The Beauty of the Cross
And we read: Now it came about after the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' servant, saying, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel. Every place on which the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you, just as I spoke to Moses, from the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and as far as the great sea toward the setting of the sun, will be your territory. With these verses begin the book of Joshua that chronicles the life and the times of its author who succeeded Moses, and who led the people into the Promised Land after their wanderings in the desert. Now in this opening chapter, God promises to Joshua complete success and protection in his efforts to take over the land which was at that time inhabited by fierce pagan nations.
Many of which were heavily armed and experienced in the art of war. Now in this chapter alone, if we were to read all of it, we'd see that God encourages Joshua 3 separate times to be strong and courageous. He continues to repeat this to Joshua, Be strong and courageous, while promising him total victory and safety. And as I read this, I see a kind of a contradiction of sorts. Because if you're gonna win, I mean if it's an absolute sure thing, and God is with you, why should you be strong and courageous?
I mean, after all, if God gives you an absolute sure thing, why should you ever try to be strong and courageous? You know, I mean, who needs to be strong and courageous? He just said, We're gonna win, it's gonna be a victory. It's a gimme. You know, who needs courage when the end is never in doubt?
Well, if we read a couple of verses, we're gonna find out why Joshua needed strength and courage. You see, Joshua heard God's command which was to take the land. And he heard God's promise that he will surely win. And he also heard God's encouragement to be strong and to be courageous. Later on, Joshua found out why he needed strength and courage despite the guarantee of victory from God.
You see, later on Joshua learned that leadership would be difficult. He needed strength and courage cause to be a leader was gonna be very very hard. In verse 5 and 6 we read, No man will be able to stand before you in all the days of your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you.
Be strong and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Yes, God promised that He would be with Joshua just as He had been with Moses. In other words, He would guide Joshua, and He would confirm Joshua's leadership. But you know what? This did not guarantee that the people would follow.
I mean, the people didn't follow Moses real well either, even though God was leading him. And God's promise didn't guarantee that the enemy would just lie down and roll over the minute that Joshua stepped into the land either. No, Joshua needed courage and strength because the people would rebel against him. The people would be unfaithful. The people would act cowardly just as they had done under Moses.
God had promised to be with Moses too and that he would succeed. But you know what? It took 40 long years of struggle and heartache to bring the people to the point where they were now at with Joshua. And Joshua would also need strength and courage because the enemy was cunning, and there were constant challenges to his leadership. He was a leader guaranteed a victory by God, but not before he would face many trials and disappointments.
He was going to win alright, but no one said leading the people of Israel to that victory would be an easy task. Another thing that Joshua learned was this, he learned that the people were weak and sinful. These people that God had given to him were not a pretty bunch. Verse 7 and 8 says, Only be strong. See, God repeats it again.
Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law 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 you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.
God provided the assurance of success based on the obedience to His word. And you know what? The people had shown a terrible disposition for disobedience. Yeah, God said, Sure, you're going to have success so long as you obey the word. So long as the people follow the word, success is guaranteed.
Well, Joshua should have started shaking in his boots right at that moment because if he looked back, the people that he was leading never obeyed God's word. They were always disobeying God's word. And so, it required strength and courage to continually teach God's word in the face of overwhelming paganism. It required strength and courage to teach God's word and remain faithful to it with such strong influences that surrounded them. You know, it was easy for sinful men to assume that their military success was based on their own physical abilities and bravery, and forget God's providence.
Only a morally strong leader could maintain faith in the face of such national pride and chest beating. To obey God's word when unsure, to maintain God's commands when the world and its allurement surrounded him, requires the highest form of courage and commitment. And so, Joshua would need to keep the standard of God's word if he wished to see victory promised by the Lord. And that would require great courage in the face of opposition and disbelief from the very people that he was leading. Never mind, the pagan.
And then Joshua also found out with time, that he would need strength and courage because the journey was going to be a very long one. In verse 9, we read, Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous, do not tremble or be dismayed: for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go. Yeah, wherever you go. And believe me, He went wherever for a long long time.
Yes, God would be with them, but they didn't realize how long the process would be before they saw a complete victory. They had to learn about the land and they had to fight many campaigns over several decades before the goal was actually reached. And there were times when the wars were going badly and there was a lull in the action. And these were the moments when there was infighting between themselves, between the tribes that He led. And during these long periods, it was easy to forget the promise or begin doubting the promise because the immediate circumstances didn't look anything like victory.
