Sermon Tone Analysis

http://www.sermonnotebook.org/images/clear_dot.gif

GIVE ME MY MOUNTAIN

Intro: By the time you reach , Israel has been involved in the business of claiming the Promised Land for quite some time.

They have been engaging the enemy in battle, and they have won some very decisive victories.

Now, the time has come for them to divide the land and to give each tribe its inheritance.

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.

III.

A fellow said to his wife, “Why do you call it shopping?

You never buy anything.”

She replied, “Well, why do you call it fishing?

You never catch anything!”

As believers, we need to do more than window-shop with God's promises.

We need to appropriate those promises and claim them in our lives.

From this passage, I want to show you what it was that enabled this 85-year-old man to possess everything God had promised him.

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.”

It 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.

I. V. 8, 9, 14 CALEB WAS COMMITTED

A. The first key to Caleb success was that God had all of Caleb that there was!

Note the repeated phrase “Wholly followed the Lord.”

This is said about Caleb at least five times in the Old Testament.

It is a phrase that means “To close the gap.”

It is a phrase used by hunters to refer to “closing the gap between themselves and their prey.”

It refers to the fact that Caleb was committed to keeping the distance between him self and the Lord at a minimum.

The word “wholly” literally means “to fill.”

It carries the idea of “filling a sail with air.”

It is the picture of sails filled to capacity with all the available air so that the ship can move across the water with maximum speed.

Every inch, every ounce, every nerve, every fiber of Caleb belonged to God.

You may think that because you are not a preacher or deacon or Sunday School teacher or whatever, God doesn't expect to have all of you.

That is wrong thinking!

God deserves your all.

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 - !

III.

When Julius Caesar landed on the shores of Britain with his Roman legions, he took a bold and decisive step to ensure that success of his military venture.

Ordering his men to halt on the edge of the Cliffs of Dover, he commanded them to look down at the water below.

To their amazement, they saw every ship in which they had crossed the channel engulfed in flames.

Caesar had deliberately cut off any possibility of retreat!

Now that his soldiers were unable to return to the continent, there was nothing left for them to do but to advance and conquer!

And that is exactly what they did.

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.

III.

Three little girls were talking about their dads on day.

One said, “My father is a doctor, and he practices medicine.”

Another said, “My dad's an attorney, and he practices law.”

The third said, “My father is a Christian, but he doesn't practice any more.”

That describes far too many people in our churches today!

III.

Some people will go to extravagant lengths to avoid doing what they have promised the Lord they would do.

This trait of human nature is seen in a man in Vicenza, Italy who developed last-minute jitters on the day of his wedding and wanted to back out.

Just a couple hours before the ceremony, he got an idea.

Hurrying to a nearby town, he entered a house, faked a robbery, and left a trail of clues.

He even let the owner of the house get a good look at him.

Later, as he made his way to the church where the wedding was scheduled, police arrested him and charged him with attempted robbery.

All that trouble just to avoid a wedding.

B. Half-hearted Christians are faint-hearted Christians and they never learn to conquer the giants in their lives.

III.

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.

Ill.

“A double - minded man is unstable in all his ways,” .

There is only one way to stand up against the devil and the hordes of hell and that's to be totally surrendered to Jesus.

III.

Jesus demands total surrender,

.

In his book One Crowded Hour, Tim Bowden describes an incident in Borneo in 1964.

Nepalese fighters known as Gurkhas were asked if they would be willing to jump from airplanes into combat against the Indonesians.

.

In his book One Crowded Hour, Tim Bowden describes an incident in Borneo in 1964.

Nepalese fighters known as Gurkhas were asked if they would be willing to jump from airplanes into combat against the Indonesians.

The Gurkhas didn't clearly understand what was involved, but they bravely said they would do it, asking only that the planes fly slowly over a swampy area and no higher than 100 feet.

When they were told that the parachutes would not have time to open at that height, the Gurkhas replied, “Oh, you didn't mention parachutes before!”

Jesus calls us to follow Him with a similar kind of commitment and courage, willing to risk all for His sake.

III.

Ham and eggs.

The chicken was definitely involved, but the pig was committed!

III. C. H. Spurgeon told about the deep love and devotion French soldiers had for their leader Napoleon.

He noted that it was not at all unusual for a mortally wounded soldier to raise himself up on one elbow and give a final cheer to his revered General.

And if by chance the dying man saw Napoleon nearby, he would, with his final breath, shout, “Vive l’Emprereur!”

Perhaps one of the most eloquent expressions of all, however, came from the lips of a soldier who had been shot in the chest.

As the surgeon was attempting to remove the bullet, the suffering man was heard to whisper, “If you go much deeper, Doctor, you'll come to the Emperor!”

If a man as notorious as Napoleon could be the object of such undying devotion, how much more Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord!

C. The man who kneels before God can stand before anybody or anything.

Ill.

D. L. Moody was saved at the age of 19.

D. L. Moody heard an evangelist by the name of Henry Varley say, “The world has yet to see what God can do in, and through, and with, and for a man wholly committed to him.”

D.L. Moody said, “By God's grace I will be that man!”

He was an uncultured, uneducated, untrained shoe salesman but God used him to move two continents for Christ.

Why? - He was committed!

Are you totally sold out to Jesus Christ and Him alone?