1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,960 He introduced himself and he was he was Pastor Josiah. 2 00:00:02,960 --> 00:00:03,840 And I was like, oh, pastor, what? 3 00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:04,720 What do you do? What do you do? 4 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:06,320 He's like, no, no, no, you misunderstand. 5 00:00:06,640 --> 00:00:09,480 I'm the pastor of the fields. He was a farmer, but he really 6 00:00:09,480 --> 00:00:11,080 wanted a title. And I just thought it was the 7 00:00:11,080 --> 00:00:13,000 most we're going to be looking and we have been looking at a 8 00:00:13,000 --> 00:00:20,000 series in Joshua. And this kind of sermon 9 00:00:20,000 --> 00:00:22,680 continues from the the Walls of Jericho. 10 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:25,080 OK, so a little bit of context for you. 11 00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:28,440 And the walls of Jericho have just come tumbling down, OK? 12 00:00:28,440 --> 00:00:31,040 And it's one of the, you know, the key moments in any good 13 00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:34,480 children's Bible is the walls of Jericho coming down, OK? 14 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:38,560 And so the Israelites win through this incredible act of 15 00:00:38,560 --> 00:00:42,640 worship, OK, glorifying God. And they do so in a way that 16 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:46,000 over 4000 years later, we're still talking about, like I 17 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:49,040 said, it's one of the the stories that most people within 18 00:00:49,040 --> 00:00:51,960 around the UK, being in a Western society, would have an 19 00:00:51,960 --> 00:00:54,360 understanding of what's gone on. OK. 20 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:57,360 And so they fought this incredible victory, the lights, 21 00:00:57,360 --> 00:01:00,280 which has never been seen before and arguably ever again. 22 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,080 They stood before a fortress and they watched the walls come, 23 00:01:04,360 --> 00:01:09,120 come tumbling down. They marched around and Joshua 7 24 00:01:09,120 --> 00:01:12,160 starts with the expectation before another battle. 25 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:15,720 So the people are continuing to claim the the land that was 26 00:01:15,720 --> 00:01:18,360 there, this promised land. Really, we're clever with 27 00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:19,440 titles. The reason it's called the 28 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:21,560 promised land is because it's the land that God promised. 29 00:01:22,120 --> 00:01:25,640 It's really is that simple and they've just seen God do this 30 00:01:25,640 --> 00:01:28,080 most amazing thing where they really didn't even need to 31 00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:29,440 fight. They kind of just they walked 32 00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,360 around a bit and sung like in a nutshell, like there's way more 33 00:01:32,360 --> 00:01:33,440 than that and there's spiritual stuff. 34 00:01:33,440 --> 00:01:37,040 But but realistically right to the average person, they walked 35 00:01:37,040 --> 00:01:39,480 around a wall 7 times and it came cumbling down like that. 36 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:42,360 That was pretty much it right now amazing God. 37 00:01:42,760 --> 00:01:45,720 But realistically, for the average dude watching that 38 00:01:45,720 --> 00:01:50,440 right, he literally was told to sing, maybe blow a trumpet and 39 00:01:50,440 --> 00:01:53,320 March, and everything kind of worked. 40 00:01:53,320 --> 00:01:57,560 And so they're going into this battle fully expecting a similar 41 00:01:57,560 --> 00:02:00,360 kind of victory. Or to be fair, even if it was 42 00:02:00,360 --> 00:02:02,040 double that, do you know what we'll do? 43 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:04,480 Double the work, We'll March, double the time, We'll do it. 44 00:02:04,720 --> 00:02:07,400 You know, 14 instead of seven. It seems like a reasonable 45 00:02:07,400 --> 00:02:11,240 expectation up until that point to be fairly smug and assured of 46 00:02:11,240 --> 00:02:14,880 your victory after Jericho. But like that was a reasonable 47 00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:18,640 expectation and Joshua we read this it says Joshua sent spies. 48 00:02:18,640 --> 00:02:20,320 This is Joshua 7. I'm reason from the passion 49 00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,120 translation just because I like it and it says spent spies to 50 00:02:24,480 --> 00:02:28,280 it's AI, but I think it's I we were talking and this isn't by 51 00:02:28,280 --> 00:02:30,600 the way, some like futuristic thing of like a sermon around 52 00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:33,000 AII was tempted. Me and Libby were talking about 53 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:35,920 that this morning. Anyway, they returned to Joshua 54 00:02:35,920 --> 00:02:38,640 and they reported to him. There is no need to trouble the 55 00:02:38,640 --> 00:02:43,320 whole army to conquer this. The people are so few that 2 or 56 00:02:43,320 --> 00:02:45,920 3000 men could attack it and take the city. 57 00:02:46,440 --> 00:02:50,520 So Joshua sent 3000 troops to attack the city, but they were 58 00:02:50,520 --> 00:02:53,680 routed by the men. The men of Iya chased them from 59 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:56,600 the gates, down the hills as far as the quarries, cutting them 60 00:02:56,600 --> 00:02:57,480 down. As they fled. 61 00:02:57,760 --> 00:03:01,600 They killed 36 of Joshua's men. And when Israel heard of their 62 00:03:01,600 --> 00:03:04,520 defree, their hearts melted away in fear. 63 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:09,880 Now, this is a very peculiar passage of scripture to me 64 00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:13,840 because I would argue in most military senses, if you took 65 00:03:13,840 --> 00:03:16,960 3000 people and only lost 36, that would be considered a 66 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:23,480 victory like that that seem but for them, 36 of them die and 67 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:25,920 they leg it. Like, I don't know what their 68 00:03:25,920 --> 00:03:28,000 expectations were. Maybe it was because of Jericho, 69 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:30,200 but up until that fight, the Israelite people were a fighting 70 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:33,760 people, losing 36 out of 3000. Somebody's good at maths. 71 00:03:33,760 --> 00:03:35,040 There's a percentage in there somewhere. 