Strength and Courage: Lessons from Joshua's Leadership

Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

Well, we're going to go ahead and start a new Bible study, a new book study, and for some of you, this is your first time here and hopefully not the last time here.

But what I always try to explain to people is that even if we're doing a study in the whole book, each individual lesson that we look at is still applicable to us.

You might say, well, I don't want to come in at the end of a study.

I might be missing it.

I'm going to tell you that even if you came in at the very end of any of the studies, like in the book of Romans or in the book of Genesis, the Bible says that all scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And it's profitable for.

For all of those things, for, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness.

And so when we talk about the word of God, we know that everything returns back to us in a way that's going to be beneficial if we receive it, believe it, and apply it.

But this book that we're going to be studying, it's.

It's a quite.

It's a.

It's a pretty long book.

Okay, we're going to be studying the book of Joshua.

And so if you have your Bibles, turn there to the book of Joshua.

We're going to start in Joshua, chapter one.

Now, this book was always my favorite book of the Bible.

And I don't know why you.

You guys might know why.

This is my favorite book of the Bible.

When I realized that there was a book of the Bible named after me, I was like, wow, that's my favorite book.

And I didn't even read it yet.

And, and so I got into it, and as a child, this is probably the book of the Bible that I read.

I don't know if it was the most I've read, but I read this one a lot.

And I claim one of these verses as a quote unquote, light verse, even though I know that that can sometimes change over time.

But we're going to get to Joshua chapter one, verse nine.

And that's.

That's a verse in my life that has played a huge role in my walk with him.

But we're going to look at the Book of Joshua.

And so we're going to just take our time to go through this.

And in the Book of Joshua, I need to give you context.

Anytime we have a study in the book of the Bible, we need to have context.

What's going on when we start the Book of Joshua?

Well, historically speaking, we know that the Israelites are still wandering.

They're still on their way to the promised land.

They have not made it there yet.

We know that God promised to take the Israelites out of Egypt and lead them to the promised land, the land of Canaan.

Obviously, God used Moses as a leader to take them out of the bondage of Egypt and move them to the promised land.

But because of rebellion, because of confusion, there's 40 years of wandering.

And so in the wilderness time, we know that Moses rebels, Moses has this lapse in judgment.

And we know that God basically tells Moses, you're not going into the promised land.

And so we see that as Moses dies, Joshua takes over and Joshua is now going to be the leader.

Joshua has been the assistant to Moses for many years.

And so Joshua has observed Moses as a strong leader, but ultimately he's observed the power of God.

Joshua has observed God's provisions.

We know the stories that were happening there as the Israelites were out in the wilderness.

The manna coming down from heaven, the quail that fly in and give them meat, the guidance from the fire at night and by the pillar of cloud in the day.

Obviously, Joshua witnessed the bondage in Egypt and saw God use his miraculous power in the plagues and, and eventually leading them through the Red Sea, the parting of the Red Sea.

So Joshua has observed a lot in his life and he gets to this place where God calls him to be the leader.

And here in chapter one, we're going to see what God promises Joshua to be a successful life.

And I think that all of us want to be successful, all of us want to be prosperous.

But the true question I believe to be asked is not what does the world consider to be prosperity?

What does the world consider to be success?

But what does God define as success?

And that's what we're going to be looking at here in Joshua chapter one.

And so all of these things that we're going to be talking about here in the Book of Joshua are historical events.

I believe that this is, this isn't an allegorical account.

I believe all of these things happen with real people and real places.

But I also know that God speaks through history.

To give us examples of our own deliverance that we have in our life through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so I believe, yes, these stories that we find in Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Book of Joshua and on certainly are real events that are happening with real people.

But I do know also that the Bible tells us in First Corinthians, chapter 10 that these things that God was doing to the people in the Old Testament were for them, but also examples for us to see how God works with people who follow him, who bring their hearts to him in humility.

And God brings deliverance.

And so the picture of the Israelites being taken out of Egypt and taken to the promised land is a picture of our salvation, about being taken away from the bondage of sin and taken to hope in Jesus Christ and ultimately eternal life with the Lord.

And so the central act of redemption we know in the New Testament is the Gospel, the, the, the work of Jesus Christ.

But if we were looking at the Old Testament, obviously we know the Old Testament is looking towards Jesus as the Messiah.

But if we were to say one story in the Old Testament to be the story of deliverance, we would talk about the Israelites being led out of Egypt and brought to the promised land.

So I believe as we look at the story as a real historical event, we also need to see the parallels of God's deliverance in our life when we come to him in faith and look at his hand of blessing and forgiveness in our lives.

And so we know Israel was led by Moses, they wandered in the wilderness, and the land of Canaan represents a destination that God has his people to go.

And we know that God's plan for his people is to pull them out of bondage.

