We Will Serve the Lord

The following message was delivered by Pastor Jay Passavant of North Way Christian Community on January 5th, 1986. The time of worship and praise during this service is recorded on the reverse side of this tape. Even this morning, in fact yesterday morning, as the leadership met, a hundred leaders came together in the church to unite our hearts and spirit in some of the truth that God has been making alive to us. And particularly, in that week that I was away, God cemented many things and I believe that we as a people will be changed because of it. Let's look at Joshua 24. I'm just going to read very quickly the first few verses and then skip down to the meat of the passage. 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 the end of Joshua's ministry. He sees the end coming. And Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel. He prophesied over the people. And then he goes, and I'm just going to skip over all the summarization of the next 10 verses, 11 verses, of what God did to bring the people into the promised land. It ends by saying, verse 13, Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the river, and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if you will be unwilling to serve the Lord, then 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. Then 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 up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, and who did these great signs in our sight, and preserved us all in the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites, who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for He is our God. But Joshua said to the people, You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, then He will turn and do you harm, and consume you after having done you good. And the people said to Joshua, Nay, but we will serve the Lord. And then Joshua said to the people, You are witnesses against yourselves, that you have chosen the Lord to serve Him. And they said, We are witnesses. And He said, Then put away the foreign gods which are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel. And the people said to Joshua, The Lord our God, we will serve, and His voice we will obey. Joshua was about to die. Now many of you know that people say the most important things of their life when they're about to die. He knew that the people that he had led were about to enter into a very important time of transition. And Joshua, I believe, beloved, was a great leader because he followed a great leader. It's very difficult for one great leader to be followed by another great leader. How many of you know that? Joshua was a man that God had raised up and anointed to lead the people. And he had a message that was burning in him as he saw the fact that he was about to die and that the people were to go on in the purposes of God. And Joshua knew this truth, beloved. He knew that unless a knife was being sharpened, it was getting dull. Let me say that again. Unless a knife was being sharpened, it was becoming dull. That unless the people were growing and moving on in the purposes of God, they were beginning to die. Joshua knew that, and so he stood before all the leaders in this very powerful expression to them of his concern for their future. I want us to look today at what God would be saying to this people as we find ourselves moving into a new year. By the grace of God, I want to declare that I'm not going to die. And so this is a message. If you don't want to die either, you can say amen. God's timing. But this is a message because I believe just like this people, we find ourselves at a point of being in the land that God has given us. And we face a choice today that's going to impact the rest of this year, and I believe, as Joshua foresaw, the generations that are to come, the precious little ones that we love so dearly. Choose this day, the word says, whom you will serve. Now let's look carefully at what Joshua said, church, and I'm going to move through this. And trust that though we don't have outlines, you'll be able to take some notes because I believe you'll be helped by referring to some of these scriptures later on. The first thing that Joshua told them was that God had given them a great possession, number one, Roman numeral number one. God had given them a great possession. I'm going to put that up, please, Gene, on the overhead. Now I didn't read through all the verses there in the beginning part of the chapter, but the Lord spoke through Joshua and said, It was me who redeemed you. It was me who brought you out of the land of Egypt. It was me who delivered your enemies into your hands. It was me who blessed you richly. It was me who put you in this land where you labored not and caused you to reap from a vineyard that you toiled not in. And I wonder today, if you were here as part of this body this morning, part of this church that God's raising up, and you would identify with those who would say, I am part of something that I didn't labor for. I'm here today as someone who's reaping the harvest of somebody else's labor, labor of prayer, labor of fasting, labor of intercession, labor of ministry. But you've walked into it, and you're here today as someone maybe from another church or another place in the country. And you're here, and you've