Joshua 1

Open your Bibles to the Book of Joshua. Joshua chapter 1. We're going to give you a little background in the way of an intro tonight and then we'll get into the first chapter Lord willing. Let's pray. Father God, every time we dig into Your Word it's such a blessing. We pray for that blessing tonight. We pray, Lord God, that You would fill our hearts with grace and goodness. We pray, Father God, that You would teach us, that You would instruct us, and that You would guide and direct us in the kind of wisdom that we can apply to our lives. We thank You, Father, that You're faithful to do that. We lay this before You with hope and faith through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, as the first five books of the Old Testament are the Pentateuch. And in those first five books, we hear about a promise that is made to Abraham, passed along to Isaac, ultimately to Jacob, in that succession of a land that God had given them that we know as the Promised Land. And, as we get into Joshua here tonight, we begin a new division in the Bible. I know we're skipping over numbers in Deuteronomy, but we'll get back to those and we'll pick those up again. But the first five books are referred to as The Law and then with Joshua we begin what we call the Historical Books in the Bible. But we find as we read through the book, particularly the Book of Joshua, is that it is far more than just history. I don't know how many of you guys enjoyed going to school and history class. It depended, there was European history, there was American history, there was world history. I was bored with school, frankly, to be completely honest with you. But boy, when we start going through the history books of the Bible, there's just something very alluring and captivating in them.

And the, one of the reasons is that it's not just history, it's what we call typical history. And I don't mean typical in the sense of everyday. It's typical as in the sense of it shows types and shadows of things that are to come. And that's what we see in the Book of Joshua. There are so many, it's full of all kinds of typology. And that basically means that the events that are given to us in the Book of Joshua give us pictures of greater and ultimate fulfillments that apply to our Christian life. And, just as an example, when we went through the Book of Exodus, we learned that Egypt was a type of the world. We learned that the slavery that Israel suffered in the land of Egypt was a type of our slavery to sin in the world. We learned that Moses was a type of Jesus who comes to bring us out of that slavery. We learned that Pharaoh was a type of Satan who wants to keep us bound and enslaved in the world. We learned that the passing of the nation of Israel through the Red Sea was a type of water baptism. And so forth and so on. We, we also, as we get in now to Joshua, we're going to learn that entering into the promised land is a type of our Christian life which involves stepping out into the promises of God. Okay, and that's what we're going to. A lot of people wonder, so what was that whole 40 years in the wilderness? What was that a type of? Well, frankly, that's a type of living a Christian life apart from the promises of God. There's a lot of Christians that live that way. They're born again. They're going to heaven. And yet, they have not fully entered into the promises of God. They haven't entered into the promised land. See, the promised land for the nation of Israel was a plot of land that you can find on a map but the promised land for you and me is a life. It's a lifestyle. It's a life of knowing God's promises, embracing God's promises, and walking out God's promises. That is the promised land for you and me. We know that, again, I've said this so many times to you guys, under the Old Covenant, the promises to Israel were all physical. Under the New Covenant, the promises to the church, to the body of Christ, are all spiritual. We have a spiritual set of blessings that go with the promises and the covenant that we are under with the Lord. It is the life of walking out the promises of God that we're going to see portrayed here in the Book of Joshua.

Now, Joshua is also a type, he is a type of Jesus. He even shares the same name. It is the exact same name; Yeshua or the Greek form of Jesus. They both mean the Lord is salvation. Here's what's interesting. Did you know that Moses changed the name for Joshua? Let me show you this on the screen. It's taken out of Numbers, chapter 13. It says, Numbers 13:16 (ESV)

