MidTree Church
The sermon audio of MidTree Church in Harris County, Ga. BEHOLD // BELIEVE // BECOME
MidTree Church
The Stones of Remembrance | David Blanchard | August 31st, 2025
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.
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Good morning. Could you please turn in your Bibles to Joshua 4, 20-24. You can find that on page 180 in your Pew Bibles. And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, joshua set up at Gilgal and he said to the people of Israel when your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean? Then you shall let your children know. Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground, for the Lord. Your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord, your God, forever. This is the word of the Lord Hear the Lord, your God forever.
Speaker 1:This is the word of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Thanks, hannah. Good morning guys. You did it. You're doing well. Already it is the beginning of college football, it's Labor Day weekend and you have a substitute preacher, and all of you guys made it to church. Well done, you get extra points.
Speaker 2:We are going to be in Joshua, chapter four, this morning, which is just in some ways a simple outline, but there's a lot packed into it. So, if I can, let me just pray and ask the Lord to help us this morning to tune into His Word. Father, thank you that You've given us your Word, that you speak to us through it, that it's still living and active, and I pray this morning, as we open it up, as we look to you, that you would just reveal Jesus to 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 with a question. What's the most important thing that you've ever forgotten? Maybe an anniversary? Maybe a doctor's appointment, a birthday? I am notorious for forgetting to submit reimbursements, which my wife is not real thrilled about. Maybe you forgot a flight? Ironically, this morning I could not find my car keys, so if anybody has seen the keys to my truck. I'd love those. I have a good friend who I will not name because some of you know and work with him who forgot his wife's birthday. This was years ago I think they'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 were lying down to go to bed and the lights went off and things got quiet and she said honey, do you remember that today is my birthday? And he went and I think he has been making up for that for about the past 20 years.
Speaker 2:When I was five years old, my family went on a little road trip. We were I grew up in North Carolina, so we were driving through South Carolina. I don't even know where we were going to, but I know that we stopped at a rest stop and if you've ever been on really any highway in South Carolina, it's a 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 of six children, so there were a lot of us, to be fair, and we drove back in the day. We didn't have the Nissan vans, but there were these like big 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 in the shop, so, um, that was awesome.
Speaker 2:But we all get out to, uh, go into the rest stop and I walk in, I walk out and I'm again five years old maybe at the time and I was standing outside the restroom. I remember waiting for my mom because she had gone in the other side to the ladies room. So I was standing there and then, I think, eventually, I kind of slouched down on the wall and I was sitting there and I thought why is it taking so long? And then I saw my family van pulling off the highway back onto the on-ramp of the rest stop and it dawned on me I had been left behind my parents, who I'm pretty sure are going to watch this during the 11 o'clock hour online. My parents had forgotten me at a rest stop Again, there were six of us and, to their credit, I'm pretty sure they looked back and saw something in the van that looked like the top of my head. So, um, I don't think it messed me up too bad, but, uh, we are prone to forget and we, we need to be careful to remember. Now, how many of you are like me If I need to remember something important. Sometimes I'll do this thing where 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 to remember to get something out of the garage in the morning. But I don't want to go to the garage and get it right now, so I will just like put one shoe in front of the door of my bedroom or something that in the morning I would say what is that? Oh, that's to remind me that I need to go do this thing.
Speaker 2:We have ways of remembering that we find because we are people who are prone to forget, and the story of Joshua, chapter four, is all about this. It's about the people of God remembering. It's actually about God calling his people to not forget something really, really important. So I want to start at the beginning of Joshua 4 and read the first couple of verses. It says this Joshua, take 12 men from the people, from each tribe a man, and command them saying Take 12 stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priest's feet stood firmly and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight. Then Joshua called the 12 men from the people of Israel whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them pass on, before the ark of the Lord, your God, into the midst of the Jordan 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 I think sometimes when we read Joshua 4, we imagine Stonehenge, but they had to carry the rocks on their shoulder for maybe up to a couple of miles. So this was not a. We're not talking about a huge monument, we're talking about a smaller pile of rocks. Just to get that in your head. When the children ask, in the time to come, what do those stones mean to you, then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord, when it passed over the Jordan. The waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.
