Latest / Saint City Chapel / Service God Wants | Joshua 24

Transcript

Service God Wants | Joshua 24 · Saint City Chapel

0:00
Good morning St. City, it is so good to worship
0:05
Jesus with you all. If you are new to Saint City,
0:07
one of our values is we are allowed with our love here.
0:11
Sometimes that comes out with passionate praise like it just
0:14
did. But what we want you to know is
0:15
there is a God who loves you. Like when we say around here
0:19
that you are loved, that we mean it, that God has demonstrated
0:23
His love toward you and He is worthy of song.
0:26
He is worthy of praise. And guess what?
0:28
As his people, we love you. We are so glad that you are here
0:33
joining us today and singing songs and hearing from His Word.
0:36
In fact, if you could turn to Joshua chapter 24 in your Bible,
0:40
if you don't have a Bible, there's one on the seat nearby
0:42
in front of you. It's going to be on page 198 in
0:45
there. And if you don't have a Bible
0:46
that's yours, congratulations, Oprah, up in Saint City today.
0:50
You just got a Bible under your seat.
0:53
Joshua is God's, one of God's letters to US, one of the
0:56
stories of his work in the world.
0:58
And he's trying to tell you just how much he loves you to the
1:01
lengths he has gone to save you, the lengths he has gone to
1:04
reveal himself to you. That is what Joshua was in your
1:07
Bible for. And we have gone through this
1:10
story chapter by chapter, by chapter by chapter.
1:14
We are now at the end of Joshua, Joshua chapter 24, and we're at
1:20
the end of Joshua's life at the end of this story, and he is
1:23
pulling George Washington and Hamilton.
1:26
He's singing one last time. I got to tell you guys
1:29
something. I need a farewell address for
1:31
you all. I need to tell you about what
1:32
God has to say to you. So we're going to get here in
1:36
Joshua chapter 24 and we're going to learn about the freedom
1:40
it is to serve Jesus. Today we're going to experience,
1:44
I'm titling this message service God wants, service that God
1:50
wants. When I was 16 years old, like
1:53
many of you, I got the incredible freedom of getting a
1:58
driver's license. That was a good day.
2:01
I could not wait for that day. I was the oldest of four
2:04
siblings, four boys in my family, and I was the oldest and
2:06
that came with a lot of freedom. I was very excited to go to Taco
2:10
Bell by myself without having to wait for my mom to go pick it
2:14
up. I was very excited, you know, to
2:16
go take the car out, maybe meet a girl at the movie theater, ask
2:20
her out on a date or something. If I had known there was a
2:22
beautiful blonde about 40 miles away, I would have driven to Des
2:25
Plaines, IL, where Maddie grew up, and asked her on a date.
2:28
It probably would have gone well for me then because when I was
2:30
16 years old, I was like 5 feet tall.
2:34
And so if I'd asked Maddie on a date that day with my squeaky
2:38
voice, she would have like stood over me because she was taller
2:41
than me. At that point, she'd be like,
2:42
no, bro. So I'm glad that we waited a
2:45
bit. But I was excited about the
2:47
freedoms of having a car. But I did not know it was being
2:50
the oldest in the family was that it came with
2:52
responsibility. It came with responsibility
2:55
because suddenly my mom had a chauffeur at her disposal for
2:59
free. Now, that's how I felt.
3:01
It wasn't actually free. They were helping with my car
3:03
insurance. You're helping with my gas, all
3:05
these things, right? So it'd be like, hey, I need you
3:06
to go pick up your brother here. Hey, I need you to go to the
3:08
grocery store and get this. Suddenly, I felt like a servant
3:11
to my mom in a way I'd never felt like before.
3:13
And I did not like that very much.
3:15
Nobody put Brandon in a corner, OK?
3:17
Like, that's how I felt with a driver's licence.
3:22
What I learned is that I wanted all the freedom with none of the
3:27
responsibility. I wanted to experience the
3:33
promotion without all that came with it.
3:38
Listen to me as a Christian. We have freedom from the slavery
3:42
to sin. We have been transferred from a
3:44
Kingdom of darkness, of slavery to sin.
3:46
And with Thanksgiving now with appreciation, God is inviting us
3:50
into a voluntary servitude of Him that we get to serve Him.
3:57
But in our hearts. Often when we say that we're a
3:59
servant of the Lord, it isn't layered with the gratitude, with
4:02
the appreciation, with the ability to look at God and say I
4:08
get to be your servant. Because servant leadership seems
4:14
like a great idea until people begin to treat us like 1.
4:21
When we get the experience of being treated like a servant,
4:25
treated like somebody who needs to serve, guess what?
4:29
It presses on our selfishness. It presses on our entitlement.
4:33
It presses upon the parts of our heart we didn't even know we're
4:36
there. So how can our hearts grow to
4:40
love serving where it's not just something being asked of us and
4:44
taken energy from us and taking our joy or our energy, but
4:50
rather how can we be filled by serving others?
