PODCAST
Rest for the Weary
September 13, 2026 | Brandon CooperBrandon discusses how we live in a restless age, constantly searching for peace in money, relationships, and achievement, only to find that none of these can hold the weight we place on them. Joshua chapter one speaks directly into this tension, revealing three daily choices that lead to genuine rest: believing God’s promises, obeying His Word, and following His leadership together in community. God’s promise to Joshua, that He would never leave nor forsake him, belongs to us as well, and it does not shift with our circumstances. Jesus is the true and better Joshua, the one whose name literally means ‘the Lord saves.’ Where Joshua and Israel ultimately fell short through unbelief, Jesus lived in perfect obedience and then took our failure upon Himself at the cross. Because of what He has done, we can receive an inheritance that cannot spoil or fade. Real rest is not something we manufacture on our own. It is something we receive from the God who loved us enough to make a way for us to have it.
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TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Well, good morning, church. Good to see you all today. You can go ahead and grab your Bibles, open up to Joshua1 if you haven’t got that yet. We’re starting a new season series in Joshua today. If you are using that black Pew Bible in front of you, you’re on page 169.
Joshua chapter one. So we are starting this new series in Joshua, which is great news for those of you who may be visiting with us for the first time today. Perhaps you got invited to kickoff or something like that. Clean slate. You come in, you don’t need to catch up at all.
You’re not in the middle of a series, except that the first word of Joshua, at least in the Hebrew, is the word. And so we’re actually picking up in the next chapter in a saga. This is the start of season six and you missed a lot in those first five seasons. So what are some of the things we might have missed? We missed for Example, God calling out of all people, all nations, a single man agent, Abraham, and promising to bring him into a land that would be his own and to make his descendants into a great nation.
We miss the fact that his great grandson Joseph got sold into slavery in Egypt, which actually ended up being a really good thing because it meant he was able to save not just his family, but really that part of the world from famine. Except that they get stuck in Egypt for, you know, a handful of centuries and are made slaves in Egypt. So God raises up Moses to deliver them out of Egypt. He sends those 10 plagues on the Egyptians. He splits the Red Sea.
We did all this last year at this time so that they could walk through it and into the promised land. Except there, on the brink of the promised land, when 12 spies returned from having looked at the land God was going to give them, terrified, scared, and then managed to scare the rest of the people. That group actually ended up perishing in the wilderness because of their unbelief. They were not able to enter into the land land. So here we are, 40 years after that, on the brink of the land again.
Will they ever get in? Will this promise that’s five centuries old now ever come to fruition? Will they ever find rest for their weary souls and that matter, rest for their weary souls, the soles of their feet, because they’ve been walking for a long time at this point. So they are looking for literal rest. Yes, but we’re talking about something deeper.
We’re talking about spiritual rest. We could almost say an existential rest. And as we begin to talk about that, we can begin to sense how relevant this ancient book is for our lives today. Because of the restlessness that we experience in our modern culture, ours has been called an anxious age. An anxious age.
Despite the fact that we have more money, more health, et cetera, than ever before, we are an anxious people, an anxious generation. Which just goes to show you that our rest is not dependent on our circumstances. It must be something else that we’re talking about. So we’re restless because at this point, we are unmoored, drifting from the source of rest, which means it’s up to you, on your own at this point, to provide it for yourself, searching for that something that will make everything okay forever, and we still haven’t found what we’re looking for. Rest is so tenuous, so fragile, so constantly under threat in our age.
It doesn’t take much. Like we’ve experienced it just as a family right now. We got evicted from our home for a few months while they remediate a mold problem that we have. We had car troubles this week. You start to think of the financial hit that those things can cause and you’re like, just like that.
You know, my shoulders are tense when I think about what’s going on. I’m sure you all could fill in your own blanks in that story.
Most of us feel unsettled so easily and feel it deeply. And so the good news of Joshua that we’ll see today is that there is hope beyond our circumstances when we return to the source. And so I want to give you the big idea up front. Here’s the takeaway from the passage that we’re going to start study this morning. It’s quite simple.
It’s just this. Find your rest in Jesus. Find your rest in Jesus. Now I realize I’m gonna have to prove that that’s a good idea right there. We’re have to talk about whether or not we actually can find rest.
