October 18, 2026 | Jon Brown

The Lord be with you.

Thank you very much.

What a great day.

What a great weekend.

Summer's flowers may have faded, but falls crisp and cool are upon us.

Isn't it glorious?

There's even some people sitting on the lawn this morning.

I'd love to hear a shout from the few faithful remnant on the lawn.

Let's hear it.

That person sounded cold.

I hope you're able to join us this afternoon at two.

We're going to gather again to worship and to pray and install Pastor Brian into his role among us as executive pastor.

Two o'clock this afternoon.

Who here loves Brian Keepers?

That's like 18% of you.

We'll see it back at two.

For our part this morning, I just want to gather around one verse.

Does that sound okay?

I will be honest, I've noticed about myself.

The fewer verses I preach from, the longer the sermons get.

So good luck.

Just one verse from one Psalm.

Psalm 136.

I bet some of you have even heard it.

I'll give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.

For his steadfast love endures forever.

Sound familiar?

I'll give thanks to the Lord for He's good.

His steadfast love endures forever.

I was thinking maybe even you could try to memorize it.

What do you think?

You think you can get it by the time the morning's out?

I'll say a little bit, you repeat it after me.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord.

This is going to be dialogical this morning, so no sleeping.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord.

I'll give thanks to the Lord.

For he is good.

Good.

I'll give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

For His steadfast love endures forever.

I'll give thanks to the Lord for He is good.

For His steadfast love endures forever.

Steadfast love endures.

Well done.

You got it.

The psalm goes on to rehearse Israel's history.

The salvation story that God was unfolding for them that continues now.

And that that line just keeps being repeated over and over and over.

The psalmist in Psalm 136 was doing differently what Joshua was doing in the book towards the end.

I want you to listen to that moment in Israel's history when Joshua preaches a sermon.

I'm going to be honest with you.

Joshua was upset.

He showed up to church that Sunday with a little fire in his belly.

So you're just going to have to take it.

So just to kind of get you up to speed, Joshua is the first book outside of the first five books of the Old Testament.

You know, you've got Genesis with its creation fall story.

And then you get Exodus with its promised land pursuit out of Egypt.

And finally, finally, here in Joshua, they've made it.

They've made it.

They've made it to the promised land, of the land flowing with milk and honey, the land promised to them when God showed up to Abram and said, I'll be your God.

You'll be my people.

Through you, we're going to bless the world.

They finally made it.

And Joshua is not happy.

Not happy.

Something about comfort and complacency seem to go together.

Something about abundance and idolatry seem to hold hands.

And Joshua's not, just listen.

Oh, and don't forget the verse.

Then 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, and Joshua said to all the people, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.

Long ago your ancestors Tarah with his sons, Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods.

I took Abraham from beyond the river and showed him all the land of Canaan and made his offspring many.

I gave to him Isaac, and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.

To Esau I gave the hill country of Seir to possess.

But Jacob and his children went down to Egypt.

I sent Moses and Aaron to bring them out of Egypt, and I plagued Egypt with all the things that I did in its midst.

I brought them out of Egypt to the sea, and the Egyptians pursued you to the Red Sea.

And then they cried out to the Lord.

And he put darkness between you and the Egyptians, and the sea came upon them and covered them, and you saw what I did to Egypt.

And then you lived in the wilderness a long time.

I brought you beyond the Jordan to the land of the Amorites who fought against you and I delivered you from their hand.

I gave you their land to possess.

Then King Moab, King Balak of Moab, fought against you.

He sent Baor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam.

Instead, he blessed you.

Then I brought you beyond the Jordan.

And the citizens of Jericho fought against you.

And I delivered you from the Amorites and the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebuzites and the Gergeshites.

I delivered you from their hand.

I sent the storm of hornets ahead of you to drive out the two kings of the Amorites.

It was not by your sword or bow.

You live on a land for which you did not labor, and in towns you did not build.

