How God Uses Memorials

So you need something to come back to for two reasons.

Number one, because there are tough days ahead.

And secondly, because there's good days ahead.

Sometimes prosperity is harder to survive than adversity.

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit brandparkway.org.

This is the word of the Lord from Habakkuk.

Oh Lord, I've heard of your fame and I stand in awe of your deeds.

Renew them again in our day.

Renew them again.

In your wrath.

Remember mercy.

This is the word of the Lord.

Let's pray together.

Father, we want to sing and say to you what Habakkuk the prophet said.

We don't contend to be a people that just hear about it and sing about it.

God, we want to see it.

So we say, renew them again in our day.

Or do it again.

Do it again.

You're not a God of one and done.

You're a God of forever.

The Bible says you're the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And so you possess as much capacity now as you had in the Old Testament, in the New Testament, yesterday, and tomorrow.

And so, Lord, we've come to appeal to your capacity as sons and daughters.

And in that process, God remind us of our capacity, our responsibility, and our privilege as the people of God.

Our confession today is that once we were not a people, but now we are the people of God.

And that changes everything.

And so we come to you, Lord, as your people.

And we open up your word.

We want to hear from you.

Holy Spirit, say something this morning that has our name on it, we pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

You can have a seat if you've got a Bible.

I invite you to take it and open it up to Joshua chapter 4.

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

Joshua chapter 4, one of the early books in the Old Testament.

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, it's one of your row on page 180.

And I want to talk to you this morning about why God uses memorials and why God uses memorials.

I think it was one of my young friends in this section over here that said, Hey, why are there rocks on the stage?

Here's why.

Because God, we're going to read about this.

God had promised these people over 500 years ago that they're going to get out of bondage.

He's going to take them to this place called the Promised Land.

It had an actual name, but it was called the Promised Land because God promised it.

And God does not break a promise, boys and girls.

He doesn't say one thing and do another, okay?

When God says something, he is going to bring it to pass.

You can bank and build your life on that.

And you'll be better for it if you do.

And so when they get there, they're at the at the edge of the river, the Jordan River, on the other side is the promised land, what they've been hearing about their whole lives.

And so they, God told the priest, hey, you take this Ark of the Covenant.

This box was covered in gold, had these two angelic beings called cherubim on it.

These cherubims, and their wings are pointed at each other, and it was the mercy seat.

It was the presence of God.

It was a symbol and reminder.

It wasn't just a symbol, it was a reality of God's presence.

And God said, I want the priest to take this thing.

There's a flowing river, and they got these poles through these loops.

And he says, You the priest walk out there in the middle of the Jordan River.

Remember this, everybody.

I can't got time to preach on this, but it's in me.

Never trust a preacher or a priest that won't be the first one in the water.

They're going to stand on the bank and tell you, hey, get out there.

God's going to know.

They lead by example.

They step out there.

And all of a sudden, when they did, the water just stopped flowing and it walled up right here.

And the riverbed was dry.

And the people walked across it.

When it says they walked across it, now when they came out of Egypt, there's about 600,000 of them, best we can tell.

When they get into the Promised Land, there's two million of them.

Because it's been 40 years of time that's passed.

And they've been occupying themselves with things to do.

Amen?

See how I said that with adult language?

Your kids are, whoo, what are you talking about?

And so there's two million people that God just stops the water, dries out the riverbed, and they walk across on dry land, and then God says, I want you to take 12 stones out of the middle of that riverbed and take them with you as a reminder, as a memorial.

And because you I never want you to forget.

That's why there's stones on the stage, boys and girls, because every once in a while God does things and he says, Mark this down.

Remember this.

Don't ever, ever, ever forget it.

Let's read it in the Bible today.

Joshua chapter 4, verse 1.

Joshua 4:1

When all the nation had passed, uh, had finished passing over the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, Take twelve men from the people from each tribe, and command them, saying, Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priest's foot 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 among you.

And 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.

The people of the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan, according to the number of the tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua, and they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged, and they laid them down there.

And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the covenant had stood, and they are there to this day.

For the priests bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.

The people passed over in haste.

And when all the people had finished passing over, the ark of the Lord and the priests passed over before the people, the sons of Reuben, the sons of Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh passed over, armed before the people of Israel, as Moses had told them.

About forty thousand, ready for war, passed over before the Lord for battle to the plains of Jericho.

On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him, just as they had stood in awe of Moses all the days of his life.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Command the priests bearing the ark of testimony to come up out of the Jordan.

So Joshua commanded the priests, Come up out of the Jordan.

