Hold Your Peace

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, and happy Sunday to you all. It’s good to have you here with us in worship today, both in person and online.

Just a few housekeeping announcements as we begin this morning.

The men’s ministry group will be meeting tonight at 6:00 in the young at heart classroom. It’s too cold to be out at the pavilion now, isn’t it? All men are invited to attend.

We’ll be having a deacons meeting this Tuesday at 7:00. If you’re a deacon, please try to attend.

We also have a new Wednesday night youth group that will be meeting from 6:30 - 7:30. All youth are welcome to that.

We’re also once again holding our Christmas cookie caper on Wednesday, December 22, to bake cookies that will be delivered to the Stuarts Draft Retirement Community. Keep an eye out for more information on that.

And keep in mind as well the form in your bulletin to fill out if you wish to purchase a poinsettia this year. That’s poinsettia. I’ve been practicing all week.

Della, can you update us on all things Christmas?

And George, would you like to give an update?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of life and for the grace to be gathered in your presence again this day. You created us to worship and to praise you, and we are here to fulfill this purpose.

Your light shines in darkness and darkness cannot comprehend it. We call upon your presence as we start today’s gathering. Come and let every evil and darkness disappear. As we go today, fill our hearts with joy, recharge and refill us with the sweetness of your presence. Give us the strength to live all the rest of our lives for you.

Sermon

I love the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. One of my favorite times of the year. But I came across an interesting article this week — interesting but sad — that said 1 in 4 Americans don’t want to celebrate Thanksgiving this year.

It’s not because they’re afraid of getting sick. I think at this point most of us have gone so long worrying about that we’re just tired of it.

The reason is actually worse, and it goes right to the heart of what’s been plaguing our nation for a while now.

They just don’t want to argue anymore. People are tired of fighting, and they’re tired of fighting with family.

Politics is the biggest reason given for this, of course. Christianity was once our unofficial national religion, but now it’s politics.

There’s always been a political divide in most families, and that’s usually based on anything from age to where members of that family live.

But by all accounts, liberal and conservative, that divide is wider now. It just seems like no matter how careful we try to be nowadays, we can’t help but get caught up in some sort of argument with someone. Family included.

And it’s gotten so bad that a pretty large chunk of our population have decided they’d rather be alone than with family this coming week, because at least then they won’t have to hear something said that’s going to make them mad.

That’s terrible, isn’t it? But it’s also makes sense given the times in which we live.

This is a period of history defined by outrage. We can’t go online, can’t even seemingly have a conversation, without hearing hateful speech and name calling and complaints.

You try to keep up with the news — which we all should; you should always understand what’s going on in the world both as good Christians and good citizens — but it’s almost impossible because news isn’t news anymore. It’s never the facts, it’s always facts twisted and bent toward one ideology or the other.

Turn on cable news, and it’s never opposing sides reasoning with each other in order to find common ground. It’s opposing sides yelling at each other and calling each other names and generally talking in a way that would get them sent to the principal’s office if they were in elementary school.

Everywhere you turn, you’re left convinced that your side is the only side keeping the world together.

It’s the other side that’s doing everything they can to unravel the little bit of civilization and society that we have left. Everywhere you turn, there’s destructive speech that only drives us further apart.

James wrote “The tongue is a fire, from the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.”

But they are this way, aren’t they? Outrage defines our news, our entertainment, our workplaces. It’s now even in our churches and our families, and it’s tearing us all apart at the seams.

It’s not enough to prove someone wrong, we have to prove them evil. It’s not enough to argue their claims, we have to argue their character.

The only peace we want is the kind we think will come only after the destruction of the other side, and that’s no peace at all.

Psalm 2:1 says, “Why do the nations rage, and the peoples plot in vain?” and that could be about nation right now.

And let me tell you this, because I mean it. If this culture of outrage in our country is going to be fixed, it won’t be the politicians that do it. They need that outrage, because it gives them power.

And it won’t be the media. They need that outrage because it gives them money.

It won’t be the social media companies. They need that outrage because it gives them power and money.

And it won’t be the normal person on the street either, because the human heart isn’t made for peace at all, it’s made for division because it’s filled with sin.

That’s why it can only be us to start fixing this mess. It can only be Christians. It can only be Christ’s church.

In all the uproar of the world, we have to be the peace. That same Psalm that begins wondering why the nations rage and the people plot in vain? It ends by saying that we must worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling.

And that begins with the way we react to people we disagree with, whether it’s strangers on the street or someone sitting right beside you in church or a member of your family.

But how do we get there? Turn with me to the book of Exodus, chapter 14. We’ll be reading verses 10-16, and verses 19-20:

When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly.

And the people of Israel cried out to the LORD. They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will work 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 be silent.”

