The Quest for Rest

0:49If you're a stay-at-home mom, you're probably tired. If you're a college student, you're probably tired. And if you're putting your kid through college, I know you're tired. All of us are tired, and so all of us, therefore, are on a quest for rest. So, however badly you need rest, and you might really need it, the Israelites, at the outset of the book of Joshua, needed it more. They had spent 400 years as slaves in the land of Egypt from sunup to sun. Down seven days a week slaving for their Egyptian overlords.

1:36Then they spent the last 40 years after the Exodus wandering through the wilderness between Egypt and the land of Canaan, the land that God promised to give them, because they refused to enter the land out of fear of those who were living in that land. Their fear overcame their faith in God and his promises to give them that land. And so God disciplined them by making them wander through the desert until that entire unbelieving generation of Israelites died out.

2:07That is, all but two men. Because you see, when they went to go spy out the land before they entered into it, or before they were supposed to enter into it, they sent 12 spies, and two of those spies came back with a good report saying that God would keep his word and give them the land just as he promised. Those two men were Caleb and Joshua. Now, as we see here in verse 1, Joshua had no parents because he is the son of none.

2:43My dad jokes came in early. I was this funny in college. Joshua was a direct descendant of Joseph, and so he can trace his lineage back to Jacob and Isaac and Abraham. He became Moses' assistant. After they left the land of Egypt, and then God chose Joshua to become the leader of the Israelites after Moses was gone. And so I want to take a look back at the passages where this is foretold and promised in Deuteronomy. So this is at the end of Moses' life and ministry. Take a look at Deuteronomy 3 on the screen.

3:20God says this to Moses, but charge Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he shall go over at the head of this people, and he shall put them in possession of the land that you shall see. Now take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 31. This is just before Moses dies. Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it.

3:53It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you, he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Now, Moses had a really tough job. He had to lead millions of people through the wilderness for 40 years, teaching them to trust in the Lord for provision of food and water. He had to put down rebellions and mutinies. He had to keep the people from idolatry. Moses had a really tough job. But Joshua's job was hardly. Any easier because he had to take these millions of people who were the children of the people who refused to enter into the promised land because of their unbelief, he had to lead them into that land that was occupied by others. But they were longing for the rest that God provided.

4:49And now that Moses was dead, as we see here in verse 1, Joshua's job is to get them there into that promised land and into that rest by leading them to put their faith into action. Friends, we are all longing for rest. And what we're going to see as we study the book of Joshua over the next several months, our faith is going to be strengthened as we see Joshua as a type of Christ leading the people of God to the promised land, a land that meets our needs and our hopes, which is a picture of the new heavens and the new earth that is to come, a place of perfect and permanent rest.

5:31So let's pick up here at the beginning of Joshua, verse 1. After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, the son of nun, Moses his assistant, 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. This land that God had promised was known at the time as the land of Canaan.

6:00It ran from Lebanon on the northern border all the way down to the edge of what was known as the wilderness in the southeast. It ran from the river Euphrates in the northeast all the way to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. Not a huge piece of land, but a land that was plenty large, plenty sufficient for God's people and all that God had planned to do through them. But in order for them to get into this land and to have this land as their own, they were going to have to conquer it. And to do that, Joshua is going to have to lead the people to cross the Jordan River at flood stage.

6:38They were going to have to defeat 30 kings and their armies. They were going to have to hold every city while they moved on to the next one to take it. And they would have to do all of this with nearly all of their wives and children in tow. Now, right at the outset of the book, I think it's appropriate to address a couple of questions that any thoughtful reader of the book of Joshua is going to have regarding God's commands to go into this land to kill or displace these people and to take possession of it.

7:14For many Christians, the fact that Moses and then Joshua, these great men of faith, who claimed to be carrying out God's will, commanded the Israelites to enter into this land that had been occupied by other people for centuries. And displace or kill them makes a lot of Christians very uncomfortable. In fact, it's made a lot of Christians doubt God's goodness, doubt his kindness, doubt whether or not this should actually be in the Bible. Is this something that really happened, that God really commanded?

7:50And I think for a lot of non-Christians who are at least familiar with the book of Joshua's contents, there's a lot of non-Christians that will cite what is commanded and what happens in the book of Joshua as one of the primary reasons that they refuse to believe in God. They say, I could never worship a God like that. So here are some of the questions that both Christians and non-Christians have asked. What right did Israel have to take this land that belonged to these other people for centuries?

