The First Decision That Makes a Difference

Got your Bible? If you would, turn with me to the book of Joshua 24. I’m always amazed at the scripture God asked me to preach on. And so today you’re making a choice. And so we’re going to preach about making a choice and what all that entails and what it’s about. And so I kind of came up with a little acronym on the word choice with some little bits of wisdom that I found along the way as I did my research. But we’re in Joshua 24 and we’re going to be looking at verses 14 and 15 and then we’ll talk about some of those that surround it also.

So if you’ll stand with me for the reading of God’s word and its honor, we’ll say this. We’ll read these. Now, therefore, fear the Lord, serve Him in sincerity and truth. Put away the gods which your fathers served beyond the river and in Egypt and serve the Lord. If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the Lord, then choose for yourselves today whom you will serve. Whether the gods which your fathers served, which were beyond the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are now living. But as for me and my house, we’re going to serve the Lord. Thank you for standing in honor of God’s word.

Joshua at this point in this book is about 110 years old. He has seen a little bit of everything. He saw what it was like in Egypt. He saw what it was like to hang around Moses all those years. Then Moses died and God looked at him and said, “Hey, bud, Moses is dead. You now need to take over.” I’m not sure he was ready to want to do that, but he did. And over the course of the next 30 years or so, he has led the nation. He’s now coming to the end of his days. And the Bible says that he gathers all the people into this place called Shechem.

Now, Donnie, I don’t know, can you pull that map up by any chance? I want you to see where Shechem’s located. Okay, that’s kind of hard to see. In fact, it’s kind of little. But I want you to imagine in the very, you see the little red square? This is basically the 12 tribes that are broken up. If you count all the different colors, you’ll see the tribes. But right in the middle, that red square in the middle is where Shechem’s located. Okay? And it’s almost right in the center of the nation of Israel. This is where they’re gathered.

Now, why is this place important? Well, there’s a number of reasons. It was an ancient biblical city in Israel. Today, it’s known as, it’s called Tel Balata. It’s an archaeological site in the West Bank. But it’s located actually between two mountains. There’s Mount Gerizim and then Mount Ebal. Now, the reason that’s significant is because when God gave the nation the law, in Deuteronomy 28, He comes and says, “Look, if you do these things, you’re going to be blessed. If you do these things, then you’re going to be cursed.” And that’s what He’s talking about. And so, this is right in the middle of that.

In fact, the name Shechem actually means shoulder. So, on this little shoulder that’s kind of between these two mountains is this site. This is also the site where many believe that Abraham received from the Lord his promise, his covenant. That, Abraham, I’m going to make out of you a great nation. It was also at this site that Jacob would actually build a well and settle. A lot of people believe that it was at this location that Joseph would be sold into slavery by his brothers. What is interesting about that whole thing is how Joseph comes around full circle. Joseph kind of leaves for Egypt there. He dies in Egypt basically as kind of the prime minister. But when Moses leaves, whose bones did he take with him? Because God honors Him. They take Joseph’s bones. You know where Joseph is laid to rest? Right there in Shechem.

So, this is kind of a sacred place. The wells are there. You know, Jacob built his well there. Abraham probably built a well there. This is where God spoke to both of those men. Some great, just some great history there. It’s kind of like this church. This is a special place. Today, you’ll be making history and deciding where you want to go. So, what I want to do is I want to just kind of look at this acronym of choice and Talk about what basically Joshua’s doing because he’s calling these people. First thing we need to understand is the word calculated, the first C. See, the first thing I came up with is you are always one choice away from changing your life. How many people do you know, maybe you’re one of those folks, that you can look back on decisions in your life. I didn’t say I came with this kind of fork in the road. You know, it’s kind of like that old Robert Frost, you know, poem where he says, I had two places I could go. I looked down and saw as far as I could go down one. I looked far as I could go down the other. One was more worn than the other. I took the one that was probably less worn, that had been traveled the least. And I could have taken either one. But the one I took made all the difference. Today, what you choose makes all the difference. Makes all the difference. How you choose. And so, and sometimes you can’t wait. Today we’re making the choice.

