An Invitation to Remember

This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

For more information, our church, please visit grandparkway.org.

Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I want to invite you to take it and open it up to Joshua chapter 4.

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

And I want to read a little bit in Joshua 4.

And I want to talk to you about an invitation to remember.

That's what memorials are.

It's an invitation to remember.

And all through the Bible you see God, like back in Genesis, he told uh Jacob he fell asleep and he had a dream and the ladder was coming down and he saw angels going up and down the ladder.

And when he came out, woke up from the dream, he took the rock that he was using as a pillow and he poured oil on it to commemorate.

Hey, never forget this.

Now, some of y'all have been emailing me, some of y'all been asking me and saying, hey, what's the difference in not forgetting and remembering?

I got your email.

What is the deal?

Somebody said, We're not going to be there tomorrow.

We're at our beach house.

And so I wrote back, so sad for you, sinners.

Just see if they're paying attention.

Anyway, and so here's the difference.

Let me just tell you up front.

The difference in not forgetting and remembering, not forgetting is rooted in effort.

Remembering is rooted in experience.

It's kind of like a guy told me one time, he said, if you want to keep your mind sharp, when you go to the grocery store, your wife gives you a few things.

Don't make a list.

Just memorize them in your head.

Don't write anything down.

Yeah.

Anyway, you ever see people walking through the grocery store going, eggs, milk, tuna, cottage cheese.

Eggs, milk, tuna.

I make a song up.

So if you see me walking through the store, walking through crow group on Highway 6, I'm singing that.

I'm singing because I want to remember.

That's effort.

You can set it to music and it's still effort.

Remembering is rooted in experience.

In other words, you realize that you had this experience that's so enjoyable.

You're just kind of, oh, just the thought of it, you're just kind of like this week, my kids and I went, because my wife was out of town, uh, and so I was cooking, so we went to Olive Garden, and and and I almost cried in the Olive Garden.

And here's why.

Because I had this memorial.

I was walking in, and Sophie looked at me, our eight-year-old, and she said, Oh, I love the salad dress in here, Daddy.

And I went back to where Marcia and I first got married in 1993, and we were broke.

I mean, like so broke we couldn't pay attention broke, and and and we'd save money, we'd go to the Olive Garden, and it was so good.

I remember one time we kind of we asked, they said, We sell the salad dress.

We're like, man, this is awesome.

And the guy said, It's$2.65 a bottle.

I was like, Are you kidding me?

What is that, liquid gold?

You remember a time you couldn't afford$265?

See, some of y'all forgot, you need to remember that.

I was up here at the overcrowded, overpriced, overrated Olive Garden.

And then it was on the counter, and I said, So if you want a bottle of that, and I said, How much is that?

And the lady said,$465.

And I said, Bring it to me.

And they brought it to the table after we got done.

I told my wife, put that on our bill and bring me a bottle.

He brought that.

I just thought something started welling up in me.

And I was like, I'm fixing to cry at the stinking Olive Garden.

And that little voice in me just said, because there was a time you could remember, there was a time you couldn't afford this.

Now it's almost doubled in price, and you should be burning in hell, but you get a bottle of Olive Garden salad dressing.

And I walked out like it was the holy grail in a paper bag, hoping that someone would ask me what's in the bag.

And it went, by the way, they don't have small bags at Olive Garden.

It was like in the full-size, you know, grocery bag thing, and I was just carrying it like that.

And so I want to carry, I said, Don't break that.

That's a memorial right there.

We don't want to forget that.

I want to look in God's word at this memorial, where another place where God says, Hey, hey, remember this.

He doesn't say don't forget.

That's like them kind of walking through life, kind of going, Oh, what'd God say?

He said this and that, and then don't, what was it?

Is there ten commandments or is there seven?

And do they really still this is what God says.

Joshua chapter 4, verse 1.

Joshua 4:1

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, 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.

And 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.

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, and 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.

Two things I don't have time to preach this morning.

