Highs and Lows Week 6: Fresh Start

Highs and Lows Week 6: Fresh Start

In Joshua 5, the topic of H&L week 6, God gives the nation of Israel an important directive for their fresh start… and we spend the whole sermon talking about everyone’s favorite awkward topic: circumcision. As the entire generation of Israelites who God brought out of Egypt had passed away, it was time for God to re-assert his connection with his people. He commands the men of Israel to undergo circumcision before entering the promised land. Why? The ritual was a mark of his everlasting covenant with them.

Through Pastor Yami’s sermon, God uses this Joshua account to teach us about the role of rituals in our lives, about the necessity for waiting, and about how he is able to roll back disgrace and reproach and heal us from our pasts. We can all use a fresh start sometimes, whether in our relationship with God in or work we have been called to do. God’s grace was enough for Israel and it is more than enough for us today.

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.

Catch up: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5

Highs and Lows Week 6: Fresh Start

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.

Catch up: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4

Highs and Lows Week 6: Fresh Start

Highs and Lows Week 4: Low Moments

Unfortunately, we were having one of our own low moments. Technical difficulty prevented us from uploading audio from this sermon.

When you have low moments, moments of fear, doubt, anxiety, stress, etc… what do you do? In the 4th week of Highs and Lows, William Chavula preached a message that gave us a fresh look at Rahab’s story. As she is one of the most colorful characters in the lineage of Christ, when we learn about Rahab, we tend to focus one two things. One, Rahab was a prostitute (and an enemy prostitute no less.) Two, even so, she placed her faith in God. In this sermon, William took us past this surface reading of Joshua 2 and into the hearts behind the characters.

The people of Jericho were trembling in fear at the oncoming Israelites; Rahab responds to her fear in a unique way that results in her salvation. What can we learn from Rahab? When Low Moments come at us, when the world wants to make us melt in fear, we ask three questions.

  1. What are you hearing? (Whose voices are you listening to?)
  2. What are you responding to? (Are your responding to faith or are you responding to fear?)
  3. What are you still doing here? (If God has given you an opportunity to get out of the low place, have you chosen to stay in it? Why?)

Once we have asked these questions, we can respond to our low moments differently. We can respond to our low moments like Rahab, who chose to place her trust in the God of Life rather than in the fear she could see.

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.

Catch up: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3

Highs and Lows Week 6: Fresh Start

Highs and Lows Week 3: Preparation

We may all love to go places and do things, but do we pay attention to the preparation needed for the going and the doing to go well?

Last week, Joshua received his commission from God. This week, he commands his people to make preparation to fulfill that commission. Sometimes, when we hear God telling us to do something, we think it means we must act right away. And we can think we are supposed to go forward blindly–“just trust”–and he will work it out. But in our hurry, we can neglect steps that God intended us to take. To make a plan is not to demonstrate lack of trust; to carefully prepare is not to give into fear of the future. Let’s learn from Joshua how to say a resounding “YES!” to God’s call and then enact it with wisdom and a trusting and faithful heart.

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.

Catch up: Week 1, Week 2