August 23, 2020 Sermon
Joshua • Sermon • Submitted
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· 3 viewsThis sermon will be a challenge for us to trust and obey what God leads us through. It will be a challenge in obedience to be strong and courageous trusting God.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Trust and obey
Children if you would simply trust that your parents want what is best for you and then obey what they ask you to do…then 9 times out of 10 you will find yourself thriving.
At work if we could trust our boss and simply obey what they ask us to do we would find ourselves invaluable to our employers.
It’s hard to really trust others. It’s really hard to trust someone enough to obey what they ask you to do.
How do they handle this in the military? You have to train thousands of young men and women to obey and to trust their superior officers.
Yet if we were willing to trust more and follow the guidance of others into things that scare us. What could we accomplish?
This was the challenge laid out for Joshua taking the reigns of leadership from Moses.
After the death of Moses
After the death of Moses
The book of Joshua begins with the passing of a legend.
1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant,
Moses had lead Israel for nearly half a century. And now he was gone.
Can you imagine the fear and trembling he must have felt on learning that Moses was really gone?
Yet immediately on learning that Moses was gone, God appears to calm Joshua down and put steel in his spine.
God calls Joshua to trust
God calls Joshua to trust
The gift of the land of Canaan
The gift of the land of Canaan
2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel.
3 Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.
4 From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory.
God confirms that Moses is dead and commands Joshua to get up and get to work.
First and foremost, see that God calls Moses to action. It is action that is preceded and followed by promise but action nonetheless.
Then God draws a map of the land of Israel for Joshua to visualize. God is specific so Joshua can really understand His plan.
Powerful enemies would fail
Powerful enemies would fail
5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.
God promises victory for Joshua. God promises His presence to Joshua. God promises to never leave or forsake Joshua and Israel.
Yet, looking at the land the walled cities still stood, giants still roamed, and civilizations still thrived. How on earth could Israel overcome those odds? This is only possible if the God they serve is greater than the enemies they face.
The Lord would never leave them.
The Lord would never leave them.
5 No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
Multiple times God reminds Joshua of his commitment to Israel. God wanted them to know He would never leave them.
Trusting God’s commitment calls out courage.
Trusting God’s commitment calls out courage.
We ask our girls these three questions before they go to sleep every night:
Who loves you?—Mom and Dad
Who’s proud of you?—Mom and Dad
Who believes in you?—Mom and Dad
We want Christy and Isabelle to walk with confidence in our commitment to them. We want this to give them courage to face whatever life throws at them.
If Joshua truly believed that God was present and commited to Israel this would give him extraordinary courage to lead well.
Trusting God’s presence vaccinates us against fear and dismay.
Trusting God’s presence vaccinates us against fear and dismay.
As a planet we are praying for a widely available vaccine to the Coronavirus. We want a solution that seems unstoppable this year. Fear and dismay are a lot like an unstoppable virus at times. It’s easy to live in fear. It’s easy to let dismay or a desire to give up to take over.
But if we trust in God’s presence we can fin the vaccine to dismay. How can we give up if we know God is right there with us? How can we live in fear if we know God is watching over us?
This works even in the hardest moments of life. In fact sometimes the only solution is to trust God’s presence.
When we lose a loved one.
When we lose a child.
When we face a terrible diagnosis.
When we lose a job.
When we face a worldwide pandemic with no clear end in sight.
When we face one of the ugliest presidential races in years.
If you and I can trust God to be present with us we can resiliently face the future whatever it is.
God calls for obedience.
God calls for obedience.
7 Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.
8 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 good success.
God didn’t simply promise success to Joshua and then turn him lose to receive the promises. Joshua and Israel had a responsibility to obey God.
In fact, look at the end of verse 7 and 8. Both verses explicitly tie obedience to success.
In order for Joshua to receive God’s promises He had to obey God.
In order for Joshua to receive God’s promises He had to obey God.
Remember what happened with the 10 spies who disobeyed God? They told the people not to go into the land in direct disobedience to God. God still kept His promise to give the land to Israel but God had no problem making the country wait 40 years, an entire generation.
Israel only needed to believe that God would keep the promises in the future as He had in the past.
9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
There are many areas in our life where God makes promises to watch over and care for us. Yet to an extent many things God wants to give us depend on our obedience to Him.
Make no mistake, God won your salvation through the cross of Jesus Christ. You can not be good enough for God without Jesus. You can’t sin enough for God to think your sin defeat’s Jesus’ sacrifice.
Yet throughout our lives God calls us to faithful obedience to Him.
If we love God with all we have and we love our neighbor as ourselves, God will bless us. If we faithfully practice what He commands in our children and our marriages, God will bless us. If we hold onto Him through tragedy He will give us peace that doesn’t make sense.
