My Favorite Story, June 21st, 2026

So with that, I'm gonna turn it The first service, you know Did a little bit better. Let's try again Bueno Diaz Fellowship West Little Rock Let's go to those watching on the chapel or watching us online I'm so glad that you guys are joining in and for those who don't know me My name is Alfredo Suniga, and I'm the Espanol campus pastor, and I'm so glad to be here I love when the teaching pastors Coordinate all these to help us go around other campuses and and the beautiful thing about that is like normally we're Assigned in one of the campuses But when you go around you're reminded how the Lord is working things Beyond what we can see at times the Lord is working all over Central Arkansas all over the world and it allows fellowship to be Part of what he's doing here in the world. So In this series we continue talking about our favorite story and my favorite story is in the book of Joshua But before that one of the things that I also love about our Espanol campus, you know, I'm reminded yesterday We got our team back from Honduras that was down there in a short mission trip and was encouraging the churches down there And one of the good things of sending a spaniel mission trip is that they didn't need much translation That's awesome And the ones who needed they just had one in the team that was gonna help them So praise the Lord for all those short mission trips that are going around and also receive a great report I love when the pastors on these You know our mission partners called us and say hey man Like that trip that team that you send is just full of joy of love and just with a desire to serve It filled us with a lot of joy as pastors when we hear that So if you haven't gone in one of those mission trips, I encourage you to sign in one if not this year But the one that is coming and I want to introduce you to my family You will see a picture in the screen of my beautiful wife from Cabo, Arkansas Kate and then my six children Liam Natalie Luke Gabe Seth and Vivian and we stopped there Okay, I know if you were at wandering And this is what happened when you moved to Arkansas

So I'm from Honduras originally and you might wonder how did a Honduran ended up with a beautiful girl from Arkansas and is Because of fellowship because of the mission heart of fellowship has and send a mission trip 16 years ago To Honduras and that's where I met her and then you know, the rest is history You can ask us later that we're so glad to be just part of fellowship and call fellowship our home Being here in the church since I moved from Honduras and it's almost 10 years and I've Just seen the glory of God and his goodness to me and my family So where are we going today as you open your Bible in Joshua chapter 7? Why don't we bow down our heads and ask the Heavenly Father to help us as we hear his word? Heavenly Father thank you for this morning Thank you for your goodness to us just the air that we breathe The opportunity to gather together and knowing that there's older fellow brothers and sisters Worshiping you in many other campuses all over the world from every tribe and tongue and nation Lord Thank you for the work that you are doing And we come before you asking that you will touch our hearts our minds That you allow us to understand and hear what you have to say for us this morning and that your word Will cause transformation in our hearts in our families in everything we think or do and just let me pray So the story today is about the scene of Aiken and Many times we experience difficulties in our lives due to situation that are beyond our control Beyond things we can do or you know, and we call that trials Trials come to every person as we walk through this world read this broken world and we need God's grace to go through those we need Faithful people and friends to help us walk through those trials that at time we find ourselves But many other times we find ourselves in such predicament as a result of the consequences of sin in our lives And I bill I believe is this has one that can easily fly under our radar. And that if we're not careful, it will not only bring consequences to our own self, but bring consequences to the people around us. One of the biggest lies that a lot of people have believed

is that sin can be private. Oh, it's just between me, you know, and God. Like this is not, who is it gonna hurt? And we've learned from the beginning of times that it's never private. It always bring consequences, not only to us, but people around us. And I always ask when I start this passage in Joshua chapter seven, you know, who remembers that great battle of Jericho? Like who remembers how the Israelites went and, you know, surrounded the city and the Lord basically gave them victory mainly without doing anything, just trusting the Lord. I remember it because in Bible school, they will make me go round and round and round. I remember when I was a kid and I loved it. You know, my kids love that too. But when I ask who remembers the battle that comes after that, I find that many of us don't remember. It's not as shiny. It's not as impressive. And in fact, it's actually very sad, but we're going to learn much from this story. And this battle is the battle of AI. Since it's, you know, right now popular, I'll use AI instead of I, but you can use whatever you want. Where are we?

