Joshua 3:8 | Episode #1227

June 30, 2026

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Joshua 3:8

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for over 25 years. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse-by-verse and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Hope Alive, where we apply God's Word to our daily life. My name is Chad Harrison. I'm first a husband, a father, and a grandfather. I'm also the teaching pastor at Lake Community Church in Dadeville, Alabama, on beautiful Lake Martin. I've been serving as a pastor for over 30 years. I also serve as the Tallapoosa County District Judge. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word verse by verse through the Bible and to find his purpose and will for your daily life. If you would like to sponsor this podcast, go to the Show Notes, where there's a link where you can make a donation. I pray in the name of Jesus that God would open his word to you, allow you to see him and to know him, so that you would know his will and his way for your life, that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today. Word of God, please speak to the hearers of your voice to today, in the name of Jesus. Amen. We are in Joshua, chapter three and verse eight. And you go, pastor, you are going verse by verse through this. Yes. Chapter three is. Well, in my opinion, it's a pinnacle chapter in the Old Testament because, well, it takes place right where Jesus, right where Jesus was baptized. It has all the parallels, all the corollaries, all the ties together. And so it is one of those passages that is really of some utmost importance that we spend some time thinking through it, remembering it, guiding ourselves and our thoughts, tying it off to these New Testament principles which it is clearly picturing for us. And so what's happening here? Well, Joshua is doing what God told him to do. He goes to the priest, and remember, the priests are carrying that ark on their shoulders. And the ark itself, if you don't remember back to Deuteronomy chapter 10, Bible study, back then, the ark itself was a picture of us. So when you get to the ark itself, you can see that the wood inside of it's very brittle, but when placed in the right place can be very strong. If you break it right in the middle, it just easy to break. But when you put that tension on both ends, it becomes super strong. It is a picture of us. And then that wood, that is the skeleton of the ark, is covered in gold. And that's a picture of the royalty of God. And then obviously the two angels, which is a picture of the throne room in heaven. In fact, it's called the mercy seat because it is a throne. And it's a picture of the presence of God being upon, well, humanity clothed in the royalty of God. And so when you take that picture and then you realize the priests are the ones who have access to God, have access to his kingdom. When you take that picture and realize that that's what's going on, you realize that this is a double picture of the presence of God being upon his priesthood. And who is that? Well, that's the New Testament Church. The Jews were not all priests, but we are all priests. We are a kingdom of priests. And so understanding that we are a kingdom of priests and that we bear the presence of God, we're not only an image bearer of God, but we're a presence bearer of God. When you realize that that's going on, when you realize that's what's happening, you see that God tells them at the spot where Jesus acted out for us, he modeled for us activities of faith. That's what he told John in that Jordan River. He said, I must do this to fulfill all righteousness. Well, he was righteous of his own nature. He's fulfilling it for us. All righteousness, all the righteousness that is gonna come by faith is going to emanate from me. I am the. I am the source of the redemption which provides the faith. And if I'm the source of that redemption that provides that faith, you're going to receive it, and you're going to receive it by me modeling it for you. And so he says, you know, you know, he tells them, even. Even at the great commissioning In Matthew chapter 28, he says, he says, all authority in heaven, on earth, has been given to me, meaning I've done the. The part of redeeming the earth. Therefore, go make disciples. So we go and we make disciples. And then what does he say? Baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Why? Because it's a picture of that redemption process, and it's a physical act that has a spiritual picture to it. Just like we see in Joshua, just like we're seeing in Jesus in the Jordan River. Exactly. He's telling us, he's telling us to physically walk out the picture so that we can see what God does and how God does things. And so he tells them to do that. Now what are the priests to do? Well, it's totally different than the Red Sea. And we've discussed this a few Bible studies before, but it's totally different. The Red Sea and the Red Sea, they did nothing. They just stood back. In fact, Moses said, stand back and see the power of the Lord or see the power of the arm of the Lord. And what does God do? Well, he departs the Red Sea and they cross on dry land. And the Bible's clear about that. They cross the Red Sea on dry land. Now, when we get to here, that's not what's going to happen. Human beings are going to go in the water. In fact, he says that in verse 8, you shall command the priest to bear the ark of the covenant, saying, this is God telling Joshua, when you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan. Now we're going to later on find out that the Jordan's at flood stage. And, and I know that we cross rivers by bridges and you don't know we oftentimes. Well, we just fail to realize the, the danger of running water. We've had a couple of incidents lately in, especially in the south, where we've realized, where it becomes evident, becomes more in the forefronts of our minds that that running water is. Streams and rivers are very, very dangerous. Floods that took place in West Virginia and because of the hurricane that came and just kind of sat on that area and dropped a whole lot of floodwaters. And then, of course, we've had just, just recently the, the flooding in the Texas area and the children that were swept away by that flood. Floodwaters are very, very dangerous, Very dangerous. Well, the, the river is going to be at flood stage and floods also are a source of. They're dangerous, but they're also a source of God's nutrients and God replenishing the land. Often places, big giant floodplains are oftentimes the greatest place to, well, to grow crops. And the reason