Keep the Change – Stones of Remembrance

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Good morning, good morning.

We are in week three of a series called Keep the Change.

Week one, Pastor Jason started the series talking about identity.

It's actually been an incredible message we heard from a lot of you at really resonated.

And it is uh it was she's basically saying our identity in Christ is given, it's not earned.

Last week, Pastor Isaiah brought an incredible word and he said, the way, how do we keep the change in the unknown?

He said, How can you do that?

By the way, all of our messages, I hope you know this.

We have tools for you guys.

We're there for you.

You can always find all of our messages online.

We have a whole YouTube with every message on there.

So if you ever want to share with a friend, or if you go, I I read this, this would be good for my friend to hear.

I saw this, whatever, we always have those available for you.

But today I want to talk, uh, keep the change and talk about stones of remembrance.

Stones of remembrance is what we're gonna talk about today.

Would anybody identify themselves as a forgetful person?

Raise your hand.

No one, everybody forgot to raise their hand.

They're that forgetful.

Um they're like, I am forgetful.

Um, a true, true, 100% true story, Tara Jessop can vouch for me.

Last night, I went, I texted her and my friend, uh, my husband and the kids went to a game.

And so I was like, I'm gonna watch this movie.

It's like meaning to watch this movie, I'm gonna watch it.

She goes, Okay, good.

I guys, like 30, 45, I it was probably more like 45 minutes into the movie.

I'm like, I have watched this movie.

I'm like, I literally had forgotten that I had actually watched this one.

I'm like, this is very familiar.

This is but I mean, I was so convinced.

I kept being like, I'm gonna watch this movie, like I've never watched it, I want to forget.

And like a lot of this stuff is fun now, being 40, I can blame it on being 40.

I'm like, well, I forgot.

You know, I lot of stuff like I have you ever walked into a room and forgotten why you were there?

I just like walk in, you're just like, I know it was something with you're just like, I don't know.

You walk out, you come back, you remember it later.

Um, I I just have been having all these little things lately.

Honestly, when I I meet people, I I I love all of you and forgive me if this has been you and I've forgotten your name because uh the church used to be quite small and I used to know everybody's name, and now it's just it's not physically possible.

I wish and I want to know your name.

But a lot of times, I don't know if this happens for you.

I'm like, hi, I'm Liz, and they're like, hi, I'm gonna hear in my head.

I'm like, I don't, it's like wail sounds or I don't know your name because I didn't hear it, and it's not a lack of caring.

I don't know if it's just, it's just aging, is just what it is.

I don't know.

But here's the crazy part to me.

I can forget something like that, like why I walked into a room or be like, literally, I've done this lately.

Like, I can't find my phone, but I'm on the phone.

I do that a lot.

But then this week, me and Jason were like, Do you remember the jingle for Discovery Zone in the 90s?

I'm like, yes.

Saying it verbatim, like out of nowhere.

Like, how do I know that?

How do I remember that?

Um, I was born in 1982.

Like, how do I remember that?

Two weekends ago, we took our kids to fine arts, and me and Pastor Ida tortured, I mean, put on a playlist for our kids of like 90s youth group, contemporary Christian music.

Where are my DC Talk fans at?

That was a huge response.

First service had no idea.

I know every word still of both the Jesus Freak and Free at Last albums, like somehow, somehow, but I don't know where I am or where I'm going, or like that.

I watched a movie two weeks ago.

So I don't know what it is, but I think as people we're prone to forgetting, right?

Well, today I want to talk about keep the change, and I think the key to keeping good change in our lives is to remember.

To remember.

So, how are we gonna do this?

I want to read a lot of scripture with you today.

Don't let that scare you.

It's gonna be incredible.

This is an incredible Bible story.

We're gonna read in Joshua 3, but I wanna kind of give you some backstory about what's happening, okay?

So, Joshua is a new leader of the children of Israel.

Now, you may remember Moses.

He was the like, Moses, let my people go.

