Joshua 14 - Caleb's Story

What if I told you that God actively looks throughout the earth for those whose hearts are fully committed to him? In 2 Chronicles 16:9 the LORD says as much.  What if I also told you that living your life wholeheartedly for Jesus didn’t mean you were missing out on anything at all, at least nothing that really matters.  One of the myths people still hold about living in the Jesus way is that it dooms us to a drab, dreary existence. We’re in Joshua 14, the part of the story where one man receives an inheritance he’d been waiting 40 years to receive. 

Transcript

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What if I told you that God actively searches the entire earth for people whose hearts are fully devoted to Him? In 2 Chronicles 16, 9 it says as much. But what if I also told you that living wholeheartedly for Jesus doesn't actually mean you need to miss out on anything at all, at least nothing of significance or value. One of the myths that people still hold today about living in the Jesus way is that it somehow leads us into a drab or dreary existence. Welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am genuinely glad that you've joined me today. We're in Joshua chapter 14. It's the part of the story where one man receives an inheritance that he's been waiting forty years to get. Go ahead and open up your copy of the Word to Joshua chapter 14, and we're going to read a good portion of that chapter together. But before we do anything else, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for this wonderful day that you've given us. Thank you, God, for your kindness to us. Thank you for the way that you care for us and love us. God, we're here to meet with you and to understand our relationship with you better. Would you please meet with us? Amen. All right, so we're into this really interesting, in a in a data-heavy kind of a way, section of the book of Joshua. But as I mentioned in last Friday's uh episode, there are still so many good things that can that can come out of uh what we're reading about here, even though you know it's not filled with battles and intrigue and those sorts of things. But there are some really genuine moments that happen and it centers around uh these different people that have been following the Lord and gone through some pretty interesting things. So we're gonna pick it up in verse six and focus our attention here on a man named Caleb, who I'm sure that you've heard about before. So let's start in verse six and we'll read through the end of the chapter. Now the people of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb, son of Jephanah, the Kenizite, said to him, You know what the Lord said to Moses, the man of God at Kadesh Barnea, about you and me. I was forty years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land, and I brought him back a report according to my convictions. But my fellow Israelites who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt in fear. I, however, followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed the Lord my God wholeheartedly. Now then, just as the Lord promised, he has kept me alive for forty five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the wilderness. So here I am today, eighty five years old. I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out. I am just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there, and their cities were large and fortified, but the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said. Then Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephana and gave him Hebron as his inheritance. So Hebron has belonged to Caleb's son of Jephana the Kenesite ever since, because he followed the Lord, the God of Israel, wholeheartedly. Hebron used to be called Kiriath Arba after Arba, who was the greatest man among the Anakites. Then the land had rest from war. Let's go ahead and pause and just take a moment to listen to God. You regular listeners, as well as you new ones, I just wanted you to know if you need to carve up more space, go ahead and pause the podcast and then we'll enter into some observation together. All right. So there's not necessarily a ton that's happening here, but the thing that is happening has been like anticipated for a very, very long time. And so I'm going to start with some observations kind of about Caleb because it's really focused in on his experience and it's come, I guess I would say, to fruition here at the end. I mean, he's still got time left, I think, in his in his life, but but uh in terms of inheriting the land and and those kinds of things. So the first thing I wanted to point out is that Caleb and Joshua had a really good history, and a lot of it happened together. It's marked by faithfulness to the Lord. And just reminding us that while, you know, Joshua comes after, or the book of Joshua comes after Moses' death, both of them were active in serving the Lord, in in leadership. Uh, they were both uh generals, they both led uh other men into battle uh all while Moses was alive. So they had experienced and seen all of the things that God had done through Moses. They remembered all those different conversations. In fact, part of the reason Caleb and Joshua are having this conversation is because of what Moses had said um previously when when he was alive. So they're they're they they just they're they're like, I don't know if they were like buds necessarily, but they certainly uh were consistent uh and a lot of shared experience. I can imagine that there was uh a good bond uh bit between