Half-Hearted Gets You Nowhere

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[0:00] Thank you, Pam. That passage is often called the would-be followers of Jesus, and it'll come back to us a little bit later in the sermon. But our sermon text today for the sermon time is Joshua, chapter 7, verses 1 through 12. And so we're in the next phase of the Old Testament. The first phase was about Genesis. The second one was really about Exodus. And then, no, is this the second one? I'm very confused, but it's just been in my mind. Anyways, but this is about Joshua and the judges and about the taking of the land, getting into the land. So there's, again, we're going to see that the Old Testament points to Jesus. You'll see that a little bit later. And I want to remind us of the four most important elements of the Old Testament and really the Bible in general are in Genesis and Exodus. And they all kind of point forward to this, and they're going to come back to us in this reading today. So again, in Genesis 1 through 3, we have the story of creation and fall. And then later on, we have the story of the Lord's coming. And then later on, we have the story in Genesis, the call of Abraham. And in Exodus, we have the Passover and the deliverance out of Egypt. That's sort of one event. And then the giving of the law. And those four things are

[1:03] among the most four important things to remember in the Old Testament because they keep coming back over and over again. And then next in the timeline is sort of what we call the reoccupation of the land that they had left because Jacob had left it, right? Jacob and all his family left. It went to Egypt. They were gone for 400 years. They come back, and the land is full of other people, right? People who had moved there, et cetera. And so they have to reoccupy the land. And I said this last week, and I'm going to say it again. We'll talk about it a little bit more. This has its own moral challenges. This is a challenging thing to say. Well, here's the land is full of people, and God says the land is yours. So then the question is what happens to those people? And that's a real challenging thing. We should be troubled by that, right? And we're going to get into how to kind of work through that. And it doesn't mean it is full of people. It's fully resolved in our minds, okay? But it's in fulfillment of a promise that God made to Abraham that he would give the land to his descendants and bless the world through those very same descendants. And so there's a promise that God needs to keep, but there's these other

[2:09] people that have to be dealt with in one way or the other. And so we'll get into that. So the tribes of Israel do enter the land. And in a chapter before this, they easily, at least for them easily, they take the city of Jericho, right? It's a fairly simple thing. They march around it, you know, and then they blow their trumpets and the walls fall down. Pretty neat, pretty easy. But they are told that in Jericho are all sorts of spoils of war that they are not to touch. They're not, they're supposed to destroy them all. They're not supposed to take them with them. That was a commandment from God. And we'll see later in our reading that that wasn't kept and that led to problems for them down the road. So after our story today, the land continues to need to be sort of taken in, taken by the Israelites. And some of it is taken, but it turns out that some of it is not, that they don't actually finish the job. And there's a reminder of the warning about yeast in the house. It keeps growing and it keeps affecting the dough unless it's separated out. And this literary device of the yeast follows them into the new land because they never completely clear out the land of other people. And it's either because they couldn't or because they got lazy and gave up. So there are always still a few sort of

[3:29] patches of other people in the land. And over time, those people who were left became a problem for them, either militarily, right, or because they took on their pagan worship practices and drifted away from God. So by not clearing the land, by not clearing their house of the yeast, the yeast remained and it affected the whole batch. So this is a theme that comes back over and over again from the Passover. Right. Right. Right. Right. thematically telling a story, you'd be like, no, no, no, no, no. That theme has been played once, but this happens like 20 times or more in the Old Testament in ways large and small, the cycle of the people drifting away, following other gods, doing bad things, and then God raises up a leader who brings them back, and then everything seems good for a while, and then they drift away. Sounds kind of like our own personal lives in a way, if you think about it, right? Um, finally, God says, this isn't working, right? Like, if you, you know the definition of insanity, keep doing the same thing, expecting a different outcome, but if you keep doing what you're doing, you're going to keep getting what you're getting. That's another kind of true thing, and God finally wises up, and he says, it's not because I wasn't faithful, it's because these people can't be

