Journey Life: Lesson 27

We are in our series journey life, lessons

from old testament people of faith, and we're

winding we got 1 more lesson after today,

winding up our study of the book of

Joshua. And you know if you turn to

the book of Joshua,

Joshua begins with basically

god encouraging Joshua to take the place of

Moses. I mean, very opening verse, Moses my

servant is dead,

So you be strong. You be courageous. You

laid these people into the promised land. And

so you have this wonderful story.

Of Joshua as he leads the people across

the Jordan river as they celebrate passover. They

red dedicate their lives. And then you have

this wonderful story of them preparing to conquer

the land.

And as they prepare to conquer the land,

you have 2 stories, 2 battles.

The first battle the battle of Jericho. Is

the battle that they let God fight for

them. And of course, they win the battle.

The second battle is the battle of I

And in that particular battle, they decided to

do it themselves, and it was a disaster.

And basically, you learned that you need to

depend upon the Lord. If you're gonna do

what God has called you to do.

And then what follows after that, from Joshua

6 through Joshua 12,

is a series of battles.

You have all of these battles of where

Israel's is going up against the can.

You have the can who are organizing these

groups of kings, who are gonna try to

stop Israel from taking the land. And you

have just the record of these battles with

a famous battle where Joshua literally calls upon

the sun. In the moon to stop in

the sky, and they do in order for

them to win the battle.

And then when you get to Joshua 13

through 22,

you get to some of the most boring

scripture

in all the bible.

And and if you've done your daily bible

reading, get to it and it's like reading

the gene ideologies in first chronicles.

You're lot, you gotta be kidding are the

sacrifices

in the book of Levi.

I mean, let's be honest this, some of

the bible will put you to sleep fast.

And and this is 1 of them because

what this is from chapter 13 22,

it's where Joshua divides the land among the

tribes.

Now, I don't know if you've tried to

read an old deed before.

June and I, we own a piece of

property that was her family's property dating all

the way back to the early 19 hundreds.

And when you read the deed, it will

say the property begins

near the rock

beside the oak tree

and it'll run about, you know, 40 feet

to a fence post,

where it then goes kinda north with. I

mean, you're reading this going?

I have no clue where the property line

is.

I mean, who can understand this. Well, that's

what this is.

This is about 9 chapters

of reading

about maps

about where the tribes

and their d were and you're like, oh,

please save me. Because you have no idea

where any of these places are. You know,

you're just kinda guessing where these property lines

were back in the ancient Israeli communities.

And so you think, well, let's just skip

all this. But if you do, you skip

an important it part.

It's a story

embedded in this. That's 1 of the most

exciting stories

in all the bible.

And so when the tribes came together to

divide up the land.

Basically, Joshua was said, who goes first

and God said Judah goes first.

And so Judah comes to find out which

land they're going to get as an inheritance

from the lord. So now the people of

Judah approached Joshua at Gil gal, And Caleb

son of Jeff,

the Kin said to him.

Alright. So so Joshua is dev dividing up

the land. Caleb comes

as the representative from Judah.

Why?

Because he's the old man in the house.

I mean, he's the old guy. He is

at least 20 years

older than everyone else in Judah.

You say he was 40 years old when

he spied out the land.

And as a result of the rebellion of

the other 10 spies,

you know, Joshua and he said, we can

take the lamb. But the other 10 said

we could we can't take it because of

that, God said everyone who came out of

Egypt.

20 years and older wanna die,

which meant

everyone

died

who was

from Joshua age 20 years younger.

So here's Joshua,

and he's basically

you know, 85 years old, we'll talk about

there here in a moment.

And the nearest person to him 65.

And so he's the old man in the

house. And so he comes to Joshua when

he says, you know what the Lord said

to Moses, the man of God at K

barn about you and me. Now if you

go back to the text there in numbers

14, and we looked at that a few

weeks ago. But because of my servant, Caleb

has a different spirit and follows me how

wholeheartedly.

I will bring him into the land he

went to and his descendants will inherit it.

There's the promise of god.

Okay?

God made a promise to Caleb because you

have been on my side.

I am going to give you an inheritance

in the land. And if you turn over

to D

is the land that he actually spied out.

That's the land he was given.

He will see it, and I will give

him in his descendants us the land. He

sent his feet on.

That was the promise of God.

So if you can just picture the scene

for over 45

years.

Caleb has been waiting for an inheritance.

45

years.

Longing to go back to the land he

had spied out, longing to take it as

a promise from God.

