[0:00] If you would, go ahead and open up your Bibles to Joshua chapter 19.! Joshua chapter 19. Let's pray together.
[0:13] Oh God, we come before you now to study your word.! God, let it sink deep into our hearts. Let it mold us into the image of your Son. Father, we pray that you would meet with us.
[0:25] We pray that you would show us your face as we examine your truth in Scripture today. And it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. So we're in Joshua chapter 19.
[0:39] At the end of Joshua chapter 19. And I did forget one announcement before, so let me go ahead and say this. On October 29th, that is a Wednesday night, we're going to have a fall festival here on campus. So we'll host it in the back.
[0:51] So plan to bring your friends and kids and kids' friends and everybody. It'll be a lot of fun, and so we hope that you can join us for that. October 29th. I think we have a slide, but I didn't remember to put it in.
[1:01] So that's on me. Okay. Now we're in Joshua chapter 19. And if you remember last week, last week we studied Joshua 15, 16, 17, 18, and most of 19.
[1:15] I don't know if you noticed, but we didn't finish Joshua chapter 19. And this week we will. But we talked about, and I'll be honest with you, that wasn't really a sermon. It was more of a lesson, more teaching. But we went through the land division in the book of Joshua for the tribes.
[1:31] And so there's now all of the land has been divided among the tribes, and there's just a few loose ends that need to be tied up. And that's what we'll look at today, the end of Joshua chapter 19, into Joshua 20 and 21.
[1:44] And if you remember the theme from last week, I had you repeat it multiple times. Say it with me. God keeps his promises.
[1:54] Let's say it again. God keeps his promises. Praise the Lord. Amen. God keeps his promises. God keeping his promises is the theme of the book of Joshua.
[2:06] It's the theme of the land division. And it's the theme of our passage here again today. Now, there are six principles that I want to show you today. And if you're like me, that just sent up a red flag because I'm used to three, maybe four, if the pastor's feeling crazy, points, you know, or truths from the text.
[2:24] But, you know, six is still single digits. I think we can get there, right? Six principles from this text that I think will change the way that we live our lives because, really, they're intended to.
[2:36] And I hope that you saw this last week and, again, that you see it today, that even in these passages that seem, like, kind of boring, the land allotment and all of this, like, you know, this tribe got this city and this city and this city and all the land around it.
[2:51] And then they also got this city and it becomes a little bit monotonous sometimes. But I hope what you saw last week and I hope that what you see today is just that we can and we should learn from every passage of Scripture.
[3:04] Every word in Scripture is truth. Every line in Scripture, every paragraph, every page. So, as we look at this today, what I want you to see are six principles that God has given to us to guide us as we live for Him.
[3:18] And the first is that God consistently calls His people to honor godly leaders. Joshua 19, 49 through 51 says, When they had finished distributing the land into its territories, the Israelites gave Joshua, son of Nun, an inheritance among them.
[3:38] By the Lord's command, they gave him the city Timnath-Serah in the hill country of Ephraim, which he requested. He rebuilt the city and lived in it. These were the portions that the priest Eliezer, Joshua, son of Nun, and the family heads distributed to the Israelite tribes by lot at Shiloh in the Lord's presence and at the entrance of the tent of meeting.
[3:58] So they finished dividing up the land. So, what you see here, verse 49, is that the people, Israel, the people of Israel, honored Joshua.
[4:10] It says really clearly, The Israelites gave Joshua, son of Nun, an inheritance among them. And why would they? Well, because Joshua was God's chosen leader. You know, throughout the book of Joshua, something I haven't drawn much attention to, but I will whenever it comes up later, is that Moses is referred to as the Lord's servant, and Joshua is always referred to as Joshua, son of Nun.
[4:31] He doesn't get that designation, the Lord's servant, until the end of the book. So we'll talk about that near the end of the book, but make no mistake, the people obviously respected Joshua as the Lord's servant.
