Believe it or not, the year is rapidly coming to an end. If you remember, we began the year, with a series of sermons intended to clarify our focus both individually and corporately as a church for 2009. In a shorter, online version of that series, I want to go back over those critical themes and reemphasize their importance. First, I want to consider the sermon, One Position. Below, I provided the text of that sermon in its original form.
Text: Joshua 14:6-15
Title / Textual Idea: One Position / Faithful Service / This passage describes the faithfulness of God’s servant Caleb as he approached Joshua to obtain his inheritance from God.
Dominating Theme: God calls every Christian to a life of faithful service.
Introduction / Burden: I will never forget the man that taught me what it meant to be a true servant of the Lord and others. I could hear it in his preaching, I could see it in his ministry, and I could certainly see it and even enjoy it to some degree in his interactions with my family and me. One night, however, it really all came together and I really saw what it meant to be a servant of God. That church took the actions of Christ and the disciples in the upper room as recorded in John chapter thirteen, and put them into real life. See, that is the story of when, in an effort to encourage, and to teach the disciples, shortly before the cross, our Savior picked up a wash basin and a towel and approached those men on His knees to wash their feet. He took upon Himself the place of the lowliest servant and He did it for a purpose. He wanted the disciples to know and to understand the great love that He had for them, and so He demonstrated it by taking the place of a servant, cleaning the dirty filthy feet of the disciples. After He was finished He said, “Ye call me Master and Lord: and ye say well; for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done to you. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him. If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them” (John 13:13-17). Jesus was teaching them the importance of humbly serving one another by doing it Himself. If Christ, the very creator, sustainer, and Savior is willing to get down on his knees and to take the place of the lowliest servant and wash the filthy feet of His men, then it should be a reasonable expectation, that they would be willing to do it themselves. He is teaching them about humble service. Well, that night my Pastor, and some other men from the church got together and washed each other’s feet in an expression of humility, and service. That might sound weird to you, and even a little stinky, but I want to tell you this morning, that it was at that point that I understood what it meant to be a servant.
In the New Testament the authors of many of the epistles began their letters by identifying themselves as servants of the Lord. Paul did it, Peter did it, James did it, and Jude did it as well. When you go through the concordance you will find that there are ten different Greek words that are used in the New Testament that are translated with this one word servant. If you add all of their uses up, it comes to something like 550 or more times in the KJV. So obviously this idea of being God’s servant, and the servant of others is a pretty critical aspect of our faith. And when we look back on the lives of the men that give themselves this title in the New Testament, specifically on their ministries we get an idea of what they really mean. Remember, a servant, a “doulos”, is really a slave. Now a slave does whatever His master calls him to do without question. When you look at these men, this is what you see, an unhindered obedience to God and willingness to serve Him any way that they could. That means there is a difference between serving, and being a servant. I guess you could use the word volunteer. To be a volunteer, or to merely serve is to pick and to choose what you want to do, for as long as you want to do it. But that is not what a “doulos” does. A true servant of the Lord, serves Him without question wherever He asks as long as they live, there is no retirement when it comes to serving God. He serves out of love and to give glory to God.
In the New Testament we will find that this is what each and every blood washed believer is supposed to be. In fact, Peter says that it is the will of God that we serve Him in 1 Peter 2:15-16, “For so is the will of God, that with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men: As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God”. And the Apostle Paul declares that we were created in Christ Jesus, that we were saved to serve Him in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”. And if you consider the bigger picture, that we are talking about making the church an essential part of every member’s life, as it was all throughout the New Testament, this idea of service has to be a major part of the equation, that is, it has to be a major part of our lives.
Interrogative: What does the story of Caleb teach us about living a life of faithful service?
Transition: When we look at the life of Caleb we can see a few characteristics of faithful service.
The Purpose Bridge: To encourage the church to commit to a life of faithful service in the church.
Point # 1: Know the Word of God and Live by It
Text: Joshua 14:6, “Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea”.
Explanation: The first characteristic of a faithful servant that we see in Caleb is that he knows the Word of God and he lives by it. Now that might sound pretty simplistic to you this morning, but I can assure you of this. If you and I were to be described this way in every area of our own lives, we would not have half of the problems that we have today.
