Pastor Bill Vecchio, Jr.
Fort Myers Community Church Podcast
Joshua 4 "Legacy Stones"
You are listening to sermon audio from Fort Myers Community Church. For more information about how to get involved in the life of this church family, please visit www.fmcc.life. Well, good morning and morning, how's everybody doing? Good. Awesome. Hey, I just want to just echo what David said and say thank you so much for everybody that has given and has served. We have had the opportunity to be the type of church that we desire to be. We want to be the type of church that if we ceased to exist, the community around us would miss us. And so being able to raise money to send out, being able to rally volunteers to be able to send out and serve is just awesome. So thank you for being that type of church. Started two weekends ago when we, hey, there's one of my daughters, started two weekends ago when we got to send a whole crew up to Tampa and that was a huge blessing for that church in Tampa Bay City's fellowship and then to be able to send out crews the last couple of days into people's homes that were flooded and hurricane damage happened. So thank you. Thank you so much for all your faithfulness and serving the Lord. Normally what I would do is I would get up here and I'd start off with something funny or I'd be able to start with some kind of analogy that would tie us into our main idea. But to be honest with you, I feel like recent events have kind of shifted that a bit. And honestly for me, my heart's heavy, but it's not heavy in the sense that I'm burdened by sadness, but it's almost like I'm standing here in awe of where God has us right now. Because when I'm preparing sermon series for our church family, normally what I do is I prepare them three, six months in advance. And so as I was praying through all last year about where God had us going as a church family, God brought me personally to the book of Joshua. And so I was just reading that for my own time with the Lord. And then as I was reading it, I was like, man, there's a lot in here that I would love to share with our church family. And so I put it in motion to start our series in Joshua. And that's where God has us right now. And I don't think that there's any other book of the Bible that is so applicable to where you and I find ourselves today in this moment right now, because there was a people group named the Israelites who had taken a journey. And that journey was a difficult journey and that journey was a hard journey. And there were a lot of obstacles that were put in their way. And for us going through the last few really years and then months of hardship and just our community kind of being rattled by these storms, there's no better place for us to be than to be in the book of Joshua. And so this is where God has brought us today, because the theme in Joshua is in all circumstances, God is with you wherever you go. In all circumstances, God is with you wherever you go. And life is full of these literal and figurative storms. Sometimes these storms impact everything. And sometimes you feel like the storm has just missed. But wherever you find yourself today, I want you to know that God is with you wherever you go. And so in the previous weeks, we see that God has brought us on this place where we see that life is a journey. Life is a journey that we are taking and we don't always understand what God is doing or why God does what He does. And even though your story and my story and the person next to you story, they all might look different. So our journeys may look different. We still have the same purpose. If you call Jesus, your Lord and Savior, if you have a personal, intimate, interactive relationship with the God of the universe, then we are children of God and we have the same purpose and that purpose is to glorify God by loving God, loving others and making disciples. That's why we gather here today. That's why we're coming to this place so that we could talk about what it means to glorify God by loving Him above all else, by loving each other and by making disciples. And so even though our journeys may look different, we come together and we join and we worship and we sing holy, holy, holy to the Lord God Almighty because our purpose is the same. Now, for the Israelites, their journey looked different than our journey. So for them, their journey included freedom from slavery. Their journey included crossing seas and rivers. They experienced famine and war. All of that was seemingly impossible. Like if you put yourself in their situation, I mean, when you're like going into a journey, like famine, slavery, war, like it all seemed impossible. But God had a purpose, God had a purpose for each and every one of the things that happened to the Israelites, for them and the future generations after them so that they may know that He is with them wherever they go. That was God's purpose for them experiencing those things. That's what we see in James 1, 2 through 4, is that God stirs in us in the midst of trials and circumstances this passion, desire to pursue after Him so that we may have a hope, a steadfastness that trusts in Him and Him alone. And for us, maybe rebuilding our community, rebuilding our state, rebuilding our nation, that could seem impossible. No? I'm the only one that looks at the world around us and thinks, man, this seems pretty rough. But whether we are rebuilding what was lost or recovering from who we've lost, maybe you're sitting here today and you're just experiencing survivor guilt. And that's a real thing where you're sitting here and you've prepared for this massive storm and then all of a sudden it wasn't as bad as anticipated. And now you're looking at the news and you're looking at articles and you're looking at neighbors that have been affected and you're like, oh man, I feel almost like wrong the fact that I was spared. And so wherever you come in here today, whether you're looking at the pending elections freaking out, I mean, these things causing us anxiety and fear, often depression, I mean, look at the financial crisis that we're experiencing. So all of these things can look impossible, but I want