72 00:03:35,040 --> 00:03:38,760 But put it this way, it's not very much, OK, but it only took 73 00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:41,720 36 individuals to die for them to start running away. 74 00:03:42,320 --> 00:03:44,960 And I thought, well, maybe there was a reason that the Bible put 75 00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:47,160 down 36. And so if you know me and know 76 00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:49,880 anything about me, I spent enough time trying to work. 77 00:03:49,960 --> 00:03:51,600 No, there isn't. OK? 78 00:03:52,040 --> 00:03:55,720 I, I tried and I spent stupid amounts of time looking into 79 00:03:55,720 --> 00:03:58,720 like the Greek and Hebrew history, well, Hebrew history of 80 00:03:58,720 --> 00:04:01,120 the letter, that there's nothing, OK, there is no 81 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:03,920 significance around the 36. It seems to be that the reason 82 00:04:03,920 --> 00:04:07,600 the Bible puts down the 36 people died is because 36 people 83 00:04:07,600 --> 00:04:09,520 died. And it turns out sometimes when 84 00:04:09,520 --> 00:04:12,000 the Bible says something, it literally just means 36 people 85 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:13,840 died. That was a lesson for me. 86 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:17,079 Honestly, it was concerning how long I tried to look into this. 87 00:04:17,120 --> 00:04:19,160 But anyway. And so we have this kind of 88 00:04:19,160 --> 00:04:23,120 thing, like there was no real mention of it. 89 00:04:23,120 --> 00:04:27,320 Oh, there we go. I even, I was even reading 90 00:04:27,320 --> 00:04:29,360 something called the Talmud, which is the oral tradition 91 00:04:29,360 --> 00:04:31,360 that's supposed to be attached to the Toran and things like 92 00:04:31,360 --> 00:04:32,800 that. Nope, there is nothing. 93 00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:35,880 OK, so I did look, there is nothing in there. 94 00:04:36,400 --> 00:04:40,040 And so the question then became to me of this kind of thing of 95 00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:45,440 like, what went wrong? Like they had this expectation, 96 00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:48,440 the walls of Jericho comes tumbling down, this absolute 97 00:04:48,440 --> 00:04:51,800 victory expectation that God is going to move and they're going 98 00:04:51,800 --> 00:04:54,040 to conquer. They even spent sent spies in. 99 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:56,480 So they did the right thing. They they surveyed the land and 100 00:04:56,480 --> 00:04:59,480 the guys even said, you know what, we could do this in two 2 101 00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:01,680 to 3000. And they still chose the larger 102 00:05:01,680 --> 00:05:04,960 number. We'll send the 3000 yet 36 of 103 00:05:04,960 --> 00:05:08,680 them full and the whole thing. And it says that they are now 104 00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:14,480 filled with fear. And so Joshua 71 tells us, and 105 00:05:14,480 --> 00:05:16,920 this is how the story actually starts, but I deliberately 106 00:05:16,920 --> 00:05:19,680 missed it was this. The Israelites acted 107 00:05:19,680 --> 00:05:22,720 unfaithfully, regarded their devoted things. 108 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,520 And then the passage continues. So I looked into this. 109 00:05:26,520 --> 00:05:30,200 The Hebrew word means to break faith unfaithfully. 110 00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:34,120 It's not just that something was broken or stolen. 111 00:05:34,120 --> 00:05:38,560 The issue becomes a microcosm for the reality of the Israelite 112 00:05:38,560 --> 00:05:40,840 story. It actually becomes like this 113 00:05:40,840 --> 00:05:44,960 covenant or betrayal in the words of one of my favorite Old 114 00:05:44,960 --> 00:05:46,600 Testament scholars, a guy called John Golden Gay. 115 00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:50,000 He says covenant is a way of speaking about a relationship 116 00:05:50,200 --> 00:05:53,000 that involves both promise and expectation. 117 00:05:53,320 --> 00:05:57,040 It infirm affirms Yahweh's commitment to Israel and 118 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,440 Israel's responsibility to Yahweh. 119 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:03,360 So it isn't this relationship of just like a nice idea or you 120 00:06:03,360 --> 00:06:06,280 know, we're seeing each other. A covenant had the expansion of 121 00:06:06,320 --> 00:06:08,760 of almost till death do us part. If you broke a covenant, the 122 00:06:08,760 --> 00:06:12,040 expectation that you would be killed, it was that serious. 123 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,000 And the language of this betrayal is around this kind of 124 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,200 thing that the Israelite people had done something that had 125 00:06:18,200 --> 00:06:20,840 caused a break in this covenantal relationship. 126 00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:24,920 So in chapter 6, we read that God has declared that everything 127 00:06:24,920 --> 00:06:28,640 in Jericho was to be given to God alone, but a man called 128 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:32,120 Ashen took some of it. And later in Joshua 7, we read 129 00:06:32,120 --> 00:06:38,760 the full account and I'll look at, oh, there we go, Joshua 7 130 00:06:38,760 --> 00:06:59,000 verse 21, which says, yeah, summary of the story is he 131 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:02,720 took some stuff, OK, He took silver, he took gold and he took 132 00:07:02,720 --> 00:07:05,160 some pretty things. Go concentrate the people. 133 00:07:05,640 --> 00:07:09,120 And next morning Joshua said, my son, it is true, I've sinned 134 00:07:09,120 --> 00:07:10,560 against the Lord and God of Israel. 135 00:07:10,560 --> 00:07:12,840 This is why I've done it. What I saw in the plunder of the 136 00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:16,360 beautiful rose from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a 137 00:07:16,360 --> 00:07:19,640 wedge of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and I 138 00:07:19,640 --> 00:07:21,800 took them. They are hidden in the ground 139 00:07:21,800 --> 00:07:25,840 inside my head, my tent. So we have this language of 140 00:07:25,840 --> 00:07:29,320 covet, took and hid. And I was looking into this and 141 00:07:29,320 --> 00:07:31,360 actually there was a deliberate reason. 142 00:07:31,360 --> 00:07:33,600 It's really important that we understand this pattern. 143 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:37,880 While researching this passage, the most scholars seem to agree 144 00:07:37,880 --> 00:07:41,880 that Joshua was trying to link back to the pattern of the full 145 00:07:42,680 --> 00:07:46,360 of Adam and Eve, the symbolic reconciling of the symmetry. 146 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:49,760 OK. And so just the sin and Eden 147 00:07:49,760 --> 00:07:52,160 disrupted the relationship with God. 148 00:07:52,360 --> 00:07:55,320 This interrupts, disrupts Israelites relationship with God 149 00:07:55,320 --> 00:07:58,080 in the land. And like Eden, the sin becomes 150 00:07:58,080 --> 00:07:59,640 hidden. So the kind of thing with Adam 151 00:07:59,640 --> 00:08:02,960 and Eve was they saw the fruit, they took the fruit, they eat 152 00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:06,000 the fruit and hid in this similar kind of language. 