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Biblical Rocks in Our Lives - Commandments

Scripture: Deuteronomy 5:1-22

Do you remember what it felt like when you finally got your license and you were able to drive a car? After all those years of being shuttled from place to place, having to ask for a ride from folks who held your social fate in their hands, of having to plead and sometimes beg so you could go where you wanted to go, finally you had this document that said you were free at last!! What did that feel like? Do you remember?

Or when you graduated from high school and it dawned on you that whatever happened the next fall would be entirely up to you, that no law would be telling you what you had to do or where you had to go, and you were in charge! Yea! You could say to the Man, “Hey, I’m the man now!”

Or when you moved out of the house for the first time and you were intoxicated from the knowledge that if you wanted to go to bed at 3 a.m., by golly, you’d go to bed at 3 a.m.! If you wanted to eat stale cheerios and cold hot dogs for dinner, then that’s what the menu would be! And if you wanted to have 30 close friends over for a ‘social engagement’, well, you there was no one to give you an unreasonable argument about noise or damage or anything else. Free at last, thank God, I’m free at last!!

We can all remember those times of life when whatever constraints we had labored under were removed, and suddenly we were free. It is a giddy time, and time of no small excitement, when every door seemed open to us and every possibility within reach. We were energized.

It is that feeling that surely must have been rampant among the Israelites when the text we’ve just read was written. Four hundred and thirty years they lived as slaves (Ex. 12:40). Every morning when they awoke they knew that whatever they were going to do that day, it would be decided by someone else, and Egyptian. Most days meant making bricks and mortar, working in the hot sun to build cities like Pithom and Rameses, or back-breaking work in the fields. There were very few days of lounging in the hammock, sipping lemonade and watching ESPN. On the plus side, you never had to take those aptitude tests in high school, you know the ones that ask you a number of questions then tell you that you would be a good doctor or lawyer or plumber? You didn’t have to decide what you were going to do. Your future was mapped out. Your father was a slave, your mother was a slave, your grandparents, your great grandparents, your great, great grandparents…

But then one day, after 430 years of this existence…freedom. “The king called for Moses and Aaron and said, ‘Get up and leave my people. You and your people may do as you have asked; go.” (Ex. 12:31) Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, free at last.

And you all know what the Israelites did in the years following the granting of their freedom. They wandered in the desert, physically, but they also wandered in a spiritual desert. Being free for the first time in generations, they used that freedom to do whatever they wanted. Why? Because one of the first things we do when we get our freedom is to push that freedom to the limits. It has always been that way, it will always be that way. Even today, we continue to believe that a life without limits is more fun, more fulfilling.

The great philosopher Woody Allen once said, “There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.” Tug McGraw, a pitcher for the Mets and Phillies, once said, “Ninety percent of (my salary) I spent on booze and women, and the other 10 percent I wasted.” Freedom is fun. Throw off your shackles and let yourself decide what YOU’D like to do!! Can I get an amen?

The problem is, and I think we know this, the problem is that we are being pulled in a lot of different directions in life. Daily choices are difficult when you’re free, because there are so many of them. And on any given day, feeling any particular way, I’ll make a decision that may or may not be good for me. The poet Carl Sandburg said, “There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud.” Which one is going to decide what to do at any given time? The eagle or the hippopotamus?

I don’t know which one wins when you decide, but I can tell you this: the Israelites were free for a mere three months, ninety days, and there were hippopotamuses everywhere. Here’s one example, from Exodus 32: “Early the next morning, the people…sat down to eat and drink and then began to party. It turned into a wild party!” So it should come as no surprise when you read the Bible to discover that a mere ninety days after they attained absolute freedom, we find Moses reminding the Israelites that some choices lead to life, and some to death. We read a moment ago, “Moses called together the people of Israel and said: “Today I am telling you the laws and teachings that you must follow, so listen carefully. The LORD himself spoke to you out of the fire…(and said) I am the LORD your God, the one who brought you out of Egypt where you were slaves.” And after what that, what follows is what we have all come to know as the Ten Commandments.

Now I know some people look at the Ten Commandments and see rules, regulations, do’s and don’ts that restrict and restrain and bind us. How can we be free when we have to follow all these commandments? Most of us, at some time or another, have seen these rules in a negative light. Or as the acerbic writer H.L. Mencken once wrote, “Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, you will always come back to the pleasant fact that there are only ten of them.”

But I’d like to cast them in a positive light this morning. I’d like to suggest that what we have in the Ten Commandments are God’s protection for us, the guidelines for life that rescue us from death. These rules, these laws of life, are the rock on which we build our lives if we want them to last. These commandments are the words Jesus lifts up when he says, “The wise man’s house did not fall, because it was built on rock.” The commandments are how we know God loves us.

That became clear to me when I read something that R.F. Smith wrote about ten years ago. Dr. Smith was the pastor of the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church in Huntington, West Virginia. He wrote, “She was about three when it happened. And our youngest. Being the youngest she perhaps needed extra assurance. But the youngest to the oldest in every family asks the same question many, many times. Maybe not in the same way, but they ask it. The conversation went something like this: "Daddy can I go out and play?" (It was raining cats and dogs.) "Surely," I said, putting her on a bit. "You can go out." "But it's raining out there," she protested. "I know." “But I'll get wet," she argued. "Yep, you probably will," I calmly said. "I might get sick, too!" she explained. "That could happen," I guessed. And then, with a real trace of hurt in her voice, she said, "You don't love me!"

Interesting how Dr. Smith’s daughter instinctively knew, at the age of 3, that love meant setting limits to protect her. When the Israelites experienced freedom after 430 years, the Lord God did not leave them alone to their own devices, but God watched over them, guided and guarded them, and gave them these commandments written on stone, so they would be a rock that would protect his people through all of life. When you don’t care what happens to somebody, you say, “Go ahead, do whatever you want.” When you loves someone, you have their best interests at heart. In his latest book called The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson, my absolute favorite theologian, says it better than I am able. Peterson grew up in Montana, on the Western range. He writes, “One of the chores to which my friend was routinely assigned by his parents was what they called "riding fence." It was mindless work: he simply rode his horse along the barbed wire fence that enclosed the cattle, looking for breaks or weaknesses. When he found one he repaired it. There were miles of fence. Some days he would ride for hours without finding what he was looking for. My friend told me that cattle are the dumbest members of the entire livestock family, but in one thing they are absolutely brilliant: they have a genius for finding a hole or weak place in a fence. And the moment they find it they are through it, leading their sister cows and brother bulls after them into dangerous terrain where they have no skills for protecting themselves or avoiding calamity. You then have to spend the next two or three days rounding them up and returning them to where they belong and can be kept alive. My friend called cattle the idiot savants of the livestock world. And so it was necessary to "ride fence" to protect the cattle who didn't know enough to take care of themselves but were absolute geniuses at finding a hole and escaping from the confines of the community where there were adequate provisions for keeping them healthy.”

Let’s not push the analogy too far. You and I are far smarter than cattle. Right? But we share this in common with them: we have a genius for finding a hole or weak place in the fence God has provided for us. And we are always wiggling through those holes, inviting our brothers and sisters to come through with us, because, after all, we’re free, and we like to sing ‘don’t fence me in’ and doesn’t the grass look a bit greener over there? But maybe we should stop from time to time and ask ourselves, “Why is this fence here?”

Commandments. Written in stone. The biblical rocks our God has placed around us to protect us. Tough words. Tough to follow. But true words, good words, and words of life. When Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as governor of California in January of 1977, he said these words in his inaugural address: “For many years now, you and I have been shushed like children and told there are no simple answers to the complex problems that are beyond our comprehension. Well, the truth is there are simple answers. They are just not easy ones.” These are simple words, given on a mountaintop to a people who had recently been given freedom. These are simple words given by a God who loved his people fiercely and forever. These are simple words. But they are not easy.

Nicaragua

Scripture: 2 Kings 6:8-23

I want to have eyesight like Elisha. Elisha’s eyesight is better than 20/20. He can see things that are there that the rest of us cannot see. I want to have eyesight like Elisha. The Bible says, “When Elisha's servant got up the next morning, he saw that Syrian troops had the town surrounded.”Sir, what are we going to do?" he asked. "Don't be afraid," Elisha answered. "There are more troops on our side than on theirs." Then he prayed, "LORD, please help him to see." And the LORD let the servant see that the hill was covered with fiery horses and flaming chariots all around Elisha.” I want to have eyesight like Elisha. At the crucial moment of need, Elisha was able to look to the hills and he knew from whence his help would come. His help had come, and he could see it in the faces of the solid soldiers, heavenly storm troopers, filling the mountainside. It was hardly a fair fight. God’s strength, God’s presence was overwhelming.

And that’s why Elisha is Elisha. Because God had given him a great gift, the gift of spiritual sight that was greater than the rest of us mere mortals. We look to the mountains and see green trees, craggy rocks and assorted trails. We look all around and see the enemies’ troops and feel as though we’re outnumbered and ill=prepared, maybe even doomed! Elisha could see that nothing was further from the truth. “There are more on our side than on theirs.” You and I will never be Elisha.

But, throughout our lives, we do get certain scattered seasons in which we have the chance to be Elisha’s servant. By the grace of God, our eyes are opened and we get to see what the spiritual giants already know, and always see. Sometimes Elisha prays for us and God answers his prayer, “O Lord, please let him see. Please let her see.” And our eyes are opened to a new reality, to something we previously could not see.

If you think about it, it’s happened to you more than once in your lifetime. One day you were having coffee with a friend in your usual meeting place, and he walked in. What was it about him? You thought he was handsome, and when he asked if you had the time your heart skipped a beat. When you saw him there the next day, and the third time, all of a sudden you noticed that you could see things in this world that were previously hidden. Love can open your eyes to so many things! (Of course, it can close your eyes to some things, too, but that’s for another day’s sermon!) “O Lord, please let her see”.

Though we can never be Elisha, we are often given the eyesight of Elisha’s servant. One day a new child arrives in our home. This child has great needs that sometimes threaten to overwhelm us with sleeplessness, and a bone-tired weariness we’ve never experienced before. But with this sleep deprivation and fairly constant fatigue, you suddenly notice that you can see things you could never see before. You see how the smile of a child can change a mood; how the first walking steps of a toddler show the goodness of God; and how your sleeping son or daughter is the greatest proof of God’s miraculous intervention in this world that you have ever seen. All those things, invisible to your eye previously. “O Lord, please let him see.

You and I will never see with the eyes of Elisha. But there are times, blessed times, holy times, when we are able to see like Elisha’s servant saw on this faithful day in scripture. My constant prayer as your pastor is that this will happen as you serve the Lord wherever you are. Is there a greater gift than when your eyes are opened and you can see the truth of what you’ve read about in the Bible for your entire life? Is there a greater gift than seeing that the power of the Lord is present in this world?

You teach Sunday School and a student hugs you one Sunday and says, “You taught me just how powerful the love of God can be.” Now your eyes are opened, even though they’re filled with tears! You can see that God has used you as his instrument to literally reach out and touch someone.

You go to the Soup Kitchen. The fellows file into the kitchen and you put some pasta on their plates and when they come by you and greet you, and thank you, something happens. It’s as though you can see something you couldn’t see before, how we are all related in some basic, primary way, how the person standing in front of you looks suspiciously like Jesus. God has given you the ability to see in a deeper and more fuller way.

Those are the special moments on the journey of faith. They don’t happen every day, unless your Elisha, but they do happen to every one of us and when they do, when our prayer is answered, “O Lord, let me see” they are moments we never forget, moments that can confirm our faith and can often stretch it. That’s what I pray for you as the people of this church. That’s what I hope happens in all the ministries we expend our energies in in this church. Lord, let us see. Let us see your presence, your power, your love and your grace as we serve.

Seven years ago I went to Nicaragua, and I had just this experience. That first year I went, 2001, I wrote in a journal I took along just for the trip. I want to read you a portion of what I wrote. At the end of the first full day in Managua I wrote the following: “Tonight I had a long conversation with Dr. Bill Cummings, a fascinating man. Dr. Cummings is a retired medical doctor, and a member of the First Baptist Church of Cleveland. During his working years he was Assistant Clinical Professor at the University Hospitals of Cleveland. For the past thirty-two years he has been making yearly pilgrimages to Nicaragua to work with Dr. Parajon in various communities across the countryside. He is learned, accomplished, sensitive and a lover of Christ at heart. As I listen to his excitement as he describes this country I remember the words of Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Earth’s crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God” yet, unlike Moses, we pass by without even wondering. Bill said that for the last few years he never goes anywhere without his camera. He said it forces him to look at things more closely, because one never knows when a picture will present itself. I know what he means. I can see the presence of God in this place.”

On Friday, July 6, seven people, six of them from the North Hills Community Baptist Church, left Pittsburgh and flew to Managua. For ten days, until our return on Sunday, July 15, we lived and labored among the people of this country. Many of us had this experience of Elisha’s servant.

Rocks in Our Lives - Weapons

Scripture: 1 Samuel 17:21-40
“Biblical Rocks in Our Lives”

I stopped the story before we got to ‘the good part’. I know that’s what you’re thinking. Every kid in Sunday School loves this story and wants to get to the ‘good’ part. In fact, there’s a catchy little song from a tape called “Wee Sing Bible Songs”.

But really, that’s not the best, most amazing part of the story here in 1 Samuel. The best, most amazing part is the part we read. Start with Goliath. He would make Shaquille O’Neal look small. This is the Bible’s description of this manly monstrosity: “A giant nearly ten feet tall stepped out from the Philistine line into the open, Goliath from Gath. He had a bronze helmet on his head and was dressed in armor—126 pounds of it! He wore bronze shin guards and carried a bronze sword. His spear was like a fence rail—the spear tip alone weighed over fifteen pounds.” I hope I’m picking first when we choose up sides for basketball…or football…or anything!

Then, of course, there’s the brazen bravado of this Goliath fellow. “Goliath stood there and called out to the Israelite troops, "Why bother using your whole army? Am I not Philistine enough for you? Pick your best fighter and pit him against me. If he gets the upper hand and kills me, the Philistines will all become your slaves. But if I get the upper hand and kill him, you'll all become our slaves and serve us. I challenge the troops of Israel this day. Give me a man. Let us fight it out together!"

This is one of those times when everybody takes one step back and you’re still standing there. That’s usually how someone ‘volunteers’ for a job like this. In fact, no one did volunteer for this job. The Philistines stood on this side of the mountain, the Israelites on the other, and for forty days, they would wake up, have their coffee, take their positions and Goliath would saunter out and say, “Are you ready to rumble?” Nothing.

Then on the 41rst day, David. There’s nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know. Youngest of eight brothers. The runt of the litter. It’s funny that when David tries to volunteer, King Saul argues with him, but not too hard and not for too long. Fairly quickly Saul says, “Go, and may God be with you!” Don’t you imagine Saul was mentally rehearsing how he was going to give his condolences to Jesse, David’s father? “He was brave, and after all, he lasted almost 20 seconds!” Saul takes off his armor, and the Bible says, “He put his bronze helmet on David’s head and belted his sword on him over the armor. David tried to walk but he could hardly budge.”

Then the best, most amazing part of the story. David told Saul, "I can't even move with all this stuff on me. I'm not used to this." And he took it all off. Then David took his shepherd's staff, selected five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in the pocket of his shepherd's pack, and with his sling in his hand approached Goliath.” David turns his back on the best and most advanced weaponry of his day, and instead he walks over and kneels over a nearby brook and takes a moment to select five small, smooth stones. Small rocks. He uses what is familiar to him, what God has prepared for him to use, what he is comfortable with. And with these biblical rocks, David goes to face the giant.

You know why this is the best part of the story? Because it continues to speak to us today. There is a principle here that is timeless. As human beings, even as God’s people, we are constantly on the lookout for something that will guarantee us safety and security and give us protection. Stronger armor looks better, bigger bank balances make us feel safer, job titles give us protection, specialists at the best hospitals are our defense against illness and self-help books and positive thinking provide us with sanctuary. All of these things, and more, are Saul’s armor. They are the best weaponry the world can provide against the giants that threaten to do us in.

Then we come to church and the preacher reads the Bible and we say together, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” Amen?
Saul’s armor, or David’s rocks? What humans devise or what God provides? Sure, it’s Sunday morning. Trust in the Lord. But Monday’s coming!

I think I’ve told you the story about the conference of all clergy, called by the bishop of a certain area. In the morning hours as the clergy gathered, the bishop discovered that the man he had asked to do the devotions was ill and would not be attending. He approached a new young ordinand and said to him "Son, would you be willing to do the devotions for us this morning?" The young man was startled and somewhat frightened. "How can I do that?" he said. "I have nothing prepared." The bishop handed him his Bible. "Just trust the Lord, son, just trust the Lord. Find something in the Bible that is special to you and share it with the group. Trust the Lord and it'll work." The young man did not want to be disobedient to his bishop, so he took the Bible and walked over and sat down on a chair in the corner. He began to frantically search the pages. There were a number of bits and pieces of paper in the bishop's Bible. In one instance he came across a piece of paper that was a rough outline of one of Jesus' parables. The more he looked at it, the more he realized that it might be a good way to go. So he used that as the outline of his morning devotions. He did quite well. When he was finished, the bishop came rushing over to him. The young man thought maybe he was to be congratulated. Instead the bishop said, "What do you think you're doing? You used my outline for my closing message for the day. Now what am I going to do?" I love the way the young man responded. "Well, bishop, I guess you'll just have to trust the Lord. Just trust the Lord."

The best, most amazing part of this story is that young David did what I so often preach. He trusted the Lord, bent his knees at the small brook, and selected five small, smooth round stones. I stop the story there because regardless of what happens after this stop at the stream, the most amazing thing has already happened. David trusted God.

The story speaks to me. Saul’s armor or David’s rocks? What humans devise or what God provides? You and I know there are rocks that God provides, weapons that will provide us the ultimate security. I like to them of them as resembling the smooth stones David chose.

In the sixth chapter of the New Testament book of Ephesians, the apostle Paul speaks about God’s weapons, what he uses to keep us safe. Listen. Paul writes, “Be prepared. You're up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it's all over but the shouting you'll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You'll need them throughout your life. God's Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other's spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out.”

Small, smooth stones. The world may not put much stock in them. But they have been known to keep people safe from giants, to safe a people, to provide the security that the world longs for. Think on these things.