Talk
BRO. BO SANCHEZ:
HOW many of you just had a difficult week? Raise your hand. I want you to be proud that you went through a difficult week. Why? Because life is difficult.
Some people complain, “Brother Bo, I pray. I go to Mass. I’m close to God.
Why is life so difficult?”
I counter: “Do you pray or go to church because you want an easy life? I’ve got news for you. It won’t happen– whether you pray or you don’t pray. You’re going to have a difficult life because life is difficult.
But I’ve got news for you.
Life is difficult but beautiful. Do you know why it can’t be beautiful?
Not because God will make your life easy, but He will give you the strength to endure.
Say this with me: “Choose your difficult.”
Who among here finds it difficult to exercise? Is it difficult to wake up in the morning when your alarm clock is going off, and the temptation is just to hit the snooze button? Is it difficult to wear your rubber shoes and to start walking?
Yes, it’s difficult.
But if you do not do that, it will also be difficult to be 70 years old– and your muscles will have atrophied. So, it’s difficult to exercise, but the results of not exercising are also difficult. Choose your difficult.
Last year, I gradually stopped eating ultra-processed food. It’s difficult.
What is ultra-processed food? You enter a grocery store. You get a product from the shelf. You look at the back. You read the ingredients. If the ingredients have lots of words you cannot understand and you cannot pronounce 75% of those words, that’s ultra-processed food.
What should you do? Return it to the shelf. It is difficult to do that because those foods are very delicious. Don’t blame yourself. There are multi-billion companies who have hired an army of scientists who have concocted a process and chemicals to make such foods addictive. It is difficult to choose the right food.
What’s Your Choice?
I’m a semi-old guy. I’ve learned to eat simple food. I eat eggs. I eat lettuce.
I eat papaya. I eat sweet potato. How many ingredients does each of those foods have? Just one. It’s absolutely boring.
It’s difficult.
But if you keep on eating ultra-processed food and extreme sugar, it’s difficult not to have diabetes, not to have cancer. I’m no scientist. There is no direct link to that. Perhaps there is some connection, but I cannot prove it to you.
Again, choose your difficult.
Last example:
To say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” is difficult, especially if you’ve been doing it since 1980.
May Ulanday was with me in 1980– in that garage.*
We were so young, May. We were serving the Lord.
Now, we’re not very young. But 40 plus years, 45 years later, our battle cry is still: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
It’s very difficult.
On the other hand, when you do not serve the Lord, when you do not follow Him, when you do not love Him, when you do not obey Him, it’s also very difficult. You will have no peace and no real joy. Choose your difficult.
*Bro. Bo’s parents, Bro. Gene and Sis. Pilar, started a prayer meeting in 1980 in the garage of their home on Chicago Street, Cubao, Quezon City, attended by 30 persons: their children– five girls and Bo, then only 13 years old– so 12 The FEAST FAMILY March 2, 2025 me friends, and neighbors. That prayer meeting is now the Light of Jesus Feast.
BRO. AUDIE VILLARAZA:
Before we receive the Word of God today, let’s lift our hands and let’s all sing:
Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet And a Light unto my path.
We’re going to continue our Talk on Joshua and the Israelites today.
This is Talk 2 of our series, WHO CAN LEAD US?
Walk with me as we open our Bibles to Joshua 24:14. Joshua is advising the people of Israel and he says:
I love that Joshua gives this sense of urgency, but before he does that, he says: “Who do you want to serve?”
He gives you options.
Life is full of options. But sometimes, you make the wrong choice.
Choose Today
I came from Tacloban this morning.
Before I went up inside the plane, the people in Tacloban told me, “Brother Audie,
we really pray that you’re going to land safely because there’s a lot of rain here in the city.”
As we were about to descend, the plane started shaking as we happened to pass through a turbulent path. I was on the edge of my seat.
I was like, “Is this my last day?”
