Let me give you the shortest summary of study of Psychology. The great philosophical challenge of being human is this –
Deep inside we all develop a dream of how we would like life to be, an ideal, an expectation, even a wish …… and then as we grow up, we have to face one of two challenges –
a)Coping with FAILURE
OR
b)Living with SUCCESS
Which is more challenging?
Coping with life that is not the way we want or living in a world that’s pretty much the way we want!
I have been moved watching images on TV of people whose lives have been shattered in China and Burma.
Millions of people who already live in oppressive conditions.
Madi looked at me and asked
‘Could that happen here?’
I couldn’t answer it because I knew that behind it was a bigger issue.
The issue for me is not do I live in a place where there is little chance of a Cyclone wiping out 70,000 people or an earthquake crushing the same number, but what do I do with the privilege that I have!
How do I live with privilege?
Tonight’s message in called ‘The Trappings of Success’
Why is it that prosperity can mess with our faith quicker than poverty or pain?
You know, one of the all time great Box Office movies of 20th Century was Notting Hill
Hugh Grant and
Every man's dream comes true for William Thacker, a successless Notting Hill bookstore owner, when Anna Scott, the world's most beautiful woman and best-liked actress, enters his shop.
He can’t believe his luck when their paths keep crossing.
He realises he is falling in love.
Twice, when he plucks up courage to pursue her, she does a no show!
He is devastated.
Then, when he is resigned to his ordinary world without this famous movie star in it, she comes back and asks for one more go. He says NO!!!
She says,
I've been on a diet every day since I was nineteen, which basically means I've been hungry for a decade. I've had a series of not nice boyfriends, one of whom hit me… and every time I get my heart broken, the newspapers splash it about as though it's entertainment. And it's taken two rather painful operations to get me looking like this.
….one day not long from now, my looks will go, they will discover I can't act and I will become some sad middle-aged woman who looks a bit like someone who was famous for a while.
….After all... I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.
That’s right up there with Gone With the Wind!!!
Truth is – not many of us can view fame with such clarity.
Not many of us can critique what success is doing with us.
Not many understand what happens to us when we have too much of a good thing!
That was Joshua’s fear in passage we read: Joshua 23
v1-3; 9-11; 14
Israelites were settled in land.
Wars were over.
Good times were in!
Things were settling down and the people were nestling into comfortable homes. There was a chicken in every pot and an ox-cart in every garage and now Joshua worried that this prosperity would soften them.
It was natural to depend on God when the Ammorites were and Jebusites were ransacking your houses and farms. But now there were many days when the biggest worry was whether to have red wine or white with dinner.
How do you live as Christians in a yuppie world?
What does it do to your faith?
How do you keep on edge when everything is moving you away from it?
This passage reminds me on something we often forget –
Every generation has to fight for what they believe in!
I was raised in family where faith was passed on to me but you can’t receive it that way.
You have to fight for it.
You have to wrestle with it.
You have to let it get deep in your soul until you can say,
I believe this!!
Second hand faith is no faith!
Second hand faith is on the nose.
It knows enough to make you smart, enough to make you cynical. It gives you enough knowledge to be a nuisance!
Every generation has to fight the fight of faith!
That’s what Joshua is saying to this generation that has grown up and prosperity has fallen in its lap.
1.Be Strong in Word v6-7
Read
Hebrew word “chazaq.” It has the idea of extreme devotion
Extreme devotion on its own = sentimental religion OR legalistic religion.
Joshua says, be devoted to the WORD of GOD!
That’s where devotion finds its focus!
Law – first 5 books Bible.
Hebrew word describes 5 books – Torah.
Torah = archery.
Picture of Archer giving arrow its sense of direction!
In archery the last moment of release, that careful guiding of the arrow is critical to hitting the target instead of some innocent bystander!
That’s Torah!
Joshua gives this impassioned plea for Torah!!
Let God guide you.
Let his Word be the critical factor in the most critical moments!
Eg.
Read v7
This is not about race it is about faith.
