FBC Morning Light – April 15, 2023

Faith Baptist Church

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Good Saturday morning, people of faith. We're in Joshua chapters 21 and 22 today, and we'll be looking mostly at the end of chapter 21.

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The preceding chapters of Joshua have been about the conquering of the promised land by God for the people of Israel, and we're towards the end of that, and it's divvying up the different cities for the

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Levites to go to, to share land because they didn't have a place of their own, and it gets down to verse 43.

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I want to read 43 through 45 for you of Joshua chapter 21.

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It says the following, 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.

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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.

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The Lord delivered all their enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the

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Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. Not a word failed, not one.

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All came to pass. The Lord had promised this land to Israel.

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Each tribe was to have their own land. Some were on the other side of the

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Jordan, and some were on this side of the Jordan, but it all came to pass.

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God's promises are the most certain promises that there ever have been or ever could be.

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I wanted to look at a couple of the promises that are for you and I. You and I are not promised to live in the promised land, and most of us will likely never even visit that promised land, but let's look at Ephesians, at some of the promises that we've been given.

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It says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, this is chapter one in verse three, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

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The key words there to me are in Christ. You don't get these unless you are in Christ.

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Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

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Before the foundation of the world, that's before the world was created. He had chosen you in him.

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That we should be holy and without blame before him in love. Brothers and sisters, that cannot happen unless we are in him.

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There is no amount of righteousness that I can do to cover for the wrong that I've done.

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There's no amount of righteousness that you could do that could even begin to cover for the wrong that you've done.

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That's not the way it works. We must have Christ's righteousness, and the only way to have that is to be in him.

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It says, Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself.

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Predestined, predestined before the foundation of the world, he thought of you, and he chose you to be adopted.

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Now, adoption in this culture was a stronger legal term than to be the natural child of a mother and a father.

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If you were adopted into a family, and the legal standing was such that the adopted child had a stronger legal standing as a son than the natural born son would have.

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This is in part why when Julius Caesar was dying, he adopted his heir on his deathbed to be the next

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Caesar. Anyway, I don't want to get distracted for too long on this because the focus needs to be what

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God has promised. Verse 7, let's jump down to verse 7, says,

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In him we have redemption through his blood. What does redemption mean?

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If you go to the grocery store and you have a coupon, it will often say that you can redeem this for.

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In other words, you can exchange this for or buy back. We have been bought back.

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Why would we need to be bought back if we've already been chosen? Well, before we come to a saving knowledge of Christ, what we are told is that we are enemies of God, and God has to purchase us back.

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And how did he do that? He did that through his own blood on the cross. These are just three of the many, many, many promises that we have in Christ.

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And just like it was so true for all of the words that were spoken about the promised land for the

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Israelites, your redemption, your predestination, your being chosen are all certain if you are in Christ.

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Let's take a moment and ponder these things today. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for what you did through the giving of your son.

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You've chosen us. You've predestined us for adoption. You've redeemed us.

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You've bought us back. There's nothing that we've done or could ever do to make you love us, but yet you demonstrated your love for us in that Christ died for us.

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Thank you so much. Help us to realize this as we live our day today. It's in your son's name.

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Jesus, we pray. Amen. Have an excellent day, people of faith.