TAKING THE INHERITANCE

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on December 31, 2023 under 2023 |

Bethany Bible Church New Year’s Eve Sunday Sermon Message from December 31, 2023 from Joshua 1:1-9

Theme: God’s words to Joshua show us the habits we ought to embrace in order to take possession of our inheritance in Christ.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

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The beginning of a new year invites us to make a fresh start of things in daily life. It’s when we traditionally make ‘New Year’s resolutions’. It’s when we decide to make some important changes—to drop some old habits, or take up some new ones, or tackle some hard tasks that we’d been neglecting.

I suggest, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, that this is a time to ask, “What will my relationship with Him be like one year from now?” I have asked myself that question. If—by God’s grace—I am still walking this earth by the year’s end, I want to be closer to Jesus Christ than I am now. I want to love Him more. I want to know Him better. I want to know His word more thoroughly. I want to be more obedient to Him. I want to be more like Him in my daily conduct. And I want to have more of what He wants me to have in my life. That’s what I sincerely desire for this coming year.

Now; that can be a very daunting ‘New Year’s resolution’. It’s immeasurably more consequential a thing than to merely resolve to lose a few pounds or to spend less time on social media. To resolve to grow in my relationship with Jesus Christ over the coming year will involve a sometimes painful battle. It will necessitate letting go of some sinful attitudes that have ingrained themselves in me. It will require that I conquer some sinful habits that need to be brought to an end. It may even involve being set free from some sinful addictions that I didn’t even know had become addictions. It will certainly involve some acts of obedience to the Lord that I may find very hard to take up. The world around me, the fleshly impulses within me, and the devil who hates me, will all fight fiercely against me in the resolve to grow closer to Jesus Christ in this coming year.

But I have found encouragement in the Old Testament passage that I’d like for us to look at today. It too is the story of a new beginning. It’s the story of the words that the Lord spoke to His servant Joshua—just at the beginning of the Book of Joshua—just before Joshua began to lead the people of Israel into the promised land.

Joshua 1:1-9 says;

After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory. No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:1-9).

On a strictly human level, it would be hard to imagine a more intimidating ‘beginning’ than this one. Joshua had spent forty years with the previous generation as it wandered in the desert. Throughout that time, he had grown as Moses’ trusted assistant. But it had been through many trials and difficulties with the people. And now, it has been given to him by God to lead perhaps as many as 2 million people in total into the land that God had promised to them—a people whose only previous identity had been that of slaves—into a land that they hadn’t been to. They were to drive out the fierce and wicked people groups who lived in that land, and take possession of it as their gift from God. What human being wouldn’t ordinarily feel overwhelmed at such a beginning?

But let me give away the end of the story. You find it in Joshua 21:43-45;

So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The Lord gave them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass (Joshua 21:43-45).

In the end, it was all accomplished. And the reason was because it had been God Himself who accomplished it through the obedience of His people. And in the very beginning portion of this book, we see the kind of attitudes and habits that God called Joshua to embrace that would inevitably lead to that glorious victory.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; God spoke those words to one specific man—Joshua, the son of Nun. And He spoke them with respect to one specific event—the conquest of the Promised Land that God had given to the people of Israel. It wouldn’t be wise for us to take those words out of their context and apply them recklessly to ourselves today. But let’s remember this, dear brothers and sisters in Christ: You and I have a great inheritance from God too. It’s not a land. It’s something even greater. It’s the very inheritance that God the Father has given to us through His Son Jesus Christ.

As it says in Ephesians 1:11-12;

In Him also [that is, in Jesus Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:11-12).

That inheritance is already ours as a gift of God’s grace. It’s defined in verse 3 as our having been blessed by God “with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ …” This means that when you and I desire to become more like Jesus Christ over the course of the coming year, we’re desiring something that God wants for us … and that He has, in fact, already graciously given to us. He has given us every spiritual resource necessary to put aside every sinful habit or destructive behavior, to take up every godly practice and holy duty, and to truly be closer to our Lord and to be more like Him than ever before.

But we must take hold of that inheritance and—with dependency on God’s help—make use of it so that it transforms our daily lives. We must truly appropriate what God has given us. And that’s why I have found such great help in the first few words of Joshua 1. In God’s words to Joshua, we find the habits that we ought to embrace in order to take possession of our inheritance in Jesus Christ.

