Joshua Chapter 24:1-33

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 three 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Verse 15, 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 in 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 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 gonna do. 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 gonna serve the Lord. See, that's a decision. Do you hear, do you hear the decision in that statement? Joshua doesn't say, well, you know, me and my house, we're gonna, you know, 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 gonna serve the Lord as long as it's okay with the kids. He didn't say that.

Me and my house, we're gonna 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 to meddling, but let me share something I don't understand, is when somebody says something to this effect. Well, we were gonna come to church, but the kids didn't wanna 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 gotta 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's saying, 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 three, 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-sensitive, Pastor David. Well, those are the words of Jesus. I mean, it's not, well, 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.

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? 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? Next time you're telling somebody something from the past, ask yourself that. Or somebody's talking to you. Maybe you can minister to them and ask them, hey, is this something you should be remembering?

Or perhaps it's something you should forget. Verse 19, Joshua's going hardcore on the folks. Joshua said to the people, you cannot serve the Lord, for he is a holy God. He is a jealous God.

He will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you harm and consume you after he has done you good. And verse 21, the people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord.

It's an interesting exchange here. Verse 22, so Joshua said to the people, you are witnesses against yourselves, that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves to serve him. And they said, well, you're witnesses. Now, therefore, he said, put away the foreign gods which are among you and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel. I was studying, I read that verse, and I said, what?

What did he just say? Now, therefore, he said, put away the foreign gods which are among you. Now, some of you might be thinking, well, he's talking about the other people that were surrounding them that had these foreign gods.

I don't think so. If you look at the exchange between them, and they're going, we want to serve God, and Joshua goes, no, you don't want to serve God. Oh, yeah, we want to serve God.

You can't serve God the way you're living. It would seem to suggest that already idolatry had crept into the camp. And in case you're sitting there going, well, yeah, we don't have idols anymore. Oh, yes, we do.

Yes, we do. And the idol is anything that you place between you and the Lord. It's anything that you place above the Lord. Look at your life closely.

And make sure that you don't have idols, because a lot of us struggle with it. And, you know, as soon as you get the pathway clear between you and God, it seems like another idol creeps in, and you got to get it out. 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. This is Pastor David McGee with Cross the Bridge.

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Now back to today's message. Verse 24, and the people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve and his voice we will obey. So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day and made for them a statute, an ordinance in Shechem. Then Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.

Joshua took the words that we're reading tonight and saved them. He added to the words of the law, this from day one that it was written became part of the Bible, part of the canon of scripture. And the people that say that it's a council of Nicaea or whatever years after, you know what, that's hogwash. That's hogwash. This Bible was complete and put together by about 100 or 110 AD.

No council did it at 275 or 315, just didn't happen. Anybody that says that, they're a liar, they're ignoring historical facts. So this automatically became part of the Bible, if you will, added to the books of Moses, first five books of the Bible. Verse 27, and Joshua said to all the people, behold this stone shall be a witness to us for it has heard all the words of the Lord which he spoke to us.

It shall therefore be a witness to you lest you deny your God. So Joshua let the people depart, each to his own inheritance. They made an agreement with the Lord. They made a commitment to the Lord.

Let me ask you a question. What is your commitment to the Lord? Do you have a commitment to the Lord?

Now I don't mean, well, you know, I'm going to try to do good. That's not really a commitment. A commitment goes like this. A commitment goes, I want to be in church every Sunday. I want to have an active prayer life. I want to have an active devotional life. I want to make sure I'm honoring God with my finances.

And I want to be serving God in the local body. Those things are commitments. And if you don't have those pieces, you should have those pieces. And if you don't have those pieces, then might I suggest that you make a commitment to the Lord. Because what happens is a lot of times we don't have a commitment and we kind of get blown to and fro. What is your commitment?

Think for just a second. What is your commitment to the Lord? If you're coming up blank, you need to make some commitments. If I ask you what, you know, when you were going back to work, I mean, you probably just thought I got to be there at eight in the morning, right? So you go eight in the morning. Why? Because you're committed to going.

A lot of you are here tonight. Why? Because you got a commitment to come on Thursday night. I appreciate that. I respect that. I understand that during the week and evening and kids and all those things. That's a commitment and I appreciate that.

And I think you should have that and I think you should have that on Sunday morning. But do you understand that some people come just they're kind of like, well, you know, if it's not too nice of a day and if I feel okay, then I'll probably come. That's not a commitment. And as you make a commitment, God will bless that commitment. But if you don't really have a commitment, it's hard for you to enter into anything of a self-sacrificial nature and following the Lord.

I'm not saying you're never going to get it wrong or you're never going to drop the ball, but have some form of commitment, brothers and sisters. Verse 29, now it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old. Now, the last five verses, 29 through 33, are written by somebody else because at this point Joshua died. So I believe what Joshua wrote ends with verse 28 and picks up, we believe, by one of his servants. We're not sure about that in verse 29. Now, it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance in Timna Sarai, which is in the mountains of Ephraim on the north side of Mount Gash. Verse 31, Israel served the Lord in all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had known all the works of the Lord which he had done for Israel. This is an awesome legacy.

