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The enemy breaks things to break people. This is a crucial principle to understand because the enemy rarely attacks what he is directly after. You see him attacking your finances, but he's not after your finances. You see him attacking your family, but what if he's not after your family? You see him attacking your health, but what if he's not after your health?
Consider Job, who the enemy asked for permission to attack. The enemy attacked Job's finances, his crops, and his cattle. He attacked his health until Job got sick and lost his physical health. Then he began to kill Job's children and family. But Job, like many of us, had faith. He said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."
The enemy was never after Job's finances, physical health, or his family. He was after Job's commitment to God. The real question is: Can you trust God not just when you are succeeding, but even when you're suffering? When you have a job, will you trust him? When you don't have a job, will you trust him? When you have friends, will you trust him? When your friends betray you, will you still trust him?
While the enemy breaks things to break people, God breaks things to build people. Jesus demonstrated this principle in a powerful way. When people in a city were hungry and only had two fish and five loaves of bread, Jesus was intentional. He said, "Give it to me."
Two fish, five loaves. "Give it to me." An entry-level job? "Give it to me." A little bit of a degree? "Give it to me." Why? Because little becomes much when you put it in the right hands.
Here's what happens: He takes it. He blesses it. He breaks it. He gives it. He blessed it. He broke it. And he gave it.
He blessed you. He broke you. Then he sent you. Everybody wants to break through, but not everyone wants to acknowledge your been through. Sometimes we shout only in the blessing season. But are you mature enough to shout even for the breaking season?
Why don't you praise him for the breakup that you didn't want to happen? Why don't you praise him for the job that let you go that you wouldn't have let go of yourself? Why don't you praise him for every breaking season that you thought would break you but actually built you?
I dare you to praise God even though it didn't kill you—it made you stronger. It didn't break me, it built me. People are looking at you saying, "How did you survive? How didn't you lose your mind?" That wasn't the enemy. That was God. You were crying in one season, but now you're shouting in the next season because if you would have held on to it, it would have broken you down.
Sometimes the enemy sends broken people to break people. Whenever God wants to change your life, he'll send a person. But whenever the enemy wants to destroy your life, he'll send a person. So the question you have to ask when people show up is: Who sent you?
I know you're foreign, but who sent you? I know you're fine, but who sent you? I know this is a good time, but who sent you? Because I need to know who sent you so that I don't waste my time with you.
The text says in Proverbs 14:7, "Escape quickly from the company of fools. They're a waste of your time and a waste of your words." Some stuff you don't have to pray about—you just need to close the door to. The text says, "Escape quickly." You don't need to pray about this. You need to tell them goodbye.
Some of us need to stop leaving people that we don't let go of. What do you do when you exit the relationship but don't end the access? Now you're upset because they're texting while you're having a good day. Their text messes up your whole good day when they should have never had access in the first place. In 2026, my block ministry is going to another level. I'm no longer allowing that.
The enemy will use attacks through access. Access sometimes is an attack. If you are a people pleaser and lack establishing and keeping boundaries, the enemy doesn't have to send demons. He'll just send people with dysfunction and make their dysfunction your distraction.
Now your distraction is leading to your destruction. Sometimes we're saying it's the devil, but God is saying, "No, that was your decision. You lacked the faith to tell them no. Or maybe you didn't see your worth big enough to realize that the more valuable something is, the less access more people should have."
Even though Jesus fed over 5,000 plus men and women, he only gave access to 12 people to walk with him. Everyone can benefit from your gift, but everyone should not have access to your life.
Don't let them break you because sometimes them are people who were broken before they ever met you. What do you do when your health becomes a trigger for their unhealth? What do you do when you're so secure in you that your security triggers their insecurity?
That's what happened with David and Saul. Saul had killed his thousands, but David killed tens of thousands. David's success became a trigger to Saul's insecurity. Be careful with who you give access to because sometimes the same people who can handle you when you're down can't handle you when you come up.
Sometimes we only evaluate the fruit of a relationship based on how they handle struggle, but the same people who can handle struggle well can't handle success well.
Sometimes it's not the enemy that's attacking you. Sometimes it's our toleration for compromising. When you see the children of Israel or God's people in the Old Testament, it wasn't just sin or demonic influence alone that led them into bondage. Sometimes it was mixture. They tried to mix their faith with culture.
