Service God Wants | Joshua 24

Good morning St. City, it is so good to worship

Jesus with you all. If you are new to Saint City,

one of our values is we are allowed with our love here.

Sometimes that comes out with passionate praise like it just

did. But what we want you to know is

there is a God who loves you. Like when we say around here

that you are loved, that we mean it, that God has demonstrated

His love toward you and He is worthy of song.

He is worthy of praise. And guess what?

As his people, we love you. We are so glad that you are here

joining us today and singing songs and hearing from His Word.

In fact, if you could turn to Joshua chapter 24 in your Bible,

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

if you don't have a Bible, there's one on the seat nearby

in front of you. It's going to be on page 198 in

there. And if you don't have a Bible

that's yours, congratulations, Oprah, up in Saint City today.

You just got a Bible under your seat.

Joshua is God's, one of God's letters to US, one of the

stories of his work in the world.

And he's trying to tell you just how much he loves you to the

lengths he has gone to save you, the lengths he has gone to

reveal himself to you. That is what Joshua was in your

Bible for. And we have gone through this

story chapter by chapter, by chapter by chapter.

We are now at the end of Joshua, Joshua chapter 24, and we're at

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

the end of Joshua's life at the end of this story, and he is

pulling George Washington and Hamilton.

He's singing one last time. I got to tell you guys

something. I need a farewell address for

you all. I need to tell you about what

God has to say to you. So we're going to get here in

Joshua chapter 24 and we're going to learn about the freedom

Joshua 24 · chapter mention

it is to serve Jesus. Today we're going to experience,

I'm titling this message service God wants, service that God

wants. When I was 16 years old, like

many of you, I got the incredible freedom of getting a

driver's license. That was a good day.

I could not wait for that day. I was the oldest of four

siblings, four boys in my family, and I was the oldest and

that came with a lot of freedom. I was very excited to go to Taco

Bell by myself without having to wait for my mom to go pick it

up. I was very excited, you know, to

go take the car out, maybe meet a girl at the movie theater, ask

her out on a date or something. If I had known there was a

beautiful blonde about 40 miles away, I would have driven to Des

Plaines, IL, where Maddie grew up, and asked her on a date.

It probably would have gone well for me then because when I was

16 years old, I was like 5 feet tall.

And so if I'd asked Maddie on a date that day with my squeaky

voice, she would have like stood over me because she was taller

than me. At that point, she'd be like,

no, bro. So I'm glad that we waited a

bit. But I was excited about the

freedoms of having a car. But I did not know it was being

the oldest in the family was that it came with

responsibility. It came with responsibility

because suddenly my mom had a chauffeur at her disposal for

free. Now, that's how I felt.

It wasn't actually free. They were helping with my car

insurance. You're helping with my gas, all

these things, right? So it'd be like, hey, I need you

to go pick up your brother here. Hey, I need you to go to the

grocery store and get this. Suddenly, I felt like a servant

to my mom in a way I'd never felt like before.

And I did not like that very much.

Nobody put Brandon in a corner, OK?

Like, that's how I felt with a driver's licence.

What I learned is that I wanted all the freedom with none of the

responsibility. I wanted to experience the

promotion without all that came with it.

Listen to me as a Christian. We have freedom from the slavery

to sin. We have been transferred from a

Kingdom of darkness, of slavery to sin.

And with Thanksgiving now with appreciation, God is inviting us

into a voluntary servitude of Him that we get to serve Him.

But in our hearts. Often when we say that we're a

servant of the Lord, it isn't layered with the gratitude, with

the appreciation, with the ability to look at God and say I

get to be your servant. Because servant leadership seems

like a great idea until people begin to treat us like 1.

When we get the experience of being treated like a servant,

treated like somebody who needs to serve, guess what?

It presses on our selfishness. It presses on our entitlement.

It presses upon the parts of our heart we didn't even know we're

there. So how can our hearts grow to

love serving where it's not just something being asked of us and

taken energy from us and taking our joy or our energy, but

rather how can we be filled by serving others?

