Sermon Transcript

As you’re being seated, let me invite you to open your Bible to Joshua 24. We’ve made it to the final chapter of Joshua, as we’ve been marching verse by verse. I told you last week, I preached all the twenty-four chapters so we could finally get to verse 15 of this chapter.

One of the most famous verses in the Bible; some of you have it on welcome mats on your front porch or hanging somewhere in your home. I want us to all get our eyes on this verse, Joshua 24:15 (ESV): “And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, [then] choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River [those were the old gods. . .but then, if you were not happy with the old gods, there are new gods available], or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you [now] dwell. [And here’s the famous part] But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

How many of you were with us last week? We talked about how we all have a choice to serve the Lord. Hopefully you were here, and—maybe for the very first time, or maybe in a fresh, new way—you said, “I am going to serve the Lord! This day, my choice is the Lord!” And we talked about how it’s not a matter of whether you will serve; you will serve a god. The question is, “Which God/god will you serve?”

So, last week, we talked about the “me:” it was an individual choice. This morning we’re going to talk about “my house.” Here’s the Big Idea of the message:

 

Big Idea: The direction of my house will be determined by the ruler of my heart.

 

Here’s what we’re going to do this morning: Last week, we talked about an individual choice. We talked about the “me” part of that verse, and hopefully last week, if you were here, you chose to serve the Lord. But, what we’re going to learn is, our choice is going to extend beyond ourselves. Yes! I’m going to challenge you to think beyond yourself this morning. I know that’s a challenge in our very individualistic, autonomous society. But I want you to think beyond yourself, because this morning we’re going to learn how my choice is going to affect my house. You see, there are other people and other things in your house.

How many of you have some “little me’s” in your house? Are there some others? How many of you have more than one “little me” in your house? The decisions you make are going to impact the “little me’s.” But, it’s not just people, it’s stuff. There is some stuff and there are some things. I think I could draw a car this morning (that’s a really bad car!), but there’s stuff that the Lord has given us, and that’s what makes up our house.

Let’s talk about what is “this house.” When Joshua says, “As for me,” we know what the “me” was, but what was “the house?” And not just what was Joshua’s house—what is your house; what does it mean? Well, we’re going to define “the house” this way: A house—your house—is everyone and everything God has given you that you are responsible for. You got it?

Now, I want you to begin to make a list in your mind. Some of you, when we talked about the “little me’s” should be thinking about the names of the “little me’s” in your house. You got ‘em? If you’re married, that would include your spouse; if you’re a parent, that would include your children. How many of you have “little me’s” still living in your house? Okay. How many of you have “little me’s” taking over your house? Messing up your house. Okay? Well, that’s part of your house, but it goes beyond people to stuff.

How many of you, God has given you some “stuff?” How many of you would like God to bless your stuff? There’s something you can do to get God’s blessing on your stuff. Here are the two things we need to think about when we think about the inventory in our house:

            First of all, it all came from God, which means, I should thank Him. How often do you thank Him for your spouse, and you thank Him for your children? And then, beyond the people in your house, thank Him for the stuff—every dollar in every bank account, every car, every piece of clothing, every piece of furniture, every golf club. . .every rat that’s in the basement, I don’t know! All the stuff in your house.

Everything comes from God, and, here’s the second thing: everything in your house—Listen!—is to be used in service to God. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. We’re going to use the stuff in our house to serve the Lord.” Is that true of the stuff and the people that God has given to you?

What does God say about our house? There are a lot of different verses in the Scripture that mention a house. Let’s look at this one. Proverbs 3:33 says this, “The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked. . .” How many of you want to sign up for that plan? Do you want an alternative plan? Here’s a better plan – “. . . but he blesses the dwelling of the righteous.”

            And so, there are two distinct ways that we can deploy our house. We can either use it serve righteous purposes, or we can use it to serve wicked purposes, and whichever choice you make is going to determine whether or not you receive the Lord’s blessing or you receive the Lord’s curse. I don’t know about you, but I want to sign up for the blessing plan. Anybody with me here, this morning? That’s what we’re going for this in this message.