And when the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord came up from the midst of the Jordan, and the soles of the priest's feet were lifted up on the ground, the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and overflowed all its banks as before.

Verse 19 says, The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.

And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up at Gilgal, and he said to the people of Israel, When your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean?

Then you shall let your children know.

Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and that you may fear the Lord your God forever.

What do I mean when I say why why God uses memorials?

There's five reasons I want to point to in the text why God tells people to do things that in the moment don't seem to make any sense.

Like go out in that river and get rocks out of the river.

By the way, don't miss the fact that the priest and the preacher should be the first people in and the last people out.

It's like Mel Gibson in that great movie We Were Soldiers, where he's standing there talking to his men, and he says, We will ride into battle, and this will be our horse.

And the helicopter comes swooping in and sets down, and he says, I will be the first man on the battlefield, and I'll be the last man off.

And it's great cinematography.

They shoot it from underneath the rails of the helicopter, and you see his boot coming down on the ground.

And when this bloody battle is over, he's the last one that lifts his soul off the battlefield.

That's the way God intended preachers to be.

We got a lot of preachers that give swimming instructions.

You don't need swimming instructions, you need an example to follow.

Somebody's out there burying the presence of God and seeing God do what only God can do.

And God says, I want you to memorialize this.

I want to use memorials.

Why?

Five reasons.

First one is simply this we need something to come back to.

We need something to come back to.

Gilgal became this base of operation for God's people.

So they came back to it each time.

They would be reminded and they would kind of see because they crossed the Jordan.

It's kind of they're right into the promised land.

And the first city they're going to encounter is a city called Jericho.

We'll get to that in just a minute.

But they kind of make base camp.

This is their base of operation.

They have this pile of 12 stones sitting there.

And God says, Hey, I want you to I'll use memorials because you need something to come back to.

Why is that?

Because two reasons.

Number one, there are going to be tough days ahead.

There's going to be tough days ahead.

It's not, hey, I'm in the promised land, and now it's just all milk and honey.

No, no, no.

The first city they come to is a city called Jericho.

Now, by the way, all through the Bible, I told you last Sunday, even, I reminded you, the reason you should kind of uh develop some hermeneutical muscles, this capacity to stick and stay in a book of the Bible all the way to the end, is you see the big picture of God, and also you see the big picture theme, the big themes of the Bible.

One of the themes of the Bible that you see all through it is what's called the law of first fruits.

The law of first fruits says that whatever comes in first, that belongs to God.

Nowadays it's referred to as tithing, but in the Bible it's called the law of first fruits.

This is an example.

God never changes his mind about that.

They get into the promised land, the law of the first fruit says the first city, the spoils of that belongs to God.

So they go to Jericho and God says, hey, we're gonna do something different.

We're not gonna fight these people because God's leading them.

And they get there and they said that God says, walk around the city seven times.

And so people are walking around the city, they're blowing horns.

The people of Jericho are ready for war.

And these cats got the marching band out there, and the band's going, Well, we got sweepstakes, we're really good, we really good.

They're marching around and around and around.

Seven days they marched around, seven times, excuse me, they marched around Jericho.

And on the seventh time, the walls of Jericho didn't tip over, they came down on themselves.

Archaeologists to this day say it's as if a hand came from above and shoved them down into the ground.

Great victory.

Now you say, why?

Why does God use memorials?

Because we need something to come back to.

Here's why.

Because they they conquered Jericho and God said, Hey, law of first fruits, this all belongs to me.

Don't touch anything.

There was a guy named Achan in the army that thought he was smarter than God.

You ever think you're smarter than God?

Sure you do.

Sure you do.

It sounds like this.

Well, it's my body.

I mean, I can do what I want with it.

I'm a liberated, you know, blah, blah, blah, fill in the blank.

And God's like, okay, not the way I created you to live, but knock yourself out.

Uh uh, and so they, after Jericho, they think they got away with it.

Man named Achan took some gold, hid it under his tent where no one can see.

He thinks everything's great.

Man, we like Georgian Wheezy.

We're moving on up, mama.

We're gonna get a bigger house and a better neighborhood.

Our kids are gonna go to private school.

Whoa, is God good or what?

No harm, no foul.

Nobody has to know.

Next city they get to is a little town called AI, spelled AI.

They get to AI, AI is about as big as Needville.

Nothing against Needville.

I'm all for it.

I'll be in Needville tomorrow for Memorial Day celebration.

I love me some Needville, okay?

They get to AI and they get it handed to them, okay?

They get routed.

And then Joshua has to go back to the Lord and say, What happened?

