Mi Historia Favorita, Junio 14, 2026

Good morning church. Little bit fresher in here. It seemed like it was supposed to rain this week, but the only thing we really felt was just the heat. This morning we continue in our series, My Favorite Story. And the theme this morning is very important to the Christian life. Last week Pastor Cody shared one of his favorite stories with us and he encouraged us to share our faith in Christ. And in all sincerity, that brought me a lot of conviction in my life with my need to share Christ more. And I hope that that story as well encourages you to go and to share your faith in Christ. And this morning, before we enter into our passage, I'd like to encourage you something we do every year here in fellowship. Our last month on the church calendar is the month of June. And it's a month where we look back over the whole year and see all that God has done through all the ministries of fellowship. And the truth is, in the midst of maybe a difficult year, we can look back and see all the beautiful things that God did this year. Bringing new people, going on mission trips to Honduras, to support a church plant in Colombia, beginning an initiative at Southwest High School with our brother Jose and starting off that mission, we've seen that God has been moving in a lot of different ways. And another way that I want us to celebrate as a church is that as a church we've increased our generosity by about 30%. And that's something we're celebrating. Because that represents the ministry that we're going to be doing locally. And the mission and the ministry that we'll continue doing globally. And so it's something, first of all, that I want to celebrate that growth, but also to encourage us to continue growing in our generosity. And even though we have grown tremendously as a church, if you look in your bulletin you'll still see that we have a ways to go.

And so I'd like to encourage you in this month of June and this week to prayerfully consider giving beyond what you normally have as we close our fiscal year as a church. If you feel called to give something, then we would encourage you to do that. And that's not because the Lord needs our money. But rather, because we have the opportunity to continue supporting what God is doing here and around the world. And so church, I'd encourage you to continue in that spirit of generosity that we've had throughout this. And so as you open your Bibles to chapter 7 of the book of Joshua, why don't we join together in prayer? Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning giving you thanks for all that you've done in our church and for all that you'll continue doing this upcoming year. And Lord, we recognize that we need to deeply depend upon you. And Lord, we ask that this morning your word would speak to our lives. And that we would recognize those areas where we need to surrender to you. So that your name would be glorified in our lives. In the name of Jesus we pray, amen. How many of you have heard the story of the conquest of Jericho? And some of us, since we were little, we grew up singing a song about marching around Jericho seven times and we would march. And so when the people of Israel marched around the walls of Jericho and they were yelling, on that last day the walls of Jericho came crumbling down and God gave victory to the Israelites. It was an impressive victory because basically the people of Israel did nothing and God did all of the work. As a sign that the rest of the battles would be under the plan of God and that they would have victory as well in those upcoming battles. Many of us remember that battle against Jericho, but how many of us remember the battle that comes right after the battle of Jericho? It's not nearly as impressive as the battle of Jericho.

In fact it was against a much weaker town, a much weaker people than Jericho. But it's in that loss that Israel suffered that we learn something very important about sin. And our passage today deals with the sin of Achan. And you could ask why is this one of my favorite stories if it's such a dark story? And the truth is I every year have to remind myself about my own heart. The propensity that our hearts have towards sin and to commit sin. My prayer is that we would learn to combat and fight against sin through this story. That we could put our trust in God and bring to light all of those things in our lives that don't please him. So that we don't have to experience the consequences that sin can bring to our lives. I always like to give a little bit of context around this story so that you have a mental image of where we are in Scripture. We're at the beginning of the book of Joshua. Joshua is the successor of Moses. Moses has been the most respected leader in all of the history of Israel. So Joshua has some very big shoes to fill. But God says to Joshua, just as I was with Moses, so I shall be with you. Moses led the people of Israel over 40 years through very difficult times. Moses had seen the sea open so that the Israelites could escape from the Egyptians on dry land. It's logical that Joshua would be asking God, could you do the same with me as you did with Moses? And it's logical that the people of Israel would be doubting whether or not Joshua could lead as Moses had led the people. And so there's this verse that we memorize often times as children, where it says, this book of law shall never depart from your lips, but day and night you will meditate upon it, so that you will guard it in your heart and act conformed to what is written. And so I will make your way prosper and everything will go well. As long as you maintain and keep yourself walking according to my words, you have nothing to fear.

And that's where we find our main character, Joshua. In the story of chapter 6 of the battle of Jericho, there was a very specific instruction that had been given. And we'll read verse 18 of chapter 6, it'll be on the screen. But you keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction, lest when you have devoted them you take any of the devoted things and make the camp of Israel a thing for destruction and bring trouble upon it. When they were going to conquer these cities, there were things that they had to leave there and burn and destroy. Or images of idols, even if they were made of gold. Or things that had to do with the rituals in their pagan temples, they had to destroy them and burn them. And the treasures they had to bring them and offer them or present them in the temple of the Lord. And so he said, keep yourselves from the things devoted to destruction. Devoted to destruction means the things that are cursed so that the people will not be cursed. He said, keep yourselves from them. But let's look at how chapter 7 begins. Let's look at the symptoms. When there's sin in the life of a person, the first thing you'll notice is the symptoms. Let's look at verses 1 through 5. But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things, and remember the devoted things means the cursed things. For Achan, the 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 people of Israel. Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai,

