“Getting Organized, pt.2 (Numbers 1:47 - 2:34)" | 1/19/25
Numbers 1:47 - 2:34 | 1/19/25 | Will DuVal
Now, I know what all of you “organized” types have been worried about all week long, since I mentioned it last Sunday, and I’m happy to report that I DO have an “emissions test” scheduled for tomorrow morning, so I can get my license plate tags renewed LATER in the week. I wish I could say I’m practicing what I preach and getting more organized, but the truth is POLLY made the appointment for me. She laughed at me AFTER the sermon, because I had mentioned wishing that SHE could just go renew the tags for me, and she informed me that she in fact CAN legally do so; yet another administrative detail I got WRONG, which only UNDERSCORES my point.
But we are once again this morning TRYING to get ourselves ORGANIZED. We kicked off our series in the book of Numbers last week, with that theme right out of the gate: the importance of ORGANIZATION. 1 Corinthians 14 - “God is not a God of confusion (or CHAOS) but of ORDER”, so “all things should be done [by US] decently and in order”, with organization. (vv33, 40)
And all the MORE so, the more chaotic the world AROUND us gets. Remember, that’s the context of the book of Numbers: Israel is beginning their journey through the WILDERNESS. It’s a LITERAL place - the Sinai wilderness - but it’s also a recurring motif all throughout Scripture, a SYMBOL of DIS-order, unpredictability. And that’s true of life FOR US, still today, as we journey through life in this fallen world, somewhere BETWEEN the slavery of our past (sin) and our ultimate HOMECOMING in the land of PROMISE (heaven). Like Israel, we too are a WILDERNESS people here.
So according to God, the first thing we gotta do if we’re gonna SURVIVE here in the wilderness, is GET ORGANIZED! We need a GAMEPLAN, a GUIDE. And that’s what God began GIVING his people last week in ch1, as early as v1: “The Lord spoke to Moses in the wilderness…”.
The Lord, YHWH, says, “I am gonna be your guide. And specifically, I’m going to guide you VIA my appointed “navigator”: MOSES. And I’m gonna guide HIM by SPEAKING to him”; over 150x in this book, we read that “the Lord SPOKE”. God has not left us in the DARK, friends, without a gameplan; our God SPOKE; He has given us his WORD as our guide, our G.P.S. (“God’s positioning system”).
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So God began organizing his people in chapter ONE; quick recap of the FIRST three organizational principles we noted last Sunday; I’ve got TWELVE of them total for you this morning; 12, as we’ll see, is a nice BIBLICAL number.
But it all STARTS - getting our lives ORGANIZED - STARTS with OBEYING GOD. Israel started off great - God commanded them to take a CENSUS and in v19: “as the Lord commanded Moses, So he listed them”; again in v54: “Thus did the people of Israel; they did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses.” As long as we obey God, life just works. It may not always work out the way we WANT at every turn - doesn’t mean that God’s gonna SPARE us of the wilderness entirely - but it DOES mean that we can TRUST Him to guide us and PROVIDE for us, sustain us, on our way THROUGH it. If we obey Him.
But the SECOND takeaway was our need for OTHERS along the journey. Specifically, godly organization requires EMPOWERED LEADERS. Leading this MASSIVE nation through the wilderness - even just COUNTING them before they set OUT - was a job too BIG for Moses to do on his own; God says, “Take a LEADER, from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, who shall ASSIST you…” We ALL need help, need support, we need one ANOTHER, if we’re gonna survive the wilderness. And we ESPECIALLY need godly LEADERS.
And THIRD, we observed last week that the MAJORITY of organizational effectiveness - like, almost the ENTIRETY of ch1 - really boils down to pretty boring, tedious, yet IMPORTANT stuff like administrative RECORD-keeping (long lists of NAMES in vv5-15; taking HEADCOUNTS in vv20-46), establishing and maintaining PROCESSES and procedures, as we’re gonna see this morning in ch2. The not-so-glamorous side of MINISTRY, that IS MOST of ministry, really. But it’s important. We had 11 people attend our membership class last week, and another 3 couples approached me after it, expressing a desire to “stand up and be counted” here at West Hills. Praise God! …for using His word, even boring lists of NAMES and NUMBERS, to motivate and MOBILIZE his people for the spiritual battles ahead of us.
