Truth That Changes Lives

Greg: Thank you for joining us on Truth That Changes Lives. Pastor JP Jones is the senior pastor of Crossline Community Church in Laguna Hills, California, and a professor in biblical studies at Biola University. Today on Truth That Changes Lives, Pastor JP will be giving us a message from a series entitled Heroes. Let’s listen as JP gives us part one of Joshua.

JP Jones: We’re going to continue in our study of Old Testament heroes, and we’re going to look at the person of Joshua from Joshua chapter one. If you have your Bibles, would you open to Joshua chapter one? Joshua is a man who tells us that courage is not the absence of fear, but courage is trusting God in spite of your fears.

Courage is a tremendous quality. It’s something that every one of us aspires to because every one of us struggles with fear. Several years ago, when I was just starting out in ministry and I performed my first wedding ceremony, I was able to marry a good buddy of mine with his fiancée. He was a young guy that I had discipled when I worked with Campus Crusade for Christ and he’d met his wife as a student also.

This was the first time I was officiating at a marriage ceremony, and we’re standing in the back corridor before we walked out in front of the church. My buddy's name was Keith and his fiancée was Martha. We’re standing there, all the guys in the wedding party, and I said, "Well, Keith, how did you know this was the time that you were supposed to marry Martha?" With a deadpan expression, he said, "Fear can be a powerful motivator."

It can, can’t it? Fear can be a powerful motivator. It can also be the most debilitating emotion that we can experience. In fact, I think that fear is the biggest issue that men in particular struggle with. We mask it in a lot of different ways, but it is something that the enemy uses to rob us of our manhood.

Jesus said that the thief comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but I have come that you might have life and have it abundantly. So, anything that is killing, stealing, or destroying our full experience of life is from the thief; it’s from the enemy. That's what all the soldiers of Israel experienced in 1 Samuel 17 when they saw Goliath.

We think about David and his great courage because he knew that the battle belonged to the Lord and how he stepped down into the valley of Elah and he faced Goliath. He says, "You come to me with a sword and a spear, but I come in the name of the God of Israel, and today He will give me victory because the battle belongs to the Lord." But in that same story, it says that Saul and all of the Israelites were terrified by fear when they saw Goliath.

Fear can literally destroy us. So, what we need is courage—not the absence of fear, but the ability to trust God even in spite of our fears. That’s what we learn from Joshua in Joshua chapter one. Joshua chapter one, verses one to 11 says this:

"After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: '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. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 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.

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. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 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. 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.

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.' So Joshua ordered the officers of the people: 'Go through the camp and tell the people, "Get your supplies ready. Three days from now you will cross the Jordan from here to go in and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving to you for you to own."'"

It’s a great charge. It’s a great historical passage that is filled with spiritual principles for our lives today. Three times God says to Joshua: be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous. Now, you don’t have to be the sharpest theologian in seminary to figure out that if God says to somebody three times over and over again—be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous—that’s a guy who’s probably struggling with strength, courage, and fear.

The interesting thing about Joshua is that he was not some milksop guy. He was not some wimp of a man. He was not some namby-pamby kind of person who got called into leadership. In fact, we’re introduced to Joshua back in the book of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, the first glimpse we have of Joshua’s character is that he is charged by Moses to go down into a valley of Amalekites and take his sword and slay them. Joshua was like a Special Forces warrior. He was a mighty, military, valiant soldier, and he had success.

When Moses was checking out the Promised Land and wanted a personal word of exactly what it looked like, he picked Joshua to go. So, Joshua was picked from his tribe, Ephraim, of 12 guys from the 12 tribes to go into the Promised Land. As you remember the account of what happened, 10 of the people said, "Oh man, there’s giants, and we’re like grasshoppers before these big giants and they’ll just kill us." Two guys, Joshua and Caleb, said, "Yeah, they’re giants, but God will fight for us. Let’s go in and take the land."

Joshua was picked to represent Moses as one of the spies that went into the Promised Land to get a report. Then Joshua was made the personal aide of Moses. He was around the greatest guy of the Old Testament. So, it was natural that when Moses died and a successor had to be named, Joshua’s the guy. He was a military leader, he was a respected counselor, and he was someone who served right alongside the top guy. And yet, he was afraid.

If you are feeling fear, you’re in good company. If you’re afraid about your marriage, if you’re afraid about being a parent, if you’re afraid about your future, if you’re afraid about your finances, if you’re afraid about the call of God on your life, you’re in good company. Every person here to one degree or another struggles with fear. It can be a powerful motivator, but more often than not, it destroys, kills, and steals the joy that we have in Christ and the faith that we have in Almighty God.

From Joshua, what we learn is God will give us strength and courage even in spite of our fears. When you look at this story and you look at the life of Joshua, it’s similar to our study of Abraham and it’s similar to our study of Moses in that we discover the main character in their story is not them. It’s God.

When you look at this call of God on Joshua, certainly we can learn from Joshua’s response, but more than that, we can learn from who God revealed himself to be—the God of Joshua. From this passage, there are several things that we learn about God. First of all, God is personal. He’s personal.