Number one, you should have some memorials in your house, some reminders of God's goodness.

That might you should have some things in your house that make your kids ask you, What's that?

What what what what what does that mean?

Why do we have that?

Secondly, the thing I want to remind you of that I don't I don't have time to really talk about, and some of you are like, Well, are you kidding me?

You're gonna say it anyway, so you might as well.

Uh he he he he he says this.

It's interesting when he says uh he uses the word passed over.

He says, When the Ark of the Covenant passed over, just file that away in your mind.

I just want to say it now.

We'll come back to it later.

Uh so what does God want us to remember?

This is a story about the children of Israel.

They've been, you know, they were in slaves in Egypt, and God rose up Moses and said, Let my people go.

And so they've been let go.

They didn't trust God, they would do good, they didn't believe in the goodness of God.

Sometime read the 78th Psalm, you'll see, God was faithful.

They said, Thank you, went out and were unfaithful.

They came back, said, God, we're sorry.

God was faithful, poured out more goodness on them.

They said, Hey, well, thank you.

They went out and they were unfaithful.

And now they're at the precipice of all that God's promised.

The promised land is right over there.

And they send the Ark of the Covenant or the Ark of Testimony, the presence of God, and they send it out, and all of a sudden the river just stops flowing, and the riverbed dries up, and the entire nation of Israel walks across.

That's the picture we begin with in verse 1.

He says, When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan, and it finishes with them saying, Go out there in the middle of the riverbed and get twelve stones and bring them out and take them with you.

Here's the second thing I don't have time to really go into is that not everything God does is just for right now.

Sometimes God does things right now, today, and it's for 20 years from now.

It's for a long time from now.

It's kind of like you go into someone's house for dinner tonight for Memorial Day or tomorrow for lunch, and you go in their house and in the kitchen, there's a hole in the sheetrock about as big as the man's fist, and there's a picture frame around it, and with a little note under it says, The anger of man does not accomplish the righteous life God desires.

I don't care how politically correct you are, you're asking somebody, what's up with that?

You know, there's handymen that can fix this.

And can you imagine a man being so self-aware, he just smiles and says, I used to be a really verbally abusive man, and one day I got so mad at my wife, I put my fist through the sheetrock.

And I leave that there as a memorial to remind me that I'm not the man I used to be because God's done a neat work in my life.

See, that's what these 12 stones, it wasn't like empty ritual, it was a reality.

God said, I'm doing something now, you're never gonna forget it.

Why?

Because you experienced this.

What does God want us to remember?

Four things this morning.

Number one, he wants us to remember that God keeps his word.

God keeps his word.

Don't turn there, but just write down Exodus chapter 3, verse 7.

Exodus 3:7

It'll come up on the screen in just a minute.

Exodus chapter 3, verse 7.

Exodus 3:7

You say, Well, what do you what what do you mean?

Well, what when you say that God keeps his word?

Let me just read it to you, because way back, he said this to Moses and he didn't change his mind.

Things didn't look good, the circumstances weren't favorable.

He says in Exodus chapter 3, verse 7, then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry.

Exodus 3:7

Let me ask you something.

You ever lay in bed and think about your life and wonder if God notices what's going on?

You ever lay in bed and just kind of think, if there really is a God, then why is it like this?

It shouldn't be this hard.

And God says, I want you to know, first of all, I've seen the affliction of my people who are in sugar land.

I've seen my the affliction of my people who are living in an apartment and thought they'd be living in a house by now.

I've seen the affliction of my people who want kids so bad they can taste it and still they're childless.

He says, I see your affliction.

The God that speaks to Moses way back in the beginning is a God who sees everything that vexes you, that perplexes you, that angers you.

Look what he says.

And I've heard their cry because of their taskmasters, and I know their sufferings.

So what does he do about it?

He goes on to say this.

He says, Hey, and I've come down to deliver them up out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites.

This is what God says.

He says, This is what I've gone to do.

And what does Moses say in response?

He says, And now behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me.