I think that's Joshua's call to us in this farewell address is a

service that God wants. I want you to start at the end

of the chapter with me in chapter 24.

I want you to jump down to verse 29.

There's three funerals at the end of Joshua.

Joshua, Joseph and Eliezer are the three dudes who have are

pivotal for Israel. They're symbols not only of

their role. It means something about Jesus

later on. But I want to zero in on is

verse 29 and it says this about Joshua after all these things,

after the whole book of Joshua, after his farewell address that

we're going to read about in a second.

Joshua, the son of Nun, which is what he's called over the whole

book, gets a new title, the servant of the Lord.

Underline that in your Bible. He died being 110 years old.

Joshua, the son of nun. Now Moses, his predecessor, the

guy he took over for leading Israel for, he was called the

servant of the Lord all over Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers,

Deuteronomy, that's Moses, his title, Joshua, go back to Joshua

one. We're going to have another

screen right here. But I want you to see this

incredible way that the story of Joshua's written Joshua 11

starts right here after the death of Moses, the servant of

the Lord. There's that title again given

to Moses the Lord said to Joshua, the son of Nun.

What's his title there? Moses's assistant.

Now that might feel that might feel like a a bad job.

I mean, he's the number 2IN Israel, OK, like he's leading

out, leading a nation. It's a pretty good job still.

But here's what I want you to see.

Here's the first principle I want to show you a 5 this

morning of service that God wants.

The first principle I want you to see is that serving the Lord

is a promotion. Being a servant of the Lord is

not a demotion, it's a promotion.

You are upgrading your title when you become a servant of the

Lord, that even though you've gone down in terms of the social

hierarchy, guess what, you are going up in the Kingdom of God.

You have been promoted to servant of the Lord.

Joshua 11. He starts off as Moses's

assistant, not like an assistant to the regional manager type

situation. No, he is an assistant to the

one leading Israel. Like he's got real leadership,

real influence. He is got a very great gig.

But at the end of the book of Joshua, he gets a new title, The

Servant of the Lord, which begs the question for each and every

one of us, why be an assistant for a man when you can be a

servant of the Lord? That one of the principles that

we have to live by if we're going to be servants that God

wants is we have to embrace that serving the Lord is a promotion.

That word Lord, it's, it's God's covenant name, Yahweh.

It's, it's, it's he has a personal relationship with you.

But in the New Testament, it's often used also as God is our

master, He's our boss, He's our ruler.

And over the course of Joshua 2417 times, the word serve is

going to come up. Like if you're studying your

Bible for yourself and you're in a chunk of Scripture, repetition

is one of the best ways to understand what God's getting at

17 times over the course of this chapter.

And it's going to talk about serving, serving, serving,

serving. In case you didn't get it the

first five times, here's 12 more.

Verse 31. Israel served the Lord all the

days of Joshua. It takes a servant to lead

people to serve, and serving the Lord is a promotion from

whatever job you find yourself in, whether you're ACEO here

today, a vice president, a dad, a mom, a student.

I don't know what title you have, but I know this, that

you're in that job to work for Christ.

You're in that job as a sales Rep.

You're in that job in that restaurant.

Why? Because you were there to work

for Christ, It doesn't feel like it's for the Lord because you

have a boss breathing down your neck.

But listen to me. That's what your work is

ultimately for. You're in your Home Office for

the Lord. You are serving the Lord.

And if you lose that, that work will get real training real

fast. You won't feel like you're

serving the Lord. You feel like you're serving

man. So God's invitation to each and

every one of us today is to reinterpret our roles in this

world, whether we're a mom or a dad, whether we are a sales Rep

or a student, whether we are applying for a job or whether or

not we're waiting on a job. I don't know where God has you

today in your work, but I know this, that whatever your title

is, there's a better one on the table for each and every one of

us, servant of the Lord. And so when you go from at Saint

City just worshipping in our services to joining A-Team,

guess what? That's a promotion.

And what I would offer to as many of you guys as I was just

wrestling with the text and realizing what it would mean for

my life is this, that when I realized that I'm a servant of

the Lord, one of the things I need to protect most is my

prayer time. I need to protect my prayer time

because that's why I'm serving. That's like my one-on-one with

my boss. And So what if our prayer time

was protected, like we had a meeting with a big time leader?