The LORD said to Moses, “Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward. Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.”

And now skip down to verses 19 and 20:

Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

And this is God’s word.

This is one of the most well-known stories of the entire Bible, the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt.

The Israelites had been held as slaves for 430 years, and they cried out to God to save them. God had sent Moses to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh had refused to let the nation go.

Then came the plagues, and it was only when the firstborn son of every Egyptian and even the livestock was struck dead by God that Pharaoh finally called Moses and said, “Go. Take your people and go.”

But then Pharaoh changes his mind. He sends his army into the desert after the Israelites, and it’s the most powerful army in the world. Chariots and horses, spears and bows. It’s death charging right at them in a cloud of dust that shakes the earth.

And the Israelites, so happy to be freed just a little while ago, are now terrified. Because there’s no way they can defeat Pharaoh’s army. The Israelites don’t have any military training. They don’t even have any weapons. And they fly into a panic.

It’s one thing to be a slave, but at least as a slave you’re alive. But Pharaoh isn’t interested in returning the Israelites to slavery. He’s going to kill them all.

They cry out to God. They cry out to Moses, and in verse 12 we see the first instance of what the Israelites will say over and over again until they finally reach the Promised Land: “...it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

Moses tries to calm the people even as the Egyptian army is bearing down. He tells them not to fear. He tells them to stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord.

And then he says these beautiful words in verse 14, which is one of my favorite verses in all of scripture: “The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent.”

That’s how my translation handles that last phrase. That’s the English Standard Version. The NIV is the most commonly used translation now, and in the NIV, verse 14 ends with, “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.”

I don’t think either of those gets it exactly right. The Hebrew uses a different phrasing that means a whole lot more than being still and silent, and that translation is actually much closer in the good old King James. The King James says in verse 14, “The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace.”

“Ye shall hold your peace.” There it is. There’s the cure for all of the yelling and screaming and arguing and outrage that’s taken hold of us all.

That’s not really a familiar expression nowadays — “hold your peace.” In the old days it meant more than keeping quiet, more than stopping all of the arguing and complaining.

So what does that phrase mean then, exactly?

Sometimes when you’re defining something, it helps to describe it’s opposite. The best way I know of explaining the opposite of holding your peace is one of my favorite stories about a traveling businessman.

He’d been on the road for months, going from one city to another selling his goods. By the end of his trip, he was tired and cranky. One day he was driving on a dirt road way out in the country, just the middle of nowhere, when he got a flat tire.

He pulled over by the side of the road and rummaged through the trunk of the car he’d rented. He found the spare, found the lug wrench. But there was no jack.

He looked around and saw an old farmhouse in the distance, and he said to himself, “Farmers usually have just about anything. I bet those people have a jack I can borrow.”

So he starts walking toward that house. But as he walked, he started thinking to himself the way a businessman would.

He thought, “Sure, those people might have a jack. But I bet they won’t let me borrow it, because I’m a stranger. I bet they’ll me pay to borrow it. Farmers are poor, they need all the money they can get.

“And I bet it won’t be just a little money, either. I bet they’ll make me pay $50, or even $100. Imagine that, having to pay $100 just to borrow a jack! It’s robbery.

“And I bet they won’t even let me borrow a jack at all. They’ll make me pay all that money to borrow it, then just shut the door in my face.”

By then, the businessman had reached the house. And he was mad. He banged on the door and waited.

After a minute the farmer answered. He opened the door and smiled and said, “Help you, Stranger?”

The businessman answered, “Who do you think you are, taking advantage of me like that? You can keep your stupid jack.”

And he turned around and stomped away.

Now we can laugh at that, and we should, but it’s also the mindset that most of the people in this country are walking around with every day.

We’re always looking for something to offend us, something to rile us, something to get us mad. And a great deal of it, most of it, isn’t real at all. It’s centered right here, right in our brains.

That’s what holding your peace helps fix. It means to take a breath and not get so wrapped up in the moment.

It means to distance yourself mentally and emotionally from your circumstances rather than letting your circumstances overwhelm you.

It means practicing self-control. That is holding your peace. And when you learn to hold your peace, you give yourself space enough to use godly wisdom.

All of that sounds fine and good, doesn’t it? The problem is that holding your peace is something we really struggle with because it goes so much against the nature of the flesh.

So what do we need to understand about God’s command to hold our peace in order to practice it in our lives?

Here are three things Moses teaches us in this passage: first, holding your peace is active, not passive. Second, it’s an act of faith and not fear. And third, it’s means looking away, not at.

Okay? First, it’s active, not passive.

It’s not “you need only to be silent,” and it’s not “you need only to be still.” Because that sounds passive, doesn’t it? That sounds like Moses is telling the Israelites to just sit down and let God do it all, you don’t have any responsibility here.

