Joshua 3:7 | Episode# 1226

June 29, 2026

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

Joshua 3:7

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 to today, in

the name of Jesus. Amen. I am in Joshua, chapter three, verse seven. I know many of you are asking questions about the Facebook page, and where are all the Bible studies? Well, Facebook began to remove videos that were more than a month old. Well, maybe a month ago. And so if you're looking for a podcast, older podcast, we've got Bible studies all the way through the Pentateuch, first five books of the Bible. We've got Bible studies on First Corinthians and the Book of Psalms, and we've actually got my financial podcast from about a year ago. And if you were looking for those, you just look for Hope Alive with my name, Chad Harrison. If you just look that up, Hope Alive with Chad Harrison, there's about 1,000 podcasts out there that encompass all the Bible studies that we've done since COVID began. And so if you're really looking to just kind of go through those Bible studies, it's actually really easier than looking on Facebook. Go to Hope Alive and like that page or save that page, and you can find all the Bible studies that we have done. Really, I think the number is right at 1,000 of them as of this month. And so do that and tell your friends about it, whatever. But we'll have a Bible study, and obviously our Bible studies here will be online for about a month. And then Facebook takes them off, so we download them and kind of package them up into a podcast that's a little bit easier to listen to than just the clunkiness of me doing this Bible study. Morning. We're in Joshua, chapter three, verse seven and it says here this day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of Israel. This is what the Lord said to Joshua, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I'll be with you. Now this is very interesting. This is one of those points that is a more refined point. I think it's a more important point. It's an important point as far as what God has done in the past and the picture of entering into the promised land, the Spirit filled Christian life, all those ideas that we've talked about in the past. This point is really, really important. And what I mean by that. Well, God chose Moses. God chose Moses. He came up on that mountain to see that wonder of that bush that was burning but not being consum. And when he got to the top of that mountain, God was up there, the Lord God. In fact it was the angel of the Lord. And I'm saying the angel of the Lord, which is Jesus, the pre incarnate Jesus up on top of that mountain. He was told to take off his shoes and he was on holy ground, meaning that Jesus was God and that he was in the presence of God. And so knowing that and understanding that, we understand that God picked and chose a man to go into Egypt and deliver them out of Egypt. And that's why he's called in the Old Testament. He's the prophet, he's the lawgiver, he is the deliverer. He's the one that delivered them out of Egypt by the hand of the Lord God or by the hand of Jesus himself. And so understanding that and knowing that, well, it's a powerful idea to understand that God chooses people to lead in these processes. And it's not something that we can get away from easy. Even though the Spirit filled Christian life is a very personal thing, you walking with God and you walking in his blessing and his purposes is a very, very personal thing. It's a very, very individual thing. And so I don't want to diminish that. But usually when you see that happening in a, in very powerful ways, you see that amongst a group of people, in the presence of a lot of people doing that, you do see it. You see the misfit and the renegade out there that walks with God fully and completely and he does it outside the context of a large group of people or a larger group of people. But that's very rare. And sometimes that's kind of strange. Sometimes that person ends up not really effectuating much change in anybody else because he's so out there and so God is in the business of not only taking the individual and filling them with His Holy Spirit and glorifying Himself, but he does that in the context of a congregation, a group of people. And we see that as a part of this passage, that it's not just Joshua that's going into the promised land. It's not Moses that was promised all these things. It was for the purpose of a large group of people to go in. It was for the purpose of all of Israel to experience what it is to be living out a faith filled powerful life, a faith filled consequential life, a life that has consequence in the spiritual. And so if that large group is going to have that happen, God's mechanism by which to do that is usually to choose leaders, to choose a person in the context of this actual story, but leadership that has a vision for that, leadership that desires that, leadership that is purposefully leading people to those things. And oftentimes you'll see, especially in, you know, in, in the spiritual Christian life, we pick leaders in order to maintain things, not to lead toward something big, something better, something greater for our congregation. And, and I, I'll say this. God's not in the maintenance business. He's in the building business. He's in the, he's in the growing business. He's in the anointing business. He's in the expanding business. And so God said to Joshua, I'm going to exalt you in the sight of all Israel that they may know that as I was with Moses, I'll be with you. Why? Because Joshua is going to want, be the one who provides the visionary leadership for the people of Israel to enter into the promised land and take that promised land. Just like Moses was going to provide the visionary leadership for redeeming and for delivering God's people out of Egypt. There is an aspect to the Christian life that is corporate, that is together and that requires for a congregation, a group of people who are chasing after God, for them to really, really experience powerful movements of the Holy Spirit, powerful movements of the kingdom. For that to be done through visionary leadership, be done by someone who sees what is ahead. Because God has revealed those things to them. Not there's some innate them that's better than anybody else. It's that God has give place them in this role. They've called them to this purpose. They, they've given them the, the eyes to see what is ahead. And, and those people are, are they're. Well, their whole being is about leading, guiding people into a place where they have, you know, they have a. They have an experience that they wouldn't have had had they not been together as a congregation, had they not been going in as a group, and had they not had the visionary leadership to go in that direction. Now, y' all know in. In my ministry, I am highly into diminishing you placing someone on a pedestal, but above a pedestal, anywhere equal to or in the line of sight of God. That is idolatry, and it's not good. And so we're not talking about making someone an idol. We're not talking about making someone saying to yourself, well, this person is the most important person in my life. That's not what we're talking about. And it's not true. Visionary leadership. True visionary leadership of an under shepherd is going to be heavily leading the sheep to the shepherd, pointing to where the shepherd is, pointing to what the shepherd is doing. And a visionary leader can see where the shepherd is going and points in that direction. He's not the one to be worshiped. He's not the one to be praised. He doesn't need to be sought out for that purpose. And in many ways, he will diminish that. He'll push that aside. Why? Because it's not healthy for the sheep to begin to place their eyes on the leader and lose sight of the king.

