Be strong and courageous!

Worship service, Peter Schütt, 2019-07-28, Evangelical Free Church Leichlingen, more...

Introduction

Today I would like to follow on from last week's sermon. Hubert spoke about Moses and Joshua and read the text on the appointment of Joshua as the new leader of Israel as a kind of conclusion to his sermon.

And I would like to take up this text today and reflect on it with you (Joshua 1:1-9; NL):

1 After Moses, the Lord's servant, died, the Lord spoke to Joshua. He was a co-worker of Moses and a son of Nun. 2 "My servant Moses is now dead. Now go with my people across the Jordan to the land I am giving to the Israelites. 3 I promise you what I promised Moses: 'Wherever you go, you will enter the land I have given you: 4 from the desert on the south to the mountains of Lebanon on the north, all the land of the Hittites, as far as the Euphrates on the east and the Mediterranean on the west. This will be your territory.' 5 As long as you live, no one will be able to stand against you, for I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, for you shall help my people to the land I promised their ancestors. 7 Be strong and courageous. Obey conscientiously the laws that my servant Moses gave you. Do not deviate from them, so that you may prosper wherever you go. 8 Let the words of the law always be in your mouth. Meditate on the law day and night so that you can obey everything written in it, for only then will you be successful. 9 I say to you: be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not despair. For I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go."

Joshua as a person

We already heard a lot about Joshua last week.

He was Moses' servant. Today we would perhaps rather say that he was Moses' assistant and apprentice. He was present at many miracles, he was personally present at many of Moses' encounters with God.

Joshua was on the mountain with Moses when he received the 10 commandments (Exodus 24:13).

And he was also one of the spies who explored the new land and one of the two who were confident that, with God's help, it would be no problem to conquer this new land.

And even during the difficult time of wandering in the desert, he was always at Moses' side and present at all the important events.

You could say that his life to date has been intensive training and good preparation for his new task as Moses' successor.

And that is why God calls him now (Joshua 1:1-3a; NL):

1 After Moses, the Lord's servant, had died, the Lord spoke to Joshua. He was a co-worker of Moses and a son of Nun. 2 "My servant Moses is now dead. Now go with my people across the Jordan to the land I am giving the Israelites. 3 I promise you what I promised Moses:

And now I want to look with you in detail at what God had promised and what it has to do with us today.

The new land

(Joshua 1, 3b-4; NL)

'Wherever you go, you will enter the land I have given you: 4 from the desert in the south to the mountains of Lebanon in the north, all the land of the Hittites, as far as the Euphrates in the east and the Mediterranean in the west. This shall be your territory.

A new land is promised here.

Hubert already said last Sunday that the military aspect of the land grab bothers him, and I feel the same way. I think all of us find war wrong.

But the events of the Old Testament serve as an image for us today and, unfortunately, war has existed and continues to exist at all times and so we still understand this image today, even if we fundamentally reject war.

The new land is not a gift, it has to be conquered. It is a good country and it is worth taking risks and making sacrifices to conquer it.

And this land provides everything you need and much more.

And you don't have to conquer this country completely before you can enjoy it. Even having parts of it is great.

So what does this land of Canaan symbolise for us?

I think you can apply this image on two levels.

The first level is our life as a Christian. Ultimately, it's like a new land that you have to conquer throughout your life.

Of course, it is very short-sighted to focus only on "conquering", because that sounds too much like personal achievement and labour.

In v.5 of the text we read at the beginning, it also says:

As long as you live, no one will be able to stand against you, for I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will never leave you nor forsake you.

In other words: You may have a difficult task, but I will make all obstacles so small that you can overcome them, so that they are no longer so difficult.

We find a similar passage in the letter to the Philippians (Philippians 2, 12b.13; NL):

Therefore obey God with respect and reverence, for God causes in you a desire to obey him, and he also gives you the power to do what pleases him.

Or in older German, but perhaps even more clearly (Philippians 2:12b.13; LUT):

work for your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do, according to his good pleasure.

So first comes the impossible demand, and then comes the promise that God will change us so that the impossible becomes possible.

And if we compare our Christian life with the conquest of the new land, we find many parallels.

