Let me begin reading in Joshua 22 verse 1. We'll read the whole chapter. At that time, Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh and said to them, You have kept all that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you and have obeyed my voice and all that I have commanded you. You have not forsaken your brothers these many days, down to this day, but have been careful to keep the charge of the Lord your God. And now the Lord your God has given rest to your brothers as he promised them. Therefore, turn and go to your tents in the land where your possession lies, which Moses, the servant of the Lord, gave you on the other side of the Jordan. only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you, to love the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways and to keep his commandments and to cling to him and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul. So Joshua blessed them and sent them away and they went to their tents. Now to the one half of the tribe of Manasseh, Moses had given a possession in Bashan. But to the other half, Joshua had given a possession beside their brothers in the land west of the Jordan. And when Joshua sent them away to their homes and blessed them, he said to them, go back to your tents with much wealth and with very much livestock, with silver, gold, bronze, and iron, and with much clothing. Divide the spoil of your enemies with your brothers. So the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh returned home, parting from the people of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the land of Gilead, their own land, of which they had possessed themselves by command of the Lord through Moses. And when they came to the region of the Jordan, that is in the land of Canaan, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size. And the people of Israel heard it and they said, behold, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh have built the altar at the frontier of the land of Canaan in the region about the Jordan on the side that belongs to the people of Israel. And when the people of Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them. Then the people of Israel sent to the people of Reuben, and the people of Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, in the land of Gilead, Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and with him ten chiefs, one from each of the tribal families of Israel, every one of them the head of a family among the clans of Israel. And they came to the people of Reuben, the people of Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh in the land of Gilead. And they said to them, thus says the whole congregation of the Lord. What is this breach of faith that you have committed against the God of Israel in turning away this day from following the Lord by building yourselves an altar this day in rebellion against the Lord? Have we not had enough of the sin of Peor from which even yet we have not cleansed ourselves and for which there came a plague upon the congregation of the Lord that you too must turn away this day from following the Lord? And if you too rebel against the Lord today, then tomorrow he will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. But now, if the land of your possession is unclean, pass over into the Lord's land where the Lord's tabernacle stands and take for yourselves a possession among us. Only do not rebel against the Lord or make us as rebels by building for yourselves an altar other than the altar of the Lord our God. Did not Achan the son of Zerah break faith in the matter of the devoted things and wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel? And he did not perish alone for his iniquity. Then the people of Reuben, the people of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh said in answer to the heads of the families of Israel, the mighty one, God, the Lord, the mighty one, God, the Lord, he knows. And let Israel itself know. If it was in rebellion or in breach of faith against the Lord, do not spare us today for building an altar to turn away from following the Lord. or if we did so to offer burnt offerings or grain offerings or peace offerings on it, may the Lord himself take vengeance. No. But we did it from fear that in time to come, your children might say to our children, what have you to do with the Lord, the God of Israel? For the Lord has made the Jordan a boundary between us and you, you people of Reuben and people of Gad. You have no portion in the Lord. So your children might make our children cease to worship the Lord. Therefore, we said, let us now build an altar, not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you and between our generations after us, that we do perform the service of the Lord in his presence with our burnt offerings and sacrifices and peace offerings. So your children will not say to our children in time to come, you have no portion in the Lord. And we thought, if this should be said to us or to our descendants in time to come, we should say, behold, the copy of the altar of the Lord, which our fathers made, not for burnt offerings, nor for sacrifice, but to be a witness between us and you. Far be it from us that we should rebel against the Lord and turn away this day from following the Lord by building an altar for burnt offering, grain offering, or sacrifice other than the altar of the Lord our God that stands before his tabernacle. When Phineas, the priest and the chiefs of the congregation, the heads of the families of Israel who were with him, heard the words that the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the people of Manasseh spoke, it was good in their eyes. And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the people of Manasseh, today we know that the Lord is in our midst because you have not committed this breach of faith against the Lord. Now you have delivered the people of Israel from the hand of the Lord. Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest and the chiefs returned from the people of Reuben and the people of Gad in the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan to the people of Israel and brought back word to them. And the report was good in the eyes of the people of Israel. And the people of Israel blessed God and spoke no more of making war against them to destroy the land where the people of Reuben and the people of Gad were settled. For the people of Reuben and the people of Gad called the altar witness, for they said, it is a witness between us that the Lord is God. thus far the reading of God's word, this word that he has given to bless us as his people. So let's now bow our heads and hearts as we come before him today. Our Lord God, we thank you for the book of Joshua and we thank you for this portion of the book of Joshua, a story which is perhaps less familiar to us than what we have read about the crossing of the Jordan or the conquest of Jericho. But Lord, we thank you that you have given us this snapshot of redemptive history. to help us learn more about your character and how you call us to conduct ourselves as your people. We pray that you would press upon our hearts the good news of the gospel today as we learn from this story together. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Well, imagine that you hear word that a fellow Christian, maybe someone that's part of your church or part of your broader denomination, maybe even someone that you yourself have known personally or even known well, has fallen into some great sin. Maybe it's some sin of belief. They're teaching so you've heard a false doctrine or some sin of behavior. Perhaps they've fallen into some vice or abuse. How would you respond to that news? What should you do in terms of relating now to this person, this brother or sister in Christ? That's not just a hypothetical question, of course. This is the kind of question that believers sometimes face, that churches will often face, as they seek to maintain and pursue purity and peace within the body of Christ. And sometimes that desire for purity and that desire for peace can almost feel as if they are in tension. So what does it look like to rightly honor the Lord when we hear or are concerned that perhaps a brother or sister in Christ, a sister church, or someone within our circles is falling away from the way that God himself has established? Those are tricky and complicated questions, aren't they? And yet I believe that God has given us this wonderful story here in Joshua 22 to help us see how we as God's people should respond to those questions, how we should enter into those messy situations, to conduct ourselves in a way that would honor God and indeed a way that would reflect the way that God himself has dealt with us in Jesus Christ. As I mentioned in my prayer, this story is probably not one of the ones that sticks out most in your mind when you think about the book of Joshua. We tend to gravitate towards some of the action scenes at the beginning of the book, and yet I have come to believe that this story is one that we should hold on to tightly as we seek to honor God as his people in this world. And so today, what I would like to do is, first of all, just to kind of walk through this story with you, and then to conclude with some applications for us today. If you look in your bulletin, you'll see that we have sort of three movements or three acts within this story. First, commendation and command. Second, concern and confrontation. And then finally, clarification and application. Now, as I was looking at the bulletin, I realized that I put in the wrong verses for all of those headings somehow. You can tell you the kind of week that I had, I suppose. What we'll be looking at in that first section is verses one through nine. Commendation and Command, and then verses 10 through 20, Concern and Confrontation, and then finally verses 21 through 34, Clarification and Application, just so that you're not lost in your note-taking there. So let's start by looking at these opening verses where we find a commendation and a command. And before we actually even get to that, let's just remind ourselves of where we are in the book of Joshua. As I mentioned, we're coming towards the end of the book. And in fact, with chapter two, we're entering into the fourth and final part of the book of Joshua. If you remember way back when we started this series this last summer, we talked about how the book of Joshua kind of proceeds in four acts, or four sections as it were. The first few chapters are dedicated to the story of Israel crossing into the land, how God prepares them for that and brings them into the land miraculously. And then maybe the most famous section of the book, we have the account of the taking of the land where God actually gives Israel the land of Canaan as their possession. And then what we