Joshua: The Promise of the Presence of God

So uh Christy and I've been watching this show on Netflix called Cheers.

Anybody watching Cheer?

Have you made your way through Cheer?

So uh Cheers the show who knew who knew that I was gonna be so into competitive cheerleading?

I mean I that would not have been my guess, but you get in this show, it's six episodes, it's on it's on Netflix, and you get into this thing, and it's about Navarro Junior College, and and they have this incredible cheerleading coach and cheerleading team, and they've won all these you know national championships, it's about them preparing up for nationals.

Daytona, Daytona, like if you've seen it, it's all about Daytona.

Daytona's coming.

And so, but then as the show goes on, it becomes more about Coach Monica.

So if you've seen it, if you see, you know, you know Monica, it's all about Monica.

Here she is.

I mean, she's been there for 24 years, she's won 14 NCA junior college divisional championships, she's won five uh national, grand national titles, which apparently is a very big deal because she's the reigning national record holder.

She's a big deal.

Now, I won't ruin the show.

I'm not gonna tell you this because you've got to go on a cheer journey.

You don't know it, but you've got to go on the journey because you're gonna fall in love with Jerry.

Anybody's fallen in love with Jerry yet?

Ladavius, you're gonna fall in love with them, you're gonna fall in love with Lexi, you're gonna fall in love with Morgan.

I'm pretty sure Chris and I would adopt Morgan at this point.

If Morgan's out there, ever hears the sermon, let us know.

We'll just send you some money for something.

Like we just love her, um, ready to help her out in any way.

And here's what happens by the end of the show.

You get toward the end of the show, and they're headed towards Daytona, towards nationals.

And the feeling you start to get, at least the feeling I started to get was no matter what happens in Daytona, and it's a big deal, especially if you're in the show, episode five, it's a big deal.

I mean, you're on the edge of your seat.

No matter what happens in Daytona, you do have this sense and this feeling that whether they win or whether they lose, they've already won because they have monica.

And that's what this show does is you just fall in love with this coach because she's this person who demands their best.

I mean, absolute demands their best to perfection, and then she loves them in their failure.

Like, I think we all want that.

We'd like a like a monica in our pocket, you know, like she wakes us up in the morning, she demands our best all day, she do you know, she believes in us and our potential, and yet she's with us all the time, never leaves us in our failure, in our inability.

Right?

I think we would all love that, right?

Someone who affirms our worth no matter what, stands by us, forgives us, she's with us.

And this Joshua story we've been in, it's our fourth week in it.

This Joshua story, like every other sermon series we do here, that's what this is reminding us of that we actually have this with God.

So to catch us back up on Joshua, if you haven't been with us, it's our fourth week.

And so Joshua is this story of the people of Israel in the Old Testament, and they had been in slavery in Egypt.

And then they're delivered by some different miracles that God provides.

They're delivered out of that slavery, and then they go into the desert, and they should have traveled to this desert in about three weeks or so to get back to their land, Canaan, modern-day Israel, that area of the world.

And it should have taken three weeks.

It took 40 years because they just settle down, they wander around, they go into some apathy, they just don't care, they get lazy, and so they're in that wandering for 40 years, and then God speaks to Joshua and says, Hey, it's time, y'all gotta move over into that land which is representation of rest and peace.

And so that's where this story picks up in Joshua 3 and 4, and it's about these priests.

They're priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant into the river and the river drying up for the people to pass through.

Now, my education of the Ark of the Covenant came from Raiders of the Lost Ark, right?

1981, Indiana Jones, and I grew up watching that movie with my dad, and I can remember as a little kid, I can I can remember the scene in the cave where the Nazis they had stolen the ark and they open the top of the ark and the cloud comes out and it fills the cave.

Here it is, fills the cave, and then like lasers shoot, and their faces start to melt.

Like that was my education into the Ark of the Covenant.

I just knew, okay, so apparently this had some historical symbolism and it was powerful.

