The Choice is Yours

Sermon – November 6 2011 – Joshua 24:1-3, 14-25. Matthew 25:1-13

This story is patience and preparedness. Are you prepared?

Have you made your choice? Jesus tells us about ten women in our Scriptures. Ten bridesmaids who took their lamps to meet the bridegroom. Not all of them were prepared however for the party. The bridesmaids waited and waited for the arrival of the bridegroom. As they waited, they fell asleep.

Upon the arrival of the bridegroom, they woke up and five of them realized that they had no oil for their lamps. They could not join in the lighted walk with the bridegroom because they were not prepared, they had no light. While they tried to find oil for their lamps, the bridegroom came and went into the wedding banquet and the door was shut. The people that were not prepared were kept outside.

Are you ready? Is your house in order? Is your life in order? Do you have enough faith and hope and love within you to keep the candle burning in order to walk with Christ? There are many instances in the New Testament where the return of Christ is mentioned. People are always preparing for the return. There are people who use scholarly measures to calculate just when the time will be, we read Scriptures and try and figure it out.

But whenever it is, five bridesmaids were prepared. They were ready when Jesus came. When an expectant mother says “it’s time”, people better be ready. When the light turns green, we better be ready to travel onward through the light. All of the ten bridesmaids looked the same on the outside. All ten of them claimed to be ready. They were all given the opportunity to be ready. They all knew what was going to happen, and how it would happen, however, when the time came, only five of them were actually prepared, and ready to make the commitment.

We must be ready. We must be prepared to make the commitment, we must be prepared to take a stand and make a choice for our lives and the lives around us. We must be ready to holds in accountability the people in our lives that are either taking our oil from us, or simply draining it slowly. What is your oil?

What is it that Christ expects us to have when the time comes to meet him again? Maybe it’s faith, or hope, joy or peace, maybe it’s good deeds, and Christian living, maybe Christ simply wants us to join in the walk of the true light. But, we can’t let others snuff our light out before it comes time to share it. We can’t allow others to dampen our light because we are afraid of offending them or hurting them.

We each know what it is that makes our candles, our lives flicker in and out of God’s touch. We know what separates us from God. We know that sometimes we are too easy going or too comfortable to step out and stand up for when we know is right, for the Bible tells us is the truth. Love is an interesting thing. It isn’t always a kind word, or deed. It isn’t always a positive pat on the back or a little gift. Sometimes love is a stern word or a word of concern.

Often times we are afraid to stand up for what we believe in because we feel that we are being judgmental or non-loving, but in the unconditional love of God, in the love that is so immeasurable as God’s, there is still right and wrong.

Even God, who loves us so much, tells us right from wrong. Accountability doesn’t have to be judgmental. The five bridesmaids that were prepared were held accountable for their actions, they knew what to do, and they did it. The five that weren’t prepared, needed to be held accountable. Someone needed to remind them to be prepared for the coming of Christ. Maybe they were told and forgot? Maybe they were told and ignored the words, and maybe they were not told at all. We don’t know for sure, but the one thing we do know is that they weren’t allowed into the banquet.

Everyone makes choices. Choices of freedom, choices of love, choices of serving others, choices of holding each other accountable, choices of trust, and choices of faith. Joshua.

This story of Joshua involves the opportunity and celebration for choice. It is a covenant of action of choice and the celebration of the choice. Joshua gathers the people together, all the tribes and reminds them of who they are. He said, “long ago, your ancestors lived beyond the Euphrates and served other gods”. He was reminding them that somewhere along the line, their ancestors made a choice.

They chose the God of Israel. They chose to serve the one true God. Joshua was telling them to remind them that it was now their turn to make a choice. It was time for them to renew the pledge of their ancestors, to renew the pledge of faith and allegiance to the God that was able to do so many things for them.

He then recounted everything that had happened to the people and their ancestors and everything that God had done for them. After he shares all those things, he states, “Now therefore, revere the Lord, and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the other gods.”

We can relate to this. We hear stories of our ancestors, we hear stories of the Bible, yet, do we truly listen? We seem to make the same mistakes generation after generation. We are able to commit to some things, but have a hard time committing to God. We profess to worship God, and yet are often too busy on Sunday mornings to come to worship and Sunday School. We profess to serve all people, yet we forget and gossip, and work around those people we aren’t fond of. We say that we are faithful, yet we don’t stand up for Christ. WE say that we are Christians, yet we cower down when adversity faces us.

But Jesus and Joshua both tell us to stand tall. Joshua says, “Now, if you are unwilling to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your ancestors, or the gods of the land you are living, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Essentially, Joshua was telling them to make a decision. Choose THIS day whom you will serve, and do it. Stand up and serve your God. Our decisions affect more than just us, they affect our families, our communities, and our country. Joshua wasn’t the people to realize the gravity of their decisions. Faith decisions are just that – decisions of faith. And sometimes, they are hard because we want to understand too well and want it our way. Faith, however, is never a guarantee of anything except a relationship with God.

Are you going to prepare yourselves and have the oil for your lamps? Or are you going to be locked out of the party? We must continue to reflect and decide upon Joshua’s questions. We must choose who we are and who we serve. That might mean standing up with love in conflict, or standing up in peace. It might mean tough love, it might mean simply loving. But whichever your decision is, you choose THIS day whom you will serve, and do it. AMEN