So now we’re ready for organizational principle #4. But first, let’s STAND, as you’re able, and READ it together; we’ll back up and start in v45 of ch1, and go through the end of ch2; I had originally hoped to get all the way through chapter FOUR, but as I studied, I realized there’s just too much good wisdom here in ch2 that I don’t wanna RUSH through. So we’re gonna slow down and SAVOR it. (If you read all the way through ch4, you’ll just be AHEAD for next week; how many of you read AT LEAST through chapter TWO?
Okay, good, better… let’s RE-read it now, together (skip some…):
(SCRIPTURE)
“So all those listed of the people of Israel, by their fathers' houses, from twenty years old and upward, every man able to go to war in Israel— 46 all those listed were 603,550.
47 But the Levites were not listed along with them by their ancestral tribe. 48 For the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 49 “Only the tribe of Levi you shall not list, and you shall not take a census of them among the people of Israel. 50 But appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the testimony, and over all its furnishings, and over all that belongs to it. They are to carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings, and they shall take care of it and shall camp around the tabernacle. 51 When the tabernacle is to set out, the Levites shall take it down, and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up. And if any outsider comes near, he shall be put to death. 52 The people of Israel shall pitch their tents by their companies, each man in his own camp and each man by his own standard. 53 But the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the testimony, so that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the people of Israel. And the Levites shall keep guard over the tabernacle of the testimony.” 54 Thus did the people of Israel; they did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses.
Ch2: Arrangement of the Camp [we’ll summarize some of this, for sake of time; pretty repetitive…]
2:1 The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, 2 “The people of Israel shall camp each by his own standard, with the banners of their fathers' houses. They shall camp facing the tent of meeting on every side. 3 Those to camp on the east side toward the sunrise shall be of the standard of the camp of Judah… 5 Those to camp next to him shall be the tribe of Issachar… 7 Then the tribe of Zebulun… 9 All those listed of the camp of Judah, by their companies, were 186,400. They shall set out first on the march.
10 “On the south side shall be the standard of the camp of Reuben… 12 And those to camp next to him shall be the tribe of Simeon… 14 Then the tribe of Gad… 16 All those listed of the camp of Reuben, were 151,450. They shall set out second.
17 “Then the tent of meeting shall set out, with the camp of the Levites in the midst of the camps…
18 “On the west side shall be the standard of the camp of Ephraim… 20 And next to him shall be the tribe of Manasseh… 22 Then the tribe of Benjamin… 24 All those listed of the camp of Ephraim, were 108,100. They shall set out third on the march.
25 “On the north side shall be the standard of the camp of Dan… 27 And those to camp next to him shall be the tribe of Asher… 29 Then the tribe of Naphtali… 31 All those listed of the camp of Dan were 157,600. They shall set out last…”
32 These are the people of Israel as listed by their fathers' houses. All those listed in the camps by their companies were 603,550. 33 But the Levites were not listed among the people of Israel, as the Lord commanded Moses.
34 Thus did the people of Israel. According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so they camped by their standards, and so they set out, each one in his clan, according to his fathers' house.”
This is the word of God…
12 ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES here, for “Getting (our lives) Organized”; we covered THREE already; here’s #4:
4) Godly organization requires… Prioritizing worship. (1:47-53; 2:33)
That’s what the LEVITES represent: WORSHIP. And they don’t just “represent” it, symbolically; their JOB - as we’ll see NEXT week; chs.3 & 4 are all ABOUT the Levitical priesthood - the Levites’ primary FUNCTION was to FACILITATE Israel’s worship. “Worship” simply means “to assign worth”. We are ALL worshippers… of SOMETHING. GOD says: “Worship ME”. “You shall have NO other gods, no IDOLS, nothing you love and assign MORE worth to… than ME. Because nothing else is as WORTHY!”
