 Tonight we're in Joshua chapter 1 if you guys go to the Old Testament book of Joshua If you want help to get to the book of Joshua start at the beginning of the Bible Go through from Genesis to the end of Deuteronomy and guess what's coming up next is Joshua So if you go to Joshua chapter 1 We're going to be looking at the first nine verses of Joshua chapter 1 chapter There's 24 chapters in Joshua. It's a big book and so don't don't get weary on me right now You're like man, this guy's gonna take us for five years here. No, I'm not You're gonna see as I as we go through here There's some chapters that I'm gonna actually take as a whole and kind of give you an aerial shot of that chapter and pull out The application from those chapters, but tonight we are kind of starting off on a slow pace so Verses one through nine. I'll read these first nine verses and then we'll get into our study after the death of Moses The servant of the Lord it came to pass that it says that the Lord spoke to Joshua The son of none Moses assistant saying Moses my servant is dead Now therefore arise and go over this Jordan you and all this people to the land Which I'm given to them the children of Israel every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon I have given you as I said to Moses from the wilderness and This Lebanon as far as the great river the river Euphrates all the land of the Hittites and To the great sea toward the going down of the Sun shall be your territory No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life as I was with Moses So I will be with you. I will not leave you. No forsake you be strong and of good courage For to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them Only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do according to all the law Which Moses my servant commanded you do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may Prosper wherever you go This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth But you shall meditate in it day and night and that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success Have I not commanded you be strong and of good courage Do not be afraid nor be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go People hate change so I hear When it comes to life changes a lot of us probably kind of freak out when it comes to big changes But the change we generally resist is the kind of change that we think will make our situation worse rather than better We eagerly change jobs for more pay or more influence Perhaps we buy a bigger house and move to a better neighborhood So when you really look at this and you really think about it We are happily we happily move to those areas or we change in that way So it's not changed that we generally hate It's not that kind of change what we hate. It's the change that involves loss Whether it's physical emotional sometimes even psychological When when change comes in our lives and you got a if you if you've lived life long enough, which most of you have you know that change is both in that inevitable and necessary if Everything stays the same No one is growing. No one is moving forward. No, there's no change There's no moving ahead if everything stays the same in our lives And I find it interesting because when it comes to change whether it's the loss of a job a start of a new career a Serious illness a financial setback moving to a new city becoming a parent Getting married or even a retirement. You realize that there's always challenges to those changes You know when you open up the Bible and you begin to read the Bible from Genesis through Revelation It is not very hard to miss the the people that God used whether they're men women married couples you see that God did amazing things in their lives and There are many transitions that take place in the lives of the people in the Bible I For example, if you want to kind of take it from the beginning Adam and Eve Imagine Adam and Eve our first parents They were the very first couple that experienced a huge transition in their lives They went from paradise to a fallen world. Could you imagine the transition that they experienced? Here they are in paradise. They're in a place called the Garden of Eden. There's no sin There's nothing going on in there that that that is sinful or whatnot It's it was a great place and all of a sudden they disobeyed God So they went from paradise to a fallen world the moment they crossed over to this Place of a fallen world. They began to suffer. They began to sweat They began to feel pain and so could you imagine going from a place where there is no pain a place Where everything was sinless to a place where now sin entered the human race I Can't I mean we're living on this side of the paradise We understand what pain is like. We know what corruption is like, right? We turn on the television. We see what's going on in our world See Adam and Eve actually experience None of that stuff when they were in paradise But then they came on over to our end and now they began to experience a fallen world They were the first couple to experience a major life transition But that is as you go on in the Bible. You see Abraham experienced transition He will he left God says leave your father's Country and go to a place that I will show you remember that and so Abraham experienced transition Moses experienced transition when he went back. He left me or he left Egypt went out into the Midian Desert We'll talk a little bit about Moses in a moment and then God called him to go back to Egypt What a transition that was and then as you continue to read throughout the Bible You have David a little shepherd boy all of a sudden God says you're done shepherding