Now, I know we say that, and I know it’s a tenet of our evangelical belief, but think about this. It says, "After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun." God revealed himself and spoke to Joshua. God’s personal. He knows us, He makes himself known, He reveals himself, and He calls us by name.

Jesus said in John chapter 10 that He was the Good Shepherd and His sheep hear His voice and He calls His sheep by name. Our God knows us. He reveals himself to us. He has a relationship with us. He speaks to us, and He guides our life.

Maybe this morning you are here and you know you don’t have a relationship with God. Maybe you want to be, or maybe you have questions about that. Maybe you’re curious, or maybe you’re just waiting for someone to tell you how to get to know Him. The good news of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is that God is real and God is personal, and you can know Him.

Jesus said, "This is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." Joshua had a face-to-face encounter with God. He had a relationship with God. He heard God speak to him, and he responded to what God said. He experienced God. That’s the way God wants to draw every one of us into a relationship with himself. We can know Him because God is personal, and He reveals himself, and He speaks to us.

He speaks to us when we come to know Him personally. When I was 16 years old and I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life, I had my first experience with God, knowing Him personally. When I was 18, at Arrowhead Springs above San Bernardino, I remember praying and wrestling with what God was speaking to me about and calling me into. I came to understand God was calling me to give my life into full-time Christian work. I wanted to be a football coach before that.

But God spoke to me and said, "I want you to go into ministry, and I have a plan for your life." Several years ago—four years ago—when I was facing a crossroads as to the direction of my life, I went up to Forest Home along with a few other guys. We went to the very place where Billy Graham wrestled with the Lord and heard God speak to him. There’s a plaque there at Forest Home, and we stood on the ground right in front of that plaque overlooking the valley. I had guys on both sides of me lifting up my arms and we prayed and called out to the Lord and said, "God, what is your will? What is the direction?"

God spoke to us and He said, "You need to start a church." And we started Crossline Church. God speaks to us, He reveals himself to us, He has a plan for us, and He reveals that plan to us because He’s personal. So, He spoke to Joshua and commissioned him for what He had planned for him.

Not only is God personal, God is faithful. He’s faithful because what He says to Joshua is, "I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses." He’s reaffirming a promise that He’s already made. In fact, He first made this promise to Abraham. We looked at Abraham and we saw how Abraham was living as a pagan in Ur of the Chaldees, and the one true God revealed himself to him and said, "Leave your people and go to the land that I’m giving to you. I’m going to give you a land, I’m going to give you an inheritance, I’m going to make you a blessing, and through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed."

Then God reaffirmed that promise to Abraham’s son, Isaac. He reaffirmed the promise to Isaac’s son, Jacob. He reaffirmed the promise to Moses, and now He’s reaffirming it to Joshua. Joshua’s the actual guy who’s getting to go into the land to get it. Unbelievable. Could you imagine this legacy of God speaking to your ancestors and God reaffirming a promise and you actually getting to be the guy to step into it and make it happen? No wonder he was afraid. So, God says, "Be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous."

God’s faithful. He’s faithful. He keeps His promises. He is the ultimate promise-keeper. In fact, this book is filled with promises that God has made—many of them that have already been fulfilled in history supernaturally and many more to be fulfilled for God’s people, for us, for this church.

In fact, this church was founded on these promises, and on prayer, and on belief of what God has said. Every year, the pastors, the executive pastors, and elders of this church get away and we review those promises. We review what God has said and we see how God fulfilled those and what God wants to fulfill this next year. We’ve been talking, the pastors among ourselves, and we’re going to get away in August.

We’re going to go away and we’re going to re-look at all those promises that God gave to us to start this church, and all those miraculous prayers that we prayed in terms of what we believe God wanted to do through us. We’re going to recount the things that He’s done already that we rejoice in, and then we’re going to look to this next year and say, "And what do we believe God’s going to do this next year?" Because we believe that God is faithful.

Not only is God personal and faithful, He’s powerful. He’s powerful because He says to Joshua that he’s going to lead these people across the Jordan and take possession of the land. He is going to have victory over anyone who would oppose him, over all his enemies.

First of all, He says, "You’re going to lead these people across the Jordan." They didn’t have any big superstructure bridges across the Jordan in those days. They didn’t have mobile bridge-building equipment like the Army Corps of Engineers or the Navy Seabees.

God did a miracle. He did a miracle, parted the waters, and Joshua and all of Israel walked across on dry land because God’s in the miracle business. Did you know that? This morning, as I came into church, I was talking with one of our members and he was talking about a surgery that he was going to be having on his shoulder and asked me if I would pray for him. I said I’d love to pray for him and then I said, "Do you mind if I pray that God would miraculously heal you?" He said, "Please, do."

Then I said, "You know what? I just read yesterday in my quiet time, I was up at Lake Santa Margarita and I was walking around the lake. I sat down on one of the benches there and read in scripture, in Mark chapter seven, how Jesus was in the Galilee area healing people and He went up to Tyre and Sidon."

