Joshua
Decision Time Joshua 24.1-1-15
There’s something very intolerant
about God, something rather inflexible, something rather fierce and illiberal
about him
And every so often God’s people come
up hard against that intolerance with a jolt. It takes them aback. It
challenges them and it makes them take stock of their lives – or it ought to do
In a free and easy world no one minds
if you’re a bit religious. It’s almost fashionable these days to describe
yourself as a spiritual person - whether you are into horoscopes, crystals, Feng Shui,
eastern religion or the Christian faith. That’s fine as long as you don’t take
it to extremes
But, the real living God is an extremist. He says ‘if you’re going to worship me, you must worship me alone’ - any other gods you’ve got, you’ve got to throw out
Our God is an intolerant God. He is
intolerant of rivals or competitors. ‘There is only room for one God in this
universe’ says the Lord ‘and its me.’ ‘There is only room for one God in your
life and it’s me.’ All impostors, interlopers, all competitors must be evicted
at once
Every so often in our lives God
speaks in a powerful way to re-emphasise that point. That’s what’s going on in
Joshua 24 when God speaks these words through Joshua:
14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with
all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the
River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
It was decision time for the people
of God. In a strange kind of way it reminds me of a wedding. Yesterday a couple
were married here at Holy Trinity. A wedding day is a decision day. They had to
make a decision, publicly, in front of their family and in front of God.
As the officiating minister it was
my duty to challenge them to the decision. The service required me to ask of
them both a positive and negative commitment:
Will you take this woman
to be your wife? Will you lover her, comfort her, honour and protect her, and ,
forsaking all others, be faithful to her as long as you both shall live?
They had to say ‘yes’ to
each other and ‘no’ to everyone else.
Wouldn’t it be a travesty of all that marriage stands
for if a bridegroom said ‘yes I take this woman to be my wife but only on the
condition I can keep all my ex-girlfriends too’ No woman would accept that
unworthy dishonourable kind of commitment. It would be an utter insult to her
A
travesty, a tragedy, an unbelievable mockery of real loving commitment but remarkably an approach to their Lord
that God’s people have consistently
attempted from the days of Abraham right up to 2002, because the constant
temptation for the believer is to say ‘Jesus, yes, and my other gods too
please..’
But God can no more accept that level
of commitment than a bride-to-be or indeed a wife of many years standing. He
says:
14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with
all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the
River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
It
has been said of American Christianity that it is a mile wide and an inch thick
. What about us here at Holy Trinity? It is easy enough to measure the width
of the faith amongst us, to measure how far it has spread among us in terms of
statistics with the electoral roll and the weekly congregational count, but how
deep is our faith? How deep is our commitment to Christ?
Like the people of Joshua’s day,
the other gods have a strong draw, and if we are not careful, a place in our
hearts is kept for them, and the Lord Jesus is just reduced to one god among
many, patiently waiting his place in the queue for our attention
But of course he can never accept
that position; he demands more, and he deserves more.
What about you? Have you something
in your life you need to throw away? Is there a cuckoo in your spiritual nest
that you need to evict? If you are going to serve the Lord with all
faithfulness, is there something else in your life, another god, something that
competes with the true God for your love and loyalty that you know you need to
get rid off ? God cannot co-exist with another god
If God has a rival in your life,
then heed the challenge of Joshua and get ready to throw away all other gods.
For the people of Joshua the other
gods were the gods they worshipped beyond the River and in Egypt ie in their old life. For you it may be the
same, something from your old life, something from before you became a
Christian that is holding you back from serving God properly. If that is the
case, decide today to get rid of it.
To his people Joshua says its
decision time. By now he is an old man is at the end of his life, soon he will
depart to be with the Lord and he calls them the people to renew their vows.
God speaks through Joshua reminds his people of his great power and love, of
his own never failing, everlasting, utterly faithful commitment to them: ‘I
took your father and led him throughout Canaan, I gave him Isaac, and Jacob, I
sent Moses to rescue you when you were in slavery, I led you out of Egypt, I
brought you to the promised land, I gave you victory in the battles’, in short:
13
So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not
build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you
did not plant.'
And we could continue that story
into the New Testament until today with God saying: ‘I sent my son to be your
saviour, I called you by name, I sent my Spirit into your heart, I have kept
and preserved you in the faith until now, I have prepared a place in heaven for
you and you will be with me forever
None of this you have earned, none
of this you deserve:
13
So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not
build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did
not plant.'
He is the kind and gracious God. He
is the only God and the challenge is clear:
14 "Now fear the LORD and serve him with
all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshipped beyond the
River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
This song may express our response:
I WILL
OFFER UP MY LIFE
In spirit and truth,
Pouring out the oil of love
As my worship to You.
In surrender I must give my every
part;
Lord, receive the sacrifice
Of a broken heart.
