[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: Let's listen in.
Gracias.
That means thank you. Gracias mucho. That means a lot. I'm grateful for you. I'm glad that you're here. We want to welcome in all of our friends watching online from around the world. So come on, High Ridge family. Give them a big warm round of applause.
Hey, everybody.
Want to especially welcome all of the Berry family watching from Cameroon, our missionaries there. Everybody say hello to the Berries. Come on.
We love you guys. We miss you guys. So grab your Bibles and follow along with us, if you wouldn't mind. Joshua chapter seven is where we're going to spend all of our time. And as we're turning there to Joshua 7, I want to say thank you for your generosity. You guys are an amazing and a giving, a tithing and a serving church. I want to thank you so much for the ways that you financially support us. We could not do what God has called us to do without a lot of people like you standing behind us, giving faithfully every single week. Your tithes and your offerings are doing incredible things, not just in Longview, not just in this church, but around the world. And we're so, so very grateful for all of you who have chosen to to give and to be a blessing here. Thank you for that. We also want to say because of your generosity, we were able to hold another men's gathering. These guys were doing some duck pin bowling. And let me just tell you, you will not look more masculine than when you're duck pin bowling. Just kidding. We're so glad you guys can come. We have an amazing men's ministry and we're thankful to be able to do things like that because you guys give and we're appreciative. Thank you so much for supporting us. It's a big deal. So I want to continue on with our series. We're actually going to wrap this up today, the Father first series. We're all talking about God's priorities. What matters to God, and here's what we see through scripture is that firsts matter. You know this in your own life.
Do you know this with the Lord? The first matters to God.
It's really important to him. It's special to him. For those of us that have, that have lived longer than about five minutes. You understand that after your first breath you experience a lot of firsts and those firsts become milestone moments in your life. Your first love, your first car. I remember the first time I got a car and it, it wasn't much, I'm just telling you, but it was a big deal to me.
The first time my friends got in that car and wanted to go through Taco Bell's drive through, I'm like, you're not eating this in my car. They're like, are you serious dude? And this thing, I'm like, hey, it's new to me. Come on. Somebody first, first matter and they matter a lot to the Lord.
Now for those of us that were raised in the 70s, 80s and 90s inside of Christian households, the comedian Nate Bargazi said it when it. When things were the most Christian.
We understand that there were some things that were that, that were not, that was not for us.
Things that you experienced maybe if you didn't, if you weren't raised and didn't grow up in, inside of the holiness movement or the, the non denom movement when things were the most Christian. There's some things that your parents thought were not a big deal that my parents believed were the devil.
Anybody else raised in a home like that, come on. The most Christians. Yeah, where are we at? Come on, let's Lord Jesus right now. We need some health, we need some healing, need some help.
There are some things that other people got to, they got to experience that, that wasn't available to me. I didn't understand when, when people would talk about we went to the movies. We didn't have television in my home. So going to the movies is so far removed from, from people like me. That was, that was strange. Now those rules did not apply at my grandmother's house who was strict Roman Catholic and didn't care.
And she thought that when we come to grandma's house, those rules that you have in your home, they don't apply here. Let's just keep our mouth shut, shall we?
And there were things that we could do over there. And I remember she finally said, you know, you guys need to go see a movie. So she's going to take me to see a movie. A six year old little kid. I had, I had no idea what a, what a movie really was.
And so she decided to go with, with, with her husband, my, my step grandfather. And they, they took me six year old little Tim. Sheltered life, everything is the devil. She took me to A drive in as my first movie experience. And we decided what would be family appropriate was for young 6 year old Tim to watch the movie Psycho from Alfred Hitchcock.
Which explains a lot.
While your boy behaves this way.
Trauma.
The trauma. I remember getting down into the floorboard like holding my fingers inside of my ears. I'm like, I don't understand this. What is happening? This is horrible. And they're just like, this is a great movie. What a fantastic work of cinema masterpiece.
I am traumatized people. It was a big deal to me. And then later on we had a birthday party where some of my friends got together and my parents just thought it was a normal kid's birthday party so they dropped us off. They didn't know that their parents were taking us to see a movie and they and I got to see E.T. i'm just telling you that'll freak you out when you've never seen anything but Psycho.
ET Was a big deal. And some of you are just now getting into the alien files. Let me tell you, we, we've been new to this ET Phone home from way back.
I get it. It's been a thing for us for a long time. But for many people like that was, that was a first experience. And I remember the very first time that I listened to anything that was outside of the, the approved worship set list.
Now your worship set list may be different than mine, but mine was like old time four part gospel quartet. Like that was the epitome of worship. Like it doesn't get any holier than that.
