God is Bigger than my Mistakes

This morning we're covering Joshua chapters 9 and 10 and pressing deeper into the promised land. And chapter 9 reminded me of a retreat icebreaker question we had many, many years ago. And the question went like this. Share with us a purchase that you made that you immediately regret it. Everybody can relate to that. Everybody has had something happen. And it was hysterical. We had a great time. There was one in particular that I remembered. The gals start off this way. Well, there was these goats on Craigslist. And it got better from there. But perhaps you've had that experience that something you thought, something or someone that you thought was one way quickly ended up being something different. And that's Israel's experience in chapter 9. You know, it's interesting. We have whole centuries of Israel's history where the Bible is just silent. We don't have a thing. And then suddenly we get to areas like the exodus from Egypt, entry into the promised land, and we have this robust detail and account of everything. I mean, conversations and names and all of that. And that's where we're at. I want to show you scripture that we've used before. I'll put it up on the screen. 1 Corinthians 10, 11.

This is for our instruction because their promised land was a problem land. Our promised land is a problem land. We can learn from their problems. And I believe that's what the Holy Spirit intends for us to do is learn from this. So recap real quickly. What are some of the things that we've learned? The first barrier battle was Jericho. And we processed that and said that that sort of represents these established barriers in our life that must tumble down in order for us to be effective, in order for us to pursue the purpose for which God created us. We got to Ai and we saw that Achan had a transgression. And even though he was one man out of so many, it was still important. And we learned that we can't compartmentalize our life and think, well, just this little thing over here isn't a problem. That we need to take those transgressions in our life, uncover them, lay them before the Lord so we can confess our sins, receive that forgiveness, and not have this kind of a barrier in our life that hinders our progress in moving forward. And both of those things were a little bit pointed, directed toward us. We're not done with lessons yet. Now we're going to move to look at forces that come at us from the outside. Things that come into our life from outside. And before we begin chapter 9, let's just remember what Israel was doing at the end of chapter 8. They were worshiping. They had gone to Shechem, Mount Ebal on this side, Mount Gerizim on that side, and they were celebrating the victories that God had allowed them to have. They were celebrating the word of God by writing it on this altar. They were having church. Okay, that's kind of what they were doing. They were having church. And while they were having church, their enemies were plotting a fight. This week I'm going to go through our chapters. What does it say? What does it mean fluidly? So let's just start by saying when we're having church, our enemies are plotting a fight. Whatever that looks like in our life, if having church is like, I have gained some spiritual ground here. I have established some prayer life. Or in church. While that is happening, our enemies are plotting a fight. That is the way our promised land goes. So let's look at it. Chapter 9. It begins with these two distinct groups that notice Israel's having church, and so they devise plans. In verses 1 and 2, we read about all the kings beyond the Jordan who heard of this. They gathered together as one to fight Joshua and Israel. And then in verse 3, it tells us, but when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done to Jericho and to Ai, they on their part acted with cunning. So we've got two teams, team A and team B, with two different strategies. Fight them. Deceive them. And the Bible goes on to talk about team B first, so that's what we're going to do. Let's look at verse 4. The Gibeonites on their part acted with cunning. They took worn-out sacks and wineskins and patched sandals on their feet, worn-out clothes, and all their provisions were dry and crumbly. And they came to Gilgal, and they said, We've come from a distant country, so now make a covenant with us. And, you know, the text tells us, I'm not reading every verse this morning. We'd never get through it. The text tells us that Joshua and Israel, they were immediately suspicious. And they even said in verse 7, Well, perhaps you live among us. How could we make a covenant with you? Because, see, they knew their instructions. They knew Moses had told them. Therefore, God had told them, When you enter into the land, you need to wipe out the inhabitants. Do not make treaties with them. This will go badly. They will be a source of trouble for you. Do not do that. And Israel knew. And they even said, Maybe you live near us. How could we make a covenant? So the Gibeonites responded with cunning in verse 9. They said, Look, your servants have come from a very distant country because of the name of the Lord your God. That's why we're here. For we've heard of him and all that he did in Egypt, all that he did to the two kings of the Amorites, Sihon and Og. And because Israel was on kind of a happy high from their