What Are You Holding When Life Shakes You | Pastor Will Hawk | November 9th, 2025

Some choices shape a morning; others shape a life. Joshua’s last words cut through noise and nostalgia with a simple, unsettling challenge: choose this day whom you will serve. We walk through his final charge and discover why his focus isn’t on his victories or titles but on a relentless catalog of God’s action—I took, I led, I gave, I sent, I delivered. That rhythm reframes success and faithfulness, showing us that the strongest lives are built by clinging to the Giver, not curating a résumé.

We explore what real clinging looks like, drawing from the Psalms to see how singing, midnight meditation, and honest prayer train the heart to hold fast. The contrast is stark: hold the living vine and bear fruit, or hold cultural leftovers and end up with snares, whips, and thorns. Joshua’s whiplash is intentional—celebrating rest in houses not built, then warning against the slow slide into idolatry. The pivot turns on a personal, persistent choice made in ordinary places: the school pickup line, the driveway after work, the sidelines, and the church foyer. Serving the Lord there means small, steady decisions that align our loves.

We also look at leadership that lasts beyond the leader. Israel served the Lord through Joshua’s lifetime and under elders who remembered the Lord’s works because their anchor was not charisma; it was a chain of remembered grace. And we connect the dots to Jesus, the greater Joshua, who took the whip and the thorns to secure a deeper rest than anyone could earn. If the waves feel high, this conversation invites you to trade fragile habits for a stronger hold on Christ and to choose—today and tomorrow—who you will serve.

If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs courage for a hard choice, and leave a review to help others find it. What will your household choose today?

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Chapters

• 0:00 Reading Joshua’s Story Of God’s Faithfulness
• 3:06 Finishing Joshua And The Power Of Humility
• 6:01 Cling To The Lord Or To Dust
• 11:16 How Do We Actually Cling
• 17:06 The Stark Warning And Its Stakes
• 22:16 Facing Death And Remembering Promises
• 27:46 God Gave, Gave, Gave
• 33:16 Choose This Day Whom You Will Serve
• 39:06 “You Can’t” And What Comes Next
• 44:26 Serving The Lord In Daily Life

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:47

Joshua chapter twenty-four, beginning in verse two. 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. Verse thirteen. This is the word of the Lord.

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

Well, guys, as uh Mitch said earlier, I love days like this. We only hit them about four times a year because at Midtree we work through books of the Bible. And it takes a minute to get all the way through the book, uh, a book of the Bible. So I'm letting you know, I love it when we applause for this. Congratulations, Midtree, on making it all the way through the book of Joshua together. Way to go. Good stuff. We do have about, I don't know, about 30 minutes left in it. And so we will hop into that now. Let me give you a little bit of a heads up as we dive in. This does have a bit of history to it. And I know that some of you guys hate history and you glaze over at history. Um, but it is my hope that when we look at it today, it becomes sort of links in the chain of the good faithfulness of God that actually turns into fuel for encouragement for each and every one of us today. And so as you are getting there, if you're not already there, I'm gonna start us right here in verse one of chapter 23. Now, I you're gonna see this in the text in just a minute, but we'll do a little bit of back and forth for fun here. How old, if you've already looked it up, you don't get to answer. This is only for people who are kind of guessing or postulating or trying to remember Sunday school or a wana from however many years ago. How old do you think Joshua is as he is writing chapter 23 and chapter 24 at the end of his life? How old do you think Joshua is? Just give me two. Okay, I definitely heard some 100. Why don't we just do this? If you think he's over a hundred years, throw your hands up. If you think he's under a hundred years, throw your hands up. Okay, good stuff. I'll just say this. He is old. One of my favorite things that we didn't get to go into was Caleb in, I think it's chapter 20. Caleb, Caleb and Joshua were the two that went into the promised land together. They were the only ones with faith. And uh Caleb goes toward Joshua at the end and he was like, now don't forget, you and I walked into this. We were the first guys, boots on the ground, we were the only ones with faith. Don't forget, there's an inheritance for me and for my family in this. And then he says, he's 84 when he says this, Caleb. He says, I am as strong as I was when we first walked in in our young 40s. I'm still able to