walked into it, and God's put before you, as you saw earlier today, a feast of spiritual food, a fellowship of supportive believers. And you know, if you're honest before God, that you haven't labored for it. But you're here today to share in it, and I praise God for that. And we know, all of us who've been here since day one, that we didn't do this, but God did it. Amen? It wasn't us who made it happen. We know that God, we stand with Joshua, amazed at the grace of God, and thankful to him for what he's done. Beloved, I'll tell you, you want to know some testimonies. Just ask around a little bit. Hear what God's done to restore broken marriages. I talked to a couple three months ago. Alcoholism was a major problem. Division in the family. Two weeks from a particular day, three months ago, this couple was headed for divorce. Papers were already in process. Both of them found the Lord Jesus, right here. Submitted their lives to him. Gloriously filled them with his spirit. They were baptized not too long ago. And God united them in, together in marriage once again, and restored them and delivered them from the bondages of alcoholism. Now I say that's the grace of God, isn't it? Amen? And that's not an isolated story. Some not as dramatic, but some just as profound. We sit in a building that I believe with all my heart, God gave us by his own action. I want you to know, church, that we are here because God has given us this land. We are a people that God has determined to raise up and set up as a standard of righteousness in this day and age. This conference I was a part of, I just want to share a couple things, because it was very confirming to me. 3,500 students were there, and probably 200 or 300 pastors, such as myself, who came together to hear what the voice of the Holy Spirit was saying in the country today. Great leaders, people that you would all identify if you were at all exposed to the move of God today. Derrick Prince and Dick Eastman and Jack Hayford, Oral Roberts, people that have recognized ministries. Kenneth Copeland spoke for a while. Jack Hayford, God used these people mightily around the earth today. And the Spirit of the Lord was speaking through them, reminding us of what the move of God is doing in the earth today. And I just want to give you, jot these down, six things that sort of arose as characteristics of what the Lord is doing in this nation and around the world today. The first one is, I shared these with the leaders yesterday, but you want to jot them down. He's restoring the foundation of prayer. Every leader, 13 speakers that I heard, in some fashion underscored the centrality of prayer as a foundation for what God's doing. He's restoring a burden to pray in people's hearts. Number two, he's bringing worship back as a focus of his people. I praise God for worship, for loving God as our primary focus and priority in life. He's opening his church to believe him for signs, wonders, and miracles. We heard so many stories, testimonies, of how God was intervening in lives just the way I described there. Because where the gospel was preached, Jesus said these signs would follow. And God's doing it today. And God is also raising up a church where every member of the church has a ministry. Turn to someone right now and say, God's given you a ministry. Go ahead, do it. Tell them that, God's given you a ministry. If you're part of his church, he's given you a ministry today. Now listen, let's not take that for granted, beloved. For years, we sat in pews, and there was about three people who had a ministry. The minister and the two associate ministers. God's restoring a church where everyone has a ministry. And then a fifth emphasis was the rising up of a tremendous thrust into world mission. All over the face of the earth, people are going out, taking the gospel. And the nations are being remembered before the throne of God. And there's a sixth one that I didn't mention yesterday, and I want you to jot this down. These leaders everywhere, everyone that came up, said in some fashion or another that they sense the quickening of revival in the land. That God is moving in a spirit of revival. Not yet broken out, but soon to come in a way that none of us can anticipate. And I believe that that's right. Now beloved, what is our response to be when we, as a church, listen to me, I believe by the grace of God. If you look at those six things, how many of you see that those are things that God has given us? He's given us a foundation of prayer. Every morning we meet to pray. Many of you are praying in your homes. God's given us a worship focus. He's given us a ministry burden that everyone in the church would learn to minister in the power of His name, so that signs and wonders and miracles could be seen. And praise God, we're seeing people sent out. David and Betsy Henner just left to finish their preparation to go to Turkey. And I believe with all my heart, and I want you to put your hand up, do you want to believe God for revival in our land today? You see, praise the name of the Lord. These are things that God is making alive to us. And, you know, I feel real good about the fact that we're in a stream of people, don't you? That we're part of something that God's doing other places. You know, you stand up here and you see Brother Ken and