Sermons by Dr. W. Marshall Davis
Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Rochester, PA

 

Wilderness Trek

Genesis 12:1-4; Hebrews 11:8-10

 

 

July 26, 2009

 

 

I am in the wilderness, or at least I will be in a couple of weeks. I am not just talking about the physical wilderness, although I will also be in the NH woods in a couple of weeks also. For me a vacation is getting off into the woods. We have always rented a place on a lake for two or three weeks where it is quiet and I can think and pray clearly and decompress. Then while on vacation we will go from that place deeper into the White Mountain National Park for day trips where I can hear nothing but the sounds of the wilderness. If my knees do not fail me I will hike up one of the smaller mountains just so I can stand on the top and enjoy the silence and solitude.  But you can be in a spiritual wilderness even if you are not in the physical wilderness. That is why I say I am in the wilderness.

 

The wilderness appears often in the Bible. Our two scripture lessons today describe Abraham’s departure from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the wilderness. Ur was one of the great urban centers of ancient Chaldea. Abraham’s family (it really started with his father Terah) was leaving the city for the country. Jewish tradition says that Abraham’s father Terah was an idol maker in Ur. God called Abraham’s father to leave that life behind, and go into the wilderness. Terah settled in Haran for a while. Then when Terah died, Abraham continued the journey and went further into the wilderness.

 

The wilderness figures prominently in the Bible. Israel spent forty years in the wilderness of Sinai until God finally allowed them to enter into the Promised Land. Elijah, when pursued by the wicked queen Jezebel went into the wilderness for forty days where finally on a mountainside he heard the still small voice of God. The Israelites were taken from their homes in Jerusalem through the wilderness to Babylon, and had to return the same wilderness route. John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea. If you wanted to hear him preach you had to travel into the wilderness; no padded pew or air-conditioned sanctuary. After being baptized by John, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for forty days. The wilderness is an important part of the spiritual life in the Bible, and it still is an important part of the spiritual life today. So I want to talk about the wilderness.

 

1. First, the wilderness is a place of calling. It is a place we are called to go sometimes. We may not want to go, but we are called to go. Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”   Genesis 12:1 records the words of that call “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, From your family And from your father’s house, To a land that I will show you.” Abraham was called to leave home and go to another land. But to get there he had to go through the wilderness.  I thought I probably was going to do pastoral ministry until I retired. After all, early retirement according to my pension plan is age 62 which is only three years away for me. I thought I might even continue until 65 or 66. But that was my plan, not God’s plan. Things changed for me, and I saw things differently, that God was calling me to leave, and go into the wilderness for a while.

 

2. Second, the wilderness is a place of testing. Think of the wilderness experiences in the Bible: the Hebrews’ 40 years in the wilderness of the Sinai, Elijah’s forty days in the wilderness, the Israelites 70 years of captivity in Babylon, Jesus’ 40 days of temptation in the wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. The wilderness is a tough place. The wilderness is uncomfortable. It’s not home. If you have ever been camping you know camping just isn’t like being home. Abraham was called to leave home in Haran, where he had lived for a number of years. I am called to leave this place where I have called home for 11½ years. It is not comfortable leaving a place which has been home. You as a church are called to go into the uncomfortable place of the wilderness as well. The time of guest preachers and interim ministry is a type of wilderness. It is not comfortable, but God sometimes calls us to go into the wilderness whether we ready or not. It is a place of uncertainty and self-examination and doubt. It can be a dangerous place. When the Hebrews left the slavery of Egypt to go to the Promised Land, it was only meant to be a short time. But in that wilderness they were tested by God and failed the test. They rebelled. They worshipped false gods, and had to spend forty years instead forty days in the wilderness. 

 

3. Three, the wilderness is a place of obedience, at least it should be. Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go….” Abraham could have said no to God. He could have stayed in Haran. He could have thought his dad was nuts to leave Ur in the first place and gone back to Ur, and resumed the prosperous idol-making business. After all someone has to make them! But Abraham obeyed. In the Wilderness of Sinai, Israel did not obey. They kept wanting to go back to Egypt where they had food and shelter and work, where they felt secure. So what if they were slaves. They would rather be slaves under Pharaoh in Egypt than free under God in the wilderness. That is the temptation and that is why we have to obey.

 

4. Fourth, the wilderness is a place of unknowing. Hebrews 11:8 “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.” I love that phrase: “And he went out, not knowing….” It resonates with me because that is exactly how I am feeling. I do not know where I am going. I know there is a promised land out there, but I haven’t seen it yet. I do not know what type of ministry I am going to be doing. I do not know where I am going to be living in the future. I don’t know if I am going to be able to sell the house I own in Chippewa in a timely fashion. I do not know about health insurance. I have it here but I don’t know if I am going to be able to get it somewhere else. I did not vote for Obama but now I am watching to see if his healthcare reform can solve my healthcare problem. The wilderness is a place of unknowing because we do not know what is out there.

