We Will Serve The Lord Our God And We Will Obey His Voice

So this morning we're going to be studying Joshua chapter 24, and before I read the text, I want to set it up a little bit and talk a little bit about the topic of our sermon this morning. Now, I want to start by asking you a question. Is boredom good? Well, we already have a disagreement. That didn't take long. Abram says yes. Luis and Daniel say... Oh, I meant yes. You asked me a yes. Yes, boredom's good. Yes, boredom's good. So the elders and the deacons disagree. So let's tease it out. Why do you think boredom is good? You're never bored? It'd be nice, yeah. So boredom is a type of rest. Okay. Luis, why do you think it's bad? Because you're not productive? Yeah, that's what I figured. So I don't mean the sort of boredom that is the result of you not doing what you should do.

What I mean is the type of boredom that is sort of an idle time where you're not occupied with some task at hand. Now, what you do at that time could either be good or be bad. I read a recent study about children, and it was talking about electronics and the negative effect of electronics have on young children. And it says one of the negative effects it has on young children is that it removes any opportunity for them ever to be bored. And that boredom actually is a good thing because boredom is what produces creativity and imagination. And if a child never has a time where they're not doing something, receiving information, they're incapable of being creative. They don't cultivate that in them because they're always receiving and processing information instead of having to dream or create or think on their own. Their mind never gets to wander.

Do you like to be bored? Do you like to have time to think? Some of us might say, yes, I like to have time to think. And others of us might say, yes, I like it, but it's not good for me because my mind tends to wander off into things that aren't good. But some of us might say, no, I don't like to have time to think because there's miserable things that come up. I'd like to not have to be occupied thinking about those things. And yet this morning, before we come to our text, what I want to... impress upon you is the need or the goodness of time to reflect. And so boredom doesn't mean, oh, I can sleep another hour when I really have things to do. Or boredom doesn't mean sitting around and thinking sinful, lustful thoughts or feeling bad about the past again. That's not what I mean by reflection. What I mean is a time to look back over the past and to make a

An honest assessment of how things were. If you were to go into a business, a business has a time of reflection. They have a time of reorganization. They have a time of tying up the loose ends of the past, learning what they can, and then making a plan going forward. And my contention for you is that that's a good thing for us. That we ought to have time in our lives to look back and to say, oh. What did I learn? What happened? What was significant in my life? What was the Lord doing? And what does it mean to me? How's he working in my life? And what I can assure you is that will never happen if you're always just taking in new information and always processing. Do you know, I think often at stoplights, and I'm guilty of this, but when I think of at stoplights, how many people, you ever look in someone else's car?

when it's stoplights? Well, only if you're not looking at your phone. But what are they doing? They're looking at their phone. And I often find myself at stoplights going, how long is the red light going to be? Do I have time to check my email? And what it is is a foolish and dangerous desire to always be having information. There's never a time where the radio's not on or the phone's not providing some stimuli for me. And I think that's a bad thing because it never allows Dave to think about what's going on. There's never time to plan. There's never time to reflect. And as the new year starts, it's common for people to talk about having New Year's resolutions, or this year there's going to be different. They've got some change they want to make. And I'm all for that. I think that's good, as long as your desire is to become more godly, to give more glory to God by the changes that you make in your life. I say, that's great. I think it's God's kindness that we have a time once a year where we naturally are thinking,

How did the thing that's ending go, and what do I want to see changed in the thing to come? I think that's good. But for that to be profitable, we have to have time to reflect and to actually be able to assess the year past. And if we looked back over this past year, 2019, I'm sure in our lives or in the lives of those around us, there are many notable events, some good and some difficult. Some of us could look back and say, I got married. That was a good thing. A number of you guys say, I got married. And some of the people who got married aren't even here because they're still on their honeymoons. And they say, it was a good thing. And there'd be other things we'd look back on in the past and we'd say, that was a difficulty. That was a hardship. And oftentimes the truth is it's not over just because the calendar turns from December to January. And so the goal of our time this morning is not to ignore or to forget the good or the bad.

