Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Heavenly Father, thank youk for the words of Scripture that are living and active, that can penetrate beneath the surface level and the defenses of our heart. And I just pray this morning as we come to this passage that may be familiar for some particular words may be familiar, just pray that yout would open us up so that we may seek youk understand you'd and be transformed into the image of Jesus.
[00:00:28] May I decrease and you'd increase.
[00:00:31] In your name we pray. Jesus.
[00:00:33] Amen.
[00:00:35] I still remember it was around about 11 years ago now. I was sitting in my living room in Blackman's Bay and I received a phone call. It was from Ian Hingston. Some of you remember saying, would you be okay with us putting forward your name to be the preferred option as the pastor for Summerhill Baptist Church?
[00:01:01] My jaw dropped at that moment because for a couple of reasons. One, when we were approached about the interview for Summerhill, we did it really to get experience with the thought that there would be no shot of a job to come from that we just felt what church would really want to call a 31 year old pastor with very little experience.
[00:01:25] So that was a bit of a shock. And at the end of the interview, for the second reason, we were told that if, you know, if we're happy, we might go another interview. So that was what I thought the call might have been.
[00:01:37] And that kind of threw us into the mix of this thing that we call change and transition.
[00:01:47] Who here has experienced or enjoys experiencing change and transition?
[00:01:54] So some people thrive on it, others would rather not. But the reality is it's inevitable, isn't it? It just happens. Cara Otis, an actress and model, was quoted as saying, life is full of change and uncertainty. We know this, we experience it on a daily basis.
[00:02:17] That there are things that we can't control. There are things that shift around us even when we're not aware. There are changes that involve other people around us, that life never seems to remain static and that these feelings of change, I kind of like this image that change is kind of what happens at the top of the iceberg. It's the thing that you can see, it's the relocation, it's the new achievement or the new role or relationship status. But there's all these feelings that come with those that lie underneath the surface, that maybe the change brings up a degree of fear or anxiety. Maybe there's a sense of excitement or looking forward for the opportunity, opportunity to grow. Maybe it's a mix of both.
[00:03:05] But these moments of change that come into our lives rarely Leave us unchanged.
[00:03:14] There's something known. Joseph Campbell, who wrote kind of a seminal book on storytelling, spoke of this reality called that he called the hero's journey. And one of the significant parts of the hero's journey, if you, if you look, you'll see this in Lord of the Rings, you will see this in Star wars, you'll see this in some of your favor stories, kind of this blueprint of how things go. One of the most significant parts of the story is this bit here called the Crossing the Threshold.
[00:03:46] It's when you step from what is known, what is safe, what is secure, what you're familiar with, into the unknown, whatever that may be.
[00:03:58] The line that I think sums this up well is in Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring, when Frodo assembles are beginning their journey to take the ring to Rivendell. They get to a field and Sam just stops walking.
[00:04:13] And when Frodo asks him what is wrong, he says, if I take one, I won't do the axe. And I almost tried. You could hear it in my voice. I almost went there and then thought better of it. If I take one more step, it will be the farthest away from home I have ever been.
[00:04:30] That is that kind of moment when you step out of what you've known, what is familiar and you enter the farthest away, something that's unfamiliar, something that is unknown. And of course this brings a whole lot of emotions and feelings to the fore.
[00:04:48] And so the question that kind of been pondering is how do we approach these moments when they come and they will come for all of us, these moments of change, these moments of shifting and deciding and transitions, how do we approach them with a sense of faith, hope and courage instead of fear, hesitation and concern.
[00:05:16] How do we enter into these seasons with a sense of confidence and trust?
[00:05:24] And I think as we go through the story of scripture, there are numerous times where there are significant transitions, whether it be in leadership for the people of God, where he's doing something in those moments that often God uses these times of leadership transition in scripture to display his glory and faithfulness as well as lead his people into the plans and the purposes that he has for them.
[00:05:57] And so over the next three weeks, we are going to be looking at a few of the transitions in the story of God as we wind up within less than a month to the 7th of December and my final service thought it would be good to take some time to look at what have been some other times in scripture where there has been leadership transitions and what has God done in the midst of those times? So to give you a bit of a blueprint over the next three weeks, we will be looking today at the shift from Moses to Joshua. You may have picked that up from the reading that Bernard read.
[00:06:37] Next week we will be unpacking from Elijah to Elisha.
[00:06:43] And then the final week of this particular series, we'll be looking at Paul's farewell to the church of Ephesus and the elders.
[00:06:52] But today we're going to be looking at Deuteronomy, chapter 31, verse 1 to 2. If you've got a Bible with you, whether it be a device, whether it be a book, literal book, feel free to open it up to Deuteronomy chapter 31, where we come to the end of an era.
[00:07:13] Moses went out and spoke these words to all Israel.
