“Charting a New Course” – Sunday, September 9 2024

1st in the Series on Joshua

SERMON PREACHED AT
STOUFFVILLE UNITED CHURCH
REV. CAPT. JOHN NILES
MUSIC BY DANIEL MEHDIZADEH AND CHOIR

             Everyone church has experienced a minister who has stayed too long, and whatever good they had accomplished during the early years is diminished or wiped away because of it. There is also the type of relationship where the minister and the church were never a good match and problems and divisions and conflict were there from the beginning but the minister remains until forced to leave.                  
And then there is the one where the minster is beloved and has had a wonderful ministry and ends it due to retirement.   And then there is the one that is perhaps most difficult, where the minister has worked with the church to overcome great challenges, and together they were brought through those challenges to chart a new course where there is great potential, but that minister is not the one to lead them on into it. And there is a sense of bewilderment as a result.                                                       
“Now Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho. And the Lord showed him all the land, Gilead as far as Dan,” Deuteronomy 34:1 (NAS). And “From the mountaintop, Moses saw the Promised Land. “Then the Lord said to him, ‘This is the land which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying ‘I will give it to your descendants.’ I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not go over there’” (Deuteronomy 34:4).  This is of course the place I find myself and ourselves. As we look to chart a new course given we have come to the conclusion of this one which the completion of the chancel renovations and the new course is before us. The truth is, that the next stage was set 5 months ago when council decided to begin to explore options for a shared ministry with other churches and neighbouring United Churches which would require me to resign according to the United Church polity and Regional Church. Once we finished the chancel changes, the next stage was to begin to form this new venture and the necessity would be for me to eventually resign. So as not to get in the way of this process, I made the hard decision to resign.

I

Joshua came to understand you have to have the right chart to travel.
² “Moses my servant is gone. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites. ³ I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. ⁴ Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates-all the Hittite country-to the Great Sea on the west. ⁵ No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.                                                         
Joshua was a wise, godly, and respected person. He didn’t have to try to curry Moses’ favor, seize the job, campaign for votes or fish for support. God had made Moses and Joshua different, yet He put them over others and responsible for others in leadership. He had assigned to them different tasks and talents. So comparing Joshua to the past leaders, as many so often do, didn’t serve the present situation.

Joshua understood this and so had to be able to ignore the criticism and chart a new course. His desire had to be to attempt great things for God and expected great things from Him. Life can be hard. For Joshua as for us, the future can be so uncertain; whether it is the uncertain of an operation to come, or the difficulty in the economy sometimes we allow fear to stop us from moving forward. And God reminds us that he will never leave us nor forsake us.          

For others it is the confusion of what to do and where to go. To which God reminds us to mediate on the word of the law and neither turn to the left or to the right keeping on track and we will possess the land promised us and achieve that success that seemed unattainable before. The late Supreme Court Justice Oliver Holmes was on a train when the conductor came through collecting tickets. Holmes couldn’t find his ticket and became rather distraught. The conductor tried to console him by saying, “Mr. Holmes, don’t worry. When you find your ticket, just mail it in. We trust you.” Mr. Holmes responded in frustration, “My dear man, that’s not my problem. I am not concerned about finding the ticket to show you. I need my ticket to tell me where I’m going.” 

Sometimes that is the real problem. People don’t know where they are going. As I have said before, if you aim at nothing; you will be sure to hit it. What are you aiming at? What is your aim in life? What is the aim for Stouffville United and the Stained Glass Center for the Performing Arts? This are the questions that will help you decided as the followers of Moses did in choosing Joshua by God’s grace and guidance to lead them forward and to chart a new course.  As believers we too have the same choice. We can follow the course charted and move forward in faith or refuse and fall back in fear.

II

Joshua came to understand that if you have the right chart you can travel and secondly, and secondly, if you have courage you have a measure of control.

⁷ Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. ⁸ Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. ⁹ Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” ¹⁰ So Joshua ordered the officers of the people: ¹¹ “Go through the camp and tell the people, ’Get your supplies ready. Three days from now you will cross the Jordan here to go in and take possession of the land the LORD your God is giving you for your own.’”                                                               
God twice told Joshua to “be strong and courageous” (vs 6, 9) and once “to be strong and very courageous.” However, he didn’t do so without also, saying that he would supply him what with what he needed. Yet, he had to begin by believing.      There is a story about a preacher leaving a church. At his farewell dinner, he tried to encourage the members, saying, “Don’t be so sad. The next preacher might be better than me.” One member replied, “That’s what the last preacher said, but it just keeps getting worse.”                                 

Joshua needed to be encouraged. He needed to know that no matter what he wasn’t alone. Three times God encouraged him. Three times God told him that to be strong and courageous because he was not going to every leave or forsake him. And with this knowledge Joshua could move forward into the uncertain future with faith.
A preacher once said: “There is no situation I can get into that God cannot get me out. Some years ago when I was learning to fly, my instructor told me to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time, the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out-of-control. It soon became evident that the instructor was not going to help me at all. After a few seconds, which seemed like eternity, my mind began to function again. I quickly corrected the situation. Immediately I turned to the instructor and began to vent my fearful frustrations on him. He very calmly said to me, “There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again.” That is what God was saying to Joshua and to us. That there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust me, you will be all right.” As St. Paul said, “Who can separate us from the love of God…I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor  Angels, principalities, powers or the sword can ever separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”       

III

Joshua came to understand that if you have the right chart you can travel and if you have courage you can have a measure of control, and finally, if you have right companions you can triumph and overcome.                                                                  ⁶ “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.”  
Once, Linus the insecurity blanket owner of the Peanuts gang sat down with Snoopy, and said, “Y’know what, Snoopy? I don’t understand people. No matter how hard I try. I just don’t understand them!” Snoopy sympathized with Linus, and thought to himself: “I know how he feels. I gave up trying to understand people long ago…Now I just let them try to understand me!”
People are hard to lead, prone to complain, and slow to respond and nearly impossible to change.” I have often thought that where you are a leader in business or as a parent in the home, or a minister in church; leading is a little like trying to herd cats.  It is nearly impossible to unless you are out in front drawing them forward. And yet nothing great can be accomplished alone. It takes a team. For teamwork makes a dream work. T.E.A.M. means ‘Together Everyone Achieves More.
God charged Joshua to be a team leader and to lead the Israelites to inherit Canaan (v 6). He knew that teamwork makes the dream work. And that meant leading the people by faith, not heeding their fears.
Two hunters got a pilot to fly them into the far north for elk hunting. They were quite successful in their venture and bagged six bucks. The pilot came back, as arranged, to pick them up. They started loading their gear into the plane, including the six elk. But the pilot objected and said, “The plane can only take four of your elk; you will have to leave two behind.” They argued with him; the year before they had shot six and the pilot had allowed them to put all aboard. The plane was the same model and capacity. Reluctantly, the pilot finally permitted to put all six aboard. But when he attempted to take off and leave the valley, the little plane could not make it and they crashed into the wilderness. Climbing out of the wreckage, one hunter said to the other, “Do you know where we are?” “I think so,” the other hunter groaned. “I think this is about the same place where we crashed last year.” 

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.   To be sure, it is true, I didn’t do things the way other ministers always do, and I didn’t always do what was expected but when I was called to a new half-time position to chart a different course for Stouffville, that was to be expected. Doing the same thing wouldn’t have worked, and together with courage we moved forward and just look how far we came, like Moses we overcame – not a plague but a – pandemic, and reestablished the church afterwards. Bring us to this point in time.

Team work really does make the dream work. You think about that.