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Listen to The Attitude of Possessing our Possessions by Kentucky MBC MP3 song. The Attitude of Possessing our Possessions song from Kentucky MBC is available on Audio.com. The duration of song is 01:02:45. This high-quality MP3 track has 705.6 kbps bitrate and was uploaded on 5 Jan 2025. Stream and download The Attitude of Possessing our Possessions by Kentucky MBC for free on Audio.com – your ultimate destination for MP3 music.
The speaker is discussing the story of Caleb in the Bible, specifically focusing on how Caleb had a different attitude and perspective than the other spies when they went to scout the promised land. While the other spies focused on the challenges and obstacles, Caleb chose to trust in God and believe that they could overcome them. The speaker emphasizes the importance of having a different mindset and perspective in order to possess the blessings God has for us. Hey man, where can I go but to the Lord's going to fit in perfectly with the message this morning. If you have your Bibles, you'll put your finger over in Numbers chapter 13 and then go over to Joshua chapter 14. And we will be in these two different books today as we continue kind of a series that's kind of just all of a sudden began to form and take shape. And we've called it Possessing Our Possessions and it's all come sprung out of really our study in Ephesus. And the book of Ephesians did the letter to the church at Ephesus and as we've studied that and we have looked into that, Paul started that letter with blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. And we went over into Deuteronomy where Moses was talking to the children of Israel about going in to possess the promised land, what we know as the land of Canaan, of the Canaanites that God had promised way back yonder to Abraham that he would make him a great nation, he would give him a great land. And finally they are getting to that and we saw in Deuteronomy chapter 6 that Moses was reminding them and telling them as they're now getting ready after 40 years of wilderness wanderings to finally obtain the promise that God had given them, Moses challenges them to love the Lord their God with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their might and with all their strength. And as we think about that today we look last week at Moses who was unable to go into the promised land. Even though he was a great leader, even though he was a great man of faith, even though he was a man that was chosen and handpicked by God to lead these people to the promised land, we found that Moses ended up with one failure. And in that failure he forgot to sanctify the Lord God in his heart and also he forgot to glorify God before the people. And he took it upon himself and his anger came out and he did not glorify God and because of that he was not allowed to go into the promised land. All he was allowed to do was sit up on a mountain and watch as the children of Israel marched over and went into the land that was promised. And out of that story last week we saw that God sent twelve spies into the promised land for them to go out and spy and find out, you know what, it is everything that God said it was going to be. We found that it was introduced to a man by the name of Caleb in Numbers chapter 13. And we'll pick up the story there and it said, And it said, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel. Of every tribe of their fathers shall you send a man, every one a ruler among them. And Moses, by commandment of the Lord, sent them to the wilderness of Paran. All these men were heads of the children of Israel. And these were their names, that of the tribe of Reuben, Shemua, the son of Zechar, and of the tribe of Simeon, Shephet, the son of Hori, and of the tribe of Judah, Caleb, the son of Jephonah. And you can read the rest of them and you can figure out how to pronounce them. I'm going to stop right there because we're going to deal today with Caleb, the son of Jephonah. And so he was one of the twelve spies that was sent into the promised land of Canaan to see whether or not it was actually everything that God had promised it to be. What set Caleb apart from the others was that Caleb did things just a little bit differently than everybody else. And today the attitude of being different is what we need to have, especially in our world and our society today. We have too many individuals that are looking like everyone else. As a matter of fact, Paul told the church at Rome that we are not to be conformed to this world, but we are to be transformed by the renewing of our mind. And so as we look at Caleb, I want us to notice two things today about Caleb that allowed him to go in and not only go into the promised land, but to literally possess the blessings of God. And we as Christians today, hopefully, your prayer and your desire is to achieve the possessions that God has for us. Unfortunately, we're seeing a lot of Christians today that are not achieving that possession. They're not gaining what God has laid out for them. And we see people today, Christians even, that are distressed. They're despaired. They're in all kinds of turmoil and trouble and heartache and disappointment. But Caleb was different. And out of all of the people, it was Caleb and Joshua that were allowed to go into the promised land. What made Caleb different from all of the others? Well, first of all, we see that he watched differently. We see that he watched differently. If you'll notice there, what we find is he watches differently. What we mean by that is he looks at things differently. He sees. He is watching for how God is working and how God is moving. And it tells us in Numbers 13, 25. It says, And they returned. Moses has already sent them out. They've come back now with their reports of searching the land after 40 days. Verse 26 says, And they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel under the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh, and brought back word unto them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land. And they told him and said, We came unto the land whither thou seest thinnest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it. You go back and you read and you will find that the fruit of it, it was the time of grapes. And they brought back one bundle of grapes that took two guys on a pole to be able to tote. Now that is blessings from God. That is something that God produces and that God does. But yet we find verse 28, Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land. And the cities are walled and very great, and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south, and the Hittites and the Jebusites and the Amorites dwell in the mountains, and the Canaanites dwell by the sea and by the coast of Jordan. And Caleb steeled the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it. Notice what we have here. Up to this point, everything is great. But Caleb understands and notices that this report, but through the attitude and the voices of the people is starting to take a dark turn. In other words, they go and they say, Man, this is everything that God promised. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. That's what God promised, right? So man, we can put a check off there. But then all of a sudden they turn from the fruit to the inhabitants. And when they do that, notice what happened. It said that they see there were people there that were strong, that dwelt in the land. They had cities that were walled. They had that were very great, and the children of Anak were there. Instead of thinking, Man, when God gives us this land, we're not going to have to build houses. We're not going to have to build cities. We're not going to have to do anything. We just get to move in and inhabit this place. They started focusing on the people rather than the blessings of God. And Caleb sees this shift in their attitude. And Caleb, seeing their very pessimistic attitudes, Caleb speaks up and says, Let's go get this. Let's go claim it, right? It is everything that God has said. He has given us cities and houses and food that we have not had to plant. We have not had to do anything for. Let's go get it. But then look at verse 31. But the men that went up with him said, We'd be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. And they brought up an evil report of the land, which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land through which we have gone to search it is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the giants, the son of Anak, which came of the giants. And we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. Possessing our possessions begins with looking at things differently, watching differently from the world and anyone that does not trust God or believe God. Notice, again, we're looking at their selves and their enemies. And what they saw of their selves was projected and saw of their enemies. That's how they were perceived that was there. But Caleb watched differently. Notice how he watched differently. First of all, he put his confidence in God. He put his confidence in God. In other words, this is everything that God said it was going to be. Let's go up and take it. And so when he says that, let us go up and take it, what Caleb is referring to, and we find out later in a passage, and we'll look at that here in a little bit, where Caleb addresses and gives all of his credit to God. Caleb's not saying we're going to go take it, but he's saying God has already given it to us. And his confidence in God is seen, first of all, in his character. Who God is. God cannot lie. God is truthful. Abraham was promised this land. Way back yonder. And the process has been going. They'd been in slavery for 400 years. And God still has not forgot about His promise to Abraham. He delivers them out of slavery. He gets them to go. He brings them up there. The twelve spies look into the land and say, yes, it's everything He promised to Abraham. It's everything He promised to us. But, but, see their confidence was in themselves, not in God. They didn't trust the character of God. That God, and we've said this over and over and over, we have to understand that God is good, and that God is the giver of good things. God loves us, and He gave us His Son to start with. But not only that, but God loves us, and He has given us of all spiritual blessings, of all things in this life. As a matter of fact, in Genesis chapter 13, when He promised to Abraham, He said, for all the land which thou seest to thee will I give it unto thy seed forever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth, so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of it, in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee. Moses delivered them from bondage to go to this land. In Exodus, he reminded them, right before he sent out the spies, he says, remember, Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, thy servants, to whom thou swearest by thy own self, and saidst unto them, I will multiply your seed as the stars of heaven, and all this land that I have spoken of will I give unto your seed, and they shall inherit it forever. Not only did they have confidence in the character of God, but they also had confidence in the capacity of God. God was able to deliver. They have seen that God was a great God. They have witnessed all of the plagues that went upon Egypt. They've witnessed all of these miracles of God of leading over two million people to a desert, to a river on dry ground, to bringing them, to providing them water, to providing them food, to providing them shelter by giving them a cloud of protection from the sun and the wilderness during the daytime, giving them a pillar of fire to warm them up and protect them at night. God had provided everything that they could ever have imagined. Everything that they needed in order to live this life. He was fully capable. And so because of his capacity, Caleb said, let's go up and take this mountain. But not only did Caleb have confidence in God, but Caleb also had a commitment to God. Look at what it says there in chapter 14 of Numbers in verse 1. It says, And all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron. And the whole congregation said unto them, Would God that he had died in the land of Egypt, or would God that we had died in this wilderness? And wherefore hath the Lord brought us into this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be afraid? Were it not better for us to return into Egypt? And they said one to another, Let us make a captain and let us return to Egypt. Then Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before all the assembly of the congregation of the children of Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh, which were of them, that searched the land, rent their clothes. And they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel, saying, The land which we passed through to search it is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land. And give it us, a land which floweth with milk and honey. Only rebel not against the Lord, neither fear ye the people of the Lord, for they are bread for us. Their defense is departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. Because