“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5)
Today we hear about Joshua’s trust in the Lord.
Trust— Joshua 9
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” Proverbs 3:5
This is the next instalment of our Joshua series. The question I want to explore is: do we trust God to speak into the things in our life that seem obvious?
The theme running through this passage is really about trust, and about whether we trust God rather than relying on our own understanding.
So, to run through what happens in Joshua 9.
The land has been given to Joshua and the Israelites. They have to conquer the land. Paul has previously did a great sermon on the violence of this book of the bible, and they are going into the land and taking it.
But then they are tricked.
The Gibeonites know what is coming. They know that the Israelites are going to conquer the land, so they come up with a plan.
The kings conspire and send their agents to Joshua. They have heard how great their God is, and they are scared.
So they take wine and bread and make everything look old and worn, as if it has taken them a long time to get there. They want to make it look as though they have come from somewhere far beyond where the Israelites are going to conquer. They plead with the Israelites to make a treaty of peace with them, using the rotten food and tattered clothes as evidence that they do not live in the land. The Israelites lean on their own understanding of what it ‘looks’ like is happening, and they make the treaty, an oath of peace. ‘”The Israelites sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.”
Then, in verse 16 onwards, they hear that actually these people are their neighbours.
The whole assembly of the Israelites grumble against the leaders as Joshua makes it clear they have to have integrity and honour this treaty sworn to the people of Gideon.
The Gibeonites’ lie saves them, but it also enslaves them.
But notice the service they are given.
They are given a place right close with God, with purpose, protected.
The Israelites hadn’t asked them to do anything they weren’t already doing themselves, or weren’t prepared to do for the foreseeable future, right? They get them to do a job that needs to be done.
God remembers the covenant
There is another striking part of this story. We rarely get to see what ‘might’ have happened within the Bible, but 300-350 years later we see what happens to King Saul when he breaks this treaty of Peace.
When asking why there is a famine,“The Lord said, “It is on account of Saul and his blood-stained house; it is because he put the Gibeonites to death.”
God remembers the treaty even when the descendants haven’t.
And so we come back to the question of trust.
Prisoners or Servants
Years ago Tom and I visited Oxford Castle and Prison that was quite notorious in Victorian times. They told us how some prisoners would pump water up to the top of the prison and others had to carry it down right back to the start. There was no purpose or benefit to what they were doing and they were repeatedly told how what they were doing was meaningless. This was done to break their spirit. But these jobs given to the Gibeonites are not to break their spirit.
These are jobs at the heart of their worship.
Quite a trusting job in itself, really.
Bread Wine and Clothes
In Joshua 9, we see mouldy bread, rotten wineskins and worn out clothes saving the Gibeonites in an imperfect and deceitful way. However, Jesus offers bread and wine overflowing that will never run dry, that will give eternal life.
His clothes aren’t ripped and worn, but are of such pure quality that the soldiers cast lots when he is crucified.
And we celebrate this during communion; the bread he offers is the bread of life, wine for his blood that he shed for us for the new covenant.
A covenant of family, of sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, not of servants.
We can try to fix things ourselves
We can fix problems by ourselves, and then we might get the solution we want, but God provides us with the best outcome.
Trust God and lean not on your own understanding.
Whether it’s the Israelites or us, God has the best for you.
And that is really the challenge of Joshua 9.
The Israelites saw what seemed obvious. They looked at the evidence in front of them. They made a decision based on their own understanding.
But they didn’t stop and ask God.
And sometimes we can do exactly the same thing.
We can look at a situation and think, I know what to do here.
We can try to fix it ourselves.
We can make the decision that seems sensible, obvious or easiest.
But Proverbs reminds us:
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
And perhaps that is the question for us: do we actually trust God enough to let him speak into the things that seem obvious to us?
Do we trust God, or do we lean on our own understanding?
Because sometimes our own solutions can look like the answer. They can seem obvious. They can even seem like the sensible and compassionate thing to do.
But we don’t see the whole picture.
God does.
And so, rather than relying on our own understanding, we can trust that God has the best for us.
St. Luke's Church Ramsgate 