PODCAST
The Cost of Sin
October 18, 2026 | Kyle BjergaKyle Bjerga discusses that sin has consequences, and the story of Achan in Joshua 7 makes that truth impossible to ignore. After Israel’s miraculous victory at Jericho, one man’s secret act of disobedience led to a devastating defeat at Ai and affected an entire nation. God’s response revealed both His justice and His patience, as He gave Achan multiple opportunities to come forward before the truth was exposed. Achan eventually confessed, but confession alone is not repentance. True repentance, as Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 7:10, is driven by godly sorrow that leads to genuine change, not just regret over consequences. Ultimately, Achan’s story points forward to Jesus, who bore the penalty for our sin so that God’s wrath could be fully satisfied. The invitation is not to feel bad about sin but to truly turn from it and trust in what Christ has already done.
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TRANSCRIPT_______________________________________________+
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Good morning. To learn from Jesus. Today we’re going to be in Joshua, chapter seven. So go ahead and turn there. It’s page 173.
If you’re using one of the black pew Bibles there in front of you or maybe underneath your pew. If you have watched any of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, the mcu, then, you know, if you’re in the theater, you never leave when the movie’s done and the credits start, because you know there’s going to be a post credit scene, some sort of teaser to get you ready for the next movie, the next 50 movies. If Joshua Six last week is the Lord’s victory over Jericho. If that was a movie, it would end triumphantly with the Israelites going in and defeating Jericho. And once those walls come down, the final dust settles in the victory.
You can almost hear the narrator kind of finish up some storylines that we’ve been paying attention to throughout Joshua so far. And so we hear about Rahab and her family being saved from the rubble because of the promise made to her. Maybe there’s another scene where we have some men carrying some things to a pile that they’re going to light on fire and destroy while some other men take the gold and the silver and they walk over to the treasury in the Lord’s house. And then the screen turns to black and the credits start rolling. Time to grab our empty popcorn buckets and head out.
And as we’re headed down the stairs, the credits stop for a second and there’s a figure standing in the middle of the screen. We don’t know who this is. We’re thinking, this Joshua. No, it’s not Joshua. We know who he is.
We don’t know this man yet. But here he is in the rubble of Jericho and he’s looking at the plunder. He sees some beautiful clothes. He sees some silver shekels, he sees some gold bars. And he quickly does a scan.
Anybody around? Nobody’s around. Nobody’s watching him. So he grabs a bag that he finds and he starts to put some things in there, just enough that he can carry. And then in the distance, we hear somebody say, hey, Achan.
Achan turns and looks. He’s got his little bag. And he runs off to celebrate the Israelite victory with the other soldiers. The screen goes black again and we leave the theater thinking, who is this man? Who is Achan?
What has he just done? Why does it matter? We have to wait till next summer to find out.
So as good as the battle of Jericho was and how it turned out for the Israelites, we’re going to see the tables turn on them very quickly in chapter seven, as they approach their next enemy, the city of AI. But what we learn is that the real enemy is not an external one. The real enemy ends up being in their camp. Actually, the real enemy ends up being inside of each one of them. And the reality for us is that the real enemy is inside each one of us.
Because the enemy that they will face, the enemy that we face is the sin in our lives and the seriousness with which God deals with sin, while at the same time understand the amazing grace of God, of how he treats sinners, how he treats the rebellious, even in our sin. So the great thing is that we don’t actually have to wait until next summer to find out about this movie, this sequel. We get it today in chapter seven. So we’re going to see kind of in four scenes here, we’re going to learn a lot about sin. And so we’re going to start off first with the result of sin.
So let’s look at verse one, reading through verse nine. But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things. Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of them. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel. Now Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI, which is near Beth Aven, to the east of Bethel, and told them, go up and spy out the region.
So the men went up and spied out AI. When they returned to Joshua, they said, not all the army will have to go up against AI. Send two or three thousand men to take it. And do not weary the whole army, for only a few people live there. So about 3,000 went up.
But they were routed by the men of AI, who killed about 36 of them. They chased the Israelites from the city gate as far as the stone quarries and struck them down on the slopes. At this, the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell face down to the ground before the Ark of the Lord, remaining there till evening. The elders of Israel did the same and sprinkled dust on their heads.
And Joshua said, alas, sovereign Lord, why did you ever bring this people across the Jordan? To deliver us into the hands of the Amorites, to destroy us. If only we had been content to stay on the other side of the Jordan. Pardon your servant, Lord. What can I say now that Israel has been routed by its enemies, the Canaanites and the Other people of the country will hear about this and they will surround us and wipe out our name from the earth.