For us, that's the bondage of sin, the bondage of brokenness and guilt and condemnation and take us to a place of freedom, a place of promise, a place of everlasting life with Him.

So that's the context here.

And, and we see Joshua taking over.

And obviously there, there are probably, probably concerns that Joshua has.

I mean, we're going to see that by way of context.

We can understand that no doubt there was some fear in his heart.

Why?

Because we're going to see God over and over again reminding Joshua, do not fear.

And he gives him a reason to not fear.

And we're going to see that Joshua probably felt a lot of pressure on him as he took this opportunity to lead.

And God's going to give him the answer to all of his concerns, all of his Doubts all of his confusion.

And I think for all of us, we are going to find times in our life where we have to pick up the torch.

I appreciate it being mentioned here this evening about godly parents.

Now, not every one of us have that testimony of having parents that pass that on to us again, though that doesn't mean that we as believers now need to neglect the importance of passing on to the next generation the promises of God.

And for some of you, you might say, well, my children are grown, they're out of the house.

I have grandchildren.

The truth is, is that we can pass on the truths of God to our grandchildren, to our great grandchildren, to maybe not even our own biological children, but children that we see within the church.

This is, this is an opportunity to see God's hand pass from Moses to Joshua.

And Joshua is really going to experience the same promises that God gave to Moses and more.

And so we're going to look here in verse number one.

Moses dies and God's going to now speak to Joshua.

We're going to see the torch being passed similar to when Elijah goes on to heaven.

Obviously, Elijah didn't die.

He was, he was caught up in that chariot.

But that, that mantle being passed from Elijah to Elisha, the mantle being passed from Moses to Joshua.

And for all of us in our life, there is going to be a point in time where we need to realize that the past generation, that, that, that's not.

They can't answer for us anymore.

We're not going to be able to answer for the next generation.

We have to understand that there is this opportunity for us in the time that we have to redeem the time as God has called us to redeem it.

So look at verse number one.

It says now, after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Joshua, the son of Nun, Moses's minister, saying, moses, my servant is dead.

God doesn't pull anything back here.

He says, here, here's the truth.

Moses is gone.

Moses is dead.

Now, therefore, arise.

It's your time.

Go over this Jordan, thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

And so God here speaks to Moses, or, excuse me, speaks to Joshua.

And he tells him, moses is gone.

Joshua, it's your time.

The promise that I gave to Moses is the promise now that I give to you.

The promise is this.

I will be with you.

This is my plan for this people.

This is my plan for you.

And so Joshua, who was not A young man at this time.

I mean, obviously Joshua had experienced a lot of this place.

He's always been the assistant.

Now Joshua is going to find it.

Now that God is calling him to step up.

God is calling him to lead.

Verse 3.

Every place that the soul of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you as I said unto Moses.

And so this is a continuation of the promise of God.

He's saying this.

The.

The.

The mantle is being passed, the torch is being passed.

You now have the same promises that Moses had.

That I will be with you, that you will have victory, that you will be prosperous, that you will have these things come to pass.

Verse 4.

From the wilderness and this Lebanon, even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea, toward the going down of the sun shall be your coast.

What essentially God is doing is he's restating his promise.

He's reiterating his promise to his people through Joshua.

And sometimes we need to be reminded of God's promises to us in our life and salvation.

I know that intellectually we can know what God has promised us in His Word.

But sometimes we need to be reminded of the promises of God.

And we need to remind our children.

We need to remind the next generation that God has promised us these things.

He's promised us blessing, he's promised us eternal life.

He's promised us his presence, his provision.

And so therefore we need to pass that along.

And that's what God's doing.

He's reminding Joshua to remind the people that you need to live differently.

You need to live with hope.

You need to live with confidence.

You need to live in victory.

Verse 5.

There shall not any man be able to stand before the all the days of thy life.

He promises Joshua that no matter who stands against them, the victory is still going to be the Lord's.

It's not Joshua's victory as much as it is God's victory.

And Joshua is on God's side.

And he says, it doesn't matter who stands against you.

Reminds me of a passage of Scripture.

I want to.

I want you to see this because as I was reading Joshua Chapter one, I couldn't help but think of a passage of Scripture that's helped me out a lot in my life.

And that's Psalm 118.

So keep your finger in Joshua chapter one.

And I want you to come with me to Psalm 1:18 and th.

This is an amazing, amazing passage of Scripture because a lot of times we.

We feel confident that God's doing work.

We feel confident that we're seeing revival.

We're, we're confident that, that maybe, just maybe, I've got this all figured out in this Christian life and someone will come against us.

Whether it be persecution or criticisms or maybe just someone's trying to hold us back for whatever reason.

We're going to see here this evening that nobody can stand against us when God is on our side.

We know in the New Testament, if God be for us, who can be against us?

