Joshua - Lesson 13

· John 14:16-18, "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

We are to be instruments in God’s hand. Paul says it clearly in:

· 2 Corinthians 5:20, We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God.

An ambassador is one who proclaims the goodness of his leader or government. An ambassador is not silent and certainly knows what the policies and plans of his leader are.

Leading Israel into Canaan was God’s doing. For man it would have been impossible. This pictures for us the fact that the leading of each Christian into the victorious life to be an overcomer is the work of God. But this is not a case of sitting back and an attitude of “let God do it”. No, we are under a responsibility to follow Him. We are not to go ahead of Him but to follow Him.

When the time came for Joshua to assume full command and lead the people across the Jordan River, he had God’s reassurance backing him. God said:

· Josh 1:5, No one will be able to stand up 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.

What greater assurance can a person ask for than this? God has called each Christian to be a conqueror over sin, but He does not expect us to be overcomers in our own strength. We have the same assurance that He gave Joshua.

God said to Joshua:

· Joshua 1:2, "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 to them-to the Israelites.

This is a very important verse for our consideration and I urge you to follow the explanation. Joshua was the leader of the people and everything in Canaan was put into his hands as trustee for the nation Israel. It was Joshua’s responsibility to divide the land, assigning to each tribe its portion.

In this Joshua is a clear type of Jesus. All the spiritual blessings provided for us are in Jesus and He holds them in trust until we claim them for ourselves. The New Testament makes this clear.

· Ephesians 1:3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

It would be easy to either miss the meaning of this verse or to misinterpret it. The reference to “heavenly realms” is not talking about heaven as such, but rather “spiritual” things. The heavenly realms refers to the spiritual lives of the believers here on earth.

Peter teaches this same truth.

· 2 Peter 1:3-4, His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. 4 Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

So in Jesus we have everything we need. We cannot grow in grace and become conquerors over sin until we recognize that we have all these things that we need for our spiritual life in Jesus, and they are available to us because we are united with Him.

Now we need to understand this idea of being “in” Jesus. We have these heavenly blessings only if we take them. This is a matter of faith or trust. Jesus holds these blessings in trust for us, and we claim them not from Him but in Him. So what is the difference? Well, we cannot have anything from God apart from Jesus Himself. So we must first have Jesus.

Maybe an illustration of being ‘in” Jesus would be to consider a business world example. We see a lot of mergers of two companies. Once the one company buys out the other, the second company becomes a part of the buyer and participates in all the policy advantages of the buyer. It is now “in” the buyer and no longer retains its old identity.

So we no longer retain our old identity once we are joined with Jesus as one of His believers. Then what is it that we have in Him?

· 1 John 5:12,  He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

The first thing we have in Him is life. We all understand that at our conversion we get a new life. We are born again. This time into eternal life. We also have a new nature in this new life. We still have the old nature, but with this new nature we begin a process of growing in these heavenly blessings.

· John 17:18, As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.

In this new life we are united in Jesus for service. It was in His high priestly prayer that Jesus spoke the words above. He clearly meant that we were sent into the world for service to Him. Furthermore, He is with us when we serve.

· Philippians 1:29, For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.

And,

· Philippians 3:10, I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,

We don’t always like it but we are called to suffer with Him if we are to truly be in Him. It’s not easy for us to take as human beings. We don’t like to suffer for anything. But reality is that suffering is an ingredient of the Christian life. Not just physical suffering; there are many ways to suffer. Christian martyrs are the ultimate sufferers for Jesus.

· Romans 8:16-17, The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs-heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

Those who are in Jesus are heirs and as such there is an inheritance waiting for each one. We are heirs with Him. This means that what is His is also ours. Jesus is the heir of all things that belong to His Father, and if we are children of God, then we are joint heirs with Jesus. 

· Romans 8:18, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

The verse says “will be” indicating a future realization. This is confirmed in the next few verses.

· Romans 8:19-21, The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.

So what we have seen here is that we are saved into Jesus in these five particulars: life, service, sufferings, inheritance, and glory. This is what it means to be “in” Jesus. We claim to believe that God is all powerful and all knowing. If we really believe that, then we should also believe that God provides us nothing except what there is in Jesus, because God has delegated theses same qualities to Jesus.