Joshua 24 Bible Study (Covenant Renewal at Shechem/Joshua's Death & Burial) | Pastor Daniel Batarseh

If you have your Bibles, and I trust that you do, we are at our final chapter in this book, in the book of Joshua. And it is very fitting because in the natural realm, we are transitioning in seasons, and here we are at the last chapter of this book preparing ourselves for another book. But before we go to that next book, we are going to take our time in this chapter trusting that God has much to say to us, and it would really help if you have a text to look at because we wanna draw from the text. Now as you return, let's pray one more time and ask God to help us. Father, again, we are here.

We declare to you, Lord, from the bottom of our hearts that we are here for your word, for the written scriptures. Lord, we believe that this is what you have to say to us, and this is your word forever. Lord, we need you during these times. And, Lord, we are here to study, but not to study only for information, but for transformation. So come and assist us tonight.

Open our eyes. Open the eyes of our hearts. And, Lord, may we leave here with a greater love, a greater understanding, a greater wisdom than when we came in. So, Lord, we we dedicate this time to you in worshiping what you have to say in obedience and in adoration. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen and amen. Here we are, final chapter of this book. What is going to take place after all that we've learned in this adventurous and insightful text? As you could imagine, we are here in Joshua 24, and we are faced with the leader of this people who is about to give his final message to this people. And what's so crucial about that is he has a concern in his heart.

And the concern of this spiritual leader is that this people that he has been shepherding for all these years would make a faithful commitment to God, and they would give themselves over to him apart from his faithful example and apart from his God fearing leadership. And in many ways, Joshua is imitating what his mentor did, Moses, when Moses went into glory. Moses gave his final word to those people. He he left them with a sermon on his lips before he he stepped into the presence of God forever and ever. And that's what Joshua is about to do.

Joshua wants to make sure that this young generation reaffirms their commitment to God and that they will vow to serve him whether he's there or not. And that's important, and we're gonna glean insights as we read. So let's read together from verse one. Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. This is a solemn assembly.

This is something that is crucial. This is very formal. But notice you've been with us for all this time. You know that there is a specific area where the tabernacle, the house of worship was placed. And what was the name of that place in bible study?

You can say it if you know it. Shiloh. Somebody whispered it. That's okay. Shiloh.

So you would think, hey, Joshua, wouldn't you want to meet them at Shiloh where the tabernacle is, where God's presence is hosted? But no, he goes to a place called Shechem instead. Now this is bible study, so we're taking our time, we're trying to study what is being written here, what is written here. Why Shechem, of all places? Why this location?

Does anybody have an idea why? And this is why we read our Bibles with what? Rear view mirrors. Where have I seen this before? Where has Shechem appeared before?

Does anybody know what Shechem represents, at least in part? Well, here's one truth. Shechem was the first place that when Abraham was called by God into the land of Canaan, Shechem was the first place where he built an altar, Genesis chapter 12. And in Genesis 35 verse two and verse four, Shechem was the place where Jacob, Abraham's not son, but grandson, with his family were in a backslidden state. And it was in Shechem where Jacob had a revelation of his condition and his family's condition.

He says, hey guys, all of you put your idols away, and let's get up and go to Bethel where God met me, and we're gonna worship him. And so they bury their idols under a tree at a place called Shechem. Joshua knows this. Joshua realizes the significance, the historical importance of this place, and he wants this place to serve as a memorial for them. As a reminder, this is where Abraham worship God sacrificially, and this is where your father Jacob abandoned all his idols.

Very fitting for what he's about to present to them. Because he's about to preach a sermon, a very brief one, and he's gonna make a call to action. But what is he going to say? What is he gonna say as his final message to this people before he departs from their presence? Well, so significant is what he's about to say that he is now going to operate as a prophet.

Because look at verse two. Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. If you read the Old Testament, you know that that's language that prophets use. It's a phrase often repeated in order to declare the authoritative essence of what's about to be said. I'm not saying this.

This is what the God of the universe is saying directly to you. And so he is now with authority about to speak on behalf of God. He's now stepping in as a direct mouthpiece from heaven to speak into the hearts of this people. And so once they heard that sentence, they realized, k. God is about to speak now.

This isn't Joshua's opinion. This isn't his suggestion. This is God possessing him to a certain degree and now is going to speak through him so that we would know what he has in mind for us. That's exactly what Joshua is gonna do. He's gonna speak about what God has in mind for them and what he wants from them if they choose to walk with him.

And before he makes that call to action, what is going to be said for them to be stirred to say yes to God? And out of all the things that Joshua could have said, he's going to speak about one central theme, God is faithful. God is faithful. And you know how he's gonna do that? He's gonna give a brief overview of Israel's history from the beginning to this moment, and he's gonna remind them of a crucial truth that God is faithful.

And out of these verses, if you look down from verse three down to let's say, verse 13, that's the brief overview. And I want to pull at least six perspectives of God's faithfulness from this bible study. Six aspects of God's faithfulness. Six paradigms, angles, views, understandings of how or what God is faithful in. And so what does he do?

The first thing he wants to do is teach them or remind them at least that God's faithful to you despite your idolatrous past. Look what he says here in verse two. Thus says the Lord God of Israel, long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and Nahor, and they served other gods. Pause for a second. Did you know that Abraham was an idol worshiper?

We kind of think that Abraham was this neutral figure that God just arbitrarily chose and it says, you know what? I'm gonna make you a founder of this people called Israel. No. You know how God found Abraham worshiping false deities with his family in a foreign land, serving other gods, doing who know what to these gods and for these gods. And that is exactly the condition that God finds Abraham in.

And God doesn't hold his past against him. God, in fact, is so moved towards him that he desires to transform him and then use him for his glory. Now look at this. This is how God did it in acts seven verse two. It'll come up on the screen and you can turn there if you'd like.

But Stephen retells the history of Israel's beginnings. And it says, and Stephen said in acts seven two, brothers and fathers hear me. The God God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia before he lived in Haran. So God steps into Abraham's idolatrous life, sinful life, broken life, dark life, and says, I want you to come into covenant with me, and I have a plan for you that as I bless you, you're gonna bless others. And that's God's faithfulness because I want you to think about Abraham, his son, and his grandson now.

