Crossing the Jordan

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13 Oct 2024

Crossing the Jordan

Passage Joshua 3:1-17

Speaker Ben Lucas

Service Evening

Series Joshua: Receive your Inheritance

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Passage: Joshua 3:1-17

Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: ‘When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.’

Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.’

Joshua said to the priests, ‘Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people.’ So they took it up and went ahead of them.

And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so that they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: “When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.”’

Joshua said to the Israelites, ‘Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. 10 This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. 11 See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. 12 Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord – the Lord of all the earth – set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.’

14 So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 15 Now the Jordan is in flood all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, 16 the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17 The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

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Transcript (Auto-generated)

This transcript has been automatically generated, and therefore may not be 100% accurate.

Thank you, Helen. I do hope that you will keep your bibles open so that we can have a look at this together. We pray. Father, we thank you for your word given to us in scripture here. We pray that you would by your spirit, enable us to hear your message for us today, not just to understand the past, but to follow you more nearly and faithfully this day.

Amen.

I wonder if you ever get daunted by stuff. I'm sure you get daunted about some things, but do you ever get daunted about christian ministry, about being a Christian, about telling your friends about Jesus? I was at a meeting on Thursday, and the guy was sharing about reaching the next generation, and he told us the Church of England has been in a 70 year decline. Woo. It's a not very uplifting statistic, is it?

For 70 years, since even before my parents were born, we've been declining. It's a daunting business to minister in the Church of England, in any church. It's not just the Church of England seemed like a really daunting business when I was a teenager, and I was in a little village church, and I, me and my sister and my two brothers were the youth group. It was wonderful. We met, well, it was kind of wonderful, you know, we met, like, behind a curtain hung somewhere on the side of the church, and there was a bloke with a guitar.

It's like, yeah, let's reach the nation for Christ. Seemed quite daunting then. I mean, it seems a little bit more encouraging tonight, doesn't it, as we look around all of these faces. And yet it's still pretty daunting, isn't it? Because this is still a fraction of the people we know, a fraction of even the people in this village, and we don't even all come from this village.

It's a daunting task that God set us, and it can be a little bit disheartening, I think, sometimes as a new generation, you think, is this stuff that God has asked us to do actually even possible? Is it possible? Maybe it's better if I just go and hide away and hope for something better to come.

And then God gave me this text to preach on this Sunday, and he said, actually, the fact that it is impossible is the whole point, and that God will achieve his purposes. And I was very encouraged. So I hope that you'll be encouraged today, because it can be daunting being a Christian, reaching your friends. Just even living as a Christian can seem daunting, because this text is all about a new generation taking hold of the promises made to their fathers, to their parents generation. I don't know if you read this as this was read out, maybe you had a little bit of Bible deja vu, you know?

Could someone tell me what passage of the Bible this seems awfully like? Someone give a head. I'll look over here. I will. Someone.

Until they answer. What story is this similar to the exodus. Thank you. Thank you. Off the hook.

It's similar to the exodus, isn't it? Really similar.

But the exodus was a previous generation. That was the generation of their parents, because we feel like we've been here before. There was a whole generation who were brought through the red sea. Weren't they led by God? Let's go to the promised land.

They got to this very point. They got to the edge of the promised land. And do you remember what happened? The spies went in and they said, it's a really great land. Massive grapes.

That's actually real, you know, you might remember that. Grapes like this. This is wonderful. I want to go in there. The thing is, though, they're a little bit strong, a little bit big, and to be honest, we can't really do it, so let's not bother.

Do you remember that? And then now they've spent 40 years wandering around the wilderness because they wouldn't take hold of God's promises. And this new generation, it's like, okay, start again. Will this generation take hold of God's promises?

You see, the previous generation failed in faith. The mistake they made was they thought that the reason they couldn't take the promised land was because they weren't strong enough. You know, we just need to be a bit stronger, we need to be a bit taller or a bit better. The mistake they've made was it wasn't just difficult, it was impossible for them to take the promised land. They were absolutely right that they couldn't do it.

It's not like they were wrong. They didn't come back. And Joshua said, guys, all along you should have believed in yourself. Oh, man, I wish you'd just trust yourself. No, it was impossible.

Those in the land were definitely too strong. They had iron weapons, fighting against a bunch of slaves. This brand new technology, they couldn't do it. What they failed to realise was they weren't supposed to do it by themselves. They were supposed to trust in God by faith.

And so as we come here and we remember all of this, we think to ourselves, what will this generation do with that? Is this generation going to take hold of those promises and go for it.

And that's a clear call, isn't it, to us, for us to take hold of the promises for ourselves. We can't run on the coattails of those who have gone before us. I don't just mean young people, I mean all christians, you know, how much longer will this congregation last if we just stand here and batten down the hatches and don't tell anyone about Jesus? I don't know. Who's the youngest person here?

Their lifetime. It's your lifetime. It's not very long, is it? Each generation has to take hold of the promises for themselves. And so this text is all about that, and it's all about crossing over, this big moment, crossing over into the jordan.

I counted that word cross nine times in this chapter. And if you include chapter four, which is kind of in the same sort of story, really, it reaches 21. It's a big theme, crossing over, taking it hold of this inheritance. And so what we're going to see today in this passage is that we're called today, just as they were then, to cross by faith in God's path, to cross by faith in God's power, and to cross by faith in God's timing. See all of these things.

So the first thing we see is crossing by faith in God's path. Read with me in verse one of chapter three.

Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shatim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days, the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people. When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and to follow it. God is saying, I am going to go out before you. I'm going to lead you.