And then of course the big question you all have is, what do you mean in Jesus? Because we’re in 1200 BC right now, so we got 1200 years before Jesus. Jesus is born into the world. God become flesh. So we’ll talk about both of those as we go.
As we follow the narrative’s three scenes, we’re going to see three choices that we can make today and every day to find our rest in Jesus. So scene number one from Joshua, chapter one, verses one to six. Let me read it for us now.
After the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, son of nun Moses, aid Moses, my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people get ready to cross the Jordan river into the land I am about to give them to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot. As I promised Moses, your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, from the great river, the Euphrates, all the Hittite countries to the Mediterranean Sea in the west. No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life.
As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
So we are in a moment of massive transition in Israel’s history. You see it right there in verse 1. Moses, the servant of the Lord is dead. Moses is at this point the only person who’s been called the servant of the Lord. And he is dead.
We meet him. We meet Joshua, his aide. If we’ve read the previous few books, we’ve met Joshua already. He gets to go up partway up Sinai with Moses. So he’s kind of there with him.
He’s one of the spies who goes out to check out the land initially. I mean, he’s one of the. Just two of them who come back saying, we can do this because the Lord is with us. Well, there’s Joshua, his aid. It’s actually interesting.
Moses renamed Joshua. Anytime you get a new name in scripture, it’s pretty significant. We would go from Abram to Abraham, or we go from Simon to Peter, for example. Always means the Lord’s got some something for you. Well, Moses renames Joshua.
His name was Hoshea, which means salvation. Just sort of generically. Moses renames him to Yehoshua. You just add a little prefix on. It’s no longer salvation.
But the Lord says, yahweh saves. Joshua is actually the first person in recorded history who gets the Yahweh prefix attached to his name. Name all the people, you know, with that jo or something like that in their name, like Joel or Jonathan. Joshua is the first one. But Joshua faces an immediate problem, as do the Israelites, because Moses, the greatest leader in this young nation’s history, is dead.
I mean, Moses is the one who’s brought them back from the brink of destruction. Literally, when he’s up on Sinai, he comes down, they’re all worshiping a golden calf. And the Lord says, tell you what, I’m gonna wipe them out. We’ll start over with you. And Moses intercedes for the people, and they are spared.
Moses spoke face to face to the Lord. He had such an intimate relationship with God that when he would come away from meeting with him, his face was shiny like the glory of the Lord got stuck on him so that he glowed a little bit that Moses is dead. Who will take his place? Can anyone even take his place? We just have no parallel for this today, this sort of leader.
I mean, you think Queen Elizabeth died recently after decades? Yeah, but she wasn’t the leader. You know, she was a ceremonial figurehead. Maybe it’s Steve Jobs at Apple or something like that. You’re like, sure, but that’s a company.
That’s not a nation. This is different. And so we’re in this delicate moment in a young nation’s history. Transitions are always rough times for dynasties and all of that. And so we fully expect a pause.
We start reading here. You know, Moses, my servant, is dead now, then you and all these people take a beat, mourn, recalibrate. Let’s get some democratic elections set up or something like that. That. No, we get none of that.
Moses is dead. All right? So you and all the people get ready to rise and cross the Jordan river, which will be another major obstacle we’ll come to in a few weeks. So you can. It doesn’t matter that Moses has exited stage left.
Nothing has really changed. Because the decisive factor when it comes to Israel entering the promised land isn’t the presence of Moses, but the presence of and the promise of God. That’s why God says to Joshua, the land I’m about to give them, like I’m the one who’s doing this. The Lord says, so in one sense, everything’s changed, but in another, much more important sense, absolutely nothing has, because he is the same God yesterday, today, and forever. Already we’re beginning to sense where we might get a rest that goes beyond circumstances.
Because he. He never changes, even when our lives do well, in case we miss what’s going on, God makes it abundantly clear. He repeats the promise that he’d given Moses, which is in fact the promise he’d given to Abraham all those centuries ago. He repeats that promise to Moses almost verbatim to Joshua here. Like, look in your Bibles at verses three to five.
