Working For the Rest

Uh kids, you are dismissed if you're still in the room with us.

I think you may already be out.

And if you are, that's great.

That is more time that you get to hang out with Carrie and Yvette.

And I'll tell you, um, man, that is fun.

It is fun to hang out with your kids.

I'm loving this new setup where Kim and I are back there with them once per month.

I am learning so much about you being back there.

And uh some of it is just like, I mean, there's there's counseling uh available if you need it.

That's all I'm saying.

And so listen, be taking your Bibles and turning with me to the book of Joshua, chapter one.

Um we are going to wrap up chapter one this week.

And I want to begin by raising a question for you.

And the question is this what creates community?

What creates community?

Now, your first inclination in answering that question is probably something about geography.

Communities are made up of some shared sphere of space.

And that is true.

We meet here in this community, and if you belong to this church, right, or you come and you attend, like this is the room we meet in, and on this campus and around the facility, this is our shared shared space.

But you know that shared space is not enough to form a commu a community.

For example, if I were to ask you to name for me your immediate neighbor's first and last name, and something about their life, something significant about their hopes, their dreams, their hobbies, their plans.

Could you do it?

Well, what if we extended that another door down?

Still in your community, you would say, but just one door a few feet further.

Do you know their names, their family dynamics, their heartaches?

No.

I mean, so we know that whatever community is, it requires more than geography.

When Mike and I went uh this past week on Wednesday to visit with a group of pastors and uh to become more informed about what's happening here in the state and the upcoming election, which is uh not election, the upcoming um well, the election is part of it, but more about the um amendments to the Constitution, which is a tremendously important topic.

The speaker indicated that really shared values or community is created based on for a lot of people, if you talk to people who study this, they talk about community being developed around language, that if you're in a community, you speak the same language, and that's somewhat true.

That if you're in the same community, that you also uh maybe you share the same faith.

And that's probably frequently true around the world, not so much here, but around the world.

But here in this country, uh this community we call the United States of America, really the thing that unites us isn't geography, it's not shared space necessarily, it goes further much deeper than that.

It it goes beyond shared language because that's becoming something that's not really shared so much, or even shared faith.

It's a shared idea, he suggests.

And I think there's something to that.

There's a common truth that holds us together.

But I think that has always been the case.

I don't think it's unique to this country.

I think communities are always united around common beliefs, around common truths.

The fact that it begins with people who share the same skin tone or the same language or the same uh faith or the same space is just a tertiary point.

At the end of the day, what holds a community together is a shared belief.

Now, when we open up the book of Joshua, we see that belief, that truth, that common idea coming down from one single source, which is really the point, isn't it?

If you're going to have a common belief, a common truth, a common idea, you there there has to be a common source.

Last week, when we were out at Wilderness Trail, we had an opportunity to meet a lot of folks from different backgrounds.

And, you know, Mike, Carrie, myself, others of you who volunteered, you you know, you would frequently have conversations with people about where they worshiped, where they went to church.

And we had one individual who came up and he shared that almost um apologetically, it was the tone.

He said, Well, I I belong to the Universal Unitarian Church up in Blacksburg.

Now, that guy I wanted to talk to him immediately.

Uh, because um, and and and not like uh in an attacking way, like I'm interested in how people think uh because people think you know, sometimes weirdly, and I and I want to understand that.

And and so I just you know I engaged in this conversation with him and tried to merge into really getting to one point.

And my question was, how do you determine what you're talking about?

Whose ideas are going to be affirmed and whose ideas are going to be outside of what your group believes?

I mean, what's what's the source of authority that you're appealing to?

Because you're about my age, is what I told him.

He was actually older than I was, but I was trying to be nice.

I said, You you you're about my age.

We're about the same age.

And the older I get, the more I realize that people don't want to hear from me.

They don't care about my opinion, and they don't care about your opinion, and they don't care about your preacher's opinion whenever she or he speaks.

They don't care about those things.

What's your source of authority?

And he just he just went to the normal spot of, well, we just felt like everyone should love one another.

And of course, my question became what does that mean?

I mean, in practicality, what does it mean to show love?