God said, "What makes you different from every other living being on this planet is you are holy." Holy means to be set apart. Unique. Different. But you cannot get holy if you don't prioritize being healthy.
If you don't prioritize being healthy, you'll end up like some of the southern religious characteristic traits that many of us grew up in where it was hellfire and brimstone, and we judged people based on their behavior and not their heart. We used the Bible as stones instead of standards.
God tells Joshua to go lead God's people. Joshua needs to pick up what Moses has left off. Moses led them out of Egyptian bondage, through the Red Sea on sovereign sidewalk. He parted the Red Sea. They walked on dry ground into a place called the wilderness.
But here's what messes me up: The ground was dry. Why wasn't the ground wet? What if the miracle that many people are shouting about is not the only miracle in that text? Sometimes people are shouting that they got out, but I've learned how to shout that he erased the evidence.
If the ground was wet, I would have walked into a new season with old dirt. Do I have anybody in the room today that can praise God that he erased the evidence? You're not who you used to be, but thank God the evidence is not following you. Why don't you praise him that you didn't die in your past? That he's not judging you because of your past?
Moses leads them for years in the wilderness, but they stay stuck in a cycle because Moses was gifted, but Moses was not growing. Your gift says a lot about God, but your growth says a lot about you.
Moses had major rejection issues. When he was born, Pharaoh killed all of the firstborn sons. His mother rejected him into the river. He was raised in an Egyptian home but was nanny by his mother. He didn't feel fully accepted by the Egyptians, nor fully accepted by the Hebrew Israelites.
He grew up with rejection issues, and God calls him to be a leader. But nobody talks about how when God calls him, the first thing that came up was insecurity. God says, "Moses, go tell Pharaoh, let my people go." And Moses says, "I'm slow of speech. I can't talk."
And isn't it just like God to call you to do something that you're the most insecure about? God never acknowledged that he was wrong. He said, "I'm slow of speech." God was like, "Exactly. That's why I'm using you to speak. So that when people see you speaking, they'll realize this is me and not you."
But watch this: Be careful when you're headed to destiny but not dealing with your dysfunction. Moses strikes the rock twice out of anger and feelings of rejection by the people he's leading. God says, "All right, Moses, let's take a walk. You see the promised land? You see it, but you'll never have it." He ends short of God's desire for his life.
God moves on and says, "All right, Joshua, get up. It's your time. Take the people across to this land." They had been stuck for 40 years in the wilderness walking in circles. For a trip that should have only taken a week. They were walking and talking and complaining. "At least when we were in Egypt, we had food. At least Pharaoh gave us sweet tea and lemonade. We're walking around this hot wheel in the day, cold at night. We ain't even got a gate. There's lions and tigers and all type of stuff out here."
God calls new leadership. He says, "I want you to take my people and walk around the Jericho wall for 7 days." But here's the kicker: Don't say nothing. In other words, I want you to do the same thing, but with a new perspective.
Some of you are leaving stuff that God has said, "I ain't tell you to leave it. I just wanted to change your perspective in it." Because in order for me to do a new thing in your life, I don't always have to give you something new. Sometimes I'll give you a new way of seeing it that will give you fulfillment that you didn't have.
Walk around the wall. But don't say nothing. Why? Because for the next 7 days, 7 being the number of completion, I don't want you to hear nobody else but me. While you're walking, I'm working. I'm working on your heart. I'm working on your family. I'm working on your enemies. You just keep walking, and I'll keep working.
Do I have some people with faith that can stand up and start walking in your area? Because while you're walking in God's house, what if he starts working in your house? But you just need to keep walking. When people ask you what you're doing, don't say nothing. Just keep walking.
He says, "On the seventh day, I want you to walk around it seven times. And on the seventh lap, after you've been silent for 7 days, I want you to release the greatest praise you've ever released in your life." They didn't stop on three. They kept walking. They didn't stop on lap six. They kept walking. And after the seventh lap, they released a shout, and the walls fell flat.
What are the walls in your life that you need to get out of the way that are keeping you from the promised land and the promised life that God has with your name on it? I dare you to open up your mouth and release the greatest praise right now.
