Title: Crossing the Jordan
Text: Joshua 3:1-17

With the approaching of Christmas most of us can remember the anticipation we had when we were younger awaiting the arrival of Santa for that special gift. It seemed like it would never come, that time just dragged by.

There are probably other times in your life when you experienced this same kind of anticipation and excitement. Graduation from High School or college, wedding day, a new job or new promotion. I know I've shared this before but having graduated from seminary waiting for a the Lord to open a church seemed like such a long wait compared to some of my classmates, and then there was the anxiety about whether you would call me as pastor and whether or not I was ready to be a pastor, or wanted to be a pastor or.....well it could go on and on. There was anticipation and excitement along with a lot of doubts and fears and worries. You've probably been there too.

Can you imagine what it was like for the Israelites? Four hundred years of slavery in Egypt. I guess you could say an exciting and event filled trek across the wilderness to the promised land, then forty more years of wandering because of disobedience and a lack of faith and now here they are ready to enter the promised land.

You can just imagine the excitement and anticipation as they gathered near the banks of the Jordan river ready to go into the land of promise. But you can feel the sense of anxiety they must have felt too. They're not on I-80 at the Platte River bridge. There are no bridges and only a couple of fords along the river, but this is flood season and the river is overflowing and the water is running very fast. There are families to go across women and children and no doubt they thought of the opposition on the other side of the river and the fortified cities.

That's the generally the way life is, often when our hope is at it's peak our fears are usually running right along beside it. Along with our hope and anticipation we see the obstacles and difficulties we don't have the strength or the wisdom to handle. I can't do this, I don't know how to do that, I'm not smart enough or wise enough to do either this or that. We see things from a fallen perspective. We need to recognize the battle is the Lord's we need the strength and wisdom from God. That's what God was about to show Israel.

Of first importance in this chapter is the preeminent place of God. That fact is revealed by the prominence the Arc of the Covenant, mentioned nine times in this chapter. The Ark represents the person and presence of God. Heb 9:4 says it contained, "a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron's rod which budded, and the tables of the covenant." NAS

During the time of exodus it traveled in the middle of the tribes. It stood as a reminder of God's presence, His power, His protection and His promises to Israel. God wasn't confined to that box, but it represented Him. Through it God demonstrated He alone was to have the preeminent place in the life of the nation. It also served to remind the nation of God's holiness.

The first lesson was to keep your eyes on God. When we say keep our eyes on God we're not talking about physical eye sight, but spiritual eyesight. They physical eye is symbolic of the eye of faith. The Ark, the symbol of His presence, was about to move. It was going to be leading them across the Jordan they were commanded to keep their eyes on it and be prepared to follow it.

That's an important lesson for us to learn. We must keep our eyes on Jesus, and be ready and willing to follow Him. When we view things from a fallen perspective our eyes are on the negative things, the problems, the trials, our inabilities rather than on God. I read recently obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off Jesus.

Israel wasn't commanded to watch the Jordan, but to watch God. Don't worry about the raging river just watch the ark. Keep your eye on God and He'll take care of the river. In Matt 14 we read the account of Jesus walking on the water. After Jesus fed the multitude He went to pray and sent the disciples ahead to cross the Sea of Galilee. Around 4 in the morning the wind was up and the sea was rough the disciples saw someone walking on the water, Jesus identified Himself and Peter asked to come to Him. We read in verse 29, " Peter got out of the boat, and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" (NAS)

Peter walked on the water, until He took his spiritual eye off Jesus and saw the storm. He returned to seeing with those fallen eyes rather than the eyes of faith and he began to sink.

We face Jordan rivers of our own every day, things that are in the way keeping us from the victory, the joy of our relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Too often we want to handle those rivers on our own, doing things our way by our own strength in our own wisdom then ask Him to come along for the ride and bless our decisions . It's vital for our Christian experience that we keep our eyes on Jesus. We must look to Him for His leadership, His presence, His wisdom - then follow Him instead of trying to lead Him.

A second lesson in this passage found in verse 5 is that of personal sanctification. We have talked about sanctification before. The word is derived from the root holy meaning to be set apart for God.

In verse 5 Joshua tells the people to sanctify themselves. They were to symbolically separate themselves from anything that would contaminate their relationship with a holy God. It was a ritual cleansing that included bathing the washing of their clothing and abstaining from certain foods among other things. It was a symbolic ritual signifying an inward receptiveness to God and a relationship with Him.

In the New Testament sanctification is used both for the beginning of the Christian life and for the continuing development of that life. The New Testament refers to all Christians as "saints" or sanctified ones. In this case the term is used synonymously with justification. It is the work of Christ on the cross whereby we are cleansed and set apart by grace through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus. It is also used to refer to the ongoing process of conforming to Christ-likeness brought about by the Holy Spirit at work in our lives.

There is another aspect of sanctification where we, like the Israelites, must sanctify ourselves. We are not simply passive bystanders in the process of becoming Christlike. We have a responsibility as believers to set ourselves apart from the world and to God. It has to do with dealing with sin in our lives. God takes sin seriously. That's why we celebrate Christmas, that's the reason for the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. God in the flesh come to deal with the sin of the world. And He expects us to take sin seriously as well.

Listen to how the Bible addresses it in these passages:

Rom 6:13 ". . .do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin {as} instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members {as} instruments of righteousness to God. "

Rom 12:1, "I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, {which is} your spiritual service of worship. " (NAS)

1 Cor 6:19-20, ". . .do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body." (NAS)

2 Cor 7:1 "Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." (NAS)

1 Pet 2:11 "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts, which wage war against the soul." (NAS)

The message is clear that while God has forgiven us, redeemed us, justified us and set us apart by the blood of Christ, we have a responsibility to intentionally yield ourselves and our will in response to His grace as an act of worship. There are things we are suppose to do and thing we are not suppose to do as a response to the grace of God at work in our lives.

Sanctification is always active and never passive and it is a progression. The more we sanctify ourselves the closer we grow in our relationship with Christ and the closer we grow in that relationship the more we want to sanctify our selves. It is a process that continues throughout our lives. The more we set ourselves apart the more God works in our lives. Let me reiterate here something that I said earlier, this is a spiritual work. Not our spirit, not the human spirit but God's Spirit working in us enabling us to deal with sin. We're responsible, but we don't do it alone.

The third lesson is this: When we keep our eyes on Jesus, when we take seriously our responsibility to sanctify ourselves in response to what He has done for us, we can be sure that He will take care of the rest.

There are those who claim there was some sort of landslide at Adam which damned up the Jordan, a natural occurrence that allowed Israel to cross the Jordan. These same people insist that God didn't part the Red Sea. But listen, the hearts of the people in Jericho and throughout the land didn't grow weak, didn't melt because a band of slaves walked across some marsh land on the way out of Egypt. Rahab said, ". . .we have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea before you when you came out of Egypt" (Josh 2:10, NAS)

God supernaturally parted the water of the river and the sea and Israel walked across on dry land. Parting the Red Sea and the Jordan River as incredible and unbelievable as it might seem to the human mind is nothing for the God that created it all in the first place.

Are you stopped at a Jordan river in your life, something that's keeping you from the joy of your salvation, from the abundant life promised by the Savior? Take your eyes off the river and put them on Jesus, sanctify yourself put off the world and put on Christ and willingly say, wherever He leads I'll go. I'll follow my Christ who loves me so, I'll let Him take care of the rivers wherever He leads I'll go.

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