Today we will study Numbers 32, which means we are getting closer to their second attempt at entering the Promised Land.  Last week, Ken helped us see that a lot of stuff was going on during these 40 years of pain and preparation: their numbers dwindled, the entire older generation died in the wilderness, and God is leading them back to enter again. Now, last week’s story was really intense, and I can assure you that with the children in here today, we won’t be dealing with anyone spearing anyone else through certain areas of their body to end big curses, but we will jump into a very important story.  In this story, we find the Israelites facing a different kind of challenge, one that is very relatable for us today.  It is different because they aren't necessarily doing something obviously evil. They're not building an idol, or complaining, or rebelling against Moses or God. They just look at something God has given them and say, “You know what, this is good; we like this spot; we could live here.”  And at first glance, that doesn't sound like a bad thing. But Moses sees something they don't. And challenges them with something that I think we all need to hear.  So, this long and painful wilderness journey is almost over. They've learned hard lessons about loving God most and trusting God fully. And now they're finally getting close to the place God promised them. And the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and half of Manasseh—look around and realize something. They have a lot of livestock. And this land on this side of the Jordan River looks good for their livestock and families.

Numbers 32:1 The Reubenites and Gadites, who had very large herds and flocks, saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock. 2 So they came to Moses and Eleazar the priest and to the leaders of the community, and said, 3 “Ataroth, Dibon, Jazer, Nimrah, Heshbon, Elealeh, Sebam, Nebo and Beon— 4 the land the Lord subdued before the people of Israel—are suitable for livestock, and your servants have livestock. 5 If we have found favor in your eyes,” they said, “let this land be given to your servants as our possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan.” NIV

They approach Moses and ask: "Hey, can we just stay here?  Please don’t make us cross the Jordan River.”  They've found a place they like that gives them everything they need; it's good land, and they can see a bright future here. I’m sure in so many ways, this made sense to settle down right here with all the livestock, families, and stuff. There’s a lesson there for sure, but for now, let’s just keep going and look at how Moses responds…he flips out.  He gets really angry.  Why? Because he has already watched what happens when those in his care refuse to follow God, and here they are doing it again.  You know how I like to point out Scripture repeating itself; well, Moses repeats something we need to see…

Numbers 32:6 Moses said to the Gadites and Reubenites, “Should your fellow Israelites go to war while you sit here? 7 Why do you discourage the Israelites from crossing over into the land the Lord has given them? 8 This is what your fathers did when I sent them from Kadesh Barnea to look over the land. 9 After they went up to the Valley of Eshkol and viewed the land, they discouraged the Israelites from entering the land the Lord had given them. 10 The Lord’s anger was aroused that day and he swore this oath: 11 Because they have not followed me wholeheartedly, not one of those who were twenty years old or more when they came up out of Egypt will see the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—12 not one except Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite and Joshua son of Nun, for they followed the Lord wholeheartedly.’ 13 The Lord’s anger burned against Israel and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until the whole generation of those who had done evil in his sight was gone. 14 “And here you are, a brood of sinners, standing in the place of your fathers and making the Lord even more angry with Israel. 15 If you turn away from following him, he will again leave all this people in the wilderness, and you will be the cause of their destruction.” NIV

Did you catch it?  Three times we see Moses bring up following God, and twice he says following God WHOLEHEARTEDLY.  Moses goes off because he's watched this happen before; he's been right here before, and it isn’t hard for him to remember what happened the last time they stood in this same spot and decided not to follow God wholeheartedly.  When I read this, I picture his tone somewhere between rage and just complete shock: like, seriously, I can’t believe we are doing this again!  Now, to us, this request may seem reasonable, and maybe the land was incredibly good for their life situation, but they aren’t following God’s plan all the way; they are following it most of the way, but not all the way, and remember, that is what God is showing them and teaching all of us: He wants ALL our trust and love.  Remember that quote I brought up a few weeks back?

“The Christian way is different: harder and easier. Christ says, ‘Give me all. I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want you.’” CS Lewis 

I think this is where Numbers 32 becomes incredibly relevant to our lives today, and there are a lot of different lessons to pull from this story, but one I want to focus on.  First, we could look at the importance of living a simple life, rather than a cluttered, busy one.  If you notice, these people have a lot of stuff; none of it is bad to have. They have livestock, families, and all kinds of things to work on, care for, and fill their lives with, and when our lives are filled with so many other things, it is very hard to follow God wholeheartedly.  They see the land they are in, think it is good for them, and want to stay right there; the more you have, the more energy and focus it takes to care for and maintain your stuff, and there is only so much margin in our lives.  The more you fill up your life, the harder it is to give God ALL…and follow Him all the way.  

