Moving Forward – Part 3 Joshua 1:6-9

First Southern Baptist Church

Dr. Patrick Mead

Series: Forward

July 13, 2014

Moving Forward – Part 3

Joshua 1:6-9

"It's a brilliant idea. I want to sell books on the Internet." So he projected himself at 80 years old and thought, "What would I regret…trying or not trying?" He decided it was not trying. His name is Jeff Bezos, and he is the founder and CEO of amazon.com. Has anybody ever bought anything off of Amazon? Most everything I get comes from amazon.com. 

I want you to think about that framework (regret minimization framework). I want you to project yourself toward the end of your life. When you get to the end of your life, will you have been able to minimize your regrets? I don't mean regrets of things you wish you would have done on your bucket list or temporal things. I'm talking about eternal things. 

Will you be able to say when you get to the end of your life, "I moved forward with God, and I experienced the abundance and the fullness of his plan and purpose for my life in Christ Jesus"? Will you be able to say with the apostle Paul, "I have fought the fight. I have finished the race, and I have been faithful. I've remained faithful"? Moving forward with God will minimize your regrets as it relates to eternal matters, and all that matters is that which relates to eternity. Amen? 

Yeah. That's all that matters. The things that belong to this world are passing. When God commissions Joshua… That's what he is doing in these first nine verses of Joshua, chapter 1. He is commissioning Joshua, and he is calling Joshua to lead the Israelites to go, to move forward, to arise, and go over into the Promised Land. He calls him, and then he prepares him. He spent 40 years preparing him for this moment.

By the way, this isn't the first time God commissioned him. If you've read the book of Deuteronomy, he commissioned him before Moses ever passed away. He has been preparing him for this, and then God says, "I'm going to provide everything you need. I'm going to give you the land. I'm going to give you victory. I'll be with you. My power will be with you. No one will be able to stand against you, and I will always be with you." "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you." 

God calls. He prepares. He provides, but now he has an expectation on the part of Joshua and the Israelites. For all of this to happen, for them to move forward, guess what? They had to cooperate with God. Right? There's no, "Let go and let God" here. No. They had to do their part. They had to cooperate with God to move forward. They had to fulfill the expectations God had of them.

The same is true for us. You know, under the new covenant, God calls us out of darkness, and he calls us to move forward in our Christian experience. He prepares us. Do you know that wilderness experience? That's something we should experience every day, where we are broken before God and humbled before God. We say, "Lord, we're trusting you in everything we do." He provides for us power, his presence. 

All of his promises he gives to us, and he says, "I give you everything you need to move forward in your Christian experience." But he expects us to cooperate with God. There's this interesting (I guess you could say) "paradox" in Scripture. You "…work out your salvation with fear and trembling…" Right? As we work out our salvation with fear and trembling, it's actually God who is working in us to will and to work according to his pleasure. We work out what God is working in! 

Our text today shows us how. How do we move forward? We know God provides. We know God prepares. We know he calls. Now how do we move forward? What our text is going to show us… This is very important, because here's where a lot of people will fail in moving forward. You see, there are obstacles to moving forward. Our text is probably going to show you the two most prominent obstacles you will face when it comes to moving forward with God. 

You see, the greatest obstacles you will face when moving forward with God are fear and discouragement. Fear and discouragement. In verses 6 through 9, we have two commands that are repeated three times. In verse 6, he gives a command to Joshua. "Be strong and courageous…"

By the way, God is commanding Joshua to be strong and courageous in these verses, but then when Joshua commissions the people in verses 10 through 18, when they get to the end of saying, "We'll follow you," then the people say to Joshua, "We'll follow you, but you need to be strong, and you need to be courageous."

Right now God is commanding him, "You be strong and courageous." Again, in verse 7, "Only be strong and very courageous…" Then you come to verse 9, and God repeats it again. "Have I not commanded you?" Yes, you have…two times! That's only right here in this passage! He did the very same thing when Moses was still alive, and he spoke to Joshua, "Be strong and courageous." Now again he says in verse 9, "Be strong and courageous."