But Psalm 118, if you're going through a struggle in your life and you feel the fear of man rearing its ugly head in our life, and I don't know if any of you know how nasty the fear of man can be.

The fear of man can control us.

The fear of man can close our lips to what we need to be saying for the cause of the gospel.

The fear of man can stop us from going places that we need to go.

The fear of man can make us go places that we shouldn't go.

And in Psalm 118, we see this challenge.

And it says in verse number six of Psalm 118, the Lord is on my side.

I will not fear.

What can man do unto me?

The Bible says that if we are following God, there is nothing that man can do against us that can harm us in the grand scheme of eternity.

Oh, they might be able to hurt us physically.

They might be able to even in some ways.

We see in the New Testament martyr God called us to do.

And so what does God call Joshua to do?

What?

Lead the people of Israel into the promised land.

Now, some of you know the rest of the story.

Some of you know that Joshua is not going to have an easy path.

There's going to be giants there.

There's going to be people that aren't.

There's going to be people there that say, you know what?

We don't want you to come in.

They're not, they're not having open doors saying, come on, Joshua, take our land.

No, there's going to be great opposition from the pagans that he's going to find in the land of Canaan.

And there's always going to be great opposition.

When we stand up for the things of God, God will call us to do things.

And sometimes we'll feel like maybe God didn't want me to do this because of pushback from others.

But sometimes the pushback from others is confirmation that God has called us to do this and we're doing the right Thing the Bible says in the New Testament that as believers, if we are living boldly for Christ, we will face persecution, we will face opposition.

Folks, the Christian's life is a comfortable life, but the comfort does not come from the circumstances.

The comfort comes from knowing that the great comforter lives within us.

And so if there's some Christians that say, you know what?

My life's so easy.

I've never had anyone come against me for my faith.

The question might be, am I living bold enough for the cause of the truth in this world today?

Now, I would argue that in our country, we still have many Christian liberties and Christian freedoms that I am thankful for that I counted a blessing.

But at the same time, if we live boldly for the cause of the gospel, people will notice and people will oppose.

Why?

Not because they hate us.

Because the Bible says, when Jesus says, hey, look, they're going to come against you, but they're only coming against you because they're coming against me.

And so Joshua is going to go and follow God, but he's not going to have a quote unquote easy path.

He's not going to have an open door.

He's going to come and face a lot of opposition.

But go Back to Joshua 1.

What does he say?

He says, there shall not any man be able to stand before the all the days of thy life.

As I was with Moses, so I will be with thee.

I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

This is an amazing truth because every time God calls us to have courage, every time he calls us to not be fearful in our life, he always gives us a reason for that confidence.

And so for Joshua, he doesn't say, hey, just, just don't fear.

He says, hey, don't fear.

Know that you will have the victory.

Why?

Because he says, just as I promised Moses, so I will be with thee.

What does he promise us?

He promises us his presence.

He doesn't promise peacefulness, necessarily peaceful circumstances.

He promises inner peace, a peace that passeth all understanding, as Philippians chapter four says.

But he doesn't promise peaceful circumstances.

So he doesn't say, joshua, everything's going to be okay.

No one's going to come against you.

He says, hey, no one's going to be able to take you out.

But he says the, the reason for the confidence is this.

I'm with you.

The presence of God, I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.

Can't help but think about the passage of Scripture, that in the New Testament that he will never leave us nor Forsake us.

Hebrews tells us that he will never leave us nor forsake us.

And that's something that sometimes as Christians, we repeat and maybe even try to encourage one another with.

But if we truly lived with the confidence of knowing that God is with us, that he's living within us, we would live with a lot more boldness.

We would live with a lot more courage.

We would live with a lot more hope.

And so here he says, I am with you just as I was with Moses.

And evidently Joshua would have understood that God was with Moses.

And so he says, I'm going to be with you as well.

And then he starts here in verse 6.

Be strong and of a good courage.

Why?

For unto this people shall thou divide for an inheritance the land which I swear unto their fathers to give them.

He says, joshua, be strong and have courage.

Why?

Because I've called you to do something.

I've called you with a purpose.

I've given you my plan.

It's your job to lead.

It's your job to help divide this inheritance that I am blessing you with.

And so as a believer today, we can say that God has a plan for us, that God has a purpose for us.

We all have a role within the church.

We all have a role in our Christian life.

Some are called to preach publicly behind a pulpit.

Others are called to preach in their workplace.

Others are called to serve behind the scenes.

Others are called to reach people in places that maybe I couldn't get to or you can't get to.

The Bible says here, though, that all of us have a purpose.

Joshua had a purpose.

The Bible says that we are all gifted.

Ephesians, chapter four.

Believe it's verse number seven says all of us are gifted in Christ Jesus to live our lives in the grace that he has given us, to serve him and to edify others, to evangelize others, to serve him with all of our might.

