“We Will Serve the Lord”
Joshua 24:14-15

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost—October 3, 2021

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Our text is today’s Old Testament Reading, in which Joshua proclaims to the people of Israel: “Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped . . . and serve the Lord. . . . Choose this day whom you will serve . . . but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

When Joshua tells the people of Israel to “Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped,” he means it literally, physically throwing them away.  You may recall an incident in Genesis when Jacob leaves the house of his father-in-law Laban, and before they leave his wife Rachel steals from her father and takes along with her what are called the “household gods.”

These would be small statues, idols of the various false gods which were popular in the ancient Middle East.  When Rachel’s father came and searched their caravan for these stolen idols, she hid them in the saddlebag of her camel.  She apparently wasn’t the only one with such idols, for Jacob later says to his whole household, “Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you,” and we are told, “So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had . . . and Jacob buried them.”

These idols could actually be quite valuable.  Isaiah writes, “They pour out GOLD from their bags and weigh out SILVER on the scales; they hire a goldsmith to make it into a god, and they bow down and worship it.”  Instead of keeping their money in a bank or a mutual fund or certificate of deposit, people in ancient times would often “invest” their wealth in an idol.  This makes sense if you understand that from their perspective an idol was considered to be a very safe investment, because it was thought that the god represented by the idol would itself guard it and fend off thieves and loss and misfortune.  Putting your money into an idol was sort of their version of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

So, when Joshua tells the Israelites, “Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped,” he asking them to do something really big, and really radical. He’s not just telling them to throw away some statutes.  He is actually telling them to divest themselves of their major investments.  In the same way, the book of Acts tells us that in Ephesus, “Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed their evil deeds. A number who had practiced sorcery brought their scrolls and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand silver coins.”

A false god is anyone or anything that you put in the #1 place that should be only occupied by God in your life.  Martin Luther puts it this way in the Large Catechism: “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God. . . .  Idolatry does not consist merely of erecting an image and praying to it. It is primarily in the heart. . .  Search and examine your own heart thoroughly and you will find whether or not it clings to God alone. . .  Does your heart cling to something else . . ? Then you have an idol, another god.”

Our own false gods fall into two categories.  Some are inherently evil.  Like the ancient Israelites or the Christians in Ephesus, we must simply throw them away and be rid of them; they can’t be saved or fixed or rehabilitated.  Other false gods that we have are not inherently evil, but, as Luther says, can become evil because we give them an improper place in our lives, a place higher and more important than the true God.  In that case we may not need to get rid of whatever it is, but we do need to fix our priorities, and place our faith and trust in God alone.

The prime examples of false gods that are inherently evil and we must “throw away,” as Joshua says, are first of all in the realm of religion: any actual false gods, and all false doctrine.  There is a trend in our world today to look upon different religions as just different paths all leading to the same God.  There was a shocking example of this at the national convention a few years ago of a mainline American Protestant denomination.  A resolution was proposed simply affirming the Scriptural statement that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him.  That resolution failed by an overwhelming 71%.  It is apparently now considered too politically incorrect even by many Christians to declare that Jesus Christ is the only way to salvation. 

But, in the First Commandment the Lord declares, “You shall have no other gods before me.  You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.”

In the realm of religion there is truth and falsehood; the true God, and false gods.  The true God is a jealous God, who demands we worship him alone. The true God is a jealous God, who demands, as Joshua tells the Israelites, that we “throw away” all false gods.  As St. Paul says in 1st Corinthians, “There is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”

Another false god in the realm of religion is false doctrine.  Jesus said, “If you continue in my word you are truly my disciples.”  But, the opposite is also true.  If we deviate from the teachings of his word, we are not truly his disciples.  Hebrews says, “Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings.”  Jesus warned, “Take heed that ye be not deceived.”  St. John says, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”  As Joshua tells the Israelites to “throw away” their false gods, we must “throw away” false doctrine, following the example in the book of Acts of the early Christians at Berea: “They received the message with great eagerness, and they examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”

The final false god in the realm of religion is adopting a worldview or philosophy that is contrary to the Scriptures, as St. Paul warns in Colossians, “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”  Isaiah puts it this way: “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.”  In many areas, that is exactly what the dominant worldview in our society and culture does: calls evil good and good evil.  And the world is always trying to suck you into accepting that wicked worldview.