Now when you see something repeated, you always want to draw your attention to that. Obviously God says, "Joshua, it's going to take courage, and it's going to take strength to move forward." The implication here is that Joshua's knees are probably shaking. "Oh my goodness! I have to lead these so many million people into the Promised Land." It wasn't just a group of a hundred. It was much bigger than a megachurch. That's for sure! Maybe a couple million people. 

You can imagine he is frightened. The repetition reveals to us the condition of Joshua. Then in verse 9, God reveals that condition. After he gives the command where he says, "Be strong and courageous." Then he says, "Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed…" Those are translated as commands, but in the Hebrew, they're not imperative verbs. They're not commands. They're imperfect in the Hebrew. 

What happens in the Hebrew is imperfect verbs take on the action of the context. What's the action of the context? "Be strong and courageous." The assumption is Joshua is afraid. Joshua is discouraged and dismayed. God says, "I know you're afraid, Joshua. I know you're discouraged, but I want you to be strong and courageous."

Why would Joshua be frightened? Why would he be unnerved? Why would he be struggling in the area of courage? Well, I think there are at least a couple of reasons. Let's get this straight. The Promised Land does not equal comfort. The Promised Land does not translate into a trouble-free life. When they were going over, there were going to be strong groups of people. There were fortified cities with walls all around them, and they had to fight these kings.

You had the Amalekites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites. You had all these "-ites" in the land, and they were to go in and conquer the land, and they were to go in and battle those who were in the land. It wasn't going to be a trouble-free life. See, we like to think the Promised Land is prosperity, no trouble, no harm.

Another thing that would probably scare him is the fact that when God commissioned Joshua and Moses… Moses was there, and Joshua was being commissioned. Here's what he said. He said, "When you go over into the Promised Land, your people aren't going to obey. They're going to be unfaithful." You have to remember all the blessings of the covenant (Deuteronomy 28) were contingent on the fact that they would obey the covenant.

"If you're faithful and you obey the covenant, all of these blessings will be yours. On the flipside of that, if you disobey the covenant, then all of these curses will take place." If you look at the history of Israel, what do you see? You see the truth that when they disobeyed and were unfaithful to the covenant, God allowed things to happen to them. 

You can imagine he is a little bit terrified. He is a little bit fearful. That fear and that discouragement could keep him from going forward. You know, as we relate it to the new covenant and the Christian life, the Christian life and the abundant life do not equal comfort. Nowhere in the New Testament do you see a comfortable walk with God. In fact, it says in Philippians, chapter 1, verse 29, it is appointed to you not only to believe but also to suffer.

Now that's lost in a lot of lack of truth today that, when you abide in Christ and you live that abundant life, I'm here to tell you you're not going to have a comfortable life. That's why a lot of people will say, "I don't want that abundant life. I don't want that! I don't want that discomfort. I don't want to have to battle." It is a battle every day. If you're going to abide in Christ, first of all, you have to battle with yourself every day. 

The old nature is always there, and there's a conflict Paul described in Galatians, chapter 5. You have the old nature and the new nature, and those two do not get along. There's that battle. There's that struggle. How many of you have been in such an intense struggle with the old nature that you wanted to give up? 

I have people get discouraged all the time myself because… You know, here I am. I'm struggling. I'm struggling. I'm struggling. Then I realize that's part of the Christian life. The struggle is a part of abiding in Christ. The conflict is all about abiding in Christ. When you abide in Christ, there will be the conflict with the old nature. Then, of course, there's the conflict with the world that's full of temptations, right? 

Then, of course, we have an enemy, the Devil, who will do all he can to keep us from enjoying the fullness of the Spirit. He wants us to stay in the wilderness. We have in our own lives… I like to call them kings. We have kings in our own lives we have to battle. They all are kings who rule in the dominion of self: self-will, self-love, self-vindication, self-confidence. Yeah. Do you see those kings we have to fight every day? Every day!

