Standing on the Promises: Stones of Remembrance: Embracing God's Faithfulness Through Memories | Joshua 4

1st Baptist, baptist El Dorado.

Will you join me now in listening to our sermon from this week?

Good morning church family.

If you will turn to Joshua, chapter four, we're going to continue reading through Joshua and we're going to read what Taylor spoke about this morning a little bit.

Joshua, chapter 4, verses 1 through 7, and then verse 19.

Joshua 4:1–7

Verse 1 says this after the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord spoke to Joshua choose 12 men from the people, one man for each tribe, and command them.

Take 12 stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing, carry them with you and set them down at the place where you spend the night.

So Joshua summoned the twelve men he had selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, and said to them Go across to the ark of the Lord, your God, in the middle of the Jordan.

Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, so that this will be a sign among you In the future when your children ask you what do these stones mean to you?

You should tell them the water of the Jordan was cut off in front of the ark of the Lord's covenant.

When it and jump down to verse 19 with me.

It says and camped at Gilgal on the eastern limits of Jericho.

Amen, amen.

Thank you, colby.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word.

By it would you transform us this morning.

Speak to us, use this word to not just fill our heads, but also fill our hearts, fill our hands to send us out and, lord, today would be a day, would it be, lord, of remembering and proclaiming what you've done for us.

In Christ's name, amen.

Well, good morning.

The memory is an incredible thing, isn't it?

If you've ever maybe heard a song, maybe it came on the radio or came on shuffle on your phone, and immediately that song took you back to a place, to a moment, to a memory, you might as well have been there.

If you've maybe been at a location and it took you back, whatever it looks like, you saw someone you hadn't seen in years, and they're just one of those people where no real catch-up was required.

It just felt like you were right back in the swing of things because those memories rushed back.

The memory is unbelievable.

They talk about people much smarter than I, that little babies in the womb, starting at four months, can begin to have memories.

They can know and remember the sound of their mother's voice or even the sound of the environment around them, starting at four months.

It is said by people smarter than I that our brain, what we can remember, equals to now.

This isn't anything I even know how to say or think.

2.5 petabytes of data, 2.5 petabytes of data If that helps us at all, that's 2.5 million gigabytes of data.

That really helps me none.

I hope it helps you.

That's the equivalent of if you have the data of 300 years worth of television.

If you could map out that data.

That's what you have in your brain, your memory, what you're able to remember.

It's an amazing thing.

As amazing as it is, it can be painful.

Some of you have walked with individuals for whom memory has become a difficult thing, but our memory is incredible, isn't it?

Remember?

Our text today is about that word remember.

The Christian faith, I believe, is about that word remember, use your memory, be reminded of all that God has done.

And here's what I believe from our passage that we are called to remember and proclaim what God has done.

I want to talk about each part of that.

We are called to remember and to proclaim what God has done.

First, we're called to remember what God has done, as Colby just read.

In chapter 4, verses 1 through 7, there's this amazing moment, and as we catch up, you may remember, last week the people of God crossed the Jordan into the promised land.

This was a moment that was years and decades and centuries in the making.

The people of God crossed into the promised land.

All the promises of God have come true in this moment that he promised about the promised land.

Here they are Now.

They've arrived, and now God calls them to do something very specific.

In verses 1 through 5, the Lord gives Joshua instructions, he gives the people instructions that when you arrive in the land, from the 12 tribes the people of Israel, jacob divided into these tribes, each tribe send one person to take one stone.

And why?

Why grab these stones?

Well, verse 6, let me read it again, that this may be a sign among you when your children ask, in time to come, what do these 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.

Why grab these stones?

Why set up these stones so that you can remember and proclaim?

I really want to break down verses 6 and 7 this morning and go to the very end that word memorial.

What do you think of when you hear that word memorial?

Maybe you think of a trip to Washington DC and visiting the many monuments and memorials that are there.

Maybe you think of in just to Washington DC and visiting the many monuments and memorials that are there.

Maybe you think of in just a little less than two weeks, when Arkansas football kicks off in War Memorial Stadium, a stadium built to remember the lives of Arkansans lost in World War I and II War Memorial Stadium.

Maybe you even think of this room.

This room is a memorial.

