Gotta Serve Somebody

GOTTA SERVE SOMEBODY

Joshua 24:14-15

Introduction

A Sunday School teacher challenged her children to take some time on Sunday afternoon to write a letter to God. They were to bring their letters back the following Sunday. One little boy wrote, "Dear God, we had a good time at church today. Wish you could have been there."

The Psalmist says this about God, ’Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. (Ps 139:7-10)

We can be sure that God is with us right now – lets ask Him to speak to us clearly. LETS PRAY

‘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.’ (Josh 24:14-15)

If you had been at the reception on our wedding day you would have looked for your name on one of these (SHOW PLACE-MARKER). And you would have seen on that place-marker part of the Scripture just read. And the portion of Scripture you would have seen was, ‘… as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.’

Why? Why did we have that text printed on our wedding stuff?

I suppose for me the words of a song sums up one reason why we made that text our motto, so to speak.

Does anyone recognise these lyrics?

‘You may be an ambassador to England or France,

You may like to gamble, you might like to dance,

You may be the heavyweight champion of the world,

You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody, yes indeed

You’re gonna have to serve somebody,

Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord

But you’re gonna have to serve somebody.’

Can anyone tell me who wrote that?

(AWAIT RESPONSE)

Yes, Bob Dylan wrote that song back in the late 70’s – and he’s right in what he says in that song. They say there’s only two things that are certain, ‘Death and taxes’, I believe there’s at LEAST one more thing – ‘You gotta serve somebody’. Whether we like it or not we can’t escape serving somebody. Think about it!

Why did we choose to serve the God of Joshua?

The words of the two songs we sung a moment ago express the answer best.

Listen to vs 2 of ‘So You Would Come’. ‘Nothing you can do could make Him love you more. And nothing that you’ve done could make Him close the door. Because of His great love He gave His only Son, Everything was done so you would come.’

Everything was done so we could come! Surely, we should do everything we can to let others know that all has been done so they can choose to experience a love & security too good to be true! Cheryl & I experience God’s unfathomable love. And we were/are committed to building a home on that love. We were/are committed to serving the One who loved us with a love we had never known before.

I’d like you to hear what the authors of ‘Because He Lives’ have to say about how that song came into being: ‘We wrote ‘Because He Lives’ … at the end of the 1960’s, … with the height of the drug culture and the whole ‘God Is Dead’ theory…and…at the peak of the Vietnam War… Gloria was expecting… And I can remember at the time we thought, ‘Brother, this is a really poor time to bring a child into the world.’ At times we were even quite discouraged by the whole thing. And Benjy did come. We had two little girls whom we love very much, but this was our first son, and so the lyric came to us, ‘How sweet to hold our new-born baby and feel the pride and joy he gives, but better still the calm assurance that this child can face uncertain days because Christ lives.’ And it gave us the courage to say, ‘Because Christ lives we can face tomorrow’ …’ (‘101 More Hymn Stories’ pg 46)

‘Because He lives I can face tomorrow;