Note: Video will not be available for this sermon.

After the death of Moses the aservant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' bassistant, “Moses my servant is dead. Now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, into the land that I am giving to them, to the people of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given to you, just as I promised to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just fas I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and jvery courageous, being careful to do according to all the law kthat Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success1 wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but myou shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful 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. Have I not commanded you? nBe strong and courageous. oDo not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.”—Joshua 1:1–9

My name is Ryan and my family and I are Bethlehem global partners. We have been connected with Bethlehem for more than 12 years now. For the first two years, we were getting a biblical and theological grounding through what was then the Bethlehem Institute. And now for the past ten years we’ve been part of Bethlehem’s spreading vision, first launching out to Burnsville High School with the start of the new south campus. Then in 2009 you sent us to Asia. For the past seven years we’ve been doing good works and gospel sharing among a large unreached Muslim tribe. We love what we do, and we love doing it in partnership with you. And we want to say thank you for the mighty investment that this church makes in global outreach. There has been much grace on Bethlehem for giving, sending and going. Bethlehem now supports 206 adults and 223 children in 47 countries. You are co laborers with every single one of these. As those who have journeyed with us closely know well, we’re very ordinary people with ordinary problems. And there is nothing about our particular path of obedience which is better or more worthwhile than any of yours. But this weekend I’ve been asked to bring you into our story and give some perspective on the goal of engaging 25 unengaged peoples by the year 2025.

To be honest, when I heard that this was part of the “Fill These Cities” vision, my first thought was, “I hope they know what they’re getting into!” As God extends the grace to fulfill on this vision, the price tag is going to be high, and I don’t mean mainly finances. This isn’t something we can throw money at or see through to completion even in the next seven years. Engagement will be only step one in a long process that ends in healthy, God-glorifying churches and movements of disciples among these peoples, and that’s going to cost us. It’s going to cost us new, expanded efforts in the spiritual labor of extraordinary prayer, because we’re taking ground back from the evil one, and that doesn’t happen without some battle in the heavenlies. So if you have one of these colorful cards that name an unengaged people group, keep praying. If you need a card or want another, some are still available at the welcome areas at each campus.

During global focus week, 22 people stepped forward to say that they’re willing to consider going. Pastor Todd Rasmusen has spoken with five others since. Those 27 people and others Jesus may call are going to be tying their lives and careers in with the destiny of people groups they’ve never met yet. They’ll be putting forth hours upon hours of preparation, language study, starting businesses or projects to gain access to countries and hearts, drinking tea and making friends, learning culture and dying daily. They are going to need strong Barnabas support teams, because some of them are going to get beat up badly. It will take a toll on health, on marriage and families. They’ll need people to help them pick up the pieces and keep at it. And it’s going to seem slow and messy and complicated. It may even cost some people their lives. In the last seven years I’ve personally known several people who have made that sacrifice. The unengaged are unengaged for a reason. They live in hard to access places, war-torn places, and unwelcoming environments. 

But I have a great confidence that whatever the costs are, the reward will be great. And I want to share a word with you from God’s commission to Joshua. I spent the month of January this year in the book of Joshua. It was timely for me because of a recent trip I took to a very troubled part of the world where our family is hoping to return this spring. Throughout the trip, whenever I faced a fear or doubt, chapter 1 vs. 9 was the truth that was most often whirring in my brain. 

I find in this commissioning of Joshua a strong parallel with the commission that Jesus gave his disciples in Matthew 28. Look at the parallels with me.

• The Hebrew form of Joshua is, “Yeshua,” Jesus. Savior. As we read the story, we should sometimes identify with Joshua, but more often with the people under him, who attach themselves to him and win victories because God is with Joshua and so with them.
• In both passages, there is a transition of power. Joshua ascending to leadership. Jesus ascending to place of authority. Power and authority has been handed down to both Joshua and Jesus. 
• In each, there is a transfer of that authority down to the people. (Second half of chapter 1. Command to go in Matthew 28).
• In Joshua there is a command to be careful to obey everything God commands (vv. 7–8). In the Great Commission, we teach the disciples to obey everything Jesus commanded us (v. 20).
• In both passages there is the promise that God will be “with you wherever you go” (v. 9; Matthew 28:20 “Behold I am with you always …”).
• There is a task before the people in each situation. It is one for which God has made every provision, every assurance, but is still theirs to finish in faith. 

