Sermon Reflection March 29, 2020
The Wilderness
Calvary Los Gatos Sermon Notes here.
This week’s sermon continued from the biblical base ofExodus 20:1–17, which reveal to us the ten commandments. I wish I could say I’ve never broken any of them… but of course I have! I’ve heard it said before that the reason for the ten commandments is that of a mirror — more to show us why we need Jesus than just telling us what not to do.
This weekend focused a lot on the story of Moses hitting the rock in anger to release water, and the reasons/application to our own lives.
A new point raised that I hadn’t thought of before was that Moses wasn’t punished so much because he lost his temper as I’d previously thought. Rather, it was because he wanted God to act like Moses would have acted, and on Moses’ timing. The obvious correlation to life being COVID-19 and what’s happening in our society. The bigger point is that times of hardship are always used by God to inform times of strength.
My Own Take
Years ago when I was a ‘maybe pastor’ in college I volunteered at a jr high group in town for 6 years… occasionally I would get to lead the message, and one Thursday night I preached on the ‘wilderness’, an illustration I’d first used/drawn in my notepad as a camp counselor at Sugar Pine Christian Camps in the summer of 2002 after a particularly “growth-filled” year.
I probably went a little overboard on taking the wilderness journey into graphical form but really dove into what each ‘section’ of the story could mean etc, but I enjoy that kinda thing and it helped for me to formulate not only what God had done, but what He will do in our own lives. (inspiration also came from an OC Supertones song) However I’ve always found that the only way to truly study the Bible is to personally pause and apply it to our lives in the moment. For me generalizing and drawing diagrams/tables helps it be more than a thought experiment. For the students, I gave them a blank one to fill out with their own struggles, challenges, and triumphs. It’s cool how Gmail still keeps emails from forever ago (or at least 2005)… because looking back at some email responses between the leaders etc later things revealed that some kids really liked the illustration to remind them that even though they are on the uphill climb (parents getting divorced, tough times at school etc ). Typically now I’ll hand-write in my journal when I can, even though it’s a lot slower than typing… there is something special about being able to look back on about 20 years of handwritten journal entries/reflections.
Below is the elaboration chart I created to hand out with the students as well to give them more ideas and ground it in biblical text. You can tell at the time I was writing a lot of research papers etc that demanded citations for every statement!
The main thing I would change theologically on the chart below is under “Promised Land” and it talks about how we can’t enter ‘the promised land’ on Earth now… I think that in fact, we can. Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand… and I believe that it still is today. Whenever we choose to love instead of hate, whenever we put others before ourselves, we are bringing God’s perfect love to an imperfect Earth. So while we may be in The Waiting period, we also know that waiting doesn’t mean sitting still. We must continue to press up the hill, sure that God will use the struggle of ascent to make the glorious reward even greater. Hope you enjoyed the sermon as much as I did and perhaps can use these graphics to think a little deeper about what God is using this time of uncertainty to prepare you for!
