Kanakuk Institute Podcast

Yeshua

August 15, 2022 Kanakuk Institute Season 1 Episode 34
Kanakuk Institute Podcast
Yeshua
Show Notes Transcript

Chad and Keith discuss the story of Joshua and how the crossing of the Jordan pictures the work of Christ for beleivers.

Intro (Keith): Welcome to the Kanakuk Institute Podcast, where we continue to equip leaders with biblical skills for a lifetime of ministry.

 

Chad (00:13): And Welcome back into the Kanakuk Institute Podcast. Keith Chancey and Chad Hampsch and we are in the middle of a series, a really, really fun series of looking at the stories of the Old Testament, and being reminded of their power, of their application, and that God is doing something, and Keith every time we’ve done this, we’ve done this we’ve reminded our audience we’re talking about upper story and lower story. Explain the difference between those for us.

 

Keith (00:37): Well, you know, what you’ve got, and most of your stories, in your upper story, you see a story of an unlikely hero that steps out, and you go, “Wow, this guy.” Like, for instance, David. And you go, he fought this battle against the great Goliath. He wins, and we’ll talk about that story that he killed the great Goliath, but we won’t look at the lower story that was so deep and that had such better meaning. It was pointing to the Messiah one day would crush the head of the serpent, and we miss that because we’re so caught up into the story of this young kid that’s a giant slayer, rather than there is a greater giant slayer that’s coming and his name is going to be Jesus.

 

Chad (01:24): That’s good, so, our objective in going through these stories is really for people to be able to see both. That God is doing something big in the history of Israel and his plan of redemption, and also, just practical application for us, so today we’re going to look at another really fun story found in the book of Joshua, also the book of Numbers, but the story of Joshua, and we wanted to focus first on the lower story. So, explain what we learn from Joshua.

 

Keith (01:50): Well you know there’s something here, and we’ve probably all heard this story before, and, you know, just as Israel was about to go into the land of Canaan, Moses brings him right to the breach of this new land that God had promised Israel, and as Moses leads the people to the promised land, he sends out twelve spies into the land to search out the land, and as these twelve spies from every tribe go into the land, they go in there, they find out that the land is filled with milk and honey, it’s beautiful, it’s luscious, and it has everything that they want, and those twelve spies come back and they give a report to Moses. Well, 10 of the spies tell them, “Oh my gosh, it’s unbelievable, it’s so good, but there were some giants, and their called Nephilim, and they are big, and we might want to reconsider what we’re about to go do.

 

Chad (02:44): A little scary

 

Keith (02:46): Yeah, a little scary, and yet two of the guys come back and we know who they are, Joshua and Caleb, and they say, “Let’s go get them.” I mean I just love that. You know, because here’s 10. They say, “I, we can’t do it.” And the two say, “Let’s go do it.” You know, it’s interesting there Chad, because, you know, it’s so easy in life for we focus on the problem rather than the solution. Somehow someway, Joshua and Caleb, Joshua being a counterpart of Moses, had walked with Moses most of his life, he goes in the land and he sees the exact same problems that everybody else saw, but he goes, “My God is sufficient, let’s go get them.”

 

Chad (03:29): It makes you even wonder what the conversations between Moses and Joshua, I’m sure heard first hand stories from Moses of all the things God had done, and clearly had a trust in God that he was going to do what he said.

 

Keith (03:43): And don’t you just love that? Because, you know, we always here that scripture, “Bad company corrupts good morals.” And so when you’re around people that don’t talk about the goodness of God, that talk about they’re only defeated, our church is this, our youth group doesn’t do that. What we do is we don’t get involved in a church, we don’t get involved in life, we say, “My wife isn’t that good of a person,” my kids aren’t that good of a kid, we focus on the problem rather than the solution. And I tell you, I see this probably almost every day. That I meet somebody and they’re talking about the problem, and I just want to say, “quit focusing on the negative.” Not that I’m a prosperity guy, but every time I hear that I just want to say, “Hey stop, let’s just pray and ask God to give you a better attitude of what you see,” because the giants, they don’t win. We as Christians win, and the biggest obstacle in our minds sometimes is the mountain or the giant that we see that’s the obstacle that we can’t go beat.