I've heard their cries, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them.

God says, I see all this.

He says, Now come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

God says, This is not okay.

We're not going to stay here and just do this.

I see, and I'm going to do something about it.

And then Moses says, because Moses sees the commands of God through the lens of himself.

And Moses says, Who am I that I should bring, uh, should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out?

And basically, God says in response, the issue is not who are you?

The issue is who am I?

He said, But I will be with you.

And this will be a sign for you.

And I've sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

Moses, here's what God says.

And God says, Hey, the issue is not who are you, Moses?

The issue is that who am I?

I'm the God who will be with you.

I just want to begin this morning by saying, first of all, that God keeps his word.

When you read something in the Bible, it never like runs out.

It's kind of like, well, God meant that back then.

He doesn't mean it anymore.

No, he still means it.

Do you realize that?

There's like a time stamp.

I hear people say all the time, well, times are changing.

What's that got to do with the Bible?

Where since, well, back in the biblical days it was this way.

And nowadays it's just, you know, well, it's not in a man's, this is my favorite.

Well, it's not in a man's nature to be monogamous.

Then why would God say, Thou shalt not commit adultery?

God is the most hateful being that ever lived.

If he created you with a nature that cannot keep, that gave commands that are impossible to keep.

Let's begin this morning with a thought in our head, God keeps his word.

Secondly, obedience matters.

Obedience matters.

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

Notice, I'm back in Joshua chapter 4.

Joshua 4 · chapter mention

Notice who's there.

He says, the Lord said in verse 1 to Joshua, and he says, take 12 men from the people and each tribe and command them, saying, Take 12 stones and goes on and does what we just read about.

Notice who is there, but also notice who's not there.

Remember who God spoke to when God first spoke back in Exodus?

Moses is not there.

And the reason Moses is not there is because Moses did not trust God.

He disobeyed.

I think the Bible talks about in Numbers chapter 20.

Numbers 20 · chapter mention

God told Moses, the people cried out for water, and God told Moses, take your staff and speak to the rock, and water will come out of the rock.

And Moses took his staff and he hit the rock.

And God said, Because you didn't believe me.

Because you made people think it's because of some hocus pocus thing you did.

They don't that now they think, oh, Moses is great, but you didn't believe me.

You're not going to see the promised land.

The book of Deuteronomy ends with Moses standing on a mountain looking over and seeing it from a distance.

And God says, You're not going to go in.

And the book of Deuteronomy closes with Moses dying, seeing what he'd been promised from a distance.

Now just keep that thought in mind, seeing it from a distance, because here's my fear that in American Christianity we've become accustomed to hearing sermons and going to Bible studies and listening to radio programs and podcasts where we hear all these great things from a distance.

But we never taste and see the goodness of God for ourselves.

And beloved, it's not intended to be that way.

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

If you're not careful, things from a distance, it's kind of like, hey, this is good for me.

I believe God's out there and I believe all this stuff is true.

I don't really experience it.

Well, here's the problem with that.

After a while, when you don't really experience, and it's not like taste, it's not on the tip of your tongue.

It's like not that real, it's that brisket you're gonna have later today or tomorrow.

It's just kind of, well, I hope this is true.

Here's what you do: you transfer your faith from God to some rituals that you hope are kind of filling the gap.

And after a while, you don't really have faith in them anymore.

And so you have a faith or a tradition that you don't really enjoy, and a faith nobody really is crazy about.

You say, Well, I don't know about that.

Do this when you go back to work on Tuesday, say to your coworkers, hey, do you guys know that God's the biggest priority in my life?

And watch their facial expression.

If they laugh, you might want to go, you know what?

Maybe I need to think differently about how I live.

Maybe I am living disconnected or kind of at a distance.

You see, uh, let me give you a couple quotes.

Brendan Manning says this.

He says, the single greatest cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him by their lifestyle.

That is what an unbelieving world finds simply unbelievable.

The world does not want us to be perfect.