I like to set the context to help us see the picture of where we are. So Moses have led the people of Israel out of Egypt for 40 years. And at that point, Moses is the greatest leader that Israel have known, but he died. He didn't make it into the promised land. We saw he had some anger issues and the Lord said, you're not going in, which sometimes we say, Lord, that's hard, but he was a leader. He was teaching also a lesson. And he said, you're not going in. So who's going to lead the people through the conquest to the conquest inside the land? And this is a guy named Joshua. And obviously the people of Israel are wondering, is Joshua going to be backed up by the Lord as Moses was? So the Lord does something amazing. He confirmed Joshua's leadership in the people by crossing the Jordan in a similar way that they had crossed the sea with Moses. And this confirmed his leadership and the people thought, okay, the Lord is with Joshua just as he was with Moses. And remember the beginning of that text to start by encouraging Joshua to remain in his word and say, do not depart from this book of the law and do everything that I have commanded you

and everything that you do will prosper. And it's a great, you know, kind of like a start to the book and then after crossing the Jordan, they send a couple of spies to check Jericho and pay attention how, what happened in Jericho. Jericho is a fortified city and they think nobody can take them. But within the city, when the spies go inside to check the land, there's one person and her name is Rahab, which Rahab was a prostitute that in that moment trusted in the God of Israel, in Jehovah, Yahweh. And what happened there is that that city was devoted to destruction, but Rahab received forgiveness for trusting in the Lord and her family and all of her things were spared and she got out, you know, from the destruction of the city. And pay attention to that detail because you'll see how the next chapter ends. And this is where we find ourselves. They just won the battle, Jericho, Rahab was saved and now this is where we start the story. And there was one instruction that God gave them before they started to conquer the land and it's verse 18 of chapter six. And he says this, but you keep yourself 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. The Lord said, when you go into the land, do not grab things that are devoted either to be burned or either to be brought into the treasure of the Lord. It doesn't belong to you. You should not take it. So the first thing we'll learn this morning is what are the symptoms when sin enter into the camp? What are the symptoms when sin enter into the life of a person? So go with me to verse one. all the way to five. So it says this, but the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. For Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Sabdi, son of Sarah 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 Bethaven, east of Bethel, and said to them, go up and spy out the land. And the men went up and spied out Ai, and they returned to Joshua and said to him, do not have all the people go up, but let two or 3,000 men go up and attack Ai.

Do not make the whole people toil up there, for there are just a few. So about 3,000 men went up there from the people, and they fled before the men of Ai, and the men of Ai killed about 36 of their men and chased them before the gate as far as Shebarem, and struck them at the descent, and the hearts of the people melted and became as water. So they think it's gonna be easy. We just defeated Jericho, and actually Jericho was smaller than Ai, and Ai, they say there are a couple of thousands people, so a little bit bigger, but after seeing the victory they had over Jericho, they said, oh, surely this is gonna be easy. Don't even send the whole army. We got this. Just send a couple of thousands of the army, and we'll conquer the land super easy. But what happened? It was the opposite. They ran before them, and before they even know what's going on in the camp, 36 people died, lose their lives, and this is where everything starts. Isn't that curious that when sin enters into the picture, then even the most basic things in life don't work out? And remember, I just wanna clarify, I'm not talking about when people find themselves in trials. You know, it's not a time we're saying,

Lord, what are you doing to me? I'm saying about clear actions that somebody have taken in their life that are not pleasing to God, that are bringing consequences in their lives. Let's keep those two separate. If not, we get a wrong picture of who God is. Sometimes He take us to trials, and we will go out of that affliction by His grace, but sometimes those afflictions come because of consequences of sin, and this is the story that we're looking at. So what are the first symptoms? First, a victory that should have been easy, they find themselves losing 36 lives. And if you read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, there's a truth that is very clear, for the wages of sin is death. Many times we think that that statement is too strong, but I believe the times is too strong because we lose sight of the holiness of God, of how perfect it is, and how wicked we are, how heavy our sin is. What is the second symptom? It calls my attention that in the first battle, in the chapter before this, he asked the Lord, what should they do as they go into Jericho? But in this one, you see this overly confident attitude. Oh, we got it, but you don't see in the picture

