1. The Job not Done.JOS 13:1 When Joshua was old and well advanced in years, the LORD said to him, “You are very old, Great God even points out the obvious!! I must say thanks to those people who pointed it out to me last week. Probably Joshua knew he was getting old. I think we feel it a bit when it happens. But this is qualified by the next statement.
and there are still very large areas of land to be taken over.The charge God gave Joshua was not yet complete. Sometimes it needs to be pointed out to us that we have not yet finished our job. For eg. The Youth Group leaders have yet to disciple every young person in youth group. Not all kids in Sunday School have made personal commitments to Jesus, Not all in our bible studies grasp God’s meaning on certain issues. Not all the business of the church has been sorted out by the deacons, I haven’t preached every passage in the bible. Not every person in Armidale has heard about Jesus.Not everything is done – It probably never will be.
2. Here God points out the job to be done.
JOS 13:2 “This is the land that remains: ………What is it that God needs to point out to us? What is still waiting to be done? I’ll let you in on a not so secret. Lots.Let’s stop and ask God to show us some of that unfinished business.Still, even without the job being finished - 3. . Everyone gets an inheritance
JOS 13:6 “As for all the inhabitants of the mountain regions from Lebanon to Misrephoth Maim, that is, all the Sidonians, I myself will drive them out before the Israelites. Be sure to allocate this land to
Israel for an inheritance, as I have instructed you,
Even before the job is done = they get blesssed, like us isn’t it – we haven’t finished but we are blessed.Land was important to these people. They had been without roots, land less and the ownership of land was perceived to indicate power, status and wealth. God gave it to them. They just had to clean it up. Marianne and I lived in a house in
Newcastle and when we moved in it needed cleaning up. We had this really delightful water feature that consisted of a real water feature, but to this was added four old bath tubs which weren’t so lovely. It was our house and garden but it needed to be cleaned up. The Israelites needed to do the same thing but they had to get rid of all the bad people, rather than bad bath tubs. Why did they have to get rid of them, why not just get along?These people God didn’t like. Why? They lived disgusting lives, so their punishment was that God was wiping them out. What was so bad? They made up their own Gods, they had a wicked, disgusting lifestyle that included child sacrifice and they had not recognised God as God. So they Got Punished, much the same as people today who do not acknowledge Jesus as Lord.So God used this situation to give the Israelites what He had promised. Their inheritance was a land and a place to live.With the inheritance goes responsibility. You can take it and use it or you can totally abuse it. There’s an old Eric Clapton song – It’s in the way that you use it. It is about the choices of responsibility. Using what we have properly is vitally important. You can have all the tools in your shed but if you don’t know how to use them properly chances are you’ll hurt yourself rather than make something beautiful.
4. Funny things is Everyone gets an inheritance - Except the Levites.
JOS 13:14 But to the tribe of Levi he gave no inheritance, since the offerings made by fire to the LORD, the God of Israel, are their inheritance, as he promised them.
Their inheritance is being looked after by God’s people.Why??
Life as a sojourner without an inheritance here is illustrated by the fact that the Levites had no inheritance in Israel; the Lord alone was their inheritance NU 18:21 “I give to the Levites all the tithes in
Israel as their inheritance in return for the work they do while serving at the Tent of Meeting. 22 From now on the Israelites must not go near the Tent of Meeting, or they will bear the consequences of their sin and will die. 23 It is the Levites who are to do the work at the Tent of Meeting and bear the responsibility for offenses against it. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. They will receive no inheritance among the Israelites”.
Notice they got to use and eat the tithes – not the special offerings. The tabernacle was built as was the temple later on by special offerings not tithes – tithes are always in the bible used to look after the people who do God’s work. Even social welfare was a special offerings – not tithes. There is a church in
Newcastle who wanted to build a new church. They did their fundraising, got promises and pledges from people, did their sums found out with a tight budget and people tithing regularly they could get close they stepped out in faith and built. Problem was, they had a pastoral team to and they started to run short. So they sent letters to other churches to help, which created a number of different issues. Things like you built – “you pay! we don’t have the money for a pastor – you have 3 and a new building sought it out yourselves.” The most classic was - where is your faith now? Exactly what this tells us I am not sure – Have a think about it and we’ll have a chat about it.Possibly they went about it wrong – Hey we need to evaluate how we do things. Yeh, evaluate, see if it works if not change it. Maybe they should have used the tithes for paying their pastors (Who, by the way are doing a good job, no a great job) and sought to finance the project like in the bible – special offerings etc.
These Levites they did God’s priestly work. This is different from everyonelse’s work in that it had to do with the logistics of helping people to worship. Their job was one of serving others, helping others know God and being available to do that all the time.
This is kind of like missionaries. They help people get to know Jesus, and we use our tithe to support them in that. Why? Because the rest of us need to do our job, so we can’t go over there and do it – but they can – because that is their call from God.
So does that mean that some inheritances are different. Yeh. Some of the tribes got great fertile land, others got hilly hard to cultivate land, others got land next to enemy land etc. All different but all inheritance. Some would think the Levites got ripped off but their job was different. Their lifestyle was different.
What is our inheritance from God? We live in a great country, their isn’t much conflict, we can express our belief in God freely, we can all participate in worshipping God. Other christians in other countries miss out on bits of that. They have persecution, war, famine etc. Yet God has given them that to.
Where does it leave us? Fair dinkum – be thankful for what God has given us, but also use what we have wisely. The tragedy of this story is that the Israelites did not wipe out those other nations and get rid of the weeds, and they fought them for years. Centuries, in fact they still are – after all the root of the Issues in Israel and
Palestine at the moment go right back to this time. Still fighting over the land.
Use what we have wisely, do the work God has given us with integrity and work at getting the job done.I have said it before – we have all that we need to do the job God has for this church – right here right now.
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