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Welcome to day five of week five of our look through the book of Joshua, our
last day in this book. Congratulations, you have finished this study of Joshua.
We're going to look at Joshua 24 verses 14 to 27 today.

In this we hear the challenge to choose. Based on God's choice of us, we realize
his choice doesn't end the story. His choice opens up the opportunity for us to
choose his choice or to reject his choice.

Just walking through these verses, Joshua talks to the people this day about
what to choose, when to choose, and how to choose. It's all about faith. It's
all about choosing faith, choosing to put trust in the fact that God has chosen
to work in my life.

God has given promises based on that choice in my life. What to choose? Verse
14, "Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness.

" Throw away the gods that your forefathers worshiped beyond the river and in
Egypt and serve the Lord. What to choose? Three things here.

Fear the Lord. To live out the challenge of faith, of living God's choice in
your life, you have to do it with an attitude of reverence of worship. Fear the
Lord doesn't mean be afraid of God like you'd be afraid of some horror movie.

Fear the Lord means have a deep awe-inspired, awe-filled respect for God and who
he is. Fear the Lord. Serve the Lord.

And put away false gods. Do those three things. Serve the Lord.

To live out this challenge of living God's choice, you have to choose a
lifestyle of service, of giving. That's who Jesus is. That's who God is.

He wants to do the same thing in your life. And then put away false gods. To
live out God's choice in your life, you have to choose a heart of purity,
undiluted in your devotion to him.

Asking that more and more your heart would focus on him and not the things of
this world. The false gods that we have in this world are things like
materialism and popularity. All the things that we use to build ourselves up
rather than realizing God wants to build into our lives.

What to choose? Choose the Lord, he's saying. When to choose?

He talks about this in verse 15, and the end of this verse is one of the most
famous sentences from all the book of Joshua. Verse 15, "But if serving the Lord
seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will
serve, whether the gods of your forefathers, that your forefathers serve beyond
the river, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for
me and my household, we will serve the Lord.

" When to choose? Joshua says, "Choose today. Choose today who you will serve.

" It's a reminder here that procrastination is one of the greatest barriers to
living out God's choice in our lives. We know God has chosen us to do this or to
do that. We know God has chosen us to come to him in salvation, but we wait on
it.

We know God has chosen us to begin this ministry. We know God has chosen us to
love this person, to love this family, to love this neighbor, but we wait on it.
And we tell ourselves we're not choosing yet, but we're going to get there.

The truth is, the honest truth is, procrastination is just as strong a choice as
rejection. I will wait sounds better than no, but the end result is exactly the
same. You're not doing anything.

And thinking that someday you will is no excuse for not doing it now, Joshua is
saying here. So choose today. Choose today to say, "I'm going to follow God's
choice in my life.

" And in saying this, Joshua says, "You're going to have to choose for
yourselves. " Joshua could not choose for them. He says, "If it seems
undesirable to you, then choose to follow false gods.

" He knew that they had to individually decide. So I encourage you, choose like
Joshua. He stands up and says, "I don't care what anybody else chooses.

As for me, my household, we're going to serve the Lord. " It's settled. That's
what we're going to do.

If I stand with you, if I stand alone, I'm standing with the Lord. That's the
way to choose. If I stand with you or if I stand alone, I'm going to stand with
the Lord because he has stood with me.

He has chosen me. How do you get to that kind of place? How do you have that
kind of heart, the heart of Joshua?

We've read all through this book. We've seen how he's used his life, how he has
transformed the world through his life. At the beginning of the book, we saw how
God had to encourage Joshua in his fears.

But he kept trusting God all the way through. Wasn't always easy. There were
many struggles.

So how do you choose to be this kind of a person? Well, as Joshua talks to the
people, he gives us an insight in how to choose to follow the Lord fully in our
lives. Listen to what he says in verses 19 to 27, "Joshua said to the people,
'You are not able to serve the Lord.

He is a holy God. He is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and
your sins.

If you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster
on you and make an end of you after he has been good to you. ' But the people
said to Joshua, 'No, we will serve the Lord. ' Then Joshua said, 'You are
witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.

' 'Yes, we are witnesses,' they replied. 'Now then,' said Joshua, 'throw away
the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God
of Israel. ' And the people of Israel said to Joshua, 'We will serve the Lord,
our God, and obey him.

'" On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he
drew up for them decrees and laws. And Joshua recorded these things in the book
of the law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up under the oak tree
near the holy place of the Lord.

"See," he said to all the people, "this stone will be a witness against us. It
has heard the words of the Lord, the Lord has said to us. It will be a witness
against you if you are untrue to your God.

" Joshua, in these verses, gives us some deep insights about how to choose to be
the kind of person who lives a life of promise. The people come to Joshua and
say, "Sure, we will follow the Lord. " And Joshua challenges them.

He takes them through four specific steps that I have to go through on almost a
daily basis, that all of us have to go through on almost a daily basis, if we're
going to be people who live in light of the promises of God, making our choice
based on the promises of God, His choice of us. Those four things, those four
steps, first, you face your doubts, second, you recognize the consequences,
third, you yield your heart, and then you make your stand. That's how you make
an honest choice.

