Time Out For God

Often, almost always, when I'm preparing to preach, and especially when I get up here and first look out over the congregation, I'm very mindful of the fact that no one comes to church with a blank slate just waiting for God to write on it. All of us here this morning come with life situations that press themselves on us. They occupy our attention, they clamor for our thoughts, they demand our minds to be focused on them. No doubt in an audience this size, someone here this morning is wondering if your marriage is going to make it. Someone here is probably trying to figure out direction and life purpose after losing a mate. Someone here is probably trying to figure out how to face that bully at school this week or that big test in third period or whether or not to play that sport again next year. Someone here is probably facing a project at work this week that just looks impossible to accomplish. Someone here today is probably weighing a job offer that promises more than you ever dreamed of, and it's hard to get your mind off of that. Someone here this morning is struggling with what's happening with one or more of their children, devastating, heartbreaking, wondering will we ever recover from this? Is there a way back? Someone here this morning probably has had an unexpected bill this week that you have no idea how you will pay. Probably someone here this morning that has a medical issue that you found out about this week, either with you or a family member, it's really scary. The list could go on and on with as many variations in that list as there are people in this auditorium this morning. Pressing concerns make it more difficult for us to focus on why we are here, but those same pressing concerns also highlight for us why we need to be here. What this time should mean to us and what this time is supposed to do for us. So why are we here? What should our focus be as we gather here on Sunday morning? Why are we here? What should our focus be? We find an example of the answer to that question in Joshua chapter 8. I invite your attention to the 8th chapter of Joshua. Something very interesting and unusual happens here. Here the second battle of I where God gives a great victory to the people of Israel, the army of Israel. He commands Joshua to take the people of Israel 20 miles north to a couple of mountains with a little village in between to have a religious ceremony. Why? What's that about? What's the significance of that in the invasion of the land of Canaan? If you have your place there in Joshua, I'm going to read a few verses from Deuteronomy because what they're doing at this location was commanded by Moses in the book of Deuteronomy. And anticipating that they would enter the land and would face battles maybe months even years of taking the land of Canaan, Moses commanded them to do something. I want you to listen as I read in Deuteronomy 27, Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, keep all these commands I give you today when you have crossed the Jordan into the land the Lord your God is giving you. Set up some large stones and coat them with plaster. Write on them all the words of this law when you have crossed over to enter the land the Lord your God is giving you a land flowing with milk and honey just as the Lord the God of your ancestors promised you. And when you have crossed the Jordan, set up these stones on Mount Ibal as I command you today and coat them with plaster. All there an altar to the Lord your God and altar of stones do not use any iron tool on them. Build the altar of the Lord your God with flitz with field stones and offer burnt offerings on it to the Lord your God. Sacrifice fellowship offerings there, eating them and rejoicing in the presence of the Lord your God. And you shall write very clearly all the words of this law on these stones you have set up. He goes on to give them more direction about what they are to do. In verses 12 through 15 of Deuteronomy 27, he says when you get to those two mountains half of the tribes of Israel should be on one of those mountains the other half on the other mountain and he gives other instructions about the ark of the covenant in between those mountains and the priests there and the sacrifices being offered. And this stone tablet covered with plaster with the writing of the law on it there. And the Levites he says will recite all the people in a loud voice and he starts listing these curses that will be upon the nation if they do not obey God. And after each one of those curses is loudly recited by the priests, the people on one mountain the mountain cursing the amount of e-ball are to say amen. And he goes on through chapter 27 and 28 of Deuteronomy saying these curses are to be shouted loud by the priests and the nation of Israel is to say amen. In other words so be it if we do not obey you we are calling on ourselves for your judgment. And then there is a list of blessings on them if they do obey the Lord. And all of that is to take place at this particular location. These two mountains. I want you to look at a picture of these two mountains for just a moment. Don't find the pictures in your Bible it is on the screen for you. See the two mountains there and they meet in a little narrow valley we would call it in West Virginia, a holler in the middle. You see there is a town there today. There was a small town there in Joshua's time. And so he brings the people to these two mountains. I want you to imagine this scene. He writes the law of God and we'll come back to that later on these tablets of stone and coach them with plaster and puts them on mount e-ball which is the mount where the curses will be repeated. The arc of the covenant which symbolizes the presence of God is right in between those two mountains. And the priests are gathered around it and the people of Israel half of them on mount e-ball on your left