Right Where You Are

Perhaps what seems so difficult to us in terms of what God requires is that these stories we're looking at are far beyond our understanding. It doesn't seem reasonable that God would ask us to dress for battle and go out to a field somewhere to see a war. It doesn't seem reasonable that we would have to sojourn into the land of Israel to visit one specific river. Actually, it's exactly the kind of thing most of us are afraid God will ask of us, to go well beyond our own borders just to find Him.

But that's not the case at all.

The battle for which Israel dressed was a battle in their own territory; the hill to which they were called was their own hill. It wasn't a journey away. It wasn't some distant place. And even the whole idea of battle was not so far-fetched; at the time, Israel was a people at war. Battle was just part of their daily existence. So when God asks them to dress for battle, it's not so strange a command. He's merely asking them to do something they've done on countless other occasions, something that is very close at hand for them. There was not a man in Israel who did not have his battle attire close. 

And when He asks them to go out to the hill, neither is this so unreasonable, for it was, after all, their hill. Not only was it their hill, but it was a hill where their enemy armies were camping against them. The most natural thing in all the world for a people at war to do is to dress for battle and go out to where their enemies are staking them out. This is all that God asks them to do. It's not such a big thing as it seems to us who know neither wars nor hills.

When Naaman comes to the prophet Elisha in Israel and is told to go wash himself in the Jordan, we get this image in our head of a long journey to a foreign land to a specific place of water. Naaman helps to create this impression by talking about all of the different waters that already flow where he lives and the waters that he passed to get to the prophet in the first place. And it makes the Jordan seem so very far away. 

But Naaman was already in Israel. He's already come this far to seek out the prophet of the Lord, who he had heard could heal him. God is not asking him to go somewhere further away; He is asking the man to go all in on the distance he has already traveled. You're already here, Naaman - wash in this river? It's just another mile or two down the road, which in essence means, it's right here.

The truth is that as much as we fear that God is going to require some incredible feat or some amazing distance from us for us to see His glory, the very best place for us to see it is right where we are. 

All we have to do are the things we ought to be doing anyway, going all in on the distances we've already traveled.

It takes almost nothing at all to carve out ten minutes of your day, right where you are, to read the Scriptures. God doesn't ask you to go back to school, to become a scholar, to learn all of the original languages and begin translating the Scriptures for yourself. He just asks you to read them the same way you read the TV guide and your Facebook feed and a thousand texts a day. 

It's simple to begin to pray, right where you are, the way that God commands of you. You don't have to be eloquent. You don't have to be authoritatively religious. You don't need a booming voice or a perfect heart; you just need yourself. You're already talking all day, already loving the sound of your own voice and the image that your project. Just look at your social media. God just asks you to take some of your talking and do it with Him. 

It's not hard at all to find a church and start attending, right where you are. You probably drove or walked past at least a dozen just yesterday. You don't have to have all the doctrine right. You don't have to know all the words to all the songs. You don't have to dress up or dress down or whatever. You just have to go, the same way that you make time each week to go to the grocery store or to have dinner with family or friends or to sit out on the patio and soak in the last of the day's warm glow. 

God's not asking us to do anything crazy, and He's not asking us to go somewhere far away. He's asking us to be faithful right where we are with the resources that we already have in our lives. Yet somehow, we, as a people, are so scared of the big things that God might ask of us that we don't even try to do the little things, which is really all that He requires. 

It was a little thing for Israel to dress for and go to the battle they were already engaged in. It was a little thing for Naaman, who had already come to the land of Israel, to wash in the river that was right there. It's such a little thing for you to pick up your Bible, fall to your knees, and find a community right where you are. Especially when what's at stake is your chance to see the glory of God. 

So...why aren't you doing it?

Plain and Simple Faith

Although Israel dressed for the battle the Lord told them they would not have to fight and went out to the fields to see the Lord at work, not everyone was so faithful or obedient...or happy about it. To see a story of a guy a little bit more like so many of us, we need turn back only a few pages from 2 Chronicles to 2 Kings and find the story of a man named Naaman.

