Joshua 8:30-35... All About Renewal & Relationship

Have you ever told your own faith story to yourself?  I know that sounds a little odd but I’m getting at the idea of actively remembering.  Joshua leads the people in doing what God had asked of them once they entered the land.  Their covenant with God was to be central to their lives and everything they did. 

So how about us?  How are we remembering and renewing?

Also, I get to tell you the briefest but best story about my friend, Bill.

Transcript

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Have you ever told your own faith story to yourself? I know that sounds a little bit odd, but I'm getting at the idea of actively remembering. I want to tell you a little bit about my friend Bill Katz. I could tell you so many different stories about him, but there are really just three things that I want you to know about him for right now. Number one, Bill was my friend. Number two, Bill loved Jesus, and number three, Bill was dying of leukemia. There was a moment when we all kind of understood what was happening. He was in the hospital and it was pretty clear that he wasn't going to come out. But a few of us gathered together, all of us friends and pastors, and we just cared about each other. And Bill wanted to just have a moment together. Just for some encouragement, some prayer. I think we took communion, but the thing that stuck out to me is that he had this little spray bottle, the kind of thing that you would use to like wet your hair before you like brushed it out or whatever. So just a little a little hand sprayer thing. And he had each of us uh kind of open up our hands, um, if you can see it like this, just kind of cupped like this, and he just sprayed a little bit of water into our hands as we were standing there together in a circle. And as he would spray that water in our hands, he simply said, Remember your baptism. And it was striking for me. You might come from a tradition where they do those kinds of things more frequently, but I hadn't, I hadn't really experienced that much up until that point. And it was profound for me to remember because I did. I remember being baptized as a teenager in the church that I grew up in, and certainly it prompted me to think about when I gave my life to Jesus. You know, sometimes we need to be reminded of what it looks like for us personally to be rescued, to be saved, to be loved, to be cared for, to be all of those things by Jesus, to take time and intentionally remember the story of our own salvation. Welcome to Meet Me in the Word. I am so glad that you've joined in with us today. We're in Joshua chapter 8, verses 30 through 35, right to the very end of the chapter, and it's the part of the story when the nation of Israel uh is renewing their covenant. They existed before Jesus came and did what he did for us, but they're renewing their covenant. They're remembering their faith in a very active way, and they're doing that in a sense that is similar to what I just told you about, this joyous remembering of God stepping into our lives and changing everything. We're gonna go ahead and jump into this text together. But before we do that, let's pray. Jesus, thank you for all that you are and for all that you have done for us. God, help us to remember, to remember the things that you have done for us. God, our salvation for sure, but other things along the way as well. And Lord, thank you that you you are so gentle and kind, and yet you you move in us in ways that are absolutely undeniable. Jesus, we're here to meet with you. Would you please meet with us? Amen. All right. So we're picking up the story. Uh if you were here with us or you just had a chance to take in last week's episode on Joshua 8, 1 through 29, you know that uh they were able to overcome the problems that they had had with AI and their own sin. They dealt with all of that and they took care of business, and now they're coming to a moment of remembering and renewing the covenant. Let's start in here together, verse thirty. Then Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the Lord, the god of Israel. As Moses, the servant of the Lord, had commanded the Israelites, he built it according to what is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of uncut stones on which no iron tool had been used. On it they offered to the Lord burnt offerings and sacrificed fellowship offerings. There, in the presence of the Israelites, Joshua wrote on stones a copy of the law of Moses. All the Israelites with their elders, officials, and judges, were standing on both sides of the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, facing the Levitical priests who carried it. Both the foreigners living among them and the native born were there. Half of the people stood in front of Mount Gerizim, and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the Lord had formerly commanded when he gave instructions to bless the people of Israel. Afterward, Joshua read all the words of the law, the blessings and the curses, just as it is written in the book of the law. There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded that Joshua did not read to the whole assembly of Israel, including the women and children, and the foreigners who lived among them. Let's go ahead and take a moment just to pause and listen to the Lord. You can pause this if you would like. All right, let's make a few observations about what is happening here. Uh and and there is some richness. I I was like I surprised myself a little bit as I was kind of going through this process on my on my own, and I've broken it down a little different than I normally do, but just into like kind of why, where, and how, uh what's what's taking place. So let's start with the why. Why are they doing this? Well, they were instructed instructed to do so when they had entered the promised land. We've seen already in in the story of Joshua that there are moments when it seems like a repentance thing or uh a preparation thing that they're taking time to be um set apart, right? To sanctify themselves and or consecrate themselves is a better word, and to be ready for whatever is about to happen next or to to respond to what's already taken place. Certainly the response when they don't know what's happened with uh with Achan and his sin of taking what he shouldn't have taken, they go through that process of seeking the Lord, and that's