Creekside Church Sermon of May 7, 2000 "The Defining Moment " Joshua 3	Rev. David Bibbee
Send this sermon to a friend

The genie thought a moment and said, "Look, lady, you don't know what you're asking. It would take incredible engineering. Do you realize the size of the caissons and pilings needed for a job like this? I'd like to help, but don't you have another wish...something a little more doable?" "I don't know," she said. "I wanted to go on this vacation with my husband. We've been married twenty years and I still don't understand him. I've read books, done seminars. Just when I think I have him figured out, he does something really stupid and we're back to square one. Why are men so controlling and arrogant and distant? I want to completely understand my husband. That's what you can give me." A moment of silence passed between them and the genie asked, "Do you want the highway two-lane or four-lane?"

Today I want to talk with you about bridging distances. I want to stress the importance of crossing over from what could be to what will be; from dreaming of doing something to actually doing it. The people of Israel learned what it took to cross over the river Jordan and into the Promised Land. It was a moment 40 years in the making. After the exodus from Egypt and the deliverance at the Red Sea, God commanded Moses to lead Israel on a 40-year trek of testing and trusting God to make good on the promise made to Abraham that his descendants would one day have a homeland. God led Israel to the Jordan and a decision which would be Israel's defining moment.

Preparation leads to anticipation, and anticipation ultimately leads to the event itself. Today finds us at just such a place. What began as a seminal idea shared amongst the leadership has been given to you, the congregation, to be discussed, discerned, dissected, and debated. You have invested yourselves in hundreds of hours of praying, planning, meeting, calling, and mailing, investing your dreams and your enthusiasm. All the preparation has finally brought us to this moment on the bank of our Jordan. Here we will make our decision to either see the Promised Land or possess it.

We are already further along than most churches engaged in self-examination. A church consultant told me that of all the churches which gather information and recommend significant changes in hopes of creating a better future, 75% of them choose to do nothing about it. The work is filed under, "Things we should have done but were afraid to do anything about." They come to the edge and stop. Up on North Main Street at the confluence of the Elkhart and mighty St. Joe River sits the shell of concrete block and structural steel which was supposed to be a restaurant. For the past three years it instead has been a monument to poor planning and a failure to follow through.

If Isreal was to fulfill its destiny, they would need a clear sense of God's leading. Joshua told Israel's tribes that when they saw the Ark of the Covenant carried by the priests, they were to follow in procession. They were in unfamiliar territory; a place no one had ever been before, but the Ark would lead the way. If you knew nothing of Israel's belief you would take one look at the Ark and see it as merely a gold-encrusted box. But to Israel it was God's throne. The Ark carried the manifestation of God's power and presence. Those who carried it set out in faith that God was indeed with them, protecting and guiding them.

Except for Indiana Jones, no one chases the Ark today. We are guided instead by the Word of God in scripture and in Jesus Christ. We have the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, which like the wind, is never seen but is felt, and like the wind blows where it will and cannot be controlled, but controls. There is the direction the Spirit gives to individuals, not direction to many in general, but to individuals, and individual churches in particular.

A young man named William Franklin Graham spent an entire night on the fairway of a golf course. He wasn't looking for lost balls. He spent the long dark hours in the silence of prayer, hungering to hear a message from God concerning his future. With the morning there came a new sense of meaning and call. He had crossed his own Jordan, and Billy Graham went on to share Christ with the world as no one before him and he still is. Growing up, I remember receiving four magazines which came to our home...Life, Look, the Saturday Evening Post, and the magazine of the Billy Graham Association called Decision. The magazine didn't focus exclusively on people's initial decision for Christ. The decision is only the beginning. Every day we make decisions about our allegiances...of whom we shall follow and whom we shall serve.

When the composer Gustav Mahler was working on his Fourth Symphony, he wrote in a letter to a friend, "This one is fundamentally different from the others I've composed. But that must be. I can't repeat a state of mind. Life goes on and so I follow new tracks. This is why it is so hard for me to get to work. One has to learn all over again for the thing one sets out to make. So one remains everlastingly a beginner. It is and always will be a gift of God-one that, like a loving gift, no one can deserve or get by asking."

It has taken a great deal of time and prayer and discernment to bring us this far. We have come as far as we can go, and during this hour we will make a destiny-determining decision. The decision we make today will fashion the future. Joshua told the people of Israel to follow the Ark of God's presence. "You have not passed this way before," he told them. We have not passed this way before, either. We not only need the confidence of God's presence. We must also have confidence that God sees the unknown future. How would Israel find a way to cross the Jordan at flood stage? No one bothered to inform the Canaanites they were living in someone else's Promised Land.