They're praising when in common sense they should be shooting. They're at war with the people behind the wall. They're trying to take what belongs to someone else. But God says, "Don't use weapons of this world. I'm about to show you how to fight on a different level. I want you to use praise as your weapon." If you learn how to use praise, God will start fighting for you with battles you don't even have to fight.
They praise him. And the walls fall. What Joshua is to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, Jesus is to us. Joshua leads them into a promised land. Jesus leads us into a promised life. But the problem is: are you only allowing Jesus to save you, but not lead you? He said, "I'll lead you into a life flowing with milk and honey with your name on it, but you have to trust me to lead you."
For some of us, you got saved, but you're still leading your own life. Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must first deny themself, pick up their cross, and follow me."
They're walking around Jericho, and the text says in chapter 6, verse 17: "Jericho and everything in it must be completely destroyed as an offering to the Lord. Only Rahab, the prostitute, and the others in her house will be spared, for she protected our spies."
Verse 18: "Do not take any of the things set apart for destruction, or you yourselves will be completely destroyed, and you will bring trouble on the camp of Israel." Verse 19: "Everything made from silver, gold, bronze, or iron is sacred to the Lord and must be brought into his treasury."
Good church in the old school days would shout that the walls fell, but don't teach what to do once you get inside. Because they had victory on the outside but violation on the inside.
After Jericho, they go to one of the smallest cities in the promised land and lose a battle that they should have won. Here's the principle of firstfruits: God is saying you can have the whole land. Just give me the first. Treat everything in it as an offering. But what do you do when you have an Achan in your circle that sees an offering as an opportunity?
They're about to go and battle in a small town and they're going to lose overwhelmingly. People are going to die not because they couldn't fight, but because they had somebody that disobeyed God in their circle. Be careful when you're losing battles that you should be winning because you don't know how to let people go.
When I played ball, we did something called "gases." If you're an athlete, you know what that is. You would have to run a certain distance at a certain time that felt impossible after a full practice.
My freshman year I'm running. I'm doing my thing. The line is right there. I turn around and we finish. Coach says, "Everybody back." What? I didn't touch the line. Everybody go back. So now the whole team is looking at me. But we're about to have to see each other after practice. So everybody is tired because one person took a shortcut.
Let me ask you a question: What do you have to keep repeating because you got people in your circle taking shortcuts? What if you keep going in circles because of your circle? A whole nation, over 3 million people, are struggling because they had an Achan in their camp.
Achan wasn't just someone in your circle—he could also represent a certain part of your heart. Some of you are sitting here with an aching heart and don't even know it. Achan was from the tribe of Judah, which means praise. So he's praising God and robbing God at the same time. Praise is not an indicator of spiritual maturity. Obedience is.
What's aching you? Who's aching you? Aching can represent parts of your heart or people in your circle that prioritize opportunities over offerings. Whenever there's an opportunity to sacrificially put God first, you see it as an opportunity to put yourself first. We are living in a generation of Christian opportunist—people join churches for networking, not God.
As soon as you don't get what you want, you find another way. You leave and find somewhere else that'll give you what you want. That's not the Gospel. That's not Christianity. That's spiritual narcissism and manipulation.
As long as you're being celebrated and complimented, you love God and you love Rock City. But as soon as there's correction, you're quiet. You don't realize that correction is a love language of God. The Bible says, "Who the Lord loves he chastens." The fact that someone loves you enough to correct you and not ignore you is a means of grace.
This is why becoming a disciple is important. Sometimes you can end up killing Goliath but never deal with the rejection of your father in the house. Once God puts you in the palace, you might be 30 years old in the natural but only 5 years old in the spirit.
Joshua is praying and crying, interceding on behalf of a nation. He prays, "God, I repent. Show me where we went wrong." Have you ever prayed and cried, wondering why you're losing in a place where you should be winning? You live right, you love God, you've been raising your children right, and now you feel like you're losing.
God tells Joshua: "You don't have a prayer problem. You have a partner problem." You have somebody you connected to that keeps removing God's hedge from around you. When God tries to protect you, their disobedience keeps opening the gate.
"Prayer is not a substitute for obedience. It should be a complimentary tool with obedience."
Sometimes we try to replace our obedience with prayer. We know we're wrong, and we say, "God, forgive me"—on the way to doing it again. That's premeditated sin.
