Putting Sin to Death

I’m going to read the first nine verses of Joshua chapter 7. Here it says, “But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. For Achen, 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.” Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Bethan, east of Bethl, and said to them, “Go up and spy out the land.” and men went up and spied out Ai.

And they returned to Joshua and said to him, “Don’t 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 3,000 men went up from there from the people. And they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai killed about 36 of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shabbaram and struck them at the descent.

And the hearts of the people melted and became as water. 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, oh 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.

Oh 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? Thank you. You may be seated. Now, at the beginning of this chapter, Israel is still riding the wave of victory from their battle over Jericho, which we talked about last week.

They’re coming off this strong victory. They completely obliterated the enemy. They’re feeling confident. They’re feeling good. They’re singing, “We are the champions, right?

Everything is going their feel unstoppable because the power of God has just been manifest to them. They’ve seen the walls come down. If Jericho can come down like that, who’s going to stop our God? And yet everything goes sideways right here. No sooner had the walls of Jericho come a tumbling down than the nation of Israel comes a tumbling down because sin is found in its ranks.

It’s interesting that the whole community is lumped together here. All of Israel, it says, has broken faith with God. And yet when you read the text, there’s only one man, one rebel named Achen. This this troubler in their midst has caused this. Says in verse one, “But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things.

For Achen, the son of Carmi, son of Zabai, son of Zarah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel.” So, one of the things this story teaches us is that sin is never a private matter. It’s never just this this private thing that that you know is just personal. It’s it’s not going to affect anybody else. This story teaches it always whenever we sin, whenever we go against what God has designed for us, what we know to be best, it always extends beyond just us.

Always. For one thing, whenever you sin, you’re always sinning in front of God. Now, isn’t that amazing? No matter where you go, there there’s no place in the universe where you can go and hide from God. He’s always there.

He’s always watching. He’s always present. If you ever try to play hide-and-seek with God, he’s wins every time. Just ask Jonah. He tried that.

That’s the great folly of sin. The insanity of sin is it’s always done in front of God and yet it’s always done against God. What was Achen’s sin? Well, from the spoils of Jericho, he took this beautiful robe from Babylon, 200 pieces of silver, a bar of gold. He thought, you know what?

I know that God has said that the spoils belong in the house of the Lord. I know that he said the treasury is to be set aside. That’s what Joshua told us. But, you know, is anyone going to really miss this? This is something nobody’s watching.

Nobody cares. I’m just going to pocket this stuff. I’ll be happy. It’s going to benefit me. Nobody’s going to be the wiser.

That’s what he thought. But I want us to see that Achen’s underlying problem was not his disobedience or his theft. We would be just skimming the surface. We’d be missing the deeper issue if that’s all we saw. His deeper problem was idolatry.

Before the treasure was in his hands, there was idolatry in his heart. Achen’s God was wealth and status. And this is how all sin begins. It always begins in the heart with idolatry, with replacing the living God with a created God, with a false god. And so in your notes, the first thing we’re called to do as we see here is find and uproot idols by staying rooted in the word.

I’ve mentioned this before that the problem of idolatry runs all through the Bible, all through the Old Testament. Israel, you know, just when you think they finally got it figured out and they’re gonna start obeying God, it says they fell back into idolatry. It’s this thing that plagues them all through history. Now, what is idolatry? Idolatry is replacing God with a created thing.

It’s it’s taking something of this world, something that God has given to us, something that is given as a gift for us to enjoy. Not a bad thing. Usually, it’s a good thing, but it takes the place of God in our hearts. And so we devote our energy, our worship, our devotion, our time. It’s what drives our lives because we give it this place in our heart.

That’s idolatry. And so if we’re going to put sin to death in our lives, which we’re called to do, we have to first recognize that we have not just a problem of sin here and sin there. It’s a problem of idolatry. It’s a worship problem. See the idea is that everybody lives for something.

They may not announce this. They may not even be fully conscious of what they are living for. But when you drill down to how they spend their time and what they give their thoughts to, what they’re always contemplating, what drives them, that’s their God. That’s their Lord. That’s what they are living life for.

That’s what they’re worshiping. And if you don’t replace that idol with the living God, you’ll always remain in its grip. And what you look to for your ultimate satisfaction in life, if you think to yourself, you know, if I just had this or if I just had this experience or if I just had this over here, then I would be happy, then I would be complete, then I would be satisfied. Whatever that is, you fill in the blank. That is an idol.

Achen sinned because when he looked at that treasure, he thought to himself, “This is what I need. All my life, I’ I’ve been missing this wealth. This this gold, this silver, it’s glitters. It fascinates me. This would give me so much status.

