NAVIGATING THE NEW YEAR
Getting Back on Course
Three weeks ago, when I started this series on "Navigating the New Year", my purpose was to try and encourage you to get everything out of the year 2001 that the Lord had for you. My desire was not to preach a series of fluffy, feel good, fruitless messages, but to preach some sermons that would help you see, not only the possibility of victory, but also the responsibility of victory.
In these past three weeks I’ve tried to put before you the reality of the Christian life. In the first message we discovered the reality of Preparation. If we’re going to enjoy God’s best during the 365 days of this new year, 27 of which are already behind us, we must Put Away the Curse (forget about past failures), Prepare for Change (learn to deal with the changes God brings our way), Present ourselves before the Lord (that is, we must submit ourselves to His will).
We learned in the second message that the moment we decide we want to go all out for God, we are going to be confronted with some obstacles to overcome and without a victorious faith we are destined for defeat.
Last week our eyes were opened to the destructiveness of sin. The instructions given by God was to abstain f rom the accursed thing. However, an Israelite by the name of Achan, ignored the instructions and brought not only upon himself, but upon his family and his fellow Israelites the chastisement of God. That chastisement came in the form of what amounted to be one of the most humiliating military defeats the Jews ever suffered. Instead of returning victorious in battle, the men of the Israeli army turned tail and ran and returned home with 36 less men than they started with and a less than favorable report for General Joshua.
What we learned last week about sin was that it Diminishes our Confidence in God, it Disrupts our Communion with God, and it Damages the Cause of God. HOWEVER, I want you to know that there is still hope.
The God of heaven is known as the "God of the Second Chance." Therefore, if we are willing to Identify ourselves (that is, if we are willing to present ourselves before the Lord as the sinners we are), Sanctify ourselves (that is, remove ourselves from sin and sin from ourselves), and Fortify ourselves (that is, keep ourselves from or guard ourselves against sin), we can be victorious again.
F. W. Robertson, who taught for several years at Wake Forest University, once made this statement. He said, "Life, like war, is a series of mistakes and he is not the best Christian nor the best general who makes the fewest false steps...but he is the best who wins the most splendid victories by the retrieval of mistakes. Forget mistakes, he said. Organize victories out of mistakes."
Henry Ford defined a mistake as "an opportunity to begin again more intelligently."
Now then, I don’t want to run the risk of minimizing sin by calling it a "mistake." Sin is more than a mistake, it is a very grievous act against God that carries with it some very severe penalties if not confessed and forsaken.
But at the same time, sin does not have to spell the end. Sin does not necessarily destroy our hopes of a victorious life nor does it disqualify us from receiving the best that God has for us as we will see in today’s message which I have titled "Getting Back on Course."
At the end of Joshua 7, we read how that Achan’s sin was discovered, Achan himself was destroyed, and God’s "fierceness" was diminished. And in chapter 8, Joshua is given the opportunity to begin again.
Follow with me as I begin to read in verse one.
Read Joshua 8:1-2
Verses 3-29 set forth the Instructions for Victory and the Destruction of the Enemy. We will discuss both of these points in detail in a moment, but for now, I want us to consider the Lord Word’s which were Encouraging.
I. WORDS WHICH WERE ENCOURAGING
How sweet it must have been to Joshua’s ears to once again here the words of the Lord as He said, "fear not, neither be thou dismayed." In essence what the Lord was saying was, "Joshua...
A. Don’t be Defeated by the past
1. How easy it is for us to be defeated by our past.
2. When you and I look back at our past failures and the humiliating defeats we have suffered along the way, how can we help but wonder "Is there any hope? Is there any use in beginning again? Is there any way possible to get back even a portion of what I’ve lost because sin?" And in answer to our wondering, the Lord says "YES!" Jesus says, "Fear not!"
3. I like what Arthur Pink said when he wrote, "When iniquities have prevailed against him and the enemy has humiliated him, he is prone to be ‘swallowed up with over-much sorrow’ and suffer Satan to keep him in the slough of despond, which is not only needless and foolish, but dishonoring to God. If he has sincerely and contritely forsaken his sins, then he should confidently reckon upon God’s mercy and appropriate His promise ‘He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’"
He went on to say that the Lord "calls upon the restored backslider to renew the contest with his enemies. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again. Quit not the fight because you have been worsted, nor even if you were wounded. Though you were blameable for the failure, having confessed the same to God, resume the struggle."
4. Thank God we don’t have to be defeated by our past.
B. Don’t be Dismayed about the future
1. The Psalmist said in Psalm 37:23-24, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way.
Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand."
2. The reality of the Christian life is that though our steps are ordered by the Lord, there will be times when we will falter and fail. But though we fall, we will not be utterly cast down. That is, we will not, by God’s grace, be down for the count.
3. We WILL get up by through the goodness of God, we WILL dust our self off by the grace of God, and we WILL get back on course for the glory of God.
II. A WAR THAT WAS ENLIGHTENING
There are certainly a number of things to be learned from Israel’s second battle with Ai.
A. The Strategy they Employed
1. Confrontation
a. Notice what the Lord told Joshua to do in verse 1. God said, "...go up to Ai..."
b. What we learn here is that the sin that caused our downfall MUST BE confronted...it must be dealt with.
c. If we are going to get back on course, we must return to the place of defeat and with God’s help, transform it into a place of victory.
d. Before we can ever hope to be victorious over eventual sin, we must get the victory over initial sin.
e. We cannot run from sin. We cannot hide our eyes like a little child and convince ourselves that our sin has gone away, because it hasn’t. The moment we uncover our eyes, we will be faced once again with our own personal Ai.
