Often times when I go somewhere for the first time in a car and the road is unknown, the trip seems long, strange and difficult. Trying to find the place can be frustrating. don’t know where I’m going because I’ve never been there before. Turns taken carefully. Speed is less. Brake more.
But after I’ve traveled that road enough times, everything changes. It’s autopilot.
So much so that I’ve found myself taking exits and turns I hadn’t planned because I’m so used to the road. My mind automatically takes me where I’ve been before.
The future of your life after today is unknown to you. That creates a measure of uneasiness because you don’t know where you’re going or how you’re going to get there.
And the problem is that your future can actually become an idol. You plan and prepare mentally and physically because you don’t like the unknown.
In your mind, if you think about it enough, plan enough, prepare enough, somehow you can protect yourself from what you don’t know. But you can’t.
Planning for the future isn’t necessarily idolatry. Trusting your planning more than God is.
You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. You don’t know where life is going to take you. You’ve never passed that way before. And the only answer is to trust God and follow Him.
You don’t have to know the way when you’re following the One who does.
1. Leave Where You Have Been — Joshua 3:1
There’s a wonderful connection in this text with Israel and where they are at today.
They are in Acacia Grove.
Joshua 3:1
Then Joshua rose early in the morning; and they set out from Acacia Grove and came to the Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they crossed over.
There’s two important parts of this location: 1. The wood that was there. 2. Where they were.
Acacia Grove was named that because it was a gathering of acacia trees. The Hebrew name is Shittim, meaning acacia trees. Shittah is the singular form.
Shittah, the wood: Desert hardy, drought resistant, deep rooted, thorny, slow growing, long-lived, dense hardwood, resistant to decay, and known historically as incorruptible wood.
Acacia trees grow in harsh desert environments where other trees struggle to survive. They provide shade and shelter in an otherwise barren landscape.
The acacia tree was an important material in the construction of Israel’s wilderness Tabernacle.
The Ark of the Covenant, its carrying poles, the Table of Showbread and its poles, the Altar of Incense and its poles, the Tabernacle boards, connecting bars, and supporting pillars were all made of acacia wood, all layered in gold.
So here Israel is, camped in Acacia Grove, surrounded by acacia trees, and preparing to follow the Ark of the Covenant, which was itself made from acacia wood.
Don’t miss this connection — They are leaving the place of the wood that symbolizes them and what they’ve been through. The heartiness and worship in the wilderness.
The Strength of the wood and the strength of their worship. (not a desert, a stream, a grove)
What happened at Acacia Grove?
What had happened there? Well back when Moses was still alive. Israel had encountered a foreign king named Balak, king of Moab, who hired a diviner named Balaam to curse Israel.
But Balaam couldn’t curse whom God had blessed. Instead, Balaam counseled a strategy that led Israel into sexual immorality and idolatry. Numbers 31:16; Revelation 2:14
Israel greatly failed at Acacia Grove. They gave themselves over to sin. As hearty as they were…
Read Numbers 25:1–9 What did they do? Committed harlotry, sacrificed to foreign gods, joined themselves to Baal of Peor. God’s anger was aroused against Israel. Moses commanded the judges to execute the men joined to Baal. Eventually this guy Phinehas took a javelin and thrust it through an Israelite man and a Midianite woman, stopping the plague!
24,000 Israelites died in the plague at Acacia Grove (Shittim).
So Israel is here, in this grove. Surrounded by the wood used in their worship. They have the articles of the Tabernacle with them, including the Ark made from acacia wood.
Think about the history of this place. Could they have forgotten what happened here? Those 24,000 people were someone’s fathers, brothers, sons, family.
Acacia Grove was arguably the place of one of greatest failures as a nation in the wilderness.
Yes, they bowed to the golden calf and 3k died. Kadesh Barnea caused a generation to die in the wilderness. Korah led a rebellion where some were swallowed by the earth, 250 consumed by fire, and 14k died in a subsequent plague.
But here at Acacia Grove, 24k died under God’s judgment because Israel had given itself over to sexual immorality, idolatry, and deliberate rebellion. it was a place of utter and complete failure
Right before their greatest victory was one of their greatest failures.
Leaving the place of failure
Israel is standing between Acacia Grove and the Promised Land. between the wilderness and their inheritance. Spiritually, we can see a picture of what they needed to leave behind and what God had prepared ahead. The strength of who they are, the failure of who they were
God had them in Acacia Grove, but they would not stay there. They were leaving the place associated with one of their greatest failures and moving toward the promise of God.
From Sin to Sanctification. From Failure to Grace.
Think about that. God was taking the very place associated with Israel’s failure and making it the starting point for their entrance into the Promised Land.
You remember your past sins, don’t you? the things you did that you wish you hadn’t.
Memories of sin can be devastating if you allow them to consume you. You can be forgiven of something and still be living under the weight of remembering it.
truthfully, those memories can keep you from moving forward in what God has called you to do.
there’s another problem: Some people aren’t just remembering Acacia Grove. They’re still living there.
can’t stay in your sin and expect to experience the victory that comes through following Christ.