Here’s another verse about our house: Proverbs 14:1 says, “The wisest of women builds her house, but folly with her own hands tears it down.” Now, I just want to take this opportunity to let you know that the blessing that is in my house and on my house is primarily due to a very wise woman who manages and builds the house that I am living in. I am the recipient of the blessing of a very wise woman named Andrea who has built a house that is receiving the blessing of God.

And the wisest of men will stay out of the way of a wise woman who is building her house, but a wise man will step into a situation where there is a foolish woman tearing it down. So, we are responsible for what’s going on in our house. Our responsibility is to build it.

There are some things we have to do to build a house that receives God’s blessing. Proverbs 24:3 says this, “By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established…” It’s hard to build a house that serves the Lord. Everything in our society is going to stand against you building a home that is used in service for the Lord. So there’s got to be wisdom and forethought about the intentional choices you make in the house; it’s built with understanding.

Psalm 127:1 says this, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” And so, you can be really good person, you can be a really smart person, you can put a bunch of rules up in your house—but if that house is not dedicated to and used in service for the Lord, you’re wasting your time. “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” We want God’s blessing on our house.

Let me ask you, who is living in your house? There are a lot of different living situations here. I’ve lived in different circumstances. When we talk about a house, we’re not talking about a residence where you may have a quarter-acre lot or a five-acre lot. That’s one type of house—of course we think of that. But some of you live in an apartment. How many of you live in apartments? How many of you live alone?

I remember, there was a season I lived alone, and I kind of like living alone—because I never had a fight with myself; I never argued with myself. If the house was messy, there was nobody to blame but me. I could clean it up; I could leave it messy if I wanted, because nobody cared. It was just me. There are some advantages to living by yourself.

How many of you live in a trailer? You probably wouldn’t admit it in church. For fifteen years it’s what I did. It’s amazing—six people living in four-hundred square feet—mobile. Everything you own had to fit in the trailer! Life’s really simple that way. When your house is small, your problems seem to be a little smaller. I don’t know about you, but the bigger my houses get, the more complex they are—the more time I have to spend painting and repairing and spending money. So, whether you live in a house or an apartment or a condo or a trailer, or whether or not, this morning, as a man you’re living in the dog house, we need to understand that there are some responsibilities we have to make this house useful in service to the Lord.

Here’s the next question: What is happening in your house? What is the atmosphere in your house? What’s the tone, what are the words, what are the attitudes in your house? Is that atmosphere something that you are pleased with? In what direction is your house moving? Do you know what the promise of Joshua 24:15 is? It is this—that no matter what’s going on in your house, “it can be changed with a choice by me” – understanding that my choices are going to affect the atmosphere in my home. That’s what we’re going after today.

Now, some of us are more concerned with what’s happening in the White House than what’s happening in “my house.” Do you understand that you’ve got relatively little influence in the White House? And yet, you have amazing influence at your house. And my prayer—and one of the purposes of this church—is to get people to build a house that is so beautiful and so attractive and so influential that if enough of us were able to build a house that serves the Lord, it would spill over into neighborhoods, it would spill over into churches, it would spill over into schools, it would spill over into communities, it would spill over into a nation, and eventually affect what’s happening at the White House.

If you want to impact what’s happening at the White House, you might want to spend a little more time working on what’s happening in your house. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Now, as you read that, the question that I’ve asked of this passage is this: How could Joshua be so bold in his declaration to believe that his choice was going to determine the choices of the other “little me’s” in his family?

It’s a pretty bold statement, right? It’s almost as if he made the choice for the family. Does that mean he brought all of his family together and said, “You’re gonna serve the Lord, and I’m going to put my foot on your neck until you say ‘uncle!’ You’re serving the Lord along with me, right?” Is that what Joshua did? No.

I believe Joshua had such respect from his family, I believe they had watched him for a hundred years, or however long they had lived with him, and his choices, and his integrity and his influence and his courage and his boldness and his prayer life were so attractive that everybody made the same choice. Because they wanted the same blessing that they saw on Joshua’s house.

