Matthew 22:27
“And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37)
The former President of Hillsdale College, George Roche authored a powerful book entitled, A World Without Heroes. In this brilliant analysis of what naturalism and humanism have done to us, he holds that the reason heroes have disappeared is that such an outcome is inevitable if we’re animals and matter is all that exists. Today let us strike a small blow against the prevailing orthodoxy and advocate the ancient virtue of excellence. In fact, beyond excellence. Let us to focus this day on that phrase “with all your heart.” We strive for excellence. Excellence in living a godly life, excellence in service to God, and to man. We avoid sin as best we can.
But I wonder if that’s excellent? If that’s a complete definition of excellent, then who defines excellence? What is excellent? Are we minimalists merely avoiding spiritual or ministry failure? Is that how we define excellence?
Think in terms of going beyond excellence. Now, in Israel there were very influential people. In fact, they were determined. They themselves determine the course of the nation for 40 years. Look at Numbers 13:1,3 where we’ll find these people and also find one other for us to think about today. “The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ”Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, everyone a chief among them.” So Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran, according to the command of the Lord, all of them men who were heads of the people of Israel.”
Now read Numbers 13:30, “Caleb, quieted the people before Moses, and said “Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it.” Then the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are.” So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
The majority wisdom prevailed. Often does. But whoever heard of these 10 people in the flow of history? The 10 spies who were leaders and the three million who followed them. They were the losers. But Caleb had a different spirit. Read Numbers 24:14: “But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him and had followed me fully. Him will I bring into the land where until he went, and his seed shall possess it.” He had a different spirit. How is it different? He wholly followed the Lord. You see, he went beyond excellence.
Well, Caleb stood in the minority. He had faith enough to wholly follow the Lord. He took an unpopular position. And he stuck with his people even though they made the wrong choice. When the final showdown came and he was getting ready to possess his gift, his possession. Notice what he said, “It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out as the Lord said.”
There was no great macho speech of self-confidence that of course he was going do this. He was really very humble about it. But he moved ahead with faith. He waited 40 years for the fulfillment, but he never gave up. At 85, he was still going for it. Joshua 14:10-12 says, “And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, just as he said, these forty-five years since the time that the Lord spoke this word to Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness. And now, behold, I am this day eighty-five years old. I am still as strong today as I was in the day that Moses sent me; my strength now is as my strength was then, for war and for going and coming. So now give me this hill country of which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day how the Anakim were there, with great fortified cities. It may be that the Lord will be with me, and I shall drive them out just as the Lord said.”
Caleb asked for Arba. You know about Goliath. But Arba? He was bigger and better than Goliath. Arba was the greatest man of the Anakim. Curious that we don’t read about the site named for Arba, because the site of Arba was renamed Hebron, where David was later crowned king and reigned there for seven years.
Goliath was 10 feet tall. So what must these people have been? These are the very ones that had intimidated. All the Israelites through the ten spies ten years earlier said, “they’re going to eat us up.” And remember Caleb back then, at that time said there will be bread for us. Just a little different perspective.
Caleb didn’t choose the easy way out, did he? For God’s purposes to be fulfilled in the promised land somebody had to overcome the big boys. Now, I think if I were Caleb at 85 years of age, I would have said I’ve served my time, I’m an old man. Give me something you’ve already conquered. I think I would have said that, but not Caleb. He chose the toughest part of the conquest. Not the easiest.
And Joshua blessed him and he gave Hebron to Caleb, “Therefore Hebron became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite to this day, because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. Now the name of Hebron formerly was Kiriath-arba.” Why? Because he wholly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. Caleb was faithful and obedient – beyond excellent.