BEWARE OF THE GIBEONITES

Joshua 9

The incident recorded in Joshua chapter 9 makes for interesting reading.  The nation of Israel has crossed the Jordan River under Joshua’s command, and they have seen the walls of Jericho fall.  After dealing with Achan’s sin, the city of Ai fell as well.  Things were going well for them.  The people groups currently inhabiting the promised land were shaking in their boots.  The Hittites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, and all the other “ites” were trying to figure how they could possibly stand up in war against a nation that had God on its side.  The Gibeonites decided to try a unique defensive tactic, deception.  They sent an envoy dressed in travel worn clothes, and equipped them with old moldy bread and tired looking donkeys.  “Your servants have come from a very far country because of the fame of the Lord your God; for we have heard the report of Him and all that He did in Egypt.”  (Joshua 9:9 NAS)  They were so convincing that Joshua and the leaders of Israel took their word at face value, and made a covenant of peace with them.  The reality was, however, that they lived just around the corner.  They were one of the nations that God had told Israel to destroy, Joshua could not go back on his word.  The Gibeonites were spared and became a thorn in Israel’s side - all because Joshua “did not ask for the counsel of the Lord”. (Joshua 9:14b NAS) 

I’m sure you haven’t encountered any more badly dressed men on tired donkeys with moldy bread lately than I have, but I am sure that you have found yourself in a situation where a decision had to be made.  As one of Jesus’ disciples every decision is an opportunity to be true follower, or to go it on our own.  Will we bring each matter in our lives before the Lord and ask for counsel, or will we like Israel rely on our own wisdom and judge by appearances?  For a true disciple there is only one course – let Jesus call the shots in our lives.  It’s not only what a Christ follower does, it’s the smart thing.  It may save us the pain of a Gibeonite thorn in the side!

SIMPLICITY AND PURITY OF DEVOTION TO CHRIST

But I am afraid… your minds should be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ.” (2 Cor.11:3)

            In the previous verse Paul refers to the Christians at Corinth as being a pure virgin that he has betrothed to Christ.  And what is required of a betrothed (engaged) woman - simplicity and purity of devotion.  It is going to be a long engagement, but what a wonderful wedding it will be when all of us who belong to Jesus are forever joined with Him, never to be separated again.  The marriage of the church, the bride of Christ, to Jesus is pictured in Revelation 21as a truly glorious event which will lead right into the creation of a new heavens and a new earth.

            However, in the mean time, Jesus waits with the expectant heart of a husband-to-be, and we wait with the expectant heart of a bride-to-be.  Yes, He has given us His Spirit as the comforter; yes, we have His Word; and yes, we have each other (sometimes a mixed blessing J).  But these are all part of a long distance relationship with Jesus.  What we really long for can’t be found on this earth, because He is not here. 

            So what does all this romantic talk about us and Jesus and a wedding have to do with following Him and being His disciples?  Everything.  Being a follower of Jesus can so easily become a matter of doing all the right things, and not doing all the wrong things.  I have found that even that precious time with Him in the mornings can easily lose its glow and become a matter of duty - what I need to read, and the list of things that I need to pray about.  Life has a way of getting complicated, and it isn’t long before what is truly important gets lost.  So I try to keep going back to what Paul said to the brothers and sisters at Corinth.  I keep reminding myself that being a follower of Jesus is first, foremost, and always a matter of simplicity and purity of devotion to Him.

JUST GIVE ME JESUS

I love the words to that old spiritual:

In the morning when I rise, in the morning when I rise

In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus

Give me Jesus, give me Jesus, you can have all this world

Just give me Jesus

However, in the morning when I rise, in addition to Jesus I would add one thing - a cup of medium roast Starbucks coffee.  I like it best freshly ground and pressed, not filtered.  As I’m fond of saying, Jesus deserves my best, and without the coffee, He won’t get it.  But back to the song, it truly captures the heart beat of what it means to be Jesus’ disciple.  We follow Him, because we want to be with Him. 

