Ep.71 - When You Want To Know Why Pt.2

In this follow-up episode, Kirk takes a look at the most common reason why God doesn't do things that we like, understand or agree with.

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Transcript

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right and welcome back everyone to another episode of the christianing podcast thank you so much for tuning in apologies for the delay between episodes just it's Holidays, busy season, school and family and a lot going on. And so I just giving myself a little mental break from feeling the pressure of having to get episodes out all the time. But thank you for always tuning in when we put them out there. But today I am live, not live for you, but live for me. I have no idea when I'll be able to upload this because I am in Charleston, South Carolina on New Year's Eve. I am officiating a wedding tonight on New Year's Eve. Unique. I've never done a New Year's Eve wedding before, but a young man, a young couple that had been discipling since middle school, really, asked me to do it and flew me out here. So here I am. The only big bummer is I am missing the Michigan Fiesta Bowl game, which, yes, that's a hard pill to swallow, but... when we made these plans. Obviously, Michigan was not in the college football playoff, but oh well. I will get by. I will record the game. The world will continue to spin. Everything will be just fine. But yeah, that's where I'm at. But here I had some time in my hotel room before I got picked up. I kind of had a morning all to myself for really the first time in recent memory. So Just thought I'd jump on. Sorry about the audio quality. I don't have my normal mic set up and all that stuff, but whatever. It is what it is. And so there has been a passage sitting on my mind as I've personally been working through the book of Joshua, just in my own personal devotions as the Lord's been teaching me a ton of practical stuff, just where I'm at in my life and in my career and things and given me a lot of direction so it's been really rich but uh a passage popped in my head that i thought would be a great follow-up to our initial episode of when you want to know why a few episodes back or two episodes back or whatever it was um dove into the book of job a little bit and just broke down some of the key things that i've learned in my walk in terms of asking god the question why and just kind of the dangers um not that that is inherently wrong to ever ask god the question why but we just kind of broke down in that episode what where the dangers lie in letting your heart go there um and so got some great feedback um from that episode and but then when i was in joshua I came across this passage and just felt it was a great follow-up. So we'll do a little When You Want to Know Why Part 2, because the first episode we just kind of looked at the question, questioning God with the question why, just what you need to be mindful of and be careful of. But we didn't really answer any questions why, and this passage today I think will illuminate think one of the big ideas, the big concepts that you can carry with you when you head into difficult situations, when you head into those trials, tribulations, when you see injustice and those kinds of things, and maybe they happen to you, the situations where the good people don't win in the end, and things of that nature. There's been a very important kind of biblical structure that I've been able to put in my heart and mind that's really helped me navigate those typical situations that cause you to ask the question, why? Why is this happening? And this passage in Joshua isn't unique. These types of passages are all over, especially the Old Testament. There's a lot of difficult stuff for us as New Testament believers and especially modern American New Testament believers when it comes to the Old Testament. There's a lot of stuff that we have to reconcile in our hearts as far as like, did God really just say that? Did he really just order that? Did he really just do that? So one of those One of those situations happens in the book of Joshua. It happens many times. But some difficult stuff at first reading. And if you're not really prepared for it, you don't really have a deeper understanding. These are kind of passages that can trip you up. I've talked to many Christians, especially young Christians that come across passages like this. They don't have the ability to reason through them. And so they have two choices. It's either they shelf the passage entirely and just be like, that's a passage that I won't go to. I won't read. It's just a part of my Bible that'll basically be crossed out. Or the fact that that passage exists and they're not able to reconcile the realities of it, it becomes a stumbling block to faith in general. And it becomes one of the things where I can't follow a God who would allow that or who would say that or who would do that. So yeah, it's kind of important stuff. But before we dive in, we will be a couple spots in Joshua 7. We're not going to read the whole thing, but we'll hit some highlights, kind of make the point. But one important note that I want to hit home first is There is a theological concept called biblical theology. There's several different types of theologies that pastors study in seminary. The most well-known that you're probably most familiar with is systematic theology. You've probably come across Wayne Grudem's systematic theology. There's several systematic theology works that have become just kind of pillars in evangelical faith. And what systematic theology does is it takes a topic, say like marriage, and what systematic theology does is it brings in all the relevant biblical passages that would fulfill somebody's understanding of what marriage is, what it isn't, what you're supposed to do, what are the rules of engagement, all that kind of stuff. And it systematizes it into a map of meaning, a map of understanding, so that if I'm a Christian, I'm looking to get married, or maybe I'm having troubles in my marriage or whatever, I can go to