You may remember that we touched a little bit on Naaman's story a few weeks ago when we talked about Gehazi; Naaman was the man whom Gehazi chased down in order to take for himself some of the glory and spoils of the miracle of the Lord. But what was Naaman doing with Elisha in the first place?

Naaman had leprosy, and although he was a brilliant leader in his own community, his leprosy was still a burden upon him and one that he wished to heal. He had tried everything that was at his disposal to try, been to all of the doctors, consulted all of the experts, worshiped at all of the altars in his own land, but nothing was helping him to shake this skin condition that affected literally everything in his life. 

And then someone told him about the man of God in Israel. 

So Naaman comes to Elisha hoping for a miracle, and what he receives is, well, something somewhat less than he expected. After consulting the prophet, the two men talked about Naaman's condition and the prophet's word was that Naaman should go and wash himself in God's river. Only then would he be clean.

Naaman is essentially furious. This is not at all what he wanted. He already journeyed this far just to get to God, and now, this man of God wants him to journey further - and to Israel's dirty river, of all places! He's got plenty of rivers in the land that he came from. He even passed a number of rivers on his way to this place. And you know what? All of them were cleaner than the filthy, disgusting river that Israel claimed. If all it took was for him to wash in the river, well, he could have done that at home by himself. 

He's incredibly disappointed. He expected more of this so-called "God" of Israel. He turns, hangs his head, and starts to go home, mumbling to himself all the way, cursing this God under his breath. He wanted healing, not orders. He thought this was the end of his journey, not the beginning of it. This was ludicrous! It was completely unacceptable! It was...stupid!

It's worth noting here that while the children of Israel dressed for battle and went out to the fields, Naaman, with whom so many of us identify so well, was no child of Israel at all. He was a Syrian. The truth about Naaman is that he didn't really want God's glory; he wanted only God's benefit. Sound familiar?

In that moment, his servant speaks. He says to the angry man something simple, yet profound: if this God of Israel had asked you to do something crazy, wild, extreme, unthinkable in order to cure your leprosy, wouldn't you have done it? Yet, He has asked you to do something plain and simple, and you are disappointed. 

Then Naaman goes to Israel's river, washes himself, and is healed. 

But this is the question, isn't it? This is the same question that we face when God tells us to dress for battle and to go to a field at which we will not have to fight. We scoff. We hang our heads. We turn away disappointed. We have to go somewhere? We have to do something? We wanted this God to just show Himself! We already came all this way; who is God to ask us to go further? This is ludicrous! 

Ask yourself: if God had asked you to do something crazy, wild, extreme, unthinkable in order to see His glory, wouldn't you have done it? Yet, He has asked you to do something plain and simple, and you will not go. 

That's not God's problem. It's ours. 

If we won't go to the river, if we won't wash in the waters, if we won't dress for battle and go out to the fields to see what glorious thing God is doing, that's not a reflection on God; that's a reflection on us. And if we don't want God's glory after all and we only want His benefit, well, then that's on us, too. It says nothing at all about Him, except perhaps that He is the gracious God of an unfaithful people. 

Nothing to See Here

It is precisely the kind of theology that we saw yesterday that makes this generation one of the most God-starved generations of Christians ever. Most of today's Christians know God's power only through what they've given Him credit for, not through what He has revealed of Himself. 

It's no wonder they think so little of Him.

It's no wonder that it's easy to go to church and to treat it like a social club. After all, almost no one there has actually seen God; He's just sort of this idea that we all have and kinda sorta hope is real or something, but no one has ever seen it or even, sadly, expects to see it any more. That's right - most of today's Christians no longer expect to see God reveal Himself. 

They don't even expect to see God reveal Himself in Heaven. Rather, we believe that Heaven is just something that God does, and what we're most looking forward to is being in that place where everything's perfect and we can finally live with our loved ones again. 

Forget the fact that only there will we know Perfect Love. 

That ought to rattle you. That ought to shake you down to the core of your very being. The very same God who created this entire world so that He could walk in it with us longingly awaits the day when we talk together again...and we're more interested in seeing our moms, dads, aunts, uncles, and every dog we've ever owned (because all dogs go to Heaven).

