Take Your Time Exodus: Live a Better Life Plot Twists

Transcription

1 Dr. Scott Dudley May 24, 2015 Take Your Time Exodus: Live a Better Life Plot Twists 13:17 When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt. 18 So God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt ready for battle. 14:1 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. 5 When the king of Egypt was told that the people had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds about them and said, What have we done? We have let the Israelites go and have lost their services! 6 So he had his chariot made ready and took his army with him. 10 As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. 11 They said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Didn t we say to you in Egypt, Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert! 13 Moses answered the people, Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. 14 The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still. 15 Then the Lord said to Moses, Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to move on. 16 Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. Selections from Exodus 13, 14 Lord, Jesus, You are our guardian, guide, and stay. You are our leader. We ask that You would use the words of Scripture to help us follow You better. We pray this in Your name, Amen. One of the many things I love about having teenagers is it is an opportunity for me to expand my musical horizons. A couple years ago my daughter told me about a catchy little song called The Cup Song cause there are cups featured in the percussion. My kids would want you to know that it s overplayed and out-of-date, and it is a little bit bubblegum, but I m going to quote it anyway. One of the verses says: I got my ticket for the long way around, the one with the prettiest of views. It s got mountains, it s got rivers, it s got sights to give you shivers, and it sure would be prettier with you. Who says there is no more great poetry? I mean, sing-song rhythm,

2 Take Your Time 2 rhyming couplets. At one point it says, You re going to miss me by my hair, you re going to miss me everywhere. Genius. Brilliance, I tell you, right up there with, I do not like green eggs and ham, I do not like them, Sam I Am. And when I told my daughter that I was going to use this song, she said, So, is the sermon about how God leads us the long way, but it s better? And I said, Yeah. She said, Oof. I ve heard too many sermons. But I wonder. Do you ever feel like God is leading you the long way around on something? Maybe it s a career goal, and it just seems like you ve been waiting forever for that career thing. Or waiting on a school, or something like that. Maybe it s a relationship that you want to get better, but it s not getting better. Or maybe you re waiting for a spouse, or a child, or promotion. Maybe you re waiting to graduate. Maybe you re a parent and you re waiting for someone to graduate. We ve been looking at the book of Exodus through the lens of story, because our lives are like stories. They have character development, reoccurring themes, so forth and so on. And next week I m going to come back from the Men s Retreat next Sunday to wrap up this sermon series. We re going to do the whole rest of the life of Moses next week, so it ll be like a five-hour sermon I m going to preach. You won t want to miss it. For a lot of people, one of the criteria they have for whether or not to read a book is, how long is it? This is something I heard when I taught literature, all the time. How long is this going to be? I don t want to read a big book, especially if it s not going to be very good. A woman in our church has a useful formula for figuring out how long to read a book before you give up on it and decide it s no good. She says it s 100 pages minus your age, on the theory that the older you are, the fewer pages you would read, because you have less time to waste on a bad book. I think that s kind of a helpful formula. In life, do you ever feel like you are trapped in a Russian novel? Thousands of pages, too many characters, and it just seems to keep going. But here s the thing. I ve read some really long books in my day, and some of them are really, really good. Because you get a depth of character and a breadth of adventure that you don t get in shorter books. And that s what is going on in the passage that we read today. The Israelites have been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. After 10 plagues, Pharaoh finally lets them go, but then Pharaoh changes his mind and sends his army after them. Which is a great spiritual metaphor. When we try to get free of something that s holding us back, an attitude, a habit, whatever it is, we should expect to be pursued all the harder by that thing. Try to break free of an addiction and the temptation just gets stronger. Try to break free from a financial problem, and suddenly there s just obstacles everywhere. Because we have an enemy, and he does not want us to get free. It doesn t mean we re not getting free. In fact, in some cases it means we are. Then the text says, When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. So if I ever write a book, one of the books I d like to write would be called, Irritating Verses in the Bible, and this would be one of them. God not only takes them the long way, but then He says, Tell the Israelites to turn back [so now they re backtracking] and encamp near Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. The result being, when Pharaoh s army comes, they are trapped at the sea.

