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November 23, 2008
“You Owe Somebody Big-Time”
Joshua 24: 1-15
Sunday, November 23, 2008
After our coffee time this morning, we will gather in this room to perform some important tasks. During our Annual Meeting of the Congregation we will elect Deacons and Elders and we will look at our budget for 2009.
I think that our denomination’s Constitution is wise in requiring each congregation to meet at least once annually. This has been an interesting year for those of us connected with Faith Church, because there were some Special or called meetings of the Congregation during the year. There has been some business regarding the call of a pastor that needed to be tended to and could not wait for the annual meeting today.
As you prepare to be a part of the meeting today, I want you to be aware that as we elect officers and see the budget that is based on what you pledged to give to your church the next year, these items of business make statements as to who we are.
When we elect officers we do so with the confidence that God’s Holy Spirit has been working in and through our nominating Committee. When we elect those persons and when we install them into their offices later, we are saying that we trust that these are the people whom God has chosen to lead us.
As we look at our budget, we will be saying that these line items are all things that it is proper to spend God’s money on. And as we ask you to continue to support this budget we are stating that it is proper for God’s people to give some of their money to the church to be used to support the work of God’s church.
It is good for God’s people to gather together once in a while and take actions that remind them who they are. In our actions today we will remind ourselves that we belong to God and that we consider God’s church to be important. That is why we provide it with leaders and money.
The constitution of ancient Israel did not require them to have a business meeting each year, but occasionally the leaders of Israel did call the people or the leaders of the people together to remind them who they were and what responsibilities they had to God and to each other.
Joshua was the leader who led Israel after Moses died. God had worked through Moses to deliver Israel from Egypt. He had given his Laws to Israel through Moses. God had given his instructions as to how Israel was to Worship God through Moses.
God chose Joshua to lead Israel into a new era. Moses’ tasks were completed. Joshua would have his own tasks. God used Joshua to lead Israel across the Jordan river and into the promised land. God would use Joshua to lead Israel as they drove God’s enemies out of the promised land and inhabited that promised land.
The passage we are looking at this morning describes a meeting Joshua had with the leaders of Israel after he had completed the tasks God had given him as Israel’s leader.
There were no regular annual business meetings to which the leader of Israel could submit a report. So Joshua arranged a special meeting with the leaders of Israel.
He called them together to remind them who they were and to call them to recommit themselves to God’s service.
On this occasion, Joshua spoke as a prophet, speaking for God who wanted to remind the people of how they got to be who they were and where they were.
I find this passage provides us with some remarkable parallels between ancient Israel and ourselves as we prepare for our annual meeting this morning and as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this coming Thursday.
God through Joshua reminded His people that their ancestors did not always worship Him. Abraham was a worshipper of other Gods, a worshipper of Idols until God called him and led him into the Promised Land where he lived as a foreigner.
As I look out at this congregation I see no one who has any ancestral claim on God. The family from which I received my last name came from Scotland. In Scotland there are archeological reminders of the pagan religions and cults that my ancestors were involved in before Christianity came to Scotland. There are similar sites in all the nations your ancestors came from or you yourselves came from. All of us have ancestors who at one time worshipped false Gods. Christianity and the worship of the one true God came into our families because God reached out to our ancestors and caused them to believe in Him. Or maybe you were the first in your family to believe in Jesus.
Then God called the attention of His people to the land they now called their own. God reminds them that their ancestors were in Egypt until God brought them out of there. Then he reminds them that their ancestors wandered in the wilderness with no homeland at all. God then brought them into the Promised Land and caused them to defeat and drive out the folks whom God hated who lived there.
The point of this part of the passage was to remind the Israelites that they had a homeland because God brought them into it.
As none of our families started out as believers in the one true God, neither did our families start out in the bountiful land in which we live. God brought our ancestors here. Some of them were fleeing tyrants. The first member of my family who came here had fought against the English King and lost. He fled to Ireland and then to the colony of Pennsylvania in the Americas. Diane’s ancestors came here from Germany because they were tired of generation after generation of war.
Others came here seeking a better education, or better jobs, or a better life in general.
But I believe that God led each one of them here just as he led the Israelites into their new country.
Like those Israelites, we also eat the fruits of crops we did not plant. Some of us grow a little of our food, but most of our food comes from the labors of others.
Since in many ways our abundant circumstances are similar to the Israelites of Joshua’s day, I would like to give you the charge that Joshua gave to his people. “Now Fear the LORD and serve Him with all faithfulness.” God has been more than generous and faithful to us. He has kept us safe from our enemies since 9/11. He has made us wealthy beyond what many in the world can imagine. He has brought us from many strange places to live in this bountiful land. He has taken us from an ancestry that involved false religion and paganism and revealed himself to us through his Holy Word. It is good that our Nation gives us a Holiday to gather with friends and family and consider how thankful, how grateful we are to God. But we need to do more.
We need to serve him with all faithfulness. We need to do things for God and for others because we love the God who has been so generous to us.
And we need to be willing to stand before others as Joshua did and declare boldly “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord”
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at November 23, 2008 02:36 PM