And so he says, be strong and of a good courage.

Verse 7.

Only be thou strong and very courageous.

It almost seems I, I, I'm not there.

I, I wasn't there.

And I don't want to read into this too much, but I can't help but think every time when, when I tell my kids to be brave and have strength, it's usually when they aren't strong and brave, right?

I'm reiterating to them over and over, be strong, be brave.

And so I believe I see this as a heavenly father looking down to Joshua, saying, joshua, I see your fear, I see your confusion.

I see Your doubt.

Be strong, be strong.

And so verse seven, he says, only be thou strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to the law.

So he says this.

This is how you find this type of strength.

This is how you find this type of success and prosperity.

And now he's going to explain to him the process of what it means to be successful in the eyes of God.

So he says, first and foremost, what be strong and very courageous that thou mayest observe to do according to the law, to obey his word.

To, To.

To start with, to be successful as a believer, we must obey his word.

We must follow his word.

His word must be important to us.

It's not just knowing it, but it's observing it, which Moses my servant, commanded the turn not from it to the right hand or to the left, that thou mayest prosper whether so ever thou goest.

He says, observe it.

And then once you're on that path of the word, once you're on that path of God's plan for your life, don't deviate.

Because it's easy to say, well, that's where I started 20 years ago.

I was on fire for God.

Where are you at today?

Because the truth is, is that sometimes there can be times in our life where we're walking the right path when we're following well, but we're tempted by the cares of this world to be driven left or right, to be driven to and fro with every wind of doctrine, and we can be led astray.

And so he says, don't turn away from it.

Observe God's law.

Follow God's law.

Follow his word.

But then he goes on further and says, don't.

Don't deviate from it.

Don't go to the right, don't go to the left.

That's where you're going to see success.

That's where prosperity comes.

And by the way, there's a phrase that we use in our culture today that I have preached against, and that is the prosperity gospel.

The material prosperity gospel.

That is, the material prosperity gospel is that if you love God enough and believe enough, you can speak prosperity into existence.

So if I want to be a millionaire, I just.

I just manifest it.

Well, that's not what God promises us in his word.

Now, for some of us, God has a plan of financial success, and that is fantastic.

But that's not God's plan for everybody.

So what do we see?

What, what, what kind of prosperity are we talking about?

Well, read the book of Ephesians.

There's great Spiritual prosperity promised to us as believers.

That's promised to every believer.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and hopefully they don't clip this out out of context.

I believe in the prosperity gospel.

Someone's going to clip that on the Internet.

I believe in the spiritual prosperity gospel.

I believe that when we follow God, there's prosperity within our lives and in the spiritual realm, when there's strength and, and.

And courage and bravery.

In the case of the gospel, there's prosperity there.

There's hope there.

There's a peace that passes all understanding.

So he says, here you want to prosper.

Follow.

Follow my life, follow my plan, follow my word.

And so he's laying out spiritual prosperity here.

This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth, but thou shalt meditate there in day and night.

Here's where I want to stop, because I think this is important to note.

It's not just about knowing it.

It's not even just about reading it and in many times, even observing it in our lives and trying to live it to the best of our ability.

He uses a phrase here that I think is so interesting.

He says, thou shalt meditate there and day and night.

What does that word, meditate, mean?

He's called us to meditate upon His Word.

To be spiritually successful, we must meditate upon His Word.

So we need to stop and know what that meditate is.

Because in our society today, sometimes meditate is used as a phrase to explain someone emptying their mind of everything.

Like, I just want to void my mind of all distractions and be a complete nirvana, to be a complete peace.

That's not necessarily what this is talking about here.

Actually.

The biblical mandate for meditation means this.

To fill our minds with something, to dwell on something.

The idea of meditation is to dwell on it.

All of us probably to some degree understand what it means to dwell on something in a negative fashion, to think about it, to overanalyze it, to get to a place where we think about every scenario.

And the Bible says, no, that's not what we do.

We don't dwell upon the negative.

We don't dwell upon our sin.

We don't dwell upon our brokenness.

What do we dwell upon?

We dwell upon the word of God.

We meditate upon it.

I'm going to use an analogy that actually the word meditate actually comes from.

It's this idea, some of you know that there are some.

I'm going to gross some of you out.

So just hopefully you didn't eat Right before you came, maybe you did.

But there's these animals that are said to chew the cud, right?

So some of you might know, like a cow chews grass, they swallow it.

What do they do?

They just put in their belly and they're done.

No, they, they regurgitate it and then they get more nutrients over and over and over again.

Now, that sounds kind of gross, but the picture of that would be we take in the Word of God, whether it be through Bible study in our own life or through a sermon or through some type of study, we take that knowledge into our minds and into our hearts.

But remember, the Word of God just stays knowledge if we don't apply it.

