Give Glory to God

Would you join me in prayer, please? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Heavenly Father, we've heard in your word about Isaiah, his word to the people of his day. Jesus to the people of His time. You have a word for us too, in our day. That word is one for life cuz You have Your eye on us for good all the time. So, Lord, enable us to hear Your word today. Even more, put it into practice of how we are Your children, and You are our Heavenly Father. A connection You have made with us and keep strong everyday, and even will make it everlastingly live when we close our eyes and sleep. All because of Jesus, saying, "I have forgiven you, and you are Mine. Come, let Me hold, you and care for you as My beloved friend, as my family." So, Lord, let our lives be examples of that reality, and even more, we magnetize people around us to see Your will for them, is good. Your eye on them is for good too. In the name of Jesus, Amen.

It is no secret that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead. And what does that mean? For each one of us, it means that there are even more thrilling, wonderful, joyful things in doing this: give glory to God.

Those are the words that Joshua said to one of his soldiers. Joshua was a leader of the nation of Israel, commander and chief of the army. And his words to his soldier, Achan by name were: my son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel. How can this man, how can any man, do such a thing? To give glory to God? It says in the scriptures that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament shows his handiwork. Furthermore, how can this man, Achan give glory to God when God is Holy, so there's no corruption in His being. You can't improve on it. There are no flaws in His character. There are no imperfections in His judgment or mistakes and what He wills. There are - there's no deceit or double-talk, you find no selfishness and what He says. So what He speaks is accurate, reliable, true, 100% of the time. Every work that He does, every action that He takes or does not take is always right and good. It's always perfect. God is Holy. Achan, on the other hand, well, what can one say? For Achan had done, as we heard earlier, a disobedience to the Lord God's command. And the disobedience had caused trouble. Not only had it brought about a military defeat for the nation of Israel in which 36 people were killed. But it also troubled his entire country, all of his fellow citizens with severe emotional turmoil. So that it says, the hearts of the people melted and became as water. And Joshua, the commander-in-chief along with the elders were troubled and devastated as well. To this point: it says in Joshua chapter 7, "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. But then God stepped in, the Holy God and He took action." And then, in chapter 7 of Joshua, starting with verse 10, we hear what that is. 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 turned 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. Conecrate the people and say: 'Consecrate yourself for tomorrow, because thus says the Lord, God of Israel. There are devoted things in your midst, oh 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, be near by your tribes in the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come nearby clans. In the clan the Lord takes shall come nearby households. And the household that the Lord takes shall come nearby man by man, and he who was taken with devoted things shall be burned with fire. He and all that he has. Because he has transgressed the Covenant of the Lord 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. And he brought near of the tribes of Judah, and the clan of the Zerahites was taken. And he brought near the clan of the Zerahites man by man and Zabdi was taken. And he brought near his household man by man, and Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, son of Zera, the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan: my son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to Him and tell me know what you have done. Do not hide it from me.

If your name is Achan, what would you do now? Well, your name is not Achan, and you may not have caused in a military defeat and the death of individuals, 36, whatever, by your actions. But you are not with all your fault, either. There's plenty to blame you for, the harm which you have done, the suffering that you have brought about by your disobedience, your deeds as well. And like Achan, you've disobeyed the will of the Lord, what God expects and wants of you, how He wants you to be and to live and to behave and to treat others. He's clearly told you that His Ten Commandments, like we heard in Ephesians today, with wives and husbands. And what have you done? Do you obey? How often? How well? Achan had been told do not take the things devoted to God. And he disobeyed this one time. Can you say you disobeyed God one time? Or is it many times? Over and over, day after day, night by night, repeatedly, is that the way it is for you? It's not a pleasant or pretty picture, is it? The picture of we have of Achan is not a pleasant or pretty one, either. And if we do not like his story, then what does that say about our stories? Your story, my story that others are seeing? If the story of Achan sinning frightens and terrifies us, what is our sinning doing to others? If the story of Achan's sinning frightens and terrifies us, what is our us. sinning doing to others?

But as frightening and terrifying as Achan's and our sin is, you and I still have no idea how seriously God takes sin. So, we don't always take it that seriously. Because we're unholy. So, we can't see just how hot and raging God's anger burns at our sin. All the fury of it, the depths of it, the breath of it, the strength of it. Not just our sin, but even one sin like Achan's. They were so helpless to do anything about this sinning. It's a mess. You'd say it 's a big mess for everyone.