In my mind, I was already saying goodbye to my loved ones…
Thankfully, I landed safely. Then, at Mass yesterday, I heard the homily of the priest — Rev. Fr. Raymund Mazo, Parish Priest of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Fr. Raymund said: “How many of you want to go to Heaven?” People raised their hands.
Then he said: “How many of you want to die right now?”
For you to get to Heaven, you need to die first. But none of us want to die because it’s scary and uncertain.
I realized that the greatest decision that you can ever make in your life when you think about dying today is to start choosing the God that you will worship.
Joshua says: “Choose today.”
Not tomorrow. God doesn’t promise us tomorrow. We get only today.
So, as long as you have breath, choose to serve God. Who will you worship? Is it going to be the false idols or the one true King who has control over everything? Choose today. Don’t delay.
Let’s pray. Put your hand over your chest and say:
“Lord, I’m here. Speak to me. I need Your wisdom. I am Your servant.
I am listening.
In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
One more time, Everybody, lift your hands and give honor and reverence to the Word of God:
Thy Word is a Lamp unto my feet And a Light unto my path.
The Lesson
A few weeks ago, my family and I made a surprise visit to my mom and my sister in Calaca,
Batangas. They’ve been living there for five years. Their place is in the middle of nowhere. There’s only one spot, which is one square meter that has no online signal. It’s like you’re living in the Dark Ages. But they love the peace and quiet.
But here’s the thing. When we arrived,
I noticed that my sister was a little agitated.
I found out that it was because for the last 48 hours, the surrounding neighbors had been singing karaoke non-stop.
The context is this. This is important. My family has been living there only for five years. The people who were singing had been there longer.
In a nutshell, that is the story of Joshua. When the Israelites were freed from Egypt, they walked in the wilderness for 40 years. The Lord promised them a land that was flowing with milk and honey. But when they got to the Promised Land, they didn’t see a land flowing with milk and honey. They saw a land flowing with people. Canaanites were already living there. They already had values and customs. They were worshiping pagan gods– unlike the Israelites, who worshipped God.
Just like any good leader and any good parent, the Israelites tried to protect their innocent ones from falling into the same trap of worshiping pagan gods, sacrificing human beings, and doing all these stuff that was evil in the eyes of God.
Unfortunately, they fell hard into that same pattern of worshiping false gods and false idols.
If you are slowly just coming to form your faith right now, you are a baby Christian. You’re only getting to know God. The last thing that you need to do is to get into a debate with somebody whose faith is already formed, especially if they have a different belief system. Instead of becoming the influencer, you’ll become the influencee. They’ll take you on for a ride, and you’ll start believing in the same things that they’re going to do.
So, what do you do you? Get yourself strong first. Form your faith, then, go out and start talking to people, evangelizing them.
That’s the lesson. Be strong first before you head out because that’s the only way that you’re going to resist temptation. But if you read Joshua, there’s a question that I’m sure some of you might be asking. Why does it seem like God is against us worshipping false idols? Does God want all the attention?
The Message Today
Listen to me. First, God is God — whether you believe in Him or whether you worship Him or not.
The reason the Lord doesn’t want us to worship false idols is that in the biblical representation, false idols represent the Devil. They represent evil. They represent darkness.
Brother Bo says it all the time: “You become the god that you worship.”
When you worship the Devil, you become exactly like him. You start opening your life to what’s evil. We live in a society that worships evil. Look around you. So many people have fallen to the dark side.
That’s extra reference to people who love Star Wars. Isn’t that what they say?
Dark side, Darth Vader…
Do you want to know how you can tell that people are in love with darkness?
When they know that something is wrong and evil and yet still defend it.
Because you don’t mind. To you, it’s okay. And you start negotiating with God: God, so many commandments. Can’t we just make Commandment No. 8, Thou shall not steal, as Thou shall not steal too much?
Here’s my question: Between you and God, who needs to adjust? If you answer that the Lord needs to adjust, know that you’re living a lie.
