Pick Your Battle

Prayer

Is It Worth Fighting For?

I have a neighbor who’s wife was out walking their dog, and another neighbor’s dog was out, off leash, and attacked them, biting her. What complicated the situation was that the dog who attacked her didn’t have its rabies vaccine. Which meant she had to get rabies shots on the off chance the dog did have rabies - which they had to pay for. So then they’re faced with the question of whether or not it’s worth the effort, the hassle, to take them to court, fight for justice. I think most of us would say, of course - if that other family doesn’t offer to pay, they should, it’s only right and fair.

And yet, in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he has to confront an ugly situation going on among those in the church, these fellow believers. As far as we can tell, they have been taking each other to court - suing one another! Paul is stunned that this would be happening among brothers and sisters in Christ - and that instead of resolving it amongst themselves, they are resorting to fighting it out in court.

So Paul writes this to them, 1 Corinthians 6:7 - The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated?

The fact that you’re suing one another means that you’ve already lost the fight! Instead, the way to win here is - rather than fighting with your brothers and sisters in Christ, be willing to be wronged by them, cheated. Which, let’s be honest, is a hard pill to swallow.

Another example that raises the question - “is it worth the fight?” is being played out with Israel right now. There are many who are calling for Israel to work towards a ceasefire, to stop their attacks on Gaza. But Israel is making the decision to fight for peace by destroying Hamas, eradicating the terrorist threat against them - it will cost them to do so. They are determined that the good of peace for their nation, this is very much a battle they are ready to take on.

The question I want to raise for us today is when exactly should we take up a fight? What things are worth fighting for (and what are not?) Because engaging in a fight takes time, effort, sacrifice - we should, as they say, pick your battles. But what battles should we pick?

This is the exact question confronting the Israelites in the book of Numbers. Remember, we’ve been making our way with them on this journey through the wilderness towards the Promised Land. We started in the desert of Sinai, where they had been encamped for a year.

We began by looking at the preparations they had to make for their journey. God commanded them to do a military census and he gave them the instructions for their formations, both for their camps and when they marched. All of that is going to come into play today - military census, count the troops because you’re about to get into a fight! And the formations, both where they camped and the order they traveled in - it was always with God at their center, in their midst, represented by the ark of the covenant in the tabernacle.

Last week we saw the travels beginning, Israelites making their way through the wilderness from Mt. Sinai towards the Desert of Paran, and all the complaining that emerged out of that - they complained about their general hardships, about the food (or, rather, the lack of variety, especially meat - this manna, always this manna!), and finally, Aaron and Miriam showing their jealousy of Moses.

Today we’re at the second major location in Book of Numbers, the first being Sinai, and this one being Paran, which has brought them much closer to the southern end of the land of Canaan, also known as the Negev. This seems like a good time to have a visual aid here, to show you a map so you can get an idea of where the Israelites have been traveling from their time in Egypt up towards the land of Canaan.

Will the Israelites Fight? Numbers 13 & 14

So this part of the journey begins with God’s instructions to send out spies, one from each tribe to explore the land. This is Numbers 13:1-3, 17-21: The Lord said to Moses, 2 “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” 3 So at the Lord’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran...When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. 18 See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. 19 What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? 20 How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees in it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.” (It was the season for the first ripe grapes.) 21 So they went up and explored the land from the Desert of Zin as far as Rehob, toward Lebo Hamath.

So, according to God’s instructions, Moses sends them out, up through the Negev, the southern desert region of what later becomes Judea. They are to check out the land, to see if it’s rich and fertile, like God promised, a land of milk and honey. And they are to check out the people and the towns - are they numerous, strong or weak? Are the towns open or are they walled, fortified?

I want you to think for a moment about what this would have been like for them - I mean, this was it. The promise of this land had been passed down from Abraham to Isaac to Jacob to all his sons and to their sons to the next generation and the next and on and on, over hundreds of years. And now they were on the cusp of receiving this great gift that had been promised to them so long ago. What would the spies say about it? Would it be as amazing as they’ve been dreaming about (you can bet that out in that desert for two years plus, they’d been thinking about it, talking about what kind of houses they’d build, what plants they’d grow).

