Joshua Chapter 18:1-10

You can have the peace of God in your life. That is God's design. And it's called another place, the peace that passes all understanding.

That means that at some point in your life, it will be the thing to do to be freaked out, but you won't be freaked out. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. As Christians, we can know the peace of God even while the world is troubled and swirling around us. Find out how today as Pastor David continues in the book of Joshua chapter 18. But first, when you're in trouble, where do you turn most often?

Do you look to yourself or the advice of your friends or do you go straight to God? We want to help you experience the hope that comes from looking to the Lord when your life turns upside down by sending you Pastor David McGee's CD series titled Lessons from the Wilderness. In this encouraging resource, Pastor David looks at one of the most difficult periods of King David's life to show you how you can wait confidently on God no matter what you're facing. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

Now here's David McGee with his teaching, Blessed in Blessing. So Joshua chapter 18 verse 1 says, Now the whole congregation of the children of Israel assembled together at Shiloh and set up the tabernacle of meeting there, and the land was subdued before them. This word Shiloh, and you can probably figure this out, it comes from the word shalom.

So in looking at this, a place of rest, a place of peace. And most of us know the word shalom, right? It's a Hebrew word.

It means much more than peace. Now don't let Hebrew freak you out. You say Amen every night, right? Say Amen. Say Hallelujah. You're speaking Hebrew.

Those are Hebrew words. Amen means so be it. Hallelujah. Hallell means praise. Yah means the Lord.

Praise the Lord. So when you say Hallelujah, you're saying praise the Lord in Hebrew. Hebrew is a very interesting language. Ancient Hebrew started as a picture language. It's kind of like Chinese in that there was a picture that stood for something.

There was a picture of say teeth or a picture of an ox, and that ox came to mean power or leader, and that was the aleph. And the bet looked like a little picture of a house. Bet means house in Israel. So when you hear Bethlehem is house of bread.

Anytime you've seen Beth, that's house. And you may recognize those two words. Aleph and bet. Alphabet. That's where we get the word for alphabet from the first two letters of the Hebrew.

I am under the pretty strong impression after studying a good bit towards this that Hebrew, and some linguistic people will argue with me, but I believe Hebrew was the original language in that all languages came out of Hebrew. I've got a lot of reasons I'm not going to go into tonight that I believe that. So shalom. Is there another picture, is there another word picture in shalom that might mean something that might speak to our hearts? Shalom does mean peace.

It means a lot more than that, but let's recall that in Luke 24 36, Jesus himself, now as they said these things, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, peace to you. Jesus didn't speak English, okay? I know that was going to bum some of you out, and you know, somebody that was talking about, you know, the King James version only said, you know, made this comment. They said, well it's good enough for Paul.

It's good enough for me. Paul didn't speak English. Now I love the King James. I study in King James.

I have one where the pages are all falling out, and it's all marked up, and I can't even hold it out here anymore. That's sitting on my desk, but Paul spoke Greek, but Jesus here would have said in peace to you. He would have said shalom. Shalom. It's a beautiful word, and there is a word picture in there.

Now the Hebrew didn't have vowels in it for a long time, and what it was, was consonants. So the word shalom was made up of three letters. The sheen, the lamed, and the mim. Shalom.

Okay, so those are the three things. So is there a picture in there? Well, sheen originally, it kind of looks like a w now, but it was, it was the picture of teeth, and it came to mean, that word picture came to mean destroy. Sheen, the first word picture means destroy.

The l was a shepherd's staff, and you look at our l now, and you can see how it came from that, and the l came to mean authority or power. The mim looked like water, and it meant, and the word picture there was chaos. So when you put those three pictures together, shalom, the sheen means to destroy, the lamed means authority, and the mim means chaos. So what is shalom when you put that together? To destroy the authority that causes chaos, which is a perfect description of the word shalom. Now what's interesting too, is later on they came and they put different letters that came to mean valves, and one of those is called the vav, and the vav, the symbol, the picture of that was a nail. So now it gets even more intriguing in that there was a nail used to destroy the authority that caused chaos, and that's the word picture that you get from shalom.

That's an amazing thing, because Jesus was nailed to the cross, and he destroyed the authority that caused chaos in our lives and in the world. What a beautiful picture hidden in that word. This is the reason you can dig in this Bible. You can study this Bible and look at word pictures, and believe it or not, I could go on like an hour with these Hebrew word pictures, and there's just so much stuff. I'm not going to.

Don't get words. Some of you are like, oh no, but I mean there are so many things in there that you can bring out that are just so, so deep, because 1 John 3 8. See, this makes more sense now we know what shalom really means.

