Reading from God's Holy Word, Joshua 14, verses 6-11. Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb, the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, said to him, you know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me in Kadesh Barnea. I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. So Moses swore on that day, saying, surely the land where your foot has trodden shall be your inheritance and your children's forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God. And now behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as he said, these 45 years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness. And now, here I am this day, 85 years old. As yet, I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me. Just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Amen. Father, we thank you for your Word, and I pray that your Holy Spirit would fill us. And I once again lay claim to your promise that this is the will of God for you, even your sanctification. You said, if we ask anything according to your will, you will grant it. We lay claim to this promise. that you will sanctify us through your word. And I pray that each one of these people here would grow in you and would find great joy and faith and comfort in you. And I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, next to Joshua and David, Caleb is one of my favorite heroes in the Bible. And he is a hero for the same reason that William Carey is one of my favorite modern heroes. Let me list 20 points of comparison between those two, just to give you a little bit of a taste of this man, Caleb, and I'm doing it this way because I think it will save a lot of time. It will help to, instead of reading from all over the Scripture, it'll give you at least an introduction to the biblical material. Both Caleb and William Carey exhibited enormous faith during a time of downgrade. where people were having a hard time seeing beyond their own daily routines. And the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy show how Joshua and Caleb really stood head and shoulders above their generation as men of faith. And I think it's one of the things that made him such a good leader. A second, God placed both Caleb and William Carey into the spear tip of God's conquest of planet Earth. They weren't afraid of being on the front lines of the battlefield, praise God. Third, both were willing to accept any challenge that God gave to them, and I believe that was because they knew if God was for them, who could be against them. Both had a constant awareness of God's presence and power with them. That will sustain a leader during the hardest of times. And if you do not experience God's constant sense of His presence, His power in your life, there are going to be weaknesses in your life that Satan will be able to take advantage of. Fifth, both men were men of courage, and that courage inspired other people to be a people of courage as well. And in both cases, actually, it was inspiring the next generation. Their own generation really was not willing to, but it inspired the next generation to be courageous. Six, both were men of prayer. I consider that to be an absolute essential to good leadership. It's one of the reasons why Gary and I emphasized prayer so much and even gave out that book on praying church. Hopefully you guys have been reading it and digesting it. Seventh, both knew how to repent on behalf of a struggling church. And wow, was there a lot to repent over in both generations. Leaders don't just repent of their own sins, they repent of the sins of the people that they are responsible for. And Gary and I have done a lot of repenting for the sins in our church on behalf of you, our brothers and sisters. Eighth, both were galvanizers of God's people into actions. And this is actually one of the areas I'm somewhat weak on, is galvanizing. Gary and I are praying for an elder in the future, strong in the area of galvanizing. Not all leaders are, but certainly Caleb and William Carey were. Well, yes. Ninth, both faced and overcame obstacles that were absolutely formidable. Tenth, both had a God-sized vision of what could happen to change one geographical area of planet Earth. With William Carey, really his vision, his passion was to see India transformed by the gospel. By the way, if you've never read anything on William Carey, I highly recommend Vishal Mangalwadi's books. If you want the easiest introduction to it, just get the biography on him that's written by him and his wife, Ruth. It's really a wonderful introduction to understanding William Carey. Eleventh, both were passionate for God's glory. Both believed the sufficiency of scripture even when other people doubted it. Both were opposed by Satan, and for good reason. They were both sold out to God. Both were men of initiative. Both inspired an entire generation to make similar sacrifices to the sacrifices that they were making. If you got a leader who can inspire others to make sacrifices, it's a wonderful gift. Both knew what it meant to lead because they knew what it meant to be in submission to God's chain of command. Leaders who were not in submission are not very good leaders. Now, it may seem counterintuitive, but good leaders know how to submit to authority. They know how to thrive under authority. But that very submission, and this is the 17th comparison, that very submission under God made both leaders willing to oppose ungodly leadership, ungodly authority wherever they found it. And that means that such submission is not a blind submission. It is submission in the Lord. And it made them hate the evils in their land with a passion. That's