When we get into the promised land and settle down, I’m going to be wealthy. That’s what I need to be complete.” He looked to it as a god. He worshiped it. Again, idols are not usually bad things.

And when we think of idols as a bad thing, we’re probably thinking of a statue or some kind of false god like that. But an idol most often is something that our hearts have gripped onto. The book of Ezekiel talks about people setting up idols in their heart. The great reformer Martin Luther noted that of the ten commandments, the first two were about idolatry. And he said, ‘You know, you can’t really break the other eight unless you have first broken the first two.

Why do we steal? Why do we lie? Why do we covet? It’s because we have a false god. We are living for something other than the living God.

That’s why we are sinning. Idolatry is at the root of all sin. And you take something like marriage for example. Marriage is a wonderful thing, but if you look to your spouse to make you completely happy, to satisfy your soul, to make you whole, now you’ve gotten into idolatry. Or something like respect.

Even something like respect can be an idol. It’s not wrong to want respect. But if you worship respect, if it’s your idol, then you will do whatever it takes to get respect. You might even get angry when someone disrespects you. You might even get violent.

Why? Because they’re coming after your god. And that is where your energy is devoted. When I think about Achen, I can’t help think of Judas a Scariot. There’s so many parallels in the lives between these two men.

Achen was willing to betray the entire nation of Israel for money. Judas was willing to betray the son of God for money. Their greatest treasure was money. That was their god. And though money is not inherently evil, there’s something about money that has a pull on our hearts out of proportion from other things.

Quite often Jesus talked about this. He said greed is sneaky. Most people when they look into their own hearts, they they don’t see greed. They think, “Oh, you know, that’s not a problem I really struggle with. That’s somebody else’s problem.”

You know, those guys that live in Wall Street or or wherever who have the, you know, giant mansions, you know, those guys obviously struggle with money. Not me. Jesus said this, “Watch out.” Luke 12, “Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.

For a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.” In other words, your self-worth is not defined by your net worth. This is the lie that people believe. If I just had more money, if I just had more wealth, then I’d be happy. Then I’d be complete.

There are times we have to admit that we’re we’re all tempted to believe that lie that this will satisfy me. This is what’s missing in my life. Both Achen and Judas had money as their god. And just like the real god makes promises to us and always keeps his promises, false gods make promises, too. Only they always go back on their promises.

Money’s false promise is if you just have me as your god, if you just worship me, then you’ll be complete. You’ll have every everything you need, you’ll feel secure. We want to feel secure. I’ll give you security. That’s what the idol of money tells us.

And in both cases with Judas and Achen, it was their greed that destroyed them. Think of that. What what is it that would cause someone who has spent three years with the son of God, perfect, spotless, holy son of God, to betray him after seeing his healing, after seeing the way he fed 5,000? What could possibly turn you away from incarnate love? Greed.

Greed is what had his heart. As with Achen, greed was his god. Now, how can we guard against idolatry? Because this is at the heart of all sin. So, how do we how do we fight against this?

The Bible talks about how there’s a way to know more of your heart and God will show it to you by being in the word of God. Being rooted in the word. Hebrews 4:12 says that the word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. It’s piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit. It goes all the way down to joint and marrow.

And it discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart. See, when we want to become more like Jesus, we have to go to the word of God. The word of God is what shows us our idols. It shows us what we need to root out. It shows us how to become more like Jesus.

Just like Joshua was told to meditate on God’s word day and night. It’s not just a oneanddone thing. This is your lifestyle, Joshua. If you’re going to lead my people, you need to be in the word. Not just sometimes, all the time, day and night.

Meditate on it. Feed your soul with my words, and I will show you my will for your life. God clearly said the devoted things were for him. There wasn’t a miscommunication. It’s not as though Joshua forgot to say this to Achen.

Achin knew this. He knew exactly what God had willed for these devoted things. And yet he told himself, “I know better than God. I I know better than the God who’s bringing down these walls. I I have something better in store for me than God does.”

And he went to this treasure and he took it for himself. He probably thought to himself, you know, what’s the harm? What’s the harm? That’s a question that often comes up. That’s a a lie, by the way, that the devil would put in our hearts when we’re considering sin.

He will often ask, “What’s the harm?” As it turns out, there’s a lot of harm. 36 men die because of Achen’s greed. Coming off this landslide victory at Jericho, Joshua is thinking, “This is going to be an easy, easy victory. The spies have come back.

They’ve reported Ai, it’s this tiny town. It’s nothing compared to Jericho. All you need is a couple thousand guys. You’re going to take it out. No problem.”