Speaker 2:We could go on and read the rest of the chapter but, like I said, this is a pretty simple outline. In fact, joshua chapter four kind of goes like this God gives instructions to set up the stones, the people do it, the priests come out of the riverbed and the water returns and then the people make camp at Gilgal and and Joshua kind of recaps. So it's like if you ever took a speech class, they always say tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them. That's kind of Joshua 4. But there's actually a lot packed in here and, if you remember, last week Will started talking about. He mentioned the undercurrent of some of these passages, how the deeper current actually reveals a lot to us about who God is and what he's doing among his people. So there are three main themes that I want to look at this morning Remembrance, belief and rest.
Speaker 2:Let's start with remember. This is maybe the most obvious one. The word remember is used 168 times in scripture. It's often a call for the people to remember the Lord. The instructions of Joshua 4 were to set up a stone as a memorial. This was a fairly common practice. We've got multiple accounts and this is just a few of them. Multiple accounts in the altars sometimes.
Speaker 2:In Genesis, chapter 28, verse 22, right after Jacob's dream about the ladder and the angels ascending and descending, he sets up a stone to remember. In 1 Samuel 7, 12, after God delivers Israel from the Philistines. They set up a stone memorial In Joshua 24, right after that passage where Joshua says you choose for this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. They set up a stone of remembrance to come back to that. They're putting a stake in the ground. It's to safeguard this commitment that they've made. It's to call them back to remembering who the Lord is.
Speaker 2:But there's something pretty significant about this instance. They're remembering a not just a specific event, but they're remembering really kind of a whole miraculous journey. So we're going to go back a little bit and remember. They were given a what to remember, and it's in the verses that Anna read this morning. He said to the people of Israel when your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean, then you shall let your children know what happened. Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord, your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord, your God, did to the Red Sea when he dried up for us until we passed over. They're looking back to the Jordan, but they're also looking back to the Exodus.
Speaker 2:If you remember, way back in Genesis, god had made a promise to Abraham. He said I'm going to lead you out and I'm going to make you into a great people and I'm going 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 God had promised to Abraham. And in the meantime, if you remember the story of Joseph Joseph during his lifetime, the Israelites ended up in Egypt and then they became enslaved in Egypt and they spent 400 years in slavery and then, finally, they were led out of Egypt, only to wander in the desert for 40 years. So they're thinking back and remembering man. This has been a long journey. God has brought us out of Egypt. God has provided for us in the wilderness. God protected the spies when they went into Canaan to scope out the land. He parted the waters both at the Red Sea and then at the Jordan, all the way back to that initial promise. They're remembering the journey. They're also remembering let me go back a why. Sorry, here we go. They were given a why.
Speaker 2:The first time is in Joshua, chapter three. So in the previous chapter, in Joshua three, verses nine and 10, this is when God is telling Joshua what's about to happen. What's about to happen with the waters. Joshua said to the people of Israel come here and listen to the words of the Lord, your God. And Joshua said here is how you shall know that the living God is among you. So the first part is that these stones that they were going to set up would be a memorial to remember that God is among them. And then the second part of the passage that we just read in 4, 21 through 24, if you look down to where it's in bold there the Lord dried up the waters. Why? So that all the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and that you may fear the Lord, your God, forever. So they're given this miracle as a testament to God's presence and as an assurance of victory, and then they're told that the mighty hand of God would save them. So the why of our remembrance is aimed at belief. It's to remember who God is, it's to remember what he's done.
