Preached in Markham Baptist Church, June 26, 2005

AS FOR ME AND MY HOUSE, WE WILL SERVE THE LORD

This morning we have witnessed two sets of parents promise to demonstrate the reality of Christ to their children. They have promised to make it plain that Jesus Christ loves them deeply. They have promised that they will intentionally teach them God’s word. We have all heard you promise. God heard you promise and you need to know that He is delighted with your promise.

It is a great promise and we all celebrate with you this morning, not only for the gift of your children, but also your desire and promise to bring them up with a knowledge of Jesus Christ.

This morning I want to encourage those of you who have made this promise. Like these parents you have made a similar promise before God and His people to your children and ceremonies like today call us to remember those promises and perhaps renew them, perhaps gain a new determination to see those promises realized in our lives - for the sake of our kids, for the sake of our grandchildren, and for the community in which we live, for we are not only seeking to influence our children but the greater community.

This promise to demonstrate the reality of God to those around us and especially to our kids is rooted in Scripture. It is a promise that Joshua made long ago in Joshua 24 verse 15. There he says, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

Now you need to know that Joshua was a great leader among the people of God. After Moses died it was left to Joshua to lead the Israelites into the promised land. He was a great military leader and with God as his help he leads his people into the land and conquered much of the south and north of the promised land. And when we get to chapter 24 of this book we see him calling all the people of God for a great big convention.

He calls the people, we read in verse one, to a place called Shechem. Now Shechem is a place of great importance in the history of the Israelites. It is at Shechem that Abraham stops his journey, after receiving the call from God to leave his home country. And at Shechem Abraham receives the promise from God, “To your offspring I will give this land.” (Genesis 12:7). It was at Shechem that Jacob buys a piece of land and constructs an altar to God there, and he called the place by a name that can be translated “Mighty is the God of Israel.” (Genesis 33:18-20)

So it is to this historic place filled with all sorts of memories that Joshua calls the people. And once there he recounts all that God has done for the Israelites. From the call to Abraham, to the escape from Egypt, to protection it the wilderness, to the conquering of the promised land – God has done everything. He summarizes it all at verse 13, “So I gave you a land on which you did not toil and cities you did not build; and you live in them and eat from vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant.”

Now, says Joshua at verse 14, fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. To fear God, here means to wholly submit to God, it is indiscriminant obedience.

This is not a blind leap of faith that Joshua is calling for, it is a reasonable response to what God has done. Given all that God has done for you, now obey God and serve Him with all faithfulness.

And this is the promise that Joshua makes, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

Now think about that beautiful promise. Notice that it is a personal promise.

As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. It seems that I have been drawn to this fact a great deal lately in my preaching – and you should know by now that Chrisitianity is not about rituals, its about a relationship with Jesus Christ. You can go through all the rituals you like, but if you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ you faith will leave you cold and hollow.

Joshua makes a personal choice here, As for me. And so must we all. And think of what a great gift it is to your children when you make this promise. To say as for me – I will serve the Lord. To demonstrate to them the reality of God. It is the gift that a young man by the name of Timothy was given by his mother Eunice. We read in the New Testament in 2 Timothy 1:5 of the faith that lived in Timothy’s mother AND in his grandmother – it was a personal faith for these two women, and as a result Timothy had a visible demonstration of what God was like. And we read in that text that he made the faith his own because of their example. What a wonderful gift.

Of all the things that you could give your kids, and you think of them all – food, shelter, education, laughter, freedom from material want – nothing can be as great as a Godly witness and tangible proof that Jesus Christ is real. No other gift is as great as a living testimony to the reality of Jesus Christ.

So many people make a decision against Christ without really knowing who Christ is. They have never seen Christ demonstrated in a life, they have never seen what the grace of Christ looks like, they have never seen what Christian forgiveness looks like, they haven’t seen Christian unity, Christian joy, they haven’t seen the Christ life. So they make their decision in a vacuum.

How wonderful it is though when our children are given a real choice, when they see Christ demonstrated in their parents, in the church, and they are able to say, “Is that what Christ is like?” “Is that what the grace of Christ looks like?” and they are able to make an intelligent choice. What a wonderful gift you are giving to your children today Carol and Wendell, Paul and Lisa. It is a gift that each one of us as parents need to give to our children, and as a church need to give to our society.

As for me. Do your kids see Christ living in you? Have you said, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord?” Have you made the promise personally real in your life?

Notice next that Joshua’s statement is purposeful. As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. There is a concrete statement of intent. Joshua was saying in our household, God is going to take center stage, we are not going to live for the idols that surround us (he describes them in the first part of 15, idols from the Chaldeans, idols from Egypt and idols from the land in which they are now living.) Joshua says we are going to live for God. It is a purposeful decision.

Do you know the purpose of your home? To eat and sleep? No. The purpose of your home is to glorify God and serve Him alone. That is the purpose of your home.