4:55
I think that's Joshua's call to us in this farewell address is a
4:58
service that God wants. I want you to start at the end
5:02
of the chapter with me in chapter 24.
5:04
I want you to jump down to verse 29.
5:08
There's three funerals at the end of Joshua.
5:10
Joshua, Joseph and Eliezer are the three dudes who have are
5:15
pivotal for Israel. They're symbols not only of
5:20
their role. It means something about Jesus
5:22
later on. But I want to zero in on is
5:24
verse 29 and it says this about Joshua after all these things,
5:28
after the whole book of Joshua, after his farewell address that
5:30
we're going to read about in a second.
5:31
Joshua, the son of Nun, which is what he's called over the whole
5:34
book, gets a new title, the servant of the Lord.
5:41
Underline that in your Bible. He died being 110 years old.
5:46
Joshua, the son of nun. Now Moses, his predecessor, the
5:50
guy he took over for leading Israel for, he was called the
5:52
servant of the Lord all over Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,
5:55
Deuteronomy, that's Moses, his title, Joshua, go back to Joshua
5:59
one. We're going to have another
6:00
screen right here. But I want you to see this
6:02
incredible way that the story of Joshua's written Joshua 11
6:06
starts right here after the death of Moses, the servant of
6:10
the Lord. There's that title again given
6:12
to Moses the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun.
6:16
What's his title there? Moses's assistant.
6:23
Now that might feel that might feel like a a bad job.
6:27
I mean, he's the number 2IN Israel, OK, like he's leading
6:30
out, leading a nation. It's a pretty good job still.
6:32
But here's what I want you to see.
6:34
Here's the first principle I want to show you a 5 this
6:37
morning of service that God wants.
6:39
The first principle I want you to see is that serving the Lord
6:42
is a promotion. Being a servant of the Lord is
6:49
not a demotion, it's a promotion.
6:52
You are upgrading your title when you become a servant of the
6:55
Lord, that even though you've gone down in terms of the social
6:59
hierarchy, guess what, you are going up in the Kingdom of God.
7:04
You have been promoted to servant of the Lord.
7:08
Joshua 11. He starts off as Moses's
7:11
assistant, not like an assistant to the regional manager type
7:14
situation. No, he is an assistant to the
7:17
one leading Israel. Like he's got real leadership,
7:20
real influence. He is got a very great gig.
7:26
But at the end of the book of Joshua, he gets a new title, The
7:30
Servant of the Lord, which begs the question for each and every
7:36
one of us, why be an assistant for a man when you can be a
7:40
servant of the Lord? That one of the principles that
7:45
we have to live by if we're going to be servants that God
7:47
wants is we have to embrace that serving the Lord is a promotion.
7:54
That word Lord, it's, it's God's covenant name, Yahweh.
7:58
It's, it's, it's he has a personal relationship with you.
8:01
But in the New Testament, it's often used also as God is our
8:04
master, He's our boss, He's our ruler.
8:08
And over the course of Joshua 2417 times, the word serve is
8:12
going to come up. Like if you're studying your
8:14
Bible for yourself and you're in a chunk of Scripture, repetition
8:17
is one of the best ways to understand what God's getting at
8:20
17 times over the course of this chapter.
8:22
And it's going to talk about serving, serving, serving,
8:26
serving. In case you didn't get it the
8:27
first five times, here's 12 more.
8:31
Verse 31. Israel served the Lord all the
8:34
days of Joshua. It takes a servant to lead
8:38
people to serve, and serving the Lord is a promotion from
8:43
whatever job you find yourself in, whether you're ACEO here
8:46
today, a vice president, a dad, a mom, a student.
8:51
I don't know what title you have, but I know this, that
8:55
you're in that job to work for Christ.
8:58
You're in that job as a sales Rep.
9:00
You're in that job in that restaurant.
9:03
Why? Because you were there to work
9:05
for Christ, It doesn't feel like it's for the Lord because you
9:08
have a boss breathing down your neck.
9:09
But listen to me. That's what your work is
9:11
ultimately for. You're in your Home Office for
9:14
the Lord. You are serving the Lord.
9:17
And if you lose that, that work will get real training real
9:20
fast. You won't feel like you're
9:22
serving the Lord. You feel like you're serving
9:23
man. So God's invitation to each and
9:26
every one of us today is to reinterpret our roles in this
9:30
world, whether we're a mom or a dad, whether we are a sales Rep
9:33
or a student, whether we are applying for a job or whether or
9:36
not we're waiting on a job. I don't know where God has you
9:39
today in your work, but I know this, that whatever your title
9:43
is, there's a better one on the table for each and every one of
9:46
us, servant of the Lord. And so when you go from at Saint
9:56
City just worshipping in our services to joining A-Team,
9:58
guess what? That's a promotion.
10:02
And what I would offer to as many of you guys as I was just
10:05
wrestling with the text and realizing what it would mean for
10:07
my life is this, that when I realized that I'm a servant of
10:12
the Lord, one of the things I need to protect most is my
10:14
prayer time. I need to protect my prayer time
10:19
because that's why I'm serving. That's like my one-on-one with
10:22
my boss. And So what if our prayer time
10:25
was protected, like we had a meeting with a big time leader?