Well, let’s take a quick look back and figure out the context of this story. If you remember some time ago when we went through a series in the book of Numbers we were introduced to Caleb in chapter thirteen. He was among the twelve men, the twelve representatives of the tribes of Israel that were called to leave the wilderness of Paran and go and spy out the land of Canaan and return with a report. They were commanded to go into the valley and up into the hill country and make a report on the land and the people. And so you will remember that they went out and were gone for forty days, for more than a solid month they went out undercover among their enemies getting a peak at the land that God had already given to them. And you will also remember how things started to go downhill when they returned back to camp and began to share with the people what all they had encountered, as well as what they thought about it. They had brought back some fruit of the land along with some disturbing news. While the land did in fact flow with “milk and honey”, the spies were not convinced that it was God’s will. They reported that the people were strong, the cities were fortified, and very large, and the big giant descendents of Anak were there. Caleb, however, and Joshua, disagreed, and encouraged the people that they should follow God and go and take their inheritance. The other spies responded by making their story even worse, frightening the people even more by saying, “all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature”. And there was a great uprising and God was not happy. In fact He was going to destroy them all for their rebellion, for their deceit, and for their constant lack of faith, in spite of his continual blessings. Moses then interceded on behalf of the people, and God determined to prevent the people from entering their promised inheritance. Joshua and Caleb would be the only two adults that would see the land. Now, as we come into Joshua chapter fourteen, we find the Israelites have come over the Jordan and began to take the land that God had already given to them. In this section specifically, Caleb comes to Joshua, the leader of Israel and reminds him of God’s promises.
The author writes, “Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal”. Gilgal was the city near Jericho were the Israelites had set up a base camp after crossing over the Jordan. It was at Gilgal that they had set up the twelve stones as a memorial to all that God had done in delivering them from bondage and getting them over the Jordan to come into their land. Well, it is here that we meet back up with Caleb, whom we haven’t heard from since the conquest in the book of Numbers. He writes, “Then the children of Judah came unto Joshua in Gilgal: and Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite said unto him, Thou knowest the thing that the LORD said unto Moses the man of God concerning me and thee in Kadeshbarnea”. So Caleb approaches his old friend Joshua and reminds him of something that he was very familiar with. He takes him back to that terrible day in the history of Israel when the people were more than eager to rebel against God. He takes him back to the way that God responded to their rebellion in believing the majority report. He takes him back to some very important and very unique words of God spoken about him specifically. Now when God speaks about you by name, you need to remember it, and Caleb certainly wasn’t going to forget what God had said. We can find it in Numbers 14:22-24, “Because all those men which have seen my glory, and my miracles, which I did in Egypt and in the wilderness, and have tempted me now these ten times, and have not hearkened to my voice; Surely they shall not see the land which I sware unto their fathers, neither shall any of them that provoked me see it: But my servant Caleb, because he had another spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it”. While the rest of the nation was in rebellion, Caleb was faithful as a servant of God. He had a different spirit in him that led him to trust and obey God.
What was different about his spirit, what does that mean? Well, did you notice what God called Caleb? He said, “But my servant Caleb”. Caleb was God’s servant; he had a servant’s spirit. The particular Hebrew word used here, and in 800 other places in the Old Testament refers to a slave, to one that is owned and ruled by another. Caleb was in the complete control of God and that is what set him apart from the others. And as a servant of God, he was very well aware of the Words of God. He was committed to the Word of God when it came to obedience. He was changed by the Word of God when it came to his own desires. He was charged by the Word of God when it came to motivation. Simply put, he knew the Word of God that God had spoken about him all of these years and he held on to it, he lived by it.
Illustration: “The story is told of a man who rode in his car as it was being towed to be repaired. When they arrived at the repair shop, the tow truck driver told him, “I didn’t think I was going to make it up that big hill”. The man replied, “I didn’t either. That’s why I kept the brakes on so we wouldn’t roll backwards”. To live without total dedication to Christ is the same as trying to go forward and to hold back at the same time”.
Application: As Christians we are all slaves of Christ, and as such we are to be under His complete control. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s”. If we are going to know what that is, if we are going to know what it is that God wants us to do, and the way that God wants us to live, then we are going to not only know His Word, but we are going to have to make it the ultimate authority in our lives. It is when we turn to the Word of God that we can learn and understand the purpose of our service. What is the ultimate purpose of our service? To glorify God: Matthew 25:40, “And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me”.