What then will you do for your own great name? So first, the result of sin. So verse one connects the last movie with the sequel. And so if we imagine this chapter seven being the next movie, the sequel’s gonna start off with a battle scene and the Israelites are losing and losing badly to their enemy. And as they do, we’re gonna hear these words from verse 1.
The Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things. Achan took some of them. So the Lord’s anger burned against Israel. So sin and its consequences, including God’s wrath against sin, are major themes in this chapter. We’re gonna see it all the way throughout and we’re going to see it on display through most of the verses.
Then we’re going to get to verse 26 and we’re going to see verse one and verse 26 kind of bookend this chapter with God’s wrath. And yet God’s anger is talked about in two different ways in these two verses. We read here that the people, Israel plural, were unfaithful. And how were they unfaithful? Achan, the Israelite singular, took some of the devoted things from Jericho.
So was it Israel or Achan who took the devoted things? Yes, you see in verse one, it sets up a very important spiritual and cultural truth that we have a really hard time understanding in our hyper individualistic corporation culture. When Achan sins, Israel sins. In a strong group culture, which Israel was, you are not just an individual, you are part of the whole. You are representing the group.
There was a corporate responsibility. You would help each other out, you would support each other, you’d pick each other up, you would raise each other’s kids. Some of you even know what that was like. How many of you got in trouble from somebody else’s parents back in the day? Right?
Ask my dad. He got called on quite a few times with neighbors because that’s what you did. It’s a strong group culture. We’re all in this together. You feel the personal responsibility for the well being of other people.
Not so today. We go in our garages and try and avoid everybody else. This isn’t the case here. And it’s important to understand because we’re going to see this pop up again later. Where do we see this today though?
If you’ve ever been a part of a sports team, you know, you get a little bit of what this is like. We win and we what as a team, right? We win as a team, we lose as a team. When somebody does well, we all do well. When somebody goes after one of us, they go after all of us.
One player breaks the rule, we all break the rule. One person misses curfew, we all get on the line and run sprints because we’re part of a team. We’re running for their stupidity, but they’re our teammate, and so we’re going to be there right alongside them running. The thing is, we all know the rules on a team. And Achan knew the rule.
Achan knew the rule, just like all Israel did, because God’s instructions through Joshua in chapter six were very clear as they’re about to enter into Jericho. So you can look over in the last chapter, but I’ll just read it for us in Joshua 6, 17, 19, this is what God says through Joshua. The city and all that is in it are to be devoted to the Lord. But keep away from the devoted things so that you will not bring about your own destruction by taking any of them. Otherwise you will make the camp of Israel liable to destruction and bring trouble.
And on it, Achan knowingly put himself, the nation, and his family at risk for trouble. By the way, Achan’s name means troubler. So he’s living up to that name, really leaning into it here. So that’s just verse one. So we as a reader know what’s going on right now, and Joshua has no idea.
Joshua does not know what Achan has done at this point. So as he comes up to AI, there’s no prayer of seeking the Lord’s guidance on what should happen with the next enemy before them. But God just did an amazing thing by using some marching, some shouts and some trumpet blows to bring down the walls of this garrison. Joshua probably should have said, hey, Lord, any anything for this one? Anything different that we’re not expecting?
But no. What does he do? He sends out spies and he has them kind of figure out, like, what is AI? Like, can we go after them? What should we do?
And these spies maybe living high on the recent victory over Jericho, come back and say, eh, AI is nothing. You know, we don’t even need to send the whole army. 2,3000 should be enough. They’re small, it’s easy, let’s just relax. And he gives the okay and they attack.
It’s a very quick fight scene. They get routed, 36 of their men die, and they are fleeing before their enemies. And the result of the defeat we read is that the people’s Hearts melt in fear like water. That should sound familiar to you because in chapter two, when Rahab is talking to the Israelite spies, they’re coming in, just knocking on the door, basically, of Jericho. She says, the people here, our hearts are melting in fear because of you and your God, because we heard what your God did by bringing you out of Egypt.
And now God’s own people have their hearts melting in fear before him because they know what he has just allowed and they know what he might do. So what do you do after a massive loss like that? Especially when you aren’t really sure why you lost? Joshua has a prayer service. Him and the elders lay themselves before the ark of the Lord, before the presence of God.