make war, I'm still able to battle, I am a spring chicken, and he was 84 years old. But a long time afterward, when the Lord had given rest to Israel from all their surrounding enemies, and Joshua was old, well advanced in years, so old that verse 2, Joshua summons all Israel, elders, heads, judges, officers, and he says to them, I'm old and well advanced in years, and you have seen all that the Lord your God has done to all these nations for your sake, for it is the Lord your God who has fought for you. One word for you to wrestle with today humility. Just I I'm not gonna preach on it a lot. You're not gonna see a lot of sermon points on it, I'm not gonna be able to circle the word, but if there is one word to categorize who Joshua is at the end of his life, it is humble. All he can do is keep pointing to the goodness of God. There are so many things that Joshua could point to in his own life, but when he begins sort of his own obed, here is what he says: the Lord has given rest to us from all our enemies. It is the Lord who has fought from you. The bracketing on the beginning of the end of this is look at who the Lord is, look at what he has done, and here is my hope for you, God's people, verse 8, that you will cling to the Lord your God just as you have done to this day. This word, by the way, cling, is in numerous places in the Old Testament. This is the same word that refers to uh in Genesis, and the man will cleave to his wife. The concept here is there is this clinging when um Job, uh, when Job is talking about his health deteriorating, and he says, My skin is sticking to my bones, my tongue clings to the roof of my mouth. The exact same word here. The concept is there is this undeniable holding, this tethering in this word. And Joshua looks at him and he says, Guys, I'm about to go. I'm about to go to the real home, to the capital R-rest. This lowercase R-rest that God has given us is phenomenal. We're in cities we didn't build and homes we didn't design, living off of land that we didn't cultivate, eating fruit from trees we didn't plant. God has given us incredible rest, but guys, there's so much better rest coming. And I'm on my way, and so as I go, I am pleading with you, cling to the Lord. Cling hard to him. You'll see this in Psalm 63, Psalm 119. What does it look like for a person to cling to the Lord? Now pause for a moment. If you're a Christian in this room and I were to ask you the question, what does your life look like when you are clinging to the Lord? And I kind of paused and got you to build one or two things. Most of us would say, Oh, I I know I'm clinging to the Lord when I'm regularly in the Word, when I'm not making excuses for myself, when I'm not just in the Word, but I'm kind of desiring to enjoy the goodness of God when I'm there. I'm not just checking a box. I am enjoying time with the creator of the universe. It's when I pray. And my prayers aren't short, and I'm not just repeating the age-old things that sort of cruise control reality of my prayer life, but I am giving to God my heart, my soul, my affections, and my emotions. I'm clinging to God when I go bravely into unknown territory, when I raise my hand to read scripture in front of the congregation when I've never done it. When I ask a coworker how I can pray for them, that's when I'm clinging to the Lord. Well, God's word gives us a few definitions of it in the Psalm. Psalm 63. My soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. It begins with a lot of good, and then down here you will see, even when it goes down, even when life is hard, my soul will be satisfied as with fat and rich food. My mouth will praise you with joyful lips. Do you recognize that the way you sing songs on a Sunday morning, the way you sing songs in the car, is determinative of how you are clinging to the Lord? When I remember you upon my bed, when my head hits the pillow, when I close my eyes, and I start going through the previous day or reassessing the one to come, do my thoughts meditate to the goodness of God? When I meditate on you in the watches of the night, for the person who would have been on watch at night, it would have been a soldier, probably in a very difficult time of night to stay awake. And how did he fight boredom? I just want you to wrestle with this reality. How did soldiers fight boredom in the early days? They thought about the goodness of God. They couldn't do this and then go sideways and hope that there was something good on Netflix or Hulu. Their excitement, the thing that kept them awake at three in the morning. How good is my God? Look at what he has done for me, for you have been my help. And in the shadow of your wings I will sing for joy. My soul clings to you. Your right hand upholds me. Psalm 119. Psalm 119 is almost uh it's it's the longest chapter uh in the entirety of scripture. If you check it out, if you ever want to get your kids to say, Hey, I want you to memorize one chapter of