He looks at these people in this, in verse 15, he says, he says, choose for yourselves whom you will serve, okay? He says, we’re going to make that choice today. This day you choose. Not next Sunday. It’s not one last Sunday. It’s today. Today, Sauldam Baptist Church makes a choice. Makes a choice on its future. It’s calculated. Today’s the day. Joshua brings them together. Here’s what Joshua’s doing. He brings an entire nation together. And he would separate them by tribes. And in the front of each tribe would be the elders or the leaders, especially the older men. And he would look at you and he’ll sit there and say, it’s up to you guys, you older ladies, you older men. It’s up to you guys to make sure that we go forward like we’re supposed to go forward. It’s calculated. You’re making this choice. It’ll be up to the older men, especially the older men in this church, to decide. You know, when we choose this pastor, we’re going to come alongside him. We’re going to love him. We’re going to come alongside. We’re going to make sure that he’s successful because we want this church to be successful. We want him to do what God wants Him to do. You know, choice makes all the difference in the world.

Well, why does one vote make that big a difference? Well, let me tell you why. In 1645, one vote gave Oliver Cromwell control of England. One choice. In 1649, one choice called Charles I of England to be executed. 1776, one vote, one choice gave America the English language instead of the German language. In 1845, one choice brought Texas into the Union. In 1868, one choice gave President Andrew Jackson, kept him from being impeached. In 1865, one voice changed France from a monarchy to a republic. In 1876, one choice, one vote gave Rutherford B. Hayes the presidency of the United States. In 1923, one choice, one vote gave Adolf Hitler leadership of the Nazi party. And at 1941, one vote put the draft into effect. And in 1960, one choice per precinct in four states gave John F. Kennedy the presidency of the United States. I’m telling you, what you choose today matters. Our votes, our choices matter. It’s calculated. It’s today.

Number two is the H depends on your decision. See, it’s choice, not chance, that determines your destiny. Well, we’re just kind of going. We’re just going to go with the flow. People are coming. We’ll just see what happens. God’s got a plan. God’s got a plan for Sauldam Baptist Church. He’s got a plan for you. Wouldn’t you want to be part of that? Wouldn’t you want to kind of key into that? Wouldn’t you want to know, Lord, what direction do you want us to go? See, hope depends on your decision. I mean, what’s our frame of reference? I mean, what has the Lord done for us? In this passage, in verse 24, He starts going and starts itemizing. Let me share with you all the things that God’s done for you. In fact, let’s go to verse 13, which is right before what we just read. He says, I gave you a land on which you did not labor, cities in which you had not built. You have lived in them. You are eating of vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant. And God brings them to the promised land. He said, I have prepared this for you. And the neat thing is, Joshua can point to 30 years prior to that and said How God at that time had prepared them too. You know, when they came out of Egypt before they decided whether they were going to cross the Jordan or not, God prepared them. He took them to Mount Sinai where He gave them the law, explain it to them. He then started to prepare and build a tabernacle, the place where God would literally dwell when He was here on the planet. So they would always know that God was in their midst, and He would protect them, and He would guide them, and He would lead them. All that was ready, all that was ready to go, and now God’s got you ready to go.

But our options, the O, are limited. See, life is change, but growth is optional. So choose wisely. Life’s about change. We don’t always like change. I know babies like change. My grandkids like change. I mean, they go to my daughter, you know, and they go to April and say, you know, mommy, change me. Change is good. I got a little book in my office called Change is Good. You go first. You know, God’s got a plan. God’s always about the changing business. That’s who He is, but our options are limited.

Look what He says here, verse 14. Now, therefore, He tells them to do this, fear the Lord. Well, what in the world does that mean? Well, I was looking at Proverbs 1:7 declares, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge or the beginning of wisdom. It doesn’t say the fear in God is wisdom. He says, that’s just where you start. Well, what does that mean? What does it mean, the fear of the Lord? That means you should be scared of Him, that if you do something wrong, lightning’s going to come out of the sky and just kind of make you a little pile of ashes? Well, no. Until we understand who God is and develop a reverential fear of Him, we cannot have true wisdom. See, true wisdom comes only from understanding who He is and that He’s three things. He’s holy, He’s just, He’s righteous.