or Mount Gershim on your left mount e-ball on your right. And the priests shout aloud these curses from Deuteronomy 27 and there is the resounding thunderous amen from hundreds of thousands of people. There's a natural amphitheater in this place. I've been there. It's a beautiful location. There's a natural amphitheater there with people on both sides of the mountain and the priests down in the middle. And as they repeat the curses and blessings, the people affirm them. Amen. So be it if we obey you or disobey you. An amazing scene. Why do they stop in the middle of a military campaign? To go up and do this. Why? For the very same reason we pull aside from everything that's happening in your life and my life right now. And we're here right now in this service. Very same reasons. And so we're going to look at why God commanded them to come aside from the battles of life to give some time to have a religious ceremony to come before God in the middle of a hectic military campaign that's just gotten started. Why? Why do we come aside? Why are we here? What should our focus be as we gather because we come with not blank slates but with all these pressing life concerns, the battles of life, pressing and clamoring for our attention. So we need to focus for these few moments on why we're here and what this time is supposed to do for us. I believe it's exactly what God commanded Israel to do. There are three reasons why he called them to come together. The first is to worship God. To worship God. That's so critical and so important. Now, there are several elements that make our worship meaningful that allow us to focus, that allow us to answer that question. Why am I really here? And how can I capture all of those thoughts that are pressing so heavily on me this week? How can I capture all of those and focus my heart on worship? There are several elements of worship that are indicated in this story that will help us in this day and time in 2018 to focus on why we're here to worship God. First of all, there is the need to pull away from daily responsibilities. When I think about this story, I can't scratch my head. The timing of this doesn't seem to be quite right. I mean, they just entered the land. God's given them a miraculous victory over Jericho. Then they had that abysmal failure because of sin at the little town of I. They get that right with God and they go up to I again and God gives them an amazing victory there. And so you're thinking, okay, we're back on track now. It's time to press on. We've got a whole country, a whole group of tribes, of people groups in this land of Canaan that we've got to overcome. We've got momentum now. We need to press the battle. We need to keep going. We need to keep the foot on the accelerator. We need to keep pressing forward. And that's exactly what all of us are thinking this morning about whatever it is that's crowding onto our minds. What God's telling them and what God's telling us is we need to pull away from those daily responsibilities. We have to set apart time to praise him, to recognize his grace and his help over the battles of this past week and to cry out for him and to put our hearts in a position to receive his grace and help for the battles of this coming week. We've got to have this time to pull away from our daily responsibilities. That's why corporate worship is important. That's why God told the nation of Israel to do this. We are here to worship God. Back in desert storm. A United States Marine Corporal by the name of Bob Banner got separated from his platoon. He wondered the desert for 48 hours in Iraq trying to hide from the enemy. Evading Iraqi scouts practicing evasive maneuvers like hiding in the sand for 48 hours. He was then found by Allied forces who happened to have a reporter embedded with them. So he was counting his story of what happened over the last 48 hours to this reporter. The reporter noticed he was just gulping down water. The reporter commented, you sure are thirsty. Banner replied, you know what? I was so busy running. I forgot all about how thirsty I was. It's so easy to get so busy running in life. Running from here to there, running from this problem right into the next problem. Wondering how we're going to grapple with all the things that are on our plate. It's so easy to run so fast and run so hard and push so hard that we forget we have a deep soul first and that thirst can only be filled by God. And so we need to gather like this on Sunday morning to worship God. That's why we're here. We have to pull aside from daily responsibilities. But when we get here, what should we do? What should we focus on? There's several other things that happen in regard to their worship that I think are instructive for us today. This worship that God called them to do includes a recognition of grace. In fact, let's read verses 30 and 31. So along with me in Joshua 8 as we read verse 30 and 31, the then Joshua built on Mount Ebal and altered to the Lord the God of Israel as Moses, the servant of the Lord had commanded the Israelites. He built it, built it according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses. I notice this next description. An altar of uncut stones on which no iron tool had been used on it. They offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings. Now what's the significance? Both in Deuteronomy 27 and the instructions Moses gave. And then it is noted here that they followed that and did that exactly like Moses told them to. What's the significance of building an altar of uncut stones? In other words, these stones could not be prepared, cut to a certain size, shaped up, squared off. They couldn't be prepared in that way by human hands. What's the significance of that? Seems to be a big deal made of that. The significance in the law of Moses of using uncut stones is that you're coming before God, the author that you