November 10, 2024
Thanksgiving through Remembrance
Joshua 4:1-5:1
For a follower of Jesus, Thanksgiving is more than a holiday; it's supposed to be a perpetual lifestyle. However we live in a fallen world and being thankful always can be difficult when we find ourselves constantly surrounded with the brokenness that sin brings. There is no doubt that Paul faced this struggle as well. He was a man that had been beaten five times with 39 lashes by Jewish leaders, three times he was beaten with a rod, he was stoned once, three times he was shipwrecked — one of those times he spent a day and night adrift at sea. He was arrested and imprisoned at least three times as well. Despite all these terrible circumstances that he experienced, Paul was still thankful. As a matter-of-fact Paul lived, wrote about, and encouraged others to live a life of thanksgiving more than any other writer (Christian, secular, or Jewish) in his entire generation. Paul was able to do this because he knew that no matter what circumstances he was to find himself in, a follower of Christ ALWAYS has something to be thankful for. After all, God’s goodness is boundless in the lives of His children. God has always been good in our past, He is always good in our present, and He will always be good in our future. Sometimes to have this attitude of gratitude in our lives we need a fresh outlook on our lives to always see God’s goodness and let that spur us on into a renewed lifestyle of Thanksgiving. Over the next couple of weeks leading up to the Thanksgiving Holiday, I pray that we will do just that as we start looking at how to be constantly thankful for what God has done in our lives, what He is doing in our lives, and what He has promised to do in our lives in the future. I want to start this sermon series by looking into our pasts and seeing how remembrance can bring about Thanksgiving in our lives today. To do this let’s look at Joshua chapter 4 in which the children of Israel are ready to cross the Jordan River into the Promised Land. As they do, they make a provision so that they will never forget what God was doing for them there and they would always have reason to be thankful when they would look back on the event and see the goodness of God. So let’s look at a few things that this provision would have reminded the children of Israel about and how we can look back at those things in our lives to help us live a lifestyle of thankfulness.
Remember God’s care for you - Joshua 4:1-7
When all the people had crossed the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, “Now choose twelve men, one from each tribe. Tell them, ‘Take twelve stones from the very place where the priests are standing in the middle of the Jordan. Carry them out and pile them up at the place where you will camp tonight.’” So Joshua called together the twelve men he had chosen—one from each of the tribes of Israel. He told them, “Go into the middle of the Jordan, in front of the Ark of the Lord your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulder—twelve stones in all, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant went across.’ These stones will stand as a memorial among the people of Israel forever.”
Up to this point in Scripture concerning the history of the Jewish people, God has brought the children of Israel out of captivity in Egypt under the leadership of Moses. Due to their disobedience during their journey to the Promised Land, God caused them to wander in the wilderness for 40 years until a generation, as well as their leader, Moses had passed away. Now that was all over and God had given Israel's’ new leader, Joshua, specific instructions on how to finally proceed into the promised land. He tells Joshua that they are going to have to cross over the Jordan River during flood season. This most likely would mean that the riverbanks would have been swollen to over 100 feet wide and around 12 feet deep at the time. Joshua was a military leader so I’m sure the logistics of such a task were at the forefront of his mind. How was he going to get a million people across such a river safely? I’m sure he might have thought they could make boats and ferry everyone across. However, that would leave too many people vulnerable to attack by their enemies when they were out in the river. Not to mention the dangers of the swollen river itself. How many boats would they need? Maybe he thought he could build a bridge? but that would take way too long. Did they have the engineering expertise to build a bridge big enough to handle around a million people that could survive the fast-moving waters? Joshua knew that this task was going to be a major problem for the children of Israel, but God already had a solution. He tells Joshua to have the priest pick up the Ark of the Covenant and lead the people to the Jordan River. He was to take a few steps into the river and when he did, the water was going to stop, and they would walk upon dry ground into the Promised Land. And those enemies that await them on the other side, don’t worry about them God’s got a plan for them as well. The Lord also told Joshua to choose 12 men, one from each tribe for a very peculiar task. When the waters were stopped, they were to each take one rock and carry it to their first camp in the Promised Land that would be located at Gilgal. However Joshua and the children of Israel were obedient to God and God undeniably did a miracle in their midst that day. But why the rocks? Why did God want them to take twelve large stones into their camp? Because God knew that life in the Promised Land would be hard some days and there were going to be days when circumstances would seemingly steal their joy. He wanted them to be reminded of God’s care for them in the past to get them out of the valley of despair and encourage them to be thankful for God’s care for them. This reminder wasn’t just for them, because there would be others who came along who weren’t around or might have been too young at the time to remember God’s care. They would ask what that big pile of rocks was for there in Gilgal. They could be told about the time God met them in their time of need and that no matter what circumstance they found in life their perspective could be changed and result in a thankful heart.