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose, the son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil, destroy the one who causes chaos. And the first life lesson off of this, you can have the peace of God in your life. You can have the peace of God in your life.

That is God's design, and it's called in another place the peace that passes all understanding. That means that at some point in your life, it will be the thing to do to be freaked out, but you won't be freaked out. If it's the peace that passes all understanding, that means you'll have peace sometimes that you don't understand. In other words, you'll be in a situation where people around you go, why aren't you more upset?

Why aren't you more freaked out? And you go, because I got the peace that passes all understanding. I mean, if you always understand it, it's not the peace that passes all understanding. And some people will look at you and go, there's something wrong with you.

You should be like upset or freaked out. No, I've got the peace. And you might not understand it.

It passes your understanding. And guys, this is a beautiful, beautiful thing. And it should be highly treasured as believers because you know what? It's something the world doesn't have.

It's something the world is looking for. They don't have peace. It doesn't come to those who reject God. It doesn't come through medication. It doesn't come through alcohol. It doesn't come through drugs.

It doesn't come through success. None of those things will bring you lasting peace. The only thing that can bring you lasting peace is the prince of peace.

And he's ready tonight to give that to you. Sometimes you may be overwhelmed. You may see stuff going on around you that will place you in the position where you have to lean on God to have that peace. There will be things that come into your life, let me, that God allows to come into your life that could overwhelm you and your personal strength. But God says, you know what?

Lean on me in those times. And you're going to find out, I'll give you that peace that passes all understanding. Now, instead of that being a freak out time, it becomes a beautiful time of going, ah, I got the peace of God.

This is awesome. And what a testimony and what a witness to the world. So we can have our shalom, we can have our shalom. Verse two, but there remained among the children of Israel seven tribes which had not yet received their inheritance. This is intriguing. Verse three, then Joshua said to the children of Israel, how long will you neglect to go and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you?

This is, this is amazing. They're in the land. They've won the battles.

There's seven tribes that are kind of, it sounds like standing around. And Joshua has to say, guys, how long are you going to neglect to go and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers has given you? Now, the amazing thing is he's given them the land. He's given them the power to possess the land, but they're not possessing the land. He is trying to bless them. Are they experiencing the blessing? No.

Why? Because they're not possessing the land. They're not going into the land. Now, I can imagine that some people in the group are standing around going, I thought God was a blessing God. I don't feel very blessed.

And Joshua has to say, hey, guys, you're not in the place you're supposed to be. That's kind of convicting, isn't it? Just a little bit. See, we do the same thing. Sometimes we think, well, God's not blessing me.

Well, wait a minute. Where are you? Where are you? Are you standing around kind of clumped around to Joshua going, I don't understand why God's not blessing me. Well, as the spiritual leader, as the Joshua, so to speak, I'm not Jesus, but as a spiritual leader, let me ask you, where are you? Are you going to possess the land which God has given you? The Lord desires to bless you, and He desires to use you to bless others. The Lord desires to bless you, and He desires to use you to bless others. Now, some people, they understand the first part. They go, yep, all right, God desires to bless me.

Well, wait a minute. It's more than that. See, because if you just absorb the blessings of God at some point, those blessings will begin to trickle off.

Why? Because the natural use of the blessings of God is to bless others. See, we're a conduit, if you will, of God's blessing. God chose me a lot of really neat stuff, a lot of powerful things in the Word of God, but if I didn't share them with people, I wonder if it would keep revealing them to me. I wonder. I mean, if I saw, oh, that's cool.

I'm not going to tell them that. You know, I wonder if I started doing that, if God would be like, okay, well, I'm not going to tell you that. It makes sense, right? So what we have to understand is we want to be a conduit of God's blessings to others.

And at times, here's what happens, guys. At times, we think, well, yeah, I want God to bless me, and I'm not really experiencing the blessing of God. Is your life surrendered to God? You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, no matter how wise you are, listening to your own advice when you should be trusting God is dangerous. That's why we want to send you Pastor David McGee's CD series called Lessons from the Wilderness. Journey through one of the darkest times in King David's life and discover how you can wait confidently on God no matter what struggles you're facing because his plans are perfect and he always comes through for you. Lessons from the Wilderness is our thank you for your gift this month to share the hope of Christ with others. So please visit crossthebridge.com for your copy of Lessons from the Wilderness.

Now, back to today's message. God wants to bless us. God desires to bless us. And if for some reason there's something in your life where you don't feel the blessing of God, where you don't feel the peace of God, then you need to pause and you need to take a little inventory of your life real quick and say, okay, is there an area of my life that I'm holding back the blessing of God? Is it a surrendered life? See, and somehow, somehow we hesitate in all this.

