Joshua: Word and Presence (With Audio)

By Ben Cole

• Intro
  1. Background: God’s people were finally to move into the promise land; 40 years in the wilderness had prepared them to obey God fully and to conquer with absolute authority; whether or not they do this fully, remains to be seen in the OT. Moses had led them out of Egypt as one of the greatest leaders the world has ever known. As a great leader, he participated with God Himself to raise up the next leader, Joshua.
     1. Promised land – why is that important? He is a God of covenants and He is preparing a place for His people.
        1. Covenant with Abraham for land
        2. God desires a place where His Kingdom can be lived out on earth. Holiness is supremely important to God, and throughout the Bible and throughout history, it has mattered to God that there is land dedicated to His leading and directive where He can dwell with His people.
        3. The promise land is connected to rest (Hebrews 3:16-4:11)
           1. Joshua leads the people to the promise land. The greater Yeshua delivers His people and leads them to the eternal rest of eternal promise.
     2. JESUS IS OUR PROMISE LAND, OUR REST, OUR BETTER COVENANT! God wants to dwell with His people, and Jesus is the way He does it!
  2. Point of the book of Joshua: conquer and settle. Receive the promise. Take over the land. Move into their dream home. Inherit the blessing. Defeat the enemy. Watch the wicked disintegrate. God shows up in amazingly victorious ways and, in a battle against physical and spiritual forces, God wins the battles on behalf of His chosen people! Who wouldn’t want to read a book like this?! It’s an epic of epics for sure. 
  3. Who was Joshua? What was his modus operandi? We learn more from studying the person of Joshua, in many ways, than we do from what he accomplished. Because, in reality, what he accomplished only happened because of who he was.
     1. Joshua son of Nun. Tribe of Ephraim. First note: his name actually isn’t Joshua. (Numbers 13:16) Moses called him Joshua instead of Hoshea – he is picked as the leader of his tribe, numero one capable leader even from the jump, but the name change indicates a shift in focus. Putting “Ya” in front indicates that it is Yaweah who is the deliverer. Hoshea and Yeshua both mean deliverer, but Yeshua means “God will deliver.” Moses rightly gives a great refocus on a man who was clearly a leader, but Moses wants to point in the right direction.
        1. As an aside, some scholars point to Genesis 41 and Daniel 2,4 (as well as Abram to Abraham in Genesis 17, Simon to Peter in Matthew 16, and in a way the Saul to Paul conversion in Acts 9) as a moment when Joshua was appointed as second in command, for the name change signified that appointment in other cross-references as well.
     2. Second note: Joshua is potentially alot older than you have thought he was. To be picked as the leader of your tribe, he’s not 15 years old. In fact, it’d be hard to believe he was anything less than 35-40 years old to be the most capable leader in his entire tribe. So, in Numbers 13 when he is selected to go spy out the land, he is already 35+ (likely younger than Caleb because Caleb was the speaker for the two of them). Add 40 years in the wilderness and he’s 75 at the youngest! Don’t check out after “working age” – still capable of letting God use your strength and wisdom!
     3. Ok, aside from physical attributes, what can we learn from Joshua the man? Exodus 33:11 – this is my favorite picture of Joshua. In all of his overcoming, in all of his takeovers, in all of his victories, in all of his fame as a conquistador, the first thing we need to know about Joshua is that he was a presence seeker.
        1. Context for v11 – Moses (and clearly Joshua as well) would go into the tent of meeting to hear from the LORD. The people would observe and wait, then Moses would come out and tell the people what the LORD had said. But where was Joshua? He did not leave the tent.
     4. The reality is that when Joshua took command, he wasn’t selected on the basis of being a brilliant commander in chief. We know him as a conqueror, but not because he had the ultimate game of risk or catan going on his head, moving pieces here and there with deft proficiency. We notice that what postured Joshua as a victor was the posture of his heart. Joshua did not want to leave the presence of God. Before he was a leader, Joshua was a learner. Before he was honored, Joshua was humble. Before he was a warrior, he was a worshipper.
        1. Joshua interned as a presence-seeker. Moses was close close to God (Deuteronomy 23:10-12). And Joshua took note; he knew to seek God’s presence.
