But As For Me

Welcome graduating seniors and families! You finally did it!

Graduation is kind of like standing at a giant fork in the road.

For the last 18 years, someone has told you where to go—what time to get up, what classes to take, what team to join, what church event to attend. But now... that structure is gone. You’re standing there, diploma in hand, and ahead of you is a massive trailhead sign with a dozen paths stretching out in every direction. Some look exciting. Some look safe. Some look risky. Some look like they’ll be fun for a while, but who knows where they lead?

What you may not realize is: you don’t get to stand at that fork forever. Choosing not to choose is still a choice. And like it or not, the direction you take from here will define your future: your habits, your friendships, your marriage, your career, your faith. Joshua knew this moment well. We talked about it last week. He was standing in front of a nation at a fork in the road—and he said to them what I want to say to you today: ‘Choose this day whom you will serve.’ Not tomorrow. Not next semester. Not after you get your life together. Today.

So the question for you is simple—but life-changing: Who are you going to serve?

Let’s begin by reading our main text together, Joshua 24:1-18

Joshua 24:1–18 ESV

Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and summoned the elders, the heads, the judges, and the officers of Israel. And they presented themselves before God. And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac. And to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. And I gave Esau the hill country of Seir to possess, but Jacob and his children went down to Egypt. And I sent Moses and Aaron, and I plagued Egypt with what I did in the midst of it, and afterward I brought you out. “ ‘Then I brought your fathers out of Egypt, and you came to the sea. And the Egyptians pursued your fathers with chariots and horsemen to the Red Sea. And when they cried to the Lord, he put darkness between you and the Egyptians and made the sea come upon them and cover them; and your eyes saw what I did in Egypt. And you lived in the wilderness a long time. Then I brought you to the land of the Amorites, who lived on the other side of the Jordan. They fought with you, and I gave them into your hand, and you took possession of their land, and I destroyed them before you. Then Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, arose and fought against Israel. And he sent and invited Balaam the son of Beor to curse you, but I would not listen to Balaam. Indeed, he blessed you. So I delivered you out of his hand. And you went over the Jordan and came to Jericho, and the leaders of Jericho fought against you, and also the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And I gave them into your hand. And I sent the hornet before you, which drove them out before you, the two kings of the Amorites; it was not by your sword or by your bow. I gave you a land on which you had not labored and cities that you had not built, and you dwell in them. You eat the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant.’ “Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods, for it is the Lord our God who brought us and our fathers up from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, and who did those great signs in our sight and preserved us in all the way that we went, and among all the peoples through whom we passed. And the Lord drove out before us all the peoples, the Amorites who lived in the land. Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for he is our God.”

Before we break this down, let me give you some quick context on what’s happening here.

Joshua 24 is the final chapter of the book. Joshua is an old man now—well over 100 years old—and this is his farewell speech. He has led Israel for decades after Moses died. He’s seen the people cross the Jordan River, march around Jericho, fight battle after battle, and finally take hold of the land that God promised them. Now, his time is almost up, and he gathers everyone—the leaders, the elders, the heads of households, the priests—and brings them to a place called Shechem.

That’s important. Shechem isn’t just a random spot on the map. It’s a place of deep history for the people of Israel:

It’s the place where God first promised Abraham that his descendants would inherit the land (Genesis 12:6-7).

It’s where Jacob buried idols under an oak tree, symbolizing his family’s commitment to the one true God (Genesis 35).

And just a few decades earlier, Joshua himself had gathered the people there to renew their covenant with God (Joshua 8).

So this place—the setting—is a powerful visual reminder: This is where your people said yes to God before. Now it’s your turn.

Joshua stands before them like a general giving his last command and a father giving his final blessing. He walks them through a history lesson—not about their greatness, but about God’s faithfulness. He says:

“Don’t you remember? God chose Abraham. God rescued you from Egypt. God parted the Red Sea. God gave you this land. And God did all of that, not because you were awesome, but because He is faithful.”

Then he hits them with a challenge: “So now you have to decide.”

That’s where we find ourselves this morning. You, seniors, are standing in your own version of Shechem. You’re about to walk away from the structure and support that’s been surrounding you for years. You’re about to face a hundred different choices: about faith, about identity, about who you listen to, who you love, and who you serve. And like Israel, your future doesn’t just happen. It’s shaped by the choices you make right now. So here’s the challenge I want to put in front of you—just like Joshua did:

Make a choice. Own it. And follow through.

Who are you going to serve?

Can I tell you a story real quick? A.E Kinship published a book about the findings of Benjamin Warfield in the late 1800s. In 1874 a sociologist named Benjamin Warfield was doing a study on the population of one prison in upstate New York. He found several prisoners that had the same last name; in his research he changed the name to Jukes, even though they came from four different families. He continued to do some research on these men, and found out that they were all related, but distantly. He continued to look into this family's history, and found that of the living 29 male members of this family tree, 17 of them had spent time in jail. He traced these men’s lineage back five generations to a Dutch immigrant, named Max Jukes. He followed the family through 13 New York Counties, and found that just like in his generation, the previous generations of Jukes were not exactly upstanding citizens. Of the 540 ancestors he could find of Max Jukes, 150 had served significant time in prison, 18 of them were brothel keepers, 120 of them were prostitutes, 200 members of the Jukes clan had received welfare from the state, and between the family members in the prison system and the welfare system, the state of New York had spent $1.3 million on this family by the year 1877.