So it's taking it, applying it to our lives and dwelling upon it and going back over it and saying, okay, what does that mean for me now in this situation?

What does that mean for me as a man?

What does that mean for me as a husband?

What does that mean for me as a father?

What does that mean for me as a citizen?

What does that mean for me when it comes to my role within the church and, and analyzing it to the place of saying, I want to get every nutrient that I can out of the Word of God?

And so it doesn't mean this.

I used to read the Bible sometimes like this.

I'm just going to open up to a random page and read a verse and say, okay, I got my Bible reading done for the day.

No, no, I, I, I would venture to say that, that there's, there's an importance of quality and not quantity.

Sometimes people say, well, I read a whole book of the Bible in one sitting.

What did you glean from it?

I can't even tell you what I read.

Well, I, I, I think bet reading the Bible is better than not reading the Bible.

But the best model would be reading it and gleaning from it and understanding it and applying it and dwelling in it.

And so he says, you will meditate upon it there in day and night.

That idea of it being day and night is, it's it, it, it's pervasive.

It's your life, your life is guided by the Word of God.

You don't just go to the Word of God when you're struggling, even though that's a good time to go to the Word of God.

You don't just go to the Word of God on Sunday mornings when the pastor says, open your Bible, even though that's a good time to go to the Word of God.

But this guides our life.

This gives us our answers.

This gives us our direction.

This gives us all the things that we need to know in our lives.

And, and so he says, that's why we meditate upon it.

We should be able to, forgive me, regurgitate material that we find in the Word of God.

It should be oozing out of our lives.

Are we going to be perfect?

Never on this side of heaven, are we going to say always the right thing?

No, but the truth is, is that as we grow in the Word of God, it will change our life.

It will get us to a place, as the Bible says, to be thoroughly furnished unto all good works, meaning maturing in our faith, maturing in our growth process.

And so it says, that thou mayest observe so.

So meditating it.

Why that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein.

So it's not just hearing the Word, but it's heeding the Word, applying the word of God to our life by way of action.

The, the truth is, is that all of us can read the Bible or understand the Bible, maybe even agree with the Bible, maybe even say Amen.

But the true test of whether or not it's changed our life is if we put it to practice.

He says, you want to be a success.

This isn't talking about salvation, by the way.

Two different things.

I talked about it this morning.

The only thing that saves us is faith in Jesus Christ and the work that he's done for us on the cross.

But this is specifically talking about that, that growth, that, that being successful, seeing God's hand in our life.

And I don't know about you, but I don't want to be a Christian that only gets the minimum.

I don't want to be a Christian that says, well, I've got a ticket to heaven.

I've got everything I need.

Now I can just do what I want to do.

No, I want more.

I want blessings.

I want to have success in the eyes of God.

So it's this.

It's not just knowing it, reading it, understanding it, agreeing with it, but it's saying, I agree with this so much that I want to live this in my life.

I want to pass this on to the next generation.

I want to share this with those around me.

And so he says, meditate on it, observe it, obey it.

For then, verse 8.

For then thou shalt make thy way prosperous.

He says, only after this path do you find your prosperity in God, your success in God.

And so we go back.

Okay, what does it mean for a person to be successful in this world?

Well, a lot of times we think about it from the material success setting.

Well, they've got a lot of money, they've got a lot of power.

And that might be true in the eyes of the world, but we got to go back and say, what are we defining when we talk about success?

What makes a successful church?

Well, a lot of people.

Well, not always.

We can.

We can accumulate a lot of people by doing a lot of different things.

That doesn't necessarily mean we're a successful church.

Now, do some churches grow and have a lot of people?

Yes.

So I'm not preaching about against growth, but what I'm saying is this.

That's not the true measure of success.

Well, the true measure of success is the pastor has a lot of followers.

He's written a lot of books.

That's not always a measure of success.

What is the measure of success?

Measure of success is following the word and the will of God in our way.

Is a church following the will of God?

Is the church obeying what God has called us to do?

What has God called the church to do?

Well, make sure you meet Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

Now you're doing everything that he's called you to do.

No, that's.

That's the start of it, by the way.

I don't ever.

You'll never hear me preach against church attendance.

Okay.

I think you should go to church with.

I.

You know what?

I'm just going to say it this way.

I think we should have church every day because that's really what the Bible talks about.

Okay?

Some of you are like, well, Pastor, you're getting pretty extreme here.

Well, it's okay, That's.

If I had my way, that's the way we would do it.

The Bible does say meet all the more as the day approaches.

So, so, so I'm not preaching against church attendance, but what I'm saying is this.

God has called us to more than attending church.

That's the start of it.

God's called us more.

He's called us to so much more than just attending a Sunday school class.

Even though that's an important thing, I think that's a beneficial thing.