present to him is not what you worship. You see, people in that ancient time were so guilty of erecting idols made of stone or wood or whatever, and they would be beautifully fashioned and shaped and decorated, and that's what drew all the attention. The attention is not to be on those stones. In fact, the very fact that you don't put any work into those stones, you get them out of the riverbed or you get them out of the field and you're using just like you find them. The fact that you don't do any work to contribute to that author indicates that you're not worshiping your own achievements, you are highlighting the grace of God. That everything God has given you is by His grace, and even beyond the uncut stones, the unshaped and unformed stones, are the very ideas of the sacrifices. The sacrifices are helping them to remember what God has done for them and forgiving their sins, what God has done for them in salvation. So I draw from this that when we come together to worship God pulling away from all of those responsibilities that crowd into our minds and hearts and lives through the week, when we pull aside to worship God, we should focus on His grace. Not on our achievements, not on our works, not on what we contribute to our salvation and then stand back and look at it and say, wow, isn't that cool? Doesn't that look nice? That's really pretty. Look what I've done. So when we worship God, we come in recognition of His grace, salvation, the forgiveness of our sins is entirely by the grace of God. It's probably not too surprising that 55% of Americans believe this statement a good person can earn His way to heaven. What's alarming is a research done by George Barna recently that said 40% of those in America who claim to have committed their life to Jesus Christ agreed with this statement on a survey. If you are a good person or do enough good things for others, you can earn a place in heaven. Really? 40? I mean, Barna does legitimate research. This is not trumped up. 40% of people who claim that they've committed their lives to Christ actually believe that if they are a good enough person or do enough good for others, they can earn a place in heaven. So that's why when we come together, we need to focus on God's grace in Bible believing churches like this. Or maybe some of you out there who still think I've got to add something to what Christ did on the cross for my salvation. I need to do this. I need to straighten up my life and maybe God will let me into heaven or I need to do certain things to help people. Then God will let me into heaven. Salvation is by God's grace, which means it is offered to you freely as a gift. There's nothing you can do to earn it or deserve it. It is a free gift given by God, offered to you by grace. And when we come together, we celebrate not human achievement, we celebrate God's grace. That is where the focus of our worship must be. It includes a recognition of grace, but there's something else that happens here. Our worship should include the forgiveness of sin, a recognition of the forgiveness of our sin. Notice the offerings there in verse 31. At the end of the verse, they offered two offerings, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. We'll come back to the fellowship offerings in a little bit. Why these two? I mean, in the book of Leviticus, there are five regular offerings to choose from. Why specifically does God command? They use these two, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings. Let's look at the burnt offering first. The burnt offering was the offering of all five of the Levitical offerings that was the main one used to indicate God's forgiveness of sin. Now if you're thinking about the five offerings, if you're many of those, remember any of those, you may be thinking, wasn't one of them called the sin offering? Things like that one would be more for sin. No, actually, read Leviticus, the first five chapters or so, and you'll find that one was to illustrate cleansing from ceremonial defilement. It did not really have to do with forgiveness of sins. And there were other offerings, the guilt offering. That one sounds like it could be for sins also, but that was an offering that would be sacrificed in a case of restitution. There's something you need to make restitution for. The main offering that focused on the forgiveness of sins was the burnt offering. And so God is telling them, and they know this, they know what offerings have been commanded in the Leviticus. They don't have to go back and review it like we do. They understood when we're offering burnt offerings, what we're dealing with here is the forgiveness of sin. We're dealing with the fact that we have sinned against a holy God. And we need to have those sins forgiven. It's fascinating to me that these sacrifices are on Mount Ebal. And that's also where the law is posted on Mount Ebal. Now Mount Ebal is the mountain where the curses are replied to. The priests give forth the curses for disobedience, God's judgment for disobedience, and the people on Mount Ebal are the ones who say, Amen, the blessings will come from Mount Gerasing. So put all that together, these things don't happen by accident. There is significance in everything that they're doing here. The fact that these sacrifices, the burnt offerings are offered on Mount Ebal where the curse for disobedience is highlighted indicates what's involved in our salvation, the sacrifice of Christ for you and me. Took away the curse, the judgment of God because of his law that was broken. All of that is signified in this ceremony on Mount Ebal. On the Mount of Cursing where the law gives the curses for disobedience. These sacrifices are offered to remind the people that the judgment of God on our sin for breaking his commandments is covered by the blood of Christ. An innocent sacrifice who gives himself as an offering for us. So salvation gives