Stepping into Our Inheritance | Joshua 13:1-15 | Gabriel Guzman

Amen. Amen, Are you guys glad you came to church tonight?

Come on, come on.

I just want to show a hands really quick. Who's

been at every single Joshua series that we've done so far?

Anybody made it to every single one? Okay?

I see, I see. You guys are the faithful, You

guys are the strong. You guys are ready to go.

If you never met me before, my name is Gabriel.

I'm the associate director of Family Ministries here at Patriot

at 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

in Patriot Kids or Patriot Youth, I just want to

thank you so much for your service to this next generation,

being faithful and even being faithful and come in and

wanted to get deeper in the Word. I just want

to thank our lead pastor's pastor Adam and Ashley, not

just for the opportunity to speak, which I love and

I cherish, but also just for leading the church and

caring about the Bible. Not all churches are going 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 tough to get through, barely to read,

but let alone to want to preach through and make

it seemingly exciting. But I just want to thank our

pastors so much for that goal. We did it last

year 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 thirteen today, thirteen today, So if you have your journals,

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 it literally is just the Book of Joshua

from the Bible in like this journal format has the

text on one side and then empty lines on the

other fee to take notes if you want one. Still,

we still have some of the Patriots Shopper. You can

go on Amazon and order one and what have you

would like to follow along with us, take notes on

your phone, on your notepad, and then you can add

it in right after.

But today we are in Joshua.

Chapter thirteen, not the whole chapter, just fourteen 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,

if you have it with you, or if you just

want to listen, I'll have you, guys, stand for the

reading of God's Word Joshua chapter thirteen.

We're going to start in verse one.

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.

Verse two.

This is the land that yet remains all the regions

of the Philistines, and all those of the guest writes

verse seven. We're gonna jump down to verse seven, and

this will be our last verse. Now, therefore, divide this

land for an inheritance. Everybody say, inheritance to the nine

tribes and half the tribe of Manassa. You may be seated.

God.

We come before you 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 to hear from the man, but they

came to hear from you. In Jesus' name, we pray

a men amen. I want to open with a story

about a man named Roman Bloom. Now Roman Bloom survived

the Holocaust and he ended up being a big New

York real estate developer. And he died in twenty twelve

at the age of ninety.

Seven years old. Lived a long life, and he was

pretty successful in real estate.

And so his estate at the end of his life

total up to forty million dollars. I don't know if

you've ever seen forty million dollars before.

I haven't.

I can't even comprehend how much money that is.

But that's what he had to his estate.

Can anybody guess who inherited that money? Who inherited that estate? Nobody?

Nobody inherited that estate. After he died, the government went

into searching for who would be the heir, and they

couldn't find any right air, not family members, no relatives

that could access this inheritance. His wife and his son

died in the Holocaust, and then his second wife died

in nineteen ninety two and they.

Had no kids.

And so what happens in this state when the government

can't find in air, it goes back to the state.

And so the state of New York inherited forty million dollars.

And I don't know if you're like.

Me and you hear that story and you say, what

a waste, What a waste. I would never waste forty

million 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

change the life of my kids. I would change the

life of my parents. I 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

of people that are wasting an inheritance worth far more

than forty million dollars. What is that inheritance? That's the

inheritance God has 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've 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

using it. And so in here I want us to

focus because the inheritance is a big idea, not only

in this chapter but for the next eight chapters of Joshua,

and herritance is a big idea. I want to look

at verse seven again and look at this word inheritance.

It says this in verse seven, Now therefore divide this

land for an inheritance. Everyone say inheritance to the nine

tribes and half tribe of Manassa. You see, inheritance here

is an important word, not only just for this verse,

but for the following chapters that are gonna occur.

You see this word inheritance.

Isn't just one person giving something to another person. That's

like an inheritance. That's like 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 divine.

There's divine connotations to it.

It denotes it's awesome.

It's often not a transfer from person to person, but

a divine appointment.

That's what's happening here.

A divine 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 some land, but there's also responsibilities that are inherited

as well. There's some responsibilities inherited as well. And so

what does that mean for our inheritance? 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 of 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 our 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 with eternal life. Which

we already know we received spiritually by ourselves, and we're

fully experience it in heaven. We get the Holy Spirit

that's in dwelling now as a deposit of something for

us 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 our inheritance, and we're fully forgiven

right now for our sins righteousness. God declares us righteous

right now. Victory 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.

