Cities We Did Not Build, A Kingdom We Could Not Earn | Pastor Will Hawk | November 2nd, 2025

What if the most “boring” parts of Joshua are actually the brightest windows into God’s heart? We walk through the land allotments and find more than borders and cities; we find a faithful God who keeps every promise and then invites us into something larger than maps can hold. The text says Israel received rest, yet Hebrews insists a greater rest still waits. That tension becomes the key: the quiet after battle foreshadows a Sabbath that begins with trust and culminates in the presence of Christ, where striving ends because His work is finished.

We also reframe inheritance. Israel does not grab prizes; they receive a Father’s gift—houses they did not build, vineyards they did not plant. Leviticus calls the land the Lord’s, so the right word isn’t conquest, it’s inheritance. From Abraham’s vantage point, the hope was always bigger: a city with foundations, designed and built by God. Joshua’s geography, then, becomes a signpost to an imperishable kingdom kept for us, a future far more secure than any border stone and far more satisfying than a harvest we grew ourselves.

Grace, surprisingly, is already alive in Joshua through the cities of refuge. There, guilt is admitted and protection is found under the high priest until his death settles the debt. The pattern prefigures Jesus, our High Priest, whose cross turns future sin into forgiven past. Along the way, we confront two modern hazards success brings: complacency that delays obedience and assumptions that fracture unity. Joshua presses us to step into what God has given, to labor in love while time remains, and to guard fellowship with clear words and quick reconciliation.

Come hear how thirty-one fallen kings, a nation at rest, and a map full of city names reveal the gospel’s shape: work now, rest forever; receive what you could never earn; run to the refuge that never closes. If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find it.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Promises Fulfilled And Rest Declared
• 5:16 Why Land Allotments Matter
• 10:16 Thirty-One Kings And God’s Faithfulness
• 16:16 Rest Now And The Better Rest Ahead
• 22:46 Inheritance As Gift From The Father
• 28:46 Cities We Did Not Build
• 34:46 Abraham’s Horizon And The Heavenly City
• 40:46 Grace Foreshadowed In Cities Of Refuge
• 46:46 Work Now, Eternal Rest Later
• 51:46 Complacency Warned: Take The Land

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Joshua chapter twenty one, beginning in verse forty three. Thus the Lord gave to Israel all the land that he swore to give to their fathers, and they took possession of it, and they settled there, and the Lord gave them rest on every side, just as he as he had sworn to their fathers. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them, for the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 1:19

Amen. Thanks, Tori. Hey Greg, where'd you go? I couldn't help myself. Whether it's dispain or dat pain, 1-800 dispain, have your needs met. I started working on a business model on the walk up. Tori, thank you for reading. Really appreciate it. All right, uh, a couple of heads up. Uh by the way, first service meet, second service, second service meet, first service. We're glad you have all joined us for first service. Out of curiosity, I wouldn't usually say this, but I saw Larry Young walk in and I know for a fact his family tends to be second. How many of you are second service folks that woke up early and were just like, meh, we'll see how this goes. How many of you are normally second? Really? Well, welcome to Mentry. A quarter that blows me away. It's good to see you, yeah. All right. Well, Larry, you're the solo. All right. Second thing, since that obviously isn't true, you will need a Bible today. So whether you are paper Bible or a digital Bible, you're welcome to use both. As always, you can use the table of contents here. You are going to want your Bible today. I will say, recognizing that everybody had an hour of sleep, this seemed like the best Sunday, if we were going to do it, to cover 11 chapters of scripture of land allotments in the book of Joshua. Now, if you need to hop up and grab a cup of coffee, that's fine. I have a very firm conviction on this. All of God's Word is all of God's Word. Genealogies inspired by the Word of God. Land allotments inspired by the Word of God. So I have taken pastorally a little bit of a personal endeavor to simultaneously show you a wide breadth of God's word, a piece that many of us would get to in our Bible reading plans and sort of say, all right, okay, well, I committed to it. It's only February, okay? Or we would maybe flip a little quicker. The Bible is amazing, always amazing. And I hope that all of us have the privilege of being able to see that today. So grab your Bibles. Uh, Tori already told you if you're using a pew Bible. If you don't own a Bible, that Bible is now yours. Keep it. We want you to have it. We are going to look at Joshua chapter 11 through Joshua 22. And I want you to have, if Greg wanted you to put on spectacles toward communion, I want you to put on spectacles toward the work of Jesus in what we would see as maybe an unlikely place to find it. So here we are in Joshua. Let's go ahead and we'll begin. Uh hit a button in the back. The the kid with headphones on that happens to be mine. All right. I'm giving you a map to begin with. I know it's too small for you to see. All right. This is the land from chapters 11 through 19 that is distributed by God, and I'm gonna do my best to help this all make sense and cause you to get excited about it. To be able to slide into this with