Joshua Chapter 21:1-45

God did all that He had promised. And I'm sure at certain times they thought, well, there's too many of them. They're too big. They have armaments.

They have all these things. There's just no way we can win. God said, yeah. Yeah, I promised it. It's my word.

It'll come to pass. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. God is faithful. God does give the victory and God keeps his promises. Today, Pastor David asks the question, what has God promised you? As he continues his study in the book of Joshua chapter 21. But first, do you ever feel like God is cutting away parts of you like a gardener pruning a tree?

Well, I hope you said yes to this question because it means God is shaping you so that you can bear even more fruit in your life. We want to help you embrace God's pruning in your life by sending you Pastor David McGee's three-part audio series, Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life. It's our way of saying thank you for your gift to help share the truth of Scripture with more people around the world through Cross the Bridge. So get your copy of Abiding in Christ when you give today at crossthebridge.com and discover how you can bear more fruit for God's kingdom.

Now here's David McGee with part three of his teaching, City of Refuge. Let's turn to Joshua chapter 21 verse 1. Then the heads of the fathers houses of the Levites came to Eliezer the priest to Joshua the son of Nun to the heads of the fathers houses of the tribes of the children of Israel and they spoke to them at Shiloh in the land of Canaan saying the Lord commanded through Moses to give us cities to dwell in with their common lands for our livestock. So the children of Israel gave to the Levites from their inheritance at the commandment of the Lord these cities and their common lands. So the Levites ended up getting 48 cities to dwell in and none of them were more than 10 knowledge apart. So at any point in that land you could quickly find a Levite if you needed to make an offering or sacrifice or you know hear the word of God or or get a teaching or talk to him about something they were available.

Awesome. So verse 4. Now the lot came out for the families of the coethites and the children of Aaron the priest who were of the Levites had 13 cities by lot from the tribe of Judah from the tribe of Simeon and from the tribe of Benjamin. The rest of the children of coeth had 10 cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Ephraim, from the tribe of Dan and from the half tribe of Manasseh. And the children of Gershon had 13 cities by lot from the families of the tribe of Issachar from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the half tribe of Manasseh and Bashan. Verse seven the children of Moriah according to their families had 12 cities from from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. And the children of Israel gave these cities with their common lands by lot to the Levites, as the Lord had commanded by the hand of Moses. So there's Gershon, Merari, and Kohath. These are the patriarchs, the fathers of the Levites. And in order to serve the Lord, you had to be a Levite.

We'll talk about that more in a second. But each of these families, if you will, are receiving these cities. So they, verse nine, so they gave from the tribe of the children of Judah and from the tribe of the children of Simeon these cities, which are designated by name, which were for the children of Aaron, one of the families of the Kohathites, who were of the children of Levi, for the lot was theirs first. Now, Aaron was a descendant of Kohath.

It was a descendant of the Kohathites. The Levites served in the tabernacle, but to be a priest, you had to be of the family of Aaron, of the tribe of Levi. So God was very particular about who were priests and who worked in the tabernacle. Verse 11, and they gave them Kerjath-arba. Arba was the father of Anak, which is Hebron, in the mountains of Judah with the common land surrounding it. But the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb the son of Jephthahna as his possession.

Let me review for just a second and make sure we're on the same page. To serve in the tabernacle, you had to be of the tribe of Levi. If you were of another one of the tribes, you could not serve in the tabernacle. It did not matter if you wanted to.

It did not matter if you really thought God had told you to. You could not do it. And you couldn't become a priest if you weren't of the family of Aaron. Now, can you imagine that?

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine wanting to serve here in children's ministry or something, and we have the servants app and we ask you to fill it out? We ask that you be saved. We ask that you be water baptized. If you're not one of those things, we can certainly help you do one of those things.

We'd love to do that. But what if somewhere on that application, what tribe are you from? And if you didn't fill out Levi, I'm sorry, you're out. Can't use you. Why?

You're not a tribe of Levi. Can't do it. Well, that's a bummer. Really wanted to serve. Sorry, can't do it.

How bummed out would you be? There's a life lesson here in that we have not only been grafted in, but actually been made Levites of a sort here. Why? Because we have the opportunity to serve the Lord. As a matter of fact, the life lesson here is we all have the opportunity and the responsibility to serve the local body of Christ. This is what we're supposed to be doing.

This is what this book talks about us doing. Now, I understand that in many churches, they run between like five and 8% of the people that attend church there serve in a ministry. Five to 8%. We've run between 30 and 50% of the people that come here serve in some form of ministry or another.