He He’s thinking like this would be this would be like the Kansas City Chiefs playing against Tiger High School, right? Like there’s no way we can lose this after Jericho especially. And then to think these men come back, they’re like dogs coming back with their tail between their legs and they’re terrified. Their hearts melted like water, like as if they’ve seen a ghost. This will often happen in the Christian life after a great spiritual victory when when things seem to be looking up.

That’s when Satan will try to come after you. That’s when he’ll present those temptations before your eyes. Just when you think, you know, I’ve I’ve got it all. I figured this thing out. I know how to follow Jesus.

There’s that temptation. It shows up right then in your notes. We’re called to flee temptation by pursuing a deeper love for Jesus. So after the defeat of Ai, Joshua is devastated. He doesn’t understand this.

This doesn’t make any sense. God promised that he would give us this land. God would not go back on his promise. He would not break his word. So what’s the deal?

What’s going on here? And he pours out himself to God. And he even seems to be almost accusing God of wrongdoing. How could you let this happen, God? He does say he’s concerned about God’s name ultimately.

What will this defeat say about God’s reputation among the Canaanites? And the Lord responds in verse 10. Look with me. The Lord said to Joshua, “Get up.” See, there’s a time to pray and then there’s a time to act.

Get up, Joshua. 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. Again, God is highlighting the communal effects of sin. He He’s not viewing this as just a personal individual problem. He’s saying just like a virus that enters the body. It may just come in at one little point, but this sin has now infected the whole community.

In Galatians, Paul compares sin to levan. He says, “A little leaven leavenvens the whole lump of dough.” In other words, a little leaven, a little bit of yeast is all it takes to cause that loaf of bread to rise. And in the same way, all it takes is just a a sin here, a single sin here, or a little false teaching over there, and suddenly the entire community can be corrupted. And Joshua, when he realizes there’s a traitor in the midst, he brings all the tribes together.

And because it’s a national problem, even though it’s one man, again, it’s a national problem that’s come, he goes through and they go through this arduous process of casting lots first by tribe, then by clan, then by household, until finally it falls to one man, Achen, the son of Carmi. When Achen is confronted, he says this in verse 20, “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 Shinar, that’s Babylon, and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels. Then I coveted them and took them and see they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath.

Achin says, “I saw, I coveted, and I took.” That’s the pattern of temptation and sin always. I saw, I coveted, I took. James 1 says, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Again, the pattern is I saw, I desired, I took. Eve did the same in the garden. Remember, she saw the fruit and then through listening to the serpent’s lies, she desired and then she took. King David did the same with Ba Sheba. He saw her and then he desired her and then he took her.

It’s important to recognize this is a battle that begins in the heart. If we’re going to put sin to death, we can’t think of it just as external things like, “I don’t know why I did that in that moment or or that was that wasn’t me. That was that was something else. I don’t know what happened in that instant where I got angry. No, there’s something deeper going on.

It’s a false god. Our culture will say if it feels good, do it, right? We’re told that whatever we feel on the inside is the ultimate guide for how we should live. But the truth is for categories like right and wrong and good and evil and just and unjust, for those to even make sense, there has to be this transcendent objective moral standard, there has to be a good outside of ourselves that’s going to determine whether my desires are good or evil. Christianity teaches that we’ve been created by God and therefore our lives are not first our own.

We’ve been created by a God who wants a relationship with us. He loves us. He’s not willing that we’re just going to go off on our own and do our own thing and destroy ourselves. He loves us. And the Bible says we owe him everything, beginning with the gift of life.

Many people think that the way to put sin to death is just to concentrate all the focus on that sin. Think about how evil and and wicked and wrong that is. And oh, I don’t know why I did that again. That’s so evil. And then, you know, you remove every source of temptation you can think of.

That might work for a time maybe, but the real way to conquer sin isn’t merely to run from temptation, which is going to be present all over our world, but to run to Jesus. A while back, a guy named Thomas Chalmer’s gave a sermon called the expulsive power of a new affection. Now, let me break that down for you. He basically says you can’t just detach sin from the heart. See, the heart always grabs on to something it loves.

And so in order to replace that love of sin, you have to replace it with a greater love, a more powerful love, the love of God. The idea is this. The more you fall in love with Jesus, the more you pursue a relationship with him, the the more you seek to know him intimately, sin will begin to lose its appeal. Jesus said in the sermon on the mount, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” See, to see God, that’s to have intimacy with God, to know him, to see him.

The way to have victory over sin and temptation is not just to to give yourself to more rules and more religion and you know I just got to make myself a better person. That’s all actually creating a new god. Now your god is religion or your god is rules or your god is becoming a better person. No the best way to overcome that is to remember that I want to see god. Why should I run from that temptation?

