Worth Protecting (Joshua 22)

Worth Protecting

Joshua 22:1-34 (August 2, 2026)

It's good to be back opening God's Word with you. I want to thank Tony Neal for preaching last week and Mike Hardy for preaching two weeks ago. They both did a fabulous job. I'm so grateful for those men and the blessing they are to me and the blessing they were to our church.

And thank you for all of our staff and volunteers who keep things moving, because we are the body of Christ.

Thank you for letting me be away for a couple of weeks. But it is good to be home, and it's good to go back to our study in Joshua. We have one more week after today, and we're going finish out this series. So today I wanna take you to Joshua 22.

If you're new to our church, we're in a series through this Old Testament book. You can catch up by looking at the messages on our YouTube or Facebook page, and I hope those would be an inspiration to you. Lord willing, the third week of August I'm going to begin a new series on heaven, answering questions that people often ask about heaven. So pray for me as I prepare those messages.

But, today I want to talk to you about the potential of misunderstandings to create a catastrophe.

It was November 9, 1979, when computers at the North American Aerospace Defense Center (NORAD) suddenly indicated that the United States was under nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Alarms were going off that a massive missile attack was underway. Because of that, all sorts of things began to happen.

The national military command center went on high alert. Crews of intercontinental ballistic missiles were on standby for orders to launch. Our strategic bomber pilots were lighting the engines, ready to take off. The President's national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, was this close to waking up President Jimmy Carter to tell him the United States was under nuclear attack by the Soviet Union. Thankfully, someone said something's off about this warning.

They checked ground radar, saw no incoming missiles. They checked satellite radar, saw no incoming missiles. And before calling the President, they made one more phone call and discovered that it was a computer error. A technician had accidentally loaded a training simulation into the warning system computer. And everyone thought we were under attack, but it was a false alarm, a misunderstanding.

We were this close to nuclear war with the Soviet Union because of a misunderstanding on our part. Now, the reason I tell you that this morning is because misunderstandings can lead to catastrophe. You can certainly see it on a global scale with nuclear war, but you can also see it on a personal scale in your life and in mine.

How many marriages have fallen on hard times because a couple misunderstood each other? How many times have friendships broken up because of a misunderstanding? How many churches have split, their unity and witness in the community destroyed, not because of a doctrinal error, but because of a misunderstanding that blew up the church?

Many years ago, at one of the churches I served, we had monthly business meetings. We had them on Sunday night after the worship service. We didn't have much because they were monthly, so you can take care of things pretty quickly.

But the tradition was to have the worship service, have the altar call, after that, ask everyone to be seated, and go into a business session. Typical for our church at that time, we really didn't have anything on the agenda to vote on. We were going to give a clerk's report, give a financial report, and that was about it. I preached the message that night. I don't even remember what I preached on, but I gave the altar call.

And our altars were flooded with church members on their knees before God. Our church was experiencing the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit. It was revival in our church. That invitation went on for 25 minutes, people crying out to God. It's one of the most impactful times in my pastoral ministry.

When the invitation time was over, I stood before our congregation and I said, I don't know if I want to have a business meeting after that. Let's leave this place on the high of the Holy Spirit and what he's doing. We can do this next Sunday night and have our business meeting. But in light of parliamentary procedure, if someone wants to have the meeting now, we will have it. And then collectively, the church said, let's go home, because it was such an amazing night.

So I said, let's stand. I closed in prayer, and dismissed the church. Unbeknownst to me, a little lady in the back had fallen asleep. And when people began to get up to leave, she woke up and asked, “What's going on?” Someone told her, “Pastor Ricky said we can go home. We're not having the business meeting.”

She went home and started calling all of her friends who were not at church. She said, “Ricky got so mad tonight, he kicked us all out of church. Didn't even have the business meeting like we were supposed to have.” I started receiving phone calls on Monday from disgruntled church members wanting to know what made me so mad that I would just kick people out of their own church.

I thought, what are you people talking about? I finally traced it back to that little sweet lady who had just misunderstood what had transpired. I laugh about it now, but it was sad to see the dissension that so quickly came up in our church. People mad at me that I couldn't believe were mad at me.