Jesus, what
can I give, what can I bring
To so
faithful a friend, to so loving a King?
Saviour,
what can be said, what can be sung
As a praise
of Your name
For the
things You have done?
Oh, my
words could not tell, not even in part,
Of the debt
of love that is owed by this thankful heart.
A sermon preached by our new
curate, Mick Hough, on his first Sunday at Holy Trinity
At last! We’ve done it! We are in the
Promised Land! Huge challenges lie ahead of us – but boy is it good to be here!
I might be speaking for
Libby and myself: compared with the wilderness of N. London, Redhill might seem
like a land flowing with milk and honey, but I’m really imagining what
Joshua might have felt as he stood with his feet firmly in Canaan.
It must feel good! The previous
generation, under Moses, had stood on the edge but failed to enter the land –
failed to trust in God’s protection and promise – and as a result they’d been
banished to the wilderness for 40 years.
But it must feel daunting! They’ve
entered the land without much opposition, and the big challenge for Joshua and
the people is still to come.
And the fortified city of Jericho,
standing high on a hill above them, represents the size of the challenge.
God’s command to them is that they
are to conquer and settle the whole land, not just the bit they’re
standing on. They’re to take possession of what God has promised them.
If they are going to do that, then
good military strategy says they need to capture the hill country from where
they will be able to control the rest of the land.
And Jericho, fortified and full of
armed Canaanites, stands between Joshua and the hill country.
Some of us will be very familiar
with this story, if you went to Sunday School then you almost certainly acted
it out! Some of us might not be so
familiar, like the boy who was asked by his teacher ‘Who knocked down the walls
of Jericho?’ – to which he replied ‘It wasn’t me, Miss, but it was probably him
over there, he’s always breaking things.’
But lets look afresh at this event
in the history of God’s saving purposes for his people. As we look at it, I
hope that we will see 3 principles for us today, as we think about what
it means to move forward as God’s people, taking possession of what God has
promised us. This story is relevant to us as we think about how to go
about the Lord’s work in Redhill.
Joshua is on a recce. to have a
look at Jericho (v.13) when he meets a man ‘standing in front of him with a
drawn sword in his hand.’ He describes himself as (v.14) ‘the commander of the
army of the LORD’. That’s a bit of a surprise isn’t it? Surely that’s Joshua’s
job! So who is this figure – well he’s clearly greater than Joshua, because
Joshua falls face down to the ground in reverence. This is the heavenly
commander of the army of God. In fact as we look on we can see that this is an
appearance of God himself v.15 (Moses
at the Burning Bush?) and even more clearly in 6:2 When this heavenly warrior
speaks, it is the LORD himself who is speaking ‘Then the LORD said to Joshua’.
Hugely significant: Flick back to
1:9 READ. The LORD had promised Joshua that he wouldn’t be alone – God would be
with him as he led the people into the land. If we were to flick back to
Deut.20 we would hear these words: ‘The LORD is the one who goes with you to
fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.’ God has promised not
just to be with his people, but to fight for them, and give them victory – they
can move forward into the land with confidence. And this theme of God as a
warrior fighting for his people and giving them victory runs throughout the
whole book of Joshua. We might even say the whole Bible.
If we move to the NT we hear Jesus
give us his great commission: Matt.28:18ff ‘All authority in heaven and earth
has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising
them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teaching
them to obey everything I have commanded you.’ That’s our God-given task as the
Church in Redhill, isn’t it? To make Jesus known in every way we can, and to
make disciples. And that is a daunting task! But listen to what follows: ‘And
surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.’
We don’t move forward alone in
God’s work, the Spirit of Jesus is in us and with us. As we do his work, he
will give the victory.
God calls his people, now as then,
to fight with him.
That moves us onto the second
principle:
I’m not sure that I’m meant to
admit to this, as a newly ordained minister, appointed to a curacy in a lively
evangelical church – but at times the task of making Christ known in this world
seems too big a task to cope with. How are we meant to persuade people that
they need Jesus Christ, when everyone is so preoccupied with more immediate
things like work, family, sport etc. I listen to the news and feel that society
is becoming more and more secularised. The ever more powerful media gets ever
more liberal in its approach to morality.
How on earth are we meant to make
an impact on such a society?
There’s encouragement – great
encouragement from our passage this morning: Our perspectives change when we
see though God’s eyes.
Beginning of Ch.6 describes Jericho
from a human perspective: High up, fortified – fully prepared to resist a siege
– no one allowed to go out or to go in. An impregnable fortress. Joshua must
have wondered how on earth his people were going to conquer this city – from a human
perspective it is unassailable.
But compare v.1 of Ch.6 with v.2.
What’s the LORD’s perspective on Jericho? READ v.2 From God’s perspective this
city is as good as conquered ‘I have delivered Jericho into your hands.’ – just
go in and take possession of what I have promised you.