Would you join me this morning in looking at these words? And as we do, would you pray with me that God will open our hearts up to what He wants us to do in order to draw closer to our Lord, and to become more like Him in the way we live in the coming year?

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So; let’s begin by looking at how the story in Joshua 1 begins. It tells us, in verse 1, that these words were spoken “[a]fter the death of Moses the servant of the Lord …”

Now; we understand that Moses himself was not ‘dead’ in the sense that he ceased to exist. Only his physical body had died. We know this because, when the Lord Jesus was on the Mount of Transfiguration, Moses—along with the prophet Elijah—appeared and spoke with the Lord concerning the sacrifice that He would soon make for us on the cross. Peter, James, and John all three saw Moses. So; Moses was still very much alive in the presence of the Lord. But the death of Moses’ body meant the end of his earthly ministry of leading the people. That ministry now fell upon Joshua.

And Joshua had been chosen for that task long before. Way back in Numbers 27, God had commanded Moses to lay his hands on his faithful assistant Joshua, share his authority with him, and appoint him to the position of leadership over the people. In Deuteronomy 31:1-8, we read Moses’ final words to the people and to Joshua … and they sound very much like the words of our passage;

Then Moses went and spoke these words to all Israel. And he said to them: “I am one hundred and twenty years old today. I can no longer go out and come in. Also the Lord has said to me, ‘You shall not cross over this Jordan.’ The Lord your God Himself crosses over before you; He will destroy these nations from before you, and you shall dispossess them. Joshua himself crosses over before you, just as the Lord has said. And the Lord will do to them as He did to Sihon and Og, the kings of the Amorites and their land, when He destroyed them. The Lord will give them over to you, that you may do to them according to every commandment which I have commanded you. Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

Then Moses called Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, “Be strong and of good courage, for you must go with this people to the land which the Lord has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall cause them to inherit it. And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed” (Deuteronomy 31:1-8).

And now that Moses—the servant of God—has died and had gone to be with the Lord, this great responsibility was passed on officially to Joshua. It was a new beginning for him and for the people of God. But it must have seemed like a very intimidating ‘new beginning’. And so; the Lord Himself spoke these words of exhortation to Joshua in verse 1: “After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, it came to pass that the Lord spoke to Joshua the son of Nun, Moses’ assistant, saying …”

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So then; what did God tell Joshua? What habits did God call Joshua to embrace that would inevitably lead to victory? And what does this teach us about the habits we must embrace?

In verses 2-4, God went on to tell Joshua specifically what He was giving to the people: “Moses My servant is dead. Now therefore, arise, go over this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them—the children of Israel. Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses. From the wilderness and this Lebanon as far as the great river, the River Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and to the Great Sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your territory.” God here describes an expanse of the land that is plenteous and prosperous. As Joshua stood somewhere near the River Jordan and gazed upon it all, it must have seemed to him to be vast indeed! And God made it very clear to the people of Israel that it truly was theirs. Every bit of it—even down to every spot that the soles of their feet would step.

In fact, God put this in a very strong way in the original Hebrew. It’s put in what’s called ‘the perfect aspect’; which, in this case, indicates a past action with ongoing and continuous impact. He was speaking in the plural to all the people; and was in effect saying, “Every place that the sole of your foot will tread upon I have already given to you all as a once-for-all-time act—having already been given to you and existing ongoingly as your present possession from Me.” They still had to rise up and take it, of course. But as God says in verse 4, it ‘shall be’ theirs because God had already given it to them fully.

Now; just think of how hard it would have been for them to walk into the land and take it if they hadn’t first had the full assurance from God that it truly was theirs. But the powerful confidence they had that God had given it to them as their inheritance from Him was what motivated them to rise up and take possession of it.

And this leads us to the first great habits we must embrace in order to possess our inheritance in Christ, and that’s …

1. KNOWING WHAT GOD HAS GIVEN TO US.

So often, you and I fail to enter into the fullness of the inheritance that God has given us in Christ—and fail to live victoriously for Him in daily life as we should—because we don’t know what we have been given. Or, if we know it, we don’t have the conviction that it’s truly ours. And so; one of the habits that we need to take to ourselves is to learn from God’s word what it is that has been truly given to us in Christ—and to truly know it with conviction.