Because love doesn't always feel like love.

Sometimes people love us and it hurts necessarily so.

So there has to be this common place where truth comes from, where ideas come from, this uniting value that holds us together.

Where does it come from?

Well, for Joshua, it came from God.

And he and he he received this message from God that he'd received from Moses that that was, hey, you're going to take this people across the land and they're going to inherit the promise that God has given.

And every place at the sole of your foot will tread.

That I've already given to you.

As I was with Moses, I'm going to be with you.

Now, immediately after receiving this message, Joshua has to do something with it.

Because receiving a message isn't enough.

Knowing, I don't, I mean, how many of y'all remember the OGI Joe shows?

I'm going to date myself hard here.

The OGI Joe show, they would they would wrap every cartoon up by saying, Knowing is what?

It, if the three of you are in on the same page here, knowing is half the battle.

No, it is not.

Knowing is the start, but it's not half the battle.

Information is given for a reason.

Information is give given to be shared, and so Joshua shares it.

And what I want to do here in the next few minutes is I want to walk through these passages, these verses together.

Um, I'm gonna walk through them once, just very quickly, looking at what Joshua does with this information that he's been given.

And then I want to pass back through one other time to see exactly how this worked, how the truth flowed from from it came down to it went out, and then it came back.

And so here's what here's what we're gonna do.

Look at look if you will with me at verse number 10.

All right, so here's the section.

Let me just tell you, here's the section for the passage that we're about to read.

We're gonna see, we're gonna see officers or officials, then we're gonna see others, and then finally we're gonna see uh we're gonna see this response, this this uh promise that's given back to the people, the oath.

And so those are the three words that we're gonna break this passage up in.

Okay, so first the officials.

Joshua receives the message, and the very first thing he does, we're told in verse number 10 that he commanded the officers of the people.

Now, when you think officers, don't think military officials.

Joshua did not call up the five-star generals.

They didn't have them, they were a newly minted nation.

And so he called up, and specifically in Hebrew, it's the tribal leaders that he spoke to.

He called them up and said, Okay, you are responsible for helping to get the word out.

Leadership is crucially important from this standpoint, because the truth is, even in a congregation that is as small as we are, it's not possible for me or Carrie or Mike or any single one of the elders here to speak truth and to encourage and to impart God's commands to every single person that is here.

Our heart isn't big enough for that.

The only person whose heart is big enough to take in an entire community is Jesus himself.

And he delegates down to the church the responsibility of sharing truth.

And he does this through the role of pastors, elders, deacons, teachers, and like all of us who are given truth.

And he in the command that he gives to the officers in verse number 11 is very similar to the command that he himself received.

That's a very important note because we don't command people based on our opinions.

I have I have philosophical views, moral views, ethical views, political views that sometimes only loosely connect to Scripture.

They're not unbiblical, but they're just non-biblical.

And if you approach me on Tuesday morning, I will give you my opinion if you want it.

I know my phone's gonna blow up now on Tuesday.

And you call me and ask me, I'll give it to you.

But when we're up here in this space, man, man, what I want to pass to you is what God has passed to us in his word.

And that's what Joshua does in verse number 11.

He uses the in English, it's translated pass through.

It's the exact same word that God uses, uh, a bar in verse in earlier in the chapter when he says to Joshua, Pass over this river.

And now he's saying to the people, pass through the camp in the midst, um, in the midst of the camp, and command all of the people, prepare your provisions, for within three days you are to pass over this Jordan.

Go and take possession of the land that the Lord your God is giving to you to possess.

He summarizes and in some statements directly quotes what God has said to him.

He passes that out to the officers, to the leaders.

Gentlemen, ladies, this goes for you too, but since the men's group is beginning to meet today for their Bible study, and we've already been talking about the importance of men in our community, let me just say to you, you are the officer in your home.

God has spoken to you through his word.

God has delivered his truth to you through the men and women who have poured into you.

Women, this is ladies, mothers, grandmothers, this is obviously for you as well.

But guys, listen, listen, I mentioned this to you because many of us have advocated.

