Untitled Sermon (2)
Moving forward
TWO
JOSHUA 1
Follow the Leader
Twice during my years of ministry, I’ve been chosen to succeed distinguished and godly leaders and carry on their work. I can assure you that it wasn’t easy to follow well-known Christians who sacrificially poured years of their lives into successful ministries. I can identify with Joshua when he stepped into Moses’ sandals and discovered how big they were!
When I succeeded D.B. Eastep as pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Covington, Kentucky, I remember how his widow and his son encouraged me and assured me of their support. I recall one of the deacons, George Evans, coming to the church office to tell me he would do anything to help me, “including washing your car and polishing your shoes.” I never asked George to do either of those things, but his words expressed the encouraging attitude of all the church staff and leaders. I felt like a raw recruit taking the place of a seasoned veteran, and I needed all the help I could get!
Nearly a quarter of a century later when I succeeded Theodore Epp at Back to the Bible, I had a similar experience. The board and headquarters staff, the leaders in the overseas offices, the radio listeners, as well as many Christian leaders from all over the world, assured me of their prayer support and availability to help. When you feel like a midget taking the place of a giant, you appreciate all the encouragement God sends your way.
What a new leader needs is not advice but encouragement. “To encourage” literally means “to put heart into.” General Andrew Jackson said “one man with courage makes a majority,” and he was right. As God’s people today face the challenges that God gives us, we would do well to learn from the threefold encouragement found in this chapter.
1. God encourages His leader (Josh. 1:1–9)
Encouragement from God’s commission (vv. 1–2). Leaders don’t lead forever, even godly leaders like Moses. There comes a time in every ministry when God calls for a new beginning with a new generation and new leadership. Except for Joshua and Caleb, the old generation of Jews had perished during the nation’s wanderings in the wilderness; and Joshua was commissioned to lead the new generation into a new challenge: entering and conquering the Promised Land. “God buries His workmen, but His work goes on.” It was God who had chosen Joshua, and everybody in Israel knew that he was their new leader.
Over the years I’ve seen churches and parachurch ministries flounder and almost destroy themselves in futile attempts to embalm the past and escape the future. Their theme song was, “As it was in the beginning, so shall it ever be, world without end.” Often I’ve prayed with and for godly Christian leaders who were criticized, persecuted, and attacked simply because, like Joshua, they had a divine commission to lead a ministry into new fields of conquest; but the people would not follow. More than one pastor has been offered as a sacrificial lamb because he dared to suggest that the church make some changes.
J. Oswald Sanders writes: “A work originated by God and conducted on spiritual principles will surmount the shock of a change of leadership and indeed will probably thrive better as a result” (Spiritual Leadership, p. 132).
In describing the death of King Arthur, Lord Tennyson put some wise and profound words in the mouth of the king as his funeral barge moved out to sea. Sir Bedevire cried out, “For now I see the true old times are dead”; and Arthur replied:
The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.
[“The Passing of Arthur”]
“Would that life were like the shadow cast by a wall or a tree,” says the Talmud, “but it is like the shadow of a bird in flight.” Trying to clutch the past to our hearts is as futile as trying to embrace the passing shadow of a bird in flight.
A wise leader doesn’t completely abandon the past but builds on it as he or she moves toward the future. Moses is mentioned fifty-seven times in the Book of Joshua, evidence that Joshua respected Moses and what he had done for Israel. Joshua worshiped the same God that Moses had worshiped, and he obeyed the same Word that Moses had given to the nation. There was continuity from one leader to the next, but there wasn’t always conformity; for each leader is different and must maintain his or her individuality. Twice in these verses Moses is called God’s servant, but Joshua was also the servant of God (24:29). The important thing is not the servant but the Master.
Joshua is called “Moses’ minister” (1:1), a word that described workers in the tabernacle as well as servants of a leader. (See Ex. 24:13; 33:11; Num. 11:28; Deut. 1:38.) Joshua learned how to obey as a servant before he commanded as a general; he was first a servant and then a ruler (Matt. 25:21). “He who has never learned to obey cannot be a good commander,” wrote Aristotle in his Politics.
