interruptions
There will always be interruptions, there will always be things that don’t according to plan. And at times when those things come, we must be sure that we are on the right side of God’s will and that we stay focused on the goal that God has set for us.
Now therefore, divide this land as an inheritance to the nine tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh.”
With the other half-tribe the Reubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses had given them, beyond the Jordan eastward, as Moses the servant of the Lord had given them:
A. The Tribes Left Behind
A. The Tribes Left Behind
It is unfortunate that two and one half tribes of Israel elected to stay on the east side of the Jordan in a place where they never fully entered into the promised land.
Their disobedience and lack of understanding was the gateway for all kinds of idol worship and contamination for the nation of Israel.
They didn’t trust that God’s plan was best, the Bible says in Numbers 32 that they determined the east of the Jordan would be best for them when God said that it was not.
As time unfolded, these nations were judged and destroyed, and only a remnant was left. There is a great danger in ignoring the calling and instruction of God.
And it was a great torment to the rest of the congregation when they decided to remain on the East side of the Jordan.
Such is life in the congregation of the New Testament. When one part of the congregation has a sincere desire to experience and live in the presence of God, there are those with the capability to hold them back and to contaminate the rest.
Let it not be so, but let us all have a desire to conquer the land that God has set before us.
B. Disobedience Within the Camp
B. Disobedience Within the Camp
Not only was it the restrictions that those other camps laid on them, we see the restricted blessings that Israel caused for themselves.
Nevertheless the children of Israel did not drive out the Geshurites or the Maachathites, but the Geshurites and the Maachathites dwell among the Israelites until this day.
Whenever sin and darkness is not purged from a place it will remain.
The only way to have true freedom and experience the full blessings of Christ is to completely finish the job.
God said that there was much land to conquer, and God told Joshua to clear the land from its inhabitants. But Joshua did not do this, and this shows us that even the most well-intentioned leaders and men of God can fail to accomplish what they set out to accomplish if they don’t fully devote themselves to God.
But it wasn’t just Joshua that felt the sting of this uncompleted job. It was all the nation of Israel.
When leadership fails, then the effects are felt in all the congregation. And when the congregation fails, the leadership bears the weight of being incomplete in their assignment.
And so, finishing strong is necessary in the all of our lives. That is, holding fast to the truth that Jesus Christ wants to totally drive out the darkness from us and that He wants to give us a rich inheritance that is unblemished by sin.
III. Provision
III. Provision
This deals with the priests of Israel. The tribe of Levi. Here on this side of the cross, we affirm that every believer is a priest and has access to God.
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
This is called in theological terms, The Priesthood of all Believers.
When Jesus died on the cross, the sky turned black, there was an earthquake, and the Bible says that the veil in the temple was torn in two.
This veil protected the presence of God from those who were not priests. But when Jesus died, He became our high priest, and now we act as priests and we pray to Him through the Holy Spirit without anyone else in the picture. The Priesthood of all Believers
In the book of Joshua, it is constantly mentioned that the tribe of Levi recieved no inheritance of land. This was because they were God’s priests of the Old Testament. And they didn’t need to be bothered with raising cattle and growing crops. Their work was a holy work and was to be dedicated to God.
God was their provider. And God was their inheritance.
Only to the tribe of Levi he had given no inheritance; the sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance, as He said to them.
A. God’s Provision For Priests
A. God’s Provision For Priests
Under the blood of Jesus, we are all priests. And as the Bible declares so many times, we don’t need to be caught in the affairs of the world.
No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.
Does that mean that we ought not work? Does that mean we ought not perform our civic duty? Absolutely not. What it means is that we have a job to do. We have been commissioned to reach lost souls, to die to ourselves, and to take nothing with us.
That’s so contrary to the world who is obsessed with all that they have. I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “The person who dies with the most toys wins.”
But the Bible calls us to something radically different. The Bible calls us to live humble and quiet lives, but taking every opportunity that we have to share the gospel. The Apostle Paul didn’t go out seeking prison and audiences with kings and dignitaries. But as God afforded him the opportunity to be there, he made sure to share the gospel.
I think about all these faithful men who have preached God’s word and have been in front of presidents and large arenas full of people…and any of them that bore any fruit didn’t get there because of ambition, they go there because the hand of God brought them there.
Let it be so in our lives. That we don’t simply wait for the opportune time to share the gospel, but that we share the gospel regardless of the stage or moment.
So many say, “I’ve been waiting for a door to open.” Well, the door is open, Jesus has given you the authority to be His witness. You are to be walking in the power of the Holy Spirit and at a moment’s notice share the hope that is in you, the name of Jesus Christ.
We don’t have to argue or prove, because the Spirit of God will prove Himself. We simply need to be obedient to accomplish the mission of sharing.
We don’t have worry, because we know that God is our provision. We don’t have to strive for status because our status comes from God. We don’t have to hoard because we store our treasure in the heavenly places.
B. God’s Presence is Our Inheritance
B. God’s Presence is Our Inheritance
When we think of our heavenly inheritance, we only need to think of the presence of God.
But to the tribe of Levi Moses had given no inheritance; the Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as He had said to them.
This is the second mention of the Levites receiving no land but receiving all kinds of blessings.
And this is our blessing as well, that Jesus Christ came, and He has poured out His Spirit, so that we can begin to taste our inheritance now.
That God is living in us and through us and we can experience His presence in the stillness of our hearts.
It’s not always an overwhelming feeling. It’s mostly a calm whisper and an inner confidence that we are walking with God. That we, free from the bondage and chains of sin, are walking daily with the Holy Spirit as the Lord Jesus pleads for us in the heavenly places.
If for nothing else, we labor and we pray so that we can experience the presence of God even now while we are on the earth.
Conclusion
Conclusion
First we see urgency. Joshua’s life is passing by, and so is ours. We don’t need to be afraid or act frantically, but we need to act with intentionality in reaching those around us.
Then we see interruptions. If there is a part of ourself, or if there is a part of the congregation that wants to remain on the East side of the Jordan away from the inheritance of God, then it is the gateway to all kinds of interruptions and impurity in our life. When we are divided, whether internally or as a people, we limit our gospel effectiveness.
And we see Provision. We must endeavor to live life devoted to God, to live a quiet life, and in every occasion share the name of Jesus. We don’t have to go looking for the opportunities if we will simply take the ones that we have when they’re available to us. God has given us His Spirit so that we can experience His presence and so that we can share in power, with conviction, and with authority.