to declare hope for every child of God that is in this room today. And here's the hope. This world is not your forever home. And I know for some of you, you may be like, that doesn't sound hopeful, listen, if what is around us, all of the temporary, all the crazy, if that's all that we have to look forward to, we're in a pretty bad spot. Why is the world around us helpless and hopeless? Why is the world around us giving themselves to addiction and giving themselves to all sorts of different things that are escapism, trying to get out of the reality of life? Because they look at what is around them, and that is their hope. They place their hope and their faith in what is found on earth. So we try to build a kingdom here. We try to get a bigger house, better cars, nicer stuff, build our 401Ks. We try to leave this financial legacy to our kids and we want to set them up so that they can see it as they move forward in life. And so we're just building stuff that's just temporary and all of that will one day be gone. That we know that that's true. We know that the stuff around us will crumble. So if our hope is only in the stuff around us, I could understand why people then fear. But this world is not our home. The Bible speaks of this life, this journey that we're on as but a vapor in the midst of eternity. It talks about us as Christians, as believers in God, dwelling on this earth intense. Tense or temporary? You don't want to live in those forever. Why? Because the world around us is temporary. That's why Jonathan Edwards uses the phrase in this statement. He says, "Lord, please stamp eternity on my eyeballs." Why? So that when he looks at the things of the world, that he doesn't just see the stuff as the end goal, but that he sees eternity through the lens of everything that he looks at. So would we be the type of people that keep our eyes fixed and focused on Jesus? Because God promises that he is with us wherever we go. And I know that there are some here today who have not fully come to understand how much God loves them. I know there are some here today that are sitting here and this God stuff, this church stuff doesn't make a whole lot of sense. You see people singing, maybe raising their hands, maybe praying. And you don't understand it because you've never met Jesus for yourself. And I want you to know, one, I appreciate you being here. I so appreciate you walking into a place that maybe be uncomfortable for you. But I also want you to know that the God of the universe loves you and he wants a personal intimate relationship with you. He wants you to know him. And so today I'm hoping and praying that today would be a moment in your life that you could look back on. Because that's what we're talking about today. Even though life's a journey, God invites us, calls us to set up these legacy stones, these moments in our lives that define who we are and what we are known for. So what I want to do is I want to jump into Joshua chapter 4. If you have a Bible, would you open it? I want to read through this story because this is how we keep our eyes fixed and focused on Jesus. We set up legacy stones. So Joshua 4, let me pray over us and then we'll get rolling. Jesus, we love you. Thank you for today, thank you for your love and your mercy and your grace. God we could not be here if it wasn't for your life, your death and your resurrection on our behalf covering every bit of our sin past, present and future. And so God I do pray that right now you would open up our hearts and minds to what it looks like to set up moments in our lives, these legacy stones in our lives so that when we look at them we remember your faithfulness, we remember your love, we remember your mercy, we remember your grace. God I just want to pray over the churches that are in our area currently that are affected by this past storm. God I think of Sanibel community church. I'm so thankful that they're coming here tonight to meet and worship here in this place. I thank you for the partnership you have given us with Pastor Jeremy, that they felt safe and comfortable to call this their second home and so I pray that you would do a mighty work tonight for all the people that were on Sanibel that have lost things again in the last two years. God we pray over Jim Olson and Pine Island Lord as they took on water again in their church but their eyes are not fixed and focused on rebuilding their church facility. They are out in the community serving their community so faithfully and I ask for power and strength for that church out there. God we lift up right now Luke Stockland over in Bradington, Lord as his church took on a ton of damage, Mark's brother. I just pray over them and their church family is that they're going to impact the community. Basity's fellowship, Ken Thompson Lord, we pray over them that they would use this as an opportunity to share your good news with their communities. God we love you, we lift this time up and we pray that you would speak to our hearts in your name we pray. Amen. So as we live out this journey that God has set before us, God commands us to intentionally gather stones. Look at verses 1 through 3 in Joshua chapter 4 with me. When all the nation had finished passing over the Jordan. All right, so just to give us some context, if you weren't here last week, I just wanted to let you know where we're at right now. So the Israelites, a people group are sitting on one side of the Jordan. God promised them that there was a promised land filled with milk and honey. We've talked about us keeping our eyes fixed and focused on eternity. For them, there was a place that he had brought them out of slavery. They had wandered in the wilderness for 40 years. Now he's going to bring them and usher them into the promised land. But there's this massive overflowing raging river in their way. And so they're camping out. He tells them that they need to cross and he gives them some instructions. He says, take the 12 priests, have them pick up the Ark of the Covenant and have them walk into the raging river. I'm going to stop the waters and then everybody's going to pass over on dry ground. So now what we're doing