Crossing The Jordan: Part 2

Join us at Salt and Light Church as Pastor Gina preaches on Joshua 4.

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All right. So remembering last week, uh, Pastor John preached last week uh out of Joshua 3 and 4 and talked about crossing the Jordan. And um, I think one takeaway I got from that is sometimes the water doesn't stop until you step in. And we don't love that as people, right? That's not our favorite way to operate, right? We want to see the miracle and then move, not the other way around, right? So that was a challenge for me last week. But this week, we're gonna look at what you do after you cross. So we're gonna look at Joshua 4, starting uh in verse 1. It says this After the whole nation had gone across the Jordan River, the Lord spoke to Joshua. He said, Choose twelve men from among the people. Choose one from each tribe, then tell them to get twelve stones from the middle of the river. They must pick them up from right where the priest stood. They must carry the stones over with all of you, and they must put them down at the place where you will stay tonight. So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from among the Israelites. There was one man from each tribe. He said to them, Go back to the middle of the Jordan River, go to where the ark of the Lord your God is. Each one of you must pick up a stone, you must carry it on your shoulder. There will be as many stones as there are tribes in Israel. The stones will serve as a reminder to you. In days to come, your children will ask you, What do these stones mean? I picture the kids saying it like that, not like in a cool voice, but like, what why are these stones here? Why are these rocks here? What do these stones mean? Tell them that the Lord cut off the flow of water in the Jordan River. Tell them its water stopped flowing when the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord went across. These stones will always remind the Israelites of what happened there. So my first observation here is that God's first command on the other side of the river is remember. They grab stones, they set up this memorial. And many times we as humans don't do change well, right? We don't know what good and healthy change looks like all the time. It's hard. And I get that. We don't love it. We can usually tend to do change two ways. You know, some of us in this room are like movers and shakers. We're like, on to the next thing, forget about the past. We don't like you anyway, we're out of here, let's go, right? Let's just forget, forget about it. That season's done, it's in the past, who cares, right? Or on the other extreme, we can tend to fight it, refuse to move forward, or we can pout. Any powters in here? You don't have to raise your hand. Don't raise your hand. I got one. All right, at least one, right? And isn't that another way? Where, like, you know what the Lord's asking you to do, and you're mad about it, or you're sad about it. And it's okay to be mad and sad, guys. We don't want to deny those emotions. But also, I feel like Joshua 4 gives us a third way to kind of do things and a way to focus our energies, right? It's okay to lament for a minute, but Joshua 4 asks us to do something else where we can move forward, but with remembrance of the past. See, God's not calling salt and light as a church to stay in this building, right? But he is calling us to remember what he's done here, right? We're not just moving forward and saying on to the next. We aren't going to pretend that this place didn't matter to us and say, good riddance, we're out of here. I mean, tears have been shed here, right? People's lives have been changed here. People have met Jesus here, right? People have had true community, sometimes for the first time in their lives here. And God doesn't want us to forget what he's done, but he's not telling us to stay there. He's saying, do not forget, but also don't stay. And sometimes that's hard, right? So these stones, when we look at them, they're not set up as monuments to nostalgia for the nation of Israel, right? It's not like an idol of nostalgia, right? They're witnesses to God's faithfulness. And they're not there so that Israel can worship the river and go, remember what the river did for us? This river's awesome. Love this river, right? No, they're so that when they walk past, they can go, hey, remember what God did here, right? Not what the river did. Remember what God did here. They're there to witness the faithfulness of God. See, nostalgia is great for enjoying some fond memories, but it can lead for us wishing to go back to a place that God has called us to move on from. Right? So the stones are about testimony, and where nostalgia says, I wish I could go back, or I wish I could stay, testimony says, look what God has brought us through and into. Right? Testimony is about moving forward, but also remembering. So let's pick up in verse 8, it says, So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River. There was one stone for each of the tribes of Israel. It was just as the Lord had told Joshua. The people carried the stones with them to their camp, and there they put them down. Joshua also piled up twelve