     5. If we read nothing else nor talked about the rest of the book, we already summed up the big point. You can go home to your prayer closet now:) If you gotta go early, just take this to your prayer closet and watch the enemies flee and watch God fight for you. Dwell in God’s presence first and don’t leave!
     6. Intern as a presence-seeker. Ask God to hire you to intern as a presence-dweller.
        1. John 15:5
     7. So what’s Joshua’s recipe for success? According to my title, you’ll notice two answers to that question. We see here, Joshua’s pursuit of success is really a pursuit of God’s presence. His battle plans were often just what he heard the Lord tell him to do.
        1. I mean, think about Jericho. That iconic battle to defeat the armed and fortified stronghold doesn’t include highly effective recon from brigades, a super backdoor subversion or a detailed and staged movement of troops here and there. Listen to the battle plan: take a silent daily walk around town and then after a week of that shout God’s victory into the air.
           1. It’s not that what happened then is automatically applied to you; this story isn’t really about you. In fact, it’s not about Joshua either. It’s about God being God for His people. So without inserting yourself into this storyline as if you were the protagonist, the question remains insightful: ask yourself how many victories would you win in your life with a dedication to prayer walks? What if you took a week of silent prayer walks around town and then shouted God’s victory into the air, would you see the “walls” of your life crumble from the inside out?
           2. I wonder if God gave us this story in the playbook because He knew that was something we could do centuries later? No gimmicks, just quiet prayer walks.
        2. To further add to the lesson on interning under God as a praying presence seeker, we pick up on another important fact about Joshua throughout the book. And I think they go hand in hand:
           1. Joshua 3:1, 6:12, 6:15, 7:16, 8:10
           2. Joshua was a presence seeker. And sometimes you have to wake up before anyone else in your house to do that.
  4. Two more snapshots of Joshua, the man, both from Numbers
     1. Numbers 32:11-12 – start here as an overview of his resume
     2. Numbers 13, Numbers 14:38 – this is the story. And, again, we see Joshua  with a faith and a character that believed God’s presence with His people was far more important than any other factor.
        1. Numbers 13:1-24 – men chosen to spy out the land; they found grapes, milk and honey, and much more. A branch with a single cluster of grapes took two men to carry on their shoulders between a pole…
        2. Numbers 13:25-33 – they come back grumbling because the walls are big and the people are big. (Read Numbers 13:30-14:10 on your own)
           1. After seeing God’s glory come down and hearing from Moses, some decided to go after all, but Moses warned them: Numbers 14:40-45. God’s presence did not go with them and they did not have victory.
        3. “I don’t even care if we are facing an other-worldly superhuman race. We have God on our side!” While all of the other spies returned talking about how big the giant clans were, Joshua and Caleb were focused on how big God was.
        4. While his comrades were worried about appearing as small as grasshoppers to the humans of the land, as well as the nephalim (Numbers 13:33), Joshua and Caleb realized the truer reality that even the giants were waaaaay smaller than a grasshopper in comparison to the God who created the worlds and would be present with His people.
        5. The defining reality, once again for Joshua, is God’s presence. If, as Romans 8 says, God is for us, who can be against us?!
        6. We see what Deuteronomy 34:9 says of Joshua: he was Spirit-filled with wisdom!
  5. And a final point on Joshua’s military expeditions: for this one we go back to Exodus 17, and this is back to the prequel intern days of Joshua. He was tasked to choose the fighting men and go out to battle against a strong and deadly foe. You remember the story: the people were fighting the Amalekites and whenever Moses’ hands were raised, they prevailed, but if his hands sank, they failed. Aaron and Hur propped up and made steady his lifted hands until the defeat of the enemy.
     1. We read an interesting backstory in Exodus 17:14 – “write this in a book as a memorial and recite it to Joshua…” Which begs the question, why recite it to Joshua? He was there in the middle of the fight! But I think the truth of the matter for Joshua is a truth for us as well: sometimes you don’t know the victory happened off the battlefield with someone’s hands raised to God and it was He who fought for the victory.
