What Should I Leave Behind
Joshua 6:15-7:2 Matthew 2:1-23
If you knew your home was going to be destroyed and you only had a minute to escape with your life, and one or two other things, what would you leave behind? Can you imagine someone trying to take out their new plasma tv, or their collection of 500 cd’s, or their new computer, printer and monitor or their shoe collection knowing they only had 35 seconds left to get out.
What if you had a baby grand piano, would you try to get that out? If we tried to take some of these things with us, we would most likely perish in the disaster. Sometimes for our own health and safety, we must be willing to leave some things behind. There is a freedom in being able to walk away from things in our lives.
In our New Testament reading, Mary and Joseph have probably been married for a about a year or two. Joseph is working as a builder or contractor. He and Mary had not gone back to Nazareth after the census. Instead they stayed in Bethlehem. Bethlehem gave them a fresh start in life without the rumors of them having sex before the marriage vows had been completed. They had left behind some of the gossip floating around in Nazareth. No one’s saying, there’s Mary, the girl who lost her mind said she got pregnant by God.
Life was beginning to look a little more normal for them. Then out of the clear, some wise men showed up looking for their child Jesus. Not only that these wise men, presented them with some very expensive gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. It was as if someone had made a huge direct deposit into their checking account. They were delighted and thrilled at this visit and the untold financial blessing.
This may have been just the kind of thing Joseph needed to get his business to soar into high gear. He may have had plans to triple the size of the gift by expanding his business. Who knows what plans Mary may have had for them as a family, but no doubt something would have been swirling through her head.
Yet before their plans could take root, an angel comes to Joseph and says you need to get up, and take your family to Egypt. Herod is searching for the child to kill him, and you have to stay in Egypt until you get word from me that it is okay to come back home.”
Joseph and Mary have to decide on the spot what are they going to leave behind. If they cannot carry it in their hands or on their donkey or perhaps a wagon, it has to stay. They’ve got a 75 mile journey to take in the dead of night, and they do not know if the soldiers are on their way to Bethlehem or not.
I think they realized that the gifts they had received were the provisions God had made for them to escape this disaster. They probably took the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh and fled for their lives to Egypt. All of their plans, dreams, business, friends, and family they left behind out of obedience to the word of the Lord from the angel. They found a new freedom in the things they left behind. Had they delayed their obedience, they may have been looking at soldier’s sword entering the body of their child.
We do not always realize it but there is a flip side to the call to come and follow Jesus. The flip side is to leave something behind. We cannot come and follow Jesus, without leaving something behind. What we fail to realize is that there is freedom in leaving things behind.
In our Old Testament reading, God had been leading His people out of bondage in Egypt. Some 40 years earlier God had brought his people to the land He promised to give to them, but they refused to enter into it. They said, the people in it were too strong and powerful and they would all die if they went into battle.
These were the people who had seen all of God’s miracles in Egypt. They had seen Moses divide the Red Sea. But they refused to believe God could save them. So God told them, “you will wander in the desert for 40 years until every soldier over the age 20 dies except for Joshua and Caleb. Then at the end of the 40 years, I will bring your children into the promised land.”
So here we are 40 years later. Joshua has replaced Moses as the new leader. A few days earlier they had crossed the Jordan River. But the Jordan River was at the flood stage. The moment the priests, who were in front of the crowd, touched the river, it stopped flowing to the south, and the waters kept piling up on the north side. They crossed on dry ground. They all knew this was a miracle from the Lord. The first city on the attack list was Jericho. Jericho was a large walled city that seemed invincible. It probably was invincible to a regular human attack, but they were fighting with a supernatural power.
God told the people, before the attack, “this entire city is cursed. Every thing in it must be destroyed. However the gold and the silver is to go into the Lord’s treasury. No one is to take anything for himself.”
Joshua’s instructions on taking the city were simple. March around the city with the armed men once for six days. On the seventh day march around seven times and when you hear the priest blow the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout, and then the wall will collapse. These people had to leave behind a lot of doubt and fear in order to believe this would cause the massive walls of Jericho to fall down. But they did what God told them to do, in the way God told them to do it, and the massive walls of Jericho went sinking down into the ground.
The army marched into the city and began doing what God told them to do, destroying everyone and everything in sight. But then there was a guy there by the name of Achan. Achan went into Jericho intending to do what God told him to do, but then he got distracted. Have you ever planned on being obedient to God, but then you became distracted by something or someone around you, and you just took a minute or two to check it out. But the minute or two began to last far longer than you thought it would. Now all Achan had to do was to walk away and leave behind the things he found in Jericho.
Achan, later told Joshua, yes I did sin against the Lord. During the battle, I saw a beautiful designer robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels. I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.
