| |
May 20, 2007
|
Relationship
|
Pastor Brian Shimer
|
|
"Joshua and Caleb: what hearts!"
Numbers 13:26-33; 14:1-4; Deuteronomy 1:34-39; Joshua 14:6-15
- We have just enacted part of this great account, which I hope connected you a bit to these characters and God's work in and through the lives of Caleb and Joshua on this day that they stood against the crowd, when they demonstrated faith opposed to fear.
This was a moment of great promise in their lives. They would wander in the desert for 40 years while everyone from age 20 to any age above them died in the wilderness. They were the only two men of this huge company of people who lived past the desert. They were the eldest of the whole nation. At 80 when they finished their stroll in the desert, they were the true leaders. Joshua of course was the actual leader of the whole nation, the captain of the troops and Caleb was a mighty leader for the tribe of Judah and perhaps for others. But through this story in their lives we are given a marvelous gift about our own lives, and that is what I hope we can look at today.
It actually begins with a story.
- On October 2nd 2006, Karen, my wife, completed a goal of hers for which she had worked for many months, the idea of walking a marathon. Susanna, Gabrielle and I were there at the finish line as she and our district superintendent Kate Conolly crossed in triumph having finished the course. Karen walked across that line with arms upraised as the crowds cheered for them and the others.
Susanna was so impacted by that finish that on the way home she began to say, "Mom, I would like to walk a marathon with you sometime, maybe even before I go to college."
And thus began a goal for the two of them. What they had not anticipated fully was what it would be like to train through the winter. They walked 18 miles one day in 20 degree weather. And another day walked the entire Wildwood trail from Germantown Road to the Zoo a distance of 25 miles on a damp and rainy day through six inches of water some places. The miserable journey was made harder by the rain, the slipping, sliding and falling along the way. By the time they finished that walk they thought the marathon itself would be nothing by comparison. And indeed, it was much easier than that.
Before Susanna left for the marathon she told Gabrielle, "I am going to jump over the finish line," which is exactly what she did.
It was a big goal and it took months to attain, but she finished well. Actually, they both finished well and that is what God wants for you and for me.
- In this book we find Caleb and Joshua too, but mainly Caleb in this passage choosing to finish well after 45 years of waiting to see this promise fulfilled. Can you imagine waiting that long to see something fulfilled in your life? I get impatient after weeks or months, but imagine years, that many years, waiting, anticipating, longing for the fulfillment of a promise.
We are not in the generation that knows how to wait, are we? The microwave takes too long, the computer processes too slowly, we have fast food and drive up coffee windows. We are in the society of the rushed and impatient.
Have you seen people get impatient waiting in a line to get out of a store?
On Friday I was one of them. I was in Costco getting prescriptions filled for Gabrielle, who was having her wisdom teeth pulled, when I received the phone call from the Doctor saying that she was in recovery. I made a beeline for the exit and tried to get out of there as fast as I could. That line seemed to take so long. I ran the purchases to the car, and came back in to pick up the prescriptions, but still had to wait for the prescription to finish being filled. It had taken less time for the Doctor to extract four wisdom teeth than it took for the pharmacy to fill two prescriptions! I was never so glad as when I made it back to the doctor's office and could just sit down by her side.
Sometimes people stand in lines irate at how long it is taking.
No we do not wait well, but you see Caleb wandering for 40 years and fighting for 5 buoyed up by his hope held like a precious jewel in his heart that God had made him a promise and he knew would keep it. You hear his attention upon God as he says, "God has kept me alive these 45 years and I am just as strong today as I was when he made the promise to me at the age of 40."
Isn't that an astounding thing to say?
I think of that every time we have our Senior Luncheon here at the church as I stand here and look out at all the senior citizens from our area here for that meal. There are many there over 80 or 90 or 100 even and they are here together sharing together, and fellowshipping over the meal. Whenever I look out at them I think of Caleb standing there before Joshua saying, "Give me this land," wanting to take new territory.
I have said this to them for I have wondered how many of them are ready to take on new land that God may have for them! God is not done with us, you know, we still have today and each today has more adventures for us to live with the savior.
So what is the key to finishing well that we can learn from Caleb in this passage?
- Actually it is discovered in the whole book that we have here. It is found as we grasp what God is saying and why Caleb is given as an example to us.
The book of Joshua divides nicely in half - the first half being the conquest of the promised land. Notice, it was given to Israel, but they still had to "take" the land. Even our inheritance needs to be received for us to have victory.
If we compared this to our lives however, the conquest, the first half of the book would be pictured by what God has done for us in Jesus. For even though that was a victory, it is not ours unless we receive it. In a similar way Israel had to receive what God was given them by taking it. So, when we have received what God has done, when we have said "no" to sin and "yes" to Jesus, then there is a victory, there is conquest in our lives. That is half the book.
