One Wet Sandal

Jesus never said, “Make an emotion-filled decision for me once then live your daily life however you please until you die when I will ask for your ‘Get out of Hell free’ card based on that one decision that one time.”

Jesus said, “Follow me.” and “Take up your cross DAILY and follow me.”

*Trusting in Jesus happens in a moment, and confirmation of that trust happens in every moment thereafter.

You can’t ‘float’ through discipleship. Nobody finds themselves ‘accidentally sanctified.’

You can’t stand still in your discipleship. Life is full of choices and each choice is a step of faith or a step toward unbelief.

- two options - step of faith or step of unbelief.

Whether that step is as big as:

is he/she the right one?

should I become an engineer or a pastry chef?

Should we have kids? more kids? adopt kids?

Is God calling me into full-time ministry?

What will I do at retirement?

Can I really trust Jesus as my Savior?

Or if your step is as seemingly routine as:

What is the next thing I need to do to become more like Christ?

How do I forgive him/her?

How do I step away from this sin that I know God is calling me away from?

How do I begin to live in the joy and freedom that God has promised instead of the fear and dread that seems to invade my soul each night?

As fully-devoted followers , we are constantly faced with the ‘Next Step’ in life and discipleship.

Sometimes God is calling for us to take a big step of faith.

Sometimes God is calling to take the next small step in becoming more fully devoted to him.

But HOW do we take the next step? Sometimes it is less about knowing what the next step is (We may already know) and more about how we actually move forward.

Joshua 3:1-6

3 Then Joshua rose early in the morning and they set out from Shittim. And they came to the Jordan, he and all the people of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over.

Israel is at the end of the 40-year wanderings.

Moses has led them to the plains of Moab near the Dead Sea to a place called Shittim

about 6-7 miles east of the Jordan River

Mt. Nebo (3 mi away) is where Moses saw the Promised Land but died.

Joshua is not leading people of Israel and as they are camped at Shittim, Joshua sends out two spies to spy out Jericho. They go and are hidden by Rahab who saves their lives and they then return to Joshua at Shittim.

So now, Joshua has his reports and is ready to cross the Jordan River and lead Israel into the Promised Land so

2 At the end of three days the officers went through the camp 3 and commanded the people, “As soon as you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God being carried by the Levitical priests, then you shall set out from your place and follow it. 4 Yet there shall be a distance between you and it, about 2,000 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.” 5 Then Joshua said to the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you.” 6 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.

I want to walk in the sandals of these people right now.

What must they have been thinking as they spent several days on the edge of the Jordan?

- They can’t swim across

- They can’t ford it (it’s at flood stage)

-They can’t make enough boats (estimates more than 1 million people)

- They were sitting ducks for their enemies.

Whatever Joshua had in mind, it was going to require a step of faith.

Steps of faith require preparation.

Look at how many times the ark of covenant is mentioned in this passage.

It is mentioned ten times in this chapter (vv. 3, 6 [2x], 8, 11, 13, 14, 15 [2x], 17) and an additional seven times in chap. 4 (vv. 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 16, 18).

David M. Howard Jr., Joshua, vol. 5, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1998).

it contained three symbols of Israel’s relationship with God: (1) the tablets of the Ten Commandments, (2) Aaron the high priest’s rod, and (3) a jar of manna

Both a comforting presence and a powerful force

They were to stay 2000 cubits (1000 yards) behind. Why?

symbolically - God is going before them

would give all of Israel a full view of God before them

but why stay behind?

in order that you may know the way you shall go, for you have not passed this way before.”

derek - can mean ‘way of life’ - not just meaning physical direction.

Joshua set God before his steps.

Jesus spent significant time in prayer prior to some of the biggest steps of his ministry

start of his ministry () fasting in desert

prior to choosing his disciples

prior to going to cross

The people were to separate themselves from the usual ways of the world.

Consecrate - qodesh - holy

ritual washing

abstaining from marital relations

actions that show they live lives different than world.

Sometimes steps of faith are counterintuitive to the ways of the world

They needed to be set apart both in their holiness and in their ‘usualness’

Separation from sin.

