Tips for Teaching This Week’s Session of The Gospel Project for Adults

Listen to this week’s leader training podcast with Y Bonesteele, team leader for The Gospel Project for Adults, for a summary and guidance in leading your group.

This week’s additional resources for study and preparation:

• Article: “The War Within” by Russ Ramsey
• Article: “A Prayer to Put Away Sinful Practices” by Erwin W. Lutzer
• Sermon: “A Serious Decision” by Josh Smith

Transcript of Leader Training Podcast:

Hi, this is Y Bonesteele, team leader of The Gospel Project for Adults. Welcome to another Leader Training Podcast. Today we are in Unit 7, Session 5, God Deserves Worship; with the core passage of Joshua 24:14-25 and the key concept of: God rightly deserves our full worship, which includes obedience to Him. 

In Joshua 24, we do need some setting up. God had led Joshua and the Israelites to conquer the land and having done so, the land was divided among the people by tribe. In Joshua 24 then, Joshua was older in years, The Gospel Project Commentary says he was around 110 years old on page 59. Joshua gathered the people to Shechem to give them his final words. We have noted Shechem before. It is the place where God first gave Abram his blessing in Gen 12:6-7: “Abram passed through the land to the site of Shechem, at the oak of Moreh. (At that time the Canaanites were in the land.) The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your offspring I will give this land.’” And that’s what God did for the Israelites. 

So Joshua gathered the Israelites at Shechem and started to tell them what the Lord wanted to say. He went through a review of Israel’s history starting with the idea that Abraham’s ancestors worshiped other gods. This to me sets the stage of rescue and redemption. It’s as if God said, they worshiped other gods, but I saved them from it, but I “took” Abraham, out of nowhere, and “led” him and “multiplied” his descendants. And the Lord continued to go through their history, emphasizing all that He did, saying “I” did this and “I” did that, to remind the people of His faithfulness, His goodness, His keeping of His promises.  

So we get to our core passage for today starting with the very important “Therefore.” Joshua continued the speech in his own voice.  God said all these things He did for us, “Therefore, fear the Lord and worship him in sincerity and truth.” God was saying, “I defeated Eqypt… I brought you to the land… I handed them over to you… I annihilated them… I rescued you… I gave you a land you did not labor for…”  So as God’s rescued people, “therefore, fear the Lord and worship him in sincerity and truth.” The word sincerity here is the word tamim in Hebrew, meaning complete, without blemish, faultless. It is the word that describes the offering lamb, one without blemish. The people are to fear the Lord and worship him blamelessly, completely. And “in truth,” also with the meaning of faithfulness and reliability and firmness. So Joshua was admonishing the people to fear the Lord and worship Him completely and faithfully. He made it clear that they were to “get rid of the gods.” And in verses 14 and 15, he mentioned 4 different options of who the people could worship. This is seen in The Gospel Project Commentary on page 62. 1) They could worship the gods beyond the Euphrates River, the false gods of Abraham’s ancestors, idols that did nothing. 2) They could worship the gods of Egypt, false gods who had no power, who could not deliver them from slavery. 3) They could worship the gods of the Amorites, the gods of the Canaanites who were wicked in every way, as they included child sacrifice and more horrific acts. Of 4) they could choose to worship the Lord of lords, the Almighty God, Yahweh. For Joshua, “As for me and my family, we will worship the Lord.” 

Joshua had to draw a line in the sand and call Israel to a decision point after all thaty they had seen and heard because he knew it would be easy for them to forget all that God did and go astray and follow other gods. Joshua wanted to make it plain as day that there were only two choices: God or something else; and there was only one right choice: God. But he also made it clear that they had the choice. God wasn’t going to force them to make a decision. But there were definitely consequences to whatever decision they chose. 

So after such a rousing speech, the people were amped up. They agreed with Joshua, choosing to worship God as they acknowledged that God did rescue them and protected them. “We too will worship the Lord because he is our God,” they said in verse 18. 