There are many people who say that they will let their children choose their own religion when they grow up. And that is a noble intention, indeed each person must choose for themselves for or against Christ, but as parents let’s be sure that we are giving them a real choice. There are many who say this and are really saying, I’m not going to teach my children the truths of Scripture, I’m not going to demonstrate a real prayer life, my kids will never see me reading Scripture. What are you showing them? You are showing them that you have made your choice, and it’s not for God. So while they can make a choice for God when they grow up, but you are visibly demonstrating and influencing them to make a choice against faith.

As for me and my house – in our house the truth of Scripture will be taught, the reality of Christ will be demonstrated. It will be a purposeful intent of bringing up the kids with a knowledge of Jesus Christ. I won’t leave the teaching of the Christian faith up to the Sunday School teachers and the private Christian schools. I won’t leave it up to the religious folk. As for me and my house - I will demonstrate to MY kids the reality of Christ and the truth of Scripture. Don’t get me wrong - all those things, Sunday School, Kids’ Kamp, Christian school, all are good, but all they do is nurture the seed that is planted by you. You have to show your kids the reality of God at home.

It starts with a personal relationship – As for me – and then it is purposefully taught to your house. It is purposeful.

Notice that Joshua doesn’t say, My house without me. There are many men in our culture who say this very thing, so as a result the church is seen as a woman’s thing. There are so many teenage boys in our age who believe that because their mother goes to church and displays a spirituality and their father doesn’t, that faith is for women only and has nothing to offer the men of this world.

Joshua never sang, “Take my wife and let her be consecrated Lord to Thee.”

No he said, As for me and my house. Joshua was purposeful, intentional about who would take center stage in his life and home.

Are you being intentional about it? Are your kids, your neighbours seeing Christ at the centre of your home life?

Some of you have – some of you have been so faithful in your demonstration of Christ to your children and yet they have turned away. It is a heartbreak. But can I encourage you? Don’t give up. Keep praying, get others to join with you in prayer, keep demonstrating Christ’s love and grace in your life. Don’t give up, even though your kids may be adults, don’t give up.

My mother turned 80 two weeks ago and we had a big party at her home church – I had the privilege of preaching, my brother’s family sang, there was a reception, speeches. And one speech in particular was given by my niece who at the age of 19 ran away from home. She turned her back on everything that her parents taught her. She was away months at a time without telling her parents where she was – lived on the beaches of Mexico. She got pregnant, married the fellow – and to make the story short – a number of years ago she was baptized, and now she and her husband live for God and know Christ personally – and she stood up at that party and she gave her testimony and said, Do you know what made the difference? I wasn’t going to listen to you, mom; I wasn’t going to listen to you, grandma. But I did know through it all your love. And it was love that brought me back.

Don’t give up.

Scholars tell us that these words of Joshua are denote a continuous action. It involves the past. As for me and my house we have served the Lord – and indeed as the Scripture record is read you discover it to be true. But it also involves the future. I have chosen and continue to choose to serve the Lord. It is not a promise that spurred on the by the moment it is a continuous action. And so our promise, let it be purposeful, for today and for the months to come.

As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.

One last thing. It is a personal promise – it is a purposeful promise, and this – it is a practical promise.

Joshua says, “We will serve the Lord.” He calls the Israelites to throw away all the idols in their household. He was calling them to a practical faith, one that was demonstrated by action.

Notice he didn’t say, As for me and my house we will say we will serve the Lord. That would be only a hollow profession. How tired God is of people who say they will serve Him but never follow through. How tired God must be of people who say they love Him but never express it in worship. How tired God must be of people who say they will help, but never do.

Notice too that Joshua didn’t say as for me and my house the Lord will serve us. That is heard repeatedly today. What will I get out of it? What will it do for us? I hear it repeatedly from people who are searching for a church home. What can your church offer my family? Rarely have I heard, What can my family do for your church!

No - he said, As for me and my house I will serve the Lord.

How wonderful it is when we actually follow through with our profession!

What a wonderful gift it is to make that promise, but to make it personally with the intention of making God the centre of your home, making it practically.

Think of all the things you can give your kids – but none of them compare to the beauty of giving your children a visible demonstration of Jesus Christ. And the influence we have.

Susannah Wesley had 17 children. She lived in a small English cottage just a couple of rooms, but she spent an hour every day praying for her children. She would drape a large apron over her head and sit in a corner of the room, and the children knew that she was praying. As a result of her prayers two of her sons became preachers, John and Charles Wesley. Historians today tell us that if it wasn’t for the great Wesleyan Revival in England, England most certainly would have gone through a bloody revolution like the one that took place in France.

The ramifications of this promise are mind-boggling. Will you make this promise like Wendell and Carol and Paul and Lisa have today? If you have already made it, will you recommit yourself to it?

As for me and my house we will serve the Lord.