The goal of this morning's sermon is to call us to take time to reflect on the past and to seek to learn what God was doing in us and through us in this past year. And so to this end, we're going to be studying an exchange that Joshua has with the people of Israel right before he dies. Now how many of you have heard the phrase or seen it on artwork somewhere, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Some of you might have that on some sort of artwork or something in your house. Well, that passage, that phrase, that text comes from the passage we're going to be studying this morning. And so I think that it's a good reminder or exhortation to us that our house and that we as Christians would have the Lord as our first priority and we would serve him. This morning we're going to be studying the verses that come around that, the context, so that those words will have more meaning in our lives.

And so we're going to be reading Joshua chapter 24, verses 14 through 24. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word? This is the word of the Lord, and it is eternally true. Joshua says this, Now therefore, fear the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. The people answered and said, Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. For the Lord, our God, is he who brought us up.

us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage and who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us through all the way in which we went and among all the peoples through whom we midst we passed the Lord drove out from us before all the peoples even the Amorites who lived in the land we also will serve the Lord for he is our God then Joshua said to the people you will not be 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, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after he has done good to you. And the people said to Joshua, No, but we will serve the Lord. And Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourself that you have chosen for yourselves the Lord to serve him. And they said, We are witnesses. Now, therefore, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst and incline your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.

The people said to Joshua, we will serve the Lord our God, and we will obey his voice. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. Now, if you were tracking along and listening, there was probably some things in that passage where you went, what is Joshua saying? And we're going to come to that. But before we get to those things, I want to give a little bit of context to this. Our passage starts off with a command. Joshua says, now, therefore, fear the Lord, serve him, put away your household gods, and serve God. So he says, this is what you're supposed to do. But we need to know what came before that command because he says, therefore, there's all these reasons ahead of time. And he says, therefore, because of those things, do this. And so what were those reasons that he gave? Well, in the preceding verses, the beginning of this chapter, what he does is he recounts the history of Israel from Abraham on through to their time. And he talks about Abraham and he says, you know, Abraham was like his father and his grandfather, like Tara and like,

Nahor. They lived over in Haran, in Chaldea, and they served other gods. And what's he saying except that Abraham wasn't special. Abraham wasn't pure and undefiled. Abraham was an idolater before the Lord called him out and said, you come with me. You leave behind those things and you come with me. And so Abraham did. And as Abraham was called out of Haran and away from the Chaldean gods, The Lord took him in his wanderings through the land of Canaan, showing him what land his people, his descendants, generations on down the line, were going to possess. And those descendants that were supposed to possess that land that Abraham was being shown are the people that Joshua is talking to. And so they would have seen Abraham as their father. They would have thought, man, our great, great, you know, however many great grandfather, he walked through here. God showed him this land. And then they went away and they had all this time.

wandering in the wilderness and before that time in Egypt. But now God's giving us this land. And yet our father Abraham served other gods. Then Joshua then recounts Isaac and he says, you know, Isaac was Abraham's son and God gave Isaac two sons. He gave him Jacob and Esau. And now he only chose one of them. One of them he chose to be his man, Jacob. And Esau he rejected. Now did Esau worship the true God? And I think you have to say he didn't. He was given Mount Seir. He was the father of the Edomites, and they were historically the enemies of the Israelites. They didn't serve the same God. And so you have this mixture of true worship and false worship, even in Jacob and Esau. Jacob worshiping the true God, Esau worshiping the false God. Then Joshua reminds them of Moses. Moses being chosen to lead his people, the Israelites, out of bondage in Egypt.