celebrating, they were susceptible to this sort of flattery. And what they maybe heard the Gibeonites saying to them was, You are the happening thing around here. No one can defeat you. We've heard, like, We want to be on your team. We've heard of everything that your God has been doing. We want to come be on your team. You are what's happening. And then they went on to appeal to their reason. And the Gibeonites told them, Well, just sample our stuff. If you don't think we're from a long distance, we can prove it to you. Verse 14, The men of Israel took some of their provisions, but they did not ask counsel from the Lord, and Joshua made peace with them. And I want to stop right there because the seven words at the end of verse 14 are the most important words of this event. Did not ask counsel from the Lord. A serious commitment was made without that step involved. Their outward observation and their sensory perception just overruled them. And they could see with their senses. They could see that their clothes were worn out. They could feel the wineskins. They could taste and smell the moldy bread. And they relied on that. So what their senses perceived, combined with the flattery, did the trick. Overruled their caution. They were trapped in the commitment that Moses, therefore God, had said no. And so Israel was wrong. Israel made a mistake. And I want to point out what I titled this week's lesson. God is bigger than my mistakes. This is where we're going this morning. But how did it happen? How did this mistake happen? Seven words. They did not ask counsel from the Lord. If we don't remember anything else in this lesson, that is it. That is what we need to hold on to. And we need to apply it to our life. So let's turn it into a positive phrase. We must ask counsel from the Lord. That is how we apply this to our lives. We must. And that's where our memory verse comes in for this week, believe it or not. So I'm going to put that up. And as I read through this, I want you to filter this through the current story of the deception of the Gibeonites. Now look at our memory verse from Romans 12.

Our success in the path of promise depends on us developing the art of seeking counsel from the Lord. We need discernment in life. Things are not as they seem. in from the surface, are they? Gone are the days when we say, well, she comes to church. Or gone are the days we say, well, he says he believes in God. Things aren't always as they seem. So how do we get discernment? We practice the habit of seeking counsel from the Lord. Where are you at this morning in this habit? Are you in the habit of seeking counsel or are you out of the habit of seeking counsel? If you're out of the habit, you need to get back in. If you're in the habit, there's headroom to grow. And we all need to just, you know, take this in. Now in this narrative, it said Joshua made peace with them. Worse yet, he made a covenant with them and he let them live. Look at verse 16. At the end of three days, after they made a covenant with them, they heard that they were their neighbors and that they lived among them. Oh, that sinking feeling when you realize you made a mistake. Back to that retreat question. I have a story. 1989, we wanted to buy a house in the north part of Seattle. And the real estate market was such that you needed your financing in order and you needed to be prepared to make about a 30-minute decision because if you didn't decide to buy the house, three more carloads were getting out and somebody was gonna buy that house. You know, it was one of those markets. And so we went and looked at this house. It was just a Boeing neighborhood from the 70s, you know, a rectangle with three bedrooms and two baths. And we said, yep, that'll do, that's fine. And we signed on a Sunday afternoon. We bought this house and we moved in over the weekend and Monday morning came. And we were sitting there thinking, what, man, there's a big racket outside. What is going on in our neighborhood? Like somebody must be doing something, building something. And we began to investigate and we found out that behind our yard, behind our fence, behind a thin grove of trees was a factory that turned tree limbs into beauty bark and mulch. Ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, from sunup till sundown. And the trucks came and hauled it away. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, sunup to sundown. And this was my life. And it certainly was not what it appeared to be on the weekend that we bought it and the weekend that we moved in. Now, don't feel too sorry for me. We only lived there 15 months and the Lord moved us here. And that house has proven to be so many great lessons for me. But that sinking feeling when you realize that either on purpose or not on purpose, you've been deceived. Something isn't the way it was supposed to be. And you know, mascara and houses are one thing, but maybe you yourself or someone that you care about has faced this in a very more important way, in a marriage. And you have that sinking feeling and you say, I did not seek counsel from the Lord. And now a covenant has been made. Now a commitment has been made. Let's keep going and then we'll come back to that. Israel's shoulders must have been slumping as they decide, well, we got to go to Gibeon now and talk to these people that we've made a covenant with. So verse 17, they set out and