And God says, You guys didn't obey me.

You didn't do what I said.

I told you the law of first fruits is it belongs to me.

You guys took something, so you violated something.

Why did I tell you that?

Because there's gonna be tough days ahead.

They got to come back to their camp at Gilgal, look at these 12 stones, and kind of go, okay, we know what God's capable of.

We've seen God move, so why did this happen?

See, see, two reasons I told you.

Number one, because there's gonna be tough days ahead, but also, secondly, there's gonna be good days ahead.

There's gonna be good days ahead.

This is why we need something to come back to.

Moses did not make it into the promised land because he disobeyed God.

So he gave a farewell speech to the people that were gonna make it in in Deuteronomy, the book of Deuteronomy, chapter six, he says this to them.

And when the Lord your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant.

And when you eat and are full, hear this, beloved.

And when you eat and are full, then take care, lest you forget the Lord, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

See, you we need something to come back to.

God uses memorials because we've got to come back to something and kind of say, because there's gonna be tough times ahead, and because there's gonna be good times ahead.

It's it it it's we're wired up one of two ways.

Um some of you flourish in adversity.

It's like, you know what, God, we God is great, we got this.

Some of you flourish in prosperity.

Uh, I have some friends who go to the hell that have a beautiful home.

I mean, it is immaculate.

Uh they got like marble countertops or something.

I don't know where they come from, Italy or somewhere, and the floor is pristine and everything's awesome, and it looks like something that architectural digest.

And then in front of the kitchen sink is this ratty rug.

Uh and you don't say anything about the rug, because I first time I went to their house, I was like, we were sitting there having coffee, and I said, Hey, they sell new rugs, like wherever you get your stuff.

Once you break down and get a new rug, I think you can afford it.

And the wife burst into tears.

You ever say something, you're like, I think I just violated something I don't understand right there.

Uh I said, I'm so sorry.

Is it your grandmother or something?

And he just laughed, he's sipping his coffee.

He goes, No, that's our that's our reminder right there.

And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, that I'm an idiot?

What do we remind each other of?

He said, No, uh, when we first got married, Neil, we were broker than broke.

I mean, we we loved each other and we had a hard time keeping our hands off each other.

And I just said to her, hey, I want to make an honest woman out of you.

Uh let's let's do this right.

And so we just got married.

We made a plan and got married in a month.

I said, The Bible says it's better to marry than to burn.

And he said, Yeah, and he said, We were brokered and broke.

Our parents couldn't help us.

Our first apartment we lived in, we were so broken ill we couldn't afford a broom.

And this throw rug came with the apartment, and so we would roll it up and sweep the kitchen and the living area with this throw rug.

And we would just, and I said, Man, I'm so sorry.

But I was looking around their house, kind of going, and their four-car garage.

Uh well, he was like, hey, drive anything you want.

Like, don't say that to me.

Woo! I'll be shirtless out there in that Corvette in about five minutes.

Rock and roll is noise pollution.

Anyway, uh, his wife still had not got it together, and I'm like, man, I am so sorry.

He said, Yeah, uh, we we would we were so broke, you know, we wouldn't have enough money for food.

We would take turns not eating lunch.

We called it fasting, but we were just starving.

Uh and I was like, oh yeah.

Ah, now it's starting to come into focus.

He said, So this is just our we both went to school and I got a certification, and I got this job, and I got a promotion, and this company said, bought us out, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And he said, now it's better than I ever found it could be, and we don't ever want to forget.

So that's just, you could read the newspaper through this thing.

I mean, it is ratty, nasty.

Here's a question, boys and girls.

I want you to ask your parents sometime before you go to bed tonight.

What do you have in your life right now that reminds you how far God's brought us?

What do you have in our life, mom and dad, that reminds you how far God has brought us?

And so his wife was over there.

I'm sorry.

She's apologizing, I'm apologizing.

He's just smiling, he's just smiling, just sipping his coffee.

And I'm like, man, that is incredible.

He said, Yeah, so uh that rug isn't going anywhere.

And I was like, how do you change the subject from that, by the way?

I was just like, I just let it hang in the air.

See, we need something to come back to, just to kind of remind us when it's hard, we've got to come back and say, no, wait a minute.

We've seen the goodness of God in the land of the living, and when it's good, and the guy's he quoted Proverbs 30.

He said, Yeah, my prayer is God's just kind of blessed us and we've become, you know, and I said, rich.

And he goes, Well, we're blessed.

There's nothing wrong with being rich.

Be rich to the glory of God.

I'd love the opportunity to be rich to the glory of God.

