Holy Sacrifice

Pastor Dusty Mackintosh

Joshua • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

0 ratings

· 7 views

Notes

Transcript

Joshua 5:1-9

God commands the people of Israel to renew their covenant sign of identity: circumcision. By this great physically distinctive sacrifice, the people were identified as belonging to God.

Circumcision was a drastic, sacrificial and enduring marker of identity.

This identity was always intended to be more than skin deep: circumcision of the heart.

Thanks For Coming

Jono at a baseball game. I asked him the team name and he said something about Newport Ponies. It might have been “Pony League” but let’s just go with that as the team name.

They won, and at the end of the game the coach went around the circle congratulating each player on some way they contributed to the win. Johnny, nice catch in the 2nd inning. Todd, great sacrificial bunt to bring home the winning game. All the way around the circle. Peter and Frank, that double play was incredible!

Everyone had done something amazing to contribute to the game. And he came to Jono. And he said “Jono… thanks for coming.”

Thanks for coming.

Now there is a story that makes it make sense. My parents had a rule about not playing sports on the Sabbath, it was one of the ways we chose at that time to keep the Sabbath separate and sacred. So we didn’t play games. But this day Jono’s team had an important game, and several people couldn’t make it and they were going to have to forfeit the game. So Jono and my parents made an exception that day, and moved everything around so that Jono could be there. The coach understood this and so just the fact that Jono had shown up gave the whole team a chance to play. “Jono, thanks for coming.”

He was willing to sacrifice to be part of the team. To be there when his team needed him. He put on the jersey, he strapped on the glove, and he showed up. And it was the best thing he did that day.

He was willing to sacrifice to be part of the team, especially when his team needed him. He just wanted to be a part of the Newport Ponies!

We all have that desire to be part of the team, part of community, identified as “one of us”. That is part of what we do here together, we are a family, a church, a people together. We are working on the Jerseys.

We do things to be part of the team. But it’s really God’s team, ultimately. We do things to be part of God’s team.

What would you do to be part of God’s team?

Good News, Bad News

The people of Israel have just experienced this incredible miracle: crossing the Jordan on dry ground. And they celebrated, building a memorial of twelve standing stones that would testify to God’s salvation for hundreds of years.

God saved them and delivered them into the Promised Land… and they told His story.

Really, really good news. They took the good news first. And what follows? The bad news.

At least it sounds like bad news to me.

Sixth Grade Health Class – Circumcision

A little health class, cover your ears if you are mortified by hearing a description of male anatomy.

God created male and female. And he created us all with different parts. And the parts used for sexual reproduction are tremendously sensitive, filled with nerves. At the end of the male’s penis is a fold of skin that naturally covers and protects the head of the penis. This is called the foreskin and it has between 20,000 and 70,000 nerve endings.

Attention, all you Israelite men, from infant to 40 year old men. The good news is we have entered the Promised Land. The bad news is, you know that incredibly sensitive fold of skin. We are going to cut it off. Everybody line up.

The Bible is rated R. And some of it is gross. So let’s read it.

Joshua 5:1-9

1 As soon as all the kings of the Amorites who were beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan for the people of Israel until they had crossed over, their hearts melted and there was no longer any spirit in them because of the people of Israel.

Good news.

2 At that time the LORD said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.” 3 So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth.

Why a second time? We will see. All the males used to be circumcised, but in the wandering in the dessert they were not. They were under the curse of disobedience and so distanced from God, distanced from his covenant in that way.

They weren’t on the team.

And to emphasize how major this whole operation was, this is officially the grossest named location I have ever found in the Bible. Gibeath-haaraloth = hill of foreskins.

It is a hill. Of foreskins.

4 And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died in the wilderness on the way after they had come out of Egypt. 5 Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people who were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. 6 For the people of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, until all the nation, the men of war who came out of Egypt, perished, because they did not obey the voice of the LORD; the LORD swore to them that he would not let them see the land that the LORD had sworn to their fathers to give to us, a land flowing with milk and honey. 7 So it was their children, whom he raised up in their place, that Joshua circumcised. For they were uncircumcised, because they had not been circumcised on the way.

8 When the circumcising of the whole nation was finished, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. 9 And the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” And so the name of that place is called Gilgal to this day.

What is Circumcision?

Oh man. Good news and bad news. Fortunately all the people were scared and stayed away while the men healed up. What a sacrifice! What a process! You are in line and listening to all the guys before you go. And watching that hill grow.

Okay, moving on from that.

Circumcision is not entirely unique to the tribes of Israel, other surrounding cultures practiced the same or similar customs. But uniquely, to the people of Israel, circumcision is the covenant sign reaching back to God’s covenant with Abraham.

Genesis 17, God commanded Abraham to circumcise every male as the sign of the covenant… and if someone wasn’t circumcised they were to be “cut off from his people” for they have broken the covenant.

