Faith Is A Journey

Announcements: Start by welcoming everyone to the services.

New ways to give:

Online giving on our website has been updated so go check that out. Also, if you have your giving set up on auto through our old website, please go in and make the switch. The system has been greatly simplified and can draft from a card or straight from an account you designate.

You can now text to give by texting the word “Give” and your amount to 509-408-2752. Tell the guys in the sound booth to put up the slide that shows that info. It will ask you to set it up if it is the first time you text to give but after you designate a payment method it won’t ask you to set it up again.

Women’s Bible study Tuesdays at 6:30.

Next steps class #2 directly after service. Food and childcare provided. Next steps class #1 is the prerequisite to that. If you missed class #1 last time, we will be offering it again soon.

There is no refuge student ministries this week.

We are proud sponsors of the Nisqually Basin Youth Baseball league. Banners with our logo hang in all the Yelm baseball fields. We are hosting a coaches appreciation dinner here at The Outpost on June 13th and we need a few people who can help organize and work the event. If you are interested, see Devin after the services to get connected with this great opportunity.

Connection card. If you are new please fill out one of these cards and drop it with the person at the table in the back and get a free shirt or hat. Or…you can just drop it into the brown box on the wall at the back of the auditorium if you would rather do that.

That is all for announcements. You can hand the microphone to Ethan and he will ask everyone to stand and pray. Thank you.

Big Idea: Our faith is a lifetime journey filled with mountains and valleys. If we only seek out the mountaintops then we will wind up a casualty somewhere in the wilderness. It is those who understand faith is a spectrum and a journey that have longevity and see success as they engage in the mission of Jesus.

For the believer: You are on a lifelong journey filled with choices disguised as experiences to either live and grow or stall out and decline. It is the everyday mundane things of life that Jesus often uses to shape us and grow us. Don’t discount those things but live in faithfulness in all areas being sure to take every next step of faith that comes your way.

For the One: You are on a journey as well. If you are here listening to this message this morning, then just know that Jesus has already been pursuing you and has brought you closer to the mountaintop than you probably realize. We aren’t going to push you. We want to give you space and allow you to work out your questions, doubts, and skepticisim’s on your own terms. Our hope is that you would find the joy and life to be had in taking whatever your next step of faith is and we are here to facilitate that whenever you are ready.

For the mission: Every person you meet is somewhere on that journey of faith. If you see your job in the mission of Jesus to bring every person over that zero point mountaintop, you will not only live with a constant feeling of frustration and failure, but you will approach people with an agenda and inevitably do damage and maybe even forever disrupt their journey of faith. The part you play may simply be to help them take one step up the scale…but know this…that step is critically necessary to their journey and they might never reach the zero point mountaintop experience without you.

Mount Rainer beckons me - It’s because I am a very “take the summit” type of personality. I realize that if I were to just go out and do that though…I would probably be one of those missing hikers you read about on the Facebook hiking groups.

It’s like people who summit K2 - The people who are really serious about it will tell you that:

If it is only about you reaching the summit, you are doing it for the wrong reasons and you will likely end up a frozen body on the side of the mountain.

Instead, you have to see it as an experience and enjoy the entire journey.

Explain:

To get to K2 takes years of practice, training, and a serious financial and time commitment.

Years of rock climbing experience.

Years more of Ice climbing experience

Physical training

Financial cost - Well over $100K in gear, travel and food expenses not to mention the $32K guide service.

Time commitment on average of 52 days plush the average 2 weeks of travel to and from mountain entry points.

Not to mention the fact that you probably are not going to reach the summit of what is the most dangerous climb in the entire sport. Of last report 377 people have successfully reach the peak with 87 dying on the mountain compared to the over 9K who have summitted Everest with only 300 dying on it.

