Never Give Up

Today, we're going to cover Joshua chapters 11 through 21. And if you didn't know that was possible for us to cover 11 chapters, just stick around. We'll see how we do that. As you studied these, and I'm trusting in you, I have faith in you that you studied all of it, because we're not even going to cover everything in your study guide. So you can discuss those things. You probably found a lot of difficult to pronounce cities and boundary lines, and even more difficult to pronounce lists of kings. But the reason that I wanted to go through the whole thing is, number one, I wanted us to have a sense of completion. If we said we were going to study Joshua, I wanted to study it. All the chapters, all the verses, and go through it. That's really important to me. I like for us to take the difficult passages along with the easy passages. We do hard things at Women of the Word, don't we? And so that's why we forged through that. Also, I don't think that we need to constrain ourselves to the pink passages. We don't need to go over Proverbs 31 over and over again. And so we can read about the distribution of land and that sort of thing. I thought of an illustration that relates to our lesson. So I want to tell you about my raspberry bushes. The only edibles that I grow in my yard are these raspberries. And I've developed quite a nice, a perfect size patch for me. And when they come on in June and I go out to my raspberries with my little gardening hat on and my little pail with me, if I just look at the exterior of my line of raspberry bushes, it might look to me like I'll pick 20 on any given day. But yet when I start picking and I go deeper into the bush, I have 200 in a day. 90% is behind the surface. What you see on the surface is about 10%. That's another reason we dig deeper into the more difficult passages because 90% of our inspiration is entrenched a little bit deeper than what we see. And in keeping with that idea of my raspberries, I want to remind us where we started from way in the beginning. I want to put up on the screen Joshua 1, verses 2 and 3. This is the opening of this book. The Lord said, Arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, the land that I am giving to them, every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon, I have given to you just as I promised to Moses. And then it goes on to describe the territory of land, the boundaries. It was a vast territory of land, about 300,000 square miles, that God said, I'll give you as much as you want. Any place that you set your foot on, you can have that. How much did they take? We find out from scripture, Bible scholars say, that at the height of the kingdom of Israel under Solomon, David to Solomon, they took about 30,000 square miles. They took about one-tenth of what was offered to them. About the same percentage of what lies on the outside of my raspberry bushes, isn't it? Now, you and I have been offered a vast spiritual inheritance. And that inheritance, while we live on this earth, includes things like access to God the Father. It includes things like rest from our personal striving. It includes things like an intimate relationship with Jesus. It includes victory over sin. It includes the good works that God has given us to do. We have a vast spiritual inheritance given to us. How much will we take? Will we take about 10% and be happy with that? We've been offered the entire thing. When I go pick my raspberries, if I go a little deeper, there are some perils. There are some spider webs. There might be some bees. I might cut up my arms a little bit with thorns. There are some trivial perils that go along with going deeper. In my spiritual life, if I choose to go a little deeper than the surface in my path of promise, I will run into some barriers and some battles. I will face more things that kind of come against me than lie on the surface. But they're nothing compared to the joy that there is in attaining more of our inheritance. So I want to be clear with us that my lack of reaching out for more of my spiritual inheritance is on me. It's not God's fault. Jesus has secured the whole thing for me. It is up to me to take what I want. It's up to you to take as much as you will. So you see our title for this week is Never Give Up. Never give up. I'm not going to do any Winston Churchill quotes, although I would like a suggestion on a really good Winston Churchill biography that is on my reading list. So you can let me know if you have read a really good one. But I want to work up to our memory verse. But first, we're going to go through a few verses that didn't make the cut but are very good. So let's scroll through them. Hebrews 12, 1. Take a look at this. Let us lay aside every weight and sin which clings so closely and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Philippians 3, 14. Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Here's a great one. First Corinthians 15, 58. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Really great phrases there. Endurance, pressing on, steadfast, abounding. But the one that we chose to meditate on this week was from Galatians. Galatians 6, 9. Let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. That's our title. Never give up. Because we studied such a vast territory this week, can't possibly cover it, I want to give us insight. I want to do a highlight reel of those 11 chapters. And I want to look at people who inspire us positively and negatively, individuals and groups. So I'll just give you a roadmap. We're going to look at Joshua, Caleb, the daughters of Zelophehad, and then the tribe of Manasseh. So let's start with Joshua. Open your Bibles to Joshua 11. And I want us to look at this first verse, verse 15, that it tells us about Joshua and how he did his job. He left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded. And drop down to verse 23. Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments. And the land had rest from war. As it pertained to Joshua, nothing was left undone. He finished the work. He gave the opportunity for the whole territory to be opened up. And we see in that a type of Jesus Christ who finished the mission he was given to do and opened up the opportunity for us to take as much as he wanted. He did the work. He sat down at the right hand of the Father. And now we have everything that we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him. It's just a matter of how much will we reach out and take. In these chapters, we read about major victories that were won with Joshua in the lead. And then we read about the specific allotments that were given to individuals and groups for them to apprehend, for them to set their foot on a particular territory. And in Joshua 14, 2, it tells us how that was done. Their inheritance was by lot, just as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. They were assigned a portion. They were given a lot for them to secure as their inheritance. The major battles had been won, but they still had work to do in their territory, in their lot. There's a verse that I want to highlight that has been special to me for years. I'll quote it out of the NIV 84 because that's how it resonates with me. It's David writing in the Psalm. It's Psalm 16, 5 and 6. You can follow along. Lord, he says, Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup. You have made my lot secure. Certainly the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. Surely I have a delightful inheritance. Doesn't that verse make so much sense considering the allotment of land that was given and how David embraced this personally for himself. Lord, you have assigned me my lane to run on. You have assigned me my portion in this world, the time that I am born in, the place that I am born in. There's things we've talked about this before that we all shared together. God saw fit to have us born in this time. We shared this in common and in this geographic place. This is part of our lot. This is part of our assignment right here, right now where we are together. Hopefully we'll come back to that. I wanna look at Caleb. Caleb is the only other surviving adult from the wilderness. Caleb, the man of faith. Do any of you have sons or grandsons named Caleb? We had two last night on Thursday night. If I had yet one more son, I would name him Caleb. That is, man, I love this passage. Caleb, this man of faith, what has become of him now after all these years? We studied about him at K'Barney. In fact, here's what I thought of. A week ago Monday was President's Day, and I was trying to think of a Facebook post that wasn't political, but somehow just, anyway, what I came up with was Hebrews 13, seven. I didn't make a slide, but just listen to this. It says, remember your leaders, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. That verse was made for Caleb. Consider the outcome of his way of life. Well, the Bible shows us the outcome of his way of life. So let's read it. We're in Joshua 14, six on our highlight reel. Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, said to him, said to Joshua, you know what the Lord said to Moses in K'Barney concerning you and me. You know, because you were there. We're the only ones left. I was 40 years old when Moses sent me from K'Barney to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. But my brothers who end up with me made the heart of the people melt. Yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses swore on that day saying, surely the land on which your foot has trodden, interesting, shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord has kept me alive. Go figure. Just as he said, these 45 years since that time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now behold, I am this day 85 years old. I'm 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. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there with great fortified cities. And here's the best part. This man, this is the outcome of his way of life. He is still full of faith. Look at, it may be that the Lord will be with me and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said. Oh, I love that. And the Anakim were there. Well, let's finish. Then Joshua blessed him and gave him Hebron for Caleb for an inheritance. And they were some of the most difficult, fiercest enemies to root out. And he did it. It was that the Lord was with him. I just love it. What do we learn from this man in our highlight reel? Back in Numbers, God said, he has a different spirit. Well, I want a different spirit. That's the first thing I learned. Caleb walked in faith when his whole culture was walking in fear back at Kadesh Barnea. And then Caleb remembered God's promise. And he reminded, he held God to his promise. God loves it when we remind him of his promises. Moms hate it when our kids remind us of our promises. You said we were going at two o'clock and it's five. There are reasons, but God loves it. He is not like us. He likes to be held to his promises. Caleb never gave up. Caleb is, he epitomizes our memory verse. In due season, we will reap if we don't give up. So not only did his spiritual strength not give up, but it sort of spilled over into his physical strength. And he apparently still had his physical strength. And so even into old age, the summary of Caleb's life, even into old age, there is victory. Never give up, have faith in the Lord, in what new conquests he might give us at 85 years old. All right, next highlight reel group is the Daughters of Zelophehad. We're still in chapter 17 now, verse three and four. And we wonder what in the world we can learn from these five girls with such unimaginative names. Mela, Noah, Hogla, Milka, and