The Choice
The Gospel-Shaped Family • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers 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, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond 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.”
Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”
Gospel-Shaped Families Fear God (v. 14a)
Fear - awe of God.
Awe is essential to a Gospel shaped family. We must teach our kids, and the kids God has entrusted to us as a church to be in Awe of God.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe,
for our God is a consuming fire.
“God created an awesome world. God intentionally loaded the world with amazing things to leave you astounded. The carefully air-conditioned termite mound in Africa, the tart crunchiness of an apple, the explosion of thunder, the beauty of an orchid, the interdependent systems of the human body, the inexhaustible pounding of the ocean waves, and thousands of other created sights, sounds, touches, and tastes—God designed all to be awesome. And he intended you to be daily amazed.”
― Paul David Tripp, Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do
“The great battle of parenting is not the battle of behavior; it’s the battle for what kind of awe will rule children’s hearts.”
― Paul David Tripp, Awe: Why It Matters for Everything We Think, Say, and Do
This is the great battle you face in your lives. You have to choose to live lives of awe. It’s easy in a world where we can see images of galaxies and the wonders of the world sent straight to our screens to lose our awe. We have become a people without awe, but if you are going to keep your faith in the midst of a world that is quickly ignoring God, then you must keep your awe in Christ and the truth of his sacrifice.
Parents teach your kids to awe God. Church teach those God gives us to fear God.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.
If fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, then if we're going to lead our families well it begins with Awe.
Gospel-Shaped Families Serve God (v. 14b)
Gospel-Shaped Families Serve God (v. 14b)
“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord.
The second part of that passage calls us to serve God. To live in awe of God means that we serve him and him alone faithfully. We were made for worship. We were created for wonder. And what we wonder at, what we worship is what we serve.
In your life you will be tempted to be in awe of many things. You will be tempted to be in awe of your job. You will be stepping into a career that will attempt to take up all of your time and all of your energy, that will seek to become the focus of your life, and while work is a gift you were not created for work.
When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,
As Daniel Darling notes,
“Work matters to God, but it makes a poor God-substitute. We weren’t created in the image of our salaries or our positions or the organization for which we work. These good things will one day pass away—leaving us, if we aren’t careful, empty and unfulfilled....If we aren’t careful, we’ll load our vocations with the weight of a significance they weren’t meant to bear.”
Fathers and Mother we are given children as a good gift from God, but your kids are not your god.
Your leisure and games are a needed respite from the struggle and toil of life, because we serve a creative God who created all things we too have creativity and that can be seen in the hobbies we love, the games we play, or the art we make…but you these were meant to refresh us and point us to God not replace God as the source of our joy.
No ultimately the God we awe is the God we are called to serve. Church we are called to serve God and Him alone. Gospel-shaped lives put God at the center of all we do.
The greatest joy of a Christian is that God sees the work they do and is please by it, that God sees the children we raise and is praised by them, and sees the leisure and hobbies and art we enjoy and is glorified in it.
This life is meant to be a preparation for the next and so in all things, whether its eating, drinking, bearing children and raising them, enjoying friendship or making art, let us do all for the glory of God!
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
Gospel-Shaped Families Choose God (v. 15)
Gospel-Shaped Families Choose God (v. 15)
So here’s the choice that Joshua leaves Israel with: Choose.
Every day comes down to a choice.
Every situation comes down to a decision.
Will I choose God or self.
And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond 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.”
It’s a choice all of us have to make. It’s the same choice that has been before us since the garden. Who will we choose. Moses gave the choice to Israel
“And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you, but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul,
Samuel gave the choice to Saul
Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you.
And it’s the same choice God gives us today:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.
Who will you serve. The problem we have in the church today is that too many of us want to be doubleminded. We want to be loved by the world and by God. We want people to accept us, and to be liked and to follow Christ.
You can’t.
Your family can’t
A Gospel-shaped Family must at some point draw a line in the sand and say, “No more.” We’re not going to do things the world’s way. We’re going to be different. We’re going to live distinctly. We’re going to serve God.
So how do you do this?
Practice Spiritual Disciplines
Practice Spiritual Disciplines
Prayer, bible reading, solitude, scripture memorization. Whether you’re in the workforce, or into college our families are inundated with a barrage of messages that aren’t just different from the Gospel, they are outright rebellious and hostile to the gospel. Practicing Spiritual Disciplines is essential to spiritual growth.
We have some good resources on our website to help you in this process.
Go To Church
Go To Church
It seems simple, but right now nothing is more counter-cultural than not just going to church, which in a 15 minute driver from our church over 80% of Mississippians do not regularly attend church, but be active in your church. Teach, participate in small groups, do missions. The more you serve the more you will teach your family to love God and the more you will shield them from the world.
Share the Gospel
Share the Gospel
Finally, don’t just give lip-service to the gospel, share it with others. Go out with your church and invite people to know him. Share you testimony of what God is doing in your life. Live the Christian life! The greatest hinderance to the gospel are Christians who aren’t Christian. Be Christians in your jobs, in your school, at your leisure, in your parenting. Don’t do what everyone else is doing, see your life as something different, something distinct. Be proud of who Christ made you and is calling you to be.