As for Me and My House, We Will Serve the LORD

"As for Me and My House, We Will Serve the LORD" – Joshua 24:15 "Choose you this day whom ye will serve... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua's declaration, spoken when he was already old and before the whole assembled people, is taken here as a rule of life and as a challenge: your life is shaped according to whom you serve, and the first place of the battle is your own house. The study moves through Deuteronomy 6:5-7 —loving God completely and teaching the word at the four moments of the day—, Proverbs 22:6 —the early sowing—, Colossians 3:16 —let the word dwell richly— and Psalm 101:2 —integrity begins inside one's own home.

I. The challenge of the text

A. "As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD" is a beautiful and perfect saying; it is a challenge, a confrontation, a call to think.

B. When a person serves the Lord, God carries him along day by day and never lets go of his hand; and He teaches him according to how He means to make him grow.

C. The day we recognize that God must lead us by the hand in order for us to grow is the day God has revealed Himself to us completely.

D. Your life will be shaped according to whom you serve. On this earth there is always something before your face saying "serve me": to divert us, to daze us, to destroy us.

E. And you are not alone in it: you fight and I must fight too; you battle, I battle.

F. The first place of the battle is one's own house, because it is the first thing we will have to give account of before God.

II. What the church is and why it gathers

A. When a person decides to seek the LORD, he enters the depths of what is hard, not of what is easy. One must mature and know that life has to change.

B. The church is not for amusement: amusement can be at the court, at the movies, at your house. The church is for groaning, for weeping, for repenting.

C. It is where, every time you read the word, you search yourself and ask: will I have eternal life? And if you think that as mortals we are not on the edge, open your eyes and look.

D. A church is built by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of prayer, and by the sanctification of each person.

E. The church is not a spectacle nor a tale; we do not recite prayers, we humble ourselves in prayer. It is where the men and women of God sanctify themselves.

F. It is not a religion: it is what educates you, so you are able to recover what the devil always wants to steal from you.

III. Joshua stands up

A. Joshua stood in the midst of the whole multitude and said it: "as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." It was said; full stop.

B. The promised land was full of other peoples: the sword had to be drawn. For when a people gets a little freedom, all that is pagan, worldly, and of the flesh begins again.

C. Already an old man, he gathered the people to bring to memory what God had done: bringing them out of Egypt, guiding them through the wilderness, giving them the land.

D. The trouble is that a person has no memory of all that God has done in his life. The whole people forgot that they had been slaves, marked as slaves.

E. We are so attached to this earth that we think we will be eternal. "I take care of myself, I take my medicine." Heaven marks that out; it is called time, and God marks it.

F. As the years pass the body wears down; but in old age there is no spiritual weakness: there is more boldness and more strength.

G. Joshua was no longer the nimble man nor the man of the sword; he already walked a little heavily. But the conviction he would keep to the last breath of his life.

IV. One must decide whom to serve

A. Joshua issued a clear call: decide whom you will serve. And that is the call today.

B. If you do not decide, life will trap you: "you chose this, here it is." And the pain will come, and the weeping, and the complaint.

C. For there to be good days one must serve the LORD and pray every day. At talking and at giving opinions nobody beats us; but being just —that is where one must be brave.

D. We are very good in secret: we talk, we opine, and we curse in secret. Do not think it will not bounce back on your head: it is a monster that keeps growing.

E. There were two options: the gods they worshipped before, or the Lord who had saved them. The believer takes all of Scripture and builds it into his system.

F. The text says "my house," and it says "we will serve": we will fight. We do not gather the family to manipulate it, but to fight; and that takes prayer, fasting, and knowledge of the word.

G. My house and I will serve the LORD: the good day or the bad day. And one must serve with the whole chest, for the God who called us is the God who backs us.

H. Do you like the world? Keep the world. But do not play both: the world or God. Not both.

V. A personal decision, and then a family one

A. First it is a wholly personal decision. Do not wait for the son, the husband, or the wife to be converted; and once you make it, then you can carry it to the family.

B. Second, it is personal and familial: faith is not only individual, it shapes the home and carries a spiritual leadership within the family.

C. If no one rises up spiritual, everyone is carnal. Joshua speaks as head of his house, guiding his whole family toward God.

D. Third, it is a firm commitment: neither the years nor old age touched it. It is not something temporary, but a clear choice of life.

VI. Loving God completely (Deuteronomy 6:5-7)

A. "And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might... and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children."

