The Wilderness Trek

The Wilderness Trek

Genesis 12:1-4; Hebrews 11:8-10

Delivered February 6, 2011

My last sermon in my previous church was on these scripture texts. That was a year and a half ago. This is not the same sermon I am preaching today, but I am using the same scripture texts. When I preached that sermon at an outdoor worship service and picnic in Pennsylvania, I felt like Abraham when it says of him, “he did not know where he was going.” I literally did not know where I was going or what I was going to do. All I knew was that after more than 31 years of doing ministry, I was burned out. 

I needed some time off, so I decided to take a year off from ministry – a true sabbatical. No agenda, no study program, no plans. When people asked me what I was going to do, I said “I don’t know.” People did not like the uncertainty of that, so they decided I must be retiring. That is what the people in my previous church kept saying to each other. I wasn’t retired, although I wondered it it might evolve into that. I was just waiting on God.

Then this amazing thing happened. The Federated Church of Sandwich suddenly needed a new pastor, right at the time I was starting to look to get back into ministry – and here we are! But I still feel like Abraham. Even after he left Mesopotamia and got to the Promised Land, he was still in transition. He got to the Land of Canaan, and he then said, “Now what, Lord?” That is what I am asking, “Now what, Lord?” We are in the wilderness – me and you. 

Last night I finished reading Over the Hill Hikers by Shirley Elder Lyons. This group started right about the time I first came to Sandwich in 1982. These people traveled the wilderness literally and physically. As I read the book, I realized that they were also much like a church. They cared for each other. They walked together, and never left anybody behind. They had rules; they had fellowship; they had adventures, food, and celebrations.  It was tough going but it was very rewarding. They were wilderness trekkers. That is what the church is called to be.

The wilderness figures prominently in the Bible. Israel spent forty years in the wilderness of Sinai until God finally allowed them to enter into the Promised Land. Elijah, when pursued by the wicked queen Jezebel went into the wilderness for forty days until finally on a mountainside he heard the still small voice of God. The Israelites were taken from their homes in Jerusalem through the wilderness to Babylon, and had to return the same wilderness route. John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea. If you wanted to hear him preach you had to travel into the wilderness; no padded pews or heated sanctuary for his flock. After being baptized by John, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days. The wilderness is an important part of the spiritual life in the Bible, and it still is an important part of the spiritual life today. So I want to talk about the wilderness.

 1. First, the wilderness is a place of calling. Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”   Genesis 12:1 records the words of that call “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.” Abraham was called to leave home and go into the wilderness. 

We are called to a future. I believe this church has a great future. It has a great past, but we are not called to go back to the past. We are called to go into the future with God. We don’t know for sure where we are going. We don’t know what this church is going to look like in 5 or 10 or 20 years. Some of you are afraid of what the future holds for this church. I hear that and I sense it. Some are afraid about the finances. Some are afraid about maintaining two buildings. Some are afraid that you would be able to draw the children and young parents back into the church. Some are afraid you won’t be able to have a fulltime pastor in the future, and then what? 

I am here to tell you, “Do not be afraid.” That was one of Jesus’ main messages. We find those words on the lips of Jesus over and over again when addressing his disciples. If God is for us, who can be against us? It is true that we don’t know what the future will be like, but we know that God is calling us to the future.  And we know that if God is there, then it will be alright.

2. Second, the wilderness is a place of testing. These future years will be a time of testing our faith and our trust in God. Do we really trust God or do we trust in our trust funds and investments. Do we trust in God’s resources or our own? Do we trust in God’s leading or do we rely on our own wisdom? Think of the wilderness experiences in the Bible: the Hebrews’ 40 years in the wilderness of the Sinai, Elijah’s forty days in the wilderness, the Israelites 70 years of captivity in Babylon, Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. The wilderness is a tough place. The wilderness is uncomfortable. It’s a place where we will be tested. 

 3. Third, the wilderness is a place of obedience. Hebrews 11:⁸ “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go….” Abraham could have said no to God. He could have stayed in Ur of the Chaldees. His family was wealthy and secure back there. But Abraham obeyed when he was called to go. In the Wilderness of Sinai, Israel did not obey. They kept wanting to go back to Egypt where they had food and shelter and work, where they felt secure. So what if they were slaves? They would rather be slaves under Pharaoh in Egypt than free under God in the wilderness. That is the temptation to retreat into the past, and that is why it is so important to obey God in the wilderness.

4. Fourth, the wilderness is a place of unknowing. Hebrews 11:⁸ “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” I love that phrase: “And he went out, not knowing….” I love it because that is how I am feeling. I don’t have all the answers. I have some ideas. I hope they are from God. I hope some of those ideas will work. I know some will fail. I know we will have to try lots of different things and see what works. I do know that what worked in the 1980’s will not work in the 2010’s. This is going to be trial and error. But we have to be unafraid to try and unafraid to fail – over and over again. 