What if we protected our prayer time like that?

What if we cared about meeting with God like that because

that's who we're all to be working for.

Maybe that's how we should consider it more and more this

week is serving the Lord as a promotion.

I think our our prayer life would be amplified.

That's the first thing I want you to see in the text.

A second, we're going to jump back to the beginning of the

chapter now, Joshua 24, verse one, and I'll show you the

second principle. Here's what it says.

Joshua, he gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem.

That's a big deal because Abraham, their ancestor, that's

where the whole thing started. That's where like the Jewish

people were born basically with Shechem.

And he summoned all the elders, the heads, the judges, and the

office of Israel, and they presented themselves before God.

And Joshua said to all the people, thus says the Lord, the

God of Israel long ago your father's they were pagans.

That's what that's saying. He's saying, hey, they, they

worshipped other gods, Tara, the father of Abraham and Novanejar,

they served other gods. These guys did not want me for

myself. They didn't like God, they

didn't love God, they didn't worship God.

But here's what I did I'm God. Verse 3 Listen to all the ways

that God saves the people. Then I took your father Abraham

from beyond the river, and I led him through all the land of

Canaan, and made his offspring many I being God, gave him

Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau, and I gave Esau the

Hill Country of Sayer to possess.

But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt, and I sent for

Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the

midst of it, and afterward I brought you out.

Why am I repeating myself with I?

Because God did. God wants you to know, He wants

every single servant to know that the way that you're

anchored in servitude is you have to look at the God who has

done all the great things. Your eyes have to be set upon

him and all He has done and look where he goes on.

He's not done yet because he hasn't.

He didn't stop doing things. He just kept working, kept

moving, kept doing stuff. He's got motion.

Verse 6 Then I brought your father's out of Egypt, and you

came to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued your fathers

with Chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea.

And when they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and

the Egyptians, and made the sea come upon them and cover them in

your eyes. This generation you saw what I

God did in Egypt. And when you lived in the

wilderness a long time, then I brought you to the land of the

Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan.

They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you

took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you.

They're black. The son of Zipper, king of Moab,

arose and fought against Israel. And he sent and invited Balaam,

the son of Bayor, to curse you. And I would not listen to

Balaam. Indeed, he blessed you.

So I delivered you out of his hand.

And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho.

And the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the

Amorites, the Parasites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the

Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

And I gave them all into your hand.

And I sent the Hornet before you, which drove them out before

you, the 2 kings of the Amorites.

It was not by your sword or by your bow.

I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that

you had not built, and you dwell in them.

Now you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards

that you did not plant. Listen to me.

We are stepping into the same story of what God has been

writing since this very day that the Bible he just recapped.

God just recap through Joshua, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus,

Numbers, Deuteronomy, and now Joshua.

He's telling the story of how we got here to Joshua 24 in 13

verses. So if you're wondering about

what happened in the Old Testament, there's your starting

spot is, hey, that's the story that God wanted you to grab.

What did God do a whole lot? Why did he do it?

Because he's gracious and kind. What does that mean for us in

our service? I think this is what God wants

us to see. Big me, small God, big God,

small me. We're meant to feel like a grain

of sand in the Galaxy when we hear about what God has done

there. What do you mean He did all

this? He conquered nations.

He brought people out of slavery, He parted seas and

rivers. He sent plagues.

He saved. How can he do that?

Because he's God, I think we all agree to this principle in

theory until it presses upon our schedule that wait a second, I'm

being asked to do something, I'm being asked to go to another.

I don't know in church like service time.

I'm being asked to, you know, think through my home a little

bit differently. I'm being asked to serve in this

way. I don't know how you fill in the

blanks, but I know this that the way to get a heart more in love

with serving the Lord is you make serving about the Lord.

You make everything you do for the Lord.