He's called the church to be the pillar and ground of truth, as a New Testament says.

He's called the church to go and preach the gospel, to teach, to disciple, to make disciples, to multiply.

The Bible says that there is growth that comes with a church that's following the plan of God.

We're about multiplication, not addition.

Addition is.

Hey, we need to find ways to bring people into the church.

Multiplication is, hey, you know what?

We're leading people to Christ, and they're leading people to Christ, and that goes on and on and on.

I'm thankful for a godly heritage.

I'm thankful.

I'm thankful for someone that was willing to witness to my grandfather.

I'm thankful that my grandfather got saved.

I'm thankful that my grandfather brought my dad to church.

I'm thankful that my dad brought me to church.

And so the truth is, is that that's multiplication.

Multiplication is passing it on.

That my salvation is not just for me.

Even though, yes, I'm thankful I get to go to heaven, but my salvation doesn't stop with me.

And so the church is a church that's looking for reproduction.

Multiplication.

I would love.

I would love to see people sent out from Middletown Baptist Church to be missionaries, pastors, ministry leaders across the world.

Wouldn't it be hard to see people go?

Yeah, it is hard to see people go.

And in my humanity, I don't want.

I want, you know what?

In my flesh, in my mind, in my.

In my human mind, when it comes to success and prosperity, I want this church to explode and grow.

I want people to be talking about Middletown Baptist Church all over the state and saying, have you seen what that church is doing?

But, you know, at the end of the day, that may or may not be God's plan, but God's plan, I know for a fact, is that we multiply and we spread the word of God everywhere we go.

And we follow the will of God by the way that we live our lives, to live righteously in this present world, to live.

To live holy lives.

Some people might say, pastor, is it God's will for me to do?

And then they list a bunch of things.

The truth is, is that if you list sinning, it is never God's will that we sin.

It is never God's will that we go the way of the world.

It is always God's will that we obey him, that we glorify him, that.

That we proclaim his word.

And so that's an easy question.

It's an easy question to answer when you ask, okay, does God want me to retaliate against this person?

I can tell you clearly, no.

The Bible says, vengeance is mine.

I will repay, saith the Lord.

God does not want you to retaliate.

God wants you to love and to respond with grace and with patience.

Let's say.

Let's say, for example, a husband came to me and he Says hypothetical, completely hypothetical.

By the way, I have to be careful when I say this because people will start saying, who are you talking about, Pastor?

I am not talking about anybody.

I'm going to try to do an extreme situation, let's say a pastor as, as a, as a pastor.

I walk out and, and a fella comes up to me after the marriage night, after the marriage night, says, pastor, can I talk to you after the marriage?

And I said, yeah, guess what?

You know what?

I'm just, I've been married to my wife for like 40 years and I'm, I'm just, I'm ready to get a new one.

I'm ready to trade up.

What, what.

And I think that's what God wants me to do.

What do you think, Pastor?

I can guarantee you without a shadow of a doubt I will tell that person, are married to that person.

That's God's plan for you, no matter what.

Why?

Because the word of God is so clear about it.

So God's not vague about things that he has called us to do in his will and his way.

So a lot of times we put that up in, in vague ways and we go, I don't know, maybe God wants me to do this, maybe God doesn't want me to do that.

When it, God's word is so clear about it, we follow.

We don't ask questions.

There's a lot of things in, in the word of God I don't understand because my, my, my human nature does not understand it.

My sin nature does not understand it.

But what I can tell you is this.

The Bible very clearly teaches us that the word of God is not negotiable.

We're not going to sit there and compromise on the word of God.

There, there are things that we're willing to give on, but there are things that we cannot give on.

And what the Bible says here is that, that is when we find success, when we follow the word of God, when we, when we strive to follow the word of God with all of our hearts.

And he says, that's when you find prosperity.

Verse 9.

Have I not commanded thee?

Be strong and of a good courage.

Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.

For the Lord thy God is with thee.

Withersoever thou goest.

He.

He reminds Joshua of the command.

He reminds Joshua of the plan.

He reminds Joshua of the, the hope that he has in the presence of God.

He starts with his presence, he ends with his presence.

He starts with reminding Joshua, I'm here with you.

And now here's the Call Joshua.

I'm here with you.

I'm going to give you power.

I'm going to give you direction.

I'm going to give you the victory.

But here's the difficult part.

Going to have to go into the land of Canaan and fight for me.

You're going to have to fight for your people.

There's going to be hardships.

But then what does he end with?

He ends with hope.

God always ends with hope.

He says, and by the way, after all of this, be strong.

Why?

Because I'm with you.

Don't be dismayed.

There's going to be times in our life that word dismayed essentially just means this.

Discouraged.

How many of us.

Don't raise your hand, but how many of us get discouraged when, while trying to serve God, probably all of us would say, I'm discouraged.

