Our Heritage in Christ - Joshua 14:6-14

As I get older each year, the idea and thought of last will and testaments become more pronounounced, I imagine for many of you, once you've had a kid, you start thinking about a last will in testament. I know, several years ago, my parents gave me a copy of theirs as and said, "Hey, here's our last will and testament, so you can have it." And it's this idea of an inheritance, of receiving something to pass down to someone, or receiving it from someone who's been passed down. I imagine many of you in here have your name written somewhere in a last will and Testament, either someone else's or one that you've written yourself for those you're going to give your things to. There was a man named Wellington or Burt, who was a lumber baron in Michigan, had quite a vast fortune who passed away in 1919, and he had a very interesting last will and testament. In his last will and testament, he said that my estate, which at the time was one of the largest in the nation could be given away to my descendants 21 years after the death of my youngest living grandson at the time of his death. So he dies in 19119, and he has to wait for his grandchildren to pass away away. And then 21 years after that, so in 2011 they doled out his inheritance, which at the time was like $100 million, and there were 12 descendants they were able to find. So 12 people were able to inherit. Imagine if you were one of those 12. When I read the story, none of them knew who Wellington or Burt was. They didn't know he was their relative, they scoured the nation and found all these people, who then split $100 million dollars between them. And you think, "Man, I love to be a part of that inheritance. But they just receive stuff, and that's a lot of stuff. Don't get me wrong, if someone came to my house tomorrow and said, Hey, you had this relative you never knew, don't have any connection to, and here's a chunk of money from him." I'd go like, "I would take it." But that's an inheritance. That's just stuff that I'm getting But what about inheritance as he heritage, where you're passing on, not just stuff, but like the family that you were a part of, and the promises that go with that family? And all that's connected with being a part of that family and and its story today, we want to look at Joshua chapter 14 and see about the inheritance that God had for Caleb, one of the two spots spies who, when they went into the promised land some 45 years before the time that we're looking at, had said, God will do this. God can win this battle for us. And the other ten spies rejected them that idea. We'll talk more about that in a second. But Caleb is going to receive his inheritance, but it's not just stuff that he's receiving. It's connecting him to this long story of what God is doing to redeem his world. He's more than just inheriting things or a piece of land. He's moving into a story The question we should ask ourselves is not what we will inherit as followers of God resents stuff we can get, but the heritage that God has for us in Christ, whose family are we a part of? Whose story are we a part of? Whose name is on our life that we are going to inherit? As you listen to the message today, the main idea you can take away is this. Trust God while you wait for your inheritance in Christ and that in Christ will become very important as we go through. Joshua chapter 14, verse 1 says this. It says, "These are the inheritances that the people of Israel received in the land of Canaan, which Elias are the priests and Joshua the son of Moon in the heads of the Father's houses of the tribes of the people of Israel, gave them to inherit. If you go back and look from John, Joshua 11 to 12:1 13, and then 15 through 21, those chapters, if you've been reading through the Old Testament with us, those were some chapters where you probably went, "This is kind of difficult reading because it's a little boring. We can just be honest. It's a lot of names, a lot of cities and geography about who's going to get what piece of land, and it can get repetitive. If you were inheriting that land, it wouldn't be as boring, right? I don't care anything about property rights and where my boundary line is, until you decide to buy a house or sell a house, and then it becomes really important to know whose land am I on, who'sose land is this? And so those chapters are all about this inheritance of land, and Caleb is this kind of story that's built into this inheritance to show how God is being faithful to what he's doing. His story, though, Caleb's story that we're reading, actually begins way back at Genesis 1, at the very beginning of creation. God creates this world, this universe, and he creates Adam and Eve, humanity, and he says, Take care of it for me. This is yours. He gives the world to us, and he says, "Take care of it. You're going to be stewards of my creation." And Adam and Eve rebell against God, turned