The key to success is in God’s hands.

Scripture: Joshua 6:1-7
Title: The key to success is in God’s hands.
[개역]Numbers 6:1
Now Jericho was tightly shut up because of the Israelites. No one went out and no one came in.
 [개역]Numbers 6:2
Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.
 [개역]Numbers 6:3
March around the city once with all the armed men. Do this for six days.
 [개역]Numbers 6:4
Have seven priests carry trumpets of rams' horns in front of the ark. On the seventh day, march around the city seven times, with the priests blowing the trumpets.
 [개역]Numbers 6:5
When you hear them sound a long blast on the trumpets, have all the people give a loud shout; then the wall of the city will collapse and the people will go up, every man straight in."
 [개역]Numbers 6:6
So Joshua son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant of the LORD and have seven priests carry trumpets in front of it."
 [개역]Numbers 6:7
And he ordered the people, "Advance! March around the city, with the armed guard going ahead of the ark of the LORD."
Success comes from accumulation, not from run-away success. Generally, some people want to have a runaway success – a dream that might come true at a sudden moment in his life with a fortune at a stroke and bring forth a big change to his life.  Choo Shin Soo, a Major League Baseball outfielder, signed a $3,975,000 contract with the Cleveland Indians. Some people think that his success came at a stroke. But his success was neither that of what people call a runaway success nor something that happened overnight.  Prior to his present big success, he used to undergo a sad career without recognition, and in those days his only dream was to be a Major League player.  His dream of a big success has led him to have a good habit as a player. His success didn’t happen at a moment, but it can be called a by-product of his perseverance, diligence and hard work.

Sisters and Brothers of KD church, who came before the Lord this morning! You are also those who dream of a runaway success. Your dreams shall come true. But more significantly, those dreams never come overnight. Those dreams come to you through the accumulated hard work you will have done.  A runaway success results from the mileage points you will have accumulated through the hard work and efforts. You reap as much as you sow. You obtain as much as you do. Hallelujah!  The migrant workers who came to Korea with the Korean Dream, and the internationally married, and the students who came to study here, I genuinely wish that all these people’s Korean Dreams may come true. 

Korea can be the land of chance. Welcome to Korea. I believe that you can be successful and you are given a special chance here. But more important is how you make the best of the given chance.  I would like to suggest the biblical way through which all Sisters and Brothers from all nations can have a runaway success in life. Let’s put the person of faith in the Bible, Caleb, and his success in the spotlight. I pray that you and I also may have a runaway success and give glory to God in Jesus’ name. “Let’s make a runaway success.”

1. The key to success is in God’s hands.
Let’s read Joshua 6:2 together.
[개역]Numbers 6:2
Then the LORD said to Joshua, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.
 Amen.
 A lot of people want to be successful in life. As far as the key to success, nobody sees what the big role of the key is and just focuses on his own works as the key.  But I would say that the key to a genuine success, that is the decisive factor of the success, is only in God’s hands.  Today’s scripture Joshua 6:2 says “Then the Lord said to Joshua…” It is said that the Lord came to Joshua. Why did he come to Joshua? The rest part of the verse elaborates, “"See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands, along with its king and its fighting men.” Amen.  It is said, “along with its king and its fighting men.” Amen, it surely is. Your key to success, the most decisive factor, is in God’s hands. We ordinary people think that the key just depends on our works.
 
And that is why, they think, they have to do well on their works to be successful. But the key to a runaway success, in a Christian view, only comes from the fulfillment of what God wants to do through us.  What then did God want to do through Caleb? It was the destruction of Jericho. It was the fall of Jericho. Even though God could destroy Jericho at a moment in a touch-and-go way, He wanted to do that through Caleb. God wants to be glorified by what He wants to do through us. So, what is the genuine runaway success in life? It is to realize and make true what God want to do through us.  The true purpose of our lives is not to do my will on this earth, but to actualize God’s will through my life. It is to become a channel and tool in and through which God’s will is done.
 
