The Journey Continues: God's Call to Perseverance in Joshua 13

Hello, and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church Podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.

My name is Pastor Josh, and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.

I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.

Now, come along.

Let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.

Well, let's go ahead and get into our study here this evening.

As I mentioned, we're in Joshua 13.

If you've been tracking our study, we ended in Joshua 11.

And you might say, why aren't we talking about Joshua 12?

Well, we certainly could, but Joshua 12 is just a long list of the lands conquered by Joshua, so.

Or, excuse me, by Moses, and then eventually the lands conquered by Joshua.

And if you're interested in knowing about all those lands, I would encourage you to read through chapter 12 on your own time.

But what we are going to do is we're going to jump to chapter 13, which speaks of the fact that there has been a lot of land conquered, there's been a lot of people conquered for the cause of God, and ultimately, there's been a lot of victory in the nation of Israel through the power of God.

And so we see chapter 12 basically recounting all of the good things that God has done.

You could look at chapter 12 essentially as a testimony of God's power and strength through the history of God's people there in the land of Canaan.

And you see that Moses had a lot of victory.

Ultimately, it was God's victory.

We see that Joshua then picking up the torch, picking up the mantle.

You see a lot of victories in the life of Joshua through the power of God.

And you can even go back to Joshua chapter one to see the marching orders for Joshua basically pick up where Moses left off.

Follow me, Obey my word, live out my word, and you will find success.

That's what it says in Joshua chapter one.

He says, don't have fear, but be courageous.

Trust in me in every aspect of your life.

And throughout Joshua's life and throughout the time that he led the people of Israel, for the most part, there was a lot of trust.

And in that trust came victory.

And we get to chapter 13.

And it would be easy to say that, hey, you know what?

There's been a lot of victory.

It's time to quit.

I think that as Christians, we go through those seasons of life in which we're pushing forward for the truth.

We're striving to obey God, but we get to a point in our life where we could be honest with ourselves that there's more behind us than there is before us when it comes to time.

And that's where we really find Joshua.

In chapter 13, basically, we see that Joshua is at the tail end of his life and most of his victories are behind him.

But we're going to see here in this chapter that God basically tells Joshua, look, you're old, by the way, that's a direct quote, and we're going to get to that here in a second.

And that's some strong words.

But he basically says, joshua, you're.

You're getting up there in age, but we're not done yet.

There's still more land to be won.

There's still more victory to be seen.

And sometimes in our Christian life, we all have certain points in which we feel like, man, you know what?

God's done a lot in my life, but I don't know if he can do any more.

Maybe I'm past those years of my effectiveness for him.

Maybe I'm past those years of service and, and being old, and we're going to use that word a lot tonight.

Being old is all relative, by the way.

Let me tell you that to.

To my children, I'm an old, old man.

And, and they look at me and they say, dad, you're old.

They don't really say that.

They.

They don't want to.

They don't want to, you know, make me feel bad.

But relatively speaking, there's this idea that all of us to some degree have the experience of God doing things in our life, and there is sometimes the temptation to quit.

And so in chapter 12, we see that man, Moses, through the power of God, was able to conquer all these different lands.

And then Joshua, through the power of God, was able to conquer all of these lands.

And we get to chapter 13, and it says, now Joshua was old and stricken in years.

I love the way that the King James says that.

It's a very proper way to say that they're really worn out, right?

Joshua was old and stricken in years.

And you have to remember Joshua has gone through a lot.

There's been a lot of physical battle that he has fought in his life.

There's been a lot of spiritual battles that he has fought in his life.

And no doubt he.

He is worn out, physically speaking.

And I think all of us could attest to a time in our life where we say, you know what?

I just have a lot of experience.

But with that experience has come a lot of pain.

Come, come a Lot of brokenness.

And it goes further here and it says, and the Lord said unto him, thou art old and stricken in years.

And so he's reminded about his current physical state.

And so if we were to leave it there, we would say, okay, this is the end of the story of Joshua.

This is the end of the book, so to speak.