You know, God promised victory down there, but when they were over here losing a battle, when things were falling apart, it didn't look very much like a victory. And it was during these down periods where Satan offered his most tempting items in the form of idolatry, or sexual immorality, or just plain old worldliness. And yet, God's promise was there all along. It was shadowing them, if you wish, as they went from battle to battle, temptation to temptation. Joshua and the people had to remain strong and courageous in order to keep the promise in full view despite the long and arduous journey that it would take to get them to that point.
Now, as we read the book of Joshua, we see that the people did not succeed because they eventually disobeyed God. Now, they did possess the land but not to the extent that God had wanted them to possess it and because of this, they permitted certain pagan nations to remain in the land instead of destroying them altogether. And because they did that, they eventually fell into idolatry. You know, it's easy for us to criticize them for losing a sure thing. You say, How could they blow it?
How could they blow it? I mean, they had a sure thing. God promised a sure thing and they blew it anyway. Boy, if I would have been there, I'd tell you, things would have been different. But you know what, there's a very, I think you've seen it already, there's a parallel here.
You know, we also, right here in Choctaw, right here in 1998, we also have been given a guaranteed sure thing. A sure victory in Jesus Christ our Lord. We've been given that too. Do you know that? In the book of Acts chapter 2, verse 38, Peter says, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins.
A sure thing, if you repent and you're baptized, God will forgive all of your sins. In Matthew chapter 10, verse 22, Jesus says that all of those who remain faithful until the end will be saved. A sure thing. In John chapter 6 verse 40, Jesus gives the assurance to all his disciples that he will resurrect every single one of his disciples on the last day. Every single one.
Excuse me. Not one will be lost. These things are promises. They're a gimme as you say in golf. You know a gimme?
Give it to me. A guarantee from God that even better things were promised to us. You know, we have been promised much better things than the Jews ever received. I mean they were promised land, a place where they could plant their crops and build their houses, and that's fine. We've been promised eternal life.
Life without end. Joy without end. Power that we can never imagine forever. That's what we've been promised, and it's an absolute sure thing. However, despite the fact that these are promises and guarantees from God, we too have to be strong and courageous for several reasons.
First of all, we have to be strong and courageous because being leaders for Christ is difficult in this day and age. Yes, we're going to heaven, that's a promise. And we want to lead others there too. But there's no guarantee that others want to go. Just like Joshua, he's going to have the victory, but there's no guarantee anybody wanted to follow.
And in this day and age, there's no guarantee that anybody wants to follow our lead into heaven. In the best of times, there is still general disbelief and marginalization of those who encourage others to follow the narrow way of Jesus. And in the worst of times, there's persecution and there's martyrdom. You need strength and courage to continue preaching the gospel. You need strength and courage to continue serving in the name of the Lord, when other people think you're just wasting your time.
My family kind of looks at me, and they kind of think, Well, at least he doesn't take drugs. You know, it's like, well he's a minister. Well, you know, I mean, he's good to his family, he's not going to embarrass us unless he talks to us about religion. You know, talk about being marginalized. Talk about being considered kind of fluff on this earth, useless.
Now I mean if I had a business and generated income, or if I was some kind of politician, now there is a job, there is a career. There are a lot people who don't want to follow you as you follow Christ. Sometimes those people are in your own family. And there are many who would like you to stop following Christ altogether yourself. So, it's difficult to be a leader for Christ in this society.
And for that reason, you need to be strong and courageous. Secondly, you need to be strong and courageous because you and I are weak and sinful. Weak and sinful. It seems so easy, doesn't it, on paper? Repent and be baptized, your sins are forgiven.
Believe in Jesus, you will be resurrected. I mean, it seems so easy on paper. And yet, Paul the Apostle cries out in Romans chapter 7 verse 24. He says, O wretched man that I am, who will set me free from the body of this death? Here we have a man, Paul the Apostle, who did miracles.
Who was in prison for his faith. Who established churches, who trained other workers, who produced inspired writings. And yet, when he looks at his life, when he looks at himself, what does he see? He sees a sinner and he says, Oh, who will set me free from this body of sin? In other words, I'm so tired of being a sinner.
A human being filled with good intentions and faithful service, trapped in a sinful body. Does that sound familiar to you? Doesn't that sound familiar? Even if we know God loves us, Even if we know that we love Him back. Even if we know that we're going to heaven.
