Gracious Father, we have just sung tis so sweet to trust in Jesus, just to take Him at His Word, just to rest upon His promise, just to know thus sayeth the Lord. So as we have sung may it be in our hearts as we come now to the reading and the preaching of Your Word, that we might trust You and love Jesus and be strong and very courageous. In His name we pray. Amen.
Our text this morning is from the Old Testament book of Joshua. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, and then comes the book of Joshua. We begin at the beginning, chapter 1. Follow along as I read all 18 verses of Joshua chapter 1.
“After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites 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. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, 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. 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, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.””
“And Joshua commanded the officers of the people, “Pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, ‘Prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess.’” And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said, “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, ‘The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’ Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help them, until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as He has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.””
“And they answered Joshua, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you, as He was with Moses! Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.””
This morning we start this new series on the book of Joshua. There are 24 chapters and I think we will be in the book for 19 or 20 weeks and so some of the land allotment chapters we will put together, but it will be roughly about one chapter each week.
If you look at the sermon bookmark you could pick up today, you’ll see a three-week mini-series around Christmas, so we’ll pick up with this series on Joshua for probably January and February, Lord willing. That’s where we’re heading for the fall into the winter.
Who is Joshua? Joshua, his original name, we find in the book of Numbers, was Hoshea. Hoshea means “salvation” in Hebrew and Joshua, very much the same name, it means “Yahweh saves.” You know someone named Joshua, in the New Testament He goes by the name of Jesus. Same name into Greek then into English, the Lord saves.
Joshua has one of the great dad’s names in all of the Bible. One of the great trivia. Who in the Bible had no father? Joshua, he was the son of Nun. Now you know the dad jokes come daily and they come out hot at the DeYoung household. Nun, N-u-n, of course, was his father’s name.
We’ve met Joshua before. That is, if you have some knowledge of the first five books of the Bible, you know something about this Joshua. He was the one in Exodus 24 who went up with Moses to the mountain. He was the one in Exodus 33 who was there waiting at the tent of meeting where Moses met face-to-face with the Lord. And in one of the rare mistakes, there aren’t many mistakes that are recorded that Joshua made, but in one of those in Numbers chapter 11, he sort of was getting bent out of shape because these 70 elders went up and they began prophesying and there were two stragglers with the funny names Eldad and Medad (more dad jokes insert – make up your own).
Eldad and Medad. They were there and they started prophesying and Joshua sort of said, “Uhh, umm, look, they’re getting some extra blessing,” and Moses said, “Would that all the people would prophesy.” So Joshua has been around Moses for quite some time as the heir apparent and now he is the heir, the successor.
We read in verse 1, “Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant.” Three cheers for all of the assistants out there. You have Joshua as your patron saint. But now no longer the assistant, now he is the one in charge. One of the purposes of chapter 1 as we’ll see is a kind formal inauguration, installation from Moses who has died now to Joshua who will command the people. He is one of the great characters in the Bible, probably overlooked, overshadowed from Moses, who dominates the Pentateuch and before that the patriarchs, and then into the kings and David a few books on, but here is this great man Joshua.
In James Boice’s commentary, he quotes from another author who says Joshua has seldom been given the full credit he deserves as perhaps the greatest man of faith ever to set foot on the stage of human history.
Now you can debate who is the greatest nondivine man of faith, but certainly Joshua deserves to be ranked up there among the very greatest.
How is Joshua, transitioning here from the man to the book, how should we understand this book. Before we get to the contents of chapter 1, it’s hopeful in starting a new book to understand how it is situated within the canon.
Some of you may recall that the Hebrew Scriptures are sometimes called, by the Jewish people, by the name Tanakh. Torah is the T, Nevi’im is the N, and Ketuvim is the K, and you put T-N-K together and it’s called Tanakh. Torah, meaning the Law, that’s the first five books, the Pentateuch, penta meaning five; Nevi’im is the word for the prophets; and then Ketuvim is the word the writings. So they divide the Old Testament into those three sections.