And so God acknowledges Joshua's advanced years.

But we're going to see here is that God still tells him that there's a job that needs to get done, that there's work still to be done.

He says, joshua, you are old and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.

I know that we have a church that's very diverse in our culture.

That's one of the blessings of our church.

I really enjoy coming to a church with different people from different backgrounds and, and different cultures and different foods and different, different traditions that, that we can come together with unified purpose in the Gospel.

But also admittedly and actually for, for my excitement, we are a multi generational church.

We, we see people from all over the different ages, and that's an exciting thing.

But oftentimes what can happen within churches is that the church can be full of people who have served for, I would say, 50, 60 years.

And we see people that have been faithful for so long and the temptation might be to say, you know what, our best years are behind us, those are the glory days.

And there might be an overlooking of the need to push forward with the message of the gospel.

And one of the things that I love about our church is that we have folks that have been faithful for, for decades and have seen God's hand work.

And we also have younger folks that are coming up and just getting into the time in their life where they're serving in ministry.

But what we can see in verse one is this, that for Joshua, the job was not done.

For God, the job was not done.

There were still things that needed to be accomplished.

And so I think about it this way.

No matter how much we have done in our Christian life, no matter how many ministries that we've served in, no matter how many Bible studies we've been a part of, no matter how many classes that we've been attending, it means though, that even though we've accomplished so much in our life, there still remains so much to do.

If God allows for us to take in breath, there's still an opportunity to serve.

Now, it might be at different capacities, it might be in a different manner, but ultimately what we see is that if we are believers and we're still here on this earth.

God still has a plan for us.

We have not reached our pinnacle.

We will never reach the spiritual pinnacle until we are reunited with Him.

I want to take you to a passage in the New Testament that talks about this very same thing.

We're going to come back to Joshua chapter 13.

But if you go with me to the Book of Philippians, we have the book of Philippians as an awesome book about the joy of the Lord, the peace of the Lord.

And in Philippians chapter three, we see Paul discussing his ministry, essentially.

And there's a lot of things that he notes in Philippians chapter three.

But I like one of the verses here, actually more than one verse.

It's really a thought that he gives.

In Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians chapter 3, verse 13, Paul says, Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, meaning Paul says, I haven't reached it yet.

And if Paul says that he hasn't reached it yet, none of us can say that we've reached it yet.

I know that there are people that say, well, Pastor, I'm going to tell you right now, I think I'm as spiritually mature as I ever will be.

Well, Paul says here, I haven't apprehended it yet.

I haven't reached the pinnacle yet.

I'm still searching, I'm still growing, I'm still learning, I'm still serving.

He says, I've count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before.

And oftentimes we think about verse number 13, and we think about looking back to the bad things of our life.

And certainly that would apply to this context.

We don't want to look back to our past sins.

We don't want to look back to our past failures and allow that to dictate our future and to live in the past and to live in our sin.

We but also I do believe that this means looking back to those victories of our past, even though the victories of our past can remind us of the victories of the future, oftentimes people look back to the past and say, you know what?

I was able to accomplish that for the Lord, but I'm done now.

What Paul is saying is, is I'm not looking back to those things which are behind.

No, I'm reaching forth unto those things which are before.

I, I, I still have a purpose.

I still have victories to have found in Jesus Christ.

I still have battles that I have to fight.

And he says in verse 14, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

And so the idea here that Paul is saying, and it's the same idea that the Lord is speaking to Joshua about, is that if he has you here in this life, there is still a purpose for you there.

There are still things that we need to accomplish for the Lord, and there's still things that God is accomplishing through us.

And so I think about Philippians chapter three quite frequently because every year that I'm in ministry, I think about what's next.

Can, can I do what God has called me to do tomorrow?

And the truth is is that of course I can.

Because the Bible says in one more chapter in Philippians chapter 4, verse 13, that I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.

That doesn't mean I can do whatever I want to do and God will just bless it.

What it means is that if God calls me to something, whether it be a battle, whether it be a ministry, whether it be a study or anything that God calls me to or allows me to go through, that he will give me the strength to see the victory in that process.

