Joshua

We will be ending our series in Joshua this coming Sunday. Ending Joshua is a bittersweet endeavor (certainly so for me), but it's also quite thought-provoking as Joshua shows us what it is like to finish well. And whether you are 18 or 88, you should be thinking of finishing well. Our time in this life is so short, and we want to run our race well, and fight the good fight with strength. Joshua's example shows us how we are to go about that: our aim is to faithfully live, in all things, as people who live before the watchful eyes of our mighty Lord. We live to please God—and nothing else rivals this aim. I pray that our time in this series will be a tremendous encouragement: be strong, and very courageous.

We are in the penultimate section of the book of Joshua, and it is a particularly powerful section of our book. I will miss this book, but I am going to greatly treasure these final two portions we have to walk through before we move on to 1st and 2nd Peter. With July 4th in mind, it is proper and fitting for us to be in prayer for this land in which God has placed us. Not one of us is in this country (or city, or church) by accident—God has a purpose for each of us and has placed us where He chooses (Acts 17:26-27). So, as we pray, we may praise God that He rules over all the nations as the King of Kings (Ps 22:27-28)! It is good for nations to serve the Lord (Ps 33:12), but it is not good for those nations who reject the Lord (Ps 2:1-12). We as the Church are given the tremendous task of discipling all the nations of the world (Matt 28:18-20), but we are also to especially care for those where we have been planted, the people who we are among (Jer 29:7). It is good for us to be a people who consistently pray that our nation (and indeed, every nation) might seek the Lord and worship Him (Rev 15:4).

This week we will be looking at Joshua 20-21, and the installation of the "cities of refuge" that are pictured on the map below. Quite unlike our modern conception of "sanctuary cities," these cities of refuge were places that sought to preserve the rule of law, the due process of the court, and ultimately the justice of God! God's laws are good and merciful, and these passages show God fulfilling His promises with these good laws for His people.

There is a certain thing I used to find myself doing when I worked out—I would find myself "cheating" a bit toward the end of the workout. In other words, I would start getting a bit tired (and maybe even a little bored of the routine), and I would pay less attention to my form. I would sling the weights around instead of making careful movements. My workout form would become lax and careless. And as I grew older, I realized that is usually the exact point when I would pull or strain something. Even with the end in sight, I had to remember to be especially vigilant. Israel is in a similar spot in Joshua 16–17. This should be the easy time, when the land is allotted, and the last enemies are defeated. This half of the book should be rather easy going! But instead, God's people seem to lose sight of the end goal, and disaster comes from it. They leave enemies all around them, and it does not go well for them. This is not the sort of thing that only happens in ancient Canaan, either. There are a great many things in this world that tempt us to capitulate, to acquiesce, even to abdicate our calling. Christians think that we see the "end" in sight, or maybe we simply forget that we are running a race at all—and we falter and fall. Our goal is to remain faithful and alert, pressing toward the prize of the upward call in Christ Jesus. Our prayer should be to run the race in a way that is faithful to Christ. "When he shall come with trumpet sound, O may I then in him be found: dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne."

This Sunday we will be in Joshua 15, which is actually one of the more difficult passages in the book of Joshua. Among several themes that arise, I think this passage is a great place to lead us to consider the theme of bold leadership. Strong, bold leadership is something that the Church needs, but it is also something we frequently do not encourage (and even sometimes chafe against). I am praying that as we work through this theme, we will be encouraged to develop a culture of strong, godly leadership that will serve the kingdom!

We cover Joshua chapters 11–12 and consider God's faithfulness in giving rest to His people—a rest that finds its fulfillment in Christ. Canaan's armies rose against Israel with hardened hearts; later, hardened crowds would cry out for Christ's death. Israel saw the ruin that sin brought on the land; later, Christ would willingly be crushed for the sins of all His children. Israel found a temporary peace in the land—yet Christ has come, that his people may have true and lasting peace. Christ is Risen!

This Sunday we are looking at Joshua 10 and Israel's victory over the kings of the land that are arrayed against them. In our passage, the Canaanite kings attack Gibeon, Israel quickly comes to its aid (because their new treaty), and the fighting ensues. At key points through the passage, we are reminded that the battle belongs to the Lord, which is key—and I think this dynamic is sometimes hard for us to keep in balance. This is what I mean: the battle is the Lord's, meaning that God fights for us, God secures the victory, God wins the battle and deserves the glory. But Israel is still called to do the work. The fact that the battle belongs to the Lord does not mean Israel is to stay napping in their tents while the battle rages, so to speak. We usually speak of this as God using means to accomplish his ends—we have things to do in this world, and God uses us to accomplish His will. I would like us to think about how we do that as a church here at New Covenant. God is faithful to us, but are we being careful to follow in doing what we've been called to do? Are we worshipping faithfully in our homes? Are we faithfully discipling those within our church (and particularly our children, youth, and young adults)? There are many more areas this could apply to, but I find passages like this one in Joshua immensely encouraging—because we do not have to be the best teachers, or the most talented speakers, or the most gifted disciplers in order to obey God's call. What we are called to be is to be faithful. When we put our hand to the work that God has given us, we can be confident that the battle belongs to the Lord.

