Joshua 23:1-16 | "Be Very Careful"

I. Reading of Scripture

Joshua 23:11 ESV

11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

This is God’s Word, Amen!

Pray

II. Introduction

A. Introduction to Theme

This one sentence represents the first and greatest commandment: to love the LORD your God (cf. Mt 22:36-38).

Loving the Lord is not something that happens automatically on our part.

We must first be shown what love is.

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

God shows us love by revealing Himself to us: God is love.

In this way,

Our love of God is a direct reflection of our relationship with God.

The more we know God, the more we love God, and know what love is by knowing who love is.

God wants us to know Him and love Him.

This in part is one explanation for why God allows us to go through trials and suffering. It is not, as some suggest, that God does not love us. God allows us to endure trials and suffering so that God might walk through those trials with us and reveal Himself and His love more to us — and in the end, we love God more.

It is said that those who forgive much have been forgiven much. In the same way, those who love much have been loved much!

God gives us the ability to love Him, but God does not force us to love Him.

God extends to us the offer of a relationship with Himself, and God defines that relationship by love. But God does not force us into a relationship with Him.

Love is something that is offered willingly, not under obligation or compulsion.

Love is a lifestyle, the fruit of an ongoing relationship with God. Love is not a one-and-done action. It is like a garden, that is cultivated and grows.

We’ve all heard about the man that never told his wife he loved her. She asked her husband why he never said “I love you.” To which he replied: I told you once when we got married. If I change my mind I’ll let you know.”

That’s not love. That’s a contract. We are not in a contract with God. We are in a covenantal relationship with God based on God’s faithfulness and God’s love.

Joshua says:

Joshua 23:11 ESV

11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

This is a statement that defines the relationship God’s people are to have with God as they rest in the land — living with God, serving God, worshiping God and loving God.

Joshua is not giving this command for God’s sake. God does not need our love, but we need God’s love. Joshua is giving this command for the people’s sake!

This chapter repeats this theme of “for your sake.”

The Hebrew language in verse 11 even includes this word that many of our English Bibles leave untranslated, but it brings out this important point:

Joshua 23:11 LEB

11 Take utmost care for the sake of your life to love Yahweh your God,

Joshua 23:11 NASB95

11 “So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God.

Joshua 23:11 HCSB

11 So be very diligent to love the Lord your God for your own well-being.

Joshua reveals something about the love of God in relationship with His people.

God will never stop loving His people. But God’s people can stop loving God.

We easily misplace our love. We easily mis-prioritize our love.

Someone said “Love is spelled T-I-M-E” meaning what we love we spend time on.

Yet for us, the things we ought to love the most we spend the least amount of time on. The things we ought to love the least consume our time. We need help loving!

Joshua 23:11 should cause us all to pause and wonder why it is that God’s people need to be told to love God.

Yet great emphasis is given by the placement of this command in this chapter to reveal how the people of Isreal are inclined to turn back to other gods and forsake the Lord in the land. God knows this, and Joshua knows this.

So Joshua sends a clear instruction to the people, with strong words throughout this chapter, to make sure that above all, God’s people give diligent care and their utmost attention to the relationship that mattered the most in their life, and for their life — their relationship of love toward God.

Quite literally, their lives depend on it.

This same message applies for all of us who hear today. Our lives depend upon our love of God! God has shown his love toward us. Will we be careful to love God in return?

B. Introduction to Text

For much of Chapter 22, Joshua has been silent. Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest speaks to mediate a dispute about a second altar that was built by the tribes across the Jordan.

That altar would not be for worship, but for a witness that the Lord is God, and the land is protected against rebellion and idolatry.

But now the book of Joshua is about to come to a close, and the Scriptures fast forward in time, for us to hear from Joshua again, with his last words presented in these last two chapters.

Joshua 23:1 ESV

1 A long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old and well advanced in years,

“Many days” have passed since the Lord had given Israel the land, and with time comes forgetfulness.

As time passes, history is forgotten. If history is forgotten, history is repeated.

Why is it beneficial for us to study an Old Testament book like Joshua? So we do not make similar mistakes. God has not changed, and our human nature has not changed either.

For this reason Joshua’s instructions are profitable for us today.

Joshua’s instructions are set within this context of passing time — meaning enough time has passed for complacency to set in (KM).

Joshua is old, and “well advanced in years.” The last time this phrase was used of Joshua was in Chapter 13, where the Lord instructed Joshua to begin allotting the land as an inheritance, preparing the way for future generations.

Here in Chapter 23, Joshua is preparing in a different way. He is not dividing property, He is dictating priorities.

God’s people, above all, are to love God totally.

Joshua 23:2 ESV

2 Joshua summoned all Israel, its elders and heads, its judges and officers, and said to them, “I am now old and well advanced in years.

Notice the different leaders: Elders, Heads, Judges and Officers.

Elders have authority over the community (KM).

Heads have authority over the family households (KM).

Judges have authority over administration and matters of adjudication (KM).

Officers are authorities over civil matters (KM).

These leaders were to teach the people in every respect and every facet of life how to love God in the community, households, in administration and civil matters.

This means that in everything we do, we can do so in a way that demonstrates and teaches God’s love!

It was the responsibility of these leaders to teach the people how to love God, and by summoning the leaders Joshua also recognizes that it is time to pass on leadership to this next generation.

What he has been faithful to do in his lifetime, is now the responsibility of the next generation after him. For he is old and “well advanced in years” and “about to go the way of all the earth” (v.14). Joshua is about to die.

III. Exposition

He begins his speech by first calling their attention to the Lord whom they are to love.

He starts with what they can see, by very literally turning their eyes upon the things God has done for them, the testaments of God’s power and might, works that they were eyewitnesses to and the evidences they can see right in front of them.

A. Joshua 23:3-5 | “just as the LORD...promised.”

Joshua 23:3–5 ESV

3 And you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. 4 Behold, I have allotted to you as an inheritance for your tribes those nations that remain, along with all the nations that I have already cut off, from the Jordan to the Great Sea in the west. 5 The Lord your God will push them back before you and drive them out of your sight. And you shall possess their land, just as the Lord your God promised you.

That word in verse 4: “Behold” is a command. “Look!” “See!” They are standing in their inheritance and that is visible proof that God exists and God has fought for them.

A good starting place for testifying of God’s love is to start with what we can see. Look around!

People say “I’ll believe God exists if I can see God.” But the witness of Scripture says — if you want to see God, then look! Behold! See! Evidence of God and His power is all around!

Romans 1:19–20 ESV

19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.

In the same way, if we want to SEE that God loves us, We can look beyond Creation and see the Cross and Empty Tomb.

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

The Cross is a visible demonstration of God’s love that we can see.

Loving God begins with God, and seeing what God has done for us. Seeing the displays of His power and faithfulness to His Word.

Living in the land of God’s promise was always to reminder the people of God’s love for them — and in turn it was an invitation to love God always in return.

The cross for us is a visible reminder to us always of God’s love and an invitation to love God with our lives too.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Joshua reminds the people that what they see now is evidence that God kept His Word. And this will give them confidence, that if they continue to rest in God, and love Him, God will cause them to possess the remaining land in the future just as he promised.

The people are given a hope for the future by always remembering what God has done in the past.

Whatever happens with the way of the world in the future, the Church can look back at God’s Word, and read how God helped His people in ages past, and this gives us hope for whatever the future may bring because our hope is in God who loves us and keeps His Word!

B. Joshua 23:6-8 | “cling to the LORD”

The people love God by Beholding, by Seeing what God has done in Power and in remembrance of His promises.

As a result of this, Joshua says:

Joshua 23:6–8 ESV

6 Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left, 7 that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them, 8 but you shall cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day.

This is an instruction to faithfulness and obedience to God’s Word.

How can we love God? By keeping His Word.

I am trying to teach my children this kind of love — that when they obey me, they show that they love me.

Those who are leaders in the church are required in Scripture to lead their families not in a domineering way, but by gaining respect and obedience through faithfulness and love.

When we don’t obey God’s Word, what we are saying is that we don’t love God! And people notice that.

Jesus said it clearly:

John 14:15 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

Loving God is not a suggestion. So why do we treat it as a suggestion?

Loving God is a WITNESS to God — more than any altar that can be built.

Have we seen so little of God that we love Him so little?

This is yet one more goal in our gathering together every Sunday — not to be filled with instructions and rules and laws for living — but to SEE God! To SEE and BEHOLD His faithfulness! To behold His glory in Jesus Christ! Not to be informed, but to be transformed in our love and devotion to Him!

The more we love God, the more resolved we are to obey Him — no matter the cost.

It takes great strength to obey. It takes great strength to love.

Love is not cheap or easy. Love is costly and difficult.

Joshua 23:6 ESV

6 Therefore, be very strong to keep and to do all that is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, turning aside from it neither to the right hand nor to the left,

And specifically —

Joshua 23:7 ESV

7 that you may not mix with these nations remaining among you or make mention of the names of their gods or swear by them or serve them or bow down to them,

Joshua uses every word he can (mention, swear, serve, bow down) to make sure the people know what they are not to do with the gods of the nations that surround them, and to preserve their love and devotion to God.

Israel lived among other nations, but they were not to mix with them.

The same is true of us. We live among all kinds of competing gods in our culture and world, but God has not taken us out of the world. Instead, he leaves us in it, that we may love and show love for Him.

Jesus prayed:

John 17:15–19 ESV

15 I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. 17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. 18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. 19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.

One of the most forgotten characteristics of love is found in:

1 Corinthians 13:6 ESV

6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

There is no love that is not tied with truth — God’s truth in His Word. So

As we live God’s way, we love God’s way.

It is not easy to be faithful, but it is possible by loving God’s Word.

C. Joshua 23:9-11 | “love the LORD”

But we are not to only love God’s Word — we are also to love God Himself (KM).

Verses 9-11 ends this section like it began — with focus on the Lord. A reminder that the LORD is the only God who has fought for His people and loved His people — something no other God can do.

Joshua 23:9–11 ESV

9 For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations. And as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day. 10 One man of you puts to flight a thousand, since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as he promised you. 11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

IV. Conclusion

What we love informs not only how we spend our time, and who we obey, but also it says a lot about who is sufficient for every need in our life.

As Joshua begins his final words, he begins with this clear and simple message:

God alone is sufficient for us.

A. Gospel Proclamation

And this is the Gospel message for the Church today:

2 Corinthians 3:4–6 ESV

4 Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. 5 Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, 6 who has made us sufficient to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Love and life and intertwined.

There is no more visible image of this than the cross.

For Jesus died on the cross for our sin because God loved us. And Jesus gave his life on the cross because God loved us.

God loves us such that he gave His only Son so that we might have eternal life with Him through Jesus.

And Jesus does more than show us God’s love, and make us sufficient in Him, but Jesus enables us to love God — something we could not do in our sin.

Because Jesus paid our sin debt, through His death, burial and resurrection, we have the fruit of the Holy Spirit in us of love — and we can love God through Jesus forever!

B. Application

In Joshua 23, the first 10 verses present the case for loving God and being faithful to Him.

Verse 11 is a transitionary verse.

The last five verses present the consequences for not loving God and being faithful to Him.

There are more verses given for why Israel should be faithful, than are given to the consequences should Israel be unfaithful — even though those consequences are severe.

Because our motivation for loving God should never be to avoid consequences. Our motivation for loving God is always the case God makes for being worthy of love. A case God made most visible in Christ.

Joshua 23:11 ESV

11 Be very careful, therefore, to love the Lord your God.

Amen.