reached their cities on the third day, but the people of Israel did not attack them because the leaders had sworn to them by the Lord, the God of Israel. And this is to their credit that they held up their end of the bargain. They held to the covenant that they made. And this is as they should have done. I don't want that to cause anyone grief as we were talking about relationships, maybe business, friendship, marriage in this. What I do want to do is I want to point out two things that we learned from scripture. The first thing we learned from scripture is God is a covenant God. He keeps his covenants. He keeps his promises and he wants his children to act in the same way. The second thing I want to point out is the Bible teaches us, in fact, Romans 12, 18 says, if possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all people. Have you figured out life gets complicated? And this isn't an easy conversation to have. There are times when for personal safety, there are times because the other person leaves the covenant, the covenants are not kept. And I like what the Apostle Paul told to the Corinthians. Let me just read this to you. If the unbeliever leaves, let him do so. A believing man or woman is not bound in such circumstances. God has called us to live in peace. That's not a loophole. That is the balanced grace of God in our lives. The balanced grace that God bestows upon us. Yes, he wants us to keep our covenants. Can we always do it? No. God's grace is there. So now let's look at, in this narrative, there was one negative side effect and one positive side effect. The negative side effect that we see shows up in verse 18, and it says, then all the congregation murmured against the leaders. We haven't heard about murmuring since the wilderness days. But the casualty of making this commitment without seeking God was now this enters back into unity, was the casualty here, was the negative side effect, a lack of unity. But the positive side effect is what happened to the Gibeonites themselves. They became cutters of wood, drawers of water for all the congregation at the altar of the Lord. Now, this decision was wise, and I'll bet you anything they did seek counsel of the Lord before they decided what they were gonna do here. This was a wise decision. I can almost hear the process going on as they're talking about it, and they're saying, well, okay, we made a covenant with them. There is nothing we can do about that. But I'll tell you what, if they're gonna be part of us, let's put them all the way in. Let's put them right at the altar because they better learn who our God is. So we'll have them bring wood and water for the altar so they can be right there to see the drama that's played out morning and night as we do the sacrifices so that they can learn who Yahweh is. In other words, we're bringing them to church, and we're keeping them there. So in the story, the Gibeonites were put to work hauling water and fuel. What about in our life? What do we do when we've made a mistake? What do we do with those mistakes? Because God is bigger than our mistakes. Well, we admit it. We own up to it, and then make your mistake work for you. Israel made their mistake work for them, literally. How do we make our mistake work for us? Warren Weersbe says, let me find it here. He says, when you make a mistake, make your mistake work for you. Hmm, interesting. How do we make our mistake work for us? Well, we have to seek counsel from God. God will show us how to turn this situation. You know how we know that? All things work together for the good of those who are called according to his purpose. All things work together. God is bigger than our mistakes. And if nothing else, the knowledge of our mistake draws us into that throne room, maybe for the rest of our lives in intercession as we speak to the Lord about it and pray. But that's what I want us to remember. Now, why are we so neglectful in prayer? Why is this so hard for us to go to the Lord and seek counsel before or even after? I thought of a couple things, and I thought, why is this so hard in my life? Number one, maybe we don't expect God to answer. So we don't go to him in prayer. We don't expect him. We can fix that by growing in our faith. Another reason we might not go to prayer and talk to God about things is maybe we have no intention of doing what he tells us to do. So we don't even ask. Well, we can fix that by growing in obedience. And the third reason maybe we don't go to him in prayer is that perhaps, like Romans 12 too taught us, we are too conformed to the pattern of the world. We are too used to observing everything the way we see it, as my mama used to say, too smart for your own britches. We have such a high estimation of our personal senses and how we see things that we're. formed to making decisions based on how the world does it, rather than going to prayer, transforms us because we are opening up our spirit to hear from the Lord. So, one thing that we see oozing from this narrative is the grace of God. This week's lesson teaches us God is bigger than my mistakes. I wanna celebrate that. Even the Gibeonites were affected by God's grace. I mean, you gotta love them. I don't know if we should call them enemies or what. You know, this is a little bit confusing to me, but look at verse 24. When Joshua went to them and said, you guys, why did you do this? Why did you