The Cost of Hidden Sin | Will Hawk | 28 Sept. 2025

The story of Achan in Joshua 7 reveals how one person's hidden sin affected an entire community and teaches us that while we can commit sin, we can never contain its consequences.

• One person's disobedience caused defeat for Israel at Ai and the death of 36 soldiers
• The Valley of Achor (meaning "trouble") shows the severity of sin's consequences
• We often misdiagnose difficulties in our lives instead of examining hidden sin
• Joshua's response of tearing his clothes and falling to the ground in repentance
• God's surprising command to "get up" and address the real problem
• The process of revealing Achan's sin among two million people demonstrates God's sovereignty
• Nothing hidden will remain hidden - God already knows the sin no one else sees
• When we sin, other people must clean up our messes and face consequences
• The Valley of Trouble (Achor) later becomes a "gateway of hope" through God's grace
• We cannot fully comprehend our sin's severity or the sufficiency of God's grace 

Run to repentance. Don't walk to find it. For your own sake as well as for the sake of the people around you.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Valley of Trouble
• 9:42 The Cost of One Person's Sin
• 17:25 When Joshua Tore His Clothes
• 22:33 God's Response: "Get Up"
• 29:06 Nothing Hidden Will Stay Hidden
• 35:42 From Punishment to Hope

Transcript

Will: 0:46

You not fun scriptures to read. So semi-apologies, but all of it's the word of God, all inspired. So here we go, Joshua 7.

Sarai: 0:54

Please turn your Bibles to Joshua 7, 19 through 21, 25 through 26, which is on page 183 in the Pew Bibles. Then Joshua said to Akon, I don't know how to say that. Achan, my son, give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. And tell me now what you have done, do not hide it from me. And Achan answered Joshua, Truly I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shannar, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels. Then I coveted them and took them, and see they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath. And Joshua said, Why did you bring trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you today. And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire and stoned them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remain to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day the name of that place is called the Valley of Acor. This is the word of the Lord.

Will: 2:13

Hang out with me for a minute. I threw you off by by like correcting Achen when you said it. Let me share with you something that's important. The reason y'all check this out. This is really cool. Achen and Akor sound very similar because in the Hebrew, both of them mean trouble. Otherwise, I wouldn't have said it because I was about to say it like a hundred times. Thank you, sir. Much appreciated, much appreciated. So, what that means is we're looking at a guy who's about to get into a bunch of trouble. The word leave this up, don't change it. We're going to end in a place called the Valley of Trouble. But please don't miss this. It's going to be hard for you to find the grace of God today unless you choose to look for the grace of God today. And it is right here in this sentence in line two from the bottom. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. So the Bible makes it very clear, God having anger, an anger that is big and powerful and deep and strong, is appropriate. There is a way in which we can find him turn from it. How on earth do we do that? So as we kind of keep both of these things in mind, all right, guys, I'm gonna try and take control. I know we've been having trouble back there, so I'm just giving you a heads up. That's what's about to happen. Let's see. I'm just spinning. Oh perfect. Good stuff. All right. So uh as we begin to wrestle with this, here's what I want you to imagine. I I don't think this is gonna be hard. I think most of us, most of us were public school, uh, a handful of us were private school, and as adults, only a very small subsect of us were homeschool, and you can usually tell. All right, but I'm just kidding. My kids are homeschooling, it's fine, it's fine. I'm making fun of myself here. All right. If you went to a school with a classroom in it, I'm just wondering, did your teacher ever say something like? And you can pick grade school, high school, whatever, because it it played out for me both at Double Churches Elementary and at Hardaway High. I would have a teacher say, All right, class, that's important, class, here's the deal. If everybody can pass this coming test, we will not have a final. Can anybody relate to that? Okay, all right. If you go back to grade school, the way it worked was this: if everybody sells gift wrapping paper, we will have a pizza party, okay? It doesn't matter to me which one you pick. Here's all that I care about in this moment. We understood something as children that we wrestle with as adults. What was our teacher trying to accomplish? Number one, there was a good corporate goal they were going for. I want the class to have high scores. That is a good thing. I want the class to raise money for the school. That is a good thing. The goal of the teacher, the goal of God is a very good thing. So what happened was this. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give an opportunity for everyone to be a winner. The whole class has to pass this coming test, and then, consequence, we will not have a final. Why did the teacher do it that way? Because she wanted the individual pupils to hold each other accountable. But how many people did it take to screw it up for the whole class not to get pizza? One, two, three. I'm not gonna ask, but some of you were that one, okay? The best church members are not typically the all-A students, okay? Those are the Pharisees who really have to wrestle with themselves. And if you're honest with yourself, you know that about yourself. A lot of the best church members are the ones who realize I don't deserve to be with the people of God. It is a miracle that I show up on Sunday morning with a Bible in my lap. And here is what we find in God's word as we start in the book of Joshua. Joshua 6, 27. This is where we stopped last week. So the Lord was with Joshua and his fame was in all the land. Is this a good, a glad verse or a gravity verse? One, two, three. This is gladness, man. The Lord's with Joshua, his fame is spreading. They take Jericho down, literally without holding up a sword. And then in Joshua chapter 7, it begins in all of the ways I tell my children never to write a sentence. And that is one verse later, but the people of Israel, I this is not the way to start a sentence, okay? It's not the way to start a chapter. It's definitely not the way to start a military campaign. But here we are, one verse later, by the way, pause. I know that my uh slides are crooked. If you don't know, and it's been bothering you, the 2%, I know that it's because I updated to the liquid glass, and my apps do not like the new Apple uh update. So I'm sorry, but I've been dealing with it all week. So welcome to my own frustration, deal with it and move on. All right. But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. Who broke faith with God according to this? Who broke? The people. Now I want you to guess how many people it took for them to break faith to the point that they would end up in a situation like this. Was this half the people of God? Was it an entire tribe of people? Right now, the people of God amassed to somewhere in the vicinity of two million people. And this could immediately discourage you. Everything's going great. Jericho falls, and the very next line is but this generation that was supposed to get it right, they were supposed to learn, they've walked through the water, they've seen the miracles, but do not be discouraged. Here is what actually took place. But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. For this guy cost them the pizza party. That's what's about to happen. Now, I told you what we were going to deal with on the front end that this was going to be heavy. We're going to look at the judgment of God. We're going to look at the cost of sin. We're going to look at how your individual sin affects the people who are sitting near you right now, and not just the ones who carry your bloodline, and not just the ones who carry your last name. The people who are sitting behind you, whose faces you can't picture right now, the people sitting in front of you, who all you know is the color of their hair right now. This is what's about to happen in God's word. Achan, the son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, son of Zara, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel. And what happens when they do this? Well, here is the story. Joshua sent men from Jericho to Ai, which is near Bethaven, east of Bethel, and said to them, Go up and spy out the land. Have they done this before? Yeah. I mean, this is normal strategy for them. And the men went up and they spied out Ai. And they returned to Joshua and they said to him, Great news. Josh, gather round. We've got an unranked opponent this weekend. How hard could this possibly be? It's ap state, for goodness sakes. I mean, we're in the top ten. What do we have to worry about? We just took down Jericho. They were number one, and we didn't even have to run the ball. I'm contextualizing. They didn't actually say that. They returned to Joshua and they said to him, Do not have all the people go up. Let about two or three thousand men go up and attack Ai. Do not make the whole people toil up there, for they are few. We got this, is what they're saying. So about 3,000 men went up from there, up from the people, and they fled before the men of Ai. And the men of Ai killed about 36 of their men. Now, some of you read that immediately and you're like, 36 isn't that big of a deal. I mean, it's a battle. Time out on that. Just hold it. They killed about 36 of their men, and they chased them before the gates as far as Shabarim and struck them at the descent. And the hearts of the people melted and became as water. Now you would have to have come for the past couple of weeks to realize every time we've seen somebody's heart melt, it has never been the people of God. It has always been their enemies. So something has happened. Something dramatic has happened. For the first time, they've lost a battle. They've lost a battle against an unranked opponent. People are dead on the ground as a result. And now they have become like the rest of the nations. Their hearts have melted. So what does Joshua as the leader do? This is so cool. It is so cool. Don't miss this. What does Joshua do? He's incredible. Joshua tore his clothes. He fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord. He stayed there until the evening. Can I tell you that many times we struggle? Just pause for a moment on this. When we repent, all right? When we recognize our sin, I'm not trying to be pastoral. Let