us forgiveness of sin and it cancels out the law. This is at the very fabric, the very core of the teaching of Paul about the gospel. Look at what Paul says in Romans 3 verses 19 and 20. He says, now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law rather through the law we become conscious of our sin. So that law, I con mount Ebal, the mount of cursing and judgment, that law condemns us of our sin but it is the sacrifice of Christ that removes the curse of the law against us and Paul goes on to describe that in the book of Galatians 3. He says, for all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. I think of it, Mount Ebal, Mount of cursing where people say amen to the curses that are read, all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse as it is written. Curses is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. In other words, you got to be perfect. If you're going to try to get to heaven by keeping the law, you got to do it all all the time for your whole life. So Paul comes to this conclusion clearly. No one who relies on the law is justified before God because the righteous will live by faith and then in verse 13 he gives us the remedy. Here's how we are delivered from the curse of the law. Christ redeemed us, bought us back from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Ford has written curse to everyone who's hung on a pole when Jesus hung on that cross. He took the curse for you. In other words, he took the judgment and wrath of God for all of us lawbreakers, for all of us sinners. He took that on himself and died in our place. And when we place our faith in Him, we are forgiven of our sin and redeemed by the grace of God. That is what we celebrate when we gather together on Sunday. We celebrate salvation by grace and forgiveness of sin by the grace of God. But there's something else that we need to focus our minds on when we come together on Sunday morning. Worship includes the dedication of our lives to God. It includes the dedication of our lives to God. I draw your attention back to that burnt offering. Of all the offerings, of their five main ones, of all the offerings, the burnt offering is the only one that is entirely consumed by fire on the altar. Nothing is left of it. We're going to see later with the fellowship offering, most of the meat is saved and eaten by the family. But not this, not this. The burnt offering, the whole animal is burned. The whole thing is consumed, indicating that to pay for our sins Christ Himself would be fully consumed. But there's something else that's indicated there. Paul uses this terminology of what it means to give ourselves to the Lord as believers in recognition of his mercies in Romans chapter 12 and verse 1. He says, therefore, because of all this great plan of salvation in chapters 1 through 11 that he's dealt with in Romans, therefore, I urge you brothers and sisters in view of God's mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice wholly or set apart and pleasing to God. This kind of offering is acceptable to him. This is your true and proper worship. Friend, anytime we come together to worship, one of the things we should focus on, one of our reasons for being here is that in response to God's grace in salvation and the forgiveness of our sin, we are to lay our bodies on the altar. And he doesn't say, though, let it burn for a little while, then save the rest of it for you. No, no, this is a burnt offering. The whole thing is consumed on the altar. God wants all of us. He wants everything that we are, everything that we hope to be. He wants it all to be placed on the altar. Everything, not just a part of your life, not keeping back secret rooms in your heart for yourself. He wants all of us completely consumed on his altar, but a living sacrifice, giving all of ourselves to him. And that is what our worship should lead to. And we gather to worship, we praise God and worship him for his amazing grace and the forgiveness of our sins through the sacrifice of Christ. And then in turn, because of that, we turn around and lay ourselves on the altar and say, Lord, consume me. Take every bit of me. I'm not holding anything back. Take every part. You use me for your glory. So worship should include dedication of our lives to the Lord. But there's something else here. Our worship, when we gather together, should also include praise. You see the second offering that was recommended or commanded for the people at the end of verse 31, they sacrificed burnt offerings, but also fellowship offerings. Now, the fellowship offering, if you go back to Leviticus and read about it, the fellowship offerings are very interesting offering. It has nothing to do with covering for sin or restitution that needs to be made, guilt or anything like that. You know what the fellowship offering is for? There were three occasions mentioned in Leviticus where it should be used. One was for Thanksgiving or some deliverance that God has brought you through or an answer to prayer. So this is just saying, God, I thank you for what you've done for me this week. Then secondly, it could be offered if you wanted to make a vow to God. Some kind of vow of dedication, this fellowship offering would accompany the other offering. And the third use for it was if you wanted to just come out of an overflowing heart of voluntary, free will, praise to God, then this is the offering you would use, the fellowship offering. So it all has to do with recognizing the goodness of God and praising Him. There's no other reason for this offering. There's nothing that it covers or forgives or takes care of. This is just an offering that expresses how thankful to God I am. And when they're commanded to do this and coming apart from the battles of taking the land, then I think that's a sign or a lesson for us, an example for us, that part of our worship ought to be praise. That's