Building a Legacy of Worship (Joshua 5:1-12)

Sermon

Key Passage

Joshua 5:1–12 NIV

Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites. At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt—all the men of military age—died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed. Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal to this day. On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.

Series Introduction

Building a Legacy series

Building Campaign

Commitment Sunday is next week. We are very excited.

Our goal is not a $$ amount. It is the participation of every person.

If you are thinking:

I can’t give enough to matter— You can

I have questions about the project— Website/Table in Lobby

I asked our elders and staff to step out in faith first.

We need to set the tone for the church as we demonstrate commitment

Our elders and staff have committed nearly $100,000 dollars

I love how this came about as well.

We aren’t just sitting around with piles of money instead of a coffee table in our living room.

Sacrifices were made so this commitment could be made to the building.

Television subscriptions, dining out budgeted money, and a number of other sacrifices were made so we can step out in this project.

Because of this, we have a head start.

Please begin praying this week about what God would compel you to give.

Maybe you too would give something up so you can join us in building a legacy of faith in our church.

Commitment cards were sent out last week. Fill it out. Perforate it. Drop it off at the office or in the offering box next week.

Online commitment cards are available as well.

You can set up automatic giving on our website.

We just changed giving platforms

Also, I encourage you to go out and walk the property and pray.

Property pictures

Point of urgency, we are likely at a “no turning back” moment

We will likely have to move Sunday morning locations next summer.

Parkside would like to have their building.

We are grateful to them.

But there is no path forward except our new building.

We need you for this.

Sermon Introduction

We have been following the story of the Israelites as they came to the precipice of the Jordan River.

This passage began in Joshua 1. Today we are in Joshua 5.

We are not navigating this whole book. Rather, we are learning some very important steps that the Israelites took during this time.

They set an example of what stepping out in faith may look like.

While no two steps of faith are the same, there are principles of faith that we must observe and learn from.

As was read, there a portion of our passage today that talks about circumcision. A really comfortable topic for all of us to discuss in an open format.

God’s Promise to Abraham

Abraham and Sarah had not yet had their son Isaac.

Genesis 17:1–8 NIV

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless. Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.” Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations. No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

He will have lots of descendants

Think about this. This dude is 99 years old. He will not likely see very many of those descendants.

But as we said before. This is God’s timeline, not ours. When God involves us in His plan, His ways are higher than our ways. It is for His glory, not for our fun.

God will build a nation from his descendants AND KINGS!

God will establish an everlasting covenant between Abraham and Abrahams descendents.

How long is everlasting? Forever.

God will give Abraham the land of Canaan as an “Everlasting possession”

As we have navigated into the future in the book of Joshua, we find that his descendants have in fact become a nation and last week, this nation has set their feet on the promised land that God had given them.

God had guided this nation through over 500 years of struggle to this point where His promises would be fulfilled.

All of this is what God was offering Abraham.

What could Abraham give God in return? What can man ever give God? Nothing, He’s God.

So God asks for obedience in one area:

Genesis 17:10–14 (NIV)

This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.

You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.

For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised...My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.

Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

Circumcision of the males was a physical and intentional sign that this person was a part of God’s covenant.

It was uniquely an agreement between the people of Israel and God.

That brings us to 400 years of slavery

40 years in the wildrness

They crossed the Jordan

God asks them to remember Him and put up a pile of rocks

Now, we see a very interesting part of this story take place.

Last week I asked, “Why is chapter 4 in the Bible?”

We can ask the same for this portion of chapter 5. It seems like an odd section of Scripture and we could very well skip it and move on to the next story where they go into their battle strategy against Jericho.

But Chapter 5 is here for a reason. Let’s break this down and take a look.

Main topic

Joshua 4:24–5:1 NIV

He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” Now when all the Amorite kings west of the Jordan and all the Canaanite kings along the coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan before the Israelites until they had crossed over, their hearts melted in fear and they no longer had the courage to face the Israelites.

I begin with our last passage of last week.

They put up the monument of 12 stones from the Jordan as a reminder to their children of what God had done.

But also, this monument served another purpose.

So the world would know of the powerful hand of the Lord.

As a result, we see the kings in the land melting in fear because of what God had done.

Everyone knew it. It was a public event and the kings knew their days were numbered.

Now, if I am one of the Israelite guys and I just saw God open the river so our whole country could cross, I am ready to grab my sword and start marching toward Jericho.

Let’s get ready for battle!

But God says, “No”

God established a mechanism for them to remember what He had done.

In fact, during the lifetime of these people, God had established both the Passover and the 12 stone monument to remember who he is.

So after setting up the 12 stones, the warriors had to be thinking, “OK, NOW is the time to sharpen our swords and spears.

God says, “Not so fast!”

Joshua 5:2 NIV

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.”

As a warrior, I would be thinking, “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

God if you had wanted this, you should have asked for this a while ago.