[4:43] He was the man that God had called and prepared to lead them into the promised land. He was the one who encouraged them to take the land, to take possession. And so, because of his faithfulness to the Lord, they honored him.
[4:58] They honored him. And this is in accordance with God's command. And if you remember back in Joshua chapter 14, you may not, but in Joshua chapter 14, when Caleb approached Joshua and he requested his land, it says in verse 6, You know what the Lord promised Moses, the man of God, at Kadesh Barnea about you and me.
[5:17] So yeah, God had commanded that Joshua would receive an inheritance. The same way that God had commanded that Caleb would receive an inheritance. And the people of Israel, after everybody's land had been distributed, chose to honor Joshua by giving him good land in the hill country of Ephraim.
[5:34] But I want you to see, this is a principle of honoring godly leaders, is a principle that God has called his people to time and again. If you go to the New Testament, in 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 17 and 18, it says, The elders who are good leaders are to be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching.
[5:54] For the scripture says, Do not muzzle an ox while it is treading out the grain, and the worker is worthy of his wages. Philippians 2, 29 through 30 says, Therefore, welcome him in the Lord.
[6:05] Paul's talking to the church at Philippi about Epaphroditus, who was their pastor who had gone and visited Paul in Rome, and while he was visiting Paul in Rome, fell sick and almost died. And now Paul is writing to the church at Philippi to encourage them to receive Epaphroditus' will.
[6:21] And so he says, Welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and hold people like him in honor. Because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me.
[6:34] Now I want you to understand, this call to honor godly leaders is not, and you shouldn't think about it like this, it is not limited to clergy, or ministers, or pastors, okay? What we are called to do as Christ followers, I think, is honor those who have sacrificed their time, their energy, their effort, to pour into us, to disciple us, to help grow us spiritually.
[6:55] Okay, that means that it's pretty scalable, right? If you have a mentor who has poured into you, has given a lot of themselves, their family, their resources, their knowledge, to help you grow in your walk with Jesus, you should honor that person.
[7:09] If you have a Sunday school teacher who's done that, you should honor that person. If you have a person who's poured into your children at church, or at home, you should honor that person. If you're blessed with parents who have poured into you, and discipled you, and helped you grow into a person that knows Jesus, and walks with Jesus daily, you should honor your parents.
[7:28] And so I've had people in my life who have poured into me way more than I deserve. So it starts with my dad. My dad has poured into me a lot. You guys have heard him preach. We look pretty similar, but we sound a little bit different.
[7:40] Looking at my dad, it's like what I'm going to look like in 30 years, you know? So anyways, but I'm more bald than he was at this age. Anyways, I won't get any more bald than this.
[7:51] Okay, I'm done. All right, anyways, I've had people who have poured into me throughout my life. I've had pastors who have poured into me. I've had youth ministers who have poured into me. I've had friends, seminary professors who have taken special interest in me.
[8:04] There have been individuals who have poured into me, and I have a responsibility to honor those people. Right? I honor them in a few ways. I honor them through how I preach and teach. These people who have poured into me and helped me understand the scriptures, I honor them by preaching faithfully what they have taught me, what they've shown me.
[8:21] Right? This is what Paul told Timothy to do, was to appoint faithful men to teach who can be trusted with this message. Right? And so I've had people who I honor through preaching and teaching the word of God faithfully.
[8:33] The other ways that I honor people aren't limited to ministry necessarily, but I honor them through the way that I live. Right? Through the way that I love my wife and, you know, teach my kids and train my kids. I honor those who have poured into me by implementing the things that they've taught me.
[8:47] Right? So we should honor people. There's also an honoring of people by showing or expressing gratitude. I've written emails and texts and made phone calls on a whim because I was reading in the word and felt like I need to call and thank somebody for something that they've shown me.
[9:02] Right? I need to write an email and thank them for the way that they've poured into me, that they were patient with me. Those types of things. Right? I'm not a perfect example by any means, but I think that what I'm showing, what I'm hoping to show you is that the way that we honor people isn't limited to giving them land.