 

Chad (04:45): So what do you think it was about Joshua, and Caleb certainly, but specifically we’re talking about Joshua, that gave him the strength, the courage to step out. Obviously the rest of the nation is going, “Eh, I don’t know if it’s worth it.”

 

Keith (04:49): Yeah, and I’m sure they did see that, but yet, you know, Joshua had been with Moses, and Moses had been with God, and I’m sure he goes, “You know what? I was with Moses when Moses when up on Mt Sinai, and I stood there on the mountain, and when Moses came down, I saw it first hand, I saw a life that was transformed, I saw the Shekinah glory. I heard what he talked about. And I also saw Aaron do the golden calf thing. So Joshua saw everything, and when he saw it both ways, he went one is the Shekinah glory, the other is demonic, and I’m sure he went, “You know what? I don’t want to be a part of that. I understand that my God is awesome.” And so I’m sure that Joshua went, “I had this focus, I’m not going to focus on the demonic, I’m not going to focus on the devil, but you know what? I’m going to focus on what I can do and that God gave us a promise that we entered the promised land. He’s given us that land, I’ve heard Moses, I know God told Moses that. Now Moses told me that. Now let’s go get them.”

 

Chad (06:08): That’s really good. What else? So obviously Joshua is faithful, he’s obedient, you know, Moses says, “We’re going into the land, here’s how we’re going to do it.” He’s obedient to the call of God. What other things from a lower story level, just a practical, “here’s what we can learn from the person of Joshua?

 

Keith (06:26): You know? I’ve thought about that a lot, you know, because, in my own life, when I became a Christian, God showed me a couple of things right off the bat that I needed. Number one was discipline. And I needed to understand I needed to discipline myself for the purpose of Godliness. And I see Joshua, and I see his lifestyle, and I see what he did. He had the right attitude, he was a man of prayer, he’s a man of the Word, and I go, “That’s what I want.” I want to be that type of guy. But I also want to be a faithful man. I want to be faithful to the calling that God calls me to do. Joshua walked with Moses, and as a result, you see Joshua really doing well. And all the way through his life, you see him being the counterpart of Moses. And then God lets Joshua take it to the next step, because Moses wasn’t allowed to go into the promised land, but yet Joshua was, and so you go, “Woah.” The Mentor gets bypassed by the younger stud. And so, I see this. I’ve often times seen it as, Chad, that we can fall in love with the person that we, that mentors us, yet the ones that mentor us, they can fall. And they can have doubts, and what I saw that Joshua didn’t do, is even when Moses made some mistakes in his life, Joshua didn’t focus on even that. But Joshua said, “Hey let’s go.” And let’s take it to the next level. And so when I watch that, I go, Joshua, he was faithful, he was disciplined, he was teachable, he was obedient, and his life that we see in the scriptures is he’s a very good man that honors God with everything that he is. 

 

Chad (08:18): Yeah, and because of that, when his time comes, he’s ready. Moses passes, and Joshua goes into command,

 

Keith (08:25): Absolutely. Yes, God hands him the scepter and off he goes.

 

 

Chad (08:32): Yeah, and if you don’t know the rest of the story, I would encourage you to go read it, but Joshua essentially establishes the land that God has promised for the people. Let’s jump to upper story, because there’s quite a bit going on here in the upper story. Maybe let me recap it and then we’ll dig into the nuances, but what’s so amazing is Moses from an Old Testament standpoint represents the law. And what’s really fascinating about this story if you don’t know, Moses never gets to go into the promised land because of the disobedience of the people. And so the law never gets you to the promised land, right? Law will get you close enough. You can see the promised land, and that’s what the law does for us, right? It reveals our sin.