These were the names of the men whom Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Hoshea the son of Nun Joshua. So he changed his name. The name Hosea means salvation but he changed his name to Joshua, which means the Lord is salvation. And that's the very name that the Lord and, well, the angel declared to Joseph that it would be given to the Son of God; the Lord is salvation. And obviously it's a very appropriate name for our Lord Jesus Christ. But it was the name of the man who brought the people of God into the promised land. And we're going to talk about Moses here a little bit later, and why he couldn't, bring the people of Israel into the promised land. And it wasn't just because he had been disobedient. He had. But there was another more important reason and we'll get into that a little bit later. But in order to really truly lay hold of the context and the timing related to the Book of Joshua, what we're going to do is something that we don't do very often. We're going to read the very last chapter of the Book of Deuteronomy so this is going to be just one, probably one page turned to the left for most of you. And so this is Deuteronomy chapter 34. I'm going to have you just go back a page or so, depending on whether you have a study Bible, you might have a couple extra pages. But in Deuteronomy chapter 34, we ask, or rather we answer a lot of questions that are going to help us to really get a foundational understanding of the Book of Joshua. It begins here in chapter 34 of Deuteronomy saying, “Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, (and Pisgah was simply the Hebrew word for summit. It's basically saying he went up to the summit of the of Mount Nebo. And it tells us that ) …is opposite Jericho. (Jericho was right across the river) And the LORD showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan, 2 all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the western sea, 3 the Negeb, and the Plain, that is, the Valley of Jericho the city of palm trees, as far as Zoar.” (ESV) Let me put up a map on the screen so that you can see. In red I put Mount Nebo. It's way up there and the on the northern part of the Dead Sea. Okay, that's Mount Nebo. And from there, the Lord took Moses up to the top of that mountain and showed him the whole area, but you'll remember that he couldn't go.

Look what it goes on to say in verse 4. “And the LORD said to him, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there.”” Why couldn't Moses go? Well, you might remember, that Moses actually misrepresented the Lord at the waters of Meribah. Now, the waters of Meribah is an area that the nation of Israel came to 2 times And there was about a 38 year span between their two trips to the waters of Meribah. And the first time they came to the waters of Meribah, there was no water there and so the people began to complain, and they were talking against Moses. And so Moses went to the Lord and said what do You want me to do about this? And the Lord said, I want you to go out to this huge rock that I'm going to tell you about and when you're there, I want you to take your staff, and I want you to strike the rock. And when you do, water is going to come pouring out of the rock. And it is going to be enough to water the whole nation. The whole people of Israel, which, by the way, was no small issue. We're talking about two and a half million people. Right? This wasn't a trickle that came out of this. This was a gusher that came out. And by the way, water doesn't come out of rocks. Yeah it was a supernatural work of the Lord. Okay, so 38 years goes by, and the nation of Israel comes by the same region, the water is no longer flowing, and the people begin to complain. And Moses goes before the Lord, what am I going to do about these people? They want to kill me! They want to stone me! And the Lord says, I want you to go out, and I want you to go to that same rock, and this time I want you to speak to the rock, and I'll bring forth water to take care of the whole people of Israel. But you see, Moses was, had been 40 years with these people and he'd had it up to here with their complaining. And probably had it up to here with their complaining. And so, even though the Lord told Moses to go out and just speak to the rock, that's not what he did. He went out and he struck the rock again. Well, God was gracious and water flowed from the rock and took care of all the people. But after that, Moses got called into the woodshed by the Lord. And the Lord essentially explained the situation and told him, you didn't represent Me appropriately. And I'm paraphrasing the whole conversation, but the essence of it is God is saying to Moses, I wasn't mad. You were mad. I wasn't mad.

And frankly, Moses, you ruined the whole illustration that I had for these people, because you see, that rock represented Jesus Christ, and the water is the living water that we get from Him. And the fact of the matter is, that rock only needs to be struck once. And after that, you just simply speak to the rock and out comes the living water. But you see, Moses ruined that whole illustration. And so, because he misrepresented the Lord, he wasn't able to go into the land. But there's another reason that Moses could not bring the people of Israel into the land. Moses was also a type of the law. In fact, he was the law giver. The law came through him. We call it in fact, the Law of Moses. And the reason Moses wasn't allowed to bring the people of Israel into the land is because you can't enter into the promises of God through the law. You can only enter into the promises of God through Yeshua, Jesus Christ, our Savior. You see, God was painting a picture for you and me to help us understand the whole concept of what it means to enter into the promises of God. The law will never bring you into the promises of God and so Moses was not allowed to do that. It goes on in verse 5, we're still in Deuteronomy.

I started hitting, going down this hill at about 40. How about you? It's like there was some kind of a clock, it's like you hit 40. It's like it's just all downhill from there but 120. I can't imagine 120. He's still perkin, like he was a young man. Anyway, all right. It says, “His eye was undimmed…” I read that. Verse 8.

You can see that just by reading that last chapter of Deuteronomy, we learn a lot. We learn about, how Moses died. We know where even he was taken. We know that Joshua was, had his hands laid on him to become the leader who would succeed Moses. And that he was the man who was then to bring them into the promised land. Joshua chapter 1. Here we go.