And the very first time that I received a Christmas present from my grandmother. Some of you know this story. She gave me an AM FM cassette headphones which really dates me. Some of you are like what are the words that you just said? Did you just start speaking in tongues? What is like it. My parents thought it would be fine because it was a cassette player and so they could have, they have a list of approved cassettes that we could, that we could listen to. Cassettes is like a CD. Never mind. It's like AirPods.
But what they didn't realize is it also had an AM FM button on that. And so late at night I felt so horrible. For the very first time I turned on the radio, I hit the FM dial and I, and I, I, I had that little tuner. Some, some of you have no idea what I'm talking about.
Turned that little thing, dialed it in and got my first taste of outside the approved norm music. And it was hardcore glam, heavy metal rock, hair metal rock. 80s rock. And my world went from black and white to color in that moment. It was a significant moment for me. The very first song that I ever heard outside of my very, very tight, short window was Eruption by Van Halen and Yes, Lord.
And I thought in that moment, I felt a horrible sense of shame come over me for about three seconds. And I'm like, I am backslidden and don't care because you guys have been lying to me my whole life. That is not good music on Sundays. Like, this is good music.
That first was a defining moment for me. You have your own list of firsts, moments that are important to you, that define the rest of your life.
The first matters to you. And here's the. Here's the thing. What matters to God?
What's his priorities? What are the things that are most important to your father?
There's a unique perspective that comes in each of our hearts and minds and lives when we stop thinking not just what's important to me, but what's important to him. And here's the thing that we both have in common between us and our Father. Firsts matter.
First matter.
And so when the children of Israel were led out of Egypt, led out of slavery, when God worked all of the slavery out of them, he was leading them into the promised land. They come upon their very first major battle, and it's the city of Jericho. You might have remembered that story from when you were little. You know about the walls that came a tumbling down. You know that they marched around the city.
God gave a very unconventional military strategy overtaking this town. He says, I want you to understand that what you're doing here is not just about today, but there are thousands of believers across a few thousand years that need the story of what happens today. It matters.
It's not just about that battle. It's about people like me and you looking back and recognizing the power of God and what he did to a city that could not be taken.
God says, you're not going to attack it in any ordinary way. It's going to be a very unconventional strategy. He said, you're going to march around this city. And by the way, some of the things that start appearing in the story of the battle of Jericho show us the heart of God. They show us his personality. They show us the things that matter to him. Like the number seven.
Read Joshua, chapter six and seven. You see that six, seven matters to God. And you also see, sorry, that's weird. My bad. I'm about to be 50 people. Let me.
Let me have My moment. But you see, the number seven appears over and over. I want seven trumpets. I want seven priests. I want you to march around seven times for seven days. It's important that you understand that that repetition of that number matters. It's important.
And God says, I want my presence to go first. Take the Ark of the Covenant. I want it to go first. I want you to march around and I want you to be completely quiet. But on that last day, I want you to shout, because God is going to give you the victory and you're going to stand still and see an incredible miracle of God. And that's exactly what happened.
Now we've taken that Jericho thing and we've translated it into Pentecostalism later on. And some of you remember the Jericho march. You remember what that's talking about. Some of you have no clue. You weren't raised in the most Christian that you could have been raised in.
But there's an incredible story that happens with the very first battle of Jericho. God shows us what's important to him. God shows us what matters to him. God. God shows us the importance of the first God. God says very specifically the things that matter to him in that very first battle. Things like trust. I need you to trust me.
You're not going to get slaughtered. There's a great victory coming, but you have to do it my way. Obedience.
He shows that it matters to him.
God shows us that something else that matters to him is worship. He says, worship is going to cause walls to fall down. There's an important statement that's happening right there.
Worship is going to win battles for you that nothing else can defeat. Come on. There's something important for us to learn there. There's power in our worship. And he says, I want all of you to march around it together. You fight together. You fight as a family, but you're not going to fight the same way that everybody else fights. You march around this city, and then you lift up a shout to your God and watch what I do on your behalf. And it happens.
And here's where God speaks to them about a very important thing that matters a lot to him. And not just the first. But the Hebrew culture calls the word harem. Say the word harem, but you gotta put a little on the. On the front of the h.
Come on.
Apologize to the person in front of you. Like, I'm sorry what I did to the back of your head right now. That'll flake off once it dries. I'm sorry, Horem. This is a. This is a great Hebrew word that to us means devoted.
Now, devoted doesn't really translate very well in the English language.
It means, it means set apart. It's not, it's not like everything else.
