Monumental Moments: Remembering from the Middle of the Miracle!

Monumental Moments

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

January 19, 2025

Monumental Moments: Remembering from the Middle of the Miracle!

If you have your Bible, turn with me to Joshua 3. We will get back to Romans before long but for the next month or so we’re going to be in the Old Testament. I love the Old Testament! God teaches us so much about Himself, about His salvation work, and about ourselves in the Old Testament but He doesn’t teach us so much through teaching as through stories and history. The visuals stay with us! The stories bring the teaching home to us in a powerful way.

After Joshua takes over as leader of Israel after Mose’s passing away, he sends two spies out to scope things out in the PL and they come back with a good report “it’s as good as God said it would be. And the people there have heard about what our God can do and their hearts are melting in fear! Let’s go for it!”

But there’s a major obstacle standing between them and the Promised Land. This big, wide, rushing river says, “you’re not going anywhere.” But God says have the priests carry the ark of the covenant to the edge of the Jordan River and watch what I’m about to do.

¹⁵ Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest. Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, ¹⁶ the water from upstream stopped flowing. It piled up in a heap a great distance away…So the people crossed over opposite Jericho. ¹⁷ The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord stopped in the middle of the Jordan and stood on dry ground, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground.

4 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ² “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, ³ and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.”Joshua 3:15-17, 4:1-3 NIV

The priests carried the ark of the covenant representing God’s presence and the minute their feet touched the waters edge, God stopped the current from flowing and the water started piling up in a heap upstream and the Israelites were able to cross over on dry ground.

But the priests didn’t cross the river. They stopped halfway across because God told Joshua to send 12 men back, one from each of the tribes of Israel and have them pick up a stone from the middle of the river and take it back to the shoreline where they stacked them up as a memorial of what God had done that day.

They didn’t build a memorial with stones they picked up from the side they started from or stones they picked up on the side they crossed over to, they built with stones they picked up from the middle of the river. They couldn’t have built with those stones if God hadn’t stopped the river.

God has stones hidden for us in the middle of the miracle. Memorials that we can only make when we follow God in the path He leads us even when it doesn’t make a lot of sense or look possible. Stones that testify we wouldn’t be where we are if God hadn’t worked on our behalf.

Title: Remembering from the Middle of the Miracle!

We may not expect or even think of miracles that much but if you’re a Christian, pick up some stones right where you are because you are in the middle of a miracle right now. I don’t care if you’re the most ordinary Christian living the most boring, seemingly non-miraculous life ever, you are a walking testimony of what God has done! You are in the middle of a miracle today!

The greatest miracle of all is when God saves a lost sinner and brings them into His family. Being a Christian isn’t a natural thing – it’s a supernatural thing. You’re a child of God, blood-washed, sanctified, filled with the Holy Spirit and bound for heaven by the power of God.

Moses the lawgiver couldn’t lead his people into the promised land because the law can’t get us into heaven.We needed Joshua – Jesus! – to lead us into the Promised Land. Jesus made a way where there was no way by paying for our sin on the cross. The only way we can cross over is by the cross. There is NO other way! Jesus conquered the devil and his works on the cross and promises that one day we will cross that final Jordan River into his eternal kingdom.

But we’re not there yet! We’re in the middle of the miracle – we’re living in the Now and Not Yet. We need to remember what Jesus has done for us – that’s why Jesus instituted communion. Communion is a stone picked up in the middle of the miracle reminding us to look back and call to mind what Jesus has done for us and remind us of his promises for our future. Remember what God has done for you, what He is doing for you, and what He will do for you. Pick up stones where you are when you are in the middle of a miracle but can’t see the other side of it. They stacked the stones on each other to build the memorial. The stones we pick up build on each other.

1. One stone is marked “God often puts an opportunity on the other side of an insurmountable obstacle”

Over and over God’s best opportunities lie on the other side of what seems to be an insurmountable obstacle. Abraham and Sarah faced the obstacle of being too old to have a child. Moses faced the obstacle of the Red Sea. Hannah faced the obstacle of being barren. Gideon faced the obstacle of the Midianites. David faced the obstacle of an arrogant giant and an angry king. Elijah faced the obstacle of 450 false prophets. Daniel faced the obstacle of a den of lions.

All these moments were life-changing moments in their lives. God was taking them from one place to the other through the obstacle!

The key for us is seeking the Lord’s will. Being led by the Lord and His word. Sometimes insurmountable obstacles mean don’t go there. Sometimes wisdom says “nope, I’m not meant to cross that river.” But as much as I am a big believer in wisdom, wisdom isn’t God.