I looked on my map in the back of the Bible and Tyre and Sidon is modern-day Lebanon. So, He’s up in an area outside of Israel. He’s not dealing with Jewish people; He’s dealing with people who were pagan idolaters. And yet, one of the women, a Syrophoenician woman, comes up to Him and asks Jesus to heal her daughter.

Jesus said, "The food is for the children." And she said, "Yeah, but when the crumbs fall off the table, even the dogs get to eat it." She called herself a dog. Jesus said, "I haven’t seen any kind of faith like that in all of Israel. Your daughter’s healed." He healed that woman’s daughter because her belief that God could do it and would do it because He was good.

Then it says that Jesus left the area of Tyre and Sidon in Mark chapter seven, and it says He went back to Galilee and went over to the Decapolis. Decapolis in Greek means the ten cities. It’s a Greek name because they were Greek refugees living in that area. This was not an outpost of Jewish people. Again, these were Greeks, pagans.

But it says Jesus went over to Decapolis and there was a man who couldn’t speak and couldn’t hear, and Jesus touched his ears and spit and touched his tongue and He said, "Be opened," and the man was able to hear and he was able to speak. Jesus did a miracle up in Tyre and Sidon. He did a miracle over in Decapolis. Then in my reading, I turned over to John six because that’s what I was reading and in John six, all these people crowd around Him. He says to his disciples, "Where are we going to get the food to feed them?" They said, "Man, this is going to be like several months' wages." They said, "Well, here’s a guy with a few fish and some bread," and Jesus takes it and multiplies it and does a miracle and feeds the 5,000.

Greg: What a great message for all of us today. Pastor JP provides us with great insight. That is why we’d like to make it available to you on CD. Just get in touch and mention today’s date. We’ll send it your way for just five dollars. Or if you’d like to support this ministry, you can write us at Truth That Changes Lives: 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or give us a call at 949-916-0250. That’s 949-916-0250. For your gift of 25 dollars or more, we will send you a signed copy of JP’s new book, Facing Goliath. Please join us every Sunday at 9:00 or 11:00 AM at Crossline Church in Laguna Hills. The address is 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or check us out on the web at crosslinechurch.com. We’re going to get to the address and phone number again in a moment, but before we do that, Pastor JP, do you have any insight from today’s message?

JP Jones: Thanks, Greg. Today we’re looking at the story of Joshua. Joshua was a man who overcame his fears. He was a man who trusted God because he heard God speak to him, and what God said to him was: be strong and courageous. This is what it says about Joshua in Joshua chapter one:

"After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: '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 where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert of Lebanon and from the great river the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. And as I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous. Be very 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. 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.'"

Three times God says to Joshua in His call on Joshua’s life: be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I do understand if God says something to me three times and repeats it over and over again, then God knows something about me that maybe I didn’t even know about myself. God knew that Joshua struggled with fear. God knew that what Joshua needed was courage.

He needed God’s strength because God had a plan for Joshua’s life. God wanted to use Joshua to be a hero for his generation. And guess what? God wants you to be a hero for this generation. God wants you to be a witness for Jesus Christ. God wants you to be a person of spiritual influence. God wants you to be a kingdom builder.

When you think about that, if you’re just like me and if you’re like Joshua, that creates a little bit of fear. It creates a sense of inadequacy. It creates a sense of, "What am I going to do and how am I going to do it?" So, what God says to us is: be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous. You see, God is a miracle-working God.

God brought the worlds into being out of nothing. God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. God did miracles when Jesus Christ was on earth. Jesus spoke, and bodies were healed. Jesus spoke, and storms were calmed. Jesus spoke, and the dead were raised. Jesus can speak to us, and Jesus can speak through us and do miraculous things.

For us to be world-changers, for us to be heroes for Christ, we’ve got to look to God, not to our fears. That’s the key. Courage is not reaching a place where we’re never afraid. Courage is trusting God rather than giving into our fears. Courage is trusting God rather than giving into our fears. That’s a word that every one of us needs. That’s a truth that every one of us needs to hold on to and live by.

When we do, we can become heroes for God. We can be like Joshua and change our generation for Jesus Christ. What God wants to do through your life is to show you His power so that in Him you can be strong and courageous. Would you ask Him to do that? Let’s ask Him right now in prayer.

God, I want you to be strong in my life. God, I want your miracles to be accomplished in me and through me. God, I want to look to you and not to my fears. I acknowledge my fears; I surrender my fears to you. I ask you to be strong in my life. I ask you to make me strong and courageous and use me to be a hero for Christ. I pray in His name. Amen.

Greg: We want to help you in your relationship with Christ. Please get in touch with us at Truth That Changes Lives: 23331 Moulton Parkway, Laguna Hills, California, 92653. Or call us at 949-916-0250. On the internet, you will find us at crosslinechurch.com. We hope to see you at one of our services every Sunday at our new campus in Laguna Hills. For more information and directions, please go to crosslinechurch.com. Please join us next time on Truth That Changes Lives.