Sermon: "Joining God Leads to Change"

Sixth in the "Experiencing God" series.
Delivered April 2, 2006 by Rev. George Antonakos.
Other sermons in this series - 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Theme: Why does God ask us to do things we are not ready to do? In order to reveal himself not only to you but to those around you. We are therefore called to make changes that at first appear very difficult. This message helps us think through why we would be wise to make the necessary adjustments that God is prompting.

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Well we are in week six of seven in the series on experiencing God, and last week Pastor John reminded us that joining God and experiencing God leads to a crisis of belief. And I see this weeks emphasis of making major adjustments as the other side of the same coin; that once we are dealing with a crisis of belief we then have to shift and make choices and adjustments in our life in order to follow through on what God is calling us to do. If you will look at the top of the sermon notes, you will see that the first verse on that page is pretty much the initial call from God to Moses and Blackaby in the video part, and I know tons of you are enjoying that video, especially the blue background. But in spite of all of that, he's got a great line in this one part of the video on crisis of belief and it has to do with this verse. He says, "Moses did not hear the first part of the sentence in God's call. He only heard the second part of the sentence." Look at what is says, the Lord says, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt so I have come down to rescue them, now go I am sending you", okay?

Blackaby makes a point; he says that Moses only heard the second part. That was the problem. He did not hear the first part; I have come down to rescue them. And so, part of making an adjustment is being aware of the fact that God is the one that is calling us to do this. And it affirms, and the other thing that is affirmed by this whole issue of crisis of belief and making adjustments, Dr. Jay Biddison in our small group this past week reminded us that in medical terminology the word crisis often is a good thing, because it means that a patient is turning the corner of recovery and that something positive is happening. And that grasps the oriental sense of the whole thing; the meaning of the word where crisis and opportunity are seen as co-existing. And crisis in the Greek language means judgment and so when God is calling and something happens, we have to judge a situation and weigh it and then follow in faith the way God is calling us and we will then realize and experience God in partnership with God. And so where we are in the text in the story of Moses called today is that Moses has worked through the crisis of belief and now comes the subsequent adjustments and challenges that carry out that call in that crisis and beyond that. So if we are to experience God in a life giving way, then we need to figure out what those adjustments are. Now in our text Moses has made the change and that is what we are going to look at in a second and the journey is going to begin, but let's pray before we read the text, okay?

Father, we thank you that your scriptures are alive and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing and separating the deepest parts of our soul, bone and marrow and speaking right on target to our hearts. So Lord we know that apart from your Spirit that will not happen, so we humbly ask that you would help us to open our hearts and minds to your word so that we might become more shaped in the image that you have called us to be like Jesus. We pray it in his name. Amen.

Okay, if you would like to follow along in the pew Bible on page 42 or you can just follow on the screen from Exodus 4:18-31.

"Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, "Let me go back to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive." (He was not telling the whole motivation for why he was going back, but he did it any way) Jethro said, "Go, and I wish you well." Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, "Go back to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to kill you are dead." So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand. The Lord said to Moses, "When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Then say to Pharaoh, 'This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, and I told you, "Let my son go, so he may worship me." But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son. " At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. "Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me," she said. So the Lord let him alone. At that time she said "bridegroom of blood," referring to circumcision. The Lord said to Aaron, "Go into the desert to meet Moses." So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the miraculous signs he had commanded him to perform. Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped."

You can see from the sermon notes page that there is three things that I am trying to lift out of this text about major adjustments that were required not only by Moses, but many times by us. There will be these types of adjustments as we seek to join God in what God is doing. The first one is found in the first three verses of the text. I kind of have part of it there in the note page. It says, "Now the Lord said to Moses, "Go back to Egypt", okay. Go back to Egypt. "So Moses took his wife and sons and put them on donkey and started back to Egypt." When Moses went and asked Jethro for permission, so to speak, to leave, it was more than politeness. He was really taking a very important step, because when he married Jethro's daughter that meant in that day and age that you were kind of under the head of the household who was Jethro no matter how old you were, and you had to go to that person to get permission. And so, this was a very important step. That is why I have the other sentence in this thing here, but the answer to this blank is at times we are called to make physical/relational adjustments to the call of God. Physical/relational adjustments. And the sentence underneath that says this challenges us to identify what we need to disentangle ourselves from in order to follow the call of God. See, disentanglement is part of adjustment.