deceive us? Look what they said. Well, it was told us, your servants, for a certainty that the Lord your God had commanded his servant Moses to give you all the land, to destroy all the inhabitants of the land from before you. So we feared greatly for our lives because of you, and we did this thing. They believed they were no match for God's judgment. That is a proper assessment. We are no match for God's judgment. So they surrendered. Isn't that what we need to do too? It's like, God, you are judging sin in this world. I surrender. I wanna be on your team, you know? And so you just gotta love her. They figured it would be better to be woodcutters in the house of the Lord than be dead, and they were right. So that was a different spirit. Even it was a mustard-sized spirit of faith. So as we move into chapter 10 now, I want us to celebrate what we see here in the grace of God. And 10 is a long chapter, and we're just gonna be able to touch on a few different parts, but we start off with this King of Jerusalem, Adonai Zedek, and he had observed two things about Joshua and Israel. He had observed, number one, how Joshua captured Ai and Jericho, and it says what they did to their kings. Well, he's a king, so of course he noted what they did to the kings. He also noted how the Gibeonites had made peace with Israel, okay, and were now on their team. They were among them. So verse two tells us, he feared greatly because Gibeon was a great city, and all of its men were warriors. Now, that's fascinating. Israel made a covenant with warriors. This is starting to look a little brighter, isn't it? So this King of Jerusalem, he gathered up the kings of the other towns, Hebron, Jarmuth, Lachish, Eglon, and he said, come up and help me strike Gibeon, for it has made peace with Joshua. Those traitors, let's go fight. And they went and gathered forces, and they went up and camped against Gibeon. And then the Gibeonites reached out to Joshua, and they said, help, you gotta come help us. And Joshua not only kept his promise last time he went to Gibeon and didn't kill them, but now he's gonna go there again, and this time he's gonna treat them as family. So look at verse seven. Joshua went up from Gilgal. He and all the people of war with him, all the mighty men of valor, and the Lord said to Joshua on the way, do not fear them, for I have given them into your hands. Remember last week we talked about those past tense phrases that God uses about battles in the promised land? I have given them into your hands. Not a man of them shall stand before you. So the outcome was determined by God. All Joshua had to do was move forward. He had to march, and that's what he did. In verse nine it says he marched all night from Gilgal. Now this is the second most important thing about this Bible study. What happens in the middle of the night? He marched all night from Gilgal. What were his thoughts in the middle of the night? After he had made a mistake, what are your thoughts in the middle of the night after you have made a mistake? Joshua had to, and we don't know, the narrative doesn't tell us what he was thinking, but there was two possibilities here. His thoughts could have centered on the past. He could have been shouldering all the regret of what he coulda shoulda done. He could have been rehearsing the whole situation and thought when they came, why didn't I just give them water bottles and say sit there, because we gotta go pray. I could have solved all of this, but because I didn't do that back there, now I'm marching all night and my problem is five times worse because there's five kings waiting for me when the sun comes up. That's what Joshua could have been thinking all night. Or he could have been thinking, God just told me, I have given them into your hands. God is gonna fight for us. God's grace is going to be with me. God's promises are real. And he could have been thinking to himself, maybe God is gonna use them as bait for the five kings to be there all at one time. And we can come and when we get there at sunrise, we can have one victory take out at one time instead of going around to five cities. Isn't that the difference in our perspectives? After we make mistakes, we can go back and think about what we could have done different, what we should have done different, where we can rest in the grace of God and say, God is bigger than my mistakes. What is he gonna do? Well, we find out what God's gonna do. Verse 10, they got there and it says, the Lord threw them, the enemies, into a panic before Israel who struck them with a great blow at Gibeon, chased them by the way of the ascent of Beth Haran and struck them as far as Azekah and Makeda. And as they fled before Israel, while they were going down the ascent of Beth Haran, the Lord threw down large stones from heaven on them as far as Azekah and they died. There were more who died because of the hailstones than the sons of Israel killed with the sword. All Israel had to do was show up and march. God won the battle here. Interesting about this hailstorm, we can say, well, I'm sure hailstorms come and go just like they do here. We have some pretty severe hailstorms, but did you notice the hail only killed the bad guys? So that's pretty miraculous there. But man, everybody needs hope. We all need hope and this lesson teaches us that we can hope in exactly what our title says, that God is bigger