You eat fruit from olive yards and vineyards that you did not plant.

Now, therefore, revere the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness.

Put away the gods of your that belong to your ancestors beyond the river, or the gods you worshiped while you were still in Egypt.

If you're unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve.

Whether the gods of your ancestors from beyond the river, the gods of the Amorites in whose land you're living.

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

And they said, Far be it from us to forsake the Lord, who has brought us up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

We've seen the great things he's done for us.

He protected us among all the way that we went and through all the people that he showed us.

He delivered us from the Amorites in the land that they live.

We also will serve the Lord, for He's our God.

And Joshua said, You cannot serve the Lord.

He's a jealous God and a holy God, and he will not forgive your transgressions and sins if you forsake the Lord.

And they said, We will serve the Lord.

And he said, No, you will not serve the Lord.

You are witnesses against yourselves.

And they said, We're witnesses.

And he said, Then put away the foreign gods that are among you and incline your heart to the Lord.

And they said, We will serve the Lord and obey only Him.

So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day.

And wrote down statutes and commands at Shechem.

He wrote these words in the book of the law of God and took a large stone and set it up there under the oak of the sanctuary of the Lord.

Joshua said to all the people, See, this stone shall be a witness against us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord that he spoke to us.

Therefore it shall be a witness against you if you deal falsely with your God.

So Joshua sent the people away to their inheritance.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

See what I mean about Joshua's sermon?

It's interesting to me, you know, that choose this day whom you will serve.

That's for me in my hot lake.

We put it on porcelain plates and hang it on a hutch in our dining room.

Anybody else?

Maybe I'm gonna take mine down.

Joshua, that's not a sentimentalized announcement.

It's a challenge and a critique.

It says, if you're unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve.

Joshua's angst in rehearsing Israel's history gets picked up by the psalmist who does the same in Psalm 136, rehearsing over and over.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he's good, for his steadfast love endures forever.

He's good, he loves, he's good, he's too good to let you go on serving foreign gods.

He loves too much to let you go on wandering around life, giving yourself away to things that can't satisfy.

He loves you too much, he's too good.

Joshua's angst gets picked up by the psalmist prayer.

Both asking us to do the same.

Choose this day whom you'll serve.

Oh, give thanks to the Lord.

Are you seeing the two weave together with me?

Give thanks because he's good.

Joshua is, this is a covenant renewal scene.

The renewal of the covenant God made with Abraham.

God showed, that's how the sermon starts.

He starts with the sons of Tarah, Abraham and Nahor, and God made a covenant with Abraham.

God said, I'm gonna be your God, and you're gonna be my people, and through you we're gonna bless the world.

It's good.

God, from the beginning, up to good for the whole world.

And they're wandering aimlessly through the land and God's moving them around, and they keep worshiping foreign gods, and finally, here Joshua's like, stop it! Stop it, no more.

And we can hear these stories, and we're like, yeah, who worships gods?

Come on, little trinkets and shrines in our living rooms, come on.

There were fertility gods.

Um what would be another way to put that?

I don't know if you know this, um, and forgive me, uh eighty-seven percent of American men and thirty percent of American women view pornography every week.

Choose this day.

Whom you will serve.

There were there were gods of money.

Um I don't know if you know this, but uh Americans spend a hundred and sixty-seven billion dollars a year on sports betting.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

There were gods of war.

Shall I rehearse what's going on now around the world?

And that's just the stuff in the headlines.

What about all the other ways?

Violence wreaks havoc, whether with weapons or with words.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

God is too good to let us go on giving ourselves away to those things that cannot satisfy.

Choose this day, give thanks to the Lord.

He's good.

His intentions have always been good for us.

Are you hanging with me?

And he loves, he loves too much to watch us.

Throw away our lives.

It was sort of interesting.

I don't know if you noticed this, but as the service began this morning, you know how the the video was up on the wall?

Like you could see yourself.

