Joshua: Be Courageous, God is With You

So 20 years ago, myself and a buddy, we camped on the beaches of Normandy in northern France.

And so we went up there to tour Omaha Beach.

We went and toured where, you know, it was where the US and the other Allied forces invaded the German positions, the German positions along mainland Europe, and this is where we came into Europe to fight that war for the sake of freedom and for the whole globe.

And we still actually live in the appreciation of all of that work and sacrifice.

And so me and my buddy, at the end of the day, when everybody else retreated back to their hotels, we stayed because we were college bums, and so we broke our tents out and we camped up on the hill looking down at the beach, and we walked along the beach.

And when you're down on that beach, and maybe you've been there and you're walking along, it's incredibly overwhelming.

And one of the reasons it's overwhelming is because you're walking along the beach, and when you turn away from the water and you look at the land, you realize what these guys did.

That they are coming in in pre-dawn darkness into a land and a beach they know little about, and there is just bunker after bunker after bunker, concrete bunkers that the Germans had built into this hillside.

And I mean barely enough room for their weapons to get out through the openings and their eyes to see and just firepower coming at them.

And there's one sort of resounding conclusion if you're on that beach looking up at this hill, is that certainly these guys, certainly they were filled with fear.

They had to have been.

And yet they did it anyways, right?

Like yet these soldiers did it anyway, and we actually have a word for this.

We would say, man, those guys had so much courage.

Courage.

So in 2007, the Journal of Positive Psychology, I learned this this week, I was kind of nerding out on the internet.

This uh study was done.

250 Air Force Academy students.

So this study was done for these 250 uh Air Force Academy graduates and undergraduates about acts of courage.

And here's what the study revealed.

And it's not surprising, but it's nice to kind of break it down in this way.

It gets our minds and hearts around this idea of courage.

And so key parts of a courageous act are always part one, nobility of the cause.

There's a cause worthy, a worthy cause.

And number two, risk in accomplishing the cause.

So when we consider these things, therefore, courage is moving forward even while you have fear.

And this is our story in Joshua 1.

We're gonna be going through the book of Joshua through this winter and spring.

And this is the story in Joshua when we look into Joshua 1.

Joshua's this ancient book and the Old Testament, and the people, the Israelites, are coming out of Egypt.

They were enslaved in Egypt, and they're coming out of that enslavement and they're crossing this desert to get back to their homeland, modern-day Israel.

And so they're crossing this desert.

It should take a few weeks.

But because of their own fear and their forgetfulness and sort of their complacency, it takes them 40 years.

And then we get in Joshua 1, we see where God begins to speak to Joshua, who is a leader in the group, and he begins to speak.

And he calls Joshua, calling him to lead these people out of that desert back to their promised land, to their land.

Stop being refugees, stop being orphans, and be a child.

Be the children you were called to be.

And so this is where we pick up if we look in Joshua 1, pick up in verse 3.

Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, this is God speaking to Joshua, I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses, from the wilderness in this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites of 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.

Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

I will not leave you or forsake you.

So why all of this encouragement from God?

Well, because Joshua had a worthy cause, but he was afraid.

So point number one is this.

We break it down to a few points this morning.

Point number one is this God calls us to move toward our fear with his compassionate presence.

God calls us to move toward our fear with his compassionate presence.

Over Christmas, our girls, so the three girls in Christie, they went to see Frozen 2 not once.

Not twice.

They went three times.

They went three times.

And I saw it twice.

I mean, that's courage, right?

I mean, I went two of the three.

Die Hard was on TV the third time.

I had to draw a line.

I had to have my priorities.

And last night we're driving back from dinner, and yet we are we are blasting.

Show yourself and into the unknown.

And I mean, we are just, you know, we are letting it out, right?

And here's the thing, I actually like these movies.

I actually really like Frozen and Frozen.

Don't know if you like them or not.

I actually do.

I mean, it's a journey.

Elsa goes on in the first movie to overcome fear to receive love.

I mean, that's all of our journeys.

That's all of our hearts needing to overcome fear and receive love.

And then the second movie is about moving into the unknown and moving into pain.

And I won't give away the movie in case you want to see it three times in the theater, you're welcome to do that.

But at one point, Elsa says, fear can't be trusted.

I mean, that's good, that's gospel, right?

I mean, that's Jesus.

Don't be afraid, I'll be with you.

