Why are we going to breathe in front of the Jordan?

This morning while I was praying in the morning service, one of the things I said in prayer was that many do not come, their morning they get up and they do not have a purpose that they are going to do during the day, they get up to see what happens. We, the believers, have been waiting for the Sunday service since Saturday, we are yearning within all our complicated and complex lives, we are waiting for that Sunday to come here.

We get up on Sunday with a purpose, to come to the house of God, adore him and bless him. As usual when I was on my way here with Vivian and my son Isaías, Vivian tells me on the way, “Don't use the short route, use the long route,” and we stop at the bank to withdraw money. One of the things that I usually do when I park in a shopping center, I almost never park in front of the bank but it's Sunday, 8:30 in the morning, the parking lot is almost empty, that is, I parked in front of the bank's door. Vivian gets out to get the money from the ATM and I know why there is a business next to the bank, I don't know what kind of business, but this young man who is moving the doors of the business as if to enter and I wonder and I say in my mind, but he should read the hours of when that business opens, but he insisted on his door.

As he does that with both hands he takes one of his hands behind his back, he had a sports shirt on, and when he gets up to scratch his back it looks like I see him have a gun. So I thought at that moment, I can't get out of the car because it would alarm Vivian, but I have Isaías Jr. by my side and I don't want to alarm him either. I can't say anything to Vivian either because she's inside the bank. And that's like in the movies where seconds turn into minutes because you don't know how the person is going to react.

But I thought, Vivian is in the bank and she's not seeing what I know. So I made a brief prayer in my mind in the car and said, "Lord, this morning I went to church to preach your word, Vivian went to church to sing and adore you, Isaiah Jr. went to church to adore you." When Vivian comes out of the bank, the boy goes to the bank and they both pass each other as if the individual didn't realize that Vivian was there.

So when Vivian gets into our vehicle I make sure I'm coming out of the parking lot so I tell Vivian what happened. And although it is not part of the sermon this afternoon, it caught my attention because when I saw that scene this morning I thought, this individual woke up this morning without purpose and when there is no purpose in our life the enemy gives us a purpose.

Let's go to the book of Joshua, chapter 4. The topic this afternoon will be what these stones mean. Beginning with verse 1 of the book of Joshua, read the word of the Lord this afternoon:

“When all the people had finished crossing the Jordan, Jehovah spoke to Joshua, saying, “Take 12 men from the people, one from each tribe, and command them, saying, Take from here from the middle of the Jordan, from the place where the feet of the priests 12 stones which you will cross over with you and set them up in the place where you will spend the night.” Then Joshua called the 12 men whom he had appointed from among the children of Israel, one from each tribe, and Joshua said to them, “Pass over before the ark of the LORD your God to the middle of the Jordan and to each of you take a stone on your shoulder according to the number of the tribes of Israel so that this will be a sign among you, and when your children ask their parents tomorrow saying, what do these stones mean? You will answer them that the waters of the Jordan were divided before the ark of the covenant of Jehovah. When she crossed the Jordan the waters parted and these stones will serve as a memorial to the children of Israel forever.”

God bless your word this afternoon. In the historical background of this passage that begins in chapter 3, it is emphasized that the Israelites, after spending 40 years in the desert, longing to reach that promised land, had arrived but had been on the other side of the Jordan River for three days waiting for the order to be able to cross.

And I was thinking in what way can I illustrate the desperation for something promised that we can all understand in the 21st century. And I thought about my own experience being the eldest of 3 children, I was the first to have the blessing, the privilege of knowing from my parents that Santa Claus did not exist. So, having two younger brothers, I was desperate to go shopping with my parents, when they bought toys, to know what was bought. My two brothers were waiting for the 25th to arrive to get up in the morning and see Santa Claus, I was waiting for 20 days, 15 days, 8 days, for December 25 to arrive so I could see and use my gift.

