The year was 1912 and the Olympics were held in Stockholm, Sweden. One of the representatives of the US that year was Jim Thorpe, an American Native who competed in the pentathlon, the decathlon, and in both the high and long jumps. In the pentathlon he won four out of the five events, winning gold. In the high jump, he came in fourth and did his worse showing in the long jump, coming in seventh.
Now if this was all that was to the story, there wouldn’t be much of one, but Thorpe was known for what happened during the decathlon. Before the event took place, someone stole his shoes. The story goes that Thorpe quickly found a mismatched replacement pair, one being from the trash can. Thorpe would go on to win the gold medal for his first and only decathlon wearing a mismatched pair of shoes.
Later in life, Thorpe would go on to play both professional baseball and football, being considered one of the greatest athletes to have ever lived. There’s more to the story, but it’s clear from Thorpe’s life that he was a dedicated and driven athlete that didn’t let anything, not even a mismatch trash pair of shoes stop him from reaching his goal.
And it’s this undeterred attitude that brings us back into our New Year’s series, where we are talking about being sharpened arrows in the quiver of our God; ready to be used whenever he desires to use us. And in our second week of this series, we’re going to be looking at the life of Caleb in Joshua chapter 14, starting in verse 6. And as we open to Joshua 14:6, let’s look back on our first week to bring us up to speed.
In the first week of our Useful Arrow series, we looked at Abraham’s fateful servant Eliezer (el -e-a-zor). We saw how this servant loved and cared for his master more than himself. We saw him desire his master’s will over his own, and was humble in giving credit to God for the journey that he had been on. From this loving servant we walked away with the understanding that as followers of Jesus, in order to be useful arrows in God’s quiver, we need to have God’s will in our lives to be the of the highest importance. When Jesus says in Matthew 6, Father your will be done, our lips and lives should say the same thing.
With this understanding of having the will of God as our focal point, we turn to Joshua chapter 14, starting in verse 6, let’s read together.
6 Then the people of Judah came to Joshua at Gilgal. And Caleb the son of Jephunneh (Jeff-foo-nay) the Kenizzite said to him, “You know what the Lord said to Moses the man of God in Kadesh-barnea concerning you and me. 7 I was forty years old when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me from Kadesh-barnea to spy out the land, and I brought him word again as it was in my heart. 8 But my brothers who went up with me made the heart of the people melt; yet I wholly followed the Lord my God. 9 And Moses swore on that day, saying, ‘Surely the land on which your foot has trodden shall be an inheritance for you and your children forever, because you have wholly followed the Lord my God.’ 10 And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. 11 I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. 12 So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim (Anna -Kim) were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”
13 Then Joshua blessed him, and he gave Hebron to Caleb the son of Jephunneh (Jeff-foo-nay) for an inheritance. 14 Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh (Jeff-foo-nay) the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel.
To give a little background about what’s going on in this moment, the book of Joshua is about Israel crossing into the land that God and intended to give them through Abraham. The first half of the book deals with several of the battles that Joshua fought, while the second half of the book deals with both dividing up the land, and ending with a renewal of the covenant that the people made with God in the book of Deuteronomy.
In the passage we just read, Caleb is requesting from Joshua the land that was promised to him by God himself. But why did God promise this land to Caleb specifically? Well that answer comes from the book of Numbers chapters 13-14.
If we go back to Numbers and look at Caleb’s story there, we would see God’s original intention for the nation of Israel. See, after being brought out of Egypt through Moses’ work, God had intended to bring the Israelites straight into his promised land. So after the Israelites spent time at Mt. Sinai receiving the law of God and entering into a covenant with him, they quickly moved to Kadesh as a jumping off point for their taking of the promise land.
This is where Caleb enters the story. God instructed Moses to send in twelve spies, one from each of the Israelite tribes, Caleb representing the tribe of Judah. These twelve spies went into the promised land for forty days investigating the battlements and capabilities of the locals for war, and to survey the land to see if it really was a place the nation could prosper.
When the men returned, all twelve agreed that the land was a prosperous land, a land flowing with "milk and honey.” They also all agreed that the the people in the land were ready for war; having large fortified cities, with the people being strong. Even saying that the Anak, or really tall and formable warriors, lived in the land.