To summit K2 isn’t just a peak you get to climb it is an entire lifestyle. The people who do it structure their entire lives around it and for them it is about the whole journey…not just the mountaintop experience. Yeah the summit is ever hopeful in the back of their minds but they just enjoy rock climbing and mountaineering. They structure the entirety of their finances around it. The people who summit K2 don’t vacation at Disney World they vacation in the mountains somewhere and climb freakishly scary rock faces on their time off.

For them it is about the community and camaraderie. They enjoy and see the beauty in the journey as much as the potential summit experience.

This works for every single area of our life:

Think about children…why do you have children? That could be really tough question to answer on any given day right?!? If you have kids then you know what I mean.

Its easy to get lost in the frustration of hours and hours spent banging your head against the mountain of unrelenting homework but when you see the grades finally change and the confidence that inspires, it puts those hours of tedious work in perspective in a way that you can really appreciate the journey.

Its easy to get lost in the frustration of a hundred missed pitches but it puts it into perspective when you see the smile on the face of that little girl who knocked in the winning run for her little league team.

Our faith is no different.

Do you know how many people I have seen wither in the wilderness of their faith experience because all they focused on were the mountaintop experiences. For them, that is all their faith is about.

Do the Thursday night camp experience story.

And so, I want us to have some common language when we talk about our faith “as a journey” and “next steps of faith.” And I want to do that as we look at the story of Jacob.

Explain the back story of Jacob up to the point of leaving for Haran (draw the line on the board and be sure to tell them that he had no faith experience up to this point - his name was deceiver and supplanter).

Genesis 28:10–22 NASB95

Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place. He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. “Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. “Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.” He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.” So Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on its top. He called the name of that place Bethel; however, previously the name of the city had been Luz. Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the Lord will be my God. “This stone, which I have set up as a pillar, will be God’s house, and of all that You give me I will surely give a tenth to You.”

Question:

Just with a cursory reading of this part of Jacob’s story…did Jacob have faith and a relationship with God?

I would answer no actually.

Look at how God introduces Himself:

And behold, the LORD stood above it and said, “I am the LORD, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants. - Genesis 28:13

And look at Jacob’s response to God blessing him:

… “If God will be with me and will keep me on this journey that I take, and will give me food to eat and garments to wear, and I return to my father’s house in safety, then the LORD will be my God.” -Genesis 28:20-21

Jacob had some severe skepticism about the power, love, and reliability of God. You have to understand that for Jacob, he grew up in an incredibly messed up home with some bad family history.

Jacob had seen the reality that there was a God but had questions to this God’s motives and ability to actually do what He claimed.

Quietly draw evangelism scale at the bottom of the board and say nothing about it ensuring to label the (reality of God) along the spectrum.

Explain what the next few years for Jacob looked like:

Falling in love with the woman of his wildest dreams.

Working seven hard and strenuous years for her only to be deceived by his father in law into marrying a girl he cared nothing about and not finding out until after their wedding night.

Working another seven long strenuous years for the woman of his dreams.

He made plenty of mistakes.

His father-in-law was actively sabotaging everything he did and yet he still prospered.

The early years around his house was a battle of child bearing with some drama in his house that I promise you makes whatever family drama you got going on look like nothing.

He leaves his Father-in-laws house in a move of deception living up to his namesake in a way that could’ve gotten him killed.

He meets God on this journey and literally fights with Him all night long in a battle that leaves him wounded for life and this is all to show that Jacob still doesn’t fully trust God.

He meets up with his brother who he has already deceived and then lies straight to his face again in another move of deceit.

His kids wile out for a while and slaughter an entire village (if you think you’ve had child rearing issues think again right)

But then something amazing happens and I want us to look at this story that happens really late in Jacobs life.

So after all of this:

Genesis 35:1–7 NASB95

Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments; and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” So they gave to Jacob all the foreign gods which they had and the rings which were in their ears, and Jacob hid them under the oak which was near Shechem. As they journeyed, there was a great terror upon the cities which were around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob. So Jacob came to Luz (that is, Bethel), which is in the land of Canaan, he and all the people who were with him. He built an altar there, and called the place El-bethel, because there God had revealed Himself to him when he fled from his brother.

