Crossing Jordan

Crossing Jordan

Scripture Text:

Joshua 3:1-17

Introduction:

Jordan represents places of transition in our lives. We can never remain the same.

We grow stagnant and live in depression often because we long for "the way it used to be."

The writer of Ecclesiastes warns us "Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions." (Ecclesiastes 7:10)

Although change is constant and it seems to increase for us exponentially every day, for many of us change is something that we dread. As human beings, we need both stability and change, but the reality is that nothing remains the same. Embracing this truth can save us from a world of frustration and hurt.

When Israel faced the Red Sea, they wanted to go back. It seemed like all the miracles that they had experienced thus far were in vain.

When Israel faced starvation, they wanted to go back. It seemed like all of Gods' provision to that point was in vain.

But God had a plan and God had provided for them that was as simple as continuing to follow Him. Our greatest moments of doubt are the moments when our faith can grow the greatest. God does not despise our doubt, He just wants us to doubt in the right direction.

Most change in life is gradual, but it is always constant.

Our inward man is renewed day by day. The path of the just is as a shining light.

What seems like abrupt thresholds in our lives are actually the culmination of where life has been moving us all along.

Over 400 years before our text for this morning God had appeared to Abraham in Genesis 15 and assured him that his descendants would be strangers in a strange land for 400 years and eventually come out and come into Canaan to possess the land. God said that the reason it would take that long was that the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full. God is not only working in your individual life, he is also working in all of the lives around you and the lives of those who will be around you. He is continually preparing you and them for future encounters that you will have.

The children of Israel had been in Egypt for 400 years. Much of that time they had spent as slaves. God called them his army.

The children of Israel had wandered in the wilderness for forty years eating manna. They had an entitlement mentality.

They walked in the wilderness. Walking is a way of saying "this is how they lived." They spent their lives walking around in circles because they were constantly looking for the past.

God's message to them was almost always consistently to, "go forward." [Some of the only times when He did not tell them to go forward were in moments of their extreme disobedience when there was a shift in their experience, but even this was known to God.]

The paradox is that as we go forward there is a cyclical nature to life. The difference between our growth and our failure is choosing to move towards maturity in the next season. The river of life keeps on flowing, but there are miraculous moments when it is as if time stands still and we step into the fullness of God's purpose for that season. It does not mean that there will not be something ahead, or that there are not great things behind. That is why God had the leaders of Israel's tribes set up a memorial at the crossing of the Jordan. Not so they could worship the past, but so that they could look at it and say, "If God did it back then, He can do it now!"

You're in places of transition. God wants you to follow Him into the river, not fearing the change. He wants you to embrace the change!

You have not been this way before. There are places that your past experience, training, education may not immediately seem to have prepared you for.

God brings us to the Jordans of life because He does not want us to go back to the comfort of the past.

I want to talk to you this morning on the topic, "Crossing Jordan." We will look at some instances of the Scriptures' use of the River Jordan and what that typifies for us today.

1. The Only Constant In Life Is Change

"The only constant in life is change." (Heraclitus)

“Heraclitus, I believe, says that all things pass and nothing stays, and comparing existing things to the flow of a river, he says you could not step twice into the same river.” (Plato)

We are a different person when we step out of the river than when we stepped in.