In the realm of morality, one example of a false god that is inherently evil would be the distorted, unscriptural notions about gender, sexuality, and marriage that are being promoted, if not demanded, in our society today.  For, Jesus declares in today’s Gospel Reading a simple truth and basic fact, that has always been true from the beginning, and remains true today, and will be true unto the end of the world: “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’  ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’”

Winston Churchill said, “Truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.”  In the realm of human sexuality, all sorts of bizarre notions, that are contrary to basic reason, and science, and human experience, are being foisted upon us today.  But, the simple truth that Jesus declares in today’s Gospel Reading is incontrovertible, and despite all these strange ideas, as Churchill says, “in the end, there it is”: “At the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’”

So, the world’s fraudulent, false teachings and unscriptural notions about gender, sexuality, and marriage are an example of an inherently evil false god that is never acceptable, the kind of false god that we must “throw away,” as Joshua tells the Israelites.  “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.”

The second kind of false gods we have are not inherently evil, but, as Luther says, they can become evil because we give them an improper place in our lives, a place higher and more important than the true God.  In that case it may not necessary for us to get rid of whatever it is, but we do need to fix our priorities, and place our faith and trust in God alone.

For example, St. Paul is often misquoted as saying “Money is the root of all evil.”  But, what he actually says is that the “LOVE of money is the root of all evil.”  Money and wealth itself is not inherently evil.  But, if we LOVE it, if we give money and wealth in improper place in our lives, then it becomes evil, as St. Paul says in Colossians: “greed, which is idolatry.”  Luther says in the Large Catechism, “Many a person thinks he has God and everything he needs when he has money and property; in them he trusts and of them he boasts . . .  Surely such a man also has a god—named mammon, his money and possessions, on which he fixes his whole heart. This is the most common idol on earth.”     Jesus put it this way, “You cannot serve both God and money.”

That doesn’t mean you must divest yourself of material your possessions because they have or could become an idol to you.  Material things and possessions are not inherently evil, as St. James says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father,” and St. Paul tells Timothy, “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.”

It is impossible to live in this world without material possessions.  But, you must put all such things in their proper place, and worship and serve the Creator rather than created things.  That is the essence of idolatry, as St. Paul says in Romans, “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator.”  He tells us right attitude in 1st Corinthians: “Use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them.”

There is a connection between JOSHUA in the Old Testament and our Lord JESUS in the New Testament.  You may not realize that during his lifetime here on earth Jesus would have never actually been called “Jesus.”  Because “Jesus” is the Greek translation of his real, Hebrew name, “Yeshua” or “Joshua.”  Jesus was actually named after the great hero Joshua of the Old Testament.  The name means “The Lord Saves” or “The Lord Delivers.”  After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, it was Joshua in the Old Testament who led the Israelites to defeat their enemies that stood in their way and finally delivered the people into the promised land.  The great hero Joshua of the Old Testament pointed forward to Jesus, the Joshua of the New Testament.  For he defeated for us all the great enemies of humankind, sin, death, and the devil. 

St. Peter says, “He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.”  Your Joshua defeated SIN for you by his sacrificial death.  As Hebrews says, “We have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” 

St. Paul says in 2nd Corinthians, “We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus.”  Your Joshua defeated DEATH for you by his resurrection from the dead.  As Jesus promised, “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

Today’s Epistle Reading from Hebrews says, “He destroyed him who had the power of death, that is, the devil.”  Your Joshua defeated for you the DEVIL and all the forces of evil, as St. Paul says in Colossians, “triumphing over them by the cross.”

Just as Joshua in the Old Testament led the Israelites to defeat their enemies that stood in their way and finally delivered them into the promised land, your Joshua defeated for you the spiritual enemies of sin, death, and the devil, and he will deliver you into the promised land of heaven.

“Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped . . . and serve the Lord. . . . Choose this day whom you will serve.”

We worship and serve the true God alone, because he alone grants us what no false god could ever give: forgiveness, life, salvation.  Because he sent his Son to be your Savior, by his death paying for all your sins, earning you complete forgiveness, opening to you the gates of heaven, where he has gone to prepare a place for you and promises to take you to be with him.  As Luther says in the Large Catechism, “We must acknowledge everything as God’s gifts and thank him . . .  It is he who protects us from evil, he who saves and delivers us . . .  We are to trust in God alone and turn to him . . . for it is he who gives us body, life, food, drink, nourishment, health, protection, peace, and all temporal and eternal blessings.”

“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”