Pilgrimage
Entering God’s Promised Land
Philippians 2:1-11
02/10/13
Today we are on the last leg of this Pilgrimage. If
you remember six weeks back, on Epiphany, we started this journey towards God’s
Promised Land. Over the weeks we have learned and discussed a lot here in
worship and in the Bible Study on Monday nights. As we enter into this
last sermon, let me recap very quickly where we have been before we can get to
where we are going.
The first week, which seems so long ago, we talked about
Jesus praying for us in the garden of Gethsemane. There Jesus gives us
the vision and mission of his disciples. His mission for his disciples,
US, is that we are sent out into the world as representatives of God’s love and
in the love of God. This never changes, is always the same, and is always
constant. Jesus’ vision is that we are united with his heart, have joy
which is found in his love, and grow and be formed by the truth.
In the second week we talked about Israelites hearing the
reports from the 12 spies. 10 said that the Promise Land was full of
giants and they shared with everyone a vision of perceived reality, one based
and found in fear. Caleb and Joshua gave a report from an envisioned
reality, or a reality based on faith in God. Then we talked about
overcoming the giants in the land. We have to have faith that God can get
us through anything. Two weeks ago I preached about asking the right
questions and that we need to be asking questions that lead us to God’s
Promised Land and not to boost our own agendas. Last week we discussed
the invitations of Jesus which move us beyond ourselves and beyond our own
walls to the people out there that need to know God.
Today we take the final leg of our Pilgrimage. Today
we will be talking about Entering God’s Promised Land. What is
interesting is in the story of Moses and the Israelites, Moses never enters the
Promise Land. He brings them to the edge and they decided to follow the
reality of the ten spies. They show lack of faith in God and because of
that, they are sent into the wilderness for 40 years. 40 years later they
come back to the edge of the Promise Land. As the waters part in the
Jordan the God’s chosen people enter the land he promised to give them.
Moses is on a mountain top watching and that is where he dies. He sees
the promise land, he watches his people enter it but never does.
Why? Why does Moses, a man of God, who has followed
God’s call to lead his people not enter the promise land? That story goes
back to Numbers 20. They are in the Desert of Zin and Miriam, Moses’
older sister who watched him in the basket on the river from the reeds, has
just died. The people of Israel are thirsty, so very thirsty. They
once again grumble against Moses and Aaron and blame them for their
situation. Moses and Aaron go to the Tent where God’s presence is and
fall down on their faces. God tells them to gather the people and water
will spout out of a rock so everyone will have enough to drink. Moses
does this and strikes the rock twice and when he does water comes out.
Then God tells Moses “You did not trust in me enough to honor me. You did not
honor me as the holy God in front of the people of Israel. So you will not
bring this community into the land I am giving them.” (Numbers 20:12)
Moses did not trust God enough. Moses lost sight of
God’s grace and power. Moses isn’t the only one who battles with
this. There are countless people in the Bible that do not trust God and
end up paying the consequences. Jonah thinks he knows better than God and
attempts to run away but instead he finds himself in the belly of a fish and
spat out three days later. Peter is walking on water with Jesus and then
sinks as he sees the wind and waves. The early churches all struggle with
their faith in God and they seek help from Paul, who writes to them to
encourage and build them up.
That is where we get the message today. The churches
in Philippi are the first churches in Europe. They are the congregations
that made it possible for us to be here today. But in Paul’s absence
others were seeking to push their own agendas and so Paul writes them to make
sure they understand their purpose and their calling as a congregation of
Disciples of Jesus Christ. We see this envisioned reality named by Paul
in the first four verses, “Therefore, if there is any encouragement in Christ,
any comfort in love, any sharing in the Spirit, any sympathy, complete my joy
by thinking the same way, having the same love, being united, and agreeing with
each other. Don’t do anything for selfish purposes, but with humility
think of others as better than yourselves. Instead of each person
watching out for their own good, watch out for what is better for others.”
Once again we hear the echo of Jesus’ second invitation we
talked about last week. We are to die to self for the sake of the Kingdom
of God. If we want to enter the Promise Land of God then we need to
forget about ourselves, our agendas, our desires and concentrate on
others. We have to have this type of attitude as individuals and as a
congregation to be able to enter the Promised Land God is calling us into.
When I was in High School my Sunday School teacher, Dave,
was one of the coolest guys around. He had a Jeep Wrangler AND a Mazda
Miata. He had a house on Lake Norman and worked in the South Park area
making a 6 digit salary. To a High School youth, he was living the life
we had all dreamed of and wanted. Then in my senior year we learned he
was giving it all up. Over the years he had started a ministry called,
“Operation Warm Up.” It took winter clothes that were donated in
Charlotte up to the hollers of West Virginia. Youth would pack up into
teams of mini vans and head into the mountains passing out free clothes.