So the greatest obstacles you will face when it comes to moving forward into the abundant life and enjoying the fullness of your salvation are fear and discouragement. Many Christians are like the Israelites. They see all that's taking place. They see the strong people. They see the strong and fortified cities with all the walls around them. They see the kings they're going to fight, and they see the discomfort that will come with the Promised Land. Of course they see, "We have to obey the covenant." 

They say, "Do you know what? I don't want to go over." Then there are those who do go over, but when they get over there, they compromise. They don't enjoy everything God wants us to enjoy. I mean, even today as we're watching missiles go toward Israel, I hope you realize where they are living now is not exactly what God gave them. He gave them much more than where they're at. 

The reason they are where they are is not God. Who? Them. God says, "You disobeyed the covenant." When we compromise and when we seek comfort, we fail to enjoy all that God has for us. So move forward. Move forward! Move beyond your fears. Move beyond your discouragement, and do it with courage. How? How do we have courage? 

Faith in God's provisions results in a courage that will move you beyond your fear and discouragement. Faith in God's provisions results in courage to move beyond the fears and discouragement. Faith! Faith! Watch what happens in verse 6. Again, we see the command. "Be strong and courageous…" Then he says, "…for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them." Strong and courageous. Let's look at those two words in detail.

They're two Hebrew words: chazaq (which means to show courage) and then 'amats (which means to be able to face danger). What's interesting is whenever you see those two words together in the Old Testament, they are always in the context of God's power and God's presence. Look back at verse 5. 

God makes this promise to Joshua. "No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life." That's God's power, right? Notice his presence. Verse 5: "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you." Go all the way down to verse 9. At the very end of verse 9 after he says, "Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed…" he says (here's the reason), "…for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." God's presence! God's power! 

What these two Hebrew words, to be strong and courageous, are calling us to do is to have an attitude that is strong and courageous that will move us beyond our fears and discouragement. It takes faith. Faith in what? God's provisions. His promises. He promises to be with us. He promises to give us power. He promises to give us victory.

When you move forward believing those promises, when you step out and say, "Okay, God, I know you're with me. I know, in Christ, I'm more than a conqueror. If God is for me, who can be against me…?" When you step out in faith, what happens is it results in courage, and you can move forward, and you can move beyond those fears and those discouragements. Do y'all understand that? 

It is faith in the promises of God, it's faith in his power, faith in his presence, that enables you to say, "I'm moving forward. I don't care about my fears. I don't care about my discouragements. I'm moving forward with God." When we struggle (and we all know this), when we struggle with believing God's promises, what happens? Doubt. Disbelief. 

Oh, let me tell you the Enemy loves to use your fears. He loves to use your discouragements. He loves to take those things and throw them into your face and make you begin to doubt the promises of God and question the very character of God. He will do whatever it takes to keep you from enjoying the fullness of your salvation. Yeah. 

I know in my own personal life the greatest struggles I have had in my Christian walk… In fact, the greatest struggle I've ever had (not to say I won't have one greater than this, but this was a pretty good struggle) was back in 2011. I was actually starting to believe the Enemy, because I'm a pastor, and I have all these answers, but I didn't believe all these promises were for me. I started to believe God had given up on me. I started to believe, "God doesn't care."

Thank God he gave me the faith, enabled me to believe and to understand that what I was beginning to believe was a lie straight from the Enemy. I was able to take that faith and that strength, and I was able to move beyond my fears, discouragement, and my depression. Yes! Yes!

Faith in God's promises results… It's not courage and then faith. Let's not get this backward. It's not, "Well, I'm courageous. Now I'm going to step out in faith." No. I'm going to step out in faith, and God will give me courage. Do y'all understand that? We get it backwards all the time, right? We let the fears tell us, "Don't do it. You don't have the courage yet. Don't do it." Listen. That's a lie from the Devil. 

Faith says, "You go. You step out. You believe." When you believe God's provision, he will provide, and it will result in courage. You can move beyond those fears and discouragement. When you have that type of faith (a courageous faith), it always translates into obedience, which fuels… Listen to this. When you step out in faith and it translates into obedience, it fuels courage and strength. It fuels it!