It calls us to remember.

On the west side you have these windows up here that recall God's revelation.

If you look at each window closely not now, but when the sermon is over you'll see the whole story of Scripture displayed before you.

On the east side we have man's response.

So God's revelation, man's response.

Behind us, above the baptistry, you have the Holy Spirit descending on the dove, just in memorial of Jesus' own baptism.

As we got to celebrate baptism this morning, this whole room is a memorial.

Dr Harbuck told me that I read his booklet.

But we're called to remember.

Throughout our lives we've set up these little memorials.

Katie and I, we have this little four-hook key rack and we bought this right after we got married.

It was in our first apartment in Birmingham and it probably cost us $3.99 at a time where we $3.99 was big spending.

Okay, we were young and we were just getting after it marriage-wise and we bought this and it was in our first apartment and then when we moved to the second apartment, it moved there.

Then when we moved to our Little Rock apartment there then our first home, it was there.

Guys, it's a $399 little key rack and yet it has been with us, even into our house.

Now we still have it and you know, it's one of those things we maybe we should have just thrown away a a long time ago, because now we can't, now it's with us forever.

But what it reminds me of is everywhere we've been, every step of the way where God has taken us more than you know.

Just a place in our home.

Really, it kind of walks us through our, our marriage.

We have these little memorials in our lives.

I'm sure your family has them too.

But here's what frustrates me about this passage.

The people of God have just come into the land and my thought is this keep momentum rolling.

We've just seen the miracle of God.

If I were in charge, I would have told all the people let's go straight to Jericho.

Morale is high, we've got momentum, things are going strong.

Let's go for it.

And what does God do?

He tells them to stop and to remember.

Set up this memorial to remember what God has done.

And so they do it.

These 12 stones again.

Verse 6 and 7, why?

So that you can remember and proclaim that God cut off these waters and God allowed you to cross into the land.

Remember the story of what God has done For the people of Israel.

This story really serves as a bookend story.

I want you to look with me in verse 19 that Colby read.

The people came up out of the Jordan on the 10th day of the first month and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.

Very specific in when they came, the 10th day of the first month.

Why is scripture so specific with that?

Well, if you look back in Exodus, chapter 12, you see the story of the first Passover.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

The people of God are still in Egypt waiting to be set free, and God proclaims that this angel of death will pass through the camp on this night.

But who will be protected?

Those who take the blood of the lamb and put it over their door.

Quite literally, the blood of the lamb protects the people of God from death.

And when does this occur?

Verse 2 of Exodus 12,.

This month shall be for you the beginning of months.

It shall be the first month of the year for you.

Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the 10th day of this month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household.

When were the preparations made for the first Passover?

The 10th day of the first month.

And now, these many years later, every promise of God from then until now fulfilled.

As the people cross into the land on the tenth day of the first month, as if God is saying I'm a promise-keeping God.

And here they are remembering when we would tell them take momentum with you.

They look back.

I wonder if you have these memorials in your life, maybe even deeper than maybe some of the traditions and such we just talked about.

But maybe memorials set up.

You've set up, in a sense we just talked about, but maybe memorial set up.

You've set up, in a sense, these stones of remembrance in your own life as you remember these moments of just how much God has done for you.

You set up a stone of remembrance at that moment when the doctor told you the surgery was a success.

You set up a stone of remembrance to the faithfulness of God when you heard the words it's a boy, it's a girl, that child you were waiting on.

You set up a stone of remembrance from that thing you had prayed for for so long.

God finally answered that prayer.

Maybe you've even set up a stone of remembrance in a moment that was very painful for you.

And yet you've set up a stone of remembrance in a moment that was very painful for you.

And yet you've set up a stone of remembrance as you've seen so clearly that even through that, god was faithful.

Soren Kierkegaard, a man smarter than I.

He said this that life is lived forward but understood backwards.

Have you seen that in your life, life is lived forward but understood backwards?

Have you seen these moments in your life that in the midst of it, you had no idea what God was up to God.

Why am I here, god?

Why are you doing this?

Why is my family walking through this?

Why?

And yet you get a month, a year, a decade, a lifetime down the road and as you look back, you see every step of the way God was faithful and you can set up these stones of remembrance.

