A Call to Renewal

Was there ever a time in your life when you celebrated a great victory? And I don’t mean some fairly innocent victory like getting out of bed in the morning. I’m talking about the kind of victory that cost you something. Last Sunday night, we showed a video from “Facing the Giants” where the coach urges one of his players to go twice as far as the player thought he could go. That’s a great victory, but the player was absolutely exhausted when he crossed the goal line. Victories that I would call “great” come at a cost. So, let me ask again, was there ever a time in your life when you celebrated a great victory?

How did you celebrate? Did you throw a party? Did you jump up and down? Did you shout? If the victory came at a cost, were you both elated and grateful? Often, when we experience victory, we are quick to celebrate, but what about the day after the celebration? What do we do then? Emotional high times are often followed by emotional lows. We come down off the mountain and have to live in the valley. Has the victory changed anything about us? Or are we going to be the same person we were before? Today, we will look at the next scene in the book of Joshua and see what the next day looked like for the nation of Israel.

But let me begin by reminding you about the victories Israel has experienced. Joshua has taken the reins of leadership of the nation and they have crossed the Jordan River on dry ground. God destroyed the wall surrounding Jericho and they have taken the city. Then they swept west and a little south to take on the city of Ai. But there was sin in the camp and Ai defeated them and 36 Israelites died in the battle. They came back to camp and discovered Achan’s sin. He had stolen those things that were supposed to be devoted to the Lord. Achan and his family were put to death because of this sin (remember, 36 men died because of the sin). Then, God commands Joshua to go back and take Ai. Having the sin rooted out and in complete obedience, the Israelites defeat Ai. The strategy employed for the taking of Ai is fascinating, but not the focus of our time today. As homework this afternoon, go home and read Joshua chapter 8, verses 1-29 to see how God delivered Ai into Joshua’s hand.

Now, Israel has defeated the great city Jericho, they have lost the first battle, but then won the city of Ai. They are victorious! It is time for them to celebrate. But we don’t see a great celebration like we might expect. Let’s read what happens next.

Joshua 8:30–35 ESV

At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses, “an altar of uncut stones, upon which no man has wielded an iron tool.” And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. And there, in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. And all Israel, sojourner as well as native born, with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, just as Moses the servant of the Lord had commanded at the first, to bless the people of Israel. And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. There was not a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women, and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.

A Call to Renewal through Biblical Preparation (30-31)

Instead of a big party, Joshua leads the nation to prepare for renewal. He begins by building an altar. The nation had to know where their victory came from. They started out against Ai saying they didn’t need to take very many people because Ai was small. Now, after they have won, Joshua reminds them that it wasn’t their own doing that made Ai fall. It was God leading them. It was God who gave them the strategy. At the end of the day, when sin was in the camp, they lost the blessing of God and that led to losing the battle for Ai. Now, Joshua recognizes that the victory came because God had blessed their repentance and obedience. So, the best response is to honor the source of the victory. And the way Israel honored God at this point in their history is with sacrifices on an altar.

Notice that the altar was not just a whim. Joshua built the altar according to the specifications Moses had laid out in

Deuteronomy 27:5–6 ESV

And there you shall build an altar to the Lord your God, an altar of stones. You shall wield no iron tool on them; you shall build an altar to the Lord your God of uncut stones. And you shall offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God,

You see, Joshua wasn’t flying by the seat of his pants. He was being very deliberate in leading the people to prepare for renewal. The altar was built exactly right. And the offerings burned on that altar were very significant. At the end of verse 31, it says, And they offered burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings. Burnt offerings were animals that were fully offered on the altar to be entirely burned. They were offered as sin offerings. Burnt offerings were made as an atonement for sin. Part of their preparation included confession and atonement for sin.

Does your preparation for renewal include those things? The sacrifice for the atonement of sin in our time was accomplished in full when Christ bore our sin on the cross. I firmly believe that we need to confess our sin before God and remember Christ’s atonement for us as part of our worship. Remember,

1 John 1:9 ESV

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

But their preparation wasn’t limited to burnt offerings alone. They also offered peace offerings. Other translations call them fellowship offerings. Certain portions of these sacrifices were offered on the altar and the rest was to be cooked and eaten by those who were making the offering. The idea being that the people were partaking of the same meal as God. It was a way to show fellowship with one another and with God. Joshua led the nation to prepare by physically building an altar and then preparing hearts through confession and repentance and fellowship. I submit to you that if we practiced those principals in New Testament ways, our hearts would be renewed and we would be prepared to continue to do great things for God. Renewal must include heart preparation, but we also need to hear from Him. And the best way to know for sure what God says, is through His word.