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. We're living as citizens of that kingdom

right 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 last week we inherit

a heavenly home and that has promised and secured, and

we fully realize that in our afterlife. This is our

inheritance our spiritual inheritance that we have as believers. And

it's important because because this chapter, and not only this chapter,

but these next few chapters can teach us something about inheritance,

teach us something about how do we live out this inheritance,

how can we cherish this inheritance? Because Chapter thirteen of

Joshua marks a transition in the book. There's a transition

in the book. Now there are no more battles mentioned

from now on the first twelve chapters were full of action,

full of battles. The pastor Heron preached last week 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 more just names of

places and lists and lists, and it could just be

so easy for us to want to skim over it.

Read the first twelve chapters of Joshua, and then skip

to the last two chapters, because the last two chapters

there's more interesting things. That's like Joshua's farewell addressed in

the last two chapters. That's where we have the famous verse,

me and my house will serve the Lord's That's the

good stuff. Let me get over there, let me read

the first twelve, let's skips thirteen to twenty one, and

then let's go to twenty two and beyond. But I

want to show us this scripture really quick. One Timothy three,

sixteen to seventeen says this in verse sixteen. All scripture,

everybody say, all scripture is breathed out by God and

profitable for teaching, for a proof for correction, and for

training in 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 because 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 is profitable

for us we can learn something from all of it. Yeah,

because we can read and we're gonna read. It seems

like it's just a list. It seems like I'm just

reading places. What is there for me to learn from this?

But if we do the work, we will see that

that it's profitable, that it's profitable, and these first fourteen

verses of Joshua, we're gonna see how we can walk

in our inheritance, How we can walk in our inheritance,

and how do.

We do that? Will we take steps?

We're gonna step up in faith. 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

up in faith.

How do you walk into inheritance? You step up in faith?

Verse one, Now, Joshua was old and advanced in years,

and the Lord said to him, you are old 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, 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 of work that needs to be done.

But I want to focus on that phrase old in

advanced in years because it's important. That phrase is a

connection point. That phrase 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 to push a theological idea forward,

to force an idea forward. And this echo makes us

look towards Genesis twenty four, verse one. It says this, now,

Abraham was old, well advanced in years now the ESV.

That's a Bible translation we're using in all of our journals,

and for this study, ESV might phrase it 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 thirteen to one, and so there's

supposed to be a connection 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

important 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 the Bible, and covenants

are really important, and Abraham maybe has one of the

most important covenants, and it's in chapter twelve. And so

there's an important verse in chapter twelve that connects to

what we're about to talk about in chapter thirteen. And

in verse seven of Genesis chapter twelve, it says, then

the Lord appeared to Abraham and said, to your offspring,

I 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 a legacy for

his son so that he can make a nation and

inherit they can inherit the land that God's going to

give them. From this verse, and here in chapter thirteen

we see Joshua. He's at the end of his life

and they're about to see the first fruits of this

promise in Genesis chapter twelve. And so that is the

connection here be between Abraham and Joshua. Something 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 we 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.

Joshua's time has passed and now it's the Israelites turn

to fulfill their inheritance. It's their turn to conquer 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 twelve chapters, and we've talked about those,

about how 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.

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 for your life. I love the worship set

today because one of the songs was talking about no

one can worship you for me, and that is exactly

the idea here. Parents are great, pastors are great. Mentors

are great. They can teach 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 take seriously. And so now in Joshua

Chapter thirteen, 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 see how

he tried God? Do 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, Sirius, take our

faith seriously.

Here's the next step.

After we've stepped up in our faith, now we can

step into the fight.

Step into the fight.

Verse two.

Verse two.

This is the land that yet remains all the regions

of the Philistines and all those of the Geshrites, from

the Shehor, which is east of Egypt northward to the

boundary of Ekron. It is counted as as Canaanite. There

are five rulers of the Philistines, those of Gaza, Ashdod Ashkalon, Gath,

and Ekron, and those of the Avim in the south,

all the land of the Canaanites and the Maria that

belongs to the Sedonians to Aphek and to the boundary

of the Amorites, and the land of the Ghibelites and

Lebanon toward the sunrise of Ba god Oh Mount Herman,

to lebohmath verse six. All the inhabitants of the Hill

country from Lebanon to Misrofeth Miam, even all the Sedonians.

What's going on?

What did we just read?

You could read that five times and you don't know

what's happening. Well, that's why I'm here to help out.

I'm here. 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 with places.

Is a map. Bust out a map, like like a

Bible at list.

That's what they're called a Bible at list where they

have places listed and things like that. So that's what

I have for you right now, a map. Raise your hand.

