As Christians we no doubt know Joshua’s quote:
“But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” – Joshua 24:15
If you are old enough to remember the Saturday Evening Post you likely recognize the Norman Rockwell painting depicting family prayer at the dinner table. It is a picture of many faithful Christian families in the mid-twentieth century.
Take a look at the dinner table in your house, for example (and witness).
What do you see in your own 21st c. christian house?
- Prayer? Probably not.
- The whole family seated together? Probably not.
- Thoughtful family communion with each other? “Communion” would be actually communicating with each other while enjoying our meals together. Definitely not.
Even in rare moments when all are present at the dinner table, all of us are NOT fully present.
“Family relationships and family time together is most important (second only to our personal relationships with God?)
- Is that your Christian social witness to your own family? Probably not.
Why do cell phones, internet distractions, video games and TV rob your house of serving the Lord?
“Are 21st century Christian houses incapable of serving the Lord even at their own dinner table?
Joshua and Caleb were two faithful followers of God and Moses who wanted to serve the Lord in the Promised Land. So many of the Hebrews wanted to go back to their slavery.
After Moses died and Joshua became leader of these people who yearned for the comforts of their slavery, once more all came down to a choice to choose to follow God OR be a rebellious household. When Joshua’s time was near he gathered the people of the Lord together and spoke.
Joshua begins his call to God’s chosen family with those word to which we must always listen with fear and trembling:
Thus says THE LORD:
The challenge:
24:2 ‘Long ago, your fathers… served other gods… 5 And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it, and afterward I brought you out… And you lived in the wilderness a long time. 8 Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites…
11 And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And I gave them into your hand…
13 I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.’
Joshua then: on behalf of the people of God – the house of God – renews the covenant of their forefathers.
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.
THE ALTERNATIVE appears prior to our well-known quote from Joshua 24:15. Joshua outlines choices:
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.”
Joshua 24:15 is the call of a faithful leader to the people of his house to faithfulness.
The people, under Joshua’s leadership respond appropriately… before the witness of God, of his appointed leader of His House and His People… and before the God-appointed leaders who would follow after Joshua’s death.
The covenant of promise and blessing between God and his People is once more confirmed.
The promise is NOT YET fulfilled. The promised land must now be taken.
The book of Judges records how once more, the people of God break their covenant with God… a familiar and ever-repeating historical disobedience from Eden… through this 21st century day… until the Last Day.
After the time of the Judges, David eventually becomes King. After the fall of the Kingdom of David, the Prophets tell of a coming King. After the Sacrifice of Christ Jesus the True King… after the Resurrection of Jesus our true hope and New Covenant…
The promise is NOT YET fulfilled. Our King’s promised land must now be taken
… filled with the faithful who will not break OUR Covenant of baptism in His Holy Blood.
“Go into all the world,‘ is His Command.
‘and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.’ – Mark 16:15
Thus says THE LORD
What is OUR response? What is our witness?
When the Apostles sought to replace the traitor Judas they chose another witness. They had a choice between two faithful witnesses.
Peter, chosen leader of the House of the King spoke:
Acts 1: 21 “So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, 22 beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”
NOW, even two thousand years later…
the promise of the Kingdom NOT YET will soon be fulfilled.
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…
or the gods of the age in this land where you dwell.
But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
Jesus IS Lord and King.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord… forever.
Choose this day whom you will serve:
What is your Christian Social Witness?
