Sermons

Expository Sermon on Joshua 22
by Maylan Schurch
Bellevue Seventh-day Adventist Church 3/29/2025
©2025 by Maylan Schurch

(To watch this entire worship service, click the link just below:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UptStY7QMSE

Please open your Bibles to Joshua chapter 22.

I don’t know about you, but I am becoming weary about some parts of our national discourse. We are living in a time of bad thinking. We are living in a time where – at least on a political level – rather than discussing things thoughtfully, and working toward solutions, we are shouting and accusing and dismissing, and disrespecting, and demonizing each other.

We are dangerously attacking each other on social media and elsewhere. And very rarely is anyone who does this being held to account. If you have kids, you must earnestly tell them that this is not how grownups are supposed to act.

Now, the issues which we disagree about are often emotional ones, and just as often very important ones – even life-or-death ones.

This is why, when I was reading through this week’s Bible reading plan passages – basically the book of Joshua – I was intrigued to discover a case study where two groups of people discussed a hugely emotional and very dangerous issue, and did it mostly in the right way.

And since all Scripture is profitable for our instruction, I think it’s a good idea for us to watch this drama unfolding. Aside from a couple of hiccups – the same hiccups we sometimes see happening today (hiccups I have sometimes hiccupped) – these people did it right, and things turned out wonderfully.

And I think we need to study what they did, and how they did it, and even though you and I may never be involved in high-level politics, we can use what these people teach us in our everyday lives.
Just to give some background, it’s probably around 1400 BC. Joshua has marched the Israelites triumphantly westward across the Jordan River, and following God’s direction, the people are occupying the land He promised them.

What’s important for us to know in the story is that three of the tribes actually were given lots of land on the east side of Jordan. Their fighting men were allowed to leave their families and livestock on that side, and to march over the Jordan with the rest of the tribes and help subdue the land. Once that was done, they could then go back east over the Jordan and rejoin their families.

Joshua 22 picks up the story at the point where most or all of this promised-land-conquering has been completed, and the men of the three East-of-the-Jordan tribes can now go back home.
Those tribes were the descendents of Reuben, Gad, and half of the tribe of Manasseh. (The other half of the tribe of Manasseh had been given land on Jordan’s west side.)

So now, Joshua bids a grateful farewell to the children of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh. Here’s what he says:

Joshua 22:1 – 6 [NKJV]: Then Joshua called the Reubenites, the Gadites, and half the 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 in all that I commanded you. You have not left your brethren these many days, up to this day, but have kept the charge of the commandment of the LORD your God. And now the LORD your God has given rest to your brethren, as He promised them; now therefore, return and go to your tents and to the land of your possession, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you on the other side of the Jordan. But take careful heed to do the commandment and the law which Moses the servant of the LORD commanded you, to love the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways, to keep His commandments, to hold fast 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.

Let’s skip down to verse nine.

Verse 9: So the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh returned, and departed from the children of Israel at Shiloh, which is in the land of Canaan, to go to the country of Gilead, to the land of their possession, which they had obtained according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.

But soon, things start to fall apart. Again, let me remind you that this story has a happy ending. But things get a bit tense for a while.

Verse 10: And when they came to the region of the Jordan which is in the land of Canaan, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh built an altar there by the Jordan—a great, impressive altar.

Okay. What’s the big deal? These are followers of God, and they offer sacrifices to that God, so here’s another altar. What’s wrong with that?

Well, what’s wrong with it is that God said to have just one altar for sacrifices, and people need to bring the sacrifices to that one, which was where the tent tabernacle had been set up, in Shiloh, on the Jordan’s west side.

In Deuteronomy 12:10 – 12, Moses had said, “But when you cross over the Jordan and dwell in the land which the LORD your God is giving you to inherit, and He gives you rest from all your enemies round about, so that you dwell in safety, then there will be the place where the LORD your God chooses to make His name abide. There you shall bring all that I command you: your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, and all your choice offerings which you vow to the LORD.” And Leviticus 17 has another warning against sacrificing wherever you wanted to.
Everybody knew this – both everybody on the west side of Jordan, and also those two-and-a-half east-of-the-Jordan tribes. But suddenly word comes along that they’d built this gigantic altar.

And here’s where we need to start writing sermon points down. As I mentioned, I believe that Joshua 22 is a study in how to navigate through what could become emotionally explosive disputes. Look at verse 11:

Joshua 22:11: Now the children of Israel heard someone say, “Behold, the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh have built an altar on the frontier of the land of Canaan, in the region of the Jordan—on the children of Israel’s side.”

To me, here is the first sermon point – the first reminder we need about how to deal with emotional disputes. Here goes:

Verify what you hear.

Word got through to the people that this altar had been built, and it seems to me somebody should’ve gone to make sure. But maybe whoever reported this altar was credible enough that verification didn’t seem to be needed.

But over and over again, the Bible insists that an assertion like this, an accusation, needs to be verified by two or three witnesses. You couldn’t just depend on the word of one person, who may be telling a lie. Eve plunged the entire human race into tragedy by believing the serpent’s assertions about God, and about that famous fruit, without trying to verify them with somebody else.

