Skip to content Stepping into Our Inheritance | Joshua 13:1-15 | Gabriel Guzman Jul 17 · 46 min ...more
Stepping into Our Inheritance | Joshua 13:1-15 | Gabriel Guzman
July 17, 2025 · 46 min
Series Patria Sermons July 17, 2025 · 46 min · Patria Sermons
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Adam Mesa is Lead Pastor of Patria Church and speaks to a congregation of 12,000 about how the gospel of Jesus Christ brings purpose to every life. Patria
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0:00 Amen. Amen. Are you guys glad you came to church tonight? Yes. Come on. Come on. I just wanna show of hands really quick. Who's been at every single Joshua series that0:12 we've done so far? Anybody made it to every single 1? Okay. I see. I see. You guys are the faithful. You guys are the strong. You guys are you guys are ready to go. If you've never met me before, my name is Gabriel. I'm0:22 the associate director of family ministries here at Patria a church. And so if you haven't seen me before, it's probably because I've been over there with the kids and with the youth shaking their hands. If you serve in0:33 Patria Kids or Patria Youth, I just wanna thank you so much for your service to this next generation being faithful. And even being faithful and coming and wanting to get deeper in the word. I just wanna0:45 thank our lead pastors, Pastor Adam and Ashley, not just for the opportunity to speak, which I I love and I cherish, but also just for leading the church and caring about the0:57 Bible. Not all churches are go go through the Bible like this. Not all churches go through a book study like this because we're gonna find out today in the next few weeks some chapters are tough1:08 to to get through, barely to read, but let alone to wanna preach through and make it seemingly exciting. But I just wanna thank our pastor so much for for that goal. We did it last year1:20 with Mark and this year with Joshua and we're right there. If you haven't been with us in this series, it's okay. There's still a lot of chapters left. We're in 13 today, 13 today.1:32 So if you have your journals, you have your journals, you can raise them up for me so I can see who has their journal today. Let's go. If you don't have a journal and you want a journal, it's just a it literally is just1:44 the book of Joshua from the Bible in like this journal format, Has the text on 1 side and then empty lines on the other for you to take notes. If you want 1 still, we still have some in the Patriot shop or you can go on1:55 Amazon and order 1 and what have you. Would like to follow along with us. Take notes on your phone or on your on your notepad and then you can add it in right after. But today, we are in Joshua chapter2:07 13, not the whole chapter, just 14 verses. Today, I am blessed for that. Thank you so much for whoever assigned this to me. I'm thankful. But we're gonna read just a few verses to start. So if you can,2:19 if you have it with you or if you just wanna listen, I'll have you guys stand for the reading of God's word. Joshua chapter 13. We're gonna start in2:30 verse 1. Now Joshua was old and advanced in years and the Lord said to him, you are old and advanced in years and there remains yet very much land to possess. Verse2:42 2, this is the land that yet remains, all the regions of the Philistines and all those of the Gesherites. Verse 7, we're gonna jump down to verse 7 and this will be our last verse. Now,2:54 divide this land for an inheritance. Everybody say inheritance. Inheritance. To the 9 tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh. You may be seated. God, we come before you3:05 right now, and we just thank you, Lord, for your word, God. We thank you for everything we can learn from your word and how transforming it is to our lives. I pray that you work through this message. Nobody came here to3:15 hear from a man, but they came to hear from you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Amen. I wanna open with a story about a man named Roman Bloom. Now, Roman3:27 Bloom survived the holocaust and he ended up being a big New York real estate developer. And he died in 20 12 at the age of3:38 97 years old. Lived a long life. And he was pretty successful in real estate, and so his estate at the end of his life totaled up to 40000000 dollars.3:50 I don't know if you've ever seen 40000000 dollars before. I haven't. I can't even comprehend how much money that is, but that's what he had to his estate. And can anybody guess who4:01 inherited that money? Who inherited that estate? Nobody. Nobody inherited that estate. After he died, the the the government went into4:13 searching for who would be the heir and they couldn't find any right heir. Not not not family members, no relatives that could access this inheritance. He His wife and his son died in the4:25 holocaust and then his second wife died in 19 92 and they had no kids. And so, what happens in this state when the the government can't find an heir? It goes back to4:37 the state. And so, the state of New York inherited 40000000 dollars. And I don't know if you're like me and you hear that story and you say, what