is we're entering into the story there where they have just finished crossing over the Jordan River on dry ground. And so we're still in verse 1. And the Lord said to Joshua, take 12 men from the people from each tribe, a man, and commanded them saying, take 12 stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan from the very place where the priests feet stood firmly and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight. Then you have finished passing over the Jordan. So they just completed this journey that God had called them to. He's now telling them to go back into the Jordan and pick up stones. You know, for us, like here, like I want you to think about like your husband, your nephew, your cousin, your father, like after you just got your family to safety, right? This wasn't a small task. This was a raging river. And like I would imagine for me, if it was me and my family, I've got five kids in my house right now. And so I'm like packing up their stuff. I'm probably carrying two of them, one's on my back, like I'm holding one on the front. I've got my bags. I've got my gear and we're like trying to rush across this area where we know water is going to flow once again. And I finally get to the other side and now all of a sudden, what happens? Josh was like, "Hey, Bill, I need you to go back and get a stone." I think often in our lives, one of the things that happens is when we're walking through storms, when we're going through circumstances and we're experiencing all these things, we don't really pay attention along the way. And so often we're so consumed with just trying to get to the other side that we forgot along the way to look at what the Lord is doing. And there's a call, Christians, believers, followers of Jesus, children of God, to go back and to pick up stones so that we will remember what the Lord has done. Now that's not comfortable. That's not something we want to do. Sometimes going back into those moments are really painful, but I can promise you that anytime that I've been led, and ushered back to something in my past, to gather a stone and see what the Lord has done and see how he has redeemed me in those moments, it's always actually led to long-term health. And so he's calling us to gather these stones, these things that will help us remember the faithfulness of God. So what have you set up? Whether you weathered this storm and nothing happened or you took on water or a tornado hit your home, which we have some people that we know that they happen to, any of this stuff, what are you gathering so that you will remember that the Lord is who brought you through it? Now in those moments it's painful, it's not easy, you've just crossed, but God is calling us to gather stones along the way. See, I love what Pastor Jared Wilson says as he's talking about this. He says, "Remembering God's historic faithfulness is the first step in enjoying his present faithfulness to you, even if you don't feel it." He's reminding us that God's historic faithfulness, remembering God's historic faithfulness is our first step to enjoying his present faithfulness. I think we're really bad at remembering. I don't know about you, maybe it's just me, but we're bad at remembering the things that happen in our lives. I mean, if I were to go around the room and pull some of you married guys and ask you when your wedding date was, would you remember? It's supposed to be the happiest day in our lives, but we barely even remember the details. I mean, talk about if you've ever had kids like the details of like their first couple of steps and those things. I mean, it's hard to recall those things. Praise God, we have pictures now. But often as we're taking this journey of life, we don't stop to gather stones along the way so that we will remember the faithfulness of the Lord in the midst of those things. So what are some modern-day legacy stones? Well, pictures are some of them. I mean, often most of us are fortunate that we can carry around something like this as a camera attached to it. And so maybe it's just us being a little bit more aware of the moments where we can capture what God is doing. I mean, I have pictures on here of the fact that my family, we picked up almost every piece of furniture in my house and tried to get it up as high as we could. There are pictures that remind us of those things. There are artifacts and things that we can collect along the way that will remind us how the Lord moved and how He brought us through those moments. Maybe it's journaling. I don't know if you're a journaler, but man, I have such amazing memories that God has allowed me to recall because I have written them down in a book somewhere. Listen, you only have to go to the store, go on Amazon. It's on your phone. Just have a moleskin journal shift to your house and start charting and writing down what the Lord has done and what He's teaching you in these moments. Not just for you to go back and look at the faithfulness of the Lord, but so that your kids and your grandkids and your neighbors and your coworkers and your friends and your family can look back to and see the faithfulness of the Lord. We are called to gather stones, maybe it's specific artifacts, but when God does anything, we are to go back and gather stones. And here's the second thing. We are called not only to gather, but then to set up stones. Look at verses eight and nine. And the people of Israel did just as Joshua commanded and took up twelve stones out of the midst of the Jordan according to the number of tribes of the people of Israel, just as the Lord told Joshua, and they carried them over with them to the place where they lodged and laid them down there. And Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan in the place where the feet of the priest bearing the ark of the covenant had stood, and they are there till this day. God is inviting us to take time, to be intentional and take time, to set up memorials, to remind us and those around us of what God has done. Now when they went back into the river to pick up those stones, those stones were dry, but they hadn't been dry. They were walking back into the middle of