Full Transcript

Good morning! It’s great to see you. How many of you got a little sun on your face yesterday? Did anybody go to the beach? I was a little concerned about the Saturday night crowd—if we were going to have anybody show up! I just thought everybody would be out tanning!

I’ve got a little glow on my face—and Micah does as well—because this past week we spent a little time in Arizona at our annual senior pastors retreat. So we were surrounded by Harvest senior pastors, and just had a fantastic time! On the way back, I was standing in line at the airport at that security “cattle stall” thing they’ve got going on there in the Phoenix airport – it was like a forty-five minute thing to get through the security.

While I was standing there, my phone started to blow up, and it turns out that the hotel that I had just checked out of was calling to inform me that I had forgotten something. I’d left my laptop! That’s what I said! I would rather forget one of my children than my laptop! I’ve been known to carry my laptop places where I’ve forgotten my children!

How many of you are a little forgetful? How many of your spouses are a little forgetful? Okay, good, thank you for the honesty—to confess someone else’s sin. I’m, at times, a little forgetful. There are things that we have a tendency to forget. Do you know that God’s people are prone to forget some things?

This morning, what we are going to see as we open to the third chapter of the book of Joshua…everybody do that right now. Open your Bible to Joshua chapter 3. We’re going to find out that God, because He knows His people are prone to forget, gives some reminders. There are some things that God never wants us to forget, because there are some things that, if we forget them, we stop moving onward! We’re going to see that vividly illustrated through three very specific, very visual reminders here in Joshua.

Now, I want to give you a little warning here as we start. This is a high-Scripture-content message. We’re going to cover three chapters in Joshua. It’s okay, you can breathe. We’re still going to get out at the same time. We’re not going to look at every single verse, but we’re going to look at some particular things that God wants us to see in chapter 3, chapter 4 and chapter 5. Each one of those three chapters has a different visual reminder.

We’ve been kind of front-loading the message each week with a sentence. If I could tell you the message in only one sentence, here is what it would be:

 

Big idea: God wants me to remember His faithfulness with every step I take onward in faith.

We will stop taking steps onward when we forget how faithful and how gracious and how good God is. So, we’re going to see these three reminders from Joshua chapter 3, chapter 4 and chapter 5.

If you’re new here, understand what we’re doing. We believe that God wrote a book, and when we meet together as God’s people, we believe there are some things God wants us to be reminded of in the book. So we open it up, we kind of go verse-by-verse through the book here.

Just to catch you up, if you’re new – God has a Promised Land that He wanted His people to enter into thousands of years ago. That piece of land is still being fought over today. Yet, as God’s people went in, His promise is that they were to get in the land, they were to get on to a place in the land, and they were to get all that God had for them in the land.

And there are lessons for you and me, because God wants every one of us, as His people, to be moving onward. The direction of the Christian life is always onward, no matter how far you’ve wandered—no matter how far you’ve come—there is something out there God wants you to get on with, and to get in to, and to get all that God has for you. So there are all kinds of lessons for us here in the book of Joshua.

Here is the first reminder. We’re going to see it in Joshua 3. God wants to remind me who is with me:

1. I will never forget who is with me. (Joshua 3:1-6; 13-17)

 

Let’s see it here, beginning in Joshua 3:1, “Then Joshua rose early in the morning…” How many of you are that kind of person? God bless you! Pray for the rest of us as you get up early in the morning! How many of you need a little reminder to get up in the morning?

Call it an alarm clock—but Joshua—I don’t know what he had, but he got up early in the morning.  “…And they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan…” The Jordan was a river, not a basketball player. You have to insert yourself in the story, okay? Possibly two million Israelites who had spent forty years in a wilderness, wandering around, had now come onto the east bank of this Jordan River. They’re staring across and they’re wondering, “When are we going to get to cross over?”

Joshua is leading them now, and this is the climactic moment. “He and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. At the end of three days the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, ‘As soon as you see the ark of the covenant…” Underline “the ark of the covenant” – that’s the first visual reminder; we’ll come back and unpack that in just a moment – “…of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it.” Underline the word “follow.” That is what the Christian life is all about! It’s about following the Lord!

“Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length.” (Joshua 3:4) How tall are you? I doubt you would give me your height in cubits. How many of you have measured something in a cubit lately?

