Choose This Day
Sermon Notes
Before he dies, Joshua pulls all of Israel together one last time and forces a decision: whom will you serve? In just twenty verses, the word "serve" shows up fifteen times, and the whole book comes down to that one question. The people say "yes" three times, and Joshua tells them the truth anyway. On their own, they can't pull it off. This final message in our Joshua: Legacy series looks honestly at why sincerity runs out, why God reminds us of His track record before He ever asks anything of us, and where the strength to actually follow through comes from. Come find out how the story ends.
Key Takeaways
Grace always comes before the choice. God spends thirteen verses recounting 500 years of what He has done for Israel before Joshua ever asks them to serve, because it is always identity before mission.
Everybody serves something. Joshua never offers "serve nothing" as an option, because it doesn't exist. The only real question is who, or what, you build your life around.
Sincerity isn't the same as faithfulness. Israel meant every word of their "yes," but Joshua warns them that a holy and jealous God is asking for something their good intentions alone cannot produce.
A better Joshua kept the covenant we keep breaking. Joshua and Jesus are the same name, "the Lord saves," and where the first Joshua could only point the way, Jesus served perfectly in our place.
Real effort starts from identity, not exhaustion. Spiritual disciplines flow best as the output of a heart that remembers who it belongs to, not as slave labor to earn God's approval.
Discussion Questions
When you look honestly at your week, what tends to compete for the loyalty that really belongs to God?
Why does it matter that God reminded Israel of everything He had done before He asked anything of them?
Where do you find it easy to say "yes" to God in a moment, but hard to follow through on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon?
What "permanent markers" could you set up so your faith holds steady even when the feeling is gone?
Have you ever tried to serve God out of duty instead of identity, and what did that exhaustion feel like?
What changes for you knowing that Jesus, the better Joshua, kept the covenant you couldn't keep on your own?
This Week's Challenge
Set up one permanent marker this week, whether it's a verse on your wall, a weekly rhythm of rest, or taking the Lord's Supper with your family, to remind you who you belong to.
Transcript
Last Words Are Lasting Words
Here we are on our final week in the book of Joshua. When we kicked off this series back in February, we said we'd see that God prepares His people, He sends His people, and He establishes His people.
My dad used to say that "last words are lasting words." When you know you're near the end, the small talk falls away. You don't spend your final breath talking about the new H-E-B in Murphy or whether the Cowboys will ever figure it out. You focus on the thing that matters most with the people who matter most.
And that's exactly where we find Joshua. He's 110 years old and about to die. One final gathering. One last family meeting.
The Question Behind the Whole Book
You'd expect Joshua to hold this at Shiloh, where the tabernacle was. But he doesn't. He calls the nation to Shechem, the same spot where, 500 years earlier, Jacob told his household to put away their foreign gods. Joshua is about to say the exact same thing.
If you want to know what his final words are about, count one word. In these twenty verses, "serve" appears fifteen times. This passage is about service. And the question of the passage is the question of the whole book: who are you going to serve?
This chapter isn't aimed at the leaders. It's aimed at everybody.
Grace First, Then the Choice
Before Joshua asks anything, God speaks. Last week Brad unpacked those first thirteen verses, where God tells Israel's story in the first person. I took Abraham. I sent Moses. I brought you out. I gave you a land you didn't work and cities you didn't build. Over twenty times, God is the subject of the verb. The only thing Israel does is receive.
That matters. God walks them through 500 years of one-way generosity, and only then does Joshua say, "Now therefore."
Here's what's true. He acts before He asks. It's always identity before mission, and God never reverses that order.
Pick One
"Now therefore fear the LORD and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served."
The ask, in plain English, is this: serve God with all of you, and serve Him for real. Not the Instagram version of you. Not the "everything's fine" version that shows up on Sunday. The real you.
Then Joshua says something easy to skip past. "Put away the gods." He's talking to Israel. After the Red Sea, the manna, the Jordan, Jericho, there were still little gods riding along in their backpacks. Idolatry attaches itself to us in every season. Prosperity and desperation are both fertile soil for growing idols.
Nobody Gets to Serve Nothing
Joshua says, if serving the LORD is evil in your eyes, then choose today whom you will serve. But notice what's not on the menu. Serving nothing. Joshua doesn't offer that, because it doesn't exist.
Everybody worships. Everybody builds their life around something that promises to make it spin: money, comfort, approval, family, career, self. The question is never "will you serve?" It's only ever "who?"
And here's the thing about the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He doesn't join a collection. Choosing Him means rejecting everything else. So Joshua lays out the options, then he goes first. "As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."
We're All In
So how do the people respond? "Far be it from us!" They're all in. They give the full-credit answer: we will serve the LORD, for He is our God.
