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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.
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
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,
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.
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