where the praise music and the hymns, the worship part comes in. God help us if we don't worship because we don't like the song or we don't like the way the music's being done. That's not what this is about. This is about God. This is about being thankful to Him for all of His grace and mercy and forgiveness. If I have my mind on the musicians or the kind of music or whatever, my mind is not on God. I ought to have my mind on God and praising and thanking Him. That is the essence of what worship is about. We talk a lot about worship today and we get involved in worship wars, thinking true worship can only be done a certain way. Lord wash, worship is focus on God and whatever leads me into His presence and praise is worthy of my devoted attention to, not standing stone face, not being involved in all of the worship, but involved in fully giving myself to worship my great God, to praise Him with whatever songs are on the screen and we're singing. The focus is not on the music, the focus is on God. Our worship is to praise Him and when we come together it is to praise our great and glorious God. So whether it's a slow song, a quiet song, a fast song, an exuberant song, doesn't matter what matters is that it brings me into the presence of God and I'm able to look at Him and praise Him for who He is and what He's done. One of the reasons we must come together is to focus our praise on God to bring our fellowship offerings, our voluntary praise offerings to Him. That's what we're here for, but there's another reason that's indicated in what He told them to do and that is worship for God as we come together also includes fellowship. It's involved in the fellowship offering. I hinted at this earlier, the fellowship offering is an offering that was used for food. It's the only one where the offerer actually shared with his family and the priests in eating the sacrifice. The fat of the offering would be burned and consumed on the altar of the meat was to be shared as a joyful meal with the family. And so they gather around the table and fellowship together. That's why we got it right when we have fellowship meals, when we gather around the table in a Bible fellowship or a small group. There's something about gathering around the table that promotes fellowship and engaging with one another. This is an offering where that was routinely done, where you would take the meat and gather together as a family and share the food together in the instructions you heard me read from Deuteronomy 27, Moses told them, be sure to eat the sacrifice together. So there's fellowship. When we come together, yet the main part of the focus is on God, obviously his grace, his forgiveness, and our praise of him, the salvation, the release from the curse and giving ourselves to him in response. That's worship. But worship also includes enjoying one another and fellowshiping with each other. That's another important part of coming together. Why are we here? To worship God. To worship God. And if you look at it close enough, all six of those things are involved in why we are here and should be what we focus on while we are here. I will guarantee you it happens to me almost every Sunday. Because my mind gets distracted pretty easily. And I have been told by none of the pastors, our staff, but by other pastors, why do you stand at the door before the service? It is an occupational hazard, by the way, because you're given three or four prayer requests and eight or ten concerns and two or three complaints about things that are going on. And so by the time you walk up here to the front, your mind's racing with all these things you've just heard. You know what I find? It's the worship time that refocuses my heart on God. So that when I get up to get into his word and I'm in the word with you, I'm not preaching at you and preaching to myself with you, we're all recipients of this. My heart is ready to receive what God has for me. And all of a sudden the distractions vanish. That's why I forget to call you on Monday because all that is gone. You know, the distractions seem to vanish and the focus is back where it should be. I can tell you, I can guarantee you that if you will focus your heart and mind on why we should be here, focus on those six things that describe our worship, then you will find yourself coming out of this place rejoicing in that you've been in the presence of God. We come here to worship God. But also we come to hear the Word of God. We come to hear the Word of God. Look at verse 32, verse 32. There in the presence of the Israelites Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses, all the Israelites with their elders, officials, and judges were standing on both sides of the arc of the covenant of the Lord facing the Levitical priests who carried it, both the foreigners living among them and the native born were there. Half of the people stood in front of the Hebrew expression. Literally means on the face of the mountain, on the face of Mount Gerasim and half of them on the face of Mount Ebal as Moses, the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel. Verse 34, afterward Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings in the curses just as it is written in the book of the law. So he reads to them the book of the law, verse 35, there was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children and the foreigners who lived among them. So what happens there? He reads the Word of God. Joshua spoke the Word. Now, law of Moses, you mean the whole first five books? Man, you're going to stand on Mount Gerasim and Ebal a long time to hear all that. So probably based on what we read back in Deuteronomy 27 and 28, probably what was inscribed on those stones and white wastes so it could be easily written in red was typically the way they did it in that day. Probably what was written was the blessings and curses of Deuteronomy 