finished looking at last week was a long section where God is dividing the land. So crossing into the land, taking the land, dividing the land, and now we come to the last three chapters, which are all focused on keeping the land. And each of these chapters, 22, 23, and 24, is a kind of episode through which God is teaching his people of how they should hold on to or maintain or keep the land that he has given to them as their inheritance. And each of these three chapters actually is going to begin with Joshua calling the people together. He's calling the congregation together. These three assemblies through which we see how Israel is to keep the land. And as we'll see hopefully in each of those assemblies, there's much to teach us as God's people today as well. And that's how we see Joshua 22 beginning. At that time, Joshua summons the people and specifically he summons the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half tribe of Manasseh. Now, this story that we're reading in Joshua 22 has its roots in the passage that we read from Joshua chapter one earlier in the service. If you remember that opening scene, God comes to Joshua and makes him the leader after Moses has died and then Joshua is preparing the people to cross into the land. And one of the things that he does is to go to these tribes, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half tribe of Manasseh to solicit their help in the conquest of the land. And that might sound like a strange thing to you. I mean, aren't they part of the people of God? Aren't they part of the people of Israel? Of course, they're going to be part of the conquest of the land. If you look in the back of your Bibles this afternoon or right now, you'll see that Israel, most of it falls on the west side of the Jordan River, but a portion of it falls on the eastern side of the Jordan River. And when Joshua and the people are standing there in Joshua chapter one, getting ready to cross over the Jordan, they already have possession of the land that's on the east side of the river. And there are three tribes, or two and a half tribes we might say, the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half of the tribe of Manasseh, whose inheritance was on the east side of the river. Now imagine then that you are part of one of those tribes. Your land is already there. It's ready for you to build your cities and plant your fields and raise your families. What would you do in that moment? Well, you might very well be tempted to say, well, good luck guys. It's been great traveling with you these last 40 years. We're going to go home now. Let us know how it goes. Send us a postcard. But that's not what the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh do, because under Moses' rule, they had pledged that when they arrived at the borders of Israel, they would not go straight to their inheritance. They said, we will send our wives and our children there, but we, our fighting men, will go with our brothers, and we will fight to conquer the land of Canaan, and we will not go back to our inheritance until our brothers have their inheritance. And that's exactly what has taken place. Joshua begins here by commending these tribes for being faithful to what they had pledged to do, both under Moses and then under Joshua. And Joshua commends them because he says, what you have done in obedience to me and in obedience to Moses, you have actually done in obedience to the Lord. You have been faithful to the promise that you made. There is this vow fulfilled. And so Joshua is now commending these tribes for what they have done, and he is commanding them to continue to be faithful to the Lord, even as they now go back over the Jordan to take their inheritance, to dwell with their families. Now think about this moment. Imagine being one of those fighting men. You sent your wives and your children back into your inheritance, and yet you have not yet been there. And you have been fighting with your brothers in the land of Canaan for seven years at this point. And now you get to go back home. And there's this touching moment where Joshua and all the assembly of Israel come with these tribes, and these tribes are commended, and these tribes are blessed. They are sent, as we read in verses 7 through 9, with much gold and bronze and silver and iron and wealth. All of these possessions, this inheritance that they have won, they are sent to take back home. And Joshua commends them to the Lord and tells them in verse five, only be very careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you. He says, be faithful. You've been faithful. Keep being faithful. And what does that faithfulness look like? Well, Joshua commands them five things there in verse five. What does it look like to be careful to observe the commandment and the law that Moses, the servant of the Lord, commanded you? It looks like loving the Lord your God, walking in all his ways, keeping his commandments, clinging to him and serving him with all your heart and with all your soul. And with those words, Joshua blesses them and sends them away. And they went to their tents. But of course, that's not the end of the chapter. It's not the end of the story. Something goes horribly wrong. Because just a few verses later, what we find is that Israel is actually marching to war against these two and a half tribes. These ones that have just been commended and blessed, that they have