Ready? Who's his son? Well, he has many, but who's the one that would continue the promise? Isaac, and who's his son that would continue the promise? Jacob, not Esau.

Now think about these three. Abraham was found in an idolatrous state, and we are introduced to him at the ripe age of 75 years old, Genesis 12. 75 years old. Let's just say that he was an idolater up to 75 years. That's a lot of life wasted.

That's a lot of years spent living for falsehood. And yet, God finds him at that point of his life, not only changes him, not only saves him by faith, but also uses him. And then you think about Isaac. Isaac was not like his father Abraham. Abraham and his wife Sarah, from the moment that Isaac could even comprehend anything, raise him to understand the truths of God.

Who the true and living God is. What kind of miracle he was and and the things that God was gonna do through him and his own family and his own descendants. Isaac knew nothing but the confines of truth and faithfulness. And and and Abraham was so careful that even when Isaac was 40, he found a wife for him. Don't lose hope.

He was 40. 40! And he, he makes this commitment to Isaac. You can't marry somebody that's outside of our family. You can't marry somebody outside of our, of our people.

And he keeps them from compromise. And then you come to Jacob. Jacob also grew up in a household of faith. He had Isaac and Rebekah as his mom and they also carried the tradition of truth, of walking with God. But Jacob was a completely different story from Isaac.

Jacob was a deceiver. He was a trickster. He he lived for self. He lived to manipulate everybody and anybody he could, including his own brother, his father, his uncle. I mean, if you're gonna betray anybody, don't betray your blood.

But he couldn't care less. And yet, later on in his life, God visits him, reveals himself to him, shows him his kindness, his goodness, and then saves him and recruits him and then uses him. What's the point of these three different people? That no matter where you find yourself, whether you've wasted most of your life in sin and debauchery and filth and darkness and sexual perversion, God can still and is faithful to change you and use you. Or whether you grew up in a Christian house your whole life and all you knew was Sunday school, Awana, conferences, youth meetings, and you think I'm too boring and dry.

God surely doesn't have a plan for me. Think about Isaac. God is faithful to reveal himself to you in greater ways, draw you to himself, and then propel you into the world for his glory. Or think about like many people in our day, like Jacob. Oh, they grew up in a Christian household.

They grew up with Christian parents, but they're renegades. They're running away from the call of God. They're running away from anything to do with God. And yet God can still take that miserable person, reel him back in, sanctify him, use him, and then look at Jacob at the end of his life in Hebrews where he leaned upon his staff worshiping God. That was his dying posture worshiping God.

When you read of his life, in the beginning, he was deceiving people and running away from God. God is faithful no matter what kind of condition you're in today to do wonderful things in and through you for his glory. So what is he declaring to the people? The first thing, God has been faithful despite your adult idolatrous past. He holds nothing against you.

He's recruited your father who was he emphasizes that. He was worshiping false gods. But then he moves on to now declare something else about God's faithfulness. It's in verse three to verse four. God is faithful in keeping his promise.

Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the river and led him through all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac. And to Isaac, I gave Jacob and Esau, and I gave Esau the hill of the the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. What's he trying to say here? Well, think about Abraham.

Abraham was a servant of God that had received two major promises from God. Major promise number one, you're gonna receive many offspring. Now why is that significant? I'm sure as soon as Abraham heard those words, he looked at his wife and himself, and they looked at their wrinkled hands, and they thought, are you kidding me? We're gonna have offspring.

We're gonna have many. Everything about their whole body and their organs and their frailty testified otherwise. Promise number one, you're gonna have many offspring. Promise number two, you're going to have the land of Canaan. Now why was that a challenging thought?

Because as they stepped into the land of Canaan, all they saw was many nations occupying it, and on top of many nations you had giants in the land. So everything about these promises did not make sense to the human mind. Yet God said it, and if God said it, it was gonna come to pass. And that's the point. He presented his promises within the parameters of impossibility.

And so this is what he's reminding them. Number one, that I was going to give you many offspring. And he says here, I gave him Isaac. I gave him Isaac despite what Hebrews says, that he was as good as dead. Imagine being alive but being recognized as good as dead.

That's where he was at in his existence. You just might as well die, Abraham. That's where you're at. And yet in that state, he makes him a father of an infant from his own loins and through his wife's own womb. And then the promise for our land.

Now notice what Joshua is doing. He's emphasizing a certain point because Isaac had two sons, Jacob. And who's the other one? Esau. Esau was not the one to continue the lineage of the promise and the plan of God.

And yet still, because he was a part of Isaac, it says here, And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, in verse four, and I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess. Now hold on for a second. So Esau, who is not to continue the lineage, receives a mountain. And Jacob, who is called by God to continue the promise, what happens to him? But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.

But you said Jacob was going to continue it and Jacob was surely going to possess this land, but instead they go into a foreign land and they become slaves while Esau is possessing his own land. How does that work? And that's the point, that despite the circumstances and despite how things don't even look like they're see, this is how God works. Despite the storyline and what God is doing in others or for others, if you said it, it's gonna come to pass. And what God wants to prove in this is that I said it.

Watch how I'm going to do it. And so where are they right now? They're standing in the land of Canaan. They've received their inheritance. And God is saying through Joshua indirectly, See where you're at?

Look at you. There's millions of you. Look at you. Look what you're possessing now because God said it. And so everything God says you can trust despite the things around that contradict it apparently.

That's how trustworthy God's word is. It will come to fruition in the end. And God is so wise that he tends to do it in a way where the moment that he says it to the time of its fulfillment, it doesn't make any sense. The timing doesn't make sense. The means doesn't make sense.

What I'm looking out right now doesn't make sense, what I'm looking inside doesn't make sense, that's the point. God's word, God's promise doesn't need you to figure it out, you just need to trust it, hold on to it, and watch it come to pass. That's what's happening. When God speaks and God has spoken, he's not adding to this. You know this word and you can trust every element of it.

