Follow the Promises: Living In The Promised Land

A rumor spreads, emotions spike, and God’s people are seconds away from turning on each other. Joshua 22 reads like a headline, and it forces a question we all face: when relationships get tense, do we move toward truth and love or toward assumptions and control?

We walk through what “living in the Promised Land” really means for everyday Christian life. Joshua’s charge to the tribes gives us a simple but challenging order for a healthy relationship with God: hear God’s Word first, respond with love, then obey from a heart strengthened by grace. We also name the two ditches we fall into when we scramble that order: heresy that loves without listening, and legalism that obeys without loving. If you’ve ever felt burned out, guilty, or spiritually numb, this part lands hard.

Then we unpack the altar incident by the Jordan and why it nearly sparked civil war. The resolution is a masterclass in biblical conflict resolution: courage to confront, concern for God’s holiness, willingness to sacrifice for a brother or sister, and the discipline to believe the best instead of the worst. We also get practical about worship in spirit and truth, the kind you can’t fake and don’t have to earn, and how that worship shows up while driving, working, parenting, and choosing patience in hard moments.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who’s navigating conflict, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What part of “hear, love, obey” do you most need to rebuild right now?

Transcript

Living In The Promised Land Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:26

All right, today in our Follow the Promises study through the book of Joshua, we're going to be studying living in the Promised Land. Living in the Promised Land. Who was alive in 1985? Haha, that's everybody, right? Except these two. 1985, there was a little uh guy named James Brown, who who used to listen to James Brown. He's always doing that, like sound, right? And he made a song famous called Livin' in America. You guys remember that one?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Living in America.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

It was later made famous by Weird Al Yankovich, Living with a Hernia. Which is definitely the one I heard first. Because Weird Al was definitely more my jam than yeah, James Brown. Anyway, in this song, Living in America, anyone know the words? Do you remember the words? Like, you can't really understand what he says because he's like, but but he says, Living in America, ow! Uh, eye to eye, station to station, living in America, hand to hand, across the nation. And it was a song about nothing really, but just just that we're all living in a in America and we're all part of the country, kind of thing you'd get crucified for today. But what James Brown was talking about was relationships. Okay? He's like, everyone in America, we're all one big family, right? Black or white or whatever. It's we're all one big family. He was talking about relationships, and what we're talking about is living in the promised land today, when we get to chapter 22 of Joshua, and that also is all about relationships. Okay? So two relationships specifically. First, your relationship with God, secondly, your relationship with others. And if you think about it, those are all the relationships we've had. I mean, dogs don't really count. You have a relationship with them, but the Bible doesn't have to help you with that, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Cover her ears, yeah. She's your your favorite, I know. Yeah. Where's yeah? Yeah, she's here too. Okay.