Whether you're hosting a community group, serving on a

team, holding a door, taking care of a kid in our kids

ministry, greeting at the tent, setting up and tearing down that

the pronouns that you talk about your service have to flip from

I, I, I talking about you to he, he, he, he, him that if you're,

you can know that you're struggling in the service.

If your heart is all about what you're doing and what you're

giving. But if you make it about him,

guess what? It will stay about him and it

will fuel you in your service. He says, the Lord says, I took,

I sent, I brought, I saved, I gave because he wants to

emphasize for us that we are called to make ourselves

gloriously small so he can make himself infinitely big.

And if we get too big on ourselves, here's what happens.

We get eyes on ourself and eyes on people and we get caught up

in fear of man. We get caught up in what they

think about us. We get caught up on our energy

level. We get caught up on XYZ thing.

We get looking at ourselves. And if we would just look to

God, we can run on that all day. We can serve in a way God wants,

and when God speaks, he's trying to encourage you.

He's trying to challenge you. He's trying to boost you toward

more ministry. Every single one of us should

have a ministry. Then I'm like, hey, how's your

ministry? That's not just for the people

on staff. That's for every single person

in this church. How's your ministry?

You should be able to fill that in with, hey, here's how my kids

are doing, here's how I'm doing on my team, Here's how my

community group people are doing.

We should be able to fill that in as a church family.

We are here to make God as big as possible, not because our

words make him big, but because we're magnifying just how large

he is to others. And when God says that he's

doing all the things, I think he's doing a thing that happens

in homes with young kids all the time.

Just the other night, it's it's bedtime in the large household.

And we have a a daughter who is a very good rule rule follower.

She is first born classic and she really does not like being

in trouble because she's a already budding perfectionist.

And then we have a son, a second born who rules are a bit more

optional for specifically bedtime rules.

Hey, mom and dad said the lights need to go off at 8.

He's like, but what about this little night light that I have?

Can I put that on? You know, like, can I do a

little reading? Can I do a little more talking?

And so just the other night, Blair is trying to lovingly help

her younger brother Brooks and say, hey, mom and dad said the

lights go out at 8. I don't want to get in trouble.

And then they have this moment where they come on out because

Blair's getting upset. She's not.

He's not listening to her and he is.

She doesn't want to get in trouble.

But then this magical moment happens where I'm standing

before them and I go, hey, if Blair says that it's time for

bed at 8:00, you can consider Brooks that she's trying to say

what dad said. Why is that helpful for our

service? What am I getting at?

I'm saying that there are words that God has given you service

roles. God's invited you to that.

Sometimes it comes through a messenger, sometimes it comes

through a leader on a team or in a group.

But if your service is about the Lord, then you can take it as

it's from the Lord that they're going to invite you in the steps

of discipleship. They're going to invite you into

repentance. They're going to invite you into

forgiveness. They're going to invite you into

conflict resolution. They're going to invite you into

integrity. They are going to invite that

because guess what? We are all servants of the same

master. And servants expect their work

to be about the master's job, what he wants to get done, and a

God who did all that for us. He deserves to call the shots

for our life. And the problem is in our

hearts. Sometimes as we get, we're good

about serving God because he's big and he's awesome.

We know he's done a lot, but often times he asked us to look

to others to serve them, having their interest in mind instead

of our own. But we're called to serve, and

that's one of the ways we make ourselves small.

We humble ourselves. We shrink ourselves down so that

others and God could be big. We're allowed with our love.

If you are too big to serve at Saint City, you are too small to

lead. This is just the way of the

Kingdom, that we want our God to be big in ourselves, to be

small. It's a perfect posture for every

servant. That's two principles.

Now let's look back at the text, verse 14.

You might have heard of this, this little chunk of verses.

Joshua picks back up where he left off.

He says, hey, you're laboring in the cities that you hadn't

built. You dwell in them.

You're eating a vineyards in olive orchards that you did not

plant. You were reaping the harvest of

somebody else's hard work. You were standing on the

shoulders of another generation of God's work on it.

Guess what? Listen here now, therefore, what

are we called to do? Fear the Lord and do what?

And serve him in in sincerity and in faithfulness.