the river. Those stones were always for most of their life, if not all of their life, wet. But God had invited them to go back and pick up these dry stones and bring them to a place where they were set them up so that they could remember the faithfulness of the Lord. We have to intentionally do this with our lives. For me, I was fifteen years old, and there's a memorial stone that I've carried with me throughout my life. Fifteen years old, I went on a mission strip to Mexico. And we went down to Mexico when we were building some houses and doing different things in Mexico with my youth group, and there was a ban there. Her name was Canisa, and they were from, I think, Africa, and one of the nights, one of the guys started sharing his own testimony, and as he was sharing his testimony, he started talking about all the stuff that we do wrong and bad, and it's sin, he called it, and all this stuff is sin that God calls us to confess that stuff to him. And then he started talking about all the good stuff we do, all the things that are great and grand and that could bring glory to God, and we should praise God with those things. And then he talked about the middle stuff, kind of the stuff that doesn't fall on either side, right? It's not bad, it's not good, it's just kind of everyday life. He made this statement, he said, "And God wants all of it." And that was the first time that the Holy Spirit had opened up my heart and my mind to understand the fullness of the gospel. Even though I grew up in it, I had some great Sunday school teachers, that was a moment in my life where all of a sudden I realized, oh, like I was a baseball player at the time and so for me it was like baseball, God wants me to give him that. He wants me to not only give him the bad and the good, but the in between. And so I remember going up front, they had opened up an altar and I knelt down and I started praying and I was asking the Lord to take my life and use it for his glory. I remember making this statement, I remember saying, "God, do in me and help me do for you what these people are doing for me." That was my prayer. I want to do what they're doing for other people one day so that people may know who you are and what you have done. At 15, I didn't know what I was praying, that's what the Holy Spirit was doing in me. And so I got back home from the mission strip, got on a plane, headed back, and about two weeks go by and you forget, if you've ever been on a mission strip or ever had an experience with God and then all of a sudden you just kind of forget over time, about two weeks later my neighbor across the street, old man, came over, he was moving and he had this little mini-guitar case, really small, and he knocked on the door and he said, "Hey, I found this in my basement, it was my son, he doesn't want it anymore. Would your son like this?" So my dad said, "Sure." So I ended up getting this half-size mini acoustic guitar, but it only had four strings on it, the top four. And I was like, "I can't learn how to play guitar on this." So I learned how to play bass guitar on this mini acoustic guitar. And that guitar has traveled with me. I went to college with it, I had it in my house post-college, it's been in my own house as I grew up because it served to me as a reminder of what the Lord has done in my life. That to me was the memorial stone. I'm here today in part because of that guitar because every time I walked past it, every time I looked at it, I remembered what the Lord had said to me and spoke to me and what the Lord did in my life. God is not only calling us to gather these stones, but He's calling us to set them up in a place where we will see them and walk past them. Not only that I may know of the faithfulness of the Lord, but when my kids say, "Hey, what stack of guitar?" I could say, "This is what the Lord has done." So we gather the stones. We set up the stones. We take time to stop and look back and remember. So this is what we see in verses 21 through 24. Not only do we intentionally go back, gather stones, set these stones up to a place we can see them, but then we remember these stones. Look at verses 21 through 24, and He said to the people of Israel, "When your children ask their fathers in times to come, what do these stones mean? Then you shall let your children know Israel passed over this Jordan on dry ground. For the Lord your God dried up the waters of the Jordan for you until you passed over as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea, which He dried up for us until we passed over, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever." Why do we set up these stones? Well, here's the purpose. To proclaim how the Lord moved, how He worked, how He protected, how He guided, and got us through whatever the storm was, whatever the circumstance was, wherever the situation is, that the Lord was with us. Now just some clarity, because often when we talk about our gray story or our testimony of how God has saved us, I have seen videos and I have seen like heard, like in different settings, people's testimony, often the testimony is way more about the person than what the person did than about God. The guitar that sat in my room is not there to serve as a reminder that I can play guitar - it's not there to serve as a reminder that I'm a musician. It's there to show the faithfulness of the Lord, to show what He has done. I think often we talk so much in our testimony about all the sins and the grand things, the stupid things that we did when we were growing up, and then about all the good stuff that we're doing now, but we missed the point of the story. It's all about Him. Our stories, our memorial stones, all our things that we set up to serve as a reminder to us are to point us and the world around us to Jesus. It's about Him, His name, His glory. And so as you're setting up these things, as you're gathering stones and setting them up and remembering, we are remembering the faithfulness of the Lord and how He has walked us through, how He has brought us through. You know, when our kids look back and their kids look back, our neighbors and our coworkers, when they look back, I