Somehow, even as I said take a life inventory, some of you probably stiffened up a little bit. But what did I just say? I want you to have the blessing of God on your life. And in order to do that, take a look at your life and ask the Lord and look into the Word and say, are there things that I'm doing that God can't bless? You understand there are some things God won't bless? There are some things, if you're going to buy a lottery ticket so God will make you rich so you'll tithe, God's not going to bless that. That's really twisted in a lot of ways, but I don't want to chase that.

You can imagine all the ways that's just wrong, you know? So God desires to bless you, but what happens is sometimes in our behavior, sometimes in our activities, we hold back the blessing of God. And because I want you to have the blessing of God, I got to challenge you with that.

See, and I don't know why we hesitate in these areas. That's like, you know, God in Malachi talks about that if you give, it'll be given back to you. That God will open up the gates of heaven and pour out on you. God has promised that he will bless you if you give and we hesitate to give. God promises he will bless you if you serve. We hesitate to serve. God promises that he will bless you as you share his love with other people. We hesitate to share his love with other people.

That's interesting, isn't it? We begin to clog up that channel of blessing between us and God. We clog it up. Not God. The problem is not with God.

The problem is never with God. The problem, well, friend, I mean, it stings me as much to say this as it does you. The problem is here. And so look at that conduit. Look at that conduit first and say, okay, is there something that's clogging this? Is there something I'm doing or not doing that God has communicated to me or Pastor David has communicated to me that I'm not doing that I'm clogging up the blessing?

Look at that first. The next thing you look at is make sure there's no congestion of blessing between you and other people. Because again, the blessings are given that we might bless others. It's not just for our enjoyment. It's in part for our enjoyment, but it's in part to bless other people and to make sure that there's not a congestion between us and blessing others.

Because you know what? If you allow yourself to be a vessel that God uses to bless other people, you'll be amazed at how blessed your life is. I mean, I could sit up here and just rattle testimony after testimony after testimony after testimony of people who experience that blessing.

Why? Because they want it to be a blessing to other people. See, if your mentality is bless me, Lord, bless me, Lord, bless me more, bless me more, then you're kind of missing it. Bless me, Lord, so I can bless others.

There are people that emphasize this type of teaching to what I feel like is an unhealthy level. They say, look, this is what you do to get a blessing from God. You got to speak it and speak it and speak it and speak it and speak it. You call it a lot of different things. You can call it word faith. You can call it whatever, name it, claim it, blab it, grab it, whatever. But anyway, the concept there is a sound one. It's just been abused. It's been emphasized to an unhealthy level. See, when you begin to say God wants everybody rich, God wants everybody to have this year's Cadillac or whatever, there's a lot of problems with that.

Even in the United States, much less, can you really go over to India and teach that? Well, God wants you all rich. Was it everybody in sin over there?

But there's a core truth there. God desires to bless us. Why? I don't know, because he's a blessing God, because he's a good God. That's his nature. He wants to bless us, and it's okay.

This is where some of us are going to get tripped up a little bit. It's okay to expect God to bless you. It's okay. As a matter of fact, you should expect God to bless you. Now, I'm not saying you throw a hissy fit if he doesn't bless you in the way you think he should, but expecting a blessing is an important part of walking with the Lord. I expect God to bless me. I don't expect God to bless me because of my behavior necessarily or because I'm going to sin, or I don't expect him to bless me because I'm going to say a prayer and I'm going to hold my breath till my face turns blue.

That's weird. That's not good theology. But I do expect God to bless me. I do expect God to bless you guys tonight.

Let me ask you a question. When you came here tonight, did you come here expecting a blessing? Or was it, here we go, we're going on a Thursday because this is what we do. We go to church on Thursday, and pretty soon it's going to be Sunday, and the whole thing is going to start all over again. That's not expecting a blessing. See, if you come expecting a blessing, you know what happens? You look for that blessing. If you come expecting to hear from God, you look to hear from God. And if you come expecting nothing, you might find it. Now, let's use what we're talking about being the conduit of blessing. And this just gets even better. Some people here come expecting a blessing, and they come to be a blessing.

Oh man, and that's when it's really working. Because they come going, okay, I'm going to go in, I'm going to get the word of God and go, man, it's going to speak to my life. Changes are going to happen. I'm going to walk out different than when I walked in. Man, I'm going to go in there and worship. You know, and I'm going to start worshiping. Praise God, it's going to be an awesome time. And those people walk out and go, man, how was church? It was great. It was great because they came in, they came to be blessed, expecting a blessing, and that's okay. And they came to bless others. Man, I see it all the time.