If you're a visual learner. You're a visual learner, that's

great because we need it. So we have a we

got a map here for us, right here. Okay, perfect,

So what did we just read? What's going on? This

is what we just This is what we just read.

Actually it's this one perfect, So this is what we

just read. Okay, So this 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, 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, but 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 area 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 much 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 need to do.

And if you notice, it's detailed, so detailed, somebody could

make that map and you could see it outlined perfectly.

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 so 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 called.

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. But we have to identify what are

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 angry 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 quick I am to want to lie.

I need to work on those things. And so we

need to take the time to lay 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 kick.

People out that are in there. I don't know if

you remember last time I was here, but I gave

us the three enemies to the believers, the three enemies

to believers, and they should be up there right now.

If you want to 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 listening out and we're

being detailed this is what I 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 that needs to be done. Because whether you're twenty

in here, forty in here, you can be eighty in here,

there's always work to be done in your life, and

it can be easy to be overwhelmed. The Israelites could

have easily been overwhelmed by the list that God just

we read it and we feel overwhelmed.

We need to do anything. They got to do something,

and they're looking at this.

List like, oh wow, this is a lot to do.

I feel overwhelmed. But let's look at the last part

of verse six. The last part of verse six says this,

because this is God talking to them, and he says,

I myself will 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 job 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 concert the Promised Land.

But he still requires him to walk out in 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 three that

we can reflect on on 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. Tewod Corinthians, chapter twelve, Verses

nine and ten.

This is Paul talking, and Paul.

Talking about how he went to God for a thorn

in his flesh, and he says this in verse nine.

But he said to me, God, my grace is sufficient

for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses,

so that the power of Christ may rest upon me

Verse ten. For the sake of Christ, then I am

content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when

I am weak, then I am strong. Romans eight, Verse

twenty six. 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 with groanings too deep for words.

Here's a famous one in our last one.

Here Isaiah chapter forty, verse twenty nine and thirty one.

Verse twenty nine says he gives power to the fate,

and to him who has no might. He increases strength

verse thirty one. But they who wait for the Lord

shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings

like eagles. They shall run 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 not 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 serve 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.

So 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

us 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 will

fight your battles. Right, this is an echo of Joshua

three ten. It's a repeated promise, Joshua three ten. Joshua

three ten says this, and Joshua said, here is how

you shall know that the Living God is among you,

and that he will not fail to drive out from

before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the hit Bites, the Parasites,

the Gergoshites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites.

It's a repeated promise.

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 not specific to some generation.

He's with Moses, right.

And then it transitions to Joshua, and then they go

through these twelve chapters of God being with them, and

then the promise is repeated as Joshua is old and

is now transitioning to the next generation.

God crosses over generations.

And so just like he was faithful with your parents,

just like he was faithful with your 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. Now,

what is the last step? So we stepped up in

our faith, we know we have to take it on

for ourselves. We know that now that we've taken it up,

we have to step into the fight. We have to

know and be detailed about what we need to come

unker one 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. We're going to read another list right now. Everybody,

brace yourselves. We're gonna read another list right now. It's

gonna be okay. Verse seven. Now, therefore, divide this land

for an inheritance. Everybody say inheritance to the nine tribes

and half the tribe of Manassa. Now really quick, just

so that we're all on the same page. The last

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 they're going to deal

with another list, and this is an allotment. That's kind

of like the phrase that the Bible us in allotment

something they're gonna inherit right now. Okay, So verse eight,

with the other half of the tribe of Nasa, the

Rubenites and the Gadites received their inheritance, which Moses gave

them beyond the Jordan eastward.

Everybody underlying eastward or circle eastward.

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 nine, from Aurora, which is on the edge

of the valley of Arnan, and the city that is

in the middle of the valley, and all the tableland

of the Metabah is far of the de Bone, and

all the cities of Seahon, king of the Amorites, who

reigned in Heshan as far as the boundary of the

Ammonites verse eleven, and Gilead, and the region of the

Gesherites and the Maccathites, and all Mount Hermon, and all

Bashan and Salaka verse twelve, and all the kingdom of

og and Bashan, who reigned in Astroth and in the Andre.

He alone was left. He alone was left of the

remnant of the Raphaem. These Moses had struck and driven out. Wow,

we can breathe, We can breathe. We did it. Visual learners.

Here we go, visual learners. We got the map. We're

back at it again with the map right 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, Uh, let me grab this one really quick.

Let's do uh, let's do do we have read? Yes,

we have read perfect? So these are uh these names

right here right Ruben 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 names 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 seems to

divide it is the Jordan River.

