FROM FAILURE TO WORSHIP.
JOSHUA 8:30-35.
Perhaps one of the greatest examples of comebacks in recent years was that of San Francisco Giant pitcher Dave Dravecky. Besides pitching is the regular season Dave also pitched in the All star game, in the national league championship series and in the World Series. In 1988 doctors removed a cancerous growth in Dave’s pitching arm and there was little hope of returning to baseball. Doctors and trainers watch in awe as God and a loving family gave him the courage and grace to mount one of the most amazing comebacks in the world of sports. A year later a sell out crowd watched Dave breeze to a victory over the Cincinnati Reds. Five days later Dave broke as he threw a pitch to batter Tim Raines in the bottom of the sixth. When a second lump was discovered, the arm that had helped Dave become successful pitcher of baseball was amputated to stop the cancer. Once again his faith in God pulled him from defeat to victory as Dave has used the story of his comebacks to share the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Joshua Ch. 7 is also the story of a comeback. The Lord gave Joshua a mission which was to remove the stain of sin and disobedience from the camp. Joshua brought everyone forward tribe by tribe, family by family, until it was revealed that Achan was the guilty one. The Bible informs us that the Lord had made his covenant with the whole nation of Israel and when Achan sinned the Lord considered that sin as if the whole camp had sinned. The sin of Achan is the chief reason for the defeat of Israel. From this we learned that when one Christian sins that sin affects every Christian.
In Chapter 8 we see that things have turned around for Joshua and the people of Israel. They have restored their relationship with the Lord and that fact would give the people confidence that the Lord would be on their side in the coming battle. A Christian life is one of conquests. As we live our lives we enter into battles everyday.
There isn’t a day that goes by that we aren’t struggling with some form of temptation or sin. I know that we are very grateful to the Lord Jesus when we win our battles but are we just as grateful to the Lord when we lose. Now maybe as a Christian we don’t like the idea that we lose. A very successful business man was asked what the secret of his success was. He said my failures. When he was asked to explain he said I learned more from my failures in how to succeed that I did from being successful.
That is what Joshua chapter 8 is about. The Lord wants you and I to see that we can turn defeat into worship with the help of the Holy Spirit.
As God’s people today live their lives for the Lord, as they moves out and engages the enemies, we will not always find ourselves standing in the winners circle. God’s people will sometimes have to deal with defeat instead of victory. This is the one subject that Christians never talk about and the reason is that we don’t want anyone to know that we are not always in the victory circle. One of the thing that we must remember is that we spend more time in the valleys struggling with our difficulties that we do on the mountain top celebrating our victories. We learn from our victories but we probably learn twice as much from our defeats.
I believe that there are some very important points here that we can apply to our lives as we fight our battles with Satan. When we lose a battle you can be sure that Satan will be right there to not only remind us of the defeat but to use that defeat to get you and I to stop trying.
1. To turn Defeat into Worship they didn’t concede Defeat.
One of the things that I have noticed about Joshua is that the pattern in this book are the same patterns that we have in our Christian lives. The spies look at Ai and they decided that this community wouldn’t give then any problem yet we find from scripture that not only were they defeated but the lost 36 men of war.
I don’t know if your life is like this or not but I have noticed that everytime that I am preparing to move forward after not succeeding the first time that my mind has this habit of bring the first attempt right to the very front of my mind. So there I am looking at one thing but thinking about what happen in the past. Now the reason why that first failed attempt popped into my mind is because Satan is always trying to make sure that we don’t enter into the victory circle. One of the way that he does that is to keep bring up our failures. I am sure that as the army was getting read for the second attempt at Ai that the soldiers who went on the first attempt would be struggling with that first failure that would be still fresh in their minds.
A lot of times as Christians we have to have a victory in our mind before it can be worked out in our lives. If we enter into a situation where we had been defeated and we are making a second attempt we will suffer a second defeat if we have won the victory in our mind first. If we make a second attempt and we fail it is very likely we will not make a third attempt or we will assume that the Lord doesn’t want that in our lives.