their back on him. We also are implicated in that by our own actions And we don't stewart God's creation well, and it falls, as the Bible says, under the control of the prince of the power of the air, which is Satan. And the story of scripture is how God works to redeem his world back so that humanity can be in its rightful place, which is stewards of God, taking care of his creation. So we see the world fall in Genesis 1, and then we meet a man named Abraham. And Abraham is promised by God. He says, "Leave Er the Chaldees, which is in kind of southern Iraq He says, "Head up to this land I'm going to show you, which is a modern day land of Israel. And he said, "I'm going to give all of this land to you. It's yours, and you're going to become a great nation, and this nation is going to bless the whole world." We begin to follow the story of Abraham. Abraham's family grows up and 70 of them land in Egypt, and then 400 years later, Moses leads them out of Egypt and they're heading towards the Promised land. And they go through the Sinai Peninsula, this wilderness desert land. They get right to the border of Israel at a city called Kadesh Barnia, and this is where we pick up and meet Caleb for the first time. It's where we're going to find that God had promised Caleb something, and Caleb now, some 45 years after that event, Kadesh Barnia is reminding Joshua of what had happened. If you have your Bible,les, look in Joshua, Chapter 14, verses 6 to 9, we see that Caleb reminds Joshua of God's promised inheritance. Look what it says. It says, in the people of Judah, came to Joshua at Gilgal, Judah was one of the 12 tribes of Israel.S Israel's composed of 12 different tribes, and Judah was one of those. In Caleb, the son of Jeph, the Kenazite said to him, You know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, and Kadesharnia, concerning you and me." Well, if you haven't read the Old Testament, you're probably going, "I don't know what God said to you. And John Joshua." So Caleb and Joshua are now together. It's been 45 years since God had said something to Caleb. He said, "You know what he said." So what had happened at Kadesharia, you can go back and read this in numbers chapter 13 and 14. The nation of Israel came out of Egypt, and they were heading to the promised land that God had given them. And when they get to the border on the southern border, Moses says, I'm going to send 12 12 spies into the land, one from each tribe, Joshua Caleb were two of the spies." And so these spies spend 40 days wandering through the land of Israel, kind of checking it out, seeing what it's like, giving the lay of the land, they come back and they give a report to Moses. And the report was like this,The land's amazing. Water, plants, milk and honey's flowing. It's a great land. They brought back a big old thing, a cluster of grapes, and they were massive, and they were wonderful. Everything about the land was great. And they also said, "And there's some people in the land. And these people are huge, not like kind of big, but like massive, huge, like Goliath huge. Goliath is probably a distant relative to these people called the Anakin. We're going to talk about them more in a second. When you start thinking of big, it's hard to get an idea of, like, big. Goliath was 9 feet nine inches tall. So think about the biggest person you've ever seen seen, and they're not 9 feet nine inches tall. I remember when I was in high school, I was like a ninth grader, eighth grader, and we had a guy who was a running back, and my dad was athleic director of the high school, and we got to go on a few of his recruiting trips. So we ended up at a kind of big time college football game. Auburn was playing somebody and I'm on the field, like in the end zone, just sitting around, watching as the offensive linemen come out to practice. I was about a buck 40, probably at the time. I was just a scrawny little kid. And there's these massive guys just towering over me. Now, they were 6'4", 6'5", maybe, 300 pounds tops. Goliath, 9 feet, 9 inches tall, probably weighs based on the armor weight that he had, 4 to 500 pounds.. That's massive. And so the spies come back and say, look, the land's great, the land's wonderful. And there's these giants in the land. And we look like grasshoppers to them. And they think we're grasshoppers. There's no way we can defeat them. Joshua and Caleb both said, yeses, we can. We can defeat them." The Tin spies said, "No, we can't." And we're going to see what happens, because what happens is they end up not going into the promised land, but keep reading in verse 7, "Caleb says, "I was 40 years old when Moses, a servant of the Lords, sent me from Kadesh Barnia to spy out the land. And I brought him word again as it was in my heart. Caleb's word was that we can take this land. God will defeat our enemies, even these giants that are in the land. But my brothers, who went up with me, made the heart