Spiritual Exercise
Notes
Transcript
Intro; This morning we looked at “Setting Up Spiritual Stones” in our lives for the purpose of remembering what God has done and continues to do for us in Jesus Christ.
We talked about how it is important that these memorials not be just for ourselves but for other generations that they might come to know and fear the Lord.
Find Us Faithful/Steve Green 1988
O may all who come behind us find us faithful,
May the fire of our devotion light their way.
May the footprints that we leave, lead them to believe,
And the lives we live Inspire them to obey.
O may all who come behind us Find us Faithful.
This is what we are going to look at tonight. Do people today and will the next generation find us faithful. Will they have a clear path to follow to the Lord from our testimony. If they do it is because we have stayed spiritually healthy.
Spiritual health comes by staying spiritually fit through “Spiritual Exercise”.
Text; Joshua 24:14-15, 26-27
14 “Now therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the River and in Egypt. Serve the Lord!
15 And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
26 Then Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law of God. And he took a large stone, and set it up there under the oak that was by the sanctuary of the Lord.
27 And Joshua said to all the people, “Behold, this stone shall be a witness to us, for it has heard all the words of the Lord which He spoke to us. It shall therefore be a witness to you, lest you deny your God.”
Israel has settled in the Land of Promise and now they are gathered in Schechem as Joshua gives his farewell address. He renews the covenant of God with the people and reminds them to never forget God and His blessings on them. And then he challenges them to stay spiritually fit through some Spiritual Exercises.
1. Fear the Lord; 14a
1. Fear the Lord; 14a
Fear- honor, respect, be in awe.
To “fear” God means to take him seriously, rather than having just a casual relationship with him. We need to always stand in awe and reverence and amazement before God. Never let it get old!
Great Blessings of those who Fear the Lord;
14 The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, And He will show them His covenant.
19 Oh, how great is Your goodness, Which You have laid up for those who fear You, Which You have prepared for those who trust in You In the presence of the sons of men!
18 Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, On those who hope in His mercy,
11 The Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, In those who hope in His mercy.
Adrain Rogers said, “When you get too comfortable with God you can get careless in your fear of Him and easily stray from your walk with Him.”
We need to keep God and our relationship with Him in a proper perspective. He is the Creator of the Universe and we are His creation! We are to always exalt Him above all others!
2. Serve Him; 14b
2. Serve Him; 14b
Serving God is not just being busy doing ministry, it is being in a “covenant ministry” with Him.
When one comes to faith in Christ through God’s amazing grace, we are coveting [binding agreement of blessings for obedience and cursings for disobedience] with Him. It is with desire and love that we serve Him.
19 We love Him because He first loved us.
Serve in Sincerity- without blemish, whole, complete, faithfully. We are to serve the Lord the same way Jesus served the Father
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
23 And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,
People have this notion today that if you are sincere in what you do or believe, then it’s okay. Nothing could be further from the truth. The sincerity of a person doesn’t make something wrong become right just because they believe it. The word sincere comes from the Greek word [sin-cera] ‘without wax, without blemish”. Potters would use wax to fill the blemishes of defective pottery. You would have to hold the pottery up to sunlight to see the flaws. If the pottery was without wax or blemishes, it would be stamped withe the word “sin cera”. God requires us to be the same way in our serving Him, “sincere”, without hypocrisy, deception and blemishes. [Rod Mattoon]
Serve in Truth- truth is sure, constant, reliable, never changing [Word of God]. Our source of life, our guide in life, our hope in life is “TRUTH”
Study the Truth
15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Worship in truth
16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Walk in Truth
4 I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.
Haddon Robinson said, “You will invest your life in something, or you will throw it away on nothing.”
We need to invest in TRUTH through daily spiritual exercise.
3. Put Away Idols; 14c
3. Put Away Idols; 14c
Joshua reminded the people who the true and living God is. He wanted them to not fall back into old habits of serving the gods that their parents served.
If we don’t stay on a healthy spiritual diet that includes regular spiritual exercise we will become worldly obese! Look at some of the ancient gods that Americans serve today.
Mammon; god of wealth and riches
Matthew 6:24 (NKJV)
24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
Bacchus; god of pleasure [drunkeness, drugs, debauchery]
6 But she who lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.
Aphrodites/Venus; goddess of sexual lust and promiscuity
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
Mars; god of war, hatred, blood and revenge
1 What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?
2 You want what you don’t have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous of what others have, but you can’t get it, so you fight and wage war to take it away from them. Yet you don’t have what you want because you don’t ask God for it.
3 And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.
Sophia; goddess of worldly wisdom, philosophy and traditions of men
8 Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ.
Baal; storm god, compared to God of Creation [Jehovah]
Four major characteristics of Baal worship;
Pro-choice; They believed in killing babies/children, only they waited until after they were born.
Environmentalists; they were more concerned about “mother earth” than they were humans
Promiscuous; more than one sexual partner, homosexual, prostitution was at the core of their life and worship
Tolerant; Baal worship and worship of God they thought should co-exist
Today we have old gods that have come back with different names and the names have been changed to protect the guilty.
If you give Satan an inch in your day, he’ll take a mile of your life!
4. Choose to Exercise; 15, 26-27
4. Choose to Exercise; 15, 26-27
Joshua calls upon Israel to make a once and for all sure choice of whom they will serve continually. They could not ride the fence, a choice has to be made.
Joshua made the choice for his family and so should every man make the choice for his!
Joshua made a commitment to serve the Lord and would not allow any outside influences or popular opinions to persuade him to change his mind. He stood firm and steadfast in his choice. We need to do the same.
Every father should provide for his family; spiritually/physically
8 But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Every father must stand firm in faith;
58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
Every father needs to exercise faithfully;
8 For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
[26-27] If a father will choose to serve the Lord, and continue to workout spiritually, he will set up some spiritual stones “memorials” in his life and his family that will stand for the next generations to follow.
Close;
President Reagan said in his Second Inaugural Address in 1984, “America was founded by people who believed God was their rock of safety. I recognize that we must be cautious in claiming that God is on our side, but I think it’s all right to keep asking if we are on His side.” Are you on the Lord’s side?
John 14:15 (NKJV)
15 “If you love Me, keep My commandments.”