Amen.

Yeah, some of you, I'm not following for that.

Hey, every time I see a billboard, I'll confess this to my friend Larry.

It says like mega millions is$648 million.

I tell the Lord, just superimpose those numbers on my windshield, and I'll be a good steward of every bit of that.

I'll tithe right off the top, and then we'll go from there.

So far it hadn't happened.

But anyway, play lato, give God a chance.

Anyway, just a joke.

Uh I said to him, he said, you know, I pray this all the time.

It's in he said, somewhere in Proverbs, I said, Yeah, it's Proverbs 30.

I know where you're going.

He said, Well, I said the psalm of Agur, who he said, Lord, don't give me so little that I steal and defame your name, and don't give me so much that I forget about you.

It's easy.

See, some of you, the more you get, the easier it's to forget about God.

Had a conversation with somebody just in the past couple weeks.

I said, you know, we started making money.

We got a ranch, we got a lake house, we got a beach house.

You know what I mean?

Nah, I got nothing.

No, I got I got one house.

Uh and I ain't hating on you, but remember this: this is free, okay?

It's human nature to seek to enjoy all you possess.

Therefore, you should probably limit what you possess because there comes a point, all you can do is feel guilty about everything you have because you know you're not utilizing it to its nth degree.

Now, by the way, if you're new to our church, I don't care if you got nine houses.

I really don't.

And my wife and I honeymooned in a home of a couple I met in New Mexico when I was speaking at their church.

They had four houses.

One of them was 3,800 square feet in Purgatory, Colorado.

So I would tell all my Catholic friends I went to hell from a honeymoon.

They they let us go there, and all they charged us was a$75 cleaning fee.

They said, we exist to be a blessing because God's blessed us.

We would be remiss if you didn't take us up on this.

It's fully stocked, and there it is, and it was beautiful.

And I said, all we want you to do is take pictures and put them in the photo album.

There were four photo albums under the coffee table in the living room, chock full of people from all over the country that had come to their house.

So let's don't be ragging on people that got stuff, okay?

Just remember this.

Hey, God, don't give me so much that I forget you.

Don't give me so little that I steal and defame your name.

A memorial brings us back and kind of reminds us, brings us something to bring us back.

The second reason God uses memorials is that God must lead and we must follow.

To remind us that God must lead and we must follow.

The Bible said early on that they passed before the ark.

Uh uh, what do you mean they passed before the ark?

He says in verse 5, Joshua said to them, Pass on before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan.

Uh, because the ark was the first thing in.

I wasn't knocking on preachers earlier, but the first people that God says, put yourself in harm's way are those who lead.

They they're bearing up the presence of God in the Ark of the Covenant.

They go out there and the river stops flowing and it just walls up and the riverbed dries out.

You say, What do you mean God must lead and we must follow?

Boys and girls, here's another question I want you to ask your mom and dad.

How do you know when God's leading you?

How do you know when God is leading you?

See, when I say God must lead and we must follow, they pass before the ark.

Why did they pass before the ark?

Because the ark got there first.

And I want you to know how did it get there?

That's back in chapter three.

Let me just read a couple verses to you.

To just kind of see how they revered how this reverence they had for God's presence, for God in his presence.

And the Bible says this in Joshua chapter 3, verse 1.

Joshua 3:1

Then Joshua rose early in the morning, and they set out for Shatem, and they came to the Jordan.

He and all the people of Israel, and they 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 of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priest, then you shall set out from your place and follow it.

Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about two thousand cubits in length.

Do not come near it, in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you shall not you have not passed this way before.

Now a couple things I want to draw your attention to.

First of all, two thousand cubits.

A cubit is about twenty inches.

Two thousand cubits is about three thousand three hundred and thirty-three point three three three three uh uh uh a feet.

It's a long way.

Which it's a little over, it's like 0.64 uh uh of a mile.

It's a little over half a mile, okay?

Uh now this is what God says.

Now God's leading, they're following, and God says, you stay back over a half mile from my presence.

Now, have you ever got up close to a fire truck?

Anybody?

I grew up in a small town.

I don't know if it's still this way, but in my small town, on the back of every fire truck it said, in letters about this tall, stay back 500 feet.

Here's the problem.

From 500 feet back, 500 feet is over one and a half of a football field.

You cannot read letters that are this tall from 500 feet back.

So in order to read that, you have to violate what it says.

It's the dumbest thing in the world.

I mean, like get a bigger letter in or just drop it all together.

But the presence of God is like that.

God says, I want you to stay back.