You know if somebody gets called to seminary they would be right out of college and the disentanglement's are fewer, but some of you may know Dr. John Markell who a few years ago had a thriving dental practice here in the area and he heard God's call and he had to shut down a complete and total profession, a thriving dental practice in order to follow God to Princeton Seminary and then into pastoral ministry. And when I thought about disentanglement I thought man that would be a major adjustment to make to follow God's call.

There is another phrase in this text that really if it weren't in there, it really would not change the meaning so much. But I think it is in there to make a point. I mean when you read this part where it says, "So Moses took his wife and son and put them on donkey", I mean if put them on a donkey wasn't in there, you would still get it right? And I know details make stories more interesting, but to me that was the old way or ancient way of saying that he put his for sale sign in the yard and he called Rider Rental or U-haul or some moving company and he loaded up his truck, okay? And moved to Beverly, right? He loaded up. He moved. He went. He was in one place and he put them on a donkey and he went another place, okay?

I like Blackaby's way of kind of pulling out other examples. I just made a copy of a couple of pages in his book and he talks about other people in scripture. Noah couldn't continue life as usual and build an ark at the same time. Abram couldn't stay in Ur or Heron and father a nation in Cannan. Moses couldn't stay in the desert and stand before Pharaoh at the same time. David had to leave his sheep to become King. Amos had to leave sycamore trees in order to preach in Israel. Jonah had to leave his home and overcome a major prejudice in order to preach in Nineveh. You know sometimes the major adjustments they are inside, as well as outside that God is calling us to make. Peter, Andrew, James and John had to leave their fishing business in order to follow Jesus. Matthew had to leave his tax collector's booth to do the same. And then Saul, later Paul had to completely change direction in his life in order to be used by God to preach the gospel. Now just think about Saul for a minute who became Paul. He was a person of great power and great prestige in his culture and great position and yet there came a point when he talked about making adjustments, he said, "I will make any adjustments. I will let anything be counted loss for the sake of knowing Christ. To know him I will adjust in any way possible." And when we speak of Jesus and making adjustments I like what Blackaby says when he says, "How can you measure the distance from the throne of heaven to a cattle shed in Bethlehem?" You talk about an adjustment of God for us so that we might come back to God. So, that is the first point that we have to make physical/relational adjustments when listening to God's call.

I remember in 1973 when we were first going on staff with Campus Crusade; we had just been married in August. It was a few weeks later and we had all our worldly possession on a U-haul trailer behind a '67 Oldsmobile and we were at Ellen's home before traveling up to Sacramento and it was really a sad time. Ellen's family is Italian, so there was about 20 or 30 people out in the yard the day that we went to go and tears galore you know? We were saying goodbye to her mom and dad and it was like we were getting shipped to the other side of the world, but it was really hard and I remember the nigh before we were feeling really anxious, really blue and I opened the Bible and we were lying there in bed and I said, "Lord, maybe a word would really help right now." I have never forgotten this; I still remember this very clearly. I was turning just flipping through pages and came to Hosea 6, Verses 1 to 3. The first part does not sound too encouraging, but it gets better. It says,

"Come, let us return to the Lord. He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us; he has injured us, but he will bind up our wounds. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence."

And here's the verse;

"Therefore, let us acknowledge the Lord; let us know the Lord, let us press on to know the Lord. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."

And so with that verse in mind it was just a little bit easier to make those physical/relational adjustments at that time in our journey. So that's the first thing; we need to figure out what God is calling us to disentangle ourselves from in order to follow.