I remember when Shawn was learning to drive his bike. As long as I was holding on he would do ok. When I let go he would fall off. I got up early and went to work and when I came home Barb told me that Shawn spent the whole day learning to drive his bike. She said that he fell many times but he just wouldn’t give. I wonder if maybe when we are involved in a battle with Satan and we lose the first round, maybe the problem is that we figure if we don’t try then we don’t have to deal with failure again. If Israel simply gives up at this point they will never receive what the Lord has for them. When we concede after the first battle our faith in the Lord get a little weaker and we will not become all that the Lord wants for us. Instead of conceding defeat after the first battle, Israel went right back into the battle.
A. Pride can cause us to underestimate the enemy.
I Corinthians 10:12. If you think you are standing firm be careful so that you don’t fall.
This may be one of the greatest problems that Christians have; that sometimes Christians can get a bit prideful. Pride has a way of causing you and I to not see the real picture. When that happens we are headed for defeat.
I remember asking in a church service what Satan looks like. The answer that I got was that Satan was a little person who wore a red suit had a tail and carried a pitchfork. Beloved just like it is possible that Israel underestimate their enemy so to when Christians are involved in a battle with Satan that we do the same thing. One of the reasons why the Christian community has more failure than victories is that they underestimate not only the situation that they are dealing with but they underestimate the strength of the enemy. The scripture show us that Israel has just won a major victory by defeating the city of Jericho. Now Jericho was considered unconquerable yet the Israel had accomplished the impossible. If we apply this to our lives we will see that when we are involved in a battle and we follow the Lords leading we have a victory and we should celebrate that victory. Now here is what I have learned; that when we have won a victory you can count on having another battle real soon.
Truth # 1. The next battle isn’t going to be as big as the one we have just won.
The reason why the next battle is smaller is planned that way.
The Lord wants to see what we are going to do. Are we still going to reply of the leading of the Holy Spirit or will we underestimate
the battle and suffer defeat. I would almost venture to say that we likely fit into the last part of that.
B. Pride can cause Christians to be Spiritual Unprepared for the battle.
If we compare these two situations we will find some interesting things.
I would like you to notice some things.
In the first battle the Ark of the Lord was taken by the priest into the battle.
In the second there is no record of the people taking the Ark of the Lord with them. The Ark represents the Lords Presence with the people so when they didn’t take the Ark they were saying that they didn’t need the Lord help in this battle.
There is no record of God commanding them or giving them instructions about Ai.
There is no record of anyone spending time in prayer asking the Lord what He wants to happen.
They are fresh from a victory and the success very likely caused them to be a bit prideful which caused them to be careless and overconfidence. On their first attempt at Ai they likely figured they would have a repeat of what happen at Jericho. I wonder if maybe Christians are like that. We have won a major battle and as we turn the corner of life there is our Ai and we just truck on into the battle without asking the Holy Spirit to lead us or even help us.
Truth # 2. It isn’t the big battle that cause us so much trouble it is the little battles because we underestimate them.
Being successful in our Christian life can sometimes cause us to think that we don’t need the Lord. When our reliance is upon ourselves and not the Lords leading through the Holy Spirit we usually don’t have success.
2. To turn defeat into worship we need to realize that the Small battle require just as much work as big ones.
Once the sin was taken care of the Lord told Joshua that He had given the city of Ai and everything in it into Israel hands. The Lord said that as I gave you victory over Jericho I will give you victory over Ai.
A. Even though the Lord said they would have victory still Israel had to discharge their responsibilities.
If our Faith is in the Lord Jesus then we as Christians should have no problems following the leading of the Holy Spirit. There have been many times when Christians have told me that they are going to just sit back and allow the Lord to fight their battles.
The problem with this concept is that the Lord will give us the guidance and the power to fight and win our battles. There is one thing that the Lord won’t do and that is to completely take over our battles and fight them for us. It is important for us to remember that as we fight our battles and win that our faith actually grows and we mature in our relationship with Jesus. I know that we probably think it would be better if the Lord took care of the battles but then we would never grow nor would we mature.
