Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve - Joshua 24

There are inflection points in life. And in those moments, we often think back on the stories of our life, how they shape us, how they define us. I've spent the last 17 years teaching at Midwestern, and August is always an inflection point. Summer's ending, school's about to start. Even in church life, we were talking this morning, early as we gathered to pray about how this is kind of for us the last Sunday of summer, and then we have Legacy week for our youth next week, which is goodbye to our seniors. Hello to the sixth graders coming to youth group is that transition time. And often in inflection points, we begin to consider our life. Well, the last year or so, my wife and I have had a lot of inflection points. We're starting 24 years of marriage as of June 9th, working on a 25th. I turned 55, about a week ago, I get the discount now, so I'm excited about that. I'm ready to applyly that. My wife turned 50, it was a secret, but it's out now. These times are reflection, right? Maybe a wedding this coming up. We had a daughter who graduated college this last year. Our youngest is now a sophomore. These moments where you just go,Life is changing, and I'm going to gather up what's happened in the past and then I'm going to think about now and what's the future going to look like. My brother has been in town. He lives in Mexico, so we get to see each other about twice a year now. He's been in town the last two weeks. He landed on his plane, he said, "Hey, how are you doing? Good to see you." And pretty quickly, we fell into the old stories. You know what I mean? You meet a friend and you haven't seen him for a while, and you just start telling the stories that define your life. And it's the same stories every time, right? You go back long enough in your life and you're not telling new stories from high school. You just cemented the ones that have defined your life, your family's life, your friendships with that person. And then you tell those stories and you start adding new ones as new things happen, you can recount those. But it's these stories that we tell ourselves that shape us, that define us. And we often tell them in these inflection points Maybe you're at one of those points right now in your own life. Maybe you just moved to Kansas City and you are thinking of your past looking to the future. Maybe it's a new job, a birthday a marriage. If you're not in an inflection point, you will be at some point, and you'll look back and think about what has been, and you'll look forward to what's going to be, and you'll tell stories. The question we want to ask ourselves today is, how much is God in those stories How much does God factor in the stories that we tell about our lives, that define who we are, that shape, who we are, and at those inflection points, are we turning to him naturally? That's just the main character in that story. As we seek to serve him faithfully. Today, we're going to look at Joshua chapter 24, the Israelite nation is at one of these inflection points. They finished conquering the land, and they're about to settle down in the land, and Joshua gives his final speech to them before they just go back to normal life. And that's the thing about inflection points, we kind of step out of normal time and think about everything, and then we just step back into the normal routine of life, the normal routine of what we're doing, and that establish itself out of those stories that we tell. As we look at Joshua 24, the main thing I want you to take away from today is this. God is the main character in the story of the world, and our role is to faithfully serve him. that God is the main character in the story of the world, large, but also in the story of the world, your world, your life, your story. And we should faithfully serve him. If you have your Bibles, turn to Joshua 2, we've been preaching through Joshua for the last several weeks. Coming to the end of his story, Joshua has moved into the Promised land, crossed to Jordan, some five, six years ago, from this moment, and has now finished conquering the land, and he's giving his final speech And in doing so, in verses 1 third 13, we see that Joshua retells God's story. Look what it says here. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem, and some of the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God. Shechem's an important city. When Abraham came out of Er, the Chaldis, the first place he built an altar to God, was it Shechem? It's where they buried the bones of Joseph who was in Egypt. It is the place where, when they came into the promised land, initially some five or six years before with Joshua, they went to this area and renewed their commitment to God at Shechem, and now they find themselves at the the same spot. Joshua gathers all the leaders of the nation together, and it says they presented themselves before God. So God isn't absent from what's about to happen. He's present, and they're there in front of him and Joshua begins to retell the story. It starts this way. And Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, that God of Israel, long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Ephr.uprates, Tra, the father of Abraham, and of Nahor, and they served other gods. That language, we can read it so quickly that we miss what Joshua's doing here. When he he says long ago. We use in our day and in our culture, you may have heard fairy tales sort of Once upon a time. That language clues us into what's about to be told is a story that helps us understand the world. Helps us understand where we came from, who we are. So when you're watching a story that begins like that, you get this clear idea, and Josh was doing the same thing. I mean, if you're a fan of the kind of shows in movies I'm a fan of, there's one that starts this way, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. I mean, George Lucas is just a plagiarist to Joshua. Long ago, Joshua says, Abraham, this would have been hundreds of years ago. God called a man named Abraham. He says he called him from Earth where his family had been serving other gods. That was the origin story of the nation of Israel, a man in Er the Chaldi, southern Iraq, servingving other gods. God calls him, says, "Come follow me, and he does, and erratically changes his story. And that's the story that Joshua is about to tell Now, we're going to do a quick exercise, here. We'll see who can get this right. As I read through the rest of these verses to verse 13, count how many times God references himself. I, me, my, anything referencing God God, in the next one, as Joshua recounts the story, as God gives it to him says this, "Then I took your father, Abraham, from beyond the river, and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many, I gave him Isaac. And to Isaac, I gave Jacob and Esau, and I gave Esau the hill country of Siar to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt and I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it. And afterward, I brought you out. Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea and and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the sea, and when they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them, in your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. and you lived in the wilderness a long time. Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand. And you took possession of the land, and I destroyed them before you. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel, and he sent and invited Balaam, the son of Bor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam. Indeed, he blessed you, so I delivered you out of his hand. And you went over to Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Peasites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Ggosites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I gave them into your hand And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites. It was not by your sword or by your body bow. I gave you a land on which you had not labored in cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant How many times did God reference himself? 24. That's more than I found. We'll have to talk. I had 19. There's a lot. It's 18 eyes and a he. 19 times in 13 verses, God mentions himself. If God was just a human, we would think, you're kind of arrogant, God. You talk about yourself a whole lot. Why are you the center of the story? If he was a human but he's not. Who else are we going to put in the center of the story of what God's doing except God himself? He's the Omnipotent One, the all powerful one. He's the one that accomplished everything the Israelites had done. He reminds them, it wasn't what you did, it was nothing about you, as God working If you want to put something else, some other person, maybe Joshua, in the middle of that story, it's not going to center, it's not going to hold together, it's going to wobble. Only God can carry the weight of being the main character of the story of the Jewish nation and of the entire world. And here, as he recounts his story, he's tongue them over and over. I'm the one who's done this. I'm the one, I'm the one because he wants them to know who he is, because there is none greater than him. Their loyalty shouldn't be to anyone, except him. He is the main character. And if you look at the past, it'ss interesting, because it starts with, I called Abraham from Ur. And then Moses did some things in Egypt. And then the language shifts from they, them to you. And the Israelites who are listening to Joshua get worked into this story. It wasn't just past events that God was telling them about. He says, yes, I did things back then at the origin story of the people of Israel. But then he works the current generation into that story, and he says, "And you saw these things, and you had these things happen that God was doing. He's the main character of the story. The Israelites, their role is said to be faithful, and that's what we see next, where Joshua calls for a response to God's story. Look what it says in verses 14:1 18. says,Now, therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness." Joshua didn't tell this story about God and what he had done. God wasn't telling his story, simply to entertain the Israelites. I like going to movies I like watching TV shows. I imagine a lot of you do the same. But here's what happens at movies, if we're really honest. We go in, we watch the movie, we leave, and we go, "I was entertained, and we forget. We don't care. The movie, the story, it isn't really there, most often, to compel me to do do something It's not challenging me, it's not asking me anything. It's just says, come watch the shiny things on the screen. Enjoy yourself for an hour or two or three, and then go on about your life. We're not trying to burn you with anything, not so with God. He told this story for a very specific reason. He said, I've done all of this for you. Now, therefore, because of what I've told you, here's what God expects of his people. Fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Fear of the Lord is a thing I think in my life, often we forget. We feel so comfortable in God's presence, because we've been brought near by the blood of Christ that we can take him casually. We forget that he's also the God of the burning mountain of mountains. Sinai, the God who created the universe, and Joshua says, "Because of what he has done, fear him. That's not a trembling fear that you're afraid to be near him, but a recognition of his awesome power of his magnificence. He says,Fear him and serve him in sincerity, and faithfulness, not with lip service. We should serve God sincerely, he says, and you should be faithithful to him. And that leads him right into his next point. He says, put away the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord The origin story of Abraham was he came from Earth the Chaldees, where his family worshiped foreign gods. And gods said come follow me, and he did. And now Joshua's telling the Israelites, "You need to fear God and serve him faithfully. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river. That's not who you are, is what he's saying And serve him only. There is this exclusiveness that Joshua is calling for. He says, you can't do both. You can't serve both. He's calling for this forsaking of all the other dead gods. June 9th, 2001, I stood at a church in Texas and married my wife, and part of the wedding vows is fororsaking all others. Forsakenaking all others a commitment that's being made, that God is not a fan of open marriages. He's not cool with his people worshiping other gods. And this the same way that in our marriages, we're not cool. You shouldn't be cool with you know, I'm married to my wife, but hey, there's other people in the scene too. We're okay with that. No, God's not okay with that. He says, you can't have anything in this relationship that takes his place. And Joshua's calling them to that. And look what he says, put away these foreign gods. And then Joshua gives the speech that I think for four decades plus he had wanted to give. If you've been with us, remember, Joshua, some 45 years ago, gave a speech coming out of the land where they sent in his spies by Moses. Then he said, "Guys, there's giants in the land. It's a wonderful land. God's going to conquer them for us. We can trust him. And the people said, "No, he won't, and no, we can't. And they didn't. Joshua gave this rousing speech, like William Wallace in "Braveheart, right? And no one listened. Look what his speech is now. He says, "And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your father served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, by the way, gods that he just recounted, the one true God had defeated, had overthrown. He said, "If you want to serve them, go ahead. But as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. I mean, that's a speech worthy of a movie scene, right? He just lays the gauntlet down and says, "This is who I am. If you want to serve other gods, if it's evil for you to serve God. Go serve the false gods. But that's for me in my house, I will serve the Lord. You've probably driven around, b in people's homes, right? And there are places where people declare like, what their house is like in this house, we. And then you can see what they're about. It's August. It's getting close to the best time of year. And so a sign like this is going to show up somewhere in the Upstead house soon. Go ahead and put it up. In this house, we cheer for the Alabamaama Crimson Tide There's nort the teams that get mixed in with that. You just put it out in the front yard and everyone knows what you're about. That's what Joshua's calling for. He's saying, chooseoose who you're going to serve. Choose who you're going to follow. If it's evil to serve Yahwe, the true God, then go serve these other gods that he defeated. But if not then serve him. But as for me in my house, Joshua, who, for 40 plus years, had lived faithfully. He said, "We will serve the Lord. And look what the people say to this calder response. He says,, then the people answered, "Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods What is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, and out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore, we also were serve the Lord, for He is our God The Jewish nation said, Joshua, the story you've told about what God has done is true. They've committed themselves, saying, yep, that's the God that did all these things, that defeated these foreign gods. We agree with you. They're hearing what Joshua said, and they've accepted the truth of what he's told, of the story that God had has been telling them. But Joshua's response is kind of interesting. Joshua reminds the people of God's Holiness, looking 19 28. It says, but Joshua said to the people, you are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins, if you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, and he will turn and do you harm and consume you, after having done you good And the people said to Joshua, no, no, but we will serve the Lord.." Joshua's been with these people for four decades in the wilderness. He came out of Egypt with Moses. He's watched them, he's seen them. He's been with them as they conquered the land through faithfulness and unfaithfulness. And he just says, when he said, yes, we believe this. He says, Know this, that God is holy. that he is righteous. He is the standard of holiness. It's not that God says, is there some kind of thing called holiness that he lives up to. God is the standard of hope. holiness. says God is holy, and he's jealous. And we hear this word jealous, and we cannot think, oh, we shouldn't be jealous. jealous is a bad thing. But there is a good jealousy that we can have. Andain, the marriage relationship, all of us who are marriage should be jealous that our marriage stays pure. We don't want anything contaminating that. And God is saying, he's a jealous God. He's not going to allow something else to take his place. Why? Because that's destructive to the person who does that. If something else takes God's place in an individual's life, in the nation of Israel's life, as their greatest lawyalty, it is destructive for that person And so Joshua reminds him that he is holy, and he is jealous. He says, hee won't forgive your transgressions or your sins. And if you just read that on its own own, you would go, "They're doomed. But as we read scripture over and over, God forgives them. What Joshua saying is that he's not going to wink at your sin. He's not going to go, oh, okay. I said I was going going to punish you, but I won't. I don't care enough about you to even do that." In Proverbs 3, 11 and 12, it says this, "My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline. Are you weary, of his reproof, for the Lord reproves him whom he loves. as a father, the Son in whom he delights. We know his parents, if we didn't discipline our kids, we're not being good parents. We're being parents that don't love our kids, who are saying, I don't care what goes on in your life. I don't care how bad it gets. You do whatever you want to do. Kids left to that would just run into destruction And so God says, I'm going to punish you if you don't commit. You said you're going to follow me, just know that I'm holy and jealous, and I won't wink and turn my head the other way if you're