And actually something funny at the time but not funny at that time, my last gift, I was about 14, 15 years old, was a 26-inch bicycle. I was, brothers, you have no idea, I was going to have my new 10 gear bike in the neighborhood. That December 25 in the morning when they gave me my bicycle I took it, I went on my bicycle to run inaugurating it and in Puerto Rico the sewers are online and the tire of the bicycle is finite. What do you think happened? My first bike trip, the rubber got into the sewer, I turned, flew and broke the body of the bike. I waited for my promise for almost 20 days and it didn't last an hour. After explaining to my dad how that problem happened, he told me, “That can't be. You hit the bike with a hammer, the first day?”

Now you understand 40 years in the desert, they were slaves, they did not have the mentality of a nation or a people, they have been working on these social and personal aspects for 40 years, 12 tribes that are now facing the promised land but the obstacle is nothing less than the Jordan River. On top of that, can you imagine if we were part of that group, walking through that area for 40 years and we arrive at the banks of the Jordan River and Joshua tells us, "We have to wait." But there is the promised land. We have to wait because swimming cannot be passed.

Many will think of those who were there at that moment, that they were children when the miracle of the Red Sea, they will think, well maybe God is going to say that we raise our arms to Joshua as we did to Moses and that way God is going to send a wind that will divide the waters. It's possible. But God had a better plan. I think that the anguish of this town would have grown day by day. How do you explain to your children, little children, what they would say, but dad, mom, that's not the promised land? We have to wait. We have to wait?

I imagine that the people who worked at Josué would understand that waiting, but what about the town, the common man, the common woman, why do we have to wait? What has God now come up with that we have to look forward to? Generally, we human beings don't like to wait, we like quick answers, knowing what we're going to do, and it has to be how we want it to be.

When Joshua tells the people that they can walk, before giving that order, he orders the priests to take the ark of the covenant. The ark of the covenant did not exist when they crossed the Red Sea, but now they have the ark of the covenant. And that ark of the covenant that contains the presence of God is carried by these priests and at the moment that they are going to enter the water of the Jordan River the Jordan River divides.

For those kids who crossed the Red Sea they would think, wow, again God is doing something identical to the Red Sea, but this time it's going to be different. While they are keeping that ark of the covenant they could have been thinking about those 3 days, he brought us out of Egypt, we are no longer slaves, we have a leader in Joshua who replaced Moses. Now we begin to march and it says that all the town passed on dry land to the other side.

If you remember the story of the Red Sea since the last person left that the pharaoh's chariots entered, the Red Sea closed and none of the Egyptians who entered the Red Sea survived. But in this case, according to the biblical passage, they had already left the Jordan River and the priests with the ark were still standing without moving. When I see this story so old and I think of my story, your story, how many times in our walk, in our daily lives, as individuals, with our families, with our comforts in our jobs, in our towns and cities, we face to the same situation, that we have a Jordan River in which we cannot continue and we are waiting for God to give us the answer overnight to be able to cross that Jordan River.

And in this case, unlike the Jewish people who only waited 3 days, but they really waited 40 years, so waiting 3 days in front of the Jordan River was not as problematic as spending 40 years wandering in the desert. What do we think when we are in front of our Jordan and we don't know what to do?

Some will say, where is God? Maybe I don't have much anointing in my prayer, maybe God is busy and doesn't listen to what I'm asking for, maybe I have to fast more. Nobody realizes that I am stopped and cannot move forward. I am waiting for God to come and help me cross because what I am seeing, my Jordan River, could be a storm of life, it could be a problem in the family, it could be problems at work, it could be the same person who has problems. , and you don't know what to do, waiting for an answer.

This morning I am going to tell you that you do not have to wait for an answer because the God who called you is already inside the Jordan River waiting for you to take a step in faith. This is a river 125 miles long or more, and sometimes our problems I sometimes believe that our problems we humanly take off our glasses and put on magnifying glasses, so the problem looks really big. So and so great that the Jordan River of our life makes us forget as it made the Jews forget that the God who parted the Red Sea, the God who provided manna and quail in the desert, the God who allowed water to flow from the rock, the God who before crossing the Red Sea manifested himself in a theophany of a cloud during the day and a column of fire at night.