153 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:09,120 They're trying to indicate a similar kind of thing of this 154 00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:12,200 breakdown of just basically kind of like what the heart of sin 155 00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:14,640 is. I see, I take, I hide. 156 00:08:14,640 --> 00:08:17,280 It seems to be quite a pattern that actually, if you follow 157 00:08:17,280 --> 00:08:20,480 most of Scripture and probably most of your life, when you look 158 00:08:20,480 --> 00:08:23,520 at the context of your own personal sins, you don't need to 159 00:08:23,520 --> 00:08:24,480 share them. Don't worry. 160 00:08:25,160 --> 00:08:28,120 It's a very similar kind of thing of we see, we take, we 161 00:08:28,120 --> 00:08:30,920 hide. And so there's this kind of 162 00:08:30,920 --> 00:08:35,880 understanding of looking in this, of trying to grasp the 163 00:08:35,880 --> 00:08:40,000 heart of what Joshua's saying. So the sin becomes hidden. 164 00:08:40,280 --> 00:08:42,679 And in the context of the Scripture, the treasure is 165 00:08:42,679 --> 00:08:46,600 buried beneath the tent, and what is hidden from the people 166 00:08:46,600 --> 00:08:49,800 can never be hidden from God. And now, like I said, this 167 00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:52,880 symbolism is essential to grasping the heart of the 168 00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:54,960 passage. When reading Joshua 7, it could 169 00:08:54,960 --> 00:08:59,280 be easily be wondered why God is punishing the people for the 170 00:08:59,280 --> 00:09:04,520 actions of only one person. But by linking it to the story 171 00:09:04,520 --> 00:09:07,360 and language of the full, we see the uncomfortable truth that 172 00:09:07,360 --> 00:09:09,720 Joshua is trying to get us to understand. 173 00:09:10,480 --> 00:09:15,400 The whole nation suffers for the sin of one in the beginning. 174 00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:18,360 In Joshua 7 it says Israel has sinned. 175 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:23,800 It doesn't just say one person. This reflects the biblical idea 176 00:09:23,800 --> 00:09:28,680 that God's people are a covenant community and so when one sins, 177 00:09:28,680 --> 00:09:31,120 the whole community fell and broke. 178 00:09:32,280 --> 00:09:35,320 To put it into potentially more modern or Pauline language, the 179 00:09:35,320 --> 00:09:38,760 actions of 1 member of the body affects the whole body. 180 00:09:40,160 --> 00:09:43,400 I've got a tiny literally, I mean, I'm, I'm a weakling, OK? 181 00:09:43,560 --> 00:09:45,960 My wife's AGP and I hate hearing about her day at work because 182 00:09:45,960 --> 00:09:48,520 it's gross. I, I have a tiny blood bister on 183 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:50,920 my finger right now. I have never been more aware of 184 00:09:50,920 --> 00:09:52,680 this finger at the moment than this. 185 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:55,840 But how many of you are conscious of the fact that you 186 00:09:55,840 --> 00:09:57,440 can breathe through your nose right now? 187 00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:00,440 I guarantee that when you have a cold, that's all you think 188 00:10:00,440 --> 00:10:03,160 about, and you can see that within that language. 189 00:10:03,160 --> 00:10:05,520 That's why Paul uses this language of actually the impact 190 00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:07,760 of one small thing. Literally the ability to breathe 191 00:10:07,760 --> 00:10:12,320 through your nose can actually ruin your day or your sleep and 192 00:10:12,320 --> 00:10:14,360 all of those kind of things. And so there's a deliberate 193 00:10:14,360 --> 00:10:17,520 understanding of actually the impact of such a small thing can 194 00:10:17,520 --> 00:10:19,200 affect the entirety of whom we are. 195 00:10:25,350 --> 00:10:28,390 So the sin that we saw, he thought it was committing just 196 00:10:28,390 --> 00:10:30,110 this private thing. I'll just take some stuff and 197 00:10:30,110 --> 00:10:32,710 hide it in my tent. But the consequences soon became 198 00:10:32,710 --> 00:10:38,080 public. 36 soldiers dies, Israel army flees, the people lose his 199 00:10:38,080 --> 00:10:42,160 heart and doing this, Joshua's experienced sorry, exposing A 200 00:10:42,160 --> 00:10:45,280 harsh reality and even harder truth. 201 00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:49,000 Private sin is never truly private among the people of God. 202 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:51,720 It can't be because we are a covenantal people. 203 00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:55,800 Like it's actually impossible or you know, that kind of thing. 204 00:10:55,800 --> 00:10:58,120 Oh, it's just me. It actually, biblically 205 00:10:58,120 --> 00:10:59,840 speaking, it doesn't seem to be the case. 206 00:11:02,960 --> 00:11:05,720 I think it's really important to notice the wording of God's 207 00:11:05,720 --> 00:11:09,840 response to this sin though. It says I will not be with you 208 00:11:09,840 --> 00:11:13,440 anymore unless you destroy whoever among you is devoted to 209 00:11:13,440 --> 00:11:18,600 destruction. God doesn't say I defeated you, 210 00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:21,640 He simply says I will not be with you. 211 00:11:23,200 --> 00:11:27,240 And this is a key understanding Israel problem is not that God 212 00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:31,280 attacked them, but simply that he withdrew himself from them. 213 00:11:31,520 --> 00:11:33,360 You can actually see this pattern a lot throughout 214 00:11:33,360 --> 00:11:36,320 Scripture, particularly in the Old Testament, like for example, 215 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:39,840 when the Babylonians invade and take over and take the Israelite 216 00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:43,520 people, it says the same thing that God removes his hand from 217 00:11:43,520 --> 00:11:45,640 them and the and the Babylonians came. 218 00:11:45,640 --> 00:11:49,480 It's quite a common theme that actually the protection of God 219 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:52,000 or the relationship with God is the thing. 220 00:11:52,000 --> 00:11:54,480 And so when people point to God and say, Oh God, you did this, 221 00:11:54,480 --> 00:11:56,160 it's actually quite often in Scripture. 222 00:11:56,160 --> 00:11:59,560 No, God just removed himself from that very, very different 223 00:11:59,560 --> 00:12:03,000 kind of understanding. So rather than viewing God as 224 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:07,920 this deliberate attacker, actually it's this removal. 225 00:12:08,760 --> 00:12:12,200 OK, I said this, you've done this, OK? 226 00:12:14,760 --> 00:12:16,840 My, my daughter's and my children are learning to ride a 227 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:18,440 bike. And Elias was very, very 228 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:19,880 adamant. He's like, don't touch me, don't 229 00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:23,400 touch me, don't touch me, OK? And he fell. 230 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:26,680 He got back up and kept going. But there is a level of that 231 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:28,680 where God is gracious and merciful. 232 00:12:28,680 --> 00:12:30,440 He'll give you exactly what you asked for. 233 00:12:30,840 --> 00:12:32,960 And His expectation is covenant relationship. 