The second point on the handout is that at times experiencing God will require two different types of adjustments and the word for that blank is process. There are two different types of process adjustments, because when you think about it, it is a journey. It is a process in following Christ and following what the Lord has for us and there is two sub points under that. That sometimes the process of following God is prolonged for some reason. It is just prolonged. And if you look at the text that I have under that 2A, it says "The Lord said to Moses that when you return to Egypt see that you do all the signs that I told you do to do, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he won't let the people go." And if you read a little bit further and oh by the way you have to stand in front of the most powerful person in the universe at this time and you have to go toe to toe with him and say because you are not going to let my people go, I am going to kill your firstborn son. Now I call that, the you've got to be kidding part of the adjustment. In other words, Moses is saying I have followed you. I am on the program. I am with the plan and now you make it even harder and more difficult. You know you get called to seminary and you run right into Greek and Hebrew. You get called to the mission field, you run right in to some uncooperative co-worker. You get called to something else and all of sudden it got worse before it got better. And that's exactly what happened in Chapter 5 in Exodus. It gets worse before it gets better. As a result of this showdown, the people are told okay you've got make the same number of bricks, but you don't get to use any straw. No straw. And they get miserable. Well no straw is one thing, but how about no health; about no money; about no spouse; about no friends; no support; no encouragement.

When I was talking/thinking this week about this passage when we were in a staff meeting and I said,

"Think with me and I need your help to think with me about this for a minute. We are talking about joining God when God is doing something and we get called along to crisis of belief and make major adjustments when God is doing something." I said, "What about when God is doing nothing, then how do we adjust."

Pastor John said, "I remember hearing a sermon about the pillar of cloud and the preacher said you know it's one thing when you wake up in the morning and you look at the pillar of cloud and it's moving along day by day and you can take your checklist out and okay that's done, that's done, we are good. We are going right along and the plan is under way. It's another thing when you wake up and the pillar of cloud is just standing there, day after day after day and it doesn't move at all. And you are saying, wait a minute I thought destiny was calling. I thought that was a great plan and you are stuck in some spot, through no fault of your own because the pillar of cloud says that you are not going any further, right here. What do you do then?"

Well, King David tells us what the answer is. You wait patiently for the Lord. You trust in him and he will act, because God is doing something in those prolonged periods of the adjustment to shape us and to give us a view of God that we would not have in any other way. No matter what the difficulty and the situation; God will redeem it if we will not run ahead.

Also last week at the session meeting one of our elders, John Sackett, we were talking about spiritual markers in our own life and John shared a little bit; it was very touching. He shared a little bit about his own upbringing and that his mom died and that he was in a blended family and his stepmother was just not there for him. She was obviously favoring her two biological children and John it was kind of like Cinderella, right? I mean, you are just not getting what you need. And John had a choice and he finally, by God's grace, he came to the point where he said, "You know what she just does not have the maturity at this point in her life to give me what I need and so I am going to accept it and I am going to trust God and I am going to put myself in God's hands. I am going to put myself in the Lord's hand."

You know what, I think Jesus said that at the cross. I think he said, "In to your hands Father I command my spirit." Well in some sort of a minor sense, John said, you know what, I am going to trust God. I am going to make an adjustment; I guess he was saying and see what I can do. His one brother collected postcards. His other brother collected stamps from other countries. And so he asked missionary friends if they would write him postcards and so it was like the daily double, right? He gave one brother the postcards and he tore the stamps off and gave the other brother the stamps, but it was really a trifecta, because his stepmother read the postcards from the missionaries and so she was listening to the things of God from the postcards as well. Now it didn't turn things around right away, but over time things did become much more positive. God worked it so that the relationship was much much stronger. And so, that's the truth of making adjustments. Sometimes those adjustments we have to make in a prolonged situation, okay? Now that is part A.

Part B under this whole idea of process adjustments is quite different. Sometimes we can't take another step in the process until we deal with a foundational matter; until we deal with a foundational matter. I will tell you what, this part about I am going to kill Moses and the whole thing about Zipporah. I mean its right there in the verse; at the lodging place the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. This is a mysterious passage. I think anybody who tries to say that they can interpret this passage is being speculative at best and can't really say this is exactly what this means and its amazing to me that some Hebrew scribe like 3,000 years ago didn't just leave this out you know; to make it just flow a little bit easier. But no matter how we interpret this here is the point I think. I think one thing is just immensely clear. That we are not going to make any further progress in our spiritual life until we deal with a foundational matter between us and God. If God has made something clear and we just say, I would rather not, we are not going to progress a whole lot more and we are definitely not going to experience God. We are not going to progress a whole lot more in our spiritual life. And whatever this is about I mean the circumcision, and covenant and everything, it's about doing things the way God has set them up to be done.

