Jack Graham - Decide Today
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There is no person that God cannot save! There is no promise that God will not keep! There is nothing that our God cannot do! Take your Bibles and turn with me to Joshua, the twenty-fourth chapter. Over theses past weeks we have been in a series of messages called FORWARD, And it is a message series from the book of Joshua. And we said that there is a promised life for every on of us We are saved, but we are not only saved forever, we are saved to live an abundant life here and now. The title of this message is "Decide Today" because today from the last passage in Joshua, I'm going to ask you to make a decision that Joshua himself made so long ago and calls us to make today.
This is all a part, chapter 23 and 24, of a farewell message that Joshua gives to first the leaders of Israel in chapter 23 and then all of the people of Israel, the nation of Israel in chapter 24. We're told that Joshua, when he died was 110 years of age so by now, he's an old general. He was born in slavery. Truly one of the great biographies in history. He was born in slavery in Egypt; he came out with the Israelites at the Passover, the exodus out of Egypt when God set His people free.
And then through the Red Sea; saw the hand of God with miracles as Moses led them; and then through the wilderness: it was 40 long treacherous years in the wilderness and an entire generation died in the wilderness, but Joshua persevered. Joshua kept believing God and trusting God, and ultimately, he became the successor to Moses and the leader of Israel that would actually take the children of Israel into the land of promise, the land flowing with milk and honey. So Joshua is a great man. Our Lord Jesus Himself bears this man's name, Yeshua, Joshua which means God saves.
And so Joshua led the children of Israel through the Jericho battle and on to many other battles that they fought, and now they're possessing the land just as God had promised them. In fact, before we read our scripture today, just get a taste of the first message that Joshua delivered in Joshua 23. There's a couple of verses I want you to note and maybe underscore in your Bible. It says: "For the Lord", this is verse 9 of chapter 23, "For the Lord has driven out before you great and strong nations and as for you, no man has been able to stand before you to this day". And why is that? "One man of you puts to flight a thousand since it is the Lord your God who fights for you, just as He promised you".
Know that in the Christian life it is the Lord God who fights for us. And we've said many times in many ways, "We don't fight for victory; we fight from victory". We sang of that. We know the story; our victory is in Jesus. And therefore, he says in verse 11: "Be therefore, careful to love the Lord your God". So he delivers this message to the leaders of Israel. And he goes on to say that "I'm about to go the way of all the earth". Look at verse 14: "I'm about to go the way of all the earth, and you know in your hearts and souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you; not one of them has failed".
How many of you can say all of the promises of God have come to pass in my life, or will come to pass because we know that God always keeps His promises! And that's what Joshua reminds of us today. He says, "Look, I'm dying". Interesting way to describe his death. "I'm going the way of all the earth". Everyone dies: in spite of great medicine and scientific advances and the extension of life, we all die! And now at 110 years of age, Joshua knows that his time has come and because of that, it's time to say goodbye. And with his goodbye, he is challenging Israel and us to what? Go forward.
And after preaching of the greatest of God and the goodness of God in their lives, he closes his message with an invitation in chapter 24; and here is our text: "Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers 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 who you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in land in which you dwell". And watch this; this is a text that some of you, many of you, perhaps, have in your household on your wall somewhere, marked in your Bible. It's one of the great verses in God's Word. "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord". Let's say that together: "But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".
Throughout Joshua's life, the one thing you can say about him among many is that he made good decisions, always to honor God and serve Him and to believe Him. He led Israel and led them well. And now he, having lived his legacy. This is his legacy. Remember, your legacy is not something you leave; your legacy is what you live. It's the life that you live. And the legacy is what you leave behind when you've lived a life to honor God like Joshua. And he lived his legacy and he passed his faith to his children. He determined to fear and follow the Lord. And now here at the end of his life, he's ready to go and leave this earth, having gone the way of all the earth, but then into eternity.
And so he closes his story, General Joshua's journal, with this great call to commitment. "To fear the Lord and to serve Him; to honor Him, to turn from the idols of this world and the false gods that are all around us and to choose God and serve Him". That's why I'm call this message today, "Choose Today" He said, "Choose you this day whom you will serve". So what kind of decision are we going to make today. First of all, decide I will fear the Lord. That's what verse 14 says. He calls us to fear the Lord.
