Guess What -- More Land

I think we’ve made enough mentions of how even these difficult, monotonous texts are God-breathed and profitable for us. And no, they don’t read like a Pauline epistle. We like Paul’s statement of fact, sub-point of support, and final exhortation flow. I think Joshua should be taken as an historical, prophetic book. In the Jewish OT Joshua is counted among the prophets, and it uses Israel’s history to convey the book’s message about God. As such, we have to mine the story to get at the heart of what it teaches about God. Well, today we can breathe a sigh of relief, because after this, all of the land will be divvied up. There is still the matter of sanctuary cities and Levitical cities, but…yay! there is no more land division to talk about. And all God’s people said?

Let’s turn our attention again to Joshua, chapters 18 and 19. I’ll read selected passages because it’s quite lengthy, and give some summary notes along the way.

God’s good gifts should inspire faithful and joyful worship.

Joshua 18:1 CSB

The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. The land had been subdued before them,

The first thing we notice is that Israel is moving from Gilgal…that’s the place where they’ve set up camp until now…to Shiloh. This is a big deal and satisfies some promises that YHWH God has made Israel.

First, Deut.12:2 “Destroy completely all the places where the nations that you are driving out worship their gods—on the high mountains, on the hills, and under every green tree.” This command is as much about creating a place for pure worship as it is anything else. Chief among God’s concerns for His people in the Promised Land is purity of worship…the people’s faithful worship of YHWH alone. Here, finally, at Shiloh, it’s meant to be a picture of faithful worship being established. No longer is Israel’s central place of meeting to be the war camp at Gilgal. Instead, the place of worship — Shiloh.

And as this place of worship is established, consider Deut.12:7 “You will eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice with your household in everything you do, because the Lord your God has blessed you.” And then in Deut.12:12 “You will rejoice before the Lord your God—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female slaves, and the Levite who is within your city gates, since he has no portion or inheritance among you.”

You see, Moses anticipated a day when God would choose a place in the land for Israel to make sacrifices and worship the Lord God. As the land has been subdued and given into Israel’s hands (Josh.18:1 “The entire Israelite community assembled at Shiloh and set up the tent of meeting there. The land had been subdued before them,”) God establishes Shiloh in His faithfulness so that Israel may worship the Lord in solemn and whole-hearted fidelity — not wavering and chasing after other gods — and joyfully because of God’s great grace.

You know, sometimes we can lose sight of that “joyful” aspect of worship. Maybe it’s fear of not worshiping the LORD with proper reverence (BTW, David danced out of his clothes before the Lord, and when confronted about it, said he’d become even more undignified. I’m not suggesting that level and form of joy, though!)? Or, maybe we’ve lost our joy…lost our contentment with God…lost sight of the gracious and unmerited gift of salvation, and therefore the struggles of this world have drowned out our joy. Friends, God has been good to us, no matter our lot in life. The fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose again on the third day so that we can have new and forever life, by grace…through faith and surrender to Him…that is more than enough reason to faithfully and joyfully worship the Lord!

Spiritual slothfulness needs to be addressed.

Joshua 18:3 CSB

So Joshua asked the Israelites, “How long will you delay going out to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your ancestors, gave you?

While the land has been subdued, and some tribes have received their allotments, Joshua notes that the remaining seven tribes have done nothing about receiving their inheritance. They’ve “gone slack.” They’ve “let go” of what God has called them to do.

Such is the struggle in our spiritual lives, is it not. On the one hand, how gracious a God do we serve that He patiently endures our imperfect execution of His will?! I’d dare say we always carry out the Lord’s will imperfectly. It’s the nature of life with sin as a constant companion, for though we’ve been set free from the chains of sin, the old man, the sinful nature is still there throughout life’s journey. Thankfully, God is constant…caring…ready to render aid for we need it every hour.

The problem is not that the remaining seven tribes have imperfectly followed God’s command, it’s that they’ve let go of what they’re called to do. And there, friends, is our danger. The more we engage in spiritual discipline, the more we find out how much of our lives are not surrendered to God. Now when this happens…when the light of Christ invades the dark corners of our lives…we’ve a choice to make: surrender to God or silence His conviction. Sadly, too often we’ve hung “KEEP OUT!” signs on certain doorposts of our hearts. We’ve talked about this before, how we refuse the Spirit access to those secret closets where we try to keep Jesus from finding out about those private sins (BTW, good luck with that!).

Maybe the doorpost reads “Sweet Revenge” and that’s the place you hide your past hurts, your bitterness, your anger, and that place where you feed the flames of a raging fire determined to make them pay.

