Don’t Be Paralyzed
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Don’t Be Paralyzed
February 6, 2011
by Rev. William “Buck” Day
Well, we continue our series in Exodus and today we will continue in Chapter 14 by reading a couple verses, verses 13 to 15. So I invite you to follow along as I read them on the screen. God’s word for us today.
But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not be afraid, stand firm, and see the deliverance that the Lord will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to keep still.’
Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why do you cry out to me? Tell the Israelites to go forward.
God’s word for us today. Once again, let’s pray.
Lord we thank you. We thank you that you are here and we ask that by the power of your Holy Spirit you would quicken our hearts to hear what you have for us. Lord drive it deep into our hearts. We ask that because you are Lord over all and we thank you. Amen.
Well, Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, or Spidey, has reached a crisis in his life. His life is falling apart; nothing seems to be going right in his life. He has lost his job. He is failing in school and his relationships are a mess, to say the least. But worst of all, perhaps for Peter, is that he is losing his Spider-Man powers. So he goes to the doctor to try to find out some answers for what is bothering him. So I want to invite you to take a look at the clip from Spider-Man 2 as we continue.
Video
Doctor: You seem very o.k. to me. My diagnosis: It’s up here. You say you can’t sleep. Heartbreak? Bad dreams?
Peter: There is one dream where, in my dream, I’m Spider-Man but I am losing my powers. I’m climbing a wall but I keep on falling.
Doctor: Oh. So you’re Spider-Man..
Peter: In my dream… Actually it’s not even my dream. It’s a friend of mine’s dream.
Doctor: Somebody else’s dream. What about this friend? Why does he climb these walls? What does he think of himself?
Peter: That’s the problem. He doesn’t know what to think.
Doctor: Your soul disappears. Nothing is as bad as uncertainty. Maybe you’re not supposed to be Spider-Man climbing those walls. That’s why you keep falling. You always have a choice, Peter.
Peter: I have a choice.
Later that day:
Peter’s uncle: All these things you have been thinking about Peter make me sad.
Peter: Can’t you understand I am in love with Mary Jane.
Peter’s uncle: Remember all the times we talked of honesty, fairness, justice, all those times I counted on you to have the courage to take those dreams out into the world.
Peter: I can’t live your dreams any more. I want a life of my own.
Peter’s uncle: You’ve been given a gift, Peter. With great power, comes great responsibility. Take my hand, son.
Peter: No, Uncle Ben. I’m just Peter Parker. I’m Spider-Man no more. No more.
End video
Peter Parker is stuck in the midst of uncertainty, in indecisiveness and doubt. And so he is stuck. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know who to trust. And as a result, everything he is doing in his life is turning out poorly. I think that helps us kind of set the stage for where we are with the Israelites in our text as we are moving through Exodus 14. We are in our second week of four looking at the Israelites backed up against the wall of the Red Sea in a series I call “Up Against the Wall”; and it is the Israelites who are, at this point, stuck. They are in the same place Peter was. They were uncertain. They were afraid, actually, that Pharaoh’s army was about to tear into them. In fact, in the verses before what we read, they were complaining to Moses, saying, “Moses, why did you take us out here. We would have been better off to be slaves again with Pharaoh, back making bricks out of clay and straw.” So they are afraid. They are not sure of their next step.
So in the midst of that, Moses begins to encourage them and that is the text we are looking at today. Moses begins to encourage them in the midst of their difficulty, in the midst of their uncertainty and that encouragement gives them wise words for what they are to do; but I think it also translates to you and me. It becomes wise words for us when we are in places of difficulty, when we are uncertain about next steps; and it also fits for us as a community, as well. So we want to look into those as we dive into that text today. Moses starts out with this encouragement and I think a way to maybe kind of begin to think about how to get our arms around it is to say, simply, leave room for God. Moses words of encouragement start with this idea of leave room for God. And leaving room for God for Moses means three things.
The first one is: don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid. When we react in fear, how many times do we get ourselves into trouble? Quite a few, I think, don’t we? Well, I am a dog person and, before all you cat lovers start throwing things at me, let me just say I grew up with cats; I like cats; there is nothing wrong with cats; but I am allergic to most cat hair, not all, but most cat hair. But beyond that, I think that dogs kind of need people more than cats, and I think dogs interact more with people than cats do. So I kind of go towards dogs. As a dog lover, I will from time to time watch a show on the T.V. called “The Dog Whisperer”, with a guy who leads it by the name of Cesar Millan. Cesar Millan will go into a person’s house and they will help the people become what he calls “the pack leader of their house”—that every house is thought of as a pack of dogs. When the dogs are hard to control, Cesar will come in and he will teach the folks some dog behaviors that help keep the dog in what he calls a “calm submissive state”. Because when dogs become afraid, and they can become afraid for a lot of different reasons, they tend to act out of that; they tend to act out in aggression; they tend out in strange territorial behavior; and, for the most part, they are not much fun to have around as a dog.