Sister, brother, friend, friend, when you face the Jordan River, do not look at the Jordan River, do not look at the magnitude of the problem, do not analyze how big or difficult that situation is or how deep it is, set your eyes on the Lord of ark that is standing still in the middle of the Jordan River.

I imagine that not everyone would understand, there are thousands of people, what was happening? Well, I am not a priest, I am not from the tribe of Levi, I am from the tribe of Benjamin but I am from the furthest away so I do not know what is happening, I know that when I passed through the dry Jordan River there were some men that they had a box on top of some sticks without moving and in that box there was power. When the Red Sea parted that Moses' arms held up and the wind comes and everything parted, it's different than when the priests go into the water carrying the presence of God now. Imagine this, we no longer have Moses to raise our arms, we no longer have the ark of the covenant to stand in the middle of the Jordan River, but God has made a better program.

he has designed a much superior system and that is that now in the 21st century we do not need Moses, we do not need the ark of the covenant because your body, brother, is a recipient of God's presence. We are the new ark on this earth. So, when I'm in front of that Jordan even though I don't know how to swim, I don't have to know how to swim, I don't have to go to the WMCA to take a first response class, not at all, because when I entered that river, I put My first foot is going to split, not because it's me, it's because of what's inside me. Nature recognizes that what is inside of me told her a long time ago, 'Get away and here come my people, get away, here come my children, get away.'

But we have to take the step. What is the first thing the people do when they cross the Jordan River? And I thought how I can apply this to the 21st century so that we understand. What do we do now when we achieve something, when our children win a game of baseball or basketball or soccer, when we reach an award at our jobs or when we graduate from college or when we get promoted. Many of us go out to eat, others have a party, what did the people do? The people did what their leader told them to do. And their leader did what his God told him to do, which was to take 12 stones from the same place where the priests were standing and those stones were going to serve as a sign, as a memorial of events that happen in our lives to remind us when he sees That stone means that at some point in my life, in my long journey, in my journey with the Lord, something happened that God intervened in my favor or in the favor of my family, and that stone will make me remember that if God had not been alive, the enemies would have swallowed us.

It is important is that the stones were to remember what God had done. And this afternoon I want you to think and analyze in your individual life, in your family life, in your community life, how many events we have that are stones that remind us of what God has done for our lives. In this country we have some monuments that we know what they mean, the tomb of the unknown soldier in Washington, the memorial of President Lincoln, the Washington monument. I'm not making propaganda for them to go to Washington but they are all in Washington. We have Memorial Day and we know what it means and the church has the sacrament and knows what it means.

These monuments that are in this country have been taught to generations through the years, decades and centuries, people grow up in this country knowing and knowing the history of these monuments. God wants to do the same with this monument of our lives. If we were asked, what does this stone mean in your life? Which is a very important question, the answer will be more valuable.

I have several stones in my life, as I said in the morning, one of my stones is November 8, 2010, my son's accident. So when I look at that stone, I don't look in a way that it is a tragedy, I look at that it was an event that man wanted or planned within a diabolical life, to create an event that was a tragedy, an event that tied sentimentally and emotionally to a family, in such a way that instead of remembering how merciful, how magnificent the Lord was, we remember everything negative in order to maintain a depressive attitude in our lives, an attitude of non-thankfulness, because the first thing we can say is why? me? Why my family? If I serve you, I preach to you, we sing to you. That is the self-esteem of why me? I am superior, I am all chosen, your chosen one.

Sister, brother, that happens to all of us. When tragic or momentary events or events that we do not understand come, we remember everything negative, but what we must do from now on, when those negative events come in our life, when those rivers of Jordan rise up, remember that even if it rises like the enemy rises, as the enemy is reflected, be it through emotions, feelings or physical things, remember that our duty is to make a stone of that event, but a stone of blessing, a stone of victory, a stone to tell others about. the other generations, tell them yes there was a very unfortunate accident, but God put his hand and today he is alive.

