I invite you to turn now to Joshua chapter 24 in your Bibles or if you're using the Bible sitting in your seats That's found on page 168 I'll give you a Moment to turn there so that you can find that and and read along silently as you share this being read And then you can follow along as you hear this being preached
Joshua chapter 24 Verses two through five and then we'll skip and I'll lurch you to that down to verse 11 And we'll read through verse 27 This is God's word eternally true Joshua said to all the people This is what the Lord the God of Israel says Long ago your four fathers including Tara the father of Abraham and Nehore lived beyond the river and worshipped other gods But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the river and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants I gave him Isaac and Isaac I gave Jacob an Esau I assigned the hill country of seer to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt Then I sent Moses and Aaron and I afflicted the Egyptians by what I did there and I brought you out Now skip down to verse 11 Then you crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho the citizens of Jericho fought against you As did also the Amorites Parasites Canaanites, Kittites, Gurgishites, Hivites and Jebysites But I gave them into your hands I sent the hornet ahead of you which drove them out before you also the two Amorite kings You did not do it with your own sword and bow So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build and you live in them And eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant now Fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve whether the gods of your Forfe whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites and whose land you're living But as for me and my household We will serve the Lord Then the people answered far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our forefathers up out of Egypt from that land of slavery And perform those great signs before our eyes He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled and The Lord drove out before us all the nations including the Amorites who lived in the land We too will serve the Lord because he is our God Joshua said to the people you are not able to serve the Lord he is a holy God He is a jealous God he will not forgive your rebellion in your sins if you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods He will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you after he has been good to you But the people said to Joshua no we will serve the Lord Then Joshua said you are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord Yes, we are witnesses. They replied Now then to Joshua throw away the foreign gods that are among you and Yield your hearts to the Lord the God of Israel and The people said to Joshua we will serve the Lord our God and obey him On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people and there at check him He drew up for them to crease and loss And Joshua recorded these things in the book of the law of God Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak tree near the holy place of the Lord See he said to all the people this stone will be a witness against us It has heard all the words the Lord has said to us It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God Herein's our reading the word of the Lord Thanks indeed. Let's pray
Our God and our Father we are grateful that you have given us this word it gives us solemn warnings Because you care for so much for us to be blessed You've done so much already for us to bless us in Jesus and buy your spirit giving us new life spiritual life that we now have Eyes to see and ears to hear your gospel and Lord we pray this morning for any of those who have not yet believed that you would give them Your spirit that you would blow upon them Grant them eyes to see and ears to hear your gospel that they may might be freed to believe
But we thank you Lord for this place in which we sit we like the people hearing Joshua are in the promised land of today the church and We're here not because of our work Not because of our wisdom Not because of our power But because of your power and your work Father your work of decreeing us into your kingdom Jesus your work of dying for our sins that there might be no penalty left for the sins that we've committed because you've paid it already And spirit the work of you giving us new life It is not by our Bow that we sit here now as we sit here Causes to understand how it is we worship and serve you Work by your spirit Cause our hearts to respond cause our minds to understand That we might reflect you That we might be blessed the way you want to bless us We pray Jesus in your name Amen This is an interesting passage to look at first of all you might notice that Abraham's father was serving other gods and In the land of the Caldeans You might notice that the Israelites were in Egypt serving other gods Joshua states that and then you might notice that even there is Joshua's about to die Probably a few years after they had finished warring in the promised land Joshua says put away The foreign gods from among you And so this alerts us to the fact of what John Calvin talked about that our hearts are idle factories We create other things to worship and to serve other things to Obey and so there's not a one-time decision that we make that that that that leaves us free From serving other gods I appreciate What Bob Dylan said some of you know his