You cats, follow me, but stay back a half of a mile.

Why?

Because they had this deep reverence.

Look at what he says.

Do not come near it in order that you may know the way you should go.

When you violate the presence of God, you don't get the knowledge that only God can give.

Let me say that again.

When you violate the presence of God, when I violate the presence of God, when I disobey, you don't get the knowledge, you don't get the leadership.

God intended you to have.

He says, Hey, do not come near it in order that you may know the way you should go, for you have not passed this way before.

Look at me, beloved.

You're going to get yourself in situations where you don't know.

Do I go to the left or to the right?

What do I do?

Where do I turn?

What a God says, Hey, follow me.

Follow me.

This is why He gives us memorials.

Here's a third reason.

Because to be a person of authority, you must be under authority.

To be a person of authority, boys and girls, listen carefully.

I'm not talking just to the seven-year-old, I'm talking to the 17-year-old.

To be a person of authority, you must be under authority.

Look at verse 10.

He says, For the priest bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.

Did you hear it?

Here verse 10 again.

For the priest bearing the ark stood in the midst of the Jordan until everything was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to tell the people, according to all that Moses had commanded Joshua.

Now, did the Lord command Joshua or did Moses command Joshua?

Look at me.

Here's the principle I want you to understand today.

For Joshua, who is a man under authority, under Moses, uh for Joshua, when Moses spoke, it was just as if God had spoken.

And boys and girls, if you want to be a person of authority where you act with a measure of divine compression, of holy compression upon you, you have to learn to be under authority.

It's one of the questions I ask everybody in counseling.

At some point in the counseling process, I ask this question: Who or what do you submit to?

And I guess y'all have been telling people that.

Some of your friends you refer to counsel because recently I asked a guy that he goes, Why do you ask that question?

I said, because the Bible says, because there was no king in Israel, everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

I'm just trying to understand who's the king of Israel, who's sitting on the throne of your heart, who's in charge?

Because if you don't submit to anybody or anything, I can't help you, and I don't think you can be helped.

I have a friend that's transgender, he's struggling with transgenderism right now.

And he texted me this weekend and said, Hey, if you could ask a transgender person any one question, what would you ask him?

I said, I would ask him, who or what do you submit to?

What's what's what has the authority to tell you no?

What has the authority to say yes when you're thinking no?

This is what it means to be a person of authority, and to be a person of authority, you must be under authority.

It's verse 10.

I mean, it says the Lord commanded, and then according to all that, Moses is commanded.

Because don't miss it again.

For Joshua, when the person in authority over him, Moses spoke, it was just as if God had spoken.

Boys and girls, when you disobey your mom and dad, it's just like you're disobeying God because they are the authority that is over you.

Now, authority is a four-letter word in our culture.

I don't know if you picked up on that.

People get pulled over by the police.

This happened, uh, I don't know when it happened, but it was on the news yesterday.

A guy was going 104 miles an hour.

A cop was on the side of the road, flew by him.

They finally caught up to him, and he tried to squeeze him between two cars, and it kind of parted a little bit.

He scraped one of them, lost control, pulled over, got out, and the guy was drunk, and the first thing he said to the cops was, What are you pulling me over for?

See, we look at me.

We have we have reinvented the time of back then because there's no king in Israel, and everyone does what's right in their own eyes.

What are you pulling me over for?

Again, to be a person of authority, you have to be under authority.

And Joshua was under authority.

You say, I don't know what you mean.

Look down at verse 14.

On that day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel, and they stood in awe of him just as they'd stood in awe of Moses all the days of his life.

Ask yourself if you're respected today.

Ask yourself, and people around me, do they respect me?

Or do they just want my stuff, or they just want to hang out with me.

Here's the fourth reason God uses memorials, because it won't always be what it once was.

It won't always be what it once was.

What does that mean?

Look at verse 19.

You still with me?

Look at verse 19.

It says the people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, and they encamped at Gilgal on the east border of Jericho.

Now, again, remember I said earlier, when you when you when you just stay in a book of the Bible, you begin to see the big picture of the Bible and the deep themes of the Bible.

Uh, before we were in John, like a long time ago, we were in the book of Exodus.

Remember that?

Remember in Exodus, we were like in it for seven years or something?

We're like, oh, it took so long.

I don't want to hear about this.

So if you were paying attention in the book of Exodus, verse 19 should sound familiar.

Let me read it again.

The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month.

Anybody?

Anyone?

Euler, Euler.

It's the same day.

The tenth day of the first month, the same day that they came up out of the Exodus.

