Joshua 24:14-28- Who will you serve?

Joshua 24:14-28

Romans 6:15-23

Who will you serve?

Some people ask me:

Paul, why do you never do altar calls?

Why don’t you ever at the end of a sermon ask those people who want to make a commitment to Jesus, to come down to the front, place your hands on them and then ask them to repeat a prayer which affirms their commitment to Jesus.

Apart from the fact that we no longer have altars in churches, since we no longer need to sacrifice animals on them, I think it is a good question to ask…..

Why don’t you ever ask people to come on down and make a recommitment to Jesus?

What is it that I have against “altar calls”?

Well, I think many altar calls are just smoke and mirrors, sometimes literally smoke and mirrors and dimmed lights, and emotive music but also metaphorically it is often just a show that people put on at a moment, which has no bearing what is actually going on in people’s hearts.

Often, the preacher who makes the altar call uses manipulation to get people to the front, either by shaming them or by making false promises. And then, once the person has “given their life to Jesus”, the preacher then parades that person as someone he or she has conquered and brought into the kingdom of God.

“Here is Dave, I just brought Dave to Christ- look at me!”

Sometimes it may be the same person, week after week who has made a commitment yet again to follow Jesus.

Sadly many altar calls are done under false pretences. The preacher has promised that poor soul, that if they would just give their live to Jesus, then all their worldly problems would disappear. There would be no more sickness, there would be lots of financial benefit and life would be a bed of roses. 

There is no mention of the cost of following Jesus, there is no mention of bearing your cross, there is no mention of living a holy life….no: none of that….just a golden ticket to heaven which you can trample under your feet.

Sadly there is no mention of the things that Jesus wants you to give up in order to follow Him.

Sadly, many altar calls are made under the pretences, that if you just give your life to Jesus this one time, you have got your ticket to heaven and then you can spend the rest of your days here on earth, just doing whatever you want to do.

Having said all of that…..when it comes to altar calls, I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bath water.

I’m still not going to do any altar calls any time soon, but as we can see from today’s passage there is still a place in the church where people can make some sort of formal commitment. A formal commitment to Jesus, and a formal commitment to one another.

A commitment that has been thought through and not just some emotional response

A commitment that is full hearted

A commitment that can be looked back upon and re-committed to.

In this passage we are going to look at today, as Joshua, the great leader of Israel was about to die, he urged the Israelites, once again to commit themselves to serving God.

He formalized this commitment by making the congregation as a witness to their own promises, and also, get this, believe it or not, making a stone, a witness to their promises which acted more of a reminder to their promise whenever they looked at it.

And what did Joshua want his people to commit to?

Look at verse 14 with me:

Now, therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness

Now, whenever you see the word therefore in the bible, you must ask the question what is the word  “therefore, there for?

What has just happened previously?

Why did Joshua ask the people to commit to serving God?

Well, as you can read through the first part of chapter 24, Joshua had just reminded the people of all that God had done for them.

God had chosen their pagan forefather, Abraham.

God brought Abraham through the land of Canaan.

God gave Abraham a promised child Isaac

God gave Isaac two sons, Jacob and Esau.

God gave Esau the land of Seir and Jacob was taken to captivity into Egypt.

God brought his promised people- Isaac’s descendants out of Egypt.

God destroyed the Egyptian army that perused the Israelites.

God then brought them through the Jordan river

God drove out the enemies from the land which God gave them.

Chapter 24, verse 13 sums up what God had done for them.

Look at verse 13 with me:

I gave you a land on which you had not laboured and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of the vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant

And so it is clear, that Joshua asks the people to commit once again to serving God in response to what God has done for them.

God gave them land and cities they had not built and vineyards they did not plant. It was all by the grace of God.

It was only by the grace of God that the Israelites could chose to serve God.

It was by God’s grace they still existed as a people

It was by the grace of God, they had a land to live in

It was by the grace of God they had cities to live in and vineyards to eat from.

And so Joshua, was asking his people to serve God in response to what God had already done for them.

Joshua made no promises of more land, more cities, more food if they continued to serve God…. NO…… he asked them to keep serving God based on the grace that God had already shown them.

It was only by the grace of God that they could chose to serve God.

Friends, when you committed to serving God, you could only do that because of the grace of God that was shown to you. When you committed to serving God, it was done in response of what Christ has already done for you. It was done in response to Christ already paying the penalty for your sins, it was done in response of Christ already preparing a place for you in heaven, it was done in response of Christ being your bread of life. A source of life which is eternal.

Serving God is always a response of God’s grace to us, and the only reason we can serve God is because of his grace to us.

We don’t suddenly receive his grace and then start doing things in our own strength, NO…. it is all grace from first to last.

We don’t serve to curry his favour.

We don’t serve God to earn our way to heaven.

We don’t serve God so we can feel good, and warm and fuzzy.

No we serve God because it is his grace to us, that we can serve Him.

And here is the paradox of serving God.

Serving God is life, Joy and abundance.

It is not burdensome, it is not soul destroying, it is not captivity,

No, when we are serving God, we are living in true freedom.

It is crazy to think that some people think that serving God is evil.

Perhaps they think that God wants us to serve him for his evil purposes to keep us all miserable.