Tirza. These girls pop up in number 17, numbers 36, and here we are again in Joshua 17, reading about them, and it goes like this. Now, Zelophehad, the son of Hephir, son of Gilead, son of Mekir, son of Manasseh, had no sons, but only daughters, which we just named. They approached Eleazar the priest and Joshua the son of Nun, and the leaders said, the Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance along with our brothers. And I sent you to numbers 27 to read how that all went. And that's what they're referring to. And what they wanted to do, their whole goal in having the land was to preserve the name of their father, okay? That was their goal. The land belonged to the Lord. Nobody owned the land. It was God's land. It's not like us, it's like, oh, I want the farm when the time is right, I'll sell it, I'll retire in Tahiti. That wasn't what was going on here. They didn't want it for economics. They wanted to preserve the name of their father, otherwise it would have just frittered away. And back in numbers, when they told that to Moses, he goes, well, let me check with God. And then the Lord said, they're right, okay? Okay, so land wasn't given to girls in that day. They were asking for something that wasn't usually done. And they were asking for a noble purpose. Do you remember last week, someone else asked for something that wasn't usually done? Could you please make the sun and moon stand still for a little bit while we can finish this victory for a noble purpose? So we see back to back in these weeks, two people that are very bold with the Lord, saying, I know I don't see this happen in life, but could you do it for me? I love that, okay? So according to the mouth of the Lord, he gave them an inheritance among the brothers of their father. Thus there fell to Manasseh 10 portions besides the land of Gilead and Bashan, which is on the other side of the Jordan, because the daughters of Manasseh received an inheritance along with their sons. These ladies should inspire us. They wanted to put their feet on a piece of land as well and be part of what was going on for the sake of their father. So what do we learn from them? Well, one thing that we learn is their respect in asking. They asked this request and they reminded about this request respectfully. They didn't just linger back and say, what a world we live in. Women don't get anything in this world. And this is just terrible. And they didn't complain or they weren't bitter. They saw a problem. They thought of a solution. They said, could that work? And God said, yes, you may. Yes, that'll work. So I like the respect that they have in going through the proper channels. Also, they reminded God of his promises. They were promised this in Numbers 27. And now they're saying, we have a promise we would like to collect. And that is a good thing too. And it was all for a noble purpose. So, so far in our highlight reel, the narrative has slowed down to highlight an aged man, an old man and a group of women. Two groups, which in this culture, maybe had the propensity to be sort of disenfranchised. And yet the highlight reel shows us their tenacity, their respect, their faith. And I love that. Let's go on now to a group that's almost on the opposite end of the spectrum. We're gonna look at the tribe of Manasseh themselves, a group that had every advantage, yet what I see in this passage was seeking out excuses. If you looked at the Bible map that I put in your study guide, the distribution of the land, or better yet, if you have colorful one like I do in the back of my Bible. I find those really interesting. I love to look at maps. A visual really helps. You could see by that that Manasseh has the largest portion. Probably Judah is second to them, but they were given, they were given a good chunk of land. That was their lot. Big land, big cities. Okay, let's read Joshua 17, 12. Yet the people of Manasseh could not take possession of those cities, but the Canaanites persisted in dwelling in that land. Now, when the people of Israel grew strong, they put the Canaanites to forced labor, but they did not utterly drive them out, which will be a perpetual problem into the book of Judges, first and second Samuel, on into the Old Testament. But look at these phrases. Could not take possession. Canaanites persisted. Put to forced labor. Did not drive them out. As we read on, we see more about their perspective and their investment in the promised land. Drop down to verse 14. The people of Joseph, which is Ephraim and Manasseh. Do you remember? Let's pause here just for a minute. Remember where Ephraim and Manasseh came from. Joseph was one of the sons, one of the 12 sons of Jacob. He was the one sent to Egypt. And then he had these two boys and Jacob sort of adopted them as his own sons. So the two sons of Joseph were given full allotments of land, okay? As if they were a son and not a grandson. Okay, so it says here, the people of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh spoke to Joshua. Why have you given me but one lot and one portion as an inheritance? Although I'm a numerous people since all along the Lord has blessed me. Okay, I just wanna tell you what I see in this. I see people who've grown to rest in what their last name is. Who they are, they're the Rockefellers of Bible times. Who they are, who they belong to, okay? They have grown to believe that they sort of have some special privileges because that's how they started off. Their tribes started off with some special privileges. They're even saying here, well, certainly God has blessed us because look at we're so numerous, which was to them a sign of God's blessing. So even God has blessed us. Joshua himself is from the tribe of Ephraim. The leader of this whole deal is one of theirs. So can you kind of see the privilege that may has a potential to