I think it should be even higher than that. Well, you're not being very realistic. Oh, sure I am. This book says we all have supernatural power.

I believe it. I believe we all have the power to serve. See, I don't talk about serving because we need help. Now, I mean, there's different ministries where in fact, I mean, we do need help, but do you understand what piece of the puzzle is kind of missing here about serving?

That piece of the puzzle is when the pastor or children's ministry worker or somebody comes up and they're just like, we're just so overwhelmed. We can't do it anymore. We need help because I quit. You know, and well, maybe, okay, not I quit, but you know, there's these real tearful appeals about how much somebody is needed in a minute. Do you notice we don't do that here?

You know why? Because I don't want you to serve because there's a need. I want you to serve because you understand that that's something a Christian who's been born again does. Guys, it's not about just how many people we can get in the church.

As a matter of fact, I will say some things that sometimes that if that was my goal, I wouldn't say them. If my goal was to fill the seats, there was certain areas that I'd skip around in scripture, but that's not my goal. My goal is not necessarily to grow a big church, but to grow big Christians.

I want to see you individually growing as a believer, moving from that unbeliever to believer to disciple, and guess what? In order to be a disciple, you gotta be serving because that's what disciples do. Some of you may remember that in the beginning, what happened was God said, give me your firstborn, and I will make the firstborn the priest. That was the original plan, if you will, but that plan changed, and it changed at the time of the whole golden calf thing. You remember Moses and Joshua came back down. Joshua said, it sounds like they're having war down there, and Moses said, no, it's not war they're having, and so he goes down, and they're doing the golden calf thing, and so this one verse, Exodus 32, 26, when everybody's freaking out, then Moses stood in the entrance of the camp and says, whoever is on the Lord's side, come to me, and all the sons of Levi gathered themselves together to him. It was the only tribe that completely gathered themselves together to say, you know what? We're on the Lord's side. We're with you, Moses.

And because of that, from that day forward, the Levites became the people who worked in the tabernacle. It's a beautiful picture, you know why? Because guess what? When we accept the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, we in fact said, you know what? I don't know what everybody else is doing.

I don't know what they're doing, but you know what? I wanna be on the Lord's side. I wanna be on the Lord's side, and once you said that, Jesus said, okay, great, you're a Levite now. You're a Levite now. You can work in the tabernacle.

So we have the pleasure, if you will, of doing that. In verse 13, thus to the children of Aaron, the priests, they gave Hebron with its common land, city of refuge for the slayer, Libnah with its common land, we're going through the 48 cities, that's what I don't know. Verse 14, Jeter with its common land, Eshtimoah with its common land, Holon with its common land, Deborah with its common land, Ain with its common land, Judah with its common land, and Beshemash with its common land.

Non-cities from those two tribes. And from the tribe of Benjamin, Gibeon with its common land, Gebo with its common land, Anathoth with its common land, and Almon with its common land, four cities. Verse 19, all the cities of the children of Aaron, the priests were 13 cities with their common lands, and the families of the children of Kohath, the Levites, the rest of the cities of Kohath, even they had the cities of their lot from the tribe of Ephraim, and they gave them Shechem with its common land and the mountains of Ephraim, a city of refuge for the slayer, Gezer with its common land, Gebzaim with its common land, and Bethithron with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Din, Elththaka with its common land, Gibathon with its common land, leisure with its common land, and Gethrimon with its common land, four cities, verse 25. And from the half-tribe of Manasseh, Tanakh with its common land, and let Hathrimon with his common land, two cities. All the 10 cities with their common lands were for the rest of the families of the children of Kohath, and to the children of Geshon of the families of the Levites, from the other half-tribe of Manasseh, they gave Golan and Bashan with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, and Beshtirah with its common land and two cities. So what we're doing, this is a list of the Levitical cities and there was also the cities of refuge, so it's mentioning these and listing these, okay?

Continue on, verse 28. From the tribe of Issachar, Kishion with its common land, Deborah with its common land, Jarmoth with its common land, and Edganaim with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Asher, Mishal with its common land, Abdon with its common land, Helkoth with its common land, and Rehob with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Naphtali, Kadesh and Galilee with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, Hamathdor with its common land, and Kartan with its common land, three cities. All the cities of the Gershonites, according to their families, were 13 cities with their common lands.