others dancing before the Lord, and you say, well, do I have to do that to be really with it? And I just say in my own spirit, and I say as one who's struggled for a long time with feeling kind of awkward and uncoordinated looking and all that, but you ought to see a place where 3,500 people dance together. And the whole place starts gyrating, you know. Why? Why is that important? Because in that wholehearted expression, church, the Spirit of the Lord begins to move because they're obeying the Word of God. I thank God that our praise and worship is part of a move and not just something that a few people are trying to make up to get people excited. So Joshua says, listen, because the Lord has given you all this, look at verse 14. Therefore, beloved, he says, fear the Lord and serve Him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Joshua, I think, church, touches on, oh, such an important need today. Fear the Lord. Hold Him in reverence. Put away triteness and chumminess and over-familiarity with presuming. God, I believe if there's a judgment that will fall on the charismatic movement, it's a judgment of presumption that because we somehow have moved in it, like we can just lay back and, well, we've got it going. Oh, church, examine your heart. Do you walk in here on a Sunday morning just kind of figuring, well, it'll be the same old thing and we'll talk about the glory of God and praise the Lord and all that? Or do you come with faith, calling on God to touch you, looking for the Holy Spirit to demonstrate His presence? You see, the beginning of the downfall of any move of God is a casualness about it, taking it for granted. That's why Jesus, the Holy Spirit, spoke through Mary and said, God has moved in mercy upon me because I fear the Lord. Look at Luke 1.50. Just jot it down. Proverbs 14.7 talks about the fact that the fear of the Lord causes us to move in the protection and wisdom of God. Do you want to know why our nation is on the precipice of judgment, church? Because a whole nation of people have forgotten what it means to fear the Lord. Do you think people give any thought to what God thinks about what they do outside of Christ? They only care about what it means to them, not what it might mean to God. And I just submit to you, when we get too familiar, we're going to get nailed. I remember one time when I was in my officer training for the Marine Corps and I had a burden to get a Bible study going in my barracks. I had a real burden for it because I knew I needed prayer and fellowship. About the eighth week of my training, and we'd gotten to know the people a little bit that were over us, although you were always kept at a distance from them. One day, out on a trail, we were taking a break, and it was one of the more, because we were getting near the end of the ten-week initial training session, I came up beside the lieutenant who was my platoon commander, and I just was talking like a normal human being for the first time in eight weeks to him. And I said, Sir, how would you like to come to our Bible study? Now that was a good statement except for one word. You. Because you didn't address an officer as you, period. Ever. He turned, and I'll never forget this, he turned, grabbed the strap of my helmet, and my neck was in there, part of that, grabbed that thing and just flung me around and shared a few bits of wisdom with me about never doing that again. And unfortunately, he didn't come to Bible study either. What had I done? I'd crossed over the threshold. I got too familiar. I don't want you to think that God's some general in the Marine Corps. Not at all. But the same thing can happen to us. We can begin to presume. We just take God for granted. And Joshua says, Fear the Lord. Revere Him. Honor Him. Hold Him in high esteem. Lest, what would happen? Lest you would be destroyed by your unbelief and your presumption. Now, Joshua said, If you'll fear the Lord, there's two things that'll happen. This is Roman numeral two. Put away other gods. Here's what it means to fear the Lord to us today, church. Put away other gods. Now, the gods that Joshua's talking about here were gods that the people of Israel had kind of erected at times when they were feeling a little bit rebellious and presumptuous. At one time, they were in deep, deep bondage in Egypt and nothing was happening, and so they just started erecting little gods and idols. And then when God delivered them, even in the wilderness, remember that? What did they make when Moses went up in the mountain? A golden calf. Remember that? They started worshiping this golden calf and having this big party. Now, I want to say to you today, now listen, I don't think that these people were suddenly casting off Jehovah. I don't think they forgot they were Jews. I don't believe that they somehow were consciously saying, Forget Jehovah. I think they were having a fling. I think they were raising up these little idols to kind of satisfy in them the desire just to be on their own a little bit. Church, one of the things that the enemy will do in you and in me is to cause little idols to come up. He's not going to come to you and say, Forsake Jesus Christ and curse him. Follow this God. How many of you know that Satan's too smart for that? He's not going to say to you, Just, you know, rebuke Jesus and