Joshua 3: Courageous Faith, Part 1 (The Jordan)
Notes
Transcript
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Joshua 3:1-17
N: Laser pointer
Welcome
Welcome
Good morning to those of you here in the room, and good morning to those of you online today! I’m Bill Connors, senior pastor for the church family of Eastern Hills, and I’m grateful that we are gathered together to worship the risen Lord Jesus Christ this morning.
We would really like to be able to thank you for being here in other ways as well, so if you would, please grab one of the communication cards that you’ll find in the back of the pew in front of you, and you can just fill that out during the service and drop it in the offering boxes by the doors as you leave. If you’d rather complete a digital card, you can text the word WELCOME to 505-339-2004, and you’ll get a text back with a link to our digital communication card. You can text that number whether you’re here in the room today or joining us online. If you are in the room this morning, I’d like to meet you briefly and give you a small thank you gift following the service, so please plan to come down and say hello later on.
Announcements
Announcements
NMSMO (No video this week) Currently: $8,668, goal $11,500. Mention Minister’s Family Retreat next August.
Endeavor update:
Cut the hole in the wall (as you can see)
Roof inspection hasn’t happened yet, so no stucco (hopeful for this week)
Got word that the remaining HVAC units for the foyer and offices should be here by the end of October (previous estimate was mid to late November).
Opening
Opening
We’re in our third week of our eight-week series on the book of Joshua, and to this point, we’ve looked at the courageous calling of Joshua and the courageous action of Rahab, and we’re focusing mostly on our calling to share our faith courageously. If you’ve missed the first two messages in this series, you can go back and listen to them or watch them through our Sermons page on our website, or on our Facebook and YouTube pages.
This morning, we come to Joshua chapter 3 as our focal passage. Let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we consider this chapter.
1 Joshua started early the next morning and left the Acacia Grove with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan and stayed there before crossing. 2 After three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God carried by the Levitical priests, you are to break camp and follow it. 4 But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between yourselves and the ark. Don’t go near it, so that you can see the way to go, for you haven’t traveled this way before.” 5 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because the Lord will do wonders among you tomorrow.” 6 Then he said to the priests, “Carry the ark of the covenant and go on ahead of the people.” So they carried the ark of the covenant and went ahead of them. 7 The Lord spoke to Joshua: “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, so they will know that I will be with you just as I was with Moses. 8 Command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant: When you reach the edge of the water, stand in the Jordan.” 9 Then Joshua told the Israelites, “Come closer and listen to the words of the Lord your God.” 10 He said, “You will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hethites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites 11 when the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth goes ahead of you into the Jordan. 12 Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe. 13 When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, come to rest in the Jordan’s water, its water will be cut off. The water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass.” 14 When the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carried the ark of the covenant ahead of the people. 15 Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season. But as soon as the priests carrying the ark reached the Jordan, their feet touched the water at its edge 16 and the water flowing downstream stood still, rising up in a mass that extended as far as Adam, a city next to Zarethan. The water flowing downstream into the Sea of the Arabah—the Dead Sea—was completely cut off, and the people crossed opposite Jericho. 17 The priests carrying the ark of the Lord’s covenant stood firmly on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel crossed on dry ground until the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan.
PRAYER (Israel; Vietnamese Baptist Church, Pastor Thai)
Every life’s journey is dotted by times of major importance—moments so important, in fact, that they become moments that define the moments that follow them, times that you can’t really go back from. These are moments when we cross over from where we were to where we are going. Sometimes these “crossover” moments are really positive and straight-forward, such as birth, graduation, coming to faith in Christ, marriage, finding your career path, having children, or retirement. But at other times, crossover moments are filled with difficulty, fear, and strife: things like illness, job loss, divorce, injury, disaster, or the death of a loved one.
For me, one such crossover moment was ministerial: when I went from being the youth pastor to being the senior pastor of Eastern Hills. It was exceedingly positive—I completely believe that it was the direction that God had for both me and for Eastern Hills—but that time was also filled with obstacles and difficulties, and the transition into the role of pastor was especially intense once the pandemic hit in 2020. I have often felt completely out of my depth as a leader, as a preacher, and as a pastor.
But the fact is that being called as the pastor of Eastern Hills is a moment that I couldn’t go back from, a line that couldn’t be “uncrossed.” It was a moment that God has used to determine and define the moments that followed it, in many ways. Moments continue to be defined by that one, even right now as I stand here and preach the Word.
Take a second and think about some of these crossover moments in your life. I’m certain that you can recall both kinds, both positive and difficult. The truth is, sometimes crossover moments are both: straightforward and positive, but made up of God-sized obstacles.
