Sermon Tone Analysis

Rhythm and Blues

Defining Moments: The Big Step

Jeff Jones, Senior Pastor

May 4~/6, 2007

 

Let’s read this verse out of Ephesians 3 together out loud:  

 

*Slide: ___________________* Ephesians 3:20-21

 

/20//Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!

Amen./

God is able to do immeasurably more than all we could ask or imagine…think about that…ask big, imagine big, as big as you want, and he can do immeasurably more.

To me, this is the “Make my day” verse of the Bible, where God says, “Go ahead, make my day, imagine big.

Make it interesting.”

Two years ago today we did ask and imagine big with our Imagine campaign.

Two years ago was Big Step weekend, where our church took a huge faith step.

We needed to raise at least 15 million dollars in 3 year pledges that day, and the Big Step is when all of us made our decisions, which totaled up to over 16 million dollars.

That was clearly a defining moment for our church and for many of us as individuals.

Today that is what we are talking about, such defining moments, as we revisit the big step two years later, examining where God has us as a church today, what he is calling us to, and what that means for each of us.

As I’ve said many times, it is no accident that you are here.

You are here because God wants you here, and he has a purpose for you.

Today is another defining moment day.

A defining moment is a time in our life where we come to a point of decision that we know will change the trajectory of our lives…a time when God puts a faith challenge in front of us and we have a decision to make.

Many of you may be at some defining moment, some faith challenge point, right now in some area of your life.

You have a sense that God wants you to take some step or make some choice, but it is scary because you don’t know the outcome.

To move forward would force you out of your comfort zone, whether in a relationship, a job situation, or some faith step spiritually or financially.

You have the choice to play it safe and not take the step, or step into the faith adventure.

Such decisions define your life, either as a person who steps forward or a person who holds back.

Today we are talking about such defining moments, such faith steps.

And we are going to do so by taking a fresh look at the passage we considered two years ago, at a time when the nation of Israel was at such a defining moment.

Today we are going to look at Joshua chapters 3 and 4, when Joshua and the people of Israel were standing at the Jordan River, when God had called them to cross that river into the promised land.

If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Joshua 3, as we gain perspective about our defining moments as we look back to their’s.

Let’s read the story together, and then we’ll talk about it:  

*Slide: _______________ *Joshua 3:9-17

/Joshua said to the Israelites, "Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God.

This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites.

See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you.

Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe.

And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD -the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap."

So when the people broke camp to cross the Jordan, the priests carrying the ark of the covenant went ahead of them.

Now the Jordan is at flood stage all during harvest.

Yet as soon as the priests who carried the ark reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water's edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing.

It piled up in a heap a great distance away, at a town called Adam in the vicinity of Zarethan, while the water flowing down to the Sea of the Arabah (the Salt Sea ) was completely cut off.

So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.

The priests who carried the ark of the covenant of the LORD stood firm on dry ground in the middle of the Jordan, while all Israel passed by until the whole nation had completed the crossing on dry ground./

*Slide: _______________*

·         God gives a clear vision

God was not fuzzy about what he wanted them to do—he wanted them to cross the Jordan River and take possession of the promised land.

What was not so clear was the how, but the what was pretty clear.

The what of the vision may sound easy to us looking back since we know how their situation turned out, but what God wanted them to do was staggering in its fear factor.

First, they were to cross the Jordan with a couple of million people, and God has them cross this time of year that we are in now, which is flood stage.

What would normally be a formidable border was now an impossible one—100 feet across and 30 feet deep of billions of gallons of fast moving water.

And then on the other side of the Jordan was no picnic either—seven nations all with real armies and real weapons and real fortresses.

From a human perspective, the Israelites didn’t have a chance, this little rag tag group of slaves from Egypt.

Las Vegas would put their odds at a million to one against them.

But what God told them to do was clear—to cross over and take possession of the land.

And likewise, what God has called his church to do is very clear as well.

He told us to go and make disciples of the nations, to be his witnesses—to bridge people to a transforming life in Christ.

Jesus’ dream and vision for the church is not a fortress but a bridge-building, missional community, helping connect people to God’s love.

Our vision is to bridge people to a great life in Christ.

And it is that vision that is motivating us to take this replant step.

We are not replanting our church because we think it might be fun or we like construction projects.

We want to cross over to the land God has for us because we believe that the 720,000 people in a ten mile radius of our church matter so much to God that he gave the most precious thing he had to save them.

We want to reach them for Christ and be a church that extends Christ’s love to those who are marginalized, the hurting and hopeless and poor.

We want to be a place of rich community where people are loved and where people grow spiritually in the Word of God.

We want to fully express the vision that is Christ’s dream for the church.

We knew that our facilities were constraining that vision, and once we realized that we could not solve our problems on this 11 acres, then we knew it was time to take the step.

When we made the decision as elders to replant our church, it was very clear what God wants us to do.

Yet, it was a huge faith step, and would mean each of us in the church as individuals pray about what our part would be.

Defining moments always involve a point of decision, where we have to respond.

*Slide: _______________*

* You must make a choice

 

God gives the opportunity, and then we must make a decision about what we are going to do.

That’s the way it was for those with Joshua 5000 years ago.

They had to choose to take the step or not.

That was significant for the Israelites, because this was not the first time they stood in front of the Jordan with the opportunity to go in and claim the land.

40 years before, the previous generation stood there on those banks contemplating the big step.

Forty years before, they stood at Kadesh Barnea where God had told them to enter the land.

They sent spies into the land, Joshua being one of them, and when the spies reported the circumstances, they were intimidated from doing what God wanted.

There were millions of reasons they could all think of to not go into the land, a thousand what-if’s, and so even though God was calling them in and Moses, Joshua, and Caleb were ready to go, they stalled.

They hesitated.

They didn’t go.

It was a defining moment for that generation.

As a result, that generation would be defined as the ones who would not take the step.

As a result, that generation would all wander in the wilderness until they died.

That’s how they would always be known, as the generation who did not take the step.

At times in our lives and in the life of a church, God places us at a point of decision that really is a defining moment.

At that point, we have a choice—a choice really about the kind of life we want.

We can wander aimlessly until we die or we can be the kind of people who take faith steps…we can as a church wander aimlessly or we can as a church step out in faith when God calls us.

We can be known as a generation that refused to take the step or the one who chose to move when God said move.

Joshua’s generation would always be known as the ones who did take the step, and they God to see God work.

They were known by the Canaanites as the people who crossed over.

That’s what the Canaanites called them.

And that fact of crossing the Jordan River is what scared those nations silly, because they knew that their God was real and really powerful.

Big steps always involve faith risks, and it is always a risk from our perspective because we don’t know what will happen whenever we take the step.

How willing are you to take risks in your life when you sense God is leading?

Taking risks is not easy for anybody, because it always involves overcoming fears to move forward into the unknown.

We have to overcome fear, but the great news is that we can.

Listen to this quote from Mark Batterson, a pastor out in DC:

 

*Slide: _______________*

According to psychiatric reference books, there are approximately two thousand classified fears.

Those documented fears run the gamut-everything from photophobia (the fear of never looking good in pictures) to arachibutyrophobia (the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth).

There is even a phobiaphobia-the fear of phobias.