Yes
So the LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give
to their fathers, and they took possession of it and dwelt in it. The LORD gave
them rest all around, according to all that He had sworn to their fathers. And
not a man of all their enemies stood against them; the LORD delivered all their
enemies into their hand. Not a word failed of any good thing which the LORD had
spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass. (Josh. 21:43-45)
Faith is a
choice, and inheritance people make that choice. When forced to stand at the
crossroads of belief and unbelief, they choose belief. They place one
determined step after the other on the pathway of faith; seldom with a skip,
usually with a limp. They make a conscious decision to step toward God, lean
into hope, and to heed the call of heaven. They press into the promises of God.
Joshua's story urges us to do the same. In fact, you could argue that the
central message of the book is this headline: "God keeps his promises.
Trust him."
“All came to pass.”
(Josh. 21:45) These four words in three verses are the theological heart of the
book of Joshua. They rise up like trumpets at the end of the narrative.
"Don't miss this. Attention everyone. God keeps his word!" The writer
pounds the point in triplicate. Three times in three verses he declares: God did what he said he would do.
"The LORD gave . . . all . . . He had sworn to give." (v. 43)
"The LORD gave . . . rest . . . according to all that He had sworn to
their fathers." (v. 44) "Not a word failed of any good thing which
the LORD had spoken . . . All came to pass." (v. 45) One commentator was
so taken by that last statement that he entitled his Joshua study, No Falling Words.
We live in a
world of falling words. Broken promises. Empty vows. Pledges made only to be
retracted. Assurances given, then ignored. They were spoken with great fanfare.
"I'll always love you." "Count on us to recognize good work."
"Till death do us part." But words tend to tumble. They’re autumn
leaves in a November's wind. You've heard your share. But you'll never hear
them from God. In a world of falling words, his remain. In a life of broken
promises, he keeps his. "The Lord's promise is sure. He speaks no careless
word; all he says is purest truth, like silver seven times refined." (Ps.
12:6)
God is a
covenant-keeping God. Want proof? The narrator tells us to look at history.
"The LORD gave to Israel all the land of which He had sworn to give to
their fathers." (Josh. 21:43) Specifically, God gave Abraham a promise:
"Then the LORD appeared to Abram and said, 'To your descendants I will
give this land.'" (Gen. 12:7) That was six hundred years earlier. Who
believed it would happen? When Abraham died, the only land he owned was Sarah's
cemetery plot. His descendants were sharecroppers at best, slaves at worst in
Egypt for four centuries. Moses led them near but never into Canaan. How many
sons and daughters of Abraham looked to the stars and prayed, “God, will you
keep your promise?” The answer from the pages of Joshua is, “Yes.” God promised
to bless Abraham and through Abraham's seed all the nations of the earth.
"I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I
will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you
all the families of the earth shall be blessed." (Gen. 12:2-3)
This was the
promise partially fulfilled in Joshua. And this is the promise completely
fulfilled in Jesus. In him all nations are blessed. In Jesus every person has
hope and the possibility of redemption. No wonder the apostle Paul wrote,
"All the promises of God find their Yes in [Jesus]." (2 Cor. 1:20)
Our God is a promise-keeping God. Others may make a promise and forget it. But
if God makes a promise, he keeps it. "He who promised is faithful."
(Heb. 10:23)
Does this
matter? Does God's integrity make a difference? Does his faithfulness come into
play? When your child is on life support, it does. When you're pacing the ER
floor, it does. When you’re wondering what to do with every parent's worst
nightmare, you have to choose. Faith or fear. God's purpose or random history. A
God who knows and cares, or a God who isn't there. We all choose. Inheritance people
choose to trust God's promises. They choose to believe that God is up to
something good, even though all we see looks bad. They echo the verse of the
hymn, My Hope is Built: “His oath,
His covenant, His blood, support me in the whelming flood.”
Nothing deserves
your attention more than God's covenants. No words written on paper will ever
sustain you like the promises of God. Do you know them? To the bereaved:
"Weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning."
(Ps. 30:5) To the besieged: "The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all." (Ps. 34:19) To the sick:
"The LORD sustains them on their sickbed and restores them from their bed
of illness." (Ps. 41:3) To the lonely: "When you pass through the
waters, I will be with you." (Isa. 43:2) To the dying: "In my
Father's house are many rooms . . . I go to prepare a place for you."
(John 14:2) To the sinner: "My grace is sufficient for you." (2 Cor.
