Arise and Go

As it comes to the privilege of opening God’s anointed word today, we will find ourselves in the book of Joshua chapter one. The spring board to the deep pool of Joshua chapter one however must launch from the book of Haggai 1:8. Tony has just completed a series of messages in the book of Colossians, which exited on the thought of making full proof of our ministry. As such we are going to take some time over the next month or two while in transition between books to review and renew our church vision here at Harvest Baptist Church. If this is your first time here, or if you have not been here long, it is important for you to know and understand what we are about. The scriptural text, from which our vision is derived, is found in Haggai chapter one and verse eight which says:

Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the LORD. 

To summaries the verse, God will be pleased and glorified when we go, bring and build his house. At the time of the writing the nation of Israel had neglected the building of the temple and God, through his prophet Haggai was reminding them to get up and get back to business for the LORD. They had sold out to the riches of the world and become lost in their own personal passions and in doing so forsaken Gods call. Sound familiar? Welcome to the church’s of America in 2016.

According to I Corinthians 6:9, we are now the temple of God. Although we are no longer building a physical temple, we are actively building the spiritual one. Or at least we should be. Haggai 1:8 aligns perfectly with our mission to go to all the nations, present them with the gospel of Christ by which they may be saved, baptizing them, and teaching them to live by the truths of the Word of God, that we all may someday be called to a great gathering of a people from every nation and tribe to praise and glorify God throughout eternity. What a day that shall be.

Hopefully at this point, you see where we are going with this. No pun intended. I am going to start off today by dwelling on the first of three aspects that are found in Haggai one and Matthew 28. Go. Go ye therefore. And in the case of Joshua 1, arise and go. Now I did a word search on the word go in the Bible. At least through the search engine that I used, I was able to determine that the word go, goeth and going are used at least 1719 times in the King James Bible. My Bible has a total of 1506 pages of written scripture. This is not including note pages or index pages. In comparing the number of times mentioned to the number of pages in the book I think I can safely conclude that God is a going God.

Not only is God a going God, but in the pattern of scripture you find that Gods people are a going people. God’s people are pilgrims, strangers, foreigners who seek heavenly cities while keeping their eyes on things above as they attempt to fulfill God’s call while dwelling in this temporal world. . They are a going people with a purpose.

From Noah to Paul, God has called his men to pick up and pack out with a mission and a message. Whether to bear physical or spiritual fruit, God has sent forth his men on foot, by boat, on the backs of donkeys and in the belly of a whale, both in bonds and while free, to preach his message to those that needed to hear it. Until at last the torch has been passed to the church from which the gospel of Jesus Christ is to be shared throughout the world. For as it says in I Thessalonians 2:4, we have been trusted by God with a precious package.

But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men but God, which trieth our hearts.

I am not sure that it would be a wise thing to attempt to ascertain which of the three parts of the great commission is the most important. If it were missing any of the three, it would be utterly  incomplete and inadequate in accomplishing its purpose. I will however venture to say that without the going, there is no teaching. And without the teaching there is no saving, and without the saving there is no need to baptize or teach spiritual growth.

We must go. Nowhere in scripture does God tell us to come up with a great marketing plan, send out fliers, advertise on the radio or use our musical abilities to attract crowds to the church so that we might tickle their ears with the gospel amidst all the noise. God’s marketing plan entails shodding your feet with the gospel of Christ and taking it to the lost world in the midst of whatever disaster they may find themselves in at the time of your arrival. God does not tell Joshua to wait on this side of Jordan for the promised land to come to him. As we will see he tells Joshua that he will obtain the land that has already been given, only when it falls under his own two feet.

Vs1)     Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake   unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister, saying,

Vs2)     Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people,   unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

Vs 3)    Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said      unto Moses.

