God Never Fails

God as Giver of Good Gifts

In Joshua 21:43-45, we see a powerful declaration: everyone took possession of the land and settled there, everyone had rest, the enemies could not withstand them, and not one of all the Lord’s good promises failed. Two essential truths emerge from these verses.

First, God is a giver. He is a giver of good things. God gave Israel all the land. Yes, they had to fight for it, but it was a foregone conclusion that they would receive it. Sometimes they fought well, sometimes they didn’t. Frank pointed out a couple of weeks ago that there came a time when they quit taking the land, when they relaxed. But that doesn’t mean the land isn’t theirs. Anytime they decide as a militia, as a tribe, to go to war against someone occupying their land, they win. God gave them the land.

Listen carefully: God only gives good gifts. All good gifts come from God. You will not get a good gift from Satan. He will try to make you think his gift is good, but you know the truth. Only good gifts come from God. Every good thing we call good is a good gift from God. Sometimes we receive what we think is good—a promotion, a pay raise, a new job—and we say, “Well, time will tell.” God only gives good gifts. James tells us that all good gifts come from God, and He is incapable of giving a bad gift. So don’t blame the bad on God. Don’t blame God when something doesn’t work out as well as you thought it would. That isn’t God.

Satan is busy trying to convince you that God has failed you. He has not. God is a giver, and He’s a giver of good gifts. In this season of giving, we enjoy the good gifts that come from our friends and our family. But what are the good gifts that come from God? They’re not merely material things, although God can indeed bless us materially. The good gifts from God are things like hope and peace and joy and love and forgiveness and holiness and redemption and salvation. Don’t lose sight of the good gifts that God gives you.

God Fulfills Every Promise

The second truth that comes from this passage is that not only is God a giver, but God fulfills every promise. That’s what verse 45 says. God fulfills every promise. He never fails. The people ended up in a land, and yes, they had to fight for it, but they ended up in a land and lived in houses they did not build, ate from wells they did not dig, and ate food that they had not planted. God fulfilled every promise.

Sometimes there was a delay, but that wasn’t God’s fault. The promised land was waiting forty years ago. There was a delay because the people were faithless, but their faithlessness did not stop the faithful promise of God. It just delayed it. God never fails to keep a promise. Satan is trying to persuade you that God does fail you. He’s wrong, but he’s very persuasive. God never fails.

What This Means for Us

What does all this have to do with us? Three things stand out. First, we have to be patient. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: patience is something we all desire, but we are fairly unwilling to go through the process to get it. The only way you get patience is to be in a position where patience is demanded. Most of us don’t like those situations.

Think about Caleb. He waited forty-five years to get what he wanted. That’s real patience. Think about Abraham. Abraham never saw the completion of the promise of God, but he certainly operated as if the promise were going to happen. Think about Joseph. When he was second in command in Egypt and all of his brothers were around him, he said to them, “The time is going to come when we’re going to come up out of this land, and when we come up out of this land, take my bones with you. Take my mummified body with you.” That’s over four hundred years. According to Joshua 24, they buried Joseph at Shechem. Is that not patience?

For all of us, we have to develop patience, but it doesn’t depend upon you. That’s the beauty. According to Galatians 5, it’s the work of the Spirit in us. He is trying to develop patience within you. As Paul writes in that passage, get in step with Him. Cooperate with Him. Hold your tongue just a little longer. Don’t blame God. Don’t beat up on God because things haven’t turned out the way you wanted them to. Be patient. God is still at work. The promises of God are going to be fulfilled. They just may not be fulfilled in our lifetime.

Struggles and Failures in the Journey

Second, not only do we have to develop patience, we have to understand there will be struggles in the process. The people come into the land and have to fight for it. When the land is divided up, the militias have to go to work and continue to fight. The army of Israel kind of disbands, but the militias are there to fight, and they get weary of fighting and just settle for whatever is surrounding them because they’re tired of struggling. There will be struggles.

God fulfills His promises. God is a giver of good gifts, but those good gifts and those promises of God create for us times of struggle. We’re waiting on the return of Jesus. That’s the promise. We’re waiting on the return of Jesus. In the meantime, we are assured over and over again that there will be struggles. Jesus Himself said it in John 16:33. “In this world, you will have troubles.” There you go. The latter part is really encouraging to us, but let’s stop right there. In this world, you will have troubles. There will always be struggles, but take heart. I have overcome the world. Overcoming the world doesn’t keep us from struggles. That doesn’t mean God has failed, and it doesn’t mean that God isn’t still giving us good gifts. He is.

And then lastly, we recognize that there are going to be failures. I don’t know if you hate to mess up as much as I hate to mess up, but I sure hate to mess up. When I say failures, I’m not talking about sin, although sin can be one of those failures. This past week, I messed up at something. I didn’t make some phone calls I was supposed to make because of my job at Freed Hardeman. I was not only embarrassed, but I really took it hard. It was like I had promised to make those phone calls, and I had failed. I hate to mess up. It just hurts. It embarrasses me.

When failures come, there’s a whole process—at least in my mind—where I have to work really hard not to beat myself up. I kind of give myself three days to work through it. But failures are just a part of life, and if we can’t recognize that the failures that happen are not a reflection on God—our imperfection, that’s the sin part—our imperfection does not change the goodness of God. That is so important. Our sin does not change the goodness of God. Our mess-ups do not change the holiness of God.

We’ve all been let down by someone in life, someone who made a promise and didn’t stick with it. There’s a part of us that looks at that person and says, “I can’t trust that person.” And then it translates over into, “Can I really trust God?” Here’s what I’m trying to get you to see: individual and human failure is not a reflection on who God is. That’s about human beings. What does God give? Good gifts and only good gifts. What does God do with promises? He never fails. Human beings do, and because human beings like me, like you, affirm our connection to Jesus, sometimes people will say, “If that’s your Jesus.” But it doesn’t change who God is.

You have to be patient. We have to understand struggles occur, and there are going to be failures. But God is faithful. Paul writes about that in 2 Timothy: in our faithlessness, God is still faithful. When you come to the end of Joshua 21 and you read those three verses, you might think all the names and the cities and people above that really don’t matter a whole lot. And you’re right that it’s ancient history and you’re not sure how all that fits. Well, it all fits because Jacob made a pronouncement that his boys would never see land. And then Levi and the tribe of Levi four hundred years later at the base of Mount Sinai changed their future by choosing to walk with God.

Can I tell you something? You’re not too old. Whatever has happened, whatever you’ve done, God is faithful and you can walk with Him. There is nothing that you have done that will keep you from the love of God. Nothing. Levi sinned against his father by killing those men. And four hundred years later, God opens a path for him. I don’t know what you’ve done and what you’re still carrying and what you’re still holding on to and what that guilt is and what that shame is and what it says about you and what you are convicted of and what you believe about yourself. Here’s what I want you to know: there’s always a path to God. If you’re sitting in this building, there’s always a path to God. You have done nothing that will keep you from walking with God. You can change the trajectory of your life in one decision. Just like the Levites of old did. That’s how faithful God is.

Perhaps today there is someone who is ready to make that commitment. Say, “Whatever it is in my past, I don’t know what it is. You know what it is. I don’t know what it is. Whatever it is in my past, I’m ready to give it to God. I’m ready to say I’m not going to carry that anymore.” Maybe as a group we need to pray together about that. Maybe there’s someone today that needs to be baptized and say, “This is my decision. This is where I leave it all behind and let God give me the good gift of His Holy Spirit and let God wash away my sins and let God declare me to be holy.” Maybe that’s where you are. Maybe you just need a listening ear. Talk to me. Talk to one of the other elders. We will listen as you work through whatever it is. But look from Jacob to the end of Joshua 21. Do you not see the faithfulness of God for over four hundred years? God gives land to people who didn’t deserve it. Not only gifts, but good gifts.

---

Follow Jesus

If you’d like to respond to this message or learn more about following Jesus, please reach out.