Sermon by Pastor Robert Green, 14th Sunday after Pentecost, 9/2/12, Yr. B, No. 959,
Ascension Evangelical Lutheran Church, Harrisburg, PA, W.E.L.S., based on Joshua 24:1-2, 14-18
Do you resolve to serve the LORD?
God wants more from you than to have bare saving faith, for he wants your whole heart, soul and mind to love and trust him. The greatest act of love for God is to obey all he commands, which requires us to believe all he says in the Holy Scriptures yielding daily worship of him by serving him in all we do. You achieve your best service and worship through your obedience to all his commands, for by his commands he shows us how we are to live lives pleasing to him.
This presents a great challenge to the believer for there remains in the believer the sinful nature wants nothing to do with service to or worship of the one true God. Every Christian feels the great tug-of-war between the New Man within that comes to life through the rebirth of faith and the Old Man controlled and completely dominated by the sinful nature. Paul sums up this struggle in Romans 7:21-23 (NIV84 “I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”
The war within must be understood in the context of Christ’s complete victory over sin, death and the devil. We fight this war not to gain victory, but in recognition of Christ’s victory over sin, death and the devil. Thus, in light of Christ’s victory, what matters is that we are engaged in the daily battle against sin. If we find ourselves no longer engaged in the battle against sin, we need to pinch ourselves to see if we are still alive as children of God.The daily call to engage in this struggle is a call for a deep commitment to live for God and not for ourselves. Joshua understood the great struggle against sin and hence the great need to be committed to serve the LORD. In his final address, which includes the reading for today, he issued a challenge to each believer, “Do you resolve to serve the LORD?”
Recall that at the end of Moses’ life, God directed him to appoint Joshua ruler over the Israel. Joshua led Israel as she entered and conquered the Promised Land. God made Israel to be his Chosen Nation and promised to her the land of Canaan as the Promised Land.Recall God conditioned the status of being God’s Chosen Nation on Israel obeying all that he commanded. It is good to note that from the time God called Israel to obey all he commanded the Israelites failed to hold firm to the LORD. All along the way from Egypt, they rebelled against God and fell into wicked worship practices. After the people entered the Promised Land, Israel’s rebellion at times grew worse, until it was nearly complete.
Our God knew all this would be before he created the world. It is no surprise then that God directed Joshua to tell the people, in his final address,“Now I am about to go the way of all the earth. You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed. 15 But just as every good promise of the LORD your God has come true, so the LORD will bring on you all the evil he has threatened, until he has destroyed you from this good land he has given you. 16 If you violate the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the LORD’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you.”
This is where the reading begins for today in which Joshua challenged the people of Israel to make a determined choice between serving the LORD God or serving the pagans gods of those around them. Hear Joshua’s call to resolve to serve the one true God, “Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. 2 Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: … “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” This day do you resolve to serve the LORD?
The idea of serving God is to worship him with our obedience. Recall how in the perfect world God created the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil placing it right in the middle of the Garden where Adam and Eve would surely go by it daily. God then told Adam and Eve they could eat from any tree of the Garden except the Tree of Knowledge. Adam and Eve were perfectly free to obey God showing their love and trust in him, or to turn from him in sin and disobedience. What better way had Adam and Eve to offer worship to God than by their obedience to his commands? Thus, today you and I serve and worship the one true God by obeying his commands. We properly serve and worship God when we believe all his Scripture as his revelation what he wants us to know and believe about himand live lives reflecting such faith.
In one sense, the call to serve the LORD God is the call issued by God at Mt. Sinaito obey all he commanded. In another sense, the call to serve the LORD God is simply a call to keep the greatest and First Command, which is to have no other gods before God. To keep this command in part is to hold firmly to the truth that there is no other god. It also means, as Luther summed it up The Small Catechism, to fear love and trust in God above all things. Jesus says the First Commandment calls you to “Love God with all your soul, mind and heart.”Joshua solidified his personal resolve saying, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” What about you, “Do you resolve to serve the LORD?”
It is very important to note that hereGod is not addressing unbelievers, but believers. He is not giving a lesson on how to be saved, but on how to live having been saved. Some will use this part of Scripture to show we must decide to believe in Jesus to be saved. However, this understanding comes only if one takes this verse out of contextto mean God is speaking to unbelievers. Such an understanding ignores the clear passages of Scripture that teach us that salvation is not by works, by our decision to believe, but only by God’s gracious act of bringing us to faith.
God demands we resolve to serve him and him alone because he is a jealous God who will not share his glory with another. He demands our whole heart, soul and mind to be devoted to him for there is no other god. God demands we resolve to serve and worship him alone, for he never wants us never to turn from him, which can happen as the history of Israel proved repeatedly. Take to heart that such history can easily repeat itself in the life of the believer not willing to resolve to serve the LORD God and him alone. Thus, the call to the Israelites to decide if they would serve the one true God was a call to take responsibility for their spiritual life to live to please God and not the sinful nature.
This brings up the question of free will among men. The only people with true free will, aside from our Lord Jesus, were Adam and Eve, for they were perfectly free not to sin and obey God, but they lost that free will in the fall into sin, for after the fall, they were not free not to sin. Since all inherit Adam’s sinful nature, no person is free not to sin. Non-believers do not have any free will not to sin, for without faith it is impossible to please God, for the unbeliever, by biblical definition, hates God and cannot submit to his commands, and thus is free only to sin. A believer has a limited free will, for the believer, in the New Man, in any given situation can say no to sin, and yes to serving and obeying God. This is limited in the sense that daily the sinful nature wages war against the New Man so powerfully that daily the believer gives into sin; thus, the believer lacks true free will to obey God fully.
God tells us,“Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.”The people promised to serve the LORD, but just as at Mt. Sinai, God was not looking for mere promises, but for action reflecting obedience, service and worship of him. The people soon forgot their resolve to serve the LORD.
Following Joshua’s death, God tells us in Judges 2:7–11 (NIV84) “The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. …. 10 After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. 11 Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals.” How could that happen? Did the resolve to serve the LORD God not include teaching God’s truth to the next generation? Will you serve the LORD God and take to heart this means to keep away from those who worship God falsely by not adhering to all he commands?When you serve the LORD understanding the Christian church is one generation away from disappearing from among us and so make every effort to teach God’s truths to the young?
Joshua’s directive, “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. … 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve,”is a call for more than having bare saving faith. Will you respond with Joshua and resolve, “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD?” Peter showed his understanding of the need for this resolve as he said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” So, Do you resolve to serve the LORD? Take care to respond not just in word, but with a committed faith. To God be all glory, amen!