the 18th comparison. William Carey, groaned over, was torn up over, wept over the slavery, infanticide, forced prostitution, idolatry, all of the other evils in the land, just like Caleb was torn up over the evils that he was opposing in the land of Canaan. Good leaders are made by God to be able to handle the stresses of being torn up over the evils that they are opposing. In other words, this is not a passionless kind of a job. Far from it. But, comparison 19, both believed such evils could be stopped if Christians would take God's word and his grace more seriously. Both of those men had a supreme trust in God's promises. And then finally, both followed the Lord fully. In Numbers 14.24, God says, but my servant Caleb Because he has a different spirit in him and has followed me fully, I will bring him to the land where he went, and his descendants shall inherit it." Anyway, I love the man, Caleb, and I see him as being so significant that I want to spend at least two Sundays looking at some of the characteristics that made for good leadership in this man. Maybe I'll spend more, I'm not sure yet. But today we're just going to begin looking at some of the inward characteristics of this man who had a God-sized vision. His outward achievements flowed from his inner character. And so we're gonna look at the inward character today, an inward character that helps to explain his phenomenal leadership. And the first thing that I see is that Caleb was a man who thrived under authority. We've already kind of summarized that under the 17th comparison. But take a look at the first sentence there. This is in verse 6, then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal. Now we'll see that Caleb was the leader of Judah, but he was a leader who respected the authority of Joshua. I doubt very much that Caleb was any less gifted than the man Joshua. From Numbers and Deuteronomy, you might even get the impression that they're almost like twins, two peas in a pod. And yet God put Joshua over the entire nation, and Caleb was okay with that. He thrived wherever God put him. And just by way of comparison, you would think that Jesus, who was going to be given authority over everything in heaven and earth, would not have to submit to anyone. And yet Jesus not only submitted to the Father, read Luke 2.51 sometime and you will see that he submitted to his parents' authority when he was a teenager. Yes, he submitted to his parents' authority even when he was a teenager who thought he knew better. Well, actually, in his case, he did know better, right? But you get the point. He submitted. And if you teenagers want to grow up to be godly leaders, you need to learn the submission of the greatest leader of all time, the Lord Jesus Christ. All who are in authority must first learn to submit to authority. And if you struggle with submission to your boss, submission to your session, submission to other God-ordained leaders, you are lacking one of the most important prerequisites to godly leadership. You are not ready to be a leader, not at all. And so that's the first inward characteristic. that made Caleb such a good leader. Verse six also hints at the fact that Caleb knew there was no way he was going to be able to accomplish this vision all by himself. He was not a loner. Caleb came with the men whom he led, and we'll later see, not today, but at a later time, we're gonna be seeing that his character rubbed off on the men that he led. That's the way it is with good leadership. He had obviously been influencing them. Well, in the same way, William Carey said that if Christianity was going to successfully spread in India, it would have to be through the Indian nationals themselves. He was passionate about that. He rubbed shoulders with the Indians to influence those who would become leaders in a godly way. In one of his articles, he wrote of the necessity of, quote, the forming of our native brethren to usefulness, fostering every kind of genius, and cherishing every gift and grace in them. I love that. Cherishing every gift and grace in them. In this respect, we can scarcely be too lavish in our attention to their improvement. It is only by means of native preachers we can hope for the universal spread of the gospel through this immense continent. Without that vision of what God could do through others, His ministry would not have had nearly as large an impact as it did. True leaders do not see themselves as being the ones who have to do all of the work of the ministry, okay? True leaders see themselves as just part of the body, and they're stirring up the body. The whole body is ministering, right? We're not the only ministers. The whole body is ministering. So they valued the body. They stirred up the body to the ministry of the saints. Third, Apparently, Caleb did not get bent out of shape by teasing. He didn't get discouraged by what other people thought of him. I know this is reading between the lines, and there was a danger in reading between the lines, but just think about it. Would any parent name his or her child Dog? I doubt it, very sincerely, I doubt it. Today, Caleb doesn't mean dog to us, it means a hero of the faith, but back then, there was nobody with the name of Caleb. Just look it up in the Bible, you will not find any Caleb early on, because it was a term of, it was a derogatory term, it meant dog, and a wild kind of a dog. So it was a term of derision, And it's very likely that this was a nickname that somehow stuck, but he was okay with that. He wore his name, and it went on with life. Furthermore, his dad was a Kenizzite, which was one of the tribes of the Canaanites who was slated by God