“Trust, and Then Pass Over”

Scripture: Joshua 3:7-17

One of the greatest struggles in the church today is that of “Trust”! We are under attack by the world, and we know that Christ is our only hope for victory, but how often do we really trust the Holy Spirit enough to follow him wherever we are led?
We want the Spirit to follow us and support us in whatever efforts we may decide are worthwhile. Of course, Satan also has plans for us, and when we decide to make our own way, we get lost. And even when we are on the Lord’s path, Satan is actively attempting to thwart our efforts, and we seldom know whether we are heading in the right direction or if we are completely turned around and heading “God knows where”! It all comes back to trusting that the Lord has a plan for both our lives and his Church, and in our faithful discipleship, we need to seek his leading and guidance, and to know the difference between the Lord’s plan and the world’s.

So how do we know the difference? Usually, it is simply a matter of prayer, being as direct as possible in our inquiries, and then waiting for the perfect answer. But other times, it’s a more a matter of taking a step in faith - not waiting for the proof, not waiting for certainty – but simply going wherever the Spirit seems to be leading us.

Read Joshua 3:7-13

Now there’s a challenge! Joshua hears the message directly from God, but the people, and especially the priests, only heard the message second hand. “Just go and stand in the middle of this raging river, because I intend to show you a marvelous thing!” How many of us would have had the faith to actually do that? What certainty was there that the Jordon’s flood waters would not only stop, but actually begin to pile up? Have you ever seen, or even heard of, that sort of thing happening before? Imagine how high the pile would have gotten during the time it took for a million or so people to cross over! And no flooding! Can you even begin to imagine that!

That is what faith is all about. It isn’t about seeing, or understanding, or knowing – it is about trusting in something that is far greater than ourselves. It’s about taking a risk, regardless of what or where the call may be. It’s about knowing for certain (and this may be the only certainty!) that God is going with us, wherever “there” may be.
The instructions that God gives are seldom complete – we never seem to know what we will be doing once we get “there”, or even how we will get “there”, and sometimes we aren’t even sure of where “there” is! All we have been told is “Go”. And so, in faith, we go.

10 years ago, Gibson Corners was told to go to Ecuador. They thought that they knew what they would be doing, but as it turned out, the faithful who struck out in the name of the Lord didn’t have a clue as to what would come of their “going”! And the result has been far greater than anything that they could have imagined! Sometimes we are told to go to those bothersome next door neighbors. Sometimes we are to go into the worst part of town. Sometimes we are told to go to a specific person’s home, and that we have to go now! Sometimes we are told that someone is coming to us, and that we are to be ready to welcome them. Sometimes we are called to go and step into the raging flood waters, and watch what the Lord does then!
And the priests of Israel were called to go and do that very thing. But when we read this passage again, we discover that Joshua tells the people that the Ark of the Covenant will go ahead of them. This small group of men – the priests who had been chosen to carry the Ark – the very thing which represented the presence of God in their lives – would be leading them. God himself would be leading the nation of Israel into the Promised Land. Of course it also required that a few of the faithful join him in those first few risky steps, but the Lord was with them, and they trusted in that promise.

Read Joshua 3:14-17

There are three lessons that we need to take from this passage.
First, the priests took a risk. Common sense would tell you that by the second step, or the third at the most, those men would have been swept away by the current, and they would never be heard from again. But a walk with Almighty God has nothing to do with “common sense”! It is about faith.

Second, the priests exhibited all of the characteristics of true leaders. They didn’t decide that this was a ridiculous plan, and that they would have to find a better place to across the Jordan. They didn’t stand back and tell the people to go first so that their responsibility would be protected. These priests took the first step as an example of what faith could do. And it was only then that the people followed.

Third, the priests showed the people what trusting in God could accomplish. They stood firm in faith, and did exactly what Joshua told them the Lord wanted of them. They trusted that God would be faithful to them, and in return, they were faithful in responding to God’s need of their lives. “Step into the water, and I will begin to exalt you in the eyes of all Israel, so they may know that I am with you.”

What if they had balked at this “uncommon” sense of faith? What if they listened to their wildly beating hearts and clammy skin, and decided that the risk was just too great? What if they had said “Let’s wait for the water level to go down – that’s a lot safer!”
If they had hesitated, who would have enabled the nation of Israel to claim its God-given promise of this new and wonderful home? Who would have led them into that place of glory? The answer is – No One! Israel would still be standing on the eastern bank of the Jordan, waiting for the flood waters to recede so they could easily wade across.
But God wanted to show them what a little faith in him could do. Note that not only did the waters pile up upstream and downstream, but that the river bed was dry! No small pools of water in the depressions, no mud on the river bottom, no small rivulets that they had to step across – by faith, the river bed was dry! How powerful is our God? If this doesn’t answer the question in a mighty way, then nothing will!

By taking that risk, by being true leaders of the nation, by living a faith that grew in trust of God, the priests who had been charged with carrying the Ark of God enabled the people to safely pass through the waters and never even dampen the soles of their sandals.

There’s an old saying, that says:
We're not in this to test the waters, we are in this to make waves.
--Anonymous
And that is exactly what the priests were doing – stirring up the spirits of Israel, making waves in their otherwise flaccid lives, showing them the power and majesty that was of their God. And in faith, that is what we, too, must be about.

How strong is our faith? The truth is that we usually don’t know until we are faced with taking that next step that will place us firmly in the torrential flood, or in the depths of the lion’s den, or face to face with our greatest fear, or reaching out to help our greatest enemy.
We can never pussyfoot around in our faith – we have to take a faithful leap into the unknown and trust that the Lord will be there when we come down, to plant our feet on firm and dry ground.

Where is the Lord leading us as individuals? Where is he leading us as his church? The question for us is not does the Lord have a plan for us, but rather what does he require of us! Remember that Jeremiah 29 tells us that the Lord knows the plan that has been created for us, and that it is an incredible and wonderful design. The problem is that all too often, we try to create our own plan of action, and when it doesn’t work out, we wonder where in the world God was when we were working so hard and yet failing so miserably!

Next week, we hold our annual Charge Conference. It is a time to not only celebrate the victories that we have experienced in the past year, but to commit to our missions and ministries for the coming years. But we need to know what the Lord desires of us before we go very far in our preparations. And that requires concerted prayer – both individually and corporately. We are in a partnership with the Lord, and we can never exclude him, anymore than he will exclude us.
Pray for his guidance and the glory of his great plan for our lives and his church.