stones in the middle of the river. He piled them up right where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant had stood, and they're still there to this very day. The priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan River. They stayed there until the people had done everything the Lord had commanded Joshua. Those priests were probably out there for a while. Standing there holding that ark. I wonder if they had sore shoulders at the end of the day. Probably. All right. Cool, guys. Things my mind wanders into in the middle of this. Um, so the leader of each tribe went to the middle of the river and gathered these stones. Now, what's significant about that? I mean, they walked to the very middle and were called to pick up stones from the bottom of that riverbed, a place that you couldn't get to on your own, right? From the middle where it was deepest. And we're talking about flood stage deepest. This wasn't just a little stream. We're talking about you couldn't have picked up these stones on your own and moved them to the other side, right? So every time they look back at this, they're saying, This is what God did. God did something that I could not have done on my own, out of my own strength. And that's what a testimony is is remembering when God did something you could not do on your own. How many of you guys have a story like that in this room? I hope just about everybody. And if not, it's coming for you. All right. And they built an altar to the Lord on the side where they were moving the promised land side. Again, why was this important? Let's start in verse 20. It says Joshua set up the twelve stones at Gilgal. They were the ones the people had taken out of the Jordan. Then he spoke to the Israelites. He said, In days to come, your children after you will ask their parents, what do these stones mean? Why are these stones there? Their parents must tell them Israel went across the Jordan River on dry ground here, you guys. Is that crazy? I can just picture the moms and dads saying it. Isn't that crazy what God did? It's so cool, right? The Lord your God dried up the Jordan River for you until you had gone across it. He did to the Jordan River the same thing he had done to the Red Sea. So now we're even pointing back further. Let's remember, let's remember, let's remember, right? He dried up the Red Sea ahead of us until we had gone across it. He did it so that all the nations on earth would know that he is powerful. And he did it so that you would always have respect for the Lord your God. So again, the altar was to remember, but not just for remembering's sake, right? It wasn't for nostalgia or longing for the good old days. It was to remember and point to God every single time they saw it, every single time they walked past. Remember. Remember. So I want to encourage you as we move forward that when you drive by this building, when you walk by this building, don't let your eyes and hearts well up with, oh, wasn't it great when we were in that building? Wasn't that field so great? Gosh, I just I loved that building. That building was so awesome. Wow, what a great building. Right? But instead to remember, oh man, remember when God did this for me. Remember when God did that for them. Right? Because it's not the place we are that gives us the miracle. It's the God we serve, and guess what, you guys? He goes with us. So next week, when we go to drum, guess where God's spirit is gonna be? It's gonna be a drum. It's gonna be with us, right? He inhabits the praises of his people. We get to go and praise him there. And we get to experience and witness his miracles there. And we get to make new testimonies, right? Not forgetting our old testimonies, but making even more, right? He parted the Red Sea, then he parted the Jordan. Two in a row, different places, right? We're doing two different places. So God's doing miracles here, he's gonna do miracles there. You know, we've got something else for you this morning. So get ready. We're gonna take a moment today to remember what God has done while we have been here at 8,444th Street West in University Place. It's the address if you didn't know it. Uh, we're gonna take a moment to remember what he's done and how we've grown and stretched and how he's moved and the story that each of you carries of God's faithfulness in your heart. We're not moving to escape anything, we're not running from any sort of story. We're not, you know, going just to go or to do something fun and mix it up, right? But we're also not asking anyone to drop everything and forget all that God has done here. He's done some big things in every heart here. Some of you received the free gift of salvation here, some of you got water baptized here. Some of you got baptized in the Holy Spirit, some healed, some found Jesus again, some experienced his presence, maybe for the first time, some experienced community, right? So we're gonna remember that this morning. So I'm gonna have the ushers come forward. And we're gonna remember what he's done individually as and as a corporate body. So we've got sticky notes for all. Coin O'Nia. Let's go. John is going to set up our altar. This is an old church signboard from when we