[9:16] You don't have to give your Sunday school teacher a plot of land. Okay? But you can show them gratitude. Acknowledge that they work hard to prepare to teach week in, week out.
[9:27] Acknowledge that they have to sacrifice some of the things that they'd like to do to prepare to teach you. That's how we honor spiritual leaders. The other thing that we see here in this passage is that we're called to practice some different leadership styles.
[9:45] Joshua is an example of servant leadership, perfected in Jesus, but he's also an example of authoritative leadership. And by authoritative, I want to be clear, I don't mean authoritarian.
[9:57] He is not a dictator who told the people what they should and shouldn't do and could and couldn't do. Authoritative means that he modeled for the people what he called them to, meaning he was a leader who wouldn't ask his people to do something that he wouldn't do himself.
[10:10] All right? So he modeled servant leadership. Did you notice that it was after the Israelites had distributed all of the land that Joshua received his portion? Joshua didn't go first.
[10:22] He didn't put himself in a position of superiority over the tribes. He knew the promise was for the tribes, right? And so he waited patiently. He waited patiently, knowing that God had promised him land.
[10:34] He waited patiently and trusted that the people of God would remember the way that God had blessed him and what he had offered him with that land. And so Joshua waited and he went last. That's servant leadership.
[10:45] Jesus, again, Jesus perfected servant leadership, right? Jesus is the perfect servant leader. Mark 10 45 says, For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
[10:58] Joshua, remember the name Joshua, is the same name as Jesus' name. Okay? It means the Lord is my salvation. Joshua is a type.
[11:09] He points us ahead to Christ. And Christ perfected what Joshua did well for us, but not perfectly. And then he also modeled an authoritative leadership style.
[11:21] And he did that in a couple of ways. So look here at verse 50. So they gave him the land in the hill country in Ephraim, which he requested, and he rebuilt the city, and he lived in it.
[11:34] So Joshua showed the people how to do what he had called them to do, which was go into the land that is currently occupied and dispossessed the occupants and take the land and live in it.
[11:47] Joshua modeled what he had called the people to do. Caleb did that earlier in Hebron, if you remember, in Joshua chapter 14 and 15. And now Joshua serves again as a model of someone who goes in and takes the land that was given to him.
[12:00] He trusted the Lord. He was faithful. He was obedient. But really interestingly, and I had to gloss over Joshua 17 last week and just kind of hit the high points because of the way that we went through the whole thing.
[12:13] But the leaders of the tribes of Joseph, that would be the Ephraim and Manasseh, half tribe of Manasseh, remember, you may not remember this, but they came to Joshua and complained because they were like, hey, why'd you only give us one piece of land?
[12:25] Why didn't you give us two pieces of land? And Joshua said, you have two pieces of land. The hill country in Ephraim is yours. Go and take it. And they said, well, it's occupied by the Raphim and by the Canaanites, and they have iron chariots.
[12:38] And Joshua said, basically, I'm summarizing. This is the Joseph Duggar translation. Stop complaining, take the land. Basically what he told. Stop complaining, take the land. Well, then Joshua specifically requested land in that hill country.
[12:51] Joshua was from the tribe of Ephraim. He specifically landed the challenging portion of land. And then he went in, he took it, and he rebuilt the city. So in the second way, he models for us how we should be good stewards of the blessings that God gives us.
[13:06] Joshua didn't take the land, and then just let it grow up and be wild and, you know, build himself a little piece of land on it and leave the rest to do whatever it does in that foresty hill area.
[13:17] No, Joshua cleaned it up. He rebuilt the city. He lived there. He took care of it. He took ownership of what God had given him. We are supposed to be good stewards of the blessings that God has given us.
[13:28] God's blessed us in many ways. We had a guy yesterday who was talking to me and Pat quite a bit, and one thing that he asked us at the end of our conversation was, can you count the blessings that God's given you? And I said, I mean, some of them.