which is near Beth-Avon, east of Bethel, and said to them, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai. Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Beth-Avon, east of Bethel, and said to them, Go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai. When they returned to Joshua, they said to him, Go up and spy out the land. Only two or three thousand men will go up to Ai. And they returned to Joshua and said to them, Do not have all the people go up, but let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few. So about three thousand men went up from the people and they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai killed about thirty-six of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water. And so what's happening in this scene? They're saying, oh, this is just a weak, small people. There's maybe about twelve thousand men. Let's not even bring the whole army. Let's just send a few men because this is going to be so easy. I got you on the video. So after the battle of Jericho, which was such a great victory,

they thought, ah, this is going to be a piece of cake. We've got this. And what happened? The soldiers of Israel, they left fleeing and thirty-six of their men were killed. It's interesting because when sin enters into a place, even the most basic things of life just don't work right. Oh, this should go so well, this should be so easy. But our relationships don't work. Our finances don't work. Work doesn't work. Our careers don't work. The basic things of life don't work. And it's that there's something that's just not right. Life is like going to a battle day after day. Y el pecado nos hara fracasar aun en los mas sencillos de nuestra vida. And sin can cause us to fail. Sin causes us to fail even in the most basic aspects of life. You know what draws my attention also about this battle? If you go to the previous chapter, God had told them exactly what they had to do in order to win the battle. But at the beginning of this story we don't see Joshua speaking with God. Something that happens when there's sin in the life of a person because there's not a fluid communication with the Father. The person begins to put his trust in himself and says, Okay, I've got this. They stop listening to God. They stop asking God for wisdom. They don't listen to the direction of the Lord. That's the second symptom.

Some people say that it's difficult to obey. And you'll hear me say this phrase time and time again. It's always more difficult to disobey God. The consequences of disobedience to the Lord will always be more difficult than the sacrifice of obeying the Lord. And so we stop listening to the direction from God. We begin to act and make decisions in an isolated way. We don't want to hear from anybody else. But we don't see victory. Just the same thing over and over and over again. We start to see the second part in verse 6, the reaction. Let's look at verse 6. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell on the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, he and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all to give us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan. O Lord, what can I say when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name? The last thing that sin does in our lives is that it blinds us to the reason why we're in the position we're in. And on many occasions what happens to Joshua here and what Joshua is saying in this moment is exactly what happens to us. We start to blame God for the reason that, we start to blame God as the reason that things aren't going well. O Lord, you brought me to this job and look at what it's like now. I thought it was supposed to go so well. Lord, you brought me into this relationship and look how terrible it's going.

It's so easy to turn our hearts in rather than look inside of ourselves to look outside of ourselves. And in the mind of Joshua it was God who didn't help him. And that's how we can think sometimes surely God has something against me. And I think God is using this for Joshua to grow as a leader. Because the reality is that sin can be difficult to detect a lot of times. It reminds me of those insects and bugs that can, you know, they bite you and suck your blood but you don't really notice it first. They numb you. Oh, they numb you in the spot they're biting you first like leeches do. And that's what sin can do is it's sucking out our life. life, but we don't notice because we're numb to it. And so what is it that God does with Joshua? He's going to help him to discern his sin. And I want to share a couple of quotes that remind me of how sin operates in our lives. Someone once said this, our heart can say what our mouth doesn't dare to say, and our mind will think what our hands don't dare to do. Think about this. This is how sin begins in our lives. When our heart starts to long for things that we would be embarrassed to say out loud. And our mind starts to think in a way that if we were to actually do those things and people saw it, we would be ashamed. Someone once said this, that sin is like cockroaches, it thrives in the dark. I have a lot of stories about cockroaches, but I won't share those this morning. Ask about my kids, they know about it. When everything is dark, sin multiplies. And there was hidden sin within the camp. And so God does something that's our next point, that God shows us the root of the problem. Verse 10 says, the Lord said to Joshua, get up, why have you fallen on your face? Israel has sinned, they have transgressed my covenant that I commanded them, they have

taken some of the devoted things, they have stolen and lied and put them among their own belonging. Therefore, the people of Israel cannot stand before their enemies, they turn their backs before their enemies because they have become devoted for destruction. I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Get up, consecrate the people, and say, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow. For thus says the Lord, God of Israel, there are devoted things in your midst, O Israel, you cannot stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you. What does God say, don't blame me, don't blame the circumstances, get up and quit crying about what happened, look within the camp. There is a curse in the camp. You will not win the battles until you confront the root of the sin, but do you know how we handle these things often? I remember that several decades before they had more scientific ways of determining whether or not someone was still crazy or not. They used to do this test where they would take a person who was in a mental hospital and they would put them in a dark hallway. At the end of this dark hallway, there was a light that was on, and there was a sink that was overflowing. And so they would walk to the end of this hallway, and they would arrive to the sink that was overflowing, and there would be all of this mess in the bathroom, and there would be a mop next to the door. And so they would take a look at this person, and depending upon the decision they made, they would say, oh, this person is ready to go back into normal society, or this person needs to stay in the institute a little while longer. And many of them, they would grab the mop, and they would start mopping the floor. And the water would keep overflowing, and they would keep mopping. What was it that they needed to do? Just turn the knob. Oftentimes, sin is destroying us, and what is it that we do? We just start mopping the floor. Let me go to church just a little more often.

