March 5, 2017 A.D., by Pastor Ben Willis

JOSHUA 9:3-15 [NLTse]
When the people of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and Ai, 4 they resorted to deception to save themselves. They sent ambassadors to Joshua, loading their donkeys with weathered saddlebags and old, patched wineskins. 5 They put on worn-out, patched sandals and ragged clothes. And the bread they took with them was dry and moldy. 6 When they arrived at the camp of Israel at Gilgal, they told Joshua and the men of Israel, “We have come from a distant land to ask you to make a peace treaty with us.”

7 The Israelites replied to these Hivites, “How do we know you don’t live nearby? For if you do, we cannot make a treaty with you.” 8 They replied, “We are your servants.” “But who are you?” Joshua demanded. “Where do you come from?” 9 They answered, “Your servants have come from a very distant country. We have heard of the might of the Lord your God and of all He did in Egypt.

10 We have also heard what He did to the two Amorite kings east of the Jordan River—King Sihon of Heshbon and King Og of Bashan (who lived in Ashtaroth). 11 So our elders and all our people instructed us, ‘Take supplies for a long journey. Go meet with the people of Israel and tell them, “We are your servants; please make a treaty with us.”’

12 “This bread was hot from the ovens when we left our homes. But now, as you can see, it is dry and moldy. 13 These wineskins were new when we filled them, but now they are old and split open. And our clothing and sandals are worn out from our very long journey.”

14 So the Israelites examined their food, but they did not consult the Lord. 15 Then Joshua made a peace treaty with them and guaranteed their safety, and the leaders of the community ratified their agreement with a binding oath.

SERMON
With the death of Moses, the LORD had chosen Joshua to lead the Tribes of Israel. They conquered the kingdoms on the eastern shore of the Jordan River, and have now had a series of decisive victories over several city-states within the Promised Land itself. So great is the idolatry, wickedness, and depravity of the peoples living in the land, though, that the LORD has told them to leave no survivors.

So, the kingdom of Gibeon, hearing of Israel’s miraculous victories, and less than a day’s journey away – it will be their turn soon – they decide to try and trick Joshua and the Israelite leaders in the hopes of surviving Israel’s bloody conquest. Even if they and their children must become Israel’s slaves, at least they will live! And, as we’ve read, the trickery works: Their representatives dress up as though they’ve travelled weeks or more, pretending to be from a kingdom outside of Canaan (the Promised Land), and they propose a treaty with Israel, and because Joshua and the elders don’t consult the Lord, they sign the treaty…

It seemed like a good idea. They did their best, after all. But there is a striking Proverb in the Bible, that has become a favorite of mine. It states: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but it leads to death.” (14:12) That is, there are situations and circumstances we face in this life that we think we can handle on our own, apart from the Lord’s guidance. “This one is easy God,” we think. “I can make this decision myself.” But as the Proverb implies, and as Joshua and the Israelite elders’ situation shows clearly, the LORD knows things we don’t, that we can’t – He knows hidden things, He knows the truth behind trickery, He knows the inner thinking’s and motives of people, and He alone knows the future that our actions and responses will lead to. And when we don’t submit ourselves to consulting Him in all things, we can make a lot of mistakes and lead ourselves into a lot of hardships that He’d like to save us from.

The 15th Century priest and Reformer, Martin Luther, once said, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. [And] a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” That is, the absolute freedom we live in as followers of Christ, and the overcoming power we have to face any and every circumstance comes from being willing and forever slaves to and subjects of this Jesus Christ. Our freedom in Him is the result of our slavery to Him. No power in Heaven or on earth has authority over us because we have submitted ourselves to Jesus Christ as Lord.

This idea of submission – of putting ourselves under the authority of another – is not a popular one in human culture. We want to be the head, not the tail; at the top, not the bottom; to win at all costs, not to lose… ever! And, of course, putting ourselves under the control of another means that we are not in control. But I tell you, this obsession to demand that things go the way we want them to go is one of the greatest bondages in human society today.

People will spend weeks, months, even years in a bitter fury because something in the past did not go as they wanted. People get sick, they get ulcers, over it! But if we truly believe in the sovereignty of God, and practice the discipline of submitting to Him and to the circumstances and people around us, we are released to let go of our grudges, to forget about it!

When the world talks about submission – putting ourselves under the authority and control of another – it often talks about it as being “our lot” in life: “Those are just the cards we’ve been dealt. Keep at it. You’ll get your turn to be on top and then you can pay everyone back for what they’ve done to you!” Sound at all familiar? Well, not the Christian.

At the heart of the Bible’s submission-mindset is Jesus’ amazing statement, “If any of you wants to be My follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross, and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). And many respond saying, “Give up my own way? But what about me? What about my hopes? What about my dreams?” But Jesus’ teaching on self-denial – about giving up getting our own way – is the only way to get to our own true hopes, to get to our own true dreams. Our happiness, our self-fulfillment, is not dependent upon getting what we want. As a matter of fact, Jesus says, “If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for My sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it” (Mark 8:35).

And here’s the proof: Did Jesus lose His identity – did He ruin His life when He set His face toward Jerusalem and the cross? Did Peter lose his identity and fall into a meaningless, empty life when he responded to Jesus’ call to “Follow Me!” (John 21:19)? Did Paul lose his identity and take God’s second-best when he committed himself to the One Who had said, “I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of My name” (Acts 9:16)? Of course not. As a matter of fact, the opposite was true. They found their identity, they found true hopes and dreams and meaning for their lives beyond their wildest imaginations in the act of submission to God and self-denial! Our difficulty is due primarily to the fact that we have failed to understand Jesus’ teaching that the way to self-fulfillment is through self-denial.