a systematic theology, look at the topic of marriage, and I can get just kind of a systemized, organized for me from Scripture. It all comes from Scripture. All the wisdom needed to understand marriage. That's by far the most popular, because it's the most user-friendly, it's the easiest, you know, that's kind of how we think, it's kind of topic by topic. One type of theology that isn't, that I was kind of introduced to this, gosh, maybe 10 years ago, and really started digging deep and studying, and I'm so grateful, because it's been probably, let's say, even the most useful theological structure that I have, is called biblical theology. You're like, isn't all theology biblical? Well, it's called biblical theology because what it is, it's a theological structure that gives you an understanding of how God works and moves Genesis to Revelation. So it puts in your mind, as you're studying the Bible, a clear kind of timeline of sorts or order of events or, I think, better understood like plot line to the story. So you have this kind of basic biblical theology, which creates this plot line in your mind of what God has done, how he started, how he got everything going, what were his stated intentions, why he was doing the plan, the way he was doing it, and kind of as the storyline continues on into the New Testament, Christ, where does Christ fit in, the significance of the gospel, and then even on until Revelation, even on until the end of days, so you understand how the story ends. It really, biblical theology gives you that kind of movie plotline understanding. So now, when you're reading through the Bible, you have a better understanding of where the details fit and how they all come together. So the best way I can kind of get you to think about biblical theology is, have you ever read a book twice or have you ever watched a movie twice? And why are we able to do that? My wife's the queen of this. She has her favorite movies and she's watched them dozens and dozens of times. It's one of her favorite things to go to like, a classic movie that she loves and just kind of in her downtime, just go through it all again. And why are we able to do that is because every time we watch it again, a new detail pops through or, or a new emotion that you didn't quite connect with the first time because you missed it. And so it's almost like you're watching it again for the first time because our mind has to first anchor itself in what is going on first and foremost. So that's really in our first read, our first watch of a movie, that's what our mind is doing is it's anchoring ourselves just to who is the basics, who, what, where, when, why, you know, kind of who is this character? Why do they exist? What's, what's their purpose? What's, what's the storyline? What are the details that are impacting the storyline? You know, that's why I'm, I'm a terrible person to watch a movie with the first time because I'm, I don't want to miss anything. So I'm just like, be quiet, shut up. I don't, you know, don't, don't talk, you know, cause I want to, I don't want to miss a detail that, that illuminates the plot line, illuminates the storyline where when you watch it the second time, you already know that. So your brain now can, can fixate on other things. It can, it can turn its attention to other things where you're like, Oh, I didn't, you'll learn new things about a character that you missed the first time and so on and so forth. And so that's really what biblical theology does is it, it allows you to, it really is your reading of the, of the movie, the Bible for the first time. So you get in your mind, the basic overall storyline and kind of who God is and what he's, did, what he's doing, and what he's going to do. Those questions get answered. So now you read it for the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, hundredth time, your brain can now go to other places. And now you have the structure to where you can fit these new things that you see, or maybe you avoided the first time because you didn't have a good answer for them. And you'll be like, oh, I see where that passage now fits. I don't have to eliminate that passage. I can include that passage in my biblical understanding. And so that's really a good biblical theology is key. And there's some great books out there. You can hit me up if you ever want. I have some resources even in my library that I could... hook you up with. They're pretty academic, but even if you just jumped on Google, just biblical theology, and you just started going down an internet rabbit trail, I think you would come across a lot of resources. So anyways, I know that's a lot just to get us started here, but I think that's really important because we're going to come across a passage where the reason why this passage can Edify your faith is you first have to have an understanding of God's plan and purpose overall. And then you can kind of fit this in. You can fit this in there. So let's dive into our word of the day. Like I said, we're going to be Joshua 7. We're going to skip a little bit here and there just to kind of get to the highlights of... of the stuff that I want us to get into. But Joshua 7 starts verse 1, But the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. For Achan, son of Carmi, the son of Zabdi, son of Zerah, of the tribe of Judah, took some of the devoted things, and the anger of the LORD burned against the people of Israel. Real quick, set the scene. This is right after Jericho, right after the triumphant, the first battle of Joshua's conquest of the promised land. They do everything perfectly according to God's revealed plan. In Jericho, the walls fall down. Quick, easy victory. Literally, very next opportunity is things go completely different, and this is why. So, the problem starts is that God had given the people of Israel very clear directions on what to do after the victory. So, after you win a war, you win a battle, then you have all these potential prisoners, you have all these prized possessions of the city, their money, their resources, and God had very clear strict