Joshua 24:1-28
All right, turn in your copy
of God’s Word to Joshua, Joshua 24, verses 21 to 28 will be our
passage for the night. We’ll have one more lesson in
the book of Joshua and then move on, I think, to the book of James
in two weeks. I figure we need wisdom, so we
better go there and get it. James is the wisdom literature
of the New Testament. I think we’ll find lots of good
teaching and nuggets, uh, from God’s word there for us. So tonight,
Joshua 24, one to 28, uh, this is the covenant renewal at Shechem. I remember this is, uh, the third
of three gatherings of God’s people. He gathered the Eastern
tribes before he sent them back over. Then he gathered the Leaders,
that’s what we looked at last week, and he told them to keep
their pedal to the metal, right? Don’t let up following God. And
now we have all of Israel being gathered together. And so it
begins this way. Joshua gathered all the tribes
of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges,
and the officers of Israel. and they presented themselves
before God. And Joshua said to all the people,
thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, long ago, your fathers
lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of
Nahor, and they served other gods. Then I took your father
Abraham from beyond the river and led him through all the land
of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac and to
Isaac, I gave Jacob and Esau and I gave Esau the hill country
of Sayre to possess. But Jacob and his children went
down to Egypt and I sent Moses and Aaron and I plagued Egypt
with what I did in the midst of it. 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. And when they cried to the Lord,
he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea
come upon them and cover them. And your eyes saw what I did
in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness
a long time. Then I brought you to the land
of the Amorites who lived on the other side of the Jordan.
They fought with you and I gave them into your hand. And you
took possession of their land and I had destroyed them before
you. Then Balak, the son of Zippor, the king of Moab, arose and fought
against Israel. And he sent and invited Balaam,
the son of Baor, to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam.
Indeed, he blessed you. So I delivered you out of his
hand. And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho. And the
leaders of Jericho fought against you. And also the Amorites, the
Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the
Hivites, and the Jebusites. And I gave them into your hand,
and I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before
you. The two kings of the Amorites,
it was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on
which you had not labored, and cities that you had not built
and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards
and olive orchards that you did not plant. Now therefore fear
the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away
the gods that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt
and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes
to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether
the gods your father served in the region beyond the river or
the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me
in my house, we will serve the Lord.’ And the people answered,
Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other
gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers
up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and
who did these great signs in our sight and preserved us in
all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through
whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before
us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land, therefore
we also, We’ll serve the Lord for he is our God. But Joshua
said to the people, you are not able to serve the Lord for he
is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will
not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake
the Lord and serve foreign gods, then he will turn and do you
harm. He will consume you after having done you good. And the
people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. Then
Joshua said to the people, you are witnesses against yourselves
that you have chosen the Lord to serve him. And they said,
we are witnesses. He said, then put away the foreign
gods that are among you and incline your heart to the Lord, the God
of Israel. 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 put in place
statutes and rules for them at Shechem. And 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 Terebinth that was by the sanctuary
of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people,
behold, this stone shall be a witness against us. for it has heard
all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. Therefore, it
shall be a witness against you lest you deal falsely with your
God. So Joshua sent the people away,
every man to his inheritance. Amen. This is the word of the
living God for us. I wonder, Every Sunday, what
goes through your mind? Maybe even back up to Saturday,
what goes through your mind as you prepare for church? You know,
in theory, right? In theory, we’ll put that in
air quotes. We should, we should have a place where we get our
car keys ready, right? We get our Bible ready. We get
our bulletin ready. Maybe some of you have read the
newsletter and you’ve marked your Bible. You’ve got your hymn
book all fixed up. Uh, some of you come in here
and you know, you put the visitor cards in and you get your book
already. That’s a wonderful thing. Um,
maybe we iron our clothes or make a little sticky note to
drop by the cleaners and pick up our, you know, our white shirt
that needs to be starched. Um, we, we try to get up a little
extra earlier. We make a little decaf cause
the preacher goes on a little or a little regular cause the
preacher goes on long, um, all those sorts of things. But I
wonder if we take it a step farther. I wonder if we think in our minds
and in our hearts, it’s a wonder I even get to go. Not because
I have a job and a car and fuel, not because we live in a country
that allows for the freedoms. But because of this simple reason,
God put Adam and Eve out of the garden. God put Adam and Eve
out of his presence because they broke faith with him. They broke
fellowship with him. And he put them out of his presence
because that communion which they had the day before was now
lost. And God was required by no one. God was not even required in
his own holiness and his own personhood to renew that fellowship. but he has. And so I wonder as
we lay out our clothes, our bulletins, our car keys, and we get all
our things ready for Sunday, you know, we put our chicken
pie in the oven and set the temperature and the timer and all the rest.
I wonder how many of us think through all that God has done
for us in Christ that even makes it possible for us to walk into
his presence and expect him to be happy that we’re here. That’s
quite amazing, isn’t it? Uh, you would not go over to
your neighbor’s house and I hope you wouldn’t, uh, and let yourself
in the back door, plop on their couch and take their remote and
begin to watch all the Saturday football games. Uh, that would
be strange. That would be an intrusion. That
would be an invasion. You would be an uninvited guest
and you would in a sense be trespassing. But the fact that we can come
into God’s house, take up his ordinances, and participate in
a divine service of worship is quite an amazing thing. And I
want to encourage us tonight to think about every Sunday service
that we come to as a covenant renewal, much like this one here
at Shechem. Every Sunday is a special day. Every Lord’s Supper is a special
event. Every baptism, whether it’s our
own or we witness another’s baptism, is an occasion for us to give
serious and thankful consideration of the nature of this event,
whether it’s the worship service or the sacrament, to think of
the end. for which God designed this service
or these sacraments. His glory are good. To think
through the privileges that we have as God’s covenant people,
and then to think of the benefits. I can’t remember who I was chatting
with some months ago. It was one of y’all in here,
I know. Maybe it was a couple of you
in here, different conversations, but the same topic. And the question
came up, why don’t we think people come to church? And I think very
sadly, it’s mostly for social reasons. We come to be seen. We come to be heard. We come
to be known. And there’s nothing wrong with
those things. There is a social aspect. In
fact, we are the body of God, the people of God. But this isn’t
cheers, right? The goal of walking in the church
is not to say, you know, hey, Norm or whoever was in that old
TV show. While that does happen, The main
reason we come to God’s house on God’s day is to meet with
the Lord and it’s to renew covenant with him. And we ought to come
in with a serious and thankful consideration of the nature and
the end and the privileges and the benefits of this covenant
renewal. I think one of the key features
of our service every Sunday is our confession of sin. You can
see the need for it in a passage like this. God is a God who will
not forgive iniquity. God is a God who will not put
up with your covenant infidelity. And so we come right on into
service. We bump into God and we realize who he is, the high
and exalted one. And we like Isaiah before his
altar say, woe is me. I am a person, a man, a woman
of unclean lips. and I dwell among a people with
unclean hands. And so from beginning to end
in our service of worship, week by week, whether or not there
is the Lord’s Supper and whether or not there is a baptism, that
whole service has a covenant renewal aspect. And so from the
beginning of the service, the greeting of God, the call to
the worship, all the way to the benediction, it ought to be seen
as something like what takes place here at Shechem. Now let’s
think about Shechem for a few moments. This is a big time event
in the life of Israel. Joshua is old, he’s about to
go the way of the earth. He’s about to die and pass on.
Israel is about to go through a very dark stretch where the
leaders who live on after Joshua, they do okay, they get by, But
then there’s that period of the judges, where they had that vicious
cycle of obeying God, disobeying God, getting judged, crying out
to God, God coming and raising up a judge for them and delivering
them from their enemies, and then them going right back into
apostasy only to repeat and rinse and repeat, right? But this covenant
renewal is a really important event. God is going to walk Israel
through all that he’s done for them. And he’s going to do it
at a special place. Shechem is in the promised land. It’s the land promised to Abraham.
This piece of land, this place of worship, this spot where covenant
renewal takes place is not only before God, but their feet are
standing where Abraham’s feet have stood. Now we come to church
every week and sometimes we think about the nostalgia of, well,
my, my children were baptized here. My, my daughters were married
here. This is where my grandparents went. And so sometimes the sanctuary
can be hallowed ground. And I think that’s kind of neat.
