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Now, there's certain things in
life that you don't have to think about, all right? We had a family
in Florida ask us, would you guys like to go to Disney World?
And we're kind of like, well, I mean, who wouldn't like to
go to Disney World? They said, well, we'd like to
buy you tickets to go for two days to do different theme parks
and things. And we didn't really have to
puzzle over that too long or pray about that too much. It
was kind of obvious that we'd like to do that. My brother and
I grew up fishing, and that was a big part of my life. growing
up, and I had a good friend, Cliff, that I've spoken about
at different times here at church, and he liked to fish as well.
He was my fishing buddy, and he and my brother, just about
two weeks ago, were in a fishing tournament at Camp Shitek. It's
a fundraiser for the Christian camp there in Wisconsin. They
go out, they have 40-some boats that were participating, and
my brother and Cliff exact same poundage and ounce
weight as another book. If you ask me, would you have
liked to have been there with them or if I could go with them,
again, it's not something that I have to think about very long.
It's obvious what I'd like I'd like to go out to eat. She
never says this. I always have to ask her, would you like to
go out to eat? But you know, if she said it to me, if I think
about that, you know, I can just spend time with my wife and good
food. Again, it's not something that I have to puzzle over. It's
a win-win. Obviously, I'd like to do that.
In my youth, as a teenager, we called these kind of things no-brainers,
all right? In other words, no cognitive
skill necessary. You don't have to think about
it. It's a no-brainer. The answer is obvious. Well, sometimes teenagers
would get no-brainers wrong, okay? Maybe that's a lot of times
where that phrase would come out. You know, somebody does
something really, really foolish, and you go, duh, that was a no-brainer,
right? You didn't have to think about
that. I mean, that was obvious what you should have done. Maybe
it was an exam question, and they were sleeping in class or
something like that, so they weren't paying attention. And
that question came up, and they got it wrong. And again, you're
just like, how could you possibly get that wrong? That was so obvious. They might have done something
that embarrassed them. But why did you go down that
path and trip over that or whatever that was again kind of a no-brainer
type idea? You know Joshua chapter 24 we
find Joshua challenging Israel with what is a no-brainer all
right? It's it's not something that somebody should have to
puzzle over or think that long about it And the sad thing is,
despite the fact that it's a no-brainer, just like the illustration I
used there, sometimes people get no-brainers wrong. And so
they might be sleeping spiritually, and they get this wrong. There
are plenty of believers that have certainly messed up, and
getting this answer right, that is on the heart of Joshua. And so the no-brainer that Joshua
presents to the people as a simple challenge is this, all right?
You ought to decide to serve the Lord your God. Now what's
sad about this, what we're gonna look at, is not just that Joshua
shared this with the children of Israel, but that Joshua had
to share this with the leadership of the children of Israel as
well. And so look with me at Joshua
chapter 24 and verse one. It says, and Joshua gathered
all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of
Israel and for their heads and for their judges and for their
officers, and they presented themselves before God. So again, All right, all you guys come
here. Joshua's the chief leader. He's gonna have a powwow with
them and sit down and really challenge them to be the next
generation that's gonna go on to serve God. He does that in
verse 14 as he says, now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in
sincerity and in truth and put away the gods which your father
served on the other side of the flood and in Egypt and serve
ye the Lord, okay? deals with things that were in
their life, but then that just... We're gonna listen to Joshua
this morning and let him challenge us, right? We're gonna take his
points and apply them to our lives this morning and challenge
ourselves that we ought to decide to serve the Lord, our God. And again, as we think about
this this morning, it should be a no-brainer. It ought to
be something that is in our hearts, like, obviously, yeah, who wouldn't
serve God? And so may God speak to our hearts
as we look at this truth this morning. Let's pray. Father,
I thank you for the grace I can give. Thank you for the opportunity
that we have to come to the Word of God this morning. Thank you
for all you've already worked in our hearts. Thank you for, Brother
Josh, sharing at Sunday School the truth about God's creation.
And Father, the good reminder that the God that began it is
a God that will conclude it, both physically and praise God
spiritually in our lives. And Father, it's encouraging
to us in our walk with God. It's encouraging to us, even
as we look at this property, we're talking about the work
that needs to be done, that the God that directed us to get the
property and is a God that's gonna help us finish it. And
I was encouraged by that from the lesson this morning. But
Father, it's been good to be in the house of God. It's good
to see everybody this morning. It's good to fellowship and speak
one with another to hear about how the week has been and to
just have that time of fellowship and time now around the word
of God and singing. And so we praise you for the
hymns that we've sung, the hymns that were chosen this morning
that Vincent presented to us were hymns of the soon appearance
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we rejoice in that and are
excited About the return of Jesus and I pray Lord to be great if
you'd return Before this message is over. It'd be great if you'd
come Immediately and that would be immediately in the presence
of God But as long as you Terry I pray that the Spirit of God
and help us to grow I pray that you'd help us to go onward and
upward I pray that you'd help us to achieve more for God and
for God's glory. I Father, I pray for the kids
in their class this morning, that the Spirit of God would
bless Mrs. Shore and guide them and direct them, and that they'd
have tender hearts to simple truths that are presented to
them at their age level, things that they can understand, and
they would begin to love God as soon as they can understand
truth. And Father, for us in this room again, I pray that
the Spirit of God would speak to every heart. Father, I pray that
you give us ears to hear. I pray, Father, you'd help me
as I speak. I can't speak without your enablement.
