Numbers 32:1-27 | The Temptation to Settle | Alex Culpepper

So we are in numbers 32 today, numbers 32. We are continuing a series called Pursuing God's Call. And so in this series, as believers, we followers of Jesus, we've been given a calling by our king to seek his kingdom and his righteousness, to see his rule and reign extend throughout our world, to draw near to our Father who loves us, to let his love transform us into the kind of people who participate with him and the things that he wants to do. And so we're looking at kind of the story of Israel in this time after their wilderness wandering, right? They've come through 40 years in the wilderness.

They're kind of like at the very edge of going into the lands that God has promised them. And we're looking at all of kind of the things that happen in their preparation for going into the land. And there are several little stories that key us into that preparation. So today puts a question in front of us, which is, you know, would we get after all that God has promised, like, what if we realize that God, like, wants to do stuff in and through us and wants to accomplish his purposes in our world, will we get after everything that he has promised, or would we somehow settle for something less than his best for us? And so today's story keys us into that.

Numbers 32. One says this.

There we go. Now, the people of Reuben and the people of Gad had a very great number of livestock. And they saw the land of Jazer and the land of Gilead, and behold, the place was a place for livestock. So Reuben and Gad just so, you know, get the context here, right? They are two of Israel's 12 tribes.

All 12 of Israel's tribes have been promised land inside of God's promised land. And these two tribes are. All of them have been wandering through the desert for the past 40 years. The desert's dry. The desert has no grass.

The desert has no water. God has been having to provide for these people during their time in the desert. And they've kind of just been. Right now at this point, they're getting ready to go into the land that God has promised. And they've been fighting their way against various nations on the western and.

Or, sorry, on the eastern edge of the land they've been fighting their way through. So they're trying to go up north so that they can come across the Jordan river and into the land that God has promised. And it just. The last 40 years, it has been a slog for these people. It's been really difficult.

Their livestock have had to come through this 40 years, their wives and their children have had to come through this 40 years. And here's the thing about the lands that they're. They're fighting through right now. So as they make their way up to prepare to come down into the land, they're working through these other nations that are resisting them, that don't want them there. And so they've won, the Lord has won victories for them as they fought up the edge of this land, and they end up in this land.

And the thing that they notice before they get into the Promised Land is that this area on the edge of the. Of the Promised Land, it's not desert here. It's got some grass, it's got some water here. And so the Promised Land is more abundant than anything that they could ever imagine. But if you've spent 40 years in the desert and you see grass for the first time, you're gonna think that this is a pretty plentiful place.

Like, not desert is very enticing after spending 40 years in the desert. And so Reuben and Gad, they call a meeting with Moses. The people of Gad and the people of Reuben came and said to Moses and to Eleazar the priest, the land that the Lord struck down before the congregation of Israel, they're saying, hey, the land that the Lord has won a victory for us in this land, and now we've come through it, and we're getting ready to go into the promised land. But this land is a land for livestock and your servants. We have livestock, you know.

Okay, that works out so. Verse 5. And they said, if we have found favor in your sight, Moses, let this land be given to us, to your servants for possession. Do not take us across the Jordan. Across the Jordan is God's promised land, right?

It is the thing that God said is a land flowing with milk and honey. It's more abundant than any land you have ever experienced. Even in Egypt, where. Where they had the Nile river, right? This very plentiful land.

But you have never seen anything like the Promised Land and the plenty that it has to provide. And they say, hey, don't take us in there. We kind of like this not desert place. And so here's the thing. Eye has not seen nor ear has heard, the things that God has prepared for those who love them.

Two weeks ago, I told us that wherever we are in our faith journey, however far God has brought us, there is always more that God wants to accomplish in us and through us. Like until Jesus comes back, until the kingdom is fully here, there are yet more aspects of God's kingdom to realize in our lives and in the areas around us. Until death is dead and until disease is broken, until cancer goes to hell and sin leaves this world. We keep pressing on and praying and seeking God's kingdom. But sometimes we get just far enough to become satisfied with how far we've come.

Like, there's so much more of God's promises to realize, but we kind of get to the point of saying, I'm good here. I kind of like this place. Like, it's not everything that God might want, but I kind of like this place. And that's what's happening to Ruben and Gad. I just kind of want to show you where they are.

I wasn't going to mention this, but I am. I had AI make this picture for me. There's just no. There's, like, you know, for maps they give you. I want only the information that I want to put up there.

And so you can tell how they put. The Jordan river is basically bigger than the Dead Sea there. So that's how you can tell. It's an AI picture. Anyway, they are going up the side of the land, the northeast side of the land, and they're supposed to cross over to the Jordan river to get into the promised land.