Anyway, the West-of-the-Jordan tribes believe this report. And of course it was true – the East-Siders had definitely built an altar. Now watch what the West-Siders do:
Verse 12: And when the children of Israel heard of it, the whole congregation of the children of Israel gathered together at Shiloh to go to war against them.

So this is indeed very serious. This is a national crisis. This is potential civil war.

But then, the West-Siders do something – a bit late in the game – that they should have done earlier.

Verses 13 – 15: Then the children of Israel sent Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad, and to half the tribe of Manasseh, into the land of Gilead, and with him ten rulers, one ruler each from the chief house of every tribe of Israel; and each one was the head of the house of his father among the divisions of Israel. Then they came to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad, and to half the tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying,

Now, before we get to what they actually said, let’s put down Sermon Point Two. How does Joshua 22 suggest that we deal with emotional disputes?

First, verify what you hear. Second, follow Habit Five.

Habit Five? What’s that?

Has anybody ever heard the name of Stephen Covey? Raise your hands if you have. Stephen Covey was the author of a book called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey had done a lot of research for a degree he was working on, and in that research he studied about 100 years worth of American success literature – books that told you how to be successful in business and in life.

What he discovered was that for the first roughly 50 of those years, the success books talked about developing yourself into a principled person – someone who did business, or handled life, in ethical and honest ways. That was the ideal.

But in about the last 50 years of that literature, books stopped focusing so much on principles and ethics, and focused more on manipulation. How to manipulate other people so that you could make them think you liked them, so that this would hopefully get them to buy more of your products.

What Stephen Covey did was to go back to those earlier books and glean the good principles from them, and formulate his own, and he ended up with seven habits that highly effective people use.
I liked the book, and actually read the whole thing out loud to Shelley on a trip back to South Dakota one summer.

And out of those seven habits, my favorite was Habit Number Five. This is what it says: “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Habit Five really attached itself to my thinking, probably because it’s a habit you need to use a lot as a pastor. In other words, before trying to get someone to agree with your opinion, you need to understand where they’re coming from – and this might drastically change your opinion.

Well, back in Joshua 22, we see all these leaders of the tribes West of the Jordan, gathering with the East Siders. And it would be nice for me to tell you that the West Siders immediately started putting Habit Five into practice. But they did exactly the opposite. Watch what happens.

Verses 15 – 16: Then they came to the children of Reuben, to the children of Gad, and to half the tribe of Manasseh, to the land of Gilead, and they spoke with them, saying, “Thus says the whole congregation of the LORD: ‘What treachery is this that you have committed against the God of Israel, to turn away this day from following the LORD, in that you have built for yourselves an altar, that you might rebel this day against the LORD?

And they don’t stop there. They just keep dumping on those East Siders, giving them example after example of how dangerous it is to rebel against the Lord.

Verses 17 – 20: Is the iniquity of Peor not enough for us, from which we are not cleansed till this day, although there was a plague in the congregation of the LORD, but that you must turn away this day from following the LORD? And it shall be, if you rebel today against the LORD, that tomorrow He will be angry with the whole congregation of Israel. Nevertheless, if the land of your possession is unclean, then cross over to the land of the possession of the LORD, where the LORD’s tabernacle stands, and take possession among us; but do not rebel against the LORD, nor rebel against us, by building yourselves an altar besides the altar of the LORD our God. Did not Achan the son of Zerah commit a trespass in the accursed thing, and wrath fell on all the congregation of Israel? And that man did not perish alone in his iniquity.’ ”

Like I say, this was an emotional issue. And you can just picture all of these Westside leaders practicing this warning speech as they traveled to the meeting.

Well, if Stephen Covey had been listening in, he would have given their Habit Five efforts the grade of F. That’s not how you do Habit Five. In Habit Five, you seek first to understand, and you don’t go any further until you have thoroughly understood the point of view of the other side.

Stephen Covey, of course, did not invent Habit Five. God used it during His evening conversation with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3. He asked them questions, even though He knew the answers already. He actually let them guide the discussion for awhile.

And in Genesis 11, when some very ambitious people from Babel were building a tower, Genesis 11:5 says, “But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.” Again, the Lord knows everything, but He demonstrated how we need to seek first to understand. Later, He and some angels went to check out conditions in Sodom and Gomorrah. And in the laws of Moses, God insisted that whenever there was a difference, or an accusation, people should “inquire into” the matter.

“Seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

“Tell me more” is a phrase that’s always a good way to get further clarification about something. I’ll never forget Dr. Chuck Kimberly, an dentist who attended this church with his family years ago. If you were talking to Chuck in the foyer out beyond the sanctuary doors, no matter how chatter-y or busy it was out there, Chuck kept his eyes fixed on your face, listening very carefully to you. Chuck was my model in careful listening.

I think we could slip another sermon point in here, a very important one. This is something the Westsiders did right.

What’s another step in dealing with emotional disputes?

First, verify what you hear. Second, follow Habit Five (“Seek first to understand.”) Third, talk face to face.

And that is what the Western tribes did. They could have just depended on hearsay, and got madder and madder, and surged across the Jordan for a tragic battle against their brothers. But even though their Habit Five system was a little jerky, they at least looked into each other’s faces.