And Christ? Christ was the promise and the reminder that this is really what it's all about. He was the physical, tangible, intimate incarnation of an infinite God who wants nothing more than to be with us and today's Christians would be hard-pressed to bring the story of Christ down to earth at all. To many, it seems more like the mythology of all of the pagan religions, a story that took place in the heavenly realms, one of those god vs. god stories of good vs. evil that has no flesh on it at all. 

It was no large jump for us to go from a people of God who will not dress for battle to Christians who will not go out to the Cross. 

We're far too comfortable in Jerusalem, where all we have is whispers and rumors of a God who dwells among us and is doing amazing things, but Whom we have never seen. 

And somehow, that's okay with us.

It's perfectly fine with us. Sure, there's something in our souls that is stirred by the idea that God could be present and working, but that's foolishness. Truth is, we don't even expect to see God at work among us any more. It doesn't shock us that we don't witness miracles. It's painful sometimes, especially when we are in dire need of a miracle, but it's not shocking. After all, who are we to expect anything of God at all? He is God. He does whatever He desires whenever He desires it.

Gosh, how entitled do you have to be to think you should expect anything from God just for being His person?

Our hands-off theology that no longer requires anything of us has led us to this place where we expect nothing of God and worse yet, has brought us to expect that we should expect nothing. We are a people who refuse to dress for a battle we will not have to fight, who will not walk to the front lines even to witness our own victory, and who have forsaken the hillside in the shadow of the Cross because, we think, there's nothing at all to see here. 

But, oh, there is everything to see here, for here, children of Israel, is your God. 

Unfaithful Faith

God's people in 2 Chronicles had to prepare themselves for battle, dress in their battle clothes, strap on their swords, and go out to the battlefield, even though God told them they would not have to fight once they got there. And they did exactly as God commanded them to do - they prepared for battle but kept their swords sheathed - and something incredible happened: God did what He had told them He would do - He fought for them.

Yesterday, as we looked at this story, we began to look also at how different this faithfulness was from our own brand of largely unfaithful faith, the kind of religion that decides that if God is going to fight for us, there's no reason to even get dressed. Just, you know, let God do His thing. 

It is precisely this kind of dangerous theology that hallmarks much of what passes as Christianity today. A very small minority of Christians (and here, we are talking about Western Christians, first-world Christians) will prepare themselves for battle after God tells them they will not have to fight. A smaller minority still will even ask God about the battle in the first place, with most just assuming that God fights without our knowing it, so there is no reason to ask.

It's invaded almost everything we do as those who claim to be a people of God. 

For example, a great number of Christians think it entirely unnecessary to pray. God is God, and He will do whatever it is that He will do, and He doesn't really need our input. He knows what we want, knows what we need, and knows what He wills, so what's the point in praying at all? We don't have to pray to be a people of God; we just have to attribute anything and everything to His hand. And then, you know, He'll know that we love Him or trust Him or something.

A great number of Christians think it entirely unnecessary to read their Bibles. That God of the Bible, He's so old-school. They've heard the teachings that God is doing a new thing among them (and they don't recognize even this as Scripture), and so all of the "old" things of God don't matter any more. They just have to live with their eyes open and give God the credit for whatever He's doing whenever they see it, and they're good. God is writing a new story, still His own story, in their own time; no need for His Word. And so we come to a place where we're just attributing everything to God, whether it's holy or not, whether it's consistent with His character or not, and then calling ourselves God's people like we know Him. 

An increasing number of Christians think it entirely unnecessary to go to church. The church, they rightly recognize, is full of flawed people, and they don't really want flawed people; they want a perfect God. You hear them say things like, "I connect with God better in the woods by myself" or "I have church wherever I go because God is with me." That's great, but that's not what church is for. Church is for the connecting and the building up of God's community. You can't do that on your own in the woods. You can't do that wherever you go. It's an intentional thing, one that God has called His people to engage in on purpose. But a lot of Christians these days think that God is more interested in persons than in peoples, that He will build up His church one by one instead of all together. That whatever God is doing inside the walls of our sanctuaries, He is also doing inside the walls of our own hearts, so it doesn't matter where we go or how we do it; God is doing it, with and without us. 