the assumption that some of you have not been with us every single Sunday over the past two and a half months while we've been in Joshua, let me give you a little summary as we begin. Joshua 11, verse 15, is summarizing almost everything up to this point, and here is how God's word summarizes. Just as the Lord had commanded Moses, his servant, so Moses commanded Joshua, and so Joshua did. Notice the hierarchy here. God looks at Moses, he says, This is what the promised land is gonna look like, this is how it is going to be, this is what I have gathered my people for, the promises I have made since I looked at Abraham, and I said, Your people are gonna outnumber the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seabed. That this is how big of a deal this is gonna be. Moses then tells Joshua, and I just, you gotta love Joshua. He is such a stud. And the Bible goes, Joshua heard what he was supposed to do, and he just went and did it. Awesome. So this gets us caught up, but then notice this uh chapter 11, verse 23. So Joshua took the whole land, everything, as we think about the promises of God. Joshua takes the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel according to their tribal allotments, and the land had rest from war. Now, how is it that the land got rest? If you're in your paper Bibles, I want you to uh turn to chapter 12. If you're in your digital Bible, same thing, because this is gonna be difficult to read, and I want to point out two things from Joshua chapter 12 as we turn the page to these promises fully becoming true. One thing that I just kind of want you to put in the back of your mind for a moment is this little phraseology, the west side of the Jordan. All right, the Jordan is a river. I'll show you that in just a moment. All of these are the kings of the land whom Joshua and the people of Israel defeated on the west side of the Jordan, and then there is going to be a list. I'm not gonna read this list to you. If you came uh to our weekly Bible study uh a couple of weeks ago when we were working through this on Wednesday, by the way, you're all invited to it. It's on Wednesday afternoons. I give you more details. We read through every one of these names, we read through every one of these people. I want you to see what is at the very end of this. 31 kings are defeated. So as we slide into land allotments, if you watched the documentary on Nolan Ryan, and it gets to the end, by the way. Nolan Ryan, incredible pitcher. I don't know who put it out. I'm gonna guess Netflix, but Pat Gilbert will know. Who put it out? Do you know? You will not know. All right. Have you seen it? Okay. All right, anyway, it's awesome. And it gets to the end, and instead of scrolling credits, it scrolls sort of his lifetime accomplishments on the mount. This is what Joshua 12 feels like to me. It just goes through king after king after king after king. 31 kings listed. Now remember how slowly we have moved up to this point. Uh we have started to cross the Jordan, and God rips the sea open so his people can walk through. We see Jericho, the high water mark of a fortress to take. And God says, Don't worry about stones or spears or shields or swords. Just walk around the thing, have a really great worship time. I'm gonna take care of it, and the walls come a tumbling down. By the time we get here, the Bible itself does begin summarizing a little bit. This king lost, and that king lost, and that king lost, until 31 kings are gone at the beginning of chapter 12. And when you get toward the end of the book, this would be a summarizing statement. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. Every one of them came to pass. Many of us have this on our bracelets right now. This is on the green bracelet. And if you're like, no, it isn't, it's Joshua 1-9. We print it on the back side, assuming that you would get 1-9 knocked out pretty quickly. This is one of the most beautiful passages in the entire book of Joshua. Every promise God made, every single one, happened and happened and happened and happened. Now, there are two things that all people need to hear from the text we're going to look at today, and two things that I think are specific for Midtree. So if you're new to Midtree, uh, if you're just kind of feeling it out, if Midtree ends up not being a good church for you, that is not awkward for us. We want you to find a good gospel preaching church. Let us know. We would love to help you find a good church if Midtree is not the exact right fit for whatever reason. Midree, there are two things specifically for us as we walk through this, and then there are two things I think for all people. Now, Joshua at this point is old. He's advanced in years, and the Lord said to him, You are old and advanced in years. Sometimes scripture makes me smile, and this is one of those. Joshua, uh, in case you are curious, I think you're old, thus saith the Lord, which is a bit of a lift because the Lord's been around. And there yet remains, there remains yet very much land to possess. I told Abraham this was gonna happen. Has it not? I told Moses this was going to happen. And were it not for his sin, he would have been able to walk in this land. But because of it, he stood on the edge and he peered in and he looked to you, Joshua, and he said, These are all the things that the Lord our God has commanded. Do them. And Joshua says, Moses, you got it. If you're telling me to do it, I'm gonna go do it. Joshua goes in, and now here he is prepping for the end of his life. And the next number of chapters are land allotments. This is not the kind of thing that you would expect in a funeral. This is not the kind of thing that you would expect if you're going over