Like Dorothy, we know we aren't in Kansas anymore. We are on the brink of entrusting the church to God on a course that neither I nor any of you can foretell with certainty. The horizon is thick with questions. At the bottom of your commitment card it says, "This is a statement of intent that may be altered as circumstances warrant." Nothing affects intentions like circumstances. The road to a three-year commitment may be paved with good intentions, but no one, save God, knows all that may alter the intention. We don't know what may happen with our families, our jobs, or our health. We have no control over government or the economy. We don't know the future. We only know who holds it.

Israel couldn't foresee all the triumphs and tragedies of the future. They could only see the Ark two- thousands cubits ahead of them. We have a dream of land and a new ministry, but God will not reveal the whole scenario to us. God provides just enough light and guidance on a moment-by-moment, and decision-by-decision basis of which today is an important part. All the preparation of the past five years has brought us to today. Now it is time to commit. Is it frightening? Of course! But as someone said, "As long as we are growing we will always have fears. It presses our capacity to adjust. It demands that we be willing to let go of the past in order to claim the future."

As long as we are growing, we will have fear. People who grow adapt to change. I love the statement by the columnist Lewis Grizzard who said, "Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes." What we decide to commit today will result in a change of scenery, not just of location, but of relational scenery as well. Several months ago I asked you, "What has the church done of late that could not be accomplished without God's help?" The time has arrived to do just that. We have challenged one another to make sacrifices. Now is the time to commit to grow in faith and trust in God and in our relationships with one another.

Joshua told the people to sanctify themselves; to undergo a spiritual purification in preparation for an encounter with the living, leading God. Today we commit to growth in God. We also must commit to one another. In the film "Inherit the Wind" which centered upon the Scopes monkey trial, there was a conversation between the opposing attorneys, Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan. The two had been friends, but in the course of this intense trial their friendship was stressed. The two were alone in the courtroom and Bryan, who had attacked the teaching of evolution, asked Darrow, "What had come between us, my friend? You have pulled away." And Darrow replied, "It is you who have pulled away...by standing still."

There are many for whom our capital campaign has inspired a commitment to move from the periphery to the center. Some of us are not in a position to do as much as we desire financially, but what matters is that a commitment of the heart was made which has brought these people closer to God and to this family of faith. There are some whose heart is not into the decision to move. Of you, I have a request. You may not support the direction we are taking, but I ask you to support the Body of Christ of which we are all a part, irrespective of differing opinions. You have not agreed, but you have listened, and I have the utmost respect for those who disagree, but remain committed to the Body of Christ of which we all are a part.

In the days before modern harbors, ships and their crews would sit outside a port waiting for the floodtide so they could proceed to shore safely. The Latin term for this was ob portu...a ship standing over against a port waiting for the precise moment to move. From it we derive our word "opportunity". For Joshua and the tribes of Israel, the ob portu happened when God caused the flooded Jordan to be damned upstream. As the Red Sea parted for Moses, the Jordan receded for Joshua and the Israelites were ready to cross and begin a new day in a new land.

There are stages of development through which we all pass in a lifetime...from child to adult, from single to married, from life lived for self to life lived for Christ, from life itself to death. These are crossings which are defining moments for individuals and churches. The stages we cross change us. There is no turning back. Many churches turn away in fear and settle for the predictable. Fewer are those who hand fear over to trust that God has something better in mind for the future.

Today is our defining moment...our ob portu, the opportunity that will not come to us again. Trusting that God will guide and provide for tomorrow, we will sacrifice today.

I send you forth to the land
Which has been promised
That it has been promised is all I know
I do not know the shape of the land
The route which you must go,
The dangers certain to befall.

My small experience leads me to suggest
You should expect your share of desert places
Where oases vanish upon close inspection
And water springs up from unlikely places.
Also, you should beware the golden calf
Or any beast pretending to be God
The likely candidates will have immense appeal
And an unpleasant aftertaste.

The great advantage of the Promised Land
Is that it will wait for you
If on the road a man waylaid by thieves
Or startling beauty should distract you
There is time.

You will know when you have reached the land
By the sudden fear you feel
At the edge of grace
And the strong pull of familiar Egypt on your soul
And the knowledge that there is no turning back.

All of the sermons that have appeared in text form on our Web Site since August 1996 are available here in the On-Line version. Use the search engine below to find the sermon you want. You may search by date, sermon title, or content. The sermons are full-text searchable.

Sermon Search:



Exact phrase    All words (AND)    Any word (OR)