So symbolically, all the men of Israel were cut-off from the people, until this moment.

And they were willing to go through this savage sacrifice to get back on the team.

Circumcision is a savage external sacrificial sign of identity. They are God’s covenant people.

As brutal as this was, as savage, as kind of gross and weird. Terrible military tactics. “Israel has crossed the river, we have no hope! Wait, they did what now?”

They were willing to do anything to be on God’s team. To be identified as His. To be wholly his.

But circumcision was only ever a sign. A shadow. An external symbol of an internal reality.

Circumcision of the Heart

Paul speaks of this “circumcision of the heart”.

Romans 2:25-29

28 For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. 29 But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter. His praise is not from man but from God.

But Paul didn’t make this up, he is drawing on an Old Testament tradition.

The prophet Jeremiah spoke of this “circumcision of the heart” and begged his people graphically to circumcise their hearts:

Jeremiah 4:4

4 Circumcise yourselves to the Lord;

remove the foreskin of your hearts,

O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem;

lest my wrath go forth like fire,

and burn with none to quench it,

because of the evil of your deeds.”

The “foreskin of your hearts”. There is a sacrifice there, a cutting away.

But even Jeremiah didn’t make this up.

Maybe weeks before, Moses spoke his final words. And he described what would take place when they entered into the land. And he uses these powerful words.

Deuteronomy 30:5-6

5 And the Lord your God will bring you into the land that your fathers possessed, that you may possess it. And he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers.

The good news:

6 And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live.

And that isn’t bad news is it? It is good news.

God will circumcise your heart… so that…

Circumcise Your Heart

So what is it to circumcise your heart? To cut away anything in our lives, in our minds, in our hearts that is not of Him, so that we might be wholly His. Identified as wholly his. He wants nothing less than all of us, so that we can partake in all of Him.

My good friend C.S. Lewis wrote words to this effect that have stuck with me for years. I still remember where I was when I read them. And rather than summarize them, I want to read you the words that have so stuck with me.

C.S. Lewis. “Weight of Glory”

Our temptation is to look eagerly for the minimum that will be accepted. We are in fact very like honest but reluctant taxpayers. We approve of an income tax in principle. We make our returns truthfully. But we dread a rise in the tax. We are very careful to pay no more than is necessary. And we hope – we very ardently hope – that after we have paid it there will still be enough left to live on.

For it is not so much of our time and so much of our attention that God demands; it is not even all our time and all our attention; it is ourselves. For each of us the Baptist's words are true: “He must increase and I decrease” He will be infinitely merciful to our repeated failures; I know no promise that He will accept a deliberate compromise. For He has, in the last resort, nothing to give us but Himself; and He can give that only insofar as our self-affirming will retires and makes room for Him in our souls. Let us make up our minds to it; there will be nothing “of our own” left over to live on, no “ordinary” life. I do not mean that each of us will necessarily be called to be a martyr or even an ascetic. That's as may be. For some (nobody know which) the Christian life will include much leisure, many occupations we naturally like. But these will be received from God's hands. In a perfect Christian they would be as much part of his “religion,” his “service,” as his hardest duties, and his feasts would be as Christian as his fasts. What cannot be admitted – what must exist only as an undefeated but daily resisted enemy – is the idea of something that is “our own,” some area in which we are to be “out of school,” on which God has no claim.

For He claims all, because He is love and must bless. He cannot bless us unless He has us. When we try to keep within us an area that is our own, we try to keep an area of death. Therefore, in love, He claims all.

He claims all. All of us. So that all of us can love all of him. And that requires surgery because there are parts of me that do not love Him, that do not glorify Him. That even distract and detract from me loving Him.

And so, He claims it… and He asks me to give it up.

He calls me to savage sacrifice, that I might be wholly His. He calls me to allow my heart to be circumcise.

Who Does the Circumcision

Who does the circumcision? For the people of Israel, it was Joshua. Presumably he had some help. They just had to show up, be brave, and let him do it.

They were willing to do anything to be on God’s team. And they came to forward. And maybe Joshua said to them: “Jono, thanks for coming.”

Moses said that “the Lord your God will circumcise your heart.” He is ready and willing to do that work in you. Are you willing to show up and let him?

Is there anything in your heart that needs to be cut away?

It might be a painful process. It may feel like savage sacrifice. But if there is anything in my life that is not of Him, that is holding me back from Him in any way, that is distracting me from Him in any way… God take it from me!

So I invite you to pray a dangerous prayer. A prayer of circumcision. That God would do surgery on your life, on your mind, on your heart, on your soul. That God would cut away anything that is not of Him so that He can replace it with Himself.

Prayer of Circumcision

I want to be wholly yours.

…so that I can wholly love you. So that I can truly live.

God, cut away anything in my life that is not of you. That I may be yours completely. That I may wholly love you. That I may truly live.

Related Media

Related Sermons