I want you to notice that the Lord begins by stating something that is obvious to everyone because they've just gone through 30 days of mourning for the man but the Lord begins by saying, “Moses my servant is dead.” And that seems like an odd or even redundant thing for the Lord to say. But this is an important statement for Joshua because He is reminding Joshua at this point that this new place of leadership that is now upon him. And that this is the time now to rise up and to be the man that I've called you to be. To be the person that I've called to take this people into this land of promise. Moses is gone. We're not going to look to him. We're not going to look to, the leadership mantle now resides on you, and it's time for you to take it up. And you'll notice that also in these verses there's a wonderful promise that to Joshua and to the people of Israel and that is that, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses.” Now, remember, the promised land as a piece of land is a type of you and me taking hold of the promises of God. Walking them out. Embracing them and truly walking them out. And so, He's saying to you and me through this, that wherever you go, whatever promises there are, these are yours. Wherever your feet tread toward the promises of God, I've given it to you already. When God makes a promise, He doesn't hold back and wait to fulfill that promise until He feels like it. When the promise is given, it is given. And what holds us back is not God, it's us. It's our lack of faith. It's our lack of being able to embrace the promise. And sometimes it's because the enemy comes, and this is one of his very, very common sorts of deals, is to call into question the promises of God. He started doing that in the garden. Remember, God spoke to Adam and Eve, and He said, you can eat any fruit of any of the tree in the garden. Now there's one tree. In the middle of the garden, the very center, I don't want you to eat from that. In fact, don't even touch it, because the day you do, you will die. And so what does the enemy come along and say? Did God tell you can't eat from any tree in the garden? Immediately calls into question the promises of God. That's what the enemy always will do. Or he'll try to get you to think that even though that promise may exist for others, it doesn't really apply to you because you're not worthy. Well, it has nothing to do with being worthy to lay hold of the promises of God. You're never going to be worthy. None of us are worthy of the promises of God. We simply lay hold of them because God is good and He has made the promise to us. This is such a beautiful statement. “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you,…” And then you'll notice in verse 4, he begins to describe where this whole land is going to exist. Here's what's interesting about that. Do you know that Israel only ever occupied the land that God gave them in its completion under David and Solomon? And under no other king did they operate in all of the land that God had given them. Let me put a map up on the screen. And I, part of this is a little difficult to see, so I peppered this with arrows, you'll notice. And those arrows point to a very thin purple line on the map and I hope you can see it there. And that purple line, and those arrows point to the very edge of that line. That's the original land, those are the boundaries rather, of the land that God gave to the people of Israel.

But do you notice that area that's in the green? Highlighted there in green. That's most of the land that they ever really lived in. They never branched out into all of the land that God gave them because they never.. Well, they very rarely walked in obedience, frankly to the Word of the Lord. But, isn't that interesting? If I were to ask you, or if you, and I don't think any of us probably know the answer to this question exactly. But if I were to ask you the question, of all the promises that God has given to you and me in His Word, what percentage of those promises are you walking in? Is it 10%? 25%? 50%? Like I said, under David and Solomon, they pretty much operated in all of the land that God had given. But under the other kings, no. Of all the promises of God, how many have you taken hold of? How many of them are you walking out on a day to day basis and saying, that's a promise, and I'm taking it. Right? God promised and so I'm going to stand on that promise. I'm not going to let the enemy steal it from me. The one who comes to steal. I'm not going to be talked out of it by my own emotional status at the time. I'm going to lay hold of it. It's an important question. Israel struggled to walk in all of the promises of God. We as believers have no excuse for limiting ourselves from what God has given. Verse 5.

And so He begins with a three pronged exhortation that repeats these words.

I want you to notice here that God not only calls Joshua to be strong and courageous in the work that he's about to take up, but He tells him, first of all, you will, you will bring the people into the land. He tells him ahead of time, this is going to work. This is going to work. Don't underestimate something like that from the Lord. When the Lord gives you a job and then tells you this is going to work. He didn't do that to everybody. In fact the prophet Jeremiah was given a ministry from the Lord to speak to the people of Judah right before the Babylonian invasion. You know what God told Jeremiah? He said, I've got a message for you to give to the people and it won't work. That's what He told him. They're not going to accept it. And they're not going to accept you either. He did tell him He'd protect him. He did tell him He'd watch over him. But He said, your ministry is going to fail. Isn't that a wonderful thing to hear from the Lord? I've given you a ministry and it's not going to work but I want you to be faithful. Right? Well, with Joshua, he gets this wonderful statement from the Lord. I've given you a ministry and you're going to be successful. That's a pretty cool thing. And then the Lord explains to him why. And that's in that second part of verse 6 where He says, “I swore” this. “I swore to” give this to these people. That's pretty cool and I'm not going to go back on My Word. And can I just tell you people that God doesn't go back on His Word. He never goes back on His Word. If He's given you a promise in the Scriptures, it's there and you can take it to the bank. I just, those are great reasons to be strong and courageous. Right?