The Jordan River, so that right there, So that's dividing it.

And so this.

Is 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 three tribes. Three tribes

were mentioned here and it was Manassa. So we have

Manasa and if you notice, there's East Manassa and there's

West Manassa.

Manassa's a big tribe.

Manassa was one of Joseph's sons, and he gets a

double portion, but it's big. He's divided by the Jordan River.

And then we have Gad and then Ruben's in there.

I just don't want to scroll down, but Ruben's right

here on this side of the Jordan River. Now why

is that important? Well, one, all of this stuff right here,

this is like a you had to watch the movie

before the one that we're in right now, this all happened.

Everything was conquered in here in numbers thirty numbers, Chapter

thirty two.

So in the Book of Joshua. They didn't do 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 they all came over

and with Moses, they conquered all of that land in numbers,

chapter thirty two, and I encourage you to read it

because we're referencing it right now and I don't have

time to go through everything. But essentially they conquer the land,

and then those three tribes.

Say, whoa that was this? This is nice. This is

nice land. There's a lot of 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, can we just stay here?

We already did it, we already conquered it. Can we

have this land? And Moses gets mad. Moses gets mad

because he's like, wait, we're going as a tribe, We're

all going to go conquer right now.

And these Israelites get scared really easy.

They didn't like when the twelve Spies came back and

had a bad report, and so if three tribes don't

come with us, that's going to be an issue. They're

not going to want to 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 on this side. We'll come back. And so

now that's where they've come to and 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. Now they're going to 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 thirteen.

So technically we're not doing anything new on the west

side of the Jordan River. That's gonna be later chapters.

Right now, we're doing what's already been done in numbers

chapter thirty two. And so they they picked that because

it was comfortable. But there's a cost to comfort. 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 just gonna read verse thirteen, and if you're in

your Bibles or in your journals, let's read it with me.

Verse thirteen says, Yet the people of Israel did not

drive out the guest rights or the Macathites, but Gesher

and Metcalf 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, because Israel does 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 out 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 we can identify with that today.

Do 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

out 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. But if you're surrounded

by bad people, you pick up those bad habits, and

so and so.

These tribes, these tribes.

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 not 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,

a little quicker. I'm gonna fast forward 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 to 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 this

in First Chronicles five twenty five to twenty six. Verse

twenty five says, but they broke faith with the God

of their fathers and hoard after the gods of the

peoples of the land, whom God had destroyed before them

Verse twenty six. So the God of Israel stirred up

in the spirit of Pool King of Assyria, the spirit

of Till God Pleaser, King of Assyria, and he took

them into exile, namely the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the

half tribe of Manassa. They were so far gone they

didn't love God anymore, they didn't even know God 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 had 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 cut 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. Let's read this really quick in verse fourteen,

because it's so important to the tribe of Levi.

We have a new tribe here, the tribe of Lee

by alone.

Moses gave no inheritance the offerings by fire to the

Lord God of Israel are their inheritance, as he said

to them. So the tribe of lee B were the

tribe of priests, and they got no land, but they

got the Lord, they got the offerings of the Lord.

They got to worship God was their inheritance.

And God uses the tribe of Levi almost as like

a precursor for what he wants to do with his 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 of Levi had. Now, these other tribes

could worship God, these other tribes could do offerings to

the Lord, and these things kind of distracted them. Sometimes

the land distracted them a little bit. Just wanted to

be comfortable distracted them a little bit. Wanting to have

the money and the everything and.

The fame they chased after that.

But they weren't content with just his presence. They weren't

content with just his 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 with

God or 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.

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, 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 want to get comfortable, it can be easy.

To want to disconnect.

But God has called us to be faithful because He

has given us the power to do so, because.

Why Key powers us. It's his power that makes it happen.

Today and probably for the next few chapters, we're going

to be talking about inheritance a lot. And we talked

about the biggest thing that you can inherit, which is

eternal life. That is the key to our inheritance, the

biggest part of our inheritance, and.

I want to take it for granted.

Anybody in this room who hasn't taken part in their inheritance,

who hasn't received their inheritance. Yet. You want to be

like Roman Bloom and have this big estate and want

it to be all for nothing and have it be

wasted with.

An unclaimed inheritance.