As a pastor, I get discouraged when.

When I minister to an individual, pray for an individual, think that, hey, you know what?

This person's getting it.

This person's growing this person's.

And all of a sudden, what happens?

They revert back and don't listen.

And you're like, oh, man, what am I doing?

Is anyone even hearing me?

Is anyone even listening?

Am I doing the right thing?

Am I preaching the right thing?

Is it resonating?

Am I minute?

And we can start thinking about all these doubts, and we can get to a place of discouragement.

Why?

The discouragement comes when we don't feel like we're being successful.

But again, we go back to, what are we doing this for?

How are we doing this?

What.

What purpose has God called us for in our life?

It's not to have followers.

It's not to have success.

It's about following him and obeying Him.

And if we're doing that, we can know, hey, you know what?

It is worth it.

I don't need to be discouraged.

Discouragement is a very, very dangerous thing because discouragement can eventually lead to complete depression.

Depression can lead to anxiety.

Anxiety can lead to bitterness and anger.

It can be a whole chain reaction.

And so when we get to that place of discouragement and fear, where do we turn?

We turn to the Lord for answers.

We turn to His Word for answers.

If we feel like someone's coming against us.

We go back to those verses that say that no one can come against me.

When I stand in the power of God, when I start to believe that I'm not enough, I go back to the passage of Scripture that teaches me that, yes, in my flesh, I'm not enough.

But because I'M in Jesus Christ.

I have hope in Him.

I have identity in him, folks.

It's preaching to ourselves the truth of God according to His Word.

That's how.

That's why we meditate in His Word.

That's why we counsel in His Word.

That's why if someone comes up to me and asks me a question, I. I'm not going to give my opinion specifically in a matter of the Bible.

I'm going to say, this is what the Bible says.

And sometimes we don't want to hear that.

We want to hear what.

What do you say?

Well, I say what the Bible says.

This is.

This is what the Bible says.

Do I agree with it?

I agree with it.

Do I understand it?

Not always.

But what I see is this.

This is the word of God.

And therefore, if it's the word of God, and I believe God is who he says he is.

And I believe that God is perfect.

And I believe God is loving.

And I believe that God is the creator of the universe.

And I believe that God is my Savior.

I'm going to follow His Word.

And that's what Joshua was challenged with.

Before you get into this, before you go into this battle, let me just warn you, it's going to be difficult.

I, I don't know if, if I was Joshua, I am Joshua, but not this Joshua, I would start getting a little bit nervous.

God, why do you keep telling me to be.

Be strong?

Why, why do you keep telling me to not be afraid?

Is there something what's coming?

Sometimes I've done that with folks.

I've just texted them, God's put them on my heart.

I said, hey, I'm really praying for you today.

Why?

What, what do you think?

What's going on?

Nothing.

Nothing just came out to my mind.

Okay, so, so sometimes there's that initial fear of like, what, what, what is God preparing me to do?

But what I'm saying is this.

Anytime we're going to do anything that's worth it for the Lord, there is going to be opposition, there is going to be some discouragement.

There is going to be sometimes where we're tempted to fear.

But what do we do?

We always go back to his presence.

We go back to his promises, we go back to his peace, we go back to his power.

This is the character of God.

He always gives us.

He, he book ends the command and the challenge with his truth.

And the truth is, I'm with you.

Here's the thing, you gotta be strong.

Here's the thing, you're gonna probably fear don't fear.

Why?

Because I'm with you.

Go, go, go with me.

We're going to look at one last passage of Scripture.

You're going to be tempted to be tired of going to this passage of scripture, but we're never going to get tired of going to this scripture.

That's the end of Matthew, chapter 28, the Great Commission.

If God had me preach on one passage of Scripture for the rest of my life, I. I don't know what it would be.

Probably somewhere in the book of Romans without the Gospel.

But if I'm going to preach to the church, if I'm going to preach to people that are saved, here's my challenge.

Matthew, chapter 28, verse 18 through 20.

We call this the Great Commission.

We call this the.

The.

The marching orders for the church.

We see Jesus came and spake unto them, verse 18, saying, all power is given unto me in heaven and earth.

Jesus starts the challenge with a reminder of his power.

This is the character of God.

Before he calls us to do something, he's going to give us the reason behind it, and he's going to give us the power.

And so Jesus says, okay, I'm coming to you with all of my power, unlimited power.

All power is given unto me in heaven and earth to give you this command.

Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I've commanded you.

And lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world.

He starts the commission with his power, promises his power to be with us, to do the things that he has called us to do.

And what does he end with?

He ends with the reminder that he's with us, his presence.

So when we're going through things in our life that are overwhelming, difficult, scary, concerning, we start with understanding his power in our life and his presence in our life.

And when we do that, I'm not saying that the fear goes away, but we're able to deal with that fear.