The harem means to be. It means to be set apart. It means to be devoted. It another way to say it would be removed from human ownership.
And God said, jericho is harem. It's, it's devoted to me. It's set apart, it's removed from human ownership. It doesn't belong to you. The first belongs to me.
This is an important principle that we learned that still exists for the body of Christ today. The harem, the first belongs to the Lord. It's devoted, it's set apart. It's not for you, it's for him. God says, you're going to have a lot more battles. I'm going to show you incredible things. But the first, you have to trust me. Obedience matters. Trust matters. Unity matters. My way matters. Honor me with the first.
So they did exactly what God told them to do. The walls come tumbling down, Great military victory, and 99.9999% of the people did exactly what the Lord told them to do, except for one guy, his name was Achan. And Achan's like, you know what? Those rules don't apply to me.
God wants me to be blessed. God wants me to be happy. God would want this for me. And the things that God says were to be completely destroyed, devoted to him that don't belong to anyone else. Achan says, God, give me a little something because you love me, you want me to be happy.
You're a God that loves to bless people and this is your blessing, this is free.
He decides to take a little bit for himself.
And so the next battle comes, and it's against a tiny little village called AI. You think people fight against AI now? No, no, no. It's been a long time for God's people.
I don't know where I'm going with that.
But it's a tiny little village, just a few people live there.
And so the, the, the scouts come back and they said, look this, there's just a few people living here. We don't need to send up the whole military. Just send a few thousand people and let's take this city. They're going to give up.
They have no military to fight us with. They're insignificant. It's not really a battle. But that ain't what happens.
Because God saw what, what one man, sin did.
And God says, no, no, no, no, no, we're not moving on. We're going to deal with this. Why? Because Harim, that was devoted to me, you stole from me. You lied to me.
This belongs to me. And you're not going to just move on from this.
So this is what happens. Let's pick it up in Joshua chapter seven.
Pick it up in verse one. And it says, but the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the hurram, to the devoted things, the things that were set apart, that were not for human ownership.
They're gods.
And Achan, it says, took some of them. And so the Lord's anger burned against Israel. Now, Joshua sent men from Jericho to AI and he told them, go up and spy out the region. And when they return, they said, not all the army will have to go up against AI. Send a. Send two or three thousand men at the most to take it. Don't worry, the whole army, for only a few people live there.
So about 3,000 of them went up. But they were routed by the men of AI.
And at this, the hearts of the people melted in fear and became like water.
Like, we have some massive military victory. And then we go to just a small village and we get smoked. How does that happen?
So Joshua falls on his face before the Lord. He's like, there's something. Something is wrong. Like how? That's impossible.
This ain't good.
This is what happens. Skip down to verse 10. Then the Lord said to Joshua, stand up. What are you doing down on your face? Israel has sinned. They have violated my covenant, which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the harem they have stolen. They have lied. They have put them with their own possessions. Notice. It's one man that sinned. It's just Achan. And God says, no, no, no. They.
It's a people problem. It's corrupted. Everybody understand that God is putting something into practice that's important. It's not just a battle. It's not just some seemingly insignificant, tiny little piece of land. God said, this matters to me. You're not moving on from this.
God shows us his heart.
He shows us his priority.
He shows us what's most important to him.
So the first or three things I want to leave us with today. Number one, if you're a note taker, write this down. The first belongs to. To the Lord. Say it with me. The first belongs to the Lord.
Once we get that settled in our mind, everything begins to take shape in our spiritual maturity process. First matter. First matter to you. First matter to God.
And God says, the, the first is, it's Harim. It's devoted to me.
In our men's leadership group, one of our, our, our, our guys began to take this process and say, you know what? I'm gonna, I'm gonna add this to my business.
Every single time that I sign a brand new account, the very first time that they, that they sign a check back over to me, I'm going to give that to the Lord. Say, lord, you get the first. Every time that I get that, I move forward with a new account. Every time I open up a new business, the first goes to the Lord. Because I take this seriously. If it matters to him, it matters to me. I'm like, look at you go. You get it. You understand? You're saying, God, I trust you, that whatever comes on the other side of this is blessed. But you get the first because I trust you. You are the God that sees and provides. You are Jehovah Jireh. I trust you more than I trust my own wisdom, more than I trust the voice of my own fear that tells me I'm not going to make it. I trust that you're the provider.
The first belongs to the Lord. Now, this is not a new concept that just appears at Jericho, by the way. This is something that they have dealt with for a long time, and they've always done very, very well with the harem until Jericho.
One of the, one of the great examples that we find in scripture is back when they're, when their parents and grandparents were in slavery inside of Egypt. And God says, I'm about to pour out my wrath on all these plagues.
