Mistakes and Mercy

            In Old Testament times, justice and law worked on the principle of “An eye for an eye” (See Exodus 21 for some examples).  It was a little like the “Wild West” where scores were settled personally between families (think, “I am looking for the man who shot my paw”).

    

        What happened, though, if you killed someone accidentally?  What if you were cutting a tree down and it fell on your helper?  Well, the law made provision for that too.  The Israelites set apart six towns and called them “The Cities of Refuge” (see Joshua 20).  If a person killed another without forethought or malice, he could run to one of these cities, plead his case and find safety.  If the man’s family came demanding retribution, the people of the city would protect the man until his case was heard in court.  The “Cities of Refuge” were meant to be places where mercy and understanding reigned and where people were treated “fairly”.

            Those cities are long gone, but the Spirit of them should still reign in one place:  the church.   Ideally, the church should be the safest, most accepting and most gracious place on earth.  It should be this way because it is filled with those who know that they need grace, forgiveness and mercy.  We all make mistakes.  We all need mercy.  We all need forgiveness.  We all need help.  In fact, we make an even bigger mistake when we try to hide our faults and pretend to be perfect all the time.

            A few months ago, our Premier, Brad Wall, release a video of his campaign ad bloopers.  In this minute and a half video, we see the Premier forgetting lines, muffing words and even tripping over a step while talking.  Overwhelmingly, people loved this video because it took away all the slick, fake “politician” stuff and showed him as a real person.  We all goof up; he was just brave enough to show it on “Youtube”.

            The first message of the church should be, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…” (Romans 3:23).  However, we need to remember the second part of that passage, which says, “…and [all] are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus” (verse 24). 

            In God’s Kingdom sin is never acceptable, but sinners are always accepted (because that is the only type of person there is).

            If you are looking for a safe place to seek God, please know that you would welcome here any Sunday morning.

The Importance of Shechem

            After teaching three or four lessons per week for almost 22 years, there are not many things in the Bible that I have not seen.  Imagine my surprise, then, when last week I came across a story that I had never heard before (and I am guessing you have not either). 

            Joshua and the people of God have just crossed into the Promised Land and have successfully conquered the first two towns; Jericho and Ai.  Momentum is on their side.  If I was Joshua, I would continue to attack.  Instead, Joshua marches his people to the centre of the land, to a place called Shechem.

            Shechem sits in a valley between two mountains that are about a mile apart.  When Joshua arrives, he takes half of the people and puts them on one mountain (Mount Gerizim) and he takes the other half and put them on the other mountain (Mount Ebal).  Then, “Joshua read all the words of the law—the blessings and the curses—just as it is written in the Book of the Law” (Joshua 8:34).   He read the “curses” (the “If you do not follow God, here is the punishment that you will face” part) to the people standing on Mount Ebal and he read the “Blessings” (the “Here is how God will care for you if you follow him” portion) to the people on Mount Gerizim.  After each line, he had them agree to the terms by saying “Amen” which means “So be it” (See Deuteronomy 27-29).  After renewing their commitment to God, the people go back to conquering the land.

Now, maybe you are thinking, “Ok… so what?”  Well, this was not the first time that God’s people renewed their commitment at Shechem.  In fact, years earlier, God met Abraham at Shechem and assured him of the blessing he had received (Genesis 12:6-7).  Years later, at the end of his life, when Joshua wants to make sure that the people of God are still committed to their faith, he brings them back to Shechem (Joshua 24:1) and challenges them with these words, “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Verse 15).

My point:  Times of reassessment and recommitment are important.  Once in a while, we all need to remember and restate what we believe, to whom we belong and where our hope is found. 

In our faith, as with riding a bicycle, if we coast too long, we will eventually stop.  

Have you been to Shechem lately?

Just Keep Running

            When 61-year-old potato farmer, Cliff Young, arrived at the starting line wearing overalls and work boots, people wondered if he was lost.  After all, he was standing among a group of elite, young athletes who were about to run the 875 kilometers (544 miles) from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia.  Young was not lost, though.  In fact, he was about to do something incredible.

            Almost as soon as the gun sounded, Young was behind.  He ran with a very slow, loping pace that made observers think that he could not last for more than an hour.  Mile after mile, though, he just kept running.  Near the end of the first day, when the other competitors stopped for the night, Young kept running. The next day, he found himself with the leaders again and, by the end of day two, after running most of the night again, he was in the lead.

In the end, only 6 runners completed the entire distance, with Young ahead of them all.  Incredibly, his time of five days, fifteen hours and four minutes beat the previous best time by almost two full days!

            After the race, Young told reporters that he often rounded up his sheep by chasing them around the field.  In fact, he claimed that he would sometimes run for two or three days straight before he got them all where he wanted them.  He did not have to “train” for the run, because running was “part of his nature”.

            When I read that story, I immediately thought of Hebrews 12 which says, “Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith… so that you will not grow weary and lose heart” (verses 1-3).