Look at that as I read aloud to you. Deuteronomy 11, 24 and 25. This is God speaking to Moses. And he says, every place where you set your foot will be yours. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, from the Euphrates river to the Mediterranean Sea.
No one will be able to stand against you. There’s a lot of overlap. Like I said, it’s almost verbatim repetition. God keeps his promises. No word of his will ever fail or has ever failed.
It gives us peace because we know that it doesn’t ultimately depend on us when we trust in Him. God was with Moses. That’s why Moses was able to bring Israel out of Egypt. In fact, it’s the only reason Moses was even willing to go and lead his people. He asked way back in Exodus 3, when God first revealed himself to Moses.
Moses, like, I’m not going, like what? And then the Lord says, I will be with you. I will be with you. Moses says, okay, okay, well, then that’s a different story. So God was with Moses.
That’s why he was able to bring Israel out. God will be with Joshua. That’s why he’ll be able to bring Israel. Israel into the promised land. And God makes it quite clear, right?
I’ll never leave, never forsake you, Joshua. Which is all well and good if you’re Joshua. I mean, God’s speaking to Joshua here. He’s not speaking to us right there. That’s a.
That’s a singular you that’s being talked about. What about you and me? Do we get a promise like this that the Lord will be with us?
I’m glad you asked. Here’s Hebrews 13, 5, 6. This is speaking to the church. This is speaking to all of us who have put our trust in Jesus. Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.
Because God has said, never will I leave you nor forsake you. So we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me? God promises to be with, never to abandon those who trust in him, to help us, to help us live as we ought.
Even to live restful, not fearful lives and to live holy lives because our soul is at rest. I mean, that’s why the connection is to money there. It’s kind of a weird introduction to this point promise, isn’t it? Right? You don’t have to like hoard wealth for yourself.
You can be content with what you have. Why? Because the permanent circumstances of your life never change if you’re in Christ, if you trust in God. This then is why he calls Joshua to be strong and courageous. When he tells Joshua, be strong and courageous, he’s not saying, bro, you better psych yourself up here, man, this is gonna be tough.
Like, this is a significant task here. You know, you’re want to work on your breathing exercise, kind of center, all that stuff. No, he’s saying you can be strong and courageous, Joshua. Like, you can do what I’m going to ask you to do because you know that I will be with you. And that is all that you need to do.
What you need to do. That’s like when you got a new driver going out on their first drive in driver’s ed. Like, what does that driver need? The instructor in the car. That changes everything.
They got a brake on their side, they can jerk the wheel if they need to. And you go, okay, I can do this because you are with me. It’s that only infinitely more. So God is with us, our God, who is a wonder working promise keeper. That is the key to our rest.
It’s really not up to us. And so we find rest. Here’s your first fill in the blank. We find Rest. As we believe the promises.
As we believe the promises, God is there. The God who is there will do what he’s promised to do. That should strengthen in us to face whatever circumstances we encounter. For us, the promise is even more glorious. If we’re in Christ, we have the promise of eternal resurrection life.
What can mere mortals do to us? The worst thing that can happen is we die and enter glory and eternal life forever. There is a danger, though, because when I say believe the promises, we’re not talking about a passive believing, but an active trust which is expressed in concrete action, that if you really trust, it’s going to leak out into your life. We see hints of it here. We’ll get more of it later in the next sections.
I realize geography is not our strength as a nation these days. So when I read this little description of land, you all just checked out mentally like nobody was picturing a map in your head right there. So let me help you out here. That little sliver of land that the Lord just described would include all of modern day Israel and Palestine, but also all of Jordan, all of Lebanon, all of Kuwait, half of Iraq, and a good chunk of Saudi Arabia. At no point did the nation of Israel ever hold that amount of land, not even under David, their greatest leader.
When they were at their zenith nationally, did God’s word fail? He didn’t keep his promise? No, not at all. Keep reading in Joshua as we will together, never mind judges and the rest of it, and you’ll see that sloth sets in. The people grow complacent.
So they laid hold of some of the promises of God, but not all of it. It’s a little bit like when you get an infection and you go to your doctor and they give you the antibiotic treatment. And what does it always say on the antibiotics? Finish them. Finish them.
Because your doctor’s going, I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to think, I feel bad. I don’t need to take the rest of them. So if you do that, you get, you know, halfway in and you’re like, I feel better. Ear doesn’t hurt anymore.