that is, is because. Because the river will pour out into that floodplain and all the silt from, from all the different tributaries that bring that good soil down to the river, they flood the river and then before you know it, you've got a plain that is really good for growing crops. So a flooded river, and remember, water's a picture of the cleansing and the refreshing of the Holy Spirit. A flooded river is dangerous, and yet it is also nourishing. And the Holy Spirit and his presence is important and it can be very dangerous. Especially we're going see one day when we get to the Book of Acts. I don't know how long from now that'll be probably several years. But when we get to the Book of Acts, we're going to see that Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Spirit. And that's dangerous. And so this river is a Picture of the replenishing, the goodness and the power, the power of his presence of God. And what did the priests have to do here? Well, before they didn't have to do anything, there weren't any priests and the people crossed on dry land here. The priests have to get into the river, they have to get into the water, they have to put their feet in the water. He says, when you have come to the edge of the water of the Jordan, you shall stand in the Jordan. And what he's saying is, is you gotta get into, you've got to, you've got to get into the Holy Spirit. You've got to allow the Holy Spirit to work his will and his way in your life. And really that's what this picture's about. And we're gonna get into it as, as we, as we go, go into the crossing here. But I want you to see that picture and I want you to tie it off and I want you to remember it. Because when we, when we get to those passages, you'll already have that understanding, you'll already have that background and you'll, you'll, you'll see the picture a whole lot better and you'll see that God, in order for them to get out of Egypt, get out of slavery, God provided everything in order for you to experience. And that's really what we're doing. We're doing experiential Christianity, we're doing participatory Christianity. And I talk about that. As far as worship's concerned, we in the west in many ways have made worship a very sedentary, a very observation oriented activity. You sit, you hear, you listen people sing, you listen to people speak, you watch people do, and you sit there and don't participate. Well, that's not the way Old Testament or New Testament worship was designed to be. It's designed to be participatory because worship is an act of faith. And any act of faith requires your activity. And so all the words for worship in the Old Testament and the New Testament have a correlation to some physical activity. Whether it be getting on your knees, prostrating yourself, clapping your hands, lifting your hands, dancing, whether it be standing, all these things are activities, physical activities that the Bible prescribes for worship because the words for worship correlate to those activities. And so the, the act of entering into the promised land and act of receiving the best from God is, well, it's participatory. It, you had to participate. You got to get in, you got to get involved, you got to, you got to get a little wet here. Okay, you got. And there's no way to get around it. It. You got to do it. And those who don't want to engage their lives in the work of God and in the work of the Holy Spirit, well, they just don't experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit. They're still in the wilderness. You've got to get wet. Ain't no doubt about it. You got to be wet by the Holy Spirit. And if you're not, you're not going to experience God in his fullness. And so, preacher, you saying I gotta get to participate in worship? Yeah, you do. And even if your church is not all that participatory, I'm sure there are some parts of it that are. That many people don't participate in. Worship is participatory. And you must participate in order to experience the presence of God. You've got to engage your faith. And your faith is something that emanates from you. It's not the activity, it's not the speech. But we also know from the New Testament, we also know from James, brother of Jesus and his book. And we know, and we know from the teachings of Paul that once your faith is engaged, once you faith, hope, trust, belief in Jesus, once those things happen, you innately do things. Faith without activity works. Action is what, dead. That's what James says. Faith that does not result in activity is not true faith. Faith that doesn't do is not true faith. That's what James says. And then Jesus. Well, I mean, the teachings of Jesus and then expanded on by Paul, the faith that does not cause you to speak, the faith that does not correlate to you saying things, is no faith at all either. It wells up in us and we must speak and we must say. And so understanding those principles, you understand that you got to get in the Jordan, you got to participate. You got to be a part of what God's doing. And so if you, if you don't really understand some of those things, and I relate back to maybe a Bible study like I did Deuteronomy, chapter 10. I think it's one through five. That Bible study, if, if you, if you, you can't find it here on Facebook, you're going to have, going to have to from now on, go to Hope Alive. That is. That is a podcast that my wife kind of put together from these Bible studies, starting way back during March of 2020, where Covid hit and we began this Bible study as a place, as a place for us to come online and meet together, study God's word. And to grow together, Kathleen's taking those Bible studies, the book of Psalms, the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament. There's Corinthians in there. There's a financial Bible study in there. She will be putting the book of the Revelation in there here pretty soon. And then by that time I'll get far enough ahead in Joshua and Judges and she'll begin to put these back in here, back in there. If you're looking for those Bible studies, if you're looking to go into a deep dive, there's almost a thousand of them right now and you can find them anywhere on your podcast. If you go to a podcast site, just look up Hope Alive with Chad Harrison. And there it is. And so if you're looking to, looking to really download some, some good studies through, through scripture, we're slowly working our way through the Bible and we're about 35, 40% done right now. And so looking forward to the next six, seven, eight, nine years where we study the rest of the Bible together. As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.