I think the same thing happens with us as people. When we act out a fear, how often do we end up putting our foot in our mouth, or saying something we might want to later take back? So I wonder why the Bible says, “Don’t be afraid” and “do not fear” almost one hundred and fifty times in Scripture. Why would that be there? Well, either it is a common condition that many of us struggle with, or it is something that God thinks is really important. And fear, like any of the other emotions that we all have as humans, is not bad in and of itself, and we need to hear that. It is part of how God has wired us up. We should not shy away from our emotions but acknowledge them. We need to understand and be able to name our emotions. Most guys are terrible at being able to name the emotion that they are experiencing at any moment. But having said that, emotions are meant to be controlled, they are not meant to control us.
When I meet with a couple that are engaged to get married, one of the things we talk about is that we talk about conflict resolution. As part of that I kind of give them a series of steps that they can walk through to resolve conflict in their relationship that will inevitably come; because, right, married couples, we never have any conflict in our marriages, do we? Nah! One of the things I will say is the very first thing you need to do when you begin to think about resolving a conflict is to set aside a time to talk about the conflict. Then I look at them and I say, “Why would you want to do that?” Then I sit back and watch what happens. As I let them think about it and talk about it a little bit, we begin to talk about the value of letting our emotions settle down a little bit so that we can actually get at resolving the conflict without all the emotionally charged words that inevitably come when there is conflict. So if you can remove yourself from the conflict and the emotions that come with it, then you can actually get at the root cause of whatever that conflict may be.
Emotions can lead us astray if they are not kept in check. Scripture calls us to act out of faith, not out of our feelings. So sometimes we need to choose an attitude that is sometimes contrary to our feelings. It doesn’t not value our feelings, it is just that we have to act differently and I think that is what Moses is getting at. He is saying to leave room for God, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid, because God is going to act. We have to create that room for him.
Leaving room for God also means to wait on the Lord, to wait on the Lord. Our text puts it as “stand firm.” Stand firm. I love it in Romans 12:19. It talks about, in the NIV version; it actually uses the phrase “leave room for God.” In the context that it is used, it is used in the context of retribution; in other words, if you have been wronged, leave room for God to make it right. You don’t need to go and get retribution yourself. Let God settle the score, not you. And that got me thinking. If we are to make room for God around God’s wrath, can we also then make room for God and some of his other attributes in our life? Would it be helpful then for us to make room for God for his power? …to make room for God’s peace? …to make room for God’s grace? …to make room for God’s restoration? …to make room for God’s intervention?
The truth is, I can’t solve every problem I have in my life and I’m guessing you can’t either. I don’t have all the answers for the things in my life; but what I can do is I can leave room for God to work in those circumstances, in those uncertainties, in those difficult spots. I like what Ephesians 3:20 says about that. It says, “God can do exceedingly abundantly more than we could ever ask or imagine.” In other words, God can do beyond what we could ever ask but then even beyond what we can imagine God can do. If that is the God that we worship, if that is what God can do, then we need to give him some space. We need to wait for him to work, because he will, because he will.
So I think that is a call to allow our Red Sea situations in our lives to give them over to him in prayer and trust and to wait for him to work. As we wait for him to work that leads nicely into that third part of leaving room for God and that is let God work. Let God do his work. In other words, let the Lord fight for you; that is what our text was saying. Let the Lord fight for you. The Lord is always at work on our behalf, to work things for our good, for our benefit. It says in Scripture, “for those who love him.” Listen to these Scriptures that speak to this notion of God being on our side and fighting for us. In the beginning of Deuteronomy, first chapter, 29 and 30, it says, “Have no fear or dread of them. The Lord your God goes before you and he is the one who will fight for you.” Then in the third chapter of Deuteronomy, verse 22, it says “Do not fear them for it is your Lord your God who fights for you.” Then towards the end of Deuteronomy in 31:6 it says “Be strong and bold; have no fear or dread of them, because it is the Lord your God who goes with you; he will not fail you or forsake you.” …Reminiscent of the New Testament there. Then in 1 Samuel 17:47 it says “…the battle is the Lord’s.” The battle is the Lord’s. Then from the New Testament, Romans 8, a fairly familiar verse, verses 31 and 37. It says, “If God is for us (if God is for us), who is against us?” Then it says in 37, “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
The Israelites felt like they had reason to fear Pharaoh’s army. They felt like they were under the gun. But they had better reason, they had a better reason to have confidence that the Lord was going to act on their behalf. I think we have that same confidence. We do that as we create room and make room for God in our lives in those difficult times, in those times of uncertainty.
So if we are to leave room for God, our text also says, we are to walk toward open doors, walk towards open doors. God tells Moses in verse 15: “Tell the Israelites to start walking”, start walking towards the water that is what he says. When I heard that, bells went off in my mind for other Scriptures. You know what I am talking about? In Joshua, the beginning of the book when the Israelites are getting ready to cross over the flooded swollen river Jordan into the Promised Land and God tells Joshua, “Tell the priests who are carrying the Ark of the Covenant to just start walking towards the River and tell the Israelites to follow them.” And they did, and the water parted and they walked across the river there. When we are in a difficult place, when we are in a place of uncertainty, look for an open door, look for an open door, and walk towards it. Walk towards it and trust that if God doesn’t want you there, he will close that door.