Verse 7 goes on saying, “Only be strong and very courageous, (there’s the second reference) being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go.” Hang on to that for a minute, what he just said. He says, “8 This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful 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.” I want you to notice what the Lord is saying to Joshua here in these few verses. He speaks here pertains of these promises that pertains to the Word of God now. He's talking about the Scripture. And for you and me, that's just the Word of the Bible. And you'll notice that he speaks to him, or he exhorts him here to do 3 things with regard to the Word. First of all, he says, let, make sure that this Word doesn't “depart from your mouth.” Speak it and speak it often. Right? Speak the Word of God. Two, he says, I want you to meditate on the Word of God, day and night. And to meditate is simply to think, is to ponder. Don't think of meditation in a weird sort of eastern religious sort of a way. Just think of meditation as simply stopping to ponder. It's frankly what we do here on Wednesday night and Sunday morning. We stop to slow down, ponder the Word of God. Meditate on it. But this isn't just twice a week, it's day and night. And then he says in verse 3 (verse 8) that he is to do everything written in it and to act according to it. In other words, he is to base his actions on the Word of God. So, not letting it depart from his mouth, meditating on it day and night, and acting according to the Word of God. And these are things that we can apply in our own lives. We should bring the Word of God into our daily conversation. It should be so much a part of our daily conversation that we talk about it. Meditating on the Word of God and then acting according to it. And basically the Lord said to him that this is this whole success of going into the land and taking hold of the land that I've given. This is not going to be so much a result of your military prowess. This is going to be a result of you hanging on to the Word of God.

And people, that is the exact same thing for you and me, walking out the promises of God. It's not about your strength, or your ability to grit your teeth and go, I'm going to believe God, or I'm going to do this, or I'm going to live this way, or whatever the situation might be. It's not about those things. It's about living, walking out the Word of God. Meditating on the Word of God. Letting the Word of God saturate our hearts in such a way that it becomes a part of our daily existence. That's where the Word is going to strengthen you to be able to walk out the promises of God. If you've been, if you've been starving yourself from the Word, you're not going to be able to walk out the promises of God. You might hear about the promises and go, oh, that's a great promise. But you're not going to be, you're not going to have the strength, you're not going to have the spiritual vitality to be able to walk it out. You just won't. It's when we feed on the Word of God that we are strengthened, edified, and built up, and able to walk on the water, and to walk out the promises of God. And then I want you to notice verse 9, because this is also very important and this is the last of these statements of being strong and courageous. He says, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” I love this because the final call for Joshua to be “strong and courageous” is based solely on the presence of God. Because I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere. I'll walk with you into this land. I'll stay by your side. I'll guide you. I'll direct you. I'll give you peace. I'll give you wisdom for each step. Boy, Christians we got to start taking advantage of this wonderful promise. Cause this promise is, is ours as well. In fact, it was even spoken in a very similar sort of a way to you and me. Check out this on the screen for Matthew chapter 28. The Lord Jesus said,

“And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is a promise to you and me. It's a very similar promise that God gave to Joshua. I'm with you. My presence is with you. I am going before you. I will guide you. I will direct you. How often, here's my question. How often do we stop and ask the Lord for direction? How often do we pause to hear from the Holy Spirit, to quiet our heart long enough to hear His voice, to find His direction, to know His will. It's just too easy to ask other people. We go to other people. We go to somebody that we think is more mature in the Lord, or more spiritual or something, and we want to get their advice. And I don't know about you, but I've started to become troubled a little bit by people constantly asking for advice. I mean, because it's one of those things that if you're asking for advice in addition to praying and listening to the Holy Spirit, it's probably not a bad thing because you may be looking for confirmation. But I think most of the time we ask for advice and we don't go to the Lord. We're not giving Him the time or the opportunity to speak to our hearts. I mean, I can't tell you how many times someone has said to me, I'm praying about this, but I still don't know what to do. Pastor Paul, what's your advice? My advice is to keep praying and wait. You think I'm going to jump in and give advice instead of God? You started off good, why did you quit? Why did you stop, why did you stop waiting? Right? Well, I got anxious, or I got nervous, or they're looking for an answer, so… There's all kinds of excuses. God says, I'm here, I'm with you. I'm going to walk out this thing with you. I'll direct you. And His answers are going to come in His time if we'll trust Him, and wait, and be willing to wait. That's probably the biggest issue, is we're just not willing. Verse 10,