scripture. Start with Psalm 119. They will look at you and say, I'll be done in my mid-40s. I cling to your testimonies. I hold on to the stories of your goodness, O Lord. Let me not be put to shame. Don't let me hear all these good stories, but have none to give myself. I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart. I give you these verses because I feel like even on the forefront of finishing Joshua, there is something in here for many of us. Are we clinging to God? Do we want our heart to be enlarged? Do we want him to fill our praises, our mind, our heart, when we are easily distracted, when our heads hit the pillow, are we thinking about the goodness of God? When they pop off in the morning, are they thinking about the goodness of God? And with all of these warm things, get ready for some whiplash. Because this is the next thing that Joshua will say to them. You can cling to the Lord your God, verse 8, or if you turn back and cling to the remnant of these nations remaining among you, and you make marriages with them so that you associate with them, and they with you. This is not about ethnicity, this is about worship. This is God saying, I know if you go and intermarry with these nations, you are going to take upon them, take upon you their cultures. Know for certain, verse 13, that the Lord your God will no longer drive out these nations before you. They shall be a snare and a trap for you, a whip on your sides and thorns in your eyes until you perish. God basically is saying, Joshua is saying, There are two things to cling to. You can cling to the one who enlarges your heart, you can cling to the one who has nothing but good stories to tell. You can cling to the one who knit you together in your mother's womb and has fantastic things for you, or you can cling to, notice what it this is saying, you can cling to the little bits that are left of the world that I am overcoming. That's what God's saying. You can cling to the real thing, or you can hold on to the bits of rust that remain, the dust and the ash. And that really is the picture here. The picture as Joshua comes to the end of his life as he looks at his people and he says, You're gonna hold on to something. We all do. Are you gonna hold on to the firmness of God, or are you gonna go through these nations like Jericho that have crumbled and get your hands in the dust and mire and believe that there is something life-giving there? Don't. Because if you do what you will feel is a whip on your sides that we got away from in Egypt, you will feel thorns in your eyes until you perish. I want you to feel that whiplash. I want you to feel Joshua saying, Hey man, things are good and God is amazing. Cling to him, cling to him. But if you don't, whip in your side, thorns in your eyes until you perish. Do you feel that huge swing? This is what happens when you're at the end of your life and you don't want to waste time and you don't want to waste your words. You look at the people you love and you shoot straight with them, which is exactly what Joshua is doing. But why all this talk about death? Why is he thinking about it? Because he's really close to it himself. And he's looking at his children, wondering, are you gonna stay the course when I'm gone? Now, I'm not quite there yet. All of my kids are still very much in my home. All of my kids are still very much on the tab, on the bill. If they break stuff, dad still takes care of it. But there's a day coming, and I do enjoy talking to you guys who have grown kids where you're like, I mean, my relationship with them has changed. I'm still their parent, but it's moved into more of a peer relationship. Instead of me telling them what to do, I kind of have to sit back and watch things go wrong a little bit and pray for them and hope that they come and say, uh, Dad, things are not going well. Do you have any thoughts? And then I can't just jump right in and say, I've got 12. I'm glad you asked. I've been waiting. I have to sort of be like, yeah, I mean, we should think about this together. We should engage. Why is Joshua thinking about death? Why is he navigating it this way? Because he's not holding anything back. I know that now I am about to go the way of all the earth. And you know in your hearts and in your souls, all of you, that not one word has failed of all the good things that the Lord your God has promised concerning you. All have come to pass for you, not one of them has failed. If I was just reading my Bible and I was reading Joshua, I would read over this, and the part that would stand out to me would be the part at the bottom, the part that we put on memory bracelets. Not one promise of all the good things that God did failed. And I do think that's worth memorizing. I think it's important for us to know. Can I tell you what I really appreciate about Joshua? It's this. It's the humility of him recognizing his own humanity. He is looking and he's saying, Hey guys, I'm about to do