It's a No-Brainer!

Joshua 24:14-24

14 Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates 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 ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

16 Then the people answered, “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 parents 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.”

19 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the Lord. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.”

21 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”

22 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”

“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.

23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”

24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.”

It’s a No-Brainer!

How many choices do you make every day? Sometimes it feels like life is on autopilot, doesn’t it? There’s not a whole lot of choice; you just follow a predetermined well-worn path. You get up, eat breakfast, shower, get dressed, go to work/school, do what your boss or teacher tells you to do, get home, eater dinner, watch TV, go to bed, rinse and repeat tomorrow. But even that predetermined, well-worn path is just a choice you’ve already made – you chose your job/career, you might have chosen your classes. And within that rut are all kinds of micro-choices you have to make, like what you’ll have for breakfast, which clothes you’re going to wear, whether you’ll talk to that weird person you pass in the hall every day, etc…

We are surrounded by choices. We make decisions every minute of every day. Some are difficult. Others are easy. It’s one thing to decide what you want to do when you grow up, where you want to go on vacation. It’s something else entirely to choose whether you drive within the lanes on the Henday or veer off into the ditch, whether you eat the Twinkie, or the wrapper it came in. Some choices are absolute no-brainers.

And that’s the kind of choice that Joshua laid before the people of Israel as they stood in the land God had been promising to give them for hundreds of years. He said, “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, 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.” 

At first glance, when Joshua says, “Choose for yourselves whom you will serve,” it almost sounds like an invitation, e.g. “Go, do your research. Don’t take my word for it. Experiment. It doesn’t really matter which God you worship. Find the right one for you. Just don’t do nothing. Don’t be spiritually lazy.” After all, that’s what the world tells us, isn’t it? That’s the choice that our teenagers and university students and churchless adults confront every day. “There are so many religions out there. I just have to pick the right one for me. I just have to choose who my god will be.”

But that’s not what Joshua is saying at all. He doesn’t hold up the gods of Babylon and Egypt as viable alternatives to the God of Israel. What he’s trying to do is point out the hypocrisy and inconsistency that many of the Israelites embodied – the thinking: “I can follow the God of Israel and hold on to these other traditions and practices that are part of my family heritage, that my friends and neighbours value.” That’d be like pledging money to Poilievre’s campaign but voting for Trudeau. That’d be like rooting for the Oilers at Roger’s Place in the battle of Alberta while wearing a Flame’s jersey. The two things don’t go together!

And while we can come up with all kinds of historical or hypothetical examples of hypocrisy, it’s not always as easy or as pleasant to uproot our own. Do you remember these words? “Do you desire to remain faithful to the teachings of Christ, be diligent in the use of God’s Word and sacraments, and lead a godly life as the Lord gives you strength? If so, answer: I do, and I ask God to help me.” Many of us made that promise when we were confirmed or received into membership at this congregation. We made a solemn vow before God and each other. How have we done? Joshua told the people to throw away all of the other gods in their tents, the gods their forefathers worshiped alongside the true God. What are the gods of your fathers that have found a home in your tent?

Maybe your dad abused alcohol growing up, and you use that as an excuse to do the same, holding onto that empty god which promises everything and gives you nothing but a headache. You can’t serve both God and alcohol. Maybe your dad was always at work and didn’t have time for you as a kid, and you use that as an excuse to hold onto that empty god that  promises success, but only leaves you fatigued to be faithful in the other areas of your life. You can’t serve both God and work. Maybe your mother was rude to your father growing up, and you use that as an excuse to hold onto that empty god that promises you the good feeling of superiority but only leaves you with burned bridges and a guilty conscience. You can’t serve both God and self. Is your god a busy-ness that neglects worship of the true God? Is your god greed? You can’t serve both God and money.

What are the idols in your tent? And which one will you choose – the one and only true God or one of the many empty gods that Satan uses to lead souls to hell? I suspect that everyone here today would say the same thing the Israelites did: “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD and serve other gods!...we will serve the LORD because he is our God!” And that’s the right answer! It’s the only answer; it’s a no-brainer. You might expect Joshua to be proud, but that’s not how he responds:

“You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve other gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you!”

Joshua knows his people! He knows that talk the talk, but don’t always walk the walk. Joshua is saying, “Don’t just say what you think God  (or your pastor or your spouse or your mom) wants you to say. Don’t you know what kind of God you are dealing with? He is holy and jealous! Don’t you dare come to him thinking, ‘though it makes him sad to see the way we live, he’ll always say, ‘I forgive.’” Our God is not a soft cuddly Santa in the sky who drools over easy lip service. He is not a God who is pleased with our strongly worded confirmation vows when they are followed by weakly lived lives. You have to be all in!

I’m sure you’ve heard the hog and hen story. Both hog and hen were walking past a church and noted the pastor’s sermon title on the outside bulletin board. It read: “What can we do to help the poor?” As hogs and hens are wont to do, they entered into earnest conversation over the question as they continued on their way. At last, the hen had a bright idea: “I’ve got it!” She cackled, “We can help the poor by giving them a ham and eggs breakfast!” “Oh, no you don’t,” shot back the hog, “for you, that only means a contribution, but for me, it means total commitment.” The hog was right. That is Joshua’s point—there can be no chicken’s way out; we must go “whole hog” for Jesus.