And Joshua basically asked God this, why did you bring us here to cross the Jordan to deliver us into the enemy’s hands. Now the people are going to think we’re weak. The people might even think that maybe their God isn’t with them anymore. They’re going to surround us and they’re going to defeat us. And Joshua, it’s just a prayer of desperation in this moment.
And he’s going to the right place. He’s going to the Lord, but he has no idea why he lost. Was it something that he did? Was it his prayerlessness? Was it the bad advice of the spies?
Was it bad strategizing? And you know, what? It might have been all of those things, all of that was probably lacking, but that wasn’t the reason they lost. He finishes where all prayers should end, seeking the glory of God in his name. When he says, what are you going to do about your great name, God?
And in God’s mercy, he reveals to Joshua the reason for the loss. And not only this loss, but if they want to advance into the promised land, he needs them to know what’s going on in his camp. And that’s what we get. In the second scene, the revelation of sin. Look at verse 10.
We’re going to read through 18. The revelation of sin.
The Lord said to Joshua, stand up. What are you doing down in your face. Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things they have stolen, they have lied.
They have put them with their own possessions. That is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They turn their backs and run because they have been made liable to destruction. I will not be with you anymore unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction. Go consecrate the people.
Tell them, consecrate yourselves in Preparation for tomorrow. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel. There are devoted things among you, Israel. You cannot stand against your enemies until you remove them. In the morning, present yourselves tribe by tribe.
The tribe the Lord chooses shall come forward clan by clan. The clan the Lord chooses shall come forward, family by family. And the family the Lord chooses shall come forward man by man. Whoever is caught with the devoted thing shall be destroyed by fire along with all that belongs to him. He has violated the covenant of the Lord and has done an outrageous thing in Israel.
Early the next morning, Joshua had Israel come forward by tribes, and Judah was chosen. The clans of Judah came forward and the Zerahites were chosen. He had the clan of the Zerahites come forward by family, and Zimri was chosen. Joshua had his family come forward man by man, And Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zimri, the son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah was chosen. We’ll pause there.
So we have a prayer meeting tonight that you heard about. Imagine the Lord answers that prayer right in the middle of whatever we’re praying tonight and says, stand up. And he gives us the answer. Here’s the answer to your prayers. And that’s what he does.
For Joshua, the answer is simple. It’s none of what Joshua thinks it might be. God says, there is sin in the camp. That’s why you lost. You have violated the covenant that I made, doing what you were told not to do.
And then he gives this rundown of the sins that are committed. He says, you’ve taken the devoted things you have stolen from God, tried to deceive God and everyone else by taking it and hiding it somewhere else in your own possessions. And so the destruction that came on the people, the loss of the battle, the loss of 36 lives, don’t forget, was all a very clear consequence of this action that God spelled out in Joshua 6. You’re liable to destruction if you bring these things in, if you take them. And what’s interesting is God doesn’t say, okay, now you’ve learned your lesson.
You lost that battle against AI. Now you can go ahead and keep that stuff, right? I hope you slap on the wrist, you’ve learned your lesson. I mean, I had a friend of mine once who had a child that got a phone from somewhere they weren’t supposed to have a phone. And they found that phone and they said, all right, well, now that you know what you did was wrong, I’ll let you keep it.
What? Like, how are you supposed to learn anything there so God doesn’t say, like, all right, well, you can keep the devoted things now because now you learned your lesson. He’s like, no, you need to do something decisively about this because these are devoted to me and they were stolen. Because God goes after sin. He takes it seriously.
And he says, you’re going to keep experiencing the same thing that just happened at AI if you go against them again or any other nation, unless you devote everything to destruction, it has to be destroyed. But do you see God’s grace in this? He doesn’t have to tell them that. He could just let them keep going after AI and other nations that keep losing and keep losing. He says, I will make a way for you to have victory even though you sin.
You just have to take care of it. And in order to do that, we have to find out who the guilty party is. Joshua still doesn’t know. The people still don’t know. Only Achan, only Achan knows.
So he says, tell the people to prepare themselves for tomorrow, the next day. That’s important. Remember that the next day. This is now the time that people are going to find out what actually happened. One of them took the devoted things, and there’s no way to defeat AI or inanimation until that poison, that cancer is removed from the camp.
And it’s not going to be fun. It’s not going to be an easy process. But sin is no light matter. And I want you to see in this moment, God could have shown a spotlight on Achan right then and there. That’s the guy.
