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I got a fresh revelation this past week. It's one of those things that has been there all the time and I have read over and over and over again and then all of sudden it sort of hits you and you realize something from the text that you never even noticed before. I got excited about it and preached to myself a little bit. It helped me, and maybe it will help you. Maybe you already know what I'm about to preach. If so, I hope the excitement of how it hit me will hit you also and you can rejoice with me.

I've read the Bible through numerous times, been listening to sermons all of my life, and have devoted the large part of my life in the past five years to studying scripture. Because of that I'm familiar with most of the major themes in the Bible. I like to preach from themes. And one of the most familiar theme in the Bible is that of inheritance. From Genesis to Revelation, we find that God instituted and decreed and blessed the process of passing down something to others. From the very first human beings, we find the importance of giving your children an inheritance of God's Word because in order to be saved Abel and Cain had to give a blood sacrifice to God and yet nowhere do we find that they ever heard the command to do so directly from God. Obviously it was Adam's instruction that placed them in a place where they could choose to obey or disobey God's Word. That was an inheritance of the most basic sort and is still needful today.

As people grew closer to God through Abraham's time and such we find that God blessed them so that the people who followed Him were often quite wealthy. The inheritance then became much more important and fought over. Because the eldest son got a double portion of the inheritance -- called the birth right -- people like Jacob schemed great conniving plans to trick their siblings into giving them the birth right so that they could have a greater inheritance. Inheritances, you see, have the ability to get people excited and doing strange things even to this day. I'm reminded of a saying that Bro. Chavez used to say: "Where there's a will, there's a family." It's true and let someone who has some worldly possessions die and leave a last testament and family will come out of the woodwork just to see if there's something that they are getting for free. All of us probably know of at least one bad situation where the dividing of the inheritance got ugly.

That the Bible spends so much time talking about the importance of inheritances is no accident, because when we get to the New Testament, we find that because of Calvary we can be "born again" of the water and of the Spirit. When you are baptized in the name of Jesus and filled with His Spirit, there is a "new birth" that takes place that adopts you into the family of God. According to Paul, this spiritual adoption is the most important part of the Christmas story and the reason for which Christ came. He told the church in Galatia:

We were under the law of sin and therefore the only spiritual inheritance that we had in our future was the wages of sin which was death. But that little baby born of Mary in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago came to pay the price for sin and to provide a way that we could be born into His family. When you are "born again" you have a new Father and therefore we can be called the "sons of God." And the best part according to Paul in verse 7 above is that we are "no more a servant, but a son; and if a son then an heir of God!" We become the heirs to an inheritance worth getting excited about! You talk about a pauper to a prince story: when you are born again, you go from being a servant to sin reaping it's wages of death to a prince with God in line to receive the inheritance of the Creator of the Universe and King of Kings!

And the good news is that there's no need to steal it from anyone or try to sneak someone else's part because the Lord of Lords has more than enough to go around! And there's no need for an alarm system or to hire security guards to keep the robbers away because Jesus said that when your "treasure is in heaven," moths don't destroy it and robbers can't steal it!" There will be streets of gold and gates of pearl and walls of jasper and a mansion that is prepared just for you, but we tend to forget that all of that is only in one city that will be on an entire new earth that will have been created just for us! If we can't even to begin to imagine the New Jerusalem, then we really can't imagine how wonderful the new heaven and the new earth will be! No more sickness, no more pain, no more suffering, no more cold, no more 120 degrees summers, no more droughts, no more hunger, no more dying! When you serve Jesus, all of that is just the beginning of your inheritance!

And that's just the physical side of it. Not only does He improve your life down here and promise to bless you materially, but He gives you the Holy Ghost and allows you to experience the wonderful power of God moving in your life and to feel His awesome presence. You get to know what it's like to have the Spirit of God living within the temple of your body, something that the angels in heaven who are around the throne "desire to look into" and wish that they could experience! And yet the scriptures say that the Holy Ghost in our lives down here is just the "earnest of our inheritance" (Ephesians 1:13-14). It's a small taste of what's to come. It's just a little down payment of the glory of eternity that awaits those who are born into the kingdom of God!

