Life it seems is an endless experience of new beginnings. Perhaps the beginnings are small, like beginning to learn a new sport or perhaps the beginnings are huge like beginning to live on your own, beginning to leave home or beginning to be a parent. There is no age limit on beginning, people begin in their eighties and nineties. I heard a story recently of a couple who were in their mid eighties being wed, he for the first time. Beginning doesn't have any limits for abilities nor for any other trait of humanity, people who are extremely disabled begin constantly, sometimes as adaptations to the disability sometimes as expressions of who they are. One thing for certain, ?beginning? occurs for the entire duration of our lives, either beginning to live or beginning to die. It is impossible to talk of beginnings without recognizing that they will always be an invitation to faith in one way or another. The very fact that ?beginnings? are wrapped in the unknown, that they will call for our will, emotion and intelligence, means that they point us in the direction of faith. When you think about it, if life is full of beginnings then it is also full of promptings to faith. Perhaps that's where you are this morning in your personal situation, at a place of being about to begin. Let me introduce you to a person in the Bible who was very much in this place, he too was being invited to an action of faith. Turn with me to Joshua 1: 1-9.
Faith has a spectrum that engages every aspect of our life, it involves the ?Who?, ?Where?, ?When?, ?What? and ?Why? of our lives.
1. Who ? for Joshua it was Moses, the man who influenced him and taught him. It seems faith is something that we do see and are taught by those who have gone before us. Faith also had a present tense aspect, for those right around us, our friends our family are also going to be involved in our faith. Joshua was a man in his sixties who being called to lead a nation of 2 million people into and through the raging waters of the Jordan river as entered into the land we would call
2. Where ? The ?Where? in this case was a geographic location, a land that God had promised their forefathers. ?Where can certainly refer to a specific location, but it could also mean walking into the unfamiliar. For
3. When ? Timing, it? been said, is everything but it was Napoleon who once said, ?I defeated the Austrians because they never learned the value of five minutes.? Every moment is important, every minute is a place when God can invite faith. God told Joshua that He had always been with Moses and would always be with Him, that He would never forsake him nor fail him. Despair and failure are not the signature of God, they come from another direction altogether. They come from a sin nature that is frustrated in it's self perspective and from the enemy of your soul, the deceiver called Satan. God's faithfulness not only comforts, it calls us to trust and step forward, even today.
4. What ? It seems that this aspect of faith always catches my attention the most. What is it that God desires of me, what is it I should do, what happens next? Certainly faith is a two bladed propeller, it has the element of being my action and belief and also the element of being that which is completely a gift to me. You see, as God believes, so He imparts to me by the Holy Spirit the ability to see what He sees, and to believe what he believes. That is the gift of faith and is essential for the sinful heart of man to be opened. Without that element of faith I can't even see this thing called sin, I can't see the consequence of God's wrath against sin, I don't understand the issues of heaven nor hell and I don't get the need for a Savior. The element of my faith and its? action is not meant to earn some sort of worthiness before God, it's meant to be a response ability to what Jesus Christ has done on the cross for me. God says to Joshua, ?No man will be able to stand before you all the days of your life.? Then in the next breath God says, ?Be strong and courageous??. This is the way faith moves, God's enablement coupled to our obedience to step forward. Certainly if you look at verses 7,8 the Word of God is referred to as a key component to what God does. He tells Joshua that success will be directly linked to both an awareness of what God's word says and then to an obedience to what you've discovered. The gift of faith will help you see and understand the Bible, the action of your faith will integrate it into your life enabling spiritual success. It almost sounds too simplistic doesn't it? Well test it out, see if that is really so. There are at least 127 commands in the Bible that we should pay attention to, commands like: Philippians 2:14 ? Do all things without murmuring or disputing; Ephesians 5:15 - Redeem the time; 1 Timothy 4:16 ? Be aware of yourself and what you teach; Hebrews 13:5 - Be content with what you have; 1 Thess. 5:22 ? Abstain from all appearances of evil. Certainly the ten commandments and the commandments from Leviticus and Deuteronomy were what Joshua looked to but the issue of a successful spiritual life is linked to an awareness and obedience to the whole Word of God. It isn't that the Bible is some sort of Anthony Robbins success formula, its? that it will call you into a place of honesty and trust with God Who will enable you to make your life count. That will be the essence of spiritual success, a life that outlasts houses, clothing and cars and even death.
Why ? Look at verse 9 for a moment. Faith is something of great value to God, it has command and a call to obedience in it but there's more. When I was doing air traffic control it wasn't just a command and a call to obedience that was given to the pilots. Many of them I knew personally, my brother in law was one of them. It was that we knew what they didn't and couldn't know. It was that we were wanting to ensure their safety, we did our duty but we also cared for these who had to trust us. Why God moves by faith, reminding us that He has spoken, calling us to not be afraid, assuring us that He sees us and knows us moment by moment, has everything to do with what we cannot and could not see. Can you see the depth of the sin nature that resides within yourself, can you see the creatures of the spiritual realm, particularly the ones against you, can you see tomorrow as a certainty? Can you see the holiness of God? There's One who could see all that and He came as an answer to ?Why faith?. Jesus existed before the creation of the world, He is the exact representation of the invisible heavenly Father. ?If you have seen Me?, He said, ?you have seen the Father.? This Jesus at the command of the Father, Jesus who is fully God, became a mortal being, for the purpose of being our lawyer who would not only pronounce us ?Guilty of sin, as charged? but would then step forward to pay the sentence of sin in our place. Jesus, fully God yet fully man, completely satisfied the sentence of death against all who would receive that payment by? FAITH. The ?why? of faith is that it is how God expresses His great heart of love for us, it begins to tell us what we will only know it depth later, it secures for us life eternal in Christ as our Savior. Faith is the universal commodity of man, it arises out our intelligence, emotion and will and is elicited by the faith that is God's belief given as a gift to us by the Holy Spirit. A child has faith, a poor man has faith, a blind man has faith, faith has no reference to race, gender, occupation, age or ability. It is there to be used daily and God has designed us as faithful beings, made in His image, for His glory, yet so precious to Him, even to the point of death on a cross. So He has said to Joshua, and He says to you here today, ?Be strong and courageous, do not tremble nor be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.?