The second half of the book is not as exciting to us who are reading it for it is the allocation of the land to the tribes of Israel, even the land that has not been conquered or taken. Still this land is "given" to Israel. This is the Allocation.
Now, I have always enjoyed the first 12 chapters of this book especially the beginning sections because they were exciting and powerful illustrations of how God gives us inheritance, but found the last 12 passages not as interesting with the lists of the cities given to each tribe. However, when you look at the book as a whole and realize that fully half of the book is taken up by this allocation of land, then you need to know and assume that the author had something to communicate by dividing it so.
The author wanted to get something across to us by spending such time listing all these places which were parceled out to Israel's tribes.
Every book has a theological purpose. IF the whole of Joshua is about inheritance, what does this allocation refer to?
In your life and mine although we have experienced the conquest effected by Jesus, there is much territory given to us in our lives that still needs to be taken, just like the tribes needed to take the territory that had been allocated to them. They had to fight to take it, they had to conquer it, or the peoples of those places would become thorns in their sides, they were told.
- So, with us. There is sin we need to conquer, there are habits we must be done with. There are places where we need to believe God for things which we do not yet see.
These is all about this "allocation" of property, this is all about what has been "given" to us that is not yet appropriated into our lives.
So although we can say, "YES" I will receive all God has given, we still need to walk it out.
For example, you know that God is the present-tense "IAM" God, but do you really believe in every circumstance that GOD IS WITH YOU? Aren't there days when whatever the circumstances you wonder why it is so hard to connect with God, or where you wonder if God even still know your address? There you have a picture of something God has given you, a truth, "land" if you will, which you still have not "taken".
Or what about the promise that you need not worry about anything for God has it under control, does that mean you don't worry at all, ever? It is a struggle to bring your thoughts under the leadership of God's Holy Spirit in order to FOLLOW GOD, isn't it!
Or what about areas of life where you still struggle with some besetting sin, even though you know God has given you victory, are there days when it does not seem so easy to stand in that victory? Again, this is allocated "land" - this is an area that still with God you need to conquer, saying "yes" to God and seeing God move in and through the circumstances.
There are truths about God and about us that have been given us, that have been allocated to us, that we still need to appropriate. This is the second half of the book of Joshua.
And the lesson is for us to be like Joshua as we respond to those areas in our lives.
Joshua did not shrink from the land God had given him. Instead, Joshua, stood up and said, "Give me this land!" He was ready to take new territory. He had begun well 45 years earlier, demonstrating that his heart was fully submitted to God and now at the age of 85 he was going to finish well.
- Follow the Lord to the last day, to the last victory, through every battle, through every bit of all that God has given that you still need to appropriate into your life. It is taken by courage and faith.
Joshua lived for 45 years motivated by his thought of that the promise that Moses had spoken to him. He was sustained through the heat and difficulties of that desert wandering by that one thought. How much more than can we be sustained with our thoughts of what is ahead of us in heaven. Certainly it is a long way ahead, but it is a hope, and something we can be confident in nonetheless. And as Caleb we can be sustained over the long haul by the reality of God's promise to us of such a place.
The journey may be long and arduous like Susanna's training for the marathon, but we too can "finish well". With Caleb we can "finish well" as we trust God over the long journey of faith to see us to the end not only of the day but of our life as we look forward to the glories that await us.
Can I share a simple thought in regard to this whole story?
Caleb had been given a promise so much smaller than the one given to you and to me. He had been promised land upon the earth, but we are promised a place in eternity. Now it seems that if earthly territory can so motivate Caleb, then we can approach the captain of our faith with like confidence and keep our sights upon what is promised.
We are to set our sights on heavenly things, where we have our true citizenship.
The book of Hebrews lauds those who lived before us for they lived by faith , having not received the "things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth" (Hebrews 11: 13).
This is not to become so heavenly minded that we are no earthly good! Hardly. If we have our sights on a heavenly country, a future reward, a future blessing, that is just to motivate us all the more to live today. There is a man named Don Piper who was in a critical car accident and declared dead at the sight of the accident. He was dead for 90 minutes. No pulse in his mangled body. Then a Baptist preacher believed he was to pray for that dead man, did and Don came back to life, only he remembered fully what he had seen in heaven. His recovery was arduous. He is in constant pain still, but today is walking about, a preacher, reaching others with Good News, and is motivated to live here because he knows there is something so much better up ahead.
In the CS Lewis tale, The Magician's Nephew, when a small group witnesses the birth of a new world, the land of Narnia, and watch as all light and life is sung into reality, the Cabbie there responds by saying, "Are the stars singing? Ah, glory be! I would have been a better man all my life, if I'd known there were things like this."
With Caleb having seen a conquest on our behalf, having received the "allocation" of the land, let us "take it" and live in the promise of what God has given, so that we too can "finish well" not just for the journey of this life but into eternity.
|
|
|