And even when they were backed up against the Red Sea and their lives were lost, they thought God opened up the Red Sea and made a way for them. He delivered them. And they saw with their own eyes their deliverance and the destruction of all of their enemies. And it would have been some of these people that Joshua was talking to would have seen that. And the rest who were there who didn't see it with their own eyes would have had their parents and perhaps their grandparents see it. And so they would have had first, second-hand knowledge of this great deliverance. And so it may seem strange. Why would Joshua bring up all of these things? Well, he says to them, put away the gods which your father served. And so what's that mean about them? It means that there was still some idolatry among these people who've been brought through these great trials and tribulations by the Lord. They still have these false gods somewhere, at least in their heart, even after having been delivered in all of these ways. And so Joshua, when he speaks this to the people, they've entered into the land of Canaan.

There's been some fighting. There's been some conquering. But it's not over yet. And just before this, they've distributed the lands to the people and said, you're the Simeonites. You go over here and this is your land and here's the borders. And you're going to have to drive out all of the people who are there because that's your land. And you're the Levites and you don't get a land, but you're going to live in these places and you're going to lead the people and you're going to serve God. And you're the Reubenites, and this is the Gadites, and all the rest of them. He goes through and says, this is your land. And when you go over there, you're going to have to continue the work we've begun. You're going to have to drive out all the people. You're going to have to drive out the idols. You're going to have to drive out the false gods. You're going to have to drive out the false worship. And Joshua is saying this to all of them as sort of their parting commission, if you will, as they go into their own lands. Carry on. Continue what the Lord's been up to as you go away. And Joshua's about to die. So he's not going to be able to...

travel around and see to it that they're doing their work and so he is making an effort to confirm to them this is what your work is this is what you ought to be doing this is what you need to do you still got this problem within you and you're going to have to carry on this work as you go out into your lands or destruction is going to come your way because the people that you're going to the lands you're going in to possess they don't worship the true god and if you don't drive them out you're going to succumb to their false worship so it's a good it's a big warning and so then he says this strange thing, which I've found whenever I've said things like this in ministry, people look at you kind of funny. And what he says to them is, if this is disagreeable to you, if it's disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve. And so what's he doing? Except giving them an out or an option, saying, you know what, if I could put it in my own words, I would...

What Joshua is saying is, listen, I know some of you don't love the Lord. And I know that you have other priorities and you have other things that you do love. And this is your out. If you want out, here's the door. And pastoral counsel, when I'm talking with people, will ask them and will say, what do you want? What do you want? I don't want to know what you think you should want. I want to know what you actually want. Because an honest unbeliever is far better than a dishonest Christian. so-called. If you'll just be honest and say, this is not what I want. I don't want to serve the Lord. I want to go slop pigs. I'd say, okay, well, that's going to not end well for you, but at least you're being honest about it. And we don't have to keep up the lie. And that's what Joshua was saying to them. If it's disagreeable to you to serve the Lord, choose. Make a choice, but don't continue to mix the two. Here's a line in the sand. Commit yourself one way or the other. Who are you going to serve? You can only serve one God. Who's it going to be?

This is what he's asking the people. If we were to say to you, none of you serve God the way you should. And every one of you has idols in your heart at least. And they've got a strong, strong hold on you. But as you go forward, you're going to go forward into a lot of difficulty and a lot of trial and a lot of hardship. And if you continue on in the way that you are right now, you're going to be consumed. And it'll be the Lord who consumes you because you haven't committed yourself to him the way you ought to. And so today you need to decide.

whom you're going to serve. There's a question here. There's pressure here. There's an expectation that I would do one thing or the other, but not continue on the way I am. And I say, that's absolutely right. That's absolutely right. That's absolutely what's happening here. It's very similar to when Elijah was up on the mountain. He'd been in hiding. Israel was doing very poorly. And eventually he comes out of hiding. And he stands up on the mountain, and he has this competition with 400 prophets of Baal. And he says, we're going to see whose God can light these pyres, these stacks of wood on fire. It's been a drought for three and a half years. We're going to see. And everyone comes out to see what happened, because they're going, huh, this is going to be something. People are calling down fire from heaven. This is going to be something to see. So they all come out. And Elijah, in 1 Kings 18, verse 21, it says this. It says, Elijah came near to the people, and he said,