Israel’s time at Shittim was NOT pretty

Numbers 25:1-3

25 While Israel lived in Shittim, the people began to whore with the daughters of Moab. 2 These invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and bowed down to their gods. 3 So Israel yoked himself to Baal of Peor. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel.

Chiefs of Israel killed the sinners.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Because of blatant sin, Phineas the priest stuck a spear right through an Israelite man as he was in an intimate moment with a Midianite woman. (won’t find that on a flannelgraph in Sunday School)

Separation from the world.

they were to prepare themselves to follow however God may work not prepare to handle the situation the way the world usually works.

The unprepared life rarely displays the power of God.

Hidden sin will block God’s work in your life.

Controlling life your way may miss out on the wonders God wants to do in your life.

Controlling

Steps of faith follow a living God.

Joshua 3:7-12

7 The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. 8 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.’ ” 9 And Joshua said to the people of Israel, “Come here and listen to the words of the Lord your God.” 10 And Joshua said, “Here is how you shall know that the living God is among you and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Perizzites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, and the Jebusites. 11 Behold, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth is passing over before you into the Jordan. 12 Now therefore take twelve men from the tribes of Israel, from each tribe a man.

The step of faith is possible because God is faithful.

You can trust God because of what he has done.

Joshua points out that they are about to know (yada) (experiential knowledge) that they follow a living God - one that still works in time and space.

You can trust God because of what he will do.

God acting in this step of faith will give the Israelites the knowledge they need for what God plans to do next through them - conquer all the Promised Land.

‘Living God’ used only three times in OT.

He contrasts this living God against the gods of the seven listed nations of whom the Israelites are about to face in battle.

Many of the gods of the nations of the Promised Land were limited to whatever was their speciality:

storm

crops

fertility

war

Doesn’t mean you won’t have questions or even find God confusing.

God was not doing things like he had before (parting of the Red Sea)

The issue is not as much about how God worked in the past and if he will work that way in the future. The point is - GOD STILL WORKS!

Israelites questioned the method by which they were to cross the Jordan?

—

Given into the fear of the challenge in front of them?

Joshua 3:13-16

Not heard about how God had worked in the past (Red Sea)?

13 And when the soles of the feet of the priests bearing the ark of the Lord, the Lord of all the earth, shall rest in the waters of the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan shall be cut off from flowing, and the waters coming down from above shall stand in one heap.”

It does not matter what the

14 So when the people set out from their tents to pass over the Jordan with the priests bearing the ark of the covenant before the people, 15 and as soon as those bearing the ark had come as far as the Jordan, and the feet of the priests bearing the ark were dipped in the brink of the water (now the Jordan overflows all its banks throughout the time of harvest), 16 the waters coming down from above stood and rose up in a heap very far away, at Adam, the city that is beside Zarethan, and those flowing down toward the Sea of the Arabah, the Salt Sea, were completely cut off.

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

Steps of faith are obedient.

I think the biggest gap breached in the crossing of the Jordan was when the first priest went the distance of a tow and dipped his foot into the rushing waters.

(Jordan River at flood stage)

flood stage in Spring after snow from mountains fills the river.

usually river was about 100feet wide and 5-10 feet deep.

at flood stage it could be up to a mile wide

City of Adam was about 17 miles upstream from where most scholars think Israel crossed.

A landslide dammed up the river in 1267 and in 1906. An earthquake on 11 July, 1927, dammed the meandering stream for 21½ hours.

This doesn’t mean if God chose to use a natural occurence to stop the water that somehow this wasn’t still an incredible miracle. The weight of the miracle would still be found in the fact that God, through Joshua, predicted exactly when the stoppage of water would occur.

A landslide dammed up the river in 1267 and in 1906. An earthquake on 11 July, 1927, dammed the meandering stream for 21½ hours.

What would have happened if:

Israelites questioned the method by which they were to cross the Jordan?

Given into the fear of the challenge in front of them?

Not heard about how God had worked in the past (Red Sea)?

Obedience doesn’t mean you have confidence in the situation, it means you have confidence in the one leading you through situation.

ILLUST - Visiting my brother at Marine Corps boot camp. Drill instructors barking orders that make little sense but require obedience.

“Faith is not believing in spite of evidence but obeying in spite of consequence.”