3 Take Your Time 3 So, obviously, God did not go to West Point. This is not good military strategy. And this is a cliffhanger of a moment. It looks like there is absolutely no way out. If this were a season finale, it would fade to dark, and you d have to wait for the fall to find out how it goes. As I said a few weeks ago, God is never late, but He does have this annoying fondness for cliff-hangers, and you see it here. Now, if you ve seen the movies or read the book, you know the rest of the story. God parts the Red Sea, the Israelites go through, Pharaoh pursues them, but then the sea rushes back, and Pharaoh s army is drowned. Yay. Happy ending. And some scholars try to explain this miracle with natural causes. Maybe it was a tidal wave. Maybe it was some kind of fast-moving tide. But even then, it would at least, bare minimum, be a miracle of timing that they were there when it happened. Do you ever feel like you are trapped between Migdal and the sea? Pharaoh s army coming one way, the Red Sea behind you, and God seems to be taking His sweet time. And then, after this, after they get out, the Israelites then end up wandering in the desert for 40 years looking for the Promised Land. It s only a 200 mile journey. Should have taken them a couple of weeks, not 40 years. And in spite of the many women in my life that have pointed out that it s because Moses was a man and wouldn t ask for directions, I think it s more spiritual than that. Now, it also needs to be said that sometimes it s not God that takes us the long way around, it s our own stupid decisions that take us the long way around. But either way, God can use it to change our lives. For starters, the long way helps us grow. See, God is more interested in who we become, than where we end up and how fast we get there. He s after our character, because that s what s going to last forever. And there s a reason that God takes the Israelites the long way. He says, If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt. They re not ready for the Promised Land. They ve been slaves for 400 years. They have no government. They have no army. They have no confidence. The long way means they avoided all of Pharaoh s border posts, plus all of the trade routes that were surrounded with all these warring tribes. Because if they d faced them so soon they d have been annihilated. And this, by the way, argues that there was a real, historical event at the root of this story. Because their journey, their path, is just too erratic. You wouldn t make it up that way. In the Bible, whenever God wants to develop a person s future potential, He takes them to the desert. The Israelites wander in the desert for 40 years. Elijah goes to the desert. Jesus spends 40 days in the desert. The desert has been too good for too many people for too long to be all bad. So as much as I hate to admit it, the fast way is not always the best way. Sort of like a story I read about a woman who was pulled over because she was puttering along the highway at 22 mph and the cop thought that was dangerously slow. But the woman was confused, and she said, But officer, I don t understand. I was going the speed limit: 22 mph. I saw it on the sign. The cop laughed and said, No. The sign you saw that said 22? That was the route number, not the speed limit. And she said, Oh. And then the cop noticed her three passengers were white as a sheet, just looking terrified. So he said, Are they okay? And she said, Oh, they ll be all right in a minute. We just got off route 127. As much as I hate to admit it, the fast way is not always the best way.