Man, it so encourages me. Somehow I come in here and they'll just look around for somebody to hug. I'll find somebody to hug. I'm going to hug somebody in here.

Hey, come here. You know, and you can, you know, if it's your first time here, you can tell because people, oh, he's hugging me. Okay. It's kind of weird for some people, but we're a huggy bunch and it's a good thing. It's okay.

Why? Because we're wanting to bless one another. Or you come in, you look for, I'm going to look for somebody that's discouraged. I'm going to pray for him. I'm going to look for somebody that doesn't look like they had a good day, and I'm going to ask them how they're doing.

Ask if I can pray for him. Come to be a blessing. Because when you expect a blessing and you want to be a blessing, let me guarantee you something. You're going to be blessed. And I think that sometimes we shy away from expecting a blessing because we, I don't know, for whatever reason, we think, well, I don't deserve it.

Yeah, you're right. You don't deserve. I don't deserve it. I don't deserve to be blessed. God blesses me because that's what he does. Our God is a blessing God. And sometimes we get this idea that we're trying to talk God into blessing us.

No, no, no, no, no, no. God wants to bless you. He lays it out in his word how you receive those blessings. The problem is sometimes we're clogging the pipeline up and then we're wondering why we're not blessed. God wants to bless you, friend. Every week I pray it in the service. God bless you and keep you. And the blessings of God are just, they're just incredible.

They're just incredible. And so this is something that we need to get in our minds and our heart and not neglect to go and possess the land because God wants us, he wants to have us in a place of blessing. I came across a quote from Matthew Henry. Some of you may be familiar with Matthew Henry's name. Matthew Henry wrote a lot of really good commentaries on the whole Bible.

A lot of really good stuff. I came across a quote, I don't want to read it to you. I've got it in my notes here. I'm not just going to read it.

I didn't memorize it. But it's called A Catalog of the Mercies of God. It reads like this. And it's a list of what he's thankful for. For spiritual mercies, for the Lord Jesus Christ, his incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension, and intercession. For grace, pardon, peace, for the word, the means of grace, for prayer, for good instructions, for the good I have got at any time under the word. For any sukor or help from God under temptation, for brokenness of heart, for an enlightening. Lord Jesus, I bless thee for thy word, for good parents, for good education, that I was taken into covenant betimes at baptism. And Lord, I give thee things that I am thine and will be thine. That was written several hundred years ago.

So there's some thines and these and stuff. But what's awesome is the heart that he had when he wrote this and also when he wrote it. Because Matthew Henry, when he wrote this, was 13 years old. And at 13, he had it. He understood. He was walking in the blessings of God.

He was in that place where he was supposed to be. And you young people, perhaps your mentality, your thinking is, well, I'm going to wait until I get older and then I'll see if God will use me. No, no, no. God wants to use you right now, right where you are. Sometimes as adults, we think, well, if I can do this and do that and do that and then God will bless me and I can bless others.

No, no, no. God wants to use you right where you are to bless you and to be a blessing to other people. He wants to do that.

It's very clear from his word that he wants to do that. Verse four, pick out from among you three men for each tribe and I will send them and they shall rise and go through the land, survey it according to their inheritance and come back to me. And they shall divide it into seven parts. Judah shall remain in their territory on the south and the house of Joseph shall remain in their territory on the north. You shall therefore survey the land in seven parts and bring the survey here to me that I may cast lots for you here before the Lord our God.

But the Levites have no part among you for the priesthood of the Lord is their inheritance. And Gad, Reuben, and half the tribe of Manasseh, we talked about them last week, have received their inheritance beyond the Jordan on the east which Moses the servant of the Lord gave them. Then the men arose to go away and Joshua charged those who went to survey the land saying go walk through the land survey it and come back to me that I may cast lots for you here before the Lord in Shiloh. So the men went passed through the land and wrote the survey in a book in seven parts by cities and they came to Joshua at the camp in Shiloh.

Then Joshua cast lots for them in Shiloh before the Lord and there Joshua divided the land to the children of Israel according to their divisions. You know what's interesting here is how how organized it was because you know I think sometimes we think that organization is spiritually bad and that being disorganized means you're really spiritual. When you're going to start church well I don't know whenever the Lord leads we endeavor to start on time right right on the second. I don't know if you've noticed that some churches don't do that and I don't think that glorifies God.

Do you know why? Because sometimes you guys you get home from work you you know get the kids cleaned up you get them dressed you try to eat so you can get here and get here in time for worship to start. Well if you do all that and you get here right at seven and then the worship team wanders out at like quarter after that's not glorifying the Lord. What we want to do is put these things into place to better serve you and to better glorify the Lord. Friend do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live...