plans, where it says the people of Israel broke faith in regard to the devoted things. God devoted certain things for destruction. There's things of Jericho that he did not want to be included. Pretty much everything, mostly, except for he allowed some things to be kept in the temple treasury, some resources for the temple treasury, for the future, you know, building of the temple and things of that nature. But pretty much everything else was devoted for destruction. And he said, do not keep, do not keep these things. And so we see here the very first battle, this dude Achan, which that word Achan means troubler, kept some of the devoted things as they were going through the pillage of the aftermath of the battle. He saw some very valuable stuff. It's like, you know, it wouldn't hurt if we just held on to some stuff. So, and then we see kind of the first, for us modern American evangelicals, one of the first problematic statements. And the anger of the Lord burned against the people of Israel. We have a tough time. We spent decades and decades and decades in this country of painting a picture of a just... Loving, fluffy God. I don't know why we Christians seem to be so insecure. We have a really tough time with a God that has any streak of anger or violence. And it really frustrates us. You really want to get a Christian frustrated is you start painting a picture of a God that is capable of anger and turning his anger towards... People that he says he loves and people that he says he's chosen. Man, you want to get a modern American Christian all kind of in a tizzy. You try to bring in some of those elements, you'll be labeled kind of a turn and burn, like a fundamentalist, this kind of stuff. But again, the phrase is in the Bible. The sentence is in the Bible. So we need to reconcile in it. it to our biblical understanding. We need to have a place for this. Okay? So, that's the beginning of Joshua 7. We won't get into... So, basically, they go to their next battle. Should have been easy defeats, and they get destroyed. They go to their next battle, right after Jericho, and they basically do everything different than what God had laid out the first time in Jericho, and... They kind of got cocky over confidence, like, eh, we don't need the whole army. We'll just send some people. It's a small little mountain town. We'll just go up there and basically they get their butts kicked. And it's all connected to this anger that God has. And so picking back up verse six, after this defeat, Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark. of the Lord until the evening. He and the elders of Israel, and they put dust on their heads. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, why have you brought this people over the Jordan at all to give us into the hands of the Amorites to destroy us? Would that we There's a lot of good stuff in there. We'll come back to that chunk. Great stuff because you see the question why. You see the question, why? And we'll just sit on that for a quick second, verse 7. And Joshua said, Alas, O Lord God, why have you? And you see again where the question why takes Joshua. It takes him back to Egypt. Why have you brought us here just to let us get defeated? Wouldn't it have been better if we just stayed in Egypt? Here you see right away the dangers of the question why. coming in. Why are you doing what you have done? And it brings his heart right back to captivity in Egypt and not the faith that has been laid out in the first six chapters, this incredible faith that Joshua had to even get Israel across the Jordan into the promised land. And one question, why all that faith is being eroded? So we'll come back there in a sec. Let's skip again. So then Lord talks to Joshua, basically gives him the process to find out what had happened. So he basically tells them Israel has sinned, and he gives them this whole process to figure out who was it that sinned and this whole thing. So Joshua does it, and basically through the process, Achan and his family is revealed. And so we'll pick back up verse 22. So Joshua sent messengers, and they ran to the tent, and behold, it was hidden in his tent with the silver underneath. So after Achan's kind of identified by Lot as being the messenger the person responsible for sinning against God and his instructions. He is, he actually, you know, Joshua questions him and he confesses. And so now Joshua sends messengers to go see what it was to actually prove that Achan had taken something. Verse 23, And they took them out of the tent and brought them to Joshua and to all the people of Israel. And they laid them down before the Lord. And Joshua and all Israel with him took Achan and the son of Zerah, and the silver, and the cloak, and the bar of gold, and his sons, and his daughters, and his oxen, and donkeys, and sheep, and his tent, and all that he had. And they brought them up to the valley of Achor, which means valley of trouble. And Joshua said, Why did you bring trouble on us? There you go. First, In the beginning, we see an angry God, and then at the end, we see the manifestation of his anger as he, God, instructs the death and destruction of a family of the chosen people of Israel in a very brutal sense. This stuff's problematic. I'm not saying this stuff's easy, but it's there, so we have to deal with it. Let's dive in. A couple things to point out that I think are very important as we are tempted to ask those why questions of God. And I think the first thing, the first thing that we have to realize that this passage highlights to us, and you need a good biblical theology in order to draw this conclusion. So the first point we have to understand is God is more passionate about his plan and purpose than his people. I know that I'm going to say that again. And before you throw your phone or whatever you're listening to this on through the window and unsubscribe from this podcast, just give me a few minutes. God is more passionate about his plan and purpose than than his people now when i say that let me add a little condition i don't mean his overall people