Now, some kind of redefine it and they’ll say, well, let me tell you, that word fear really means respect. And that’s true. It does mean respect, but it’s deeper than that. See, while respect is definitely included in the concept of fearing God, there’s more. A biblical fear of God for the believer includes understanding how much God hates sin. Folks, I want to tell you, He hates sin. He doesn’t want that in your life. And we ought to be scared of His judgment of that, even the life of a believer. See, fearing God means having a reverence for Him that is great, that so impacts the way you live that people around you know it.

See, I respect Him. I can remember my wife when we were dating, I didn’t have to worry about her. She wasn’t going to be doing things she shouldn’t be doing. Why? Because she loved her daddy. She respected her daddy. She feared her daddy in a way that, not in a bad way, but in a way that she respected the family name and would never want to disgrace that. And that’s how we ought to be as Christians, that we love Him and respect Him and we honor Him and we worship Him to the point where we never want to be a point where we disgrace the family name. And what’s our family name? Christian. And the first six letters of that word is Christ. And we would never want to bring Him down.

The fear of God is respecting Him, obeying Him, submitting to His discipline and worshiping Him in awe. I don’t know what He looks like, but I do know this. He’s in the center of my life. I have seen Him do things in my life I can’t explain. I walk outside and I see the splendor and majesty of the things that He has created and know that I don’t need to be worshiping the creation. I need to be worshiping the creator. And Joshua is reminding him of all the great things that they’ve done.

But the options are limited, which takes us to the I. See, I is the integrity is defined on what you do. See, there are two primary choices in life. You can accept conditions like they are right now, or you can accept the responsibility for changing them. And today, God gives Sauldam Baptist Church an opportunity to change some things. And I think that’s pretty neat. See, it’s interesting. Joshua looks at his people and he says, I don’t just want you to fear God. He says, I want you to serve Him. See? He says, fear the Lord and serve Him. That’s why we’re around, folks. We’re not around just to receive. We’re around to serve Him. And God’s calling on this church to serve this neighborhood and this area and the changes that are coming. God’s asking this church to make a difference and serve. That’s what He’s asking. And here’s how you serve Him. You serve Him in sincerity and you serve Him in truth.

Well, what does that mean? Well, we’re to be sincere. We’re to mean what we say. But it’s deeper than just meaning what you say and being sincere because you can be sincerely wrong. That’s why truth is part of that. See, we look and find out what God wants us to do and where He’s pointing this church and what He wants us to do. And we say, we’re going to serve Him that way. It’s not what I want. It’s what He wants.

In Psalms 51, where David is literally, you know, coming back to God, he’s messed up and he’s going, God, forgive me. Listen to what he says. It starts with verse six. He says, sincerity and truth are what you require. It’s interesting that David would say those same words. So fill my mind with your wisdom. Well, what’s the wisdom? Well, the Bible says that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. He says, remove my sin and I will be clean. Wash me. I’ll be whiter than snow. Let me hear the sounds of joy and gladness. And though you have crushed me and broken me, I’ll be happy once again. Close your eyes to my sin, Lord. Wipe out all my evil. Then he says, create in me, what? A clean heart. Put a new and loyal spirit in me. Don’t banish me from your presence. Don’t take your Holy Spirit away from me. Give me, what? The joy of my salvation.

And Joshua’s looking at these folks and he said, folks, be about this. Because he looks at them because he says, your legacy, your integrity, who you are will depend on what you do and the choice you make in this moment.

You know, it’s interesting when you look at this passage, if you go to the end of it, it says that Joshua dies. He’s 110. And in verse 31, it says, Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua and had known all the deeds of the Lord, which He had done for Israel. That even though he dies, people stepped up to the plate, especially the old guys, the seniors. They stepped up and said, we’re going to do what Joshua said we needed to do.

Now, what’s interesting in the very next book of the Bible, Judges, in chapter 2, it states something that scares me to death. It says, I’m telling you, it’s some short memories. That as long as those folks were around, they said, we’re going to do what the Lord wants us to do. It’s not about us. It’s about Him. We’re going to take care of Him and we’re going to go in that direction.

