Rising To The Next Level---At Bridge City Church.
Joshua 6:15-7:1 1 Timothy 6:6-10 Text Read Joshua 6:1-5
What if I told you that a baby by the name Jaleth in Lowand, which is an island off the coast of Norway in the Norwegian Sea, started talking two days after he was born, was walking at the age of three months , and by the time he was three years old, he was playing the piano marvelously, how many of you would say “wow, that’s incredible?
“ How many of you would say, that’s a bunch of nonsense? Well those of you who think it’s nonsense are absolutely correct. I never heard of Jaleth until this sermon. The problem with the story is that Jaleth, is rising from one level to another much too fast.
Life comes to us in steps. We often do not move to one level, until we have finished a previous one. Sometimes it takes longer to move from one level to another than we imagine.
Most of us have been participating in a 21 day fast here at Bridge City. The purpose of the fast has been for us to rise up to a new level in our families, in our church, and in our community.
Rising up involves us drawing closer to God. When we think of rising to a higher level in our relationship toGod, there are three things taken as a whole that we should consider.
First there is the fear of God. Whatever we do, we should want to do it in the way that God tells us to do it. We’re not free to change the rules. Second, there is our love for God. We should be so grateful for what Jesus Christ has done for us, that we should be willing to do whatever we can to bring joy and honor to God.
Third there is the promise or rewards of God. God’s rewards are far greater than what the world or sin has to offer us. We can’t afford to forget this.
We are constantly lied to about how quickly we can rise from one level to another. Wear this belt and it will melt away calories while you sleep. Take these pills two times a day, and you can eat whatever you want and lose weight. Download this app for $2.99 and watch your battery life improve 300%.
Then there are those times in our lives when we want God to move us from one level to another by prayer rather than by work. One Sunday during the time of prayer, a youth asked me to pray, that he would have a really good report card.
I said, “well did you do all your homework, pay attention in class, and study for your tests. He said, “well no, not quite.” I said, “well let’s pray that you card can be the best it can be under the circumstances.”
God wants to move us all to another level in our lives. The purpose of each level is to help us grow and to become more that God intends for us to be. The thing is, there is always going to be something that will seek to encourage us to try and take a short cut. Have you ever taken a short cut to get something, and then regretted it.
Let’s go back into time and meet someone who wanted to take a short cut on how to get rich in a hurry. Has anyone here thought about looking into that short cut once or twice in life. Being eager to move to the next level financially brings it’s own kind of temptations.
God has led his people out of the land of Egypt and is now ready to start giving them the land He has promised to them. God’s people have been wondering in the desert for 40 years. He’s ready to take them into the promise land. His people are ready to graduate or to rise from the level of living in tents to living in permanent homes. They will have to fight to take over the land that God is giving to them.
Moses has recently died and the mantle of leadership has fallen on Joshua, who has been Moses’s right hand man.
The first big test is for them to take the city of Jericho. Now Jericho is a city with massive walls all around it. The walls are thick enough for chariots to ride across the top. There are no planes to fly over and drop bombs. There are no tanks or missles to blow holes in the walls. The only way in is to go through the gates of the city. To do this, you will have to fight off, plenty of arrows being shot at you from the archers on the wall.
Whenever God wants to move us to the next level, the first thing we see is something that is going to require a lot of work, or something we cannot do on our own. Joshua is the leader of God’s people. He is also in charge of the military.
Nobody there in the army has ever fought in a battle against a city with walls around it. Some people took one look at those huge stone walls and say “no way, it can’t be done. I’ll stay right here where I am. I do not need to rise to another level.” It’s hard to help people who do not want to take on a challenge.
The thing with God, is that God can never be put in a box as to how He is going to work in and through our lives. We as a church want to move to another level. But we can’t tell God, how God must do it to make it happen.
What’s the next level you want to go to in an area of your life? Are you willing to do it God’s way or have you presented God with the plan? Joshua is faced with, how do we defeat one of the most powerful cities in this land God is giving us to take us to the next level.
Well God has a plan and it is nothing like what Joshua would have come up with. While Joshua is looking at the impossible task of taking this fully armed city with its huge walls, God joins him and says, “see I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.”
It’s amazing how God sees on the next level, while we’re still trying to figure out, what on earth are we going to do.
God tells Joshua, “Get the entire army and march around the city once. Get seven priests and have them march behind the army playing seven trumpets followed by the ark and the rear guard. Tell the people not to say anything. Do this for six days.
On the seventh day, march around the city for seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets and then on your command have all the people shout and then take the city. You will be moved to the next level.”