So the spies return after 40 days (!) of checking out the land, Numbers 13:26-29...They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. 28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”

There it is! The land is just as promised - flowing with milk and honey! To prove it, they brought back fruit - grapes and pomegranates and figs. God wasn’t kidding.

And then it comes…But…But the people who live there are powerful and the cites are fortified and very large. This is well protected land. There are a lot of Canaanites there and they look like they could put up a fight. Then, to top it off, we even saw the descendants of Anak there. Now, that may not mean much to you and I, but to the Israelites, that would have got them shivering in their sandals - the Anak were said to be descended from the Nephilim (Genesis 6), these were giants in the land, big folks (think Goliath).

So, there it is. This land, this amazing land that God has been promising them for generations is right there before them, and it’s everything they dreamed it would be - fruitful, abundant. They’re going to be able to create a good and bountiful life there…except actually getting the land is going to be a much tougher deal than they anticipated. This is going to require a fight - a fight they can’t imagine winning - these people are powerful! They’re giants! They’ve got cities with walls built up around them. Who are we? Escaped slaves. We don’t have siege equipment, this is not a trained army, we don’t have experienced soldiers - the army is made up of any male twenty or older! (that would be all the guys here).

So, the question comes before them - is it worth the fight? Is it worth to make their way into the land of Canaan and pick a fight, engage the battle, take the risk in order to claim what God had promised?

Two of the spies, they’re all in, Joshua and Caleb. Numbers 13:30: Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” Caleb is all in. Caleb isn’t saying this because he’s so impressed with the Israelite army, but because he trusts God. He is relying on God’s faithfulness to keep his promises, even if the face of a seemingly unwinnable situation.

But the rest of the spies immediately negate him - nope, it ain’t gonna happen, Numbers 13:31-33 - But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”

Did you notice what they did? They were so scared of the people in that land (to be fair, they had good reason to be so), that they start lying about the land - they start spreading a bad report about it (really wasn’t that good, trees looked scraggly, dirt was hard, we can find better).

Sadly, these ten spies win the crowd - the Israelites spend the might moaning and weeping and grumbling (big surprise there). Once again, the same routine - “If only we had died in Egypt!”. Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? And then, finally this: Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt? And they said to each other, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.” Egypt. Always longing to go back to Egypt, land of their enslavement.

In other words, this fight isn’t worth it. This isn’t a battle we want to pick. We’d rather have enslavement with greater security than take the risk of fighting (by the way, that pull, that desire hasn’t changed one bit for us today). The only battle they want to engage in is who next leader will be.

Rest of Numbers 14 - Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Caleb plead with the Israelites not to do this, not to rebel against the Lord, but to take up the fight because the protection of the Canaanites is gone, “but the Lord is with us.” But the Israelites start planning to stone them (that’ll shut them up!).

Then God shows up in his glory - and he is angry. And as we’ve seen over and over, he plans to destroy them and make a new nation out of Moses. Moses pleads on their behalf, God relents, forgiving his stiff-necked people.

And, as we talked about last week, God gives the people what they want. You don’t want to enter the land I promised, fine, you never will. He declares right then and there that out of all the adult Israelites (those twenty and above), only Caleb will enter the promised land (God doesn’t so say explicitly here, but this also includes Joshua). God says of Caleb - “he has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly.” (How amazing if that were true of us!).

God consigns this “wicked community” to wander for forty years in the wilderness until they all die out. You could have had this land flowing with milk and honey, but you like it here better in the wilderness - here ya go.

Little epilogue to the story - the Israelites realize they goofed big time, mourn their sin. They get up early the next morning - we recognize we sinned, but now we’re ready to fight, now we’re ready to go take the land the Lord promised. Moses - you guys are fools! This is not going to work, God is not with you. You’re going to get beat, badly. But again, they don’t listen - they go, and what happens, they get a beat down.

