Joshua Chapter 24:1-18

God has been so good to you, and because he's been so good to you, and he's blessed you, now serve the Lord. That's how you can serve God with a grateful heart.

That's how I can walk around here on Sunday morning and see people doing all sorts of things, and man, they are just so tickled and happy to be doing things. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of The Bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. As followers of Jesus, we should serve God because of what he has already done for us. Pastor David discusses the importance of serving the Lord as he continues his study in the book of Joshua chapter 24. But first, do you ever feel like God is cutting away parts of you, like a gardener pruning a tree?

Well, I hope you said yes to this question, because it means God is shaping you so that you can bear even more fruit in your life. We want to help you embrace God's pruning in your life by sending you Pastor David McGee's three-part audio series, Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life. It's our way of saying thank you for your gift to help share the truth of Scripture with more people around the world through Cross the Bridge. So get your copy of Abiding in Christ when you give today at crossthebridge.com, and discover how you can bear more fruit for God's kingdom.

Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Don't Be a Fence-Sitter. Well, here we are, Joshua chapter 24, final chapter of Joshua. If you would turn there with me, Joshua chapter 24 and verse 1 says, Then Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to shechem and called for the elders of Israel, for their heads, for their judges, and for their officers. And they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, That says the Lord God of Israel, your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the river in old times, and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from the other side of the river, led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his descendants and gave them Isaac. Verse 4, To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, to Esau I gave the mountains of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. Also I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt according to what I did among them.

And afterward, I brought you out. Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea. And the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. So they cried out to the Lord, and He put darkness between you and the Egyptians, brought the sea upon them and covered them. And your eyes saw what I did in Egypt.

Then you dwelt in the wilderness a long time. God is reminding them of what all He's done. But think of this, God placed them in a position where there was mountains on either side of them, and the Red Sea behind them, and Pharaoh's army bearing down on them. God put them in that place. God led them to that place.

It was, for all intents and purposes, a trap. I mean, Pharaoh could not have picked a better place to make his enemy more vulnerable. But God put them in that place so he could show himself mighty on their behalf.

Oh, loved ones. You need to remember that when you get in a place where you feel like you're trapped. When you get to a place where you feel like there's mountains on both sides and Pharaoh's army is bearing down on you and the Red Sea's at your back, that's not a bad place to be. Because if you remember what Moses said to the people, he said, stand back. And in the English version, it's kind of interesting, he says, stand back and see the salvation of the Lord. It's pretty cool in English. It's even cooler in the Hebrew. See, because what he says in the Hebrew, I won't go into all the wording, but he says, stand back and see the Yahshua of the Lord. Yahshua, we come to know that Hebrew name here. It's the name for Joshua, Yahshua. Hi, Yahshua, actually.

But we know the Greek form better, the word Jesus. At that trap at the Red Sea, Moses said, stand still and see the Yahshua of the Lord. And that's what some of you need to do when you get in those times where you're trapped.

Stand still. Because we have the tendency when we get in that position to run around and start doing stuff, trying to help God and all this, and God's going, stand still, see the Yahshua. Because what happens? God opens up the Red Sea. It's an amazing story, isn't it? And I've heard the liberal theologians say, well, you know, it's not really a miracle that the Red Sea party, as a matter of fact, that the wind was blowing the right way and that little place they're crossing the Red Sea, it's only like a couple inches deep, so there's not really a miracle there. Yeah, well, then I guess the miracle would be how the whole Egyptian army drowned in two inches of water. There's a miracle in there somewhere. But the amazing thing is, Yahshua here is reminding the people.

I find that interesting. Why would he be reminding them? Because the tendency is to forget. You mean they would have forgotten about the Red Sea?

Oh, you bet you. And I wish we could just sit here tonight and go, oh, those silly Israelites, but you know what? That hits close to home. Because we need to be reminded.

Why? Because we forget. What do you think communion's about? It's about reminding us about what Jesus did for us.

The whole thing is a remembrance. That's why we have communion. Why do we come to church?

Well, we come to worship, we come to learn, and we come to be reminded. We're told to pick up our cross daily. Why daily?

Have you ever thought about it? Why not weekly? Why not monthly?

Why not annually at the revival, you know, Monday through Wednesday kind of thing? To be reminded. We need to be reminded to pick up the cross daily.