He could have done that very easily, but he doesn’t, because God is merciful and compassionate while he’s also a just judge. Listen to the process that they’re going to go through for this kind of discovery of the guilty party that God lays out for Joshua. He says, one, tell everyone to consecrate themselves, prepare themselves to stand before me tomorrow. So, yes, come in your Sunday best. Make sure you are clean and purified.
But even more, prepare your hearts, search your hearts to see if there’s any sin in you. Did you take the devoted things? Because everyone in the nation is going to stand before the Lord. This is like one giant trial before God. The nation is going to court, and when you gather tomorrow, you’re going to stand by tribes and clans and families and by a process of elimination, there will be one person remaining.
So this is the moment where, at least for the Israelites, if they know they’ve done nothing wrong, this is like that player on that team, when the Coach is disciplining the whole team, and eventually he wants to really find out who actually did it. Where you’re like, oh, phew, okay, it’s not me. I know I didn’t do the wrong thing. I did the right thing. So for some people, it’s probably like, all right, I’ll stand before God.
I did nothing wrong. I know that. Maybe there’s like a handful of people, like, I don’t really know, did I? And then there’s Achan. And he knows.
He knows. But this whole process to me sounds a lot like the mercy and patience of God to Achan, because this whole thing is set up to reveal the one who is guilty. And yet God has given him chance after chance after chance to confess and repent.
Imagine this scene. It is highly organized. God is so intentional here, and he’s drawing on the seriousness of sin. So find your immediate family. Then start getting the cousins and the uncles and the aunts and the grandparents.
You’re going to start to get together with your clans. Then you’re going to find the rest of the tribe. You’re going to gather around together. Maybe you’ve been in school. When they hand out, like, colored sheets of paper, say, anybody with green, you’re over here.
Anybody with red, you’re over there. Like, this is highly organized and everybody’s getting to their place so they can stand before the Lord in their tribes.
Imagine Achan, that morning, he gathers with his family before they head out. What’s going on in his head? Does he really think he’s going to get away with this?
Is he really that blinded by his sin? Does he really not fear the Lord that much? It’s probably a combination of both of those. Of course, maybe God didn’t see through this whole process. We don’t know how it happened, but they start this process picking a tribe, a clan, a family, down to an individual.
But what we know is that God has overseeing all of this because the guilty party remains. The man responsible is the one who is standing there in the end by himself. And now the people know who’s responsible. By my calculations, there are at least six times in this passage that Achan had a chance to drop to his knees before Joshua, before the nation, before God, and confess his sin. Verse 13.
We have this general message regarding the need for consecration before the revelation of the sin tomorrow.
There has been a stealing of the devoted things in the camp, and Achan stays silent. Verse 15. There is a personalized message, a warning to the one who is caught that all they have all that belongs to them will be destroyed by fire. Achan stays silent. Verse 16.
The next day, he had a whole evening to search his heart. He had a whole evening to pray, to confess, to talk to his family, to call his friends over, to turn everything over, to grab Joshua in the morning and say, hey, Joshua, I need to talk to you for a second. I need to tell you what I did. Achan stays silent. And then through three rounds, from the tribe, to the clan, to the family, he stays silent over and over and over again.
It’s just him now standing before Joshua, before the leaders, before the nation, before God. It’s too late. He’s had chance after chance. Cause you see, God responds to repentance. What we have here is he’s been found out.
He is the remaining guilty party. But God responds to repentance, and we don’t get that from Achan. This man stands before God and before Joshua as guilty of stealing, of lying, of hiding his sin, and the death of 36 soldiers who went into AI and fell because of his sin. And he will be guilty of everything that happens to all his possessions and his family. So it’s important to ask here.
What are you hiding right now? What are you hiding away buried deep in your heart? What secrets are you keeping? Because in the book of Numbers, it’s clear your sin will find you out one way or another. Sin will be pointed out.
It can happen here as you humble yourself and bring it out in confession and repentance. Or it can happen at the final judgment when you will confess. But you will have no chance to repent because now is that time. Now is that time to repent, to turn from your sin, to believe in Jesus and see how that godly sorrow leads you to repentance and salvation. The easier thing in the moment here is for him to keep it hidden.
That is the easier thing. But the easier thing is not the better thing.
Bring it to light now and see how God responds to your repentance. My boys and I were watching a movie a couple weeks ago called We Bought a Zoo. Not the best movie, but it’s okay. But there was a quote in it, and the guy kind of lived by this quote. It was like, all you need is 20 seconds of insane courage to do something.