I'm talking about the inheritance that awaits the children of God! You may never be rich down here on earth, but if you will be faithful to God, then you'll have an inheritance that will by far make up for it. They say that money can't buy everything and it's true that the best things in life are things that money can't buy. You can't buy eternal life, so Jesus paid the price for you! And despite it costing Him everything, He's willing to give it away to us for our inheritance! What a deal! Just for being born again! Now maybe you can understand why it's not "I have to get baptized in Jesus' name" but rather "I get to be baptized in the name of Jesus." It's not "do I have to receive the Holy Ghost" but rather "Hallelujah, I get to receive the Holy Ghost!" Some people are always talking about what they have to "give up" in order to serve God. If you're that way, then you don't have a revelation of how great God is or how great your inheritance will be for being a child of God. I've changed my lifestyle to match the Word of God, but I haven't "had to give up nothing!" You don't take two pennies and give it to somebody in exchange for a hundred dollar bill and go gripe about how you had to sacrifice "giving up" your two cents! When God hears that I think He looks at the place that He is preparing us and shakes His head in disgust. Whatever I've had to get rid of or change for His will is nothing compared to what I get in return. It may feel like sacrifice some times when we only view it in the earthly view, but when you view it in light of eternity, then really there's very little sacrifice in living for God. The inheritance that awaits us far outweighs any price that we must pay!

And since I'm here, let me say that in the scripture we find the story of a man who had two sons. The youngest took his inheritance and went and blew it in a life of sin. Most of you probably know the story, we call it the "Prodigal Son." The youngest son finally came to himself and came back home to the waiting and forgiving arms of daddy. They killed the fattest calf that they had. Daddy planned a big feast for all of his friends and neighbors. It was a big celebration pulling out all of the stops with no expense spared for the celebration of the youngest son's return. And in the story, the oldest son who had been there faithful all of the time got mad that the youngest son got such special treatment. He told one of the servants "I've been here faithful and dad's never thrown a big celebration like this for me! I've never had a fatted calf killed and eaten a celebration for my honor." When his dad heard about it, he said:

In other words, the eldest son could have had such a celebration every weekend if he had wanted, it was his for the asking. He just had been content to live without enjoying all of the benefits of being a blessed part of the family!

There are some Christians who live their life like that eldest son. Faithful to God in many things but choosing to live without the celebration and the joy and the blessings of being in Daddy's house. Not me! I'm going to rejoice and have a good time while I'm serving God. Let the younger brother come and let him go, I'm going to be faithful to my Father's will and smile all the while! I'm going to enjoy the blessings of God and know that even on my best day that those blessings are just a small taste of the inheritance that I've got coming whereas my worst day is the only hell that I'll ever know! I've been born again and I've got a great inheritance coming!

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All of that I just preached to you was not the revelation that hit me this past week. I already knew all that. That's old hat. I'm still excited about it, but I've known that a long time. I entered into this walk with God knowing full well what the end of the road would net me. It's why I chose to live as I do.

My revelation came in my daily readings of the Bible this year. After reading the Bible through a few times in the past few years, I decided this year that for my daily reading and devotion that I would just pick up the Bible and pick a place at random. So last week I picked up my Bible one morning and found myself in a very familiar passage that I have studied many times, the 1 Kings account of the dedication of Solomon's temple. I've studied this in such detail before that I almost turned to another place to read but for some reason I decided to read it "one more time." In 1 Kings chapter 8, I began to read the part where Solomon stands before the altar and prays a prayer of dedication. It's a good prayer and one that I've preached from before and it basically asks God to hear the people's prayers in the building and to bless Israel and dwell with them, but then I got toward the end of it where Solomon says this:

Then it hit me: Solomon said "thine inheritance." Israel was separated from all of the others on the earth to be "God's Inheritance." God has an inheritance also. We are always talking and focusing on our inheritance that we will get so much so that we don't even think about God getting an inheritance one day, but He does have one. God's inheritance is people to fellowship with that are in a covenant relationship with Him.

