August 31, 2025 • 49 mins
What's the most important thing you've ever forgotten? Maybe it was an anniversary, a doctor's appointment, or your car keys. We are people prone to forget, which is why God established memorials throughout Scripture to help His people remember His mighty works.
In Joshua 4, we find the Israelites standing at a pivotal moment in their history. After wandering in the wilderness for forty years, they've finally crossed the Jordan River into the Promised Land—on dry ground, no less. God commands Joshua to take twelve stones from the middle of the riverbed and set them up as a memorial at Gilgal. These stones weren't just souvenirs; they were conversation starters for future generations who would ask, "What do these stones mean?"
The answer reveals the dual purpose of this memorial: "that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the LORD is mighty, and that you may fear the LORD your God forever." The stones pointed outward as a testimony to surrounding nations and inward as a reminder to God's people. They connected the miracle at the Jordan with God's earlier deliverance at the Red Sea, creating a thread of divine faithfulness running through Israel's history.
As we examine this passage alongside Hebrews 3-4, we discover that the Jordan crossing itself points forward to something greater. Moses led enslaved people out of Egypt but couldn't bring them into God's rest because of their unbelief. Joshua succeeded in bringing them into Canaan, but even that wasn't the ultimate rest God had in mind. Both were foreshadowing Jesus, who offers true rest—freedom from slavery to sin, from aimless wandering, from exhausting striving, and ultimately from death itself.
True belief isn't just intellectual assent or cultural Christianity. It means abandoning all hope in our ability to earn what God has promised and casting ourselves fully upon Him. This kind of belief leads to action, prioritizes obedience over strategy, and sustains perseverance through difficulty. When life feels heavy, our determination alone isn't enough, but fixing our eyes on what God is doing gives us strength to continue.
What memorials have you established in your life to remember God's faithfulness? Perhaps it's Sunday worship, personal testimonies, or meaningful objects that remind you of spiritual milestones. These safeguards help us resist the "death by a thousand nudges" that can erode our faith when we're not looking. Our remembrance stokes the fires of our belief, which leads us into the rest God promises through Jesus, our great high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses and invites us to approach His throne with confidence.
If you want to learn more about the MidTree story or connect with us, go to our website HERE or text us at 812-MID-TREE.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Good morning.
Could you please turn in yourBibles to Joshua 4, 20-24.
You can find that on page 180in your Pew Bibles.
And those twelve stones whichthey took out of the Jordan,
(00:25):
joshua set up at Gilgal and hesaid to the people of Israel
when your children ask theirfathers in times to come, what
do these stones mean?
Then you shall let yourchildren know.
Israel passed over this Jordanon dry ground, for the Lord.
Your God dried up the waters ofthe Jordan for you until you
passed over, as the Lord yourGod dried up the waters of the
(00:46):
Jordan for you until you passedover, as the Lord your God did
to the Red Sea, which he driedup for us until we passed over,
so that all the peoples of theearth may know that the hand of
the Lord is mighty, that you mayfear the Lord, your God,
forever.
This is the word of the LordHear the Lord, your God forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thanks, hannah.
Good morning guys.
You did it.
You're doing well.
Already it is the beginning ofcollege football, it's Labor Day
weekend and you have asubstitute preacher, and all of
you guys made it to church.
Well done, you get extra points.
We are going to be in Joshua,chapter four, this morning,
(01:32):
which is just in some ways asimple outline, but there's a
lot packed into it.
So, if I can, let me just prayand ask the Lord to help us this
morning to tune into His Word.
Father, thank you that You'vegiven us your Word, that you
speak to us through it, thatit's still living and active,
and I pray this morning, as weopen it up, as we look to you,
(01:56):
that you would just reveal Jesusto us, that we would see you
clearly through the scripture,that you would stir our
affections for you.
We pray in Jesus name, amen.
All right, I want to start witha question.
(02:17):
What's the most important thingthat you've ever forgotten?
Maybe an anniversary?
Maybe a doctor's appointment, abirthday?
I am notorious for forgettingto submit reimbursements, which
my wife is not real thrilledabout.
Maybe you forgot a flight?
Ironically, this morning Icould not find my car keys, so
if anybody has seen the keys tomy truck.
(02:37):
I'd love those.
I have a good friend who I willnot name because some of you
know and work with him whoforgot his wife's birthday.
This was years ago I thinkthey're past it but woke up,
spent the entire day with her,never brought it up and she did
not bring it up until they werelying down to go to bed and the
lights went off and things gotquiet and she said honey, do you
(03:02):
remember that today is mybirthday?
And he went and I think he hasbeen making up for that for
about the past 20 years.
When I was five years old, myfamily went on a little road
trip.
We were I grew up in NorthCarolina, so we were driving
through South Carolina.
I don't even know where we weregoing to, but I know that we
(03:23):
stopped at a rest stop and ifyou've ever been on really any
highway in South Carolina, it'sa little sketchy.
But we were driving down I-95,stopped at a rest stop and we
all get out to use the restroom.
Now, for context, I am one ofsix children, so there were a
lot of us, to be fair, and wedrove back in the day.
We didn't have the Nissan vans,but there were these like big
(03:45):
Ford 15 passenger vans.
So that's what my family drove,that's what I got to drive in
high school when my car was inthe shop, so, um, that was
awesome.
But we all get out to, uh, gointo the rest stop and I walk in
, I walk out and I'm again fiveyears old maybe at the time and
I was standing outside therestroom.
I remember waiting for my mombecause she had gone in the
(04:07):
other side to the ladies room.
So I was standing there andthen, I think, eventually, I
kind of slouched down on thewall and I was sitting there and
I thought why is it taking solong?
And then I saw my family vanpulling off the highway back
onto the on-ramp of the reststop and it dawned on me I had
(04:28):
been left behind my parents, whoI'm pretty sure are going to
watch this during the 11 o'clockhour online.
My parents had forgotten me ata rest stop Again, there were
six of us and, to their credit,I'm pretty sure they looked back
and saw something in the vanthat looked like the top of my
head.
So, um, I don't think it messedme up too bad, but, uh, we are
(04:56):
prone to forget and we, we needto be careful to remember.
Now, how many of you are likeme If I need to remember
something important.
Sometimes I'll do this thingwhere I put an object in an
unusual place.
Anybody else do this Like,especially if I'm going to bed
and I know, like man, I need toremember to get something out of
the garage in the morning.
But I don't want to go to thegarage and get it right now, so
(05:16):
I will just like put one shoe infront of the door of my bedroom
or something that in themorning I would say what is that
?
Oh, that's to remind me that Ineed to go do this thing.
We have ways of remembering thatwe find because we are people
(05:38):
who are prone to forget, and thestory of Joshua, chapter four,
is all about this.
It's about the people of Godremembering.
It's actually about God callinghis people to not forget
something really, reallyimportant.
So I want to start at thebeginning of Joshua 4 and read
the first couple of verses.
(05:59):
It says this Joshua, take 12men from the people, from each
tribe a man, and command themsaying Take 12 stones from here,
out of the midst of the Jordan,from the very place where the
priest's feet stood firmly andbring them over with you and lay
them down in the place whereyou lodge tonight.
Then Joshua called the 12 menfrom the people of Israel whom
he had appointed, a man fromeach tribe.
(06:21):
And Joshua said to them pass on, before the ark of the Lord,
your God, into the midst of theJordan and take up, each of you,
a stone upon his shoulder,according to the number of the
tribes of the people of Israel,that this may be a sign among
you.
Let me pause there to say Ithink sometimes when we read
Joshua 4, we imagine Stonehenge,but they had to carry the rocks
on their shoulder for maybe upto a couple of miles.
(06:42):
So this was not a.
We're not talking about a hugemonument, we're talking about a
smaller pile of rocks.
Just to get that in your head.
When the children ask, in thetime to come, what do those
stones mean to you, then youshall tell them that the waters
of the Jordan were cut offbefore the ark of the covenant
of the Lord, when it passed overthe Jordan.
The waters of the Jordan werecut off.
So these stones shall be to thepeople of Israel a memorial
(07:05):
forever.
We could go on and read the restof the chapter but, like I said
, this is a pretty simpleoutline.
In fact, joshua chapter fourkind of goes like this God gives
instructions to set up thestones, the people do it, the
priests come out of the riverbedand the water returns and then
the people make camp at Gilgaland and Joshua kind of recaps.
So it's like if you ever took aspeech class, they always say
(07:27):
tell them what you're going totell them, tell them and then
tell them what you told them.
That's kind of Joshua 4.
But there's actually a lotpacked in here and, if you
remember, last week Will startedtalking about.
He mentioned the undercurrentof some of these passages, how
the deeper current actuallyreveals a lot to us about who
God is and what he's doing amonghis people.
So there are three main themesthat I want to look at this
(07:49):
morning Remembrance, belief andrest.
Let's start with remember.
This is maybe the most obviousone.
The word remember is used 168times in scripture.
It's often a call for thepeople to remember the Lord.
The instructions of Joshua 4were to set up a stone as a
(08:12):
memorial.
This was a fairly commonpractice.
We've got multiple accounts andthis is just a few of them.
Multiple accounts in the altarssometimes.
In Genesis, chapter 28, verse 22, right after Jacob's dream
about the ladder and the angelsascending and descending, he
sets up a stone to remember.
(08:32):
In 1 Samuel 7, 12, after Goddelivers Israel from the
Philistines.
They set up a stone memorial InJoshua 24, right after that
passage where Joshua says youchoose for this day whom you
will serve, but as for me and myhouse, we will serve the Lord.
They set up a stone ofremembrance to come back to that
.
They're putting a stake in theground.
It's to safeguard thiscommitment that they've made.
(08:55):
It's to call them back toremembering who the Lord is.
But there's something prettysignificant about this instance.
They're remembering a not justa specific event, but they're
remembering really kind of awhole miraculous journey.
So we're going to go back alittle bit and remember.
(09:15):
They were given a what toremember, and it's in the verses
that Anna read this morning.
He said to the people of Israelwhen your children ask their
fathers in times to come, whatdo these stones mean, then you
shall let your children knowwhat happened.
Israel passed over this Jordanon dry ground.
(09:36):
For the Lord, your God dried upthe waters of the Jordan for
you until you passed over, asthe Lord, your God, did to the
Red Sea when he dried up for usuntil we passed over.