So let’s make the conversion here: two thousand cubits is approximately one-thousand yards, roughly three football fields—about a half-mile. So, the ark was to be in front of them, but they were not to get too close to it. There was to be a gap, a distance, of about a half-mile. Why the distance? We’ll come back and explain that in a minute.

“Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.” God was leading them to a place they had never been before. That’s one of the lessons here for us this morning: No matter where you are, no matter how far you’ve come, there is a journey God wants to take you on that you’ve never experienced before! Some of us are afraid to move onward because we’re not quite sure God is going to go with us. That’s the lesson in the story. If we’re going to go some places we’ve never been before, we need to be assured that “God is going with me.”

That’s what God was calling them to do, here in verse 5: “Then Joshua said to the people, ‘Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders” or WONDERFUL things “among you.’” Do you see the word “consecrate” there in verse 5? Interesting word…we don’t use that so much anymore. You don’t tell your children at the end of the day, “I want you to go up into the bathroom, run some bathwater, and consecrate yourself.”

The word “consecrate” simply means “to wash.” Can you get the picture? Again, you have to insert yourself in the story. These people had been wandering around a desert for forty years. How many layers of dust do you think were on the children? And God says, “Before you cross over into that land, we want you to leave every speck of dust from this land behind! Don’t bring the residue of the wilderness into the Promised Land!”

It’s a great picture for us, right? The place where we were when the Lord found us, and the place God wants to bring us into—the Promised Land of faith and grace and salvation—He doesn’t want any of the former you contaminating the new you in the new place where He’s going to bring you. He wants to completely and thoroughly wash you of your dusty past! It’s a great word picture for us.

Then, in verse 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…” Let’s just stop right there. Let’s talk about this Ark of the Covenant. Now, when I say “ark,” if you’re thinking about a big boat with a bunch or animals—wrong ark. That’s a different place in the Bible—that’s Noah, right. Remember him? This is a different ark. As a matter of fact, the word “ark” just means “container” or “chest” or “box.”

This Ark of the Covenant was something that God specifically instructed the priests to construct and carry. This box contained the two stone tablets that God used His own finger to write The Ten Commandments on. God never wanted them to forget His law, and so He needed a box to carry the Law.

There was something else in there: there was the provision of manna. There was a bowl of manna. Those forty years in the wilderness, God fed them on the way with something called “manna.” What is manna? The answer to that question is, “Yes!”—because the name “manna” means, “What is it?” So, “What is manna?” Yes—that’s what it is. We don’t really know what it was. I like to think of it as a Krispy Kreme doughnut, myself.

In this container were the two tablets of the Ten Commandments, a bowl of manna and, I think, Aaron’s staff was in there as well. It looked something like this. It wasn’t all that big—it was only about four feet long. It was two-and-a-half feet wide, two-and-a-half feet tall. It was completely covered with gold. It was beautiful, it was ornate! On top, the lid was completely gold and it had the image of two angels with outstretched wings over their heads, covering their face, until the tips of those two wings almost touched.

This was a piece of furniture that was put in the tabernacle—the place where God’s people came to worship, and, most importantly, the place where the priest one day a year—on the Day of Atonement—would sacrifice an animal. The blood would be shed. The blood of that animal would be sprinkled across the mercy seat. The mercy seat was actually the lid, or the top, of the Ark of the Covenant, and symbolically, the people understood: “This is the place where God is.”

Now, we understand that God is everywhere present at the same time. That is the doctrine of “omnipresence”; God is everywhere present at the same time. But back in this day – these are the days before the Holy Spirit was given to the church to indwell believers – it was a sense in which God’s presence kind of rested in places, not so much in people. And so, you had to go and meet with God. Only the Holiest of Holies was the place where you could meet Him.

So, the priest would sacrifice this animal and sprinkle the blood over the mercy seat. It was the picture of God’s nature to redeem and to cleanse and to be merciful and to bring lost, dirty, sinful people into His presence. It was the picture of atonement—that this blood sacrifice would atone for the sins of His people – an innocent animal. It was, of course, a preview of coming attractions, when one day, thousands of years later, God would send His Son as the perfect Lamb of God to shed His blood, to sacrifice once and for all, for the sin of all people.

There was something else that happened on the Day of Atonement. Not only was one animal sacrificed, but there was a goat that would be present. The priest would put his hands on the head of that goat, and he would pray and confess the sins of his people. And then, do you know what he would do with that goat? He would set that goat free, and that goat was known as. . .the scapegoat, as he was set free.

