Beloved, please take a copy of God's Word and turn with me to Joshua 1, verses 10 through 18, as we continue in our series on the book of Joshua. Strength and courage in the Lord. If you are able, please stand with me for the reading of God's holy, inerrant, authoritative, all-sufficient Word. Joshua 1, beginning in verse 10. And 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. Amen. Let's Father, redeem God's word. Would you pray with me? Our Father and our God, we pray that you would illumine our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit, so that we would not just hear your word preached, but by your grace, would believe it and respond to it. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Rest. Rest, it's something that we all long for, isn't it? Rest from a relentless work schedule. Rest from enemies. Rest from physical pain. Rest from worldliness. Rest from worry about the future. Rest from fear. rest from a guilty conscience and spiritual unsettledness. Do you long for rest this morning? If so, you are no different than countless others throughout human history. Indeed, it's a part of the human condition to long for true rest from the toils and struggles of this world and the turmoil of our own hearts. The question is, where do we find this rest? St. Augustine grappled with this question in his famous Confessions written in the year 401. When I first read Augustine's Confessions about 30 years ago, I was struck by the sheer candor of his prose. He is so honest about his sin and his need for God's mercy. And he expresses to the reader that true rest may only be found in communion with God. Listen to this passage from Augustine's Confessions. Great are You, O Lord, and exceedingly worthy of praise. Your power is immense, and Your wisdom beyond reckoning. And so we men who are a due part of Your creation long to praise You. We also carry our mortality about with us, carry the evidence of our sin, and with it the proof that You thwart the proud. You arouse us so that praising You may bring us joy. because you have made us and drawn us to yourself. And our heart is restless until it finds rest in you. Our heart is restless until it finds rest in you. Beloved, there is a reason why rest is a major theme in the Bible and a prominent theme in the book of Joshua. because it directs us to the ultimate source of rest, our blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the greater Joshua. It was Corrie ten Boom who once said, if you look at the world, you will be distressed. If you look within, you'll be depressed. But if you look to Jesus, you'll be at rest. It's the truth, isn't it? Twice in our passage for this morning, it's mentioned that Yahweh or the Lord will give rest to his people, rest in a land that he has given them to possess. What we will learn this morning is that rest in the land is something that God has promised to give Israel. It's a divine gift, but they must obediently lay hold of it. God's gift of land to his people, his gift of rest must be laid hold of and God's presence will go before them and be with them as they do. Dear ones, here we learn that God's promises and his presence never warrant spiritual apathy. On the contrary, they are grounds for gratitude and godly action. They are grounds for grateful, growing obedience in the Lord. This is what we saw in verses one through eight of Joshua last week is what we see in our text for this morning. Indeed, last week we unpacked God's divine commission to Joshua, Israel's new leader. You remember that three times he exhorted Joshua to be strong and courageous as he leads Israel into the land of Canaan, the land that he promised to Abraham, the land that he promised to Moses and to all the people of Israel. Look in verse two with me. God says to Joshua, 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. And again in verse six, be strong and courageous for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. God then exhorts him, to be careful to obey his word and not to turn from it to the right hand or to the left. Joshua is called to be a military leader, a man of war. More importantly, however, he is called to be a man of the word, a man who meditates on scripture day and night, that he might have success in all that God is calling him to accomplish. Then there is a shift in the dialogue as we come to verse 10. You may have noticed that in verses 10 and 11, it is no longer God speaking to Joshua, but Joshua speaking to his officers, the officers of the people. And then in verses 12 through 15, to the two and a half tribes of Israel. And finally in verses 16 through 18, the leaders of the tribes of Israel speak to Joshua. And so we have chapter one of Joshua essentially being constituted of speeches that are being made and we learn much from them. Well, dear ones, in order to get our heads around this text, I've divided the text with its natural divisions into three divisions. Number one, Joshua's command to the officers of Israel. Number two, Joshua's exhortation to the tribes. And then thirdly, the tribe's exhortation to Joshua. Joshua's command to the officers of Israel, Joshua's exhortation to the tribes, and then the tribes' exhortation to Joshua. Let's begin with the first point, Joshua's command to the officers of Israel. Dear ones, look with me again at our text in verse 10. And 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 into it to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you to possess. Joshua is telling the officers to let the people know that they need to get their things ready