Most church splits don't happen over big doctrinal issues. Often they happen over interpersonal relationships, and often they happen over misunderstandings. You heard part of a hallway conversation, you misread an email, you took something out of context that the preacher said in the sermon, or a leader in your ministry made a decision you didn't like, and all of a sudden it becomes this big misunderstanding, and people are hurt and harmed.

That's really where your story intersects with the story of the ancient Hebrew people. In chapter 22, there comes a misunderstanding that threatens the very existence of God's people.

And what's at stake here is greater than even nuclear war, because what's at stake here is the identity and the unity of God's people, so that one day the Messiah, Jesus, could be born. The enemy would love nothing more than to destroy the nascent people of God as they have moved into the promised land. Not just because he hates them, but because he doesn't want the Messiah to be born and the Savior of the world to come. He also wants to do that in our church. He would love nothing more than for this local church, or our sister local churches, to create such disunity that the gospel is put on the back burner and we focus inward on ourselves rather than taking the gospel to a lost and dying world. Eternity is at stake.

So what lessons can we learn from the way the Hebrew people dealt with a misunderstanding that threatened their very existence? And how might that apply to us and our interpersonal relationships at school, at work, in our friendships, here in our congregation? What can we learn? Let's go to Joshua, chapter 22.

What I'm going do is read through a lot of these verses. We'll skip a few for the sake of time, but I want you to follow along with me and learn three lessons that I see in Joshua, chapter 22. I want to begin reading with verse one, and then I'm going pause and give you a little context.

Joshua 22:1 ESV

1 At that time Joshua summoned the Reubenites and the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh,

Now let me just pause there and remind you that these two and a half tribes of the twelve tribes of Israel had been given land by Moses years earlier on the eastern side of the Jordan River. Canaan lay on the western side of the Jordan River. But they had found this fertile land and asked for it, and Moses agreed to give that to them.

The half tribe would have land on the eastern side, and the other half of Manasseh would have land on the western side. But Moses had a caveat. Moses said, “Before I give you two and a half tribes this land on the eastern side of the Jordan River, you've got to promise that you will go to battle with your brothers until the promised land has been conquered. You cannot enjoy your land while your brothers are still struggling for their own land.” And so these two and a half tribes agreed. We will not go home, we will not settle our land, until all the people of God have their land. And so that's the scene. That's the context of what's happening here in Joshua, chapter 22.

Joshua 22:2–4 ESV

2 and said to them, “You have kept all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded you and have obeyed my voice in all that I have commanded you. 3 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. 4 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.

So Joshua says, you've been faithful. You've kept your word for these last seven years of war. Seven years your wives have been waiting on you on the other side of the Jordan River.

Seven years your land has lain undeveloped. Seven years. And now you can go home. You've been obedient to the Lord through Moses and through me.

It's almost like Joshua is saying, well done, thou good and faithful servants, enter into the joys of the Lord. But here comes, I believe, the most important, most significant verse in this chapter. It's verse five. Joshua says, before you leave, I've got one more thing to say to you.

Joshua 22:5 ESV

5 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.”

Notice what Joshua does not say to them. Joshua doesn't say, now, before you pack up your belongings and the blessings I'm going to give you and you go to your land, let me give you some military strategy on how to protect your borders. He doesn't tell them that.

Nor does Joshua say, hey, before you leave, let me give you some good investing advice so that you can invest your resources and see an income. He doesn't tell them that.

He says, before you leave, be diligent, be careful, be serious about keeping the Lord first in your life. You're going to the other side of that river, and you're going be geographically separated from the rest of the people of Israel. You're going to be surrounded by pagans who are still in the land, and you're going to be tempted to drift.

So in one verse, he gives them five commands. Did you hear them?

Love the Lord, walk in his ways, keep his commandments, cling to him, serve him with all your heart and with all your soul.

He is actually fleshing out what Moses had commanded years earlier in Deuteronomy 6:5, where Moses said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.” You will love God supremely.

Joshua is reminding these two and a half tribes that though the conquest of the land is over, the greater battle they're going to face, the greater danger they're going to face, is not from an external enemy. It is from an internal pull to drift from God. That old hymn says, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” Have you ever felt that pull?