I’m good. You stop taking it, the infection comes back. Whose fault was it? Did your doctor, your quack doctor not give you what you needed? No, of course not.
It’s your fault. Sorry. Same with Israel here. Same with us when we don’t lay hold of God’s promises. And so we really have these twin dangers that we need to watch out for when we talk about believing.
I don’t know which one you are. I know that we all tend towards one side or the other though. Some believe without working while others work without believing.
So let’s just imagine what this feels like. Let’s say God calls you to meet a very real need in your community. Let’s say it is to provide food and shelter to the homeless. There’s two possible responses. Some of you are going to get like an activist self reliance going like, I need to call the city council, I need to raise money.
I need you to. Just doesn’t even matter if God exists. This is on me. And then somebody else would just have a passive God dependence. So I’m going to pray about this.
I’m just going to keep praying until they’re all fed and clothed. You know that’s going to happen at some point. No, we need to bring both together as we’ll see. We find rest in Jesus as we believe the promises. But true belief isn’t internal only.
It bursts out in action. Active trust. And that’s actually where we go next. So here’s scene two. Let me keep reading for us.
Verses seven to nine. Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left that you may be successful wherever you go. Keep this book of the law always on your lips.
Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.
So we see it again. True belief isn’t internal ownership, but leaks out externally expressed externally. See this in all sorts of areas. Like you come up to me, you know, we’re chatting at the picnic today or whatever, and you say, oh, I love jazz. Like I am a jazz enthusiast.
I want to see your Spotify playlists or if you’re a real jazz enthusiast, probably your vinyl collection, right? Show me some receipts from the Green Door downtown, something like that. And so that’s what we’re going to see here as well. Show me the receipts. Show me the receipts of your trust in your life.
We get a repetition of the promise. God is going to go with Joshua. He will be with him wherever he goes in service of God carrying out God’s commission because he believes, right? Joshua believes, he believes the promise, but that trust is going to show up in his obedience.
So what do we keep seeing repeated here? Be strong and Very courageous. He’ll be strong and courageous. Joshua will be strengthened, have the courage to conquer the promised land because he knows God is there. Again, that’s how it works for us as well.
Like maybe we’re willing to have a hard but necessary conversation of the sort we’ve talked about in the last couple weeks even, you know, maybe it’s to confront somebody, forgive them how they’ve sinned against you, or to humbly apologize and seek forgiveness, to reconcile a broken relationship. So we’re going to have that hard but necessary conversation because we know God goes before us and is with us in it. In fact, we saw those promises in the last couple of weeks. But that raises a question then. If we’re going, I’m going to believe the promises.
I’m going to live like I believe the promises. Well, then how do I know what the promises are? How do we know what God promises and also what he commands? Well, it’s clear as day right here. He reveals himself to us in his word.
Well, let’s not blow past that either God reveals Himself to us. The God of the universe wants to be known, wants you to know him as he truly is.
The only reason we don’t know him automatically is because we’re in rebellion against him. Like we would conspire to see God murdered. And still God makes a way for us to know Him. That is the grace of our God right there. So he reveals himself.
Notice it says here in the book of the Law. Now is that just the list of commandments? Not at all. The word law in Hebrew is Torah, you probably have heard before. And the Torah you can translate as instruction.
It really is just the first five books of the Bible, what Moses wrote. And if you’ve read the first five books of the Bible, you know there are a lot of commands and them. There are also a lot of stories in them. Stories of God’s grace and love and redemption. So God reveals Himself to us, reveals who he is, but also what he wants from us.
So before we can be careful to do all that God asks us to do, we need to. We need to know it all. Like we need to know what’s in here. So God tells Joshua, you know, day and night, this book should always be on your lips. Now, day and night, that’s a lot.
If you know anything about Joshua, you’ll see it the next few weeks. Of course, Joshua was a man of action. Like he had things to do. So we’re not talking about an ivory tower theologian. All he did was Bible study.
All Day long. That’s not what this means. What it means is that the word was in the driver’s seat every time he made a decision. He had God’s word in his mind, so he was always guided by it. Although it’s interesting because it doesn’t say day and night.