of the people melt. Yet I wholly followed the Lord, my God. I could imagine the scene. I like movies, and I like the rousing speech in a movie, right, where the underdog forces are trying to rally, and there's William Wallace with Braveheart, and he's giving his speech speech to motivate his people. You know, they can take our life, but they can't take our freedom or in Aragorn is standing outside, you know, Mordor. And he says, men may fall one day, but not today. And everyone rallies and they defeat the forces of darkness. Caleb and Joshua gave that kind of speech. We can do this. God will defeat them. God will defeat this overwhelming force Ten other spies said, "Uh uh,We will die if we go in there," and the people listen to the ten. That's a downer of a movie. If you're watching that scene, you're like, "Caleb's gonna convince them to do it, and then no one listens." And then for 40 years, God says, "You're gonna wander in the wilderness until everyone who is 20 years old and older is dead. Caleb was 40 at the time that happened. He's now 85. He says, I'm 85 years old now, the youngest person in Israel at the time, besides, I mean, the oldest person besides Joshua and Caleb is 65 tops. and they're both 85 or older. So there's this 20 year gap that they have experienced, where all these people died off while they were living. He says, "The people discourages him. The ten of the spies discourages and their hearts melt.Yet I wholly followed the Lord, my God. Kip said, I was completely faithful. I was ready to go fight these giants.And Moses swore on that day, saying, "Sly the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord, my God. God promises Caleb that day, even as he sends him into the wilderness for 40 years. He says, thehe land that you walked on, Caleb, that will be yours, and will be your children's, because you completely trusted me. Now, I think Caleb was afraid, and I think Joshua was afraid, as they went into this land and saw 9 foot, 9 inch, 40000, 500 pound men, not just one Goliath, but a whole race of Goliaths. I imagine there was a sense of like, whohoa, those guys are massive." And they were afraid. I think the 10 other spies were afraid, too. The difference between the two isn't that they were afraid. It's how they responded to it. The Ten spies were afraid and said, "God can't win. God can't accomplish this force. Josh when Caleb probably had some fear and said, " "I trust God The reaction to that fear is what was different, and Caleb is here reminding Joshua. 45 years ago, God said this to me. You were there, Joshua, you remember, you were helping try to persuade the people, and he's reminding him of this promised inheritance. But it doesn't end there, we see in verses 10:1 11, that Caleb declares God's faithfulness to that inheritance. Look what he says.And now, behold, he's wanting to get our attention so we can listen to what he's saying.And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these 45 years since the time that the Lord spoken this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. Caleb's saying that, for 45 years, he's been on heavenly life support. The God has kept him alive. Now, if we read scripture, we do know this, that every one of us in this room, every human being on the planet, every animal, every living thing, in fact, the entire creation itself, the entire universe, every star only exists because God keeps it in existence. That we don't breathe in and out every day, apart from God keeping us alive. Paul said that in God, we live and move and have our very being. So there's a truth that the reason you're here today is because God has kept you alive. But Caleb, I think, has pointed to something, not just a general idea that God keeps the world moving but for himself specifically, he says, "God made me a promise 45 years ago, and he's kept me alive for 45 years. Because he had 40 years of war wandering in the wilderness, and they've been moving into the promised land in the book of Joshua for five years now. So he says, "God has kept me alive. He's declaring God's faithfulness." And then he says, "And now, behold, I am this day 85 years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me, my strength now, is as my strength was then, for war, and for going and coming. This idea of going coming, is going out there to war and coming back from war. Now, let's be honest. Caleb was 40. And now he's 85, and he says, I'm just as strong now as I was then. As I get older, this becomes more of a reality in my thinking. It's like, I'm just as strong now in almost 55 as I was when I was 25. I can jump as high, I can run as fast, I'm just as strong. And then you go out and try to run and jump and go, maybe not. Maybe I'm just fooling myself. And mentally, I think I could get it done, but physically, maybe not so much. Is Caleb going is he an old withered 85 year year old man going, "I'm ready to go fight And Joshua was going to