Sometimes the Lord leads us to an obstacle and wisdom says, “It’s the wrong time! It’s flood stage! The current’s too strong! Let’s plan this out better Lord, it’s the worst time!”

And God says, sometimes the wrong time is the right time because I want to show Myself strong on your behalf.

As the priests stepped into the water it marked the first step towards a major change for Israel. God had a new chapter waiting for them: From wandering in a desert to living in a land of milk and honey. From the same old scenery, same old manna, same old thing day after day to a new adventure full of promise and risk and potential to either succeed OR fail! But God was leading them and with them.

We don’t want to miss the testimonies God has for us because we see every obstacle as a sign to turn back. Stay where we are. How many answers to prayer, how many testimonies, how many memorials do we miss because we stop at the river’s edge?

Sometimes we have to get our feet wet with something bigger than us. God often puts opportunity on the other side of obstacles.

2. One stone is marked “going forward with prayer”

As soon as the priests feet touched the edge of the water, the current stopped flowing upstream and piled up. You know what it was about their feet that made the water stop? Nothing! It wasn’t their feet that caused the miracle, it was that they carried with them the ark of the covenant, the presence of God.

Believers in Jesus all have the presence of God living in us through the Person of the Holy Spirit, but to experience and radiate the presence and anointing of God, we need to become men and women of prayer.

Prayer isn’t just about getting answers, it’s about experiencing the presence of God in a powerful way. Prayer connects us with God. Prayer connects us with Jesus so that we abide in him and bear more fruit for the kingdom of God.

Apart from Jesus we can do nothing. We can’t cross uncrossable rivers in flood stage without Jesus. Careful planning can’t get us across. Wisdom can’t get us across. Programs can’t get us across. Motivational messages can’t get us across. We need to carry the presence of the living God with us through prayer.

It was not only the flood stage when they crossed, it was also harvest time. The wrong time was the right time! The worst time was the best time! The Lord has a good harvest for us to reap this year as we carry His presence in our hearts through prayer.

If we want this year to be a year of testimonies about the great things God has done, we need to learn to pray with faith and power. Spurgeon would say too many believers pack their prayers in ice before sending them to heaven. We need to heat our prayers up with faith and fervency. Bold yet humble appeal.

Is there something weighing on your heart? Carry that stone of prayer to God. Lay it on the altar again and again and again – persevere until God gives you the answer. Knock on the door and keep knocking! Janice and I had something come up that weighed heavily on our hearts and we were praying constantly and fervently. Sometimes we’d stop and pray, other times we’d breath prayers to God as we were going about our day. God did answer that specific prayer but He also taught me some new lessons about prayer.

The Lord has been teaching me a new level of prayer through some burdens and needs that weigh on my heart. But I find myself craving prayer more than I usually do. I find myself lifting up quick prayers and wanting to spend longer times in prayer.

There is nothing more exciting than seeing God working in and through us. We can only get to the middle of the miracle when we carry the presence of God with us through prayer.

3. One stone is marked “the God who got us here will get us there”

As they lay those stones on the miracle side of the Jordan it was a reminder that there would be more obstacles and enemies ahead of them. There would be insurmountable walls of Jericho with mighty armies and there would challenges and Canaanites and Hittites and all kinds of “ites” they’d have to fight.

But those stones reminded them that the same God who got them that far would be with them all the way.

Paul talks about fighting the good fight of faith. Every time we face a new challenge, a new obstacle, a new enemy, we also need to fight for fresh faith. Yesterday’s faith won’t sustain us in today’s fight. The Israelites saw God part the Red Sea, and you’d think that would make a lasting impression on them, but as soon as they ran out of food, many of them threw their hands up and said, “we’re gonna die!” I relate to that.

We need fresh faith for today’s challenges, but it is important to remember God’s past answers to prayer. Remembering how God has met you helps you believe that God will meet you. The God who got you here will get you there!

4. One stone is marked “we move forward with God as a community”

The priests stayed in the middle of the river while the whole community crossed over. This miracle and testimony was for all of them as a community. They all stood on the one side, then they all crossed over, then they all stood on the other side and rejoiced over what God had done for them as a community. Together they would build a memorial and together they would move forward.

On occasion we have opened up the service for a time of testimonies. I am encouraged when I hear how God has answered prayers for others. I also believe God has more in store for us. More answered prayers, more obstacles to cross, more testimonies to share, more prayers to lift in 2025.

I want to introduce 12 Stones as a way to share prayer requests and testimonies with each other as a church family. Show on screen.

If you have a prayer request or a testimony you’d like to share, simply go to gracecorning.org/12stones, write it out and answer two simple questions.

My hope is that we build a growing monument of prayers and prayers answered.