"Joshua's House: A Place of Serving" (Joshua 24:14-15)

"Joshua's House: A Place of Serving" from Joshua 24:14-15 was preached by Dr. Mark McElreath at the City Baptist Church of Atlanta on June 28, 2026.

Find out more about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta at www.citybaptistchurch.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome to the City Pulpit. Bible messages from the pulpit ministry of the City Baptist Church in Atlanta. Well, please take your Bibles with me. Let's go to Joshua chapter 24. And we're looking this final glimpse into a home in this Christian home month. We're going to look into Joshua's home. And we come to Joshua 24, we come to the end of the book, and we're coming to the end of Joshua's life. Joshua is the man that God raises up to take the place of Moses. And imagine stepping into those shoes, that responsibility. And here we find toward the end of the book, Joshua 24, let's begin reading in verse number 14. Joshua chapter 24, verse 14. The Bible says, Now therefore, fear the Lord and serve him in sincerity and in truth. And put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord. And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land ye dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. These words, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And we're looking this morning at Joshua's home, a place of serving. Joshua's home, a place of serving. As Joshua comes to the end of his life, whenever you find anyone coming to the end of their life, they're wanting to say the things that they want to last. They're wanting to say the things that have meaning and the things that will penetrate to the heart of those that they're speaking to. And here, as Joshua's coming to the end, we find that he's gathering leaders of the tribes, he's gathering important people and key people there, part of the people of Israel. And this is the thing he emphasizes. In fact, if you look at verse number 14 and verse 15 and verse 16, all through this chapter there is a word that stands out. In fact, I in my teen class this morning, we read this passage, part of it. And I asked them, I said, What word do you find mentioned over and over and over again? And they said, serve. You find it in verse 14, it says, Your fathers served. In verse 15, it said, if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord. It says, which your fathers served, in verse 15. It says in verse 16, to serve other gods. In verse 19, you cannot serve the Lord. Verse 20, if you forsake the Lord and serve strange gods. Verse 21, but we will serve the Lord. Verse 22, to serve him. Verse 24, God will we serve. In fact, if you look down in verse 29, it says, it came to pass after these things that Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died. All through this chapter, there's an emphasis that is placed because this word is used over and over and over again, the word serve. What does serve mean? Very simply, it means to labor for one as their subject. If we're serving, it means someone else is giving orders and we're following along with what they've given us to do. When we serve, we don't ask questions. When we serve, we don't talk back. At least that's the way we're taught we're supposed to serve, right? And if we are serving the Lord, we find an example here in the book of Joshua. And if we're serving the Lord, we find I think there's some key principles that we can follow that we can draw from these final words from this man's life. Joshua, the servant of the Lord. Would you make note of a few of these things? Write this down. Number one, we serve because God has sustained. We serve because God has sustained. Go back with me to the beginning of Joshua 24, and we find as Joshua is giving this last oration, this last time he's going to speak, we find that he's recounting all the times God brought his people through. When we look in verse number 2 of chapter 24, it says, Joshua said unto the people, thus saith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other side of the flood in old time, even Terah, the father of Abraham, the father of Nakor, and they served other gods. It says verse 3, and I took your father Abraham from the other side of the flood, and led him throughout all the land of Canaan, and multiplied his seed, and gave him Isaac. Now, you explain a hundred-year-old man having a child and God bringing forth the nation of Israel from Abraham. It makes no other sense, no other explanation, other than this is something that God has done. God sustained him. If you look down in verse number four, it speaks of Isaac and Jacob and Esau. And it says he gave unto them Mount Seir to possess it. Jacob and his children went down into Egypt, and he sustained them in Egypt. An enslaved people for centuries because God sustained. If you look down in verse number five, six and seven, he speaks about the plagues in Egypt. Verse 6, he says, I brought your fathers out of Egypt. Verse number seven, it says, And when they cried unto the Lord, you put darkness between you and the Egyptians. All of these things point to God taking care of his people. So why do we serve? We serve because first God has sustained us. God's taken care of us. God's brought us through. You make sense of your life and you explain your life and how you got to today without the Lord. And it does not make sense, does it? You cannot put all the pieces together and figure out how all it could happen without God being in the middle of it. And God bringing it all together. We serve because, you know, I think of, I think of 1 John says we love him because he first loved us, but look, we serve him because he first served us. He took upon himself the form of a servant, and he has brought us through time after time. And so when we serve him, we're just following in his example, and we're just following in his footsteps. We serve because God has sustained. Where would we be had God not sustained us? And Joshua is pausing for a moment at the end of his life, and he's looking back over everything God has done. You realize he was there when they walked 40 years in the wilderness, and their clothes didn't wear out, and their shoes didn't wear out, and every time they got up in the morning there was manna, and God provided meat, and God led them through. He saw the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day