Sermon Tone Analysis

I. Reading of Scripture

This is God’s Word, Amen!

Pray

II.

Introduction

A. Introduction to Theme

This one sentence represents the first and greatest commandment: to love the LORD your God (cf.

Mt 22:36-38).

Loving the Lord is not something that happens automatically on our part.

We must first be shown what love is.

God shows us love by revealing Himself to us: God is love.

In this way,

Our love of God is a direct reflection of our relationship with God.

The more we know God, the more we love God, and know what love is by knowing who love is.

God wants us to know Him and love Him.

This in part is one explanation for why God allows us to go through trials and suffering.

It is not, as some suggest, that God does not love us.

God allows us to endure trials and suffering so that God might walk through those trials with us and reveal Himself and His love more to us — and in the end, we love God more.

It is said that those who forgive much have been forgiven much.

In the same way, those who love much have been loved much!

God gives us the ability to love Him, but God does not force us to love Him.

God extends to us the offer of a relationship with Himself, and God defines that relationship by love.

But God does not force us into a relationship with Him.

Love is something that is offered willingly, not under obligation or compulsion.

Love is a lifestyle, the fruit of an ongoing relationship with God.

Love is not a one-and-done action.

It is like a garden, that is cultivated and grows.

We’ve all heard about the man that never told his wife he loved her.

She asked her husband why he never said “I love you.”

To which he replied: I told you once when we got married.

If I change my mind I’ll let you know.”

That’s not love.

That’s a contract.

We are not in a contract with God.

We are in a covenantal relationship with God based on God’s faithfulness and God’s love.

Joshua says:

This is a statement that defines the relationship God’s people are to have with God as they rest in the land — living with God, serving God, worshiping God and loving God.

Joshua is not giving this command for God’s sake.

God does not need our love, but we need God’s love.

Joshua is giving this command for the people’s sake!

This chapter repeats this theme of “for your sake.”

The Hebrew language in verse 11 even includes this word that many of our English Bibles leave untranslated, but it brings out this important point:

Joshua reveals something about the love of God in relationship with His people.

God will never stop loving His people.

But God’s people can stop loving God.

We easily misplace our love.

We easily mis-prioritize our love.

Someone said “Love is spelled T-I-M-E” meaning what we love we spend time on.

Yet for us, the things we ought to love the most we spend the least amount of time on.

The things we ought to love the least consume our time.

We need help loving!

Joshua 23:11 should cause us all to pause and wonder why it is that God’s people need to be told to love God.

Yet great emphasis is given by the placement of this command in this chapter to reveal how the people of Isreal are inclined to turn back to other gods and forsake the Lord in the land.

God knows this, and Joshua knows this.

So Joshua sends a clear instruction to the people, with strong words throughout this chapter, to make sure that above all, God’s people give diligent care and their utmost attention to the relationship that mattered the most in their life, and for their life — their relationship of love toward God.

Quite literally, their lives depend on it.

This same message applies for all of us who hear today.

Our lives depend upon our love of God! God has shown his love toward us.

Will we be careful to love God in return?

B. Introduction to Text

For much of Chapter 22, Joshua has been silent.

Phinehas, the son of Eleazar the priest speaks to mediate a dispute about a second altar that was built by the tribes across the Jordan.

That altar would not be for worship, but for a witness that the Lord is God, and the land is protected against rebellion and idolatry.

But now the book of Joshua is about to come to a close, and the Scriptures fast forward in time, for us to hear from Joshua again, with his last words presented in these last two chapters.

“Many days” have passed since the Lord had given Israel the land, and with time comes forgetfulness.

As time passes, history is forgotten.

If history is forgotten, history is repeated.

Why is it beneficial for us to study an Old Testament book like Joshua?

So we do not make similar mistakes.

God has not changed, and our human nature has not changed either.

For this reason Joshua’s instructions are profitable for us today.

Joshua’s instructions are set within this context of passing time — meaning enough time has passed for complacency to set in (KM).

Joshua is old, and “well advanced in years.”

The last time this phrase was used of Joshua was in Chapter 13, where the Lord instructed Joshua to begin allotting the land as an inheritance, preparing the way for future generations.

Here in Chapter 23, Joshua is preparing in a different way.

He is not dividing property, He is dictating priorities.

God’s people, above all, are to love God totally.

Notice the different leaders: Elders, Heads, Judges and Officers.

Elders have authority over the community (KM).

Heads have authority over the family households (KM).

Judges have authority over administration and matters of adjudication (KM).

Officers are authorities over civil matters (KM).

These leaders were to teach the people in every respect and every facet of life how to love God in the community, households, in administration and civil matters.

This means that in everything we do, we can do so in a way that demonstrates and teaches God’s love!

It was the responsibility of these leaders to teach the people how to love God, and by summoning the leaders Joshua also recognizes that it is time to pass on leadership to this next generation.

What he has been faithful to do in his lifetime, is now the responsibility of the next generation after him.

For he is old and “well advanced in years” and “about to go the way of all the earth” (v.14).

Joshua is about to die.

III.

Exposition

He begins his speech by first calling their attention to the Lord whom they are to love.

He starts with what they can see, by very literally turning their eyes upon the things God has done for them, the testaments of God’s power and might, works that they were eyewitnesses to and the evidences they can see right in front of them.

A. Joshua 23:3-5 | “just as the LORD...promised.”

That word in verse 4: “Behold” is a command.

“Look!” “See!”

They are standing in their inheritance and that is visible proof that God exists and God has fought for them.

A good starting place for testifying of God’s love is to start with what we can see.

Look around!

People say “I’ll believe God exists if I can see God.”

But the witness of Scripture says — if you want to see God, then look!