Joshua Chapter 1:1-8

But notice something, and this is really cool. God doesn't skip a beat. In the last book he was talking with who? With Moses. But now Moses is finished leading the children of Israel, so the Lord immediately picks up with Joshua and starts speaking to Joshua. And we need to understand that the Lord desires to speak to all of us.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the Senior Pastor of the Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we are excited to begin our study of the book of Joshua.

We see God passing leadership of the Israelites to Joshua following the death of Moses as Pastor David begins this study. But first, have you ever experienced a time when you felt spiritually drained? Well, the Bible holds the cure that will bring joy and vitality back into your life. That's why we want to send you a copy of Pastor David McGee's video message, A Checkup from the Neck Up. In this inspiring teaching, you'll find biblical truths that can restore your spiritual health. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life.

So please visit crossthebridge.com to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up. Now here's David McGee with his teaching from Joshua 1, Servants of the Lord. Turn with me to Joshua chapter 1. Joshua kind of serves as a connector, if you will, between Moses and Joshua and kind of leads into David, if you will. And I love Joshua. I love this book. It's some awesome stuff in here.

So let's dig in. Joshua chapter 1 verse 1. 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, well, let's just stop right there. Now again, whenever it says N-U-N, you'll hear me pronounce that Nun. I know it looks like nun, but it's from the Hebrew letter, which is an N, which the word of that's Nun.

Now notice something, and this is really cool. God doesn't skip a beat. In the last book, he was talking with who? With Moses. But now Moses has finished leading the children of Israel, so the Lord immediately picks up with Joshua and starts speaking to Joshua. And we need to understand that the Lord desires to speak to all of us. Now, no doubt, Joshua and Moses at times heard like an audible voice of the Lord, and I've never actually heard an audible voice of the Lord. It's more of that still small voice, that inner voice where the Lord is speaking to me. But nevertheless, the Lord desires to speak to me, and he desires to speak to you. That's not weird.

That's not abnormal. As a matter of fact, the Bible is filled with people who heard from the Lord, listened to the Lord, and it's almost like they walked around expecting God to speak to them. We can walk around expecting God to speak to us. Now, he may speak to us through his word. He may speak to us through a brother and sister. He may speak to us through a message, or it may be that still small voice.

And you know what I found? And it's interesting because some people say, you know, somebody hears the gospel on a Sunday morning. Even if they don't respond, at least they're one step closer to receiving the Lord. It sounds good, but it's not true.

Because here's what happened. They heard the voice of the Lord. They felt that tug on their heart, and they rejected Jesus, and they refused to hear the voice of the Lord. And you know what I found in my life? When you don't listen to the Lord, it actually sometimes gets a little easier not to listen to the Lord.

But if you listen to the Lord and you step out in faith on what God is telling you to do, somehow it seems like it's easier next time. It's like your spiritual ears are being exercised as you listen to the Lord and step out in faith. There's some interesting words here. It talks about servant and assistant. This is the New King James. If you're in King James, I believe it's minister. There's a word that we've really twisted, minister.

What it means is a helper or assistant. Or there's the concept coming in the New Testament. The Greek word is tied back to a word that actually means somebody as an under rower in a Roman ship.

Have you ever seen the pictures of the Roman ships? There's guys down in the bottom just doing this. If you say, where are you going? They'll say, don't know, just rowing.

Don't know where we're going to end up. Somebody knows I'm just rowing. That is such a beautiful picture of being a minister. Now understand, when I use the word minister, when we use the word minister here, we're not necessarily talking about a guy who walks around in a robe. We're talking about a minister, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And guess what? We are all supposed to be ministers. See, whoever, well, it's probably pretty obvious who came up with the lie that Christianity should be a spectator sport. You've got just a few of what you call professional Christians. And then, you know, the rest are lay people.

See, we've even developed that word. Lay people are laity opposed to the ministry people. That word laity comes from the Greek. It's kind of interesting because when you get in the book of Revelation and you probably have noticed how it says God hates the Nicolaitans. And maybe you've thought, well, who are the Nicolaitans? It's not good if you're from Nicolae or Nicolai or whatever. That's not good. Laity is people.