that sustained them. He remembers them coming into the promised land and them coming across the Jordan River and taking all the nations of Canaan. He says, God has sustained us, and that's why we serve him. That is why you and I serve him. That's why we're teaching our families to serve him. That's why we should have a home that is characterized by service. Did you make note of a second thing? Not only we serve because God is sustained, but we serve out of a sincere heart. We serve out of a sincere heart. Would you look with me at verse number 14? It says, now therefore, fear the Lord and serve him. And mark this here, in sincerity and in truth. Sincerity means complete, whole, entire, with integrity. This speaks of motive. Why do we serve the Lord? Why do we do what we do? Are we following the Lord and serving the Lord because we think eventually I'm going to get some kickback from this? Eventually this is all going to pay off in the end. Or do we serve the Lord because we truly love the Lord? Do we serve the Lord because we truly want to see His cause advanced? Do we just serve the Lord on Sunday? Do we just say, well, today, you know, today's Sunday, and this is the thing we do, and I'll go to church and check the box. And I was speaking with a class this morning, and I got some sharp young men in there. And I said, listen, do we only serve God on Sunday? They said, No, we serve Him every day. And I said, You're exactly right. We have an opportunity every day of the week. And by the way, the pastor's not the only one serving the Lord. We all are full-time Christians, right? We're all, if we know the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we know we're on our way to heaven, then we have a full-time responsibility to follow him and to serve him and to do what he says. We find here that we serve out of a sincere heart. Would you hold your place here with me? Go to a New Testament example. Go to the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter, I want us to look in chapter number 1. 1 Peter, chapter number 1. We find here, as Peter is writing, in 1 Peter chapter 1, he's writing to a persecuted people. In fact, he opens the book by calling them the strangers that are scattered. These are people that have faced persecution for their Christianity, for following the Lord Jesus Christ. They're scattered. They're on the run. Probably all that they have are the clothes on their back. And he's speaking to them here in 1 Peter chapter 1. Look down with me, please, in verse number 22. He says, Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren. He says, See that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently. And there's a lot packed into this verse. In fact, my wife and I, she's in the children's church right now, but my wife and I took this verse for our verse years ago. But he's speaking here of seeing ye have purified your souls and obeying the truth through the Spirit. He's saying, This persecution you're going through and all you're dealing with, it has purified your motives. These people followed the Lord and they faced great persecution and paid the highest price. They would have known people that were killed for their faith. They knew loss because they were Christian, and it purified their motive. And he says here unto unfeigned love of the brethren. Unfeigned means this is not faked. You know, you want to find out who the true church is. When persecution comes, we'll find out who's really saved. We'll find out who's truly dedicated. Unfeigned love, and here's what he says, and see that you love one another with a pure heart fervently. A pure heart means motives are pure, motives are right. The reason we're doing it is because of a true love for the other. And then he says, fervently. That means with a fire, with a passion. If Peter is speaking to the believers that this is how they're to love one another, should not our love be just as pure and just as fervent in our service for the Lord? With a pure heart, really expecting nothing in return, fervently, with a fire and a passion to carry it out, we serve out of a sincere heart. Paul puts it this way, he says in Philippians chapter 1, he says, that ye may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ. Sincere. It is whole, it is integral. That means all the parts fit together. It is a pure motive to follow the Lord. Why do we serve? We could even ask ourselves, why are we here today? Why have you and I come to the City Baptist Church at 10:30 on a Sunday morning, June the 28th? Why? Let us check our motives. Let us really take a look at are we doing this out of a true love for a desire to serve the Lord? Why do we do what we do through the week? We've gone down five times now for World Cup matches that have gone on here in Atlanta. We've got three more to go. Last night we were out until 7.30 because it was a late match. Why do we do that? You know, when we think about motive, I think one thing I, as I was thinking about this, I jowed down, I said, would we keep serving the way we're serving if no one else knew about it? And if we could not post it online, would we still do what we're doing? If you could read your Bible in the Bible app and you weren't able to post that you read your Bible reading that day, you couldn't post it online. Only you and God knew. Would you still do it? If you couldn't, if you couldn't, whatever it is, you fill in the blank of service and you couldn't take a selfie doing that thing. You know, I've seen, I think people spend more time sometimes putting their Bible and coffee cup and everything in the way so they can take the picture to show they were reading their Bibles like a proof of spirituality, I guess. I think they spend more time sometimes getting the picture than they do just reading the Bible and spending time with the Lord. If we couldn't post it online, would we still serve the Lord and live for the Lord? Let's check our motives. We serve out of a sincere heart, which make note of a third thing. Not only do we serve because God has sustained and we serve out of a sincere heart. Look at a third thing. We choose who we will serve. Look down with me, please, at verse number 15. It says, and if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom ye will serve. I hope you mark that word in verse 15. Choose. We choose who we will serve. You