Not too difficult to see where the
encouragement lies for us is it? What has God promised us? Not just a rocky
piece of land in the near east – but an eternal kingdom. God will build
his kingdom in every generation – that is his purpose and his promise to us. So
as we look at the size of the task, we needn’t be daunted – because God is at
work out there, as well as in here – he is preparing people to hear the gospel
that we will preach, and when they hear it they will believe.
God is building his kingdom, even
in this society that seems hardened to the gospel. You may remember
Jesus words to his disciples (Lk.12:32) ‘Do not be afraid, little flock, for
your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom’.
Amazing isn’t it – we need to learn
to look at things from God’s perspective. Let’s go out and take possession of
what he has promised
Thirdly,
The Israelites might have been
forgiven for having doubts about the plan to capture Jericho. It’s not good
military strategy when you look at it.
6:3 READ – well, they’ve lost the
element of surprise haven’t they!
But what about weaponry? How are
they going to get in to Jericho? Battering rams to knock the walls down? Wave
upon wave of fighting men climbing ladders into the city? Look at v.5 READ. No
battering rams, no ladders, they’re going to shout at the walls.
God calls us to do things his way
– to trust and obey.
God uses strange means all the time
to bring about his purposes, (Naaman washing 7 times in Jordan / Jesus using
fishermen to conquer the world with the gospel / our own testimony?) and the
reason is so that we don’t take the credit for ourselves. Our part is simply to
trust and obey.
And look what happens when God’s
people obey. vv.15, 16, 20. It all happened exactly as God promised. God gave
the victory to Israel in these unlikely circumstances, by these unlikely means,
because they obeyed his commands.
Interesting that in these verses,
we are told 9 times that the people of God carry the ark (symbolic of God’s
presence) with them as they walk around Jericho – God is centre stage in this
event. Not by the might and power of Israel’s army that Jericho is defeated –
but because of their obedience to God. We could go back to that question the
teacher asked her pupil: Who knocked down the walls of Jericho? Was it the
people of Israel, or was it God?
The writer to the Hebrews in the NT
says this: ‘By faith the walls of Jericho fell, after the people had marched
around them for 7 days.’
The people of God had a part,
didn’t they – but walls don’t fall down because you shout at them! God rewarded
their faith, shown by obedience. Victory comes from God.
Finally, I think that what we have
seen in these verses can act as a corrective to two ways that we sometimes
think and act as a church:
1. To think that we simply need to be busy as his people, and God will bless what we do. Look at 5:13,14. Surprise there – Joshua asks ‘Are you for us or for our enemies?’ surely God is for his people isn’t he. No. ‘Neither’ comes the reply. This might seem a subtle difference – but we need to seek God’s purposes in the world, rather than asking him to bless ours. It’s a spiritual work that we are involved in, and we need to remain close to God as we seek to honour his name and build his kingdom in this area.
2. The other corrective is one we’ve already hinted at – the task can sometimes seem so large that we simply retreat to our pray groups and pray that God will do something about it! But that’s not God’s way – he sends us out to be salt and light in the world, to live the Xn life and to proclaim Christ.
God calls us to be obedient to him
today as we go about his work – to fall at his feet in worship as Joshua did,
and to obey his command to move forward and take possession of what God has
promised.
Be Bold, Be Strong: Joshua 1.1-11
Life on the verge of a big change
can be stressful, whatever that big change may be. It may be a new job. It may
be starting at university or college for the first time. It may be another
major life change : retirement, redundancy, the birth of a new child, or the
death of a loved one. It may be a major change in the life of a church
Life on the verge of such a change
is stressful, and sometimes just a little bit frightening, even when the change
is something really good, something you have been looking forward to with eager
expectation.
It was certainly like that for the
people of Israel. They were about to arrive in the promised land. Their entry
their had been long delayed. They had had to wait for a whole disobedient generation
to die off because the Lord had said that generation, because of its sin, would
never inherit the land he had promised
But now after those long years of
waiting the promised land was quite literally in sight and Joshua had been
appointed to lead the people in the conquest of the land. Like Winston
Churchill in 1940, Joshua had assumed the mantle of leadership from a failed
generation of leaders at a critical time in the nation’s history
I wonder what was going through
Joshua’s mind. I wonder what fears and doubts assailed him. ‘Will I be an
effective leader? Will the people follow me? What about our enemies? Will they
defeat us?.’ Well the Lord spoke to Joshua words vital to his situation and
they seem words peculiarly appropriate here at Holy Trinity
We are about to embark upon a
period of change. It is something we have thought about for over twenty years.
It is something we have talked and
prayed about as a PCC and as a church, but as we move over to two Sunday
morning congregations on 25th August we perhaps share Joshua’s
expectancy and excitement, mixed with a bit of fear, a bit of anxiety.