because they are about to go in. Who were these officers? Some might wonder. In other parts of scripture, such as Deuteronomy 20 and chapter 31, they seem to fill various roles related to the political and military life of Israel. They were subordinate to the elders of Israel, they play a similar role of leadership within the nation of Israel, providing wisdom and judgment and counsel to the people. It's important, beloved, to pause here and recognize that God always has authority structures to keep order among his beloved people. Notice in our text that God commanded Joshua, Joshua commanded the officers, and the officers commanded the people. In the church, we have elders who lead and who give spiritual oversight to the congregation. In the home, God established order so that Christ is the head of the husband, and the husband is the head of his wife, and the husband and the wife are over their children. When God established order is disordered, whether in the church or the home, then chaos ensues. It's so important to recognize right here in our text that God is a God of order and he is a God who has established structure in the world. And that's a good thing because without structure, without authority structures, we tend to wander. We tend to seek freedom, which ultimately does harm to ourselves and to others, a kind of sinful freedom. And so here in our text, the officers are deployed by Joshua to command the people to get ready to lay hold of the land, which God had promised them. Imagine yourself there. Imagine yourself there. You're cleaning up the dishes from your meal. And an officer comes by and says, You need to get those dishes back out and begin making provision, begin cooking, begin getting food ready for your family. Make enough to last for several days because we are going in, into the land. Must've been quite a buzz running throughout the camp as the officers moved throughout their midst making this announcement. But Joshua doesn't only command the officers, does he? In verses 12 through 15, he also exhorts the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. And this brings us to our second division, Joshua's exhortation to the tribes. And a question that immediately emerges is this, why? Why does Joshua's new, why does Israel's new leader only address the two and a half tribes? What about the others? Well, the answer is found in Numbers chapter 32, and we learn so much from this text. In Numbers 32, we learn that these particular tribes possessed abundant livestock. And when they had seen the Transjordan, that land east of the Jordan River, they desired to settle there and not west of the Jordan River where God had promised to give them that land. So they asked Moses and they asked Eleazar the priest and the chiefs of the congregation for permission to settle there rather than in the west of the Jordan. Numbers 32 and verse 5 says this. And they said, if we have found favor in your sight, let this land be given to your servants for possession. Do not take us across the Jordan. How did Moses respond to this seemingly innocent request? He was fuming. Moses was very upset at the request. He assumed that they were acting like the former generation at Kadesh Barnea, who in unbelief and rebellion refused to go into the land of Canaan with its giant warriors and fortified cities. They said, we are not going. You remember the 10 spies? We're not going back in there. Caleb and Joshua saying, we want to go. God has promised us. He's given us this land. Let us go in. And the others said, no. And the people said no. And so of course they wandered for the next 40 years in the wilderness and they fell in the wilderness. And so immediately Moses is thinking of what has happened and that here we go again. Here we have the two and a half tribes saying, we're not going to go in. We'd like to settle here. This is nice. This is nice for our livestock. It's beautiful. And we'd like to stay here. Well, Moses responded, warning them in number 32, that as God's fierce anger burned against that former generation, so it would burn against them. If they too would not receive God's rest in the land, if they too would not fight. But the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and Eastern Manasseh approached Moses and clarified their plans in Numbers 32, verses 16 through 27. They said this, quote, we will build sheep folds here for our livestock and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms ready to go before the people of Israel. Until we have brought them to their place, we will not return to our homes in the Transjordan until each of the people of Israel has gained his inheritance. We will take up arms and we will go before the people of Israel. The men of valor, the men will go before the people and will conquer the land that God has given to them against their enemies. In verse 26, they declared, our little ones, our wives, our livestock, and all our cattle shall remain there in the cities of Gilead, but your servants will pass over every man who is armed for war before the Lord to battle as my Lord orders. So upon these conditions, Moses permitted them to settle the Transjordan, east of the Jordan River. And this context helps us to understand the meaning and significance of Joshua's exhortation to the two and a half tribes to remember the words of Moses. He summarizes Moses's words in Joshua 1 and verse 13. Look there with me. The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest and will give you this land. And then in the following verses, Joshua reminds them of the conditions set forth by Moses. Verse 14. 