If it is disagreeable in your sight to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves today whom you will serve: whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River [Euphrates, in Ur of the Chaldees], or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. Joshua 24:15

Perplexing;

• How could it be “disagreeable” to serve the LORD?
• Why should I be in a position to agree or disagree to serve the LORD? Why should it be a choice at all?
• In my sight? Why should my subjective perspective have anything to do with it?

This presentation is an acknowledgement that no matter how much I do not deserve this liberty, God does not force my allegiance or fidelity to Him, or worship of Him. It is a great mystery, but for some reason God invites me into this choice. God knows that in my autonomous mindset I will be inclined to flex my decision making muscles, and He lets me do it.

So Joshua presents choices, not a mandate.

Choices. We love them. It feeds our autonomy.

If serving the LORD is “disagreeable,” Joshua offers two other choices. The first choice: serve the gods of my predecessors. Terah, the father of Abraham, and his family, served other gods in Babylon. See verse 2. Heritage is not to be adopted and repeated unthinkingly. Every generation has a duty to reexamine the trajectory they are placed on by the previous generation. This is the natural impulse of each new generation; it is how we are wired. Heritage and tradition usually deserve respect and deference, but they are not necessarily correct just because they were first. Sometimes our ancestors got it right. And sometimes they did not. God called Terah and Abraham out of their heritage. He had something better for them: Himself.

The second choice offered by Joshua: serve the gods of those in whose land where I am living, i.e., contemporary culture. Just as heritage is not necessarily correct because it is precedent, neither is contemporary culture necessarily correct because it is the latest, or the current mainstream.  Majority may rule, but that does not make it right. The seductive glitz and glamour of the most contemporary thinking cannot be trusted merely because it is new or popular. And it is usually not even really new, but just a repeat of age old themes. There is nothing new under the sun.

These really are the only alternatives to serving God: rote conformity to legacy, or conformity to one of the contemporary offerings of lifestyle and world view.

One may imagine there is another alternative, not to serve anyone or anything, but just do what one thinks is right in one’s own eyes, i.e., serve one’s self. But “serving” one’s self is an oxymoron. It is really just selfishness. Service necessarily implies one person attending to the needs or desires of another. If I pour myself a cup of coffee, I am serving no one. There is no such thing as self-serve, not at a gas station, a yogurt shop, or in life. Rejecting all masters and choosing autonomy is really just one of the contemporary “gods” of self-indulgence. Not that this is new. The me generation is not just one generation. It is as old as humanity.

Bob Dylan got it right: you’re gonna have to serve somebody.

My risk is not so much rotely serving the gods of my predecessors. I’m too much of a rebel. My vulnerability is conformity with contemporary culture. I want to be liked; to fit in. And the glitz catches my selfish eye.

Joshua does not make serving the LORD sound easy. God will be exacting, warns Joshua. See v. 19-20. Joshua overplays God’s judgment. But Joshua’s purpose is pure. He wants no half-hearted commitment.

My choice of whom I will serve must be a deliberate one. Inertia and inadvertence will not cut it. There are no default settings.

My choice must be a wise one. History is littered with what was supposed to be the next great thing, from the enlightenment, to the Great Society, to nuclear power, to disco. Today’s fads will just as surely pass. You can post that on your Myspace page.

My choice commands counting the cost. All of my energy, time and resources will be devoted to this purpose. Whomever I serve will ultimately cost me everything.

Who and what is worth this price?

Who or what will I serve that will stand the test of generations, of thousands of years?

Who or what will I serve that provides life and substance beyond a thin veneer of exterior good looks that is in the end a deception that will not and cannot deliver on its promises?

I must not be afraid to challenge and examine the contenders. My life depends on it.

Joshua was resolute on his choice, as were those hearing him that day. This was no hard sell, no irresistibly slick persuasion. Just hard facts. Joshua laid out their history. Where they had been. What God had done. Based on the record, he challenged them: whom will you serve?

I must decide. I cannot waffle. I cannot spread my bets. It is impossible. This fundamental choice requires a singular decision and solitary commitment. Joshua says that decision day is today.

I must go all in. Who or what is worthy of such commitment? Whom will I serve?

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