sheep You're gonna be the king in Israel Imagine that kind of life change and Then not only that but as you go into the New Testament You have the disciples who went from fishers of fish to fishers of men a big transition big change in their lives Right and then not only that but they experienced another transition when Jesus died on the cross He rose from the dead and they saw him as sent back into heaven and Jesus is okay. You guys are on your own now Wait a minute. We've been with you for a long time for three or so years and now we're alone What a kind of transition was that? And you read throughout the Bible I'm just giving you a few examples there But if you go through the Bible, you're gonna come up to a lot of people in scripture They God did some interesting work in their lives and they experienced transition and change in life One of the things that we have to see as we go through this book here is that every major change Brings a challenge You cannot escape that And we see here that as we look into the book of Joshua as we enter into this book We are going to see probably one of the biggest transition in in the history of humankind And that is the children of Israel Finally entering into a promised land. They got promised Abraham It's a promise that got kept and Here is Joshua Moses's assistant Moses becomes our Joshua becomes Moses's successor and Now he takes the baton and takes the children of Israel into the promised land You see when it comes to the children of Israel, I say that the children of Israel I would say that they have it there They're the ones that experience the most transition in their personal lives as a nation as a group of people They were in constant transition over and over and over and over and over It wasn't anything new to them when it comes to the book of Joshua We're going to be looking at this and we're going to start off with these nine verses by looking at these things But when it comes to the book of Joshua here, usually the book of Joshua is recommended to read whenever we find ourselves in transition When somebody's going through a transition, I say hey listen Dive into the book of Joshua There's a lot of wisdom there when it comes to transition when it comes to life changes and how to go about it And all that the book of Joshua is a great book And it's interesting because this book has been very instrumental in my personal life Because I've gone through a lot of transition in my personal life and and I'm going to continue to go through transitions So this book's going to be right there with me when that happens again And so what we look at this we see that this book is filled It's it's rich with all kinds of wisdom when it comes to transition in life And so what happened here? Well after 40 years of wandering and setbacks God's people were ready to enter the promised land Moses Their great leader had died and Joshua his assistant is now in charge This is not a small job This is going to be huge as you're going to see here in a moment It was a major transition in the life of Joshua to go from being an assistant to the main leader of the children of Israel What was his job? His job was to cross over into the land of milk and honey flowing with milk and honey In fact our theme of this entire book is crossing over You know what the cool thing about this is that Perhaps you're here tonight and you're probably kind of On the verge of a transition in your personal life. Maybe you're experiencing that right now and you're sitting here You're like, oh man, are you serious this guy's gonna talk about this I'm like right there right now. Good. You're gonna get some wisdom Or perhaps you're like, what are you talking about? There's 24 chapters in this book. I guarantee you a lot of you are gonna go through some transition in the next Six seven months probably ever long is gonna take us. It's one of those books that speaks to everybody's heart and So we see here that one of the the biggest lesson if I were to give you The lesson that you have to keep in mind as we're going through this entire book because this is a recurring lesson You're gonna see throughout this 20 these 24 chapters and the lesson is this and you want to write this down somewhere in your Bible God is always faithful in every change God is always faithful in every change. It doesn't matter what you're going through what change is happening in your life Listen, God is always faithful in every change That is going to be a recurring lesson throughout these 24 chapters of Joshua Tuck that away somewhere put it around around the Bible somewhere around these scriptures because I guarantee you You're gonna see this over and over in the life of Joshua The book of Joshua is a very powerful book. It's actually part of the historical books of the Old Testament After Joshua wrote this book or not Joshua, but is some believe it was pinned by different people But but we see though that before Joshua We have five books what we call them the five books of Moses the Pentateuch in the Greek the Torah in the Hebrew and In these books here are the historical books as we get into the book of Joshua The book of the the books of Moses or the five books of Moses as they say they tell the story of Israel's first entry into the Promised Land under Joshua as you see here It also tells the story of Israel's life in the land under the judges and the transition to kingship The division of the nation into two rival kingdoms the southern kingdom the the northern kingdom The downfall and exile of each kingdom the life in the exile in Judas returned from exile All of that stuff you get in these historical books. These books span close to a thousand years of