What he's gonna do in your life according to the promises in Christ, what he's gonna do in the end of the age, what he's gonna do to sinners, what he's gonna do to the righteous, you can believe it. What he does in prayer, what he does when you get into the word, you can trust it. Faithfulness in his promises. But not only faithfulness in his promises, we come now to the third thing in verse five. And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it, and afterwards I brought you out.

God is faithful despite our idolatrous past. No matter what condition you're in, God can change you, use you, and launch you. God is faithful with his word. No matter what it entails, God is going to keep it if you believe it. But number three, God is faithful to deliver any man, any woman, any child, any adult from bondage.

And I sent Moses and Aaron, I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it, and afterward I brought you out. What does Egypt symbolize? Well to Israel it symbolizes this and it's a picture for every believer and every person of all time. Egypt symbolizes enslavement. Egypt symbolizes season, a position in life where you are in the bondage and in the misery of a cruel master.

And in our context, Egypt is the world. Enslavement, not physically, but spiritually to sin. Pharaoh, the cruel master, the devil, the prince of the power of the air. That's what Egypt symbolizes. But what he's reminding them of is their deliverance from that state, from that place.

But it's in connection to what Israel did in Egypt that provoked God to what? Implement a rescue mission. What does it say in Exodus two twenty three? Here's a little history lesson of what in part stirred God to say, I'm gonna send Moses and Aaron. I'm gonna plague that place and I'm gonna bring them out.

During those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And then we are reminded that God sends two leaders, God sends diseases and plagues and manifestations of his power from heaven, and then he ultimately brings them out of Egypt, which is again a picture of you and I subdued by the power of sin and Satan. And here is God's faithfulness, that if you are desperate enough and you realize your condition and you realize that you don't want to longer no longer be in that place in that condition, God will deliver you. God is faithful to deliver you.

The problem is too many people are comfortable in their enslavement. The problem is too many people compare their enslavement to the possibilities that God wants to bring them into, and they think that being in Egypt is better. And that's what they've come to at one point where they said, wasn't it better in Egypt? We ate melons and leeks and onions. I I think I wanna go back to Egypt, and it's a picture of people who think that the benefits of the world outweigh the glories of being in Christ.

And it is an amazing in human nature that we only remember the good things of our old life. We never think about the pain, never think about the loneliness, the depression, the guilt, the shame, the embarrassment, only the onions and the leeks. Never mind the whips on your back. And never mind the groaning and the shame and the embarrassment and the wounds on your feet. But God is faithful.

This is what he's reminding them. God is faithful to deliver any man. And just like Israel, even though you are years and years and years in that state of bondage you know what I'm talking about? I'm talking about your pornography addiction that you've known since you were eight years old. I'm talking about your drug addiction.

I'm talking about the marijuana that you can't stop buying and huffing and puffing. Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about your insecurity of your identity and your body shame. That's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about bondage, real bondage.

And you know what God is saying through this? Does it matter how long it's been? Does it matter if you're comfortable in it? It doesn't matter how how much you think that you can't shake it off, you cry out to God and watch what he will do to pull you out of it. Or else what's the point of this thing?

This is just history. This is just a text. This is something we grew up with. It's tradition. No.

This is real. The God that we are speaking of is alive and well, and the promises in here are the promises for you and I. The faithfulness that we see here are mirrored for you and I. Paul tells us in more than one occasion, these are just illustrations of new covenant blessings. God has promised to deliver any man from bondage, spiritual bondage.

But then we come down and we see that in light of that, the faithfulness of God is not just when we cry out to him for salvation, cry out to him for deliverance from our our our souls, chains, and shackles, but God is faithful when we just cry out to him for anything. Look at verse six. Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt and you came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. And when they cried to the Lord, and when they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them, and your eye saw what I did in Egypt. Now hold on.

They cried to the Lord. Was this salvation? You can argue, sure. But they already cried out to the Lord to be delivered from Egypt. This was a cry in a current circumstance apart from that one.

And the idea here is this, that the same energy and desperation you had when you cried out to God for your soul to be saved from eternal damnation, you have every right to use that same faith to cry out to God for anything and believe that he will intervene just as much as he did for your salvation. That's beautiful because God did not just leave heaven open for Israel at one moment. God did not just promise them to answer when they cried out for deliverance like you and I did when we cried and called upon the name of Jesus Christ. The whole journey, we have access to open heaven. The whole journey we have access to God who gives us all things.

Here's a verse to consider. You know this verse. Look at Romans eight thirty two. Just in case you doubt that truth, Romans eight thirty two tells us this, He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? You know what the Holy Spirit is trying to say there?

If God in his love overflowed with compassion and desire for you, gave up the most precious and valuable person to him in the person of Jesus Christ, to be slaughtered and beaten and abandoned and shamed for you, what makes you doubt for a moment that you can't ask God for lesser blessings than that? The Holy Spirit is essentially trying to say, should there be any hesitation in your prayers? Should there be any reluctance in your cry to God? Should there be anything within you that thinks God will not consider this, God does not wanna be burdened by this when he has given his own son out of love? And he's saying, hey, he gave up his son for your salvation.

Now, consider this for the rest of your journey. Will he not give you more? Will he not assist you? Will he not bless you with whatever you're in need of? In fact, the posture of prayer is this, Lord, if you've given your son surely And here's my request.

Here's my request. Lord, you will not withhold this if it's according to your will, since you did not withhold the most precious thing in heaven. That is the posture of faith. Israel knew it well. They cried out to God.

And whenever they cried out to God in that wilderness journey, God intervened. But unfortunately, they didn't cry. They complained most of the time, so God intervened in another way with discipline. See, but we need the faith to understand, and they missed it. If God delivered us from Egypt, is he not gonna deliver us from a few days without food, a few moments without water?

And that's the point. If we really grasp that, there should be never a complaint on our lips for the rest of our lives, only cries to God like desperate children trusting that God is good. Faithfulness when we cry out to the Lord, Don't fail to believe that he is faithful when you cry out to him. Then we come to the fifth aspect of his faithfulness, faithfulness in blessing us rather than cursing us. You might think that sounds like an absurd idea, but you'll get it in a moment.