God gives Joshua, and Joshua gives the people, some promises and encouragements to go along with the calling. And I think they have a lot of relevance for us in the unfinished task of world missions.

But before looking at that, it’s worth dealing with a question that this book brings up. Joshua is a book of conquest, and in it you find God calling people into a campaign to wipe out the vast majority of the inhabitants of Canaan. How should we understand this?

First, understand that God is the one instituting and fighting this campaign. He is using irrational fear, hailstones and hornets, walls falling down, and yes, Joshua and the armies of Israel. But this is not Joshua’s private battle, or private agenda. He is following the Lord’s orders.

How do we know this doesn’t happen now? How do we know God might not direct his people to be his instrument of justice toward another? Remember, Joshua points forward to Jesus. God at this time in history has handed judgment over to Joshua, and now he has handed judgment over to his son Jesus. What does Jesus do with that authority? For now he is waiting. Not passively, but actively. He is building a kingdom that is not of this world. Gathering disciples and bringing us in on that mission. Judgment is mainly postponed until the end, after all nations have had a chance to hear.

This narrow episode in Israel’s history takes place in the bigger context of a covenant of blessing to all nations. God is preparing a place for his people to survive and develop and be uncorrupted so they can produce the Messiah, though whom all families of the earth will be blessed.

Why is this important? We need to be very careful in thinking of mission in military categories, or in terms of “us vs. them.” Sometimes our engagement with the unreached can sound a lot more like fear than love. When we read about and apply this passage, we shouldn’t think of the enemy as Muslims or atheists or Hindus, or the unengaged, but Satan, who has blinded their eyes. We’re taking back territory from him, for the joy of the nations, on behalf of Jesus.

This phrase, “Be strong and courageous” is used four times in the first chapter (vv. 6, 7, 9, 18). Everything about our American culture, marketing, politics, and society is geared to make us afraid, and cause us to make decisions out of fear, not faith. Imagine how different your life, family, church would look if fear didn’t enter your equation. As convicted as I am by this command to be courageous, I am even more challenged by what that means I’m not allowed to be: “Do not be frightened, do not be dismayed” (v. 9). These two words show up together in a few places in the OT, and basically mean to be discouraged or paralyzed in the face of something overwhelming. Can God actually demand that we not be afraid, and not be discouraged? Discouragement is often treated as an acceptable sin. This is something that many of us global partners also struggle deeply with. We may feel OK with God asking us to do things in obedience to him, but the right to be discouraged, that’s something we want to retain to ourselves. It’s a private thing, we feel. “I can be discouraged if I want to be.”

The problem is, when we allow ourselves to feel terrified and discouraged, we’re saying something about the God who has promised to be with us. Ten of the twelve people to first spy out the land saw the people as big, and consequently God as small. He is big, he is with them, and any problems they will encounter in obedience to him are problems he himself will take care of.

• Fear is one of the things that Jesus rebukes his disciples for more than anything else, and ties it to unbelief. 
• God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).
• Be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might (Ephesians 6:10).

If you’re here today feeling discouraged or overwhelmed by circumstances of life, please don’t hear this as a condemnation, but an invitation. You don’t have to stay there. There are three reasons to be strong and courageous.

1. Because the outcome is sure.

God tells the people that he is giving them the land. In most enterprises, economic or military, there is an element of uncertainty about the outcome. But this enterprise is different. It has the full faith and credit of the Lord of the Universe. So the people can be strong and courageous, they can take the Lord up at his word and promise, they can obey in fearless faith. As the story unfolds in Joshua, you see people responding to the promise in two different ways. Some, like Caleb and his daughter and son-in-law, agree with the Lord and go out and take extra territory for him. Others shrink back in fear, and though God fulfilled his promise, they left work undone, territory unclaimed.