[5:14] faithful. They can't keep the law, they can't follow, they can't follow directions, you know, and they want all their own things. They don't want me, they're half-hearted, right? So it's not working because the people lack faithfulness, and so he tries a new way. He makes a new covenant in his son who does keep the law perfectly, and at the end we'll talk about the parable of the vineyard, which is a story told by Jesus in a way that summarizes all this sorry history and how God wants to resolve it all, so that he can still yet save his people. But for today, as we're reading, I want you to think about this. Think about the challenges of being a half-hearted person. Think about the challenges of being a half-hearted follower of God. What happens when you're half-hearted? Think about how God is at some point planning a way out of this cycle of faithfulness, faithlessness, faithfulness, faithfulness. Think about how God is planning a way out of this cycle, and then think about if any of the people in the story you could possibly relate with. Think about that. Okay, so as we're going to read about, this is after the conquest of Jericho in Joshua chapter 7, 1 through 12. Now, it says, The Israelites broke faith in regard to the devoted things. The devoted things were the

[6:27] things that God says, do not take these out of Jericho, out of the ruins of Jericho, this leftover spoils of war. They broke faith in regard to the devoted things. Achan, son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against the Israelites.

[6:52] Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-Aven, east of Bethel, and said to them, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai. Then they returned to Joshua and said to him, Not all the people need to go up. About two or three thousand men should go up and attack Ai since they are not going to be able to go up. And they went up and spied out Ai. And they went up and spied out Ai. And they went up and spied out Ai. And they went up and spied out Ai. And they are so few, do not make the whole people toil up there. So about three thousand of the people went up there, and they fled before the men of Ai. The men of Ai killed about thirty-six of them, chasing them from outside the gate as far as Shabarim and killing them on the slope. The hearts of the people melted and turned to water. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the ground on his face before the ark of the Lord. And he said to Joshua, I am not going to go up and destroy the ark of the Lord until the evening. He and the elders of Israel. And they put dust on their heads. Joshua said, Ah, Lord God, why have you brought this people across the Jordan at all to hand us over to the Amorites so as to destroy us? Would that we had been content to settle

[8:06] beyond the Jordan. Oh, Lord, what can I say? Now that Israel has turned their backs to their enemies, the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and surround us and cut off our heads. And they said to Joshua, I am not going to go up and destroy the ark of the Lord. I am going to destroy the ark of the Lord. I am going to destroy the ark of the Lord. I am going to destroy our name from the earth. Then what will you do for your great name? The Lord said to Joshua, stand up. Why have you fallen upon your face? Israel has sinned. They have transgressed my covenant that I imposed on them. They have taken some of the, notice what God says, they, they have taken some of the devoted things. They have stolen, they have acted deceitfully, and they have put them among their own belongings. Therefore, the Israelites are unable to stand before their enemies. They turn their backs to the enemies because they have become a thing devoted for destruction themselves. I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Let's pray.

[9:14] Father, thank you for this word, this difficult word. Thank you for challenges in the scripture. We ask that you would help us to be able to do that. We ask that you would help us to be able to add your blessing even to this one. And we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let me give you a few notes on our text. I guess you kind of understand what's happening is normally the people would expect that when God tells them to go take a town and he says, God says, I'm with you. It, not that it's a super easy thing, but that they have success and they can count on success and they successfully take it. So they successfully took Jericho. They successfully took other places, but in this case they failed. And why? Because one person in the whole thousands of people had kept over some spoils of war from a previous battle and God judged the whole nation for it. So we kind of get back to this idea of collective guilt for this, for the, there's a collective guilt on all the people for the sin that one person committed. And this is a tough one. Now then, if you remember, kind of think that if that math works, is it just as a footnote, is it possible that one, one person's obedience could lead to the redemption

[10:26] of a whole group of people? Then if you think about it that way, you're like, well, that's not so bad because we're talking about Jesus. Now, do you see what I'm saying? Like, if you don't like the logic of one, you're going to have a hard time with the logic of the other, but this is how God is. Sometimes he holds individuals accountable. Sometimes he holds a nation accountable for the, for the sins of a few, but the reverse is also true that God preserves our, he gives us the righteousness of Christ because Christ gave it for himself. So the individual work of Christ on the cross then extends to all the people who participate in it and believe in it. So, you know, this, this blade cuts both ways and that's good news. That's ultimately, that's good news, but it's difficult for us, especially Americans. Americans are like, oh no, it's just, I do what I do and you do what you do and you get what you get and I get what I get and none of it matters. But in this case, God is different. God is different, but he's both. Okay.

