A Witness

In a day and age where there is a widespread fascination with personality tests.

So whether it's like Myers Briggs or the Enneagram or DISC or one of the dozens of other options out there, hundreds of millions of people around the world have reported to take uh to have taken some form of a personality test during their lives.

And there's a lot of different reasons why people do this.

You know, some of us are required to do it for our job because we want our relationships in the workplace to function at a high level.

Others do it to see who they might match up with well when they're looking for a husband or a wife.

Other people just kind of do it out of genuine curiosity to see what the results would be of the test.

There's all kinds of motivations behind these, behind this widespread fascination.

And I recognize that your mileage may vary on these tests.

There's a lot of people who take issue with them for one reason or another, but regardless of how you feel about them, at a minimum, they have proven to be somewhat helpful in providing just a certain level of self-awareness for some people.

They cannot tell you everything, no doubt, but oftentimes they can tell you some things.

For example, depending on the specific test that you take, you might grow in your self-awareness and you might discover that you are somebody who prioritizes or tends to prioritize unity and peacekeeping over everything else.

So when conflict or confusion arises, your natural reaction is to just kind of try to keep the peace and just avoid tension at all costs.

Or on the other hand, you might discover that you're somebody who tends to prioritize stating the facts and speaking the truth over everything else.

So when a situation arises, your natural reaction is to just be faithful and loyal to the truth, even if it creates tension.

And the purpose of a personality test, if it's a decent one, isn't to just tell us about these things.

It's not just to make us aware of it, but ideally to help us harness it, to help you harness those realities so that hopefully you can use your powers for good rather than evil.

Because sometimes we're just not hyper-aware of the fact that we tend to prioritize one thing to the detriment of another thing.

You may not always be hyper-aware of the fact that you tend to prioritize peace and unity without really caring very much about truth telling.

Or on the flip side, you may not always be hyper-aware of the fact that you tend to prioritize what you deem to just be truth-telling without really caring very much about peace and unity.

And so, therefore, growing in our self-awareness can sometimes be helpful in navigating certain situations or relationships.

Well, in the passage of scripture that we are examining this morning, there are two different things being emphasized that are both very important, but depending on your personality, sometimes it can feel like these things are at odds with each other.

And those two things are unity and fidelity.

So unity, or you might say peace and harmony between people, and fidelity, or you might say faithfulness and devotion to the truth, are both emphasized in this text.

And contrary to how it might feel to our sin-tainted personalities, the bottom line is that both of these realities are very important to God, which means both of these realities should be prioritized among God's people.

Now, if you were here with us last week, then you know that we covered the entire section, second section of the book of Joshua in one sermon.

I mentioned the fact that the twelve the first twelve chapters of the book, which we spent ten weeks marching through, make up the first section.

The next nine chapters, 13 through 21, which we summarized in one week last week, make up the second section.

And now today we are officially entering that final stretch of the book because the last three chapters, 22 through 24, make up the third and final section.

So again, in the first section, chapters 1 through 12, we read about the Israelites entering and conquering the promised land.

In the second section, chapters 13 through 21, we read about the Israelites officially possessing the land with all the geographic allotments and boundaries.

And then in third section, chapters 22 through 24, we read about the Israelites retaining the land and what it actually takes to live in faithfulness to the Lord now that they are finally together in Canaan, in the promised land.

Now, today we are covering chapter 22, and we're going to do so in two parts.

In part one, we see a concern for fidelity in verses 1 through 20, and in part two, we see a concern for unity in verses 21 through 34.

So, first, through the words of Joshua, as well as the Israelites who live on the western side of the Jordan River, there's a very clear emphasis on being faithfully devoted to the Lord and his commandments.

And then second, through the words of the tribes who settle on the eastern side of the Jordan, there's also a very clear emphasis on remaining united together as God's covenant people.

A concern for fidelity and a concern for unity.

And ultimately, in the end, I think the narrator wants us to see that these things are not actually at odds with each other, but are intimately connected to one another.

So we'll start with part one, a concern for fidelity, beginning with verses one through six of Joshua chapter 22.

Joshua 22 · chapter mention

At that time Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh, and said to them, You have kept all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you.

You have not forsaken your brothers these many days, down to this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of the Lord your God.

And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers as he promised them.

Therefore turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses the servant of the Lord gave you on the other side of the Jordan.

Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cling to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents.

You may recall from last week as we were walking through our bird's eye view of the sectioned off territories of the promised land, I mentioned the fact that there were two and a half tribes in Israel who received their land inheritance on the eastern side of the Jordan River rather than on the western side with the rest of the nation.

The tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh all had an arrangement, an agreement in place with Moses that they could receive their inheritance on the other side of the Jordan under one primary condition.

They had to help the rest of the tribes defeat the Canaanites on the western side of the Jordan first.

So back in Numbers 32, the Reubenites and the Gadites, they approached Moses and they said, Hey, this land that's just east of the Jordan is perfect for livestock.

This is a great area for livestock, and our tribes have a lot of livestock.

So maybe you could just give us this land as our inheritance, and we'll stay here, and the rest of you can go across the Jordan and go take the land of Canaan on the other side.

And at first Moses was upset about this because it just seemed like they were trying to get out of having to go in and do any fighting or battling beside them.

But then they told him, Okay, how about this?

We will we will build shelter for our livestock here, and we'll build some villages for our wives and our children to live in.

But then when you cross over the Jordan to go do battle with the Canaanites, all of our men will go with you.

We we will leave our families and our livestock behind here in this place, but our our men will go fight beside you, and we will not come back here until all the tribes have officially received their inheritance on the western side of the river, and then that'll be our cue that we can come back and settle down here with our families on this side of the river.

Well, Moses liked this proposal, so he made a deal with not only the Reubenites and the Gadites, who were the original two tribes, to ask for this, but also the half tribe of Manasseh, because they were our particularly large tribe, and he everybody agreed that if the men of these two and a half tribes followed through on this deal, then they would be able to return to their families and receive their inheritance on the eastern side of the Jordan.

And then this arrangement gets repeated in the second half of Joshua chapter one.

So Moses is now dead, so Joshua reminds these two and a half tribes about the deal that they had made with Moses, and he reiterates their commitment that they made to go help them fight first before being able to come back and settle in this land.

To which they say to him, All that you have commanded us we will do, and wherever you send us, we will go.

And so now in the opening verses of today's chapter, Joshua calls for the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half tribe of Anasseh, and he tells them, Okay, you kept your word.

You did exactly what you told Moses and I that you would do.

You followed through, you held up your end of the bargain, so now you guys can all go back home.

You can go to your families, go to your livestock on the other side of the river.

And then he sends them off with the following charge in verse five.

Only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that the Moses that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways, and to keep his commandments, and to cling to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

So we see here that Joshua is the first person in this chapter to express a concern for fidelity.

In fact, he gives them five different things to focus on as they return back to their families that will ensure that they do stay faithfully devoted to God.

He tells them to love, walk, keep, cling, and serve, to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways, keep his commandments, cling to him and serve him.

Do not love the idols of the world.

Do not walk in the ways of the world, do not keep the commandments of the world, don't cling to the things of the world, don't serve the false gods of the world.

Be sure to love him.

Walk in his ways, keep his commandments, cling to him and only serve him.

And do these things with all your heart, with all your soul, with everything that you are, with every fiber of your being, make sure that you are living for the Lord.

Joshua knew the temptations that would surely arise for them on the eastern side of the river.

He knew that these two and a half tribes were going to experience enticements.

There were things that would take place on the other side of the river that might look different than this side of the river.

He wanted to make sure that they didn't give in to those things.

He wanted them to make sure they were not led away from God.

And so he specifically says, be very careful to do these things.

Be intentional, be watchful.

You might even say, be vigilant about your faithfulness to the Lord.

Well, after this careful commissioning, the men of Reuben and Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, they go back to their homes and their families on the other side of the river with silver and gold and iron and even more livestock that was all given to them by Joshua.

And then we read this in verses 10 through 12.

When they came to the region of the Jordan that is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size.

And the people of Israel heard it, said, Behold, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built the altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region about the Jordan on the side that belongs to the people of Israel.

And when the people of Israel heard it, heard of it, the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them.

Now in the original Hebrew, there is some ambiguity in these verses when it comes to the precise location of where this took place.

It's kind of hard to pinpoint, but nonetheless, somewhere along the edge of the Jordan River, presumably in the spot where it could be seen from both sides, these two and a half tribes stopped on their way home and built a giant altar.

A giant altar before going to settle with their families.

And when all the other tribes heard about it, they immediately gathered together and started making plans to go to war with them.

Their immediate instinct is now we have to fight them.

Which makes the reader wonder, what is the big deal?

Like, why in the world are the Israelites making battle plans against some of their own people just because they stopped and built an altar on the edge of the Jordan River?

Well, for two reasons.

First of all, back in Deuteronomy chapter 12, the Lord gave a very explicit command that once they did officially settle in the promised land, they were no longer allowed to offer sacrifices or offerings or worship anywhere other than the location that God chooses.