a waste. What4:49 a waste. I would never waste 40000000 dollars. If I inherited that, there were so many things I would do with that money. There's so many plans I would make. My life would change. I would change5:01 the life of my kids. I would change the life of my parents. I'd change the life of my relatives. There's no way that would ever go to waste with me. But let me tell you this, there are a lot of5:13 people that are wasting an inheritance worth far more than 40000000 dollars. What is that inheritance? That's the inheritance God has5:25 for all of us. God has an inheritance for all of us and there are people who go about their life and they just waste it. They never even claim it. And maybe we're in here and we're saying, oh, I've5:37 claimed the inheritance I have in God. But how many of us know that you can still determine how you use that inheritance? That's important. You can still waste an inheritance depending on how you're using5:49 it. And so, in here, I want us to to focus because the inheritance is a big idea not only in this chapter, but for the next 8 chapters of Joshua. Inheritance is a big6:01 idea. I wanna look at verse 7 again and look at this word inheritance. It says this in verse 7. Now therefore divide this land for an6:12 inheritance. Everyone say inheritance. Inheritance. To the 9 tribes and half tribe of Manasseh. You see, inheritance here is an important word, not only just for this6:24 verse, but for the following chapters that are gonna occur. You see, this word inheritance isn't just 1 person giving something to another person. That's like an6:36 inheritance. That's like a a possession, a transfer of things. But that's a different word in Hebrew. They can use a different word there. But this is a specific word. And whenever this word is used, there's divine6:48 connotations to it. It denotes it's often not a transfer from person to person, but a divine appointment. That's what's happening here. A divine6:59 appointment is happening for the people of Israel in this inheritance. And often, it doesn't even just denote possessions, which in this case it does denote possessions. They're gonna get some7:11 land, but there's also responsibilities that are inherited as well. There are some responsibilities inherited as well. And so what does that mean for our inheritance? Are7:23 are we inheriting land? Well, no, we're not inheriting land. We have an inheritance in God, and it's important that we know what that is because we can think it's just eternal life, which it is. That's a big part of7:35 our inheritance. A huge part of our inheritance is eternal life. What happens to us when we die is such a big factor of it, but that's not all. And so, I don't want us to be unaware about what our7:46 inheritance is for God. So we have some things for you to look at. You can take a picture of these, but we're gonna go through these because it's important to know what is our inheritance. And so we'll start with7:58 eternal life, which we already know. We receive spiritually by ourselves and we fully experience it in heaven. We get the Holy Spirit that's indwelling now as a deposit of something for us8:10 to look forward to. Our inheritance is adoption as children. And we have that right now. We're adopted right now. Forgiveness of sins is our8:22 inheritance and we're fully forgiven right now for our sins. Righteousness. God declares us righteous right now. Victory8:34 over sin and death. This is an inheritance we have. We have power over sin right now and that process is called sanctification. We have peace with God.8:46 We have that right now by faith. We have access to God by Jesus Christ. We have access to the father. We have spiritual gifts that we inherit. We have inheritance of God's kingdom.8:57 We're living as citizens of that kingdom right now. That's what we taught the kids at Vacation Bible School earlier, that they are citizens of heaven and not of this world. And lastly, we inherit9:09 a heavenly home And that is promised and secured and we fully realize that in our afterlife. This is our inheritance, our spiritual inheritance that9:21 we have as believers. And it's important because this chapter, and not only this chapter, but these next few chapters can teach us something about9:33 inheritance. Teach us something about how do we live out this inheritance, how can we cherish this inheritance. Because chapter 13 of Joshua marks a transition in9:45 the book. There's a transition in the book now. There are no more battles mentioned from now on. The first 12 chapters were full of action, full of9:56 battles. Pastor Heron preached last week, he had a list as well, but at least it was a list of some battles, a list of some kings that were defeated. That's not really happening anymore. It's it's more just names of10:08 places and lists and lists and it could just be so easy for us to wanna skim over it. Read the first 12 chapters of Joshua and then skip to the last 2 chapters. Because the10:20 last 2 chapters, there's more interesting things. That's like Joshua's farewell address in the last 2 chapters. That's where we have the the famous verse, me