I also have another stone, 1948, my uncle, an inveterate gambler, knows the Lord and that knowing the Lord changed all the generations of the Rivera family. So, that stone from '48 I don't remember alcoholism, I don't remember that I was homeless in the streets, I remember that the light of the Lord came into that life and changed the course of history just like when we were in front of the Jordan and the ark of the covenant and changed the course of history.

Now the Jews could tell, my story before I crossed the Jordan River and now the new story after I crossed the Jordan River. It is very important but very important that the God of Israel, our almighty God, be at the center of our lives so that he is then at the center of our homes. Once God is in the middle of our Jordan God does not move.

How many say amen again for this? He doesn't move until we arrive and reach our place, our position in the promised land. It doesn't matter how long that journey takes, it doesn't matter if the journey takes years, Hallelujah! Our Jesus in the middle of the Jordan is not going to move until you reach your goal.

I was writing last night, it said, brother rest and also brother do this exercise, breathe, breathe. Why are we going to breathe in front of the Jordan? Because God is standing within that Jordan and he is holding back the mightiness, the fury and the momentum of that storm. We only feel the winds, we are not suffering the intense harassment of the enemy although it seems so. And it is good to know that even if I am weak, even if I am not perfect, even if we have deficiencies, my God, the almighty, who controls heaven and the universe, he has not sent an angel, he, he, he is standing so that You march, so that you walk and when you go out to the other side, tell others about that stone, tell others about that event, share.

That was so incredible that when they are about to cross Joshua says in verse 10 to the people, because that is the good thing about Joshua, it is something impetuous, it is something miraculous but Joshua also reminds them that it is something real, not just a dream . He tells them:

“…By this you will know that the living God is in the midst of you and that he will drive out before you the Canaanite, the Aethean, the Ebean, the Pharisee, the Jersean, – all the Esees, it is faster that way.”

In other words, the enemies, whatever they are called. By this you will know that the living God is in your midst. Now I would say, in this you will know that our God is within us with his Holy Spirit. Don't let anything intimidate you.

Let us rest knowing that although our struggles of life, our worries will still continue after we have crossed our Jordan, we can rest in the absolute, that it does not matter, brothers, that we do not have the cloud or the pillar of fire, or the ark of the covenant , the God who was personified through the cloud or the commune of fire or the ark of the pact, now the Holy Spirit dwells within us.

When I see this type of effect within the Jewish people I think of that God who is a God of providence, not only who provides but who protects. A God too merciful to protect and provide, what do these stones mean? In verse 21 of chapter 4 Joshua tells the Jews, they have already crossed the Jordan River, and he addressed the Israelites and said:

“…in the future when your children ask you why these stones are here, you will answer because the people of Israel crossed the Jordan River dry. The Lord your God did the same thing he did to the Red Sea when he kept it dry until all of us crossed. This happened so that all the nations of the earth would know that the Lord is mighty and so that you would learn to fear him forever.”

When they ask us about your event, share it, share it, so that others see that our God did not remain in the Bible, that our God did not remain in the past. This also teaches us that we do have a past, that we are going to teach it, but that we also have a future to look at and prepare for.

The events in which God has intervened must not be forgotten, they must not be hidden, they must not be ignored under any circumstances. Our duty is to share as long as we live and tell others the story of that event in which God stood in our Jordan. There is something that also struck me about taking the stones and telling the story. And in Deuteronomy there is a passage thinking when we are educating our children or our relatives or our neighbors, or co-workers, it is our function, it is our duty to share the truth of the Gospel as long as possible. And the events of our life help to be able to share in a non-harassing way, in a work environment.