And then the, the hail starts coming, darkness starts coming, and frogs, and all these kind of crazy things begin to happen to Egypt, but not to God's people, because they're set apart. They're special.
God protects them. And at the very end of God pouring out his wrath, he says, I want you to take the blood of a lamb and I want you to put it across your doorpost. Now understand this. That doesn't make a lot of sense if you're hearing it for the first time, but God says it matters.
Why? Because I'm killing the firstborn of everyone in this country, lest they have the blood of the lamb. By the way, we understand the blood of the lamb. It's pointing to Christ, right? That everything is covered by the blood of the lamb. And when we choose to put our home underneath the blood of the lamb, then God does things that, that shows that we're, we're Set apart.
Today we celebrate it as. As Passover, when God's death angel, his avenging angel, passed over the homes that were covered with the blood of the lamb.
But God says this in Exodus, chapter 13, verse 2, consecrate to me. Every firstborn male. The first look at this belongs to me. Not to you belongs to him. So God's establishing this principle of the harem, saying, the first belongs to me. Why?
Because I spared your firstborn when I took theirs. Because theirs was underneath the blood of the lamb.
You obeyed me.
You trusted me.
You were covered with the blood of the lamb.
God had spared Israel's firstborn with the plagues because God wanted his people to remember for all time who rescued them, who redeemed them. It wasn't you.
You couldn't have thought that the only way to stop this plague is to put blood on my doorstep? Like, that's weird unless God says it.
But God establishes the harem to say, the first belongs to me. So the first belonged to God because their entire future existed only by his mercy. And this is a principle that is still in place for us today. Once we understand my tomorrow only exists if God is merciful to me to give you another day, things begin to change in your priorities.
My business only exists because of his mercy. My marriage is only sustained because of his mercy, because of my. The. The mercy of my God. My children are still here. They're. They're. They're thriving. I'm thankful for that.
The first is a constant reminder of who's really in charge.
So this was not a new concept to the children of Israel at Jericho. They understood this.
Exodus 23:19 says, Bring the best of the first fruits.
This is pointing back, by the way, to Cain and Abel's offering when they both bring offerings. But. But Abel, it says, brought a better offering because he brought the. The first.
The first to the Lord. Bring the best of your first fruits. And God says, where does that go? Where's it supposed to go? To my house.
Speaking to Achan like this doesn't go to your house.
These are devoted things. It goes to my house. It goes to the house of the Lord.
That's where the first belongs.
Well, God loves me. He wants me to be blessed. He wants to give this to me, like, mm, you're missing the point.
God says, I want you to trust me first.
Trust matters to God, and the first is always a test. So Jericho is the first fruits of their success, the first battle that matters to God.
And the first is still a test for me. And you today, what gets the first of your attention in the morning?
What's your first priority? Is it coffee or is it time spent with your father?
What is your first priority in the morning? Just to not fall back asleep.
What would your life look like if you honored the Lord with your first and the best part of your day?
What would your. What would your financial situation look like if you honored God with the first and not with something that was left over or with a tip?
If God really blessed you, if things did really well? Well, I might give God something, or I might hold something back and I might help a homeless person. Like, that's not what this is talking about.
God says, honor me with the first, with the harem, Trust me, and watch what I can do on your behalf. This is not some promise of the prosperity gospel. This is trust. Daily manna where you say, lord, I trust that you can provide better than I can.
And this is exactly what's happening here.
Jericho was the first fruits of their success and their first test. And almost all of them passed it, except for one guy. Don't be that guy.
So God wasn't withholding blessings from them. God was establishing order.
This is what most believers, even today, have never passed this test. They don't realize that many of our parts of our life are out of order. We give God whatever's left over when it's convenient for us, as long as we agree with it.
If.
If he really impresses me, then. Then I'll let God into this part of our life. God says, I want you to establish some order. It's. It's me first.
This is not to. To curse you. It's good for you. Your life begins to work better when God's in first place.
So God asks for the first, not because he needs it, but because we need to remember who our source is. Somebody say, amen, I need this. Otherwise I get confused thinking I'm my source. You'll get confused thinking your boss is your source.
You'll get confused thinking that your bank account, your stocks, your bonds, your savings, that's not your source.
We need to remind ourselves who our source is. And honoring God with the first and the best of our day, the first and the best of our paychecks, the first and the best of our time, the first and the best of our priorities. Reminds us who our source really is. And it ain't you.
You didn't bring yourself to where you are.
It's not your bootstraps that pulled you up here. It's only by the Mercy of your father.