4 Take Your Time 4 For instance, when we have a big decision to make, do I marry this person or that person? Do I take this job or that job? Do I move or do I not move? Do we down-size? Do we not down-size? Should I go to this college or that college? Whenever we have a big decision to make, often what we want is for God to just give us an answer. And what I ve found in my life, is that sometimes, if God has a very particular thing He wants us to do, He will make it clear. But most of the time I think God says, You choose. Because the process of wrestling with this decision is going to help you become the person that I know you can be. So you choose, and I ll be with you, no matter which way you go. In fact, one of the things that may change when we go the long way is our idea of what the Promised Land really is. Which for us is often some kind of destination, some kind of achievement or success. But through the long way our idea of the Promised Land might become more things like closeness to God, or meaning and purpose in life. Is God taking you the long way to some desired goal? Well, maybe it means you re just not ready yet for your Promised Land. Your character isn t ready, or there s a skill you don t have that you re going to need, or something needs to happen in your life to develop you. Or the thing you re waiting for is not yet ready for you. That job, that spouse, whatever it is, not ready for the places that you re going to take it. The long way grows us. Second good thing about the long way is it helps us overcome our biggest fears. See, the long way forced the Israelites to confront their worst fear, Pharaoh, and see that God was actually stronger. And shortcuts don t usually force us to confront our deepest fears, and we usually want the shortcut. So, for instance, sometimes we want the relationship to get better, but we don t want to do the hard work of looking at ourselves to see where we may have contributed to the problems in a relationship. Or we want the addiction to go away, but we don t want to deal with the underlying pain that made us turn to the addiction in the first place. The long way forces us to confront those deep issues, and see that God is bigger than all the Pharaohs that hold us down, and that hold us back. When the Israelites see Pharaoh s army coming, it says, They were terrified. And they said to Moses, Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to this desert to die? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in this desert. And the Oscar goes to. They are just drama queens. Whining. This is the first of eight million whines that they re going to do. Because they are still slaves. Slaves to fear. Slaves to the familiar. See, serving Pharaoh was bad, but it s what they knew, it s what they understood, and it was better than taking the risks to get free. It s all fun and games until someone gets in their chariot and traps you at the Red Sea. And then, just like the Israelites, we just want to go home, back to slavery. Yeah, I know, it s freedom. But it s hard, so I m going to quit. Yeah, I know, it leads to freedom, but it s hard, so I m going to go back to being a slave. Which raises the question: How much do you really want to be free? Do you really want to be out of debt, even if it means changing your spending habits? Do you really want that marriage to heal, even if it means admitting your part in the problem? See, sometimes our bondage has a payoff, and we know it s wrecking our lives, but we don t want to do whatever it takes to be free

5 Take Your Time 5 of whatever that bondage is. The long way around sometimes has the prettiest of views, because it forces us to confront our deepest fears and issues and discover that God will make a way where there seems to be no way. He will carve a pathway through the sea. Which brings me to the third good thing about the long way, and that is, it builds our faith. Whenever God is trying to develop us in some way, He often requires that we obey Him and take some risk of faith. In this chapter, God says to Moses, Tell the Israelites to move on. You can kind of see the Israelites going, Move on where? There s a sea behind us. And then God says to Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water, so that the Israelites can go through on dry ground. You can kind of see Moses going, Because that s going to work. Right. Even here, in this most spectacular of miracles, Moses is still involved. He has to do something. The Israelites still have to put their feet in the water before the sea divides. Every miracle includes some act of obedience, a risk of faith on our part, because that s how we grow in our experience of God. The long way helps us grow, forces us to confront our deepest issues, it builds our faith, and finally the long way shows us the power of God. While the Israelites are whining away, Moses says to them, Do not be afraid. Stand firm, and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. In Hebrew, the verse is actually much more rude than that. Stand firm could be translated be still. But actually, probably the best translation would be shut up! Which I think is kind of Here they are whining, We re going to die. We re going to die. And Moses is like, Shut up! I m trying to part a sea here, okay? Be quiet. And then, boom. Red Sea divides, and God makes a way where there seems to be no way. If they d taken the shortcut they never would have seen the power of God. And they never would have seen how God can take the very thing that threatens to destroy us and turn it into the thing that delivers us. Their problem, the sea, became the thing that God used to set them free by drowning Pharaoh s army. The thing that is your problem may become your deliverance in some way. And often freedom in finances, or relationship issues, or career, or just being bored with life, freedom lies not in getting around those things, but walking straight down the middle as God parts the water. And we don t just get free from stuff, the Israelites weren t just free from Pharaoh, but for something bigger, because all through Scripture God says to Israel, You are a light to the nations. In other words, You are called to my rescue mission, to carry God s love to the entire world. God is writing a story with your life, and He does not write bad stories, or boring stories. He takes the Israelites the long way, and ends up in this cliff-hanger in part to grow them, in part to show them His power, but you know what I really think? I think God likes a good story, and this is just a better story. This cliff-hanger thing, this parting the Red Sea, you can make movies out of that, special effects. It s just a better story. It s got mountains, it s got rivers, it s got sights to make you shiver. It s just a better story. But here s the thing. The long way, we can only do this through the power of Jesus and His Holy Spirit helping us live a better story. Without Jesus the long way is just the long way.