the greatest hits of somebody's life. But every single chapter that follows is God saying, Didn't I tell you I was gonna do this? Done. Didn't I tell you I was gonna do this? Done. Did I tell you I was gonna do that? Done. And so Joshua preps it up, and land is only the beginning. We'll be finishing Joshua next week. So next week we will complete our walk through the book of Joshua. And you will miss out on the entire book if you don't feel this reality. Joshua is a prologue of the whole of the Bible. So what you're about to read, what we're about to look at, the land is only the beginning, is a prologue to a promise that God made a long time ago. This is the first real success of it. What do I mean when I say land was only the beginning? Well, if you look in your Bibles, here's what you'll see in the subtext in chapter 13, 15, and 16. The inheritance east of the Jordan, that's chapter 13. In 15 is an allotment for Judah, and in 16 is an allotment for Ephraim and Manasseh. All right, let's see if this works. I tested it twice and it did, and now it's not. Come on, do it. You want to do it. I worked four hours on this. Do not let me down. All right, we're gonna wait for just a minute and hope. Crockett, you may be running an iPad, buddy. Crockett gets excited when things break. When you're happy, I'm unhappy, buddy. I just need you to know that. Come on, man. I'll come back to it. Y'all can pray for it. Here's my best shot. The first map that I showed you had a distribution of different colors. How many tribes of Israel are there? Bonus points at the camp store, if you can guess. Or because there was a half tribe, okay? So the way that it works out, when I showed you chapter 13, what was happening is Joshua and God's word are going to break out all of the different land allotments into thirds. But they're not thirds by area. They're not even thirds by chapters in the Bible, they're thematic thirds. So there are three tribes that Moses said, This is the land that you're going to get. They walk into it. They're on the east of the Jordan River. Now you may not remember this. They settled in, they had houses, they moved in, and everything was wonderful, but the remaining tribes had nothing. So Joshua, the Lord, looks at them and he says, Before you rest, you are going to cross over this river and you are going to obtain land for the other nations of my name before you go home and rest with your wives and with your children. That happens on the west side. So you have one third on the east, and then you have one third on the west. That third exists because God had very special promises for them. He looked at Ephraim and he looked at Manasseh and he said, Because of the promise I made to your father, it is carrying down to you. You, Joseph's family, are going to inherit land. And then he looked at Judah and he said, You have been given a special promise. The scepter is never going to leave. Jesus is known as the Lion of the tribe of Judah. So these in scripture are broken out. And then we have the remaining seven. And the question is, all right, how is this going to play out? How is the land going to work? So let me see if we have any hope right now. All right, hit the button. Okay. Good enough. Okay. Okay. Now I have to go off of memory. Let's see how good my study is. So you have the Jordan River coming down here. And these nations, these three, one, two, and three, Moses said, This is going to be your land. Don't rest, because in just a minute, you're going to cross over and you're going to begin helping your brothers take it. When they begin moving over, it doesn't matter what chapter you go to. This is why I wanted you to have Bibles. Anything from 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, I just want you to look down and you're going to see something that says land allotments for Naphtali, land allotments for Dan, land allotments for fill in the blank. And there's one word that I want you to begin looking for. I want you to look for the word cities. So look down, and I want you to find it. When you find the word city in one of those paragraphs, you don't have to be all crazy proud about it. Just pop your hand up a little bit. Okay, Amy, who are you looking at? What what nation? What tribe? Reuben? Okay. All right, who else has one? What do you got, Chris? Okay, Judah. Yep, there you go, Sarah. What you got? All right, we got that. Anybody see anybody see anything else with the word cities near it? What we got, Rachel? All right, Benjamin grabs one. Everywhere you look, who you got? Zebulon. Everywhere you look, there's this concept where they walk in and they begin getting these cities. Why am I why am I stopping and saying that land is only the beginning? Because when you read this, here's how we are prone to read it. All right, way to go, Zebulon. Good job. Here's your land. Northern border, western border, eastern border, southern border. This is gonna be your place and the cities within it. When you read it, it begins sounding redundant, right? You're gonna take this, you're gonna take that, you're gonna take this, you're gonna take that. What ends up happening after he takes all the land is these two words appeared in scripture. Joshua 11, 23. So Joshua takes the whole land according to all that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel, according to their tribal allotments, and the land had rest from war. Notice the screen for a minute, and these two words that go with it inheritance and rest. All people who want to know anything about the God of the Bible should pause in Joshua when you get to this passage and you see these two words. Why? Because rest and inheritance are massive for you to understand what it