Put away the gods that your Father served beyond the river

and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.

And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this

day whom you will serve. Not if you're going to serve,

who are you going to serve whom, Whether the gods your father

served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the

Amorites and whose land you dwell?

But As for me, in my house as Joshua, we will serve the Lord.

This whole farewell address is climaxing right here.

He's saying, hey, listen up. Serving someone is the posture

of human beings. We will serve somebody's agenda,

somebody's mission, even if it's our own.

But you are called to serve the God of the ages, the God who has

done all this for you. Go serve him.

Go live for him. Go be obedient to him seven

times. In fact, in these 3 verses, it

says the word serve. And seven is a very significant

number in Scripture. It's the number of completion.

So when Joshua says for the 7th time, but As for me and my

house, we will serve the Lord. He's saying this.

The ways of the world is serving everything else.

But As for me and my house, guess what?

This is the best way to live. It's serving the Lord.

So jot down this principle. Lead your house to follow the

Lord, even if you're the only house.

Lead your house to follow the Lord even if you're the only

house. Josh was carving out him's

family as a minority here. He's like, I don't know what

y'all are doing, but I know I'm about.

I don't care if you all reject me right now.

I am not going back on this God. I've seen who he is.

I've seen what he's done. I've recounted all to you now

and guess what I am going to live for?

I'm going to serve him no matter what and it's going to be an

exclusive service. It's like you're the only, he's

the only table at the restaurant that you have to take care of.

There's nobody else you're worrying about, nobody else's

agenda. You only care about what God

wants and what He's ordering up for your life.

You cannot serve both God and money.

You cannot serve both God and beauty.

You cannot serve both God and power.

You cannot serve both God and worship your family.

We lead our house to follow and serve the Lord, even if we're

the only one. Even if you're the only person

in your company who's leading your family to serve the Lord,

you're in good company with Joshua.

If you're the only person on your street following Jesus,

you're honoring Jesus. If you're the only person in

your family who follows Jesus, lead your house to follow him,

even if you're the only one. Men, listen to me.

You are the leaders of your homes.

Go lead your families to follow Christ.

Lead them to follow and serve Jesus.

I'm so thankful to be surrounded by so many men who do this, but

I want to encourage you. Here's what this looks like to

go serve, to go lead your homes to follow Jesus.

It's like this. It's getting in the word daily.

Men go be men of the book. Joshua was a man who didn't let

the law depart from his mouth. In fact, one of the times in in

the book of Joshua, he sat down and wrote down all of Genesis

through Deuteronomy. Go be a man of the book.

Go get in the word daily. Get into church weekly.

It's your job meant to lead your family here.

Go get them here. Third, serve at church

regularly. Does that have to be every week?

But your life needs to be marked by service.

If your kids look at you and go serving, what's that?

You're missing the mark. We serve. 4th prayer always.

Your family needs to know you as a man, a man of prayer, that you

would be a House of prayer because you're dependent upon

God. Go lead your house to follow the

Lord men, even if you're the only house, if you're single

here, you're just responsible for you.

Congratulations. Go lead yourself in all those

things. Go lead yourself to in the word

daily, to church weekly, serving regularly and praying always.

Go lead yourself, go lead your family to follow God because As

for me in my house, we will serve the Lord.

Families that do that change a city, they change a

neighborhood, they change a workplace.

Go be that man, go be that woman.

Go be them for Jesus. 4th in the text here, we're marching

through Joshua's farewell address.

We're now in verse 18 and the Lord over 16.

Excuse me, Then the people answer, far be it from us that

we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods.

They're like, hey, we're not going to be dumb like our

parents were in forsake, forsake this God.

We want to serve him. For it is the Lord our God who

brought us and our fathers out from the land of Egypt and out

of the House of slavery. And he did those great signs in

our sights, and he preserved us in all the way that we went.

And among all the peoples whom we passed, they're like saying,

hey, we've seen what God can do. We've seen who he is.

We are not about to go against him.

That'd be taking a stupid pill when we wake up.

We're not going to do that. And the Lord drove out before us

all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land.