In fact, it’s just the opposite. Verse 14 isn’t a suggestion, is it? It’s a command. Your translation might even have an exclamation point at the end of that verse to emphasize this.

The people of Israel are crying out for help, this is God’s answer. He’s saying, “I’ll help you, but you have to do this in order to receive My help.”

You see? That moment when someone says or does something that makes you mad — that moment you’re reading that article or hearing that bit of news and outrage takes hold — it can feel like weakness to not respond. It can even make you feel like a coward, like you’re not standing up for what you believe is right.

But if you truly want God to work through you and around you in those circumstances, then you have to make the decision not to respond right away.

You have to collect yourself first, because Moses knew what psychologists now are finally starting to understand: there’s a danger in speaking or acting when we’re emotional.

That’s why the best thing we can do when we find ourselves in an argument is to pause before responding. Give yourself some space to calm down first, because our emotions can leave us deaf to God’s voice.

That’s what verse 14 is all about. The Egyptian army is bearing down, the people of Israel are crying out to God, but they’re in such a panic that if God did something now, they wouldn’t be in the right state to hear him, much less act. So Moses says, stop. Wait. Take a breath. Hold your peace.

It’s not just sitting. It’s not just being silent. It’s being an active participant. Everything that’s listed there in verse 13 — fear not, stand firm, see the salvation of the Lord — depends on the Israelites doing their part. It all depends on them holding their peace.

If you can’t do that in your own life, you’ll always be ruled by your emotions. You’ll always be at the mercy of the moment.

Now, second, holding your peace is an act of faith and not fear.

When we surrender our need to feed outrage and react in the moment, what happens?

There’s a chain of events that take place in verses 14 and 15.

If the Israelites didn’t do what Moses says in verse 14 — if the didn’t hold their peace — then they wouldn’t have what happens in verse 15 — God speaks.

We can’t hear God’s voice while we’re wrapped up in our own emotions. He might speak, but we won’t be able to listen because our feelings — our worry, our fear, but especially our anger — will drown out everything else.

Holding your peace means separating yourself from your emotions enough to hear God speak. It means trusting God to make a way where there doesn’t seem to be one. That’s what the Israelites do in verse 14. Because of that, God speaks. But listen to what God says:

“Why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.”

Now, first — what an answer that is. Scripture doesn’t record Moses praying here, but he does, because here’s God’s answer.

The Israelites have done everything right so far. They’ve held their peace instead of giving themselves over to the fear of the huge army coming right at them. They’re being active, not passive.

So Moses cries out, and God says, “You know what, it’s great that you’re praying to me right now, but sometimes a prayer is done with words and sometimes a prayer is done with action, and this is one of those action times. So get moving.”

But get moving where? Of course God doesn’t tell the Israelites to move toward the army charging right at them.

They’re probably thinking God will tell them to go left instead, or go right — get out of the way somehow. But no. God tells them what? He tells them to go forward.

Forward. And what’s forward? What’s right in front of the Israelites right now? The Red Sea.

The first part of keeping your peace is an act of will. It’s choosing not to surrender to your emotions, not to lash out.

It’s to not give that knee-jerk reaction that usually leads to saying or doing something that’s not only wrong Biblically, but will make you regret it later.

And that’s an act of trust, isn’t it? You’re trusting God to show you a better way of handling whatever situation you’re in, whether you’re talking to someone or just reading someone’s Facebook post.

That’s the first part — giving yourself a pause to let God speak. The second part isn’t an act of trust, it’s an act of faith.

Because a lot of times, that pause you give for God to speak will result in God saying something that sounds completely wrong. Like turning around and walking toward a sea of water.

It does no good if we do all the work to go against that natural impulse to lash out and give ourselves over to things like panic and anger if the result is we don’t do what God says.

And doing what God says requires faith — not in ourselves, but in Him. It takes trust to step back and let God take control, and it takes faith to step out and act on what God tells us to do.

But what’s the result of that trust and faith? Peace. That’s God’s antidote to fear.

In the middle of whatever turmoil we might be facing, it’s God’s peace that grounds us and shores up our faith. It’s a peace that lets us focus on Him instead of our circumstances, and to see His power instead of our own weakness.

And here’s the great thing: God says we should hold our peace because that results in even more peace.

The peace of God is our assurance that He’s totally, powerfully, supernaturally, and perfectly in control. Faith says God can do everything that’s necessary. Peace says that everything God does is necessary.

The Israelites are going on faith right here, aren’t they? Because there were two directions they could run and maybe survive, right or left. Instead, God sends them right into one of the directions that looks like certain death.

Everything in them right now is screaming that they’re going to die. It’s suicide to go towards the Red Sea.

Remember, God gave Moses direction on what to do. He told Moses to stretch out his rod and God would part the waters and let the Israelites pass over safely.

