Passage: Joshua 24
The Big Idea
Joshua’s final message retells everything God had done for Israel, without mentioning a single one of their failures, and then calls them to choose: “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.” Israel chose, but they couldn’t keep it, because they didn’t have God’s Spirit inside. In Jesus, we can fully surrender, not out of law-driven obedience, but out of love.
Draft Day
Picture the NFL Draft. Thousands of hours of film study, combine workouts and agent meetings, all leading to one moment. The commissioner calls a name. A young man walks across the stage, puts on the hat, shakes hands, and it’s done. He doesn’t get to play a few games for one team and a few for another to see which he likes better. He’s all in. One team. Total surrender of his options.
Joshua didn’t host a focus group at Shechem. He didn’t say, “Serve the Lord, and maybe Baal on the side if things get tough.” He called the people to the stage and said: put on the hat. Choose. Are you in or out? No crossed fingers. No backup plans. Choose today.
Presenting Themselves Before God (Joshua 24:1)
Joshua gathered all Israel at Shechem, and they presented themselves before God (Joshua 24:1).
I thought about that phrase a lot. It takes courage to present yourself to God. Is He judging me? Is He safe? Will He reject me? “We need to talk” can be a terrifying phrase.
Unless we’re convinced of His heart for us. How? Through His Word, which recounts what God has actually done to prove Himself trustworthy. That’s what makes full surrender possible.
The Story of Grace (Joshua 24:2-13)
Joshua retells Israel’s history, in God’s voice.
Abraham. God reminds them that their ancestors, including Terah, lived beyond the River and served other gods. Then God took Abraham, led him through Canaan, multiplied his descendants and gave him Isaac (Joshua 24:2-3).
Abraham was the son of an idol worshiper. God chose him before he knew God, and before he looked like a good choice. God doesn’t always make “good” choices; He makes His choices good. He led Abraham and gave him a son when it was impossible. Abraham never deserved any of it.
Jacob and Esau. “To Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau.” Twins, but very different. One strong in the flesh, the other weak and deceptive. One lived for himself; the other ended up broken and surrendered to God. God was faithful to lead both, and Jacob had the harder road, down into Egypt.
Moses and the exodus. Four hundred years later, Jacob’s family had grown into a nation, but enslaved. God sent Moses and Aaron, plagued Egypt, and brought them out (Joshua 24:5-7). When the Egyptians chased them to the Red Sea, they cried to the Lord, and He put darkness between them, brought the sea down on the Egyptians, and covered them.
Even when all hope was lost, God delivered them again and again.
What’s the point of all this history? To build a case for full surrender today.
The wilderness. They lived in the wilderness a long time. Forty years of manna, water from the rock, cloud by day and fire by night. Many of these people had seen it firsthand.
Notice what God doesn’t mention in this entire speech: their failures. Not the golden calf, not the complaining, not the unbelief at Kadesh.
That’s how God deals with us in the New Covenant. He forgives our iniquity and remembers our sin no more (Jeremiah 31:34). Oh, how we need to remember the forgetfulness of God!
Balaam. When Balak king of Moab hired Balaam to curse Israel, God wouldn’t listen to Balaam, so he blessed them instead (Numbers 22-24). It proved God was committed to blessing them, even when the enemy tried to ruin it all.
The promised land. They crossed the Jordan and came to Jericho, and God gave their enemies into their hand. He sent the hornet ahead of them, so the victory wasn’t by their sword or bow. He gave them a land they didn’t work for, cities they didn’t build, and vineyards and olive groves they didn’t plant (Joshua 24:11-13).
Every victory was unearned. A free gift of grace, always won by faith, never by their strength, commitment or effort. Everything they could see pointed to God as the Giver.
“Choose This Day” (Joshua 24:14-15)
So now, Joshua says, fear the Lord and serve Him sincerely and faithfully. Throw away the gods your ancestors served, and serve the Lord (Joshua 24:14).
- Fear the Lord: humility.
- Serve Him: purpose.
- In sincerity and truth: the method.
- Put away the other gods: there’s a choice to make.
And if serving the Lord seems undesirable to them, they must choose today whom they will serve. But Joshua and his household will serve the Lord (Joshua 24:15).