Did you know God does the same thing in our lives as well? Maybe it’s a scar that reminds us of a time when God miraculously intervened during an illness. Maybe it’s a gift or a card that a friend has given you that helped you through a really hard time in life and reminds you of how God cared for you through them. All these reminders will vary from person to person, but there is one that will be the same for all followers of Jesus — that is Salvation. It’s the moment that Jesus met you in your darkest moment and miraculously saved you. This was a moment that hopefully all of us experienced. We have all been given something that reminds us of this time and that is our Testimony. It is our eyewitness account of what God did personally in our lives. It's a reminder of what we once were and what we no longer are because of what Jesus has done for us. Our Testimony is not just for ourselves, but rather it’s to be shared just like those stones were. It’s something we can use to let others, especially family, know how God has cared for us in our lives. It’s something we need to share with our kids and grandkids and anyone who will listen. Not only did Jesus do this for you, but He can do it for them as well.
Remember God’s faithfulness to you - Joshua 4:8-14
So the men did as Joshua had commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River, one for each tribe, just as the Lord had told Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there. Joshua also set up another pile of twelve stones in the middle of the Jordan, at the place where the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant were standing. And they are there to this day. The priests who were carrying the Ark stood in the middle of the river until all the Lord’s commands that Moses had given to Joshua were carried out. Meanwhile, the people hurried across the riverbed. And when everyone was safely on the other side, the priests crossed over with the Ark of the Lord as the people watched. The armed warriors from the tribes of Reuben, Gad, and the half-tribe of Manasseh led the Israelites across the Jordan, just as Moses had directed. These armed men—about 40,000 strong—were ready for battle, and the Lord was with them as they crossed over to the plains of Jericho. That day the Lord made Joshua a great leader in the eyes of all the Israelites, and for the rest of his life they revered him as much as they had revered Moses.
One of the themes that is seen as this narrative continues in verses 8-14 is that “God NEVER fails”. As we are called to remember His care for us, we also are called to remember His faithfulness as well. We see this faithfulness on display as the children of Israel were obedient to exactly what God called them to do at the river Jordan. In verse 10, we see God’s faithfulness to His people as they were able to cross the river on dry ground because the priests, who were carrying the Ark of the Covenant, stood in the middle of the Jordan River with the Ark just as the Lord had commanded them to. In verse 11 we see that the nation had safely made it into the Promised Land on the other side without any persecution from their enemies, just like God had promised. In verse 13 we see that the Lord was with them the entire time just like He had promised. In verse 14 we see God fulfill the promise that He made to Joshua earlier in the book by making him the leader that would be respected just as much as Moses. God’s faithfulness would be a theme that God would remind the nation of Israel many times throughout their history (Isaiah 46:9). One of the reasons God called them to remember His faithfulness in their lives (and as in ours) was because there will be many people in our lives that will let us down. It might come from friends, from family members, maybe from spiritual or political leaders, however the fact remains that everyone will let us down at some point. We cannot let that discourage us because we must focus on the fact that God NEVER fails (Deuteronomy 31:8). Not only will being reminded of this truth help us as we face discouragement with other people in our lives, but it will also bring us to the antithesis of discouragement when we focus on the faithfulness of God and that would be thanksgiving. Aren’t you glad that God never fails? Aren’t you glad of His faithfulness to you? Take the time to remember and thank Him for all those times, especially in moments when sinful broken people let you down. As we remember the One who has always kept His promises responds to it with thanksgiving. We also need to remember that not only has God not failed us in the past, but that all His promises for our future are true as well. He will never fail us in the future. God is not done with us yet!!!