Why? We forget. We forget. And praise God that he is faithful to remind us. Verse 8, and I brought you into the land of the Amorites who dwelt on the other side of the Jordan, and they fought with you. But I gave them into your hand that you might possess their land, and I destroyed them from before you. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose to make war against Israel and sent and called Balaam, the son of Beor, to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam, therefore he continued to bless you.

So I delivered you out of his hand. You probably remember that part if you've been here for very long. Balaam and the whole, well, you know, you'll probably remember the talking donkey part. If you remember, Balaam couldn't curse the people of Israel because they were blessed.

And if you might remember, what he did then was they decided to infiltrate from within. Whew. It's a good word of warning to the church because a lot of times the world begins to get into the church, and we need to be careful with that. Now, you may be sitting there going, I can't believe somebody that's on the cutting edge of this and that and the other would say things like that. Wait a minute. Let's understand. I love contemporary worship.

I do. But there is no thought in my mind that that is a worldly thing. That's a godly thing. If you struggle with that, let me set you free with the scripture. The psalm tells us play skillfully with a loud noise. Now, that doesn't sound like strumming on an acoustic guitar to me.

I get the picture of an electric guitar in a worship band that's kind of high energy. But when it comes down to theology, we're extremely conservative here. I don't know if you understand that or not. I mean, you may be looking at me going, well, you don't look conservative.

I didn't say like dress-wise that I was conservative. But theologically, you'd probably be hard pressed to find a church that's more biblically literate and adhering to scripture than this church. And I think one kind of connection with the other, because we're so connected to scripture, we're free. We are free to worship God in the way that He's given us to express our love and our worship for Him. Why should the devil have all the good music? Amen. Praise God. I love hymns. We sang a hymn tonight.

Now, look what happened here. And look at the life of the people of Israel, because here's an important thing. Notice God called them out of Egypt, delivered them out of Egypt, brought them through the desert into the promises of God.

It's a beautiful picture for us, because He did the same thing with so many of us here, didn't He? He took us out of Egypt, out of a place of sin and bondage, delivered us out of that place who walked with us through the desert, and now we are walking into the promises of God. Now, we have spoken about the Promised Land, and I know a lot of people think that the Promised Land is heaven, and there's some wonderful songs that have been written about that and Sweet Beulah Land and all these songs, but you know what? The Promised Land is not heaven scripturally, because once they go into the Promised Land, they're still fighting battles.

So the picture kind of falls apart there, because when we get to heaven, we're not going to be fighting battles anymore. It's coming into the promises of God, and so it's a description of where we are. God led them out, God led them through, and God led them into the Promised Land. And that's what He's doing to us. He led us out, He's leading us through, and He's leading us into. In order to get us into the promises, He's got to get us out of Egypt. He's got to do that.

He's got to do that. Verse 11. Then you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the men of Jericho fought against you, also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

But I delivered them into your hand. I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out from before you, also the two kings of the Amorites, but not with your sword or with your bow. Now that I've read some commentaries that said, well, the hornet means this and the hornet means that, I'm thinking that's probably some literal hornets, because it says not with your sword or with your bow.

And now if you're sitting there, maybe you're sitting there going, hornets? How can hornets drive out an army? You've never been stung by a hornet. I've been stung by a hornet. I got stung by a Japanese hornet one time. How many people in here have been stung by a Japanese hornet? You'll remember it.

You don't have to sit. Well, maybe no. I was walking through the den, and somehow this thing came in, and I just stepped on it. I'm walking around the house, and I stepped on this Japanese hornet. And if you've never been stung, it felt like somebody was putting a cigarette out on my foot for like eight hours. I mean, I kept waiting for it to quit hurting and that itching part to come. That doesn't happen with a hornet.

So yeah, I'm thinking they could probably drive that army, just blast on. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be back with more powerful insight from God's Word in just a moment. But first, what does it mean when God prunes away at parts of your life? Is He angry at you? Have you done something wrong?

Far from it. Jesus teaches in John 15 that God lovingly removes things from your life so that you can grow into the person He created you to be and bear more fruit for Christ. We want to help you do that by sending you Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life, a three-part audio series from Pastor David McGee on what it means to be pruned by God and how you can embrace the process. This encouraging resource is our way of thanking you for your gift to help reach more people with the powerful truth of the gospel through Cross the Bridge.

