Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro

Have you ever wanted a fresh start?

A new beginning?

If we understand correctly the reality of our sinful conditions, we all know that we desperately need it.

For reasons greater than our own failings, our own sin, because of the sinful nature that entered the world.

In our text for today, we are going to learn how God rolled away the reproach of some people who were stuck there; and, in this case, they were stuck there not because of their own choices but because of the poor choices of their parents.

What is reproach you may be thinking.

It is a word that we don’t often use today.

Reproach

an expression of rebuke or disapproval

2: the act or action of reproaching or disapproving 〈was beyond reproach〉

3 a: a cause or occasion of blame, discredit, or disgrace

b: DISCREDIT, DISGRACE

to express disappointment in or displeasure with (a person) for conduct that is blameworthy or in need of amendment

2: to make (something) a matter of reproach

3: to bring into discredit

Shame - Disgrace -

Using it it in a sentence we might say - “The players conduct brought shame and reproach upon the team.”

In your life, have you ever experienced a season where you were subjected to reproach or disgrace because of poor choices you made?

Sometimes we can be susceptible to reproach for reasons beyond our control or through just being associated with a person or an organization that’s behaving badly or through all appearances seems to be.

However, if we’re honest with ourselves, we can all think of times in our lives when we made our own poor choices and at least deserved reproach, even if no one other than God and perhaps Satan ever found out about it.

So as you think about those seasons in your own life of disgrace and reproach, did you experience any taunting and mocking or emotional punishment, either from Satan or from other people who knew about your poor choices?

I’ll pretty much guarantee that you did, because one thing is for sure: Satan loves to taunt and mock us for any failures in our lives and he’ll do everything he can to keep us from finding our way out of reproach and disgrace.

He loves to keep us paralyzed and demoralized and stuck in the reproach of poor choices we’ve made.

The people in our story today - sadly, their parents remained in that state of reproach because of their stubbornness and refusal to listen to God and follow his way out.

But for the children who learned from their parent’s mistakes, things turned out much differently.

If you have any reproach you’d like to get rid of today, pay attention, God will show you His way out.

Our God is a God of new beginnings!

He doesn’t want us to sit and wallow in our sin and shame.

Reinstating His chosen people.

v. 2-7

The Lord speaks to Joshua

Remember where we are now in our story.

The people of Israel have crossed over the Jordan because of God’s mighty work.

They crossed over on the tenth day of the first month.

They are to choose the animal for the sacrifice and passover meal.

5:1 tells us that the hearts of the people in the land melted, that they didn’t have any spirit.

The logical thing to do, would be to go quickly and begin the assault.

But that is not God’s plan.

Instead God tells Joshua to make yourselves vulnerable to attack.

Sit in one place with your warriors out of commission.

Why?

Because God is the one who will provide the victory, not the strength, not the power of the people.

Returning to the Lord.

The Lord here speaks to Joshua in verse 2, telling him to make flint knives and circumcise the sons of Israel a second time.

Make flint knives and circumcise the people a second time.

The text here is a little confusing as we see it in our English Bibles, but that is cleared up in the verses that follow.

God is not telling Joshua to redo the procedure, but to return.

The word translated a second time, carries the meaning to return, or turn back.

The Lord is telling Joshua, This group of people has been faithful, they have followed my commands, it is time that they are returned to my service.

What does Joshua do?

He is obedient and gets to work.

The question is why?

Why did the Lord have to tell Joshua to do this?

Circumcision was the required sign for taking part in God’s covenant with Abraham and his descendants.

And even while in slavery in Egypt, the Israelites were evidently still following the terms of this covenant by circumcising their sons on the eighth day after their birth.

So why hadn’t the people been following this in the wilderness?

We don’t know for certain but a likely answer is that the problem must have arisen after the Israelites rebelled against God at Kadesh Barnea and refused to follow him into the Promised Land the first time.

This passage in Joshua shows us that during the subsequent 40 years of wandering in the wilderness under the discipline of the Lord, the parents continued in their rebellion and stubbornness against God by refusing to operate under the terms of the Mosaic Covenant by circumcising their sons on the 8th day.

They were mad at God because He wouldn’t work on their terms.

This is why Joshua now had to circumcise all the boys (most of whom were now men) who had been born during the 40 years of wilderness wandering.

The rebellious fathers who had refused to enter the Promised Land and then had refused to circumcise their sons, had unfortunately remained in their reproach and disgrace during the 40 years of wandering and sadly even died in that state.

They perished in the wilderness because they had refused to listen to the voice of the Lord at Kadesh Barnea and had continued to refuse in the wilderness.

And as a result the Lord had kept them from ever seeing the Promised Land.

During the 40 years of wilderness wandering God was preparing a new generation who would put behind the rebellious ways of their parents.

They had had 40 years to learn from the stubbornness and rebellion of their fathers and were now ready to listen to God and follow him.

And the first item of business was to get them back in line with the terms of God’s covenant by receiving the physical sign of circumcision.

To bring them back, to return them to the Lord.

Deeper significance.

The deeper significance is to more than the physical act.

The physical mark is an outward, but hidden mark that shows the obedience of the men to the Lord.

As we survey what the rest of the Old Testament and the New Testament teach about circumcision, we quickly find out that physical circumcision pointed to the deeper spiritual reality of heart circumcision.

In Deuteronomy, we see the end of the wilderness years.

Moses retells the law to the people and in chapter 10, he helps to explain the significance of the act.

Circumcision is really about, a giving up of stubborn self-will, replacing it with complete surrender to the Lord and his purposes…a soft heart that clings to him, trusts him, honors him and is willing follow him wherever he leads.

This is the battle the Paul describes in Romans 2

Is that what your heart looks like today?

Is this an accurate description of how you interact with God on a daily basis?

Circumcision of the heart looks like, and is the exact opposite of what the rebellious fathers had been doing during the 40 years of wandering.

Moses in Dt. 12 described that generation as

Every man had been doing what was right in his own eyes.

There hearts were hardened.

The choices they made spoke profoundly of the spiritual state of their hearts before God: a stubborn self-will that followed a sinful heart’s desires rather than the wisdom of the loving Creator of the universe.

And in the following verse

In living with that uncircumcised heart before God they had not arrived at the rest and the inheritance God wanted to give them.

Stubborn selfwill that insists on your way and puts your wisdom and desires above God’s will never get you there!

It is that same stubborn self will that keeps people from the rest and inheritance that comes from God in heaven today.

Rejecting His Son.

The only one who can take away sin.

To sum up the significance of physical circumcision and the spiritual reality it points to, we must understand:

Circumcision signifies removal of our rebellious, sinful, stubborn self-will and replacing it with a humble, soft heart; open to the Lord and ready to listen, trust and obey him.

Our God is a God of new beginnings, of fresh starts.

He calls us to trust and obey.

This is the idea that is behind what the Lord says to Joshua in verse 9 or our chapter.

God did the rolling away of the reproach of Egypt and he did it through circumcision, as his people returned in humble obedience to the terms of the Mosaic Covenant; showing soft hearts ready to listen, trust and obey him.

What was the reproach of Egypt?

Certainly there was the fact that they had been slaves there and that Egypt and the other nations still saw that as their identity: a slave nation.

The reproach of Egypt was the disobedience of the previous generation (the generation of Egypt) which brought about the period of wandering and death in the desert.

That generation could not inherit the land.

Presumably, the same judgment lay upon the present generation.