A Dual Obligation

Sermon, January 16, 2000

Texts: Exodus 20:12, Joshua 3:9-17, Matthew 4:1-4

It has been over forty long years now since the Hebrews left slavery, crossed the Red Sea, received the Ten Commandments, and roamed the great Sinai wilderness. After all those years in the desert, the Hebrew people are now at the border of Canaan. Now it is finally time to enter the Promised Land. Moses has died; Joshua is now the appointed leader, and it is Joshua's mission to lead the people into the fulfillment of God's promise. But first, they have to get across the Jordan River, which we just read (Joshua 3:15) is at flood stage; the waters are so high that the banks are overflowed. As the people stood there looking at this large swollen river before them, perhaps many of them were wondering if God would "do it again." Some of the older ones have seen, and all have at least heard the stories from their parents, about the parting of the mighty Red Sea, and the subsequent drowning of the Egyptian army. They knew all the details of that miraculous story: First, Moses had raised his staff, and God miraculously divided the waters right before the people's eyes. They had witnessed this dramatic, miraculous manifestation of God's power and God's reality, and THEN, then they had the confidence to walk through on dry land. FIRST, they observed the miracle, THEN they had confidence to step forward, to go on. First, they witnessed God's undeniable reality and power, showing the very clear way to deliverance from their difficulties in this great dramatic moment, then they stepped onto that dried-up sea bed. Now, forty years later, those who stood on the banks of the overflowing Jordan River may have wondered if God "would do it again." Would God do for them what He did forty years ago, would God again deliver?

Then Joshua sent word throughout the camp, that yes, God would "do it again;" He would divide the waters of the Jordan just as He divided the waters of the Red Sea. This time, though, the instructions were a bit different. This time the priests would lead them into undivided water carrying the Ark of the Covenant. Now, put yourselves in the shoes ... or, sandals ... of those priests. You have to wonder if they may have had their doubts as they started walking toward that rushing, overflowing river. Perhaps they were wondering if Joshua was really going to make it as their new leader. Perhaps they were murmuring among themselves, "This isn't how it's supposed to be done. Moses would never have come up with this plan. We've never done it this way before! First, God is supposed to divide the water, then we walk through." Perhaps, though, this time God expected His people to have learned something over the last forty years of their journeying. Perhaps now He expected them to step out ahead in faith.

Verse 15 tells us that it wasn't until the feet of the priests touched the waters' edge that "the waters flowing down were cut off and stood in a single heap." The priests then stood firm on dry ground right there in the middle of the Jordan riverbed holding the Ark of the Covenant while all the people passed by into the new land. As most if not all of you know, the Ark served as sort of the symbol of the "chair" of God. It was a manifest symbol of the presence of God among His people, that (as our final hymn puts it) "God Himself is with us." As they were led with this symbol of God's presence, the people were expected to demonstrate their faith that God would deliver. It would seem that God had great expectations, here; they were expected to obey, even if it looked as though they were walking right into a flood of difficulties. The people of God were expected to obey God's directives, even if it looked as if they were walking right into disaster and potential self-sacrifice. And I believe that is also what God expects of His people to this day; it is what He expects of you and me. Now, some of you are new to the Christian faith, but most of us have been at this quite a while; like the people of Israel, some of us have been on this journey with God for forty or more years. Perhaps God expects us to have learned something. Perhaps God expects something to have happened to us along the way in our journey. Perhaps God expects us to have been paying attention to all the times He delivered us in the past. Perhaps God expects us to have faith in His faithfulness. And friends, I believe that faith means trusting and obeying and doing what God calls us to do even when we haven't seen any miracles yet! We haven't been called to live by miracles; we have been called to live by faith. If you're facing a great flooding river of challenge, be it in your relationships, in your home, at your work, don't assume God will "part the waters" before you have to do anything. Don't assume that God will make everything crystal clear before you plunge ahead. You have to step forward in obedience; you have to step forward into the water. You must make the obedient move. You must take the steps of faith. The salvation will come along the way; that is the normal pattern of God's grace and deliverance. Your primary duty is twofold; your dual obligation is to (1) sincerely honor your faith, and (2) press ahead and step into the water.

Centuries later, the Bible tells us of another Joshua at the Jordan; we looked at this account last week. Joshua's name means "Yahweh [God] is salvation." It is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek name "Iesous" (Jesus). This New Testament Joshua is the one who will lead the people of God into the eternal Promised Land. Now, as then, it is the "new" Joshua's mission to lead the people of God into the fulfillment of God's promises. There is great literary symbolism here that the New Testament Joshua was baptized in the middle of the Jordan, it's even possible that Jesus received His ceremonial ordination to the highest priesthood (see last week's insert) while standing at or about the same place that those priests stood holding the Ark of the Covenant centuries earlier. Remember that the Ark of the Covenant served as the manifest symbol of God's presence among the people; now here stands in the Jordan the ultimate manifestation of God's presence among the people, God incarnate, the One called Emmanuel, "God with Us;"

Now...review time. Remember from last week that immediately after Jesus baptism, that great voice from heaven spoke and said, "This is My beloved Son, in Him I am well pleased." I reminded you of what a rarity it was to hear God's audible voice; it just wasn't something that happened all that often. Even in the lives of the Biblical giants of faith, hearing God's audible voice was a very rare occurrence. At times, generations would pass between God's revelations of Himself; there would be decades and even centuries of apparent divine silence. It is a very, very rare event, even from the Biblical perspective, for God to speak audibly, directly, to His people; which is why, when it DOES happen, the people of God should sit up and take notice! For whatever reason, God chose to communicate primarily through the limited medium of written human language, with all its possibilities for misunderstanding and misinterpretation. It is an article of our faith that the Bible is the Word of God, written through the medium of divinely inspired human authorship. But there are a few occasions in the Bible where God bypasses human authorship, by speaking directly and audibly from heaven, almost as if He wants to say, "Now, get this! This is important!" In the Gospels, this audible heavenly voice is heard only three times; two of those occasions God speaks from heaven and says, "This is my Son." It's as if God were saying, "This truth is so important, this man's identity is so foundational and basic to what you need to believe, I want to tell you Myself. This is my Son."