2013년 7월 14일 주일 영어예배 설교
여호수아 24:14-15

Choose whom you will serve
(Joshua 24:14-15)

Now, we see that God has delivered his people into Canaan. After passing through the wilderness for 40 years, lots of severe battles with enemies, and distribution of the land, rest is finally given to the people. Joshua, the successor of Moses and their great leader designated by God, is weak with old age and has one more thing to make sure of for the people, so he summons all the leaders and heads of the tribes at Shechem. Before all the people gathered, he renews the covenant of God. Now he makes sure that God first visited and called their ancestor, Abraham who never knew God and served other gods, who was the first to establish the blissful covenant with him; and as the covenant, God made his descendants one big country and saved them from slavery in Egypt. God had led them and fought for them so far, and as a result of God’s sincerity in keeping the covenant, they came to enjoy rest in the land that flows with milk and honey. In the past, there was full of sincerity, grace, and mercy of God for God’s own chosen people. Now, Joshua is making a clear point, and he wants to emphasize the fact that the graceful and great covenant of God will be continually working for the sake of God’s own name and the people’s ultimate eternal salvation and rest.
After finishing the brief renewal of the covenant of God, he demands the people to make the decision to serve only God. Today, I want to consider why Joshua urges the people to believe and serve God, and why we also must serve the God of Christianity.
In verse 14, “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” Here, the words, “now therefore”, means there is a solid ground and appropriateness of the contents following it, “to fear the Lord and serve Him.” When Joshua commands the people to fear the Lord and serve Him, who is the Lord here? Here, God the Lord is not just the most superior and strongest among the gods in the world. Here, God the Lord is not just the God of Israelites. When Joshua urges the people to serve only God the Lord, the God means who created all the universe including both tangible and intangible things. The God who has set the plan of salvation of human beings and immediately launched the rescue operation, in spite of the break of the relationship between Him and man by human being’s sin. The God who has been working to keep His own plan and covenant in spite of the continued rebellion of human beings against God himself. When God established the amazing graceful covenant for His name’s sake and his people’s salvation with Adam, Abraham, and here Joshua, God already had Jesus Christ our Lord in His mind and plan as the only agent of ultimate and final accomplishment of His covenant. As one means and process of accomplishing the covenant, God first chose and called Abraham and let him know His plan and established the covenant again with him, and began to prepare the birth of Jesus Christ through the genealogy of Abraham. And God shows his plan of salvation for His own people and the process of the plan and the characters of the plan and Himself through the history of one country called Israel that he chose in person through the antitypes, prophesies, and symbolizing and so on. All these things are for the sake of His own name and His people’s salvation, which means to acknowledge Jesus Christ as not only the life savior but also the only main agent of glorifying and worshiping in history in the universe. Here, Joshua does not mean that God the Lord is the strongest and most reliable god, but he means that God the Lord is the one and only God in the universe.
Here, Joshua is mentioning the very God the Lord. The very God who Joshua is mentioning then is the God we are believing in now. Here, Joshua is holding the exact same covenant of God then as the one we are holding in the 21st now. So in today’s text, Joshua demands the people to “fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness.” It means that they should believe in and serve the God, with all their intellect, emotion, and will, that is, with all their hearts.
And Joshua continually urges the people like this in verse 14, “Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.” Their ancestor Abraham and his family, before knowing God, used to serve the god of the moon in Ur of Chaldees, the opposite side of the Euphrates River, and their fathers used to serve several gods including the god of the goat in Egypt. So it seems that the people are still influenced by the custom of serving idols anyhow. Therefore, now, before the rest after the long journey and battles, Joshua is clarifying the fact that in spite of the people’s unworthiness and imperfection, God has been leading them and fighting for them, keeping His promise with His grace, love, and mercy. At the same time, Joshua strongly demands the people to serve only God and throw away all the gods even starting from now.
