Joshua 1:1-9

Moses my servant is dead. (Verse 2a)

It’s not quite what we experience in Methodism when one minister leaves and a new one arrives. Or, as is the case here, one minister in the circuit changes responsibilities and a new one arrives. But it is that time when we break with the past and set out on a new adventure. 

Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the River Jordan into the land I am about to give to them – to the Israelites. (Verse 2b)

I know our call is not literally to occupy geographical land, as was Israel’s. Nor is it military conquest. For Christians, crossing the Jordan and occupying the land is metaphorical. It is about breaking out of our holy huddles and bringing the Good News of God’s victory in Jesus Christ into the world. 

But even so, there are some parallels between the commands God gives Joshua and what he requires of us as we begin moving forward. These are commitments we can renew at our Covenant Service. Here are three. 

Firstly, be strong and courageous.

⁶ Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

⁷ ‘Be strong and very courageous.

I think Joshua gets the memo! Be strong and courageous; be strong and very courageous. 

There is no doubt that we need strength and courage to announce the Good News of God’s victory in Jesus Christ to the world. We know that we risk being mocked, ignored, or maybe at best patronised. We know that we live in a society that understands life in a very different way from the historic Gospel. On occasions, the difference can be so much that we are assumed to be a threat to the well-being of our society, and we are treated as enemies. The number of people with a residual sympathy for Christianity is declining fast.

When our world is like that, it’s little wonder that we can feel nervous about speaking up for Christ. No wonder we get worried. Unlike Israel, we do not face military enemies who can take our lives, but we do face people who may be cruel with words and other actions. 

We too need to hear the injunction to be strong and courageous. We need strength that will overcome our paralysing fears so that we act in word and deed for the Gospel. 

We need strength and courage to overcome the excuses we make for keeping silent about Jesus. I’ve heard some Christians engage in worthy social action programmes but keep quiet about their faith, while claiming that their social action was their evangelism. No, it wasn’t. It was a demonstration of the Gospel, but the Good News still needs to be proclaimed and explained. That requires our words. 

We don’t all need to be confident evangelists with slick presentations, we just need to be people who are willing to speak of what Jesus has done for us and what he means to us. We are witnesses: we speak of what we have seen and heard. 

Neither do we all need to be people with clever answers to the questions and objections people raise against our faith. We can say with all honesty, I don’t know an answer to what you are saying, but I will come back to you. In the meantime, we can bring their questions to the Christian community for reflection, and where people who are more specialised in their knowledge can offer some thoughts. We can and should do our own thinking, too – O for more Christians to do serious reading about their faith in between Sundays. 

At heart, we simply need to be people who will speak of the difference Jesus has made in our lives. A friend of mine is an Anglican priest, and he is serving in parishes in the Church in Wales. Every week, he puts a video on Facebook of an ordinary church member speaking about the difference Jesus has made them. 

Can we do that? If Jesus went to the Cross for us, surely we can do that? The Cross gives us the strength and courage we need. 

Secondly, be scriptural.

Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ 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. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Joshua doesn’t have the whole Bible at hand – obviously! He just has the Law that God has given Moses. But he is to follow the revelation he has been given. 

We, on the other hand, do have the entire Bible. It is the collection of books which the Church recognised had the particular signs of the Holy Spirit’s work as the apostles, prophets, and others recorded in their own styles what God had revealed to them. 

And in handling the Bible, we hold no ordinary book, or library of books. We hold a collection that in classical Christian terms is sufficient rule for our faith and practice. Its origins with the Spirit’s guidance of divinely commissioned messengers makes it the written Word of God. Its job is to point us to the living Word of God, Jesus himself. 

As Christians, we therefore have no liberty to depart from and contradict the teaching of Holy Scripture in all that it affirms about our faith and practice. We cannot soften our message when the world doesn’t like it. We cannot adapt our meaning to make it more congenial, for if we do so we are more concerned to please people than please God. And in any case, if we think that making ourselves more like the world will bring more people into the church, we are seriously deluded. If they don’t have to change, there is no need for them to join us! 

In my ministry among you, it will be my task to expound the teaching of the Bible as our primary guidance in their faith. I know there are difficult parts. Some are difficult, because we don’t understand them. Other passages are difficult, because we do understand them and don’t like them. But I will grapple with the difficulties and seek to provide a lead through such exposition. 

And I therefore call every Christian to a regular and sustained encounter with the Bible, so that we may engage seriously with the written Word and let it reveal to us the will of the living Word, Jesus himself. 

Can we renew that commitment at this our Covenant Service?

Thirdly and finally, the promise of God’s presence.

⁹ Have I not commanded 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.’

There it is a third time: ‘Be strong and courageous.’ Only this time it isn’t simply a command. It’s accompanied by a promise. In the Lord’s desire for us not to lapse into fear or discouragement, he makes Joshua and his people a promise: ‘the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.’

There is something similar here to the promise of Jesus to be with us always, even to the end of the age in Matthew 28. In both cases, the promise of the divine presence with his people is given in a specific context. And that context is of God’s people being sent out into the world as witnesses to him. Israel and her army will witness to the presence of God as they occupy a land where tribes who practise detestable things such as child sacrifice are. Christians will go into the world with the Good News of God’s victory over death and sin in Jesus Christ. 

It’s not just a general promise for God to be with his people. It’s a promise that God will be with his people at the very time they may need strength and courage. 

It is as if God said, I didn’t make up all this going into places where people will be hostile just for a bit of fun as I watch you suffer. Oh no. I will be with you. 

Christians may not have the sort of visible signs of God’s presence that Israel had in the wilderness, such as the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. In any case, that didn’t always stop Israel from disobeying. 

But the sign of God’s presence with us is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The work of the Spirit is to bear witness to Jesus, and he will do that in many ways in our lives. He will help us see Jesus in our everyday. He will fill us with the peace of Christ, and not only individually, the peace of Christ will dwell in our midst. The Spirit will be there to help us speak when we are opposed. He will be our Advocate when we are under accusation. 

We may be a long time past Pentecost in the church calendar, but this is as good an occasion as any in the Christian Year to cry, ‘Come, Holy Spirit. Come with the presence of God. Come to make us strong and courageous as we witness to Jesus. Come and enliven the Scriptures as we read them so that we may know the will of God.’

Yes indeed: come, Holy Spirit.