Have you ever struggled with that propensity to wander from the Lord, that we can be in his presence and receive his salvation and his blessings and worship him this morning through song, but Monday morning the temptations come? Compromise your morality. Get involved in this sinful activity. Go along with the ways of the world, and you forget about God.

The greatest threat to God's people is rarely external. It is internal. When we drift from God, we neglect our time in God's Word and prayer. We neglect gathering together, as we're commanded to do in Hebrews 10:25, assembling together even more as the day of the Lord approaches. We make that one compromise, thinking no one will ever know.

And before we know it, our hearts have so drifted from God that he is no longer first. We are now worshiping idols. In the New Testament book of Revelation, there were seven churches of Asia Minor to whom Jesus sent a message and a messenger. One of the churches was the church of Ephesus, and Jesus commends them for many things. But then he says in Revelation 2:4, “I have this against you: you have abandoned the love you had at first. Repent and do the first works, or I'll take the lampstand from you.” In other words, the church won't be there anymore if you don't put me first again. Take a tour to Asia Minor. Go to the ancient ruins of Ephesus, and you will not find the church there, because they drifted from their first love. So here's the first lesson from Joshua, chapter 22.

1. God's people protect the purity of worship by remaining wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord.

And we'll leave that on the screen for a little bit, 'cause that's a long sentence, but I couldn't find a better way to say it.

God's people protect the purity of worship by remaining wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. Joshua says to these two and a half tribes, the most important thing you can give your attention to when you go home is your wholehearted devotion to the Lord.

And it's the message he has for us as well today. God first. If you get that right, everything else falls into place. If you get that wrong, you have undermined your whole Christian walk. You're sabotaging your joy, your peace, your victory, if you don't keep God first.

The priority of God first is not merely an Old Testament priority. Even our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, quoted Deuteronomy 6:5 when he was asked what the greatest commandment was. In Matthew 22:37, he said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” Put him first, Jesus says.

So the first lesson we can learn from these people is that God's people protect the purity of worship by remaining wholeheartedly devoted to the Lord. Now let's keep reading and discover the second lesson we need. In Joshua chapter 22, verses 9 through 20, you'll discover this lesson.

So the eastern tribes received their blessings from Joshua. They received their rewards and the spoils from Joshua. And they pack up their things and head toward home. And everything seems to go exactly as planned. If this were a fairy tale, the story would end right here… “and they lived happily ever after.” But the Bible's not a fairy tale. Look at verse 10.

Joshua 22:10 ESV

10 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.

Now let's just pause there for a moment. These tribes, Reuben, Gad, half Manasseh, lived in the land of Gilead. But they stopped before they crossed the river. They're still in Canaan, and they erected a massive altar that could be seen for miles around.

Now, you don't look very impressed. You don't look disturbed or perturbed whatsoever that they did this. But if you had been a Hebrew in this day, you would have recognized, “Wait a minute. We don't have the authority to just build altars to Yahweh anywhere we want. We don't just build altars willy-nilly.” God has said at this moment in redemptive history that the Tabernacle, where he met his people, and therefore where the altar was, where sacrifices were to be made, was in Shiloh, not at the Jordan River in Canaan. But that's what they do. They build this massive altar before crossing over the Jordan River.

Joshua 22:11 ESV

11 And the people of Israel heard it 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.”

Joshua 22:12 ESV

12 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.

Listen to this: to make war against them.

Israel is on the brink of civil war because this altar has been built at the Jordan River. How quickly things change. Chapter 21 ends with the people at rest. Chapter 22 leads us to the people in unrest. Chapter 21, you've got brothers who battled together. Chapter 22, you're this close to brothers battling each other. One misunderstanding has brought them to the brink of civil war.

Now, before we criticize the western tribes for wanting to go to war against the eastern tribes, you have to give them credit. They are pursuing the purity of worship. They recognize that God cannot be disobeyed. God has not said, build altars to sacrifice to him and worship him anywhere and everywhere.

They're passionate and zealous for the holiness of God, and so their heart and their motive are right.

But listen to verses 13 and 14.

Joshua 22:13–14 ESV

13 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, 14 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.

So, in other words, they're sending a delegation before they send an army. Read verse 16.