Just look at what Joshua said in Joshua 24:15

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Joshus said to his own people, if you think it is evil to serve God, if you think God is mean and wants you to be unhappy by serving him, then just pick another so-called god to serve, any other god, it doesn’t matter, they all lead to the same path of death and destruction.

It is almost like Joshua, put the squeeze on his people, he forced them to choose. There was probably no smoke and emotive music and dimmed lights, but he was definitively forcing them to choose.

Chose to serve God, the one true living god, or serve any other so-called god, it doesn’t matter which one, they all lead to death, and if you don’t chose to serve the one true living god it will lead to death anyway.

Joshua made it clear, make a choice, stop sitting on the fence, either you are fully in for God or you are fully in for another god, make a choice, you can’t choose both.

But then…..It is like Joshua releases the foot off the throttle, as he said, you make a choice, but as for me and my household, this is what we have chosen.

I will serve the Lord.

Joshua knew that he couldn’t force them to choose God, they had to choose God for themselves.

In other words, Joshua said “whatever you decide will not affect my decision, I have already chosen to serve the Lord”

Again, I think this is a mark of a good leader.

They state their position and they stick to it.

They don’t force others to follow, they allow others to make their own choice.

They don’t change their position, based on popular opinion, but they stick with their convictions. They don’t flip back and forth depending on where the votes lie, but they do what they believe is right.

Joshua chose to serve the Lord. Period.

He believed serving God was the right thing to do. He was going to serve God, no matter what his people decided to do.

Friends, here is a truth that the world will never tell you, but it is true and if you, by the grace of God, grasp this truth it will change your life.

The bible tells us many times, that we are either a slave to sin, or we are a slave to Christ.

We are all (no exceptions) either a slave to sin, or a slave to Christ.

There is no-one on this earth that is not either a slave to sin or a slave to Christ.

No-one is neutral.

We have been fed a lie, that human beings are free………we are not free, the only freedom we have is when we are slaves to Christ

Look at Romans 6:22- 23 with me:

But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. ²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The apostle Paul tells us here in the book of Romans, that we are either a slave of sin which leads to death, or we are slaves of God which leads to eternal life.

Being slaves of Jesus means that by faith we trust that Jesus has paid the penalty for our sins, he had paid the debt of our sin that leads to death, died the death we deserved and instead given us eternal life. It is through the death and resurrection of Jesus, that we have been freed from the penalty of sin, which is death.

Friends, if you don’t acknowledge that you were once a slave to sin, then the death and resurrection of Jesus cannot save you, because that was the whole reason Jesus came to this earth, to save sinners like me and you.

Jesus never came to save people who are neutral, because those people simply don’t exist.

Now, when Joshua, asked his people to choose to serve God, the people responded in verses 16-18 with a YES, YES we will serve God because we know that it is God who has brought us this far.

And after they make that affirmation, there is no “good choice” from Joshua, there is no pat on the back, there is no, hey everyone, look at what I made these people do, NO, quite the opposite……….it is almost like Joshua didn’t believe their affirmation.

He may have thought their affirmation to serve God was just smoke and mirrors.

Look what Joshua said in verse 19

“But Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord”

What was going on?

In verse 14 Joshua said to the people “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve Him”

The people said in verse 18, “Therefore we will also serve the Lord”

And now in verse 19 Joshua said “You are not able to serve the Lord”

Now perhaps Joshua had doubts from their poor track record: they simply couldn’t serve God with their whole hearts. They had shown that time and time again in the past.

They grumbled when God saved them from the Egyptians, they grumbled when the army of Ai defeated them, they actually made their own golden calf god at the bottom of the mountain when Moses was at the top of the mountain getting instructions from God.

And so time and time again, the Israelites had failed to serve God.

But I think from the context of this passage, Joshua knew they couldn’t serve God with their whole hearts because they still worshipped other gods at that present time.

Amazing to think, after all God had done for them, they still chose to worship other gods apart from the one true living God.

Look at verse 23 with me:

He said “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel”

Joshua told his people, they weren’t able to serve God, because they were also serving other so called gods. And because God is a jealous God, and he wanted all of them, like a devoted lover, and because he is Holy and he wanted them to be holy, and set apart just for him, they simply could not serve God and these other gods also.

Syncretism was simply not an option for God.

Friends, it is obvious to say that when we commit to following Jesus, we must put away all other so-called gods.

You cannot serve Jesus and Allah.

You cannot serve Jesus and Buddha

You cannot serve Jesus and mother Mary

You cannot serve Jesus and the rainbow serpent

No, that is not an option

What may be less obvious for us today, is that we cannot serve Jesus and the other subtle gods we may serve

We cannot serve Jesus and the god of money

We cannot serve Jesus and god of our career

We cannot serve Jesus and the god of our family

We cannot serve Jesus and the god of our ministry

In fact, if we follow Joshua’s last words to his people, I am sure Joshua would say something like this to us today:

Serve Jesus and him only.

Serve Jesus because of what he has already done for you, set you free from sin, give you a place in heaven.

Serve Jesus and do it joyfully, knowing there is real life and joy in serving Jesus.

There are no promises of health, wealth and prosperity, just joy in serving him.

If you chose not to serve Jesus, then don’t sit on the fence, just chose another god you are going to serve, if it is money, go for it, career…… go for it, just know this, whatever other false god you chose, it only leads to death.

But as for me and my household, we chose to serve Jesus.

Let us pray.