Amazing
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Let me paint the scene. The Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land. 3 wks ago, we reflected on God’s command to Joshua in ch. 1.
Were you here for that sermon?
Do you remember how Joshua faced a daunting task – leading God’s people to bring God’s judgement on the Canaanites and life as God’s holy people in the land?
God’s command was: “be strong and very courageous.” Why?
B/c Joshua was so big and brave?
B/c the Israelites were great warriors? NO!
No one will be able to stand against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them.
B/c God was with them, they could go ahead w/ strength and courage. But it also required something of God’s people. It’s something they learned at Mt. Sinai. God is holy. If you live next door to God’s dwelling place, you need to be holy too.
That’s what they face here. God is going to escort his people into the Promised Land. God is about to do amazing things among them. If God is on the move among them, they need to be pure, holy, and dedicated 100% to God. To get ready, God told the people to consecrate themselves.
What does that mean?
As part of their opening exercises, the Cadets recite a Code.
#4 of 10 is “consecrated”
What does that mean?
Consecrated = made holy, purified, set apart for God’s service.
In OT, it involves washing and putting on clean clothes. It even means the camp needs to be clean of manure.
Designate a place outside the camp where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the Lord your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.
Here’s the deal: God is holy. He invites people to live close to him as his dearly loved children. But for humankind to enjoy being close to God, we need to get cleaned up, purified, and made holy.
How?
What makes us dirty?
Dirty language, dirty deeds, filthy thoughts . . . anything that is sinful or disobedient.
But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.
How do you do this?
Try harder?
Need God’s help. Confess sin; ask for forgiveness.
Gospel of Jesus assures you that God will forgive you and cleanse you.
When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.
And now, here is the amazing part.
God opened the way into the Promised Land. It was a miracle. Just like God dried up the Red Sea so his people could escape Egypt, God dried up the Jordan River.
You’ve seen rivers in the springtime, haven’t you? Even Otter Creek here in Tburg looks difficult to cross when the water level is high and brown and churning.
Amazing: Priests w/ Ark of the Covenant – symbol of God’s presence – entered the river. Water stopped and backed up all the way upstream to Adam. God opened the way.
God is holy. People need to stay 2000 cubits away = 900 metres. From stop sign to the bridge on Concession St. W.
Amazing: Opens the way to the Promised Land where God’s people could live close to God. Tabernacle and later the Temple represent God’s dwelling place right in the midst of the land.
Jesus does something similar and even more amazing: Jesus opens the way for humankind to live close to God now and for all eternity.