Look at verse nine and ten. Out of all the instances in Israel's journey, he highlights one significant one. It says, then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab arose and fought against Israel. And he sent and invited Balaam the son of Beor to curse you. But I would not listen to Balaam, indeed he blessed you, so I delivered you out of his hand.

Now we know that story because we've been through in the book of Numbers. Israel was traveling through the journey of the wilderness, and Balak sees this, is intimidated by this, realizes that they're coming to invade, so he hires a warlock named Balaam. And what's so significant about this story is that what Balaam and Balak do, the little activity was hidden from the knowledge of the Israelites. They were up on some mountain, perhaps overlooking the Israelites, and Balak is there with money in his pocket saying, Okay, Balaam. Do what you always do.

Curse them up. And here's Balaam doing his little rituals, and he's trying to trying to provoke in the spiritual realm a way to curse the people because they knew that they couldn't do this in the physical. And what ends up happening? Oracle after oracle after oracle, God takes those things that he attempts to do and turns them in, actually makes him bless him. And and Balak is pulling his hair, like, I'm paying you to curse him.

What are you doing? And the ultimate question is this, why was it that they couldn't curse them? Why was it that they couldn't put a spell on them? Why was it that they couldn't make them turn on each other and kill each other? Why?

One simple yet profound truth. It's a word called covenant. That's why. In fact, Balaam at one point gets a revelation from God and he begins to say it out loud. And here it is in Numbers 23.

Look at this in Numbers chapter 23 verse 19. This is what he says: As he's trying to curse, God puts in his mouth a blessing and then the character of God is described here. God is not man that he should lie. Now we've talked about that. It doesn't say that God cannot become a man because you'll have many people, including Muslims, that will say, see, God is not a man.

Why do you think Jesus is God? Well, it says God is not man. In essence, in nature, we believe that he's spirit, but God can become a man. God is not man that he should lie or a son of man that he should change his mind. That's the important part.

Has he said and will he not do it? Or has he spoken and he not fulfill it? Verse 20, behold, I received the command to bless and he has blessed, and I cannot revoke it. And you can just imagine Balak saying, are you kidding me? Balam said, listen, God is not like you and me.

God is not like you and me. We change our mind to our promises. We change our mind when we when we look at a situation, we look at somebody's behaving, we are tempted to say, you know, I kinda take my word back. And what's so significant about Balak and Balaam cursing is that Israel was at their worst when this was occurring. This was after Numbers chapter 14.

What happened after Numbers chapter 14? They disbelieve God to such a degree that God says you will now forever wander around the wilderness until you die, the first generation. So they are under God's discipline and judgment. They're at their worst place, you can argue. Didn't they deserve to be cursed?

If there was any time for God to judge them ultimately and listen to a man like this, wouldn't it be now? Wouldn't it be now in their disbelief and in their disobedience? Why don't you just rid them from the earth? And yet the man receives this revelation, God will not change his mind about them. And you think, well, what does that have to do with us?

Well, Balaam is a picture of your enemy, your accuser, Satan. You know what Satan is doing? You you wanna know what he is probably doing right now? He has demons, he he they're being launched into the world, they're in the entertainment business, they're in the music industry, they're in politics, they're in religious places. But Satan loves to occupy his time doing one main thing, and it's found in Revelation twelve ten.

This is what occupies him. This is what thrills him. This is what he's tempted to do in his own deception. This is what he has the boldness and the courage to do, what Balaam did, but Balaam had some more sense than the devil. And this is what John the revelator had.

He had this revelation, and I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down who accuses them day and night before our God. That hasn't happened yet. That's at a specific time in the end time tribulation period because there are four falls of Satan. This has not happened yet. So you know what's happening today?

The accuser of the brethren? Day and night, he comes before the throne of God, and he wants to accuse. Now why would he spend his energy doing that with the same hopes that Balak had for God to change his mind about you. And it doesn't matter what kind of spiritual condition you're in, because Satan had the audacity to accuse a man like Job who feared God, who was walking in faithfulness. And you know what Satan does?

This is how tricky he is. Hey God, you know the reason why he's faithful and committed to you is because you've blessed him so much. Take away his blessing and watch, he'll curse you to his face, to your face. And then God doesn't and he doesn't do it. Oh, it's because skin for skin, you didn't touch his body.

Touch his body and watch what he's gonna do to you. He says go for it but don't take his life and Job doesn't curse him. Or if you're in a total state of failure like the nation of Israel was in Zechariah three, symbolized by the high priest Joshua, and Zechariah has a vision, and here's Joshua the high priest with filthy garments. And we are told the accuser of the brethren in the presence of God is accusing the nation of Israel, and the Lord says, the Lord rebuke you. So it doesn't matter what spiritual condition you're in.

Whether you're walking with God faithfully, Satan will try to convince God it's because they've been so blessed, because they're healthy, because their ministry is effective, because they have a nice family, or whether you are in the mire of sin. This is who you purchased. That is a child of God. He confessed your name, and look how he's tarnishing your name. Look at the way he's watching at two in the morning when nobody's watching.

Oh, he raises his hand in church, but then he goes and watches these filthy things. That's your child? Look how they treat their finances. Look how much they love money. That's your child?

You're gonna let that person continue to live and tarnish your reputation? You can just imagine what Satan spews out. And yet there's one thing that keeps God in his place of faithfulness, and it's in the next verse of Revelation chapter 12. It's not in verse 10. It's in verse 11.

And this is what ratifies it. This is what seals it. This is what keeps God in his place and keeps you in your place. And they conquered him, the accuser of the brethren, by the blood of the lamb. You know what drowns out Satan's accusations over you tonight as you've stumbled in here perhaps in your failure?

You know what drowns out the sound? The convincing arguments, probably even the screen that he plays out for you to see, for God to see, the blood of Christ drowns it out. And the great high priest, as we sung about, intercedes for us, and he shows his wounds. He says, I purchased him, father. I purchased her, father.

They are mine, they are yours. God will never change his mind about you and I because he has ratified something in his blood. And if you've applied that blood to your life, you are safe and sound in Jesus Christ. Does that make you wanna live holy or live how you want? I don't know about you, that makes me wanna live holy.