It's the day that God instituted Passover, 40 years earlier to the exact day.

Now, when I say it won't always be what it once was, and here's what I mean.

The word Gilgal means this.

It means the reproach has been rolled away.

And so they disobeyed God.

They didn't trust God.

They were out in the wilderness.

God brings them out of Egypt, and the first thing they do is doubt God.

See, it's one thing to come out, it's another thing to enter in.

Hello?

Are you with me?

Let me say that again.

It's one thing to come out of bondage.

It's another thing to enter into the promised land.

And so they come out of bondage, and the first thing they do is they start doubting God.

And God gets sick of this.

And when I say it won't always be what it once was, here's the way you experience that it doesn't have to always be what it once was.

You stop doing what you've always done.

You don't just walk into the promised land and kind of go, hey God, I'm gonna keep relating to you the same way.

No, you should have some memorials that reorient your heart and your head around both God and gospel.

You're like, oh man, you know what?

God's been so faithful.

When it's tough, you're like, you know what?

We're sweeping the floor with a throw rug, but it's okay because God's faithful.

I don't know when he's gonna do it, but God's promised and God always keeps his word.

Or when you're just killing it, you're knocking the top out of it.

You got mailbox money showing up on the first and the 15th, and you're laughing all the way to the bank.

You look at your wife and kids and say, hey, let's not lose sight of the fact that we have what we have.

Everything we have is because God is great and faithful.

Don't you think it's because mom's got a great job or dad made good investments?

It won't always be what it once was.

What do you mean?

God made the promise over 500 years ago to Abraham.

And he told it to Isaac, and Isaac told it to Jacob, and it passes on.

And this is a big deal because these people are like, now they're here.

But they wandered.

See, Gilgal means the reproach has been rolled away.

What is the reproach?

Because these people doubted God, and by the way, God doesn't take that lightly, he doesn't wink at that.

Uh, this is Numbers chapter 14.

Numbers 14 · chapter mention

Now remember they sent 12 spies into the land?

Remember that?

They sent 12 spies into the land.

Ten of them came back and said, Man, those guys are as big as they make us look like grasshoppers.

They're ginormous.

There's no way, man.

They got Kawhi Leonard, and they got Drake on the sideline.

There's no way we can beat them.

And two.

Ten said no.

Two said, Let's go.

One of the two was Caleb.

The other one was Joshua.

Another ten cats wrote a book in the Old Testament.

Look at me.

Cowardly men and women don't make history.

They just don't.

Unless you can see what God sees and believe what God says, you don't make history.

You're just kind of, hey, I'm paying my mortgage and taking my vacations.

What more is there?

So much.

So much.

This is the way God responds to them when they come back and they doubt God.

This is Numbers 14, 34, according to the number of the days in which you spite out the land, 40 days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity 40 years, and you shall know my displeasure.

So it's a big deal.

In verse 19, when it says, The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month, 40 years to the day.

Because God keeps his word.

When it's good and when it's hard, he says, You're gonna bear my displeasure.

I'm not gonna change my mind about this.

And those people had all died off, and they'd made some new people, so they'd grown in numbers.

And these people crossed, they crossed the Red Sea to get out, they crossed the Jordan River to get in.

Ask yourself, which one of those rivers you still need to cross?

You need to cross the river to get you out of bondage, or you need to cross that river that kind of gets you into all that God has promised.

Here's the last reason God says build a memorial, is because God always acts with a purpose.

God always acts with a purpose.

Boys and girls, this is free right here.

This will change your relationship with your parents.

Do your mom and dad ever do something and you have no idea why they do it?

If that's true, say yes.

Oh, some some old people in the room.

I'm talking to everyone under the age of, say, 12.

Does mom and dad ever do stuff and you're like, I don't know why we do that.

Yes or no?

Yeah.

There you go.

Here's what you do: you don't doubt your parents.

You don't say to your parents, I don't know why you're doing this.

This is dumb.

This is stupid.

Okay?

Because that it's oh, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Easy, easy, easy up in here.

That's called disrespect.

God doesn't smile on that.

Remember, we talked about boys and girls being a person of authority.

You have to be under authority.

And how when you disobey God, I mean you disobey your mom and dad, it's like disobeying God.

By the same token, when you obey them, it's like obeying God.

Obedience collects favor on your life.

Ask your mom and dad to explain that to you.

They'll be glad too.

Yeah.

And it's not like, oh, God owes me.

No, no, no.

It's not God owes you.

God is seeing how much He can trust you.

And you're never too young to start demonstrating to God you can trust me.