history Thousand years of history, so it's not surprising that that their history includes many ups and downs twists and turns yet through it all God is the same yesterday today and forever and He remains the focal point of their lives Kind of reminds me of life on this side of heaven There's gonna be ups and downs twists and turns right I mean we all experienced that yet through it all through it all God is Always faithful he remains faithful in those changes like I mentioned before and not only that but God remains the focal point of Our lives if we allow him to be Keeping him first You see I see that I look at life like this life is a great adventure It really is But when you bring God in the picture when you put God in the middle of your life life becomes very exciting on top of that adventure and God has ways to move us around God has ways to speak to our hearts and so we see here that Joshua had God at the center of his life and God made it very clear in these first nine verses that God Wanted to be the center or the focal point in his life So what happened to Moses? Why did he die? Well, we're gonna get into that here right now. Let's look at verses one and two the call of Joshua The call of Joshua and we're gonna be turning into other verses, too So just keep that in mind He says after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord He starts off after the death of Moses this is significant and For for more than four decades if you remember for more than four decades this great leader this lawgiver The servant and friend of God led the children of Israel out of Egypt. He had a big job there through the desert Everyone alive knew Only one leader Moses that was the only leader they knew But Moses got himself in big trouble He got himself in big trouble and I'm gonna show you real quickly what happened go to numbers chapter 20 verse 8 Turn to numbers chapter 20 verse 8. Just go to your left after Deuteronomy go to numbers chapter 20 At verse 8 When I kind of give you the story here real quickly of what happened to Moses if you're wondering well, why did Moses die? What did he do? Verse 20 a chapter 20 verse 8. This is where we begin with the story of Moses. He says Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying take the rod you your brother Aaron Gather the congregation together speak to the rock before their eyes and it will yield its water Thus you shall bring water to them or for them out of the rock and give drink to the congregation and these and their animals So Moses took the rod from before the Lord as he commanded him and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly together Before the rock and he said to them here now you rebels nice way to talk to your church, huh? Must we bring water for you out of this rock? Then Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod and water came out abundantly in the congregation and their animals drank Notice what happens in verse 12 Says then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron Because you did not believe me to hallow me in the eyes of the children of Israel Therefore you shall not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them This was the water of Meribah because the children of Israel contended with the Lord and he was hallowed among them What did Moses do that warranted such a severe penalty from the Lord I Mean you look at God. You're like, okay. I've blown it many times. I've blown it and God has never said to me Oh, sorry. You can't get to heaven now. You're done. You blew it, right? And you're thinking well, why would God do that to him? I mean it was a mistake. Okay, so he got a little upset at the people, right? Have you ever been upset at people? Right, have you ever said dumb things to people right? You're like, oh man I can't believe I said that to them and you go to God said Lord. I'm so sorry for what I said I know this was not good. It wasn't right and God doesn't say well too bad. I don't want to forgive you, right? He forgives you so what happened here? Why did Moses? Get this huge punishment There's four reasons. I want to give you quick ones first Moses disobeyed a direct command of God That's why God did this God made it very clear to Moses. This is what you're supposed to do speak to the rock a direct command Moses disobeyed God Now you wonder why God went after Jonah wasn't there a direct command given to Jonah? Jonah arise and go to Nineveh nope. I Mean, how do you feel when your kids say that to you? Hey son take out the trash. No way. I mean do you what do you do? Do you get like all right fine tomorrow? Do it then no you got excuse me? You just I just gave you a direct command to take out the trash. You don't say no to me How who are you right? Well, God is a father right and God's saying to Moses Excuse me. I said to you speak. I didn't say hit the rock And so it was a direct a disobedience to direct command of God The second reason why this was very severe is because Moses took credit for bringing forth the water You're like really? How did that happen? Well notice in verse 10 of Numbers Moses says must we Referring to Moses and Aaron bring you water out of this rock. Ooh What do you mean? It's not you're doing Moses It's not you're doing this is God doing this through you and so there's another violation third Moses and Aaron lack trust in God which is Reflected in the fact that God pointed it out to them when he says because you did not trust in me enough numbers 20 verse 12 because you did not trust me and 4th Moses basically misrepresented God He totally misrepresented God. He became very angry He was very harsh to the people and even though God knew that the children of Israel had