Now to fear God is counterpart to faith in God. What faith is in the New Testament, the fear of the Lord expresses our faith in the Lord, primarily referred to in the Old Testament, but it's a word, to fear the Lord, which means to honor Him. To love Him, to be devoted to Him; to reverence God. To fear God is to live in awe and wonder of who God is! And we are commanded again and again and again and again in God's Word to fear the Lord. So you have a decision to make: Will I live in the fear of God? Some described the fear of the Lord as love on its knees. That we bow before the Lord in honor and adoration. Then secondly, I will live (Here's a decision to make) I will live a devoted life. I will faithfully serve and follow Jesus. He said, "Fear the Lord and serve Him".
Now the word serve here is the word that doesn't just simply mean going around doing good deeds, which may be included in the idea of serving the Lord. But to serve the Lord means to worship Him".You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only will you serve". To serve Him means that we give our lives to Him and not the other gods of this world. He cautions them. He says don't life for the gods of this world, the idols that were back there in Egypt and the idols of the Amorites. And you know, we have idols in our world today; idols of pleasure and idols of possession and idols of pleasure in this world. And so many people are going after the idols and living to worship and serve. And again, whatever you worship, whoever you worship, you will serve.
So if you worship sin, you will serve sin. If you worship the idol of pleasure, you will serve the idol of pleasure, and so on. But when you serve God, when you worship God, then you will bow before Him and surrender your life to Him. I have three ideas that express what we are to do when we are worshiping and serving the Lord like this. I will live a devoted, consecrated life. Is that a decision you are willing to make? I will live a consecrated, separated, dedicated life before the Lord. I will fear God and serve Him. What does that mean? That I am to give myself completely and continually to Christ.
The Apostle Paul said in Romans 12:1-10: "I beseech you brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy", that is, completely, "acceptable to Him, who is your reasonable worship". And that word worship there in the New Testament can be translated service, your reasonable service so there you see it again. Our worship is singing songs and worshiping Him with our lips and sacrifices of praise. But it is beyond that, it is the giving of our lives to Christ. Secondly, it means seek the lifestyle of Jesus. When I am serving the Lord in this way, I am seeking the lifestyle of Jesus. I want Jesus' life to be reproduced and reflected in me. That I will always be praying, "Lord, make me more like You"!
What is Jesus like? Galatians 5 speaks of the fruit of the Spirit which is a composite of the character of Christ in us. The fruit of the Spirit, the results of the work of Christ in us. He said it is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. This is Christ in you. And therefore, when I am serving the Lord and living a devoted life. What does that look like? It's a surrender to the Lordship of Christ and it is a seeking of the lifestyle of Christ. I want to live like Jesus. That's who we are as Christians. And then it means sharing the love of Christ. To live a dedicated lives means that I will share the love of Christ, and that includes with one another, the family of God.
If you're a Christian, if you are a follower of Jesus, you have a family, a family of faith. And because we have a family, we love God's church, God's people. We want to be together and grow together. We serve one another and we share the love of Christ. The Apostle John would say in his little letter of 1 John, "If you don't love the brothers and sisters of Christ then the love of God isn't in you". And so if you are a dedicated disciple and follower of Jesus, if you are serving the Lord as Joshua spoke about, then you will surrender to the lordship of Christ and you will seek the lifestyle of Christ, and you will share the love of Christ; and not just with one another, but, of course, with the world, because God loves the world just like He loves you and me. And God has given us a calling, each one of us to share the love of Jesus Christ and to show it by loving one another.
"By this shall all people know that you are my disciples, that you have love one for another". But there's a third thing in this call to commitment that Joshua gave and gives to us today and that is I choose today; I decide today to follow Christ. Now I am motivated by Joshua's courageous commitment; his boldness as he stands before an entire nation and declares his faith and makes this decision, and calls us all to make the same choice. So what is this decision? When you look at it, again, look at verse 15; it says, "If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers on the other side of the River, or the gods on this land of promise, the Amorites. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord".
I want to say several things about the decision that we all must make. And remember, your decision determines your direction and direction determines your destiny. Remember that you first make your decisions and then your decisions make you. So with that in mind, number one, it was a public decision. Joshua stood before all the people as their leader, but someone they have known for all these years, someone who is about to go the way of all the earth and into eternity. So what's he going to say? What's the farewell address? What's the last message? He makes it public, and he was not persuaded by what others did or how others were going to choose.
He said, "Look, if you're not going to serve God, then choose not to serve Him and serve all these other gods. No matter what you do, however, no matter what the mob says, no matter what the crowd says, no matter what others do, we, me, all of us in our family will serve the Lord! I have made up my mind"! There's a lot of pressure and public opinion in the world today, and if you decide to follow Jesus Christ there will be persecution, resistance, hatred. Jesus said, "If they hated Me, don't you know they're going to hate you"? And if you decide to go public with your faith in front of your family, in front of your friends, in front of the world, then be ready for the resistance. But it doesn't matter. He said, "Look..."
