Joshua 1:9 | Episode #1211

June 8, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 1:9

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus that God would open his word to you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today. Word of God, please speak to the hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus. Amen. The truth is, is that this is one of those verses that you need to memorize, you need to study, you need to think about. And it is, it is the directive that God gives to Joshua. It is the fundamental view of the world that God wants Joshua to function under as he enters the promised land. And so if that is the fundamental understanding of how God wants him, God wants him to view his future, God wants him to view what he's about and what he's going to be about doing, then I think it's important. And entering the promised land from a picture point of view, meaning from a story point of view in the Old Testament, that gives us understanding, spiritual understandings in the New Testament, which is what the Old Testament's all about. From that kind of perspective, if, if this is what God wants Joshua to understand as far as how then he should live his life as the leader of God's people into the promised land. And that is how he wants us to live in the spiritual, as a spirit filled life. If that's the case, then we should spend some time thinking through it. Okay. And it says here, have I not commanded you now? The answer is yes, he has commanded him. He's already told him once to be strong and of good courage. He said that in verse six. He, by the way, is going to say it again. Why? Because he's going to say it three times so that Joshua understands that this is very, very important. All right. To be strong and of good courage means not to be physically strong, but to be in your heart and in your Mind strong, meaning that all that is your heart, your passions, that your passions be passionately expressed toward what God is doing. Toward what God is saying that. That I bring my emotions in line with what I know to be true about God's person and God's will and God's work in my life. His person, meaning who he actually is, his will, meaning his divine revelation to me, and then his work in my life. I need to bring my emotions in line with. With the truth of what God has revealed to me. I need if, if, if. And the primary one he's going to say is do not be afraid. The primary emotion of fear, he's going to say, do not allow that emotion to determine any of what you're doing. But all emotions, whether it be, you know, elation or, or discouragement, whether it be. Whether it be joy or whether it be despair, whether, Whether I'm where. Whether I'm feeling really, really motivated or whether I'm feeling really, really lethargic. My feelings may identify truth in the world around me, but the truth is that other than being a censor of the world I live in, it really doesn't provide me any truth beyond that. And so when he says be strong and of good courage, what. What he's saying is, is he's saying, have the idea of being courageous toward his. His who he is. His divine revelation to you, and then his. His process of taking you through that. He says, I want you to be strong and good of good courage. I want you to. I want you to focus your. Your emotions and if need be, tamp them down and, and focus your mind on My revealed will to you and strengthen yourself emotionally, mentally, in. In your soul. That's who you are. Your. Your emotions and your. Your mind. Focus your emotions and your mind on what I. Who I am. Because once you realize that, you know, God is on my side. God is working his way out through me. So I'm a part of his divine plan. I'm a part of his divine will. Once you realize that, and once you live that out in your heart and in your mind, you. You narrow down your emotions to what God says. You narrow down your thoughts to what God's thoughts are. Once you begin to whittle those things down to exactly what God's doing, when you do that, when you do that well, then you have the ability to be strong and of good courage and to not walk in fear of the unknown because you're not in charge of the unknown. And the one who is in charge of the unknown is on your side. No need to be afraid of what is coming down the road. In fact, God is going to in many ways reveal what is coming down the road. He's going to reveal his plan and his purpose for you. And though you might not know the individualized events of what's happening down the road, you might not know the individualized how that process is going to work itself out. You know the plan. And so by knowing the plan and, and, and knowing what is the promised outcome of that plan, well, you can be, you cannot be afraid. In fact, you can move from, from fear of the unknown to expectation of the unknown. And so there's, there's a movement from oh, I don't know what's going to happen to, oh, I don't know what's going to happen, but I know who's going to be the happener. He's going to be the one who, who makes things happen. I know the one who, who is, who is the one who, who orders things ahead of me. And so rather than being, rather than being upset, rather than being in trepidation, rather than, than being, and having nervousness about what's about to happen, you can have an expectation of what's going to happen. And therefore I'm not paralyzed by fear. Meaning fear causes me to not act according to what God's revealed and his divine will is. It causes me not to hear God. It causes me not to move rather than doing that, rather than living that way. I'm not afraid. And then I'm not dismayed. And dismayed means, you know, oh, I can't believe that happened. It's the idea of it's wonder with all the negative and none of the positive. It's like, oh my