But God has a super valuable inheritance that's more valuable

than any amount of money for you to claim right now,

and that is eternal life. There's a question right outside

this building, and I always reference it because it always

keeps things into perspective when you're entering into this building,

and it says, where will you spend eternity? That is

the most important question you can ever have an answer to,

where will you spend eternity? Because one thing, and I'm

not here to scare any of us, but there will

come a point where we all die, where we close

our eyes and we'll be face to face with our creator,

and we have to answer that question, where will you

spend eternity? Because eternity is forever and ever and ever

and ever and ever, and you spend eternity in one

of two places. You either spend eternity with Jesus or

you spend eternity without Jesus. With Jesus, we're in the

fullness of His peace, in the fullness of his comfort,

in the fullness of his spirit and his power.

And his love.

Without Jesus, we don't get any of those things. A

life without love, a life without peace, a life without

comfort for eternity forever. And there's this one thing that

keeps us from spending eternity with Jesus, and that's this

word called sin. You might be in this place and

think you're a really good person. You do good things,

you never done anything bad, You never killed anyone buddy,

you never so whatever it is, you might think you're good.

But the Bible says that no one is good but God.

We all have twisted motivations at times, we all have

twisted things. We all were born with this thing called sin,

and that's what's preventing us from spending eternity with Jesus.

But God so loved the world that he sent his

son Jesus to die on the cross as a sacrifice.

To pay for your sins.

So that when you get to eternity with God, he

doesn't see you. He sees Jesus. He sees Jesus's righteousness.

That's what he sees. So it's not about all that

you can do because Jesus has done it all. Jesus

paid for you to spend eternity with him. But it's

up to you to claim that inheritance today.

How do you claim that inheritance?

We tell the kids and Patriot kids that it's as

easy as a b C. That's how easy it is

to claim your inheritance before you walk out of here

and it goes to something else, it goes it's.

Just wasted inheritance. Because we don't want to do that today.

With God's inheritance, how do you do that? A you

accept Jesus as.

You Lord and savior, be you believe that he died

on the cross and rose again for your sins, and

see you confess those sins to him, because He's already

forgiven you of those. If you're in this place today

and you want to do that, we're gonna say a

prayer altogether. And it's not the prayer that saves you.

It's not the prayer that gives you your inheritance. It's

the heart and the belief that you already have. And

this prayer is a proclamation of what you already believe

in your heart. And so if you're ready to do that, today,

I want everybody to bow your heads and close your eyes,

and we're gonna say this prayer together. Say, dear Jesus,

I accept you as my Lord and as my savior.

I believe that you died on the cross and rose

again from my sins. I thank you, and I praise

you for forgiving me, and I can't wait to spend

eternity with you. In Jesus' name, we pray a men, Amen, Amen.

Really quick.

If you said that prayer, we don't want to embarrass

you today, but we want to celebrate with you today.

We want to celebrate the fact that you just claimed

your inheritance just like we all have. Patria means family,

and we want to celebrate you as a family member

for joining our family here as a family of God.

And so if you said that prayer and you meant

it from your heart, on the count of three, I'm

gonna ask you to raise your hand so that we

can celebrate with you. Your hand will not be the

only one raised, but you can do it loud and proud,

because that's how Jesus died. He died on a cross

for your sins in front of the world, and he

was not ashamed to do it, and so we can't

be ashamed to show that we've claimed our inheritance that

he died for. So on the counter of three, I'm

asking you to raise your hand. If you said that

prayer one two one two three, raise your hands so

that we can we can worship, which we can thank you.

Let's go.

You claimed your inheritance today. If you said that prayer,

we have some next steps for you. You can visit this

website grow dot Faith where you can download a booker

and buyer founding Pastor, Pastor Diego and it just talks

about how do you live out this faith? Now? What

do you do now that you've claimed your inheritance, now

that you're a believer in Jesus Christ?

What do you do now?

And so you'll be able to get some resources there

as well. We're all going to leave this place together

right now. So I'm going to pray for us really quick.

If you have any need for any additional prayer, our

elders in prayer team will be right here at the front. Right.

If you're going through something, you're looking at the fight

you have to fight. You're looking at all the things

you have to do you're feeling overwhelmed. Whatever it is,

We're here to pray for you and believe God with

you today, So they'll be right here at the front

after I'm done pray. Lord, we thank you so much

for your word. We thank you for bringing us to

church tonight. Lord. We pray that everything we learn, everything

we experience tonight, that it not just stay to tonight,

but that it go home with us and it continue

to change our lives. Lord, that we would live differently.

I pray for traveling mercies as everyone is leaving this campus, Lord,

that they would get to their destinations safely. God, we

thank you and we praise you for your goodness. In

Jesus' name, we pray Amen.

Amen. Hope to see you guys Sunday.