This book should always be on your mind. It says day and night, this book should always be on your lips. The way you meditate in Hebrew thought. And the word itself even suggests this is you speak it. That’s a good bit of onomatopoeia there.
Actually, the word Hebrew word for meditation has got that sense of our English word murmur where it’s like, it sounds like what it’s saying, or even better English word, but we don’t use it as often. Susurate. That’s it exactly. You know when you’re whispering to yourself as you walk to the train station or to your class or something, because you hope you’re going over your memory verse for journey group or something like that, and it kind of sounds like this to people you’re passing by, you’re susurrating the word of God. That’s it.
That’s what Joshua is to do with the word. So already we begin to understand that Hebrew biblical meditation is so different from its Eastern counterpart, like Zen meditation, because Eastern meditation, the goal is to empty the mind. If you’re going to murmur anything, it’s going to be a meaningless mantra because it’s really tough to keep your mind empty. So you just gotta gotta go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah blah, so that nothing is in there. So in Eastern meditation we empty our minds, but in biblical meditation it’s the opposite.
We are active, filling our minds with truth. I mean, you can picture Joshua as he’s walking around the camp muttering under his breath, verse 6. Be strong and courageous because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. Like I gotta have that on my brain all the time if I’m gonna do what needs to be done. This is so important for us.
If you’re still checking Christianity out, like not at all sure about this whole Bible thing, Jesus thing, the best thing that you can do is what you’re doing right now, which is to study God’s word in community.
The second best thing you can do is take it home with you. So that there day and night, you’re reading it on your own, meditating on it. And by the way, let me just it put say this, if you don’t have a Bible, if you don’t own a Bible. That black one that’s there in front of you, that’s our gift to you. Take it home and may it be on your lips day and night.
But it’s not enough to know it. We need to do it. We need to put God’s word into practice. It’s always on our lips. So that we are careful to obey all that he commands, turning neither to the right nor to the left.
But walk in the balanced beam of obedience to God. This is how we lay hold of God’s promises. We live in light of them. We act like they’re true, because of course they are true. Can I just give you some examples briefly?
So here’s a famous passage. If you’ve been in church for any length of time, you probably have heard heard it. I think we just read it not that long ago, even Philippians 4, 6, 7. Do not be anxious about anything. But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
There’s the command. Don’t be anxious about anything. Pray instead. One of those commands is really hard, isn’t it? Don’t be anxious about anything.
Are you kidding me? That you read the news. We see how it’s going to happen though, through prayer. But why? Why would we think prayer is worthwhile?
Because it go on from there. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. You go, boy. I want that peace. That sounds so much better than anxiety.
So I will do what you have asked me to do, Lord. And I will bring my prayers, my petitions, my thanksgiving giving to you. That’s kind of like a 201 example. Can I give you the 101 example? For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, will have eternal life.
That’s the original promise. John 3:16, arguably the most famous verse in scripture. Scripture, there’s a truth there. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. We know that’s true.
It’s historical fact. Why would we believe though? Why would we trust that promise? Why would we give our lives to Jesus? Because we don’t want to perish eternally.
We want to live eternally with him instead. So that’s how we lay hold of the promises, is through our obedience. Like we do what the promise requires. But somebody hands you a check for $1,000, you don’t have $1,000 yet. What do you need?
To do.
I wanted to say go to the bank. Nobody does that, Right? Do they even have banks anymore? I don’t know. But you got to get out your phone and take the picture of it.
Right? And then it’s cash. That’s exactly the idea that we have here. Luther described faith. Martin Luther, the great reformer of the church, described faith as.
As just saying, yes, this is for me. When we read God’s Word. Yes, this is for me both the promise and the command. So meditating on God’s word spurs our obedience. Meditating on the truth contained the promise offered.
Right. Like, I’m going to be with you. I will give you this land. Meditating on that is what spurs our action. Yeah, I’ll be strong and courageous.
It was true for Joshua.
How much more true should this be for us, though? Because Joshua got to meditate on Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy. The first five books of the Bible. The books that Moses wrote.
We have 66 of them. We have the full record of God’s work on our behalf. And we have the story, the true story of Jesus’s life, death and resurrection. Which means we have seen not just the preview, but the full of God’s love. The apostle Paul tells us that every promise is yes and amen in Christ.