And he's always done this, hasn't he? You know, if you think about these guys, they'd grown up knowing that God led the people, you remember, in the wilderness. And up to this point, God had led by pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. You don't grow up forgetting that, do you? That was pretty cool, you know, that was a pretty cool thing, to grow up knowing God leads us great, continue to be, to be followed, to follow him.

And yet there is always that temptation to go your own way, isn't there? You know, Frank Sinatra loved it, Lenny Kravitz loved it. Different crowd. Not this one, maybe, but there's always that temptation to go our own way where we think, do you know what God I. You know, yeah, I'm sort of up for the destination, but if I could just go this way around, that would be smashing.

It's a little bit like two people negotiating in a car. Do you have this? This got really extreme, actually, in our house when we realised our car was quite old and the sat nav doesn't have many roads in it. The number of times that it's like, you are off road, I really don't think so. Anyway, so then I'm putting the sat nav on and, you know, my wife sat there with Google Maps on.

Go left. When I say straight, what does Google want me to do? It can be quite like, oh, I want to go my way, make my own choices. I don't know. That's so like what life is like, though, isn't it?

All right, God, I'd like just to do it a little bit. Sure. But we can't, you know, that's not what happens, is it? God says, follow me. You know, today we're to follow Christ.

Jesus says, I am the way. Now, Jesus also says, the way to life is narrow. Right? It's a narrow path. You can't just sort of wonder and hope that you're going to get there at the end.

Broad is the way that leads to destruction, sure, but narrow is the path that leads to life. We've got to follow Jesus the way, just as they had to follow the ark. But we're so tempted, aren't we, to go our own way? To go our own way. So they've got to follow God.

First of all, this is God's path. They're told to consecrate themselves. You notice that in verse five, Jesus told the people, consecrate yourselves.

It's a funny word, isn't it? Consecrate. It just means sort of, make yourselves holy. Set yourselves apart for it. You might expect, if you're pausing and thinking about this, that when they're being told they're going to go on a journey, it might be something like, make sure you've got your bags packed, you know, have you got enough socks?

You know, this sort of thing. Get ready for the journey. But that's not what he says. He says, consecrate yourself. Set yourselves apart for God.

Make yourselves holy for this journey. That's kind of an interesting thing, isn't it, that some translations want to make this prepare yourselves? Because it seems like that's what it should say, really. And it does mean, prepare yourselves. Really.

What it means is preparing yourselves for this journey is really the same thing as making yourself holy for this journey to this promised land, which for us, answering the type is heaven. This journey of following the narrow way we need to consecrate ourselves to God.

There's a saying, isn't there, that you sometimes hear that somebody is so heavenly minded that they're of no earthly use? You heard of this? We've heard of this.

I'm not gonna lie. It's a nonsense phrase. It's a nonsense phrase because what this says is that actually, if you want to be of any use at all, consecrate yourself. You know, you've got to be holy, you got to be heavenly minded. Otherwise you're going to be of no earthly use.

If you're fixed on the stuff around you, you're not going to do any good at all. Actually, you've got to be heavenly minded to be of earthly youth, fixing your eyes on where you're going and consecrating yourselves to God in that means that you can do this journey properly. That's quite striking, isn't it? So for us, let's follow God's way, not arguing like we can with multiple sat navs, following the narrow way and consecrating ourselves to him. Well, the second thing that we see turning over the page is that we cross by faith in God's power.

God's power. We see this in verses seven to 13, verse seven. The Lord says to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel so that they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.

Joshua is being confirmed as Israel's great leader and he's going to be confirmed through these events. You know, he was leading them already. But through the events of crossing the Jordan, he's going to be confirmed.

Well, Joshua points forward to Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our faith, as Hebrews says. And he is exalted and shown to be great in the eyes of all people through his crossing of death, through his resurrection. It's a new life, isn't it? He's exalted before all people. We see, oh, wow.

That's God's power at work in Jesus. He's our leader, set apart as our leader. And God's presence here is shown not just in Joshua, but in the ark, the Ark of the covenant.

Interestingly, the ark of the covenant and the covenant is God's promises. It could be called the Ark of the promise, following the promises. And what is the ark? What is the ark? It's that box if you're not sure what it is, it's the box that Moses made to put the ten Commandments in those covenant documents in the box to be carried before them to know their relationship with God.

And this represents for them God's presence, you see, in this hard. In this impossible thing they're being called to do. God is going with them, you know, very different to sort of like a James Bond film, which is how we tend to think of faith. Bear with, you know, you kind of, you know, James Bond goes into the office and, you know, gets prepped about whatever mission he's going to go on. It's like, okay, here's all the information.

Zero zero seven. Right. Take that flight. We won't be able to contact you until you've completed the mission, but I trust you'll be fine. Okay.

And I'll meet you back at hq. See you later. Go. That's kind of how James Bond works, isn't it? And he's so resourceful.

He's amazing. And sometimes we feel like that's maybe the case with the christian life. Like, you know, yeah, I'm gonna become a Christian at some point. Then God's gonna send me off into these missions. He's like, see you in heaven.

You know, see you later. I believe in you, but that's not what it's like. You know, God's presence goes before them, with them. This is what the Ark is. Literally just with them in their midst.

God among you. Verse ten. This is how you will know living God is among you. Because the Ark is there. And because the Ark is there, amazing things are happening.

Looking back in verse ten that I just mentioned, this is how you will know the living God is among you. Again, that's an interesting thing to say, isn't it? Do you not think they already knew the living God was among them? You know, I mean, they've grown up being led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. You know, they've listened to Moses.

They've seen the ark, all of these things. It's not that they had no idea who the Lord was. And it's like, okay, this is just gonna. This is gonna show you who the Lord is in the first place. It's confirming the faith they already had.