some issues, right? They were very very Glitchy, if you will I guess right they were very they were complainers murmurs and all of that God still loved them and So Moses had no right to represent God as a angry God rebels and so Right there we see that God said to Moses because of this you're not entering into the promised land in other words You're not going to step foot in there with the children of Israel You see what we see here is very interesting What I see here is that God's promise to Abraham was in no way altered by the death of Moses Because could you imagine God could have said to Moses? Oh, what are you doing now? I can't allow you to go into the promised land Therefore my plans that I had for the children of Israel now have been squashed. Thanks Moses Didn't happen that way God says Moses. I'm not using you. I'm gonna use somebody else and So God tells Moses very clearly you're not going to be taking them in and so what does Moses do? Well, Moses prays God okay, then who do you want to use? To be basically my successor. Who is the one who's gonna take the children of Israel into the promised land? Notice that God prayed he went to God and asked God. Who are you gonna send? It wasn't that Moses said to God I have an idea God. I know who can go before me No, it was God. Who are you gonna send? Who are you gonna use? Well That's when God told Moses Joshua Joshua is the one who is going to take over your position. He is the one who's gonna leave the children of Israel into the promised land Joshua was around for a while actually. Joshua wasn't a newbie. I mean Joshua was actually Mentored under Moses for about 40 years or so Even most even Joshua says that during the time that he was being that he was with Moses as his assistant he was around 40 years old and So as Moses was there and Joshua was there were about 40 years before the leadership transition took place We see that God are that Moses was actually mentoring Joshua. Joshua was a big part of this entire congregation You know later on God tells Moses to lay hands on Joshua And you see that in Numbers chapter 27 and he lays hands on Joshua in front of the congregation Before Moses died why because God wanted to make sure while Moses was still alive that the people of Israel Understood clearly that it was Joshua Who's gonna take over the leadership of Moses? It wouldn't have happened if Moses died if Moses died The children of Israel could have easily rebelled against Joshua because they would have said well How do we know Moses put you in charge? Moses never said anything to us But God was very cool about it He was very wise because then he said okay I'm gonna I want you to lay hands on him in front of the congregation So everybody knows why you're alive that you know that he is going to be the guy who's gonna take over and then Moses dies and the children of Israel already knew that Joshua was the one who was gonna take over and so we see here very clearly that The final scene of that last chapter of Moses if you guys turn to Deuteronomy 34 I want you guys to read this with me real quickly just right next to right over Joshua to the left The final scene it's kind of sad scene Deuteronomy 34 versus one through wait listen It is then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Piska Which is a cross from Jericho and the Lord showed him all the land of Gilead as far as Dan All of Naphtali and the land of Ephraim and NASA all the land of Judah as far as the West Western sea The South and in the plane of the Valley of Jericho the city of Palms trees as for so as far as Zor Then the Lord said to him this is the land of which I swore to give Abraham Isaac and Jacob saying I will give it to your Descendants I have caused you to see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there Kind of kind of sad So Moses the servant of the Lord died in the land of Moab according to the word of the Lord And he was buried in the Valley in the land of Moab opposite of bet peor But no one knows his grave to this day Moses was 120 years old when he died His eyes were not dim nor his natural vigor was diminished and the children of Israel wept for Moses in the planes of Moab 30 days so the days of weeping and mourning for Moses ended Moses died It's a done deal. He's it's over and we come to Joshua chapter 1 and God says Now that my servant Moses is dead It's pretty interesting isn't it a hundred and twenty years old and even says there that Moses wasn't His eyes weren't dim. He still had plenty of stamina in other words. He could have gone another hundred years Past that another fifty years. He didn't die because it was because he was too old to lead the children of Israel He died because he wasn't going to continue on with the children of Israel Now it's interesting that we go in the book of Jude. We see that There's a battle going on in heaven Michael the archangel With the enemy fighting over the body of Moses. What does that mean? I don't know just thought I tell you that It's interesting to the transfiguration the mountain of transfiguration when Jesus takes his disciples on this mountain There are two people with mode with Jesus Elijah and Moses Elijah who did not taste death was taken up and Moses it's interesting. I don't know what what's going on there But we know for sure that Moses represents the law Elijah represents the prophets and so there's a mystery there And I know Bible scholars have gone all over the place trying to figure out what happened here What's going on here and then a lot of scholars will take that and say okay now we go to Revelation chapter 11 and those two witnesses have to be Moses and Elijah because they have to taste death if Moses