And that's why Paul said emphatically in Romans eight thirty eight to 39, he ensured his people for all time concerning us being secure and never separated. It doesn't matter what comes before God. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, including Satan, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of Christ. Love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing.

He says earlier, who can bring a charge against God's elect? No one. Christ is the one who justifies. It's over if you're in Christ. And God is faithful when he says yes, when he says this is how it's gonna be, you can go to the bank with it every single day, in your best days and in your worst.

And lastly, we come to number six, and I'm not gonna expand on it too much. Number six is verses 11 down to verse 13, and it's God's faithfulness to bring you into the perfect will that God has for you in Christ Jesus. Because everything from verse 11 to verse 13 has to do with what we've been covering from the beginning of this book. God leading them through this lane. God defeating the enemy.

God overcoming those who stood against them. God purchased the promised land. They have promises to inherit and experience, and it's yours if you believe God. There should be no doubt in your mind because you'd be amazed to know how many Christians are in doubt that you will miss the will of God for your life. There should be no doubt.

If you're walking in obedience, and if you're walking with your heart set that no matter what anybody else does, you wanna live for the glory of God, God will determine that you will know everything that he has in mind for you in this life. You should not wake up one moment any morning. You should not go to bed at any moment and think to yourself, am I outside of the will of God? Here here's a here's a hint that you are not, and this is something a friend spoken to my heart, and it blessed me, and I never forgot, and I hope you'll never forget it. If you're fearful to be outside of the will of God, that's evidence that you're probably in the center of it.

Because a person that doesn't care about being in the will of God, doesn't ask God that, doesn't care about that, doesn't inquire about it, he just wanders in life and calls himself a Christian. But if you're fearful about being outside of the will of God, as you're walking obediently, you're probably right in the middle of it. Now if you're living in sin and you're wondering, am I in the will of God? I don't have to be a prophet to tell you that you're probably not in the will of God. Your life testifies otherwise.

But I'm talking about the faithful. I'm talking about the ones that are so careful in their steps, are so careful with their decisions and their convictions. Don't fear. He brought them through, even in their mistakes along the way, and he will bring you through. Now, sermon's done.

Quick sermon, right? Ten minutes, fifteen minutes? Never gonna happen here on a Sunday morning, by the way. But you know what's amazing? Is that there's an overarching message through it all.

Did you notice it? Did you notice it? Right from verse three down to verse 13, I took your father Abraham. I gave him Isaac. I sent Moses and Aram.

I plagued Egypt. I would not listen to Balaam. I delivered you out of his hand. Look closely, it's all God. All God.

No matter the testimony, no matter the instruments that God used, no matter whether they were aware of God's activity or not, this is what Joshua is saying. From the beginning, from the infancy of the calling that God had in your life to this very moment, God was pulling the strings. God was the one planning, providing, protecting, leading, shielding, guiding. It was all God all the way through. So this is humbling to them in this sermon.

So you're saying it wasn't our it wasn't our strategy? You're saying it wasn't it wasn't this, it wasn't that, and Josh is saying, no. No. No. It was it was the Lord the whole way.

And it wasn't just the Lord, it was the Lord the whole way, the whole time. From the beginning to the end, it was God's doing. Now if you realize that it was really God behind the scenes, and sometimes it's not behind the scenes. It's right in front of you. It's right there.

You're aware. This is God. But if you truly believe that it all comes from God, God empowers, God deposits wisdom, God does all these things, how can you do life without him? And that's the point. How can you move forward without him?

And that's the call to action. Where can you go if you just realize that it was God the whole time? And if we grasp that, that our salvation, that our sanctification, that our peace, that our joy is all God, is all provided by him, is all secured by him, is all him. Like Peter, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.

And that's the strategy behind the spirit led messenger. It's all the Lord, guys. So then he goes to the call of action. Now we look down in verse 14. Now, therefore, as a result of what you just heard, as everything that's just been described to you, if you've just been receiving these truths, let's talk.

Now therefore, here's the appropriate response. Fear the Lord. Fear God. That's the first thing he says. Can you imagine that the faithfulness of God should cause me to fear him?

It should. Because what else is gonna draw out of you reverential affection toward God other than what you just heard? If you believe that God was the one who's behind everything, even when Abraham was called as an individual to the point where you're now millions of people in this land, if you really believe that God was in charge doing it all, should you not tremble? Should you not think to yourself, this God is way more powerful, way more amazing beyond my comprehension, he deserves my fear. So I can tell you another reason why people don't fear God.

They don't understand the immensity of his faithfulness and his ability and his commitment and his willingness to continue to fight for you and through you. But no, he says you you should fear God. This is something that should cause you to never be casual, to never be flippant, to never be light. You should walk with a weightiness when you understand what God has done in your life. And then he says, and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness.

Sincerity implies attitude, never in hypocrisy, but with total surrender, with a with a freedom from any false motives, with a total purity, with a desire, with a passion, with a joy. God is not into robots. God wants sincerity, and he wants faithfulness. He wants commitment. Isn't that not the appropriate response?

If I just heard about God's faithfulness towards me, the only response is an equal faithfulness. And what's that faithfulness? An unwavering commitment to knowing God's will and knowing God in fellowship. That's it. Serve him in sincerity and faithfulness.

And then he goes on to say something in verse 15 that you and I have heard so many times. He says, and if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of 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. K. That first phrase strikes my interest. But if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, now think about that.

Who in their right mind would think that it's evil to serve God? Like he's being very strategic with his language, and I think the answer is simply in this, well think about what it means to consider something evil. When you declare something to be evil, it's abominable, it's offensive, there is no attraction, there is no desire to participate in it, there's no desire to be involved in it, it's vile, it's despicable, and would you know it, that any person who has heard the message, has heard the goodness of God, the gospel, and chose not to surrender it, surrender to surrender to it considers God's calling and his invitation to be evil. Why? Because if you wanna follow the Lord, you have to surrender everything else, and that is evil to so many people.

Because it's an intrusion to their definition of what is good, and it's an invasion to their understanding of who God really is. It's a disruption to their standard of what it means to live this life, to frame my convictions, stay away from me, serving your God is evil, because it attacks what I've built in my life and what I believe to be true. Get away from me. You think nobody would dare to be so bold. You would be shocked.