It’s not everything, but it’s kind of neat. But the real kicker
here is God is present. That’s the real blessing of our
covenant renewal and theirs also. It is before Almighty God that
they meet. Let’s think through some of the
things this passage shows us about the importance of covenant
renewal. The first thing that’s really important is the recounting
of the history of redemption. God has done so much for Israel,
and I put these all in Ps to help you because I got, I think,
five of them. God planted Israel. God played Egypt. God provided
for Israel. God pushed out the enemies in
the land of Canaan. And then God plundered those
enemies in Canaan and gave them all those wonderful gifts. When
you read through the first part of chapter 24, you read very
simply verses one through four, God planted Israel. He took Abram out of Ur of the
Chaldeans out of worshiping idols. And he plopped him or planted
him right in the land of Canaan. And it says, Abraham, you kind
of have to chuckle at this. Abraham became a great nation
by having Isaac, just one kid. That’s all it took. You’re a
big nation guy. You’re a nation builder, right? And then it gets
a little funnier. He gave even more people to Isaac. Well, Isaac just had two boys.
So one, one child is nation building. Two children is nation building.
And then he speaks of Jacob. Well, Jacob did it right. He
had 12 sons. He had a couple of daughters
as well, but God nevertheless took the family of Abraham, planted
him in the land of Egypt and raised up a great number. Now,
those of you who are at our Wednesday night study, you realize that
66 people came with Jacob down to Egypt to sojourn. and be provided
for by Joseph in the famine. And you add Joseph’s wife and
his two boys, and you had a perfect number of 70 people in Egypt
waiting for redemption. And so when we recount the history
of Israel, God planted Abram, Isaac, and Jacob in the promised
land. And when they sojourned in Egypt and were under Pharaoh’s
tyranny, we remember that God plagued Egypt. Moses was given
the staff of God and he went down to Egypt to war against
the gods of Egypt. 10 plagues later, God won the
arm wrestling contest. God won over the gods of Egypt
because he is the living and true God and the only redeemer
of Israel. So God planted Israel. He plagued
Egypt and then he provides for them in the wilderness. You read
in verses six through seven about how God carried them through
that wilderness generation. Remember there was water from
the rock, there was bread from heaven, there was the quail,
their sandals didn’t wear, their tunics weren’t moth-eaten. and they made it through the
wilderness. And then God pushed or he drove out the enemies.
Verses eight through 12 tell us Yahweh himself, God himself
drove out the enemies from the promised land, the Canaanites
and all the other ites were driven out. And then finally in verse
13, we can say God plundered the promised land. He says to
them here, and there’s about four or five other places in
the Bible that says, Look, you’re living in houses you did not
build. You’re drinking water from wells you did not dig. You’re
eating olives and grapes from vineyards you did not plant.
I plundered this for you. I got this for you. I drove the
people out and I gave you these wonderful spoils. And so the
capstone, if you will, of the covenant are not only grandkids,
offspring, but grapes. Some might ask you, what are
the covenant blessings? Grapes and grandkids, right? The two
Gs. Why does God tell all this history?
Why do we read the Bible all the way through? Why do we observe
the Lord’s Supper? Why is it a wonderful thing like
today to witness a baptism? It’s good to see that God is
good to his children. He’s good to Israel. It’s good
for us to recount the covenant promises. We’re not Passover
people, but you think about the whole Passover process. What
all a family did to be ready to observe the Passover, and
then the whole thing they went through, and the children were
involved. What do these things mean? And the father would tell
and answer. I think we’ve sadly lost that
in our generation. We don’t show, we don’t tell
like we ought to, but to recount the history of Israel. That’s
why I think it’s wonderful when we baptize a kid and we all stand
up and say, we’re going to help. All right, that’s what we say,
we’re gonna help. So we gave them a stack of books as a gift.
We give them some parenting books. We give them some children’s
Bibles and resources to read. Every family that comes through
our door and brings their children here, we’re gonna give them a
stack of resources to disciple their children. And I’m gonna
stay after them. How’s it going with the first one? Hey, pastor,
we had a second kid. Can we baptize our second kid?
I say, well, sure. But first, let’s talk about how
it’s going with number one. Are you keeping your vows? But
are we keeping our vows? Are we keeping nursery? Are we
teaching Sunday school? One of the great blessings of
our Sunday school curriculum for the little ones is over 52
weeks, they’re gonna get every major Bible story. They’re going
to get these stories we just told. They’re going to get about
a story about God planting Abraham in the promised land. They’re
going to get a story about Israel and Egypt. They’re going to get
a story about the wilderness, the Exodus, the red sea. They’re
going to get a story about God driving out the nations. They’re
going to get all these building blocks of the faith. And you
add that to home life. They’re going to, they’re going
to know the facts and the figures of God’s work of Israel, but
we ought to know them too as big children. That’s why it’s
good for us to sing Psalm 100, all people that on earth do dwell. We sing to the Lord with cheerful
voice, him we serve with mirth, and we tell of all his wonderful
deeds in the congregation. So the first aspect of covenant
renewal is recounting the history. Here’s the second thing, and
this is one I think you ought to take great interest in. Because
this pops up in our New Testament approach to the Christian life.