walked with and fought with for seven years are now being drawn up in opposition. What goes wrong? What's the problem? What's the concern? Well, verses 10 through 20 tell us. that when these tribes come to the region of the Jordan, they're going back over the Jordan, getting ready to cross into their inheritance. When they get to the Jordan, before they cross over, they do something. What do they do? They build an altar. In fact, verse 10 says, they built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size. They build this huge altar that is a copy of the altar that God had told to be built in the tabernacle. and then they cross over into their inheritance. Now, the people of Israel, those who are on the west side of the Jordan, hear about this. They hear, hey, those tribes, before they went over, built this altar of imposing side. So what do they do? How do they respond? Well, quite strongly, right? They call together the nation for war. And you may be sitting there in the pew wondering, what in the world is going on? Why are they so worked up about this altar? Del Ralph Davis very characteristically puts it quite memorably. He says, what does an altar alter? What difference does it make? What's the big deal? Why are they so worried about this altar that has been built? Well, Davis reminds us of what we read from Deuteronomy chapter 12. God had given very strict instructions really about all of his worship and how he was to be approached. Just read through the book of Leviticus and you'll see God cares greatly not just that he is worshipped, but how he is worshipped. And God gives specific instructions regarding the place of worship and the place of sacrifice. that Israel is not to do what all the other nations did and have places of sacrifice all over the place, where they could become centers of superstition and of false worship, but rather that the one true altar was to be watched over by His appointed priest in the place that He had ordained, and that was to be the one place where sacrifice was made. for the sins of Israel. It was the one place by which God's people could come before him and enter into his presence. And so God said, you're not to just build altars wherever you think is best. You are to build the one altar and the place that I will ordain. And so Dale Ralph Davis says, the restriction of sacrifice to one sanctuary was preventative theology, intended to preserve the purity of worship. To oversimplify, it meant one altar, one faith, one people. But allow such worship wherever folks hankered to experience God, and it would soon take on a Canaanite color, soak up Canaanite belief, sport Canaanite practices, adore Canaanite gods. In short, building another altar would at one blow kill both fidelity to Yahweh and the unity of Israel. So to the Western tribes, Davis says, wind of another altar suggested man chosen worship and sacrifice and reeked of the first step toward apostasy. That's why they respond the way that they do. The Eastern tribes building this altar registers to the rest of Israel as an attempt to set up another way to approach God, to divide the people of God, to be unfaithful to the God who had been so faithful to them, to bring them through the wilderness, to bring them into the land, to give them the land, to divide it amongst them. And now they think our brothers are falling away from the God who has been faithful to us. And so what do they do? Well, first things first, they confront their brothers. We're gonna look in more detail at that in a moment. But in verses 11 through 16, we see that the people of Israel put together a delegation. They send Phineas, the high priest, the son of Eleazar, along with the heads of the different tribes who lived in Canaan on the west side of the Jordan River. And they say, go to the heads of these two and a half tribes, find out what's going on. confront them with this, lay out our concerns and hear what they say. And so we see the account of that conversation in verses 16 through 20. And what they say in essence is this, these leaders of Israel come to the Eastern tribes and they say, brothers, what are you doing? You are giving this offense against God by setting up a different way of worship, by offering sacrifices in a place where He has not ordained us to offer sacrifices. And they say in verse 16, that will be an offense against God. Thus says the whole congregation of the Lord. What is this breach of faith that you have committed, not just against Israel, but against the God of Israel? in turning away this day from following the Lord by building yourselves and alter this day in rebellion against the Lord." That's their first concern, that this action is a sin against God. But then they have a further concern as well, verses 17 through 20. They point out that that offense against God will not just be a matter that might bring judgment on those who have offended God, but that their offense against God, these Eastern tribes, could bring God's judgment on all of God's people, that the impurity and the sin of some can have an impact on the whole. And they point back to two examples of this. One goes back to the book of Numbers, where we find the people of Israel camped at Peor, and we find there that many of the sons of Israel begin to take to themselves Midianites as wives. In fact, what one man is so bold as to bring his Midianite wife before the tabernacle itself, before the worship of God, flouting