To do something amazing, do something great, do something challenging in just 20 seconds of embarrassing bravery. And I just. This was running through my mind as I heard that quote. Aiken just. He needed two seconds.
I did it. He just needed to, for two seconds, have the courage to Say, I did it to stand up, instead of seeing all of these different things happen until he is revealed as the one in sin. And so now Achan takes the stand, kind of for his defense, for what he has done. We start to see the kind of roots of his sin. So look at verse 19 through 23.
Then Joshua said to Achan, my son, give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel, and honor him. Tell me what you have done. Do not hide it from me. Achan replied, it is true, I have sinned against the Lord, the God of Israel. This is what I have done.
When I saw in the plunder a beautiful robe from Babylonia, 200 shekels of silver and a bar of gold weighing 50 shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent with the silver underneath. So Joshua sent messengers and they ran to the tent, and there it was, hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. They took the things from the tent, brought them to Joshua and all the Israelites, and spread them out before the Lord. So at this point, Achan is all alone.
There’s no hiding anymore. Sin is out in the open.
And so he stands there before everyone, guilty. And the meaning here of Joshua is he comes up to him and asks him or tells him to give glory to the Lord, the God of Israel. What he’s saying here in the Hebrew, it’s kind of like nuanced. He’s coming to me saying, in order to give glory to God, you need to confess. You need to confess in this moment.
The Lord has revealed to all of us what you have done. You are guilty. Now give glory to God and honor him by confessing what you. There’s no point in running or hiding it anymore. And not just that, it carries the idea of confess and be ready to accept God’s just punishment for your sin.
And so Achan speaks up, and he confesses now to what he has done, explaining how he got from standing in the plunder of Jericho to burying that treasure in his tent, which is exactly where Joshua and his men find it when they search for it. And Achan says, I saw a beautiful robe from Babylonia, shekels of silver, gold bars, the same plunder, by the way, that many of the other Israelites would have seen. And they didn’t take it when they went through the rubble. The key is what happened in Achan’s heart, because he says it right here. I coveted them and I took them.
I thought my life would be better with them. This people has been in the Wilderness for a long time, not with a lot of stuff. God is providing food for them. God is providing what they need, but they don’t really necessarily have all that they want. So how enticing would it be to go through and see this enemy fall?
It’s like, well, Jericho doesn’t need it anymore. Nobody’s going to miss just a little bit. So why don’t I just take a little? So he starts to play this in his mind, and he covets the. And then he takes them.
If you know your Bible, it sounds very familiar. Genesis, chapter three. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. Achan saw the plunder. It looked good.
He wanted it, desired it. So he took it and he hid it. And so he has confessed, but it’s with his back against the wall, right? He’s been found out. Confession is not repentance.
You can confess without repenting. That’s very, very important for us to understand. You can confess without repentance. You can say, I did something wrong. I sinned against the Lord, I took something I wasn’t supposed to without a desire to stop or to change.
But that’s what repentance is. It’s that turning. It’s that change. So he confesses. But we never see repentance here.
And so the whole idea of feeling bad about what we’ve done, that’s worldly sorrow. That’s worldly sorrow. You are bummed about what the sin has done, the consequences that you’re experiencing, the feelings that you have. But that doesn’t lead to lasting change, because you’re not upset about the fact that you rebelled against God. You’re not upset about the grievousness of your sin against a holy God who has given you your very breath.
And the Lord is looking for repentance. So what is repentance? I like this definition that I heard this week from Matt Chandler. Actually, this is funny. There’s no such thing as just a coincidence, right?
Or just so happened. This happened. I was watching something else, totally unrelated, and the next video popped up was Matt Chandler talking about a culture of repentance in our churches. Like that seems pretty good because that’s what I’m preaching on this week. And this is what he says.
This is the definition of repentance. Repentance is the act whereby one turns from his or her sin against idolatry and creaturely rebellion and turns to God in faith. See it’s not just confession. It’s the act whereby one turns from his or her sin, idolatry and creaturely rebellion and turns to God in faith. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7, which you heard read earlier.
Paul has sent another letter to the Corinthians and it brought some sorrow to them. But he’s actually not feeling too bad about that. Cause he knows what the sorrow is doing in their lives. And this is where it picks up in verse nine. Yet now I am happy.
Not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret. But worldly sorrow brings death. I am sure Achan experienced regret.
If only I could go back in that moment and say no to that temptation, I would not be here. How many times has that been you or me?