to be exterminated. I've often wondered if it was because his dad was a Kenizzite, a Canaanite, that Caleb got ribbed and put down and teased. And whether his skin color was different or not, who knows? But it's astounding when you actually analyze his background, the kind of background that he had to live down. But he did live it down. He proved people wrong. His focus was on what God thought of him. And he was secure in God's grace. And by the time he was an adult, he had shown himself to be such a man of God that he was made to be the chief of Judah, which was the chief tribe. That's incredible. A non-Jew by ancestry was the head of the chief Israelite tribe. Numbers 13, verse 3 says of the 12 spies, all of them were men who were heads of the children of Israel. It means chief, the top one, the number one one. of each of their tribes. That's what the term means. And then it lists the head of each tribe, and in verse 6 says, from the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh. And by the way, this shows to me that being an Israelite was not primarily an ethnic issue any time in Israel's history. It was primarily an issue of faith. But the point is his inward characteristics made him rise to the level of a tribal chief and many great leaders since Caleb have had to overcome similar putdowns. William Carey was a cobbler repairing shoes. And nobody thought that he could do missions. Nobody thought he would ever become a minister, but he did. He taught himself Greek and Hebrew and theology, and over time he taught himself many other disciplines. Steve Gallagher tells of one of the stories of his reception when he wanted his denomination to start a missions agency to India. Gallagher says, as a young Christian, William Carey and a couple of friends formed a mission society to explore the idea of taking the gospel to India. However, when they shared their idea at the local minister's meeting, they were ridiculed to scorn. Undaunted, young William began making plans to go to India. Upon hearing of his plans, his father wrote him a scathing letter and rebuked him for such a foolhardy pursuit. Worse than that, his wife refused to go or allow their children to go. William responded to his wife in a letter dated May 6, 1793. If I had all the world, I would freely give it all to have you and my children with me, but the sense of duty is so strong as to overpower all other considerations. I cannot turn back without guilt on my soul. Dorothy finally relented, and the small party boarded a ship that arrived in Calcutta six months later. But once he got to Calcutta, he was opposed by all kinds of authorities, including the East India Company, which was a very powerful company back in those days. Here's an excerpt from a director's meeting of the East India Minutes, and it gives you a little bit of a flavor of what they thought of William Carey. The sending of missionaries into our eastern possessions is the maddest, most extravagant, and most unwarrantable project ever proposed by an enthusiastic lunatic. You can see what they thought of William Carey, but he didn't worry about what they thought. Okay, he was driven by what God wanted him to do. This was God's vision that God had put on his heart. So don't get discouraged if you have received teasing and opposition, or if people don't believe in your God-given vision. Leaders must learn to get their sense of identity from God and not those that they lead. And really, children, it's important that you learn not to get bent out of shape when your siblings or other people tease you. That's allowing them to control you. You might think that reacting to the teasing, you know, by getting mad is the appropriate thing. No, that's allowing them to control you. Leaders become leaders because they know how to get beyond that. The next thing that I see is that Caleb took initiative. Verse 6 again. Then the children of Judah came to Joshua in Gilgal, and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him." So leaders are much more proactive than they are reactive. They take actions based upon a plan rather than always reacting to other people's attitudes and actions. In other words, they've got a long-term trajectory. that lets them take initiative exactly when initiative is needed. They actively step into God's call upon their lives. The next thing that I see is that Caleb did not treat God's promises as simply being a beautiful poetry that we hang up on the wall and that does not have an impact upon our lives. No, he took God's promises to the bank as it were. Verse six goes on to say, you know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God, concerning you and me and Kadesh Barnea. So he's taking, it's like a promissory note. He's taking it to the bank. He's cashing in on it. He's basically saying, you all know God made this promise to me. And now's the time I believe that this needs to be fulfilled. Now I should hasten to say that promises are different than predictions of the future or than your plans. Your plans don't always get to be fully lived out. But if you have made, excuse me, if God has made a promise, you can hold God to that promise. Verse six goes on to say, you know the word which the Lord said to Moses, the man of God. Okay. God, He expects us to fulfill our promises even if it hurts. Well, God does the same thing. He will fulfill His promises even to His own hurt. Now, obviously, God can't be hurt, but you know what I mean. He takes His promises seriously. And when we really believe God's promises, we can act upon them. And this is yet another dividing line between a leader and a wannabe. 