what all living things on this earth do. I'm about to be six feet under the ground. I'm about to have maybe a stone with a sentence or two said about me for the rest of my days. And Joshua says, It's almost over for me. I want you to consider all of the things that could make that milestone, all of the things that they could put on the capstone of this life. Joshua was one of the first to step foot in the promised land. He was given greater faith than any in the nation except maybe Caleb. Of two million people, twelve guys raised their hand to walk into this unknown land. And of those twelve, only two out of two million have the faith to walk in, see the promised land, and say, why would we doubt any good thing if God wants to do it? Joshua was the leader of a nation of two million people. I do not care what your job is. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine feeling sole responsibility? This is not a democracy, okay? They didn't vote Joshua in. He didn't have a cabinet for internal affairs. There was no Department of Defense. It was Joshua. When religion went south, Joshua. When relationship went south, Joshua. When they had to fight a battle, Joshua. When it came to economics, Joshua. When it came to distribution of food and political lines, Joshua. One guy leading two million to include 600,000 soldiers. The guy is a stud. An absolute beast of a man. And he's humble. He was present when God tore open a river and knocked down a city and had numerous stories to tell, other than that. He's the guy who prays and the sun stops because he asked for it too. And one of the most amazing prayers he will read in the entirety of Scripture. Don't forget this. He had a face-to-face conversation with the commander of the Lord's army, who he worshiped and was not told to get up because the commander of the Lord's army deserved worship. This is higher than an angel. This could be Christ himself. He is in a face-to-face conversation with him. He is the one who distributed land and boundaries that affects geopolitics to this very day. You can't turn on the news, you can't flip on an AM radio station without dealing with something that Joshua did thousands of years ago. And he gets to the end of his life. And do you know what he points to? None of that. None of it. He doesn't point to any of it. He doesn't say, hey guys, let me tell you how to make a really good headstone for me. None of it. He says, I am no different than any living thing that ever walked on this earth. I am going to go the way of all the earth. But before I do, let me tell you what I do want you to remember. Now, this is too small for you to read. The majority of this has already been read to you. When McKenzie came up, this is the majority of what she read. But I don't want you to miss this because as Joshua's book finishes in the final chapter, here is what he wants to make sure that you do not miss. Joshua said to the people, Thus says the Lord. They served other gods. That's how I found you. Distant, wandering, not even pursuing me. Then I are you ready for this? Eyes on the screen for a moment. Watch. What Joshua delivers as his closing life speech. I want you to look at my God. I want you to look at the one who came and took Abraham. I want you to see the God who gave. I gave him Isaac. I gave Jacob. I sent Moses. I plagued Egypt. I brought your fathers out. I brought you out of the land. I'm going to miss some because I'm going quick. I gave them into your hand. When other speech people spoke against you, sorry, text box moving, adjusting, I wouldn't listen to them. No, I delivered you out of their hands. That is who I am. I sent the hornet before you. I have done all these things. If you take this and you put all of the things that God has done together in one place, this is what you end up with. Here's how Joshua ends his life. In a chain of things that he could talk about, he humbly says, I'm about to go the way of everything that has lived. But do you know who doesn't change? This kind of a God. A God who took Abram and led him and gave him Isaac and Jacob and Esau, who sent Moses and Aaron and plagued Egypt after 300 years. That's the God that I serve. The one who brought you out, who brought your fathers out of Egypt, did all these things. He brought you to the land of the Amorites, gave them into your hand, destroyed them before you, delivered them, gave them to you. He sent the hornet before you. That could be God's army or his spirit. Basically, he made a way for his people. Until he gets to the final eye. I gave you a land on which you had not labored, cities you had not built, you eat of the fruit of vineyards and olive orchards that you did not plant. This is what I want you to remember. Jesus would say similar words in John 15. I am the vine. You the branches. Don't get me wrong, branches are important. A tree without branches is a stick. All right? But the trunk's the most important thing. Jesus says, I am