Therefore, here's what we're going to do.

We also Joshua will serve the Lord, for he is our God.

But Joshua must have instinct here.

He must see that the way that they're living, He must see

something into their heart prophetically.

We don't know exactly why he says this next thing, but bear

with me as I explain it. Because Joshua says next to the

people, you are not able to 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, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, nae nae Joshua, we will serve the Lord.

And Joshua said to the people, OK, then you are witnesses

against yourselves, that you have chosen the Lord to serve

Him. And they said, we are witnesses.

We testify that that's what we want for our life.

We are saying we align with Jesus.

He said, OK, then put away the foreign gods that are among you

and incline your heart to the Lord the God of Israel.

The people said to Joshua, the Lord our God, we will serve in

his voice we will obey. So Joshua made a covenant with

the people that day and put in place the statutes and rules for

them at Shechem. OK, let's go back to that for a

second. We got to make sure we

understand what happened there with Joshua's speech.

There is Joshua saying that God is an unforgiving being.

No, he's saying there's a certain type of thing that

doesn't get forgiven. He's is Joshua saying Israel is

incapable of serving God like he's asking them to.

Obviously not because the verses go on and say, hey, you can do

it. And as you read at the end of

the chapter, they serve God all the days of their life.

So it is possible. So what is Joshua saying?

He's saying what each of us, all of us know about human hearts,

that we are quick to claim something, claim that we belong

to God, while our life looks entirely different than that,

entirely opposite, that people in our hearts, we will say we

are claiming that we follow Jesus.

We are a Christian, we are a believer.

Put whatever word you want around it.

There are people even here today who would say I believe with my

mouth and my heart that Jesus is Lord.

You would say that you believe that, but your life actually

doesn't reflect it at all. We call that an apostate.

That's what the book of Hebrews is all about.

It's somebody who claims to be a believer but doesn't live as

God's servant at all. He's getting at those people

right now and it's his warning for some of us here today.

I want you to get this 4th principle that watch your mouth

because it can write checks your soul can't cash.

Watch what you claim to be. Watch what you claim, because

some of our mouths have write written checks that our souls

can't cash. The theater people in Israel

right here. There are people here at Saint

City today. They are loyal to God only with

their lips, but not their actual life, which is not loyalty at

all. A servant who says he will do

what the master asked him to do but doesn't do it is no servant

at all. The kind of service God wants is

complete and total devotion. There's no partial commitment to

God. God is just not a leftover part

of your life. He is the whole thing.

And chances are, I, I just need to warn some of you, chances are

if you only come to church on Sundays, if you have no

relationships inside the church, that this is only a check box

for Sunday mornings from 10 to maybe 11-15, maybe 11-10 if you

cut out early. And it's like a just a part of

your life. Joshua's warning, you today hear

me turn, turn, turn away from living a life of partial

commitment to God and turn toward him and say, Jesus, I get

it. You are worth my everything.

With all that I am and all that I have, I'm giving myself to

you. That's what repentance is.

That's what faith that saves us. As you're saying, I have no hope

apart from you, God. And so write the check that only

Jesus can cash. It's saying, Jesus, I need you

to save me because I can't wholly obey you.

I can't fully follow you because you are a jealous God.

You are a holy God and I stand no chance because I am a Sinner

in deep need of salvation. The only way to be saved from

your sin is to look to Jesus to save you from it.

And when he saves you, you can't help but be his servant.

You can't help but live for the Lord.

Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy who hears what

God has done for him and says, you know what?

He's only worth one hour of my week.

Listen to what he says about how to get involved in the church.

Listen to what he says about what it means for your work

life, your parenting, your family, your marriage.

Listen to the Lord. Follow the voice of the Lord as

he said, and that's what serving that God wants.

It's total surrender, total worship.

Now finally, Joshua's like, OK, we want to, we want to make a

covenant. You want to serve the Lord.

Well, here's what I want to do. He's like, hey, let's build a

monument. Not a moment.

That's the fifth principle. If you want service that God

wants, if you want a heart that loves serving, you need

monuments in your life of what God has done.