God says to Joshua, "Israel has sinned and broken my covenant. They have stolen some of the things that I commanded must be set apart for me. They have not only stolen them, but have lied about it."
So they went from stealing to lying. And they didn't just steal what God told them to give—they tried to hide it underneath what they already had. You don't have to pray about this. You need to deal with this because you're not going to win until you deal with who you're with. You'll never arrive at the right place holding on to the wrong people.
God gave them everything. He said, "You can have this whole land. Just give me the first." How do you know if you have an aching heart? You're tested every day.
When you wake up, who do you go to first? When you get paid, who do you honor first? With your talent, how long are you going to be saved and sitting instead of saved and serving? Are you really telling yourself that everyone is going to use you but God?
The story of Achan exposes that if you don't break these three things, they will have the potential to break you.
In the Old Testament, people built golden calves and statues. You could see the idols on the outside. In the New Testament, Jesus says these idols are erected in your heart. Your idol isn't always an image—it can be an idea. What if your preference becomes an idol? What if your pain becomes an idol? What if your past becomes an idol, where every conversation is about "the good old days"?
We say God first, but we feed our flesh first. We chase our unhealthy ambitions over our God-given assignment.
Mismanaged pain in Egypt can affect your ability to keep moving forward in Canaan. When Achan gets into Jericho, he hides what God told him to give. God will never heal what you keep choosing to hide.
What do you need to release in this moment—what has God been trying to help you deal with before it deals with you?
Some people you love, you have to learn to love from a distance. Just because people love you does not mean they won't attempt to exploit you. Some people who love you will try to exploit you—not because they're bad, but because they're broken.
The enemy will send broken people to break you. If you're not careful, their offense becomes your operating system. People you trusted betray your trust. It becomes difficult to shake back after that. But we serve a God that heals.
For some of us, we may not have an aching in our circle—we have an aching in our soul. We depend more on ourselves than we do on God. Achan didn't do this out of evilness. He did it out of emptiness.
Wherever you're empty right now, God wants to pour into that place in your heart. Let go of the pain of the past, old expectations, old defenses. Don't let idols, injuries, or individuals break you. Allow God to build you.
The enemy breaks things to break people. This is a crucial principle to understand because the enemy rarely attacks what he is directly after. You see him attacking your finances, but he's not after your finances. You see him attacking your family, but what if he's not after your family? You see him attacking your health, but what if he's not after your health?
Consider Job, who the enemy asked for permission to attack. The enemy attacked Job's finances, his crops, and his cattle. He attacked his health until Job got sick and lost his physical health. Then he began to kill Job's children and family. But Job, like many of us, had faith. He said, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust him."
The enemy was never after Job's finances, physical health, or his family. He was after Job's commitment to God. The real question is: Can you trust God not just when you are succeeding, but even when you're suffering? When you have a job, will you trust him? When you don't have a job, will you trust him? When you have friends, will you trust him? When your friends betray you, will you still trust him?
While the enemy breaks things to break people, God breaks things to build people. Jesus demonstrated this principle in a powerful way. When people in a city were hungry and only had two fish and five loaves of bread, Jesus was intentional. He said, "Give it to me."
Two fish, five loaves. "Give it to me." An entry-level job? "Give it to me." A little bit of a degree? "Give it to me." Why? Because little becomes much when you put it in the right hands.
Here's what happens: He takes it. He blesses it. He breaks it. He gives it. He blessed it. He broke it. And he gave it.
He blessed you. He broke you. Then he sent you. Everybody wants to break through, but not everyone wants to acknowledge your been through. Sometimes we shout only in the blessing season. But are you mature enough to shout even for the breaking season?
Why don't you praise him for the breakup that you didn't want to happen? Why don't you praise him for the job that let you go that you wouldn't have let go of yourself? Why don't you praise him for every breaking season that you thought would break you but actually built you?
I dare you to praise God even though it didn't kill you—it made you stronger. It didn't break me, it built me. People are looking at you saying, "How did you survive? How didn't you lose your mind?" That wasn't the enemy. That was God. You were crying in one season, but now you're shouting in the next season because if you would have held on to it, it would have broken you down.
Sometimes the enemy sends broken people to break people. Whenever God wants to change your life, he'll send a person. But whenever the enemy wants to destroy your life, he'll send a person. So the question you have to ask when people show up is: Who sent you?
