Between Mo and Jo

This was my message yesterday, Feb. 12, 2012, at First Baptist of Sunnyside, WA, my first day as Interim Pastor.

Between Mo to Jo

Joshua 1:1-9

So here we are.  It’s the new guy.  The Interim.  Or is it an intern?  Looks old for an intern.  He’s from California, you know.  From LA.  Maybe he knows Brad Pitt.  No, he’s from Ohio.  You want my point of view?  I’ve been doing missionary work in California since 1996. 

For my kids, California is home.  It’s where they went to Junior High and High School.  And let me tell you: there are things I love about California.  There are days it’s the greatest place on earth.  And there are other days…well, you know.

So now the church.  We’re in “transition.”  How many times have you heard that word lately?  And (unfortunately) you’ll hear it more.  One thing I’ve learned is that everything is transition.  Live on earth is temporary; it’s just the lobby of the eternal plan of God.

There are many interesting transitions recorded in the word of God.  One of the most dramatic transitions is that between Moses and Joshua.  For forty years, God used Moses to…

…lead Israel from being a tribe of slaves to being a nation of freedom;

…lead Israel from the Nile delta in Egypt to the doorstep of the land of promise;

…give Israel the Law of God, the Torah, and the timeless Ten Commandments.

But it was not for Moses to enter the land.  From the heights of Nebo, he saw the land, but died before they entered.  It was given to Joshua to lead the people of Israel into the land, to defeat and conquer the peoples of Canaan, and to transform them from a nation in the wilderness to a nation of cities and towns and farms.

Just six weeks ago, before I’d even heard there was such a place as Sunnyside, Washington, on January 1, I read Joshua 1 as part of my daily time with God.  And it struck me, what an incredibly appropriate passage for New Year’s, and for any new beginning.  They were at that point, between Moses and Joshua—between Mo and Jo—that you find yourselves today as a church.  A faithful servant, who served so well for so many years, is no longer on the scene.  A new environment lies before you.  There is a Jordan River to cross.  There is both one eye looking back at what was, and one eye looking ahead, across the Jordan, and what may be.

What was the word of God to Joshua at this incredibly crucial moment?  I want to read the passage now, Joshua 1:1-9:

 ¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide:      ² “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. ³ I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. ⁵ No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

 ⁶ “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. ⁷ Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ 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. Then you will be prosperous and successful. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

What I see here is God’s directions when facing a “from Mo to Jo” situation.  The passage falls into three parts:

·         The Command: “Get up!” (1:1-2)

·         The Promises: “I will be with you” (1:3-5)

·         The Conditions: “Be strong” (1:6-9)

The Command: “Get up!” (1:1-2)

¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: ² “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.”

Does God’s command sound abrupt?  In Hebrew, it’s even more so: “get ready” is more like “Get up!”  (Literally, “Stand now!”) 

God is saying, OK guys; you knew this was the plan.  Now it’s time to do the hard work.  You thought the desert was hard, but now we go to war.

What is the “get up” word from God for us today?  Now listen: there are a lot of parallels between these words to Joshua here in chapter one and the Great Commission given by Jesus in Matthew 28—especially the refrain “I will be with you.”  In Matthew 28, the mandate isn’t about taking a land, but making disciples.  Instead of starting with a downer (“Moses is dead”) it starts with this upper: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Then the central command is given: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”  The parallel command to “cross the Jordan” for us is this: make disciples.  And God would say to us today, I have brought you this point by my servant to continue the work, now get up, stand up, cross the river and, above all else, make disciples.  Making disciples is the New Covenant counterpart to taking the land.

Oh, there’s so much to say about that, and I will in a sense continue that thought next week, but we need to press on to the promises:

The Promises: “I will be with you” (1:3-5)

³ I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. ⁵ No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Why go?  Because God says so, and God richly promises that He’ll be with us.  There are actually four aspects of His promise: possession, prominence, preponderance and presence. 

Possession: anywhere you set your foot, it’s yours.

Prominence: a huge territory, north-south, east-west.

Preponderance: no one will be able to stand against you.  You are the regional super-power.

Presence: (and this is the best promise) “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

Listen: whatever God commands his people to do, He also provides all the promises needed to make it happen.  For them and us, there is possession, prominence, preponderance and presence:

In the New Covenant, the first three go all together:

Possession—and prominence and preponderance: the hymn writer got it right:

Jesus shall reign where’er the sun Does his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

It’s not just a hymn; it’s the truth.  I love the words of Revelation 5:9-10, the words of praise to Jesus Christ:

…with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation. ¹⁰ You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.

Our confession of faith is this: Jesus is Lord.  Not, Jesus may one day be Lord.  We are the winners, because our mission is cemented to our victorious master.  God has already rendered a verdict on the success of the mission, and it is this: mission accomplished.  Jesus is Lord, and He shall reign.

The “presence” promise is the best.  “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  Years ago I heard Charles Stanley preach on this passage, and he said that the promise “I will be with you” may be the best promise in the Scriptures, and I think he’s right.

As New Covenant, New Testament Jesus-followers, all this gets intensified in that we now have the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, bringing us His power, purity and presents—the gifts of the Spirit.  God is “with us” in a way that Joshua could only have dreamed of.

Now we come to the last section of this Mo to Jo passage, and it may be the most crucial for us to absorb.  God has told Joshua to get up, made his promises, but now gives us the conditions under which they can enter into the victory. 