Therefore such message is written in various places of the Bible. When Jesus was teaching the Lord’s Prayer, he told us to pray, “thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The author of Ephesians tells us not only to be filled with the Holy Spirit in this generation in which the Holy Spirit reigns, but also to discern God’s will.  If there is one purpose in God’s sending us into this world, it might be that he may do God’s will through you and I, Christians. Therefore, when we pray, we must pray like this: “God, how can I do your will?” “God, let me do your will!”  Joshua in today’s scripture is instructed of what God wanted. What God wanted was to destroy the city of Jericho. And the process in which it is done is truly amazing.  He wants to destroy such a strong, hard-to-attack city. What does it mean? The city of Jericho was known as the invincible city at that time.
 
It means a very strong fortress that cannot be destroyed. In reality, Jericho was a very strong architecture – its actual size and the grandness of the structure of Jericho still remains as a mystery even today.    Jericho was the oldest city in the world at the time. It was the oldest because it was so strong that it was not destroyed for a long time. Moreover, the city of Jericho had the tallest wall around it at the time. Having the tallest wall means that it was a city that could not be invaded by armors of the time.  While most of the cities had a single layer of wall, the city of Jericho was double walled. It had the outer city and the inner city. The thickness of the outer wall was 1.8m. 1.8 width is wide enough for a car to run on. 
 
This is only a beginning. Do you know how thick the inner wall is? It is 5 m thick! 5 m width is wide enough for two cars to run alongside.  Such construction may be considered the most perfect architecture of the time. Let’s go further. How tall do you think the wall was? Do not be surprised – it was 9m tall. Our church is 2 stories, and the wall was as twice the height of this building.
We cannot help but agree before this firmness of the city of Jericho that this city is more than sufficient to be named the invincible, the impregnable city. The meaning of “impregnable fortress” may be easily understood by comparing it to the US aircraft carrier George Washington.  When U.S. aircraft carrier George Washington made presence to the Yellow Sea of Korea, both North Korea and China had to be strained. Why? The ship's size is enormous. The length is 360m, and the height 81m, the width 100m.

 The number of aircrafts on the air deck of the ship amounts to 120. If the ship unveils the power of the missiles, it can destroy the entire theater of North Korea in the beggining, and even can sharp-shoot the palace of Kim Il Sung.  This is the fearful nature of the U.S ship George Washington. You could see a suddenly weakened North Korea that had been strongly going against us in an emphatic tone when the ship showed up in the Yellow Sea of Korea. Jericho was such an impregnable fortress as the ship George Washington. No weapon can destroy Jericho - it was an unconquerable fortress.    But look. God wants to destroy such city. But what is interesting is that the way through which God wants to destroy the city is extremely unique.

Dear everyone, if we summarize the scripture we read today, the way in which God wants to destroy the city of Jericho is to march around the city every day. Not just one day, but six days continuously, once a day. And on the seventh day, he wanted the Israelites to march around the city seven times.  It was not just simple marching; there was a special rule. What was it? The armed soldiers had to go in the front. Next, seven priests marched, carrying trumpets. Next is the ark of God. Then other armed men follow.  Israelites were to march the city of Jericho once a day in this line. While marching, although the priests carry their trumpets, they should not blow the trumpets. They must just carry them and march. 

 But on the last day, which is the 7th day, they must march around the city seven times and blow the trumpet made of ram horn. During the last marching, they must sound a long blast on the trumpets, and all the people must give a loud shout. Then, God said, the city would collapse.  This way of battle may be considered ironic. Even the enemies would think it too odd – it simply is not a conventional way of fighting a battle. In a more realistic expression, we could put it this way: “God, how can we fight a battle like this?”  But dear everyone, think about it. God is Almighty God. He makes us cross the Red Sea like dry land. He gives fresh water out of rocks, and provides manna and quail every day, for 40 days, enough for 2 million people at once. God can destroy the city of Jericho simply by speaking one word.

