01/26/14 Give Me My Mountain!
Text: Joshua
14:6-14 (NKJV)
6 Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb
the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him: "You know the word which
the LORD said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. 7
I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadesh
Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my
heart. 8 Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the
people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9 So Moses swore on
that day, saying, 'Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your
inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly followed the LORD
my God.' 10 And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as He said, these
forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel
wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old.
11 As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just
as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and
for coming in. 12 Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke
in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the
cities were great and fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I
shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said." 13 And Joshua
blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance. 14
Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the
Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel.”
Application:
God blesses when you wholly follow!
Intro: When the tribe of Judah comes forward,
there is a gray-haired, 85-year-old man in the midst of them. A man named Caleb
steps forward to claim his inheritance. Caleb is a picture of the child of God
who is not satisfied with the ordinary, but who wants all that God can give
him. God saves us, and promises us that we can have a life of victory and
intense spiritual joy, but rather than claim what is rightfully ours, we choose
to live in a spiritual wilderness, defeated and depressed. As a result, we miss
out on things like peace, joy, fellowship, power, and the glory of God. Many
Christians are guilty of spiritual window-shopping. Now there is nothing wrong
with window-shopping! Some folks like it and some don't.
As believers, we need
to do more than window-shop with God's promises. Caleb pictures the Christian
who is willing to pay any price, fight any battles in order to win the
victories that God has waiting for him. In these verses, we are shown how we
can claim our little part of Canaan and walk in victory day by day! In verse 12
of this text, Caleb walked up to Joshua and said, “Now, therefore, give me this
mountain…” I want to take this text and point out some of the characteristics
in Caleb's life that enable him to say “Give Me My Mountain.” If we want to be
able to claim all that the Lord has for us, these same characteristics need to
be true in our lives as well.
1st characteristics: for claiming your mountain: Commitment!
1. Caleb Was Committed: vs. 8-9, 14
“Nevertheless my brethren who went up with
me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the LORD my God. 9 So
Moses swore on that day, saying, 'Surely the land where your foot has trodden
shall be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly
followed the LORD my God. 14 Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb
the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the LORD
God of Israel.”
The first key to Caleb success was that God had all of Caleb
that there was! “Wholly followed the Lord.” The word “wholly” literally means “to
fill.” It carries the idea of “filling a sail with air.”
Every inch, every
ounce, every nerve, every fiber of Caleb belonged to God. If you're holding
back on the Lord you should to be ashamed of yourself! If you are saved, you
are all His anyway; you belong to Him. Too many Christians leave themselves an
escape hatch back into their old lives of sin. We need to burn every bridge
that leads back to the old life and set our minds to the task of following the
Lord, conquering our Canaan, and being the Christians God saved us to be. Some
people will go to extravagant lengths to avoid doing what they have promised
the Lord they would do. Half-hearted Christians are faint-hearted Christians
and they never learn to conquer the giants in their lives.
The story is told of
a man who rode in his car as it was being towed to be repaired. When they
arrived at the repair shop, the tow truck driver told him, “I didn't think I
was going to make it up that big hill.” The man replied, “I didn't either.
That's why I kept the brakes on.” To live without total dedication to Christ is
the same as trying to go forward and to hold back at the same time. James 1:8 “he
is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”
Jesus calls us to follow Him
with a similar kind of commitment and courage, willing to risk all for His
sake. The man who kneels before God can stand before anybody or anything. Our
commitment to Christ affects all our other relationships. The more devoted we
are to Jesus, the more faithful we will be to our churches, families, and
friends. All Jesus wants from you is your total commitment. Anything less will
keep you from reaching your Canaan victory.
All this comes down to one truth.
If you, like Caleb, will close the gap between yourself and Him; if you will
pursue God with every fiber of your being, you will find yourself closer to Him
than you could have ever imagined - James 4:8 “Draw near to God and He will
draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you
double-minded.”
1st characteristics: for claiming your mountain: Commitment!
2nd
characteristics: for claiming your mountain: Confident!
2. Caleb Was Confident:
vs. 12
“Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that
day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were
great and fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be
able to drive them out as the LORD said." What was it that gave
85-year-old Caleb the idea he could be a giant killer? Caleb's confidence was
in God's word: “And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as He said, these
forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel
wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old.”
God made this promise to Caleb: “When the LORD heard your complaining, he
became very angry. So he solemnly swore, 35 ‘Not one of you from this
wicked generation will live to see the good land I swore to give your
ancestors, 36 except Caleb son of Jephunneh. He will see this land because
he has followed the LORD completely. I will give to him and his descendants
some of the very land he explored during his scouting mission.’ Deuteronomy
1:34-36 (NLT)
I can see Caleb now climbing that mountain with a sword in one
hand and a deed in the other while singing to the top of his lungs, “Give me my
mountain!” Caleb knew God had given it to him so he claimed it. Faith is not
positive thinking. Faith is not "name it and claim it.” Faith is not
optimism. Faith is not looking on the bright side. Faith is simply acting on
what God says. Faith is simply taking God at His Word and believing that He
will do everything He has promised to do! Faith is more than saying that you
believe what God says; faith is acting on what God says. It takes faith to win
the spiritual victory. In fact, only faith can give us the victory. Hebrews
11:6 “But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God
must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek
Him.”