Instead of just lying to yourself and saying, "Oh, I love the Lord," do you
really? Do you really? First, face your doubts.

Joshua challenges them to do that. He says, "You won't be able to follow God. "
He made them face their doubts, their human frailty.

Face your doubts, admit them, and then choose. Don't pretend the doubts aren't
there. They are there.

Now, you don't choose on the basis of your doubts, but you choose in full view
of your doubts to doubt your doubts and to trust the Lord instead. You choose in
full view of your doubts that you will recognize God's power to defeat those
doubts. So Joshua brings it out.

He says, "Here it is. What are you going to do? " So they said, "We're going to
trust God.

" You face your doubts. Number two, you recognize the consequences. Joshua says,
"You're going to bring disaster upon yourselves.

You're going to say we trust God, and then you're going to not follow Him, and
you're going to have all kinds of problems, and they say we still want to trust.
" And Joshua says, "Then you're witnesses against yourselves if you're
unfaithful to this promise. " And they did become that, many of the people.

Jesus said this a different way, and under grace we live this a different way.
Jesus said, "Count the cost. Count the cost.

If someone's going to go build a tower, they count the cost before they build
the tower. Be foolish not to. " If you say, "I'm going to be fully committed to
you, God, in this," have you counted the cost?

What is it going to mean financially? What is it going to mean relationally?
What is it going to mean personally?

What kind of a toll is it going to take on you? You recognize the consequences,
and then you make your choice. Count the cost.

Face your doubts. Count the cost. And then number three, and this is the most
important part, you yield your heart.

Joshua says to them, "You put away false gods, you yield your heart. " There is
this moment when we recognize God's choice of us, when we begin to live a
different life. And by the way, you can't make this choice once, and then it's
done with.

It's more done on a daily basis. But there is this moment when your yielding
changes. Your heart stops yielding to the things of this world, the temptations
of this world, the wants of this world.

Your heart stops yielding to your own selfishness. This is what I want. And
because I feel this is what I want, then that's what I do.

Your heart stops yielding to you, and your heart instead begins to yield to the
perfect love of God. Something happens. Something miraculous happens.

And repentance turns your heart towards God, turns your heart away from evil,
turns your heart away from selfishness. You face your doubts, you recognize the
consequences, and then you yield your heart. And out of that yielding of heart,
then a fourth thing has to happen.

Some people never do this last one. So they wonder, "Why am I not following God
like I want to? " Number four, you have to make your stand.

God's done something wonderful in your heart, now you've got to let other people
know about it. "We will serve the Lord our God and obey Him," they say. They
made their stand.

Joshua made his stand. "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. " They
made their stand even by taking a stone and setting it as a witness, as a
reminder.

Maybe you need to write a verse down at the beginning of your Bible. Maybe you
need to write a verse card that you put up somewhere. Maybe there's some kind of
a picture that you put in your house.

There's something that reminds you that you have made your stand. There's a
friend that you take out to coffee and you tell them what God has done in your
life. You make your stand.

That's how you become a person who lives by God's promises. Face your doubts. We
all have them.

Recognize the consequences. Count the cost. Yield your heart in this miraculous
moment between you and Jesus, and then make your stand.

Now as we close this book, I encourage you for this day, for that thing that
you're facing in your life, based on God's choice of you, make your choice. Make
your choice to follow him. Make the Joshua choice, "As for me and my house, we
will serve the Lord.

" We've talked as we walked through the book of Joshua about how promises are
born, how rivers are crossed, how victories are won, how defeat is avoided, how
promises are possessed. And Joshua ends with his challenge to choose. Let's do
that in our hearts right now.

Let's end our study of this book by doing that, the Joshua challenges. Our
Father, we come to you right now, and in full view of our doubts, knowing that
there will be a cost, because of your Holy Spirit in our lives and what only he
can do, we open our hearts to you. We yield our hearts to you right now, and we
make our stand on who you are and what you've given, what you've directed.

We make our stand on your promises. We do not want our worries to guide our
life. We do not want our possessions to guide our life.

We do not want other people to guide our life. We want your promises to be the
touchstone, the guide, the power in our lives, because your promises are all
about you, who you are and what you're doing. So we choose you today, Jesus, and
we pray that you'd help us, strengthen us, empower us through your Spirit to
choose to follow you one day at a time.

Whatever the struggles, whatever the setbacks, whatever the doubts, to choose to
follow you one day at a time. We ask this in Jesus' name, in your name. Amen.

This ends our study of the book of Joshua. Thanks for being with us for one more
book in Drive Time Devotions, and I want to encourage you, invite you to stay
with us next week if you're listening along regularly, or if you want to go to
drivetimedevotions. com, you can actually choose from many books that you've
already done and do this on your own schedule, the books that you want to study
one at a time.

Either way, thanks for being a part of studying God's Word through Drive Time
Devotions.