Speaker 2:I think it's helpful for us to ask what memorial do we need to set up in our lives to guard against forgetfulness? If we're so prone to forget and we see that cycle in the Israelites over and over again, they come back to the Lord, they forget, they turn to idols and they stray away from their God, what memorials do we need to put into our lives to remember, not only for our sake, but for others? If you remember, in the verse we just read, he says when your children ask you, this is for them, but it's also for the coming generation that they would proclaim to the next generation. What do these stones mean? They are for us to remember that our God is mighty to save, that he is the only true God. So I want to talk. Just give a couple application points. We're not wrapping up. This is just point one, but I'll just give a couple application points. We're not wrapping up. This is just point one, but I'll give you a couple application points that I think are helpful for us to not forget. First off, I think it's good for us.
Speaker 2:Sometimes this is a thing that the people of God have been doing for a long, long time to create actual memorials, actual milestones or artifacts. In my office I keep a rock that was given to me by a professor of mine in college. Now I did an outdoor leadership youth ministry program, and so as part of that program we did a mission trip to Dominican Republic during my sophomore year, and it was on that trip that the Lord just started to break down some things in my heart, and he maybe used some physical breaking down to do that. I remember this day was extremely hot and our task for the day we were supposed to go to the riverbed at the bottom of a mountain and we were supposed to collect a bunch of rocks, a sack full of rocks, and then carry them about halfway up the mountain to put them in this older lady's house. She was trying to pour concrete in her floor and rather than spend the money on pure concrete, we were going to fill in most of the floor with rocks and then the concrete would kind of fill the gaps. So we were spending the entire day in the sun hauling sacks of rocks up the mountain and back to get more.
Speaker 2:It was exhausting and as I was doing this, as I was walking up the mountain over and over again, the Lord just started to work on some things in my heart and he started to challenge me about sin. He started to bring out some insecurity and some doubt and things that just were uncomfortable for me to look at and to acknowledge. And I started praying and my professor came alongside me and he said hey, are you? You know what's going on. It seems like you're processing some stuff and I don't even think I had the words to tell him all that was going on in my heart. But that man discipled me for the next two years of my life and he watched as the Lord dealt with some of those things and as the Lord brought healing and grace and taught me a lot.
Speaker 2:And two years later, right before graduation, we were doing this kind of there was a little bit of a ceremony to it, but we were doing this final wrap up with our class and he brought out this rock and he said David, I want to give this to you this is from the riverbed in Dominican Republic Because it seems clear to me that the Lord started a work in your heart two years ago in that place that he has brought to completion and I want you to hold on to this brought to completion and I want you to hold on to this and never go back. I want you to remember and I mean that was just mind-blowing to me that the intentionality that he would go back and bring something that was such a significant piece of my journey with the Lord so I hold on to that it's a reminder to me of the Lord's faithfulness in my life, of things that he's brought me through, something that we have started doing in our family each of my boys I have three, with another one on the way, so we got a lot of boys going on Each of my boys when they turned five years old. We decided several years ago that I wanted to take them on a camping trip, just dad and my son. And we do some fun things. We go fishing. We never catch anything. We cook hot dogs, we make s'mores. But it's also a time with them where I get some one-on-one time and I get to just kind of look in their eyes and hear what's going on in their hearts. And they don't articulate a whole lot at five, but each time that I take one of them on this trip it's a chance for me to sit down and clearly explain the gospel to them. Say hey, buddy, I want to talk to you about something. Do you understand that you have sin in your heart? Do you understand that Jesus died to save you from your sin? It's a marker, and I don't know how much they will remember that particular conversation, but I know that they will be able to look back and remember that was a time that we went and I heard the gospel. So maybe part of what God's calling you to this morning is to put in place an actual marker, an actual memorial of what he's done in your life and things you need to hold on to. Second would be to put a stake in the ground on Sunday. So what we do here on a Sunday morning I know that it's cultural, I know that it's kind of traditional and sometimes we just do it because we're going through the motions and, if your house is like my house, we're trying to find shoes and find keys and Sunday can be sometimes the most chaotic morning of the house. But this is part of the thing that God has called us to come back to over and over again to remember the Israelites. They put the stones at Gilgal and then they would come back there periodically for sacrifices for worship.