So go to crossthebridge.com today and request your copy of this series. Now, back to today's message. Verse 13, I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them. You eat of the vineyards and olive groves, which you did not plant. The blessings that we enjoy as believers, we don't deserve those.

We didn't earn them. Now, understand, God blesses obedience. God cannot bless disobedience. But probably a better way to say that, well, our next life lesson is God overly blesses obedience.

God overly blesses obedience, meaning if you'll take a small step towards Him in obedience, He will just lavish blessings upon you. And they have all these things, these things which they did not build, and you dwell in them. It makes me think of this building. We didn't build this building.

I mean, we built around in this building, but this building was a factory. See, but if you'll obey the Lord, God will bless you abundantly beyond what you're able to think if you'll simply follow Him. Praise God.

Praise God. Verse 14, now therefore fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your father served on the other side of the river and in Egypt. Serve the Lord. He is saying, remember, since you've been blessed, serve God. You know what you find in this chapter is that 21 times He uses the word Lord, but connected with that, He uses the word serve 12 times in this chapter. And He's saying because God has been good to you, then serve the Lord.

Notice how it starts. Because God has been good to you, serve the Lord. Sometimes what people do, what pastors do, what churches do, is they try to convince people that if they serve God, then God will begin to bless them. And their motivation for serving is hopefully they will someday get blessed. Wait a minute, wait a minute. That's backwards.

That's backwards. God has blessed us and because He's blessed us, we should serve Him. See, that's a pure motivation because serving God should come out of a grateful heart.

See, that's why it says now, verse 14, it says now therefore, I like what J. Vernon McGee, he says, when there's a therefore, you need to ask what it's there for. And so he's built all this thing saying God has been so good to you and because He's been so good to you and He's blessed you, now serve the Lord. That's how you can serve God with a grateful heart.

That's how I can walk around here on Sunday morning and see people doing all sorts of things and man, they are just so tickled and happy to be doing things. People that are cleaning up and stuff, what are you doing? I'm cleaning up, praise God, this is awesome.

And I know. Somebody, you know, cleaning a potty. Oh, I'm cleaning a toilet.

How you doing? Praise God, I'm cleaning a toilet. God's letting me clean a toilet. I know that's a supernatural thing.

I doubt if at home it's quite like that. See, but because God has been good to us and blessed us, we want to serve Him. See, that makes the whole thing different and the next life lesson is serve God because of what He has already done for you.

Serve God because of what He has already done for you. I remember back at the, when we had the wrapping gifts at Walmart, you know, we were wrapping gifts and for people, free gift wrapping outside of Walmart and that was so cool to see all, so many people from the church showing up and just being out there and one day, you know, their faces were a little sunburned because it was, you know, it was a clear day but they're just out there smiling and loving Jesus and loving people and you could just tell, man, they knew that God had been good to them. Nobody out there was going, I can't believe I got to do this. What was I thinking when I signed up for this?

That was really stupid. I mean, maybe they occasionally thought that but they weren't, you know, they weren't saying that. They were glad to be there.

Why? Because they were so blessed and had such a deep appreciation for what God had done in their life. Verse 15, it's a good one, isn't it? And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites and whose land you dwell but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Man, what a strong statement. That's just always mentally tied to the speaker, tied to Joshua. You can just see him standing up with boldness saying but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Joshua's saying, decide what you're going to do. You know, serve the Egyptian gods, serve the Amorites gods but you know what, make up your mind and as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord.

For me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. See, that's a decision. Do you hear the decision in that statement? Joshua doesn't say, well, you know, me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord as long as it's all right with mama. That's not what he said. He didn't say, well, you know, we're going to serve the Lord as long as it's okay with the kids. He didn't say that.

Me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord when, you know, the weather's okay. He didn't say any of those things. It was a definitive commitment. And notice something, guys, he was making the commitment for him and his household, for him and his household. I'm getting ready to go from preaching the meddling but let me share something I don't understand is when somebody says something to this effect, well, we were going to come to church but the kids didn't want to come. You understand what's wrong with that statement? See, because what it's really saying is my kids tell me what to do. I don't tell my children what to do. As a matter of fact, they run my life.