There is resistance. This ranges from inner stubbornness to hostility from those around us.

In Galatians 5:22b.23a we find a list of what our lives should consist of (Galatians 5:22b.23a; NL):

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

We'll never get that right. Of course not, and that's why the letter to the Galatians doesn't say that we should achieve this, but that these qualities are the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

But these qualities are precisely the new land. Our Christian life should consist of precisely this and radiate it.

A few days ago, I attended a specialist lecture on the topic of "Under fire - successful negotiation in a state of emergency". Among other things, de-escalation strategies for difficult negotiations were presented there.

I realised that I don't always want to de-escalate. Sometimes I also want to cause a ruckus. That's probably wrong, but it's true.

It's not enough to learn what and how you can change your life, you also have to be given the will and the power of the Holy Spirit.

And this is how you can also tackle external resistance, through kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. This does not mean that you always give in to everyone, you can be friendly but also firm, but you always have a positive attitude towards your neighbour, even if they are hostile to you.

There is also other resistance. How do we deal with it when we encounter misfortune and illness in a good country?

This is always difficult to answer, but we can be sure that Jesus is always there. Joshua was also promised by God: "I will never leave you nor forsake you."

And what's more:

We are not alone

Be strong and courageous, for you shall help my people to the land I promised their ancestors.

Joshua was to lead the people. Each Israelite alone would never have managed to conquer the new land.

It is not quite clear to me how this aspect of the story can be applied to our community today. On the one hand, each individual here can identify with Joshua; on the other hand, you can also compare the whole people with the church. Both approaches make sense.

Then you could compare Joshua and his team, which did exist, with the church leadership. On the other hand, Joshua had a kind of exclusive connection to God and today every Christian has a direct line to God through the Holy Spirit, which he received at his conversion. So the picture doesn't really fit.

But in any case, we are travelling together and help each other to deal with difficulties. In the verses after our Bible passage, in Joshua 1:12-18, two and a half Israelite tribes are mentioned in particular, who were already satisfied with their land on the eastern side of the Jordan. They already had what they wanted.

They could have said, we're doing well here, have fun, move to the new land on your own. But they didn't. Joshua gives them the following instructions, which they agree to without reservation (Joshua 1:14-17; NL):

14 Your wives, children and livestock can stay here on the east side of the Jordan in the land Moses gave you. But your warriors are to arm themselves and go ahead of the other tribes across the Jordan. Help them and stay by their side 15 until the LORD gives them peace as he has given it to you, until they too have taken the land the LORD your God is giving them. Only then may you return here, to the east bank of the Jordan, to the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, assigned to you." 16 They replied, "We will do everything you have told us and go wherever you send us. 17 We will obey you as we obeyed Moses. May the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

Travelling together is the motto here.

The word of God

(Joshua 1, 7.8; NL)

7 Be strong and courageous. Obey faithfully the laws my servant Moses gave you. Do not stray from them, so that wherever you go you may prosper. 8 Let the words of the law always be in your mouth. Meditate on the law day and night so that you may obey everything written in it, for only then will you be successful.

This is where God's laws come into play. You always have to be a little careful with the word "law". I do believe that God's laws in the Old Testament symbolise the Bible for us today, but the Bible is not a law book, indeed only a small part of the Bible contains laws and commandments.

If you transfer the two verses from just now to us today, then it means that we should deal with the Bible conscientiously, that we should take it seriously, that we should believe it. We should reflect on it and put what we read there into practice in our lives. And it also involves obeying what the Holy Spirit has made clear to us from the Bible.

I do believe that you will be successful if you live such a life with the Bible, but success may look different than we imagine.

And I would also like to mention another aspect of the Bible.

I said earlier that I see two levels when I transfer the conquest of the new land to us.

The first level, and the main level for me, is life as a Christian.

The second level of transmission for me is the conquest of the Bible, for me as a Christian.

Of course, many passages in the Bible are not easy to understand, and you can live the life of a watchword Christian, where you only ever read the watchword and know little else about the Bible.

You don't have to become a theologian or learn Greek or Hebrew, but reading passages in the Bible regularly, thinking about them and praying about them makes a lot of sense. This is the only way to conquer this good land for yourself.