We've just set aside, we've just taken a step back and just said, well, somebody else will take care of it, or I don't want to fight that, or nobody's going to listen, anyways.

Any number of excuses, but any number of excuses doesn't remove you from the obligation to be an officer in your home and in your community.

Now look at verse number 12.

We move now from the officer to the others, to everyone else.

Everyone's involved.

Some people have specific roles of leadership in a community that are required.

But every single person, even if you're not a leader per se, you are involved.

Every single person in this church is crucially important.

If you've been brought here, you've been brought here for a purpose.

If you've been called to salvation, you have been called to service.

And so all of the people are involved.

And so the officers go out and they say specifically, they say to all the people, but specifically, we get the information directed to a couple of tribes, to verse number 12, to the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasha, Manasseh, Joshua gives this particular message.

Now, why are these people being targeted?

Why is the like the message goes out to all of them, but the one that we're given in scripture goes directly to these three two and a half tribes.

What's going on here?

What's going on here is that these individuals had received their inheritance earlier.

In the book of Deuteronomy, we read that whenever Israel conquered the Amorites, the Ammonites, and uh the Moabites, that those lands which were designated for Reuben, for Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh were there and they were vacant.

And so those tribal leaders went to Moses and said, Hey, listen, we're going to go ahead and put up our mailboxes and forward our mail here.

This is where we're supposed to be.

And Moses was a little upset with them because he's like, Why do you want to take rest?

Why do you want to relax?

Why do you want to settle down before your brothers are able to settle down?

We're a community together.

And Moses says, But I get it, that's fine.

But here's the rule: you can settle down, but when it comes time for us to cross this river, when it comes time for your brothers to find their rest, you have to get out of your homes, you have to get out of your comfort zones, you have to leave, and you have to go to war with them.

Are you guys okay with that?

And everyone responded, Yep, sign us up.

We'll rest now because we can, but when it's time to go to war, when it's time to go to battle, when it's time to help others find their rest, we will be activated.

And so Joshua is going to them because they are the most likely people who are going to advocate the responsibility of going and fighting for the land and taking possession of the rest that God has promised them.

So he reminds them in verse number 13.

He says, Remember the word that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you, saying, The Lord your God is providing you a place of rest, and you will give uh give the land, you will receive the land, but your wives and your little ones and your livestock shall remain in the land that Moses gave you beyond the Jordan.

That's on the east side of the Jordan River.

But all the men of valor among you shall pass armed before your brothers and shall help them.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is where you and I, as Christians, live, like we live in this verse.

We have received rest.

If you've received Christ, you've received his rest.

The one who has said to you, Come to me, all you who are heavy, burdened down, and laden and weary.

And I'm I'm going to give you rest.

And if you've received Jesus, you have received rest.

But there are people around you who have not received rest.

People around you who have a possession, a promise of Jesus extended to them that if they will hear and they will come, they also can take possession of the inheritance of Jesus Christ.

And it is our responsibility to get up out of our comfort zone and to do for them what God in Christ has done for us.

All of us.

Look at verse number 15.

This is going to be carried about until the Lord gives rest to your brothers, as he is given also to you, and they also take possession of their land that the Lord your God is giving them.

Then, right then, and only then will you be able to return to the land, your possession, of your possession, and shall possess it, the land that Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave to you beyond the Jordan towards the sunrise.

There is a promise, that's what he's saying here.

There's a promise that came to you from Moses, and you and you've enjoyed it.

But that promise doesn't build a boundary around you where you are now safe and secure and outside of harm's way.

You can't just sit here on the east side of the Jordan River, he says, and bury your head in the sand and pretend like there's not a fight going on out there.

There's not a war going on out there, there's not contention.

Yeah, you we know your family is safe and your children are safe and celebrate that, but there is a conflict that's going on on the other side of the river, and there are people over there who desperately need rest, and you are called to go and help them fight for that rest.

That's where we are in this culture.

Many of us enjoy the rest of Christ and our families, although for some of us they have been co-opted by unbiblical truths in ways that frustrate and create fury in our heart.

It's our responsibility to see that they hear the truth, to go across that river and to wage war against the lies, against the idols of our age.