Deuteronomy 12 · chapter mention

And we know from last week, I'm just gonna keep going.

We know from last week that the location that he chose for the tabernacle as the epicenter of Israel's worship was a city called Shiloh, which meant that making any offerings or sacrifices at any altar other than the one at Shiloh was unacceptable.

There was only one location where this was allowed.

As one commentator put it, the restriction of sacrifice to one sanctuary was a preventative kind of theology.

It was intended to preserve the purity of Israel's worship.

It meant one altar, one faith, one people.

So that's the first problem.

The Mosaic law explicitly prohibited rogue worship at random altars.

But secondly, the Israelites have already seen now multiple instances where sinful events within the nation led to God punishing his people as a whole, rather than only punishing individuals.

For example, in Numbers 25, some of the men of Israel committed sexual immorality with the women of Peor and began worshiping their false gods.

And in response to this, the Lord punished them by sending a plague that killed 24,000 Israelites.

Also, back in Joshua chapter 7, Achan, remember, secretly kept items from Jericho that the Lord had specifically devoted to destruction, and that led to the death of 36 Israelite soldiers, because God was not going to give them victory in battle while there was unfaithfulness going on in the nation.

Joshua 7 · chapter mention

So there's been more than one situation where the sinful behavior involving one person or even a handful of people led to widespread judgment among all of the Israelites.

And so the combination of these two things, God's command about not worshiping at random altars and sinful behavior leading to widespread judgment, these two things are what is motivating these tribes to potentially fight against the two and a half tribes on the other side who just built this giant altar on the edge of the Jordan.

But thankfully, instead of immediately going into battle, they send a team of investigators to go question them first and get to the bottom of it.

So Phineas, the son of Eliezer the high priest, along with one leader from each of the western tribes, they go to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh, and they say, What on earth do you think you guys are doing?

Do you not remember what happened with the women of Peor and the plague that God sent as punishment?

Do you not remember what Achan did with the items from Jericho and how that sin led to more than just his own death?

Why would you rebel against the Lord and turn away from him by building this altar for rogue worship and put all of us at risk of judgment?

So Joshua was the first one to express this concern for fidelity when he gave that careful commissioning.

And now all the tribes west of the Jordan are expressing a concern for fidelity as well by confronting them over what looks to be like a breach of faith and a deliberate breaking of God's law.

But sometimes looks can be deceiving.

Because even though this altar situation did have the appearance of infidelity, it turns out these two and a half tribes were actually worried about something else that had not even crossed the minds of the Israelites on the western side of the river.

Which leads us to part two of our passage, a concern for unity.

As we continue reading in verse 21.

Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh said in answer to the heads of the families of Israel, The mighty one, God the Lord, the mighty one, God the Lord, he knows.

And let Israel itself know.

If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against the Lord, then do not spare us today for building an altar to turn away from following the Lord.

Or if we did so to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or peace offerings on it, may the Lord himself take vengeance.

No, but we did it from fear that in time to come your children might say to our children, What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel?

For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you the people of Reuben and people of Gad.

You have no portion in the land.

So your children might make our children cease to worship the Lord.

Therefore we said, Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, not for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you, and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and peace offerings.

So your children will not say to our children in time to come, You have no portion in the Lord.

So it turns out the Western tribes slightly misread the situation.

You might even say that the whole gathering together for war thing might have been somewhat premature.

As Ron Burgundy said in Anchorman, that escalated quickly.

So it's a good thing that Phineas and the ten chiefs went to do some homework first, to go do some fact-finding first.

You might even say they probably should have just done that first to begin with, because after confronting and questioning them, the two and a half eastern tribes respond and they say, No, you've got it all wrong.

God knows what we're doing, He knows our intentions of our hearts, He knows why we did this.

If we did anything wrong here, if we rebelled against God, if we somehow made a breach of faith, then by all means don't spare us.

In fact, if we had any intention at all of offering any rogue worship or sacrifices on this altar, then may God Himself punish us right here and right now.

But He knows why we did this.

We did this to protect our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren from being excluded from God's covenant people.

See, these eastern tribes were more than happy to settle down on the eastern side of the river.

In fact, they were the ones who approached Moses and asked if they could have that particular land as an inheritance.

So they're more than happy to go back there, but in doing so, they are also worried.

They're worried that the distance between the Western tribes and the eastern tribes with the Jordan River separating them could potentially create a complicated situation for the generations that would come after them.

They were concerned that 50 years or 100 years or 200 years in the future, the nine and a half tribal territories west of the Jordan would look at the two and a half tribal territories east of the Jordan and say to them, You're not really one of us.