Even though it is good to go to church regularly, but that's not the root of the problem. Lord, now I'm going to, I'll go study at a Bible institute. Lord, let me get in on the connection center team, or on the worship team. Lord, I'll go help the poor. But they don't shut off the water. They don't bring the root of the problem that is the sin that's hidden in the life of the person. They start listening to more Christian music, but they don't get rid of the sin that's destroying them. They start to give to the poor and to help the less fortunate, but they don't stop lying and spreading gossip and hurting others with their words. I start to serve in the church, but I don't serve at home. You see the problem? The problem, the sin has not been dug out at the root. And in these next verses, God does something incredible. Wouldn't it have been easier if God had said, hey, go get Achan and we'll handle this problem right now. God says, call first the tribes. After that, the clans. After that, the families. And after all of the families, just the one family. And then the person. But there were hundreds of thousands of people. Why does God give such a long process? God was giving Achan the opportunity to repent. Many of you have received signal after signal after signal. Sign after sign. Advice after advice. Difficulty after difficulty. Because God is giving you, just like he gave Achan, opportunity to recognize your sin. In front of Adam, he asked, what have you done? So that Adam would confess. And so in the same way, God takes Israel through this whole process so that Achan

can have the opportunity to repent. Look at what happens in verses 18 through 21. And in this section, we'll see the consequence. And he brought near his household, man by man, and Achan the son of Carmi, son of Zabdi, son of Zerah of the tribe of Judah was taken. And see, they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath. If we were to look at this and not understand that there was an extremely large process to get to this point, we could think that Achan had repented. But there's a big difference between repentance and being caught with your hand in the cookie jar. Achan had been found out, he had no other option other than to say out loud what it was that he had done. He had all of this opportunity through the whole process to say, hey, it was me, you don't have to go through this whole long process. He was caught, church, he didn't repent. But what happened in Achan? He says three things happened and this is how sin works in our lives. What was the first thing? He saw. He says that he saw something beautiful that drew his attention. He knew it wasn't God's will, but it called his attention. And his sight led him to covet it. The second step.

The second step is to covet. He desired something that was unpleasing to God. And the last part, he took it. And that's how sin works in life. And I would ask you, where is your mind? Where is your sight and your attention? Because that's what's going to produce desires within you. And those desires will convert into actions. Many of you might want a different action than the one you're taking, but you don't adjust where your eyes are set. You don't pay attention to where your affections are placed. And verses 22 and 23, they confirm that that story is correct. And so the servants go and they dig up under Achan's tent and they find all that Achan had taken. And Joshua commands them to take all that Achan had taken, all that Achan and his family and all of his possessions, that they would be stoned. And there are two things that I want us to learn from this. One is that sin will always be brought to light. God is going to bring to light that sin that we thought we could keep hidden. And the second lesson is that sin is never private. It could seem unjust that the family of Achan would perish. And that's why we have to be very careful in the way in which we read Scripture. I'm going to say that one more time. Achan's tent wasn't three bedroom and two and a half baths like we have today. It's just a tent. Where his family would have seen that there was something buried there and they were participants in Achan's sin. So often the leader of a family will drag his entire family into the sin involving everyone. For those of you that think your sin won't impact anyone else, go back and read the story

of Adam and Eve and look where we're at today. There is no such thing as private sin. It will always bring consequences. Sin caused Achan to lose his life. It cost him his life. It cost him the life of his family. And in that place the Israelites raised a monument to remind all of the people the consequences of sin. My question is this. What do you have buried underneath your tent? What signs and opportunities is God giving you so that you can repent before it gets to this point? Let's cling to Christ every day. So that he would help us to recognize what we need to confess before him. And bring it to light and bring it to repentance. Take advantage of the family in Christ that you have that can help you to overcome your sin and to draw near to God. For those who haven't met Christ yet, in that moment Achan perished and received the consequences of his sin. But there was someone who received the wrath of God on the cross even though he had done nothing wrong. First is he that dies on a cross. tree, says the book of Galatians. Jesus received the curse so that those who believed in him would not receive that curse. And there's a memorial not of rocks but of blood that was shed, so that all who believe could receive eternal life. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you this morning, asking that you would examine our hearts, that you would test our thoughts, and that you would show if there's perverse ways in our paths. God, that we would bring to light every sin and every action that doesn't please you. Show us, Lord. Show us our

hearts, Lord, that it wouldn't be too late. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.