It is Super Bowl Sunday, so I thought I would tell a Super Bowl story, or actually, it is a Green Bay story, actually. And this is by no way my endorsement of the Packers. I just want to tell you that, but it is a story about Green Bay. A few years ago when I was looking for a church to serve I had had a couple phone interviews with a church in Green Bay. Each time when I got off the phone I went, “Boy! That went terrible. That is not going anywhere.” But they continued to pursue me and said that they wanted Les and I to drive out to Green Bay for the weekend and visit them, to have some more interviews and do some house hunting. I was like, “House hunting? Whoa! We are moving a little bit quick here, aren’t we?” So Les and I thought, O.K. we’ll go, we’ll go and see what they have to say and a little road trip, it will be fun.
So we are heading over to Green Bay and as we are going our prayer is: God make it real obvious to us whether this is where you want us to be or not. Make it really obvious to us. So we get to the church, we drive to the church, and we get there just about the time the senior pastor is showing up. So we meet him and we go into the office and both Les and I, independently of each other, are going: there is something not right here. Through the whole course of the next few days it was just continually reinforced. It was reinforced when we went out to dinner with the staff that evening. It was reinforced as we went through interviews. By the next afternoon, as we had finished having lunch and meeting another group of people from the church, the senior pastor caught up to us and said, “You know we think this is probably not going to work out. This probably is not a good match for us.” And we are like, “Yeah, thank you. We knew that. Thank you.” He said, “You know, you are welcome to stay here through the Sunday services and stay another night in the hotel, no a big deal.” And we are just like “No, we are ready to go.” So we headed home and on the way home we were just thanking God. We were thanking God that he was making it so obvious for us. For us it kind of coined a phrase. Anytime we get into a situation where we are uncertain of what we should do, we say “God, make it Green Bay obvious. Make it Green Bay obvious.” Or sometimes we will just say, “God make it GBO. God make it GBO, will you?” God closed a door for us, but we were walking toward what we thought was an open door; but we trusted God to close that door. I think that is what he is talking about here. When we are unsure of our next step, just take a little step, move in a direction that you think is right. If the way seems clear, take another step, and then another step, trusting that as you go forward, God will open the door that he wants you to walk through or he will close the door he doesn’t want you to go through and it will redirect your path. That is not always easy, honestly. It is not always fun; but it is part of what it means to say “God you are in control and I trust you completely with my life, for you will lead us to the place that you desire and I can believe that with all my heart.”
Horatio Spafford was a successful lawyer in Chicago in the late 1800’s. He was a member of a local Presbyterian Church. There was a financial crisis in Chicago in 1873 and as a result he lost most of the property that he had accumulated up to that point. Needless to say, it was a very stressful and strained time for him. So what he did is he convinced his wife and his four daughters that they needed to get away. He suggested that they go and go to France, to take a boat across the Atlantic and get away from the hard times that they were going through in Chicago. So he booked a passage on a ship called the Ville du Havre and they set sail in November of 1873. The first two weeks of the voyage went great. They were enjoying themselves. It was a very lighthearted mood on the ship; but about a week into the trip at about midnight, the Ville du Havre collided with another ship that was inbound to New York. As a result the Ville du Havre sank very quickly. The other ship didn’t sustain a lot of damage and was able to collect as many of the survivors as they could find. Of the 226 people that were on the Ville du Havre, only 87 survived; and of that 87, Mrs. Spafford was among them but her daughters were not. When she reached land in France, she telegraphed her husband back in Chicago and she said, “Saved alone. Children lost. What shall I do?” At that point the Chicago attorney left immediately to join his wife and to bring her back to Chicago. In the depths of their bereavement, they wrote his one and only hymn, which is called, “It Is Well with My Soul.” And we will sing that after we celebrate communion. In the midst of terrible loss, they experienced peace, both he and his wife, as they submitted themselves to God’s providence in their lives as difficult as it was and he describes that process in the stanzas of the hymn. We are going to sing that but I want to read those for you because I think that helps us engage it more when we sing it. It says:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.
May it be well with our soul when we enter into difficult times, enter into difficult times where we have the opportunity to make room for God to move in our lives. As we make room to look for that open door and walk towards it, trusting that God will direct our steps; for we do have a God who has given his very own Son and as the song says, “My sin is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord.” That is a wonderful sentiment when we enter into this table. So let’s prepare our hearts now as we do that. Would you pray with me, please?
Lord, thank you, thank you that you are the one who has called us to be your people and you have sent your Son that we might have life forever in you. Lord Thank you. Thank you that you have called us and have given your very Son that we might stand faultless before you because of his sacrifice for us. So Lord we ask as we come to this table now that you would once again help us to renew our commitment to you, to put our trust in you in a deeper level, for Lord you have given your very Son, all that is most critical to you that we might have life in you and light with you forever and ever. Lord take these elements, consecrate them to your good work in us. We ask that because of Jesus, the one who is nailed to the tree for our sins. Amen.