They're looking back to theJordan, but they're also looking
back to the Exodus.
If you remember, way back inGenesis, god had made a promise
to Abraham.
He said I'm going to lead youout and I'm going to make you
(09:57):
into a great people and I'mgoing to give you a land and
make you a nation.
Since then, generations earlier, they had been waiting to be
brought into this land that Godhad promised to Abraham.
And in the meantime, if youremember the story of Joseph
Joseph during his lifetime, theIsraelites ended up in Egypt and
then they became enslaved inEgypt and they spent 400 years
in slavery and then, finally,they were led out of Egypt, only
(10:19):
to wander in the desert for 40years.
So they're thinking back andremembering man.
This has been a long journey.
God has brought us out of Egypt.
God has provided for us in thewilderness.
God protected the spies whenthey went into Canaan to scope
out the land.
He parted the waters both atthe Red Sea and then at the
Jordan, all the way back to thatinitial promise.
(10:39):
They're remembering the journey.
They're also remembering let mego back a why.
Sorry, here we go.
They were given a why.
The first time is in Joshua,chapter three.
So in the previous chapter, inJoshua three, verses nine and 10
, this is when God is tellingJoshua what's about to happen.
What's about to happen with thewaters.
Joshua said to the people ofIsrael come here and listen to
(11:02):
the words of the Lord, your God.
And Joshua said here is how youshall know that the living God
is among you.
So the first part is that thesestones that they were going to
set up would be a memorial toremember that God is among them.
And then the second part of thepassage that we just read in 4,
21 through 24, if you look downto where it's in bold there the
(11:26):
Lord dried up the waters.
Why?
So that all the people of theearth may know that the hand of
the Lord is mighty and that youmay fear the Lord, your God,
forever.
So they're given this miracleas a testament to God's presence
and as an assurance of victory,and then they're told that the
mighty hand of God would savethem.
(11:49):
So the why of our remembranceis aimed at belief.
It's to remember who God is,it's to remember what he's done.
I think it's helpful for us toask what memorial do we need to
set up in our lives to guardagainst forgetfulness?
If we're so prone to forget andwe see that cycle in the
(12:11):
Israelites over and over again,they come back to the Lord, they
forget, they turn to idols andthey stray away from their God,
what memorials do we need to putinto our lives to remember, not
only for our sake, but forothers?
If you remember, in the versewe just read, he says when your
children ask you, this is forthem, but it's also for the
coming generation that theywould proclaim to the next
(12:32):
generation.
What do these stones mean?
They are for us to rememberthat our God is mighty to save,
that he is the only true God.
So I want to talk.
Just give a couple applicationpoints.
We're not wrapping up.
This is just point one, butI'll just give a couple
application points.
We're not wrapping up.
This is just point one, butI'll give you a couple
application points that I thinkare helpful for us to not forget
.
First off, I think it's goodfor us.
(12:54):
Sometimes this is a thing thatthe people of God have been
doing for a long, long time tocreate actual memorials, actual
milestones or artifacts.
In my office I keep a rock thatwas given to me by a professor
of mine in college.
Now I did an outdoor leadershipyouth ministry program, and so
as part of that program we did amission trip to Dominican
(13:16):
Republic during my sophomoreyear, and it was on that trip
that the Lord just started tobreak down some things in my
heart, and he maybe used somephysical breaking down to do
that.
I remember this day wasextremely hot and our task for
the day we were supposed to goto the riverbed at the bottom of
a mountain and we were supposedto collect a bunch of rocks, a
(13:39):
sack full of rocks, and thencarry them about halfway up the
mountain to put them in thisolder lady's house.
She was trying to pour concretein her floor and rather than
spend the money on pure concrete, we were going to fill in most
of the floor with rocks and thenthe concrete would kind of fill
the gaps.
So we were spending the entireday in the sun hauling sacks of
rocks up the mountain and backto get more.
(14:00):
It was exhausting and as I wasdoing this, as I was walking up
the mountain over and over again, the Lord just started to work
on some things in my heart andhe started to challenge me about
sin.
He started to bring out someinsecurity and some doubt and
things that just wereuncomfortable for me to look at
and to acknowledge.
And I started praying and myprofessor came alongside me and
he said hey, are you?
(14:20):
You know what's going on.
It seems like you're processingsome stuff and I don't even
think I had the words to tellhim all that was going on in my
heart.
But that man discipled me forthe next two years of my life
and he watched as the Lord dealtwith some of those things and
as the Lord brought healing andgrace and taught me a lot.
And two years later, rightbefore graduation, we were doing
(14:45):
this kind of there was a littlebit of a ceremony to it, but we
were doing this final wrap upwith our class and he brought
out this rock and he said David,I want to give this to you this
is from the riverbed inDominican Republic Because it
seems clear to me that the Lordstarted a work in your heart two
years ago in that place that hehas brought to completion and I
want you to hold on to thisbrought to completion and I want
(15:06):
you to hold on to this andnever go back.
I want you to remember and Imean that was just mind-blowing
to me that the intentionalitythat he would go back and bring
something that was such asignificant piece of my journey
with the Lord so I hold on tothat it's a reminder to me of
the Lord's faithfulness in mylife, of things that he's
brought me through, somethingthat we have started doing in
(15:28):
our family each of my boys Ihave three, with another one on
the way, so we got a lot of boysgoing on Each of my boys when
they turned five years old.
We decided several years agothat I wanted to take them on a
camping trip, just dad and myson.
And we do some fun things.
We go fishing.
We never catch anything.
We cook hot dogs, we makes'mores.
(15:49):
But it's also a time with themwhere I get some one-on-one time
and I get to just kind of lookin their eyes and hear what's
going on in their hearts.
And they don't articulate awhole lot at five, but each time
that I take one of them on thistrip it's a chance for me to
sit down and clearly explain thegospel to them.
Say hey, buddy, I want to talkto you about something.
Do you understand that you havesin in your heart?
(16:11):
Do you understand that Jesusdied to save you from your sin?
It's a marker, and I don't knowhow much they will remember
that particular conversation,but I know that they will be
able to look back and rememberthat was a time that we went and
I heard the gospel.
So maybe part of what God'scalling you to this morning is
to put in place an actual marker, an actual memorial of what
(16:34):
he's done in your life andthings you need to hold on to.
Second would be to put a stakein the ground on Sunday.
So what we do here on a Sundaymorning I know that it's
cultural, I know that it's kindof traditional and sometimes we
just do it because we're goingthrough the motions and, if your
(16:54):
house is like my house, we'retrying to find shoes and find
keys and Sunday can be sometimesthe most chaotic morning of the
house.
But this is part of the thingthat God has called us to come
back to over and over again toremember the Israelites.
They put the stones at Gilgaland then they would come back
there periodically forsacrifices for worship.
(17:17):
The author of Hebrews writesthis let us hold fast to the
confession of our hope withoutwavering, for he who promised is
faithful, and let us considerhow to stir one another up to
love and good works, notneglecting to meet together as
some are in the habit of doing,but encourage one another, and
all the more as you see the daydrawing near, the regular
meeting together of believerswill will help keep your heart
(17:39):
soft and will help stir youraffections for Jesus.
I was reading a book calledembodied Hope, and it has to do
with how Christians deal withgrief, and this struck me.
He writes in there our hopethen grows out of a confidence
in God's redemptive actions andtrustworthy presence.
Further, we don't have to relyon ourselves to muster this hope
(18:01):
when we are physically ormentally vulnerable, because God
gives us others to bring thisproclamation, to sing these
songs to us.
Our fellow saints speak to usfor God.
They remind us that God neverforgets his people, for this is
the God and Father of JesusChrist who offers a foretaste of
what is to come when he healsthe sick and provides for the
needy, because Jesus Christ isthe hope of the gospel.
(18:24):
God's people proclaim to eachother the good news of Christ
crucified and risen.
In our weakness we may find itimpossible to proclaim this hope
ourselves, but when it is givento us in the liturgy or by
fellow pilgrims, when we hearChrist is risen, we are able to
reply he is risen.
Indeed, our faith isstrengthened by worshiping
(18:45):
together with other believers.
So don't give up on that.
Third, porcupine-proof yourhouse.
Now I have to give a littlecontext to this.
Not only are we prone to forget, but we have a real enemy, and
Satan would love to sneak liesinto our hearts, into our minds.
(19:06):
He would love for idols tocreep into our houses.
So why did I say porcupineproof?
Well, a few years ago two yearsago I guess I was in South
Africa and we got to work with aministry that was going on
there and a lot of what they dois training young people in
agricultural skills.
They're teaching them how toplant their own food, how to do
farming, but all of theirgardens have these big nets over
(19:32):
top of them.
And then they, as we weretalking, they said we have the
nets over top to keep birds orother things like that.
But we also have had to digdown like six feet to put these
metal shields into the ground.
And I said why?
And they said because we have aterrible problem with
porcupines.
The porcupines will come up tothe garden.
Now, this is never a problemthat I've experienced in my life
, but maybe you've gotarmadillos in your yard or
(19:52):
something.
The porcupines will come up anddig under the fence and they'll
eat all the vegetables of thegarden.
And I thought what a picture ofhow Satan sneaks in and robs us
right and would love to feed uslies.
I work with Impact360.
And so I work with a lot ofyoung people, a lot of kind of
18 to 25 year olds in that range, and we have this phrase that
(20:15):
we talk about, that we saytypically it's not one big idea
or one big lie that comes andjust sweeps them off their feet.
It's death by a thousand nudges.
It's just Satan kind ofwhispering in their ear.
And it's little compromiseafter little compromise If we
just go with the flow and wesprinkle in a little
Christianity to our week.
But it never changes us If wenever do anything to put a stake
(20:36):
in the ground or safeguard ourbelief.
Guess what the enemy will feedyou.
Lies, doubt will creep in likethose porcupines and you'll wake
up one day realizing your faithis gone.
There's a little bit of aspoiler alert here.
But the people of Israel?
They eventually forgot.
Despite the stones, they endedup bringing in idols.
(20:58):
They ended up getting a littletoo confident in their own
riches.
They brought in kings whosehearts turned away from the Lord
and eventually they were exiledfrom the land that they were
promised because they allowedthat to creep in.
They allowed immorality tocreep in.
