Allen Jackson - Overcoming Evil and Serving God - Part 2
The last of the judges is Samuel, and the tribal leaders say to Samuel we want a king, and we have the beginning of the monarchy. We'll talk more about that when we get a little further into the story, but Joshua and Judges fit right into this window of time between slavery in Egypt and when the kings begin, so they're gonna be ahead of all the prophets that are at the end of your Old Testament. They're before Isaiah and Jeremiah and Habakkuk, then Amos the farmer, they're gonna precede the Apostle Paul but they're after the book of Genesis so they come after Noah, they come after Cain and Abel, they come after all of those Genesis characters.
Joshua and the book of Judges, they fit right into this period where God's people occupy the land that he gave them and he watches over them, God's intent. So, understanding Joshua's journey, I would submit, will help you and me understand ours a bit. He led a very extraordinary life. Joshua begins his life as a slave in Egypt. He has no imagination of anything ever beyond that. No opportunity for that. There's no power to help him, there's no education to help him, there are no resources to help him, but God intervenes. His story concludes with the former slaves of Egypt occupying the Promised Land and Joshua was the leader of those slaves. High drama, it's a very dramatic life, it's filled with soaring victories, Red Sea parting, amazing things and impossible difficulties.
The end of the book of Joshua, you haven't quite gotten there yet, but look at Joshua 24:20. Joshua was giving a message to the people. He said, "If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on, you and he will make an end of you after he has been good to you". Folks, there's this message that resonates around contemporary Christendom, that God is about a group hug and the next verse of "Kumbaya". I would agree with you that he's a God of love, that Jesus's message had a great deal to do with love, but he's also a God of justice, and those that have known him the best, those that have walked with him, those that have experienced his power the most and have seen the demonstrations of the goodness of God are the ones that seem to give us the message with the most clarity, that God will not be mocked.
And when Joshua comes to the end of his strength, he gathers the people that he's given his life to and he said don't forsake the Lord. Don't forsake the Lord. Don't be distracted. Don't enjoy your vineyards. Don't point at your newfound farms. Don't celebrate your victories, seek the Lord. "But the people said to Joshua, 'We will serve the Lord,' and Joshua said, 'You are witnesses against yourselves that you've chosen to serve the Lord.' 'Yes, we are witnesses,' they replied, and Joshua said, 'Throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.'"
That sentence causes me, I don't know the right word, consternation, amazement. You remember the people who occupied the Promised Land with Joshua were the second generation. The first generation that left Egypt, the ones that saw the plagues as adults, the ones that were at Mara in Exodus 15 when the water was bitter and the water was made sweet, that whole group of adults died in the wilderness because they said God couldn't complete the story, and God said, fine, you can wander in the desert for 40 years. You understand every generation has to make a decision for themselves. Every generation has to make a decision for yourselves.
Parents, the greatest gift you can give your children is to prepare them to seek the Lord, to give them a momentum. Model it for them. Live it out, for them. Show them the joys of serving the Lord, not the burden, not the loathsome intrusion of God into our lives, but that the delight of your life is the opportunity to know God. Let them catch that from you more than they catch anything else. Your actions will speak far louder than any words. But that generation's all gone, they said God can't do it, and their children are the ones that crossed the Jordan River with Joshua and conquered the Promised Land.
And now Joshua is at the end of his life, so there's another generation that has emerged. There's another group of young faces looking up at Joshua, and listen to his instruction, did you hear it? He said, "Throw away the foreign gods that are among you". Are you kidding me? Plagues, Red Sea parting, water from a rock, manna for 40 years, an entire generation obliterated because of their lack of faithfulness, and Joshua says, listen, you really should think about getting rid of your idols. Before we point accusing fingers at anybody else, could we just acknowledge how easy it is to be distracted by false things, to give our hearts and our souls and our ambition and the goals of our lives to things that will sift through our fingers.
I've spent a good bit of time lately in hospitals and sitting with people facing some real life challenges, and folks, I'm telling you, what you invest in eternity you'll take with you, the rest of it, somebody else is gonna have. Put away your idols. Now, we don't worship little things carved out of wood and metal and stone anymore, but an idol is anything that you give priority to above the Lord. Now, you'll need to process that on your own, I don't need to make lists for you, but I would encourage you to say simple prayer, something like this, Lord, if there's anything in my life that I have given a place that is inappropriate, help me to see it.
My pleasure, my objectives, what I want, what I most would like to do is honor you with my life. And I'm telling you, that's more than putting your rear end in a chair in a church service from time to time. And I'm for church, come often, bring your friends. You're just trying to grow the church. You figured me out. Aren't you trying? I know you are. Where were we? Joshua, I gotta go. Oh, I really do. What intrigues me with Joshua in the book of Judges is how dramatic life changes when God breaks in. When God steps in, you see, we make our plans and we pursue them and I don't think that's wrong, and then these random places seem to lead to us because we don't see the whole tapestry.