realize every morning when that alarm goes off, we make a decision. And the decision is not, are we going to hit snooze or not? Here's the decision. Who am I going to serve today? You say, well, I'm just not going to serve anyone today. All right, you've already made a decision who you're going to serve. Who are we going to serve? I heard it said one time only two choices on the shelf. Serving God or serving self. We will make a decision. In fact, we're going to walk out of this place and we're going to make a decision who are we're going to serve. We're going to go home today, we're going to make a decision who are going to serve. We're going to get up tomorrow morning and we're going to make a decision who are we going to serve. We choose who we'll serve. And by the way, this word choose means we have volition. We get to choose how we're going to live. When we show up at work tomorrow, we choose who we're going to serve. When we go into the classroom tomorrow or go into the lab tomorrow, we choose who we will serve. And you say, now, Pastor, what do you mean? What does that have to do with a student or going in the lab? Because God's going to prompt you. Now, I know those people are going there, but you don't need to go with them. And I know they're talking like that, but you don't need to talk like that. And I know that they're cooking the books a little bit, but you don't need to have any part of that. Then we have a decision who we're going to serve. We have a decision how we're going to live. We choose. I think many times people don't want a choice because they don't want to face consequences. They don't want to face responsibility. We choose, and that means we also are going to face responsibility for what we choose and how we live. Because here's what he says in verse 15 If it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose you this day whom you will serve. He goes on to say here in verse 15, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell, he says, you've got plenty of choices. You can follow the false gods that your father served down in Egypt, some of them fell away. You can follow the gods of the Amorites, and you can choose to serve them, or you can choose to serve God. You know, if you and I are going to choose to serve the Lord, sometimes it's rejecting some bad examples that have been given to us. He even says here, your fathers served false gods. He says in verse 16, God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to serve other gods. You say, well, Pastor, I don't have any idols in my house. You may not have any carved idols, but there may be things that you are serving and that I am serving that take the place above God. Maybe it's, well, I don't, you know, I'm not going to tell the truth, because look, if I tell the truth, Pastor, I could lose my job and I won't have my health insurance anymore. Health insurance is not the is not the end-all of why we do right. Well, you know, if I if I don't if I don't hang out with these people and go where they're going and do all the things they're doing, then I'm not going to be promoted at work. Okay, promotion at work is not the great end-all. Who will you serve? Are you serving those people? Are you serving the promotion at work? Are you serving the benefits that you get from the job? Who will we serve? We choose. And if the decisions we make are because of health insurance or benefits, or the decisions we make are because we might get the funding we need for this project, then we have made it the God above the one true God. And that's what we're serving. Whichever one calls the shots, and whichever one we listen to, that's the one we're really serving. And we find here he says, You have a choice of who you will serve. Are you going to serve the gods on the other side of the flood? Are you going to serve the gods of the Amorites? Are you going to serve other gods? We choose who we will serve. Make note of a fourth thing. We serve because God has sustained. We serve out of a sincere heart. We choose who we will serve. And then make note of a fourth thing here. We serve as long as we stay clean. We serve as long as we stay clean. He says here in verse 14 and 15 and verse 16, he's speaking about, are you going to go serve other gods? And then he says, look at verse number 17, he says, For the Lord our God, he it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, among all the people through whom we passed. And the Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the Amorites which dwelt in the land, and therefore will we also serve the Lord, for he is our God. Look at verse 19. And Joshua said unto the people, Ye cannot serve the Lord. Now that's an interesting phrase, because all through here he said, Choose you this day whom you will serve, serve the Lord. And then he says in verse 19, Ye cannot serve the Lord. Why would he tell them to serve and then say, You can't serve? Here's what he says in verse 19. Ye cannot serve the Lord, for he is an holy God, and he is a jealous God, and he will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins if ye forsake the Lord and serve strange gods. Then he will turn and do you hurt and consume you after that he hath done you good. What is he saying here? We serve as long as we stay clean. He said, You can't serve the Lord if you're following these false gods. And you can't serve the Lord, he's a holy God. So if you're living an unholy life, you can't serve him. Imagine a monarch who had servants. And those servants came in, and the uniforms that they'd been given to wear, they were dirty and they were unkept. And they came in and they came in drunk and they weren't prepared for service. That monarch wouldn't take those servants. Let's bring it down to where we live. Imagine you went to work tomorrow and you weren't dressed right, you came in late, and you came in half sleepy and you wouldn't do your work and you wouldn't complete it, and you say, they'd say, you can't work here, then why do we think the Lord's going to take second-rate effort? And the Lord is going to take us just giving pocket change and spare time? Why do we, if if an earthly king wouldn't take it, and if your job wouldn't take it, why do we think the Lord will take it? Why do we think we can just live any way we want and give some pittance toward God like we've given some great