My senior year we learned that he was giving up his life here in Charlotte and
moving to Gary, WV to live and work with McDowell Missions. He would work
for free. This astonished us youth because he was living the life we
thought we all desired but in reality he was giving up one life for the one we
should really desire. Dave had a better understanding of what God’s
Promised Land looked like and it led him to the cold mountains of West
Virginia, to one of the poorest places in the United States.
Daniel Fogarty is another person who decided God was asking
him to leave his job as a political campaign manager and to pursue another
path. The other path led him to a couple of men who decided they wanted
to help poor people in Charlotte. They had come across families who could
not afford furniture. These families would spend all their money on
rent and utilities so they would have a roof over their heads but nothing to
sleep on. These men found out that kids were sleeping on piles of clothes
and that the only dresser they had to store their clothes in were plastic
garbage bags. Now he runs a ministry called “Beds for Kids.” They
take gently used furniture and furnish families houses with them. The
cost to the family is only $30 but the results from the children actually
sleeping on a bed instead of the floor is amazing. The majority of them
increase their grades by one letter grade only a couple months after sleeping
on their own bed, some for the first time in their lives.
The Apostle Paul was also understood too well what it meant
to live into this attitude of Christ. Paul lived a life that mirrored
Christ’s dedication and love. When he writes to the Philippians in verses
5-11 he gives them the attitude of Jesus. Verse 7-8 says, “But he emptied
himself by taking the form of a slave and by becoming like human beings.
When he found himself in the form of a human, he humbled himself by becoming
obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” Paul understood
this all too well because he was writing this letter to the churches in
Philippi while he was in prison. Paul was in prison because he was
awaiting trial for preaching the gospel of Christ. Paul is taking the
second invitation of Jesus seriously and is willing to do whatever it takes to
build up the Kingdom of God.
Philippians 2:5-11 is known as the kenosis [Ken-o-sis] hymn. Kenosis is
the Greek word that means self-empting, which makes this the self-empting
hymn. It is important to remember this hymn because it is the blueprint
for what we as Jesus’ disciples are supposed to live out but also what we as a
church are to strive for as the Body of Christ. Jesus made a deliberate
choice to walk down the path to the cross. He didn’t have to but his love
for us truly gave him one option. Now we are to let our love for him
overpower our agendas, desires and ideas and model that same love for the
world.
But it is hard to empty one’s self when there is so much
pain involved. It is hard to move beyond a past that can consume us,
burden us, and hold us back. Moses was held back by his struggles with
his leadership abilities. He always doubted, in the back of his head,
that he could not live up to what God was asking him to do. That is
probably part of the reason that he was not let into that Promise Land.
He lacked the faith in God. The thing is God believed in him, God knew he
made the right choice when he talked to Moses in the burning bush, and God was
going to give him what he needed to succeed. It still meant that he had
to work hard, but God was behind him all the way.
We have some things in our past to get over. As the
Bible Study meets on Monday nights we have been talking about such
things. We have discovered that in our past there has been dysfunction,
conflict, and distrust. If you need proof let me show you
something. (hold up pictures of what the new church was projected to look
like)
What is this? The way some of you are moving right now
it is a source of discomfort and it is emotional. This was the plan for a
new church project. It was done five years ago. Five years ago this
place had two services that averaged about what we have here. Things were
hopping and moving forward. People were excited and energized. Then
the bottom fell out of the economy and so did the wind in the sails of this
vision. I am not showing you this to point fingers. I’m not placing blame,
I am only naming a reality in our past we will have to get over. This is
a picture that many believed was our congregation’s Promised Land, but we
didn’t make it.
Does that mean we give up? Does that mean we stare at
this giant in our way and simply go back to Egypt? No, we have to name
our currently reality, look to the past and then move beyond it. Here is
the good thing (flip board over). What does this look like?
To me this is the picture of God’s Promised Land for us here
at Indian Trail UMC. It is full of potential and the sky is the limit for
what it could turn out to be. What it is, is not yet revealed. It
is not drawn out for us yet. I believe though that there is something God
is calling us towards. There is something that can come to light on this
board. This is the future of our congregation. All we need to do is
simply have faith God can bring it into being and work hard to make it happen.
We have giants to face. We have debt to take care of,
a parsonage that needs drastic attention, a fellowship hall that isn’t much
better, and many other issues. We are going in the right direction.
People are excited. But we need to be in constant prayer with God to
figure out what that future should look like. How are we as a congregation
living into the mission and vision of our Savoir? What is our mission and
vision for us as a congregation? What are our goals? What is our
being called to do for Jesus Christ in Indian Trail?
Paul celebrated his struggles because he knew he was living
into the Promise Land God was calling him to. When we have an answer all
those questions I just mentioned, we will be living into that Promised Land as
well. Our journey is not over today, but the hard work is just
beginning. The only way we will enter is if we have faith in the one who
has brought us this far; the one who emptied himself for our sake, and only
demands we do the same for him.
And all God’s people said…Amen.
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