Breaking Barriers: The Barrier We Often Miss

Intro

We are continuing our series, Breaking Barriers. Last week we compared tackling the barriers of our life God’s way vs our way. God’s way doesn’t always seem logical from a human perspective, but God’s way always accounts for aspects of our story that we may not even be aware of. In fact, when attack the barriers of our life God’s way, we often look end up looking at them differently then when we started.

To kick off this moring, I wanted to look at the ideas of the upset. Now this is every underdogs favorite word and every betting man’s worst nightmare. An upset is when the team who is supposed to win the game ends up losing. Upsets are the name of the game right now as there is a huge basketball tournament happening right now called March Madness. Every year, except last year, 64 college basketball teams compete for the crown of champion, and as sports fans, it is always fun to print off a bracket and try to predict who is going to win. In fact, the odds of picking a perfect march madness bracket is 1 in 9.2 quintillion. It is almost impossible because of the upset. The wrong team wins, and it throws the whole system for a loop.

Question #1: What is the most famous upset you can recall?

Now you don’t have to be a sports fan to know this. There are movies made about unbelievable upsets. I won’t even mention the heartbreaker that still stings a little if you’re a Riders fan. That’s all I’m saying about it. Regardless of where you are coming from, an upset hurts.

Which brings us back to our story. Now I’ve clearly laid out what is going to happen, so I’ve kind of spoiled the story for everyone who hasn’t read it. But even though you know what is going to happen, there are still a lot of factors that need to be unpacked.

Just a quick recap for anyone who missed last week. Israel has conquered Jericho, and they have been told to completely destroy everything because everything has been set aside to the Lord.

Joshua 7:1 ESV

But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, for Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.

Now notice the way Joshua wrote this. He didn’t say Achan broke faith, but all of Israel broke faith. This is remarkable because when we read that Israel does something, we default to thinking that everyone was involved. But it wasn’t. It wasn’t even a whole tribe, or a whole clan, or even a whole family. One guy broke faith, but all of Israel is being held accountable. Hold onto that thought as we continue.

Joshua 7:2–5 ESV

Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” And the men went up and spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few.” So about three thousand men went up there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water.

What can we gather about the city of Ai from these verses? The city is clearly very small, only needed 3000 men to attack it. They apparently know how to fight, cause they chased off the Israelites.

We don’t actually know that much about Ai. We know that it was probably a royal city in the land of Canaan. We find out later that it was a walled city. The only other thing that we can definitively know is that Ai literally means ruins.

But the city of ruins just handed Israel a butt kicking and the people are starting to lose faith. This is an upset. The army just took down Jericho, the strongest city in all of Canaan, but got chased off by what was potentially one of the smallest. All the momentum, all the confidence and good feelings that Israel had going into this fight, gone. Good feelings gone. They are now back to questioning themselves. What have we done? We know this because of what Joshua says next

Joshua 7:6–9 ESV

Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, “Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all, to give us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan! O Lord, what can I say, when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies! For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name?”

Joshua is panicking and questioning the LORD at this point. Which brings up an interesting thought. At the beginning of the chapter, no where is it mentioned that Joshua went to the LORD for a game plan for conquering Ai. He took the initiative, sent the spies to check out the city, and came up with his own plan. He gets one major win under his belt and now he has stopped doing the one thing that helped him conquer Jericho; asking God for help.

The title of the message is the barrier we often miss. Just like Israel, we come to God for help with a barrier that seems insurmountable, and when we follow God’s plan, we experience the victory and freedom that God plans for us to experience in every area of life. Then what inevitably happens. We come up against a barrier or a challenge that appears to be easy, and we try to take it on ourselves. Sometimes we overcome, and other times we don’t. We fall into the same trap that Israel does, going so far as to blame God because we failed. Why would you let this happen Lord? Why didn’t I overcome this?

Question #2: What are some small challenges that consistently trip you up?

What are the things that, after experiencing the victory of Christ’s forgiveness and the monumental victory that is, consistently cause you problems? Now these might be hard to talk about because we are embarassed about it. I can’t believe that I keep tripping over this problem. I can’t believe I keep coming back to this habit.

All too often, we get a victory, our confidence builds, and we begin to believe we can take on the world by ourselves. The truth is that our greatest victories in life come when God is the one that strengthens us, even when it comes to the small challenges that come into life.

Even with the ideas of barriers that get in the way of our friends and neighbours. When we think about the things that keep people away from the church, we need to think about the little things as much as the big things because even though something may seem like a mole hill to us, they could be a mountain to the person we’re trying to invite to church.

Bridge the Gap:

So here is God’s answer to Joshua, now that he and the elders have humbled themselves before the Lord.

Joshua 7:10–16 ESV

The Lord said to Joshua, “Get up! Why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them; they have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belongings. Therefore the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies. They turn their backs before their enemies, because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more, unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up! Consecrate the people and say, ‘Consecrate yourselves for tomorrow; for thus says the Lord, God of Israel, “There are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you.” In the morning therefore you shall be brought near by your tribes. And the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come near by clans. And the clan that the Lord takes shall come near by households. And the household that the Lord takes shall come near man by man. And he who is taken with the devoted things shall be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel.’ ” So Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel near tribe by tribe, and the tribe of Judah was taken.

God lays it out pretty clearly. Israel failed and is going to continue to fail because they have broken faith with God. Remember, it wasn’t the whole nation, it was one guy. The LORD even says that, it is one guy, and tomorrow, you are are going to find out who it is and they are going to be put to death. Because just like a seemingly small barrier can cause us problems for years on end, a seemingly small sin can keep God’s blessing and provision away from our lives.

This is the barrier we often miss. When it comes to the challenges that seem large and insurmountable, we have no problem coming to God and begging for his provision and wisdom to overcome it. Then we turn around and withhold areas of our life from God and wonder why we don’t experience his blessing in all of life. One of the great challenges that we as disciples of Christ will face for our entire lives is sacrificing our will for God’s will. Because doing things God’s way doesn’t just apply to the big things, it applies to all things, every area of life. I’m convinced that we miss out on so much blessing and protection because of the unconfessed, habitual sin in our lives. I’m talking about the times we drop the ball out of the blue. I’m talking about the areas of life where we wake up everyday and decide that we are going to do it our way, not his. I’m going to deal that person, I’m going to hold on to this grudge, I’m going cram my schedule so full I don’t have time to read my bible. Fill in the blank.

Now I’m not a health and wealth guy where God is going to turn us all into millionaires and we’ll never get sick again if we completely surrender to God’s plan for our life. But I do believe that we create barriers that prevent us from experiencing God’s blessing in our life. I do believe that we miss out on a lot of peace and joy when we choose to do things our way. I do believe our patience wears a little thinner, and we are a little less kind. Goodness in our life comes and goes, and we just can’t get a handle on our self-control.

When we commit to facing every challenge and making every decision based on our prayer and relationship with God, I believe we begin to experience abundance in the areas of life that really matter most.

As I said in the beginning of the series, the more barriers we break down in our own lives, the better we will be at breaking down the barriers in other’s lives.

Question #3: Are you ready to make Jesus the Lord of your WHOLE life, not just the parts you need the most help with?

Let’s Pray!