2. Commitment
a. Israel’s first defeat at Ai was due, in large part, to Achan’s sin, but there was a secondary cause of defeat that we must take a moment to consider.
b. Joshua 7:3
c. The secondary cause of Israel’s sin was self-confidence. They thought to themselves, "Ai is just a little city. Surely we can handle this one on our own."
d. I wonder how many of us have ever defeated by the little sins? If the truth were known, most of our defeats are the result of ignoring the little things.
e. Look at the Lord’s instructions the second time around in verse 1. God said, "...take ALL..."
f. Unless we’re willing to go "all out" for God, we’ll never know what it is to have God’s best. We’ll know more of the "agony of defeat" than we will ever know of the "thrill of victory."
g. We can’t be a full-time conqueror and offer only part-time commitment.
h. You and I will both do well if we can come to the understanding that Paul had when he said in Romans 7:18, "For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing..."
i. The bottom line is, you and I cannot be trusted when it comes to sin. We cannot allow ourselves to think that there are some things we can handle on our own.
j. EVERY day in EVERY way, we must submit ourselves to God, admit our inability to effectively deal with sin, and permit His power to work in us and through us in overcoming our ever present sin nature.
3. Conflict
a. Now it’s time for a reality check. What we are about to discover is the reality that it’s NEVER easy to recover lost ground.
b. It CAN and HAS been done, but anybody who’s been successful will tell you that it WAS NOT easy, and it calls for an extraordinary measure of devotion to the task.
c. In their battle against Jericho, the Israelites did not even have to lift a sword. This time around however, it was going to be an all out, hand-to-hand battle against the enemy.
d. I want to take a moment to show you a Biblical principle that I’m going to call the "1 to 3 Ratio of Recovery."
(1) Luke 2:40-46
(2) Notice the phrase "a day’s journey" in verse 44 and the phrase "after three days" in verse 46.
(3) Here’s the "1 to 3 Ratio of Recovery." For every 1 day you spend without Jesus, it’s going to take you 3 days to get back to Him.
e. Once you’ve let the devil get the upper hand in your life, it’s going to be a battle to regain what you’ve lost. But I’m happy to be able to report to you that IT CAN BE DONE!
4. Change
a. We have to change our approach to sin.
(1) The Lord made a lot of changes when it came to the battle against Ai.
(2) Jericho - Marched around the city in broad day light for 7 days
Ai - Covert night operation with an assault at daylight
Jericho - Entire army was together
Ai- Divided into three units
Jericho - Defeated by a miracle
Ai - Rigorous battle
(3) In order for us to win the battle over sin, we’re going to have to make some changes in the way we approach it. Some of the changes may need to be drastic.
(4) If we keep doing what we’ve done, we’re going to keep getting what we’ve got.
b. We have to change our association with sin.
(1) Joshua 8:26, 28-29
(2) There may be some here who need to purpose in their heart that they’re going to bury some:
Friends (so to speak)
Television
Computer
Cigarettes
Chewing tobacco
VCR and movie rental card
CD’s and cassettes
Clothes
B. The Victory which was Enjoyed
1. They enjoyed the Results of victory
a. The reward of Restored Fellowship - God was back in the camp
b. The reward of Renewed Worship - More in a moment
2. They enjoyed the Reward of victory
a. Joshua 8:2, 27
b. Oh the tragedy of not waiting on the Lord.
c. What Achan wanted, God would have given him in Ai had he only waited.
d. God always gives the best to those who leave the choice to Him. But if we, like Achan, run ahead of the Lord, we usually rob ourselves and end up hurting those around us.
e. Jesus said, "But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."
III. THE WORSHIP WHICH WAS EDIFYING
Joshua 8:30-35
Through this edifying act of worship we learn about:
A. The Priority of the altar
1. I’m not talking here so much about the public altar as I am the private altar.
2. A private altar is that place where we meet with the Lord. It’s our place of prayer. It’s the place where we offer ourselves daily to the Lord as a living sacrifice.
B. The Preeminence of the Scriptures
1. Joshua "read all the words of the law...There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not..."
2. How preeminent are the Scriptures in your life? You tell me the answer to that question and I’ll tell you how victorious you’ve been over sin.
C. The Presence of the Lord
1. Joshua made sure that the ark of the covenant, the symbol of God’s presence, was right in the middle of the people.
2. Where’s the Lord in relation to you’re life? Is He on the outside looking in, or is He in the middle of everything you do?
3. To the degree that the Lord is in the center of your life and the altar is a priority and the Scriptures are preeminent, to that same degree you will experience a rewarding, abundant, victorious life in Christ.
CLOSING: As we come to the close of this series on "Navigating the New Year", I want to leave you with a challenge as it’s illustrated by Joshua and the children of Israel.
The place where Joshua led the people to worship the Lord after the victory at Ai was a place called the Valley of Shechem. On either side of the valley was a mountain. On the one side was Mt. Ebal, on the other was Mt. Gerizim.
The significance of these mountains is seen in Deuteronomy 27.
In Deuteronomy 27, Moses instructed Joshua and the children of Israel what to do upon their entering the promised land. Read Deuteronomy 27:11-13.
Joshua did exactly as Moses had instructed. He divided the tribes of Israel into the appointed groups and placed them respectively on Mt. Ebal and Mt. Gerizim. Those on Mt. Ebal were to say "AMEN" or "so be it" after the reading of each curse. Those on Mt. Gerizim were to say "AMEN" or "so be it" after each blessing was read.
Let’s try that. (Divide congregation and read the curses and blessings from Deuteronomy 27.)
Why was God doing this? He was doing it to impress upon the people of Israel as well as us today, that there is a choice to make. It’s a choice between obedience and disobedience...blessing and cursing.
Which are you going to choose?
