January 30 2003
Central Christian Church
St. Petersburg, Florida
Joe Bedy
Our Commitment to God Must Be Consistent
Joshua 24:14-15
Our scripture tonight that Brian read comes from the mouth of Joshua, Joshua was the young man God had chosen and Moses mentored to lead the Jews into the promise land after the whiners and grumblers and disobedient types had died off.
I ask you tonight! What type of person are you? are you consistently faithful or faithfully inconsistent? Do you find yourself often dissatisfied? Are you a whiner or a grumbler?
I ask you this because the Scriptures teach us that the whiners and grumblers, those who complained were not faithful people.Their faith and commitment to God at its very best was inconsistent.
Whining, grumbling, gossip and complaining are symptoms of a deeper spiritual problem called inconsistent faithfulness or consistent unfaithfulness. Call it what you want it’s a spiritual problem. Now don’t misunderstand me, its not a problem for God, it’s a problem for unfaithful people and they need to deal with it.
Joshua’s audience knew the mighty hand of God as he poured plagues down on Egypt, as He killed the Egyptian’s firstborn and as He parted the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh’s army.
They knew how their people acted 3 days after the Red Sea had been parted and they were out of slavery and bondage and on their way to the promise land and they encountered their first problem-water suitable to drink.
What do they do?
They grumbled! (Ex. 15:25)
They wanted to go back to Egypt.
They grumbled-You know what I am talking about when I say grumbling. Speaking under your breath like you are not complaining but loud enough so whoever is around you can hear and know exactly that you are dissatisfied.
My kids do it-just before I give them a little attitude adjustment.
I heard Cathi Bedy tell one of them the other day, if you are going to speak in that muffled undertone, then I am going to assume you are grumbling and you can spend time in your room until you change your attitude.
What she was saying is your attitude, your grumbling, whining and complaining is going to stop you from seeing the good things, like Dutch apple pie.
Whenever we complain about what we have or don’t have, what we thought we should get or didn’t get we are grumbling. What we are saying to God is what you have given me, the situation I am in is not good enough for me, I deserve more and better and we are grumbling to God.
If we are grumblers, whiners or complainers we lack faith our commitment to God is inconsistent, because the only time we are consistent is when it’s going our way.
These unfaithful Jews who were freed from slavery and bondage, were just like many Christian’s today who although they have been set free from sin, guilt and shame that came into their lives from living in the world only partially follow God and they go in and out of church life and the worldly life without giving it a second thought.
To me it seems as if they have a huge bungee cord tied to their belt that keeps pulling them back to Egypt where they had leaks, garlic and onions with fresh water to drink.
They never see real holiness, or sanctification, or consecration and for their entire lives the benefit of consistently following God remains an illusion never to be realized and yet they are religious people.
The Jews that left Egypt never saw the promise land simply because their commitment to God was inconsistent.
I ask you tonight are you in the promise land of Christianity or do you move in and out based on your own desires and needs?
I like Joshua, I admire Joshua, he reminds me a lot of Stan, but holier.
Listen to what Joshua tells God’s people in his farewell address. He is now very old and well advanced in years the Bible says. He tells them in (23:16) if you violate the covenant of the LORD your God, which he commanded you, and go and serve other gods and bow down to them, the Lord’s anger will burn against you, and you will quickly perish from the good land he has given you."
translated: if your commitment to me is inconsistent and you let the things of this world get between you and me, you will experience my anger and you will not receive the promised and good things I have planned for you.
Joshua knows the tendencies of these people so his last official act as the Lord’s servant is to call God’s people back into a covenantal relationship with their God.
That is what REVIVAL is all about. It’s about calling the church back to their first love and back into relationship with Christ.
It is a change of attitude!
Josh recaps the story of Abraham and how God gave him many descendants. He tells them how God had sent Moses and Aaron and how God had afflicted the Egyptians. How God had parted the Red Sea and let them pass through, while in the next breath He covered the Egyptian army and they did the dead man’s float. God fought all your battles and conquered all of your enemies
"Now, therefore, fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and truth; and put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.
Josh 24:15 "And if it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
Church this is the challenge!
Choose this day who you are going to serve, the Lord God almighty or the world.
I would like for everybody who comes on Sunday morning to be here tonight so we could enter into a covenant before God and say, “we will serve God, we will fear the Lord and we will put away the false gods we worship in the world today.
Tell me! No answer for yourselves! What is keeping the church God’s people from being here tonight?
If its TV or God- cut the cord, if it is sports- we need to choose God! If it is basketball or God we choose God! And now I am going to meddling but if it is the Bucs or God we choose God.
Whatever it is that we are on fire for, boy we will sure let everyone know, I am about right here with the whole BUCS thing.
