Be Strong and Courageous

I am going to read a passage and let’s see if you can tell me where it is at.

Joshua 1:6–9 HCSB

6 “Be strong and courageous, for you will distribute the land I swore to their fathers to give them as an inheritance. 7 Above all, be strong and very courageous to carefully observe the whole instruction My servant Moses commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or the left, so that you will have success wherever you go. 8 This book of instruction must not depart from your mouth; you are to recite it day and night so that you may carefully observe everything written in it. For then you will prosper and succeed in whatever you do. 9 Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Where is this passage found?

If you have had some church, then chances are you have heard this passage about being strong and courageous.

If you have not heard this then you might not have and that is ok.

When we hear this passage the tendency can be for us to focus on being strong and courageous.

We must muster up the strength to be strong and courageous. We must find an example on this earth and seek to be like them to be strong and courageous and that this strength and courage must come only from within and we have to seek to overcome.

Let’s look at some verses before this. Turn to Joshua 1

Joshua 1:1–4 HCSB

1 After the death of Moses the Lord’s servant, the Lord spoke to Joshua son of Nun, who had served Moses: 2 “Moses My servant is dead. Now you and all the people prepare to cross over the Jordan to the land I am giving the Israelites. 3 I have given you every place where the sole of your foot treads, just as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will be from the wilderness and Lebanon to the great Euphrates River—all the land of the Hittites —and west to the Mediterranean Sea.

Surface level this looks like an easy task

Prepare to cross over the Jordan

I am giving you land

I will give you everywhere your foot treads

Your enemies will be defeated

Not so quick

Numbers 13:1–3 HCSB

1 The Lord spoke to Moses: 2 “Send men to scout out the land of Canaan I am giving to the Israelites. Send one man who is a leader among them from each of their ancestral tribes.” 3 Moses sent them from the Wilderness of Paran at the Lord’s command. All the men were leaders in Israel.

Numbers 13:21–25 HCSB

21 So they went up and scouted out the land from the Wilderness of Zin as far as Rehob near the entrance to Hamath. 22 They went up through the Negev and came to Hebron, where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the descendants of Anak, were living. Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt. 23 When they came to the Valley of Eshcol, they cut down a branch with a single cluster of grapes, which was carried on a pole by two men. They also took some pomegranates and figs. 24 That place was called the Valley of Eshcol because of the cluster of grapes the Israelites cut there. 25 At the end of 40 days they returned from scouting out the land.

The report

Numbers 13:26–14:4 HCSB

26 The men went back to Moses, Aaron, and the entire Israelite community in the Wilderness of Paran at Kadesh. They brought back a report for them and the whole community, and they showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They reported to Moses: “We went into the land where you sent us. Indeed it is flowing with milk and honey, and here is some of its fruit. 28 However, the people living in the land are strong, and the cities are large and fortified. We also saw the descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites are living in the land of the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live by the sea and along the Jordan.” 30 Then Caleb quieted the people in the presence of Moses and said, “We must go up and take possession of the land because we can certainly conquer it!” 31 But the men who had gone up with him responded, “We can’t go up against the people because they are stronger than we are!” 32 So they gave a negative report to the Israelites about the land they had scouted: “The land we passed through to explore is one that devours its inhabitants, and all the people we saw in it are men of great size. 33 We even saw the Nephilim there—the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim! To ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and we must have seemed the same to them.” 1 Then the whole community broke into loud cries, and the people wept that night. 2 All the Israelites complained about Moses and Aaron, and the whole community told them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this wilderness! 3 Why is the Lord bringing us into this land to die by the sword? Our wives and little children will become plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” 4 So they said to one another, “Let’s appoint a leader and go back to Egypt.”

Numbers 14:5–9 HCSB

5 Then Moses and Aaron fell down with their faces to the ground in front of the whole assembly of the Israelite community. 6 Joshua son of Nun and Caleb son of Jephunneh, who were among those who scouted out the land, tore their clothes 7 and said to the entire Israelite community: “The land we passed through and explored is an extremely good land. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, He will bring us into this land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and give it to us. 9 Only don’t rebel against the Lord, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land, for we will devour them. Their protection has been removed from them, and the Lord is with us. Don’t be afraid of them!”

Numbers 14:30 HCSB

30 I swear that none of you will enter the land I promised to settle you in, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.