Now, I mean, we've got to have some fear, right?

Like be afraid of a reckless driver, you know, or be afraid of a predator, be afraid of somebody asking for your social security number.

I mean, there's some reasonable fears we're gonna have, right?

But when it comes to doing something right or worthy or good or healthy, I mean, these categories, you shouldn't have fear, but you will.

You will have fear, but you shouldn't.

Don't be afraid.

So Jesus was always saying, Don't be afraid, I'll be with you.

That's what's going on here in Joshua 1.

I'll be with you.

I know you're afraid, but I'll be with you.

And most of us know these feelings of fear, or maybe they're kind of expressed in you as anxiety, and because we have fear, fear occurs when we realize we don't know the future.

And or we aren't in control.

We don't know the future and or we aren't in control.

You can name what that's about, but that's what starts to create that fear and anxiety inside of us.

And I mean, it can be about your children, it can be about your career, it can be about your health, it can be about your romance, your lack of romance, it can be about the money you have or the lack of the money you have, right?

I mean, it can be about so many different things.

It can be relational, it can be practical, it can be just that feeling of trying to keep life all together and the feeling like your life is always coming apart.

I mean, there's so many things that fear can just all of a sudden show up.

And here's a few questions just to process through.

I was trying to think through this and trying to think through how we would process through this kind of big conceptual thing, but for our lives and our hearts.

Because God's calling us toward fear with His presence.

Here's a few questions to ask to process this.

What is it I'm called to in my heart?

What is it I'm called to in my life practices, in my purpose, in my relationships?

What are those things?

Okay, then you get that.

And then the second question would be what fear in my heart arises when I consider those callings?

Because certainly, as soon as you get some answers for number one, some fear starts to pop up.

Oh, I need to restore that relationship.

Oh, I need to get healthy in this way, oh, I need to become, you know, move toward godliness in this way, oh, I need to deepen my faith in this way, I need to rest in God's promises for me in this way.

I mean, you get those, you start to get those things journaled out, all of a sudden you're gonna start to have a lot of fear.

Number three then would become well, what step of risk would I take if I wasn't avoiding fear, pain, or rejection?

That's an interesting answer, right?

Last question what step of risk would I take if I really believed God was with me no matter the outcome?

What would it be?

And I'm just praying this morning that you would have some callings come into your heart.

And certainly those callings are gonna have something to do with the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, uh, gentleness, self-control, right?

I mean, it's gonna have something to do with that.

It's gonna have something to do with our hearts and resting and remembering back and what the Lord's done for us and the health of our relationships.

I mean, it's gonna have something, maybe it has something to do with your purpose and life.

It could have the range here is huge.

But certainly as soon as you start to get into a calling that God has for your heart that would be good and godly, you're gonna have fear showing up.

I mean, Joshua did.

Apparently, Jesus was having to say this to his disciples all the time: don't be afraid, I'll be with you.

When we started the church six years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, we started to meet to talk about uh starting a church, and I didn't expect it, but as soon as we started, like Davis was referring to, we were in a dentist's office and we were in like a preschool daycare center, and as soon as we did that, I mean, so much fear showed up in my heart and my life.

I mean, like, are people gonna actually show up?

I left my job for this, I left a secure job.

Like, are people gonna show up?

Are they gonna come back?

Are you coming back next week?

I don't know.

I really don't, right?

There's still fear today.

I'd be in embarrassment.

Oh, did you hear?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He left that good job and then he started that church, and then it didn't work out.

Oh yeah, you know, you know where he ended up, oh yeah, he ended up there, right?

Like, oh no, oh, that church, oh man, that church, it really did great for six years, and then that thing happened, he mismanaged that thing, and that happened.

You know, I mean, fear can come just so easily, and and then the fear of letting people down, like oh, so all this fear, I mean, one day early on, there, and we were forming the core documents of our church.

So if you go through our new member process, if you go through it, you you read these core documents, and they're the front page of this core document.

Early on, we're forming this, and there's this one meeting, and Mandy walks into this meeting, and Mandy's a brilliant, brilliant lady who goes to our church, and she's still in our church, and she shows up into this meeting, she's written this paragraph.

I still love and hate this paragraph, I'll just be honest with you.

We're gonna read it.

I'm gonna read it because I want you to see this.

And she shows up and she's written this paragraph.