This verse doesn’t mean it is wrong to marry someone from a culture different to yours.
In this culture Joshua knew that to marry an Amorite girl would be to adopt some Amorite gods!
He challenges them.
….. be very strong
….. associate = to come in
Don’t let people into your heart who will destroy your faith.
Don’t welcome in things that will dull your passion.
How many young people who have had a heart for mission spend most of their spare time sipping white wine and wondering what they need to buy next!
Something happens!
WE welcome other things into our lives!
Elie Wiesel tells a story about a man who came to Sodom hoping to save the city. He goes from street to street, from marketplace to marketplace, shouting, “Men and women, repent. What you are doing is wrong. It will kill you; it will destroy you.”
They laugh. But he goes on shouting. Until one day a child stops him. “Stranger, don’t you see it’s useless?”
“Yes,” the just man replies.
“Then why do you go on?” the child asks.
“In the beginning,” he says, “I was convinced that I would change them. Now I go on shouting because I don’t want them to change me.” (3)
2.Cling to the Lord v8-10
Read
“Cling” is the Hebrew word “debaq.” Same word used in Genesis 2:24, “For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined - debaq - to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.”
Part of the problem is that good times turn a relationship into an association.
There’s a big difference between being associated with Jesus and being inseparately joined to Him!
You know it’s interesting.
We fill our houses up with all sorts of things but when fire threatens to rip through our house what do we grab?
What would you grab?
Interesting when a man came to Jesus and asked a question
Master, what must I do to inherit eternal life.
Jesus said, You know commandments…..
Man said, I’ve kept them since I was a youth
Jesus said, Go sell all you have and give it to the poor!
It’s like he says,
You need to let go of some things so that you can cling to me!
The problem with good time faith is that it’s a juggling act.
We want Jesus and everything else.
We don’t want to give up anything!
Imagine if bloke could strap everything on him that was important to him.
His TV and sound system
All his basketball, football trophies
His tennis racquet
His hair gels and aftershave bottles!
Then his girlfriend walks in the room.
Bloke says,
I love you. Let me give you a big hug to show you just how much!!
Do you recon the girl is going to be moved by it!
She doesn’t want to hug a TV.
She doesn’t want to share affection with our hair gels.
She wants US!
That’s what God is like!
Joshua says, Cling to the Lord.
To do that you have to OFF-LOAD!
3.Guard Your Heart v11-13
Read
Can you pick up a bit of urgency in Joshua.
v6 …..be very strong
v11 ….be very careful to love
We are a society that knows what it is to guard our possessions.
We have car alarms, smoke alarms and house alarms
We have dead bolts on our doors and security screens on our windows.
We take out home insurance, car insurance, health insurance and life insurance.
We have 6 air bags in car and wear bicycle helmets.
We have antibiotics, antidepressants and antioxidants.
We have anti-virus software on our computers and anti aging cream on our face.
We are fast becoming the most over legislated generation of all time because we want laws that protect us in a million different situations!
We guard our physical lives, our possessions and our rights with dogged tenacity.
But what about our soul?
How easily can something or someone rob you of your devotion?
Proverbs 4:23
…. above all else my son. Guard your heart for out of it flow all the issues of life.
Joshua doesn’t mess around!
He doesn’t finish by saying….
Look I know I’m old and I have no right to meddle in your affairs. I’m just making a few suggestions that I think will help….
He finishes by saying
Don’t mess with God!
Read v16
Joshua says
Remember, you can’t take anything for granted.
If you mess with God, the very nations that he empowered you to drive out will come back to smite you.
You know, I recon few of us think very seriously about consequences of messing with our faith.
We have become so blaze that we almost mock any idea that God is serious about how we live.
How does this apply to us?
Much more subtle.
We don’t have nations returning to kill us, we just quietly die inside!
Bible no longer inspires us.
Prayer no longer interests us.
People no longer move us.
We become commentators.
We know what’s wrong with world, with the Church, with people …. But we no longer have the faith to change it!