I would pray that we would enter into a covenant that understood that if we are friends with the world we are enemies of God. I would pray that we would put away the music of the world; the busyness of the world and we would choose God. I would pray that we would be together all the time breaking bread and praising God.
Our text says, “serve the LORD in sincerity and truth.”
Is that the level of your service is it sincere?
In other words is our dedication and commitment to the LORD free from hypocrisy? Or do we nod affirmation and say amen, but then conduct our lives at some level lower, than what God requests?
Joshua is real bold in his farewell address isn’t he?
Choose, who are you going to serve, but don’t be half committed or half faithful. Either serve God or serve the world.
The church will not and cannot be revived if we continue to be a Sunday morning “hi how ya doing kind of place”
Our lives and His church must be more than lukewarm.
Because lukewarm ain’t gonna save us, Jesus said I will spit the lukewarm church right out of my mouth. What He actually says is, “I will vomit it out.” Are we lukewarm? Or are we on fire? Will God save us or will He spit us out?
When I was a kid I played baseball, I was on fire for baseball. I ate drank and slept baseball. If the Saturday game was at 4:00 Pm I was at the field by 8:00a.m.for the first game at 9:00 A.M. and I usually took the field with stains on my uniform from the grape snow cone and mustard from the hot dogs. Between the games we would play catch or bunt the ball to each other.
On the days we didn’t have practice we would throw 400 pitches to the inside corner of the plate to the outside corner, low and high in the strike zone so we could put that ball wherever the catcher wanted it, we were faithful.Then we would play home run derby. There were a few others who were as faithful as I was and we would pick up teams and play baseball, if it was football or basketball season. Because we loved baseball and we were consistent in our commitment to it.
It paid off because we were the league champs for 2 years in a row and got to go to Gulfport and play to be city champs. When I came out of Little League only a few of us could move on to the Pony league and I made Pony league. Why? Because I was consistent in my faithfulness to baseball and practice.
Faithfulness takes commitment and commitment takes perseverance and hard work.
THERE IS SIMPLY NO WAY AROUND IT!
But it is this kind of faithfulness and consistency that God wants from His own children.
A teacher was helping one of her kindergarten students put on his Cowboy boots.
Even with her pulling and him pushing, the little boots still didn’t Want to go on.
Finally, when the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost cried when the little boy said, "Teacher, they’re on the wrong feet." She looked and sure enough, they were.
It wasn’t any easier pulling the boots off than it was putting them on.
She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on - this time on the right feet.
He then announced, "These aren’t my boots."
She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why
didn’t you say so?" like she wanted to. And, once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off his little feet.
No sooner they got the boots off and he said, "They’re my brother’s boots.
My Mom made me wear ’em."
Now she didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. But, she mustered up the grace and courage she had left to wrestle the boots on his feet again.
Helping him into his coat, she asked, "Now, where are your mittens?"
He said, "I stuffed ’em in the toes of my boots...."
Our commitment to God can go in only two directions. We can either be like this teacher who mustered up the grace and strength to go on or we can whine, grumble and complain.
How would God describe us?
Whether or not the church survives and we become all that God wants us to be depends on us.
Joshua said, “If this is disagreeable to you, well choose for yourself what you want to do and how committed you are. But keep in mind none of those adults who left Egypt inherited the promise land.
Joshua was not placed by God to tell the people what they wanted to hear, he was there to tell them what they needed to hear.
Is your commitment to God inconsistent, do you whine, grumble and complain?
That is ok with me. Because every pot sits on its own bottom. What I mean is someday we will all stand before the Lord to give an account of those things we have done while on this earth and in these bodies.
Do we know more about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, than we know about God?
Are we more consistent with our faithfulness to our favorite sports team or activity than we are to God and Christ’s Church?
Let’s quit playing church- decide today what you are on fire for and just go do it!
I have found one thing in the ministry to be very true, when it is all said and done, there is a whole lot more said than done.
I could have stood up here tonight and listed a million things that get between our service and us to the Lord, but I don’t need to do that, we know where we are.
I will tell you this:
As for my house and me we will serve the LORD.
It is not always easy, we have shed many tears, but we have seen God work and we have grown in our faith through consistency in our commitment.
We are not going to do it the devil’s way or the world’s way or the preacher’s way-we are going to do it God’s way.
We are going to do it God’s way in our marriage and keep the covenants.
We are going to do it God’s way in the way we raise our children. (If time tell Nick’s story)
We are going to live God’s way in the way we serve His church.
God will honor and bless us when we do.
That decision will not make us popular, but it will make us holy as God sanctifies us through our participation in the gospel.
People can say what they want about me, I hope the Lord says my boy Joe he is on fire!