What's being said here is God saying, you trust in me, and I'm going to give you a sign as confirmation for you. You can know in this sense, like you're knowing in your lived experience.

And so the miracle, he says, this will confirm that I'm with you. And by that, he will certainly drive out Canaanites, Hittites, Hitvites, perizzites, gorgoshites, amorites, Jebusites. All of these guys who are way too strong for you. You'll know that because I've confirmed it by a miracle. Well, look, today we not only can trust in Jesus, we can have that faith confirmed by his presence with us.

It's confirmed by his resurrection. Is he who he says he is? Of course he is. He was raised from the dead. That's impossible.

If someone's raised from the dead, they're definitely God, aren't they? That's a wonderful confirming sign for us today.

And so we can cross by faith in God's power.

It's a little bit like, I don't know, I watch swimming lessons. Not like in a weird way, but I've got children, just to make that clear. So sometimes, you know, can you cut that out, though? So let's be specific. Bethany, my middle daughter, learns swimming, okay?

And on Friday, she did a jump into the pool. But it's really scary for her, right? You know, you're being asked to put your toes on the edge of the water and jump in at the deep end. It's really scary. And, you know, all of these things crowd in your mind when you're a child asks to jump into the deep end, isn't it?

You know, what if I just sink to the bottom? What if I forget to hold my breath? What if I breathe in by accident and I've just breathed water? I can't breathe water. I don't think I can breathe water.

All of these things are worrying in your mind. I mean, can I jump in? But it's almost like, okay, if then you saw, you know, a parent in the water, there's your mum with her arms up. Don't worry, I'm gonna catch you. You know, you catch your eye and you say, oh, do you know what?

I can jump in the water. This is gonna be all right. I mean, you know, I'm worried otherwise, but I can jump into her arms. That's gonna be, that's going to be wonderful and safe. Well, look, these things, this is like the Israelites were come to the edge of the Jordan, okay?

If they just had to do this by themselves. All of these thoughts crowding in, they focus on everything else. Can I do this? Am I going to drown? Am I going to.

I don't know what's going to happen. Do I even know the way? Have I got supplies to the other side. How will I dry my socks? Whatever.

I don't know what they're worried about, but they see God's presence with them like, like a parent holding out her arms to protect the child. And so, you know, yes, in God's power, I can do that. Well, look, sometimes this is what our call is like, you know, we're called to, the great commission calls us to take the gospel to all nations, doesn't it? How on earth are we going to do that? There are just so many issues, aren't there?

So many issues. How are you going to operate in another country? How are you going to get there? What are you going to eat when you get there? Who's going to look after you?

How are you going to learn the language? All of these issues come into your mind and when you focus on them, oh my goodness, it's just too daunting. But you see that God is already there, like holding out his arms, being like, come, I've prepared this, I've gone ahead of you. We do these things in God's power. God's power.

Well, the last thing is doing things in God's timing, verses 14 to 17. And really I think if you've fallen asleep, now will be the time to wake up because I really think this is the thing that God most wants us to hear. This is what I feel is most on my heart, really, this last point that doing things in God's timing for us today, it's quite striking and it's almost not the most obvious thing when you first read the passage. So listen in and let's just see what's going on. I'm looking down now in verse 14.

So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Great. That's what we expect so far. Now we're going to digress to a little bit of geography, guys. Verse 15.

Now the Jordan is in flood all during harvest.

I mean, you know, why are you putting a comment like that in there? It's interesting, isn't it? And it's not just about geography. It's not just that. The author was just like, this is, this is so interesting.

I just love floodplains, you know, I mean, I hope you've got a geographic that does love floodplains, but this is not what's going on here. This is actually an amazing thing because what this comment is telling us is that if there's any time of year not to attempt crossing the Jordan, it's right now, okay, this is not the time. And I find this quite important because we talked about the deja vu earlier. Compared to the Red Sea. That's amazing, isn't it?

You know, crossing the Red Sea. It's a sea. Goodness, that sounds amazing. Now they've crossed a river, so I can jump across a river. You know, this seems like a slightly lesser miracle, doesn't it?

Not the case. Not the case at this time of year. With the floods having gone all wide, this river could be up to like a mile across. And in places it could be ten to 12ft deep. We're not talking about.

The only risk being getting your feet a bit damp.

You know, there might have been forwards at other times of year, things like this, but no, at harvest time, definitely the worst time to cross.

And that's just an interesting thought, isn't it? Why would God lead his people to the river and be like, I want to take you into the promised land, and what I'm going to choose is the worst time? You know, that's just an interesting thing. It's actually quite typical of God when I got to thinking about that. He does this sort of thing all the time, doesn't he?

I mean, you think about Abraham and Sarah, yet you'll have an heir to. Okay, now might be the time. God. I'm like, I know it's the right time. It's the right time.

Just wait till the menopause have happened, mate, and then you'll have the air. Wait until an impossible time. He did the same thing with Elizabeth, didn't he? Let's just wait. Wait till it's actually too late and then I'll do it.

You know? And he did that even with Elijah, doesn't he? If you remember this great scene on Mount Carmel where they're having the showdown with the. With the priests of Baal and, you know, already he's asked God to, like, shoot down lightning from heaven to burn up the thing. But it's like, oh, I don't know, that's just not.

That's not hard enough, is it? Let's pour on so much water that there's a. There's like a trough of water around the side. You know what, guys? Then it will be impossible.

This is just. God loves to do this. He loves to do this. And this is one of those occasions I'm going to take them there and I'm going to do it at the worst possible time, guys. And then I'm gonna say, go over.