Speaker 2:The author of Hebrews writes this let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful, and let us consider how to stir one another up to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as some are in the habit of doing, but encourage one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near, the regular meeting together of believers will will help keep your heart soft and will help stir your affections for Jesus. I was reading a book called embodied Hope, and it has to do with how Christians deal with grief, and this struck me. He writes in there our hope then grows out of a confidence in God's redemptive actions and trustworthy presence. Further, we don't have to rely on ourselves to muster this hope when we are physically or mentally vulnerable, because God gives us others to bring this proclamation, to sing these songs to us. Our fellow saints speak to us for God. They remind us that God never forgets his people, for this is the God and Father of Jesus Christ who offers a foretaste of what is to come when he heals the sick and provides for the needy, because Jesus Christ is the hope of the gospel. God's people proclaim to each other the good news of Christ crucified and risen. In our weakness we may find it impossible to proclaim this hope ourselves, but when it is given to us in the liturgy or by fellow pilgrims, when we hear Christ is risen, we are able to reply he is risen. Indeed, our faith is strengthened by worshiping together with other believers. So don't give up on that.
Speaker 2:Third, porcupine-proof your house. Now I have to give a little context to this. Not only are we prone to forget, but we have a real enemy, and Satan would love to sneak lies into our hearts, into our minds. He would love for idols to creep into our houses. So why did I say porcupine proof? Well, a few years ago two years ago I guess I was in South Africa and we got to work with a ministry that was going on there and a lot of what they do is training young people in agricultural skills. They're teaching them how to plant their own food, how to do farming, but all of their gardens have these big nets over top of them. And then they, as we were talking, they said we have the nets over top to keep birds or other things like that. But we also have had to dig down like six feet to put these metal shields into the ground. And I said why? And they said because we have a terrible problem with porcupines. The porcupines will come up to the garden. Now, this is never a problem that I've experienced in my life, but maybe you've got armadillos in your yard or something. The porcupines will come up and dig under the fence and they'll eat all the vegetables of the garden. And I thought what a picture of how Satan sneaks in and robs us right and would love to feed us lies.
Speaker 2:I work with Impact360. And so I work with a lot of young people, a lot of kind of 18 to 25 year olds in that range, and we have this phrase that we talk about, that we say typically it's not one big idea or one big lie that comes and just sweeps them off their feet. It's death by a thousand nudges. It's just Satan kind of whispering in their ear. And it's little compromise after little compromise If we just go with the flow and we sprinkle in a little Christianity to our week. But it never changes us If we never do anything to put a stake in the ground or safeguard our belief. Guess what the enemy will feed you.
Speaker 2:Lies, doubt will creep in like those porcupines and you'll wake up one day realizing your faith is gone. There's a little bit of a spoiler alert here. But the people of Israel? They eventually forgot. Despite the stones, they ended up bringing in idols. They ended up getting a little too confident in their own riches. They brought in kings whose hearts turned away from the Lord and eventually they were exiled from the land that they were promised because they allowed that to creep in. They allowed immorality to creep in. So don't tolerate lies creeping into your home. If we can just get really practical social media, the shows that we watch, the music that we listen to, but also when I allow bitterness to just grow and fester in my heart gossip, unresolved conflict with my spouse these are little porcupines that are coming in and they're chipping away at my remembrance and my ability to turn my eyes toward Jesus and remember and stir my belief. So don't tolerate lies creeping into your home and with that, double down on God's word, even when it's offensive, even when it's counter-cultural.
Speaker 2:I think this is one of the biggest issues of our day. Like this will be where the church thrives or slowly dies out. Are we going to take God's word seriously? And God's word is offensive to our modern context. Larry was talking about worldview earlier. The Bible is going to tell us that you are born a sinner, you are not a good person, you stand under God's condemnation and you need his forgiveness. That is offensive to my modern sensibility. The Bible is going to tell you that happiness is not the most important thing. That's offensive. Bible is going to say things like boys cannot become girls and vice versa. Gender is not fluid. That's offensive in our culture. Bible is going to tell you that not all religions lead to eternal life. They're not all created equal.