go, "Best if you don't, Caleb, I don't think you can make it up to 3,000 foot climb to the land. How about you send some of the young bucks? And you stay stay back? I think that Caleb actually is what he says he is, and here's why. In Deuteronomy 29, we read this line about what God did for the Israelites while they were in the wilderness. It says this, I have led you 40 years in the wilderness, your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet. That the clothes they wore for 40 years out in the wilderness didn't wear out. The same sandals didn't wear out, things that should normally wear out. God says, "I've kept kept them whole for you, so that you could exist as a testimony to. I wouldn't be shocked if God said, "Caleb, I've really kept you in good health.." I didn't just keep you alive, like breathing but I've kept you strong because I have something for you at this time." He says, "I'm ready to go." He's declaring God's faithful and he said he's kept him alive this whole time. And then we see in verses 12 to 15 that Caleb trusts God to give him his inheritance. Look what it says.So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day. For you heard on that day how the Anaim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said." They had met Joshua, Caleb in the tribe of Judah at Gilgal, which is near the Jordan River, which is at sea level. They are going to take a land that's about 3,000 feet above sea level, so up in Hebron, which isn't a massive mountain in the scale of mountains in the world. But if you're going to fight a war and you're the one heading up the hill it's much easier to defend on top of the hill. For all the folks when you were young who played King of the mountain. It was always better to be king on the mountain, because you just kick someone off when they try to take over. And it's very easy for one person to keep a lot of people off. And so he says, I'm ready to go up that mountain and take that hill. And I know that the Anaim are there. This was this race of giants that shows up throughout the Old Testament. It starts in Genesis 6 in the flood with this race called the Nephylene. It says, "Aacmer related to the Nephalene? Those is these giants. Goliath has probably related them in some capacity, nine feet, nine inches tall, 500 pounds. And there's this whole race of them in Calbb says, when we went there 45 years ago, they were the reason that the spies convinced us not to go in. They were too big, too powerful. He says, "I'm ready now to go and take over." Back then, the spies said that they looked like grasshoppers. Like, "We think we're grasshoppers compared to these giants, and they think we're grasshoppers, too." I was messing around with my AI image generator that this weekend, so I had to make a picture of a grasshopper fighting, a giant, and there it is. And you look at that and go, one, that's a really big grasshopper to start with. But there's no way he's winning. But something is in you probably is moving going, I want to cheer for that underdog. I really want that little grasshopper to beat that giant. We have that in us right. We always want the underdog to win often, unless we're a giant, then we want this to crush the underdog. But we have this sympathy for the underdog. There's a reason underdogs are called underdogs, because almost every time, they just get squishedhed. And in that battle, that giant would just squish that grasshopper. That's what would happen in normal life. And the Israelites said, we're like grasshoppers. And Caleb is going, "Hey, this grasshopper is ready to go up the mountain and fight those giants Not because he's strong. He says this, it may be that the Lord will be with me." Now, God had promised him this land, and he's, I think, saying, it may be that the Lord will be with me, not because he's doubts God, but because he's going to say, Godod, this is all of yours. I'm just going to trust you. If you're going to be with me, like you said, then you'll be with me." He said, "Maybe he'll be with me, and I shall drive them out just as He said I was going to do And then here's what we read. Kind of a very short summary. What we want is a long drawn out battle scene where you can enjoy how Caleb kind of wins his inheritance, but here's what happens. Then John Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jefune for an inheritance. Therefore, Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jefe, the Kenazite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. And that's the summary. It's like, Caleb said, "I'm gonna take that land, the place where we didn't go 45 years ago, I'm gonna conquer these giants. And all we get was, and he took the land. It was that simple, that God's power and ability. Now, we know he went up and he had to fight, and he did his thing, but it's such a done deal that it just says, "And he got the land. Caleb trusted God together give him his inheritance." Now, what