Sea Change

We say some strange things in our English language. Many of these phrases go back to the European roots of our language or forgotten moments in history.

“Bob’s your Uncle” Meaning: To achieve something with great ease

Origin: In 1886 PM Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (Lord Salisbury) surprisingly made Arthur Balfour Chief Secretary of Ireland; Lord Salisbury (Bob) was Arthur’s Uncle.

“Mad as a hatter” Meaning: To be completely insane

Origin: In the 18th and 19th century mercury was used in felting – and hat making; the madness of hat makers was the result of mercury poisoning

Many of these arcane word plays have come to us through the great bard Shakespeare:

"Carry your heart on your sleeve" Meaning: To be very open and transparent

Origin: In Othello Act 1 Scene 1, 64 Iago says “But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve…” meaning he would be exposed

“In a pickle” Meaning: to be in a difficult situation or in a quandary. Origin: First, there is the sixteenth century Dutch phrase in de pekel zitten which literally translates as sitting in the pickle, meaning to be drunk. Second, there is the Shakespeare play The Tempest, in which Alonso asks “How camest thou in this pickle?” and Trinculo answers “I have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that, I fear me, will never out of my bones…” In this case the phrase in a pickle also refers to being drunk, in time it came to mean to be in a difficult situation or in a quandry.

“Sea Change” Meaning: A profound or notable Transformation

Origin: This phrase also comes from Shakespeare’s play The Tempest

The word sea-change is from Shakespeare, from The Tempest: a man is thrown into the sea, and under the water he is transformed from what he was into something entirely new, something “rich and strange.”

Shauna Niequist writes in her book Present over Perfect about the phrase “Sea Change”:

The beautiful and obvious connection, of course: baptism. We are tipped backward into the water, and raised into new life. We leave behind the old—the sin, the regret, the failings, and we rise out of the water cleansed, made new. A sea-change if there ever was one. —Shauna Niequist. Present Over Perfect (pp. 23-24). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

When I think of the children we work with at Cookson Hills. When I think of all the men and women I have shared with in my life. I have come to realize I am rarely prepared for the moment that someone is ready to let God move in a brand new way in their heart. The time and space where God desires to do something new and transformative in our lives!

Of course sea change moments in our lives do not only happen at our conversion or baptism. As Shauna further observes:

I’m coming to believe that there are a handful of passages in our lives that transform us, not unlike conversions, where the old is gone and the new is come.

—Shauna Niequist. Present Over Perfect (pp. 23-24). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

I wonder what kind of sea change God has planned for the children at Cookson Hills this year? I wonder if any of you will experience your own sea change in the coming weeks, months, years? Perhaps even today, God is planning something radical and life changing.

The concept of sea change is actually much more universal. It is a God sized idea. One that is found over and over again in the scripture (and even outside of scripture). And one we encounter often in life as well. The world itself begins with a Sea Change:

Genesis 1:1–2 (ESV)

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

God desires to bring order and beauty from the chaos.

And this is personal as well as universal-If your eyes are open you will see him moving in your life even now to bring about an amazing transformation from death to life!

Order for Chaos

A. The theme of Genesis could rightly be called “Order for Chaos”

B. It is the recurring story of God rescuing from chaos!

1. It is seen vividly in the Creation act as the Spirit broods over the waters of chaos of preexistence and then day by day God’s creative nature conforms the chaos into an ordered universe. A place for the spirit of God to dwell with humanity.

2. We see Noah set apart in his boat from the chaos and wickedness of humanity that God obliterates with the flood.

3. We see childless Abram selected and sent by God into an ordered future that God alone would create. A future that includes the birth of his son and the beginning of a nation.

4. The great Sea Change moment happens in the final chapters of Genesis when Joseph the son that was dead to his father is raised alive from the pit of death and made a ruler over powerful Egypt!

C. Every Sea Change of God is always preceded by a difficulty.

1. The Chaos of the deep in the beginning,

2. the building of an ark and a flood with Noah,

3. childless/futureless Abram,

4. Left for dead Joseph….

D. These moments of crisis become opportunities for God’s work in our lives! Joseph understood the power of the Sea Change…

1. He had seen it several times in his life. From death to slave, from slave to manager, from manager to prisoner, from prisoner to adviser, from adviser to ruler.

2. At the close of the book of Genesis, Joseph tries to prepare his descendants to be ready for their own Sea Change.

Genesis 50:22–26 (ESV)

22 So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father’s house. Joseph lived 110 years. 23 And Joseph saw Ephraim’s children of the third generation. The children also of Machir the son of Manasseh were counted as Joseph’s own. 24 And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that he swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” 25 Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.” 26 So Joseph died, being 110 years old. They embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt.

4. Joseph knew there would be a kind of trap for his family as they lived in Egypt. The trap was too fold.

a) The first part was that Israel would grow comfortable in Egypt. They would begin to embrace Egypt and its pantheon of gods forgetting the God of Joseph and Abraham.

b) The second part of the trap was that Egypt would also forget the god of Joseph and begin to bring chaos into the lives of the Israelites.

5. And so he warned them that they must be ready for the Sea Change—that moment when God would act to bring them up out of the chaos and back to the land of promise.

E. Before you can find order you must recognize the chaos.

1. We struggle as Christians getting comfortable with chaos, abandoning the order of God’s will and living in the world’s ways.

a) Busy-ness

b) Addiction

c) Stress

d) Debt

e) Anxiety

f) Sin

2. Each of the Patriarchs had their own struggles with dwelling in chaos, but it was in their recognition and trust in the order of God that they each found life.

3. If our marriages look just like the worlds, if our work ethic is no different, if we raise our children in the exact same way as the world, why are we surprised that we obtain the exact same results.