Joshua Sends The Tribes Home

The Order: Hear Love Obey

Heresy And Legalism Warning Signs

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Because relationships are hard unless they're with your dog. Those kind of relationships are easy, right? That's why we love relationships with our dogs. Because no matter what you do, they treat you like you're perfect. They want to be with you, right? And that is not how your wife treats you all the time, or your husband, or your kids, or your boss. Like, relationships with people are hard, and relationships with God can be hard too if we don't understand how they work. Because all these relationships, they're hard, they require time, effort, commitment. Like, these relationships are some of the most difficult things that we're ever gonna have to deal with in our life. And so, how these relationships work is act, we're actually gonna discover that in this chapter. We're gonna see a lot about relationships, a lot of lessons about relationships. So let's dive in and see how it goes. In in chapter 22, verse 1 through 6, it says, Uh, then Joshua called the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the tribe of Manasseh, and said to them, You have kept all that Moses, the servant of God, commanded you, and you've obeyed my voice and all that I have commanded you. And uh, go ahead, keep going. You have not left your brethren these many days up to this day, but you have kept the charge of the commandment of the Lord your God. Keep going. And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brethren, and he has promised as he had promised them. And now, therefore, return and go to your tents and to the land of your possession, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the other side of the Jordan. But be very careful to obey the commandments of and the law which Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, and to love the Lord your God, and to walk in all his ways, to keep his commandments, to hold fast to him, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them and sent them on their way to their tents. Okay, so we know that all the children of Israel came out of wandering in the desert for forty years, and then this entire book has been them coming into the promised land, and but basically two and a half of the tribes, their their property, their inheritance was on the eastern side of the Jordan River, and they crossed over to help their brethren, the rest of the tribes of Israel, to conquer this land over here, and they're leaving. They're going back on the side. So crossing the Jordan River was not like an easy thing. Like we're like, well, let's just cross over the the Queen Isabella, you know, causeway. It wasn't like that. It was like that big of a river, well, like we have to cross the bay, but it's it was like you had to do it all by hand and by by little oats or whatever. It was it was a huge deal for let's say 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 people to cross over the river. So they were saying goodbye for quite a while. And Joshua gives them this command. He says he he tells them to walk in all God's ways and keep his commandments. So Joshua's telling them you to obey God with all that they had and to keep his commandments, to, and then secondly, to hold fast to him in a personal sense, to love him, and then number three, to serve him with all their heart. And so I want you to understand the order that we see there is extremely important. That order is vitally important. So, first, we have God's commands and God's word. What is that? That's hear God, listen to God. What does God say? What is his truth? What does the word of God say? So that's that's step number one in this relationship with God. What is Joshua doing? He is encouraging these two and a half tribes, make sure Jesus is your number one priority. Make sure God, your relationship with God, is your number one priority, and this is how to make it happen. He even gives them a little a little sermon. You're like, I wish your sermon was just three points. I understand. But it's not. So uh, but his first point is listen to what God says. Hear God. Number two would be give him your love. That's part of a relationship. First part of relationship is listen. Wives, do you love when your husbands ignore you when they're efficient or watching football? Of course not. It's terrible for a relationship, right? Right? Listening, vitally important. You just got a weird smile on your face. Like that never happens with me. Listening. Okay, listening is very important. Number two, giving your love, responding to what you hear with love. Choosing, I'm gonna love this person. I'm gonna love God when I hear his voice. I'm gonna respond by listening, giving him my attention, giving him my love. And then third thing, next, after those two, comes a walk of obedience. And all these things are involved in our relationship with God. So Joshua is teaching these two and a half tribes how to make sure they have a good relationship with God in the promised land. Remember, these guys are st are already in the promised land, which is symbolic for us of the life we're supposed to live as Christians, like the victorious Christian life, the life that Jesus has given every single one of us, where we're walking forward with him, we're serving him, and he says, this is don't mix up this order. Don't mix up the order. I'll tell you what happens when we mix up the order. If we first the first possibility is that we drift into heresy, which means we love without hearing. If we put loving God with step two before step one, and we're just like, oh, I love God so much, but I never want to listen to his word. What happens is you start being weird. You start being super weird, you start doing things that the Bible says nothing about. Why are you behaving this way? Why are you doing that? Well, I don't know. I just I love God and do whatever I want, bro. Okay, well, first step in a relationship is to listen to what's important to God, and guess what? That's in the word of God. So the word of God is our first step in a relationship with God, hearing his voice. So that becomes heresy. You get into all kinds of weird doctrines when you're just like, yeah, I'm I'm a Christian, I love God, and what do you do? Uh whatever I want. Uh I certainly don't listen to God's word. I do whatever either I'm feeling or whatever someone tells me to do, you know. That that leads to all kinds of problems. The second thing is when you flip obeying without loving. So when you try to obey God without loving him first, what is that? That turns into legalism.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Why do you go to church? Because I have to. Why do you tithe? Well, because I have to. Why do you serve God at renew? Because I have to. All of that is legalism. What what is forgotten in that?

