This Sunday's Worship Materials can be found in the "Featured Sermon" below. We meet in person at Harper Park Middle School, and the service is also livestreamed on our YouTube channel.

Heart Prep for Sunday, March 28th

There’s lots of common words that have taken on a negative connotation these days.  These are words that used to be considered positive words, but with the changing values of our society, they’re viewed more negatively now.  One of those words is “obedience.”  Our society has placed such a high value on the concept of  “individual freedom” and has given it somewhat unconstrained independence from such things as traditions, standards, rules, laws, and societal norms.  Thus, people cringe when they have to “obey” any authority outside themselves (teacher, police officer, parent, judge, etc.) because they claim that impinges on my “freedom.”

Well, yes and no.  It all depends on who is the ultimate authority in your life.  Freedom without regulation is anarchy and usually leads to times of rebellion (not for us, of course, but, you know, for those other people).  And that’s a problem.  Because for the Christian, the authority is God and not us.  So freedom is granted by God, and regulated by Him, and comes with instructions, such as we find in 1 Peter 2:16, “Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.”

And what does all of this have to do with Joshua 8, our text for this week.  Well, this sermon is on “The Promise of Obedience.”  After the disastrous defeat at Ai, God promises His people a new start and in turn, they promise Him a new commitment.  A commitment to “hear His words, understand them, believe them, and obey them” — something I pray for before each sermon in this series.  The people promise to obey God and God promises to bless them in return. 

So, what’s the problem?  Well, obedience is disliked, and carries negative connotations, because sometimes it’s … hard.  Yes, sometimes it’s hard to obey God.  And so this week we’re going to look at what we can do to make obedience to God a greater joy and a lesser burden.  It should be interesting … I’ll see you Sunday, Dr. Dave