MAKING 77 LOOK GOOD Week 4: Going RVing

This morning, we are in the fourth sermon in this series entitled Making 77 Look Good - essentially a spiritual check-up series for a church that just turned 77 years old a couple months ago. And today, I want to share a story of another “seasoned citizen” whose story is found in the OT. We find this story in two OT books - the book of Numbers, chapter 13 (which we will refer to from time to time) and the OT book of Joshua, chapter 14. Turn there as I tell you the background of this amazing man;s story.

So (if you recall) God used Moses to bring His people out of slavery in Egypt, and after Moses died, He then called Joshua to lead the people into the Promised Land. Taking Canaan took a LONG time. There were years and years of war, and finally - at this point of the story - the land of Canaan is finally under the control of the people of Israel. Now comes the divvying up of the land to the tribes of Israel.

Now I don’t know about you, but dividing things up between siblings (the tribes were descendants of the sons of Jacob) can be tricky at times. You may have experienced horror stories when it comes to what you do with your late parents’ estate and/or possessions.Or you may be a parent of kids close to the same age where you are trying to teach them to share.

The way the land of Canaan was to be distributed to the tribes was a very interesting method found in Scripture: casting lots.  The main point was that, by casting lots for the inheritance, God’s people truly believed that who got what was left entirely in the hands of God. There could be no objections.

But here’s the thing… just because the land was divided didn’t mean that it was all over. Reality was that there was still much work to do to complete the task of conquering the land, and the people of each tribe had that responsibility now to complete the work in their territory.

Often times when one gets to the ripe age of 77, we think it’s time to sit back and relax. We’ve earned our pension, perhaps; we’ve entered into retirement. And many people take the chance now to pick up stakes and go RVing, right?

One thing I know about RVing is this: before the actually RELAXING part, there’s preparations to be made, right? Yes, the retirement has been earned -  but if you’re going to travel by RV for any good amount of time, like the Israelites responsible for the completion of the task of conquering in their own territories, there’s some work to be done.   Enter the man I want to talk about: a guy named Caleb.

This morning I want us to see the kind of preparations Caleb made for his retirement in the Promised Land. And to help us remember these preparations, they’ll all start with the letters R and V.