Nico or close to the word Nike is conquer. So the Nicolaitans are the people who have conquered the people or who stand in rule over the people. And Jesus is saying, I don't like that. I don't like that. But how we've twisted Christianity to where there's this separation of people who are in the ministry and the laity, when we're all supposed to be ministers, when we're all supposed to be ministers. And keep in mind, guys, if you call the office and you're like, hey, man, you know, I need so and so to please go pray with somebody or do this. One of the questions we might ask is, why don't you go?

Sounds like you know the situation, you know the person, they're your friend. Go pray with them. It will probably mean more than a stranger coming to pray with them. But we've tied stuff to this term of ministry. And really what it means is servant. Servant or slave.

The early Christians, godly men, called themselves by these phrases. Titus chapter 1 verse 1 says, Paul, a bondservant of God. Now if you're in the New King James, it's bondservant. If you're in King James, it's servant. If you're in the New Living Translation, it's slave.

In each one of these examples. Paul, a bondservant of God, an apostle of Jesus Christ according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness. It's not just Paul. James describes himself this way. James chapter 1, 1. James, a bondservant of God, a servant or a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter, 2 Peter 1, 1. Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ. Jude chapter 1. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. It says Titus 1, 1, James 1, 1, 2. Peter 1, 1, Jude 1 for those who are taking notes. They use this as a way to introduce themselves.

Isn't that cool? Hey, I'm Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ. I'm James, a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Simon Peter, a servant.

And understand something. This ties back to a Hebrew concept. Let's mention a couple times in the scriptures. Exodus chapter 21 verse 6 says, then his master shall bring him to the judges. Talking about the slave who could be set free but he makes a decision. He shall also bring him to the door or to the doorpost and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl and he shall serve him forever.

Now get the picture. In other words, there was a servant who was going to be set free and he said, you know what? This is what I want to do with my freedom.

I want to use my freedom to serve you out of love because I love you as my master. And they would take him to the doorpost and they would put an awl through his ear and put an earring, usually a gold earring through his ear. And he would wear that. And people would know he was a servant of love. That's what's meant by bondservant.

The word is doulos. Doesn't mean somebody that's forced into it. It's somebody out of love makes the decision to serve their master. And that's a picture of what we should be doing with Jesus. Not out of bondage or slavery, but he set us free and this is what we want to do with our freedom. We want to use our freedom to serve him.

What a wonderful picture. And then Deuteronomy chapter 15 mentions it. It says, then you shall take an awl and thrust it through his ear to the door and he shall be your servant forever. Also to your female servant you shall do likewise.

Let me ask you a question, guys. How did we go from this concept to thinking God is our lackey to go do our bidding or whatever we choose to do? That's being touted in some Christian circles. Well, God's just kind of your genie. You just tell him what you want and then you put his name at the end of the prayer and he has to go hop too.

How twisted is that? That's so far removed from scripture. We are to serve him.

Why? Because he's already come to serve us. Remember he said, I came to serve you and to give my life as a ransom to many. And as a model that we should lay our lives down and then turn and serve him. Again, not service in some, you know, twisted, oh, I'm, you know, trying to earn my salvation or something, but service and love and gratitude, a decision to serve the Lord. The life lesson here is we should be a servant of the Lord in love, humility, and gratitude. Love, humility, and gratitude. You can glory in what the Lord does, but don't take pride in serving the Lord. I've met people, I've met brothers and sisters who, you know, talk about what they've done and what God has, man, it just gets really twisted. So how can you tell if you're serving the Lord from a heart of love and a gratitude?

It's real easy and it's real difficult. See what happens is sometimes when you're treated like a servant, you can determine whether your heart is right for the Lord. You see, there'll be times when you go to serve the Lord or when you're ministering to somebody or ministering to people, there will be times when they don't appreciate it or perhaps they don't say thank you or don't give you proper recognition. Now I'm not excusing that we should be rude and not say thank you to one another, but you know what? Sometimes that shows our motivation. See, somebody comes to me and goes, well, I did this, that, and the other, and nobody said thank you.

Well, that's interesting. Is that why you were doing it? No, no, but it just would have been nice to hear thank you. Did God see what you were doing?

Well, yeah. So who were you doing it for? I mean, if God saw what you were doing, then that should be enough and not be fishing for compliments and thank you. And the Lord sees what we do for Him.