What should have happened is that Achan should have thrown the robe into the fire, and given the gold and the silver to Joshua. When Achan first came across those items, he thought about the freedom and the popularity he would gain from this newfound wealth and clothing. Now he took the time to research his designer outfit, in order to discover it’s a Babylonian outfit.
He went somewhere in secret and counted out every one of his two hundred shekels of silver. He went and found him a scale to weigh the gold to discover its exact weight of 50 shekels. He was doing all this in secret, so that nobody would know. All he had to do was to hide the stuff until they attacked another city in which the Lord was going to allow them to keep whatever they found. He was thinking of the great life he was going to have. He was thinking he was leaving his old life behind, when all he was doing was adding some sin to his old life.
He had hid his sin from everyone except the Lord. The scriptures said he acted unfaithfully and God’s anger burned against Israel. Whenever we make a compromise with sin, there is a price that will be paid. We put ourselves at the mercy of others. God’s people had just defeated the city of Jericho which was the most powerful city in the area.
The next city was Ai which was small and not that strong. The commanding officers told Joshua, let’s not bother to send the whole army to fight. We can wipe them out with 3,000 men or so. So Joshua sent them and they got the whipping of their lives from this tiny town. All the people became afraid. They could not believe they lost a battle to such a small city.
This was an amazing upset. In football it would have been like Glenville High School defeating the New England Patriots of the NFL. The people cried out to God, asking why did you bring us here. We could have stayed on the other side of the Jordan River. They had a prayer meeting all night long.
God tells them, “Look, you lost because you disobeyed me. You did not leave some of the stuff behind as I told you to do so. I will not be with you, as long as you have it in your possession. If you want my presence, then get rid of the stuff.” Joshua told the people what the Lord said. He also told them, whoever took the stuff is to be destroyed by fire along with whatever he took and everything else that belongs to him.
What do you think Achan was thinking at this point? Do you think he was thinking, there’s no way they will find out it was me? Do you think he’s thinking, “I sure wish I had left that stuff behind.” Do you think he was thinking, “God I’m sorry just give me one more chance.” His actions had led to the death of 36 men and many more were wounded.
Out of an army of 600,000 men, how could they know which one had violated the command. Believe it or not, they did it by a version of pulling names out of hat. They put in the 12 tribes. The tribe of Judah was pulled out. They put in the clans of Judah and the Zerahites were chosen. The families in the clans were put in and the family of Zimri was chosen. Out of Zimri’s family they pulled out Carmi. Now it’s Carmi and his sons, one of whom is Achan. What do you think Achan is thinking now? Finally they choose out of Carmi’s sons and Achan is chosen.
Joshua says son, give glory to the God of Israel and give him praise. Tell me the truth about what you have done, and tell it all. It is at this point that Achan says Joshua 7:20-21 (NIV) 20 Achan replied, "It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath."
Achan tries to describe the stuff in such terms as to make it seem impossible to have left it behind. But you know there were other soldiers who saw stuff that was just as beautiful, just as enticing, and just as tempting, but they all managed to walk away and leave it behind. The devil always wants to make us think, that everybody else is giving in to temptation, but that’s not true. Of all the soldiers in battle in Jericho, all but one of them left the stuff behind. God will not allow a temptation to come our way without giving us a way out to walk away and leave it behind. We fall only because we choose to fall.
Joshua wanted to confirm Achan’s story, so he sent and he had the men go to Achan’s tent. They lifted the tent, and found everything just as Achan had said. They brought the stuff to Joshua and spread it all out. Instead of the freedom and prestige he was looking to find, Achan found a death sentence and the destruction of all that he had. If only, he had of left the stuff behind.
This is our final Sunday of the year 2007. For some of us it has been a great year. We find ourselves happier than we were this time last year. There were graduations, the birth of children, better jobs, new homes purchased, and new love found. But none of us made it through the year unscathed by circumstances.
For some of us it has been a year of sorrow and of pain. We lost people that were very dear to us. Some of us saw our families began to fall apart. Some of us found ourselves being sent to jail while others were coming out of jail. Some of us found ourselves trapped by sin, paying a cost far greater than we had imagined it would be.
Some of us ran into situations in which we were greatly hurt by someone and found it nearly impossible to forgive. Some of us thought we could do something just once, and walk away from it, only to be enslaved and still will not admit our addiction. Some of us lost our jobs and are still unemployed. Some of us developed attitudes that have hurt us and hurt others. Some of us do not like the person we have allowed ourselves to become during 2007.
Jesus looks at us with our broken dreams and shattered lives and says to us come to me. But in order to come to Jesus, you have to leave all that other stuff behind. Why do you need to come to Jesus? Because you can’t do this thing called life and death by yourself. Sure you can make plans, but you can’t make them happen. Positive thinking does not stop the calamities and tragedies that come our way.