And now it's time to divide up the

land. And so he comes to Joshua, and

he says, would you please give me that

land? And notice what he says. I was

40 years old when Moses, the servant of

the Lord sent me from K Barn to

explore the land.

And I brought him back a report according

to my convictions.

40 years old.

Now it's 45 years later. Joshua was probably

20

Maybe 30 years old. He's not as old

as as Caleb is. Caleb the oldest living

person in Israel

at this time.

Now then just as the Lord promised he's

kept me alive for 45 years. So they

spent 40 years in the wilderness.

In the last 5 years,

Kayla spent fighting.

5 years of war.

I mean, y'all think about World war 2.

Started in basically 19 41, December of 41

and went through the summer of 19 45.

They fought longer than that.

They've been fighting for 5 years.

And now he says,

Here I am today, I'm 85

years old.

Now the thing you need to understand

about why this is important is even though

they've been fighting for 5 years.

They've not taking the land.

Not taking it at all.

They've been defeating the can,

they've been capturing territory,

but as far as the whole land of

can, they don't have

hardly any of. And notice why the Lord

your God will drive out the nations before

you

little

by little.

As something I don't think most of us

realize.

Is that when they go into the land,

they set up camp, they begin to fight,

they keep defeating these kings, They're they're destroying

some of the cities. Some of the cities

they'd capture, and then the can would come

back in and re inhabit them.

But notice what he says, you will not

be allowed to eliminate them all at once

are the wild animals will multiply around you.

By the way, y'all ever noticed while animals

multiplying around us.

Anybody have a problem with deer

anybody at all.

I mean,

I... I'm like there's more deer in Henderson

field than there are humans.

I mean, you you you can't grow stuff

in your yard.

You can't put out a garden unless you

put a 15 foot fence up.

I mean, they're

everywhere.

And I don't know about y'all, but when

I was a kid, there were no deer.

Mean, we've gone from no deer to deer

everywhere.

I look at June and I say, oh,

dear.

Man alive, heard these come from.

You know, they're they're everywhere. That was the

concern that God had. He's like, listen. The

wild animals will multiply. If I drive all

of the can out at once. We're gonna

do it little bit by a little,

wanna capture territory.

I'm gonna do a lot to you territory,

and then you've got to go and capture

it.

So 5 years of war,

with many more years

to follow

and Caleb knew that.

I'm still as strong day as the day

Moses sent me out. I'm just as vigorous

as to go out to battle now as

I was then.

I love that. I love the attitude that

that Caleb hat. Now you need to understand

something about Kale. He's 85.

At this time, people are living up a

little bit over a hundred.

Moses lived to be a hundred and 20.

Joshua lived to be a hundred and 10.

And so, basically, when you're trying to figure

out how old would Caleb had been in

comparison to how long we live, the answer

would be somewhere around 50.

Maybe 50 to 55 years old.

And he says, listen. I'm just as strong.

I'm just as vigorous. I'm ready to go

into battle at 50 55 years old as

I ever was,

which leads us to lesson number 1.

1 of the most important lessons about about

the story of Caleb. Don't let the years

rob you of your spiritual passion.

I mean, there's a lesson that comes out

of the story of Caleb. It is that

we never

retire

from god's work.

I remember several years ago

back at this first church where I served

as a song leader.

I don't back and read some of the

older bulletin and had noticed that there was

this brother in the church that used to

be very active in the church.

I mean, he'd wait on on the table.

He would lead comm thoughts. He would serve

as an usher. I mean, he was head

of commit. I mean, he was very active

in the church.

But since I had been there, I'd never

seen him do anything.

And so 1 day, I went up, and

I just asked

I said, brother, I I noticed that used

to, you did a lot at church. You

were very active at church. I mean, you

were constantly doing things During the worship services.

I mean, you you were leaving comm thoughts,

you were waiting on the table. You were

you were doing this. You were doing that.

But I never... I noticed you you don't

do that anymore Is there a reason for

that.

And I'll never forget what he said to

me.

He said, when I retired,

you

I retired from everything.

And here I am 20 something years old

thinking.

That the way it works.

I mean, do we get up at a

certain age and it's like, okay. It's time

to pass it to a another generation. Now,

we definitely need to pass the torch to

the next generation. And we'll see that while

that's important here in a few moments. But

do we really retire from our service to

god?

1 of the things that you find in

Romans 12 from the message. Don't burn out.

Keep yourself fueling a flame be alert servants

of the master. Now, I I chose this

translation for a reason.

Earlier in the week, June and I went

camping with my brother and sister law, we

try to do that during the week of

the fourth somewhere, and so we went down

to North Mississippi, and to get down there,

blake, I had to travel through North Alabama.

