Well, we're reading from Joshua 24 and the last few verses here, verses 29 through 33. Now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath-serah, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for one hundred pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph. And Eliezer, the son of Aaron, died. They buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas, his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim. And Father, we thank you that every word of Scripture that you have given is for our edification, and it is our desire to grow up into you in all things. And so we pray for you to anoint my lips and each one of us, our hearts, that we might respond even in worship during this sermon. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, during this past week, I watched a video of John Aquari and his marathon race in 1968, and being a long-distance runner myself, well, at least during college days, not now, but I found it a very moving story. I love that area of sports. Marathons are 42.195 kilometers, and they're 26.2 miles, and so it's a long run. Anyway, three-quarters of the way into the run he stumbled and fell, ended up bloodied and with a dislocated kneecap. And I cannot imagine running for very long on a dislocated kneecap, but he did. He did not quit. And finally, he came from Tanzania. Finally, everybody else had already finished the race, had gone home, and at 7 p.m. he hobbled into a near-empty stadium. There was about 7,000 people that were left, and all 7,000 stood up and gave him a standing ovation. Apparently, they had figured out why he was delayed. And they had stuck around. And when somebody asked him, well, why didn't you quit? Because there were stretchers available, and they were urging him to get off of this knee. Why didn't you quit? He responded, my country did not send me to Mexico City to start the race. They sent me here to finish. And because He so exemplified the Olympic ideals. They've honored him to this day. In the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, he was the one who handed out the medals to the marathon runners. In the Beijing Olympics in 2008, he was a goodwill ambassador. They even made a little video about him. That was the video that I watched. Now, here's the thing. Not all of us have equal talents, but God has called all of us to finish the race that He has given to us. And sadly, most of the leaders in the Old Testament did not finish well. If the study that was done by J. Robert Clinton is correct, it was only about 30% of the leaders of the Old Testament who finished well. And that is a stunning statistic, if it is correct. It's really a scary statistic. And one of the prayers that I have repeatedly given over the past years to the Lord is that Kathy and I would not finish poorly like some of the kings of Israel. You know, they started well and then they finished poorly. And this past Monday, Kathy and I were reading 2 Corinthians 5, where Paul says, therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well-pleasing to Him. That was his aim in absolutely everything that he did, to be well-pleasing to God. And that's what today's sermon is about. It's honoring leaders who finish well and emulating them by Following through on their legacy, doing the same thing ourselves. And we're just going to go phrase by phrase through this concluding paragraph of Joshua. Verse 29 begins, now it came to pass after these things that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, and I want to stop there. I just want to focus on the words, the servant of the Lord. What a tribute, the servant of the Lord. What made Joshua so great was not that he was a skilled soldier, the highest in command, a national hero, an incredible galvanizer, wealthy or anything else. His greatness came through his humble service. Now we tend to honor the winners and the talented and the gifted and the influential and the famous, and it's true that Joshua was all of those things too. But God honored him because he was a faithful servant. And I think of Christ's parable in Matthew 25 that says two times, well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. I will make you rule over many things. Enter into the joy of the Lord. You might have had a hard time sometimes during this series identifying with Joshua because his talents so far exceed your own. You may feel more like John Macquarie because you tend to come in last on a lot of different issues. It really doesn't matter. At the end of your life, you want the honor that Jesus gives in Matthew 25 to be given to you. Well done, good and faithful servant. You were faithful over a few things. Over a few things. Emphasis. They didn't have much, right? You were faithful over a few things. I will make you ruler over many things, enter into the joy of the Lord." And that should really affect how we treat and raise our children. Do we praise one child simply because of how talented and gorgeous and smart and gifted she is and then neglect the qualities of the other child? We shouldn't do that. God calls us to imitate Him by honoring those who sacrificially serve the most. Facing imminent death, Paul reflected on his life, stating, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. And it's my prayer that every one of us would be able to say the same thing. Now, speaking of death, none of us is indispensable in God's kingdom. We're all going to die. Verse 29 goes on to say that Joshua died being 110 years old. Now he did have a long life, but I'm emphasizing he died. And certainly the death of Joshua was a huge loss to that generation. But the reason new leaders always need to be raised up is because we will all die. Parents need to pass on a heritage to their children because the parents are going to pass on. And Gary and I are about 70 years old. We've been thinking about this a lot. And we have been training up leaders for the next generation. Now, don't get us wrong. We're not planning on quitting anytime soon. We want to be like John Aquarii, right? And finish well. But we've been very busy in training up the next generation of leaders. But you parents are going to eventually die, and you need to consider what kind of legacy, what kind of testimony have you left, and will they remember? Your children, your grandchildren, will they look back and be able to honor your leadership? In verse 30, we see that they honored their leader by treating him respectfully in death. Verse 30 says, and they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Sera, which is in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. Now why is burial of the body so important to the Christian worldview? There's a lot of Christians who don't think it's important. They opt for cremation. And if that's you, I want you to at least consider what I'm going to be saying to you here. Burial is super important for a number of reasons. Let me give you seven. First, burial is seen as a symbolic act that the body will not be discarded by God. It's a part of who we really are, and it's going to be resurrected on the final day of history. And so we express our value for the body by burying it, not cremating it. Second, John Frame and other Reformed theologians have shown how Orthodox theologians, going all the way back to the early church fathers, have always held that it's not simply our spirits that are made in the image of God. A lot of people have that mistaken idea. It's our whole being, including our bodies, that are made in the image of God. Our bodies are made to image or represent God's dominion, holiness, and other attributes. And Richard Phillips points out that the Hebrew meaning of the word for image is to be formed out of or cut out of, and the very term itself is especially pointing to the body. It's a physical dimension. of the body. And so somehow the body itself is created or formed in the image of God even though God does not have a body. It's a corporeal image of God's incorporeal being. And so you can look at different attributes. Take God's strength. The strength of our bodies is supposed to imitate God's dominion over the world by taking dominion ourselves. And if you look at the systematic theology, you'll see a lot of other ways in which the bodies are supposed to image God. And this doctrine deals a death blow to Gnosticism, which tries to escape from the physical, considers the physical at best unimportant, but at worst they consider it to be evil. And as far as they're concerned, the body just needs to be ignored or eventually discarded. That's not a Christian worldview. Third, burial imitates Jesus, who was a model and a pattern for us to follow in everything. He was buried. Let's imitate him. Fourth, the Bible speaks of the body sleeping. It's a metaphor anticipating a time when it will awake in the resurrection. And the reason I believe it's referring to the body is because our souls don't sleep. The moment we die, we're going to be very much awake and alive in heaven, enjoying the glories of heaven. But our body is metaphorically spoken of as being asleep in order to symbolize the temporary nature of death, a death that Jesus conquered. Fifth, burial was seen by the ancient church as a way of honoring the dead. We honor the previous generation by burying them. Sixth, when people gather for a burial, there is a communal testimony to their faith in God's redemptive plan. In fact, out in Ethiopia, funerals were one of the biggest events for evangelism, and many people came to Christ because of the communal testimony that they could see that was in such stark contrast to their lack of confidence in the faith of death. And then seventh, it stands as a strong contrast with the pagan rituals of those days where pagans burned the body. Now why do I bring this up? Obviously God can resurrect our body even if it's cremated and the ashes are scattered to the winds. And so why bother going through an expensive burial when cremation is so much cheaper? It seems like a wiser stewardship of finances to cremate, right? But I would say for those seven reasons, I would urge all of you to prefer burial over cremation as a way of honoring your loved ones. But I don't want you to miss the fact Joshua was also honored in life. Now he was paid well, but verse 30 also shows he was given an inheritance of land. We aren't told a lot about it, but I've just drawn the conclusion that leaders like Joshua were honored in tangible ways while they lived. not just after they died. And Paul admonishes people to honor their leaders by not neglecting to bless them with finances and in other tangible ways. And I think this congregation has exemplified that very well. Let me quickly make a few additional applications from verses 29 through 30. First, what kind of legacy will you leave behind when you die? And even if you are young, you want your faithfulness to God to be something that could be honored after your death. So now is the time to begin thinking about that. My parents, my grandparents weren't perfect in everything that they did, but they left behind a legacy of devotion and sacrificial service to God. I can definitely say about my parents and Kathy's parents, they were faithful servants to the Lord. And that brings up the second application. Do you see yourself first and foremost as a servant? Now, we are called sons and daughters, and I love that truth. It's a glorious truth. But the most frequent description of believers, even in the book of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, is