So don't tolerate lies creepinginto your home.
If we can just get reallypractical social media, the
(21:21):
shows that we watch, the musicthat we listen to, but also when
I allow bitterness to just growand fester in my heart gossip,
unresolved conflict with myspouse these are little
porcupines that are coming inand they're chipping away at my
remembrance and my ability toturn my eyes toward Jesus and
remember and stir my belief.
(21:43):
So don't tolerate lies creepinginto your home and with that,
double down on God's word, evenwhen it's offensive, even when
it's counter-cultural.
I think this is one of thebiggest issues of our day.
Like this will be where thechurch thrives or slowly dies
out.
Are we going to take God's wordseriously?
And God's word is offensive toour modern context.
(22:08):
Larry was talking aboutworldview earlier.
The Bible is going to tell usthat you are born a sinner, you
are not a good person, you standunder God's condemnation and
you need his forgiveness.
That is offensive to my modernsensibility.
The Bible is going to tell youthat happiness is not the most
important thing.
That's offensive.
Bible is going to say thingslike boys cannot become girls
(22:30):
and vice versa.
Gender is not fluid.
That's offensive in our culture.
Bible is going to tell you thatnot all religions lead to
eternal life.
They're not all created equal.
Jesus made a bold claim when hesaid I am the way, the truth and
the life.
No one comes to the Fatherexcept through me.
That is offensive.
And yet we need that.
Our hearts need to double downon God's word.
(22:52):
It's a porcupine proof.
You're home, there you go, andthen finally remember your own
testimony.
Many of you have done thatpublicly on this platform.
I tell you that is such anencouragement to my heart.
When I go back and I look at myown story and I remember and I
(23:12):
share that with another person,that's me putting a stake in the
ground to say God has donesomething that I cannot deny and
I'm going to continue toproclaim that to the next
generation.
What happened at the JordanRiver was miraculous, but was it
more miraculous than when Godtakes a dead, unresponsive heart
and makes us alive?
No, he works miracles among usall the time, and so as we
(23:38):
rehearse that to one another, aswe share our testimony, that's
good for our souls, it's goodfor our remembering.
Now, if you just took Joshua 4by itself, you might only see
remembrance, but when we go tothe New Testament, the author of
Hebrews actually referencesback to this passage and layers
on two other themes.
So I want to look at those two.
(24:01):
The first one is belief.
Let's look at the belief of theIsraelites.
What was the difference betweenthe first generation, the
generation that came with Mosesout of slavery in Egypt, and the
second generation, thewilderness generation that was
born in the wilderness andentered with Joshua into the
promised land?
The difference was obediencesorry belief that led to
(24:28):
obedience.
Belief in what?
Well, we actually find thatanswer by looking at what Moses
missed.
We find the answer in whatMoses and the earlier
generations had failed tobelieve.
So they failed to believe thatGod would do what he promised.
They failed to believe that hewas mighty to give them the
victory.
If you remember, the spies wentinto the land and they came
(24:50):
back and they said we can't doit, they're giants, they'll
overcome us.
And so they lacked faith andGod said you will not enter my
rest.
They failed to believe that heis the one true God.
Okay, they failed to believethat salvation was in him alone.
Contrast that, with Joshua andwith the generation that God led
(25:12):
into the promised land tookacross the Jordan, they trusted
God's promises.
They were all in Our belief inwhat is actually a belief in
whom?
It's not a question of whetherthings are going to turn out.
It's a question of is the Godthat goes before us actually
(25:35):
able to do what he says that hewill do?
So I think about Rahab, whorisked everything to hide the
spies.
She betrayed her own people,saying I have heard who your God
is and so I'll put everythingin that.
And I think about Joshualeading the people up to the
edge of the Jordan.
I think about the parents thattook their kids across the river
and, as soon as the waterwashed in behind them, they were
(25:56):
committed.
Right.
It's a belief in the mightyhand of God.
There's this quote by AW Tozerand he says what comes to your
mind when you think about God isthe most important thing about
you.
Who is the God that we believein?
And is our view of God that heis all powerful, that he
(26:16):
sustains all that, he judges all, that he fulfills his promises?
Or do we think of him more likeSiri in our back pocket?
You know that we pull out andask for guidance or ask for help
.
It comes down to belief.
So belief biblically.
If you want to know what Jesusthought about belief, you can go
to John, chapter six.
The whole chapter is aboutbelief and this is right after
(26:38):
Jesus has fed the 5,000 and thedisciples are kind of coming to
him saying what's going on?
Who are you?
And he says this truly, truly.
I say to you whoever believeshas eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your fathers ate the manna inthe wilderness and they died.
This is the bread that comesdown from heaven so that one may
eat of it and not die.
I am the living bread that camedown from heaven.
(27:01):
If anyone eats of this bread,he will live forever.
And the bread that I give forthe life of the world is my
flesh.
What's the significance ofbread?
Why is Jesus saying, heybelieve, eat my bread, drink.
He goes on to say eat my fleshand drink my blood.
It's a really let's talk aboutoffensive passages.
The disciples are like what areyou talking about?
What he's saying to them?
(27:21):
Bread sustains life.
Right, it's the thing that wecannot live without.
And Jesus himself points backto Moses and says look, moses
gave them manna in thewilderness and they woke up.
Every day, if the man is notthere, we don't survive.
That's what it means to believein me.
Do you look to me for yoursurvival?
Do you?
Are you putting all of yourhope in my ability to save you,
(27:42):
or are you trusting in your ownability?
Are you trusting in your ownrighteousness?
Belief is not going to churchbecause that's what we do or
because that's what my parentsdid.
It's not admiring Jesus as agood guy.
I was recently on a collegecampus talking with a student
and I said who do you thinkJesus was?
And they said I don't know.
I mean like I think he was agood guy.
(28:03):
And he went on.
He answered a few other thingsand I said.
I agree with most of what yousaid, except I'm going to take
issue with the part where yousaid that Jesus was a good guy,
which I think threw him for aloop for a second.
So, because Jesus can't be agood guy, this is, if you're
familiar with what CS Lewiscalled the trilemma.
Jesus claimed to be God.
He claimed to be the only meansof salvation.
(28:25):
He invited people to abandoneverything.
Either he was the Lord, lewissaid, or he was a liar, or he
was a crazy person.
But he wasn't just a good guythat we should admire, because
if he said the things that theBible says that he said right,
then we either believe that heis who he said he was or we
should dismiss him.
(28:46):
So, thinking that Jesus waskind of a good teacher, that we
should learn some life lessonsfrom that's not belief.
Belief is not trying our bestto be a good person.
We already talked about Rahab.
There's no room for hedgingyour bets in following Jesus,
because when you choose tofollow Jesus, it's everything.
(29:09):
Because when you choose tofollow Jesus, it's everything.
As I was preparing for thismorning, I came across this
story back from the floodingthat happened in Texas several
weeks ago, and it was a story ofa lady who survived the
flooding, but she was talkingabout what happened.
And they had a house near theriver, but it was up on a hill
and the water rose so fast thatit, middle of the night, lifted
(29:31):
the house off of its pillars andthe house broke in two and
started floating down river andmiraculously, she was able to
hold onto her daughter and getup in a tree, and she was
stranded in the tree for a whileI don't remember how long and
as the waters continued to rise,eventually her husband and, I
(29:51):
think, her father they managedto get a raft to where she was,
to the bottom of the tree, andshe couldn't climb down with her
daughter, and so the onlyoption was for her to drop her
daughter down to them and thenjump herself, trusting that
she'd make it in the boat,trusting that she would be able
(30:12):
to get out of the water.
And I thought that's what it'slike to follow Jesus.
It can't be something that wedo on the side.
This is putting our entire hopein his ability to save Belief,
is abandoning all hope in yourability to earn what God has
promised and instead castingyourself fully upon him,
(30:33):
depending 100% on his power, inthe same way that the blood of
the lamb preserved theIsraelites at Passover, in the
same way that he parted the RedSea to lead them out of exile.
The question for them as theystand at the Jordan is do they
believe that this is a God whowill again fulfill his promise
(30:54):
to do for them what they cannotdo for themselves?
I think we see some fruit ofbelief.
That's an encouragement to us,and we see this in Joshua for
sure.
First, belief leads us to action.
There's this quote by DallasWillard.
(31:16):
He says we don't believesomething by merely saying we
believe it, or even when webelieve that we believe it, but
we believe something when we actas if it were true.
Belief leads us to action.
Ji Packer said somethingsimilar.
The Christian's motto shouldnot be let go and let God, but
trust God and get going, takeaction and trust that he will
(31:37):
show up and do what he said hewould do.
Second is that belief puts moreconfidence in obedience than
strategy.
In chapter three, the Lord wastalking to Joshua before this
even started and he said today Iwill begin to exalt you in the
sight of all Israel.
That they may know that, as Iwas with Moses, so I will be
(31:59):
with you.
If we read Joshua three, joshuafour, joshua five, you'll be
impressed by the utter lack ofstrategy that the Israelites had
.
They didn't ford the river.
They didn't.
Anybody remember the OregonTrail, the video game where you
had to figure out how to getacross the river.
Okay, their plan was to obeyright, we'll show up.
(32:19):
God said he would part thewater.
That's really the only optionthat we have.
So they show up and the waterparts.
And then they go into Jerichoand I'm not going to get ahead
because I'll steal Will'sthunder.
But what's the plan for Jericho?
To walk around the city walls,right, obedience trumps strategy
and belief sustainsperseverance.
(32:44):
This is where I think about thehuman element and I try to put
myself in the shoes of thepeople who were actually in
Israel.
These are real people, right?
So I think about the spies andwhat it would have been like to
sneak into this land and putyour life at risk.
And I think about Joshua.
And after all the years,remember Joshua was on the first
(33:06):
scouting trip and then he wentthrough all of those years in
the desert and then finally,finally, it's time to take the
people into the promised landand his instructions are to walk
up to the water and wait.
As a leader, I would beterrified, but he obeys.
(33:27):
And then I think about thepriests.
The priests I never thoughtabout this before getting ready
for this morning, but thepriests were supposed to, if you
remember, carry the Ark of theCovenant down to the water and
they were supposed to dip theirtoes in the water and, as they
did, the water started to.
The Bible says stack up severalmiles up river and the water
(33:48):
stops.