He sees everything we do for Him. And one day He will reward you, He will reward me for what we do for Him. Again, that doesn't mean we can't say thank you or be thankful or anything like that. And if I thank you for something, I'm not robbing you of your blessing. But if you are doing something, so I say thank you, there's a problem.

There's a problem. Or for somebody else to say thank you. Because sometimes I think God will withhold somebody saying thank you just so He can test your motivation. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, your enemy, the devil, doesn't want you to experience the life-giving truths of God's Word. He wants to rob you of the full life God wants for you.

But you can overcome his attacks because there is supernatural power in the Word of God. That's why we want to send you Pastor David McGee's video message called A Checkup from the Neck Up. This powerful resource will show you how to revitalize your spiritual health and grow in your faith daily by meditating on God's powerful Word. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life.

So please, visit crossthebridge.com now to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up. Now, back to today's message. Praise God, we're moving right along. Verse 2, Moses, you didn't see that much in that first verse. 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. And every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given you, as I said to Moses.

Boy, what an awesome verse. Now, they had been given the land, but to enjoy its blessings and to enjoy the benefits of it, they had to fight. And again, we talked about the fact that the promised land, and I know there's a lot of neat songs, and I actually wrote one a few years ago, about the promised land, you know, about going to heaven. But the promised land is walking into the promises of God. And we have to go in and we have to fight for what the Lord has given us.

He's given it to us, but we have all things in Christ Jesus, but we have to battle to know the blessings and the benefits, to experience those things. It's kind of like a, I heard a story one time, it's a pretty neat story. This young man was graduating from college and he told his dad he wanted a new Mustang. And his family was pretty well off. So the son was kind of expecting it, kind of counting on it. And so for his graduation, there was a box and the son was kind of confused about the box, but he, you know, he opened the box and there was a Bible in there. And he looked at it and he was disappointed. And then he was angry.

And he said, I can't believe you. He stormed out. As a matter of fact, he kind of cut off contact with his father. He thought his father had treated him unfairly. So for years and years, he wouldn't return his phone calls or return his letters or anything. It wasn't until after his father's death, he went back home for the funeral. He was going through some things and he found the Bible his father had given him and just started kind of flipping through the pages, you know, and thinking of his dad. And he saw a piece of paper.

It was a check written out to the car dealership for the total amount of the car. He spent years not walking in the blessings that his father had provided for him because of his anger and because of his pride. How often we do that? You know, I use that analogy a couple of weeks ago about the bread and there was the old moldy, nasty green bread. And then the nice Italian loaf of looking bread and how often we settle for that mold green stuff when God's got so much more that he wants to give us, that he has purchased, that he has given to us.

But we have to walk in that and we have to be willing to fight for it. Now verse 4, from the wilderness in this Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites and to the great sea towards the going down of the sun shall be your territory. Guys, look at this, to the river Euphrates. Now if you get out of Matt and maybe you've seen maps of Israel, you know, there's a sliver of land and then there's the Jordan and then way, way, way over here is the river Euphrates. That's what God gave Israel.

And so we're sitting here kind of whittling it down and whittling it down and at some points now it's only 9 miles wide in places. You ought to use this verse, next somebody talks about the west bank of Israel, say which river? They'll look at you funny, they'll go, Jordan. Say, well that's funny because God gave them all the way to the west bank of the Euphrates.

How do we possess this land? Here's where we can get in trouble. We think it's our strength but the Lord gives us his strength. And every now and again we're reminded it's his strength because what happens?

We fall. See when we fall, that's not his strength. Whenever you stumble, whenever you fall, that's your strength.

It's not real impressive, is it? I know my strength isn't. I have to walk in the power of his strength. Ephesians 6 10 says this, finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Be strong in the Lord and the power of whose might?

His might. Man, how powerful is that? You ever watch the volcano erupt? Oh, that's just a smidgen. You ever watch an earthquake?

Oh, that's just a little sliver. God is very powerful and yet he's willing to bestow upon us his power. Israel here is given about 300,000 square miles. 300,000 square miles.

But they've never occupied more than 30,000 square miles. Even at the height under David. And again, how often that is like the way we live. Verse 5, 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.