SPEAKER_00 10:19

I love God. I love him. I serve him, I honor him, I give him freely my life. When you get married, you don't you're not bummed out by having to wake up next to the same person for the rest of your life. You love them. You choose to love them. And it's a wonderful thing. And God says, I never want you to go to church because you have to. I never want you to read the Bible because you have to. I never want you to tithe because you have to, I never want you to serve me because you have to. It must be built on a foundation of love. First, I love you, God says. And then let's focus on this one thing. Just respond to my love. Just love me back. That's literally why God made you. So he could love you and you could love him back. Then obedience can follow. You will do God's will. But that's how this happens. Loving without hearing, the first way, it's I love God, but I hurt people. Sometimes I hurt people because yeah, I love God, but I really only think about myself. That's that's heresy. I love God, but I'll listen to my flesh and my desires first and always. I'm really living my lie. I'm not living in the truth. But it says in John that Jesus came full of grace and truth, which means Jesus forgives, but he also transforms us. He doesn't leave us the way we are. And then the legalism side, if we're obeying without loving, we're saying I do what God says without having his heart. I do what God says without even having his heart. I'm proven by my performance. No matter how much I do, I don't really feel or know that I'm loved and accepted because I could have done more. That's how we know we're on the legalism side of things. So the correct order, what's the correct order? It's relationship focus. Number one, hear God's word and hear his heart behind things. Realize we can't really do that. Number two, love him, connect with him through grace, accept his love into your heart, saying, I really believe this word that I'm hearing, that God loves me and he has a life planned for me. And then step three would be obey him from the resources of grace, from a heart that's been changed and empowered by the love of Jesus, not because you have to. So that's living in the promised land.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Living in the promised land.