But God went BEYOND that and instructed Israel HOW to worship him; what’s God’s love language? We saw last week: it’s OBEDIENCE. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will… keep my commands” (Jn 14:15). So right after God RESCUED Israel in Exodus 14 and ADOPTED them in ch19, He gave them His LAW in ch20 - “Now that we’re in this COVENANT relationship, here’s how you LOVE me: keep my commands.” But does anyone remember the FIRST command God gave them, AFTER the “Top 10”. They get the 10 Commandments in the FIRST half of Exodus 20; but what comes immediately next?
“Laws about ALTARS” for SACRIFICES, for when they FAIL to obey. God says, “OBEY me… AND when you DON’T… here’s how you make restitution, and restore the relationship. Cuz God KNEW we would fall short - SIN - and need forgiveness.
And yet HALF of the prescribed offerings were simply a way for Israel to “assign worth” to God; to thank Him, tangibly, for providing this year’s crop, by offering Him the firstfruits of it. Or to celebrate God, and their repaired relationship WITH him, through the peace offering. God says, “THIS is how I feel LOVED and prioritized.”
“BUT”, he specifies, “you gotta make those offerings AT the tent of meeting, THROUGH the Levites.” So when God says here in Numbers 1:49, “Don’t include the Levites in the census,” what he’s SAYING is: “There is something more IMPORTANT than organizing and mobilizing to FIGHT; namely, worshipping ME. So “appoint the Levites over the tabernacle” - the place where God’s PRESENCE would DESCEND, over the MERCY seat within the tabernacle, to DWELL with his people. God says, “That’s so important - I am so important - that one of these 12 tribes needs to be dedicated exclusively to facilitating my worship.”
AND… to honoring my HOLINESS. “If any outsider comes near, he shall be put to death… the Levites shall keep guard over the tabernacle… that there may be no wrath on the congregation”. God is SO holy, that his presence in the camp actually poses a THREAT to sinful people. The Levites themselves had to go through this elaborate purification process each time before THEY could approach God.
What does any of this mean for US? We no LONGER have to keep our distance, because we have a great high priest - Jesus Christ - who has TORN the curtain that once separated us from God. God - in all of his holiness, and despite all of our sinfulness - God wanted perfect, unobstructed relationship with us so badly, that He sent his only Son to DIE to make it possible. Jesus is our once-for-all-time sacrifice, who reconciles us to a holy God.
And we honor Him AS holy when we PRIORITIZE Him in our WORSHIP. When we carve out time and space in our busy lives, just as God carved out the Levites here, we are to dedicate a part of our lives exclusively for God’s worship. We can’t all sit around every day and do nothing but worship; a whole NATION of Levites isn’t realistic or practical. EVERY day can’t be SUNDAY.
But SUNDAY can be. You and I can carve out ONE day, to prioritize God in worship. We can carve out an HOUR of each day - God gave us 24! - surely we can give just ONE of them back to Him, set it apart, specially, for time with the Lord, in His word and in prayer. And a few EXTRA hours on Sunday mornings, Wednesday evenings.
If you want to get your life in order… I want to say it STARTS with worship, but I think the order in which we find these principles in the text is INTENTIONAL; I think God is offering us a “discipleship pathway” of sorts here. It STARTS with obedience, the obedience of FAITH; we obey God’s COMMAND to turn from sin and trust in Christ as Savior. But then, secondly, getting organized means empowering LEADERS, to GUIDE and ASSIST you in your new walk of faith; you find a Bible-preaching CHURCH to plug into. And not just “plug into”, but JOIN. So third, you “stand up and get counted”.
But FOURTH, we’ve still got to PRIORITIZE the Lord. In ONE sense, our relationship with God is no different than any other in our life: the strength and health of that relationship is a direct RESULT of the amount of time and effort we invest in it. When I only chat with Polly in passing, for 5 minutes out of the whole day, our relationship starts to FEEL it. I have to PRIORITIZE her; she is WORTH more than that.
How much MORE so, then, is the LORD worthy?
But even more than that…
#5- Godly organization requires… Centering on CHRIST. (2:1-2)
If “prioritizing worship” was about carving out set aside time for the Lord, NOW we see the need for ALL of life to revolve around him!
