Now for those who don’t know what Easter is even about, I have really good news for you. It’s much more than Cadbury Mini Eggs going on sale soon, though that is a huge bonus.
Easter is the celebration of the Empty Tomb after Jesus died. Easter celebrates the resurrection of Jesus! And there are so many lessons and truths to ponder on but today, I want to focus on the really good news on how the resurrection offers us true FREEDOM.
Successful becomes Dreadful when there is a disconnect between:
1. The head and the heart 2. The everyday and the eternal
We’ll be using a man named Gideon as our case study! But specifically, we’re looking at his post-success life. So just a quick recap on Gideon’s life. Gideon is one of the judges of Israel, but he isn’t your typical hero. When we first meet him, he’s literally hiding in a winepress trying to keep his food safe from his enemies. And then an angel pops up and calls him to rescue Israel because they have been dominated by the Midianites for 7 years! But Gideon is a coward. Full of doubts.
He asks God for miraculous signs, twice! And God is gracious and gives it to him. When Gideon said yes to God’s calling, God adds a plot twist and says that instead of 30 thousand men that Gideon had, God reduces the army’s number to 300 and they go into battle with torches, jars and trumpets. And the crazy thing is, they win! They win against 135 000 soldiers (Judges 8:10). And the people of his nation, the Israelites, are so so happy! And they try to raise Gideon as their leader and king. And that’s where our Bible passage begins.
I want to read to you the chorus of one of the songs in the movie “The Greatest Showman”:
“When the sharpest words wanna cut me down I’m gonna send a flood, gonna drown ’em out I am brave, I am bruised I am who I’m meant to be, this is me Look out ’cause here I come And I’m marching on to the beat I drum I’m not scared to be seen I make no apologies, this is me.”
How empowering. How validating. It makes me so proud to be myself! A lot of us have asked ourselves, what kind of person am I? What kind of person do I want to be? Well, according to this chorus, just look deep within yourself and that’s you! That’s who you’re meant to be! You should express yourself! Those interests. Those desires. All those things that make you unique. Just go live it out!
Now, this idea is great if you’re like Albert Einstein or something, and all you care about is advancing science. But what if deep down inside, you’re a jerk? What if you’re struggling with perverse fantasies or addiction? Can you still say, “I make no apologies, this is me”? Or the bigger question is, are you hopeless to remain this way because this happens to be who you’re meant to be?
No. There is hope. You can change, or I’d even argue, you are MEANT to be changed. That’s God’s plan for you.
Today we’re talking about spiritual formation, how your spirit is formed. EVERYONE goes through a spiritual formation; everyone has been formed and is BEING formed.
So who you are, your motivations, the way you think, what you desire, what you NATURALLY do, these are all results of being spiritually formed.
Now, as Christians, God has an intended DIRECTION for our formation! And spoiler, that’s towards Christlikeness, becoming like Jesus. And this idea is all over the Bible but I want to give a framework of Christian Spiritual Formation that we specifically see in today’s passage.
There’s something in all of our lives that is bringing all kinds of death. It’s invisible. It’s tolerated. It’s called sin.
I know sin is a loaded word with a lot of negative associations. So for this sermon, let’s have sin simply mean doing things our way instead of God’s way. It’s simple, but it captures how sin separates us from God’s best: His love, purpose, and goodness.
Sin spreads, contaminates, and destroys lives — individually and communally. We often don’t realize how gross and dangerous it is until it’s too late.
This is the lesson God teaches the Israelites in Joshua 7. They were invited by God to walk closely with him to change the world for better and they were actually experiencing it until hidden sin came into the picture.
The big question we’re focusing on today is:
What do we need to grasp about sin in order to walk closely with God?
The Bible isn’t like us, it doesn’t just repeat things just to hit a certain word count. Its writing style is very efficient and thought out… and so for it to repeat 3 times in this week’s passage is like highlighting it and putting it in bold!
Why does God emphasize this so much? I think there is a pastoral aspect to his words here. I mean just a few verses before ours, Moses is literally declared the greatest man of God ever. And for Joshua to take over, those are huge shoes to fill. I’m sure Joshua felt all sorts of underqualified and imposter syndrome.
But also, as we’ll continue in the Joshua story for the next few weeks, we see that the path set out for Joshua is not easy. It requires strength and courage. But that’s not just for Joshua. That’s for all Christians. Following God isn’t an easy walk in the park. Whether you’ve been a Christian for decades or you are new to the faith, following God comes with doing hard things. To say no to our desires. To say yes to love and sacrifice. And so that’s why God tells us: Be strong and courageous, because that’s what it takes to get us thinking beyond ourselves. Be strong and courageous because the natural thing to do is to fall into fear and doubt. Be strong and courageous, because it is so easy to believe the worst about ourselves, the world, and even God. Be strong and courageous.