[11:21] Right That's part of the reason, because the whole city was pagan and depraved. But even in modern warfare, you're not supposed to load up on goods from a conquered territory, right? It slows you down, and it distracts you from the next battle. You can't go into battle carrying around a bookshelf that would look nice right by the coat rack in the sitting room. You can't carry this. Can you imagine going to battle schlepping this giant bookcase around? You can't do it. You're not a fighting force then, right? And God wants them to be obedient. God wants them to be ready to move on to the next place. You can't carry all this extra stuff with you that's not a weapon. You need to carry your weapon into battle. You can't carry gold. You can't carry crowns. You can't carry, you know, just extra stuff. You got to leave it behind. And God said, destroy it. And I think he said, destroy it so that no one is tempted to take it, right? So no one, so it was just, we all know that that stuff is going to go away. We're not going to benefit from it. And we're going to go on to the next town because we're not done with the task. We're just beginning this task of taking the land that God told us to take. Right? And again, it's the yeast.

[12:48] You need to be ready to move on to the next place, but yeast slows you down. Remember last week we talked about the yeast in the house and it said, if anybody cooks with yeast or bakes bread with yeast, they're to be cut off from the people of Israel. I mean, it was really strong language. It seemed symbolic. But you think about it, somebody back then who was right on the night of the Passover, and they're like, I think I am going to bake my bread with yeast because I like it fluffy. I know it takes longer. In a way, they were saying, I don't want to leave that badly. I don't really want to leave Egypt. I don't really want to leave slavery. And even after they got on the road and they were out in the wilderness and they were a little hungry and they were a little mad and they were pretty cranky, they were like, oh, I wish I could go back to Egypt. I wish I could go back. And God is saying, you can't want to go back to slavery. You can't want to stay in slavery. You have to get the yeast out of your house. You have to be ready to go and to be ready to move. And that's why we're saying. That's why probably God says, leave all that stuff behind in Jericho so that you can go on to the next thing. Because if you if you want to keep all the stuff from Jericho, it means you want to stay in Jericho.

[13:55] It means you want to give up on all that. And then the yeast, you see how the yeast is working in at least three different ways, literally, in a literary sense? It's very interesting. Okay. So this is really brought to light when Elijah confronts the people in 1 Kings 18.

[14:14] He's. He's. He confronts them about their worship of a false god that had kind of stayed in the land because they never cleared it out. A god named Baal. And this is what Elijah says. It's first Kings 18, 21. He says, Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions?

[14:36] Isn't that a really amazing kind of thing? Like, oh, on one hand and on the other hand. And if you're limping between two opinions, you're not going anywhere. You're stuck. How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal, then follow him. And the people did not answer him a word. They were too stuck between these two gods, not really half-heartedly, not really choosing God, hedging their bets. Maybe Baal could come through for us, right? And always God is saying, this only works if you're completely with me and you don't bring anything with you. You have to leave all that other stuff behind you.

[15:19] So one person had broken the rule about not keeping spoils. It was all supposed to be destroyed so as not to tempt them. And because of this, their plans fail, and the whole enterprise was doomed. And it even started off badly because the spies came back, and they were super arrogant. They're like, oh, that's a small town. We'll just wipe it out. Just send 3,000 people. We don't need to send the whole army. Well, if you have a whole army, you should send the whole army. Shouldn't you? Like, if you have them, you should use them. So even this arrogance is pervading them. They have one victory under their belt, and they think that they can conquer the earth.

[15:53] No reference is made of God being with them to bring the victory, which is often something that they say before they go into battle when they're victorious is that, oh, God, may God be with us and bring us to the victory. They don't even talk about God as they go. They go on their own power. They go on their own arrogance. They go with somebody in their midst who is held, held back something, or kept something that was supposed to be devoted for destruction. And then they're humiliated. There's just a national reckoning. God tells them why they failed. Not only had one man disobeyed, but he had concealed it. So it was a double sin. He disobeyed, and he hid the fact that he disobeyed. And so there's this collective guilt. One man in thousands had broken the rules, and they're all punished for it. Thirty-six soldiers die, right? Right?

[16:41] Right? Right? Right? Right? This one man has sort of infected the whole batch of dough. And what happens then is he himself has to be removed from all the people, and that's what God says now. He is now devoted, a devoted thing that has to be destroyed. And so Achan is dealt with, and that's not pretty for Achan either.

[17:05] Let me make sure that turns over. Now, I want to talk a little bit more. And this is, like I said, this is something that should, should trouble us. By the way, so they deal with Achan. They learn their lesson. They go on, and they have more victories. But finally, in the end, they really don't finish the job. And this is kind of an important thing to remember in the Old Testament is that the people don't finish the job. And that, that sets the stage for a lot of their future failures. Think of it as a math problem. Make a mistake early on, and you keep going, right? And every, every equation after that is affected, or, in fact, every equation after that is affected by that original error, right? And so this error, an original error is not following God's law or rules to take the whole land, and it comes back, and it affects them in all sorts of ways. Okay. Now, I want to talk a little bit more about the difficult question of people taking the land and destroying or moving all the other peoples they come across. And I'm not going to make me do a show of hands, but this is difficult, right? This is not easy to think of it. It's like, well, what about? What about those people? They were there. They, you know, Jacob and his family were gone for 400 years.

[18:17] That's a long time. Can anyone be faulted for moving into that area and building towns and starting a life and having families and making farms and cities and things like that? And then they show up again, and we're like, firsties, you know?

[18:32] By the way, there's so much firsties going on in the world that I think we need to, you know, I don't know if there's any firsties, you know, except for, you know, everywhere humans go, they mess things up. I don't know if anyone should ever have an eternal claim on any land in this world, because that eternal claim on land has led to more pain and bloodshed than anything else. Okay. But in this case, God wants to give it to these people for a time. Okay. I don't like this part of the scriptures. I think I'm not supposed to like this because God has given us some new revelations, but I think we need to interpret it in the times that it was. That helps us. It's a challenging point. It's a challenging part of scripture, and I'm going to give you one explanation of it, and you can decide for yourself what to think. So here's the explanation. One aspect is that the people of the land that they found that had moved in were opposed to God because of their religious practices. It wasn't like they had really bad religious practices, and there were no coexist bumper stickers back then. They didn't have those on their chariots, right? There was not this, like, your religion is opposed to my religion. Your gods are in my god.

[19:41] They even thought that when we have a battle here on earth, the gods are having a battle up in heaven, too. And actually, that's the deciding battle. If one god defeats the other god, then there's this, the outcome is reflected on the earth. Isn't that interesting? You know? And so these gods were opposed to the real god, right? The other thing is that their religious practices were violent and profane and perverse, and those religious practices preyed on the weak and the vulnerable. Have you ever noticed, like, in a lot of these sort of pagan religions, they're like, we have to sacrifice somebody.

[20:19] Let's sacrifice the one who's going to fight us the least. It's usually a child, right? Or a young girl. Let's throw her into the volcano or let's, you know, it's never like the priest or the powerful, like, let's sacrifice the king. And the king is like, oh, no, you don't. That's not, you read that wrong in the scriptures.

[20:38] Where, which religion has a sacrifice? Of the most powerful. Christianity. Isn't that interesting? Like, it's not, Jesus is not, not a vulnerable person. He's a man. He's got all the, all the glory of the Godhead in his own person, but he sets it aside. This is what makes Christianity different from many religions. Okay. But, so these were bad, I would say these were bad religions, idolatrous, pagan religions. You know, one, one vision that sometimes we get of ancient pagan religions is like this calm group of people, sitting around in clean togas, nibbling on grapes and chatting about how wonderful Artemis is. You know, can you just imagine? It's like a scene from Fantasia, but that's what it is. It's fantasy. There, that's not what it looked like. It looked like kids getting thrown in the fire so that we can have a good harvest next year. It looked bad. You know, this was not great. So their religion was a means to further their own power and to express their own impulses that came from a very dark place. And those things that were used in their worship, all the symbols of it, all the pagan idols, all the gold, all the, all, even the plates that they served the meals on, that was devoted to destruction as a sign that God could not tolerate it.