is that God is doing here. Let's just start with rest. In Joshua, God's people get rest, but Joshua is a prologue to the Bible. So they the rest that they are going to get as they move through, the rest that they get is pointing to this better, wider, deeper rest. Here's what I mean. In Hebrews, so many years later, when we think of Joshua, when we think of this promise, here is what the Bible says. If Joshua had given them rest, flag on the field, time out, didn't the Bible just say they got rest? So what is going on in Hebrews? There's something bigger than this. If God had given them rest, if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains, there's this waiting, this holding, this gift under the tree that hasn't been opened yet. There is this Sabbath rest for the people of God. For whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Whoever has entered into God's rest has rested from his works. Why in Joshua does the land have rest? Because whatever Moses said to Joshua, Joshua did. Whatever Joshua said, the people of God did. And it would be very easy for them to look back and say, guys, we have done it, we have accomplished it. We no longer have war. 31 kings for just for a start, Jericho, Achan, all of these massive battles, we are done. And the Bible says, enter your rest, but time out for a minute. This is a lowercase our rest. As you walk into this land, as you walk into these cities, you did not build, as you begin to lay down your sword and pick up your plow, as you go from embracing a brother in battle to embracing your wife and embracing your children, as the mode of your mind begins to change, rest. But only with a lowercase r. Because there's a better rest that I want you to see is coming. And if Joshua had been able to give them that rest, he would have, but he couldn't. Because there's a rest that goes beyond a good day's work. And we all know this. We rest differently on vacation than we rest at 5.01 p.m. This is the 5.01 p.m. rest. You have worked your nine to five. You are driving home. You know that you need to be a dad, you need to be a mom, you need to be a neighbor, you need to be this, but at least you're not checking your email. At least you're off of your phone, whatever it is that work is. You're gonna go home, you're gonna flip on the TV, you're gonna cook some dinner, you're gonna hang out with your family, you're gonna be at rest. The Bible says that is a beautiful thing, but it isn't beautiful enough for me, says God. There's a different kind of rest. There's a rest where you go on a vacation, but there's also a rest that none of you have experienced yet. It's a rest where you go on a vacation and you never come back. It's a rest where everything is covered and everything is paid for. It's a rest where you never have to pick up your hand again to toil. So Joshua and the people of God understand there remains a rest that you can't even begin to imagine yet. And as though God needed to prove it to him, he said, and let me kind of just twist the knife on this a little bit. Do you know why you're getting this land? Not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart are you going to possess their land? Hey, don't think that just because things are going well, it's because you're knocking life out of the park and your heart is right and your mind is right. God says there are two reasons that you're possessing this land. Because of the wickedness of these nations, the Lord your God is driving them out from before you, and that he may confirm the word that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. There are two reasons you're walking into this land. Number one, those nations are wicked, and you are my arm of judgment. Number two, you are receiving from my arm of promise fulfillment. This is the word that I swore. For these two reasons, notice, none of it is because God's people are awesome people. They're just really bad, and his promises are really good. And these two things come together, and God says, now welcome to a well-earned vacation. But there is more to it than just a well-earned vacation. There is a rest that I have for you. They wanted to rest from their obedience to work. God wants us to rest in another person's perfect work. This is pointing to Christ. This is saying you are able to earn some level of rest, typically at the end of your diligent, faithful hard work, but you will never be able to grasp at what God wants to give. So when you find yourself in rest, let it point forward to something bigger. The second thing is this Joshua gave it for an inheritance to Israel. God's people get rest. The whole story is better. They're looking forward to a truer rest. And God's people are going to get a new kingdom as well. They're going to inherit it. But even this inheritance is pointing to something that I think is absolutely staggering. I didn't notice this until I sat down and I read all of the chapters in one sitting. By the way, typically I like to move a lot slower. I like to grab a verse, analyze it, pull stuff out. There is some benefit in grabbing, uh hopping on a helicopter and shooting up to 30,000 feet and saying, Oh, I've been driving through the city this way. Have you ever done that? Have you ever opened your Google Maps and zoomed out and realized for 20 years you've been taking one of the worst routes to get from here to there? Because in your mind it was up, but it actually isn't up. It's off to the side. Y'all know what I'm talking about? That's what this text is. It's zooming up and saying, You didn't even realize this was aligned this way, did you? You didn't even notice this. When I read through the entirety of it in one sitting, this is what struck me. Why