unfaithful to me, because that's going to be damaging to you. Then Joshua said to the people in verse 22, "You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen the Lord to serve him." And they said, "We are witnesses. This reminds me when I was young, that my parents would ask me to do things. And if they just asked, you, you would kind of say, "Hey, clean your room up, and then you'd go about your business.. And then if they came back later and said, "Hey, your room's not clean, I go, I don't know what you're talking about. Eventually, you get swat enough as a parent. My parents did, where they go,Hey, I need you to clean your room. Look at me, Repeat after me. I need you to clean your room. You want me to clean my room. Okay, Now you're a witness against yourself. So that's what he's doing. You are the ones who declared it. But he does more than that. Look he says, he said and they said,We are witnesses. We have committed to do this. Look what he says next. He said,Then put away the foreign gods that are among you. They still had foreign gods, even as they said we were going to comeit. It's like they're at the wedding ceremony, and the preachers saying, okay, get rid of the Black Book. It's still there. You're still acting like you're not forsaking everyone He says, get rid of the foreignign gods and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel. Following God isn't a matter of just getting rid of bad things in our life and being more moral and trying to be a better citizen. It's getting rid of bad things that are opposed to God and inclining our heart to God Again, it's like a marriage. You're inclining yourself to that person. You're connecting yourself with that person, but there's things that are now going to slide away in your life, that don't line up with that commitment that you've made. He says, incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to Joshua, the Lord, our God, we will serve in His voice, we will obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and put him in place statutes and rules for them at Shechem. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the terbth. that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.And Joshua said to all the people,Behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. Therefore it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God So Joshua sent the people away, every man, to his inheritance. Throughout the book of Joshua, there have been these stones that have been set up, stones of memorial, of remainmembering to say, when we crossed the Jordan, here was the stones, and if someone says, "What are these here for?" You go,That's when we cross the Jordan, God brought us across to Jordan." When Aikin had sinned against God, and he was punished, there was stones set up as someone said, "What's this about?" It's when Achin disobeyed God They set up stones when they renewed the covenant, and now they set up this other stone that they could look at and remember what had happened. The story that they've been telling themselves, so it shapes who they are, so they can live to God in the future. We do the same thing today, right? If you've been to Washington, D.C., you can go see all the national monuments, in the Lincoln Memorial It reminds us of our past, the sins of our past, and says, how can we be better into the future? If you at a business, maybe, your company has the mission statement on the wall that says, here's what we should be focused on. If you're married, you probably wear a wedding ring. It's a reminder. It's not made of stone, maybe yours is, mine's metal. But it's a reminder. You look at it and go, I've committed myself.. I've committed myself. I've forsaken other things and incline myself to somewhere else. Last week, we took the Lord's Supper, a memorial. It's reminding ourselves of who we are, and Joshua had the people set up a memorial stone to remember who they were. Joshua was telling God's story, telling the people of Israel back then his story. And the main point of that was that God is the main character in the story of the world and our role is to faithfully serve him. So how can we do that today? How can we take away from this message a few points? The first one's easy. It's make God the main character in your story. If you're not a believer here and you've heard about Jesus and his death for you his love for you, he invites you to make him the king of your life, the God of your life. The story Joshua was telling wasn't the end of the story. God continued to work through the Jewish people, through the nation of Israel, until he sent his His own Son, God, the Son, came in flesh lived a sinless life, died on a cross for my sins, so that I could stand in front of a holy God, not because I'm righteous because I'm not, not because I'm pure, because I'm not, not because I'm good, because I'm not, but he is. Jesus is. And he says, come follow me, trust me And that's how we make God the main character and the story of our life, is by accepting Christ, by putting Him first. Having done that, though, if you're already a believer, as you tell the stories of your life, including God, like, what has he done in your life? Don't be afraid to tell that story. As you remember all the things from your past, we get together with friends and we start recounting stories. Maybe you haven't done that. Start weaving God in and say, "Oh, I got to put God in that story. I've left him out as a character And it may be that he was there all along, and you just haven't retold him into the story of all the things that have happened. Start adding him into your story, reminding yourself of what he's done and what he's going to do, because the stories we tell shape us. Grab your Bible as you're reading and just talk to each other and go, can you imagine what it would have been like to be Daniel, thrown in a lion's den, and God protected him? That was cool What was it like for Peter to betray Jesus, but then have Jesus say, come back,Feed my sheep. How amazing would that, be you tell those stories and then weave your own stories in. Make God the main character in your story, which leads to the second point, which