10:29
What if we protected our prayer time like that?
10:32
What if we cared about meeting with God like that because
10:35
that's who we're all to be working for.
10:38
Maybe that's how we should consider it more and more this
10:40
week is serving the Lord as a promotion.
10:45
I think our our prayer life would be amplified.
10:47
That's the first thing I want you to see in the text.
10:48
A second, we're going to jump back to the beginning of the
10:50
chapter now, Joshua 24, verse one, and I'll show you the
10:54
second principle. Here's what it says.
10:56
Joshua, he gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem.
10:59
That's a big deal because Abraham, their ancestor, that's
11:02
where the whole thing started. That's where like the Jewish
11:04
people were born basically with Shechem.
11:07
And he summoned all the elders, the heads, the judges, and the
11:09
office of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.
11:13
And Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, the
11:17
God of Israel long ago your father's they were pagans.
11:23
That's what that's saying. He's saying, hey, they, they
11:25
worshipped other gods, Tara, the father of Abraham and Novanejar,
11:28
they served other gods. These guys did not want me for
11:33
myself. They didn't like God, they
11:34
didn't love God, they didn't worship God.
11:36
But here's what I did I'm God. Verse 3 Listen to all the ways
11:40
that God saves the people. Then I took your father Abraham
11:45
from beyond the river, and I led him through all the land of
11:48
Canaan, and made his offspring many I being God, gave him
11:53
Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, and I gave Esau the
11:58
Hill Country of Sayer to possess.
12:00
But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt, and I sent for
12:04
Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the
12:07
midst of it, and afterward I brought you out.
12:12
Why am I repeating myself with I?
12:13
Because God did. God wants you to know, He wants
12:17
every single servant to know that the way that you're
12:19
anchored in servitude is you have to look at the God who has
12:22
done all the great things. Your eyes have to be set upon
12:27
him and all He has done and look where he goes on.
12:30
He's not done yet because he hasn't.
12:31
He didn't stop doing things. He just kept working, kept
12:33
moving, kept doing stuff. He's got motion.
12:36
Verse 6 Then I brought your father's out of Egypt, and you
12:42
came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers
12:45
with Chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.
12:48
And when they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and
12:52
the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them in
12:56
your eyes. This generation you saw what I
12:59
God did in Egypt. And when you lived in the
13:03
wilderness a long time, then I brought you to the land of the
13:06
Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan.
13:08
They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you
13:12
took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you.
13:18
They're black. The son of Zipper, king of Moab,
13:21
arose and fought against Israel. And he sent and invited Balaam,
13:24
the son of Bayor, to curse you. And I would not listen to
13:27
Balaam. Indeed, he blessed you.
13:29
So I delivered you out of his hand.
13:33
And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho.
13:36
And the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the
13:38
Amorites, the Parasites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the
13:41
Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.
13:43
And I gave them all into your hand.
13:47
And I sent the Hornet before you, which drove them out before
13:50
you, the 2 kings of the Amorites.
13:52
It was not by your sword or by your bow.
13:54
I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that
13:58
you had not built, and you dwell in them.
14:01
Now you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards
14:05
that you did not plant. Listen to me.
14:11
We are stepping into the same story of what God has been
14:14
writing since this very day that the Bible he just recapped.
14:18
God just recap through Joshua, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,
14:22
Numbers, Deuteronomy, and now Joshua.
14:23
He's telling the story of how we got here to Joshua 24 in 13
14:27
verses. So if you're wondering about
14:29
what happened in the Old Testament, there's your starting
14:31
spot is, hey, that's the story that God wanted you to grab.
14:33
What did God do a whole lot? Why did he do it?
14:36
Because he's gracious and kind. What does that mean for us in
14:41
our service? I think this is what God wants
14:42
us to see. Big me, small God, big God,
14:48
small me. We're meant to feel like a grain
14:53
of sand in the Galaxy when we hear about what God has done
14:56
there. What do you mean He did all
15:02
this? He conquered nations.
15:06
He brought people out of slavery, He parted seas and
15:10
rivers. He sent plagues.
15:13
He saved. How can he do that?
15:17
Because he's God, I think we all agree to this principle in
15:23
theory until it presses upon our schedule that wait a second, I'm
15:30
being asked to do something, I'm being asked to go to another.
15:33
I don't know in church like service time.
15:35
I'm being asked to, you know, think through my home a little
15:39
bit differently. I'm being asked to serve in this
15:41
way. I don't know how you fill in the
15:43
blanks, but I know this that the way to get a heart more in love
15:48
with serving the Lord is you make serving about the Lord.
15:54
You make everything you do for the Lord.
15:58
Whether you're hosting a community group, serving on a
16:01
team, holding a door, taking care of a kid in our kids
16:05
ministry, greeting at the tent, setting up and tearing down that
16:12
the pronouns that you talk about your service have to flip from
16:15
I, I, I talking about you to he, he, he, he, him that if you're,
16:20
you can know that you're struggling in the service.