Father, I ask that the Spirit of God would help me to preach
biblically, practically, lovingly, and powerfully the truth of your
word and present it as you intend me to as the pastor of our church. It's in Christ's name I pray,
amen. All right, so you ought to decide to serve the Lord your
God. And I want to paraphrase Joshua's challenge as we come
to the different points and just kind of what he was saying to
them. And I want to paraphrase the
main points as a question. And so why wouldn't you serve
the God who has done everything for you? We're talking about
the no-brainer idea that this is obvious, something that we
ought to look at and say, and what Joshua's challenging them
with is that this ought to be something that is just a natural
response because of what God has why wouldn't you serve the
God who has done everything for you? And so as a young person
growing up in my father's house and you in your father's house,
if my dad asked me to do something or my parents asked me to do
something, if I wasn't in a bad mood or something else going
on, generally speaking, if they asked me to do something, I would
respond affirmatively. and had provided my food. Dad
gave me a place to sleep. Dad took care of all the pressure
and the things about life and took good care of me. And so
a young person helping around the house should not be unusual,
but that should be expected. I mean, that would be kind of
a natural response of a young person that has everything going
for them that mom and dad are providing to respond in that
way. It would be more unusual for
a young person not to respond in that way. In fact, we look
at that and say that's ingratitude, right? thankful, don't really
realize what they've been given. And they ought to recognize that
and then respond accordingly and serve within that help. And so Joshua's challenge to
Israel is rational. God's done so much for you. It
ought to be unusual for you not to serve the God who has given
so much to you. So he begins to speak to them
about that. And so going back in our text, verse two, he speaks
to them about the fact that God led them away from false gods.
It says in verse two, Joshua said unto all the people, thus
saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other
side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham
and the father of Nachor, and they served other gods. If you
wanted to know, did Abraham's family No, God, you know going
back some generations. They did they weren't serving
God They were in idolatry and they served other gods and God
Brought them away from that. They didn't know the true God
until God in his mercy brought them to faith There's a lot of
people in our in our day that are serving false gods and we're
talking about the emptiness of an atheist, you know the pointlessness
of life and but they're bowing down to those things that can
can't help them at all and can't do anything for them. The Olympic
swimmer was in the news this past week, Adam Peaty, and he's
a three-time Olympic champion. And what I was speaking about
was the sadness of his life, kind of the emptiness of his
life, and that he's struggling with what they would call mental
health and having motivation. Not that he's not good at what
he does But he said this a good friend of mine said a gold medal
is the coldest thing you'll ever wear PD told BBC breakfast It's
the coldest thing because you think it will fix all of your
problems and it will not all right so if that's if that's
the pinnacle of your existence if that if achieving that for
some people might be getting that job and For others, it might
be getting that device, or getting that thing, and they think, that
thing's gonna satisfy me. If I could just get to there,
that's gonna be what life's all about. And there are plenty of
people today that are living the life of those things, and
it's just empty, empty, empty. And again, there's nothing wrong
with maybe getting a good job, or winning that gold medal, or
something like that, but if that's the pinnacle of man's existence,
again, you just think how that does not satisfy him. And so
there's plenty of people living their life for false gods. They
live to drink on the weekends. I mean that to them is their
existence. They go to work, they work to drink. I mean it's just
a cycle and again it doesn't satisfy them. They live their
life for Some that live their life for work and money. They
live their life for social media fame. There's a lot of young
people that are just constantly on their devices, and I mean,
their life is all wrapped up in whether somebody thinks good
of them or thinks bad of them and things like that. They live
their life for relationships or fleeting pleasures and pride,
and they have no idea who God is, right? There's plenty of
people like that, but then God in his mercy awakens somebody's
heart. They begin to understand who God is, what life's all about.
We're talking about those answers even this morning. And instead
of worshiping God, instead of worshiping idols, they begin
to worship God. Of course, that's what God intends. God desires
us this morning to be God worshipers, not worshipers of anything else.
An idol is anything exalted above God and served, okay? And actually,
you do serve false gods, okay? So somebody that's in idolatry,
they serve whatever that false god in their life is. And so
Exodus 20, God commands, thou shalt have no other gods before
me. And so God is to have first place
above everything else. Entertainment above everything
got us to have first place thou shalt not make them to be any
graven image or any likeness of anything That's in heaven
above or that's in the earth beneath or that's in the water
under the earth Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them nor
serve them. Okay, there's that service idea.
All right, not to serve them. I That's not good. That's not
to control your life. That's not to direct your life.
That's not the entity that's to be commanding you But that
should be God for I the Lord thy God and the jealous God visiting
the iniquity of the fathers Upon the children unto the third and
fourth generation of them that hate me All right, and so Joshua
is saying to them. Look you were if you go back
generationally you were serving other gods That's where you were
at. But God took you God took Abraham and now you understand who God
is. And so Joshua's saying, rationally,
shouldn't you serve the God that brought you to faith in him to
understand who he is, the living God that led you away from those
false, empty gods and that empty life that you had before. And so he led you away from false
gods. He led you into a life of faith. Okay, verse three.
He said, I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood
and led him throughout all the land of Canaan and multiplied
his seed and gave him Isaac. Okay, and this morning we saw
Genesis 1-1, in the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth, a very simple statement and very complex and incredible
work that God did. In the same way, we look at this
verse and it's a synopsis, a summary of a big story in the life of
Abraham. All right, so it just, all it
says there is that he multiplied his seed and he gave him Isaac. All right, but that was a life
of faith for Abraham. God brought Abraham into an incredible
walk of faith with him. He was promised a child, but
no child appeared to be given. Genesis 15 verse one. After these
things, the word of the Lord came unto Abram in a vision,
saying, Fear not, Abram, I am thy shield and thy exceeding
great reward. And Abram said, Lord God, what
wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless? All right. And so
he already had the promise of God. He's going to be the father
of many nations, but he's like, I don't have any kids. And the
steward of my house is this Eleazar of Damascus, and so his right-hand
man, his servant there, and Abram said, behold, to me thou hast
given no seed, and lo, one born in my house is mine heir. And
he's thinking, this Eleazar of Damascus must be my heir, because
God, you haven't blessed me with children, even though you said
you're gonna make me a mighty nation. So he's looking at it humanly
and thinking, how can this be? And he's having to start to trust
God and depend upon God. And it says, verse 4, So he's
promised a child. But no child was given. He was
promised not just a child, but he was promised an incredibly
large nation. So not just that you're going
to have a child, but that you're going to multiply incredibly.
