The Story - Chapter 7

I need to clear my throat, could you turn that off just a minute? I think I'm ready. Fear is a powerful force in our lives. It's a good thing sometimes, you know, if you're afraid of electricity so you don't stick your finger in the socket, that's a very good thing. If you're afraid of that electricity. If you hear there's a tornado and you hear the sound coming and you are afraid and you get in the basement, that's a very good thing to be afraid like that. Fear can also though cause us to do things that are not quite so helpful to us. Sometimes we get afraid of things that are around us and it paralyzes our lives. I knew a lady one time and she couldn't leave her house because she was afraid to get in public. She was afraid people would see her and talk to her. She was terrified and paralyzed by fear. Fear sometimes causes us to do things that we really don't want to do and shouldn't do. And that's all that fear pressure is, you get out with a bunch of people and I was talking to a young guy and he was telling me he was with some friends and they were going to do something he knew was wrong, he knew he shouldn't do it, but there were two of them and one of him and he struggled with that and he finally did what they wanted him to do even though it was wrong and he got arrested. Fear of people's disapproval causes us to do things that we shouldn't ever do. The Bible over and over again talks about this. I think in one of the books that we were reading about the story, it says that over a hundred times the Bible says that we're not to fear and not to be afraid. The Bible gives us courage to face these circumstances that we're in. And over and over again in this section that we're reading this week, the Bible announces to us that we're to be strong and courageous. Now in the way the Lord uses this as people of Israel were getting ready to enter the land of promise, and I'm not using the story today even though parts of what I'm going to read are in the story because I want to go outside of that. There are some other mentions of this same circumstance. For example, in the last part of chapter 6 of the story, really it's in Deuteronomy chapter 31, we see that God makes demands on His people and He doesn't suggest or recommend that we be strong and courageous. He demands that His followers be strong and courageous. This occurs in chapter 31 of the book of Deuteronomy if you want to find that in your Bibles. And here before Joshua is to take the reins from Moses, Moses brings him in and they have this discussion. The leader that's not going to lead anymore is talking to the guy that's going to take over. And Moses went out and spoke chapter 31 beginning with verse 1. Then Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel. I am now 120 years old and am no longer able to lead you. The Lord has said to me, you shall not cross the Jordan. The Lord your God Himself will cross over ahead of you. He will destroy these nations before you and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said, and the Lord will do to them what He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites, whom He destroyed along with their land. The Lord will deliver them to you and you must do to them all I have commanded you. Be strong and courageous. Now, whenever we hear this idea of being strong and courageous, it sort of brings to our mind someone who's maybe in battle and they see a machine gun up on a hill and they say, I've got to get up there and kill the people that are shooting all my friends around me. And so with fear of nothing in their life, they jump out from behind their cover. They run for that with all of their energy and strength knowing that they might be killed. And we say that's a person who's strong and courageous because they're relying on their own strength and energy and they're doing it at great cost to themselves. But this passage here where he's talking about being strong and courageous is somewhat different than that. You notice he says, be strong and courageous. But before he tells them that, he says, you're going to enter this land of promise. God has made this a promise to you. The first thing he lets them know is, I have a plan. Now the soldier that jumps up out of his foxhole and runs toward the machine gun doesn't know that there's a bigger plan. He's just doing what seems the right thing to him. Moses was telling the people of Israel, God has a plan. He promised years ago that he would give you this land. He wouldn't make that promise if he didn't have a way to make it take place. So I want you to remember that the Lord has promised this to you. Our courage and our strength relies on the fact that the things God tells us to do are part of his great master plan for the world. And we fit into that. And when we do what he tells us to do, we listen to him and do what he tells us to do, we're not acting on our own. Our strength comes from the fact that we know God has a plan. Then he said, and the Lord is going to go ahead of you into this land, and he's going to kill the people there who will hurt you. So I'm going to go into the land and I'm expecting that God is ahead of me already. Our strength comes from believing strongly that what God says he will do, he will do. It's the strength of faith, not our own personal courage at his stake here. Now, we act courageously because we know that what God said he's going to do, he's going to do. He's entering the land ahead of us. Now, Joshua, your leader, is going to go ahead of you. Now, God is going to be before and in front of you, and Joshua is going to be ahead of you. But what I want you to do is to believe that this plan will work. That's where your strength comes in. I trust God completely, totally, without failure. And I am willing to step out and do whatever he tells me because of the reality that he is in this event. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. When we look at the troubles that surround us, they're overwhelming to us. Almost every one of us faces things that we cannot solve ourselves, problems that we see no solution to. But don't be afraid or don't be terrified. Why? Because God has this big plan. He's made you a part of it, and what he's promised to you will come to pass. Don't be afraid or terrified because of them, that is the problems that you face. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. You're not out there in the world on your own in this deal with God. There is a bigger plan. When he says to you, I want you to come and follow me and become my disciple and my servant, you might look at the things that are ahead of you and say, I don't see any way in the world I can do this. That will happen to you over and over again. But you remember the fact that God has made these promises. I'll go ahead of you. I'll prepare the way for you. You follow my plan in every minute detail and I will be right there with you and I will never leave you. No matter how far you stray off of this path, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. Why? Because you are my children. Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the presence of all Israel, this is to Joshua, be strong and courageous. Now this is to the leader. Not only the people of the congregation that need to be strong and courageous, but it's the pastor, it's the Sunday school teachers, it's the people who do leadership in the church. You have to be strong and courageous. Strong in trusting God that his word is true. Courageous in doing what you're supposed to do no matter what the difficulties or trials are. True for the people, true for the leaders. For you must go with the people into the land that the Lord swore to their forefathers. You are a part of keeping the promise God has made. You must divide it among them in their inheritance. The Lord himself goes before you, again that promise, and will be with you and he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid and do not be discouraged. He says that to the leader. The very same thing that is said to all the congregation is said to the leader. God doesn't ask any more of me than he does of you. He doesn't ask any less of you than he does of me. We're in this together. God asked me to be strong and believe that his words are true. He asked me to be courageous enough to say what I know he wants me to say when I speak to you, regardless of how angry or upset others might become because of it. He asked you to do the same thing. We are all in this together because God's great plan for this world is really simple. You come, give your life to me, you trust me, and I will teach you how to live. I will teach you to live by telling you exactly what you ought to do and how you ought to think. And when you come into the kingdom of God, you have to change the way you think about things because now you're trying to think with the very mind of God himself. This is two of the times already in this story that the phrase be strong and courageous is used, but it's not near the end. For in the book of Joshua, as you were reading, the Lord starts out again to address to them what's going to take place. After the death of Moses, I'm going to read it for Joshua, chapter 1, verse 1. After the death of Moses, servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of Nun, Moses said, Moses, my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I'm about to give to them, to the Israelites. I will give you every place you set your foot. And you could translate that to say I have given you every place where you set your foot, just as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert and from Lebanon to the great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite country, to the great sea to the west. God's great plan is laid out. Now here's the fact. When you come to the Lord and you say, here's my life, here's what he promises you, I will guide your life, all your choices, help you make the right ones. I'll provide everything you need. I will protect you from being destroyed. And I will make your life a powerful influence so that it will change the lives of others around you. That's his promise, all laid out. That's for you. Nothing can stand in the way of God fulfilling that in your life except your failure to be obedient to what he asks of you. Is it hard sometimes? Well, it's difficult if you think that you're going to have to do it by your own power. Is it hard to do it? Yes. If you try to do something that you can't do and you discover that God's power helps you, but unless you do it, you think I can't handle it, it will be difficult for you. So after that, Moses says, or God says, be strong and courageous. Just as I was with Moses. Moses couldn't speak well. He didn't want to do the job he was given. But when he started, God gave him every single thing that he needed. Now, to you, Joshua, I'll do the same thing for you. And for you, here, God will do the same thing for you. I did it with Moses. I did it with Joshua. And I'll do it for you. Whatever it is in your life that God has placed you in this world to do, he will give you everything you need to be able to do it. It's his promise to us. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give to them. Why are we to be strong? Why are we to trust God with everything that we have? Why are we to act on those things God tells us? Because God has a plan. I have promised you that I would be with you and that this land I would give you. Now, that promise is not a land to us. It's a life. I've promised to give you this life. This life will guide your choices and I'll provide your needs and I'll protect you and I'll make your life an influence in the world. This is my plan for you. And because of that, you can count on it taking place. That's why you are to be strong because you believe that this is true. That's where the strength comes in. I believe this with all my heart. I believe this with everything that I do and I'm going to act on it regardless of how foolish it might seem to be. That's the courage. It's not the courage you have inside based on your own strength or your will. It's the courage you have because of the promise that God has made to you. Again, he says, be strong and courageous. Be careful to obey all the laws my servant Moses gave you. Be strong and courageous. And the very next thing he says is to do everything Moses told you with Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers and Deuteronomy contained those things they were supposed to do. They were not terribly difficult things sometimes like they were not supposed to wear any clothes that had mixed threads in them like wool and linen. They were not supposed to plant in their fields two kinds of crop but just one like corn or beans. They were not supposed to eat pork. These are not terribly difficult things for them to do. But you know what? It made them look odd. The Romans thought they worshiped pigs because they'd never eat them. They were misunderstood because of what they did. And when you start out living this life that God gives to you, your friends and people around you won't understand why you don't get mad like they do, why you don't want to do the things that are not right that they want to do. They won't understand why you spend your time doing things that seem frivolous to them. They won't understand why you make the choices that you make. But what I'm asking of you is to have the strength to believe that my word is right. And when the Bible says if someone slaps you in the face, you turn the other cheek and you let them slap you again. I want you to believe that that's the best way to do this. All of your insides will scream out, no, no, no, no. All your friends who you talk to and they hear what's been done to you will say, well, I'll tell you, if I were in your place, I would. Give it back to them. And you'll look like you're weak if you don't. You'll look like you're foolish if you don't. You'll look like you're not man or woman enough to do the right thing if you don't. That's where your courage comes in. Do I believe that God's way is really right? I have the courage to act on it even though my own human nature and all those around me might say that's not the right thing to do. I want you to do this, he said, because God has given you the instructions and directions. Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. This is a Bible study method. You read a passage of scripture and you stop and say, what should I do about this? You have a Sunday school lesson and you can't finish your class until you say, okay, what should I do about this? I should never finish a sermon unless I tell you what you should do about this, because when you have it fixed in your mind, what you know God wants you to do, that allows you to be faithful and that is the strength of faith and the courage of faith that comes to you. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Now, he didn't mean you're going to be rich. That's what you hear on TV. He didn't mean you're going to be rich, but he means you're going to accomplish everything in your life that I have planned for you. That's what success really is. Have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous? He comes back to that. Haven't I told you, trust me with everything in the world and act on it? Do what it tells you? That's the faith that I'm asking for. Now he knows that there are times that's going to come whenever you start trying to do what God wants and you will be scared to death. It may be a simple thing like God asks you to give money to an offering and you say, I can't do that. I'll go bankrupt. I can't pay my bill. It may be that God asks you to do something in church. You say, my schedule is already full. I can't. I can't do that. I don't have time. Do not be terrified. Do not be discouraged. The terror comes when you look at it and say, I can't do this because it's not going to work. It's going to make life worse for me. The discouragement comes when you start doing it and immediately there's no response. No great wonderful thing takes place and you do it again and again and again and again teaching a Sunday school class maybe six months or a year or two years or three