Every day, we face so many different philosophies of life. A lot of them are kind of hippy-feel-good ones. Sometimes, you’ll come across quite heartless ones. But the philosophy you cling onto will make ALL the difference in life. A bad one will wreck you beyond imagination. But the right philosophy will make you into the greatest and most fulfilled version of yourself. The person God made you to be.
And our bible passage today gives us really good tools, signs that help you know you’re on the right path. And it has to do with being willing to reject and ditch the philosophies of many people around us.
Our focus today is this question:
What are some signs that show us we’re on the right track in life?
1 – The right track is narrow and rare. 2 – The right track is led by excellent role models.
Think about the ideas that we buy into; not just believe but actually live by:
“Retail therapy” “If it feels good, it can’t be wrong.” “Prove them wrong with your success” “Work smarter, not harder as an excuse to never work hard.”
Victim mindsets and blame shifting. There’s something attractive about these things. They are ways of maximizing pleasure and comfort and minimizing pain and discomfort. While these ideas don’t seem harmful at first… They slowly make Christians ineffective and eventually useless for God’s kingdom.
The late philosopher Dallas Willard once observed, “The greatest issue facing the world today, with all its heartbreaking needs, is whether those who are identified as ‘Christians’ will become disciples – students, apprentices, practitioners – of Jesus Christ, steadily learning from him how to live the life of the Kingdom of the Heavens into every corner of human existence.” The quote is saying that, a lot of people call themselves Christians, but a lot of those people do not follow Jesus and live by his way. If they did, the impact on the world and its issues would be revolutionary. Heaven on earth.
So today, we are going to explore what’s making so many Christians ineffective for God’s mission and his kingdom.
A lot of us, if we are honest, feel this kind of skepticism towards ALL prayers.
But no matter how you try to avoid it, prayer seems to be a huge theme throughout the Bible and therefore, a part of our Christian faith. We’re encouraged and even commanded to pray. Jesus, the one we’re following and imitating, has prayer as a core rhythm of his life and he even teaches us HOW to pray.
The reality, however, is if you ask any Christian about their prayer life, we kinda just look down, twiddle our fingers and say, “Oh yeah… I know I should pray more… but I don’t.”
What if prayer isn’t this dreadful chore but a way to access the source of life and joy, connecting with the one we’re made for. How can we approach prayer in a way that is life-giving instead of life-draining? Because for Jesus, as well as the New Testament writers, prayer was a source of joy! What do they know that we don’t? Let’s explore that today.
We’re halfway through our series on the Thessalonian letters, and Enoch has given me a special task to look through Thessalonians to see what we can learn about prayer because prayer is weaved throughout the entire letter. In the letter, Paul prays for them. Paul brings up the fact, he prays for them. Paul commands them to pray. Paul even asks them for their prayer. So a lot about prayer here. What does it have to do with anything?
Let’s be honest. We all know Christians who are the least loving, or most judgmental, or even the ones making the most harmful decisions in life. We look at them asking, why isn’t it working? Or maybe for yourself even, you’ve been going to church for years, serving, reading your bible, part of a small group, baptized, all of that and you still find that you’re perpetually unsatisfied in your everyday life. Stuck in the same cycle of brokenness. You don’t look any more like Jesus than you did on the first day of following him. You don’t have a sense of the abundant life Jesus promises.
It’s easy to start thinking, “is this all a hoax? Is it even real?” Across the Western World, people are leaving the Christian faith because they’ve tried it and it doesn’t deliver the way they expect it to. One stat shows that the western churches decline by 10-15% every year. Another stat reveals that Post covid, the average church only has 85% of their original attendance. What’s going on? I think these people leaving have come to the conclusion… this whole Christian thing doesn’t work.
And so that is what I want to focus on today.
“Why isn’t it working?”
Now this is a huge question with probably hundreds of different angles and factors to consider but we’re going to look at it through our bible passage today.
Now because this is such a deep and rich passage, we’re actually going to split this into two weeks. This week, I get to privilege of doing the theoretical big picture stuff and then next week, Pastor David will dive into the details of the practical stuff and the list of virtues.
Through our passage, we get a glimpse, a diagnosis of why this whole Christian thing isn’t working for so many people.
