Joshua 1
“Recipe for Courage”
January 3, 2010 - Epiphany Sunday

         “Is civilization going to collapse at the stroke of midnight?” That was the question facing us just a little over ten years ago as we waited for January 1, 2000 to roll around and unleash the dreaded effects of the Y2K computer glitch. As we all know now, there was nothing to worry about. The lights didn’t dim, the water stayed running, the Internet didn’t crash, and most personal computers entered the new millennium working just fine.

         Now we stand at the beginning of another new decade and our worries about the future are not so focused and clear. We can’t prepare by stockpiling a few gallons of fresh water or some extra flashlights. We’re worried about unknown threats involving job security and housing prices and stock market trends and terrorists on planes. If there was a way to turn the calendar back ten years or so, we might go for it. More than ever, as we look into the months ahead, there is a need for courage.

         As the book of Joshua opens, God’s people, the Israelites, were themselves standing on the brink of a new era, facing the unknown, in need of courage. Forty years after their miraculous Exodus from Egypt, they were preparing to enter the land God had given to them through their ancestor Abraham. Those who were adults when they left Egypt were mostly gone. Leadership had passed to a younger generation. The highest leadership role of all had changed. Joshua 1:1 begins, “After the death of Moses…”

         One of the things older people like myself do in the face of disturbing changes is look back and remember the good old days. We remember when you felt comfortable and safe on an airplane. We remember when buying a house was a secure investment. We remember when it was easy to repair your own car and when a year at a private college didn’t cost a year’s income. We remember this president or that president who was a real leader. And we miss those times, that leadership.

         So the children of Israel missed Moses. The last three verses of the previous book, Deuteronomy, reflect their opinion of him. “Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt… For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.”

         Just think what that meant to Joshua as he took over the reigns. It was already a given that he would never fill Moses’ shoes. He would never be the wonder-working prophet and leader that his mentor had been. He would never know God the way Moses had. He would always be, forever in the eyes of history, a second-rate second fiddle to the Great Man.

         Like Tiberius after the death of Caesar Augustus or Andrew Johnson after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Joshua might have been a reluctant and ineffective heir to his great predecessor. Like the second Roman emperor or the seventeenth president, Joshua might have accepted his new role hesitantly and carried it out dismally. Instead, the man after Moses led well, fought well, and courageously served God. Here in our text, Joshua is told to “be strong and courageous” three times. At the end of the chapter, his people repeat it back to him, “be strong and courageous.”

         As many of you know, our oven at home has been broken for most of December. We finally got it repaired last week. So Susan and Joanna have been able to mix up and bake some of their favorite recipes. That suggested to me that there is a recipe here in the first chapter of Joshua, a recipe for courage.

         The first ingredient in Joshua’s recipe is the recognition that his success did not depend on himself. Joshua’s mission was to take up where Moses left off, and lead the Israelites into Canaan, conquering it to be a homeland for them. But here we see that Joshua was not the one giving his people their land. As God speaks in verse 2, He tells Joshua to lead the people “into the land I am about to give you.” The land is God’s Gift.

         In fact, in verse 3, which in the NIV reads, “I will give you every place where you set your foot…,” the verb is not really future tense. God actually told Joshua, “I have given you every place where you set your foot…” Because God was doing it, it was already done. Joshua and the people were merely receiving a gift, claiming what God had already given them.

         Joshua’s very name is a reminder to us that God is the one at work, both in the blessing of the promised land and in our own salvation. “Joshua” is what Moses named him as a young man. It’s one of the first names in Scripture to incorporate the special, holy name of the Lord. It means “God saves.” We know the Greek form of Joshua as “Jesus,” who was named after the second leader of Israel to remind us of just that. It is God who saves us and not ourselves. It’s a Gift.

         As we enter the new year, making resolutions, working hard and exerting every effort to find happiness and peace and security, remember that God had already given Joshua the land. And we remember the Gift we celebrated last week, the Gift of God’s own Son. We don’t produce peace and salvation by our own efforts. God saves. It’s a Gift.

         God stirred up Joshua’s courage, beginning with a Gift. Then verse 5 directs Joshua to pour God’s commitment to him into the mix. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.” It’s right after God said He would be with Joshua, in verse 6, that He first tells him to be strong and courageous. None of their enemies would overcome them, because God would be with them.