Shelley and I had a happy little experience this past week. On our neighborhood walks we often come across one or another members of a young couple who own a golden retriever named Winston. Sometimes the man will be walking Winston, and sometimes the woman. They both work from home, I believe, so the one who is not online gets the duty of exercising the dog.

Anyway, in recent months we learned that the wife was pregnant. We learned that somewhere March would be the due date, but the farther we got into March, the more we began to worry. For the longest time we did not see either one walking Winston.

And we weren’t the only ones worrying. Another neighborhood couple, that we meet on our walks and who don’t live far from this pregnant couple, were worried too. After all, this would be this couple’s first child.

But one day earlier this week, we talked with the worried couple and the four of us shared our concerns. Then we continued our walk, and came past the pregnant couple’s house. Suddenly we saw the young man in an upstairs window, and he waved cheerfully. He disappeared, but suddenly appeared again, holding a little baby. Mom showed up to the window too, and Shelley and I expressed our delight at the arrival of their newborn.

Turns out he’s a boy, and his name is Jack. And the old Golden retriever Winston was at first very puzzled by Jack, but now is getting used to him, and likes to be in the same room where Jack is.
Once Shelley and I had finished our conversation with Jack’s parents, we knew what we had to do. We walked right over to the house of the worried couple, knocked on their door, and told them the glad news, and they were delighted.

You see, talking face-to-face with the new mom and dad gave us the wonderful news that we could then share, face-to-face, with the couple who had been worrying along with us. And everybody ended up happy.

Well, we’d better hurry back to Joshua 22 to find out how this ends up. Even though the Westside tribal leaders had failed pretty miserably at practicing Habit Five, the three eastside tribes are going to make very sure that the Westsiders understand what’s going on.

And if you think the Westsiders’ oration was emotional, listen to the Eastsiders’ response:

Verses 21 – 29: Then the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh answered and said to the heads of the divisions of Israel: “The LORD God of gods, the LORD God of gods, He knows, and let Israel itself know—if it is in rebellion, or if in treachery against the LORD, do not save us this day. If we have built ourselves an altar to turn from following the LORD, or if to offer on it burnt offerings or grain offerings, or if to offer peace offerings on it, let the LORD Himself require an account. But in fact we have done it for fear, for a reason, saying, ‘In time to come your descendants may speak to our descendants, saying, “What have you to do with the LORD God of Israel? For the LORD has made the Jordan a border between you and us, you children of Reuben and children of Gad. You have no part in the LORD.” So your descendants would make our descendants cease fearing the LORD.’ Therefore we said, ‘Let us now prepare to build ourselves an altar, not for burnt offering nor for sacrifice, but that it may be a witness between you and us and our generations after us, that we may perform the service of the LORD before Him with our burnt offerings, with our sacrifices, and with our peace offerings; that your descendants may not say to our descendants in time to come, “You have no part in the LORD.” ’ Therefore we said that it will be, when they say this to us or to our generations in time to come, that we may say, ‘Here is the replica of the altar of the LORD which our fathers made, though not for burnt offerings nor for sacrifices; but it is a witness between you and us.’ Far be it from us that we should rebel against the LORD, and turn from following the LORD this day, to build an altar for burnt offerings, for grain offerings, or for sacrifices, besides the altar of the LORD our God which is before His tabernacle.”

Let’s put down what I would consider our final sermon point here. What’s one more step to take in dealing with emotional disputes?

First, verify what you hear. Second, follow Habit Five (“Seek first to understand.”) Third, talk face to face. And fourth, stay firmly centered in God’s will.

In other words, as much as you possibly can, make sure that in any dispute which comes your way, you are taking the Lord’s side, handling it how the Lord would handle it. Again and again, the Bible people we name our children after were honest, moral, and ethical, but most of all faithful to God.

Let’s pray for ourselves that we can shine as God-reflecting lights wherever we go this coming week.

Let’s pop back to Joshua 22 to see the happy ending:

Verses 30 – 34: Now when Phinehas the priest and the rulers of the congregation, the heads of the divisions of Israel who were with him, heard the words that the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the children of Manasseh spoke, it pleased them. Then Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest said to the children of Reuben, the children of Gad, and the children of Manasseh, “This day we perceive that the LORD is among us, because you have not committed this treachery against the LORD. Now you have delivered the children of Israel out of the hand of the LORD.” And Phinehas the son of Eleazar the priest, and the rulers, returned from the children of Reuben and the children of Gad, from the land of Gilead to the land of Canaan, to the children of Israel, and brought back word to them. So the thing pleased the children of Israel, and the children of Israel blessed God; they spoke no more of going against them in battle, to destroy the land where the children of Reuben and Gad dwelt. The children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the altar, Witness, “For it is a witness between us that the LORD is God.”

Happy ending, right? Just the kind of ending the Lord Himself appreciates.

I mentioned that we should pray that we will reflect God’s character to those around us. Our closing song is actually that kind of prayer.

Let’s stand and sing it. It’s “Lord of All Nations,” and it’s number 588 in your hymnals if you’re using them. I’d like Carolyn to play it through once for us so we can hear the melody.