6 Take Your Time 6 Meaningless, and long. Just yesterday, while I was working on this sermon, someone sent me a story about a woman who after church says to her pastor, Pastor, your sermon reminded me of the peace and the love of God. And the pastor said, Why did the sermon remind you of that? And she said, Well, it reminded me of the peace of God because it passeth understanding, and the love of God because it endureth forever. Oh. That s just hurtful, right? That s the long way without Jesus. You don t understand it, and it goes on and on and on, with no seeming purpose. But with Jesus, it becomes meaningful. An adventure. Jesus, Who recapitulates the entire history of Israel in His own life. When Jesus is born, King Herod ordered all the baby boys to be killed, just like Pharaoh ordered the babies to be killed when Moses was born. Jesus and His family had to flee to Egypt to hide, and then were called out of Egypt just as the Israelites were called out of Egypt. Just as the Israelite go into the Red Sea as slaves and come out as a free nation, Jesus descends into death on a cross, and rises again three days later having paid the price for our sins, and freed us to live as children of God, called into His rescue mission. With Jesus as your author, the long way becomes a meaningful adventure. There s a woman I heard about through my former church. Her name is Mary Johnson. 22 years ago her 20-year-old son was shot to death at a party for no good reason. The killer was a 16- year-old guy named Oshea. Mary was understandably consumed with rage. Said, He s an animal. I just want justice. And Oshea ended up serving 17 years in prison, and then was released. For 12 of those years Mary was filled with hatred. Understandably. But she also loves Jesus, and knew that she was called to forgive Oshea. She said, Not for his sake, and it doesn t excuse what he did. But I was a slave to bitterness, and anger, and it was like acid eating away at me. So after 12 years and a lot of prayer, Mary asked to meet with Oshea while he was still in prison. She sat down, and she said, Look, I don t know you, and you don t know me. Let s just start there. They talked for several hours, a very painful, very tearful conversation. And when it was time for Mary to leave, Oshea said, Can I hug you? And he said, I just wanted to let her know that I was sincere. So Mary agreed, and when he hugged her, she started crying hysterically. Oshea said, All I could think about was, I d been in prison for 12 years around hardened criminals, but this right here? This is the scariest moment of my life. Crying ladies. They re scary to me. But I wanted to show her that I m there for you in your pain, even though I m the one that caused the pain. Well, from there, they met regularly and worked through a very painful process of forgiveness that took years. Years. Lots of tears. Lots of Oshea saying, Will you please forgive me? And eventually, after many years, Mary was able to forgive him, and now they have a pretty close relationship. Oshea is out of prison, and still carries a lot of guilt, a lot of remorse. But he s learning to accept Mary s and God s forgiveness and grace. And he is determined to pay Mary back for her goodness by doing something positive for others. So he s a Christian, and he goes into prison to tell prisoners the freedom of Jesus. He helps those prisoners not repeat their life of crime when they get out. So now, there are all kinds of crimes, all kinds of crime victims, that are not happening because Oshea is helping those prisoners not return to a life of crime.