You're just wilderness folk from the other side of the river.

You have no real part in God's covenant.

And they knew that if that were to happen, then most likely being treated that way, it would only take one or two generations before these descendants would turn away from God and start worshiping false gods, which actually means that these eastern tribes also did have a concern for fidelity because they wanted their children and grandchildren to remain faithful to the Lord for generations to come, but they knew that that was highly unlikely if they were to get excluded from the nation and treated as outsiders in the future.

And so, out of a concern for unity within the entire covenant community, they built a giant altar that was visible from both sides of the Jordan to be a witness between the two sides for generations to come, that all of them on the east and the west were fully included in God's covenant community.

Meant that two or three or four generations in the future, some punk kid from the tribe of Simeon, if you tried telling a kid from the tribe of Reuben, you're not really one of us.

You're from the other side of the river.

The kid from Reuben could point to that giant altar and say, Yes, I am.

My ancestors built this to prove it.

So the altar was not a tool for disordered worship.

It was actually a tool to protect against disorderly descendants.

And that information immediately changes the whole tenor of this confrontation.

Verses 30 and 31.

When Phineas the priest and the chiefs of the congregation, the heads of the families of Israel who were with him, heard the words that the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the people of Manasseh spoke, it was good in their eyes.

And Phineas, the son of Eliezer the priest, said to the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the people of Manasseh, Today we know that the Lord is in our midst, because you have not committed this breach of faith against the Lord.

Now you have delivered the people of Israel from the hand of the Lord.

So the progression of this passage is kind of fascinating.

It goes from, we love you guys, stay faithful, to let's go kill those guys for being unfaithful, to we love you guys, good job staying faithful.

But at least for now, there is a happy resolution because after hearing this explanation, Phineas and the ten chiefs, they feel much better.

They're pleased with the two and a half tribes, and they take this good report back to the western tribes, and they're pleased as well.

And then the whole chapter ends on a very high note with these words in verse 34.

The people of Reuben and the people of Gad called the altar witness.

For they said, It is a witness between us that the Lord is God.

Now, depending on your personality and what you tend to just kind of naturally prioritize, you may look at the Western tribes in this chapter and you might feel like those jerks were way too quick to want to pick a fight.

You may wish that they had placed a higher priority on peacekeeping and unity, that that should have been their first initial bent.

And you might be right.

I don't know.

Commentators are actually split over that detail because of everything that was at stake for these people.

I mean, if you had seen 24,000 people die in a plague because of the sexual immorality of a group of uncontrolled men, you might be pretty quick to react as well.

But regardless of whether or not their aggressiveness of that initial response was fully justified, nonetheless, at least they seem to understand that you cannot have true unity in the covenant community if there is rampant infidelity in the covenant community.

And that being the case, there is a good lesson here for us as modern-day Christians because it is important to recognize that unity and fidelity go hand in hand in the body of Christ.

Unity and fidelity go hand in hand in the body of Christ.

They are inseparable.

I once heard a story about a pastor in a very socially progressive city, a city where many different pastors and churches were slowly adjusting their theology and compromising on certain issues in order to fit the social stances of the city.

And although this particular pastor had yet to make any obvious compromises to his own stances and his own personal theology, he was regularly partnering in ministry and standing side by side with many other pastors who had made very obvious compromises.

And when a friend of his confronted him about his willingness to openly link arms with men who were abandoning historic Christian theology, his response was basically this: Well, why would I waste my time nitpicking and dividing when I could spend my time pursuing unity instead?

And let me just say that all things being equal, I appreciate the sentiment.

I really do.

Because in a world full of hostility and division, the big sea church needs to model peace and unity to a watching world.

Absolutely.

That is very important.

However, one of the things that Joshua 22 shows us is that there are things we should divide over and things we should not divide over.

Because the truth is, although the Western tribes were wrong about the Eastern tribes' intentions with this altar, even so they were not wrong to be concerned about it.

And they were not wrong to confront them about it.

Because God's law was extremely clear that after settling in the promised land, to build an altar at a random location for rogue worship was unacceptable.

This was not debated.

It was not up for interpretation.

It was explicitly clear.

And even the response of the Eastern tribes reinforces this fact because they basically said, you're right, if that had been our intention, that would be really bad, and you should probably just kill us.

But that was not what we were doing.

So perhaps the Western tribes should have not been so quick to want to fight before knowing what was going on, but nonetheless, they were right to be concerned.

They were absolutely right to confront them about it because some things are worth dividing for.