And if you have that in your family, if you if your family is safe and secure and they're all going to church every single week and loving the Lord and trying their best to follow his word, if that happens to be you, and I would say it's probably not very many of us, but if that happens to be you, our responsibility doesn't stop in our home.

We cannot bury our head in the sand.

I know it's tiring, it's weary to continue to have conversations and to do the thing that Mike challenged us to do earlier, to go to the ballot and say no, no to extending abortion, no to telling parents they don't have they can't be involved, no to pushing the the uh the the uh unbiblical sexual and gender redefinitions that have been pushed onto this culture without any bit of sociological or psychological evaluation.

No to that.

It's it's frustrating and it's tiring, but I'm telling you, we cannot grow weary in well-doing.

We must be involved in this culture in sharing and pushing forth truth.

Because if we don't do it, who's gonna do it?

The politicians are not going to do it.

Do not trust in politics.

Most of them, I believe, please forgive me, this is my opinion.

Most of them, I believe, bend in and give deference to our spiritual beliefs because they want us to vote for them.

I don't know how many of them actually care about the things that we care about.

We must then care about them enough to speak, to act, to lovingly be patient, allow someone to frustrate us, listen to them, and then lovingly pull out the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and perform surgery for them.

Officers, others.

And then finally, this final word here's the oath.

Here's the oath.

Because every great thing is done with commitment.

Nobody half-heart half-hearted wins anything.

It's always done when a community of people come together and they say, Okay, we're gonna do it.

And they make a promise to one another and an oath together that we're gonna see this thing through.

Why?

Because that's what God did for us.

He he that's what the writer of Hebrews tells us that whenever God declares his promise to give us rest, appealing to this passage, whenever he seals it, even though his word is eternally true and it does not change, he goes above that and he seals it with an oath.

He makes an oath.

You're you are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Making intercession for all of us, the author says to Jesus.

There's an oath that's needed, there's a promise, there's a commitment that should be made.

Verse 16.

And they answer Joshua, all that you have commanded to us, we will do.

And wherever you send us, we will go.

That's a huge thing to say to an individual.

It's a kind of oath that in scripture someone would typically only make to God.

But these people are making it here, and they're not making it to Joshua for Joshua's sake because of Joshua's talent.

They're making it to Joshua because of God's sake, based on God's promise and provision.

See, we don't follow people.

Even though they may agree with us and we may agree with them, and they may have incredible power.

Any oath, any promise, any any commitment we make to individuals inside this community of faith or outside this community of faith, as we honor the governor, as we honor the mayor, as we honor the president, as we honor the congressman, like we honor them, but our oath to follow them stops when they start violating clear biblical truth.

I mean, that that's what that's the heart that we need in this culture today to be able to stand up and say there is an authority higher than the state.

There's an authority higher than the than Hollywood.

There's a there's a uh an authority higher than the the the sports.

There are authorities higher than those influences which are put out to us as individuals who we should follow.

There's a greater authority, and the people are responding to that authority.

Verse 17, you begin to see this very clearly.

Just as they say, just as we obeyed Moses in all things, so we will obey you.

Very interesting phrase, because if you know anything about how well the people of Israel obeyed Moses, you know this must not have been an encouraging statement at all.

I mean, essentially, like I think if it were to be rewritten today, I think the way we would hear it is listen, Josh, we want you to know we're going to treat you the same way we treated Moses.

And that was tremendously frustrating for Moses.

How many times did Moses go to God that we know of and say, I don't, I can't do anything with these people?

I don't, it was very frustrating, but they're making this oath as best they can.

But the Bible uses this particular phrasing and they're prompted to use this particular phrasing because it echoes something that happened earlier in the Pentateuch.

At the foot of Mount Sinai, whenever Moses comes down, the people perform this, Moses gives some commands and then they perform this oath.

And when they do, they say this to Moses If you will just you follow the Lord, you tell us what to do, and we will obey in all things.

The problem is, four chapters later, Moses is up on the mountain.

The people are down at the foot of the mountain, dancing around a golden calf that Aaron had built.

And so this hails back to the truth that hey, people like yes, oh being committed is important, but our oath will fail.