The world just wants us to be real, to live what we say we believe, so they can just kind of see, okay, let me, if this is really true, let me see it.

And when you and I live this up and down life where we live disconnected, what we we believe to be true, the world kind of says, that can't be true, or you people would be different.

A.

W.

Tozer, who lived back in the 50s, was a prolific writer and thinker.

He said this, he said, salvation apart from obedience is unknown in the sacred scriptures.

Apart from obedience, there can be no salvation.

For salvation without obedience is a self-cont a self-condictor, contradictory impossibility.

Say that three times real fast.

Now look at that.

For salvation without obedience is a self.

Contradictory.

I'm waiting on you.

Come on, help me here, people.

Y'all like, can you get it right this time?

I gave you the clue.

Obedience is a self, contradictory impossibility.

You you see, it's not, I'm gonna obey so that I can be a Christian.

No, that's back to effort versus experience.

No, it's because I'm a Christian, I obey.

And even when I disobey, it doesn't mean you're gonna be perfect.

Even when I disobey, I'm not gonna cover it up.

I'm not gonna put a picture on the wall.

I'm gonna frame it and say, you know what?

That's who I used to be.

I'm not ashamed of that.

And you know why?

Because that's not who I am anymore.

Why?

Because there came a point in my life where I began to obey what I knew God said.

See, God says, I want you to remember, number one, I keep my word.

Number two, obedience matters.

Maybe Jesus said it best in Luke 6, 46 when he just asked a simple and yet profound question.

He said, Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?

Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I tell you?

Third thing, God says, I want you to remember on this memorial day is that the presence of God is real.

The presence of God is real.

And you say, Now what do you mean?

Remember back when God said, Hey, hey, you're gonna go to Pharaoh?

They started on the journey at one point and God said, I'm tired of y'all.

He just pulled the car over and got out and started walking.

I have a friend of mine who got so mad at his kids on family vacation, they were driving from here to Disney World.

You know where Disney World is?

It's like way down there.

Like my wife's family are in Pensacola, Florida.

It is a little over eight hours.

When you get to Pensacola, you are halfway to Orlando.

And somewhere between, he said, we were halfway down in Florida.

I got so enraged with my kids.

He said, I just pulled the car over and got out and started walking.

And he called me to say, Man, this is a horrible vacation.

The quote was, I said, How was a vacation?

It was a vacation from hell.

And I said, But you were in Disney World, the place of a million dreams.

He said, Ain't no dreams there.

My kids were stuck to me like a potbellied stove.

It was 110 degrees, 90% humidity.

Lines were an hour and 20 minutes long.

Lance, you're getting excited about Disney World.

Lance is going to Disney World this summer.

When he told me that, I just thought, oh, silly rabbit.

Tricks are for kids.

Yeah.

My buddy, he said, he said, we were on the butt on the way, he said, the worst part, I was like, what's worse than that?

He said, my kids would not stop.

He he hee hee.

I gotta go to the bathroom.

He said, I just felt it coming.

I just pulled over the car and I got out and I just walked away.

I swear, because I started walking down the interstate.

And I said, What?

He said, My wife got out and was like, Really?

Is this what we're doing?

He said, I was just like, mmm.

I swear.

He goes, I was walking back in the direction of Texas.

And he said, it got emotional.

He said, I felt so bad.

And all of a sudden, ding! I said, you know what?

God felt the same way about his people one time.

He goes, You're kidding me.

I said, No.

God told Moses, hey, you guys get up out of here and go into the promised land, but I ain't going with you because I'll pull the car over and whip everybody.

I mean, I will lay the wood to you fools up in here.

I pity the fool that doesn't listen to me.

And he said, That's not in the Bible.

I said, Maybe not pity the fool, but yeah, in the book of Exodus.

That's what God said.

He said, I uh y'all got to get away from me because I'm gonna kill you.

I'm gonna wipe you off the face of the earth.

And then Moses just pleaded with God and said, Hey, don't do that.