Now after the death of Moses. I must stop right here for a moment. Now. What a word. Not yesterday. Not tomorrow but Now. Not only is it the first word used in the book of Joshua, to me it has become the most prominent word on the page. It is by far the most direct word in the text. It implies immediate attention. We can talk about what has been done and we can discuss where we want to go. But if we don’t get to it NOW, we will never get past it or get to it. What do we say to our children when we tell them to do the dishes and they continue to play their video games? We say NOW! He uses the word two times in the first two verses. I will get to the next one in a moment. I want to declare however that God’s call to your life begins the moment you get saved. He did not save you to dilly dally around with his purpose. He did not save you to continue to fulfill the lusts of your own flesh. He saved you to get busy about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Christians are the greatest excuse makers in the world. We can talk ourselves out of doing about anything. Well Lord I am still preparing to share your gospel. Let me ask you something. Did you get saved? Did you accept Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Did you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart according to Romans 10:9-10? Did you call upon the name of the Lord according to Romans 10:13? Did anyone ever share with you that you are saved by grace and that it is not of your own doing but that it is a gift of God according to Ephesians 2:8-9? If so, you are equipped to accomplish at least the portion of the great commission that would entail going and giving the gospel to those that are lost. NOW.

But let’s just face the facts. There are many believers among us today that are not answering the call. I am not stating that it is an easy call. It is a battle like no other and the consequences of failure are eternal. When Joshua steps in to the land, the battle is just beginning. To go for God will create conflict. It takes Joshua five years of fighting before the land was finally at rest from war. And then we discover in chapter 18, that there are seven tribes that have not yet received their inheritance. Say what? In response to their procrastination, Joshua says:

And Joshua said unto the children of Israel, How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you?

While God’s people were answering the call to go and possess, many just tagged along while expecting others fulfill their call. Although the gospel call is global to the church, you must have a personal role in it. You must own God’s call to you. Although we may assist each other, I should say we must assist each other in our service of the Lord, we each run our own race. We each fight our own fight. We are each members of his body and we each must own our roll in the furtherance of the gospel.  Let me put it this way. There were twelve tribes of Israel. Two and a half had taken possession of lands on the other side of Jordan and were just there to fight the battle but never received the lands that God truly had for them. They were uncommitted crowd followers that refused to fully commit to Gods desire. They maintained the facade while selling out their Godly inheritance for the comforts of life.

Then you had seven tribes that were along for the ride but had not claimed their possession yet. They wanted the inheritance that God had for them but they expected it to be provided to them by someone else. They enjoyed the excitement and association with being involved in what God was doing but when it came time to stepping out on their own and owning their portion of the land, they hesitated.

 Let’s see, that leaves…uh…seven plus two and a half, minus twelve….total of two and a half tribes that were fulfilling Gods plan. That seems pretty consistent among the disciples of Jesus as well.  John made it to the heart of the matter, and Peter and James got close.  Oh brothers and sisters, we must ask ourselves the question, are we fulfilling what God has called us to do right NOW.

Ok, let’s get past the first word and consider point number two.

After the death of Moses.

Here it is. Hold on for the gut punch. Sometimes God will remove his messenger for you to become Gods man. Please understand that these guys were close. Moses and Joshua were tight. Joshua was there when they came across the Red Sea. He saw the plagues in Egypt. He fought for Moses with the sword against the Amelekites. Joshua went to the mountain with Moses when God carved the commandments into the stones with his holy fingers. He came back down and witnessed the idolatrous rock and roll show that was beside the camp fire.  He had seen the land and spied it out. He had seen the people fail in their faith and wander for forty years while an entire generation was swallowed in death. He knew the heart of Moses. He had seen his successes and his failures. He knew that Moses had a passionate longing for the land. He knew that God had told Moses that he could not go. And now he was left without the messenger of God who he had fought beside, listened to, learned from and loved. The man that discipled him was gone.

