Crossing Jordan
(And the Lessons We Learn)
January 18, 2003
Intro: (I began this sermon sharing a personal story non-related to the sermon)…
I’m not sure what kind of truth you’ll take away from the story I just shared…but I want to tell you a story found in the book of Joshua that is worth repeating again and again for all of our benefit. I want to recap the story of the Israelites crossing the Jordan river. Now this instance is strikingly similar to another great event in the Bible—the crossing of the Red Sea.
Transition: RECAP JOSHUA 3-4 (since we don’t have time to read both chapters today)
Moses dies. Transfer of leadership to Joshua. Joshua is to lead the nation into the Promised land. God gives Joshua assurance. He rallies his troops. Gives the priests instructions to carry the ark of the covenant ahead of them. The priests were to step into the river fully confident that God was going to allow them to pass. After crossing the Jordan they were to camp in Gilgal. After crossing the Jordan they were to take 12 stones from the river they crossed as a reminder to them of what the Lord had done.
Three important realities really stood out to me in this story. I want to share them with you today.
THE POWER OF GOD
“He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Joshua 4:24
The writer(s) of Joshua wanted to make it unmistakenly clear that this act was no coincidence but it was from the hand of God. God did this not man. In so doing this and all the many other “miracles” in the Bible it should lead us to respond in a healthy fear of God. Each time God makes himself known it should lead us to respond. These acts of God speak a sermon to us. They tell us about God’s giving us new life. They tell us about how God is with us. They tell us about God’s power.
So, why don’t we see a Parting of the Gulf of Mexico or of the Nueces River today? I believe without a shadow of a doubt that God could do those things and so much more. For God is the same yesterday, today and forever. But why does he have to? The reality is, there would still be so many who wouldn’t believe him anyway. We have to remember that to Joshua and the Israelites they had never encountered or heard anything like this before. This wasn’t a daily occurrence for them.
Sometimes we forget that God’s power works in other ways. The power we are given to forgive. The power of God that dries up the rivers of bitterness in our lives. The power of God that breaks through the hardened hearts of those we’ve stopped praying for because we felt there was no more use.
Illustration: A man was putting tin roof on his barn when all the sudden he slipped and began to slide down the roof. He cried out to God to save him when no sooner he got the words out of his mouth a nail caught his pants and stopped him. When he stopped he said, “never mind God I took care of it”. The problem isn’t that God doesn’t perform miracles anymore the problem is we’re not looking for God to perform miracles. (www.sermoncentral.com)
The God of Joshua is the God of today. And he is a God of wonders. Let’s sing about that.
SING GOD OF WONDERS BY THIRD DAY
Another important theme we see in these two chapters is….
THE LEADERSHIP OF GOD
Joshua gets his orders. He sends the priests ahead of everyone else because they are carrying the ark of the covenant. What’s the ark of the covenant? It was a chest that God instructed the people to build. Inside the chest contained the stone tablets of the commandments, manna (the food God provided while they were in the wilderness, and Aarons staff. This chest represented the presence of God. The priests were sent on about 1,000 yards ahead of everyone else as they journeyed to the Jordan. They had to be very careful with this ark. There were instructions not to let anyone else touch it or they would die. 1,000 yards away—isn’t that 10 football fields ahead! What do you think God was saying by this? God was in charge. This was a God assignment, accomplished God’s way. When God leads you you have nothing to fear.
“Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about 1,000 yards between you and the ark; do not go near it.” 3:4
Many are looking for a way to go. Many ask, “where do I turn?” Let God lead you. Where does God want to lead me? What does God want from me? He wants you to fulfill his purposes. He wants nothing but the best for you.
We see the leadership of God through Joshua. Now we don’t have the ark of the covenant. But we do have God’s presence living inside of us who guides us and leads us. But God also rises up particular people to lead others. Every person in here is a leader! You lead someone. Whether it’s a family, friends, a small group, etc. He may not be asking you to lead a family through a raging river but he has some equally important leading he wants you to do.
What is a leader? I am talking about leadership in our context is moving people closer to fulfilling God’s purposes for their lives. Whether you are the leader in your home, school, work, church, etc. God wants to use us as instruments to lead people closer to him. Here are some important truths we need to know about leadership:
1). Leaders have great responsibility
“Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.” 1:6
Eternity is at stake.
2). Spiritual leaders must prepare God’s people to encounter the Lord.
“Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” 3:5
Henry Blackaby - the author of “Experiencing God" writes: “We should attempt things so great that they are doomed to failure unless God intervenes.”
3). Spiritual leaders must earn the right to lead
Illustration: I often wonder what the priests were thinking to themselves before they stepped into the river. But we see no complaints or anything. They bought into the leadership of their leader.
How do you earn the right to lead? You can’t buy it….push your way to get it. You lead by integrity. By following the Lord yourself.
A.C. Dixon wrote, "When we depend upon organizations, we get what organizations can do; when we depend upon education, we get what education can do; when we depend upon man, we get what man can do; but when we depend on prayer, we get what God can do."
4). Leaders lead!
The story is about a man by the name of Larry Walters, a 33-year-old man who decided he wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. So, he went down to the local army surplus store and bought forty-five used weather balloons. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which several of his friends tied the now helium-filled used weather balloons. He took with him, something to drink, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, figuring he could shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.Walters, who assumed the balloons would lift him about 100 feet in the air, was caught off guard when the chair soared more than 11,000 feet into the sky--smack into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Because he was too frightened to shoot any of the balloons, he stayed airborne for more than two hours, and forced the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon.Soon after he was safely grounded and cited by the police, reporters asked him three questions:"Were you scared? "Yes.""Would you do it again? "No."Why did you do it?" "Because you can’t just sit there."
Don’t just sit there leader...lead!
The last theme I want to look at in this story is….
THE NECESSITY OF REMEMBRANCE
After the Israelites crossed the Jordan river Joshua gave instructions to a representative of each tribe of Israel to take a stone from the river they crossed to set up as a memorial. They weren’t to worship these rocks but they were a visible indicator of what God just accomplished before their eyes. God showed up and showed off among them.
As you look in the Scriptures you see over and over again how God encouraged his people to remember. They were to celebrate all of these feasts and holidays to recall what God did in their past and as a reminder of hope for their future. That’s why as Christians we celebrate communion. Jesus said, “do this in remembrance of me.”
Why do we need to remember?
1). It helps us to be sensitive to God and others
2). It helps us stifle doubts about God’s love and power
3). It allows us to be broken out of our egocentric world
4). It helps us fight temptation
What has God done in your life that you have forgotten about? Will you begin a life or remembrance?
You might be here and say, “I’ve never allowed God to do anything in my life. Well, what better way to begin than letting him come in your life?
Each person was given a rock when you came in here. What is it that you need to remember that God has done in your life? You might be losing all hope. Let this rock of remembrance remind you that God is not finished with you yet! Begin getting into the habit of recalling what God has done. What better way to pass on your spiritual heritage to your children!