All of that happened around this piece of furniture! Joshua told the people, “Pick it up, carry it and follow the Ark.” Symbolically, “Go where God goes.” And it was interesting. He told them, “Be close enough that you can see it, but don’t get too close! Keep some distance.” The idea was that, when the priests carrying this thing took a step, the people were to take a step. When the priests stopped, the people were to stop—and make sure there was some distance between. Why did Joshua tell them to get close enough to see the Ark, but not to get too close?

It’s symbolic of how we should properly view God. There are two doctrines that we believe, in our view of God. Christians tend to get in one ditch or another. We always want to knock the sides out of the grandfather clock, and the pendulum, as we think about God. These two doctrines are what we call the “transcendence” of God and the “imminence” of God. Let me explain these two terms.

The transcendence of God is simply the fact that we believe God is h-o-o-o-ly. He is not like us! He is sinlessly perfect. He has moral perfection. There’s a place in the Bible where it says that God dwells in unapproachable light. In other words, you want to keep a little distance. As a matter of fact, there are places in the Old Testament where people got too close to the Ark and they died—because of the holiness of God symbolized there in the Ark. We believe in the transcendence of God. Older theologians sometimes talk about “the otherness” of God.

So, if your view of God is kind of like your grandfather, who hands out candy and quarters and has that long beard and you just crawl up in his lap and you stroke his beard. . .if that’s your view of God, you need a healthy dose of the transcendence of God. You are treating God a little too casually, and you’re not viewing God as holy. God is not something to be played around with.

Some of you with more sanguine personalities, if you were part of the Israelite people there, you would probably be like, “I wonder if we could get a ride on that thing! We could just sit on there and play around.” Listen! Some of you treat God way too casually, and you need to be reminded this morning, through the picture of the Ark—God is holy! Don’t mess around with God! Don’t treat Him lightly. You might want to keep your distance, because He’s not like you.

Now, that’s one doctrine, but there’s a balancing doctrine in the Bible, and that’s what we understand as the “imminence” of God. Not only is God holy, but God is near! He said, “Make sure you’re following the Ark.” In order to follow it, you have to be able to see it! You have to be close enough to see it.

You see, some people that take the doctrine of transcendence to its farthest extreme, they end up in a ditch over here and they think that God is somehow unknowable. He’s just kind of this ancient God of the past and He created the world and He wound it up, but He just kind of stepped back and like just let it go. “Surely God is not really interested in me and my issues. He probably doesn’t really hear my prayers.”

You’re treating God way too impersonally! You need to be reminded, not only is God holy – God is near! He knows you, He’s concerned about you, He’s concerned about the hurt and the pain that you brought into this auditorium right now, and He wants you to get a little closer, so that you can follow! God is a God who can be known, and that is only possible because Jesus Christ has come to make God known!

He was the image of the invisible God. . .the perfect imprint of God’s nature. Through Jesus, God can be known! God is holy, but God is near. God is transcendent, but God is imminent. Don’t treat God too casually, and don’t treat God too impersonally. That’s one of the reminders that the Ark gives us. That’s why Joshua told them, “Follow it, but keep your distance.” That’s a good reminder for us this morning, as well.

I want you to look over at Joshua 3:13. Skip down to the end of the chapter. Let’s find out what happened. So, they’re about to cross over. The priests are carrying the ark before the people. “’And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.’” If you’ve been paying attention, you should have been asking the question, “How is an entire nation going to get into a land that is bordered by a body of water?”

Well, fortunately, God has already proven that is not too difficult a task for Him. The generation before, God parted the Red Sea to get them across—out of Egypt. Now, He’s going to do the same miracle with a different leader – Joshua, not Moses – to prove that as God was with Moses, God is with Joshua. It’s not about the man—it’s about the God of the man.

So, here they are, and he says of these priests, “The waters are not going to stop until the people of faith take a step.” Now, what if you were one of the priests and you’re the first to go over? This current is flowing and you’re thinking, “Okay, God, we’re ready for You to part the waters! Go ahead and stop them, and then we’ll cross over.”

Do you see the sequence in verse 13? That’s not the way God wanted it to happen. God wanted them to take a step before the waters stopped! Would you have had enough faith to take the step? What if they took the step, but God didn’t stop the waters? We’d have a bunch of drowned priests! That’s a problem! So, it took an incredible amount of faith for these men to take the first step!

