Sermon Series: The Book of Joshua: Borders 01-22-12 Pastor Bruce Plummer.

This message centers around a somewhat obscure story in the book of Joshua, the story of Achsah and Othniel, from Joshua 15.  They found that even though they were given an inheritance of land that when they asked the right person, their borders could be expanded.  Borders are our limitations and our spheres in life.  Can we ask for more than we have now and can our lives grow in strength and influence?  That’s the question answered in this small but powerful story of a young couple from Joshua’s day. 

Joshua 15.16-19  Borders; More Than a Bookstore  For 1.22.12 

When God gave the nation of Israel the promised land, He set up borders around what they could consider their land.  And once they conquered the inhabitants of the land, at least the majority of them, they gave each of the tribes their own section of the land to further conquer and consider their own.  They all had borders around their inheritance.  You can read about the borders of Judah in the beginning of Joshua 15; sounds like a surveyor’s description of property.  So what? 

Borders are definitions of what is yours and what belongs to someone else.  Borders tell you where you belong and where you don’t.  What is your responsibility and what isn’t.  

It’s great in many ways.  You don’t have to get stressed over what isn’t yours to deal with.  You know what you have and what you don’t have, so you can plan.  I know who Robin and I have to feed and take care of.  Your child can’t just rummage through our refrigerator without us inviting them over, and even then.  I have to do my job.  But I don’t have to do yours, even if I could.  And on it goes.  Personal responsibility in a certain circle of relationships, possessions and duties is really important.  

But borders also can be limiting, even seem confining.  Did you ever want to be someone else?  Or have what someone else has?  You have to be careful about that, because coveting is a sin.  It’s ungrateful to God, can lead you off His path for you or worse, shipwreck you.  So is wanting something other than what you have going on in your life wrong?  Or…has what you’ve given in to made your borders shrink, so that your world is very small? 

Caleb was a great guy, full of faith and life, a warrior and a conqueror.  He had just conquered what was to become Hebron and he moved on to the next city, Debir or Kirjath Sepher.  So he gives a challenge this time.  To the man who takes this city, I’ll give my daughter, Achsah for a wife.  Now she had to go along with this too, but Othniel is the one who takes the city and gets the girl and a piece of land as an inheritance.  

The Othniel family had borders!

But as they talked, newlyweds that they were, they looked at what their borders were.  They were given a chunk of land, to be sure, but it had a problem.  It was South facing, a rather dry land, and it needed water.  So they decided who should ask (rock, paper, scissors) and Achsah took the trip to see her father, Caleb.  She dismounted from her trusty donkey when she got there, and Caleb, knowing she came with a request, asked her what she wanted.  Dad, I appreciate the wedding gift, the land you’ve given me and Othniel.  But it’s pretty dry.  In order for us to use it well, we need water.  Could you give us a spring of water?  And Caleb goes beyond the request, gives her the upper springs and the lower springs.  Nice! 

It’s one thing to take the land by conquering.  But it’s quite another to do it by asking. God has given us each a border, a lot in life.  And usually we say, “yeah, I should be grateful, and I am.”  But are we complacent when we shouldn’t be, don’t need to be?  Yes, often.  Downright apathetic?  Yes.  

Achsah and Othniel were grateful, but not satisfied.  They had an inheritance, but it wasn’t all of what they had in their hearts.  They had a vision to expand their current border. It wasn’t wrong.  It was God.  There was an “itch” in their hearts for more.  

Can your borders be enlarged? To give you a larger, better, stronger life that encompasses more?  Yes. 

Ask God.  In order to do that, you need to relate to Him.  Change in life comes from God.  You need to go to Him, but it can only begin by a saving relationship with God by faith in Jesus.  And then you need to actually pray.  Not theoretically pray, not throw up a wish to the “Big Guy”, but actually get on your knees and seek, ask, knock and not stopping.  Real prayer is something you return to. 

Be ready for more responsibility.  Enlarged borders means more responsibility and a different life than you’ve been used to.  Change.  Apathy will stop you in your tracks.  God will give you greater strength to handle the greater territory, but you must embrace the responsibility.  Marriage?  Care for a spouse.  Children? Business? A promotion?  Don’t neglect what He brings to you.     

Fight evil, fight the enemy and remove him.  Sin restricts borders and makes your world small.  Do you know what is sinful and are you actively seeking God and removing it from your life?  

Achsah and Othniel did.  So did another guy in the Bible… 

1 Chronicles 4.9+10.  Jabez was an obscure mention in a long list of names in the beginning of 1Chronicles.  Apparently he was named after the pain his mom endured in giving birth to him.  Imagine…my name is “Pain.”  But he had a stirring in his heart.  He didn’t want to live an ordinary life.  So he went to God and asked the Lord to bless him indeed, to enlarge his territory, his borders, and to keep him from evil which would cause others pain.  The Bible tells us simply that God granted him what he requested.

God is willing to expand your borders.  Will you seek Him, embrace new changes and responsibility and remove sin and the enemy from your life?