Romans 13:11 But make sure that you don’t get so absorbed and exhausted in taking care of all your day-by-day obligations that you lose track of the time and doze off, oblivious to God. MSG

Again, the Christian way is easier and harder.  Second, we could look at the importance of paying attention to what God is up to, of thinking and living intentionally, as God intentionally teaches, shapes, and molds us.  So often we face the same tests and trials, over and over…and they seem to surprise us every time.  We just seem to struggle to slow down and recognize a few things: first, that God tests us intentionally to help us grow mature and complete, not lacking anything, and second, we struggle to slow down enough to realize, “Hey, wait a minute, we have been here before!”  Remember, God wants us to grow, and to do that, He puts us through tests, just like the children of Israel, wandering the wilderness. It’s a refining process, and we need to pay attention to these tests because they matter so much that if we don’t pass them, they will come up until we do.  And if we aren’t paying attention, our lives end up looking like we are driving around a traffic circle and never get off the turn; round and round we go, and if we aren’t careful, we spend a lifetime not getting anywhere. I will give you a few examples.  Two people can be married for decades and be so frustrated with the fight they keep having, without ever realizing they have responded to their spouse the same way, saying and doing the same things, over and over again for decades.  That is hard for the person inside the relationship to see, but it’s crystal clear from outside looking in; it’s hard not to ask how you expect a different result if you never do anything different, but to the two in the relationship…well, round and round the traffic circle we go. We see this in our faith lives: frustration over why we aren’t experiencing our best lives, while never engaging God fully, for all the amazing reasons that life gives us not to engage God wholeheartedly, and year after year we wonder why wondering why Christianity isn’t working, after doing the same things the same way with God our whole lives.  And round and round we go…never slowing down enough to think, I’m stuck in a traffic circle. We need to see that God is up to something and will keep giving us the same tests until we pass them…and Moses is losing it here because he sees them in the same test; they failed miserably before, and it looks like they are in danger of doing it again. Those are two important lessons for us to learn, but I want to focus on something else here today, something that looks way less scary than it is.

Let’s think about this: if God looks at the heart, and a spiritual leader values the heart of the people they lead, I think Moses' reaction is so intense because he sees a dangerous threat to the people he is leading, it still is to us today, but it is way worse today than it was then, this thing he is worried about has turned into an epidemic, spreading faster than any virus ever could.  Not only that, but it is the most tragic, and common issue in North American Christianity today…and while nothing can stop God’s Kingdom work, this thing does it’s best to block it and slow it down, and for a spiritual leader trying to lead people to follow God wholeheartedly, this is devastating and when you see it, I think Moses emotional reaction here makes sense.  We could call it “The I Got What I Want So I’m Good Disease.”  Here are some of the symptoms. Comfort, self-focus, lukewarm, passive faith lives, and no interest in sharing God’s love with others as we look out for what matters most to us. Here’s how we contract it.  It can be caused by getting what we want, feeling good and comfortable, settling down, focusing on ourselves, and not thinking of others.  What does it do?  Well, it not only blocks people from experiencing God’s love, but it stunts the spiritual growth of the Christian who contracted it.  A major side effect is that it discourages Spiritual Leaders and can destroy Spiritual Families.  Now you are thinking, okay Sam, that’s a bit much; there is nothing wrong with doing okay in life. Well, let’s talk…

One of the hardest things to watch in a church setting is this disease setting into people’s lives.  It’s confusing and challenging to watch someone come to a Spiritual Family, broken and hurting, just lost, struggling, and in deep need of God’s love, grace, and healing touch, and they find it, and it brings them to this amazing moment of all the pain and weight of life lifting, because they have Jesus now; they have been saved!  This is everything; they celebrate, we celebrate with them as a church, the angels and all of Heaven celebrate…and they are deeply impacted, profoundly grateful, and joy is truly flowing out of their lives as they realize God’s love for them…it’s awesome, it’s the greatest thing you would ever see or be part of, but then after finding Christ and this amazing grace, they can settle down as the pain and pressure they felt before lifts off their heart and minds, and they can breathe easier, and they start to think, whew, I’m good now.  Then as we encourage them to share God with others, serve, even invite others to the same spiritual family they found this gift in, they find it tiring, annoying, or even wonder what the church and leaders are up to, as Scripture, and their church challenges them to keep going and sharing Christ with those around them who are in the same spot they were just in, so they can experience the same amazing grace they are now experiencing.  I’ve never understood that, and frankly, nothing is harder to watch than a Christian contracting this “I Got What I Want So I’m Good Disease.” It happens way too much, and it makes no sense, because if something incredible happens to us, shouldn’t we want everyone to experience that too?  We do it in just about every other area of our lives, and I don’t always get why we don’t with God. 