1 John 4

A Call to Renewal through Scripture (32)

Look at verse 32 again. Joshua writes a copy of the law of Moses. What a way to commemorate a great victory! He makes a copy of the most important writing there is. I don’t want you to gloss over this point. This is long before the printing press was invented. He is writing on stones. We’re not sure if these were plaster covered stones that he could actually use ink on or if it was an engraving, but either way, it is a letter-by-letter, word-by-word effort. This is the way Joshua honored God after the victories, by painstakingly copying God’s words. Today, we are spoiled. You can get a copy of God’s word with little to no effort. For more years than I can count, the Bible has been the number 1 best-selling book in the world, but I submit to you it is also the least-read best-seller in the world. The upside, however, is that we can offer God’s word to people who otherwise might never hear it.

This past week in Sports Challenge, we had children memorizing Scripture. The older kids had 50 verses to memorize. I wonder if any of us in here could recite 50 verses of Scripture in just a few minutes. Now, I have a feeling someone is going to come up to me after the service and try. However, if you can do 50 verses, then I would challenge you to do 100. If you can do 100, how about 1000? Or, instead of keeping track of verses, memorize an entire book of the Bible. There are places in this world today where the Bible is not welcome. The government will confiscate and burn printed copies of God’s word. Christians in those places know the value of memorizing Scripture. And one way to hide God’s word in your heart is to write it out, long hand. The process of reading words and then writing them forces our brains to remember. Write God’s word to remember God’s word. That is what Joshua was doing. And that is what we all need to do more.

A Call to Renewal through Worship (33-35)

Joshua led the nation to a secluded valley north of Jericho. This is where he had prepared in obedience to the law by building the altar. This is where he had the copied Scripture in view of everyone. The whole nation assembles. The Ark of the Covenant is in middle along with the priests who ministered before the ark. Everyone else divided themselves in half. Half on one side of the valley, the other half on the other. It didn’t matter if you were an outsider (or sojourner) or a leader. Everyone gathered on either side of the valley. And Joshua read all of the Scriptures so that everyone could hear. In a valley like this one, his voice would have echoed off the mountain walls. Everyone would have been able to hear. But look who was there to hear the Scriptures. All the men, all the sojourners, all the leaders, all the women, AND all the children. Every member of the nation was there for this time of public reading of Scripture. And folks, there were no comfortable chairs for them to sit on. Most of them probably stood to listen to this reading. Now, to be fair, they didn’t have all of the Scriptures we have today. In fact, they probably only had the first 5 books of our Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy), what is called the Pentateuch, or the books of the Law.

The point I am trying to make is that every member of the God’s chosen people worshipped by listening to the Word of God. In our world today, there is some confusion about worship. I have heard people talk about going to a church service where there was worship and then a sermon. I know I’m a preacher, but listen folks, our worship is not just music on Sunday morning.

John 4:24 ESV

God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Worship is not something that simply moves the emotions. True worship involves the heart and the head. Worship also can’t be limited to an hour or so on a Sunday morning. How long do you think it took Joshua to read all that Scripture? But even when he was finished with the public reading, the people were to obey the law they had just heard. They were to put into practice what they had heard. If the hearing of the Word of God is worship, then obedience to it is also a form of worship. Have you ever thought about that? Hearts are renewed when we worship. And here’s a preview of next week, Israel thought they had it all figured out after this public reading. The leaders even thought they had it together. But they neglected to ask God about it, and it will cost them. But that’s next week. Today, we’re talking about renewal.

A Call to Renewal

At Heartland Community Baptist Church, we have just come through a very big week. With God’s help, we were victorious in many ways. Many kids heard the Gospel. Many kids memorized God’s Word. Isn’t that awesome? But today, we need to renew. We need to renew our commitment to making disciples in our world one heart at a time. We need to renew our commitment to obeying Jesus in every part of our life. So, let’s start with Biblical preparation. Let’s confess of our sin and repent before our God. Let’s renew our commitment to be in fellowship with our Creator. Let’s renew our commitment to Scripture. God wrote this entire book so we could know Him better. Let’s renew our desire to know His Word better. Let’s renew our desire to read, study, and obey the Word of God. Finally, let’s renew our commitment to worship in spirit and in truth. To worship the God of the whole universe in every part of our life. Sunday morning worship is sweeter when it is the outflow of a life filled with worship.

How many of you have some of those compact fluorescent light bulbs? Have you ever noticed how it takes a minute or two for them to come to full brightness? That is what happens when we expect Sunday morning to be our entire worship experience. We are a bit dim and it takes a while to warm up. But if we showed up on Sunday morning having worshiped all week, we are ready to pour out our hearts in fellowship with everyone else. Worship becomes the outflow of an already full heart, instead of an appointment on Sunday morning.

This is our call to renewal.

Takeaway: When God brings about victory in our life, or in the church, our response should be renewal of our commitment to Him.