Does Jacob have faith and a relationship with God at this point in the story?

I think the answer is a solid YES!

Did you notice it:

Genesis 35:2 NASB95

So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments;

Although some of the members of his family had been worshipping other gods (that is actually a huge part of the story that I wish we had time to go into) they were to do that no longer. The God of his fathers was the one true God worthy of worship.

Did you notice why Jacob had turned to God?

Genesis 35:3 NASB95

and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.”

Did you notice that it was not because God blessed him with food and garments and family and protection that Jacob had come to trust him? NO!!!! It was for the reason God promised him…That God would be with him on his journey…and he was.

Sure he gave him food, and garments, and safety but there was way more to God being with Jacob than those things. God was with him for 14 years of strenuous labor. God was with him when Jacob’s father in law was actively trying to sabotage him. God was with him while he was dealing with family drama that you and I can’t even imagine.

God was with him in the everyday mundane things of life shaping and growing him even in the valleys.

Jacob wanted the mountaintop of blessing and wealth. But by this point in the story, Jacob had come to appreciate the journey with God such that when he finally did experience his mountaintop experience at Bethel for the second time, he appreciated the journey all the more.

Here is the deal:

I chose Jacob because we actually get the details of the valleys…mostly valleys lol.

I could’ve done this with any one of the heroes of our faith.

Here…I’ll show you quickly.

Do Moses bit…4 movements of 40 with vastly nothing in between.

The apostles. When did they come to faith in Jesus? Can you point to a particular point for any single one of them?

I want to introduce you guys to a very helpful tool called Engle’s scale of evangelism.

Point to what I’ve already drawn on the board and explain the spectrum.

So…where does this leave us?

If you have been following Jesus for any amount of time at all, then you know that journey is full of mountains and valleys. We can easily come to romanticize the mountaintop experiences while failing to see the beauty of the valleys and how even the lowest of valleys are still a critical part of our story.

If we romanticize the mountaintops too much, we can start to believe that is the only time God is actually with us…when we see Him clearly from the mountaintop. Its usually some blessing or some great redemptive experience or joyful thing or maybe just an emotional experience during worship. And so after a while we can start to think that somehow God has abandoned us in the valleys. Worship isn’t truly worship if I’m not having the emotional experience. Life isn’t good if there isn’t blessing. God isn’t near if I can’t feel His immediate presence or see His hand at work.

Instead - The journey looks a lot more like this (draw little mountains and valleys all throughout the positive end of the spectrum). And so the question becomes:

Can you still believe that God is with you and working in your story even in the valleys?

And let me turn that question into a practical one where we can actually show that we do believe that God is still with us in the valleys:

What is the next step of faithfulness that you need to take?

2. As we engage in the mission of Jesus with other people: friends, neighbors, co-workers; we have to realize that they all exist somewhere along the spectrum.

Do ED NEWTON bit...

If we are not careful, we can think that we are only successfully engaging in the mission of Jesus if we are taking people across that zero line. Man that is a beautiful summit to experience with someone! But just like summitting K2, we don’t do it just for the summit experience. We do it because God is the God of the mountains and the valleys. We realize that faith is a journey and you may be the only person that can help that friend, neighbor, or co-worker take their next step of faith. And don’t miss this:

AND WHILE YOU MIGHT NOT BE THE ONE TO HELP THEM JOURNEY ACROSS THE ZERO MARK, YOU MAY BE THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN HELP THEM TAKE THAT NEXT STEP THAT WITHOUT TAKING IT THEY WILL NEVER EXPERIENCE THE ULTIMATE MOUNTAINTOP EXPERIENCE OF DECIDING TO FOLLOW JESUS.

And so you may be asking…well, how do we help people take that next step of faith? I am so glad that you asked that!

Do the barriers bit that we will talk about next week.

3. If you are here and

Also explain the two categories we typically put people in. And this in turn puts pressure on people to close the deal…just get people across that zero line...