God's commands and rules about not intermarrying with those who rejected Yahweh as the one true God. And Phineas, that we find in this story, appears in that story as well. Because he is so zealous for the Lord that he takes a spear and goes and drives it through the couple. And he is commended for his zeal to the Lord. Well, now that same man is coming to these eastern tribes and saying, what have you done? Because what happened at Peor, as Israel violated God's law and flouted his commands and polluted his worship, was that that sin brought a plague upon Israel. Tens of thousands of people died. It was a serious offense. And they remind the Eastern tribes, don't you remember what happened? Don't you remember the suffering that we experienced? Why are you bringing that on us again? And they point as well to a second example, a more recent one, one that all of these people would have lived through. After they had come into the land, what happened to Jericho? Although God was faithful to His people and giving over the city, not all of Israel was faithful to God. One man, Achan, did what God had commanded not to do and took from the plunder of Jericho, that first city that they conquered, and tried to hide it for himself. And his sin led to the death of many others and the suffering of all Israel. And so they say in verse 20, did not Achan the son of Zerah break faith in the matter of the devoted things? And wrath fell upon all the congregation of Israel. And he did not perish alone for his iniquity. And so these Western tribes, the 10 tribes of Israel, are very concerned about what they see their brothers doing. They come and they confront them. How do the Eastern tribes respond? What do they say? Well, that's really what the rest of the chapter walks us through, verses 21 through 34. And we find that the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh actually agree with the Western tribes to some extent. Look at verses 21 through 23. When they hear this charge that has been brought, that they are being unfaithful to God and therefore will bring judgment upon Israel and should be punished if they are being unfaithful, these Eastern tribes say, you're exactly right. We should honor God above all. And if we dishonor God, it will bring judgment on all. And if we have done this, we should be condemned. We should be struck down. For building an altar to turn away from the following of the Lord, if we did so, may the Lord himself take vengeance, they say. But, they want to clarify. As they receive this accusation, they say there's been a misunderstanding here. Because this altar that we built is not an altar for sacrifices. We didn't build this to set up another place to worship God, or another way to worship God, or a way to worship another God. No, no, no. We are faithful only to Yahweh, the covenant Lord of Israel. And we will approach him only in the way that he has ordained, through his priest, at his tabernacle, and the altar that he himself has established. What we are doing here in building this altar on the banks of the Jordan River is not to set up a place for us to worship, but a witness that we are those who worship the true and living God. Their clarification is that they have the same concern that their brothers on the other side of the Jordan have. That the one true God would be worshipped in the one way that he has ordained. And their concern is an intergenerational one. Their concern is that now that these tribes have settled in their different places, and now that they are divided by the Jordan River, that there will be a rift and a drift that takes place. Now you might wonder, how is a river gonna do all of that? But remember how hard it is to get around at this point in time. You don't have the highways and the airplanes and all the things that we have. You don't even have a bridge over the Jordan River. That's why it's such an amazing thing when God brings them into the land in the midst of the rainy season earlier on in the book. And the geography of the Jordan River is quite rugged and difficult as well. to the north you have a big lake, to the south you have a big lake, and then there's this river that runs for about 100 miles in between. And even to get down into the river, you have to go down into this steep, rocky valley. It's quite the barrier between one side and the other. And so the tribes that are on the eastern side of the river, they're concerned that in years to come, as the generations unfold, that the children of Israel might look at their brothers across the river as no longer being brothers, and saying to them, you have no part in the people of God, you have no part in the worship of God. And so the concern of the Eastern tribes is that they want their children to worship God in faithfulness for all generations. Which is of course the same concern that the Western tribes had as well. That the one true God would be worshipped by them and their children for all generations. And so what looked like an occasion for war actually turns into an occasion for peace. What looked like disagreement was actually agreement. They're clarified and there's the conclusion that we find when Phineas in verse 30, the priest and the chiefs of the congregation, the heads of the families of Israel who were with him, heard the words of the people of Reuben and the people of Gad and the people of Manasseh spoke, it was good in their eyes. And they worship