This begins the second of those, the N, the Nevi’im, the prophets. Joshua, Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then the 12 minor prophets, they put those together as eight books that comprise the Nevi’im, the prophets.
Now it’s worth noting that lest we think that we should only read Joshua as a bit of history. In our Bible we probably have this lump there from the Law or the Pentateuch and now we’re in to what we call the historical books where we’re getting the life of the people into the Promised Land and then the judges and then the kings. It’s true, these are books of history, but putting it at the head of this list of the prophets is instructive for us, so we remember that we are not simply getting a bare recitation of facts, we’re not just trying to fill in the gaps, and now here’s some interesting things about what happened to the Israelites, but it is a sermon. The whole book is a kind of sermon. It’s a prophetic word. It is meant to teach the people something, to rebuke them at times, to correct them, and often to encourage them.
You can see the very first word, look there, the very first word in your English Bible, after. So this deliberately connects Joshua to everything that has gone before. After the death of Moses. Well, you may even be able to see on the page next to it, Deuteronomy 34 recounts the death of Moses. So we are in a seamless narrative, Moses has died, now after that we’re picking up the baton and handing it to Joshua.
Moses is a hard act to follow and as if it wouldn’t be hard enough already, here in this first chapter Moses is mentioned 11 times. It’s a lot more than Joshua. It’s like if you got to be the poor coach at Alabama and you’ve got your opening press conference and all they want to talk about is Nick Saban, Nick Saban, Nick Saban. Well, that’s what you have to hear – Moses, the servant of the Lord.
Interestingly, it won’t be until the end of this book that Joshua is given that rarefied designation, the servant of Yahweh. But Moses several times in this text is given that title.
Think of all that Moses had done. He had turned sticks into snakes and water into blood. He made the sky, of course the Lord did it through his hand, rain down frogs and gnats and hailstones. He turned the sky as black as night. He summoned the angel of death. He parted the Red Sea. He called down manna from heaven. He littered the ground with quail. He made water to gush from the rock. He led God’s people out of Egypt through the wilderness. He gave them the 10 commandments. He heard from God. He prayed to God when they were about to be snuffed out. He was on the mountain and he even had that rarest of privileges, that he spoke like a friend with God, face-to-face. Yes, Moses is a hard act to follow.
But Joshua, as we will see, has the same God to be with him. That’s what you need. Whenever you say goodbye to someone who is great in his own day, or in her own way, and you think surely there will never be another, well… But it’s the same God. So now as He was with Moses, He will be with Joshua.
Think about the chapter. So we talked about where Joshua fits in the Bible. Before we look at some specifics again, I want you to just notice on a macro level how this first chapter is organized because the organization of this first chapter tells us a lot about what the entire book is about.
For example, so look at the first five verses. The first five verses give a table of contents for the entire book. They tell us what we’re going to encounter in the book. So verse 1 is kind of the title page, the death of Moses and then the Lord said to Joshua. So the title page from Moses to Joshua.
Verse 2, Moses is dead, arise, go over the Jordan. The crossing of the Jordan. We will see from chapter 1 through chapter 5 verse 12 is really all about the preparations and then the crossing over and then the commemoration of crossing over the Jordan. So verse 2 tells us that first main act is coming to be in the first five chapters crossing the Jordan.
Then look at verse 3: Every place the sole of your foot will tread I have given to you. Well, this is the conquest of the land which we will see in chapters 5, the end of chapter 5, through chapter 12.
Then look at verse 4: From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. Well, what is that? It’s describing the farthest reaches of the Promised Land. What we’ll see in the second half of the book, chapter 13 through chapter 22, yes, some of the apparently to us at first tedious, boring chapters, when am I going to get through this in my read through the Bible in a year plan, the land allotments.
Well, verse 4 corresponds to that big section in this book because though it seems rather dull to us, if God Himself was telling you where you were to live, you would say slow down, slow down, let me get this exactly, because you want to know the land that He is giving you. Notice here we have the very bare bones sketch of the Promised Land with the dimensions north, south, east, and west. So we have the north would be the land of Lebanon, then the wilderness is a reference to the wilderness of Zin or the Negev in the south down toward Egypt. Then you have the great river Euphrates all the way to the east. Now often the boundary was around the Jordan River, or just a little past that, so this is really the furthest extent, only under David and especially under Solomon does Israel really approximate these boundaries. Then to the setting of the sun, so we’re talking about the west to the Mediterranean Sea.