Do you want that same blessing? Do you want to make the choice and have everybody say, “Hey, we want to make that choice with you!” Then there are three things that we’re going to have to do. Here are three commitments I want to challenge you to make if you want a distinctly Christian home that serves the Lord. Would you make these choices?

 

• My house will be established by commitment.

 

I don’t want to race too fast past the obvious here: Joshua was not just an individual. He was the leader of a household. Now, in order to become a leader of a household, you must make a commitment. . .and there are two obvious commitments here: First of all, he had made a commitment to the Lord that this would be a house that serves the Lord. That’s a vertical commitment; we talked about that last week. I hope you’ve made that. But once you make the vertical commitment to the Lord, it spills over into a horizontal commitment to everyone and everything else in your house. How does a commitment get established?

I lived the first twenty-seven years of my life as an individual. I lived, from the ages of fifteen to twenty-seven, as one committed that this individual would be serving the Lord. But at the age of twenty-seven, on December 17, 1994, at 2:00 pm, I stood in front of a wonderful woman that I had deceived into marrying me – actually, I won her heart – and I committed my life to this woman, and she committed her life to me. And we established a new house through the covenant, love, and commitment of something called…wait for it, wait for it, new concept…marriage! Have you heard of it?

It was not an institution of man; it was an institution created by God. God initiated marriage. He’s the only One who has the right to define it, and until God terminates it, we have no right to terminate it either—either the institution or the individual commitment. My house will be established by commitment. So, how’s it going at your house?

Listen! As we talk about this – there was a study that came out this week by Pew Research—a research firm that does lots of surveys. They do very scientific surveys, and they stumbled onto a discovery—something new that is happening in our culture today, that hasn’t happened for one-hundred-and-thirty years.

Here’s what they found out: adults between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four –

those are the millennials—they discovered that the most likely house that that age group lives in, is in mom and dad’s house. Now, if you’re between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four and you’re living at mom and dad’s house, there could be some very good reasons for that to happen. But, if the reason you’re still living at mom and dad’s house is because you are afraid of a commitment to establish your own house, you might want to get with the program—and grow up—and make a choice to establish a new house.

Marriage is God’s tool to scrub off selfishness from your life. You see, marriage and selfishness are mortal enemies of one another. Marriage will kill selfishness! I thought I might get an “amen” out of somebody out there. How many of you, your wife or husband is doing a pretty good job of scrubbing off—or at least exposing—some of the selfishness in your life?

You see, if you go through your entire life without actually living in a house with a mate, you might think you’re not a very selfish person. I didn’t think I was a very selfish person for twenty-seven years. I’ve lived the last twenty-one years with a mirror in front of me that is reflecting my selfishness. It’s called “a spouse.” Marriage will kill selfishness.

Here’s the flip side of that coin: selfishness will kill your marriage. Selfishness and marriage cannot peacefully coexist. So, it is through the establishment of a marriage commitment that God sanctifies the selfishness in my life. Another thing that that Pew Research article found is this: It is likely that one in four Americans now will go through their entire lives without getting married. One in four!

Now, there are purposes for singleness. Do you know this? I am not down on singleness. When I was single, I had freedom to serve the Lord that I don’t have anymore. The Bible actually says in 1 Corinthians 7:33 that a married man is concerned—and anxious—about his wife. And he should be. If you are married and you’re not concerned about your wife, you’re not a very good married person.

But, if you are married, you have concerns and you have to serve your wife. That peels off layers that you could actually use to serve the Lord—time, resources. If you are a single person, do you understand that you have freedom to serve the Lord in ways that married people don’t? Use your singleness to serve the Lord! But, if you’re using your singleness to serve yourself, you might want to consider the benefits of marriage to scrub off some of the selfishness in your life. So, God’s number one tool to sanctify our selfishness is marriage. God designed marriage as the number one tool to do that.

Now, in our culture—interestingly—as the desire to get married declines, the desire for love, companionship, relationship and sex has not declined. So, what do you do with a person who wants the benefits of marriage without the commitment of marriage? We come up with all kinds of alternatives to God’s plan, and one of those that is increasingly popular is to move into the same house and live together pretending to be married. Everything but a commitment.