Let’s find out what happened here in verse 14. “So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest)…”

Don’t you love the part in the parentheses right there? In case you were thinking they were finding the shallow places to cross over. Just to let you know, this was a time that the Jordan River was flooded! It was the deepest part of the river, it was the deepest season to cross over and it was going to take a miracle in order to get these people across!  

Verse 16 continues, “…the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan…” Adam was about nineteen miles upriver. When God made a way, He made a big way! “We have a lot of people to get over.” This is not going to be like the security line at the Phoenix airport—not one-by-one. “We’re all going over together. We’re going to give you a nineteen-mile gap to get you all over.”

So God stops the water, and then He gives us some more details. Look down in verse 17. “Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan…” Notice, it was dry ground. It wasn’t even muddy! God not only parted the waters, He dehydrated the mud, so that their feet didn’t even get dirty on the way. “…And all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan.”

What is the lesson for us? There are some steps of faith that are required by God’s people, if we’re going to move onward. Unfortunately, some of you have stopped moving onward because you are waiting for God to make it easier for you to take a step. God is saying, “Move! Step!” “But God, that looks dangerous! That looks a little risky!” God says, “Show me your faith. Take the step and move!”

I know some of you here may be here for the first time, and maybe Christianity is kind of new to you, and you open the Bible and wonder, “What is all this stuff about Jesus dying on the cross?” and, “I’m not sure I want to be a part of these people.” You’re kind of hanging out in the shadows.

Can I just say to you, the only way you get into Heaven is by having enough faith to take the step that God is calling you to take. You don’t get it by osmosis. You don’t get it by just hanging around the people of God or hanging around church.

You get salvation—you get the land of your inheritance—when you have enough faith to take the step to cross over from the person you once were to the person God wants you to be in Jesus Christ! It’s time to cross over! What are you waiting for? Do you understand, God has given you the reminder—this picture? We don’t need an Ark anymore; Jesus Christ is the true and better picture of our Ark. He’s the One who crossed over before us.

Jesus went through the judgment of God’s wrath. The waters passed over Him so He could make a way for us to cross over into the life that He wants us to have, the place of forgiveness in grace—enjoying the presence and the pleasure of God. What are you waiting for?

Some of the rest of you—you’ve been a Christian for years; you crossed over into salvation years ago, but you’ve stopped moving onward, you’ve stopped taking steps of faith because it looks a little risky. What God wants to remind you of is this, “I am with you. In every battle you fight, every time you’re under attack, in every temptation, I am with you! Take this step of faith!”

Some of you, you’ve been hurt, and there’s pain in your heart. God wants to remind you, “I am with you in the pain.” Some of you are isolated—you’re lonely. God wants to remind you, “You can trust Me. Take the step of faith; follow Me! I am with you.” That’s the first reminder.

Here’s the second reminder God gives us. It’s this:

 

2. I will never forget where I came from. (Joshua 4:1-7)

 

We’re going to see another very vivid picture, a very vivid reminder in chapter 4. Begin reading in verse 1: “When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua,  ‘Take twelve men from the people, from each tribe a man…”

You have to understand something about the nation of Israel—they were divided up into twelve tribes and God said, “I want you to get one man from each tribe—they’re going to represent the tribes.”

Then, verse 3, “…and command them, saying, “Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.”’

“Then Joshua called the twelve men from the people of Israel, whom he had appointed, a man from each tribe. And Joshua said to them, ‘Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and take up each of you a stone upon his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, that this may be a sign…” a symbol, a reminder, a picture “…among you. When your children ask in time to come, “What do those stones mean to you?” then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it passed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the people of Israel a memorial forever.’”  “A forever reminder of the deliverance, the salvation, the grace, the miracle that God did to make a way for you to get out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land.” So, there were these twelve stones.

As you think about these twelve stones, they were quite a contrast to the very ornate gold Ark—all the pageantry and all the ceremony around the Ark. There couldn’t be a greater contrast than. . .a rock! Just let that remind you of God’s goodness to you! So, there were these twelve stones that were stacked up, and they were to be a reminder.

Do you have any stones of remembrance, of God’s goodness to you? Seasons and times in your past when God so moved on your behalf that you need to mark that? You know, quite honestly, as people—we’re a lot better at piling up rocks of hurt and unanswered prayer and disappointment, and that’s where our minds go to. We want to remember all the junk in the past. God wants you to remember His goodness and His grace—times and seasons of deliverance. He wants you to remember those spiritual high-water marks in your life.