me turn off like the pastor talk or the speaking tone or whatever else it is. Just please hear from me, man to man, man to woman. When we repent, our repentance should look like something. So often our repentance, if we've been a Christian for a long time, looks like this. And that's it. And somewhere in that four seconds was us saying, My bad, God. And I appreciate the fact that we are confident in the work of Christ and the repentance that He has opened up, that we realize it's His grace alone that saves us. What am I supposed to do? Give money. Am I supposed to bleed? Am I supposed to punish myself? No, no, no. Jesus has paid the price. But when it comes to our repentance, it should invoke in us something more than mental assent that I made a boo-boo, okay? And Joshua puts on repentance. He's tearing his clothes and falling on the ground. He's there until the evening and he invites people in. Hey, all the elders of the people of Israel, all the leaders, get in here, put dust on your head, and join me in this. Now, if I'm God and I see the leader of my people respond this way, when 36 men die, after tens of thousands had been slaughtered not long before, what would be your response if you were God to this? Don't answer out loud. If I look at this, I can tell you what my response would be. I'd be like, son, get up. You're hey, hey, I forgive you. Look at how can look look at how contrite you are. I'm with you. What watch what God's response is. Joshua, oh, I'm sorry, one more thing. Here's what Joshua says: Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all to give us into the hands of the Emirites to destroy us? Would that we had been content to dwell beyond the Jordan. Lord, what can I say about these people? Oh Lord, what can I say when Israel has turned their backs before their enemies? For the Canaanites and all the inhabitants of the land will hear of it and will surround us and cut off our name from the earth. And what will you do for your great name? So Joshua tears his clothes, he gets in the dust, he invites people in. Now, at first he blames God. I don't know if you notice that. This is what we do as soon as there's a problem in our lives. We blame God, we blame the people around us. I wouldn't have yelled at my kids if they weren't that annoying, okay? You can say it out loud, or you can say it inside, but you're saying it. That is your sin nature. My marriage would have been better if my husband had been romantic. You know what? I would have been more generous if this had happened with my tax. And we give ourselves all kinds of little excuses. God hears him, he looks and he says, God, I don't even know what to say in this moment. And God looks at him on the ground, dust on his head, shirt torn, and this is his response, and I love it. Joshua tears his clothes, and what would God's response be? I got way ahead of my notes. I'm sorry, guys. Get up. Why have you fallen on your face? I love this, I love this, I love this. And this sort of concept that if we just give God big emotions, he's gonna meet us in our big emotions. And Joshua's like, ah, and God's like, get up, get up, get up, what are you doing? Up, up, up. Why are you on your face? That has to be a very weird moment for Joshua. He's like, I am leading exactly how I'm supposed to lead. Right? I got all the leaders praying. This was a nice shirt. And the Lord looks at Joshua and he's like, Hey, get up. What are you doing on your face? What am I doing on my face? We lost. We lost to an unranked opponent. 36 men are dead. We're supposed to be the undefeated champions as you have brought us into the promised land. People are gonna question me. People are gonna question you. I'm trying to lead this campaign not only for your people, but for your great name. And God looks at him, he says, Get up. What are you doing? Falling on your face. Now, why would God tell them to get up? Why would he say this? To understand, you've got to go back to Joshua's saints. Now, when they're going into Jericho, this was last week, by the way, there's this cut scene that we talked about last week where Joshua says, shout. And the text freezes right when they're about to shout, and their hands are coming up, and they're about to shout. And these are the four things that God said. When you shout, everything's about to change. So let me make sure you have good marching orders and instructions. Here were the four things they were supposed to do. The city and all that is within it, I want you to devote to destruction. Is Jericho destroyed? Yes. Check. They did that. Rahab the prostitute, who had hid the messengers, was supposed to be rescued not only for her sake, but as this pillar of grace erected in the midst of destruction. Does that happen? Yes. All right. Now it gets a bit shaky. They were told to keep themselves from the things devoted to destruction. Now, Achan stole three things. We read it to you a minute ago. Does anybody remember what he took? Points to the camp store if you can tell me. Two of them are obvious, okay? He takes clothes, gold, silver. Okay. I don't understand. I do not know how pretty this cloak was. I mean, it must have been the best-looking tailor-made cloak that anybody had ever seen in their lives that you're willing to wager your soul against this thing. But the gold, the silver, I kind of get that. That's a pretty typical response of people. So here they have failed. Literally, silver, gold, all of it is supposed to be given to the Lord. It's supposed to build the temple. They don't even