Joshua 4:1-9

One of the best things we can do when we realize that God has done something important in our lives is to mark that moment with something to help us remember it in the future. What do you keep with you, or maybe have in your home, that prompts conversation about God's goodness in your life?  The people of Israel were instructed to build a simple but powerful reminder that God made a way for them to enter the new land. 

Transcript

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You know how when you get together with certain friends, everything just feels easy? The conversation flows and never really feels forced. And even when you have pauses along the way, they're not weird or awkward. They're just because you're a couple of people hanging out and you're feeling good about life and you don't necessarily need to fill every moment with a whole bunch of words. I think those kinds of friendships and those kinds of moments are such a blessing. I got to enjoy one of those conversations earlier this week and I came away even afterwards feeling like, oh, I really needed that, just to spend that time and to kind of feel recalibrated a little bit. This particular passage today feels a little bit like that, at least for me. We're in Joshua chapter four, verses one through nine, and sometimes, to be a little bit more clear, sometimes I feel like the Lord gives us a particular passage, and it might be different for you than it is for me, and that's fine. But just gives us a passage where we're not like straining to understand, we're not in in that spot, and and the teaching or even just the story that's depicted isn't one that necessarily troubles us. It's just it's just as if God is using that part of Scripture to just let you know that He's there, and it's gonna be okay. And for me, at least today, this is one of those passages. So Joshua chapter four, verses one through nine. Before we get to that, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for good friends, and thank you for your scriptures and the way that you continually reach out to us and give us exactly what we need. We're here to meet with you, and we're so glad that you're here to meet with us. Be with us now. Amen. All right, let's begin together. When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight. So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, and said to them, Go over before the Ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, What do these stones mean? Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua, and they carried them over with them to their camp where they put them down. Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant had stood, and they are there to this day. Go ahead and take a moment here before I continue talking, if you want to just kind of sit in that passage for a moment and just ask the Lord to reveal whatever needs to be revealed to you. I think that's a again a really important and healthy choice for each of us. Feel free to pause and then come back or just keep hanging out with me here. So we're gonna handle this just a little bit differently, and I wanted to do that because I just I feel like we don't always need to do the exact same thing. So we'll change it up just a little bit. And my hope is that while today might feel a little bit on the shorter side, for me, this is just about recognizing, oh, this is one of those things that God does, and He reminds us about His goodness, and that really is kind of a central theme that I see here in this moment, as the nation of Israel crosses uh in into the Promised Land, you know, physically for the first time altogether, and they do so by crossing the Jordan River. So I'm just gonna move right here into some moments I'm confident that you all understood that part of the story perfectly fine. So the first thing that really um just kind of blesses me along the way is this reminder that it's important to mark the moments when God did something. You know, for the Israelites, they they took those stones, and I like to think that they were small enough to carry, but too big to throw. I think that they were a pretty hefty size, but each man was able to lift it on his own. So they grabbed these stones from the middle of the riverbed, and and it's from the place of God's miraculous work. These stones would bear witness and trigger conversations for generations to come. So there's the the moment itself, which is miraculous, and there's just that recognition. But God is like, I know how you operate, and I want to make sure that you remember the way that this happened, that this story doesn't just die off with the next crazy thing that happens in your life, that you hang on to this one. This isn't something that's a regular day occurrence. I want you to remember this. And so he asks them to take these stones from the middle of the riverbed and to bring them out, and they would serve as this memorial, as this reminder of what God had done, and it would prompt those conversations, and the Lord even says that's that's what we want to have happen. And that kind of leads me into this next bit, which is which is this. I really believe it's important to tell the story of God in your life to others and to yourself. I I think we sometimes can be so caught up in the moment or the surrounding moments in this season of life. And we need to be reminded of what happened, you know, depending on how old you are, but you need to be reminded of what happened 20 years ago. You mean need to be reminded of the things that God has done along the way to recognize maybe it's the growth that's taken place or just these really, really important moments along the way. And we do that for two reasons. One, so we don't forget. That makes quite a bit of sense. And then, secondly, so your family or your friends, whoever your heritage might be, so your family grows in its shared history. There is something so good when I am visiting and hanging out with my parents or even other, you know, older relatives, and inevitably the conversation will move into stories about things that happened a long time ago. And hearing those stories, talking about those things, reminds me that I'm part of something much bigger and much longer than my own life. And that's healthy. It's important for me, and I think it's important for all of us. And whether or not you've been able to have the benefit of that in your own life, you can be somebody who uh blesses others by doing it yourself. So just wanted to encourage you uh in the context of that. You know, I'm saying it's good to have these prompts, these important moments, and we're talking about you know, the people of Israel, you know, collecting rocks. And uh and if you've ever uh watched a little child, a toddler, uh, you know, even even for a while, they they grow up seven, eight, nine years old, maybe even later than that, they they like to pick up those rocks and and uh and collect them. You know, if we grab physical things from everything that happens in our in our lives, then we'll just have a whole bunch of clutter. I I hope you I think you can recognize that. But there are these moments, these are these moments that that are significant, they're different, they're bigger than what the other thing might be. And so the encouragement is just, you know, think about it. Think about those m those times in your life when you've recognized God's provision or God's um instruction and direction in your life and take time just to thank him for that. We have something at our home that actually doesn't mark a moment, but it's a recognition of God's protection and provision for us. We put up a little landmark kind of a sign at our driveway. It's not super fancy, but but it's nice. And it just has it's like engraved kind of or burnt in, I'm not sure how that was done, but it's got a picture of two sparrows, and it just says two sparrows on it. And it comes from Matthew chapter ten, verses twenty nine through thirty-one, which says, Are not two sparrows sold for a penny, yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your father's care, and even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid, you are worth more than many sparrows. And that's our little reminder to ourselves that that no matter what's happening in life, that that we are viewed as valuable, that our Heavenly Father, that God sees us and delights in us and cares for us. We might be just a couple of sparrows hanging out here doing life, and yet we don't need to be worried about anything. God sees us and knows us and loves us, and I think about that every time I pull into my driveway, because that's the direction it's facing, it's easier to see that way. Every time I pull into my driveway, I'm reminded, oh yeah, that's right. Today's gonna be okay. It might be hard, but it's gonna be okay. Why? Because I know that God's got me. I would encourage you, find some way to remind yourself and to pass on that legacy of faith and the promises and the goodness of God in your life to not just yourself, but to those that you love and care about. Let me pray for us. Jesus, thank you for today. Thank you for the blessing of Joshua and their and their story, but Lord also for the things that you continue to do in us. God, remind us of your goodness and your faithfulness. Remind us to tell those good stories to ourselves and to those around us. Amen.