In the Old Testament the people that were separated and called by His name and santified through the blood of a lamb were the Israeli people. That's why Solomon said that Israel was "God's inheritance." That's why Moses said in our text:

The Lord's inheritance is not in wealth or riches or fame or prestige, but rather in people. He will inherit a people who will live together with Him for eternity. But the good news is that today it's not just Jews who are in a covenant relationship with Him and it's not just Jews who are called by His name and it's not just Israelis who are sanctified by the blood of the Lamb, but it is the Apostolic church! Those who have repented of their sins as the Apostles preached! Those who have been "buried with Him in baptism." Those who have received the Holy Ghost and thus been born into a family of God through the adoptive Spirit of God! If you've been born again, not only do you become the heirs of an inheritance one day, but you become the inheritance of God. For the Lord's portion is His people! People who are faithful to God will be God's inheritance. And that's why Paul wrote to the church in Ephesus in our other text and said "I always pray for you and I'm praying right now that God will give you the wisdom and the revelation and the knowledge and the ability to understand. Understand what Paul? Paul goes on to tell us in verse 18:

"That ye may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints!" Paul is saying that "I want you to understand and get a revelation of God's hope which is the reason that He calls people and deals with them and that is that He is working on His inheritance and His inheritance will be "the saints!"

Understand that when you enter a covenant relationship with God being born of the water and of the Spirit, then you become God's inheritance, bought and paid for with the blood of Jesus Christ! Ask anyone why Jesus died on the cross and they will immediately tell you to pay the price for our sins and that's true, but that's not the whole story. It doesn't answer the question of "why God would want to pay the price for our sins?" He certainly did do so and provide a way of salvation, but why did He bother? He did so to create a group of people who are His sons and daughters with whom He can fellowship and love and be loved in return! What good would it be to be a God with the greatest love and have nothing upon which to lavish it? What good would it be to have all the riches of the world and no one to enjoy it with? What good is it to be so big and powerful that your hand spans the universe and yet not have anyone to praise you or acknowledge that fact? What good is it to be good and not have someone be thankful for it? What good is it to be generous and kind and merciful and loving and not have somebody there upon which to bestow those things? What good is it to exist for all eternity and yet exist alone?

When God created Adam, He created him in "His image." Adam was created in the "image of God." And God immediately realized that Adam needed a mate, someone to share the Garden and His life with. The words of the Creator of the one who was in His image was "it is not good that man should be alone." That reveals something about God to us and that is "it is not good for God to be alone." And that is why we were created in the first place, to have a relationship with Him! And that's why God was willing to come in flesh and die for a fallen humanity because He desired to have someone able to come into His holy presence! He desired to have a relationship with a people who would choose to walk different and live different than the sinful world. And most of all, He wanted someone to spend eternity with! Someone to fellowship with forever! Someone to love and enjoy in companionship! And so if we are such people who love Him more than this world and are willing to separate ourselves from sin in order to please Him and are born again into the kingdom of God, we become the inheritance of God. We become the "Lord's portion."

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In writing to the Ephesians, Paul said "I'm praying that you get this revelation, that you are the Lord's inheritance!" But not only that I'm also praying that you get a revelation of:

In other words, we not only to get a revelation that we are the Lord's inheritance, but also to realize how great things God wants to work on our behalf to protect His investment! He'll use "mighty power" in our lives if that's what it takes to protect us and love us and keep us! Somebody needs to be reminded today that when you are Spirit-filled believer, being faithful to the things of God, then you have God on your side! He is very zealous in helping His children because we are His future inheritance. We tend to forget this. We tend to forget that God wants to bless us. We tend to forget that He takes our side. We tend to forget that He's got mighty power. And what we remember and trust in is usually what tends to happen. Job said "the thing that I feared greatly has come upon me." Job had always worried about what it was like to lose everything and so he did. Fear is simply misplaced faith and unfortunately you will usually reap the result of faith in your life whether positive or negative.

And so God wants to give someone a faith check up tonight. What are you believing and trusting in that will happen? God wants you to have faith in the promises of His Word that He has given because we are His inheritance. Remember, we are special to Him. We are a prized creation. We are who He's going to spend eternity with. We are God's future, therefore He'll fight for us. When you get the revelation that we are His inheritance, then it follows with the revelation that God will do certain things to protect that investment:

Because we are His inheritance:

1. God will bless His inheritance.

God wants to bless us! He wants to see us prosper! God obviously wants us to pray this because He anointed someone to write it down for us as a guide. There will be times that God will test us and try us and it may not be the perfect will of God for all of us to be millionaires, but somebody needs to remember that God desires to work the miraculous in your life. If you are in a covenant relationship with Him. If you are called by His name. If you are a part of the group of people whom will spend forever with Him, then it is God's will to bless you. He wants to heal you. He wants to feed you with spiritual bread and revelation. He wants to "lift you up." Maybe you are "down" right now, but if so and you are "born again" then you can rejoice because God will not let His prized creation stay down always! If you keep trusting in Him, He will exalt you and lift you up and bless you because you are special to Him! You are His inheritance! You are the ones whom He will eternity with! And so He has made a promise to bless His inheritance! You may be down, but you can still praise God if you are Spirit-filled and living for Him because it won't last long! God will bless you!