Joshua 22:16 ESV

16 “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?

And then, for the sake of time, we won't read verses 17 and 18, but in those verses they remind these two and a half tribes of the rebellion at Peor and the sin of Achan.

Now, do you remember that? You say, yes, I was just thinking about Peor this morning in my quiet time with the Lord. In Numbers 25, before the people had gone into the promised land under the leadership of Moses, the Hebrew people were enticed by the Moabites and the Midianites to worship their false pagan god, Baal of Peor. And they bowed down and worshiped Baal of Peor. After all that the one true living God had done for them, they got into sexual immorality and idolatry. By the way, that's often the way it works. People follow their sexuality over God. And because of their rebellion against God and worshiping idols, especially Baal of Peor, a false god, a pagan god, a god to whom the Moabites and the Midianites would sacrifice their children, the Hebrew people were punished by God, and 24,000 of them perished at God's hand until they repented.

And so the western tribes say, don't you remember how God's judgment came upon us because of the sin with Baal of Peor?

And then they mention the sin of Achan. Back when the Hebrew people had crossed into the promised land, they had an amazing victory at Jericho, if you remember. The walls came tumbling down. God gave them victory. Then they went to Ai, the next place to fight, assuming victory. And they were defeated. Thirty-six soldiers killed in battle. And they went home wondering what happened, only to discover that one of their own, named Achan, had disobeyed God's command not to take any spoils out of Ai but to devote them to destruction in God's name. Instead, he pilfered them, took them home, hid them in his tent, and God judged the whole people of Israel because of that one man's hidden sin.

There was sin in the camp then, and they remind the eastern tribes, don't you remember the reproach that fell upon all of us because of the sin of one of us? How can you do this, building this altar here, when God has commanded it to be in Shiloh?

Now, you and I have the benefit of recognizing that this is a misunderstanding, because of the way we've looked at this passage. But they didn't know that, and that's the way it works. You don't know it's a misunderstanding until later.

An email gets misunderstood. A text message sounds harsher than it was intended to be. A decision is made that you didn't like, and you assume the worst. A social media post gets interpreted in the worst possible way. A comment is heard in the church hallway that you only heard part of, and you run with it. And as I said in the first service, thankfully not here, but I've often seen people who have one style of worship preference attack the worship of someone with a different style, as if it's less than worshipful. But you don't know their heart.

Proverbs 18:17 puts it this way. “The one who states his case first seems right, until another comes and examines him.” And then you recognize, I was wrong, I didn't have all the facts before I made my judgment. James, the half brother of Jesus, tells us in James 1:19, “Let everyone be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.”

That brings us to the second lesson this story is teaching us.

2. God's people protect the unity of fellowship by pursuing truth before passing judgment.

The purity of our worship, absolutely vital, and so is the unity of our fellowship. God wants us to hold both of those tensions at the same time. And we protect the unity of our fellowship by first pursuing truth before passing judgment.

'm an Elvis Presley fan. You remember that song Elvis would sing, “Walk a Mile in My Shoes”?

“Walk a mile in my shoes, Walk a mile in my shoes, before you accuse, criticize, and accuse. Walk a mile in my shoes.”

I'll spare you the Elvis impersonation. Some of you were hoping. You were just hoping. But I will not do that. Thank you. Thank you very much.

But sometimes, when you slow down and you put yourself in the other person's position and you get more information and you can sympathize and empathize, you realize your first impression was wrong. It was a misunderstanding. And this is a lesson even our Lord and Savior teaches us. Slow down. In Matthew 18:15 ff, Jesus says, if your brother sins against you, go to him alone and seek reconciliation. If he won't listen to you, take two or three witnesses, to show that your heart is pure, that you want this relationship to be restored, that you want this sin to be overcome. If that doesn't work, take it to the church.

But some people fight over things and never talk to the person they're upset about. Instead of talking to him, they talk to three other people who can't help at all.

I'm grateful that the Hebrew people slowed down. Before they sent an army, they sent a delegation to get more information. They sent Phinehas, and they sent representatives from all the tribes. And then we discover, beginning with verse 22, their response to the accusation. The two and a half tribes respond to this accusation of rebellion against the Lord.