     2. One of the most common phrases in the book, if not the most repeated concept is that God fights for His people (recall back to Joshua’s name change)
        1. References: Joshua 1:11,13,15,15; 2:9, 24; 6:2,16; 8:1,7; 10:8-14,19,25,30,32,42; 21:43,44; 22:4; 23:3,10,15; 24:11,13,17,18
        2. Proof on one of these points: archeology has shown that the walls of Jericho fell out. That is significant because a siege happens from the outside and armies trying to get in. But the walls fell from the inside out because God destroyed them. No one can come along later in history and say that the people of Israel just hammered it down…
• Ok, that was the intro. But, glad to take the time, because if we understand who Joshua was, we can really understand the rest a whole lot easier. This is an epic of stories but it highlights who God is and who Joshua was, above the cool battle scenes.
  1. Joshua 1 – here’s where we get to the other part of my title: word. Joshua’s recipe for success, if you will.
     1. And, if you are paying attention later in the book, you will see that after a second attempt and victory at Ai, Joshua reads the entire book of the law for the people. And “there was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel with the women and the little ones and the strangers who were living among them.” (Joshua 8:35)
  2. Joshua 1:1-9 – read. I told you it was epic! Wahoooo sign me uppp:) God is so cool and we will see that in this book. It is as clear of a OT book to see God flexing His battle muscles, exacting judgment and punishment on the terrors of wickedness and claiming the victory as the all-powerful God. Let’s go, baby!
     1. Repetition:
        1. God’s presence (v5,9)
        2. Be strong and courageous (v6,7,9,18)
        3. Do according to the law (v7,8,18)
           **and all of this was a repeat of Deuteronomy 31:7-8
     2. And if we read this with any present day application, we can get even more jacked! Read II Corinthians 1:19-20; all of God’s promises are yes in Christ, who is the Amen to all these promises. God’s promises are yes and amen in Christ!
        1. Meaning…with each application of the promises of God, it is Christ who fulfills and receives the glory and is the supreme focus on each promise! Joshua was not the point. The people of God were not the point. We are not the point of these promises! Read Joshua 1:3 finding ultimate fulfillment with Christ as the amen and yes to that promise. Like the priests back then, our priestly land is actually the Lord Himself! Read Joshua 1:8 with Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of that promise to God’s peoole.
     3. So! Before I get too far, and we all get too excited, I want to address a tension in our Bible application: it’s the tension between prosperity and poverty. Thankfully there is only one true Gospel, but often the word gets put together as a “prosperity gospel” or a “poverty gospel.” We read verses like Joshua 1:6-9 and think, boom success is headed my way; God better do it. OR, in response to this partial truth, we can swung to the other pendulum and think that if we don’t have rags for clothes and give to peddlers on the street corner from every paycheck, we aren’t being faithful to God’s call. And if our tension muscles aren’t strengthened, we might feel obligated to accept one as opposed to the other. But, in reality, they are both true and we can affirm them both, praise the Lord.
     4. Baseline truth we need to understand: IT’S ALL GOD’S! (all caps) So before you get off thinking you earned this or that, or that you deserve this or that because you were a good little boy or girl, realize that nothing you have is your own, not even your life (Deuteronomy 8; Acts 20:24; Matthew 6:19-21; Matthew 19:21). And even if you did think it was your own, Jesus makes it clear you better be ready and actively seeking how you can give it away.
     5. Deflect ALL credit and ALL ownership to the LORD.
        1. Conversation with a close friend: late at night in a new house texting back and forth about that I had purchased the house because I had “white privilege.” We both missed the point.
     6. I Timothy 6 gives a good outline for this concept; I don’t need to steal your research opportunity with the Lord, but two places I will highlight here.
        1. I Timothy 6:8 “if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content.” (oooh, take one minute to do a personal inventory of that reality)
        2. I Timothy 6:17-19 – being rich isn’t a sin; in fact, it allows us to see in fuller perspective that God “richly supplies us with all good things to enjoy.”
     7. Jesus, to the rich young ruler, says he needed to sell his possessions and give it away. To Timothy, pastoring in Ephesus where they struggled with wealth and with false asceticism (believing that the body should be treated harshly in order to be godly), God affirms that He has given us all good things to enjoy. Both are true.
        1. Our landing pad is that God is in charge, all of everything we have really belongs to Him, and the point of it all is to glorify God. So: glorify God by giving it all away and serving Him in the inner city or in a remote village. And/or: glorify Him by making disciples and preaching the Gospel at a cocktail dinner with the presidents of every company in town.