The Altar That Sparks Panic

Worship In Spirit And Truth

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Joshua Joshua would not send them away without a blessing. And what does that mean? Joshua understood that they could not be what God wanted them to be, they couldn't do what God wanted them to do without a spiritual blessing or life uh gift. Like they needed God's help. We call that grace, God's blessing. They had to have a spiritual gift that would empower them to have this relationship. It would guide them in this relationship, keep them on the straight and narrow. Do you guys think when you hear the word straight and narrow, do you think of rules or do you think of relationship? When we grow up, we think of rules. God wants to transform that. He wants you to think of the straight and narrow is staying close to Jesus and stepping in his steps, holding on to his waist, holding on to his hand while he leads me down the path. Think of relationship and not rules. How do you think Joshua blessed them? I'll tell you. In Numbers chapter 6, it tells us the blessing that the leader was supposed to give to the people. And you've heard this before. It says, Speak to Aaron and to his son, saying, This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel. Say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. So they shall put my name on the children of Israel, and I will bless them. I love this blessing. Right? Everything in this blessing flows from grace. Where in this blessing is all the stuff you have to do? This is always relational. Grace is always relational. And that's what this blessing just focuses on. It focuses on humility and faith being the relational realities that define this relationship for us. God gives grace, God makes his face shine upon us, God lifts his countenance on us, and how do we respond? With humility, saying, Oh, I need this, and grace or faith saying, God, I'm gonna trust in you and your grace that comes through Jesus Christ. We get his grace, we get his attention, we get his peace, and we get his identity. All four of those things are mentioned in that blessing. His grace, his attention, his peace, and his identity. All free gifts. You don't have to earn them, you just receive them. This is such a good father that we have, and he wants the leaders of his people to bless them in this way. So that's how Joshua said, guys, you can't do it, but I'm sending you off with the blessing. Through God's grace, you can do it. You will do it, because it's going to be his power in your life. All right, back to Joshua. Let's see what happens, because this is quite interesting and surprising. Verse 7. Now, the half tribe of Manasseh, to the half tribe of Manasseh, Moses had given possession in Bashan, but on the other half of uh of it, Joshua gave a possession among the brethren on the side of the Jordan westward. And indeed, when Joshua sent them away to their tents, he blessed them and spoke to them, saying, Return with much riches to your tents, with very much livestock, with silver, with gold, with bronze, with iron, and with very much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brethren. So the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh returned and departed from the children of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the word of the Lord by the hand of Moses. And when they came to the region of the Jordan, which is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan, a great impressive altar. Now the children of Israel heard that someone, they heard someone say, Behold, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh have built an altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region of the Jordan on the children of Israel's side. And when the children of Israel heard it, the whole congregation of Israel, uh children of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them. They're like, Wow, that escalated quickly. They're like, see ya, and then they go, Yeah, you got it. Then the children of Israel sent Phineas, the son of Eliezer, the priest, to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh into the land of Gilead, and with him ten rulers, one ruler from each of the chief house of every tribe of Israel. And each one was the head of the house of his father among the divisions of Israel. Then they came to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying, Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord, what treachery is this that you have committed against the God of Israel to turn away this day from following the Lord, in that you have built for yourselves an altar that you may rebel this day against the Lord. Again, that really escalated very quickly. Why are they so upset about this great and impressive altar? So if you didn't follow, these two and a half tribes leave before they cross the River Jordan, they build a big impressive altar that both sides can see, then they go ahead and cross and they're living their life over here. Someone says, Hey, they built this big impressive altar, so all the tribes over here come and like we're gonna kill you. Are they envious? Do they have altar envy? What is going on here? Gosh, I don't know. Well, if we read Deuteronomy 13, verse 12, it tells us what's going on here. So make this connection in your Bible. It says, if you hear someone in one of your cities, this is God giving instruction to his people about how to handle stuff like this, which the Lord God gives you to dwell in, saying, Hey, corrupt men have gone out from among you and enticed the inhabitants of the city, saying, Let us go serve other gods which you have not known, then you shall inquire and search out and seek diligently. So there's the instructions, right? And if it is true indeed, and certain, not just a rumor, but certain, that such an abomination was committed among you, you shall surely strike the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying it, all that it is in it, and its livestock, what if they do, I don't know, with the edge of the sword. Okay, so there's the instruction. If if there's idolatry, so what's the problem here? Well, these ten and a half tribes believed that the uh other tribe here, these other two and a half tribes, have are are building an altar for other to worship other gods. So they say, What treachery is this? So clearly they thought that it was a rival place of sacrifice, because God had told them, again in the book of Numbers, that there was only supposed to be one place where they made burnt sacrifices to God, and that was going to be wherever the tabernacle was, and right now that's in Shiloh, which later becomes just right outside Jerusalem, which actually is the very hill on which Jesus ends up dying. That's a cool thing you'll learn later as we study the Bible. But they so the the nation thinks that they're trying to make this rival place of sacrifice, and it's a it's a misunderstanding. So God had clearly commanded that there's one place that this should happen, and um He He commanded there's one way to worship Him. There's one place, there's one way. Well, that's interesting. They had to worship God in this one way that God commanded. That was what pleased God. And see, what's really interesting is that principle remains true today, although it has nothing to do with where we worship, clearly. Amen. But there's a way that we worship that God demands. He says, You must worship me one way. In John 4 24, Jesus said God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

It means God's one requirement for worship. If you want to worship him, which is what you're made to do, it's what you truly want to do most in your spirit. If you want to worship him, there's one way to do it, and it's in spirit and truth. What does that mean? You cannot fake it. See, if it was just in a place, you can walk into the place and be like, I don't know what I did yesterday. And you can you can fake it. You can just be quiet about what's in your heart and in your mind. But when Jesus says if you're gonna worship God, you must worship him in spirit and truth, he's saying you cannot fake a single thing. God sees the heart. That's what it means. He is spirit, he's literally invisible. And so he sees what's invisible in you because you're also invisible. You're not just a fleshy body, a bag of bones and dirt. You are an invisible spirit in addition that that lives inside your bag of bones right now. We cannot just do the externals and think that God is gonna be fooled. Why did you come to church today? Well, so people will see me. No, I don't think that's why you came to church. I think how you really why you really came to church is filled by the spirit and truth.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

You know that you want to connect with Jesus. You love to hear his word. You're not faking it. You cannot fool God.