And so Genesis 15 again, verse 5, he brought him forth abroad
and he said, look now toward heaven. and tell the stars, if
thou be able to number them. And he said unto him, so shall
thy seed be." Can you imagine a man that doesn't have any kids
coming outside, God pointing up at the heavens and saying,
look at the stars. And that's gonna be like your family. And
it's like, how could this possibly be? So not just am I gonna have
a child, but I'm gonna have a huge offspring or a nation really
that's gonna come from me. But he's promised not just a
large nation, but he's promised spiritual children of all nations. So not only are you going to
have a child, but you're going to have this huge offspring, but then
you're going to also impact other nations somehow. Genesis 18,
18, seeing that Abraham shall surely become a great and mighty
nation and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in
him. As Abraham looks at this, there
is no way forward to this goal that God says is going to take
place. It's not achievable by man. It's only achievable by
God. Therefore, what is God doing in the life of Israel? He is
leading them to walk by faith and to see what God would do.
Hebrews 11 verse 11. Through faith also Sarah herself
received strength to conceive seed and was delivered of a child
when she was past age, because she judged him faithful who had
promised." And verse 19 about Abraham, and being not weak in
faith, he considered not his own body now dead when he was
about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb.
He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief, but
with strong faith, giving glory to God. Okay, so God gave promises
to their grief. great-great-great-great-grandfather
Abraham, and God led them into this life of faith, and everything
that they looked around and that they saw was a result of God's
promise and what God had said and God had done it, okay? And
so Joshua says to them, shouldn't you serve the God that led you
in the life of faith? The God that you can look around
and say, look at what God's doing, because God is absolutely doing
that. He'd have begun a good work, and you will perform it,
right? That was talked about in Sunday school, that you see
God's hand, and therefore you continue to see God's hand, and
so he led you into a life of faith. He delivered you from
bondage. Verse 4, It says, and I gave
unto Isaac, Jacob, and Esau, and I gave unto Esau Mount Seir
to possess it, but Jacob and his children went down into Egypt,
and I sent Moses also and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according
to that which I did among them. And I have to worry, I brought
you out, and I brought your fathers out of Egypt. Okay, so if you
know the history of the Jewish people and kind of what happened
with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and then Joseph, you know that. I don't know if I'm right there
to say great-grandson or great-great-grandson of Abraham was sold into slavery
in Egypt. But then he becomes, he rises
up to second in command to Pharaoh and then Jacob's family comes,
when the dearth comes and there's the drought, they come into into
Egypt, and then another pharaoh rises up that doesn't know Joseph,
and begins to feel threatened by the great crowd of people,
the Hebrews. You know, there's so many of
them that he puts them into bondage, and so they are enslaved to the
Egyptian people, but then they cry unto God, and God raises
up a deliverer. It's Moses that is led by God
to come as a deliverer. And then the 10 plagues take
place, the wealth of Egypt. The men
that Joshua was speaking to were people that had experienced the
exodus. They were either children or
teens. When that had taken place, they had seen the plagues. They had seen the incredible
mercy of God. They knew the bondage that their fathers were in. Maybe
they as teenagers even had been enslaved in that bondage as well
and had labored in that with the toil of that And so they
experienced the exodus and the liberty. And so they knew what
it was to say, God brought us out of a horrible circumstance
and God brought us into a incredible freedom, okay? Again, what's
Joshua saying? Joshua's saying the God that
did that, shouldn't you serve him? Isn't that logical that
you would wanna serve the God that took you from point A that
was horrible and brought you to point B, okay? So he delivered
you from bondage. But then, He also, in the wilderness
experiences, he gave you wonderful victories. Wonderful victories.
Look at verse six. It says, and you came unto the
sea and the Egyptians pursued after your fathers with chariots
and horsemen unto the Red Sea. And when they cried unto the
Lord, again, so they're in a very tough spot there, right there
at the Red Sea, they got the walls of the riverbed, dried
riverbed on either side, they got the Egyptian army behind
them, they're crying to God, and He put darkness between you
and the Egyptians and brought the sea upon them and covered
them, and your eyes have seen what I have done in Egypt, and
you dwelt in the wilderness a long season. And I brought you into
the land of the Amorites, which dwelt on the other side, Jordan.
And they fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, that
ye might possess their land. And I destroyed them from before
you. Then Balak the son of Zippor,
king of Moab, arose and warred against Israel, and sat and called
Balaam the son of Beor, I to curse you. But I would not hearken
unto Balaam. Therefore he blessed you still.
So I delivered you out of his hand. And he went over Jordan,
and came unto Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against
you, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites,
and the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
And I delivered them into your hand, and I sent the hornet before
you, which draved them out from before you, even the two kings
of the Amorites, but not with thy sword, nor with thy bow."
All right, sometimes they didn't even have to fight. It was just
God, yeah, I mean, was it tough for them? I mean, they were faith-tested,
they failed, but every single time, if they would trust God,
God would deliver them, and they saw incredible victories. Victories
that, from a human standpoint, you look at it, you say, that's
not possible without God, so God gave that victory. And again,
just to think of the logic of what Joshua is saying, he's saying
to them, why wouldn't you serve the God that gave you such incredible
victories? And then he says to them, he
blessed you tremendously. Verse 13, it says, I've given
you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you
built not. And ye dwelled in them. Of the
vineyards and olive yards which ye planted not, do ye eat. When the Pilgrims landed in North
America, they didn't have cities, right, they had a of them died because they just
weren't prepared to be there and to have the shelter that
they needed, to have the food source that they needed. So they
got into that land and they had to work incredibly. It wasn't
that way for Israel. As Israel got into the Promised
Land and the situation that they're in, they're coming into land
that's cultivated, they're coming into land that has houses and
things. Some are described, but many are still there. So they're
entering into houses that they didn't build. They're entering
into crops that weren't things that they had to labor to get.
