"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11 NASB).
God has a destiny for your life. As Jeremiah 29:11 says, he has a plan to give you a future and a hope. It's that word "future" that I want to focus on.
The Hebrew word for "future" here - there's a couple of pronunciations I came across in my studies -- depending on which commentary or bible dictionary you're reading. One is "Achariyth", which has a little guttural sound and the other one is "Ahari." Basically these mean "the last, the end of the reward". It is talking about that God has something out there to finish well with.
It's interesting how the root word of this word "future" -- the root word of this word "future" -- comes from the word which means "from the high back or away from". You see the future is essentially saying as one looks back; as one looks into the past. It is the culmination of the events of the past.
It is a word picture of someone looking in the past but going forward or going forward looking backwards. It's a picture of one that is rowing a boat. The rower rows forward by having this fixed point. You see the future comes as you look at what God has brought you through in the past. You see we move into the future backwards and we need His reference point. As that rower is rowing he is looking at the place and he's fixed his eyes there and he know that they are going in a straight line because he is gazing to the back. That is the picture of this word here. Moving forward by looking back. Every good vision for the future will be anchored in the past. If you can't see it in your past, it probably isn't in your future. Your past has shaped you to who you are. Your past has shaped you to where you are going. Both your successes and your failures are things that God has used to shape you, to use you and to mold you into who you are and you can understand a lot the call upon your life or where God is leading you by looking where He has brought you from. This can really be illustrated in the life of Israel. What word did God give Israel over and over again in order to keep them on track? It was the word "remember".
Deuteronomy 32:7 says, "Remember the days of old. Consider the years of all generations. As your father and he will inform you; your elders and they will tell you."
God said, "Remember". He told them to remember what they'd experienced. In Joshua 4 they were getting ready to enter into the promised land. As they got right on the edge of it, they came to the Jordan River. The river was swelling over its banks, it was at the flood stage. And God said, "You are getting ready to cross the Jordan." So he had the Ark of the Covenant carried by the Levites and they went and as they walked into the water, the waters parted and all the water downstream just went down to the water upstream. And the bible says the water built into a wall and the whole nation of Israel as the Ark stood in the middle of the river. The Jordan river dried up and this whole nation, millions of them, crossed over to the other side. And God wanted them to remember that.
He said this in Joshua 4, "When all the people were safely across the river, the LORD said to Joshua: 'Now choose twelve men, one from each tribe. Tell the men to take twelve stones from where the priest were standing in the River of Jordan and pile them up on the place where you camped the night.' So Joshua called them together, the twelve men and he told them, 'Go into the middle of the Jordan in front of the Ark of the LORD your God. Each of you must pick up one stone and carry it out on your shoulders. Twelve stones in all. One for each of the twelve tribes. We will use these stones to build a memorial. In the future your children will ask, 'What do these stones mean to you?' And you will tell them, 'They remind us that the Jordan River stopped flowing when the Ark of the LORD's Covenant went across.' These stones will stand as a permanent memorial among the people of Israel.'"
"So the men did as Joshua told them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan River-one for each tribe-just as the LORD had commanded Joshua. They carried them to the place where they camped for the night and constructed the memorial there." Verse 19 continues, "The people crossed the Jordan on the tenth day of the first month; the month that marked their exodus from Egypt. They camped at Gilgal, east of Jericho. It was there at Gilgal that Joshua piled up the twelve stones taken from the Jordan River. Then Joshua said to the Israelites: 'In the future your children will ask, What do these stones mean? Then you will tell them, This is where the Israelites crossed the Jordan on dry ground, for the LORD your God dried up the river right before their eyes and He kept it dry until you were all across, just as he did at the Red Sea when He dried it up until we had all crossed over. He did this so that all the nations of the earth might know the power of the LORD and that you, the people of God, might fear the LORD your God forever.'"
These stones were stones of remembrance. They were stones to remind them as to where they had been and to show them that God would be with them as they went into the land and conquered the land. And these stones were things that would keep them on track; things that would be stones of remembrance to remind them what God had done.