[13:41] A lot of them. He said, well, I'm glad you answered it that way because if you can count the blessings that God's given you, you don't have many blessings. I thought it was pretty funny. But it's interesting. God has blessed us all in many ways, right?
[13:52] If you have a relationship with Jesus, he's blessed us with his grace and salvation. If you have a home, he's blessed you with a home. If you have a car, he's blessed you with a car. If you have stable finances, he's blessed you financially. Here's the thing.
[14:03] God has blessed us with many things, and you and I are called to be good stewards of those blessings. So as people who are called by Jesus Christ, are saved and known by him, we should be good stewards of salvation by telling other people about Jesus, right?
[14:19] By living our lives faithfully, according to the text. We should be good stewards of the things that God has blessed us with, and Joshua is a great example of that. Now for the third principle, we're gonna go into Joshua chapter 20.
[14:30] What we see is that God is committed to justice. God is committed to justice. I gotta take a sip of water before I read. One second. You know, I was always told in preaching classes that you should preach the same way that you talk to people.
[14:47] That's why I notify you before I take a sip of water, because that's what I would do in a conversation. So I hope that's not off-putting to anyone. Anyways, Joshua chapter 20, verses one through six.
[14:58] Then the Lord spoke to Joshua, tell the Israelites, select your cities of refuge as I instructed you through Moses, so that a person who kills someone unintentionally or accidentally may flee there.
[15:11] These will be your refuge from the avenger of blood. When someone flees to one of these cities, stands at the entrance of the city gate, and states his case before the elders of that city, they are to bring him into the city and give him a place to live among them.
[15:25] And if the avenger of blood pursues him, they must not hand the one over who committed manslaughter over to them, for he killed his neighbor accidentally and did not hate him beforehand.
[15:36] He has to stay in that city until he stands trial before the assembly and until the death of the high priest serving at that time. Then the one who committed manslaughter may return home to his own city from which he fled.
[15:48] So there is this moment where the people have to, not all, they distributed the land among the tribes. Now they have to designate specific locations for some different things to happen. The first thing that we see is this idea of the cities of refuge.
[16:02] And this is something that God has called his people to do multiple times. In Numbers chapter 35, in Deuteronomy chapter 4, and in Deuteronomy chapter 19, God made it very clear that he wanted his people in the land to establish cities of refuge.
[16:16] Now cities of refuge would be, in our common vernacular, be something like cities for asylum, right? Where these people could go to be safe. They could seek refuge. They could be saved from someone who came to kill them because of an accidental killing.
[16:32] And so here's the whole thing. In Numbers chapter 19, or Deuteronomy chapter 19 actually, God gives the people an example of what this might look like. And so I'll read for you from Deuteronomy chapter 19.
[16:44] It says, here is the law concerning a case of someone who kills a person and flees there to save his life, having killed his neighbor accidentally without previously hating him. If, for example, he goes into the forest with his neighbor to cut timber, and his hand swings the axe to chop down a tree, but the blade flies off the handle and strikes his neighbor so that he dies, that person may flee to one of these cities and live.
[17:08] So God gave them a pretty concrete example of how this accidental killing could look, right? Obviously, there could be no malice. And I was listening to a sermon on this passage this week, and the pastor, the person preaching, he actually pointed out that they had a pretty advanced legal system for their day, that they had to be able to prove malice.
[17:26] They had to be able to prove intent to kill in order for someone to be charged with murder. But God established these cities as a twofold form of protection. Number one, it protected the innocent, the person who didn't mean to kill another person, from becoming a victim of murder, being wrongly judged for a crime that they had not committed.
[17:48] So it protects the innocent from the avenger or the redeemer of blood. And that's pretty important, right? That's a pretty important protection in place. And this protection was not only for the Israelites.
[17:59] It was also for anyone who lived in Israel. It was any resident alien. It was for any sojourner even. If a traveler had been coming through and accidentally killed a person, they would have been directed to run, to flee to a city of refuge, and they would be safe.