of seeing, watching differently, because of looking differently, all was punished to die but two. Joshua and Caleb. They looked at God. They trusted the Word of God. They believed the Word of God. They responded to the Word of God. And rather than focusing on the giants, rather than focusing on the problems and the hardships, they focused on the promises of God. I see the same thing happening nearly 3,000 years later today in America. We do the same exact thing. Instead of focusing on the promises of God, what do we focus on? The giants, the hardships, and the problems of our life. We look at the things that we're going through, and God never has told us anywhere in the Bible that it was going to be easy. God never has said that there was not going to be suffering and trials and tribulations, but He has promised us that no matter what we face, He is there to provide us deliverance if we seek Him. But Israel instead looked to themselves rather than trusting God. And you jump down to Numbers 14 and verse 20. We find the difference between Caleb and Joshua and these others. It says, And the Lord said, I have pardoned according to thy word. The section between this, Moses goes before the Lord. God says, you know what? I'm just fixing to kill this whole entire people right here, right now, and we'll start a new nation with you. And you can take them into the promised land, and they'll be your people and my people, and everything's going to be good. And Moses said, we have one problem with that. We have one problem. You've already promised all that to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And guess what? Egypt knows that. All these other Apes and Mites and everything else that we're fixing to go in and fight, they know who's promised too. And he said, so if you start new with me, then they're going to perceive you to be a liar and not have the truth. And God cannot lie. So he said, you know what? I'm not going to destroy you. But here's what I am going to do. Everyone is going to die except for these two that stood with me. And all of the children and the offspring will then be able to go in. And so that's what he says. He says, I have pardoned according to thy word. Verse 21, But as truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord, because all those men which have seen my glory and my miracles which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness and have tempted me now these ten times and have not hearkened to my voice, surely they shall not see the land which I swear unto the fathers, neither shall any of them that provoke me see it, but my servant Caleb. And notice this phrase, because he had another spirit with him and had followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereunto he went, and his seed shall possess it. Listen to me very, very carefully this morning. I want you to understand that following the Lord is never going to be easy. Nowhere does it say it is easy. Nowhere does it say that it's going to be comfortable. But following the Lord is always right. It's always the good thing to do. It's always the right thing to do. And you don't have to read your Bible very far before you find stories of courageous people who are willing to do God's will against all of the odds. You look at David against Goliath. You look at Noah against the flood. You look at Enoch against the rebellious generation. You look at person after person after person that God spared because of their love and their commitment and obedience to Him. If you remember that different spirit that was in him, we were told in Ephesians 5, verse 18, not to be drunk with wine wherein is excess, but to be what? Filled with the Spirit. What Spirit? The Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit that is there to guide us, to comfort us. As a matter of fact, that Spirit was there with the Israelites. He guarded them. That Spirit led them in a cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. The cloud told them when to go, when to stay. The cloud provided them the manna and everything else. The Spirit was there. Caleb was under the influence of that Spirit. He trusted God. He followed God wholly in his heart. And his faith and his actions proved it. As a matter of fact, the author of Hebrews says, without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that cometh to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. When we have faith, not only will we watch things differently, but we'll also walk differently. See, not only will we see things differently, but we'll act differently. We'll walk differently. Remember how many times in the book of Ephesians it told us about our walk with God? We cannot walk with God unless we're following the Spirit. There has to be a different Spirit within us than with the world. And I understand that all of us, when we are saved, we receive the Holy Spirit. But we also understand that we can quench that Holy Spirit. We can deny that Holy Spirit and grieve that Holy Spirit because of our actions and our faith in God. Everybody that came out of Israel, the only way they knew how and where to get to the promised land was by following the Spirit and the cloud and the fire. But guess what? Only two. Only two incorporated that and were allowed to go in to the promised land. So we walk differently. 2 Corinthians 5, verse 5 says, Now He that hath brought us for the selfsame thing as God, who hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit... You and I that love God, that have served God, that have trusted God and given our life to God, God gives us the Spirit of earnest. What is that? It is a guarantee. It is a witness to God that He has saved us when we have the Spirit upon us. And when we have the Spirit upon us, notice what Paul says to the church at Corinth, Therefore, we are always confident. We're confident. Knowing that whilst we are at home in this body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. You think that as the children of Israel were wandering around in the wilderness, you think they realized that they were absent from the presence of God? You think they knew that they were absent from the blessings of God and the promises of God as they are constantly burying their loved ones, they're constantly burying and seeing death and everything else go on, and them not possess the faith, not possess the promised land? So I want us to understand how do we walk differently? And our walk differently is all decided on faith. And it is a process. Those that we walk by faith, not by sight. What is faith? Well, notice first of all, before we get into the definition of faith, notice