16:23
If your heart is all about what you're doing and what you're
16:26
giving. But if you make it about him,
16:28
guess what? It will stay about him and it
16:31
will fuel you in your service. He says, the Lord says, I took,
16:37
I sent, I brought, I saved, I gave because he wants to
16:42
emphasize for us that we are called to make ourselves
16:45
gloriously small so he can make himself infinitely big.
16:51
And if we get too big on ourselves, here's what happens.
16:54
We get eyes on ourself and eyes on people and we get caught up
16:57
in fear of man. We get caught up in what they
16:59
think about us. We get caught up on our energy
17:03
level. We get caught up on XYZ thing.
17:05
We get looking at ourselves. And if we would just look to
17:07
God, we can run on that all day. We can serve in a way God wants,
17:15
and when God speaks, he's trying to encourage you.
17:18
He's trying to challenge you. He's trying to boost you toward
17:22
more ministry. Every single one of us should
17:24
have a ministry. Then I'm like, hey, how's your
17:27
ministry? That's not just for the people
17:29
on staff. That's for every single person
17:31
in this church. How's your ministry?
17:32
You should be able to fill that in with, hey, here's how my kids
17:34
are doing, here's how I'm doing on my team, Here's how my
17:37
community group people are doing.
17:38
We should be able to fill that in as a church family.
17:43
We are here to make God as big as possible, not because our
17:49
words make him big, but because we're magnifying just how large
17:52
he is to others. And when God says that he's
17:55
doing all the things, I think he's doing a thing that happens
17:58
in homes with young kids all the time.
18:00
Just the other night, it's it's bedtime in the large household.
18:03
And we have a a daughter who is a very good rule rule follower.
18:08
She is first born classic and she really does not like being
18:14
in trouble because she's a already budding perfectionist.
18:18
And then we have a son, a second born who rules are a bit more
18:22
optional for specifically bedtime rules.
18:25
Hey, mom and dad said the lights need to go off at 8.
18:28
He's like, but what about this little night light that I have?
18:31
Can I put that on? You know, like, can I do a
18:33
little reading? Can I do a little more talking?
18:35
And so just the other night, Blair is trying to lovingly help
18:40
her younger brother Brooks and say, hey, mom and dad said the
18:42
lights go out at 8. I don't want to get in trouble.
18:46
And then they have this moment where they come on out because
18:47
Blair's getting upset. She's not.
18:48
He's not listening to her and he is.
18:50
She doesn't want to get in trouble.
18:52
But then this magical moment happens where I'm standing
18:55
before them and I go, hey, if Blair says that it's time for
18:59
bed at 8:00, you can consider Brooks that she's trying to say
19:02
what dad said. Why is that helpful for our
19:07
service? What am I getting at?
19:10
I'm saying that there are words that God has given you service
19:13
roles. God's invited you to that.
19:15
Sometimes it comes through a messenger, sometimes it comes
19:18
through a leader on a team or in a group.
19:21
But if your service is about the Lord, then you can take it as
19:24
it's from the Lord that they're going to invite you in the steps
19:28
of discipleship. They're going to invite you into
19:30
repentance. They're going to invite you into
19:32
forgiveness. They're going to invite you into
19:34
conflict resolution. They're going to invite you into
19:36
integrity. They are going to invite that
19:38
because guess what? We are all servants of the same
19:41
master. And servants expect their work
19:45
to be about the master's job, what he wants to get done, and a
19:51
God who did all that for us. He deserves to call the shots
19:55
for our life. And the problem is in our
19:59
hearts. Sometimes as we get, we're good
20:02
about serving God because he's big and he's awesome.
20:04
We know he's done a lot, but often times he asked us to look
20:06
to others to serve them, having their interest in mind instead
20:09
of our own. But we're called to serve, and
20:14
that's one of the ways we make ourselves small.
20:17
We humble ourselves. We shrink ourselves down so that
20:22
others and God could be big. We're allowed with our love.
20:26
If you are too big to serve at Saint City, you are too small to
20:30
lead. This is just the way of the
20:33
Kingdom, that we want our God to be big in ourselves, to be
20:38
small. It's a perfect posture for every
20:41
servant. That's two principles.
20:43
Now let's look back at the text, verse 14.
20:45
You might have heard of this, this little chunk of verses.
20:47
Joshua picks back up where he left off.
20:49
He says, hey, you're laboring in the cities that you hadn't
20:53
built. You dwell in them.
20:54
You're eating a vineyards in olive orchards that you did not
20:57
plant. You were reaping the harvest of
20:58
somebody else's hard work. You were standing on the
21:00
shoulders of another generation of God's work on it.
21:03
Guess what? Listen here now, therefore, what
21:06
are we called to do? Fear the Lord and do what?
21:11
And serve him in in sincerity and in faithfulness.