We see that in verses 7 and 8. Verse 7: "Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you." Let me stop right there. Whenever God gives us a command, he always tells us how to obey it. He always follows it. "Okay, be strong and courageous." 

"All right, God. How will I do that?" 

"Well, you need some faith, and that faith will translate into obedience." 

Obedience to what? The will of God. That's what verse 7 is. It's God saying, "If you will step out and obey, if you will only be strong and very courageous being careful… You be vigilant. You keep your eyes on the law of God. You make sure you do everything according to the law that Moses my servant commanded you."

Listen to this. He says, "Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go." Isn't that great? If I have a courageous faith, what does it look like? Obedience to the will of God. Obedience to the will of God! How do I have strength and courage? You obey the will of God. You step out. You'll notice what he said. "Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left…"

Jesus said it in this way. In John, chapter 14, verse 21, he says, "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." In other words, you enjoy the abundance of salvation as you are obedient to the will of God, right? So you have to be vigilant. Don't go to the left. Don't go to the right. 

Do y'all remember when you used to text when you were driving? I know you don't do it anymore, right? I can always tell when somebody is doing something in their car. Right? It's really scary when they're coming toward you. I've noticed it's not just texting and driving. They have so many gadgets in your car today. It can distract you. 

That's what he is saying. "Be very careful, because when you go over to the Promised Land, you're going to be distracted. If you're not careful, if you're not vigilant and keep your eye on the law of God and be obedient to the will of God, then things are going to happen. You won't be successful. You won't be prosperous. You have to keep your focus on the will of God."

How do you do that? Meditation on the Word of God. That's what verse 8 is all about. How do I stay on the right path? By meditating on the law day and night. "This Book of the Law…" I guarantee you it had Deuteronomy, chapter 28, in it. "Hey, this book of the law with all the blessings and all the curses, make sure you don't let that depart from you." That's what he is saying.

"Do not let the book of the law…" "[It]…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 [only then] you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." 

It says you are to meditate day and night. What that means… Church, listen to me. I cannot fathom living my life without this being the priority of my life. I just can't. I can't fathom a Christian living that way. To meditate day and night simply means God's Word is a priority in your life, that you are consistently, daily spending time meditating.

Now when you meditate, obviously it needs to go beyond meditation. It needs to turn into obedience, right? Some of us have the meditating down, but it's not true meditating if it does not move you to action. That Hebrew word meditating simply means to hum. Hum the Word of God in your mind and in your mouth. Hum it! Sing it! Do whatever it takes to keep it before you. Amen?

Meditate on it. Make it a priority of your life. When you allow that courageous faith to translate… By the way, it's not courageous if it doesn't translate into obedience. When it is active and it is obeying the will of God and meditating on the Word of God to keep the focus, here's what happens. You move forward. When you courageously move forward out of faith and obedience, God's mission will be fulfilled through you.

See, there are a couple of purpose statements that were made in verses 7 and 8. Did you catch them? We love those words: prosperity, success. Man, I want prosperity, and I want success. Unfortunately with the prosperity gospel, the meaning here has been perverted. He is not talking about Joshua's bank account. He is talking about God fulfilling his mission through Joshua and through the Israelites. 

"When you obey the covenant and I bless you, those blessings are to flow through you, and you are to be a light in a dark world. The dark nations around you should realize the God of Israel is the one, true God." Watch this. Look at verse 7. I mean, "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…"

Meditate on the Word of God. Again in verse 8, here's the reason. "For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success." The prosperity and the success are that people will see the God of Israel is the only God. There are no other gods. Amen? Here's what happens. God fulfills his mission through you. What is his mission? That we come and just sit in the pews every Sunday? Oh no! It wasn't for Israel either.  