and my house will serve the Lord. That's that's the good10:29 stuff. Let me get over there. Let me read the first 12. Let's skip 13 to 21 and then let's go to 22 and beyond. But I wanna show us this scripture really quick. First Timothy 3 1610:41 to 17. It says this in verse 16, all scripture, everybody say, all scripture All scripture. Is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in10:53 righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Here's the challenge here that we all face, even on the preaching team right now. Right? Because11:05 we have to deal with these chapters as well. Do we believe that? We read that, we know what it means, but do we believe that all scripture, all of the Bible is11:17 profitable for us? We can learn something from all of it. Because we can read and we're we're gonna read. It seems like it's just a list. Seems like I'm just reading places. What is there for me to learn from this?11:29 But if we do the work, we will see what that it's profitable. That it's profitable. And these first 14 verses of Joshua, we're gonna see11:41 how we can walk in our inheritance. How we can walk in our inheritance. And how do we do that? Well, we take steps. We're gonna step up in faith.11:52 We're gonna learn that we have to step into the fight. And we're gonna learn that we have to step forward with faithfulness. Let's start with the first step. The first step, step up12:04 in faith. How do you walk in your inheritance? You step up in faith. Verse 1, now Joshua was old and advanced in years and the Lord said to him, you are old12:16 and advanced in years and there remains very much land to possess. Don't you love how blunt God is? How honest he is? Not only does the narrator say Joshua is old,12:28 but then it says the Lord told Joshua, he said, you're old. Everybody knows how old you are old, Joshua. You can't do this anymore. You're too old for this. And there's a lot of12:40 work that needs to be done. But I wanna focus on that phrase, old and advanced in years because it's important. That phrase is a connection point. That phrase12:52 is an echo from somewhere else in the Bible. And the Bible does this a lot where it'll have a phrase and the author wants you to connect that phrase with somewhere else, somewhere else in the Bible in order to13:04 push a theological idea forward, to to to force an idea forward. And this echo makes us look towards Genesis 24 verse 1. It says13:15 this, now Abraham was old, well advanced in years. Now the ESV, that's the bible translation we're using in all of our journals and and for this study, the ESV might phrase it13:27 a little bit differently, but in Hebrew, those are the exact same words, the exact same order, the exact same letters, everything is the same from Joshua 13 1. And so there's supposed to be a connection13:39 there with Joshua and Abraham. With Joshua and Abraham. If you're unfamiliar with who Abraham is, he's very important to the Israelite culture in history, very important13:51 to biblical history. He's the father of the Israelite nation. He had a lot of sons and God gave him a promise. They're called covenants in the14:03 Bible. Yeah. And covenants are really important. And Abraham maybe has 1 of the most important covenants. And it's in chapter 12. And so there's an important verse14:15 in chapter 12 that connects to what we're about to talk about in chapter 13. And in verse 7 of Genesis chapter 12, it says, then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, to your offspring, I14:26 will give this land. And so we see the connection with Abraham. Abraham, at the end of his life, is getting ready to try and make a14:38 legacy for his son so that he can make a nation and inherit, they can inherit the land that God's gonna give them from this verse. And here in chapter 13, we see Joshua.14:50 He's at the end of his life and they're about to see the first fruits of this promise in Genesis chapter 12. And so that is the connection here between Abraham and Joshua. Something15:02 big is happening here. A covenant is being pushed forward here in the bible. And so that's why that phrase is supposed to stick with us. And so what can we15:14 learn from that? That Joshua is old and advanced and the covenant's going forward and there's still so much work that needs to be done. Joshua15:25 Joshua's time has passed and now it's the Israelites' turn to fulfill their inheritance. It's their turn to conquer15:37 what's left to be conquered. Joshua was a great leader. Joshua was a great general. And you can read about those in the first 12 chapters and we've talked about those, about how15:49 God was with Joshua. And Joshua led the people and they conquered all these lands, but they can't rely on them anymore and they have to do they have to step up right now and start to conquer.16:01 I have this written down. Pastors can lead you, parents can teach you, mentors can guide you, but only you can walk into what God has promised for16:12 your life. I love the worship set today because 1 of the songs was talking about how no 1 can worship you16:24 for me. And that is exactly the idea here. Parents are