Why should I avoid that sin and and seek after righteousness? Because I want to know God. I want to experience more of his goodness, his beauty, his love. And so we battle sinful pleasure by replacing it with an even better pleasure found in Jesus. Your notes.

The third thing we’re called to do is fight sin’s strangleold through confession and accountability. Now, the more you get to know people, the more you see that the more you realize this that everybody has their battle. Everybody’s going through something where there’s a struggle in life, something that they’re battling against. Every Christian has something where they’re saying, you know, I wish I was improving in this area. I wish I could battle this better.

None of us are immune. But the that’s actually a sign that you’re in Christ. See, if you’re not battling, you’re just being bowled over by that sinful desire. You’re giving yourself over to it or God has given you over to it because you’ve chosen it. But if you want to battle it and you want to have victory, that’s a sign that you’re in Christ.

That there’s new desires that are at work in you that weren’t there before you knew Jesus. Paul talks about this battle in Romans 7. Even as a follower of Jesus, he says,”For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.” Can we relate to that?

This is the Apostle Paul. He He’s not He’s not a brand new believer here. He’s saying, “Look, I know the right thing to do. I want to do it. Oh, but there’s so many times where the ability to carry it out, it’s not there.

And so, if Paul had this fierce battle with the flesh, then we know it’s going to be a battle for us all our lives. Not until heaven or Jesus comes back. Not until the other side of eternity will this battle come to a stop. Over and over in scripture, we see that the way out of sin strangleold on us is through confession and accountability. Confession and accountability.

See, it’s so important that we don’t blame our sinful choices on things outside of ourselves. People tend to do this. They will say, you know, it’s it’s my genetics. I it’s it’s how I was brought up. It’s my family or it’s my environment.

It’s my society. That’s why I do these things. I’ve heard many men say things like, you know, it’s far easier to fall into lust in our culture than it used to be. I’m not so sure of that. Have Have you read about ancient cultures?

This is a problem all through human history. And the question isn’t is this a problem? It’s where is the problem? Where are you looking at the problem? See, the Bible makes it clear that we need to confess sin, which means we need to take full responsibility for our sinful choices.

And as long as we’re still trying to pin the blame on someone or something else, that particular sin will keep its grip on you. It’s when we own it, we name it, we say what particular sin, not just yes, I’m a sinner in general and and keep it theoretical, but this sin is a sin that I struggle with. I need to confess that to God. I need to be honest with myself. I need to share it with a brother or sister of the same gender who who knows me and loves me well.

I need to be able to to call it out because I don’t want to be enslaved. I don’t want to be in the grip of this sin. First John 1:9 says, “If you confess your sins,” this is a promise. If you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. So first of all, the rec the reconciliation happens.

He’s forgiving us and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness to be cleansed. That’s what we most want. And we’re when we confess sin, we’re agreeing with God about our sin. We’re no longer making excuses. We’re no longer trying to justify it.

We’re confessing, which means we’re saying, “God, you’re right about me. You’re right about how this is wrong. How I need to give this up. And then you say, “And thank you for your grace, your forgiveness, that you wash me clean. You don’t hold this against me.

Although if it was not for the cross, you would have every right to judge me for it. If you want to slay your sin, you need to name it.” Notice what Achen did when he stole the treasure. It says he hid it in the dirt under his tent. So rather than confessing his sin, remember he would have seen the army marching out to battle.

He probably thought he’d gotten away with it. We’re on to the next thing. Good. I can keep it hidden in my tent. Nobody’s going to be aware of it.

But a day of reckoning was coming. And so when you repent of sin, you make a clean break with it. There can’t be any half measures when you repent because your whole self belongs to God. So you got to bring it all to him. Not just Jesus, you can have some of this stuff, but I want to hold on to this area of my life.

The Bible says this in 1 Corinthians 10, God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation, he will also provide the way of escape. The way of escape so that you may be able to endure it. In other words, there’s always a way of escape. No, no excuse, no rationalization is ever going to cut it because there’s always a way of escape. God provides the resources for us to escape.

And one of those resources is accountability. That’s because sin thrives in isolation. If if we close out all other voices, we don’t listen to the word of God, we don’t listen to our brothers and sisters, then sin thrives because we’re not accountable to anyone. But when you do have someone who shares a sin struggle with you, it’s so important that you show grace and patience. Grace and patience.

Because you know, as a pastor, one of the most distressing things for me is to hear about someone who did share a sin struggle and then later it came around to bite them. Someone ostracized them or someone belittled them or put them down because they knew about their sin struggle. And we need to be very careful about that. That when someone shares a sin struggle, we need to honor their honesty. We need to encourage them, love them, show forgiveness where that’s needed.

