JOSHUA 24 - Choose This Day

WELCOME

PASTORAL PRAYER

READ

Joshua 24:1–33

INTRODUCTION

Every one of us knows a day like this one.

The last shift before retirement. The last night in a house you raised your kids in. The final page of a long book.

Days like that make you look back. They make you take stock. They make you set your sights on what comes next.

Joshua 24 is that kind of day for Israel. And this morning is that kind of day for us as we close this book together.

But on days like that, there is always one great danger. Forgetting.

I want to ask you: How many of you have made a real promise to God, meant every word of it, and then let it slide?

Me too.

So here is our question this morning: How do I keep from forgetting the God who has never forgotten me?

What we’ll see today is that the answer will not rest on the strength of your grip on God. It will rest on the strength of his grip on you.

The Setting

Joshua gathers all the tribes to Shechem… the place where God first appeared to Abram at the oak of Moreh and promised him this land, back in Genesis 12.

Now, hundreds of years later, Abram's descendants stand on that same soil, and it is theirs.

Look at verse 1: "They presented themselves before God."

They did not come to hear a man. Neither do we.

And then God speaks.

1. Remember His Grace (v.1-13)

Before Joshua asks Israel for one single thing, he hands them a rear-view mirror that reflects only God.

"I took your father Abraham… I gave him Isaac… I sent Moses and Aaron… I brought you out… I rescued you… I gave them into your hand." If you were to count the verbs in this section you’d find fourteen first-person verbs.

God is telling their story, and he is the subject of every sentence.

And then something beautiful happens in verse 13. The tense shifts. "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."

You eat. Present tense.

Grace did not just save them at the Red Sea.

Grace is feeding them at the dinner table.

Verse 12 pulls the credit away from the people entirely: "It was not by your sword or by your bow."

Think about the manna. In Exodus 16, God feeds Israel every morning with bread from heaven. But he tells them: gather only enough for today. And when some try to hoard it overnight, it breeds worms.

God designed grace as unable to be stockpiled.

The jar you filled yesterday is empty today. By design. So you keep coming back to the Giver rather than trusting your reserves.

Church, every believer in this room is on manna rations. Fresh grace, this morning, for this stretch of road.

Last Sunday, from chapter 23, we remembered the grace that saved us.

Today, lean into the grace that is sustaining you.

The scan next week. The kid whose faith is slipping. The retirement account that will not stretch. The marriage that is less vibrant than it used to be. The transition when a familiar leader has been away for a season.

The grace that carried you this far has not run out and will not.

And can I speak to some of you who are weary in your faith this morning?

Consider if you are tired because you have been trying to be your own manna. Perhaps trying to store up enough spiritual strength, enough moral effort, enough good days, to get through the week on your own reserves.

And you are running on fumes.

You were never designed to feed yourself. You were designed to be fed. Every morning. By him.

Remember his grace.

2. Renounce Your Rivals (v.14-18)

Once you have received grace like that, the next word is unavoidable.

Verse 14: "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."

Notice something staggering… They were still carrying idols! Idols from Ur, four hundred years old. Idols from Egypt, picked up on the way out. Standing in the promised land, hearing about God's faithfulness, and still holding statues in their tents.

Syncretism (that is, the attempt to blend the worship of the true God with the worship of other gods), not atheism, was the threat. It always is.

Verse 15: "Choose this day whom you will serve… But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD."

The Hebrew word for "serve," which is also the word for "worship," beats sixteen times through this chapter. It is the pulse and meter of the passage.

Jesus solidifies this message in Matthew 6:24: "No one can serve two masters. You cannot serve God and money."

Not "should not." Cannot. It is a logical impossibility, like being partly married.

A wedding vow does not say, "I will mostly forsake all others." A husband who says to his wife, "You are my primary spouse," has not honored her. He has insulted her. Divided devotion is not a smaller marriage. It is no marriage.

Now hear me carefully. Some of you are here this morning, and you are exhausted from your idols. You do not know that word for what you are feeling, but you feel it.

You have given your career the weight only God can bear, and now the career is buckling under the weight, and so are you.

You have given your child the identity that only God can give, and now the child cannot possibly live up to it, and neither of you is free.

You have given your reputation on this street the loyalty that belongs to Christ, and now you cannot even tell your neighbor about Jesus without your knees shaking.

The idols promise freedom and deliver bondage. Every single time.

The hard thing about idols is that they rarely announce themselves. They almost always begin as good gifts.

Work is a gift. Family is a gift. Success can be a gift. Even ministry is a gift.

The danger comes when a good gift subtly becomes an ultimate thing.

We begin looking to it for what only God can provide. Peace. Identity. Security. Hope. We may still sing the right songs and confess the right truths, but our hearts have begun leaning somewhere else.

That’s exactly what Joshua is confronting. Israel wasn’t denying the Lord. They were trying to carry Him alongside other gods.

If we walked outside right now, we probably wouldn’t see carved idols anywhere in Casselberry. Our idols are not usually carved. They are carried in our hearts.

Before we move on, let me ask you to examine your own heart.