I know you're foreign, but who sent you? I know you're fine, but who sent you? I know this is a good time, but who sent you? Because I need to know who sent you so that I don't waste my time with you.
The text says in Proverbs 14:7, "Escape quickly from the company of fools. They're a waste of your time and a waste of your words." Some stuff you don't have to pray about—you just need to close the door to. The text says, "Escape quickly." You don't need to pray about this. You need to tell them goodbye.
Some of us need to stop leaving people that we don't let go of. What do you do when you exit the relationship but don't end the access? Now you're upset because they're texting while you're having a good day. Their text messes up your whole good day when they should have never had access in the first place. In 2026, my block ministry is going to another level. I'm no longer allowing that.
The enemy will use attacks through access. Access sometimes is an attack. If you are a people pleaser and lack establishing and keeping boundaries, the enemy doesn't have to send demons. He'll just send people with dysfunction and make their dysfunction your distraction.
Now your distraction is leading to your destruction. Sometimes we're saying it's the devil, but God is saying, "No, that was your decision. You lacked the faith to tell them no. Or maybe you didn't see your worth big enough to realize that the more valuable something is, the less access more people should have."
Even though Jesus fed over 5,000 plus men and women, he only gave access to 12 people to walk with him. Everyone can benefit from your gift, but everyone should not have access to your life.
Don't let them break you because sometimes them are people who were broken before they ever met you. What do you do when your health becomes a trigger for their unhealth? What do you do when you're so secure in you that your security triggers their insecurity?
That's what happened with David and Saul. Saul had killed his thousands, but David killed tens of thousands. David's success became a trigger to Saul's insecurity. Be careful with who you give access to because sometimes the same people who can handle you when you're down can't handle you when you come up.
Sometimes we only evaluate the fruit of a relationship based on how they handle struggle, but the same people who can handle struggle well can't handle success well.
Sometimes it's not the enemy that's attacking you. Sometimes it's our toleration for compromising. When you see the children of Israel or God's people in the Old Testament, it wasn't just sin or demonic influence alone that led them into bondage. Sometimes it was mixture. They tried to mix their faith with culture.
God said, "What makes you different from every other living being on this planet is you are holy." Holy means to be set apart. Unique. Different. But you cannot get holy if you don't prioritize being healthy.
If you don't prioritize being healthy, you'll end up like some of the southern religious characteristic traits that many of us grew up in where it was hellfire and brimstone, and we judged people based on their behavior and not their heart. We used the Bible as stones instead of standards.
God tells Joshua to go lead God's people. Joshua needs to pick up what Moses has left off. Moses led them out of Egyptian bondage, through the Red Sea on sovereign sidewalk. He parted the Red Sea. They walked on dry ground into a place called the wilderness.
But here's what messes me up: The ground was dry. Why wasn't the ground wet? What if the miracle that many people are shouting about is not the only miracle in that text? Sometimes people are shouting that they got out, but I've learned how to shout that he erased the evidence.
If the ground was wet, I would have walked into a new season with old dirt. Do I have anybody in the room today that can praise God that he erased the evidence? You're not who you used to be, but thank God the evidence is not following you. Why don't you praise him that you didn't die in your past? That he's not judging you because of your past?
Moses leads them for years in the wilderness, but they stay stuck in a cycle because Moses was gifted, but Moses was not growing. Your gift says a lot about God, but your growth says a lot about you.
Moses had major rejection issues. When he was born, Pharaoh killed all of the firstborn sons. His mother rejected him into the river. He was raised in an Egyptian home but was nanny by his mother. He didn't feel fully accepted by the Egyptians, nor fully accepted by the Hebrew Israelites.
He grew up with rejection issues, and God calls him to be a leader. But nobody talks about how when God calls him, the first thing that came up was insecurity. God says, "Moses, go tell Pharaoh, let my people go." And Moses says, "I'm slow of speech. I can't talk."
And isn't it just like God to call you to do something that you're the most insecure about? God never acknowledged that he was wrong. He said, "I'm slow of speech." God was like, "Exactly. That's why I'm using you to speak. So that when people see you speaking, they'll realize this is me and not you."