Well, you hesitate between two opinions. If the Lord is God, follow him. But if Baal is God, follow him. And what it says is that the people didn't answer him a word. Because it would be a scary thing to answer. If you have a wicked king and his wife threatening to kill you if you serve the true God, and here you are out in front of him and all his false prophets and all of the rest of the people being told today, choose whom you're going to serve. It's not surprising that they didn't answer. Because they were scared. And yet the choice still had to be made. Whom are you going to serve? Same sort of thing with Joshua. If it's disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served, which are beyond the river, speaking of Abraham, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you're now living. Choose this day whom you're going to serve. Now, it's sort of a loaded question, because I said earlier, it's a...

It's an exit. It's a you can get out. But it's not a you can get out with no consequences. It's not a choose this or choose that and either one of them will be the same. What would have happened to the people? Just think with me for a minute. What would have happened to the people if some of them had risen up and said, we aren't going to serve the Lord your God. We're going to serve the Amorites. What would have happened to them? I'll just ask you this. What were the Israelites supposed to do to the Amorites? Kill them. Get rid of them. Eradicate their false worship. So it's not a choice without consequence. And that's something that you and I have to understand. The choices that we make about who we're going to serve and what has our heart is not a choice without consequence. It does actually matter what we choose. And this is the pressure that we live in. Is that we know we should choose the Lord. They know they should choose the Lord. Because they know there are consequences of not choosing the Lord. And so the temptation then arises to say, I choose the Lord.

Because that's what you're supposed to say. And I say, will it end any better for the one who says, I choose the Lord, but doesn't in their heart? Is there any different for them than the one who says, I don't choose the Lord? My contention is that there's no difference. Both of them have chosen not to serve the Lord. One forthrightly and one secretly. But the choice is the same. So the consequence is going to be the same. So the people respond and they say, far be it from us. that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for the Lord is our God. He's brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage. He's done these great signs. He's preserved us. The Lord drove out peoples from before us, and the Amorites will serve the Lord, for he is our God. Because previous to that, Joshua said, choose this day, but as for me and my house, this is the context of that verse we all have up in our house, and we think this is a sweet thing.

It is a sweet thing for Joshua to say, but it's in the midst of a very serious or intense discussion or proclamation. Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And so then the people respond, far be it from us, we will too. We will also serve the Lord. I want to talk a little bit about the type of trouble that the Israelites were having here, the type of idolatry. I'm not convinced that they had literal physical idols carried along with them. out of Egypt, through the Red Sea, through the 40 years wandering in the wilderness, I'm not convinced that they had idols there with them physically. I think what I am sure is that they at least carried them with them in their hearts. They remembered. When the Israelites were out in Egypt and they didn't have food and water and they were grumbling and complaining, what did they say?

What have you done, Moses? You've brought us out here to die. Why don't we go back to Egypt where at least we had meat? So what is that? Well, I think that's idolatry. I think that's them saying we would rather have our life there in bondage to unbelievers than dependence on the Lord by faith in the wilderness. We don't want to be committed solely to you. We want food too. And the Egyptians gave us food and you don't. So we'll go back and be your people, but we want to go back and be your people where, where someone other than you provides for us. That's the sort of idolatry that is going on in their hearts. And that's the sort of idolatry I think that each of us have to deal with in our own hearts. That there's this constant temptation to mix devotion to God and purity of service to him the way it should be with our own necessary needs being met. You say, well, if I can't get it from the Lord, I'll go get it somewhere else. And what I want you to have in your mind is that that is idolatry.

That's you turning away from God and saying, he's not going to meet my need, or he's not interested in meeting my need, or he's not capable of meeting my need, so I'm going to go find what I need myself. And for you to do that, that is for you to turn away from the Lord. And you say, but how will I get what I need if I just sit here and wait? And I say, well, the same question would have arisen in the Israelites' mind as they were backed up against the Red Sea with the Egyptians coming at them. This isn't a question that's unique to you or to me.