Yeah, it's just not the time. Music yeah. It's not what they had in their diary, I reckon, but that's what he's doing. And the reason he's doing this is because he wants you to know that the thing being asked is impossible. You know, I don't want you to be thinking, oh, this whole christian thing, quite hard work sometimes.

No, no, it's impossible. None of us can do these things. None of us can follow him just of our own accord.

And actually, even the crossing of the Jordan is like a picture of walking through the shadow of death, as we'll finally see when Jesus goes through death. Because not only does he pick this time of year, I mean, we know from elsewhere in the Bible they could have just walked on the water. I mean, they could have gone over. That would have been. That would have been acceptable.

Instead, you know, we're going to go have like a big wall of water, you know, up the side. And I want you to walk through aware that if that wall comes down, it's not good news, you know, and you got to walk. Just imagine them doing this. They're walking past it saying, that is a big wall of water. What's holding it up?

Oh, nothing. All right, carry on then, guys. You know, they're really being reminded that the thing that they're doing is entirely in God's hands, entirely in his timing.

And by this, they're being called to trust God for the impossible. He's not the God of the improbable, he's the God of the impossible. And this is what I find so encouraging, because so often we stumble at improbabilities, don't we? Oh, that's so unlikely. That's just so unlikely.

I'm not sure that's the best. Maybe let's just wait for another time. It might be better next week or whatever. I'm not saying we just do everything whenever we feel like it, but God calls us to do things in his timing. We stumble at the improbable.

And actually we judge things by our own. We judge things by our own standards, don't we? Often we say things like, oh, you know, that can't possibly be the case because that's. That's not reasonable. And by that we mean, I've never seen it happen.

God can't make a wall of water stand up in the river because it's not reasonable. You don't actually mean it can't happen. You mean you've never seen it happen. Had you been there and seen it happen, you'd be like, well, it did. So there it is.

And, you know, thinking this way is, it's a bit like if someone came to you and told you, Eliud Kip Kaje did a sub two hour marathon, and you're like, that's a very interesting story. And then they said, oh, I don't believe you're like, but, you know, it has happened. They said, well, no, I'll tell you why I don't believe you. Because I've run a marathon before and it's never been sub 2 hours. And if I can't run a marathon on sub 2 hours, then it's not going to happen.

I mean, that's clearly like nonsense reasoning, isn't it? And yet we do that all the time with goddess. I've never seen, I've never seen waters be parted. So it didn't happen. Nonsense, isn't it?

This is the God of the impossible. So because of that, because we're so sort of involved in our own heads, we stumble at improbable things, but God does impossible things. Impossible for us, at least. You know, our ability isn't the standard, it's God's ability. That's the standard.

And so his timing is calling these people out at the worst possible time to show them that it's him doing it. Just imagine what they're feeling. You know, carry that arc to the edge of the water. And what it says is when your feet touch the edge, then it will part, not before. You know, they must have been so nervous at that point.

There's a lot of people watching. There's a lot of Israelites watching, aren't they? Okay, God, please move to sleep. They must really feel like the child at the edge of the, of the swimming pool as they think, oh, my goodness, I could step out in faith. And it did it did it did it parted.

But it's not just amazing then, and here's why I think it's so important for us today. Because going back to that statistic about the Church of England being in a 70 year decline and actually the church everywhere only ever being one generation away from extinction, it seems really impossible, doesn't it, in our nation, to take the good news of Christ out there. I was feeling a bit disheartened on Thursday. And then it really just occurred to me that you're just thinking about it all wrong then.

Because if God does the timing in, if God's timing here is not at the right time now, I'm not waiting for some perfect time either. You know, it's so tempting as the church to be like, okay, guys, it's getting a bit. It's getting a bit much out there. Let's all just battle down the hatches. We'll just tread water here for a little bit, and then hopefully it will be better in a few months, a few years, maybe it'll be better.

That's not the right thing to do, though, is it? The great commission's not conditional on it being the right time, and yet, you know, it speaks not just to that sort of on a big level, but even on a small level, you know, if you've ever had your friends ask you a question, like, at school, about why do you believe this Jesus stuff? It's always a terrible time, isn't it? I mean, I found this often as a terrible time. And you think, oh, if you just asked me that, like, next week, I'd have been able to get my head round it, or, I'm just so tired right now, you know, and we can think maybe there will be a better time, but, you know, God's timing is what it is because it's him doing it, and he wants to show us that it's him doing it.

And so, very often, you know, we'll be at the end of ourselves, have absolutely no idea how to answer the question, just be just too tired. And God leads us out in his mission. And so that's what I want to leave us with today, really, is that as a new generation, I'm not just talking about younger people, obviously, all of us alive today are a new generation, really. You know, we've got to take hold of the promises for ourselves. We're not riding off on the coattails of what came before us.

We've got to step out in faith and take hold of those promises that are ours. They are ours. They were given to our parents for us, but we got to take them and follow God's path in his power and his timing. Let's pray.

Father, we do thank you for this text. We thank you that you are the God of the impossible. Pray this week as we seek to live for you. We want to follow your path and consecrate ourselves to be worthy. And I just pray that by your spirit you would do all those things.

And I pray that we would know it's you at work in us, that we would grasp hold of those opportunities, even when they seem like poor timing. In Jesus name, amen.

Early in the morning Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: ‘When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.’

Joshua told the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.’

Joshua said to the priests, ‘Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people.’ So they took it up and went ahead of them.

And the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so that they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses. Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: “When you reach the edge of the Jordan’s waters, go and stand in the river.”’

Joshua said to the Israelites, ‘Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God. 10 This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. 11 See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. 12 Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the Lord – the Lord of all the earth – set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.’