You see, we remember in order to build confidence in the future for the future. Not that we would build a memorial to be worshipped. God wants us to remember in order that we will have the confidence and we will have the faith to move on into the will of God. Not that the things we have experienced in the past would be the things that we would worship. We are not to memorialize to the point that we would lift those things up. These stones were not to honor man. These stones were given in order to honor God for the purpose as it said in that 24th verse. The purpose was so that the nations would know the power of God that that you would fear the LORD, your God, forever. That's what they are there for, to remind you of that.
Men like to worship the past. They like to worship experiences. They like to worship events, like the transfiguration. You're familiar with that particular story in the gospel. Jesus always went up to pray and when He went up to pray He took his disciples usually part way with Him. He didn't take them all the way. He said, "Let's go pray." He would get to a place and He'd say, "You guys stay here." And then He went on to pray. Because they would always fall asleep and I imagine it would be very distracting. Here He is trying to pray and these guys were snoring. So Jesus would go on to where He could be by Himself. And He would pray. He did this one day with Peter and James and John. And all of a sudden these guys looked up and saw Jesus and they could see Moses and Elijah. And the Glory of the Lord was there. And the disciples got so excited they couldn't wait and Jesus came down and this is what they said.
Luke 9:33: "As it came about, these were parting from Him and Peter said to Him: 'Master, it is good for us to be here and let us make three tabernacles, one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah'; not knowing what he was saying."
Oh, Peter. He just kind of jumped out there and he really looked stupid after a while. It's not uncommon to want to worship the experiences of the past. It is not uncommon for a church that had a glorious past to basically remember that and worship that. For instance people say things like:
"Yea, I remember when old pastor so-and-so was here, boy we had the best Easter program you've ever seen.""Oh, we had such a great time. We had all these children's programs and these choirs and stuff like that. Yea, those were the best days this church has ever seen."
Did you hear that curse in there?
The past is the past. But people worship the past because they can see the past. The past is comfortable. You can look back and you can see that. The future is not so comfortable. It is unseen. But the past is something you can see. That is why people worship the past. They worship their experiences.
And these stones were not there to worship Joshua. They weren't there so people could say, "Well, you know, Joshua, he was the best leader we've ever had. Nobody's ever led us like Joshua did. You know, that guy, he really knew how to lead a nation, didn't he? Yea, Joshua sure did. He brought us into war and we won a few times. And we've just never been the same since Joshua left."
These stones weren't there to worship a man or to worship an experience. They were there to remind them of God. That's why these were there. God would say this to Joshua, in Joshua 1:9: "Have I not commanded you to be strong and courageous? Do not tremble or be dismayed for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."
Three times God would say in those first nine verses, "Be strong and courageous." See to be able to fulfill the will of God you have to have courage because it is frightening. The future is uncertain. It is not seen. The past you can see. The future you don't and there is a lot of great risk and there is a lot of uncertainty and to be able to move into the future, you need to know that God is there. You need to have courage. So what these stones were simply to be a reminder to them in order to build faith in what God had done.
That's what the purpose of these stones were. They were to remind them that just as God parted these waters, then He had parted the waters at the Red Sea. They would be reminded of how God delivered them of the Egyptians. They would think about that. Just as He parted the waters then, He parted the waters back with Egypt. They would be reminded of that. They would be reminded of those years they spent in the wilderness. They would be reminded of how God provided for them; that everywhere they went, God had a provision for them and as God opened up the waters there. This was to give them confidence that God would open up doors for them as they go into the land.
They needed to know that. These stones were stones of faith. They were stones of confidence. They were stones of strength. You remember what God has done in order to give you strength to move ahead.
Sometimes the only way we can get ahead is to begin to look back and see how God has brought us through. One of the things I do is I do a lot of journaling with my quiet time and write down the things that God is doing in my life and that's a faith builder for me. There are times when I get discouraged and there are times when I want to give up and I want to quit. And there are times I ask, "God, are you really here? God, are you really with me?" I really do ask that sometimes, that really does happen.