Maybe it was a truth that you read in Scripture, and God captured your attention and your heart, and it was a major step for you crossing over from the person that you once were into the person He wanted you to be. I can remember times and seasons in my life. For all of us, the first spiritual marker that we should have is the time of our salvation.

Here’s what we need to understand: Moving away from God happens in small, almost imperceptible, drifts. Do you understand this? You don’t even have to really do anything to drift away from God. Just do nothing and you will drift into a place where one day you’re going to wake up and God seems very, very far away!

But here’s what we understand from the book of Joshua: Moving onward, with God, happens in big, decisive shifts. Follow His leading. Take the step. Move over. And God was calling His people to that. For all of us here this morning, we need to understand, if you choose to do nothing—if you just kind of take some notes and go home and live your life—you probably are not going to move onward with God.

But, if this morning, God’s presence and God’s goodness seem so real to you that you are tired are living where you have always lived, and this morning you say, “I am going onward with God,” you will find you are in a better place—immediately!—than you were, even yesterday! Do you have any stones of remembrance when that took place?

Do you remember seasons and times? Maybe it was a conference, maybe it was just a church service where God met you in such a real way, and God’s Word came alive! Can I just kind of say to you, I trust that every week is a bit of that happening, where you’re taking steps onward? Some of you say, “Well, Trent, you kind of seem to say the same thing every week.” It’s because you forget! I forget. I can’t even remember what I preached last week! Why would I think you would remember anything?

So, we’re going to move forward each week that we meet together. That’s why we meet—just to be reminded of the goodness of God and the places He wants us to go. We’re not the person that we once were; He wants us to make some big shifts. As I’ve said this morning, there are these spiritual markers that we should have—looking back at times and seasons where this happened. Can I simply ask you, “Do you remember when your life was marked from moving from sin to salvation?” You crossed over!

Hey, did anybody notice that the Pope got in a fight, like, with Donald Trump this week? I’m like, “What is going on with these two guys? Do either one of these guys understand that you move over into being a Christian—not by anything you do—but by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, who made the way for us to be where God wants us to be—dwelling and living in a place in right relationship with God! Has that happened to you?

You’re like, “Well, I’ve just kind of always been a Christian.” No, you haven’t! You’ve always been a dirty, rotten sinner, and until God delivers you from that evil, wicked heart, you are still in your sin! You have not yet crossed over by faith. If that’s never happened to you, the first spiritual marker needs to take place today when, by faith, you receive Christ and trust what He did on the cross so you could cross over into a better place! That’s the first spiritual marker.

God has given us, in the New Testament, a very vivid picture—for every person that does that. When that takes place, when you cross over, what’s the next thing God wants you to do? The very first act of obedience for a Christian—do you know what it is? Baptism. Baptism! You’re like, “Well, that just seems all ceremonial and you just said, ‘It’s not what you do.’” That’s right, baptism doesn’t save you, but God never wants you to forget that the old man—who you were—has died. You’re not that person anymore.

What do you do with an old man who dies? You bury him! Now, fortunately, it’s a symbol, so it’s just water, and we just keep you under for a second, and you’ve been raised to new life—you get a brand-new life—and so we bring you back up! That is the vivid picture of what happens to a person who has crossed over.

So, here at Harvest, we understand this biblically: baptism is not some big ceremony, but it’s the picture that you point to, to remind everybody, “I have crossed over!” Now, listen—you’re baptism should be on the right side of your salvation. Your baptism is a spiritual marker that points back to when you crossed over.

If you got baptized as a little kid, or baptized somewhere back—you can’t even remember it—maybe you went through some of that in the past, but since that time you have crossed over from sin to salvation, your baptism needs to be on the right side of your salvation. It points back to what Christ has done for you to get you out of where you were into the place where you are.

That’s what the New Testament teaches about baptism. If you’ve never done that, we would love to schedule your baptism! If you have genuinely, by faith, crossed over, and now you’re a part of the family of God.

But, do you understand this? That is just the starting line? Anybody with me, watching the Daytona 500 this afternoon? Do you understand, baptism is the starting line—not the finish line—of our faith? From that point, you are to take steps of faith. There should be continual markers.