[00:07:19] I'm now 120 years old and I'm no longer able to lead you.
[00:07:25] The Lord has said to me, you will not cross the Jordan.
[00:07:31] Now let's just give, let's just pull up there and give a brief context of the book of Deuteronomy. It's the fifth book in what was known as the Torah or the Pentateuch. And that was the first five books of the Jewish scriptures. You have Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. You can go back and look at your contents page and you'll be able to see that there. And each of them, these first five books are really building a sense of God is creating a people for himself.
[00:08:05] That's kind of the whole overview, as simply as I can make it, of the first five books of Scripture. You've got Genesis, where you see that God has created the entire world and all the peoples. And out of that world, out of those people, he chooses a family to restore the blessing that he wanted to pour out onto the earth. And it's the journey of that family as they come to Egypt, that God is faithful to them through generations upon generations.
[00:08:39] But God is beginning the process of forming. He has chosen a people for himself.
[00:08:45] We leave off in Egypt with Genesis and we get to Exodus where suddenly things have gone pear shaped. A Pharaoh has come to the throne who does not know the previous Pharaoh and the previous stories of Joseph, who had been faithful to God and a blessing to Egypt.
[00:09:04] And so the Israelites find themselves in slavery, oppressed. And God raises up Moses, who speaks these words, obviously raises up Moses to lead his people out of Egypt, which if you've seen the prince of Egypt, if you've seen the ten commandments you can kind of get a bit of a gist of the story. There's 10 plagues, there's a parting of the Red Sea. We don't have time to fully dive into that. The reason that God brings them out is so that they can worship Him.
[00:09:40] He wants to create and form a people who are devoted to him.
[00:09:48] This doesn't go super well.
[00:09:51] They end up break. God gives them ten commandments. They break the first two in a relatively short period of time.
[00:10:01] And because of this, and so much of the second half of Genesis, sorry, Exodus is then the design for the tabernacle, a tent where they would be able to meet the presence of God and then them actually building it. You get to the end of Exodus with this tent built and Moses can't enter in because something has gone awry.
[00:10:23] Something must be fixed, There is a level of relationship that must be restored. And enter the book of Leviticus, which is everyone's favorite book really. It is just a series of moral and purity codes and instructions of how you can go from unclean to clean and have peace with God, which we don't often think about. Or maybe you do and I'm behind the times.
[00:10:51] Leviticus doesn't seem like a revolutionary, incredibly progressive book.
[00:10:57] But at the time that it was received, the idea that you could have peace with God, that you know where you stood before God, based on a tangible set of practices, was completely revolutionary because the gods were capricious. The gods, you never knew where you stood with them.
[00:11:19] Leviticus is a game changer in that respect.
[00:11:24] And then after this, we get to the Book of Numbers, which is really the story of the wanderings through the desert.
[00:11:31] And you get the 40 year journey of Israel walking through the desert, grumbling and complaining and moaning for a lot of the way until they reach the edge of the promised land. And this is where we get to Deuteronomy and it's taken 40 years. That is in the biblical term, a biblical generation. The generation that left Egypt has died. As they have wandered along. There is a new generation now.
[00:12:01] And so what Deuteronomy is, is a series of farewell speeches from Moses to a brand new generation of Israelites. As he tells them the story of what God had done, how he brought them through the wilderness. He kind of gives an overview of the first five books really that we have of scripture for this new generation that are standing on the edge of the promised land after a 40 year journey of wandering through the desert.
[00:12:36] The reason they are farewell speeches is because Moses won't be going with them.
[00:12:45] Through his own moment of disobedience, Moses is not permitted to enter into the promised land. Moses will get to climb up a mountain and gaze over the promised land, but he will not get to enter.
[00:13:03] And so we come to this speech that he is. This is what he meaning is meaning when he says, the Lord has said, you shall not cross the Jordan.
[00:13:15] That he said he's 120 years old, which it's a good innings, but there's a whole lot of different thoughts as to that number of what's going on there. There are some that say this is a reference way back to Genesis 6, 3, where it says that humans will live 120 years.
[00:13:38] And so what some people say is really, Moses has reached the boundary of age and human limitation. He won't be going any further. There are some that say that there is something about this 120 number that represents a sense of completeness in this culture. And particularly like there are three sections of 40 years that you have 40 years in Egypt, you have 40 years in Midian, where he's kind of in exile, and then 40 years leading the people out of Egypt through the desert.
[00:14:11] Now, however you want to kind of come at that, whether that's kind of the. The end of human limitation or Moses, life has kind of have a completeness. What we're told in this is this significant figure in Jewish history, this significant figure of leader within the Israelite people.
[00:14:32] This season of leadership has come to its end that Moses will not, after walking with them out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the Promised Land, he will not walk with them further.