And so we go back to Joshua chapter 13, and we see that Joshua is reminded that it's not over with yet.

Though there has been a lot of victory, there is still much to do.

I think about this church, think about the decade of faithfulness in this church, by the way, I think, is it 2027 that we reach our 60 years of being a church?

And I think about all the great victories this church has seen and all the many folks that have been saved through this ministry and all the ministries that have been started through this ministry and folks that have left this ministry to go serve in other places and think about all those victories.

But I also think about the idea that even if we're at 60 years, there's still much to do.

If God allows, there might be another 60 years that we have here.

And some of you might say, well, Pastor, if there's another 60 years, I might not be here for that.

I understand.

But some of those little ones that you see running around on Sunday mornings might be here for that.

And the idea would be that we want to leave a legacy, we want to push forward in the time that we have.

And so church and the gospel and the ministry is not just about the here and now, but it's about what God is doing and what he is going to continue to do.

And so here in this passage God wants Joshua, God wants Israel to keep pressing on.

And the best spiritual advice that I can give you in the context of trials and tribulations is obviously trusting in the Lord, but keep pressing on and trust in the one who has been faithful, as he's been faithful to the nation of Israel all the way through the book of Joshua, all the way through of the account of Moses.

God has been faithful.

And they are reminded that just as he has been faithful before, he will be faithful in the next battles that are being fought.

And so what we see at the end of verse number two is this.

He says, this is the land that yet remaineth.

He says, okay, this is the new task.

This.

There is more land to be won.

He says, all the borders of the Philistines and all of Geshura, Geshurai and all the rest.

He.

He goes on to list all these different lands.

And you might say, what's the point of that?

The point is this.

Yes, there were victories.

Yes, there was land given over to the people of Israel, but there was still more land to be possessed.

And so what the land was to Israel, I believe, is what Jesus is to us.

There.

There was this goal, there was this prize of the promised land for the people of Israel back in the Old Testament.

And essentially the land was the culmination of God's promise to the people.

He says, I'm there with you.

I'm.

I'm going to promise you this land.

I'm going to take you out of bondage in Egypt, and I'm going to move you through the wilderness, and I'm going to land you in a place of promise and of blessing, right?

The land of milk and honey.

And for us, that's a picture of our salvation that we find in Jesus Christ.

We were all in Egypt.

We were all in a place of bondage.

We were all in a place in which we were not masters of our own life, even though we might think that we are masters in control of what we're doing.

The Bible says that before we came to Christ, before we found forgiveness, we had another master.

The Bible says in Ephesians, chapter two, that we were children of darkness, but at the moment of salvation, in that transformation, the Bible says that we now find newness of life.

We now find that hope in Jesus Christ.

Therefore, for us, sin and being in that bondage was a picture of us being in Egypt, just like the people of Israel were in Egypt.

And God comes and he saves them, and he pulls them out of that land of darkness, that land of Bondage, that land of sin.

And there's a beautiful picture as they leave Egypt of what we call the Passover.

You guys are familiar with that.

And there was the.

They were called to have the spotless lamb that they were to take the blood of and put around the doorpost.

And it's a beautiful picture of who Jesus is to us as the perfect Passover lamb.

And his perfect blood is what causes us to find forgiveness and salvation.

And so they're taken out of the promised land.

And, excuse me, they were taken out of the land of Egypt and brought to the Promised land.

And that's a picture of God's culmination of the promise.

And so what does that look like for us?

That looks like for us a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and ultimately everlasting life with him.

And so there's more to be done.

And.

And so the question that I would pose here this evening is this.

How much of the Promised Land have you explored?

I mean, for them, there was still more to see, there was still more to do.

And for many of us, like we were mentioning this morning, there is a stunted understanding of what we have in Jesus Christ.

There is a limited understanding of the promises and the blessings and the culmination of God's love for us.

And so as a Christian, there's still more battles to fight.

There's still more things to learn.