Maybe there have been times when you’ve journaled things God showed you in your time with Him. Andrea has a picture in our house of a Scripture verse that’s just a reminder that God is our dwelling place. The reason why that’s a spiritual marker for us is because, for fifteen years we were kind of nomadic as we traveled from different church to different church—basically a different church every week for fifteen years.

We lived in a trailer (we’re “trailer trash”) and we took our kids with us and we lived on church parking lots. We never felt like we had a home. Then God showed Andrea that verse, “You are my dwelling place.” My home is not a place; my home is a Person. That was a spiritual marker for us! Maybe you have things like that in your past.

Maybe there’s a spiritual marker from when you crossed over from being self-indulgent to surrendered. Maybe you’ve crossed over from being compromising. You’ve tried to keep one foot in the wilderness and one foot in the Promised Land—straddling the Jordan River in the middle. Some of us want to be like that. No! Why don’t you cross completely over? Quit compromising!

Remember, God is with you! Remember where you’ve come from. Maybe it’s time to cross over from “fearful” into “trusting”—like, “I’m not going to fear what I see on the news!” Maybe it’s good for you not to watch the news — to cross over into being reminded of what God has done for you. He is with you!

Have you crossed over from living an autonomous, isolated, individualistic life to belonging? One of the important verses we read there said that, “All of the people” finished passing over. They didn’t leave anybody behind. I don’t know what your relationship is to this church, but you need a local New Testament church that you belong to.

You say, “I’ve tried that! Those people are nuts!” True—but so are you! You’re going to fit in great around here, okay! We’re all jacked-up; we’ve all got issues; we all need each other. This is a place where we lock arms with fellow-jacked-up people, and we try to get some stuff done that we can’t do isolated from one another. It’s a place of belonging, and we don’t do this alone. Do you have a spiritual marker like that? Maybe today needs to be that spiritual marker.

One more reminder. Here it is:

 

3. I will never forget who I am. (Joshua 5:1-9)

 

Do you know who you are? Let’s see this, one more very visual, probably the most visual, the most graphic of all reminders – in Joshua chapter 5. This is what it says, beginning in verse 2.

Now remember, all of the nation is now in the Promised Land; there are battles to fight, there are more steps of faith to take, but the first thing He tells them to do: “At that time the Lord said to Joshua, ‘Make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.’ So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the sons of Israel at Gibeath-haaraloth…” however you say that. “Why? Really? Don’t you want these young, courageous, strong men to go fight the battle of Jericho?” God says, “No. I don’t want you to do that first. First, I want you to be circumcised.” Why? Why?

(Verse 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. 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. 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. . .” Remember, they were grumbling and complaining—God was like, “Done. Fine! You’re in the penalty box—you’re not going in!”

So, this next generation, this young generation is the one that actually went in. Scripture says, verse 6, continued, “. . .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.” Verse 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.”

Now, by this point, you should be saying, “Does anybody know what he’s talking about? I don’t understand circumcision.” I’m just looking around here for a second, making sure we have a mature crowd, okay? Can I explain this without snickering?

I crossed over, I became a Christian when I was fifteen. I was discipled by my youth pastor, who said, “You need to read the Bible every day.” So I started reading the Bible every day, and I kept coming across this word, “circumcised,” ”circumcision,” and thought, “What in the world is that!” I’m fifteen, sixteen years old…there was no Google…so I thought, “I need to ask.”

I remember the day—a spiritual marker in my life—I picked up the phone and I called my youth pastor, the most theologically astute person I knew, and I said, “Help me out with this! What is this circumcision thing? What is that?” Putting him in the awkward position of having to explain this to me, he was like, “Ooh, well, it’s…it’s, uh, surgery, that cuts away some skin…on the male anatomy.” I was like, “You’re kidding me! That’s in the Bible? Man! I’m glad I’m not Jewish! I’m so glad!”

My youth pastor said, “Well, Trent, you have to understand—most men are circumcised at birth.” “Really! No way! How could they? How dare they? Isn’t there some kind of permission slip I should have signed? Like, what is going on here? Why? I’m not Jewish!” He said, “It’s more now for personal hygiene, things like that.” Okay, TMI! That’s enough, especially in church. Do we understand what’s happening here? There is a cutting that takes place.

What we need to understand, in Scripture, is this: that circumcision was a reminder to the people of God about who they were. It set them apart from every other people on the earth. God wants His people to be distinct! So, here they were, going into a godless territory. Does that happen for you? On Monday mornings, when you cross over out of your nice little comfort zone?