It also kind of speaks to the point no matter how great a person Moses was, if he didn't obey God in the way that God orchestrated it from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and ??? then it wasn't going to get done. It's about God's playing field, God's parameters and aligning ourselves in that way with God. And I choose the word foundational purposely because a foundation is critical. If you build without of a foundation, if you leave out part of the foundation, anything you build from then on is not going to last very long. It's not going to be stable. You know, Jesus hit this squarely on the head. He says, "If you come to worship and what's more important that coming to worship God, but there you remember that your brother or sister has something against you. Stop. It is a foundational matter before you continue in worship to go be reconciled to your brother or sister. Then come and offer your gift to God." He said the same thing when he was calling other people. One person said, "Well I have to go do this. I got to go back and bury my dad. I got to go to this or I got to go back and do that." And Jesus had all kinds of answers and he said, "You know what, nobody who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God" There is a foundational sense that we can't keep going unless we deal with key issues whatever they are in our life.

I remember in seminary, I shared this with you before, but I was kind of setting the playing field. I said, "Well, God I will do this, but I really don't want to do this." And for six months from August; I remember August of '86 to winter of '87 or the spring of '87 almost, I was moving furniture just trying to earn some money while I was waiting on the call and I had my personal information form out there in churches and all. Every time I had to lift an entertainment center up a flight of steps and turn a corner in a tight room, I was like the Lord was saying, okay have you had enough? You are going to tell me what the parameters are of following me. Now, as soon as I adjusted that, things happened. As soon as I said, "Okay, I give" things immediately started to happen, because I will tell you what, God can wait you out. God can wait you out and you are either going to say, okay I'm cool and move along and grow or you are not. But because of God's grace hopefully it is always going to be in a positive direction.

There is a well-worn illustration that gets to the point even more. Have you ever heard about the one where the little kid has got a vase and his hand is stuck in the vase? And he is screaming and he can't get it out and his mom comes and tries to help him and puts a little soap and water on there to get his hand to come out easier and no matter what they do they can't get it out. He keeps crying and everything. Finally, mom says "How do you have your hand inside the vase?" He says, "I have it in a fist." She said, "Well why don't you just straighten it out, open it up so you can pull it out." And he goes, "No, then I will drop the candy that I am holding on to." Okay? But that is exactly the way we are. We are in a tough situation. We are in a bind. We are holding on to something and God says let it go. No, but I don't' want to let it go. Let it go or else you are going to stay stuck. So, it's the same thing with making those kind of adjustments that God is calling us to do. And in spite of its distastefulness, Zipporah put aside her cultural prejudices and did what God was calling her to do and it yielded blessing and beauty in the life of her and her whole family. And let's face it, all of us in some way or another are adjusting to something, aren't we? You are making adjustments for your job, for your boss, the opinions of other people, your neighbor, your spouse, your fears; everybody here is adjusting to something. It makes a lot of sense to make the adjustments toward what God is calling us to do. Okay, that is the second one.

The third one; community is the answer. At times experiencing God will require us to make community adjustments. Look at the text there. As a matter of fact read that with me will you? The text that is under number 3. "Moses and Aaron brought together all of the elders of the Israelites and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people and they believed." Look at all of the things that he had to do. He had to bring people together. He had to tell them everything. He had to show them what it was that God was saying. The call of God involves working with many other people. It involves necessary communication. It involves submission to certain directions. It involves sharing certain resources. Has anybody here had the delightful opportunity to share a refrigerator in college or share a refrigerator in an apartment? Nothing is a greater character builder than sharing a refrigerator with people who you are not related to. Okay? It's like okay, this is my shelf. This is your shelf. You see my milk carton. It's got my initials on it. You see that? Lay off of that, right? The next morning you are dying for that bowl of Trix or whatever it is and you go to the refrigerator and no milk, right? It's a character builder. It's a way of learning how to deal with people who are not always so cooperative.

