New Beginnings in the New Year

New Beginnings In The New Year
Joshua 1.1-9

Moses, my servant, is dead, now...
An new era, a new time, the end of one portion of Israel's history.
Crossing the wilderness is over, the Promised Land is before them.
Under the leadership of Moses the nation had journeyed to the border of the Promised Land. Due to unbelief what should have taken a month took 40 years.

I know the length of 40 years. In a few days I will have completed 40 years as a pastor.

The New Year offers a chance to start anew, an opportunity to reflect, a time for making changes and a time to worry about what lies ahead! Given the time we are in it can be a time of fear, anxiety and even dismay and discouragement or it can be a time of joyful anticipation of what God is going to do.

As always we need to hear what God's Word has to say. God's Word is for today. This verse speaks directly to us about things on the horizon in 2020.

Israel was in a transitional time. Moses' leadership came to an end. God had already prepared Joshua. He spoke through Moses to keep the people calm during this change of national leadership. His Word through His servant encouraged and challenged the people.

Joshua had been prepared for this moment. For 40 years, at age 40, he had assumed the role of Moses’ Aide. Moses had taken care of his father-in-law, ‪Jethro’s‬ sheep for 40 years. Forty years on the backside of the desert shepherding qualified him to become Israel’s leader or if you will the human representation of Israel’s Shepherd, the LORD to them.

The word, "Now" in verse 2, is power packed. It is part of this transition of leadership but also giving instructions and promises for the immediate future and the distant future. You see how the LORD transcends time? This was a culmination of years of Israel's history-v.6 Promises made to Abraham, Issac and Jacob were about to be fulfilled. Let's look at the truths for us here as we have begun this New Year.

Joshua 1 has been used by many pastors to encourage their congregations to lean on the LORD and trust Him for victory in life’s challenges when facing a New Year. I myself have used it many times.

The known and unknown had frightened Israel and turned them back from the portal of entry into the Land God promised them.

They have arrived at the place where the LORD wanted them and what a place it was and is!
The country into which Israel entered was of a very choice kind. The Land of Israel is the world condensed. Within that narrow strip of territory, you get plains and hills, frosts and snow of winter and heats of summer, with products both of the semi-tropical and temperate zones. Israel, is the whole earth in miniature, and all the advantages of all lands are gathered into it. It was, in Joshua's days, as today, a place of extreme fertility: "A land flowing with milk and honey." (Exodus 3.17) That is not all; while it was fertile on the surface, it was rich underneath. It was a land "whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you may dig brass." (Deuteronomy 8.9)The useful metals were near at hand, and every other convenience. The minerals in the Dead sea are worth Trillions of Dollars, even the mud from there is valuable. You see the Israeli young people in the malls here selling it! Besides being fertile and wealthy, it was prepared for immediate habitation. The tribes had not to build houses, they inhabited what others had built; they had not to plant vineyards, but to eat the fruit of former labors. All things were waiting for the true heirs of the land.

Now it is time to move in.


1. Moses was Dead but God was Still Moving. v.1

Still is
End of an era.
Drove by the old church building this week with Pastor Art.
I thought of the past, our past.

I thought of God's Sovereign Hand.
I thought of the Good Hand of the LORD was upon Pastors Restrick, Cubie, Bedell and Pastor Utter and Arey and Pastor Rapalje (I don't feel  worthy to be associated with this list at times).
I thought of how God got us here.
I thought of the incredible passage of time.
Only 5 of us were ever even in that building when it was the place of worship for our church.

Thank God for the vision of Pastor Bob Utter and the congregation to cross over Sunrise Highway and buy this land, to build the parsonage and then under Pastor Rapalje, the church we now sit in.

Beginnings here:
2nd Avenue Iglesia Del Nazareno Resurrection was organized in this building
As was Peniel, the Spanish Church
And Betel Primitive Church of the Nazarene Haitian Creole Church in Brentwood now.
The ChurchBuilding  in Haiti was built in part because you guys sent me there, let me serve.
Now we are getting more requests to help rebuild or put roofs on churches there.
And now an El Savaldorian Church meeting in the basement on Sunday nights.


Moses and Joshua:
Often the with the death of a leader the movement he led dies.
*It could be that it was just for that time.
*It could be the movement get stuck in the past.
*It could be that the movement adapts and continues in new ways under new leadership.

Maybe there has been changes in your life recently. Maybe there is change on the horizon. Maybe today you are thinking of what 2020 will bring into your life.

Let's find where God is moving and join Him this year.
With all the change we face God is at work. He was working in bringing Israel into a new land, its land.
He was working through the changes in leadership.

