Protect the Unity | The Promised Life | Joshua 22 | Russell Cravens

What happens when a misunderstanding threatens to divide people who once stood side by side?

In Joshua 22, the tribes of Israel go from fighting together to nearly fighting each other. Fear and assumptions fill in the gaps—but one decision changes everything: someone crosses the river and seeks understanding.

In “Protect the Unity,” Russell Cravens explores three practices that can help us navigate conflict, protect relationships, and resist assuming the worst about one another.

Because fear doesn’t just affect how we feel—it affects how we interpret. And our unity testifies to the goodness of God.

The Promised Life | Joshua 22:1–34 | Neartown Church

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Transcript

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Out of Joshua chapter 22, if you have a Bible, I hope you'll open up to it, is about two groups, once friends, who face a serious threat to their unity. So if you've been with us this summer, you know we've been walking through Joshua in this series called The Promised Life. And the story is that God has promised his chosen people Israel a land. But what we've seen throughout the series is that this promise is about more than geography. The promised life was life with God, trusting him and obeying him and experiencing his presence as they followed him. So the story in Joshua is that Israel crosses the Jordan River, and in all of that, they experienced both victory and failure. They fought many battles, and then God eventually gives them this land. And so last week we were in Joshua chapter 14, and we saw the story of major battles winding down, and the attention shifted from conquering the land to receiving it, which is really what Joshua 14, all the way up to chapter 21, is about. And last week, a bit about Caleb being 85 years old. We learn that Caleb finally received an inheritance that God had promised him 45 years before. So from there, the story moves quickly. It moves quickly as the land is divided among Israel's 12 tribes. There are 12 tribes, and so there are two and a half tribes, Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh. They settle east of the Jordan, and the other nine and a half settle west. And I want to show you a map at the risk of boring you early. And so this is important because the Jordan River runs right in between what we're going to call the western tribes and the eastern tribes, but these 12 tribes make up the nation of Israel. So important. And if you'll read through the book of Joshua, one thing that you'll notice is that the tribes that have land on the east side of the Jordan actually received their land before the tribes on the west side of the Jordan. And the warriors from these eastern tribes actually continue on with the western tribes fighting with them, though their land was already secure. It's interesting. They had promised to not just let the eastern tribes go try to do it on their own. They're like, we're in this together. We are unified. We are a family. Now, in all of this, what also happens is that in the city of Shiloh, there is the construction of a tabernacle. Now, what's important for you to know for today about the tabernacle is that this is the place of worship designated by God, identified by the people and God as the specific place of worship and sacrifice. It was very important. They couldn't just go out and start a bunch of churches like we do in our day. So this is the actual geographic location designated. One people, one covenant, one system of sacrifice is going to be in this one city called Shiloh. So this group of 12 tribes, nine and a half on the west side of the Jordan and two and a half, I'm sorry, nine and a half, yes, on the west side of Jordan and two and a half on the right east side of Jordan, they had learned to live together. They'd learned to live and had begun experiencing the promised life, which again wasn't just about land, it was about an experience of God's presence. So with all that in mind, let me offer to you the main idea for today. Our unity testifies to the goodness of God. Now look with me at Joshua chapter 22. It's not going to be on the screen. I'm encouraging you to get a Bible, to open it up, to look with me as I'm teaching. Joshua chapter 22, it says this. 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 and 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. In other words, the battles are done. Therefore turn and go to your tents in the land, the east side, where your possession lies, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the other side of the Jordan. So what Joshua's doing here is he's talking to the eastern tribes and he's acknowledging their deep unity, excuse me, with the entire nation. And this is a sweet moment of celebrating the friendships between the tribes. There's incredible friendship. And Joshua tells them, now that it's done, now that all 12 tribes have their land, you can go back across the Jordan, take your property, take some spoils of war, and experience and live fully this promised life. Clearly, there is unity forged in mission. Now let me get you thinking about something. Can you think of someone from your past who you once felt close to, but you no longer consider them a friend? Maybe as you look back, you know exactly what severed that relationship. Words were said or not said, mistakes were made, damage is done. The friendship is, in your mind, not repairable. And one of the in the words of one of the greatest contemporary theologians, Taylor Swift, baby, now we got bad blood, you know it used to be mad love. As you think about that relationship, that is song, it's just echoing in your mind. What if you or the other person had handled the riff differently, the dust up in a different way? What if today, rather than no longer being friends with that person or group of people, your friendship was deeper and not broken? The story that we step into today is one where these