This past thursday night we had our REGENERATION bible study for our college students. God is moving in this ministry. We had a great group, we had 19 total! PRAISE GOD- He deserves every ounce of praise and credit. I honestly felt the spirit with us thursday evening and He was moving. Due to some things that came up we had to move our bible study from the cafe to our chapel where we meet for our sunday services. At first I really thought because of the size of the chapel and the size of the group that it would be intimidating and everyone would feel uncomfortable. It was anything but that, it was very intimate and possibly what we needed for this group.
That night I had the priviledge of sharing the word and we talked about “Following God”. You see we follow alot of different things in this world. We follow sports teams; know every stat, every player and get more excited about that than seeing someone accept Christ. We follow music and those bands that are in, that are cool and we know all their songs, know when their next album is coming out and even know more about the band’s personal life than they do (thats scary!). We follow these things and more because we want to be in with the crowd, don’t want to be left out. So whats the outcome? We end up investing all of our time, money and brain power (what little we have). We also invest our emotions, because we feel like we can identify with these people in the spotlight. Its to the point that we are passionate about them or what they do and we want to share with everyone we meet. We choose to follow people or things. We looked at someone that chose his path, choses what he would follow. We looked at Achan and what he did. You see a couple of weeks ago I talked about Joshua and the battle of Jericho. The Israelites had just come out of the wilderness and had to go to battle. The Lord handed that city to them without one casuality, but with one stipulation, they could not touch the things set apart. The items specified within the city was to be given to God. Well somone among them chose not to follow this command and it had a huge impact, not only on his life but all of the people of Israel. We looked at three ways of following God within the context of this story. We focused on Joshua 7: 1-26: [1] Follow God in Defeat, [2] Follow God through Obstacles, [3] Follow God into Repentance.
[1] Follow God in Defeat (vs. 1-9): You see the Israelites had to face another opponent and that was the city of Ai. Joshua sent some spies over to check them out. Any smart leader would do that, because you need to know the land, the people and the military; you have got to have a strategy going into battle. The men cam back and told Joshua that “we got this”, there is not that many men in that city and lets send only 2,000 to 3,000 men to battle and save the rest of our army, give them some rest. They got a little to big for their britches and somewhat cocky. Joshua agreed and sent the 2,000 to 3,000 men to Ai. Well needless to say that they got their rear ends handed to them that day and lost 36 men to make matters worse. Joshua was messed up! He tore his clothes and fell facedown before the ark of the Lord and stayed there all day until evening. Joshua started complaining about being defeated. In (vs. 7) Joshua even questioned God’s direction and stated that he was afraid that the news would spread and then everyone would come and wipe them out. That is really what our walk with Christ is like especially when we face defeat. Really we need to reevaluate and see where our priorities are, are we spending each day talking with God in prayer, are we studying God’s word everyday. Where is our focus? You know, its easy to say God is in control when things are good! Are we getting to big for our britches and what battles are we loosing that we shouldn’t.
[2] Follow God through Obstacles (vs. 10 – 22): When Joshua was in his pity party God told him to “Stand Up!”. Joshua needed to stop complaining and listen, because there was someone among them that disobeyed and brought this outcome upon them. There was a thief among them, someone had taken what God commanded them not to touch, to leave alone. This was supposed to be like their tithe to God to show obedience, this would be just like today if we took our tithes and went out and bought a new cell phone, or a new xbox game, even going out and buying new clothes or new shoes. This is stealing, which is wrong, actually its just plain crazy because this is disobeying God. Not only was this person a thief but also a liar. God told Joshua that He would not bless them. He would not be with them and they would not win another battle until this is rectified. There needed to be repentance among the people. Joshua had to go tribe by tribe and interrogate and investigate. He brought out the CSI dept., to fingerprint, do DNA testing and check for any possible fibers that may have been left behind to link someone to the crime. Joshua had to go tribe by tribe and clan by clan. What that means is that if my family was there then Joshua would have to go to the Crocker clan, which means starting with my grandparents (if still alive), then my parents, then to me, my wife and my kids if they are at the age of accountability. After all this, what does he find but that this is a family affair. The thief and liar was within his own family, it was Achan. Joshua had to go to him and confront him with this. Achan admitted to everything, he spilled his guts. Told Joshua of everything he took, down to the last item and also told him where he hid the stolen goods. When we are defeated in our walk its because of the obstacles within our paths. We are like Joshua and Achan at the same time. When we are having problems we complain, doubt God and get into our own pity party. At this point we loose sight of those obstacles that got us here, we just sweep them under the rug and we end up there again down the road. We hide stuff, we bury it just like Achan, when we really need to be like Joshua and clean house, confront the problem and give it to God. That means repent even though it is painful, its needed.
[3] Follow God into Repentance (vs. 23 -26): Now, the evidence was brought to light, it was spread out for all Israel and the Lord to see, even though God already knew what Achan had done and where he hid everything. Now that everything was found out, now was the time for repentance and do as God directed. What they had to do was harsh and I would not want to be in Joshua’s sandals at this point. They couldn’t let this cloud of disobedience hang over them because it was blocking God’s blessings. In (vs. 25) Joshua was face to face with Achan and Joshua asked him “Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.” Joshua was telling him that it was time to face the music and answer for the choice he made, the disobedience he chose to follow. Achan’s punishment was death, he had to be stoned. Not only that but after he was stoned his wife had to be stoned and all of his children had to be stoned and all of his livestock destroyed and all material possessions destroyed. Not only that, after the whole family was stoned they all had to be burned and then their ashes had rocks heaped over top of them. God’s blessings were restored, they were forgiven. We are the same way, but this doesn’t mean that we will be stoned physically, or burned up physically. It does mean that if we don’t let God have that sin within our lives that spiritually we will be stoned, we will be burned up so that we can be brought back into a right relationship with Him. We need to get it right before God, before its brought to plain sight. Don’t let the sin you chose to follow destroy your walk, testimony, family or even your church.
What does it really mean to follow? Following God begins with our obedience. If we look right smack dab in the middle of the word obedience is a little three letter word “DIE”. To be obedient to God we have to die to ourselves. (Php. 1:21) “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” What does that mean? That means we are not to die physically, but spiritually. We are to drop our own plans and goals in favor of God’s. We have to die to our agenda and die to our plans or the plans for your life that have been superimposed on us by whoever influenced us or by whoever said we were going to do this. What it boils down to is that it takes FAITH! I think faith comes in when you’re willing to lay that down and say “Okay God, whatever you say.”