know that they're going to build yet. So, in two of the four things that God told them to do, hey, if you want a pizza party, I want you to have a pizza party. If you don't want to have a final, I don't want a grade finals. All you need to do, destroy the city, make sure Rahab lives as a testimony of my grace. Don't get your hands in all of the things that they were about, like these pretty cloaks or whatever. And the gold and the silver needs to go into the treasury so that we can one day build a temple. There are two million people in God's family at this point. One of them messes up. One. And because of that one person's mess up, because he didn't keep himself from things devoted to destruction, because he stole silver and gold, we have a huge problem. Joshua falls on his face and he tears his clothes because they lost a battle. And in Joshua chapter 1, verse 5, you can flip there if you want to verify what I'm saying. God looked at Joshua and he said, No one will ever be able to stand before you. And in that moment, before Joshua fell to the ground and put on repentance, he should have started asking questions. God has made a promise. It seems like he hasn't kept it. What in the world is going on? This is why when he gives this emotional plea, God says, get up. This isn't a repentance issue for you. Somebody didn't do what they were told to do. And it's affecting everybody as a result. Joshua, get up and figure this out. Let me tell you why I think this matters in a big way. It matters because when we misdiagnose difficulty, despair is going to multiply. When you misdiagnose why your life is difficult, despair is going to expand from it. Let me just explain for a moment. If you look at the I see this all the time. If you look at the diff, in fact, I'll just use this as an illustration. When Kelsey got baptized last week, four times in her story when difficulty came up, this was her response. God's making me pay for what I did. Miscarriage, God's making me pay for what I did. Struggles in uh struggles with a family member, God's making me pay for what I did. Do you know why that exists? Because all of us understand in a very innate sense, your sin is never yours. You can commit it, but you cannot contain it. You can commit your sin, but you will never contain your sin. This is why I began by telling you the people in front of you and the people behind you, not just the people in your bloodline or with your last name, are dramatically affected when you know what God is calling you to do. Ephesians 4. Put off the old self. Put on the new self. But when we do not, you will look at all of the difficulties in your life and you will diagnose them wrong and you will say things like, God doesn't care, God isn't here, my life doesn't matter, his promises aren't true. Get up, get off the ground. What you're probably dealing with is sin that is hidden. Because you can overanalyze your circumstances while you underanalyze your sin. And you can overanalyze your circumstances while you underanalyze someone else's sin around you. And if you have a couple of decades of walking with Jesus under your fingernails, you have felt this. You have thought all along that this was broken because of X, only to find out five years later, ten years later, 13 years later, it wasn't that at all. It wasn't even something that necessarily had to do with you. Hidden sin. You see, the problem wasn't with God's faithfulness. The problem was not with their strategy, the problem was not with their reputation before the nations, the problem was hidden sin. Get up. Why have you fallen on your face? And so this is the remedy. Israel has sinned. They've transgressed my covenant that I commanded them. They have taken devoted things, they have stolen, they have lied. Pause for a moment. Who stole? Who stole? Can you pronounce it? Achid. Who lied? Achid. Who took devoted things? But what word does the Bible use? They. I wish there was a way. My kids and I watched The Matrix a number of years ago, years ago, and we talk about it all the time. Because uh Neo plugs into this machine. This is one of my favorite lines from it. He comes out of the machine and goes, I know kung fu. Do y'all remember that? Whatever. It connects. Just stick with me for just a minute. I can't tell you how bad I wish there was a way for us to just grab our Bibles and all of a sudden just know the sins that I commit affect the people around me. I wish we could know it. But we convince ourselves that everything in our spiritual life is so individualized and privatized, we miss out on this. They have stolen, they have lied. Therefore, because Israel sinned, I will be with you no more unless you destroy the devoted things from among you. Why? Because the wages of sin is death. When we sin, the consequence is not discomfort, it is not inefficiency. The consequences of your sin, big and small, are one word in Scripture: death. That's what it costs. The good news is that just as this chapter began, so this verse moves on and it says, But hang on for another moment, and I will show you hope. Now, how does this pan out? In Joshua 7, Joshua's told to get up, to go to the people and to consecrate them, to make them holy. So he goes and he says, Consecrate yourselves tomorrow. For thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, there are devoted things in your midst, O Israel. You're not going to be able to stand before your enemies until you take away the devoted things from among you. So here is how God is going to deal with this. I know