God, I remember what you've done and I gotta tell you church, family, you need these stones of remembrance Because I don't wanna scare you, but there's gonna come a day when a trial will come again, or maybe you're in it now and in those moments, what will keep you grounded, what will keep you clinging to the Lord, who is much more clinging to you, will be the memory of just how faithful he's been in the past.

And if he's been faithful to me, then he'll be faithful to me now.

We need those stones of remembrance in our lives.

So maybe for you today, at the lunch table this afternoon, with your family, with your friends, you just need to take time and just talk.

Where are our stones of remembrance as a family, as a church?

Where are the stones of remembrance at First Baptist Church of El Dorado?

Good times, hard times, everything in between?

Where do we set up those stones and say God is faithful.

Maybe today is a day for you to remember, but I also believe this today is a day to proclaim that, as believers, we are to proclaim what God has done.

Why build this memorial?

Look again, 6 and 7.

This is why that, when your children ask, in times to come, what do these stones mean?

You'll be able to tell them.

What do these stones mean.

You'll be able to tell them that when that little boy or girl comes to you, when your grandchild comes, when your great grandchild comes and says Grandma, grandpa, we were out playing this morning, you won't believe it.

We found 12 stones set up in the middle of nowhere.

Why?

Well, sit down and let me tell you just how good our God is, that you can proclaim to the next generation what God has done, that the story doesn't end with us.

The most catastrophic thing that could happen for believers is that the story would end with us, but instead we pass it down.

We tell our children, we tell the next generation.

You may remember, in Deuteronomy, chapter 6, the Lord is speaking through Moses, verses 4 through 9.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Hear, o Israel, the Lord, our God.

The Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord, with all your heart, soul, your might.

The words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

You will teach them diligently to your children and shall talk of them when you sit in the house and when you walk.

By the way, when you lie down and when you rise.

You shall bind them as a sign on your hand.

Be as the frontlets between your eyes.

You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

This was always the plan.

Proclaim to the next generation what God has done, and not just at nine o'clock or 10 15 on a Sunday morning, but at the dinner table Monday night and on the way to football practice on Tuesday evenings, or on the way home from school, or at the office or at PJ's Coffee, wherever it is.

Proclaim what God has done that the next generation can see the faithfulness of God.

Here's what I desire, 1st Baptist Elder I know, is that our homes, that your home would be the most normal place to have conversation about Jesus, that your home would be an absolutely normal place to have conversation about Jesus.

Now, I know, at the Thanksgiving table.

Religion and politics probably shouldn't bring them up, but maybe religion's okay because your home should be a normal place to have conversation about the goodness of God.

Your home should be a normal place for children to come to you.

If you have children to come to you with questions about the Lord, I had a conversation just the other week with a young man who's been talking to his parents about the things of God and he's close and he wants to know the Lord.

The home should be a normal place.

And maybe you're saying you know, I don't have children, taylor, my children are out of the home.

I must be out.

You know, off the hook today you are not, for my college students, in the room, that, your dorm room, that your apartment or the house you're renting, it should be the most normal place to talk about Jesus.

If you're in high school, that the halls of your school, the interactions that you're having, it's a normal place to talk about Jesus.

That the coffee shop is that the restaurant, wherever you're at, in your comings and goings, it's a normal place to talk about the goodness of our God.

Maybe you're in the room or you're watching at home and you're one of our dear senior saints and you wonder what do I have to offer to this church?

I want to tell you you have everything to offer to this church and what you have to offer to this church is you that we need you.

We need to learn from you and your experiences and how you've seen God work in your own lives, in the life of this church, and we need to hear and be encouraged by these stories.

We need it to proclaim what God has done to the next generation and the next generation, because I pray for many, many generations after you and I are gone.

This room will still be filled with people exalting Christ.

Why?

Because here and now, we were willing to remember and proclaim.

And here's the truth.

Church, family, we have the greatest news to proclaim.

Israel had the greatest news to proclaim that we serve a God who's faithful.

We serve a God who keeps his promises, we serve a God that walks with us and even more.

That story of God's faithfulness continues all throughout the storyline of Scripture the faithfulness of God to the people of God, as God walks through the story and weaves his story into the fabric of the Old Testament.