234 00:12:32,960 --> 00:12:34,760 And these are the standards that He set. 235 00:12:35,320 --> 00:12:37,760 And when you don't meet those standards, God in His mercy goes 236 00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:41,080 OK, and He just removes himself from the circumstance in the 237 00:12:41,080 --> 00:12:45,280 presence. The problem is God's stepping 238 00:12:45,280 --> 00:12:46,520 back. And this goes back to the 239 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:49,000 nature, as I said, of this covenant or relationship. 240 00:12:49,440 --> 00:12:53,720 God is holy and by His nature perfection and imperfection 241 00:12:53,720 --> 00:12:58,720 cannot coexist. Either the imperfection taints 242 00:12:58,760 --> 00:13:03,160 it's perfection, making perfection no longer perfect, or 243 00:13:03,440 --> 00:13:06,840 the imperfection is destroyed to protect or hold on to 244 00:13:06,840 --> 00:13:08,920 protection. I said that a lot with a lot of 245 00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:11,080 different words. I do actually. 246 00:13:11,080 --> 00:13:12,520 I teach. I'm a teacher, for those of you 247 00:13:12,520 --> 00:13:15,040 who don't know, and I teach this quite regularly with my class. 248 00:13:15,240 --> 00:13:18,520 And what I often do is I have a white piece of paper and ask the 249 00:13:18,520 --> 00:13:20,320 students what colours the paper and they go white. 250 00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:22,520 I go temp temporarily points, well done. 251 00:13:22,640 --> 00:13:23,960 And then I put it against the white board. 252 00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:26,760 And inevitably, because my white board has got marks across it, I 253 00:13:26,760 --> 00:13:28,320 asked them again, well, what colour is the white board? 254 00:13:28,320 --> 00:13:30,520 And they go white. I'm like, OK, compare it to 255 00:13:30,520 --> 00:13:31,520 that, what colour is the white board? 256 00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:33,480 And they go grey. I'm like, OK. 257 00:13:33,520 --> 00:13:35,680 And so we move it around all the different whites that we've got 258 00:13:35,680 --> 00:13:38,160 around the classroom, usually against my skin against, you 259 00:13:38,160 --> 00:13:39,400 know, all those sorts of different things. 260 00:13:39,400 --> 00:13:42,200 And we come to this conclusion that white isn't as simple as 261 00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:44,240 you think. It depends on what it's 262 00:13:44,240 --> 00:13:46,880 surrounded by. And it's the same kind of thing 263 00:13:46,880 --> 00:13:49,040 within the context of when people say, but I'm a good 264 00:13:49,040 --> 00:13:52,520 person, why can't I be with God? Because there's a massive 265 00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:54,240 difference between goodness and perfection. 266 00:13:54,680 --> 00:13:58,640 God is perfect. And so the moment you have any 267 00:13:58,640 --> 00:14:01,600 imperfection, like I said, if I had this piece of paper right 268 00:14:01,600 --> 00:14:06,520 here and I put just the tiniest mark upon it, it would no longer 269 00:14:06,520 --> 00:14:09,040 be a perfect piece of paper. It doesn't matter how big the 270 00:14:09,200 --> 00:14:12,440 the OR small the imperfection is, it taints and destroys the 271 00:14:12,440 --> 00:14:16,800 very perfection. And God by his nature is I am. 272 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:20,920 And so you cannot have imperfection and perfection 273 00:14:20,920 --> 00:14:22,720 coexisting. They are oxymoronic. 274 00:14:22,720 --> 00:14:26,000 And you have two options, destruction of the imperfection 275 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:30,600 to keep the purity or the perfection itself gets becomes 276 00:14:30,600 --> 00:14:33,440 just less and imperfect. And God cannot become less. 277 00:14:34,320 --> 00:14:37,600 And so because of that reason, God removes himself because he 278 00:14:37,600 --> 00:14:40,640 is. So until perfection and 279 00:14:40,640 --> 00:14:44,040 perfection can be together, you can't have both. 280 00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:46,520 By the way, This is why Christianity is so flipping 281 00:14:46,520 --> 00:14:49,320 cool, because the only one who can meet the standard of God is 282 00:14:49,320 --> 00:14:52,520 God, which is why Jesus comes. And that's the whole premise of 283 00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:53,920 Christianity. I love it. 284 00:14:54,280 --> 00:14:56,520 Any religion that tells you to meet the standard of a God, I 285 00:14:56,520 --> 00:14:58,480 can't. Christianity says you still 286 00:14:58,480 --> 00:15:00,080 can't, but I'll do it anyway. Beautiful. 287 00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:01,120 Anyway, that's not even my notes. 288 00:15:02,920 --> 00:15:04,560 Just you can't get enough of Jesus. 289 00:15:06,160 --> 00:15:10,080 And so like I was saying, OK, so we have this kind of thing of 290 00:15:13,400 --> 00:15:15,800 there is yeah, This is why the wages of sin is death. 291 00:15:15,840 --> 00:15:20,520 You cannot have eternally perfect being and non internal 292 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:24,480 input being coexisting in a covenantal relationship because 293 00:15:24,480 --> 00:15:29,400 covenant implies equality. And so within this kind of thing 294 00:15:29,400 --> 00:15:31,360 you have to one, well, something has to give. 295 00:15:32,040 --> 00:15:36,280 And often the problem is that we think individually my actions 296 00:15:36,280 --> 00:15:40,680 affect me, but in the Bible covenant means my actions affect 297 00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:46,200 us because we don't stand alone, we stand in relationship with 298 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:51,400 God and the people of God. And so God has two options in 299 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:55,000 this destroy the relationship or remove himself from it. 300 00:15:55,720 --> 00:15:58,200 And this is where we see as the consequence. 301 00:15:58,560 --> 00:16:02,240 Not God causing destruction, but simply removing himself. 302 00:16:02,280 --> 00:16:07,400 And the benefits of his presence for the people are gone. 303 00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:11,080 Remember, as I said to you, it was God who caused the walls of 304 00:16:11,080 --> 00:16:14,640 Jericho to fall. They walked around and God did 305 00:16:14,640 --> 00:16:16,880 the rest. Like I told you that the reason 306 00:16:16,880 --> 00:16:22,440 that story's impressive wasn't because of the people like it 307 00:16:22,440 --> 00:16:28,000 was God. Israel's problem is not that God 308 00:16:28,000 --> 00:16:29,920 attacked them. Their problem is that God 309 00:16:29,920 --> 00:16:33,080 stepped back. And when God's presence is God, 310 00:16:33,440 --> 00:16:38,080 your strength disappears. Battle was not lost before the 311 00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:40,880 walls of I, it was lost in one person's tent. 312 00:16:43,040 --> 00:16:45,760 There's loads of parallels and messages that I was thinking 313 00:16:45,760 --> 00:16:48,080 about I could draw from. But the thing that struck me 314 00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:50,960 most was probably, as I said to you earlier, the body of Christ 315 00:16:50,960 --> 00:16:54,480 today, the world, the church, throughout history and present 316 00:16:54,480 --> 00:16:57,520 day, God is holy. And throughout Scripture, 317 00:16:57,520 --> 00:17:00,800 holiness means that sin cannot exist comfortably in the 318 00:17:00,800 --> 00:17:04,640 presence of God. And so when covenant of broken, 319 00:17:04,640 --> 00:17:06,720 something has to give in that moment. 