Revering the Word
Joshua 17 Seeking God's wisdom in advocating for yourself.
good morning everyone this morning we are in Joshua chapter 17 and the land is being allotted to the various tribal leaders by Joshua the first one is well not the first one but in this chapter is that of Manasa which is Jake Joseph's firstborn and they go ahead and allot him what he is going to receive then I'm going to turn to verse 3 and we pick up an interesting story however Zolia fad the son of Heffer the son of Gilead the son of McCur the sons of Manasa had no sons only daughters and these are the names of his daughters Malhal and Noah hagla mocha and terza they came near now this was in the past as we'll see in a moment they came near before Eleazar the priest and before Joshua the son of Nunn and before the leaders saying the Lord commanded Moses to give us an inheritance among our brothers actually they're coming again now appears reminding them of a prior agreement so according to the command of the Lord he gave them an inheritance among their father's brothers thus there fell ten portions to Manasa besides the land of Gilead and Bishan which is beyond the Jordan because the daughters of Manasa received an inheritance among his sons and the land of Gilead belongs to the rest of the sons of Manasa and this reminds me really a similar point that we talked about yesterday in Joshua 16 but in order to make this point I want to turn back to Numbers chapter 27 in the book of Numbers while they were in the desert awaiting to go to the promised land it says this numbers 27 verse 1 then the daughters of Zolia fad the son of heifer the son of Gilead the son of McCur the son of Manasa of the families of Manasa the sons of Joseph came near and these are the names of his daughters Malhal Noah and Hagla and Milka and terza and they stood before Moses and before Eleazar the priest and before the leaders in all the congregation at the doorway of the tenth of meaning saying our father died in the wilderness yet he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord and the company of core remember that when they kind of as a band of people turned against Moses and the leaders and there was a lot of people died of the sons of core who took part of that but he died in his own sin and he had no son so they're saying that one of our father died in the wilderness but he didn't he wasn't part of the rebellion and then they said this they brought this to Joshua and God's attention they said why should the name of our father be withdrawn from among his family because he had no son give us a possession among our father's brothers so Moses brought their case before the Lord then the Lord spoke to Moses saying the daughters of zelia fad are right in their statements you shall surely give them a hereditary possession among their fathers brothers and you shall transfer the inheritance of their father to them further now he's going to make an ordinance to all of Israel speak to the sons of Israel saying if a man dies and has no son then you shall transfer his inheritance to his daughter isn't that something so here we have these ladies and they see a problem there's no sons and land's going to be allotted and they're like we're going to be left out because our father had no sons he wasn't part of the rebellion this doesn't seem right let's bring this to Joshua's attention and see what he says now of course you know if they would have said nothing they probably would have received nothing but sometimes as I have mentioned yesterday you have to advocate for yourself and you do it respectfully you do it honorably and you know I think of you know maybe some person in a job as an example and maybe they've been paid the same fair in the same rate for their job for a decade and they've never spoken up and said anything and sometimes you have to advocate yourself and and do it professionally do it honorably but remind the people who are above you that you're you know you'd like to advance or maybe you'd need a promotion you'd like a increase in your salary or whatever now you need to do it honorably you need to be a man or woman of God about it but if you don't advocate for yourself sometimes you know no one will advocate for you and now you can pray and you can ask God but I think sometimes God is saying you know you got to also take the wisdom that I've given you and speak up for yourself that's what these daughters did and as a result they ended up getting an inheritance you know good for them right so pray about that think about that in your own life what do you need to speak up and professionally and honorably and respectfully go to your your boss respectfully and talk to them may the Lord lead you to do or not to do and you know may God bless you in your in your efforts so later in this chapter something else happened that's interesting we talked about this yesterday too but in verse 12 the sons of Madison cannot take possession of these cities because the canonites persisted in living in the land and they shouldn't it really it shouldn't have been like what we can't do it so you know that wasn't a failure on their part to not take the land that God had told them to take but moving on listen to what happens here in verse 14 through 18 then the sons of Joseph spoke to Joshua saying why have you given me only one a lot in one portion for inheritance so someone else is advocating for themselves they're saying since I am numerous people whom the Lord has thus far blessed Joshua said to them if you are numerous people go up to the forest and clear a place for yourselves there in the land of the parasites in their refrain since the hill country of a from is ephraim is too narrow for you he's like hey listen yeah you know what you're right you do have a large family so go take this land you can go ahead and take it the hill con and then they said this the sons of Joseph said the hill country is not enough for us and all the canonites who live in the valley land have chariots of iron but those who are in the sheen and its towns