Printer Friendly VersionWell, what a week this has been for our nation! Have you had
about enough of Intern Gate? I knew the media coverage had reached the high-water
mark when my 7-year-old son came to me and asked, “Dad, why did Monica
Lewinsky testify before the grand jury?” Seven years old! I didn’t
even know there was such a thing as a grand jury until I was an adult.
I will confess to you that I was angered at having to explain
to my 7-year-old the immoral actions of a man whom we are supposed to honor
as our leader.
As you are well aware, there have been all kinds of opinions
and perspectives flying around this week, as each of us tries to respond to
what is taking place. I certainly don’t want to go into all of that
this morning. That’s not why I bring it up.
But as I read Tuesday morning the text of the president’s
address to the nation, one phrase in particular grabbed my attention. I read
it over and over again. I just couldn’t get past it. The phrase was
simply this: “It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
The broader context was this: He said, “This matter is
between me and the two people I love most—my wife and our daughter—and
our God. It is private. It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
Do you believe that? If you do not believe that, you are in
the minority. I don’t know about this week, but in the weeks prior,
most polls indicated a majority of Americans believe the president’s
personal actions with regard to morality have no real bearing on his performance
as the leader of our nation. Most Americans are more than willing to separate
job performance from personal integrity.
And beyond that, we have really bought into the resolute individualism
reflected in that statement, “It’s nobody’s business but
ours.” We seem more than anxious to believe our actions and attitudes
only impact us—and no one else.
Well it’s interesting that our text for this week happens
to be Joshua 7. Perhaps you can already see why this story and the events
of the week have folded together in my mind.
When we left Joshua and the Israelites last week in chapter
6, they were preparing to move in against the city of Jericho, which they
did with success. Before they went in and took over the city, however, the
Lord had given to them some very specific instructions about what they were
and were not to do. Those instructions had to do with the handling of the
plunder from the city.
Specifically, the Lord instructed the Israelites to stay away
from “devoted things,” instruments dedicated to the worship of
other gods. God told them to take those articles and dedicate them to God,
and not to take any for their own private use.
Sounds simple enough. The nation went in after the walls of
Jericho collapsed and they had victory in their conquest of the city. Everything
looked good. The plan was unfolding. And the last thing we hear in chapter
6 is: “The Lord was with Joshua and his fame spread throughout the land.”
But, in the very next verse, the mood changes. The very next
words are, “But the Israelites acted unfaithfully, and the Lord’s
anger burned again Israel.”
That’s bad news. But even worse, Joshua didn’t know about it. So he was off planning the next campaign against the city of Ai. Joshua and his officials were feeling pretty good about things.
They send some spies to check out Ai and the report was positive.
The spies said, “Listen, this is a cinch. There’s no need to send
our whole army. Let’s just send two or three thousand up there and mop
things up.” Joshua wanted to be sure, so he sent the 3,000, and they
got whipped.
They beat a retreat and in the process, 36 of them were killed.
Well that sent Joshua and the people of Israel into a tailspin. They were
in despair. The elders tore their clothes as a sign of grief and poured dust
on their heads. They cried out to God, “Why did you let this happen?”
I love the Lord’s response to Joshua, (v. 10): “Stand
up. What are you doing down on your face?” In other words, “Knock
it off, Joshua. This hasn’t happened because I left you. Israel has
sinned. And you’d better get to the bottom of it. Until you do, you
will never be able to stand against your enemies.”
So Joshua went through the whole nation of Israel, paring down
the people tribe by tribe, clan by clan, family by family, until finally he
came down to the family of Achan.
The tension had to be pretty high because the penalty had already
been announced. When they found the people who were responsible for breaking
God’s command and bringing this disgrace on Israel, that person would
be put to death along with everything that belonged to him.
It came down to one Achan. He stood before Joshua and confessed
that indeed when he saw the beautiful things the citizens of Jericho had,
he coveted them for himself and he kept some and hid them in the ground inside
his tent.
