Renewing the pact

We are going to read the word of the Lord in Joshua chapter 24. A few weeks ago in this pulpit we have heard several messages in the book of Joshua and we want to read the last chapter of the book of Joshua, before Joshua gives up his life as he himself describes by the way of all men. Joshua finishes his farewell speech and we will be able to read the entire Joshua chapter but there is no time for the entire chapter. I recommend that you read the entire chapter of Joshua at home, but I wanted to focus only on a few verses, beginning with chapter 24, verse 14, which says the word of the Lord in this way.

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth, and put away from among you the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it seems bad to you to serve Jehovah, choose today whom you serve, whether the gods your fathers served when they were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you live. But I and my house will serve the Lord.

Then, the people answered and said, it never happens that we leave Jehovah to serve other gods because Jehovah our God is the one who brought us and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery, the one who has He has done these great signs and has guarded us all along the way where we have walked and in all the towns within which we pass. And the LORD drove out before us all the peoples, and the Amorites that dwelt in the land. We, then, too, will serve Jehovah because he is our God.

Then Joshua said to the people, you will not be able to serve Jehovah because he is a holy God and a jealous God, he will not suffer your rebellions and your sins. If you forsake Jehovah and serve other gods, he will turn and harm you and consume you. And after it has done you good. The people then said to Joshua, No, but we will serve the Lord."

My brothers, Joshua chapter 24 is Joshua's farewell speech. That is, they were Joshua's last words for all the people who had entered the promised land and it was not a pleasant speech. Joshua's speech was not a speech that the community of Israel said, oh, God is speaking to us tasty things, that we want to hear. Joshua is challenging the people to a different life, to follow life in the presence of the Lord.

I tried not to put a topic in that sermon but if there is a topic I wanted to say that it would be renewing the pact with God. Joshua was about to leave the land, the Bible says that he had gathered the leaders, met with the people and wanted to give his last speech, a heavy speech, but a speech full of meaning for the people of Israel.

If you read the whole of chapter 24 you will realize that the first verses, from 1 to 13, Joshua reminds the people of all that they have had to face to get to where they did. Josué recounts to the people all the difficult situations they have faced, the battles they have had, the victories. Josué also wants to remind the people of the victory blows, the blows of goodness, how God brought them and how they were brought by that divine love. Joshua was lightly reviewing the history of Israel from Abraham to his own time.

And do you know what Joshua's emphasis is? His emphasis was to highlight Jehovah's faithfulness to his people. Joshua did not want to let the opportunity pass without the people understanding that God is a faithful God and that God's faithfulness is not conditioned by my life, my lifestyle, what I think of God or what I think of the scriptures. God will continue to be faithful. God will continue to be faithful in any circumstance.

And let me tell you, I don't know what your problem is today, I don't know your situation today, but let me tell you, you entered this house because God has a divine purpose with you. And today he wants to invite you to renew the pact with him. Joshua reviewed the facts of Jehovah, that God had brought the people out of idolatry to form a powerful people.

Joshua wanted to remind them that one day they were slaves to Egypt, but now they are a free people, a people capable of recognizing the goodness and greatness of God, a God who freed them from their enemies, a God who introduced them to a promised land full of riches. And Joshua could go on remembering the crossing of the Jordan River, the conquest of Jericho, the conquest of Ai, the victory over the Canaanites, the victory over the Amorites, the conquest of all the lands according to chapter 11, the defeat of all the [ inaudible] from the land so that the people could enter the promised land, the land of Canaan.

My brothers, Josué was reminding the people that it has not been easy to get to where they have arrived. God brought you here today to remind you that it has not been easy to get here, you have had battles, struggles, illnesses, family problems, jobs and unemployment, struggles, the most diverse. We have had losses, our relatives have died in these years, people we love have gone with the Lord over the years, but God brought us here to remind us that he continues to be faithful.