The children of Israel had been in slavery for over 400 years in Egypt, okay?

But God uses this man, Moses, he does this series of miraculous things, and the children of Israel are released from slavery, but they don't just walk into the promised land.

For 40 years, because of their disobedience, they wander around the wilderness.

And it gets so bad that Moses, he's not even gonna get to see the promised land.

Instead, we've got a new leader.

His name is Joshua, and Joshua is about to go.

They finally are gonna get to enter Canaan, the promised land.

This is finally happening for them after 40 years.

And there's just like one last thing that God says to them, and we're gonna read that in Joshua 3.

Stay with me.

It's all so good, okay?

So in Joshua 3, Joshua told the people, consecrate yourselves.

That just means get yourselves ready.

For tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.

That's an exciting thing, right?

Joshua said to the priests, take up the ark of the covenant.

So this was just like their portable church.

You know, Access was a portable church for 13 years.

They really were a portable church.

They would take this ark wherever they go.

It says, Pass ahead of the people.

So they, the priests, took it up and went ahead of them.

And the Lord said to Joshua, Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you, as I was with Moses.

So Moses would have been very familiar to them.

They would have known the stories of how he had brought the children out of slavery.

Tell the priests who carry the Ark of the Covenant, when you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.

This is bananas, right?

Go and stand in the river.

So when the people broke camp across the Jordan, the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant went ahead of them.

We're gonna skip down, keep going.

Now the Jordan is at flood stage.

Everybody say flood stage.

Yeah, this is gonna be really important for you to remember, all right?

I want this, we're gonna, oh, it's so good.

We're gonna jump into it.

Okay, when the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest, yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.

It piled up in a heap a great distance away.

Um, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarathan, while the water flowing down to the sea of the Arabah, that is, the Dead Sea, was completely cut off.

This is miraculous.

So the people crossed over opposite Jericho, the priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan, say middle, that's gonna be important, and stood on dry ground while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry gown.

A couple more verses, jump into Joshua 4.

When the whole nation had finished crossing, okay, so they've all gone across the Jordan.

The Lord said to Joshua, Now, choose twelve men from among the people.

Twelve is a biblically highly significant number, right?

There's twelve tribes of Israel.

He says, Well, I want one person from each tribe, and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle, say middle again, of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe.

He says to them, Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan.

Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, to serve as a sign among you.

In the future, listen close.

When your children ask you, What do these stones mean?

Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord.

When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off.

These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.

Forever.

God is telling them two things here, okay?

Imagine this.

This is a huge miracle.

The proportions of this miracle are incredible.

I know that was a lot of scripture, by the way, but we are gonna dig into it because it's so good.

The children of Israel are like, finally, we have wandered around the wilderness.

I'm ready to go into the promised land.

And it's like, man, one more thing.

We gotta go through one more crazy thing.

Yeah, we're gonna cross the Jordan.

And God's saying, set up 12 stones.

Well, what is that?

Well, God is saying these stones are gonna be a place of remembrance so that when your children ask you, hey, what's up with the stones?

Why do we have 12 stones?

Why do we have that there?

You ever been to somebody's house and you're like, what is that?

Like they've got something wacky on their mantle or whatever, and they tell you the story.

Oh, this, I got this, I won first place in a fishing contest.

I don't know, whatever it is, but you know what I'm saying?

You got something in your house that reminds you of something.

That's what God was telling them with these stones.

Put these stones out so that you remember what I just did.

And he he wants the children to remember two things, okay?

The first thing he wants them to remember is what was done.

Okay, so we can understand this was a miracle, we can kind of understand that, but remember how I said that we wanted to remember that it was flood season?

Okay, so we don't exactly know how wide and how deep the water is where they crossed.

But I need you to get the depth of this miracle.

This was not a situation where this was a river that like you picture going to like Wiki Watchy Springs or something and like wading out and getting.

No, this would have been already an impossible thing, but in the flood season, this would have been an impossibility.