So Lebanon in the north, Negev in the south, Euphrates in the east, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.
Then verse 5 is a kind of wrap up, which we’ll find in chapters 23 and 24 as we talk about how the Lord was with Moses and then with Joshua as an example of faithfulness.
So these first five verses give us our marching orders, pun intended, through the book of Joshua.
I want you to notice one other thing. These two sections, you can see them in the ESV, probably the first one says God commissions Joshua, and then before verse 10, Joshua assumes command. These are the two sections in chapter 1 and they are mirror images of each other. Here’s what I mean. In verses 1 through 9, we have two parts. We have first the Lord’s charge to Joshua. That’s in verses 1 through 4. What do we see in the Lord’s charge to Joshua? Well, we see language about passing over, that is, crossing over the Jordan. You see that in verse 2. And about the land, all the land that I’m giving to them. So crossing over the Jordan and the land is a gift. One of the main themes in this book is going to be that the land belongs to God and so it is a gift unto His people. So that’s the first half of this first section.
Then in verses 5 through 9 you have the Lord’s encouragement. So the Lord’s command to Joshua, pass over, the land is a gift, and then the Lord’s encouragement, and that’s where He gives that refrain “be strong and courageous.” So first half Lord and Joshua.
Now the second half verses 10 through 18. Same things but now we have Joshua’s charge to the people. So first half the Lord’s charge to Joshua, here Joshua’s charge to the people. Notice it comes in two parts. So verse 10 he commanded the officers. This is a loose designation of a group of civic leaders in the nation. They may have been the same as the foremen who were there during the days of slavery. Not the literal same, but that same position.
Some of these may have been included among the 70 elders who went up on the mountain. These were those who were appointed as judges over the people, who bore witness to the covenant ceremony, who gave allowance for the men who had an exception to fight, and those who would appoint commanders over the army. So they are called here the officers, these are the mayors or the town leaders or the tribal subleaders throughout. He gives them commands to tell the people to get ready.
Then after giving commands to the officers, look at verse 12, then he gives his instructions to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh.
Remember what’s going on here. So there’s 12 tribes and 2-1/2 of the tribes, the half-tribe of Manasseh, Reubenites, Gadites, they back in the book of Numbers when they were on the east side of the Jordan, so they haven’t crossed over the Jordan, you’ve got to go from east to west to cross over the Jordan into the Promised Land. They’re all still on the east.
Well, not long before this event right here these 2-1/2 tribes said, “Wow, this is really good land beyond the Jordan,” the Trans-Jordan sometimes called. “Can we stay here?” And the Lord said, “Now wait a minute. Are you chickening out, just like the spies and you’re not going to go into the Promised Land?” And the people said, “No, no, no. We promise when it comes time to entering the Promised Land, we will send our mighty men of valor and we will fight with our brothers and we will do our part to inherit this land. But can we stay here?” And the Lord spoke to Moses and Moses said, “Yes, you can. You can have 2-1/2 tribes. You can be on the east side of the Jordan. But remember.” And that’s what Joshua’s doing here. He’s reminding them. Actually not a reminder, he’s telling them. That sound familiar, parents? No, I’m not suggesting, I’m telling you. I’m telling you that your men need to come and fight just like you promised.
So first half, verses 1 through 9, the Lord gives a charge to Joshua. Second half, Joshua gives a charge to the people, first to the officers, then to these 2-1/2 tribes, and then, just like we saw, then the tables turn and we have an encouragement. So a charge and then an encouragement.