God brought us here to remind us that the obstacles, the enemies, all the situations we have experienced, we have had victory with the help of God and that he has brought us here so that we can conquer the land that he wants us to conquer. In other words, his life does not stop here, it does not end here. God is not very impressed with your life, when you started the Christian life. God is not very impressed with your years of Gospel. God wants to know how you are going to end, how we got to the end. God is interested in knowing what you are going to do when the storms come to you, when the struggles come to your house.

I see the life of Joshua. And it is also necessary to remember all that it has cost us to get here, to where we have come. We have to recognize that without God's help we would not have been able to achieve anything, without God's help you would not be where you are. If God had not been your Lord and your deliverer in moments of struggle and problems, if God's blows of goodness and surprise had not come into your existence and your family, you would never recognize God as the powerful God that he is. Recognize that it has not been easy to get here in our life.

Let's look at what God has given us, how far he has taken us, what we have achieved, what we have advanced, it is a tremendous advance. Look at history, look at the history of you and your family, of your life, where you were years ago and how God brought you, how God freed you, how God freed you from slavery. And he did it for you and I to reach today, February 25, 2018, acknowledging his faithfulness and today renewing a pact with God of fidelity and to follow him no matter the circumstances, no matter the situation.

As the beautiful and famous song says: God did not bring us here to go back. God brought us here to live a life of victory. Hallelujah! Glory to Jesus. How many of us have already been comforted by the word of David, in verse 13 of Psalm 27 that says:

"I would have fainted if I did not believe that I will see the goodness of Jehovah in the land of the living."

There were many times that God comforted you saying, I healed you, I cured you, I got you out of there. Verse 14 and 15, Joshua motivates the people to make courageous decisions from that moment on to keep the pact and never go back. never again to return to the land of slavery, so as not to be slaves on earth again as they were in Egypt.

And from Joshua's words we are going to take the lessons for our life, that everything is by grace. Everything we have, we receive and comes from God. You do not have the job you have because you are important, because you are intelligent, it is because God has you in his sights, God has you in his hand and he promised you and he will fulfill all his promises in your life.

Joshua's purpose is to make the people reflect on a God who keeps promises, a God who fulfills. I had already renewed the pact 3 times with God and they had failed. A people that several times tried to commit to the Lord, to pursue him regardless of the circumstances, and they failed. That is the reason why Joshua said to the people, you have no word, you cannot follow that God. the lifestyle that you live was not a lifestyle that befits the holiness of that God.

Joshua is saying, this God is a consuming fire. You are liars. You cannot serve Jehovah, verse 19, because he is a holy God, and a jealous God, and he will not suffer your transgressions and your sins.

Oh, brothers, I would like to have a very soft message to tell you today. But God wants you and I to make decisions to renew the covenant with God, a God of word, a holy God who remained in his holiness throughout history, a God who has not failed us.

The first decision that I make in my life and that you need to make in your life is the decision to fear Jehovah. Fear Jehovah. What does it mean to fear Jehovah? There are many who think that to fear God is to be afraid of God. Well, in a way also because God is awesome. The word says that it is a consuming fire. But fearing God is living in fear, that is, deciding to live courageously to meet him. The fear of God is a lifestyle. The fear of God is not just decisions we make sporadically.

I decide, I'm going to do this because I go to church. How awesome. We meet here on Sundays and it's nice to see a full house, but God is talking about humility, he is talking about wanting to teach, oh, Jehovah, his ways, Psalm 86, verse 11, Isaiah 33:6, the word says that fear of God is his treasure. Treasure abundant life in your life. To fear God is to turn away from evil, that is to say what I know to be sin as sin because it does not please God.

Proverbs 8, verse 13, the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth, says the word, I hate, says the Lord. To fear God is to obey God rather than men. Fearing God is trying to do what is good, what is right, even when no one is looking at us.

Proverbs chapter 15, verse 3 says that the eyes of the Lord are in every place looking at the good and the bad. To fear God is to know that God is watching you. To fear God is to agree to a lifestyle that is in keeping with divine holiness.