The oath, the commitment of people will fail.

Your commitment will fail.

We're going to falter, we're not going to do this perfectly.

And the text sort of lays in on that it by reminding us of this time in the past where people made an oath and then they didn't fulfill it.

But then there's this final statement that is tacked on here.

Only, and in English, most of your translations will say something like, Only, may the Lord your God be with you as he was with Moses.

But actually in the Hebrew, what's happening here, and what's trying to be captured, is that there's just this emphasis that occurs on the Lord being with you.

And it's not really the idea of a blessing, may the Lord be with you.

It is more of a counterstatement in the Hebrew, the Lord will be with you.

We're going to obey you in all things, we're going to be committed with you to you, Joshua.

But the main thing you need to remember is that the Lord's going to be with you.

That's huge.

What I think is happening here, and what some theologians have pointed out as they've wrestled with this text is what the people are saying is, we're going to go with you and we're going to obey you, but your strength doesn't come from our going with you or our obedience.

Your strength comes from the promise that God made to you earlier.

Because what they are saying here, may the Lord be with you, is that statement that God repeated to him over and over again.

I was with Moses.

I'm going to be with you.

And that's where our real strength comes from.

That's where our real community comes from.

You are going to let each other down.

I believe that.

I can promise you 100%, I'm going to let you down.

I told you that, I think my first week here, I told you, listen, you just need to know I'm going to make a promise to you.

I'm going to do my best to preach God's word to you.

That's promise number one.

And promise number two is I'm going to fail you.

But your hope does not rely in me.

Your hope does not rely in the community.

Yes, the community is important.

We should be committed to the community.

Commitment is essential, but at the end of the day, the power of the movement doesn't rely on what we are able to do, but it relies on the power of the one who says, I have given you this land.

The same one who has said, The kingdoms of heaven belong to the Lord.

And he turns to us in the Beatitudes and says, You're going to be the ones who inherit the kingdom of heaven.

That's the promise that we rely on, that we rely on, and that's why we're able to make this commitment.

Now finally, verse number 18, and then we're going to talk about this progress of the word.

Whoever he says rebels against you, they say, whoever rebels against you, your command and disobeys your word, whatever you command him shall be what?

Seem kind of harsh.

Shall be put to death.

The stakes are high, Joshua.

This is significant.

If anyone commits treason, then they need to go because there's a bigger picture at play here.

I'm not suggesting that we adopt this as a church.

I'm just saying this reveals to us the importance of the commitment here.

And by the way, I mentioned this verse to you because really what's happening in the text here, this verse connects to Joshua chapter three and the story of Ai.

So just underline it.

Because when we get to Joshua chapter three, we're going to return to this when we try to understand why was the penalty so harsh for Achan whenever he stole the dedicated thing.

The reason is because of this commitment that he made right here.

Only, they say one more time, be strong and courageous.

All right, so let's talk just for a minute about community.

Communities are built on common truths.

And as you and I have already discussed, our truth has flowed from a common source, a sovereign source.

And we can see it in this chapter, and this is crucially important.

That truth first off comes down to us, comes down to us from God.

It comes down from God.

Listen, you may have opinions about a lot of a lot of things, and it's fine to share those because it's a free country, and you may or may not be right, and sometimes, sometimes our opinions are appropriate for a certain season to a certain people, but not later.

The truth is we should never be stating, we should never be offering our opinions on the same level with the same passion that we tell the truth of God.

That's crucially important.

Now there's a practical piece to that.

That means that, like, if you're sharing your opinion and your opinions are always in all caps followed by a lot of explanations, uh, exclamation points after it, then you have nowhere to go when you start talking about God's word.

I mean, you can't yell your opinion and then whisper God's truth and expect for people who hear you to see the emphasis that's being given there.

The truth comes down.

Secondly, the truth goes out.

When Joshua received the word from God, he didn't hold it in.

He sent it out, he shared it, he spoke it, he went and took action with it.

He sent it out.

He gave it to others to send out.

This is a very biblical process, isn't it?

This is exactly what Paul told the Timothy.