The arguments are incredibly foolish for this type of arrangement. People say, “Well, you know, before you buy a new car you want to test drive it!” That’s right. Because your relationship with the car is a performance-based relationship. Marriage is not a performance-based relationship. What you’re saying is, “I want a performance-based relationship with the other person. If this other performs well, if they make me happy and if they do all the things I expect them to do, then I’ll stay in the relationship. But the moment the performance declines, I’m going to look for another vehicle!” That’s what you’re saying.

It’s interesting—if you didn’t even look at the Bible, which we do look at the Bible around here, but just think about it. If you just looked at sociology, would it be a wise choice for two people to live in the same house, pretending to be married, without a commitment? Do you understand that couples who live together prior to marriage, once they get married, have twice as likely a probability to divorce as those who don’t live together before getting married. Does that make sense? No, that doesn’t make sense.

Do you understand that couples who live together before marriage are eight times more likely to cheat on each other as those that are married couples? Why? Because you’re undermining the trust in the relationship if you’re trying to pretend to be married without establishing the commitment. People say it all the time to me, “Well, we’re married in our hearts. We’ve been together for so long, we’re just married in our hearts.” You’re married in your pants—that’s your motivation! Don’t give me that stuff about “married in your hearts.”

Other people say, “Well, we’re married in God’s eyes!” You’re sinning in God’s eyes. You’re inviting a curse rather than a blessing if you’re pretending to be married without the commitment. If you’re having sex together before you’re married, outside of the marriage commitment, do you understand what you’re saying to your partner? You are saying to your partner, “I am the kind of person who will have sex with a person that I am not married to.”

So, what happens when you actually do get married to this person? You are now living with your spouse, and your spouse knows you are the kind of person who will have sex with someone you are not married to. Do you understand how that undermines the trust and the commitment there? Make the commitment.

I know what you’re saying. “We don’t need a piece of paper.” Yes, you do. You need a piece of paper. Why? Because five years, ten years down the road when your spouse looks at you, and you’re ten pounds heavier than you were on the day that they made that commitment to you, and they see someone else—and life is hard and marriage is requiring scrubbing off some of the selfishness in your life, and your spouse says, “You know what? I don’t think I feel like being married anymore!” You say, “See that piece of paper right there? Do you see your name right there, where you signed the commitment? I’m just here to remind you buddy, that’s the commitment that you made ‘til death do us part.” The five-hundred people that showed up at your wedding to witness that, they’ll be there. “Hey! I saw you make that vow! That’s commitment, buddy. You’re staying in this thing!” Have you made the commitment?

I realize I’m probably talking right now to some people who are living together, and the seat’s getting hot and your heart’s beating out of your chest, and you’re looking for an exit door. Hey! Welcome to Harvest—we’re glad you’re here! And I will be glad to perform your wedding ceremony at the earliest possible date. Make the commitment! Two people living together without a commitment will tear each other apart. But, two people living together with the marriage commitment is the greatest tool that God has to show the gospel to the world.

Because the world is going to watch how you deal with sin; they’re going to watch whether or not you can forgive and love one another on your worst day. That’s exactly what Jesus Christ did for us. He loved us on our worst day, He forgave our worst sin. Marriage is the greatest place to reflect the glory of God.

So, what is this commitment? We like to use this definition around here. It’s a little verbose, but it’s kind of cramming together everything the Bible has to say about this marriage commitment; here is what this marriage commitment is. You establish the commitment of marriage when you say marriage is this:

Marriage is a holy covenant initiated by God, conditioned on an irrevocable promise to pursue oneness with an imperfect person of the opposite sex, for a lifetime, for the glory of God.

 

Now you’re looking at that going, “That’s what I did?” Yeah, that’s what you did, and that’s what you’re still doing today. So, don’t stop now.