There's an interesting thing here. Moses trained up Joshua. But as we look back through the Book of Joshua, who was Joshua training to take his place?

We don't see that person. I don't mean to take away in any way from the testimony of Joshua. He was an awesome leader and a godly man. But what we're going to see when we get into the Book of Judges is it begins to fall apart because there's no more leaders. There's no more leaders to lead the people. And we're going to see a real famine of leadership in the Book of Judges.

And Joshua wasn't training up anybody. And we talk about discipleship. And it's important that you be discipled.

But you know what's also important? That you're discipling other people. See, if you go through being an unbeliever to a believer to being a disciple and you think, okay, that's it. I'm done.

No, no, no, no. That's when you go back and you find an unbeliever and you share the love of the Lord with them. And you help that unbeliever become a disciple. And let me ask you a question. Who is discipling you right now?

Two questions. Who is discipling you? And who are you discipling?

Now, these names should come to you real quick. If you're sitting there going, uh, you don't have a plan. You need to have a plan. Have a plan of who is discipling you, who is asking you those hard questions, who is encouraging you when you're bummed out and tired. And also, who have you grabbed a hold of and said, man, I'm going to make sure that you're here every morning. And if I don't see you, well, not every morning, but Sunday morning, if I don't see you here on Sunday morning, I'm going to call you. I want to hold you accountable. I want to encourage you.

Do you have those people in your life? Because if you don't, as it's been said, the church is one generation away from extinction. That's why we encourage kids here, because we want to see them following in the Lord.

And you know what? If the Lord should tarry and this church is still here for 30 years, and I'm probably gone by that point, then who's going to be here? The kids who are in children's ministry right now. We have to reach them. You better believe we need to raise up a standard and be speaking the truth and be speaking love into their lives and be encouraged them. So as you look around, you see these young guys are getting on fire and stoked for the Lord. Encourage them.

Don't look at them and go, why you got to pierce in there? Encourage them in the Lord, man. Encourage them in the Lord, because we're seeing awesome things go on in there. Let's read on. Verse 32, the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel had brought up out of Egypt, they buried at Shechem, in the plot of ground which Jacob had bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, for 100 pieces of silver, in which had become an inheritance of the children of Joseph. In verse 33, it says in Eleazar, the son of Aaron died, and they buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas, his son, which was given to him in the mountains of Ephraim. Your attention, please.

Don't just shut the book and close me down. It's interesting, because see, Aaron was the first priest that died. Eleazar is the second priest that died. Eleazar, we see in this verse, had a son named Phinehas, okay? And Phinehas is also a priest, because whenever a priest had a son, his sons also were priests that served in the temple.

You're going, okay, well, okay, all right, I'm with you. I don't see why you're talking about that. They buried him in a hill belonging to Phinehas, his son. The priests weren't supposed to own land.

Phinehas owned land. God had said the Levites, those serving in the priesthood, were not to own land. And hardly do we see here in this closing verse of Joshua, trouble is on the horizon, because they're no longer listening to what God told them to do.

I think we need to think about that for a minute. We have to have a daily commitment to follow the Lord. A weekly commitment's not gonna work.

A yearly commitment, it's gotta be every day. It's so tragic when somebody comes and says, you know, I decided 30 years ago to follow the Lord, and I'm sitting there hoping, man, I hope you've made a decision since then. Because for me, it's a decision every day to follow the Lord. Moses couldn't take them into the Promised Land. Moses represented the law, and the law has never taken anybody into the promises of God. But Joshua, Yeshua, Jesus, was his name in the Greek, was the one that took them into the Promised Land. If you're trusting in acts of law to get in the Promised Land, that's never gonna happen. If you're trusting in Jesus to get you into those promises, that will work.

Just a couple more things, and I'll close, because there's a couple interesting things. And that is the parallel between the Yeshua, or Joshua, that we read about in this book, and in Jesus, the Yeshua, in the New Testament. You see, Joshua went into the land to drive out the usurpers, or the people who were following other gods, to take the land that God had given them. Not only that, but we're told it took seven years to do that.

That's kind of an interesting time frame, isn't it? Because what we see in the book of Revelation is another Yeshua, during a seven-year tribulation, driving out the usurpers that are following after other gods, and taking back a land that God has promised. Not only that, but the two spies who go into the land in the beginning of Joshua, and they end up that the harlot comes to know salvation, compared with the two witnesses that proclaim salvation to a world that's following after a harlot. There's a lot of parallels between these two things now, and at the end of this book of Joshua, Joshua says, you gotta make a choice.

Guess what happens at the end of Revelation? Same thing, it speaks about making a choice. Don't wait till the end of your life to make a choice. Make the choice now, daily. 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. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

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. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him, and He can't turn anybody away. Who comes to Him. And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness.

Those who were sick, not the righteous. 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.