God commissioned Joshua to achieve three things: lead the people into the land, defeat the enemy, and claim the inheritance. God could have sent an angel to do this, but He chose to use a man and give him the power he needed to get the job done. As we have already seen, Joshua is a type of Jesus Christ, the Captain of our salvation (Heb. 2:10), who has won the victory and now shares His spiritual inheritance with us.
Encouragement from God’s promises (vv. 3–6). Since Joshua had a threefold task to perform, God gave him three special promises, one for each task. God would enable Joshua to cross the river and claim the land (vv. 3–4), defeat the enemy (v. 5), and apportion the land to each tribe as its inheritance (v. 6). God didn’t give Joshua explanations as to how He would accomplish these things, because God’s people live on promises and not on explanations. When you trust God’s promises and step out by faith (v. 3), you can be sure that the Lord will give you the directions you need when you need them.
First, God promised Joshua that Israel would enter the land (vv. 3–4). Over the centuries God had reaffirmed this promise, from His first words to Abraham (Gen. 12) to His last words to Moses (Deut. 34:4). God would take them over the Jordan and into enemy territory. He then would enable them to claim for themselves the land that He had promised them. There would be no repetition of the fear and unbelief that had brought the nation into defeat at Kadesh Barnea (Num. 13).
God had already given them the land; it was their responsibility now to step out by faith and claim it (Josh 1:3; see Gen. 13:14–18). The same promise of victory that God had given to Moses (Num. 11:22–25), He reaffirmed to Joshua; and He carefully defined the borders of the land. Israel didn’t reach that full potential until the reigns of David and Solomon.
The lesson for God’s people today is clear: God has given us “all spiritual blessings … in Christ” (Eph. 1:3), and we must step out by faith and claim them. He has set before His church an open door that nobody can close (Rev. 3:8), and we must walk through that door by faith and claim new territory for the Lord. It is impossible to stand still in Christian life and service; for when you stand still, you immediately start going backward. “Let us go on!” is God’s challenge to His church (Heb. 6:1), and that means moving ahead into new territory.
God also promised Joshua victory over the enemy (Joshua 1:5). The Lord told Abraham that other nations were inhabiting the Promised Land (Gen. 15:18–21), and He repeated this fact to Moses (Ex. 3:17). If Israel obeyed the Lord, He promised to help them defeat these nations. But He warned His people not to compromise with the enemy in any way, for then Israel would win the war but lose the victory (23:20–33). Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened. Since the Jews began to worship the gods of their pagan neighbors and adopt their evil practices, God had to chasten Israel in their land to bring them back to Himself (Jud. 1–2).
What a promise God gave to Joshua! “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you” (Josh 1:5, NIV). God had given a similar promise to Jacob (Gen. 28:15), and Moses had repeated God’s promise to Joshua (Deut. 31:1–8). God would one day give this same promise to Gideon (Jud. 6:16) and to the Jewish exiles returning from Babylon to their land (Isa. 41:10; 43:5); and David would give it to his son Solomon (1 Chron. 28:20). But best of all, God has given this promise to His people today! The Gospel of Matthew opens with “Emmanuel … God with us” (1:23) and closes with Jesus saying, “Lo, I am with you always” (28:20, NKJV). The writer of Hebrews 13:5 quotes Joshua 1:5 and applies it to Christians today: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (NKJV).
This means that God’s people can move forward in God’s will and be assured of God’s presence. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Rom. 8:31) Before Joshua began his conquest of Jericho, the Lord appeared to him and assured him of His presence (Josh. 5:13–15). That was all Joshua needed to be guaranteed of victory.
When my wife and I were in our first pastorate, God led the church to build a new sanctuary. The congregation was neither large nor wealthy, and a couple of financial experts told us it couldn’t be done; but the Lord saw us through. He used 1 Chronicles 28:20 in a special way to strengthen and assure me throughout that difficult project. I can assure you from experience that the promise of God’s presence really works!
God’s third promise to Joshua was that He would divide the land as an inheritance for the conquering tribes (Josh. 1:6). This was God’s assurance that the enemy would be defeated and that Israel would possess their land. God would keep His promise to Abraham that