God. They say, God is in our midst because the concern of all his people, the Eastern tribes and the Western tribes, all of the people, is that God would be rightly worshipped, that God would be rightly glorified. And so we see the purity of Israel is not compromised in the way that was first concerned. And the peace of Israel that we saw in those opening verses has not been broken. Now, maybe we breathe a little sigh of relief. We say, well, this is good. There's not civil war yet in Israel. We know what's going to happen in Israel's history, that there will be division, but we're grateful for the unity in this moment. But you might kind of look at this and say, why did this story make it in? It just seems like a big misunderstanding. They think something bad has happened. Nothing bad has happened. Back to the status quo. Does that really need to be in the book? Does that need to have its whole chapter? I would suggest yes, because I think what we are seeing here, both in the part of the Western tribes and the Eastern tribes, is what we as God's people should be doing and seeking to do in desiring to maintain the purity and the peace of God's church in our own day. What we see here is God's people concerned with the purity of the church, the purity of the worship of God, the purity of right religion and worship, while also pursuing peace in doing so. So let's draw out a few applications as we come to a close from this interesting story. Here's the first application and it comes from verse 12. We must at time be willing to wage war. We must at time be willing to wage war. Verse 12 says, and when the people of Israel heard of it, the whole assembly of the people of Israel gathered at Shiloh to make war against them. Now, what do I mean by saying we must be willing to wage war? Well, first caveat, of course, when we talk about waging war, we're not talking about repeating something like the Crusades. The weapons of our warfare are not the weapons of this world, but it is the word of God. It is the means that he has ordained. When I talk about fighting for these things, we're fighting with the tools and weapons that God has given us. We're striving for the souls of our brothers. We're striving also for the truth. This is the first thing that we need to be reminded of, that truth matters, that the purity of the church is important. Francis Schaeffer points out again that these tribes, which are now being arrayed against each other, had many ties. They had traveled together for decades in the wilderness, they had fought together for years in the land, and yet even with all of that strength, If they see a turning away from the Lord himself, a turning away from the right worship of the Lord, they're willing to go to the mat, even with those brothers. They're willing to fight over these things when they matter most. Now this is not a proof text for us to fight over anything and everything in the church. Again, remember how central the altar was. The altar was a symbol of Jesus Christ. This is the one place and the one way in which we can come to the Father and be saved and be united and be part of His covenant people. This is not them fighting over the color of the carpet or do you have pews or chairs in the new building or things like that. It's not even them fighting over different views of eschatology or something like that. It's fighting over the central things. Is Christ the one way of salvation or not? Can we make up our own way to God or can we come only in the way that God himself has ordained? These are vital issues in the Christian faith. And when we are dealing with those vital issues, there's no room for compromise. There's no room to agree to disagree. We must take that battle to the bitter end because these are things that matter for all eternity. Souls hang in the balance. The glory of God and the good of his people and the purity of the gospel, that's what's at stake. And when that is what is at stake, we must be willing to wage war. But notice as well, we must be willing to make peace. This is not set in opposition to the first statement, the two come together. We have a concern for truth and for purity, and yet when we find ourselves at odds, or so we think with our brothers, our first step should be to do exactly what the Western tribes do here. They are willing and ready to go to the mat if necessary over these central issues. But they want to make sure it's necessary before they do so. And so how do they begin? Well, they don't just blast their brothers, nor do they just ignore them. They go to them and they lay out, here are our concerns. This is what we've heard. This is what we're thinking. This is what we're worried about. And did you notice how costly their confrontation is in verse 19 when they're pleading with the tribes in the eastern shore? They're saying, if this is not a pure place for you to live, come back into the land of Israel. Take up your dwelling among us. We talked about hospitality this morning. This is radical hospitality because they're not just saying, well, yeah, you can find a place. They're inviting about two million people to come back into the land and take up from their own inheritance. It comes from somewhere. And yet the Western tribes are saying God's purity is valuable enough. Our faithfulness to God is important enough. We're willing to give up our own property, our own inheritance to keep you from sin or from leading