One of these days I was, you know when you mince paper in these machines, I was on my knees mincing paper in my office. When you punch a piece of paper, it's because you don't want anyone to know what's there, right? At that moment the machine was chchchchchch, and a deep voice says, I know what is on the paper, even after clicking 10 thousand times. And if you pick it up and poke it again I know what's on the paper, I see everything. God said, I am the Lord over all things, I am the sovereign God over you and all. I have my eyes everywhere.

Let me tell you, God sees everything you think he doesn't see. And to fear God is to recognize his holiness, it is to know that God is watching us, that is, it is not to be a religious thinking that God is only pleased with our life one day a week. I come on Sunday, I punched out the card, I made sure that the pastors saw me. It is not like this. Life with God goes far beyond that. We do not do good because we are good, we do good things because there is a good God who drives us to be good, because there is no goodness in me, there is no goodness in you. There is a goodness in God that goes beyond our being to reach this generation and if you and I want to make an impact on this generation, not leave this world without making an impact, today we must decide to fear Jehovah. It is a challenge, to serve Jehovah, I had to recognize that Jehovah was God.

Joshua said, you have to recognize that he is God, it is not just to see if I got here, I fought to get to the promised land, God was good to me. God has given me gifts, the blows of God's goodness have reached me in every moment of my existence. The fear of God is going to affect every part of our life so that there will be no more separation between secular and religious.

Because it's easy for us to be religious, it's easy, let me tell you, being holy on Sunday is not difficult, it's not that difficult, because you get up in the morning and you're thinking, I have to go to the service, I'm going to sing a song. And begin to worship God. and you come to the service and the pastor talks and talks and doesn't want to stop and you're looking at the clock, I have to go home. And the afternoon ends quickly, right? End the day, oh, I made it, a holy day. But tomorrow is Monday and if God allows us to make it until tomorrow, that's where it is.

The second decision we must make to keep the pact, we will be faithful to God no matter what. It is interesting that Joshua is speaking to the people about integrity. In verse 14, fear the Lord and serve the Lord with sincerity. And I was looking at the word integrity, in the original that was written, in Hebrew, and that word, the word tamin, was used by the Jewish people to describe something that was complete, without blemish, without any fault, without any fault, that is, a completely white dress.

And Joshua is saying, the only way to serve Jehovah and please him is to live with integrity. My brothers, in our lives this is a courageous decision that we must make on a personal level and that will affect our faithfulness to God and that this is conditioned by the circumstances of our lives, what happens in our lives. Each of us can say, as the Apostle Peter said in John chapter 6, where shall we go?

Only you, Lord, tell us the word of eternal life, where shall we go? What lifestyle are we wishing for the next few days in this generation? Say the decision. Josué was very strong with the people with that decision, the decision to recognize to remove the idols from our lives.

Verse 14, “Now therefore fear the LORD and serve Him in sincerity and in truth and put away the idols which your fathers served on the other side of the river and in Egypt, and serve the LORD.”

What is an idol in our life? We do not have wooden or iron idols that we adore or prostrate, but an idol is everything that stands in the way between your relationship with God and your God. That is an idol. What really defines who we are is what we do when we are alone, that defines our integrity, it defines who we are before God. The way we treat things in our lives defines what is first and what is paramount in our lives. An idol can be a job, it can be a family member, an idol can be money, something can be an idol in your life.

Second Corinthians, chapter 1, verse 12, the Bible speaks of simplicity, of sincerity because this is our glory, it is the testimony of our conscience that with the simplicity and sincerity of God, not with human wisdom but with the grace of God we have driven in the world and much more with you.

In other words, serve without hypocrisy. Say and do. Keep schedule, the service begins at 12 not at 1. Serve according to the revealed will of God for each one of us. Remove the idols. Israel served idols from the past and there are idols that we serve in our life that are in our life and that we bring into existence when we do not have Jesus Christ. And we still keep them with us, gripped, we don't let go. The modern gods that we are acquiring in our existence. But God's love is able to help us remove idols.