Point # 2: Know the Way of God and Follow It
Text: Joshua 14:7-9, “Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God. And Moses sware on that day, saying, Surely the land whereon thy feet have trodden shall be thine inheritance, and thy children’s for ever, because thou hast wholly followed the LORD my God”.
Explanation: If the first characteristic of a life of faithful service has to do with knowing the Word of God and living by it, then we can se here that the second characteristic has to do with what we really do with what we know. It is one thing to say that we know what the Bible says about life, and even another thing to say that we try to live by it. But it is a completely different thing to say that we in fact do follow God in all things. Now many of us can say that we follow God in some things, or even in a lot of things, but how many of us can say that we follow God in all things? See, we have wicked self centered hearts that desire nothing more than to please self and to fulfill our own desires. Pleasing, and serving, and helping others, does not come natural and really is not something that we really want to do. But, when we look into God’s Word and when we hear Him command us to serve, and we hear that it is God’s will that we serve, and when we hear that we were saved to serve, and then when we recognize that we need to serve and to be served in order to grow, then we are faced with a challenge; will God’s will prevail, or will ours?
Notice this morning what it looks like to be completely committed to doing God’s will and to following His Word in all things. He writes, “Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the LORD sent me from Kadeshbarnea to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the LORD my God”. When I read his words I almost feel a little uncomfortable. I mean do you know anyone that can say with complete honesty before the Lord what he just said? Can you stand up this morning and declare before the church that you have “wholly followed the Lord”? Now before we all start to get really discouraged this morning, let’s take a close look at what he was saying. See, remember that God had ordained that they go out on this great reconnaissance mission and Caleb was one of the chosen ones. I can imagine there must have been some degree of fear that would have been in their hearts as there were only twelve of them and they were on enemy territory without their armies to protect them. But Caleb went out and we know nothing of any complaining on his part. And when they were in the Negev and when they were in the hill country, they found that the land was everything that God had said it was, and there must have been some element of excitement in their hearts. But when they came home, that is when Caleb’s servant spirit really came out. Caleb said that the ten men that gave a negative report, that said it would not be possible to take the land, he said that they brought upon fear in the hearts of the people. That means they destroyed faith and they led others to rebel against God. But Caleb understood something. Slaves don’t rebel, they don’t have fears and they don’t have their own agendas, they live and die to please their master. And so Caleb knew nothing other than to call the people to faith and to follow their God. His heart was pure. Caleb declared it about himself, Moses agreed, and we even heard God say the same thing. I must have been true. God said go, and Caleb was ready to go. He didn’t do as the others did and begin to argue with God and complain about his assignment, no he was simply ready to go.
Illustration: During World War II, England needed to increase its production of coal. Winston Churchill called together labor leaders to enlist their support. At the end of his presentation he asked them to picture in their minds a parade, which he knew would be held in Piccadilly Circus after the war. First, he said, would come the sailors who had kept the vital sea-lanes open. Then would come the soldiers who had come home from Dunkirk and then gone on to defeat Rommel in Africa. Then would come the pilots who had driven the Luftwaffe from the sky. Last of all, he said, would come a long line of sweat-stained, soot-streaked men in miner’s caps. Someone would cry from the crowd, ‘And where were you during the critical days of our struggle?’ And from ten thousand throats would come the answer, ‘We were deep in the earth with our faces to the coal.’” Not all the jobs in a church are prominent and glamorous. But it is often the people with their “face to the coal” who help the church accomplish its mission. Don McCullough, Waking from the American Dream.
Application: Some people are digging coal and others are flying planes, but all in all the kingdom of God is the focus. The church staff is not here to all of the work, we can’t possibly do it all. In fact we couldn’t afford to hire enough people to do all of the work that needs to get done. Instead, the leaders are to help equip each member to join in God’s work at the church and in the community. God’s Word describes the path of our service as well as the purpose of service. It might not spell out whether or not you are supposed to sign up as a nursery worker, or join the bus workers, or join the ushers or not, but it does describe what it looks like to have a servant spirit and to be willing to serve wherever the need arises and God calls. Remember that each and every believer has been given a spiritual gift to be used in the church. It is to be used in some kind of service for the Lord. Peter said it in 1 Peter 4:10, “As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God”. That is why I can say that every member should be serving in one position in the church. It isn’t just because we could accomplish so much more if we did. It is that we are being disobedient to God when we aren’t.