us into sin. It matters that much. But you get a sense of their heart here, that they're truly pleading with their brothers. And friends, when we find areas of disagreement or areas where we do need to fight with one another, is this how we do it? Or do we come in with a haughty attitude and a judgmental spirit, seeking to crush people in their wrestling or in their questions? That's not what's modeled here. What's modeled here is an incredible earnestness and yet an incredible warmth as well. pleading and wooing them to come back to God and be faithful to him. And so there is this willingness to make peace, this willingness to show love, to recognize that purity and peace, truth and love, holiness and unity, these things should come together. They're willing to reason and they're willing to sacrifice. And what's so encouraging about this story, that isn't always true when you look at the story and history of the church, is that as one party comes to another, each are seeking to outdo one another in showing honor. Each is laboring, as Horatius Bonar, I believe, put it, to have one laboring to give no offense and the other laboring to take no offense. That should be our goal and aim. Anytime we must confront someone, anytime we are confronted by someone, come in with that mindset. Set aside the naturally defensive spirit that springs up in all of our hearts and say, I'm going to take no offense. And I'm going to do everything I can to give no offense. I'm going to overlook that comment that I think was a little too pointed or that statement that wasn't as balanced or nuanced as it should be. Calm yourself. Listen. love, and that's what we see happening here. That as they do that, they find that there's not a falling away from faithfulness into impurity, and that actually both sides as members of God's body, as members of Christ, they share the same values, they share the same concerns, they share the same priorities. Now this is not always the case. Sometimes again, we will go to those who we have heard are falling away from Christ, and we'll find that they are falling away from Christ. We'll find that they are resistant. And again, we must be willing to engage those issues and not compromise in the face of the compromise of others. But this should be our first heart and spirit. This should be what we're praying for all throughout. It's striking when you read the Reformers that on the one hand they can have such strong things to say about the problems in the Roman Catholic Church. And yet you will also find a tremendous willingness to see those differences bridged and those divisions healed. And we, as followers of Christ, we as children of the Reformation, we don't get to pick one of those two postures and say either I'll be valiant for truth or I'll be eager for peace. No, if we are to be Christ-like, we must have both. Francis Schaeffer says, whenever church leaders ask us to choose between the holiness of God and the love of God, we must refuse. For when the love of God becomes compromised, it's not the love of God. And when the holiness of God becomes hardness and a lack of beauty, it's not the holiness of God. This is the calling to us who live in the New Testament era as well, to practice the holiness and love of God with no compromise to either. If anything, Schaeffer says, it's an even greater responsibility for us than for those who practiced it so beautifully in Joshua's time. For if we live on this side of the cross, the open tomb, the ascension, and the Pentecost. And that's what I want to close with. The reminder that what we see being played out here is exactly what we have received from Christ. We see here what impurity demands, it demands judgment, wrath, war. God would be justified in going to war with each and every one of us over the sins that we hold on to and nurture and love and embrace. And yet Christ has come to be our purity, to purify and sanctify us from those sins, to take we who were enemies of God and turn us into the friends and children of God. He is our purity, which is why we now have peace with God. He is our purity and he is our peace, which is why we now have unity as God's people. What the tribes on both sides of the Jordan are experiencing here, this joining together in purity and peace and in unity, we have in far greater measure through the person and work of Jesus Christ. So as we seek to promote and preserve the peace and the purity of the unity of the church, remember that this is how it is done. like founding ourselves upon God's word, by imitating the Christ who has been our purity and made peace with us, pursuing that true unity, which is founded upon both truth and love. Amen. Let's pray together. Our Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you for This example of a godly zeal for what is right and a godly heart towards resolution. We pray that we as your covenant people would be marked and known by the same spirit today. That we would be those who are zealous for truth and strong in love. That we would never pit the peace and the purity of the church against one another, but that even as Christ brings those things together in himself, that we ourselves as imitators of Christ would model that to those around us, within our church, within our denomination, within our relationships. We thank you for the freedom and forgiveness that we have now in Christ and pray that we would live out of that. In Jesus' name, amen.