We remember our grammar class, right? There’s indicatives and
there are imperatives. Now let’s start with the imperatives.
That one’s easy. When mom opens the back door of the house and
hollers supper, has an exclamation point. What is that? That’s a
command, right? And that’s a command to wherever
you are within the sound of her voice, get home, get washed and
get to the table. Right, that’s an imperative.
You know, get, go, do, stop, hush. Those are imperatives,
they’re commands. But what are indicatives? Indicatives
tell us something. The flower is yellow, the car
is red, the sun is out. And so we’ve just spent a few
moments recounting the indicatives God saves, God redeems, God provides,
God protects, God plagues, God pushes, God plunders. You get
the idea. There’s all these indicatives.
And it’s because of the truth of the indicatives that we can
then do the imperatives. If God in Christ has saved us,
then we can obey the imperative to walk before him and be blameless.
If God had not saved us, we could not do that. If God in Christ
had not saved us, we would not be new creations. We would not
have the Holy Spirit. We would not have the word. God
would be up in heaven. wetting his sword, waiting for
judgment. But in Christ Jesus, he’s made
all the provisions we need to love him, serve him and walk
with him. He’s washed us clean. He’s given us new hearts. He’s
brought us his covenant blessings. And so in verses 14 and 15, you
have this indicative And this imperative, the now therefore
is right there. So the now therefore connects
us to 24 verses 1 to 13. Now, therefore, because God has
saved you. The imperatives, fear the Lord,
serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness, put away the gods
that your father served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve
the Lord. Those are the indicatives, the
works of redemption. These are the imperatives, fear,
serve, choose, incline your heart, obey the voice of God. Those
are a couple other commands that pop up in this passage. So we
understand the retelling of the story of redemption. We understand
the indicative and the imperative because of what God has done,
we should therefore obey him. Let’s think about a third aspect
of this passage and I’ve got it. titled Promise Keepers in
quotes. I remember back in the 90s, remember
Promise Keepers? What did every man go to? They
went to the local speedway and they heard rousing testimonies
of other men who were keeping God’s commands, right? I remember
thinking what a farce it is when a famous NASCAR race driver got
up at the one event I went to. He got up and said, you know,
all you men, rah, rah, rah, love your wives. And then he ditched
his first trophy wife and went and got him a second trophy wife.
And I got to thinking, what in the world is this? Promise keepers. The reality Joshua puts before
Israel in verses 16 to 18, make your promises, go right ahead.
You’re going to break them. And God’s going to be really
angry. God does not forgive. God is a holy God. God is a jealous
God and you’re going to forsake him. You’re going to go after
the gods of your fathers that they serve beyond the river and
you’re going to deal falsely with them. So make your promises
and watch him cut you down. Watch him judge you. I mean,
I think the other night I saw it for about the fourth or fifth
time. There’s that TV commercial. Uh, it’s really hard times. The
person says, You need Jesus, the person goes
on to say. And then the person proceeds
to give a little prayer. Dear God, I’m a sinner. I want
to love Jesus. And then he just gives that statement
that makes me cringe. If you just prayed that prayer,
you’re now a Christian. And I think that’s what’s wrong
with American Christianity. Easy believism. I like Joshua’s way a little
better. Don’t make promises. Don’t make promises you’re going
to go and break because God will wet his sword and he will cut
you down in judgment. And I’m going to stop there for
just a moment. We’re going to come back and give you a little hope about,
yes, you will be able to keep your promises, but you see what
Josh was doing. This is covenant renewal. This
is not every head bowed, every eyes closed. Do you want to follow
Jesus? Oh yes. I see that hand. That’s
y’all are y’all are in the church history class, right? That wasn’t
good for America. Um, we, we told people they were
saved when in fact, uh, likely they were not, what do we need? We need a change of heart. And
that’s what Joshua tells us, uh, in the rest of the passage,
you can’t do this. You can’t keep covenant. You’re
going to be a covenant breaker. God’s going to be angry with
you and he’s going to judge you. You can’t, and you won’t. But
notice what he says, you better or else. So isn’t that a happy
gospel message from Joshua? Choose this day whom you will
serve as for me and my house, I’m gonna serve the Lord. But
don’t be too quick to say I choose the Lord because you can’t and
you won’t and you’ll goof it up and God will be angry with
you because he’s holy, he’s jealous, he’s unforgiving. But you better
or else. Doesn’t this lead us to think
of the grace of God in Christ Jesus? Jesus is the covenant
keeper. When Jesus goes to the cross,
he has lived a perfect life. He has obeyed God perfectly.