Where's my deliverance going to come from? Is a question that God's people have asked forever. And so therefore, it's not an excuse for you to go do what you want because you think, well, the Lord's not giving me what I want when I want. And so Joshua knows in this time that there are difficult days ahead. And he knows that he's about to die. And he says, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And so he's committing him, not only himself, but his children and his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren, that they're going to be a faithful. family. They're going to serve the Lord their God, and they're not going to give themselves to idolatry. And this isn't something new with Joshua. You remember that Joshua and Caleb were the only two men who went in to spy out the land who trusted that God would give the land to them. And so Joshua's faithfulness and his commitment to serve the Lord alone is not a new thing. He's reaffirming his commitment, which has been the story of his life all the way through as he's preparing to die. He's reminding

his children and his grandchildren of what their priority is. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. So the Israelites' response after Joshua says all of these things is, as I've already told you, far be it from us that we should forsake. Look at all the Lord's done. We will serve the Lord also. And then look at what Joshua says next to them. He says to them, you will not be able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He's a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and you serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after he has done you good. Now is that what you would think comes next in the story? It's so far from what you'd expect someone to say. They say, we're going to serve the Lord along with you, Joshua. And he says, no, you're not. And if you don't, God's going to destroy you. Now you have to think for a minute, or maybe two, why in the world would he say something like that? Is he really just saying,

Destruction is in your path and in your future no matter what you do. Because that's the way it reads. It seems as if he's encouraging them or inviting them to say, you know what, we don't want to serve the Lord. But I don't think that's what he's doing. I think what he's doing is doubling down on their commitment. And he's taking what may have been a flippant commitment or a compulsive response. And he says, no, no, no. You better mean what you say. You better mean what you say. Far better for you to be honest here. So I'm going to test you and make sure that what you're saying is honest. Have you ever reasoned with God or pleaded with God in your mind where it's like, I'll do the thing I'm supposed to do if you give me what I want. It's a good thing that I want after all. Nothing inherently sinful about the thing I want. And have you felt gross as you do it? Or after the fact when you go, you know, I don't think that's how God works.

I don't think I get to manipulate and negotiate with him to get what I want. The truth is, he's actually able to say no to you. And in the process of saying no, you will not have what you want, you still must serve me with all of your heart. And that's the difficulty, is that God is no man's debtor, and he's not in the business of negotiating with his people. Well, if you do this thing, then I'll give you this other thing, with them being the ones dictating the terms. He does make promises to them. If you do this, you will live. If you do this, you'll prosper. I'll prosper you. I'll give you good things. But it's not on their terms. It's on his terms. And if you do find yourself saying, well, but about negotiating with the Lord, my encouragement to you would be to say, then negotiate with the Lord the way Hannah did. What did Hannah want? Hannah wanted a son. And what did she say? If you give me a son, what? He'll be devoted unto you. And so what did she do?

Or what did the Lord do? The Lord heard her plea, heard her cry, gave her a son. And after she had nursed him, what did she do? She took him to the temple and said, here, he's yours. And she left him there. She wanted a son. But more than simply wanting a son, she wanted a son who would glorify God and who would serve God. And so she said, if you give me a son, I want to see your glory in him and through him. So I'll give him to you, back to you. And she did. And so we have to be very careful of negotiating with the Lord on our terms and saying, I have something I want.

These are the things I'm willing to do to get what I want. Now, we don't talk about these things very often, but I do think we pray this way, and we think this way, and we feel this way. You want things, and you say, I'm going to do this thing by faith. But somewhere inside of us, we know that we're doing it because we want God to somehow be indebted to us and owe us the thing we really want. And so what it would sound like is if you were to say, well, you know what I want? I want a... I want a wife. It's a good thing, I want a wife. And if the answer came back to you, this is a man asking, I want a wife. And if the answer came back to him, no, you can't have a wife right now. Will you still serve me? It's a very difficult question. It's a question that I had to face early on in my Christian walk, where it was before Vanessa and I were married, and we had broken up. And I wanted her back, and everybody knew that. But I had to work.