14 So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. 15 Now the Jordan is in flood all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, 16 the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (that is, the Dead Sea) was completely cut off. So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. 17 The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

New International Version – UK (NIVUK)

Holy Bible, New International Version® Anglicized, NIV® Copyright © 1979, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

This transcript has been automatically generated and therefore may not be 100% accurate

Thank you, Helen. I do hope that you will keep your bibles open so that we can have a look at this together. We pray. Father, we thank you for your word given to us in scripture here. We pray that you would by your spirit, enable us to hear your message for us today, not just to understand the past, but to follow you more nearly and faithfully this day.

Amen.

I wonder if you ever get daunted by stuff. I’m sure you get daunted about some things, but do you ever get daunted about christian ministry, about being a Christian, about telling your friends about Jesus? I was at a meeting on Thursday, and the guy was sharing about reaching the next generation, and he told us the Church of England has been in a 70 year decline. Woo. It’s a not very uplifting statistic, is it?

For 70 years, since even before my parents were born, we’ve been declining. It’s a daunting business to minister in the Church of England, in any church. It’s not just the Church of England seemed like a really daunting business when I was a teenager, and I was in a little village church, and I, me and my sister and my two brothers were the youth group. It was wonderful. We met, well, it was kind of wonderful, you know, we met, like, behind a curtain hung somewhere on the side of the church, and there was a bloke with a guitar.

It’s like, yeah, let’s reach the nation for Christ. Seemed quite daunting then. I mean, it seems a little bit more encouraging tonight, doesn’t it, as we look around all of these faces. And yet it’s still pretty daunting, isn’t it? Because this is still a fraction of the people we know, a fraction of even the people in this village, and we don’t even all come from this village.

It’s a daunting task that God set us, and it can be a little bit disheartening, I think, sometimes as a new generation, you think, is this stuff that God has asked us to do actually even possible? Is it possible? Maybe it’s better if I just go and hide away and hope for something better to come.

And then God gave me this text to preach on this Sunday, and he said, actually, the fact that it is impossible is the whole point, and that God will achieve his purposes. And I was very encouraged. So I hope that you’ll be encouraged today, because it can be daunting being a Christian, reaching your friends. Just even living as a Christian can seem daunting, because this text is all about a new generation taking hold of the promises made to their fathers, to their parents generation. I don’t know if you read this as this was read out, maybe you had a little bit of Bible deja vu, you know?

Could someone tell me what passage of the Bible this seems awfully like? Someone give a head. I’ll look over here. I will. Someone.

Until they answer. What story is this similar to the exodus. Thank you. Thank you. Off the hook.

It’s similar to the exodus, isn’t it? Really similar.

But the exodus was a previous generation. That was the generation of their parents, because we feel like we’ve been here before. There was a whole generation who were brought through the red sea. Weren’t they led by God? Let’s go to the promised land.

They got to this very point. They got to the edge of the promised land. And do you remember what happened? The spies went in and they said, it’s a really great land. Massive grapes.

That’s actually real, you know, you might remember that. Grapes like this. This is wonderful. I want to go in there. The thing is, though, they’re a little bit strong, a little bit big, and to be honest, we can’t really do it, so let’s not bother.

Do you remember that? And then now they’ve spent 40 years wandering around the wilderness because they wouldn’t take hold of God’s promises. And this new generation, it’s like, okay, start again. Will this generation take hold of God’s promises?

You see, the previous generation failed in faith. The mistake they made was they thought that the reason they couldn’t take the promised land was because they weren’t strong enough. You know, we just need to be a bit stronger, we need to be a bit taller or a bit better. The mistake they’ve made was it wasn’t just difficult, it was impossible for them to take the promised land. They were absolutely right that they couldn’t do it.

It’s not like they were wrong. They didn’t come back. And Joshua said, guys, all along you should have believed in yourself. Oh, man, I wish you’d just trust yourself. No, it was impossible.

Those in the land were definitely too strong. They had iron weapons, fighting against a bunch of slaves. This brand new technology, they couldn’t do it. What they failed to realise was they weren’t supposed to do it by themselves. They were supposed to trust in God by faith.

And so as we come here and we remember all of this, we think to ourselves, what will this generation do with that? Is this generation going to take hold of those promises and go for it.

And that’s a clear call, isn’t it, to us, for us to take hold of the promises for ourselves. We can’t run on the coattails of those who have gone before us. I don’t just mean young people, I mean all christians, you know, how much longer will this congregation last if we just stand here and batten down the hatches and don’t tell anyone about Jesus? I don’t know. Who’s the youngest person here?

Their lifetime. It’s your lifetime. It’s not very long, is it? Each generation has to take hold of the promises for themselves. And so this text is all about that, and it’s all about crossing over, this big moment, crossing over into the jordan.

I counted that word cross nine times in this chapter. And if you include chapter four, which is kind of in the same sort of story, really, it reaches 21. It’s a big theme, crossing over, taking it hold of this inheritance. And so what we’re going to see today in this passage is that we’re called today, just as they were then, to cross by faith in God’s path, to cross by faith in God’s power, and to cross by faith in God’s timing. See all of these things.

So the first thing we see is crossing by faith in God’s path. Read with me in verse one of chapter three.

Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shatim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days, the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people. When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and to follow it. God is saying, I am going to go out before you. I’m going to lead you.

And he’s always done this, hasn’t he? You know, if you think about these guys, they’d grown up knowing that God led the people, you remember, in the wilderness. And up to this point, God had led by pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. You don’t grow up forgetting that, do you? That was pretty cool, you know, that was a pretty cool thing, to grow up knowing God leads us great, continue to be, to be followed, to follow him.

And yet there is always that temptation to go your own way, isn’t there? You know, Frank Sinatra loved it, Lenny Kravitz loved it. Different crowd. Not this one, maybe, but there’s always that temptation to go our own way where we think, do you know what God I. You know, yeah, I’m sort of up for the destination, but if I could just go this way around, that would be smashing.

It’s a little bit like two people negotiating in a car. Do you have this? This got really extreme, actually, in our house when we realised our car was quite old and the sat nav doesn’t have many roads in it. The number of times that it’s like, you are off road, I really don’t think so. Anyway, so then I’m putting the sat nav on and, you know, my wife sat there with Google Maps on.

Go left. When I say straight, what does Google want me to do? It can be quite like, oh, I want to go my way, make my own choices. I don’t know. That’s so like what life is like, though, isn’t it?

All right, God, I’d like just to do it a little bit. Sure. But we can’t, you know, that’s not what happens, is it? God says, follow me. You know, today we’re to follow Christ.

Jesus says, I am the way. Now, Jesus also says, the way to life is narrow. Right? It’s a narrow path. You can’t just sort of wonder and hope that you’re going to get there at the end.

Broad is the way that leads to destruction, sure, but narrow is the path that leads to life. We’ve got to follow Jesus the way, just as they had to follow the ark. But we’re so tempted, aren’t we, to go our own way? To go our own way. So they’ve got to follow God.

First of all, this is God’s path. They’re told to consecrate themselves. You notice that in verse five, Jesus told the people, consecrate yourselves.

It’s a funny word, isn’t it? Consecrate. It just means sort of, make yourselves holy. Set yourselves apart for it. You might expect, if you’re pausing and thinking about this, that when they’re being told they’re going to go on a journey, it might be something like, make sure you’ve got your bags packed, you know, have you got enough socks?

You know, this sort of thing. Get ready for the journey. But that’s not what he says. He says, consecrate yourself. Set yourselves apart for God.

Make yourselves holy for this journey. That’s kind of an interesting thing, isn’t it, that some translations want to make this prepare yourselves? Because it seems like that’s what it should say, really. And it does mean, prepare yourselves. Really.

What it means is preparing yourselves for this journey is really the same thing as making yourself holy for this journey to this promised land, which for us, answering the type is heaven. This journey of following the narrow way we need to consecrate ourselves to God.

There’s a saying, isn’t there, that you sometimes hear that somebody is so heavenly minded that they’re of no earthly use? You heard of this? We’ve heard of this.

I’m not gonna lie. It’s a nonsense phrase. It’s a nonsense phrase because what this says is that actually, if you want to be of any use at all, consecrate yourself. You know, you’ve got to be holy, you got to be heavenly minded. Otherwise you’re going to be of no earthly use.

If you’re fixed on the stuff around you, you’re not going to do any good at all. Actually, you’ve got to be heavenly minded to be of earthly youth, fixing your eyes on where you’re going and consecrating yourselves to God in that means that you can do this journey properly. That’s quite striking, isn’t it? So for us, let’s follow God’s way, not arguing like we can with multiple sat navs, following the narrow way and consecrating ourselves to him. Well, the second thing that we see turning over the page is that we cross by faith in God’s power.

God’s power. We see this in verses seven to 13, verse seven. The Lord says to Joshua, today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel so that they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.

Joshua is being confirmed as Israel’s great leader and he’s going to be confirmed through these events. You know, he was leading them already. But through the events of crossing the Jordan, he’s going to be confirmed.

Well, Joshua points forward to Jesus, who is the author and perfecter of our faith, as Hebrews says. And he is exalted and shown to be great in the eyes of all people through his crossing of death, through his resurrection. It’s a new life, isn’t it? He’s exalted before all people. We see, oh, wow.

That’s God’s power at work in Jesus. He’s our leader, set apart as our leader. And God’s presence here is shown not just in Joshua, but in the ark, the Ark of the covenant.

Interestingly, the ark of the covenant and the covenant is God’s promises. It could be called the Ark of the promise, following the promises. And what is the ark? What is the ark? It’s that box if you’re not sure what it is, it’s the box that Moses made to put the ten Commandments in those covenant documents in the box to be carried before them to know their relationship with God.

And this represents for them God’s presence, you see, in this hard. In this impossible thing they’re being called to do. God is going with them, you know, very different to sort of like a James Bond film, which is how we tend to think of faith. Bear with, you know, you kind of, you know, James Bond goes into the office and, you know, gets prepped about whatever mission he’s going to go on. It’s like, okay, here’s all the information.

Zero zero seven. Right. Take that flight. We won’t be able to contact you until you’ve completed the mission, but I trust you’ll be fine. Okay.

And I’ll meet you back at hq. See you later. Go. That’s kind of how James Bond works, isn’t it? And he’s so resourceful.

He’s amazing. And sometimes we feel like that’s maybe the case with the christian life. Like, you know, yeah, I’m gonna become a Christian at some point. Then God’s gonna send me off into these missions. He’s like, see you in heaven.

You know, see you later. I believe in you, but that’s not what it’s like. You know, God’s presence goes before them, with them. This is what the Ark is. Literally just with them in their midst.

God among you. Verse ten. This is how you will know living God is among you. Because the Ark is there. And because the Ark is there, amazing things are happening.

Looking back in verse ten that I just mentioned, this is how you will know the living God is among you. Again, that’s an interesting thing to say, isn’t it? Do you not think they already knew the living God was among them? You know, I mean, they’ve grown up being led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. You know, they’ve listened to Moses.

They’ve seen the ark, all of these things. It’s not that they had no idea who the Lord was. And it’s like, okay, this is just gonna. This is gonna show you who the Lord is in the first place. It’s confirming the faith they already had.