something happened to him and he got into You know the body was somewhere and you know never made it to heaven or whatever They're the ones that are coming back and they're the ones that are going to complete what they left here on earth But we don't know that that's all speculation Let's probably be a question. You're gonna ask me at the end of the month So it says after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord it came to pass that the Lord Spoke to Joshua. Wow. I love that word the Lord spoke to Joshua God had already chosen Joshua as Moses successor and so Joshua knew his calling So in other words what this means is the 30 days were done of mourning Now got to love them to mourn now. It's time to move on now. It's time to get going And that's why God comes to Joshua. He speaks to Joshua and It's interesting that as he comes here Joshua was probably around 68 to 70 years old a lot of God Bible scholars have done their numbers some even said he could have been about 80 years old You know perhaps closer to 70 maybe 80. It shows you I mean Could you imagine, you know an 80-year-old taking over the ministry here of Moses, you know I mean nowadays we're looking for younger people ready to go over churches right a pastor that's gonna leave their church He's not gonna look for an 80-year-old to come over and say okay. Here's your new pastor. Thank you, right? No offense to those who are older here. God still can use you But you know what you you try to you know my point right here right you get my point here, right? I mean, please God is like really Robert. You don't think I can use an 80-year-old and I know you can Lord I know you can Different culture different society, right? But the Lord spoke to Joshua. Here's Joshua perhaps Pushing 70 pushing 80 and here he's taken over this leadership position And it's important for us to note that it was God who called Joshua It wasn't Joshua saying to God Lord now that Moses are Moses is dead. Can I do this? Can I take over his position? It wasn't like that God called Joshua? And it's cool to see that because it's important because even today, you know There are things where you know pastors will look at Classified ads and they try to pick and choose where to go and pastor a church or whatnot I know God can use that but sometimes I'm like, you know what you really have to be called by the Lord to go somewhere To do something and I think this is a great example to see that it was God who called Joshua God did not put an ad in the paper and say I'm looking for somebody to take over to 2 million Jews across the desert You know called no calls just send your resume or whatever, right? It wasn't like that It's like no, I'm gonna choose Joshua. Could you imagine how Joshua must have felt when when God Said Moses Joshua is the one who's gonna take over your position and then he lays hands on Joshua I imagine Joshua wondering like whoa, this is huge I mean this is gonna be incredible and then Moses is still alive and then Moses dies 120 there's 30 days of mourning and could you imagine what went on in in Joshua's head? What was going on in his heart? He's like, oh man, he's dead now. It's my turn. What's going on here, right? You're gonna see that perhaps there was some fear in him because of what God says to him here in the first six verses That did Joshua like anybody was probably was probably freaking out. I Mean this is guys. This is a mega church here. This is the biggest church Recorded in the Bible about 2 million Jewish people were right there looking to Joshua To lead them into the Promised Land. How intimidating would that be to you? That's crazy, isn't it? And so here God comes to Joshua and says, okay, Joshua Arise and go it's time to go 30 days are up. Moses is dead. Let's do this. Whoa This is not something light, right? This is not something you're like, oh, this is gonna be great. I can't wait, right? No, this is interesting because notice that I bet you that here Elijah felt very or I'm sorry Joshua felt very very intimidated by this entire process But it's interesting to me that God had to move Moses out of the way Now Joshua could have stepped in while Moses was still alive, but there were some issues with that I think when we look at this here actually We see very clearly that even though Joshua was a very strong military leader because that's what he was when he was with Moses We see that Joshua here was very timid by this whole thing And so as we see here that Joshua was ready to take this position here We see very clearly that God had to move Moses out of the way and I'll give you some reasons here in a moment Joshua was a very faithful man of God. In fact, he was one of the 12 spies that were sent to spy out the land when they all went in there Ten of the people that went over with them came back scared to death because there were giants in the land He said they were like gigantic grasshoppers. They said like these are huge people. There's no way we can beat these guys And it was Joshua and Caleb the only two out of the 12 that stood up and said no no no We're not gonna be afraid. God promised the land. We can do this. God is gonna give us the victor Let's do this. He was the only one with Caleb out of those 12 out of the 10 there that actually had the courage To say no, we're not gonna. We're not gonna be afraid The only people that made it to the promised land was Joshua and Caleb and the children of the first generation Their parents didn't make it Isn't that crazy? Those guys just stayed in the wilderness and died there. It was their kids and Joshua and Caleb Were the ones that stepped over and they were ones that came in now you wonder well, what about Aaron