27 and 28. Maybe the 10 commandments also, but Moses commanded them in Deuteronomy. This is what you're to do. Deuteronomy 27, 28, the blessings and the curses. So that's the law that's referenced here. It's not the whole first five books. It's those two chapters. These are the blessings. If you obey me, these are the judgments. If you do not, but the point is Moses spoke the Word and that gives us instruction for today. This is not the only place obviously. If you were with us through the first and second Timothy series, you saw over and over and over again, Paul pounds to Timothy. Your job is to preach the Word. Your job is to give the Word not to comment on social trends and political issues. Now, if the Word addresses those topics, preach the Word about those topics, but preach the Word, not the newspaper, preach the Word, and we're not to use the pulpit time to preach pop psychology and self-help, three easy steps to get your life together. I mean, the Word will deal with those kinds of things, but it is the Word that carries power to change our lives, not self-help techniques. It is the Word of God is the only living book that the Bible says can change our hearts. So if we leave out the Word, all of self-help books in the world won't help us. Not legitimately to really change the heart, the Word of God needs to be spoken. And that's not just stringing together a bunch of stories, although stories are good illustrations. Jesus used them all the time. They help make clear and applicable what the Word of God says, but if you're not preaching the Word, we're not doing our job. Over and over again, the Bible tells the job of a pastor is to preach the Word, teach the Word, exhort the saints from the Word of God over and over again. It says that. A few years ago, 1999, actually, pastor Chester Miller, in Arkansas, experienced one of the most bizarre benedictions when he closed out the morning service. March of 1999, Saddle Arkansas, one of his church members, as he closed in prayer, her name was Victoria Smith, pulled a gun on pastor Miller during the closing prayer. You know why? Because he had not preached from the book of Revelation that morning. He preached a good Bible message, but here was a reason later, 58-year-old lady said this, a sermon from Revelation was, and I quote, important for my feud with another church member. Okay. And because he didn't preach out of Revelation, she pulls a gun on him. Now, I can promise you this. I will always preach the Word of God to you. I know that Dan thing will do the same thing. Always preach the Word of God to you. We may not preach the exact passage or the exact message you like. If we don't do that, please don't pull a gun on the preacher. At least not till July 1. You may not always like what you hear. You may not always like the passage or the book or not get every sermon just like you like it, but I'll guarantee you one thing. You'll get the Word of God in this place. I promise you that. And Dan will continue that. You will always hear the Word of God. Speak the Word of God. Now, a couple of interesting things about the Word of God that was spoken to the people of Israel on that day, the Word reminds us both of blessing and judgment. Remember, there are cursing and there are blessings, both of which are repeated on those mountain sides. And the people of Israel, half of them on each mountain are to affirm that if we obey God, we are blessed. If we do not obey God, we suffer his judgment. And both should be in preaching. Both should be in preaching. I love what Dan said a few weeks ago when he was preaching and he started his message by saying a lot of his sermons since he's been preaching here have been sermons of challenge about what we ought to be doing and what the church should be and those are needed. And he said he said he had someone mentioned to him one time that you know that came to church looking for a hallelujah moment today. And sometimes you need a hallelujah moment. And Dan went on to preach a real hallelujah sermon. You know, we need both judgment and blessing in preaching. Both of those are themes that God required the people of Israel to be reminded of and we should be reminded of too. And then I note also that the word was applicable to all. Did you see that in verse 35? Not a word that Moses didn't read and says it includes the women and children and the foreigners who lived among them. This is not just the men who were representing the nation but everybody, everybody, the whole family, even the children and even the foreigners, even those who were not Israelites. But had come out of them, come out with them from Egypt or had joined them in the wilderness. They're included too. Everybody, everybody needs to hear the word of God including the leaders, the priests, Joshua himself, all of the leaders of Israel also need to hear the word of God. I tell you when we preach, we preach to ourselves first. We beat ourselves up in the study all week and then we come in and preach to ourselves again on Sunday morning. Sometimes folks who go out and say, my toes are black and blue. You stepped all over them and I often want to say, you ought to see mine. I can hardly walk. They're hurt and so bad because we preach to ourselves too. I preach the word of God. It's applicable to all. Quickly a third reason why we come on Sunday is to renew our vows to God. I just want to quickly remind you that those vows are described in Deuteronomy 27 and 28 if we went back and read more of that passage which we're not going to take the time to do. We would see that they have to do with Israel's renewal of their vows. After every curse that was read, read it for yourself in Deuteronomy 27 beginning in verse 15. I think it is. After every curse is read, the people are to thunderously reply in that amphitheater atmosphere. Look at the picture again. Think of it on one of those