don't want them to look back and say, "Oh, my dad was great at these things. I want them to look back and see my life as a standing testimony of God's faithfulness, of His name." That's the legacy I want to leave, and my hope is that that's the legacy that you want to leave. And whether you are 14 years old or you are 400 years old, it's never too late to start setting up these stones. We begin the process of leaving a legacy for the Lord, and for some of you who don't know Jesus as your Lord and your Savior, today could be the day. For you, today may be the first step in you creating legacy stones in your life so that your life may proclaim the excellencies of the Lord, because you can give your kids a watch and you can give them a trust fund when you pass away, but they're not going to really remember any of that stuff. They will remember you and what you pointed them to over the course of your life. So as we look at how do we respond to this, we are looking at setting up legacy stones for future generations. This is the end. This is the end all be our verse 24, so that the people of the earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty, that you may fear the Lord your God forever. That's the hope. That's the end goal. That's the finish line. That the people of earth may know that the hand of the Lord is mighty and that you may fear the Lord wherever you go. The memorial is intended to prompt questions from children about the significance of the stones, allowing parents and grandparents to recount God's faithfulness and the miraculous events during their journey. So what is the legacy that you are leaving? What legacy, when people look back and remember your life, what is the legacy that you're leaving? That he was a nice person, that he was kind, that he was funny, that she was entrepreneurial, will they look back at your life and see that you loved the Lord and that you will be eternity and eternity worshiping him forever and ever. Because there are people in our world that are known for things, there's famous people in our lives. Like if I say Michael Jordan, what is he known for? Basketball, right? He's the goat. He's the greatest of all time. No debate. I mean, Tom Hanks, what does he do? Act. He's an actor. He's known for acting. Taylor Swift. Yeah, the worst pop artist of all time, correct, yes. I'm sorry. I should have said that. What are you going to be known for? When people look at your life, whether it's your coworkers, your neighbors, aunts, cousins, brothers, sisters, your parents, your kids, your great-grandkids, what are they going to remember you for? What is your legacy that you are leaving to them? Will your life be a testimony to the people of the earth, that the hand of the Lord is mighty, and that they should serve and love and fear the Lord? So this is what we're going to do. I'm going to invite Christian to come back on up, and we have set up these stones in the front. Now, we've done something like this before, but I feel like in this season this may have a little bit of a different meaning. After last service, some people came up and they were showing me pictures that they took the stones that we did this about a year and a half ago. They took the stones and they placed them outside their house before the storm. And so what these are meant, they're just stones, they're from Home Depot, but what they're meant to do is to serve as a reminder of the faithfulness of the Lord in your life. So put it somewhere where that when people pass and they see a stone randomly somewhere, they would ask the question, "What is that there for?" And that you get to recall this season of life, this season of storms, whatever you're dealing with right now, and you can recall the faithfulness of the Lord and tell them the good news of who Jesus is and what He has done for you. And so I want you to invite you in this time as we go back into worship and we go back to singing praises to the Lord, that you would come forward, that you would grab a stone, and that this whole front area is opened up for you to just sit and pray and remember the faithfulness of the Lord. And we have some prayer team that will be around and they'll come and pray with you. We just want this to be a worshipful time, a worshipful experience for all of us so that we can come and remember the faithfulness of the Lord together. Amen? Can I pray over us? Father, I want to thank you for bringing us. Through this past week, for some of us we're burdened because of the place that our home is in or the situation we have found ourselves in, for some of us it may be difficulty in our marriages or with our kids or with people in our lives. So wherever we find ourselves in this place right now, whether we are feeling unsettled, whether we are feeling unrest, anxious, fear as the news continues to talk about coming storms, whatever the emotions are Lord that are stirring up inside of us, I pray that we would run to you. Your word describes you as a strong tower of fortress, that we could run to and find safety in even though the earth may give way or the mountains will crumble into the depths of the sea that you are our God and you invite us to be still and know that you are God. I pray that today would serve as a reminder of your faithfulness. Today would serve as a reminder of how mighty and awesome you are. And for anybody here, Lord, that doesn't know you, I pray that today would be the first step in them entering into a personal relationship with you. I pray that they would have the courage to talk to the people next to them or one of our team or myself to know more about who Jesus is so that they may grow and understand that they are loved by a holy God, that they are fully forgiven for whatever they have done and that Jesus has taken all the punishment for their sins. And we are so thankful for your love and your sacrifice. I thank you for getting us through the Jordan. And I pray that as we set up these legacy stones in our lives, that when people look at these things, people look at our lives, they see your might and your greatness and that they would worship your name forever and ever. Amen. [MUSIC PLAYING]