well Aaron died He died at a hundred and twenty three years old That's a long time, huh hundred twenty three years. It's a long long time, but he died and He was part of the mess that Moses got himself into so so God wasn't gonna use Aaron because you would think okay. There's Moses and and I thought Aaron was his right hand man. He was But he was part of the whole thing. So God says I'm not using you guys We're gonna go with somebody new And because Joshua was right there already coming underneath Moses with his military expertise God did not call Joshua to be a military general He called him to be the one to lead them over to the to the promised land He wasn't looking for a military general like what he was and so here We see that we see here that his dad's name is none. He says the son of none not of a none, but none and We don't know much about his father Except for what we have here. We can look at other places in scripture But there's not much more about his father But the cool thing is if I mean imagine this dad mr. None I guess if you will I mean he had a son that that took over this position I mean, could you imagine being the dad of your son and your son's like yeah, dad I'm gonna take over this church. It's about two million people. I mean, could you imagine? It's a doubt. Good job son do it. You know, I mean that's pretty big And so he's the son of none And yet here we see here that the name Joshua just to throw this out to you So you kind of have this the Greek name Jesus simply translates the Hebrew name Joshua The names are identical. They both mean salvation So there's a there's a spiritual component to this that I'm gonna share with you her in a moment But he says in verse 2 my servant Moses is dead. I love that God says my servant Moses not my boy Not my man My servant the word servant in the Hebrew. It just means minister My servant my minister Moses is dead. I Want to circle back around to what I said earlier that God had to move Moses out of the way for Joshua to effectively Take over his leadership. God didn't allow Moses to be around. Why? Well, here's where some commentators kind of began to kind of look at the picture from a spiritual perspective We're not told the reason why here But it's interesting that there's an observation that's made that that they say Moses represents the law Joshua being a type of Christ's So the law was never intended to bring total forgiveness of sins We actually went through the book of Hebrews talking about that It pointed us to Jesus to Christ who is the one who leads us to victory and to the promised land and so Joshua's name which is so clearly You know focused on you know being Jesus salvation or whatnot Reminds us that Yahweh is salvation and so Moses representing the law would not Take us into the promised land But Joshua being a type of Christ as Christ came full of grace That's what gets us into the promised land. So there's a spiritual component to it. It's an observation This is a speculation You find this in commentaries and all but but but I think on a practical level if you want to look at it from a practical perspective I would say that it would have been very difficult for Joshua to freely lead Moses While Moses was still alive because remember the only leader that the people knew was Moses And so if Moses was still alive and Joshua was here It could have been some confusion there it would have been a little difficult on a practical level And John Wesley said this and I quote God buries his workmen, but his work goes on And I think that's true You know listen God uses men and God uses them in a powerful way But God doesn't get stuck on that Because then God says listen I want to continue my work and so he raises up other people to move forward with the work And so we see this exactly this happening here with Joshua the yes, I respect Moses. He's my servant He's dead, but listen Joshua's time for you to rise and go My work is not complete is what what we see here, and that's what he says there arise and go This is a command not an option Go again Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and he said no There are important lessons here for all of us when it comes to the Christian life that I want to kind of go through here The Christian life involves obedience to the word of God. I think that's pretty practical I think a lot of you guys here know that it is a life to be lived by faith in the power of God And it's interesting because we simply cannot live the Christian life in our own power or by our own determination we have to Let God lead us we have to bring God into the equation if you will we don't tell God what we want to do There's a determined will Determined will by God to do something in our lives And then what our job is to try to figure that out through prayer through the word and whatnot And so sometimes we think as Christians that will become Christians that now God can can do everything that I've been wanting to Do okay God and he's like kind of like a genie right you rub the lamp He says he pops out you know, okay. This is what I want to do in life. So get at it. God get me going on this That's not the way it is The Christian life is not either not about just being mr. Nice guy either It's not about being nice or or Christian or you know Keeping set of Christian principles and rules and whatnot the Christian life is a faith relationship with Jesus Christ It's a relationship that were to live out in the power of the Holy Spirit in light of the word of God God is giving Joshua the go to move forward now that Moses is dead This was a step of faith. It was time to bring God's people to the promised land There are times and there will be