320 00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,880 And God does not destroy Israel because they are the people of 321 00:17:10,880 --> 00:17:12,760 God. That is their identity. 322 00:17:12,760 --> 00:17:14,319 It was part of the covenant or agreement. 323 00:17:15,079 --> 00:17:16,680 And so God removes himself from them. 324 00:17:19,040 --> 00:17:21,720 Far more subtle, but probably more terrifying. 325 00:17:22,800 --> 00:17:26,720 He withdrew his presence and in that moment, protection gone, 326 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:29,320 strength gone. You can't have peace if the 327 00:17:29,320 --> 00:17:33,280 Prince of it is left confidence collapsed. 328 00:17:33,480 --> 00:17:35,480 Only took 36 people to be killed. 329 00:17:35,480 --> 00:17:38,240 It's because they were no longer, they were just the 330 00:17:38,240 --> 00:17:40,560 people. I was thinking about this. 331 00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:42,840 How many people would I need to see die before I ran? 332 00:17:42,840 --> 00:17:44,440 Turns out it would probably be about one. 333 00:17:45,800 --> 00:17:47,880 I was, I was looking at thinking, you know, 36 people. 334 00:17:47,880 --> 00:17:49,280 It's not that many. But then I stopped and thought 335 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:51,320 and I'm like, if I'm running towards a wall with my mate and 336 00:17:51,320 --> 00:17:53,280 he gets shot with an arrow, I'm running the opposite way. 337 00:17:53,920 --> 00:17:57,360 Like it would not take many. Maybe that's just me. 338 00:18:01,200 --> 00:18:06,760 See, the problem with this is not that God attacked, but now 339 00:18:06,760 --> 00:18:10,440 they're facing life without him. And how do you be? 340 00:18:10,440 --> 00:18:14,200 Or how are you the people of God without the God you serve in? 341 00:18:14,200 --> 00:18:18,120 Colossians pulpits it like this. He says they refuse to take hold 342 00:18:18,120 --> 00:18:21,480 of their true source. But we received directly from 343 00:18:21,480 --> 00:18:24,400 him. His life supplies vitality into 344 00:18:24,440 --> 00:18:28,400 every part of the body. This concept of being in Christ 345 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:31,120 is the most common theme of any Pauling letter. 346 00:18:32,120 --> 00:18:35,600 It is repeated over 150 times across the letter of Paul. 347 00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:38,640 Considering that man wrote, was it 60% of the New Testament, 348 00:18:38,640 --> 00:18:40,960 something like that. And his most common theme is 349 00:18:40,960 --> 00:18:45,000 that you are the body of Christ. Paul says the body only works 350 00:18:45,000 --> 00:18:46,840 when it stays connected to the head. 351 00:18:48,120 --> 00:18:51,840 We do a lesson again in school around the body of Christ and 352 00:18:51,840 --> 00:18:54,200 one of the things we always talk about is if, you know, if you 353 00:18:54,200 --> 00:18:56,280 could lose one part of your body, what would it be? 354 00:18:56,560 --> 00:18:58,560 It's always interesting hearing kids just yell out different 355 00:18:58,560 --> 00:19:00,880 kind of things. You know one eye, which one, 356 00:19:00,880 --> 00:19:02,680 your left or your right. It's really bizarre why they 357 00:19:02,680 --> 00:19:04,920 have opinions about that kind of stuff, but we always come to the 358 00:19:04,920 --> 00:19:06,560 same conclusion. None of them want to lose their 359 00:19:06,560 --> 00:19:10,600 head because you can't function without it. 360 00:19:11,480 --> 00:19:12,800 It's amazing. If you stop there and think 361 00:19:12,800 --> 00:19:15,280 about what you're willing to sacrifice, none of you would say 362 00:19:15,280 --> 00:19:18,240 your head. There will be a ranking. 363 00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:20,800 That's a whole different fun game you can play maybe over 364 00:19:20,800 --> 00:19:22,520 lunch as well. If you had to lose which part 365 00:19:22,520 --> 00:19:25,120 and why? It's a fun game, or at least 366 00:19:25,120 --> 00:19:26,720 it's in my classroom. Maybe you can try it. 367 00:19:28,600 --> 00:19:31,720 So you can't be a Christian without Christ, and you can't be 368 00:19:31,720 --> 00:19:35,280 the people of God without God. Again, oxymoronic statements. 369 00:19:35,920 --> 00:19:38,440 And Joshua says when Israel doesn't lose a battle because 370 00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:40,760 they were weaker, they lost because they'd lost the 371 00:19:40,760 --> 00:19:42,480 connection to the source of life. 372 00:19:44,080 --> 00:19:48,120 And I wonder how often in our worlds it's the same and we 373 00:19:48,120 --> 00:19:50,640 asked questions, or at least I asked questions of like, guy, 374 00:19:50,880 --> 00:19:54,200 God, why is this happening or why are you doing this or what 375 00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:56,560 have I done wrong? Well, that's probably not the 376 00:19:56,560 --> 00:19:58,200 question. I actually asked the other ones 377 00:19:58,200 --> 00:19:59,520 to blame God. It's far easier. 378 00:20:00,840 --> 00:20:03,560 And the issue wasn't God suddenly turned against them, 379 00:20:03,640 --> 00:20:07,440 but that sin had disrupted the relationship that sustained them 380 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:10,480 in Joshua 7. Israel didn't lose because they 381 00:20:10,480 --> 00:20:12,480 were weaker. They'd lost because their 382 00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:17,720 connection had been broken, and they became a people who drift. 383 00:20:18,320 --> 00:20:21,360 Who turn, who root themselves in something other than God. 384 00:20:22,280 --> 00:20:25,800 The problem is because of God's mercy and grace is that when we 385 00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:30,880 step away from him, he lets us. There's a really interesting I'm 386 00:20:31,240 --> 00:20:32,560 I'd love to preach on this at some point. 387 00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:34,440 I've just never had the brain space. 388 00:20:35,240 --> 00:20:38,600 There are three promises in the covenant of to be a covenant 389 00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:39,920 people. There's promise of blessing, 390 00:20:39,920 --> 00:20:41,840 promise of land and promise of descendants. 391 00:20:42,280 --> 00:20:44,440 And what's really interesting is the reason that the Israelite 392 00:20:44,440 --> 00:20:47,320 people are enslaved in Egypt, because the blessings of the 393 00:20:47,320 --> 00:20:50,560 Lord were happening in Egypt. It says that in, in the 394 00:20:50,560 --> 00:20:53,640 Scripture, you can read it, it says that the Israelites and the 395 00:20:53,640 --> 00:20:56,920 Israelites continue to multiply and the Egyptians grew fearful 396 00:20:57,520 --> 00:21:00,240 and it was really interesting. The blessing that God promised 397 00:21:00,240 --> 00:21:02,400 them in the wrong location became the very thing that 398 00:21:02,400 --> 00:21:05,280 enslaved them. Really interesting theological 399 00:21:05,280 --> 00:21:06,760 kind of thing I'd love to unpack one day. 400 00:21:06,800 --> 00:21:08,600 I just, I just don't quite know what it means myself. 