But Reuben and Gad get into this kind of green space, and they're like, hey, this is nice, right? And so, again, the promised land is unlike anything that they've ever seen. They're kind of dealing with something as they get into this kind of better land, but not the promised land. And what they're dealing with is the temptation to settle. The temptation to settle is a pull to choose immediate comfort over the fullness of God's promise.

So you may or may not notice. I don't know if you notice or pay attention to this, but I don't talk a lot about heaven. Heaven is a gift that we get. We get this promise of life after death and knowing, like, where we're gonna go when we die because of what Jesus accomplished for us. And I love that.

This is an amazing, beautiful gift for followers of Jesus. But if you're believing in Jesus today, like, right now, if you're believing in Jesus right now, there is some space between right now and. And heaven right now. We may have different spaces, different amounts of space between right now and heaven, but there is space between right now and heaven. And we kind of.

If all I tell you about is like, hey, there's a way to get to heaven, and I want you to Know that you know that you're going to heaven, and I do want that for you. But if that's all that I talk about, and we skip over the part where God wants to use you in the space that exists between here, heaven, and bring aspects of heaven down to earth. Like, isn't that what the Lord's Prayer is like when the disciples tell Jesus, hey, Jesus, teach us to pray. Jesus doesn't pray. You know, father, give me everything that I need in order to get to heaven when I die?

Jesus says, our Father, in heaven, your name is holy, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom, which is up there, come, your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. Right? Like Jesus is saying, hey, we want to see heaven actually break into earth. Break into the spaces and places that we inhabit.

And so the gospel is bigger than just how can you get to heaven? And if that's the only message I tell you, you kind of will easily. This is why I say I don't talk about it a lot, because you will easily succumb to the temptation of holding onto enough of Jesus to get to heaven when you die, while you spend the rest of your life kind of resting in the comforts of this world. And the fullness of God's promise is not just that Jesus is a ticket out of hell and into heaven. The fullness of God's promise is that Jesus is a king with a kingdom that he desires to bring near to this world so that people from every tribe and tongue and nation can discover who he is and believe in him before he returns to judge the living and the dead and set up his kingdom.

And so the gospel is so much more than simply a ticket into heaven. The gospel is the king's invitation to know him and love him and be used by him to extend the kingdom to others. And the great temptation is going to be to settle for simply a promise of heaven while we amuse ourselves with the comforts of earth. And so what does it look like to move beyond this temptation to settle? Or rather, what if we were to sit in the temptation to settle?

What could happen? Well, we're going to look at what happens to Reuben and Gad as they go through this.

Moses said to the people of Gad and to the people of Reuben, shall your brothers go to the war while you sit here? Why will you discourage the heart of the people of Israel from going over into the land that the Lord has given them? See, Moses is very concerned about their willingness to live by sight and not by faith. They're living by what they see. Moses was also concerned that their willingness to settle here would discourage the rest of Israel from going forward, forward into God's promise.

See, your decision to settle for what you see will have far reaching consequences on the legacy that God's people share together. That's what Moses is noticing. It's like your children will have to live with your decision to not live by faith. He's saying you're giving up on God's best. And so Moses, he goes with them, he walks them through a little bit of a history lesson, says, your fathers did this.

The thing that you're doing now is the same thing that your fathers before you did. They discouraged the heart of the people of Israel from going into the land that the Lord had given them. The whole reason that they've been wandering through the desert for the past 40 years is because a bunch of spies went into the land and saw that there were giants and saw that it was scary. And, and they came back and gave a report to the people about the land and said, hey, we really shouldn't go. Even though God said that he would fight for us and do everything for us, we probably shouldn't go because it's really scary in there.

And so they did not trust the Lord, they disbelieved the Lord. And so God said, well, if they're not going to believe me, they can just stay out here. And so for 40 years they wandered around the desert. Moses is telling Reuben and Gad that their decision to stay here in this place that's not desert, will tempt the rest of Israel to commit the sin of not trusting God. It goes on in verse 14.

And behold, you have risen in your Father's place a brood of sinful men. Moses is saying, hey, this sin of not trusting God, it was supposed to die with your parents, but apparently it is still alive and well with you. We're here, back in this place all over again. You're about to leave the same legacy that your parents left. For if you turn away from following him, that is the Lord, he will again abandon them in the wilderness.

And Moses doesn't say, he will destroy all this people. He says, and you will destroy all this people.

So this is what I want us to capture here. The faith you live by from here, from this point forward, will be the testimony that you leave behind. Hebrews 11:1 2 says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. And of course, Hebrews 11, is this what we call the hall of Faith in Christianity. It gives us various testimonies of people throughout the history of God's people who exercised profound faith, believed God, and went for the things that God was calling for.