Speaker 2:Jesus made a bold claim when he said I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. That is offensive. And yet we need that. Our hearts need to double down on God's word. It's a porcupine proof. You're home, there you go, and then finally remember your own testimony. Many of you have done that publicly on this platform. I tell you that is such an encouragement to my heart. When I go back and I look at my own story and I remember and I share that with another person, that's me putting a stake in the ground to say God has done something that I cannot deny and I'm going to continue to proclaim that to the next generation. What happened at the Jordan River was miraculous, but was it more miraculous than when God takes a dead, unresponsive heart and makes us alive? No, he works miracles among us all the time, and so as we rehearse that to one another, as we share our testimony, that's good for our souls, it's good for our remembering. Now, if you just took Joshua 4 by itself, you might only see remembrance, but when we go to the New Testament, the author of Hebrews actually references back to this passage and layers on two other themes. So I want to look at those two.
Speaker 2:The first one is belief. Let's look at the belief of the Israelites. What was the difference between the first generation, the generation that came with Moses out of slavery in Egypt, and the second generation, the wilderness generation that was born in the wilderness and entered with Joshua into the promised land? The difference was obedience sorry belief that led to obedience. Belief in what? Well, we actually find that answer by looking at what Moses missed. We find the answer in what Moses and the earlier generations had failed to believe. So they failed to believe that God would do what he promised. They failed to believe that he was mighty to give them the victory. If you remember, the spies went into the land and they came back and they said we can't do it, they're giants, they'll overcome us. And so they lacked faith and God said you will not enter my rest. They failed to believe that he is the one true God. Okay, they failed to believe that salvation was in him alone. Contrast that, with Joshua and with the generation that God led into the promised land took across the Jordan, they trusted God's promises. They were all in Our belief in what is actually a belief in whom?
Speaker 2:It's not a question of whether things are going to turn out. It's a question of is the God that goes before us actually able to do what he says that he will do? So I think about Rahab, who risked everything to hide the spies. She betrayed her own people, saying I have heard who your God is and so I'll put everything in that. And I think about Joshua leading the people up to the edge of the Jordan. I think about the parents that took their kids across the river and, as soon as the water washed in behind them, they were committed. Right. It's a belief in the mighty hand of God.
Speaker 2:There's this quote by AW Tozer and he says what comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. Who is the God that we believe in? And is our view of God that he is all powerful, that he sustains all that, he judges all, that he fulfills his promises? Or do we think of him more like Siri in our back pocket? You know that we pull out and ask for guidance or ask for help. It comes down to belief. So belief biblically.
Speaker 2:If you want to know what Jesus thought about belief, you can go to John, chapter six. The whole chapter is about belief and this is right after Jesus has fed the 5,000 and the disciples 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 believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I give for the life of the world is my flesh. What's the significance of bread? Why is Jesus saying, hey believe, eat my bread, drink. He goes on to say eat my flesh and drink my blood.
Speaker 2:It's a really let's talk about offensive passages. The disciples are like what are you talking about? What he's saying to them? Bread sustains life. Right, it's the thing that we cannot live without. And Jesus himself points back to Moses and says look, moses gave them manna in the wilderness and they woke up. Every day, if the man is not there, we don't survive. That's what it means to believe in me. Do you look to me for your survival? Do you? Are you putting all of your hope in my ability to save you, or are you trusting in your own ability? Are you trusting in your own righteousness? Belief is not going to church because that's what we do or because that's what my parents did.