And I don't think they're just being agreeable. Their response is theologically spot on, informed by history, and emotionally sincere. They mean it.
Most of us have been Israel in this moment. We've stood in a service or sat at a kitchen table with an open Bible and said the right things with a sincere heart. And we meant every word. Then life punched us in the mouth. The confession is the easy part. The follow-through, not so much.
You Are Not Able
Then Joshua says something that kills the vibe: "You are not able to serve the LORD." He just spent two verses urging them to serve. They said yes. Now he tells them they can't do it.
He isn't being a contrarian. He's telling them the truth about what they just signed up for, and he anchors it in two things about God we badly underappreciate. God is holy, meaning He is in a category entirely by Himself, with no cracks, no seams, no hidden agenda. And God is jealous, meaning He will not share what belongs to Him.
It's not petty jealousy. It's the rightful claim of the only One in the universe who can actually make it.
Witnesses Against Themselves
A holy, jealous God isn't asking for your good, sincere intentions. He's asking for something your sincerity cannot produce on its own. Joshua was doing them a favor, sharing the truth before the truth bit them.
The people double down: "No! We will serve the LORD." So Joshua makes them witnesses against their own souls. If they walk away, they do it as self-confessed covenant breakers. No "we didn't know" excuses.
Then he circles back to the command he already gave: put away the foreign gods. He says it twice in one meeting. That repetition tells us how seriously he took the gap between an excited confession and commitment-based follow-through.
It's On the Record
Joshua does two things to lock this in. He writes the covenant into the Book of the Law, and he sets up a large stone under the oak as a witness that will outlast every feeling and good intention.
This is the sixth stone memorial in the book. God keeps saying, "don't forget." He's building a case that His people have a memory problem, and the solution isn't to try harder to remember. It's to build your life around things more permanent than feelings.
So let me ask: do you have permanent markers that will hold when the feeling is gone? Maybe it's the Lord's Supper, or weekly rest, or one passage nailed to the wall of your heart.
Three Graves
The book closes with three graves, and every single one is in the Promised Land.
Joshua is first. Here, at the very end, he finally receives a title the book had reserved only for Moses, used fourteen times and never once for Joshua until now: "the servant of the LORD." He's buried on his own ground, because God kept His word.
Then Joseph, whose bones were carried out of Egypt, through forty years of wilderness, across the Jordan, and buried in land Jacob bought 500 years earlier. Then Eleazar the priest, buried in his own inheritance. God kept every word. Not one failed.
One Generation
Tucked in the middle is one of the most bittersweet sentences in the Old Testament. "Israel served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua."
One generation. Not their children's children. One generation of faithfulness, and then the page turns and the book of Judges begins.
These verses should put the fear of God in every parent in this room. The elders who saw it all stayed faithful. Their kids didn't. Faithfulness doesn't pass through the bloodstream. Every generation has to stand at their own Shechem and answer for themselves.
A Better Joshua
The question Joshua couldn't answer is the one that hangs over all of us: what does God do with a people who mean it but can't pull it off?
His answer is to send a better Joshua. The name Joshua in Hebrew is Yehoshua, "the LORD saves." Shortened to Yeshua, carried through Greek and Latin, it becomes Jesus. Same name. Same meaning.
The first Joshua pointed to something he couldn't deliver. The second Joshua delivered. In a garden called Gethsemane, He said, "Not my will, but Yours be done." He served the Father with sincerity and faithfulness, perfectly, and He makes His track record available to you by grace through faith as a free gift.
There Is No Secret
Some of you have walked with Jesus a while and, if you're honest, you're exhausted. You keep hearing "try harder, read more, pray more, give more." You'd love a magic formula. But here's what's true: there is no silver bullet.
Your relationship with Jesus is exactly that, a relationship. It ebbs and flows, and like any relationship, it takes real effort. But that effort has to start from identity. Some of us are exhausted because we've stopped seeing ourselves as sons and daughters and started living like slaves.
Spiritual disciplines are both an output and an input. When identity is top of mind, time with God flows out as joy. When it isn't, those same disciplines become the inputs that help us remember who we are.
Choose This Day
The secret of the Christian life is realizing there is no secret. It's Luke 9:23: deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Him. Some days that feels like joyful output. Some days it feels like denying yourself. Just like every significant relationship you have.
So I want to give you the same moment Joshua gave Israel. Not a guilt trip. Not a call to try harder. A choice, rooted in grace and backed by a God who has never once broken His word.
You're here because God prepared you, sent you, and is establishing you, not because you have it figured out, but because He finishes what He starts. In light of all of it, there's really only one response that makes sense. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
