Highs and Lows Week 5: Looking Back, Moving Forward
In Week 5, Ian Farrimond proposes this pattern for our lives: Looking back, moving forward. Where does he get it? In Joshua 3 and 4, God leads the Israelites across the Jordan river. As the priests enter the river, God pulls back the water and leads his people across it on dry land. Then, Joshua collects the 12 stones each of the tribes of Israel has carried from the Jordan. He builds a monument with them, what we call the Ebenezer stone. Why? Joshua says: “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ ” The monument was built to help them remember.
But we don’t remember just for the sake of it. We remember our past that we might learn from it and more forward into the future. The ebenezer stone was a marker of what God had done, so the Israelites could look back and be encouraged as they moved forward. The ebenezer stone was a way to tell the story to those who were not there to experience it themselves. Listen to the sermon, contemplate your “crossing the Jordan moments,” and see the faithfulness of God.
In the Highs and Lows series, we are going through the book of Joshua. Together, we examine the ever varying seasons of our lives by using the Bible’s story of the Israelites entering the land of God’s promise as a mirror. Reflected in this story we will find moments of celebration, of crisis, of faith, of doubt, of winning, and of losing. Sometimes we will find highs and lows both in the very same moment. A new generation of Israel wrestles with themselves and their leader, Joshua, to trust God and go where he leads them. We, too, wrestle with our own faith (or lack thereof.) No life is devoid of highs; no life is devoid of lows. And no life is devoid of God if we choose to open up our eyes and seek him, no matter where we are on our journey. Welcome to Highs and Lows.
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