Joshua: The Altar of Grace

So we are still making our way through the book of Joshua as we are still in online worship.

And yes, we are, myself and Eric and Sam, we are getting tired of seeing an empty sanctuary.

So we are a part of the missing.

We are missing you.

We are missing seeing you and being with you and can't wait for that day.

So this week, we did begin as a state, the state of Georgia began to reopen our society, sort of this phase one coming out of coronavirus shelter and place.

And Monday morning, that first day of reopening, here's what I woke up to a text message from my mentor, Scotty Smith, and he also tweets these out, but he knows I don't read a lot of Twitter.

So he sent this to me.

This said, Monday, self-note.

Number one, the main opening to be preoccupied this week is your unfettered 24-7 access to the throne of grace.

Number two, more prostration in response to your father's welcome and love, and less pontification about your neighbor's politics and virus etiquette.

Then later that morning I heard this quote, second quote of my sermon already, on the Mockingbird podcast.

It's called Mockingcast.

And this quote is from Jennifer Wiener in her article in the New York Times entitled The Seductive Appeal of Pandemic Shaming.

It's a confessional piece I think you'll probably associate with it.

I sure did.

Here's what she writes.

When I see misbehavior in person, it's all I can do not to start shouting, either in real life or virtually.

Why aren't you?

Or why don't you?

Don't you know you're putting people at risk?

I understand, thanks to therapy, that anger is a manifestation of fear, a way of exerting a tiny measure of control.

I have no power over the pandemic.

I can't control who gets sick, or if my hospital is ready, or when we might return to something that looks like normal.

But yelling at a guy on the sidewalk or posting his picture on nextdoor.com with the caption so gross, or can't you believe this?

This I can do.

So we know these feelings, right?

Because you saw two of your friends, you couldn't believe it.

You were driving to Kroger with your mask and gloves, and you saw two of your friends walking down the street at 5.3 feet apart from each other, and it blew your mind.

You couldn't believe it, they weren't at six feet.

Or maybe your friend Phil has not come out of his bedroom in seven weeks, and you can't believe that.

You can't believe why in the world would he do that?

I'm getting my haircut tomorrow.

So I'm gonna go from being one of the people in the scraggly haircut categories to having a good haircut, and mind you, the instruction sent to me by my barber is like putting on a hazmat suit to enter to get a haircut.

But nonetheless, I'm going from scraggly to good haircut, which you know, all of a sudden, you know, good haircut people can judge scraggly haircut people, and scraggly haircut people can judge good haircut people, and then there's the third camp, which is the bad haircut, which meant you got your spouse or your friend or your buddy to cut your hair, and so you got bad haircut judging somebody else, and we got a judgment, right?

So easy, so easy in this process of reopening society and us coming out of our houses and beginning to do different things for us just to move straight into judgment, straight into shaming.

And it goes back to that text that my mentor sent me, and I need to hear it.

I need more prostration, more bowing down in response to the father's welcome and love of me, and less pontification about my neighbor's politics and virus etiquette.

None of us did quarantine right because you wanted to clean your garage and write a book and get you know personally fit, and you were gonna have a non-anxious presence with your children, and you're gonna play hide and seek outside, and you did two of those things, and while you're doing two of them, you ignored the other things, and now the other things you can't believe you didn't do those, and we we none of us, none of us did it right.

None of us did it perfectly, and none of us will do reopening perfectly either.

And this is where this passage, you wouldn't see it coming, but this passage comes to us so powerfully because it comes to us to show us the altar of grace that we we live with.

Not an altar of merit, not an altar of us making sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice to be delighted in by the Father, but that God provided that sacrifice and that his welcome and acceptance and righteousness for us is immeasurable and it never stops.

So we're in this story in Joshua, this epic ancient story, this Old Testament story.

God's people were enslaved in Egypt, they come out of that, they're in 40 years in the desert, finally they get out of that, they go over the Jordan River, they're back in the land that's their land, and they're back in it, they're conquering some people to get their land, they conquer Jericho, they get defeated by I.

We talked about this last week, and that defeat came after some coveting and some stealing done, and so we talked last week about coveting and contentment.

And so then we enter Joshua 8 with that background.

Joshua 8, verses 1 and 2.

Joshua 8:1

And the Lord said to Joshua, do not fear and do not be dismayed.

Take all the fighting men with you and arise, go up to I.

See, I have given into your hand the king of I and his people, his city and his land, and you shall do to I and its king as you did to Jericho and its king, only its spoil and its livestock you shall take as plunder for yourselves, lay an ambush against the city behind it.

So point number one is this we have a giving God who blesses us through little and through much.

We have a giving God who blesses us through little and through much.

Now, what do I mean by that, right?

I can mean a whole bunch of different stuff.

Well, what do I mean?

Well, this is this is what I mean.

Three weeks ago, we were down to five rolls of toilet paper.

I don't know if you got to that during the big toilet paper crisis of 2020, but we were down to five, and Christy, my wife, she comes and she says, Hey, by the way, we're down to five rolls, and so you know, I'm moving to planner and provider mode, and I have to have another tutorial because in my house we have uh I have a wife and then I have three little girls, so we can we can do toilet paper, we can go through that, and so I have to have another tutorial about squares versus snowball, right?