That's just what I knew.

And that's what we actually see in the Old Testament.

It's this box.

That's what the ark is.

It's this box throughout the Old Testament that is the representation of the very presence of God with people.

And it moves around with the people, but it's the very presence.

These people understood the presence and the power of God.

So Joshua 3.4 says, for the people to follow this ark, but it says very interestingly, it says, hey, stay back 2,000 cubits.

So that's half a mile, like if you do the conversion, it's half a mile back.

So uh be around the presence of God, but you can't get too close.

That's sort of the message.

You've got to be half a mile back.

So we jump back in, we jump into Joshua 3, verses 5 through 8.

Joshua 3:5–8

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

And Joshua said to the priests, Take up the Ark of the Covenant and pass on before the people.

So they took up the Ark of the Covenant and went before the people.

The Lord said to Joshua, Today I will begin to exalt you inside of Israel, that they may know that as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.

And as for you, command the priests who bear the Ark of the Covenant, when you come to the brink of the waters of the Jordan, you shall stand still in the Jordan.

So point number one is people hunger for God's presence, but need God to reveal himself to them.

People hunger for God's presence, but need God to reveal himself to them.

And here's what I mean by that.

How many times have you just known you simply needed to go and be quiet with the Lord?

Because you've had a busy schedule and a busy day and a rough day and stuff happened or stuff's going on in your life, and your heart is busy, and you just knew you needed to go and be quiet with the Lord?

Maybe to pray or read some scripture in a journal or just breathe deeply for the first time that day.

But instead you grab Ben and Jerry's and you watch cheer, right?

I mean, we know this, right?

We we do this.

We do this.

But if you had gotten quiet, right?

Like how often, how often God breaks through our stubbornness or our selfishness, and he makes himself known to us, we start to hear that still quiet voice that's inside.

Maybe you can even look back before you were a Christian.

And you you can you can see how you were hungering for God, but you were chasing down that satisfaction in ways that it would never fill the hunger.

And we could list those off.

Romance, success, I mean, even religion.

And you can see, perhaps you look back and you can see how God began to reveal Himself to you, breakthrough after breakthrough, into your stubbornness or your faithlessness or your selfishness.

And God just coming in his grace to you to say, here's who I am for you.

Maybe you remember Acts chapter 17.

Acts 17 · chapter mention

Paul he goes to Athens, and there's these people in Athens that are religious.

They're wanting to know God, they just don't know quite how to do it.

And Paul comes to them and says, Hey, uh, men of Athens, I see that you are very religious.

I even saw this monument to an unknown God.

And then Paul says, I would like to tell you about that unknown God.

Because that God made himself known in Jesus.

That's what Jesus is, the manifestation, the fullness of God for us to know.

God making himself known to us.

And verse 5, Joshua tells the people to concentrate themselves.

So these people would have, they would have gone, they would have done some like religious, ritualistic cleansing and stuff like that.

I mean, religions still do this sort of thing around the world.

Thinking that we have to cleanse ourselves.

Now we don't believe that because we believe God Himself and His grace provides our cleansing, our forgiveness, and that's what Jesus is, our sin put upon him and his righteousness given to us.

Such good news.

But even back then in this Joshua story, what I discovered this week as I studied it, and it was like, oh man, that's so brilliant, how wonderful this is.

Even then, for those people, this was not about something qualifying them to get this blessing of the land.

Rather, this was about them being prepared to receive what was already promised.

Now, if you didn't pick up on that, that's fine.

Here's the application to us.

It means your spiritual practices, coming to church, uh quiet time, prayer, meditation, scripture reading, journaling, giving, worship.

Those spiritual practices, they're not to merit grace, they're to grow in grace.

For us to discover and root more deeply into what we already are, what God has already promised us that we are His beloved.

And we're growing into that.

So this ark passes through the people, it goes into the Jordan River, the river miraculously, a miracle of deliverance.