This morning, we are going to consider three aspects of facing God-sized obstacles in our lives: and the first thing that we need to acknowledge about crossover moments that contain God-sized obstacles is that they are completely overwhelming to us.
1) God-sized obstacles are overwhelming to us.
1) God-sized obstacles are overwhelming to us.
In today’s focal passage, we see Israel facing the same kind of situation as we have just discussed: an exciting crossover moment in the life of God’s people where they were on the precipice of beginning to receive all that God had promised them, but marked by a very real, very God-sized obstacle: the Jordan River.
1 Joshua started early the next morning and left the Acacia Grove with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan and stayed there before crossing.
The people of Israel had to first travel from where they were, the “Acacia Grove,” also called Shittim, 8 miles west to the banks of the Jordan. Now, the Jordan River is not an incredibly impressive sight from late fall through winter. I had the privilege of seeing the Jordan as I rode our tour bus around the Sea of Galilee when I was there last year, and here’s a picture of the mighty Jordan in February. Yes, the little creek in the middle there. Makes the Rio Grande look like the Mississippi.
But in Joshua’s time, the Jordan was a much more formidable obstacle, particularly in the springtime as the winter snows melt from the mountains of Lebanon.
Joshua 3:15a (CSB)
15a Now the Jordan overflows its banks throughout the harvest season.
This means that the Jordan was gigantic in the spring, which is precisely when God called his people to cross it en masse. In fact, given that this massive group of nomads had basically none of the water-crossing technology that we have today, the Jordan was truly impossible to cross with all of their children, their livestock, their shelter, and their supplies. Yes, the two spies had managed to cross it to scout out Jericho as we saw last week, but two twenty-year-old soldiers traveling alone and light is not the same as a million or so people of all ages transporting everything they own.
There’s an interesting split in the sentence that makes up verses 2 and 3. I believe that this split is intentional.
2 After three days the officers went through the camp
The Jordan would have been an intimidating sight at flood stage, and all of Israel knew that crossing it was the only way to receive what had been promised to them. So God had them stay on the flooded banks of the Jordan for three days, able to see just how impossible this task was in their own strength. This God-sized obstacle would have appeared overwhelming to them.
Forty years earlier they had faced a similar God-sized obstacle: the people who inhabited the Promised Land. Moses had sent the twelve spies in to scout things out, and we see in Numbers 13 that only Joshua and Caleb returned confident that God would enable them to overcome. The other ten rallied the people to refuse to go in, and in fact even to return to Egypt, and God declared that the adults of that generation would not see the Promised Land. So what would have been at most an eleven day trip from the spies’ return ended up taking four decades. Would they find themselves that overwhelmed again? They would if they focused on the obstacle, and not on God.
We see another crossover moment in the New Testament, in the life of Peter as recorded in Matthew 14. In it, we find Jesus walking toward His disciples, who were on a boat on the Sea of Galilee on a windy night. Jesus was walking on the water, and the disciples are terrified when they see Him:
25 Jesus came toward them walking on the sea very early in the morning. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost!” they said, and they cried out in fear. 27 Immediately Jesus spoke to them. “Have courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
Jesus tells them to take courage, and not to fear because it’s Him. Peter is so inspired by this that he calls back to Jesus:
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter answered him, “command me to come to you on the water.”
And that’s exactly what happened. Jesus tells Peter to come on, and Peter jumps down and starts walking on the water toward Him. But look at what happens:
30 But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me!”
When all Peter saw was Jesus, he could courageously do the impossible by faith. But as soon as he started focusing on the God-sized obstacles (the wind, the waves, gravity), he was overwhelmed.
We all have God-sized obstacles in our lives from time to time. We face things that are bigger than us, like disasters and pandemics. We have to deal with things that we have no control over, like sicknesses or injuries. We are confronted with problems that we are powerless to correct, like injustices and wars.
But the biggest God-sized obstacle, one that you may not have thought of yet, is our sin. We have no ability in ourselves to overcome our brokenness, to desire what God tells us to despise, to hate what God tells us to love, to do what God says is bad for us. And we’re bent in this direction from an early, early age. Have you ever told a toddler, “Don’t touch that,” only to have them keep one eye on you as they attempt to touch the very thing you just told them not to? Don’t we treat God the same way?
So we get overwhelmed because we can’t do it. We just can’t be good or righteous in our own strength. Paul said the same thing:
18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it. 19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one that does it, but it is the sin that lives in me. 21 So I discover this law: When I want to do what is good, evil is present with me. 22 For in my inner self I delight in God’s law, 23 but I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
We have no ability in ourselves to deal with our sin successfully. It is truly a God-sized obstacle.