And you say, "A pastor says that?" Well, you know, we say a lot more than you guys. And when I'm saying it, God brings me back to these quiet times and I am looking at those journals. And I see how God has taught me through this and how God did this in me and taught me this. Let me tell you, that's a faith builder. I can look back at what God has done and that builds my faith because when I move into the uncertainty of future, when I need to know God is with me when I go. Looking at the past gives me the confidence to move into the future. That is why I said this over and over again: REMEMBER WHAT GOD HAS DONE.
Exodus 13:3 says, "And Moses said to the people, "Remember this day in which you went out from Egypt, from the house of slavery; for by a powerful hand the LORD brought you out from this place.'" What Moses is really saing here is "remember!"
And this particular phrase is used at many times. Look at Deuteronomy 5:15. "And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD Your God brought you out of there by a mighty hand and by an outstretched arm." Then again in Deuteronomy 7:18, "You shall not be afraid of them; you shall well remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt." It is saying, as you go take the land that God has given to you, remember what he did to Pharaoh. Remember what He did to Egypt. Don't be afraid of those people. If God can do that to the Pharaoh of Egypt, what do you think He can do to those people?
Then there is Deuteronomy 8:18. "But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day." In other words, I will be your provider. I will make a provision. You have all that you need.
God wants us to remember things. He wants us to remember what He has done. When we remember what He's done, that brings faith to us. That brings confidence. That brings strength. We need that to go into the future. Looking at the past gives us confidence that God will be with me; that God who began a good work in me will complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. He promised that He would and looking at that, helped me to believe that would be true. King David put it this way in Psalm 143:5, "I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Thy doings; I muse on the work of Thy hands."
We need courage to move onto to the future. Courage. As they were getting ready to go into the Promised Land, these stones were not to be a place to worship the past. Rather, they were a place to simply worship God and remember that He's the one and He's the source of strength.
He told Joshua in that first chapter: "Everywhere that the sole of your foot treads, I have given it to you. Just as I have been with Moses, remember what I did with him, I will be with you and I will do it with you." He promised that.
When we go to the New Testament, we see some of the very same affirmations there in Hebrews 10:32-36. The author says, "Don't forget those early days." In other words, remember when you first learned about Christ. Remember how you remained faithful even though it meant terrible suffering. Sometimes you were exposed to public ridicule and revealed. Some times you helped others who were suffering the same things. You suffered along with those who were thrown into jail. When all your own was taken from you, you accepted it with joy. You knew you had better things waiting for you in eternity. You remembered why. Do not throw away this confidence in the Lord.
Remember so you don't throw away your confidence and trust in the Lord. No matter what happens remember the great reward it brings you. Patient endurance is what you need now so you will continue to do God's will and then you will receive all that is promised. Be patient and continue. You need this. You need to remember. You need this so that you don't throw away your confidence so that you hang in there so that you can complete and do the will of God. See, God has an inheritance for us. That's a part of God's plan. And we know that we can obtain that inheritance. We know when we know God is with us and we know we can have it whenever we are on the right course that God would bless and part of determining that course is looking in the past.
And we can learn from what we remember. Remembering the hardships of the past can be a teacher to us, so we don't repeat it!
Unfortunately, not everything that we remember is good. Some things are bad. Some things are really bad. And it's those experiences that we learn from, but know this. The past is the past. The past is not the present and the past is not the future. The past is the past and we can praise God for that. God doesn't want you to stay in the past and that is one of the problems. One of the reasons people can't move on to the future is because they are hung up in the past. God wants them free of the things of the past. And sometimes that is a process. Sometimes God will do that very quickly and sometimes God may take a little time about that in order to secure the things that he is doing in you. But the past is the past and we don't need to be staying there. I mean, can you see the Israelites going, "Remember when we used to live back in the wilderness. Yea, you know, we didn't have tents back then. We slept out under the sun. Yea, I can remember sitting around the campfire frying us some manna. Yea, those were the days. You know, it just doesn't get any better than this. Yea. Sort of miss that manna."
