Some people go looking for new challenges, others avoid them like fire, but can you really choose the ones that arrive unasked: illness, loss, a task far beyond your strength? This message places us beside Joshua, who after Moses’ death hears the call to lead the nation into the promised land and must first face the one challenge on which all the others depend (Joshua 1). The sermon shows that be strong and courageous is not an appeal to summon up bravery, but a call to stand on God’s side and obey his word, which also demands discipline and action. Listen if you are facing something today that feels far too big for you.
Discussion questions
For your small group or for personal reflection after the sermon.
- In Joshua 1:1-18 God repeats three times, "Be strong and courageous." What is this courage tied to in the text, and what would it have meant for Joshua standing at the Jordan after Moses' death?
- The generation that refused to enter the Promised Land forty years earlier feared giants and walls and longed for Egypt. What does their story reveal about what most often holds us back from the step God is calling us to take?
- Abraham Lincoln said we should not pray that God would be on our side, but that we would be on God's side. How does that idea change the way you look at the challenges in front of you?
- The sermon compares God's Word to a compass in the forest or a navigation app in an unfamiliar city. In what area of your life do you most need that kind of direction right now, and how can Scripture give it to you?
- The tribes that already had their land still had to go and fight alongside the rest of the nation. What do you think it means that facing God's challenges takes not only obedience but also effort and working together?
- The elderly woman who got lost in Los Angeles walked up to Alfred and asked if he was hungry. What is one concrete step you can take this week so that someone sees Jesus in you?