great. Pastors are great. Mentors are great. They can teach16:36 us so many things. They can mature us in so many ways, But it's still up to us to be obedient. They can't be obedient for us. That's something we have to take on and we have to take16:47 seriously. And so now in Joshua chapter 13, the first verse is setting up a transition saying, hey, Israelites, now it's time for you to step up. Have you learned what you can from Joshua? Did you see16:59 how he trusted God? Did you see how he led the people? Now it's your turn. And so we need to step up in our faith and take obedience serious, take our faith17:10 seriously. Here's the next step. After we've stepped up in our faith, now we can step into the fight. Step17:22 into the fight. Verse 2. Verse 2. This is the land that yet remains, all the regions of the Philistines and all those of the Gesherites. From the17:33 Shehor, which is east of Egypt northward to the boundary of Ekron, it is counted as Canaanite. There are 5 rulers of the Philistines, those of Gaza, Ashdod, Ashkelon, Gath, and Ekron, and those of the17:45 Aviv. In the south, all the land of the Canaanites and the Meria that belongs to the Sidonians, to Aphek, and to the boundary of the Amorites, and the land of the Gilgalites and Lebanon toward17:57 the sunrise of Baal Gad below Mount Hermon to Lebohamath. Verse 6, all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Mishrafeth, Ma'im, even all the18:09 Sidonians. What's going on? What what did we just read? You could read that 5 times and you don't know what's what's happening. Well, that's why I'm I'm here to help18:20 out. I'm here to I'm here to show us what's going on here. And just as a resource for yourself, a big resource that's just gonna help you get through any time there's like these lists of the bible, specifically with18:31 places, is a map. Bust out a map like a like a Bible Atlas. That's what they're called, a Bible Atlas, where they have places listed and things like that. So that's what I have for you right now, a map. Raise your18:43 hand if you're a visual learner. You're a visual learner. That's great because we we need it. So we have a We got a map here for us right here. Okay. Perfect. So18:55 what did we just read? What's going on? This is what we just this is what we just read. Actually, it's this 1. Perfect. So this is what we just read. Okay. So this19:07 is this is Israel. If you were not aware, this is Israel. And this is what we read right here. So you see these these light green areas right here? Those are that's land that they control.19:19 That's land that they've conquered. That's land they have. This green outline is what is allotted. That's what's promised. That's what we're gonna get to in Not even in this chapter actually, but19:30 in the rest of the book is dedicated to these areas right here, all of the outline. So if you don't see light green, that's what we just read. Every area19:42 that's within this dark green mark, but it's not light green, that's all that is left that they need to conquer. And so God isn't playing it lightly when he says there's so much19:54 work to be done. Because when you look at it, you're like, that's a lot of work. That is a lot of work that still needs to be done. There's a lot of things that they need20:06 to do. And if you notice, it's detailed. So detailed that somebody could make that map and you could see it outlined perfectly.20:18 God cares about the details. It's very detailed and it's detailed to the Israelites. This is all the work you need to do. And so20:30 have we taken the time to reflect on the work that still needs to be done in our own life? We talked about this word called20:42 We we talked about this word that we mentioned earlier called sanctification. And that's the process by which we become more and more like Christ. That's right. But we have to identify what are20:54 those things that we still need to work on for ourselves. Because God cares about the details and so should we. We should care about the details too. What area in my life am I still getting angry21:06 over? What area in my life I need to work on my lust. I need to work on my anger. I need to work on how how quick I am to to wanna lie. I need to work on those things. And so we need to take the time to to lay21:18 those out to know what we need to work on. But on top of that, in all of those areas we talked about, those are not Israelite areas. So they need to fight people. They need to kick21:29 people out that are in there. I don't know if you remember last time I was here, but I gave us the 3 enemies to the believers. The 3 enemies to believers. And they should be up there right21:41 now if you wanna take a picture of it. But it's the flesh, the world, and the devil. So not only do we have our own things to work on, all of these things that we're listing out and we're being detailed, this is what I21:52 need to work on, God. But I also have to worry about these enemies. And so it's easy to feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by all the work that22:04 needs to be done. Because whether you're 20 in here, 40 in here, you could be 80 in