SPEAKER_00 24:05

I keep the commands, I give a tithe, I didn't punch that dude in the face yesterday. I've done my best. What else can God command of me? He says, worship. We must worship in spirit and truth. Worship isn't a ritual that earns anything. What do you get by singing songs to Jesus? Nothing. Were you like, well, I feel better. Great, but it's not about you. Literally, if it's about you, you're not worshiping God. When you're worshiping God, it is pouring out love to him. It is never about you. It is never about how you feel. God deserves my worship. He asks for my worship. But I don't feel like I'm worthy enough to worship him. God says you are. So what am I gonna believe? God's truth about who he says you are or how you feel about it. God says, worship me because I've created you for this. You're so much more valuable than what you think. When you praise God, the entire heavens join with you and it resonates. It's like a trickle through the all of eternity and all the space, all of space and time. You worshiping God matters in this way. It's never about earning anything, it's simply the natural response of someone who's already clean, already close, already complete in Christ. We are standing on truth before we see it true. I believe my tomato plants are gonna grow. Because I planted seeds, and seeds grow. So I'm gonna say, these are gonna be my tomato plants. And my wife says, There's nothing there. I say, have faith. Have faith, young one. Guys, you don't need to get any closer to regain fellowship with God. He's never kicked you out, he's never said you can't worship me. He has invited you every day of your life, every second of your life, to breathe praise to him. And he says, You can do this. You're worthy. And furthermore, God's heart is moved when you worship him. When you freely respond to him. Not because you have to, but because you're like, God, I I love you. You rescued me, you saved me, you picked me up when I was lost, and I just love you. Thank you. God's heart is moved and blessed. He he cries tears, he emotionally responds when you offer him that kind of love. Let Jesus be your everything and express to him from the inside out what love is inside you.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Well, I only have a little bit of love. Well, then give that little bit of love to Jesus. And he will grow your heart.

Sin’s Fallout: Peor And Achan

SPEAKER_00 27:16

I'm gonna give you three everyday examples of how you can worship in spirit and truth today. Number one, singing and praising with the awareness, I am clean, I am close to God. Instead of trying to get there. Instead of trying to get just sing, saying, I love being in your presence. Not I'm gonna try to get in your presence, I am in your presence. How? Jesus lives in you, he dwells in you, the spirit is in you. That's his promise, that's his word. So sing with that awareness, there you go. That's worship in spirit and truth. Number two, thanking God while driving, working, parenting, surfing, whatever you're doing, ordinary moments become holy because he's in you. Just thank him for these things. Thank you for these turtles. These turtle eggs. And then third, another way you can worship in spirit and truth, and this is the cool one, choosing love and patience or honesty in tough moments, trusting Christ to live through you in all the relationships you have with other people. That's another way you can worship God in spirit and truth. Why are we talking about this? Well, the children of Israel said that there's God's told us how to worship him, and you guys are doing it wrong. What's going on here? At least they thought that. Let's look at what happens, verse 17. Joshua 22. The iniquity of Pior is not is the iniquity of Pior not enough for us, uh, for which we are not cleansed till this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the Lord, but that you must turn away this day from following the Lord, and it shall be, if you rebel today against the Lord, that tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. Okay, so remember, this is Phineas, who is one of the priests, and Joshua sent him to be the guy that's kind of the mediator between the two countries, basically about to go to war, civil war in this country. And Phineas, it's very interesting because he was the guy who dealt with the rebellion at Peor. And you're like, what is this? First of all, he's saying, if you do this, guys, we're all going down. If you play in the mud, we're all getting dirty, is what he's saying. Because what happened is there had been this event at Peor, Israel started having sex with all the Moabite women, and they started marrying them, and then the women started convincing all the Jews to worship their gods. It was very bad. And so God sent a plague, and 24,000 people died in this plague. And guess who was in charge at that plague? Phineas was the high priest or was the priest, and he stepped, he stopped the plague by making this dramatic stand for righteousness. I'll let you read it, but basically, he takes a pole, he goes into a tent, and he runs it through a guy and a girl in the moment.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And talk about planting your flag for righteousness. Um lot to that.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