do we do with this story? thousands of years later, then I can say with complete confidence, "N one in this room has a piece of land that God had promised you that for 40 years, you wandered in the desert and you're waiting to take it from the Anaim. Nobody, none of this story applies directly to you. Now, we could take out some analogies like, you know, take great risks, trust God, and we are going to in a second. But I think there's a different connection we need to make. Caleb inherited a piece of land, physical land in the land of Israel that God had promised to Abraham and to his family. They're in this land. Why are they in this land? Not just for themselves to be in the land, but to bless all the other nations. But we find that the nation of Israel sins against God, rebels against God, turns it back on God constantly until one Israelite shows up who is wholly devoted to God., completely devoted in his whole life, never sins, and that person is Jesus. And we see, as we look at the first thing I think we can use to apply this story, is that God has promised Jesus Jesus the world as an inheritance. That Gods promised Jesus, not just a piece of land, not just Hebron, a part of the promised land, but the entire world. God, the sun becomes human, dies on a cross, rises from the dead, having deforted defeated the powers of darkness and evil, and God says, "I'm giving you all of this, not just a piece of the land, but all of the land is what Jesus inherits. Jesus is the one who is wholly devoted to God and has been given this inheritance. Hebrews chapter 1, 1 and 2, says that it this way. Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by His Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, to whom also he created the world. The Son created this world, then becomes human to bring this world back to God so that God can have humans, take care of you. His creation, which is his plan from the very beginning in Genesis. That Jesus was the one who is wholly devoted to God. We see Jesus' life when he's on the earth. He says, "I only do what the Father tells me to do. His lastness night of his life He says he's about to go to the cross, and he knows what tomorrow brings. He prays to the Father, and he says, "If there's some other way to redeem the world, let's do that, but not in my will, but your will will be done. And Jesus, a sinless one, dies on the cross for the sinful ones. That's you and me so that we can be set free from the slavery of sin so that we can inherit the world world that He has been given. Those who are in Christ will inherit the universe with Him. Romans 8, 14 through 17. Willie read it earlier, but let me read it again with this idea of inheritance, and not just inheriting things but a heritage, whose story are you in? Whose family name do you have? It says this, for all who are led by the Spirit of God, are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.. And of children than heirs, heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. All who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. The way you're led by the Spirit is not because you behave well enough, or you've done enough good deeds in your life to go, "Oh, I've now earned the right to be led by the Spirit. The way we are led by the Spirit is that we acknowledge our lack of ability to save ourselves. We go, "I can't save myself." And we turn to Jesus, say,Jesus, save me. I trust you. I'm going to follow you. I have faith in you. As Caleb had faith." Caleb wasn't going to defeat the Anaim on his own. He never could, but God can do what God can do. And he says,Have faith in Jesus. When you put your trust in Jesus and commit your life to him, then you are led by the Spirit, and you inherit what he has inherited. He has been given the whole world, and we inherit that with him as co heirs. God's promised Jesus the world as inheritance, so we should trust Jesus while waiting for our inheritance. We're not guaranteed that this life is going to be easy. Paul even said that we need to suffer with him if we're going to be glorified with him. Peter, who was one of Jesus's closest disciples in his first letter that he wrote, said these words in his first chap. He said, "Bessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who, by God's power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Paul, another one of his apostles, wrote these words,Do all things without grumbling or disputing that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted g generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life. Caleb lived in a crooked generation, 40 years wandering in the wilderness, listening to the griping and complaining, and the accusing of God for what he was doing from the people. And Caleb shone as a light of faithfulness, and Paul is telling us to do the same thing. in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, we had to be innocent and blameless. It means that as