does the word inheritance keep coming up? They're not getting land from their family. They're not getting land from their father or from their grandfather. They're getting land from their enemies. That is not an inheritance. Not the way we think of it. But in Leviticus chapter 25, God says, All of that land is mine. And when God gives something to his children, when the father gives something to his kids, that can rightly be called an inheritance. This is the way to think about them moving into the promised land. They're not pushing out occupiers. They're not taking owners out. They were just people who were in the place that God had always destined for them to be and promised. So this idea of inheritance begins to come up. So when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, all of those little passages that I had you look at with the word cities, this is unbelievable to me. When you go into that land, to the land of Abraham and Isaac, to Jacob to give you, when you go into a land that has great and good cities that you didn't build, when you walk into a place with houses full of goods, things that you did not fill. When you go to a place of cisterns, this would have been a holder of water. You found uh a city with a water tower. You're not going outside to pump it, you just turn on the knob and it comes out. God's like, when when you walk into a place with cisterns that you didn't dig, and when you find vineyards and olive trees you didn't even plant, you're gonna walk and pull the fruit from a tree that neither your dad nor your granddad ever planted. I'm the one who planted it. I planted it there, even with people who hated me and were opposed to me. When you do that, when you eat and are full, don't forget me. Don't forget the Lord, because it was the Lord your God who did this. This is why it's referred to as an inheritance, because it was something that God had for them. And an inheritance is all throughout scripture. When we look in Hebrews 11, by faith, Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not even knowing where he was going. His dad, his granddad, his great-granddad had never laid foot on the land before. And God says that's an inheritance for you because I am the Father. You are the Son. Now go into this creation of which I own all of it. I have something special for you. This is why in the New Testament we read phraseologies like this. The king will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. And what is the inheritance of the Christian? Imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven for you, Christian. Welcome to a vacation that never ends, in a condo that has been purchased in your name. This is what we begin to see in Joshua. But it gets better when you move from verse 8 in Hebrews 11 to 10, you realize Abraham knew it from the beginning. For he was looking forward to a city that has foundations, not in Canaan, not like Jericho, as high as they could build. He wanted a city whose designer and builder was God. Yes, the land that God has prepared is a gift. I hope you feel like wherever you live is a gift of God and his gracious generosity to you. Did you have to pay for that house? Out of curiosity, did you have to pay for the house that you live in? Are you paying for the house that you live in? When you open the pantry, do you open it and go, it is amazing that I get airdrop this food every Monday? God's people did. For 40 years, manna was just like fill your pantry, but only for a day, right? Ah, we're kind of tired of bread. And then quail just start flopping through. Like, this is what God did for his people. Oh man, that's a that looks like a really dangerous place. They've got one of the biggest towers we've ever seen. Don't worry, just walk around and blow some trumpets. Like, this is the generosity of God. You didn't build it, you didn't make it, you didn't plan it, you didn't design it, you didn't even think about it, and Abraham knew it before Moses or Joshua ever stepped foot on the ground. Abraham said, It will be great for me to have a nation of descendants. It will be great for God to build his family. But do you know what I'm really looking forward to? A city that man didn't build. A city whose designer and builder is God. Because these all died in faith. Not having received the things promised. Flag on the field number two. Did God's people receive the inheritance God promised to them? Yes or no? Yes. Then what is this talking about? How can it say they didn't receive what was promised when God was like, I made a promise so you'd get it, so you'd get it, so you'd get it, and you'd see, I'm a promise-making, promise-keeping God. He's saying, Joshua is the prologue. This is about more than land. What's happening here is that you got to see them, you got to greet them from afar. Moses, you stood on the edge and you looked in, but you knew there was something even better than that. You were strangers and strangers and exiles on the earth. But as it is, even Abraham, even uh Moses, even Joshua, when he walked into the land and he picked from a tree that he didn't plant, they desired something better than that. They desired something heavenly. So God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Why do you think Jesus talks this way? In my father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go and prepare a place for you? Christian in the room, do you realize that in whatever heavenly way it works, two by fours are being thrown up so that when you get there you don't have to swing a hammer? You will walk into a land you have never set foot on, in a vacation that will never end, where it is nothing but good and light and true rest, and you will never swing a