12:9) These promises are for your good. "And because of his glory and
excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises
that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world's corruption
caused by human desires." (2 Peter 1:4)
Press into God's
promises. When fears surface, respond with this thought: But God said. . . When doubts arise, But God said. . . . When guilt overwhelms you, But God said. . . . Declare these words: "You have rescued me,
O God who keeps his promises." (Ps. 31:5) Turn again and again to God's
spoken covenants. Search the Scriptures like a miner digging for gold. Once you
find a nugget, grasp it. Trust it. Take it to the bank. Do what I did with the
promise of a pilot.
On a flight many
years ago, bad weather had come our way. The flight into Los Angeles was
delayed by storms. We landed at the exact time the final flight into San Diego was
scheduled to depart. As we taxied toward the gate, I was checking my watch,
thinking about hotels, grumbling at the bad break. Then over the loud speaker a
promise: "This is the pilot. I know many of you have connections. Relax.
You'll make them. We are holding your planes. We have a place for you." Well, I thought, he wouldn't say that if he didn't mean it. So I decided to trust
his promise. I stopped thinking about hotels. I quit checking my watch. I
relaxed. I waited my turn to get off the plane and set my sights on my next gate.
I marched through the concourse with confidence. Hadn't the pilot given me a
promise? Other people in the airport that evening weren't so fortunate. They,
also victims of inclement weather, were in a panic. Travelers were scrambling,
white faced and worried. Their expressions betrayed their fear. Too bad their
pilot hadn't spoken to them. Or, maybe he had and they just didn’t listen.
Your Pilot has
spoken to you. Will you listen? I mean really
listen? Let his promises settle over you like the warmth of a summer day. When
everyone and everything around you says to panic, choose the path of peace. In
this world of falling words and broken promises, do yourself a favor: take hold
of the promises of God. One of my favorite pictures of God’s working in our
lives, especially during hard times, is the picture of God stitching
needlepoint. Have you ever seen a finished needlepoint? It’s beautiful; some
even frame it and hang it on the wall – like a piece of art. But have you ever
looked at the backside? It’s a mess of multi-colored threads and knots. On this
side of heaven, we stand behind the needlepoint and see only the knotted ends
and frayed edges of what God is doing. If we could only see the other side of
the needlepoint, we could see God doing something beautiful. But we live on the
backside of the needlepoint with painful circumstances and God’s purposes
unclear.
Have you ever struggled
to believe that God was weaving anything beautiful? Maybe it was when God gave
you a glimpse of the “beautiful side” of the needlepoint after a season of
staring at the backside. We spend a lot of time staring at the “ugly side” of
the needlepoint. And if you haven’t, maybe you know someone who is. And the temptation
is to see the knotted underside of the needlepoint in a friend, or spouse, or
family member and give them encouragement by speculating about what beautiful
thing God is doing. We like to suggest possible hopeful outcomes, to write our
own endings to God’s story. But that’s not particularly helpful since we don’t
actually know for sure what God is doing – even if we sometimes think we do.
But it’s also not helpful because it implies that what is needed for us to
trust God in the hard times is an understanding of what he’s doing; where the
particular part of the story fits into the big picture. Biblically, that’s not
what God tells us is needed. Ask Job. Ask Joseph. Ask the author of
Ecclesiastes.
Our seeing the needlepoint
from God’s viewpoint, and understanding the whole story is not the answer. God
says the answer is to know and trust the Weaver, to know and trust that he is
indeed making something beautiful. That he is, in fact, a God who redeems and
restores even the most broken and hopeless situation – even when we don’t
understand why or how. He actually calls us to live almost exclusively looking
at the backside of the needlepoint. Our hope from that side is a trust that
there is a beautiful side being created by a Master Weaver who keeps his
promises.
In other words,
we needn’t tell Jack and Jill how their marital struggles are part of God’s
grander purposes, or tell Sally how her heartbreak will be redeemed, or tell Bob
how his failure will be made glorious. Instead, when those “ugly sides” of the needlepoint
are shared, we can love others well by reminding them of who God is, what he is
like as a God who can be trusted to keep his promises, and how much he understands
their pain and has experienced it himself on the cross. That’s a God we can
trust. That’s a Weaver who gives us hope from the backside of the needlepoint. The
faith that turns to God in the darkest hour, and praises God with the weakest
body. The kind of faith that trusts in God's promises. The kind of faith that proclaims,
"Faith is a choice. Yes, I choose faith."
Grace,
Randy
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