When God Doesn’t Bless
Joshua 7: 1-26
Intro: Three churches – Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian – worked together to sponsor a community-wide revival. (The revival meetings were a success. New faces appeared, old friends returned, and neighbors were more aware of the church’s presence and programs in the community) After the revival concluded, the three pastors were eagerly discussed the results with one another (over lunch).
The Methodist minister (smiled with utmost satisfaction and) said, “The revival worked out great for us! We gained four new families.” The Baptist preacher (responded with unrestrained excitement and) said, “We did better than that! We gained six new families.”
The Baptist Minister said wow, between the two of us, we have gained 10 new families.
The Presbyterian pastor (surprised his two friends and) said, “Well, we did even better than that! We got rid of our ten families that were the biggest troublemakers (and the church has never been better)!”
. Most issues and problems within all organizations are self made. Churches are not exempt from this principle.
. The Jewish people, the nation of Israel were not immune to these problems either.
. In our scripture today, we will see an example of God not blessing the efforts of his people and why.
.The nation of Israel had just experienced a great battle and had seen the mighty and miraculous hand of God at work.
. Moses had died and Joshua had taken over as the leader of the nation or the Jewish people. With God’s help, they have crossed over the Jordan river into the promised land. The land that God had promised to their patriarch Abraham.
. They had gotten to the outskirts of Jericho and had sent spies out to do recon. They knew that they had to defeat Jericho if they were to go any further.
. Jericho guarded two important entrances into the hill country of the Promised Land. If they did not deal with Jericho, they would have enemies at their backs.
. Jericho was fortified and they needed a way to penetrate the walls of the city.
.God told Joshua to take all his fighting men, 600,000, and march around the city one time every day for six days.
. On the seventh day, they were to march around the city seven times and when they heard the priests give one long blast, all the men were to shout and yell as loud as they could.
. They did this and all the walls of the city collapsed and the city was given over to the Israelites.
. Now I could give you scientific reasons as to how this happened but due to time restraints, we are just going to say that God told them what to do, and they did it and they were successful.
. They were given specific instructions from God as to what they were to do with the people and valuables of Jericho. Everything made from silver, gold, bronze or iron was to be saved and brought into the treasury of God. God warned them not to do anything any different.
. Everything went well there at Jericho and they defeated the people of Jericho.
. Everybody in the land heard about this miraculous feat at Jericho.
. The Israelites were getting a reputation as the ones to be feared. They were pleased with themselves and knowing human nature like I do, they were probably getting a little arrogant.
. They could not be stopped. The problem was, the most fearsome and troublesome enemy they faced were themselves.
. You see, their enemy was disobedience and sin within their own camp.
. They had angered God approx. forty years before when they would not place their faith in him and he sent them into the wilderness for forty years.
. They were about to be reminded again what happens when you are disobedient.
. The next town that was in their way was Ai. That is where our scripture picks up this morning.
Joshua 7: 1-5
. 1But Israel violated the instructions about the things set apart for the LORD. A man named Achan had stolen some of these dedicated things, so the LORD was very angry with the Israelites. Achan was the son of Carmi, a descendant of Zimri son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah.
2Joshua sent some of his men from Jericho to spy out the town of Ai, east of Bethel, near Beth-aven.
3When they returned, they told Joshua, “There’s no need for all of us to go up there; it won’t take more than two or three thousand men to attack Ai. Since there are so few of them, don’t make all our people struggle to go up there.”
4So approximately 3,000 warriors were sent, but they were soundly defeated. The men of Ai
5chased the Israelites from the town gate as far as the quarries, and they killed about thirty-six who were retreating down the slope. The Israelites were paralyzed with fear at this turn of events, and their courage melted away.
. In their disobedience, the people had missed Gods blessing.
. We miss God’s blessing when we are disobedient.
. God had told the people what He expected.
. He expected them to be obedient. One man chose not to and the whole nation suffered for this.
. There’s an old wives tale that says “ one bad apple will spoil the whole barrel” While that is not true scientifically when you talk about fruit, It can be true when it comes to a people of God and a church.
. Achan had disobeyed God by taking the things that were dedicated to the Lord. That disobedience cost him and the nation of Israel God’s blessing and protection.
. Back when I was a teenager, a friend of mine had what we called a mini-bike. I wanted one so I asked my dad if he would buy one for me and my brother. In his wisdom, he said sure, with conditions. You see, I was slipping around and smoking cigarettes back then and he knew it. He told me that I had to quit smoking. If I would do that, he would buy one. Well that lasted for about two days. I disobeyed him and didn’t quit. I tried to hide that from him and it didn’t work. He told me that because of my disobedience, he would not buy the mini-bike.