Okay? I went down to the d,

shot across from D towards tu below. And

and I passed a church

that just caught my attention.

I mean, I just kinda looked at and

like,

sign say what I thought it was? Saying?

And the name of the church was burnt

out baptist church.

I'm serious.

Burnt out baptist church.

And so when I got home, I'm like,

I gotta find out it it's sure enough,

there's a community

down in North Alabama called Burnout, Alabama.

And so the the church there in the

community, the Baptist church just thought, it put

the name up there, burn out Baptist church.

How in the world do you advertise for

that.

Please come to burnout, church to christ where

everybody is burnout.

You

I remember there was a church for a

long time going toward Clark,

x exodus 11, if you go to Clark,

stood of turning back toward Clark where you

turned back toward kind of the northeast, and

there was a community down there named Little

hope.

Yeah. Also... Y'all Know where this is going

don't you.

And and the first time I passed by

the name of the Baptist church was Little

Hope, Baptist church. And I thought, oh, come

on, guys.

Now the last time I passed it, they

finally wise up. They named it new hope.

You know, let's... We we gotta get away

from this little hope. It's killing us.

Well, we as Christians don't need to be

burnout out Christians.

We don't get need to get to a

point where our life where we say, you

know what, we can't do anything anymore. Listen,

we live in age where more and more

of our younger people are losing their faith.

Which means more and more of our older

people have got to stand strong.

And and I mean Joe got up while

ago, and he said it right. He said,

we're We're in the richest nation. We're the

richest generation of this ever lived. We have

more gifts, more talents, more ability, more experienced

than even any people before us.

It's not time to quit.

We need to be like Caleb.

So Caleb says, now give me this il

country that the Lord promised me that day.

You yourself heard then that the ami

were there and their cities were large and

fortified.

But and I I need you to notice

this. The Lord helping me.

I will drive

them out just as he said.

Now, if you go back to numbers, this

is what I love about it. When they

came back,

it's evidently,

Caleb

who announced, you know, there's giants living there.

They went up through the ne gap, came

to He braun where, a hem

chi shy and tell my the descendants of

A lived.

Okay? This is the land

that Caleb asking for. Now, I want you

to pick up on this.

Caleb spied the land out,

not only spied it out, but recognize there

were these giant guys living there,

and he got their names.

What do y'all all think about that?

And he comes back and he says there's

3 of there in particular.

A hem,

Chi and Tal mai.

And y'all, we can take it. Everybody else,

no. No No. We're like grasshopper against these

people.

And so they weren't allowed

to go into the land because of their

lack of faith.

But you know what Caleb did?

Caleb remembered their names.

And for 45 years,

these 3 guys. And I have to think

that they probably were younger than Caleb at

the time.

You know, he went and spot out He

run. Here's these 3 giants

maybe in their late twenties, any he's thinking,

okay. They think they are so bad.

They're not nearly as bad as they think

they are.

If you go back to Joshua,

notice what the text says. From He

Caleb,

drove out the 3 an.

She shy, a hem and tell my, the

sons of A.

Now y'all, he didn't kill them.

He drove them out,

and you go hal.

By the way,

and and stan may correct me on that.

I hope I'm not wrong on this. But

the name Caleb, the 3 letters in Hebrew

that make up the name Caleb is actually

the Hebrew word for dog.

Dog.

I had a good friend who several years

ago came up to me when his first

son was born. And he said last, we

got a son, God's given us a son

and we've given him made great bible name,

1 of the Hebrews of the Old testament

we named him Caleb.

And I looked at him and I said,

did you research the name of that the

meaning of that name?

He said, no.

I said,

Caleb in Hebrew means dog,

and he just looked at me.

And then he said, don't you tell my

wife?

We named our son, dog.

Well, let me tell you It's not just

dog. Dog can be by the way in

the old... In in in the bible dog

is sometimes a word meaning trustworthy.

Faithful. Sometimes it's a very...

Word. And so it can be either side

of it. But basically, what you had here

is that Caleb was the pit bull.

That God sent up against these 3 giants.

And basically what he said is, he runs

not big enough for the 4 of us,

and you guys are leaving.

And can you imagine the sigh

when after Caleb got finished with them, and

they're dragging themselves out of He,

where they going? They didn't have a clue?

But they couldn't live there anymore

because Caleb had driven them out.

With god's help,

nothing is impossible.

You know, Jesus said something in John 14

that we we need to step back and

think about a little bit. You may ask

me for anything in my name and I

will do it. We we sometimes

misunderstand that. We think that in my name

simply means saying in Jesus name at the

end of the prayer.