years and you get discouraged. Where are all the promises you made to me about workers or about the benefits or about the results that come from it? Don't look inside of yourself for completion. Don't look around you to see the success. You look at the person who said to you, this is your job. Be strong in believing that if he's giving you this to do, it will be right. Be courageous to keep on doing what you're supposed to do even though you don't see success. That's what the strong and courageous means in the scripture. So don't be terrified. Do not be discouraged. Why? For the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. You are not in this alone. When you give your life to Christ and you say to him, I'm going to live in obedience to you no matter what happens, he comes inside of you with his Holy Spirit. Every day he's there with you. Every moment he's there with you. He's with you in the exciting times. He's with you in the discouraging times. You may not see him, but he's there because his promise has been made to you. Skip to verse 16 of chapter 1. Then they answered Joshua. Joshua had made this appeal to him. Whatever you commanded, we will do. And whatever you send us and wherever you send us, we will go. Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses. Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey your words, whatever you may command them, we will put them to death. The congregation stood by Joshua. Joshua, you're not in this alone. Sometimes people think, well, the Sunday school teacher's job is this class and all I have to do is come and sit. The preacher's job is to take care of the church. All I have to do is come and sit. Well, if that's happening to you, you're not having any success in your spiritual life, I can guarantee you. And then they turned, all the people now turned to Joshua and said, we will do all this, only be strong and courageous. That's what you expect of me. I remember I was preaching one time and I wanted to preach a sermon about race issues years and years ago when that was really a big issue in the south and people got fired for doing it. I went around to some people in the church I knew were really strong about racial things and I said, I'm going to preach a sermon on Martin Luther King as a prophet of God Sunday morning and I know you don't believe he's a godly man, but I thought I'd tell you ahead of time so you know what you're supposed to do. One of the deacons said, I'm not going to come Sunday, but I want you to go right ahead. You're not worth a penny to us until you tell us exactly what God tells you to say. It's a wonderful thing for the church to say, pastor, be strong and courageous, even if you say things that are not popular and that we don't want to hear. That's your job, to demand of me that I believe God enough to do exactly what I think he wants me to do and say exactly what I think he wants me to say. You ought to demand that because there is not any way in the world that the kingdom of God can advance until people and the leaders of the church are committed to do exactly what Moses was asked to do and what Joshua was asked to do. Trust God, be strong, be courageous. He will take care of you. In the story that we get in chapter 10, verse 25 of the book of Joshua, they had battle and they defeated this army, but there were kings that were hidden in a cave. Everyone thought kings were sort of like gods. And they came to these, found them there, and Joshua said to the people that were in front of the cave, they're going to open the cave up and bring the kings out and kill them. Joshua said to the people, do not be afraid and do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all your enemies, all the enemies you're going to fight. And Joshua struck and killed the kings and hung them on five trees and they were left hanging on the trees until evening. The victory came. It was over. They'd been strong and courageous. I don't mean their fight was over, it was just beginning, but they saw the first steps of what trusting God with all their strength and energy would give them. And they saw that doing what God told them would bring positive results. One time when I was a boy, I don't know really how old I was, I was maybe 16, 17 years old. My dad had bought a farm in Arkansas, northwest Arkansas, and he lived in Tulsa, worked in Tulsa, and he had a grocery store in Sepulveda where I was born and grew up. And we bought this farm and we were living on it. Well, he had somebody running a grocery store, and my mom, he came home one weekend and said, you've got to come back with me to run a grocery store, the guy's running this, quit. We had this grocery business, so she took my two younger sisters and moved back to Oklahoma, which is about 100 miles away. In those days, you know, winding roads, no interstates, long way away. It was probably a three-hour trip. And I was to take care of the farm. We had milk cows, 25 milk cows, and go to school. Well, I played basketball, and our team played somewhere one night, and it was a road trip, and so we got back real late, and it was about a half-hour drive on dirt road to get to our farmhouse. So when I was coming down the road, I rounded a corner, and I looked at the house so I could see, and there was a light in the window. I was puzzled by that. That can't be true. And then I went back, the road curved next that way, and when I