It dries up to allow the people to pass from this wandering state into this state of peace and rest.

Who doesn't want that?

I mean, whose heart in here this morning is not wanting that?

I mean, think about the history of these people.

They were enslaved in Egypt, delivered out of that into a state of wandering, and then delivered out of that into a place of peace and rest.

Who doesn't want this deliverance?

And by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, God's presence, that powerful presence, they know it in the ark.

We know it inside of ourselves by God's Spirit.

The Spirit of God is wanting to deliver us from slavery to wandering, but pass that into places of peace and rest.

That's the Christian journey.

Joshua 3.11 says this behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan.

So there's our word again, right?

Behold.

It keeps popping up for us the past few months.

Point number two is this we are called to behold the presence of God.

So that word behold, it means to linger or gaze upon.

So this week I was I was looking through some old pictures and this picture popped up.

So this is this is Christy and I were 15 years old.

Uh the girl under my right, and you can see, I mean, ladies' man, right?

I mean, how smooth was I at 15?

The girl under my right arm was Elizabeth, and she married our friend David, and then Christy, it took 10 more years of these smooth moves by me like this to woo her in and finally marry her.

And I saw this picture, and I just stopped, right?

I mean, every once a while you run into a picture or a scene or an image and you stop and you gaze upon it.

Right?

You just want to take it in, you just want to linger for a little bit.

Behold, the presence of God is not just around you, it's not just 2,000 qubits in front of you and unable for you to be near.

No, no, no, no.

The presence of God as a child of God surrendered to Jesus is in you.

1 Corinthians 6, 19.

Or do you do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God.

So God's presence takes up residence in you in the form of the Holy Spirit.

I can remember moving into my first dorm room.

Dame Dana dormitory residence at Barrie College.

And my buddy John and I, we showed up with our stuff, and we'd opened that door, and when we opened the door, you'd be maybe you lived in a dorm room the first time you opened the door.

It's not impressive, right?

It's like old carpet, it was cinder block walls that were like paint was chipped.

I mean, the bunk beds are stacked at the back of the room, there was two desks.

That was it.

There was nothing else.

Very unimpressive.

Not to mention, you know, the room number is 420, and I don't know if you know what that means, but if you know what it means, who knows what's happened inside of this room.

And we move all up into this dirty old room.

Right?

We moved the beds to where we want them.

We stacked the desk, but you couldn't move the desk out of the room.

You weren't allowed to.

So we just stacked them in the corner because who needs a desk in college, right?

We needed a couch, so we put a couch in there in the place where that would be.

We had a big TV, and back then a big TV was a big TV.

It wasn't just wide, it was deep, right?

It was like three feet deep.

And we didn't have a remote for it, so we had a big stick that could reach from the couch across the room.

We took up residence in that room, right?

And it didn't matter the condition of the room.

Didn't matter.

We took up residence.

Because we we were moving in.

The room was the passive agent.

Just with an open door.

And it wasn't perfect.

See, God, by the means of the Holy Spirit, takes up residence in you and in me.

In our perfection, it takes up residence.

And the Holy Spirit begins to lead and guide and convict and clean up some, and you discover other stuff that needs to be cleaned up, and the whole time you're so thankful that God views you as purely righteous and beloved because of his grace.

And I think there'll be some awe involved, like these people in Joshua.

I think there'll be some awe involved, but it'll never be at a distance.

The story continues in Joshua 4.

The Lord has Joshua, he instructs 12 men.

He says, Hey, as the men pass through, have 12 men pick up a stone, get to the other side, build a monument, stack up these stones, because what's gonna happen is your children are gonna see those stones, and they're gonna ask, hey, what are the stones for?

What are those stones for?

What's that monument for?

And then you are gonna get to tell them this story of God's faithfulness to his people.

The power of his presence.

Point number three is this we desire to grow in awareness.

We could say sensitivity.