Not just moments that you are fleeting, that you forget, but

monuments, altars, built out things that say this is who God

is and this is what he's done for me.

This is what he's done for the world in Joshua.

Again, there are 7 monument moments.

The Bible is a really well written book, just so you know,

and Joshua's a really well written one too because God's

the writer of it. So Joshua chapter 4, he builds a

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

monument at Gilgal after they cross the Jordan River.

Joshua Chapter 7, after one of their dudes committed some sin

Joshua 7 · chapter mention

in Chapter 7, they built a monument over Aiken to say, hey,

we are going to hate sin because this is what it does.

It costs you more than you're willing to pay.

Joshua chapter 8, after the victory over the king at AI

Joshua 8 · chapter mention

monument, also over the king of AI, Joshua builds a monument

just for the word of God. He literally transcribes all the

written Bible at the time and he's like, hey, this is a

monument for God. Joshua chapter 10, after this,

Joshua 10 · chapter mention

all the kings conspire against them in a confederacy.

Guess what? He's like, you know what?

God did that again, we're going to have another monument over

the kings of the Amorites. Joshua chapter 22, which we

Joshua 22 · chapter mention

learned about a couple weeks ago.

What did they do? They built another monument.

Why? Because there was peace in the

land. Now we get to the 7th monument

and Joshua's like, hey, if we're going to serve the Lord, if

we're going to live for the Lord, we're not just going to

make this a moment. We're going to make it a

monument. We are going to remember who God

is so we won't forget what He's done.

Not just us, the next generation.

That was the goal with this monument.

The next book Judges. This proves our hopelessness.

Without Jesus. They forget.

They forget who God is. They need him.

But listen to me. We have Jesus now.

We have the cross. We have the empty tomb.

We have the occupied throne. We have the gospel.

The good news that Jesus Christ saved sinners and our

entrustment from God himself is this, that we would build

monuments testifying of what Jesus has done for the world.

That we wouldn't be people who build just careers or families

or habits, but we'd be a people who build monuments for God

keeping his promises to us. Now this can look all kinds of

ways. One way that I've started

building a monument in my life is this is this is my Romans

book. But every single book of the

Bible, this is the 1718 series that in Deuteronomy 1718, one of

the instructions God gave to the future kings is to write down

all of the written Bible at the time.

One of my goals before I'm 40 is to write down every Bible verse

in the Bible. And this is just my Romans book.

So what am I doing? I'm working my way through the

New Testament over the next couple years, writing them down.

Why? Because I want to build a

monument for my kids that my kids are going to get these.

This is something that's going to outlive me.

It's a monument of praise. So here's that's one little tip

for you another y'all are going to laugh at me for this one.

I'm a hat guy. I love wearing hats.

I have since I could get in the like literally since 3rd grade

and I bought my first hat. That's what I did is I would

work around the house to save up money to go to lids and buy a

$20 hat. And each of these hats actually

bear more than just a brim and some threading.

They actually tell stories in my life like this is some of y'all

don't have the Chicago, you don't have sports like I do.

I'm from Chicago and this is what's called the Stanley Cup

hat. So for those of you from

Minnesota in the room, you don't have that 2010 I was a junior

high school and the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup.

And this isn't just a hat commemorating that.

This was this is the year that me and my one of my best friends

really became best friends and I'm so grateful for my

friendship with my buddy who would take me to games and I

fell in love with a sport at the perfect time.

This hat is the Chicago Cubs World Series hat.

There was generations of men who never got to experience this,

but I I haven't been alive at the right moment, the opportune

time. But 2016 was more than just the

Cubs. This hat, when I see it on my

shelf, I don't just remember a Cubs World Series.

I remember the summer I met my wife.

One of the best gifts God has given me that that year is a

mile marker for me of God's faithfulness and generosity and

good baseball. This hat, it's broken.

Now there's a hat from a friend in a small group.

And what, what this hat symbolized for me, there was 2

years from Maddie and I spent in Denver and this friend, I didn't

have really any friends in Denver.

I was like that guy without friends.