. My father would not bless me with all that I could have had because of my disobedience. He still loved me but I did not receive all that I could have received from him because I was living in disobedience.
.Achan was in disobedience to the commands of God and consequently he and the nation of Israel missed out on the full blessing and protection of God.
. Have you ever wondered why some churches seem to be blessed by God while others seem to struggle and falter?
. Could it possibly be that they are disobedient to God in what He has called them to be.
.When we are disobedient, we miss God’s blessings.
Not only do we miss God’s blessings when we are disobedient, we also miss his blessings when we are:
. Distracted by the things of the world.
. As we saw in the first 5 verses, the Israelites were soundly defeated by the inhabitants of Ai.
. Joshua and the elders tore their clothes and cried out in anguish because of their defeat.
. The first thing they did was blame God.
. look at verse 7 with me.
7Then Joshua cried out, “Oh, Sovereign LORD, why did you bring us across the Jordan River if you are going to let the Amorites kill us? If only we had been content to stay on the other side!
. Why did you let these people defeat us Lord, I thought that you were on our side.
. God informs Joshua that the reason He had not blessed them with victory was the sin and disobedience of the people.
. They go through a process of identifying Achan as the guilty party and they ask him why he had done such a thing.
Look at verses 19-21 with me.
19Then Joshua said to Achan, “My son, give glory to the LORD, the God of Israel, by telling the truth. Make your confession and tell me what you have done. Don’t hide it from me.”
20Achan replied, “It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel.
21Among the plunder I saw a beautiful robe from Babylon, 200 silver coins, and a bar of gold weighing more than a pound. I wanted them so much that I took them. They are hidden in the ground beneath my tent, with the silver buried deeper than the rest.”
. “ I wanted them so much that I took them”
. He knew what the commands were. He knew what God expected of him but he got distracted by the beauty And the call of riches.
. Because of this distraction, the nation of Israel did not receive the blessings of God.
.We as Christians get distracted the same way Aachen did. We seek the wealth of this world over what God wants from us.
. We get distracted with houses and jobs.
. Many have turned away from God and have created their own God.
. The God of sports that distracts and keeps us from being obedient to what God has commanded us to do.
. When we do this, we miss out on the blessings of God.
. Churches get distracted also.
. Churches get so inward focused that they miss out on God’s blessing and protection.
. The Christians within the church lose focus and get distracted from what God expects them to do.
. The church becomes about me and my family and friends and not about what God has intended the church to be.
. We talked about this last week I believe.
. God has commanded that the church be the vehicle that tells the world about him.
. The church becomes so inward focused, so member oriented that it gets distracted from what it is supposed to be doing.
. The church has a mission that God expects it to be doing.
. We worded in our mission statement as
. “develop and encourage those we meet into committed followers of Jesus”
. That is just another way of quoting the great commission that Jesus gave us.
. That is the command to all Christians and to all churches.
. We cannot get distracted by other things.
. When we do, we miss out on God’s blessings.
.Achan was held responsible for his sin and disobedience.
. When Israel was back into the right relationship with God that it needed to be, God again blessed them.
. Over in chapter 8, God again blesses Israel and helps them defeat Ai.
. When Christians are in a right relationship with God, They will receive the blessings of God.
.When churches are in a right relationship with God, He will bless them and their efforts.
. This sermon has been on my heart for several weeks.
. As our church moves forward, I want us to stay in that right relationship with God as individuals and as a church.
. My prayer and cry to God is Lord, is there anything I am doing that is holding our church back from receiving your blessing.
. Lord remove that from me. Lord clean me up so that you can use me for your honor and your glory here at the Creek.
. Folks, we are not going to receive the blessing from God that is necessary if we are disobedient.
. Our lives must be right with God in order to receive
. We will not receive God’s blessing if we are distracted by the things of this world.
. We must be focused on the command of God that we make disciples.
. I ask you church, are you committed to God.
. Are you committed to the commands of God or are you distracted by the things of the world as Achan was.
. The Nation of Israel wanted to move forward into the Promised Land. They could not as long as they were not committed to the commands of God.
. I ask you again church, are you committed to the commands of God.
. If we are to be blessed by God, we must be committed.
*** To my Christian brothers and sisters, thank you for taking the time to read this sermon. I ask that you take another second and score this for me. I am always open to feedback so that I can continue to grow in the proclamation of God’s word.
May God bless you as you continue to strive to walk worthy of His calling.
Sources: The Holy Bible, NLT
Illustrations, sermon central
Outline from Tim Patrick, Missing God’s Best: Sermon Central