first of all that we find Caleb claiming faith. He claims faith. If you turn now to Joshua 14, if you're over there, we're going to finish up in these next six verses right here where Joshua takes and what he saw, they saw in their sight that they were grasshoppers and the people were giants. But Caleb said, you know what, I see God. And God's bigger than all of them. God's already given us this land. So he saw differently, therefore he acted differently. And the first thing we find that Joshua did was that he claimed faith. He claimed faith. In verse 6 of Joshua chapter 14, it says, Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the Lord said unto Moses, the man of God, concerning me and thee in Kadesh Barnea. Forty years old was I when Moses the servant sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And I brought him word again and it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt. But I wholly followed the Lord my God. And Moses sweared on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance and thy children's forever because thou hast wholly followed the Lord my God. The first key that we find to Caleb's success was that God had all of Caleb that there was. He had every bit of him. Note the repeated phrase. Wholly followed the Lord. If you'll trace that phrase down, you will find that God and Moses speak of Caleb five times that he wholly followed the Lord. And this is said about Caleb five times in the Old Testament. It's a phrase that literally means to close the gap. He wholly followed the Lord. It's a phrase that was used by hunters. Most of us today, we do a lot of hunting. We sit in deer stands or in our vehicle, right, and everything. But they're used to. They did a lot of the hunting by what they called stalking. And the goal was to close the gap between your animals. You start and you find tracks. And the next thing, you start following the tracks. You start following them signs. And you want to close the gap to where you can get within shot of the prey. That's what this word means. In other words, Caleb was constantly trying to get closer and closer to Jesus Christ. Closer and closer to God. And in this phrase, it refers to the fact that Caleb was committed to keeping the distance between himself and the Lord at a very, very minimum. And then he uses the word wholly, which literally means to feel. And it carries the idea. It was a word used of sellers. And it was the idea of the air that would come in and fill the sails. And when the air come in and fill the sail, what would happen is it would fill that sail to capacity and all of a sudden, it would allow that ship or that boat to be able to be propelled across the water to the destination that they wanted to have. And when you put these two words together, it has this picture of Caleb being filled with air. Being filled so that he begins to move as he is ever closing the gap with his God. Man, how many of us need to be fully, wholly loyal following the Lord? Man, we need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to be closing the gap to Jesus Christ. I'm reminded in Philippians, just come to my mind, Paul said, I've not apprehended Jesus Christ yet, but this one thing I do, I forget about the past. I forget about all of my shortcomings, my failures, my good things, my bad things, and here's what I do. He said, I march toward the prize of the high calling of God. I try to apprehend that for which I've been apprehended. When God gets a hold of us, we should be spending the rest of our life trying to get a hold of Him. Trying to be closer and closer with Him. And so every inch, every ounce, every nerve, every fiber of Caleb belong to the Lord. And you may think that because you're not a preacher, because you're not a deacon or a Sunday school teacher or whatever that God does not expect all of you, this is wrong thinking. And we've got this mentality in our world today that we think, well, I'm not a pastor, so I don't have to give my life holy to God. Or I'm not a deacon or a Sunday school teacher. And God, listen, it doesn't matter who you are. If you are a child of God and you have been saved by the grace of God, you have a responsibility to give God your all and everything that you are, no matter who you are. If you're holding back on the Lord, you should be ashamed of yourself. If you're saved, you are all His anyway. You belong to Him. Every bit of you. As a matter of fact, Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6.19, what? What? Speaking to every one of us, know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own. For you are bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. I have a problem when people say I am growing or maturing spiritually and there's no physical fruit. It wasn't the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit says is love, joy, peace, goodness, gentleness, self-control. Well, I don't have any of that in my life, but I love God and I'm following God. No, you're not. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you're going to love those that can't be loved. You're going to be gentle to those that don't deserve gentleness. You're going to be kind to those that don't deserve kindness. We see it through the entire ministry of Jesus Christ. Going to those that everybody else rejected and turned away, Jesus Christ was led to them to minister to them. And so the first thing that we see in Caleb is he claims his faith. But when you claim your faith, there's another step. And a lot of us, many of us, we're looking at it on Wednesday night and I encourage you, if you're not faithful on Wednesday night, to get there. We're going through and looking at the warnings of Hebrews and they line up and they parallel with what we're studying on Sunday morning. And one of the warnings is that those of us that are saved will never be able to reach the potential of our salvation. And the second misunderstanding that we've looked at this Wednesday night is that you can be saved and you can claim faith and love God and still be overtaken by unbelief in the lack of faith. And so as we look here, notice what happens. Our claim of faith, then there has to be a confession of faith. That's why you are saved and then what happens after salvation? Baptism. Why do we baptize? Because it witnesses what we cannot see. See, we are saved in our heart. If a man believes in his heart that Jesus Christ died and rose again for you and your sins and defeated sin, then you shall confess with your mouth and thou shalt be saved. And part of that confession is as we say, Lord, that's our mouth, but then we are to follow the Lord in scriptural