[00:14:51] This is the end of an era which is significant, profoundly significant.
[00:14:59] And when a significant leader steps down, it can feel disorienting.
[00:15:05] It can feel like a sense of insecurity. What do we do now?
[00:15:10] A sense of anxiety can creep into the mix.
[00:15:14] The grief of a goodbye or a farewell, like there is legitimate grief and loss in those feelings because it can lead you to a sense of reflecting on what we've had in the time that leader has been apart.
[00:15:32] Gratitude and goodbyes can go hand in hand that Moses is marking out this end of an era. But listen to what he says next, because we start to get the sense that even though Moses has been the one God has used, maybe he wasn't the true capital L leader of the Israelites through this time.
[00:15:58] So in verse three, the Lord your God himself will cross over ahead of you.
[00:16:07] He will destroy these nations before you, and you will take possession of their land. Joshua also will cross over ahead of you, as the Lord said. And the Lord will do to them what he did to Sihon and Og, the king of the Amorites, whom he destroyed along with their land. The Lord will deliver them to you.
[00:16:27] And you must do to them all that I have commanded you to do. Be strong and courageous.
[00:16:35] Do not be afraid or terrified because of them. For the Lord your God goes with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you.
[00:16:45] Those are the words that Rodney closed off his interview with last week.
[00:16:49] But did you notice in verses three to six, who is really the focus of these words?
[00:16:57] Who's the primary agent?
[00:17:01] It's God himself.
[00:17:05] He will cross over before you.
[00:17:09] He will deliver you.
[00:17:12] He will do all that. It is God. Even though Moses has been leading the people, people through, he has been doing it as he follows and seeks to obey what Yahweh, the Israelite God is calling him to do.
[00:17:28] It is God himself.
[00:17:30] He is the thread that even though Moses finishes, God's leadership continues, God's presence continues.
[00:17:40] God's command will continue to go on and that he says to them that he will deliver them like He. He will defeat them like he did to Og and Sihon. It's this reminder to the people as they stand on the threshold of something completely new, something completely uncertain, that they feel unprepared for. God is saying, I've already helped you to do this. I've been with you here. God is reminding them of his faithfulness.
[00:18:13] God is reminding them that he is with them.
[00:18:16] God's reminding them of all the ways that he has been active in their past.
[00:18:22] Because as we've looked at just recently, that God's faithfulness from the past helps to give us hope for the present and the future.
[00:18:31] That knowing God has been faithful in what has gone before helps us to cling to his faithfulness now, helps us to trust for his faithfulness, mindfulness moving forward.
[00:18:47] And then he gives this command, be strong and courageous.
[00:18:54] This is not reminding them to kind of be as they are. Like you are strong, you are courageous. So just keep going in that. Like, he's not calling them into this because they are already pretty awesome, actually. Earlier on in Deuteronomy, we read these words that the Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other people, because you were bigger than them, for you were the fewest, you were the smallest of all people. It was because the Lord loved you and kept the oath that he swore to you, to your Ancestors that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you, delivered you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh, king of Egypt.
[00:19:49] That this call to be strong and courageous is really a call for these people who are weak, who really outside of him, can't achieve much.
[00:20:03] And in fact, there have been times where they have allowed fear to fill their imagination, that they have not been strong and courageous. And when they have not been strong and courageous, it's led them down a road that has been well led to a 40 year journey earlier in the Book of Numbers. Actually there is a mission for people to go out and spy the land.
[00:20:30] The people of God are to go and spy the land that they're coming into.
[00:20:34] And this is the account that they give. They said, we went into the land which you sent us.
[00:20:39] It does flow with milk and honey. In other words, like, it's as good as you promised. It's as good as you've been saying right from when we left Egypt, this land is everything that you said it would be.
[00:20:52] And here's the fruit that actually bring back some fruit with them. Like, this place is incredible.
[00:20:59] But the people who live there are swole, they are ripped, they're huge, they are massive, they're powerful and their cities have fortified and very large.
[00:21:15] We even saw the descendants of Anak there, which we told later. Like, we saw the Nephilim, the descendants of Anak came from Nephilim. And they make this observation. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes and we looked the same to them.
[00:21:38] Like, if you want a meme summary of what this passage is that the call, like, who's played, you know, and ever had to deal, like, draw a lot of cards, that the option here is you enter the promised land or you draw 25, that guy has drawn 25. The Israelites have gone, you can go into the promised Land.
[00:21:59] They're like, no, they're massive.
[00:22:02] They are absolutely huge. Their imagination has been filled with a fear that has distorted their view of reality.
[00:22:14] Because one, they imagined an image of themselves based on the Nephilim. We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes.
[00:22:26] Has anyone ever felt fearful or anxious?
[00:22:33] Do you feel a sense of bigness about yourself?