It is my custom if someone at work or when I was working opens a door and asks me a question, I take advantage of that door and share since the person opened the door well I… that's what I look for, that they open a door for me and one does the rest. God tells Israel in Deuteronomy:

“Engrave these words that I command you today in your heart; Second, teach them to your children continuously, talk about them when you are at home and when you go on the road, when you lie down and when you get up, tie them to your hand as a sign, wear them on your forehead as a mark, write them on the the posts of your house and the gates of your city.”

Record yourself, inculcate it, speak, tie them, it's a sign, write it down, brother, sister, do your work with the stones. a generation of our people that does not listen to the message of the word is a lost generation, a generation that is not going to hear from God, it is our duty to maintain the knowledge of God in our generations because the world is not going to teach you to give from God On the contrary, it is the least they want.

We're going to stand up and do an exercise this morning. Think now, brothers, those who are on the balcony and those who are here, we are facing the Jordan River and you know which is your Jordan River. We all have a Jordan River and many live facing the Jordan River on the bank and you don't know what to do with that Jordan River. There is so much stress, the impatience that comes from not knowing what to do with the problem that sometimes drowns us, sometimes our voice is not heard, that steals our peace, we cannot sleep, we do not have happiness. The enemy seems too big and powerful, we think that we have no alternatives, that there are no solutions, but this morning I tell you as Joshua told the people, in your Jordan River and Jesus is in the center of that river.

For a moment, do not focus on the problem, forget about the problem, you will not solve it. We are going to work first with Jesus being inside your heart. If Jesus is inside your heart, your home has to have the presence of Jesus at its center. If your home has Jesus in that center Hallelujah! If Jesus is in the home it doesn't matter how many rivers of Jordan will rise because Jesus is in the center of that home.

If Jesus is at the center of the home and we come to church on Sunday or Wednesday, people who have Jesus at the center of their lives, the church, the Lion of Judah congregation, has Jesus at the center of the Jordan River. If our church has Jesus in the center of the Jordan River, Boston, here we come, because we have the center that is Jesus.

Who's going to stop us? If the center of our life is the Lord of all this. They can sit. I prepared 8 pages but don't be scared. As I said in the morning, I want… church, times are difficult, church, times are difficult, and they are not going to get better, but we, the church, the ones who have the word of God for the 21st century are men and women standing in the gap or in the trenches facing the bank of the Jordan River. God is looking for 12 men to take the stone, you have to get into the water to take the stones to bring them and make a monument so that then the people begin to walk in faith. At this time my challenge to you is, God is looking for people to return to the river and take the stones and raise a monument of blessing, raise a monument of victory, raise a monument for his glory and honor even though others are denying it, Even if others are apostasizing, even if others do not believe, you take your stone and raise a monument for the next generations.

How many are going to do it this afternoon? What do these stones mean? that God is a God of providence. What do these stones mean? that we have to teach the next generations, we cannot stop teaching. What do these stones mean? that conviction is more important than convenience.

I said in the morning that in Puerto Rico there was a ministry, that it may exist in other countries as well, but in Puerto Rico one of some movies that were like horror, one was The Burning Hell and countless unconverted people would gather and I put on the movie and the devil came out and all that stuff and people got scared, cried and converted, because it was convenient not to go to hell. But the sacrifice of the cross was not a convenience. Jesus was convinced that by dying for our sins he was going to give us eternal salvation based on a permanent conviction.

So, my conviction is not to escape from hell, it is out of gratitude that I was lost and Jesus died for me on the cross of Calvary. So, remember this afternoon what the stone that you have means, that God has providence, that the word has to continue to be taught, that conviction is more important than convenience, and lastly, that the church has a past but we have a future. And although I do not see it, I know that my Redeemer lives and at some point he will lift me up and he will return for his church, whoever denies it, Jesus returns for his church, at the sound of the trumpet. God bless you, God keep you.

Let's stand up. This afternoon when we leave this church, from this temple and we go to our homes and we are meditating in the week, remember this, when you face your Jordan you will not be in the church, you will be alone or alone, But that does not matter. Tell the one next to you 'it doesn't matter' because Jesus is in the middle of the Jordan and he is not going to move. God bless you.