goodness, that's dismayed. Oh no, that's dismayed. It's the idea of, of, of I have no control over things and things are going to happen that are going to be, that are going to be terrible for me. Well, there's no reason to be fearful and there's no reason to be dismayed for what reason. And the reason is, he says, he gives it here. He says, I have a. Not commanded you. I want you to be strong and good. Courage. That means your emotions and your mind, your mind, your heart, your mind and your intellect and your heart. Being is going to be strong and courageous. Meaning, Meaning going beyond being just focused on it. But I'm going to be, be powerfully moving into it. I'm going to be, I'm going to be fearless, not fearful. I'm going to be courageous in how I do things. I'm not going to be afraid, and I'm not going to be dismayed because I'm not going to have any expectation of things not going right. And that doesn't mean that bad things don't happen to Christians or what may be perceived as bad things doesn't happen to Christians. Christians still have cancer. Christians still have strokes. Christians still have heart attacks. Christians still have family members that, that get, you know, diseases and have their parents have, you know, dementia. And they still have all those struggles. Christians still have all those struggles. But we understand that those struggles are a methodology by which God is going to not only reveal his will, but he is going to glorify himself through me in those things. The sin of this world has caused all the marring of the world, and we're still in the world. And so we're gonna have to deal with the, the, the, the. The moral problem of the sin of the world. When sin entered the world through Adam, death entered also. We're in that world. And so we're going to. It's going to be a part of our lives. But because we, we know the author of the world, because we know the, the eternal God, because we're, we're beyond the physical. We live in the eternal. We don't have to. We do not have to. We're not dismayed by a struggle that's going to happen in the world. He said, in this world, you will have trouble. You're going to struggle. But I've overcome the world. And that's a New Testament way of saying what he's saying here. You're going to have struggles. I mean, that's not, it's not like they're going to go into the promised land and take on the giants, and the giants are just going to fall dead in front of them. I mean, David did have to get the rocks. He did have to go out on the battlefield. He did have to face the guy with the, with the, with the, you know, spear. The spear that had a head on it that weighed six, seven pounds. I mean, we're talking about. He did face the giant, and he did have to have to come at him and, and use his sling and his rock to hit him with it. He did have to go to battle. My point is he had to go to battle. The giant didn't just die in front of him. He had to walk his faith out. And the promised land is about walking your faith out. And so the only way for you to actually experience the promises and the power and the purpose of God, the spirit filled Christian life is, you gotta walk it out. And being strong and courageous is the attitude, mindset, the, the focus that you must have. And not being afraid, not being dismayed are the two things that you sure enough can't live in. Because dismay just leads to despair and, and hopelessness, fear leads to, to paralyzation and, and lostness. You can't have those because you have a reason to be strong and courageous. Why? Because the Lord God is with you wherever you go. And that's what he says here. The Lord God is with you wherever you go. So when he says, in this world you have trouble, but do not worry, I've overcome the world, do not be afraid, don't let that bother you that you're going to have trouble. I've overcome those things. I've already handled those things. That's a direct Old Testament faith mindset. It's translated perfectly and one to one, it's an equal mindset in the New Testament. The Old Testament mindsets based off of the revelation of God and the very obvious movements of God, him delivering them out of Egypt, the plagues of Egypt, the splitting of the Red Sea, them seeing him on the mountain, the thunder, the lightning, the water from the rock, the manna from heaven, the honey and the rock, you just over and over and over and over and over and over and over you can see God. And then you get to the New Testament and we have Jesus, who is the full manifestation of God. And he's raising the dead, making the blind see, walking on water, turning water to wine, feeding thousands with just little morsels of food, raising himself from the dead. We have clear evidence. It's evidentiary. We have clear evidence. And the eyewitnesses are willing to not only testify to that, they're willing to testify even if it costs them their own lives. We have an evidentiary faith that we can place our trust in and an expectation that if God did that for them, and he has promised to do that for us through the ones he did it for in the past, these are the ones who are telling us today to do these things and to be these things because they know that God is doing that for them, they're not anything more special than anyone else. And they realize that God's plan of God's will for them, it's, it's just clear, you get to the point where you go, oh, no need to be dismayed, no need to be fearful. I need to be strong enough courage. Because God's with me wherever I go. In that. Beautiful. It is beautiful. It's wonderful. And it's necessary. If we're going to have all that God wants us to have, we must walk in that mindset. Be strong and of good courage. As you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today. In Jesus name, Sam.