But regret just wishes something didn’t happen, that we could go back, which isn’t enough to necessarily change things in the future. I know. Because we continue to sin and sometimes it’s really hard to give up certain sins. And that’s where we need repentance. When you say, yeah, that’s what I did in the past, I wish I didn’t do that.
I can’t change that though. So now, in this moment, as I turn, how can I prepare myself so that I don’t do that again? So you’re not living with the regret you’re looking and seeing. How is God going to redeem this in my life? And how is he going to change things for me in the future?
And when we realize that we’ve sinned against a holy God, that our sin is seriousness, every consequence we experience is just. That’s when we run to Jesus and we experience his salvation. That’s what 2 Corinthians 7 says. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and worldly sorrow. Regret, just confessing will lead to death.
So if you’re hearing this and you know there is sin in your life right now, that what you have done is rebellion against against God, it is evil. It is grievous. Then you confess and repent. Come to God in faith. Don’t hide it any longer.
We talk about this a lot here. The cross says there’s nothing that you’ve done that Jesus didn’t pay for on the cross. Nothing, surely. Yeah, but what about this? Paid for.
Yeah, but what about that? Every Thought, every word, every action that, that we have done. What Jesus did on the cross is enough to cover all of it. But are we gonna repent of it? Are we gonna turn from it?
Are we gonna see what Jesus has actually done, the cost of his life for us, so that we can say, I have been forgiven. I can change. He can change me. And now it’s just not regret of the past. It’s like, what is the Lord gonna do?
Redeeming this.
This leads to our last scene, Then the response to sin. Look at verse 24 through 26. Then Joshua, together with all Israel, took Achan, son of Zerah, the silver, the robe, the gold bar, his sons and daughters, his cattle, donkeys and sheep, his tent and all that he had to the valley of Achor. Joshua said, why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord will bring trouble on you today.
Then all Israel stoned him. And after they had stoned the rest, they burned them over Achan, they heaped up a pile of rocks, which remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his fierce anger. Therefore, that place has been called the Valley of Achor ever since. So Achan, his children, his cattle, his possessions are all taken out of the camp, signifying the removal of sin from the camp.
Very important. Everything he took from Jericho is out there as well. And at this point, we see Achan with his treasure. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. He’s standing there with what he thought in the moment was better than everything else God had given him.
He’s there with his treasure. Is his treasure his family, or was it his stuff? We don’t know. But there he is, standing with everything that he has. Everything that has been associated with Achan has now become part of what is devoted to destruction, treated just like the city of Jericho, because the Israelites were supposed to go in and bring God with them.
They weren’t supposed to take Jericho with them. But that’s what he’s doing, taking a little part of Jericho. And in that moment now, he has become what he has worshiped.
We are what we eat. We are what we worship. And so here he is standing with all his stuff, with all his possessions. And there’s no doubt this is a difficult passage to read. Definitely difficult to read in front of your family.
Difficult to understand and to walk away feeling good. And we need to acknowledge that maybe we can all see how Akin could get to this point, how he is getting what he deserves. Maybe that’s you. But his sons and daughters, like, what do the animals do all of his stuff.
You know, when we think about sports too, there have been teams that worked really hard to win championships and then they get those championships stripped. Why? Usually because one person cheated. One person did something that wasn’t right, that went against the rules and they stripped the entire team of their championship. They take all that away from them.
And we’re sitting there and how many of us have said, that’s not fair?
I mean, am I the only one that’s not fair? So we’re sitting here like, that’s sports. This is people’s lives.
That’s happening right here. So what do we do with this? Why the family? Why the animals? Why the other possessions?
A couple things to say. We can’t stand on scripture on this firmly, but there is a chance that the family was complicit in what he did. We don’t know. What I do know is that I change things in my office a lot. Brandon loves to comment on that.
When my family comes into my office, there’s like, usually, what’d you do? What’d you move? Why is that there? I don’t like that there. I do like that there.
Like, I can’t move something in my office without my family recognizing it. And here he is digging a hole in his tent with his treasure, the stuff he was not supposed to have. You’re thinking, how in the world would he have done that without people knowing, going unnoticed? We don’t know for sure. It just seems really hard to think they didn’t know anything in that moment.
And then the other thing is, think about maybe they just died because their father was guilty and sinned and they didn’t know about it. This is not a commentary on the sons and daughters life. It’s a commentary on Achan and what he did. So in these moments, like, is that fair?
And I’m just saying, like, we have to wrestle with these things without walking away with a satisfactory answer because we get very little here. All we know is everything Achan had was devoted to destruction. A word to parents, just briefly on this. We need to watch our lives because again, what he did was by taking the devoted things was saying, God isn’t enough. We need these things in our life.