So Phineas knows what he's talking about with I'm gonna take a stand for righteousness. I'm gonna take a stand for um I don't want to see everyone uh die and and be and be in pain. So Phineas, he's a good guy to be the mediator here. So verse 19, it says, Therefore, in the land of your possession if the land of your possession is unclean, then cross over to the land of the possession of the Lord, which the Lord where the Lord's tabernacle stands, and take possession among us. Did you see what he just did there? But do not rebel against the Lord, nor rebel against us by building yourselves an altar besides the altar of the Lord our God. So he says, Do not rebel against the Lord, nor rebel against us by building this altar. And then he makes this generous invitation. He's like, guys, if you don't like your land, if it's not good enough for you and you think you have to worship some other god, just just leave it all behind and come live with us. We will share our land with you. That's a really generous you're you're inviting hundreds of thousands of people to crowd you in your. I mean, these guys have just set up their gardens and their land, and they were like, Man, this is this is really sweet. We got a good dig gig here. And and they're like, you know what? We're willing to sacrifice for you guys because we love you, and we would rather sacrifice for you than see you sin.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

So they were willing to sacrifice to see their brothers free from sin.

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God's people should do more than tell our brothers in Christ stop sinning. Ever seen those guys out there, sin sniffers, they hold the sign saying we're better than you, you suck.

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Basically, we should be willing to pay the price to help our brethren walk rightly before love. And you call that love. Love one another.

The Altar Explained As A Witness

How To Handle Conflict In Love

SPEAKER_00 33:05

And then he gives them a second uh example just for good measure. He says this Did not Achan, the son of Zerah, commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel, and that man did not perish alone in his iniquity. So it's loving to warn people about the terrible consequences of sin. That's what we're seeing here. He refers back to what we studied in chapter five with Achan, you know, and he got stoned to death. Um, it's not being judgy to warn people that there's major consequences, and we all could face consequences because of your sin. It's not being judgy, it's not being judgmental, it's love. Because when one of us falls into sin as Christians, we all suffer because we're all connected, we're all one living being, one living body. We are the body of Christ. And it changes our attitude when we when we're like, man, those Christians over there, they're so, they're so just they're messing up all the time. I don't want to, I don't want to spend any time at all with them. Instead, we can be like, let me reach out, let me help them, let me be willing to pay the price to help them be free from sin. Alright, verse 22. Then the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh answered and to the heads of the divisions of Israel, the Lord God of gods, the Lord God of gods, and that's really interesting in Hebrew. It's a repeated phrase twice. Um, he said, He knows, and let Israel know. If it is rebellion or if it is treachery against the Lord, do not save us this day. If we have built ourselves an altar to turn from following the Lord, or if to offer on it burnt offerings or grain offerings, or to offer peace offerings on it, then let the Lord Himself require an account. So what do they say? They say, first, God knows our heart. If we did this thing, we should be punished. I'd punish myself. Uh so they're saying, We agree with you. We agree with you. So what happens? Verse 24. But in fact, if we have done it for fear, for a reason, saying, In time to come, your descendants may speak to your to our descendants, saying, What have we to do with the Lord God of Israel? For the Lord has made the Jordan a border between you and us, you children of Reuben and the children of Gad, you have no part in the Lord. So your descendants would make our descendants cease fearing the Lord. Therefore we said, Let us now prepare to build ourselves an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, but that it would be a witness between you and us for our generations after us, that we may perform the service of the Lord before him with our burnt offerings and with our sacrifices and with our peace offerings, that your descendants may not say to our descendants in time to come, You have no part in the Lord. Therefore, we said it will be when they say this to our dis to us or to our generations in time to come, that we may say, Here is the replica of the altar of the Lord which our fathers made, though not for burnt offerings nor for sacrifices, but it is a witness between you and us, far be it from us, that we should rebel against the Lord and turn from following the Lord to this day, to build an altar for burnt offerings, for grain offerings, sacrifices beside the altar of the Lord, which is before his tabernacle. So they explain the meaning of the altar, and everybody's happy. Look in verse 30. Now, when Phinehas, the the the priest and the rulers of the congregation, and the heads of individuals were with him, heard the words of the children of Reuben and Gad and Manasseh, they spoke to them. It pleased them. It pleased them. Okay, so what can we learn from this? I'm studying this and I'm like, wow, this is an interesting thing to teach. Well, in our promised land of life, living in the promised land, you are sometimes gonna have conflict with people. Did you know that? Things are not perfect, right? Even your spouse. You may have conflict with your spouse every once in a while. Not all of you, some of you are perfect, but you will you will probably have some conflict. And this teaches us how we should respond with some principles. First, respond with concern for God's holiness, not necessarily this is how you've hurt me and this is how you've made me feel. Those can be valid, but our my first and primary concern is are we serving God with our behavior here? Are we honoring God with our behavior? Second, respond with conflict, with courage to confront in love. Yeah, I'm gonna reach out and have a conversation. But aren't you worried they're not gonna like you anymore? I am, but I'm gonna have some courage and I'm gonna believe that God's love, that they deserve love, that they deserve a conversation. I'm not gonna just assume what's going on in their life or in their heart. Number three, determine that you're willing to sacrifice to help them. Determine that you're willing to sacrifice to help them. Hey, do I need to pick you up to go to Bible study? Hey, what's going on? Do you do you just need some encouragement? Do you need someone just to listen to you um vent about all the stress that you're under? I could be that for you. I could serve, I could sacrifice for you and be someone that loves you.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Determine that you will see the situation from their perspective.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

