Remembering What God Has Done

Text: Joshua 4 (memory verse: Romans 15:4) Pastor Josh Stelly

Deuteronomy 8:11 NIV

Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day.

Romans 15:4 NIV

For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.

Let's pray.

Opening

An older couple were both starting to forget things, so they went to the doctor to make sure nothing was wrong. The doctor checked them over, told them they were healthy, and suggested they start writing things down.

That night the husband got up from his chair. His wife asked, "Where are you going?"

"To the kitchen."

"Will you bring me a bowl of ice cream?"

"Sure."

"Shouldn't you write it down so you don't forget?"

"No, I've got it."

"Well, I'd also like strawberries on top. You'd better write that one down."

"I've got it. Ice cream with strawberries."

"And some whipped cream too. Write it down, you'll forget."

Now a little irritated, he said, "I don't need to write it down," and marched off to the kitchen.

About twenty minutes later he came back and handed her a plate of bacon and eggs.

She looked at the plate and said, "I knew it. You forgot my toast."

We all forget.

Small things and big things. I do. You do. And here is the sobering part: God knows we forget what He has done for us. Right before Israel entered the promised land, Moses gave them this warning in

Deuteronomy 6:12 NIV

Be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

Forgetting is human. Researchers who study memory keep landing on the same conclusion.

We forget names,

we forget where we put things,

we forget words that are on the tip of our tongue,

we forget what was said and even whether we already did the thing we were about to do.

Some of the memory loss is a result of being busy.

Last week I spoke on Isaiah 58. A section that I wasn’t able to address was the latter part of the chapter where the author is addressing the need to keep the sabbath holy. This is so important. In the middle of a difficult time for Israel, they are needing to rebuild walls and restore streets — God calls them to remember the sabbath. To rest and to take delight in Him.

Lets revisit Isaiah 58:13-14

Isaiah 58:13–14 NLT

“Keep the Sabbath day holy. Don’t pursue your own interests on that day, but enjoy the Sabbath and speak of it with delight as the Lord’s holy day. Honor the Sabbath in everything you do on that day, and don’t follow your own desires or talk idly. Then the Lord will be your delight. I will give you great honor and satisfy you with the inheritance I promised to your ancestor Jacob. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

Why does God remind His people to remember the sabbath…when you rest and take delight in God, you remember what He has done. When you ignore this important practice, you are less likely to take inventory and to remember.

Your heart quietly stops paying attention to the movement of God in your life.

And when it comes to our life with God, we can never afford to forget what He has done.

Remember the last year

Before we get into the text, let's do something simple. Let's remember. Think back over just the last year or so. Look at what we have lived through together:

Wars kept grinding on in Ukraine and the Middle East, with families on both sides longing for peace

The nation marked its 250th birthday

Wildfires tore through Los Angeles, one of the costliest disasters in our nation's history

Earthquakes devastated parts of Venezuela and left thousands searching for the missing

Artificial intelligence went from a novelty to something in nearly every home, school, and workplace

The Winter Olympics gathered the world in Italy, and the World Cup came to our own continent

The cost of living stayed on everyone's mind, at the gas pump, at the grocery store, and at the kitchen table

Now hold that in your mind, because here is the point. In a single year the world hands us more than we can hold on to. And if that is true of world events, how much more true is it of the things God has personally done for you?

We said goodbye to great people at this church as they passed from earth to heaven

You may received a phone call that changed everything (good or bad)

Your kids may have gone through some of the challenging moments of their life

You may find yourself single for the first time and not because you chose to be single

That is exactly the problem Joshua is dealing with in our text.

Settling into the text of Joshua 4

Joshua 4:1–9 NLT

When all the people had crossed the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Now choose twelve men, one from each tribe. Tell them, ‘Take twelve stones from the very place where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan. Carry them out and pile them up at the place where you will camp tonight.’ ” So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.” So the men did as Joshua had commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the Lord had told Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there. Joshua also set up another pile of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the place where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were standing. And they are there to this day.

The works of the Lord are worthy of remembering. And the human heart drifts, by default, toward forgetting the very things that matter most. So in the middle of the miracle, before the water even finished settling back into the riverbed, God gave a command. Build something you will not forget.