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. Well, this is ancient history. A lot of people think ancient history is kind of boring and dusty, and it really has no relevance to us. I was speaking with a friend of mine this past week who is, he said that when I called him earlier that day, he was teaching Syriac to his seminary class. I said, well, you should have let me through so I could have helped you to teach them this ancient language. Not. We began talking about our time at the British Museum in London and walking by all these $3,000, 3,000 year old tablets. And I said, I bet you spent a little time there. He said, I've spent more hours than, you know, down in the depths and the belly of that museum down below looking at ancient texts, thousands of years old. This history is really quite glorious if we take time to understand it and how it is relevant to us. You see, here we learn that God's people are called to remember God's word. We are called to remember God's word. Joshua declares to them that they ought to, in verse 13, 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. Moses essentially is repeating the word of God. Joshua is saying, remember what Moses said to you, which is a word from the Lord. We are called to remember God's Word, His law, His covenant promises, His warnings, His declarations of love and mercy in Christ. In fact, we're going to see over and over again how in the book of Hebrews, the wilderness wanderings and the people of Israel falling in the desert after those 40 years of rebellion, and then the new Israel going in to the promised land with all of God's promises in hand and God's presence, we see this is like a typology of the Christian life. And Hebrews, the book of Hebrews brings this out. And so we don't read this simply as just stories and history from the past, but it actually has relevance for our Christian lives. It gives us a pattern for the Christian life. And so we remember God's law. We remember his promises. We remember his warnings, his declarations of love and mercy in Christ. Like ancient Israel, beloved, we are prone to forget God's truth. Like the hymn says, we are prone to wander. Lord, I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love. Therefore, we need to heed the call here to remember. To remember God's promises of rest, ultimately realized in Jesus Christ. To remember, we said it earlier, to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. What does Sabbath mean? Rest. Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Remember the rest that we have in Christ and the rest that we will have eternally in the new heavens and the new earth. As we remember the Sabbath day and all that it means and all that it represents, it turns our heart to Christ. It helps us to keep our eyes on things above where Christ is and not to be overwhelmed and distracted by things below. We remember the Sabbath day. We remember the deeds of the Lord. We remember Christ's sacrificial death at the Lord's table where Jesus declares, do this in remembrance of me. You see, the Christian life is about remembering. Remembering God's promises. Remembering what Christ has done for you. Remember that as you have difficult circumstances ahead of you, God is with you. He will go with you. Christ is with you. Remember this. Secondly, we see from this section that God's people are called to unity. Moses was upset, rightly so, when he thought that this two and a half tribes was staying behind. Y'all go ahead and fight your battles, we're gonna stay here in the pasture and raise our livestock and we're good. And Moses thinking that this was the case and that they were acting like Israel at Kadesh Barnea says, oh, this is a terrible thing. But fostering unity is an important aspect of this text because Israel needed to be unified in its front and in its battle. fostering that unity is not easy. It was hard for Moses and it will be a challenge for Joshua as well. But unity means standing with and for one another, doesn't it? It means together battling the spiritual forces of wickedness that so that together we can enter God's rest and His glorious inheritance that He's given to us in His Son. It means we actively encourage one another and pray for one another. Beloved, we are all in the fight of faith. We are all, if not now, in the future, or in the past, facing difficult circumstances. We see the giants of the land, we see the fortified cities and we are often fearful, but we need one another to persevere and to stand firm. The two and a half tribes were committed to helping their countrymen possess their inheritance and enter their rest. And this should be the commitment of every believer, not just a selfish focus. I want to enter my rest, but I want those around me to enter that rest as well. And I will encourage them. I will spur them on. I will exhort them. I will seek to be an example to them so that they too will enter that rest. Thirdly, what we see here in this section of Joshua is that God provides the place of rest, but it must be laid hold of through faith. God provides the place of rest, but it must be laid hold of through faith. This is a beautiful portrait of the Christian life. God's gift of an eternal heritance must be laid hold of by faith. Faith, by the way, which is a gift of God, lest any man should boast. As pilgrims on the way to possess our eternal inheritance in Christ, we strive, we fight, we persevere by faith. This is the life of discipleship. It's not a life of ease, but a life of faith. A life of spirit wrought good