Speaker 2:It's not admiring Jesus as a good guy. I was recently on a college campus talking with a student and I said who do you think Jesus was? And they said I don't know. I mean like I think he was a good guy. And he went on. He answered a few other things and I said. I agree with most of what you said, except I'm going to take issue with the part where you said that Jesus was a good guy, which I think threw him for a loop for a second. So, because Jesus can't be a good guy, this is, if you're familiar with what CS Lewis called the trilemma. Jesus claimed to be God. He claimed to be the only means of salvation. He invited people to abandon everything. Either he was the Lord, lewis said, or he was a liar, or he was a crazy person. But he wasn't just a good guy that we should admire, because if he said the things that the Bible says that he said right, then we either believe that he is who he said he was or we should dismiss him. So, thinking that Jesus was kind of a good teacher, that we should learn some life lessons from that's not belief. Belief is not trying our best to be a good person. We already talked about Rahab. There's no room for hedging your bets in following Jesus, because when you choose to follow Jesus, it's everything. Because when you choose to follow Jesus, it's everything.
Speaker 2:As I was preparing for this morning, I came across this story back from the flooding that happened in Texas several weeks ago, and it was a story of a lady who survived the flooding, but she was talking about what happened. And they had a house near the river, but it was up on a hill and the water rose so fast that it, middle of the night, lifted the house off of its pillars and the house broke in two and started floating down river and miraculously, she was able to hold onto her daughter and get up in a tree, and she was stranded in the tree for a while I don't remember how long and as the waters continued to rise, eventually her husband and, I think, her father they managed to get a raft to where she was, to the bottom of the tree, and she couldn't climb down with her daughter, and so the only option was for her to drop her daughter down to them and then jump herself, trusting that she'd make it in the boat, trusting that she would be able to get out of the water. And I thought that's what it's like to follow Jesus. It can't be something that we do on the side. This is putting our entire hope in his ability to save Belief, is abandoning all hope in your ability to earn what God has promised and instead casting yourself fully upon him, depending 100% on his power, in the same way that the blood of the lamb preserved the Israelites at Passover, in the same way that he parted the Red Sea to lead them out of exile. The question for them as they stand at the Jordan is do they believe that this is a God who will again fulfill his promise to do for them what they cannot do for themselves? I think we see some fruit of belief. That's an encouragement to us, and we see this in Joshua for sure.
Speaker 2:First, belief leads us to action. There's this quote by Dallas Willard. He says we don't believe something by merely saying we believe it, or even when we believe that we believe it, but we believe something when we act as if it were true. Belief leads us to action. Ji Packer said something similar. The Christian's motto should not be let go and let God, but trust God and get going, take action and trust that he will show up and do what he said he would do. Second is that belief puts more confidence in obedience than strategy. In chapter three, the Lord was talking to Joshua before this even started and he said today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel. That they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.
Speaker 2:If we read Joshua three, joshua four, joshua five, you'll be impressed by the utter lack of strategy that the Israelites had. They didn't ford the river. They didn't. Anybody remember the Oregon Trail, the video game where you had to figure out how to get across the river. Okay, their plan was to obey right, we'll show up. God said he would part the water. That's really the only option that we have. So they show up and the water parts. And then they go into Jericho and I'm not going to get ahead because I'll steal Will's thunder. But what's the plan for Jericho? To walk around the city walls, right, obedience trumps strategy and belief sustains perseverance.
Speaker 2:This is where I think about the human element and I try to put myself in the shoes of the people who were actually in Israel. These are real people, right? So I think about the spies and what it would have been like to sneak into this land and put your life at risk. And I think about Joshua. And after all the years, remember Joshua was on the first scouting trip and then he went through all of those years in the desert and then finally, finally, it's time to take the people into the promised land and his instructions are to walk up to the water and wait. As a leader, I would be terrified, but he obeys.
