God told Joshua- You are the man to lead my people to take possession of the Promised Land. Standing on the brink of greatness God speaks to Joshua. He builds up his confidence by talking to him - one thing we notice about this story as opposed to the stories of other nations is that the central figure here is not Joshua but God, the stories that are told are told so that the people will be built up in their faith in Yahweh and Joshua’s task is to lead them to trust God, he can’t do that for them but he can point in the right direction-that is the task of the church today and the task of every minister of Christ-as we meet today we seek to help one another to trust God in the week ahead.
-words can be very effective when in the hands of the master craftsman- not always for good-Hitler was a man who knew how to incite people to a hatred which resulted in violence and eventually the attempted annihilation of 6 million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals. In John 1 we have the words of John as he tells the story of redemption, calling Jesus the word or Logos, the way that God communicates to humanity. Joshua took the commission of God and used it to communicate to the people the vision of the future. If a nation or a people are going to be all that they can be they need a vision and their leaders need vision. Joshua was such a man of vision. Like his friend Caleb he was not going to be deterred from crossing the Jordan just because they people already there were bigger than they were, just because they were stronger and better armed. He was undeterred because he really believed that the God of Moses was faithful to His promises and able to keep them.
A leader needs to be a person of vision-that is not to say that he never has any doubts-he does but when he leads the people he leads them inspite of those doubts. He reminds them that even when circumstances look bad he is still going to trust him and follow him and lead the people he leads to follow him.
The man of vision will help his people to see these adverse circumstances through the lens of CHALLENGES to be achieved rather than a problem to defeat him. He never understates the situation, never pretends that all will be well when that is not true but what he does is he makes sure that the people have the faith to continue and overcome the problems and rise to the challenges. The challenge presented by Joshua is to start on a new destiny, Egypt is behind-it was about bondage and slavery-as they prepare to cross the river they prepare for this new life of freedom BUT they have to take up the challenge and move forward knowing that the battle will be great but VICTORY is secure and assured.
There have been times in the history of Britain when the situation looked bleak and God has raised up the right person for the time- most people will say that in 1941 Winston Churchill was one such man-not that he was a man of faith, apart from in himself , but he was able to mobilise the nation in fighting against the tyranny of Hitler-because he saw him as the great threat to democracy he led the nation to put all other concerns and differences of opinion behind them to oppose the COMMON enemy. The nature of his speeches were not to understate the problem but to emphasise the strength of the British people to hold the fort til the Americans changed their minds and joined the struggle and eventually overcame the enemy.
Joshua was such a man of destiny and Israel was about to receive her destiny. Today we are living in a time when the enemy really wants us to give up and go home-to surrender the territory that belongs to our king. Over the years since the end of world war two we have seen an increasing tendency for the nation to become more secular and our city of Belfast and this community is at the sharp end of the struggle.
If we look at ourselves we can understand the problem-
· We have little money in the bank BUT we are not poor
· We have buildings which are too big for our purposes- they were build at a time when the community was much bigger-so when we meet together we sit all over the place and remain distant from each other and appear to be happy with that
· Because of legislation we have property which needs renovation-not just repairs to the buildings but renovations which bring them up to standard in terms of disability access, health and safety and fire regulations not to mention protection against burglary and vandalism.
· And on top of all that we are over serviced by Presbyterian churches not to mention the other denominations in the area-currently we have 8 Presbyterian churches and many other churches and missions.
Like in Joshua’s day there are some who have lost the stomach for the fight and are ready to hoist the white flag-they are too big for us, there are giants in the land.
It is noticeable that Churchill made the problems of wartime Britain a virtue and a strength-he did not under state them or ignore them, he told the nation that the British bulldog spirit would win the day
He promised them “blood, toil, tears and sweat” . He told the House of Commons
“we have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind, we have before us many, many months of struggle and suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea and air. War with all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime. THAT is our policy.”
Before a leader can inspire he needs to be inspired himself and while Churchill was not a man of great faith he was inspired by the horror of possible defeat and God used him as the man for the moment-Joshua, on the other hand had the hand of God on his shoulder and had faith in God, such that he could call the people to join with him in crossing the river. He had personal experience of this God Yahweh:
· He had been with Moses at Mount Sinai when Moses was give the 10 commandments
· He witnessed God’s presence going ahead of the nation in the cloud
· He had watched God lead them out of Egypt and provided for them in the wilderness.
As we read the story we can be encouraged by the action of God leading His people to take the land promised to them we too can claim the promise of eternal life. In the first few verses of chapter one we have the
COMISSION of God to Joshua
God calls him and commission him- in the army officers are commissioned to lead and to ensure that the orders of the General Staff are carried out-they need to be people who can lead and who are equipped to make sure that the strategy and orders become a reality as they fight the enemy. His commission was to lead the people across the river . When a soldier is commissioned he is given the authority to act and he is given the means to ensure that it happens-so a soldier is given his rank but also the men under his control-so when he gives orders it is as if the CO were giving them as far as the foot soldier is concerned.
When Jesus commissions the disciples he says “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples....”
So when I tell another person about the gospel I am doing what God has commanded-Jesus cam with this authority and he has given it to us. WE have no need to overstate the case, no need to make the big sell by exaggerating or even lying, all we need to do is to tell the truth-“the truth will set you free” Sometimes Christians feel the need to overstate the case by telling interested people that if they become a believer they will never have another problem and life will be great-we are never promised any such thing-when we do this we are behaving like people who don’t really have faith or believe our message-that has been the problem for modern China-as she has felt the need to open up to the world and as Marxist Leninist principles have declined in the lives of people they have felt the need to put the best foot forward and always show modern China to be the best-in the process we have the situation of the Olympics were one little girl was told she had d a good singing voice but was not pretty enough so another would mine before the thousands and the cameras while the other girl sang the words-there is no need for us to do such things. Our responsibility is to preach the word in season and out of season an we do that with words and with our actions
In telling them, repeatedly to be strong and courageous Joshua is telling a disheartened and battered people that they can be encouraged and strong because God is with them and will never leave them. The people of Joshua’s day were discouraged because the sin of their fathers had caused God to keep them in the wilderness until a new generation came along and the readers of the written history, possibly during the return from exile were also discouraged by their exile which was also because of sin-sin is sometimes very attractive in the short term but there is always a heavy cost long term. WE too are discouraged because of falling numbers and low income so we need to hear again that God has already given us the victory-we are not victims we are victors
In commissioning them he also gives Joshua his COMMANDS
Deut 7:7-12
He wants them to know that it is best for them to obey God-Moses gave them the Decalogue and Joshua tells them to follow it-never to forget the words and to keep it at the forefront of their minds and actions.
We too are called to do the same-but as we obey God we have another Joshua before us- we have the second Adam, Jesus Christ who makes the commands more than a mere list of
do not-he makes the commands chiselled in stone into a covenant of flesh-
Are you ready to cross the Jordan? Ready to fight the good fight? Are you ready to give your tears and your sweat and your blood-we do no one any favours by making the challenge small-its a big challenge to go and take the enemy on-our struggle is greater than in 1941- its not a mere physical fight but its against the spiritual forces of evil. Joshua used the fighting men to lead the way and forge a way in the land. Today it does not matter how old you are or how young you are, it does not matter how strong you are- we begin by recognising the enemy and all his power and there are still giants in the land but are you ready to take on these forces? God promises to be with us and to give us the victory-the alternative? Give in, go away, surrender the battler and loose the land, this land to the devil-what do you want to do?