In verse 15, “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, 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.” Here, the expression “if it is evil in your eyes to” means ‘if you are unwilling to’ or ‘if it seems undesirable to you.’ And the mention of Joshua here, “choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell”, means that if they are unwilling to serve God the Lord, they cannot help but to serve the other gods. Here now, we need to clarify two facts with regard to this mention of Joshua. First, not to serve God, God of Christianity, means to serve and rely on something, whatever god it is of other religion, money, honor, health, destiny, and other people including your children or parents and so on, other than God. It is because human beings are not self-existent being but dependent-existent being. They are supposed to depend on God, but when they are still remained in their sinfulness, they unexceptionally find and hold something other than God as their god. This phenomenon is true regardless of and in spite of man’s insistence that they never believe or rely on anything. There is never a neutral zone between serving God and not serving God. Second, in fact all the gods they are considering as true gods are not real. All the gods other than God of Christianity are just manufactured in human beings’ mind. All the gods but God of Christianity are delusion, fabrication, and unreal, there is no identity and entity. Only God of Christianity is real. This crucial and absolutely decisive truth is not a matter that is negotiable and changeable through human being’s clamor of harmonious, peaceful, and respectful co-existence among religions and gods of one another. And all the things and factors that human beings consider reliable are in fact not reliable. They are just means and methods only for serving God as human beings. There is no power, no life in all the things such as human intellect and wisdom, money, honor, high position, health, people themselves. They are just means and systems for serving God. Only God has the life and power. So now Joshua is severely warning the people like this, “If you don’t like to serve God, you cannot but to serve any other things around and in you including the gods of other religions. And if it is, you are doomed and over.” In fact, this mention of Joshua is not a means of threatening but rather strongly asking to serve God with all the factors and hearts in life. Now Joshua is fully aware of what is going on in history. He is aware that God has been working with His own covenant with His own chosen people in history and nothing can intervene in or disrupt this spreading and marching of the Kingdom of God. He is well aware of the fact that serving God is not the matter of just whether being well or not but the matter of life or death. He is clearly aware that he is in the midst of the process and is deeply involved in God’s work in history in accomplishing His covenant. Joshua is aware of the fact that the main agent and matter in history is not human beings but God and Jesus Christ himself even prior to our salvation. So he confesses like this in verse 15, “But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Joshua confessed this right after gaining victory and rest after lots of severe wars and distribution allotments of the land in the Promised Land.
Everyone, even though Joshua and the Israel people got the victory over the battles and occupied the promised land, and they took their own allotments according to each tribe and came to be able to take a rest, it is not the final and ultimate rest. There are still some enemies to defeat in the region. And as we can find in the Book of Judges and Books of Samuel, they still continued to fight with some enemies who remained there in the land. The New Testament clearly points out the fact that the ultimate and final rest for God’ people is not yet given completely. The Epistle of Hebrews says in chapter 4 verses 8~9 like this, “For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God.” You and I have obviously got the guarantee of the perfect and final victory and rest through our Lord Jesus Christ. But we don’t yet see not only the end of all the universe but also the end of our private life. Be clearly aware of the fact that we are still in the battle and deeply involved in God’s covenant and its process in this history. You and I definitely need to perceive that we are living on earth in history, the earth and history that God alone created and began. We are living on earth in history that is completely under the sustaining and control of God himself. The accomplishment of God’s covenant of salvation for His chosen people has been well under way without a hitch on earth in history. And listen carefully the declaration of the revelation! All the things, literally all the things in the universe are there for God’s glory, even our salvation is also for his name’s sake. Therefore, as a human being, serve God the Lord in sincerity and faithfulness. Don’t serve or rely on any other factors in your life or gods of other religions. There is no life, no power. They are just there for God’s glory and accomplishing of God’s covenant. They are just them. They are never the object of serving and relying on. All the factors in your life come to have value only in serving God through Jesus Christ. Remember again the critical declaration of the Bible that Jesus Christ our Lord is the only main agent and matter, not human beings ourselves in history. All the things in space and time on earth in history is for Him. We serve Him. He never serves us. Even our salvation is for His name’s sake, through it, God shows the fact that He is mighty and the only real God. Even what Jesus showed, the perfect example of serving and sacrifice for others, is for God’s glory and His name’s sake. Through seeing the example of Jesus, man should recognize the power, mercy, and love of God our Lord. Pay sharp attention to what’s going on now in history. In God’s world, God’s work is under way through Jesus Christ for His own glory and name’s sake, and we are the very beneficiaries of it here. Therefore, serve God the Lord in sincerity and faithfulness putting away all the produced and fake gods or unreliable factors in your life. That is the only and best way to be happy for human beings. Today, choose whom you will serve. I’m now telling you Christian people. I’m telling you the regenerated and reborn, you whom the Holy Spirit first invited and has been working in, you who has the ear to hear. Choose this day whom you will serve. And I hope you fear God the Lord and willingly serve Him in sincerity and faithfulness. I hope, in order for you to enter the perfect rest promised by God, to fight the good fight, finish the race, and keep the faith.