Whether we have in view change in
our own lives or change in our church’s life, let’s allow the word of God in
Joshua 1 speak to those feelings this morning:
Two things that God will do for you
Two things that you must do
2 "Moses my servant is dead. Now then,
you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I
am about to give to them--to the Israelites. 3
I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised
Moses.
‘I will
give you’ says God – you won’t have to earn it, it won’t depend on your best
efforts because I will give it to you as a gift. Joshua doesn’t need to fear
about the outcome of the battles ahead because God has promised to give him
victory. The promise land is their’s because God has given it to them
I don’t
know whether you are watching Big Brother at the moment. The hapless housemates
are living in a house that has been divided into two halves a rich half and a
poor half. Whilst side have £400 to spend each week on slap-up meals washed
down with champagne, the poor side make do with a diet of chick peas and rice
cooked outdoors in the near arctic conditions of a typical English summer
This
week the winner of an in-house darts competition got to move from the poor side
to the rich. He earned his place there by winning. Three other people
joined him in the land flowing with milk
and honey, but they got there by grace.
They
didn’t deserve to be there by their scores in the darts competition. They were
given the chance to move to the side of luxury by Alex out of the goodness of
his heart.
Now God characteristically
works by grace. The real promised land, not the Channel 4 version, was going to
be given by grace, not earned by human achievement
Grace
always comes first; it always comes before human effort so far as spiritual
work is concerned
What a
relief that is!
Let’s
not be anxious about the future of our church. Let’s not worry if we have
enough resources whether of manpower or money - we are working for the God of
all grace. God will give it. God will provide. All that we need for the work God
is calling us to, he will give.
And in
our personal lives, what a relief to know that God of grace has us in hands -
‘our God is a great big God and he holds us in his hands. ‘ - and he loves to
give us good things - that we know the God who says not ‘I want’ but ‘I give’
5 No one will be able to stand up against you
all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will
never leave you nor forsake you.
9
Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified;
do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you
go."
God won’t just be the one who gives
to Joshua, he will be the God who lives with Joshua, too
Joshua will face all kinds of
battles and trials and many fierce enemies but God, the almighty God, the maker
of the universe will be with him. We often pray that God will be with someone
and we know in our hearts that God is with us, but stop for a minute and just
think what a wonderful thing it is to know that God is with you
When you go into that new job, when
you start your university course and you don’t know anyone else there, when you
are the only Christian in you family, when you go into that exam room, when you
go for that appointment at the hospital or that job interview, God is with you.
The wonderful words to Joshua were ‘As I was with Moses so I will be with
you.’ The parting words of Jesus to his church were ‘I am with you always to
the end of the age’
And for us as a church at Holy
Trinity: God is with us. Hallelujah. As we were reminded two weeks ago in the
Gamma day from Romans 8: ‘if God is for us, who could be against us’
So, two things God will do for us,
and now two things we must do:
6 "Be strong and courageous, because you
will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give
them. 7 Be strong and very courageous.
Joshua’s
was exhorted to be brave, to be strong and courageous, not to be cowed by the
enemies or the problems or the challenge. ‘Be bold, be strong’ we sing and how
important it is that we are like that.
We need
to be adventurous, we need to take risks, and not be afraid, because we are
doing God’s work, and because we know he is with us and he is the one who will
give us victory.
The
church in Sudan incredible persecution and suffering of a kind that we can
scarcely imagine but the church has grown consistently. I was moved to hear of
the Sudanese Christian leader who loved to say over and over again in the face
of even great calamities: ‘but God is not defeated.’
So, let
us be strong and courageous and may God give us a holy boldness
What you must do (2): Be
faithful (7b-8)
For Joshua to be successful as a
spiritual leader he must be a faithful to God and his word.
1.Joshua
must let the word be his guide for living
Be careful to obey all the law my
servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that
you may be successful wherever you go.
Like a narrow path through a
field, Joshua must be careful to keep to the straight and narrow of God’s will
- his behaviour and his lifestyle must be moulded by scripture
2.
Joshua must let the word fill his mouth
8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from
your mouth
If Joshua is going to be God’s leader then it’s God’s word, and God’s message that he must proclaim not his own thoughts. That is the value of biblical preaching, instead of a stream of jokes and anecdotes
3.
Joshua must let the word fill his mind
8Do not let this Book of the Law
depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be
careful to do everything written in it.
Joshua must so steeped in God’s
word that his mind is moulded by the truth of God’s word.
Biblical living, biblical speaking,
and biblical thinking are, according to this passage, the secret of biblical
success:
8
Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it
day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then
you will be prosperous and successful.
May God grant that that might be
true for my life, for your life, and for our church of Holy Trinity.