You would be shocked. And down deep inside, though may many may not say that verbally, they believe that internally. And it just shows how depraved we are. It just shows how we have everything flipped upside down. We're serving God as evil and serving self as good.

Declaring Jesus as Lord is evil, declaring myself to be the God of my own life, that's good. And so he goes, listen, if it's evil, if it's horrendous to you to serve God because it's gonna involve you rejecting your idols and your own will, then serve the other gods. And that's what he says. Right? He says, choose this day whom you will serve.

You know what I love about that? He doesn't say choose whether you will serve. He says, choose this day whom you will serve. Big difference. What's the difference?

You and I don't have the option of serving. You and I have the choice of who we will serve. Big difference. So you can't say, I'm not gonna serve God. Well, you're gonna serve something else if you don't serve God.

I'm not gonna surrender to God. By default, you surrender to something else. There's no neutrality. There's no middle space. Jesus made that clear.

You're either for me or you're against me. You either gather or you scatter. You either surrender or you become an enemy. There's only two. So Joshua says, choose this day whom you will serve.

Here is the message on this Friday night bible study to every person in here who has stumbled in this place. Choose this day, not whether you will serve, you don't have that choice, but who you will serve. Now, would you like to know who is your master right now? We can figure it out in ten seconds who every person's master is in this place, no matter what you profess. You ready?

Just one indication to prove who you are a bondservant, who you are a slave to, who is the master and the Lord of your life, Romans six verse 16 will tell us. It's one question we have to ask ourselves, and you will know walking out of here who has the mark of ownership on you. Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? Notice that middle phrase. You are slaves of the one whom you obey.

So whoever you obey, whoever determines your decisions, whoever determines your convictions, whoever determines what you accept, what you reject, where you go, what you say, how you live your life, how you plan your future, behold your God. And you're saying, well, I'm the one that does that. I'm the one that tells me what to do, and I'm the one that determines my convictions, and I'm the one that determines my future. You are your own god and you're a slave, not to you, but to the sin nature of you. Well, you wanna know many people have their gods as their friends or their gods?

They determine how they live. They determine their attitude. They determine their outlook on life. They determine what they do. Your friends, your petty little friends that will become dust are your gods.

Your parents. Many people have rejected Jesus Christ as Lord because they know that they will have to walk away from their parents. Your mom and your dad, as lovely as they are, they make wonderful parents. They make terrible gods. Money.

Oh, did we forget about money? We're all talking about people. Right? Let's talk about that piece of paper that you're sweating over so much. Yeah.

That thing that you love, that thing is gonna buy you that and it's gonna make you dress like that and it's gonna make you feel like that. Yeah. That pathetic thing. Does it determine what you do? How you live?

What you're willing to compromise? What kind of convictions you're willing to let go? What kind of things you're willing to do to other people? Yeah, money is your master, Because you obey whatever it demands from you, even if you walk away from your convictions that you knew of growing up under the teaching of God's word, yeah, that is your master. So you and I don't have the choice of whether we will serve or not, it's just whom you will serve.

And you can say, this word governs my life. This word will tell me how I will raise my family. This word will tell me and give me principles of whom I should marry. This word tells me of the people I should be with. This word tells me how I spend my time.

This word tells me how I look at sexuality. This word tells me how I look at politics. This word tells me how I look at everything in life. Behold, God is your God. God is your God.

You have no fear. All you have to do is look at inside yourself and say, who's the ultimate determiner of my obedience? And that is who you're a slave to. Choose this day whom you will serve. And I love what Joshua does in this famous sentence that young married couples love to buy and put in some place in their home, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

Full stop. Now we know that. If you grew up in the church, you've heard that. It's an inspiring sentence. It's an inspiring statement.

But what I love about it the most is the timing of it. The timing of it is the most impressive thing about the whole thing. You know why? Because Joshua decided this before anybody even answered the call. So he didn't wait for Israel to respond and he says, Oh, yeah.

Me and my house, we're gonna serve God too. He says, I'm not even gonna let you answer yet. At this point right here, as I'm still preaching, I wanna let you all know whatever decision you make as a man, as a father, as a husband, we are gonna serve God whether you do or not. I love that because that's a true man, ladies and gentlemen. That's a true man that even if a nation goes to hell and even if compromising Christians will raise their family how they will, worldly, He said, my house, you're gonna walk into my house, you're gonna see a family that's gonna serve God.

Whether you're offended by it or not, whether you think it's crazy or not, it does not matter. Israel, you can go and serve the gods beyond the river and go back to Egypt if you like. We will occupy this promised land ourselves. We're going to serve God. May God raise up men like that today.

So we see this. And then interestingly enough, the people are so stirred, they're so fired up, they're so excited, They've heard about God's faithfulness. Now they're even seeing Joshua's boldness and they're saying verse 16. The people answered, Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us up. And our fathers from the land of Egypt and out of the house of slavery and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us all the way that we went and among all the peoples through whom we passed.

And and so they agree. And I love what Joshua does. I love what Joshua does. This spiritual man, this wise man, this amazing man, though he does sin and make mistakes and he has Look at verse 19. But Joshua said to the people, after they said we're we're good, we we wanna sign it, you are not able to serve the Lord.

For he is holy, a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. I talk about a downer. Talk about anticlimactic.

You have the whole nation saying, yes. And you you they probably said it with a charge. They probably said it with passion. And Joshua's hearing it all then, he's not getting into the hype, and he just says, yeah, you're not gonna be able to serve God. You think, Joshua, are you playing psychological games?

Are are you doing that thing where you're saying you can't really do it? So they go, no, we can really do it. You know that thing? Are you doing that? What are you trying to imply here?

Are you discouraging them from serving God? No. No. No. No.

No. Joshua is doing what Jesus has done on more than one occasion in the gospels. He is presenting to them the absolute seriousness of what it means to really give your life to God. He is laying it out without filter, without hesitation, and what he's trying to say essentially is, do you actually know what you're getting yourself into? And the reason why we know that is because he describes God in this fashion.