I don’t know how many preachers I have sat under over the years. There are many men that have invested in me. Many a father in the Lord that discipled me and equipped me to fight the good fight of faith. Several of which God removed that I might further my relationship with God. Stepping away from those messengers in my life has been difficult at times. Oh how many a believer sits in the pew every Sunday morning and is filled with the presence and Word of God only to neglect their own personal walk in the word during the week. What a tragically empty place to be when your messenger is taken away. A mark of a successful church is one that is filled with members that are capable of continuing in the absence of a leader. How often do churches fail when the messenger of God is removed? There may be a day that I am gone. There may be a day that Tony is no longer filling this pulpit every Sunday. God may move Mason on someday to fulfill his call elsewhere. Levi is headed to Emporia. Which college student here is going to take up the call and continue the work at the Allen County College while Levi carries the cross to another campus. Who among you today is ready to hear the voice of God when that happens? Who among you today is preparing to fill the void when God moves his messenger so that you might become his man?

He goes on to say:

That the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses minister

God addresses Joshua by name and to some degree title or at least his function. Joshua meaning Jehovah as Savior is the literal translation of Jesus in Hebrew. The name is different than his birth name. His birth name was Oshea, meaning savior. The combination of Jehovah and Oshea produces the name that Moses called him for the first time in Numbers 33:11 Jehoshua. His name reflects the intimacy between God and man. We cannot save ourselves it takes a direct interaction with God through the Lord Jesus Christ to accomplish that. There must be a new name written down in heaven, and it’s mine oh yes it’s mine. He is also addressed as a minister. Joshua is not just a child of God but he is a minister as well. A minister is often translated as a servant. How is God addressing you today my friend? Is he calling you as a son whose name has changed? Or is he calling you as a son and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ? Are you an active participant or an inactive parishioner? Or maybe he is still calling to you as a sinner that must come to repentance and acceptance of his saving blood. Are you living in your own name or under the protection and saving security of the name of Jehovah the almighty God?

Moses my servant is dead.

Time for a reality check Josh. Everything you have known has changed. The one you followed out of Egypt is gone. We cannot stay and dwell in our past reality. We have to move on. God is still going as we shall see. The mission still continues. We sometimes get so hung up and entangled in the good old days that we lose sight of today’s mission. It is dead. It is in the past. Time is still moving. Don’t let your attachment to the past, whether it be good or bad, keep you from accomplishing Gods task today.

Now therefore

I need not belabor what I have already proclaimed. I will say only this. The past is behind, and behold now is the accepted time. Now is the day of salvation (2 Cor 6:2). Do you realize that from the time God tells Joshua what to do in the next few verses that it only takes him three days to get Gods people in to the land of promise? Now means now. Not later. There were three days of preparation before they moved. I do not want to minimize preparation for the ministry. I simply want everyone to understand that the prep time for ministry does not exclude you from participating now. It was three days not three years.  

Arise, go over this Jordan. Thou and all this people unto the land which I do give to them, even to the children of Israel.

Here you have it. Arise and go. You are not going to get where God wants you to go without getting up and getting on with it. You will not get to the land without first crossing “this” Jordan. Why this Jordan? You are going to have to get past some things to get in to the land that God has for you. You are going to have to stick your toes in the water to get where God wants you. And understand that it’s not just about you either. There are some people that Joshua is told to take with him. Ministry is always about people. You see we have been given the command to go, but we have also been given the command to teach, and to edify and to encourage and to perfect the saints. It is your responsibility to at least attempt to take the people in your sphere of influence to the place of promise that God has for them. He doesn’t stop there. We will conclude our message today with a promise. For when we decide to go, God promises to deliver.

Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that have I given unto you, as I said unto Moses.

We must understand that God’s promises are there. They are there for you and for Gods people. The only thing that it takes to get them is for you to buckle up your boots and go. Oh believer may your

Feet be shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace

So that when he calls your name you are ready to respond.

 I am reminded of a passage of scripture in the book of Acts. 1:8-11.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up in to heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.

May we not leave this place today standing with our eyes to the skies and our jaws dropped in stupefied awe after receiving the call to go unto all the world. May we heed the call of the two witnesses who still cry out “why stand ye gazing up in to heaven”, while there are so many lost souls down here. We must arise and go unto the lost world, seeking the souls of man. For God has already promised the victory, if we will only arise, go, and claim it.