The Theology Connection here on Worship in the Leader Guide on page 67 reminds us further that worship for God’s people is more than just a church service or songs of praise. It’s giving God His due adoration out of a heart of gratitude and awe that starts from the heart and extends to all areas of life, usually expressed in obedience. Worship is done both individually and corporately and if someone tries to say it’s only individually, or only corporately, they haven’t read the examples in the Bible that show both are needed.  

And worship is a life and lifestyle commitment. It changes our trajectory when we decide to worship someone, or change who or what we worship. For the Israelites, depending who they worshiped, it involved a yearly commitment to certain holidays, celebrations, and remembrances. Monthly, it involved adhering to certain rules and life patterns. And daily, it also involved a change of life pace, a change of thought, a change of heart. People understood worship as a lifestyle not a one-and-done act as we do today. 

So when Joshua in verse 19 said, “You will not be able to worship the Lord, because he is a holy God,” he understood the weight of what it means to worship. Joshua continued in describing God, “He is a jealous God; he will not forgive your transgressions and sins. If you abandon the Lord and worship foreign gods, he will turn against you, harm you, and completely destroy you, after he has been good to you.” 

Whoa! That’s jarring! What is Joshua saying here and why does it seem so contrary to how we understand God’s grace and mercy? 

Joshua knew a lot about the Lord. He had been following Him his whole life and he had been faithful and obedient because He knew God. And he tried to help the Israelites understand. “He is a holy God. He is a jealous God.” And the covenant God made with the Israelites have always been the same and He has always been faithful to His responsibilities to the covenant. But the people had to do the same. Remember that a covenant is a partnership, a marriage of sorts; and both parties are expected to be faithful. So yes, at the time, God would not forgive their transgressions and sins if they “abandoned the lord and worshiped foreign gods.” That would be breaking their covenant, and God had every right to abandon them. But He gives them (and us) every chance to turn back to Him. Joshua wanted to be emphatic to the Israelites that they can’t be flippant about their resolve to follow God. Following God meant following only God. Not like how their neighbors followed as many gods as they wanted. They can’t have God and another god on the side, although the cultures around them were okay with that.  

So the people heard, and understood, at least for now, as we will see they continued to break their covenant in the future throughout the book of Judges. But for now, they said, “No! We will worship the Lord,” in verse 21. And Joshua reminded them, “You are witnesses against yourselves,” kinda like, “Okay, you all said it. We all heard you all say it—say that you’d be faithful and worship God—so no going back,” And they responded, Yes, “we are witnesses.” And Joshua then responds, “Then get rid of the foreign gods that are among you and turn your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.” Joshua wanted to be as clear as possible. There’s only one Lord, the God of Israel. Get rid of everything else and turn your hearts to Him. And again, the people responded, “We will worship the Lord our God and obey him” in verse 24. A final statement of faithfulness and obedience, because those two things do go together. Because if we truly worship someone, we know their good character and would do whatever they said. We would obey them in faithful worship of them. 

And verse 25 ends, “On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people at Shechem and established a statute and ordinance for them.” And in the following verses, it says he recorded what had transpired and he set stones as a witness to that covenant. 

This whole narrative is interesting. Does it remind you of something? It reminds me of a wedding when the bride and groom say their marriage vows. Joshua is like the pastor saying, “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the marriage, the covenant of two parties. God has been faithful to His people. But do you, Israel, take God as your God, to have and to hold from this day forward?” And they respond, “We do!” “Do you promise to get rid of foreign gods and turn your heats to God?” “We do.” “By the power invested in me, I pronounce your covenant binding.” That’s what it sounds like to me. And clearly the sentiments are very similar. They were renewing their covenant vows. 