This is interesting. You'll notice that the Lord said that we're going to go in here and we're going to, we're going to pass through Jordan. Have you ever stopped to ask yourself the question, why did they go that way? Why did they go that way?

Can we put up the very first map that I had here? Can we put that back up? Yeah, thank you. Let me just show you there on the map. They were in the wilderness. They were in that area that is referred to there as the Sinai Peninsula. Okay. That's essentially where the wandering for the total of 40 years was going on. But I want you to notice that the body of water to the north and to the right there where you see Mount Nebo listed, that's the Dead Sea. They didn't have to go around on the east side of the Dead Sea.

They didn't have to do that. That was going through Moab. They didn't have to go through Moab. They could have just gone up straight on the west side of the Dead Sea and gone into the Land of Promise without having to pass through the Jordan. We don't have to go through… The Jordan was a difficult thing to, to cross. Usually people, had to walk around it, had to go around. Especially during, certain times of the year. And yet God took them on a trek out to the east, through Moab, where they ran into some trouble, by the way. I mean, they ran into a crazy, whacked out king that tried to put a curse on them as they passed through the land. And then they get to the land there, they're literally right on the border of the Jordan River and they're looking at this river and they're thinking, we got to go across this thing? How are we going to get across? How are you going to get 2.5 million people? Well, I suppose whatever less the two and a half tribes, they stayed on the other side of… The women, children, and that sort of thing, older men. But still, you've got a lot of people to cross the Jordan. Why? Isn't that interesting? Sometimes there are challenges. When God brings us to a place of beginning to walk out the promises of God, He often will begin that trek with a challenge. A challenge to our faith. And you know why? Because once we get across that land, I tell you, your faith better be firing on all cylinders. Because you, once you get across that river, you're going to meet up with enemy after enemy after enemy who is going to stand his ground and refuse to move. But it's going to take faith to walk in victory in the land of promise. It's the exact same thing for you and me. It takes faith to walk under the promises of God. And many times there is going to be some kind of a challenge related to that. Now notice it says in verse 12, “And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh Joshua said, 13 “Remember the word that Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, saying, ‘The LORD your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land.’” And when he says this land, he's referring to an area of land on the east side of the Jordan River that was not originally intended to be part of God's provision for them. It wasn't part of, we talked about this, it wasn't part of the promised land. But the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh simply saw the land, they saw that it was good, and they requested permission to stay in that land. And Moses, you'll remember, said that they could build it on the condition that they're fighting men go to the, across the river and fight for their brothers. And that's essentially what he goes on to say. Look at verse 14 and following. He says, “Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, (in other words, on the east side) but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help them, 15 until the LORD gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise.” All right? And it goes on to say, “16 And they answered Joshua, “All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. 17 Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the LORD your God be with you, as he was with Moses! 18 Whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.” Those are good words to hear when you're going into battle. And speaking of battle, it's important for us to note that taking hold, as I've already said, taking hold of the promises of God involves battles. It involves fighting. And what that means, Christians, is that your Christian walk is going to be one battle after the next. Now, there's going to be periods of time where the Lord's going to give you rest. But, it won't be that terribly long before another enemy rises up and wants to fight you. And so, what does the Bible say in the New Testament? It says, don't think it's strange when you suffer trials of many kinds. (1 Peter 4:12) Why? Because that's what it means to walk out the promises of God. That's what it means to walk into the promised land. You know what's interesting about that? There are several hymns for those of you that like your hymns. There are several hymns that portray crossing the Jordan as going into heaven. There's actually several. One of them is a hymn by the name of, When I Cross Over Jordan. Let me show you the lyrics on the screen here. It goes like this,