So verse 2 says, for by it, the people of old received their commendation because they just simply trusted God to do what he said he would do. They received their commendation. And I mean, we could tell some stories, stories of people, stories of folks like George Muller in 1847 in Bristol, England. George Muller, if you don't know who he was, he dedicated his life to caring for the needy and in particular for orphans. He was at Ashley Down Orphan House caring for about 300 orphans.

His journal notes several mornings when they would wake up from sleeping him and the orphans who were staying there in the house, and they would wake up from their slumber and they would open all the cupboards and there would be no food in the cupboards. There would be nothing for them to drink. And yet every day, he always gathered the children to pray in faith for God's provision for them. And so that particular morning, the children were seated for breakfast. The cupboards are empty again.

There's no food to purchase. Mueller has the children take their places. And then they lifted their hands and prayed and they said, dear Father, we thank you for what you are going to give us to eat. And as they prayed, somebody came up and knocked at the door. A local baker said, you know, I wasn't able to sleep last night.

And so I just set myself to baking some bread that I wanted to bring here to the orphanage. And so he delivered three batches of fresh bread to the orphanage. And then as they gathered the bread, the milk cart of a milkman broke down in front of the orphanage. And the milkman was like, well, if I have to fix it, but if I fix it, all the milk is going to spoil. So do you want to take the milk off of the milk cart?

And so he offered the entire load of fresh milk to the children. And so Mueller's act of thanksgiving in faith before the provision arrived became a testimony of faith. And by the way, George Mueller, by that very faith, raised so much money for missionaries around the world, believed God to supply and support other missionaries. Hudson Taylor in China, George Mueller was one of his primary fundraisers and the tool that he used to raise the funds, his faith and prayer, right, he just sought the Lord. His faith filled the room before that bread ever showed up in the room.

And how do you think that faith impacted the children who are part of that orphanage? The faith that you live by today becomes the legacy that you leave behind. And on one day we will have to give an account of our lives to God. I just want to tell you that no one is ever going to be chided with God. You know, you had a little too much faith in my promises.

God's not going to be saying that. And these folks are determined. And so they make Reuben and Gad a compromising deal, it says. Then they came near to him and said, we will build sheepfolds here for our livestock and cities for our little ones, but we will take up arms. So we will take up arms, ready to go before the people of Israel until we have brought them to their place.

So they say, hey, the big deal is that we participate in the thing that God told us to participate in, right? We're going to go in and take the land, and so we will go to fight with you when God sends us into the land to fight. And then verse 18 says, we will not return to our homes until each of the people of Israel has gathered his inheritance. So they're saying, hey, we want this land, but we will go with and fight with the people of Israel until all of the promised land is taken. And so they show in this respect that they are different from their parents and that they are willing to take some responsibility and commitment for what God has called them to.

But the chief problem, the struggle, and they make a really unwise decision. Here you read the rest of this story and you go, goodness, this was stupid what they did, because they're going to go into the promised land and they're going to see how abundant it is when they go to fight for it. But right now they're making a deal that they can stay out here. And the chief problem was their eyes. The mediocre they see now seems better than the good they can't see and see.

The thing about the good that they can't see is God had promised it to them. It was as good as guaranteed. But they couldn't see it. They could see this land. And so they did.

They wanted to be faithful, but they also wanted to settle for the things that they couldn't see and touch. And this is constant pull in the time and place that we live in is for us to be satisfied with where we are. I'm talking about, like our corner of the suburbs here in the United States of America. The constant pull for us is to be satisfied with where we are. Like to think, surely I've come far enough.

I like the good that I have in the book of Acts. I want to tell a story on Paul's first missionary journey. There's this guy who's going with him, him and Barnabas. The guy's name is John Mark. And John Mark, he's traveling along with them.

They come to a place called Perga. And we only hear Perga mentioned one time. And in Perga what you're doing is you're coming out of the sea to go into the land so that they can go and proclaim the gospel. But Perga is like this mountainous region. It's very dangerous to cross through Perga.

It's going to be quite a haul. There's going to be a lot of hiking and a lot of climbing and maybe there would be thieves hiding in these mountains. But Paul and Barnabas know that God has called them to proclaim the gospel. On the other side of those mountains, they know that God has called them to a place in Pisidia called Antioch. But John Mark, when they get to Perga, John Mark says, guys, this isn't for me.

So John Mark decides at Perga to turn back and go home, right? The perceived threat and the danger was too much. And he's like, well, you know, there's still some good that I can do at home. So I'm going to go back and go home. And sometimes the call of God can feel like it demands too much of us, that it's not somehow worth it.

