"Living life without the Fear" Week 4

Ok, we finally entered the magnificent book of Joshua for real this week. We have spent 3 weeks trying to give a helpful background to this time in the life and history of the Israelite people, this man Joshua, and of course the stunning relevance to our own lives and situation.

I intended to preach one sermon from the first nine verses but of course on deeper investigation discovered that there was more than enough Spiritual Meat to chew on for 2 weeks.
So we entitled this weeks sermon

NOTE THIS: GOD'S PRECIOUS PROMISES FOR FEARLESS LIVING NOT DELIVERED WITHIN REALITY VACUUM

The major emphasis of the sermon was as follows

THE IMMENSITY OF GOD'S PROMISES:

Within these few verses God gives 4 Immense promises to Joshua in preparing to enter the promised land that are so real for us as New Covenant believers. Those 4 are -
BEING IN THE WILL OF GOD -right there, right then God had Joshua exactly where he wanted him. We too have this promises if we respond to the leading of the Spirit.
THE POWER OF GOD - Vs. 3 & 4 All the power made available to Moses in his leading the people is promised to Joshua. This power is promised to us, see Acts 1: 8; I Jn. 4: 4; II Cor. 10: 4; Col. 1: 11.
THE PRESENCE OF GOD - Vs. 5, 8 Far greater than the promise of Power was this glorious promise of the actual presence of the 'I Am', YAHWEH the living, redeeming, covenant keeping God. That promise is for us see Acts 2; Heb. 13: 5; MAt. 28: 20
THE SUCCESS OF GOD - Vs. 8 Not to be reduced to human, narcissistic terms. The success of God is the joy of living in such a way that our lives draw other to His glorious love.

Note: These promises are made to a people on mission.

THE INDISPENSABILITY OF STRENGTH & COURAGE

"...see here that Joshua receives promise and assurance one after the other and then suddenly he is told he needs to be STRONG & COURAGEOUS. In fact God is almost like a stuck record on this one see vs. 6, 7, 9 (x2), Deut. 31: 6, 7, 8, 23.
Why is this the case? Surely after these magnificent words spoken to him he could have sat back on his camel-skin couch, munching on some dates and catching up on his favourite episodes of ‘Survivor: Sinai Desert ’ on his Sky+ box.

The opposite is true. It is exactly because there were such promises to claim, so much to be possessed that Joshua would need all the strength and courage imaginable. To embrace all the joy and the fruits of this new place there would need to be constant conflict against and eradication of all that would deny that.
It is exactly the same today! Every great promise of Ephesians 1 and which are distributed on almost every page of scripture are not delivered to us devoid of living within the reality of a fallen, secular, fear-inducing culture."


So that was the gist of it. There are stunning promises available but as is promised in II Tim. 1: 7, the need for Faith-inspired Strength & Courage to posess the promises.

Simon