song you're going to have to serve somebody and It's a long song. I won't read it all for you But he says he starts you may be an ambassador to England or France You may like to gamble you might like to dance you may be the heavyweight champion of the world You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls But you're gonna have to serve somebody. Yes, indeed. You're gonna have to serve somebody It may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you're gonna have to serve somebody Bob Dylan came to understand what the Bible declares to us that we all serve something With every act that we do Everything that we're doing is serving something And today it's not that any of us have statues idols In our house at least most of us or that our fathers had idols in their home the home you grew up in But our idols are idols Like Calvin said of the hearts Our hearts are idle Factories and our sin nature is always creating other things to live for other things to serve other things Reasons motivations to bow down to and so this passage speaks to very clearly today Not in terms of the physicality of an idol But in terms of things that we always are tending to serve the the wanderings we have of our heart and our mind If you'd like to fill out blanks in an outline you're welcome to do that this morning You don't have to you can just listen if you want to just listen. That's fine too, but if you'd like to fill out blanks here we go God says to us first this morning number one What you do what you do in life as a believer in Jesus what you do is serve worship the Lord with faithfulness Joshua went to get God's people straight and he says serve the Lord Worship the Lord with faithfulness Okay, you see all these things that God has done for you versus one through thirteen and then verse 14 He turns the corner there doesn't he look at that he says now If you've all these things Same thing Paul does in Romans 12 now if you have God's mercy If you've all God has done for you, which I've been talking about in chapters one through 11 in Romans Serve the Lord worship the Lord offer yourselves as Living sacrifices to the Lord surrender yourselves to him Live for him serve him worship him with all faithfulness Now something for us that's important to realize that something you can Put in your head and have for the rest of your life and I'll help you to read especially the Old Testament But also the New Testament that is this a serving and worshiping are one It's the same word Joshua couldn't use a different word serving and worshiping is the same word and it's Providential that that's the case now English it's two words Serving and worshipping but the word Joshua used was the same word worship and serve. It's the same thing and you see it in the theology The Old Testament in the Bible when one was worshipping When one was bowing down to another God he was serving that God That word is one and the same to serve a God is to worship a God And the worship a God is to serve that God So verses 22 through 24 you can see how there's interplay between these two ideas of worshipping Like what we do here Sunday morning and obeying Serving doing what the master says verse 22 then Joshua said your witnesses against yourself that you have chosen to serve Serve worship the Lord Yes, we are witnesses they replied Verse 23 now then said Joshua throw away the foreign gods Okay formal formal worship Worship being like we do here on Sunday morning throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord God of Israel Verse 24 and the people said to Joshua we will serve the Lord our God Okay, we'll worship him we'll do this we'll throw away our foreign gods we'll worship the Lord our God But then look how they also define this word serve or worship and they say we will serve the Lord our God and Obey him Serve him Do his commands Do his bidding as one of his servants and him being master and Lord over us So serving and worshiping those are one so as you read through the Old Testament You see that word serve and worship using the context of God or foreign God. It's one in the same word Um, so the Bible uses one in the same word for both So doing God's word equals obeying God's commandments equals worship This is why Paul says in Romans 121 And view of God's mercy that we are to offer our bodies as living sacrifices Do whatever God tells us to do just like Jesus offered his body as a living sacrifice He did whatever the Father told him to do so do whatever the Father tells you to do Romans 121 For this is your Paul says for this is your spiritual act of worship Doing the Lord's will doing his commands is your spiritual act of worship So when you're out there in the world and you've got a decision to make between what you know It's wrong and what the Bible tells you to do what God tells you to do in the Bible You have an opportunity there to worship God If you choose to obey the Lord in that obedience you are offering up Worship to God You're being a living sacrifice You're doing the will of God as Jesus did the will of God offering himself up as a living sacrifice because that's what God his master His Lord the Father asked him to do to go to the cross So be to explain this or to put it down in your sheets there worship is of two categories One, there's ceremonial there's ceremonial acts of adoration Adoration and thanks that is formal worship What we do here Sunday mornings what hopefully you do to do as well in your homes Formal worship where you sing to God