That that's the small squares, not big snowball, and so we have to do that again.

So we're at five rolls, I'm getting nervous, and I can remember that one time when I went to Africa on a mission trip, we used newspaper, but the problem is I don't want to do that, and also we don't take the newspaper, and then I saw a Beth Moore book on our end table, and I'd never looked at a Beth Moore book like that before, but I did and thought, well, we do have paper, so we got paper, so we could make it, but just when I couldn't believe I had looked at a Beth Moore book like that, uh Christy's dad hits the jackpot because he's hitting the senior citizen hour at Sam's and he gets us a 36 pack, and so we get a 36 pack of toilet paper.

We couldn't believe it.

Best thing had happened in weeks, right?

And then the next day I'm at Costco, the next day, and I get another pack of 36.

We go from five rolls to 77 rolls in like two days, right?

I mean, just like abundance, right?

Here's the really deep point, right?

Like very profound illustration here.

Taught, we're taught like really high caliber here at Redeemer.

And here's the point toilet paper comes and goes.

We didn't realize that until the last couple of months, but apparently that's very true.

And what we have known for a long time is our 401ks come and go.

And and sadly, sometimes our incomes come and go.

And a lot of that can be very painful.

But it's true.

And in it, and in it, God's resources of lavish love for you.

It never goes.

That it is always there to welcome, and it is always immeasurable for us.

And so the story in Joshua 8 is that Joshua takes 5,000 men, he goes up to I, they hide out in this ravine, they trick this city and all the fighting men in the city, come out of the city walls and they trick them, and then they ambush the city, they take out the fighting men, they set fire to the city, they win the bat, they win this battle.

And then they bring at the end, everybody's dead, everybody's been conquered.

And if you need a sermon on war, we did that at the beginning of the series on Joshua.

At the end of this, they bring the king of I to Joshua.

We don't know if the king is alive or dead at this point, but they say they hanged him in a tree.

He could have already been dead, but this is a custom of the day to hang the king of the city in a tree, and then they buried him at the entry of the city.

And then Israel, these people, God's people that are coming back into their land, God says, Hey, you can take all their livestock and all their treasure as your own, but they didn't get to do it at Jericho, but now they get to do it here.

And this is just a generic observation that sometimes we have a little and sometimes we have a lot.

But Paul teaches on this, Philippians 4.

Maybe you know this passage, you've been around church, you might have heard this.

Philippians 4, 11 through 13.

Paul, he's in jail when he's writing this in the New Testament.

He's in prison when he writes this.

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.

That's that word we learned about last week, which means that you are self-sufficient apart from what you have in circumstance or treasure.

Oh, what power, what power that is.

Verse 12, he says, I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance.

I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Now, I used to have a poster of a guy dunking in my basketball locker room in high school with that verse on it.

It has nothing to do with dunking, apparently.

It took me a while to figure that out, has everything to do with contentment.

This verse is Paul saying, I've learned a secret, and this secret is God gives to us what we need in acceptance and love and forgiveness and righteousness and peace on the inside of who we are, so that as the circumstances of the world and the treasures we hold in this world around us, they come and they go, but that we can have a stability and a strength from Him.

They didn't get a treasure from Jericho, but then they get treasure from I.

Verses 30 through 35.

Hang with me.

A bit of reading here.

This story progresses.

At that time Joshua built an altar to the Lord, the God of Israel, on Mount Abal, just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the people of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones upon which no man has welded an iron tool.

And they offered on it burnt offerings to the Lord and sacrificed peace offerings.

Verse 32.

And there in the presence of the people of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses which he had written.

And all Israel, a sojourner as well as native-born with their elders and officers and their judges, stood on opposite sides of the ark before the Levitical priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, half of them in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front in front of Mount Abal, just as Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded at the first to bless the people of Israel, and afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessing and the curse, according to all that is written, the book of the law.

There was not a word of a word of all that Moses commanded that Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, and the women and the little ones, and the sojourners who lived among them.

Now there's a lot in there.

We could easily read through a lot of that and just see that as sort of like narrative and history, but there's so much for us.

And here's the next point, point number two.

We are called to the altar of grace, bringing our confession and gratitude.

That's actually the life we're called to, the life of faith.

This passage, and here's where this history comes in for us and means so much, is that this passage talks about these two different mountains, Mount Abal and Mount Gerizim.

If we just pass that over quickly, we miss the meaning of it.

But if we remember back in Deuteronomy chapter 11, there's this story, and Moses instructs the people.

Deuteronomy 11 · chapter mention

And he says, Hey, when you get to that land, that day between those two mountains, you pronounce the blessings on Mount Gerizim and you pronounce the curse on Mount Abal.

So it's been 40 years or so.

They're on these two mountains, here they are, and Joshua is renewing this relationship with God.

Up on Mount Abal, they sacrifice, they make a peace offering, and they read the law.

So these people are reading the law, they are reading how they should live.

So anytime you read that, you're guided, you're inspired, and at the same time you're crushed because you know.