The apostle Paul wrote, "Let us not become weary in doing good: for in due season we will reap, if we don't faint." (Galatians 6:9) Thomas Edison failed over 6,000 times before creating the first electric light bulb. On one occasion a young journalist challenged Edison saying to him, "Mr. Edison, why do you keep trying to make light by using electricity when you have failed so many times? Don't you know that gas lights are with us to stay?" Edison replied, "Young man, I have not failed. I have successfully discovered six thousand ways that don't work!"

We may discover many ways that don’t work. But if we persevere we will also discover ways that do work! The wilderness is a place of unknowing because we do not know what is out there. It is also a place of unknowing because we are going to have to unlearn things. Churches have a tendency to do things the way we have always done things. In the wilderness we have to unlearn that. The rhythm of my life will change and the rhythm of this church’s life will change. We have to unlearn some things and admit we do not have all the answers. 

 5. Fifth, the wilderness is a place of faith. Our scripture lesson says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out….” Faith is what the wilderness is all about. Think of the Hebrews in the wilderness after being freed from Egypt in the Exodus. They were leaving the security – albeit the slavery - of life in Goshen to go into the desert. What would they eat? What would they drink? They had to go completely on faith. God provided for them manna in the desert and water from a rock. We have to walk not by sight but by faith. God will provide. And it will be good. God works all things out together for good. 

What is the Federated Church of Sandwich now? What will it be? This is a time for faith. Not depending on old patterns and an old identity but stepping out in faith. God will form us into a new people just as God formed the Hebrews into a new people in the wilderness and God formed Abraham into a new person, even changing his name from Abram to Abraham, signifying the change. We will change – this church will change - in the ways that we need to change. Trust God to accomplish that change.

6. Sixth, the wilderness is a place of promise. “⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Abraham got to the promised land of Canaan pretty quickly after the call. The call came in Genesis 12:1-4 and he is in the land of Canaan in the next verse. But when they got there, he found that the Promised Land was still the wilderness for him. By verse 10 there is a famine in the land, and he has to leave Canaan to go to Egypt. 

Abraham never settled in the Promised Land. He never owned any of the land of Canaan except a cave as his family burial plot. The story of Abraham tells us that life is a journey. That is why I entitled this message “The Wilderness Trek.” The story of Abraham is an allegory of our lives. Our lives are a trek through the wilderness. The only place we really own in this world is the few square feet of ground where our body will be placed when we die. If who are cremated may not even have that if our ashes are scattered. As the hymn says, “This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” Our lives are a wilderness trek; we follow a trail through the wilderness, traveled by saints before us. We are headed toward a goal, the land of promise, but it is not in this world. 

7. Seven, the wilderness is a place of tents. Our passage says in verse 9 “By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Abraham spent all of his life dwelling in tents. His son Isaac and grandson Jacob lived in tents “in the land of promise as strangers in a foreign country.” Not until his great-grandson Joseph did one of his descendents settle in a land, and then it was not the land of Canaan but the land of Egypt. And you know how that turned out. 

Being on this wilderness trek of faith is like camping. If you have been camping you know camping just isn’t like being home. It is not as comfortable or easy. Church ministry is like living in tents. It is not comfortable or easy. We can’t get too attached to the landscape. Things are fluid in a church. People come and go; pastors, interim pastors and even transformational pastors - come and go. Church members come and go. How many of us are going to be sitting in these pews and serving in positions in twenty years? That is life! 

The apostle Paul calls our bodies a tent. In talking about the resurrection in 2 Corinthians 5 the apostle Paul says, “¹ For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ² For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, ³ if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. ⁴ For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” Paul ought to know something about tents since he was a tentmaker. The apostle Peter uses the same image in 2 Peter 1: ¹³ “Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, ¹⁴ knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.”

Living in tents is a colorful way of saying that things are temporary. Abraham and his family lived in tents in the wilderness even when they reached the land of Canaan. We dwell in tents. God instructed the Hebrew people that when they finally settled in the Promised Land and built houses and planted vineyards, that they had to take a week out of every year to leave their homes and live in tents. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, known in Hebrew as Sukkot. Jews still observe it today. The tents remind them of the time they spent in the wilderness, and we need that reminding also. 

 8. Eighth, the wilderness is a place of waiting. “⁹ By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; ¹⁰ for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” We are still waiting for the City of God, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven a bride adorned for her husband. We are waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to come to earth - for God’s kingdom to come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Jesus told a lot of waiting parables. He continually instructed his disciples to watch and pray. 

We have to wait. It doesn’t mean we don’t do anything. I am going to be doing a lot. I am going to be busy. You are going to be busy as a church.. But while we are busy, we need to wait. Wait on God. Seek the leading of God. Watch and pray. We need to make sure we are following the direction of God. We have to learn how to function together as pastor and people. 

This is going to take time. And we have all the time we need. Because we have now. All we ever have is now. When we live faithfully, obediently in the present – which is the presence of God – then we are exactly where we ought to be. We are living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit through the wilderness, being led by God every step of the way, waiting on God to guide us. God’s timing is perfect when we keep in step with him. As he led the Hebrew people by the pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night, he will lead us. Wait on his leading, and enjoy this trek through the wilderness.