Okay?

And so when we do these things, a visionary leader, someone who is trying to lead God's people to a place where they are truly experiencing the full measure of God's power and God's purpose. When we're doing that, a visionary leader has to understand you're not God, and you're not the one who is providing the vision. You're the mouthpiece who is speaking the vision. God's providing the vision. When a visionary leader gets that vision, he's not getting it from himself. It's not in any way emanating from within. It's always emanating from the throne room of heaven. And so it's not about the visionary leader, although most of the time when it happens, it happens because there is a visionary leader. And we've got to look for those things. We gotta expect those things. And when you're trying to figure out, okay, is this what he's talking about, about a visionary leader? Are they trying to take you somewhere where it has a physical end to it, or are they trying to take you somewhere that has a spiritual end to. Are they trying to get me to the place where I. I am fully trusting, fully placing my hope or anxious, Anxious expectation fully Believing upon fully faithing my God and living that out in my life. Such that corporately the whole group is, is seeing the. The big things that God does spiritually in the world happen regularly in the kingdom and in their lives. And so when he goes to Joshua, he says, I'm going to exalt you in front of the people. I'm going to do you the same as I did with Moses. I'm going to be with you. And the reason I'm doing that is for you to provide the visionary leadership for them to enter into the promised land. It's not to exalt Joshua in such a way that Joshua is to be worshiped. It's to is exalting Joshua in such a way that the people will follow him where God has told Joshua to take them. And so the Spirit filled Christian life. You can't discount this understanding, this idea of visionary leadership. It is important. It's being able to see God at work up ahead and pointing God's people in that direction. It's the ability to see what the corporate group should be doing so that the individual might maximize their walk with God. And that's what visionary leadership is about about. And God does call visionary leaders. And those leaders generally are broken vessels. They always are broken vessels. But they're generally broken vessels who understand their broken vessels and are not trying to be worshiped. They're just trying to lead God's people to the big things that God has for them. And so I don't want to pass by this verse and you miss it because it does require the fully entering into the promised land is a corporate activity. It's a whole group activity. It's individual, very individual for the believer. But it's usually done really well in the corporate setting. And usually that requires a leader who is going to lead God's people to that. And we try to make sure that we are providing that visionary leadership all the time for God's people to see the big things and the best from God. 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.