Legacy Makers - Wk3
January 24, 2021

The Blessing

Week Three - Legacy Makers
Joshua 24

Our lives are

in the making.
- Hard for us to grasp because we are “in the moment” and the immediate so often takes priority in the decisions we make.

  • Week One - Blessed to be a blessing (Gen. 12, Abraham - every decision, every act of obedience, and disobedience, became part of a story we now tell)
  • Week Two - We are not bound by the story we have been given by lots of other people, we are already part of a big, interconnected story - a story marked by redemption (Jesus gives us life, John 10)!

So, here’s where we start to get truly concrete -
We have a choice about the legacy we will leave, or more importantly, the one we are making right now

*our story is the compilation of every

we make


Context: Israelites have been led out of slavery, they’ve since made some okay decisions and some not great decisions which led to a lot of years wandering in the desert, and now they are in the valley, about to cross into the Promised Land. Joshua pulls everyone together and reviews their history, and now they have a decision to make about what happens next…

Make a Choice

14 “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. 15 But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”
16 Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! 17 It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. 18 And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.” —Joshua 24:14-18


The decisions we make in the valleys will determine the stories we tell on the other side. —Andy Stanley, “Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets”

The legacy question - What story do you want to tell?
-think of your life as a story with lots of chapters
-the chapter you’re in right now isn’t the only chapter - you get to decide what happens next!


Name the Obstacles

19 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. 20 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.”
21 But the people said to Joshua, “No! We will serve the Lord.”
22 Then Joshua said, “You are witnesses against yourselves that you have chosen to serve the Lord.”
“Yes, we are witnesses,” they replied.
23 “Now then,” said Joshua, “throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the Lord, the God of Israel.”
24 And the people said to Joshua, “We will serve the Lord our God and obey him.” —Joshua 24:19-24

-You’re going to be tempted to make the decision that best responds to the

, it’s why we have to pause and revisit the big picture
-Instead of “what do I want now?” ask yourself, “What do I want ?”

Make your choice, but don’t forget to name the obstacles and the temptations - we can know what we want, but until we do the less obvious things, we’re not writing the story we want to tell.


Make it visible

25 On that day Joshua made a covenant for the people, and there at Shechem he reaffirmed for them decrees and laws. 26 And Joshua recorded these things in the Book of the Law of God. Then he took a large stone and set it up there under the oak near the holy place of the Lord. —Joshua 24:25-26

We need concrete,

reminders of what we want most.

What decision do you need to make today that will best reflect the story you want to tell, and the story that will become part of someone else’s story?

  1. Make a
  2. Name the
  3. Make it