But if we don’t.
If we love money and ourselves more than God or neighbor, we’ll experience pain and loss.
If we fail to faithfully bring our children up in fear and training in the Lord we will watch them crash and wreck in the storms of life.
If we fail to live in our marriages with the same relationship as that of Christ with the church we will experience brokenness and losses.
If we fail to trust in the presence of God through tragedy we will succumb to fear, dismay, bitterness, and sin.
Make no mistake, God is still doing great things through men and women who live in obedience to Him!
Make no mistake, God is still doing great things through men and women who live in obedience to Him!
Joshua steps up to lead others to obey.
Joshua steps up to lead others to obey.
10 And Joshua commanded the officers of the people,
11 “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’ ”
It’s time for Joshua and the country of Israel to act in obedience to all the promises of God.
12 And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said,
13 “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’
14 Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help them,
15 until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.”
Two and a half tribes made a deal with Moses. They loved the land on the other side of the Jordan where they were at. So they asked permission to stay. They were granted permission with the understanding that they would keep fighting alongside the other tribes until the entire land was defeated.
This whole dialogue happens back in Numbers 32 and it contains one of the most powerful statements we must remember today.
23 But if you will not do so, behold, you have sinned against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.
The men from these tribes respond with obedience
16 And they answered Joshua, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go.
17 Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as he was with Moses!
18 Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.”
Opening Up Joshua A Call to Obey (vv. 7–18)
When God’s people unite around the core duty of obedience, they can rest assured that God will bless them in wonderful ways.
This is is a reminder to us today that God call us to obedience.
How do we live in light of this passage today?
How do we live in light of this passage today?
Rejoice in God’s grace!
Rejoice in God’s grace!
God’s grace lead Him to promise the land of Canaan to Israel. They didn’t earn or buy the land. God gave it as a gift.
God’s grace lead him to show patience and forgiveness to Israel over half a century. God still lead and let them into the new land even after they disobeyed multiple times in many ways.
How many blessings has God brought into your life that are beyond what you’ve earned? How much has God provided in terms of health, finances and more?
We must live lives of gratitude in light of the many, many ways God has gone above and beyond in His generosity and grace to us.
Trust God to keep His Promises
Trust God to keep His Promises
God made many promises to us just like He did to Israel.
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
5 Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”
I love the hand trick that my dad taught me growing up. Everyone hold up your hand. Now, from the little finger to the thumb say the words “I will never leave you.” Take the “you” finger which should be your thumb. Place it on your palm and wrap the rest of your fingers around that finger. Let this be a tangible reminder that God will never leave you.
6 And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.
God will finish what he started in you.
10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
God will finish what he said he will do.
18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Jesus will sustain, provide and build his church. He will sustain Cornerstone Bible Church.
Jesus will return
3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
In the end all will confess that Jesus is lord of all.
9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
These truths should call a zeal and a passion for God’s work out of our souls. These truths should invest a deep resilience inside us that drives us forward.
and yet we must remember an important truth.
Opening Up Joshua We Are Not to Drive a Wedge between Sovereignty and Responsibility
We are not to drive a wedge between sovereignty and responsibility
God promised to do a lot through and for us. But we are still responsible to take action. We are still called to take action in obedience.
Remember the storm that Paul and His companions were caught in over in the book of Acts? Riding a boat to Rome they all thought they were going to die. Yet Paul called to them to action.
22 Yet now I urge you to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship.
23 For this very night there stood before me an angel of the God to whom I belong and whom I worship,
24 and he said, ‘Do not be afraid, Paul; you must stand before Caesar. And behold, God has granted you all those who sail with you.’
25 So take heart, men, for I have faith in God that it will be exactly as I have been told.
35 And when he had said these things, he took bread, and giving thanks to God in the presence of all he broke it and began to eat.
It is through obedience these men were saved. In order for Paul to arrive in the Rome as God had promised the sailors needed to obey God.
Keep close to God’s book
Keep close to God’s book
We obey God by allowing His word the Bible to infiltrate and guide our actions, words, politics and more.
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.
Keep close to Jesus
Keep close to Jesus
We are not Biblicists. We are not worshippers of the Bible. We don’t have hope because of an old book. We have hope because of Jesus. We are called followers of Jesus. We are called to walk in relationship with our Savior.
How can you learn to trust God more?
How can you learn to trust God more?
Where in your life are you disobeying God?
Where in your life are you disobeying God?
Our world has yet to see what God will do with a generation of men and women totally committed to God. What could God do through us if we trusted Him fully and obeyed Him completely? I believe God wants to fulfill great promises through Cornerstone Bible Church for Terre Haute. Will we Trust and Obey?
Trust and Obey
Trust and Obey