a conversation with God. I wonder if the Lord would have told them even before they go into battle, hey, let me tell you something, you shouldn't go because there's a problem in the camp you need to solve before you go into battle. Sometimes a pattern that it happens when sin is hidden under the surface is that we stop listening to God's word. We stop seeking his direction. We think that things are gonna be okay, and we're almost numb to that situation or whatever is happening. I tell them it's like those bugs that start like, you know, sucking your blood, but you don't feel it because they numb you first. That's how sin works in our lives. So when it comes out, it's already a lot of damage caused. But they just go, they think they got it. But the question that Joshua has will be interesting in the next section. But they say that their hearts melted like water. Of course, like you at that moment, you don't know why things are not going right, but it's just showing you there's some symptoms. There's something that are not correct. So let's learn a little bit from the response. We're gonna learn a lot of how we act, how we behave from Joshua and the leader's response. And he says.

Verse six, it says this, then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to 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, oh Lord God, why have you brought these people over the Jordan at all to give us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would that have not been content to dwell beyond the Jordan? Oh 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? So Joshua is like full of sadness, full of sadness, doubt, probably fear. Lord, what are you doing? You just told me you were going to be with me. You just show us your miraculous power of the victory. What is this? It's similar to many times of how Moses reacted. Instead of actually looking deeply into what was the problem in the camp, he goes to God. In a similar way that we see people through all the Old Testament, almost like blaming God. You have left us, you have abandoned us. Lord, this is not working out, but we don't see what's going in here. Which it tells me that in the response,

we can see that spiritual blindness is very common when sin is in the camp. We cannot see things in a way that we should see them. So we go and start blaming, blaming God, blaming others, blaming the circumstances. And who were the Canaanites? Who were the Amorites? A lot of the time we read the Old Testament, we just go from one place to the other, and we don't see that a lot of these stories are separated by hundreds of years. So when Abraham is going on their journey down, being led by the Lord, he goes to Canaan. And the Canaanites and the Amorites and all these nations are there, and it's interesting what God says to Abraham. He said, hey, this is the land that I promise you, but it will not be until that wickedness of the Amorites fills the cup, goes to the top, that I will bring judgment on these nations. You see, these cultures were utterly wicked, shallow sacrifice, you know, like all kinds of evils that there would be happening there. And the Lord, even with them, was so patient to give them 400 plus years. So now we are in the judgment that God has promised to these people. And also you need to learn and understand that God is not impartial. It's not that he will judge these nations,

but he would not judge Israel. There were a time that Israel, and we can see also the story of Israel, that Israel itself was judged, just like the story we see today. So God is bringing judgment to the Canaanites, but they cannot, and he said, you will not be able to have victory over your enemies until you deal with the problem. Sometimes it makes me remember what somebody says of how sin works in our lives. And he said it this way. He said, our hearts can say what our mouth dares not to speak. And our mind will think what our hands dare not to do. You see, sin at this point is still in the background. It's still just being cultivated, it's still being hidden. And that's how our hearts work. Sometimes there's things in our hearts, but we haven't bring it up to the light in the way we speak. Sometimes there are things in our mind that we haven't taken it into action. But it's important that we have a right view of ourselves, and it will pushes us to a really strong dependence on the Lord. When you start knowing your heart and how we're singing how prone to wonder we are, it should lead us to the Lord. Or in popular terms, somebody said,

sin is like cockroaches, it thrives in the darkness. Have a lot of stories about cockroaches, but you can ask my kids, they know them. I don't like them. So the Lord will do what he knows. normally does. He will bring those hidden things to the light. But first, he will point to the root of the problem. The root of the problem. Let's go to verse 10. He said, 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, "'and they have taken some of the devoted things "'they have stolen and lied, "'and put them among their own belongings. "'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 among you.'" You can easily see fast that there's a problem.