     8. It could very well be God’s best plan for you/your family to be on meager means in this season and that is your worship and obedience. It could equally be true for another that God’s best for you is to be in and around the presidents’ and owners’ club at a cocktail dinner. We should be prepared for both, even if right now we are in one or the other. Because the reality is that God can change that state in an instant and we can preach the Gospel seamlessly in both!
     9. The point? Glorify God in everything. It’s ultimately He who decides who gets what and who will be faithful with what. And who needs which challenging season or smooth season. Glorify God with your wealth and from the first of your produce (Proverbs 3:9-11).
     10. I take a few minutes on this theological rabbit trail because Joshua is a book into which we can insert ourselves very easily and unwittingly adopt heretical practices. It’s a story that we all want to live out, conquering and taking over. But we need to be careful because with a dash of this and a splash of that, we can declare our recipe for success and prosperity in a cookbook that God didn’t even write.
  3. Back at it – the things we notice from Joshua are that he is a presence-seeker and he holds fast to the word of God. God certainly is with His people and, when they obey, He delivers them from every opposition and puts fear in the hearts of all the land (Joshua 2:9-11).
     1. Examples of God doing amazing things with and for His people
        1. Crossing the Jordan
        2. Jericho
        3. Cast lots to determine why they lost to Ai – it was narrowed down to one man who caused the nations’ loss. Wow, think about it, but that’s pretty cool that all things could be revealed with a prayerful toss of the lots. As Joshua said to Achan: “son, give glory to God and confess your sin”
        4. Sun stands still
           1. Joshua 10:14, 25, climax of this theme at v42
        5. “More were destroyed with the hailstones thrown by God than by the sword of Joshua.”
  4. One of my favorite themes to pull out for the Church
     1. Joshua 4 followed with I Peter 2
        1. Collection of stones as a memorial, a billboard of sorts in the road ways of the ANE. And the purpose was so that in future times your children may ask (v6,7 and v21-24) “what meaneth these stones?” and you can say God did something here!
        2. Built up as a spiritual house of living stones (I Peter 2:4-10), we are that collection of rocks for people to ask “what meaneth these stones?” And our response is still as powerful today as it was when the waters parted: “these stones built and held together are a sign that God did something here!”
     2. I Corinthians 3:11 and I Corinthians 10:4
  5. Marching through the book, we stop quick at Joshua 5.
     1. It’s a full chapter on holiness, another tip of the cap as to why God is giving them a land to have as their own anyway.
     2. This chapter and point is highlighted with the interaction of Yeshua and Yeshua (well, preincarnate Yeshua anyway). And we’re really left with a cliff-hanger, but the point is strong: this place is holy because God’s presence is here.
  6. Another thought provoking concept from the book of Joshua: don’t just blindly obey what you think the Bible says. Read Joshua 9
     1. Yes, share with people who need it, foreigner and local alike.  BUT, don’t do it at the cost of truly obeying God in another area of direct command.
     2. Examples:
        1. It took me hours to get home from work back in the day because I would stop and talk to everyone that was walking or sitting alone in a park. Not necessarily because the Spirit led me, but because I over-applied the need for evangelism. Yes, it’s good and most of us don’t look for opportunities often enough, but it isn’t just a blanket requirement. That’s why we need the Spirit to lead; requires that we go with His leading!!
        2. We let someone stay in our home based on a verse from the OT, but he ended up bringing demonic attack and spiritual warfare with him.
  7. Inheritance rights: thoughts and truth nuggets
     1. Again, why does God want to divide out the land? I think it’s important to the Lord for His people to have spaces over which they can have dominion, over which His laws can dictate the way of life, and on which ground He can inhabit with His temple. And that carries to today’s land owners too: the reason God gives you anything is so that you can exercise dominion that leads to obedience and His temple dwelling among you.
     2. Best of the best: Levites. You get this land with mountains, you get this land down by the river, you get this land over by the hills, etc. Oh and you Levites, you get God. Who needs a field of crops when you inherit and pass down to your kids something waaaaay better, the God who created that field! What an amazing inheritance!