This summer I got Lyme disease, and it has caused me some problems for the last few months, but during this time I’ve noticed something.  I seem to want to help others who have Lyme and educate people who don’t have it, so they won’t get it.  I had to laugh the other day because I feel like I’m a living version of that commercial about young homeowners becoming like their parents!  I was getting ready for a trail run and realized I’m asking hikers and other runners if they used bug spray with DEET. LOL, I have some if you need it! LOL…great, now I’m out on the trail scaring and bothering people.  But something happened to me; the doctors are helping me through it, and now I want to help others. We see this a lot, don’t we? Cancer survivors advocate cancer awareness and support others, sharing their experience to help others have a better one, and that is awesome.  We see people lose weight and want to share their weight-loss journey and help others experience what they are experiencing.  We will have a good experience with a dentist, or a contractor, or a tow truck company, and jump on Google to review the company and help others have a better experience…we do it all the time, there is just this thing in us: when something happens to us, we want others to experience it too, or know about it, or be aware of it…and lately I just keep thinking we will do this with every type of thing possible…where to eat or not to eat, hotels and vacations, what cars to buy and where to buy them…it’s everywhere…and it’s a good thing to see people sharing and helping each other.  It seems like the good, natural thing for us to do, and we do it with everything in our lives, well, everything but this one thing...for many, it doesn’t feel as natural or easy to share God, or their faith…and I think we should talk about that.

So why does it seem so rare to see people sharing their faith like they would other things in life?  I mean, if eternal salvation is the greatest thing that could ever happen to us, why wouldn’t this be shared the most?  Why would I be so bold to share bug spray with a poor, terrified stranger on the Appalachian Trail so they don’t get Lyme Disease, but not be as bold or urgent to share Christ with them?  We will spend time, money, energy, and give all kinds of passion and effort to helping others in so many ways, but then we struggle and get burned out with sharing the greatest thing that could ever happen to us with others who need God’s love too!  We can be so grateful for our church for all the help it gave us, and the time and space it gave us to experience God, but we struggle to invite others to it, and we really don’t want to hear about serving inside our church to make it better.  We can get almost annoyed to attend it consistently, let alone help create an environment to help other people…people just like us…and I think this is exactly why Moses is losing it here…these people like so many Christians today are looking around and thinking this is good, we have all we need, I don’t need to keep going, let’s settle down here…and to Moses this is sending up massive alarms bells about the hearts involved…

So, basically these tribes are saying. "Look, Moses, we understand that the other tribes have to go over there. But we're good right here." And Moses pushed back hard, saying, "What about all those around you who aren’t in yet?" I believe that's the challenge here. We can become so focused on what God has done for us that we forget what God wants to do through us. We can be so grateful that God saved us, forgave us, and provides for us.  And so grateful for the fact that someone shared God’s love with us, and that we have a Spiritual Family that allows us the time, space, and freedom we need to figure this all out and find healing…we can be so grateful that others set up and consistently do church every Sunday for decades, just for that day we eventually came, but we can still struggle to think that we can help someone else experience that, and for Ken and I, that has always been confusing because if this truly is the greatest thing ever, wouldn’t we have more passion to share it than we would to share our weight loss journey, or where to get our taxes done or which bug spray to use so we don’t get tick bites?  Okay, let’s keep moving here…

So, these people feel that they have found their place. But the rest hadn't. And Moses tells them: "You can't just settle down while everybody else is still looking to find their home, still fighting for what God promised." Do you see why Moses’ radar is up and he is pushing so hard here?  The problem can be that when I’m good, I can lose the desire or urgency to help others; my comfort can become more important than somebody else's salvation, needs, or pain.  This is a huge challenge: when I've gotten what I need from God, when He takes my pain and the pressure away, it’s easy to relax and stop asking, "God, who can I help?" That's the danger of “The I Got What I Want So I’m Good Now Disease” that is spreading through the North American church today.  I want you to think about how Christianity works by thinking about how you personally came to know Jesus.  For that to happen, someone shared Him with you.  Someone cared enough to care for you.  Think about that…now add to it: finding a Spiritual Family. Someone cared enough to share their church with you, and to build, serve, and invest in that church week after week, Sunday after Sunday; they did it on easy days and hard days; they did it on days when they could have been doing other things; and on days when they were a little under the weather, just so you could have that experience, and the time and space you need to find and experience God’s grace, and they do it, because they want others to experience what they are experiencing…and because they do it with that mindset, it’s easy for them to do, and doesn’t even feel like a sacrifice, it’s actually a joy.  And over time, you found Jesus.  The greatest thing that could ever happen has happened to you.  Jesus has taken the weight of the world off your shoulders.  The experience is so amazing that you can’t help but want to share it with others, right?  That’s how God’s Kingdom is designed to work: the church and its leaders equip and motivate us to stay focused on God and help everyone we know experience what we have experienced.  You know, just like the proper bug spray to use for Lyme, what restaurant has the best food, or where to get our taxes done…do you see it? As I wrote this, I kept thinking about Paul in Romans 10…he shares an awesome truth, followed by a massively important question.