And so all that was just given to them by God. And again, Joshua
just looks at them and says, why wouldn't you serve God that
gave you such tremendous blessing? And so as a believer, as we look
at what Joshua's saying, certainly we can relate to a lot of the
things that he is saying to the leaders of the children of Israel
as he's trying to get them ready. He's gonna pass off the scene,
he wants the next generation to follow God, and he wants them
to be serving God. And so this morning we as well
could look at our life and say, you know what, I see a lot of
those things in my life that Joshua just presented to them.
You know, Joshua could say to us this morning, you know what,
you were following other gods before you got saved. Your life
was not about God, not about worshiping God. You know, sometimes
kids grow up in Christian families, but even there, until you got
saved, you didn't have that relationship established by God. And the Bible
speaks about it this way in Ephesians chapter two. It says that at
that time you were without Christ. being aliens from the commonwealth
of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having
no hope, and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus
ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of
Christ." So somebody that's been saved, I mean, we were without
hope. We talked about that this morning,
just the hopelessness of atheism. And if that was true, wow, that
is totally hopeless. But understand this, somebody
that in the fact that God has created, God has designed, but
they don't believe in God, they're hopeless as well. They don't
have hope. They don't have the mercy of
God. They could have. They don't have the grace of God. But we
who have tasted of the goodness of God, we understand this. I
mean, I was away from God, but by the grace of God, God has
brought me into a relationship with him. And so why wouldn't
we serve the God that has established that relationship? We know the
true God. we were brought to faith. Romans 12, verse three says,
for I say through the grace given unto me to every man that is
among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to
think, but to think soberly according as God had dealt to every man
the measure of faith. God saved us by faith. You know,
there came that point where we put our trust in God. You know,
we saw this morning, again, that verse in the scripture that speaks
about creation. How do we know that God created by faith? We
understand that the world's were framed by the word of God. It's
by faith. It's by faith we understand that
Jesus Christ loved us. He died on the cross for our
sins. He didn't stay in the grave, but he rose from the dead. We
put our faith in God. But as we get saved, What we
find is God begins to lead us in a life of faith. There's impossible
things that maybe are in our life. We look at it and say,
I don't know how this is gonna happen, but we see the promise of God and
the word of God, and God encourages us, and we begin to walk by faith. The God that is showing us that
and demonstrating that to us is a God that is worthy of our
service, that we serve the God that brought us to faith and
helps us to walk by faith. You are delivered from bondage,
Colossians 1.13. says you have delivered us from
the power of darkness. It has translated us into the
kingdom of his dear son. Whether we recognize it or not,
the prince of the power of the air was a ruler of our life.
The father that we serve before he got saved is not God the father,
but as Jesus said to the Pharisees, you're of your father, the devil,
the lesser your father, you will do. And that was our life outside
of Christ. But again, God took us from that
bondage. And in some cases, some people
understanding that far more than others, the bondage of sin and
setting us free by the power of the blood of the Lord Jesus
Christ. And so he hath delivered us from the power of darkness.
Isaiah 61.1 says, the spirit of the Lord God is upon me because
the Lord hath anointed me to preach the good tidings unto
the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim
liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them
that are bound. There's a lot of people that
understand what that's about. We studied the Gatorian demoniac
recently. I mean, that man understood.
His life outside of Christ was one of self-harm and hurt and
horrible abuse. But when he got saved, God set
him free. God put him in his right mind.
God changed his life. Again, somebody like that, he
that has been forgiven much, the same loveth much. That's
why Mary was there, wiping the feet of Jesus Christ with her
hair, because she understood, I want to serve God, because
God has been tremendously good to me. So he delivered us from
bondage. You have seen wonderful victories
in your life. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 57 says,
but thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Romans 8.37, Nay, in all these
things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. for
your God, little children, and have overcome them, because greater
is he that is in you than he that is in the world. All right,
so somebody begins to walk with God, they begin to understand
victory, that there are enemies, adversaries that I can't overcome,
I can't get past that financially, I can't get past that spiritually,
I can't get past that emotionally, or whatever it is, there's just
a, there's something, there's a battle that's there, and yet
God gives victory. And again, we look at that and
I say, why wouldn't I serve the God that gives victory like that?
Why wouldn't I serve the God that has been so good, that continually
protects me, watches over me and helps me? And then we've
been blessed tremendously. I could ask the question this
morning, has God been good to you since you got saved? Well,
I hope that there's something in our heart that just opens
up and says, yes, absolutely, God has been good to me since
I got saved. David said it like this, Psalm
16, verse six, it says, lines are falling to me in pleasant
places. Yeah, the goodly heritage. You
know, we don't need to be jealous of the world. The world has nothing.
It's empty. It's a dream that is unfulfilled. It's a mirage that is constantly
eating sand and drinking sand. And yet, as believers, we've
got the constant grace of God, the goodness of God, and the
blessing of God. 1 Corinthians 4 7 for who maketh thee to differ
from another? What hast thou that thou didst
not receive? Now if thou didst receive it,
why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it? Everything
that we have is from God. Every single blessing that is
ours is from God. The Bible says every good gift
and every perfect gift is from above. And cometh down from the
Father of lights with whom is no variable. by God. Romans 8 32, we'll talk
about this tonight as we focus on the Savior and his sacrifice
for us. He that spared not his own son,
but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also
freely give us all things? We have been blessed by God.