and those who are in the valley of Jezreel Joshua spoke to the house of Joseph to ephraim and manasasane you are a numerous people and have great power and you shall not have one lot only but the hill country shall be yours for though it is a forest you shall clear it into its farthest borders it shall be yours for you shall drive out the canonites even though they have chariots of iron and though they are strong so it's interesting you know these this large family wanted more land but they didn't really want to have to clear it and they didn't necessarily want to have to fight for the land you know they wanted it to be easy so to speak and you know that's kind of our nature right if we can get something done easier it's better to do it easier than harder but again Israel sometimes the people are not trusting God to fight their battles for them even though he has miraculously provided for them in the past so then when they don't want to take a specific land they say oh the people are giants or they have chariots or they kind of make it grandiose in order to maybe convince you know Joshua here to say oh okay well then just go ahead and have this land and you don't have to go do it but what he's wanting to say is no you know what you can trust God and you can go God is with you he will give you the land if you want more land it's yours to take go get it so you know sometimes they advocated for themselves but Joshua didn't sense that what they were requesting God was in so he told them the way for for more land he gave them the solution so it's interesting we have different people advocating and getting different responses yet justifiable responses from their leadership but yet as I've mentioned before the answer is always no if you don't ask so you know what there's opportunity it's kind of reminds me of you know America when when this America was founded you know it was it was kind of like a rugged individualism no not that that doesn't mean that you couldn't have a relationship with God or trust God but it's like if you want to go to America fine you know go board your ship you're not going to be able to take much you're going to get dropped in America and then you're going to have to go and you know I think there was a law where you could get 40 acres of land to start your family but you're gonna have to clear it you're gonna have to make a shelter you're gonna have to figure out how to survive so it was the land of opportunity and an incredible land of opportunity and Joshua is saying to these folks here hey you've got that hill country that's yours and all the land with it but you're gonna have to you're gonna have to go get it and that's the way it was in America America was founded on this pioneering spirit of coming over here and having the freedom to worship God and and also to you know work hard and succeed and you know it's kind of changed I mean it is a land of opportunity and there's so much good about America but now you know it's different now we've we've gotten into a government funded America and and instead of people having to sometimes you know work hard in the land of opportunity sometimes it's become a place where now we're giving so much away and maybe even to people who are not residents I'm just letting you know that America was not founded that way it was founded on its opportunity but you're gonna have to go go work hard and there's something to be said for that there's something good you know about that a couple of stories you might recall when the first Plymouth Colony was being developed and they at first said well let's work hard but we're all gonna share everything that we do so the community's just gonna completely share we're gonna give equal food equal everything everyone just work as a team and they tried that and what they found is since everyone was gonna get the same amount no matter how hard they worked everyone was lazy and they weren't working hard and William Bradford the leader of that colony said all right enough of this now you're gonna have to instead of us sharing everything and distributing it equally you're all gonna have to work for your own lot and they became extremely more productive because those who wanted to work hard were rewarded for what they did so they tried socialism in the first colony and it failed and they had to change they had to change their policy isn't that interesting but you know one other quick story I was with a guy yesterday and he was from Poland and he happened to have a job working for his grandpa years ago I think they were they painted ship containers shipping containers that would go on you know big shipping containers well anyway it's because of that he lived in tons of different places like he lived in most European countries in Poland in Africa in Libya all kinds of different places Spain he was all over and I'm like that's interesting you've got an interesting perspective that most people don't have and I said you know what what's your favorite place and he said well what do you mean what's my favorite place do you mean where to live or do you mean where to take a vacation and he said dude you know in his Polish accent he's like there's no comparison he said it's not even close comparing any other countries been to and it seemed like you lived in like ten different countries I can't remember all the names of them but he said it's not even close how much better it is living in America than all those other countries that's that's quite a statement as much as sometimes people complain about America you know because it seems like in sometimes it's headed in the wrong direction but man it's still a very blessed place to live so anyways interesting but what can we take from this in summary I just say in life sometimes you got to pray about your situation and seek God's will and sometimes you have to advocate for yourself and do it with respect and wisdom and God can bless you in that so you know maybe that bless you or help you either now or Sunday in your future God bless you all you you [BLANK_AUDIO]