God will never force you. Jesus invites. He never manipulates. He gives you the freedom to walk away, with nothing but His love holding you back.
When many disciples left Jesus, He asked the twelve if they wanted to leave too. Peter answered: Lord, where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life (John 6:66-68).
“I have chosen, and I will choose”
Francis Schaeffer pointed out that the Hebrew verb here expresses ongoing action. Joshua was saying, in effect, “I have chosen, and I will keep choosing.”
He could say that because he had lived a life of continually choosing the Lord:
- He chose to fight the Amalekites when it might have cost everything (Exodus 17:9-13).
- He chose to stay away from the golden calf when the flesh would have been satisfied (Exodus 32:17).
- He chose to serve the Lord by serving Moses, a humble place (Exodus 33:11).
- He chose to believe God’s promise about the land, against the majority (Numbers 14:6-9).
- He chose to bow before the Commander of the Lord’s army (Joshua 5:14).
- He chose to lead Israel into the land in faith instead of unbelief.
God is a choosing God, and we’re made in His image. He wants us to choose, because love is a choice.
Count the Cost (Joshua 24:16-20)
The people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord! He brought us out of Egypt, did great signs, and protected us. We will serve the Lord.”
But Joshua said, “You cannot serve the Lord, for He is a holy, jealous God. If you forsake Him and serve foreign gods, He will turn and bring disaster on you.”
Joshua wasn’t trying to talk them out of choosing God. He was warning them: if you choose Him, be fully surrendered.
Jesus did the same thing. Great crowds followed Him, and He turned and said that anyone who comes to Him must love Him so much that even his love for family and his own life looks like hate by comparison, take up his cross, and count the cost, like someone building a tower or a king going to war (Luke 14:25-33). It wasn’t that He didn’t want followers. He didn’t want lightly made, easily broken commitments.
What will full surrender cost? Everything. Your life and death, dreams and hopes, possessions and relationships, safety and future, expectations, time and talents, rights and ideas, every hour and minute, and everything you think you should control. Full surrender means you hold nothing back.
All to Jesus I surrender,
All to Him I freely give;
I will ever love and trust Him,
In His presence daily live.
I surrender all, I surrender all;
All to Thee, my blessed Savior,
I surrender all.
(Judson W. Van DeVenter, 1896)
A Covenant and a Stone (Joshua 24:21-28)
The people said, “No, we will serve the Lord!” Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves.” “We are witnesses!” “Then put away the foreign gods among you and incline your hearts to the Lord.” “We will serve the Lord our God and obey His voice!” So Joshua made a covenant with them that day.
They chose the Lord. Good. The only problem: they would utterly fail to keep it. Why? Because they didn’t have the Spirit of God, the Spirit of love, living inside them.
That’s exactly what Jesus gives us. That’s why we can fully surrender with pure hearts. We can succeed where they always failed, because He lives in us.
Put away the foreign gods
They said they would obey, and Joshua immediately called them to act on their words: put away the foreign gods.
What idols in your life need to be thrown into the fires of Mount Doom? What apps need to be deleted? What phone numbers? What needs to be laid at Jesus’ feet today? Is He your Lord, or not? Will you fully surrender, or not?
A stone under the oak
Joshua wrote these words in the Book of the Law, then set up a large stone under the oak tree by the sanctuary as a witness, because it had heard every word the Lord spoke to them (Joshua 24:26-27).
A stone is the witness, like the Law written on stone. And the Law looks at our lives and testifies that we all fail.
But there’s also a tree. And the tree Jesus died on is a witness too: that all our failures were nailed to the cross and washed away by His blood (Colossians 2:14; 1 Peter 2:24).
We love the Law that reveals God’s character. But we love even more the God of love who set us free from the Law by the blood of the Lamb. And because of love, we fully surrender. Not out of law-driven obedience, but loving surrender.
Grace Takeaway
God told Israel’s whole story without mentioning one failure. That’s how He sees you in Christ. Put on the hat. Choose Him today, and keep choosing Him, not to earn His love, but because you already have it.
“Jesus, I give You everything. I hold nothing back. I am Yours, heart, mind, body and soul.”