that somebody's about to die. I know that we're dealing with the judgment of sin. This to me is so cool. So cool. And I get it, it's dark and it's heavy. Oh, but please just watch how amazing this is. And imagine being achen in a mo in this moment. In the morning, therefore, I'm going to zoom in on this if I can. There shall be brought near uh in the morning, therefore, you shall be brought near by your tribes, and the tribe that the Lord takes by lot shall come by clans. The clan that the Lord takes will come by households, and the household that the Lord takes shall come near by one man. Here's what's about to happen two million people are about to be arrayed or lined up. Now, for logistics sake, they probably don't all show up. What happens is a representative of all of the twelve tribes comes up, and then by lot, which means they either drew sticks or rolled a die or pulled a stone out of a jar, and one of them was painted a different color than the rest. Then he's gonna go to that tribe and he's gonna say, Of all the clans there, that one, then the household, and then the man. Why? Because according to God's word, he who is taken with the devoted things is gonna be burned with fire, he and all that he has, because he has transgressed the covenant of the Lord, and because he has done an outrageous thing in Israel. What he did was no minor offense. It was so clear what God wanted from him, and yet he did not do it. So what happens? Sorry, man, this is killing me. This update is just driving me nuts. Okay. Proverbs 16, 33. There are two million people, and God selects Achan with four little winnowing steps. Why? Because there is no such thing as coincidence in your life. No such thing. The lot is cast into the lap, but it's every decision is from the Lord. Every red light you miss and every red light you make is in the hand of the Lord. Every time you miss your alarm clock and every time you make it, all of the teeny little comings and goings, from the losing of your earring and what that brings about, to showing up and your kid having a blowout and you not having another diaper in the bag. Guys, no consequences. God loves you enough to never stop working on you enough. All of the things in your life that you would pile up in the win column and pile up in the loss column. No mistakes, no coincidences, all intended by God to bring you nearer to him. And so here is how it played out. Joshua rose early in the morning and brought Israel nearby tribe. The tribe of Judah is selected. Then the clan of the Zarahites is taken, then Zabdi is taken, and then finally we get to the one kid who cost two million people a pizza party. Achan, whose name sounds really close in Hebrew to the word trouble. Now let me tell you how amazing this is. Two million people in the people of God. Right now, I did some research, I think it was like 2024, there were two million registered drivers in the state of Georgia. You would need something like 6,500 acres to park all of the cars that are registered in Georgia. And some of you don't register your cars, so there's probably even more. Here's my point. I want you to imagine God going to you and saying, I've got a parking lot with uh 6,500 acres full of 2 million cars. You get to pick one, and in the trunk is a bomb. And if you don't deal with that bomb and defuse it, it's gonna kill all of the two million people. You get one pick. Go. And do you know what God does? He says, I want you to go to parking lot B. I want you to go down row F. I want you to go to spot six, and I want you to open the trunk. Now, I find that amazing. I find the sovereignty of God and the providence of God astounding. The only thing more amazing is the fact that Achan is watching this happen. How on earth? How do you not fess up? As soon as it's like tribe of Judah, I'm like, it's me, it's me, it's on me, right here, this guy, and it's just like goof, doof, doof, doof. And finally the lot falls on Achan. Would it have been different if he fessed up? All of us know this innately. When we confess our sin, the consequences are different than when our sin is found out without us confessing first. I wonder if it would have been any different. So Joshua turns to Achan and he says what might be confusing to us, but I put these two words in bold for a reason. My son, he's being kind to him. Give glory to the Lord God of Israel and give praise to him. It sounds like Joshua's like, all right, man, you need a really good worship service, all right? We're gonna put on King's kaleidoscope or whatever else it is that you need, all right? And I just need you like, come on, get right with the Lord. What this is actually saying is more along the lines of, I need you to honor God and I need you to confess. That's what this is saying. Praise and confession go hand in hand in our worship to God. So he looks at Achan, he says, You need to honor the Lord. You need to confess to him. Tell me what you have done, do not hide it from me. And Achan answered Joshua, Truly, I have sinned against the Lord God of Israel, and this is what I did. When I saw among the spoil a beautiful cloak from Shannar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I broke one of the big ten. I coveted them, I took them, and see they are hidden in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath. Jesus would respond to a situation like this in the New Testament, and he would put it this way: Luke 12, 2. Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. One of the greatest pastoral things I can do in this moment is leave that there. The reason it's one of the greatest pastoral things I can do is because I know you and I know me. And the reality of it is some of us have buried things thinking it would never be found out. We have buried truths that need to be shared. We have hidden things that need to be repented of. And I want you to understand this. God's people looked at a sea of two million folks and they said, How on earth are we ever going to figure out where the sin is so that we can get back on the right track? But God says, I've got no problem with that. There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed. Or to put it differently, God already knows the sin no one else sees. And I am telling you this because I love you. I'm telling you this because I don't want you driving around with a bomb in the back of your car. I don't want you driving around with a sin bomb in the back of your car for your sake, and the sake of the people who ride in the car with you, and the sake of the passers-by who you do not even know, that I promise you it will affect. God already knows the sin that nobody else sees. Do you know how much money Aiken stole in today's I don't know how much the cloak costs, but in today's day and age he took about $40,000. It's a sizable amount. 40 grand is what he took. But I don't want you to remember what it cost him. Thirty-six men are dead. Which means 36 women potentially are widowed. When the people of Israel gather together, it's not praises that they hear this day. It is the cries of women who will never see their husbands again, and it is the cries of children who will never see their father again. We look at 36 in a battle, and we think it's not a big deal. It's a huge deal. It was a huge deal to God. You may hide your sin from people, but hiding it from God never works. Didn't work in Genesis 3 when Adam and Eve ran, it didn't work for Jonah when he jumped out of the boat, and it isn't gonna work for Joshua for Achan, even though there was a one in two million chance he would ever be found. So what does Joshua do? He sent the messengers and they ran to the tent. If you are hiding something, run. Don't walk to find repentance. Run to the diffusing of that bomb. For the sake of the people who ride with you and for the sake of the people who are around you. And I know this, you're already justifying not doing it. You're already justifying not repenting. You're already telling yourself that sin is not that big of a deal. You're already telling yourself that, hey, I've lived with this long enough, I can live with it a little bit longer. This is just one Sunday, it's just one sermon, it's just one text. I'm sure we'll get somewhere else. I just need to make it through. No, run to the tent, find what is hidden, deal with what is there. It was hidden in the tent, the silver underneath. And they took them out of the tent. They brought them to Joshua and all the people of Israel, and they laid them down before the Lord. God, we're sorry. We weren't even a part of this, but we're sorry that it happened. We're sorry that you're known for this now. We're sorry that you lost to an unranked opponent. We're sorry that 36 men are dead and 36 families are ruined. We're sorry, and it wasn't even our sorry to feel. And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan, the son of Zarah, and the silver and the cloak and the bar of gold. And if that's where the text ended, all of us would be fine. All of us would be fine with it. Why? Because here's what's being dealt with. Achan, he committed the sin, the silver, the cloak, and the gold. That's where it should end, right? No, because sin is a bigger deal than that. It cost him his sons, it cost him his daughters, his ox, his donkeys don't make it away from this thing. His sheep, everything he owned, everything he touched, everything that was near him. And they brought them up to the valley of Acor, to a place of trouble. And Joshua said, Why have you brought this trouble on us? The Lord brings trouble on you. The Bible understands innately and explains to us what we understood when we were seven years old. It only takes one person to cost you a pizza party. And that one person, trouble on you today, they will deal with the brunt of it. But your sin affects the people around you in ways you will never fully understand. If you could see it with the eyes of God, you would get it. And all Israel stoned him with stones. They burned them with fire, and they stoned them with stones, and they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day. Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day, the name of that place is called the Valley of Acre. Here's the reality that you can't miss out of God's word today. It is impossible for us to appropriately estimate the severity of our sin. We will either say his pun God's punishment was too severe, or it was too sort of like far-reaching. One sin cost them victory. 