Our lives are filled with doubt, and temptation, and yes, failure. Great, terrible, awful, embarrassing failure because of sin. Have you ever been to the point where you've looked at yourself and you say, How did I just do that? Did I just say that? Or, How could I think such a thing?
Have you ever thought, aren't you glad nobody knows what you think? Somebody's talking to you, and they're talking to you, and you're thinking something and you're saying, I hate you, you're such a disgusting person for thinking such a thing. We need courage and we need strength to overcome these obstacles in order to remain true to the course that we've set. And that is to follow Jesus no matter what. In my following of Jesus, I have found that the greatest enemy is myself.
My doubts about myself, the weakness of my faith, my own failures, my own sins. Those are the things that discourage me the most. Not your sins that discourage me, it's my sins that discourage me. That strength and that courage comes from the same place today as it came for Joshua. And that is from God's holy word.
God knew that Joshua and the people of Israel were sinners. And that's why he said to them, stick to the word, stick to the word. Don't go to the right, don't go to the left. Stay with the word. It'll give you the courage, it'll give you the hope that you need to carry on.
Today is no different In the daily reading, why do you think we encourage daily Bible reading? It's not for numbers. We're not in competition with anybody. There are no prizes here. In the daily reading of God's word, in the regular study of God's Word, in the weekly exhortation from the Word, God provides for us the spiritual power that we need to remain faithful despite the ravages of sin in our lives, and the ravages of sinfulness and evil around us.
I want you to read your bibles everyday cause I'm hoping that on the day when you are sorely tempted, it'll be the day that you happen to be reading your bible and God will minister to you on that day. It's a defense mechanism, it's a crutch, it's a salvation. Each day God's word washes you clean. You enter into that zone where you and God are together. You need that because you and I are weak and sinful.
Then finally, we need strength and we need courage because the journey is long. You know, when the Jews came out of Egypt led by Moses, they thought they'd be in the promised land in a matter of weeks. It only really should have taken them a couple of weeks to get from Egypt to Canaan. I mean, it's only a couple of week journey. You know, a month or 2, that's about it.
And yet we know it took 40 long years to make the trip. When you come out of the waters of baptism, you don't know where the Lord will lead you, and you don't know what the Lord will allow you to do. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just go straight to heaven after baptism? I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. I bring you out of the water.
Boom! Straight to heaven. Wouldn't that be great? But it doesn't work like that, does it? It doesn't work like that.
The period between baptism and heaven sometimes is very, not always, but usually is very very long. And sometimes there are periods of rapid spiritual growth and rapid personal growth, and that's great. But you and I know that Christian life also has long stretches of difficult roads filled with illness, and loneliness, and spiritual dryness, and family, and professional problems. And many of these times are caused by our own sins and foolishness. But you know what?
Just as many times our problems are caused because we're the victims of somebody else's carelessness, and somebody else's foolishness, and somebody else's evil, and we're simply the victims of those things. It requires strength and courage to maintain faith, and maintain hope, and maintain a loving heart when it seems that the end of our suffering will never, never come. But the end does come and for those who have endured, there will be a glorious welcome given by the Lord himself. If you're among those who have been given the sure thing of salvation, the guarantee of heaven by Jesus Christ, but you've been on the journey a long long time, and you've met with disbelief and opposition, and you've struggled with Satan's temptations, and you've suffered pain and sorrow, I encourage you, be strong, have courage. The Lord has seen your way.
The Lord knows your heart. The Lord is intimately acquainted with every single bit of your suffering. There's never been a moment of your suffering that the Lord has not seen. And if your courage is lagging, if your resolve is weak, I encourage you to remember Joshua who entered in only after 40 years. I encourage you to remember Paul who withstood the opposition, and even his own feelings of inadequacy.
To eventually say these words, I have fought the good fight. I have finished the course, I have kept the faith, and in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award me on that day. And not only me, but also to all who have loved his appearing. 2nd Timothy chapter 4 verse 7. You know when he says, To all those that have loved his appearing?
He's talking about you and me. Be strong brothers and sisters. Be courageous because this world, excuse me, I encourage you to leave this world and give up your disbelief. Give up your uncertainty, give up your fear, and come to Jesus Christ for salvation and the guarantee of heaven today. If you need to repent, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins, so you can have that sure thing today, I encourage you to do so.
And I also encourage the rest of you to be strong and courageous and remember that the race is not to the swift and not to the powerful, but to those who remain faithful until the end. Come, if you need to be restored to faithful service to God, I encourage you as we stand and as we sing our song of encouragement.