21:15
Put away the gods that your Father served beyond the river
21:19
and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
21:23
And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this
21:27
day whom you will serve. Not if you're going to serve,
21:32
who are you going to serve whom, Whether the gods your father
21:36
served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the
21:38
Amorites and whose land you dwell?
21:39
But As for me, in my house as Joshua, we will serve the Lord.
21:46
This whole farewell address is climaxing right here.
21:50
He's saying, hey, listen up. Serving someone is the posture
21:55
of human beings. We will serve somebody's agenda,
21:57
somebody's mission, even if it's our own.
22:00
But you are called to serve the God of the ages, the God who has
22:04
done all this for you. Go serve him.
22:06
Go live for him. Go be obedient to him seven
22:10
times. In fact, in these 3 verses, it
22:12
says the word serve. And seven is a very significant
22:15
number in Scripture. It's the number of completion.
22:18
So when Joshua says for the 7th time, but As for me and my
22:21
house, we will serve the Lord. He's saying this.
22:25
The ways of the world is serving everything else.
22:29
But As for me and my house, guess what?
22:30
This is the best way to live. It's serving the Lord.
22:36
So jot down this principle. Lead your house to follow the
22:39
Lord, even if you're the only house.
22:46
Lead your house to follow the Lord even if you're the only
22:50
house. Josh was carving out him's
22:53
family as a minority here. He's like, I don't know what
22:55
y'all are doing, but I know I'm about.
22:58
I don't care if you all reject me right now.
22:59
I am not going back on this God. I've seen who he is.
23:02
I've seen what he's done. I've recounted all to you now
23:05
and guess what I am going to live for?
23:07
I'm going to serve him no matter what and it's going to be an
23:15
exclusive service. It's like you're the only, he's
23:20
the only table at the restaurant that you have to take care of.
23:23
There's nobody else you're worrying about, nobody else's
23:26
agenda. You only care about what God
23:28
wants and what He's ordering up for your life.
23:32
You cannot serve both God and money.
23:36
You cannot serve both God and beauty.
23:41
You cannot serve both God and power.
23:44
You cannot serve both God and worship your family.
23:53
We lead our house to follow and serve the Lord, even if we're
23:58
the only one. Even if you're the only person
24:01
in your company who's leading your family to serve the Lord,
24:04
you're in good company with Joshua.
24:06
If you're the only person on your street following Jesus,
24:11
you're honoring Jesus. If you're the only person in
24:14
your family who follows Jesus, lead your house to follow him,
24:22
even if you're the only one. Men, listen to me.
24:27
You are the leaders of your homes.
24:29
Go lead your families to follow Christ.
24:33
Lead them to follow and serve Jesus.
24:36
I'm so thankful to be surrounded by so many men who do this, but
24:39
I want to encourage you. Here's what this looks like to
24:41
go serve, to go lead your homes to follow Jesus.
24:43
It's like this. It's getting in the word daily.
24:46
Men go be men of the book. Joshua was a man who didn't let
24:50
the law depart from his mouth. In fact, one of the times in in
24:54
the book of Joshua, he sat down and wrote down all of Genesis
24:56
through Deuteronomy. Go be a man of the book.
24:59
Go get in the word daily. Get into church weekly.
25:03
It's your job meant to lead your family here.
25:06
Go get them here. Third, serve at church
25:09
regularly. Does that have to be every week?
25:12
But your life needs to be marked by service.
25:14
If your kids look at you and go serving, what's that?
25:17
You're missing the mark. We serve. 4th prayer always.
25:24
Your family needs to know you as a man, a man of prayer, that you
25:29
would be a House of prayer because you're dependent upon
25:35
God. Go lead your house to follow the
25:38
Lord men, even if you're the only house, if you're single
25:41
here, you're just responsible for you.
25:43
Congratulations. Go lead yourself in all those
25:46
things. Go lead yourself to in the word
25:49
daily, to church weekly, serving regularly and praying always.
25:56
Go lead yourself, go lead your family to follow God because As
25:59
for me in my house, we will serve the Lord.
26:02
Families that do that change a city, they change a
26:06
neighborhood, they change a workplace.
26:08
Go be that man, go be that woman.
26:10
Go be them for Jesus. 4th in the text here, we're marching
26:17
through Joshua's farewell address.
26:18
We're now in verse 18 and the Lord over 16.
26:23
Excuse me, Then the people answer, far be it from us that
26:26
we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods.
26:28
They're like, hey, we're not going to be dumb like our
26:31
parents were in forsake, forsake this God.
26:34
We want to serve him. For it is the Lord our God who
26:37
brought us and our fathers out from the land of Egypt and out
26:41
of the House of slavery. And he did those great signs in
26:45
our sights, and he preserved us in all the way that we went.
26:49
And among all the peoples whom we passed, they're like saying,
26:52
hey, we've seen what God can do. We've seen who he is.
26:56
We are not about to go against him.
26:58
That'd be taking a stupid pill when we wake up.
27:00
We're not going to do that. And the Lord drove out before us
27:03
all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land.