See, Moses understood because in that moment, Moses said, if you don't go with us, what's gonna separate us?

What's gonna distinguish us from all the nations of the earth?

It's the presence of God.

David understood that.

He said in Psalm 16, In your presence is fullness of joy, and at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Now you go back to the goodness of God.

There's something I get in my relationship with God I don't find anywhere else.

That's why David, when he sinned with Bathsheba.

See, the Bible's not full of perfect people, it's full of flawed people who with great regularity thought their ideas were better than God's, and David was one of them.

Man after God's own heart.

And he committed adultery with a woman named Bathsheba.

And in the 51st Psalm, David, when he was brokenhearted over his sin, hey, when you look at me.

And when you screw up, you can't put lipstick on the pig, okay?

It's still a pig.

Just say, hey, I screwed up.

I ain't got a leg to stand on.

No, well, well, see what it was.

See, Pookie and Ray Ray, they got started having tequila shots, and the next thing I knew, I had on a clown mask.

No, no, it's just, hey, man, this is what I did.

That's what David says.

And here, David understood.

Some of y'all are kind of like, Were you there that night?

That clown mask wasn't my idea.

Look, David says, hey, to God, when he's heartbroken, hey, hey, cast me not away from your presence.

See, the presence of God is all through the Old Testament.

To understand it in chapter 4, I want you to turn back one page to chapter 3, and I'll read the first six verses of Joshua chapter 3, verses 1 to 6.

Joshua 3:1–6

The Bible says this.

And then Joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from Shatem, and they came to the Jordan.

He and all the people of Israel, and they lodged there before they passed over.

And the end of three days, the officers went through the camp and commanded the people.

Then you shall set out from your place and follow it.

And 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 have not passed this way before.

Verse 5.

Then Joshua said to the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.

And Joshua said to the priest, 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.

Now remember, the Ark of the Covenant is the presence of God.

The greatest, tangible, most accessible picture of that is Did you see the first Indiana Jones movie?

Yeah.

I remember watching that movie, and people were kind of like, ooh.

I don't know what that is, but the Ark of the Covenant is the presence of God.

And you say, Well, what do you mean the presence of God is real?

In these six verses, we see Three things about the presence of God.

Number one, you see responsibility.

Verse three, he says, Hey, when you see the ark being carried by the Levitical priest, not anybody can just go lay their hands on the presence of God.

If you don't believe me, ask the guy named Uzzah.

You ever heard of Uzzah?

You know, no one names their kid Uzza anymore.

Some of y'all are like, who's Uzza?

I'm glad you asked.

There's a story in the Old Testament where they had the Ark of the Covenant.

They had forfeited.

They tried to use the presence of God as a weapon in warfare.

Kind of like America, kind of saying, We're a Christian nation.

God won't let anything bad happen to us.

Uh-oh.

I lost some of you Fox News channel viewers right there, didn't I?

You checked out on me.

You're like, well, you Democrat.

That was a joke, by the way.

Some of you are reaching for your pen, like, where are you going with this?

Here's where I'm going.

When you invoke the presence of God in the name of national security, you don't always get what you want.

That's what the children of Israel did.

They were getting their head handed to them in a battle.

They went and got the ark and said, Here, Philistines, we're going to get this weapon and we're going to use it.

And they, the ark was captured by the Philistines.

Those morons didn't know what to do with it.

And so they started looking in it, and God started just killing people.

They sent it back.

No, thank you.

Here's some gold.

There you go.

Y'all just have this back.

We don't know what it is, but we don't know what to do with it.

Why?

Because God said, hey, it's a priestly function to mediate the presence of God.

Not just anybody gets to do that.

That's why the priest would go, the high priest would go into the Holy of Holies once a year with a rope around his leg.

In case he had any unconfessed sin, God would strike him dead and they'd drag him out and they'd go, All right, here, come on here, Harold, let's tie this around your leg.

I ain't gonna try.

Here's my point.

We've lost that sense of reverence for the presence of God.