here, there's always work to be done in your life. Amen. And it can be easy to be overwhelmed. The Israelites22:16 could have easily been overwhelmed by the list that God just we read it and we felt overwhelmed. We didn't have to do anything. They gotta do something and they're looking at this list like, oh, wow. This is a lot to22:28 do. I feel overwhelmed. But let's look at the last part of verse 6. The last part of verse 6 says this, cause this is God talking to them and he says, I myself will22:39 drive them out before the people of Israel. They're gonna go out, but they're not gonna be alone. God's gonna be with them, And by his power, they will be able to get the job22:51 done. And that's the same with us. That is the same with us. By the Lord's power, they're gonna be able to finish conquering the promised land, but he still requires them to walk out in23:03 faith, to walk out in obedience, and that's the same with us. That's the same with us. There's so many scriptures we can go to here. I'm just gonna share 3 that we can23:15 reflect on and how God empowers us. God is with us in our own battle. You can just write these down as a reference, and I'll just read them to you right here. Second Corinthians chapter 12 verses 9 and 10. This is Paul23:27 talking and Paul talking about how he went to God for a thorn in his flesh. And he says this in verse 9, but he said to me, God, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect23:38 in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Verse 10, for the sake of Christ then, I am23:50 content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. Romans chapter 8 verse24:02 26. This is Paul again. Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with24:14 groanings too deep for words. Here's a famous 1 in our last 1 here. Isaiah chapter 40 verse 29 and 31. Verse 29 says, he gives power to the faint,24:26 and to him who has no might, he increases strength. Verse 31, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run24:38 and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. So we have a lot of work to do and we have a lot of enemies, but we serve a God who's not24:50 distant. We don't serve a God who just sits on a throne far away and just leaves everybody to just do their own thing, but we serve a God who's intimate. We serve a God who knows us. We serve25:02 a God who gets his hands dirty, so to speak, and he is with us in this fight. He is with us in what we have to do because it's only by his power that we can do it. Amen. So25:13 it's easy to feel overwhelmed. It can be easy to be overwhelmed by all of the things we have to do. But we serve a God who's with us in it. He's not distant from it. He is with us25:25 in it. And he cares about us. He cares about us. Now, this is an echo of another promise. When he says, I will be with you and and25:37 we'll fight your battles. Right? This is an echo of Joshua 3 10. It's a repeated promise, Joshua 3 10. Joshua 3 10 says this, and Joshua said, here is how you shall know that the living25:49 God is among you and that he will not fail to drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. It's a repeated promise.26:01 Joshua says, how do you know the Lord will be with you? Because he's gonna help you drive these people out and that's what they did. That's what they did. And so we serve a God who's intimate with us, but he's not26:11 specific to some generation. He's with Moses. Right? And then it transitions to Joshua, and then they go through these 12 chapters of God being with them, and then the promise is26:23 repeated as Joshua is old and is now transitioning to the next generation. Yes. God crosses over generations. And so just like he was faithful with your26:35 grandparents, just like he was faithful with your aunts or your uncles, he's gonna be faithful with you. He's gonna be faithful with you. That's good stuff. Now, what is26:47 the last step? So we we stepped up in our faith. We we know we have to take it on for ourselves. We know that now that we've taken it up, have to step into the fight. We have to know and be detailed about what we26:59 need to conquer, what needs to still be done, and that God is with us in it and we're empowered by that. But now we need to step forward with faithfulness. Step forward with faithfulness.27:11 We're gonna read another list right now. Everybody brace yourselves. We're gonna read another list right now, but it's gonna be okay. Verse 7, now therefore divide this land for an27:23 inheritance. Everybody say inheritance. Inheritance. To the 9 tribes and half the tribe of Manasseh. Now really quick, just so that we're all on the same page, the last27:34 list was everything they did. Everything they did and all that they needed to do. Right? All the empty land that didn't get conquered yet. Now,27:47 they're gonna deal with another list and this is an allotment. That's kinda like the phrase that the Bible uses, an allotment. Something they're gonna inherit right now. Okay? So verse 8, with the other half of the tribe27:57 of Manasseh, the Reubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses gave them beyond the