In the early hours of 6th June 1944 24,000 British, Canadian and US troops landed along a 50 mile strip of coast in Normandy – The Normandy landings marked the start of the invasion of Europe by allied forces.. a decisive stage in World war 2 had begun
The Normandy landings were decisive- but it wasn’t the end of the war – there was more territory to take. This was a beach head, a stepping stone – it wasn’t the full goal.
We’ve been looking at the people of Israel coming in to the promised land and the fact that they didn’t stop at the beach head. Some turned back and their reasons sound plausible. But there was so much more for them to take hold of. So much more blessing.
Some Christians live at the beach head – they don’t press in. They don’t understand the full objective. We’re not here to just make it into the kingdom of God but to press in to take hold of everything that God has in hand for us.
For too many christians their vison is too small. Their vision is Normandy.
Normandy is not your destiny. It’s like saying I’m going to travel to Europe but you go no further than Normandy. You like it, you are comfortable. But you’re missing out. Venice, the Pyrenees, Rome. Dream bigger than Normandy.
The promised land for us as individuals but also as a church. We see Workington as our inheritance. We want to see Workington revived.
We’ve looked so far at two crucial factors in moving on in. Two factors in moving beyond the beach head. – faith and the Holy Spirit. If we’re going to go beyond Normandy we need to keep exercising more faith, we need to keep responding to the Holy Spirit.
But today I want to look at some of the hindrances, some of the blockages.
Joshua established his beach head and then came to Jericho an obstacle to progress.
I think that there are two major areas we can look at that are obstacles. The first is what we might call strongholds. Aspects of our life or our community that are based on wrong thinking, unbiblical thinking. The second is sin.
Some people have dreams, but obstacles have stopped you. Jesus has wonderful promises for overcomers – just look in Revelation.
We come to the obstacles and we settle. We don’t overcome.
We have a loving father who so longs for us to enjoy the riches of all his provision. Who wants to use us in his glorious purposes.
We looked at strongholds before. It can be legalism, traditionalism, perfectionism, unforgiveness, cultural ways of thinking, a poverty spirit, materialism, fear of failure, an orphan spirit. These things and many more can be strongholds that stop us from being able to press in to all that God has for us and actually stop us from fulfilling our destiny.
I want to look at sin. It’s in the story.
In Joshua 7, at an early stage of Israels being in the promised land, an issue of sin arises. Achan deliberately disobeyed God – all the spoils of war were to be devoted to God but Achan kept some and hid them for himself. The result was that Israel was unable to overcome Ai the next city.
Lets read it in Joshua 7.
In the context of the promised land, a land of blessing maybe we could think it was reasonable – God wants Achan to be happy doesn’t he? It wasn’t just that God wanted to be mean – He knew what was best.
And he didnt just want a people who were conformed to the world – just like the other nations – he wants a holy people, a people who are separate, a people with a different lifestyle. We are not ordinary people – we are extraordinary 1 Peter 2:9 – But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession
– God’s church is not just ordinary people –it’s a special people
– and one way that we are different is that we obey the Lord and have the power to not sin.
The world thinks that sin is outdated and irrelevant – greed is good, it doesn’t really matter if we have sex outside of marriage, put yourself first – surely God wants us to be happy. The problem is that we start making God in our image – and reduce him to a cuddly, indulgent, teddy bear figure whose prime function is to keep us happy.
Even though we are not under the law – The NT is full of stuff that we should not do – lie, cheat, steal, get drunk, commit sexual immorality – and says that people whose lives are characterized by these things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In other words they will not be able to take hold of the blessings that God has for them.
This is not just an individual thing but corporate – Achans sin affected the whole people of God. If Israel was just another nation like any other it wouldn’t matter – it would be normal practice. But it needed to be dealt with. In a similar way in the new testament both Jesus and Paul say that those who persist in sin have no place in the fellowship of the church.
We love the story of Jesus and the woman caught in adultery -Jesus didn’t condemn the woman caught in adultery. We love the way that the self-righteous people have to slink away with their tale between their legs. But we can miss the fact that he did not condone what she did – he told her not to sin anymore – he didn’t excuse what she had done, it wasn’t a whitewash. He didn’t say oh its alright now we’re under grace you can sin as much as you like.
You see if you permit sin. If you allow it to continue unchallenged then you are effectively condoning it. Achan’s sin, if left unaddressed would have left the children of God under the wrong impression that disobeying God is ok. It doesn’t really matter. God will overlook it.
So if we want to inherit the promises we need to both exercise faith and overcome sin. And the good news is that God has given us everything we need for life and godliness. Everything we need to overcome sin.
Our nature is no longer to sin. As mike has said – If we think we are just sinners saved by grace, that the only difference between us and the world is that we are forgiven, we are discrediting Jesus. We’re saying he has the power to achieve our forgiveness but not the power to change us.
Now I know that we don’t want to have a holier than thou attitude – but actually Christians should be different and should make a difference.
Now please understand, I’m not undermining God’s grace. If we sin we have an advocate with the father 1 john 2 1
So to sum up – we are not just sinners. But we can sin and it’s serious. It gets in the way of our relationship with God and stops us taking hold of our inheritance. If we do sin we have an advocate with the father. Jesus pleads our case effectively because of his death.
I like preaching upbeat stuff. Sin is not upbeat! But it’s what stops the upbeat stuff happening.
Don’t settle for Normandy – be an overcomer – overcome sin, overcome strongholds – the battle belongs to the Lord.