Joshua 13:1 Now Joshua was old and stricken in years; and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years, and there remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.
Geography is usually impersonal. In geography class, you learn of lands far off and how they relate to other lands. It can be kind of abstract. You may not know what these lands smell like, what they sound like, or what they look like. You are seeing flat geography on a flat map.
As you read Joshua 12 and 13, you might feel that way. There is a lot of geography. Most of the places are obscure and far off in time and space. It is vague and impersonal. Sometimes, we can get the same impression about God. We feel like God has made this vast universe, but that He is impersonal, a God Who wound the world up like a clock, but left it to go its own way.
Well, God is not a clock-winder. He didn’t just make the world and then leave it. He is a personal God. The land of Canaan was a land He had promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and He was going to make this promise good. God is not a clock-winder Who it disinterested in your life. That is true in two senses.
First, in chapter 12 we are reminded that the purposes of God involve each one of us. We are not all the same. We don’t all serve the same way, but if we serve Jehovah God and have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, the purposes of God involve us.
There is Moses. Joshua 12:1 says, “Now these are the kings of the land, which the children of Israel smote, and possessed their land on the other side Jordan…” Verse 6 says, “Then did Moses the servant of the LORD and the children of Israel smite…” So, the first several verses of chapter 12 are about the lands that God gave through Moses. Then Joshua 12:7 says, “And these are the kings of the country that Joshua and the children of Israel smote…” Moses and Joshua were two totally different men. We don’t all serve the same way, but we all serve the same God if we put our faith in Christ.
In chapter 13 you find that there were nine and a half tribes who had an inheritance on one side of the Jordan River and because of a special arrangement and promise, two and a half tribes had their inheritance on the other side. Their inheritances were different, but they all had a purpose and the purposes of God involved them.
In Joshua 13:33 it says, “But unto the tribe of Levi Moses gave not any inheritance; the LORD God of Israel was their inheritance.” So, a Levite could have said, “I wish we had a big piece of land like Reuben.” Perhaps Judah could have said, “Why can’t we benefit from the sacrifices the way the Levites do?” The answer is that the purposes of God involve you, but everybody’s inheritance is different.
Second, the purposes of God surpass you. This is strangely comforting. In other words, God has a purpose for your life today, but that purpose will live longer than you will. That is a good thing. Joshua 13:1 says, “Now Joshua was old and stricken in years: and the LORD said unto him, Thou art old and stricken in years.” And then God says, “There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed.”
God had done much through Joshua, but there was much more to do. Like Moses and Joshua, the purposes of God supersede you. They go beyond you. They go through you. That is wonderful to know because it means that if you are following God’s lead, what you are doing today, however small and menial it may seem, is something that involves you and surpasses you. In both cases we are reminded that God is not disinterested in this world or in you. God is a personal God.