Now, we are in the shadow of the city of Jericho and our enemies. We need to strike while there is fear in our hearts.

Doing this now leaves us very vulnerable for attack!

But, no one was in a place to question God after what He had just done.

They were to follow God.

Joshua 5:3–8 NIV

So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. Now this is why he did so: All those who came out of Egypt—all the men of military age—died in the wilderness on the way after leaving Egypt. All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the wilderness during the journey from Egypt had not. The Israelites had moved about in the wilderness forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Lord. For the Lord had sworn to them that they would not see the land he had solemnly promised their ancestors to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised. They were still uncircumcised because they had not been circumcised on the way. And after the whole nation had been circumcised, they remained where they were in camp until they were healed.

First of all, “why flint knives?”

They had bronze, copper and iron and blades made of these materials. However, flint knives could be sharpened to a sharper edge and the stone blade would hold its edge better than the metal available at that time.

What we find here is the generation of people that left Egypt were a people that had little faith and little obedience in God.

God had instructed them to circumcise their children after 8 days. It wasn’t just a few folks who didn’t do it. It was the entire generation of people who didn’t obey.

Therefore, there was an entire generation of men who were living in a form of disobedience.

It wasn’t a disobedience of rebellion.

It was a disobedience of complacency. It is a discomfort and not a “top 10” weekend item to get done.

God said, “You need to be obedient.” So they obeyed.

Joshua 5:9 NIV

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

The nation of Israel was obedient.

Part of their covenant with God was that God would give them the land He had promised Abraham.

But their part of that covenant was to be circumcised.

Now they were circumcised.

No longer were they slaves

No longer were they a disobedient and rebellious people.

They had acted in obedience and they identified themselves with God’s covenant.

Joshua 5:10 NIV

On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover.

The nation then celebrated the Passover for the first time in the Promised Land.

This was another fitting reminder of where they were and what God was doing in their midst.

The Passover celebration is a meal that every part of the meal is representative of a part of their nation leaving Egypt as slaves and the journey they had.

Before attacking Jericho, they had to:

Build a monument

Get circumcised

Celebrate Passover

And eat from the land God had given them.

Joshua 5:11–12 NIV

The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate the produce of Canaan.

Teaching Points

Today, we are talking through the topic of Worship.

I struggled with a definition of worship this week. I like to have a clean, concise definition of things that my analytical mind can understand.

But the topic of worship is something that defies analytical definitions.

When Jesus was asked about worship, He replied

John 4:23–24 NIV

Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

For me, worship in truth is great. I can know the truth, study the truth, and think in the black and white of the truth.

But the spirit part of the definition is one that I struggle with!

When I find myself in this place, I usually find that I am working toward my definition in the wrong direction.

Rather than finding the deep complexities of worship, I need to simplify and give the most simple answer I can give.

Worship is our response in faith to the Almighty God.

I want to define this out step by step using principles from this passage and also other descriptions of worship from the Bible.

But before we do, I want to break down this definition.

Worship is our response

We must recognize that worship is a response to God’s revelation of Himself to us.

I don’t generate worship from within myself. Worship is given to God based on His work and revelation in our lives.

We’ll break this down more in a bit.

Worship is our response in faith

As we have been navigating the definition of faith for much of this series, we will find that faith and worship are very closely linked.

We will find that as we grow in faith, it will grow our worship

And as we grow in worship, it will grow our faith.

The two topics revolve very closely around our knowledge of God and our response to how we know God.

Worship is our response in faith TO THE ALMIGHTY GOD.

Worship is not about us. It is about God

Our response is a gift given to God from us.

We may respond in emotion or from the depths of our soul, but emotion is not about us or how we feel. It is about God.

It’s one of the things that kinda drives me nuts. When someone says, “Oh worship made me feel so good this week.”

NO! Worship is not about you or how you feel. It is about God.

We ought to say, “I gave my all to God in worship” He is the object and outcome of our worship, not us.

Worship is not about our preference, or our own style. It is about our hearts and knowledge of God.

Guardrails to worship:

Truth

Always in the context of the truth of God and built from the Word of God.

Spirit

Within that, Jesus said the Spirit of God is like the wind. We don’t know where it comes from or where it is going, but we know it is there.

God is revealed through His Word and through our experience with Him.

We do not worship the experience. The experience points us to the nature of God.

The Passover was not only to remember the events of leaving Egypt. They were to remember and identify the God of the Exodus.

Three Keys of worship:

1. WE WORSHIP A GOD WE KNOW

Joshua 5:2–3 NIV

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth.

I am going to bring up the circumcision thing one more time.

We might see this as a physical act of obedience that God is calling them to.

In a way you are right. But this act is much deeper than simple obedience.

God is calling them to participate in the covenant relationship with Him.

I want to go back to one of the lines we read in Genesis as God was making this promise with Abraham:

Genesis 17:7–8 NIV

I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you. The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

God is inviting them to be in relationship with Him. To know and experience Him.