Verse 34. And to the families of the children of Merari, the rest of the Levites, from the tribe of Zebulun, Jac travels, with its common land, Karta with its common land, Dim awe with its common land, and Nah Ambassador with its succession, four cities. And from the tribe of Reuben, Bezer with its common land, Jehoz with its common land, Kedemoth with its common land, and Miphoth with its common land, four cities. And from the tribe of Gad, Ramoth and Gilead with its common land, a city of refuge for the slayer, sell made with its common land, Heshban with its common land, and Jasir with its common land, four cities in all. So all the cities for the children of Moriah, according to their families, the rest of the families of the Levites were by their lot, 12 cities. And all the cities of the Levites within the possession of the children of Israel were 48 cities with their common lands. Every one of these cities had its common land surrounding it. Thus were all these cities. So this is a listing, if you will, of... They weren't all synagogues, but these were all the places where the Levites lived where people could come.

And they could, you know, ask them questions. Well, I want to do this, or I'm thinking this, or what does God say about that? What does God's word say about that?

And so it was to make ministry possible. 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, what does it mean when God prunes away at parts of your life? Is he angry at you? Have you done something wrong?

Far from it. Jesus teaches in John 15 that God lovingly removes things from your life so that you can grow into the person he created you to be and bear more fruit for Christ. We want to help you do that by sending you Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life, a three-part audio series from Pastor David McGee on what it means to be pruned by God and how you can embrace the process. This encouraging resource is our way of thanking you for your gift to help reach more people with the powerful truth of the gospel through Cross the Bridge. So go to crossthebridge.com today and request your copy of this series. This is Pastor David McGee with Cross the Bridge.

You know, I want to thank you for listening to Cross the Bridge. I also want to tell you about an exciting website. The website is lostlovedones.org, and it works very simply like this. You go to the website and you put the first names of up to 10 people that we begin praying that they get saved. Now it takes two things to get saved, presentation and prayer. And what we're offering is prayer and also there's different tools there to help you present the gospel to them. So we're there with you, helping you with the presentation, helping you with the prayer. There's over 920 people that belong to the prayer team on Lost Loved Ones, and you can join the prayer team as well and help us to pray for others who don't yet know Jesus. And together we can see a huge revival starting with your Lost Loved Ones.

Now back to today's message. Verse 43. So the Lord gave to Israel all the land of which he had sworn to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. Verse 44, the Lord gave them rest all around according to all that he had sworn to their fathers, and not a man of all their enemies stood against them.

The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Do you have that rest? You can have it. I don't mean necessarily the rest where you're just kind of sitting there doing nothing, but I mean the rest that you can have in the middle of turmoil. You can have that rest. The question is do you have it?

Do you have it or have you allowed yourself to get sucked up into being anxious and to being worked up and to being freaked out? Oh, you can do that. You can give your peace away to a situation and you no longer have the peace. You no longer have the rest. And when that happens, God is going, you know what?

You're forgetting. You're leaving me out of the equation for the moment because we can have that rest. The question is do you have that rest?

Hebrews chapter 4 verse 9. There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.

Your attention please. You might be going, wait a minute. Pastor, you talked about serving, but this verse says that when you enter the rest, you cease from your works. You betcha. Well, isn't there a contradiction there?

No way. You see, if you're doing your works to earn God's favor, that's twisted. That's backwards. Because you have God's favor, you begin to do things for the Lord. Not to earn his favor but because you've been forgiven. Because you asked to be forgiven.

And man, God, you forgave me. What can I do for you? How can I help?

How can I get involved? You see, some people sometimes they ask the question, well, can I be a Christian and still do this and still do that? What? Well, I mean, you know, I still believe. I just want to go do this, that, and the other.

That's the wrong question. The question should be, Lord Jesus, because you forgave me, you gave me a fresh start, and you're now blessing me, what can I do for you? Not what can I get away with, but what can I do for you, Lord? How can I be involved with your plan for my life, for the people around me, for this fellowship, for this church? How can I help?

What can I do? Then you've entered into that rest. You've entered into that rest.

Not earning his favor but because you have that favor. And it just changes it. Changes it. Verse 45.

I love this one. Verse 45. Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel.

All came to pass. Wow. What do you think some of them thought when God was even planting the vision while they were still... Hey, I know you guys are in bondage. I know these Egyptians are beating you up and they're killing your small children, but I got a plan. I'm going to set you free. I'm going to take you to the other side of the desert, and I got a beautiful place. And there's some people there that are set up there, but you know what? I'm going to remove them and give you the victory. You know a couple of them went, oh, come on, no way. Yeah.