But the priests had to standthere the whole time, the whole
time that you were talking aboutthousands of people crossing
the river, and the whole timethis is happening.
The priests are standing thereholding the weight of the Ark of
the Covenant and I thought, isit possible that the priest
started to gripe a little bit intheir minds, like man, why did
(34:09):
we gold plate this thing?
It's getting really heavy, youknow, or probably not.
I hope and I imagine that theywere so taken by what God was
doing.
I doubt they gave a whole lotof attention to the physical
weight of standing there andpersevering.
But that's a lesson for me,because when life feels heavy.
Maybe marriage feels heavyright now, maybe singleness
(34:31):
feels heavy, maybe your sinstruggle feels heavy.
Your determination is notenough to sustain you.
But when we lift up our eyesand see what God is doing right
in front of us, man, that willput some steel in your spine.
Belief sustains ourperseverance and I think this is
(34:53):
where we start to feel anotherone of those undercurrents.
In Hebrews, chapter three andchapter four.
The big idea is do not hardenyour hearts, because when Jesus,
what Jesus promises, is evenbetter than what Moses promised.
It's even better than whatJoshua promised.
This is a real story fromhistory.
(35:14):
These events actually happened.
Let's not forget that.
But the whole thing is also God, in his providence, ordained
this whole thing as aforeshadowing, a picture of us
crossing from death into lifeand entering God's rest.
And I'll show you Now.
Hang with me, I'm about to getcomplicated deep into the third
(35:37):
point, so don't give up.
But we really have to get this,because in Hebrews, that's
where we get a lot ofexplanation about what God is
really doing in Joshua.
So bear with me for a minute.
In Hebrews, chapter three, itsays take care, brothers, lest
there be in any of you an evil,unbelieving heart.
We just talked about belief.
Don't give into an unbelievingheart leading you to fall away
(36:00):
from the living God, but exhortone another every day, as long
as it is called today, that noneof you may be hardened by the
deceitfulness of sin, for wehave come to share in Christ, if
indeed we hold our originalconfidence firm to the end.
As it is said today, if youhear his voice, do not harden
your hearts as in the rebellion.
And now he's going to talkabout the people, with Moses,
(36:21):
who missed the promised land.
For who were those who heardand yet rebelled?
Was it not all those who leftEgypt led by Moses, and with
whom was he provoked for 40years?
Was it not all those who leftEgypt led by Moses, and with
whom was he provoked for 40years?
Was it not those who sinned,whose bodies fell in the
wilderness, and to whom did heswear that they would not enter
his rest?
But those who were disobedient?
So we see that they were unableto enter because of unbelief.
(36:42):
Let me summarize real quickbecause I know it's complicated.
The author of Hebrews is sayingMoses led the people of Israel
toward the promised land, towardGod's rest, but they missed it
because of unbelief.
Then Joshua succeeded inbringing them into God's rest,
but that rest was not ultimate.
And we know this because acouple of generations later, in
(37:05):
this Psalm that David is writing, he says today if you hear his
voice, do not harden your heartsthe way that the people did in
the desert.
So the author of Hebrews ismaking this kind of interesting
case.
He's like if what Joshua did inleading them into the promised
land, if that was really thepinnacle of God's people, david
wouldn't have come backgenerations later and said, hey,
(37:26):
if there's still an opportunityto enter God's rest, take it,
don't miss it.
And said, hey, if there's stillan opportunity to enter God's
rest, take it, don't miss it.
Does that make sense?
He's saying if what Joshua haddone was ultimate, david
wouldn't still be calling peoplegenerations later to enter
God's rest.
And so the author of Hebrews ismaking the case that Jesus is
even greater than Moses, evengreater than Joshua, saying you
think that the Israelitesentering the promised land was
(37:48):
the peak for the Hebrew people,the glory days?
Then why is David still talkingabout God's rest?
He is pointing to an evengreater fulfillment of God's
promise.
He's talking about ultimaterest.
He's talking about salvation.
He goes on in chapter four tosay for if Joshua had given them
rest, god would not have spokenof another day later on.
(38:11):
So then there remains a Sabbathrest for the people of God, for
whoever has entered God's resthas also rested from his works,
as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive toenter that rest so that no one
may fall by the same sort ofdisobedience.
I want you to notice someparallels.
Moses led an enslaved peopleout of Egypt.
(38:37):
They escaped death through thePassover.
He gave them manna in thedesert.
They were circumcised to renewGod's covenant.
He parted the Red Sea, led themtoward the promised land, but
because of their unbelief theyfailed to enter God's rest.
And then Joshua comes along.
The people were stranded in thedesert.
They believed God's word and sothey passed through the Jordan
(38:58):
toward the promised land.
And then they were circumcisedto renew the covenant.
They conquered enemies and theyentered God's rest.
And then Jesus came out ofEgypt.
This gets a little line in Hoseawhere it kind of references
that Jesus if you remember Jesusspent part of his childhood in
Egypt, and then he was broughtback to the same promised land.
(39:19):
He was baptized in the Jordan.
He offered himself as the breadof life.
He called for a circumcisedheart.
He parted not the sea, not theJordan, but the temple curtain.
He conquered sin and death andhe opened a way.
This is not an accident.
The Bible does this over andover and over again.
(39:41):
It's showing us these picturesof future fulfillment to say
don't miss it.
This is all leading towardsomething.
It's leading toward Jesus.
There's this theme that kind ofruns through.
Scripture Will even talkedabout it.
That has to do with water andthree days and escaping death.
(40:01):
We see it in Jonah.
We see it.
The Bible talks about the storyof Noah and the flood.
There's something there.
And, as I was studying this,there's a question in Joshua 4
about two sets of stones.
If you look at verses 8 and 9,it talks about the people taking
stones up out of the river andsetting them in Gilgal in the
(40:23):
place where they would lodge.
But there's also a line thatkind of looks like it's
instructing Joshua to set upstones in the dry riverbed.
Now there's debate about whetherit was two sets of stone or one
set of stone, and I'm not aHebrew scholar.
They say in the Hebrew it maybemakes more sense to have one
set of stones, but I think it'sinteresting because it matches
(40:43):
up with what's in Scripture.
It's not explicit, but theimagery of Noah bringing the
people through the flood, thatgets referenced again in 1 Peter
where he says it was aforeshadowing of baptism, and
the story of Jonah being in thewhale for three days and then
being brought back.
It was a foreshadowing ofJesus' death, burial and
resurrection.
Even the picture of baptismitself, as Jesus is baptized.
(41:06):
It's an image of us dying withChrist, putting our old man to
death, being buried with him andresurrected to new life.
And so this idea of two stonesthat one would represent our
death and burial with Christ andthe other would represent
newness of life.
As the people cross, they renewthe covenant of circumcision,
(41:26):
they renew the Passover, they'rebeginning a new life, buried
with Christ and raised tonewness of life.
What's less ambiguous is theinstruction in Hebrews do not
harden your hearts.
If God is stirring your hearts,if he's convicting you of your
sin or your self-righteousness,if he's showing your need for
(41:47):
grace and forgiveness, don'tignore that, don't push it away.
I think that's good evidencethat God is drawing you to
himself.
If you've never heard thesimple message of the gospel.
It's this that God made us forhimself to be in relationship
(42:08):
with him, and yet our sin hasbroken that relationship.
It's created a barrier betweenus and God and brought us under
his just judgment, under hisrighteous condemnation.
Instead of worshiping the onlyperson worthy of worship, we
rebelled and set ourselvesagainst him, and so our penalty
for sin is death and eternalseparation from God.
But because God is rich inmercy, he sent his own son, his
(42:30):
perfect son, jesus, whowillingly died in our place,
that he might take ourpunishment and, in exchange,
offer us full forgiveness of sinand a restored relationship
with the Father.
And if we are willing toconfess our sin and believe in
him and receive his offer ofgrace and forgiveness, he gives
us new life and promises that wewill spend eternity with him.
(42:55):
The parallels continue.
We'll start to close with this.
The rest that Hebrews istalking about is rest from
slavery.
John 8, 34,.
Jesus answered them and said,truly, truly, I say to you, john
8, 34,.
Jesus answered them and said,truly, truly, I say to you
everyone who practices sin is aslave to sin, but in Christ we
are set free from slavery to sin, just like the people were set
(43:20):
free from slavery in Egypt.
They were set free fromwandering in the desert.
We are set free fromaimlessness and ostracism.
Ephesians 2, 12 says rememberthat you were at that time
separated from Christ, alienatedfrom the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers to the covenantof promise, having no hope and
without God in the world.
They were set free from theirstriving.
(43:42):
We are set free from ourstriving.
Romans 3.20 says Therefore, noone will be declared righteous
in God's sight by the works ofthe law.
Rather, 3.20 says we spend alot of time striving.
(44:03):
Remember, the former generationdidn't enter the promised land
because they feared theCanaanites more than they
trusted God.
But Moses himself wasprohibited because he tried to
do it on his own.
He struck the rock, remember,rather than trusting and obeying
.
It is exhausting to sit on thethrone of our own hearts, but
(44:24):
there is deep rest insurrendering to him this verse
in Romans saying nobody earnsrighteousness by their works.
The law just broughtcondemnation, but when Jesus
gave himself on the cross, whatdid he say?
It is finished.
There's nothing left to add.
Come to him Rest.
Cease from your striving.
Finally, god offers us restfrom death.
(44:50):
Romans 6.23 says For the wagesof sin is death, but the free
gift of God is eternal life inChrist Jesus, our Lord.
Today, if you hear his voice,lift up your eyes.
Look at what he's doing.
Look to Jesus.
Jesus passed through the watersof death.
Literally, he offers himself asthe bread of life.
(45:11):
He tore the curtain to give usaccess to the Father.
His work is finished and now heinvites us into his rest.
But he didn't set up stones.
He set up a table.
Next week we'll celebrate theLord's Supper.
It's something that Christianshave been doing for more than
(45:32):
2000 years to remember Christ'sdeath and resurrection.
But I wanna go ahead and read afamiliar passage In 1
Corinthians.
It talks about how the LordJesus, on the night when he was
betrayed, took bread and when hehad given thanks, he broke it
and said this is my body whichis for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
(45:56):
This cup is the new covenant inmy blood.
Do this as often as you drinkit in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat thisbread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death untilhe comes.