sacrifice? When he says here, you can't serve the Lord, this is a high, holy thing. He expects higher standards from his children. And we should hold ourselves, you and I both should hold ourselves to a high standard of holiness and right living, that we may properly serve the Lord and we may properly follow him. Matthew chapter 6, Jesus said, No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. There's no way to do it. Now I know a lot of people, they they try to have it both ways, but they're not doing a good job at either of them. Because we can't straddle the fence and try to love God and love the world. We can't serve both of them. Psalm 24, you can turn there if you like, but the psalmist writes in Psalm 24, he says in verse number 1. He says, The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, the world and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the floods. Then he says in verse 3 Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in his holy place? Here's what he says in verse 4. He that hath What's the next word? Clean hands. And a what kind of heart? Pure heart. Who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. The Lord says, Do you know who I want serving me? Do you know who I want coming into the hill of the Lord, standing in his holy place? Those with clean hands and pure heart. A soul that's not lifted up to vanity, and a tongue that is not sworn deceitfully. That's pretty much all of it. Hands, heart, soul, and tongue. And he says, and if you're going to serve me, I want a clean people serving me. I want a people living a holy life. You say, Pastor, does that mean we have to be perfect? No, none of us are going to be perfect. But you know what we are striving for? We're striving to be like the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're trying to follow Him with clean hands and a clean heart and pure before Him. We serve as long as we stay clean. And would you make note of a final thing? We serve because God has sustained. We serve out of a sincere heart. We choose who we will serve. We serve as long as we stay clean. And then back in our passage, number five, we serve together as a family. We serve together as a family. We find here in verse number 15 of Joshua 24, he says, As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Now, first he makes it personal. He says, Me, I'm going to serve the Lord, and my house. Now, especially Joshua speaking of this, he's not just talking about the people that lived with him then. This has generational consequences. He's saying, I am going to serve the Lord because there are those coming after me that I want to leave the kind of example that they know what it means and they know what it looks like to serve the Lord. Me and my house are going to serve the Lord. In fact, it says, look at verse number 29. We looked at this earlier. Joshua is called the servant of the Lord. And it says, he died being 110 years old. Then it says in verse number 30. And they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Tidnath Sarah, which is the Mount of Ephraim, on the north side of the hill of Gaish. Look at verse 31. And Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua. Now he said, Me and my house are going to serve the Lord. But you know what kind of example he had? And you know what kind of influence he had? It says, and Israel, that's the nation, serve the Lord all the days of Joshua. Now you think, nobody's watching me, Pastor. What does it matter how I live? What does it matter if I serve the Lord or not? Joshua took it seriously enough to say, I know there's people in my house they're watching. And you may not be leading a nation like the nation of Israel, but God has given you some measure of influence and visibility. And as you serve the Lord, those who watch you and those who see you are saying, That's how I want to live. I want to follow the Lord like that. I want to serve the Lord in that way. In fact, it goes on to say, look at verse number 32, it says, And the bones of Joseph, which the children of Israel brought up out of Egypt, buried they and Shechem in the parcel of ground which Jacob brought of the sons of Hamor. Now, this is a whole nother story. This goes all the way back to Genesis 50. When Joseph died, where did he die? He died in Egypt. And he said, Look, I don't want to be buried in Egypt. When you come out of Egypt, I want my bones to come out of Egypt. And I want you to bury them in the promised land. And for 40 years, you know what they did? There was someone or a group of people that were responsible for Joseph's bones. And they carried them all the way through the wilderness 40 years and brought them into the promised land and they buried those bones. You say, Pastor, what does that have to do with our house serving the Lord? Joseph understood the responsibility he had and the stand that he needed to take. And he understood there's got to be people to come after me to live right and serve the Lord and follow the Lord if my bones are going to make it back to the promised land. Do you know how the City Baptist Church is going to continue? Where people say, me and my house are going to serve the Lord. Do you know how we're going to see a neighborhood reached and a city reached and a campus reached with the gospel? People saying, in our home, we're going to serve the Lord. It's easy to say, our church is going to do this, our church is going to do that. But we've got to make it personal. We've got to bring it down to the ground level where you and I live. As for me, I will serve the Lord. As for my house, we will serve the Lord. And if you and I serve the Lord and our house serves the Lord, then our church is going to serve the Lord. Then our church is going to follow the Lord. Then our church is going to make a difference in our city. Make serving the Lord in your family, in your home, make serving the Lord something you do together. It's not something we run off and do on our own. It's something we do together. It's something we make a part. We've just made it a part of our family that this is just how we're going to live. And the Lord will bless it, and the Lord will touch it. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Thank you for listening to the City Pulpit. For more information about the City Baptist Church of Atlanta, please visit www.mycitybaptist.com.