Arise, Be Strong, and Get Working

Title- Arise, Be Strong, and Get Working

Passage- Joshua 1:1-18

Attention- It’s that time of the year again for people to make their New Years resolutions.

I am not sure who actually said this but I think they hit the nail on the head...

Resolutions are most often empty promises for those who have an abundance of dreams, but refuse to wake up and live them.

Introduction

Te reality is that we don’t need a day where we stand and commit to do a certain thing...

We need to stand and commit to that thing every day

And to not stop committing to it

Here i nJoshua One we find Joshua in a position that begs him to commit

That in order for him to reach the goal he needs to keep committing

If Joshua were to commit to this task as we commit to our New Year’s resolutions they would have never gotten past the Jordan river.

What is the main driving point (CPS)?

Friends, when it comes to our spiritual lives we must commit EVERY DAY to seek out the Lord and His righteousness.

Why does the CPS matter, what is the consequence?

In this passage I find three beginnings to walking in righteousness

Transition

The first beginning is to..

I. Get Moving (1-5)

Explain

Joshua 1:2 KJV 1900

Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

Joshua 1:2

There are two key words in this verse...

Arise and GO

The reference here is to the Promised land and the obstacle hindering their possessing it

Don’t get me wrong, there were a lot of obstacles but none of the bigger ones matter if they do not:

First, get up....become prepared

Second....get going, the word literally means to pass over

It is a form of the word used in and when the Lord says “I will pass through the land of Egypt

If they don’t first arise and secondly cross over the Jordan river

This was an obstacle but a bigger obstacle than it needed to be.

The river was passable, maybe uncomfortable or even dangerous bur passable

It wasn’t until they responded in faith that what they feared God turned into a miracle.

The walked over on dry land....

Bridge to today

I don’t think we need to dig too deep to find application here

What is it in our lives that is keeping us from spiritual victory?

What is it in your life that God want to give you victory over you just need to arise and go?

It could be something major or it could be something that we are just spiritually lazy about.

Regardless…ARISE and GO and look for God to do the impossible in your life

Why does this matter?

Transition

The second beginning is to..

II. Get Trusting (6-9)

Explain

God made a promise to Israel.

A promise of land

For them to become a nation and grow.

And God expected them to trust Him and His promises.

Why? Because of His character and His keeping of His promises.

By this point they would have understood the promise to Abraham to direct him to a new land to call home

The promise to Abraham to have an heir

God is expecting them to trust Him to keep his promise of giving them land

All through the Pentateuch we find the land promise

There are at least 170 references to the promise of giving them a land to call their own.

All the way from to here in Joshua chapter one God reminds Israel of that promise

God has displayed that it is in His character to keep His promises

Israel we to trust and respond in faith

Bridge to today

Once again, this doesn’t require a lot of looking and digging to apply to us.

God has made promises to us.

God promises that if we believe on Jesus and his sacrifice on our behalf our sins will be forgiven

He promises us comfort through the Holy Spirit

He promises us an inheritance

He promises persecution and that blessings will flow from those persecutions

He promises to hear and answer our prayers

He promises to build His church

He promised to complete the good work in you that He began

Depending how you count them some estimates are as high as 750 promises of God in the NT

This is the same promise keeping God that lead Israel into the Promised Land on dry ground

That lead Israel across the Red Sea on dry ground

Relevance

It is our place to trust God enough to step out in faith based on His character and that He has promised to give us all good things

To give us righteousness

Why does this matter?

The completion of these promises do not depend on us but the faith to trust God’s character enough to begin Arising and Going is on us

How much do you trust him?

Do you trust Him enough to help your marriage

Your family

Your addiction

The God that promised to lead Israel is leading you

He can give you dry ground to cross on

But you need to trust Him

You need to understand that He is trustworthy.

And based on that character you Arise and Go in faith

Transition

The third beginning is to..

III. Keep Going (10-18)

Explain

Joshua gathered them…prepared them…brought them to the river

Could you imagine the tension on that riverbank

Not knowing how it would all work out but knowing that you are suppose to step out

Imagine being the first in line to take that step

Everyone watching

Then you put your foot into the river only to find that the river isn’t even there

You don’t step into mud, you step onto dry ground

So you take the next step and the one after that and so on

Bridge to today

Once your faith compels you to Arise and GO then you just need to keep on going

There may have been a moment when that first priest thought twice but he didn’t stop

Relevance

At times this is the most difficult part of the process

But notice what compelled Joshua...

Verse 11- the promise of GOd

Verse 13 the word of God through Moses

And the people responded in verses 16-18 that they would respond to the word of God through Joshua just as they had to the word of God through Moses

Now if you know how well they obeyed the word of God through Moses that may not be the biggest encouragement

But the principle is that they would keep their focus on the words that God spoke to them because of their faith in His character

Why does this matter?

Friends, God may not speak to us audibly but on of His promises is that He has given us everything we need through His revealed written Word

When we study it and meditate on is and apply it to our lives it transforms us because of His character and His trustworthiness but also because of our faith and our putting our faith into action.

Conclusion

Review of the Principles and the Sermon Proposition

God has proven throughout His word and throughout history to be trustworthy

He has given us His revealed Word

It is our responsibility to read it, study it, and apply it so that it can produce within us the righteousness that He has promised to us.

We don’t produce the righteousness, the HS through the Word does that ....but if you are not in the Word then theres nothing to work with.

Challenge to act now (your part)…immanence \

This is why next month we are going to have an emphasis on the Word of God

That is why we are going to take up a special offering…so those without Bibles can get them

That is why we will have multiple Bible reading plans available

The Word of God is the life line of the believer…like oxygen

Visualize Audience Implementation

Every day is a great day to commit to reading the Word of God

Im not big on resolutions but I want to challenge you that this year to be a year of being in the Word of God

To reading it....to studying it

Final Statement

Let 2020 be a year that the word of God transforms you.

Closing Hymn

Closing Hymn

407 My Faith Looks Up To Thee