401 00:21:08,600 --> 00:21:12,000 So good luck. But that's quite terrifying. 402 00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:14,240 And this was God's blessing. And this one is even worse. 403 00:21:14,240 --> 00:21:17,840 It's the just the removal when God and his grace and his mercy 404 00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:22,680 just allows you to go, OK, it's a really interesting kind of 405 00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:25,800 perspective because a lot of people blame God, but in this 406 00:21:25,800 --> 00:21:28,480 and when we read Scripture, it doesn't seem to be God's fault. 407 00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,640 It's actually by his very nature he is and he's merciful and he 408 00:21:31,680 --> 00:21:38,920 says, OK, go be free. The question is God's is God 409 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:43,080 absent or have we left? There's an interesting parallel 410 00:21:43,080 --> 00:21:46,360 in language between the story in action and the story of the fall 411 00:21:46,960 --> 00:21:50,840 and the language of Paul and Joshua and Ashen hides sin in 412 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:53,720 the ground Adam and Eve hid from God. 413 00:21:54,200 --> 00:21:57,840 And yet Paul makes this really interesting thing, indicates 414 00:21:57,840 --> 00:21:58,920 something different in Colossians. 415 00:21:58,920 --> 00:22:02,960 He says your crucifixion with Christ has served the ties of 416 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:06,240 this life and now you are truly hidden in God. 417 00:22:07,600 --> 00:22:10,400 So before when there was this kind of understanding that sin 418 00:22:10,400 --> 00:22:14,120 was something that we took, we sorry, we see, we take, we hide. 419 00:22:14,360 --> 00:22:16,200 It's still got that level of hidden. 420 00:22:16,200 --> 00:22:19,560 But where we hide is different. We're now hidden in Christ. 421 00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:23,800 Ashton hid in something in the earth and Paul says the 422 00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:26,280 Christian life is meant to be hidden somewhere else. 423 00:22:26,680 --> 00:22:30,160 It's not buried in secrecy, but held securely in Christ. 424 00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,920 Ashton's sin was hidden in the ground and it belongs to the 425 00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:37,360 ground. It belongs to the earth, but 426 00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,120 we're rooted in something different and we belong to 427 00:22:40,120 --> 00:22:45,280 someone different. In Colossians 3 it says this Set 428 00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:46,960 your minds on the things of life. 429 00:22:47,400 --> 00:22:49,440 Your life is hidden with Christ in God. 430 00:22:57,390 --> 00:22:59,710 See the problem with virtual light is that it wasn't just 431 00:22:59,710 --> 00:23:03,830 what one of them did. It's how they decided to do it 432 00:23:03,830 --> 00:23:05,510 and where that security was hidden. 433 00:23:08,510 --> 00:23:12,440 See, when something is hidden as a community, even though it 434 00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:15,240 seems like it's an individual, it affects and impacts the 435 00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:20,840 entirety of the community. And so the question then 436 00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:23,360 becomes, well, what is our solution to this predicament? 437 00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:29,600 Paul puts it like this. He says, put to death whatever 438 00:23:29,600 --> 00:23:33,440 belongs to your earthly nature, because when you keep hidden 439 00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:37,800 doesn't stay harmless, it grows. And that's exactly what we see 440 00:23:37,800 --> 00:23:40,120 in Joshua. What he buried in the ground 441 00:23:40,120 --> 00:23:44,320 didn't just stay buried it it spread and it cost lives. 442 00:23:44,360 --> 00:23:48,720 It broke the people of God. It disrupted the presence of God 443 00:23:48,720 --> 00:23:52,000 among them. And that's the pattern we try 444 00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:55,520 and hide from God, but what is hidden from God separates us 445 00:23:55,520 --> 00:23:59,080 from his presence. Not because God cannot see it, 446 00:23:59,080 --> 00:24:02,600 but because hidden sin reflects a heart that is no longer 447 00:24:02,600 --> 00:24:07,440 centred on Him. See, Israel's strength was never 448 00:24:07,440 --> 00:24:09,360 in their army, it was always in their God. 449 00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:15,200 Which is why it didn't matter how many men they sent, but they 450 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:17,320 put their faith into something other than God. 451 00:24:17,760 --> 00:24:20,560 Went with 3000 and only took 36 to break them. 452 00:24:23,760 --> 00:24:26,560 The strength was always the presence of God at the centre 453 00:24:26,560 --> 00:24:28,600 though. The wonderful word in in Hebrew 454 00:24:28,600 --> 00:24:31,200 is Shekinah or Shekinah. It means the divine presence of 455 00:24:31,200 --> 00:24:36,640 God on earth. Leonard Nimoy, the guy who 456 00:24:36,640 --> 00:24:38,760 played Spock, wrote a book on the Shekinah, by the way. 457 00:24:38,760 --> 00:24:40,840 I would read it. It's fantastic anyway. 458 00:24:41,080 --> 00:24:43,480 But also just hearing it as Spock says it is even better. 459 00:24:44,600 --> 00:24:49,080 Again, not in my notes. Paul picks up the same idea. 460 00:24:49,080 --> 00:24:51,800 And when he says our lives are now hidden in Christ and God, 461 00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:57,000 that's the contrast. Something rooted in self, in 462 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:00,160 secretly, in the earthly desire. That was what the Jew he saw, he 463 00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:02,360 took, he covered it, and it was mine, and he hid. 464 00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:09,360 But something held securely in Christ is very different. 465 00:25:11,840 --> 00:25:16,880 What we hide shapes us, but what we centre our lives on 466 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:19,120 determines where we remain in His presence. 467 00:25:19,120 --> 00:25:22,680 And Israel's problem wasn't just that something had been taken, 468 00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:25,520 it was something that was rooted in the wrong place. 469 00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:29,680 And see, when God stopped being at the centre, everything else 470 00:25:29,680 --> 00:25:32,360 fell apart. And the concerning thing about 471 00:25:32,360 --> 00:25:36,840 this passage also just one person, one individual, and 472 00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:45,580 everything else failed. See, the life of the people of 473 00:25:45,580 --> 00:25:49,820 God has always been dependent on this one reality, staying rooted 474 00:25:49,860 --> 00:25:53,540 in God, drawing everything from his present. 