Being human, the Israelites were not able to keep their covenant vows and a certain amount of judgment did come. But God continued to be merciful to His people and always has a plan for them to have an opportunity to come back to Him. This old covenant was a good covenant but unsustainable for God’s faithless people. He knew a new covenant had to be made to establish His people as His people for eternity. The only way to do that was to send His Son as a sacrifice for the sins of all. Only through Jesus could we ever hold up our side of the covenant vows. And through Him, God would forgive our transgressions and sins. He would continue to protect us and rescue us and redeem us. He is that loving and good. But we still need to choose Jesus. Choose to trust in His love and sacrifice. Choose to worship and obey Him alone, knowing we would not be perfect, but knowing His love and mercy is everlasting. 

Onto the Group Experience.  Start with a fun trivia of a few of those quotes on page 70 of the Leader Guide. As you draw out the Context, bring out Pack Item 5: Choose for Yourselves poster, having the visual of varying paths. Then pass out copies of Pack Item 6: Joshua’s Life handout, skimming through it, showing key events in his life from the books of Exodus through Joshua.  

Recap going over any highlight or questions your group might have from their study the past week. Note verse 19, if that is a difficult verse for your group. Remind them that God is always still a holy and jealous God. Without Jesus’s work on the cross, He would not be able to forgive our transgressions and sins because that would be against His holy character. But His perfect plan of Jesus’s death and resurrection as atonement for humanity’s sin, for those who choose to accept it and follow him, allows God to give us forgiveness, even in our wickedness, and we can be in His presence forevermore under the new covenant established by the work of Christ, Jesus, our Savior. 

Onto the Group Activity. Read verses 14-18 and discuss the idea of worship and what it means to do so in “sincerity and truth,” blamelessly and completely, in obedience. Then read, verses 19-25. Think about modern ideas we are drawn to that turn our eyes from God. These idols can tend to lead us toward worshiping other idols, for example, our family could be an idol that results in money being an idol or a big house or nice job as we defend our decisions because we think we want to love our family more. Our fame could be an idol that could lead to the idol of self or the idol of social media. Sometimes the idols are completely separate but it’s interesting to see where some line up and lead to others. There will be many options out there so feel free to work in groups or individually and take time to share people’s thoughts. 

Go over the debrief questions. The first one on page 72 of the Leader Guide is not in the PSG but your group can give their personal answers to that. The second question is in the Personal Study Guide on p. 58, asking, Why is it important to have our full devotion on God alone? Some answers might include, because God deserves it, and desires and commands it from us. Because He is the only one true God. Because when we don’t, our hearts are divided and we will sin in more ways than one. Because the devil tries to tempt us away from God but we must resist. What might it look like to worship God in every part of our life? Answers will vary but may include a more generous spirit. A genuine love of everyone, neighbors, coworkers, those who have hurt us and wronged us. A desire to proclaim Jesus wherever I go; a heart that preaches the gospel in word and deed. 

Summarize and head into the Head Heart Hands Section focusing on the Heart question if time is limited. How can you guard your heart to stay close to Jesus? Maybe managing your time better and setting aside time for God in silence, reflection, Scripture study, or prayer. Making sure you have people in your life to hold you accountable and grow with. Living a life of gratefulness to all Christ has done. 

Go into the Next Steps pointing out some action points. Note that the second bullet point about how you are leading your family in obedience, service and honor to God can relate to a physical family or a spiritual family. For those singles in your group, mention that family may include siblings and parents and extended families and/or spiritual family, people in your church or friends who love God. Go through prayer requests and praises and if time permits, pray through Psalm 136, focusing on verses 1-4. You can pray it like a responsive prayer as you remember how Joshua and the Israelites spoke in responses. Perhaps read the line, and your group can respond in “Your faithful love endures forever.” I’ve done responsive prayer with this Psalm when you start off reading the first 4 verses but then tell your group to add a praise or something they’re grateful for in popcorn prayer style and the group responds in “Your faithful love endures forever.” Let your group hear each other’s prayers of thankfulness and truly mean the words you’re saying, “Your faithful love endures foever.” God’s faithful love surely endures forever!  

Hey thanks for joining me on another Leader Training podcast. [email protected] is where to find me. Hope you have a great group time!