We've been blessed by God as a people, individually, the jobs
that we have and the physical things that we have. As a church,
we've been blessed by God. We stand today in a hall that
is given to us by God, a church property that's given to us by
God. Again, there are plenty of things around us today to
make us stop, look, and listen and say, you know what? God has
been so good. We've seen three people saved,
born again in this property. Praise God. That's better than
this property. I'd trade this property for somebody
to get saved, but praise God, it's a soul-saving place that
God's given to us. Again, as a church, we ought
to recognize, hey, God has been good to us. God has grown our
church in the last couple years. The family stays broad. He's
putting us together as a people. And again, we ought to look at
that and say, hey, praise God. You know what? God has been so
very good to us. And since God has been so good
to us, shouldn't we serve him? Shouldn't that be the response
of our heart that we would say, you know what, the God that has
been so good to me, that's the God that I desire to serve. And so I like how Joshua begins
kind of his rationale for challenging them to serve God. He basically
says to them, why wouldn't you serve the God who has done everything
for you? That's logical, that's a no brainer
to serve that God. And then secondly, why wouldn't
you decide right now to serve God for the rest of your life.
Why wouldn't you decide right now that that's gonna be the
trajectory of your life, that you're gonna serve God? And so
he begins to challenge them with the idea of fearing God. Verse
14, he says, now therefore, having listed all these things that
God did and all God's goodness, now therefore fear the Lord. It's almost humorous to stop
and think about Joshua saying to Israel, you ought to fear
the Lord. Think about some of the things
that Israel saw. They saw the plagues. They saw
the God that can make a bunch of frogs appear in your bedroom,
all right, and just kind of be everywhere, and all the food
and everything, and all the locusts. They saw the lice and the hailstones
and the incredible anguish and heard the cries of the Egyptian
people as the firstborn son in every household was killed. Fear
the Lord. They watched the water of the
Red Sea part as they walked through. Can you imagine? If you saw that,
would that make you fear God? I think that'd make me fear God.
If I could walk down to the fourth and Moses stand there and whatever
he did, you know, on that day in the water's part, you could
walk over a dry ground, I think I'd stop and think, you know,
I fear God. If I saw that water come back and destroy the Egyptian
army that was following me and saw those dead bodies along the
shore, I think I'd stop and think about that and I'd have a fear
of God in my heart. They saw God descend upon Mount
Sinai in a fire. They saw him in a pillar of fire
at night and a pillar of cloud in the day. Jehovah God that
was present with them in tangible ways that they could look at
and say, you know what? God is in this place. And they heard
the voice of God speak there at Mount Sinai. And they were
afraid of that. They saw Moses come down and they saw the glory
of God in the face of Moses. And they said to him to put a
veil upon his face. They witnessed many judgments
of God upon themselves for their disobedience. They saw the walls
of Jericho fall down. All those things, these are the
last person you'd think you'd have to say to them, now therefore
fear the Lord. They had experienced all those
things. And if we had a Sunday school class this morning, we
had the children there and we said, God did this and God did
this. And if you ask them, shouldn't
you fear God? I think, I would hope they'd
say, yeah, a God that can do that is a God that you ought
to have a great reverence for. And so if you fear God, you serve
God. Somebody that fears God listens
when God says something, they look at that and go, hey, since
God said that, I'm gonna observe that, I'm gonna do that because
I am in awesome reverence of God. You know, this morning,
do you still believe the God of Israel possesses that awesome
power? You know, we gotta decide right
now, I'm gonna serve God and let our hearts be in fear of
such an awesome God. But then he challenges them as
well, you should sincerely serve God. Decide now to sincerely
serve God. It says, and serve him in sincerity
and truth. Joshua wasn't seeking lip service,
he was seeking life service. He wasn't seeking them to confess
a creedal statement, he desired them to have the trajectory of
their life be such that it was like, you know, I'm gonna do
this for God. He's not trying to get them to
say something and not do it. Jesus gave an illustration of
that to the Pharisees with a one question quiz on true and sincere
religion. He said in Matthew 21, 28, he
said, What think he? A certain man had two sons, and
he came to the first. He said, Son, go work today in
my vineyard. He answered and said, I will
not. But after work, he repented and he went. He came to the second
and said likewise, and he answered and said, I go, sir, and went
not, whether of them Twain did the will of his father. All right,
he's saying, okay, neither was good. The first one said no,
but then he repented, he got right and he did it. The second
one said, I will, and he didn't do it. But of those two negative
examples, which one's better? The better example is the one
that said no initially, but then repented and said, right, I was
wrong about that. I wanna go do what God said to
do. And the person that just said it, but didn't do it, that
was no good. And that was the Pharisees. Jesus said in Luke
6, verse 46, He said, Why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not
the things which I say? True religion is not something
that looks religious, it's something that is religious. True religion
isn't how I appear as I dress up and I go to church. It's not
anything like that. It's me living my life for God.
That's true religion. I mean, somebody could have all
the book knowledge in the world, but not do anything for God.