first moved to this location. This is a 1030 service. We're not 10:30 next week, we're 10 o'clock, okay? I'm gonna work that in somehow. Um, but this is one of our old church signboards. So there's sticky notes for all, and I would love for you to write a word or a phrase or even a whole testimony on one or two or five of these notes, however many you want to use, it's up to you. Sharing what God has done in your life here through his spirit and through the body of Christ and through community. So, my question to you is what has happened on this side of the river? What's happened on this side of the river? If you want to take this time to just sit and think in silence, that's okay. If you'd like to gather with a couple people or maybe your spouse and kind of talk this out and write, that's okay. If you're with family or you have kids with you this morning, let me encourage you to help them participate, to come up with something that God's done for them while they've been here. But also, if you're a mom or dad in here and you've got a little kid with you, I also want to encourage you to think about this for yourself individually and not to forget that part. So there's room on here for all the sticky notes and all the experiences. And a lot of them, I mean, we may overlap at some point. That's okay. If we get too many sticky notes, just keep going. Just pile them on. Pile them on. And one more thing I want to note. Some of you are already thinking about what you're writing and you're saying to yourself, does this make sense? Is this good enough? Let me just encourage you. This is not an assignment, and you're not getting graded. Nobody's asking you to write your name on this. Just write what Jesus has done for you. Let that judgment fall to the floor and be ready to stick it on up. Ooh. And now Gunnar's gonna stand up here and hold this sign for us. All right, I'm gonna give you guys just a minute. Jimmy, could you turn on something? Right here are our stones of remembrance. They're a lot lighter than a pile of rocks. So we get to take them with us next week. So we're gonna put these up next week to remember. Maybe we might. We're gonna bring them into our new place because, guys, testimony belongs in the future, right? Our new season needs to witness what God has already done. Yeah, keep coming on up. If you've got more, come on up. Don't be shy about this. We're all family. Just bring it on in here. So the whole goal today is to remind ourselves and to celebrate together what God has done here in this place. And to thank him. Got you. At least we didn't drop the baby. That's what it is. We didn't drop that baby. We might drop some stones every now and then, but we're not gonna drop the baby, right? Praise the Lord. Thank you, Jesus. No, you're good. Thank you, babe. Uh so remember, guys, it is not the place that we're at that gives us the miracle. It is the God we serve, right? And he's going with us. So let's remember that this morning as a body. I would love to encourage you guys to share with someone this morning what it is that you put on your sticky note and the things that God reminded you of this morning. So we're gonna get to potluck a little later. And I would love for that to be part of the conversation of what you're discussing as you're eating with each other and as we're enjoying this time. What did God do? What did God do? All right, well, this morning let's pray. Lord, we thank you for the gift that you've given us this morning to celebrate you and all that you have done. We thank you for each of these sticky notes, each of these stones of remembrance, Lord. And Lord, we say we choose to remember, Lord. And we also choose to move forward. Thank you, God, that we get to do this together. And we're not doing this by ourselves, Lord, but that we get to do this as a community. Lord, bless this community as we move forward into the next chapter that you have for us. Thank you for being so good while we were here. And thank you that you're gonna be so good while we move. And Lord, we pray a special blessing upon Hilltop Church, Lord. We thank you, Lord, for the new owners of this building and how gracious they have been as we've been here. We thank you for how good they've been in sharing with us. And Lord, we ask that you would bless their church, Lord. We pray a special blessing upon each person who attends Hilltop Community, Lord, and we ask that you would strengthen their community and strengthen their church and the body of Christ that is going to continue to meet in this building. Lord, we ask that as we were blessed in this place, Lord, would you bless them? As we have testimonies coming out of this place, Lord, would they have testimonies as they continue here, Lord? And as they continue to advance your kingdom right here in this spot in University Place. Lord, thank you for them. Thank you for Pastor Mao and Fetu. Lord, we pray that you would bless them as they continue the work of the gospel right here on this little corner. Thank you, Jesus, for them. Give them wisdom, give them grace. Lord, give them your shalom, your wholeness in their community. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, we're gonna do something also.