But not only that, even the things that God calls us TO are often God-sized. Think about our calling to share the message of the Gospel with the lost of this world: we know that saving people is more than we can do. We might struggle with the idea of sharing the Gospel because of the difficulty we see in it. And we might feel inadequate in sharing the Gospel, so the thought of doing so feels overwhelming. The problem is that, like Peter, we look at the obstacles more than at the hope.
Sharing the Gospel in our own strength is overwhelming. It should be! But that’s what is so great about the fact that if we are in Christ, then we have the Holy Spirit living within us—we always have access to God’s very presence in the face of God-sized obstacles, which is perfect, because overcoming God-sized obstacles demands God’s presence.
2) Overcoming God-sized obstacles demands God’s presence.
2) Overcoming God-sized obstacles demands God’s presence.
This just makes sense, doesn’t it? There’s one outcome that is guaranteed if we face God-sized obstacles without God: we will fail to overcome them. For the Israelites on the banks of the Jordan, they had a physical representation of the presence of God in their midst: the Ark of the Covenant.
One thing that is fascinating about this is that they had been carrying the Ark ever since it was built back in Exodus 37, not long after God brought them up out of Egypt. The Ark had been the central point of their life, because it literally sat in the center of their encampment every time they stopped moving. However, it had not been a visible reminder of God’s presence with them, because it was nearly always hidden (with one exception…the first three-day journey from Sinai in Numbers 10:33). Even when it was carried from place to place, it was covered with the curtain that separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the tabernacle, as well as with a fine leather cover and a blue cloth (Numbers 4:4-6).
And the Ark wasn’t ordinarily the first thing to move when it was time to travel from place to place. The Lord led Israel through their wanderings by His presence with them in the form of a cloud, visible day or night. Numbers 9 records how they followed the cloud:
15 On the day the tabernacle was set up, the cloud covered the tabernacle, the tent of the testimony, and it appeared like fire above the tabernacle from evening until morning. 16 It remained that way continuously: the cloud would cover it, appearing like fire at night. 17 Whenever the cloud was lifted up above the tent, the Israelites would set out; at the place where the cloud stopped, there the Israelites camped. 18 At the Lord’s command the Israelites set out, and at the Lord’s command they camped. As long as the cloud stayed over the tabernacle, they camped.
But when it was time to leave, the Ark wouldn’t be the first thing to head out. The tribe of Judah set out first, following the cloud, followed by Issachar, Zebulun, the tabernacle and its furnishings, then by Reuben, Simeon, and Gad, in that order, before the Ark would move (again, with one exception: Numbers 10:33).
But here in Joshua, there is no more cloud to guide them. The last mention of the guiding cloud of God’s glory is Deuteronomy 31:15, the commissioning of Joshua by Moses, which took place at the Acacia Grove referenced in verse 1 of Joshua 3. Now the Ark was to go first. And (we don’t know this for certain, but it’s a reasonable guess, given the language of “seeing” the Ark in verse 3) it would appear that this time, the Ark went ahead of them uncovered. Just the Ark carried by the priests. And Israel was to leave a gap of about a half a mile between them and the Ark. This is because they needed perspective: they needed to be able to see clearly what God was going to do. They needed to see God’s presence go ahead of them, because they were going to cross over… they had never been this way before, and this way would change everything about their existence: geographically, economically, politically… everything was going to change after this crossover moment, and God’s presence would lead the way.
And not only was God going to go before them, set apart by that half-mile distance, but they were to set themselves apart for God:
5 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, because the Lord will do wonders among you tomorrow.”
This was reflected in how they were to live (the whole lot of them, not just the priests) for the next day, in preparation of seeing God’s amazing wonders, which He was going to do among them. They would see not just the Ark, but God’s amazing power on display (more on that in a moment) through His presence with them, and specifically with Joshua.
Joshua wasn’t going to succeed without God’s presence. God declared that He was going to “exalt” Joshua in order to show everyone that He was with Joshua, just as He had been with Moses, so that the people would follow Joshua. God was exalting Joshua for Israel’s benefit, not Joshua’s. Israel had been led by a man who sat in God’s presence like no one had before him. God would be with Joshua in much the same way.
And the Lord gave Joshua clear instructions for the priests:
8 Command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant: When you reach the edge of the water, stand in the Jordan.”