As the Bible says in First John, perfect love, cast out fear.

So we meditate upon the love of God.

We meditate upon the fact that we have no reason to fear.

And.

And we're about to get to Romans Chapter eight in our Sunday morning series.

And Romans Chapter eight is that passage of scripture that I would encourage you to go to anytime you doubt, anytime you struggle with whether or not God loves you, whether or not God has you in his hand, if you're losing His Love, or you're losing his salvation.

No.

The Bible says that no man, no one, nothing, nothing in this world can separate us from the love of God.

And so we wrap our minds around that as Joshua has these marching orders at the very beginning of the book.

Hey, Joshua, you're about to face a lot.

Be strong and of a good courage.

Be successful.

In my definition of success, folks, if we want to be successful, it starts number one.

In faith, that's a given.

But then number two, it moves forward and it says, okay, what role does the word of God have in my life?

This book has never failed me.

Just as we heard this evening the song Jesus Never fails.

This is the word of God.

This will never fail us.

And I would encourage you to think about that.

I would encourage you to think about how the word of God has shaped your life, how the Bible has shaped your family.

I want my children.

If.

If my children ever do give a testimony of me at some point, I want them.

I don't want them to remember all the bad things.

If we're parents, all of us understand.

We've.

We've had moments.

I want.

I want my children to remember at least anything.

Dad.

Dad loved the word of God and he tried to preach the word of God to us right before we leave.

Out of our house, before, above.

I don't know if any of you guys go out your front door all the time.

We go out our garage door.

Okay, that's.

That's the exit.

That's like where we go.

We barely use the front door unless we have guests coming over.

But above our garage door, we're going to have.

Joshua, we have.

We're going to get to this.

In Joshua, chapter 24, the verse that says, for as.

As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

It's not just a slogan that we put up, really.

It's our.

It's our plan.

It's our.

It's our goal.

Are we going to be perfect in that?

No.

But there are steps that we want to take as a family.

Whether our children understand it now or not, whether they understand it ever or not.

We want our children to know that we put God first.

And there's.

It's very easy not to put God first in our lives.

It's very easy to put other things first.

But what I want our children to know is that, hey, we.

We're striving to serve God and put him first.

That's what we should do within our church.

And the reason.

And the reason why that is the case.

You know why I want to teach my children about the Word of God?

Well, I want good kids that don't act up.

Well, that's true, but that's not the reason why I show them the Word of God.

You don't want to know why I want to show my children and the church and the world the Word of God?

Because the Word of God has changed my life.

The Word, the Word of God is powerful.

It's sharper than any two edged sword.

The Word of God has changed my heart, it has changed my desires.

Ultimately the Spirit of God has changed that.

But faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

You can't have a growing relationship with God without a growing understanding of His Word.

You can't say I'm growing closer to God, but I don't want anything to do with what he's written to me.

It just doesn't add up.

It doesn't make sense.

You can't be a Christian thriving in the truth, thriving in the Holy Spirit without a personal walk with him in accordance to His Word.

And I would even flip that on the side of prayer.

Right?

I can't be a Christian who's growing without calling out to God.

It's that communication, communication is key.

Any of you that are in a marriage or not even a marriage, any relationship, a work relationship, familial relationship, communication is key.

If you're not communicating, you're not thriving, you're not, you're not healthy.

There's a lot of Christians that are expecting a healthy relationship with God, but they're missing the point that communication is key.

And how do we communicate with God?

Well, he speaks to us through His Word predominantly and we speak to him through prayer.

And I would encourage you to think about those two things as we move forward in the study of the Book of Joshua.

Next week we're going to study more about the nation of Israel crossing the Jordan River.

Many of the stories that you remember in the Bible, you may or may not know that they're from the Book of Joshua.

And it's a really exciting story.

We're going to talk about a lady named Rahab in the Book of Joshua.

Rahab has a connection to the Messiah.

What an amazing story that is.

We're going to talk more about that later on.

And so I hope that you'll follow along with the story of Joshua, the historical record of Joshua, Joshua and the battle of Jericho.

You guys know that story.

We're going to talk about all those different things throughout the book of Joshua.

Man.

There are some really cool stuff.

The Sun Stands Still.

There's battles.

It is an exciting story, but there is an underlying Gospel theme throughout the Book of Joshua, and it's God's provision and his protection and his rewarding them that diligently seek him.

The Bible says in Hebrews 11:6 he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.

That's a matter of faith.

And so I hope that you'll come along with us in this study in the Book of Joshua.

If not, I hope that this has been a blessing here for you this evening.

And I hope that you can have that growing desire to be a successful Christian, not in the eyes of the world, but in the eyes of the Lord, in accordance to His Word.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast.

Please subscribe and follow along along for future podcast and updates.

Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.