For me that starts about 15 minutes after I leave the covers.  I make my bed, put on some old clothes, quietly walk to the kitchen so as to not wake Barb, and boil water for my coffee.  I then make my way into the living room to my recliner (we have his and her recliners), pull out my Bible, and open it.  I don’t have to read too many verses, and it doesn’t matter if they are in Leviticus or Matthew, He is there.  The Bible is His Word, a living Word, and as many times as I’ve read through it, it continues to be the voice of my Jesus to me.  Just yesterday I was reading in Psalms, “O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I prepare a sacrifice for you and watch.” (Ps.5.3 ESV)  I see three parts to this verse that describe my morning times with Jesus.  Firstly, He hears my voice as I pour out my concerns:  a problem at work I’m trying to solve, a difficult person I’m trying to get along with, a decision I need to make, and nearly every day, God’s blessing and protection for my wife and family.  But the joy of being with Jesus goes beyond knowing He hears and cares about all that concerns me.  The sacrifice part of this verse regularly becomes part of our time together taking shape as an offering of worship.  How can I not be grateful for sin forgiven, for eternal life, for His loving care and protection, and for the grace and peace that are mine each day in Christ?  Then there is the third part, watching.  Watching is the quiet in my quiet time, those moments when my attention is actively fixed on Jesus, but I’m not talking or worshipping, I’m just focused on Him.  Often in the quiet He speaks to me.  That still small voice that brings direction or understanding. 

What I do may not work for you, so find your own place and time.  Just don’t miss what truly is more valuable than all the world has to offer – just being with Jesus.

A JOYOUS NEW BEGINNING

And as Jesus passed on from there; He saw a man, called Matthew, sitting in the tax office; and He said to him, “Follow Me!”  And he rose, and followed Him. (Mat.9:9)

            As recorded in the book of Matthew four fishermen have been called by Jesus to follow Him up to this point.  Now He asks Matthew, a tax collector, to follow Him.  In the very next verse we see Jesus and His disciples over for dinner at Matthew’s house.  It is a joyous, even raucous occasion.  Matthew celebrates his decision to follow Jesus, by inviting all his friends over for an evening with Jesus.  And his friends are an interesting lot – other tax collectors and “sinners”.  The Pharisees, the religious crowd, are not happy.  How can Jesus possibly associate with people like that.  But Jesus tells them, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Mat.9:13)  The message is clear.  It does not matter where we start, who we are, or what we’ve done.  What matters is that we make a clean break from the past, and that we give ourselves completely to a new beginning as a Jesus' disciple.

            The Pharisees were not the only ones bothered by the celebration following Mathew’s decision to become Jesus’ disciple.  John the Baptist’s disciples come to Jesus and ask why His disciples don’t fast.  It is a bit more subtle, but this is another spiritual push back.  Jesus’ brand of religion just doesn’t fit the norm.  It seems that John’s disciples thought that Jesus and His followers should be fasting (like them) and not feasting and enjoying themselves.  Jesus, however, does not give in.  Instead, He puts things in perspective with two parables.  Verse sixteen contains the first, and it is a negative one, an example of what not to do.  Don’t put a patch of new cloth on an old garment, because when it is washed, it will shrink and make a bigger tear.  The point is clear in this context.  To be Jesus disciple we have to start fresh, completely fresh, and throw out all our old religious ideas and practices.  The second parable in verse seventeen makes the same point from the positive side.  When making wine use a fresh, new wineskin, because an old one will lack the elasticity to withstand the fermentation process.  It will break, the wine will be spilled, and the skin will be ruined.  It is the same message.  Following Jesus, truly becoming His disciple, is not a matter of patching up our lives a bit here and there to make them look better, it is a matter of making a completely new beginning.  The price is high, but like Matthew, it is a decision worth celebrating.

ACCEPTING THE INVITATION

“Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Mat.4: 20 ESV)

            Peter and Andrew were already believers.  They had known Jesus for about a year before He walked up to them and said, “Follow Me”.  He was not a complete stranger.  But I still have to ask myself, why did they leave their nets and follow Him?  If I were in their sandals would I follow Jesus?

Jesus came preaching the Kingdom of God.  Part of what I think appealed to them was the opportunity to be part of something bigger, something significant.  I can see them looking at Him, and then looking at the nets in their hands and weighing the options – continuing on in the same simple, safe, well-known life with their nets, or a place at Jesus’ right hand as He ushered in the Kingdom of God.  And along with this there was the personal challenge to become something more, a fisher of men.  I’m sure they didn’t fully understand what this meant, but being fishermen it must have resonated with them.  It was an offer they couldn’t resist.  There was risk, but there was so much to gain.

There was more.  They had heard Jesus speak, and it was not just your everyday  teaching from the Torah,  Good Jewish men like Peter and Andrew had had plenty of religion, but this was something different.  His teaching moved them - it had a ring of truth and authority about it.  Then there was the day He turned water into wine at the wedding in Canaan. (John 2: 1-12 )  They had never seen anything like that before.  It was no trick, no sleight of hand, this was the power of God.  Jesus was so gentle and loving, especially to the poor and the weak, but the Spirit of God was in Him.