[18:15] So it protects the innocent, the person who did not intend to kill a person, from the avenger of blood. But it's also, on the other hand, it protects the avenger of blood, or the redeemer of blood, from committing murder.
[18:26] So God established this because he's a God of justice, right? God is a God of justice. And he also holds life very preciously in his hands. He thinks of life in very precious terms.
[18:38] God is very, very, I guess, outspoken on the issue of the sanctity of life. God makes no mistake that he cares for human life. And so we have this reason for the cities of refuge, and that is the sanctity of life.
[18:53] God values life greatly. But I also want you to see that these cities of refuge were very available to the people, okay? Because God's justice is always available. I don't know if you can see it really clearly, but this is a map from last week.
[19:07] I added some red and yellow dots to hopefully show you where these cities of refuge are. If you look down in the text of Joshua chapter 20, it says they designated Kadesh in the hill country of Naphtali.
[19:18] So that's the top center of the map there. Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, that's the center part of the map there. And Kiriath Arbor, which is Hebron, in the hill country of Judah.
[19:30] That's the southern portion right above Simeon there. And now previously, Moses had established three cities, and that was in Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. And so these cities were established.
[19:42] In Deuteronomy, you see that they're supposed to have roads going to them. So one of the first things that people had to do was make sure that these cities of refuge had roads leading into them so that the person who had to flee to them was able to do so.
[19:55] God made His justice, His safety, His protection very available to His people. But there's this tension that exists also. I don't know if you notice in the text, but the person who accidentally committed manslaughter has some form of punishment here in that they have to go to a city of refuge, and they can't leave the city of refuge.
[20:19] If they left the city of refuge, the avenger of blood could have been waiting for him and could have killed him and would have been totally right in doing so. They had to stay in this specific area until the death of the high priest serving at that time.
[20:35] And that could have been for the rest of their life. You have to understand that when they took another life, even if by accident, their life changed entirely. And why? Because God values human life.
[20:47] God values human life. And the cities of refuge, just as one final point here, they point us directly to Jesus Christ. The cities of refuge point us directly to Jesus Christ.
[21:00] Let me show you how. There's five things I want to point out. Number one, cities of refuge point us to Christ because we flee, like they did, to a safe place for security, for freedom, for salvation.
[21:12] Right? We don't flee to a city. We flee to a person. When we are confronted with the weight of our sin and we know that the punishment for our sin is death. We're guilty, but we flee to Jesus.
[21:24] Right? The same way that the Israelites or the sojourners in the land would flee to a city of refuge. We flee to Jesus for protection. Number two, the guilty are welcomed by Jesus and saved.
[21:36] Now, in these cities of refuge, the guilty were allowed to come to the city, but after the trial, if they were discovered to be guilty and not be truly innocent of accidentally killing someone, then they were handed over to the avenger of blood because God made it very clear in his law that if someone takes another life intentionally with malice, if they commit murder, then the punishment is death.
[21:59] So this was not a way for people to escape punishment. Right? If they were guilty, they would be found guilty and handed over. But in Jesus, the guilty are welcomed and we're saved.
[22:10] And we thank God for that, by the way, because we're all guilty. The other thing here is that there is true freedom when we reach to Christ, right? When we approach Christ, when we go to him, when we flee to him from our sin, there's true freedom.
[22:25] We're not limited to live in a specific place. We are free to live for Jesus. And also, the same way that the cities of refuge were available to everyone, Jesus Christ and salvation is available to everyone.
[22:38] It's available and accessible to all. And instead of standing at the city gate and stating our case and trying to convince people that we really didn't mean to, we go to Jesus, we fall on our knees, and we repent for our sins.
[22:51] We ask his forgiveness, we ask for his mercy, we ask for his grace, and he is faithful and just to accept us. So this is a beautiful moment where we see that God is completely just and that the guilty should be punished, but he's merciful because the innocent shouldn't face the punishment of a murderer.