do the work in my heart of determining whether or not I would serve God if she married somebody else? That was a hard question. It took a good long while for me to be convinced that I wouldn't just beat up a guy that showed up with her somewhere. And some of you might think that's funny, but that's really where it was. I wanted something and I was going to have it. And it took a while for me to submit that desire and to say, you know, even if I can't have the thing I want, which isn't a bad thing, If I can't have the particulars that I want, I will still serve God and love him and not be bitter about it. That's what Joshua is pushing the people to. Do you mean what you're saying? Will you serve the Lord if things get difficult or only when they're prosperous? That's really the question that faces them. It's as if they answered too quickly. They didn't understand the severity or the gravity of what they were saying. And so he says, you're not going to be able to do this. And if you don't do it, it's going to be very bad for you.

And they're supposed to go, wait, bad for us? And he says, yeah, bad for us. So you need to slow down, come back, and decide, are you really about this? The reality is Joshua is doing them a great service because he knows the temptations that they're going to face when they go into the land. He knows how great their temptation to turn away from God is going to be. And so he's working to burn into their minds their commitment to the Lord ahead of time so that when they're inclined to do something wicked, they're going to remember. no, I said this wasn't what I was going to do. And Joshua told me that if I did this, what was going to happen to me? This is the temptation I'm facing. He's preparing them. And in a manner, he's prophesying and telling them, this is what life's going to be like for you in the future. You can serve the Lord and you ought to serve the Lord, but it's not going to be easy to serve the Lord. And so prepare ahead of time. Know what it's going to be like ahead of time.

It's like when we talk to people, young married couples, or before they're married, there are two times that we normally have this conversation with people. And it's before they get married and it's before they have their first child. And we tell them, it's going to be very different than what you expect it to be. And it's going to be hard. Hard in ways I can't define for you because I don't know what the particulars will be, but I can tell you it will not be easy. It will be very, very difficult for you. And they kind of look at me with this bewildered look on their face and they're like, what do you mean? We love each other. We just, we're enthralled with each other's love. This is, I mean, what do you mean? And I say, I know. Six months after your wedding, we'll get together and then you'll know what I'm talking about. And about six months later, they come in and they say, I say, how's it going? And they kind of look at me and they go, it hasn't all been roses and sunshine. And I say, I know. Do you guys still love each other? And they say, well, yeah, but it's harder than we thought. And I say, okay, keep working at it.

You're going to do this the rest of your life. And we do the same thing when they have a baby. They get pregnant. You always go ask the woman, you say, are you happy or are you scared? And she looks at you and she says, uh-huh. And I say, that's as it should be. And I look at the man and I say, how about you? And he says, well, he sometimes just has this, like, I don't know look. He hasn't realized what's coming yet at all. Or he's scared. He's scared. He doesn't know how. How am I going to provide? How am I going to take care of her? How's our life going to change? There's this unknown.

And so you come to them and you say to the young married, you know, you say, marriage is a good thing. You've done well. And if you and your spouse are having troubles, that's okay. You keep working at it. Don't you ever give up. And you say to the couple who's waiting, you know, in anxiety for their first child, you say, children are a gift from the Lord. And they're going to sanctify you in ways that you never could have imagined. And it'll be for your good and God's glory. So you keep after it and don't. Don't give in to fear. And this is what Joshua is doing. He's saying, you're going to go into a land and it's going to be hard for you. And I want to prepare you. As I die, I want to prepare you for what is ahead. And I want to know what your commitments are. I want you to say with your mouth, with knowledge of what you're saying, I want you to tell me what your priorities are. And so what Joshua is doing is getting the people to reaffirm their commitment to the Lord. And you think, well, their commitment wasn't perfect before. They had false gods with them. And I say, that's right.