You’re going to need an anchor when they hit. You can die on your own, but you can’t control your eternal destiny by yourself, unless you are determined to be cast into hell. Jesus came in order for us to have life. That is life, while we are alive, and life when we die. He is calling us to a life of freedom, but most of us insist on being a slave to something else.
2007 is coming to close. What do we need to leave behind with it to fully follow Christ and reach our potential? Is there a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a lover or a group of friends we need to leave behind? Is there a spirit of laziness that we have at home or at work that we need to leave behind? Is there an attitude problem we have, a critical spirit, or anger problem or jealousy problem we need to leave behind. Is there a spirit of selfishness, greed or materialism that we need to leave behind? Are we traveling the road to an addiction that we need to leave behind. We may think these things are helping us in life, but they are leading to our downfall.
If God sent an angel to you this night and said get up, that thing is seeking to kill you. Run for your spiritual life. What is the thing that the angel would be talking about? Joseph did not wait and put off getting out of the situation. Don’t put it off any longer. Let it end in 2007. End the affair. End the addiction. End the bad attitude problem. End the relationship. End the spirit of just not caring. End the abuse.
Don’t be like Achan, talking yourself into why you should have something you’re not entitled to. Everybody is not doing. Lots of people are saying no to temptation. Be willing to wait, and allow God to give you what you want in the way God wants to give it to you. No matter how clever you think you are, you cannot hide your actions from God, and God will expose you if you are not willing to change? Freedom is not found in getting things or people for yourself. Freedom is found in saying yes to the call of Christ upon your life.
You can go into 2008 with a clean conscience. You can go in with the right attitude. You can go in with a spirit saying yes to the will of God for your life. You can be a better mother, a better father, a better son, a better daughter. You can be a better student, a better worker, a better member of the church. You can be a better parent, a better wife, a better husband and a better friend. Go into 2008 knowing that the plans God has for your life, are far richer and far greater than anything you come up with for yourself.
God planned to take care of Mary, Joseph and Jesus almost two years before they needed to leave things behind and go to Egypt. The wise men arrived just in time for their escape. God has made provisions for you to be successful wherever he is sending you. It might seem scary at first, but be willing to leave it behind and see how the Lord will take care of you. There is freedom to be found, in the things we leave behind.
Sermon Outline-Pastor Rick
12/30/07 Joshua 6:15-7:2 Matthew 2:1-23
A. What Would I Take Out
1. Plasma TV, CD Collection Computer
2. Health & Safety Demands We Leave
3. Freedom Found In Leaving Behind
B. Mary & Joseph
1. Remained In Bethlehem
2. New Start, No Gossip, Life Normal
3. Visit Of The Magi- Gifts- Plans
4. Dream-Flee To Egypt
5. All They Left Behind
6. To Follow Jesus Is To Leave
C. God’s People In Old Testament
1. Miracles Out Of Egypt
2. Rejection Of God’s promise
3. 40 year Period Ends
4. Entering The Promise Land
5. Joshua & The Jordan River
D. The Battle For Jericho
1. The Entire City Cursed-Destroy All
2. Gold & Silver For The Treasury
3. Battle Strategy To March & Shout
E. Achan Gets Tempted
1. Achan Takes What He Should Have
Left Behind
2. What He Should Have Done
3. Doing It All In Secret
4. The Eyes Of The Lord Are
Everywhere
F. The Defeat At Ai
1. Just Send 3,000 Men
2. What An Upset
3. Sin Costs God’s Presence
4. Get Rid Of It Or Rid Of Me
G. The Search For The Thief
1. Person Is To Be Destroyed
2. What Is Achan Thinking
3. Just One In 600,000
4. Judah, Zerahites, Zimri, Carmi,
Achan
5. Achan’s Confession Joshua 7:20-21 (NIV)
20 Achan replied, "It is true! I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I have done: 21 When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath."
6. The Description
7. Too Much Temptation Or Not
8. Achan’s Tent Revealed
9. Achan’s Punishment
H. The Final Sunday Of 2007
1. The Joys Of The Year
2. The Sorrows Of The Year
3. The Things We Found
4. Lord Help Us
I. Jesus Still Says Come To Me
1. Can’t Handle Life & Death
2. Plans & Positive Thinking
3. The Need For An Anchor
4. What Needs To Remain In 2007
5. Spirits, Attitudes, People
6. What Will The Angel Say
7. Don’t Put It Off
8. End It Now
9. Reject The Lies Of The Devil
10. Entering 2008 With A Clean
Conscience
11. You Can Be More
12. God Plans For You In Advance.