Of course it is. We know it as Caitlin read a why for us earlier. He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously, freely give us all things? If he gave us Jesus to deal with our sin, we have every confidence that he will give, give us everything else we need. When we see how much he loves us, you just can’t help but love him in return.
And how do we love God? Jesus told us, John 15, if you love me, keep my commands. And now we know every command because we’ve been meditating on his word. We also know that every command is good. It is for our good.
We can delight in his commands because we’ve seen how good God is like. The God who’s willing to send his son to save us is not a God who’s then going to be out to wreck your fun the rest of the time. He’s just a cosmic killjoy. These commands are just burdensome. No, they’re meant for our flourishing.
He tells us to live generously, not because he doesn’t want us to have nice things, but because he knows. Well, we will come to find out that it’s more blessed to give Than to receive. So we find rest in Jesus as we second fill in the blank. As we obey the Word as we obey the Word, we keep God on our minds, see what he’s done and live in the light of it.
Now, so far, we’ve been speaking to Joshua when God’s talking to Joshua. And in this section, and we saw in places like Hebrews. And of course, this applies to us as well. There’s always a danger when we read the Old Testament stories especially, and it’s that you think you’re like the guy in the middle of it all. Like, we tend to think we’re kind of like the hero of the story.
So you read David slaying Goliath, and you think, right, this is for me because I gotta slay my giants. You are not David. It. You’re not slaying no giants. You’re cowering in fear on the sidelines, which is why God had to send his hero to slay the giant for you.
You’re not Joshua. I’m not Joshua, okay? We are not going to be strong and courageous and cross this, like, lead this nation into the promised land. We’re on the sidelines. So what does God have to say to us on the sidelines?
That’s our third scene. Let me read the rest of the chapter for us. Verses 10 to 18. So Joshua ordered the officers of the people go through the camp and tell the people, get your provisions ready. Three days from now, you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you for your own.
But to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said, remember the command that Moses the servant of the Lord gave you. After he said, the Lord your God will give you rest by giving you this land. Your wives, your children and your livestock may stay in the land that Moses gave you east of the Jordan. But all your fighting men, ready for battle, must cross over ahead of your fellow Israelites. You are to help them until the Lord gives them rest, as he has done for you, and until they too have taken possession of the land the Lord your God is giving them.
After that, you may go back and occupy your own land which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you east of the Jordan toward the sunrise. Then they answered, joshua, whatever you have commanded us, we will do. Wherever you send us, we will go. Just as we fully obeyed Moses, so we will obey you only. May the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.
Whoever rebels against Your word and does not obey it, whatever you may command them will be put to death. Only be strong and courageous. So we get three mini scenes here, all on the same theme. First one, Joshua tells Israel to get ready. It’s go time.
There’s this wonderful paradox that we already hit briefly earlier back in verse six, because God says through Joshua here, you know, get ready to take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving you. So you got to take possession of the gift that he is giving you. Like, you gotta take the gift, like cash the check. Like we talked about earlier. You wake up on the morning of your 16th birthday and your parents say, there’s a gift for you out in the garage.
You say, awesome, thanks, mom and dad. And you head to school. No, no, you’re gonna go take possession of the gift. You’re gonna open the garage and see the new scooter they got for you. It’s like, what did you think you’re getting a car?
Come on, entitled little brat. Earn your own money. You’re gonna buy your own car.
Did I get an amen for that? Spoken like a parent and not a child. The 16 year old, they’re like, hey now, hey now. God graciously gave us all things. What about you, mom and dad?
God has promised goodness, like in his love, he is ready to lavish blessing on us, but we must lay hold of it. And so again we see there’s no passive inaction here, that active trust that busts out in concrete, courageous steps. And that’s what we’ll see in the rest of the book, of course, as they take possession of the gift God has given them. Second mini scene. Then Joshua talks to these two and a half tribes.
So little context but for us. As Israel traveled to the promised land, they were in a couple of places attacked. Like they were saying, we’re just passing through your land. Don’t come out and attack us. We promise.
Somewhat understandably, not every country was okay with that. And so they kept getting attacked by people as they went, which meant they kept sort of inadvertently conquering nations as they went along.