2. God will fight for His inheritance and protect them.

Another psalm instructs on this:

"The heathen are come into thine inheritance!" In other words, the Psalmist was saying "I'm in a battle and people are fighting against me." He then goes on to pray:

And then:

God fights for the people that are His inheritance! Somebody needs to be remember that. And the scriptures say:

Think about that! God didn't promise us that we wouldn't have battles. He didn't promise us that we wouldn't have enemies. He didn't promise that we wouldn't be wounded, but He did promise that we would win! He did promise that nothing would destroy us as long as we let Him arise to fight our battles! He did promise:

Victory is promised to the servants of the Lord! Why? Because we are His inheritance! If you lose a battle, then take heart and put your faith in God. If things look really bad then remember that they will be better because you are destined to win! You are destined to victory as long as you keep faithful to Him! You can't help but come out on top, you are God's inheritance!

3. God will refresh His inheritance.

I heard a preacher say one time that "it's the instrument that is being used that gets worn out." That's true. You'll get tired sometimes doing right. There will be times that you will grow weary, but God has promised to send a refreshing rain to His inheritance! The Holy Ghost is the refreshing rain that is poured out and when you are weary if you will surrender to Him and still praise Him, you'll find that He will rejuvenate you through the "regeneration of the Holy Ghost!" If we'll surrender to Him, then we've got a guarantee that we will not burn out nor stay discouraged because God will refresh us! He'll send the rain of the Holy Ghost in our life just when we need it! He'll help us with the harvest when we need it most! We are His inheritance, and so He won't let us dry up to nothing!

4. God will remember His inheritance.

There are times where you will be like Job felt:

Because we walk by faith and not by sight, sometimes we start thinking "where's God in my life?" And sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that God has "forsaken us" or "forgot about me." You look around and you can't see God moving in the situation and so you begin to question God.

But I'm here to tell you that God will not forget His inheritance! He always remember every prayer and every place that you are at. When you start thinking like Job was, you need to shake yourself and say "wait a minute, what am I thinking? I'm a child of God. I'm God's inheritance. I mean something to Him, He'll never forget me!" And He won't! He won't!

5. God will do for us what He has done for others of His inheritance.

This one ought to really get you excited. The Psalmist said:

There have been a lot of people that have already lived and died that were in a covenant relationship with God. God did a lot of great things for them. Recalling all of these great stories, the psalmist said "remember me, with the favor that you gave unto thy people." And then "that I may glory with thine inheritance." In other words, "God you did it for Abraham and David and Elijah, because they were your inheritance, well, I'm your inheritance too so you'll do the same for me!" God is no respector of persons. And we have a book full of stories and lives that trusted in God and saw the miraculous, the healing, the nurturing, the protecting and the loving hand of God in their lives. We are just as much His inheritance as they were, so God will do the same thing for me!

I don't believe it's the will of God for us to get together with Elijah one day and begin to swap stories only to listen to what God did for him! I believe that God wants us to have some stories of our own! After all, we know God in a way that Elijah only wished that he could have! Elijah could call fire down from heaven, but we have the fire of the Holy Ghost within our lives! Elijah could call rain down from heaven, but we have experienced the latter rain of the Holy Spirit prophesied by Joel! Somebody needs to start praying again with faith and find you a story in the Bible that matches your circumstance and begin to thank God for doing it for you. He will, you know, because you are His inheritance!

6. God will return to His inheritance.

Isaiah called out to God "return to us for thy servants' sake." Jesus has left us not for our sin, but so that we might have the Holy Ghost and be ready at His return. He is coming back. The scoffers have said that people have been preaching that for years and years an nothing has happened. The world laughs at such people to believe something as "farfetched" as that Jesus is coming back. But He is. He'll be back, you can be sure. Because He has an inheritance to return to! He has an inheritance waiting to collect! It cost Him a great price on Calvary and He will show up to claim it! He will return to His inheritance! Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus! Your inheritance, awaits!