More than all this, when they looked into His eyes they thought, “What is it about this man?  Who is He?”  He was more than genuine.  He was more than good and kind.  He was more than a miracle worker.  It took a while yet to put it into words, but they sensed it, and somewhere deep inside they instinctively knew – He was God.  They couldn’t say no to His invitation to follow.  Can I?  Can you?

FOLLOW

“Follow me and I will make you fishers of men.  Immediately they left their nets and followed him.” (Mat.4: 19, 20 ESV) 

Jesus’ call to Peter and Andrew by the Sea of Galilee seems so abrupt, and their response so extreme. If a stranger walked up to you and said “follow me”, would you do it?  Even if he was Jesus?  In reality, this event occurred about one year into Jesus’ ministry, after the arrest of John the Baptist (Mat. 4:12).  Jesus was no stranger to Peter and Andrew.  They had heard him teach, they had seen him turn water into wine, and all this happened before Jesus issued this amazing command, “follow me.” (John 2:1-12, 3:24).  They were already believers.  This was not a call to believe in him, this was a call to leave their nets and follow him - and it was a call to become something, fishers of men.

I became a believer as a pre-teen.  I dedicated my life to serve God at age 17.  I think of myself as a follower of Jesus.  I’m not sure, however, that I’ve ever truly responded to Jesus’ call to. “Follow me and I will make you (a) fisher(s) of men.”  Frankly the thought scares me, but at the same time I feel excited and I’m drawn to obey.  Jesus does not make it easy.  Following him is not something we can do part time.  It is not something we can just squeeze into the corners of our life where we might have a few minutes for him here or there in our schedule.  To move beyond just believing to truly following him we must drop our nets (all the stuff that occupies us) and give him our full attention.  Jesus, then, takes it upon himself to change us, and make us fishers of men.  Unlike Peter and Andrew we don’t have to leave home, we have to do something that may be harder – follow Jesus and become fishers of men where we live.

The family at Rockside Church is taking April and May to learn together what it means to move beyond just believing to following Jesus.  Next fall we will take two months to complete the process and let Jesus make us fishers of men.  It won’t happen quickly or easily, but through Sunday services and Life Groups in homes we will take our first steps.  Will you join us?  For more information go to www.rocksidechurch.com  or call (216) 650 6780.

FULL DISCLOSURE

To sum up the last few entries, (1) I was awakened to God, (2) since then I have practiced the science of God by coming to know Him personally, and (3) I have benefited great in coming to know Him by studying the priceless record of God’s revelation to mankind.  This priceless record, the Bible, is composed of two main sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament.  The Old Testament was written before the birth of Christ, and its cannon (its list of accepted works), was largely set by the time of Christ.  It was spoken of by Christ and by the writers of the New Testament as being the authoritative record of God’s revelation to mankind.  The New Testament was written by the apostles (those who knew Christ personally and were witnesses of His life, death and resurrection), and others who were directly associated with the apostles.  The cannon of the New Testament was set within a few hundred years after Christ’s death.  

So, why, you may ask, are writings today not accepted as part of the Bible?  Why is the record set?  Learning continues in every other branch of science, and scientific literature is growing at a rapid rate, so again, why limit the Bible to just old literature, and why just this old literature?

The simple answer to this question is that God has made a full disclosure.  He did that by becoming a human being and living here on earth, in a flesh and blood form that we could see and directly learn from.  God fully disclosed Himself to us in the person of Jesus Christ.  Everything written in the Old Testament prepared for His arrival, and everything in the New Testament is a record of God’s full disclosure in Christ Jesus.  The author of Hebrews, one of the New Testament books, describes God’s full disclosure in this way, “Going through a long line of prophets God has been addressing our ancestors in different ways for centuries.  Recently he spoke to us directly through His Son… this Son perfectly mirrors God, and is stamped with God’s nature.” (Heb. 1:1-5, The Message). 

Jesus perfectly mirrored God’s nature.  He perfectly and completely spoke the truth about who and what God is, what His purposes are for human beings, and what the future holds.  And then Jesus did something really amazing.  He, God in the flesh, freely gave His life for us on the cross.  God, in horrific agony and pain, bridged the gap that separates us from Him.  This act of love was the culmination of His full disclosure.  It is a clear window into the heart of God