One of the things that I struggle with, and I'm just going to be transparent with you, is that I announce, hey, we're going to preach through the book of Romans.

And I'm excited for that.

And someone goes, I've heard, I've already read the book of Romans, so I'm not interested.

And I said, well, like.

Like there might be something new for you in this book.

Okay?

I don't know about you guys, but when I read the Bible, I've read it multiple times, and every time I read it, there's something new that jumps out.

There's a different perspective.

There's a new lesson that I can apply, and I see it from a different perspective.

When I used to read the Bible as a young man, I saw it from a certain perspective.

And then I got married and I saw it from a different perspective.

Then I had children, and then I saw it from a different perspective.

Right?

Different stages of our life cause us to see different things in Scripture.

And so what I would say is this.

Don't ever get satisfied with the land or the blessings that God has given you.

Don't ever get to a place where you say, that's all I want.

I don't want any more.

No, the Bible says that we should continuously desire to know God more and more, each and every day, and so don't get to a place in your life.

I don't want to get in place into my life where Bible learning is just something that's like, well, I've already done that class.

I've already been here before.

I don't need it anymore.

Folks, folks, the people that are in that class might need you to be the voice and maybe the experience that they can learn from.

I know for me, when I'm teaching and when I'm part of a classroom setting, I love when people have different perspectives and maybe they see it from a different angle and maybe someone can speak from a more mature perspective.

And so, folks, let's not look at the blessings of God as something that's only for us, even though the blessings are abundant.

But also, as we're going to see here, that it wasn't just for this generation.

It wasn't just for Joshua, it wasn't just for Joshua's children, but it was for the future.

And the idea would be that we want to leave a legacy so that people can see the victories of God and so that the Word of God can be passed on to many more generations.

And so he goes on through verses two, through verses six, to basically explain that the land that is is there still to be conquered is there to be conquered, and God was going to use them.

He says in verse three, from Sehor, which is before Egypt, even unto the borders of Ekron northward, which is counted to the Canaanite five lords of the Philistines and the Gasites and the and Ashadites and the Esites and the Gites and the Ekonites and also the Aites.

And there's a lot of ites in there.

Verse 4.

For the south all the land of the Canaanites and.

And Mera that is beside the Sidonians and unto Apac to the borders of the Amorites in the land of the Giblites and all of Lebanon toward the sun rising from BAAL Gad under Mount Hermon unto the entering into hath all the inhabitants of the hill country from Lebanon to Mishrafath Maim and all the Sidonians them will I drive out from before the children of Israel.

Now I want to stop there because I want you to see this.

He says, verses two through six.

Here's all the people that you still need to go conquer.

There's still victories that need to happen.

But he ends verse six with a reminder that you're not going to do it alone.

And so for us in the spiritual context, we think about this and we say, okay, so Pastor, you're telling me that I have more battles to fight.

You're telling me that there's more things I've got to do.

I'm tired, I'm weak, I can't fight any more battles.

Well, the beauty is, is that God's already ahead of us, fighting the battles for us.

That's what he says in verse six.

He says, those people that I just mentioned them will I drive out from before the children of Israel.

And so what we can see there at the end of verse six is that God is going to give them the victory.

God promises the that he will drive these people before the children of Israel.

And so he intends to do the work before.

And then he ask for them, he requests of them, he offers to them the opportunity to be a part of this victory.

And so he intends that each tribe will trust God and then eventually get the portion of land that he has for them.

And by the way, the portions of the land were different.

Some tribes which we're going to see got to go to this area and other tribes got to go to this area.

Not everyone receives the exact same inheritance on this side of heaven.

All of us get the blessing of being with our Savior one day.

But different people get different opportunities to fight different battles and to have different blessings.

And so the challenge is going to be for the different tribes is that one tribe doesn't get jealous of the other tribes land that God gives them.

Ultimately it's the blessing of, of the victory.

And sometimes it's difficult for us to deal with that within the church setting because we see, you know, all of us are facing trials and tribulations and sometimes it seems like other people go through a trial and get something that I didn't get to have.

