Introduction – Like a Rock
Years ago, Bob Seger wrote a song called “Like a Rock.”
It wasn’t meant to be a hymn, but if you listen with spiritual ears, you can hear one hiding inside.
He sings:
> “Like a rock, standing arrow-straight,
Like a rock, charging from the gate,
Like a rock, the sun upon my skin—
Hard against the wind.”
It’s a song of remembering—looking back on life and realizing how strong, how steady, how unshakable he once felt.
But the refrain ends almost wistfully. He keeps repeating, “Like a rock,” as if to say, I used to be that way.
If you’ve lived long enough, you know that feeling.
You remember when faith felt simple and clear.
When strength seemed endless.
When you knew who you were and where you were headed.
Then years rolled by. Winds picked up. Doubts blew in.
And somewhere along the way, you realized—you weren’t as rock-solid as you once thought.
The ache of that song isn’t just nostalgia.
It’s the human condition—trying to hold on to something steady in a world that keeps shifting beneath your feet.
That’s why God gave His people a monument of stone.
Not a playlist, not a photograph, but twelve heavy rocks stacked on the riverbank, each one declaring:
“God brought us through.”
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The Story at the River
Let’s step into the story.
The Israelites had been waiting forty long years for this moment.
Behind them was wilderness.
Ahead of them was promise.
Between them stood a river in flood.
Joshua, their new leader, told the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to walk straight into the water.
Now, the Jordan wasn’t a trickling stream.
It was harvest season—the water high, swift, dangerous.
Yet when the priests stepped in, the river stopped.
It “stood up in a heap,” Scripture says, and the people crossed on dry ground.
Can you imagine that first footstep on the riverbed?
Mud that should have swallowed a sandal now held firm.
Children ran across, wide-eyed.
Mothers gripped the hands of the elderly.
Every step was miracle.
And when they reached the other side, God spoke again.
He said, “Choose twelve men, one from each tribe. Tell them to go back to the middle of the Jordan, right where the priests are standing, and pick up a stone.”
Each man bent down, picked up a stone large enough to shoulder, and carried it to camp.
There, at a place called Gilgal, they stacked those stones into a monument.
God said, “When your children ask you in time to come, ‘What mean these stones?’ you shall tell them…”
You shall tell them the story of My faithfulness.
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The Purpose of Remembering
Why stones?
Because stones don’t fade.
They don’t wilt like flowers or crumble like parchment.
They stand—silent witnesses that God keeps His word.
We build monuments for the same reason we take photographs or write in journals.
We need reminders of where we’ve been and Who brought us here.
Faith, you see, doesn’t grow in forgetfulness.
It grows in remembrance.
Ellen White once wrote, “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history.”
That’s not just poetic wisdom; it’s survival instruction for the soul.
Forgetfulness is the rust that eats away at faith.
Memory is the polish that keeps it shining.
So God says, “Stack the stones. Tell the story. Remember.”
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Our Modern Forgetfulness
We live in a culture that runs fast and remembers poorly.
News cycles last hours.
Birthdays flash by in notifications.
We scroll through memories without stopping to feel them.
But God still calls His people to pause—to remember.
Because forgetting breeds fear, but remembering fuels faith.
When you’re standing before a new challenge—your own Jordan River—you need reminders that the same God who parted waters yesterday can do it again today.
Every miracle forgotten becomes a miracle harder to believe next time.
So, He gives us memorials.
He gives us communion bread, Sabbath sunsets, answered prayers, baptism memories, and even birthdays and anniversaries.
He gives us moments that whisper, “Look how far you’ve come, and Who carried you here.”
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Birthdays, Anniversaries, and Stones
A birthday isn’t just about candles and cake—it’s a personal stone of remembrance.
It marks another year that God sustained breath, health, and grace.
An anniversary isn’t only about flowers—it’s a reminder that God’s covenant love still holds two hearts together.
Even a graduation or recovery milestone becomes a stone—testifying, “God was faithful through that season too.”
Think of the twelve stones at Gilgal as the nation’s birthday party and wedding anniversary rolled into one.
It marked the day Israel was reborn as a people of promise and renewed their covenant with their Deliverer.
Maybe you’ve got your own stones.
A Bible with tear-stained pages.
A hospital bracelet you kept.
A photograph from the day you were baptized.
Each one whispers: “He was faithful.”
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Personal Reflection – Abner’s Grave
Not long ago, I found something of my own—a kind of unexpected monument.
I discovered the grave of my father’s father, a man named Abner Dunn.
He passed away before I was born.
Growing up overseas, I never met him and hardly knew my extended family.
But standing there at his grave, tracing the letters of his name, I felt the quiet tug of continuity—like one of those stones at Gilgal.
He lived a life of faith long before I ever drew breath.
And somehow, his prayers and choices ripple through my story still.
That simple granite marker reminded me: Faith doesn’t die. It gets passed on.
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Family Stones
Recently I visited my older sister.
We sat down to catch up on family memories—stories we hadn’t shared in years.
Before I left, she handed me two boxes filled with old photographs.
I get to scan and sort them—faces of grandparents, parents, moments frozen in time.
Each picture feels like a little stone of remembrance.
Some I recognize, others I’ll have to ask about, but all of them speak the same truth:
We are here because God was faithful to someone before us.
And if He was faithful then, He’ll be faithful now.
Maybe that’s why remembering matters so much—it doesn’t just keep the past alive; it keeps faith alive.
