Joshua 1

Wasilla Bible Church

Joshua 1

August 28, 2024 • Joshua 1

One of the interesting things about the life and story of Joshua is that he is someone who experienced the entire freedom narrative of the Hebrew people. He was born into slavery as a child in Egypt, then was present for all the events that took place in exodus story, and then took the people into the promised land. Despite him seeing God work in such great and mighty ways throughout his life he must still be reminded to be faithful to God’s word, brave, and strong. When God is talking to him in chapter 1, we will see him repeat this to him multiple time as he prepares him to take over for Moses. Therefore, the charge to be faithful to God’s word, brave, and strong is even more applicable to our lives as people who have not had the privilege to see such great miracles as he did.

One of the most interesting phrases that we see in the chapter is found in verse 7. Here we see God paradoxically command Joshua to be on the straight and narrow and no to turn from the left or right then followed by, in the same sentence, “that you may have good success in whatever you do”. This paradox is something that is important for all believers, especially young believers who are about to embark on their own journeys to understand. It is very easy for us to over emphasize the importance of our life choices, such as what college or trade should we do after high school, while under emphasizing the importance of our spiritual growth and dependency on the word of God, which is truly most important. One thing to keep in mind though is that this does not mean that we have total free reign in whatever we want to do and as long as we do our morning devotional our life path doesn’t matter. Joshua was given parameters on the land that he could take and was allowed and permitted freedom within those parameters. Likewise, it is the same with us, God has given all of us parameters that we must still function in.

Finally, something to think about this week and throughout this semester is the real consequences for every action or lack of action that takes place in the book of Joshua. When they take the land, they suffer losses of people on their side and there are great losses of the side of those who stand in their way. In the process of claiming the land people died and things that took many years to build are destroyed in a matter of days. We need to know that consequences like these are not outliers when it comes to following God. When we choose to follow God, we need to understand that there might be relationships in our lives that will die, and there will be areas of our lives we have invested in dismantled. This is why we too must look to God to take courage and to be brave just as we see Joshua do.

Questions/Discussion targets

Are we putting our own abilities to plan out our future lives over our relationship with God and devotion to his word?

How can we better prepare ourselves to be brave and strong for when things get tough in our lives?

Joshua 23 & 24

December 11, 2024 • Joshua 23, Joshua 24

A few weeks ago, we took some time to reflect on the ways God has revealed Himself to us in the past, and this week’s focus is somewhat similar. In Joshua 23, much time has passed, and we find ourselves at a point where Joshua knows his time is nearing its end. He wants to solidify Israel’s faith and ensure that he finishes well in his role as their leader. In this chapter, Joshua reminds the people of who God is, emphasizes His promises to Israel, and ensures that they have an accurate understanding and representation of God. In chapter 24, Joshua delivers a long monologue recounting everything God has accomplished—from the exodus from Egypt to the present time. He does this not only to thank God for His works, as we did a few weeks ago, but also to clarify who he means when he refers to God. Joshua makes it clear that God is not defined by what we say about Him but by who He says He is. To add to or take away from God’s attributes or actions is to misrepresent Him. For example, one cannot claim to believe in the Jesus of the Bible while denying that He physically rose from the dead. After clearly defining who God is, Joshua challenges the people to make a choice: not only to believe and trust in God but also to make Him their Lord and serve Him alone. Similarly, we, like the people of Israel, must decide whether we will make Jesus not only our Savior but also our Lord—serving Him exclusively. Please take time to ask the students: Do they understand that being a Christian means more than simply believing the Bible as a set of facts? Encourage them to compare and contrast the difference between merely believing something and becoming a servant of it. Challenge them to go beyond belief and choose to be servants of Jesus Christ.

Joshua 13 & 14

November 13, 2024 • Joshua 13:8–33, Joshua 14

Over the past few weeks, we have been talking about the ways that God has kept his promises and how we can trust him to do so in the future. Here we see a continuation of that theme, and we see how we might have to wait a significant amount of time for God’s fulfilled word. Also, we see that God does not always bless people in the order of their obedience. If you were to go back to when the people of Israel were in the wilderness (Numbers Ch 13-14) Moses sent out twelve spies to spy out the land. Ten of the spies came back and told Moses that they were fearful of the people in the land and did not believe that they could take the land, but there were two spies that believed that they could. The two spies that believed were Caleb and Joshua, who trusted in God’s promise, and are now conversing in chapter 14. Caleb fully believed God and was going to see things through and be true to his word and despite this he ended up being one of the last people to receive the blessing of land. This is something that we might feel uncomfortable with because we normally believe that the people who are the most faithful should be the first to receive blessings. As unfair as we might believe this to be it is something comforting to us. The good things that happen to us are not indicators of our faithfulness to God, because if they were then God hated the Apostle Paul (2 Cor 11:21-29). Therefore, we should look to God’s word as the standard of our obedience to God. This week the main goal will be to encourage the students to continue devoting their lives to God despite seeing others receiving good that they might feel they deserve. God will honor their faithfulness in his way at his timing.

Joshua 12

November 6, 2024 • Joshua 12, Joshua 13:1–7

In C.S. Lewis book “Out of the Silent Planet” he writes about a man traveling to another world and meeting many different peoples and creatures. All the groups that he meets have very unique cultures that the main character finds very different from those of earth. One of these groups sets an age cut off for some of the enjoyable activities they do and the reason for that is very interesting. They say they stop because that is the only way that they could bring about a completion of the joy of doing the activity itself. They believe that it is necessary to look back on and remember good things for the joy of them to be competed. This in a way is what we see here in this chapter. Joshua is looking back at what God has done and the land that he has given the people over the past few years. Likewise, we ought to look back on the good things that God has done in our lives and the lives of others around us and remember them. It is very easy to get caught up in all of life’s troubles so we must have times of reflection where we take account of the victories God has wrought in our lives. Therefore, please set aside time to go through the word doc attached to this lesson.