two groups of people, the Western tribes and the eastern tribes, once united and working together for God, they faced a serious threat to their friendship. The eastern tribes did something that really upset the western tribes. Look at verse 10. What did they do? Verse 10. And when they came to the region, when the eastern tribes came to the region, they left this conversation with Joshua. Joshua said, Okay, you can go back to the land when they left, came to the region that is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh. What did they do? They built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size. Well, the word that they've built an altar reaches the other nine and a half tribes, and they are really offended. Why? Well, as I mentioned, God had given Israel very specific instructions about their worship. They weren't free to just establish their own places of sacrifice wherever they wanted. This tabernacle, as I've already said, has been built in Shiloh. This is Israel's worship center. One God, one covenant, one sacrifice. So this action in the minds of the Western tribes is not a small offense. This is an enormous deal. It is so serious that in verse 12, read with me. And when the people of Israel, the Western tribes, heard of it, the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them. Now, just remember, 11 verses earlier, Joshua has them all together and says, Aren't we great friends? We're unified. Things are great. Bless you. We're so excited about who you are and what God has done to unite our friendship that you go to your land and take some of the spoils of war with you. And now in verse 12, it's a very different feeling. They have gathered in Shiloh and they said, We're going to go and kill the eastern tribes. But it's interesting because if you were to read to the end of chapter 22, we read this in verse 33. And the people of Israel blessed God and spoke no more of making war against them. Wow, that's a very different thing. There's a lot clearly that's happened between verse 12 and verse 33 that keeps these friends, the friends with a long history of working together for a greater purpose. It keeps them from killing each other. And what I want to do today is I want to offer you from this story three lessons that I can't I think will help you in the future. So today really is more about preventing division than repairing it, though you could take some of this to people that you have called to mind as you've thought about people that you used to be friends with. It's really more about how am I preparing you for the next chapter of your life and building unity and remaining unified with people, especially those that you're on mission with. Seems obvious, right, to think about that. Think about a passage like this, even for us as a church, as we're just well aware that the church is to be designed by God, a people on mission for Him. And it's possible that something will happen in the near term, hopefully, hopefully not anytime soon, that might want to disrupt our mission of inviting busy people to experience the peace of life of Jesus Christ. And the church being unified is so important. In fact, we read in John chapter 17 in the Gospels. We we read the words of Jesus, and Jesus is praying for the Christians right after he was arrested, and this is what he prays for them that they may all be one so that the world may believe that you have sent me. Oh, that's important. The church remaining unified is has as its aim, as its purpose, so that the world can look at a group of people unified on mission and believe in Jesus as the promised savior. Well, then after Jesus' death and resurrection, local churches are launched. Paul, who's a trusted voice, writes a majority of the New Testament. He frequently is instructing churches on how to stay unified. It's interesting in the New Testament how often in the letters to the churches there's talk of unity. In his letter to the Ephesians, Ephesians 4.13, he tells them to be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And this idea of unity and remaining aligned together on mission, it's so important. It's actually one of the four commitments that we ask of anybody that wants to step in the life of our church as a member we call mission partners. So this story in Joshua chapter 22 is about something that happened 3,000 years ago. The words of Jesus and Paul were spoken 2,000 years ago, but the heart of God remains the same. Our unity testifies to the goodness of God. That's why this is so important. Our unity testifies to the goodness of God. Three lessons out of Joshua chapter 22. Lesson number one. When offended, seek understanding. So in verse 12, the western tribes prepare for war. But look at verse 13. Then the people of Israel sent to the people of Reuben and the people of God and the half tribe of Manasseh, so the nine and a half tribes sent to the two and a half tribes a man by the name of Phineas, the son of Elizar the priest. So Phineas is a respected leader. So along with Phineas, each of the tribes select one representative, and they're going to go talk to the eastern tribes. That's important. So before they wage war, they go directly to the people involved to express their anger and their frustration and to seek understanding. And I do love the geography of this story. The Jordan River, which is kind of where all this is happening, it may have only been a couple of hundred feet wide, but it ran through a broad, rugged valley that formed a very real geographic boundary between the Western tribes and the eastern tribes. So to have this conversation, Phineas and the other leaders that were with them, they had to literally cross the barrier separating them. He chose, listen, he chose to cross the boundary rather than make judgments from the other side. This is how seriously they take this relationship and staying unified. And when Phineas gets there, he doesn't minimize his concern. So in seeking understanding, the witness here that we are reading about is not, I'm going to diminish my frustration or I'm going to diminish my concern. No, actually, he comes and very quickly sort of puts before the eastern tribes his concern. Look at verse 16. Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord, what is this breach of faith that you've committed against the God of Israel in turning away this day from following the Lord by building yourselves an altar this day in rebellion against the Lord? He's very upfront with them. Their decision to build this altar is really troubling to the entire group of nine and a half tribes. And what he does in chapter 22, we don't have time to get into it, but what he does in chapter 22 is he calls to mind in the conversation two earlier instances where there were people among the Israelites who rebelled. And if it was a small group, and a larger group suffered. If it was an individual, a larger group suffered. Two stories. Numbers 25 is one of them about the people at Peor. And the other one, which we actually did in the series, was about Achan. If you remember the story out of chapter 7, what Achan did to deceive brought judgment on the entire nation. People died. And so listen to the heart of Phineas in verse 18 and why he's so disturbed. Though he's seeking understanding, he's being very upfront about his concern. He says, if you two rebel against the Lord today, then tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. In other words, hey, Eastern tribes, what you're doing doesn't just impact you. Because we're an entire nation, we're a group of people. What we've seen God do is because your actions are, we think, a rebellion against God, God is going to punish not just you, but more of us. And these Western tribes, they're not wrong to care about this. If their interpretation, port at word, if their interpretation of what the Eastern tribes have done is correct, this is a serious act of rebellion. And what we see is that their concern is legitimate, however, their conclusion is wrong. And rather than going to war based on that conclusion, they cross the river. Something happened real recently between myself and another staff member at this church. I want to tell you about. So you may or may not know Maggie. She is an important part of our team. She's a director of admin operations, and in a Slack message I sent to the staff about something that I saw that needed to be kind of taken care of. She received that feeling like some kind of way about it. And so in our next conversation, she said, Hey, I want to get some clarity on why you sent this. Because it felt kind of personal. And I said, Oh, what happened? What did I do? You know, like it's quite possible I mistakenly did something without thinking about its impact on somebody else. I'm a human being. But she she said to me, you know, when you sent this slight message, because this is an area that I'm responsible for, I felt like you were kind of like saying to the whole staff that I'd really messed up. And I thought, oh my gosh, like I could, I understand how you would think that, but I promise you that was not my intention at all. I was just sending you this particular issue or sending to the staff, guys, we got to take care of this in our service of the church. And it was a beautiful conversation. She said, Russell, will you help me understand? And I said, Oh, well, let me bring some clarity to that. And she said, Okay. Why did that work? Because what could have happened is for her to feel some kind of way about it, not say anything, and then it just brew inside of her over a long period of time, and then she sees something else that I do, and then she interprets that as being offensive, and then it just kind of grows and grows and grows and grows. But that's not what had happened at all. What happened, in fact, was that she said, Russell, I know that you love me and that you love this church, and you did this, and it made me feel some kind of way. Would you just help me to understand? I helped her to understand at the end of conversation. We said what we do every single time we get off of a Zoom call or any kind of call, good chat. Okay, here we go. We're going to continue to be aligned and be on mission together. This is similar to what we're seeing witness here that is Phineas and these others like working towards unity. They didn't just go and attack, they went and sought understanding. And which leads us to the second lesson. When someone is offended by you, take their concerns seriously. So when the Eastern tribes finally get a chance to respond, they don't respond in the way that if you were reading this in a quick pass, you might think that they deserve to respond. I mean, think about what just happened. These men have spent many years away from their homes and their families fighting with the Western tribes to help the Western tribes secure their land. And almost immediately after getting home, these same people who they fought for are now accusing them of rebellion against God. I mean, that's how they could have responded. They could have gotten on the defensive, like, hey, you know, after everything we've done for you, all these battles we fought for you, how dare you come at us with this business about this altar that we've built. All the years that we've spent away from our families, do you know what I've sacrificed for you? And this is what you think of us. How dare you! I can remember some years ago when Jeannie and I were married and our kids were very little. I, being busy with work, like many of you, would come home in the evening and I would be taking work calls, and I'd walk into the house on my phone. And and one time she just said to me, you know, Russell, when you walk into the house on your phone, and we've got all these little kids running around, it just feels like you're not like engaged in the way that it seems reasonable for you to be, as the dad of the that produced these children, you know. Now, you know what I could have done? I could have said, How dare you? Do you do you know I've