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The Children Who Ask
God told Joshua, “When your children ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them.”
The stones weren’t primarily for the generation that crossed the river; they were for the ones who hadn’t seen it.
Faith must always have storytellers.
Our children need to hear about your answered prayers, not just their own.
They need to know the God of their parents before they face the floods of their own generation.
Because second-hand faith becomes first-hand faith through story.
Maybe tonight, some of us need to take our children—or grandchildren—on a walk down memory lane.
Tell them about the time God healed, provided, forgave, guided.
Let them see your stones.
Because one day they’ll need those stories to stand on.
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When the Stones Are Forgotten
Judges 2 tells us what happened a generation later: “There arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord nor the works which He had done for Israel.”
The stones were still there at Gilgal … but the stories had gone silent.
It’s a sobering thought. You can have monuments without memory. You can keep the symbols and lose the substance.
That’s why remembering isn’t a passive act—it’s an act of faith.
Faith rehearses what God has done until it becomes muscle memory.
When you’re in a storm, you reach back instinctively—He was faithful then, He’ll be faithful now.
When you’re afraid of tomorrow, you look at the stones of yesterday and say, “He hasn’t changed.”
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What Are Your Stones?
Maybe your stones aren’t literal.
Maybe they’re moments—when the doctor said “no hope” and God said “not yet.”
When you were running on empty, and someone knocked on your door with a casserole and prayer.
When forgiveness felt impossible, but grace flooded your heart anyway.
Those are your stones.
You may never pile them on a riverbank, but you can keep them where you’ll see them:
in a journal, a photograph, a testimony, a scar that healed.
And when someone asks, “How do you still believe?”—you can point to the stones.
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The God Who Stands in the River
Notice something beautiful in the story:
The priests holding the Ark stayed in the middle of the river until every person had crossed.
They didn’t move until the last straggler was safe on the far side.
Only then did they step out, and only then did the waters return.
That’s the gospel right there.
Our God doesn’t just part the waters—He stands in them with us.
He holds back the flood until every one of His children is through.
He is the Rock who doesn’t move, even when the current roars.
So when we build our stones of remembrance, we’re not just memorializing events—we’re honoring Presence.
The same Presence that stood in the Jordan still stands in our chaos today.
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Faith Is Remembered Forward
Sometimes we think remembering looks backward.
But biblical remembering always pushes forward.
Israel’s stones didn’t just say, “Look what God did.”
They declared, “Look what He can do again.”
Remembering renews expectation.
When you call to mind how God has led you, faith rises for what He will yet do.
That’s why communion doesn’t end with the cross—it ends with the promise: “I will drink it new with you in My Father’s kingdom.”
So every time you remember, don’t just thank Him for the past—trust Him for the future.
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Modern Monuments
Think about the monuments we build today.
A baptism certificate tucked in a Bible.
A ring on your finger.
A wedding photo fading on the mantle.
A birthday card with shaky handwriting from someone now at rest.
These are modern Gilgals—reminders that God’s mercy has been new every morning.
Even church buildings, hymns, Sabbath mornings, and communion tables are stones.
They stand as tangible evidence of a God who enters time and space to meet His people.
Every Sabbath is a memorial.
Every testimony service is a wall of stones.
Every answered prayer joins the pile.
And each one says, “He is still God in the land of the living.”
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When Faith Becomes Familiar
But here’s the danger:
The longer we live surrounded by blessings, the easier it is to forget where they came from.
Israel could see the stones every day and still grumble the next time water ran low.
We can see our miracles and still worry about next month’s bills.
So God invites us again—pause, remember, give thanks.
It’s not just gratitude—it’s spiritual maintenance.
Remembering keeps faith oiled and ready for tomorrow’s journey.
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A Personal Stone
Maybe tonight your stone is something simple:
A date on a calendar when you turned the corner from despair to hope.
A scar that used to bleed but now just tells the story of healing.
A photograph of the day you said, “I still do.”
A little headstone in a quiet cemetery where you whisper, “Thank You, Lord, for those who went before me.”
Whatever it is, bring that memory into worship.
Because in the kingdom of God, nothing remembered in faith is ever wasted.
Every stone becomes a sermon, every story becomes a song.
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A Call to Remember
What if, tonight, we stacked some stones of our own—not of granite, but of gratitude?
What if each of us chose one story of God’s faithfulness and told it again—
to a friend, to a child, to ourselves?
What if, the next time fear rises, instead of rehearsing the problem, we rehearsed the story of how He came through last time?
What if remembering became our act of worship?
Because the God who led you through the river then
is still the God who will lead you through the river now.
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From Memory to Mission
Joshua 4 ends with God explaining the reason for the monument:
“That all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever.”
So remembering isn’t just private nostalgia.
It’s public witness.
The stones at Gilgal were meant to shout God’s glory to every passerby.
When you share your testimony, you’re adding another stone to the pile—something the next traveler can point to and say, “There’s evidence that God is real.”
Your story might be the bridge someone else needs to cross their Jordan.
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Closing Reflection
Maybe the most important stone you’ll ever lift is the one you carry in your heart—the choice to remember that faith is not built on feelings but on God’s proven character.
We don’t need to chase new signs when we already have old stones.
The cross itself is our Gilgal—rough, heavy, lifted high so that generations could look and say, “That’s where He brought us through.”
So tonight, before you go home, think of the stones in your life.
Name them. Thank God for them.
And when someone asks, “What mean these stones?”—tell them the story of your faithful God.