In Christ, there is freedom to fail and pursuing the dream of a church that preaches and practices the doctrine of justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

It is because of this freedom to fail that the church would be free to present the gospel of Jesus Christ in Marietta and allow its spirit to blow where it wills and bear its own fruit in the hearers.

Now, this is so revealing to me.

I mean, it just reveals so much of my imperfection, brokenness in my own sin and my doubt and all of that, my fear, right?

I mean, not because I don't have belief in this doctrine, I mean, I do, I love this doctrine, but the freedom to fail part, I'm like, really?

I mean, really?

You had to put that in there like twice?

I think it's in there two times.

Twice?

Many thanks, you know.

And every time I read it in our new member, every time I read it in our new member class, I read it, there's this part of me that's like, God, I'm still not there with that.

I'm still not totally comfortable with that.

But what if I was?

I mean, what if my heart was that secure and God's love for me and God's validation for me, justification, that I would be that justified, that I would be free to fail, moving toward perhaps a restored relationship, or starting a church, or just general life practices that might be healthy and good for us.

I mean, all of those callings that are in our hearts, and we sort of refuse.

I mean, there's always, when I read that paragraph, there's this part of me that just has to repent, and this part of me that's saying, God, help me believe this more.

There's so many areas of my life.

What would that mean for my children?

My parenting, my marriage, relationship with money, friendship, so many things, so many categories.

That's where those four questions perhaps are helpful to me and for you.

Now, if we jump back to verse 5, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life.

Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

I will not leave you or forsake you.

Be strong and courageous.

There's our word, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.

Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses, my servant, commanded you.

Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.

Point number two is this being strong and courageous is rooted in God is with us.

Or God is with you.

That's what it's rooted in.

I mean, in verses six and seven, this be strong and courageous, that God said, Hey, be strong and courageous.

Or you read it somewhere else in the scripture.

You know, be strong, be courageous, don't have fear.

That's rooted in the promise of verse five.

I will be with you.

I'll be with you.

Now, when I started studying this, I'd not really considered this.

I knew this information, but meaning when I read it, it was so comforting.

And the information was that Joshua, speaking to Joshua, so just a little background on Joshua.

This guy was already a courageous military stud.

Already.

We see it in Exodus 17, we see it in Numbers 14.

So here we have this hero.

He's already a stud.

He's already been courageous, he's already somebody we look at and go, oh, what a leader! Oh, such a hero.

I mean, oh man, I could never be like that.

I mean, that's who this guy is, and then we come here and we see, oh, Joshua feels like this.

Man, that was so comforting to me.

Like, you know, just there's something about just knowing other people are in the same boat.

So comforting.

Because life is full of things to be afraid of.

And of course, Joshua is afraid.

Of course, this is anybody you look at and you think, oh, they're not afraid, they're so bold, and they're saying no, they have their own set of fears just like you have your own set of fears.

And that's actually incredibly comforting because it's sort of this acknowledgement that fear is human.

God's acknowledging we have fear.

We're not called to live by fear, we're called to live by love, but he promises to walk with us as we have this fear, move toward our fear, toward our weakness, as to rest in his presence and his strength.

Verses 8 and 9.

Last couple verses.

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 good success.

Have I not commanded you?

Be strong and courageous.

Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed.

Why?

For the Lord your God is with you for wherever you go.

So again, everything's rooted back in God is with you.

He's with you in the fear, He's with you, in your weakness, He's with you.

So you can face all that.

It's not an equation for a perfect life, right?

Rather, it's a description of what it means to walk with a relational God.

That's why the New Testament overwhelmingly is saying, think of God as your heavenly father.

Growing in strength and courage is about resting your heart back in that promise.

Verse 8 says to meditate on the law day and night.

So for Joshua, the law wouldn't just be like the Ten Commandments and what to do and not do, it'd also be the entirety of God's story of faithfulness to his people.

And God's saying, put your heart on that.

Rest in that.

And so for us, I think what this means, I kind of broke it down in different categories that at least make sense in my life.

The first is this it's sort of like being called into ongoing heart contemplation.

That's what to meditate on a day and night, that's what it's saying.

It's saying, just never stop meditating on this.

Like if you want to walk into your fears and begin to understand some courage in it, and it won't be just by you going off and trying to pretend like you're strong apart from your fears.

It's gonna be by walking toward your fear that you're already fully, love, righteous, and secure, and God is with you, and that takes an ongoing hard contemplation, that that's gonna be sort of that soundtrack in life you walk by.

