Finding Your Footprint

Joshua 24: 14-15

(24:14) Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!

(24:15) 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 fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land will you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Today I want to talk about “Finding Your Footprint”

Finding your footprint…

Last week we prayed and worshipped God right here in a way that was very special…

We asked God for many things in the way of protection and the needs of the people here today and some that where not able to make it out last week…

We sought out God for His provision and we sought Him out for His protection…

And God spoke to us in a very special way…

In our scripture reference out of the book of Joshua we encounter a man who is speaking to a generation about the past the present and the future in just a few sentences…

We all know Joshua …

He was trained by Moses to lead the children of Israel to the land of promise in Canaan…

He was the one with the name that meant “the Lord is my Salvation”

And the thing about Joshua is that Joshua was born into slavery…

He was born into everything that embodied the enslaved…

He was born into Oppression…

He crawled around starvation…

He grew up around murder…

He survived hate…

And He escaped physical imprisonment…

Someone once said that:

“The Secret of Success is to Start from Scratch and keeps on Scratching”

Joshua was a man who knew how to keep on scratching…

He had seen it all…

And He had been trained by God’s servant to do what God had purposed for him in his life…

And Now …

After years of enslavement in Egypt…

And years of wandering in the wilderness after the exodus …

Joshua ... Now over 100 years old and he has pulled the people together because this is a time of worship and thanksgiving…

Maybe as we should rejoice … This was a time for rejoicing and thanking God for all that God had done in the past …

All that He had done to lead them to the conquest of Canaan…

All the Battles that He has brought them through…

Can you remember all the battles God has brought you though?

Can you remember How God brought you out of Slavery?

Can you remember How God saved you from the wrong route?

Can you remember?

God’ wants us to remember…

God doesn’t want us to forget where we came from…

He doesn’t want us to get so caught up in the possibilities of the present and the potential of the future

He doesn’t want us to lose sight of the past…

Because what he is saying is that your past is your “footprint”…

Your footprint is that place that you have walked and when you walked that path you left and imprint on the place you left…

It’s the impression that you leave behind you…

And when you think about it this is what Joshua was speaking to his audience about on this day…

He was a senior man who had seen a lot of things …

And the best way he knew how he was trying to talk some sense into the people that He had served for all these years…

Look at the scripture… First He said to the people

(24:14) Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!

He said fear the Lord… Meaning respect the Lord… Revere the Lord… Esteem the Lord….

And Serve Him in Sincerity and in Truth…

Just as Jesus said that in the book of John that God is spirit and they that Worship Him shall Worship him in Spirit and in Truth…

Hundreds of years earlier…

Joshua pleaded with the people that they Honor and respect the Lord … And that when they Honor him… Honor him… Serve Him in sincerity and in Truth…

To Serve means to help … To assist… to Supply… But it also and literally means to help…

Its means to help

Sincerity refers to being pure… Being with out falsehood or hypocrisy…

So when Joshua pleaded with the people of Israel he had to remind them to find your footprint…

He had to remind them to look to what God has done for you…