8:23Is this some kind of justification for colonialism? How could a loving God command his people to kill innocent men, women, and children? Is this some kind of justification for ethnic cleansing? These are great questions. And certainly there are more good questions that we could ask and seek to answer. But I think those are the primary objections raised in the book. And so I want to just handle those straight away. Let's begin with the objection that Israel had no right to take land that belonged to other people.

9:00People. Look on the screen at Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein. For he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Here's the truth. God owns every square inch of the earth. Nations lay claim to lands, to airspace, to nautical miles. But the reality is, God owns every square inch of the earth. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. It all belongs to him.

9:43And because God owns every square inch of the earth, he alone has the right to determine who gets to live where on this earth. If God does not allow you to live somewhere, you are a squatter. You are living on land that he owns without his permission. God had promised this land to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and to Jacob, not to anyone else. But friends, it's also important to note that God had only promised this land to Abraham, to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. If they were to go to any other land on the face of the earth and seek to displace or kill those people, that would have been sinful because God had not promised them. That land, only this land.

10:33So that's the first thing we have to understand: is that God owns all the land, and he gets to decide who lives where. Second, let's consider the objection that God wouldn't command his people to kill innocent men, women, and children. I want you to take a look at Deuteronomy chapter 9. Again, this is the sermon that Moses is preaching at the end of his life to the people of Israel. He says to them, Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going in to possess their land, but because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.

11:20Consider also Deuteronomy chapter 12. Look what he writes here. When the Lord your God cuts off before you the nations whom you go in to dispossess, and you dispossess them and dwell in their land, take care that you be not ensnared to follow them after they have been destroyed before you, and that you not inquire about their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods, that I also may do the same? You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way. Look at this. For every abominable thing that the Lord hates, they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters. In the fire to their gods.

12:05Here's the truth. These people were not innocent. They are the offspring of Adam and Eve, which means that they have been sinful and rebellious from birth. But more than that, their wickedness was so great that they not only worshipped false gods, but they even sacrificed their own kids. They burned them alive to placate the supposed wrath of these false gods. Friends, there's no such thing as an innocent person. From our perspective, there are better people and worse people.

12:51There may be people who are more sinful and less sinful in terms of their behaviors and practices, but ever since the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, there is no such thing as an innocent person. Here's how Paul says it in Romans chapter 1. He's talking about all people in the world. Take a look. And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gods. Gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Listen to this. Though they know God's righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them.

13:59Those who practice such things deserve to die. The wages of sin is death. That is the consistent testimony of all of Scripture. And that was clear immediately after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden. Right after Adam and Eve sinned, God could have put them to death immediately. But what did he do? He shed the blood of an animal, he covered them with that animal, foreshadowing the Mosaic law and the sacrificial system that would point to the Savior that we all need, Jesus Christ, the perfect Passover Lamb, whose blood was shed not so that our sin would be temporarily covered, but so that we would be forgiven forever.

14:54Here's one more thing that you need to remember: God shows. No favoritism. Remember why these people are being killed and displaced from their land? Because of their sin and idolatry, right? Well, not long after the Israelites moved into the land, they fell into centuries and centuries of sin and idolatry. And so God treated his own people in the exact same way. He would warn them. He would say that discipline was coming if they did not repent. He waited patiently century after century and they did not repent. And so what did God do? 722 BC, the nation of Assyria comes and conquers and kills and displaces the ten northern tribes. The southern kingdom does not take note. They don't repent. So in 586 BC, Babylon comes. What do they do? They kill them. They displace them from the land. God shows no favoritism. He does not care who your parents are. He does not care what you claim with your lips. He treats everyone the same.

16:09There is no such thing as an innocent person. Every single one of us deserves death and eternal punishment because of our sin. And so that's what we have to remember. So I know that's a lot, but I really felt like we had to set the groundwork here for the book of Joshua and answer some of those common questions and objections before we even move forward. And if you invite a non-Christian friend or an unchurched person in the next few months during this series, I hope that you'll point them back to this first sermon because I can almost guarantee you that these questions, these objections will be raised. And I hope that this serves to answer them and remove some of those stumbling blocks that people have for understanding and believing that this is in fact the Word of God.

16:56All right, so God commands Joshua to go in with the people and take possession of the land. That's a tall task. How is he going to be able to do that? Let's pick up in verse 5. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. That great promise is the foundation of everything that God is going to command Joshua to do. God is going to call Joshua to do hard things, but friends, he's never alone because God would be with him just as he was with Moses all those years in the desert. And Joshua got to observe that firsthand, how God led Moses all those years in the desert. But just because God is with him and would be with him all the time does not mean this was going to be easy. And that's why God repeats the command not once, not twice, but three times to be strong and courageous.

