CWA - OT Lesson Supplemental - Epiphany 5 - KBKuschel

Joshua 24:14- 24

14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. 15 But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.” 16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.” 19 Joshua said to the people, “You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. 20 If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you and make an end of you, after he has been good to you.” 21 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the LORD.” 22 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the LORD.” “Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied. 23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel.” 24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the LORD our God and obey him.”

Intro

Why has God given you family?

Blessing to you.

Opportunity to exercise responsibility.

Opportunity to practice love

How about: As a platform from which to show Jesus to others

IA1 15“As for me and my household we will serve the LORD.” Joshua spoke those words. He spoke them to the assembled leaders of Israel. He spoke them as a farewell speech. He had been their leader for a long time. He had moved them into the land of Canaan. He had helped them conquer everybody in sight. He had led them as they overcame walled cities. He had led them to settle into the land. They were now farming their own land, living in their own cities and eating from their own vineyards and olive groves.

2 14 “Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt.” . 15 or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. These two references remind us that the Israelites had some other gods which they might have chosen to worship. They had some real skeletons in their history closet. Some of their ancestors had built the tower of Babel. Some of them had worshiped the gods in Egypt. Some of them had worshiped the god Wealth by refusing to dedicate war booty to the LORD. Some of them had gotten involved with the local gods of the Amorites, the people of Palestine, gods called Baal and Astarte. There were many other gods besides the LORD for people to serve.

B1 “As for me and my household we will serve the LORD.” We have lots of choices today too, don’t we? What god are we serving? The god of the tower of Babel is still around. Is the god named My Career Advancement? Are all the decisions made in your family related to the career advancement of the adults? Is the goal of the family to educate the children in the best way possible so they can have the best careers? Are all the activities that we are involved in intended to make it possible for the members of the family to get or keep what we would consider to be the most desirable careers?

2 The god of Achan is still around. Is the god your household serves called Standard of Living? Is a primary topic of discussion amongst the family what you have or what

you want to get? Is the level of compensation and fringe benefits the thing you focus on when discussing profession or career? Is the size and location of your home very

important to you? How about the style or make of automobile?

3 The god of wanting to be back in Egypt is still around. Is the god your family serves called Pleasure? Do you work hard at your job so that you can have enough resources to do whatever you want to do? Do you schedule your life around things that the members of your family enjoy? Is it really important for the members of the family to get good at something that they enjoy so that they can get the most out of life?

4 The gods Baal and Astarte are still around. What really grabs our attention in advertising? What snags you so that you watch the TV news? What is on the front cover of the magazines at the grocery checkout place? What always seems to be a major part of TV or movie presentations? If sexuality is such a focus of so much of our attention, what god are we serving?

C1 Jesus said to us: “You are lights of the world.”(Mt 5:14) He could have said the same thing in these words: “The world, in other words all the people in the world, are to see Me by watching you.” Or He could have said, “You are epiphanies of Me. You show Me to other people.”

2 If people spent some time in our families, would they see who our God is? Is our god Self, Resources, Enjoyment, Sexuality, or is our God Jesus?

IIA1 Why was the LORD Joshua’s God? Well, God had taken the initiative. He had picked out Abraham to be the father of a people from whom the Savior was to come. Joshua was a descendant of Abraham. Had Abraham deserved that choice from God? Not if we assume that he was included in the ancestors who worshiped other gods beyond the Euphrates River. Choice must have been based on who God is. The God of grace.

2 Why was the LORD Joshua’s God? Well, there was a lot of time in between Abraham and Joshua. Maybe 600 years. God had seen to it that His truth was preserved by people like Isaac and Jacob and Judah so that Joshua was aware of who the LORD was. Did Isaac the one who played favorites and Jacob the deceiver and Judah who got in some really messy situations deserve to be carriers of the promise of the Savior? Obviously not. It happened because God loves people who don’t deserve it.

3 Why was the LORD Joshua’s God? It sounds as if there was the danger of adopting the gods of Egypt when Israel was there for 400 years. But God saw to it that a physical, social and thus spiritual separation existed between the descendants of Jacob and the Egyptians so that didn’t happen. It happened because God loved them.

4 Why was the LORD Joshua’s God? Because God had decided His people had spent enough time in Egypt, sent Moses in, and forced the Pharaoh’s hand through the miraculous activities which damaged Egypt considerably to allow his free labor to leave, so that they might once again exercise their relationship with Him. Why? He loved them.