Benjamin Warfield also tracked and studied the lineage of another American family; the family of Jonathan Edwards. From the time he was a teenager, he resolved to ask himself at the end of every day “was there a way I could have served the Lord better today.” God certainly blessed Edward’s life and ministry, but his greatest legacy isn’t a sermon he preached, or a book he wrote. Garfield was able to find 1,394 descendants of Edwards in five generations. Among them he found 13 college presidents, 65 college professors, 30 judges, 100 lawyers, 60 physicians, 75 army and navy officers, more than 100 pastors, more than 100 missionaries, 60 authors of prominence, 3 United States senators, 80 public servants in other capacities including governors and ministers to foreign countries, and one vice-president of the United States.

Max Jukes never went out of his way to decide to have a dysfunctional family; he just never decided to do anything worthwhile. Jonathan Edwards decided everyday of his life that he and his family would serve the Lord, and we can see the fruit of that.

In the passage we read this morning, Joshua was addressing the people of Israel one last time. In a lot of ways, they were very similar to our graduates. For their entire lives they had been told where to go, what to do, when to begin and when to end, but now they were going to be on their own for the very first time. They would not have to report to a military leader, they would not have to only set up their tent in one designated area, they were spreading out over an entire country, they could finally make choices for themselves and start a life of their own. We don’t have time to go through the entire passage verse by verse this morning, but there are several things I want to highlight.

The first is the fact that before the people of Israel ever made a choice, in fact hundreds of years before they were even born… Check this out: Joshua 24:2-3

Joshua 24:2–3 ESV

And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many. I gave him Isaac.

God Chose First

God did not choose Abraham and his descendants on any merit of their own, He chose them because He wanted to. Joshua wants the people of Israel to know that the reason that they have a relationship with God, and other nations don’t, has nothing to do with them being any better. It was only by the grace and will of God that He has blessed, preserved, and protected them as a nation. He then reminds them of all of the times God has worked in their favor. He reminds them of what God did for their parents; of how He liberated them from slavery, protected them from the Egyptian army, and allowed them to cross the Red Sea on dry ground. Then he reminds them what God had done for them in recent years; how He protected them from army after army in the desert, enabled them to cross the Jordan River, provided miraculous military victory after miraculous military victory, and now had given them peace and a country, a homeland for them to settle and populate. And this all happened because God chose them.

Next, Joshua tells the people that they have to make a choice, and it is not a choice they can put off. He doesn’t say that this is something you can come back to later; he says chose now. Joshua 24:14-15

Joshua 24:14–15 ESV

“Now therefore fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

Because Not Choosing is a Choice

The reason he said “choose now” is because he knew that everyone is going to serve someone. If the Israelites were not going to serve the Lord, they would be serving something, whether they intended to or not. And choosing nothing is really choosing anything but God. As you move off and start your lives, remember that. Not choosing to serve anything is choosing not to serve God. And what about Joshua?

Joshua made a choice, he made it emphatically, “But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” He said, no matter what anyone else is going to do, here is what I am going to do. And the people followed his example. Look what is says there in our text: Joshua 24:16

Joshua 24:16 ESV

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods,

That verse tells us that People Follow Choices

The people wanted an example that they could follow, so seeing Joshua make his choice made it that much easier for them to make theirs. So parents, during this time, choose to follow Jesus so your kids can see that example and follow after God as you are. Graduates, choose to follow Jesus so others may see how you live your life and they may choose to imitate you as you imitate Christ.

The same things that Joshua told the Israelites three thousand plus years ago are true to us today. God chose first. The fact that you are sitting here to day is evidence to the fact that God loves you and wants you to choose Him. He has already done so much for you. He has paid the price for your sins, through Jesus, and based on nothing you bring to the table, He loves you. God has already chosen.

But indifference to God is not an option, Not Choosing is a Choice. If you are waiting until you are older or more established, or out of school, or married to serve God, you are not simply putting off your choice; you are actively choosing not to serve Him, and to serve something else in his place, and that is idolatry.

People follow choices. Do you want to make a difference in your world, in your family, in your legacy? Make a choice, and follow through with it. People follow choices. They don’t follow empty words they follow choices.

So who are you going to serve? As you graduate and begin to experience new freedoms, trials and temptations, you will find that everyone is serving something. Will you be willing say “but as for me, I will serve the Lord”?

Church, this isn't just a message for our graduates. What they need most from us isn't applause—it's an example. They need to see us choosing to serve the Lord, even when it’s hard.