My mom tells me to do stuff, and sometimes I think, mmm, but I do it anyway, because I want to be a young woman of authority, okay?

Now, I say God always acts with a purpose.

Don't pitch a fit and go crazy.

Just ask your mom and dad, hey, can I, what can you tell me that would help me understand the purpose of this?

That's how you get the information.

What can you tell me to help me understand the purpose of this?

God always acts with a purpose.

Verse 21 says, He said to the people of Israel, When your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean?

Here's the last question I want you to ask your mom and dad today, boys and girls.

Hey, ask your mom and dad, hey, I or let me ask you, if you could ask your mom and dad any one question, what would it be?

Because the Bible says that it's moms and dads, we're supposed to live our way, our lives in such a way that our kids ask us questions.

He says, When your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean?

Then you shall let your children know Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground.

For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over, as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which he dried up for us until we passed over.

This is what he did.

Here's why.

Two reasons, and we'll be done.

Number one, he says in verse 24, here's the first reason: so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty.

So that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty.

And let's all pray this prayer today at least once or twice.

What could God do?

Ask God, God, what could you do in the life of our church that would demonstrate to everybody in surrounding cities that the hand of the Lord is mighty?

What could God do that would demonstrate to everybody around that the hand of the Lord is mighty?

That's the first reason he did it.

The second reason he says this that you may fear the Lord your God forever.

That you may fear the Lord your God forever.

That doesn't mean be afraid, boys and girls.

I know fear is like, oh, I don't know.

Big adult word.

It's not uh uh uh this it's it's it's filial fear.

It's this fear of a father.

It's not it's like respect, it's not dread.

Uh I give you an example.

Somebody recently, I told y'all this story years ago, and someone said, Hey, you told us a story one time.

Was that true?

And I'm like, Yeah, you think I just made that up?

Uh I grew up on a farm.

And on a farm, we had a milk cow named Maybell, and every morning and every afternoon, about 4:30, we had to milk the cow.

That's how we got our milk.

And our milk cow, Jersey cow Maybell, would get out.

And I grew up next to the Cavendars, James Cavender.

If you drive by Cavendar's Boot City, the first one was based in my town.

Our pastors budded up against each other.

I used to fish in his pond.

I knew all the Cavender kids who now run the empire.

Um matter of fact, I saw Tracy, the daughter, at a funeral I did last year, and she said, Hey, I love that.

And she had her personal assistant walking with her.

I need one of those.

And she said to him, he's a man.

He said to him, Get his number, he's gonna do my funeral.

It was morbid and fascinating all at the same time.

I was like, I need somebody to come follow me around, do my bidding like that.

But our cow would get out, and so our cow would just wander off into their pasture.

It'd be like half a mile, sometimes a mile back there.

And one day my dad said, Come on, he got the lead rope.

Come on, we've got to go get your cow.

We're walking out there.

My dad had bad feet.

They always bothered him.

So we're it's over a mile.

We're sliding out there and I see her, and my dad starts calling her.

My dad was like MacGyvert with animals.

He would call out, mmm, a cow would come like a dog.

I was like, shut up.

He just clicked the lead rope.

I'm like, this is easy.

We're walking back, and we're just talking, and all of a sudden the cow jerked around to like get a fly by some of my foot, and it pulled my dad down the ground.

Well, it embarrassed him.

He got up, he wrapped that rope around his hand, went wham! And that cow just went boom right down to her knees.

I was seven years old, I was going, and just took off running.

We're maybe maybe not quite a half mile from our barn.

I'm just sprinting over the hill.

My brothers, one was riding on the gate, was laying on the gate, and the other was swinging it open and closed.

My dad said, Don't do that, you're gonna break them hinges down.

They're like, What's the matter?

What's the matter?

He knocked the cow out.

I'm just running.

Like what?

I said, Save yourselves.

I ran past them through the gate, all the way to the barn.

I had the grate, the gate to the corral open, and my dad came limping up over the hill, and the cow's running right beside my dad.

It's like you walking to Pickanese.

That look that milk cow was just like, I ain't going anywhere, Mrs.

Leon.

To these days, I go back to my hometown.

Occasionally people that know me, they'll stop me, hey man, you knocked a cow out lately?

I said, That wasn't me, that was my dad.

I know.

But I'll tell you this, and we're done.

I never thought the same about my dad ever again.

I wasn't afraid of my dad, but I remember I'd be sitting there eating scrambled eggs beside him thinking, that man knocked a cow out.

Do I really want to ask him if I cannot work today?

Because I want to ride my bike and go swimming?