is pretty easy also, choose today whom you will serve. Nobody is a believer by default. We all have to make a conscious choice to follow Christ But our loyalty must be undivided. Just like in marriages, in fan bases, we don't allow foreign gods in those things. Our loyalty has to be undivided, and it could be that you're here today and you're not a believer in your first decision has to be to give up on you solving your problems and say, Jesusesus, you can solve my problems. You are the one that I've been chasing this whole time. You are the one that I want. You are the one that I need. Maybe you're a believer here, and there are foreign gods in your life that you need to get rid of Things in your life that you need to put aside so you can incline yourself to the Lord. When I was younger, a lot of the music I liked was not honoring to God in its lyrics. At the time, the kind of music I liked, I was a big rock and roll guy in my time, there was very little decent Christian music out there. It was just all bad and cheesy And I said, okay, God, I got to have this, because there's nothing here. And he just kind of over time, said, "No, you don't. Which one are you going to follow? What are the things in your life? Maybe there isn't anything. It doesn't have to be, but maybe there's something in your life that you've said if I don't have this, I won't beh happy. I won't be fulfilled. I won't have the life that I want, because I so desperately need this thing, but God saying, "Nope, you can't have that and have me." Soon as we say that, you're like the Israelites going, I'm going to serve you. Yahweh, but I'm keeping this little Ammerite God over here because I don't fully trust you. I don't think followinging you will work So I'm going to keep this as a backup plan. It's like going into a marriage and saying, I'm going to marry you forsaking all of this, but I'm really not forsaken all others. I got a backup plan. You can't do that. You can't incline your heart this way while you're trying to keep your heart here. You have to get rid of those things and choose today whom you will serve And having done that, the last thing is, I want to encourage you to set up a memorial stone for the next generation. Joshua set up a big rock, and he said, when we see this rock, we're going to remember what God said, the story that he's been telling us. Our place of deciding to follow him in that story, so in the future, we can look back and see it, that we teach our children the stories of scripture, so they will know them. We set up these memorial stones. Maybe today, God's speaking to you, and you're like, I have to get rid of something. I have to make this change very easily. On your way out, we got a whole rock bed out here. Grab one of the rocks. Don't grab one of the really big ones. They're kind of heavy. Grab a small one. Take it home, and put it on your counter and say, "There's my memorial stone to remember I'm making this commitment." Because I know this to be true in my life It doesn't take much time from me leaving this sanctuary to getting out that door to forgetting what God told me while I was in here, because lunch is happening. And the next thing in life is going on. Grab the rock, take it home I said, I' not not going to forget. because it's not just about you, it's about the next generation. Look at the end of the story in 2931. After these things, Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being 110 years old, and they buried him in his own inheritance at Timnasera, which is in the hill country of Ephraim north of the mountain of Gaash.. Israel served the Lord, all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel. This whole generation that saw the Jordan River part, this whole generation that saw God conquer the land, that heard that story. It says they were facing faithful. And that generation died off. If you know your Bible, the next generation was unfaithful. they had set up the memorial stone, they had passed it down. It is the the job of the older generation to pass on the stories of God, to the younger generation. And then it's the job of the younger generation to rise up and say, I'm going to take those stories and embrace them, and then create our own as we follow God. There are some of you in this room have been serving God faithfully for decades and decades and decades and God's not done with you? He has you passing those stories along to the next generation. And if you're the generation that's rising up and soon to take over and be the leaders, you need to embrace those stories and then set up your own. Because it takes one generation and it's all lost. They're all forgotten. The stories of what happened back then are forgotten and new ones aren't being made. Each of us, as we go through this coming season of life to say, God, I want to make you the main character in my story, and I want to serve you faithfully, and from that, I will tell others of what you have done. I'll recount your story as part of my story. That's the challenge we have for today. Will you join me in prayer. Father, we thank you for your love and your grace, that you have called us to this place on a Sunday to worship you. Father, I love gathering here on Sundays and meeting with friends, and other people here at Northland, just that we can connect and talk and hang out in the lobby. I love that, but Father, we gather here because you are the main character. You are the only one that can carry the weight of that type of worship. If there's anything else in my life or the life of your followers here, that we are putting in that place, by your spirit, give us strength to remove it, to put away those foreign gods, and to serve you completely and cling to you, and to make you the main character of our story. Through our joys and our sorrows, through our highs and lows that you would be the center of all of those, because you are worthy of that, you are holy and righteous. And Father, there's someone here that doesn't know you, that they would today give their life to you, commit themselves to you, and find the truth of who you are. It's in the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.