Joshua 1:1-9 Sermon

I. Introduction

i. Scripture Introduction

Joshua 1 is a text that is so often read through the lens of how to be a successful leader in your context. Of course, that’s done because we want to make the text seem relevant, which can be difficult with a text so foreign to us. Well, the passage that we will be studying today does teach us relevant truth, but I think that reading it primarily in order to learn how to be a better leader by following Joshua’s example is to fundamentally miss the point of the text. Rather, this passage teaches us how to be followers of God’s leadership. Joshua is not the hero of this story. God is. Now Joshua does set an example for how we can follow and obey God, but he isn’t the true leader or hero of his people. God is. His leadership, his authority, his word, his presence, and his power dominate the book of Joshua.

Read Joshua 1:1-9

ii. Sermon Introduction

I think that we all have an idea of how important good leadership is. We are all a part of organizations, churches, and societies that have leaders, and we can see just how much good versus bad leadership can affect our lives. A manager has a large impact on job satisfaction. At a former job, we had a change of management that completely ruined my experience with the company and destroyed morale. The new manager cared more about profits than people, and the employees soon realized that. Many of the best employees ended up quitting, which only hurt the business. Moreover, a powerful leader can give us confidence. I’ve been watching the Harry Potter movies with my wife recently, and I feel like the character Draco Malfoy illustrates this well. He’s constantly bragging, bullying, and threatening other people, but he’s not actually that powerful himself. In fact, Harry and his friends regularly beat him, stand up to him, or make him look foolish. The reason for Malfoy’s confidence is not in himself, but it’s in those he follows. Whether it is his wealthy and influential father or the dark lord Voldemort, Malfoy’s confidence is derived from the fact that he is following someone more powerful. And though Malfoy is a negative example, someone whom we shouldn’t emulate, his behavior does illustrate the impact of leadership.

I believe this passage teaches us about the significance of God’s leadership. I think we can see that even in the transition from Moses to Joshua, God’s leadership remained ultimate and unchanged. In the midst of human succession, this passage portrays the divine stability of Israel’s leadership. The point that I want us to take away from this sermon is that, since God is the true leader of his people, we must follow him where and how he leads.

II. God Leads His People

i. Setting (v. 1).

Before we start going through our passage, I think it is important to establish the context of when and where this narrative takes place. The book of Joshua basically picks up where Deuteronomy left off. Joshua and the nation of Israel are camped on the East side of the Jordan River, and they are about to move into the land of Canaan. But, how did we get here? Turn with me to Joshua 24, verse two, for what I think is a really helpful summary of Israel’s history up to this point.

“2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the Euphrates and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. –––This is referring back to Genesis, where God had repeatedly promised to give the land of Canaan, the land that the Israelites are about to enter and possess, to Abraham’s descendants. He told Abraham to look around at the land (Gen. 13:15). Look north and south. Look east and west. Go and walk the length and breadth of the land (Gen. 13:17). God promised to give all that land to Abraham’s descendants, confirming his promises with a covenant (15:17-21; 17:7-8). So, Joshua and the Israelites aren’t going to invade a random land just because they feel like it. The land and Israel’s inheritance of it are a part of fulfilling a centuries old promise to their ancestor, Abraham.–––– I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his family went down to Egypt. –––And the people languished in slavery there, as the pharaoh brutally oppressed them.–––––5 “Then I sent Moses and Aaron, and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there, and I brought you out. 6 When I brought your people out of Egypt, you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued them with chariots and horsemen as far as the Red Sea. 7 But they –– the people ––– cried to the Lord for help, and he put darkness between you and the Egyptians; he brought the sea over them and covered them. You saw with your own eyes what I did to the Egyptians. –––– God had redeemed this people out of bondage in Egypt. He had saved them. He made a covenant with them at Mount Sinai, governing their relationship with Him and teaching them how to live in the land. And when the time came for the people to take possession of the land, the people rebelled against the Lord (Num. 13-14). They were too afraid and refused to enter the land, so God punished that generation and made the nation wander around the wilderness for forty years (Num. 14:23-35). Then you lived in the wilderness for a long time. 8 I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived east of the Jordan. They fought against you, but I gave them into your hands. I destroyed them from before you, and you took possession of their land. 9 When Balak son of Zippor, the king of Moab, prepared to fight against Israel, he sent for Balaam son of Beor to put a curse on you. 10 But I would not listen to Balaam, so he blessed you again and again, and I delivered you out of his hand.”