Uh and my dad would always say, Hey boy, don't be scared of me.

Too late.

But it wasn't fear like, oh, look at me, my dad never abused me.

And I got a lot of whippings, and I deserved every one of them.

Because I was a wayward kid.

But I had a deep reverence for my dad.

Despite all his dysfunction later in life.

Seven years old.

I'd be milking the cow the next week, and I'd be like, I'd try to pick the cow up.

Like, oh try to figure out what my dad was capable of.

Hey, look at me.

We're done.

You need to get in your head what God's capable of because that will inform the way you relate to Him.

When God says, I want you to fear me the rest of your days, fear the Lord your God forever, He's not saying, Oh, be afraid.

He is saying you live with a deep, abiding, reverent respect for me and what I'm capable of.

Matter of fact, I so want you to remember that.

I want you to pile up some stones so you don't forget.

Let's pray together.

If you're our guest today, we like to teach the Bible and give you some space to think about it.

Some questions come up on the screen.

Those are just a you don't try to write them down.

You can just take a picture with your phone discreetly, if you would.

We want you just to we want to help you remember God's faithfulness.

Let me voice a prayer, then we'll just kind of sit in silence, and Clyde will just play, and we'll just think about these things.

God, we are your people, and that's privilege and responsibility.

And we're not gonna spit the bit on either end of that deal.

You're not a God that's come to hit us and knock us down.

You're a God that came to perform wonders.

Once we were not a people, and that was a big deal, but now we are the people of God, and that's even a bigger and better deal.

And so we take that seriously because you do.

We take you seriously because you take yourself seriously.

And you can pour out your displeasure on us, or you can pour out your favor on us, and you'll be glorified in both of those.

It makes you know, never mind.

But God, we want to live our lives in such a way that your favor is poured out on us.

Help us to think about that now.

Our lives are to reflect the character, the moral integrity, and the sufficiency of God.

Lord, let that be accomplished, not through effort, but because of intimacy.

Pray all this in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Amen.

Thank you for your presence.

If you're our guest, hopefully you've had an opportunity to fill out one of those guest cards in your in the seat pocket in your row.

If you have, on your way out this morning, would you just drop one of those wooden boxes by the doors?

And if today's the day you give your first fruits, that's where you do that as well.

We have a few things going on in the life of our church we want you to be aware of.

So give your attention to this brief video for announcements today.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

Rosaria Butterfield will be here in less than three weeks.

If you haven't registered yet, head to our website or find our kiosk in the lobby.

If you'd like to learn more about her, we have some of her books available in the lobby.

And you can also check out our website at rosariabutterfield.com.

New summer devotionals are available in the lobby and exits.

This is a simple tool created for you to spend time thinking about and growing in your relationship with God.

Feel free to grab one for yourself or someone else who would enjoy.

If you have questions about anything you've heard today, or you would like someone to pray with you, some of our pastors and elders will be available at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

You got 30 seconds for a memorial story?

I told him I met him in a camp.

I said, Ask out the most beautiful woman you ever met.

They don't get asked out a lot.

He's like, Oh man, it's one girl at school.

I said, Ask her out.

He never did.

They got to college.

He finally got the courage to ask her out.

Uh she said, I'd love to.

I never get asked out.

See?

Uh they started going.

They started going out.

He saved everything they ever did.

He had the uh uh the napkin from the first restaurant they went to.

He had the movie tickets, every movie they went to.

They dated almost two years.

At the end of two years, he asked her to they went to this nice restaurant and they had the it's kind of in the downtown area, and then he said, Hey, you want to go for a carriage ride?

They come out, there was a carriage sitting there, got in there.

It was a cold November night.

There was a blanket and a photo album.

And in the photo album, he had saved every memento.

And the first page said, This was our first day.

It's a picture of the restaurant, little little the napkin was under there, everything.

This is the first movie we saw, this is where we went here, this is where we went here, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

The last page, she turns it.

They're downtown.

He had a thermos of hot chocolate in there.

They're sipping hot chocolate.

She's turned the pages, sobbing.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe you saved all that.

The last page was a picture of the chariot they were riding in with the exact same driver.

And it said, the caption said, and this is where I asked her to marry me.

And he just turned to her and said, Would you make me the happiest man in the world?

Behold the power of memorials.

Remember.

There's things that are worth remembering, but you gotta have some tools that help you remember them.

Stand to your feet.

We'd like to close our service with a blessing.

Hold your hands out.

Your God is a God who remembers he does not forget.

So depart now.

And have some mechanism and means by which you remember the greatness of your good God.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.