Now Here
Week four - Remember
Philippians 2:1-11 and Joshua 3-4
1 Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 4 not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.
5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
7 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. —Philippians 2:1-11
9/11 - “Never Forget” - it’s a promise we make to
We remember…
It’s an intentional act because our natural inclination is to forget.God gave us a
Sabbath - remembering, telling the stories of God’s faithfulness (Deuteronomy 5:15)
*Stay connected to GodGod gave us
Joshua 3 and 4 - the Israelites are crossing over the Jordan and into Canaan, the Promised Land. It’s the second river crossing, only this time no one is chasing them from behind. This time it’s a choice. Will they walk forward in faith, trusting that God took care of them before and can be trusted to do it again?
-River is at flood stage, approximately one mile from shore to shore
-Priests go first with the ark of the covenant, toes in the water…then and only then, the water is held up in a heap upstream (Joshua 3:15-16)
-The priests then stop in the middle and wait until everyone crosses to the other side (this is an entire nation)
1 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, 2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”
4 So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, 5 and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, 6 to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” —Joshua 4:1-7
- The representatives from the 12 tribes go back into the river bed and get their stones of
- The priests leave the middle of the Jordan (finally) and the waters return to flood stage
19 On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. 20 And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. 21 He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 22 tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ 23 For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. 24 He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God.” —Joshua 4:19-24
The stones represented:
1. An
2. An
“Remember
- You were once “no people” and now you are “my people.”
- You were once slaves to sin and fear and now you are set free.
- You were cut off, disinherited, and now you are co-heirs with Christ, sons and daughters of the living God, a royal priesthood.
When we remember, our lives look
We prioritize differently. We see differently. We work from a paradigm of plenty instead of a paradigm of scarcity.
We love differently…
We are putting down stones - a tool, a reminder that the Lord our God is powerful and worthy of our worship. A reminder that we belong to Him, and in obedience to Him, we are called to love one another as we have been loved.
**We’re going to have to get our feet wet like the priests did if we want to see the fullness of God’s promise and live into the freedom Jesus made possible as our inheritance.