GOD'S TRACK RECORD IS FLAWLESS
- Remember what he has done for you
- Remember who he is to you
Joshua had lived a long and busy life. From early on he was appointed as the aid to the great man Moses himself. And for the next 40 years, as Moses led the people through the desert and to the edge of Promised Land, Joshua was right there by his side. He was up on Mt. Sinai when the Lord spoke to Moses face to face. Joshua was one of the original twelve spies that explored the land of Canaan. He was the military general of the nation of Israel throughout their travels. And when they finally did cross over the Jordan River into the Promised Land after the death of Moses, Joshua was the one who took his place. For another 25 years Joshua was not only the commander of the armies, he was also the Israelite’s civic and spiritual leader as well. For at least 65 years, Joshua helped lead the people of Israel during a crucial time of their existence. In fact, he was one of only two people that saw the Israelites go from a nation under slavery to a nation wandering through the desert without a home to a nation established in the land “flowing with milk and honey” just as the Lord had promised. And now, Joshua was 110 years old. He knew he was about to die. And so he gathered up all the Israelites with their elders and leaders and judges and officials and he left them with some final words: "Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the 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 forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD."
Joshua was a little worried. Because he had seen what the Israelites were capable of! He had witnessed their grumbling and rebellion and spiritual depravity for decades! He knew it would be difficult for them to stay faithful to the Lord after he died, and Joshua turned out to be right. And so before he left he wanted to point his people to the Lord’s track record. He wanted the Israelites to remember everything that the Lord had done for them and who the Lord had always been for them. And in the opening verses of Joshua 24, this aged leader revisits many of the things that the Lord had done for his people over the past few hundred years. He reminds them about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and how the Lord called them and preserved them and gave them the land that the Israelites now possessed. Joshua reviews for them the stories of Moses and Aaron, the plagues of Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, and the destruction of the entire army of Pharaoh in its waters. He mentions the wandering in the desert, the miraculous defeat of the Amorites, the situation with Balaam the sorcerer, and the famous collapse of the walls of Jericho. And Joshua makes sure they recall “the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites” - people that had been living in the Promised Land but people that the Lord had destroyed for the good of his nation. Joshua brought their attention to all of these things in their past because Joshua wanted them to remember everything the Lord had done for them. He never wanted them to forget the Lord’s track record so that they would always be motivated to stay faithful to the Lord for the rest of their lives.
And the Israelite people did promise to remain true to the Lord at first. They saw what the Lord had done for them and I think they genuinely wanted to follow his lead. “Far be it from us to forsake the LORD to serve other gods! It was the LORD our God himself who brought us and our forefathers up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the LORD drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God.” That was a beautiful confession of faith, wasn’t it? The Israelites appreciated what the Lord had done for them over the years and their faith reflected that.
But it didn’t last long. After Joshua died the time of the Judges began. And for the majority of that 350 year period, the Israelites followed every god but the Lord. Because after the generation of people who made that promise to Joshua passed away, Scripture says, “another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel… They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. They provoked the LORD to anger” (Judges 2:10,12). God’s people forgot their God. The forgot his track record. The generations after Joshua didn’t remember what the Lord had done for them and they quickly fell away.
I don’t know how much you remember about these kinds of details in the history of the Israelite nation, but this storyline should sound somewhat familiar to you because it’s the story of our own lives. We have been reminded about what the Lord has done for us too. In fact, every week here at church and every day in our own Bibles we are immersed in the wonders of God’s work for the good of his children. We see his guiding hand throughout history, we witness what Jesus did while on this earth and on the cross. We are reminded about how the Holy Spirit has brought us to faith through the Word and the Lord’s constant watch over our lives every day. But in an instant we can forget it all. Not that it intellectually leaves our minds, but it just gets overshadowed by the troubles and the problems we face in this life.