Romans 6:1–2
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? Certainly not! How shall we who died to sin live any longer in it?
nothing left for you in Acacia Grove. it happened: You fell into immorality, idolatry, rebellion, and judgment. But Christ offers deliverance from sin and freedom from the guilt of your past.
Just like Israel, you’ve been in Acacia Grove. But you don’t have to stay there.
And just like Israels incorruptible wood, 1 Peter 1 Says you were born of incorruptible seed with and incorruptible redemption and an incorruptible inheritance.
You cannot remain where God is calling you to leave. Leave the place of your failure.
2. Follow Where God Is Leading — Joshua 3:2–3
READ V2–4 Watch the Ark, the priests and Levites will carry it, stay back 2000 cubits, don’t come near it.
They were given basic instructions. Watch. Stay back. Move from your place. Follow.
They weren’t told to figure out how to cross the Jordan. They were told to follow the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord. Their planning was not their redemption — the Lord was.
The Ark represented the presence of God among His people. And God was going before them.
They had never passed this way before. They didn’t know how they were going to get across the Jordan. But God did.
They didn’t need to know the way. They needed to follow the One who did.
Get this down into your spirit — You Cannot Deliver Yourself
There’s two problems for you in Acacia Grove. One, you won’t leave. Or two, you have your own plan.
Some people want deliverance from their circumstances but insist on determining how God is going to deliver them. They want to leave on their own terms with their own plans.
You can’t deliver yourself from sin. You can’t create your own way to salvation.
Romans 7:24–25
O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God — through Jesus Christ our Lord!
It’s only through Jesus Christ that you can be delivered. Not through your own efforts, your own plans, or your own strength.
Christ Is the One Who Leads us out of our bondage and our past. Not us.
God had already promised Israel that He would go before them.
Exodus 23:20
Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.
God wasn’t asking Israel to find their own way into the promise. He was calling them to follow Him. Because how else does God get the glory unless its him that delivers us?
And Jesus tells us the same thing.
John 10:4
And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
Christ is the One who leads. He goes before His sheep, and they follow Him.
Your job isn’t to invent your own way of deliverance. Your job is to trust and follow Christ.
You don’t need your own way when God has already provided the One to follow.
3. Trust Him Where You Have Never Been — Joshua 3:4
For you have not passed this way before. The text says. This is a WORD
Israel knew Acacia Grove. They knew the wilderness. They knew where they had been, but they didn’t know exactly what was ahead of them. They had to fully trust God in the unknown.
They knew God had promised them the land, but they didn’t know how He was going to take them across the Jordan or what it would require of them.
They were standing at the Jordan, preparing to enter the Promised Land.
They had never been this way before. But God had already told them whom to follow.
Your struggle may be directly correlated to your unwillingness to embrace the unknown.
Hebrews 11:8
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
2 Corinthians 5:7
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.
We are people of faith. We embrace the unknown. We trust God in every area of our lives, knowing that as we follow Him, He will lead us.
Jeremiah understood this.
Jeremiah 10:23
O LORD, I know the way of man is not in himself; It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.
Israel couldn’t part the Jordan. They couldn’t accomplish what God was about to do through their own strength. They had to trust God with what they couldn’t control.
What Happens When You Don’t Trust God?
Here’s what can happen when you refuse to trust God to lead you into a future you cannot see.
Anxiety: You worry constantly about the future, the circumstances you can’t plan for, and the obstacles you can’t see.
Fear: You become unwilling to move forward because God hasn’t given you all the information you want.
Hoarding: You withhold resources because you’re convinced you might need them for some unknown future circumstance.
Faithlessness: Your faith becomes an exercise in planning instead of trusting the One who leads.
You cannot prepare your way into knowing the future. You cannot plan your way into controlling tomorrow.
Trust the One Who Knows the Way You haven’t been this way before! It’s OK.
You don’t need to know where you’re going. You need to know who you’re going with.
It’s like this. Many people demand that a pastor has a vision. Typically, this vision is to reach the lost, grow a church, and expand influence.
But I don’t have to know every detail of the plan. I need to follow the Lord.
I’ve never been this way before. How Can I know and plan for what I do not know?
Yes, we plan. Yes, we prepare. But ultimately, we trust God to direct our steps.
That’s what He requires of us. To walk by faith when we cannot see what is ahead.
Deuteronomy 1:33
Who went in the way before you to search out a place for you to pitch your tents, to show you the way you should go.
Isaiah 42:16
I will bring the blind by a way they did not know; I will lead them in paths they have not known.
Job 23:10
But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold.
Israel didn’t know everything that was ahead. They didn’t know the role their nation would play in God’s plan of redemption.
They didn’t know that generations later, Jesus Christ would come to this same Jordan River and be baptized.
They didn’t know how God would ultimately bring salvation to the world through Jesus Christ.
But they didn’t have to know all of that to obey God that day.
They simply needed to follow where God was leading.
And it’s the same for us. Christ has accomplished our redemption through His death and resurrection. He is the One who delivers us from sin and leads us into new life.
You don’t have to remain bound by your past. You don’t have to be controlled by your fear of the future. Leave Acacia grove behind. Come to Christ. Trust him to lead you into eternal life.
You haven’t been this way before, but God knows the way.
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