475 00:25:54,340 --> 00:25:57,380 Ashen's failure wasn't just that he took something, it's that he 476 00:25:57,380 --> 00:26:00,580 stepped outside of the dependence that he once relied 477 00:26:00,580 --> 00:26:03,240 on. He acted as though God was no 478 00:26:03,240 --> 00:26:05,520 longer the centre, that it wasn't belonging to him. 479 00:26:05,520 --> 00:26:08,880 And what he buried in the ground reflected a heart that had 480 00:26:08,880 --> 00:26:12,920 shifted away. And that shift is what broke the 481 00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:17,680 life of the whole community. Because what we centre our lives 482 00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,320 on will always shape us. And when God is no longer at the 483 00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:25,640 centre, everything else begins to unravel. 484 00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:33,280 Israel didn't lose because they were weaker or outmatched, they 485 00:26:33,280 --> 00:26:36,440 lost because God's presence was no longer at the centre of whom 486 00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:39,320 they were. And the same is true for us. 487 00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:43,120 When God remains at the centre, He is our strength, our 488 00:26:43,120 --> 00:26:47,200 confidence and our life. But when we drift, even subtly, 489 00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,600 what difference does it make? It's only a small thing. 490 00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:55,920 Who will really know? I can hide it it. 491 00:26:55,920 --> 00:27:00,760 We stop being a people of God and we start relying on us and 492 00:27:00,760 --> 00:27:05,080 everything starts to fall apart. And so the call of this 493 00:27:05,080 --> 00:27:07,880 scripture seems to be a really difficult one. 494 00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:15,600 Just keep God at the centre, not just in what we say, but in whom 495 00:27:15,600 --> 00:27:19,360 we trust, what we pursue, and what we're allowed to take for 496 00:27:19,360 --> 00:27:22,680 root in our lives. And the reason is really 497 00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:27,040 important according to this scripture, because everything 498 00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:34,520 depends on that. Like everything Israelites went 499 00:27:34,520 --> 00:27:39,600 before, after Jericho, and all it took was one man's 500 00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:43,640 selfishness and the whole community failed. 501 00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:49,600 I'm hopeful and grateful that I don't. 502 00:27:49,600 --> 00:27:51,840 Yeah, that maybe that's not the case today. 503 00:27:51,840 --> 00:27:58,640 I don't know. I like, I was looking at this 504 00:27:58,640 --> 00:28:00,960 and I was thinking about this in the context of Christ and us 505 00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,640 being now in the people of God and all that kind of stuff and, 506 00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:05,800 and all these kind of things. And I, there's almost like a 507 00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:11,200 duality here that I want to kind of be like, you know, the, the, 508 00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:13,480 the nice Christian part of me wants to turn to you and go, 509 00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:15,640 your sin isn't that bad. Don't worry about it. 510 00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:18,080 But then I look at the scripture and I go, your sins a real 511 00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:20,160 problem. Please worry about it, not for 512 00:28:20,160 --> 00:28:23,800 your sake, but for mine. Like I'm sure whatever you're 513 00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:26,160 doing, like I'm sure it's, I'm sure it's not that big. 514 00:28:26,400 --> 00:28:28,640 Trust me, mine's worse than yours, OK, When it comes to sin, 515 00:28:28,840 --> 00:28:30,240 I'm, I'm awful. Trust me on that one. 516 00:28:30,480 --> 00:28:32,720 But but for the love of all that's holy, and I literally 517 00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,160 mean that's like literally for the love of all that's holy. 518 00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:38,600 Stop. Because we're not that good. 519 00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:41,880 Turns out it only takes 36 people to die in front of us, 520 00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:45,400 and 3000 of us like it. I don't know about you, but I'm 521 00:28:45,400 --> 00:28:47,840 looking around the world and it does seem to see a little bit 522 00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:49,640 more than 36 people seem to be dying. 523 00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:55,560 And So what is the problem? We can point to everybody else, 524 00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:59,720 that's a lot easier. But a life that isn't centred in 525 00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,040 God doesn't just cost us, it costs the community. 526 00:29:03,240 --> 00:29:07,800 And that's quite terrifying. And I don't quite know what I 527 00:29:07,800 --> 00:29:14,440 want to do with that because if I'm really honest, I don't 528 00:29:14,440 --> 00:29:16,720 really want to change. That seems like work. 529 00:29:18,160 --> 00:29:20,600 I don't want to change for me because, well, we accept the 530 00:29:20,600 --> 00:29:22,640 love we think we deserve. And that's always concerning, 531 00:29:22,640 --> 00:29:25,440 isn't it? But am I willing to change for 532 00:29:25,440 --> 00:29:28,720 you, for the ones that I run beside? 533 00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:34,320 It's why community is so important, because everything 534 00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,920 that we do shapes not just our lives for the lives of those we 535 00:29:36,920 --> 00:29:39,760 run with. And we are a community of 536 00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:42,800 believers. And so the challenge of this 537 00:29:42,800 --> 00:29:47,480 scripture is we're going to have to take me outside and stone me 538 00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:49,760 according to what actually happened in the end of this 539 00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:51,600 story. And not just me, but all of my 540 00:29:51,600 --> 00:29:55,880 cows according to that. If you read the end of Joshua 7, 541 00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:58,840 that seems to be the punishment. And then you can burn all of my 542 00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,040 things and put a bunch of rocks on top of me and everyone can 543 00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:02,760 point to the fact that that's what we do to people that sin. 544 00:30:03,080 --> 00:30:06,000 Fortunately, I don't think that's the solution today. 