that we are servants, servants of the Lord. Do you even see the idea of being a servant of God as being a great honor? It is. Now, granted, it takes humility to have a servant's heart. Because servants are not about their own comfort and their own plans and their own agenda. And people tend to get a little bit irritated when people treat them like servants. And I'm not saying we should. You shouldn't be treating leaders or fellow believers as servants. But those under Joshua honored him. In other words, they didn't treat him like a servant, but he had the humility to consider himself a servant. I think that's the balance. The next application is, do you understand the importance of finishing well, or do you tend to give up too quickly? Do you diligently engage in your responsibilities, even if it costs time, energy, and convenience? Think of John Akwari, the Olympic runner from Tanzania. Teach your children to finish their responsibilities. If they want to grow up to be leaders who have God's well done, thou good and faithful servant, they need to learn how to finish well. Even if it's uncomfortable, we really do need to learn that tenacity. The last application under this first section is that how you treat your body either reflects poorly or reflects well your belief that the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and God so values the body that He's going to raise it, you know, on the last day of history. And He considers it part of the image of God. And so when you abuse your body with drugs and with gluttony and with poor eating habits and lack of sleep and lack of exercise, realize your body belongs to God, and how you treat your body reflects on your appreciation or lack of appreciation of God's good gift. Now, we focused on burial as a way of honoring the body, but we should honor our bodies even while we are alive. So you honor the giver of this gift of a body by taking care of it. He's the ultimate leader, right? that we should honor, and we honor Him by taking great care of the incredible gift of our bodies that He has given to us. Let's move on to verse 31. It says, Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. Now, I'll be fairly brief on this because I've already commented on these ideas in previous sermons in Joshua. but it should be a great honor for us to imitate our leaders in their service. Leaders don't serve you so that you don't have to serve. Okay, that's backwards thinking. Leaders are supposed to inspire others to imitate them in service, right? It's leadership, it's modeling. You need to be serving as well. Second, it should be a great honor for us to imitate our leaders in covenant succession. We looked two weeks ago at six things that almost guarantee we will not have covenant succession, and we looked at things that help us to have covenant succession. In other words, the faith being passed on from generation to generation. I'm not going to repeat what we said back there, but here it is clear Joshua had covenant succession in leadership at least two generations worth, and verse 31 says his followers were faithful like he was. And then finally, your leaders are honored when you experience God's work in your life like they have. Good leaders want to see the reality of God's work and God's grace transferred into the lives of their followers. It's not a matter of Phil Kaiser or Gary Dove being transferred into your life, right? The last part of verse 31 says, the next generation knew the works of the Lord, right, that he had done for Israel. They wanted to have a living testimony that God was really at work in them. They wanted to experience the reality of God's power at work in their lives. I think that's a sign of successful leadership. Now, three quick applications. Are you ensuring that covenant succession will endure beyond your generation? It's not gonna happen automatically. I might ask, maybe this is unfair, do you even remember what we talked about two weeks ago of what enables covenant succession? I mean, you need to have a plan. You need to have a plan for covenant succession. Second, this speaks to the importance of both personal testimony and community testimony. It's not enough for the parents to be faithful servants. How do we ensure that the whole family has the same testimony? Third application is that faithfulness can easily fade when we don't personally experience God working in our lives. The next two generations experience God's work, but the book of Judges says there arose a generation that did not experience God's work in their lives. And we should ask God to help us to experience the reality of His working in us every day. Now we're going to end with verses 32 through 33 where we see the next generation honoring their leaders by keeping promises that they had made to them. And this deals with promises to Joseph and to Eleazar the high priest. David Dykstra pointed out this past week when the bulletin was sent out that we made a mistake. Oops. It says Jacob instead of Joseph. So it should say Joseph in your outline. Both gave promises, both gave commands, but the verses listed in your outline are about Joseph. So let me read those verses again. The bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver, and which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph. And Eliezer, the son of Aaron, died. They buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas' son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim. Now how far back did that promise go? It actually went back hundreds of years. There are different chronologies out there that conservatives follow. There's one that says it's more than 400 years, more than 450. Some say more than 250 years. Either way, it's a lot of years. In Genesis 50, Joseph