Here the people give the encouragement to Joshua. They say we will obey you just like we obeyed Moses. Now, you wonder if there was a little oh, boy, really. I think they meant it as an encouragement. Joshua would be right to roll his eyes just a bit, just like you obeyed Moses? You were not batting a thousand when it came to Moses. But they say we are ready. We’re not going to rebel. May the rebels be put to death. We are with you. And they give that encouragement to him, be strong and courageous.
In both instances, there is talk about crossing over. That’s what the Lord says to Joshua. That’s what Joshua says to the officers and to the tribes – we’re going to cross over, in both of them, cross over and then language about the land is a gift. Then in both halves, it finishes with this encouragement.
And the second half of chapter 1, as I said, is really a formal transfer of allegiance. It’s an inauguration of Joshua’s leadership. Assuming they were good Presbyterians, they gave the right hand of fellowship after they were done and Pam played a hymn while it was so. So Joshua now is going to lead the people.
So that’s Joshua, that’s the book in the wider context, and that’s how to understand what’s going on in this chapter as a summary of what we’ll see in the rest of the book.
What about this chapter itself? What’s the big idea? Well, it’s very clear what the big idea is. Many of you have memorized these words before – be strong and courageous. Look at it. Verse 6. Be strong and courageous. Then again in verse 7, only be strong and very courageous. Verse 9 – have I not commanded you be strong and courageous. And one more time lest we forget, the very last words in verse 18, only be strong and courageous.
You don’t need an advanced degree to see what is this chapter about. Be strong and courageous.
Obviously, this is about a specific moment in the life of Israel. After centuries of waiting, it was finally time to enter the Promised Land. It had been centuries. They had been slaves for 400 years. God had promised this way back to Abraham and now finally, after a time period that’s nearly twice as long as this nation has been a country, they’re about to enter the Promised Land. God had sworn an oath by Himself He would do this.
So this is a specific moment. We don’t want to over interpret and think that every dream of yours and mine will come true, every initiative will be a success, that if you sprinkle the words “be strong and courageous” everything you want will come true. So that would be over-interpreting.
Yet, we don’t want to just put this on the shelf and say, “Wasn’t that a nice moment in time when God did special things for His people?” If God doesn’t promise us universal success in every undertaking, well, this is exhortation is still a word for us. It’s a good word in any situation, and especially in a situation which you may be in this morning, like Joshua was, starting out on something new, something daunting, something frightening. Maybe a new job, maybe following someone in a new position, maybe a new family situation.
Maybe it’s not those sort of happy adventures. Maybe you have a diagnosis or a test result came back in the last two weeks and you’re waiting for a follow-up and it is keeping you up at night. Or you’ve just been diagnosed with a chronic illness and no one else can see it except your family, but you are on and off again feeling tired, fatigued, miserable, and you never know when it’s going to hit, and it’s new and it’s scary. Or some ailment and the doctors can’t figure out what it is and you keep getting tests and they say it’s not that and that’s good but you want to know what it is.
Or there are many of you in the past year who have become a new widow, a new widower. Some who have recently lost children or another loved one. Or you’re entering a new season of life, a marriage, a new baby. Or maybe you’re youngest is going to be in school this year and you’re going to be in this house by yourself. Or maybe you just sent off, like we did, another kid to college. College. Who invented college? That was, just, let’s all be farmers. We live here, you live there, and just, terrible idea.
Maybe you’re an empty-nester. Maybe you’re at retirement. Maybe you know you’re nearing the end of your life and you look at all of that. It’s not crossing the literal Jordan to fight people with swords, but it feels just as daunting, just as intimidating, just as frightening.
So the good news is that God doesn’t just say to us be strong and courageous as if that’s all it takes. Just be brave, and you’re brave. Well, it’d be nice and we need the exhortation, but what we find in this passage is He doesn’t just say be brave, He tells us why we can be strong and courageous, and He tells us how to be strong and courageous.
There are three ways He tells us the how and there’s one reason for the why. So four total, and I know, it’s been more than half of my minutes already. You’re saying, half? Three-fifths. Four points then, three with the how and one with the why to be strong and courageous. Very simple. You can spot them in the text.
Here’s the first one. It’s the word “remember.” Remember. Verse 13 – remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you.
Now that’s a specific word, we just explained that, has to do with the allowance that they can stay on the east side of the Jordan, remember that. But more than that, “remember” is one of the richest, deepest, sweetest, covenantal words in the Bible – And He remembered his covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. To be a Christian is to know what things you must remember and what things you must forget.
It is also to know what God always remembers – His promises, His Word, His covenant, and what He forgets – your sins removed as far as the east is from the west. This is a precious word, remember.
He says up in verse 5 – no man shall be able to stand before you, talking to Joshua, all the days of your life, just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. That’s what Joshua needs to hear. Joshua may have thought to himself, “I ain’t Moses, I don’t have the gifts that Moses had, I wasn’t raised in Pharaoh’s court like Moses was. There’s no way I can do all of the great and mighty signs that Moses did. I will never be the leader that Moses was.” It may have been true, but this would be the same – just as the Lord was with Moses, so He would be with Joshua.
It’s easy to look out as a Christian and think there are no more giants in the land, meaning giants of the faith. I think that sometimes. You think of those even among our own circles how have died in recent years and R. C. Sproul. You know what? People get old and they die. That’s what happens to all of us. It’s easy to think, oh, the last great missionary biography has been written. The last great preacher, or the great philanthropist, or the great Christian mom or dad, or the great new student movement. Oh, there will be no more giants in the land.
Well, the heroes of the faith, they do pass on. But we have the same God. And they needed to remember here at the banks of the Jordan that it was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of the plagues, the God who parted the Red Sea. This was still the same God, their God and our God.
Remember. You won’t be strong and courageous if you forget what you must remember.
Second word. Look at verse 8. Remember is the first word, the second word “meditate” – The book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night. Be careful to do all according to that is written in it.
Notice it’s here, and it’s elsewhere in the Psalms and throughout the Bible, that this word “meditate” is connected to the mouth – the Law shall not depart from your mouth. Mediation in the Old Testament was very likely a word to describe something spoken. You might think of it as a recitation.
One commentator says meditate suggests a barely audible murmur. That’s why it says “shall not depart from your mouth.” To meditate on the Word was to say something, to say it loud, like when you’re memorizing Scripture, or when you’re singing a good hymn or Bible song, or when you can in your morning devotions or around the dinner table, to read out loud. There is something that is not simply through the eyes and internally but to be spoken and to be heard. That’s what it means to meditate.
Don’t give up on Scripture memory just because you can’t hold all the verses in your head. That happens to me, maybe it happens to you. I get a great initiative, I’m going to memorize these 10 verses, or this chapter or something, and then you move on and by a few weeks in you think, “Oh, I’m not remembering what I did several weeks ago” and it all starts to crumble and fall apart, and you say, “What’s the use?”
Well, of course, it’d be better to have all the things remembered, and you probably when you need it will have more than you think, but even if you forgot all of it two weeks later, it would still be worthwhile because memorizing Scripture is about the closest we probably come to meditating. You have to say it. You have to say it loud 10 times and then you’ve got to cover it up and you’ve got to say it 10 more times. The very discipline of memorizing that verse, even if you forget it, is a meditation.
Notice here verse 8 references the book of the Law. It speaks of what is written down. This seems obvious to us, but this is really a massive statement. It means that already in the history of God’s people they were guided by written revelation, by something written down in a scroll, in a book, not just oral tradition, though they had that; not just an experience and intuition. Not even just a living oracle from a prophetic word. No, they were to be guided as we are today by what has been written down.
Don’t let anybody ever tell you, “Well, you Christians, conservative Christians, and you worship a book.” No, but we do not want any word of the book of this Law to depart from our mouths and we will meditate on it day and night. We make no apologies for being book people, book Christians. God’s people were to be guided by a book.
The book of the Law is certainly at least Deuteronomy. There are several direct quotations in Joshua from Deuteronomy. In fact, this one here in chapter 1, be strong and courageous, is a direct quotation from Deuteronomy. There’s also a number of allusions to Numbers, so the book of the Law is at least Deuteronomy and it may include the whole Pentateuch, the Torah, the first five books of our Bible. It’s written down.