Kind of sounds familiar, right? Verse 6, be strong and of good courage for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. I want you to note how many times the Lord says be strong and of good courage.

It's obviously very important. Verse 7, only be strong and very courageous. Second time, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses my servant commanded you, do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left that you may prosper wherever you go. Don't turn to the right. Don't turn to the left. Understand how easy that is. Understand how easy it can be to turn to the right or turn to the left. To be distracted.

Scriptures tell us, you know, setting aside every sin that so easily besets us. But don't do it. Don't do it. So often in a fellowship people can get distracted about this or about that.

Don't do it. The life lesson here is don't be distracted from where you are supposed to be going and what you are supposed to be doing. Don't be distracted from where you're supposed to be going and what you're supposed to be doing. If you keep that in front of you, it will make a huge difference in your Christian life. If you forget this, you're going to be wandering off to the right, you'll be wandering off to the left and you'll get down in some ditch somewhere and go, my goodness, what happened?

I don't know what happened here. You got distracted and you followed that distraction and you went off somewhere. And let's face it, there's so many opportunities and chances to be distracted in this life, isn't there? So many things to follow, so many things to get distracted by. But God wants to remind us.

Verse 8, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. Now notice something about midway down there, there's a period, do according to all that is written in it, period, for then. When? Well, after the first part. That's an important little two words. For then.

For when? For when you do this first part, then you will be prosperous and have good success. But a lot of people in the prosperity gospel and stuff, they try to grab hold of the last part of that verse. I just like that prosperity and success part. I'll claim that one.

That's a good one. But wait a minute, what does it say before that? The book of the law being in your mouth. What does that mean? It means speaking the word of God.

Speaking the word of God. We've got mezuzahs. That's the Hebrew word for doorpost.

We have mezuzahs. We have them in the bookstore and maybe you've seen them there. They've got different designs on them and stuff.

We also have, when you go out to the office, there's one on the doorpost there by the office. That one's a silver one and it's got a sheen. It kind of looks like a W to us. The S stands for two things, really for the Lord, El Shaddai, or the Shema taken from Deuteronomy 6, Deuteronomy 11. Shema Israel Elohim, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Elohim, Yahweh Ahud.

Reading backwards, that's what threw me there. What that is, is hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God. The Lord our God is one God. And what you do is you write that in Hebrew and you tuck it in a scroll and you tuck it down in that doorpost. And then what you do is you touch that and touch it to your lips as you're going out, as you're coming in. And the significance is that you speak the Word of God. It's a powerful thing.

And there's no weird sense of bondage in doing that. That's just a very cool thing that we've written off because so many of us have just torn two-thirds of a Bible out and said that doesn't apply anymore. But I'm reminded every time I see that thing to be speaking the Word of God. And then look what it says, but you shall meditate. Oh, that's just wrong. That is just wrong. Meditation is just, it's bad.

Everybody knows meditation's bad, right? But you know what happened? Here's what happened, guys. We got ripped off. The New Agers ripped off a Hebrew biblical concept of meditating on the Word of God and meditating on the Lord's goodness.

They got it from us. Now, don't get me wrong. Sitting there trying to think of nothingness so you can get into nirvana or whatever, there's no way my mind would ever do that anyway. But to do that, that's wrong.

Don't do that. But to sit and think about the goodness of God, you should do that. See, so often we're like, well, I got to read this, I got to read that, and I got to read that.

And then so many of us read devotion. Okay, done. All right. Praise God. Wait a minute.

You know what? Maybe just read one verse and sit and think on it for five or ten minutes and consider it and meditate. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Modern life just keeps getting busier and busier by the day. As a result, a lot of Christians are missing out on the life-giving nourishment of daily time in God's Word. That's why Pastor David McGee wants to help revitalize your spiritual health by sending you his video message titled, A Checkup from the Neck Up. This resource shows you how to meditate daily on God's Word so that His truth can transform your life. A Checkup from the Neck Up is our way to thank you for your gift this month to help more people on this station and beyond cross the bridge from death to life. So please visit crossthebridge.com now to get your copy of A Checkup from the Neck Up.

You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge with David McGee to hear more from the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.