And the problem is not that the Lord has abandoned them. The problem is not that the Lord forgot what he was going to do. The problem is that there was sin in the camp. Like somebody else said, the heart of the problem is a problem with the heart. That's where everything lays. And God said, don't look at me, look at your camp. Look there, don't blame me. It's easy to focus on the symptoms and never deal with the root of a problem. It reminded me of this illustration that a friend used in talking about this subject. He used this idea when like a few decades ago, when there was not many tools to determine if somebody was fit to develop their life, their normal life within society. So they will evaluate their mental capacity by putting them in a dark hallway. And at the end of the dark hallway, there was a light. And in that light, there was a sink that it was overflowing. And next to the sink, there was a mop. So if the person will walk in and then see what was going on and depends what he will do, they will say, okay, you're good to go back into society or no, you still need some more work. So a lot of the guys will go walk. And when they see the water falling down, they will grab the mop and start mopping. You see, that's a lot of the time the way we deal with sin.

Oh Lord, I'm just gonna go a little bit more to church. I'm gonna be a little bit more consistent or I'm gonna do a little bit more Christian pose and Christian music. Oh Lord, I'm just going. But we don't forsake. We don't bring to light the thing that are not right in our lives before him in repentance. We need to deal with the heart of the problem, the root of the problem. Is that sin that is destroying our lives? Is that sin that is destroying the people around us? And now in this point, I do feel it that is hitting home, closer to our hearts. When I start seeing the attitudes and the thing that easily creeps into my life, and it's easier to hide them under the tent. So what does God tells Joshua to do? We're not gonna read these verses, but in verse 14, he tells them, go and gather all the people. And from every people, we will grab a tribe. And from that tribe, we'll call a clan. And from that clan, we'll call a family. From the families, we call a man. And I ask, why? Why the Lord is calling a man to be a man? And I ask, why? Why the Lord didn't just, you know, told him the name so he can write it in a sticky notes

and just go and knock the door on the guy and say, hey, come out, we got you. The Lord deals with sin patiently, church. And I believe this lengthy process in a people that some estimated be a hundreds of thousands of people would take long enough that Achan had the chance to say, I mess it up. Like, I sin, Lord, please forgive me. And if you don't pay attention to this detail, it will be hard to understand why he still got the consequences. Because there is a difference between repentance and getting caught. It makes me remember when Adam was asked by the Lord, what have you done? What did Adam do? Ultimately, he said, the woman that you gave me. He blamed God. Why do God ask questions? Why does God gives time? Because he's waiting for us to come forward, for us to come confessing and recognizing this is wrong. I can't do anything about it, but you can. The sad story is that Achan didn't come out during the whole process. So there were consequences. And you know, I trust that the Lord will keep us until the day he comes back, but there are consequences to sin. And you see it even in dear, dear children of God

in the Bible that the Lord loved deeply, but there were consequences to their actions. And the point of the story is not whether Achan was saved or not, the point of the story is that there are consequences to sin. And look what had happened in verses 18 to 21. And he brought near his household, man by man, and Achan, the son of Carmi, son of Sabdi, son of Sarah of the tribe of Judah, was taken. Then Joshua said to Achan, my son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him and tell me now what you have done. Do not hide it from me. And Achan answered Joshua, truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel. And this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shinar and 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, then I coveted them and took them and see that they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath. Achan was caught. All he has to do is basically say what the Lord already revealed to Joshua, that somebody have taken things that didn't belong to them. What Achan took was sufficient for a family to live for a whole year. And you say, what is the big deal? Why the Lord didn't say, hey, Achan, just give it back.

You know, we're all good. He said the message was so strong about what God has said he will do versus what my sin tells God what I believe about him. The Lord said, I'm your provider, I'm your protector. I'll lead you through everything. Achan said, no, you won't. I'll take things for myself. I take things on my hands. And that's how sin works. Sin normally presents an alternative to God's perfect plan and deceives us believing that if we just take the bait, then we'll be better than if we trust God because sometimes he's very uncertain with God. So that's how sin tricks us. And he took the bait. It's not going to be an obvious, completely contradictory statement of who God is. It will be just like a slight alternative. It's not a big thing, which by the way, we live in a culture that tend to minimize sin. And I'm not just talking about the American culture. I'm talking about world culture, wherever you go. What is the process that happened in Achan's life? There's three verbs that are important. And he said that first, what did he do? He saw. Second, he coveted. And third, he took. Exact same process that happened to Adam and Eve.