         God’s Presence is the next ingredient in the mix of our courage. God said He would be with Joshua. In Jesus, God said He would be with us. The Christmas name “Immanuel,” means “God with us.” God’s Gift of His Son was not temporary, not finished even with His life, death and resurrection. Jesus told us in Matthew 28:20 that He would be always be with us. Like Israel facing the Canaanites, nothing we fear will overcome us, because in Christ God is with us. We have His Presence.

         The third addition to Joshua’s courage seems strange. The Israelites were poised on the eastern bank of the Jordan. They were about to cross the river into enemy territory. They had long years and many battles ahead of them. Yet in verses 7 and 8, the call to courage is not about military bravery. God says, “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you… Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips, meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.”

         Into the batch with Gift and Presence, goes the seemingly odd ingredient of Instruction. Remembering and keeping God’s Word make them courageous. And they were to be courageous about hanging on to the Word, about doing what it says. When they followed the Instruction that God had given them in the Law of Moses, that’s when they would be “prosperous and successful” says the end of verse 8. The Hebrew words translated “prosperity” and “success” don’t so much mean physical wealth as they imply spiritual well-being. It’s when people live by God’s Instruction that they have good lives.

         Let you and I remember to add Instruction to our own lives. As much as we are glad to have the Gift of Christ and the Presence of God with us, we are not always so faithful to regularly and carefully blend in a good measure of His Instruction. Yet Instruction is the one ingredient that brings courage together and gives it a richness and depth it would otherwise lack.

         We watched “Julie and Julia” just before Christmas and one of the little themes of the film is the glory of butter. Reflecting on how much butter Julia Child put in her recipes, Julie Powell said, “any time you taste something that’s delicious beyond imagining and you say ‘What's in this?’ the answer is always going to be butter.” Whenever you see a strong Christian who is truly courageous, and you wonder what’s the ingredient that makes her that way, it’s always going to be Instruction, study and meditation on God’s Word.

         So there’s the recipe for courage: Gift, Presence and Instruction. In verses 10 and 11, Joshua gets ready to put that stirred up batter in the oven, the oven of war, as he prepares the tribes of Israel to cross over the Jordan River.

         Yet starting with verse 12, there is one last ingredient that comes into play in cooking up courage for Joshua and Israel. Joshua makes a point to address the two and a half tribes, Reuben, Gad and Manasseh, who had already claimed territory east of the river. Those tribes might easily have settled down, stayed home, and let their cousins do all the hard work of fighting for land on the west side. Yet Joshua reminds them in verse 13 that through Moses God had promised to give them rest in that land, but only if their fighting men joined in the battle with everyone else, until says verse 15, “the Lord gives them rest.”

         This idea of Rest became a key theme in Scripture. In Hebrews 4 and 5 it is a way of talking about the hope we look forward to in Christ. In fact, the writer to the Hebrews points out that the work of Joshua did not lead to a final and complete rest. God’s people have continued to have to struggle and labor ever since. Yet Hebrews 4:9 and 10 say, “There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for those who enter God’s rest also rest from their own work.”

         Rest is the last ingredient in courage, the icing, the sugar coating, the gravy, the spice, however you want to see it. How could we brave a new year, even a new day, if we thought that life was just one endless struggle and battle after another? But when we trust in Jesus Christ and base our courage in His Gift, His Presence, His Instruction, then we have before us the hope and promise of Rest, just as the tribes of Israel had before them a hope and promise of finally resting in the land God was giving them.

         What ultimately makes us brave in Christ, is the promise that we won’t always have to be brave. When He gives us Himself, when we find Him beside us and with us, when we live in His word and teaching, then we will receive those days, those times when we can simply rest in Him, and leave the battles behind. And the great and wonderful promise is that in Christ we are entering into a place unlike ancient Canaan, a Kingdom where there will be joy and rest forever.

         May Joshua give you a recipe to begin 2010, a recipe for courage. May you receive the Gift of God in Christ at His Table this morning. May you feel His Presence with you through His people around you today. May you hear and listen to His Instruction as it’s been offered to you in Scripture and preaching and song. And may the promise of blessed and peaceful Rest fill you with courage for whatever you will face tomorrow and in the years to come.

         Amen.

Valley Covenant Church
Eugene/Springfield, Oregon
Copyright © 2010 by Stephen S. Bilynskyj