But one thing. Jericho is the first city in many battles to come. For this city only, all of the gold, silver, bronze and iron must go into the Lord’s treasury. Everything else is to be completed destroyed. Tell the people, nobody is to take anything out of this city for any reason. There are to be no short cuts with my commands.”
Well when Joshua tells the people of God’s plan, how many of you know that some of them laughed at it. How many of you know that some thought Joshua has lost his mind? What about the walls? They would still be standing.
Why march around the city so many times? Why stretch it out over a whole week? Why destroy everything in the city, when there is bound to be a lot of good stuff we can use? Why burn it all up?
Now Joshua does not have all the answers. He only knows what God told him to do. Sometimes you will have to act in life on what you know God told you to do. Those moments are going to be few in your life. But God is going to ask of you something that does not make a whole lot of sense. You will have to take that step to move to the next level.
Well the people march around the city in complete silence except for the seven trumpets playing. Get back to the point they started, go home and go to bed. They do this for six straight days. Then comes the 7th day, and they march and play seven times.
Joshua yells out, “Shout, for the Lord has given you this city, destroy everything and everybody except for Rahab and her family. Remember do not take any of the things that are to go into the Lord’s treasury or you will bring trouble on the whole camp.”
When the people give a loud shot, these walls that have Jericho’s finest warriors on top of them all around the city collapses into the ground taking the fighting force of the city with them.
God’s people charge straight into the city. It was if they are all crossing the stage as they go over the top of the wall that is now on the level with the ground. This is the first step in rising to take the promised land. Everybody is being moved to a higher level.
The city is filled with flames and smoke as building upon building is lit on fire. People are yelling and screaming. Animals are running wild. It’s a wild scene as God’s judgment has fallen on the city and everything is being destroyed.
But then there is this guy who wants to take a short cut to wealth. He’s destroying things until he comes across something that looks real good. He sees a designer outfit that is too good to pass by. His wife would really like that.
He sees some silver and gold that he knows it should go into the Lord’s treasury, but hey, God is not going to miss a few pounds of gold and silver.
He looks this way and that way, and finds him some kind of a bag and takes the stuff home. There is so much confusion going on around, that nobody sees what he is doing.
Up until this point, God’s people had God’s favor upon them. In taking on one of the most powerful cities in the land, not a single person in the army had been killed. God had completely protected them from all hurt and danger. People who should have died that day, had angels knocking down swords and angels.
This battle of Jericho was not the people’s battle, it was strictly the Lord’s battle. God told them in the beginning, no short cuts are to be taken from the plan, and nothing is to be taken by anybody.
I get all the gold, silver, iron, and bronze in this city. You get to have it in the future cities. But Achan will not wait. He tries to move to another level at God’s expense. God responds by removing His presence from the people.
Next city on the map to be taken was Ai. Joshua sends people to spy out the city of Ai to see how strong it was. Coming off this victory over the huge city of Jericho, the spies are confident of taking the small city of Ai.
They tell Joshua, do not even bother sending the whole army out there, just a few thousand men can knock off that city. There’s not that many men in the city of Ai. We do not need to go through that much trouble. It’s just a small city.
There are some big things we can do with God’s grace upon us and there are some little some things we cannot do without God’s grace.
Well Joshua chose three thousand men to go and do some mop up work down in Ai. To their surprise, those few men in Ai put a whipping on them and sent them running back to Joshua. Whereas there had been no loss of life in the big battle with Jericho, several men had been killed in the battle.
Joshua and the people are now terrified. If a little city like Ai had whipped them, what on earth would they do. The other cities in the land would get enough courage to band together to fight and would wipe them out.
Joshua and the elders call together a prayer meeting. Joshua says, “Lord if only you had not of brought us to this higher level. If only we had been happy where we were. Oh Lord you see what a mess we are in now. We are about to be wiped out by our enemies, and Lord that’s not going to make You look good when it happens.”
God was direct and to the point. God said, “quit all this crying and moaning on the ground. Stand up. Your problem is that you have done what I told you not to do.
Now some of you kept some of the things that were to be destroyed and you stole some of the things that were to go into the treasury. That’s why you can’t stand before your enemies. These people are stronger than you, and they will defeat you on your own. You’ve got a choice, you can either keep what you have and do without me, or you can get rid of the illegal stuff in your midst.
God is allowing them to choose the level at which they are going to live. God knows where He wants to take them, but He will not make them go. What level do we really want to live on with our lives?