What else are you supposed to do with them? What else are you supposed to do with people who sin other than call them to repentance? I mean, really. If I were to say to you, you all have false gods, and it's going to destroy you. You love things that aren't the Lord. And if all I were to say to you is, end to hell with you. The end. I wouldn't have done you any good because I wouldn't have told you the truth. I wouldn't have called you to repentance. The fact is, from this time on forward to today, we don't serve God the way we should.

And as we look back over 2019, you can say, I didn't serve God the way I should. And you could say that generally or you could say that specifically. And yet the truth is the truth. And so what can I say to you except 2020 is going to have more of the same opportunities for you to serve the Lord with all of your heart and soul and mind and strength. And it's going to have plenty of temptations for you not to do that. So as we look back over these past years, this past year, these past years, what have you, we should be able to look with honesty and say, you know, There are many things that have happened in my life. There are many things that were a huge blessing to me. There were many things that were good. There are things that I can see clearly now were not what I ought to have done, not what I ought to have thought, not what I ought to have given my heart to. So what are you supposed to do? Reaffirm your commitment to the Lord. Repent of your sins. Believe that there's mercy for all of your sins in Jesus Christ. That you're not collecting a big train car full of failures that are all going to just...

be piled up on top of you when you stand before the Lord. Repent of them and believe that Jesus has come to set you free from them, to remove the guilt and the burden of them from your back and from your conscience. And then endeavor to serve the Lord in newness this upcoming year. So Joshua ends this interaction. There's this back and forth between the people. He says, choose this day. And they say, we choose the Lord. And he says, choose this day, but I'm choosing the Lord. And they say, We choose the Lord. And he says, no, you won't. And they say, yes, we will. The people said here, no, but we will serve the Lord after Joshua tells them what sort of destruction will come to them if they don't. They say, no, but we will serve the Lord. So now they're answering with knowledge. We know what's coming. You've told us what's coming. No, but we will serve the Lord. And Joshua says to them, you are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen for yourselves the Lord to serve him. And he's saying, you realize what you're saying.

You realize the commitment you're making. And they say, we are witnesses. We know what we're saying. We understand. And then he reiterates at the end of this passage what he says at the beginning. He says, now, therefore, put away the foreign gods which are in your midst and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to him, we will serve the Lord our God. We will obey his voice. And so there's this purifying. back and forth between them where he's loving them and caring for them and preparing them as he even prepares to die for the work that they have ahead of them. He says, you understand what you're getting into? And they say, yes, we understand what we're getting into. And they say, he says, are you sure? And they say, yeah, we're sure. And he says, God is witness. And they say, so are we. We intend to do it. Now here's a question for you. Were they fools for saying that? Or did they do it? Did they do what they said here? What did you say, Paige? Did you say no?

Yeah, that's right. It's true. They went in and they didn't drive out the people the way they should have. And they faced consequences. Some of what Isaiah in our scripture lesson this morning we were talking about, some of the consequences of them not driving out these idolaters is what Isaiah is talking about. They've let weeds grow up among them. They've intermarried with them and they're facing the consequences of it. And what we learn from all of this, you can either just despise this whole thing and say, this is all just a mess. and a muddle, and why would anyone ever commit to doing something that they know they're not going to be able to do? Enough with all of this. Why would they commit to serve the Lord when we see just chapters later they're not doing it? You're trying to get me to do what they did? You're holding them up as an example of what a Christian ought to do? And I say, insofar as it goes, yes. What's your other option? Will you serve the Lord? Will you fear Him and love Him? Or will you do something else?

Do you think that if you do something else, it's going to end up better for you? That the Lord will say, oh, you're free. You can go do what you want and there will be no consequence for it. I'd be lying to you if I told you that. They understood what the consequences were of not serving the Lord for them. And so they endeavored to do it. And there are times, if you read through the history of Israel, there are times where they repented and they turned away from their idolatry and they turned away from their false worship and they returned to the Lord and good times came to them.