It’s SUBTLE in the text, but look back at v2 of chapter 2 now; God tells them to “camp facing the tent of meeting on every side”; all 12 tribes. God’s gonna sort Israel now, to the north, south, east and west. But no matter WHERE they are assigned to camp, they are always to FACE inward, toward the tent in the CENTER; toward GOD. He is our frame of reference for ALL of life. Every night, when Israel was done marching, remember: because of their disobedience, what should have been an 11-day jaunt to Canaan is gonna turn into a 39 year TREK (“a long & ARDUOUS journey”)... and from the pictures I’ve seen, there aren’t a lot of distinctive points of reference out there in the Sinai wilderness for getting your bearings. But God says, “I’m gonna give you the only directional reference point you NEED: ME! You keep ME at the center, and everything else will fall into its proper PLACE.”
Now, why do I say “center on CHRIST”? I don’t want to stretch the text TOO much, and make points that aren’t THERE, but as Jesus himself reminded us LAST week, ALL of the Old Testament points us to Him (Lk 24:27; Jn 5:39). So I have to WONDER if God’s DESIGN of the camp to look like THIS wasn’t purposeful. Not ONLY is God at the center; but check out the SHAPE: what’s that look like to YOU?!
It’s a CROSS! I mean, can’t you just imagine God sort of SMILING to himself, as he’s giving them these instructions, thinking: “Y’all don’t even understand the HALF of it! Just how rich with meaning and symbolism every single detail of my plan here is.”
Church: we’ve got to CENTER on the CROSS! On the GOSPEL! The good news of Christ crucified for the forgiveness of our sins. When the rest of life - ALL of it may seem out of order, chaotic, disorienting; what do we do? That’s when we RE-CENTER on CHRIST.
But I love this quote from Iain Duguid (37):“God’s not really at the center of our lives unless his truth finds expression in every CORNER of them.” We want ALL of life to revolve around Christ at the center, with his truth and GRACE spilling out all the way to the corners, every EDGE of our life.
You may prioritize Sunday for worship, but if your life is functionally no different on Monday morning than your unsaved co-worker’s, then Christ isn’t really at the CENTER.
You can spend that first HOUR of the day with God in his word and prayer, but if you spend the next 15 AFTER it GRIEVING the Holy Spirit with your SIN, then you’re not remaining CENTERED on Christ.
How do we keep Christ CENTRAL, in ALL of life? Well I think it starts with PRAYER, with the humble recognition that I am SINFUL enough, if I’m just running on autopilot, with ME at the helm, Jesus is ALWAYS gonna get pushed to the margins. That’s why Jesus said, “Take up your cross DAILY; you’ve gotta die to yourself DAILY, to follow me”; Christ-centeredness requires a daily - and really, a moment by MOMENT - prayerful and intentional surrender of my life to Him. Every morning for us should start with the prayer: “God, would you be at the CENTER of my life today. I know that’s where you BELONG. And yet the Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. In my flesh - that sinful, selfish part of me - I know I’m probably gonna try and REPLACE you at the center… about every 5 or 10 MINUTES today. I need YOUR help, YOUR power, to keep you at the center today.” And then RE-centering on Christ throughout the day means RE-praying that prayer another 2 to 300 times, as needed.
But what ELSE can we do? I think it’s time for “WWJD?” bracelets to make a comeback. “What would JESUS do?”; ask THAT with every decision you make today, and he’ll stay at the center. I’ve recommended this book before - Every Moment Holy: Liturgies for Daily Life - it’s got prayers for every CORNER of life; ideas for praying while you’re COOKING, eating, laundering, TWO prayers for changing diapers… because every moment IS holy, and every moment is an OPPORTUNITY to put CHRIST at the CENTER.
#6- Godly organization requires… Knowing your place. (2:3-9)
Now we get to the actual ARRANGEMENT of the camp. And God actually gives them TWO orderings here: the order in which they are to CAMP, and then the order in which they are to MARCH. And once again, as with ALL of God’s detailed instructions, there is a deeper reason and MEANING behind the way he has arranged them here; the 12 tribes are NOT grouped EVENLY.