Not just uh stubbornly and say, this is what I see in you, but hey, this is what I see, tell me about your perspective, tell me what you're going through. And then lastly, determine, and this is most important, believe the best for the other person. Believe the best for the other person. Sometimes you have to believe the gospel for people when they're struggling to believe that even for themselves. Sometimes we're struggling with our identity, sometimes we think we're a mess, sometimes we think we're unworthy, and we need someone to believe the gospel for us. There was a day I was in a dark place in my own life, and I would, I was, I was feeling so ashamed about my behavior. And I had a friend, and and I called him, and he was a good friend, and and I just was kind of pouring out my heart to him, and he lifted me up and he said one thing to me. He said, Sean, you just believed a lie for a few moments.

SPEAKER_01 40:17

That's not who you are. And that those words, they just I didn't believe them until that moment.

Worship And Closing Prayer

SPEAKER_00 40:28

But when he believed them for me, it gave me courage and it changed my perspective and it ministered to me and it served me. And God gave me the grace to to believe what he said about me rather than what I was feeling and what I was seeing as the consequences in my own life. So sometimes we gotta believe the best for each other. In marriage, this is super important. Believe the best in your spouse. They are not perfect and they're selfish goobers, absolutely. But God is working, and I believe I try to believe the best for people. Okay, relationships matter, and as we go into our promised land, as we're living in our promised land, we have two relationships. The Lord, our relationship with the Lord, read the word, respond in love, and then you can obey. And then we have other people, and that can be really messy, it can be uh it can be difficult, but that's the opportunity, that's the place where we can respond with love for other people. Amen. And that's Joshua chapter 22 for you guys. So let's stand up and let's worship the Lord with a song, a true song from our heart with thanksgiving, worshiping God and pouring out love to him.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Father, we praise you with all that is within us.

SPEAKER_00 42:00

We give you glory and honor. Jesus, you have washed us clean when we were dirty. You have uh forgiven us, you have uh brought us near and made us one with you and your son. God, we worship you, we pour out love to you now in Jesus' name.