So Achan's been exposed. He is guilty. So now what do you do? If your name is Achan? Well, your name is not Achan, but when like Achan, you are the one who is on the spot, when you are the one who is guilty, what do you do? Here's what Achan does and what happens next. Chapter 7 verses 20 and following. So Josh... okay. Achan answered Joshua: "Truly, I have sinned against the Lord, God of Israel. And this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil, a beautiful cloak from Cynar and 200 shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, then I coveted them and took them. And see, they are hidden in the earth, inside my tent, with a silver underneath."

So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and behold, it was hidden in his tent with a silver underneath. And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel, and they lay them down before the Lord. And Joshua and all of Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zera, the silver, the cloak and the bar of gold, his sons and daughters, his oxen, donkeys, and sheep, his tent and all that he had. And they brought them up to the valley of Achor. And Joshua said, "Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today." And all of Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones, and they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from His burning anger. Therefore to this day, the name of that place is called the Valley of Achor.

Did Achan give in to the temptation? Justify yourself? Did he try to wiggle out of the blame and shame that he was in? Did he come up with some excuses? Did he explain why it was not all his fault? Does he downplay it? What he did? Does he push the blame on somebody else? Does he simply outright deny it ever happened?

Taking to heart, taking seriously what God says and does about sin and those responsible for it, Achan confesses. He reveals the full truth of what he did. And what happens to him is, he's put to death. Guilty Achan. Think of it. Not only does he stand there, facing his commander-in-chief, the elders of his people, his peers, his neighbors, family, even more dreadful and humiliating, he faces the Lord God of Israel, the Holy Lord God, the one who made the heavens and the earth. The one who is all-knowing and all-powerful. The one who had made it known to everybody through the words of Joshua this commandment: that you keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them, you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. But all silver, gold, every vessel of bronze and iron are holy to the Lord. They should go into the treasury of the Lord. So there he is. Achan guilty thru-and-thru. And what does he do? He takes responsibility for his actions and the consequences that go with it. So he confesses his sin. He gives glory to God.

When you're on the spot, caught in wrongdoing, do you give glory to God? Or do you try to somehow wiggle out of the spot you're in? Because you're tempted with the pulling and tugging of it. It says justify yourself. Don't be humiliated. Don't take the full blame for this. Make an excuse. Come on, you can think of something that will make sense, explain yourself. Give a reasonable explanation why you did what you did. Why it happened the way it did. That it ain't all your fault. Or just deny it altogether. And how that temptation pulls and tugs. And that seems to be the right way to do it, alright. So you get out of trouble and off the hook.

When we are guilty and taking to heart what God says and does about sin, those responsible for it, this is frightening. Because God's holy, isn't He? He's all-knowing and all-powerful as well. And He's our judge, isn't He? And as we see with Achan, God's holy judgment is severe. But He's true to His word, what He says. And His word to us is this: the soul whose sin shall die. So like Joshua spoke to Achan in guilt, I say to you, with yours: take responsibility for your actions and the consequences that go with it. Confess your sin. Give glory to God. Yes, no matter how great the trouble, the sin is, how deep the guilt runs, give glory to God, because there's good news. You will not die. You will not die, because that's what Jesus has already done for each one of us, isn't it? He took our sin on Himself.

Think of that. The anger, the raging, burning hot anger of God that is a tempest against the ugliness of sin, all that holiness burning away, hotter than we can ever know, Jesus took. Took all of it in our place. Every part into His being, He took, this. His body and blood. All this fury. All this damnation. On the cross, the punishment we deserve to get, He gets. Remember the word of the Holy God? The soul whose sin shall die? That's what Jesus does for you, for me, for everyone.

Because of Jesus, the burning anger of God is turned away from you, from me, from all of us sinners. Now God says, I judge you justified. You are forgiven.

When you're caught in wrongdoing, do you drag your feet? When you're guilty, do you hold back on confessing what you've done, frightened if you tell the whole truth, something terrifying or terrible might happen to you?

Think of Jesus. And thanks to Jesus, debt can stop and be changed. So now you can stand before the Holy God and face Him, and you can come clean with Him and you can tell Him the whole truth without all this dread. No matter how much guilt there is, you can confess your sins to God, and you will not die for it. Because Jesus already did that for you.

All to have a connection with God, to be close to Him, to know Him as my Father, my loving, caring Father, and to know Him and His ways more fully. And to love and to serve Him more deeply, and to obey and adore Him more joyfully. To face Him and confess our sins to Him more freely, to give glory to God. How good that is.

Isn't that why you come here to this place? And keep on coming back time after time? To have that?

How good it is to trust Him. The trust that God knows what He was doing with Achan, and He knows what He's doing with us as well. How good it is to do this! Give glory to God!

So as Joshua says, I say to you again: give glory to God.

The peace of God that goes beyond our understanding far, beyond our understanding, is keeping your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Amen.