And so this included a little bit of land east of the Jordan river where they’re given here, the land west of the Jordan River. And so the two and a half tribes who are there on the east of the Jordan river go. Actually kind of like the neighborhood schools are good here and stuff. Like, would it be okay if we stay? And Moses says, sure, so long as you promise to help the other tribes with the rest of the Congo conquest.
Can I just give a brief aside here because I know that some of you got questions about this whole conquest thing, like, tell me how what’s happening here is different from Russia invading Ukraine. And especially in light of the news, when you’ve got Israel and Palestine in conflict, have been for a while and all that. Like, these are some big and pressing questions and I want to deal with them. We’ll get to it later in the the series, though. Don’t have time for it today.
So you have to come back. And I’m not going to tell you which weeks you got to come back for all of them until we get there at least. But remember that these two and a half tribes promised to help, and so now it’s time to make good on that promise. Notice that our key word shows up here. Just so you know, I wasn’t making this up.
This is coming from the text of Scripture. It says in verse 13, God has given you rest. Now help the others until he gives them rest. Verse 15. And so we’re starting to understand what that key word means.
To rest is to be settled, secure, flourishing, at peace, which is what we always want and yet never quite seem to have. Doesn’t always feel like we’re right where Israel is. Like we’re always on the cusp of rest. Once we get the permission, with a little more money, once we get this issue sorted once, then finally I’ll be at rest. And it never quite seem to get there.
It is interesting to note here, though, just the way this story is unfolding is there’s the reminder that rest is not an individual experience, but a corporate experience. Like, we need each other, the church, to get there. Why? Because the key to rest is believing the promises and living in light of them. It is so tough to believe and obey without help.
And so we remind each other of the word. That’s what Hebrews 10:25 tells us. Don’t forsake meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but instead encourage one another. And all the more, as you see today are approaching.
First of all, really nice command right there. Like, come back to church, y’. All, okay? That’s really important. If you only come once a year, when you get invited to kickoff, try next week also.
It’ll be great. Okay, so don’t forsake gathering together. But then we come together and we encourage. We exhort one another, we challenge one another to believe and live in light of God’s word.
Then the third meeting, all of Israel, all 12 tribes. It’s like we talk to the 10 and a tribes, and we talk to the two tribes, and then all of them together respond. They answer their leader and they say, we will obey what you command. We’ll go where you go and do what you tell us to do, just like we obeyed Moses. And so we see that they’re going to find rest as they in last fill in the blank here.
They’ll find rest as we follow the leader. As we follow the leader in our preparation, in our action, in our unity, in our obedience, in our following. So in this moment of tense national transition, they fully commit to God’s appointed leader. But why? Well, they tell us they’re going to obey like Moses.
Obey like they obeyed Moses. Because Joshua is like Moses in the most important way. God is with him. It actually says there in verse 17, not only may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses, there’s no May in the Hebrew text. It just says, only the Lord your God will be with you as he was with Moses.
That’s really important, although that only is key. So he’s saying he is with you. He will continue to be with you, but he’ll continue to be with only you. God will be with Joshua, in other words, when Israel falters, as they absolutely will, and as we’ll see in this series repeatedly. And so that prepares us today for Joshua’s coming.
Not this Joshua, the other Joshua, the Joshua that we’re still waiting for the next one, right? The new and true Joshua I mentioned, his name is Yehoshua, which is Hebrew. And then when they translate it into Greek, which is what the New Testament is written in, they don’t have a sh in Greek, so they just translate with an S. So it comes out like this. Iesu, if you know anything about Latin, you know that the I gets written like a J, which means it comes to us in English as Jesus. Jesus in Hebrew, his name is Yehoshua.
He is the second Joshua. We’re going to falter and fail. So what hope of rest do we have? None. Like, no hope of rest if it’s up to us.
Because here’s the thing, they didn’t enter God’s rest like, yes, they got into the promised land. We’ll see it in the book, even partially. But even still, sin and rebellion persist. So they settle for a little bit, and then God sends enemies to chasten them, and then David brings them rest again, and then they’re conquered, they’re taken away into exile. I mean, Hebrews sums it up nicely for us.