I would also like my sermons to motivate people to read the Bible. Perhaps you could read on in the book of Joshua at home and take a look at everything that happens during the conquest of the land.

A passage from the book of Acts (Acts 17:10-12; NL) always comes to mind when I think of this biblical conquest:

10 That very night the believers sent Paul and Silas to Berea. When they arrived there, they went to the synagogue. 11 The people of Berea were more open than those in Thessalonica and listened with interest to the message of God. Day after day they searched the Scriptures to see whether Paul and Silas were really teaching the truth. 12 As a result, many Jews and many distinguished Greek men and women became believers.

In this passage, we Germans always have the truth in mind first. You check whether it is true.

That is certainly one of the main points of this story, but I don't think it represents the whole truth.

It also implies that you have to discover the truth for yourself. It's not enough for someone else to tell you the truth, even if they are credible.

Nobody really likes it when someone else explains the world to them. I have noticed with older siblings that some tend to explain the world to their younger siblings. Not all older siblings do this, of course, but they all deny it.

They want to find out for themselves, explore for themselves, realise and understand for themselves.

We don't know how sympathetically Paul and Silas arrived there in Berea, but they were apparently so credible that this initial spark was triggered among the Jews in Berea, so that they investigated for themselves.

That's what I would like to see in our day and age: to draw people out of their filter bubbles so that they are inspired to engage with Jesus Christ and the Bible and find out the truth.

The word "hooked" made me hesitate because it is a metaphor from drug addiction and the accusation has already been made in the past that religion is opium for the people.

But it's not about clouding the mind, it's about opening it up, using it to find out what's true.

There are so many people who believe that they already know everything and are dismissive. This can be caused by bad experiences, but it can also be the cosiness of the comfort zone, it can be anything.

These Jews in Beroea left their filter bubble, their comfort zone, and did their own research, thought for themselves.

And that was not without risk, because many Jews were very hostile to the gospel.

This false comfort zone can also exist among Christians. I've always seen it that way, I don't want to argue as an excuse for it, I don't want to deal with other points of view.

Be strong and courageous

Let's come to the last verse of our passage (Joshua 1:9, NL):

I say to you: be strong and courageous! Do not be afraid and do not despair. For I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go."

"Be strong and courageous", this statement came three times in the passage, perhaps you noticed it.

Can you even command that?

What does strong and courageous even mean?

In Hebrew, the word used here for "strong" also has the meaning "to repair", "to strengthen", "to hold", "to grasp", "to harden", "to steel" and "to encourage".

"courageous" contains the meanings "courageous", "brave", "daring", "strengthen", "harden", "steel". Both words even overlap somewhat in their meanings.

As I don't speak Hebrew, I can't really judge the context of the sentence here, but I have bought a programme that allows me to do word usage analyses, i.e. where this word is used in the Bible and in which translation.

If I were to walk through the rows here now and personally say "Be strong and courageous" to everyone's face, most people would probably take a deep breath and I would feel the same way myself.

You can only be strong and courageous if there is a basis for it and that is also in the verse: "For I, the Lord your God, am with you wherever you go."

We sometimes equate strength and courage with success, but that is not the same thing. Strength and courage rather mean that you set out, that you begin, that you dare.

We will always be afraid again.

In John 16:33, LUT, Jesus Christ confirms this:

These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world you have fear; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.

Instead of "fear", other translations write "affliction", "hard", "pressure", and translate the corresponding word as "courage" instead of "confident".

Let me mix Luther's translation with the Elberfelder translation:

"In the world you are afraid; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

So be strong and courageous and don't be afraid, Jesus is with you wherever you go.

Summary

I come to the end:

Joshua has been trained and prepared for his task for a lifetime.
God confirms his promises.
The new land as a symbol for a life as a Christian: Difficult, but God makes the obstacles small. He changes us (fruit of the Spirit) to overcome inner and outer resistance. God will never leave us or give up on us.
We don't have to conquer the new land alone. We are travelling together.
The new land also symbolises the conquest of the Bible for us. Let us leave our comfort zone and engage with the Bible anew and pray that others will do the same.
Be strong and courageous and don't be afraid, because Jesus Christ is with you wherever you go.