So the question is not will you say you will only follow God and put away all other idols in your life. The question is are you willing to do it? What’s your choice? It’s easy to say something. It’s another thing entirely to back it up with action. But that’s what makes God’s choice so beautiful.

There Jesus was in the halls of his heavenly Father enjoying eternity in perfect glory, when suddenly he had a choice to make: Do I stay here in the painless perfection of heaven, or do I give up my glory and descend into the dirty, grimy world below and give up my life through torture and torment on a cross for a mass of humanity that likes to say they love me, but shows a different face entirely on Monday morning and Saturday night? The spectator might look at Jesus and think, “That’s a no-brainer. That’s an easy choice.” And Jesus would agree, but for an entirely different reason.

For Jesus it was a no-brainer to leave heaven and come to earth and die for you, because he loves you. For all the times our faith has faltered, for all the times we gave our attention to something/someone else, Jesus came to earth with consistent determination and undivided attention to save you. He marched to his death on the cross so that you could live with him forever in heaven. He took away your sin and your guilt and your shame and replaced it with peace and joy in his name.

And that’s not just a gift he gave to you 2,000 years ago, or a gift that will only apply to you on some undisclosed future occasion when you finally go to heaven. He still treats you with the same consistent determination and undivided attention today and every day. Think about that! How many times has your mind wandered in this one sermon? His attention is still on you. With all the things – all the cares and concerns he has all over the world, all at once – in his mind, there is nothing better to do than to love you. That’s your God.

And that’s why Joshua was able to make his pledge of allegiance: “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” Make it yours, too. This week, do some soul searching about the idols that you have allowed to stay in your tent and choose to throw them out and only serve the LORD. That is going to be hard. But remember who your God is. He is the one who delivered the Israelites from slavery, and provided for them in the desert, and led them to the Promised Land. And he’s done the same for you. He has delivered you from your sin. He provides for you every day. And he is preparing a place for you even now in his heavenly home.

So, people of God, choose this day whom you will serve. Give up your empty gods. Embrace the true God. It’s a no-brainer. As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. Amen.

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Live as Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Matthew 5:11-16

11 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Live as Disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Dear Friends in Christ Jesus,

She was faithfully doing her work as a mother-to-be. As my wife and I went on our daily walks we could see her in the exact same spot every time: on a little peninsula by a flowing stream, sitting on a nest she had made, protecting the eggs she had laid. She was a Canada goose, and we wondered how long it would be before her goslings would be hatched; we wondered how many there would be.

But one day a couple of weeks ago as we got close to where the mother goose and her nest were, we could hear her calling out in anguish. She was standing next to her nest, very distraught. There were eggs shells in her nest. But there were no goslings. Either a predator had snatched them or they had been swept away by the nearby river that was swollen and flowing quickly because of a rain storm during the night.

In any case, the anguished cries of the mother goose announced to anyone who would listen that the loss of her goslings was a tragedy.

This world is filled with tragedies, every day. And the cause of so many of these tragedies is sinful mankind. The hearts of humans are inclined towards evil all the time. Human beings do what is truly evil, breaking God’s righteous commandments, including the commandment that protects human life: “You shall not murder.” God is the one who creates human life; God reserves the right to end human life. Murder is the intentional or careless taking of human life and includes the killing of a baby in his or her mother’s womb and the so-called “mercy killing” of people who are old or sick or suffering. Who mourns the tragic taking of human life? Who will bring it to the attention of the world that such things are happening? Who will speak to people’s consciences with the word of God, calling people to repentance? Jesus’s followers will. Why? Because they know the Lord, who he has changed their hearts and minds by his word and by his Holy Spirit.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us how to live as his disciples in this sinful world. He encourages us to remember how blessed we are and to serve as salt and light.

“Live as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ!”

Part One: Remembering how blessed you are

The Gospel of Matthew is the continuation of a true story, a story that began in Old Testament times. God promised Adam and Eve that a Savior would rescue fallen mankind from sin, death, and hell. God promised Abraham that the Savior of all people would come from his descendants. God promised King David that the Savior would be an eternal king from his royal line.

The Gospel of Matthew announces that Jesus Christ is that promised Savior of all. God the Father sent him into the world. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He was Immanuel—God with us. When he preached and taught the people, he spoke with the authority of God. He came with the authority to do even more: to lay down his life to save people from their sins and to take up his life again. Jesus is the Risen and Ascended Savior. When he comes again, Jesus will come with the authority to judge all people.

As we ponder these words from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, let’s remember that he speaks these words to us with divine authority.

Many people would deny that authority. They think that Jesus was just a human being, just one philosopher or one preacher among many. They would say that Jesus’s teaching should be taken with a grain of salt or that it is fine to reject what he said, especially if it does not agree with societal values or modern thinking. They pick and choose the parts of Jesus’s teaching they like and pass over the parts that they don’t like.