We have the same assurance. God invites the Messiah-King, the New Joshua, “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations as an inheritance.” He got it. Through the hard path of the cross, he won a people for himself. The nations, the unengaged, belong to King Jesus. He will have them for his own. But what’s uncertain is, will I be the one—will you be the one—to take him up at his word? 

Whatever your domain, whatever your territory, it’s been handed over to Jesus, and he allows you to participate in taking it back from the enemy. We’re crushing Satan under our feet. What are the unaccomplished things in our world? Among them are 1,221 people groups which, 2,000 years after the death and resurrection of Christ have not yet been engaged with the Good News.

2. Because God tells us to.

V. 9 Have I not commanded you? Haven’t I told you to be strong and courageous? This seems circular. Don’t be scared? Why not? “Because I told you not to be!” To understand the power of this, we have to understand the authority of the one speaking it. Imagine you’re about to go sky-diving. On your way into the plane, a kid who’s never been more than five feet off the ground tells you not to be scared. How effective is that going to be for you? Then a friend who’s done it a dozen times tells you the same thing. Now you’re getting some courage. Then the Master instructor, who built the parachute, and will tie himself to you, assures you there’s no reason to be worried. His words are not throw-away, it’s a guarantee. So what if God tells you to be strong and courageous? You don’t have to know how he’s going to take care of it, you just have to know that he is, and trust him.

A few years back we got run out of our city. Very clear that there were elements who wanted to rid the town of any followers of Jesus, and they didn’t mind killing to do it. We left not expecting to go back, but through a series of things God spoke to us clearly about returning. The day we were supposed to move, the taxi was sitting in the driveway and I panicked. I announced, “I’m not going!” Anna responds, “You can do whatever you want, but the bags are packed, the kids and I are going.” I went, and as soon as the car started down the road, I was flooded with such a peace. Faith had won over fear and its power was broken. And I decided at that point with God’s help to never make a decision out of fear. Over the past several years, we have sometimes gone, sometimes stayed. But we have tried to not let fear enter the equation. 

A national friend recently gave me this advice: “Ryan, be wise, but don’t be too wise.” He has heard, and I have heard, one of the most commonly quoted Scriptures directed to people in our line of work, “Be wise and serpents, innocent as doves.” That’s part of Jesus’ commission to the 12 disciples in Matthew 10:16 and it’s an important word. But it comes immediately after, “I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves.” We can’t say, being wise as a serpent means not getting near the wolves. It means while you live among the wolves, be wise. When you move into a troubled neighborhood, lock your door. The normal posture of a follower of Jesus is to move toward suffering, pain, and risk, not away from it. That is the way of Jesus and the cross. 

3. Because God is with us.

The extent of his being with us: Always, wherever we go, to the end of the age.

God tells Joshua I will not leave you or forsake you. I am with you all the days of your life. 

The final chapter of Joshua is one of the saddest. Joshua calls the people to obedience, but basically tells them they’re not capable of obeying. Then he dies, and shortly after his death, the people turn away. The thing about Jesus that’s different is, he’s never going to die. He died once to take the punishment for our sins, and he lives forever now to go with us on every mission and sustain our faith and hope in Him.

The nature of his being with us: Power.

In Joshua, God being with us is not merely a promise of private comfort. It surely is that, but more! It means power. “As I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” The people came to know that God was with Joshua as with Moses when he did mighty works in the power of God as Moses had done (3:7–9). God being with us means power. We may be small and feel small, but if He is with us, we had better not think of that as a small thing! 

I exhort you. Reckon that Jesus is with you right now. Be strong and courageous. And don’t let that merely be a feeling. Go and do something for the Lord in faith. Something that without God’s promises you would naturally be afraid of. 

I ask you to pray for my family, and for Bethlehem’s global partners. I ask you to pray for these 27 who have expressed an openness to follow Jesus to the unengaged. Pray that we would take up Jesus at his word, and that we would be strong and courageous. And I will pray for you in whatever path of obedience is before you and for the role that you will play in fill these cities …