Speaker 2:And then I think about the priests. The priests I never thought about this before getting ready for this morning, but the priests were supposed to, if you remember, carry the Ark of the Covenant down to the water and they were supposed to dip their toes in the water and, as they did, the water started to. The Bible says stack up several miles up river and the water stops. But the priests had to stand there the whole time, the whole time that you were talking about thousands of people crossing the river, and the whole time this is happening. The priests are standing there holding the weight of the Ark of the Covenant and I thought, is it possible that the priest started to gripe a little bit in their minds, like man, why did we gold plate this thing? It's getting really heavy, you know, or probably not. I hope and I imagine that they were so taken by what God was doing. I doubt they gave a whole lot of attention to the physical weight of standing there and persevering. But that's a lesson for me, because when life feels heavy. Maybe marriage feels heavy right now, maybe singleness feels heavy, maybe your sin struggle feels heavy. Your determination is not enough to sustain you. But when we lift up our eyes and see what God is doing right in front of us, man, that will put some steel in your spine. Belief sustains our perseverance and I think this is where we start to feel another one of those undercurrents.
Speaker 2:In Hebrews, chapter three and chapter four. The big idea is do not harden your hearts, because when Jesus, what Jesus promises, is even better than what Moses promised. It's even better than what Joshua promised. This is a real story from history. These events actually happened. Let's not forget that. But the whole thing is also God, in his providence, ordained this whole thing as a foreshadowing, a picture of us crossing from death into life and entering God's rest. And I'll show you Now. Hang with me, I'm about to get complicated deep into the third point, so don't give up. But we really have to get this, because in Hebrews, that's where we get a lot of explanation about what God is really doing in Joshua. So bear with me for a minute.
Speaker 2:In Hebrews, chapter three, it says take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart. We just talked about belief. Don't give into an unbelieving heart leading you to fall away from the living God, but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin, for we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end. As it is said today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion. And now he's going to talk about the people, with Moses, who missed the promised land. For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses, and with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses, and with whom was he provoked for 40 years? Was it not those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness, and to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest? But those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
Speaker 2:Let me summarize real quick because I know it's complicated. The author of Hebrews is saying Moses led the people of Israel toward the promised land, toward God's rest, but they missed it because of unbelief. Then Joshua succeeded in bringing them into God's rest, but that rest was not ultimate. And we know this because a couple of generations later, in this Psalm that David is writing, he says today if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts the way that the people did in the desert. So the author of Hebrews is making this kind of interesting case. He's like if what Joshua did in leading them into the promised land, if that was really the pinnacle of God's people, david wouldn't have come back generations later and said, hey, if there's still an opportunity to enter God's rest, take it, don't miss it. And said, hey, if there's still an opportunity to enter God's rest, take it, don't miss it. Does that make sense? He's saying if what Joshua had done was ultimate, david wouldn't still be calling people generations later to enter God's rest. And so the author of Hebrews is making the case that Jesus is even greater than Moses, even greater than Joshua, saying you think that the Israelites entering the promised land was the peak for the Hebrew people, the glory days? Then why is David still talking about God's rest? He is pointing to an even greater fulfillment of God's promise. He's talking about ultimate rest. He's talking about salvation. He goes on in chapter four to say for if Joshua had given them rest, god would not have spoken of another day later on. So then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works, as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
Speaker 2:I want you to notice some parallels. Moses led an enslaved people out of Egypt. They escaped death through the Passover. He gave them manna in the desert. They were circumcised to renew God's covenant. He parted the Red Sea, led them toward the promised land, but because of their unbelief they failed to enter God's rest. And then Joshua comes along. The people were stranded in the desert. They believed God's word and so they passed through the Jordan toward the promised land. And then they were circumcised to renew the covenant. They conquered enemies and they entered God's rest. And then Jesus came out of Egypt.
Speaker 2:This gets a little line in Hosea where it kind of references that Jesus if you remember Jesus spent part of his childhood in Egypt, and then he was brought back to the same promised land. He was baptized in the Jordan. He offered himself as the bread of life. He called for a circumcised heart. He parted not the sea, not the Jordan, but the temple curtain. He conquered sin and death and he opened a way. This is not an accident. The Bible does this over and over and over again. It's showing us these pictures of future fulfillment to say don't miss it. This is all leading toward something. It's leading toward Jesus.