     3. Caleb’s inheritance – a promise fulfilled to a man of faithfulness (Joshua 14)
        1. Every other inheritance is to a group of people. Caleb gets an entire mountain and its surrounding cities and pastures as his inheritance, an inheritance he eventually shares with the priests (see Joshua 21).
        2. There is a blessing for faithful men sometimes that goes way beyond the blessing of general children of God
           1. He didn’t receive it for 40 years, just by way of observation. But it was a super inheritance
     4. Joshua 16,17 – Let the enemy live and stay in your land and you’ll have to share your children’s inheritance and livelihood with cheaters and liars and thieves and wicked ones…they might even come up and try to take over, try to marry your children, and denigrate your promise land (see Joshua 16:10; 17:12-13,17-18)
        1. Lesson to learn here: if you think you don’t have enough space in your life, you need to get rid of the enemies you have let live and who continue to steal from you and your family’s worship of Jesus. Obedience to His directives always leads to more freedom in your life!
           1. Does it increase your worship of Jesus and make you feel free before the Lord to watch the Olympics? (you can tell when I was writing some of this sermon…) Does it increase your worship of Jesus and make your life freer to have an instagram account. Does it lead you to worship Jesus for you to purchase the new items you wanted. Does it lead you to worship Jesus to — fill in the blank –. The answer could quite possibly be yes. If not, perhaps it is an enemy stealing space in your life. Just make sure it is obedience and love of Jesus that motivates you, not comfort or fear.
        2. Now, back to the ski slopes from the Olympics, I recall a life lesson I learned in high school when I was trying to improve in the terrain park doing tricks in the air and on the rails: don’t half-butt when trying to grind the rails. If you don’t fully commit to jump up on the rail, you’ll be sliding off (or worse, you’ll be split and land on your buns or your crotch…) Or you will only do a partial spin in the air and land where you don’t want to land and it ends up hurting even more than if you sent it full send!
        3. When conquering the promises of God, don’t half-butt your obedience or you’ll land on your butt and ruin your enjoyment
     5. Joshua 21 – lots were cast for the Levites to have territory among the people; God used the lot extensively with the priests
        1. Check out verse 41 – “all the cities of the Levites in the midst of the possession of the sons of Israel were forty-eight cities with their pasture lands.”
        2. God’s priests lived in the middle of everyone and everything. It wasn’t an exclusionistic club aloof from it all, rather a highly called and highly blessed people who lived among and in the middle of it all. Run that down to today’s priests; I think God’s design might be that you live in the middle of everyone and everything so you can offer up spiritual sacrifices pleasing to God on the alter of your home and heart right in the middle of everyone around you.
     6. Joshua 22 – this is a sweet glimpse into a people committed to God
        1. Reward and recommissioning (Joshua 22:1-6)
        2. But then there’s an alter built. And it’s raised some concern (vv10-12)
           1. Check out the story tidbits:
              1. v16 – nobody is taking this as a side issue. There is a supreme concern for God’s singularity of deity. He alone is worthy! So, to use a hockey term, they drop the gloves and are ready to start swinging.
              2. v21-29
              3. In the end it’s an epic brag on God above all others and passing it on to the next generation!
  8. Point of Joshua? Word and presence. Pursue those both and watch God do and fight on our behalf as you partner with Him in every way He allows!

Bonus thoughts/topics for discussion:

• why fully destroy the enemy? Is God a mean jerk in heaven who doesn’t care about humans?, the critic might ask. God doesn’t let any evil stay around. He’s a Good King with good purposes for His entire Kingdom. Think about it; it wouldn’t be a good king who would let criminals hang around and live their nefarious, devious, destructive, fractious ways.
  • Take this truth and apply it to the scenario at hand and it makes even more sense. When we understand a little about the enemy in question, we understand also why it’s not just God throwing in the towel and wanting to destroy people. These are people who are doing the opposite of what God has designed. They serve other gods and sacrifice babies / worship idols / do other stupid stuff that kills and destroys the life God designed. These are not good people.
  • Additionally, we know some of them are not even fully human, but are the result of angels overpowering women and birthing a partial human race; the Bible calls these a number of different names, but they are mostly called Nephalim (Numbers 13). So, again, God is asking for complete destruction of something that He didn’t design and isn’t His created order.
• What did Joshua and pre-Jesus God talk about in Joshua 5?