“Have I not told you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged; for the LORD your God will be with you, wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)
Our Sermon series on Joshua begins with a huge change in the opening sentence of Joshua 1 where we are told of the death of Moses. Moses was the only leader an entire generation had known, and now Joshua had to lead a sometimes rebellious people into imminent war.
The Livestream didn’t work this week but if you wish to see the whole service then click below.
Courage in times of change
What are you worried about for the future?
Notice how the act of worrying made your body feel. I had been in such a state of worry that I went to see a physio about my shoulder and his response was I had been doing this so much feeling anxious that this muscle had become overworked and tense and sore so my mind had had a long lasting physical impact on my body.
When we anticipate change in our lives, it’s good to prepare, to pray, to ponder, to process but we can often find ourselves doing something unhelpful and that’s worrying about the future, trying to take control by making decisions out of fear out of panic. Our mind full of questions. What will happen, how will I cope, am I good enough to achieve the change I want? How can I make XYZ happen? What if I’m without a home? When this happens how will I make sure I’m ok? what if what if….
When we worry, our heart rate is elevated, we get muscle tension, insomnia, brain fog, digestive issues, our immune system lowers. Worry has a physical effect on our bodies that isn’t good.
And it’s a cycle we can get trapped in, it’s called the worry cycle, as soon as we get through the worry, the next time we encounter change our brain says ‘ah worry and panic and fear are how we survived this last time so let’s try that again’
Just so we can see this danger from another angle, I wanted to share an excerpt from one of my favourite books. If you’re not a reader, listen to audiobooks, but we should all be trying to grow our Christian understanding outside of the church building on a Sunday. If you do no reading now, try a page a week. If you don’t know what to read, come and ask me.
C.S. Lewis fantastic theologian just means somebody who has studied and written about God the bible, Christian spirituality, writer of Narnia, brilliant, wrote one of my all-time favourite books called the Screwtape letters. In this he has imagined the discussions that go on between demons who are trying to turn people away from God, their scheming and planning for how to twist a human’s mind to get them to focus on anything but our salvation in Christ Jesus.
And in chapter 15 these demons talk about how to keep us in a permanent state of worry when change happens.
Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Biological necessity makes all their passions point in that direction already, so that thought about the Future inflames hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time—for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays. Hence nearly all vices are rooted in the future. Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present; fear, avarice, lust, and ambition look ahead. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow’s end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present. It follows then, in general, and other things being equal, that it is better for your patient to be filled with anxiety or hope (it doesn’t much matter which) about this war than for him to be living in the present.
So, what do we know – When we are faced with change we can worry. Worry is bad for us. Ignoring the present and the eternal, also bad for us. So how do we face change well?
Our Bible passage on Joshua today shows a big big change, it shows how God leads Joshua through the change and how the community around him echo back God’s encouragements about this change. SO, let’s dive in
We get our change in this first line ‘After the Death of Moses’
‘A death, that’s the change, and this death is of the leader of the Israelites, the only leader an entire generation had ever known. He was the prophet who spoke to God, he had shown displays of Gods power. He has been leading Gods people through the desert for 40 years.
And now here comes Joshua, who has been assisting Moses for decades, now has to lead God’s people who have been pretty terrible at rebelling and complaining against Moses. There is an imminent war as Moses has died right at the border of Canaan just before they are to conquer a territory.
There are a thousand what if possibilities for Joshua to be worried about? What if the people don’t listen to me, how can I possibly lead in the shadow of Moses, am I brave enough?
But we don’t see any of that. This is what is what we read – That God Tells him the facts ‘Moses is dead so you are going to lead’ Clear, concise path forward and what does he promise ‘I will not fail you or abandon you’. God reminds him of his promises to his people, he reminds them that he is leading them, God reminds them of his presence, his protection and his provision. God says I’ve got this – look here is the plan it’s all sorted, don’t need to worry about that at all, go do some prep and get everybody ready but the actual plan, I’m on it, its sorted, its done, I’ve got you! Be strong and courageous because I’ve got you
The God of Joshua, our God is trustworthy and with you now and forever.
Joshua is commanded to BE strong and Courageous for the Lord is with him wherever he goes. We are not to rely on ourselves. We are not to look inward at our own insecurities, our own abilities, our strength or weakness but told to look to him for our strength, to BE with him and BE courageous because he is with us. God does not say to him but come one you’re pretty good at this, look what you’ve done so far etc because we would either think we had done it all in our own strength or be flooded with worry that we weren’t brave we weren’t courageous.
Joshua is asked to study the word of God and meditate on it day and night so he will be sure to obey everything in it to prosper and succeed in all he does.
Meditate to chew over – because how will he know to lead if he doesn’t understand the one who leads. God has given him everything he already needs, and he just needs to remind himself of that.
How often do we cry out to God for a comfort, for a sign for an answer when we could instead pick up our scriptures.
I want us to practise this now as most often when we hear ‘to meditate’ we think of how other religions or cultures meditate which is to empty. But Christian Biblical meditation is closer to chewing over a truth, mulling it over, turning it over in our minds, keeping it at the forefront of our thoughts, speaking it to others sharing it through the day. So, I would love us to practise this now. I want you to go to Joshua 1:9 and pick a small part of it whether that’s ‘Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or discouraged or the lord your god is with you wherever you go’ and I want you to say it over in your mind. Is it bringing up any emotions for you, does it have weight, does it bring comfort.
Now I want you to catch the eye of someone else in the church and I want you to speak it to them all at the same time. We want to get comfortable speaking the word of God even when its messy.
Because this is the last point and you’ve all just demonstrated it for me beautifully
That The community Echoes God back to Joshua. VS 18 ‘So be strong and courageous’ We need each other. In times of change you need someone to pull you up, speak life into your situation, remind you of your God of his plans of his protection over you. Joshua needed it, a man who was speaking to God and we need it still now, what a privilege that we get to do that for each other.
So, to have courage in change we need to
1. Listen to the words God speaks over you
2. Meditate on Scripture
3. Be in Community that echoes God’s voice back to you
God does not want us to be anxious about the endless possibilities of the future but rather wants us to be free to live in the present, aware of our eternity with God through the salvation of Jesus Christ.
Reflect: What future “what-if” do you need to hand to the God who is already there?
Pray: Lord, remind me my strength comes from You. Help me leave tomorrow in Your hands and live faithfully today. Amen.
St. Luke's Church Ramsgate 