Joshua 1:1-6
After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall [a]divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
Introduction
Mark Twain once said that “the only person who likes change is a wet baby.” Change is often a hard thing, and especially a change in leadership. We have been extremely blessed in this church that we have not truly had a massive amount of change in leadership other than me and Doak! But even with those changes, there often is a time where it seems that there are either stresses or discomfort. Think about this: when you were growing up, you had growing pains. Even as you get older, you get other pains! Maybe we need to call those shrinking pains, right? In any case, when change happens, it is a time where we have an opportunity to see the Lord in action. But we must be aware, too, that this is one of those times where Satan will try to attack us and build a wall between us and the Lord. He’ll try to remind us that “well, wasn’t it better when we did it this way under this person?” or “well, those ideas might have been good where that person came from, but it won’t work here!” I saw this this week on a website that said that “the Bible is a book about changes, those handled well resulted in great gains, and those handled poorly resulted in great losses.” This same website reminded us that the only thing that does not change is God, though. God is constant, but is still dynamic! The essence of God is that he is steadfast, and is wanting to pull us closer to Him at all times. He provides us the way to overcome this wall that Satan builds when we have changes in leadership. Let’s look at how the change from Moses to Joshua affected God’s people.
Change of Leaders
Moses had led his people out of Egypt, had led them through the Red Sea, and had come to the end of his life. We see two important things at the end of the book of Deuteronomy, which is the previous book. In the 31st chapter of that book, he tells the people that he is 120 years old, and had been told by God that he would not cross the Jordan to lead his people into the promised land. Moses summons Joshua to him in front of all of God’s people and says ““Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.” He then inaugurates Joshua in the Tabernacle, showing to the people that Joshua is the leader. We then see in chapter 34 that Moses goes to Mount Nebo, which was across from Jericho, and God showed him the promised land. But in verse 9 of that chapter, it states “Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; so the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.”
Now, this is interesting to me because the change of leadership from Moses to Joshua had been conducted through mankind. Moses, of course, had been chosen by God to lead his people. But to this point in the story, God’s choice of leader had not been shown. I’m certain that Moses had talked with God about who would lead his people. But it is not until the first chapter and first verse of the book of Joshua that we see this: God’s word says “it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them - the children of Israel.” This is the announcement to Joshua that yes, God approves of him as being the leader to succeed Moses!
Now, there’s a few things to unpack here. First, there is an acknowledgement that Moses was God’s servant. He had served God with greatness, even though he would commit sin that would prevent him from leading his people into the promised land. This statement of Moses being the servant of the Lord was a simple acknowledgement of faithfulness for the past, and also for the direction for the present and future to begin in earnest. But we have to see that the people of God didn’t just move on quickly. There was true mourning for their leader. The people mourned his death for 30 days, which was the custom of the time. But you can imagine that during that time there was great emotions happening. The questions of “what are we to do without our leader?” and “can this Joshua guy do more than just battle? Can he do the diplomatic things and the spiritual things as well?” But we have to remember in this instance that God had already approved of Joshua. I will say that it’s good to recognize the past, to appreciate it, and to celebrate the great things that the leaders of the past have done for us. When a new person stands into a leadership position, it truly is that they are standing on the foundation that has been laid already for them in that position. But it is not good to continue pining for a past that is already gone.
Let me tell you a story about a church that pined for their previous pastor. This church was centrally located within a large city, and was primed well for a breakout. Their pastor served their church well, but unfortunately, he had died of a massive heart attack. He was well remembered, well honored even. But that drastic grief that this church encountered with this man dying after leading the congregation so well left its mark. The pastor that came after him was a dynamic pastor, and did a great job of encouraging his congregation to get out and to truly take part in the mission of the church, which was to bring people into the church and to grow in Christ. However, there was a small group of people who held onto the past, and held onto it hard. They never were able to get past their grief of losing that past minister. They undermined the new pastor, and undermined the new members. They undermined even the next minister, and the next, and the next until it became the new culture of that church. It still hasn’t been fully broken in that church, although that church is still working to this day, and still has hope to be fixed by the Lord.
A change in leadership is always hard. Change does not come easily for all people, and since we are truly part of the body of Christ, we have our own opinions as to how we are to operate. But we must remember that change is part of life, and is part of God’s plan. While some things had changed for the people of God, the mission itself had not, nor has the mission of the church today! God has not changed, and the goal has not changed.