times when God will tell us to go It's time to move on it's time to move forward. I have more for you and We go by faith we go trusting God and we go in the power of the Holy Spirit So with the words arise and go here in this text The Lord is saying to Joshua and get out of the desert and go into the go into the promised land Go to Canaan where the promised land is that the adventure of Joshua is about to begin here and before God's This patches Joshua. He begins to encourage him He tells them very clearly here in Joshua chapter 1 notice in verse 2 He says arise go over to the Jordan you and all this people to the land which I am given to them I am giving to them the children of Israel This is about God. This is not about Joshua. It's not about Joshua at all. This is about the promise of God That he made that promise to Abraham God has a plan and he's using Joshua to bring about his plan Joshua is just that instrument that God says I'm gonna use you Joshua. This is not about you It's about my promise the promise I made to my people. I'm choosing you to be that instrument to lead them into the promised land You know when it comes to being used by God, it is not only a serious thing. It's a privilege It's a privilege to be used by God It's serious, but it's an incredible privilege Joshua is being used by God in a powerful way and man what a privilege It was for Joshua And God used a lot of men in the Bible Moses Abraham David Jeremiah Jonah the twelve disciples And man, it was a work that God called them to do, but it was God's work. It wasn't their work And God just used them as the instruments to further God's kingdom And so what God will do here is that now God will give Joshua three things that he needed to know about his calling We're going to go we're going to speed through these okay The first thing we see here at verse three He says every place that the soul of your foot will tread upon I have given you as I have to moses Three things Joshua that you need to know about your calling one is that your call is going to take It's going to require taking steps of faith Listen the land the promised line is not just going to fall on your lap You're going to have to move you're going to have to go get it That takes steps of faith. He says every place it's an adventure of faith It's not just going to fall on your lap a step by step. God will lead Joshua into the promised land Let me say something about faith faith is action guys Faith is action faith is movement faith is activity When we look at faith the christian life is a life of faith You know ephesians chapter two verse 10 listen to this for we are his workmanship created in christ jesus for what? Good works. There's action. There's movement there right which god prepared beforehand that we should what? Walk in them right It doesn't say that we are his workmanship created in christ jesus to sit on our hands We're created for something for good works that god is preparing beforehand so that we should walk Through them or walk in them in other words right now There are works and things that god is doing in your life And you are going to be walking into those works that god is preparing for you He's preparing them already and he's going to get you from a to b and he has ways to do it unless you're a Jonah and say no And the cool thing about that is that it shows us that the christian life is an it's a life of action As christians we're to be active within our faith We don't just get saved and sit on the side and say okay. Well, we'll just wait till i get to heaven No way Then then then it's going to be boring And christians will say christian life is boring. No, you're boring not god god is not boring When you look at the bible, I mean you read it and you're like man god is a god of action here How do how can I get involved here? How can I get into the plan here? Well, we have to Trust the lord and walk by faith as the bible says not by sight God is encouraging joshua to move forward the land is theirs ready to take but joshua needed to start moving in faith as god Comforts him there in verse three He's going to take those steps of faith as you're going to see here as we go through the book of joshua here And god is calling him to a specific task and he's promising joshua right away victory He's he's he's he's promising victory right away You know sometimes we stop moving forward because there's opposition or because there's obstacles in the way and sometimes we even conclude It must not be god if there's so much going on. No, no, no, that's not true I mean you're going to see here that even though we're reading these first nine verses as we get into this book There's going to be a lot of opposition and obstacles in the way here to enter that land And it's interesting because taking the land took effort The challenge ahead was not for those content with egypt But for those who would press ahead for what god had called them to because remember there was one point where the children of Israel said Let's go back to egypt. We had it better there leaks onions and all they remember that there were liars Romanticizing the past is really bad sometimes Christians do this a lot. Oh, you know what? I had it better before I was a christian, you know, my friends did not bother me I didn't have all these temptations. You know what it was better back then. Oh really being a methodic was best Oh really Okay, so so so life before jesus was better. See when you romanticized the pasts to something wrong And the children of Israel did that because egypt equaled slavery bondage torture And for them to even say we had it better in egypt was a lie They were deluded and so when you say to other people, I