the one from which all good things come. If you abide in me, if you cling to me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit. Because otherwise you're a dead branch on the floor. There's nothing good enough in you. Look, I'm just telling you, here's the way the Bible sees you. The Bible sees every one of us lovingly created in the image of God with an incredible amount of potential that you don't even rightly see in yourself. But apart from Christ, you're a dead stick on the ground. For a dog to come and try to carry through a dog, uh a door that's just a little too small, all right? That is what we are. But the moment we are attached to Christ, life flows. When we cling, when we cleave to him, all of a sudden the life that he intended for us begins to move and flow. Joshua points to who God is because at the end of his life, when all is said and done, he says this more than anything else, God gave, gave, gave, gave, gave. Of all the words he could use, the one he uses the most is can I tell you what I want you to remember? I don't want to remember a thing about me. I got a killer story to tell. I want you to know the God who gave all of it. The same God who wants to give you everything. And he asks them, Who would you rather follow than a God who gives like this? Now I'm just gonna leave this on the screen for a moment because I want you to wrestle with this question. You are going to follow someone, even if you follow yourself, okay? You may want to follow some wise guru online, you may want to follow your favorite author in some self-help book, you may want to follow the God of the universe, you may want to follow your own devices, you may want to follow the advice of your mom and dad, but none of us walk through this life without following someone. So here's my question: Who would you rather follow than a God who gives like this? Seriously. Who would be better for you to follow? Who would be better for you to cling to? And the reason I ask this question is because he does. In the most well-known verse of the entirety of this book, I want you to look at how Joshua gets to the place where he says, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord, so that all of the older ladies in the congregation can cross-stitch this and put it in a glass frame and hang it at Nana's house. All right, that's why I walked through rivers and knocked down Jericho and talked to the commander of the Lord's army. So let's get our needles out, ladies. We got some stuff to do. We got to hang this in the middle. I want you to see how he gets to that place. Now, therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and faithfulness. Put away the gods that your fathers served beyond the river and into Egypt. Serve the Lord. Pay close attention. If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose. If it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, then choose who you're gonna follow. Joshua is not being coy, and he's not being a linguist here. He's saying, I want you to pick. At the beginning of this entire series, give me a minute, because I got to scroll to get there. This is what we began with. Choose this day. It's not choose when you're 12 if you're gonna follow Jesus. Yes, I hope you did. Choose while you're in Sunday school, choose with your knees on the floor in the dorm room, choose, Jesus. I ask that you would forgive me of my sins. I want to serve you, I want to follow you all of my days. Yes, make that choice, but you gotta choose every day who you're gonna follow. And Joshua gets to the end of his life, and he's not telling them this is a one-time thing. He's saying, hey, you need to decide who it is that you're gonna follow. And if it's evil to serve the Lord, then you tell me who you're gonna serve. If it is unwise, if it is foolish for you to serve the Lord, who are you gonna follow? If it's 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 I'll tell you what, for me, for my house, there's nobody to serve but the Lord Himself. This is Joshua asking you to ask yourself a very provocative and big question. Is there anything better for you to serve than Christ? End of question. Is there anything wiser for you to serve than the goodness of God? Because every day we make a thousand decisions that tell us who we're actually serving. Is there anyone better than him? Is there anyone who loves you more deeply than him? Is there anyone who has a better plan for your life than him? Is there anybody who has a better track record than him? Anybody else batting a thousand than him? Joshua says, guys, choose. Choose this day who you will serve. But I'll tell you, as the guy who's been leading you for about 70 years, ups and downs, there's nobody for me to serve except the Lord. So me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now, this is a moment where we get to smile for a bit because here's how it then pans out. The people turn around and they answer in verse 16 Far be