What Does Your Inheritance Look Like?

Edited by Steve Fountain.  From a sermon preached on September 23, 2012. 

Most Christians probably fail to realize the magnitude of the inheritance that they already have in Jesus Christ.

Perhaps due to a lack of teaching or spiritual awareness, I’ve not had a real understanding of the biblical teaching regarding our Spiritual Inheritance throughout my Christian experience.

After witnessing the entering the land (1-4) and the taking of the land (5-12), we are going to witness the possessing of the land.  Inheritance is what chapters 13-21 are all about.  The word “inheritance” appears 52 times in Joshua 13-21. 

To avoid blog blackout, let's bypass the chapter-by-chapter approach in favor of a fly over at 30,000 feet. As we look down upon the regions of the Promised Land, my desire is to trace the infinite value of a believer’s inheritance. Given the current election season, perhaps our ears are more alert for wild promises. But, unlike a candidate, God always keeps his promises.

“Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass,” is found in Joshua 21:45. This verse comes at the end of Chapter 21 and is in stark contrast the seemingly wild promise God makes to start Chapter 13.

Area in green is what is left to be conquered 

As we open Chapter 13, we find an aged Joshua. The major fortresses have been conquered, but the Philistine corridor in the southwest of Canaan, and in the north, a swath of territory about 50 miles wide which extends about 50 miles north of Damascus still need to be defeated.  With Joshua near death, what will happen next?

God, in his wisdom, intended the 12 tribes to spread out and conquer the remaining areas.  In Joshua 13:6, God says: “I myself will drive them out from before the people of Israel.” 

Doesn’t God’s promise looks a bit wild in light of the task ahead?

But, God’s promises are only as wild as our disbelief. 

As you flip through the coming chapters, there is the allotment of the physical inheritance for all the tribes of Israel.  The allocation of the inheritance took place in two stages. 

The first division comes on Chapters 13-17 and concerns the two and a half tribes, Judah (from which Jesus descended), and the two sons of Joseph (Ephraim and the other half-tribe of Manasseh). 

The second division of the land takes place in Shiloh.  Toward the end of this period of conquest, Israel’s camp was moved from Gilgal to Shiloh in the high country.  A survey was done throughout the land and there is a careful record of the property lines, which we won’t read this morning.  The remaining tribes, Benjamin (18:11-28), Simeon (19:1-9), Zebulun (19:10-16), Issachar (19:17-23), Asher (19:24-31), Naphtali (19:32-39), and Dan (19:40-48) were then given their land by the casting of lots. 

However, the Tribe of Levi receives no land inheritance.

“To the tribe of Levi alone Moses gave no inheritance.  The offerings by fire to the Lord God of Israel are their inheritance.” ( Joshua 13:14)

We read this again in verse 33.  “But to the tribe of Levi Moses gave no inheritance; the Lord God of Israel is their inheritance.”

The Levites were exceptional, but any believing Israelite could have adopted this Levitical perspective.  If they would only realize that above all else, the Lord himself was their inheritance.  Even if the land should be taken away, God could still be God— their God.  I began the message talking about inheritance and God's “wild” promises. 

Did you know that we often struggle with fear, sin, and anger right now because we do not believe the wild promises of God?  Perhaps we don’t realize that somehow, the Spirit is with us, in us, and changing us.

When Christ was sitting with his disciples at the last supper, he told the disciples this wild promise: “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.  Yet a little while and the world will see me know more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live” (John 14:18-19).  That is an incredible and wild promise.

And so, we can live with hope, holiness, and love because we see the Spirit dwelling within us.  This is our spiritual inheritance and the seal of an even greater to come.  Our spiritual inheritance is based upon the wild promises of God.