[23:14] Someone who's not a murderer should not face a murderer's execution. God is merciful. The fourth and fifth principles that we'll look at real quick come from Joshua chapter 21. Number five says, or number four, I don't know why that's five there.
[23:27] It says to remember to pray boldly. Remember to pray boldly. Okay? And look here what the Levites did. The Levite family heads approached the priest Eliezer, Joshua son of Nun, and the family heads of the Israelite tribes at Shiloh in the land of Canaan.
[23:41] They told them, the Lord commanded through Moses that we be given cities to live in with their pasture lands for our livestock. So the Israelites, by the Lord's command, gave the Levites these cities with their pasture lands from their inheritance.
[23:54] So we've already seen this idea of remembering to pray boldly in this book. You remember Caleb knew that God had promised him land and so he went to Joshua and requested it boldly. And then you have the case of those daughters in Joshua chapter 17.
[24:10] Zelophehad's daughters who approach Joshua and say, look, we were told that we would get land. And now the Levites do the same thing. When you see a repeated story or a repeated theme in a book, you should take note of it.
[24:20] Okay? Take note of that because that's important. We as Christ followers should approach God and pray boldly for the things that he has promised. James 1.5 says, now if any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly and it will be given to him.
[24:35] So if you lack wisdom, ask God. We have not wisdom because we ask not for wisdom. A commentary that I read is by a guy named Dale Ralph Davis and he says, what confidence then should we have as we ask for God's rule to come on earth?
[24:49] What assurance of being heard when we ask for provision of our food, pardon for our sins and protection from our tempter? Perhaps even the Levites in their cities can teach us to pray.
[25:01] As Christ followers, we can approach God with boldness and we can confidently ask him for the things that he has promised us. Number five, and this is actually number five, is that God preserves and protects worship.
[25:16] You know, as you read through Joshua chapter 21, what you find is that there are 48 cities that become Levitical cities, including, by the way, all six of those cities of refuge. There are 48 cities in the land dispersed among the 12 tribes that become Levitical cities.
[25:33] Now, why would God send his Levitical priesthood, the line of the priesthood, why would God send them all over the land? Because they had a responsibility to protect and preserve true worship of God.
[25:49] They were to understand and interpret and teach the law. So they had this responsibility to go out and teach and to make sure that the people in all of these different areas know how to properly worship God.
[26:03] It's the same way that we have pastors and teachers and everything, and we need more pastors and teachers is because we need to send people out to make sure that the faithful message is being taught.
[26:14] That's what the Levites' job were. And God had a special interest in preserving and protecting pure worship in the land of Israel. Now, there's a bit of tragedy here in that, despite their efforts, the Levites failed.
[26:28] The Levites were unable to protect the people from falling into idolatry. The Levites themselves, there's examples in the book of Judges, we don't have time to go there today, but Judges chapter 18, you can look it up, where a Levitical man gives up being a priest for God and goes and follows the tribe of Dan to become a priest to an idol.
[26:49] The Levites were not perfect. There's tragedy there. They remind us to ask boldly for the things that God has promised us, but they also show us how challenging it is to maintain faithfulness to God's word.
[27:01] And now's a good time to remind you, Jesus, our great high priest, didn't fail at this. Jesus kept the law perfectly and he calls us to keep the law. Now there's one final thing that I want us to look at and it's from the very last section of Joshua chapter 21.
[27:17] Joshua 21, 43 through 45. Listen to these words as I read. So the Lord gave Israel all the land he had sworn to give their ancestors and they took possession of it and settled there.
[27:29] The Lord gave them rest on every side according to all he had sworn to their ancestors. None of their enemies were able to stand against them for the Lord handed over all their enemies to them.
[27:41] None of the good promises the Lord had made to the house of Israel failed. Everything was fulfilled. So number six, the final principle that we should take away from this passage, God keeps His promises.
[27:57] God keeps His promises. Amen. God keeps His promises. God kept the seemingly impossible promise that He made to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob.