545 00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:09,840 I'm really grateful that God like that Jesus says, you know, 546 00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:11,440 that he is the fulfilment of the law. 547 00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,840 But I do wonder if that what I knew would be the punishment for 548 00:30:18,840 --> 00:30:20,440 what I do, would it change what I did? 549 00:30:26,160 --> 00:30:29,240 And so we now stand in this weird tension, or at least I do, 550 00:30:30,600 --> 00:30:34,840 of I want to be a person for God. 551 00:30:35,480 --> 00:30:38,680 I certainly don't want 36 of my friends to die in front of a 552 00:30:38,680 --> 00:30:45,880 wall, but I'm not going to get stoned anymore if I don't do it. 553 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:49,960 So what do we do? And that's the tension that I 554 00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:53,800 come before you with this morning is I read this, I looked 555 00:30:53,800 --> 00:30:57,120 at it and I kind of got to the end of it and I was like, well, 556 00:30:57,120 --> 00:30:59,920 everything depends on this thing of living in holiness. 557 00:30:59,920 --> 00:31:01,480 What do I do? How do I live? 558 00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:06,040 What should I be? And then I can I turn to the 559 00:31:06,040 --> 00:31:10,600 reality as I started with, and I said to you that the beauty of 560 00:31:10,600 --> 00:31:16,600 Christianity is Christ, the by his stripes you are healed that 561 00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,360 that he was the one who has paid this price. 562 00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:26,640 And so we now live in the now and the not yet the tension 563 00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:29,800 between what Christ has done that is finished and completed, 564 00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,200 but still living in the brokenness of the world that we 565 00:31:32,200 --> 00:31:37,760 see. And so we are still called to 566 00:31:37,760 --> 00:31:41,360 live a life of holiness. I believe that with everything 567 00:31:41,360 --> 00:31:48,480 we are still called to be a covenant people, yet the mercy 568 00:31:48,480 --> 00:31:52,800 and grace of God is that when He steps back, there seems to be 569 00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:54,680 Christ still walking alongside us. 570 00:31:56,320 --> 00:32:02,120 And so we now wrestle with a new tension of one that changes to 571 00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,280 conform and become more into the likeness of whom He is. 572 00:32:06,360 --> 00:32:09,560 And as we slowly shift our perspective back onto being a 573 00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:14,360 people of God and allow the Christ in us, the hope and glory 574 00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:18,000 to be calm and grow and be that thing, it doesn't just change 575 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:24,240 us, it reshapes community. And so we now again, we stand in 576 00:32:24,240 --> 00:32:27,000 the tension in the gap between the world that we want, the 577 00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,200 world that we live, and the people that we are. 578 00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,000 And in that place, Christ holds everything in tension. 579 00:32:33,240 --> 00:32:35,280 Remember, you are now hidden in him. 580 00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:38,560 He's got the whole world in his hands. 581 00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:42,760 Kind of theology here. And so my hope with this wasn't 582 00:32:42,760 --> 00:32:45,360 to make you feel really bad for all the bad things that you do, 583 00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,240 but equally we need to change the bad things that we do. 584 00:32:50,360 --> 00:32:52,520 And my hope wasn't to turn around and say it doesn't matter 585 00:32:52,520 --> 00:32:54,480 because God's got this anyway because he does. 586 00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:56,800 But we really need to change the bad things that we do. 587 00:32:58,240 --> 00:33:04,480 And so that's where I stand. That's I don't have an ending. 588 00:33:04,640 --> 00:33:05,880 I don't have anything more to say. 589 00:33:05,920 --> 00:33:09,560 I, I'm just kind of in this kind of place of like, God help me 590 00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:14,760 and God help us because the consequences seem to be really, 591 00:33:14,760 --> 00:33:21,480 really dire, not just for me, but for you because of how I 592 00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:23,840 live. That's an interesting kind of 593 00:33:23,840 --> 00:33:28,400 perspective that how I live shapes my community. 594 00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:31,640 And so often we look at our things and think it's only 595 00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:35,400 damaging me. Well, he just saw. 596 00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:40,600 I'll just bury some stuff in my tent. 36 of his friends ended up 597 00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:45,200 dying even after a victory like Jericho. 598 00:33:46,840 --> 00:33:48,080 I'm going to end and we're going to pray. 599 00:33:52,600 --> 00:33:58,240 Father, as I prepared this sermon, you are, were, and is. 600 00:34:00,240 --> 00:34:05,840 And so I thank you for whom you are, for who we are, and that we 601 00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,679 are the people of God. Our identity has not shifted, it 602 00:34:08,679 --> 00:34:14,760 has not changed. But I pray that we would become 603 00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:18,080 a people that can reconcile this tension. 604 00:34:20,239 --> 00:34:26,199 Father, I am grateful that I do not walk alone that your word 605 00:34:26,199 --> 00:34:28,080 says. Your rod and your staff, they 606 00:34:28,080 --> 00:34:30,440 are a comfort to me. Though I walk through the valley 607 00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,639 of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. 608 00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:37,800 But Father, what if that evil is in me? 609 00:34:41,199 --> 00:34:43,960 What if I don't even recognize it because it is me? 610 00:34:44,719 --> 00:34:50,400 What do I do with what I read? And so I come before you as 611 00:34:50,480 --> 00:34:55,639 somebody who is, who is trying and failing and trying and 612 00:34:55,639 --> 00:35:02,560 failing, but asking that we would be a community that is 613 00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:07,800 hidden in you, secure in whom you are, and transformed into 614 00:35:07,800 --> 00:35:16,830 the likeness of your son. My grace is sufficient for you. 615 00:35:16,830 --> 00:35:19,070 My power is made perfect in weakness. 616 00:35:20,070 --> 00:35:23,070 And Father, I am grateful that the minimum requirement of your 617 00:35:23,070 --> 00:35:28,390 servitude of working with you is my weakness, because it seems 618 00:35:28,390 --> 00:35:29,350 about all I can give.