what i mean is us people as individuals he is jealous for the sake of his grand people capital p people that that are the people of god that that reproduce themselves as more people of God, that has kept the gospel and the plan of God moving over generation and generation and generation. So when I say his people, I mean little people, meaning individual members. You see it all throughout scripture. You see people being sacrificed for the sake of the greater good of God's big plan and his big purpose. And here we see the Promised Land and the people of Israel as a huge cog in that big biblical theological wheel. So the taking of this land and The ability of Israel to continue to move forward, ultimately to produce a Messiah is more important than Achan and his family in a biblical theological sense. I don't mean in a value sense, but the plan has to keep moving forward. And a huge part of this plan is the purity of Israel in this process, otherwise the land will not be taken. That's why God had such strict rules of their purity rules. That's why he had things devoted for destruction because there were things that would come in and poison and taint and tarnish the motives and the intentions of the Israelites as they were embarking on this incredible journey of faith, taking the promised land. And so that part of the plan, had to be held up to the highest regard. And it meant that if you violated that plan, you had to be dealt with. And you now became, if you took something devoted for destruction, you have now devoted yourself for destruction because you had tainted yourself. Your motivations could not be trusted to move forward in this plan. And again, this comes This understanding comes from me years of just kind of wrapping my brain around this stuff. So this is kind of first for you. It may take you a little while to get there. That's okay. But that's one of the big things when we see this stuff, especially when you want to know why is that there? Why is that passage there? There's a level of understanding that we have to understand that God has a plan. He has a purpose. And that plan and that purpose is priority. And even the quote-unquote good guys that get in the way, they now can become enemies of the plan and the purpose. Now, don't worry. We'll end in the gospel. We'll end in the gospel at the end of this episode. So we'll get there, but we need to sit in this tension. I think, Christians, we rescue ourselves from the tension of a purposeful God and a God who... By very nature, if he prioritized us human beings above his own plan and purpose, he would be committing idolatry. He would be committing idolatry, and he can't do that. He's not capable of that. He is God. He sets the parameters. His plan and his purpose is what is to be idolized and worshiped and followed to the point of death. He's the only one who gets to do that. So that's the first thing you have to understand, but you have to put this chapter, this Joshua chapter 7, in a great understanding of what God's purpose and plan is from Genesis and how it's laid out all the way to Revelation. And that plan, it's a good plan. It's a good plan that... redeems and reconciles not only this planet, but billions, I believe billions of people within it. It's a good, good plan, a gracious, loving plan. But there is this, there's this zealousness towards his own plan that you see clearly through scripture. So you have to have a place for it. So that's the first thing. We have to have an understanding that God is more passionate about his capital P plan, capital P purpose, than his lowercase people. And we have a hard time because our modern American faith is that God worships us, his creation. And it's his responsibility to do everything possible to make sure us, his creation, get the things that we want and get the things that we desire. And that's just not a biblical understanding of the way any of this works. Okay. So I want to jump into, like I said, back to verse seven, where you see at first, Joshua asks the wrong question. He brings the why question that, but I think I love this stuff because it humanizes a hero like Joshua. This whole episode humanizes Joshua. This great, incredible faith leader shows faith failings just like I do. His first instinct in emotion is the wrong instinct as he goes to God to complain, to ask why, just let us go back to Egypt where it was better there. There's two things I want to point out that even in this moment of potential eroding faith, he does two things right. He does two things correct that you and I can do, even if we're struggling to find faith. We can condition ourselves to do these two things when we're in these moments. And that's number one, he runs to the right person. Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell on earth on his face before the ark. He went to the ark of the covenant, the physical manifestation of the presence of God. And he went there as soon as he saw something was horribly wrong. Parts of his army had been defeated. They were just embarrassed and they had to turn tail and run from a very small nation. And the whole plan now, everything that he had just did by bringing the entire nation across the Jordan was about to just evaporate before his eyes. One of the biggest leadership crises ever. Where does he go? To the Ark of the Covenant. He falls down. So he goes to the right person. So oftentimes, when we want to know why, when we're in one of those tragic times or we're going to God, we're, why, why, why? Oftentimes the fact that we don't understand the why, we go to somebody else other than Jesus for answers. Well, I don't understand what's going on, so obviously I have to go somewhere else. God can't be trusted because I don't understand why. How many times have you then, you go to a friend, you go to a human, you go to someone else for comfort, for solace, instead of Jesus. That's a mistake Joshua didn't make. He comes to God with maybe the wrong heart condition and the wrong question, but we are still running to a gracious God. So run to the right person. Anytime you're in one of