And so what I don't want you to learn is to despise the tension that we live in, this side of glory. This is a really good picture of the tension that you and I live in. We're not better than them. We have the same sort of temptations that they face with the same sort of consequences that they face. So what are we to do? We're to commit ourselves unto the Lord and to seek to serve him by faith. You say, but I can't do it perfectly. And I say, I know that and so does the Lord. And that means that you'll need to repent from time to time because that's what people do when they sin.

They repent. That's what Christians do. To be a Christian is not to be without failure. To be a Christian is to acknowledge, I didn't do what I should have done. I've made a mess of it. But God loves sinners, and he helps sinners. And so I repent, and I believe. I turn away from my... Proverbs 4.23 tells us to keep watch over our heart with all diligence, for from it flow the streams of life. And so this is my final exhortation to you, just to say... The things that the Israelites faced in this passage and the thing that Joshua is calling them away from is not unlike your temptations. I've already said that, and I just want to reiterate it to you. So what do you do about it? You do what Proverbs says here, which is keep watch over your heart. You have to acknowledge the reality, not just in your mind, but in your heart, that you love things that you shouldn't love. And you want things that you shouldn't want. And they've displaced the Lord God in your heart. And you have to say, that's true right now.

Not, it might, not, I might face that temptation in the future. You have to say, it's true right now. That's why they were told, put away the household, put away your gods. They already had them. And so you have to say, it's true of me now. There are things I love and things I want that have removed God from his throne in my heart. And then you have to say, well, what are they? And how do I resist them? And this is the life of a Christian, examining themselves, keeping watch over their heart with all diligence. knowing how prone your heart is to wander, you keep watch over it. You say, well, what do I love? What do I get excited about? What do I get upset about if I don't have? What do I hope my life will be marked by when I'm 70? What do I hope will have happened, will have transpired in my life? I don't think there's anyone here except for Marion who's older than 70. And so I put it out and say, well, what do you want your life to look like when you're 70? What is it you hope will...

will come to pass. I can tell you that the things I hope are true of me when I'm 70 aren't all pure. And then as I look at them, I think, you know, I could spend from now until I'm 70 pursuing those things, but I will have to forsake other things in the process that I shouldn't forsake. You know, there are times, these things called midlife crises that people talk about. And what is it that's going on in a midlife crisis except that a man is realizing the things I've wanted in my heart, I'm starting to realize I'm not going to get them. before I die. And I say, that's a good picture into the idolatry of his heart. What's he usually do? Sometimes he goes and spends a bunch of money and he buys a toy, an expensive toy. Sometimes he has things that are far worse than that. Sometimes he leaves his wife because he thinks you're never going to be the woman I wanted you to be. And what are you seeing at that point except the idolatry of that man's heart? Women have these same sort of things. And so think, what do I want my life to, what do I want to be true of me when I'm 70, when I'm 80, when I die?

And if holiness and righteousness and the faith of your children and your grandchildren are not toward the top of the list, you've got something out of order. And it's time to repent. You might think, well, but if I, you mean I never will get that? And I say, well, you might not. You might never get it. You might never be rich. You just might never be rich. You might die poor. Would that be so bad? Oh, it'll be bad for me. I know I'm not the only one in this room that wants money and wants comfort and wants ease. Would it be so bad if I died poor? If I had things that were more important than that, then no. But if that's my life's aspiration, then my life will be a waste because I'll have entertained the idols of my heart. I don't want to do that. I don't want you to do that. So you have to look at your heart and you have to say, what's in there? Keep watch over your heart with all diligence for from it flow the streams of life. What do you want your life to be about? When you die, what do you want people to say? That's what they loved. That's what was important to them. That's what they gave their life for. And these are the things they went without to have those things.

What would the Lord have you do? This is the question we ought to be asking ourselves. This is what we need a little bit of time to think about without all of the inundation of information coming at us. What are you about? What are you going to change in the future? In this next year, what's one change? What's two changes that you could make to grow in godliness, to discipline yourself for the sake of holiness? Figure out what they are and just start on them. When you fail, repent. Get back on and try again.