Don’t Look Back

We are 15 short weeks away from Relaunch Sunday.

15 Sundays from today we’ll lay hands on people and send them as church planters

15 Sundays from today, we will have raised $50,000 above our regular tithes and offerings

Today, we are in the process of BECOMING Ambassador Church, but 15 Sundays from today we will BE Ambassador Church!

And I know by the Spirit of God that while we are in the process of bringing forth this new church, that God is birthing something new in many of our lives as individuals and as households.

With all this newness in the air, I think it is good to take a moment to discuss the greatest future killer there is…a thing called nostalgia.

Beloved, the greatest threat to a bright tomorrow is a romanticized yesterday.

Often, the number one thing holding us back from the future that God intends for us is our comfort and familiarity with the past.

We think that we want to be free.

We say that we want to be made new.

We sing that the latter will be greater .

But the reality is that there comes a moment in every journey when the old begins to look better than the new…

There are days in every freedom journey when bondage seems better.

There are days in every holiness journey when sin seems better.

There are days in every marriage journey when singleness seems better.

There are days in every single journey when marriage seems better.

There are days in every parenting journey when childlessness seems better.

There are days in every entrepreneurship journey when a 9 to 5 seems better.

There are days in every education journey when not having any classes seems better.

And I could go on…

But let it suffice to say again, There are days in every journey when the old seems better than the new.

This text before us - the parting of the Red Sea - is the most discussed miracle of the Bible.

The great narratives refer it.

The prophets invoke it.

The psalmist reflects on it.

And the apostles exegete it.

And the reason for the pervasive presence of the miracle in the scripture is the profound message is carries in the grand scheme of God.

The humiliation of Pharaoh was for the edification of Israel.

The people of God needed to see the dead carcasses of Egyptian soldiers washing up on the seashore as clear evidence that their Egypt season was dead too.

They needed the waters to open up allowing them to pass through and then close back again so that they could understand that it is impossible for them to go backward to Egypt.

But, alas the message seems to have taken hold in the hearts of only about 3 people. Moses, the leader, and two little boys named Joshua and Caleb.

From this point forward, the Children of Israel will serve primarily as a counterexample in the book of Exodus (at this point, the people become a model of what not to do).

If the first half of Exodus is the story of God working to get Israel out of Egypt.

Then, the second half of Exodus is the story of God working to get Egypt out of Israel.

In performing the miracle of parting the Red Sea, God was communicating to Israel the most important lesson for overcoming the inevitable challenges of the wilderness.

And so I want to preach that message to us, this morning, as we prepare to venture out on a Journey with God.

So I’ve titled this of sermon, “Don’t Look Back”.

PRAYER

God says to Israel and He says to us: YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO FIGHT SOME BATTLES, AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

If you jump back up to the end of chapter 13, you will see that there was a shorter route to get to Canaan.

But the text says that God did not send the people that way because that route passed through the land of the Philistines.

And as the Israelites would later discover, the Philistines were some thugs.

And God said, these poor babies are not ready for a fight yet, and so He sent them around the way of the Red Sea.

But, Pharaoh changed his mind again and decided that it would not be good for Egypt to let all their slaves go free. So he sent an army to recapture them.

They dodged a fight with the Philistines. Then the Egyptians brought a fight to them.

Beloved, as we journey with the Lord, we are going to face some battles.

We don’t need to get into unnecessary conflict…we should go around the Philistines as often as we can.

But, there will be times when the fight is unavoidable

Be sober-minded; be watchful, 2 Peter says. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.

Sometimes you will come under the attack of the devil.

Cars break down.

Bodies get sick.

Money gets funny.

People act crazy.

In the words of Forrest Gump, “It happens”.

When the people of God saw the Egyptian army riding down on them, they started complaining against Moses.

Exodus 14:11–12 (ESV)

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.”

Beloved that mindset will you keep in bondage…unfulfilled…and far away from your purpose.

IT IS NOT BETTER TO LIVE AS SLAVE THAN IT IS TO DIE FREE!

The mindset that gives birth to freedom is the mindset that says, “Come what may, I’ve got to get out of this place.”

Esther said, “If I perish, I perish. But, I am going to talk to the king.”

The four lepers, in 2 Kings chapter 7 said, “Why sit we here until we die. Let us go over into the enemy’s camp.”

The founding fathers had this mantra, “Live free or die.”

And the Civil Rights generation sang this song, “Oh freedom. Oh freedom. Oh freedom over me. And before I become a slave, I’ll be buried in my grave. And go home to my Lord and be free.”

Listen, Beloved, the devil does not fight his salves.

The Egyptians never chased Israel in their chariots while Israel was enslaved.

THE REASON THE DEVIL IS FIGHTING YOU SO HARD IS BECAUSE HE CAN SEE YOUR POTENTIAL TO WREAK HAVOC ON HIS KINGDOM OF DARKNESS.

Do not respond to his attacks by running back to his chains.

Fight the battle. AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

God says to Israel and He says to us: YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO SOLVE SOME PROBLEMS, AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

I love the lesson that the Lord teaches Moses in Exodus 14:15-16

Exodus 14:15–16 (ESV)

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.

That word “cry” in the text is Hebrew word that describes “loud vocal expression intended to draw attention”

God is saying to Moses, you can’t pray in your freedom the way you prayed in your bondage.