these why crisis moments, run to the right person, Jesus. I know it's simple, but if you can do it, man, things are going to go well for you. Two, ask the right questions, not why, but what. Starts out with why, but once he gets that why out, he starts asking better questions. And what will you do for your great name? Why doesn't matter? Why doesn't give us the information needed to move forward in faith? Going to God saying, Lord, what did I do? What are you up to here, Lord? What's your plan? What's your purpose here? It's a subtle, it's just a couple letters that are different, but it completely shifts the position of your heart to a position of not interrogating, but receiving and saying, Okay, God, I don't get it. I don't know why. So now what? What are you doing about your great name in this situation? How are you glorified here? Where did I go wrong? What did I do right? That now puts you in a posture of the Lord being able to set you up the way he set up Joshua. Because verse 10 on, the Lord answers Joshua. And he lays out, here's what You want to know what to do? You want to know what I'm going to do? I will show you right now, literally step by step. Here's what you do. Here's how you redeem the situation. Here's how you deal with this sin that's occurred. And here's how you fix it. Here's how you fix it. So when we're tempted to bring those whys to God, try to figure it out. And when you hear yourself say it, say it. It's fine. Get it out. Just like Joshua did. I want you to recognize it and then say, how do I change that why to a what? What's the what question here? And I'm telling you, if you can do those two things, run to the right person, ask the right question, your faith will always be built out of these situations. Always, always, always. I've tested it a million times and it's been true every single time. The only failures were when I ran to the wrong person and I was asking the wrong questions. So our big nugget to kind of help us, like I said in the first, when you want to know why, I said there are good answers to why. And one of those answers has to deal with the first truth we talked about, that God is more passionate about his plan and his purpose than anything else. So in order to enact anything that becomes an enemy, even if it's friendly fire, anything that becomes an enemy of that plan and that purpose, we see throughout biblical history that it is subject to destruction. It is subject to destruction because God doesn't worship us. We worship him. And you see that all throughout the Old Testament. So that's... That sometimes is a suitable answer to the question, why? Not always, but sometimes it's a suitable, like, why is this happening? Well, God's up to something here, and that plan has an enemy. And that enemy can have a lot of different faces. So enemies to God's plans, either immediate or in the long term, always get dealt with. That's what the book of Revelation is all about. But the last thing I want to encourage you guys with is, Why is this particular passage in the Bible, Genesis to Revelation? And I believe it's this. I believe that we need to identify with Achan. I think these chapters are in here so that we believers, we humble believers who understand that we have been saved by grace through faith, not by works. that we will read this, and we will look at the nation of Israel going to the promised land, and we will identify ourselves with her, with this nation, as kind of a symbol, an analogy of our faith walk. And we'll look and say, oh my goodness, yes, I too, I too have done exactly what Achan has done. I too have coveted things that God has devoted for destruction, and I have I have misused those things. I have stolen those things from things that God created for his good and put clear parameters around. I have twisted and I've misused. These passages in here, because we now have the benefit of Matthew to Revelation. We have the New Testament. We have the gospel. Don't miss out on the richness of the gospel in these passages where we look at this and we say, oh my goodness, look at the anger of God burning against Achan. that same anger could be burning against me because I'm no different than Achan. And oh my goodness, now that that tension's there, now you have a correct heart to look to Jesus and to say, oh my goodness, thank you, God, that you saved me. Thank you that you gave me, that you satisfied your desire anger on that cross. That instead of burning that anger against Achan, me, you burned it against your son. And that should be me in that valley being stoned. That should be me in order to preserve your plan. Because if I'm an enemy to your plan, I need to be cut off just like everybody else. But Christ has made a way that I can be a part of your plan and not an enemy to your plan as he has redeemed and transformed me. You see? You see how even this problematic passage turns into the grace of God? With just a little better understanding of how the biblical story works, Genesis to Revelation, using God's own word, his own revelation, to form our minds so that we don't have to shelf any of these passages. They can build our faith. Okay, so I hope that helps. Hope you understand kind of where I'm coming from there. Cause I know, like I said, for me, that took years and years, you know, so if you're kind of going here the first time and you have, if you have problems with it, so did I, so did I. So don't give up, don't give up. Just maybe use this episode, this conversation as just maybe motivation to not discredit certain things that you may have discredited this far in your faith journey. All right. Well, I think that's it for me. Signing off from Charleston, South Carolina. Go blue. By the time you listen to this, that winner will be revealed, and Lord willing, it will be the great Wolverines of the University of Michigan. But if not, the world will continue to spin, and it's obviously not essential to God's plan and His purpose. All right. Till next time, Christian Well, everyone. Love you. Have

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a great week.