Your New Home
Joshua 24:14-15
For several weeks we’ve been working on an Extreme Home Makeover: Family Edition. We began back on Mother’s Day by laying the foundation. Then we got the framing in place, weatherproofed it, made sure it met code and arranged the finances to be successful in completing the project.
Why have we devoted so much time and energy to this project? A great Christian who lived over a century ago named G. K. Chesterton, put it all in perspective when he asked this question, "Can anyone tell me two things more vital to the race than these: what man shall marry what woman and what shall be the first things taught to their first child?"
Let me tell you why the teaching I’ve given you over the last several weeks is so important: It’s because
* Every eight seconds a child drops out of school
* Every twenty-six seconds a child runs away from home
* Every forty-seven seconds a child is abused
* Every sixty-seven seconds a teenage has a baby
* Every seven minutes a child is arrested for drug abuse
* Every thirty minutes a child is arrested for drunk driving
* Every thirty-six minutes a child is killed by a gun
I believe in a spiritual being called, Satan. I believe he has a master plan to destroy this country. His number one target is the home. That’s why we began with the foundation of faith.
The reason we need a solid foundation is because the foundation of the nation is a stable family. If you destroy the family, you destroy the nation.
So today, on this Father’s Day, I want to conclude this series by calling to your attention one decision that, in effect, wraps up all the other things we've been talking about that can ensure that you have an extreme home makeover. It is a decision that can give you a new marriage. It can give you a new family. It can literally give you a new home.
It is the decision that a man named, Joshua, makes before the nation of Israel over 2,000 years ago. He is standing before his fellow countrymen speaking, not as the commander and chief of the Israelite army, nor as the leader of the Israelite nation, but as a dad who has a family. Notice what he says in
Joshua 24:14-15
Can you imagine what could happen in this country if every family made that same decision? Do you think the crime rate would go down? Do you think our jails would be emptier? Do you think our churches might be more filled? Do you think that marriages might be restored? Do you think that homes might be rebuilt?
No family can ever make a greater decision than Joshua and his family made. No father could ever set a greater example of how a father could lead his family than to make this decision. In these two verses he tells us how we can make sure in every area of our home, our marriage and our family we are consistently and continuously experiencing an extreme home makeover.
I. The Family must be Led to Worship the Lord
Joshua begins by saying, "Now, therefore, fear the Lord."
He is talking to the family and he is letting all the families there know that the fear of the Lord begins at home. Parents, we have the mistaken idea that we bring our children to church to teach them to worship. That is not true. You should not bring your children to church to teach them to worship. You should bring them to church to practice their worship. Children ought to learn to worship God at home with their parents.
Later on Joshua is going to talk about serving the Lord. In fact, the word, "serve" is used 15 times in this section of scripture. It means to fear God, obey God, and worship only God.
Above everything else the number one lesson parents need to teach their children is to fear the Lord, to reverence the Lord, to get under His authority, to understand what it means to know and do the will of God. That is our first responsibility. You will never get away from the fact that an extreme home makeover begins and ends with God.
And mom and dad, God has given to us the responsibility of spiritually training our children and it is not an option. It is a command. The most important lesson we will teach our kids is about how to know God, love God, and worship God. The bottom line of good parenting is to point our kids to God.
Why is that so important? Proverbs 9:10 says,
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”
The Living Biible says it like this:
"Knowing God results in every other kind of understanding." (Proverbs 9:10, LB)
In fact, Paul said to the Philippian believers
"Everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord." (Philippians 3:8, LB)
It doesn't matter how much your kids know if they don't know God. Knowing God is the basic foundation of all of life. I want you to understand. It is not enough to talk about God. There are a lot of parents today who are not even Christians who talk about God. They talk about a higher power, the man upstairs, this god or that god, but that is not enough.
We need to make sure we point our kids to the only God there is which is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Joshua said, “We are going to serve the Lord. He wasn’t saying, “You need to be religious. Just choose you a god and get with it. It really doesn’t matter as long as you are sincere.”
He didn’t say, “I’m going to let the kids decide for themselves if they want to go to church.” He said, “My house, my family, my children, we will serve the Lord”.
We need to point our kids to Jesus Christ through whom alone they can have a relationship with God.