You’ve got to face your evil and tell God: “I need this to go. It’s an idol that I’m worshiping.”
Sometimes, we idolize stuff. I know some people who will never kneel in a public place because they’re wearing Gucci, and it might get dirty.
It’s a message– and I’m preaching this to myself, by the way: You don’t own stuff, but stuff owns you.
That’s the message today. We need to ask ourselves: “Am I humanizing evil? Am I justifying evil in my life simply because it’s comfortable and it’s convenient for me?”
God is trying to open our eyes today. In Joshua– if you read the entire Bible– you’ll be shocked. If you’re not used to violence, you’re going to see that there’s a whole lot of killing in this book. Sometimes, you might even ask, why did God allow all of this violence to happen?
I’ll read some of them to you later on. For now, we’ve got to ask two questions about the book of Joshua.
Two Questions
1. Did genocide happen in Joshua? There was a lot of killing. Let me read to you one example:
Isn’t that genocide? Violence happening all around…
Whenever you’re reading the Bible, especially the Old Testament, you cannot read this book using modern lenses.
This is literal in every sense because this is a book that tells you Theology.
The authors use a technique called hyperbole — from time to time, they would exaggerate to stress a point.
Here’s the second question:
2. Why fight neighbors instead of loving them?
Instead of pushing out the neighbors– the Canaanites– shouldn’t it have been that the Israelites just loving the Canaanites?
Because that’s what Jesus said, right? Love your enemies. Turn the other cheek.
Pray for those who persecute you.
Couldn’t it have been easier doing God’s ways?
The author is trying to make this beautiful point that when it comes to sin, you need to violently eradicate it from your life. You need to destroy evil.
The Point of Joshua’s Story
The story of Joshua is not just about conquering people and invading lands. It’s trying to conquer the sin that’s in all of us. The darkness that has festered
and infected your sick soul. The author is trying to tell us that you cannot rest until evil has been defeated.
I’m not saying that you need to hate your enemies.
That’s not the message. The message is to hate evil.
Evil needs to be destroyed, but the enemy needs to be saved.
That’s what Jesus is all about. He said: “Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.”
He said, “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”
Jesus loves every person. I’ll prove it to you. Because this is the focal point of the entire story of Joshua. Listen to this. It is going to bless you.
Joshua 5:13-14 says:
This man is a representation of God, or could be God Himself. This man says, “Neither…”
Joshua asks: “Are you for this side– for our side? Or their side– the enemies’ side?”
Sometimes, that’s how we treat God: “Lord, bless my side because this is the good side. Don’t bless the other side, they’re the enemies.”
It’s not a question of whose side God is on. It was not a battle between the Canaanites and the Israelites.
The question is, are you on God’s side?
I’ve got to warn you: To be on God’s side, you’ve got to be on the good side. But we know that the good side is the hard side– because it’s not easy to do.
What’s Your Choice?
We need the grace of God so we can tell God: “Lord, give me the strength to walk this path.
It’s a hard path, but it’s the right path. It leads to life. It leads to love. It leads to purpose and significance.”
We always pray: “Lord, bless my plans.”
Joshua is giving us that choice of who to worship.
But then he says: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”
The scary part is that God will allow you to choose to worship false gods. Joshua shows us how a real man should do it. Parents, this message is good for you. You have the authority and the responsibility to be the ones to lead your family– even though some of them might not be following Jesus. You proclaim and prophesy for them.
You have divine authority over your family. The Lord has given you the power to lead them to Jesus. Make the decision today to follow God because that’s the calling that He has placed on you.
Joshua is from the Old Testament called Yeshua. But did you know that there is another Joshua in the New Testament? He is Jesus. (Jesus’ name in Hebrew was Yeshua which translates to English as Joshua )
Jesus and Joshua have the same name, which means Yahweh saves.
The way that Jesus showed us how He will save us is so good because it’s an upside-down Kingdom.