[00:22:37] Do you feel a sense of capability? And yet I've got this.
[00:22:40] In the times in which I have felt those things, I know I felt small.
[00:22:47] But for the people of Israel, they're looking at these massive people, these fortified cities, and they're like, we just seem like a grasshopper.
[00:22:57] And then the Next thing, they actually impose that view of themselves on the Nephilim. We looked the same to them. I don't know if you've ever thought about that. How could they possibly know how they looked to them?
[00:23:16] Did they sit down and do a debrief, like a little customer survey? There's no way they did. All they know is we felt small. So we assume in their eyes we look small.
[00:23:30] This is the reason why multiple times throughout this account, God gives them the command, be strong and courageous.
[00:23:41] Be strong and courageous. Because sometimes we allow fear to get into our imaginations and it shapes how we see. We must, as the prophet Isaiah says, keep our minds stayed on God.
[00:23:58] You keep him, them in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you because they trust in you.
[00:24:10] And we get to the last two verses where Moses brings Joshua up and kind of repeats a lot of these same words before the people of Israel. Again, Joshua standing there, kind of affirming this guy as the new leader who is going to carry them through that these were. Then Moses summoned Joshua, said to him in the presence of Israel, be strong and courageous, for you must go with this people into the land the Lord your God swore to their ancestors to give them, and you must divide it among them as their inheritance. The Lord goes before you. The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you.
[00:24:51] He will never leave you nor forsake you.
[00:24:54] Do not be afraid to not be discouraged.
[00:25:00] It's the same kind of message again.
[00:25:04] And this is just really what Moses is doing here is what was told to do right back at the beginning.
[00:25:11] Commission Joshua and encourage and strengthen him, for he will lead this people across and will cause them to inherit the land. You will see.
[00:25:23] And then this is what happens. God charged Joshua. It's like God who's speaking now into the life of Joshua. Be strong and resolute.
[00:25:32] Be strong and courageous. For you shall bring the Israelites into the land that I promised them on oath, and I will be with you.
[00:25:43] It just keeps coming up again, this be strong and courageous. We get it in verse six.
[00:25:51] Then we get it again in the call to Joshua in verse seven and eight.
[00:25:58] And I don't think the command is given to them because there's nothing to be afraid of that as they enter in, there is going to be temptation to feel fear, to feel apprehensive.
[00:26:11] And yet the call to do not fear, which comes up 365 times in the Scriptures, is never a call to do not fear, because there's nothing to be afraid of.
[00:26:25] One of the great Stories of Jesus is when he and his disciples set out onto a boat and there are storms and there are wind and there are waves. And Jesus is napping, just getting a little shut eye as they cross the lake. And the disciples are trying to bail out the water. They're freaking out. They're actually going, you don't even care about us.
[00:26:50] And then Jesus awakes.
[00:26:53] And some of you might remember what happens next.
[00:26:56] Jesus asks them, why are you afraid?
[00:27:00] Are you of little faith? Which my answer would have been the big waves and lots of wind. Like, that's probably why.
[00:27:06] But I don't think that's what Jesus is getting at.
[00:27:10] Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm.
[00:27:18] Jesus was shocked that they were afraid.
[00:27:22] Not because the sea was calm, it wasn't. There was storm. There was a legitimate reason to be afraid.
[00:27:28] Why was he shocked?
[00:27:31] Because he was with them in the boat.
[00:27:35] And so for him, he's like, I'm here. I'm with you. Why are you afraid?
[00:27:42] Do you not know who is in the boat with you?
[00:27:48] And that is the call to be strong and courageous. Why? Because the Lord your God will be with you.
[00:27:55] He will never leave you nor forsake you.
[00:27:59] And it's what Jesus says to us when he calls us to step out and to go and to make disciples, as has already been shared by Katie. And what's the very last line of Matthew after that instruction? To go make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you.
[00:28:24] And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.
[00:28:38] This is why we don't need to fear a period of transition, because God is with us.
[00:28:48] God is still speaking. God is still moving. God is still at work.
[00:28:58] Heavenly Father, I just am so unbelievably thankful that we have these words recorded for us of such a pivotal time in the history of the people of God.
[00:29:11] And yet, at the same time, you were at work in the days of Moses, and you would continue to be at work in the days of Joshua. And you are the thread.
[00:29:22] Your presence and your spirit and your activity and your movement among your people was always the point.
[00:29:31] And for us, today, thousands of years later, it's still the point.
[00:29:39] That as we approach our own transition in a month's time, we know that you are with us.
[00:29:49] We know that you will never leave us nor forsake us.
[00:29:53] And so thank you, Jesus, for all you have done, and thank you, Jesus, for all that you will do through the ministry and the people of Summerhill Baptist Church, moving forward, we give you the glory. In your name we pray.
[00:30:09] Amen.
