Crossing the Jordan

We've got a little time here.

Let's have it over here.

Good evening. Welcome, y'all. Would y'all stand? I want to welcome you this evening to Calvary Chapel, those of you who are with us and those of you who are online.

Father, we would ask that you would just bless our time as we worship in song, Lord, and as we study your word. Father, I want to lift up the children's church class, the youth group class, the nursery, as the nursery workers work for the little ones, and bless the ushers, all that goes on here, Lord, be glorified. And as we worship in song, may we just let go and just sing to you. May we not worry about our voices so much because I know the word says make a joyful noise.

It doesn't say have a beautiful voice. Let's make a joyful noise. So may we just relax and let go and realize we're expressing words. The worthness, the worth, the worthiness of our Lord and Savior, our Father God.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we sing a song about that way, don't we? Praise the Father, praise the Son. Be searching for cash you call.

We're still in too much. Your son, Jesus Christ.

Father, we just thank you so much that you're preparing to leave, to go to heaven. As you died on that cross for us, you reminded the apostles, the disciples, that you would not leave. That you would not leave us, comfort us, but you would send a stirring as we pray and see for your glory as we yield ourselves to you. You're not through with us until we go to glory.

You are in control. The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty. He will save you where we rejoice over thee with joy. He'll rest in his love and joy over thee with singing.

Your glory is so beautiful.

It's so beautiful. Because your glory is so beautiful. It's so beautiful. Your glory. Your glory is so beautiful. Let's sing it out now. Oh, sing it out now.

As snow, no.

God is good. All the time, God is good. Father, now just continue to bless our service as we study now your word, Lord. Father, impart your spirit of wisdom to all of us in the revelation of the knowledge of you, Lord. Lighten the eyes of understanding, Lord, that we may see clearly the hope and the hope of the confidence that we have as your children. In Jesus' name, amen.

Good evening. Glad you could be here tonight. If you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Joshua, chapter 3. Joshua, chapter 3.

Tonight, we're going to cover just a little bit more territory in the book of Joshua. We're going to cover chapters 3 and 4 of the book of Joshua tonight. We'll probably pick up a little bit of steam because some of these chapters sort of go together and makes a really good flow for the story. The theme, the title for tonight's message. Is crossing the Jordan.

Crossing the Jordan. And so, we pick up in chapter 3 with the instructions for crossing the Jordan. So, lock in with me as we read verses 1 through 13. It says this. Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and he and all the sons of Israel set out from Shittim and came to the Jordan. And they lodged there before they crossed. At the end of three days, the officers went through the midst of the camp.

They commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the cross, you will see the ark of the cross. When you see the covenant of the Lord your God with the Levitical priest carrying it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. However, there shall be between you and it a distance of about 2,000 cubits by measure. Do not come near it, that you may know the way by which you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.

Then Joshua said to the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders, among you. And Joshua spoke to the priests, saying, Take up the ark of the covenant, cross over ahead of the people. So they took up the ark and went ahead of the people. The Lord said to Joshua, This day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of Israel, that they may know, just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you.

You shall moreover command the priests who are carrying the ark of the covenant, saying, When you come to the edge of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan. Then Joshua said to the sons of Israel, Come here, and hear the words of the Lord your God. Joshua said, By this you shall know that the living God is among you, and he will assuredly dispossess from before you the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Hivite, the Perizzite, the Girgashite, the Amorite, and the Jebusite. Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is crossing over ahead of you into the Jordan.

Now then, take for yourselves twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one man from each tribe. And it shall come about, When the soles of the feet of the Lord of the earth, When the soles of the feet of the Lord of the earth, the priests who carry the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, rest in the waters of the Jordan, that the waters of the Jordan will be cut off, and the waters which are flowing down from above will stand up in one heap. Now, these instructions that he gives actually start off with a little bit of a picture of where they're landing again. Once again, they have arrived at the edge of the Jordan.

And once again, they're waiting. Does it seem like they've spent a lot of time waiting up to this point in time? Does it seem like they just keep getting real excited, and then they wait just a little bit longer? Like, Moses dies, hands it off to Joshua, and then Joshua has to sit there and wait. Then God commissions Joshua, Joshua hands that command off to the people, and then they wait.

And then they send in spies into the land, and then they wait. And then they come to the edge of the Jordan, where they're camped, and then they wait. It just seems like there's a lot of waiting in the first two and a half chapters of the book of Joshua, and you can find yourself going, why all the waiting? Because there are things that are learned in the time of waiting that can't be learned any other way.

There are lessons that are learned in the time of waiting that can't be learned any other way. We're not good at waiting in our world today. We're not good at just sitting back. But one of the things that I have learned and will continue to learn is that in the will of God, you have nothing but time. I used to tell this to kids all the time when they needed to find the right person.