And therefore I can be jealous and I can have covetousness and I can look at someone and say, why don't I have that gift?

I wish I was like that.

I wish I had that opportunity.

And the truth is, is that the Bible calls us to be content with the blessings of the gift of grace that he gives to all of us.

I know for me, I would look at a preacher growing up and I would see him preach and I would see him have all the verses memorized and I would see someone get up and sing in front of the church and I would see wow.

That, that is an amazing blessing.

I'm nowhere near that gifted.

And what the lie was in my mind is that they're way more gifted than me.

I can't be used of God, that those people are the ones that are used by God.

I'm not gifted in that way.

But folks, the Bible clearly teaches that we are all gifted in particular ways, different ways, but equally important ways that we can serve within the church.

And so the challenge would be this, that all of us, as God divides out the blessings to us in the spiritual gifts, that one of us doesn't look at someone else and go, well, I want to be like them, therefore I'm going to be bitter about my, my gift.

I'm going to be covetous, and I'm going to want what they have.

No, what we're going to see later on is that there's actually one tribe that doesn't even get land, but they get something even better, which we're going to talk about towards the end of the chapter.

So he says in verse number six, there is more to accomplish, but I'm at work.

I will drive them out before the children of Israel.

And then he says, only divide thou it by lot unto the Israelites for an inheritance, as I have commanded thee, meaning this.

I've already done this.

I've already commanded this to happen.

Many of you know that God has already delineated the certain places of the allotment for the land for each tribe.

And that's what the next part of this chapter is all about.

So starting in verse number seven, it says, now therefore divide this land for an inheritance unto the nine tribes and the half tribe of Manasseh, with whom the Reubenites and the Gadites have received their inheritance, which Moses gave them beyond Jordan eastward, even as Moses the servant of the Lord gave them.

And so he begins to describe the different lands and the different allotments.

And he goes down to verse number 13, and he concludes that thought with basically this verse 13.

He says, the Gesherites and the and the Makayites dwell among the Israelites unto this day, meaning there's still some people that need to be driven out.

And.

And ultimately, though there he even said in verse 12, there's the remnant of the giants.

And so through all of this different explanation of the land, he still is pointing out to them that there's still battles that need to be fought.

But then he talks in verse number 14 about something very interesting.

He says, only unto the tribe of Levi, he gave none inheritance.

So it sounds like initially that Levi gets left out, that the tribe of Levi misses out because they don't get any land.

He says only unto the tribe of Levi, he gave none inheritance.

But then he says something interesting.

He says the sacrifices of the Lord God of Israel made by fire are their inheritance, as he said unto them.

Which means this Levi, which was the priestly tribe, was to receive no land, so to speak, like the other tribes did.

They would be given certain cities, but ultimately they were not given any land.

And what they were given was something else.

They were giving something to the security of having a complete relationship with the Lord and being able to be the ones who were offering the sacrifices.

And so essentially their inheritance was their presence and their role with the Lord.

And I think of all of the tribes of Israel, the most connection that we as Christians today have as what we would call maybe like a relative in, in the tribes would be Levi, because we don't necessarily get material blessings in our salvation.

We get the spiritual blessing of having a relationship with God.

And that's what he is saying there.

He says Levi doesn't need the land.

They.

They have a relationship with God.

Then we see verses 15 through 23.

Reuben's land in his inheritance is given to that tribe.

And that's.

That's another thing that you can read in your own time.

We're not going to read all of the boundaries there, but what we see is that there's a portion of land given to the tribe of Reuben.

And then starting in verse number 24, there's the inheritance of Gad.

And so there's the portions of land for that.

And then we see in verse 29, the inheritance of the half tribe of Manasseh and the things that they are given there all the way to verse 32.

But then starting there in verse 33, we see another reiteration of what the tribe of Levi receives.

And it says in verse 33, but unto the tribe of Levi, Moses gave not an inheritance, meaning no land.

The Lord God of Israel was their inheritance, as he said unto them.