4. But if we give control of our marriages, work, families, and finances to God a Sea Change happens, a miraculous transformation!

II. Healing for Brokenness

A. Jospeh was right of course. The great Sea Change Moment for Israel did come. God came and delivered them from Egypt aprox. 400 years after Joseph’s death.

B. Some might ask why did it take so long for God to act? Part of the answer is that God was waiting for Israel to grow to be a great nation. It is in Exodus that the Family of Jacob is finally described as a nation. But there is more to it as well. God was also waiting for the people of Israel to be ready for the transformation he was about to bring.

C. Years ago, a wise friend told me that no one ever changes until the pain level gets high enough. That seems entirely true. The inciting incident for life change is almost always heartbreak—something becomes broken beyond repair, too heavy to carry; in the words of the recovery movement, unmanageable. [Niequist, Shauna. Present Over Perfect (p. 24). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.]

D. This describes the pain of Israel under their Egyptian task masters. The burden of slavery had become too heavy. They were at their wits end. So God says, he has now heard their cries to Moses.

E. Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey,” (Exodus 3:7–8 ESV)

F. Before you can be healed you must be broken.

1. What I have seen is that before your marriage can be healed by God you have to see that it is broken and bring Him the pieces!

2. If you want to see an end to your addiction then you have to realize that you can no longer manage your problem. That your desire for drugs, pain pills, alcohol, or pornography is out of control. That your life is broken and only God can bring out of addiction to a place of healing.

3. If you want to be a better student, a better parent, a better boss, it starts by seeing your brokenness and seeking God’s healing.

4. Sometimes we know this, but still resist God. We only have heartedly seek his help. That’s how it was for Israel. They waffled continuously between devotion and defiance. That’s why God boxed them in between Pharaoh and the Red Sea. He wanted to make it clear. The only way you are going to be saved is by totally trusting me.

5. 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.” (Exodus 14:10–14 ESV)

G. What happened next? The Great RED Sea Change, the family of Jacob and Joseph walk through the sea and emerge the Nation of Israel, the people of God. Freed from slavery to sin-filled Egypt.

III. Mercy for Sin

A. Their destination after the sea? Sinai. The Mountain of the Lord. Where God lays out his law for these people. Order out of Chaos!

B. Here Moses receives the Law and the instructions for the fabrication of the mobile tent of worship, the Tabernacle. The building of this worship center was the final piece in bringing order to their lives. The Tabernacle became the literal center of the people of God, it was their very connection with God, and gave them direction for every aspect of their lives. (Perhaps some of today’s issues with families is that we no longer have the worship of God at the center of our lives and communities. But now I’m getting a little too personal….)

C. [Moses] set the basin between the tent of meeting and the altar, and put water in it for washing, with which Moses and Aaron and his sons washed their hands and their feet. When they went into the tent of meeting, and when they approached the altar, they washed, as the LORD commanded Moses. And he erected the court around the tabernacle and the altar, and set up the screen of the gate of the court. So Moses finished the work. (Exodus 40:30–33 ESV)

D. Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up. For the cloud of the LORD was on the tabernacle by day, and fire was in it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys. (Exodus 40:34–38 ESV)

E. In almost every way the introduction of the Tabernacle was the Sea Change moment for Israel. This one structure gave Israel its identity as the people of God. While the law was read from time to time, the tabernacle was lived out day after day in the camp of Israel.

1. It was the creation story painted onto hides and sewn into fabric,

2. it was the vision of Jacob’s ladder, the way for us to enter God’s presence, made into a physical structure.

3. It was the order of God being set in the midst of the chaos of a troubled people.

4. The law and the tabernacle had one point, to show Israel the impact of sin upon their lives.

5. The tabernacle becomes the time and space location where humanity must come to terms with God.

6. And it becomes the place where flesh and blood real people experienced God’s mercy applied to their lives. Metaphorical mercy becomes Experiential mercy through Water, Blood, Fire, and Smoke. There was something for every sense organ.

a) The smell of incense and burning flesh,

b) the sound of bleating animals and singing priests,

c) the sight slaughtered animals and crimson blood on snow-white priestly garments,

d) the touch of water or blood on the skin for cleansing,

e) and the taste of meat, bread, oil, and wine. Ritual meals and sacrifices that forever associated themselves with sin and death, life and mercy.

7. It all says one thing, God loves you, broken people. He forgives and offers mercy for your sins!

F. Before you can be forgiven you must recognize your sin.

G. If you remove God’s presence form your life, sin won’t be a bother, but you will never know life without God’s presence!

H. “So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him scamper. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.” (James 4:7-10 MSG)

Conclusion:

God’s people always go through a Sea Change.

The Prophet Hosea reminds us it is because of God’s love for us!

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1 ESV),”

In fact most of us have been through several transformative experiences with the Lord.

We need God’s transformative Sea Change in our lives!

God wants to bring order and beauty from the chaos and brokenness of your life.

Maybe right now you are in that very place. That moment when the ship of your life lays wrecked upon the rocks in midst of the Tempest.

Don’t panic, because it is in this place of death and destruction that God can bring you peace and mercy.

The waters that we thought would drown us, have become a baptism of Grace!

The calamity that called all hands on deck have merely been the wake up call you needed to meet with God!

Now is the time to put God back at the center of our lives, our marriages, our families, our work, our finances, and yes our church.

When we put God back at the center that’s when the Sea Change comes.

When we final see the chaos of our lives and bring our brokenness and sinfulness to his altar of mercy and grace. That’s when Sea Change happens. In the words of Shakespeare said we will be transformed into something “rich and strange”!