You had your nice little weekend, you went to church and you feel like, “Man, these people are my people; we all kind of speak the same language and we all kind of have the same values” and you cross out of here over into the godless culture you live in? Here’s what God wants you to be reminded of: you are a distinct people! You think differently, you act differently! You worship differently, than all of the people out there, among whom we operate and yet who are not our people. We live distinct lives, marked lives!

You talk about a spiritual marker? Circumcision was a physical marker that they needed to be reminded of. I think this is the reason why—because all those young, strong, courageous men were going to cross over, and they were going to see some cute Canaanite girls, and they were going to be tempted to go flirt with the Canaanite girls. They were going to be tempted to marry the Canaanite girls! God gave them a very physical, visual reminder. “These are not your people. These are not your values. You are to live distinct lives. You are a child of a holy God!”

I want you to see a verse here. Look down at Joshua 5, verse 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.” The name “Gilgal” means “to roll,” so God uses a word picture again.

He says, “Today, because you have now been circumcised, I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt.” Why is He bringing up Egypt? They hadn’t been in Egypt in forty years! Do you know what God was saying? “I am cutting off the part of you that is still hanging on to Egypt.” He wanted the people to forever understand, “You are not an Egyptian! And you are not a Canaanite! You are a chosen and loved child of God in covenant relationship with Me! Live a distinct life!”

Now, for those of you who have read the rest of the story, how well did that go? Did that surgery prevent them from compromising, being idolatrous? Yes, or no? No. As a matter of fact, a few hundred years later, Jeremiah—a prophet—is writing a commentary on these people that went in and he says this, speaking the voice of God, “I will punish all those who are circumcised merely in the flesh…for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in heart.” (Jeremiah 9:25-26)

There is not an external, ceremonial, religious practice that can guarantee that your heart won’t wander from God. God wants your heart! God wants to perform surgery on your heart! He wants to cut away the parts of your heart that are unbroken and un-surrendered. He wants to cut away the parts of your heart that are not like Jesus!

And, so you can go through all the external religious ceremony you want, including baptism and the Lord’s Supper and circumcision and confirmation and confession—all this other stuff. Listen, if your heart has not been cut by the Word of God, then you’re like these people in Israel, practicing external religion, but your heart is far from Him!

We read about circumcision—listen! —eighty-eight different times in the Bible; thirty-two times in the Old Testament, fifty-six times in the New Testament! So this is, again, a reminder, to those of us living in this age, that God wants our heart! The Apostle Paul, writing in Romans 2:28 and 29, says this: “For no one is a Jew who is merely one outwardly, nor is circumcision outward and physical. But a Jew is one inwardly, and circumcision is a matter of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the letter.” Does God have your heart?

Paul goes on and writes to another church—this was a church in Galatia that was always trying to add rules and regulations to faith. Paul says to these people, “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything…” You don’t get spiritual points for some external religious surgery, “but only faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Does your heart love God? That is the only guarantee that your heart won’t stray from God, that there is a love remembering who is with me, remembering who I am, remembering where I’ve come from. All of these things should stir our hearts and cut our hearts, to live as the distinct people of God and to continue to take steps of faith, moving onward into the places He wants to lead me.

Are you following Him? Are you stepping over? Or have you stopped because you’re afraid? Be reminded of who you are. Don’t compromise. Don’t flirt with the world. Be who God made you to be. God will take you to the places He wants you to go.

Before we leave, would you just process—what is the Lord saying to you? Maybe today there is a stone of remembrance that He wants to build in your life. Why don’t you just speak back to Him, right now, in prayer and say, “Lord, thank You for giving me a picture of Your holiness. Thank You for inviting me to draw near. I don’t want to treat You too casually; I don’t want to treat You too impersonally. I realize that I’ve been afraid to take a step of faith.” Maybe some of you here today would say, “You know, for the very first time I need to take that step from sin to salvation, trusting the work of Jesus Christ on the cross as the full and complete payment for my sin.”

And if you need to do that today, open up your heart to Him. Confess, “Lord, I need You! I’m going to follow You. Forgive my sin. I’m tired of wandering in that wilderness. I want to enjoy Your presence, Your pleasure, in my life. Give me the boldness to publicly proclaim that You are Savior, You are Lord.”