Be Strong and Courageous

Hey, hey, good morning. Good morning. Welcome to coffee and devotions first episode of the year this morning We're gonna work through Joshua chapter 1 1 through 9 3 times the Lord's gonna tell Joshua be strong and have good courage Let's go ahead and have some coffee.
We'll pray won't jump into God's Word Let's pray Oh Lord, we thank you so much for this morning What a blessing it is to get to read Your Word, to come to You, the Living God, and to hear from Your Word. Lord, we thank You for this year, and we thank You for the blessing of having Your Word in our hands. Father, we pray that You would please put it in our hearts, that we would know who You are, that we would love You in following Your ways. In Jesus' name, Amen.
All right, here we go. We are at Joshua chapter 1, verses 1 through 9. After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' assistant, saying, Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness in this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory.
No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage. For to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it, to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid. nor be dismayed. For the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Well, we need to ask ourselves our three questions. A, what is this about? B, what's the best verse to summarize this? And C, what are we called to do? So, A, what is this about? Well, you'll notice as we read through this text together, what is this about?
Well, there's a few different things going on here, but primarily this is God's assurance to Joshua that he's got this under control. It's the Lord who's got a plan for his people. The Lord was with Moses and he's going to be with Joshua. Now as a new leader, this has got to be a great encouragement because the Lord himself is promising, I'm going to be with you just like I was with your predecessor. And so it's a promise to him there that he's going to be with him. It's also, again, because these things are in God's hands, he made a promise to the fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac and Jacob. And because God made a promise to the fathers to give them the land as an inheritance, that's what he's going to do. That's what God is going to do. God gave them a law. And so he says, go. God is telling Joshua, go into the land, conquer the land. This is his promise. This is his doing. Go over the Jordan, take the land.
And when you go there, I'm going to be with you. And so three times he tells him, after he told him that, he tells him to be strong and have good courage. The first is that, He's following the succession of Moses, verse 5, and as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.
Be strong and of good courage. And then he tells him that as they're going to the land and possessing it in verse 7, only be strong and very courageous. Very strong and courageous and you would expect to go and conquer the land. Well, no, not this time No, what's gonna be have to be strong and very courageous about That you may observe to do according to all the law which my servant commanded you I don't turn to the right hand or to the left hand. It's gonna take strength and courage for joshua to do this And then a third time Have I not commanded you Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid What is this whole section about? This whole section's about God being in control here.
God telling Joshua, dude, get your eyes on me. and meditate on my law. Don't deviate from it, from the right or from the left. Keep your eyes focused on me. Remember my covenant. Don't be dismayed. Don't be discouraged. Keep your eyes set on me. Keep your heart focused on me and go and do what I've told you to do.
So what's the best verse to summarize this? Well, let me jump back over here to the screen. And I think in my Bible, so on my physical Bible, I have verse, the second half of verse five and the beginning of verse six underlined. So, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage. Let's see if I can keep this highlighting here.
So I have that underlined, but I also, you know me, I like to cheat sometimes. And I also have verse 7 and 8 underlined. But you might argue verse 9 too. Okay, fine. You convinced me into it. The point is that this is, I think, at the heart of what it is. So what are we called to do as we think about this passage?
So if this is about God calling and assuring Joshua, how does that apply to us, right? I'm not the leader of Israel. Well, hold on now. Do you know whose name is Joshua? Yeshua, Jesus, Jesus. Jesus is the one who would lead his people, never deviate from God's word from the right hand or to the left hand. And so it was Jesus who said, even to Satan, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word which proceeds from the mouth of God. It was Jesus, our covenant King, who fulfilled all the promises that God gave to the patriarchs. He was the promised seed of Abraham, and he was the one who would keep the law perfectly, and has claimed for us an inheritance, not in a little piece of land in Israel, but in the kingdom of God.
And so what are we called to do? We're called to follow our Joshua. We're called to trust in Jesus Christ. He's our commander. He's our Joshua. He's the one who's leading his people. So we often take this passage and we apply it directly to ourselves, but imagine the one who is named Joshua, Jesus. having these words as it applies to Him. Jesus was the one who was able to take these words and know that His Father would never leave Him nor forsake Him. That He didn't need to be discouraged or dismayed even as He was going to the cross.
And so what a great encouragement that is for us. As we look to the law of Christ, We apply these words to our lives. We think, you know, we have the inheritance secured for us, guarded for us in heaven. But we meditate on God's law. We go to His word now. We look to the scriptures and we meditate upon them day and night. Not because of some type of slavish fear or something like that. But because we know our Joshua has kept the covenant perfectly, and in him all the promises are yes and amen. And so we study the law, we go to his word, we meditate on it, we take great delight in it.
It's sweeter than honey, more precious than gold. It makes us wise because it shows us Christ. And so I pray that you would follow the one that this Joshua was pointing to, Jesus Christ. And that you would know that Joshua was a real man. This is a historical story. I don't want to so pull this out with the typological reading here that you misunderstand what I'm saying. Joshua was a real guy.
He really did need encouragement from the Lord. He really did need to follow Him. I think God knew his heart. knew he was a man who might be prone to discouragement or fear, and he needed to be encouraged, and he needed to be comforted and reassured, and that's what the Lord is doing for him. But the Lord has done it for us too, even more, knowing that our victorious king, our leader, Jesus Christ, has led us perfectly.
So let's pray. Father, we pray that you would please teach us Teach us, Lord, to meditate upon your word day and night. Lord, we pray that we would be careful to observe it. Lord, we pray that as we think about the law which you have given us, Lord, we thank you that you are a heavenly father and that you did not give us a law for some type of slavish obedience now, but as you have given us a law of Christ, Lord, we get to follow after you. We get to abide in your Son and bear much good fruit.
Lord, we pray that you would give us joy as we work through the passage today. Lord, we pray that you would give us strength and you would give us courage. Lord, please help us. Help us, Lord, as we are prone to turn to the right and to the left. We pray that your Holy Spirit would show us that narrow way that leads unto salvation, that we would know Jesus, and that we would walk in his ways. Thank you, Lord, that you are our God, and that you keep your promises, and you never leave nor forsake your people. In Jesus's name, amen. May the God of all peace bless you as you go about this new year, and I'll see you next time. Bye.