By the way, do you know one of the reasons why you need to lead your kids to worship God? The worship of God protects you against the storms of life that we looked at a couple of weeks ago. You know as well as I that life is full storms. It is always tornado season in the human life and you never know when one is going to come up. As you well know, when a tornado comes, what you need is a place of safety and security.
The Psalmist said, “God is my refuge and strength; a very present help in trouble.” Psalm 46:1.
Do you want an extreme home makeover that will last? You make sure your family is lead to worship the Lord.
Look at verse 14 again. First of all Joshua says, “Fear the Lord”. Then he says,
"serve Him in sincerity and in truth."
Not only must our families be led to Worship the Lord,
II. The Family must be Led to Work for the Lord
True worship always motivates you to get involved in God's work. When you really worship God, you get so full of God, you just want to do something for God.
There are two ways that you teach your children to serve the Lord.
The first is by your example. Every parent ought to be serving the Lord in some way in the church. It may be through a formal ministry or informal ministry. It may be through a ministry on Sunday or a ministry on Monday, but every parent by his or her example should show children why it is important to serve the Lord.
Then you ought to teach your children to serve the Lord by your encouragement. Don't ever discount the fact that your kids (both children and teenagers) need to learn early in life how to serve the Lord.
Whether you realize it or not, your kids are picking up values from you whether you teach them formally or not. By just watching you, they are picking up what your values are. They are seeing what is really important in your life. It doesn't matter what you say is important, but the way you spend your time and the way you spend your money, your checkbook and your calendar tells your kids what is important to you. If you value the church they will know it. If you value serving in the church they will know it. If you value ministry in the church they will know it. Everybody serves something or somebody.
That’s esactly what Joshua is saying in verse 15,
"Choose for yourself today whom you will serve." (Joshua 24:15, NASB)
You don't get a choice as to whether or not you serve somebody. You do get a choice in who you serve.
Years ago, Bob Dylan wrote a song you may remember. It went like this.
You may be an Ambassador to England or France,
You may like to gamble, you may like to dance,
You may be the heavy weight champion of the world,
You might be a socialite with a long string of pearls,
But your gonna have to serve somebody...
May be a construction worker, working on a home,
Might be living in a mansion, you might live in a dome,
You may own guns and you may even own tanks,
You may be somebody's landlord, you may even own banks,
But your gonna have to serve somebody.
The truth is you are serving some god right now. You are either serving the true God or you are serving a false god. Everybody serves some god. Even the atheist who claims he doesn't believe in God serves some god. It may be the god of self, the god of ego, the god of success, the god of sex, the god of money, or the god of pleasure, but everybody serves some god.
I heard about a little boy, named Robert, who was too young to be an usher at a wedding, but he really wanted to participate someway, somehow, so an older man took him aside and explained to him the etiquette of escorting people at a wedding. He said, "Robert, you first have to ask them if they are a guest of the bride or the groom to determine where you need to seat them."
Robert seemed to understand that fairly well, so Robert was patiently waiting on the first person to come in to the wedding and a lady came walking in the door and he very politely offered his arm to this lady and said, "Ma'm whose side are you on?"
Everybody is on one side or the other. You are either serving God or you are serving somebody else. If you want to have an extreme home makeover you lead your family to worship the Lord, teach them to work for the Lord, and then
III. The Family must be Led To Walk With The Lord
Joshua goes on to say in verse 14,
"Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt and serve the Lord. (Joshua 24:14,NASB )
In effect, Joshua said don't even keep false gods hanging around. You separate yourself from false gods, false truth, false religions, and you walk with the Lord.
I don't know of anything that you will ever do for your kids more than to teach them how to have proper priorities in their life. When you go to church you teach them that God is important. When you read the Bible to them, you teach them that God's word is important. When you pray with them, you teach them that fellowship with God is important. When you live a life that is pure and clean in what you do, what you say, where you go, what you see, what you hear, you teach them that holiness for God is important.
One of the most fascinating verses in all the Bible to me is Luke 2:52 where we are told,
"Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men."
Is that not an amazing thought? The God of creation “grew”. This third person of the Trinity, the very God of the Universe narrowed down to a tiny, singular cell, entered into a virgin’s womb and was born into this world. And He chose to abide by the laws of human nature.
