The Jordan was at flood stage when the priests waded in — before the water moved. Obedience came first.

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“Walk This Way”

Joshua 3:1–4; 3:14–16; 4:18–24

It's such a treat to be back with you. My name is Rob Stone. If we haven't met yet, it's so good to be with you. This is my second of what will be three weeks preaching for you here at Yates Baptist Church. And we are in a series we started last week called Onward: Moving Toward the Uncharted. Onward, moving toward the uncharted. And of course we're walking through the book of Joshua. The book of Joshua is one of my favorite books of the Bible, because Joshua finds a people in the middle of a dramatic change, a dramatic shift. The people of Israel, if you follow from the book of Exodus, have been set free from their captivity, from their slavery in Egypt, but they have spent the better part of the last forty years wandering in the wilderness. They essentially lose a generation in the wilderness. But God is raising up a generation that's going to lead them into the promised land. So after the death of Moses, Joshua finds himself tasked with leading the people of Israel into the promised land. They're going to cross the Jordan River and make their way into Israel. I'm very excited about where we are today, because last week we discovered the what. Last week, we discovered the what: that God has called Joshua to lead the people into the promised land, and He made a lot of promises. We saw that Joshua will only inherit what he inhabits — Joshua will only inherit what he inhabits, which is another way of saying God's promise to Joshua is that every place the sole of his foot treads, God has given to him (cf. Josh 1:3, HCSB) [see "A New Dawn, A New Day," July 12, 2026]. And we talked about last week how that can be a promise, but it's not just a promise — it's a principle. And a principle is a promise that is user dependent. It's a promise that depends on whether or not you live it out, because God's promise to Joshua is a promise that depends on Joshua's action. Joshua has to take steps of obedience in order to receive the blessing that comes with God's promise. But if Joshua keeps his feet planted exactly as they are, if Joshua is not willing to be obedient, then the promise becomes a curse for him. Joshua has to take action. Joshua has to take steps of obedience. And I believe that is what God has called us to as well, because as we talked about last week, I believe God has not brought us this far just to bring us this far. There is more to go. There is further to go. And I believe, by God's power, that the best is yet to come. So before we jump into the second week of the series — looking not just at the what, but the how — because the what is great, but a what without a how leaves us all feeling a little confused. It leaves us lacking clarity, especially if we don't know how to get where we're going. Now, we live in 2026, and I have my phone right here — it has some points of the sermon that I'm going to cover. How many of you have your phones with you? Raise your hand if you have your phone, lift it up high. There we go. We are a smartphone people. Okay, let's try it this way — just for my own interest: if you're an iPhone user, raise your hand. Okay. If you use anything else, raise your hand. [Laughter.] Look at you. Come on now — a bunch of green dots showing up in the group texts. "So-and-so reacted to a photo." We can see it now, all you green-dot people, you non-iPhone users in the room. But here's why I mention it: a smartphone is beautiful, especially if you are lost. And really, with a smartphone, how could you ever truly be lost? But I want you to journey with me back to 2001 — December of 2001. I'm a college student at the University of Central Florida. I'm from Florida, by the way — I don't know if there are any other Floridians in the room. Come on, Sunshine State, look how far we've made it. I was a junior at the University of Central Florida, working with a campus ministry called Campus Crusade for Christ that now goes by Cru. Cru has Christmas Conference every year — our big regional conference. Because I was a student in the Southeast, Christmas Conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia. And there are lots of things to love about Atlanta, Georgia — Waffle House, Chick-fil-A, it's all wonderful, I appreciate it. But here's the thing I can't stand about Atlanta: driving in Atlanta is awful. Amen? Around the city of Atlanta is a circle, the perimeter, if you will, and it is a ten-lane highway that just forms a circle all around the city. And depending on where you get on this circle, the directions you're following make no sense, because there's an inner circle and an outer circle. Here I am in Atlanta before the invention of the iPhone. I want you to remember back in the days of a road atlas — you're pulling it