Joshua Renews the Covenant
October 16, 2022

Joshua Renews the Covenant

Passage: Joshua 24:1-26
Service Type:

You Have to Serve Somebody
Joshua 24:1-26

Have you ever attended a wedding vow renewal ceremony? In the ceremony, the couple reaffirm their original marriage vows as a way of celebrating and displaying their renewed commitment to each other. Most often, people renew their marriage vows to mark a major wedding anniversary, or the ceremony can celebrate overcoming difficult times from which the union emerged stronger than it was before.

The wedding vow renewal ceremony celebrates the original covenant of marriage the couple entered into on their wedding day. Covenants are agreements between two parties in which each person or group assumes particular responsibilities and receives specific benefits.

Joshua 24 is a covenant renewal ceremony. It is not a wedding covenant renewal. Rather, it reaffirms the covenant made between God and Abraham and Sarah in the land of Canaan. It renews the covenant between God and Moses and Israel at Mount Sinai.

Joshua rehearses the pivotal events in the history between God and the nation of Israel. First, God called Abraham and promised him the land of Canaan, many descendants, and divine blessing. These covenant blessings were passed on to Isaac and Jacob and even Esau. Second, Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt, where they were enslaved for four hundred and thirty years, but the God of covenant came to their rescue. God sent terrible plagues against Egypt and brought the Israelites out of slavery. God divided the Red Sea so his people could escape from the Egyptian army that was pursuing them. God used the water of the sea to defeat Pharaoh’s forces. Third, God led Israel into the wilderness where they wandered for forty years. God provided for them in that barren land and formed them into a nation. Fourth, and finally, God brought Israel to the land of the Amorites, to Canaan, to the Promised Land. Joshua summarizes the major battles Israel fought against the inhabitants of Canaan: the battle against King Balak of Moab, the battle of Jericho, and various battles with different Canaanite groups culminating in the battle with two Amorite kings.

As I have noted recently in previous sermons on the Book of Exodus, people have wrestled with the description of God as a divine warrior who fights against his enemies and the enemies of his people. Although the idea is foreign to us as modern people who singularly stress God's love for all, it is normative in the Bible.

In Genesis 15, God reaffirms his covenant promises with Abraham. In an eerie ceremony, Abraham cuts animals in two pieces laying each half over and against the other. Then a deep and terrifying darkness descends on Abraham, and he falls into a trance-like sleep. As he sleeps, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch pass through the gory pieces.

While Abraham slept, God spoke to him revealing the future. “Then the Lord said to Abram, ‘Know this for certain, that your offspring shall be aliens in a land that is not theirs, and shall be slaves there, and they shall be oppressed for four hundred years; but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterwards they shall come out with great possessions. As for yourself, you shall go to your ancestors in peace; you shall be buried in a good old age. And they shall come back here in the fourth generation; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete. […] To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites’’’ (Gen. 15:13-16, 18-21).

God tells Abraham, “The iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.” About six hundred years later their iniquity had reached God’s limit. God raised up the nation of Israel against them and allowed Israel to conquer and possess the land of Canaan. Although Israel was God’s instrument, it was the LORD who fought for them. “I sent the hornet ahead of you, which drove out before you the two 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 towns that you had not built, and you live in them; you eat the fruit of vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant" (Joshua 24:12-13).

Over and over again in the Bible, God uses nations as his instruments of judgment. There is a strange duality in God. Exodus 34:6-7 captures these two facets of the divine nature. “The Lord passed before him, and proclaimed, ‘The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation’” (Exodus 34:6-7). God’s character is weighted toward mercy, but God is not to be trifled with either. A person reaps what he or she sows.

God’s dynamic character is reflected in the covenant renewal ceremony of Joshua 24 too. Joshua exhorts Israel to revere the LORD and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Joshua commands them to put away the gods their ancestors served beyond the river. It is remarkable that Israel was still polytheistic at this point in its history despite everything it had witnessed and experienced. Joshua forces the people to choose between the gods of their ancestors and the LORD.

The people of Israel reaffirm that they will serve the LORD alone, but Joshua warns them about the decision they are making. He says, “You cannot 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” (vs. 19-20).

The kindness and severity of God are hard for us to fathom or to hold together. It is virtually impossible to trace God’s hand working in history, particularly in the present. For instance, consider the war in Ukraine. Is Russia an instrument of God’s judgment on Ukraine for its corruption, or is Russian aggression a prelude to judgment on Russia? We tend to believe the latter, but it very difficult to know with certainty.

Perhaps Jesus’ words are the best cure for our perplexity. He said, “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars; see that you are not alarmed; for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and pestilences and earthquakes in various places: all this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. […] Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Mt. 24:6-8, 30-31). Jesus points us away from trying to read the tea leaves of human history. Instead, Jesus directs us to focus on the end of the age where God will act decisively. On the great and terrible day of the Lord there will be no uncertainty about God’s kindness or severity.

Given that we live in God’s moral universe where the kindness and severity of God are at work, albeit mysteriously, how should we then live? Most of us are familiar with Bob Dylan, the American folk singer. Dylan was raised Jewish, but in the late 1970s he was converted to Christianity and became a born-again Christian. He toured frequently from 1979 – 1981 proclaiming his newfound faith in song. One of his Christian songs was entitled “Gotta Serve Somebody.” The chorus of the song goes, “You’re going to have to serve somebody, yes indeed, you’re going to have to serve somebody. Well, it may be the devil, or it may be the Lord, but you’re going to have to serve somebody.”

Some have questioned the genuineness of Dylan’s conversion, but irrespective of that question, his song is an excellent summary of Joshua’s challenge to Israel. She had witnessed the plagues of Egypt, passed through the Red Sea, wandered in the wilderness, and conquered the Promised Land, but she was still clinging to her ancestral idols. John Calvin noted that “the human mind is, so to speak, a perpetual forge of idols.” Human beings are forever putting something in God’s rightful place. Joshua was forcing Israel to make a choice.

This morning’s text is a fortuitous one to begin our emphasis on stewardship for the upcoming year. Stewardship is a time when we take inventory of ourselves. How is my relationship with God? How is my relationship with God’s people, the church? How am I using my time, talents, and treasure in the service of God in the world and in the body of Christ? Whom will I serve?

Stewardship is a time of rededication. It is a time when we say, “As for me and my house we will serve the LORD.” We do so, well aware of the responsibilities and benefits associated with entering into covenant with the King of the Universe. As a character in C. S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia asks about God, “Is he – quite safe?” In response another character replies, “Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you.” This is the God with whom we have to do. This God may call us to undertake seeming impossible tasks like escaping bondage, passing through dangerous places, wandering in a wilderness, or conquering our spiritual foes. Despite the challenges, despite knowing the fear of the Lord, we are assured that above all, our God is “merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.”

So, I say to you in closing, cast aside any idols you may be clinging to. Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Amen.