baptism and confessing to everyone else that we have given our life to Jesus Christ. That we have given of Him. That is that confession. And so there can't just be a claiming of faith. There will always be a confession of faith. All through the Bible, when those that received faith, that received a miracle from Jesus Christ because of faith, every one of them immediately confessed it. Every one of them wanted to tell and share it. I sometimes wonder about people that are saved and then wait years before telling anyone about their salvation. Because God wants us, when the Holy Spirit was in us, what is the number one proof that the Holy Spirit is within us? You shall be witnesses. You're going to tell somebody. There's going to be this confession of faith. And unfortunately, we have a lot of Christians today that are claiming faith, but we're not confessing faith. Now notice what Caleb did here in verse 10. It says, And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as He said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. In other words, Caleb now is 85 years old. He was 40 years old when God sent him in to look at the land. And he wandered around for 45 years with them in the wilderness. He has waited for the promise of God. You know, 45 years. Once we have complained and confessed our faith, then, and only then, can we begin to obtain faith and walk by faith. Notice what happens. How did he confess or express or confess his faith? Who gets all the glory here in verse 10? The Lord. The Lord. Look at what He says. Behold, the Lord hath kept me alive. I didn't live during the wilderness. God sustained me through the wilderness. I'm alive because of Him. Look at what He said. These 45 years, even since the Lord spoke this word to Moses. Moses said I would live. God said I would live. God said I would go into the promised land. And I am living proof that God keeps His Word. Every bit of the glory is going to God. Caleb is not taking any credit for it. See, that's what happens when we claim faith and we confess faith. God gets the glory. And so notice this conquering faith of Joshua. Notice what he says in verse 11. And yet, and I love this part. I love this part because you don't hear this much these days. What I hear these days is I'm old and tired and I can't do what I used to do, right? And we think that we need to retire. We think we need to step back. We need to walk away from the Lord. Now remember, Caleb is 85 years old. He's not being asked to teach a Sunday school class. He's not being asked to help out in vacation Bible school. He is asked to go and conquer the giants. The Anakins. He is going to war. To fight. This is a little bit heavier than what a lot of times we ask Christians to do today. And look at what he says. He says, yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day. In the day. In what day? The day that Moses sent me. As my strength was thin, even so is my strength now for war. Both to go out and to come in. Now one of the things that I do know and that I do understand is that guess what? My strength at 54 years old is not near as strong as it was when I was 30 years old. Right? But you know what? Caleb's not thinking about physical strength. He's talking about his spiritual strength. See, he trusted God 45 years ago that God would deliver the people. And guess what? Caleb's saying at 85 years old that God has promised me this and if I claim it, God will give me the ability physically, mentally, and spiritually to accomplish what I need to accomplish. And so his strength is not in himself. His strength is in the Lord. Some of us just need to take our faith to the next level and just start trusting God. If God tells us that we will witness, we will have fruit. If God tells us if we sow, we shall reap. Some of us just need to step up and say, you know what? When I believed God way back yonder, I'm still as strong today as I was back then. Matter of fact, I'm stronger today than I was when I was 9 years old and I trusted Jesus Christ with everything. I'm stronger today than I was back then because you know why? I proved God over and over and over. And not one time has God ever left me or forsaken me. And so man, not only am I as strong as I was, but I'm even stronger. And that's what Caleb is saying here. Conquering faith gives us the ability to, first of all, overcome grasshoppers. You say, what do you mean by grasshopper? Overcoming grasshoppers. We'll go back to Numbers 13.33. What did it say? In our own sight, we are as grasshoppers. Do you know how much of God in possessing our possessions has failed because we think we are too small or incapable? The first thing we do is look at ourselves, right? Man, God's calling us to do this, and God, somebody else would be better equipped, somebody else would be better for that, right? And we see ourselves as grasshoppers. But see, conquering faith overcomes seeing ourselves as grasshoppers, seeing ourselves as insignificant in this world. Do you realize that every single one of you sitting here today and listening on Facebook this morning is significant in the eyes of God? Every one of us has a purpose for God, and God is willing to see it through. If we will just trust Him. It's not us fighting. It's not us doing. It is God that is giving the glory. Caleb declaimed what God had promised. He had to go against the majority. Do you remember, if you look and study the life of Jesus Christ in the New Testament, do you realize that Jesus Christ usually went alone in everything that He did? And most of the time, His disciples that gave up their life to follow Him was pulled along kicking and screaming. Right? Remember John 4 that we went through a few years ago? What did He say? I must need to go to Samaria. And what did the disciples say? Why in the world, Lord, would we go through Samaria, right? Because my Father wants me to go to Samaria, right? They get to Samaria, and what did the disciples say? Man, we're hungry. While you're sitting here waiting, doing whatever you must do, then we've got to go get some food, right? And while He was there, He led one woman that went back and turned the whole entire town of Samaria to Jesus Christ. And He said, My fields are white unto harvest, but my labors are few. You're worried about the physical. You're worried about starving when God is giving you more than you ever deserve or could ever have. Over and over we see it in the life of Jesus Christ. Sometimes, listen to me, there will always be people in your lives that are saying in your ear it cannot be done. There will always be people in your life that says we have never done it like that before. We