Nevetheless I Wholly Followed the Lord
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Intro; I did a little research on fathers vs. mothers in their roles in the family and who is winning and who is slacking. Well moms, I hate to tell you this, but you are winning.
These statistics are a combination of two reports over a 20 year study from the Barna Group on August 2011;
The Barna survey examined 12 different elements of faith behavior and perspective. Mothers were distinct from fathers on 11 of the 12 factors. Mothers outpace fathers in terms of spiritual activity and commitment.
Mothers were more likely than fathers to be born again Christians, to say they are absolutely committed to Christianity, and to embrace a personal responsibility to share their faith in Jesus Christ with others.
Church attendance declined by six percentage points among men. The research showed that the proportion of men who had attended a church service, other than a special event such as a wedding or funeral, during the week prior to their survey interview fell from 42% to 36%.
Sunday school attendance declined by eight percentage points among men since 1991. Only one out of eight men (13%) presently attends such a meeting in a typical week.
The percentage of men who volunteer at a church during a typical week has slipped by six percentage points since 1991 to its present level of 18%.
The proportion of unchurched men has grown by nine percentage points since 1991. Today an estimated 39% of all men can be deemed unchurched—that is, having not attended a church event, other than a special service such as a wedding or funeral, in the past six months.
[This study is 11 years old and I would assume the percentages have gotten worse]
I don’t want to make any father feel bad this morning, but I do want to bring to our attention the great privilege and responsibility God has given the man in the family to lead and not follow. And if we will lead our families in the spiritual matters of life then our families will be blessed after us.
7 The righteous man walks in his integrity; His children are blessed after him.
This morning I want to talk about “Nevertheless I Wholly Followed the Lord!”
Text; Joshua 14:6-15
6 Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him: “You know the word which the Lord said to Moses the man of God concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea.
7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart.
8 Nevertheless my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God.
9 So Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children’s forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’
10 And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old.
11 As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in.
12 Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the Lord spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said.”
13 And Joshua blessed him, and gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh as an inheritance.
14 Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel.
15 And the name of Hebron formerly was Kirjath Arba (Arba was the greatest man among the Anakim). Then the land had rest from war.
Caleb was one of the original 12 spies that surveyed the Promised Land before the Wilderness Wanderings. Only He and Joshua believed that God was bigger than the giants they saw in Canaan. While 10 of the spies thought that they looked like “grasshoppers” in comparison to the descendants of Anak [Num. 13-14] Caleb said, “their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them.”
Now 45 years has passed since that time and Caleb and Joshua are the only two over the age of 20 from that generation that are ready to enter the promised Land.
What is is about this man Caleb that we fathers today could learn from and become better spiritual leaders for our family and church?
1. Caleb Wholly Followed the Lord; 6-8
1. Caleb Wholly Followed the Lord; 6-8
The first key to Caleb’s success as a leader and father was that God had all of Caleb that there was!
“Wholly followed the Lord.” This is said about Caleb at least five times in the Old Testament , three times in our text this morning. This phrase 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.
Caleb filled his sails so that he could draw near to God!
5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
Caleb was like the rest of the spies in the land. He saw a land flowing with milk and honey and he also saw the giants. The difference in Caleb and the others is that Caleb wholly trusted that God would give the land to them as He promised.
We need men/fathers today who will remain committed to the Lord in these difficult times. We need men who will not be defeated by the burdens of life or the discouragement of others. We must keep our eyes on the prize and remain faithful to the Lord and the responsibilities we have been given!
14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.
For 45 years, Caleb has wholly followed the Lord as he watched those who did not fall by the wayside and perish. Days were no doubt hard and trials came for years in the wilderness, but Caleb wholly followed the Lord God!
2. Caleb was Devoted to God; 9-10
2. Caleb was Devoted to God; 9-10
Devoted- loyal, committed
There are many Christian men/father’s today that are not devoted to God. They are not lost but they are not devoted.
IIus. 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.
Carr, A. (2015). Give Me My Mountain (Joshua 14:6–15). In The Sermon Notebook: Old Testament (p. 734). Alan Carr.
61 And another also said, “Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house.”
62 But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”
3. Caleb was Determined; 11-12
3. Caleb was Determined; 11-12
Determined- resolute, persevering, firmness of purpose
Caleb was 85 yrs. old, yet he was determined to finish his race and possess that which God had promised him.
Men/Dads, we need to be determined to be godly husbands, fathers and friends. If you are not determined you will never get the mountain that God has promised you!
Caleb was promised the mountain of Hebron. Hebron played an important role in the life of Jewish patriarchs.Hebron was the place at which Sarah, Abraham’s wife, had died and where Abraham had purchased a field containing the cave of Machpelah, which he used as Sarah’s tomb. It was the only piece of Canaan that Abraham actually owned in his lifetime, the Jews’ toehold in Canaan, as it were. Here Abraham himself was buried, and later Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob, and eventually Joseph, who had commanded that his bones be brought up out of Egypt and buried there when the Jews left Egypt and conquered Canaan. Hebron was the closest thing in Canaan to a sacred Jewish site. It was probably for this reason that Caleb insisted on seeing it and later claimed it as his special inheritance.
Boice, J. M. (2005). Joshua (p. 102). Baker Books.
Men, our determination to be godly husbands, fathers and friends is a lifetime commitment. There will be enemies to face and mountains to climb all the days of our lives and our determination to follow God will be the difference in taking that mountain in victory or remaining in the valley of defeat.
25 Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,
4 And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
24 A man who has friends must himself be friendly, But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.
4. Caleb was a man of Duty; 13-15
4. Caleb was a man of Duty; 13-15
Duty- take responsibility, moral obligation
It was Calebs duty, as it is of all father’s, to his God, family and church to stand firm in his convictions regardless of what others do.
Hebron was once called Kirjath Arba, “city of Arba or giants.” It was changed to Hebron which means “ally or fellowship with God.”
Calebs “duty”, moral obligation to himself and his family was never to give up until he had acquired all that God had in store for him. He refused to give up or give in until he had obtained a place of fellowship with God for himself and his family!
That needs to be our battle cry today! We must refuse to give up, back up, or shut up or be held up, until we have stood up, lined up, read up, prayed up, confessed up, stored up, spoke up, looked up, and filled up on everything the Lord wants to give His children! We ought to settle for nothing less than that place of perfect fellowship with the Lord our God!
Carr, A. (2015). Give Me My Mountain (Joshua 14:6–15). In The Sermon Notebook: Old Testament (p. 738). Alan Carr.
Close;
Caleb was a man who “Wholly followed the Lord his God.” God says in the scriptures about Caleb;
24 But My servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit in him and has followed Me fully, I will bring into the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it.
Dads, if we want our families to be blessed and the work of our hearts and hands to pass to generations to come, we must be men of a different spirit, “wholly following the Lord our God.”