Meditate on it day and night. It reminds you of what we already heard earlier in the service from Deuteronomy 6 that you shall teach these things to your children, you shall talk along the way when you lie down, when you wake up. The idea is that in all the little breaks in life, when you’ve got to wait in line, when you’ve got to walk to and fro, that you have the Word of God in your head, in your heart, coming out, you’re talking about it, you’re meditating on it. It’s there in a recitation of God’s Word that when you have a little break, where does your brain go to? It goes to the Book.
Now let me say something here that is going to be a hard and necessary word for I’m guessing about two-thirds of you. Even though I’m saying it from this side of the pulpit, just know that as I’m saying it from this side of the pulpit, I am also on that side of the pulpit because I need to hear this as well. I’m talking about our computers, our tablets, and especially our phones. I was convicted by this this week, and have been before. We, if meditation is what you think about, where your brain goes, where your attention goes, when you aren’t quite sure what else to do and you’re in between the big things in life, you and I about probably more than half of us, meditate day and night on our phones. It’s true. The table, before bed, first thing when you get up, dangerously so in the car, in other places when you take care of business, we won’t say any more about it. You and I are meditating.
You’ve heard the saying before, “We behold what we become.” That’s true, that’s very spiritual. Let me put it in another way that I heard that was arresting – We behold what we become. Here’s another way – You are what you pay attention to. You are what you pay attention to. So even if we say, “But I don’t look at bad stuff.” Okay, I’m not sure I believe that for everyone, because the bad stuff, you don’t have to go looking for it, they design it so the bad stuff finds you. Even if you don’t go the bad stuff, at best it’s a distraction.
Now, look, I am not throwing my phone in the trash after the sermon, though many times I have wondered if I might. So it is not to say you can’t have the screen. Not even to say that you can’t at the end of the day say, “You know what? I’ve got 10 minutes here and I want something to make me laugh.” It’s great. I like to laugh. I like funny videos. I like seeing cats do funny things and all the rest. I’ll even take an AI picture of Elon Musk and Donald Trump dancing. Okay? Yeah, it’s amazing what these phones can do.
But we have to be honest with ourselves, because we’re not talking for most of us about minutes here and there of a little bit. We’re talking about hours. We don’t even know what we’re doing. How in the world is one or two or three hours of church on Sunday going to be able to compete when you spend four, five, six hours sometimes a day meditating.
Now I’m not talking about you using your computer, you’ve got to work and you’ve got to write things. No, I’m talking about the mindless, endless distractions. We have traded meditating upon God’s Word, because I got a little break, I’m not sure what to do, I’ve got to wait in line, I’ve got something, I’ve got 20 minutes, boom, phone. Tell me something, give me the dopamine hit, show me something, make me laugh. It’s just what we are trained to do and they have thousands of people and millions, if not billions, of dollars all geared to get you to do it and to keep scrolling and never to stop.
So I’m speaking to you, I’m speaking to myself. I want to be the person in verse 8. Meditate on the law of the Lord, and on His Law he meditates day and night. You’ve got a brain break, Scripture. You’ve got dinner table discussion, Scripture. You’ve got a car ride, Scripture. Yeah, you hear what I’m saying. You know. You’re going to listen to your podcast, you’re going to listen to your music, and that’s great.
But so many of us have fallen way over on the wrong side of this and we are not meditating on God’s Word, we are meditating on whatever someone in Silicon Valley has engineered in their algorithm to tell us.
You are what you pay attention to. I want to pay attention to the Word of God and I hope you do, too. Meditate.
Three. Obey.
We see this several times. Verse 7 – be careful to do according to all the Law. Verses 16 and 18, the same thing, only may we obey, may we keep everything that You have commanded us to do.