 

Keith (09:10): And it’s meant to do that. It’s a tutor.

 

Chad (09:11): Exactly, it’s a magnifying glass. It tells us where we’re wrong. So, Moses doesn’t get to go in. We need a guy named Joshua. And if you don’t’ know the little play on words here, the Hebrew word for Joshua is Yeshua, which is also the way Jesus’ name would have been pronounced in Hebrew, Jesus being his Greek name. And so, Yeshua is going to lead them into the promised land through a miracle. Tell us about that miracle.

 

Keith (09:36): Through a miracle, and that miracle, you know, he brings them to the Jordan river, and prays and just like Moses, it opens up, and they cross to the other side, and you go, “Are you kidding me? A second time a second crossing of a river.” And you go, “this is just amazing how cool that is.” And you know, I’ve been in that spot where they believe that that happened. And it’s a place where it’s not a really small creek. It’s a larger portion, and it would have really been a miracle that would have happened to get to the other side. And I’m going, “What a fascinating thing to see a miracle that only God could have pulled off.”

 

Chad (10:16): Yeah, and one of the little nuances in that upper story that’s really cool is that the priests would carry the ark of the covenant in prior to the people, and they believe that that’s where the Spirit of God dwelt. And so it took Yeshua and the Holy Spirit interceding into that river to get people into the promised land. Hello, head explode, right?

 

Keith (10:36): And Yeshua was filled with the Spirit, and you’re going “This is just amazing, how all this comes together.”

 

Chad (10:41): Yeah, and a great reminder for us as we think about people going from death to life, from law to the promise of salvation, that it takes a couple things. It takes the interceding of the Spirit of God in our life, and it takes the finished work of Christ on the cross. And we talk about this all the time with kids at camp. No one can convince you to love Jesus. We can tell you about Jesus, but the Spirit of God has to intervene in your life to match the truth to transformation.

 

Keith (11:16): And you know Chad, when you say that, I just think of, you know, we cross that Jordan River. We get to the other side. And in that crossing, there’s a lot that goes on in that crossing. Because you have to have a belief, you have to have and understanding, and that there is another side. And so, when you think about, you know, 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation. The old has passed away, behold, the new has come.” It’s that one side to the other. And that crossing, in Romans 5:8, it says, “God demonstrated his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, he died for us.” That blood was sufficient, in order to get to the other side, there had to be the blood, there had to be the shedding of that blood, and we had to believe in that blood, and who it was that died for us, the Yeshua, that paid the price for us for our sins. We were on one side, in the law, but yet what the law could not do, Grace did. And so here we walk across, we get to the other side, and we enter the other side. The promised land, one day, we’ll be in heaven. Until we get there, we are going to be in sin, but God has already do everything he needed to do through the blood, through the resurrection, and he’s given it to us, and all he asks of us is to believe. Romans 10:9-10 “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” And I go, “thank you Lord that you took me from one side, the law, to the other side, grace, and you gave me all I need, and all I have to do is believe. Wow. And because of my belief system, Chad, and that’s what’s so cool. Now I’m ready. It fully fills me, that Spirit moves me. I desire to serve God. I want to make him known, and I’m no longer afraid of those giants in the land, because I go, “You know what? I’ve got a God that’s on my side.”

 

Chad (13:11): Yeah, takes you to Romans 12. That you need a transformation.

                                                              

Keith (13:14): Yeah, and it’s that Joshua 1:8-9, “For this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. And then you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success. Haven’t I commanded you? Be strong and courageous.” I love that be strong and courageous, because that’s what I am in Christ.

 

Chad (13:35): That’s good, that’ll preach. From death to life. From law to freedom. Great reminder. We should be spending time studying the Old Testament and being reminded of these amazing stories. Thank you, once again for joining us on the Kanakuk Institute Podcast. We’re going to say in this series talking about these amazing Old Testament stories, and how they point us to the person of Jesus Christ. Thanks for joining us.

 

Keith (13:58): God bless.