Well, as as the real thing was unfolding, where were you watching?

What were you looking?

I was watching the wall.

The thing was happening right here.

Art and Christie were walking right here, and I'm watching it on the TV.

We're so willing to uh immerse ourselves in fake, false, plastic versions of the when the real thing is offered us.

It's right here.

He loves us too much.

To let us give ourselves away to things that won't satisfy, don't satisfy.

Their promises are real, their satisfaction never is.

The gods of fertility, you know?

Most of us just carry around shame.

Money, the more you have, the temp you're tempted to want more.

Power has only led to an eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth kind of culture.

They don't provide.

And I'm those are the easy ones.

Sex, money, power.

What about family?

There were family gods, there were uh work gods, there's wine gods.

We make up ways to worship foreign gods.

I was with a classics professor at Hope this week who was saying the human being is driven to satisfy its own desires.

God loves us too much.

And so you read Joshua, this covenant scene, you know, he's got the stone, and he's like, it's gonna be a witness against you.

He was not happy.

He's like, you're gonna have some explaining to do, because if we know what you're gonna do, you always do it.

You've been doing it, and here we are.

I'm gonna tell you, and you're gonna go on doing it anyway.

He's upset, he's angry, he's frustrated.

He knows what we know.

We're gonna do it again.

We're gonna do it again.

If it's up to us, if it's left to us, nothing's gonna change.

Joshua's angst gets picked up by the psalmist's prayer.

His steadfast love endures forever.

The prayer pointing to something else, something different, something more into the forever.

He's looking beyond the day into what could be, what might be, what will be.

You know what I'm doing here, don't you?

The psalmist, Joshua's angst, picked up by the psalmist's prayer, turns into our Savior Jesus Christ.

His love endures forever.

If left up to us, nothing will change.

So God takes on flesh in Jesus.

He fulfills the covenant with Abraham in Jesus Christ.

He suffered and died and rose from the dead so that we can have life whole, thriving, good, flourishing lives in Jesus.

If left up to us, the same broken patterns will repeat themselves over and over.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

Jesus.

He loves us too much.

I got a text this week from my friend Phil.

Phil Hartgrink, I've asked you to pray for Phil and Katie.

They have three adult kids.

Fifteen months ago, I'm not great with time.

Uh 15 months ago, Phil was, uh he started not feeling well, kind of just looked past it for a while, got some tests done, numbers weren't right.

Uh turned out to be acute myeloid leukemia.

That's one of the real bad ones.

Uh there was some chemo radiation in there, and then finally a bone marrow transplant.

That's basically where they bring your body to the precipice of death in hopes that you come back to life, but the cancer doesn't.

That's the whole idea.

So they walked the arduous journey toward that precipice.

And last spring, so now we're about six months ago, more tests.

Numbers were off.

Cancer lingers.

So they did it again.

They went on the arduous journey to that same precipice.

They gave him a bone marrow transplant again.

And a couple weeks ago, numbers were off.

Cancer lingers.

And and now they open themselves to what will be.

So he texted me this week that he had a dream.

And he this is what this was a dream.

Good morning, John.

I thought you might appreciate this.

I had this dream a couple nights ago, where I'm on an open hillside, and there's a single tree there I'm standing next to.

There's just a couple people standing near me.

I look up the hillside and there's a tree line there, and there's some rain that comes sideways over those trees.

And then a few minutes later, a torrential amount of water coming through and over those trees right at us that washes the others away.

Once the water has passed, I realize I'm still okay.

And look over my shoulder, and instead of the tree, is a lamb.

That was the dream.

I I don't I don't know about dreams, but I'm pretty sure dreams that end with a lamb standing there is of the Lord.

Torrential rains, chaos, pain, devastation, there is a lamb standing there.

If if if left up to us, will it ever change?

Joshua's angst gets picked up by the psalmist prayer, points to the one Jesus Christ, who will redeem all things.

Choose this day whom you will serve.

Amen.