But the Israelites don’t know this. They don’t know what God’s going to do. All they know is that Moses is telling them to go toward the water.

That’s the act of faith, and that leads to our third point today: Holding your peace means looking away, not looking at.

Now, what do I mean by that? The Israelites have been told to move forward. Head toward the Red Sea.

But I’m sure they’re still scared. Who wouldn’t be? They’re completely overwhelmed emotionally, and rightfully so, because the entire Egyptian army is closing in.

You’ve heard of the fight or flight response? When we’re in extreme danger, our impulse is either to run away as hard as you can or fight back as hard as you can. But there’s also a third option, and it’s one that happens quite a bit: you freeze.

That’s what the third point is all about. Look at what happens in verses 19 and 20:

Then the angel of God who was going before the host of Israel moved and went behind them, and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them, coming between the host of Egypt and the host of Israel. And there was the cloud and the darkness. And it lit up the night without one coming near the other all night.

The Israelites are being led, aren’t they? By who? The angel of God. And who is the angel of God in the Old Testament? Jesus. In this instance, in the form of a cloud. That’s the first thing we need to understand.

Here’s the second: Up until this point, the angel of God had been going before the Israelites. He’s been leading from the front, like all good leaders do.

But as the Egyptian army closes in, what happens? That cloud moves from in front of the Israelites to behind them, right in between them and the Egyptian army.

Now I’m sure you’ve read this story a hundred times, and I know you’ve been taught that the angel positioned himself that way in order to protect the Israelites. It was to stop the Egyptians from moving forward while God parts the Red Sea. And that’s true.

But I think there’s also another reason. I think it was also an act of mercy for Israel.

Think about it this way. Everything here depends on the Israelites holding their peace, right? Remaining calm. Not allowing the moment to overwhelm them.

How well do you think they can do that if all they see is that army bearing down on them? All those charging chariots, all those swords?

What if the cloud didn’t move just to hide the Israelites from the Egyptians?

What if the cloud also moved to hide the Egyptians from the Israelites, so they could look away from their circumstances and directly at God?

It’s a shift of focus, isn’t it? It’s a change in perspective. And how often have we talked about a change in perspective being the key to knowing and doing God’s will?

When the angel moved, it let the Israelites shift their thinking from all the fear and worry they felt to the protection and peace of God. And look what happens as a result — one of the greatest miracles in all the Bible.

This story has been preserved all these thousands of years later just to show us what God is able to accomplish when we stop interfering and let Him take control.

There’s no limit to what God can do, but there are limits to what He will do. And one of those limits is that God will never just shove us out of the way and assume control of our circumstances.

He will always wait for us to surrender our control to Him, and that begins with holding our peace.

It’s so easy nowadays to get swept up in all the anxious panic of life. So easy to constantly switch from one piece of news to the next, keep scrolling our phones, keep hitting refresh, looking for what politician said something stupid, or how the stock market it doing, or which protest is happening.

I’m not saying stick your head in the sand and ignore it all. We’re not supposed to do that as Christians. But we’re not supposed to focus on the chariots and swords either.

It’s all about striking a balance, all about holding our peace, and the secret to doing that is to understand that the God of the universe is still in control, even in the middle of so much uncertainty and chaos.

As believers, we have a vital role to play in this point in history. We’re all called to be like Moses in Exodus 14, and be the voice of calming the people around us instead of adding to all the shouting.

We’re to remind people of God’s faithfulness, and then show them what it looks like to hold onto God’s peace when our emotions threaten to get the better of us.

This is a time for us to show that we’re different, that our faith is more than just on the surface. That we don’t simply trust God for the answers, we trust Him because He is the answer.

This Thanksgiving and Christmas season when you sit down with your family, make that time a joyful one. And the next time you’re tempted to be outraged, to argue, to fly off the handle and let anger get the better of you, remember:

Hold your peace. Give yourself at least five minutes before you respond, because that gives just enough time for God to speak to you, and often you’ll realize that the words you would have said or the thing you would have done isn’t the right decision at all.

Don’t think that the state of the world hinges on that comment you make, or that argument you add to. Let God to His work through you. Be a peacemaker. Be light. Be joyful.

Let’s pray:

Father this part of the year is meant to be a special time, an almost holy time of first giving thanks for one another and for all of our blessings, and then of thanks for the birth of your son. But we know that so many things can get in the way of that thankfulness. Our grief can, our worries, our fears. We live in such a contentious world, Father. Help us to be the light of peace in it. Arm us with kind words and gentle deeds a love for all people. Help us, Father, to learn the strength and the blessings of holding our peace. Let all we do and everything we are be a reflection of your great love and forgiveness for us. For it’s in Jesus’s name we ask it, Amen.