We desire to grow in awareness to the presence of God, but we rest in the promise of the presence of God.

Here's what I mean by that.

Years ago, I worked in the business world, this was just after seminary, and before I started to work for churches, and I was wondering, what am I going to do with my life?

And there were more days filled with feeling like God was absent than days filled with feeling like God was so present with me.

And so I was so easily filled with like sort of a franticness or a self-obsession, like, oh no, what's wrong with me, and what's wrong with my faith, and what do I need to do?

You know what?

I was just emotionally volatile, was the reality.

And it would have been so incredibly wonderful to recognize, like, yes, I was desiring the awareness and sensitivity to God, but I needed just to rest in the promise of God's presence in these days where I was so emotionally volatile.

That would have been incredibly peace-giving to me.

When Tim Keller taught on this, author and pastor, here's what he said.

I can't explain any better.

Nobody can explain it any better, Tim Keller.

Anyways, here's what he said.

The sense of his absence, the dissatisfaction with his absence, is an evidence that he has touched you.

In other words, a sense of his absence, a longing that the absence be gone, a sense of his absence is a sense of his presence.

Now you wouldn't have guessed that.

But after you kind of think it through a little bit, you go, oh, that actually, that's actually true.

So even the sorrow that the feeling that God has left you, though he hasn't, but the feeling, the sorrow of the feeling that God has left you, and you're not growing in that awareness, that sorrow is a sense of his presence.

Because while we're emotionally volatile and faithless at times, he is steady and faithful, and he says to his children, I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you.

One last thing for our hearts to ponder this morning, Joshua 4.19.

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, this is one of those verses you you read in the Bible, you think, no big deal.

I just keep cruising along until I hit something that feels really applicable to my life.

But there's a phrase in here that matters a lot.

Now, here's the point this is a story, and it's our story, about God's pursuit of us and God's presence with us.

So this phrase, the tenth day of the first month.

Now that's not just like random history.

On the same day, 40 years earlier, these people were in Egypt in slavery.

And this was the day where God comes and says to them, Hey, slay an animal, an innocent animal, take the blood and spread it on the doorpost of your home.

And I'm to come and bring judgment over those who are enslaving you, and those that have blood over their home, I will pass you over.

And so we get this celebration called Passover in the Old Testament, because death passed them over, and they're delivered out of Egypt, out of slavery, and then they're moved into this state of wandering.

So 40 years after that, there's this other day, this day we're reading about here in Joshua 4, where they are, they pass over the Jordan.

They pass from that wandering state into a place of peace and rest.

1,500 years or so later, Jesus shows up in Jerusalem at the time of the Passover feast.

And he's crucified.

And his blood for us is the Passover.

There's no judgment on you.

The judgment skips you over because of Jesus, because of God's grace to you.

God is not sitting in judgment over you.

So we don't have to keep sacrificing ourselves to religious merit or worldly merit, that we can live a life, a life by grace through faith.

And this is all about our journey as Christians from slavery and wandering to places of peace and rest.

You see, God gives us image after image after image in the Old Testament.

Image after image of slavery to liberation, guilt to righteousness.

It's image after image for us.

This side of Jesus is image after image for us, for our hearts to behold Jesus greater and greater.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for your grace and your peace.

Help our hearts to behold you even greater this morning.

There's so many of us that are enslaved to things that will never deliver us.

They will never deliver us to places of peace and rest.

And this morning, may we confess those.

May we repent of those and the kindness that you give us.

For so many of us this morning, we live in places of wandering about.

Would you, by means of your Holy Spirit, would you draw us to pass over into places of peace and rest?

And would you help us see that even in the continuation of a life and a journey in you that is not perfect, would you help us see even the feeling of your absence is your presence is there?

Help us to live our lives not based in our emotions or our merit, but in your promises to us that are stable and secure and faithful.

Would you help us to move into places where we're rooting deeper into our great wealth in Jesus?

Moving in greater awareness of your love for us.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.