came back around again far enough, I could see a light in the window at the house. Mother was 100 miles away. Nobody else around there would be in our house. And I was terrified. I pulled a pickup up inside the house, and behind the seat in the pickup, we had the tools, you know. In those days, you always started out with enough tools to fix your tires because the rocks would punch holes in them, and you'd have to take the tire off the rim. And even if you had a spare, it didn't matter. You could lose two tires in 10 miles. Those rocks down there. So I got two tire arms, you know, the flat things where you could pry the tire off. Went in each hand, and I go up to the door. My heart is racing. It's up in my throat. I'm scared to death. I probably weighed 145 pounds then. I got to the door in front of the house and opened that door carefully and reached in and turned on the lights. There's nobody there. But I'd seen a light in that house. I walked through the living room into the dining area, and there was a kitchen there off the side. Reached around the corner and turned on the lights. There was nobody there. The bedrooms were upstairs. I had one on one end of the front and another one for my sister and parents on the other side. There were three bedrooms there. The stairs were very narrow going up there. That wouldn't meet anybody's code in the world. And so I got my tire arms. I'm going up those steps trying to be careful. I get up there, and I turn on the light. There's nobody in my room around the corner and turn on the light in my sister's room. Nobody there. Turn on it to my parents' bedrooms. Nobody there. I was scared. You know what I wanted? I wanted someone who knew before I went in that house, there's nobody there, that had advanced warning. I wanted somebody bigger than me, better armed than me, to walk through that house ahead of me. I wanted someone who would be there with me, someone big and strong, like Tim. So if somebody jumped out, I could get behind them. Then I could have walked in the house strong and courageous. When Jesus was talking to his disciples, he said to them, I'm going to leave you, but I'm going to send my Holy Spirit to be with you. Do not be afraid. Chapter 14 of John. I'm going to leave you. You're going to be here behind, but do not be afraid. For my Spirit will come to live within you. You see, God doesn't ask us to conquer a land. He asked us to conquer ourselves. Because we grew up in a world where we're faced with self-centeredness, and we are filled with it. We grew up in a world where the temptations to do everything contrary to what God's around all the time. We grew up in a place where there's a thousand reasons not to go to church, not to read the Bible. And the real enemy is not out there, but it's in here. I will place my Spirit within you so that you will know what to do so that you can come to be with me, which Jesus promised. They'd become dependent on him. Any spiritual question they had, they'd just ask him. I mean, here he was with all the knowledge. I am leaving you alone. I've been with you three years. I've taught you everything I know. Now, you'll never see me again. Don't be afraid. Trust me. He could have said to them, be strong and courageous. Strong, you hold on to what I've taught you, and you do what I've told you, and it'll be okay. But he said instead, I've placed my Spirit within you. He will remind you of my words. He will help you know what you should do. He will provide for your needs. He will protect you, and he will guide you so that your life is everything I've planned it to be even though I'm gone. That's the promise we have. Jesus was getting ready to leave this earth. He turned to his disciples and said, I will not leave you alone. My Spirit is there. The very end of the book of Matthew chapter 28 verses 19 and 20, Jesus calls his disciples to him, and he says to them, I'm leaving you, but I want you to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. You know what his next phrase was? This is your assignment. And I will be with you to the very end of the age. These are the same words that were given to Joshua and the people of Israel. Don't be afraid. I will be with you. But I know you're like I am. I remember one time my first church that I had, God put it on my mind to go visit this family. And for some reason, I was just terrified. I went out to their house and drove past it. Got down the road a mile, turned around, drove back past it. Turned around, went and drove past it. Turned around, drove back past it. Drove back to my office, got on my knees and cried because I was too afraid to do what I knew God wanted me to do. What was my fear? They might think I'm foolish. I might do something stupid, and I'll look foolish. What I didn't do is I didn't trust that if God put that in my mind, he was going to be there to give me the words that I needed. What I didn't do was have the courage to believe that if I did what he told me to do, everything would be worked out. He would go ahead of me. He'd prepare them. He would tell me what to say. He would make sure that I knew. And a good thing would come from that. Well, it's not the first time it's happened to me. It's funny how certain kinds of things, you know, certain kind of houses that people live in, they're kind of intimidating to me. There are a lot of times in which you lose your courage because you don't have