cannot do it that way today. We can't afford it. There's always going to be the majority that says we are just grasshoppers. You don't understand. But folks, there has to be some of us that are minorities that say with God, all things are possible. And so notice, sometimes we will stand alone, but if we stand alone on the Word of God and the will of God, then guess what? We're in better company than if we stand with the majority. And so let's just keep trusting God. And not only does a conquering faith overcome grasshoppers, but guess what? It also overcomes giants. See, the neat thing about this story is that in Joshua 14, we are told about this place that Caleb wants to get. And it says, Now therefore, give me this mountain of all of the places that he could pick. What does he pick? He picks the mountain where the Anakins live on. Now, I don't know anything about the Anakins. Right? The name sounds tough enough. But God tells us in His Word that what? This is the place where giants live. And He says, look what He says. He says the Anakins were there, their cities were great, and they were fenced. Now can you imagine? Now I don't know how big they were as giants. I know that Goliath, who was called a giant in the Bible, was over 9 feet tall. Can you imagine the average Hebrew person at around 5 to 6 feet tall going up against a 9 foot? Can you imagine looking at the fences that these giants would have built? They would have been huge. They would have been towering. And what does Caleb say? Caleb says, I want that mountain. I want to go in there and I want God you to take and overcome the biggest, baddest giants in the land. I want the biggest, most fortified cities in this whole entire place that you promised us. And Lord help us, we'll sing, Lord just give me a little cabin over in the corner of glory land. Right? Caleb didn't just want to be in the promised land. He wanted the best the promised land had to offer. So he overcomes the giants. Giants. What are giants in our lives? We just got through studying giants in Sunday school. And we learned that giants are the giants of discouragement. They're the giants of our finances, of sickness, of distress, of doubt. And the truth is, is we cannot defeat them on ourselves. We are going to always face giants in our life of worry, of anxiety, of depression. But guess what? God can deliver us from all of the giants in our life. We have two options. We can first of all say, look how small we are compared to these giants and see ourselves as grasshoppers. That is the outlook of fear. That's what we find. 2 Timothy 1 and verse 7 says, For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. So scripture already disconfirms that idea. It's not fear. So we're not too small. Ephesians 3 and verse 20 says, Now unto him that is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us. So the choice of fear and saying, man, these giants are just too big for me to overcome, is not scriptural. Understand something this morning. And I want you to understand this very, very seriously this morning. Fighting giants is a good thing. Fighting giants is a good thing. Look at what it did to David's reputation. We're still talking about it now, right? We're not talking about any of the other Israelites that was afraid of Goliath. But we talk about David, right? And listen, it's overcoming these giants in our life. Notice what he says in Numbers 14.9. Because this is a phrase, and we read over it. We don't even think about it. He says, Only rebel not you against the Lord, neither fear you the people of the land, for they are what? Bread for us. Their defense has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Fear them not. They are bread for us. I can remember a lady that used to keep me a lot when Dad was pastoring, my mom was teaching, and before I got into school and was going to school, so I was probably four or five years old, and this lady loved spinach. And she would serve me spinach every single meal. And you know what? I got to where I like spinach. She got me to eat it because I'd watch Pie Pie. Any of you remember Pie Pie, the old cartoon? Right? And Pie Pie the sailor man. What made him powerful? Eating spinach. Man, he would get down. He would get discouraged. He would come up to a giant in his life, and what did he do? He would get an old can of spinach, and he would eat it, and man, the muscles would pop out on him and everything else, and he would open up a terrible problem, a chaos upon the people. That's what he is saying. He's saying, God, these giants are going to be bread for us. They're not going to be very fun at first, but man, when we get into their cities, it's going to be great. Think about all the food that the giants would have had to have in their houses to survive. Most of us could survive a long time on a diet for a nine-foot individual, right? And so he said, they're going to be bread for us. So it overcomes our giants. But conquering faith also overcomes gray hair. Now look around. That's where a lot of us fit into this category, right? How does it overcome our gray hair? Look back to verse 10 of Joshua 14. He says, Lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. I am now 85 years old. What does this tell us? What does it tell us? If God makes a promise, He will give us the strength to see its fulfillment. It doesn't matter what age we are. Paul said that we shall achieve if we faint not, if we don't give up, if we don't quit. Never count God out. But here's the other problem to that. Never count yourself out. Because me and God make a majority. With me and God, we can do anything and everything. And so don't count yourself out if you're a child of God. True faith looks beyond the present circumstances and sees the provisions of the Almighty. These giants are going to be bread. Now, when was the last time you were beat up, bruised, or hurt by bread? Right? It's pretty soft. I tear up more bread and squash more bread than bread has ever damaged me, right? My wife gets on to me because I always put the bread at the bottom of the bag, right? She gets home. I don't see it. She pulls it out and it's all squished. It's never done me any problems. He said these giants are simply bread. So even in our old age, don't give up on God. Conquering faith produces confidence faith. A confident faith. Look at what he says there in verse 12. Now, therefore. Now, therefore. I'm 85 years old. I have claimed faith in God. I have confessed my faith in God. I have a conquering faith because of God. And guess what? Here is my confidence. Give me this mountain. Give me this mountain. Wherefore, the Lord spake in