Now, there's more than one problem with that. Number one, your kids aren't old enough to run your life. They don't know enough to run your life and it's very unbiblical that your kids would run your life like that. So as a man, as the leader of the household, you've got to make that decision. Me and my house will serve the Lord. And let me assure you, that decision will be tested not once, not twice, but a lot. And if you're a single parent, you still have to make that decision that you and your house will serve the Lord. God will bless that.

God will bless that decision. I love the way that Joshua, you know what he's saying, really, when you boil it down in this verse, he said, get off the fence. Get off the fence.

Either get in or get out, but get off the fence. Now, it's interesting because years later, another Yeshua said something kind of like this in Revelation chapter 3 verse 16. It's one of those verses that really catches your attention.

It says, so then because you were lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. That's what Jesus said. Well, that doesn't seem very seeker sense if, Pastor David. Well, those are the words of Jesus. I mean, it's not, I don't guess we want to do that mental picture thing with this one, but Jesus is saying the same thing.

Don't be on the fence. Somebody was, I was talking to somebody the other day and I said, you know what? God has blessed this church with what I call hungry sheep, people that want to hear the word of God and know the word of God. And you realize that we have probably more people who are radical Christians here than most, I guess, normal churches. Praise God. Praise God. You know, I was talking with one person, and I'm not going to name the church, but they said, you know, every time they go into this bar, it's like half the bars goes to their church.

I heard that and I was like, what? So, and it's at a restaurant. So I started actually looking, you know, when I was going to the restaurant to eat. And so, but I started glancing in the bar, you know, but I never saw any of you guys in there. Praise God.

That's right, man. Why? Because we got a bunch of radical people here, radical for Jesus. Because, you know, I mean, we just don't, I don't know, we don't intentionally drive the non-radical people off, but I guess it just kind of happens, doesn't it? Because, you know, I mean, and you can kind of, you can kind of look around and see sometimes, you know, like on Sunday morning. I don't know if you've ever noticed this phenomenon, but I can see it from up here.

You know, I'll start teaching and it never fails. About 15 or 20 minutes, there's always a couple of people that are like, okay, should be closing any minute now here, you know? And then as the service goes on, it's, they get a little restless. Sometimes we see them back, sometimes we don't. Now, some of you have said, you know, the first time you came here, you were like, you sat through the whole service and then at the end of the service, you glanced at your watch and you're like, my gosh, look what time it is.

Because you're getting fed. But you, we can't, we can't stay on a fence, guys. There's too much at stake. There's too much going on in the world for us to have this lukewarm namby-pamby, not offending anybody but God, Christianity. Remember, in that passage in Revelation, Jesus is standing at the door and knocking and trying to get in and the scary thing is, he's addressing a church.

He's trying to get into a church. And so Joshua in boldness is saying, you know what, get off the fence. Verse 16, so the people answered and said, far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for the Lord our God is He who brought us and our fathers up out of the land of Egypt from the house of bondage, who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went and among all the people through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out from before us all the people, including the Amorites who dwelt in the land. We also will serve the Lord for He is our God.

It all sounds good, doesn't it? And again, these are all reminders and it's good to be reminded. And I'm going to give you a life lesson that I've given to you several times before you. If you've been here for very long, you're going to recognize it. Life lesson is we often remember what we should forget and we forget what we should remember.

But I want to give you a practical application for that. Next time you're saying something, ask yourself. Next time you're remembering something from the past, ask yourself, is this something I should be remembering or is this something I need to forget? Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can call us toll free at 877-458-5508 to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Do you feel like you're bearing fruit for Christ, yet God keeps pruning away at your life and you're not sure why? If so, we'd love to send you Pastor David McGee's series, Abiding in Christ, Keys to a Fruitful Life.

This encouraging resource shares from Jesus' own words as found in John 15, where he teaches that God's pruning is a sign that he is pleased with you and wants to prepare you to bear even more fruit for his kingdom. This series is our way of thanking you for your gift today to help share the gospel with thousands around the world who need to hear God's word in clear, straightforward language. So visit crossthebridge.com today to request your copy of Abiding in Christ when you give.

You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord? Visit crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free. Sign up today at crossthebridge.com. And be sure to join us next time on Cross the Bridge as we continue in the book of Joshua. We'll see you then.