God says to his people “Now then, you (meaning Joshua) and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them - the children of Israel”. Like I said: the mission has stayed the same for Joshua and God’s people. God had promised them the land, and He was not going to let them down! And because of that, the people couldn’t live in the past anymore. If they didn’t embrace the future with this new leadership, then they were doomed to failure.
There is always a sense, even in changes, that there are some constants that we can rely on. Truthfully, there are if you believe. The constant is always God. God never changes, His word never changes, His commands and Laws never change. God is the constant that you can rely on in all changes in your life!
There is evidence of this right in this passage. The leadership had changed, but the promises did not. In verse 3, God says that he will give them the land wherever their feet land, “as I said to Moses”. The goals stay the same even though there was a change in leadership. God says that all the land will be theirs. And finally, God shows that even though the leadership has changed, HIS power and strength will still be there for the people to accomplish the mission. It says so in verse 5 where is reads “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave or forsake you.” This sounds familiar, does it not? Remember that Jesus says to us in Matthew 28:20 “surely I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Here is the great secret when things change in leadership: it may be the end of one leader’s responsibilities for that position, but it is never the end of the mission itself.
III. Change of Style
So, we are now at the point where the people of God had gotten over their initial shock of losing Moses, but here we have Joshua in the place of leadership. A potential place where Satan can attack and build that wall between God and his people is when this occurs, too. Things have gotten to a point where they might start to feel somewhat normal, even if things have changed. But then little things begin to happen. There might be a change in how things are done in the church, in how things are presented, in what events happen. It might even be that the person in charge is a good bit different than the one who preceded him or her. There can be changes in our churches without losing out on the overall change not to be successful. Change has to be approached correctly for continuity to occur.
Look at what God does with Joshua. He tells him to be strong and courageous twice! The first is to be strong and courageous as he conquers and divides the land between the tribes of Israel. The second time, it is a reminder to stay strong to the Word of God. It is further repeated another two times during this chapter alone, and how many times in the Bible does God remind his people to be strong and courageous? Our character in our witness counts for so much, as does our leadership in our Christian lives. Joshua had different gifts from God, different from Moses, but yet their character and their commitment to God was the same. Joshua had proven himself to God, and in turn God showed his commitment to him.
But what else was there to do to make sure that the style of leadership would be successful? God tells Joshua to take the Word of God as the defining guideline of his leadership. For us, when we ignore the word of God, our lives become harder. It’s almost like we have no guideposts or signs to help us along in our lives. It reminds me of the early days of World War 2. When the Nazis invaded France, the French people took down signs and guides that would assist the Nazis. As the Nazis moved further into France, they didn’t know which way to turn or which direction their objectives were. As one writer stated, “does it seem to you that the signposts of life have all been taken down? They were not taken down by us to confuse the enemy; they were taken down by the enemy to confuse us. We don’t know which way to turn until we open the Scriptures. The only reliable signposts are there.” When we get away from our scriptures, we allow Satan to throw a wall up in the way of new leadership and for us to not listen to the new style that will be there. But we have hope.
God promises Joshua, and in turn us if we listen and read and commit the scriptures to our very souls, that we will have success. When we realize that it is not I, nor anyone else who might fill this pulpit, is the ultimate authority in this church, nor even in this community, but rather that it is God and God alone, we will see that success. God alone is the final authority for mankind! And know this, too, this is not just for preachers to be good leaders. The truth is this: all of us are leaders, and God uses us as his instrument for his message.
IV. Change of Commitment
We are comfortable when we have stable leadership. And frankly, when that happens, it is very difficult when things change. Satan uses that to his own advantage because we want things to be familiar and to be the same. There is the old adage, “You can never go home”. Why is that said? Because in reality, home is never the same. Even if we’re truthful, even when we are living at home our homes never stay the same. Change is hard! But if it is done with the Lord, then it can become easy.
We see in verses 10 and 11 that it was the time for action for the Israelites and Joshua. God had commissioned Joshua, told him what to do, and now was the time to do it. But there was an important part of this that cannot be understated. Joshua instructs the PEOPLE to prepare for forward momentum again. It was time again to move God’s plan into action! G.K. Chesterton, who was an English writer at the turn of the 1900s said this: “we do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.” Joshua could not do all the work himself. There was no way for that to happen. Can you imagine if you heard of someone trying to conquer a land by himself? It never has happened, and never will! Joshua enabled the people to get involved with the mission itself.