It doesn’t stop on the day that you make the commitment. You get up every morning, you renew the commitment, you go after it again, you understand, “I’m living with an imperfect person: this person’s going to disappoint me today, they’re going to hurt me, they’re going to let me down. But you know what? By the grace of God we’re locking arms. I’ve made the commitment. It’s a holy covenant. We’ve got the help of God and we’re going to live this thing out for a lifetime for the glory of God. We’re going to the finish line, because all of the other “little me’s” in this house are watching how it is going to turn out!” That’s what marriage is! So, have you made the commitment? Have you established that as a permanent commitment in your home?

Here’s the second thing. You’re like, “Dude! That was enough!” No, we’ve got two more.

 

• My house will be led by conviction.

Now, the commitment is one thing, but the conviction to live it out has to be a passion in my soul. Commitment without conviction will be short-lived—so we need the conviction.

Now, I want you to notice the conviction here in this text, by Joshua. He says in chapter 24, verse 15; he makes this famous declaration. “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” How did the people respond to that? Verses 16-18: “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods…” Is that a good answer? Good answer! Wow, these people are with the program.

They go on, they elaborate in the next verse: “…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…” you’re about to hear an echo, “we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.” It’s almost like, man, they’re high-fivin’ each other, they’re slappin’ backs; they’re like, “Yes! We’re all goin’ together! This is such a wonderful celebration! This is awesome!”

The scene goes back to Joshua in verse 19. What do you think Joshua is going to say to these people? Do you think was going to go out there, high-five them and say, “Way to go! That’s exactly what I wanted to hear from you!” Notice verse 19, “Joshua said to the people, ‘You are not able to serve the Lord!’” “That’s kind of a downer. Come on, Joshua, we’re tryin’ here!” Apparently, Joshua realized they were trying to make a commitment without the conviction, and so Joshua reminds them of three convictions that had to be so ingrained in their souls. He knew their commitment wasn’t going to last unless they had these three convictions.

First of all, he said this: “You [can’t] serve the Lord “…for he is a holy God.” Do you know what Joshua wants to remind them of? God is holy! Is that a conviction in your heart? Are you just playing games with God? Really, is what you want just less chaos in your house—is that your ultimate goal—is that all you want? If that’s all you want, it’s not going to last. The reason for making the choice is understanding, “My house is established by God. It is to be a place where God’s holiness is seen and known and transferred and meditated upon.” So, he says, “You can’t serve God without understanding God is holy.”

             “Something else. “[God] is a jealous God.” Now listen, it is a sin for you to be jealous. It is holy for God to be jealous. God loves you so much He wants reciprocal love toward Him that is not challenged by any other thing you love—not a wife, not a child, not a house, not an amount of money. God wants your whole heart, and He doesn’t want you committing spiritual adultery toward Him, giving love that belongs to God to another god-with-a-little-g. God is jealous.

And then, here’s the third thing he reminds them of: “He will not forgive your transgressions or your sins.” You talk about a downer! Now, you have to remember, this is written before Jesus Christ, and we understand—looking back on this—that God does not overlook sin. God looks at our sin with intense, blazing hatred, as He sees it on the cross in Jesus Christ for those of us who are in Christ. Outside of Christ, God will not forgive your sin. He’s not playing games.

There is only one substitute for sin. It is the righteous atonement of Jesus Christ on the cross. God doesn’t overlook sin. If you, by faith, have not transferred your sin to Jesus Christ on the cross and embraced Him by faith, God will not forgive your transgressions or your sins. So, he’s telling us: there has to be this conviction—God is holy, God is jealous, and God is serious about sin. Those are theological convictions, but what about the real practical day-to-day stuff of life that happens in your home?

For our family, I kind of thought back on the twenty-one years that we’ve been a house and the themes that have filled our house; the things that we’ve done intentionally to saturate our home with an environment. I thought of five things that were convictions that we have said, “We are going to fill our house with these five things.”

First of all:

 

• Worship

 

God wants our attention. So that means that, usually, when the alarm clocks start going off, the first thing that happens in our home is that people start reaching for Bibles—because we want to hear from God. He demands our first, He demands our best, and we want to get our eyes on our instructions for the day.