Sometimes we're way too happy clappy in the American church.

See, it's responsibility.

Somebody has that.

Secondly, it's reverence.

You say, What do you mean?

Look at verse 4.

I want you just to see this.

He says, uh after he says that, he says, Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 cubits in length.

Anybody got to take measure in their garage that measures cubits?

A cubit is about 18 inches.

Now think with me just for a moment, okay?

If it's 2,018-inch segments, how many feet is that?

Say it.

3,000.

You know how long 3,000 feet is?

Y'all like, what is this like a word problem in math?

A river flows 500 feet a minute.

No.

Think for a minute.

Everything in the Bible is there for a reason.

God said, because this doesn't make any sense.

Some of y'all are like, that's the way I prefer it.

I love distance.

God, you do your thing, I'll do my thing, I'll leave you alone.

I'll see you when somebody gets sick or dies, and I'll come and shake my fist at you.

That's not real.

See, reverence is born out of relationship.

You got to have a relationship with God to really revere God.

He says, hey, you guys don't come running up on me.

You stay back 2,000 cubits.

You read something like that in the Bible and you go, Yeah, see, God's too mysterious, and I didn't, I don't want to crunch the numbers.

It's 3,000 feet.

A mile is 5,280 feet.

It's a little over half a mile, which means if you walked out these doors, got in your car, pulled out the main entrance of our church, took a left, you went down here to the first light down here at West Airport, and just go a little bit past that.

That's about how far back God said, You guys get away from me.

Don't come, don't come close to me.

You revere my presence.

Now, here's what a nerd your pastor is.

I drove down there.

I measured it off.

And I stood, and I pulled up on the side of the road just to look down here and see what I could see was going on.

You can't make out nothing from down there.

I was like, people look like ants down there.

You caught our dad, I could hold up my thumb almost and put it over our building.

Here's my point.

At a distance, when you say, Oh, God leave me alone, I'll leave him alone, you have no certainty as to what's going on.

And so from 2,000 cubits, God says, I'll do something you people will always remember.

They bring the ark, the presence of God, into the river, and the river just stands up like a wall of water, and the riverbed dries up.

And he says, All right, everybody, it's safe to cross, and here they come.

The whole nation of Israel crosses, not just the Red Sea, but they cross the Jordan into the promised land.

Third thing that the pre about the presence of God is just a penance.

Look at the last part of verse 4.

You still with me?

Look at verse 4, the second sentence.

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

Do not come near.

Don't come near the presence of God, the ark.

Why?

So you can know the way that you go.

There's some things you cannot accomplish on your own that have to be revealed to you.

Let me say that again.

There's some things, this is not math, by the way.

Let me say it this way.

This is not math.

This is music.

It's not, well, I'm gonna be smart and I'm gonna read some books and I'm gonna.

No.

You ever watch little toddlers, little chubby leg babies when music comes on?

What do they do?

They start dancing.

I'm telling you, all you Baptists, dancing can't be a sin because little kids do it intuitively.

They hear music and they just start.

This is music.

It's not math.

You don't get out your slide and go, oh, well, 2,000 cubits and 18 inches, that's 3,000 feet right there, Pastor King.

Got it.

Got my WD 40 pocket protector right here.

Let me get out of my.

This is music.

If there are things that you cannot accomplish on your own, that's what he says in the latter part of verse 4.

Look right there.

He says, Hey, don't come near it in order that you may know the way you shall go.

What is he saying?

God's saying, hey, I'm not playing keep away.

I want you to know this.

Are you kidding me?

I got so much goodness in me.

I gotta pour it out on somebody to make room for more.

So if you're here today and you don't know what you're gonna do in your marriage, or you don't know what you're gonna do in your career, or you don't know what you're gonna do, one of our ladies stopped me this morning and said, We got a problem.

I said, Okay, what's going on?

Well, pray for my husband because we sold our house in one day.

We don't know where we're gonna live.

And I almost just struck the pose.