kind of seep into somebody's psyche here? I see them relying on that and not wanting to do hard things, okay? So what happened is they became complacent, they compromised, and now they're complaining. And so I wanna just point out to us, that can happen to us too, we can become complacent in our Christian life. I put a question in your questions for discussion. If you got saved as an adult, do you remember going hard? Do you remember getting saved and it's like nothing mattered. You need money, here's $500. They need nursery workers, I'll work in the nursery for a year. I'll go to church, you know? That was my, that was, we got saved and we went hard. But a day comes when you can become, when you can wanna go easy. Why can't somebody else do the nursery for Pete's sake? You know, and you just wanna go a little bit easier. Oh, that cycle happens in all of our lives. It's called complacency. And this is one thing that we see here and the compromise, they let the Canaanites live. They decided that maybe they could get just a little comfort factor out of them if they just put them into slavery. Like, why don't you do some of the hard work? We don't like doing hard work, you do the hard work, we'll be more comfortable. We'll keep you around. And in our life, we can keep a lot of things of the world around because it gives us comfort. It makes our life a little more pleasant, if we admit it, to kind of keep that hanging around a little bit rather than get it out of there. And when we do those things, when we are complacent and or when we compromise, then our spiritual life isn't thriving as much as it can. We're not taking new territory in our spiritual inheritance. And then we have a tendency to not look in the mirror and see what's going on, and we just start complaining. And that's what they did. They complained that they weren't pressing forward as much as they could. And they say, but we were just given one lot as an inheritance and kind of making excuses. It's not my fault, not my fault. We can all make excuses because when they say that we're given but one lot, they are making a comparison to the others around them. And oh, we do that. Well, if I had been given the spiritual gifts she has, yeah, I could do something for the Lord. If I had the husband like she has, yeah, I could. Do you guys know what mine is that I have to overcome? It's silly, it's the silliest thing. I think to myself, I'm 10 years too young. If I was just 10 years older, and maybe if I'd lived in Southern California, I would have been part of the last great revival in this country. And I would have had all of that in my genes, and I would have been able to give out. But no, I was a 10-year-old in Minnesota when all that was happening. Do you see how easy it is to look at somebody else and say, you were given the advantage, I wasn't. But we need to bring that back and say, God assigned us our portion and our lot. He has made, certainly the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places. And it's a good thing to say, it's good. God, I'm gonna make the most of this. Well, let's keep on reading. Let's see what they did. Verse 16, the people of Joseph said, the hill country isn't enough for us. And they went on to say, yeah, but the Canaanites who dwell in the plain have iron chariots. In other words, we can't go up, we can't go down. We are stuck where we are. Joshua is so kind to them here. He realizes they're asking for a different lot. And he gently points out to them, you know what, you guys, you haven't done a thorough job of the lot that you've been given. And that's our message. You haven't cleared out the forest yet. And so look what he says to them in verse 17. Joshua said to the house of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh, yeah, you are a numerous people and you have great power. You shall not have one allotment only, but the hill country shall be yours. For though it is a forest, you shall clear it and possess it to its farthest borders. For you shall drive out the Canaanites, chariots of iron, and though they are strong. Joshua is gently just giving a pep talk. He's saying, no, you can. You're telling me you can't. Can't do the forest, can't do the plains. He says, no, you can and you will. It's a great locker room pep talk for them. And I think the high point is this phrase. I'm gonna put it up on the screen for you. He says, possess it to its farthest borders. And I just wanna wrap up on that. I want us to just take that in. What does that mean for me? Possess it to its farthest borders. When we started Joshua, we were reminded that life requires us to do hard things, in life in general, but in our spiritual life. Here we are seven years later, still gotta do hard things. 14 years from now, still gotta do hard things, okay? It is a life of hard things. But Joshua is telling us, go, possess it to its farthest borders. You can do it. You can. So how does this translate into your life? As you're sitting here, does the Holy Spirit just kind of, is he whispering some things to you about what you have not possessed? Possess it to its farthest borders. What areas of all the things that Jesus has secured for you have you left just deep into the raspberry patch? It's like, nah, there's bugs there. I don't wanna go there. Too many barriers. But he's saying, possess it, take it. Something the Lord is speaking to us, and it's a good thing. He's given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him. So what does this translate into? Possess it to its farthest borders. What areas of all the things that Jesus has secured for you have you left just deep into the raspberry patch? It's like, nah, there's bugs there. Too many barriers. What areas of all the things that Jesus has secured for you have you left just deep into the raspberry patch? It's like, nah, there's bugs there.