1 Peter 1.4 says that God's promises guarantee that we can become partakers of the divine nature. What an incredible promise. Verse 3 says that God's promises give to us all things that pertain to life and godliness. I love what Charles Spurgeon said in a sermon titled, Knock. And by knock, he means knocking on the door of heaven. During that sermon, he said, I have said that the Lord has provided a knocker. What is a knocker? Well, first of all, it may be found in the promises of God. We are sure to speed well when we can plead a promise. It is well to say unto the Lord, do as thou hast said. What force abides in an appeal to the word, the oath, and the covenant of God? If a man presents to another a promissory note upon the day on which it is due, he expects to receive the amount stated therein. God's promises are bills of exchange, and he will duly honor them. He was never known to dishonor a bill yet, and he never will do so. If you can only quote a promise applicable to your condition and spread it before the Lord in faith and say, remember this word unto thy servant upon which thou hast caused me to hope, you must obtain the blessing. Pleading the promise gives such a knock at the gate of heaven that it must be opened. And I say, amen. We have got to get used to taking the promises of scripture seriously. It'll cause us to grow in our faith. The sixth characteristic that I see in Caleb is that he didn't make up his vision. He had a grand vision. But it was not a naive vision, because it was grounded in God's word. Last part of verse six shows that everything he's about to do is because of, he says, the word which the Lord said. If God hadn't said it, then there would be a much less secure foundation for the vision. And we'll shortly see that his vision was stunningly grand. But it was a big vision precisely because it was a God-given vision. Helen Keller was once asked by someone, what would be worse than being born blind? Now, that person perhaps thought, I can't imagine anything worse than being a blind person like you. And so they asked that question of Helen Keller. And Helen, who was stone blind, said, to have sight with no vision. That's worse. That's an incredibly profound statement. To be able to see perfectly with your eyes, but have no capacity, no vision to see what God can accomplish through you, that is a sad state of affairs indeed. Mothers, you are leaders of your children. Do you have a grand vision of what God can accomplish through you in raising these children to be stellar children in God's army? To have no vision is a sad state for any leader. Vision is so critical to leadership that Barna defines a leader as, quote, a person who is driven by a vision. And he contrasts that with, quote, a teacher who is driven by an audience who can be affected by information. Now, there's a need for both, but there's a difference between those two. Good leaders can be teachers, but not all teachers are leaders. Leadership is a calling just as teaching is. When a leader has no vision, his followers have no direction. In other words, they're not being led. That's basically what it amounts to. John C. Maxwell said, vision is not just an advantage for great spiritual leadership, it's a prerequisite. And all of the great leaders of the past were driven by a vision that was far, far, far greater than what they could accomplish in their own strength. It was bigger than them. John C. Maxwell gives illustration after illustration of this in a commentary on Deuteronomy. You maybe didn't realize he wrote a commentary. He co-authored one with Lloyd J. Ogilvie. But I'm going to quote him at length here. I think this is a big point. He writes, Phillips Brooks once said, Sad is that day for any man when he becomes absolutely satisfied with the life that he is leading, the thoughts that he is thinking, and the deeds that he is doing. Then there ceases to be a desire to do something greater for God than ever before. William Carey, a pioneer missionary, was able to envision the needs of the whole world while his fellow preachers were preoccupied with their own little parishes. Vision has a wide-angle lens. Henry Martin saw India, Persia, and Ardia, a vision of the Muslim world, while the church at home was engrossed in its petty theological squabbles. Vision sees needs and is not thwarted by problems. The contemporaries of A.B. Simpson said that his work seemed to push him on alone while his fellows had nothing to explore. Vision is compelling. David Livingston exclaimed, I will go anywhere provided it is forward. Vision instigates positive action. Those who have most powerfully and permanently influenced their generation have been seers. Men and women of caution have never advanced the kingdom of God. People of vision are willing to take risks knowing that they are attached to God's rope of security. Amen. The seventh characteristic that I see in Caleb that he never lost his vision, not even during the dry years of wandering in the wilderness. If there was anything that could have robbed a person of his vision, it would be 40 years where they're just wandering aimlessly in the wilderness. This was God's discipline for them. And another five years where they're fighting, but they're fighting for somebody else's territory, not his own territory. Verse 7 begins, I was 40 years old when Moses, the servant of the Lord, sent me from Kadesh Barnea to spy out the land. And you might think, well, 40 years plus 40, that would be 80. Why is it 85? Because they've been fighting for the last five years. So the chronology shows him to be 85 years old. 85. That's a long time to wait for a promise to be fulfilled. But he didn't doubt it. He never lost