And I wanted just to take a few minutes here to think about that phrase in verse 33.

Unto the tribe of Levi, Moses gave not any inheritance.

The Lord God of Israel was their inheritance.

And so in a sense, what we're seeing here is that if there is, like I said before, if there's any tribe that's connected to Christians today, it would be the tribe of Levi.

Why?

Because we are given an inheritance of being part of the family of God and actually believe it or not, I did a study one time that said this.

If you are a believer, you are a priest.

So did you know that you're a Baptist priest?

Some of you are like, no, I'm not a Baptist priest.

Well, maybe you're not a Baptist, but if you're a Christian, you're a priest.

The reality is this.

The.

The Bible says in First Peter, Chapter 2, Verse 5, Peter is explaining this spiritual building that is being built through the family of God.

And of course, he mentions that the chief cornerstone of that building is Jesus Christ.

So he's the foundation.

The church always should have the foundation set in Jesus Christ.

In him alone.

There's no foundation in our money.

There's no foundation in our skills.

There's no foundation in our heritage.

The foundation is set in Jesus and Jesus alone.

But then he says that that building that's built upon the foundation is made up of lively or living stones.

That's 1 Peter 2, 5.

He says, as you come into the family of God through faith, you are one of the stones that is building this big spiritual house.

And he says, you are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood.

You say, well, how could I be a priest?

I'm, I'm.

I don't do what a priest does.

Well, actually you do.

Because if you think about the Old Testament, what was the role of a priest?

The role of the priest was to be a mediary, an intermediary between God and man.

So what would happen is, is it was only the Levite priest who could come in, and more particularly the high priest could come in and have that time with the Holy of Holies.

And there was that, that communion.

And he would petition on behalf people.

So really a priest is someone who has access to God.

And the Bible says in First Timothy that there's no mediator between God and man except for Jesus Christ.

And so what that means is that if we have a relationship with Jesus, we are now priesthood.

We have the priesthood of all believers, meaning all of us have access to God in a personal way.

And I think about that, and that's so important because sometimes people will teach, different groups will teach that you have to go through somebody else to find God.

And the only thing that we have to go through is the Bible says in John 14:6 that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

No man comes unto the Father, but through Jesus, not through any other man.

And so the Bible says that there's one mediator, that's Jesus.

And so what that means is, is that when we're part of the priesthood.

We are able to access God in a personal way.

You don't, you don't have to come and knock on Pastor Josh's door and say, hey, Pastor Josh, I need you to talk to God.

You can talk to God on your own.

Now that doesn't mean that I don't pray for you.

It doesn't mean that I can't help you.

But what that means is, is that you don't need me to find God.

You don't need me to understand his word.

You don't need me to see him working through your life.

It's an individual thing that we're able to find in Jesus Christ.

And so it says in first Peter 2.

5, We're a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.

What, by Jesus Christ?

Through Jesus Christ.

And so our relationship with Jesus allows us to offer sacrifices like the Levite priests were able to.

The, the, the.

Our, our relationship with Jesus Christ allows us to have that connection, that communication with God through the holy priesthood.

And it allows us to be part of the living stones that are built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.

So at the end of Joshua, chapter 13, I, I read that verse and, and I saw the description there that the Levites had the Lord as their inheritance.

And I think about that within the Christian life.

We want all the blessings that come along with being a Christian.

But oftentimes we forget about the greatest inheritance, and that is our relationship with Jesus Christ and the eternal life that we can find in him to be his child, to call him master.

That's really the greatest inheritance we can have.

And maybe I sound like a broken record, but I have to be so careful because the reality is, is that the prosperity Gospel is, it's, it's moving within our midst.

It's all over the Internet, it's all over the world.

And what I want you to understand is that God's main purpose for you is not to have all the things that you've ever wanted.

God's main purpose for you is to know that you can know Him.

And then that's the greatest treasure.

If God took away everything else, he doesn't, thankfully, by his grace, but if God took away everything else other than our relationship with him, that would still be enough of an inheritance.