[21:50] And so God was saying, it's not the people per se that I want to move out of the land. It is, but it's this abomination that they have set up in the land. This glorification of violence, this glorification of hurt to the, to the innocent, to the, to the vulnerable, that has to go. It cannot stand in my presence, cannot be among my people to affect them. Right?

[22:16] So the other, and the other thing is that a lot of the groups that were there, they got there by conquest. In those 400 years, they had moved a few other people off the land. Like nobody come, don't tell me that anyone's innocent in any of this, right? They're all humans. They had moved other people out of the land. And they would have taken them. They would have attacked each other, destroy each other's towns, take things, take other people as slaves. If you took another town, you, you killed all the men and you took the women and children as slaves back to your town. And it was not good for them after that. Right? Now you don't have to agree with any of this, but this is kind of the thinking. And so the way they perhaps saw the quest, the conquest by the Israelites was that, well, of course, somebody with more power who comes into our land is come, going to come and do to us what we did to the neighboring town last year. Right? And if the Israelites kept on moving, some of them might even say, Hmm, maybe their God's more powerful than our gods, which is something that is often talked about in like, even what, that's what Elijah says to the people about Baal. You know, how long are you going to keep limping between two opinions?

[23:23] Let's have a contest between God and Baal. And you bring 70 of the prophets of Baal and says, make it, you know, make it rain fire. And they go around all afternoon and nothing happens. Then it's Elijah's turn. And he make, he calls, he prays to God. God, Elijah doesn't make it rain fire. This is the important thing. Elijah doesn't make it rain fire, but God answers Elijah's prayer and God sends fire from heaven. And anyone who wasn't convinced after that, there was no helping them. Right? And I'm sure there were some like, Oh, that was just magic or I don't know, illusion.

[23:51] But God, God proved it that day. So there is, there are times in the Old Testament where God wants other peoples to know that he's the true God by some act of miracle, miracle. So that they will turn away. He cares about all his children so that they'll turn away from their false gods and the, and the evil, the evil practices that came with those false gods.

[24:18] So this is what I think, and I don't really love it, but I think this is how you kind of explain some of his, I think religious expression was different back then. And that wars were fought differently back then. Although they kind of look that way now, but there was less judgment on it back then. So it was considered a sin. It was more normal.

[24:38] But I think we're, we're troubled and we should be that God tells the people to take the land and, and destroy anyone who won't move out of their way. I think that's difficult. And if you want to talk to me more about it, you know, I think it, I think scriptures like that should break our hearts. You know, I don't think we should be triumphal, triumphalist about it. I think we should go, that's horrible. That's really bad. I hope God had a good reason for that. It seems like he did. And then there's. I think there's some things we don't know about God. We have, we can't quite understand, but it should trouble us, but we should also trust that God kind of knew what he was doing. So come talk to me if that's troubling to you, because I think there's plenty more to say, but I'll stop there. What do we say about all of this? I want to go back to the first reading that Pam read. Jesus tells his would be followers. You can't go bury your father and then come follow me. You can't be half-hearted. You can't some, let some yeast in and expect to be full-hearted. You have to either choose me all the way, or you have to choose something else all the way. You can't do half and half, right? So Jesus tells one of the most important of all the parables about the vineyard.

[25:40] We had a whole sermon series about this like three years ago, but the vineyard, right? The land is given to the tenants. They're expected to give the landlord a portion of the harvest. But over the years when the landlord sends messengers to collect part of the proceeds, the tenants beat and abused them and they refuse to give what's owed. And finally the landlord sends his son and they take him and kill him and throw him out of the land, out of the vineyard. And this is the story of Israel. Jesus is encapsulating this whole cycle. You know this cycle.