They saw, they desire, they took. And let me ask you, where are your eyes today? And I'm not talking physical eyes because I know there should be here, your spiritual eyes. Where's your attention? Where's your mind? Is the world grabbing a hold of your mind? Because let me tell you, it's going to develop into the desire. And let me warn you, it's going to develop into inaction. We see it so clear here. What happened in these consequences? Achan was brought out and the sentence was taken over him and his family and everything he owned. And you say, wait, wait, why his family? You know, the sad part of this, and I didn't plan it in Father's Day, but there is a weight. on the leaders of a home. And this tent, as you can imagine, it's not like a three bedroom, two bath, or four bedroom, you know, 3.5 bath, you know, home. You know, we are, I have a little bit more space. He probably had to have people participating in his sin from his family that know that it was hidden underneath and keep the same story. Nevertheless, there was a consequences. And it should make us remember the severity of sin. He says that at that moment, they brought stones

and they put it in like a memorial to remember how the sin of Achan brought trouble to the camp. He says sometimes we need to remember that no sin will go unpunished. But that memorial was made of stones and they remember. So as we see the story of Achan, let me ask you something. Is there anything hiding under your tent today? Bring it to Christ, bring it in confession, bring it to the light. Do not let it go any longer. Maybe the Lord has given you signs like, hey, it's enough. Maybe you need people around you. Maybe the Lord has placed faithful brothers or sisters around you, go to them. I always also tell people we have an amazing care team here in fellowship that can walk along those journeys of sin that at times can take a hold of a life that you need somebody else walking through you in the middle of that, walking with you. And you can send a text if that's you to the email in the screen and they will reach out to you. Church, let's do anything to get rid of whatever is hiding there. Let's not even wait until we have taken action into what is breathing in our minds and hearts. Let's ask the Lord to give us the grace to discern and recognize when those things are just cultivating inside of us. Why? Because today we look back at the memorial,

not like the ones they did made of stones and rocks to remember the sin, we look to a cross, an old rugged cross where somebody was punished and died not for taking what didn't belong to him, but for those that have taken what don't belong to us. Not for his sins, but because of our sins. And because of we can look to that memorial, we have hope that the things of this world, that sin do not worth it. By the way, there was a consequence of our sin to our sin, but it was paid on our behalf on that beautiful cross. And that grace offered to us should be the fuel to walk in obedience to the Lord. It should be the fuel to say, Lord, please help me. I don't want anything to do with the thing that puts you on the cross. But you might be here and have never had an encounter with Christ, have never surrendered your life to him. And I wanna tell you, you can do it. You can do it today and confess him as your Lord and Savior. And the sacrifice that was paid on the cross will cover all your sins, so that you don't perish just like Achan did, so that you receive the forgiveness of sins. You know, like who? Like Rahab, the prostitute. You see the contrast? A prostitute, part of a Gentile pagan culture

receive forgiveness. The one who would not think of somebody that will receive forgiveness is pardoned. And the one who was part of the people of Israel because of his unbelief is condemned and bring judgment to the camp. And by the way, Rahab is part of the line of Jesus. That's amazing. So why don't we take some time to pray and reflect in our own lives? And as the Lord, as David would ask in Psalm 137, examine my heart, O Lord, test my thoughts. So let's take some time to pray. Let's bow our hands. Dear Heavenly Father, we come before you. We ask. I ask you that you will open our minds and our hearts to see the thing that we need to see, to bring the thing that we need to bring before you into the light, Lord, to seek the help that we need to seek. Thank you for that grace that was offered in the cross, that we may not perish like Achan, because your son, Jesus Christ paid on our behalf. Dear Heavenly Father, we ask you that you would bring freedom to our lives. If there's people that are trapped, that you will bring freedom to their lives. And if there's people that have not gotten

to surrender their lives to you, that today will be the day. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.