My brothers, the Bible says that God is a jealous God. The Bible says that he does not distribute, does not share his glory with anyone. Luchas chapter 16, verse 13, the word says that no servant can serve two masters, and the Bible says, "because it may be that he will hate one and love the other or esteem one and despise the other, and the word ends by saying you cannot serve God and mammon."

There is an older translation that says, you cannot serve God and mammon. One day I want to preach about mammon. How many idols do we have in our life? When we remove the idols from our existence, do you know what we do? We are nothing less than restoring the altar of worship to our God, restoring our relationship with God.

What are the altars and idols that need to be restored in your life? perhaps an altar of unity, sometimes God wants to restore unity in our midst. The way we see each other, the way we greet each other, if we truly love each other, and the word of the Lord says, my brothers, that he who does not love or he who hates his brother is a murderer, says the word of the Lord.

God invites us today to restore altars to restore communion with the Lord and to restore this worship with the Lord. The altar of our family has to be restored, the altar of interpersonal relationships has to be restored. The altar of our communion with God in prayer has to be restored. How much we pray, how much we want to be with the Lord. The altar of our worship has to be restored. What you hear, what you see, what you speak, this reverence that the Lord asks for, that lifestyle that Joshua is explaining to the people.

Interesting that Joshua said to the people, you are not capable of doing it, you are weak, you are not capable of doing it. The fourth decision for restoration is the decision that I and my house will serve the Lord. Look that Josué says that it is a decision in your life. You can say, but pastor, look, I know my family, my family never goes to the feet of the Lord. Decide that your family is going to serve the Lord. Prophesy that your family will serve the Lord.

If it seems bad to you to serve Jehovah, said Joshua, look for other gods, return to the land of servitude. If it seems bad to you to serve Jehovah... you are incapable of serving Jehovah, said Joshua because he is a holy God, a jealous God and he will not tolerate your rebellions and your sins.

My brothers, it is an awareness that you and I have to have every day of our lives that our family is part of the process of God's plan for this generation. I understand that many times there are family situations that make us think that it will not be possible. I know the members of your family and you look at them and say, no, it's not possible, this person will never confess God as Lord of his life. Confess and declare that your family is going to serve the Lord.

We have to make the courageous decision to preach the word of God to our entire family, trusting in the promise of the Lord. Acts, chapter 16:31, "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you and your household will be saved."

Now that we know those decisions, the Lord calls us to make an effort and be courageous. There is a pact that is already made. Verse 25, “then Joshua made a covenant with the people on the same day and gave them statutes and laws in Shechem.” It was a very solemn occasion in the life of Joshua and the people.

"He repeated to them the laws of Moses and wrote the covenant there in the book of the law and the Bible says that later Joshua picked up a stone and said, this stone will serve as a witness against Israel because if they stray from the Lord, if they rebel once again against the Lord, the Lord will touch them."

Have you ever given a public testimony in your life of your vows to the Lord? Have you publicly declared that you love him? Do people at your job, at your school, know who you are? Does he know that you are a child of God, that you are a worshiper, a worshiper?

Mark, chapter 8, verse 34: "Then he called the crowd and his disciples and said, if you want to come, if you want to be my disciple, you have to deny yourself, you have to take up your cross and you have to follow me." It is not a promise that if you want to be my disciple every day I will raise you up with breakfast. It would be tremendously cool, right? If you want to be my disciple, deny yourself, renounce your own life, renounce your pleasures, renounce your personal intrigues, surrender, take up your cross and follow me.

Luke, chapter 9, verse 62; "Jesus answered him, no one who looks back after putting his hand to the plow is fit for the Kingdom of God."

My brothers, following Jesus Christ is not a title, it is a lifestyle. It is not that you have to carry the Bible in a specific way for them to say that you are a Christian. Following God is a daily style where people recognize your voice, where people recognize who you are, where the smell of Jesus goes [inaudible] from your life to society. And if we want the world and this generation to be transformed, you and I want to be part of that challenge. It is the time to renew the pact with the Lord and say, Lord, here I am, I want to be part of it.

Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, the word says, "I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me." What I live now, what you see now is not what you see, it is what God formed in your life. It is not what you see, it is what God has formed in your life and preparing your life to reach this generation. What now lives in the body, Paul said, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave his life for me.

Joshua did everything he could to make sure that the people could continue to be loyal to the Lord, faithful to the Lord. He gave a clear presentation of God's merciful and protective hand. From the time of Abraham he brought history to them, to his own time. He also gave them a vision, you can serve God but you can choose not to serve God.

They had to choose. He didn't do it for them. Each one of us is responsible for our lives, each one of us will answer before the Lord. Joshua questioned their sincerity when they said to Joshua, yes, Joshua, we are going to follow God, we are going to follow Jehovah. They were talking to Josué, Josué knew them. Josué knew that there was not much sincerity in their hearts. Based on their decision and God's promises they made a covenant. Joshua said, now we make a pact, we put a stone and the commitment was formalized and sealed and then Joshua was able to die in peace, having pleased and served the Lord throughout his life.

Have you and I set a similar goal of renewing the covenant? Are you willing today to make a covenant renewal of the alliance with your God, to recognize his sovereignty, his lordship? Would you be willing to give up all the idols in your life? Can you identify the idols of your life today? Do you purpose today in your heart to serve Jehovah and him alone? May there be no other gods in your life, may there be no other preferences in your life. And be sure that the devil will put proposals in your way but know that the devil's proposals can serve as a banana peel for you to slip.

And sometimes in order for us to achieve that lifestyle of victory, that lifestyle of covenant renewal, it is necessary for us to make decisions and those decisions, my beloved brothers, always come with the responsibility of breaking with everything that impedes our growth and the knowledge of God, break with idolatry, break with hidden sin in our life.

Everything you think you can do when no one is watching defines your character. Break with gossip, break with an ungrateful heart, God is a holy God. He is holy. That same holy God is here this afternoon and he wants to reach your heart, he wants to reach your life, he wants you to make a pact with him, to serve him, only him, that the struggles don't matter, the storms don't matter that are going to come upon your existence. You get up and say, Lord, I don't care. I'm going to follow you, only you.

I recognize, Lord, that the devil has put proposals in my life and my existence and there is a beautiful tray of flowers that do not coincide with your life proposal, I am going to renounce it, Lord, I want to serve only you.

I do not want to leave here today without giving the opportunity to those who say, I want to make a pact with the Lord today. I have lived up to this point in my life, in my existence, and I have known the goodness of the Lord. I recognize that God has attacked me with his goodness. As we hear from Vanessa today, she has struck me with her kindness, she has struck me with her love. But today I want to make a pact of fidelity with God and to serve only him and no one else.

If you make that pact with God, I invite you to stand up where you are. Hallelujah! I want to ask if there is anyone here who until today has never made a commitment to God to say, Lord, I am going to follow you. Until today you have not given your life to Jesus for a faithful commitment and to serve him and only him. And today you decide to give your life to the Lord, what do you think about leaving your place and coming here? We want to pray for your life, those who decide to give their lives to Jesus. There is someone here this afternoon who says, yes, I am the pastor. I have tasted the goodness and faithfulness of God and my recognition of this greatness I want to give my life to the Lord, is there anyone here? In the name of Jesus I invite you to leave the place and come here in front, here in front. We want to pray for you in Jesus name.

Someone who is on the balcony or here to my left, in the center, on the right hand. Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Lord, here is a people standing before you, a people who say, I pledge myself and renew the covenant with you today, Lord. Receive it. Receive our lives with a soft smell from your nostrils, please us. Tell the Lord, Lord, be pleased with me. Say to the Lord, allow my life to be a smell, a perfume in your nostrils. Receive them, Lord. Receive our lives.

The pact we make with you today is not a pact with men, it is a pact with you, Lord. We associate ourselves with the truth, we divorce ourselves from the lie, we associate ourselves, Lord, with all that is holy, with all that is pure, with all that is true in the name of Jesus. And help us to continue, Lord, and to continue and influence this generation with your power for the honor and glory of Jesus. Church of the Lord, praise your God.