And I want to point you to back 30 years prior to that. Remember I told you that God had got them ready to cross to Jordan. Do you remember the story? If you go back to Numbers 13 and 14, what we see is God’s getting them ready. He’s given them the law. He’s explained it to them. They’ve built the tabernacle. They’re about to go together. They’re about to go into the promised land. They’re about to cross to Jordan. But first thing they do, they go spy out the land. Remember, they send one person from every tribe and they spy out the land. And these guys come back after being wild in the land and they come back and they got a report. And they say, yeah, I’m telling you, there were some incredible cities there. I’m telling you, the fruit, you know, it is a land of milk and honey. The fruit and stuff there are, you’ve never seen anything like it. It is amazing. And then there were a few people that go, yeah, but there’s giants in the land and they scare us. We don’t know what they’re going to do to us. And we’ll just probably, we’ll be like grasshoppers in front of them.

Do you remember two guys stepped up to the plate? One was named Caleb and the other named Joshua. Remember what they said? Guys, have we forgotten? Have we forgotten how God, the 10 Plagues in Egypt that God did to get us out of Egypt and bondage? Have we forgotten how God parted the Red Sea and the mightiest army up to His time in history was totally destroyed and we didn’t have to do anything? Have we forgotten how God has taken care of us and protected us and provided for us and got us to this place and now He’s about to give us the promised land? And some folks are like, “Yeah, but I don’t want to go. Not me. I’m scared.” And you remember God got so ticked that God pretty much told Moses, “Stand aside, buddy. I’m going to wipe them out. We’re going to start with you.” And all of a sudden, Moses becomes almost like a defense attorney. And he goes to God and says, “God, you may not want to do this. You may not want to do this because what would that do to your reputation?” And he has this talk and God relents from doing that. But He says these words. He says, “That’s okay. I won’t destroy them. But instead of going into the promised land, you know what’s going to happen to them? They’re going to dink in the stinking desert for the next 40 years. And they’re not going to, that entire generation is not going to see what would happen when we cross the river.”

See, when they crossed the Jordan 40 years later, remember the incredible miracle? God dams up the river on His own. Bible says they walk across on dry ground. They could have choked on the dust. That was just before a riverbed. Did they get to see that, that generation? They didn’t get to see, not one of them except two guys, Joshua and Caleb, got to do that. It was that generation that kept Moses from going in. Because where did Moses? Moses died in the wilderness with them. Miriam died in the wilderness with them. Aaron, high priest, died in the wilderness with them. Did they get to see the great walls of Jericho come down as they just marched around it? No, they missed all that too. Joshua was sitting there saying, “We don’t want to be, folks, we don’t want to be missing any of that.”

Integrity is defined on what you do. The sea, consequences are set in stone. Once you make the decision today, it’s set. You can make one of the forward looking, or you can just say, “No, I don’t want to do that.” It’s interesting, back when they said no, after the 12 spies came back, do you remember what the nation did right after that? And God said, “Well, then you’re not going in. And you’re just going to dink around in the desert.” And He heard how it upset God. Do you remember what they did? The next day, they come out and they go, “We’re sorry. We really didn’t mean it, God. We were just kind of scared. We changed our minds.” No, you made a decision. It’s set in stone, consequences. And we need to understand the consequences.

I’m thinking about what God’s doing this morning and how He’s representing and the things. I’m looking at a committee that’s worked two years. Can you imagine putting your life a little bit on hold for two years looking for a pastor for this church? That’s a lot. That blows me away that they would be that dedicated. That this guy comes with a recommendation not of just your search committee, but he comes with a recommendation of your deacons, your finance committee. I mean, your leadership team is sitting there saying, “We think this is the guy.” I’m thinking, “Wow.” And the last thing is this. Eternity is at stake. See, sometimes one single choice not only changes the direction of our lives, but that of many, many others.

You know, I’m always amazed at how we always look at age. I remember when I went to my first church as a pastor, I was scared to death. I’m thinking, “Golly.” I’d been an associate pastor for, gosh, about, I guess, 15 years. And when I’m telling you, I’m thinking some of my first sermons when I came here where I’m thinking, Beth would look at me and go, “I don’t think that was your best.” You know, your wife is always your biggest critic, especially in the ministry. And then probably because I hadn’t preached for about three months, and you were a new congregation. And even though I’m very familiar, Nat went out with you. And sometimes we look at different things. I want to just share about, you know, He’s looking at us, and your obedience is not determining on age. Ted Williams, at age 42, slammed a home run in his last official at bat. Mickey Mantle was 20 years old when he had 23 home runs in his first full year in the majors. Golda Meir was 71 when she was prime minister of Israel. William Pitt was 24 when he became prime minister of Great Britain. 24. George Bernard Shaw was 94 when one of his plays was first produced. Mozart, well, you know how old he was when his first composition was published? He was seven. Now, Benjamin Franklin was a newspaper columnist at 16 and a framer of the Constitution when he was 81.