God did all that he had promised. And I'm sure at certain times they thought, well, there's too many of them. They're too big. They have armaments.

They have all these things. There's just no way we can win. God said, yeah, yeah, I promised it. It's my word. It'll come to pass.

Now, let me ask you a question. What has God promised you? The life lesson here, and this is the last life lesson, God is faithful. God does give the victory, and God keeps his promises.

See, God is not a man that he would lie. God's not promised you anything he's not willing and able to do. So what are some of those promises he's given to you? Well, obviously, time doesn't allow us to go through all the promises, but let me point out just a few. And these are promises to those who have asked the Lord to forgive them. Philippians chapter 1 verse 6 says, being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. What? He that started a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. Notice the way that's worded. It doesn't say he who started a good work in you is now handing the ball off to you and he hopes it works out all right.

It says he who started it is he who's going to complete it. He's not going to stop. He's not going to lose interest in you. He's not going to look at Steve and go, well, I'm kind of bored with Steve now.

They're going to put him over to the side. You better be really appreciative. I'm not God because sometimes, to be honest, I mean, the word of God captivates me. But once I get outside of the word of God, my attention span is not real long sometimes. And the staff loves me and knows this and we're all okay with it, you know.

And I have to really focus sometimes because I tend to go, okay, all right, what's next? But God's not like that. He's never going to look at you like that. He's never going to lose interest in what's going on in your life.

What an awesome promise. Jude 24 says, now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, oh, man, this just gets better and better, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. Keep me from stumbling? God can keep you from stumbling. Well, how do I stumble? Well, in those moments, you're probably not following God. When you are following God, he will keep you from stumbling. So theoretically, you could, by the power of God, live a life without sin, theoretically. We're all fallen in nature. You know, we all sin, and it's pointed out in 1 John, if we say we don't have any sin, we're lying. So it kind of blows that whole no sin thing.

But he's able to keep us from stumbling, and then he's able to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, look at the last three words, with exceeding joy, with exceeding joy. Isn't that awesome? It's not just, oh, yeah, this is Gene, we're letting him in. That's not it. This is Brian, we're letting him in, he's got him by the skin of his teeth, we're letting him in. It's not that.

It's not that. If you can imagine Jesus going, here he is, here she is, with exceeding joy. He's going to do that with you, and he's going to do that with me, and present us faultless without sin, with exceeding joy.

If you've got no other cause for celebration, there's cause for celebration right there. That God who is righteous and who's holy at some point, at the end of all this, will present you faultless, with exceeding joy. Praise the Lord. God's able to do this, but you have to bow your will to his. God wants to forgive you, but you have to ask him to forgive you. And once you ask him, he is faithful to forgive you.

Some of you are carrying some stuff around, you can't carry around anymore. And tonight's your night to let go of it. Let me be honest, I've done some things that I'm not proud of that bring shame. And early in my Christian walk, there was one incident that kept coming back to my mind, that I was just plagued by guilt, and I kept asking the Lord, Lord, please forgive me. Please forgive me of that one thing, Lord.

Please forgive me. And this went on day after day, week after week, month after month. And one night, in the quiet of my prayer time, I said again, Lord, please, please forgive me of that. And the Lord said, was it not enough? I said, Lord, what are you saying to me? The Lord in that still small voice said, was it not enough? Was me going to the cross, bleeding and dying, not enough to forgive you of that sin? And I wept, and I wept as I said, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I looked at you and asked repeatedly for forgiveness when you'd already given it to me, somehow insinuating that the blood of your precious son was not enough to cover my sins. Whatever you've done, wherever you've been, whatever's happened in your life, the blood of his son is enough. It's enough to forgive you and to set you free from the shame and the guilt and enable you to have life more abundantly. It's yours tonight if you'll receive it. 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 for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven, and I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life, and I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Do you feel like you're bearing fruit for Christ, yet God keeps pruning away at your life and you're not sure why? If so, we'd love to send you Pastor David McGee's series, Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life.

This encouraging resource shares from Jesus' own words, as found in John 15, where He teaches that God's pruning is a sign that He is pleased with you and wants to prepare you to bear even more fruit for His kingdom. This series is our way of thanking you for your gift today to help share the gospel with thousands around the world who need to hear God's word in clear, straightforward language. So visit CrossTheBridge.com today to request your copy of Abiding in Christ when you give. You know each day comes with its share of stresses, so what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit CrossTheBridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at CrossTheBridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.