Joshua
It’s time to lead. Be strong and courageous.
Our first lesson from Joshua was to Accept Your Leadership Role and as you do, submit to God’s authority and direction. In our second lesson, we learned to Be Confident in God's Power and to lead from a position of confidence in God. Last week in our third lesson, we learned the importance of Sticking to God's Plan and to keep doing what He says to do. This week there is a SIN in the camp! What will Joshua do?
Move Beyond Failure
The Point: Leaders confront failure, deal with it, and move on.
The Passage: Joshua 7:13-15, 19-21, 25-26; 8:1
The man often lauded as the best basketball player of all time was cut from his high school basketball team. But Michael Jordan didn’t let that setback stop him from playing the game. He later said: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot, and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
That’s good advice for many areas of life, but what about when it’s more than just a missed basket or an error in judgment? What about when we fail spiritually?
The failures we see in the Bible – pictures of sin against God – teach us more than just to be resilient or to get back on the horse when it throws us off. We can’t simply correct those kinds of failures; only God can remove our sin. But as we will see in the Book of Joshua, God calls us to confront our sin, deal with it, and move forward.
In other words, sin and failure should never have the final say.
Joshua 7:13-15
13 “Go, consecrate the people. Tell them, ‘Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow; for this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them. 14 “‘In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe. The tribe the Lord chooses shall come forward clan by clan; the clan the Lord chooses shall come forward family by family; and the family the Lord chooses shall come forward man by man. 15 Whoever is caught with the devoted things shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done an outrageous thing in Israel!’”
What’s your initial reaction to these verses?
Once Jericho was conquered, Joshua set the people’s sights on the town of Ai. The men Joshua sent to scout the area reported that Ai would be an easy conquest because of its size. So, Joshua confidently sent what he considered to be a sufficient number of soldiers to conquer the city. To everyone’s surprise, however, those soldiers were sent running! Joshua and the other leaders were so devastated by the defeat that they questioned God’s plan from the beginning. Joshua asked God, “Why did You ever bring these people across the Jordan?”
God showed Joshua that the source of Israel’s military failure was one man’s spiritual rebellion. Earlier, God had made it clear that the Israelites were to take no spoil from the city of Jericho (see 6:17-19). Everything in that city represented the sin of the land – sin God wanted to purify in the midst of His people. But one man had rejected God’s command and taken items from the city.
To get to the bottom of this rebellion, God commanded the people to consecrate themselves – to prepare themselves for the dealing with the sin that threatened their mission. This sin was a failure, but it wasn’t a simple error or mistake. It was intentional, and God would not tolerate such a transgression. He warned that He would not go any further with the Israelites until they dealt with the sin amongst them (see 7:12). One man’s sin was an “outrage in Israel,” damaging to the spiritual life of the entire nation.
How do we identify sin and failure in our own lives? For Joshua God Himself exposed what was hidden. We should pray and ask God to do the same for us. Ask Him to bring to light our sins, awaken us to what has lulled us to sleep, and turn our hearts from anything that steers us away from allegiance to Him.
Joshua 7:19-21
19 Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done; do not hide it from me.” 20 Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.”
God supernaturally revealed who was responsible for stealing and deceiving others by going tribe by tribe, clan by clan, and family by family (see 7:16-18). Why didn’t God just immediately identify Achan as the one who had sinned? Perhaps because this was more than one man’s sin. Only one man took the items, yes, but the sin affected all the Israelites, so God wanted each person to examine his or her heart. This process also gave the guilty party an opportunity to step forward and freely confess his or her transgression.
Achan did not step forward voluntarily, but through God’s process of elimination, he ultimately had no choice but to admit his guilt. Joshua confronted him directly, giving him the opportunity to respond and confess what he had done. Joshua commanded Achan to “give glory to the Lord.” Achan had failed to give glory to God when he took the items; he essentially took glory for himself. By admitting what he had done, Achan returned the glory he should never have stolen in the first place. Unfortunately, this was not a confession tied to repentance. Achan only confessed when he was forced to. There is no evidence of genuine remorse.
An unrepentant person:
· Is concerned only about the consequences of sin.
· Tends to deal in generalities when confessing sin.
· Is sorry he or she got caught.
In contrast, a broken and repentant person:
· Is grieved over the root of his or her sin.
· Acknowledges specifics when confessing sin.
· Is genuinely sorry for his or her sin and turns away from it.
Why is confession a necessary step for moving beyond failures?
Joshua 7:25-26; 8:1
25 Joshua said, “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.” Then all Israel stoned him, and after they had stoned the rest, they burned them. 26 Over Achan they heaped up a large pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since.
8 Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Take the whole army with you, and go up and attack Ai. For I have delivered into your hands the king of Ai, his people, his city and his land.
LIVE IT OUT
What steps will you take to confront sin and move forward with God? Consider the following suggestions:
Practice personal confession. Begin the discipline of examining your heart each day and confessing all known sin.
Practice confession in community. James 5:16 commands us to confess our sins to one another. Find a group or an individual to whom you can safely talk about your struggles, offer encouragement, and seek repentance.
Confront in love. As you see sin and failure in those you lead, lovingly talk to them about it. Godly leadership means we strive to help others come to a deeper walk with Christ.
You will continue to fail both practically and spiritually throughout your life. But you are not a failure in God’s eyes. Let His forgiveness have the final say – then move forward.
Have a blessed week!
In His Love,
David & Susan
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