than our mistakes. Now, we do need to ask the question though, does that mean that we can just chill out and do whatever we want? Because if God is bigger than my mistakes, like really, why do I need to seek counsel? Because he's gonna magically make it all better. No, let's go to Romans again, this time Romans 2, 4, that says, do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance. Repentance means turn around. So if we make mistakes by not seeking God's counsel, his kindness intends to turn us around that we're not gonna keep doing that again. And that's important for us to know. Now, I want you to look at the favor that God showed then to Israel. Look at verse 12. At that time, Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel. And he said in the sight of Israel, sun stands still at Gibeon and moon in the valley of Adjalon and the sun stood still and the moon stopped until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. What boldness for a guy who just made a mistake to tell God, by the way, can you just make that, would you do this for me? Would you make the sun stand still so we can finish this victory? Does that come easy to you? If you feel a sense that like, I kind of did something wrong, are you really bold to ask God for another big favor? I'm not. My husband is. He's just like Joshua. He like gets over it. He gets over himself just like that. You know, it's like a mistake. Okay, repent, we're moving on. And God, by the way, I need this and that. I, on the other hand, have this weird thing, it's probably still a Jericho in my life, where I feel like I have to punish myself for seven to 10 days, you know, before I'm like worthy enough again to ask a favor. And this is the third most important lesson. God's grace covers. When it's done, it's done. We can be bold. We can ask for anything we want. You can ask for the sun and moon if you want to. That's what Joshua did. Be like Joshua. We need to be like Joshua and see it through the lens of God's grace, not through the lens of our mistake. Love that that is right there. So I got to recap the end of the chapter really fast. I do like verse 14. There's been no day like it before or since when the Lord heeded the voice of a man. Well, at the end of it, we have all these kings that hid themselves. It says in the cave of Makeda, and Israel went and finished up some of their... battles, and then they came back to those kings. And just to really quickly recap it, Joshua had rolled a stone, kept him there, and then he took him out, and he had the leaders put their feet on their necks, and then he cut them down, and it says that he hanged them on five trees until the evening. And when women read that, we're like, yuck. Because we're not warriors at heart. But there's two things about this. First of all, we need warriors. Remember, this is a battle over evil. Even in our world today, we have people battling evil for us as we're all cozy here having a Bible study in our space. There are warriors seeking out the evil that has, you know, permeated the world and doing battle. This needs to be done. But then spiritually, as we remember the parallels between what's happening here and our life in the Spirit, this needs to be finished. The enemies that come against us need to be finished off. We don't just hide them in the cave, unroll the stone, and say, okay, well, would you not do that again, please? Because that was a really hard time in my life, and let them go. We finish it off, whatever it is, and we need to remember that. And the chapter ends with Joshua and Israel returning to the camp at Gilgal, which I love because no matter what happens in our life, that is such an important reminder to regroup at the place that is associated with the Lord. Regroup at the place in our life, our spiritual life, where we are renewed and refreshed in the Lord to do battle another day. And we're going to go into next week, and there's 11 chapters of battles. Sorry, girls, but we got to read 11 chapters next week, and I want to just say you can do it. And there are fantastic lessons yet to learn in the final three weeks, so don't lose heart. I'm going to give you a little snippet of our memory verse for next week. It says, do not grow weary in well-doing. That is seriously our memory verse next week. So you can do it. You know, figure out how you're going to do it. The study guide is really brief so that you can accommodate that, but there's great lessons in there. And then we'll slow down again, but let's pray. Father God, thank you so much for this reminder that things in this world are not as they seem, and we need you. Lord, we desperately need you to grow us in discernment. We need to be able to come to you and ask what you want us to do in every situation. Should we go right? Should we go left? Should we enter into an agreement with this person? Is this a good friendship? Lord, would this please you? Is this the way, the opportunity I should do? So many ways we need to seek you. So Lord, I ask that you would be good to us and you would make your will known to us as we purpose to renew our minds, that we would understand your will. And I thank you, Lord, that you're going to do it. Lord, help us be bold like Joshua and just depend on you and not look so much at our past and our mistakes, but look to your grace. Thank you that we can look to your grace. Pray in Jesus' name. Amen.