Printer Friendly VersionAs I was growing up the values my parents had for me became
clear rather quickly. I learned very early that obedience was a great value.
I learned respect was a high value. I learned honesty and hard work were high
values. And I learned fairly early that common sense was a high value in our
home.
My parents found regular occasions to talk to me about the value
of common sense. When I got the idea that I could parachute off our second-story
balcony with a bedsheet and ropes, they had opportunity to teach me about
common sense.
My mom would come up with these wonderful sayings about common
sense that left us scratching our heads for days. I think they came out of
her Arkansas upbringing.
For example, she’d say, “Son, sometimes I don’t
think you’ve got the sense God gave green apples!” I still don’t
know what that means. But the message got through. Common sense is important.
You can’t get on in life without it.
We understand that. There’s nothing more disconcerting
than to run into an adult who just has no common sense. Like the lady I heard
about who called a poison control center one day.
She was frantic because she had caught her little girl eating
ants. The medical professional quickly reassured her that the ants were probably
not harmful and there was no need to bring her to the hospital.
The mom calmed down, relieved, and just as they were ready to
hang up, the mom happened to mention the fact that she had given her daughter
some ant poison in order to kill the ants. Now that’s what I call suffering
from a basic lack of common sense.
Common sense is important to us. We can’t get along very
well without it. However, there are times when functioning by common sense
alone can get you in trouble. Sometimes conventional wisdom isn’t wisdom
at all.
That’s the lesson Joshua and the people of Israel learned
in this story we’ve just read together this morning. The people of God
were confronted with a critical decision. They made that decision on the basis
of common sense, and suddenly found themselves in a compromised situation.
Let’s set the stage just a bit. You remember that we’ve
been following Joshua and the nation of Israel as they moved into the Promised
Land God had given them. It was a time of conquest. They had taken the city
of Jericho and then the city of Ai.
They were a powerful army under the hand of almighty God. So
much so that they struck terror in the hearts of the other Canaanite peoples,
who could see what was coming and feared for their lives. But the people of
Gibeon were pretty clever. They knew they’d better do something to keep
from being wiped out. But instead of rousing their army and building fortifications,
they came up with a different plan.
They sent a delegation to Joshua on a ruse. They dressed up
their people in old, worn-out clothes and give them old provisions, because
they wanted Joshua to believe they’d come from a far land. Apparently
they understood something of the orders Israel was under. The Lord had given
clear instructions to Moses back in Exodus.
They were not to make treaties with any of the Canaanites because,
God said, “They will cause you to sin against me because the worship
of their gods will be a snare to you.”
That’s why God instructed Israel to wipe out the cities
of Canaan and their inhabitants. However, according to Deuteronomy 20, Israel
was permitted to make peace and enter into treaties with cities that were
“very far off from you.”
That’s why the Gibeonites came and tried to convince Joshua
they were a far-off people, even though in reality they only lived about six
miles away from Israel’s camp at Gilgal.
And these people were good. They made it all look so genuine.
They invited Joshua to take a good look at their provisions, to prove they
had come a long way. They said, “Look at our food. The bread was warm
and crisp when we left, but now all we have are dry, stale crumbs. And our
clothes, our sandals—so new and fresh when we left home, but now they
are worn out from the long journey.
They really sold it. Now Joshua wasn’t totally gullible.
In fact verse 7 indicates he was appropriately suspicious. He asked some good
questions, but the evidence seemed pretty clear. And besides, these people
started talking glowingly about Joshua’s God. They said, “Oh,
we’ve heard about what your God has done in Egypt and how he wiped out
the cities of Shon and Og.”
However, what really moved them (we learn in verse 3) is when
they heard what happened at Jericho and Ai. But they don’t mention that,
you see, because they’re supposed to be from a distant land. They couldn’t
have known about these latest developments.
Well, it all sounded reasonable. It sure seemed like a valid
story. And they had evidence to back it up. So Joshua and the people of Israel
exercised a little common sense, and they entered into a treaty with the people
of Gibeon, not knowing they were in fact close neighbors.
They soon discovered their trust was sorely misplaced. But now
they were stuck. They had sworn an oath on the name of God, and now they must
figure out how to live with the consequences of their “common sense.”
The narrator of this story does not want us to miss what really
happened here, so he spells it out for us clearly in verse 14: “The
men of Israel sampled their provisions but did not inquire of the Lord.”
In other words, they traded God’s divine wisdom for a
little bit of common sense and it got them in serious trouble. This story
means to impress us with how Israel suffers not from a lack of common sense,
but from a lack of the wisdom of God.
It was not that they were sloppy in their investigation. The
problem was that they were alone in their decision. It wasn’t that they
didn’t think, but that they didn’t pray. Oh my, does that sound
uncomfortably familiar, or what?