you read his word you meditate on what he has said you pray to him those kind of things formal worship And we do this under God and not to other other gods and we express to him as we see here in verses 16 through 18 We express to him our adoration our praise Our thanks And that's what God's people do here look verse 16 the people answered far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods It was he it was the Lord our God himself who brought us up and our fathers out of Egypt from that land of slavery and for Perform those great signs before us. So they're declaring the praises of God Peter said that to us and what Carl read to us and first Peter 210 We were saved in order that we might declare the praises of God that we might take part in this formal or ceremonial Kind of worship under God God desires that that we get him praise and thanks in formal worship Second kind of worship is the doing of God's commandments the doing of God's commandments Again, we see this in verse 24 the people said to Joshua We will serve the Lord our God and obey him. We'll worship him. We'll obey him So the doing of God's commandments in there now also you have reference that passage from Romans 12 How do we worship God? By offering our bodies as living sacrifices by doing the will of our father in heaven And see so worship is of two categories ceremonial and also doing of God's commandments and then see worshiping the Lord we do this with Faithfulness We worship the Lord with Faithfulness And this equals Being faithful to formally worship Okay, so these two categories first category This involves us in order to be faithful and serving the Lord This means that we're faithful to formally worship him at home and each towards Lord's day with his people We bring to him worship and we're faithful in this It's not just that when you know when we when we feel like it When we have a choice to make you know once every year or whatever that that we worship the right God at that point But being faithful to worship means worshiping God when he calls us to worship And so God calls us to worship each Lord's day sets the one day apart in seven and says be faithful to worship me in this way each each week too It involves us living daily life by his commands Okay, so there's this aspect of faithfulness not only involves being faithful in in Sabbath day worship but it involves us being faithful in living by his commands Now none of us are perfect in this we won't be perfect in this until we are Looking at the Lord face to face But this is what this involves us in and the people of God see this in verse 24 they say we will We will obey him So we live daily life by his commands Okay, second why do we do this why do we do this and that's your blank there why you serve the Lord with faithfulness Why do Christians serve the Lord why do they worship him faithfully Informal worship why do they worship him faithfully by obeying his commands why why do this a To fulfill your ultimate purpose that is it's the purpose It's the purpose for which you are created You were created to give worship to God You were created to bring honor to him by your worship That's the purpose for which we were created We see this in verses verses two and three why were you called out of why was Abraham called out of of error the called beings To worship the one true God Why were God's people called out of Egypt Because there is false worship there they were called out they were called away from false worship And then here again in this passage Joshua calls the people away from false worship he says get rid of these idols God has called you out of that that's not his purpose for you That's not his intent for you his intent for you is that you're called out of what everybody else does serving somebody else And worshipping him the one true God Don't do what the people Abraham's ancestors did Don't do what the Egyptians did Don't do what the Amorites which is a synonym for the Canaanites Don't do what the Canaanites have done Don't worship these other gods don't pattern your lives after how these folks have all patterned their lives Instead my purpose for you I called you out of those things there's call red force this morning from Isaiah 43 I'll call you from everywhere to myself God says to his people because you were created for my glory Here's why I created you here's why I formed you here's why I made you God says to us his people and I say a 43 for his glory It's our purpose we fulfill our life purpose When we serve the Lord with faithfulness the whole first Peter 2 passage is about that God has called us out. He's made us a living stone and he's we weren't a people of God But now we're the people of God that we might proclaim the excellencies of him who has called us out of darkness Into his wonderful light First Peter 210 Called out from what everyone else does called out from what everyone else does on Sunday Called out from what the way everyone else behaves throughout the week Called out different wherever him where the people that came out of Egypt where the people that came across the Jordan River were not the Amorites Where the people of God Where the new Israel the Israel of God is Paul puts it So we serve the Lord with faithfulness because this is our purpose. This is the way it was meant to be and then be Why do we serve the Lord with faithfulness we were we serve the Lord faithfulness to receive blessing Blessing is from God only Blessing is from God. That's your viewpoint