The Home Makeover - Joshua 24

                                      

One of my favourite shows was Extreme Home Makeover where Ty Pennington and his crew would come in and transform a home for a deserving family in a week. Over the next 5-weeks, we’re going to be reflecting on making over our homes with Jesus as the foundation and cornerstone. This is for everyone, whether we’re a family with children, a single person, a senior citizen, empty nesters, newlyweds, or other form of household. We all need Jesus as the foundation and center of our homes. This series was inspired by a book called Faith Begins at Home.

A survey done a few years ago by the Christian organization, Search Institute, revealed that 48% of youth who regularly attend church view their mom as very religious, 23% view their dad as very religious, 27% have experienced either family devotions, prayer or Bible reading in the home, while 29% have experienced a family service project.

Our passage this morning is a covenant renewal story. Near the end of Joshua’s life, he calls the people together to call them to remain with God. Life’s good, but Israel makes a huge mistake. God told them to get rid of the altars to Baal, and Asherah, but they don’t. They got ensnared and started to worship Baal and Asherah alongside of God. It began a horrible cycle of embracing their neighbour’s idols, then repenting after the nations would overpower them, and each time God had to deliver them from their slavery. Jesus tells us we can’t serve two gods; we have to make a choice. Jesus also tells us to count the cost of following God, because it’s a whole life, everything in commitment to God relationship, no halfsies, as one of my kids used to say. We call mixing following Jesus while also trying to fit into our culture, syncretism, combining two religions together. As I look at our church and community, we also have it really good, but this is also a dangerous time faith wise; when life’s good, it’s easy to forget God.

Joshua looks out over the people and realizes that their relationship with God can use a makeover, so he leads them through a time of covenant renewal. We read about this in the previous chapter. Joshua reminds the people of God’s faithfulness and his covenants, calling the people to renew the covenantal promises they made to God in the past. His desire is for the people to renew their households with God as their foundation and center. Joshua challenges them, “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

So many families are struggling. Families feel more pressure and stress today because the values and priorities on our culture also slip into our own families, and can cause us to question what we believe and why. Our culture turns to celebrities and self-help books for guidance. Even in the church, it sometimes feels as if we forget what God has done for us and what God can do for us. Joshua reminds the people of all God has done for them in the past and God’s consistent faithfulness to them. This is a reminder to us as well, to remember that our God created the heavens and earth, he parted the Red Sea when Israel was being chased by the power of Egypt, Jesus walked on the Sea of Galilee, made the blind man see, and raised Lazarus from the dead, and he gave hope to those who had lost hope. Jesus died and rose from the grace. If he can do all these things and so much more, he can help you and your family.

Joshua recognizes that we and our families have a choice to make. We can serve the gods of this world: materialism, pleasure, busyness, sports, and others. These gods demand all our attention and focus and keep demanding more from us while keeping us running our entire life to find meaning, satisfaction, and even our identity. I’ll warn you though, the more you get and work for, the more you will want and desire. When working in Second CRC of Allendale, I had the opportunity to meet with the people living in a new development behind the church. The people had huge houses, often with one or two children, but I heard over and over again how lonely most of them were, how worried they were about their children since each person in the house had their own spaces and they seldom talked together or ate together. They had all the things they thought would bring satisfaction and yet so many of them felt empty. This is what idols do, they promise you everything and only give you the appearance of having gained your dreams with no contentment.

The other option is the Joshua decision to serve the one true God who loves you, created you in his own image, adopted you into his family as his beloved children, the God who knows you better than you even know yourselves and loves you more deeply than you could ever understand. God, who is also our father, has plans to prosper you and not harm you, and desires to work in and through you to help you flourish as a person and in your relationships with God and others, and who offers you eternal life with him.

The choice begins with you, “as for me.” Before Joshua says anything about his household, he commits himself to serving God above all. You cannot pass anything on to your children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, or other family that you don’t have yourself. If we want our children to have a faith that impacts the decisions they make, and the life they choose, we need to have a faith that impacts and shapes our decisions and the life we live. Research shows the greater impact family has over church ministries: Mothers – 81% male & 74% female; Father 61% male & 50% female; Pastor 57% male & 44% female; Grandparent 30% male % 29% female; Sunday School 26% male & 26% female; Youth leaders 24% male & 25% female. As you can see, mom and dad are 2-3 times more influential than any church program. Marjorie Thompson writes, “For all their specialized training, church professionals realize that if a child is not receiving basic Christian nurture in the home, even the best teachers and curriculum will have minimal impact. Once-a-week exposure simply cannot compete with daily experience where personal formation is concerned.”

Have you and your family made the “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord,” choice? It’s never too late, God keeps coming after us to choose him, to meet us and call us into a deeper relationship with him. That’s what the covenants in the Bible are all about, that’s why we’ve been given the Holy Spirit, to help us keep choosing Jesus first every day. I’ve often shared the impact my grandfather has had on me, encouraging me to keep my eyes and heart on God, that what we believe about God is important, but that what we believe has to show up in how we live and the choices we make, and the priorities and values we hold.

Joshua uses a stone to be a witness and reminder to serve the Lord. What do you have in your daily life that reminds you of your commitment to serve the Lord? Satan will not leave you alone just because you choose to follow Jesus, in fact, he’ll increase his pressure against you. This is why knowing what God has done in the past, knowing Jesus’ life stories, who he is and all he’s done, and teaching this to our children and grandchildren daily is so important. Bethel’s a valuable partner to help you remain in the Lord and to help all our generations in their life-long faith journeys with Jesus. We are a life-long partner, as we promised at baptism, but not the replacement.  

The home that follows Jesus reveals where our foundation, values, and priorities come from, and why we live the way we do. This is the Joshua challenge, that “me and my household we will follow the Lord, we will give our lives for the Lord, no matter the cost. We commit our homes to following Jesus because Jesus gave his life for us, showing us how valuable and important we are to him, and he calls us to follow him and walk his path and example, carrying our own crosses in the world today.”  

Our Faith Formation Coordinator Tammy and I studied the book Church + Home while she developed a Faith Formation plan to guide Bethel in partnering with the entire congregation to re-establish our homes as the primary place where faith is nurtured. A quote that has inspired and guided us, “The role of the Church isn’t to make sure that, as you look down on this community, you can see the light shining bright from our facility. Rather, the role of the Church is to make sure the light shines in each and every home, lighting the community for the world to see!”