Josh 1 titled Sermon

Living in a world that is weak. We are called to be strong and courageous to do God’s work, not ours. Be strong and courageous.

I never like it when people have something they want to do or have a passion that they want and they stick God’s promises onto those hopes and dreams and then get upset when God doesn’t deliver. That is because those are your hopes and dreams, not God’s hopes and dreams.

You can be sure that when God wants something done it will be done. His will comes first and our obedience to God’s will is what will provide His promises.

The theme of this book is all about Being Strong And Courageous… to do God’s will.

Be Strong And Courageous.

So lets begin. Joshua. He is an incredible man with an incredible story that will speak to us today.

We first see Joshua soon after the Hebrew people were released—by God—from slavery. Remember that they were saved from the plagues and they walked out of Egypt with their silver and gold, and all kinds of possessions that the Egyptians gave them.

They walked out all the way to the Red Sea where the whole Egyptian army followed them and backed them up against the sea with no where to go. God parted the waters and they walked across on dry land to the other side and as they came up out of the water on the other side as the army was pursuing them, God let the waters back on them and destroyed the whole army.

Joshua was one of those people who crossed over. Joshua was one of those who got to see all of the miracles, he got to see God’s power move over the Egyptian people. He was one of those who walked through the walls of water so it must have left quite the impression on him. It left so much of an impression on him that it grew his faith.

One of the things that has always been so interesting to me is that those Hebrew slaves were set free and even though God did miracles in their lives, even though God did incredible things they still would forget, they still struggled with belief. It is a theme in the book of Exodus.

It seems like every time they came up against an obstacle they would begin whining and complaining. They would lose heart at the first sign of anything that didn’t go their way. They would grumble, they would complain. At one point they would even say that they wished that they could be slaves again back in Egypt was one of Moses’ right hand men. And we love this character because of his strong faith. He saw the miracles of God and he believed God

God’s using him/special because of his faith?