I do you know what I've been dealing with today? I've talked to people every almost every day at the best moment of their life and the worst moment of life, and that is true. Do you know how busy I've been today? Do you know the pressure I feel today? How dare you, Jeannie? I am I am still alive today, which is evidence of the fact that by God's grace, in that moment, that's not how I handle it. Although I might have wanted to. And so from that point on, I have not, maybe once or twice in the last 15, 16 years, walked into the house on the phone. I just don't do it. Now, sometimes I'll sit in my truck at the end of the block and she'd be like, I think I thought you're on your way home, and like I'll be home, you know, and it'll be nine o'clock and I'll walk in the door. But that's another, I'm working on that. I'm in process, all right. If someone is offended by you, even if you think they're overreacting, if you want to stay unified, you must absolutely take their concerns seriously. That's called empathy. That is a character trait that's not natural for me. Maybe some of you are like me, when somebody gets upset about something and it's not sort of rooted in reason, you're like, get over it. Like, what's the big deal? Raise your hand. Like, can I just get a confession around the well the reality is if you want to stay unified with that person or those people, that because it bothers them, even if you think it's silly. There is a part of you that needs to like listen. It's called empathy. Now, if you're the kind of person that gets offended every day about a lot of things, you may need counseling. Okay, here we go. So this is what the eastern tribes do. They take seriously the offense that they have created with the western tribes. Look at verse 21. Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gah, and the half tribe of Manasseh, the eastern tribe, said into answer to the heads of the families of Israel, the mighty one, God the Lord, the mighty one, God the Lord. What they're doing is they're piling up here names of God in the original El Elohim, Yahweh. What they're doing in this moment is they're communicating how seriously they're taking this moment. Like, oh, like what we have done has put you in a position to feel like we might be rebelling against God. Like let us in this moment go, okay, we are submitting ourselves to Almighty God. He knows, the scripture goes on to say. And let Israel itself know. If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against the Lord, 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. In other words, we're taking responsibility for this thing that has created such an offense to you. If it is true what you're saying about what we have done, then we take full responsibility. God knows our hearts, he knows what we did. If we rebelled against him, let God judge us. But then they go on to explain. They acknowledge that they also take God's command seriously. The Western tribes care deeply about honoring God, and the eastern tribes do also. Wow, this might have been surprising for the Western tribes to hear. You know, unity is protected when we stop assuming the worst about each other. In any relationship, start with the possibility that the other person may have reasons for having done what they did that you do not fully understand. And for those that are in here that follow Jesus, we can go even further. When conflict happens with another Christian, we want to begin with the assumption that we both want to honor the Lord and do the right thing, even if one of us has done something that has caused the problem. That's a very different mindset. And again, we're talking here about unity in the context of when a group of people is unified, you know who ultimately benefits and gets glory? God. You know who is watching? People. So the Eastern tribes go on to explain that the altar was not built to replace the designated place of worship in Shiloh. It was built as a witness, a reminder that even though these two groups are separated by this Jordan River, that they are also the people of God. Which leads us to a third lesson. Underneath conflict, look for fear. Look what at verse 24. As the Eastern tribes are explaining why they did what they did. No, but we did it from fear that in time to come to your children, might say to our children, What have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? There's the word, fear. When there is conflict, there's a group of people that gets to decide, Am I going to go seek understanding? There's a group of people that gets to, as they're being confronted, they get to decide, Am I going to take it seriously? Because there's somebody that I love and I want to be unified with that's bothered by something. But what both groups get to do is look underneath and go, is there something else going on here? And could it be fear? Because once you identify that thing that's really happening, like the problem is never the problem. And the real problem might, in this instance of conflict, be fear. You realize that fear is driving both sides to this moment of tension, this moment where they could be at war. The Western tribes are afraid of this. The people are abandoning God, and their rebellion is going to bring judgment on all of us. The Eastern tribes are afraid. One day these people are going to reject our children because we're separated geographically from them, and they're going to tell our children that they don't really belong to the people of God. So one side fears rebellion, the other side fears rejection, and neither fear is actually true. That's important. Because so much conflict isn't ultimately about the thing that we're arguing about. Don't you know that to be true? There's something underneath. I'm afraid you're trying to control me. I'm afraid you're going to leave. I'm afraid I'm not being heard. And when we don't identify this as the root issue, what happens? War. Even though the real issue runs much deeper. I mean, how many marriages have had an argument