Do you know Corrie ten Boom? Do you know who she is? World War II generation, her father was a Dutch watchmaker and the family worked in the watch shop and during World War II they hid Jews in their home and they were ultimately betrayed by a Christian neighbor, and her father and her sister died in the German camps, and Corrie was released because of a clerical error. Well, I had the opportunity to hear her speak a few times near the end of her life, and I was in a meeting one time where she held up a piece of fabric, and it was just ugly, it looked like a bunch of threads and strings, it was an auditorium probably the size of this, and I wasn't particularly close, and I thought, you know, that doesn't make any sense.
She says, you know, it's not really very pretty, is it? And she turned it around and it was a piece of needlepoint and from the front side it was spectacular. And she said our lives are much like this. When God is putting the story together, it often is undecipherable to us, we don't know what he's doing and we don't know why and his timing seems inscrutable. She said the day is coming when it will be something spectacular that God has done.
When God breaks into your life it may be with something disruptive, it may be with a change of course, it may be something uninvited. He may start to make you uncomfortable with something which you've been comfortable with for a great long time. He steps into our lives in so many, many ways, but in his great mercy he steps into our lives. And he broke into Joshua's life. Joshua, as I said, is Moses's assistant. It's kind of a smooth job. Moses has bitten off more than he can chew, and if God doesn't help he's gonna choke. And they've managed to navigate Egypt and they've navigated the Red Sea, but now there's this large group of people free in the wilderness and they are perceived rightly as a threat to the people surrounding them.
And so, now there's an army coming at Moses and Moses is not a warrior, his people have not been trained in war, they don't have the resources. It's in your notes, it's Exodus 17. I know it's a bit back in the biblical narrative, but it's a part of Joshua's story because it's really when God begins to break in and I want you to see the context. "The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites," somewhere. I mean, it's Rephidim, but we don't know where that's at so somewhere works. Don't miss the... anyway, "Moses said to Joshua, 'Choose some of our men and go out and fight the Amalekites.'"
No, no, really. I think you should do it. You're the one with the crazy shepherd staff, go out there and swing the staff around and watch the Amalekites evaporate. It worked on the Red Sea. But the instruction is Joshua, you go fight. "Tomorrow I'll stand on the top of the hill with a staff of God in my hands". Okay, "So Joshua fought the Amalekites as Moses had ordered, and Moses and Aaron and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And as long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning".
So, because Aaron and Hur were clever rascals, when Moses's arms got tired, they found a way to hold his arms up and Joshua got his first real lesson. Moses is good to have on your side. Things go better when Moe is helping, because as long as Moses held that staff up, they won the day. I promise you that's not lost on the people who are in the thick of the battle. I know we read it pretty casual and we think, well, it's no big deal, but in Joshua chapter 1, you've read it if you've been doing the reading with us, but you could have missed it.
It's Joshua 1:1, it says, "After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua, 'Moses my servant is dead,'" duh, "Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan. I will give you every place you set your foot as I promised Moses". Now, wait a minute, Joshua doesn't have any experience like this. I've been happy to help Moses, Moses talked with you, Moses dealt with you, Moses went into the tent of meeting and came out with a message. When people grumbled about Moses the earth swallowed them. When people complained about Moses snakes came into the game. I've watched you and Moses, but Moses is gone and Moses couldn't do this, what do you mean?
Now, take a moment with that because I think we've imagined that God asks us to do easy things. Do you know how many times people have said to me, "Well, Pastor, I don't wanna do that". I know, you know, this is camp week for our teenagers, and you're here because you didn't want to be there, and some are there but they are there because they didn't want to be here, I get that, it's okay, but I've been doing this a bit and I can't tell you how many times people have said to me, "Well, Pastor, I know you need people to go with those teenagers, but I don't wanna do that".
Duly noted, here's the card. Do you think God's only gonna ask you to do things you wanna do? Which book did you read? What do you have, one of those children's Bibles, mostly cartoons and animations? The one I read God said, Moses, I want you to go back to Pharaoh and say, listen, I'm good, thank you, I've been there, I tried Pharaoh on for size, I'm a fugitive. Have you seen the post office? Joshua, gather the people and cross the Jordan, we're gonna occupy that Promised Land. Whoa, big fellow, Moses was my help. I tell you that because one of the most consistent questions I'm asked these days, and it comes to me from lots and lots of places, what are we gonna do?
People kind of intuitively recognize that there's a problem. They say, what do we do? Here's the answer, please God. Start at your kitchen table. Tell the truth. Stop winking at sin. Well, that'll be difficult. Following the Lord is. I'd be dishonest with you if I said it's easy for me. Oftentimes it's easier to be ungodly. Am I allowed to say that? It's true, that's why it's called temptation. If it's not a temptation, it's not real. I'm seldom tempted to eat more vegetables.
