"Be Strong and Courageous"

Introduction

Times of transition bring with it uncertainly, anxiety, and sometimes, even fear. This is a graphic that I shared on Facebook two years ago this week. Remember the good ole days of 2019? Before 2020 and 2021 seemingly turned into one continuous stream of corona-virus news, supply chain backups, labor shortages, far too much politics, and, who will ever forget the Great Toilet Paper Shortage of 2020? Today is the second day of Christmas. Behind us is Advent. The season of anticipating Jesus’ coming at Christmas. In front of us is the New Year with a new year full of, well, who knows at this point? Right? 2019 feels like the last time that we looked toward the new year as a time of excited anticipation for what is ahead. 2020 was more like, good riddance. 2021 feels more like, 2020 continued.

You’ve probably heard the cliche that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” That’s true here as well. Imagine all of the changes we’ve seen in the last two years, in society, in our church, but also, in our own lives. The Israelites have also been undergoing change. For hundreds of years, they enslaved in the land of Egypt. Then, they spent decades journeying, wandering, and even, at war, in the Wilderness. Unending slavery has turned into unending change. In this passage from Deuteronomy, the change the Israelites had been going through was about to be exponentially increased. The book of Deuteronomy is a collection of speeches given by Moses. As we get closer to the end of the book, we get closer to the end of the life of Moses. And in so doing, we also get to the end of Moses’ leadership of Israel. Hence, the Israelites were facing a transition, nonetheless the Lord remained with them. As we get to the end of Deuteronomy and to the end of Moses’ life, we get closer to Joshua taking the helm and moving, at last, into the Promised Land. They were facing a change in leadership, a change in geography, and a change from mostly wandering in the wilderness with some warfare thrown in, to being a people who would conquer the Promised Land. Nonetheless, in the face of change, the Lord remains constant. One way to sum up the passage would be, “be strong and courageous, do not fear or be in dread for the Lord goes before you.” How does this look within our lives, within our community, within our church? Moses teaches us three principles for moving through uncertainty.

The Lord is in control.

Moses says in Deuteronomy 31:5, “And the Lord will give them over to you, and you shall do to them according to the whole commandment that I have commanded you.” Do you feel anxious about the year ahead? The transitions and changes that inevitably occur over time? Paul writes in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” The path before each one of us is appointed by the Lord for us to glorify him and to be a part of his work. Oren Arnold tells the story of a man in Kansas whose house was blown away in a bad storm. The local preacher, seeing this as an opportunity, told the man, “Punishment for sin in inevitable.” “Oh really,” said the man, “and did you know your house was blown away too?” “Well,” responded the preacher, “the Lord’s ways are beyond understanding.”

Coming out of Christmas, we find many scriptures where people are told “Do not fear.” The angel Gabriel tells Mary in Luke 1:30, “Do not be afraid.” The angels who appeared to the shepherd tells them in Luke 2:10, “Fear not.” Jesus tells the disciples in John 14:27, “Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” The Psalmist writes in Psalm 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” Again and again and again, we are told in the scriptures to not fear. To those who fear the latest headlines in the news, do not be afraid. To those afraid of 2022 brings for the world, or specifically, our country, do not be afraid. For those anxious over the transitions in 2022 for Middle Sandy, we are told, do not fear. Moses tells the people in verse 5, “the Lord will give them over to you,” To put it a little differently, the first principle that Moses teaches us is that, the Lord is in control.

Our strength comes from the presence of the Lord

Continuing on Deuteronomy 31:7 says, “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it.” Strength and courage come from the presence of the Lord. Speaking to a large audience, the renowned evangelist, D.L. Moody, held up a glass and asked, “How can I get the air out of this glass?” One man shouted, “Suck it out with a pump!” Moody replied, “That would create a vacuum and shatter the glass.” After numerous other suggestions Moody smiled, picked up a pitcher of water, and filled the glass. “There,” he said, “all the air is now removed.” He then went on to explain that victory in the Christian life is not accomplished by “sucking out a sin here and there,” but by being filled with the Holy Spirit.

We need to be reminded again and again

Moses tells all of Israel in verse Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.” And then, Moses tells specifically Joshua his successor in verse 7, “Be strong and courageous…it is the Lord who does before you. He will be with you.” And Joshua 1:9 tells us that after Moses dies, the Lord says to Joshua, “Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Three times within just a few chapters, Joshua gets reminded to be strong and courageous, do not fear for God is with him. We might expect Joshua to finally respond along the lines of, “Ok, I get the point already!” But he doesn’t. Our strength, whether it be physically strength, emotional strength, or spiritual stamina quickly wains.

Dr. Larry Crabb recalls an incident in the church he attended as a young man. It was customary in this church that young men were encouraged to participate in the Communion services by praying out loud. Feeling the pressure of expectation, the young Crabb (who had a problem with stuttering) stood to pray. In a terribly confused prayer, he recalls “thanking the Father for hanging on the cross and praising Christ for triumphantly bringing the Spirit from the grave.”

When he was finished, he vowed he would never again speak or pray out loud in front of a group. At the end of the service, not wanting to meet any of the church elders who might feel constrained to correct his theology, Crabb made for the door. Before he could get out, an older man named Jim Dunbar caught him. Having prepared himself for the anticipated correction, Crabb instead found himself listening to these words: “Larry, there’s one thing I want you to know. Whatever you do for the Lord, I’m behind you one thousand percent.” Crabb reflects in his book: “Even as I write these words, my eyes fill with tears. I have yet to tell that story to an audience without at least mildly choking. Those words were life words. They had power. They reached deep into my being.”

Can you think of a similar example from your life? Can you think of a time when someone spoke encouragement, spoke life into your discouragement?

The Lord is in control. Our strength is from his presence. We need reminded of it again and again and again.

The day is December 24th, 1968. As the radio crackles, the voice reads, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." The voice you hear belongs to Bill Anders, a rookie astronaut on Apollo 8. Here’s something most people do not know about the famous transcript, as recounted by History Daily. Apollo 8 was supposed to be the first test of a system called the Lunar Module, generally referred to as the LEM. There was one problem. It wasn’t ready in time for the launch. This meant that Bill Anders, the man reading Genesis 1 in the video, who was the Lunar Module pilot on the flight had no Lunar Module for the Lunar Module pilot to fly. So at the last second, NASA changed the goal of the flight. Instead of testing out the Lunar Module, they decided to send the flight on a much more ambitious and dangerous flight. They decided to send it all the way to the moon. 200,000 miles away on earth, hundreds of thousands of people listen to the live broadcast as the first humans in history orbit the moon. Near the end of the broadcast, Command Module Pilot Jim Lovell added, “Please be informed there is a Santa Claus.” 1968 had been a difficult year. Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated in April. Robert Kennedy, the younger brother of John F. Kennedy, would suffer the same fate only two months later. Meanwhile, Vietnam was not going well. But as the year was ending, Americans would be captivated by three men 200,000 miles away. The next year, Apollo 11 with Neil Armstrong would overshadow this mission. Nonetheless, on their way home, the crew received many congratulations on their accomplishments. One in particular stood out. The anonymous note simply read, “thank you, you saved 1968.”

Moses words to Israel, then to Joshua were life giving. Speaking courage and strength to someone else lifts their spirits and gives them the courage to face their own challenges, just as Israel took the words of Moses with them into the Promised Land. So, Apollo 8 saved 1968 for one anonymous American. Each of us can help save 2021 or 2022 for another person if we speak life into them. Reminding them of Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread...for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”