Remind yourself of that. It's good. It puts me in my place.
Sometimes you just need to be put in your place. Not my job to put you in your place. You put you in your place. Where's my place? Underneath him. He's in first place.
I exist underneath him.
John even said it, said he must increase, I must decrease.
I must become less so that he can become greater. Here's the second key that we see. Number two. Hidden sin gets exposed on the battlefield.
And I wish more believers actually believe this, but it's so true.
Hidden sin gets exposed on the battlefield. This little battle in the city of AI, this tiny village ends up destroying them, routing them. A small, insignificant piece of land that shouldn't have taken much of anything but a threat.
And it becomes a major loss.
You ever had those moments in your life where you thought, this is going to be easy, and it sure ain't.
I found that out when you walked into a hospital, came out with a baby. I'm like, this is going to be easy.
Wow.
18 years later, like, I'm done.
People have still asked this, would you guys like to adopt children? No.
I barely made it out alive.
There are some battles that you'll never win until we make some things right before the Lord. God says you're not moving on from this. This is important to you.
Things that you thought this would be easy, Not a big deal. I can breeze through this. Mmm.
No. Why? Because God doesn't bless sin.
Please hear me. This is important for us to see. God doesn't bless sin.
You're not special.
God loves you too much to let you get away with that. And. And there are things that you know in your own life, you can take a moment, just be honest before the Lord. Come on, it's Sunday. You're in the Lord's house. Let's take a moment, do what's important. Ask yourself, are there parts of my life that I know are not right?
This is a sinful area of my life. Remind yourself there are some battles you can't win. Why? Because God loves you too much. To leave that there and view this for just a moment in the future tense, think, if I could. If I could look back five years from now and look back on my life and say, that was the moment that I got some things right with God.
That was a moment that he confronted me in my sin and I turned my back on that sin and I turned towards him and I've never regretted. It's one of the greatest moments of my life. Or five years, you could say, you know what?
It's just who I am now.
Just thankful for God's grace. No, you're thankful for his patience.
God doesn't bless sin.
And if he's dealing with your heart about that issue, the good news is there's grace for you, there's mercy for you.
It doesn't have to take exposure.
And here's what happens in this simple story that Achan decided, you know what?
These rules don't apply to me. God's never going to expose my sin. Yes, he will.
Can you imagine the dread that must have happened if you read the story? You know, this is what happened. God says, have all of Israel get out of their tents and stand before me and over 2 million people lined up in the. In the promised land. And they just stand there before the Lord.
And God says, now see these group of families? Yeah, tell them to go home, not them.
And achan's like, there's 2 million people never going to come down to me.
Then another family goes home, then another family goes home.
From this clan to that clan, to this family, to this grandfather, to these grandchildren, all the way down to him.
And then he's like, I think I want to confess and get some things right before the Lord right about now. Like, bro, no, you had your opportunity.
The reason why this has happened is because one person said, that doesn't apply to me.
God doesn't really mean that. The first doesn't really. God wants to bless me with the first because I'm his favorite. You've been taught wrong.
God says, the first belongs to me because I love you too much to make you think that you're in charge. I want you to trust me. Trust matters to me.
Here's the thing about the wealth that comes and the wealth that is so easily tempting for us because we start thinking that we're our own source, that we did this our own selves.
But God says this in Proverbs 10:22. It says, the Lord's blessing makes a person rich.
How do we know that we're rich with God's blessing? It says, because he doesn't add sorrow to.
Doesn't come with a heavy price tag.
I've known many, many very wealthy people that I would not trade places with them for all the money in the world. I've known people with huge, huge, huge businesses. Known people that have run the stock exchange bell seven times, known people that owned major league franchises and NFL franchises. I know those kind of people.
And I've pastored their Children and their grandchildren.
And I see the damage and the trauma that that money has done.
Not all wealth is blessed.
You want blessed wealth.
You want God to say, this is what I've done for you. Why?
Because you've trusted me. You've honored me with the first. I can trust you with more because God's blessing makes a person rich and it doesn't bring sorrow with it that money doesn't have you.
And this is the principle that God is putting in place with the hurrahm, with. With Jericho. God says, this is all mine, everything. After this, I'm going to bless you, but you have to trust me with honoring me with the first.
Achan says, no, that's not. That's. That doesn't apply to me. God said, mm, we're not moving on.
Here's what we see.
My secret shame never affects just me.
My secret sin never affects just me.
Notice God doesn't say Achan sinned, but he says, israel has sinned.
Like, it wasn't us. It's him now. God says, you have stolen, you have lied.