And then, we want to respond to Him in prayer, acknowledging, “God, this is a house that’s going to be used to serve You. I’m choosing this day to serve the Lord individually.” As we go out and start engaging the other ‘little me’s’ in our family, we’re going to use this environment to serve the Lord.”

We fill our home with worship. Worship is not something that happens on the weekends; it happens “gathered” on the weekends at church, but it happens individually and as a family all through the week. There are times that we gather the family around and we say, “We’re going to have family worship. We’re going to open our Bibles together, we’re all going to get our eyes on the same page, we’re going to hear the instruction of God and we’re going to respond to it. We’re going to talk about what’s going on.”

Now, listen! I’m talking to some men here. As the man, as the leader, as the head in your home, you need to establish these convictions. You say, “Ah, I don’t really know much about the Bible.” Can I help you get started? Let me tell you what I usually do, okay? I have a degree in theology, and this is still the way I do it.

I will bring my Bible to the dinner table. I will open it up to a section of Scripture. If I can’t think of anywhere else to go, I look at the calendar: “Oh, today is the 26^th. It seems the Lord is leading me to Proverbs 26 today.” And I’ll read one or two or three verses out of Proverbs 26, and I’ll look at the youngest child and I will say, “What do you think that means?” They will offer their answer. Then I’ll turn to the next oldest child and ask, “What do you think that means?” I’ll get that opinion. After we go through all the children, I’ll eventually turn to my wife, Andrea and ask, “What do you think that means?” and she’ll give her answer.

Now, I have six multiple-choice opportunities to select the best answer and say, “You know, that’s exactly what I was thinking!” Now, ninety percent of the time, it’s what Andrea said. Guys, it’s usually going to be what your wife says, okay? And just say, “That’s incredible! That’s exactly what our family needs! Can we just bow our heads and recommit ourselves today to walking these verses out?” And in doing so, do you know what you’re going to do? You’re going to become the pastor of your home. I am not the pastor of your home. I’m the pastor of this church. You are the pastor of your home; you are the worship leader in your home. And so, what will your home be filled with? If you don’t make the intentional choice, it’s going to filled with worshipping other gods.

Here’s another thing:

 

• Kindness

 

…usually expressed through words. I don’t know about you—not all the words that are expressed in our home build one another up. And so, Andrea and I are like heat-seeking missiles when we hear someone in our home tearing another down. Sometimes it’s me and Andrea tearing one another down, and we have to say, “Whoa! This is not kindness being expressed here! We are not going to use our words to tear each other down! We are on the same team! We are in the same house! We have enough enemies on the outside of our house—we’re not going to create enemies on the inside of the house! We’re on the same team, we’re in the same house; we’re moving in the same direction, we’re going onward together, so we’d better be kind to each other!”

And then:

 

• Joy

 

Joy is not just happiness. Listen! If you’re going to have some serious discussions about the holiness of God, the jealousy of God and the fact that He takes sin seriously, there had better be some other moments to balance that out, where you are on the floor giggling and laughing with snot bubbles coming out of your nose—something so hilarious is happening in the home! This is a regular thing for us.

I’ve got to tell you, I’m the worst culprit here in not fulfilling this responsibility. There is a question that gets asked to me every week, and it’s this question: “Dad, is the sermon done?” Because they know, I am a grump until the sermon has been written. Sometimes that means I’m a grump from Thursday through Friday into Saturday, until 5:00 Saturday night when the Saturday night service starts.

And then, finally, that burden is released and I can smile and be happy. But, you know what? I need to be joyful all the time, no matter what kind of pressure I’m under, no matter how difficult the circumstances are.

I remember, in the second year of our church – those of you who are new to Harvest, you may not know of this – my wife, Andrea, was diagnosed with cancer. That’s kind of a downer! I mean, “Lord, here I am, trying to serve You, and we’re using our home to serve the Lord. We’ll building this church while we’re building our family—and You allow Andrea to get cancer?”

Listen, we prayed all through that. We gathered the family around; we had to let the children know, “This is very serious. We don’t know what’s going to happen here, but we need to trust the Lord together.” I remember we let the children kind of weigh in. “Do you have any questions? What’s going through your mind right now?”