Somebody could know in Joshua's day everything about God, but
that's not what Joshua was seeking. Somebody that could just say
the right answer, I will serve God. He wanted somebody that
would actually serve God. And so he says to them, look,
serve him in sincerity. And so this morning, it's not,
what do I profess with my lips? It's what do I confess with my
life, right? It's what does my life say about
this, what Joshua's saying, right? I had to decide right now that
my life's gonna be about serving God and living for him in sincerity
and truth. And so he challenged them, you
should be sincere and serve God. And then he says to them, you
should be faithful to God, faithful to God. It says, and put away
the gods which your father served on the other side of the flood
and in Egypt and serve ye the Lord, okay? that the idolatry that was there,
don't pick that up again. Leave that there so that you
can serve God. Joshua knew that if they're serving
idols, they can't serve God. that it's either idols or God. You gotta decide which it was
gonna be. And so the Bible says, Jesus
said in Matthew 6, 24, he said, no man can serve two masters,
for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he
will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God
and mammon, all right? We cannot have two gods, but
God did make us to worship. It's an interesting dynamic about
God's creation. God made man. to have a soul,
and our soul worships. It's kind of a natural thing,
and so if somebody's not worshiping God, they're worshiping something
else. There will be worship, and even
our world, say an atheist or somebody like that, they use
worship terminology when they speak about kind of life. Okay, they'll say things like
this, sports idols, right? You got a sports idol, and somebody
that, you know, a fan, a fanatic, somebody that is a sports idol,
whatever that idol to them is, whether it's a man or a team
or something like that, they'll never miss a game, right? No
matter what the weather is. no matter what time the game's
at, no matter where the game is. I mean, some of these people,
they'll get on a bus and a train and a plane. I mean, they'll
go wherever they need to go to get there, because they're a
fan. I mean, they live it, and you know it, because they talk
about it all the time, right? It's constantly on their lips. You've got sports idols. You've
got music idols. I saw a couple BBC articles about
sports. Music Idols this past week, and
there was a concert that was recently here in Edinburgh, and
somebody said about that, I bought my tickets eight months and three
days ago, and I mean, I've just been counting down the days,
you know, until that sports idol, or music idol got there, whoever
that person was. I saw another video, it was kind
of fun to watch, it was this, I don't know who he is, but some
famous musician that comes into a band at a public high school,
and surprises them, kind of walks up towards the front, and you
see the faces of the kids, and they're just like, and then some
of the tears begin to come. You know, they're crying because
they're so amazed because that music idol that they're all about,
I mean, standing right there in front of them, and on a human
perspective, I can kind of see some of these things. I understand
this, you know, some people can like sports, they can like music,
though not that kind of music. You know, there could be things
that you're interested In but the thing is if your life is
about that it can't be about God If that's your life And so
if I'm if my life is about I serve God I worship God who do I speak
about? Who do I adjust my schedule for
How involved am I? To what extent do I, I mean,
that is me. It is about, in this case, it
is about God or it's about something else. What do I adjust my schedule
for? What do I invest financially
in? Because all those things, it
used to be said, show me a man's checkbook and I'll show you what
that man loves. That's true. So if God is my God, I do invest
in the things of God, because I love the work of God. I wanna
see the work of God move forward. I invest my time in the things
of God, because I'm about that, because my life is about serving
God. My life is about worshiping God. And so he challenges that. He
says, look, put away those gods. Put away those things. Paul said
it like this, wherefore seeing we are compassed about with so
great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside the weights and
the things, the sin which does so easily beset us, and let us
run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And that is the
idea, I'm gonna set aside these things that, listen, may not
just be sinful, but maybe holding me back from really serving God
as I should. I've got to come to that mindset
of, look, God is my God. Therefore, I worship him. Therefore,
I serve him and I serve him sincerely and I serve him faithfully. And
so I'm not divided in my heart towards God about, you know,
I would serve God, but I've got this other thing that I really
like. I've got to let go of that. My life should never have something
in it. I've got a balance between that and God. It ought to always
be God. And if this gets hurt a little
bit, that's okay. Why should God get hurt? Why should his
cause suffer? Okay. And so Joshua kind of just
says right here, why wouldn't you decide right now that you're
going to serve God for the rest of your life? Now, therefore,
he says to decide. And so what are the priorities
of my life? Are there gods that I need to put away? And so he
says to them, again, if I could just paraphrase what he's saying,
why wouldn't you serve the God who's done everything for you?
And then why wouldn't you decide right now to serve God for the
rest of your life? And then third, why would you
object to such a reasonable suggestion? Joshua's prepared for flak, all
right? If I can put it that way, I mean,
he's challenging them, he's gonna put it right out there, but he's
prepared for somebody to go antagonistic against what Joshua is saying
and make the wrong decision. So he's gonna press home his
point, and he says it this way. He says, is this request in any
way wrong to you? Is there anything wrong with
this? So verse 15, it says, and if it seemed evil unto you to
serve the Lord, Wow. Stop and think about that. I
mean, what a statement. If it seemed evil to you, that word
means morally wrong or wicked. And so God's servant challenging
God's people to serve him. Is there anything wrong with
that, is what he's saying. It'd be like saying, Joshua,
you're morally wrong for saying to us as the children of God
that we ought to serve God. of what Joshua is saying. According to Paul, Joshua's command
is actually logical and it's the right thing to do. Romans
12, 1. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God,
may you present your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable
unto God, which is your reasonable service. In other words, as you
stop and think about it, it's again, going back to that no
brainer idea. Yeah. Yeah. Wow, you're right, Joshua,
we should serve God. Because that's not morally wrong.
There's nothing wrong, Joshua, with you challenging us and saying,
serve God, live for God. You set up the argument, you
said everything there is about God. There is no way that can
find fault with the logic of what Joshua is saying. He is
absolutely right in the challenge that he's getting. Is it wrong
in our day to expect God's people to serve him? As a church, I
encourage this. Our expectation as we see God
bring people to our church is that our people are gonna serve
God. That's our expectation because
of all the logic that we've already looked at, everything that Jesus
Christ has done, who God is and why he is worthy and like that. And so if I were to just make
it practical for us this morning, what would serving God look like?
What, I mean, how, you know, Joshua's challenging them, okay,
God is your God, serve him. Just like with the idolatry illustration,
okay, if you've got an idol in your life, then you serve that
idol. How do you serve it? You spend time with it, you do this,
you do this, you do this, you do this. We can nail it down. So
how do we nail it down when it comes to church? What does serving
God look like? Is serving God reading your Bible?