There is nothing saying, that we have to be unhappy, miserable people. There is nothing saying that our relationships to each other has to remain where they are. Jesus said, “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.
We live where we live, because that’s what we’ve chosen to accept for the time being. Right now, if we make the decision to put Christ first in everything. We will move to another level before this year is over.
The levels we pass through on the inside are far more important than the levels we pass through on the outside. Joshua and the people have a decision to make on whether or not they go to the next level on the inside. Did they really want to find out who it was that had taken the stuff and broken God’s commandments? Suppose it was their father, or their brother, or their son, or their best friend. Did they truly want to risk knowing the truth to go to a higher level. Did they want God to say ‘this one right here?”
Sometimes God wants to show us why we cannot rise to a higher level, but we are unwilling to face the truth because we do not want to change. We would rather hang on to things that God has devoted to destruction.
God may say, I can’t take you to another level spiritually until you give up that attitude problem you have. I can’t take you to another level in your marriage as long as you harbor unforgiveness toward your mate. I can’t take you to another level in me as long as you continue to compromise with your friends.
I can’t take you to another level on your job until you deal with your temper. I can’t take you to another level in your grades until you decide to please me with your homework. It’s so much easier to say, they’re holding me back from becoming what I could be.
My friends, when God’s favor is on our lives, nobody can hold us back from what God intends to give us, but us.
Joshua and the people went ahead and took the risks. God says consecrate the people in preparation for tomorrow. I will show you what you have among you that is cursed. God could have just yelled out who it was, and what the person had done. But God did not.
Maybe the Lord was trying to give the person time to repent and make an open confession. There is such a strong temptation in us to believe that the Lord does not know all that we have done, and because we simply said I’m sorry, everything has been taken care of by it.
No there are some things that God exposes about us to keep us from getting into something even deeper later on.
God tells Joshua, have all 12 tribes come forward. One will be chosen. Have all the clans in that tribe come forward. One will be chosen. Have every family in that clan come forward. One will be chosen. Have every man in that family come forward. One will be chosen.
The one who is caught with the devoted thing shall be destroyed by fire, along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant and did a disgraceful thing in Israel. Keep in mind, if this person had not of taken those items banned for destruction, those soldiers in Ai never would have been killed.
Let’s read the countdown together in Joshua 7:16-18 Joshua 7:16-18
Early the next morning Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes, and Judah was taken. 17The clans of Judah came forward, and he took the Zerahites. He had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by families, and Zimri was taken. 18Joshua had his family come forward man by man, and Achan son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, was taken.
Joshua tells Achan, “ Brother give glory to God and give him the praise, tell me what you have done. Do not hide it from me. Achan tells him. “Yes brother its true. I’m the one that has sinned against the Lord. That day of the battle in Jericho, I saw a beautiful designer robe all the way from Babylonia, man that thing was sweet. I couldn’t let it go into the fire. I saw some silver coins and a gold bar and thought about what I could do with that money.
I know it belonged to the Lord, but it was just too much for a man to handle. I took them into my tent, and dug a hole in the ground, put the silver underneath, and covered it all back up.”
Achan had tried to move to another level financially by taking short cuts. He would have fit right in with so many of us who have taken financial short cuts to rise to the next level. Saints, don’t let the desire for wealth cause you to try to skip levels. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.
Achan kept a whole nation of people from rising to the next level because of his own selfishness. Sin always brings us down from the level God had on which we were to live, and brings others around us down as well.
They searched out Achan’s story and found everything to be true. Joshua asked Achan, “why have you brought this trouble on us.” They then took Achan, his family, and his possessions and destroyed them all. They were serious about becoming the people God had told them to be and moving to the next level even though it was a painful cost involved.
How serious are we about moving to a higher level than where we are? What price are we willing to pay? The very thing Achan was so sure would lead him to happiness, led to his complete destruction. The temptation to take short cuts and the easy way out, seems like a good thing at the moment.
But as God’s servants, we are called to live a life worthy of the calling we have received. God’s calling us all to get up from where we are, and rise to a higher level in our walk before Him. That only happens by choosing to live for Jesus Christ on a day to day basis in each situation that comes our way. The reason Jesus came and died for each of us was to make it possible for us to rise to a higher level in our relationship to God.
His resurrection was proof that He could give us the power to rise above where we are in life, to the place he is calling us to be. It’s not a matter of us trying harder, it’s allowing His spirit to dwell in us and live through us.
Summary: This sermon looks at how little things can keep us from moving to a higher level in life and in God. It looks at Achan and his actions at Jericho.