— Unknown

Faith is not your house - it’s your car.

It’s not your destination, it’s your motivation

it’s not the place you need to be, it takes you where you need to go.

. . .

11 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

4 By faith Abel offered. . .

The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), .

5 By faith Enoch. . . pleased God. . .

7 By faith Noah. . . constructed an ark. . .

8 By faith Abraham obeyed. . .

32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. . . . 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

These all took a step of obedience and saw God do wonders.

What happened here was that there was one priest who dipped his foot in first. He has a wet sandal.

When Adoniram Judson graduated from college and seminary he received a call from a fashionable church in Boston to become its assistant pastor. Everyone congratulated him. His mother and sister rejoiced that he could live at home with them and do his life work, but Judson shook his head. “My work is not here,” he said. “God is calling me beyond the seas. To stay here, even to serve God in His ministry, I feel would be only partial obedience, and I could not be happy in that.” Although it cost him a great struggle he left mother and sister to follow the heavenly call. The fashionable church in Boston still stands, rich and strong, but Judson’s churches in Burma had fifty thousand converts, and the influence of his consecrated life is felt around the world.

—Forward

When he stepped in obedience, God stepped in in power.

I believe that too many Christians today are walking around with two dry sandals!

What would have happened if:

Israelites questioned the method by which they were to cross the Jordan?

Given into the fear of the challenge in front of them?

Not heard about how God had worked in the past (Red Sea)?

—

17 Now the priests bearing the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firmly on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan, and all Israel was passing over on dry ground until all the nation finished passing over the Jordan.

Steps of faith lead others into faith.

We need to hear about what God has done.

This is not the generation of the Red Sea. If any of these Israelites had walked through it, they had been younger than twenty years old when it happened (except for Joshua and Caleb).

Here they are forty years later.

They had heard stories of God’s faithfulness and power in parting waters and a few had seen it.

This highlights the importance of intergenerational ministry.

We need to hear what God has done - how he has worked in wonder in the past

And we need to share what God has done and is doing to the next generation.

Sometimes God is calling for us to take a big step of faith.

Sometimes God is calling to take the next small step in becoming more fully devoted to him.

We need to lead others into what God is doing.

It is possible that the next generation could take the Church to places it has never been before.

We need to promote this.

This is only possible if the next generation learns about God through what he has done in the Church before.

We need to listen for this.

As the Israelites were crossing the Jordan, the twelve chosen men were to each gather a stone from the middle of the river and carry them to a place where Joshua would create a memorial from them so that. . .

Joshua 4:6b-7

When your children ask in time to come, ‘What do those stones mean to you?’ 7 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.”

What would have happened if:

Israelites questioned the method by which they were to cross the Jordan?

Your steps of faith can lead others into faith.

Given into the fear of the challenge in front of them?

Not heard about how God had worked in the past (Red Sea)?

Conclusion

This is not the only time a Joshua will step into the Jordan River to lead the people of God to a place that only God can take them.

‘Joshua’ הוֹשֻׁעַ (Yehoshu'a) means “Yahweh is salvation” - Aramaic שׁוּעַ (Yeshu'a) and when translated into Greek - JESUS.

In the Gospels, Jesus steps into the Jordan River to be baptized by John the Baptist. This starts Jesus’ earthly ministry which culminated in death burial and resurrection to secure salvation - to part the divide between eternal death and make a way for eternal life.

Jesus entered the Jordan to take the biggest step on your behalf. Only his step didn’t leave him with a wet sandal, it left him as a bloodied corpse on a cross.

We don’t have the ark of the covenant before us anymore; we now have the cross of the New Covenant before us.

The crossing of the Jordan is a picture of the gospel.

first big step of faith is crossing from death to life.

The beauty of the gospel is that even if you stumble, Jesus made a way for you to take the next step of faith.

*PRAY*

Do you need to take your first step and trust in Jesus?

Jesus has crossed the divide between you and God - He has led the way and wants to see you live as a Fully Devoted and Fulfilled Follower of Christ where there is:

joy, freedom, hope, peace, forgiveness

freedom

hope, peace, forgiveness,

peace, forgiveness,

requires a step of fait

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