And what Joshua is reminded here is that, hey, you know what?

These people here, they have an inheritance in the Lord, lest they be tempted to think that someone else has a better inheritance.

And he ends that chapter with this.

He says, as he said unto them, I don't know about you, but there's been times in my life where I've been tempted to be dissatisfied with my place before God.

I, I, I compare myself to other people.

I look at another pastor and I say, wow, look at, look at his ministry.

Look how many books he's written.

And I start to think, well, maybe I'm not who I should be in the Lord.

And I become dissatisfied and, and, and I wish to be something maybe different.

I don't know if any of you have ever struggled with that.

Maybe none of you have ever had that struggle.

But for me, I often think, like, wow, I wish I could do this, or I wish I could do that.

And there's nothing wrong with having the desire to grow in our faith.

But oftentimes we can get bitter towards God about where he's placed us and what he has given us.

And so what we can understand, though, and what can bring us back to a place of complete gratitude where we are so thankful and where we're blessed by what God has blessed us with is this.

When we go back to think that the greatest inheritance is having a relationship with our Heavenly Father, to know him and to know him on a personal level.

And so that's Joshua, chapter 13.

The battle is not over with yet.

You, you might say I'm very close.

I, I, I feel like I, I, my, I'm limited in my ministry.

I understand that you might not be able to do the things that God allowed you to do years ago, but that doesn't mean that you're done.

It might just mean that you have to adjust, that you might need to be a little bit different in your ministry.

But ultimately there's still battles to fight.

Now, there is going to be a time one way or the other, either God allows us to take our last breath here, or God takes us home.

That that battle will be over and there will no longer be any more pain, there will no longer be tears, there will no longer be suffering.

But until that time, God has us fighting a spiritual battle.

And it's tempting to get back and say, you know what?

I'm just gonna be apathetic.

I'm gonna, as we learned at the men's conference, be passive and just kind of let things go with the flow.

Anytime we go into that mode, we begin to drift.

And the natural drift is always away from the Lord.

And so what I would encourage you to do, no matter what age you are, no matter how long you've been serving in ministry, no longer.

No, no.

No matter what Capacity that you're serving in ministry.

Just think that there's more to be done.

It's not my victory, it's God's victory through me that I'm able to do what God has called me to do.

And when I am at the end of my rope and then I realize that actually I was never in control.

There's, there's, there's been times in my life, certain periods of my life, where God has had to remind me that though I thought I was in control, I never was in control.

And that whether or not I'm going to relinquish that control over to him or I'm going to try to take the reins.

Folks, if you, if you have a control issue, give that up to the Lord.

Some of us, some of us really struggle with just allowing God to do what he does in our life.

We think that we can manipulate things and move situations to a certain place where we feel like we've got it under control.

You know what?

There was a time on my life where I thought I had it under control and something had to happen to me to make me realize that I have, I am helpless.

I, I am done.

I, I can't do anything.

I, it's beyond my control.

And that's a very scary moment for a person trusting in their own control.

And by nature, I'm a controlling person.

By, by nature, I want to have all the variables handled and planned out and steps before.

But the reality is, as we learned at the men's conference, again, those are all just fake things, facades that the world is telling us to do that at the end of the day, we forget that God is ultimately in control.

He's the one that's in charge of my life.

He's the one that's in charge of my situation, and I have to give it over to Him.

And so what I would challenge us with is in that battle in our life, we have to realize that when we are weak, that is not a negative thing.

When we recognize our weakness is the moment that we're understanding that we need God to step in.

That's Second Corinthians, chapter five.

When we're weak, that's when God is made strong.

That's Second Corinthians, chapter 12.

He says that my grace is sufficient, that when you remember Paul in Second Corinthians, chapter 12, he says, There's a thorn in my side.

I, I often think a lot about what Paul's thorn was.

I, I, I, I just want to know, but I won't know for sure.

There's a lot of interesting theories, and I like doing those kind of theories series and going down those rabbit trails.

But whatever Paul's thorn was, he asked God to remove it from him.