them. So so that's kind of just just true of the two of them. And obviously Joshua uh was was God's guy uh uh after Moses uh had passed away. The second bit here is that Caleb followed his own convictions even when they weren't convenient. And we see that really emphasized here in verse 7. Uh it says there kind of at the very end, it says, and I brought uh I brought him back, him being Moses. I brought him back a report according to my convictions. But my fellow Israelites who went up with me, you know, gave a different kind of a report. And that story is is really it's it's convicting and it's encouraging all at once. You can read about it in Numbers 13, verses 26 through 33, and that's where it kind of gives that account of of how all of that took place. So, in in case it's unfamiliar to you, I'll just give you a quick synopsis. Uh the the Israelites had had crossed over the Jordan River, and uh they knew that they were supposed to move into the promised land, and and the plan originally was not for them to spend a lot of time in the desert, but to go in and explore the land and then take it. And so Moses sent off twelve people, one from each tribe, and they go out to do their thing, and uh Caleb and Joshua a part of that twelve. They go into the land, and it it is phenomenal. Uh, in fact, it talks about they they carried back uh some grapes that like there was so much of it that um they had poles set up and two men were required to carry it. Just there's a lot, right? It's just a really abundant, fertile land. And so they were excited about that part, but the other ten uh just kept talking about the giants in the land, which were there. They absolutely were. They said the cities are big, the cities are fortified, there are giants in the land. Uh you know, we we felt like we were ants in their eyes, and and they would have agreed with that, right? Like the uh the people of of Anak, the people that were there, the these huge giants would have been like, Yeah, these who are these guys coming in to do anything here, you know, and and so they they gave that really fear-filled report. And Caleb, uh, in in that experience, he's like, No, God is with us. We just watched what he did. He delivered us out of the hand of Egypt, he delivered us across uh the Red Sea, he's done all these things for us. If the Lord is on our side, this is let's just go do it. Like this is part of his plan for us. And uh and so he held to his convictions, which which I find uh convicting for myself. I I want to have uh the courage and the conviction of Caleb in my own life. Caleb followed the Lord wholeheartedly. And when I was reading this this morning, wholeheartedly was the word that jumped out. It's actually mentioned three different times in this part of the text, and so it's clearly a point of emphasis. Uh, this idea that that we're fully committed to the Lord. And the Hebrew word, it's not like uh an astonishing revelation, but it really has that idea of fully or just completely spent or used up in that sense of like devotion. In other words, there's no opportunity here to be like half-hearted or three-quartered hearted or any of those sorts of things. No, it's all in, all together. We're we're here to serve, in this case, here to serve the Lord. And and again, just I guess admiring Caleb in in that sense. And then finally, just not to belabor the point at all, but uh, but Caleb asked for Hebron to be his specific inheritance in the land that was allotted to the tribe of Judah, of which he was a part. So they're all there gathered together, the the tribe of Judah, and we'll kind of get into Judah's story a little bit more at next week and just kind of talk about him as well as the tribe, the people of Judah. Uh, but here we're just focused in on Caleb. And I think I've got a map up here for you just to kind of see where Hebron is. And so we're talking about like a city, we're not talking about like a huge, massive region, but uh that whole you know area, and probably a little bit of the area around, you know, like we just get a dot. I I get it. It was probably bigger than a dot, you know what I'm saying? But it was that was that land that was given given to him. And so just kind of a neat uh just kind of moment of completion for for Caleb. So let's reflect a little bit here, and I have two things uh for for you to think about. The first one is what does personal conviction look like in my own life? Right? Caleb had to carry that personal conviction that he believed the Lord would deliver the land of Canaan into their hands, into the Israelites' hands. And he felt pretty lonely in that. Joshua was with him, but but he went against the grain, and our situation is obviously going to look different than that. But what does personal conviction look like in your life? The second part is am I living wholeheartedly for Jesus? It's just something to hang out with. And probably there are moments when it yeah, it's actually maybe true for us, and others when it isn't. And it's just good to kind of come back and say, Lord, show me where I'm not, and uh and then I wanna I wanna move back towards just being fully and completely yours. We know that that's the best way to do life. Jesus, thank you for this good day that you've given us. God thank you that we can look at Caleb's life and we can see your hand upon it. God thank you that we can look at our own lives and recognize the same thing. God, we desire to have a courage and conviction that that looks like his. And Lord, we also desire to offer you everything that we are. We love you. Amen.