After all the questions, I remember our youngest child Leah who, by the way, turned thirteen yesterday, was like six at the time. I remember the question she asked. It was a really somber moment in our family, and she said, “Mom, will you still be able to dance in the kitchen?” Does cancer kind of wipe out dancing? Our response: “Maybe in some homes. In our house, we’re still going to dance!” By the way, good news: cancer removed, healing granted, no chemo, no radiation, Andrea’s doing great and she’s still dancing in the kitchen! And we all dance with her, because we want our house to be filled with joy, no matter what’s going on.

And our house has to be filled with:

 

• Forgiveness

 

…because, I don’t know about you, but I blow it every day. And there is usually not a day or two that goes by before I have to go to somebody in my family and say, “Uh, that was not my finest moment. I was grumpy, I wasn’t filled with joy, I wasn’t kind and I didn’t have a worshipping heart. I need a fresh start and forgiveness. Would you please forgive me?”

And because we know that we have been forgiven vertically by God, we bend the forgiveness out and grant it to others. You say, “You don’t know what they’ve done to me!” You’re right, I don’t know what they’ve done to you. But I do know what you, by your sin, have done to Jesus Christ. And He forgave. How can you withhold forgiveness from somebody who’s hurt you? I don’t know what they did to you, but it wasn’t anything compared to what your sin did to Christ. As we’ve been forgiven, we forgive.

And then, finally, our house will be filled with:

 

• Ministry

That means that we understand we’re going to lock arms together and use all of the assets to serve the Lord.

I remember a few years ago—we do this regularly, we do it actually every week. I don’t know if you understand this. This has church has been served. While I’ve been building this house, we as a family have been building this church. There have been so many times where there has been tension in the home and we’re not being kind to one another, and we go and we serve—we get outside of our house, get outside of ourselves and we focus on what the purpose of our home is—and it changes the whole attitude in our family.

A few years ago we went down to serve at Hope Ministries, the homeless shelter in downtown South Bend. Our kids were grumpy and they didn’t want to go, and they’re fighting over the seats in the car and they’re fighting over what music we’re going to listen to in the car on the way down there. And we get out of the car and we go spend an hour or two serving homeless people in downtown South Bend.

Coming out of the homeless shelter, the children are skipping, holding hands, opening the door for one another: “Would you like this seat? You pick the next song!” What happened? We used our home for the purpose for which it was created, and it invited the blessing of God. It changes your whole attitude when you get outside of yourself and you build something other than your house.

I’m so grateful for people in this church who have used their family to serve. I don’t know if you know this right now: your family is being served by other families in this church right this very moment. I’m so grateful for…do you know about the Spear family? Do you know about these people? We have three-hundred volunteers who work in our Harvest Kids ministry. Half of them are Spears! I mean, they’re everywhere—holding babies, cleaning up messes. That’s a wonderful example.

About four o’clock every Friday afternoon, I’m in my office preparing the message, getting ready, and  a little ten-year-old boy will walk in; he’s got a duster, and he starts dusting in my office. His name is Owen. He’s a kid who was adopted by Darrin and Chrissy Green years ago. And while he’s in there dusting in my office, Michael is in another office—he’s probably thirteen, he’s dusting another office. I don’t where Maverick is, but he’s doing something, and Darrin and Chrissy are cleaning. They’re using their family to serve the Lord, as a ministry. What is your family doing? What is happening at your house – but what is happening beyond your house?

Have you established the commitment? Have you led by conviction? And then thirdly, have you made this choice?

 

• My house will be involved in God’s mission.

 

Notice here in Joshua 24:23 and 24: Joshua said, “’You want to keep that commitment?” “Then put away the foreign gods that are among you, and incline your heart to the Lord, the God of Israel.’ And the people said to Joshua, ‘The Lord our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.’ So Joshua made a covenant with the people that day…”

Look down at verse 28: “So Joshua sent the people away, every man to his inheritance.” This whole scene closes with Joshua sending the people away. Now that may sound like a very passive thing, but that was the result of twenty-four chapters of walking by faith. That was the result of four-hundred years of God defeating enemies, clearing a path, granting them a place where they could establish their houses, raise their children and live out the promises of God. It was not an accident, and it was not unintentional, that Joshua sent them. They didn’t just passively walk away. They were commissioned; they were sent by God to serve the Lord—in the land, in the house of their inheritance.

