Joshua 2:1 | Episode #1215

June 12, 2026

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

Joshua 2:1

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. Foreign. We are in Joshua chapter two, Joshua chapter two. And we're going to deal with verse one and I know you go, well verse one. I mean, you know we'll never get through Joshua this way. Well, let me say this, the next couple of chapters are going to be mission critical. They are very, very important chapters in an understanding of how we, how we rightfully and, and particularly and very very thoughtfully seek out the Spirit filled Christian life. And you go, well, doesn't God have to do this? Here's the thing about the Spirit filled Christian life and this is the cool part about it. You don't do anything up to the salvific process to have a relationship with God. You don't do anything for you to be born again. You don't do anything for you to be redeemed. You don't do anything for you to be actually have a knowledge of God you don't have because God gives you the knowledge of Him. God gives you the faith to trust in Him. God gives you the calling on your heart for you to repent and turn to Him. He gives you. And your first act of faith is to repent and turn to him and be baptized. And that is the first thing you do. And it's really the first act as a part of the salvation process that we're in. So everything that is required, all the things that are required for you to be a part of his kingdom, a part of his family, to know him, to have a relationship with him, he provides for you on the front end, just like your Father and mother did for you when you were a little bitty baby. They took care of everything that was required for you to be a human being that is able to sustain life and live in the world. God does all those things. Now the spirit filled Christian life is in many ways it's intended to be our salvific process. It's our salvation, it's being saved. And being saved is a process, it's not an event, it's a process. And it is the maturing or the maturity of that process. Sure. Can I be being saved when I'm just now drinking the milk? Yes, that is being saved. The turning toward God at the very first is being saved. All of that is salvation. But, but God doesn't want us to be children or babes. He wants us to be mature, lacking nothing. He wants us to be strong and he wants us to be powerful before him and, and, and in order for us to have that which is the promised land, which is the Spirit filled Christian life, which is what God calls his rest. And, and, and what that means is I no longer am, am trying to work in my own flesh. I'm no longer actually trying to work in my spirit life. What I'm doing is I'm allowing God to use me. I've learned to allow him to use my life for his will and his way. And that's a process that's not easy to do. That's not something that you just do naturally. And so a lot of times people think that they're in the spirit filled Christian life because they know some things about God, because they, they're regular attenders at church or, or because they're, they're, they, they've got things going a whole lot better than they used to be going in their life. And let me say this, you may have those things, but spirit filled Christian life comes with, with for sure redemption, but past redemption, it comes with healing meaning the things that, that are highly destructive in your life. God begins to heal them out of you. And it, then it comes with manifestations of his power in your, that you literally change the world you live in. You do things that fundamentally alter the course of others lives and of situations in the world that you're in. And you go, well I thought that's what preachers jobs were. Well no it's not preachers jobs to live the Spirit filled Christian life. All the children of Israel were supposed to go into the promised land, not just Joshua and Moses. Everybody was supposed to go in. And, and one of the ways we know that is that Moses sent spies into the promised land, and he did it by the direction of God. That's numbers, chapter 13. Oftentimes we think that Moses sent spies in. Why would you send those stupid people in to go and spy out the land? You know, they're going to come back and just talk all the negative stuff and none of the positive stuff. Why would you do that? Well, Moses didn't do that. God did that. God actually picked them out, gave them names. In fact, God told Moses to change Joshua's name from one. One way of saying it in an. In. In. In. In an Egyptian dialect to Yeshua, Joshua. He. He told him to change his name to Joshua before he went in. And so we know. I mean, we've got the. We've got the passage. We know that God wanted him to go in and he wanted them to look at two different types of things. If you'll read the. Read note, numbers 13. He wants them to go in and look at two things. First of all, he wants them to look at the goodness that comes from the promised land. He wants them to see how the land is rich, how it's full of resources, how, how it's. It is a beautiful land. It's a great place to live. Okay? It's a great place to be. And then he wants them to evaluate the people of the land. Are they strong? Are they easily taken? It says that in numbers 13. It says it. God wants them to go in and value it. Why? Why would God do that? Why would God do that? Well, he hadn't done that before. He didn't tell his people that he was sending Moses. He didn't send word to them that Moses is coming to deliver him. Moses just shows up one day. He doesn't tell them how he's going to deliver them. Moses just