blessing is from God only and is never apart from Him God is sovereign over all things Every blessing you have every blessing you've ever had even before you were a believer Came from God It's in our declaration the gospel this morning. James one. Don't be deceived my dear brothers. Blessings don't come from other places Blessings don't come from serving other gods Blessings don't come from seeking to have your sinful needs met Blessings don't come from pursuing your sin nature Blessings don't come from pursuing the wrong side of the temptation Don't be deceived my dear brothers every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father that having Heavenly lights All blessings are from above Paul declares this to the Athenians who don't believe He says God has blessed you all your lives He's giving you food to fill your bellies and he's giving you joy in your hearts Now let me tell you about this God who's done that for you all your lives And so we of all people's believers need to recognize every blessing I've ever had in my life every blessing. I will get today every blessing. I will ever get in my life Comes from God How foolish it would be to pursue some other God to serve some other God to not walk in God's ways because every blessing comes from God If I want to assure myself blessing I need to look to God for my blessing If I look to something else for that blessing There's no blessing. There is to be given from that something else Oh blessing every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of the Heavenly life And this is what God's people repeat to Joshua Joshua makes this case to God's people. He says every good thing you have God is given it to you It's not by your bow that you're in this land with cities you did not build with walls You did not build up with all of gross and and vineyards you did not plant God gave God gave God gave is what this passage says over and over again God gave this to you and so the repeat the people repeat this back to Joshua They say far be it from us to serve anybody but the Lord our God He's the one who got us out of Egypt. He's the one who did this miraculous sign so it's 10 flags He's the one who brought us across the river. He's the one who wiped out everybody before sent the hornet and wiped out the emeralds so that we could live in this land far be it from us to serve another God and so we serve God faithfully because blessing is from God only and is never apart from him See So here's the excertation serve the Lord worship him Through formal worship through obedience serve the Lord and you will experience blessing from God God is the source of all blessings praise God from whom all blessings flow We mean that when we sing it praise God from whom all blessings flow So we live to please him To serve him To worship him and his blessings just keep coming to us But this takes the faith of verses 16 through 18 This keeps this takes this constant recognition the blessings I have in my life are because God gave them to me All blessings are from God far be it from me to pursue some sinful course of action Far be it from me not to worship him faithfully by the way I live and by my my continual weekly worship and daily worship of him in the formal sense Far be it from me to serve some other God So it's important for us today to recognize that when we disobey the Lord We're exhibiting a lack of faith that all blessings come from him Every time we sin it's a faith issue It is with me Every time I sin it's because I don't believe or have allowed myself to forget or I have deceived myself James 1 I've deceived myself that there's blessing that can be gotten from some other place That's why I sin that's why you sin every time Because you believe there's blessing to be found outside of God It's the sin of Adam and Eve and it's the it's the context for James 1 James has all these references and all these double words like deceive that he uses in James 1 as he has a maps out why we sin
It's the Garden of Eden again Adam and Eve believe there's blessing Available to them that's not from God The gods withholding some blessing from them that they could receive that they would just follow some other God They would just serve somebody else and so This Bob Dylan says they serve the devil And they they go outside of God's will They disobey they believe there's blessing outside of God
So someone does something that irks me There's another God out there that's asking me to bow down to him And this other God says to me in my mind and my soul get angry Or my family will Smile at this make us our cast a comment Criticize that person To him criticize him or criticize that person to others That's the other God that's out there at least for me in this situation When someone irks me maybe for you too and that other God is saying bow down to me Obey me Follow my commands Get angry Spill it all out you'll feel better Spill it all out he'll get what's do him if you do Spill it all out that'll be good for you John if you spill it all out if you get angry if you criticize him If you're sarcastic in a cutting way to tear him down