We don't just go through themotions.
Our remembrance stokes thefires of our belief, which leads
(46:17):
us into God's promises throughJesus, our great high priest.
And just in case, what youheard me say was work harder to
conjure up stronger belief,listen to the end of Hebrews,
chapter four.
Since then, we have a greathigh priest who has passed
through the heavens Jesus, theson of God.
Let us hold fast to ourconfession, for we do not have a
(46:41):
high priest who is unable tosympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who, in every respect,has been tempted as we are, yet
without sin.
Let us then, with confidence,draw near to the throne of grace
that we may receive mercy andfind grace to help in time of
need.
It was 100% his mighty handthat dried up the waters of the
(47:02):
Jordan.
100% his mighty hand thatreaches out to us in our
weakness and draws us to himself.
The Israelites crossed out ofexile into rest.
In Christ, we cross from deathto life.
He's making us brand new.
Remembering stokes our belief,which leads us to rest.
(47:24):
Kind of reminds me of behold,believe, become.
Let's worship together.
Good morning.
Could you please turn in yourBibles to Joshua 4, 20-24.
You can find that on page 180in your Pew Bibles.
And those twelve stones whichthey took out of the Jordan,
(00:25):
joshua set up at Gilgal and hesaid to the people of Israel
when your children ask theirfathers in times to come, what
do these stones mean?
Then you shall let yourchildren know.
Israel passed over this Jordanon dry ground, for the Lord.
Your God dried up the waters ofthe Jordan for you until you
passed over, as the Lord yourGod dried up the waters of the
(00:46):
Jordan for you until you passedover, as the Lord your God did
to the Red Sea, which he driedup for us until we passed over,
so that all the peoples of theearth may know that the hand of
the Lord is mighty, that you mayfear the Lord, your God,
forever.
This is the word of the LordHear the Lord, your God forever.
This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Thanks, hannah.
Good morning guys.
You did it.
You're doing well.
Already it is the beginning ofcollege football, it's Labor Day
weekend and you have asubstitute preacher, and all of
you guys made it to church.
Well done, you get extra points.
We are going to be in Joshua,chapter four, this morning,
(01:32):
which is just in some ways asimple outline, but there's a
lot packed into it.
So, if I can, let me just prayand ask the Lord to help us this
morning to tune into His Word.
Father, thank you that You'vegiven us your Word, that you
speak to us through it, thatit's still living and active,
and I pray this morning, as weopen it up, as we look to you,
(01:56):
that you would just reveal Jesusto us, that we would see you
clearly through the scripture,that you would stir our
affections for you.
We pray in Jesus name, amen.
All right, I want to start witha question.
(02:17):
What's the most important thingthat you've ever forgotten?
Maybe an anniversary?
Maybe a doctor's appointment, abirthday?
I am notorious for forgettingto submit reimbursements, which
my wife is not real thrilledabout.
Maybe you forgot a flight?
Ironically, this morning Icould not find my car keys, so
if anybody has seen the keys tomy truck.
(02:37):
I'd love those.
I have a good friend who I willnot name because some of you
know and work with him whoforgot his wife's birthday.
This was years ago I thinkthey're past it but woke up,
spent the entire day with her,never brought it up and she did
not bring it up until they werelying down to go to bed and the
lights went off and things gotquiet and she said honey, do you
(03:02):
remember that today is mybirthday?
And he went and I think he hasbeen making up for that for
about the past 20 years.
When I was five years old, myfamily went on a little road
trip.
We were I grew up in NorthCarolina, so we were driving
through South Carolina.
I don't even know where we weregoing to, but I know that we
(03:23):
stopped at a rest stop and ifyou've ever been on really any
highway in South Carolina, it'sa little sketchy.
But we were driving down I-95,stopped at a rest stop and we
all get out to use the restroom.
Now, for context, I am one ofsix children, so there were a
lot of us, to be fair, and wedrove back in the day.
We didn't have the Nissan vans,but there were these like big
(03:45):
Ford 15 passenger vans.
So that's what my family drove,that's what I got to drive in
high school when my car was inthe shop, so, um, that was
awesome.
But we all get out to, uh, gointo the rest stop and I walk in
, I walk out and I'm again fiveyears old maybe at the time and
I was standing outside therestroom.
I remember waiting for my mombecause she had gone in the
(04:07):
other side to the ladies room.
So I was standing there andthen, I think, eventually, I
kind of slouched down on thewall and I was sitting there and
I thought why is it taking solong?
And then I saw my family vanpulling off the highway back
onto the on-ramp of the reststop and it dawned on me I had
(04:28):
been left behind my parents, whoI'm pretty sure are going to
watch this during the 11 o'clockhour online.
My parents had forgotten me ata rest stop Again, there were
six of us and, to their credit,I'm pretty sure they looked back
and saw something in the vanthat looked like the top of my
head.
So, um, I don't think it messedme up too bad, but, uh, we are
(04:56):
prone to forget and we, we needto be careful to remember.
Now, how many of you are likeme If I need to remember
something important.
Sometimes I'll do this thingwhere I put an object in an
unusual place.
Anybody else do this Like,especially if I'm going to bed
and I know, like man, I need toremember to get something out of
the garage in the morning.
But I don't want to go to thegarage and get it right now, so
(05:16):
I will just like put one shoe infront of the door of my bedroom
or something that in themorning I would say what is that
?
Oh, that's to remind me that Ineed to go do this thing.
We have ways of remembering thatwe find because we are people
(05:38):
who are prone to forget, and thestory of Joshua, chapter four,
is all about this.
It's about the people of Godremembering.
It's actually about God callinghis people to not forget
something really, reallyimportant.
So I want to start at thebeginning of Joshua 4 and read
the first couple of verses.
(05:59):
It says this Joshua, take 12men from the people, from each
tribe a man, and command themsaying Take 12 stones from here,
out of the midst of the Jordan,from the very place where the
priest's feet stood firmly andbring them over with you and lay
them down in the place whereyou lodge tonight.
Then Joshua called the 12 menfrom the people of Israel whom
he had appointed, a man fromeach tribe.
(06:21):
And Joshua said to them pass on, before the ark of the Lord,
your God, into the midst of theJordan and take up, each of you,
a stone upon his shoulder,according to the number of the
tribes of the people of Israel,that this may be a sign among
you.
Let me pause there to say Ithink sometimes when we read
Joshua 4, we imagine Stonehenge,but they had to carry the rocks
on their shoulder for maybe upto a couple of miles.
(06:42):
So this was not a.
We're not talking about a hugemonument, we're talking about a
smaller pile of rocks.
Just to get that in your head.
When the children ask, in thetime to come, what do those
stones mean to you, then youshall tell them that the waters
of the Jordan were cut offbefore the ark of the covenant
of the Lord, when it passed overthe Jordan.
The waters of the Jordan werecut off.
So these stones shall be to thepeople of Israel a memorial
(07:05):
forever.
We could go on and read the restof the chapter but, like I said
, this is a pretty simpleoutline.
In fact, joshua chapter fourkind of goes like this God gives
instructions to set up thestones, the people do it, the
priests come out of the riverbedand the water returns and then
the people make camp at Gilgaland and Joshua kind of recaps.
So it's like if you ever took aspeech class, they always say
(07:27):
tell them what you're going totell them, tell them and then
tell them what you told them.
That's kind of Joshua 4.
But there's actually a lotpacked in here and, if you
remember, last week Will startedtalking about.
He mentioned the undercurrentof some of these passages, how
the deeper current actuallyreveals a lot to us about who
God is and what he's doing amonghis people.
So there are three main themesthat I want to look at this
(07:49):
morning Remembrance, belief andrest.
Let's start with remember.
This is maybe the most obviousone.
The word remember is used 168times in scripture.
It's often a call for thepeople to remember the Lord.
The instructions of Joshua 4were to set up a stone as a
(08:12):
memorial.
This was a fairly commonpractice.
We've got multiple accounts andthis is just a few of them.
Multiple accounts in the altarssometimes.
In Genesis, chapter 28, verse 22, right after Jacob's dream
about the ladder and the angelsascending and descending, he
sets up a stone to remember.
(08:32):
In 1 Samuel 7, 12, after Goddelivers Israel from the
Philistines.
They set up a stone memorial InJoshua 24, right after that
passage where Joshua says youchoose for this day whom you
will serve, but as for me and myhouse, we will serve the Lord.
They set up a stone ofremembrance to come back to that
.
They're putting a stake in theground.
It's to safeguard thiscommitment that they've made.
(08:55):
It's to call them back toremembering who the Lord is.
But there's something prettysignificant about this instance.
They're remembering a not justa specific event, but they're
remembering really kind of awhole miraculous journey.
So we're going to go back alittle bit and remember.
(09:15):
They were given a what toremember, and it's in the verses
that Anna read this morning.
He said to the people of Israelwhen your children ask their
fathers in times to come, whatdo these stones mean, then you
shall let your children knowwhat happened.
Israel passed over this Jordanon dry ground.
(09:36):
For the Lord, your God dried upthe waters of the Jordan for
you until you passed over, asthe Lord, your God, did to the
Red Sea when he dried up for usuntil we passed over.
They're looking back to theJordan, but they're also looking
back to the Exodus.
If you remember, way back inGenesis, god had made a promise
to Abraham.
He said I'm going to lead youout and I'm going to make you
(09:57):
into a great people and I'mgoing to give you a land and
make you a nation.
Since then, generations earlier, they had been waiting to be
brought into this land that Godhad promised to Abraham.
And in the meantime, if youremember the story of Joseph
Joseph during his lifetime, theIsraelites ended up in Egypt and
then they became enslaved inEgypt and they spent 400 years
in slavery and then, finally,they were led out of Egypt, only
(10:19):
to wander in the desert for 40years.
So they're thinking back andremembering man.
This has been a long journey.
God has brought us out of Egypt.
God has provided for us in thewilderness.
God protected the spies whenthey went into Canaan to scope
out the land.
He parted the waters both atthe Red Sea and then at the
Jordan, all the way back to thatinitial promise.
(10:39):
They're remembering the journey.
They're also remembering let mego back a why.
Sorry, here we go.
They were given a why.
The first time is in Joshua,chapter three.
So in the previous chapter, inJoshua three, verses nine and 10
, this is when God is tellingJoshua what's about to happen.