Where are you most tempted to look for life apart from Christ?

Let me suggest a few places where idols can hide.

In your home, have you begun expecting your spouse or your children to give you the security, identity, or happiness that only God can give? Love them deeply. Do not ask them to be your savior.

For our students, whose voice decides whether you are accepted or forgotten? The approval of a group can become a cruel master.

In your workplace, is your career the thing that finally tells you who you are? A promotion is a good gift and a terrible god. Do your work as unto the Lord.

In your neighborhood, is your reputation on this street more important than your witness on this street?

They can even hide in church.

I’d invite you to recognize your rivals and, in a moment at the Communion table, put them away as you receive again the grace of Christ, whose body was given for you.

3. Rely on the Greater Joshua (v.19-28)

The people mean it. Three times they vow it.

Verse 18: "We also will serve the LORD."

Verse 21: "No, but we will serve the LORD."

Verse 24, the key verse of the entire book of Joshua: "The people said to Joshua, 'The LORD our God we will serve, and his voice we will obey.'"

And in the middle of it, Joshua says the strangest, kindest thing in the chapter.

Verse 19: "You are not able to serve the LORD."

You are not able.

Joshua is not being cruel. He is being honest. He knows their hearts.

He knows Judges 2 is coming, one page later in your Bible: "There arose another generation after them who did not know the LORD" (Judges 2:10).

One generation. That is how fast a people can forget.

But there is kindness underneath his words.

Joshua is not crushing their hope. He is exposing false confidence. Their future cannot rest on the sincerity of this moment or the strength of their willpower. They need the covenant faithfulness of God and the heart-changing grace he has promised.

Because even here in the Old Testament, God is already promising something more.

Deuteronomy 30:6: "The LORD your God will circumcise your heart, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart."

Ezekiel 36:26: "I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you."

The Israelites would have been wiser to say, "As the LORD helps us, we will serve him."

Church, hear this if you are worn out from re-committing. Having walked forward a hundred times and walked away a hundred and one, your perseverance does not finally rest on the strength of your promise. It rests on the One who prays for you and keeps you by his Spirit.

Renew the vow this morning. But renew it leaning rightly…

Proverbs 3:5–8

[5] Trust in the LORD with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

[6] In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

[7] Be not wise in your own eyes;

fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.

[8] It will be healing to your flesh

and refreshment to your bones.

Rely on the greater Joshua.

Christ, the Greater Joshua

The chapter ends with three graves.

Joshua is buried, and finally he is given the title only Moses has had throughout this book: "the servant of the LORD" (v. 29).

Joseph's bones are laid in the ground at Shechem, four hundred years after he died in Egypt, still believing God would bring his people home (v. 32).

And Eleazar the priest is buried in the hill country of Ephraim (v. 33).

A prophet. A king-figure. A priest. All three, in the ground.

And the whole story leans forward, aching for someone who is all three and will not stay buried.

His name is Joshua. In Greek, it is Jesus. Same name.

This Joshua led Israel into a land they would eventually lose.

The greater Joshua leads his people into an inheritance "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4).

This Joshua could only speak the words of God. The greater Joshua is the Word of God.

Eleazar could only offer a lamb for the people. Jesus is the priest who is also the sacrifice, "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29).

Joseph rode in the second chariot of Egypt. Jesus is King of kings, and "the government shall be upon his shoulder" (Isaiah 9:6).

Joshua earned his title at the end of a long, faithful life. Jesus is the true suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, who was pierced for our transgressions.

"You are not able to serve the LORD." True.

So God, in the incarnation, "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Christ served the Father completely where you and I serve half-heartedly. His first recorded words are about his Father's house. Among his last are "It is finished." He kept the covenant we break. And by his Spirit, he now circumcises the hearts that stone monuments could never change.

If you are here this morning and you have been keeping God at arm's length, hedging your bets, running your own show, hear me carefully.

You cannot save yourself. You were never meant to. And if you have been trying, you know the exhaustion of it. You know the way it hollows you out.

The One who says, “Choose this day,” went to the cross to save people who could never save themselves. He bore the judgment covenant breakers deserve.

Like Rahab in this very book, you do not have to clean yourself up first. You only have to run to him.

Do not walk out of here today the same way you walked in. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart.

The Close

How do I keep from forgetting the God who has never forgotten me?

Not by tightening my grip. By resting in his.

Israel wrote their vow in a book. They set a stone under an oak. And still they forgot. We have something better than a monument. We have a Savior who holds us and a Spirit who will not let us go.

So this week, three words. Take them home.

Remember his grace. Every morning, fresh. That which saves, also sustains.

Renounce your rivals. Put them away by God’s grace revealing them to you.

Rely on the greater Joshua. He is stronger than your slipping grip.

Choose this day. Because his grip is stronger than your ability to hold fast.

Go into our week. Go to your desk, your kitchen, your classroom, your neighborhood. And there, serve the LORD. Whole, not in part. As the LORD helps you.

As we close this book, do not close the story of your life lived for the Glory of God… Serve him until you see him.