Don Schember led worship this morning. I appreciated Don doing that, and that was awesome. Don got married a year ago to Rachel, and I got to do their premarital counseling. During their premarital counseling, I reminded them of what I remind every person I do premarital counseling with: 1) You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into! 2) You’re believing a myth that your marriage will be strengthened by spending exclusive, one-on-one face-to-face time with one another, and that’s what’s going to get you through.

Now, there is an element of that that is very true; some of you need to go spend some face-to-face time with one another, because you’ve neglected that. You need to go have a date, you need to go sit down and talk. But newlyweds already know that. What they need to hear is this: Your home will be strengthened, and your marriage will be established—not only with face-to-face time, but with side-by-side time.

Get your eyes off of each other and get onto God’s mission, and lock arms together side-by-side doing something together side-by-side outside of your marriage. If all you do is face-to-face time, if you’re so focused on one another, you’re going to cannibalize each other! You’ll be like two ticks looking for a dog! You’ll just suck the life out of one another; you’re expectations are so high! “Now, meet my expectations! I’m so glad to be married to you! You’re going to meet my every longing!” And pretty soon you’re like, “I don’t think God created another person that can meet the deepest longings of my heart.” So, what do I have to do? “Hey, why don’t we do something together, outside the marriage?”

I always hear this: “We’re going to wait on having children, because the children will just get in the way of our face-to-face time.” That’s right, they force you to work side-by-side, don’t they – that’s a vertical commitment – and focus on something outside of you. It’s in the building of children, and in the building of a house, and the building of the church—or the building of God’s kingdom—that your home and your marriage is used to serve something besides yourself. Are you using your home to serve anything other than yourself?

I want to challenge you to do something, as we finish this message. I want you, this week, to write a family mission statement. Do you know what a mission statement is? I want to read to you a mission statement from an organization that you may or may not be aware of.

See if you can identify this mission statement. A mission statement answers the question, “Why does this organization exist?” Our church has a mission statement: “Harvest Bible Chapel exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission.” We make disciples around here. Simple, direct, clear, urgent. If you want to be a disciple, you’re going to fit in around here; if you want to make disciples, you’re going to fit right in around here. If that’s not why you exist, you’re not going to fit in around here at all!

I want you to listen to this mission statement, and I want you to write your own mission statement as a family. See if you can guess what organization this is: “We provide knowledge and take action to ensure national security. In pursuit of our country’s interest, we put nation before agency, agency before unit, all before self. What we do matters. Our mission requires complete personal integrity and courage, physical and intellectual courage. We accomplish things others cannot, often at great risk. When the stakes are the highest and the dangers are the greatest, we are there, and we are there first. We stand by one another and behind one another. Service, sacrifice, flexibility and teamwork are our hallmarks.” Anybody know what that is? Central Intelligence Agency.

Now, did you notice anything about their mission statement? Was there anything in that mission statement that said, “We exist to serve ourselves”? No! It is entirely and completely focused on something outside the agency. What about your house? Are you using your house to serve the mission and the purposes of God? Joshua said, “As for me and my house, we’re using all of it as an asset to serve the Lord.”

Let’s bow our heads. Before we continue, would you just tell the Lord individually, “Lord, I want to re-up again today. I want to choose again today to serve You with my life.” Just tell Him that, and then think about your house—the people, the things. What changes need to take place in your house, to get beyond yourself? Have you established the commitment? Have you led with conviction? Are you involved in God’s mission?

Father, today we want to acknowledge that everything we have in our house is a gift from You. We receive it with gratefulness. And Lord, today, we want to go on record that our house does not exist to serve our selfishness. It exists to serve the Lord, and so we say with Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” We pray in Jesus’ Name, Amen.