What’s being said here is God saying, you trust in me, and I’m going to give you a sign as confirmation for you. You can know in this sense, like you’re knowing in your lived experience.

And so the miracle, he says, this will confirm that I’m with you. And by that, he will certainly drive out Canaanites, Hittites, Hitvites, perizzites, gorgoshites, amorites, Jebusites. All of these guys who are way too strong for you. You’ll know that because I’ve confirmed it by a miracle. Well, look, today we not only can trust in Jesus, we can have that faith confirmed by his presence with us.

It’s confirmed by his resurrection. Is he who he says he is? Of course he is. He was raised from the dead. That’s impossible.

If someone’s raised from the dead, they’re definitely God, aren’t they? That’s a wonderful confirming sign for us today.

And so we can cross by faith in God’s power.

It’s a little bit like, I don’t know, I watch swimming lessons. Not like in a weird way, but I’ve got children, just to make that clear. So sometimes, you know, can you cut that out, though? So let’s be specific. Bethany, my middle daughter, learns swimming, okay?

And on Friday, she did a jump into the pool. But it’s really scary for her, right? You know, you’re being asked to put your toes on the edge of the water and jump in at the deep end. It’s really scary. And, you know, all of these things crowd in your mind when you’re a child asks to jump into the deep end, isn’t it?

You know, what if I just sink to the bottom? What if I forget to hold my breath? What if I breathe in by accident and I’ve just breathed water? I can’t breathe water. I don’t think I can breathe water.

All of these things are worrying in your mind. I mean, can I jump in? But it’s almost like, okay, if then you saw, you know, a parent in the water, there’s your mum with her arms up. Don’t worry, I’m gonna catch you. You know, you catch your eye and you say, oh, do you know what?

I can jump in the water. This is gonna be all right. I mean, you know, I’m worried otherwise, but I can jump into her arms. That’s gonna be, that’s going to be wonderful and safe. Well, look, these things, this is like the Israelites were come to the edge of the Jordan, okay?

If they just had to do this by themselves. All of these thoughts crowding in, they focus on everything else. Can I do this? Am I going to drown? Am I going to.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. Do I even know the way? Have I got supplies to the other side. How will I dry my socks? Whatever.

I don’t know what they’re worried about, but they see God’s presence with them like, like a parent holding out her arms to protect the child. And so, you know, yes, in God’s power, I can do that. Well, look, sometimes this is what our call is like, you know, we’re called to, the great commission calls us to take the gospel to all nations, doesn’t it? How on earth are we going to do that? There are just so many issues, aren’t there?

So many issues. How are you going to operate in another country? How are you going to get there? What are you going to eat when you get there? Who’s going to look after you?

How are you going to learn the language? All of these issues come into your mind and when you focus on them, oh my goodness, it’s just too daunting. But you see that God is already there, like holding out his arms, being like, come, I’ve prepared this, I’ve gone ahead of you. We do these things in God’s power. God’s power.

Well, the last thing is doing things in God’s timing, verses 14 to 17. And really I think if you’ve fallen asleep, now will be the time to wake up because I really think this is the thing that God most wants us to hear. This is what I feel is most on my heart, really, this last point that doing things in God’s timing for us today, it’s quite striking and it’s almost not the most obvious thing when you first read the passage. So listen in and let’s just see what’s going on. I’m looking down now in verse 14.

So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them. Great. That’s what we expect so far. Now we’re going to digress to a little bit of geography, guys. Verse 15.

Now the Jordan is in flood all during harvest.

I mean, you know, why are you putting a comment like that in there? It’s interesting, isn’t it? And it’s not just about geography. It’s not just that. The author was just like, this is, this is so interesting.

I just love floodplains, you know, I mean, I hope you’ve got a geographic that does love floodplains, but this is not what’s going on here. This is actually an amazing thing because what this comment is telling us is that if there’s any time of year not to attempt crossing the Jordan, it’s right now, okay, this is not the time. And I find this quite important because we talked about the deja vu earlier. Compared to the Red Sea. That’s amazing, isn’t it?

You know, crossing the Red Sea. It’s a sea. Goodness, that sounds amazing. Now they’ve crossed a river, so I can jump across a river. You know, this seems like a slightly lesser miracle, doesn’t it?

Not the case. Not the case at this time of year. With the floods having gone all wide, this river could be up to like a mile across. And in places it could be ten to 12ft deep. We’re not talking about.

The only risk being getting your feet a bit damp.

You know, there might have been forwards at other times of year, things like this, but no, at harvest time, definitely the worst time to cross.

And that’s just an interesting thought, isn’t it? Why would God lead his people to the river and be like, I want to take you into the promised land, and what I’m going to choose is the worst time? You know, that’s just an interesting thing. It’s actually quite typical of God when I got to thinking about that. He does this sort of thing all the time, doesn’t he?

I mean, you think about Abraham and Sarah, yet you’ll have an heir to. Okay, now might be the time. God. I’m like, I know it’s the right time. It’s the right time.

Just wait till the menopause have happened, mate, and then you’ll have the air. Wait until an impossible time. He did the same thing with Elizabeth, didn’t he? Let’s just wait. Wait till it’s actually too late and then I’ll do it.

You know? And he did that even with Elijah, doesn’t he? If you remember this great scene on Mount Carmel where they’re having the showdown with the. With the priests of Baal and, you know, already he’s asked God to, like, shoot down lightning from heaven to burn up the thing. But it’s like, oh, I don’t know, that’s just not.

That’s not hard enough, is it? Let’s pour on so much water that there’s a. There’s like a trough of water around the side. You know what, guys? Then it will be impossible.