it from us that we would forsake the Lord to serve other gods. Joshua, you got it, man. Killer argument, bro. Like you've got a great life, and then you're just pointing to how much better God is. Far be it from us to go and serve anything else. Please just appreciate. Okay. The older we get, the crankier we get, generally speaking. I don't know why that happens, and y'all can rebuke me on that. But all of us have parents and grandparents, and I don't fully understand how a grandparent can say, I'm just so ready to go, and at the same time have this warmth because I want to be with Jesus. But I see it more and more in older folks. And I do think it's because the gray areas of life begin to dissipate into what is good and what is evil and what is not. And you stop making some excuses and you stop justifying. And most of the things you're looking at are in the rear view mirror in which you see 2020. I don't fully understand it. Don't think we can understand it until we get there. But I just want you to appreciate Joshua, now that he's gotten a little bit older. Hey guys, I want you to serve the Lord. And they're like, Yeah, far be it from us that we would forsake the Lord to serve other gods. So Joshua says to the people, you are not able to serve the Lord. Uh Joshua, we're confused. You just gave us this killer obit. You just talked about the chain of God's goodness and greatness, and we're like, you win, man. We're gonna take your argument, we're gonna serve the Lord. And Joshua's like, Great, you can't. What? What are we supposed to do with this? Now, if you're a believer, if if you understand scripture, you kind of know what Joshua's saying. I'm glad you chose the Lord. Great. You're gonna fail at it. What are you gonna do when you fail? And the people said to Joshua, No, we will serve the Lord. We're gonna fail at it. We are going to trust ourselves more often than we should. We're gonna get lazy and we're gonna get forgetful. Our heads are gonna hit the pillow and we're gonna think about tomorrow and we're gonna think about yesterday. But I'm gonna try, Joshua. I'm gonna try to serve the Lord. I'm gonna try to give him my best. I'm gonna try to repent and to trust him. Do you know what it means for your house to serve the Lord more than quoting this out of Joshua and hanging it in the hallway? Now I can't answer this for all of us, but I can give you a paradigm. Here's what I would encourage you to do. Whether it's on your phone or in your head or on paper, what are the big sort of orbs of your life? I I can tell you for my like for Will's life right now, it is school, sports, work, and worship. School and sports are not me. It's because I have four children. The conversations that I get into, emotions being high or emotions being low, always circle around the same things: school, sports, work, and worship. For us, it's a little weird because worship and work are a little commingled, but nonetheless, that's how it plays out in the hawkhouse. And so what I would do is I would look at those four orbs of my life, and yours might be different. In fact, I would imagine they are. But I would look at it and I would say, when it comes to school, kids, wife, self, choose this day whom you're going to serve. There's a way to go to school and just go to school. There's a way to help your kids with school work and just help your kids with schoolwork. And there's a way to serve the Lord in that. There's a way to pray before you go. There's a way to pray in the car. There's a way to have conversations when you pick your kids up from school. Did you see the goodness of God today anywhere? Where did you see it? Have you been praying for any of your classmates? Do you know how old you have to be to do that? About three. There is a way to choose this day that school is going to be a way that we serve the Lord work. Before I make it to my front door, am I going to pause in my driveway and detach myself from that so I can reattach myself to my family? God, you have given us work and it is a blessing. It existed in the garden before sin did. It is not a broken thing that I am working, but I don't want this to invade the rest of my life. It is not the whole thing. I also want to pray for this coworker who I know is struggling right now. One of the greatest stories that I've seen in our church over the past month has come because of the government shutdown. Because of the government shutdown, I have not had one person ask for help from the church. Even though we told you last week, if if food security is an issue, we want to know in your life. But do you know what I have had a myriad of conversations about? If somebody is struggling, how can I help? That is choosing to serve the Lord. It's uh the Allen's MCG saying, hey, all of my coworkers are not getting paid right now. Do we want to do something? And them raising a sum of money to buy gift cards, which he attached, little visitor cards to the church, and is