Joshua 22:22–23 ESV

22 “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 23 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.

Now just pause there for a moment. Did you hear how they address God? They repeated it twice. And in Hebrew, when there's repetition, it's for emphasis. They're literally saying, El, Elohim, Yahweh. El, Elohim, Yahweh, knows the truth, and we want you to know the truth.

That same phrase, El Elohim Yahweh, is found in Psalm 50:1. These are the only other times in Scripture God is addressed in that exact way. But here, it's done twice. They're saying, listen, we lay our lives bare before God, that we are innocent of these charges. We've not done what you're accusing us of. And if we have built a rival altar to the one true altar, then may God himself pass judgment on us.

And then they explain why they erected that massive altar by the Jordan.

Joshua 22:24–27 ESV

24 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? 25 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. 26 Therefore we said, ‘Let us now build an altar, not for burnt offering, nor for sacrifice, 27 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.” ’

Now it makes sense.

The altar wasn't built for sacrifice. It was built as a symbol.

The altar wasn't built for disunity. It was built for unity.

The altar wasn't built as a rival place of worship. It was built as a replica, pointing to the real place of worship.

It wasn't built as a competing place to worship. It was built as a copy of the true altar.

It wasn't an act of rebellion. It was a reminder to us, and to our children, and their children, and their children's children in days to come, that just because the Jordan River separates us doesn't mean we're not all a part of the family of God.

It wasn't a place of worship. It was a place of WITNESS.

We're testifying that we are still the people of Israel, and we're concerned about the future generation not knowing, not feeling like they're allowed to be a part of the family of God.

I’m so grateful to be in a church that is for all people and all generations. But we will never apologize for being passionate about the next generation who will come behind us, because we want them to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm also grateful to be in a church that does not divide up over skin color and ethnicity and national origin and who you voted for. Our common faith in Christ is greater than the things that make us different. Jesus is who makes us the family of God.

And everything we do as a church has to say, we want to be pure in our worship, but we also want to be one in our fellowship. And we don't want to sacrifice one for the other.

Go back now to verse 29.

Joshua 22:29–34 ESV

29 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!” 30 When Phinehas 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. 31 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.” 32 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. 33 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. 34 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.”

Don't miss that. War is averted because God's people slowed down. Here's the third lesson. They preserved both worship and fellowship because they valued truth and love equally.

3. God's people preserve both worship and fellowship when they value truth and love equally.

Love did not ignore the truth. “Oh, you did this thing that was wrong, but we love you, no big deal.” That's not it. And truth did not abandon love. Both were held together, and that's what God calls us to do as a church.

Here's a warning. If all we care about is unity, at any cost, we will eventually compromise the truth of God's Word.

And if all we care about is truth, we will sacrifice people on the altar of our own rightness.

Truth without love becomes legalism. I'll condemn you if you don't do it exactly like I do it, or think exactly like I think, dress exactly like I dress, sing exactly like I sing. Truth without love becomes legalism.

But love without truth, (and I'm talking about the Word of God as truth), becomes liberalism, where anything goes.

And sadly, I've seen churches become so legalistic, so narrow-minded, they can't have fellowship with anybody outside their little box.

And sadly, I've seen churches that, in the name of love, pride, or tolerance, have thrown away the Word of God and compromised the clear teachings of Scripture, all in the name of love.

But God doesn't call us to either one of those extremes. He calls us, like in Ephesians 4:3, to be eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

And then in Ephesians 4:15, to speak the truth in love. You can do both. You can protect the unity of our fellowship and the purity of our worship, all while serving Christ.

Truth and love. Holiness and humility. Conviction and compassion.

What was said of Jesus our Savior in John 1:14? The apostle John said, “We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten Son of the Father,” and listen to this, John said Jesus was “full of grace and truth.”

That is why Jesus could look at a woman taken in the very act of adultery and say, “Woman, where are your accusers?” She said, I have none, they've all walked away. Because Jesus said, hey, any of you men without sin, why don't you cast the first stone? And they started dropping their rocks one by one and left. And when it's just her and Jesus, He asked, “Where are your accusers?” She answered, “I have none,” And he said, “Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more.” That's called grace and truth.