This is just. God loves to do this. He loves to do this. And this is one of those occasions I’m going to take them there and I’m going to do it at the worst possible time, guys. And then I’m gonna say, go over.

Yeah, it’s just not the time. Music yeah. It’s not what they had in their diary, I reckon, but that’s what he’s doing. And the reason he’s doing this is because he wants you to know that the thing being asked is impossible. You know, I don’t want you to be thinking, oh, this whole christian thing, quite hard work sometimes.

No, no, it’s impossible. None of us can do these things. None of us can follow him just of our own accord.

And actually, even the crossing of the Jordan is like a picture of walking through the shadow of death, as we’ll finally see when Jesus goes through death. Because not only does he pick this time of year, I mean, we know from elsewhere in the Bible they could have just walked on the water. I mean, they could have gone over. That would have been. That would have been acceptable.

Instead, you know, we’re going to go have like a big wall of water, you know, up the side. And I want you to walk through aware that if that wall comes down, it’s not good news, you know, and you got to walk. Just imagine them doing this. They’re walking past it saying, that is a big wall of water. What’s holding it up?

Oh, nothing. All right, carry on then, guys. You know, they’re really being reminded that the thing that they’re doing is entirely in God’s hands, entirely in his timing.

And by this, they’re being called to trust God for the impossible. He’s not the God of the improbable, he’s the God of the impossible. And this is what I find so encouraging, because so often we stumble at improbabilities, don’t we? Oh, that’s so unlikely. That’s just so unlikely.

I’m not sure that’s the best. Maybe let’s just wait for another time. It might be better next week or whatever. I’m not saying we just do everything whenever we feel like it, but God calls us to do things in his timing. We stumble at the improbable.

And actually we judge things by our own. We judge things by our own standards, don’t we? Often we say things like, oh, you know, that can’t possibly be the case because that’s. That’s not reasonable. And by that we mean, I’ve never seen it happen.

God can’t make a wall of water stand up in the river because it’s not reasonable. You don’t actually mean it can’t happen. You mean you’ve never seen it happen. Had you been there and seen it happen, you’d be like, well, it did. So there it is.

And, you know, thinking this way is, it’s a bit like if someone came to you and told you, Eliud Kip Kaje did a sub two hour marathon, and you’re like, that’s a very interesting story. And then they said, oh, I don’t believe you’re like, but, you know, it has happened. They said, well, no, I’ll tell you why I don’t believe you. Because I’ve run a marathon before and it’s never been sub 2 hours. And if I can’t run a marathon on sub 2 hours, then it’s not going to happen.

I mean, that’s clearly like nonsense reasoning, isn’t it? And yet we do that all the time with goddess. I’ve never seen, I’ve never seen waters be parted. So it didn’t happen. Nonsense, isn’t it?

This is the God of the impossible. So because of that, because we’re so sort of involved in our own heads, we stumble at improbable things, but God does impossible things. Impossible for us, at least. You know, our ability isn’t the standard, it’s God’s ability. That’s the standard.

And so his timing is calling these people out at the worst possible time to show them that it’s him doing it. Just imagine what they’re feeling. You know, carry that arc to the edge of the water. And what it says is when your feet touch the edge, then it will part, not before. You know, they must have been so nervous at that point.

There’s a lot of people watching. There’s a lot of Israelites watching, aren’t they? Okay, God, please move to sleep. They must really feel like the child at the edge of the, of the swimming pool as they think, oh, my goodness, I could step out in faith. And it did it did it did it parted.

But it’s not just amazing then, and here’s why I think it’s so important for us today. Because going back to that statistic about the Church of England being in a 70 year decline and actually the church everywhere only ever being one generation away from extinction, it seems really impossible, doesn’t it, in our nation, to take the good news of Christ out there. I was feeling a bit disheartened on Thursday. And then it really just occurred to me that you’re just thinking about it all wrong then.

Because if God does the timing in, if God’s timing here is not at the right time now, I’m not waiting for some perfect time either. You know, it’s so tempting as the church to be like, okay, guys, it’s getting a bit. It’s getting a bit much out there. Let’s all just battle down the hatches. We’ll just tread water here for a little bit, and then hopefully it will be better in a few months, a few years, maybe it’ll be better.

That’s not the right thing to do, though, is it? The great commission’s not conditional on it being the right time, and yet, you know, it speaks not just to that sort of on a big level, but even on a small level, you know, if you’ve ever had your friends ask you a question, like, at school, about why do you believe this Jesus stuff? It’s always a terrible time, isn’t it? I mean, I found this often as a terrible time. And you think, oh, if you just asked me that, like, next week, I’d have been able to get my head round it, or, I’m just so tired right now, you know, and we can think maybe there will be a better time, but, you know, God’s timing is what it is because it’s him doing it, and he wants to show us that it’s him doing it.

And so, very often, you know, we’ll be at the end of ourselves, have absolutely no idea how to answer the question, just be just too tired. And God leads us out in his mission. And so that’s what I want to leave us with today, really, is that as a new generation, I’m not just talking about younger people, obviously, all of us alive today are a new generation, really. You know, we’ve got to take hold of the promises for ourselves. We’re not riding off on the coattails of what came before us.

We’ve got to step out in faith and take hold of those promises that are ours. They are ours. They were given to our parents for us, but we got to take them and follow God’s path in his power and his timing. Let’s pray.

Father, we do thank you for this text. We thank you that you are the God of the impossible. Pray this week as we seek to live for you. We want to follow your path and consecrate ourselves to be worthy. And I just pray that by your spirit you would do all those things.

And I pray that we would know it’s you at work in us, that we would grasp hold of those opportunities, even when they seem like poor timing. In Jesus name, amen.

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