Jesus’ death on the cross took care of our sin.  He paid the debt that we simply could not pay (see Titus 3:3-8). 

            Our job is to accept that gift and then “run with perseverance”.  We need to confess our sins and “throw them off”, so that we are not slowed down and hindered.  We need to keep our eyes on Jesus and on our goal of heaven so that we do not “grow weary and lose heart”.

            As Cliff Young showed, you do not have to be the youngest, the best or even the quickest.  Sometimes victory comes to those who get in the race and simply keep running.

            “Run in such a way as to get the prize” (1 Corinthians 9:23).

Stop Pushing!

“Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in. Then the Lord said to Joshua, ‘See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men. March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days. Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams’ horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets. When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in’” (Joshua 6:1-5).

On paper, that does not sound too bad, but I think the reality of it must have been different.  I can see the Israelites walking around the wall the first day saying, “Hmm, we must be scouting the place today.  That is good!  Maybe we will find a weak spot where can attack.”  I can also see the residents of Jericho looking over their walls in fear.  They had heard about what God had done through the Israelites and now there they were marching around their city.  However, there was no attack at the end of day one.  The Israelites simply went back to their camp (verse 11).

Day two starts and ends the same way; march, look, go home.

By days three, four and five I would think that “the march” would be getting old to the Israelites and really funny to the people of Jericho.

On day six I think I would have been ready to pull my sword and charge the wall by myself. 

Have you ever felt like that?  You have been dealing with some problem forever and you finally just get to the point where you can’t take it anymore and, right or wrong, you are going to do something. 

Fortunately, Joshua had a different mind-set.  He waited and learned two big lessons:

            a. In his kingdom, God does the work (See 2 Corinthians 4:5-7)

            b. God’s work comes with God’s timing..

I do not know what problems you are facing, or what your “Jericho” is, but I know this:  On the seventh day the walls fell and God’s people received an answer that they never expected or could have orchestrated on their own.

I wonder what could be in store for us if we would just learn to “wait upon the Lord” (Isaiah 40:31).

Looking back to Go Forward

When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight…In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever”... And they are there to this day (Selected portions of Joshua 4:1-9).

            God knows that we are a forgetful bunch.  A crisis comes and so we pray and ask for help.  The help comes, the crisis passes and then we sort of forget about it.  Then the next crisis comes and we act as if we have never seen God act before.  We worry and fret that he cannot help us through this huge problem, but he does… and then we sort of forget about it again.

            That is why we need some monuments in our lives that jog our memories.  We need some things that we can look back on and say, “God was at work there”.   That was the purpose of the rock monument that God had Joshua build.  They needed a reason to retell the story.  He essentially tells them, “When your children ask about that pile of rocks, tell them the story of how God took care of you”.

            I hope that you have stored up some monuments in your life that remind you that God is good.  They could be certain people (parents, grandparents, friends, ministers), experiences (mission trips, Bible schools, times at camp), places (a specific church building or a neighbourhood) or even passages of scripture that inspire you.  Whatever those things are, it is important to re-visit those monuments and re-tell their stories often.  

            I hope, too, that when 2012 ends, you will have added a few new monuments.  You see, God’s work did not end “back there”.  He is still active, near and watching over his people.  If we keep our eyes open, if we trust and are led by him, this year could be filled with new stories to tell and great things to remember.

            Remembering that “He was there” assures us that “He will be there”.

Peacemakers

            Sometimes a short verse says a lot.  A good example of that is James 3:18 which says, “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness”.  Those ten little words have a lot to say.

            For instance, consider the words “peacemakers” and “sow”.  Both of these words are active.  We are not just to be “peacekeepers” (one who preserves something that already exists), but “peacemakers” (one who creates conditions where peaceful relationships flourish).  Now these words are important because of the difficulty of the action.  It is easier to just think about yourself and what you want, but we are called to do more than that.  We are to be people who invest in others. 

With that in mind, now consider the words “raise” and “harvest”.   Both of these words imply something that is long term and somewhat uncertain.  Raising something takes time and there certainly are no guarantees.  The crop may get hailed on.  You may experience flooding or drought.  The harvest is uncertain until it is in the barn.   The only guarantee is that, if you keep doing it long enough, you will get a result sometime.

This one little verse goes against much of what we live with each day (Hurry, worry, self-centredness, greed, consumerism) and it causes us to think upon completely different lines.  If we listen to it, then we will become “peacemakers” not troublemakers.  We will sow and work rather than just sit and watch. 

The result of this sort of work, according to our verse, is righteousness – both in us and in others.  When we commit to being peacemakers, when relationships become the big thing, when we do what is right and not just what we want, when we are there with people through thick and thin and when we know and live by God’s wisdom, then we will see righteousness springing up in us and around us.

God needs people who can help build bridges between man and man and God and man.  You can be that type of person.  You can make a difference. 

Be a peacemaker who sows in peace and you will raise a harvest of righteousness.