That knowledge is so important that the apostle Paul earnestly prayed that God would give it to his believing brothers and sisters. In Ephesians 1:15-19, after talking about what God has given us in Christ, he wrote;

Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe … (Ephesians 1:15-19a).

Just as if he were talking about the boundaries of the land that God was giving Israel, Paul later wrote in Ephesians 3:14-19;

For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God (Ephesians 3:14-19).

So; dear brothers and sisters in Christ; in this coming year, let’s be praying and asking God to open our spiritual eyes to what it is that He has given us in Christ—so that we will know it with whole-hearted conviction.

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But it’s not enough to just know about these things. Drawing close to Jesus in the coming year will involve boldly taking hold of these spiritual blessings and putting them to use in the hard realities of life. There will be much opposition to our doing so—both spiritually and socially. And that will require courage.

When it came to helping the people of Israel take possession of their inheritance, Joshua needed courage too. I notice that, in the original Hebrew of this text, God now begins to speak to Joshua in the first person singular. He speaks directly to him in verses 5-6 and says, “No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.”

It would indeed take courage; because many nations and people groups would put up an intense resistance to the people of Israel as they came in to take possession of their inheritance from God. Moses also faced intense resistance as he led the people of Israel out of bondage. But just as God was with Moses, so God would be with Joshua. And throughout the Book of Joshua, we don’t see any hesitancy on the part of either Joshua or the people under his leadership. They took action because of their confidence in God’s presence and help. And so, they went forth courageously and boldly took what God had given them.

When it comes to taking hold of our inheritance in Christ, fear is an immobilizing weapon of the devil. And so, God’s words to Joshua teach us a second habit that God calls us to embrace in order to possess our inheritance in Christ, and that’s …

2. BEING STRONG AND COURAGEOUS IN FAITH.

That strength and courage doesn’t come from confidence in our own selves. It comes from confidence in the presence of God who is our Helper—just as God told Joshua that He would be with him before He commanded him to be strong and courageous. As the apostle Paul once wrote to his younger ministry colleague Timothy;

Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:6-7).

When it comes to taking hold of the inheritance that God has given us in Christ—and living a truly transformed life for Him in this fallen world—we must do so with the strength and courage God has already given us through Christ. The forces of the world, the flesh, and the devil will all work to keep us from growing more like Jesus in the coming year. There will be many times when the pressure will be intense, and when we’ll be tempted to quit because of the hard work or because of ‘the fear of man’. But if we’re afraid, we need to remember—as God’s word tells us—that such fear doesn’t come from our Lord.

So then; when our Lord says to rise up and take possession, we must be strong and courageous through faith in God—and not be afraid when the forces of ungodliness threaten us. God will help us to resist the devil. When we’re fearful, the devil will take advantage of that fear; but when we’re strong and courageous by faith in the Lord, he becomes afraid of our Lord and will flee from us.

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Now; as we go on to read God’s words to Joshua, we find that the strength and courage Joshua needed was to be put to a very specific kind of application. In verses 7-8, we find that God went on to tell him; “Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Isn’t that interesting? Joshua would need to be strong and courageous specifically in order to faithfully obey the commands that God had given him in the Book of the Law.

At the time that God spoke these words to Joshua, the Book of the Law was relatively small … compared anyway to what we have today in the whole Bible. It would have only contained the five books that God had given to the people of Israel through Moses. But Joshua was to be very careful to keep true to the Book of the Law, and to do all that it says, and not turn from it ‘to the right hand or to the left’. If he kept faithful to it—if he was to faithfully ‘meditate’ in it ‘day and night’ in order to do what it says—then he would be prosperous and successful in taking hold of what God was giving to him and to the people.

This leads us to a third habit that you and I must embrace if we’re going to take hold of our inheritance in Christ in the coming year, and that’s …

3. KEEPING OBEDIENT TO GOD’S WORD.

We wouldn’t know about our inheritance in Christ—and about the rich spiritual resources we have in Him—if it weren’t for the fact that God has graciously recorded them for us in His holy word. And He has so designed our life in Christ that we cannot prosper and grow in it unless we faithfully study and obey God’s word on a regular basis. As it says in Psalm 1 … in words that, again, sound very much like what God was telling Joshua;

Blessed is the man
Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor stands in the path of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of the scornful;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And in His law he meditates day and night.
He shall be like a tree
Planted by the rivers of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also shall not wither;
And whatever he does shall prosper (Psalm 1:1-3).