that's kind of a different thing. This isn't prompted by any sense of of any of that. It's just they're actually doing the thing that they were supposed to do. Moses had given them this instruction from the Lord, and now that they had moved in, uh they've taken two cities and they have an opportunity to do that very thing. So to remain faithful to uh to the book of the law and to just follow up on that, to be obedient to that. Once what's interesting to me here is that uh by doing this, it to me signals that the relationship with the Lord through the covenant, like their connection to God, and then with the covenant, really like the binding piece in the middle of all of that, it's like woven. And I I really do mean woven, like it's intricately placed into every aspect of their lives, everything that they're doing. It is inextricably linked to their success or failure and to the spiritual health of the people. So why? That's why they're doing the thing that they were instructed to do. Where is this happening? Well, you may have picked it up in the text that I read, but it's really happening at two mountains, Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. And they uh they're they're there and they're the people are kind of divided in half. And some are on one side facing the one mountain, and others are facing the others. And these two mountains were like right across from each other. There's a nice valley in in between, uh, but that's where uh the Lord had said, This is where you need to worship when you enter the land. This is where you renew the covenant, this is what you're supposed to do. So very specific instructions uh that they're doing. You can actually read a little bit more detail, which helps us to appreciate what's happening here if we go back into Deuteronomy. So Deuteronomy 11, verse 29 says this When the Lord your God has brought you into the land and you're entering to possess, right? So they're moving in to take possession of the land, you are to proclaim on Mount Gerizim the blessings and on Mount Ebal the curses. Now we don't know why one was designated for blessings and the other for curses, like if there was something unique about each mountain that said, we're not told that, and it could have simply been like just uh a picture of these two opposites that are there, but it was very clearly laid out. So the where is by these two mountains, and then the how. The how is interesting to me as well, according to those instructions. Again, we can go back to Deuteronomy and read more detail of about what was happening. So if we go to Deuteronomy 27, verses 11 and 12, and then it flows from there. There's there's more to it, but this kind of lays out what's what's about to happen. It says, On the same day Moses commanded the people, when you have crossed the Jordan, these tribes shall stand on Mount Gerzim to bless the people. Then he names them off Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Joseph, and Benjamin. And these tribes shall stand on Mount Ebal to pronounce curses, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Zebulun, Dan, and Nephtali. And then there's an example I want to give to you, because it there's several bits here that follow it, and they are they're talking about the curses, and then the next part moves into blessings. But an example is from verse 17 of Deuteronomy 27, and this is how it went. The Levites were supposed to say, cursed is anyone who moves their neighbor's boundary stone, and then all the people shall say, Amen. Right? So it's this recognition of like, no, these are the these are the rules, these are the laws of of our people, and this is how we're gonna treat each other. So that's what is meant there by curses. So don't, yeah, don't think like voodoo dolls or that kind of like weird cursing. No, it's not that. It's just this recognition of like we're gonna do the right thing, and if we don't do the right thing, then we are culpable. Man, that's a I'm loving these good words lately. I hope that you're getting a kick out of them. Yeah, they're guilty and they they realize that and and need to um be dealt with in an appropriate way. So all of this to say, as we think about this text that we've just read, uh, that theme from Joshua Moon continues to reverberate, not just echo, but reverberate throughout these stories. And for me, as we've been going through this together, it's become so strong and clear uh with kind of almost each passage that this idea of meditating on the book of the law. Now I know be strong and courageous is also a theme of Joshua, so don't get all worked up about it. Uh, but yeah, meditating on the book of the law is so critical for them. Uh this is a million percent about the people's relationship with God. What's happening in the context of Joshua conquest, absolutely. Like that's that's what's being talked about. But but the core of the story, the thing that kind of keeps showing up time and again is that God wants his people to be his people. He wants not just their loyalty, but their their kinship in that sense. Like, like let's do this together. He wants them to be in sync with him. I think more than anything else, he wants them to really just continue to follow him. Let's reflect. And I want to take it back actually to the short story I told you about my friend Bill at the beginning. And I wanted to leave you with just some remembrances about your own faith story. Now, Israel and Joshua, they're they're actively remembering and renewing their covenant with God as they were supposed to do. But I think it's important for us to do something similar. So rather than leave you with a question, I'm just gonna remind you of what God has done for you, and I'm just gonna use the Gospel of John three verses to to do that, to help us just remember and appreciate our own faith story. John three, sixteen. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. John five, four or twenty four. Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. John ten ten. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that they may have life and have it to the full. Remember your salvation. God is good. Let's pray. Jesus in heaven, thank you for today. God thank you for the joy that comes as we remind ourselves of what you have done for us and who you are to us. God thank you that you have not abandoned us in any way, but are invested into our lives. We love you. Amen.