Sometimes you’re just having a bad day and you starting complaining (naturally), you start feeling sorry for yourself and you drape that self-pity around your neck so everyone else can see it. But have you forgotten? Have you forgotten the Lord’s track record? Have you forgotten every great and completely amazing thing the Lord has ever done for us? Have you forgotten that you don’t deserve any good thing in this life? Have you forgotten how good your life really is? Or maybe our financial situation changes a bit and we start to worry about whether we’ll be able to afford what we were planning on or not, we start to worry about the bills, we start to worry about the future. But have we forgotten the Lord’s track record? Have we forgotten about all of the tough times the Lord has seen us through? Have we forgotten about the love and the grace he has shown us in every circumstance of our lives? Have we forgotten that he is God, he owns everything, and he can give us any blessing at any time in any way? Or sometimes we pray and pray and pray for something. But no matter how hard we pray and how long we pray and how many times we pray, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. In fact, it seems to be getting worse. And we start to wonder if the Lord is even paying attention. It crosses our minds that the Lord might to be all that concerned about the things that are bothering us in our lives. We might even question whether the Lord is even trying.
But have we forgotten? Have we forgotten the Lord’s track record? Of course he is trying! Of course he is concerned! Of course he is paying attention! Of course he cares about what is happening in our lives and the problems we are dealing with and the things we are praying for. Maybe it would be a good thing to remind ourselves about what the Lord has done for us and who the Lord is for us so that we don’t become more like the Old Testament Israelites than we already are. Maybe it would be a good thing to review his flawless track record. And his track record is this:
Before there was an earth to stand on, before there was a sky to look up into, before there was anything of any kind, God decided to share his love with us. And so he created everything there ever was: trees, animals, mountains, rivers, stars, colors, sounds, flavors… all for us. All for our enjoyment. All for our pleasure. And then when our first ancestors Adam and Eve gave it all up by doing the one thing God told them not to do, the Lord instantly fixed the problem. He immediately promised to send them and all of us a Savior so that we would not have to live on this earth of sin forever. And as the centuries rolled by the Lord stayed true to his promise to us. Even though the nations of the earth fell away from the faith, even though he had to virtually start all over again with Noah and his family, even though no one deserved to receive even an ounce of the Lord’s love, he did not let us down. He preserved the line of the Savior through sinful people and even through sinful actions. And when the time was just right he took the form of a human being himself and he did the dirty work. He suffered the effects of our sin for 33 years. He let himself be beaten and abused by his own creatures. He willingly took on the painful tortures of a trip to hell and back while on the cross of his crucifixion. He made sure that he was sentenced with the punishment that was meant for us. He rose from the dead to prove our salvation. He ascended into heaven to rule all things with his power and love. And then he made sure that each one of us believed it!
When you were born he brought you to faith through baptism or he preserved you long enough to bring you to faith through his Word later on in life. He sent his Holy Spirit into your heart by the words of the Bible so that you believe that this God whom you’ve never seen, this God whom you’ve never heard, this God whom you’ve never touched, is real. And he is your Savior. And you will one day live with him forever in a Paradise of perfection because of what he has done for you. And in the mean time, in good times and in bad, in every aspect of your life, in any situation you are in, at any place the Lord is guarding you. He is protecting you. He is watching out for you and making sure that everything and everyone around you is there for your benefit. The Lord has proved to be your God from eternity. He has been your Savior from the moment his blood dropped from the cross. And he will be your Lord for the rest of eternity. This is God’s track record. It is flawless. It is spotless. And it is filled with countless and continuous acts of love for you.
Joshua believed that. He remembered the Lord’s track record and he was moved by it. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." There was nothing else Joshua wanted to do because there was nothing else in this life that had given him so much. In fact, there was nothing else in this life that had given him anything. The Lord had done it all. And he had done it all in grand fashion. And the Lord has done the same grand things for you. He has shown his love to you for the last 6000+ years. He has never let you down and has even given to you more than you could ever ask for or imagine. He has forgiven you every one of your sins and he promises that he always will. And that immediate and unconditional forgiveness is the greatest thing about him. That is the pinnacle, that is the highlight, of what he does. And as with anything else about our Lord, his gracious forgiveness will never change.
Keep the Lord’s track record always at the forefront of your mind. It will make those disappointments in this life seem inconsequential. It’ll make those troubles in this life seem insignificant. It’ll make life itself a joy to live because you’ll understand that you are always living under God’s grace. “As for me and my household, we will serve the LORD." These were words of a Christian who knew what the Lord has done and where the Lord would one day take him. Make these words your own. Remember what the Lord has done for you in the past and look forward to what he’ll do for you in the future. He is your God after all. He can do it. He promises to do it. And so it’s really already done.
Amen.
“Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and Amen.” - Psalm 41:13
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