Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Opening Illustration

How does a person grow?

How does a person change?

How does godliness get formed in a Christian’s heart and life?

There are many facets of Christianity, many disciplines that are vital to develop if you want to grow.

Community.

Friendship.

Prayer.

Study.

These habits are tried and true habits of the heart, that if you commit your life to developing and strengthing these habits, the Lord will develop fruit in you.

Inward fruit of a life lived honestly for Christ, and outward fruit of many others around who are lifted up and brought deeper into fellowship with God because of your influence.

There is one rather neglected element of growth that I would like to lazer in on today.

And that is the willingness to be stretched beyond your comfort for the sake of the glory of God.

I’ve shared with this Church many times, that one of the greatest changes in me as a person and in my life as a follower of Christ was the decision of my wife and I’s to listen to the Spirit’s prompting and step into the world of becoming Foster Parents and eventually Adoptive Parents of two beautiful little girls.

I remember thinking at the time, “We already have one of our own.

Life is sweet.

Why would I bring the challenges that I know are associated with Foster Care and Adoption into our life.”

And over and over again, the Lord’s response was the same.

“Because I’ve called you to it.”

Stepping into those challenges, over the last five years, has been both some of the most difficult and challenging life work I’ve ever done.

In foster and adoptive care you enter into a world of lawyers and judges, of trauma, of attachment difficulties, of long nights and many prayers for help.

At the same time, it has been some of our greatest joys and deepest growth in Christ.

Some of our deepest reflections on the grace of the gospel.

Some of our greatest opportunities to witness for Christ.

Personal

My point in sharing that is to make the simple but often neglected case that the God of the Bible has not called us as Christians to a life of complacency.

Rather he has called us to a life of sacrifice and adventure, that if we are willing to follow will produce an eternal fruit.

As we begin today I want to ask you a poignant question.

Is there any sacrifice in your Christianity?

Is there any stretching in your Christianity?

Is God ever asking you to step boldly out of the places and spaces where you already feel confident?

If the answer is no, I pray today He the Lord might this message to stir the pot of your life a bit, and to call you into something a bit more radical.

Regular Biblical Christianity is bold.

It is not passive or weak.

But many of us have never experienced the boldness and wonder of it all.

Context

We’re going to be studying an interesting little passage today out of Joshua chapter 3.

In this passage, the people of God in the Old Testament have escaped from slavery in Egypt, and because rampant sin and grumbling God has made them spend 40 years as a people wandering through the desert, until the entire first generation that were part of the crowd that had walked out of Egypt passed away.

Now, they have a new leader — Joshua who has replaced Moses.

And they’re standing on the brink of the Promised Land.

For forty years they have heard that God would lead them to this land.

For forty years they had prayed for the day when they would arrive in the land that flowed with milk and honey.

And hear they are, an entire nation of wanderers and escaped slaves, now standing at the shore of the Jordan River.

The Jordan River, depending on the season can roar like the Mississippi or trickle like backyard creek.

On this particular day, it was roaring like the Missisippi.

We read in verse 15:

Joshua 3:15 “…(now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest),”

So our context, the Jordan River is raging, and God has called them to cross the river as an entire nation, and go conquer the Promised Land.

Their eager for God’s promises, but there’s no simple way to cross the river.

Two principles for bold Christian Living

Principle 1: First, Consecrate Yourselves

Let’s pick up our story as the Israelites are camped out on the shore of the Jordan River.

We Read:

Joshua 3:1-6 “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.”

5 Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.”

6 And Joshua said to the priests, “Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on before the people.”

So they took up the ark of the covenant and went before the people.”

Here are the people of God preparing to do something that will certainly be a major change in their life.

But their first obstacle is that they need to get across the roaring Jordan River.

And before the Lord has them do anything, they are told to “consecrate themselves.”

What did that mean?

For the Israelites there were certain practices that they would have done to prepare themselves for a profoundly spiritual event in their life.

It would have involved rituals like cleaning, and praying, and reflecting on God’s Word.

The exact details of what they did to prepare for this great work of God are unknown.

But the point is that each individual, each family, the religious leaders and civic leaders, were communally preparing themselves for God to do the extraordinary among them.

Mistake 1: We Want to Do Great Things for God

I think we make two mistakes on this front in our modern day, and they’re related.

Some of us in this room want to do great things for God.

We have it in our minds that we want to rush ahead and build ministries, go out and get do extraordinary things.

I find myself in that category often.

That heart has all sorts of zeal inside of it, but it is untrained in the things of God.

It is not our job to do extraordinary things for God.

Rather, it is God’s perogative to do extraordinary things for us.

That is precisely what he is doing for Israel in this passage.

He is going to lead them across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land where they will overcome every enemy.

But notice their role is not utterly passive.

They don’t sit and do nothing and just expect miracles to happen around them.

They first consecrate themselves.

I read one pastor this week who said, “Consecration means dethroning yourself and enthroning Christ.”

I like that.

Whatever this process was that they went through, it involved a process of mentally and prayerfully submitting their hearts and their minds to their God.

Practically We Must Consecrate Ourselves

Practically this means that if you want to live a life that experiences the fullness of Christ working in you and through you, you must make a habit of consecrating yourself.

You must work at those age old fundamentals of studying your Scriptures in order to know God.

Of setting aside time to commune with God, to pray, to reflect on God’s goodness and His character.

One of the great failures of the modern Church is that we forsake prayer for action, not realizing that all the power in our action is built through our prayer.

Illustration: Praying Missionary Article from Dave Start of Covid

I recall when Covid began I read an article from a missionary who told the story that years ago he was ministering to a village way up in remote mountains.

One winter was incredibly snowy and dangerous and the missionary got cut off from the entire village, for the entire winter.

He immediately began preparing to make very dangerous, perhaps deadly, trip through the snow in order to get to the village.

But the Lord stopped him.

And instead he committed that entire winter to praying for that village.

He said that when the snow melted and he made his way to the village, the little Church he had planted had multiplied exponentially.

The power of our ministry is in the prayer.

Mistake 2: We Fail to Live With the Urgency of Scripture

The second mistake is related.