People At The Crossing (The RemakeK

People At The Crossing (The Remake)

Joshua 3:3-4

Joshua 3:1-5 (ESV) 1 Then Joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. 2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. 4 Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length. Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”

I hold in my hand two manila folders that are over 27 years old. They are labeled and numbered. One is number 7. The other is number 9. They contain sermon notes, manuscripts from May and June of 1994, respectively. The sermon in number seven is entitled People at the Crossing. Stapled to the handwritten sermon notes is an orange “Sermon Preserve Record.” This record contains the title of the sermon, the text of the sermon, and the name and number of the computer floppy disk the original was stored on. It also contains the theme of the sermon and the main point of the sermon. At the bottom of the page is a table that lists all the dates and places I’ve preached this sermon.

There is but one place and one date listed. The place is First Baptist Church, Grand Marais, MN. The date is May 1st, 1994. This is the first sermon I ever preached here in Grand Marais. The notes are handwritten because it is not the message I came prepared to preach. I had arranged almost six months earlier with FBC’s then pastor, Tim Brown, to preach for him when he was on vacation. I was actually scheduled to speak in February and another friend was to speak in May, but there was a bit of confusion and I wound up arriving with Linda and her parents to provide pulpit supply on May 1st.

We arrived on a Friday evening only to discover, upon arrival, there had been a serious development in the life of the congregation. Tim, who had been pastor here only 19 months, had gone on vacation as planned, but while on vacation sent his completely unexpected resignation letter to the congregation. I arrived to find a situation colored by shock, disappointment, disbelief, and confusion. The sermon I had on hand spoke to none of those experiences. I began to pray and this is the sermon God gave me, a message for people whose lives were upended by sudden change, a people who desperately wanted God to lead them as they moved forward into the unknown, a people who, like ancient Israel at the Jordan River, were a people at the crossing.

Today, I have on my schedule and have prepared a message on Mark 10:1-12. This is the only passage in the gospel of Mark where Jesus addresses the critical issues of marriage and divorce. It is a crucial passage for His disciples in how it reveals God’s heart and mind and will. I am confident I have an adequate understanding of the passage to preach it faithfully and accurately. I am confident that if I preach this message you will learn some things about the word of God, and the ways of God, and the heart of God that you did not know.

What I am not confident about this morning is God’s purpose for this message in your lives. So, I have decided to do something I think I have never done before here at Cornerstone. I am going to preach a message I have preached before. Instead of the message Marriage, Divorce, and the Mess Sin Makes from Mark 10:1-12, I am instructed to offer People at the Crossing (The Remake) from Joshua 3:1-5. Like the people of Israel who have come to the end of forty years wandering in the desert and are camped on the edge of a fresh beginning, we too are camped on the edge of a fresh beginning after more than 18 months of significant disruption, as individuals, families, and as a congregation. Like Israel, we have been more or less comfortable in what we did and how we did church together in days past, but now we are faced with a newness we cannot and must not avoid if we are to participate in the fullness of God’s blessing.

The world has changed. The assumptions we live by have changed. The cultural morals that surround us have changed, mostly for the worst. Spiritual fervor has grown cold. People are lovers of themselves more than lovers of God. We have moved in America through the stages of a nation abandoned by God to its own devices, a cycle Paul describes in Romans 1 as a downward spiral from exchanging the truth of God for a lie, to God giving us over first to sexual immorality, then sexual perversion, then cultural insanity.

Like the people of Israel, we have come through a year and a half of pandemic and mixed messages, seeking to follow Jesus through a veritable desert of unmarked paths and unrehearsed choices. We wonder if we did the right thing or the wrong thing or if in the end, in the big picture, we did anything at all. We struggle for reintegration, reconnection, renewal, and recovery. We do not completely trust the new normal. And more than anything else we ask this question: Having come here to this place and situation, how do we move forward without getting swept away in the aftermath of disaster?

We have much in common with ancient Israel, poised on the banks of the Jordan River, ready to cross the River and meet the challenge of the new adventure God has in store for us. We, like Israel before us, are God’s people at the crossing. Our journey onward will take place in time. It will take physical effort, spiritual focus, emotional commitment. We will each experience the journey ourselves, in our own way, but we will also experience God’s leadership together, all of us, committed not only to Him but to one another and to God’s mission to fill the earth with the knowledge of His glory.

We have much in common with the ancient people of God. Let me draw three parallels this morning. We are first of all, as people at the crossing, people with a past, people with a history. Verse one tells us the people set out from Shittim and came to the Jordan River. They have been a traveling people for forty years. For forty years they have been one long endless funeral procession. God had delivered the previous generation from 400 years of slavery in Egypt, but when they arrived at the place and moment of trusting God, they blinked. Instead of entering the land to which God was leading, they rebelled and he condemned His people to wander in the desert for forty years until every single adult male of that generation had died. The move from Shittim to the Jordan marked the end of a generation, then end of one long journey, and the beginning of another.

These are people who have lived their lives in the desert. They have seen the handiwork of God and the wickedness of man. The ate the manna and the quail, they drank the water from the rock. They saw the cloud and the glory and heard the thunder on Sinai, but they also complained and rebelled and sinned with a golden calf and died by snake bite. But here they are, with all their life experiences, camped along the Jordan River, the sins of a generation behind and a new generation of faithfulness ahead.

Let’s not forget, in this moment of time as we stand missing the past and looking ahead that we are people with a past, with a history, whole people who bring the sum of all our life experiences to this crossing. We do not have to be perfect to cross and make progress. We have to be faith-filled. We have to be hopeful. We have to be obedient. But we don’t have to be perfect.