Now, to help that practice, because that's not easy, we'll fail at that a whole lot.

What does help is to have some planned moments, I just call them planned moments, and I'm not trying to get too prescriptive here because you're gonna figure all this out for yourself in your walk with the Lord.

Christy wakes up early, she sits in a chair in our den.

I wake up a lot later and I do my own thing.

And you're gonna wake up whenever you wake up, and you're gonna figure out that planned moment for you, either every day or every other day, or some rhythm in your life that helps your own heart.

And the point of it is not like, oh, I gotta do this to check it off in order to be right with God.

The plan and the purpose of it is you are already right with God, so have a moment to remember and rest in that, and that will give you courage.

That's so freeing.

This is not to earn any love, but to reflect back on it, to meditate on it day and night.

So you get to go and discover what that means for you and the Lord.

The third category that I always think about is like little pockets of time, little pocket moments.

I think this has to do also with this ongoing kind of contemplation of what the Lord's done for us, the story of faithfulness.

And these pocket moments are sort of like you will discover these because you're at a red light and you're annoyed.

Usually annoyance will show you these, right?

Because you're in a waiting room, you're waiting on your kid, or you're like at basketball practice, sitting in a bleacher, and it's just like an hour, and you're like, I could be doing so many things.

And you're like, you could be.

You have an hour, you're sitting still, or you're at a red light, you're sitting still, you're a waiter, you're sitting still.

There's all these little pockets of time during our days, and rather than be annoyed or just check our phone again, perhaps we could also use even those little pockets of time to stop.

I mean, that we have that grace, we can give ourselves that grace to have a devotional on our phone or carry a journal with us, take a walk around the block.

I mean, there's so many things that we can do to just meditate on his faithfulness day and night.

And none of it's to earn love or to get a better position or feel more holy.

It's to remember that we're already holy, we're already worthy, and already loved.

That's what this whole story tells us.

It's Joshua's story.

That's why I love this story.

Joshua helps us see, no matter how put together we think we are, because Joshua on the outside, you would say, Oh, what a military hero.

Oh, what a guy.

Incredible.

And he has all this fear and he requires all this encouragement by God for God to keep saying, I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you.

And it's just a message for us to remember that God is pursuing our hearts.

No matter where we're at or how much fear we have.

And God in his grace pursues us.

He wants to walk with us.

His love is strong.

Like we may not be strong and courageous, but his love is strong and courageous.

We are not always strong and courageous.

And that's actually okay because as we come into our weakness of our inability of that, we discover he is strong and courageous.

That is what we're resting, remembering, right?

Do you remember the other quote in Frozen 2?

Christoph to Anna?

Some of you remember it.

Anybody want to say it out loud?

You go for it.

My love is not fragile.

I heard a little whisper from over here.

It's probably my daughter because she saw it three times.

My love is not fragile, right?

What a gospel message.

It's so secure.

And Joshua starts to give us glimpses that Joshua's perhaps he's some things for us to understand about ourselves, but he's pointing us and taking us to the story of Jesus.

That God's showing us in humanity on the cross that I will be fearless because you have fear.

I will be obedient fully because you're not always obedient.

And that on the cross, all of our sin is taken.

All of our fear and inability to be what we should be and follow our callings as we should, and all of that is taken upon the cross.

And His righteousness is given to us so we are fully righteous and fully loved forever.

And that is secure, and that is good news, and that is the beginning, the beginning of us growing in courage.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and mercy that meets us where we are every moment all the time.

Because we're not as we should be, we're not as courageous as we should be, we're not as fearless, we don't move into every calling you've put on our hearts, you know, full steam ahead.

We have so much hesitancy and fear, and yet you're with us.

And you walk with us and you're growing us, and we thank you for your great patience and your great mercy.

Help us to respond to a story like this, not to think we're gonna pull our bootstraps up more, but to rest and remember back in your faithfulness to us that we are already loved, already worthy, already righteous.

Would we be so secure?

Would a little courage begin in us?

That in the face of fear that we could take a step of risk in faith.

God, would you do great work in our hearts to help us process through these questions of what would we do if we knew you were always with us?

No matter the outcome.

And would we always rest back in the fact that we are fully absolved, fully righteous, always yours?

In Jesus' name we pray and we live.

Amen.