We can't really picture them doing that. I think that once they got past the manna they were thinking, "Thank You, LORD. Real food, finally!"
God teaches a lot from the past. Deuteronomy 8:2 says: "And you shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that he might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not."
God brought them through. He taught them and he revealed a lot through that testing was a hardship for them. It was a hard thing for them. They made some mistakes and they don't desire to repeat those mistakes. God said, "Do you want to take the land" and they said, "No". So God gave them 40 years to reconsider. He asked them again 40 years later, "Do you want to take the land" and this time they said, "Yes". Otherwise, my guess is that God would have given them another 40 years in the wilderness and then repeated the question to the next generation. He would eventually get a generation that wants to go into God's fullness. There are some lessons and there are some tests in my own life that I don't want to retake. There are some things that God has put into my life that I don't want to have to go through that process of learning again. And I am sure that all of you have some of those things as well.
My own church went through one of those difficult times. A couple of years ago we re-carpeted the offices. This necessitated moving everything out of one office into another as we carpeted each room. It was a very hectic thing in order to put everything back in its place. So, I decided to go through all these records to see what I could throw away. I came across a file that was about four inches thick. It contained the minutes of the Church business meetings for about a three or four year period. They were from few years before I came here as pastor. That was a season where this church went through a "conflicts resolution" period. It was a period of time in which my church went through some very great trials, very great tribulations. It was an incredibly difficult time.
I read through these minutes and saw some ugly things that went on at that time. Boy, it was an very ugly time. I almost could not believe some of the stuff I saw in the minutes. People were arguing and fighting about some of the dumbest stuff. The people who came here at that time (and are still here today) told me that they didn't invite any friends to church during that period of time because things were "too unsettled." It was a very brutal time to be a part of this church. They brought in an outside arbitrator to deal with the issues of this church. And during this season, people began leaving in droves. I don't fault anybody who left. Some people were chased off by interpersonal ugliness. Some people just offended away. Some people thought that they needed to leave for the sake of their kids. But in the midst of all that craziness, there were people who felt God had called them to be in this church. They did not know why He wanted them here, but they stayed. They were a part of the remnant of God that kept here through an incredibly difficult time for our church.
But that was also a very important part of our history. A lot of people counted this time as a "black period" or the "middle ages" of this church. They they don't like talk about those times very much. They shove it under the rug and cover it over and try to ignore that part of their history. But who we are as a church today today is directly related to what happened back then. How we conduct business today is greatly effected as to what happened back then. We turned inward to heal. It was an intentional choice that we made. We said, "As a church we're not ready to reach out." We had all these outreach programs not producing anything because God wasn't blessing anything, because we needed to heal. So we took an intentional turn as a church, made a decision, took an intentional turn in and said, "We're going to heal and when God's ready, He'll move us out."
And a lot of the healing ministries that are going in this church today are a direct result of that time. For us to get to what we do today, we needed that time. During that time, a lot of our values and convictions were shaken. Our belief systems were determined in this "crisis". This church had to go through all that pain to become who we are today. But we came out on the other side. And God has blessed us richly. We had to learn some things that we didn't want to receive. We've learned some lessons that we don't want to have to go through again. And so hopefully we have learned a lot of those lessons, so that we won't have to repeat them.
I have shared about the painful growth period from my own church. But just about each person has some sort of equivalent painful growth period in their own lives. God allowed us to go through these for a reason. We are to remember the things God has done in the past. We are to remember the painful lessons that God has allowed us go to through to shape us into who we are today in Him.
God has given us a heritage and a inheritance, and we will do well to keep this in mind as we move towards our future. God wants us to remember as we move towards fulfilling our calling and destiny. Our past is not an accident; it is something God carefully used to help shape us into who He designed us to be.
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