Point # 3: Know the Work of God and Do It
Text: Joshua 14:10-16, “And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said. And Joshua blessed him, and gave unto Caleb the son of Jephunneh Hebron for an inheritance. Hebron therefore became the inheritance of Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite unto this day, because that he wholly followed the LORD God of Israel. And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims. And the land had rest from war”.
Explanation: Finally we see that the third characteristic of a life of faithful service is that of actually getting your hands dirty and doing the work of God until you go home. In the work world we have this category of retirement, where you put in your time, and then you stop when you are done so you can kind of sit back and relax and enjoy life while others cater to you. Well that is not what happens in the church. That is not what Christians do, we never retire from serving God, it is a life long appointment and if anyone had a problem believing that we have a perfect example right here in Caleb. Now this point isn’t just aimed at the seniors, no Caleb’s example is just as much aimed at everyone. In church you have people that will serve from time to time, but sooner or later they will call the office and resign for one reason or another and then say that God told them to take a break or something. Well, this example is aimed at showing them that serving God is a lifestyle, not a position, or something you do when it is convenient, or while there is a position available that you want.
He writes, “And now, behold, the LORD hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the LORD spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old”. First, notice that Caleb was very well aware who was in charge of his life. It was God who had kept him alive all of these years and he knew it. We can see just how long he had been serving God in this text if we look close. Now he was obviously serving God before he was chosen to go on the mission, but since then, if we only count the time since then, he says that it had been 45 years. Remember he was forty when he went out on this mission, and now he was 85 years old. But even at this age, listen to how he was not only clear as to what the work of God was, but that he was ready to do it. He writes, “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, for war, both to go out, and to come in. Now therefore give me this mountain, whereof the LORD spake in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced: if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said”. He was strong because God gave him strength. He was willing to go to battle to get his inheritance because that was his Master’s will. He was dependent upon God’s presence and His help to get him through. And even in all of this, he was still dependent upon the Word of God. He said, “if so be the LORD will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out, as the LORD said”. Time wasn’t the issue, God’s will was.
Illustration: Fred Craddock, in a message to ministers, once said: “To give my life for Christ appears glorious. To pour myself out for others…to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom – I’ll do it. I’m ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory…it would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it’s harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul.” He then tells a story about a wealthy man who handed his pastor a check for fifty thousand dollars. The pastor looked at it and then handed it back to the man and said: “Go cash it in for quarters or dollars and spend fifty cents or a dollar at a time doing the Lord’s work.” The man was flustered and said, “But that will take the rest of my life!” “Precisely,” replied the pastor. “That’s the point.” Incidentally, now that I’ve made the point, if you have a check for $50,000 we’d gladly accept it to help pay off the Family Life Center!
Application: We have to be like Caleb and have a servant’s spirit. A servant is looking for the end, he is looking to please his master and to fulfill his will. In the church, God has called us to a life of service. Paul calls the church a body, and describes the church working together like a body. Just as a body is affected when one part stops working, so the church body is affected when one part stops working. Now bodies don’t start and stop, they start and they keep going to the end. Many of you this morning have been serving God in the church since you got saved. You are like Caleb and you have persevered. The question this morning though is why are you doing it? Do you do it with a servant’s spirit? You say Brother Mark how will I know if I am doing it with a servant’s spirit? Does your service bring you joy?
Conclusion / Invitation: As we move forward into 2009 we are considering those things that need to be at the center of our focus on a church level, on a family level, and really on an individual level. We want to follow the pattern of the bible and make sure that church is in fact an essential part of our lives, and not just something extra. Remember church should be more like a heart and less like a kidney in our lives. You can live without a kidney, but not without a heart. This morning we have looked at one of the critical aspects of our focus, and that is serving God with our lives. Right now there are openings all over the place. If you are physically able, and if you are a believer that has been changed by God’s grace, then you should be serving. Not to please me, or others, but because that is God’s design, and God’s will for your life and for the life and health of His church.