How many times have we made decisions in our lives, important
decisions, on the basis of common sense? And yet we have discovered we needed
more than common sense; we needed a word from the Lord.
How often in our lives do we act and then pray? Or we act and
never get around to praying? And the decisions we make might seem right and
good and everyone around us agrees with them. But if we have not inquired
of the Lord, we are operating out of human understanding and not out of the
wisdom of God.
As I thought about that, one place in my own life where I have
seen this is in my ministry of trying to give spiritual direction and counsel
to others. Someone may call me and say, “Pastor I’m dealing with
this issue and I’d like to talk with you about it.” We set up
the time and I sometimes think to myself, “I know what the problem is.
I know how to handle this. This is a matter of common sense.” I am self-assured
in my wisdom. But more often than not, when I operate that way, my “wisdom”
falls short and it becomes clear I haven’t been very helpful.
On the other hand, I love the times when I have come before
the Lord over a situation of counseling and have cried out to God saying,
“Oh Lord, I don’t know how to help this person. I need your insight.
I need to see things as you see them. I need your wisdom.”
And I’ll tell you there have been many times when I have
sat across from someone and listened to the words coming from my mouth and
I literally think to myself, “Where is this coming from? I didn’t
know this. This is God.”
You see, the problem with common sense is that it’s common.
Everyone has access to common sense, Christian or not. But for the Christian,
for those who have the Spirit residing within, we have access to something
much greater than common sense. We have access to the wisdom of God.
Oh friends, how much could it be said of us, “They did
not inquire of the Lord”? How often do we make important decisions in
our lives without really coming before the Lord to plead for His wisdom?
It seems as Christians we often try to follow Christ on the
basis of common sense. We often find ourselves thinking we are making careful
decisions, when we really haven’t adequately sought heavenly wisdom.
The problem is if we only go on the basis of common sense, it’s
very easy for us to be lulled into the world’s way of thinking. And
we make spiritual decisions that may seem very right, but they are based on
the world’s values, and not the values of the kingdom of God.
I think of a couple I know who, several years ago, seemed to
have everything going for them. They were serving as pastors in a large, metropolitan
church, having a terrific ministry. They had two beautiful kids, a nice house
in the suburbs; I mean life was looking good.
And yet they began to feel the call of God on their lives to
leave all of that and cross cultures to give themselves as missionaries. They
struggled with that decision. People in their church, close, Christian friends
told them they were crazy. “It doesn’t make sense,” they
said. “You already have a productive ministry here,” they said.
“We need you here,” they said. “And you have
a responsibility to your kids,” they said. “God wouldn’t
want your kids to suffer just so you can go to another country, would He?”
Common sense. They could have easily made a decision to stay
put in their church and nobody would have questioned their decision. But,
they inquired of the Lord. They sought His wisdom. And in doing so, He made
it clear to them that this wasn’t a time for common sense; it was a
time for obedience to the call of a sovereign God.
Now you may not have ever dealt with a call to missions, but
you deal with this issue just as surely. Common sense says you deserve to
have a nice house and nice things in the house. Common sense says in order
to have those things you have to pay the price of long and hard work. But
what does God’s wisdom say to you? Could it be that God’s wisdom
would call you to live more simply so you can focus on what’s really
important?
Common sense says you need to take care of yourself. Common
sense says you need time just for yourself. Common sense says you’re
just too busy to get involved in other people’s lives. But what would
God’s wisdom say to you about laying down your life for another? What
would God’s wisdom say about pouring out your life for the sake of the
Kingdom?
May I ask you this morning how often it could be said of you,
in the decisions you make on a daily basis, “he/she did not inquire
of the Lord”? Are you operating your life on the basis of common sense
or on the basis of God’s wisdom? Common sense is a good thing, but it
always has to be held up against the will and plan of God, because very often
God’s way of doing things is in conflict with conventional wisdom. His
plan is often different than that to which common sense would lead us.
The apostle Paul understood this. In 1 Corinthians he writes,
“We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is
from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.” He goes
on to say, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things
that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he
cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.”
And finally he says, “But we have the mind of Christ.”
That’s the good news for us today. We don’t have go through life
making decisions only on the basis of common sense. Sometimes that works out,
but often it puts us at odds with what God really desires for us.
Instead, we have the privilege of accessing the very wisdom
of God, through prayer. And I don’t know about you, but I really don’t
want it to be said of me, “He didn’t inquire of the Lord.”
Joshua and the Israelites found out that common sense isn’t always enough. It is critical that we bring our lives before God in such a way that our lives are ordered by the wisdom of God, and not by the wisdom of humanity. May God help us to be a people who always inquire of the Lord.