He who was infinite in wisdom chose to wipe the slate clean and “learn” everything that He designed!
Notice the ways that Jesus grew: First, He grew in wisdom - that is intellectual growth. Then, He grew in stature - that is physical growth. Then, He grew in favor with God - that is spiritual growth. Then, He grew in favor with man - that is social growth.
And that is exactly what you are trying to do with your own children as you teach them to walk with the Lord. And I daresay if it was important for Jesus to grow in those areas, we better take seriously our responsibility to help our children grow in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.
They must have balanced growth. If we teach them to love God with all their mind, they will grow mentally. If we teach them to love God with all of their strength, they will grow physically. If we help them to love God with all of their soul, they will grow socially. And if we lead them to love God with all of their heart, they will grow spiritually.
Now, you know as well as I that I can stand up here and talk until I am blue in the face and tell you what to do or even how to do it, but it all comes down to this decision.
Joshua 24:15
All that we have talked about for these last several weeks - this extreme home makeover, comes down to a decision. What god are you and your family going to serve?
Now you may sit there and think you don't have to choose, but you just did. Making decisions is a very funny thing. Not to make a decision is to make a decision. It is kind of like getting up in the morning. Have you ever heard the alarm go off and shut it down and say to yourself, "I just can't decide whether I want to get up or not?" Well, you just did! When you refused to get up, you just decided to continue lying down.
Listen again to what Joshua said:
"As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."
I want you to notice something. Joshua's children didn't have a choice. Joshua said in effect, "As long as they are my children and they eat at my table and sleep under my roof, they are going to be under my authority and they are going to serve the Lord."
Parents, if you have children who are living in your home and they are not going to church and they are not living the way they ought to live, God is not going to hold them accountable, He is going to hold you accountable.
Don't be intimidated by the threat of turning your children against church. You don't turn your children against bathing by making them take a bath. You don't turn your kids against eating by making them eat at mealtimes. You are not going to turn your kid against church just by making him go to church. I can assure you if a kid grows up and quits going to church it won't be because you made him go to church.
Several thousand years ago, this guy named, Joshua, stood up in front of an entire nation and said, "You choose what you are going to do, but as for me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord." I am raising the question today to parents - moms and dads. Have you said that about your family? God didn't put you here to win a popularity contest or to be Mr. and Mrs. Joe Cool. God put you here to make this basic decision - "As for me and my house, we are going to serve the Lord."
As long as your children are in your house, you are accountable for them. As long as they are under your roof or under your authority, God holds you accountable for whether or not you give them spiritual leadership.
There was a priest who lived thousands of years ago whose name was Eli. Eli refused to give spiritual leadership to his sons and basically let them do whatever they wanted to do. Listen to what God said to Eli, that father and that priest:
I Samuel 3:12-13
Listen: If you want a healthy family, a happy family, a holy family, if you want an extreme home makeover, then you begin by committing your life to Jesus Christ. After you have committed your life to Jesus Christ, you commit your family to Jesus Christ. You commit your marriage to Jesus Christ. You commit your spouse to Jesus Christ. You commit your children to Jesus Christ.
Let us partner with you in that extreme home makeover process. Why do you think Trinity Baptist Church exists? Why do we bother to conduct Sunday School? Why do you think we have on-going programming and ministry and missions? We are doing all of that to partner with you to help you and your family continuously experience that extreme home makeover that God wants you to have.
You are in a long line and your are not just influencing your kids; you are influencing future generations. You will never have a greater calling in life, nor a greater accomplishment in life, than to see to it that you and your family know the right God, love the right God, serve the right God, obey the right God, and spend eternity with the right God.
Former President George Bush was asked the question, "What is your greatest accomplishment in life?" He could have replied that as a fighter pilot in World War II, he was shot down and survived. He could have mentioned that he was the U.S. Ambassador to China, the Vice President of the United States or the President of the United States.
He could have talked about his victory in the first Gulf War or the fact that he had two sons that served as governors and one son who went on to be president himself. But he didn't say any of that. When asked what his greatest accomplishment in life was George Bush said, "My children still come home."
Children will always want to come home, when that home is always under the extreme home makeover that God alone can give.
