Oh No!! He (Jesus) Didn’t Say That!!

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.   O no He didn’t say that!!

Joshua 1:10-2:24

As we get back into the story of Joshua and the conquest of the Promised Land God’s people are camped east of the Jordan River.  They are getting ready to cross it and enter the land and conquer it.  All that is, but the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh.  Their land is east of the Jordan.  They are home free!  But Joshua tells them that they also have to go into the land and fight and maybe die.  They have to do this until their brothers have their rest also.  They must go the second mile.  And more.

 

I could have entitled this sermon:  Oh no!  You didn’t’ say that!!  Our hearts tend to respond that way when we hear, really hear, God calling us to live in a way that only the Spirit can produce.  That may have been the first response from some of those from Reuben or Gad.  Consider Jesus words from Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount:

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.   O no He didn’t say that!!

“Jesus’ words strike at the very core of human selfishness, summoning us to value others above ourselves in concrete and consistent ways.”

And so: 

FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS GOING THE EXTRA MILE WITH HIM TO SERVE OTHERS

 

READ: Vs. 12-15

 

These tribes are called to help their neighbors, their brothers, take possession of the land and enter into the rest God has for them.  This even though already they have their own. 

They had reached their portion of the promised land east of the Jordan.  They don’t need to cross the Jordan or fight to have their portion of the land.  They might die.  Why should they die to insure the blessing of others when they were already blessed?  Why should Jesus leave the blessedness of heaven to die and suffer our hell?  Isn’t this the principle in the Bible?  We go about taking up our crosses daily, we lay down our lives for others.

 

Do you remember Pat Tillman?   He was a football player with the St. Louis Cardinals.  He was a special player who made millions of dollars playing the game he loved.  But after 9/11 he joined the military and became a Ranger.  He did from friendly fire.  He did not have to go, there is no draft.  But he left his home, his family, the game he loved and the life it gave him.  He left to serve.  We cannot honor men like this enough, but that fight is for a temporal hope.  We are called to fight in an eternal struggle.

 

This was selfless service.    Jesus didn’t come to unself us, but to unselfish us.  Luke 12:

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”  ¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  ¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’  ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’   ²¹ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

 

Don’t fool yourself by thinking you can make your own good life.  Don’t fool yourself by imaging you know what your good life is!  The motto of the USO: Until they all come home.  Jesus isn’t done calling all his sheep home.  And we join him in that conquest of hearts to submit and serve him.   

 

⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? James 2

 

These tribes could have said this, Go, I wish you well, but they were called to something higher and greater.  Are we called to less?

 

¹ If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴ Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Phil 2

 

Is there is anything good about being in Christ, then do we want that for others?

 

 These tribes went because they believed GOD was with Joshua!   So for us when Jesus speaks things to us like the 2^nd mile we don’t say, “Oh no he didn’t say that!”  Rather, we say, “My Lord and my God”.   THEREFORE: 

 

FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS GIVING OUR ALLEGIANCE TO HIM AS OUR SOVEREIGN 

 

 READ 2:1-6And the story of Rahab…

 

Faith isn’t just saying I believe in God, cf. the Devils believe!  It’s a change of allegiance.  We no longer say:  I will do such and such etc, but what is the Lord’s will.  He is mine yes, but I am His.  His in the deepest sense!  A full and unconditional surrender that only the Spirit can work in us!  I am his like a marriage, in fact the Bible says it exactly like that.  I have a relationship with Gail that I have with no other woman.  Its an exclusive thing.  Its an all the time thing.  I’m not hers Monday through Thursday with long weekends off.  Its 24/7/.

 

Saying the pledge of allegiance is OK for Christians.  We are not forbidden.   Those in the military take an oath of allegiance.    As Christians we have a dual citizenship, but our final and ultimate allegiance is to Jesus as our King, our Lord and God! 

 

Rahab in a real sense had to switch her allegiance from her city, her culture, to God. 

God had to be her greater, her true Lord.   Jesus doesn’t ask for part of us, but our lives!!

There is no part of my life Jesus doesn’t claim.

 

¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Consider the  Image of an altar and something put there to never take back!   It is God’s, you don’t take it back.  It is consumed by fire!

 

Rahab is mentioned by James and writer of Hebrews as a woman of faith.  Link between true faith and obedience.  Obedience when its not convenient or what I had planned! 

 

James 2:25
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? Faith produced works in her life.

 

By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. Hebrews 11

 

Rahab did a couple of things that deomonstrated her faith: 

 

1. She hid the spies to save their lives:  Rahab and the “righteous lie”.   She told her countrymen that the men had left when in fact she was hiding them on her roof.  Remember  Corrie Ten Boom and her family hiding Jews from Nazi’s.  What should they have done?  Sometimes in a fallen world there may be two choices and both are sin.  But one may be the right choice in this fallen world.  It may be the right thing to do.  And so Rahab’s good works are this!   A true faith that produced good works saved her.  She believed that neither she nor her city could stand against God. 

 

2.She was hospitable to the spies…protected them by given them shelter. 

 

NOTE: God has prepared her before hand to believe.  READ JOSHUA 2:8-11!!

God prepares hearts beforehand, don’t waste that!

 

The spies themselves were moved to greater faith by this testimony!  Cf. vs. 23-24!!

Are we prepared to join King Jesus in seeing  people submit to him being captured by his love?  Are we prepared to take God’s word and deeds of love and mercy to hearts whom God has prepared?

HE IS A CONQUERING KING, DON’T MAKE HIM A WIMP.

 

READ 2:14FF  CLOSE:  THE COVENANT AND ITS SIGN  

 

Rahab is in the covenant of Grace:  She in mentioned in another place in the NT:  Jesus geneology!  She was his ancestor in the flesh.  This prostitute, like us, found grace, but not because of lineage, but faith, as we have seen in the New Testament quotations above.  And God’s grace is demonstrated in that he is not ashamed of Rahab.

 

Rahab and the spies made a covenant.  Her life for theirs.  And there was a sign for this covenant.  So Rahab used scarlet cord to let the men down from the wall and escape.  That same scarlet cord was to be hung in her window so that when the Israelites saw it they would spare, Passover, Rahab and her family.

 

Rahab and others had heard about what God did in Egypt:  There was a sign there in the final plague: That sign over the doorpost in Egypt, that sign of the covenant in which the angel of death passed over the Israelites was the blood of the Lamb.  And so Jesus, the Lamb of God has his blood shed that we might find grace with Rahab and others who can sing, the worthless may have it , it always comes free, the vilest may have it twas given to me!