Right? No, no, you don't understand. I need to know today if this is the person that I'm supposed to marry. Listen, if that's the person that you're supposed to marry, they're still going to be there in three weeks. They're still going to be there in three months. They're still going to be there in three years. Okay? Because in the will of God, you've got nothing but time.

You don't understand. I've got to move right into this thing that God's showing me that I'm supposed to do. Well, maybe the first thing he's telling you to do is wait. Because the best lessons are learned in the waiting time. As a matter of fact, I would call the waiting time, the day of small things. And we're told not to despise the day of small things. Because in our world, we're in a hurry.

But you know who's never in a hurry? God. God is not in a hurry. And I think in the fast-paced world that we live in, it's really important to be reminded over and over again that God's not in a hurry. Because I tend to get that way. I've had one of those weeks where I've had meetings kind of backed up against each other. And so I'm hurrying. I'm waiting to get to one thing, to the next.

And as I'm frantically trying to make my way there, God reminded me of this today. Ryan, I'm not in a hurry. You shouldn't be in a hurry. Because in the will of God, you have nothing but time. And so they wait again at the edge, at the bank of the Jordan River. Well, I want you to think about what they saw at the edge of the Jordan River, at the bank of the Jordan River.

Let's paint the picture for what this would have looked like. So first of all, there is a barrier, a visible, physical barrier, in between where they are and where they want to be. They know that in order to make it to the promised land, they're going to have to cross a barrier. They're going to have to get past something that is a little bit impossible to get millions of people past at this point in time.

I think that's important for us to take note of, because this impossible barrier is going to set the stage, and the way that they deal with this impossible barrier will set the stage for the way that, everything will be handled in the promised land, which is what makes these two chapters really important, because it will lay the groundwork for conquering the land. So that's the first thing that they see, is they see a barrier. But the barrier is even more impossible than they even realize, because typically at most times of year, the Jordan River is not really much of a river. It's actually pretty narrow, not a real wide river.

But you see, this wasn't just any time of year. Matter of fact, if we were to jump all the way over to verse 15, just look there real quick. At the end, it's in parentheses. It says, Now I looked up some pictures of the Jordan River today, what it would look like normally, and what it would look like during flood stage. So the best picture that I can give to you of the Jordan River

is picture Grouse Creek, if you've ever driven out by Grouse Creek. It's not a real wide creek. It is fairly deep. But when we get really, really, really heavy rains, what happens to Grouse Creek? It floods, right? I remember several years ago, when we still got rain in Kansas. Do you guys remember that? It was a great time. We got lots of rain in Kansas. We had those two historic floods in the same year.

It's like God was like, hey, let's give it to them all in one year, and then not again for five. And so we had those historic floods that took place. Well, my wife and daughters have to drive over to Dexter for school, only we got so much rain in one night that it flooded Grouse Creek, almost historically flooded Grouse Creek, and it shut down. It shut down the highway for a little while.

So they had to go a different route around to get out to Dexter, and most of the school didn't show up because they couldn't, because it had flooded. Picture that, because that's kind of what this is like. The river is flowing. It's strong. It's flooded. It's four to five times its normal size. And you don't just have to get two guys across here. You have to get over a million people across here.

As a matter of fact, you have to get the entire population of Kansas across the Jordan River safely. It feels mildly impossible. And you can imagine Joshua, who's been given all of the promises, who's reminded that God is the promise keeper, who has been told that all of the people are just waiting for God to kick rear end and take names on the other side of the Jordan River, but he still has to get past the Jordan River. And now it's time for all of the promises to no longer be things he knows theoretically, but to be things that he lives out practically.

And he's going to have to do that by himself. faith. He camps at the edge of the Jordan River. So now comes these four instructions, four things that God is going to tell Joshua. And we kind of go back and forth between God talking to Joshua and Joshua talking to the people. But I'm going to lay these four instructions out for you. The first instruction that God gives is that the Ark of the Covenant will lead the way.

Notice what it says in verse two. At the end of three days, the officers went through the midst of the camp and they commanded the people saying, when you see the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord, your God, with the Levitical priests carrying it, then you shall set out from your place and go after it. However, there shall be a distance of about 2000 cubits. Jump to the bottom because you have not passed this way before. They need to be able to see it because they haven't

passed this way before. Okay. Some things to pay attention to about this direction. What does the Ark of the Covenant represent? It represents the presence of God amongst the people. How had they camped all through the wilderness? They had camped with the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle in the middle of the camp because God was always in the midst of them. How had they traveled? They had traveled with the visible

representation of God leading them. What was it? A pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire by night. They knew that they were always to follow God through the wilderness, but now things got real. Now they really had to follow God. And so they went through and they said, this is who's going to go first. It's not going to be the warriors. It's not going to be the bridge builders. It's not going to be the engineers.