that day. For thou heardest in that day how the Innocents were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. The Lord will be with me. Then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said. Listen, he heard God. He trusted God. He believed God. And I can see Caleb right now. Climbing that mountain with a sword in one hand and a deed in the other hand while singing at the top of his lungs. I want this mountain. I want this mountain where the milk and honey flow. Where the grapes of Eshgal grow. I want this mountain. I want this mountain. I want the mountain that the Lord has given me. That would be a good song to write there, Brian. Put a tune to it. I want this mountain. See, that's confidence. An 85-year-old man going against all of these giants. Caleb knew God had already given it. So what did he do? He claimed it. Stop right there, because when I name that, God has given it and claimed it. I know some of you are already thinking, well, this is that name-it-claim-it sermon, right? I'm not talking about what the Pentecostals name it and claim it. I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking about positive thinking. All these books that we have and all of these gurus on TV that if we just think positive, we'll make it happen. That's not what Caleb is doing here. It's not optimism, having a good outlook on life. If we have enough optimism, then it will happen. It's not looking on the bright side of things. Faith is simply acting on what God says. It's simply taking God at His Word and believing that He will give everything that He promised to do. That's what faith is. Faith is believing God enough that you trust God that you do it. So I'm not naming it and claiming it. I am reading it and taking it. I'm inquiring it. Look at the last thing, and we'll close. Notice his compensation for faith. Did you realize there's a compensation for faith? Caleb got it. Look at what happens. Because he walked differently, notice what happened in verse 13. And Joshua blessed him and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephthah, Hebron, for an inheritance. Hebron, therefore, became the inheritance of Caleb, the son of Jephthah, the Kinezite, which is kind of neat. If you do some research on that, mark that. I'll make a comment on that here in just a minute. The Kinezite unto this day because that he wholly followed the Lord God of Israel and the name of Hebron was Kerjah Arba, which Arba was a great man among the Anakins, and the land had rest from war. Now, what's he talking about? He's talking about right here. He's saying that it was once named after their king, a giant, by the name of Arba. But God has changed the name of it to Hebron. And He has given it to this Caleb of Jephthah. Now, notice, first of all, the blessings. He blessed him. Now, here's the neat thing about blessing him because it tells us that he is a Kedesarite. What in the world is that? Well, I had to do some study. I said, why in the world did they throw that in there now? Because everywhere that I've read about Caleb, it always refers to him as the son of Jephthah. But now, all of a sudden, when he goes in to claim the promised land, it mentions that he is also of the Kedesarites. And so what are the Kenizzites unto this day? What is the Kenizzite? Well, I had to go back and look, and they were descendants of Esau. And apparently, somewhere back then, they got assimilated into the people, and because of Caleb and him following God and holy following God, do you realize that not only was him and his clan accepted among the Hebrew people, that he was not originally a descendant of Abraham, but he was also brought up to be one of the heads of the family of Judah that was sent out to spy the land and is now there. He wasn't even a Hebrew that was under the promise of them, and God gave him the very best because he believed and he trusted God. Look at the bounty that He gave him. What did He give him? He gave him Hebron for an inheritance. Now, what in the world is Hebron? Why does that matter? The name of the place that Caleb called, inherited, was named Hebron. That word literally means fellowship. The place of fellowship. And as I began to do some research, and this has been exciting, this has been fun to me because I learned some things this week. I started tracing that word Hebron. And as I looked at that word Hebron, because why is this mountain so significant? Why is this mountain so there? And do you realize what in the world is the mountain of Hebron that means fellowship is all about? You know where we're first introduced to Hebron at? Way back yonder in the book of Genesis. And we find that in Genesis chapter 13, right after the event, and all of you are going to be familiar with this event, you remember when Lot and Abraham came out of Egypt and the first place they came was this beautiful, lush valley? And Lot made the recommendation, you know what, Abraham, there's just not room enough in this valley for both of us and our cattle. Right? And their men started fighting and warring. And you remember they made an agreement. What did Lot choose? Sodom and Gomorrah, the valley, because it was well grassed, the people, the liveliness. And we follow that out and we see what happened to Lot, right? He pitched his tent towards Sodom and Gomorrah. The next thing we read, he's in Sodom and Gomorrah. The next thing, he's being spared, but he loses his wife and his two daughters end up, I mean, just a bad situation all around. But what did Abraham do? Abraham said, okay, Lot, you go to the valley. I'm going to go to this mountain. And when he got up on the mountain, in Genesis chapter 13 and verse 18, it said there that Abraham built an altar unto the Lord and called this place Hebron. He built an altar, fellowship. God... Now, I don't know how many of you, but when you look across America, and this is what I go by, I don't ever see in people raise sheep and cows and livestock in mountains. I see them in the valleys. I see them in the grasslands, right? We don't see them up in the mountains and everything else, but what did God... Abraham. Abraham said, I'll take the mountains, because why? I'm in fellowship with God. God's going to take care of my animals. God's going to take care of everything that I have. And so what did he do? He built an altar there to fellowship with God. I trust you. I trust you. And at that same event, right after he built an altar, God took him and showed Abraham all of the land and walked him about and showed him everything that he would possess. Now, that's pretty amazing. We come on down a little further in history, and we find out that Abraham's