I wonder have you ever heard of a congregation that didn't know how to share the same resources? Or have you ever been to a congregation that was not aligned in the same direction? I am being sarcastic. Obviously, there are more congregations it seems who have more difficulty aligning in the same direction then there are that do. But if you want a non-experience of God, not an experience of God, if you want a non-experience of God find yourself in the middle of a conflict in a church community. God is in everything, but I will tell you what, that is no fun. You know there is an interesting passage in Chapter 7, Verse 6 that says and its one of those other details that just makes you stop and think. It says, "Now Aaron was 83 years old when God appeared to Moses and Moses was 80." Beside the fact that it is saying you are never too old to do something for God, it's also saying in that culture Aaron was the older, but he's the one that came underneath his younger brother. He didn't do that, "Hey I am the older sibling" kind of thing. He aligned himself and he adjusted himself in a communal sense so that the mission of God could move forward. And nothing is more beautiful in a congregation when in spite of the fact that we know we have preferences, we set those preferences aside in order to keep focused on the value of the mission that God is calling us towards. And as we move forward in mission, because things are changing and things are happening and there is going to be a building out there before you know it and it's going to change the landscape; we are going to be challenged and called to community adjustments even more so that the mission can be fulfilled.

You know the last part of your insert is exerted also from Blackaby's book and I don't know if you need any mental or spiritual priming of the pump, but there is a list in that insert and if you look at that list, look how many things in that list are centered on relational aspects and a willingness to serve other people. When we make adjustments that God is calling us to in spite of the difficulties, in spite of resistance, in spite of fear, then we are becoming the person that God intends us to become and shapes us to become. At the end of Verse 20 in Chapter 4, there is another sentence that just sort of stood out and I didn't mean to skip over it, but I am just saving it for the end. It says Moses put his family on his transportation there and says this "He took the staff of God in his hand." Now that's an important verse because the staff of God was a symbol, it was a sign of God's presence. It was a tool. It was a reminder of how God had shown Moses how to deal with the crisis of belief and how to deal with the adjustments he was being called to make. You remember the story, he says "Moses, what's that in your hand. It's a rod. Throw it down." It became a serpent and it says that Moses ran from it. I mean lets face it; most of us generally speaking when we see a snake we don't move toward it, right? We move away from it. Then he says, "Moses pick it up by the tail" and Moses says, "What?" No he didn't say that. He just picked it up by the tail and it became a rod again. Now what does that mean? What is all that about? I think its about this, if we will move toward the thing that we fear, if we will give over to God the resources that we consider ours and place them in his hands, we will be turned in to something beautiful for God that couldn't happen in any other way and shaped in a way that will make a difference for others.

The sculptor Rodin has a piece of his in the Metropolitan Museum of Art called The Hand of God. (alt) It's a beautiful sculpture. It just shows very strong hands and inside the hands you can start to see the shape of a man and a woman being created out of chaos, out of a lump and it is just showing how that creative energy of God is working in human life. Interestingly, there is another of his sculptures in the same museum called The Hand of the Devil. And when you first look at them the hands looks essentially the same, but the difference is what's inside the hands. That instead of something that is becoming clearly shaped out of some chaotic thing, it's just a blob. There is nothing there. It's almost like the energy trying to convey us that when the devil is working, it just keeps coming back in to chaos. He is not really shaping and creating and being there in a way that is good and healthy for you.

So here's the question: Is God calling you to take another step on your spiritual journey? Again, maybe that adjustment nobody will ever see because it's an adjustment that's internal verses external. Maybe it's a new opportunity, maybe it's a common duty, maybe its something done differently, maybe its forgiveness. You know you are standing at a crossroad; blessing is marked this way, bitterness is marked this way and God is calling you to forgive and to take that path of blessing. Whatever it is, if it is a major or minor adjustment, don't do what Moses did when he first heard God's voice. Don't forget the first half of the sentence and just think of the second half. So now I am sending you, don't put that there, listen to the first part again; "I have come down to rescue, so I am sending you." Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you for your love. We thank you for your call. We thank you that you are about making us in to the image of Christ and for whatever our difficulties or trials or challenges, we pray that your Spirit would help us to see that safe in your hands is where we ought to be. And we do right now, today, in some way Lord say together in to your hands O Lord, we commit our spirit. We commit our life. We commit our bodies. We commit our hearts to be shaped and used in the way that you desire. Bring honor and glory to yourself as you answers these prayers. For we ask them in Jesus' name. Amen.

© 2006, Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org