1. Take the time to remember

Whether there was one pile of stones or two is not the main thing. The main thing is that God, in the middle of a miracle, told His people to make something that would help them remember it. Not just the event, but the meaning of the event. He had dried up a river and carried them into the land He promised, and He did not want them to forget it.

So here is the question the whole passage is asking.

How do we remember the mighty works of God in our own lives?

I think that is a question worth sitting with, because we forget so easily. We stand in awe when God does something amazing. We celebrate His presence and His power. And then the next hard stretch comes, and we forget, and we get frustrated with God, and we start to wonder if He is even paying attention. In the dark we begin to doubt the very things we were sure of in the light.

God knows this about us. He knows the dry seasons are coming. So He gives commands like the one here in Joshua 4. He tells us to build spiritual memory into our lives and to make it visible. To set up markers we can go back to. Then, when the difficult days come, we can stand at the marker and remember. God is real. God is powerful. God does care about me. He has proven all of it before, and because of that, I can trust Him today.

The trouble is that our lives move so fast that we rarely stop to reflect. Reflection does not happen by accident. You have to make room for it.

2. Build it for the next generation

The memorial was not only for the people who walked across the riverbed. It had a second purpose. It was meant to carry a heritage of faith to children who had not been born yet.

Look again at what God says. "We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, 'What do these stones mean?' Then you can tell them, 'They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord's Covenant went across.'"

The stones were a teaching tool. They existed to make children curious enough to ask, so that the parents would tell the story again, so that the next generation would grow up in awe of what God had done and confident in what He could still do.

Do you see what that means for us? Keep telling your story. Keep a clear memory of what God has done for you, and keep passing it on, so that you never lose your own sense of wonder and so that the people coming behind you inherit more than your possessions. They inherit your faith.

So let me ask you plainly. What are the markers in your life? Do you remember the miracles, the moments when God spoke straight to your heart?

Some markers are places. Certain places carry memory the way Gilgal carried memory for Israel. For me one of those places is Mount Rainier, where I once built an altar to the Lord. You have a place like that too, a place where God met you and you have never been quite the same.

Some markers are people. God has used specific people in your life to encourage you, to challenge you, and to point you back to Him. Name them. Thank God for them. Tell your children about them.

3. Make your monuments public

Here is the last thing I want you to notice. These stones were public.

Joshua 4:24 tells us why God did all of it.

Joshua 4:24 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.”

God's actions always carry a redemptive purpose. Everything He does is designed to draw people into a deeper relationship with Him. Which means the world is supposed to see God working in our lives. But the world cannot see it unless we let it be seen.

That is one reason I have never been convinced by the idea that Joshua built a second, hidden memorial down in the middle of the river where no one would ever look at it. It runs against the whole point. It runs against what Jesus said in Matthew 5:15

Matthew 5:15 NIV

Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

God wanted those stones somewhere everyone could see them and be reminded of His power. And do you know what that means for us? It means the miracles are not mainly for us. They are for Him. He sets us free, He redeems us, He makes us whole, so that everyone around us can know how powerful and loving He is. That is not something we get to keep to ourselves. It has to be shared with the people near us who do not yet know the depth of His love.

I will be honest with you. This is where it gets hard for me. Most of my time is spent with church people, and most of my relationships are church relationships. For the world to see how God is working in my life, I have to actually be in the lives of people who do not yet know Jesus. I am still learning to do that, because I believe deeply that it is what God has called all of us to. As Jesus says in the very next verse, "let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

Close

So let me send you out with three simple invitations.

First, take the time to remember. This week, stop long enough to look back and name what God has done for you. Write it down. Do not trust yourself to hold it in your head.

Second, build it for the next generation. Tell someone younger than you one true story of God's faithfulness in your life. Give them a stone to carry.

Third, make it public. Let your marker be seen. Let someone who does not yet know Jesus watch what God is doing in you.

The Jordan will part in your life. It already has, more times than you remember. So build the marker. Tell the story. And when the next dry season comes, and it will come, go back and stand on the stones and remember. God is real. God is powerful. God has been faithful, and He will be faithful again.

Let's pray.