It’s not about, it’s about who’s, what’s God’s ploy? What’s His plan? What does He want? Here’s an interesting thing, too. This place, Shechem, was between, again, the two mountains. Mount Gerizim is where, when God gave them the law, He says, if you will obey Me, this is how I will bless you. And they went to Mount Gerizim, and they actually celebrated how He would bless them. Mount Ebal is a place in the same passage of Scripture. He says, however, if you do these things, this is how I will curse you. And so they went to go to Mount Ebal, and they would sit there, and they would, and they celebrated, basically, if we go in this direction, this is what He does to us here. And right in the middle is Shechem. Well, they got to choose. We want to be blessed, we want to be cursed. Eternity is at stake.

Let me just kind of close with this. 2010, my daughter April was a sophomore at Clemson University. Thanksgiving. And she’s getting ready to come home. She was part of an organization there called, now it’s now called CRU. It used to be called Campus Crusade for Christ. It’s a wonderful organization. And she was getting ready to come home back to Charleston for Thanksgiving. But there are a lot of folks up at Clemson that don’t get to go home for Thanksgiving. You know who they are? They’re the international students. It’s not like you can get on a plane and just pop back over to Europe or India or China or wherever you’re from and just go back for Thanksgiving. They’re stuck on campus.

So Campus Crusade basically had this wonderful idea of saying, you know, why don’t we bring Thanksgiving? We’ll do Thanksgiving for these folks. Let’s do that. How neat would that be? And so they did. And they invited a whole, I mean, most of the international, a lot of the international community to come and to, and come to Thanksgiving dinner. Well, if you’re a college kid, it’s food, right? Free food. So are you going to come? Yeah, you come. So invite the international community. And all the, and I’m thinking a couple hundred kids showed up. And they did a Thanksgiving meal for all those kids. And, and here’s what they did. They got down, they had the meal, and then they explained the, basically the story behind the meal, which was neat. They talked about the pilgrims and the Indians and Squanto and they, you know, and how God provided and all those kind of things. And then they went from transition from the story about Thanksgiving into the gospel. And for a lot of these international students, they were hearing the gospel for the very first time.

And April said at the end of the dinner, that they were, they were just standing around, they were talking. And she, she said, Daddy, I just took a step back. And I looked over here and there was a pocket of international students with some of our guys from, from Campus Crusade. And they were talking about the gospel. And then I saw another pocket of, of international kids over here. And they were talking about what they’d heard. And not just the Thanksgiving story, but about the gospel. And then she said, I looked over here and there was another pocket of them over here talking about the gospel. And she says, you know, Daddy, we’re told that we’re to go to the nations. And I looked at, at what was happening on the Clemson campus. And I realized God was bringing the nations to us. And we were responsible.

Ladies and gentlemen, God is bringing people to you. Do you know the future of what’s coming down the pike in this part? You may not, you may or may not like it. But let me tell you what’s coming down the pike in Ravenel. God is bringing people to you. And I want to share something with you. They ain’t coming for the, for, for church. Okay. They’re coming for the beach. They’re coming because they like the history of Charleston. They’re coming for, possibly for jobs. They’re coming because they can get a little more land here than they can go somewhere up, say up north or wherever they’re coming from. But they’re, but they’re coming. You have an opportunity to change lives because eternity is at stake. And the decision you make today, you get to choose. God, you get to choose. It’s in your ballpark. Choose you this day who you will serve.

Let’s pray. Father, I thank You. Thank You that You put that much on our shoulders. I thank You for the fact that we get to choose. You’re going to work and You’re going to grow and You’re going to save folks with or without us. My prayer is that You’re going to do it with us. This church, You have given us, gosh, facilities, people, different ages. Gosh, You have given us a great foundation. Today we choose. Lord, help us to look at You and say, God, what do You want? What’s good? What’s best for You? Best for me? What’s best for You? Your kingdom. Help us to make a choice that would make You happy. We ask this in Your Son’s precious name. Amen.