So be strong and courageous. It’s not enough to go out into the world and say, “I’m courageous. You know why? Because I fight.” We’ve got that. We’ve convinced ourselves, with politics and with everything else, just fight. Yeah, you can be a fool and fight. You know what this verse tells us? It’s not enough to fight or to fight the right battle, or to fight the right enemies, oh, but they have the right enemies. We hate the same people, those people hate us. See? It’s not enough to be in a fight or fight the right battle or fight the right enemies if you don’t fight God’s way. Be careful to obey everything I have commanded you. Strict observance to the Word of God.
You don’t get a pass in obeying God’s word because the world is corrupt. You don’t get a pass on obeying God’s Word because the enemies do it the enemy’s way. Of course they do. We follow God’s way.
You may have heard before of the cardinal virtues. It goes back to the Greeks and then adopted by many scholastics and Christian thinkers like Aquinas and others. Fortitude, justice, temperance, and prudence. Surprisingly enough, Christians have said prudence is at the head of the list. Not that it’s more important, but that it’s the one that shapes all the others. Now I bet if you said, “I want prudence,” you’d think, oh, that’s the like lamest virtue. Prudent? Means like cautious and very meek and mousy. But that’s not what the virtue means.
One author says no dictum of traditional Christian doctrine strikes such a note of strangeness to the ears of contemporaries, even contemporary Christians, as this one, that the virtue of prudence is the mold and mother of all the other cardinal virtues. That is to say, we cannot do good unless we act out in accordance to reality as it is defined by God. That’s what prudence means – to act according to the way things are and God is the One who tells us the way things are and the way they ought to be.
In a way, the other virtues are all directed somewhere else. So you think about fortitude and temperance, like temperance is self-control, fortitude – courage, endurance. Those are directed toward the self, overcoming obstacles in yourself. Justice is directed toward others, how you treat people. Prudence is directed outward/upward, to God, to objective reality, to way God says things should be.
So if you’re going to be strong and courageous, God isn’t just looking for fools to rush in and brandish the sword. He wants people to do careful according to everything He has commanded us.
Then here’s finally. So there’s the three how and the one why. Why, why can we be strong and courageous?
You see in verse 5: Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you.
It says the same thing again in verse 9 – Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
The only way to overcome fear, whatever you’re facing, is to know that God is with you. When your child wakes up with a nightmare, you hear the scream and you run upstairs or down the hall, or she comes down to your bed and she’s half awake and she says, “I had a nightmare.” What’s the first thing you say, moms? You say, “It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”
What do you do, dads, if you’re in the airport or you’re crossing the street in a big city and your young son is down there? You reach out your hand and you say, “Hold my hand.” Why? It’s the action that says, “I’m here. Hold my hand and you’ll be safe. I will take you where you need to go. You don’t have to be afraid.”
It’s what the Lord told Moses way back in Exodus 3 at the burning bush. He said, “I will be with you.”
This promise here, beautifully, is repeated in the New Testament. So it’s not just, well, that was a great word for Joshua. It’s applied to a Christian congregation in the book of Hebrews 13:5 – for He has said I will never leave you nor forsake you. We know the promise so much better than Joshua did. I will be with you. We know God in the flesh, Emmanuel, God with us. We have the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit living with us and among us and joining us to Christ. We’re in such a better position than they were in Joshua’s day to know that the Lord is with us.
This is the last thing I’ll say. As you look out in your life, and I’m thinking of the sad moms and dads who dropped a kid off at college and I’m thinking of the widows and widowers, thinking of the new empty-nesters, the people with the diagnosis, I’m thinking of those who have had the inexpressible loss of losing a child, and you think to yourself, here’s what’s really hard, isn’t it? You think nothing will ever be the same.
Well, it’s half true. Some things will never be the same. That’s how life is in a fallen world with sadness and grief. Some things will never be the same. But don’t think to yourself nothing will be the same. God will be the same yesterday, today, and forever. Not nothing. His faithfulness will never end. His mercies will be new for you tomorrow morning. That same God who is with Moses will be with Joshua and that same God will be with you in the person of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s pray. Father in heaven, we thank You for Your Word and all Your great promises. We ask now that You would give us courage, to be strong, to be brave, and lead us in the way we should go. In Jesus’ name. Amen.