[26:11] They're faithful, they're faithless. They're faithful, they're faithless. Jesus is encapsulating this whole cycle. They're supposed to take all the land, but they don't take all the land. I gave you this whole land, but there's some people in it that are telling you not to give me everything that's owed to me, right? And so they're infected by this yeast.

[26:29] So this is the story of Israel. And the messengers are the judges and the prophets over the years. And the son is Jesus. But that's the thing. The cycle ends when God sends the son. The story, the cycle ends like the insanity ends actually in a way. When he sends his son, that's a decisive moment. They kill the son and that rouses the landlord in the parable at least to action. And he comes and he said, I'm going to take the vineyard away from those people who would not give me what was my due and I will give it to those who will. That's what God says. And that's what the landlord says. And this is a parable about Jesus. It's a parable about Israel and their cycle of unfaithfulness. So God is doing a new thing in Jesus. And that doesn't mean that some of the people in the landlord before that can't come to their senses and go, oh, I should actually, you know, be one of those people who starts doing that. So we've talked about that.

[27:27] So we have the seeds of the New Testament on display here. Isn't that great? Like even this story about an ill-fated ex-pastor. And he's talking about the expedition to conquer a tiny little town. Thirty-six people die on the side of a mountain. It doesn't sound like that's such a big deal. But even this is pointing forward to Jesus. It's part, it says here's the cycle. Here's this idea of yeast. Here's this idea of wholehearted following of God versus half-hearted following of God. And so in this, even in this little passage here, we have themes of the conquest of the land, how it never really is fully done or done correctly. We have collective guilt showing up again. But then there's collective righteousness that comes through Jesus, which is such great news, right? We have the concept of being half-hearted toward God or full-hearted. And we see that God will one day make a new way and a new covenant so that he can make good on his promise to Abraham to bless the whole world. So God's saying, I still want to bless the whole world through the descendants of Abraham. Now we count Jesus as the descendant of Abraham. I'm going to bless all the Gentiles, all the world through Jesus. And I think some questions, just I'm going to leave with you and then we're done, is,

[28:31] I'm going to leave with you and then we're done, is, when am I half-hearted? And we could spend more time on this, but this, I'm going to leave these haunting questions with us at the end. When am I half-hearted?

[28:42] Is there yeast in my batch? Right? What have I let in? Am I limping along with one foot in each camp? Is that slowing me down from getting where God wants me to go? And of course, the answer to all those things is, yes, Hans Eric has all sorts of problems, I guarantee you.

[29:07] But we all go to this with our own hearts. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, we come to you and we confess our half-heartedness, our limping along. We confess all the many distractions in our lives that keep us giving you all of ourselves.

[29:24] And Father, thank you that you teach us from Scripture. And thank you for the new life that comes through Jesus, for the new covenant, that even though we can't keep it, we keep it. And we keep the law. Someone has kept it for us. And you give us the grace through that.

[29:36] So Lord, bless this word and let it live in our hearts. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, let's have the, yeah, the doxology. And do you want to come up and sing it, Blake? Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Right here. Amen.

[30:52] Be still and know that I am God. God is our refuge and our strength. God is our refuge and our strength. God is our refuge. And our strength. In you, O Lord, we put our trust. Be still. And know that I am God. Be still and know that I am God.

[32:46] God, I look to you. I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision. To see things like you do. God, I look to you. You're where my help comes from. You're where my love comes from. Give me wisdom. You know just what to do.

[33:20] God, I look to you. I won't be overwhelmed. Give me vision. To see things like you do. God, I look to you. You're where my help comes from And He is done You know just what to do And I will love you, Lord, my strength I will love you, Lord, my sheep I will love you, Lord, my rock Forever all my days I will love you, God God, I look to you I will be with you I will be with you Alleluia, our God reigns Forever all my days Alleluia Alleluia, our God reigns Forever all my days Alleluia Forever all my days Alleluia Forever all my days Alleluia, our God reigns like super good leftovers. So there's really good treats out there today, and there's coffee, so be sure to head into the fireside room and socialize with each other. But now let's receive the benediction. I'll read it out loud. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. Go in peace and serve the Lord. Thanks be to God. Amen.