You have taken the hur, you've taken the devoted things.
You've turned your back on me when almost all of them got it and did it, except for one.
God says, they, why? Because it's not one person's sin.
God says, you're fighting together as a people. You win together as a people. You lose together as a people. You honor me as a people. You dishonor me as a people. It's not about just you. It doesn't just affect you. It affects all of us.
Why?
What is it showing us about the heart of God? That God values unity.
God values community. God values us as a people. And that is completely against the narrative that the world would push for us today. Your world says you do. You boo. Boo.
It's your life.
It's my life, it's my job, it's my money, and I want it now.
It's my decision. It's my future, it's my life.
God's like, I want to. I want to destroy that.
I want you to say, lord, it's you first, because that's the right order.
Our lives are designed to be connected. We're designed by God that way.
Paul says this in First Corinthians, chapter 12. He said, Just as a body, though one has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one spirit so as to form one body. And we were all given from one spirit to drink Even so, the body is not made up of one part, but of many. God says, I value community.
There's a reason why, when God was forming first man, he said, let us make man in our image.
That's why your father's part of the Trinity.
It's bigger than you.
So just as compromise spreads, faith also spreads. The Bible says we're to value community. We're to value unity. We are to build each other up. We're to encourage one another. We're to stand in the gap for one another. It says we're to pray for one another. It says we are to bear each other's burdens. We fight together.
We ride together, we die together. Come on, somebody. We're to value unity.
That's why it's so important for you to not just come to church and be anonymous and go home.
It's important for you to connect. Why? Because God built you that way. To value being part of the body of Christ. Not to just come, but to connect, to plug in, to become a part.
And the more you decide to act on your own, the more you realize you're missing out on the heart of God for you and for your family, for your life. You need to connect.
It matters to God. It matters for.
So God designed his people to live connected because victories are meant to be shared and burdens are not meant to be carried alone.
God designed us to need one another. He designed us to fight for each other. God designed his people to fight together, to heal together, and to win together.
That's why it's such a problem when the men from the spies come back and tell Joshua, this is a small village. We don't need to send everybody up there. Just send 2 or 3,000. We don't need God's wisdom. This is the easy battle. God. God will leave the hard things to you, but we'll take the easy ones. Just send two or three thousand people. It's not really a major victory. No, no, no. God says all of my people fight together as one. That's important to me.
I don't care if it's unconventional to you.
And those little battles became huge losses. Why? Because they didn't fight together.
God values unity just as much as he values the first.
These are important things that are countercultural to modern Christianity.
It's not about you, it's about Him. It's about us.
So the beauty of this covenant that God makes with his people, of fighting together, the beauty of it is saying you never have to fight alone, but the responsibility.
It says you can't live like you're alone either.
His word says your life is not your own. You're bought with a price.
Once you were not a people. Now you are people. You're my people.
God calls us. It says he sets the lonely in families.
We're called to do life together.
So the heart of God was not to neglect people, not to punish somebody, not to expose somebody. The heart of God was to help people remember, to put him first. Not for his benefit, for theirs.
So God designed his people to fight together, to heal together, to win together.
And I'll leave you with this thought, that God exposes what's hidden because he wants restoration, not destruction.
Will God expose sin? Yes, he will. Is it because he's mean? No. Because he loves you too much to leave you there.
He doesn't want your destruction. He wants your restoration.
Why? Because there's another battle coming.
You're going to need it.
Here's the third and final thing. I'll leave you with number three. Victory returns when God is in first place.
One of the things I love about this story is that it goes pretty dark pretty fast when you recognize that Achan and his family get stoned. And I don't mean like what you did in college. I mean like stone for real.
The story doesn't just end there. Like, you know, you better do what God says he can. Expose your sin. You're going to get stoned.
That's not the end of the story. The story doesn't end in defeat because God's merciful.
There's always another battle ahead. Look at this. In Joshua, chapter 8, the Lord said to Joshua, do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged. Take the. Look at the next two words.
The whole army. Everybody. Everybody. All them.
And attack. Well, this little village, all of us need to go. Yes. Why? Because I value unity.
The first belongs to me.
Obedience, trust, they matter. Unity matters. You fight together.
Take the whole army and attack AI. For I have delivered into your hands the king of AI. So the battle of Jericho wasn't really about gold. And the battle of AI wasn't about their military strength, or lack of it. It was about who gets first place.
It's about trust.
And you're going to face the exact same battle every time you get your paycheck.
Do you trust him enough to honor him with the first and the best of what you make with the harem, with the devoted.
Do you take it to your tent or do you take it to his house? That's up to you.