I think so. Does that make sense? I'm just
trying to be very practical for us this morning. I think that
that's true. So if I'm going to serve God in my home, then
I'm going to read God's word. I'm going to pray. You know,
I'm going to, as a godly dad, I'm going to say, you know, family,
we're going to have family devotions. We're going to read our Bibles
together. Why? Because if you study the Bible, it speaks about the
parents have tremendous responsibility to teach the word of God to their
kids, not the church first, but family first, teaching about
God. How does that look when it comes
to church attendance? Serving God is, you know, at the church,
the church is, I mean, if you wanna ask about the importance
of the local church in the New Testament, this, the New Testament's
not as big as the old, but, you know, you get to the epistles,
you get all to the after Christ and the life of Christ, and all
of that is about the church, and Jesus said, I will build
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
So it's gonna impact church attendance, but it's gonna impact church
ministry too, right? Because God's given us abilities
to use for Him. Every single one of us has, the
administration of the Spirit is given to every man to profit
with all. Every single person has a spiritual gift to exercise
for God. You may not be the best at doing
something, but that isn't what God says. God doesn't ask us
to be the best. I appreciate, Josh, and you did a great job
this morning, but I'm just saying, I appreciate anybody that will
get up and just do what maybe is not their thing for God in
obedience to God. We don't have to be the best.
I praise God. If we had to be the best, I wouldn't be here.
I would be the first one that wouldn't be able to do anything
for God if we had to be the best. God doesn't ask that. But if I am a servant of God
and I'm serving God, I ought to be able to say, well, this
is what I do at church. This is my part. And then to evaluate
as I do it, how do I do it? Do I give my best? Do I think
about it? Do I prepare? Listen, I encourage
our church, on Saturday nights, spend some time in prayer for
today. Our family does this. We have
family devotions that night. We have a special prayer time
on Saturday nights. Listen, if we need to, we'll start doing
that as a church, praying together. I'd love to. Why? Because today doesn't just happen
without preparing our heart for it. We can't just come off of
telly and all sorts of whatever we got going on and expect to
come in on a Sunday morning and really worship and serve God
as God intends us to, right? So it's not just what we do,
it's also how we do it, but to evaluate that and begin to think
about that and say, and to consider this morning and to think, is
there anything morally wrong with that? Would it be wrong
for us as a church in the future, pastor and deacons, to have that
expectation or as a membership, have that expectation that as
a church, we are about having a people not just congregating,
but actually coming and saying, you know what, we're here to
serve God. It's about worshiping God and giving back to God. And
so he says to them, will you continually put off a definite
decision? He says, now, therefore, choose
you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father
served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods,
the Amorites in whose land you dwell, okay? And he just says
that, look, make a decision. I love the story where Elijah
is on Mount Carmel And he says to them, how long halt you between
two opinions? If God be God, serve him. If
Baal, then follow him. What's the point of any longer
in our life waffling? And again, it's the no brainer
idea. Like this is not a tough thing. And understand, we understand
this and I think this is what makes it tough. If I'm really
honest, I have to make a conscious condemnation of myself if I'm
not gonna serve God. I've got to stand in judgment
upon myself. And I don't, I wouldn't really want to do that. Our flesh
resists that. I really don't want to condemn
myself, but we have to be honest and say, I am either serving
God or I am not serving God. And if I'm not serving God, I
am not right with God. And that's where Joshua is with
them. It's like, all right, cheer.
The hard part for us, we don't wanna choose, why? Because we
don't really wanna serve God sometimes, I'm not saying everybody,
but we don't really wanna serve God, but we know that's not right.
So we try to put off the decision, right? But again, Joshua just
brings it to bear, like, choose now. But look at what Joshua
says. Whatever you decide, I declare
my decision to you, all right? I will serve the Lord. He says,
but as for me, we will serve the Lord. And that's where it
starts. Nobody this morning is gonna, as a godly dad, I am not
gonna get my family to follow God if I don't follow God. Not
gonna happen. We live in an upside-down world.
I was witnessing to a man on Friday as we were showing some
of the signs here around. We were at the Fulcrum Wheel.
I was walking with a man. I said, we live in an upside-down
world. The children rule the parents, the wife rules the husband,
and the dad doesn't make any decisions. That's not what God
intends. Joshua, as a man of God, he says,
ask for me and my house. God said about Abraham, I know
him, that he will command his family after me. Again, we got
the philosophy of the world that says you can't be authoritative,
you can't be that ruler, you can't do that. Nope, that's not
what God says. God says we have that responsibility
as dads to be the spiritual head of our home. We're gonna give
an account to God for that, but understand this, I will never
get my family to follow God if I don't follow God. No, it's
not gonna happen. It doesn't mean that I intend
to follow God, that's not following God. Following God is I'm gonna
serve God, and I'm gonna obey God. And so I will serve the
Lord, my house is gonna serve the Lord, and God is my witness. Look at verse one, remember,
I wanna point this out, and we're getting close to the conclusion
here. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem,
and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads,
and for their judges, and for their officers, and they presented
themselves, what? Do you know when we come to church,
yeah, I see who's here. Do you know who sees more than
I see? God. Who's here? God is. I mean, that's the reality. We gotta walk in that reality.
We gotta recognize that this morning. Wow, I mean, we are
here before God. And so the decisions I make, I make them before others. Other people may see a decision
I make. But I make it before who? And Joshua just steps out
before God and before the people. He says, as for me, I'm gonna
serve God. You do what you wanna do. All
right, I've shown you why you ought to serve God. But he said,
that doesn't matter to me. It's like that song says, I have
decided to follow Jesus. No turning back. Will none go
with me? Still I will follow, right? It's that my trajectory,
my track is set. I'm gonna be a follower of God. I wanna ask you this morning,
have you made a definite decision to serve God? Because that would be like this,
a definite decision that I'm gonna have personal and family
devotions, right? Because we're talking about what
is serving God. And so maybe say to your spouse, hey, I've
decided we're gonna have family devotions. We're gonna read our
Bibles together, we're gonna pray together. Or I want to be
accountable maybe to my spouse and say, I decided I haven't
been having personal prayer time like I should in time of the
word of God. I want you to know I've decided to serve God. So
I'm going to add that to my life. Have you made it clear that you're
going to strive to faithfully attend church as best you can?
Now we have four services, Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday
night, Wednesday night. I understand there's going to be times where
things come up and people can't come. I get that. I understand
that as a pastor. I've never expected that everyone's always
going to make it to the house of God. But there ought to be
something in the heart of somebody that says, I want to serve God,
that says, by God's grace, if the church doors are open, I
want to be there. and to take that decision as
a definite decision, right? I'm gonna strive my best. I'm
not gonna be perfect at it. I'm not always gonna make it.
There's gonna be things that come up, but by God's grace, I wanna serve
God, so I'm gonna be there. Have you committed yourself to
opportunities of ministry? All right, that's a bigger one,
right? Step out and say, all right, pastor, do you need help? Does Mrs. Shore need help? Is
there something that can be done? I wanna serve God in the local
church. having declared a willingness
to help in evangelism. There's ministries of this church
that are outside this church, street preaching and evangelism,
the tent that we're gonna have at the gala day. I mean, all
these are opportunities to serve God. There's work that's saved
lives, things that are going on. There is a lot to do for
God. Again, just to make that decision
by God's grace, I can't do it all, right? I'm not, and I'll
tell you, there's no expectation in the heart. Of anybody that
would be in our church today, anybody would do everything,
right? But I want to do something for God. Because I want to serve
God. Have you made a definite decision
to get involved in tithes and offerings? That's another way
to serve God, invest in God's, the missionaries that we support
and the work of this local church and the bills that have to be
paid. Again, just taking it on board and saying, as for me and
my house, it sounds easy to say, as for me and my house, I will
serve the Lord. It's another thing with the rubber
meets the road and says, what does that actually look like
on paper? Am I willing to sign up and say,
I will be a part of that for God? Again, praise God, the leaders
of Israel would get this right. Verse 16 is that people answered
and said, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve
other gods. The people said unto Joshua, Nay, but we will serve
the Lord. OK. They made that decision.
Now, I want to point out, it's a generational decision. Verse
31, Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the
days of the elders that overlived Joshua, which had known all the
works of the Lord that he had done for Israel. Okay, so they
made the decision. Did they keep it? Yes, by God's
grace. But the next generation didn't.
See, I grew up in the 1960s, well, 1970s. 1970s, alright, 76 I was born.
But I look back at the 70s and 80s, and I see a generation that
served God. But what I've seen growing up
is that my generation has not served God. The young people
in our church, they don't care about things of God, they're
too busy with other things to get involved, actually doing something
for God. You know, at churches I'm familiar
with, I won't name the churches, but the deacons are old, they're
old, and they're frail. And you know what? Some of them
have passed away. But the young people have never
stepped in those shoes. What is Joshua saying? Joshua's
about to die. He looks at the next generation,
he goes, you guys, you gotta get it. You gotta get it. You
gotta serve God. It's rational. And he begins
to go through it with them. You know, this morning I challenge
us, let's look at it and go, does it make sense to serve God
as, you know, as pastor, kind of going too far, saying, man,
you gotta serve God. Or, you know, is he morally wrong? Is he wrong to challenge us as
a church, the people that are blood bought by the grace of
God, given the gift of everlasting life? All the good things, the
victories that God has given, is it wrong for us this morning
to stop and think, you know what? We ought to just all be about
by the grace of God. Let's serve God. And so as a
church, I challenge this. Let's take the challenge. Let's
look at that and say, you know what? As for me and my house,
we're gonna serve God. Let's pray. Father, I pray that
the spirit of God would take the truth of God and put it deep
into our hearts. Father, this is so needed. Father,
our young people in our church need to see examples of God's
service. Father, they need an example.
They need to be able to look up and say, that's what serving
God looks like. In a mom, in a dad, in a pastor, in deacons,
in church leadership, just Christians that go to our church, they know
it's about serving God. Father, church is vain if it's
not about serving God, and it could be worse than vain. It
could be hypocritical. Father, we could become people
that think God's pleased with us for doing nothing for the
Christ that did everything for us. And so I praise you for our
church. I love our church. I love our
families, but I know this. The best thing for a dad in our
church is to serve God. The best thing for a mom in our
church is to serve God. The best thing for their children
is to see parents serving God. The best thing for our young
people in our church is to see people that serve God. And finally,
we can't ignore that that's practical. If Joshua wasn't expecting them
to be faithful in worship and faithful in obedience and dealing
with sin and living righteous lives and actually doing something
for God, I don't know what he was asking them. And so I pray,
Lord God, help us not to justify not serving God. Help us not
to put off the decision, because really, we don't want to serve
God, because that would really mean sacrifice. That would really
mean changing who our God is in our heart as far as who we
serve. So it might be this morning,
Lord, that some little G-gods need to die. They need to be
crushed so that we can serve God as we should. So, Lord, would
you just have your way? I think this morning, Father,
we're just gonna have silent prayer and just take a couple
minutes. and search our heart before God.
And Father, I pray that it would be a good business time with
you that we would kind of solidify this. Might be somebody needs
to make a definite decision right now. You know what? The trajectory
of my life is that I will serve God. I will serve God. Father, as I bow before you this
morning, I'll be the first to say I'm not worthy to serve God,
and that I fail many times in serving God like I should. But
Father, I pray that by the grace of God, that we can say, you
know what? I may not be perfect, but it's clear, it's clear. You ask my wife, and she'll tell
you, he has decided to serve God. You ask my husband, and
he will tell you, I've decided to serve God. You ask my family. It's not what it should be. I
pray that it would be. Lord, I just pray that as a church,
we would be known as a church that serves God. And Lord, you
take imperfect people, you're merciful, you're gracious, but
I pray that we give you our best. And so blessed now as we sing
this hymn of invitation, and thank you for your help here
this morning. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen. Okay, where's
the bulletin there? Anybody got the page number for
us? 3, 3, 5, Lord, I'm coming home, right?
A No Brainer
It's a no brainer to serve God. Joshua shows conclusively that great intellect is not needed as the answer is so obvious, though the choice is our's to make.
| Sermon ID | 6423123967697 |
| Duration | 1:01:36 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | Joshua 24 |
| Language | English |
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