Because of where they mentioned the Jordan was, they were across from Jericho, they say, okay, in this area, scholars believe this water would have been about 10 feet deep.

So this is not something they could have gotten through with like sheer will.

I'm just gonna truck my way across.

No, this would have actually been impossible.

And so God says, this is a miracle.

This is, in theory, should have been the worst time to cross the Jordan.

Take a minute and think about that.

This would have been a time of impossibility.

Why would God ask them in that worst time when the water was at its deepest, when it was moving its fastest because it was harvest to cross?

Well, because God wants them to remember what was done.

That it wasn't by their own strength, but it wasn't by sheer determination or Iron Man or I'm so great.

No, it was from God's hand alone.

And I wonder how many today are facing a flood season in your life.

Maybe you're at the waters and you're at the worst possible place where you go, nothing in my life feels like I should be getting set up for a miracle right now.

And yet, this is when God wants you to remember his hand, that he's about to do something in your midst.

Why?

Why does he do that to us?

Why I tell, I ask him that all the time.

I believe it's because he wants us to know that what is done is by his hand, that what is done is surely a miracle of epic proportions.

See, the children of Israel, when they were asked to do this, this should have brought to mind another time when they crossed water.

So remember, their ancestor Moses, 40 years prior, had been taken out of Egypt.

He brought the children of Israel, but they had to cross water too.

Do you remember when Moses came to the Red Sea and they had departed?

And they have people chasing them chariots, and the Egyptians are coming after them, and the Red Sea parts.

So if you're in the children of Israel at that time when Joshua says, Hey, we're gonna go cross the Jordan, immediately for you, something should click in your mind.

Hey, my dad told me about a time when when his dad was there and the children of Israel crossed on dry land.

See, they had come out of slavery through the waters, but now to get to their promise, they were gonna have to go through the waters again.

And I think sometimes that's a word for us.

But God wants us to remember this was no small thing, what he had done.

In fact, in Deuteronomy, when when we're talking about Moses and this, God says this to Moses, He says, Only be careful and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things, as in what was done with your eyes.

I'm sorry, that your eyes have seen, or let them fade from your heart.

As long as you live, teach them to your children and to the children after them.

He doesn't want them to forget what was done.

So they set stones.

The second thing he wants them to remember is who did it.

So it wasn't just enough to remember that a miracle was done.

He wants to remember who did the miracle.

See, God knows that with time, sometimes we're tempted to take credit, right?

Sometimes we go, yeah, that was a really hard time.

I'm so strong.

I did that.

You know, you go, girl, whatever it is.

And God's saying, I'm gonna take them out when it's flood season so that they don't forget that it could only have been me.

Maybe that's a word for you today.

Something you're facing seems insurmountable, and God just says, sit back and watch, because I'm gonna do something in you that can only be me, because he deserves the glory.

In fact, he says this in Joshua 3:7.

Joshua 3:7

He this is how he wants them to remember it was him.

He says, The Lord said to Joshua, Today I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you as I was with Moses.

This is a callback.

He's saying, Hey, I I want you to know that I'm the source.

This this is not in your notes, but in Deuteronomy, when God was talking to Moses, this is so interesting to me.

If you want to write it down for later, it's uh by the way, this is so much scripture and all these things.

I hope you know, we as your pastors, like, we want you to take these words that we give on Sunday and chew on it during the week.

Like, this should not be the end of the conversation when you walk out.

I hope you take this in your quiet time, your private time with the Lord, and you go back over it, you chew on it and you learn from it.

That's that's what we all need to do.

Sunday should just be the start.

That's a free freebie.

Deuteronomy 8 says, be careful that you do not forget who?

The Lord your God.

Failing to observe his commands, his laws, his decrees that I'm giving you this day, then in your heart you'll become proud.

You'll forget that the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt and the land of slavery.

See, we tend to think forget that God is our source, and it's easy to think that we're our own source when we some time has passed.