And direct disobedience to the clear commands of God's word is worth dividing over.

Because when push comes to shove, we eventually do have to draw a line in the sand and we do have to decide whether we stand with Jesus or we stand with those who are comfortable disobeying Jesus.

But there are also things we should not divide over in the church.

Which is precisely why the Eastern tribes did what they did in this chapter, because God's people should never divide over things like cultural differences, for example.

Because these two and a half tribes knew that in the time to come, it would be very easy for their descendants to be treated differently just because of where they come from.

Eventually, at some point in the future, living on the other side of the river would probably mean that those tribes would start to dress a little different.

They would start to look a little different.

They would start to talk a little different and act a little different from the rest of the tribes on the other side of the river.

They would have their own unique attributes just by nature of generations of geographic separation and a different kind of lifestyle on the eastern side of the Jordan.

But those kinds of cultural differences should never divide God's people.

This was their concern.

To be treated differently just because of where they're from.

Instead, we should celebrate the fact that Jesus is saving people on every square inch of the globe from every tribe, nation, and tongue, and we should look forward to standing around God's throne, worshiping side by side with our brothers and sisters in Christ from all over the world.

So there are things we should divide over, but there are things we should not divide over.

But we cannot have true unity in the church with those who practice rampant infidelity to God's word, because unity and fidelity go hand in hand in the body of Christ.

Which means even though it might sound compelling when somebody says, hey, why waste our time nitpicking and dividing when we could just pursue unity?

Even though that sounds nice, the problem is we cannot embrace a mindset like that and also embrace Joshua's words to the eastern tribes when he tells them, be careful to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and keep his commandments and cling to him and serve him with all of your heart and with all of your soul.

It is impossible to be vigilant about loving Jesus and walking in his ways and keeping his commandments and clinging to him and serving him with everything that we are while simultaneously telling ourselves that every dividing line we might draw is just nitpicking.

Now it's certainly true that Christians can be really good at nitpicking.

It's very easy to get swept up into the game of preferences and opinions in the church.

Believe me, I know this game well.

Which is actually why we have taught here before the concept of what's called theological triage.

Because it's important for us to do the appropriate triaging work so that we know the difference between first rank most important issues or second and third rank less important issues.

For example, if you ever hear us deny the Trinity from this stage, you should find a new church immediately.

Because this is a first rank issue of the historic Christian faith.

If you ever hear us question the authority of Scripture from this stage, you should find a new church immediately.

Because this is a first rank issue.

If you ever hear us question what the Bible says about gender and sexuality from this stage, you should find a new church immediately, because God's design for his image bearers is a first-rank issue.

But there's also other things that are not.

If you ever hear something about end times from this stage that you disagree with, we should be able to disagree charitably and still worship together because the details and theories surrounding end times are not a first-rank issue.

In fact, we should be able to just grab a cup of coffee, have some friendly debate, I'll tell you why you're wrong, and then we'll hug it out and move on.

I think you get the point.

We should practice some wise theological triage because while we do have to be careful how many dividing lines we draw, even so, not every dividing line is nitpicking.

After all, how could every dividing line be nitpicking when we're talking about something as serious as the blood of Christ?

Church, the Son of God did not enter this world and take on flesh to show us that disobedience doesn't matter.

He didn't hand himself over to the Roman guards and absorb hours of mocking and torture and allow himself to be nailed to a cross to show us that our transgressions are no big deal.

No, just like the altar in today's passage was built big enough for everyone to see as a witness for all the people.

Likewise, Jesus Christ hung on the cross high enough for everyone to see as a witness for all people that the wages of sin is death, but thankfully he didn't stay dead because his resurrection from the grave drew the ultimate dividing line between life and death, so that now the empty tomb is also a witness for all people that the free gift of God is eternal life with Christ Jesus our Lord.

And in John 17, as Jesus was praying to the Father for his followers, for his disciples, and those who would come later, he prayed this the glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

Jesus wants his church to be united as one.

Which is why David says in Psalm 133, Behold how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.

Because a united church is a good and pleasant and beautiful church when we're united together by the blood of Christ, regardless of age or class or gender or race or culture, we paint a beautiful picture of the gospel to a watching world.

So we should be careful what we choose to divide over because we should be united together in Christ and recognize what is a first-tier issue and what is not a first-tier issue.

But true unity also requires fidelity.

And even though, depending on your personality, sometimes it can feel like these things are opposed to each other, the fact remains that both of these realities are important to God, which means both of these realities should be prioritized among God's people.

Because unity and fidelity go hand in hand in the body of Christ.