starts doing these miracles, these, these. Sending these works of. These mighty works of God, these plagues on Egypt. He starts doing those things. And, and it makes the. The children of Israel nervous and scared and, you know, away our straw and making us make bricks. And they're doing all kinds of wrong things to us because you're, You're. You're sending these plagues. And, and there's. There was a lot of consternation among the people about, you know, what. What are we supposed to do about this? And then he took him once. Once Pharaoh said, get out. Moses says, take everything. You can, pack it up. We're leaving. He didn't tell them where they're going. And when they get out there, they. They Realize, you know, the Egyptians are coming to get them and then they panic then and, and they're up against the sea and, and Moses has done what God has told him to do and gone where he's told him to do. And Moses and, and, and Moses even thinks that, you know, maybe, maybe, maybe we're going to die. And then all of a sudden God says, you know, raise up your hands and he parts the sea. See, God didn't tell them any of that plan. Now God did tell Moses to take up to the mountain and he did. But they didn't go up on the mountain and, and they, they didn't know where they were going to get their food from. They didn't know about manna from heaven. They didn't know about the rock that was going to provide them water. They, I mean they didn't know anything. They're just following God's daily instruction. They're just following God's moment by moment plan to sustain them and to teach them about himself. And that's literally all they did. That's all they knew. Okay, but then we get to the promised land and God says, okay, I'm going to send some spies in. I'm going to send some people in so that you'll know what's coming next. And what did they do? Well, they found out what was coming next and they decided they didn't want to do it. And the reason they didn't want to do it is because they looked at the things that were going to be difficult to do, the things that were going to require God to provide them more supernatural power like they'd had before. But they didn't know it was coming. They just had it. They benefited from it. They didn't have anything to do with it. He, he, he's, he, he's now telling them, showing them, you're going to have to do these things. You're going to have to learn to do these things. And he's revealing in the process all the good that comes from it. And that ultimately is the mindset of the spirit filled Christian life. So when Moses sends them in, they come back 10 say, yeah, it's everything God said it is, but we shouldn't go in because there's giants in the land and we can't defeat them. And they're right, they couldn't defeat them, but God can defeat them. But they weren't trusting in God. They were just saying we can't do it. Okay, two said they should go in. That's Caleb and Joshua. Caleb and Joshua were still alive to go in the second time. All the other 10 dead, all the, all the, all that generation, gone. Okay, why? Because they, they, they were given the opportunity to enter into the promised land, to enter God's rest, to enter in the spirit filled Christian life, to enter in the fullness of God. They were given that opportunity and they didn't do it. They didn't do it. And, and let me say this, this happens to churches and individuals and groups of Christians all the time. God lays before them an opportunity and sometimes they do it and sometimes they don'. Those that do it see huge increase, see great things happen amongst them, see powerful things going on. And let me say this. We're at this time for ourselves as a church. I'm just being honest with you. We are. God is sending us leaders and powerful signs of his presence. He's sending many, many people. He's given us an opportunity to really step out and really dream the big dream of God's rest, God's promises, God's stuff. He's given us that opportunity. The question is, are we going to be like the 12 spies or are we going to be like the two spies? Okay. And notice it's interesting. They sent 12 in and only two came back and said everything's good. When they go back to go in the second time. How many does he send in to spy out the land? Just two. Just two. The number of spies that came back and said we should do what God says do. That's powerful. Joshua, chapter two, verse one says, from shittim. That's where they were on the other side of the Jordan River. Joshua, son of Nun secretly sent out two men as spies. He did the same thing again. Okay, the same thing. Now notice God sent the two spies the first time. I mean the 12 spies the first time Joshua sends the two spies. Why did Joshua send the two spies? Well, he wanted it done right again. He wanted this time it to be done right. And he knew that if you send a big old giant committee of people to decide whether or not to do God's will, they're always going to decide not to do God's will. But if I send these two in whom I know who I know, they're gonna, they're gonna go and see what's going on and they're gonna give us a report that is going to be helpful and useful. They're not gonna get, they're not gonna give them cotton candy and rainbows, okay? They're not giving them that. They're gonna give the Real report. This is what's gonna be required for us to take the promised land. And by the way, that is part of the spirit filled Christian life. God doesn't hide what's happening. He now he causes you to have to seek it out. And that is what the spies represent. The seeking out of how God's going to do this and how