For us to have a home with God, we need a land completely devoted to him.
We need a place that has not been completely devoted to destruction.
That is the mission God’s people are on in the book of Joshua.
A mission to reclaim a space to live with God.
A mission to recapture the place God chose as his region.
But to understand what’s happening in Joshua, we have to go back to the Garden of Eden.
For there, in the beginning, we see that it was always God’s plan to have a place to live with his creation.
The garden was to be the home for us and God.
This was supposed to be our perfect habitation.
It was to be a place devoted to God, and a place where God was devoted to us.
A place where he would be with us where we both would be planted.
A garden we would tend, grow, and manage.
A land where heaven and earth came together that would expand to fill the planet.
But instead of devoting themselves and the land to God, Adam and Eve devoted it to damage.
They took what was dedicated to God to be used for their own advantage.
They rejected God’s devotion committing their home to death and destruction.
So, from their shared land, they would be driven out.
Humanity itself would be devoted to corruption.
But, in the garden, God was still devoted to his people.
He would bring them back home, even though it would mean destruction.
God had plans to inhabit another land with his creation.
A chosen land where he and his chosen people could, once again, dwell in perfect habitation.
And the name of this land was Canaan.
But instead of devoting themselves and the land to God, the inhabitants devoted it to damage.
They took what was dedicated to God to be used for their own advantage.
They destroyed God’s home replacing devotion with desolation.
They ravaged God’s land and sought to unmake his creation.
So, God raised up Israel and brought them to Canaan, so they could enter the land and reclaim it.
Joshua would lead this reconstruction but only under the command of God’s instructions.
They were to drive out the inhabitants, put an end to their corruption, and create a land
devoted to God by devoting the Canaanites to destruction.
Yet not everyone in Canaan was an obstruction.
Some, like Rahab, heard about Israel’s God and wanted to devote themselves to this land’s new construction.
Which is why in the first story of Israel’s entrance into the land it’s not God’s
destruction we see but God’s devotion to save even Canaanites from destruction’s hand.
Nevertheless, it was to destruction most of Canaan was devoted.
So, God sent Joshua and his army to pluck up and to plow.
From the land, God would drive them out.
For Israel to have a home with God, they needed a land completely devoted to him.
And that place would be Canaan after it was completely devoted to destruction.
And so, as Adam and Eve were meant to spread the Garden of Eden, the people of Israel were meant to spread throughout the nation.
And yet, after many generations, the work was never finished.
In fact, Israel only added to the land’s decimation.
In fact, the whole world has been ravaged, unmade, and desolated by us who were supposed to join God in creation.
But God was still devoted to his people like he was at the garden of Eden.
So, God sent a new leader like Joshua to finish the work of the world’s reclamation.
And that new leader is Jesus who, like Joshua, entered a broken and evil land.
And, like Israel’s army, he came to drive out our pollution by God’s mighty hand.
But in another garden, Jesus would prove his devotion.
As he knew it would come to pass all the way back in the garden of Eden, he knew who had to be destroyed for God’s home to cover the planet.
Jesus devoted himself to God willingly devoting himself to damage.
He dedicated himself to God for our advantage.
For, unlike Joshua, he would not rebuild this world by destroying those who brought the corruption.
Instead, on the cross Jesus, himself, would be devoted to our destruction.
For us to have a home with God, we need a land completely devoted to him.
And Jesus creates that place by completely devoting himself to destruction.
But now, we can pick up where they left off.
We can join God in the garden again.
For when we devote ourselves to Jesus, we join him by tending and growing our home in the places around us that still face corruption.
So, we go like Joshua, but we go with Jesus.
Not as those who were driven out or those who brought destruction to the land of Canaan, but we go as those finally united with God.
We go as gardeners of the new creation.
Hey everyone, I’m David with Spoken Gospel.
Thank you so much for watching our introduction to the book of Joshua.
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