But he came back and he gave me this hat and it gave me hope

that God was going to deliver to me what had always been a part

of my life, which was friends. And so I look at this hat, I

look at God's faithfulness to be a friend to me even when I

didn't have a lot of friends. Two more.

This hat you see me wearing on this stage, I got this the

moment I was certain that we were planting here in Tempe.

We are here so that the gospel would confront and change the

lives of some devils that I believe that a campus that is

less than 2% of them following Jesus.

Do you know why we're here? So we can give them a gospel

outpost so they can hear about what Jesus Christ has done for

the world. And so when I look at this hat,

I will always see the reality that Jesus Christ called me here

to lead us toward what? Toward the Kingdom of God

advancing in this city, that we are going to be a gospel

movement for the city, for the campus, for the fame of Christ.

And so whatever I put on this hat, I just say thank you to God

that this is what I'm called to do and who I'm called to be.

But after after we got called, there was a crazy thing that

happened in my life. December of 2020.

What a year, Maddie, 2024. Yeah.

Math, maths. A year and a half ago.

You can do the math. I had a knee surgery, got a

blood clot in my calf. That blood clot is what's called

medically a deep vein thrombosis.

That's a very dangerous thing if it doesn't get dealt with and it

didn't get dealt with. So for the month of December,

that blood clot worked its way up my body into my heart and

lungs. Didn't get to my heart,

actually, just got to my lungs. We're on Christmas Eve.

That night I suffered from a bilateral pulmonary embolism.

That's really serious because you have a lot of fluid in your

lungs and 98% of people who get there don't even live to make

it. So on Christmas Eve night, I was

rushed to the hospital and should have died, quite frankly.

But through prayer and through the power of God, I'm a living

testimony that miracles still happen.

And in that hospital bed, I just wore this hat.

And whenever I see this hat now, I'm just thankful to be here.

I'm thankful to be your pastor. It's a monument for me.

It's not just a hat, it is God saved my life and I want you to

have monuments like this. Like I'm not an emotional guy.

I'm not trying to cry right now, but it's so significant to me.

And I think you have moments like that too, is my point.

And it could just be a hat, it could be a pen, it could be, I

don't know what you want to collect.

I don't know what you want to build for God, but I know this,

that we have a promise keeping God and we are in good company

when we trust Him to keep His promises.

Do you know why? That the spine of the Bible is

actually written in covenant blood.

That's His promises, that in Genesis chapter 12, he makes a

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

covenant with Abraham and he says, hey, I'm going to make you

a great nation. You don't even really know what

a nation is yet, but guess what? I'm going to do that.

You can't really have kids because you're a geezer.

But guess what? I'm going to make you have kids.

You're going to make a great nation, and you, all the

families of the earth, shall be blessed.

He looked at Moses in Exodus 19 and said, hey, guess what,

Israel, you, you shall be my treasured possession among all

peoples, and you shall be to me a Kingdom of priests and a holy

nation foreshadowing what Jesus Christ would do.

David in second Samuel 7 that your house and your Kingdom

shall be made sure forever before me that your throne shall

be established forever. New Covenant in Jeremiah 31

prophesied promise to you and I that this that he will put his

law within us and he will forgive our iniquity and he will

remember our sin no more. Don't you realize that God was

promising all across the Old Testament that in Jesus Christ,

every single one of those promises will find their yes and

their Amen? That He was keeping promises not

for 10s of years, not for hundreds of years, but for

thousands of years? That you and I could be certain

and sure that God is worthy of trusting?

That when we're serving Him, guess what?

The promises are there to fuel us in our service.

That as we're loyal to the Lord, as we serve the Lord, His

promises will be the energy for us to keep us going.

In fact, I'm going to invite the worship team out now as we can

close our service here. That God has made great and

precious promises to us, says the Word, like the best promises

you can ever think of. And if he can keep the great

ones, if he can make Abraham a great nation, if he can make

Moses people his treasure possession, if he can make

David's throne rule forever in Jesus, if he can give us a new

heart, if he can make dry bones live, those are his great ones.

Guess what? The personal ones are so easy

for him.