his vision. And you can see many great leaders of modern history who finally achieved their vision after a lifetime of labor. But Caleb's faithfulness during the 40 years of wandering shows that he was not trying to manipulate God. It's not about us, it's about God. He was not being demanding of God in terms of God's timing. You can think of the promises that God gave to Abraham. It took a long time before the promise of Isaac ever came to be fulfilled, didn't it? And the promise that Abraham would inherit the land never did get fulfilled, which is one of many reasons that I can marshal as to why Abraham has to be resurrected in the future and has to be on a physical earth for this to be fulfilled. In fact, Hebrews makes that point. It's one of the arguments for the resurrection. He's going to inherit it. But in any case, Scripture says Abraham believed God's promise, he prepared his children to pass on his vision. So God gets to define the vision, he gets to define the timing, and often the waiting has its purpose, testing the leaders on whether they're gonna live by faith or whether they're gonna live by sight. There's always a reason for the postponement of the vision that God brings. But this brings us up to the incredible faith that Caleb displayed in Numbers 13 through 14. Here he simply says, and I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. He had internalized God's promise in his heart. And when you read the account in Numbers chapter 13, the word that he brought back, you can see he took God's promises at face value, and he expected God to follow through on it. He said, let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it. That's Numbers 13, verse 30. Now compared to the testimony of the other spies, it's no wonder God just said, okay, you and Joshua, you're going to go into the land, you're going to inherit some of the land that I, the land that I had promised to you. Their vision was totally consistent with true faith. Whitehead and Boyd say, a lack of leaders is one of the driving difficulties we have in most churches in America today. We have good people who are well-educated, good-intentioned, called to ministry, but they're not, for the most part, leaders. They are teachers, preachers, counselors. They have good skills. They certainly have spiritual gifts, and they can help people, but they can't lead. And we desperately need some Joshuas and Caleb's in our own generation, the men who will... cause the church of Jesus Christ to expect great things from God and to attempt great things for God. And it's not as if such leaders have their heads in the cloud. That's the way some people kind of make it out to be. Not at all. Kerry did not have his head in the cloud. They were very practical men. For six years, Kerry urged his denomination to form a missions organization to take the gospel overseas, And he had it all mapped out. He wrote an 87-page booklet that not only laid out the biblical foundations, but all of the how-tos, everything that needed to be done to make it work. So if you have a good vision, it's not as if you're not going to be doing planning. You will be, right? Is it really a vision if you've done very little thinking about it, very little planning about it? William Carey also grounded his plan in the Word of God by preaching from Isaiah 54, verse 2, which is God's call for the church to enlarge the place of its tent so as to inhabit the Gentiles. And at one point, he summarized his vision in the expression I've already quoted twice, expect great things from God, attempt great things from God. So it came from that sermon. Verse seven also shows that Caleb's words and his heart matched. He says, I brought back word to him as it was in my heart. And his actions in Kadesh Barnea fully matched his heart and words. By the way, our words often express the state of our hearts. When I used to have negative words that would come out of my mouth, it was really expressing the negativity that was in my heart. And people would point it out to me. I didn't want to admit it. when I would have grumbling, it would express a lack of contentment in my heart, even if I did not want to admit that that was the case. May we be like Caleb, showing faithfulness to the Lord in heart, word, and deed. You can hide secret sins of the heart from other people. You're not going to be able to hide them from the Lord. And eventually they will be exposed because, as Jesus said, out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. I remember as an unregenerate teenager, trying very hard to conform to our Christian culture that we grew up in and to be a Christian. And I had inwardly never dealt with heart issues of discontent, negativity, even blasphemous cuss words. And one time, I let fly with blasphemous cuss words, and I was dumbfounded, embarrassed, shocked. Where in the world did those words come from? Well, they came from my heart. They came out of the heart. It was one of the several things that the Lord used to show me my unregenerate state. Pagans can sometimes put on a good show outwardly, but only God's grace can master the heart. Caleb was a good leader because heart, word, and deed matched his profession of faith. But that same clause in verse 7 shows that Caleb shared his vision with others. As a leader, he couldn't help but share it. He couldn't help but try to persuade others of his vision. That's what made him a leader. Brandon Crowe's biblical theology of covenant and law says, sometimes the right leader makes all the difference, especially in times of crisis. Good leaders cast a vision and inspire confidence. They understand what's important and what needs to