27:06
Therefore, here's what we're going to do.
27:07
We also Joshua will serve the Lord, for he is our God.
27:11
But Joshua must have instinct here.
27:13
He must see that the way that they're living, He must see
27:16
something into their heart prophetically.
27:17
We don't know exactly why he says this next thing, but bear
27:20
with me as I explain it. Because Joshua says next to the
27:23
people, you are not able to serve the Lord, for he is a holy
27:27
God. He is a jealous God.
27:30
He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.
27:34
If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will
27:37
turn and do you harm and consume you after having done you good.
27:44
And the people said to Joshua, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
27:49
no, no, no, nae nae Joshua, we will serve the Lord.
27:53
And Joshua said to the people, OK, then you are witnesses
27:55
against yourselves, that you have chosen the Lord to serve
28:00
Him. And they said, we are witnesses.
28:03
We testify that that's what we want for our life.
28:06
We are saying we align with Jesus.
28:09
He said, OK, then put away the foreign gods that are among you
28:12
and incline your heart to the Lord the God of Israel.
28:16
The people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve in
28:19
his voice we will obey. So Joshua made a covenant with
28:23
the people that day and put in place the statutes and rules for
28:26
them at Shechem. OK, let's go back to that for a
28:29
second. We got to make sure we
28:30
understand what happened there with Joshua's speech.
28:33
There is Joshua saying that God is an unforgiving being.
28:38
No, he's saying there's a certain type of thing that
28:42
doesn't get forgiven. He's is Joshua saying Israel is
28:45
incapable of serving God like he's asking them to.
28:48
Obviously not because the verses go on and say, hey, you can do
28:51
it. And as you read at the end of
28:53
the chapter, they serve God all the days of their life.
28:55
So it is possible. So what is Joshua saying?
28:59
He's saying what each of us, all of us know about human hearts,
29:03
that we are quick to claim something, claim that we belong
29:09
to God, while our life looks entirely different than that,
29:13
entirely opposite, that people in our hearts, we will say we
29:17
are claiming that we follow Jesus.
29:19
We are a Christian, we are a believer.
29:22
Put whatever word you want around it.
29:24
There are people even here today who would say I believe with my
29:28
mouth and my heart that Jesus is Lord.
29:30
You would say that you believe that, but your life actually
29:33
doesn't reflect it at all. We call that an apostate.
29:37
That's what the book of Hebrews is all about.
29:38
It's somebody who claims to be a believer but doesn't live as
29:41
God's servant at all. He's getting at those people
29:45
right now and it's his warning for some of us here today.
29:49
I want you to get this 4th principle that watch your mouth
29:52
because it can write checks your soul can't cash.
29:57
Watch what you claim to be. Watch what you claim, because
30:05
some of our mouths have write written checks that our souls
30:08
can't cash. The theater people in Israel
30:13
right here. There are people here at Saint
30:14
City today. They are loyal to God only with
30:18
their lips, but not their actual life, which is not loyalty at
30:23
all. A servant who says he will do
30:27
what the master asked him to do but doesn't do it is no servant
30:31
at all. The kind of service God wants is
30:35
complete and total devotion. There's no partial commitment to
30:40
God. God is just not a leftover part
30:44
of your life. He is the whole thing.
30:48
And chances are, I, I just need to warn some of you, chances are
30:52
if you only come to church on Sundays, if you have no
30:55
relationships inside the church, that this is only a check box
30:58
for Sunday mornings from 10 to maybe 11-15, maybe 11-10 if you
31:02
cut out early. And it's like a just a part of
31:04
your life. Joshua's warning, you today hear
31:12
me turn, turn, turn away from living a life of partial
31:19
commitment to God and turn toward him and say, Jesus, I get
31:24
it. You are worth my everything.
31:26
With all that I am and all that I have, I'm giving myself to
31:30
you. That's what repentance is.
31:33
That's what faith that saves us. As you're saying, I have no hope
31:37
apart from you, God. And so write the check that only
31:42
Jesus can cash. It's saying, Jesus, I need you
31:45
to save me because I can't wholly obey you.
31:48
I can't fully follow you because you are a jealous God.
31:51
You are a holy God and I stand no chance because I am a Sinner
31:55
in deep need of salvation. The only way to be saved from
32:00
your sin is to look to Jesus to save you from it.
32:06
And when he saves you, you can't help but be his servant.
32:10
You can't help but live for the Lord.
32:15
Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy who hears what
32:20
God has done for him and says, you know what?
32:22
He's only worth one hour of my week.
32:26
Listen to what he says about how to get involved in the church.
32:28
Listen to what he says about what it means for your work
32:30
life, your parenting, your family, your marriage.
32:33
Listen to the Lord. Follow the voice of the Lord as
32:36
he said, and that's what serving that God wants.
32:40
It's total surrender, total worship.
32:45
Now finally, Joshua's like, OK, we want to, we want to make a
32:48
covenant. You want to serve the Lord.