about a calendar that wasn't really about the calendar? Or how many friendships have fractured over a text message that wasn't really about the text message? How many church conflicts have looked like they were about music or money or a decision or the fact that the pastor's posting a Taylor Swift slide, you know, things like this. When underneath actually is fear. Like if me posting that slide makes you think, oh man, I wonder if Russell's becoming too worldly, too pragmatic. He's trying to reach people using Taylor Swift. I it ain't happening, okay. Here's what fear does: fear fills in the gaps with what we're most afraid might be true. And this explains why reasonable people can interpret the same situation so differently. If I'm afraid of being rejected, I interpret your decision as rejection or your distance as rejection. If I'm afraid of being disrespected, I interpret your disagreement as disrespect. If I'm afraid of losing control, I interpret your decision as a threat. If I'm afraid you don't care about me, your unanswered text becomes evidence that you don't care. Fear doesn't just affect the way we feel, fear affects how we interpret what's happened. Think about that. And this is why seeking understanding matters so much. Because sometimes the most important question in a conflict isn't what happened, it's what is happening in me as a result of what happened that might be fear. And once that gets said out loud, you may discover that the person you're fighting against isn't you at all. Isn't against you at all. I mean there are a number of you in here that are married. And one of the for sure things about marriage is that there will be places of conflict. When there is conflict in our home, what we've learned to do is go, okay, what's really going on here? Or if you have children, you have conflict with one of your children, especially as they're getting older. That's part of them becoming teenagers, is they start to establish themselves a little more, a little harder, they start pressing the boundaries. And what parents want to do oftentimes is like just make the boundaries so rigid, and any pushing up against that is like war. It's war. But oftentimes, parents, what we need to decide and look at is what's going on below the surface is I'm afraid that if they continue to act like this, that they're not going to be able to become high-functioning adults, or I'm afraid that I'm losing control or that they don't love me as much as I love them. I mean, think about what's going on with your co-workers. As you, no doubt, some of you are in situations right now where you have conflict with a coworker. Would you for a moment just consider what is really going on in me? I mean, you can't control that. You can't control what they do. But just ask the Lord, like, what's really going on in me right now? This is exactly what happens in Joshua chapter 22. Both groups are discovering that the story fear has been telling them about the other side isn't true. In verse 30. As Phinehas and these other leaders have heard the explanation of these eastern tribes, what they decide is that their explanation is, quote, good. Look at verse 31. Today we know that the Lord is in our midst. Because you have not committed this breach of faith against the Lord. Like we understand now what's going on. Now you have delivered the people of Israel from the hand of the Lord. And verse 33 says that the people bless God and stop talking about war. Nobody dismissed their feelings, nobody compromised the truth. They simply did the hard work of understanding one another, and understanding turned potential enemies back into brothers. Our unity testifies to the goodness of God. Don't you know that we live in a world full of outrage and suspicion and fractured families and broken friendships and political hostility and disposable relationships? And into that world, God still calls out a people who seek understanding instead of assuming the worst, who take each other's concerns seriously, even when they seem unreasonable, who look for the fear underneath the fight instead of fighting, who forgive and stay and cross the river instead of waiting for someone else to cross it first. That's the kind of people that become strange enough to the world that the world begins to ask, what kind of God creates a people who can love each other like that? So think about your life. Think about a river in your life and who is on the other side. Before you attack, before you withdraw, before you assume you know the whole story. Cross the river, ask one question, and that's this. Will you help me to understand? And just see what happens. Cross the river and ask the question. Because when God's people are unified, our life together becomes a witness to the goodness of God. And you know what all this is about? Like this thing we're doing here, the effort put in to organize the church in such a way that you have a place to come and hear from God's word and to build friendships with people that also desire the Lord. Do you know what all this is about? As we think about our church and the many other churches that our church is friends with throughout the city, and we think about all the people gathering for worship today all over our city. Do you know what it's about? It's about God and his glory. It's about the goodness of God and people that walk separated from God, getting to hear that they are loved, that they're being sought after by a good, faithful God. And you know what those people need to see? They need to see churches who love one another and walk closely to one another. And as we're walking closely to one another and loving one another, inevitable things are going to happen, like conflict. And the way we handle it is going to be a picture to the world of how good God is. That's the bigger picture. So, for you, either tuck away these three lessons or maybe you need to go apply them this week. Cross the river and ask the question. Let's pray on and think about these things. Would you bow your head?