It's going to be the Levitical priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant because God would go before the people. God would be the one who would do the leading and the first principle that they needed to learn if they were to conquer the land, if they were to go in and take the promised land is that God always had to be in the lead. Do you know when we get ourselves, in the most problems in our lives, when we quit letting God take the lead? When we say, okay, God, I think I got figured out now. I think I know what you want next.

Don't worry. I've got this one. We're going to see that happen in a few chapters in AI, right? Just lodge that in the back of your mind, file that in the back of your mind a little bit. They're going to get themselves ahead of God. But as long as they let God lead, there would always be victory, no matter how impossible the circumstances seemed. But not only was the Ark of the Covenant to be what led, but did you notice that they were supposed to

leave a little bit of a gap between themselves and the Ark? I think there's a couple of reasons for this. Number one is because if the Ark really did represent the presence of God, and it did, they were to always remember that God was holy, that God was holy and unapproachable, my man.

My wife asked me earlier, are you feeling better? Oh yeah, perfect. I feel great. Anyway, my man, when it hits, they were to stay back a little bit. First of all, because God is holy. He's unapproachable by man, right? The only thing that allows God to be approachable by man is Jesus. That's the only thing that will allow us into the presence of God. And so there was to be a gap, but there was also to be a gap for another reason.

Because if you stand too close and somebody's in front of you, what can you no longer see? You can't see the Ark. There needed to be no distractions between them and the Ark, because nothing could prevent them from seeing the Ark in front of them, because they always had to keep their eyes focused on God. But there's something else that's kind of interesting to pay attention to, because in verse four, it says, however, there shall be between you and in a distance of about 4,000 or about 2,000 cubits by measure. Do not come near it that you may know the way by which

you shall go. Last part's what I want you to pay attention to you, for you have not passed this way before. Why was it so important for them to keep their eyes on God? Why was it so important for them to keep their eyes focused on the Ark, to be able to see it? Because they'd never been this way before. This was new territory for them. And this is true physically. It's true very practically, because these people have never

been to the promised land. They've never seen it. But it's also true figuratively, because they were about to walk by faith in a way that they never had before. And the only way that they could do that is to keep their eyes focused on the Lord, because all of the next steps that they were going to take were steps they'd never taken before. So it was important to be able to stay focused. I'm sorry, guys. I've got to take one more second

here. Forgive me. I'm so sorry for that. That's embarrassing. Okay. Second, number two, he says, consecrate yourselves. Consecrate yourselves. Notice what he says, verse five, Joshua said to the people, consecrate yourselves. Why? For tomorrow, the Lord will do wonders among you. That word consecrate in the Hebrew is the word kadosh. And the idea behind that word is to

be set apart or to prepare yourselves. It's interesting because God is about to do something they've not seen him do before. God is about to do wonders among them. But the only way that God could do the wonders among them is that they were prepared for God to do that. They had to be prepared for God. What God was going to do next. Therefore, they needed to prepare themselves. They needed to

consecrate themselves. John Corson used the perfect picture, I thought. He said, if God wants to do something brand new, it means he wants to fill us with something brand new. But if a cup is already full of a lot of rocks, it's hard to fill it all the way up with water. You can't just keep pouring more water in. No, what must you do first? You must remove the rocks

and then you can fill it with water. How do we prepare ourselves? How were they to prepare themselves? They were to consecrate. By searching their hearts and ridding themselves of the sin. By searching their hearts, by allowing God to search their hearts, to rid themselves of the sinful things. Because what God was about to do was not just a physical victory. What God was about to do was a very spiritual victory.

Therefore, they needed to consecrate themselves to be prepared for the wonders that the Lord was going to do. Number three was to be a step of faith. But that step of faith would start with some instructions. For Joshua. In verse six it says, Joshua spoke to the priest saying, take up the ark of the covenant and cross over ahead of the people. So they took up the ark of the covenant and went ahead of the

people. The Lord said to Joshua, this day I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that just as I have been with Moses, I will be with you. You see, the step of faith was first of all a step of faith for Joshua. Because what was about to take place would be the most important thing in the life of Joshua. And it was the most important thing in the life of Joshua.

As a leader. Because up to this point in time, who had Joshua been? He had been a humble servant of Moses. The one who was along Moses' side. If you will, the one in Moses' shadow. But now, God was going to do something that would remove him from the shadow of Moses and would move him into the position of the leader of the people. And it all started because he was a humble servant of the

Lord. And so God's about to do something great with him, but it's going to require a step of faith on the part of Joshua to lead his people to do something. And it's going to require a step of faith on the part of Joshua to lead his people to do something. And it's going to require a step of faith on the part of Joshua to lead his people to do something. And it's going to require a step of