And when he goes to the cross, he has not sinned. And when he
goes to the cross, just like the scapegoat of the old covenant,
where the priest put his hands on the head of the goat and imputed
the sins of the people onto that goat, sent him outside the camp
where he would wander away from Israel. Jesus went outside the
camp and when he went to the cross, our sins were imputed
to him. He who knew no sin became sin
for us. order that we might become the
righteousness of Christ. And so while Joshua is very hard
and says, make a commitment, wait, don’t make a commitment
because you’ll, you’ll fail. He’s pointing us to Christ who
is the commitment keeper. He is the covenant keeper. And
so when we are born again, when we come to faith in Jesus, when
we are justified, you know, the little saying God sees us just
as if we’ve never sinned. And just as if we’ve always obeyed. And so when God looks at us,
he sees us as covenant keepers, not covenant breakers, because
the righteousness, the obedience of Jesus Christ has been imputed
to us and we receive it by faith, by grace. We are new covenant
keepers. And that’s all because of the
work of Jesus. It’s not by the works of our hands. It’s not
by the tenacity of our to-do list, our can-do spirit. It’s
only because of Jesus. It’s a gift of God. So go back
to every Sunday. Go back to every Lord’s Day,
every baptism. Go back to every time you enter
the house of God. Yes, with your car keys and your
Bible and your notebook and your clothes laid out and all those
things. but more importantly, with a serious and thankful consideration
of the nature of the covenant, the end or purpose of the covenant,
the privileges and the benefits of the covenant that we have
in Christ. This little girl today that stood right here, she didn’t
stand here, her parents did. She received the covenant blessings.
She is so privileged, her parents have faith in Jesus and they
brought her to God. How many people are doing that
with their children today? Oh, they’re making sure their
kids getting a good education. They’re making sure their kids
are really good at sports. So they might become a pro. Uh,
they, they, they give their kids everything, but Jesus and they
hand them the spirit of the age. And then they wonder at age 18,
19, 20, what, what happened to them? Well, that’s an easy answer,
uh, to give, but what a privilege it was to witness that. And then
to say in your head, I hope it crossed your mind. I’m so glad
my parents had me baptized. Or I’m so glad that God interrupted
a line of paganism and that he came to me in my darkest moment
and showed me his gospel grace through his son, Jesus. And now
I’m a member of that covenant family, the family of almighty
God. Every time we gather on Sunday,
every Lord’s supper, every baptism, do we give serious and thankful
consideration of the nature of the covenant, the ends of the
covenant, the privileges of the covenant, the benefits of the
covenant. And do we say, God, I am here to renew covenant with
you. This passage ends with a very
simple phrase in verse 28. It says, so Joshua sent the people
away, every man to his inheritance. There’s this idea. I rather like
it. I think it’s a good little churchy
phrase. God gathers his people on Sunday. And then he scatters
them out into the world. And there’s a sense where each
of us go to our own possession. We go to our houses, you know,
Graham and Burlington and Mebane and Hall River and Elon and Whitsitt. And we’ve got Hillsborough and
Oak Ridge, and we’ve got all kinds of places people come to
in this church. You’ve got all your jobs you
go to, all the supermarkets you frequent, doctor’s offices you
visit. So we are gathered, but then
we are scattered. to share the covenant blessings
with others. And so I hope week by week, you
will think through the privileges that you have. Yes, there’s a
social aspect to church, it’s with other covenant loved ones. But there is a great privilege
we have here that we need to nurture and think on and love
God for week by week. Let’s go to him in prayer. Lord,
we thank you for the, Scripture to remind us of what we have
in Christ. Forgive us for taking it lightly.
Forgive us for putting it away for a few days,
then coming back and ramping it up again. Help us every day
to think on who we are in Christ, what we have in Jesus. What are
our privileges, but also what are our duties? Lord, we can’t
obey you without your help. Thank you for a new heart. We
can’t understand your ways without the Holy Spirit, so we thank
you for his guidance. And Lord, we can’t do it alone,
and so we give you thanks for the covenant family, the covenant
fellowship, where we can march together to Zion, to live for
you and to serve you. Help us as we go with your grace. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.