I don't remember the last time I awakened in the middle of the night with great beads of sweat rolling down my face because I was tempted to pay more taxes. Send the government more money, quickly. I resist you in the name of Jesus. No, those aren't the things that tempt us. But the lie on your tax return, to have that 15th Oreo, waste not, want not. Serving the Lord is not always easy. See, when God breaks in it's a new kind of life and it brings much realignment with it.
This isn't just an Old Testament concept, folks, this is the story of our New Testament. The man at the pools of Bethesda that was lame and had been there for a long time. I stood at those pools just a couple of weeks ago, and Jesus walked up and said would you like to be healed? Duh, the man answered in a reasonable way, he said I don't have anyone to help me. There's a process here, but I don't have anyone to help me. And Jesus said, pick up your mat and walk, and the man got up. He's never gonna be the same again. He makes new enemies that very day. You're breaking the rules, they said to him. He said I may be breaking the rules, but the man that let me walk, told me to carry this bed, watched me carry my bed.
John 9 there's a man that's born blind, and Jesus interferes in his life and he comes home seeing the gospel says. The whole city is in an uproar, and he said how did this? He said I don't know, I didn't see the guy. Tell us, I don't know, but he said his name was Jesus, and they said, well, it couldn't be Jesus because we know he's a sinner, and the man said, listen, I don't know if he's a sinner or a saint, but I know I was blind and I see you. Even his own parents wouldn't stand with him, John says because they didn't want to lose their place in the community. This is not something new.
You see, when God breaks into our lives we get a new kind of a life, but there's a great deal of realignment. We want God to break into our life and we wanna craft the story so all of our ungodly friends will go, "Well done, well done". God breaks in to write us a new story so that the people watching your life can decide if they're gonna serve the Lord. It's not for us to pervert the story or to diminish the story, it's to say, look, he told me to carry this mat and I appreciate your perspective, but I'm a mat carrying kind of fellow right now. Look, we want to honor the Lord. Some will cheer, some will jeer. It happened on the day of Pentecost, it's gonna happen in the 21st century. Let's honor the Lord.
I wanna close our service a little differently. I brought you a proclamation and a blessing, they're two of the best known prayers in all of the Bible. The proclamation is the Shema, which is the Hebrew word for hear, and it's a prayer that's been recited by the Jewish people for century upon century. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord, your God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength".
Perhaps the most repeated prayer in human history. And then a blessing, it's the Aaronic blessing, this is what God said to Aaron. When you bless the people, this is how you're to bless them. "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, and the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace".
Well, I would like us to leave today by making a proclamation and extending a blessing upon one another. We did this last Sunday, so if you were here you're way ahead of the crowd. I tried to help the Saturday people with this last night and it was touch and go, but I'm sure you're a much more astute group, after all you know that God goes to church on Sunday mornings.
So, here's what I'd like you to do, if you will. I would like for a portion of those gathered here on campus today to bless another portion, and then we're gonna flip the script and let those who received that blessing bless those who blessed them. I really have an objective, I want you to become more and more familiar with the idea, so that when you go home at the end of the day perhaps you can bless those who live in your house. You don't have to go in and announce it to them, you can do it from your vehicle. When you pull into work in the morning, maybe you take that blessing and bless the place where you work. Let's start to take our faith outside the house, are you willing to do that?
Now, a little bit of instructions. Okay, if you're in Three Crosses with me I'm gonna have part of you stay and we're gonna read both the proclamation and the blessing, alright? And then we'll be seated and we'll receive it again. Alright, so if you're in Three Crosses with me, if you're on the floor on this side of the aisle, you're gonna stand. If you're in the stadium seats from this aisle over, please stand. Now, if you're in All Nations, I want all of you to stand and face towards New Harvest. They can hear you through the doors.
If you're at home, I'm not sure what to tell you to do. If there's two of you watching or four of you, you know how to make that, you bless and receive the blessing. We're gonna face these people and we're going to speak this proclamation and blessing over them. Alright, now for it to be valuable you have to receive it, so don't just sit there thinking what am I gonna do when I have to stand up? Can I read? Get your receiver out, dial it in. July the 14th, you ready, are you? We're gonna read it together.
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your strength". "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace," amen.
Now you can be seated. Now, those of you who were seated, you stand with me and if you notice there's more of you standing this time, because generally the people that are willing to follow the Lord begin as the smaller group. Come on, you've watched them, fire didn't fall from heaven, they didn't evaporate, it looks reasonably safe. Be an early adopter in saying yes, Lord. If you're in New Harvest, this is your turn to get up, All Nations you can sit down. If you're at home, reverse whatever you just did. We can do this together, alright? You got your voice? You got your receivers? What'd y'all do, use all your words in that bold declaration just a moment ago? Come on, here we go.
"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength". "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace," amen. Hallelujah, let's all stand together. Let's read that blessing is our benediction. "The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace," amen.