out, maybe you've got it hidden in a map somewhere, and you pull that map out and try to figure out, as you're driving, where you're going. None of it is safe. We're going to our service project — how many of our youth went to Passport, by the way? Raise your hand if you were at Passport last week. Come on, vámonos, I love it, great job. So here's the thing: we're doing our service project as part of this conference, and we're headed into a place in Atlanta, and my friend who lives in Atlanta is like, "I know exactly how to get there." And then he proceeded to tell me — and if you don't live in a city, someone telling you the roads and the various points along the way isn't really helpful. So I do what dumb young men do: I go, "Got it. Gotcha. Totally see you there." And I take off, and I'm getting on I-285, this giant thing that goes around the city. I hop on I-285, and I know I need to go two exits west of where we are on the northern part of this highway. So I follow the sign that says west. But the west sign takes me in the opposite direction, because it's telling me where I'm ultimately trying to end up — not where I'm immediately going. Again, a highway that makes no sense. The fine folks of Atlanta, Georgia need to get their stuff figured out. But I turn the wrong way, and now I spend the next hour just looping around the city, seeing all the sights all the way around Atlanta. Finally, someone in my car has a cell phone — I don't own a cell phone yet, this is 2001, this is pre–cell phone days for me. Someone in the car has a cell phone: "Where are you all at?" "We're still on 285, looking for the exit." We eventually make our way there. This time, as we're going back to the hotel from the service project, I didn't just listen to what my friend told me when he told me how to get back. I said, "You go first, and I will follow you." We got back to the hotel in about five minutes. Now, there are wives in the room being very sweet about not elbowing your husbands right now — I appreciate that, I'm grateful for that — because if I had been married at that point, my wife would have said, "Hey, you don't know where you're going. How about you follow someone who does?" You don't know how to get there — why don't you follow someone who knows how to get there? I knew the what. I knew what we were going to do. I just didn't know how to get there, and I thought I could just figure it out. And of course I didn't, because you can't just figure out everything. Sometimes the only way to learn is to watch someone who knows what they're doing, who knows how to do it. And so here we are in week two of the sermon series Onward, with a message I have titled "Walk This Way." Because just like Joshua and the people of Israel, and just like us today, we need to know not just where we're going — we need to know how to get there. And so this is what we find as we open up Joshua chapter three and Joshua chapter four. We're not going to read the entirety of the two chapters — we're going to read some selections of Scripture from these two chapters. But beginning in Joshua chapter three, verse one — this is Joshua 3:1–4: Joshua started early the next morning and left the Acacia Grove with all the Israelites. They went as far as the Jordan and stayed there before crossing. After three days the officers went through the camp and commanded the people, "When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God carried by the Levitical priests, you must break camp and follow it. But keep a distance of about a thousand yards between yourselves and the ark. Don't go near it, so that you can see the way to go, for you haven't traveled this way before." (Josh 3:1–4, HCSB) I love how practical this section of Scripture is. It's this beautiful thing — it's Joshua saying, "Hey, we're going to follow the ark. We're going to follow God. We're going to follow God where He is leading us, but we're going to let God lead the way. We're not going to jump ahead of God," because sometimes in our lives we try to jump ahead of God's will, and we find ourselves not in the place we wanted to be. Amen? Sometimes we go, "I know what God wants for me," and we find ourselves in a place we never thought we would be — in a circumstance we never imagined we would be in. And here's Joshua, and he's saying, "Come on, we're all going to be ready. You're going to get ready to follow." And the reason you're going to follow is because you don't know where we're going — you've never been there before. There's a French philosopher who said these beautiful words: "If we want to reach new lands, we must be willing to lose sight of the shore.”¹ I don't know how many of you have maybe been out on a cruise ship — have you been out on the water? There's something terrifying that happens when you get out in the ocean, and suddenly you look around, three hundred sixty degrees, everywhere you look all you see is horizo...