be done. They recognize the challenges. Good leaders benefit those they lead. Nations need good leaders. And when you begin studying what would be involved in conquering Canaan with the cities fortified to the heavens and the giants and the land, the chariots, the massive armies, you can understand, you can totally understand why the ten spies said, we are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we. The land is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants, and we were as grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight. So their vision of what could be done excluded God's power and excluded God's promises, and as a result, it was a puny vision, a puny vision that they had. But here's the thing. It was the fellow believers with their puny vision who gave the most resistance to Caleb. Yet despite their drag upon his soul, verse 8 says, Nevertheless, my brethren who went up with me made the heart of the people melt, but I wholly followed the Lord my God. Sadly, many leaders today are giving up the fight because of the resistance and the unbelief that they face from others, including their followers. And we need to pray for leaders in business, leaders in politics, media, entertainment, church, and in other places. It's often been fellow believers who are the ones that take the wind of enthusiasm out of the sails of Christians. It's often fellow believers, even fellow leaders, whose cynicism dampens the enthusiasm of the leaders who want to have a God-sized vision like Caleb did. But Caleb kept his vision. He kept leading his people and trying to get them to enthusiastically follow the vision despite the negativity of some. A counseling encyclopedia that I have summarizes this point well when it says, leaders create positive change even in the face of natural disinclinations in followers. Let me reread that. Leaders create positive change even in the face of natural disinclinations in followers. In other words, they keep influencing others to follow God wholly despite the lack of faith and the negativity that is out there. Now, I'm going to try to finish off this section next week if possible, but let me quickly summarize what we have covered thus far. I think just the principles we've covered today are really very, very important. We've been seeing that the outward achievements of Caleb flowed from his inward character, and it's critical that leaders keep challenging themselves to grow in the inner man. Never stop growing. First inward characteristic is that they thrive under authority and therefore are able to exercise godly authority. Second, he was convinced that without God's grace, there's no way he was going to be able to achieve the huge vision that God had laid upon his heart. Godly leaders are driven to achieve something way beyond their ability, and it's because they are leaning on God's supernatural grace that goes way beyond their ability. Third, his God-given vision helped him to focus on what God thought of him more than what others thought of him. So if you're dependent on the approval of others, it will be hard to lead like Caleb led. Fourth, he took initiative rather than always being reactive. Initiative is the ability to make decisions and act on them without being told what to do. Fifth, he had no doubts about God's promises. If God promises something, you can bank on it. Six, his vision was big because it was grounded in God's Word as leaders. And really all of you should aspire to be leaders, men and women. You're going to lead in something. You're going to be influencing in something. But we must immerse ourselves in the Word of God if we're to grow in our ability to lead. Seventh, he did not allow dry spells, discouragement, or the passage of time to make him give up his God-given vision. Eighth, like William Carey, he expected great things from God. Ninth, his heart, his words, his actions matched his vision. Tenth, he shared his vision with others. Leaders can't help but share their vision. I mean, it's something that so grips their lives that it spills over into the lives of others. By the way, we're going to be looking at his daughter, Aqsa. She has a lot of these characteristics that he has, and it's not surprising to me because the kind of leader Caleb was, his leadership characteristics are going to spill off into his children. And I think she's a remarkable woman. And 11th, he did not allow others to kill his faith. So, brothers and sisters, I am praying these characteristics into your life. By faith, I am asking God to make this more and more of a reality in every one of your lives. And it's my hope that you will aspire to them the coming year, which Gary and I are setting aside to be a year. devoted to joy and thanksgiving in the Lord. As he mentioned earlier, God has blessed us with so much, we have every reason to rejoice in him. So let's pray. Father, we thank you for the examples that give in concrete form how your principles can be lived out. And I pray that You would raise up many men and women and children with the kind of inward characteristics that Caleb had. Father, would you bless this people with courage? Would you bless this people with faith? Would you bless this people with a vision and a hope for the future that would take them through every difficulty that they face. We desire, Father, to see your glory lifted up. We desire to see your kingdom expanded, not just in our lives, but in the entire culture that we live in. And we know that in ourselves we cannot do this, but we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And so I just pray for your blessing to rest upon this, your people, in Jesus' name. Amen.