hammer, and you will never pay a dime because somebody else has done, is done, and continues to do the work for you. Do you know what's crazy about Christianity? That is crazy about Christianity. Pick any other religion in the world. Work like this, you'll earn this in heaven. This you'll earn this in the afterlife. Not Christianity. Christianity is like work as hard as you can because this is where we do the work. We have a really long rest coming, a huge vacation coming, an incredible place to live coming. Work, cry, bleed, sweat, hear, because you only get 80 years to do it. That's the way Christianity sees the world. You only get 30, 40, 60, 80, 90, maybe for some of us, a hundred years. And if you are in Christ's millennia of rest and inheritance, little flock, fear not. God's not begrudging about this. It is his good pleasure to hand you a kingdom. You see, God's people do get rest in Joshua, but the whole story is so much better. And they do get an inheritance in Joshua, but the whole story is so much better. This might be the closest thing to revelation in the entirety of the old Bible I can imagine. Why? Imagine them walking into that land. Pick whichever one you looked at in Scripture, and imagine if you're a Christian, you walking into heaven. The tribe of Gan walks, Gad walks in. Hey, uh guys, uh, this land is ours. Who wants that field? I'll take it. Who wants this house? I'll take it. Does it have food in it? It sure does. They walk into a land and God's just like, here you go. They pick it. How does that even work? How is all of Joshua not squabbles over houses? Well, I wanted the one that was next to the river. I wanted one for the cows. Like, how do we not even see this? Because they are so blown away by the generosity of their God that they walk in and they're like, I'll take 320. Okay, well, I'll take 318. Which one do you want? Well, we've got a couple of kids, so we'll take the one with the extra bedroom. Sounds good. Who wants this field? Who wants this field? Who wants this orchard? They just walk in and God's like, take it, take it, take it, take it. And then we walk into heaven. And Jesus says, Well done. Good and faithful servant. You have bled like my son and sweat like my son. You have cried tears like my son for 50, 60, 70, 80 years. Well done. Enter your capital R, rest. I've been waiting on you. Can I show you the house I built just for you? I know you. I designed you. I made you. I knew how you would want to spend eternity. Come walk down this road that you didn't pave, to this neighborhood with people you're gonna love, to this house that I made for you that is stocked with food. Welcome to a rest. You see, Joshua is simply the prologue of the entirety of the Christian life, and it has been foreshadowing that grace from the beginning. But grace looks really different before Jesus steps on the picture. This is the second thing that all people should see about God. This is gonna sound a little weird, so just track with me for a minute. Say to the people of Israel, appoint cities of refuge, of which I spoke to you through Moses, that the manslayer who strikes any person without intent or unknowingly may flee there, that they shall shall be for you a refuge from the avenger of blood. Let me explain. God recognizes that even in this new world, sin is going to creep in. And in this particular case, he's saying, There are going to be six cities. And there's this really cool map that I put together for you. If anybody wants to see it, catch me for coffee, and I promise not to be bitter about it. There are these six cities, and they were called cities of refuge. So that if somebody committed a crime of accident, not intent, you gotta follow with me on this because there's about to be a theological concept. By accident, not intent, God is tucking in to this new kingdom, pointing to the future kingdom, that grace exists even before Jesus' arms are spread and thorns are crushed on his head. There are going to be these six cities so that if somebody dies accidentally, that person can flee to the city. And so long as they are in the city walls, they are safe from whoever would come and avenge the blood of their family. This is God saying, Justice is real and grace is coming. It's coming, guys. Just you watch. But notice this he shall remain in that city, stay there, and not leave, until he has stood before the congregation for judgment and until the death of him who is high priest. At that time, then the manslayer may return to his own town, to his rest, to his promise, and his own home, the town in which he fled. This is one of the most beautifully hidden tucked pointers to Jesus you will find in the book of Joshua. Six cities in the event that somebody is killed on an accident and their family wants justice. You go to these six cities and you live there, you stay there. So long as you are under the protection of the high priest, you are safe. And when that high priest dies, your debt has been covered. Now, who does this sound like to you? This is Christ foreshadowed. This is people running, and they're not hiding their sin. They're not lying about their sin. They're not saying the thing didn't happen. What they're saying is, I need grace. I deserve potential judgment, wrath. Something horrible has happened. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. So I am gonna flee temporarily this rest, and I'm gonna live in this city. And that high priest would have made sacrifices, and that high priest would have made atonement. And when that high priest dies, all of those that he was covering are considered past tense. Turning of the chapter, it has been dealt with. When Christ dies on the cross, your sins become past tense, even tomorrow's. Christian, your tomorrow sin is seen as past tense in the eyes of God because of the fullness of the sacrifice of the high priest Jesus. Now, let me step on a toe, partially for fun, but also because the moment I read cities of refuge, it sounds like something to me in our current political climate. Is anybody brave enough to say what this sounds like? Sanctuary cities. Let me give you the different in a city of refuge and a sanctuary city. In these cities of refuge, guilt is admitted. In a sanctuary city, in the modern sense, guilt is being denied. That shouldn't be a law. That shouldn't be wrong. So we're not gonna hold it against you. Here, God's word is not saying death is it's okay. It's just an accident. It's fine. What he's saying is this is a big deal and it's a heavy deal. But I can handle big deals, I can handle heavy deals. To put it differently, scripture never rescues by redefinition, it rescues by redemption. What do I mean? Our modern culture tries to find peace apart from Christ by relabeling their reality. The world calls envy ambition, and it's good to be ambitious. How else are you going to progress in life? We call lust and sensuality self-expression. All we do is clean it up verbally so that there seems to be no need. You see, we're just going to redefine it. Scripture never redefines sin, but it does redeem it. We call greed stewardship. I need to hold on to this forever so that I can be at rest here. Your capital R rest was never meant to be here. We call pride confidence. We redefine sin so we can feel better about ourselves. The Bible does not. It calls sin, and it doesn't argue that it isn't. It just argues that there is a way for sin to be paid for. This is grace tucked in from the beginning. Now, if you go to Mitri, there are two things for you specifically. Success is going to invite two things in this text. It's going to invite complacency and it's going to invite conflict. Here's what we see in Joshua 18. The whole congregation of the people of Israel assembled at Shiloh and they set up a tent of meeting there. The land laid subdued before them. I had this really cool map, and I wish I could have showed you. But on this really cool map, I can show you all of the land that they were promised and have their boots on the ground in. And then all of the land, like the kings have been handled, all the difficulties done. All they need to do is walk in and pick the house, pick the neighborhood, pick the vineyard, which is going to be theirs. And so Joshua turns around and he says this there remained among the people of Israel seven tribes whose inheritance had not yet been apportioned. So Joshua said to the people of Israel, This to me sounds so much like dad. It sounds like dad when there was a chore that was supposed to be done four days ago and it didn't get done. All right? There's a little bit of angst in your tone, but you also realize if you would just get your chores done, you'd be a happier person because this burden wouldn't be hanging over your head. How long will you put off going in to take possession of the land? Joshua dealt with procrastination as much as any of us, okay? And I don't know how you deal with that word. Some of you hate it because of yourself. Some of you hate it because of others. But Joshua looks and he's like, guys, God has done it. Go pick the house, walk into the land, stop being lazy because these three tribes on the east side of the Jordan are waiting for you to finish so that they can fully go home. You are making your brothers wait because you are procrastinating. I don't know if anybody can relate to this. When everybody's in the car except for one kid, and you're like, just come. All of us, all of us are waiting around for you. And Joshua says, How long are you gonna put off? How long are you gonna wait on this, which the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you? Mitch, let me give you a heads up. You can walk into a building that you did not build, on land that you did not buy, dropping your kids off in rooms with toys provided, and you do not know where it came from. We all now sit in vineyards that were planted by others. We stand on land that was purchased by others. We hear testimony after testimony, month after month, because of ministry that was done by others. We're a young church. When I get a phone call for the hospital, 95% of the time, it is life coming into the world. We will move into a season where we are celebrating lives well lived. People hearing, well done, good and faithful servant, enter into your rest. Joshua looks at his people and I would look at mine and I would say this. Don't grow complacent. Don't assume that just because we we walk into a building and there's an air conditioning, some of us remember when we didn't have that. Some of us remember animals making all kinds of noise at this part, usually in the service, when I'm trying to point most to Jesus. Some of us remember going to church at 5:30 and 6 o'clock at night. You are all sitting on pews from a myriad number of churches who have had saints who are now sitting in their homes in heaven. The nature of the Christian is we bleed and we sweat and we cry because I've only got 80 years to do it. Now, I I don't have anything to push you toward right now in this moment. But but I will just tell you, it's easy to walk past that MCG wall and think, we're good. No, we need more MCG leaders. Bleed, sweat, cry. We need more people on the worship team. I'd love to pay off this building. I'm literally looking at a little building that was built by someone who will remain nameless. In fact, a bunch of them, just because they don't want to become complacent. Church is not a sport that we watch on TV. It is something that we get into, and when we do, we truly find life. There's a tendency to sit back, there's a tendency to enjoy and forget all the groundwork, the labor, and the pain that gets us here. It is better to cry and to sweat and to bleed, Christian. I promise you that. Because the one who had 33 years filled them with it. So that a symbol of his work would be what we put our eyes to. The second thing that I would tell you is watch for conflict. This makes me laugh. I know we're at a heavy part and Bennett's playing minor chords. But this does make me, am I right? Alright. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed. All came to pass. That's chapter 21. You turn the page to 22. I love this. I love the Bible. I just think it's wonderful. And then chapter 22. I'll read this and I'll briefly explain it. When they came to the region of the Jordan that's in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, the half tribe of Manasseh, built there an altar by the Jordan. I had this really cool map, it would have made more sense, but don't sweat it. An altar of imposing size. The Bible points to that. They build this massive altar. And when the people of Israel heard of it, the whole assembly gathered at Shiloh to make war against them. They just got in their house. Their wives are hanging their family picture above the mantle or whatever it is that you as a wife would do. You're like chopping the pillow, whatever the final like touch is. I don't know. Laying it, they're like, and then all of a sudden they catch a quick text message. Hey, bad news. These guys just built an altar to an unknown God. We need to go and kill all of our brothers. And so all the tribes get ready for war. They all go out, and within a few verses, here is what happens. Therefore, we said, let us now build an altar. Hey guys, guys, don't kill us. We weren't building this for a burnt offering. We weren't building this for a sacrifice. We were building this as a witness. And here's what had happened. They were afraid that all these nations, which they helped move into their new homes, because they were separated by a river, would forget about them. They were afraid service one would forget about service number two, or Midry would forget about Cross Point, the church that planted them, or whatever else it is. And so they build this altar. Well, the other nations get upset because they're like, there's one altar and it's at the temple. And you do not need to run after another God. You need to remain with us. And they say, guys, guys, guys, here's what we were worried about. We didn't want your children to think that we were separate from you. So we built this altar. We're not burning uh sacrifices to it. We are actually building this to try to show you we are with you when there are generations yet to come. Why do I point to this? Because when everything is going well, that is when miscommunication and misunderstanding is most likely to happen. At the height of peace, they almost lose everything. Because God's people are not only vulnerable to enemies on the outside, but the assumptions on the inside. And when things are going well, pause. Praise God, things are going well at our church. They are. We can talk about, I will go to lunch with you and celebrate the incredible things that God is doing. And I'm not even talking about buildings, I'm even talking about money, talking about lives. I'm talking about, I keep having coffee with people who keep saying, I'm just like growing in my relationship with the Lord, and I'm feeling comfortable being stretched, and I'm doing new things. I was never like a share my faith person, and now I am. We never read our Bible as a family, and that's what you celebrate. When things are going well, that's when communication becomes the most fragile because we assume we understand each other. And we stop talking. We just assume, hey, we all think the same thing, believe the same thing, see the world in the exact same way. And this attempt at unity almost completely destroyed them. Just one little encouragement. In any relationship you have in this room, whether it's with a leader, whether it's with somebody in your small group, whether it's with somebody across the room, whether it's something from 15 or 20 years ago, and maybe you've been coming to church for a year and a half and they showed up two weeks ago and you're like, awkward. By the way, it happens every Sunday. I'm not single. If you're like, he heard about it, he's talking to me, happens every single Sunday. God has built a ministry of reconciliation. He loves watching broken things, he loves seeing things break so that he can make it more beautiful for the brokenness. If there is anything sideways in this room, sideways with others, sideways with you and the Lord, the Bible instructs us not to take communion until we have restored that thing. And when things are going well, we just kind of paint over it with a bunch of kills and we pretend there was never any mold underneath it. Christian, do not. And if you will not, you will have all of these good promises that the Lord has made. None of them will fail so that you can serve the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your soul. It was never about land. It was always about rest. It was always about inheritance. Grace was always tucked in from the beginning. And when it would be easy for us to lean back, we lean in and we cry and we sweat and we bleed because our Savior dead. And he says, follow me. So let's follow him as we prepare to close this book together in the days ahead. Take a few moments, think through a few of the questions, and we'll get ready to respond with communion.