God’s presence would go ahead of the people as they faced the God-sized obstacle called the Jordan. This was also representative of the fact that God was saying that He Himself would go before them into this “way” that they had not traveled before, that He Himself would go ahead of them into the Promised Land, facing the unknown things that would greet His people there. The Lord’s presence with them would mean everything for Israel, both then and in the future.
When Peter began to sink in the waves of the Sea of Galilee, it was Jesus’ presence with Him that changed the outcome of the story. It was the middle of the night. It was dark. Certainly they saw only by moonlight. If Peter sank beneath the waves, he was done for. He cried out for Jesus, and Jesus was there, an ever-present help in trouble, as the psalmist wrote in Psalm 46:
1 God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble. 2 Therefore we will not be afraid, though the earth trembles and the mountains topple into the depths of the seas, 3 though its water roars and foams and the mountains quake with its turmoil. Selah
And when Paul cried out as he recalled his helplessness in sin in Romans 7, it was again the presence of Christ that would determine the outcome of his struggle against his “body of death:”
Romans 7:25a (CSB)
25a Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
It’s the presence of Jesus in our lives by His Spirit that does the work of consecrating us for God’s purposes, that sets us apart as holy for Him, and that marks us off for the work that He has for us, and for both the abundant life that we experience in Him now, and the salvation which we will experience later, and because of His presence, we can overcome the God-sized obstacles that we face as we have crossover moments in our lives. Praise the Lord that He wants to be present with His people!
However, like the Israelites with Joshua, God calls us to be ready for the task that He has prepared for us. And that demands that our way of life conform to His plans, not SO we are saved, but BECAUSE we are saved. Look at just a couple of verses on this:
1 Therefore I, the prisoner in the Lord, urge you to walk worthy of the calling you have received,
15 Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise—16 making the most of the time, because the days are evil.
27 Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or am absent, I will hear about you that you are standing firm in one spirit, in one accord, contending together for the faith of the gospel,
11 Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul. 12 Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that when they slander you as evildoers, they will observe your good works and will glorify God on the day he visits.
When it comes to living out our faith courageously, we are called to walk in a way that is “worthy of our calling,” that’s “wise, making the most of the time,” “contending together for the faith of the gospel,” and “honorably among the Gentiles.” This includes taking the opportunity to share our faith. If we are not abiding in God’s presence (John 15:4, 7; 1 John 2:28), we’re not going to tell people about Christ. If we are going to be effective witnesses, we have to walk in God’s presence, because it is through His presence that we will experience His power.
And overcoming God-sized obstacles demands God’s power, which is our last point this morning.
3) Overcoming God-sized obstacles demands God’s power.
3) Overcoming God-sized obstacles demands God’s power.
God-sized obstacles are impossible to overcome in our strength, because our strength isn’t enough. But that’s where the incredible reversal of courageous faith comes in. It’s in accepting the complete inadequacy of our power and control that we surrender everything to the power of God.
Israel had failed to obey God and walk in faith forty years before. And today, they were on the banks of the Jordan, preparing to go into the land filled with the same people they were terrified four decades earlier. And first, they had to cross the flooded Jordan! God was going to demonstrate His power with the Jordan, so that Israel would know that He would also demonstrate His power with the people of the land.
9 Then Joshua told the Israelites, “Come closer and listen to the words of the Lord your God.” 10 He said, “You will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly dispossess before you the Canaanites, Hethites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites, and Jebusites 11 when the ark of the covenant of the Lord of the whole earth goes ahead of you into the Jordan. 12 Now choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man for each tribe. 13 When the feet of the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of the whole earth, come to rest in the Jordan’s water, its water will be cut off. The water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass.”
There’s a statement made twice in this section that is important for us to notice, as it’s something that we could just zip by as something cool that Joshua said. Twice here, Joshua refers to God as “the Lord of the whole earth” (11, 13). Remember that Rahab had said something similar in chapter 2.
In warfare in Old Testament times, the way pagan people saw it was basically that battles between nations were battles between those nations’ gods. Whichever people’s god was more powerful that day, that was the people who won the battle. The Canaanites collectively saw the false god Baal as the most powerful of their gods (they were polytheistic pagans). The Jordan was a physical barrier marking off Baal’s realm. God’s presence as represented by the Ark of His covenant with His people was going to enter into that barrier, and the barrier would give way in miraculous fashion, without any intervention by any person. If Yahweh, the “living God,” could breach this barrier effortlessly, what would He be able to do in the battle on land against the dead idol Baal? Yahweh is the Lord of the whole earth, every square inch, even over those places where they do not believe in Him.