God starts with JUDAH, who camps to the EAST, “toward the SUNRISE”; this is the place of prominence, not because Judah was the LARGEST tribe, though they WERE. But their privilege derived from their PROMISE, specifically, the BLESSING that Judah’s father JACOB has prophesied over him some 400 years prior, back in Genesis ch49: “Judah, your brothers shall praise you… your father's sons shall bow down before you.” (v8)
God ordained that Judah should be the RULING tribe of Israel: “The scepter shall not depart from Judah… to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.” (v10) Judah would later be the tribe of King DAVID, and eventually, that of the LION of Judah, King JESUS himself.
But for NOW, here in Numbers, it meant that Judah got to camp and march FIRST, along with Issachar and Zebulun.
WHY? Why did God choose JUDAH to be first? Why’d he choose ME to be lead pastor here? Because I’m HOLIER than y’all? (If you’re not LAUGHING, you don’t KNOW me very well…)
Maybe you’ll appreciate this one more: why’d God choose HUSBANDS to lead our wives? Because we’re more competent? (THAT one deserves a laugh…)
Why did God choose YOU to come to Christ, saving faith, but not any of your other SIBLINGS? Because you’re BETTER than them?
Here’s the thing; and this truth makes a LOT of folks - even many CHRISTIANS - very uncomfortable, but: sometimes, God just CHOOSES. And we don’t always KNOW his reasons. But he DOES want us to know… our PLACE. It’s not important WHY God put Judah first, but it IS important THAT He put them is first, and that Judah KNOWS they’re first. God calls them to LEAD; remember, God is leading Israel, as a CLOUD by day, a pillar of FIRE by night; and when HE moves, Israel FOLLOWS; when God settles DOWN for the night, Israel RESTS and sets up camp. But everybody ELSE is in line behind JUDAH. THEY’RE following God; everyone ELSE is just following JUDAH.
Leading isn’t for everyone; lotta pressure. Israel only needed - they could only HAVE - one Judah. They ALSO needed the Issachars, and Zebuluns. The same is true of God’s people TODAY: everyone has a part to play; the important thing is KNOWING your place, serving your role, and being CONTENT. In the NEW Testament, Paul says, “We are ONE body of Christ, made up of many different members. It’s no good for the FOOT to wish they were a HAND… OR for the HAND to wanna be a FOOT.” Judah didn’t just get to say, “We’re tired of the pressure of leading; someone ELSE take a turn. MOSES tried to dodge it, when God called HIM, back in Exodus 4:13, “PLEASE Lord - send someone ELSE!”
“PLEASE Lord, call someone ELSE to shepherd this church, it’s not a good season of LIFE for me to serve as an elder…”
“Please Lord, let someone ELSE lead my kids - the kids ministry, their teachers at school, let MOM lead the home…”
“Please Lord, send someone ELSE to share the gospel with that unsaved family member…”
Where is God calling YOU this morning to LEAD?! To know your place, recognize the ROLE, the responsibility that God is entrusting to you, and to STEP UP.
#7) Godly organization requires Redeeming your past. (2:10-16)
Now we move clockwise to the SOUTH and the camp of REUBEN. Israel’s FIRST-born. Accompanied by SIMEON, the SECOND-born. But do you remember why Reuben didn’t get the BLESSING of the firstborn? The double-portion of the inheritance, leadership over his brothers?
Because he slept with his stepmom, back in Genesis ch35.
Why didn’t the blessing fall to SIMEON, the NEXT in line? Because Simeon and Levi “made Israel STINK to the inhabitants of Canaan” when they slaughtered all the Shechemites in Genesis 34. So Jacob CURSED them in ch49.
And yet we’re REMINDED here in NUMBERS, as Duguid points out (40-42), that while: “sin has consequences, sometimes long-term results that affect even our children as well [this is 400 years after the stepmom and Shechem incidents; LONG-TERM consequences]… Yet at the same time God’s grace is GREATER than our sin… and God will in some cases even reverse those consequences, and turn them to his own glory… as he did with Judah and with the Levites.”
That’s the thing: LEVI had been cursed TOO. And yet here God is now appointing them as his special consecrated PRIESTS. And speaking of sexual sin, Reuben wasn’t the ONLY son of Israel guilty of it; anyone remember the story of Judah and Tamar? Where Judah impregnates his daughter in law, after mistaking her for a prostitute? And guess what: their CHILD, Perez, was the great-great-great-great (like 38 “great”s) GRAND-father of JESUS!