should we then live it out. See, the spirit filled Christian life is you actually getting to play a role in God's plan for you. Which is the coolest part about being a Christian, it's the best part about being a Christian is it's not. Let me say this, I can say it to you. It's cool to go and see the airplanes, it's cool to ride, to get on and see what an F15 or F35 or whatever it is looks like. But to be able to fly it is a whole new level. It's a whole new level, man, it's neat to go and see, you know, a tank or it's neat to go see a helicopter that, that the military uses. But to be able to sit in the, in the driver's seat or the cockpit and to fly it and to use it and to be in full control of that power is a whole new level. It's a whole new level. And let me say this, it is, it is a whole new level that, that God desires for you. He doesn't just desire for you to be as he is. He doesn't just desire to you, for you to know his will and his way. He doesn't just desire for you to, to, to hear his words and have that word just burn in your heart. He wants you to walk as he walked. Jesus said, the miracles I do ye shall do. And even greater than these, the dunami, the word is translated, the word that's translated power is the word we get dynamite from. It is, it means the explosive power of God at work in the world. And God wants that for his believers. And the only way for you to do it is to actually be a part of the plan. You need to be in on the plagues in Egypt, you need to be in on the splitting of the Red Sea. But you mainly need to be in on crossing the Jordan and taking out the giants. You're in the plan. You get to be a part of the plan. You get to be a part of what God's doing. You get to seek out God's will, to know his will and to actually walk in his will. You get to do that. And so many Christians Miss out on this. And that doesn't mean they're going to hell. Listen to me. That's not what that means, that the people that died in the. In the. In the wilderness, they did not go to hell. Listen to me. They did not. They'd already been through the blood. The blood. Once you've been through the blood, God's not going to send you to hell. When you've been washed in the blood, you're not. They've been across the Red Sea, they'd been baptized. They were part of the. The kingdom, but they didn't go into the Promised Land. They didn't have God's best, and they missed out on. And of all the things, as a pastor, most pastors want to experience the Promised Land. Mo, I don't. I don't know many pastors who don't. Let me say this. I don't care who your pastor is. I don't care what limitations you think he has. I don't care what issues you might see or flaws you might see. And let me say, you're probably going to see a bunch of them, because we all got them. Okay? No pastor wants his people not to enter the Promised Land. That just doesn't happen. Now, they may not even know what the Promised Land is. They may not even understand it themselves, but they want God's best for his people. And let me say this. I want that for you. But the only way for that to happen is for you to wrestle with God and come to a place where you realize that it is necessary. This is important. I want to fly the Blackhawk. I want to be in the seat when the F35 takes off. I want to be a part of it. I want to be involved. I want to actually be involved in the power and the purpose of God being worked out in the earth. And boy, when you realize you can be, and you realize you have that gifting and ability to do that, it's contagious now, I'm telling you. And it's. It's really, really. You can't get. You don't get over it. When you start feeling the very presence of God in your life. And, man, it's tiring too. Now when God's presence comes in, it's tiring. It's. It's hard. It's difficult. And the enemy attacks. The giants are there. I'm telling you, all of that happens. And a lot of people run for the hills when it happens. But let me tell you something. To be and see God do big stuff around you and for you to actually live a life where, you know, your expectation of that guy doing big stuff is commonplace. And you, it's common to see it. And I will say this. We've seen some really big stuff happen and it's becoming commonplace to see those things. And that's evidence that we're right in the middle of this Joshua process. And I would love for you to know what it's like to see the big stuff of the kingdom happen and enjoy it, enjoy the benefits of it. To eat of the fruit, to drink of the milk, to taste of the honey, to defeat a giant yourself. Wouldn't it be a great thing for you? I hope it is. And God actually lets you know, he lets you spy it out. He doesn't hide it from you. He says, okay, look, go in there and see what we're fixing to do. He does that. He did that for the 12 and he's doing that for the two now because Joshua's already been in the promised land. He knows what's in there. He just sends two more to let them, you know, somebody from this next generation. Okay, I'm going to give you a vision of what we can do. And boy, it's a whole different outline or timeline of events. What happens this time, and it involves, involves a woman who, who is of ill repute, which is a picture of the church, by the way. And so we're going to see some really cool stuff. And that's why this chapter is really important. These next few chapters, really next several chapters are, in my mind, they're just mission critical for what we need to be doing as believers. And they're mission critical to understand the New Testament. 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.