So Joshua sent some people to check it out, and sure enough
when they came from going through Achan’s tent they had discovered the
forbidden devoted things.
So they spread the ill-gotten gain out before the Lord and the
people, plus all of Achan’s possessions including his family, and the
Bible says, “All Israel stoned him and his family, and they burned up
everything that belonged to Achan and covered it over with rocks.”
Wow! The sin of one man profoundly impacted a whole nation.
A family was lost, a nation defeated in battle—because of the disobedience
of one man.
“It’s nobody’s business but ours.” Oh,
really? If this happened in our time we would say, “Hey, Achan did wrong
but that’s between him and God. That doesn’t have anything to
do with us. We don’t want to be judgmental. It’s not our problem.
He has to answer to God and God alone.” Isn’t that what we say?
But did you hear what the Lord said? Achan is the one who disobeyed here but
the Lord said, “Israel has sinned.”
And did you notice in the very first part of the chapter when
the writer tells what Achan did, he names his family for four generations,
and the entire tribe of which he was a part?
“It’s nobody’s business but Achan’s?”
These people understood when there was sin the life of even one of their members,
it impacted their entire nation. They understood that it must be dealt with
decisively and seriously.
We may struggle with the severity of the punishment here and
struggle to understand the wrath of God, but perhaps we don’t understand
God’s wrath because sin just doesn’t really bother us all that
much.
Perhaps we are unwilling as a people to hold each other to high
standards, simply because we are unwilling to held ourselves to those standards.
We have got to cast off the lie of our culture that would say, “My personal
integrity is nobody’s business but mine.” Wrong.
Now the specifics of dealing with this kind of sin have certainly
changed under the new covenant made possible through Christ, thanks be to
God! But the principle here remains: the Lord makes it clear in His word that
none of us is an island. There is no such thing as “my private business.”
The choices I make and the way I live my life does matter and it does impact
those around me.
When we are members of the kingdom of God, we must live with
the understanding that we integrally connected to one another, and our lives
do affect our brothers and sisters in Christ. In the kingdom of God, you never
act as a private citizen. We belong to each other. Paul says in Romans, “We
are members of one another.”
And what in the world makes us think Israel was the only congregation
who has been or is under the wrath of God because of the disobedience of her
members? The Church of Jesus Christ should tremble before this truth. It is
the easiest thing in the world to point our finger at Bill Clinton. He deserves
strict accountability and should receive strict accountability for his actions.
But friends, how does this principle apply to us?
Could it be the apparent lack of God’s power and presence
in parts of His Church is because we are unwilling to purge sin from our midst?
Dare I go further and say that if you claim the name of Christ and yet you
are willfully living in disobedience to His Word, you are damaging the spiritual
health of this congregation?
If we are harboring sin in our lives, believing it to be nobody’s
business but ours, in fact we are quenching the Spirit of God in our church.
The judgment of God no longer comes upon us in stoning and burning with fire.
But the judgment of God comes upon us in our utter powerlessness to impact
the world with the message of holiness unto the Lord.
Friends, what you do and what I do—how we live—is
somebody’s business but ours. How many people carry wounds, both physical
and spiritual, because of the sinful choices of one person? How many families
have been torn asunder because of the sinful choices of one person? How many
churches have been set back on their heels because of the sinful choices of
a leader?
It matters to me whether or not you live a life worthy of your
calling in Christ Jesus. My guess is it matters to you whether or not I live
a life of holiness.
Just as surely as Achan’s selfish action impacted the
whole nation of Israel, so the quality of your life has an affect on our whole
church family. The quality of your life has an affect on me. It has an affect
on my children.
I admonish us this morning to put aside the lie of individualism.
Stand up to your responsibility in the Body of Christ. Be holy as the Lord
is holy. By His grace, live a life of love and purity.
I want you to be able to count on me to be a man of integrity. And I want to be able to count on you to be men and women of integrity. May God help us all.
