Successful Living

Rev. Dr. Christopher Carlson

Your mission, Joshua, should you decide to accept it, is to go into the Promised Land and defeat seven fortified kingdoms, all larger than yourself. All with more armaments, more soldiers, with greater capacity to fight. Fierce people, but you Joshua with your band of Israelites, with very few armaments and no chariots, you are to go and defeat them all. You know it’s very funny how God promises to give us things, but then says, “Oh, you have to go fight for them.”, “It’s not going to be easy, you’re going to have to fight, or you’re going to have to wait.” We see that in the scriptures all the time. We see it particularly with Abraham, who was promised descendants numerous as the sand of the sea, of the stars of the sky. And yet, he had to wait until he was an old, old man to see just one child. He certainly did not see descendants numerous as the stars. That would come later. He was also promised possession of the land. But his whole life, he spent as a wanderer. Now, many hundreds of years later, we come to the point in history that Abraham had to wait for but did not see what he had to struggle for. This was the point in history where the Israelites were going to enter into the Promised Land, the land that had been spoken of for decades as being a land flowing with milk and honey, how God was going to give it to them, it was going to be theirs. But there’s only one problem, as they’re sitting there on the east side of the Jordan River, not too far away is a city called Jericho, fortified and full of many fighters - beyond that, city after city to be conquered.

Today we continue a series of sermons started a few weeks ago, called “Achieving through Believing”, and it is a series about faith. Today, the question is “What in the world is God up to? Why does God require struggle? Why does God require sacrifice in His service?” He promises to give us things and he does. But then he says, “You must fight for it, you must struggle for it.”  If our faith is to grow, if we are to be successful in our living for Christ, we need to have a better grasp of why this is true. I’m going to read to you from Joshua, Chapter 1. I would encourage you to read the stories. It’s wonderful because not only does it give us a history of the people of God, but that history as Paul tells us later, is meant for us. Many lessons are to be taught in what happens to the Israelites because they act just like human beings, normal people – usually sinfully and there are a lot of struggles, and a lot of things that we do that they did maybe in a bigger way.

Joshua 1

The LORD Commands Joshua

¹ After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: ² "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. ³ I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west. ⁵ No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

⁶ "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. ⁷ Be strong and very courageous. 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 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; 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. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

¹⁰ So Joshua ordered the officers of the people: ¹¹ "Go through the camp and tell the people, 'Get your supplies ready. Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you for your own.' "

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Father in heaven, we ask for wisdom as we hear the Word read and preached. We pray that you would draw to our minds, each as individual servants, things that we need to know and hear and do. We pray for ourselves also as a Church, as your body, that we may be motivated to serve you in a greater way after hearing your Word. Bless us Lord, be with us, may your holy spirit touch our hearts and minds. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

How do we have faith to live successfully and by success, I mean in a way that would be pleasing to the Lord?  Well, as I said earlier, the Old Testament stories have much to say to us. If we read the stories and then read somewhat between the lines, we can take their story and apply it to ourselves. Yes, there are huge differences. Joshua is a commander of a people, an army and we’re just us. But we have struggles and challenges, and things to conquer ourselves. So how do we grow in our faith? How do we become successful in God’s sight? Well, I think first and foremost we need to be clear in our mission. Be clear in our mission.  Now Joshua was given a very clear mission: Go conquer the land!  This is what you’re supposed to do! And we might be tempted to say, “Wow, isn’t that great? God gave him a clear way to go. What am I supposed to do?” You know it’s tempting for preachers to say “Oh, our generation is worst than they were fifty years ago, or a hundred years ago.” Or, “We’re better, things are unique in our time!” There is some truth to that. Well I don’t know what was previous fifty-one years, but at least in our culture now it seems that there is more ‘directionless-ness’, or lack of ability to say “This is what I need to do.” Several articles have been written over the last couple of years, even a couple of movies made especially about ‘twenty-somethings’. People who are in their twenties are more and more either: living at home, or moving back in. I’ve experienced that. Now I’m not saying my children are directionless, but they have certainly moved back in, at least for awhile from time to time. But it just seems that it is very true right now. It’s not just the twenty-somethings,

I’ve noticed a lot of people, of all ages saying, “I don’t know what to do, with my marriage, or my job.” Certainly in life, there are struggles, even while we’re growing up, “what should I do? Should I be a doctor, or a lawyer, or trash collector, or mechanic?” Those are just normal things. They are normal decisions we have to make along the way. There just seems to be more directionless-ness in our time today. Wow, wouldn’t it be wonderful if God came down to us just like Joshua, and said “Go, do this!” Well, I know that in some specifics, we do struggle of course. But, I want to say that we really have been given a mission. We’ve been given a calling and every one of us is called to serve the Lord, and to give our lives to that service. I’m here to say to all of us, young and old, “If we trust in the Lord with all our hearts, He will direct our paths.” in the hard things, the big things, and the small things.