Now if God can redeem THAT… if God can redeem the CROSS - the CENTER-piece of our faith was the most HEINOUS EVENT in the history of the entire WORLD!
And yet, it is simultaneously the most GLORIOUS event! “Ghastly Friday” became “GOOD Friday” because of OUR God’s power of REDEMPTION!
And friend, if He can redeem THAT - the death of his own divine SON - then what CAN’T he redeem?! Your past, your baggage, your brokenness… is a CAKEwalk compared to Christ’s cross! I don’t mean to minimize it; I’m sure it FEELS overwhelming, like nothing good could EVER come out of THIS unspeakable evil - what YOU went though as a child, what your EX is putting you through right NOW; your unforgettable LOSS, your unendurable SUFFERING - that it could EVER result in anything OTHER than more pain and heartache: it feels IMPOSSIBLE.
But take heart: OUR God is the “impossible” BUSINESS. With HIM, ALL things are possible. And not just POSSIBLE, but PROMISED: “We know that God works ALL THINGS - ALL things! - together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:28).
Your past can make you BITTER, or it can make you BETTER. Will you be a REUBEN, or a JUDAH? A SIMEON, or a LEVI? Are you gonna hold ONTO it - the pain, the resentment - and let it fester and eat away and DESTROY you… or will you “let go and let GOD” - give it to HIM and let him REDEEM it? USE it - God doesn’t want to just gloss OVER it, sweep it under the rug; he wants to USE your brokenness as the very means of his transformative work in your life, to change you into the person He MADE you to be. Will you LET Him?
#8 - Godly organization requires us to Protect worship. (2:17)
It’s not enough to PRIORITIZE it; we must PROTECT our worship of God as well. Once again, it’s SUBTLE, but in v17 we read that when Israel is on the move, “the tent of meeting, with the LEVITES” - the CENTER of Israel’s WORSHIP - is positioned… where ELSE, but in the very MIDDLE of the MARCH; 6 tribes in FRONT, 6 tribes BEHIND. Why?
For PROTECTION! To protect God’s WORSHIP, as preeminent in importance.
It’s one thing to PRIORITIZE… anyone can make “New Year’s Resolutions” to prioritize God - “We’re gonna get back to church every Sunday… I’m gonna read my Bible every day…” - but will you PROTECT those commitments, your worship, when your kids’ SOCCER league starts playing Sunday morning GAMES this spring? When you get to LEVITICUS, in your Bible READING plan? When it’s cold and dark out, and you just wanna SLEEP IN. Will you protect that priority you placed on worship? Will you KEEP Christ at the center, when the demands of life pile up and push him towards the fringes?
#9- Godly organization requires Trusting God. (2:18-24)
Here’s what I find so interesting about the WESTERN camp: it’s the SMALLEST of all the camps; only 108,000. And yet, if you look at the MAP, and the ROUTE God had them take, Israel’s greatest military THREAT, at almost any given time during their journey, from a possible enemy attack, would have come from the WEST. We don’t know exactly which route they took, but most scholars think the most likely route is the SOUTHERN one; a combination of the red and brown arrows there (Iet me just HIGHLIGHT the most probable route for you…)
So after the Exodus, they had EGYPT to their west...Then they’ll travel NORTH to the Wilderness of ZIN, and have the AMALEKITES to the west…
Then they’re gonna be denied safe passage by the Edomites, and have to go the LONG way around to the south, and they end up with EDOM on the west; a KNOWN hostile nation…
And they continue making their way north, passing the MOABITES on the west… then the AMMONITES… before they FINALLY get ready to cross into the Promised Land, where they’ve got all the CANAANITES to the west!
Now if God had put ISRAEL in charge of arranging the camp, don’t you think they would have stationed their STRONGEST military unit to the west? The camp of JUDAH, with 186,000 troops? It reminds me of the story of GIDEON going up against the MIDIANITES in Judges 7, where he started out with 32,000 soldiers and God said, “Nah, too many; there’s nothing special about winning THAT way, by FORCE…”, so God prunes the army down til there’s just 300 men left, and uses THEM to defeat the entire NATION.