So the moment has come in Joshua 1

Joshua 1:5 HCSB

5 No one will be able to stand against you as long as you live. I will be with you, just as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or forsake you.

Just as I was with Moses

The tendency is to think that God’s goodness is the result of my goodness before God.

Self-righteousness or pride

This idea that I did right and so God must be good because of my rightness.

This sometimes shows itself in times of death or illness. We think why is this happening to them.

(mom)

This will also show itself when we serve the Lord. Lord I sacrificed so much for you and now I deserve rightness.

I poured my time in for this and gave up my day for you and now Lord I look expect for you to be good to me because I was good to you.

Deuteronomy 9 HCSB

1 “Listen, Israel: Today you are about to cross the Jordan to go and drive out nations greater and stronger than you, with large cities fortified to the heavens. 2 The people are strong and tall, the descendants of the Anakim. You know about them and you have heard it said about them, ‘Who can stand up to the sons of Anak?’ 3 But understand that today the Lord your God will cross over ahead of you as a consuming fire; He will devastate and subdue them before you. You will drive them out and destroy them swiftly, as the Lord has told you. 4 When the Lord your God drives them out before you, do not say to yourself, ‘The Lord brought me in to take possession of this land because of my righteousness.’ Instead, the Lord will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness. 5 You are not going to take possession of their land because of your righteousness or your integrity. Instead, the Lord your God will drive out these nations before you because of their wickedness, in order to keep the promise He swore to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 6 Understand that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. 7 “Remember and do not forget how you provoked the Lord your God in the wilderness. You have been rebelling against the Lord from the day you left the land of Egypt until you reached this place. 8 You provoked the Lord at Horeb, and He was angry enough with you to destroy you. 9 When I went up the mountain to receive the stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant the Lord made with you, I stayed on the mountain 40 days and 40 nights. I did not eat bread or drink water. 10 On the day of the assembly the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by God’s finger. The exact words were on them, which the Lord spoke to you from the fire on the mountain. 11 The Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant, at the end of the 40 days and 40 nights. 12 “The Lord said to me, ‘Get up and go down immediately from here. For your people whom you brought out of Egypt have acted corruptly. They have quickly turned from the way that I commanded them; they have made a cast image for themselves.’ 13 The Lord also said to me, ‘I have seen this people, and indeed, they are a stiff-necked people. 14 Leave Me alone, and I will destroy them and blot out their name under heaven. Then I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.’ 15 “So I went back down the mountain, while it was blazing with fire, and the two tablets of the covenant were in my hands. 16 I saw how you had sinned against the Lord your God; you had made a calf image for yourselves. You had quickly turned from the way the Lord had commanded for you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them from my hands, shattering them before your eyes. 18 Then I fell down like the first time in the presence of the Lord for 40 days and 40 nights; I did not eat bread or drink water because of all the sin you committed, doing what was evil in the Lord’s sight and provoking Him to anger. 19 I was afraid of the fierce anger the Lord had directed against you, because He was about to destroy you. But again the Lord listened to me on that occasion. 20 The Lord was angry enough with Aaron to destroy him. But I prayed for Aaron at that time also. 21 I took the sinful calf you had made, burned it up, and crushed it, thoroughly grinding it to powder as fine as dust. Then I threw it into the stream that came down from the mountain. 22 “You continued to provoke the Lord at Taberah, Massah, and Kibroth-hattaavah. 23 When the Lord sent you from Kadesh-barnea, He said, ‘Go up and possess the land I have given you’; you rebelled against the command of the Lord your God. You did not believe or obey Him. 24 You have been rebelling against the Lord ever since I have known you. 25 “I fell down in the presence of the Lord 40 days and 40 nights because the Lord had threatened to destroy you. 26 I prayed to the Lord: Lord God, do not annihilate Your people, Your inheritance, whom You redeemed through Your greatness and brought out of Egypt with a strong hand. 27 Remember Your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Disregard this people’s stubbornness, and their wickedness and sin. 28 Otherwise, those in the land you brought us from will say, ‘Because the Lord wasn’t able to bring them into the land He had promised them, and because He hated them, He brought them out to kill them in the wilderness.’ 29 But they are Your people, Your inheritance, whom You brought out by Your great power and outstretched arm.