But on the other side of those mountains, you know what happened? Paul preached in Antioch and, and launched what amounted to a city wide revival where the Holy Spirit was poured out on Jews. And then after that the Gentiles see what's happening with those Jews and then they show up and they want to hear this, the you know what Paul has to say. And then the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Gentiles as well. And so there's quite a stir happening in Antioch.

A profound church happens in just the span of a few weeks. But John Mark didn't stick around for what God was going to do. He decided to go back home. And Reuben and Gad, it's the same thing. God had some amazing things that he wanted to provide in that land.

But they said, we like what's on this side of the river. So Moses said to them, if you will do this, you will take up arms and go before the Lord. Just a second, I'm going to fix this. It's driving me crazy.

In the name of Jesus.

All right. So Moses said to them, if you will do this, if you will take up arms and go before the Lord for the war. Then after that, you can return and be free of obligation to the Lord and to Israel. And this land, this land that we're in right now, shall be your possession for the Lord. So Moses, essentially, he lets them have their way because they agreed to go in and fight with the people of Israel.

They're going to fulfill that commitment, and then they can have this land that they're asking for. But when they go in, they are going to see everything that God had promised them, and they're going to see the things that they missed out on. So verse 25, the people of Gad and the people of Reuben said to Moses, your servants will do as my Lord commands. And so our main point this morning is simply this. When it comes to his promises, God wants us to put him to the test.

He doesn't give his promises for no reason. He wants us to go after them and see if he actually comes through. And so what?

Number one, you must know God's word to know his promises. See, unfortunately, what a lot of people will do is they will preach a sermon that I just preached and then begin applying it to all sorts of things that God does not apply his promises to. The things that are guaranteed. The things that are promised to us are only God's promises. Like, so let me just give you some examples of this.

Like, good health is not a guarantee of God's kingdom. Now, in God's kingdom, healing is something that we are called to surrender to and to surrender ourselves to seek a process of seeking after the healing that God might provide. But good health is not a guarantee of God's kingdom. Wealth is not a guarantee of the kingdom that Jesus has brought. Though good financial stewardship is a principle that is weaved throughout Scripture.

So what are some guarantees? I'll give you one. When you stand before accusers, the Holy Spirit will give you the right words to speak about Jesus. That's a. You can take that one to the bank.

You want your testimony of Jesus to be sure. When you stand in front of people who are mocking you and deriding you for your faith, the Holy Spirit, when you open your mouth, the Holy Spirit will give you exactly what you're supposed to say. When you ask God for wisdom in faith, he will always give you exactly what you need. When you go into difficult circumstances, he goes with you. And I could go on.

But here's the point. If you want to know what you can hold God to, you need to get to know him through His Word, right? I Want everything that God has to offer. But I'm not going to pursue the things based on my desires, right? Like, oh, God, like, I want you to give me this and I want you to give me this.

No, that's not what God promises. I want everything that God has to offer based on his promises. So I'm gonna pursue them because he's told me what he has to give. And so if we wanna know what he has to give and what we can hold him to, we need to be a people of the book. We need to go to his word.

Number two. Faith means trusting God beyond what makes sense. So faith doesn't stop where things look good. Faith keeps moving until it reaches what God has called good. I just want to.

As we close this part down, I just want to read from Philippians chapter three, because I think what Paul gives us is a profound example of what it means to continue getting after the more that God wants to do. Philippians 3, verse 8. He says, Indeed I count everything as loss. That everything is everything that he's gained upon to this point in his life. I count everything from my past, all of my assets, all of my resume, all of my career, everything that I have, I count as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ, knowing Jesus is better than whatever that stuff from my past can say about me.

For his sake, I have suffered the loss of everything. I count that stuff as rubbish in order that I may gain good Christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from some legal performance, but that which comes through my faith in Christ, the righteousness from God, that depends on faith. And this is why I keep going on and I keep pressing on and I keep going after in verse 10, so that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, right? Paul's like, I don't know Jesus enough. You kidding me?

You don't know Jesus enough? Paul, Goodness, nobody's done more for Jesus than you have at the time of this writing. The number of things that he had already accomplished for the kingdom. And Paul says, we're not there yet. I don't know Jesus enough.

And so I do all this that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming the like him in his death, that by any means possible, I may attain the resurrection from the dead. And so verse 12, he says, not that I have already obtained it, or am already complete or perfect. He's saying, I'm not. I haven't arrived yet. But I press on.

I keep going to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own, right? And so when we press on with Jesus, we keep pressing on beyond what makes sense.