 Then what was the reason why God wanted this fuss? Why did God want the Israelites to follow this instruction to collapse the city of Jericho? Dear everyone, recently, in city buses of Seoul, an advertisement which stated that “I cannot conceive a God who rewards and punishes his creatures” was put up.  People could have thought about that statement strange. Even some Christians may think it strange. But if you understand God’s intention why he wanted Joshua, Caleb, and the Israelites to employ such an extraordinary way to collapse Jericho in today’s scripture, the advertisement which the Anti-Christianity Association put up would not seem so strange.    What was the reason why God used such a way, when he could collapse the city of Jericho in a moment with his power? That was because of the Israelites. That was because of the people of God who believe in God and whom God decided to save.
 
 God loves his people. God wants to save his people. In order to provide a way to justify entering God’s Kingdom to his people, God has used such an extraordinary way to collapse the city of Jericho.  The bottom line is that it was not to show the bravery of Joshua and Caleb and to reveal the obedience of the Israelites. It was an expression of God who loves his people and wants to save his people.    Dear everyone, how is one saved?    Have you watched the movie “Tacha?” The theme of that movie is how dangerous it is to completely heighten one’s social status through a one-time run-way success.  However, the reason why people enjoy this movie is not because they want to know about such danger, but because they can relate to the ambition for a run-way success. There is a kind of vicarious satisfaction, and a kind of expectation and greed that hope for such success.

 The actual model of the movie is called Byung Yoon Jang. Jang was born to an average family in Sanchugn, Kyeongsangnamdo. But because his brother’s business went bankrupt and his family fell into an economic difficulty, he had to leave his home for Seoul.  Since then, he started to do anything to survive. He wandered around Jongro with as an ice-cream parlor, without having a degree from elementary school. Not only that, but he went through various jobs like gum-seller, newspaper boy, steamed silkworm seller. After working in a kitchen as Chinese food cook, he moved on to a waiter at a saloon where millionaires hang out.
When he was working as a cook at a Chinese restaurant, he could barely make 20000 won per month. But since he started working in the saloon, he could make 50 thousand won without difficulty in a day. Moreover, by observing the millionaires gambling, he started to learn gamble. He began to think that he could solve all his financial problems if he had a gambling skill.

 So he did not put down the gambling cards for 8 – 10 hours a day. He did not even rest for toilet for the fear that he would lose the sense of gambling. What is amazing is that he could actually make money because of the skill he acquired.  Later, he could make even 1,700,000,000 won a day. The problem was that, even he made so much money, such money could not make him happy. Money was not the solution.  Because money could not solve his problem, he drank with the money he won at gamble, used drugs to taste ecstasy, but they too could not solve his problem. In the end, he reached to a stage where he could not insert needles into any part of his body, but his dilemma was worsened and his suffering was greater.  That is right. It is reality that our spiritual problems cannot be solved by the things of this world. But one day, his brother whispered in a very low voice, “Hey brother, I am praying for you, so you will definitely return to God someday!” And that whisper resounded in his ear and did not leave his head.
 
Soon after, he heard a message that this world was only temporary, not eternal. He fell into a shock and started going to church.  Dear everyone, what is the bottom line of Jang’s confession? Our problems can be solved only when we return to God. He could not quit gambling despite all his efforts. But when he came to church, believed in Jesus and returned to God, all of his problems were washed away clean.  God has a different perspective about success from what people view as success. What is God’s definition of success? That is to stand as a man of faith who is justified to enter God’s Kingdom.  The solid city of Jericho can be collapsed not by man’s way, but only by God’s way. That is right. We must collapse Jericho by God’s way. What is true success? What is true run-way success? It is availing ourselves before God when he wants to work through us.  It is to offering ourselves, “Here I am Lord. Send me,” when he says he would use us. Jesus put his will down when God wanted to use him.  Jesus confessed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” I pray that such grace will be with us all in the name of our Lord.