And so our kids are watching. When we think about generational sin, we think things being passed down. The most embarrassing thing for me is to go to my kids and confess sin in my life that I see in them because I know where they saw it and it’s in me and they’re responsible for their Own actions. I’m responsible for my own actions on this side of the cross. We know that we’re each individually responsible for what we do, not the sins of others.
But I can certainly pass down some bad DNA. I am passing down some bad DNA. And so I need to watch my life. I need to think about my life as an example to them. Because imagine if his family sees him do this and then get away with it.
What kind of view do they have about God? What kind of view are they going to have about their own sin in their life? It’s not that big of a deal. I can hide it. God’s not gonna find out.
No, we take sin seriously in our life. And parents or kids, students. Ah man, all the students are on the retreat. Bummer. Okay, I’ll tell them when they get back.
Kids and students, like, if you see sin in your parents life, you should say something to them lovingly and respectfully. But if it is sin, you’re gonna want to say something. And I mean that. If my kids call me out for sin, I need to know that, not preferences, not I don’t like this. But if they say, dad, you’re doing this, I want to know that one.
Because they’re seeing it, they’re noticing it, and I want to do something about it. But no matter how you look at this question of how this happened, why God did this, the text doesn’t say a whole lot. There are some truths that we can hold onto in moments like this. So there’s a truth with any sort of tough passage like this that, that I come back to over and over again. I’ve said it here before.
I say it in journey group, community group, because we have to be very clear that God does not have to defend himself in this moment. He does not have to defend himself for his judgment, and he won’t defend it. So the question that I have is an anchor in my own soul for this. In tough passages and suffering and other moments, things like school shootings that happen, where you’re always like, why? Why?
Why did you allow this to happen? When I can’t see the bigger picture? This is the question that comes to mind every single time. It’s the question that Abraham asked in Genesis 18 before God judges Sodom and Gomorrah, he says, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right? Will not the judge who sees everything, who was there with Abraham, who is there at this moment that we’re reading about today in Joshua 7?
He was there at the cross. He’s here today. If he can see everything, know everything is good and right in all his judgments, will not the judge of all the earth do what is right? Did he not know Achan’s heart and his family’s hearts? Did he not have reason for why he did this?
He does. Does he need to explain them to us? No.
I do know that he sent his own son to the cross.
Achan went to his death for his own sin.
He paid for his own sin and he gives up his name. His family is blotted out because he went as an Israelite to say, I’ve become like a Canaanite in taking and stealing from God. And he is no longer in the books. Rahab the prostitute, the Canaanite becomes an Israelite because of her repentance and faith and belief. He in the God of Israel.
It is very different. You see the contrast there. And then they pile these rocks on top of everything. We just had stones a few weeks ago, as the people cross over the Jordan river, they put these 12 stones up as a memorial to say, this is how the Lord has brought us into the Promised land. And these rocks will represent God’s holiness and how he takes sin seriously.
So when we ask the question, why does God do this here in this time, he doesn’t always act in this way. We have to think about Israel’s history, read through their history. Every time they sin, and it goes unchecked. Every time there lacks in judgment. When people aren’t held accountable, when leaders get to do whatever they want, terrible things happen to the people of Israel.
Exile and death and the like. And then remember, they just came out of the promised land or out of the wilderness for 40 years, kept out of the Promised land because of the sin of the former generation for their lack of faith in God. And now they’re going to enter in and sin against the Lord. Are they going to be in this for another 40 years? Say like, no, you guys are stopped here.
No, he says, I am giving you away. Destroy the devoted things and you will be able to continue on in the Promise land. So why does this story matter for us? Remember I said that this book, the Wrath of God, bookends this chapter, verse one and verse 26. In verse one we read that the Lord’s anger burned against Israel and they lose in their battle against AI, their enemy.
Now, with the things devoted to destruction destroyed, God said, if you do that, I will provide a way for you. And what we see in verse 26, it says, then the Lord turned from his fierce Anger. See the wrath of God right there burning against Israel. And now he has turned from his fierce anger toward them. It burned against Israel, it burned against Achan.
And now it has been turned away because they finally destroyed the very last of Jericho. They’ve destroyed the very last of the devoted things. And the only way for God’s wrath to be satisfied is to judge sin. And while Achan’s sin brought guilt to the nation, while the nation experienced those consequences of that sin, they didn’t face the ultimate judgment of death. Achan took that spot, dying for his own sin, and yet representing the people.