wife Sarah dies. You know where she dies? At Hebron. You follow Abraham, and you find that even though he was a pilgrim, and even though he traveled around, he kept coming back to Hebron, because that's where he fellowshiped with God. That's where his altar was at. And when he came back to Hebron, Sarah died there. You remember the story there. What did Abraham do? He went to the people there at Mamre, Hebron, and he ended up asking them, Can I acquire a cave to bury my wife? And Abraham bought a cave in order to bury his wife. Now, here's what's cool about it. Not only was Sarah buried there, but Abraham was buried there. Isaac was buried there. Rebekah was buried at Hebron. Jacob was buried at Hebron. Leah was buried at Hebron. And they were all listed in the Word of God as being buried in Hebron, but Josephus, a great historian, goes on and tells us that actually all of the sons of Jacob, with the exception of Joseph, are also buried in that cave in Hebron. Now, here's what's cool about this, and I know I'm out of time, but here's the cliffhanger. I want to give you this, because I want you to see it. Who was the promise of the promisely and first given to? Abraham. Hebrews says that Abraham had faith in God, and it was imputed unto him as righteousness. Why? Because he trusted God. He left his country. He left everything for a land that God had promised him that he never did possess. The only property that he had in the promised land was a cave that was designed for his burial. But he trusted a God to know that, guess what? Eventually, my family's going to be here. Eventually, God's going to give them this land. And I want them to be able to come to my graveside. I want them to be here when they receive the blessings that God had promised them. Here's another interesting fact. You know who was anointed king at Hebron? David. David. As a matter of fact, the first capital that David served at was at Hebron. For seven and a half years, he served at Hebron before he marched into Jerusalem and conquered Jerusalem, and then he moved the capital of the Hebrew people from Hebron to Jerusalem. But I got out of the Bible just a little bit because this connection is starting to make some sense, and I'm starting to have fun with it, right? So I went to the famous Google, and I began to look at Hebron on Google. And I began to read articles about Hebron. And do you realize that from the time of Abraham to today, even though Israel has never fully occupied the land, there has not been a time that Hebron has not had an occupancy of the Hebrew children? They've all been driven out of Jerusalem. They've all been driven out of everywhere else, but there's been Jews, Hebrew people, that have lived in Hebron all along. Why? Because it means fellowship with God. See, not only is fellowshipping with God and faith good for us, but it's good for our children. It's good for our children's children. And you go on and you read that story in Joshua, and you find all of these things about a man that wasn't even originally a Hebrew that trusted God, that fully lived God, and what happened? He entered bliss. He entered bliss. What do you mean by bliss? Well, look at verse 15, And the land had rest from war. Isn't that all that we as Christians could ask for? Is rest? Jesus Christ said, Take my yoke upon you, for my burdens are light. Right? Come, all you that are labor and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Why did this happen to Caleb? Why did Caleb find all of these blessings, this bounty, and this bliss? All the way back to Numbers chapter 14 and verse 24. Because Caleb had a different spirit within him. A different spirit. Ephesians tells us to be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, but be filled with the Spirit. Let me ask you two questions this morning. Have you claimed your possessions? Have you claimed all of those spiritual blessings that God has given you? It's one thing to claim it. But the second question I want to ask is, do you possess it? See, there's a difference between Abraham claimed it, enough so that he was willing to die and be buried there, but he never possessed it. He never possessed it. But Caleb, Caleb claimed it, and he possessed it. Three Scriptures I want to give you as our musicians come this morning. In 1 Corinthians chapter 15 and verse 57, it says, But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 2.14 says, Now thanks be unto God which always causeth us to what? Triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savor of His knowledge by us in every place. Who's receiving the glory when God causes us to triumph? God. It's not us. It's God. Romans 8.37, Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us. There are going to be trials. There's going to be tribulation. There's going to be giants in your life. They're going to happen. They're going to be there. When Moses sent them into the promised land, he said, Go and look at what? The people? Go look at their food. Go look at the housings and the shelter that they have. And what did they focus on? They didn't focus on anything but the food and their enemies. It's a land flowing with milk and honey, but there's giants. And all of a sudden when they began to look at the giants, they forgot about these wonderful cities that they're not going to have to build. All they're going to have to do is walk in and occupy. When you think about that, you think about all of the giants in the Bible, do you realize that God had a flood for Noah? He had a fire for three Hebrew boys. He had a lion's den for Daniel. He had a Goliath for David. Do you realize God even had a cross for Jesus Christ? We're going to have giants. We're going to have problems. But it was when Jesus Christ cried, Father, it is finished. That the veil was rent. And God said, the price has been paid. God was glorified. Not in the life of Jesus Christ, which He was, but He was glorified in the death of Jesus Christ. And therefore, Jesus Christ is going to be given all honor and all glory. And every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that He is Lord of lords and King of kings. The only way that God can be glorified in our life, Philippians Paul said, I have crucified myself. Nevertheless, not I live, but Christ lives in me. Have you claimed your possessions? Have you possessed your possessions? As we stand and have a verse of invitation this morning, today can be the first day that you can say with Caleb, you know what? It doesn't matter what's happened the last 85 years. I'm as strong today as I ever was. God, I'm going to trust you. God, give me this mountain. I'm going to trust you.