Romans 10:13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” NIV

Do you see it?  You have experienced this amazing good news, so now what?  We are all so thankful and happy that God saves us, and we feel such joy and relief as God takes all that pressure and pain from us, but so often, when we find what we are looking for and the pressure lifts, we settle down and enjoy our newfound grace and eternal destination, without giving much thought to the many others still wandering around the wilderness.  This is tough, because comfort and security aren’t bad things, well, until they are. So, Moses confronts these tribes. And we find that they're not going inward; they will not isolate themselves from the rest. They come back and say, "We'll build our cities here, and prepare our families and livestock. But then we'll fight with and for our Spiritual Family…

Numbers 32:16 …“We would like to build pens here for our livestock and cities for our women and children. 17 But we will arm ourselves for battle and go ahead of the Israelites until we have brought them to their place. Meanwhile our women and children will live in fortified cities, for protection from the inhabitants of the land. 18 We will not return to our homes until each of the Israelites has received their inheritance.  NIV

I love this; they didn’t catch the horrific “I Got What I Want, So I’m Good Disease.” They didn’t get comfortable and forget everyone else…they went and fought with them.  And maybe for today we just focus on this area, there are more lessons in this story, this decision to not go all the way with God and cross the Jordan does have long lasting implications, they are the first to be invaded, the first to fall to foreign idols, and their land is constantly in unrest, but let’s just stay right here today and get very personal now with a few questions...let’s slow, down and challenge ourselves to be honest here.

What has God given you?  Maybe God has given you an experience or testimony, or financial resources, or energy.  Maybe your marriage has survived something; maybe you have learned how to walk through grief and pain.  Maybe you have overcome an addiction or have struggled through raising children; maybe you're just a good listener, or you are good at working with your hands. Hey, maybe you've lived long enough to learn some things about life that younger people really need to hear and understand…but think about this.  What has God given you?  Whatever God has given you, it isn’t only for you…Okay, now I really want to lean in here with this next question. 

Who is better because God has blessed you?  I am not asking, "Are you blessed?" or "Are you happy?" or "Do you have enough?"  But who is better because God has blessed you?  Who is closer to Jesus because you are closer to Jesus?  Who has found a church family because you have found a church family?  For so many of us, we are so grateful to find Christ, to experience new life, to have God’s love and grace in our lives, but we can feel or think, okay, I’m good now, and I don’t think it’s all that intentional, we just felt so horrible, now we feel so good that the pressure and pain is gone and it’s easy to just settle down, and enjoy our newfound faith and hope.  It’s like we can think Christianity is supposed to get us to a place where we can finally breathe, relax, and say I’m good now.  My spirituality is good now, my eternal destiny is secure, my marriage is saved, my family is okay now, I can enjoy all that God has done and is giving me…because my life wasn’t good, and it is now.  But God’s incredible blessings in your life aren’t just for you to enjoy, but also to be shared.

I know I’m pressing in hard today, so let me take some pressure off. I’m not telling you to be the savior of the universe; we already have one. His name is Jesus.  So, you don’t have to save the world; that isn’t your job, that’s Jesus’ job.  You can’t fix people; that’s God’s job…you aren’t going to meet every need of every human on this planet, no one is asking you to be the next Billy Graham, but you can invite someone to church; you can love someone and support them as they struggle through life; you can pray for someone who needs it; you can sit and listen to someone who is struggling…Jesus said it this way…

Matthew 10:42 This is a large work I’ve called you into, but don’t be overwhelmed by it. It’s best to start small. Give a cool cup of water to someone who is thirsty, for instance. The smallest act of giving or receiving makes you a true apprentice. You won’t lose out on a thing.” MSG

So, the summer is winding down here, which means their journey is almost over, and for the second time, we see them standing at the Jordan River. Two-and-a-half tribes have found a place they love. They could have said: "We're good, we have what we want and just settled into their new home." But Moses challenges them: "What about the other people around you who still aren’t okay?" And really, God asks the same thing of us. You've found Jesus. What about your neighbor? You've experienced grace. What about the person who still wakes up every day hating themselves? You've found hope. What about the person God has placed in your life right now, who has none? You've been welcomed into a Spiritual Family. What about the person who feels alone? You've been forgiven. What about the person who thinks they've gone too far? You've been loved. What about the person who doesn't know what the love of God feels like? What about them? 

One final question: who is in your heart and mind right now, who needs God’s love, who needs a church home, who needs Jesus?  Who is it…and what are you going to do about it?