And then you'll be blessed by doing that But God says in that same circumstance serve me John Show patience Be gracious forgive Love that person as I've loved you and patience Through and despite your sin Through and despite your imperfections And when I obey this one true God guess what there's blessing You know, it's true When you follow God when you follow his commands instead of following what you want to do in your sin nature You know there's blessing there you even feel good about yourself and God knows that that's that James talks about in James one That you'll be blessed in the doing of God's will When we do God's will we feel good inside mr. Rogers was right there wasn't he it's such a good feeling That we feel good when we treat other people well we feel good when we hold our tongue and show patience We feel good when we say Not a problem. Don't worry about it We're relieved we have catharsis in our soul when we say that's not important This person is more important than my pet peeves God blesses us in that way But he also blesses us because then we don't have to deal with the fallout from the relational harm we've caused When we make that comment When we put that person down or when we put that person down to others and it gets back to him and then he comes back to us That's not blessing That's harm that's destruction That's a path of chaos. That's all a whole mess of stuff that we have to deal with God says us God says to us serve me Show patience be gracious And we experience blessing we experience blessing in our soul that's like refreshing It's like like like like purity It's joy joy in knowing we did what was right Joy in knowing we handled that situation right i was competent in handling that relational situation There's joy in being competent I recently finished up the the DVD whole series of freaks and geeks it only lasted 18 episodes or 17 episodes It's my favorite show is brilliant brilliant writing brilliant directory directing almost all the characters And it's a large cast body people are now big movie stars But it got canceled before the first season could come through But the main characters played by James Franco who's Harry Osborne and the spider man series and all this Stuff and this was his first role in freaks and geeks. It was on NBC in 1999 and 2000 and in the last episode he gets punished by getting an AV class Yes, go to the AV class and he's a cool guy Daniel DeSaria. He's a cool guy and he has to go to AV class, which is full of the nerds that the geeks Right that's what this show is about high school in 1980 Cool guy kind of burnouts on one hand and and nerds geeks on the other hand And he has to go in this class that is full that the nerd guys and so he has to be one of those guys if you're old enough You'll know this you'll remember this you know There had to be you know when you watched a film in class somebody from AV had to come from the AV room with a projector Into your classroom set up the projector and turn it on and get it going They now if you're young you're like what? There's a TV in every room and they just pipe it in To us or some of just pops in a video, but it used to be a big deal But Daniel goes to this room his first assignment and he has to put this film in and he can't do it He's incompetent He doesn't do it right and so even the The people in the class and his friends in the class are all making fun of them And so later in the show you find him there reading the manual all by himself alone in a room reading a manual So that he can understand next time when he goes to a classroom he can get it right And there won't be somebody else from the class or the teacher telling him what to do You realize something there's joy in doing things right There's a sense of satisfaction in having competence
That's what God wants for you God wants to bless you That's why He's given us this big book the Bible He instructs us how to live life So that we might be blessed so that we might be competent in our relationships Being gracious, being forgiving, being patient with people Encouraging people He wants us to be competent with the way we live and we get joy and we get blessing from that Now third thing how do we do this Joshua says Well, okay, you said you're going to serve Lord, but you can't do it And that weird state couple of statements there he makes How do we do it we do it in this way Number three serve worship the Lord by yielding yielding Serve worship the Lord by yielding your heart to him You see it's in 19 Joshua says to the people you're not able to serve the Lord he's a holy God He's a jealous God He will not forgive your rebellion in your sins How can you serve how how can you possibly serve him But Joshua later gives the answer there in verse 23 look at verse 23 now then after they come again to know we're gonna serve God Yes, we're witnesses Verse 23 now then Joshua said throw away the foreign God that are among you and here's the key yield your hearts yield your hearts to the Lord
We have a heart problem We have a heart problem You know we talked about earlier our hearts produce idols Our hearts are always looking for something else to serve and so Joshua says yield your heart to the Lord So a yielding your heart means letting the Lord have priority over your life Okay, think about a yield sign Okay, there's a yield sign is to come off the 264 and you're getting on Smithfield road there I love that they turned it to a yield sign about a year ago. It's no longer just a straight red light There's a yield sign if you're going right and so if you come to a yield sign, you know, you don't have to stop It's not even as strong as a right on red Okay, you don't have to stop yield sign means you can just keep going But you got to make sure you're not going to get in anyone else's way you yield the right of way You yield your will what you want to do to somebody