Faith Slide 1

We have already spoken about how faith is knowing God in relationship.

But as we learn to know God in relationship, we respond in worship.

Psalm 29:2 NIV

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.

As we learn to know God and we come face to face with who He is, there ought to be a response from within us.

I am intentionally not going to give designated expressions of worship.

Sure there is singing, but we may respond in silence, or awe, or any number of ways that we respond when we discover God.

I think about this reality for us.

We often reveal God through His Word

We have seen the God of His Word work and act in the lives of so many of us in this room.

God has changed our hearts, brought us into grace and salvation.

We’ve seen the power of God.

We’ve experienced the love of God

We live in the grace of God.

As we talk about these things, may we stop and reflect. Not on the act of grace, or love or salvation.

But the God of grace and love and salvation.

What a good God He is!

Our salvation is not a testament to our sin.

It is a testament to a grace giving God.

May we respond to the God we know with appropriate worship due His name.

Three Keys of worship:

1. WE WORSHIP A GOD WE KNOW

2. WE WORSHIP THE SOVEREIGN GOD

Faith Slide 2

As we work our way up the faith diagram we have used, I want to look at this second posture before God.

We surrender to the sovereign God.

Surrender is an act of worship to God.

As we know God, it draws us into a life of surrender.

The Jewish nation learned this truth in a very difficult manner.

Joshua 5:9 NIV

Then the Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” So the place has been called Gilgal to this day.

Surrender when things are good is always going to be fun and glorious.

I think this is what we think of when we think of worship. We think of smiles on our faces, joy in our hearts, and all of these positive blessings of God.

But we don’t often think about the blessing of suffering and struggle.

Why do I call that a blessing? Because it is during those times of life that we don’t understand. We are broken. We have lost. All we have is to reach out to a God that we don’t even feel is present.

But from somewhere within us we know He is.

We cry out from our brokenness, I surrender to you.

I look at Job as an example of this type of worship.

We find in the story of Job that he lost everything.

He lost everything in a day.

He lost his livestock

He lost his home

He lost his children.

We look at this story through a very rosy lens.

We think about this story and say, “Well God blessed him with more children and stuff at the end of the story.”

But anyone who has lost a child knows that even if you have other children, the child you lost is always going to be a place of brokenness for you.

Upon hearing the news of everything being stripped from his life, Job responds in this manner:

Job 1:20–21 NIV

At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.”

Job sees his circumstances. He doesn’t understand. He is broken.

In his brokenness, he knows God and still chooses to surrender.

Does he surrender so he will understand?

No.

He surrenders because He knows God is God.

I don’t know how to speak to the brokenness in this room.

Some of the things that have happened, I don’t even know how to respond.

But we have a faith in God. In that faith, we worship.

We worship a God that we know, but sometimes we don’t know why.

I love the story of Jesus and Lazarus.

John 11 talks about Lazarus and we see that Jesus weeps with them, even though He knows Lazarus will resurrect.

God knows our pain. And He is still God and worthy of worship.

Three Keys of worship:

1. WE WORSHIP A GOD WE KNOW

2. WE WORSHIP THE SOVEREIGN GOD

3. WE WORSHIP GOD THROUGH OBEDIENCE

Joshua 5:10 NIV

On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover.

The last piece we see here is that the Israelites celebrated Passover.

You might think this was purely a celebration for fun, but it isn’t.

The passover was a command by God for His people

Exodus 12:14 NIV

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.

They were commanded to celebrate the Passover.

So out there in front of their enemies, vulnerable to attack, they didn’t form lines of defense and a battle plan.

They worshiped their God in obedience.

We are called to do the same.

Romans 12:1 NIV

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.

We are to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice

Living and sacrificed (dead).

We are to be used by God and live lives of obedience as a display of spiritual worship.

Faith Slide 3

Worship becomes a part of every element of faith.

It is not simply about us having an appropriate view of God through faith.

It is about us having an appropriate response to God through worship.

Faith Slide 4

This brings us to the final slide in this series

We remember

Last week we looked at the importance of remembrance.

We have to Stop, Build and Share what God has done.

In the act of remembrance, we create the mechanism to continue to remember what God has done.

It grows our faith because it grows our knowledge of Him.

but it also grows our worship because as we remember, it gives us a platform to worship again.

Gods revelation is truth and aligns with the truth. Our circumstances allow us to see the Sovereign God behind it all. As we take time to stop and see what God has done, we see who God is within what He has done.

Conclusion

Restate our definition of worship

Worship is our response in faith to the Almighty God.

Worship is deeply relational interaction with God

Every worship service ought to drive us to a place of worship.

Real Life in Action

This week, how has God shown you His nature?

Prayerfully reflect on who He is.

Respond to Him in worship, based on His revelation.

They had to be made vulnerable in worship before their enemies. It was the power of their God.