And I'm so grateful that when the Holy Spirit of God convicts me about sin in my life, he speaks grace and truth. Ricky, I love you and I've redeemed you, but this ain't right. Now, he doesn't use ain't, because he's God and he's perfect. But you get the point. Grace and truth. ‘

So ultimately, Joshua chapter 22 points us way beyond Joshua to the greater Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus of Nazareth, who in grace and truth has saved us, and through grace and truth will help us maintain the purity of our worship and the unity of our fellowship as a church.

What might this look like in my life and yours in the days to come?

Bottom Line: God's people preserve both worship and fellowship when they value truth and love equally.

Well, maybe it means that in your friendships you slow down, and before you assume the worst, you ask questions. What did you mean by that? Why did you do that? And maybe you'll discover it was a misunderstanding. Their heart was right. Don't destroy a friendship over petty things.

Maybe in your Sunday school class you slow down and say, look, we're different, but we have Christ and we have his Word. We're gonna love him, and we're gonna love each other.

Maybe the deacons in our church, and I'm so grateful for the deacons in our church, will remember that everywhere you go as a deacon, you carry two invisible buckets. One is filled with water. When there's a potential conflict in the church, you pour water on it to put out the flames, to keep it from destroying fellowship and unity, by speaking truth in love. Now, the other bucket you've got is filled with gasoline. You can pour that on it if you'd like: “I don't like him either.” “I don't like that either.” Don't do that. Speak the truth in love.

Maybe in your marriage you'll slow down and just remember, you're different. Contrary to popular opinion in our culture that's lost its mind, men and women are different. Sometimes you just don't see things the same way, but that doesn't mean you should ascribe ill motives to that person. Just walk a mile in their shoes and speak truth in love.

Maybe as we go out and interact with people in our community, we don't compromise what we believe. We're never going to apologize for the Word of God, but we speak truth in love. Even if a person does not agree with us, we still love them and treat them with dignity.

And may it be said of us in this community, “Man, I don't know if I believe what those people believe, but I can't argue with the fact they seem to love God, and each other, and us.”

Remember what Jesus said in John 13:34-35? “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” And then he said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, I thank you for the word of God. I confess there are times I'm studying and it just feels like these events, separated from me by centuries and cultures and language, are distant from my life.

But then, when I slow down and listen to what you're saying in your Word, I realize I am more like those ancient Hebrew people than I want to admit. There are times, in our zeal for the purity of our worship, we can become legalistic and unloving toward people who are different. Or we can want to be so loving that we start compromising our convictions. No, not our convictions, we start compromising your clear, revealed truth in the Bible.

Father, forgive us of both of those extremes. Help us to come back to you in the purity of our worship and the unity of our fellowship as we seek to love you first and foremost. Father, I pray that your Holy Spirit would help each of us apply this message to our lives today, tomorrow, as we go back to school, as we interact with others. Maintain the unity, Lord, of your people. Maintain the purity of your people's worship.

Father, there could be somebody in this room, though, who's never even received Jesus as Savior. I thank you that He demonstrated grace and truth when he says that we're lost without him. That's the truth. We will perish without him. That's the truth.

But he loved us so much he was willing to die for sinners on the cross, to pay the price of their forgiveness. That is grace.

John 3:16 ESV

16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Grace and truth. Thank you, Lord, for telling us the good news of salvation in Jesus.

Maybe there's somebody today, for the first time in their life, a husband, a dad, a mom, a wife, a young person, a single adult, who will say, “Jesus, forgive me of my sin. I trust you today as my Lord and my Savior. Thank you for dying for me on the cross. Thank you for rising from the dead. I receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ my Lord.” And in his name we all pray and say, Amen.

Let's stand together. This is our final song. It's a chance for us to respond to what God's spoken to us today through his word.

Maybe to be saved. Maybe to join our church. To pray at this altar. To get a relationship right with somebody else. To repent of some sin in your life and say, Lord, I've strayed from the truth, I need to come back to you. I don't know what God's calling you to do today, but I'm going to tell you, follow him, obey him, do what he tells you.

You'll never regret that. So I'm going to have a pastor standing here and a pastor standing here. If you need someone to pray with you, come. Otherwise, the front is open for you to kneel and pray.