had it better before I was a christian because of all this Listen, there's something wrong You did not have it better before you were christian. In fact, life is better being a christian Yeah, there are ups and downs. I understand that Yes, there are challenges. There are temptations. But listen, I've had more good times with jesus than bad times with jesus in my walk with him I'm serious. I'm not just saying this And I hope that you would do the same thing. I hope you understand that that you get off of that Trip sometimes that you think you had it better before you were a christian. That's a lie romanticizing the past is bad It took effort for him to take the the actual um the land When neomai was called by god to rebuild the walls of jerusalem He took that step of faith to do it and guess what met him on the way Some ballad and tobias these two jerks, sorry They were read it. These guys were bad Man, these guys kept throwing discouragement to these guys. He was discouraging those on the wall And so did neomai say oh, maybe the lord's not in it because there's a some ballad and tobias So we're gonna go back god. I'm sorry god. I guess I thought you were no no He says I know what god has called me to do. I'm gonna press on And he did and he built the walls of jerusalem and josh was going to experience that as well And so what we see here is very clear is that In the christian life just because we're in christ saved redeemed doesn't mean that our lives will be without testing conflict struggles and challenges You're gonna get those things. However, let me say this with god Because god is not he's not against us. He's for us We will experience deliverance through faith In all of those situations that is what joshua will experience The second thing he gives him here about his calling. There's some boundaries in verse four. God lays out the territory Joshua had to know the boundaries. It was a real land and and god did not want joshua to be out in left field Somewhere else wondering is this where god won us? No, he made it clear. This is your boundaries The third thing that he gave him about his calling is that god's everlasting presence was going to be with him I love this verse five. He says i will be with you That's enough for anyone seeking god's will isn't it? I will be with you Victory is assured not because joshua was a good military person Not because he was a good leader, but because god is a great god and god was going to be with him That's where victory came When god calls you and i to do something you can be assured that his presence will be with you And joshua was there when moses looked up to heaven and said to god this in exodus 33 15 He says if your presence does not go with us do not send us up from here Do you know how many times i've prayed that and do you know how many times i continue to pray that? Lord if you are not going with me if your presence if your blessing is not here If this is not where i'm supposed to be then lord, please do not send me Please don't let me go It's a it's a very common prayer for me to be honest with you Why? Because i want to be where god wants me to be Do you want to be where god wants you to be? Are you where god wants you to be? You got to be honest with god lord Am i in the right place? Am i in the right position? Am i in the right job? Am i in the right relationship? We have to ask that we have to be honest with god I don't want to be anywhere without the presence of god now when i say that i know we know in the new testament God never leaves us no forsakes us But what i'm trying to say what i'm meaning when i say that is that i don't want to be anywhere that god has not called me That's what i'm saying And that's what moses was trying to make sure with god That can be a job like i said it could be a relationship a situation that you have no business being in i'm going to close here with a few thoughts i'm actually stopping very early because we got to do we got to partake in communion So i'm going to continue on with this, but i want to close with my application that i can still kind of integrate here in my study joshua's task was pretty big You're going to see it here as we go through this book But i don't want you to miss Some lessons here that i think are very important for us to consider And and i want you to understand one thing here and perhaps some of you here may be going through A lot lately you're going through a lot lately in your life or you're currently in a situation that is over your head Your it's over your head And you're asking the question. What do i do? How do i move forward from this? Well, let me say this to you knowing that you are not alone should give you the courage to press on notice in verse nine It says it there Have i not commanded you be strong and of good courage? Do not be afraid nor be dismayed for the lord your god is with you wherever you go Maybe the lord just spoke to your heart right now. He just confirmed He just comforted your heart Listen press on Don't be afraid Maybe god has been asking you to take a huge step into a deeper faith Or to serve beyond what you think you're capable Listen god is aware of your fears god is aware of your fears If god is calling you into a deeper faith with jesus go for it. Don't be afraid Go for it if that means that you'll be Going through a transition in life So be it trust jesus But i'll leave you this final thought not all change is pleasant We've established that But when you're being led To a better place by god Who loves you? We don't need to fear All he wants is for you to trust him He'll work out the details Don't worry about it. Don't go ahead of the lord He will walk you step by step. Amen