Our battle against sin is not like Bruce the Shark. Now, if you’ve seen Finding Nemo, you maybe know who I’m talking about. Bruce the Shark, the sharks come and they have this this 12step meeting, right? And they chant this motto, fish are friends, not food, right? And Bruce the shark, he he really doesn’t want to eat fish.

He knows I I got to not eat fish. But once he smells blood, it’s all over. You know, he can’t stop himself because he has this shark nature that must eat fish. And I hope you see that as Christians, our battle against sin is not like that at all. See, Satan would love for us to think there’s no hope.

There’s no point battling it. You’re just going to give in anyway. He would love for us to think that way. But what Satan doesn’t want to want us to account for is that we have been born again. We’ve been made new.

We’ve been given a new nature. And the Bible says that when you’re born again, you have these new godly desires. And so, we’re not like Bruce the Shark where we’re just stuck in our old nature and always going after whatever our desires want. No, we can battle it with new desires. That’s the idea.

Because we’ve been made new in Christ. But the key is to be honest about our struggle. And this is where Achen completely failed. He was not honest. Only when confronted, only when it was brought before the whole nation.

You just think about the sense of shame and guilt. All the nation is looking at you. If he had just confessed, if he had just brought it into the light and said, “Look, this is what I did. I’m wrong.” Those 36 men wouldn’t have died.

It’s foolish to think we can hide things from God. And yet people do this. They think, you know, if I just do this one time, I’ll get away with it. Maybe God won’t notice. That was Achen’s mindset.

He went in they went into his tent and they brought out everything. It says, everything Achen was hiding and they presented as evidence for the whole nation to see. And then we’re given this somewhat ominous picture here. Joshua said,”Wh,” verse 25, “why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today.

And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones.” Now, Deuteronomy says that the family will not be punished for the father’s sin. And so when they stone Achen’s whole family as a punishment, it’s clear that the whole family was in on this. If you were to ask Achen, he probably would have had a whole slew of reasons for why he did it, but it comes down to this.

Achen didn’t believe Joshua when when he said, “It all belongs to God.” Achin thought, “No, some things should belong to me.” And see, when we come to Christ, we repent and trust in Jesus, what we’re doing is we’re surrendering everything to him. We’re we’re giving it all over to him. It’s like, and Lord willing, in a week and a half, when we get our new house here in Tiger, someone’s going to give us the keys, right?

Someone’s going to give us the keys and and we’ll have a a deed. And that’s what we do when we come to Christ. We’re basically handing over the keys of our life. We’re giving him the the signed written deed and he gets ownership over our life. That’s what it is to come to Christ.

The Bible says, “You have been bought with a price. You are not your own.” Now, Achen’s story ends very tragically. He’s he’s stoned to death and and all that’s left there’s this reminder just like they had a memorial remembering God’s deliverance at the Jordan River. The pile of stones.

Here’s a pile of stones that is a memorial in a sense to remind them of God’s judgment, of his holiness. And if the story ended there for us, this would only be a bad news message. But the good news is that even though we too have sinned, even though we deserve to be under that pile of rocks too according to the Bible, Jesus stepped in and out of love for us, he took the death penalty for us. He endured the punishment we deserved so that we could be forgiven, so we could have eternal life as a free gift. Finally, in your notes, we’re called to forge a new path through Christ’s redemptive power.

See, the great tragedy for Achen is that he had been so blessed by God. He had been given so much. He was promised this inheritance of the promised land, this land of abundance. He wouldn’t lack for anything. And yet, he thought, “I need this to be complete.”

How do we put sin to death? It’s with the redemptive power of Christ. We forge new path by remembering first that we are children of God. We have a new identity. We’re no longer who we once were.

And we have an inheritance, too. An inheritance that is infinitely better than anything we could imagine. And it’s there for us. The Bible says we’re co-airs with Christ. And by his grace, we’ve been given this treasure that that is beyond our conception.

And so how how foolish it would be to throw away an eternal inheritance for a pile of cash that’s destined to burn up anyway. Every time we thank God for what he’s promised us and we we tell him he’s all we need and we pray he is our all and all. What we’re doing is we’re dethroning that idol. What whether it’s money or whatever it might be, we’re dethroning the idol in our hearts when we tell him you’re all I need. You are sufficient.

Your blood Jesus is all I need to be forgiven. Your love is all I need. In the gospel, Jesus who had infinite wealth became poor. The Bible says 2 Corinthians 8:9 says, “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor so that you by his pove

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