It’s at this point that we read that Caleb speaks for the first time. He says, “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it (Numbers 13:30b).”
This was responded to by ten of the other spies, who said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are (v.31b).
The testimony of the ten won out over Caleb’s, and the people chose not to enter the land. This led the people of Israel to rebel against Moses. The people were upset that Moses had brought them out of Egypt, to take them to a prosperous land, just to be slaughtered by its inhabitants. When the rebellion began rise, Caleb and Joshua, another of the spies, tore their clothes as a sign of mourning and said this, “The land, which we passed through to spy it out, is an exceedingly good land. 8 If the Lord delights in us, he will bring us into this land and give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not fear the people of the land, for they are bread for us. Their protection is removed from them, and the Lord is with us; do not fear them (14:7b-9).”
How did the people react? It says that they picked up stones to kill them. If it wasn’t for God’s intervention at that point, the people would have overthrown Moses, killing him and anyone who supported him, like Caleb and Joshua.
For their rebellion, God would have struck them dead right then, but Moses interceded for the people and God decided that their punishment would instead be to wander the desert until all of that rebellious generation were dead except for Caleb and Joshua. And it’s in verse 24 of chapter 14, that we get God’s promise to Caleb that Caleb would later reference. “But my servant Caleb, because he has a different spirit and has followed me fully, I will bring him into the land into which he went, and his descendants shall possess it.”
And so, when we come to Joshua chapter 14, verses 6-14, Caleb receives his promised land and it’s alluded to that his land is quickly conquered and enters into peace.
It’s in the life of Caleb that we can see one unwavering principle that would speak to what it means to be a sharpened arrow in the quiver of God, trust. Caleb had an unwavering trust in the promise of God. God had told the Israelites that he was giving them the land. Caleb trusted it. He trusted it even though there were tall strong warriors walking around. Caleb trusted it, even though the cities were huge and fortified. He trusted it even though ten others didn’t see the possibilities of victory that he and Joshua saw. He trusted it, even when the people picked up stones to kill him. And that trust in God’s promise led him to being only one of two from that group to see God’s fulfilled promise. And that trust, at eighty-five years old, brought Caleb to his own promise land, where he lived peacefully for the rest of his days.
I think that if given the situation where someone stole his shoes, I think Caleb would trust that God would provide, and whatever was provided would lead him to victory in the situation.
This type of unwavering trust is what the arrow has in its archer. Because the arrow is inanimate, the arrow has no choice but to fully trust in the ability of the archer. The arrow can’t turn to the archer and say, how many hours have you practiced? Or, have you accounted for the wind and humidity in the air? Have you adjusted your bow to the correct poundage, or am I the right arrow for this job. No, the arrow simply fulfills the archer’s purposes. But as God’s people we tend to question the ability of our Archer to use us properly.
I can’t do that, or worse off, I won’t do that, tends to be what too many arrows in God’s quiver say to God’s will. And just like the Israelites who rebelled against God, we can do the same thing. But if we choose to not trust God in what he says can be accomplished, we won’t see the work of God. And then what tends to happen is that we complain, why can’t I see God at work, why can’t I hear him. The answer is, because when he called us to trust, we didn’t.
Caleb’s life shows us that unwavering trust in the promise of God is what God is calling each of us to. Can we inquire, yes, we saw that in the life of the servant, but when the will of God is our primary concern, our trust in what God says can happen, needs to be unwavering, so that his will maybe carried out in our lives. If not, we might miss out on the promise that God intended to share with us. The rest of Caleb’s generation missed out because they were worried about what could happen, instead of what God said would happen. Will we do the same thing?
So I want to challenge you this week, to look at your life and seek God to reveal the times when he called you to trust but you didn’t, what did you miss out on? Right those down. Then seek God to reveal those times he called you to trust and you did, what did you see? Right those down. The goal is to see God at work in our lives, but if we choose to close ourselves off to that work, then we are dull and unusable and we will miss out on promises of God. Yet, when we have unwavering trust in our Archer, we will see great and glorious things, because that is our God, he’s great and glorious. It might take 45 years, like it did with Caleb, but when God promises something, it comes true.
Let us be a people who seek the will of God, trusting him that all the things he says will happen, because he is true to his word. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment