Sunday, August 17, 2008

The cross, the only point of interest for Christian spiritual navigation (Philippians 1:9)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon August 16, 2008

I read a book by Henri Nouwen titled, In the Name of Jesus. The author reflects on Christian leadership. In the introduction he asks this question to himself, “What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?” If you want to know the kind of future you might have tomorrow, try to evaluate your own recent decisions you’ve been making. This is a great self-reflective question.

I wish I could say that I make my decisions decisively and make no wrong turns. If life is like following today’s navigation system, all you got to do is punch in your starting point and the destination point, temporary life now to eternal life and just like that you get a detail turn by turn direction to the destination. All you got to do is just drive and wait for that voice prompt that tells you to get ready for your next turn; it gives you live update on distance before your turn. Hey, if get distracted and forget your turn, no sweat. Within a split second, the GPS navigation prompts you with a new direction. Well, it works until your GPS navigation start telling you to make u-turn and drive back.

Still, even the cheapest navigation system will be better than what I got going in my brain. Seriously, I think I really have a messed up sense of direction. When I first moved to the parsonage six years ago right here at the church property, I couldn’t figure out if I had to make a right turn or left turn on Camp McDonald Road to go towards Milwaukee or towards Rand. Five minutes into driving having made the right turn from the parking lot, I would realize that I was heading towards Milwaukee when really I needed to drive towards Rand. If this just happened once or twice, well it would just prove that I am a human after all. But, the fact is I struggled for many months to make the right decisions. The sad thing is I still make wrong turns. You should see me on our drive way confidently start making my left turn out into Camp McDonald to go to Kohl’s Children’s Museum, only to be informed by my lovely human GPS sitting next to me, again I’ve made the wrong turn. I am getting better though. I often find myself slowing down in the driveway before making my turn just to make sure I am heading the right direction.

Perhaps, God gave me this faulty sense of direction to illustrate the reality of our lives that is nothing like following the detailed turn by turn GPS navigation direction. Perhaps, it is an illustration to point out how I need to depend on God for his leading.

Revisiting Henri Nouwen’s question, “What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?” I could add my own questions.

How can I be sure about the way I sense the future? Can I be certain about where I need to be tomorrow? Even if I know where I am going, how can I be sure that the decisions I make today will get me where I need to be tomorrow? These questions reveal the feeling of indecisiveness about our future and the decisions we need to make today. But, more than just feeling indecisive, it reveals deeper trouble for our souls; indecisiveness is just the tip of the ice burg. Beneath it lie deep anxiety, insecurity, and fear that keep many of us wake late into night. It reveals deep insecurity we have about ourselves, our surroundings, and our times.

The world says that the key to making good decision for tomorrow is to feel good about it. If your decision makes you feel good right now, then really that’s all that really matters. Whatever adds more pleasure, more comfort, more ease in life appears to be what is right. I am so glad God didn’t make his past decision on how he felt at the moment. When his Son was being falsely accused, wrongfully beaten, stripped, and whipped, pierced and crucified, if God were to make his decision sorely on eliminating his pain, feeling good at the moment, to allow his Son to experience so much suffering and death for the rebels who hold up their fists against him wouldn’t make any logical or emotional sense.

The word of God today tells us that the key to making right decisions in life begins at the cross. It begins with Jesus Christ.

  • Set your spiritual navigation on the single point of interest at the cross.

You may ask, “What does the cross, Jesus Christ has anything to do with making decisions in life?” My answer would be, “Everything.”

Here is the passage some of us studied this Friday. Philippians 1:9 says, “And, this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight.” This is Paul’s personal prayer for the Philippians to whom he was writing his letter. Here was Paul who first preached the gospel to them at the cost of imprisonment, flogging, and humiliation. Here was Paul later in time who loved them so much so that he would write a personal letter from his prison cell to tell them how he remembered them and prayed for them.

How did Paul end up caring so much for the Philippians? The clue is found in verse 8. He described how he longed for all of them with the affection of Christ Jesus. King James Version translates “the affection of Christ Jesus” as “the bowels of Jesus Christ.” The Greeks saw the bowels, the intestines as “the site of the natural passions.”[1] But, in English language heart is the seat where we experience deep and passionate emotions. So, when Paul spoke of the affection of Christ Jesus or the bowels of Jesus Christ, Paul was describing how Jesus was moved in his heart or at his gut level. So, the terms like gut-wrenching, heart-rending, or heart-breaking, captures the intensity of how Jesus was moved in his heart.

When you read the gospel accounts, you come across the scenes that describe Jesus having compassion on the crowds who were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36; Mark 6:34), who were hungry (Matt 15:32; Mark 8:2), blind (Matt 20:34), lepers (Mark 1:41); his heart went out to the widow who lost her only son (Luke 7:13). When Jesus told the parable of the Samaritan, he used the same expression to describe how this Samaritan took pity on a man who was robbed and left to die (Luke 10:33). Jesus also used the same expression to describe the father in the parable of the lost son (Luke 15:20). When the prodigal son returned completely broke and messed up having wasted his inheritance in wild living (v. 13), but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him. When his heart was moved with compassion, the last thing in his mind was keeping his composure, his dignity, distancing from his son or rejecting him. He wasn’t passive. But, you see him running to his son, throwing his arms around him and kissing him.

Ultimately filled with compassion, moved in his guts, in his heart, Jesus gave himself for you and me at the cross; in his deep affection, he endured the suffering, scorning, humiliation and painful death. Paul wrote to Galatians in 6:14, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and to I to the world.

This is an expression of man who knew only one point of interest for navigating his life. He began his journey at the cross and he finished his journey at the cross. Jesus Christ remained his obsession, his all. How did he remain so single-mindedly devoted to Jesus? How was he able to reject all other points of interests? How was he able to keep returning to the same point of interest through out his life, to the cross, to Jesus Christ?

It is because Paul understood God’s profound love for him in Jesus Christ. He did everything to foster love relationship with God. Jesus defined himself as the way, the truth, and the life. He is the knowledge; he is the depth of insight. Apart from him, we know nothing of real love. For Paul, love to abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, it meant knowing and being changed by the life, the heart and the mind of Christ.

Only at the cross, the transaction can take place, forsaking our selfish, godless preoccupation with ourselves inundated with anxiety, fear and insecurity. At the cross, we are given the heart of Jesus Christ, joyful, loving and obedient heart of the Son who adores the Father. At the cross, with Jesus, in Jesus, love can grow.

Consider your spiritual navigation. What other points of interests do you have stored in your spiritual journey that compete with the cross point?

For our love to abound in knowledge and depth of insight, we must foster our love relationship with Jesus. Before we can love others, we must be saturated, satisfied, filled by love of Jesus Christ. Don’t settle with the vague sense of yesterday’s intimacy with Jesus for today. Each day requires fresh saturation in Jesus Christ. The best way is to start at the cross, meditate in his life, his suffering, his death, his mindset, his heart, his love, gut-wrenching, heart-rending, heartfelt affection, his victory.

· When you set your spiritual navigation on the cross, don’t grow weary in expressing your love to others for Christ stands between you and them.

To say that Jesus is the starting point and he is the finish line, to say my life is all about Jesus, while my love relationship with people remains stagnant and sour, makes no sense.

When Paul prayed for the Philippians’ love to grow, he certainly meant for their love in Jesus Christ to flourish. But, the spiritual reality is that when the affection of Jesus Christ fills us and we grow in love with Jesus, his love flows over us and touches the people around us.

One of the things that I learned about the Philippians is that they were generous people. They were generous in their support for Paul even though they themselves weren’t well off. He described their generosity in verse 5 as “partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.” This was the hallmark of their Christian love for Paul; it was enduring love. They didn’t give up when things got difficult, but pressed on to ensure their love abound for each other and for Paul.

We must resist the temptation to separate love of God with love for people. Love of God always translates into love for people. If we are not growing in love with people, it is sure sign that we are not growing in love with God.

What is important is that we don’t get weary in doing good to people. Paul said in Galatians 6:9-10, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.”

When you give but you don’t see the result, discouragement can set in your heart. This is when you must evaluate why you do good in the first place. Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks with clarity about this in his book, Life Together. He compares the difference between self-centered love and spiritual love. He says,

“Self-centered love makes itself an end it itself. It turns to itself into an achievement, an idol it worships, to which it must subject everything. It cares for, cultivates, and loves itself and nothing else in the world.”

But, “Spiritual love however, comes from Jesus Christ; it serves him alone. It knows that it has no direct access to other persons. Christ stands between me and others… Contrary to all my own opinions and convictions, Jesus Christ will tell me what love for my brothers and sisters really looks like. Therefore, spiritual love is bound to the word of Jesus Christ alone… Because spiritual love does not desire but rather serves, it loves an enemy as a brother or sister. It originates neither in the brother or sister nor in the enemy, but in Christ and his word.”[2]

The key here is to get the picture of Jesus Christ standing between us as the mediator, the perfecter, the sanctifier. When you study the way Paul understands how people ought to relate to each other, this picture of Jesus standing between us clearly emerges. Ephesians 5 and 6 is all about this picture of living together with Christ as the mediator, perfecter, sanctifier. He says in 5:21, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Humbly serving each other begins in love for Jesus and it ends in glory to God.

Psalm 51 is David’s reflection on what happened when the prophet Nathan came to him after David had committed adultery with Bathsheba. He said in verse 4, “Again you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.” Pause and think through this with me. Here he was with the blood stain of Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, in his hand and the sin of adultery, how could he say that he had sinned against God alone and done what was evil in his sight. David certainly wasn’t minimizing the murder and adultery against Uriah and Bathsheba. What he was recognizing is the picture of God standing between him and others. Any offense against others is foremost offense against God.

· When you set your navigation on the cross, in Jesus Christ alone, discernment, purity, blamelessness, righteousness are merely the fruit of that love relationship.

I bring us back to Henri Nouwen’s question, “What decisions have you been making lately and how are they a reflection of the way you sense the future?”

So often we worry ourselves to the point of loosing sleep, getting anxious, fearful about our future.

Here is the clear way out of this trap laid out for us by the way Paul prayed for the Philippians. Instead of trying really hard to figure out what decisions you need to make about your future, channel your mental energy, your time on growing your love with Jesus and with people.

The scripture is very clear on this. Psalm 37:4 says, “Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart.” Matthew 6:33, “But seek first the kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself…

When you feel confused because you don’t know what to do, instead of worrying and fretting, do your best to mind the business of God and go about learning to delight in him. And, see what happens. God’s not going to come and magically make decisions in life for you. But, what he is going to do is as you learn to delight in him he is going to shape your heart after Jesus’ heart so that what you desire reflects the desire of Jesus Christ. And, the steps you take in your desire will reflect your delight in Jesus and his will.

When we consider living blameless, pure and righteous life we must be very clear in this; blameless, pure and righteous life isn’t about making a mental list of what we ought to do and not to do and let that be the measuring guide to whether we are living blamelessly, purely and righteously.

Your confession, when you approach holy life with the check list of to dos and don’ts, will be superficial and will not lead you to godly sorrow over sins, but only self-pity. You break the mental check list and you feel bad that you broke it. You feel good that you kept your mental check list of spending quite time with God for 10 minutes in reading his word, praying for another 10 minutes. And, you pet your back as though you are living holy life.

The Bible says our hearts are deceptive. Check lists of dos and don’ts cannot grow us into holy people. Holiness only results in growing love relationship with God and with people, period!

Of course, there are things we need and must do if we are serious about growing in love relationship with God and with people. We must study God’s word diligently, we must pray, we must share the gospel, we must do good. But, we do these to as means to grow our love.

Again, the focus must be growing in love. When love deepens in us, then whatever offenses and sins we commit, we realize that it is against God who sent his Son to die for us, to forgive our sins. The more God becomes person to us, the person of holy God who deeply loves us through his Son Jesus, the less we will want to offend him and the more we will want to please him.


[1] The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology: Volume 2. 599. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1967, 1969, 1971.

[2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together Prayer book of the Bible, Fortress Press, 1996, p.31.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Find rest in God alone by preaching to your soul the truth about God and pouring your heart to God. (Psalm 62)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon August 10, 2008

This past week, I saw Wall-E with my girls. It carries a strong green message on taking care of earth. But, what really moved my heart was the way the characters were transformed by the new ‘directive’ to go back home to earth. This new directive shattered the life as people knew out in the space, not as the best life they could have but utterly substandard, nothing more than just a survival. 

Out in the space far from earth in time and space is the world of Axiom, a giant spaceship or more like a space station. In Axiom a super-intelligent automated luxurious cruise spaceship are people living with one directive, “Live to please yourself while having to work as little as possible.”  In the world of Axiom fully equipped with technological advancements, no one needs to walk or even lift an arm to do anything. Everything is done for you. All you have to do is sit on your automated floating recliner, open your eyes, stare at the virtual screen in front of your face and simply chat with others around you who are doing exactly the same thing. You don’t even have to turn your head or sit up to talk to a person next to you or in front of you. You don’t even need to chew food since it is provided in slush cups with straw. And, when you see an ad for a new clothing line, at a push of button, just like that your wardrobe instantaneously changes into the new line. Anything you want is instantly given to you. Axiom is a technological nirvana with nanosecond instant gratification with complete order and control. No need to sweat or feel any pain, no need to work at anything, or work out. Just chill out and enjoy; everything is done for you. In this fully automated world of instant gratification, after seven hundred years of leaving earth no one has any faintest idea what life on earth was like or even wants to go back to it. They all look like inflated balloon figures, blobs that can’t even walk now.

In the world of Axiom is the directive that promises, “You can have it all when you want it without having to work.” But, when Eva the probe brings a tiny shoot of green plant from earth back to Axiom things cannot be the same anymore. Now, the new directive is it is time to work; it is time to go back to earth and work hard to restore it.

In the movie there is a scene that involves the captain of Axiom and the chief-machine of the command center called Auto. The captain is convinced that people of Axiom must return to earth. But, Auto the artificial intelligent machine refuses to accept the new directive to go back to earth.  Auto fights to keep human in Axiom out in the space.

To this Auto, the captain passionately makes his case to return to earth, “Out there is our home, home Auto. And, it’s in trouble. I can’t just sit here and do nothing. That’s all I ever done. That’s what anyone in this blasted ship has ever done. Nothing!”

Auto replies, “In the Axiom, you will survive.”

The Captain, frustrated, screams, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”

At this point of the movie, I knew I was on to something good. “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.” The captain describes the life in Axiom, a fully automated robotic environment designed to grant instant gratification with minimal effort and work as merely surviving and doing nothing. The captain is convinced that forsaking this lifestyle is gain if it means going back home to earth to help it restored again. A drastic change to say the least, don’t you think? To label the life of ease once thought as that which couldn’t get any better as mere survival while going back home to the work of restoration as really living, you can say that the captain is converted.

The story of Wall-E illustrates how the gospel is the new spiritual directive from our Lord Jesus Christ that confronts the life as we know as mere survival, substandard reality. What we think of as rest is not truly rest. The new spiritual directive, the gospel points us to not just the surviving but true rest. So, we must ask. Can it be that life as we know is really just surviving, just making it through and that there is more to life than what we have now, the true rest? The new directive from Jesus Christ tells us, yes, there is more to life than what we have. True rest in God alone! This is what the gospel wants us to have.

In the Wall-E fashion, if someone were to ask, “What is your directive?” how would you answer? My prayer is that you would be convinced and griped by the new directive to make changes. “Find rest in God alone” is your new directive.

Find your rest in God alone by preaching to yourself the truth about God and by pouring your heart to him.  This is your new directive you must pay attention to.  

  • Find rest in God alone

David begins his Psalm 62 with the statement that his soul finds rest in God alone. What does it mean to find rest in God alone? In Hebrew, it literally reads, “My soul waits in silence for God” (ESV).

Here is a picture of David tuning out the drowning noises of the world, silencing his restless mind, and waiting for God. This is a picture of David putting his confidence in God, a picture of David realizing truly God is his confidence, salvation, rock, fortress, confidence that will never be shaken. If someone were to ask David, “What is your directive?” in Wall-E fashion, this would be his reply, finding rest in God alone, finding confidence in God alone.

Can you and I make that statement? Can your directive be finding rest in God alone, being confident in God alone?

What gives you the sense of confidence in your life? Is it education, is it money in your name, or is it other people around you? What are the things that give you the sense of confidence in your life? And, whatever you think you could feel confident about, is it really enough to make you feel securely confident? Do you feel confident with what money, education, people relationships you have now? Or, do you think if you have little more of that you would feel more confident? When will money, education, people relationship or anything else make you feel confident enough in life? I have strong suspicion that none of these will ever make me feel completely confident, feel completely rested and secured. I have strong suspicion if we are really honest these may give us growing confidence, but never to the point of alleviating insecurity of our souls.

What God wants to do is to convince us that he truly alone can be our confidence without failing instead of what we can achieve or what we can have, things or people.

In Exodus 3:13-15 God revealed his name as “I AM WHO I AM.” This is the statement of confidence. The great I AM wanted to the Israelites to get this. So, you read in Exodus 6:6-8, “I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the LORD.

God works in our lives to convince us that he alone is our confidence in the insecure world of ourselves  and in the insecure world we live in.

For David, the sense of insecurity came from the people. If you are familiar with his story, you know that he was tested by the people who sought to kill him, especially by Saul. In vv. 3-4, David sees himself as leaning wall, tottering fence that is being assaulted by people around him to topple him by means of lies and hypocrisy of curse disguised in blessing. Talk about disappointment. If there was ever time when he felt he could place his confidence in people, if there was ever time when he could feel secured about himself by people around him, this was not one of them. God tested him by stripping off relationships with people as his confidence. God did this so he can pause and learn that truly God alone is his confidence, his security, his rest.

  • Find rest in God alone by preaching to yourself the truth about God

So, in verse 5-6 you see him repeating what he already said in verse 1-2. But, the difference is in verse 5, he is preaching to himself. When noises are loud, when the feelings of insecurity drown you, it is not enough to know in the back of your mind that God is your confidence. You need to say it aloud, to preach it passionately, and to declare it at loud and clear to drown out the noises of your own insecurities.

Here are some truths about God that can preach to your restless insecure souls.

lightbulbGod is strong.

All the words that describe God as fortress, rock, salvation, refuge speak to unmovable powerful reality of who God is. God is strong. His strength, his resolve means he can be trusted in the world of disappointments.

lightbulbGod is loving

God seeking to be your confidence, your rest, and your strong center speaks to himself as God who is love. Only one who loves seeks the well being of others. God who seeks to bless you with his protection and his help is God who loves you very much. And, to preach to your soul God who loves you, there is nothing better than to preach the cross. Paul said in Galatians 6:14, “May I never boast expect in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Look at the fruit of Paul's life, many people heard the gospel for the first time through him, many churches were planted; God used him to speak the truth to us. He was fruitful because he knew was proud only in the cross. To boast in the cross is to declare that what really matters in life is remaining in God’s love expressed in sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

lightbulbGod is the great rewarder.

Psalm 62:12, “Surely you will reward each person according to what he has done.”

Galatians  6:8, “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.

  • Find rest in God alone by pouring your hearts to God

For David, finding rest in God alone was not a private matter. He wanted to his people to know God as their confidence. So, we see him calling people in verse 8 to “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.” To pour your hearts to him is an expression for earnest prayers amid tears and discouragement.[1]

2 Timothy 4:7-8, “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will reward to me on that day- and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.”

Here is a picture of Paul fighting the good fight, running the race to win, nurturing his faith, aiming for the prize, all because he has this intense yearning to see Christ face to face. This is really the picture of Christian life. We got to begin earnestly pray out of desperation and in tears, we got to cry out, “I don’t want to survive. I want to live.”


[1] NIDOTTE, (H9161) Ëpv;

Sunday, August 3, 2008

In the desert, “find rest in God alone.” (Psalm 62:1)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon August 3, 2008

Upon returning from a week of family trip to Maranatha conference, I learned that some of you engaged in an honest discussion on the spiritual condition of our church. What began as a discussion on how we are doing with prayer as a church, it turned into deep sharing of each of your personal dry spiritual condition. Although I wasn’t there with you guys who were engaged in this discussion, I would tell you that I too have been going through a dry spiritual season for the last few months.

So, today, taking a little break from the study of book of Acts, I would like to talk to you about the spiritual rhythm, specifically the phase that can be characterized as desert experience. When I thought of spiritual dryness, the image that popped in my mind was that of “desert.” In desert, I imagine feeling restless caused by thirst, heat, blistering feet, growling stomach in hunger. Desert is an unpleasant place where you don’t want to end up in it. So, in desert, I imagine myself seeking for relief. I want water to quench my thirst. I want to come under shade to escape scorching sun. I want to stand on cool rock instead of blisteringly hot and sinking sand. In desert, I imagine wanting nothing more than to rest!

While I imagine this intense yearning for rest from the harsh reality of desert, I also imagine feeling like quitting! I imagine a curtain of confusion, inability to focus, will or desire strongly and clearly draping over my eyes, feeling trapped and helpless to get out of it. Once you drift into this spiritual desert, even though you really hate being caught in it, you struggle to get out, feeling trapped. And, you begin to wonder if there is any redeeming purpose behind desert experience and if there will be any way out.

In desert, deepest yearning is to rest. In Psalm 62, David speaks about finding rest. He says in verse 1, “My soul find rest in God alone; my salvation comes from him.” And, similarly repeats this thought in verse 5, “Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.” In the context of the psalm, he sought rest because he was restless when he realized he couldn’t place his confidence in people. In the desert, he was disappointed by people around him.

In the desert, God’s ultimate purpose is for us to find rest in him alone. When human relationships disappoints you, fails you or you fail them, when your expectations don’t fan out the way you wanted, when you are struggling with overcoming sins, when you feel oppressed and tired, in the desert, you can find true rest in God alone! This is the answer I get from the scripture. When you are in the desert, find rest in God is your answer.

During my study, I came across a lengthy article on “desert” from New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, a dictionary with a long name, written by A. R. Pete Diamond. It filled the detail for me as to how God is really the answer for us. It opened my eyes to see that while we may be tempted to dismiss desert as unnecessary, unwanted, wasted phase in spiritual journey, it is not without meaning and purpose because in the desert, you find rest in God alone.

In the desert, God wants us to experience rest, not the kind of rest of drinking ice cold coke in an oasis comfortably reclined in a lounge chair. No, rest he wants us to experience involves being made into worshipers, being tested to be pure, being trained to be warriors.

  • In the desert, God seeks to make worshipers out of us.

One of the predominant images of desert experience you see in the Old Testament comes from the story of Exodus when God brought the Israelites out of Egypt into wilderness. God brought them out of Egypt, the vest fertile riverbed of Nile into the wilderness, dry, weary and desolate land. There in the desert, God tested the Israelites.

In Egypt, the Israelites lived by the riverbed of Nile River, fertile land with abundant supply of grains, fish and animals. But, this supply of abundant food was overshadowed by the slavery; they were enslaved by the Egyptian headmasters who were harsh and ruthless. This reality of life in Egypt for the Israelites speaks to the reality of our world. The world we live in is like the riverbed of Nile where there supposed to be unlimited potential of opportunities for success if you work hard at. But, in the world the headmaster is the devil, the most selfish, egocentric, deceptive, destructive, bent on taking as many people with him into hell.

Now, Exodus into desert where God was to be the Israelites’ the only God, the only ruler, unlike in so many ways from the headmasters of Egypt, points to God’s great salvation. God brought the Israelites out of the fertile riverbed of Nile and led them into desert where their survival, their existence was intertwined by their trust in God alone. In Egypt, the promise of abundance was really an illusion because of they were in bondage. But, in the desert, although the promise of abundance wasn’t apparent in what they could see and feel from the desert, it was to be reality in God as they put their faith in him.

Christian journey is very much like this. The world promises abundance, wealth, simply great life of rest, but it comes at a cost of being enslaved to the American dream stocked in selfish individualism, often at the great cost of relational brokenness. But, Christian journey is that of the desert where life is where you get your abundance not from the worldly pursuit of happiness, but from God alone. But, what’s most important in the desert is not so much about what you can get from God, but learning to appreciate and fully trust God as the Giver of all good things.

Another word, God seeks to raise worshipers in the desert. When God first commissioned Moses to bring the Israelites out of Egypt, he said to him in Exodus 3:12, “… When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” He was to tell the king of Egypt (v. 19), “Let us take a three-day journey into the desert to offer sacrifices to the LORD our God.” Exodus 5:1, 3, Moses and Aaron told Pharaoh of what God said, “Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the desert.”

There in the desert, at the Mount Sinai, they were to encounter God of revelation. In the desert, they received instructions on how to relate to each other and relate to him. There in the desert, they were given instructions on how to build the tabernacle, a sanctuary where God would come down and dwell with them. From there, the desert, the Mount Sinai, there were to journey with God in the midst of them to the Promised Land.

This image of the tabernacle is so strikingly similar to John 1:14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” This Word who became flesh speaks to incarnation of Jesus, God Son, coming to dwell with us by taking on human form. The word “dwelling” speaks to pitching a tent and relates back to putting up the tabernacle in the Old Testament.

It is Jesus who restores worship for Christians. For the Israelites, it was through the sacrifices of goats and lambs, but for us it is through the sacrifice of God-Man Jesus’ death that restores us to right relationship with God, where we are not the center, but where God sits in the center throne of our hearts. From the command center of our hearts, God is to permeate our lives with the way he wants us to live, which in fact affects all aspect of our human relationships. Another word, worship restores human relationships.

  • In the desert, God tests us to purge evil and to purify us.

Often in the desert experience of the Israelites, you come across the image of God testing the Israelites. I don’t think God tested them because he didn’t know what they were really like for our God is all-knowing God. God tested them to reveal what they were really made out of, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of the Israelites, to wake them up. When pressure is exerted, when metal is tested in fire, what will that reveal about us?

I can be so full of myself that I can fool myself to think that I am all right with God and all right with people. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” It takes God to engineer circumstances of desert to reveal what I am made of.

Now that the Israelites witnessed the awesome demonstration by God his power over Egypt’s trust in their gods by striking them with ten plagues and parting of the red sea, you would think that the Israelites would be all about God.

But, this wasn’t the case. When God brought them to a placed called Marah where they couldn’t not drink water because it was bitter, their response was that of grumbly complaining. It says in Exodus 15:24, “So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What are we to drink?” And, it says in v. 25, “there he tested them.” When God tested them with bitter water, what was revealed was their ungrateful complaining spirit.

Exodus 16:2-3 says, “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

And, God responded to them in Exodus 16:4-5, “Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.”

When the pressure is on, when things that we hold are stripped away, when things aren’t going the way we want, when relationships disappoint us, when God tests us in the desert, what he allows us to see is the ugliness of our hearts. Jesus often said that it is not what goes into our mouth that defiles us, but what comes out of our hearts.

The book of Numbers is filled with the examples of God testing them, to reveal to them what they were made of in the desert.

In the desert, God is asking, “How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? (Numbers 14:11)

Numbers 14:22-23, you see God’s pronouncement over the people’s predicament for having rejected God, having refused to trust in him. For those, “who saw God’s glory and his miraculous signs performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times, not one of them would ever see the land God promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated God with contempt would ever see it.

When they camped at a placed called Rephidim in Exodus 17:2, where there was no water for the people to drink, they quarreled with Moses. And, v. 3, “the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, “Why did you bring us up put of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?””

The very reason God brought them out of Egypt into desert was so that they would learn to trust in him for all things, even for the very basic necessity of water and to worship God as their Provider. And, you would think for the people who saw God part the Red Sea to easily get this. But, instead of choosing to depend on God, they grumbled and demanded critically. To this attitude, Moses asked, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you put the LORD to the test?

Numbers 20:4-5, at the Desert of Zin, at Kedesh, the people opposed and quarreled with Moses and Aaron saying, “Why did you bring the LORD’s community into this desert, that we and our livestock should die here? Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain or figs, grapevines or pomegranates. And there is no water to drink!”

Again in Numbers 21:5, you see the Israelites complaining, but now even worse that it before. It says, “they grew impatient on the way; they spoke against God and against Moses by saying, “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the desert? There is no bread! There is no water! And we detest this miserable food!”

Do you hear that? The manna that God provided day after day, the daily substance from God through the desert journey is the very thing they called “miserable food.” By scorning the provision, they were scorning and rejecting the Giver, their God.

In each of these cases, God held those who complained, grumbled, mistrusted and opposed him responsible as well as providing relief. In the last case of people showing their utter contempt for their Provider by rejecting manna, God sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died. To give them relief, God instructed to Moses to make a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, he lived.” (Numbers 21:8-9)

We see this in John 3:14, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” To be “lifted up” here refers to Jesus being crucified on the cross. Jesus crucified, lifted up on the cross, suffered and died for us… before this Jesus, in the desert our sins tested as impure, adulterous, rebellious, indifferent, apathetic wickedness can be cleansed, purified and purged, and replaced with his holiness, his righteousness.

  • In the desert, God trains us into warriors.

When God seeks to make us worshipers, when God seeks to purge and purify us from impurities, and when God seeks to make us holy, righteous, he does it so that he can make warriors out of us.

If God’s testing is one sense of God revealing what we are made of, his testing is also in another sense God training us who are untrained and feeble to become disciplined warriors who can be used mightily to expand God’s kingdom.

Exodus 13:17-18 speaks to this part of God’s testing. When God brought the Israelites out of Egypt there was a much shorter route than the desert road through which God could have led Israel. It was “the road through the Philistine country” much easier route. It says, “When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter. For God said, “If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt. So, God led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea.”

God knew that fresh out of Egypt, the Israelites were in no shape to battle against the Philistines. So, he took them to the training journey, the desert journey.

It’s like the old classic martial art movies where the hero of a story is pulled back early on in a movie to work on the skills, to be battled ready. So, the hero become a disciple of a grand master and goes through rigorous training of carrying buckets of water on a tick on their shoulder, punching and kicking the bamboo sticks until their weapons are hardened, learning to wield their swords until they can slice flies in halves, or catch flies with chopsticks, perfecting their forms and mental edge.

God takes unto the desert road to train us, to have us be battle ready. In our stories, we don’t get this training by lifting weights, running miles after miles.  The spiritual training involves taking us into the desert out of the Nile riverbed, so that we can learn to depend on God for his provision, where we must meet God and know him as our Giver, Provider, Protector, and Trainer.

lightbulbSo, remember that as you go through the spiritual desert, although you may feel that the time is wasted, you are not growing at all or God doesn’t seem to be working in you, the truth is that God is working in your desert. God is after you to make you a worshiper, to make you pure and to train you to be effective warriors to expand his kingdom. The desert is the perfect place and time for God to work in you.