But watch this: Be careful when you're headed to destiny but not dealing with your dysfunction. Moses strikes the rock twice out of anger and feelings of rejection by the people he's leading. God says, "All right, Moses, let's take a walk. You see the promised land? You see it, but you'll never have it." He ends short of God's desire for his life.
God moves on and says, "All right, Joshua, get up. It's your time. Take the people across to this land." They had been stuck for 40 years in the wilderness walking in circles. For a trip that should have only taken a week. They were walking and talking and complaining. "At least when we were in Egypt, we had food. At least Pharaoh gave us sweet tea and lemonade. We're walking around this hot wheel in the day, cold at night. We ain't even got a gate. There's lions and tigers and all type of stuff out here."
God calls new leadership. He says, "I want you to take my people and walk around the Jericho wall for 7 days." But here's the kicker: Don't say nothing. In other words, I want you to do the same thing, but with a new perspective.
Some of you are leaving stuff that God has said, "I ain't tell you to leave it. I just wanted to change your perspective in it." Because in order for me to do a new thing in your life, I don't always have to give you something new. Sometimes I'll give you a new way of seeing it that will give you fulfillment that you didn't have.
Walk around the wall. But don't say nothing. Why? Because for the next 7 days, 7 being the number of completion, I don't want you to hear nobody else but me. While you're walking, I'm working. I'm working on your heart. I'm working on your family. I'm working on your enemies. You just keep walking, and I'll keep working.
Do I have some people with faith that can stand up and start walking in your area? Because while you're walking in God's house, what if he starts working in your house? But you just need to keep walking. When people ask you what you're doing, don't say nothing. Just keep walking.
He says, "On the seventh day, I want you to walk around it seven times. And on the seventh lap, after you've been silent for 7 days, I want you to release the greatest praise you've ever released in your life." They didn't stop on three. They kept walking. They didn't stop on lap six. They kept walking. And after the seventh lap, they released a shout, and the walls fell flat.
What are the walls in your life that you need to get out of the way that are keeping you from the promised land and the promised life that God has with your name on it? I dare you to open up your mouth and release the greatest praise right now.
They're praising when in common sense they should be shooting. They're at war with the people behind the wall. They're trying to take what belongs to someone else. But God says, "Don't use weapons of this world. I'm about to show you how to fight on a different level. I want you to use praise as your weapon." If you learn how to use praise, God will start fighting for you with battles you don't even have to fight.
They praise him. And the walls fall. What Joshua is to the children of Israel in the Old Testament, Jesus is to us. Joshua leads them into a promised land. Jesus leads us into a promised life. But the problem is: are you only allowing Jesus to save you, but not lead you? He said, "I'll lead you into a life flowing with milk and honey with your name on it, but you have to trust me to lead you."
For some of us, you got saved, but you're still leading your own life. Jesus said, "Whoever wants to be my disciple must first deny themself, pick up their cross, and follow me."
They're walking around Jericho, and the text says in chapter 6, verse 17: "Jericho and everything in it must be completely destroyed as an offering to the Lord. Only Rahab, the prostitute, and the others in her house will be spared, for she protected our spies."
Verse 18: "Do not take any of the things set apart for destruction, or you yourselves will be completely destroyed, and you will bring trouble on the camp of Israel." Verse 19: "Everything made from silver, gold, bronze, or iron is sacred to the Lord and must be brought into his treasury."
Good church in the old school days would shout that the walls fell, but don't teach what to do once you get inside. Because they had victory on the outside but violation on the inside.
After Jericho, they go to one of the smallest cities in the promised land and lose a battle that they should have won. Here's the principle of firstfruits: God is saying you can have the whole land. Just give me the first. Treat everything in it as an offering. But what do you do when you have an Achan in your circle that sees an offering as an opportunity?
They're about to go and battle in a small town and they're going to lose overwhelmingly. People are going to die not because they couldn't fight, but because they had somebody that disobeyed God in their circle. Be careful when you're losing battles that you should be winning because you don't know how to let people go.
When I played ball, we did something called "gases." If you're an athlete, you know what that is. You would have to run a certain distance at a certain time that felt impossible after a full practice.
My freshman year I'm running. I'm doing my thing. The line is right there. I turn around and we finish. Coach says, "Everybody back." What? I didn't touch the line. Everybody go back. So now the whole team is looking at me. But we're about to have to see each other after practice. So everybody is tired because one person took a shortcut.