One of the great signs of a good leader is to do just that: to enable people to do their jobs, and to do it well. So many of the books on leadership is instruction on how to do that. All good leadership is always a shared experience. Even our Lord did this! Look at how many times he enabled the disciples to go and do work. Look how he sent people out to share the message. But it takes a shared commitment to do this. It takes a commitment to God, to the promises of God, and those who are not afraid to move forward with what God has laid at our feet to go and do.
Joshua tells the officers of the camp to go to the people and gives them the instructions on how to proceed. One of the other great hallmarks of leadership is to enable and empower others to do work. This doesn’t mean that the leader is off the hook for leadership. In fact, we know that this is one of the greatest walls that Satan builds in churches today when the pastor decides to be the CEO rather than the servant to his congregation! No, the work continues, but it is shared and is empowering to do so even for the pastor! It is a trust that the leader does this, and demonstrated in Joshua’s time and even still today that he was part of them, not just the head of them to be followed without question or without concern on his part. Something that we can learn from this, both from Moses and from Joshua, and will empower us in this church, is that when we share servanthood with others, it promotes servanthood. It is something that each and every one of us can do, and will be the pathway to seeing people right here in the Valley come to Jesus Christ!
There is one final part of this commitment that can be attacked by Satan. Have you ever been part of a team where roles were assigned to everyone? Might have been a science fair project, or even something in your work. Now, we know that everyone should see their part completed, but if it’s a project, it is understood that you will be available to help with its completion. Now, with that said, have you ever had someone get done with their part but just dropped out when all the rest of the people were still working on that project? It becomes a lot harder, doesn’t it? Sometimes, we are called into doing God’s work in our lives, and we do it, but we get to a point where we don’t want to do it anymore. We just drop out, and let others take up the slack. We let others who have more training do it. We leave all the work on just a few people. It’s hard, I understand. It’s hard to balance life out and leave enough room to still get done with everything that you want to get done with as well. But there is a need for everyone to still be available.
In the last few verses of this chapter, Joshua realized that as the promised land was taken, people would want to settle into their lands. But this would leave Joshua at a disadvantage going forward! Joshua understood that he was going to need everyone to be there until the very end of the fight. Joshua instructs the people to stay and fight until the very end, then everyone could truly benefit. The goal of the promised land was not just to get a piece of the pie and slack off, it was to to help each other achieve the promises that God had given to his people. And in turn, in our day today, doing God’s work is not just about personal satisfaction, or even personal prosperity, it is about doing the work together to achieve God’s purposes! They had to change their commitment to ensure that the purposes of God in their lives were fulfilled.
V. Conclusion
The success of Israel to experience all God had promises was contingent more on their working together than it was on just a certain person to lead them. There are a few last things that we learn from God’s word from this passage that if we are not careful, Satan will use to create discord and disunity. The people had to be united in their purpose to God. They had to support the new leader that God had raised up for them. They had to trust the promises that God had given them. And they had to have faith in the mission that God had given to them. It was only through this faith that they would realize that change would not hurt them.
We know that Satan does great harm when leadership changes if we let him. While personnel can change, we must remember that the character of leadership must not. It must be focused on what God wants for that ministry to do. Even though there might be a change in style from leader to leader, it must not be to the detriment of knowing and committing God’s Word to our lives. And finally, there has to be a commitment of all the people to God’s purposes. We can know from Joshua’s story that the personnel may have changed, the mission had not. What was the result of following through on that mission? The Israelites conquered the promised land! God will truly move things forward even in the midst of change because He himself never changes, and it is on Him that we have our ultimate hope, not the individual.
God truly is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We can truly be at peace when everything around changes because of that. Do you know that God always moves in our changes to move us towards him, never away? And to move us forward in our lives, never backwards? We can remember good things from our past, and we can improve upon it. But God is giving us an opportunity to continue to work with Him to fulfill His promises right now. In every change, we can be sure that God is planning for our good. And in that way, we can embrace change and welcome it. Let’s pray.
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