Because the principle is very clearly outlined in scripture that this matters to God.
And I wonder, how many battles do we lose because we refuse to get this right?
And we'll make excuses that this is mine. God wants me to be happy.
No, God wants you to be holy.
And he's calling us as believers to come together, to challenge one another, to build each other up, to encourage one another, to push one another to become more like Christ, not just more wealthy.
God wants to bless you with more of him.
He wants to bless your finances and add no sorrow to it.
So here's what we see. The greatest battles in life are rarely about resources. They're about lordship.
Who's Lord? Who's in first? Is it you or is it Him?
Is he Lord of all or is He Lord of most?
Is he truly in first place or is that just something that we say?
How do we practically know that God is in first place in our lives? How do we practically know that he has my priority, that I submit to him, that he's in charge, that truly God is first? How do we know that?
Is it just words that we say? Or is it a lifestyle that we live?
So what I love about this story is that victory comes when they attack AI and victory begins. I mean, from that moment on, dominoes just begin to fall. Victory after victory after victory. Why?
Because of the first.
They honored God with the first.
The principle is still in place for us today.
The principle of the Passover, the blood of the lamb, God pouring out his wrath on those that didn't honor those with the first. We see the principle. It's all over scripture, Old Testament, New Testament, first matter to God.
I wonder, how much do they matter in your relationship with the Lord?
Here's what we see, is that when honoring God becomes your first priority, victory is guaranteed.
Now, I'm not saying getting wealthy is guaranteed. That's not what I'm saying.
But victory? Yes.
Why? Because the battle is not yours, it's his.
And he don't lose. Come on, somebody. He don't lose.
I want to challenge you. As we finish up today with just a thought of. Are there parts of my life that I've.
That I know are sinful? Things that I've allowed, that I keep doing that I know it's sin, but I pretend like it's not.
That I really hope the Lord doesn't ever really deal with that part of my. Are there parts of your life that are like that? Because God is faithful to forgive. If you confess, if you turn from it, God says, I'll forgive.
There's some battles you can't win with unconfessed sin.
I think today is a day where you'll look back five years from now and say that was the day where things got right between me and the Lord. I confessed my sin, I turned from it, and God began to help me.
Are there parts of your life that you need that kind of help? Don't leave this place today with unconfessed sin thinking that God has to bless you.
That's a foolish way to live.
Are there parts of your life where you know God is not in first place?
Would you say that God is in first place within your marriage? Do we honor God with our. With our marriage?
Or is it what. What you want?
Would you say that God is in first place with your finances?
Would it say that God gets the first and the best?
That we honor God according to what his word says is important to Him? Or is it with whatever you think is right when you have something left over?
I've said it before. Anybody can honor God out of the abundance. It takes faith to honor him on the front end. And God rewards faith. God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. God loves to reward faith.
Would you say that there are parts of your life that perhaps don't line up with God's word, places where he's not first?
I think today could be a day where you make some changes.
I think today could be a day of great victory for you, where things that you couldn't win against become great victories because you learned how to honor God with the first.
The first matters to you, the first matters to your Father. And when your priorities begin to line up with him, things begin to change.
I want to finish up right there, if that's okay. Would you take a moment, Go ahead and put away your phones, put away your Bible, set them next to you, and let's take a moment, if we can, and just get honest with the Lord.
I'm going to ask for the Holy Spirit to come and begin to just show you areas of your life that he's been dealing with you that you know. You know God knows, the Holy Spirit knows.
He's been dealing with you about getting these things right between you and the Lord. For some of us in this place, it's forgiveness.
You have not forgiven the person that hurt you. I'm not saying that it was right, but I'm saying God says, I want that.
I want you to let that go today. I want you to let me deal with that forgiveness for others. It Might be some kind of sexual sin, pornography or immorality. Sleeping with somebody that you're not married to. And God says, hey, can we deal with that?
Can you trust me with this?
Maybe some addiction that you're trying to hide?
And God says, I love you too much to leave you there.
Let's deal with this.
Maybe it's in your finances.
Cheating and manipulating, lying, working around. Or maybe you just failed to trust him. Never honored God with the first.
Maybe you've never tithed.
Maybe you thought that that belongs in your house and not his house.
Let today be a day where you confess that and turn from it. Say, lord, I want to do things your way. If I believe that your word is true, then I'm going to do it your way. I'm going to honor you because I recognize that I only exist by your mercy. It all belongs to you anyway.
I trust you, Lord, with heads bowed and eyes closed. Whatever the Holy Spirit might be dealing with you today, just say, yes, Father, I honor you today. Whatever you're bringing up, whatever you expose, our response is going to be, yes, Lord, we do it your way. We submit to you. We submit to your lordship. You're in charge.