[28:09] When the people of Israel were in Egypt for 400 years, you have to think, right, we're human beings, we would think, like, surely that promise is gone. Well then, God called Moses, God promised Moses the same land.
[28:22] And then God called Joshua and God told him to lead the people into that land. Every good promise that God had made, He kept. God keeps His promises.
[28:36] Joshua 1.6, at the very beginning of the book, listen to what God told him. Be strong and courageous for you will distribute the land I swore to their ancestors to give them as an inheritance.
[28:47] Joshua could be courageous and bold in the fight during the conquest because he knew that God had called him to give out, to distribute the land amongst the people. God keeps His promises.
[28:59] promises. And then we look ahead. Again, Joshua points us ahead to Jesus constantly. Jesus fulfilled all prophecy. He came, not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law.
[29:12] Jesus fulfilled the law by living a perfect life under the law. Jesus never sinned. Jesus was completely perfect. He fulfilled all these prophecies about Him. He was born of a virgin. He did ministry in Galilee.
[29:23] He was a prophet like Moses. He had this suffering death described vividly in Isaiah 53. He rose again from the dead. Jesus couldn't stay dead.
[29:34] Jesus fulfilled all prophecy. And at the very end, when Jesus was on the cross, He made an incredible final declaration. John 19, 30. Jesus, with His hands stretched on the cross, shouted, It is finished.
[29:50] That word finished means completed. Fulfilled. Jesus fulfilled all God's good promises.
[30:01] I love this verse here in Joshua because I think it's one of the most true statements in all of Scripture. Right? Not that there's like varying degrees of truth, but it's so applicable.
[30:12] Everything was fulfilled. Every good promise that God has made, He has kept. everything has been fulfilled. We serve a God who keeps His promises.
[30:25] And we can trust this God because He's kept them in the past time and time again. We can trust that the promises that He has made about the future will be fulfilled. We serve a God who keeps His promises.
[30:39] Jesus declared by saying, It is finished, that everything necessary for the salvation of the world has been complete. God's redemptive plan, God's plan to bring us into His family, to call us to a relationship with Him, was finished when Jesus breathed His last.
[30:57] And here's the thing that's really cool. God fulfilled His promises by bringing Jesus back from the dead three days later. Because Jesus rose from the dead, we have hope.
[31:08] We have hope that life on earth is not over. We have hope that we will be raised to life with Jesus. We have hope for an eternal future in our heavenly home where we will experience an inheritance far greater than the people of Israel ever experienced.
[31:27] So we're going to sing a final song and we're going to share communion today. But as we sing this final song, I really want you to pause and consider, like these people of Israel who could look back and see that God has fulfilled His promises, do you believe that God has kept His word?
[31:42] Do you believe that God has kept His promises? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is God's Son who came and lived a perfect life, who died on the cross and rose again so that you could have life and forgiveness of sin?
[31:56] All of these beautiful blessings that God gave to the people, they had the land, they settled in it, they had rest from every side, none of their enemies were able to stand against them, the strength, the power, the possession, all of these great blessings that God has given them, the rest, peace, all of that is available to us and more through faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
[32:23] So we're going to sing a final song. I want you to close your eyes. We're going to pray together and then we'll stand and sing. And if you have never put your faith in Jesus, don't leave here today without doing so. Come talk with me.
[32:34] You can interrupt the time that we're doing communion for crying out loud. Don't take communion if you haven't made this profession of faith. Come and speak to me about what it means to follow Jesus, to believe in Jesus, to be forgiven of your sins.
[32:45] Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, you are good. You are king over all the earth. Lord, as we finish this time of studying your word and move into a time of taking communion to remember your great work on the cross, show us, oh God, show us deep within our hearts where we have sinned and where we need to repent and seek forgiveness in your grace.
[33:13] Lord, we love you. God, for anybody in this room who doesn't have a relationship with you, I pray that you would convict their hearts by your spirit and draw them now to belief in Jesus Christ.
[33:23] It's in your name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen.