Joshua 19:1-9 | Episode #1242

July 21, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 19:1-91242

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply 

God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus

that God would open his word to

you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today.

Word of God, please speak to the

hearers of your voice today in the name of Jesus.

Amen. Foreign. Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study.

We are in Joshua 19, Joshua 19,

verses 1 through 9. We're going to deal with a tribe that is, well, I mean, very, very similar to his brother's tribe that the. The tribe of Simeon and their inheritance. Their inheritance is not very big. In fact, as you see, it's only one through verses one through nine. A lot of the territory that you read about here is not anything of any importance in the sense that you would remember hearing the names of the cities. You wouldn't remember a whole lot about Simeon. In fact, in Scripture, you don't hear a lot about Simeon. Simeon was the second son of. Of Jacob, and him and his brother Reuben are the two that were primarily involved in, well, the murder and the total destruction of the people of Shechem over an incident that happened with their sister. And they get. They don't. Well, I mean, their blessing from their father. Jacob's not a good one, and especially Reuben. Reuben, you're gonna see, is oftentimes not even mention in the list of the tribes of Israel. And Simeon is very similar. Simeon is really, really similar because Jacob's blessing for him was that he would be scattered among the tribes of Israel. That's what Jacob said. When he died, he went through a blessing. We studied this back maybe a year or two ago, may have been three years ago, we studied through it. And his blessing for Simeon was that he would be scattered among the tribes of his bro. That's not much of a blessing. In fact, that's A horrible blessing. And what happens is when they allot the territory, Judah gets the biggest portion, and Judah gets the biggest portion because, well, Judah was more important. And Judah was going to be. Well, was going to be the line of kings and ultimately the line of Jesus himself, the Messiah. And so Judah is blessed that way. And what happens is Simeon gets territory that's right next to Judah, but most of the territory that they actually get are within the bounds of Judah's territory. And you go, well, why would that happen? Because Judah got such a big territory that they couldn't occupy all of it. It was so big that they couldn't occupy it. And so Simeon comes along, and when they give Simeon territory, they give right next to Judah. But Simeon actually inhabits mostly the territory of Judah. And over time, Judah grows in power and strength and importance, and Simeon slowly melts away, melts into Judah and melts into other tribes. And so Simeon is not a very important tribe. In fact, if you try to find some characters in scripture that come from the tribe of Simeon, you do find a couple of minor military figures. And if I mentioned their names, you wouldn't even know them. And they're from the tribe of Simeon. They were part of some of the battles that Moses was involved in, and they did help take the territory of Israel, the territory of the Promised Land. And so there are some military generals that do some good stuff with that. Like I said, minor characters. I can't name you someone from the tribe of Simeon that likely you would even remember. There's a strong likelihood that you wouldn't even know what I was talking about if I named them. And so what is the lesson that we learned from that? What is the lesson that we learn from Simeon? Well, what we learn from Simeon is. Is that as. As I was talking about even last night, that. That our lives are consequential, that our lives matter, that our lives matter to God. In fact, God was willing to pay for our lives with his son's life. And so our lives matter. And the. The actions that we take and who we are is consequential. And so many times people think that, you know, you know, that's a victimless crime. You know, leave me alone. My. You know, I'm not. I'm not. I'm not affecting you in any way. And the truth is, is that's just not true. It's not true. Your life affects a lot of things. And even if you try to live as a hermit, but by yourself in the woods, hundreds of miles into the wilderness, by Yourself with no one else. That life that is out there in solitary confinement in the wilderness 200 miles from any other person is a consequential life. And, well, I mean, we even make movies about people who go out in the wilderness and starve to death. There's a really famous movie that just recently released in the last decade or so, about a young man who decided he would go out into the wilderness in Alaska and eventually starve to death. A whole movie's made about him. And he was all by himself for most of the movie. But his life, apparently was consequential, right? It had consequence. Your life has consequence. And Simeon's involvement in his brother's ruthless crime, and then really his unwillingness to really make any repentance about it, and then his kind of melting back into the background in his own life, and then his family does too. His children and his tribe do too. They just kind of sit. If I want to give you a really, really clear spiritual picture, they just kind of sit on the back Ro. That's who they are. They are ashamed of the things that they've done, and they don't walk in the grace of God, which would deliver them from that shame. And they never really do anything for the kingdom. And their children and their children's children suffer because there is no inheritance that is taken in its fullness. And if you think that because you're not this, or because your third grade teacher told you were stupid and everybody thought you were ugly, or you can just come up with all the reasons why you were growing up, why you're not of any value, and if you continue to listen to that lie from the enemy and sit on the back row, and sure you love God, and sure you're a part of the kingdom, but you don't really love him totally because you allow your own inadequacies and struggles, you allow them to keep you on the back row, rather than recognizing that you have great importance in the kingdom and that God loves you so much that he sent his son to die for you, and that his anointing and his power is available to you, even though you might say, I really don't bring anything to the table, but you do. You bring the power of God to the table, the anointing of God to the table. And it's foolishness to think that way. And if you would begin to exercise whatever gift you have, and you have a gift, and many of you have multiple gifts, and if you begin to engage in the body of Christ, you would realize that the Grace of God is being poured out on you, and you realize that the power of God is available to you. And you'd realize that your life is of great importance, you're of great import, you're consequential, and what you do will matter down the road. And if you would do that, you could move off the back row and you could begin to engage in kingdom activity, and you could begin to see the big things of God happen for your life. But until then, you can just be like Simeon and languish in the shame of whatever you perceive to be so terrible in your life, or languish in the obscurity of not being who everybody thinks everybody else is. And you're just a nobody. And you can do that. And being a somebody and acting like you're a nobody is consequential. And you are a somebody because you have the mantle of the Holy Spirit. You can keep doing that, and you won't receive and walk in your inheritance, and other people won't either. And ultimately it'll come to your detriment. It'll come to your. It will inure not to your benefit, but to your detriment. And those who come behind you will get scattered among the other tribes. Who wants that? I don't want that. You don't want that. I don't want that for you. Not only do I not want it for me, I don't want it for you. And surely you don't want it. So why don't you engage a little bit? Why don't you if what you did so terrible, why don't you come to the altar and repent and seek forgiveness and then allow God to deliver you from the shackles of that shame and pain? And why don't you try to reengage in kingdom stuff? And why don't you actually become a tribe that matters, a tribe that's important? And the way you do that, you use that supernatural gift you were given and get busy doing it, and you won't be from the tribe of Simeon anymore. You might be from Judah or Benjamin, you know, you might level up, as they say. Remember, your promotion is just a heartbeat away. There's no telling when God's going to get ready and he's going to move you up and promote you. There's no telling. You know, many, many people don't ever believe God's going to do anything big for them, and therefore he doesn't, because that which you don't trust him for won't happen. But those who expect God to do big things for them. He doesn't always do it right then, but at some point in time, you get that promotion, you level up, you move up. And when you experience it the first time, then you start really wanting it to happen over and over again. And before you know it, you're moving up over and over and over again. And what a great thing that is, what a great and wonderful thing that is, is to level up in the kingdom of God. Because he has big things for you. He says, I have plans for you, to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope in a future. Well, that doesn't sound like Simeon to me. It sounds like something else, something way better than that. I pray that that'll be the case for you. If you listen to this Bible study, I expect that you are seeking it out. And if you seek it, you'll find it. But you got to seek it with your whole heart. As you go today. I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.