32:50
Well, here's what I want to do. He's like, hey, let's build a
32:53
monument. Not a moment.
32:55
That's the fifth principle. If you want service that God
32:58
wants, if you want a heart that loves serving, you need
33:01
monuments in your life of what God has done.
33:03
Not just moments that you are fleeting, that you forget, but
33:08
monuments, altars, built out things that say this is who God
33:14
is and this is what he's done for me.
33:15
This is what he's done for the world in Joshua.
33:18
Again, there are 7 monument moments.
33:21
The Bible is a really well written book, just so you know,
33:24
and Joshua's a really well written one too because God's
33:26
the writer of it. So Joshua chapter 4, he builds a
33:29
monument at Gilgal after they cross the Jordan River.
33:31
Joshua Chapter 7, after one of their dudes committed some sin
33:36
in Chapter 7, they built a monument over Aiken to say, hey,
33:38
we are going to hate sin because this is what it does.
33:40
It costs you more than you're willing to pay.
33:42
Joshua chapter 8, after the victory over the king at AI
33:45
monument, also over the king of AI, Joshua builds a monument
33:49
just for the word of God. He literally transcribes all the
33:52
written Bible at the time and he's like, hey, this is a
33:54
monument for God. Joshua chapter 10, after this,
33:58
all the kings conspire against them in a confederacy.
34:01
Guess what? He's like, you know what?
34:02
God did that again, we're going to have another monument over
34:06
the kings of the Amorites. Joshua chapter 22, which we
34:09
learned about a couple weeks ago.
34:10
What did they do? They built another monument.
34:12
Why? Because there was peace in the
34:14
land. Now we get to the 7th monument
34:18
and Joshua's like, hey, if we're going to serve the Lord, if
34:20
we're going to live for the Lord, we're not just going to
34:22
make this a moment. We're going to make it a
34:24
monument. We are going to remember who God
34:30
is so we won't forget what He's done.
34:35
Not just us, the next generation.
34:39
That was the goal with this monument.
34:41
The next book Judges. This proves our hopelessness.
34:46
Without Jesus. They forget.
34:48
They forget who God is. They need him.
34:50
But listen to me. We have Jesus now.
34:51
We have the cross. We have the empty tomb.
34:53
We have the occupied throne. We have the gospel.
34:56
The good news that Jesus Christ saved sinners and our
34:59
entrustment from God himself is this, that we would build
35:02
monuments testifying of what Jesus has done for the world.
35:08
That we wouldn't be people who build just careers or families
35:11
or habits, but we'd be a people who build monuments for God
35:15
keeping his promises to us. Now this can look all kinds of
35:21
ways. One way that I've started
35:25
building a monument in my life is this is this is my Romans
35:29
book. But every single book of the
35:33
Bible, this is the 1718 series that in Deuteronomy 1718, one of
35:36
the instructions God gave to the future kings is to write down
35:39
all of the written Bible at the time.
35:41
One of my goals before I'm 40 is to write down every Bible verse
35:46
in the Bible. And this is just my Romans book.
35:49
So what am I doing? I'm working my way through the
35:50
New Testament over the next couple years, writing them down.
35:53
Why? Because I want to build a
35:54
monument for my kids that my kids are going to get these.
35:59
This is something that's going to outlive me.
36:01
It's a monument of praise. So here's that's one little tip
36:06
for you another y'all are going to laugh at me for this one.
36:15
I'm a hat guy. I love wearing hats.
36:21
I have since I could get in the like literally since 3rd grade
36:24
and I bought my first hat. That's what I did is I would
36:26
work around the house to save up money to go to lids and buy a
36:29
$20 hat. And each of these hats actually
36:34
bear more than just a brim and some threading.
36:40
They actually tell stories in my life like this is some of y'all
36:44
don't have the Chicago, you don't have sports like I do.
36:47
I'm from Chicago and this is what's called the Stanley Cup
36:50
hat. So for those of you from
36:51
Minnesota in the room, you don't have that 2010 I was a junior
37:01
high school and the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup.
37:04
And this isn't just a hat commemorating that.
37:07
This was this is the year that me and my one of my best friends
37:11
really became best friends and I'm so grateful for my
37:15
friendship with my buddy who would take me to games and I
37:18
fell in love with a sport at the perfect time.
37:24
This hat is the Chicago Cubs World Series hat.
37:30
There was generations of men who never got to experience this,
37:33
but I I haven't been alive at the right moment, the opportune
37:36
time. But 2016 was more than just the
37:39
Cubs. This hat, when I see it on my
37:41
shelf, I don't just remember a Cubs World Series.
37:44
I remember the summer I met my wife.
37:47
One of the best gifts God has given me that that year is a
37:50
mile marker for me of God's faithfulness and generosity and
37:55
good baseball. This hat, it's broken.
38:01
Now there's a hat from a friend in a small group.
38:08
And what, what this hat symbolized for me, there was 2
38:11
years from Maddie and I spent in Denver and this friend, I didn't
38:15
have really any friends in Denver.
38:17
I was like that guy without friends.