handing it out to his coworkers to help them with their daily bread. Beautiful. That's choosing this day, how to serve the Lord at work. What does it look like in sports? Well, it looks like deciding if you're gonna be Will Farrell or if you're gonna be whoever the opposite of that is in kicking and screaming. It's you choosing, am I gonna pray? Am I going to try to love and support and encourage? Is this about winning or is this about building character? Is this being able to comfort the kid who loses the game that meant the world to them because this world is gonna let them down, but there is a God who never, ever will choose this day. There is a way to serve the Lord in all of these things in worship. Don't think by being here you've done it. There is a way to come to church without going to church. There's a way to show up without showing up. There's a way to be here without being here. Before you make it in the doors, are you prayed up? Before you pull in, are you showing up to serve or to be served? Do you want to hear from the Lord or are you just here at first service because it's more convenient for the rest of your day? How is it that we show up? Because these people look back, and even when Joshua says you're not able, they say, We're gonna give it our best. We're going to lean in. So Joshua turns around to the congregation and he asks them, Who are you gonna follow better than this God? Because there's nobody. And after these things, Joshua, the son of none, the servant of the Lord, died being, all right, who said over a hundred, who won trivia today? Humble is a hundred and ten years old. Long, full life, being a hundred and ten years old. And Israel served, guys. We never get to say this about Israel. We never get to say this about God's people. So drink it in, okay? You want to talk about good leadership, you're seeing it. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua. Okay. I know they can't hear us, but this is when I start clapping when I'm reading my Bible. Like, yes, a hundred and ten years. Well, maybe not the first 40. You had to get him in leadership, all right? But whatever 110 minus 40 is, I'm gonna say 70 off quick math. 70 years, these people serve the Lord at a boy. Way to go. But I'll tell you what brings a tear to my eye. As somebody who stands up here, who loves being down here, but as somebody who stands up here, that and is my favorite part of this whole chapter. And that's saying a lot. And here's why. Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived him and had known all the work that the Lord did for Israel. Joshua's leadership was so profoundly good, his humility so on display, the anchor to hold them from the whiplash of if you cling to God, it's life. If you cling to anything else, it's a whip in your side and thorns in your eye. I don't know if you know this. The way an anchor works on a large vessel, you know, the little T-shaped thing drops down and it hits sideways and it grabs into the dirt. That doesn't stop the ship. Not a big one. It'll stop your paddle boat or your little John boat or whatever else if you're peddling around doing some bass fishing. But if you're driving a battleship, driving, sailing a battleship, that ain't gonna do it. That's why they keep letting the chain out long after the anchor hits the floor. The chain, each link in a large battleship, weighs somewhere between 350 and 1200 pounds. Each link. What holds the ship from the waves and the storm and the wind is not one little anchor point. It's the 200, 300 meters of chain that drag along the floor, creating friction. What Joshua was trying to do was give them thousand-pound links in the chain. This is who my God is. He has, he has. He gave, he gave, he gave. You tell me what you want to link your ship to greater than that. And the people of Israel listen. And the leaders listen because good leadership is most present when a good leader is absent. If you feel like somebody is a good leader because they're up here and they're compelling and they're whatever, you can have okay leadership. What makes leadership great is when you're not there and everything holds where it ought to hold. That is good leadership. And when this 110-year-old champion of the faith who has done so much but can't stop pointing to God goes into the ground, link after link after link, not of his goodness, but of God, drags the floor and it holds God's people firm. If you turn the page into the next book, you'll find yourself in Judges. Uh Bennett, uh, or whoever's playing, you can feel free to start coming up. I didn't do my homework on that. Sorry. When you turn to Judges, you're gonna read the exact same verse from Joshua. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. All right. Here's my question Judges, is it a book about how good God's people do or how poorly they do? All right, it's about to go south. It tends to happen in the third generation. You know that if you know anything about business. All right. And in the third generation, something happens. I don't know if it's because they stopped sharing good stories. I don't know if it's because they became too comfortable in houses they didn't build on lands they didn't cultivate. I don't know if it's because they had such good leaders to point to that they stopped developing good leaders themselves, but because Joshua is both clinging to God without letting go of reality, I want to do the same, and I want to tell you the next part of the story. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers after their 110 or so years. And there arose another generation. It's almost as though Joshua was pointing to something, even though he wouldn't be there to see it. Another generation after them who did not know, meditate, or think on the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel, and they do whatever is right in their own eyes. Now that is a story for another time. How does this generation of people get brought back? Well, you are that generation of people. And even though this is a story for another time of another leader who actually has the same name, Joshua Yeshua in the Greek Jesus, this will become the story of someone who steps in. But as Joshua, the prologue closes, here is how it finishes. As for the bones of Joseph, which they promised would make it from Egypt into the promised land, that was his dying wish, which the people of Israel brought up from Egypt. They buried them at Shechem. And when you read this verse, it may not feel like a lot, but what the Bible is saying is the three aspects of God's promise to the patriarch have been advanced. As Mitch said in the beginning, Israel has become a great nation. It is a blessed nation with a relationship with the one true God. They have a land of their own. I don't need to reiterate that again to you. And there is another nation, there is another generation coming that's going to screw it all up. Well, what do we do with that? What do we do with a nation that is not going to cling to God? They're going to cling to other things. And when they cling, they will have a whip on their sides and they will have thorns in their eyes. I will tell you what I do with this. I look at that generation and I say, Are you kidding me? How could you have all of this? How could you have these stories and these miracles and these leaders and still walk away? And the moment it falls from my lips, I look at myself and I'm like, eeeh, how can I have the Bible in my own hand, which they didn't have? How can I have gone to church for whatever 52 times 43 is, never really missing a Sunday in my life, and still not have complete confidence and faith in the God who gives and gives and gives? How can I be a part of this generation? Well, I will tell you how. Because every one of us in this room deserve that. This is what we deserve because of our sin. But do you know what Joshua 24 was pointing to? Can any of us think of somebody who received a whip on their sides for sins they did not commit? Might anyone in the room think of somebody who had thorns pressed into their eyes for brokenness that they did not bring in? You see, the story of Joseph has always been a prologue. It is a great history, but it is the prologue to the greatest story ever told. The story of a God who gives. And as the prologue to the greatest story ever closes, because God beautifully finishes every story, he begins. It finishes by pointing to this, and causing us to say that Joshua may have died at rest, but Jesus, bearing the same name, would die under a curse, so that you and I could have rest. We can have rest in 110 years, but we can also have rest today. And this is what the book of Joshua would want you to know. If you want that rest, you need to make sure that you are pointing not to the chain of your own accomplishments. Y'all remember those little plastic links that you used to play with in kindergarten or like first grade? They were all of the primary colors and you would just link them together. They float in the water. That's what your good deeds will do. But if you will connect yourself to the one who took the beating we deserved and the thorns that we deserved, 250,000-pound chain links of faithfulness are attached to you. And they drop to the seabed floor and they cause us to cling to the one who does not move. If you feel like you are being moved about by the world around you, cling to Christ. He has done everything that is necessary. Cling to him. What might that look like for you? Think about it, ponder it. There's going to be a group of us on the uh back porch there praying. We're going to be praying anyway. If you want to join us, we would love for you to do so. If you want to celebrate what God is doing or if you need some encouragement, we will be there. But let's be a people who sing to the one who took the beating we deserved, the thorns we deserved. Let's give him our heart and cling to him.