But that wouldn't be good because you visitors will walk in, kind of going, This guy smoke, what's up with that?

Because what reared up in me, Ed Sinders, is Acts 17, where God says, And I've determined the exact places where people should live.

And I wanted just to say to her, hey, just relax, lady.

She wasn't worried, she was just smiling, just was like, we don't know what we're gonna do.

It just everything in me signed.

It said, He knows.

He knows.

Get in the presence of God, he'll reveal it to you.

Now, this sounds bad if you're not careful from this whole distance, God out there, what in the world?

God out in front of his people, they're over a half mile away.

Fourthly and finally, you still awake?

Last thing God wants us to remember is that God has provided a way.

Look at chapter 4, verse 19.

Joshua chapter 4, verse 19.

Joshua 4:19

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

Put a little star in the margin of your Bible if you got a pen or pencil.

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

Everything God does, he does for a reason.

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, see what I'm doing is good right now, but it's going to be better down the road when you got to tell people about it.

When your children ask, 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 he 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.

Now, two things you need to understand.

Notice in verse 24 how it ends.

God says, Here's why I do all this.

Number one, that you may know that the Lord, the hand of the Lord is mighty.

That you may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty.

Most of you over 40, because we don't, people under 40, most of y'all didn't get spanked.

I I I most people under 30 didn't get spanked.

I got spanked.

I didn't get spanked.

I got whooped.

W-H-U-P-P-E-D.

I got it wrong on a spelling test in the third grade.

Whipped was one of the questions.

And I spelled it W-H-U.

She goes, Neil, it's whipped.

Not in my house, it's not.

I live in the country.

We get whooped.

My dad whipped you like a square dance.

He'll whip one, throw you down, grab another one.

Like a bunch of fish on the bank, flopping around when he's done.

He puts that belt on, back on, and he goes, You boys want some more?

But when you here's why I'm telling you that.

Because some of you, because of your bad experiences in childhood, when the Bible says, so that all the peoples of the earth may know, see, this is so good.

It's not just intended for you and me, it's intended for everybody.

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

Some of you in your mind, you pictured your dad raising his hand to you.

That's not the picture in the Bible.

He's not raising his hand to hit you, he's raising his hand to bless you, to bind your wandering heart to him with more goodness.

That the hand of the Lord, that I can do what you can't do, that Jordan is not, I'm I'm gonna keep my word.

Are you kidding me?

I'm God.

What do you mean God's provided a way?

I don't, he says that the hand of the Lord is mighty and that you may fear the Lord your God forever.

Need to clear that up a little bit.

Fear the Lord is the most fundamental expression for faith in the Old Testament.

It's not this squeamish dread, like, oh gosh, he's home.

Has he been drinking?

Is he gonna slap us around?

No, it's not squeamish dread.

It's this recognition of God's rights over your life because of relationship.

Fear the Lord.

It's a crazy way to say it.

It sounds irregular in our mouths in 2012.

But what he was saying was live in this reverent relationship to God.

Don't be afraid.

Respect the Lord.

Fear the Lord.

It's it's what he says, and you say, Well, I don't I don't you you I don't get it.

He says that the hand of the Lord.

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

Look back at verse 19.

We're just about done.

Can I show you one more thing?

Verse 19 says, The people came up out of the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month.

Ring a bell for anybody.

Let me put a verse up on the screen.

Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

You don't have to turn there, I'll read it to you.

Exodus chapter 12.

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

Look at what God says, for seven days, no leaveness to be found in your house.

If you're hang on a second, I gave you the wrong verse.

It's Exodus chapter 12, verses 1 to 3.

Exodus 12:1–3

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, 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 tenth day of this first month, every man shall take a lamb according to their father's houses, a lamb for a household.

And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he is nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons, according to what each of you uh can eat.

You shall make your count for a lamb.

Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male, a year old.

You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, this first month.

You take it on the tenth day, you keep it until the fourteenth day.

It's a total of five days, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight.