When you were slaves in Egypt, your prayer was “God look on our affliction”

All you had to do was bring attention to yourself and invoke my compassion to come to your aid.

But, now you’ve got to learn to pray differently now.

Teacher Aziza and I have 6 kids. Our oldest, Azaria, is 12 years old. Our youngest, Cole, is 7 months.

Now, Cole - our 7 month old - communicates with us only by crying.

He cries in order to bring attention to himself

Then mommy or daddy comes to see about him.

And we have to troubleshoot the situation

Is he hungry

Is he sleepy

Does he need diaper change

But, we expect more from Azaria

She has lived with us a lot longer than Cole has…She knows us better…

We expect Azaria to be able to apply our approach and way of thinking to certain situations on her own.

She knows to shower and make her bed in the morning.

She knows how to cook a little meal if she is hungry.

Sometimes the baby cries when Aziza or I walks out of the room. But, we expect Azaria to be confident of our presence even when she can’t see us.

Azaria has learned to speak our language. So, we expect her to be able to ask for what she needs.

Beloved, God wants to give you a prayer life that goes beyond expressing the deep distress, the fierce urgency, and the great desperation of your problems. God says,

You’ve got to learn how to discern My will.

You’ve got to learn to walk in My ways.

You’ve got to learn how to ask for what you need.

God wants to make us like the sons of Isacar where we are able to discern the situation and know what we should do.

For sure, there will be times when you need to get before God and just throw a fit.

Yes, there will be times when you need specific insight and direction from the Lord.

But, many of us are not babies anymore and it is time to transition from spiritual milk to solid food.

AND WE CANNOT REVERT BACK TO INFANCY EVERY TIME TROUBLE COMES

Create solutions, beloved. AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

God says to Israel and He says to us: YOU ARE GOING TO HAVE TO OWN YOUR FAITH, AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

Exodus 14:30–31 (ESV)

Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore.

Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians, so the people feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses.

When you first read these final two verse of chapter 14, it seems like, “at least the people end up in a place of faith”.

But, if they are in a place of faith, how is it that just two chapters later they are grumbling against Moses again and asking him the same stupid question about “why did you bring us out of Egypt?”

That doesn’t seem to jive.

And as I read it, Holy Spirit reminded me that the language is very similar to another account in the Book of Moses.

In Genesis chapter 15, God comes to a childless man named Abram and promises to give him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.

And in verse 6 of that chapter we read these words, “And he believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Compare these texts

“and they believed in the LORD” (Exodus 14 of Israel)

“And he believed the LORD” (Genesis 15 of Abram)

That “in” is there is the Exodus text because there verb “to believe” is in the Qal from Vav-Conversive

That means that this is simple action

And that the action is prompted by the sequence of events

But in Genesis, the verb is in Hiphil Form.

The Hephil form indicates that the subject caused the action to happen.

So you might translate this, “Abraham chose to believe the Lord…and it was counted to him as righteousness”.

Do you see the difference?

Israel’s faith was inspired by an overwhelming experience. Abram’s faith was inspired by an unshakable confidence.

Israel opened their hearts in response to what God had done. Abram offered his heart in response to what God said.

Israel experienced a moment of faith because they saw a miracle. Abram became the man of faith because he received a word.

Beloved, it is easy to believe God when you’ve just walked through the middle of the Sea on dry land. But, what about when you’re an old man, married to a barren woman, and your vision from God is to have a son.

To own your faith is to believe God when there is no miracle and there is no Moses.

To own your faith is to believe God with no external motivators and not external mediators.

To own your faith is to say to the Lord, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, I TRUST YOUR WORD!

Own your faith, beloved! AND DON’T LOOK BACK.

The message of the miracle at the Red Sea is that going backward is not an option.

It’s right there in the text, “These Egyptians that you see, YOU WILL NEVER SEE THEM AGAIN”.

Beloved, this day that we are living…and all the days we have lived before…no matter how good they were…no matter how bad they were…WE WILL NEVER SEE THESE DAYS AGAIN.

We have to make Elsa and “let it go”.

We can not go to the past. So, we must remain in the presence.

Notice I did not say the “present”.

Sometimes we think that the way we stop focusing on the past is to focus on the present or even the future.

But, sometimes, beloved, present circumstances don’t bring much hope.

And the fact is we do not know the future.

But we do know the Lord. And our hope is in Him.

The great mistake the Israelites made is that they somehow ignored the fact there was a great pillar of cloud and of fire hovering over them.

God was right there, but they were not paying attention to Him.

They were in proximity to God, but they were not in the presence of God.

May it never be said of us…

We don’t have a pillar of cloud and of fire hovering over us. But, we have something much better.

We have the indwelling Holy Spirit living inside of us.

Beloved when hardship makes us pine for the past, we must run to His presence.

I do not know, church, what is ahead for us as a congregation or for you in your personal life.

What I do know is that God is calling us to something greater.

And I know that the devil is going to try to stop us from getting there.

That’s why we must commit today that when hardship comes, we will not look back. But, we will look up… and we will move forward.

I want you to Pray this prayer with me. But more than that, I want you to hold this prayer in your heart as you embark on this Journey with the Lord.

“My future is not defined by where I’ve been. My future is not defined by where I am. My future is defined by WHO YOU ARE. I am going to trust You, Holy Spirit. And I am going to follow You, Holy Spirit, come what may. In Jesus name. Amen.”