What's about to happen with thewaters.
Joshua said to the people ofIsrael come here and listen to
(11:02):
the words of the Lord, your God.
And Joshua said here is how youshall know that the living God
is among you.
So the first part is that thesestones that they were going to
set up would be a memorial toremember that God is among them.
And then the second part of thepassage that we just read in 4,
21 through 24, if you look downto where it's in bold there the
(11:26):
Lord dried up the waters.
Why?
So that all the people of theearth may know that the hand of
the Lord is mighty and that youmay fear the Lord, your God,
forever.
So they're given this miracleas a testament to God's presence
and as an assurance of victory,and then they're told that the
mighty hand of God would savethem.
(11:49):
So the why of our remembranceis aimed at belief.
It's to remember who God is,it's to remember what he's done.
I think it's helpful for us toask what memorial do we need to
set up in our lives to guardagainst forgetfulness?
If we're so prone to forget andwe see that cycle in the
(12:11):
Israelites over and over again,they come back to the Lord, they
forget, they turn to idols andthey stray away from their God,
what memorials do we need to putinto our lives to remember, not
only for our sake, but forothers?
If you remember, in the versewe just read, he says when your
children ask you, this is forthem, but it's also for the
coming generation that theywould proclaim to the next
(12:32):
generation.
What do these stones mean?
They are for us to rememberthat our God is mighty to save,
that he is the only true God.
So I want to talk.
Just give a couple applicationpoints.
We're not wrapping up.
This is just point one, butI'll just give a couple
application points.
We're not wrapping up.
This is just point one, butI'll give you a couple
application points that I thinkare helpful for us to not forget
.
First off, I think it's goodfor us.
(12:54):
Sometimes this is a thing thatthe people of God have been
doing for a long, long time tocreate actual memorials, actual
milestones or artifacts.
In my office I keep a rock thatwas given to me by a professor
of mine in college.
Now I did an outdoor leadershipyouth ministry program, and so
as part of that program we did amission trip to Dominican
(13:16):
Republic during my sophomoreyear, and it was on that trip
that the Lord just started tobreak down some things in my
heart, and he maybe used somephysical breaking down to do
that.
I remember this day wasextremely hot and our task for
the day we were supposed to goto the riverbed at the bottom of
a mountain and we were supposedto collect a bunch of rocks, a
(13:39):
sack full of rocks, and thencarry them about halfway up the
mountain to put them in thisolder lady's house.
She was trying to pour concretein her floor and rather than
spend the money on pure concrete, we were going to fill in most
of the floor with rocks and thenthe concrete would kind of fill
the gaps.
So we were spending the entireday in the sun hauling sacks of
rocks up the mountain and backto get more.
(14:00):
It was exhausting and as I wasdoing this, as I was walking up
the mountain over and over again, the Lord just started to work
on some things in my heart andhe started to challenge me about
sin.
He started to bring out someinsecurity and some doubt and
things that just wereuncomfortable for me to look at
and to acknowledge.
And I started praying and myprofessor came alongside me and
he said hey, are you?
(14:20):
You know what's going on.
It seems like you're processingsome stuff and I don't even
think I had the words to tellhim all that was going on in my
heart.
But that man discipled me forthe next two years of my life
and he watched as the Lord dealtwith some of those things and
as the Lord brought healing andgrace and taught me a lot.
And two years later, rightbefore graduation, we were doing
(14:45):
this kind of there was a littlebit of a ceremony to it, but we
were doing this final wrap upwith our class and he brought
out this rock and he said David,I want to give this to you this
is from the riverbed inDominican Republic Because it
seems clear to me that the Lordstarted a work in your heart two
years ago in that place that hehas brought to completion and I
want you to hold on to thisbrought to completion and I want
(15:06):
you to hold on to this andnever go back.
I want you to remember and Imean that was just mind-blowing
to me that the intentionalitythat he would go back and bring
something that was such asignificant piece of my journey
with the Lord so I hold on tothat it's a reminder to me of
the Lord's faithfulness in mylife, of things that he's
brought me through, somethingthat we have started doing in
(15:28):
our family each of my boys Ihave three, with another one on
the way, so we got a lot of boysgoing on Each of my boys when
they turned five years old.
We decided several years agothat I wanted to take them on a
camping trip, just dad and myson.
And we do some fun things.
We go fishing.
We never catch anything.
We cook hot dogs, we makes'mores.
(15:49):
But it's also a time with themwhere I get some one-on-one time
and I get to just kind of lookin their eyes and hear what's
going on in their hearts.
And they don't articulate awhole lot at five, but each time
that I take one of them on thistrip it's a chance for me to
sit down and clearly explain thegospel to them.
Say hey, buddy, I want to talkto you about something.
Do you understand that you havesin in your heart?
(16:11):
Do you understand that Jesusdied to save you from your sin?
It's a marker, and I don't knowhow much they will remember
that particular conversation,but I know that they will be
able to look back and rememberthat was a time that we went and
I heard the gospel.
So maybe part of what God'scalling you to this morning is
to put in place an actual marker, an actual memorial of what
(16:34):
he's done in your life andthings you need to hold on to.
Second would be to put a stakein the ground on Sunday.
So what we do here on a Sundaymorning I know that it's
cultural, I know that it's kindof traditional and sometimes we
just do it because we're goingthrough the motions and, if your
(16:54):
house is like my house, we'retrying to find shoes and find
keys and Sunday can be sometimesthe most chaotic morning of the
house.
But this is part of the thingthat God has called us to come
back to over and over again toremember the Israelites.
They put the stones at Gilgaland then they would come back
there periodically forsacrifices for worship.
(17:17):
The author of Hebrews writesthis let us hold fast to the
confession of our hope withoutwavering, for he who promised is
faithful, and let us considerhow to stir one another up to
love and good works, notneglecting to meet together as
some are in the habit of doing,but encourage one another, and
all the more as you see the daydrawing near, the regular
meeting together of believerswill will help keep your heart
(17:39):
soft and will help stir youraffections for Jesus.
I was reading a book calledembodied Hope, and it has to do
with how Christians deal withgrief, and this struck me.
He writes in there our hopethen grows out of a confidence
in God's redemptive actions andtrustworthy presence.
Further, we don't have to relyon ourselves to muster this hope
(18:01):
when we are physically ormentally vulnerable, because God
gives us others to bring thisproclamation, to sing these
songs to us.
Our fellow saints speak to usfor God.
They remind us that God neverforgets his people, for this is
the God and Father of JesusChrist who offers a foretaste of
what is to come when he healsthe sick and provides for the
needy, because Jesus Christ isthe hope of the gospel.
(18:24):
God's people proclaim to eachother the good news of Christ
crucified and risen.
In our weakness we may find itimpossible to proclaim this hope
ourselves, but when it is givento us in the liturgy or by
fellow pilgrims, when we hearChrist is risen, we are able to
reply he is risen.
Indeed, our faith isstrengthened by worshiping
(18:45):
together with other believers.
So don't give up on that.
Third, porcupine-proof yourhouse.
Now I have to give a littlecontext to this.
Not only are we prone to forget, but we have a real enemy, and
Satan would love to sneak liesinto our hearts, into our minds.
(19:06):
He would love for idols tocreep into our houses.
So why did I say porcupineproof?
Well, a few years ago two yearsago I guess I was in South
Africa and we got to work with aministry that was going on
there and a lot of what they dois training young people in
agricultural skills.
They're teaching them how toplant their own food, how to do
farming, but all of theirgardens have these big nets over
(19:32):
top of them.
And then they, as we weretalking, they said we have the
nets over top to keep birds orother things like that.
But we also have had to digdown like six feet to put these
metal shields into the ground.
And I said why?
And they said because we have aterrible problem with
porcupines.
The porcupines will come up tothe garden.
Now, this is never a problemthat I've experienced in my life
, but maybe you've gotarmadillos in your yard or
(19:52):
something.
The porcupines will come up anddig under the fence and they'll
eat all the vegetables of thegarden.
And I thought what a picture ofhow Satan sneaks in and robs us
right and would love to feed uslies.
I work with Impact360.
And so I work with a lot ofyoung people, a lot of kind of
18 to 25 year olds in that range, and we have this phrase that
(20:15):
we talk about, that we saytypically it's not one big idea
or one big lie that comes andjust sweeps them off their feet.
It's death by a thousand nudges.
It's just Satan kind ofwhispering in their ear.
And it's little compromiseafter little compromise If we
just go with the flow and wesprinkle in a little
Christianity to our week.
But it never changes us If wenever do anything to put a stake
(20:36):
in the ground or safeguard ourbelief.
Guess what the enemy will feedyou.
Lies, doubt will creep in likethose porcupines and you'll wake
up one day realizing your faithis gone.
There's a little bit of aspoiler alert here.
But the people of Israel?
They eventually forgot.
Despite the stones, they endedup bringing in idols.
(20:58):
They ended up getting a littletoo confident in their own
riches.
They brought in kings whosehearts turned away from the Lord
and eventually they were exiledfrom the land that they were
promised because they allowedthat to creep in.
They allowed immorality tocreep in.
So don't tolerate lies creepinginto your home.
If we can just get reallypractical social media, the
(21:21):
shows that we watch, the musicthat we listen to, but also when
I allow bitterness to just growand fester in my heart gossip,
unresolved conflict with myspouse these are little
porcupines that are coming inand they're chipping away at my
remembrance and my ability toturn my eyes toward Jesus and
remember and stir my belief.
(21:43):
So don't tolerate lies creepinginto your home and with that,
double down on God's word, evenwhen it's offensive, even when
it's counter-cultural.
I think this is one of thebiggest issues of our day.
Like this will be where thechurch thrives or slowly dies
out.
Are we going to take God's wordseriously?
And God's word is offensive toour modern context.
(22:08):
Larry was talking aboutworldview earlier.
The Bible is going to tell usthat you are born a sinner, you
are not a good person, you standunder God's condemnation and
you need his forgiveness.
That is offensive to my modernsensibility.
The Bible is going to tell youthat happiness is not the most
important thing.
That's offensive.
Bible is going to say thingslike boys cannot become girls
(22:30):
and vice versa.
Gender is not fluid.
That's offensive in our culture.
Bible is going to tell you thatnot all religions lead to
eternal life.
They're not all created equal.