The way Matthew introduces this sermon is significant: “Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.” The scene is similar to what happened in the book of Exodus when God gathered the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. There God spoke to his chosen people—the people he had rescued out of Egypt—and revealed his name to them.

Jesus also speaks as God. The Son of God came to reveal his Father to us—his righteousness and his love. Jesus came to rescue us out of sin, death, and hell and to guide us in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with eight “blessed are” statements called the beatitudes. In the first four, Jesus states how poor and needy his people were by nature. But Jesus has made them heirs of heaven. In the next four, Jesus says what his disciples will do. They will serve and be persecuted.

After those eight statements, Jesus speaks directly and personally to his disciples:

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We should not be surprised when people speak falsely against us and say all kinds of evil against. It is not us that they are rejecting, but God. Jesus tells us that we can rejoice when this happens, because it is evidence that we belong to God and not to this sinful world, which is perishing. We have an inheritance kept in heaven for us—and it will never perish, spoil, or fade (1 Peter 1).

So, dear friends, as we think about our lives in this world, let’s remember how blessed we are. God has changed our hearts so that we love what he loves and hate what he hates. We pray to him and call on him for help. We love him and his word. We honor those God has place over us. We protect life of all human beings. We honor marriage and family as he designed it. We flee from sexual immorality. We receive our daily bread with thankful hearts and use what we have in service to others. We speak well of others; we speak the truth in love. We fight against our own sinful desires, living lives of repentance. We don’t do these things perfectly, but we strive to do them because God richly and daily forgives our sins because of Jesus and because he empowers us by his Holy Spirit to struggle against our own sinful desires, to fight the fight of faith, and to live in a way that honors our Father in heaven.

We are blessed, now and forever. The Holy Spirit convinces us that Jesus is the risen Savior who is with us always, to the very end of the age. As we gather in his name, he is with us. He speaks to us by his word and invites us to a holy meal in which he assures us that our sins are forgiven and that we will be guests at his banquet in heaven.

So, dear friends, live as Jesus’s disciples, remembering how blessed you are.

Part Two: Serving as salt and light

We are blessed to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have many reasons to rejoice and give thanks. But we also have reasons to mourn and groan and cry out in anguish like that Canada goose. Our battle against our own sinful nature is difficult. The consequences of sin, including death, are hard to bear. The sinfulness of this world is difficult to see. We are living in a world that is in rebellion against the Creator.

Life might be easier for Jesus’s disciples, if they remain quiet and hidden in this world. But God has a better plan and purpose for us: we are salt and light. We are here to preserve the world and to shine the light of God’s Word in a dark world—by how we live and by what we say.

13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

14 “You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”

Jesus talks about salt losing its saltiness or a lamp being hidden under a bowl because he understands how difficult it will be for us to live as his disciples and proclaim his word in this sinful world. The people of this world might call us arrogant or narrow-minded, even though we are humbly doing what God has called us to do and we are speaking the words that he gave us to say. We need to pray that God would guide and bless us, that he would help us to speak the truth in love, that all we do would be for our Father’s glory. We pray that God would use our humble proclamation of his word to change hearts, to lead people out of darkness into the light of Christ. We pray that the Lord would make the light of the good news about Jesus to shine in their hearts as well. “For God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2). That is why he makes us to be salt and light in this world.

So, should we go around like that Canada goose, crying out in anguish, telling everyone how sinful they are? The Apostle Peter who heard the Sermon on the Mount and who preached in Jerusalem on Pentecost, was guided by the Holy Spirit Peter to teach believers in the early Christian church how to live in a hostile environment:

13 Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good? 14 But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. “Do not fear their threats; do not be frightened.” 15 But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16 keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. 17 For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. 18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

As you live in one of the most socially liberal developed countries in the world, let your light shine. Walk in God’s ways. Worship and serve the Lord with joy. Be kind and gentle to others. Serve them, especially the lowly and the weak, without expectation of anything in return. Recognize that the dignity of people is not dependent on their abilities or their health, but on the God who created them and redeemed them and wants to dwell with them. Imitate your heavenly Father, who loves the prisoner, the hungry, the blind, the oppressed, those who are bowed down, and all the righteous (Psalm 146).  People may notice your attitude, your faith, your love, and your hope. They may say things like: “How do you do it?” Or “Why don’t you complain more?” Or “What is your secret?” They might say, “I have to hand it to you.” Statements like that give you a chance to tell people about our Father in heaven, about the Savior at his right hand, and about the Holy Spirit who makes our bodies his holy temples. Engage in conversations with people. Be prepared to tell them about the Lord and his plan of salvation.

Live as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ and serving as salt and light are not things we can do by our own wisdom or strength or zeal. And we don’t have to. By his word, God gives us the armor we need: a shield of faith, a belt of truth, a breastplate of righteousness, a helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit. Our feet are fitted with gospel readiness, and we pray in the Spirit on all occasions.

Our service as salt and light in this sinful world is temporary. But our blessings and our joy as disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ are eternal. Because our Savior lives, we too will live. Amen.