SUNDAY MORNING
8/12/2007
ARE YOU POSSESSING THE LAND?
DEUT.12:1-14.
This is a very powerful scripture. As we look at it today I believe we are going to learn some very wonderful things concerning God’s nature and His plans for us, individually and as His Church. I want to remind you of JER.29:11. The realization that God loves us enough to think and make plans for us is so amazing. When I was studying the book of Heb. I was amazed at the fact that God would invest so much time and energy into a relationship with us because the book of Heb. taught me that the old testament was God revealing His plan to redeem each of us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and bring us into relationship with Him. He kind of told us the gospel in 3d as He set up the old covenant. We can look back at it and see God’s incredible love and plan for our redemption. They say hindsight is 2020. We are going to look back and learn some great things this morning.
As we look at this we see that God not only led the Children of Israel out of Egypt that was a type of the world but that He wanted as His Children to lead them into something. A great land full of promise, freedom, and victory It is the same with us. As God’s children, God doesn’t just want us to survive in this world struggling through, barely making it with our heads bobbing up once in a while. No He has a plan and a purpose for each of us. Say: God has a plan for me. We see that God had a plan for Israel. He wanted them to be different than the rest of the world. He dosen’t want us to live with the same bondage and limitations as the world. 2COR.6:14-18. What God was showing us in our scripture in Deut. and here is the relationship that He created us for. In the old covenant, testament He set up the temple so He could be in there midst, in the new covenant, testament we are the temple individually and collectively. Because Jesus died for us the Holy Spirit can live in us. In the old testament God took them physically so they could live in a place where God could have a special relationship with them. For us He wants to do the same. Only instead of a physical move, from the location of Egypt, a type of the world, to the land of Canaan, He wants us to move into a special relationship with Him, that brings us into abundant life. Lets go back to our opening scripture and I want to talk about the land God was bringing them into and the place He wants to take us. Look at verse 10. Cross over the Jordan river. In Hitchcock dictionary it says Jordan is the river of Judgement.
1. We must choose to go in. I believe we as Christians have to make a decision, a judgement to fully follow God, to choose Jesus as Lord not just as Savior. When the Children of Israel crossed over into the land they were going into a land completely different than what they had known before and they were putting a boundary between them and their past forever. In Egypt they were slaves to the people and the god’s of Egypt. They lived according to the customs of Egypt. When they crossed Jordan it would be totally different. I believe crossing the Jordan should be like our water baptism. We are Christians when we ask Jesus to come into our hearts without works, but when we are baptized we should be making a statement that we are no longer the same but we completely belong to the Lord. We have come out of the world and are interring into a completely different lifestyle. This morning there are some of you that want to know Jesus more, want to commit yourself to Him more completely but you are afraid of taking that step into the river and cross the river and leave the old life behind. God is just waiting for you to make that decision so He can take you into the land. What is your river Jordan? Is it something that you don’t want to give up that you know you will have to leave behind? Is it fear of the responsibility of what God has for you? What ever is your Jordan God wants you to judge your relationship with Him more important than whatever holds you back. EPH.4:17-24. There is much that we can see in this scripture. We can see that we need to make a serious commitment to no longer be like the world. This doesn’t mean that we have to be different just for the sake of being different. Look at verse 18. However there are things that the world does that if we do them they will alienate us from God. So we have to choose to be like Jesus or to be like the world. Who is your Lord? Have you crossed the river Jordan, the river of Judgement. Have you judged the world to be right or do I judge God to be right?
2. In the land God is Lord. AMOS 3:3. Who are you going to walk with? If you walk with God you will have to agree with Him that he is right in His ways and that He is God. God wants us to be in a place or relationship with Him where we put His principals to practice in our lives. Verse 8 in Deut.12. Most of the time we look at this in the negative but this is a very positive thing. Following our own will or going along with the world can bring about some very bad problems.
JAMES 1:13-17. God is the giver of good gifts. Jesus said if we walk in the light there is no occasion for stumbling. God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path. Stumbling hurts us and others. It is very painful. Walking in God’s light, the light of His Word keeps us from hurt. Most of the painful times in our lives have resulted because we have ignored God’s Word and made wrong choices. And on the other hand when we follow the Lord even when it may not seem right to our natural senses we are blessed. PRO.3:5&6, PS.1:1-3.
3. Worship. In the land God is worshiped. Deut.12:2-7. Our worship should not be the way of the world. EX.8:20,26&27. JOHN 4:23&24, LUKE 7:36-50. This is a beautiful story of true worship. This woman’s worship took her to an altogether different place. As she worshiped Jesus those negative things of her surroundings seamanly disappeared. Her relationship with Jesus grew. The circumstances faded away. She was forgiven. Every weight was lifted.
4. The land is a land of God’s protection and God’s provision. Deut.12:9&10. In being a Father to us, God wants to protect us and provide for us. When we have crossed the Jordan and come into the land He is able to do that for us. In the case of the Israelites it was a physical land in our case it is that spiritual place in Him. PS.91:1-16. Only in the land do we have God’s protection and provision. A lot of times when things happen in our lives that are bad we have a tendency to blame God. We ask why God, I didn’t deserve it. Its not a matter of deserving, many times it is a matter of coming out from under God’s protection. How do we do that? It’s not a matter of lets all move to Israel, no it’s a matter of coming into that relationship with Him. Deut.12:9 uses the word inheritance for this. God’s protection and His provision is His blessings to us. We get it when we dwell in the land. Verse 10. To dwell means to sit. In other words we aren’t moving. EPH.2:4-7. What does it mean when it says God made us sit together with Christ in the heavenly places? Of course it doesn’t mean we in our physical bodies are in heaven, but rather it means that we are meshed together in relationship. EPH.1:3. Here is the provision.
Part of why the Children of Israel was given the inheritance of the land had to do with the fact that a father Abraham by faith willingly offered up his son, Isaac. The reason why we can have a great inheritance is because our heavenly Father willingly offered up His Son, Jesus. ROM. 8:17 His death bought us our inheritance. EPH.1:15-23. We need to understand the greatness of our inheritance. Most of the time we are not even aware of the greatness of the land. I want to remind you of the story of the prodical son. One son wasted his inheritance because he didn’t stay at home under the fathers rules and boundaries. That can be us we can ignore God by taking our relationship to lightly and go out where we are unprotected. The other son stayed but never used what was available to him under His fathers estate. The father said to him, All that I have is yours.” How sad both of them. Which is worse? To waste what God has given you either by squandering it on sin or to never step into what God has for you? HEB.6:12. I don’t want to be either of those I want to receive all that God has planed for me, how about you? Deut. 12:1 says to possess the land. That is God’s plan for us. This morning lets determine to cross the Jordan by committing ourselves totally to the Lord and lets determine to possess the land that belongs to us through the blood of Jesus.