You know what's right. You know what's wrong. Today. We ask for your grace. We ask for your forgiveness. We ask for your mercy. We ask for your compassion. Holy Spirit, would you come? Would you cleanse our hearts, Cleanse our minds, Father, help us to stand before you with clean hands, with pure hearts. Nothing between me and you, honoring you with the best of what I have, glorifying you with the first.
Lord. You have first place. You have first priority. We're submitted to you. We honor you because you're worth it.
We trust you in Jesus name.
Now, with heads bowed and eyes closed, maybe you came here today and you're saying, pastor, if I'm going to be honest with you, I don't have a relationship with Jesus. I don't know what that means.
I would love that, though. My friend, I'm so glad that you're here.
Let me help you meet Jesus.
Some of you might be in this place saying, pastor, I was raised in church. I hear what you're saying. I was raised there. I remember those stories. But I've been on the run from God. I turned my back on him. I've been backslidden. I've been away from God. I need to come home. Yes, my friend. Yes, you do. God led you here today. For this moment. He's reaching down his hand to you and saying, come Home. Come back to me.
So if you've never had a relationship with Jesus or you want to come back to him, I want you to know that I will not embarrass you in any way. But you need to make a decision today.
And I would love to help you. Just like somebody helped me one time.
I want to lead you in a prayer. I want you to repeat this prayer after me. We're going to say it out loud, and as a matter of fact, everyone around you is going to say it out loud, too, so you don't feel embarrassed or singled out in any way. But you need to make this decision and this is your moment. So, high Rich family, pray this with me. Just say, jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.
I believe that you came and died, and I believe you rose from the grave so that I can have life and forgiveness for my sin.
Please forgive me and I'll give you the rest of my life in Jesus name, with heads bowed and eyes closed. If you prayed that prayer, if you meant that prayer, if you say, pastor, that was me. Just those of you who pray that prayer, would you look up at me from wherever you are, maybe lift up your hand and say, that was me. Pastor, I see you. Good. Good for you. Perhaps you're even watching online. Yes, ma', am. I see you. Yes, sir, I see you. Good for you. Taking a step towards the Lord today. I'm proud of you. If you're watching online or if you're sitting here live in person, just those of you that raised your hand, I want you to know that I'm not going to embarrass you. But there's a phone number that's going to appear behind me on a screen, text the words I prayed to that number. That's all I'm going to ask of you. It's nothing weird. I just want to send you back the link to some things that will help you understand what just happened inside of your heart and what to do next. Because this is not the end of your relationship with Jesus. This is the beginning. Please let me help you. Keep walking with him.
Good for you.
High Rich family, go ahead and look up at me if you would, and let's stand to our feet together.
I think it's pretty awesome. We already have five people responding to the gospel today. I think that's a pretty big deal.
Come on, somebody.
I love that.
I love that. It's the greatest honor of my life helping people meet Jesus, helping them to understand him better. It's a beautiful thing I'm going to invite our elders and their wives and some of our pastors and wives forward, and these guys are going to be available to pray with you if you're walking through a dark situation, if you say, man, my family's struggling right now, my finances are struggling, I have a health crisis. Whatever you might be walking through, maybe you're just lonely. We would love to pray for you. So these guys will stay right here at the front of this platform to be available for you when their service ends. Step forward, grab one of their hands and say, hey, pray for me. I need this. We would love to do that. I want to remind you also, growth track is not happening this week. It's the fifth Sunday, so you're just going to have to wait if you want to join our church. But next week we will be right back on schedule. We'd love to see you then. And we start a brand new series next week as well. So let me pray for you and bless you as you go. Father, would you bless my friends with an incredible week? I pray that you'd bless their marriages. I pray that you'd bless the single stage of life, those that are single, those that are single again. Lord, would you bless them? Would you strengthen them? Would you bless their businesses? Would you bless their homes? Would you bless their relationships? Would you bless their children, bless their grandchildren? Father, would you bless their finances?
We believe in you, the God of all blessings, the God of all wonderful things that come down from you. We believe in you. You're a God of blessings. I pray that you'd bless my friends with more of you. We ask these things in the mighty name of Jesus and all of us said together. Amen. God bless you as you go. I hope you have an awesome week.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: If you want to be a part
[00:46:49] Speaker A: of our online connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv or you can check out our
[email protected] lastly, if this ministry has impacted your life and you'd like to support its work, visit highridgelv.com give we appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will
[00:47:14] Speaker B: see you next time.