That's not what Jesus is saying here.

What Jesus is saying is, you may ask

me for anything.

His name is his identity.

His name yes, s God saves mean that

you can ask anything having to do with

who I am.

As the 1 who saves the world, and

I will do it.

John later own would kind of,

in my view, correct it when he says,

this is the confidence we have in approaching

God that if we ask anything

according to his wheel.

In

who Jesus is.

He hears us. And if we know that

he hears us, Whatever we ask, we know

that we have what we ask of him.

The point simply being folks that listen, when

we ask for something that's in the will

of God, God is willing and ready to

respond.

God had called the upon Israel to drive

out the can.

Here was Caleb saying, Lord, I'm ready to

do it.

If you'll just help me and God said,

I will help you.

And you know if there's anything that we

need to realize is that God has a

power

available to us. As long as as a

power used to advance his calls,

that's absolutely amazing.

You go to ephesians 3 now to him

who is able to do

me more than all we ask or imagine.

Our problem is not. That we don't have

the ability to do it. Our problem is

we don't have the

imagination to do it.

And that's what God is calling us to.

He has given us a purpose and he

says, I'm with you, and I empower you

to do it. As long as you're doing

what I've called you to do.

Then number 3,

and I love this lesson Caleb was happy

to work behind the scenes.

We all know Joshua.

Joshua becomes the name becomes the name Jesus

in the new testament.

Joshua is the 1 that got picked to

replace Moses.

Even though you had caleb over here, older

than Joshua

an incredible leader,

and yet a leader who's willing to work

behind the scenes. We read about him in

the exploration in number 13. We read about

him here in Joshua

as they're dividing up the land. We read

about him in the book of judges the

very first chapter. That's it it.

Caleb doesn't show up anymore. Nowhere found in

the new testament.

And so you gotta ask yourself

What's going on with Caitlin.

And Kayla reminds me in the old brother

years ago.

Who who used to tell me last, I

don't like to be front.

I'm not I'm not that kind of leader.

I I don't wanna be out there, you

know, leading

songs or leading in worship or teaching. He

says, I just don't have those abilities.

Says, but what I can do

is I can help people.

He was no old Greyhound bus, retired Greyhound

bus driver.

And and what he would do when he

wasn't driving his bus as he would help

people, especially with us.

I mean, he would go and he would

work at their houses.

He would go and he would mow their

yards.

My next door neighbor was a retired Greyhound

bus driver and he got down where he

couldn't take care of his yard Guess who

showed up every week to mow he is

yard. This older brother there at the church

I was working at.

If I was going on vacation, guess l,

guess who else is yard got mode.

Mine and June got moved.

I mean, we would pull in. And we'd

say, old brother son. So he's been added

again.

He would come up to me at church,

and he would say last we need a

new sign out at the road. They signs

looking kinda up. Don't you think? I said,

oh, yeah.

He said, what would it cost to replace

that sign? I I don't I don't have

a clue. He said find out.

And I'd I go find out, and I'd

call him up, and I say, hey. The

cost of replacing that sign would be, you

know, 10000 dollars, he would say do it.

And I'll write a check for it.

He came in 1 day, and he says,

you know, I'm getting old. I can't hear

real good. Anybody got that problem beside me.

You know?

By the way, I have to ask June

to repeat herself all the time.

And I've decided it's 1 of 2 problems.

Either June talking like this all the time.

And by the way, some of y'all know

that,

or my hearings not as good.

My gas is is a little of both.

But anyway, this brother came in and they

says, I can't quite hear. How old is

our sound system? I said, I think it

goes back to when we built the building?

He said, how much would it cost to

put a new sound system in. By the

way, if you put in a new sound

system lately anywhere?

I mean, even at the house, it's gonna

cost you.

And so I said, well, I'll find out

and I went and told him he said

put it in, I'll write the check.

He was 1 of these guys who was

always behind the scenes,

serving,

helping,

encouraging.

Doing what he could. That was Caleb.

Caleb was someone who didn't want the limelight.

He just wanted to do what God had

called him to do.

And because of this Joshua Blessed.

Son of Jeff

gave him He as an inheritance. And I

love verse 14,

So He has belonged to Caleb, Son of

Jeff, the Kin I ever says. He took

the land.

By the way, I don't know if you

remember what He was.

He square Abraham bought a cave.

It's where he buried Sarah

it's where he was buried.

Is where Isaac was buried.

Rebecca.