This is the institution of what's known as Passover.

You want to see how mighty God's hand is back in the book of Joshua, while God's part in the Red Sea and putting them into the promised land.

When they cross the Jordan on that day, that's the day all the nation of Israel, all the people of God, are selecting their lambs for Passover.

The lamb has to be sacrificed.

It's selected on the tenth day of the month.

And they keep it till the 14th day.

You know what I'm saying?

He says, you know, how mighty with a mighty hand, how mighty?

Thousands of years later, Jesus enters Jerusalem on the tenth day of the first month when they're selecting their Passover lambs.

So go back.

Remember the first point in the sermon today was what?

God keeps his what?

His word.

God keeps his word, keeps his promises.

He does what he says he's going to do.

So much so that when John the Baptist saw Jesus coming on the scene, he stood up and yelled out, Behold the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world.

You see, because Jesus came to take away the sin, you and I can have a relationship with God.

Let me just close by reading one last verse.

Don't turn and just jot this down.

Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

I want you to hear this and we'll be done.

You're still awake?

Romans chapter 5, verse 6.

Romans 5:6

Talk about a memorial.

There's not a more poignant memorial in your life, in my life, than the cross.

See, they're stacking stones on this day, back in the book of Joshua.

And God says, these people have no idea what I'm doing, but I do.

They crossed over on the first day of Passover.

They get into the promised land, they sacrifice their lambs, and then they live off the fruit of the land.

God keeps his word.

And he's got this pattern set up where for centuries people are observing Passover, observing Passover, observing Passover, keeping the law, keeping the feast, keeping the covenant.

And Jesus comes in.

Paul writes about it like this in Romans chapter 5, verse 6.

Romans 5:6

He says, While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.

For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one might dare even to die.

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were sinners we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Just hear verse 10 again.

For if while we were enemies, for if while we were enemies by nature, keeping a distance down there on the other side of West Airport, watching God getting on our tiptoes, coming to church on Christmas and Easter, if then God wasn't there sharpening his sword, kind of going, I'm gonna get you, sucker.

He was sending a lamb who would enter in Jerusalem on the tenth day of the first month and be sent from this person to that person to this person to that person for five days.

And finally, when Pilate would say, I find no fault in him, what he was saying was, This lamb can now be sacrificed.

And what I'm saying to you today is that God knew that all the way back in the book of Joshua, and he kept his promise.

And so here's what I want you to think about is regardless of how good it is right now or how bad it is, some of you may be, I mean, you may be in an impasse in your marriage.

Financially, you may be things just falling down around you.

You may hate your job or whatever.

I want you to go home on this Memorial Day weekend, and I want you to do something to memorialize where you are and what you believe God can do.

So they stack these stones and they think, man, this is awesome.

Man, God, God is into the promised land.

Thousands of years later, he sent his only son to get you and I into the promised land.

And that's what this is all about.

That's why when you see the cross, it means something to you.

It's not just a memorial.

You don't look at that and go, try harder.

You look at that and you go, Oh, well, I was still enemies.

Well, I was way down there and squinting to make out what God was doing.

Christ died for me on the cross.

Wow.

Are you kidding me?

And all of a sudden, something in you wants to move towards him.

And yet, like the father in the prodigal son narrative, he gets off the porch and starts to run into you.

Or you're memorizing your little speech about, you know, I'm I've sinned against you and against heaven, and I'm not worthy to be called your son.

You think you're informing God with that?

Let me tell you something you don't know.

What if?

And I'm done.

What if this is really true?

When he says back here in the book of Joshua, 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 if the intention of God is that everybody sees how powerful God is through your life?

And more importantly, that you know God forever.

What if everything God does, He does for that?

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Because your God is so good and knows what wretches by nature you are.

You're free today to be honest.

To be free and liberated people because you're forgiven and you're loved and you're paid for.

Let your lives be a monument and a memorial to this reality.

You're the sons and daughters of God.

Depart now and live who you are.

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

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.