18:01And he doesn't just say that three times over and over. He tells him why he can be strong and courageous. Take a look at verse 6: Be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Joshua could be courageous because God was going to keep his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and his word never fails. God is not just a promise maker, he is a promise keeper. He never breaks his word. Look at verse 7.

18:46Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. Joshua needed courage because God's standard is perfection. And as we know from first-hand experience and from those of us who have read the scripture and the history of Israel, God's people are not always eager to obey his word, are they? Or are we? No.

19:19And mostly keeping God's law wasn't going to cut it. So Israel's success doesn't depend on their military strength, their military strategy. What it depends on is the blessing of God that is going to come from obedience to his word. Now, let's take a look at verse 9. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. So, Joshua could be strong and courageous. Why? Because God was going to be with him wherever he went. And you and I read that today as modern people, as Western Christians with a lot of church history behind us, and we go, well, yeah, of course God is with him wherever he goes. What's the big deal about that? We have to understand that back in the ancient world, all of the pagan religions taught that gods had certain jurisdictions. So you were the God of the mountains, or the God of the sun, or the God of the stars, or the God of the sea, but there was no such thing as a God of the entire universe, the God of the whole earth.

20:34And so God is reminding Joshua, I'm not like these pagan gods. If you leave the sea, the God of the sea can no longer protect you. But I'm not like him. I am a real God. I am the real God. And I will be with you wherever you go. And so, church, these particular charges and promises were made to Joshua and to Israel, but the applications are still true for us today. Take a look at what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 6.

21:05Therefore, do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. See, we can face uncertainty with courage because God has promised to always provide for us, and he will never break his word. He will always keep his promise.

21:42Take a look at Luke 11:27 and 28. As Jesus said these things, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts at which you nursed. Of all the awkward stuff that ever got yelled at Jesus, this has got to be. Every time I read this passage, I'm just like, lady. But he said, Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it. Here's my point. I do have one.

22:25Blessing doesn't come from being courageous or from wombs or from Anything else. Blessing comes from our obedience to the word of God, not through our efforts alone, not through strength or courage or anything else. Look at John 14. Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me.

23:03Joshua could be courageous because God was going to be with him wherever he went. But friends, how much more of a blessing do we have? God is not just with us in the sense that Jesus is near to us or walking beside us or with us in that sense. He promised that through faith in him, he would come and make his home in us. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us from the moment that we believe in Jesus Christ. And so God is with us in a true sense wherever we go because he resides in us, not merely with us.

23:40So friends, we need strength and courage to face all that comes our way because we live in a fallen world and because sinners sin against us and because we create our own problems with our own sin. But we can face uncertainty with courage and do the hard things that God calls us. To do, because God is with us, and He promises to bless us as we walk in obedience to His commands. That brings us to the final section. Let's pick up in verse 10.

24:17And Joshua commanded the officers of the people, pass through the midst of the camp and command the people, prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan to go in to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. And to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said, Remember the word that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, saying, The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land. Your wives, your little ones, and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan, but all the men of valor among you shall pass over armed before your brothers and shall help them, until the Lord gives rest to your brothers as he has to you, and they also take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving them. Then you shall return to the land of your possession and shall possess it, the land that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you beyond the Jordan toward the sunrise. And they answered Joshua, All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us we will go. Just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you. Only may the Lord your God be with you. As he was with Moses, whoever rebels against your commandment and disobeys your words, whatever you command him, shall be put to death. Only be strong and courageous.

25:44We see here that Joshua is the same man of faith that he was 40 years ago when he and Caleb went into the land and came back and said, We can trust God. He will give us the land just as he promised. He's the same man of faith. And so when God makes this command, get ready to cross over the river Jordan at flood stage with all of these people, he says, yes, Lord. He hears the command of God and he obeys immediately.

26:17But in verses 12 through 15, he gives this very specific command to three of the tribes, to Reuben, to Gad, and to Manasseh. So, what is that all about? Well, if you think back to Numbers 32, so just think about that part that you got to in your Bible reading plan when you got bored and stopped reading. That part. I know we shouldn't get bored with the word of God, but can we all be honest together? That numbers is hard. It's just hard. It's the word of God. It's true. It's living and active. It's hard. Numbers 32, three tribes asked permission from God to stay on the east side of the Jordan because that land was rich for ranching. And that's what those tribes did primarily. And so they said, can we stay over? On this side of the Jordan. And God, through Moses, gave permission to those tribes to do that, but with one caveat, he said, when we get ready to take the land, you have to arm yourselves, you've got to cross over, and you've got to fight alongside your brothers to secure the land.