I’m fascinated by this story because it rings so true of our tendencies - it’s easy for us to shake our heads at the Israelites for their continual rebellion, their continual grumbling, their continual failure to trust in him. But the whole point of the Bible is to remind us that this is us. We are them, and they are us. We do the same things.

Essence of this story is this: God is offering this wonderful gift to his people, this land. But an essential aspect is that they take up the fight in order to get it. God could have wiped out the Canaanites with a plague. Or had another empire come in and destroy them. But he didn’t. God wanted his people to take on the battle of entering into the land of the Canaanites - which was a huge task. They had fortified cities. They were powerful. Did they trust God, his presence, his protection enough that they were willing to take up the fight? Was the promise of the land worth it to them to take on the risk, the cost, the sacrifice of engaging in the battle? (Turns out it wasn’t - they were willing to settle for the wilderness - or go back to Egypt).

I think this is really instructive for us. Because just like here, God is offering us a gift, gift of full, forever life with him, in his Kingdom, under his reign. And just like for the Israelites and the land he wants to give them, it’s absolutely a gift - this life comes courtesy of Jesus and all he did in his dying to sin, rising to new life.

But to move into that life that Jesus has for us requires us to fight. It’s a battle - a spiritual battle (which doesn’t mean it ‘s any less real). Paul puts it this way in Ephesians 6, when he describes the armor of God we’ve been given: Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The reason Paul didn’t want the Corinthians engaging in lawsuits with one another was that it was destroying the community, pitting them against one another. How can we grow into oneness, into unity - how can we love each other if we’re wronging each other and fighting it out in court?!

The fight that Paul wanted them to engage in was to learn how to love each other in spite of all their differences. To genuinely care and be for one another. What kind of person would I need to become to be able to forgive? To offer grace to someone who’s wronged me? To be willing to be wronged for the greater cause?

We talk a lot about Spiritual Disciplines, about engaging in practices to help us grow in the faith. Disciplines are Soul-training exercises, in a real sense they are military exercises - they are training us to battle against our baser natures, whims of the flesh, to take up the fight against the spiritual forces.

There’s a safety, security in our old sinful ways of being, a comfort level there - they are very much an Egypt to us (Egypt is this image of security with enslavement). There’s an adage that the difficulty God had with his people was not so much getting his people out of Egypt, but getting Egypt out of his people. That’s true of us as well. Those old sinful habits are deeply ingrained within us.

The fight is to become people who belong in the God’s Kingdom with him. People who love God above everything else, with all of our heart and mind and soul and strength. To be people who love others - all others, genuinely, fully - that we are for them.

My experience in the Holy Land - listening to one of the speakers, found myself being rather skeptical. One morning, got up early to go to Church of the Holy Sepulchre, God gave me an awareness of my “critical heart”. Profound moment for me, praying, touching the rock under the altar. That’s been a spiritual battle for me. It’s been a hard one - critical heart can make me feel a superiority, it keeps distance, protects my heart. But it’s hard to love with a critical heart, it closes you off from others, from learning, from receiving.

There’s no shortage of “spiritual forces of evil” within us, enemies to fight: Pride within me…anger…how I spend my time (whims of the flesh)…temptation to gossip…acting out of frustration. Fear or worry. Don’t get involved, keep distance. Lust / sexual sin. Discouraged, defeated. Maybe someone has deeply wronged you...

Let me invite you to consider doing this throughout this week, asking God what the battle is he has for you in this moment (he might now, may be a period of rest of you). Something may already be coming to mind for you. What’s that Egypt you’re still carrying around in you that’s inhibiting you from moving more into the fullness of life with Jesus, in his Kingdom? A fruitful life!

Choose to fight the battle! The good fight of faith! Require, at the very least, an intention on our part to engage the fight - declare that to God...

Require an attentiveness to your heart, your attitude, your actions (opportunities to repent)

Dependence on God, his power - the power of the Holy Spirit, working in you.

These are battle well worth fighting.