His Story

Joshua 23: 14-16, 24: 14-18

 

 

                    In the latter chapters of the book of Joshua, the great leader of the nation of Israel stands before the people. He has lived through forty years of wandering in the desert. He has picked up the mantle of leadership from Moses and carried it remarkably well. He has brought God’s people into the Promised Land. He is old. He is tired. He knows his time is near. He says to them: “And now, I am about to go the way of all the earth.” He is speaking of the end of his life, the end of his ministry, the completion of his baptism.

          In our opening passage today, Joshua talks about covenant. He reminds the people that God has not failed in any way to deliver everything he promised. He has kept his covenant. Everything has come to pass. No one has earned anything. God has provided everything.

          The whole of history can be traced in terms of covenant. God covenanted with Adam, with Noah, with Abraham, with David. Then, the prophet Jeremiah signaled a new covenant that was to come. We understand that new covenant now as Jesus, God incarnated as man; savior, God with us; Immanuel. All of history, if one looks at it from a Christian worldview, can be seen as God’s continuing covenant with his creation. History becomes---His story. Craig Bartholomew puts it this way: “What is the real story of which my life story is part? Is there a ‘real story’ that provides a framework of meaning for all peoples in all times and places, and therefore for my own life in the world?”

          Is there a real story? In this world of individualism, we are told that the world started with a big bang or any number of other theories as to how we find ourselves here. Textbooks concentrate on the scientific explanations, even if they fall well short of the mark. The world in which we live is a world of empiricism, of calculation, of logic. There is no room for the spiritual unless it can be logically explained.

          Is there a real story? Does your life story intersect with someone else’s?  Even if you say yes, aren’t you talking about your husband or children or parents or cousins? How can your story merge with some other story from someone who lived in another time, or in another place? Is there some framework of meaning for all peoples in all times and from all places? If you believe in God, if you believe in the Holy Scriptures as God’s story, then there is only one answer to questions like that, and it is YES. Yes, there is a real story, and it involves us all.

          We have talked about covenant, about how we can trace the story of God through covenant from the beginning of history, from the beginning of His story. When we trace those covenants through the Bible, we see God on a mission. The Bible is a story—a story of the mission of God to reveal Himself to his creation and to redeem it for himself.

          You know the history of this church better than I do. It was carved out of this ground by your ancestors: Campbells and Clarks and Johnsons and Sullivans and many more. The ground under our feet marks the footprint of a church that rose from an idea to a meeting place to several buildings on several sites, but always—always, existing to worship God and to continue to tell his story. About 55 years ago, this sanctuary was built on this location and it continues to serve.

          But what or whom does it serve? Why does Rocky Creek Presbyterian Church still exist? Because it serves God. It is part of God’s mission to reveal and redeem his people. Rocky Creek is just one of hundreds of thousands of connections to that mission of God that goes back to creation itself.

          The other day I walked next door to the fellowship hall to see if I could do something useful with the folks decorating for Homecoming. I didn’t get to do much, but while I was there, I noticed a few pictures and a lot of cards on the piano. On each card was a name. Each name was that of a minister who had labored for God here at Rocky Creek. I didn’t count the names, but they numbered about fifteen or so. Fifteen men and women, each of whom have worked for this congregation over more than a century. Does your life intersect with others? All I have to do is look at that piano and I know the answer. My life intersects with Ray Howe and Ladd Brearly and each man and woman represented by name on that piano. Does your life intersect with others? Look around. You are generations deep here, and the most common denominator among you as you sit in this sanctuary is not bloodlines or geography, but mission. God’s mission has been the call that brought you here to this place, and it brought your ancestors here as well.

          Yes, your life intersects with others. I stand here today on the shoulders of all those who came before me in this place, and they did likewise when they stood here. You do as well. We all come from someone and somewhere and go toward somewhere else. It’s not about family, as least not in the sense that we normally come to think of it. Here, in this place, we are reminded of story, the story that tells us of the identity and presence of God in our lives, in our past, in our present, in our future. That is the family that intersects each of us with one another. We need no name but Christian to see the family resemblance.

          If you read on to the next chapter of Joshua, you will find Joshua’s farewell to his people. It is both a caution and a challenge.  To the end God’s man, Joshua tells his people to fear the Lord, to serve him in sincerity and faithfulness, to put away any other Gods. Then Joshua utters that famous line: “Choose this day whom you will serve…but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Not long after, Joshua died. It is a fitting tribute to this great leader but humble man that it was said that Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived him and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel.

          In Joshua’s time, he served the Lord. He did it the best he could and his elders followed suit. It was a good time for God’s people. When we meet for Homecomings such as this, we are reminded that we too serve the Lord. This place is not just a watering hole for family reunions, though such events can serve the Lord very well. It’s not just a gathering place for the fraternity of Presbyterians, though that too can serve the Lord. It is, I think, a place for us to be refreshed, to be reminded that God is here and that God goes and comes with us to all the places and people of our lives; that it is His story that is the tie that binds us to one another over time and place.

          For a century and a half, Rocky Creek Presbyterian has existed in this area in some form or another. It has lasted that long because it served God. It will last much longer if it continues to do that. for it is not the mission of this church that excites us. It is, rather, the mission of God. We derive our mission as a congregation from that mission of our heavenly father. If we are informed by God’s Word, if we seek to validate that which we read in Scripture, then we will continue to be committed as God’s people. We are invited, indeed commanded, as surely as were God’s people by Joshua, to participate in God’s mission. We will continue to tell His Story. We will work for the redemption of not only our own souls, but for all of God’s creation.

          That’s a story worth telling the rest of our lives.