We need to be clear about that calling. You know it’s not like rocket science. “Go take the land.” So why did they have to remind themselves of that? Well, lo and behold, Joshua was faithful his whole life, but they forgot. They had to be reminded of the calling. We have to remind ourselves of our individual calling, and our church calling, and our business callings. It’s like the story of a knight who was told to go out by the king to destroy and to rob and to pillage his enemies. He went out and did it. He went out to the west of the kingdom. When he came back, he said, “This is what I’ve been doing, my lord king. I’ve gone out to the west and I’ve robbed and pillaged your enemies.” And the King said, “WHAT!? I don’t have any enemies to my west! I told you to go to the east!” The knight replied, “Well, I think you have some enemies to the west now.”  We have to be clear about our mission and our calling.

Secondly, we have to be confident in our mission and calling. You know it’s very, very typical that God really does lead us to do some things, and no matter what we’re doing, we kind of talk ourselves out of it. There’s a Peanuts cartoon that has Charlie Brown standing there yelling, “A pop fly! A pop fly! I’ve got it, I’ve got it! It’s all mine!” He runs out, thinking if he caught that ball, they would win the first game of the season. Then he starts praying, “Please let me catch it! Let me be the hero! Let it be there, let me catch it please, please!”, and the next caption says, “On the other hand, do I think I deserve to be there, to be the hero? The kid who hit it doesn’t want to be the goat. Is this baseball game that important? Many kids have never heard of baseball, lots of kids don’t even get a chance to play at all or have a place to sleep…” and just then, ‘plop’, followed by Linus coming to his side, saying “Charlie Brown, how could you miss such an easy pop fly?”, and Charlie Brown says, “I talked myself out of it.” Joshua could have talked himself out of it. “You promised this Promised Land, Lord! It’s supposed to be ours, but why does it have to be so hard? People are going to die. People are going to suffer; we’re going to have fight. And when are these battles going to end? I mean it seems like it’s going to take so long. What are we supposed to do, Lord? And can I be the leader? I mean Moses was the leader – what am I doing here?” Isn’t that true of all of us? Whatever we start, we have doubts about. We get married and it’s great for a year, and then we say, “What have I gotten myself into?” Or we start a new job and it’s great for a little while, then we say, “Wow, this is getting tough.” Or whatever it is. It’s just human, isn’t it?

You know it’s interesting to read this first chapter. God says to Joshua, “be strong and very courageous” four times. Hint: if you see something repeated in the scriptures, pay attention to it. Be strong and very courageous. I will be with you. He had to be reminded. Joshua had a sense of inadequacy and I believe that’s the reason very often we don’t serve the Lord very well. We don’t trust in the Lord to help us and we have a sense of inadequacy maybe because of our own history, things we’d experienced. Joshua too. Here’s the General of the Army, the head of the nation and he’s feeling like, “I can’t do this.” On the other hand, a lot of the reason we don’t follow our mission is because we make excuses. You know the Israelites did that. Read the promise again. I was reminded in reading this scripture; you know it wasn’t that they were promised that small strip of land along the coast. They were promised all the land down to Egypt, and all the land up to what is now Baghdad. And it never happened. Oh, they conquered and they conquered, and they took part of the land and then they started living their lives, saying “we’re just too busy, we can’t do that and leave to fight a war, I’ve got to plant the crops. I can’t leave and drive out these heathen people because I’m just too tired, I have a family to take care of and I want to do something else.” So often, we’re the same way. “I like coming to church, but don’t ask me to do much because I’ve got a lifestyle. I want to travel. I need to take care of my business. I need to do this, I need to do that. Oh, I might get roped into it!” God asks us to do things and we have our lifestyles. We want to make our lives good here. God says, “Seek my kingdom.” What does that mean?

We need to be clear about our mission, and clear about our direction. We need to be committed to the decision that God has brought us to make. You know Jesus says in Luke, chapter 9: A person who is plowing the field and looks back is not worthy to be my servant. Now I’ve talked to people who maybe they or even their fathers had to stand behind a mule and have to plow the furrows. I understand that farmers way back then had contests to see who had the straightest lines. The fact is that if you’re doing a line and you look back, guess what happens to it. You can tell the person who wasn’t concentrating because their furrow would be here, or there. We need to be committed to the decision. Now you can imagine Joshua: kind of a ragtag bunch. They probably had a few trained soldiers, but the rest were kind of like the Continental army. They weren’t trained very well. Here, he was facing seven fortified cities, with armies bigger than them, had chariots and much better firepower. They were going to go fight them. It would be easy to be terrified of that. God was asking them to be committed. There are some warnings you know in the scriptures, even to the churches that aren’t’ committed. In Revelation, I believe it’s Laodicia where Jesus says to them, “You’re neither hot nor cold! It would be better if you were hot or cold. As it is you’re lukewarm and I’m going to vomit you out of my mouth.” He’s not really talking about salvation there, but the churches will die if they’re not faithful. In history, that has happened many, many times. There are churches that fade away because they stop doing what they are called to do. What their commitment is.