the strength of faith. Now, here's what God says to us. Whatever your situation is, you're going to have every reason in the world to be afraid. But if you will give your life to me, and you'll read the scriptures, and you'll start putting them into practice in your life now and keep on doing that the rest of your life, I will be with you. And I will provide what you need. Here's what he did. I'll go ahead of you into whatever situation it is, and I'll make it work out. I'll make sure that you have what you need to be able to deal with it. And in the end, it will be successful because I have intended for your life to be successful. Does it mean that you're going to have some times in which it doesn't appear that way? Yes, it will. It sure will. But even some of the worst things that ever happened to you, you'll be able to look back on it and say, God took that terrible thing and he made something wonderful and good out of it. But in the middle of the terrible thing, it was terrible. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Be strong in your trust in God and be courageous to keep on doing what he tells you, no matter what, and you will discover the victory that God wants you to have. That's his word to us. It doesn't make any difference whether it's financial, relational, or whether it's your own life, whatever it is. God has a way to bring victory in every situation. Just be strong and courageous. I don't mean suck it up and tough it out like a man. I mean trust God with all your energy, with all your strength, and do what he tells you regardless of how foolish it might seem or impossible it might seem, and you will have the victory God planned. Would you bow your head, please? And I only have nothing more than what God has to say to you. Be strong. What is God telling you to do? Be strong in your faith in him. God's asked you to commit your life to him. That's what you need to do now, today. God's asked you to be a part of this church. That's what you ought to do now, today. God's asked you to take a job in the church. Do it today. God's put it on your mind to pray for someone or go talk to them about their spiritual life. Do it today. Be strong in your trust that God's telling you the truth, and have the courage to act on it. So, Lord Jesus, we walk in a great stream of people in this world, Moses, people of Israel, Joshua, and in the church. Through all of these times, you've said to us simply this. Trust me. Be strong in your trust in me. Be courageous in obeying me, and you will find life. I ask today, for those of us who are here, that you would say those same things to us, whatever our circumstances, that we might be able to be strong in trusting you, and courageous enough to do what you ask. Fathers, we meditate on who you are and what you want. I ask for every one of us that you would say right now, this is what I want you to do. In the name of our Lord, we ask this. So just remain seated with your eyes closed. I'm going to ask you to piano plays. I'll be here at the front. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Jennifer, I'd like you to come and stand with me for just a moment, please, if you would. I think I got all this information. Jennifer Cates comes today. Would you hold that microphone just a minute? And the basic theory behind microphones, I believe most people, it means you hold it up close to your mouth so you're ready to speak. You'll come out right. Jennifer, you have come today to say that you have made a promise to God to give your life, your future, to Him. Is that correct? Yeah. You've told Him that you're ready to change the way you think, to change your lifestyle, whatever it is that He wants. Is that the promise you made to Him? Yeah. You understand that it means that you read the Bible, you listen to the preaching, the Sunday school classes, and in each of these things, you're promising to be a learner, to learn what God wants you to do. Is that the promise you make to God? Yes. Okay. You know that what we believe is a person makes his public declaration symbolically by being baptized, being lowered in the water, raised out of the water. We'll arrange a baptismal time for you later. Is that okay? That's a promise you made to Him? Yes. Okay. I want to ask her to stand with me. And Chris, I want you to stand with her too, out there with me. You come on down here. And I want you to encourage her for the promise that she's made, a change in her life, a change in direction for her, and a change for the kingdom of God. Would you stand please for a moment of prayer? I thank you, Father, for the strength and the courage that Jennifer has shown today to do what you've told her is the right thing, to do it even though it may seem scary. I ask as this example to our life, to our lives again, not only for Moses and Joshua and all these people, but now for Jennifer, that we might be strong and courageous. In the name of Christ, we ask it. Amen. Amen. Can I change our mind and do Be Strong in the Lord for our closing? Change our minds. Did you see that? Be strong in the Lord and be of good courage. Your mighty defender is always the same. Mount up with wings as the eagle ascending. Victory is yours when you call on His name. Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord and be of good courage for He is your guide. Be strong, be strong, be strong in the Lord and rejoice for the victory is yours.