Leadership lessons from Joshua

Joshua 3

Crossing the Jordan

¹ Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. ² After three days the officers went throughout the camp, ³ giving orders to the people: "When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. ⁴ Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between you and the ark; do not go near it."

It’s common knowledge that it is the responsibility of the leader to determine not only the why of the mission, but he or she is also responsible to determine the how of the mission as well. However, in the Kingdom of God that is not the case. In God’s Kingdom, the leader is the facilitator of God’s will. This does not lessen the leader’s level of responsibility. It actually it heightens it because the leader must accurately receive from God, both the goal of the mission and the method of achieving that goal in order to be successful. The Kingdom leader must never lose sight of the fact that it is God who is leading the people. If the leader ever loses sight of that, they would be out of God’s will and be estranged from God’s protection and provision. We see these points emphasized in the scripture above. In vs. 2 we see that the Hebrews are camped at the Jordan river waiting to forge it; however, we see that they waited “three days to do so…” why? The Hebrews waited three days because they were waiting for instructions from God. Look at vs. 3 you see the specific instructions the officers give to the Hebrews, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, and the priests, who are Levites, carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it.” Symbolically the arc represented the presence of God, thus they were required to wait on God and His presence before they were to begin their quest of possessing the Promised Land. This is a powerful point for leaders. Often a leader will do research, study, consult counsel, or train in order to proceed on their mission. Yet, we see here in the Kingdom that the first action the Kingdom leader must take is to hear from God and wait on his presence and direction before pursuing Kingdom goals. This is a theme that runs throughout the chronicles of Joshua, but it is especially important here because neither Joshua nor the Hebrews had “been this way before.” This venture was all together different from any of their previous experiences with Moses or with God. Yes, God had shown himself to be strong and powerful through the ministry of Moses, but now things were different. And, because the context was different, it required that they totally depend on God once again. They could not say this is how we did it last time or this is how we did it with Moses. These challenges were new and they needed to be close enough to God to respond appropriately to the new challenges. This is an important point because many times in leadership we can get stuck in the rut of tradition, and as a result hinder progress because the present challenges require new methods of overcoming them. Tradition can be helpful, but it can also be deadly if not used within an appropriate context. For maintaining values it would be wise to depend upon tradition, but for fulfilling a mission it would be catastrophic to do so. Look at the Gospel of Mark 7:8 The Kingdom leader must always keep in mind that he or she is not maintaining, but he or she is helping God’s people to possess their promises from God. The Kingdom leader is not after land, but he or she is striving to develop a fruitful relationship between the people he or she is called to lead and God. In the secular world, it is the responsibility of the leader to determine the direction of the mission. However, in God’s Kingdom, the leader is more of a facilitator of God’s will, which requires a greater dependency on God. The Kingdom leader must always draw his or her strength and direction from God.