And this is also very much like what the apostle Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:16-17;

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

After fifty years of walking with the Lord Jesus—and seeking to grow in a deeper relationship with Him—I would urge every young believer that I could to start reading the Bible. I would tell them, “As much as you can—and as early in life as you can—and as diligently as you can—make it your habit to read from the Bible daily, and to work your way all the way through repeatedly. Put it as high on the priority list as possible. Say ‘no’ to other things so that you can say ‘yes’ to a daily time in the Bible. If you miss a day, get back to it the next day; and no matter how hard it may seem at first to do, don’t ever quit.” And if I could talk to every older believer, do you know what I’d tell them? I’d tell them the same thing! Don’t give up!

Now; it will take courage from God to read His word daily—and not only to read it but to obey it. The world around us will oppose us at every turn. But there really is no better way to equip yourself to seize hold of all the riches God is giving you in Christ than by reading, and studying, and memorizing, and—most of all—obeying God’s word as a daily habit of life. Don’t turn from it to the right hand or the left. It’s only then that you will make your way prosperous, and you will have good success in your walk with Jesus.

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So then; God urged Joshua to know what God was giving him and the people as an inheritance, and to be strong and courageous in faith in taking hold of it, and to keep faithful in the Book of the Law in order to protect it and preserve it and prosper in it. Those are habits we need to take up to experience a victorious life in Jesus in the coming year. It’s how God will enable us to conquer the sins in our lives and to experience the fullness of our inheritance in Christ.

Now; this may all seem hard to do. You may even look at yourself and feel unequal to the challenge. You may feel like there are so many sins to set aside, and so many new habits to take up, and so much resistance to overcome, that you could never follow through and take up your inheritance in Christ as you should. But there was one more thing God told Joshua. It’s what we find in verse 9. He said; “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” In all of this, God wanted Joshua to know that he was not going forth into this hard task—this new challenging ‘beginning’—all on his own.

And this teaches us that a final habit that we need to embrace in order to take hold of our inheritance in Christ is …

4. REMEMBERING THAT GOD IS ALWAYS WITH US.

Joshua didn’t bring about that great victory in his own power. He was only able to do so because God was with him. God had promised that He would be with him all the way to the end. And when it comes to you and me growing deeper in Jesus in the coming year—allowing God to take away from us the things that prohibit our growth in Him—allowing God to bring us into a greater conformity to Him in our daily behavior—fending off the attacks from the enemy along the way—we need to remember that it’s God who does this in us and for us. He is always with us, and He will not leave us.

As Paul put it in Philippians 2:12-13;

Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling … (Philippians 2:12);

and that’s our part of the work. But Paul went on to affirm;

… for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure (v. 13).

and that’s His part. We do it with ‘fear and trembling’—not because of the opposition, but rather because of the majesty of the mighty God who is with us. So; God’s word to Joshua is a word to us: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

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Now; I asked at the beginning of our time that you resolve with me that we would become more like the Lord Jesus in the coming year. But let me close with one more thing. It’s not something that we find specifically in the words that God spoke to Joshua; but rather in the fact that the man God spoke to was named ‘Joshua’.

Joshua was the name of the man that the people were to follow. He was God’s appointed leader to them. He was one with them, and they were to go in and receive their inheritance as he led them. But did you know that the name Joshua—a Hebrew name—is the same as the name of our Lord Jesus? I believe that there’s an important spiritual truth being illustrated to us in that.

When it comes to taking hold of the rich inheritance that God has given us—and when it comes to conquering every obstacle that stands in our way—the fact is that we can’t do any of it in our own power. We simply will not take hold of our inheritance unless we keep ourselves completely dependent upon our ‘Joshua’—the Lord Jesus Himself—to empower us and lead us. As Paul put it in 1 Corinthians 15:57;

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:57).

The surest way for us to grow to be like Jesus Christ in the coming year is to grow deeper—during this coming year—in our personal relationship of love for, dependency upon, and obedience to the Lord Jesus Himself.

Let’s always remember that He’s the ‘Joshua’ that leads us to victory.

AE