follow me. He's not going to do that to you. But what will he do? Well, he'll start to fill your life with little idols. He'll start to raise up in you a lot of just little things that become real important to you. Little sex God here and there. Little hobbies that just kind of consume a lot of the time that could be given to other things. Little career changes that might mean that all you do is work, work, work. Little flings of compromise here and there that become idols. You say, Idols? I picture an idol as some little wooden statue. I say to you, beloved, an idol is anything upon which you set your affection and ignore the voice of God. You see, when you put your VCR up on your tabletop and you call a friend, you don't say, Hey, come on over. We're going to worship the VCR on the TV set. Right? We're not talking about that kind of worship. That's not the way that Satan is going to get at you. But, beloved, when you take your X-rated movie and slip it in there, then you are raising up in you that very idol that the world has bowed down and worshipped to. Of unbridled sexuality. And hear me well. Church, our God is a jealous and holy God. And he will not allow us to indulge our fantasies and to raise up in us some sort of compromise that we feel he'll understand just because we're living in this generation that's so caught up in its flesh and in itself. I believe that God wanted you to live in this generation because he knew that you could sustain a walk of faith in it. Otherwise, he'd have had you born some other time. But we need to bring ourselves to a point of dealing with these little gods that we raise up. It's not for idleness that the word of the Lord in 1 Peter 1.15 says that you shall be holy even as I, your God, am holy. And holy, the Bible says, listen, in all of your conduct. Don't you wish it said most of your conduct. Don't you wish it said in your public conduct. Don't you wish it said in your church conduct. Really easy to be holy here, isn't it? But, beloved, it says in all of our conduct. And I want you to know I'm standing here today not as one who's self-righteously trying to straighten you out. I'm standing as one who realizes I need to let the Holy Spirit into every closet of my life. I need to let the holiness of God capture me in every dimension of who I am. How about you? Oh, God, it's so uncomfortable when I open those closet doors. I don't want you to see everything that's in there. But God says you shall be holy. In fact, the Bible says without holiness, no man shall see God. Beloved, I'm not here today to bring a condemnation message on anybody. You say, well, where's the grace then? Church, the grace, the grace of God is what I'm counting on to live the life that God calls me to live. But I will not, I will not use the grace of God as some sort of excuse to walk my own way and do my own thing and to stomp on the blood of Jesus and to indulge my flesh and take on an indifference toward the things I know God doesn't want me to be involved in. And I'm talking about all the little things right now. I know I am. Things that we just kind of let into our lives and into our children's lives. Joshua said, fear the Lord and put away the false gods that are in the land. Then he said this, serve the Lord. Look at the verse, verse 14 at the end. Put away the false gods and serve the Lord. And this is our third item. Purpose to obey and follow our King. Let's just leave that up for a moment. Okay, all three of those. See, church, it's not enough just to be purged. It's not enough just to be cleaned out. It's not just enough to put away the false gods. We need to see ourselves as ones who are going to follow the Lord our God. Now, this is my main point today. I want you to just ask God for grace to hear what I'm going to say. You see, Joshua was very careful here not to push the people into some sort of commitment. Look at the words here that he shares with them. First of all, he says in verse 15, he says, well, if you're unwilling to serve the Lord, then choose who you are going to serve. Then he goes on down there in verse 19. He said to the people, hey, you really can't do this because God's holy and he's jealous. And if you forsake him, he's going to turn to you. Listen, Joshua was careful not to have the people enter into a covenant, into a vow. Why? Because he knew that God takes a vow very seriously. Deuteronomy 23, 21 says, don't forsake the vows you make to the Lord your God. And I wonder today, are you here as someone who some time ago said, I'm going to follow God. I'm going to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. But along the way, you find yourself slipping back, slipping back. Do you remember a time when you wept because the conviction of God was on your life, and yet somehow months went by and now years and well, you know, you like being a Christian, but you're not following the Lord. I think God is through with those who say Jesus is Lord with their mouth, but can't walk one day without indulging. And so Joshua goes back and forth. He said, no, don't say it. Don't say it because you can't do it. Don't say it. And what do the people do? They say, oh, yes, we can. He's the Lord who delivered us. He's the Lord who loves us. He's the Lord who rescued us. We can do it. And finally, Joshua relents and he says, then