Jordan eastward, everybody underline eastward or circle eastward,28:10 is giving us a direction so that when we look at a map, we can understand what's going on. And if you're looking at the region, you can know what's going on. As Moses the servant of the Lord gave them, verse 9, from Aror28:19 which is on the edge of the valley of Arnon and the city that is in the middle of the valley and all the table land of the Meribah as far as the Dibon and all the cities of Sihon king of the Amorites who reigned in28:31 Heshon as far as the boundary of the Ammonites, verse 11, and Gilead and the region of the Geshurites and the Maccathites and all Mount Hermon, and all Bashan and Salica. Verse 12, and all the28:43 kingdom of Og and Bashan who reigned in Ashtaroth and in the Adre, he alone was left, he alone was left of the remnant of the Rephaim. These Moses had struck and driven out.28:55 Wow. We can breathe. We can breathe. We did it. We did it. Visual learners, here we go. Visual learners, we got the map. We're back at it again with the map right29:07 here. Okay. Now here's a different map of what we just read. So this is actually a map of all of the allotments. These are all of the tribes. So you see let me29:18 grab this 1 really quick. Let's do let's do do we have red? Yes. We have red. Perfect. So these are these names right here. Right? Reuben,29:31 Gad, and then like Judah. These are all tribes. These are all tribes. So that's what those names are. So I don't want you to get thrown off. Those are what the names29:42 mean. And then the smaller ones are obviously cities and things of that nature. But our thing here is right here. So this big thing in the center that seems29:54 to divide it is the Jordan River. The Jordan River. So that right there. So that's dividing it. And so this is30:05 east. That's why we had to underline and circle the word eastward. So we're talking about things that are right here. And they talked about 3 tribes. 3 tribes were mentioned here and it was30:18 Manasseh. So we have Manasseh. And if you notice, there's East Manasseh and there's West Manasseh. Manasseh's a big tribe.30:29 Manasseh was 1 of Joseph's sons and he gets a a double portion. But it's big. He's divided by the Jordan River, and then we have Gad, and then Reuben's in there. I don't just don't wanna scroll down. But Reuben's right30:41 here on this side of the Jordan River. Now why is that important? Well, 1, all of this stuff right here, this this is like a you30:53 had to watch the movie before the 1 that we're in right now. This all happened. Everything was conquered in here in Numbers 32. Numbers chapter 32. So in the book of Joshua, they didn't do31:05 anything in here. This was already done and so this would be considered everything on that side of the Jordan River is considered like Canaan proper. This is the promised land that we were gonna walk into. And so, they31:16 all came over and with Moses, they conquered all of that land in Numbers chapter 32. And I encourage you to read it because we're referencing it right now and I don't have time to go through everything. But31:28 essentially, they conquer the land and then those 3 tribes say, woah. That was this this is nice. This is nice land. Yeah. There's a lot of31:40 it. And then we're gonna go over to the promised land. Maybe there, you know, we have a lot of goats. We have a lot of animals. Moses, could we just stay here? We already did it. We already conquered it.31:52 Can we have this land? And Moses gets mad. Moses gets mad because he he he's like, wait, we're going as a tribe. We're all going to go conquer right now. And32:04 these Israelites get scared really easy. They didn't like when the 12 spies came back and had a bad report. And so, if 3 tribes don't come with us, that's gonna be an issue. They're not gonna wanna32:15 fight. And so, they say, you know what Moses? We'll go with you. We'll go into the promised land. We'll help conquer the stuff. We'll help conquer the stuff. And then after, we'll come back. Come back on32:27 this side. We'll come back. And so now, that's where they've come to. In Joshua, they've done all the work. They helped conquer all the stuff that they had to until Joshua got old, and now they have to do other stuff.32:38 Now they're gonna go back. And so that's why it says, this is the allotment that Moses gave them. So that's where we're at here in Joshua 13. So technically, we're not doing anything new on the west side32:50 of of the Jordan River. That's gonna be later chapters. Right now, we're doing what's already been done in Numbers chapter 32. And so they picked that because it33:01 was comfortable. But there's a cost to comfort. Come on now. There's a cost to comfort. Let's read this. I'm gonna keep it right here. I'm gonna keep the map up, so I'm just33:13 gonna read verse 13. And if you're in your Bibles or in your journals, just read it with me. Verse 13 says, yet the people of Israel did not drive out the Gesherites or the Maccathites, but Geshur and33:25 Maccath dwell in the midst of Israel to this day. And so this is gonna happen a lot for the rest of these allotments, the rest of