Maybe it’s a closet that reads “My Prideful Righteousness.” You sneak into this closet to rehearse the lines of every sermon you’ve written for every person that doesn’t live a life as holy as you. While you may be way to “humble” to ever say it out loud, you’ve got a line of condemnation for every sin in every other person’s life you find detestable, all the while living with your own personal secret sin that “doesn’t really count because you don’t say anything and it doesn’t really hurt anyone else.”

Maybe it’s a different closet altogether. A lack of faith in God’s provision that needs to control every aspect of your life, and you write off that sin as being “detail-oriented” and “prepared.” Perhaps you’re a sloth and you cover it a pretend righteousness called “living by faith.” Maybe it’s a quick and cutting tongue that you disguise as being “open and honest.” Maybe you refuse to stand up for yourself and refuse to be strong and courageous (Josh.1:9 “Haven’t I commanded you: be strong and courageous? Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”) and instead you label it as “humble meekness.”

Friends, listen, just a Joshua pointed out to Israel (Josh.18:3 “How long will you delay") and then said it’s time to deal with this, so we need to come to same place and quit babysitting our spiritual slothfulness and get down to the business of dealing with our sin.

Be content with whatever lot befalls you in life.

We see this refrain throughout the land division, and several times here:

Josh.18:11 “The lot came up for the tribe of Benjamin’s descendants by their clans, and their allotted territory lay between Judah’s descendants and Joseph’s descendants.”

Josh.19:1 “The second lot came out for Simeon, for the tribe of his descendants by their clans, but their inheritance was within the inheritance given to Judah’s descendants.”

Josh.19:10 “The third lot came up for Zebulun’s descendants by their clans. The territory of their inheritance stretched as far as Sarid;”

You get the picture…lots are divvied up, and the implication, the reason why Israel trusted the “lot” is that they viewed God’s sovereignty to causal force behind the lot. However the lot would fall, that was determined to be God’s will.

Consider the amount of personal angst we could put aside if only we would learn to lean on God’s lot. Do we truly believe that God has sovereignly ordered and ordained our lives? Do we truly believe that what we have is what YHWH willed? Consider the words of the psalmist: Ps.16:5-6 “Lord, you are my portion and my cup of blessing; you hold my future. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.” What I can assure is that if our eye is constant to the distant horizon and never on the current blessing, we will not echo these words. A solemn reminder: the grass is greener in one of two places — where you water it…and over the septic tank!

Eccl.5:18-20 “Here is what I have seen to be good: It is appropriate to eat, drink, and experience good in all the labor one does under the sun during the few days of his life God has given him, because that is his reward. Furthermore, everyone to whom God has given riches and wealth, he has also allowed him to enjoy them, take his reward, and rejoice in his labor. This is a gift of God, for he does not often consider the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with the joy of his heart.” What’s the point Solomon is making here? Be busy enjoying the life God has given you, not wastefully wishing for someone else’s.

But in order for us to be content, we must put in to place the last point:

Worship and the Word of God should lie at the heart of our lives.

We noted Shiloh at the beginning of the message, and let’s return to that for a moment. And as we do, let’s back up and take the past few weeks from about 30,000 feet. Beginning in chapter 14, we have the account of the land being divided in Canaan. The first inheritance discussed was Caleb, the mighty man of faith. And, the land inheritance concludes with the other prime example of faith throughout Joshua’s book — Joshua (Josh.19:48-50 “This was the inheritance of the tribe of Dan’s descendants by their clans, these cities with their settlements. When they had finished distributing the land into its territories, the Israelites gave Joshua son of Nun an inheritance among them. 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.”) Poised here in the middle of all of this land division is the account of Shiloh, the first appearance of this place where finally the “tent of meeting” is set up.

Here is to be the place of sacrifice.

Here is to be a place where the Word of the Lord is disseminated and the will of the Lord discerned.

And here, by Holy Spirit-inspired placement, we receive our final instruction from the past few weeks: worship and the word of God must reside at the center of our lives. When we hear it, when we respond to God, when we come into His presence through the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Christ, when we gather with His people to remember that all of life is His gift…for His glory…for our good…by His grace and not beholden to our goodness, we know and experience the blessing of God, overflowing our cups with more than we can contain. And likewise, as soon as we depart from this, as soon as His word and His worship are not the primary concerns of our lives, we can expect to quickly find ourselves on a slippery slope of snowballing rebellion and sin.

My question then is this: what is your great treasure in life? What is the one thing that motivates all that you do? Rest assured friend, if it is anything other than God and His glory, a false god has claimed the throne of your heart, and it is time for mutiny against that vain idol. Return to Christ today and re-center your life on His good rule.