And thus, the people came to the Jordan and were ready to cross over into the land of Canaan. But, as verse one tells us, Moses, the servant of the LORD, the giver of the Law, the mediator between God and the people, had recently died (1:1). To get an idea for how significant of a figure Moses was for this nation, turn back a couple of pages to Deuteronomy 34:8. When Moses died, “the Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days.” Then, a few verses down, in verse ten, “since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the LORD sent him to do in Egypt- to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” Moses would have been a tough act to follow. There easily could have been a power vacuum that would lead to the nation’s decline. Yet here Joshua is, the designated successor of Israel’s mightiest human leader.

ii. God’s Promises (vv. 2-5).

But Joshua is not on his own. In this passage, we see that God is with him, speaking directly to him. We see that God is the ultimate leader of this people. He is the hero of the book. We see this from God’s promises made in this passage regarding the conquest of the land. Namely, we see that God gave his people the promised land, God defined the limits of the promise, God fought for his people, and God was present with his people to empower their conquest.

1. God Gave It (vv. 2-3).

In verses two through four, we see over and over again that the land was something that God was giving to his people, not something that they were taking for themselves. Cross the river into land “I am giving them” (v. 2). “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you” (v. 3). The land belonged to God and he was the one giving it to them. It was a gift. Yes, they fought battles to dispossess some of the inhabitants, but they did not conquer their land because of their military might. It wasn’t Joshua’s military strategy or administrative skill that conquered the land, but it was a gift from God. And it was a gift, as we saw, that was given to fulfill his oath to Abraham. As God says in verse 6, this is “the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.” The people did not seize the land by and for themselves. It was given to them by the God that led them.

2. God Define the Promise (v. 4)

The second way that we see how God’s promises relate to his leadership is in verse 4. God defined the extent of the promised. He set out the boundaries for the land. 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. The people didn’t define it for themselves. In fact, we even see that the people weren’t free to take whatever plunder they wanted. God had deemed certain things to be devoted to destruction, and the people were not allowed to keep them for themselves (6:17ff.). They couldn’t take whatever land they wanted or keep whatever plunder they wanted. Their inheritance was defined by how God had instructed them.

3. God fought for them (v. 5a).

Third, we see that God was leading this people by how he fought for them. When God told Joshua that no one would be able to stand against him, that was not because Joshua was still an elite warrior in the prime of his life. Rather, it was because the Lord fought for Israel. In fact, even the Israelites’ strategy was divinely dictated and from a purely human perspective terrible. Generally speaking, marching around, blowing trumpets doesn’t win battles. Yet, because God was fighting for the people, it made the walls of Jericho fall. As Joshua 10:42 says, Joshua captured all these kings and their land at one time, because the LORD God of Israel fought for Israel. Their ultimate general and leader was God.

4. God’s Presence was with them (v. 5b; 9).

Fourth, we see that their inheritance of the land was due to God’s promised presence with them. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake, God said in verse 5. In verse 9, he repeats that promise of his presence. The LORD your God is with you wherever you go. That presence gave them confidence. It strengthened and encouraged them. It drove out their fear. Joshua wasn’t going to be strong and courageous because of his self-confidence, and the people wouldn’t feel that way because of Joshua’s might. No. It was because of God’s presence with this people and the fact that they had already witnessed what his mighty presence could do.

So, we have seen the way that God’s statements, his promises in this passage demonstrate his leadership of this people. He is the one who was giving the promised land. He was the one who defined the promise. He was the one fighting for them to conquer the promised land. He was the one who promised to be present with them. God’s promises definitely display his authority and leadership, but so do the commands that he issues in this passage.

III. God Commands His People

i. Human Agency (v. 2, 6b)

We see a handful of commands in this passage, and that should demonstrate for us that just because God has promised something and actively works to bring it about doesn’t mean that he doesn’t use people like us to accomplish his will. God’s leadership and activity do not remove human agency. God said to Joshua, you shall cause this people to inherit the land. Now, clearly the primary factor in Israel conquering the land was God, not Joshua, but that doesn’t mean that Joshua was not actively involved in it. God’s promises should never promote a sinful passivity; rather, they should encourage and direct our activity.

ii. Be Strong and Courageous (vv. 6-7, 9)

The most prominent imperatives in this passage are be strong and courageous. This command appears three times in verses six, seven, and nine. In verse nine, God adds the negative commands, do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed. These commands are not new to Joshua. In fact, in Deuteronomy 31 we see that both Moses and the Lord gave this same exhortation to Joshua (Deut. 31:6-8, 23). This exhortation was repeated again and again for Joshua, and each time it is tied to the promise of God’s presence. He wouldn’t leave Joshua, nor would he forsake him. The imperative is tied to the indicative.

And this indicative is tied to a different imperative in Hebrews 13. When exhorting the people to keep their lives free from the love of money and to be content with what they have, the author of Hebrews ties those commands to the promise of God’s presence, that he would never leave them nor forsake them (Heb. 13:5). We are to be willing to sacrifice money, material goods, and other comforts, because we can be confident that we will never lose our true reward. This promise has tremendous relevance for the Christian life. While we may not be conquering Canaan, we can rest in the midst of the difficulties and persecutions of the Christian life, because we are sure of God’s presence. And going back to Joshua, the presence of the Lord, the ultimate leader of God’s people undergirded the command to be strong and courageous.

iii. Torah Obedience (vv. 7-8)

The third significant command that I want us to see here is the command to obey the Torah. This command comes in verses seven and eight. Be careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. And be careful to do according to all that is written in it. Joshua was commanded to carefully obey the Torah. Okay, but why did God give that command here? Well, the text says so that you may have good success wherever you go. And for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Now, it is essential that we understand this text within its redemptive-historical context to avoid misapplying it. This is simply reaffirming the principle laid out in Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26, that the Sinai covenant ties blessings and curses to faithfulness and unfaithfulness. If the people were faithful and obedient to God, they would continue to enjoy God’s blessings in the land. If the people were unfaithful and disobedient to God, they would be cursed and driven out of the land. This isn’t a matter of obeying God in order to be saved. These people had already been redeemed and were a part of God’s covenant. This is a matter of having prosperity in the land or not. Moreover, since this is directly tied to the Mosaic covenant given at Mt. Sinai, we must not apply this text to the Christian life. We do not have the same promise of prosperity and success if we are faithful and obedience. That is a distortion of this text. A legitimate application of this principle is the example of it in Joshua 7. After conquering Jericho, an Israelite named Achan kept some of the devoted things for himself, directly disobeying God. Consequently, when the people went to fight against Ai, they got wrecked. God said Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted to destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you (7:10-12). So, Joshua was commanded to carefully obey the Torah in order to have success in conquering the land. In verse eight, God instructs Joshua how to be careful to obey the law. Constant meditation facilitates faithful obedience. God said: This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. Continually meditating on God’s word is so important because it can be so easy to be led astray and sin against God. It is so easy to be influenced by our surrounding culture and not even realize it. This is what happened to the Corinthians. They were destroying each other and dishonoring God by imbibing their culture’s values of power, eloquence, wealth, and honor. They turned ministers of the gospel into celebrities to divide over. They used their prized “knowledge” to justify actions that harmed others. They questioned the resurrection because they were buying into Greco-Roman notions of the afterlife. It is too easy to let our culture’s values and beliefs corrupt our worldview and behaviors. We must guard against things like individual autonomy, freedom of expression, secular pluralism, and materialistic consumerism. Like Joshua, we must constantly meditate on the Scriptures so that we might be careful to obey them. Not because we are expecting material or temporal blessing, but to honor Christ.

IV. Theological and Practical Reflections

So, now we are going to transition a bit. What I have tried to show us is that God is the ultimate leader of his people. In this passage, God’s promises and God’s commands demonstrate that even though there was a new human leader, Joshua, the people were still to follow the leadership of their God. Now, I want to offer a few theological and practical reflections on this text, and in particular I want to relate it to a fairly significant issue in the evangelical church in America: Christian nationalism.

I want to tread lightly here, so I want to carefully lay out what I mean and why I am saying it. Then, I want to demonstrate how this text speaks to this issue for us today. And, of course, I hope we all know that by talking about this issue, I am not at all implying that there aren’t other important issues to talk about.

First, to define what I mean by “Christian nationalism,” I am going to quote Paul Miller, a professor at Georgetown University, who is also a fellow brother in Christ. He writes, “Christian nationalism is a cultural framework, a collection of myths, traditions, symbols, narratives, and value systems. It idealizes and advocates a fusion of Christianity with American civic life . . . Christian nationalism believes that the American nation is defined by Christianity and that the government should take steps to keep it that way to sustain and maintain our Christian heritage. It’s not merely an observation about American history. It is a prescription for what America should do in the future. We should sustain and continue our identity as a Christian nation. That’s Christian nationalism.”[1] I am not talking about being patriotic. I am not talking about being thankful for our freedoms and privileges as Americans. Moreover, I am not trying to criticize conservative politics as a whole. I only want to address the “cultural framework” and “value system” that leads many Christians that I know to blend their faith with American civic life in a way that corrupts the Christian faith, exploits the church for political agendas, hinders our witness, and dishonors Christ.

I think there are two big reasons why we need to bring this up. First, if we fuse American civic life with Christianity, it has the potential to distort our understanding of Christianity. We begin to view the gospel and the faith through national and political lens, rather than recognizing how the gospel transcends geopolitical and ethnic divisions and how it makes us citizens of God’s heavenly kingdom. It distorts our understanding of God’s will and how we should go about following God’s will (which is part of why I think it is relevant to this passage). Second, Christian nationalism must be addressed because of the radicalizing effects of religion. Deeply held beliefs powerfully shape our behaviors. If we allow our congregants to fuse their national identity with their faith, then their national identity (or a fictitious reconstruction of it) will begin to take on a religious significance. It could become a core part of their identity, and it has the potential to lead to extreme behaviors like the insurrection that we saw last month, which featured many Christian signs and symbols.

So those are two reasons why I think this is a serious pastoral concern. Now, I don’t think I need to persuade many of you all of why Christian nationalism is problematic. However, I want to make sure that we understand that we do need to persuade our congregations why it dangerous. According to some sociologists who studied this, over 2/3rds of self-identified white, born-again protestants believe that our nation’s founding documents, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, are divinely-inspired.[2] I’ve led small-groups where people thought that the line “All men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” came out of the Bible. Those same researchers found that 78% of white American evangelicals fell into their categories of “ambassadors” or “accommodators” of Christian nationalism.[3] I am not wanting to push my own agenda or talk about my hobby horse. I think this is a significant issue that is affecting our churches, particularly those churches that are overwhelmingly white. Moreover, I can personally attest to the negative effects this has when trying to talk to non-Christians about Christianity.

i. We Must Follow Our God Where He Leads Us.

1. Precise Promises

So, with that foundation laid. Let turn back to our text. Like Joshua and the Israelites, we must follow our God where he leads us. Just as they were to inherit a particular land (as we see in verse 4), and they were forbidden from taking devoted things (7:1), we, as Christians, must be content with the promises and blessings which God has given to us. There is a difference, however. You see, Joshua is a type of Christ. They both led their people to inherit God’s promises. Joshua foreshadowed Jesus, who actually accomplished what Joshua never could. Joshua didn’t give his people lasting rest in the land. When he died, the land wasn’t fully conquered. There were still pagan nations inhabiting it. Moreover, there was nothing he could have done to keep the people and their wicked descendants from breaking God’s covenant and being removed from the land. He could not give them rest, but Jesus does give us rest. While Joshua couldn’t save his people from their sins, Jesus did. So, while there is a typological connection between Joshua and Jesus, I want us to see how Jesus gloriously transcends what Joshua accomplished. I want us to see the contrast.

We, as Christians, are not seeking to conquer the promised land of Canaan. We are not to be seeking to conquer the land of America. God may have given that earthly land to Joshua and the Israelites, but we desire a better country, that is a heavenly one (Heb. 11:16). We are looking forward to the city . . . whose designer and builder is God (Heb. 11:10). We look forward to the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world (Matt. 25:34). We look forward to the place Jesus has gone to prepare for us (John 14:2). In Christ we have redemption, justification, sanctification, and glorification. We await the redemption of our bodies in the resurrection. We have particular promises and blessings in Christ. Just like the Israelites were not to take just any patch of land or keep the things devoted to destruction, so, too, we must be content with the blessings that God has given us. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that American Christians are promised to be well-liked or have their political agenda fulfilled. Rather, Peter wrote to teach us how to live as aliens, sojourners in this land. We must follow our God in what he calls us to and rejoice in the promises which he has given us- not the things that we want.

ii. We Must Follow Our God How He Leads Us.

1. According to His Word (vv. 7-8).

Now, let’s look at following God in the right manner. We must follow our God how he leads us. Though we don’t follow God by crossing a river and using physical swords, this passage demonstrates two ways that we must follow our God. First, we must follow him according to his word. We must regularly be meditating on God’s word. Our churches must be preaching the word. It is too easy to get off track. It is too easy to twist our beliefs and practices into what we think God wants, rather than what he tells us he wants. This is precisely the problem with Christian nationalism: it twists our faith into a nationalistic and political agenda. We must counter this destructive error with the word of God. We must remind people of how the Gospel transforms our allegiances and transcends our relationships with people of different nationalities and ethnicities. However, so many of the churches that I know that are filled with this error are Bible-believing, Bible-preaching churches. Which I think is a testimony to how easy it is for ALL of us to distort the Scriptures with our own presuppositions. I thank God for the opportunity to study at Beeson where I can constantly be challenged to greater faithfulness to Scripture by brothers and sisters of different denominations, ethnicities, and nationalities. I think studying the Word with the full, diverse body of Christ is a helpful guard against the presuppositions that can threaten our obedience to God and his Word.

2. According to His Presence (vv. 5, 9).

The second way that we should follow God is according to his presence. More specifically, I want to highlight how we should follow him according to the Spirit of wisdom that he gives to us. Deuteronomy 34:9 says that Joshua was filled with the Spirit of wisdom. That spirit guided him and empowered his service. In the same way, we should be guided by the spirit of wisdom. We have the Holy Spirit, and he gives us spiritual wisdom and understanding and the intimate knowledge of God, so that, as Paul says in Colossians 1, we may walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. We must pray for this spiritual wisdom so that we can follow our God faithfully. The world offers its wisdom: you must seek power at all costs. It’s okay to crack a few eggs. Securing your freedoms is more important than loving your neighbor. Friends, we need the Spirit’s wisdom, not the world’s wisdom. So, like Paul in Ephesians 1:17, let us pray that God would give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation.

Moreover, if we are filled with the Spirit of God as we follow him, shouldn’t our lives be marked by the fruit of that Spirit? Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control. Certainly, those qualities were not on display when people raided the capitol, assaulted others, and called for the execution of our governing leaders. If our lives are marked by the works of the flesh, rather than the fruit of the Spirit, then we have ceased to be following God in the proper manner. Just carrying religious symbols, invoking the name of God, and praying does not make something faithful or God-honoring. We must exhort our people to guard against distorting the gospel and the promises and will of God into a nationalistic agenda. We must exhort our people to follow God where and how he leads us.

V. Conclusion

In this passage, we read about God commissioning and encouraging Joshua to lead the people into the land of Canaan. We saw a human transfer of power, and we also saw the stability of God’s faithful leadership and presence. Though we live in dramatically different times, under a different covenant, hoping in different promises, this passage speaks to us today. This book contains many strange stories. But it also teaches us a timeless truth. God is the true leader of his people, so we must follow our God where and how he leads.