He says, you are not able to serve the Lord for he is a holy God, he is a jealous God. And so he what he's essentially saying is, do you realize who you're about to make a commitment to? Let me make it clear that if you're gonna say yes to God, he's jealous. Are you sure you wanna walk this life with a jealous God? He's saying, what do you mean?

You wanna say yes to God. Yes, I wanna surrender all my days to the Lord. Okay? Do you realize that he's not gonna take your sin lightly? Do you realize that if you even give the world a glance of interest or if you commit spiritual adultery, he will not sit back and let you do it without a fight.

Do you realize that? Do you realize that he will chase you? Do you realize that he will do what he did to Jonah when Jonah said, I'm not following your will anymore, Lord. And you walked the literal opposite way that he caused a storm to happen to get your attention. Do you realize that?

Are you sure that like a jealous husband for his wife that he has given all things for, he won't let you walk away so easily? You wanna be in a relationship with that kind of God? Because some people want God for this. I like that faithfulness talk stuff. I like what God will do for me, but I want a little bit of this.

And so can I have that part but not this part? And he says, No, no, no. He's jealous. So let me make it emphatically clear if you're going to say yes to him, you're saying yes to a husband. Are you sure?

And then he goes on to say that he will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. He's saying, So, like, if I mess up, that's it? That's not what he's saying. He's saying, If you're gonna willfully sin and continue in rebellion against God, don't think that you can hold on to your sin and have God. You can't.

I'm sure a lot of calls to salvation would be a lot more thinned out if we do it the way Joshua did it. It's easy. Hey, it would have been so much easier if you would just stop at the faithfulness talk of how faithful God was, and they even realized that, like, God did this and God did that, and God will do that, and God will lead me, and God will give me heaven. He goes, Yes, yes, God will do all those things, but God is jealous. So mind you that God wants you and he doesn't want to just do this thing where he sprinkles blessing on your life while you do what you want.

It's not gonna happen. And so they heard it. What do you think their answer was? You'd be shocked to know that they received it. They said, yeah.

We understand. And so they said here that we're gonna do it. Verse 21. The people said to Joshua, no, but we will serve the Lord. We got it.

He's holy. He's jealous, he wants commitment, he doesn't want premeditated compromise. We give ourselves to this God. Joshua says, okay. You're witnesses against yourselves.

And Joshua is about to do something that if you've been with us from the beginning of this book, you're gonna know what's gonna happen right here. I want you to look down in verse 26 as we close in a moment. And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and he took a large stone and set it up there under the terebinth that was by the sanctuary of the Lord. And Joshua said to all the people, behold, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us. It's not like the rock heard.

He's just saying that this is a testimony of what has been said. Therefore, it shall be a witness against you, lest you deal falsely with your God. If you've been with us from the beginning of Joshua, you realize that there's a theme from the beginning of this book even to the end, and that is the theme of stones. Remember? Even from the beginning, over and over and over again, the people of Israel have established these memorials with these stones at significant key points of revelations of who God is, and at this point Israel has themselves a little museum.

And I think it would do us great service to just go back briefly on what these stones meant, and would teach the generations to follow, so that we would have these truths as stones, so to speak, permanent revelations in our hearts so that we can move forward, not just from this book, but in this season of life with those things in mind. Okay. Let's go to Joshua four very quickly. Go to Joshua four twenty. This is gonna be just a jet through.

Joshua four twenty. Remember this one? This was in the beginning when they crossed the Jordan River. And it says, in those 12 stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal. That's the first set of stones.

12 of them to tell us what? That God was faithful to each tribe and bring them into the promised land. And those 12 stones came out of the river that was overflowing. It seemed impossible to cross it. God split the Jordan River like he split the Red Sea, and he says take 12 stones out of that bed of soil, bring it up, set it up in the land of Canaan, and from this moment on, you will look at those 12 stones, and you will know that to each tribe, God has been faithful to bring them into what he had purchased for them.

You will never forget that God can make a way when there's no way. You'll never forget that God can make something happen in your spiritual life if you trust in him. Set of stone is number one. Then we move on to Joshua chapter seven verse 26. This was the sin of Achan.

Achan sinned against God. When when God says don't take anything from Jericho, he took it. He was caught in it. And what did they do as a punishment? And they raised over him a great heap of stones that remains to this day.

Then the Lord turned from his burning anger. Therefore, to this day, the name of that place is called the Valley Of Achor. So then after you move on from that first set of 12 stones, you now come to this heap of stones, and what do you see? You see a reminder that no sin is hidden from the presence of God. That nothing can be done in the dark without it being exposed to light.

That no matter what you try to bury in your tent like Achan, it will come to the surface. That no matter how much you think your private sin can remain private, it will affect the sanctuary. It will affect the people of God, and God will discipline because of it. A whole different feeling when you come to this heap of stones. Set number two.

Then we come to Joshua chapter eight, and we go to verse 29. And this was after Israel had received victory over Ai, a small town much smaller than Jericho. But we see that after defeating Ai, it says, and he hanged the king of Ai on a tree until evening. And at sunset, Joshua commanded and he took his body down from the tree and threw it at the entrance of the gate of the city and raised over it a great heap of stones which stands there to this day. So then now we move on from the 12 stones from the Jordan and we come to Achan's heap of stones and now we come to this heap of stones by Ai, a small town with a context.

And here's the context. Israel, because of their lack of faith and because of their pride, could not defeat Ai, so this little town defeated them. They didn't understand why. They cried out to God. God said it's because of the sin of Achan, so they killed Achan.

And he says, now go and you'll have victory. They defeat Ai, and there's this heap of stones. And it's a memorial forever. And what's the memorial about? God is a God of second chances.

That even after an event, even a royal failure on your part, even if you disobeyed God and in that disobedience you really shattered your testimony, you even harmed others like they did in the process. God is willing to pick you up and use you and lead you and empower you and move you forward in his will for your life. God is a God of second chances. And then we come to Joshua chapter 10. And what do we read here in verse 27?