The Conditions: “Be strong” (1:6-9)

 ⁶ “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. ⁷ Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ 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. Then you will be prosperous and successful. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Now there are two striking characteristics of these verses.  The first is the three-fold repetition of “be strong and courageous” in v. 6, 7, and 9.  The second time adds an extra Hebrew word me-od, “exceedingly, very”: “be strong and very courageous.”  The task ahead will require real courage.  We need to summon up the strength and the courage for the task.  This is God’s word both to leaders like Joshua and to the people at large.  Maintenance mode won’t do.  Hunkering down is not an act of strength and courage.  Strength and courage are needed when the plan of God is expansive—to rise up, cross the river and conquer. 

The second striking characteristic is the emphasis on the word of God in s. 7-8.  I think these two ideas are intertwined.  For the believer, our strength and courage comes from the word of God.  It is striking to me that the word to Joshua isn’t “drill the troops” or “make lots of swords” but “obey the word, and don’t let it depart from you.”  Our power to prevail is not something that we pump up from our resources; it is given by God.  His Holy Spirit-infused word comes to us with the power of God to make us prevailers.  

Look more carefully at that portion, vs. 7-8:

⁷ Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ 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. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

God tells Joshua that there is a two-fold plan to get the word deep within us, and that once that happens, “Then you will be prosperous and successful” (that is, successful in the task God’s given us).  That two-fold plan is first, obey, and second to not let the word “depart from your mouth”; to “meditate on it day and night”; this constant attention to God’s word is what leads to our success, and what makes us be strong and have courage.

To really get what this is like, we have to enter into the world of Joshua.  Reading was highly prized among ancient Israelites, and they were among the most literate of ancient peoples.  The reason is simple: people wanted to be able to read the Scriptures.  But Israelites were like most ancient peoples: silent reading was rare.  Nearly everyone read aloud when the read.

In Hebrew, vs. 8a can be read this way:

This law scroll must not leave your mouth!  You must mutter it day and night so you can carefully obey all that is written in it.

The picture the words paint here is a man or woman of God reading, reading, reading the Scriptures (you can see his lips move as he reads!), memorizing the words, meditating on them to the point that not only do these words fill their minds, they fill their lives.  They themselves become extensions of the words of Scripture by the way they live.  As one preacher a long time ago put it, the idea is that if you stick a pin in a person like this, they bleed Bible.

And this is what we’re called to do, the people we are called to be, to do the will of God as we consider the land before us, the task before us.  But it will be hard.  This kind of Bible-infused, God-filled, Jesus-honoring life is not easy.  Nor is it common.

George Barna is a well-known Christian researcher; his company, the Barna group, has conducted surveys comparing stated beliefs and actual behavior.  Just last year, they engaged in their single most extensive study of American Christians.  Here’s what they found:

·        Only about 20% say they live in a way that makes them completely dependent on God.

·        Only one-sixth of Christians say they are totally committed to engaging in personal spiritual development.

Barna went on to identify four barriers, four reasons why the quality of spiritual life was so low:

Obstacle 1: Commitment

Four out of five self-identified Christian adults (81%) say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today. Yet, less than one out of every five (18%) claims to be totally committed to investing in their own spiritual development.  52% believe that there is much more to the Christian life than what they have experienced. Without a full determination to live like Christ and for Him, the path to complete transformation is blocked.  Without that, the River can’t be crossed and the making of disciples can’t happen.

Obstacle 2: Repentance

Most of the self-identified Christians in the US (64%) state that they have confessed their sins to God and asked for His forgiveness. But the evidence is quite clear that few are serious about abandoning the lure of sin and handing total control of their life to God. Only 1 in 8 found had truly experienced a sense of shame for their sins.  Most of us don’t take sin and godliness very seriously, especially our own sin.

Obstacle 3: Activity

Barna found that 39% of US believers were involved in religious activities in any given week, but only a tiny portion were involved in sharing their faith, fasting or other spiritual disciples.   Most of us are content to do some Christian activities so long as these activities don’t challenge us too deeply.

Obstacle 4: Spiritual Community

Only one out of every five self-identified Christians (21%) believes that spiritual maturity requires a vital connection to a community of faith. Further, only one-third (35%) claims to have confessed their sins verbally to another believer at some point during the past quarter.  Most of us like to have friends at church so long as that friendship doesn’t dig too deeply into our lives, and doesn’t challenge us to live more Christ-like lives.

Now, do you get the real urgency in the words of Joshua 1?

Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 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. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

The transformed life is the life that crosses the River, enters the land and prevails over the enemy.  The transformed life is the life that makes disciples, teaching to live by everything Jesus taught us to live by, baptizing those disciples in the name of the Triune God.

God’s way forward today is to recognize the times we are in, and to get up, rise to the challenge in the power of the Spirit, walk firm on the promises of God and to be people filled with the transforming power of the Word of God; to be strong and courageous—to be very strong and courageous, saying (let’s pray),

“This land, this place, this people, are yours O God; be pleased, we pray, to use me, to use us, to seize it for You and for Your glory’s sake; to grasp the possibilities that You have placed before us.  But Lord, we know, before we can seize the land, seize me.  Do a work of depth in my heart, O God.  Fill me with your word and your Spirit.  Leave no stone unturned, and I will leave no room of my life locked.

“Lord Jesus, that is our prayer; in Jesus’ strong name we pray, Amen.”