had made his descendants promise to bury his bones in the plot that Jacob had purchased from Hamor in the land of Canaan. And he gave that command to test their faith in his prophetic promise. Let me read that. And Joseph said to his brethren, I am dying. But God will surely visit you and bring you out of this land to the land of which he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Then Joseph took an oath from the children of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here." Now, that was at least 250 years before this burial, actually a bit more. And Israel took care of those bones for all of those years. And that's a testimony they really did believe that they would eventually inherit the land of Canaan. That's incredible. That a promise made several generations before was now being fulfilled by a generation that hadn't made that promise. Right? They were honoring the promise made by their ancestors. His body had been embalmed and they'd been carrying it with them ever since. ready to bury his bones when the time was right. So talk about future orientation. This was a long-term vision. Well, let's think about that for ourselves. Many Christians have a hard time believing the many post-millennial promises that God is going to convert this world and the meek shall inherit the earth and righteousness will fill the earth as deep as the waters cover the ocean beds. That's pretty deep. and they look around them and they're getting their cues for what their faith should be like from the world rather than from God's promises. So how do you honor leaders who've made promises like that? Jesus and Peter and John and Isaiah and Ezekiel, all of these prophets, how do you honor them? Well, I think it's by believing them. they are inspired. And if they said the promise, it's going to happen no matter what we see around us, and also by trying, by His grace, to extend incrementally His kingdom everywhere that we have any influence. That's how we honor them. And I believe postmillennialism is the one eschatology that honors such leaders by taking seriously their promises and their commands concerning the inheritance of the world. Well, next, this grave into which Joseph's bones were placed represented the completion of the Exodus journey. But it also represented God's faithfulness across generations to fulfill His promises and the faithfulness of those generations themselves. And we've covered those things in previous sermons, so I'll skip over that. And finally, in verse 33, The priestly legacy of Eleazar was honored by Phineas' son. It says, in Eleazar, the son of Aaron died. They buried him in a hill belonging to Phineas' son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim. Now, in this case, it was the son of Eleazar who honored his father. But what are some applications that we can make from these last two verses? Well, first, God's work can continue even after the heroes of the past have died. We're not dependent on those heroes. Sometimes we wish those heroes were still alive. We're not dependent upon those heroes. The next generation does not have to have the same talents, abilities, fame, or gifts the previous generation of leaders did. God can still be at work in our lives. The second thing that is implied is that these three burials, for them to have taken place, there had to be an intentional discipleship of the next generation. So we need to pass on the principles that are really important to us, that we hold dear, pass them on to our children, and they to their children. And you men who are being trained in leadership training, you know there's so much involved in such training. But the final application is that we must make sure that our legacy points to God and not to ourselves. If we are servants of the Lord, it doesn't matter what others think about us. Now, sometimes what others think about us hurts our pride. That's okay. We want to crucify our pride, right? It's an enemy. Our burden though should be what others think of God. The best leaders are those who point to God and give glory to God. Now this has been a pretty short sermon, but I want to give you some homework. And if you have trouble implementing this homework, you can talk to me and I can give you some tips and some templates to get you going on it. But I would like each and every one of you to try, even if it takes a couple of years to accomplish it, to try to discern God's specific call upon your life. And for most of you it's not going to be the same as my call, right? But I would encourage you to look at what God has done through your past, look at the burdens that He has placed upon your heart, and come up with a purpose statement, a vision statement, a mission statement. Come up with some key thing that really drives you and excites you some key caution, because you know your weaknesses, that you gotta be on guard against, and then some key encouragement that can keep you keeping on. And as you engage in that, I think it'll help you to be more future-oriented, to be driven by God's future for you and His future for this world. And may the Lord bless you as you do this, amen. Father, I thank you for the book of Joshua, and now that we're finished with it, I pray that it would not just be relegated to the distant past, but that we would continue to live out the principles that you have taught us in this book. I pray that you bless us in this coming year as we continue, Gary and I, with Philippians, and as we look to the future on some of the other things that we are planning for as well. Pray that we would do all of these things in the power of Your Spirit, not in our own strength. And once again, we covet Your blessing upon this, Your people. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.