You know you don't do that perfectly.

I mean, Jesus makes a point in the New Testament when he begins to teach to make sure we get this message that we cannot live up to the law perfectly.

And he says, Oh, you think the law is not to kill somebody?

How about never hold anger?

Oh, you think the law is not to have adultery?

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Never even lust after another person.

And so the law crushes us, it's a curse.

And so just when you think that the only thing coming off of Mount Abal would be a curse, there's also a sacrifice.

And this is how we see in the Old Testament, in these stories, we get picture after picture after picture of a larger story, a meta-narrative of the scriptures of the gospel.

An old covenant building an understanding for us to have appreciation and live under a new covenant, an old covenant of sacrifices for us to understand God's grace and what he gives to us in the incarnation of himself in the person of Christ Jesus.

That's one big story.

And in the Old Testament, we get all these little stories that feel like history at times or feel so ancient at times, but really there's these little hidden gems in here for us to understand God's grace.

Paul helps us with this.

Galatians is a great book for this.

Galatians 3, 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

See, Christ is the final sacrifice.

We don't have to keep making sacrifices.

We're called to an altar of grace, not an altar of our own sacrifices forever.

The writer of Hebrews expands on this in Hebrews 8, 12 and 13.

For I will be merciful toward their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.

What a great promise from God.

Verse 13, in speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete.

And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

And I think there's an implication here, and the implication is is my heart, day to day, moment by moment, is my heart living, being crushed by condemnation, of not being good enough or always having to do more?

Or is my heart being serenaded by the promises of my worth, of my forgiveness, of my acceptance, of my righteousness that God gives to me in Jesus.

See, God doesn't just endure you, He adores you.

He didn't just endure you.

I gotta endure Russ for you know a little bit longer.

No, no, no.

He delights in you, he delights in you.

This week I had a Zoom call, right?

We're doing lots of Zoom calls.

I had a Zoom call with 15 Marietta pastors, and we were meeting about and talking about like when and how and what what does it look like for churches in our city to reopen.

And I was just overwhelmed by the generosity and the wisdom of this meeting of these guys.

We prayed together, the the Roswell First Baptist pastor led the per led the meeting.

He led it perfectly.

It was fantastic.

And I was so overwhelmed, and at the same time, I was I was actually really, really convicted by the Holy Spirit because I, I don't know about you, but I spend so much time being judgmental of like, oh yeah, oh those those people are too too traditional.

They're too conservative, oh, they're too liberal, they're too modern, they have too many smoke machines in their worship, oh, they have too many hymnals in their worship, oh, they have too many whatever, too many whatever.

Like there's so much judgment in the entire time, the entire time, they're my family, they're my brothers.

And I'm so thankful, like on that call, in that conviction, in that moment of conviction, that's just one example of many this week, but in that conviction, I don't have to just like live in shame and condemnation because I have an altar of grace where there has already been a final sacrifice.

And that I get to, in the kindness of God, I get to just confess over God, you know, God.

I just made a little prayer there.

I didn't close my eyes.

That would have been weird if they looked up and saw me in the meeting with my eyes closed, praying.

They might have just thought I was extra spiritual.

But I just kept looking at all of them and just made, I just prayed a short prayer.

Abba, Father, I receive, like I receive your righteousness, I receive your forgiveness.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and forgive me.

Thank you.

See, God delights in us.

We're not under a curse, we're under a promise of belovedness, and this shapes everything we do and how we do it.

On that call, I needed an altar of grace.

I needed the cross.

That's the altar of grace.

But we need it all the time.

We need our parenting, we need it our dating, we need our living and our working.

We need we just need it all the time because we're not as holy or as whole or as healthy as we want to be or as God desires for us to be, we're still in that process of that ongoing, imperfect walk toward holiness.

And we are in need of his grace the entire way.

What's amazing is on that Zoom call, in that prayer, and that conviction and in that forgiveness, that God uses that grace, not for me to say, oh, I'm gonna be even more judgmental to them, but actually creates love for them.

Because that is what the gospel and what the Holy Spirit does in us is creates love for our neighbor.

Two questions to close us, for implications for our hearts.

Two questions.

What does it mean for me to bow at the altar of grace and not my altars of merit?

What does it mean for me this week to bow at the altar of the grace of God, not my altars of merit?

And question number two is this What ways might I know increasing joy in God as I confess quicker at the altar of grace?

What ways might I know increasing joy in God as I confess quicker at the altar of grace?

Church, there is an altar of grace for you granted and given by a God who delights and welcomes you.

And we know this in Jesus.

Let's pray together.

God, we thank you.

Abba Father, we thank you.

We receive forgiveness, and we receive your righteousness.

Help us to learn even more the depth of the wealth of the identity we have as your beloved.

And may we grow in our understanding that we are not just cursed.

We are crushed by the law, but we are fully welcomed and loved and forgiven and righteous in your grace.

May the law crush us and may your grace relieve us.

And God, we say, may your Holy Spirit be a source of conviction and comfort.

God, may we be a people who in our days, hour by hour, are constantly in the grace of God, confessing quicker as to delight in you in greater ways.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.