See, our contemporary Christianity acknowledges God, then largely ignores Him, failing to engage in even the most basic spiritual disciplines or commands of God for His people because hey, He's God. He doesn't need us to do anything; He only needs us to believe that He's doing things. And we do believe that, even if we don't understand it. How could we understand it? We no longer find it necessary to engage with Him at all while He does, you know, His "God" stuff. 

And then we wonder why our faith is so unfulfilling. And then we wonder why we never see God do anything cool. And then we wonder why we're so often grasping at straws to explain this God we hardly know even is when others ask about Him. 

And then we wonder why we're people of faith at all, since God doesn't really even need us. He's going to do whatever He's going to do whether we're present for it or not, so what's the point? What's the use? Why the faith? 

And then all of a sudden, we make our very first move...and we walk away, having never truly known Him at all. 

Be Still

The God of the Old Testament takes a lot of heat from the modern conscience because He seems to be quite the God of war. Turn no more than a few pages in the OT, and you will see God once again commanding a battle, ordering a siege, or using the sword to either defend or discipline His people. 

But buried among all these war narratives are a handful of the most hilariously wonderful battle stories you'll ever read. Because buried among the war narratives are a few stories of battles that Israel never fought.

One such of these stories is recorded in 2 Chronicles 20.

At this point, Israel exists as two tribes - Israel and Judah. Judah is generally the more faithful of the two; it is also the tribe over which a son of David still reigns, according to the promise God made to the second king of Israel. Jehoshaphat (we don't know whether he was jumpin' or not) was king, and the neighboring people were starting to come against the small tribe.

Jehoshaphat does all he knows to do and begins praying for deliverance from God, for protection and for victory. And the Spirit comes over one of the Levites, who begins to speak as the prophet. The word is essentially this: 

Get ready. Dress yourselves, pick up your weapons, and prepare for battle. But you...will not have to fight it.

So they do. The military men of Judah put on their best fighting gear, pick up their sharpest weapons, and pull into formation, arrayed by rank. They also bring into their company a host of Levites, whose job is nothing else but to sing and praise the Lord on their way toward the battle. As the army approaches the invading peoples, as they come closer and closer the camps of their enemies, as they put their hands on the handles of their swords, still sheathed by their sides, something hilariously wonderful happens:

The enemy nations that have come against Judah start killing each other. Right there in the valley. Un- it seems - provoked. There's bloodshed everywhere. Men falling left and right. And Judah standing on the hill, watching it all, not having to lift a finger until it's time to carry away the spoils. All their enemies wiped out before their very eyes by, of all peoples, their enemies. 

And all they had to do was dress themselves for battle.

The Bible actually talks about this kind of thing quite a bit. There are verses that say plainly, "The Lord Himself will fight for you; you need only to be still." But it's a little more even than that. You must also be ready. 

This is the part that it's so easy for us to forget. This is the part that's it's so difficult for us to obey. Because we've heard so many stories like this. And because we hear the whispers and promises of God only in part. Most of us these days, we'd hear a word like God spoke to Judah on the eve of this battle, and we'd hear only the last part of it - you won't have to fight this battle. Great! we think. God's got this. 

But somehow, we never hear the first part - dress yourself. We never hear what it takes from us for God to do what He's going to do. So we don't do it. And then we wonder what happens when our enemies start singing in their own camps. I thought God was going to take care of this? I thought God was fighting this one for us?

He is, but we must also prepare and go. We cannot sit back or stand down. God wants us close enough to see the battle; He wants us near enough to catch the glint of the sun off the swords of our enemies. He wants us there to see what He's going to do. He commands us to go, even if He's planning to fight for us. 

Faith is not a spectator sport. It's not meant for those who want to sit back and watch. It's not meant for those who are comfortable in their sanctuaries and confident in their songs. We must be a people who still go out and sing them, who dress for battle and show up to see what the Lord Himself is doing, singing and praising as we go. 

We must be a people who show the world that we're ready to engage them, wherever they may draw their battle lines, in order that they might understand that it is God who truly meets them there.