He rides out His purposes on change.
The Gospel is going out like never before.
Radio to Internet...
The technology is amazing. You may not like it but God is using it... using it in powerful ways these days.
Livestream last Sunday: 85 souls viewed
We welcome readers of The ‪Sunday Morning‬ Message from Singapore, Pakistan, Ghana, Nigeria, Holland, and Poland this week.
Italy, Russia, The United Arab Emirates, Hong Kong, China, South America and Europe have had viewership in the past.

We are in time where, more than ever, it is difficult if not virtually impossible to see all that God is doing with the precious seed of His Word. There is an excitement about that.


2.Joshua was called to lead. v.2
A new day which would lead to a whole new life for the nation

A new segment of the population around our Jerusalem. Unreached.
A new leader or  was it?.... God was still leading.
Different human instrument same God.

God has ways of working and things He wants to do we cannot even imagine.
Be yourself.
Let Him use your gifts and your pain. Joshua grieved but took it and led the nation, not casting aside Moses work at all but continuing on with it.

Words spoken to Joshua for Israel are for us this year!
5 No one will be able to stand 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. 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.

7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
What is the Word for 2020?

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. v.9
Do Not Be
*Afraid
Of the present
Of the new things ahead
New Years offer a chance to start anew, an opportunity to reflect, a time for making changes and a time to worry about what lies ahead! Given the time we are in it can be a time of anxiety and even dismay. As always we need to hear what God's Word has to say. God's Word is for today. We need to decide what we are going to do with the time we have been given.
Do not be...
*Discouraged We must remember the past, in terms of God's great work on our behalf. We must forsake and forget the past, with all its discouragement and defeat, and move on to what God has for us in the future.
This was the situation of Israel when Isaiah prophesied. Exiled in Babylon due to their breaking of the Covenant with the LORD but about to be restored to the land because of God's kindness, mercy and grace. God was doing a new thing!

Often there is new thing God wants to do.

We must not hitch up to what He has done in the past, even the good things.
Times are changing and God is on the move and He wants us to move with Him through the times of change. He is the "The Great I AM." He transcends time.


Often, when God makes a promise, we worry about the details or the obstacles for the fulfillment of the promise. God replies to us, "Don't worry about it at all. I will even make a road in the wilderness. I have resources and plans you don't know about. Leave those problems to Me." The scaffolding in Bellevue, Haiti when we built that wall.
Do not be
*Doubting
John 20.26 A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 27 Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”

Stop doubting and believe.  You have seen Christ work. You have watched Him answer prayer. Stand firm then!




There are transitional times which come. Birthdays: When you are 16 you can learn to drive, at 18 you can vote and serve in the military., 35 you can run for president of the United States and at 62 you can begin to collect Social Security. But at any age God can use you. Esther Carson Wynas... Peru. 4 years old
Dr. McCoy, Pastor of Oyster Bay Baptist Church, called to the mission field upon his retirement, served for years all over Asia.
Brother Hazzard with me, last 6 years of his life... at age 94 went to be with the LORD on Good Friday 2001.
C.S. Lewis wrote, “You are never too old to set a new goal or to dream a new dream.”

 Do Be
Courageous
Strong

8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous.


Daring
Believing
Adventuresome
Ready to move with God this year.

Last year we did not know we would have to postpone two trips to Haiti,
but while we were not able to go the roof is on the church and a pipeline has been laid bring water to a village in the northern part of the Island. We are packed and ready to go in February to build the house and stucco the walls! Please pray as we make a decision Tuesday.


3. The Promises made to and through Moses would be fulfilled v.3
To Abraham
Isaac's birth
Jacob's name change
Joseph's saving of many lives including Israel's present and future

He was going to work through Joshua in ways like Joshua never knew.
The Israelites were about to see God work in ways like they had never seen.

The LORD is faithful to all His Promises!
God will take of you!

Let's pray for our community, for this Island and for the whole Metro Area and our nation and this world.

Isaiah 43.18-19
“Forget the former things;
    do not dwell on the past.
19 See, I am doing a new thing!
    Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
    and streams in the wasteland.

Oswald Chambers: This was from January 1st:
As we go forth into the coming year let it not be in the haste of impetuous, forgetful delight nor with the quickness of impulse of thoughtlessness. But let us go out with the patient power of knowing that the God of Israel will go before us.

Our Yesterdays hold broken and irreversible things for us. It is true that we have lost opportunities that will never return but God can transform this destructive anxiety into a constructive thoughtfulness for the future.

Let the past rest but let it rest in a sweet embrace of Christ. Leave the broken irreversible past in His hands and step out into the invincible future with Him.

-Oswald Chambers