It's where Jacob,

Leah,

It's where evidently. They carried the bones back,

of Joseph to bury where in he, but

they had to capture it first.

I think that's why Caleb wanted that land.

The text goes on though and and then

takes an odd turn.

After a Joshua dismissed the Israel israelites, and

this is over in the book of judges.

They went to take possession of the land.

Okay? In other words, they started fighting, they

started taking possession of the land. They've been

here now for years.

But, I mean, they still have a lot

of work to do. And the people serve

the lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and

of the elders who out lived and who

had seen all the great things the Lord

had done for Israel.

But if you know the book of judges.

You know what happens next it's not good.

Look at what the text says.

After that whole generation had been gathered to

their ancestors.

Another generation grew up

who knew neither of the Lord nor what

he had done for Israel?

How long does it take for a country?

To forget God.

When generation.

That's all it takes.

John Mike and I we're talking about this

this morning.

And I ask, are we living in that

generation?

A generation that says we don't wanna serve

God anymore?

We wanna serve the gods around us.

Because that's what the israel israelites did.

The israelites did evil in the eyes of

the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God.

They serve the by Als, the Ash

that was... Those were the gods of the

of the can.

And the anger of the Lord burned against

Israel so that he sold him into the

hands by of K,

Res,

king of Ara,

ara, na

Stand next time, you're gonna have to come

up and read that for you. Okay? Alright.

To whom the israelites were subject for 8

years.

In other words, God said, you don't remember

the slavery you had in Egypt.

Your grandfather suffered that.

I wanna give you a taste of it.

And of course, the people repent

and God, at that time, and the name

of the book, of course, is judges

would raise up a judge to deliver them.

You might wanna guess who you raised up,

watch this.

But when they cried out to the Lord,

raised up for them to deliver, Auth, son

of Kin as, Caleb younger

brother.

Who saved them. Now, you look at this,

you go, okay, so it's Caleb nephew. Well,

it's not just Caleb nephew.

But Caleb needed to take a town. He

said, whoever takes this town, I'm gonna get

my daughter to them as a wife, and

I else the 1 who took it. So

he ended up marrying

his first cousin.

And I know some of y'all going. You're

kidding me. Now, they did that back then.

See legal in Tennessee now. If y'all haven't

heard.

We we we've made right,

feral, we we passed the law say you

keep married your first cousin anymore.

So go down to Mississippi. You'll be alright.

But anyway,

I wish I could laugh at that board,

but I can't.

Alright.

But this is Caleb Son law.

Who becomes the first judge of Israel.

I can't help but wonder, why did god

choose him?

Was it because of the influence of his

father law?

His uncle.

The 1 who from the beginning,

followed

wholeheartedly.

What made Caleb of such an inspiration for

God's people ever sense

because Caleb love God with all of his

heart soul and strength. Those are the words

of God.

Not not not our words, not the the

writers of the bible, but god's words. So

He has blown to Caleb son of Jeff

Du, the Kin every sense because he followed

the Lord the God of Israel

wholeheartedly.

In other words, he had taken to heart

what Moses has said in g, hero Israel.

Lord our God, the Lord is 1. So

you love the Lord your God with all

your heart with all your soul and with

all your strength.

And that's what Caleb bit done.

So as we get older,

and I will speak to those of us

who are older.

As we get older.

We have a choice we have to make.

We can begin to back off.

Now, listen, I understand that we can't do

what we used to do. Alright. I understand

that at all too well.

I don't know about y'all this week, but

I'd go outside for 10 minutes and then

go inside for 2 hours to rest.

I mean, that... That's that's what the heat

will do to me nowadays.

But when it comes to the kingdom of

God,

I don't think we should ever retire.

And what keeps us from retiring is that

whole hard love.

That devotion that Jesus said this is the

first and the greatest of the commandments

follow it,

and everything else will fall into its place.

And so speaking once again to those of

us who are older.

Where are you at with your walk with

God?

If you got to the point for you've

given up, I hope not.

I hope like Caleb that all of us

can say, you know what? I'm just as

strong spiritually today. In fact, stronger spiritually today

than I used to be. Why? Because I

love God with all my heart soul and

strength.

That's what the church at Henderson needs more

than anything else. Yes, we need our young

people.

And we oftentimes speak to our young people,

but we need those of you who are

older as well.

We need your abilities, your talents, your gifts,

your ability to make this church what God

wants it to be. And if you've not

been doing that. Maybe it's time to rec

Maybe it's time to say God, I'm coming

back.

If we can help you in any way

and respond to the gospel.

Let us know how we can right now

as we stand the scene.