works. It's a life with a destination. It's a life with an aim and a purpose. Not a life of doom-scrolling, a new phrase I just learned recently. Christians are not called to a life of doom-scrolling, but a life of godliness and purpose, a destination which is our heavenly rest and seeking to bring as many people as we can along with us by God's grace. The writer to the Hebrews references the period that we are considering in chapters three and four of Hebrews. He warns God's people not to be like the generation of Israel who fell in the wilderness due to their hard and rebellious hearts. They were deceived by the deceitfulness of sin and their hearts were hardened and they did not enter that rest. Rather, the writer to the Hebrew says this, chapter three, verse 11, let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. We are called by grace through faith to strive to enter that rest. The Christian life is not a spiritually sedentary life of fear and self focus and worldliness. It's a life of active faith, gratitude, and loving obedience to God's commands, empowered by God's grace and spirit. It's all empowered by his grace and spirit. This is what we see emphasized in the first chapter of Joshua. Finally, this brings us to the third division, the tribe's exhortation to Joshua. What a wonderful section. You would never have dreamed it up. We would never have dreamed up this section, the people exhorting and encouraging Joshua, their new leader. Look with me at verses 16 through 18. 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. The first thing we see here is unconditional surrender to Joshua's leadership. Whatever you command us, we will do. Wherever you send us, we will go. And so far as Joshua is leading them in God's name and with God's word, they will obey. Here we see beloved the heart of full surrender. Not primarily to Joshua, but to God, to the Lord who is leading Joshua. Beloved, here we cannot help but think of Christ's call to discipleship. His call to unconditional surrender to him. Now, let me just make it very clear. We are not saved because of our unconditional surrender to Christ. Our unconditional surrender to Christ do not constitute the means of salvation. We are not saved by works. We are saved by grace. Amen. And yet in Christ, united to him by grace through faith, we are called to a life of surrender. We are called to love God, not with half of our hearts, but with what? All of our hearts. all of our hearts. Listen to the people. Whatever you command us, we will do. Wherever you send us, we will go. It sounds very similar to Christ's call to discipleship in Mark 8, verse 34 and following. And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. Full surrender. Salvation is by grace, but in Christ we are called to live a life of gratitude and full surrender. What kind of a Lord, what kind of a God would expect anything less than that? I shared during Sunday school, an analogy. Imagine being at the altar. Wives out there, imagine being at the altar and your future husband in the vow says, I will give you half of my heart. And you give him that look, that look that you like to give him sometimes. You give him the look and then he says, I give you three fourths of my heart. And she gives it that look again. I give you 99% of my heart. Come on, honey, that's a lot. You would walk away. You would walk away because the only thing that you as a wife or a husband would want of his wife is 100% commitment. Knowing that person will have flaws, will fail. You want a hundred percent commitment. And the Lord calls us to the same. This word from Israel to Joshua, Joshua as their leader, with God leading him, it's a word of full surrender and sacrifice. Whoever loses his life for my sake, Jesus says in the Gospels, will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? For what can a man give in return for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. Beloved, do not miss the force of this call. It's a call to surrender oneself to Christ and to abide in His saving grace, to follow Him with unyielding devotion, to put Him and His word first above all things, to surrender all to Him. Beloved, saving grace, please hear this, saving grace in Christ doesn't exempt a person from surrender to Christ. In fact, it empowers it. It demands it. The question then is raised. And I ask you, dear one, have you ever done this? There is so much easy believism and lighthearted, frivolous, superficial Christianity in the land. And it often is what has enveloped our own hearts. And I'm asking you, Have you ever done this? Have you ever gotten on your knees and surrendered your life? Not 90% of it, not 99% of it, but 100%? I will hold nothing back from you, Lord. I am yours. Do with me what you want. What you tell me to do, I will do. Where you tell me to go, I will go. I'm not going to limit where I'm going to go. I'm not going to limit who I'm going to talk to about you. I am yours. I am your vessel. I am your servant. Do with me what you please. Have you ever done that? Have you ever said that? Have you ever cried out to God in this way? I would argue it's not just a one-time thing, because our hearts wander, don't they? We find ourselves drawn away. And so we say these things regularly, don't we? You know, we need to give ourselves, all of ourselves to the Lord. Whatever you tell me, Lord, I will do. Wherever you lead me, Lord, I will go. Secondly, We see here a no-nonsense approach to rebellion in the camp. We have a no-nonsense approach to rebellion in the camp. The people of Israel are very familiar