And what Joshua predicted would happen is exactly what did happen, according to verses 14-17. The priests went ahead with the Ark, and as soon as their feet touched the water, the water flowing downstream stood still, rising up in a mass… not merely that it stopped flowing. It defied the laws of physics by piling up as all of Israel crossed on dry ground, while the waters piled up in the Jordan all the way to “Adam.” This city was about 18 miles to the north of where they were crossing opposite Jericho. If we were to use the place where I-40 crosses over the Rio Grande as the place where Israel crossed the Jordan, the waters would pile up all the way to the Tamaya Resort north of Bernalillo.
There are several connections here between this miracle and the parting of the Red Sea back in Exodus 14. First of all, understand that most of the people witnessing this miraculous event had not seen the parting of the Red Sea: they had only been told about it. Out of all of Israel that came out of Egypt, everyone 20 or older at the time of their refusal to go into the promised land had died, except for Joshua and Caleb. So the ones who had been alive when the exodus occurred were children then, and at Joshua’s time they were certainly outnumbered by those who had been born during the 40 years of wandering the desert. This was a new witnessing of God’s power over nature in this way.
The parting of the Red Sea and the stopping of the Jordan were both crossover events: the Red Sea was God leading His people OUT, never to go that way again. The Jordan was God leading His people IN, through a way that they had never gone before. Both could only be performed by God’s power.
But ultimately, the stopping of the Jordan declared two things clearly to the people of Israel: That God was with them, and that He would use His power to defend them and fulfill His promise to them. Their faith in Him was not misplaced, and they could courageously follow Him into the Promised Land.
That same power to overcome God-sized obstacles is available to us who have a relationship with God through faith in Jesus Christ.
John Huffman wrote:
“As we stand on the bank of that Jordan River in our lives, we all need to remember that our God is capable of making a way through that Jordan. He will walk through it with us, keeping our feet on dry ground.”
—John A. Huffman, Jr., The Preacher’s Commentary Series, Volume 6: Joshua
This isn’t to say that we will avoid suffering or that we will never struggle. Even though Jesus’s power certainly did deliver Peter from the wind and the waves on Galilee, he still faced nearly drowning:
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand, caught hold of him, and said to him, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”
This is also not to say that the believer has no responsibility for walking in courageous faith, obeying God and staying faithful to Him. God stopped the river, and Israel had to go across it. The miraculous deliverance didn’t depend on them at all. It depended completely on God. But they had experienced once what would have happened if they had refused to obey. God calls us to both courageous faith and whole-hearted obedience.
It also doesn’t mean that God will always deliver us from God-sized obstacles in the ways that we want Him to. He might. He might not. He might deliver us in a completely different way, like He did with Paul, showing Him that it was in not delivering Him that He displayed His mighty strength in Paul’s life:
2 Corinthians 12:7b–10 (CSB)
7b Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself. 8 Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. 10 So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
We can likewise face God-sized obstacles in courageous faith, relying on God’s power and not our own. When we have the opportunity to share the message of the Gospel, we do so knowing that we cannot save anyone, but only by God’s power can a lost person be transferred from death to life.
And I share that message this morning with those who are here or listening or watching online who have never trusted in Jesus Christ for your forgiveness and salvation. God made you for relationship with Him, but your sin is an insurmountable problem that you can never overcome, so God in His love sent His Son Jesus to live a perfect life in our place, to die to pay the penalty for our sins so we could be forgiven, and to rise from the grave in order to defeat death itself, so that those who believe in Him as Savior and Lord have the eternal life I’ve already spoken of in this message. It’s only through the presence and power of Jesus that we are saved. Trust Christ, surrendering to Him and turning from your sin this morning, and be filled with God’s presence and power by His Holy Spirit living in you.
Closing
Closing
I would like to close with the words of the third verse of hymn #82 in our hymnals, “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah:”
When I tread the verge of Jordan
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Bear me through the swelling current,
Land me safe on Canaan’s side;
Songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever give to Thee, I will ever give to Thee.
— “Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah” verse 3 (Baptist Hymnal #82)
We can walk with God in courageous faith, even when we face God-sized obstacles, knowing that He will accomplish all that He wants to accomplish by His power through His presence.
Invitation to receive Christ
Church membership
Prayer
Offering
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
No AOM tonight
Bible reading (Finishing Amos tomorrow, then Jude, then finishing the Psalms, starting at Psalm 121)
Pastor’s Study tonight
Prayer Meeting Wednesday
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
1 I will thank the Lord with all my heart; I will declare all your wondrous works. 2 I will rejoice and boast about you; I will sing about your name, Most High.