your witness is against yourself. Go ahead. You will do it, then do it. God be praised in your life. And I want to say to us this morning, church, that in 1986, God is speaking not just to you personally about your own walk of holiness, but He's speaking to us as His church. And He's saying to us, church, my beloved bride at North Way, I am calling you this day to a new consecration unto my Lordship. I would be Lord of this church. Amen. I would be the one that you would exalt in all that you do. I would be the name that you would raise and I would be the voice that you would listen to. And I want to say to you, beloved, there are many areas in our church life where our confession does not live up to our possession. Let me say it again. There are areas where our confession, what we say does not meet up with our possession, what we're living in. And I believe the Lord is speaking to us as a church and saying, it's time for some things to be different. It's time to follow God with a new abandon and a new desire to exalt Him as Lord of all. What does Lord mean? What does the word Lord mean? It appears 187 times in the New Testament. What does it mean? It means absolute ruler or authority. It means the boss. I love the Spanish word for Lord. You know what it was? Did you catch it when Lisa and Myrna were here? Señor, el Señor, the Lord, the one who rules over everything that has to do with us. Jesus said in Matthew 7.21, why is it that you say, Lord, Lord, but you don't do the things I call you to do? How many of you know sometimes what God calls us to do just really isn't to our fancy or to our liking? One brother shared this story of the fact that his hobby was restoring cars. He had a 64.5 Mustang convertible, bright red, beautiful car, worth a good bit of money. He'd been playing with it, restoring it. He was a pastor of a growing church out in San Jose. And he had a guest pastor in that day who was preaching to the people. And the guest pastor said, I really believe God is meeting needs today and there's a need that someone has here for a car. A little old lady in the front, oh, I have a need for a car, I have a need. Now the pastor of the church, not the one that was speaking, looked over there and said, and the preacher looked over and he said, Brother Manny, his first name was Manny, I believe the Lord would have you give your Mustang to this woman. Manny looked over at this woman and said, she doesn't even go to this church, she's visiting here. She's just visiting here. The pastor said, I just believe that that's what the Lord is saying. Manny said, he walked over and he said, lady, you don't really need a car? He said, oh yes, sir, I really need a car. He said, well, you don't go here. She said, I know, sir, but I'm visiting and he just, he said, why did you come today? Right? And we're talking about something that could very easily be an idol. And this brother shared, he said, you know, bless God. He looked over and he said, the man's name that was preaching was John. He said, John, do you believe the Lord is giving that word? And he said, I really believe that. I really believe that. And he walked over and took out his keys, flipped them over to the lady. Why? Because Jesus is Lord and as Joshua said, we will hear his voice and obey it. We will hear his voice and obey his word to us. And I believe that God in his goodness knows that when we lay down the things that are dear to us, he's going to return them to us in his own way, in his own perfect fashion. And it's no coincidence in my heart, beloved, that one year later, as this pastor of the church was visiting the 700 Club in Virginia Beach, a person said, God just impressed me to give you a car. What kind of car? A Mustang. A 64 Mustang. And now that car is sitting in his driveway in the process of being restored again. Now, I'm not saying you give and God gives you the exact thing back, but I believe this. You never, ever, ever have God as your debtor. And if you'll give what God as Lord says to give, he'll always restore and return to you. For him to be Lord means that we give and do what he says. Well, you're saying, well, I'm not sure. I'm not sure if it's God. That's my problem. I don't know if it's the Lord or not. How many of you have ever been to an Eckerd drugstore? Eckerd drugs. We have some here in our area. 1,700 of them around the country. About just a few years ago, two years ago or so, Jack Eckerd of Eckerd Drugs met the Lord Jesus. Made him Lord of his life. One day, walking through one of his 1,700 drugstores, he noticed the pornographic magazines just tucked away in one part of the store there. Walked out, didn't think much about it. Every time he went into a store after that, just to review, every time, he'd see that. Pornographic magazine. He finally got that very lucrative product out of his store. Charles Colston was talking to him. He said, why did you do that, Jack? He said, because God wouldn't let me off the hook. How many of you know, that's when you know the voice of the Lord. He doesn't let you off the hook. You can push it down. You can get it back there. You can forget about it. But you cannot get away from that voice. That's the Lord, church. That's what God is calling us as a church to learn to follow. What does it take to follow Jesus? Well, I'll tell you