Speaker 2:There's this theme that kind of runs through. Scripture Will even talked about it. That has to do with water and three days and escaping death. We see it in Jonah. We see it. The Bible talks about the story of 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 and setting them in Gilgal in the place where they would lodge. But there's also a line that kind of looks like it's instructing Joshua to set up stones in the dry riverbed.
Speaker 2:Now there's debate about whether it was two sets of stone or one set of stone, and I'm not a Hebrew scholar. They say in the Hebrew it maybe makes more sense to have one set of stones, but I think it's interesting because it matches up with what's in Scripture. It's not explicit, but the imagery of Noah bringing the people through the flood, that gets referenced again in 1 Peter where he says it was a foreshadowing of baptism, and the story of Jonah being in the whale for three days and then being brought back. It was a foreshadowing of Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. Even the picture of baptism itself, as Jesus is baptized. It's an image of us dying with Christ, putting our old man to death, being buried with him and resurrected to new life. And so this idea of two stones that one would represent our death and burial with Christ and the other would represent newness of life. As the people cross, they renew the covenant of circumcision, they renew the Passover, they're beginning a new life, buried with Christ and raised to newness of life.
Speaker 2:What's less ambiguous is the instruction 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 grace and forgiveness, don't ignore that, don't push it away. I think that's good evidence that God is drawing you to himself. If you've never heard the simple message of the gospel. It's this that God made us for himself to be in relationship with him, and yet our sin has broken that relationship. It's created a barrier between us and God and brought us under his just judgment, under his righteous condemnation. Instead of worshiping the only person worthy of worship, we rebelled and set ourselves against him, and so our penalty for sin is death and eternal separation from God. But because God is rich in mercy, he sent his own son, his perfect son, jesus, who willingly died in our place, that he might take our punishment and, in exchange, offer us full forgiveness of sin and a restored relationship with the Father. And if we are willing to confess our sin and believe in him and receive his offer of grace and forgiveness, he gives us new life and promises that we will spend eternity with him.
Speaker 2:The parallels continue. We'll start to close with this. The rest that Hebrews is talking 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 a slave to sin, but in Christ we are set free from slavery to sin, just like the people were set free from slavery in Egypt. They were set free from wandering in the desert. We are set free from aimlessness and ostracism.
Speaker 2:Ephesians 2, 12 says remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. They were set free from their striving. We are set free from our striving. Romans 3.20 says Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law. Rather, 3.20 says we spend a lot of time striving.
Speaker 2:Remember, the former generation didn't enter the promised land because they feared the Canaanites more than they trusted God. But Moses himself was prohibited 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 the throne of our own hearts, but there is deep rest in surrendering to him this verse in Romans saying nobody earns righteousness by their works. The law just brought condemnation, but when Jesus gave himself on the cross, what did he say? It is finished. There's nothing left to add. Come to him Rest. Cease from your striving. Finally, god offers us rest from death.
Speaker 2:Romans 6.23 says For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ 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 waters of death. Literally, he offers himself as the bread of life. He tore the curtain to give us access to the Father. His work is finished and now he invites us into his rest. But he didn't set up stones. He set up a table.
Speaker 2:Next week we'll celebrate the Lord's Supper. It's something that Christians have been doing for more than 2000 years to remember Christ's death and resurrection. But I wanna go ahead and read a familiar passage In 1 Corinthians. It talks about how the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Speaker 2:We don't just go through the motions. Our remembrance stokes the fires of our belief, which leads us into God's promises through Jesus, our great high priest. And just in case, what you heard me say was work harder to conjure up stronger belief, listen to the end of Hebrews, chapter four. Since then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens Jesus, the son of God. Let us hold fast to our confession, for we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who, in every respect, has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Speaker 2:Let us then, with confidence, draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. It was 100% his mighty hand that dried up the waters of the Jordan. 100% his mighty hand that reaches out to us in our weakness and draws us to himself. The Israelites crossed out of exile into rest. In Christ, we cross from death to life. He's making us brand new. Remembering stokes our belief, which leads us to rest. Kind of reminds me of behold, believe, become. Let's worship together.