Hebrews 3:19. So we see that they were not able to enter his rest because of their unbelief.
So yes, maybe some momentary circumstantial rest, but not enduring rest because they didn’t believe, they didn’t obey, they didn’t follow their leader. So I ask again, what hope do we have? Onlyness. Only this. That Jesus was willing to switch places with us.
Jesus, the true and better Joshua, gives us his perfect obedience. He did not turn to the right or to the left. He was. And then he takes our unbelief and disobedience on himself. He gets punished on the cross.
We get rest because of the cross. Jesus, the true and better Joshua, was strong and courageous. Not just in the face of death, but unto death. He did not shrink back from his execution, but willingly embraced the cross for our sake. To make a way for us to enter.
To enter rest, to enter God’s presence and to live there knowing that he’ll never leave us nor forsake us.
Remember, God gives rest like he gives the land. It’s grace. It’s a gift. We only need to take hold of it. We need to receive it like a gift.
Cash the check. We won’t do that unless we believe that God offers true rest. Rest for the spiritually weary. And that happens when we come to the end of ourselves, when we stop looking to the temporary, the momentary, and instead look to the permanent to find lasting peace and rest.
That’s the problem, as we’ve seen, right circumstances threaten rest. If you’re looking to money to provide rest, what happens when the economy tanks? You’re looking to love, to provide rest. What happens when there’s relational conflict? You’re looking to achievement to provide rest.
What happens when you make a mistake? That’s not rest. No wonder we are so anxious and restless then. Of course, even if we get it all, it still is an enough to satisfy us as we know. But all that we’re seeking is offered freely and irrevocably in Christ.
You can for love. He’s adopted you as his son or daughter in Christ. You come for security. Your inheritance is kept in heaven where it cannot spoil or perish or fade. You looking for worth?
God Almighty says of those who belong to Jesus, this is My beloved Son with Him I am well pleased. Find your rest in Jesus as you believe him, who he is and what he’s done, as you obey him. Because you know his word as you follow Him. Let me just invite those of you who have not done this yet are not following Jesus. Yet, let today be the day.
Be strong and very courageous and set out on this journey of faith. If you’re not sure what that looks like, can I encourage you so strongly, come back next week because we’re going to see a story of that. Exactly. And it is a beautiful story of the gospel. I would love to see you back, but I’m going to close off in prayer now.
As I do, I’m going to pray three prayers for three different groups of people. Just jump in where you are. I’m going to try and give voice to what more might be in your hearts. I’m going to pray. First of all for those of you who are like, I don’t think so.
I’m not sure this God thing is real. Then I’m going to pray for those of you who are like, I think I want to do this. I want to set out on that journey. And lastly, church, I will pray for you. So let’s pray together now.
First, for those who still have questions. God, I come to you not even sure that you are there. I may just be crying out into the void in this moment. I have no confidence that you are there and that if you’re there, you can hear me. And if you can hear me, that you will do anything about it.
But I’m willing to venture out this far in faith at least to say, if you are there, would you reveal yourself to me? Would you make yourself known? Would you chase me down until I am clear on what would matter most if it is true, the like death, resurrection of Jesus Christ. Amen. Second, for those of you who want to set out on this journey of faith, Lord, I acknowledge that I am at the end of myself.
That anxious age thing makes sense to me. I often feel that anxiety, that restlessness. There must be something more. There must be something permanent. And so, Lord, if that is you, would you help me find rest in you?
I acknowledge my rebellion against you. I acknowledge that you had to send your son to do something about it, to save me from my sin. And now I will do my best to put my faith in you, to believe in you, to trust in you and to live, live like I believe. Amen. And then for the church, Lord, we can confess that we are not nearly as strong and courageous as we ought to be in light of the promises that we have.
We can confess that we do not always have your word day and night on our lips and that we walk unfailingly in it. And so, Lord, we pray, would you help us to do just that? Help Us to follow our leader, the new and true Joshua, to follow Jesus, taking up our cross, denying ourselves, walking where he walked and in the way that he walked in increasing measure every day. Because we love you, knowing how much you loved us. And we want to see you exalted, magnified in our lives.
We pray. Pray in Christ’s name. Amen.