mountains and that amphitheater there that has thunderously replied, amen and it thunders and rolls across the valley. I remember one time when we lived in the townhouse near the fitness center, we would watch the fireworks from our back patio area, the town fireworks in the fourth of July and they were at that time put off from that hill above the city park and those things would explode and bounce off of the mountain, mountain kind of wrap around and have a kind of a bowl shape near where we live and they would bounce off of that and it was like you got to hear them and then you got to hear the echo several times. It was incredible. That's what I can imagine happening there. Amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen, amen. I can just hear that booming through that valley and bouncing off of those two mountains. They renewed their vows to God. I want to say to you that knowledge of the word is not enough. Knowledge of the word of God is not enough. We must commit ourselves to do the word of God. You know, it's a wonderful privilege of God's grace that we have this word. With the ready availability that we have it, we can read it anytime we want to, we can carry it the church, we can memorize it, we can study it, but it's no good unless we do it. No good unless we do it. That's what James says in James 1. Look at these words. He says, do not merely listen to the word. Now that's important. He's not saying don't listen. He's saying don't merely listen to the word. And so, deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone and here he uses a great illustration. I love this. He's like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they've heard but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do. Tomorrow morning when you get up and you go into the bathroom and look in the mirror and you say who is that? What in the world? I got a mess is that staring back at me. What are you going to do about that mess you see? You're going to turn around and shake your head and walk away. So I don't want to look at that anymore. No, you're going to do something about it, right? The word of God when it speaks into our lives and holds a mirror up in front of us and says, look at yourself, look, look what you're thinking, look what you just said, look what you're doing, look at the life, look at the path you're going down, what are you going to do about that? That's the key question. Not did I read it, did I see it? Now I'm going to walk away and forget it. Not going to do anything about it. No, no, no. The only blessing comes from doing it. The only blessing comes from seeing what the mirror told you and doing something about it. So obedience is necessary and that leads me to the importance of the commitment time. At the end of the service, we usually sing a song and I don't do high pressured invitations. I don't try to twist people's arms. I just never have, I never felt leading the spirit to do that. And so I don't sing 20 verses and ask you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand or you got to come forward and all that, I just don't do that. I just haven't felt the spirit of the Lord leading me to do that. But the commitment time at the end of the service is for us to respond to what we've heard. And the reason why that's so important is that whether or not you ever step out into a pew or an aisle, some churches step on the pews too, but whether you ever step out into the aisle and come to the front, it's important that all of us respond with a commitment to what we've heard. So where you're sitting, where you're standing as you walk out, that is a time for us to say, Lord, I have heard your word. I know it's not enough just to hear it. I need to do it. Here's an area where I know I need to apply it. Help me this week to make this commitment to you. That's what the time of commitment is about. If people come forward publicly, that's wonderful. But the time of commitment has often been just understood as everybody else needs that. The person who needs to get saved, that's the person who needs to do that. Now the time of commitment is for all of us, all of us to respond in those moments to what we have heard. Why do we come to church? What are we doing here? So what are we doing? Why are we here? What should our focus be? Our focus should be to worship God. Take here His word and then in response, renew our vows to God. And my friend, it's worth taking time on Sunday morning to come aside from the pressures and the battles of life that have got your mind all wrapped up and distracted. It's worth taking the time to come away from that to worship God, to hear His word and to renew our vows to God. We'll go out stronger to face the battles this week if we do. So take this seriously. There's a reason why we're here. Focus on why you're here. And don't allow yourself to be distracted. Let's pray. Father, we have come together today to worship you. The hearts have been lifted into your presence as we've done that. Focus our attention on you. Got our minds off of everything else that was swirling around us. So thank you for that time. We've come together today to hear your word. And we trust that your word has been proclaimed faithfully and that now we know what you want us to do. The mirror has been put up in front of our face. Lord help us not stop there. After we've genuinely worshipped you and we've heard your word now help us in these moments to renew our vows to you. To make whatever commitments and decisions, whether it be to trust Christ as Savior, or to come back to Him in obedience, faithfulness, walking with Him again, or to address a very specific area in our lives that we know is not right with you. I pray, Father, you'd help us to renew our vows. And so complete what you wanted us to pull aside from our daily responsibilities for this week, right here and now in Jesus' name. Amen.