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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
Think back with me for a moment to good-byes that you’ve given in your lifetime, especially significant ones, like retirement from your long career, or leaving your close friends or family and relocating far away. Do you remember how carefully you selected your words?
Yesterday we looked at Joshua’s leadership farewell challenge in Joshua 23. Today Joshua bid’s farewell to the people he has led for decades. Joshua first appears in the Biblical account in Exodus 17. I presume him then to be in his 40’s or 50’s. He was a warrior and led the battle against the Amalekites while Moses prayed on the hillside. A few weeks later he’s with Moses going up Mount Sinai to meet with God in Exodus 24.
About 40 years later, Moses passed the mantle of leadership to Joshua, and Moses hiked up Mount Nebo to die. Soon after that Joshua leads the people across the Jordan river into the new land, and after taking Jericho, they begin a systematic conquering of the land long promised. Joshua 23:1 says “After a long time had passed… Joshua, by then old and well advanced in years, summoned the leaders of Israel…” As with Moses, so now with Joshua it was time to retire and die, only this time there is no apparent young leader ready to receive the mantle of leadership. I’ve often wondered about that, why not? The Tabernacle at Shiloh provided the central spiritual leadership for these 2 million people, but who would lead them as they continued to occupy the promised land, driving out the people there?
Today let’s consider the end of Joshua’s life and his famous challenge to the people in chapter 24. You’ll notice Joshua gives a lengthy history lesson going all the way back to the days of Abraham. What do you see as his purpose in this? Do you see God explaining over and over how He had miraculously provided, protected and led His people over the centuries, to the present day with Joshua: “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 you did not plant.” How often do you reflect on the long history of your family, going back as many generations as you can in your family heritage, to see God’s involvement?
Then Joshua turns from history to future: “Now fear the LORD and serve Him with all your 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… as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Do you see the connection between a strong epilogue focus on the power & presence of God at work in their long past, and a challenge to engage the future which stands before them, in that same confidence of the power & presence of God?
Do you see the various generations and different cultural ‘gods’ Joshua talks about? The phrase “Beyond the river” is referring all the way back to Abraham and his father Terah and their family who lived in Ur of the Chaldeans, (Genesis 11) along the Euphrates river in modern day Iraq. That was almost 600 years in their past! Then ‘the gods of Egypt’ refer of course to the idols the Egyptians made and worshiped, in their nearly 400 year enslavement in Egypt. And finally Joshua identified ‘…the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living.” This would be the idols of the peoples who the Israelites are slowly driving out as they take possession of their promised land. So I wonder what the religious/spiritual history of your historical family is if you go back 30 generations or so? And what are the ‘idols’ of our day that consume our time, our passions and compete with our attempts to prioritize Jesus in our lives?
Here’s another Biblical principle that I think is the core of what Joshua is challenging the people with: “People serve that or whom they cherish”. It’s not difficult to see what you cherish, what has captured your heart. Look at your expenses… we spend our money on what we cherish. Look at how you’ve spent your time in the past several years… we make and invest our valuable time in what we cherish.
Joshua was challenging the people to make some priority decisions about what they cherish and serve. Notice how the people responded to Joshua “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 fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery,and performed great signs before our eyes…we too will serve the LORD, because He is our God.” (Joshua 24:16-18). Well, that sure sounds good, but Joshua had been with these people for over 50 years. He’d seen how often their hearts chased after other things.
So Joshua challenged them: “You are not able to serve the LORD, He is a holy God, He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and 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 so good to you.” Joshua wasn’t threatening the people, he was telling the truth. May I ask, are you troubled by Joshua’s words? Do you expect God to be always forgiving, always loving, always generous, always blessing…no matter how we treat God?
Finally do you see Joshua says “Now then, throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.” There it is my friends. Joshua knew the truth about these people. Regardless of what they said, their hearts were far from cherishing Holy God, and many people secretly had in their homes, little idols of the people they’d driven out of the land. Do you know this verse my friends: “If I had cherished sin in my heart the LORD would not have heard my prayer.” (Ps. 66:18) That’s what Joshua knew was going on here. As you and I look around… our world, our city, our homes, our lives… what do we cherish? What is the condition of our hearts?
Notice please, the last few verses of chapter 24… Joshua’s death and burial and how his epilogue challenged these people. “Israel served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the LORD had done for Israel.” Joshua’s godly influence long outlived him! Oh that this would be true of you and me!
But sadly, I need to point you to Judges 2:6-15 “After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers another generation grew up who neither knew the LORD nor what He had done for Israel. They did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers…and the LORD handed them over to raiders who plundered them…Whenever Israel went out to fight, the hand of the LORD was against them to defeat them, just as He had sworn to them. They were in great distress.” Oh what a very sad, long season of Israel’s history followed as generation after generation turned away from God and experienced the pain of living under God’s hand of discipline rather than His hand of blessing and protection.
My friends, as you and I contemplate the months and years ahead of us in this crazy Coronavirus world… what declaration do you feel led to make today about what you cherish and who or what your life will serve? Here’s a powerful song to help us worship today…
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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