27:17But that was going to be a hard thing to do because they were going to need to leave their wives and their children behind on the other side of the Jordan for as long as it took to conquer that land. I want you to keep in mind: there are no police officers, there are no alarm systems, there is no ring doorbell that pings your smartphone every time somebody shows up at your door. They're just going to be gone for months and months and months and months while they're leading these campaigns, while their wives and children are in this land that they've never been in before across a raging river. That was going to require a great deal of faith, not only to conquer the land from people who had no intention of giving it up to these foreigners in their minds, but also because they were going to have to leave their wives and their kids behind.

28:07But that was the deal. And they were going to keep their promise, both to the Lord and to their brothers. And I think it's a challenge to us to consider the fact that had they not all worked together and been with each other and for each other, they could have never taken the promised land. And in the same way, friends, the Christian life is not meant to be. Lived alone, we can't go through the Christian life only looking out for ourselves.

28:35No, when God confronted Cain after he murdered his brother Abel, Cain said to God, Am I my brother's keeper? Yes, yes, Cain, you are. All of us in the family of God are responsible to each other and for each other. So being strong and courageous is something that we do together, with each other and for each other, as we fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil. And we seek God's glory going throughout all of the nations of the earth so that people would come to know Christ as Lord and Savior and have their lives and eternities transformed.

29:18Well, friends, that brings us to the end of chapter one. And we're just getting started with this great book where God is going to fulfill his promises and put his power on display. See, the book of Joshua is all about God giving rest to his people by giving them the land that he promised. I want you to remember that ever since God first appeared to Abraham, God's people have essentially been homeless. They wandered for years and years from place to place and just kind of dwelling in certain lands here and there until they all went to Egypt because that's where Joseph was and that's where food was. They stayed there for 400 years and became enslaved.

30:02They worked all day long, seven days a week, and then they wandered this wilderness for 40 years. They are looking for and longing for rest. But of course, even after their strong, courageous leader, Joshua, leads them into the promised land and drives out their enemies, they still don't have perfect and permanent rest. You know why? Because their sin followed them straight into the promised land. What they needed is a perfectly strong, perfectly courageous leader who would lead them to perfect and permanent rest. And that leader, the leader that Joshua points us to, is Jesus Christ. Look at what the book of Hebrews says, this book that helps us to interpret and understand the Old Testament. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 8. For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on.

31:07That day later on was when Christ came to deal not with the symptoms of sin, but the root cause of our sin, our hearts. Our sinful hearts are the root problem of our unrest. And so Jesus came not to abolish God's law, but to fulfill it. He offered himself as a law. A perfect sacrifice in our place and for our sins, dying the death that we deserve to die because of our rebellion against God. He then physically rose from the grave victorious over sin and death, and he promised that anyone who repents and believes in him would also be resurrected to eternal life in the new heavens and the new earth. That we would have that perfect and permanent rest that all of us are looking for and longing for.

32:00So, friends, Jesus Christ is that perfect leader, that strong, courageous leader. And if you're here today and you are weary and heavy laden with your sin, then I want to urge you to go to Jesus Christ because he is the one who said, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. He alone can give you the rest that you're looking for, because the rest that you ultimately need is rest from the consequences and the power of sin in your life.

32:39And so, this morning, turn to him in faith, receive Jesus Christ, confess, and believe in him today. And for those of us who are already following Jesus Christ, let this be a reminder to continually go to Jesus for rest. There are so many things every single day. That are promising you rest from the difficult trials, from the hard things that you face in your life. There are so many things promising you rest, but only one person can deliver on that promise, and that is Jesus. So go to Him, church, and find that perfect and permanent rest that we all need.

33:23Let's pray. God, we thank you because you are the one who knows our needs perfectly, and you are the one who promises to meet our needs perfectly. God, we are reminded as we look at the Israelites at the outset of this book of our own sin, as we look at the Canaanites and these people who live there, of our own sin and wickedness and rebellion. We may not have committed the same exact sins, but we have all sinned against you, and we all deserve death.

34:23But we praise you this morning because Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. And you Promised to save and forgive and adopt and sanctify and justify and glorify anyone who believes in Him. And so, Lord, we pray that you would help our hearts and our minds be lifted to you. We pray that you would grant faith to all of us, some for the first time and some afresh this morning, that we might obey you and worship you and know the blessings that come from obedience.

35:04In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.