David was not perfect or sinless, but he was submissive to God, and that made him a man after God’s own heart. Peter denied Jesus three times, but God made him a leader of the church and he saw 3000 people respond to his very first sermon in Pentecost morning. Paul persecuted the church until Christ confronted him on the road to Damascus. 2/3 of the New Testament was penned by Paul who referred to his old life, his history, as the chief of sinners. We do not have to be perfect today, to make this crossing, but we do have to hide our history in Christ, and trust Him, looking to Him to lead us onward.

Not only are we people with a past, we are people with a present. I can’t imagine what it would be like to get two million people marching in the right direction at the same time, can you? Yet, that is what happened every time Israel had to move. And here they are again, all packed up, all the kids and animals accounted for, all the tents rolled up and tied to the camels and donkeys, and they’re off, only to stop short of the goal and wait for three days.

Seriously, Joshua? Really? Do you know how hard it is to get everything packed and ready and now we just have to wait . . . again!! I understand this. I’m one of those “if you’re there on time, you’re late” kind of guys. Once I’m ready to go, I’m ready to go.

God doesn’t seem to have that issue. It seems to me He is quite content with waiting. In fact, I think He loves to delay just so we will value the time spent in waiting. One of the values of waiting is that it forces us to consider our strengths and weaknesses relative to our objective for moving. One time I was waiting for Linda. We were heading on a trip. While waiting and thinking about where we were headed, I realized I had entirely forgotten something I would need that would be hard to replace.

Waiting forced Israel to think about what was ahead. There was the flooded Jordan River they would have to cross. And once they crossed, there were the fortified cities and warrior people to confront. Waiting forced them to mentally, spiritually, and physically prepare for the requirements of success.

Waiting also challenges my determination to move forward or remain behind. Jesus told a parable about kings going to battle and counting whether they had enough manpower to win the battle. Waiting gives me time to take stock and determine whether I really want to move forward, or if I need better preparation.

G. Campbell Morgan once said, “Waiting compels me to seek to put my life in right relation with the forces that are equal to tomorrow.” Those forces, of course, are God working in us through His Holy Spirit. Isaiah 40:31 says,

Isaiah 40:31 (ESV) but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

People at the crossing may be people who, for one reason or another, have to wait. Don’t waste the wait. Psalm 130:6 suggests we wait with an earnest desire:

Psalm 130:6 (ESV) my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning.

Danger abounds in the dark, so the night watchman waits eagerly for the morning light. If, in the providence of God, our crossing is delayed and we must wait for whatever is coming next, let us wait with even greater eagerness and longing for the LORD’s direction. And let us wait not only with eagerness but with full confidence.

Micah 7:7 (ESV) But as for me, I will look to the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me.

Micah determines that regardless of how anyone else handles their life circumstances, he will wait confidently for God to rescue him, knowing that God hears his heart and will act with power and goodness upon his need. So, while we are waiting, let’s wait with eagerness and confidence, and let’s wait with patience.

The people camped for three days on the far side of the Jordan. They camped within eyesight, within sound and smell of their new home, their new land. And they didn’t grumble. They didn’t complain. There were no outbursts of frustration or rage. They waited patiently for God to speak. They waited for God to lead. They waited for God to keep His promise.

Like Israel, we are people at the crossing. We are people with a past history, we are people with a present need, but we are also, perhaps most importantly, people with a promise!

Joshua 3:5 (ESV) Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do wonders among you.”

Earlier God appeared to Joshua and made him a promise. God said, “Every place that the sole of your foot shall tread, that have I given you.” That’s kind of an all-encompassing promise. You go there where I lead you and I’ll give it to you, God promises. Jesus said something similar to His disciples, and I believe to all His disciples, including us:

Matthew 28:19-20 (ESV) 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

The apostle Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, wrote,

Romans 8:31-39 (ESV) 31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You are not some poor, pathetic loser on the wrong side of history. You are one God is for, who are one for whom God gave up His Son, you are one to whom God will give all things. You are one God justifies. You are one Christ intercedes for. You are one who cannot be separated from the love of Christ by any opposition in all creation. You are more than conquerors through Him who loved us such that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You may be a people at the crossing today, between the way things were and the way God is going to make them, but have no doubt, you are emphatically a people with a promise! Joshua called these people at the crossing, these people with a past, a present, and a promise, to consecrate themselves, to prepare themselves for God’s action, to ready themselves for the work of God on their behalf. As we close this morning, let me outline two ways we can consecrate ourselves in this day.

First, we can consecrate ourselves in preparation for the working of God by divesting ourselves of the unholy. Paul wrote to Timothy and said,

2 Timothy 2:20-21 (ESV) 20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. 21 Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.

We can divest ourselves of the unholy, the dishonorable through confession and repentance, fearlessly naming sin, rejecting it, celebrating God’s forgiveness through the cross of Christ, and committing to living aligned with God’s heart and will.

Second, we can consecrate ourselves by adopting the holy. Paul, writing to the Ephesians, informed them they were chosen by God to “be to the praise of His glory.” He wasn’t just talking about praising God for what He does, he meant loving God for who He is, rejoicing in the relationship God has opened for us in Christ, enjoying the closeness of His presence through the Holy Spirit, daily treating God as infinitely praiseworthy with our words, our attitudes, our actions, with all we have and all we are and all we do.

Cornerstone, once again we are people at a crossing. No one but God knew what the arrival of COVID and the cultural change that came with it would mean for us. But here we are, people with a past, a present, and a promise waiting eagerly, confidently, and patiently for God to fulfill His word in and through us. Like the flooded Jordan River presented an obstacle to Israel , there are what appear to be obstacles in our path as well, but what is an obstacle to us is simply an opportunity to God. Let us set our sights on what is ahead and prepare for ourselves, for just as God has accomplished the wonder of salvation through Jesus Christ, I believe God is going to do wonders in the church, in our church, in our day.