Faith is never a blind leap, but a deep settled conviction that God will
do what He has promised!
1st characteristics: for claiming your mountain:
Commitment!
2nd characteristics: for claiming your mountain: Confident!
3rd characteristics:
for claiming your mountain: Courageous!
3. Caleb Was Courageous:
In Caleb's
life, commitment led to confidence, and confidence to courage. Caleb had to
overcome three great obstacles in his quest for his Canaan.
- He Had to Overcome Grasshoppers
For Caleb to claim what God had promised he had to go against the majority. “We
even saw giants there, the descendants of Anak. Next to them we felt like
grasshoppers, and that’s what they thought, too!” Numbers 13:33 (NLT)
Jesus -
He was usually alone in everything He did! There will always be someone saying
that it can't be done, it's never been done like that before, we can't afford
it. Sometimes you will stand alone, but if you are standing on the Word of God
in the will of God, then you were never in better company!
- He Had to Overcome Giants
“And if the LORD is pleased with us, he will bring us safely into that land and
give it to us. It is a rich land flowing with milk and honey. 9 Do not rebel
against the LORD, and don’t be afraid of the people of the land. They are only
helpless prey to us! They have no protection, but the LORD is with us! Don’t be
afraid of them!” Numbers 14:8-9 (NLT)
All of us have giants in our lives.
Giants of discouragement, finances, sickness, family, distress, doubt and the
truth is, we can't defeat them ourselves. We have two options. We can look at
how small we are compared to our giants. This is the outlook of fear! – or We
can look at how small our giants are compared to God! This is the uplook of
faith!
When we are facing life's giants and are in danger of falling, the
Heavenly Father comes alongside of us to help us carry on for His glory.
- He Had to Overcome Gray Hairs
“Now, as you can see, the LORD has kept me alive and
well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this
promise - even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five
years old.”
What does this tell us? When God makes a promise, he will give us the
strength to see its fulfillment! Never count God, or yourself out. True faith
looks beyond the present circumstance and sees the provision of the Almighty!
Comedian
Jerry Clower tells a story about Uncle Versie Ledbetter who had a mule named
Della. One day Della fell into a cistern Uncle Versie thought he had covered up
but hadn't:“Uncle Versie had a problem. There was his best mule down at the
bottom of that cistern and no way he could get the mule out of there. He didn't
want her to stay down there and starve to death, so he decided he would get a
shovel and cover her up. It would be cruel, but it wouldn't be as cruel and
inhumane as to let Della starve to death in the bottom of that deep cistern.
Uncle Versie took a shovelful of dirt and threw it down into the cistern and
every time a shovelful of dirt hit old Della, she'd shake the dirt off and
stomp it. It wasn't long before Della had shaken off enough dirt and stomped it
so that she was high enough to jump out of the cistern.”
We're like that mule -
either our problems will bury us or we shake them off and stomp them down until
we rise above them.
When you boil all the fat away, courage can be defined in
three letter: Y E S! All real Christian courage really is, is the willingness
to say “Yes!” to what God is doing in your life.
1st characteristics: for
claiming your mountain: Commitment!
2nd characteristics: for claiming your
mountain: Confident!
3rd characteristics: for claiming your mountain:
Courageous!
4th characteristics: for claiming your mountain: Conqueror!
4. Caleb
Was Conqueror:
And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of
Jephunneh as an inheritance. 14 Hebron therefore became the inheritance of
Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly
followed the LORD God of Israel.”
Caleb experienced what God had promised! He
climbed the mountains and he defeated the giants - he claimed his possession. The
name of the place Caleb inherited was named “Hebron.” This means “Fellowship”.
Caleb refused to quit until he had obtained everything the Lord has for him! He
refused to stop until he had obtained that place of fellowship with God. That
needs to be our battle cry today! We must refuse to give up, back up, or shut up
or be held up, until we have stood up, lined up, read up, prayed up, confessed
up, stored up, spoke up, looked up, and filled up on everything the Lord wants
to give His children! We ought to settle for nothing less than that place of
perfect fellowship with the Lord our God!
What about you, have you entered your
Canaan and claimed your possession? It isn't God's will for you to wander
around in the wilderness of defeat forever. It is His will that you walk in
victory and in His power. There will be trials? God had: a flood for Noah, a
fire for the 3 Hebrews, a lion's den for Daniel, and a cross for Jesus, but
there was victory in the midst of each trial for these and there will be
victory for you as well!
God has a place of peace and power for you, but you
must be willing the claim your possession. It isn't for the fainthearted, but
it is for the faith hearted. Come claim your Canaan right now! There is a vast
difference between a promise and a possession! God promised Israel the land,
but they had to possess it before it became theirs. God has victory for His children
that are His promise! That promise must be actively pursued and possessed
before it will ever become a reality.
In : Sermon
Tags: joshua
blog comments powered by Disqus