Let me ask you a question: What do you have to keep repeating because you got people in your circle taking shortcuts? What if you keep going in circles because of your circle? A whole nation, over 3 million people, are struggling because they had an Achan in their camp.
Achan wasn't just someone in your circle—he could also represent a certain part of your heart. Some of you are sitting here with an aching heart and don't even know it. Achan was from the tribe of Judah, which means praise. So he's praising God and robbing God at the same time. Praise is not an indicator of spiritual maturity. Obedience is.
What's aching you? Who's aching you? Aching can represent parts of your heart or people in your circle that prioritize opportunities over offerings. Whenever there's an opportunity to sacrificially put God first, you see it as an opportunity to put yourself first. We are living in a generation of Christian opportunist—people join churches for networking, not God.
As soon as you don't get what you want, you find another way. You leave and find somewhere else that'll give you what you want. That's not the Gospel. That's not Christianity. That's spiritual narcissism and manipulation.
As long as you're being celebrated and complimented, you love God and you love Rock City. But as soon as there's correction, you're quiet. You don't realize that correction is a love language of God. The Bible says, "Who the Lord loves he chastens." The fact that someone loves you enough to correct you and not ignore you is a means of grace.
This is why becoming a disciple is important. Sometimes you can end up killing Goliath but never deal with the rejection of your father in the house. Once God puts you in the palace, you might be 30 years old in the natural but only 5 years old in the spirit.
Joshua is praying and crying, interceding on behalf of a nation. He prays, "God, I repent. Show me where we went wrong." Have you ever prayed and cried, wondering why you're losing in a place where you should be winning? You live right, you love God, you've been raising your children right, and now you feel like you're losing.
God tells Joshua: "You don't have a prayer problem. You have a partner problem." You have somebody you connected to that keeps removing God's hedge from around you. When God tries to protect you, their disobedience keeps opening the gate.
"Prayer is not a substitute for obedience. It should be a complimentary tool with obedience."
Sometimes we try to replace our obedience with prayer. We know we're wrong, and we say, "God, forgive me"—on the way to doing it again. That's premeditated sin.
God says to Joshua, "Israel has sinned and broken my covenant. They have stolen some of the things that I commanded must be set apart for me. They have not only stolen them, but have lied about it."
So they went from stealing to lying. And they didn't just steal what God told them to give—they tried to hide it underneath what they already had. You don't have to pray about this. You need to deal with this because you're not going to win until you deal with who you're with. You'll never arrive at the right place holding on to the wrong people.
God gave them everything. He said, "You can have this whole land. Just give me the first." How do you know if you have an aching heart? You're tested every day.
When you wake up, who do you go to first? When you get paid, who do you honor first? With your talent, how long are you going to be saved and sitting instead of saved and serving? Are you really telling yourself that everyone is going to use you but God?
The story of Achan exposes that if you don't break these three things, they will have the potential to break you.
In the Old Testament, people built golden calves and statues. You could see the idols on the outside. In the New Testament, Jesus says these idols are erected in your heart. Your idol isn't always an image—it can be an idea. What if your preference becomes an idol? What if your pain becomes an idol? What if your past becomes an idol, where every conversation is about "the good old days"?
We say God first, but we feed our flesh first. We chase our unhealthy ambitions over our God-given assignment.
Mismanaged pain in Egypt can affect your ability to keep moving forward in Canaan. When Achan gets into Jericho, he hides what God told him to give. God will never heal what you keep choosing to hide.
What do you need to release in this moment—what has God been trying to help you deal with before it deals with you?
Some people you love, you have to learn to love from a distance. Just because people love you does not mean they won't attempt to exploit you. Some people who love you will try to exploit you—not because they're bad, but because they're broken.
The enemy will send broken people to break you. If you're not careful, their offense becomes your operating system. People you trusted betray your trust. It becomes difficult to shake back after that. But we serve a God that heals.
For some of us, we may not have an aching in our circle—we have an aching in our soul. We depend more on ourselves than we do on God. Achan didn't do this out of evilness. He did it out of emptiness.
Wherever you're empty right now, God wants to pour into that place in your heart. Let go of the pain of the past, old expectations, old defenses. Don't let idols, injuries, or individuals break you. Allow God to build you.