Remember God’s not done - Joshua 4:15-5:1
The Lord had said to Joshua, “Command the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant to come up out of the riverbed.” So Joshua gave the command. As soon as the priests carrying the Ark of the Lord’s Covenant came up out of the riverbed and their feet were on high ground, the water of the Jordan returned and overflowed its banks as before. The people crossed the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month. Then they camped at Gilgal, just east of Jericho. It was there at Gilgal that Joshua piled up the twelve stones taken from the Jordan River. Then Joshua said to the Israelites, “In the future your children will ask, ‘What do these stones mean?’ Then you can tell them, ‘This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ For the Lord your God dried up the river right before your eyes, and he kept it dry until you were across, just as he did at the Red Sea when he dried it up until we had all crossed over. He did this so all the nations of the earth might know that the Lord’s hand is powerful, and so you might fear the Lord your God forever.” When all the Amorite kings west of Jordan and all the Canaanite kings who lived along the Mediterranean coast heard how the Lord had dried up the Jordan River so the people of Israel could cross, they lost heart and were paralyzed with fear because of them.
As the narrative ends, we are reminded of the memorial that was set up at Gilgal. By reading the entirety of the Bible we see a troubling tendency that can happen if we are not careful with memorials in our lives. God meant for these stones to be a memorial to His goodness, and a reminder of His care and faithfulness to them that would spur them into thanksgiving. Over time it slowly turned into something else. As we see in Amos 4 and Hosea 4, those same stones became a place for false worship. If we are not careful, we can have the same thing happen in our lives. We can sometimes treat these memorials that God has set up in our lives to spur us to thanksgiving as something more. You might say that we treat them less as memorials and more as museums. Rather than giving thanks for these moments in our lives, we instead “worship” these moments and use them to long for those “good old days”. Rather than to use them as intended and be thankful for the past things as we focus on the future. Just think if that would have happened right then and there to the children of Israel. What would it have been like if they had just sat around the rocks day in and day out talking about what happened and how they would love to just live that day repeatedly? Nothing would have happened. They would have been useless in the plan of God but Chapter 5 verse 1 reminds us and them that God was not finished with them yet. Remember the enemies that God promised to take care of? It wasn’t just at the crossing of the Jordan River that they would face problems, but if the Children of Israel were continually faithful God was going to take care of them once and for all. God was already working on the next step of His plan for them. Even in this wonderful moment He had used this to start instilling fear into their enemies. Not too far from Gilgal was the city of Jericho that God would soon give over to the Israelites as they began to settle into the Promised Land. God was not finished with them yet, there were still many mighty things that were to be done. Therefore while we need to remember what God has done in the past and be thankful for those moments of care and faithfulness in our lives, we can’t stay reliving those moments over and over. If we are breathing God still has a plan and a purpose for our lives and most importantly for His glory and that is another reason to be thankful. This world puts aside people for all kinds of reasons and will consider them worthless. It might be age, abilities, social status, education, or many other reasons, but we can always be thankful that we have a God who is good and gracious. He doesn’t see us the way the world does but instead sees us as vital and important to His plan and that’s enough for us to be eternally thankful for. Focus on Him and His purpose for you. Let His goodness in your past motivates you into a lifestyle of thanksgiving as you carry that purpose through your life even in the hard times. Make sure you don’t get stuck in that past because God is not finished with you. Be Thankful!