36 people die, widows and fatherless children. God's people become like their enemies because of this one person's sin and their heart melts. And in case you didn't realize it, other people had to clean up his mess. What is it like to have to stone somebody to death? I'm grateful that on this side of the cross, we will never know. But I want you, I don't want you to miss this. Other people had to clean up his mess because he made it. And they would never walk past that pile of stones again and not remember what happened. And if you want to see a beautiful poetic reality of who God is, there was a pile of stones right as they walked into Jericho, as God said, I'm guaranteeing you victory. And now there is a pile of stones where God says, Victory is not the only thing I guarantee. I also guarantee holiness if you're going to come after me. Was this too far-reaching? I don't think so. One sin cost them victory, and one sin will cause you to lose battles you should easily win. One sin undealt with men will make it harder for you not to glance twice at something you shouldn't have seen once. It will cause you to lose easy battles. When you, moms, when you lose your temper with your kids. There are so many things that lead to things like that. And if we don't address the hidden sin, we shouldn't be surprised when other things get squeezed out of us. Sin leads to 36 dead people, and in our case, broken families today. And many of you have felt that. Additionally, just as God's people had their hearts melt, sin causes all of a sudden the more we sin, the easier it becomes to continue sinning, and we stop looking like salt and we stop looking like light. Is God's punishment too severe? I don't think so. He certainly doesn't seem to think so. And does our sin affect others? Yes. In this case, other people had to enter into the punishment that came in that they would never forget. And you know what happens with your sin? Other people have to get their hands dirty to try to clean it up. Is God's punishment too far reaching? Well, can you ever tell me of a sin that's only affected you? You ever committed a sin that's ever just stayed there? I've yet to see one. Every time we choose to sin, we choose to harm the people around us. Every time. Especially those we love. But the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Stokesy, go ahead and come on up here. One of the most beautiful realities, and I'm not trying to take us out of this heavy moment because I want us to feel this heavy moment. I'm good with this. But I do want you to see what happens when we repent. When we repent, this is the kind of stuff we see. Hosea and Isaiah would later write about the same place that stones were piled up over this one man. Hosea 2.15. There I will give her vineyards back to her. I will make the valley of Acre, this place of trouble, into a gateway of hope. I want you to realize that you will never understand how far reaching your sin is. But I also need you to realize this. You can never understand how far-reaching the grace of God is. Sharon will be a pasture for flocks, and the valley of Acre, this rocky place that was covered in blood and death, it's going to become a place where cattle lie down. It's going to be picturesque. It would be a place where you would take your family for family photos. This is what God does with the broken things in our world. I told you I wanted to teach you something about God, and this is the last thing that I have to teach you. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man. Now, this one man is pointing to Adam. In our story, we get another example in Achan. I want you to understand we could stop here today and be true of God and not read the second part of Romans 5. Just as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, so death spread to all because all sin. Do you want to know why you have a sin issue? Because Adam screwed it up. You can be as upset at him as you want, but this is the reality: individual responsibility and corporate responsibility. You have a sin problem because Adam had a sin problem. That is the reality, like it or don't, that is what happened. This is your only hope. For if, because of one man, Adam's trespass, death reigned through that one man, two beautiful words, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through one man, Jesus Christ. In other words, it is impossible for us to appropriately estimate the severity of our sin, but in a bigger way, in a much more way, it is impossible for us to appropriately estimate the sufficiency of God's grace. Did you see what Joshua did? He was willing to tear his clothes and fall on the ground, and it wasn't even his fault. God tells him to get up. He also runs toward that sin. Why? Because you will never be able to understand how severe your sin is. The only great news I have, and it is great, is the only thing bigger than your sin is the grace of God. And you will never be able to appropriately estimate his efficiency. The question is, will you trust in it? Will you walk toward it? Will you run toward that thing? And I can tell you what it'll look like. It could look like you sitting when other people stand so that you can process and repent. It could look like you fixing a relationship that is sideways in this room before you make it to the car. It could look like we're gonna do prayer on the back porch instead of the front porch because we're still working on painting all these pews. It could look like you going to the back porch and just saying, hey, I need somebody to pray for me. I really don't care how it looks because it's not like it's impressive anyway. The only thing that's impressive is when we believe in the sufficiency of God's grace over the incredible size of our sin. And I promise you, whatever the punishment is, is not too severe and it is not too far reaching. It is precisely appropriate. So may that be placed on Christ. Since God sent him, that you would have hope through him. Respond as you feel free. Respond freely as you feel led. But let us not walk from here until we have run to the cross first. Stokesy, however, you feel led.