I’ve probably told you the old story of the church when it first started; they put a sign up that said “Jesus only”, but after many years the sign got worn and some of the letters fell of. Eventually, it said “us only”, and they became a church of ‘us’ instead of ‘Jesus’. It can happen to our churches, it can happen to us. Joshua says to the people, “Consecrate yourselves”, which means recommit yourselves.

A man named Steve Arterburn, a psychiatrist who has a unique window into the stresses and struggles that Christians face, and he believes that churches are not being honest about the struggles of discipleship. He believes that the apathy is a result of people being told that the Christian life is all sunshine and happiness. In reality, Arterburn says that true discipleship is reflected in the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Now that may not be a literal death, but we are called to say our lives are not our own, to seek first the kingdom, to be clear about the mission of what life is about. Frankly, we are confused. I think many Americans are confused. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but we’re confused. We want to keep our lives and do a little church. A little Lord stuff. We have it totally backwards. We need to be committed to the mission, and then be corrected by our defeats. You know there are entire industries devoted to the fact that we’re not perfect. Think about the eraser industry, or, the Band-Aid industry. All kinds of industries, and we aren’t perfect. We’re sinners. You and I are always going to mess up. Sometimes make just plain mistakes, and sometimes we’re going to be rebellious. That’s why we come here on Sunday mornings and confess our sins and get right back with God every week. We need to not just say, “Oh, bad person! Bad person!” We should say, “Lord, I’m a mess!” and we are. Part of success and faith is reminding ourselves – not beating ourselves up – but just reminding ourselves that we need to come back to the Lord each and every day. Admit defeat and do something about it. Confess and do something about it.

In the story of Joshua, a little later on, they go to a city called Ai and the men of Ai are mighty warriors. They route the Israelites, just run them right down the road – a couple of times. In the end, it is discovered that the people have sinned and they have to repent. Then they are able to defeat their enemies. Sometimes we need to repent before we can move on. We need to say to the Lord, “Lord, I can’t do this.” You know the entire Christian life is based on that fact. We base our lives on the fact that Jesus had to die for us. Someone had to die for you! We abstract that, we look at the cross and say, “Wow, what a neat thing that is.” We don’t remember the nails, and the blood, and the death it took for us to be reconciled to God. I had a pastor friend who was preaching on something like this and talking about the need to repent of sin and a woman walked out saying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! I’m not a sinner.” The pastor looked at her and said, “Well then you cannot be saved.” Now he was using some shock therapy, true. But Jesus said, “I came to save sinners.” That basically means we have to be honest with God. The energy we all have as human beings is to say to God, “See how good I’ve done and how good I am?” The energy has to be, “Lord, forgive me. I’m a sinner. Help me.” And learn from the defeats. Learn form it! There is something about experience. We speak of twenty-somethings. They don’t like to hear, “Well, you’ll learn more about that later.”

There is a pastor in Houston who became the pastor of one of the biggest churches in the Presbyterian Church at the age of thirty. Now this guy is a star. He’s a great speaker and a great leader in lots of different ways but I was so worried about him. I still am because there’s something about being a little older, that you know when you see those lights coming at you, you know what they are. You know the name of that license plate on that truck coming after you and it’s because you’ve been run over before. It’s simply a matter of living for awhile. I hope he does well but I still worry about him because he’s only thirty-two. He’s still pastoring the big church. Oh, I really hope he does well.

It’s true of all of us however, we get beat up a little and suffer a bit and learn. This brings us back to our question: Why does God do this? One reason is that He’s preparing us for other battles along the way because life is not easy. When we go through hardship, our faith grows because we see God come through again and again and again.

Last but not least, we need to be conscious of God’s dependability. Joshua is promised again and again and again. “I will be with you.” What an amazing promise that is, that as Christians we know that God is going to be here with us. Promises that are given and He walks with us wherever we go. But we need to watch out. There is  a story about back in the colonial days how often because there were so many believers that they would make laws that kind of waited in a prejudicial kind of way. You couldn’t vote unless you were a Christian. You couldn’t exercise your voting rights but as time went along, many children of these believers didn’t embrace the faith. They had to figure out a way to get around that, they said, “Well these believers, their children, are going to believe anyway. After all, it says in the bible that children of believers are to become believers.” So they made what was called ‘the half way covenant’. They were already half way there. The question for us as we grown in our faith is are we “half-way Christians”? I would encourage you to examine your faith and where you are in your life. I don’t know you or what goes on in your heart. Only the Lord does, and only you can know. Examine yourself with the Lord. If you’re half way, come all the way. Be strong and courageous. Trust in me and I will lead you through all the trials and challenges of your life.