In fact, there's an illustration of the mission in chapter 2. In chapter 2, we meet a woman named Rahab, a Gentile prostitute, but she understands and she has heard all that God had been doing through the Israelites, all the miracles he did, how he delivered them from Egypt. They had heard all that God had done. I want you to listen to what she says to the two spies. 

Beginning in verse 9, she said to the men, "I know…" Oh, that's faith right there. "I know that the LORD has given you the land…" Isn't that amazing? "I know that the LORD has given you the land, and that the fear of you has fallen upon us, and that all the inhabitants of the land melt away before you. For we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt, and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan…"

Listen to this. "And as soon as we heard it, our hearts melted, and there was no spirit left in any man because of you, for the LORD your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath." Then she says, "Now please. I believe. Will you spare me? I have faith in your God." Then of course in chapter 6, we see that faith translated into obedience, right?

Here's what I want you to see. There are two kingdoms: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. By the way, they're hearing what God is doing and they know he is going to take the land. The people are going to take the land. They could have responded in the same way Rahab did. "Your God is God, and we want to go with your God." But only Rahab did. The rest of them said, "Fight them. Fight them!"

I want you to hear this, church. The way God fulfills his mission through us is as we walk in obedience to his will. That means this building and this church is not the kingdom of God. We are instruments to be used in the kingdom of God. We take the kingdom of God as God blesses us. We take the kingdom of God to a lost and dying world. 

Do you see? That's what Jesus did. He didn't go and build a building and say, "Well, they'll come." He didn't say, "Hey, it's all about location, disciples. If we just get here by the highway, they'll all come to us." What did Jesus do? He went to them, and he said, "The kingdom of God is at hand." That's what we must do. We take it as individuals.

I don't know about you. I want you to think about this. Do you know the Israelites didn't enjoy (and they still haven't enjoyed) all God promised? Here's why. Because they compromised. I don't want to lose out. I want to minimize my regrets as much as possible. I don't want to get to the end of my life and say, "Do you know what? I lived a status quo life. I was faithful, went to church. I gave, and I was just a good person." I don't want that.

When I get to the end of my life, I want to say, as Paul did, "Man, I fought that fight. I ran that race. I preached the gospel of the kingdom. I did all I could to go out into the community and to the ends of the earth, preaching the good news and letting people know there are two kingdoms, and only one kingdom is going to last forever, and it is the kingdom of God." I'm going to minimize my regrets because all that matters is what we do for eternity.

My bucket list for doing things in this world means nothing if it doesn't have eternal significance. Listen. My retirement or anything I am saving up for this world means nothing if I don't put it in terms of eternal significance. I want to move forward. I want our church to move forward. What's going to keep us? Fear. Discouragement. 

If we will just have faith, step out in faith, as individuals and as Christians say, "I'm going to step out in faith, and as I step out in faith, God will give me the courage I need," it will result in courage. That faith will become a courageous faith that translates into obedience. I'm obeying the will of God. 

As I'm obeying the will of God, that's when I become successful. That's when I'm prosperous. That's when God is actually fulfilling his mission through my life. That's when God is fulfilling his mission through my life. That's what I want God to do in my life. Let's bow our heads, our hearts.

Are you here this morning and you…? Let me just rephrase that. Are you minimizing your regrets eternally? I mean, seriously evaluate your life. What's keeping you in the wilderness? What's keeping you from enjoying all that God has for you? What's keeping you from being a light to this world? Identify it. 

Here's what I want you to do. You step out in faith. God has a promise for you. All the promises are yes in Christ Jesus. God has a promise for you. You claim it. You step on it. You move forward, and you'll find you'll have strength and courage. The greatest place to be is exactly where God wants you to be. There's great courage and strength knowing, "No matter what, I'm doing the will of God for the glory of God."

Commit yourself this morning. If you need a personal relationship with Jesus… I'm going to close us in prayer, and then we'll be dismissed. If you want to talk to me about Christ, I'm going to be right here in the front. I would love to talk to you. If you want prayer, I'll be right here in front. 

Father, thank you for this precious word of how we cooperate with you in moving forward. In Jesus' name, amen.