He says, Listen, Timothy, I've poured myself into you.

I've given you the truth that I know, that I've received from the apostles and from Scripture and from Jesus.

I'm giving that to you.

Now you take those and entrust them to other men who are going to turn around and entrust them to others still.

The truth comes down and the truth goes out.

And in that process, in the flow of truth, and that flow of commun and that flow of truth, communities are formed.

But it's not enough for the truth simply to go down and the truth to go out.

There's a promise that occurs, and that is the truth comes back.

Here the people brought the same truth back to Joshua.

He says, The Lord's going to be with you, the Lord said he's going to be with me.

That's what he received from God, and he shares to the officers, and whenever the people speak back to him, they share this word.

Joshua, the Lord said he's going to be with you, he's going to be with you.

The truth comes back to you.

And what I mean by that is sometimes as you share truth with others, because you're on this mountaintop experience, soon you're in a valley, and you find out that the person who encouraged, who you encouraged just recently now becomes the person who is encouraging you, the truth comes back.

That's why it's so important here in this church that we are people of the word, selfishly so.

The word comes back.

But more importantly than that, we need to know the word comes back.

That no word of the Lord goes out with unaccomplished.

It will, the author of Hebrews tells us, accomplish what it was intended to do.

It will perform its work.

Even though you and I may share it and the person may walk away shaking their heads, mumbling, denying, talking to you about how unlock how illogical it is to try to address modern problems with a 2,000-year-old book.

And you know better because you know the source of it.

And they may walk away and you think to yourself, they may think to themselves, they're getting away from the word, they're getting away from you.

But the problem is, is the word of God clings to hearts.

The word comes back.

And it and it and it latches on to minds.

And it grows and it shapes, and it cannot be gotten away from the word of God comes back.

It will accomplish the work for which it was intended.

Yeah, not every person that we share it with is going to do the thing that we wish they would do with it, but the word of God still polarizes it, pushes people out to make a decision.

They must choose to either accept and follow the true God who spoke scripture and before that spoke this universe into existence.

They must follow that God or follow one of the cults of this age.

They must choose.

We all must choose.

And so to the extent, the word of God accomplishes to what for what always accomplishes what it has been tended.

It comes down, we draw from it, it is our source.

It then goes out.

That's what we teach, that's what we share, that's what we promote.

Yeah, we may mix our opinions in with it, but at the end of the day, what we're really pushing is not our ideology.

We're pushing God's truth.

And finally, it comes back.

We know we just have to sit and wait.

How many times have we seen someone go out?

I've had a conversation with someone just last week, an individual who had wandered far from the faith, but someone had shared God's truth with him years and years and years ago.

And I'm sure that individual wondered whether or not they made any difference at all.

But my goodness, how the word of God clings to hearts.

The word comes down, the word goes out, and the word comes back.

Ladies and gentlemen, communities are not formed simply by shared ethnicities, especially God's church.

When we open up the New Testament, we find the most diverse, and I and I can say this, and this can be proven, we find the most diverse, the most eclectic ethnic, um, cultural, geographical combination of people the world has ever seen.

Socioeconomic ladders, languages, uh, ethnic backgrounds, all of that was wiped away by the power of the gospel.

The gospel is no less potent today.

And this problem that we see with you know identity politics or whatever you want to call it, this where you got these talking heads and people arguing across chasms.

We all want to face that.

We all want to work with that.

The one thing that we cannot do is try to solve that problem by being quiet.

Be easy to do, wouldn't it?

All I have to do is just, I just want to be out of the fray.

I'm on the east side of the Jordan River, leave me alone.

I don't want to, I don't want to face that.

I don't want to, I'm I'm safe here, I'm sound here, besides, I mean, that's gonna be what it's gonna be.

God's in control of that.

It's nobody, they don't need me.

All these reasons that the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh must have thought of are the same kind of arguments that we must think of whenever we think we want to stay out of the fray of sharing the truth.

Our community is built on truth, it's the only thing that holds us together.

And if we're gonna bring more people into this community, you know how we're gonna do it?

Sharing the truth.

The word has come down, the word must go out, and as it does, we know it will come back.