Jesus made a bold claim when hesaid I am the way, the truth and
the life.
No one comes to the Fatherexcept through me.
That is offensive.
And yet we need that.
Our hearts need to double downon God's word.
(22:52):
It's a porcupine proof.
You're home, there you go, andthen finally remember your own
testimony.
Many of you have done thatpublicly on this platform.
I tell you that is such anencouragement to my heart.
When I go back and I look at myown story and I remember and I
(23:12):
share that with another person,that's me putting a stake in the
ground to say God has donesomething that I cannot deny and
I'm going to continue toproclaim that to the next
generation.
What happened at the JordanRiver was miraculous, but was it
more miraculous than when Godtakes a dead, unresponsive heart
and makes us alive?
No, he works miracles among usall the time, and so as we
(23:38):
rehearse that to one another, aswe share our testimony, that's
good for our souls, it's goodfor our remembering.
Now, if you just took Joshua 4by itself, you might only see
remembrance, but when we go tothe New Testament, the author of
Hebrews actually referencesback to this passage and layers
on two other themes.
So I want to look at those two.
(24:01):
The first one is belief.
Let's look at the belief of theIsraelites.
What was the difference betweenthe first generation, the
generation that came with Mosesout of slavery in Egypt, and the
second generation, thewilderness generation that was
born in the wilderness andentered with Joshua into the
promised land?
The difference was obediencesorry belief that led to
(24:28):
obedience.
Belief in what?
Well, we actually find thatanswer by looking at what Moses
missed.
We find the answer in whatMoses and the earlier
generations had failed tobelieve.
So they failed to believe thatGod would do what he promised.
They failed to believe that hewas mighty to give them the
victory.
If you remember, the spies wentinto the land and they came
(24:50):
back and they said we can't doit, they're giants, they'll
overcome us.
And so they lacked faith andGod said you will not enter my
rest.
They failed to believe that heis the one true God.
Okay, they failed to believethat salvation was in him alone.
Contrast that, with Joshua andwith the generation that God led
(25:12):
into the promised land tookacross the Jordan, they trusted
God's promises.
They were all in Our belief inwhat is actually a belief in
whom?
It's not a question of whetherthings are going to turn out.
It's a question of is the Godthat goes before us actually
(25:35):
able to do what he says that hewill do?
So I think about Rahab, whorisked everything to hide the
spies.
She betrayed her own people,saying I have heard who your God
is and so I'll put everythingin that.
And I think about Joshualeading the people up to the
edge of the Jordan.
I think about the parents thattook their kids across the river
and, as soon as the waterwashed in behind them, they were
(25:56):
committed.
Right.
It's a belief in the mightyhand of God.
There's this quote by AW Tozerand he says what comes to your
mind when you think about God isthe most important thing about
you.
Who is the God that we believein?
And is our view of God that heis all powerful, that he
(26:16):
sustains all that, he judges all, that he fulfills his promises?
Or do we think of him more likeSiri in our back pocket?
You know that we pull out andask for guidance or ask for help
.
It comes down to belief.
So belief biblically.
If you want to know what Jesusthought about belief, you can go
to John, chapter six.
The whole chapter is aboutbelief and this is right after
(26:38):
Jesus has fed the 5,000 and thedisciples are kind of coming to
him saying what's going on?
Who are you?
And he says this truly, truly.
I say to you whoever believeshas eternal life.
I am the bread of life.
Your fathers ate the manna inthe wilderness and they died.
This is the bread that comesdown from heaven so that one may
eat of it and not die.
I am the living bread that camedown from heaven.
(27:01):
If anyone eats of this bread,he will live forever.
And the bread that I give forthe life of the world is my
flesh.
What's the significance ofbread?
Why is Jesus saying, heybelieve, eat my bread, drink.
He goes on to say eat my fleshand drink my blood.
It's a really let's talk aboutoffensive passages.
The disciples are like what areyou talking about?
What he's saying to them?
(27:21):
Bread sustains life.
Right, it's the thing that wecannot live without.
And Jesus himself points backto Moses and says look, moses
gave them manna in thewilderness and they woke up.
Every day, if the man is notthere, we don't survive.
That's what it means to believein me.
Do you look to me for yoursurvival?
Do you?
Are you putting all of yourhope in my ability to save you,
(27:42):
or are you trusting in your ownability?
Are you trusting in your ownrighteousness?
Belief is not going to churchbecause that's what we do or
because that's what my parentsdid.
It's not admiring Jesus as agood guy.
I was recently on a collegecampus talking with a student
and I said who do you thinkJesus was?
And they said I don't know.
I mean like I think he was agood guy.
(28:03):
And he went on.
He answered a few other thingsand I said.
I agree with most of what yousaid, except I'm going to take
issue with the part where yousaid that Jesus was a good guy,
which I think threw him for aloop for a second.
So, because Jesus can't be agood guy, this is, if you're
familiar with what CS Lewiscalled the trilemma.
Jesus claimed to be God.
He claimed to be the only meansof salvation.
(28:25):
He invited people to abandoneverything.
Either he was the Lord, lewissaid, or he was a liar, or he
was a crazy person.
But he wasn't just a good guythat we should admire, because
if he said the things that theBible says that he said right,
then we either believe that heis who he said he was or we
should dismiss him.
(28:46):
So, thinking that Jesus waskind of a good teacher, that we
should learn some life lessonsfrom that's not belief.
Belief is not trying our bestto be a good person.
We already talked about Rahab.
There's no room for hedgingyour bets in following Jesus,
because when you choose tofollow Jesus, it's everything.
(29:09):
Because when you choose tofollow Jesus, it's everything.
As I was preparing for thismorning, I came across this
story back from the floodingthat happened in Texas several
weeks ago, and it was a story ofa lady who survived the
flooding, but she was talkingabout what happened.
And they had a house near theriver, but it was up on a hill
and the water rose so fast thatit, middle of the night, lifted
(29:31):
the house off of its pillars andthe house broke in two and
started floating down river andmiraculously, she was able to
hold onto her daughter and getup in a tree, and she was
stranded in the tree for a whileI don't remember how long and
as the waters continued to rise,eventually her husband and, I
(29:51):
think, her father they managedto get a raft to where she was,
to the bottom of the tree, andshe couldn't climb down with her
daughter, and so the onlyoption was for her to drop her
daughter down to them and thenjump herself, trusting that
she'd make it in the boat,trusting that she would be able
(30:12):
to get out of the water.
And I thought that's what it'slike to follow Jesus.
It can't be something that wedo on the side.
This is putting our entire hopein his ability to save Belief,
is abandoning all hope in yourability to earn what God has
promised and instead castingyourself fully upon him,
(30:33):
depending 100% on his power, inthe same way that the blood of
the lamb preserved theIsraelites at Passover, in the
same way that he parted the RedSea to lead them out of exile.
The question for them as theystand at the Jordan is do they
believe that this is a God whowill again fulfill his promise
(30:54):
to do for them what they cannotdo for themselves?
I think we see some fruit ofbelief.
That's an encouragement to us,and we see this in Joshua for
sure.
First, belief leads us to action.
There's this quote by DallasWillard.
(31:16):
He says we don't believesomething by merely saying we
believe it, or even when webelieve that we believe it, but
we believe something when we actas if it were true.
Belief leads us to action.
Ji Packer said somethingsimilar.
The Christian's motto shouldnot be let go and let God, but
trust God and get going, takeaction and trust that he will
(31:37):
show up and do what he said hewould do.
Second is that belief puts moreconfidence in obedience than
strategy.
In chapter three, the Lord wastalking to Joshua before this
even started and he said today Iwill begin to exalt you in the
sight of all Israel.
That they may know that, as Iwas with Moses, so I will be
(31:59):
with you.
If we read Joshua three, joshuafour, joshua five, you'll be
impressed by the utter lack ofstrategy that the Israelites had
.
They didn't ford the river.
They didn't.
Anybody remember the OregonTrail, the video game where you
had to figure out how to getacross the river.
Okay, their plan was to obeyright, we'll show up.
(32:19):
God said he would part thewater.
That's really the only optionthat we have.
So they show up and the waterparts.
And then they go into Jerichoand I'm not going to get ahead
because I'll steal Will'sthunder.
But what's the plan for Jericho?
To walk around the city walls,right, obedience trumps strategy
and belief sustainsperseverance.
(32:44):
This is where I think about thehuman element and I try to put
myself in the shoes of thepeople who were actually in
Israel.
These are real people, right?
So I think about the spies andwhat it would have been like to
sneak into this land and putyour life at risk.
And I think about Joshua.
And after all the years,remember Joshua was on the first
(33:06):
scouting trip and then he wentthrough all of those years in
the desert and then finally,finally, it's time to take the
people into the promised landand his instructions are to walk
up to the water and wait.
As a leader, I would beterrified, but he obeys.
(33:27):
And then I think about thepriests.
The priests I never thoughtabout this before getting ready
for this morning, but thepriests were supposed to, if you
remember, carry the Ark of theCovenant down to the water and
they were supposed to dip theirtoes in the water and, as they
did, the water started to.
The Bible says stack up severalmiles up river and the water
(33:48):
stops.
But the priests had to standthere the whole time, the whole
time that you were talking aboutthousands of people crossing
the river, and the whole timethis is happening.
The priests are standing thereholding the weight of the Ark of
the Covenant and I thought, isit possible that the priest
started to gripe a little bit intheir minds, like man, why did
(34:09):
we gold plate this thing?
It's getting really heavy, youknow, or probably not.
I hope and I imagine that theywere so taken by what God was
doing.
I doubt they gave a whole lotof attention to the physical
weight of standing there andpersevering.
But that's a lesson for me,because when life feels heavy.
Maybe marriage feels heavyright now, maybe singleness
(34:31):
feels heavy, maybe your sinstruggle feels heavy.
Your determination is notenough to sustain you.
But when we lift up our eyesand see what God is doing right
in front of us, man, that willput some steel in your spine.
Belief sustains ourperseverance and I think this is
(34:53):
where we start to feel anotherone of those undercurrents.
In Hebrews, chapter three andchapter four.
The big idea is do not hardenyour hearts, because when Jesus,
what Jesus promises, is evenbetter than what Moses promised.
It's even better than whatJoshua promised.
This is a real story fromhistory.
(35:14):
These events actually happened.