Yeah, Three times.

God.

God didn't say, okay, Paul, you're so faithful, so let me take that away from you.

And then Paul goes, wow, God, you're so good.

That would be how we would write it there, right?

We would write it.

And sometimes God does remove the thorn.

Okay, sometimes he does, but sometimes for God's purpose and because of his glory and because we.

And Paul even mentions why he didn't have the thorn taken away.

It was there to humble him, to bring him to a place of needing the Lord and recognizing his need for the Lord.

So sometimes God doesn't remove the thorn.

Sometimes God allows us to be reminded of our weakness.

It doesn't mean that God's torturing us.

It doesn't mean that God is trying to hurt us.

It means that God just allows for us to go through certain things, to recognize that we are limited in our strength.

And then when we realize that we are weak, that's where people can see the power of God working in our life.

I told people recently the last thing that I expected to be doing at this time of my life was to be a pastor.

If you.

If you knew me when I was in high school, it's not that I disdained pastors.

I didn't hate pastors.

I didn't think that it was a bad thing.

I just didn't think I would ever do that.

And it was in the moment where I said, lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do, that he came in and.

And did something that I was not expecting him to do.

Now, that's not a message to say that everyone in here should just submit and all of you will become pastors and go past.

Not what I'm saying.

Not everyone's plan.

God's plan for them is to be a pastor.

But what I will say is this.

God has a plan for you, and he's asking you to submit to him so that he can use you for whatever capacity he wants to use you in whatever capacity that is.

That's the blessing.

The greatest, safest, most rewarding place to be is in the will of God.

And sometimes to be in the will of God, we have to recognize our weakness and turn it over to him and see his strength.

And so, as Joshua 13 says.

Again, I'm not saying this.

Joshua 13 says this about Joshua.

You're old and stricken in years.

You have a lot behind you, but it's not over with yet.

Push forward.

Do what God has for you to do.

Stay in obedience to see the blessing of that power that he gives us.

As Joshua, chapter one says that we may see and that we may know through his word the prosperity, not the material prosperity, but the spiritual prosperity that he blesses us with.

And so we'll come back and we'll continue to study Joshua.

We'll go through chapter 14, 15, a lot of inheritance, all the way up through the end.

And at the very end, we see a challenge given in Joshua chapter 24.

Joshua, chapter 24 speaks of a decision that is made whether or not we're gonna, as a family, serve the Lord.

And Joshua says, you guys do what you want to do.

Okay?

You should serve God.

But eventually he comes to a place and says, but for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

You can't serve two masters.

And there's that whole conclusion of that in the book of Joshua.

And I encourage you to come back for that if you can.

Well, thank you so much for your attention.

I will end there, but I again, I don't want to beat you up tonight.

I don't want you to say, hey, you guys are all quitting, so keep going.

I'm not saying that, but what I'm saying is, is that if I have been tempted to quit, I know that many of us have been tempted to quit.

The Bible says, don't quit.

Keep moving forward, press toward the mark.

Because one day, what do we hear?

One day when we get to heaven, we want to hear, well done, thou good and faithful servant, not that good, and successful servant, not that good.

And whatever servant that we think that God wants us to be.

What does God want us to be?

God wants us to be faithful in the time that he's given us.

You know, I often think about what will be said about me when I go, what my children will say about me and what others will say about me.

And, you know, sometimes I'm convicted.

I'll ask my kids, like, what.

What is Dad's favorite thing to do?

And they'll say something, and I'm like, that's what?

I don't want to be known by that.

And so the truth is, is that what should we want to be known for?

The Bible says, faithfulness, faithfulness in the Lord.

And that's a mark of God working in our life.

And so may we strive to be faithful in everything that we do.

Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.

I hope that this sermon has been a blessing for you.

If you would like to find out more information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org or find us on Facebook or YouTube.

You can also email me directly at Josh Massaro Middletown BaptistChurch.com if you've enjoyed this podcast.

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Thank you so much.

God Bless.

Have a wonderful day.