But that misses the point.

The point of remembrance, this whole message is about remembering.

That's how we keep the change.

The point of remembrance is never remembering how great we are, it's remembering how big and great our God is.

So today I'm gonna let you know that we keep the change when we keep stones of remembrance.

But how do we do that?

We're gonna spend all the rest of our time today on how we can create stones of remembrance in our life so that we can keep the change.

The first thing we gotta do is this give thanks.

Give thanks.

Because gratitude is the key to remembrance.

Gratitude is the key to remembrance.

There's a uh story in the Bible that gives me chills when I think about it.

It's in Luke 17, and Jesus he heals ten lepers.

So lepers, just people with leprosy, okay?

But it was a vile disease, it was an isolating disease.

If in the Bible times you had leprosy, you would be set apart in every bad way, you know, like put away, unclean.

And Jesus encounters these guys with leprosy, and he heals ten of them.

This is miraculous, and something bone-chilling that takes my breath away happens.

Ten lepers are healed, and only one comes back to thank Jesus.

And Jesus looks around at this one man nailed at his feet in gratitude, and he says this phrase that is so scary to me.

He says, Has no one returned to give praise to God?

Has no one returned to give praise to God?

This was not a small miracle.

If you had leprosy, you didn't get to dream, you didn't get to have hope for future, to think of better days.

And suddenly, in a moment, their life was changed.

Suddenly they have potential.

Suddenly they could think of starting a family, of going and doing things, and yet just one comes back to thank God for that.

That's horrifying.

We tend to want to maybe forget some of the things God has done in our life because maybe it reminds us of our past.

I get that.

We don't want to remember who we were before we were saved.

We don't remember what it felt like to be in depression.

We don't want to remember what it feels like to be sick.

And I'm not saying to remember those things so that they lord over you, so that they are keeping you down in shame.

No, shame is not of God.

But I am saying that God is given glory when we remember.

Well, remember what?

When we remember God's faithfulness to us, there's some interesting passage of scripture that says he chooses to remember our sin no more.

What does that mean?

That God forgot?

A lot of people say that.

God forgets our sin.

Well, actually, he's all-knowing.

He can't forget.

But isn't it that much more beautiful that he chooses to remember our sins no more?

So if God is giving glory when we remember, maybe you've forgotten who you were before God.

Maybe you've forgotten what it feels like to walk into a church and feel alone and have no friends.

Maybe you've forgotten what it feels like to be sick and just go, I wish I was well today to go to church.

Maybe you've forgotten what it's like to be in a pit of depression.

I don't remember.

I I don't forget, sorry.

I remember that clearly.

And God is giving glory when I exalt that.

No, when I say to that pit that I was in, God, you are so good.

Thank you for all you've done.

If you don't feel motivated to worship, by the way, today was like that was like, wow.

Yeah, yeah, give it up.

If you don't feel motivated to worship, first of all, check your pulse.

No.

If you don't feel motivated to worship, let me help you.

All you need as a motivation to for worship is sometimes to remember who you once were and to come into God and say, God, I thank you that I was lost and now I'm found.

God, I thank you that I was dead in sin and now I'm alive in you.

God, I thank you that I used to be hopeless and think I was unworthy, and now I stand before you, God, knowing you have a future for me.

God, I thank you that once I was held in the grips of depression and now I sleep well at night and I wake up in the morning.

God, I thank you that my body was unwell, but God, now I do that.

And maybe in the room today you're going, that's great, I'm in the pit now.

Right now I'm in the pit.

And I get that.

So let me ask you this then.

Start praising God for who he is.

If you can't think about and see all he's done for you, start to praise him for who he is.

Say, God, even though I am in the pit, I'm not alone here, you're with me.

God, even though I'm sad and I'm mourning, God, you we don't grieve and mourn like those who grieve and mourn without hope because you are our hope.

God, I thank you that even death itself you have conquered.

So I worship you, I praise you for who you are.