Let's not forget that.
But the whole thing is also God, in his providence, ordained
this whole thing as aforeshadowing, a picture of us
crossing from death into lifeand entering God's rest.
And I'll show you Now.
Hang with me, I'm about to getcomplicated deep into the third
(35:37):
point, so don't give up.
But we really have to get this,because in Hebrews, that's
where we get a lot ofexplanation about what God is
really doing in Joshua.
So bear with me for a minute.
In Hebrews, chapter three, itsays take care, brothers, lest
there be in any of you an evil,unbelieving heart.
We just talked about belief.
Don't give into an unbelievingheart leading you to fall away
(36:00):
from the living God, but exhortone another every day, as long
as it is called today, that noneof you may be hardened by the
deceitfulness of sin, for wehave come to share in Christ, if
indeed we hold our originalconfidence firm to the end.
As it is said today, if youhear his voice, do not harden
your hearts as in the rebellion.
And now he's going to talkabout the people, with Moses,
(36:21):
who missed the promised land.
For who were those who heardand yet rebelled?
Was it not all those who leftEgypt led by Moses, and with
whom was he provoked for 40years?
Was it not all those who leftEgypt led by Moses, and with
whom was he provoked for 40years?
Was it not those who sinned,whose bodies fell in the
wilderness, and to whom did heswear that they would not enter
his rest?
But those who were disobedient?
So we see that they were unableto enter because of unbelief.
(36:42):
Let me summarize real quickbecause I know it's complicated.
The author of Hebrews is sayingMoses led the people of Israel
toward the promised land, towardGod's rest, but they missed it
because of unbelief.
Then Joshua succeeded inbringing them into God's rest,
but that rest was not ultimate.
And we know this because acouple of generations later, in
(37:05):
this Psalm that David is writing, he says today if you hear his
voice, do not harden your heartsthe way that the people did in
the desert.
So the author of Hebrews ismaking this kind of interesting
case.
He's like if what Joshua did inleading them into the promised
land, if that was really thepinnacle of God's people, david
wouldn't have come backgenerations later and said, hey,
(37:26):
if there's still an opportunityto enter God's rest, take it,
don't miss it.
And said, hey, if there's stillan opportunity to enter God's
rest, take it, don't miss it.
Does that make sense?
He's saying if what Joshua haddone was ultimate, david
wouldn't still be calling peoplegenerations later to enter
God's rest.
And so the author of Hebrews ismaking the case that Jesus is
even greater than Moses, evengreater than Joshua, saying you
think that the Israelitesentering the promised land was
(37:48):
the peak for the Hebrew people,the glory days?
Then why is David still talkingabout God's rest?
He is pointing to an evengreater fulfillment of God's
promise.
He's talking about ultimaterest.
He's talking about salvation.
He goes on in chapter four tosay for if Joshua had given them
rest, god would not have spokenof another day later on.
(38:11):
So then there remains a Sabbathrest for the people of God, for
whoever has entered God's resthas also rested from his works,
as God did from his.
Let us therefore strive toenter that rest so that no one
may fall by the same sort ofdisobedience.
I want you to notice someparallels.
Moses led an enslaved peopleout of Egypt.
(38:37):
They escaped death through thePassover.
He gave them manna in thedesert.
They were circumcised to renewGod's covenant.
He parted the Red Sea, led themtoward the promised land, but
because of their unbelief theyfailed to enter God's rest.
And then Joshua comes along.
The people were stranded in thedesert.
They believed God's word and sothey passed through the Jordan
(38:58):
toward the promised land.
And then they were circumcisedto renew the covenant.
They conquered enemies and theyentered God's rest.
And then Jesus came out ofEgypt.
This gets a little line in Hoseawhere it kind of references
that Jesus if you remember Jesusspent part of his childhood in
Egypt, and then he was broughtback to the same promised land.
(39:19):
He was baptized in the Jordan.
He offered himself as the breadof life.
He called for a circumcisedheart.
He parted not the sea, not theJordan, but the temple curtain.
He conquered sin and death andhe opened a way.
This is not an accident.
The Bible does this over andover and over again.
(39:41):
It's showing us these picturesof future fulfillment to say
don't miss it.
This is all leading towardsomething.
It's leading toward Jesus.
There's this theme that kind ofruns through.
Scripture Will even talkedabout it.
That has to do with water andthree days and escaping death.
(40:01):
We see it in Jonah.
We see it.
The Bible talks about the storyof Noah and the flood.
There's something there.
And, as I was studying this,there's a question in Joshua 4
about two sets of stones.
If you look at verses 8 and 9,it talks about the people taking
stones up out of the river andsetting them in Gilgal in the
(40:23):
place where they would lodge.
But there's also a line thatkind of looks like it's
instructing Joshua to set upstones in the dry riverbed.
Now there's debate about whetherit was two sets of stone or one
set of stone, and I'm not aHebrew scholar.
They say in the Hebrew it maybemakes more sense to have one
set of stones, but I think it'sinteresting because it matches
(40:43):
up with what's in Scripture.
It's not explicit, but theimagery of Noah bringing the
people through the flood, thatgets referenced again in 1 Peter
where he says it was aforeshadowing of baptism, and
the story of Jonah being in thewhale for three days and then
being brought back.
It was a foreshadowing ofJesus' death, burial and
resurrection.
Even the picture of baptismitself, as Jesus is baptized.
(41:06):
It's an image of us dying withChrist, putting our old man to
death, being buried with him andresurrected to new life.
And so this idea of two stonesthat one would represent our
death and burial with Christ andthe other would represent
newness of life.
As the people cross, they renewthe covenant of circumcision,
(41:26):
they renew the Passover, they'rebeginning a new life, buried
with Christ and raised tonewness of life.
What's less ambiguous is theinstruction in Hebrews do not
harden your hearts.
If God is stirring your hearts,if he's convicting you of your
sin or your self-righteousness,if he's showing your need for
(41:47):
grace and forgiveness, don'tignore that, don't push it away.
I think that's good evidencethat God is drawing you to
himself.
If you've never heard thesimple message of the gospel.
It's this that God made us forhimself to be in relationship
(42:08):
with him, and yet our sin hasbroken that relationship.
It's created a barrier betweenus and God and brought us under
his just judgment, under hisrighteous condemnation.
Instead of worshiping the onlyperson worthy of worship, we
rebelled and set ourselvesagainst him, and so our penalty
for sin is death and eternalseparation from God.
But because God is rich inmercy, he sent his own son, his
(42:30):
perfect son, jesus, whowillingly died in our place,
that he might take ourpunishment and, in exchange,
offer us full forgiveness of sinand a restored relationship
with the Father.
And if we are willing toconfess our sin and believe in
him and receive his offer ofgrace and forgiveness, he gives
us new life and promises that wewill spend eternity with him.
(42:55):
The parallels continue.
We'll start to close with this.
The rest that Hebrews istalking about is rest from
slavery.
John 8, 34,.
Jesus answered them and said,truly, truly, I say to you, john
8, 34,.
Jesus answered them and said,truly, truly, I say to you
everyone who practices sin is aslave to sin, but in Christ we
are set free from slavery to sin, just like the people were set
(43:20):
free from slavery in Egypt.
They were set free fromwandering in the desert.
We are set free fromaimlessness and ostracism.
Ephesians 2, 12 says rememberthat you were at that time
separated from Christ, alienatedfrom the commonwealth of Israel
and strangers to the covenantof promise, having no hope and
without God in the world.
They were set free from theirstriving.
(43:42):
We are set free from ourstriving.
Romans 3.20 says Therefore, noone will be declared righteous
in God's sight by the works ofthe law.
Rather, 3.20 says we spend alot of time striving.
(44:03):
Remember, the former generationdidn't enter the promised land
because they feared theCanaanites more than they
trusted God.
But Moses himself wasprohibited because he tried to
do it on his own.
He struck the rock, remember,rather than trusting and obeying
.
It is exhausting to sit on thethrone of our own hearts, but
(44:24):
there is deep rest insurrendering to him this verse
in Romans saying nobody earnsrighteousness by their works.
The law just broughtcondemnation, but when Jesus
gave himself on the cross, whatdid he say?
It is finished.
There's nothing left to add.
Come to him Rest.
Cease from your striving.
Finally, god offers us restfrom death.
(44:50):
Romans 6.23 says For the wagesof sin is death, but the free
gift of God is eternal life inChrist Jesus, our Lord.
Today, if you hear his voice,lift up your eyes.
Look at what he's doing.
Look to Jesus.
Jesus passed through the watersof death.
Literally, he offers himself asthe bread of life.
(45:11):
He tore the curtain to give usaccess to the Father.
His work is finished and now heinvites us into his rest.
But he didn't set up stones.
He set up a table.
Next week we'll celebrate theLord's Supper.
It's something that Christianshave been doing for more than
(45:32):
2000 years to remember Christ'sdeath and resurrection.
But I wanna go ahead and read afamiliar passage In 1
Corinthians.
It talks about how the LordJesus, on the night when he was
betrayed, took bread and when hehad given thanks, he broke it
and said this is my body whichis for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
(45:56):
This cup is the new covenant inmy blood.
Do this as often as you drinkit in remembrance of me.
For as often as you eat thisbread and drink the cup, you
proclaim the Lord's death untilhe comes.
We don't just go through themotions.
Our remembrance stokes thefires of our belief, which leads
(46:17):
us into God's promises throughJesus, our great high priest.
And just in case, what youheard me say was work harder to
conjure up stronger belief,listen to the end of Hebrews,
chapter four.
Since then, we have a greathigh priest who has passed
through the heavens Jesus, theson of God.
Let us hold fast to ourconfession, for we do not have a
(46:41):
high priest who is unable tosympathize with our weaknesses,
but one who, in every respect,has been tempted as we are, yet
without sin.
Let us then, with confidence,draw near to the throne of grace
that we may receive mercy andfind grace to help in time of
need.
It was 100% his mighty handthat dried up the waters of the
(47:02):
Jordan.
100% his mighty hand thatreaches out to us in our
weakness and draws us to himself.
The Israelites crossed out ofexile into rest.
In Christ, we cross from deathto life.
He's making us brand new.
Remembering stokes our belief,which leads us to rest.
(47:24):
Kind of reminds me of behold,believe, become.
Let's worship together.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.