A new NHL season has started. What does that mean for you? That depends. Are you a die-hard fan or a fair-weather fan? I’m a fair-weather fan. I watched more games the year the Oilers made their Stanley Cup run than the other nine years I’ve been here put together. As a fair-weather fan I know I must drive the die-hards nuts but who cares? Why should I waste time watching a hockey team when it’s losing more games than it wins?
According to our text this morning there is such a thing as a fair-weather fan when it comes to religion. For the most part the Israelites were fair-weather fans while their leader, Joshua, was a die-hard supporter of the Lord. In our final Faith Factor sermon today we’ll learn why we want to emulate the faith of Joshua, faith to put God first.
Joshua, who was now nearly 110 years old, spoke the words of our text as his last will and testament. He summoned the Israelites to Shechem to hear his words. This was a fitting place to encourage the Israelites to make God number one in their lives because it had been here that their forefather Jacob had buried the idols that his family had brought with them from Uncle Laban’s. This was Jacob’s way of helping his family make a clean break with their idolatrous past. Now Joshua and the leaders of Israel stood at that same spot to renew their vows to serve God alone.
Just getting to Shechem would have taken an effort by the Israelites. They couldn’t hop into minivans and zip to this location like we can when heading to church here or an area Reformation Rally service. And consider how busy they must have been. No, they didn’t have hockey practice for the kids or the RV that needed to be winterized but they had just moved to Canaan. There were houses to build, crops to plant, battles that still needed fighting since not all the Canaanites had been driven out yet. The temptation to skip Joshua’s farewell address must have been great. Yet the people came.
Joshua must have been pleased to see all the Israelites assemble before him the way a preacher is pleased to see a full church. But Joshua knew that their presence alone didn’t mean that they were devoted to the Lord. Just as our presence here this morning doesn’t necessarily mean that we are fully devoted to the faith. The Israelites were notoriously fickle when it came to worship matters. Remember how quickly they turned their back on the promise of obedience they made to God at the foot of Mt. Sinai? Just 40 days after their vows of obedience, they made and worshipped an idol in the form of a golden calf! Likewise how long does it take for our mind to wander during the worship service? 40 minutes? More like 40 seconds. Therefore we will do well to pay close attention to what Joshua said to the Israelites: “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” (Joshua 24:14, 15).
Did some Israelites actually bring idols with them out of Egypt? And were they still holding on to those idols after they saw what God did to the Egyptians? It seems so. What idols are you tempted to hold on to? Is it your intellect? Do you rely more on your retirement plans and business acumen to get you through life than on God’s promises to provide daily for you? Or is your idol the drive to have good health? I have to watch myself in this regard. I could easily spend two hours at the gym every day. But am I as eager to spend that much time in prayer and in Bible study? The Apostle Paul once said: “Physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come” (1 Timothy 4:8). Being able to run a fast mile won’t do me much good if I’m not running well the race to heaven with Christ. What is it that threatens to take over your life? Is it getting good grades? Keeping up with the latest movies? Texting and FaceBooking friends? Fellow believers, there are a lot of things that God will put up with but second place is not one of them. The Lord demands to be first in our lives.
If the Israelites didn’t want to put God first in their lives, then Joshua sarcastically urged them to choose between the Canaanite idols their neighbors honored or the Aramaean idols their forefathers once worshipped. He might as well have said: “If you don’t want to eat from God’s banquet of promises, then chose whether you’re going to feed from the garbage dump of Canaan or the manure pile of Aram.” When you put it that way serving anyone but the God of the Bible seems silly. Yet Satan is adept at getting us to think that God is an overbearing master who asks too much of us. In once sense that is true. Joshua said to the people: “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God” (Joshua 24:19a). We are not able to serve God perfectly as he wants to be served. And so we don’t deserve to be called God’s servants, much less his children. Yet that is what we are because in his love this God sent his Son to pay for our sins. Jesus is like that kind stranger who stops to help you at the side of the road. He not only diagnoses what’s wrong with your vehicle, he buys the parts needed and then gets down and dirty to fix your car while you stand by helplessly because you don’t have the first clue about auto mechanics. Then when you try to press a $20 bill in his hand when he’s done, he says, “No. I have something for you.” And he gives you a voucher for free gas for the rest of your life! Isn’t that what Jesus has done for us? He didn’t just diagnose our problem with sin he got the parts needed to fix our problem. He lived a perfect life and then he got down and dirty when he shed his blood on the cross to pay for our sins. He did this all without our help. And as if that wasn’t enough he promised to richly provide what we need to survive from day to day! Does God keep this promise? Yes. The Israelites themselves knew this to be true as Joshua reminded them: “You know with all your heart and soul that not one of all the good promises the LORD your God gave you has failed. Every promise has been fulfilled; not one has failed” (Joshua 23:14). Nor has any of God’s promises failed us. Isn’t that what we celebrate this Thanksgiving? So why wouldn’t we want to serve this God? He isn’t an overbearing master as Satan would have us believe.
And how exactly do we serve the Lord? Every “religious” person whether Muslim, Hindu, or Christian thinks that they are serving the Lord after all. Joshua said that God wants us to serve him “with all faithfulness” (Joshua 24:14). What he literally said was that God wants us to serve him “in all sincerity and truth.” In other words God makes it clear that there is a right and a wrong way to serve him. The only way to know the difference is to turn to the truth of God’s Word, not our feelings or inclinations. You may have prayed about something and think that because it “feels” right what you are doing must be God-pleasing. But beware. God doesn’t speak to us through our emotions. He speaks to us on the basis of his Word.
But before you pat yourself on the back because you think, “I know God’s Word. I’ve been serving him in truth,” take a look at how else God wants us to serve: with “sincerity.” God doesn’t just want people who can give all the right answers in Bible class. He wants people who live the love he has planted in their hearts. Will that take an effort? It sure will. It will mean putting others first, won’t it? But if you always let your siblings choose which piece of pie they want first, will there ever be any good pieces left for you? If you’re always patiently letting people merge in front of you in traffic, will you ever make it to work on time? If you’re always doing the laundry, always doing the dishes, or always visiting the nursing home will you ever have free time for yourself? I don’t know. But have faith to do this. Have faith that when you put God first in this way you won’t come in last, because God himself will look after you and he will take better care of you than anyone else can…even better than you can take care of yourself.
Die-hards don’t care very much for fair-weather fans. Neither does God care for fair-weather Christians. He once told such a group in the city of Laodicea that he was ready to spit them out of his mouth because they were like lukewarm water (Revelation 3). So don’t be like the character on a recent Canadian sitcom who said: “Yeah, I’m a Christian but I don’t let it affect my life.” Instead say with the Israelites: “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our fathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God” (Joshua 24:16-18). The Israelite God is our loving God too. Have faith to put him first in your life. Serve him in all sincerity and truth. And enjoy his blessings. Amen.