we wait for our inheritance, we trust Jesus knowing that it's not going to be easy, which leads to the last point, which is trust Jesus to conquer the giants in your life. It won't be the Anaim, as Caleb had, whether there will be obstacles in your life, difficulties in your life that may cause you to doubt God. That may cause cause you to wonder if He's with you. We had to trust God in those times. Caleb went and fought the Anakm and defeated them. Jesus fought a much greater power. He fought the powerowers of darkness. Satan himself. There was an animating force behind the Anakin. And these giants, He defeated them on the cross. Paul says in Ephesians 6, that we don't wrestle with flesh and blood, but with the powers in Principales as the spirit of darkness in this world, Satan himself, who's been defeated by Jesus but who's still roaming around this world, waiting for Jesus to return, to put an end to all sin, but we are gonna face difficulties in our life. You're gonna have giants that show up. They're going to make you under God, will you keep your promise? Is there going to be opposition in your life? Absolutely. Is there going to be wilderness times? Absolutely. Will there be giants, yes, will there be death? Yes. And there'll be an inheritance, too, a heritage. Many of you here today, are thinking in your head, you know what that giant is that's in front of you. Could be a health diagnosis that you received, or that a loved one received could be issues in your family, struggles with kids, struggles with parents, could be that neighbor that you're trying to share your faith with, and they just don't like you, and they are causing all sorts of difficulty. You have this issue that you're saying, " God, are you with me? God, can you accomplish what you've said you're going to accomplish?" Now, know this that the Bible never says that, as we trust God to face the giants in our life, that everything works out wonderfully, it's like a movie, and it all ends pretty. Hebrews chapter 11 says, those who had faith in God, some of them were solved in half, some of them wander around in the the desert in the wilderness. John, the Baptist, who was the forerunner of Jesus, had his head chopped off that our heritage isn't simply some stuff God's going to give us, a nicer house, a nicer car, a decent bank account. That's not the heritage. The heritage is the entire world, only because we are in Christ. God himself is our heritage. All the stuff is just stuff. If we don't have God, none of the stuff matters, that trusts Jesus to conquer the giants in your life. We need to be like Caleb. And he went forth, and he says, If God so wills, we'll do this, and we'll do that. We'll take this on, and God will accomplish his purposes in us, and He will not forsake you. If you're here and you're a follower of Christ, you are these giants in your life, and you're needing some strength someone to pray for you, we encourage you to fill out your connect card, say, heyey, could let's go get coffee? Let's talk. I need some encouraging words as I'm dealing with this issue in my life, and trying to be faithful to God, trying to hear from him, trying to follow him. Or if you're hearing and you're going, I don't even know who Christ is. I don't know him. He's not my king. We would love to talk with you about what it means to follow him, to put your trust in Him, and have the confidence in him that he gives, that the heritage he has for you. Not just stuff, but himself, the family name, the tradition, the story that goes along with that, of what God is doing, can be yours. As our worship team comes up to lead us in a final song, I want to read these words from Paul. As he wrote to the Romans, having dealt with the suffering and struggle of what it means to follow Christ, he ends chapter 8 this way. He says, "No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors. Through Him who loved us. just like Kayla conquered, not because he was great, he was an 85 year old man, but because God was great. But even as a 40 year old man, Caleb couldn't beat the Anakim on his own. It's because God is great. Paul says the same thing. Through him him who loved us. For I'm sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you for today, for the chance to gather here and worship you and celebrate you, Father, to hear of your faithfulness, to hear how you work through Caleb, to keep your promise. Let that strengthen us today, Father, to know that you are with us in Christ, the same God who can defeat 10 foot tall giants, the same God that defeats death in your son. Is this the same God who dwells in us and empowers us. May we be found faithful this week by the strength in those who need an extra awareness of your presence, who need extra strength as they struggle with obstacles and giants in their life, and may they have the faith of Caleb and the faith of Jesus in their life. It's in your son's name, Jesus, we pray. Amen.