Sometimes God tells us to get ORGANIZED, take a census and take STOCK, so we can make the SENSIBLE decision with all the available information. But OTHER times, he just calls us to TRUST him, and he leads us in what APPEARS to be a LESS-than- sensible direction.
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses,” Psalm 20, v7 declares…
“Some trust in their OWN strength, their OWN intellect, their OWN manipulation of the situation to get the outcome THEY desire; some trust in their WEALTH, their WISDOM, their WORKS - their own RIGHTEOUSNESS… some trust in their own PREPARATION, their ORGANIZATION!”
“but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.”
What are YOU trusting in?
#10- Sometimes Godly organization requires Humbling yourself. (2:25-31)
This is the FLIP side of principle #6. Sometimes getting your life together means stepping up and leading; but other times it means HUMBLING yourself and being willing to be LAST. Jesus said, “The last shall be FIRST!” (Mt 20:16). If that’s true, then the tribe of DAN wins the prize. Actually, Dan is the lead tribe of the last group, followed by Asher and then NAPHTALI; so NAPHTALI wins.
While LEADING isn’t for everyone; a LOT of us have a very hard time NOT leading, don’t we? I’ve coached my kids’ sports teams for SIX seasons now. But this is the first one - Ellery’s basketball - where I am NOT the HEAD coach; I’m the assistant. And I was initially bummed about it, but I thought, “I lead the church; I lead my family; lead the pastors’ network in town; maybe God wants to GROW me as a FOLLOWER for a change.” And you know what I’m learning: I’m a pretty bad NON-leader. It’s HARD for me to let OTHERS lead, especially when they’re BAD at it.
But God doesn’t just call us to submit to COMPETENT authority, does he? God calls you to submit to your boss even when you’re more QUALIFIED.
Submit to your husband even when you’re more THOUGHTFUL.
Submit to your pastor even when you’re more GODLY.
Submit to the president even when we’re ALL more respectable.
How do you DO that? It starts with HUMBLING yourself. Like Jesus, who “came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mk 10:45). So then, we “have this mind among ourselves, which is ours in Christ Jesus… [we] do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility [we] count others more significant than ourselves. [We] look not only to [our] own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
Like JESUS, who - counting US as more significant… looking to OUR interest… - Jesus stepped off his throne in glory to climb the rugged cross of Calvary… and DIE for us.
If even the Son of God HUMBLED himself - suffered HUMILI-ATION - for us, how much MORE ought we now to humble ourselves?
#11- Godly organization requires Unifying as God’s people. (2:32)
“These are the people of Israel as listed by their fathers' houses”. Judah may be first and Naphtali may be last… Levi may have gotten a special and central place, closest to God… but at the end of the day, they all came together as ONE. One unified people of God.
And that’s US today, Church. We are God’s people, singular; Christ’s BRIDE, his BODY. Many members; one body. Some of us LEAD; others play more supporting roles. But we ALL rise OR FALL as ONE.
And just as there was no such thing as an ISRAELITE who DIDN’T belong to one of the 13 camps, there is no such thing today as a CHRISTIAN who doesn’t belong to the CHURCH. “He cannot have God for his father, who has not the Church for his mother” (St. Cyprian).
But LASTLY, #12 - we come full circle and recognize once AGAIN that Godly organization requires Obeying God. (2:34)
God bookends this whole section - chs 1 & 2 - with his LOVE language: obedience. And specifically, here at the end, it is Israel’s obedience to get prepped and ready to MOVE OUT! V34 says: “As God instructed them so they camped… and so they SET OUT”.
Church: this life, this WILDERNESS, is not a WAITING room. God’s people are called to be a people on the MOVE, to “GO and make disciples” in EVERY corner of the globe; “Jerusalem… Judea… Samaria… and to the end of the earth” (Mt 28:19; Ac 1:8).
But it starts with getting your house in order; getting your lifeorganized. And THAT starts with OBEYING God, and his call to surrender your life to Christ.