7 Take Your Time 7 He says, If I m ever going to call myself a man, I m going to have to put on man s clothing. And the biggest part of being a man is accepting responsibility, facing what you ve done, and then doing the three Rs: Retrain my thinking, Retire my nonsense, and Repurpose myself for good. Mary is also making a difference, because along the way in this journey of forgiveness, she read a poem about two mothers in heaven who had both lost sons. The first mother said, I would have taken my Son s place on the cross if I could have. And the second mother fell on her knees and said, You re the mother of Jesus. And the first mother lifted her up and said, Yes. Now tell me your son s name so I can grieve with you. And the second mother said, My son s name is Judas Iscariot. And when Mary read that, she was inspired to start a group that brings mothers of murdered sons together with mothers of sons who have committed murder, and together find community, and grace, and healing. Well, when Oshea got out of prison, some nuns in Mary s neighborhood, they call themselves Sisters in the Hood, they went to Mary and said, What would you think about Oshea living next door to you? And Mary agreed, she said, Because then I could keep a better eye on him. So now Oshea lives in one side of a duplex, and Mary in the other, and they share a wall, as you can see in this picture. Oshea says, I think I agreed to this in a moment of insanity, but it s actually been great. Because when I leave to go to school Mary hassles me about the company I keep and the decisions I make. When I come home she s there sometimes on the porch and we talk for hours about our day, and share together and talk together about our day. She s another mother for me. And you can see that in this picture. And Oshea says, Whenever I m feeling down, I look into her eyes, and I look at her face, and I say, She took a chance on me. I need to take a chance on me as well. I have traveled this whole wide world around and around, and I know this, there ain t nobody that can do that but Jesus. It s like, one time when Mary was visiting Oshea in prison, she had dry hands, so the guard gave her some lotion. She looked at the lotion, and the name of the lotion was, Beyond Belief, and Mary said, Man, that s what s happening here. Okay, that was a long way around. 22 years. But they grew in their character. In their faith. They had to move through their biggest fears, not around, but straight through. Saw the power of Jesus. And I m not sure they d describe their life as an adventure, but it s pretty darn close. They re part of Jesus rescue mission, helping prisoners get a new life, healing the pain of mothers. They are making a serious dent in the devil s plans. So where might Jesus be taking you the long way around? Ask Him, Lord, how are You trying to grow me in this waiting? What steps of faith are You calling me to? Help me see Your power. And then if you ve got the guts, pray this prayer, Jesus, You make this thing take just as long as it needs to until I m the person You want me to be. A while back, I was doing a wedding in Ballard, and before I left I was trying to figure out the quickest way to get to Ballard. I was like, I-90 to 5 and then 45 th? Or would it be 520, to Mercer, over to Fremont? I spent a couple of minutes on this. Here s what I concluded. There is no fast way to Ballard. That d be a great book title, right? No Fast Way to Ballard. Or maybe a band name. A Norwegian band. Sometimes there is no fast way to the thing God is trying to do in our lives. And without Jesus it can feel like a long, meaningless Russian novel. But if Jesus is with

8 Take Your Time 8 you, and He always is, it may take time, but you will grow, you will see God s power, and there will be meaning, and joy, and adventure along the way. So in a way, that silly song that I started with, in a way actually makes kind of a decent prayer: I got my ticket for the long way around, it s called life. The one with the prettiest of views. It s got mountains, it s got rivers, it s got sights to give you shivers. And Jesus, it sure would be prettier with You. So Jesus, that is our prayer. It is better with You. And so, Lord, walk on this road with us. We know that when we are going the long way around that we do not walk alone, that You are with us. So, Jesus, make that road take as long as it needs to take in order to make us the men and the women that You died to make us. And thank You that we walk with You and not alone. And we give You all of our prayers, and our adoration. In Your name, Jesus. Amen. Discussion Questions: Read Exodus 13:17-14: Why does God lead the Israelites on the route that He does? 2. What do you make of God hardening Pharaoh s heart? (See also Exodus 9:12; 10:1, 20, 27; 11:10; 8:15, 32; 9:34; 7:13, 14, 22; 8:19; 9:7, 34) 3. What lessons does God teach the Israelites in this incident? 4. What does this story tell you about the character of God? 5. Who do you most relate to in this story Pharaoh, Moses, the Israelites, or other? Explain. 6. How does this story apply to your life right now?