And because of his death, God turned away his anger from Israel so they can continue in the promised land. Ain’t Achan his family, the Israelites, you and me, all deserve what happened to Achan. We all deserve that. And if you don’t think that, then you don’t understand how great our sin is against this holy God cause God’s judgment, our sin, idolatry and creature rebellion against him deserves death. And yet he sends his son, Jesus, who was actually innocent without sin, no one could point a finger at him and say he was wrong in any way.
And he was taken outside the city as a sinner, which he wasn’t, nailed into a cross representing us, our sin, the penalty for our sin. His lifeless body was not covered with rocks, but it was put into a rock. They hewn out this space there for this grave and somebody ends up giving it and he is put inside of that. Achan’s body remained under those rocks. Jesus did not stay in the rock.
He rose from the dead victorious, showing that God’s wrath was completely satisfied in him. The one died for many. So when we think like, is it fair that this happened to Achan and all that we need to ask, is it fair that we’re here? Is it fair that we’re saved? Is it fair that Jesus Christ went to the cross?
Because here’s the thing, Achan knew in that moment before he dies that he is guilty of his sin. Jesus went to the cross knowing he wasn’t guilty. So Achan didn’t give up his life. His life was taken from him, just like he took from Jericho, just like he took from God. Jesus laid down his life.
There’s a big difference. He laid down his life for us. And God’s wrath was satisfied in that moment for all those who call on Jesus name. So when we understand all this, when we understand our sin against a holy God, the length and depth of his grace in sending Jesus to save us, we start to understand what godly sorrow actually looks like.
Which leads to the big idea today. Let godly sorrow lead you to repentance. Let godly sorrow lead you to to repentance. Godly sorrow is understanding the evil and grievousness of our sin before a holy God. It’s seeing the distance between you and your intimacy with God.
It’s taking full responsibility without any excuse for what you’ve done. And finally, it is coming up with a plan to keep yourself from stumbling again, that turn in your life. And you are going to get a chance to talk through that this week in community group. So be thinking about it now. Here’s what I don’t want to have happen.
When you meet with your community group to say nothing. There is something in your life that you are living like with a worldly sorrow. You feel bad about it, you might confess it, but you’re not repenting of it. Start to ask the Holy Spirit to give you the courage those 20 seconds to say, this is what I’m dealing with. If you can’t do that in community group, you’re going to continue to hide your sin.
Cause who else will you feel comfortable with? That’s what the community is for. That’s what the community was like. Then he should have felt comfortable to go to somebody and say, this is what I did. So you’re gonna get some time to do that in a few moments personally, before we take the Lord’s Supper, you are gonna have an opportunity to confess sin in your life.
And I’m praying that you have 20 seconds of courage to say, lord, this is what I’m dealing with. You know it, but I am confessing it and I am repenting of it. Now, in this moment, examining your life just to make sure you are taking this meal in a worthy manner. And just a quick word to my City View family. Remember I said the strong group culture was kind of the norm back then.
You know, that’s supposed to be us now. It’s not just the norm back then with Israel. Read through the New Testament, see all the one another passages. That’s exactly it. We confess to one another.
It means be the safe place where people can confess and repent of their sins so that we can then encourage one another in the faith.
It also has other community application for us in protecting our church against sin. When we see sin, when it’s there, we keep each other accountable. We call it out. Church discipline is a part of this so that we keep the purity of the church, so that we can continue to pursue God unhindered by sin, the things that we’re hiding in our lives so that we can represent Jesus Christ to the world. Well, in our church, the story isn’t over for the people of Israel.
That’s just part one. You don’t have to wait a whole summer though again for the next blockbuster, but you do have to come back next Sunday. So you have to wait a week because the story of Israel and AI is not complete. But we see if they want to continue, if they want to advance, they needed to take care of this sin and, and take care of it decisively. And by God’s grace they did that.
And by God’s grace, we will do that in our own lives, even as we come to the Lord’s table. Would you please pray with me?
Lord, we come before you grateful that you love us, that you are filled with mercy and compassion towards the sinful people that we are, that even in our rebellion you have made a way for us to be saved.
And Lord, I pray in these moments, as Brandon comes to lead us before we take of this bread and cup, that we spend these moments before you confessing and repenting the sin in our life so that we can take this meal today with glad hearts, with thankful hearts, with forgiven hearts. We pray all this in Jesus name, Amen.