what it's going to take in 1986. It's going to take guts. Someone said this, it takes guts to break out of ruts. And if you're in a rut in 1985, then it's going to take some guts to get out of it. I want you to know, I'm not preaching this to somebody who doesn't have any ruts. I need to get out of some of them. And we as a church need to break out of some of them. And I want to just conclude by sharing this one last part of this thing, church. One of the things that over the years has always come back to me, maybe you've struggled with this, when we talk about corporate life and moving together as a church, there's always this sense of wondering, what if no one else does? I mean, what if I'm the one that sacrifices, but the other one in my home group doesn't? What if I'm the one that gives and gives and gives and gives, and follows that voice and obeys, but the one next to me enjoys their pleasure, goes after the things that maybe I could have? Well, Joshua saw that as a possibility. He saw the possibility that Israel would possibly never respond to this, and they'd never be the nation God wanted them to be. They'd never move into the destiny that God had prepared for them. They'd never find the rule and dominion that He purposed for them. And yet Joshua said the words, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. I want to say to you today, there's no greater need that we face than to together say, Jesus, be the Lord of this church. Be the absolute ruler. Be the absolute king of all that we do. Every event, every leadership decision, every meeting, every policy, every strategy, every relationship. You say, well, this is the church. Of course He's the Lord of the church. I mean, this is, we're talking about church here. I want you to know, I believe now, looking back, there are times when this church, if you will call it a train, was chugging down the tracks, and Jesus just got off at one of the stations. And we had to back up and pick Him up again. But I'm for a day that He's going to sit in the engine and drive this place and take it where He wants it to go. And how many of you get so caught up sometimes, you feel, with all the activity, that you're not sure where God wants you? We get off on some derailed side and then we have to get back on again. You say, well, this is the church. I mean, He understands those things. Some of you, beloved, if you're honest, you'd say, well, it's the church as long as it's doing what I want it to do. He's Lord as long as it's kind of going the way I think it should go. I'm here to say to you today that God's given us a structure and He's given us authority. And He works His Lordship through that structure and through that authority. Larry Christensen, who's a very, very highly respected leader in the Lutheran Church charismatic movement, said, our relationship with Christ, our relationship with the Father, and therefore our experience of the Holy Spirit depends directly upon recognizing and receiving those whom the Lord sets in positions of authority. It is only vain human imagination which supposes that I can say yes to the Lordship of Christ yet remain arbitrary or indifferent to the human authority that God has set over me. I believe that. You take it or leave it with the people that God's put around you, you're saying, I'll take it or leave it Jesus. You want to change what's happening around you, then you come together to pray and seek His face and covenant with those who are doomed. And I want to say in conclusion then, church, that I yearn to be so partnered with you in following Jesus as Lord that the deepest confidence of my heart is that if everybody else turned and went their own way and worshipped their own gods, you would keep going on that path. And as part of this conference and all these wonderful men of God that I deeply respect, every one of them, women of God, Lydia Prince was there and Mrs. Gordon Lindsay of Christ for the Nations was there. Women of God. But of all the ones that touched my heart, there was one young man in his mid-thirties who stood up. And as he spoke, he spoke with an authority and a humility that I've rarely seen. And he shared his vision and his burden to follow Jesus and particularly in the area of prayer. And I remember God quickening to me how close to him I felt even as he spoke. And I had an occasion to meet him the next day and talk face to face. And it did something inside of me to know that in another part of the nation, there was another man who wanted the lordship of Jesus more than anything else and he was willing to pray to see it happen more than anything else. It's the hard way, church. It's often the lonely way. But it's Jesus' way. And I want to look out here today and say to you, whoever you are, if you're determining today to follow Jesus as Lord in every area of your life, in every dimension of your responsibility, in every relationship that touches you, then I want you to look here and see here's one person that's committed to walk with you. And in a few moments, I'm going to give an opportunity for everyone else who would want to say the same thing. I'm committed in 1986 to follow Jesus as Lord. And if you're committed, you'll not walk alone. Dear Father, we thank you, Lord, for Joshua and the people of Israel and the crossroads that they face,