38:20
But he came back and he gave me this hat and it gave me hope
38:23
that God was going to deliver to me what had always been a part
38:26
of my life, which was friends. And so I look at this hat, I
38:29
look at God's faithfulness to be a friend to me even when I
38:31
didn't have a lot of friends. Two more.
38:40
This hat you see me wearing on this stage, I got this the
38:44
moment I was certain that we were planting here in Tempe.
38:48
We are here so that the gospel would confront and change the
38:55
lives of some devils that I believe that a campus that is
38:59
less than 2% of them following Jesus.
39:01
Do you know why we're here? So we can give them a gospel
39:04
outpost so they can hear about what Jesus Christ has done for
39:07
the world. And so when I look at this hat,
39:09
I will always see the reality that Jesus Christ called me here
39:12
to lead us toward what? Toward the Kingdom of God
39:15
advancing in this city, that we are going to be a gospel
39:18
movement for the city, for the campus, for the fame of Christ.
39:21
And so whatever I put on this hat, I just say thank you to God
39:23
that this is what I'm called to do and who I'm called to be.
39:26
But after after we got called, there was a crazy thing that
39:30
happened in my life. December of 2020.
39:34
What a year, Maddie, 2024. Yeah.
39:37
Math, maths. A year and a half ago.
39:40
You can do the math. I had a knee surgery, got a
39:45
blood clot in my calf. That blood clot is what's called
39:48
medically a deep vein thrombosis.
39:51
That's a very dangerous thing if it doesn't get dealt with and it
39:53
didn't get dealt with. So for the month of December,
39:55
that blood clot worked its way up my body into my heart and
40:00
lungs. Didn't get to my heart,
40:01
actually, just got to my lungs. We're on Christmas Eve.
40:04
That night I suffered from a bilateral pulmonary embolism.
40:12
That's really serious because you have a lot of fluid in your
40:14
lungs and 98% of people who get there don't even live to make
40:18
it. So on Christmas Eve night, I was
40:22
rushed to the hospital and should have died, quite frankly.
40:26
But through prayer and through the power of God, I'm a living
40:29
testimony that miracles still happen.
40:31
And in that hospital bed, I just wore this hat.
40:33
And whenever I see this hat now, I'm just thankful to be here.
40:41
I'm thankful to be your pastor. It's a monument for me.
40:45
It's not just a hat, it is God saved my life and I want you to
40:52
have monuments like this. Like I'm not an emotional guy.
40:58
I'm not trying to cry right now, but it's so significant to me.
41:04
And I think you have moments like that too, is my point.
41:07
And it could just be a hat, it could be a pen, it could be, I
41:10
don't know what you want to collect.
41:11
I don't know what you want to build for God, but I know this,
41:14
that we have a promise keeping God and we are in good company
41:19
when we trust Him to keep His promises.
41:20
Do you know why? That the spine of the Bible is
41:24
actually written in covenant blood.
41:26
That's His promises, that in Genesis chapter 12, he makes a
41:30
covenant with Abraham and he says, hey, I'm going to make you
41:33
a great nation. You don't even really know what
41:35
a nation is yet, but guess what? I'm going to do that.
41:38
You can't really have kids because you're a geezer.
41:39
But guess what? I'm going to make you have kids.
41:42
You're going to make a great nation, and you, all the
41:44
families of the earth, shall be blessed.
41:46
He looked at Moses in Exodus 19 and said, hey, guess what,
41:49
Israel, you, you shall be my treasured possession among all
41:52
peoples, and you shall be to me a Kingdom of priests and a holy
41:56
nation foreshadowing what Jesus Christ would do.
42:00
David in second Samuel 7 that your house and your Kingdom
42:03
shall be made sure forever before me that your throne shall
42:06
be established forever. New Covenant in Jeremiah 31
42:10
prophesied promise to you and I that this that he will put his
42:14
law within us and he will forgive our iniquity and he will
42:17
remember our sin no more. Don't you realize that God was
42:20
promising all across the Old Testament that in Jesus Christ,
42:24
every single one of those promises will find their yes and
42:27
their Amen? That He was keeping promises not
42:29
for 10s of years, not for hundreds of years, but for
42:32
thousands of years? That you and I could be certain
42:35
and sure that God is worthy of trusting?
42:40
That when we're serving Him, guess what?
42:42
The promises are there to fuel us in our service.
42:45
That as we're loyal to the Lord, as we serve the Lord, His
42:50
promises will be the energy for us to keep us going.
42:54
In fact, I'm going to invite the worship team out now as we can
42:58
close our service here. That God has made great and
43:05
precious promises to us, says the Word, like the best promises
43:10
you can ever think of. And if he can keep the great
43:14
ones, if he can make Abraham a great nation, if he can make
43:18
Moses people his treasure possession, if he can make
43:23
David's throne rule forever in Jesus, if he can give us a new
43:27
heart, if he can make dry bones live, those are his great ones.
43:31
Guess what? The personal ones are so easy
43:35
for him.