It says, but at that time of the going down of the sun, Joshua commanded and he took them down from the trees and threw them into the cave where they had hidden themselves, and they set large stones against the mouth of the cave which remained to this very day. The stones at Makkadah. What happened at Makkadah? You had a coalition of kings that try to come against Israel, and something wonderful happens. God gives victory in a supernatural way, and we are told early on in verse 14, there has been no day like it before or since when the Lord heeded the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel.

Oh, Joshua, he cried out to God in faith and he says, son, stand still. And God heard the voice of a man and prolonged daylight so that they can have an increase of victory, and they did have victory. And what's amazing is that these kings, they run into a cave and they try to hide themselves in the same cave that they were hiding in, and they were closed in after they were hung. And so this is another heap of stones as a reminder for what? God heeds the voice of a man when he cries out to him.

God partners with a man when he's walking in his will and desires to see him glorified. Oh, may we all have that memorial in our hearts. May you have an experience of that in your own life so that you can continually look back and say, when I pray about something, God will hear it. But not only that, it's another memorial. You can never ever imagine that you can escape God's judgment.

See, these kings, they ran into the cave and they thought that they could hide themselves from the wrath of God. And it is a picture, it's a lesson for all men of all time that no matter how much you flee, no matter how deep you go, no matter what resources you have, no matter what position you hold, you can never escape the wrath of God. Because the only thing that you can hide yourself under, the only refuge you truly have to escape it is Christ and Christ alone. And how sad it was to see that kings with their little robes and their crowns are running and trying to run away from almighty God. And you're gonna have that same scene in the end times when the people will find more comfort in great mountains falling upon them than Christ coming in his glory to judge the Earth.

You can never escape the wrath of God unless you're in Christ. And in that, we come to the final large stone established at Shechem in Proverbs twenty four twenty seven. And what's the purpose of this stone? Why this memorial? Why this final statue, so to speak?

Surprisingly, it's different from every other stone that we just described. Because the difference with this stone has little to do about what God has done and what God has said and everything to do with they had said. That's the difference. So now this stone would be planted in the land of Israel for all time. And with that little family, remember that little family that journeyed with us through this bible study?

Whenever they would come to the stone, son, I want you to remember God is faithful, he'll make a way. Son, I want you to remember that you can never hide from God in your sin. God will expose it. You repent of it when you sin, and he'll forgive you. But, son, even if you do sin, remember Ai.

God is a God of second chances. And, son, I want you to remember that if you cry out to God, God will hear you. And I want you to remember, make a covenant with God because you can never run away from God. And when they would come to this final stone, he would not teach about what God had done or said to them. He would say, son, we as a people made a commitment to God.

We said that we would put away our gods. We said we would put away our self will. We said we would put away our sins that we can follow him. Never forget what you told God when you gave your life to him. How many of us have forgotten our vows to God?

It's amazing if you carry a journal, and some people don't, doesn't mean you're more spiritual or less, but it's amazing how if you do journal what you say to God in prayer, what you promise God or vow to God or a testimony, it's amazing what it can do to you when you reflect on the freshness of your faith, the things that you've promised God, it's a wonderful thing. Paul told Timothy in first Timothy six, he says, listen, hold on to eternal life and and hold on to the confession that you made before many witnesses. I don't think we think about that. We're having a baptism soon, you're gonna come up here and you're gonna testify to a congregation publicly that you're gonna make Jesus Christ your Lord. Don't forget that moment.

Don't forget what you said to God in private. Don't forget what you're gonna say to God in public. God considers it as a memorial. You know, every person in here, whether you wanna believe it or not, God really cares about what you told him when you committed yourself to him. This is more about God memorializing what they're saying and not them memorializing what God had said.

This is crucial. This shows us God's desire, God's longing, God's heart. And then what we come to is Joshua's death. Verse 29 of 24, After these things, Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died being 110 years old. You know what I love about that?

That's when Joshua's service to the Lord died. He was 110 years old and he's still preaching. And they buried him in his own inheritance at Timoth Sarah, which is in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the Mountain Of Gash. And I love this part, verse 31. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua.

What a legacy. What a legacy that as long as Joshua was alive and as long as Joshua had people under him and around him, he had one main effect upon those relationships. He made them want to serve God. He made them want to love God. He made them wanna surrender to God.

He made them want to worship God. I mean, if there's any legacy that you would have in this life, maybe so that people can say that when I watched her, when I watched him, when I saw them, there was something about them that caused me to say, I want to love God more because of them. And I want to know God more because of them. And they made it possible for me to believe to some degree that I can be a young man, a young woman, a single man, a newly married woman, and I can love God with everything within me. Joshua proved that throughout his whole life, all the way to his dying breath.

If there's any legacy that you should be concerned about, maybe so. That if you had any effect upon anybody, it's not that you were this, it's not that you were this, it's not that you made people laugh, that's not that's fine. That's not a bad thing. But to say, oh, but they loved God. They really loved God.

That's the most wonderful thing to say at somebody's funeral, and Joshua had his own funeral. Now the question is this, they served God in the days of Joshua. Is that gonna continue? And that's what Judges is all about, and that's what you and I are entering into starting next week. Let's pray.

Father, we pray tonight with thanksgiving in our hearts that you've led us faithfully through this book. And, Lord, we've never imagined that even stones could teach us something so wonderful about who you are. And, Lord, we are humbled by the wisdom and by the the application that we have received from these texts over the months. And God, we wanna just reflect, reflect on the main theme of this book, how Joshua, a picture of Jesus, has led his people into his promises for them. And Lord, we think about our own walk with you and we think about what Christ has purchased for us, all these spiritual blessings, victory over sin, peace that surpasses all understanding, joy, the privilege and the honor of advancing the kingdom in a certain way.

God, we think about it. Here, even just tonight, who has heard what was said, and knows that you are not their master, who knows that they are serving something or someone else other than Jesus, may they have heard of the faithfulness of God and be stirred to say, I wanna serve this God. And so Lord, in this moment we we just meditate and we reflect and we sing to you because of your faithfulness, and we gladly choose to serve you. And we gladly choose to say, as for me first, individually, I will serve God, and if God gives me a home, I will I will lead them to serve and love God. Help us, Lord, be faithful like this man was.

In your name we pray. Amen.