“Joshua: Dare to Be
Different”
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. Amen. We continue our Fall Sermon Series on Life Lessons from the Old
Testament with today’s Old Testament Reading, and the challenge given by Joshua,
to both the ancient Israelites, and to us as God’s people in the world today:
“Choose this day whom you will serve. . . But as for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord.” After 40 years of wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites are
finally entering their promised land. They will be surrounded on all sides
by paganism and immorality and false gods. The chosen people of God are
supposed to transform the land and its pagan culture. But, Joshua is
worried. Joshua is worried that instead of God’s people transforming the
pagan culture, the pagan culture will transform them. “Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned
the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented
themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people . . . 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. But if
serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, choose this day whom you will serve,
whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods
of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord.” Like the ancient people of God, we are surrounded today on all sides by
paganism and immorality and false gods. As Paul tells Timothy, “But mark
this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers
of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without
self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited,
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. . . But you, man of God,
flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance
and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith.” The story of what happened to the ancient Israelites in their promised
land is very sad indeed. Joshua’s worry was justified. That day the
people boldly proclaimed, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other
gods! 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. 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.” But, as you continue reading the Old Testament, it tells the sad story
of how God’s people of old soon forgot this bold proclamation. Just as
Joshua feared, instead of God’s people transforming the pagan culture, the pagan
culture transformed them. Before they entered their promised land they
proclaimed, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods!”
But, soon they had done exactly that, forsaken the Lord and turned instead to
the false gods of the prevailing pagan culture. In these last days, what are the false gods in our own prevailing pagan
culture that are luring us away from the true God? Paul identifies some of
them in the quotation I read earlier from 2nd Timothy. “People will be lovers of themselves.” That is what Paul lists
first, and it is certainly the #1 false god. “People will be lovers of
themselves.” The right hierarchy of priorities in life can be summed up with the
word “Joy,” J-O-Y, Jesus first, others second, you last. But, our
priorities in life are upside down, and truncated: Y-O, “yo”, you first, others
second, and Jesus often doesn’t even make the list. Or, perhaps,
“M-M-M,” me, me, me. That’s the distorted priorities and the sinful way of
the world that we have fallen into, our #1 false god: our self-centered, selfish
selves. “People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money.” Paul
lists the second most prominent false god as money, property, possessions.
But, really it is not these things themselves that’s the problem. They are
good gifts of God. As Paul again tells Timothy, “For everything God
created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with
thanksgiving.” So, what is the problem? The problem is with us, turning money,
property, possessions into a false god by giving to them the affection and the
place in our lives that should be reserved for God alone. As Martin Luther
says in the Small Catechism, in his explanation of the First Commandment, “‘You
shall have no other gods.’ What does this mean? We should fear,
love, and trust in God above all things.” But, if you instead “fear, love, [or] trust” in anything more than God
himself, whatever it is, that has become your false god, your idol. Paul
puts it this way in Romans, “[They] worshiped and served created things rather
than the Creator.” In Colossians he describes it as, “Greed, which is idolatry.”
And he tells Timothy, “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.”
That is the problem: the LOVE of money, property, possessions. “For
the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for
money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” “But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money.” Not just in these
last days, but throughout history humanity’s two most prominent false gods have
been ourselves and our things, and so Paul puts them at the beginning of his
list. At the very end of Paul’s list is another false god, which has
increasing prominence and dominance in these last days: “But mark this: There
will be terrible times in the last days. People will be . . . lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God.” On the one hand, it is to be expected that we would see this form of
idolatry in the pagan culture around us: “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers
of God.” But, Paul’s prophecy is very specific: “lovers of pleasure RATHER
THAN lovers of God.” Paul is specifically prophesying about the Church,
the people of God, who should be expected to put God first, that in the terrible
times of the last days even THEY will put pleasure above God. The sad fact is, 500 years after Martin Luther restored the Bible to
the Church, many church bodies have again forgotten and strayed from God’s Word.
The result is that in many church bodies today we see a staggering fulfillment
of Paul’s prophecy: “lovers of pleasure RATHER THAN lovers of God.” Grotesque,
immoral behavior, forbidden by the Bible, is no longer condemned as unchristian,
but tolerated, accepted, even celebrated in these faithless churches. As
Paul told the Corinthians, “I can hardly believe the reports about the sexual
immorality tolerated among you.” Just as with the ancient people of God, instead of the Church today
transforming the pagan culture of the world, in many cases the Church is
actually adopting the pagan culture and false gods of the world. In
Ephesians, Paul describes such Christians as “infants, tossed back and forth by
the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning
and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” But, the problem is not just out there with someone else. We must
all confess that the problem is also right here, in each one of us and our own
sinful selves. As Paul says in Romans, “What shall we conclude then? Are
we any better? No, not at all! We have already made the charge that [all] alike
are all under sin. As it is written: ‘There is no one righteous, not even
one’ . . . for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” In God’s sight, we are all sinful and deserving of punishment. We
all fall short of heaven and deserve damnation in hell. “For the wages of
sin is death,” Paul continues in Romans. “But, the gift of God is eternal
life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” That’s what we are celebrating here
today: the gift of God, eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but
to save the world through him.” “Christ loved us and gave himself up for
us as an offering and sacrifice to God.” “He is the atoning sacrifice for
our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to
reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through his blood, shed on
the cross.” “Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins
through his name.” “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be
saved.” That’s what we are celebrating here today, and that’s the Good News we
have to share, which will transform the world: the gift of God, eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord. “Choose this day whom you will serve.” Like the ancient people of
God, that is the challenge confronting us today. “But mark this: There
will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of
themselves, lovers of money . . . lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.
. . But you, man of God, flee from all this, and pursue righteousness,
godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the
faith.” The life lesson we learn from Joshua is to not be transformed by the
paganism and immorality and false gods of the world, but dare to be different.
Paul puts it this way in Philippians, “[Be] blameless and pure, children of God
without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, among whom you shine as
lights in the world.” “Choose this day whom you will serve. . . But as for me and my house,
we will serve the Lord.” Return to Top | Return to Sermons | Home | Email Church Office
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