5 Why was the LORD Joshua’s God? Because God hadn’t let all the people who were his ancestors die during their forty years traveling to the land of Canaan. No normal source of food and water should have meant extinction and no Joshua. But daily manna and quail from God’s hand solved that. No trained army should have meant extinction at the hands of the nations through which they traveled. That didn’t happen either.

6 Why was the LORD Joshua’s God? Because He had kept His promise and allowed them to overcome those living in Canaan even though they were more powerful, had more military experience and lived in walled cities. These are the words of the text. 17 It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. That is why the LORD was Joshua’s God. Because God did all that.

B1 Why is Jesus our God? Because God took the initiative. He picked us out to be His sons and daughters. Was it because we had such a good track record of seeking Him? Based on our previous look at all the gods we struggle to excise from our lives, it would not appear so. His choice must have been just based on who He is. The God of grace.

2 Why is Jesus our God? Because God saw to it that we had ancestors who were believers in Him as their Savior. Because God saw to it that we had parents who applied the Gospel to our lives through Word and Baptism.

3 Why is Jesus our God? Because God washed away our sins in the blood of Jesus. Because God covered us with the holiness of Jesus. Because God gives us a relationship that will never stop because of the resurrection of Jesus.

4 Why is Jesus our God? Because Jesus did miracles to prove to us that He is God. Because Jesus did the miracle of convincing us that He is God and Man at the same time and thus could be our Savior.

5 Why is Jesus our God? Because Jesus continues to live in our hearts as He comes to us through word and Sacrament, thus keeping us trusting that He is our Savior from sin. Because Jesus continues to live in our hearts as He comes to us through word and Sacrament, thus keeping us motivated to live our lives His way so that we don’t divorce ourselves from Him .

6 Why is Jesus our God? Because Jesus conquered the devil so that he can’t control our lives and can’t commandeer our eternity. Because Jesus conquers our spiritual enemies who ridicule us and try to badger us to give up Jesus. That is why Jesus is our God. Because God did and does all that.

C1 Jesus said to us: “You are lights of the world.” He could have said the same thing in these words: “The world, in other words all the people in the world, are to see Me by watching you.” Or He could have said, “You are epiphanies of Me. You show Me to other people.”

If people spent some time in our families, would they hear about all that God has done for us? Would they then understand why Jesus is our God?

IIIA1 14 “Now fear the LORD and serve him,” Joshua told the people. Fear is an attitude. Fear says, “I know God’s place and I know my place.” God is in charge. He is way above me. He can do anything. I can’t. He can punish. I can be punished. He can save. I can be saved.

2 Serve is an action word. To serve means you will not merely acknowledge the existence of god. You will not just be passive recipients of the Lord’s blessings. You and your household are going to be doing some action.

B2 What actions constitute service to the LORD? We serve the LORD when we do what He tells us to do. In order to determine how we as a household serve the LORD, we should first of all ask the question “What is God’s goal for individuals and families?” Answer is: “God wants all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.” So anything that we do which helps anybody come to a knowledge of the truth and be saved is service to the LORD.

3 What would you as a household do to try to make sure that every member of the household has come to a knowledge of the truth? Use the truth regularly. Your household is going to be serving the LORD when you read age appropriate “Bible books” with your children. Your household is going to be serving the LORD when you have some program of devotional practice or Scripture study going on as a group or as individual members of the family. Your household is going to participate weekly with your congregational family as it uses God’s Truth. Your household members would then be equipped with God’s truth so that they might share it with other people in our world and others might be brought to know the truth and to trust in Jesus the Savior.

4 We serve God when we do what He tells us to do. He tells us to obey, respect, take care of, protect, honor, supply and speak well of others. He tells us we are to use our assets, our words and our actions to benefit others. That sounds as if we are serving others. I thought we were talking about serving God. Jesus said when we live our lives the way God wants us to, we will lead others to praise our Father in heaven. When we lead our family members or people outside our families to praise our Father in heaven, they have been led either to have their knowledge of the truth about God reinforced or they have been led to acknowledge the truth about God. That is serving God.

2 If people spent some time in our families, would our service to the LORD be obvious to them?

Conc: LORD JESUS, thank You for giving me my family. Please help us as a family to be an epiphany of You to anybody who visits us.