This week we are returning to the book of Joshua, and we will be considering the defeat of Ai. There is a theme that is quite familiar in Joshua that comes to the forefront in this passage in God's wonderful instruction to his people: "do not fear and do not be dismayed." There are many things in this world that can cause us to fear, but our encouragement is that a proper fear of the Lord dispels every other fear. This absence of fear is also not irrational on our part, it is the direct result of God's promise that he is with us.

The life of a Christian has certain highs and lows, occasional hills and valley, frequent good times and yet some challenging stretches. We are familiar with that sort of ebb-and-flow as individuals—where in some seasons we feel that we are tremendously growing spiritually, while in other stretches we feel like we have failed in every way possible. This is true at a church level too—there are times when we as a people seem to be walking faithfully and experiencing God's blessings, and other times that are quite hard to weather. This Sunday we will find Israel in one of those low spots in Joshua chapter seven. Coming fresh off their miraculous victory at Jericho, Israel makes a mess of things quite quickly and experiences a crushing defeat at Ai. They welcome sin into their camp, and destruction follows. There are few pictures that so viscerally show the destructive consequences of sin—and yet God is not done with His people! These passages are sobering concerning our sin, but they are a tremendous encouragement concerning the redemption and restoration that God extends to His people when they repent. We may at times cast ourselves into valleys, but hope is not lost.

God does not tell us things without a reason. God does not do anything without a reason, for that matter, but nothing that God instructs us to do is arbitrary. God always has a good purpose in all these things, whether we can see the reason or not! In fact, an important lesson of the Christian walk is simply trusting God in that regard: recognizing that whatever He leads us to do is best. This will be a major lesson at Jericho this Sunday: the silence, the trumpets, the marching… none of it is arbitrary. Instead, our faithful worship matters.

This Sunday we will begin a two-part look at the destruction of Jericho in Joshua 6, and we will consider the idea of the "warfare of worship." These will be some challenging passages—there is bloodshed and judgment, which is always serious. I think that is one of the reasons why the idea of "worship" is so important: because we must recognize that worship always elicits a response. In many ways, worship sets the tone (pun intended) for the whole story of the Bible. Our confessional standards affirm that worship is part and parcel of our "chief end" as men and women: "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever" (WSC 1). Accordingly, the story of the Bible shows the conflict that comes from this worship. Adam and Eve listened to the serpent, and they failed in their worship and were cast from their home. Soon after, one of their sons presented deficient worship before the Lord and subsequently killed his faithful brother whose worship had been accepted. This story repeats itself on through Canaan and beyond, but the encouragement for Christians is this: God calls us to worship Him boldly and faithfully, and there is power in our worship.

This passage is strong on the fact that God is for God—God is the hero of the story, and we are to align our desires and plans with His. And in a very comforting way, this passage is also an encouraging recognition that we belong to God because of the blood of Christ. God is for God, and we belong to Him!

This passage is about preparation—God's people are preparing before they rush ahead into the promised land. God has set them aside and marked them with the sign of the covenant, but a vitally important factor is that the people obediently and thoughtfully prepare for their next steps. This should be a tremendous encouragement to us: God has plans for us, for our children, and for our church. He has set us aside and promised to never leave nor forsake us. We should be eager to see what God would have of us. My prayer as we work through this passage is that we would be careful in our preparation—examining what God has called us to, evaluating our next steps, and encouraging one another to faithful obedience to the Lord.

The theme of worship will be at the forefront as we make our way into Joshua 4. The worship we see exemplified in Joshua is similar to the themes of worship that we see throughout all of Scripture: worship is something otherwordly. Worship is also quite powerful, both for us and for the rest of the world. It should be no suprise that God's people are constantly called to worship, and I pray that we may be thoughtful and galvanized as we worship God together!

The topic of worship will become a very poignant theme in the book of Joshua as we make our way into chapter three this week (the first of a two-part account that includes chapter four). One question that these passages will answer is "how should we follow and worship God?" God's people have always been called to be bold-yet-careful in our worship, and the following passages will encourage us to reflect quite a bit on how God wants to be worshipped.