That is all leading to something.

And you and I today, who know the Lord Jesus, we have the greatest news to proclaim that the world can't offer, but our faithful God can, if you want to know that news.

Joshua 5, verse 9.

Joshua 5:9

Something fascinating happens.

We already saw in verse 19 that the name of this place was called Gilgal, where they camp, where they set up these stones Gilgal.

In chapter 5, verse 19,.

We see this moment at the beginning of 5 where there's a sanctification process among the people of Israel as they prepare to head towards Jericho and to take the land for which God has called them.

And then, after this sanctification process, this consecration verse 9, we see this.

And the Lord said to Joshua and so the name of this place is called Gilgal to this day.

Why is it called Gilgal?

It's really a play on words, because it sounds like the Hebrew word to roll.

He says today the reproach of Egypt has been rolled away.

So what did they call the place?

To roll?

Gilgal.

The reproach has been rolled away.

And think about the people of God who have been through so much Our slavery and bondage in Egypt and the shame that brought.

It's been rolled away.

Our own disobedience that led us to 40 years of wandering in the wilderness.

That was our mistake, that was our sin, our disobedience here at Gilgal.

It has been rolled away.

The reproach of Egypt has now been rolled away, but this story continues.

As church family, we have the greatest news to proclaim, because the reality is this there's another Gilgal story in Scripture there's another stone that was rolled and by it reproach was removed.

There's another story of one who was willing to, as Corrie Ten Boom says, cast our sins into the sea of forgetfulness and put up a no fishing sign.

There's another one who, as the psalmist says that as far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us.

And at Calvary, this Gilgal moment, where there was a stone rolled away, where Christ Jesus went into the grave bearing our sin it was my sin, it was your sin Placing them upon himself, how can I be forgiven only by this, that he took my sin?

I can't be good enough.

I can't have my own Gilgal moment, I can't roll away my own reproach.

And yet Christ Jesus did this for me and he went to the grave and Sunday morning he rose.

The stone was rolled away and so was my reproach.

And because of this, you and I have the greatest news to proclaim and we remember what Christ has done and we proclaim it.

We proclaim it to ourselves.

I have to preach to myself daily the gospel, remind myself that my worth is not found in what I can do or who I am.

It is found in the finished work of Christ, and we proclaim it to others and to the next generation, next generation.

This is our call as individuals and this is our call as a church.

Remember and proclaim.

So right now, as you sit there in your head, 2.5 petabytes are rolling around up there, 2.5 million gigabytes floating, and somehow it all means something up there Memories, things we learned in school, things I should have learned in school, all floating up there.

Life experience, the good, the bad, the ugly, the painful, the sorrowful, the joyful, all of these things, these memories that we have.

But this morning I believe this that if you could just take those 2.5 million gigabytes there and put them out before you, just lay them out and just observe it all in one moment, I think there would be a banner that flies over all of it and it would just say this the Lord is faithful.

The Lord is faithful over all of it.

This morning, how do we respond?

I hope you respond today by remembering and proclaiming, by thinking in your own life.

Where are those moments.

How has God been faithful to me and to my family?

But I also wonder this I wonder if there's someone in this room for the first time that needs to come and be introduced to Jesus, that maybe this morning is a morning that forever will be a stone of remembrance for you, because it's the morning where you said I want to know Jesus.

I'd love nothing more than to talk to you about how to do that, but however you need to respond, I pray you would do it now.

I'm going to pray and we'll worship together.

Let me pray with us.

Lord Jesus, thank you so much for your word, for your goodness to us, for your care, for your grace.

Thank you that we are called to remember, to remember and to proclaim.

I pray this morning, this day, this week.

We would take time to just consider how faithful you are, to consider, to remember what you've done for us and Lord, would we be a people and would we be a church that doesn't keep that story contained here but proclaims it to a lost and broken world, that proclaims it to our children, that proclaims it to the next generation that our God is faithful?

Lord Jesus, if there's decisions that need to be made this morning to come to know you personally, to be a part of this church, just to receive prayer.

I'd love to pray over anyone to have a conversation.

Lord, let today be that morning.

I ask this in Christ's name Amen Would you stand now as we worship?