The most radical social teaching of Jesus was His total reversal of human ideas of greatness. Leadership is found in becoming the servant of all. Power is discovered in submission. “Whoever wants to be first must take last place and be the servant of everyone else.” (Mark 9:35). The call for Christians to live in submission is rooted in the submissive life of Jesus Christ Himself.

Of course, there are limits to submission. When submission leads us into conflict with the Lord, it is no longer submission, it becomes rebellion!

Peter calls Christians to radical submission to government when he writes, “For the Lord’s sake, submit to all human authority—whether the king as head of state, or the officials he has appointed… (1 Peter 2:13-14). Yet when the properly authorized government of his day commanded he and his fellow apostles to stop proclaiming Christ, Peter was the one who answered, saying, “Do you think God wants us to obey you rather than Him? We cannot stop telling about everything we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20). “We must obey God rather than any human authority” (Acts 5:29).

And the apostle Paul, understanding submission, wrote, Everyone must submit to governing authorities. For all authority comes from God, and those in positions of authority have been placed there by God” (Rom. 13:1). And yet, when Paul saw the governing authorities in Philippi perverting justice, he called the leaders to account and insisted they do what was right (Acts 16:37)!

Peter and Paul simply understood that submission reaches the end of its blessing when it leads people against the will of God and against the Lord God Himself.

In his letter To the Ephesians, the apostle Paul explores what submission looks like in three of humanity’s most basic relationships: Husband and wife; parent and child; and, master and slave (or, for us today, employer and employee). As the Holy Spirit conveys to us through Paul, when you serve another person because you want to instead of because you have to, you’ve changed the whole power dynamic in the relationship. We see that so specifically in the Lord Jesus’ commands about turning the other cheek and going the extra mile. You see, the Roman soldier can force you to carry his bags a mile, and he’s in control! But when you then offer to carry his bags a second mile, all the sudden, he’s not the one in charge, now you are. Why the difference? Because at first he was forcing you. But once you submit yourself to willingly serve him, to seek his best and to be for him God’s blessing, now you’re in charge! (Or, at least, Jesus is in charge through you!)

The household power-plays of life between husband and wife, between parents and kids, between masters and servants – employers and employees – these power-plays come to an end when we begin to serve one another – submit to one another – to seek their good instead of just our own.
When you want what’s best for you and your husband or wife wants what’s best for them, you have a power-play. But when you want what’s best for you and you want what’s best for your husband or wife, then you are free to submit to them when the discussion seems to be going their way. You win, too, when you want them to succeed, when you want them to “win”.

When you’re fighting with your kids over what they want versus what you want, it’s a power-play. Even if you end up giving them what they want, it’s still a power-play because you know that a time will come when you can say to them, “Hey, I gave you what you wanted at that time. Now you need to give me what I want.” But when you genuinely want what’s best for your kids, when you are submitting yourself to them, there’s no power-play when you give in because you’re not giving in to what they want you’re giving in to what is best for them. It’s not you versus them anymore. You genuinely want their best; you genuinely want to help and serve them; and in such a situation we stop being parents who are either too strict or who spoil our kids and become parents who submit to the things that are best for those around us.

Submission changes everything. It turns our relationships and the world upside down, and it shines the light of Jesus so brightly. We are never more like Jesus Christ, we are never bearing our cross more boldly, than when we are submitting ourselves to others – giving up our rights to get things our own way – and practicing submission in our relationships…

Sometimes the limits of submission are easy to determine. A wife is asked to punish her child unreasonably. A child is asked to help an adult in an unlawful practice. An employee is asked to violate Scripture and their conscience for the sake of the powers that be. In each case we, as disciples, must refuse.

But other times the limits of submission can be extremely hard to define. What about the marriage partner who feels stifled and kept from personal fulfillment because of their spouse’s professional career? Is this a legitimate form of self-denial or is it rebelling against the Lord’s will? What about the teacher who unjustly grades a student? Does the student submit or speak out? What about the employer who promotes his employees on the basis of favoritism and personal interests? What does the deprived employee do, especially if the raise is needed for the good of his or her family? There is no such thing as a “law of submission” that will cover every situation. We need to trust that the Lord will lead and show us the way.

All this being said, there is an order to our submission here in the world: We must submit to the Lord first, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. We must yield our body, mind, and spirits to His purposes. In the second place is Scripture: We must yield ourselves first to hear the Word, then to receive the Word, and, finally, to obey the Word. In third place is our family: Freely and graciously making allowances for each other, “submitting ourselves to one another out of reverence for Christ” (Ephesians 5:21).

Next we submit to our fellow-Christians, our neighbors, and those we meet across our daily lives: If they are in need, we must help them. After our neighbors is the Church: So often there are jobs to be done and tasks to be accomplished; we must look at each and everyone closely, is God inviting us to submit to Him and one another in any of these ways? We cannot do everything, but we can all do some things.

The sixth area of submission is to the weak and the hated, to the helpless and undefended in the world. The Bible speaks of such folks as “foreigners and widows and orphans” (James 1:27). The Lord calls us to be among them, to listen to them, and to serve them in His name. Lastly, the Lord of Heaven and earth calls us to submit ourselves to the world around us: To live as responsible members of an increasingly irresponsible world.

God first, then Christ (by the Holy Spirit) through the Scriptures, then our family members, then our neighbors and the Church, then widows and orphans and outsiders around us, and, lastly, the world as a whole. The Lord Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these, you were doing it to Me” (Matthew 25:40)!