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.
Israel was at a place of deep change. They had wandered in the wilderness for forty years and now finally they were about to step into the land that God had promised to their
Joshua 3:1
Joshua... they ...came to Jordan...
They came to Jordan in Joshua and with Joshua. When we come to the places of change in our lives in and with Jesus, we are in the safest places we could ever be. We will be transformed if we will follow His instructions.
Joshua 3:8
When you come to the brink of the water of the Jordan, ye shall stand still in the Jordan...
v13
And it shall come to pass, as soon as the soles of the feet of the priests who bear the Ark of the LORD, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from the waters that come down from above, and they shall stand in one heap...
There are places where God wants us to just rest in the moments of transition and watch the transformation.
“When you are finished changing, you are finished.” (Benjamin Franklin)
Learning to rest in these moments is the key to transformation. Rest doesn't mean that we aren't working, but it does mean that we are not fretting. There is something inside of us that we can rely on. The caterpillar spins its cocoon by instinct. There is something on the inside that compels it to do so. There is something on the inside of you at this moment compelling you to make some changes and it may seem frightening at the moment, but relax.
"As you move along your path, you may feel angry, held back, unseen, or empty. It takes so much courage to be developing... don't let the in-between space convince you that you lack anything. Being in transition doesn't mean you are broken. It means you are breaking away from the old, an identity, maybe a set of assumptions or an understanding or a world that no longer fits you." (Tama J. Kieves)
"Real life is always taking place in the middle of things, not just in the polished perfection of an illusion of an end goal. How you live in the middle really is the quality of your life." (Tama J. Kieves)
"The famous and wise comedian George Carlin once said, "The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity." I am a fan of caterpillars, those who are dissolving their own skins to become who they are meant to be. [Those] who continue to grow, perpetually enter the goop of change, or butterfly soup. It's incomplete. It wouldn't look good on a photoshoot."
2. How We Yield In the Places of Transition Determine What We Become
2 Kings 5:10
And Elisha sent a messenger unto him, saying, Go and wash in Jordan seven times, and thy flesh shall come again to thee, and thou shalt be clean.
Initially, Namaan was angry. But once his servants spoke to him he did as the prophet had admonished him.
2 Kings 5:14
Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came again like unto a little child, and he was clean.
Seven is often the number that represents perfection and completion in Scripture.
At the Jordans of life, there are moments when our obedience must be perfected before our change comes.
Namaan's journey carried him from Syria to Israel. He was close to his miracle. He was close to the kingdom of God, but it took his willingness to go through the discomfort of something new in order for his transformation to come. When he obeyed, he was practically born again.
Seven also represents the act of making a covenant or an oath in Scripture sometimes. God was calling Namaan into covenant with Himself.
God was not calling Namaan to do something great. He just had to obey something simple and he walked away clean and new!
The place where you crave certainty is the place where you are growing wings.
All snowflakes are alike. It is how they fall through the atmosphere and interact with the elements that crystallized their unique patterns and shapes them into what they become. It is in the moments of transition that you are becoming. What you are is God's gift to you and what you become is your gift to God and the world. The journey creates who you are. How we respond to
What feels like death is nothing more than the place where you are sprouting wings and changing from the inside out.
When the Israelites passed over the Jordan river there were probably some that went across shaking in their sandals, but they went across. There were surely some that were confident and led the way. It takes everyone! God does not despise your doubt, just doubt in the right direction!
3. It Is Important That We Follow The Leading of the Spirit
The priests carried the Ark of the Covenant. It represented the Presence of God among the people. It represented the Spirit of God.
Normally the Ark rested in the Tabernacle in the center of the camp with Israel's tents pitched around it. All of their tents were pointed towards it.
There was also a miraculous symbol that they saw continually above the Tabernacle: during the day it looked like a pillar of cloud and at night it was a pillar of fire. They saw this symbol throughout their wilderness wanderings.
When it was time for Israel to move the cloud and fire led them. They were emblems of the leading of the Spirit of God. As God moved Israel towards a new season in the purpose and plan of God the cloud and fire disappeared. We don't hear about it anymore.