else's will So if somebody's coming along Smithfield road there and I'm trying to get off the the exit There at 264 to get on Smithfield road. I have to yield I have to let somebody else's will come first somebody else's priority Have priority Over mine That's what yielding to the Lord means yielding my heart My heart has evil in it my heart has a sin nature that's a part of it And if God says do something else than my sin nature wants to do I have to yield God's priority comes before mine So Number one putting this worship put it into our two categories of worshiping and serving the Lord Number one formal worship is allowed to interrupt all your other activities Not the other way around So you come to worship not when all the stars line up But you come to worship no matter what Um unless you're going to get us The bubonic plague or something you can stay home The Lord understands that But yielding our hearts serve the Lord and fate. We'll serve the Lord and faithfulness. Joshua says okay yield your heart yield your heart And so you know if you if you'd get up to go to work Get up to come to worship Um, we don't want work to be a greater God than God Right I don't want to serve my work Serve being on time or school. I want to serve going to school greater and treat school and work with greater reverence than treating God in that way And he goes to yield my heart to the Lord and Get up and be faithful to worship him in that formal worship kind of way And then here's what it means in daily life number two God's commands are allowed to reverse or alter God's commands are allowed to Reverse or alter what you otherwise would have done in daily living So if there's something you always do or something you really like doing or something you've done in your path And God brings it to your attention from his word that that thing is sin then God says yield yield your heart and from your heart yield your actions to me My will's coming through You got to yield to it do it So that brings us to be our hearts wander easily Our hearts wander easily first 19. So yielding our hearts is not a one-time thing We've mentioned this but something we must frequently check yielding our hearts is not a one-time thing. I kind of wish it were Um, you know when we die that's the one-time thing It is our sin nature is removed from us when we see Jesus face-to-face and we'll no longer struggle with sin That's the one-time thing But right now it's over and over and over again that we're continually having to check our hearts And and you see it here in this passage It's not just you know, okay Abraham gets out of her Now we don't have to check our hearts anymore We don't have to yield our hearts that was a decision we made in the past and we're not a pilot now No because God's people then Get into idolatry down in Egypt And then they get into idolatry even here before Joshua there those standing before him who have idols in their houses And so this is something that we have to do we never want to just be going through the motions and the Christian life Rather we yield our hearts and we check our hearts to make sure that we aren't serving other things greater than God Or treating other things as if they were greater than God. That's what I mean We yield our hearts and we constantly check and make sure we're not just going through the motions But that we're aware of the fact that our hearts wander easily That Joshua says to us the people of God you're not able to serve the Lord And so we take that to heart and we say God I need your spirit to work in me to follow you So summary all of this and summary here it is all blessing to you comes from God All blessing to you comes from God there's no blessing that comes to you that's not sourced by him from him Therefore yield therefore yield your heart to the Lord yield your heart to the Lord that you may serve him well that you may serve him well and fully experience fully experience all the blessings that he will send to you from above Recognize he's the giver of all blessing that has and ever can come to you And so yield your heart that you might be good servants good worshipers of him by form of worship and in your life by the way you live That he might bless you the way he really wants to bless you Jesus look back at Jerusalem before his crucifixion and he said oh Jerusalem You who killed the prophets How I wanted to come and take you in as a mother in desert chicks But you would not have it God wants to bless us more than will receive it And so he says to us yield your hearts that I might bless you Let's pray Our God and Father we are grateful that you love us that you care for us that you're good to us And that you've done so much force You have placed our names on the book of life You have borne our sins in fact in your body Jesus on across two thousand years ago so that there's no more punishment left for our sins And you father and son sent your spirit To give us life To quicken us from the dead Even though we were physically alive we needed spiritual life and you did that spirit of God for us You won the battle over the deadness of our souls and so we look back as the people of God did under Josh one say We're here in the church because of you Lord Now we will serve you So Lord cause us to yield our hearts to you Cause us to be as your servant Paul said living sacrifices renewing our minds Living our lives in your way As aliens and strangers in the world We pray this Jesus in your name We pray this Jesus in your name