It's sort of like what Elijah said to the people later on. The prophet Elijah, he said, "Look, why do you keep halting or limping between two opinions"? He said,"If Baal is god, then go ahead and serve Baal". Just give your life over to the demon god Baal. "But if God be God, then serve Him". It's the same thing. "Choose you this day whom you will serve". Will you serve the world and all of its gods? Or will you serve Christ? Will you give your life completely to Him? It's a public decision. No one can make this decision for you. Not your parents, not your spouse, not your pastor, not your priest, not your rabbi! No one can make this decision to follow God by trusting in Christ but you!
When Jesus came into the city of Jerusalem and rode in on that donkey and was hailed as a king, He ultimately was betrayed and arrested, and taken before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. And Pilate asked the question that every one of us must answer, to the howling mob, the same crowd that cheered Him on the Palm Sunday road, now jeers Him. The same group that was saying "Crown Him" is about to crucify Him. So Pilate, knowing He was innocent, not worthy of death, says, "What will you do with Jesus who is called the Christ". He had offered an alternative to the people. There was a criminal by the name of Barabbas, and he was a Jewish revolutionary, this Barabbas, and he was in prison.
And Pilate knew because of insurrection and his rebellion, he deserved to die. And yet, he thought, "Well, I'll give you one prisoner to release". And he thought surely that they would choose Jesus. But they said, "No, give us Barabbas; we want Barabbas". "What then shall we do with Jesus who is called the Christ"? And they screamed, "Crucify Him"! They made a decision, and it's a decision that you must make for yourself. So let me ask you today what will you do with Jesus? He is the inescapable Christ. You cannot ignore Jesus. You have to decide who is He and if He deserves my faith and my all. It was also a paternal, what I'm going to call a paternal decision. A public decision, a personal decision, but a paternal decision.
And why do I call this a paternal decision? Because he said, "As for me and my house". I love this! Would to God that every dad and mom would say this today, "As for me and my house, my family, we will serve the Lord". One thing the Bible teaches us about the family is that the husband and the father is the spiritual leader of the family. Like Joshua, men, we are to stand and boldly say, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord". Men, dads, do you know that you are the pastor of your family? So Joshua's speaking here for himself, but he's speaking for his wife and his kids, and his grandchildren, and his great grandchildren. He stood boldly and said, "I'm speaking for every one of us in the Joshua clan! We will serve the Lord".
And every parent should lead like this, to lead our families, to love, to fear, to serve the Lord. May God help us to do it. And then I want to say finally, this a positive decision. Because, think about it, he is believing God in behalf of his family. He is trusting God with the future of his family. That the legacy of the Lord in this life we live in his family. He's believing God for his children and his children's children. And he's proclaiming that my household will serve the Lord. Now that is a positive statement. His commitment is clear. How can a man be so sure about his family? I can't guarantee that my children and my grandchildren and their children will live for the Lord, but what I can do is to make decisions today that will impact the future generations of our family.
And I can set up for our family an opportunity. Sadly, we all know people whose children and family reject Christ. It happens. We know that happens. But when we live for the Lord as husbands and wives, as mom and dad, as family, godly parents can provide an atmosphere in our home where faith can flourish and give our children an opportunity to know Christ. A home built upon Christ where children will joyfully choose themselves to follow Jesus. But here it is: Look, you can't be neutral about Jesus! On that last Palm Sunday when the crowds cheered; then they cheered, God used a man named Pilate just like He used Joshua to call them to a decision.
When I think about this crowd on Palm Sunday, there are many who are willing to be fan of Jesus, to be a part of a fandom but not a part of kingdom of Jesus. Willing to say crown Him but when the going gets tough and cross is before Him, they say crucify Him. We have to choose where we stand with God, where we stand with Jesus Christ. And let me challenge you with these words today: Make your choice so clear that no one, no one will doubt where you stand with God! "Choose you this day whom you will serve". Receive Him or reject Him; believe Him or deny Him.
But you must decide because... You say, "well I'll decide another day". No, to decide to not decide is to decide. "Choose you this day..." "Today is the day of salvation! Now is the accepted time". We are not promised another day to make this decision. Don't procrastinate it; don't put it off. But say today I will serve the Lord. Some of you did not have the privilege of growing up in a Christian home with parents of faith like I did, like many people. You say, "Well, I just didn't have all that. I didn't have a legacy of faith". Well, you can begin one today for your family. It begins in your heart today when you hear the call to commitment to choose this day whom you will serve.