So the first thing is this we set stones of remembrance when we give thanks.

The second thing is this we gotta do the work.

We gotta do the work.

I love this.

Uh Joshua says to them in Joshua 4, 5, go before the ark, go over before the ark of the Lord your God, go into the middle of the Jordan.

First of all, that would be scary to me if I'm one of those people because you're like, what if this is a fluke?

Like, what if this water comes crashing back on me when I go to get this stone?

Like, this is a little scary, right?

This is a little bit of a step of faith.

They have to actually go walk into the middle now, because they were probably just like on the other side, like, phew, made it, you know?

But now they gotta go back in, and not only that, but he says he said you was to take up a stone on your shoulder.

So this is saying that this was a big piece of rock.

This is not a pebble.

They had to actually do the work to pick up the rock according to the number of the tribes.

These were in the center.

Why?

Because when they saw the rock, when they looked at the altar, when they saw the stones of remembrance, they would hit their neighbor.

These stones came from the middle of the Jordan River when it was ten feet deep.

Can you believe that?

God is so crazy good, right?

But they had to do the work to get the stones first, so they can even set them up as remembrance.

So what does that look like for you?

Well, sometimes that means doing the work of going into a place that you're not comfortable in that God's leading you, or a place like Pastor Isaiah talked about, that's unknown.

Maybe he's calling you forward into something, and he's saying, Trust me, even when this doesn't quite make sense.

Maybe obeying even when it's scary, but you have to do the work to get the stones, so you can even set the stones up as a reminder.

So here's the third thing.

We gotta tell others.

We gotta tell others.

So we've thanked God.

We've done the work and we've gotten the stones.

We've gathered them up now.

We have to tell others.

And I want to read you one of the we the Jesus, the healing leper story is scary, but this next verse scares me senseless.

It's in Judges 2.10.

Okay, Judges is the book after Joshua.

Just one book later.

And listen to what it says.

After that, a whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors.

They had passed.

Another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.

They had just crossed the Jordan that was ten feet deep.

And their kids don't even know who God is or what he had done.

That's one book over.

Like, that's crazy to me.

And that was the second time he had brought them across the scary waters, right?

But is that true?

In your own life?

Do the people in your life know about the stones you've set?

Do the people in your life know about the waters that God has parted for you?

Do you tell others about God's goodness in your life?

When I was um preparing this message, I just felt like God wanted to speak this word to somebody, and I don't know what it means, but some of you have had scars in your life, and you've exalted those scars.

But it's time today to turn your scars into stones.

Your scars into stones of remembrance.

What does that mean?

That means that those things that hurt you, they don't have to be a reminder of your pain.

They can just be a reminder of God's greatness.

And some of you need to turn your triggers today into testimonies so that when you are faced with those things that trigger you, it's not a trigger, it's not a pain point.

No, when I remember those things I walked through, when I remember my abuse, when I remember my pain, my sickness, it's not triggering me into darkness.

No, instead, it causes me to lift my hands and give God's praise because my triggers and my trauma are gonna be testimonies from here on out.

God never saved you, just for you.

That would be missing the whole point.

God saved you so that through you others would find him.

And God says that to Israel.

He literally says that in Joshua 4.

He says, um, next verse, he says, He did this, the parting of the waters, so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful, and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.

He did that, that miracle, so that people would see and know, so that the people of Israel go, where do these stones come from?

They can't, you are not gonna believe this.

My dad told me this.

My grandfather told me a story about how they came to the water and it was super deep.

And then God brought us through on dry land.

People go, why does it matter that it was dry land?

Well, imagine you're the children of Israel.

You're not driving through with your Toyota Sienna like me.

You have horses and carts and donkeys.

It matters that it was dry because mud would have gotten them all mucked up, right?

This miracle was huge.

And so God is asking us today, what stones do you need to set up in your life?

What trauma, what trigger, what scar in your life is time for it to take a turn and go from being that to being a stone of remembrance?

Because when we remember, God is glorified and we keep the change.

So maybe you're in the flood season, by the way.

Um I just feel like you need to know, keep your eyes on the stones you're about to set and not the waters around you.

When you realize that God's about to bring you out, that you're gonna have a time where this flood becomes just nothing more than a stone of remembrance in your life, remember that.

Give God praise for that because He is about to do great things in your life.

Maybe you're in that season where you've already come through.

You've gone through some stuff in the past.

Well, it's time to tell somebody.

Do people know in your life all that God's done for you?

Do you know do they know your goodness, his goodness into your life?

Well, if not, we're prone to forget.

We don't keep the change.

We'll be like those other nine who ran away instead of the one at Jesus' feet.

The greatest indicator in your life that God is gonna come through for you is that He already came through for you.

Why do we set stones?

Well, they're powerful reminders when our flesh and our spirit get discouraged and things are going wrong, and we go, I don't, I don't think, and we look at the stones and we remember he is faithful.

And today my biggest fear would be that we walk out today as people that forget.

People like in Judges 2, who their parents and grandparents had seen these incredible miracles and they didn't even know who God was.

God forbid that happened to our children.

I love the emphasis it keeps saying.

Tell your children, tell your children.

Maybe you don't even have children, tell somebody, tell somebody that God is good.

This week, um, as I was preparing the message and going through all these things, it was so interesting to me because it feels like very annoyingly so, everything I always am preparing a message for, I struggle with or battle with in my life.

So from now on, I am literally only preaching about waking up skinny or like walked outside and there was a new car.

Like pantry filled with MMs.

I don't know.

I like that that's like the third desire of my life, by the way.

It was like be skinny with a good car and MMs! Probably why the first one.

Anyway, um it's fine.

I had a day this week on Tuesday where I was like truly struggling with this.

Um I some of you know, some of you don't know, but my dad is going through um MDS, it's like pre-leukemia.

And this Tuesday he had a bone marrow transplant, and it's really scary.

And Tuesday, if I'm honest with you, I was super weepy.

I'm not, I'm very emotional, but I don't like to cry.

Or at least I don't want you to see me cry.

That's because I want to like control how great you see me, and I'm working on that in counseling.

I wish I was joking.

But I was weepy Tuesday, and I was like, oh my gosh, my dad is suffering and I'm scared and I don't know how he's gonna do, and this makes me so nervous.

And I was writing down things like, God is giving glory when we remember.

And then I'd be like, man, I hope dad's okay, mom, how's he doing?

And I would write down things like, I need to turn my scars into stones.

And I was writing down things like, if he's gone through and come through before for me, he will do it again.

Well duh.

But Tuesday I was thinking, you know, I don't know how this situation's gonna turn out.

I don't know how it's gonna be.

God, can I even trust you that you're gonna take care of this situation?

And I remembered stones in my life that I have set up in seasons of flood.

Stones in my life that are there to remind me of all God's carried me through so that I could look back down on a day like Tuesday when I was struggling and go, Oh, I remember God's faithfulness.

He's not gonna leave me now.

He was faithful before, I'll be faithful again.

Some of us today need to set up some stones of remembrance.

I have homework for you this week.

I want you to get alone with God and ask him, God, where are the areas of my life that I've been glorifying the scars, glorifying the triggers, glorifying the trauma, and not turning it into a stone of remembrance to give you glory.

What are those areas in my life?

Maybe you're in it right now, and that's okay.

Maybe this week the word is focus on the stones, not the waters of impossibility.

He's gonna do it in your life.

Will you bow your head with me and close your eyes?

Lord, we are uh standing before you in gratitude.

You are such a good, faithful God, and it's because of your goodness and your faithfulness that today we know we trust you and we could keep our change because we are forever aware that we are not the source, that you are the source of all the good change in our life.

Now, God, remind us right now, those of us battling triggers and trauma, that instead it will become our greatest testimony.