As they come to the Jordan River, the place of change, the place of transition, the LORD tells Joshua to do something different. The priests carry the Ark on their shoulders and they carry it ahead of Israel.
Israel is instructed to remain three-quarters of a mile behind the Ark. The reasoning was that Israel had come to a path that they had not trod before. It was vital that they allow the Ark to go before them and prepare the way.
As many as are led of the Spirit of God are the sons of God (Romans 8:14).
There was a change coming that they had not experienced and God wanted to see them.
God is not surprised by what is ahead of us on the journey. The best thing that we can do is to slow down and look ahead as far as the Spirit allows us to see before we take the next step.
If you will allow God to lead, He will cause the change that might overwhelm you in the moments of transition not to.
When the priests' feet stepped into the waters, the waters were cut off and began to stack up on the side where it flowed from. The miracle is greater than we imagine when we begin to think about the way all of the tributaries and the waters from the mountains that flowed down into the Jordan all just stacked up and stopped to allow Israel to pass over. All the things that made the river continue in its perpetual state of flux, all the things that fed into it, were suspended for a moment.
It was based on the covenant. Israel was in covenant with the LORD. That covenant would not allow the river of change to destroy the children of Israel, because they followed the leading of His Spirit.
There were battles to fight on the other side and more change to come, but this moment was unique because it was a moment of fullness.
Jordan represents moments of fullness.
It was at Jordan that Elijah crosses over when he would be taken up into heaven. It was a transformational moment. He took his garment (mantle) and struck the waters of the Jordan. The waters rolled back and he and his young protege cross over on the dry ground. He was taken away into heaven without death
His servant Elisha caught his garment (mantle) as it fell from Elijah as he ascended into heaven. Elisha picked it up and walked over to the Jordan and with the word, "Where is the LORD God of Elisha," he smote the waters of the Jordan and the river rolled back again for him to cross over. The mantle represents the Spirit of God as the Ark had.
When John the Baptist came preaching the baptism of repentance, he baptized his hearers in the waters of the Jordan river. He declared that a moment of fullness had come. He said, "the time (kairos) is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is near." Israel once again had come to a place where all the change that they had experienced up to that point had filled the prophetic dam and it was time for an outpouring.
It was into this full time that the Lord Jesus walked onto the scene in the first century. He walked down into the waters of the Jordan river, and rather than parting the waters that could have drowned ancient Israel when they first passed over to Canaan, or Elijah when he escaped death, Jesus was immersed (baptized) in the waters of the Jordan. He was symbolically dying for all Israel's past, present, and future. He was being buried with us and for us. As He came out of the water a Voice from Heaven said, "This is My Beloved Son, in Whom I Am well pleased." The Spirit of God descended upon Him as a Dove anointing Him for the ministry. He would demonstrate what the life of a Spirit-led Human Being is like from that moment to the cross where He would offer Himself up without spot unto God.
Joshua 3:11
Behold, the Ark of the Covenant of The LORD of all the earth passeth over before you into Jordan.
If you are at Jordan this morning, Jesus has gone before you. He has gone down into the very Rivers of change and emerged victoriously.
The best thing you can do is to follow Him. He knows the way. He is God with us, God for us, and God in us!
Maybe you are here this morning and you've lost something at the place of change. Maybe your lifework has not had the hope that it once had. Maybe you are like the young man who was working on the banks of the Jordan river working to build a house for the person who represented the Spirit of God and you lost your hope. The man who had borrowed the ax lost it in the Jordan. When he told Elisha. The prophet asked him to bring him to the place where he had lost it. Then the man of God cut down a tree and tossed it in the water in that place. The cross of Christ is a place of change. He can recover your lost hope, joy, or love. Show him where you lost it. The heavy ax head swam to the tree. It was transformed. What you've lost in the river of change will float to the cross if you show it to the LORD.
After this entire episode, the prophet told the young man to reach down and pick it up. This place of change is not going to destroy you. It is a place of transformation.
Go with the flow.
Conclusion:
As you seek to discern the next steps in your life of faith. Embrace the moment. Live life now. The journey is your life and if you are constantly looking for the destination, you will find that once your life is over that you have not lived.
Walk with God and He will let you know when the moments of fullness come.