Now if you will remember that in the battle of Jericho everyone was involved. Well here we see that according to the Lord plan to defeat Ai everyone is required to be involved. This is one of those area where we as a Christian community hasn’t learnt to apply this rule. I think one of the key reasons why w struggle is because we don’t want anyone to know that we are having a difficult time. Another reason is because there may have been a time when we did share about our situation and it wasn’t long until everybody in the world knew what was happening.
I want you to notice that the Lord plan has the whole community involved and the result is they have victory.
3. To turn Defeat in Victory requires that we take time to Worship Jesus Christ.
Joshua is showing up the importance that worship plays in preparation for the daily battles we will have.
If we look at this from the military perspective then the next step for Joshua and the people would be to prepare for the next battle. Well you may not see it this way but that is exactly what Joshua is doing.
A. WORSHIP IS PREPARATION FOR BATTLE.
The gathering together of God people is critical because it not only allow us to give testimony of the victories we have won with the help of the Holy Spirit but it allows us to become an encouragement to other in the household of faith.
The people had won at Jericho, were defeated at Ai because of sin in the camp. Once they dealt with the sin in the camp they won their second battle by defeating Ai. Everything about the people of Israel let us know that their mind would be upon the battle they just won but their mind would also upon the battles that they still had to fight. So when Joshua stop the war to take time to spend it in worshipping the Lord I can imagine that everyone would be surprised.
The question that come to my mind is how is worship preparation for the battles we will face?
Worship requires that we refocus our mind fully on the Lord and off the problem.
When we come to church with the intent of entering into worshipping Jesus Christ it help us to shut out the world and allow the Holy Spirit to minister to our souls.
For worship to have the right effect we must do more that just say the words. For worship to be effective I need to have my whole mind, heart, soul and body involved in praising Jesus Christ.
By being involved in worship I am giving the Holy Spirit the opportunity to ministry in my soul and to use me as an anointed vessel to ministry to another soul.
Worship is remembering the price that was paid to redeem our souls for Satan.
Verse 30 tells us that Joshua built an altar to the Lord God of Israel. Underline that phrase, Joshua built an altar.
The altar is primarily a place of doing business with God.
Building an altar is saying that we want to spend time worshipping the Lord. The act of worship requires a serious commitment from us because true worship requires our time and energy. Joshua stopped everything to worship and acknowledge God. Only the Muslims stop everything they are doing so they can spend time worshipping their god. I wonder what would happen if all born again Christians at the city of Fredericton requested permission from the city to stopped their daily activities so they could worship Jesus Christ. I can only guess what the answer would be. Personally I think the answer would be NO.
To Joshua to act of worship meant reading the entire Bible out loud, publicly to everyone. Now what would happen on a given Sunday, if instead of having a message I stood up here and started reading the Bible and my intent was to read the Bible from cover to cover. Joshua read the entire law of Moses which meant he read the whole story about the covenant that God had with Israel. Verse 35 says that there was not a single word that Joshua didn’t read. Instead of handing out awards, they chose to build an altar and worship God. Instead of being overcome with the pride of being successful and taking credit for the victory they offered sacrifices to God.
The Church of today is completely different from the church of yesterday. The church should be always moving forward and to do that it requires change. The thing is the church should never lose the idea that the people of the Lord need time to Worship Jesus Christ. I believe that the Lord not only call us to worship Him but that the Lord expect us to worship during the good times and the bad times. The people of God need to stay committed to worship which will help them to maintain a Godly perspective.
We can build an altar anywhere, anytime if we are serious about doing business with God. It could be the pillow you lay your head on or it could be in the car you drive to work. It could be the chair that you sit on in you living room or it could be the place where you are sitting in Church. The Altar is an act of choosing God instead of ourselves.
The Altar is a place where Gods Children can offer themselves as a living sacrifice as an act of worship in surrender to the lord.
An altar is a meeting place where saint get to spend time helping those who desire to receive Jesus Christ.
The Altar is a place where the Christians can come and offer up prayers for unsaved loved ones.
An altar is a place where Christians can come along side of other Christians and encourage each other through prayer and worship.
An altar is a witness to the unsaved that they need to Lord.
An altar is a place where the people of the Lord can renew their covenant with the Lord Jesus.
An altar is a place where one can simply spend time and commune with Jesus.