When the Jews were praying for a Messiah, they were somehow expecting that it would be a military general, a commander who would violently eradicate all of the oppression that they were getting from the rulers of that time. They were thinking that this person would destroy evil just like how Joshua and the Israelites destroyed the evil people during their time.
But Jesus showed us a different way of battling with our enemies. Instead of killing them with a sword, He battled them with the Word that gave them life. .
We Need God’s Grace
You cannot fight evil with evil. The way that you fight evil is with God’s goodness. You kill them with kindness.
When they hurt you, love them back. When they say something negative about you, pray for them. When they persecute you, thank God that this makes you strong because that’s the way of Jesus.
When people punished, ridiculed, and killed Him, Jesus said: “Father, forgive them for they do not know what they’re doing.”
Instead of harming them, Jesus healed them, and he loved them.
I know it’s hard to love people like that, but that’s why you need the grace of God– because you cannot do it by yourself. If you rely on your strength and wisdom, you’re never going to love like Jesus loves.
We need the grace of God to come over us for us to be able to say:
“Lord, change me from within. I can’t fight evil on my own, but You overcame evil. With You powering me and my heart and giving me the strength to say no to temptation, I believe that I can do it. Give me your strength. Give me Your resiliency. Give me Your self-control. With You in my life, I can do all things.”
You’ve been fighting evil all your life, but you’ve come to a pivotal point in your life where you can make a decision forever. Who will you worship?
Are you going to worship false gods that are going to consume you and give you crosses that you cannot bear? Or are you going to worship the one true God who will give life to you?
One last story.
I also traveled to Davao a few weeks ago to give a talk at one of their Feasts.
I stayed in a hotel. I woke up at 5:00 a.m. I went to the concierge to ask if they had a gym.
He said, “Yes, we have one on the third floor.”
I went up. I looked around, but I couldn’t see a gym. I walked back and forth until I found a door with this sign: TEMPORARY GYM.
The gym was so tiny. It was one of the rooms of that hotel. But I realized that it’s okay to use the gym because I only use a few equipment.
I realized that the Lord was speaking to me at that moment. I said to myself that I’m happy with this temporary gym. Why? Because the next day, I was going home. I was only temporary in that place.
Commitment
A lot of us treat life in this world like this is our permanent home, but you need to realize that you’re just a temporary pilgrim here. Some of you live like you’re going to live forever.
There’s a sense of urgency when Joshua says, “Choose today.”
Choose today because you’re never going to know if you’re going to be gone tomorrow or the next minute. So, you need to make a decision right now who you are going to worship.
Are you ready to give your life to Jesus? I want you to pray this prayer with me, and you say it like it’s your prayer.
Put your hand over your chest and say:
“Dear Jesus, I am a sinner, and I need a savior. You are that Savior. With Your power, I can overcome sin. I Thank You because You are my Lord. Starting today, I will call You my Redeemer. I will walk with You no matter how hard it is because I know You will be with me. Thank You, Jesus.”
Love Offering
BRO. DIDOY LUBATON:
Everybody, give praise, and shout, and clap offering to the Lord a beautiful Sunday we have here.
I’m going to give you time to choose today who you will serve. Your giving is the reflection of who is your God.
This is why we build church: We want to pass this on to the next generations. Our legacy is not just their academic performance, not just their achievements. Our legacy as the Community, most especially, is that they get to know the Lord, they get to have a deeper relationship with Jesus. Through your giving, we can do this…
In the Name of the father, of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Lift your hands and say:
Jesus, I give this to You as a sign that it is You who I will serve today and forever.
Thank You for blessing me and help me to continually bless others. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
HOSEA and HALEY: Lord, we offer you this day our songs, dances, and prayer. Teach us to be good, to learn to love and to pray. Amen.
In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Give joyfully to the Lord, Everybody. See you. God bless us. Have a great Sunday.
