Promised Land Living

Joshua 2: 1-2, 9-11; Joshua 3:1-5; Joshua 4:4-7

Rahab-Crossing Jordan-Stones at Gilgal

CIT: Joshua leads the Israelites to the Promised Land

CIS: Do all the Lord’s Commands You

SO: The hearer will take possession of God’s Promise for their life.

Follow along at d1.church/notes.

Intro: Promised Land Living.

Marshmallow test. Get two kids to sit at a table and not eat the marshmallow, and then they will get two marshmallows. 

Promised land living is about understanding that God has more for you if you can wait on him. This is not about making God’s plan happen for your life; this is about letting God take you where he wants to take you. 

1. Spies to Jericho (Joshua 2:1-2, 9-11)

Then Joshua, son of Nun, secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.”

EXP: God has called Joshua to begin the campaign to lead the one million Israelites into the Land he has promised them. Joshua sends two spies into the nearest big city of Jericho. He learned this from Moses. We do not have time to read it here, but the story is told in two different places in our Bible. 

Deuteronomy 1:19-46,

Numbers 13:25-14:15.

Moses sent a representative from each tribe to go into the land and scout it out. 10 of the 12 came back scared because the people were formidable, and some were giants. So they voted against taking the land early in the journey. Now 40 years have passed, and Joshua just sends 2 to Jericho so that they can assess the next steps. 

ILL: The First lesson of the Promised Land was that there are going to be Christians who may fight beside you, but will not possess what you will have. Joshua already knew not everyone had the stomach for the full God-Journey. But he decided to gather some intel. 

ILL: The story goes like this: The spies go into town and find lodging at the house of a businesswoman. The Bible calls her a prostitute. When the men came into town, they were spotted, and some of them came to Rahab’s house to ask about them. Rahab hides them and lies to the search party. She tells them the men came, but she sent them away, and they left. After the search party leaves, she goes up and tells the spies what she knows, what the Jericho inhabitants know: (Joshua 2:9-11)

-A million people are coming

-The whole land has been promised to them by their God

- Their God parted the Red Sea, defeated Pharaoh, and delivered them in every battle they have fought.

-The Israelite God is a true God.

Rahab asks that, since she was kind to them, they could spare her and her family. The Spies agree that if she brings them into her house and hangs a scarlet cord out her window, they will spare the house and all in it. They do, and Rahab is listed as marrying a Jewish man, and her lineage leads to Jesus in Matthew’s genealogy. 

APP: The Second lesson of Promised land living: The enemy already knows they are defeated. The best part is they have known for 40 years since God parted the Red Sea. The only person unsure about the victories to come is you.

T.S.: The spies return, and it is time to cross the River Jordan.

2. Crossing the Jordan (Joshua 3:1-5).

Early in the morning, Joshua and all the Israelites set out from Shittim and went to the Jordan, where they camped before crossing over. After three days, the officers went throughout the camp, giving orders to the people: “When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the Levitical priests carrying it, you are to move out from your positions and follow it. Then you will know which way to go, since you have never been this way before. But keep a distance of about two thousand cubits between you and the ark; do not go near it.”Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.”

EXP: The three days have passed, and Joshua begins to give direction to the Israelites to get ready to enter the Land. The first step is to cross a river. God gave Joshua instructions to have the priests take the Ark of the Covenant and carry it into the river. When they get to the middle, they will stop, and the rest of the million people will walk over on dry land.  

ILL: Consecrate: make or declare sacred; dedicate formally to a religious or divine process. 

When we go on this journey, we will need to make ourselves dedicated to God. If we are to enter into the land that God has for us, we will have to make some changes to the way we are living. 

Third Rule of Promised Land living: You cannot stay the same and enter into the promises God has for you.

ILL: So it happens that the Ark and the Priests go first, the rest of the people stay about ½ mile behind the Ark. I went to a conference this year, and the speaker was talking about why God wanted them to stay so far back. He said he searched a bunch of commentaries and can only conclude that God wants to make sure that we do not go before the Presence of the Lord. The Ark was where the Lord resided in the tabernacle. The bible says he resides between the wings of the Cherubim. This is the presence of God on earth. This picture is the most accurate one I could find because the poles are placed properly.

APP: The people passed over on dry land. 

T.S. The priest and ark remained because God had one more thing to do.

3. Stones at Gilgal (Joshua 4:4-7)

So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe,  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, to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ 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.”

EXP: God speaks to Joshua and tells him to have a member of each tribe go back into the dry river bed and get a stone and bring it to this place where they are. This place is called Gilgal. God wants to build a monument there so they can:

Always remember this day,

Be encouraged that God is their God.

Gilgal will become a base camp for all the activity that is about to take place.

ILL: The stones were not small. He told them to carry with their shoulders, not their hands. The stones probably weighed about 100 pounds, as that was the most a person could carry that far.

ILL:

These stones are set up at a place called Her Korem in Northern Israel. There are 12, and many think this is a similar setup to Gilgal. 

APP: God is not trying to do anything in secret? We are like Joshua; we follow what we saw. We secretly make plans and seek information to make our decision. When God does things, he is doing it big!

He parted the Red Sea and scared the inhabitants of the Land for 40 years.

He parted the Jordan and marched a million people across.

He built a monument you can see from the sky to claim the land as his.

T.S.: God is proud of you and has big plans for you if you consecrate yourself and continue to be obedient.

I want to pray for three groups today:

1. Some of you are worrying if you can defeat the enemies, the enemy is scared of what God is doing in your life.
2. I pray that today, you know God has a victory planned for you.
3. Some of you are trying to move forward with God, but have not changed your life to honor him.
4. I pray today that you will be obedient to the things God is calling you to do.
5. Some of us need to remake a new commitment to God today.
6. I pray for salvation.