There's a happy happy day a-comin’ When I lay my heavy burdens down I’ll sing around the throne eternal As the saints all march around There’ll be glory when I meet the savior He’s the one who died for me When I cross to the other side of Jordan Just beyond that crystal sea There's a happy happy day a-comin’ (I don't know what the tune like this goes like and I'm not going to try) When I lay my heavy burdens down I’ll sing around the throne eternal As the saints all march around There’ll be glory when I meet the savior He’s the one who died for me When I cross to the other side of Jordan Just beyond that crystal sea Well, this is one of several hymns actually that used this picture of crossing the Jordan as a type of death. And so we crossed the Jordan through death into the land of promise, which is heaven. There's only one problem with that. As we go through the Book of Joshua, you're going to see that the land of promise was full of battles. It was full of deception. Not from the Lord, but from the people living in the land. It was full of victories but it also had its defeats. And guys, those things aren't going to exist in heaven. At least not the part about the battles, the deceptions, and the defeats. You're not going to have those things in heaven, but you do have them in the land of promise. Again, as we've said, crossing the Jordan is a type of walking out of the wilderness where you've been living your Christian life apart from the promises of God, and you finally make that determination that I'm going to go. I'm going to begin to live. I'm going to begin to walk out the promises of God because you realize suddenly that it belongs to you. These promises belong to you. Just like the people of Israel had to get used to the idea when they looked at Canaan, they had to get to use to the idea, this belongs to us. It's ours. God gave it to us so we're not going to be bashful about it. We're not going to hold back.

We're going to go and we're going to take it because it's ours. And it's the same thing with your Christian life. The promises of God are yours. The question is, are you going to take them? But the only way to take them, the only way to possess them is to trust in God. And to fight the good fight. At the end of the apostle Paul's life, he wrote to Timothy and he said, I made it. I kept the faith. I fought the good fight.

And believe me, Paul's life was a life of battles, fighting. Sometimes tooth and nail. But he fought with the strength that God gives and that's critical. God has not called you and me into this land of promise to fight in our own strength. He's called us here to fight in His strength. If we get weary and we all get weary, then that simply means I need to wait on the Lord and have my strength renewed. Right? Isn't that the promise in God's Word? They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. Right?

But, you see, the reality is I'm often more tired than I am renewed because I'm walking this stuff out in the strength of Paul. And let me tell you something, the strength of Paul, you couldn't even fill a thimble with the strength of Paul. But the overflowing strength of the Lord is an abundant living water that gushes from our hearts if we would just take hold of it, and by faith, trust in the Lord to give us strength. Something the Lord's been saying to me lately, or I should say, reminding me about lately, is just the life that He's given us here on this earth. And even the body that He's given to you and me. This body is only here to serve us for a fairly short period of time. But one of the things the Lord reminded me of is, He said, Paul, I've given you this body to spend it on My behalf. I've not given you this body to save it. To hold it back and to save up for your own use. Because what did Jesus tell us? He who seeks to save his life. But he who loses his life for my sake will find it.

He says, I've given you this one body for your entire life on earth, but it's not for you to save. It's for you to spend on Me, on Me. On Him, on the kingdom of God. And that's really given me a whole new perspective, on how I live my life. And the things that I do, and the things that I do even when I don't want to do them. Sometimes there's things that you just don't want to do. I don't feel like it.

I don't feel good, or I'm tired, or I'm cranky, or I just don't want to do it. And that's me saving my life. It's me withholding my life for self. He says, I've given you this life to spend for Me. And as you do, you'll find your life. Isn't that a wonderful promise? Let's pray. Lord, we're excited about getting into the Book of Joshua. We're excited about learning all of the types that are laid out for us here in this book. About walking out the promises of God. Walking out the victory of God. Being wary of the schemes of the enemy who would seek to derail us, discourage us, and steal from us. Father God, we pray in Jesus name that as we go through this study, that You would direct us to learn what we need to learn, to apply what we need to apply so that we can walk out the victory. And take hold of all that You have for us. Lord, remind us again, it's ours. It's ours through Jesus Christ. It's ours for the taking. Help us, Lord to walk out what You have. To know and understand how to deal with the enemy when he rises and comes against us. How to deal with the issues of life that would keep us from walking in obedience. The things that would draw us away from being in the Word of God like we need to be, meditating on the scriptures. Help us, Lord, to walk in Your strength. We thank You for your grace and power. And we commit all of this to you in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior, amen. Amen. God bless you guys.