with their own history and the consequences of disobedience. The warnings are stark for those who would rebel against Joshua. They declare whoever rebels against your commands and disobeys your words, whatever you command him shall be put to death. You see to rebel is to begin to lead people astray. And so there is this harsh punishment all in light of what has happened before with the former generation. The next thing we see here that I mentioned earlier is that Israel encourages their new leader, Joshua. They say, may the Lord God be with you as he was with Moses and be strong and courageous. The section ends with those, those wonderful words, be strong and courageous, dear ones. It's vitals, excuse me. It's vital for leaders to receive encouragement, to be encouraged, to be strong, to be courageous, to not give up, to keep going, to press on. This is the fourth time that Joshua has heard this in this chapter. Three times God exhorted him to be strong and courageous. And now the people are repeating that divine exhortation. Joshua, be strong. and courageous. You're our leader. We will follow you as we followed Moses. As I was thinking about this this week, I was thinking that Joshua must have really needed this. He must've needed all of these exhortations. And then I started thinking, you know, every leader needs these exhortations. Every pastor needs these exhortations. I'm so grateful to serve in a congregation where there is much, I would even say abundant encouragement. And I thank God for you. But you need to know that as God brings people into your lives that are leaders in the church, elders, deacons, exhort them and encourage them to be faithful, to carry on, to be strong, to be courageous. There have been times where I have felt at my very end, and then I get a word of encouragement, a word of exhortation, a text, an email, a phone call, a note, and the Lord uses it in extraordinary ways. All leaders need prayer and encouragement to press on, encouragement to be faithful. lest they see themselves one day not entering the rest that they themselves were exhorting others to enter. Richard Baxter, 17th century Puritan, wrote these sobering words for preachers. Oh, sirs, how many men have preached Christ and yet have perished for a want of a saving interest in him? How many who are now in hell, have told their people of the torments of hell, and warned them to escape from it? How many have preached of the wrath of God against sinners who are now enduring it? Oh, what sadder case can there be in the world than for a man who made it his very trade and calling to proclaim salvation and to help others to heaven, yet after all to be himself shut out? Alas! that we should have so many books in our libraries, which tell us the way to heaven, that we should spend so many years in reading these books and studying the doctrine of eternal life. And after all this to miss it, that we should preach so many sermons of damnation and yet fall into it. And all because we preached so many sermons of Christ while we neglected him. Sobering words for preachers. Sobering words for me. Sobering words for all of us that we would be directing people to Christ and to eternal life and ourselves miss it because we are living for ourselves. We are living outside of Christ. Beloved in our text for this morning, we learn a lot about the ancient people of Israel. We learn a lot about Joshua. We learn a lot about their preparations to enter the land that God had given to them, but we also learn a lot about ourselves. We learn some important exhortations to remember God's promises, to foster unity and encouragement in the body of Christ, to surrender all to him and not just some or most. and to strive together as pilgrims to lay hold of the rest that God has promised to give us in His Son. As we prepare to come to the Lord's table, let's remember the true source of rest for our weary and sin-sick souls, the greater Joshua. The true man of valor who has gone before us and conquered all of his and our enemies, the world, the flesh, and the devil, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The one who perfectly fulfilled the requirements of God's law on our behalf, who gave himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and then rose from the dead on the third day. And as one day coming back, he did all of this for you. He did all of this for me. Let us abide in him. Let us hear his words of love from Matthew 11, 28 and 29, as we close. Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart. and you will find rest for your souls. Let us pray. Our Father, we give you all glory and praise and honor for this gospel of your son. We thank you, Lord, for the rest that you give us in him. We do not need to live unsettled, for in Christ we are saved. And Him, Lord, we've been set free from the bondage of the law and the world and the flesh and the devil. And we've been given freedom in Christ, forgiveness in Christ, a justifying righteousness in Christ and eternal life in Him, eternal rest. And so, Lord, we pray that this glorious good news and with a new heart that it would truly motivate us and encourage us by your spirit and word to live for your glory, to be able to say, Lord, we will do everything you tell us to do, and we will go everywhere you will tell us to go, and we will trust you. And when we fail, Lord, we will look to you for your abundant mercy and grace. We thank you, O Lord, that once we were enemies, But now we are guests at your table by grace through faith. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.