these things, cause Israel does33:37 a bad job of kicking out the Canaanites that shouldn't be in there. Now, why is that so important? Why does God want them to do that? Because that's really important to God that they kick these people out33:49 and they don't mingle up with them because Israel is so prone to pick up habits. They're so prone to pick up habits from other people. I don't know if if we can identify with that today. Do34:01 you pick up have you ever picked up the habits of your friends before? My wife tells me that all the time. You sound like you sound like your boy. You sound like your friend. You don't say that word before. I'll try out34:11 a new word. She'd be like, that didn't come from you. You'll pick them up. And sometimes it's not bad. That's not always bad. If you're with if you're surrounded by good people, then you'll pick up those good habits. But34:22 if you're surrounded by bad people, you pick up those bad habits. And so and so these tribes these tribes34:34 are separated from Israel geographically, but they're also separated from the rest of the tribes spiritually. And they're not it's not exclusive to them to not34:45 pushing out all the rest of the Canaanites, but they did go further than other tribes. Because I'm gonna go fast forward a little little quicker. I'm gonna fast forward in34:57 in biblical history because towards the end of the Old Testament, and the Old Testament is so interesting and it's so full of action, at the end of the Old Testament, God has to35:09 exile Israel out of the land because they went back on the covenant, they stopped loving God and all those things. And guess who are the first tribes to get exiled? It says this35:20 in first Chronicles 5 25 to 26. Verse 25 says, but they broke faith with the God of their fathers and whored after the gods of the peoples of the land whom God had destroyed before them.35:32 Verse 26, so the god of Israel stirred up in the spirit of Pool king of Assyria, the spirit of Tilgoth Pleaser king of Assyria, and he took them into exile, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites, and35:44 the half tribe of Manasseh. They were so far gone. They didn't love God anymore. They didn't even know God35:55 anymore. And so God had to kick them out of what they had inherited. And the goal isn't perfection. The goal is faithfulness. If they had36:07 been faithful to kicking out the Canaanites, if they had been faithful to being with God, everything would have been okay. But they didn't, and so they were cut36:19 off. And so God's trying to teach us something here, that the goal isn't perfection, but the goal is faithfulness, and to remain faithful into what we've been called into.36:32 Let's read this really quick in verse 14 because it's so important. To the tribe of Levi, we have a new tribe here. The tribe of Levi alone Moses gave no inheritance. The offerings by fire to the36:44 Lord God of Israel are their inheritance, as he said to them. So the tribe of Levi were the tribe of priests, and they got no land, but they got36:56 the Lord. They got the offerings of the Lord. They got to worship God. That was their inheritance. And God uses the tribe of Levi almost as like a precursor for what he wants to do with his37:08 people. Can his people be content with him? Do they need land or can they just be content with worshiping him? Can they just be content with his presence? And that's what the tribe of37:19 Levi had. Now, these other tribes could worship God. These other tribes could do offerings to the Lord, and these things kinda distracted them sometimes. The land distracted them a little bit. Just wanting to be37:30 comfortable distracted them a little bit. Wanting to have the money and the everything and the fame, they they chased after that. But they weren't content with just his presence. They weren't content with just his37:41 worship. And that's what the tribe of Levi had. And that's our inheritance. Our inheritance is spiritual. Our inheritance is eternal life. Our inheritance is peace with37:53 God. Our our inheritance are all those things that we talked about. But we have to step up into our inheritance. We have to take control of our faith because it's ours and nobody else's.38:04 We have to step into the fight and know what we have to work on and know that God has empowered us to take on these things. And we have to step forward in faithfulness.38:15 Be faithful to what he has called us to conquer. Because in the fight, it can get crazy. When you're in the fight, it can seem easy to wanna get comfortable. It could be easy to wanna disconnect, But38:27 God has called us to be faithful because he has given us the power to do so. Because why? He powers us. It's his power that makes it happen.38:39 Today and probably for the next few chapters, we're gonna be talking about inheritance a lot. And we talked about the biggest thing that you can inherit, which is eternal life.38:51 That is the key to our inheritance, the biggest part of our inheritance. And I wanna take it for granted, anybody in this room who hasn't takenShow more
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