B. "I do not like being subjected to religion." You need not submit to religion; but then you must submit to hell. It is either God, or hell.

C. Loving God completely is not a partial, incomplete, or limited love: God asks for the heart, the mind, the strength, and the whole life.

D. When a person is converted he gives his whole life; that is why his sayings change and his way of speaking changes, and he no longer sees things as before, but everything grounded in faith.

E. "Pastor, I have many problems." Life is there to be resolved; life is there so that you live by faith. Miracles are done by means of faith.

F. The word first in the heart: before teaching it, it must live inside us. Cultivate it, and then you bring it out and share it.

G. What is in the heart is transmitted naturally, good or bad. We decide what comes out of our mouth.

H. The word must be taught to the children constantly: in the house, on the road, when lying down, when rising up. There your speech changes, your thinking changes, and your faith increases.

I. Until then there is no faith; and without faith there are no miracles nor gifts from heaven. Faith is formed, is taught, and is learned in everyday life.

J. The heart of the passage: God designed the family to be the first place where faith is taught. Without faith a person is disabled, for God is moved by faith.

VII. The early sowing (Proverbs 22:6)

A. "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it."

B. "Train up" implies devoting time and effort: dedicating, forming, directing. It is not only passing on information, but shaping character and life.

C. "In the way he should go" can be understood two complementary ways: the way of God, and also the child's own bent, guiding him according to his character.

D. What you did not sow in your child, he does not have today. Later, when they are grown, they are what you permitted.

E. No one waits for a child to reach seventh grade to teach him to read: it is repeated until it is automatic. So repeat to the child, speak to him, lead him by the hand.

F. What is taught in childhood stays deep in the heart; even if the person grows up and passes through hard stages, that foundation remains.

G. If you do not teach your family what love is, they do not know the word love. Because the parents did not sow, they have nothing to gather; instead of forming, they deform.

H. "They are still small": no. The child is the one who knows most; the more you teach him, the more he knows. And that small body is being formed spiritually.

I. And in whose hands is it, if not the parents'? The school cannot form what comes deformed: it teaches that two and two are four, and how to read, and nothing more.

VIII. Let the word dwell richly (Colossians 3:16)

A. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another."

B. Let it dwell richly, not scantily. Much of what a person thinks and says is an absence of spirituality coming out through the mouth.

C. It is not about reading it occasionally, but about the message of Christ filling the mind, the heart, and daily life.

D. Teaching one another: someone says something and you answer with what Scripture says. That is teaching, and it is almost automatic.

E. The Christian life is also communal. Children need both father and mother: the more spiritual conversation they are given, the more is gathered up.

F. When a brother comes with a problem, one must pray and enter in with God, because the only thing that can break those chains is God.

G. When you begin with the power of Scripture, the miracles begin: it flows from within, comes out through the mouth, the word is declared, and there is the miracle.

H. To admonish means to encourage, correct, and guide in love so that a person stays on God's road.

I. And worship as part of life: psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. It is not only music in the church; it is an expression of the heart toward God, for we enter the atmosphere with God.

IX. Integrity begins at home (Psalm 101:2)

A. "I will behave myself wisely in a perfect way... I will walk within my house with a perfect heart."

B. The first thing that catches our ear is "I am not perfect," and so we cover our imperfection. But the psalmist says: I have to understand it.

C. On a road of integrity you sleep in peace. Where you are not upright, peace cannot dwell: if you sleep, you sleep from exhaustion, and on rising the torment is there.

D. You have hidden sins you never confess, and you are never free. You come to church and feel good because of the songs, but the road has to be one of integrity.

E. The spiritual life begins at home: David does not speak first of the temple or of the public, but of how he lives inside his own household.

F. Integrity means being the same person in public, in private, with the family, and —greatest of all— before God.

G. One cannot be spiritual at church and let loose at home. Then from whom did the child learn? Who is the closest?

H. Before influencing the world, the believer must walk uprightly inside his house; then he will walk so wherever he goes, and no one will be able to break him or make him change.

X. Application

A. Say it today, out loud, before those who live under your roof: as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

B. Do not wait for someone else to be converted: make the decision yourself first, and then carry it to the family.

C. Put the word into the four moments of the day: in the house, on the road, when lying down, when rising up.

D. Sow early in the children: repeat, speak, lead by the hand; what was not sown is not gathered.

E. Examine what is hidden: what is said and opined in secret is a monster that grows and bounces back.

F. Do not play both sides. And let who you are in public be who you are in your house, for integrity begins there.