 

It is also a place of unknowing because we are going to have to unlearn things. We always have a tendency to do things our way. In the wilderness we have to unlearn that. The rhythm of my life will change and the rhythm of this church’s life will change. We have to unlearn some things and admit we do not have al the answers. That is why the wilderness is a scary place.

 

5. Fifth, the wilderness is a place of faith. Our scripture lesson says, “By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out….” Faith is what the wilderness is all about. Think of the Hebrews in the wilderness after being freed from Egypt in the Exodus. They were leaving the security – if also the slavery - of life in Goshen to go into the desert. What would they eat? What would they drink? They had to go completely on faith. God provided for them manna in the desert and water from a rock. You here – especially those of you in leadership – are wondering what you are going to be doing now. The answer to that question is faith. You have to walk not by sight but by faith. God will provide. God will provide supply preachers. God will supply an interim minister. God will supply a full-time pastor. And it will be good. God works all things out together for good.

 

This is a learning time for both of us. I cannot conceive what I have to unlearn and learn. You cannot imagine what my prayer time has been like this last month. There is nothing that concentrates your mind and puts urgency into your prayers like making a life-changing decision. I have been a fulltime pastor for 32 years and a preacher longer than that. I don’t know anything different. I preached my first sermon less than two years after becoming a Christian. I never learned how to be a Christian without being in a pulpit. I am called Pastor Davis as if Pastor were my first name. Who am I if I am not Pastor Davis any longer? I have been going through a wilderness of prayer. You will be going through it also. Who is the First Baptist Church now? What will it be? Who will you be as members of this church? This is a time for faith. Not depending on old patterns and an old identity but stepping out in faith. God will form you into a new people just as God formed the Hebrews into a new people in the wilderness and God formed Abraham into a new person, even changing his name from Abram to Abraham, signifying the change. You will change – this church will change - in the way that you need to change. Trust God to accomplish that change.

 

6. Sixth, the wilderness is a place of promise. “9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Abraham got to the promised land of Canaan pretty quickly after the call. The call came in Genesis 12:1-4 and he is in the land of Canaan in the next verse. But when they got there, it was still the wilderness for him. By verse 10 there is a famine in the land and he leaves Canaan to go to Egypt. Abraham never settled in the Promised Land. He never owned any of the land of Canaan except a cave as his family burial plot. The story of Abraham tells us that life is a journey. That is why I entitled this message “Wilderness Trek.” The story of Abraham is an allegory of our lives. Our lives are a trek through the wilderness. The only place we really own in this world is the few square feet of ground where they will place our body when we die. People who are cremated may not even have that if their ashes are scattered. As the hymn says, “This world is not my home, I'm just passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.” Our lives are a wilderness trek. They are headed toward a goal. There is a land of promise, but it is not in this world.

 

7. Seven, the wilderness is a place of tents. Our passage says in verse 9 “By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise.” Abraham spent all of his life dwelling in tents. His son Isaac and grandson Jacob lived in tents in the land of promise as strangers in a foreign country. Not until his great-grandson Joseph did one of his descendents settle in a land, and it was not the land of Canaan but the land of Egypt. And you know how that turned out.

 

The apostle Paul calls our bodies a tent. In talking about the resurrection in 2 Corinthians 5 the apostle Paul says, “1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, 3 if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. 4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life.” Paul ought to know something about tents since he was a tentmaker. The apostle Peter uses the same image in 2 Peter 1: 13 “Yes, I think it is right, as long as I am in this tent, to stir you up by reminding you, 14 knowing that shortly I must put off my tent, just as our Lord Jesus Christ showed me.”

 

Living in tents is a colorful way of saying that life is temporary. This was one of the themes of Ecclesiastes, if you remember from earlier in the summer. Abraham and his family lived in tents in the wilderness even when they reached the land of Canaan. We are always living in tents. Nothing is permanent in church or in life. People come and go. Pastors come and go. Even denominations come and go. We dwell in tents. The Hebrew people were even instructed by God that when they finally settled in the Promised land and built houses and planted vineyards, they had to take a week out of every year to leave their homes and live in tents. It was called the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Booths, known in Hebrew as Sukkot. Jews still observe it today. The tents remind them of the time they spent in the wilderness, and we need that reminding also.

 

8. Eighth, the wilderness is a place of waiting. “9 By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” We are waiting for the City of God, the New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven a bride adorned for her husband. We are waiting for the Kingdom of Heaven to come to earth - for God’s kingdom to come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In the meantime we wait. Jesus told a lot of waiting parables. He continually instructed his disciples to watch and wait.

 

I am going to be waiting on God. I do not know where I am going or what I am doing. You might be feeling pretty much the same way. Wait and see. It doesn’t mean we don’t do anything. I am going to be doing a lot. People who retire tell me that they don’t know how they ever found time beforehand to work! I am going to be busy. You are going to be busy as a church. You may have thought that you could shut down as boards and officers for the summer and start up again in the fall. Now you will be busy before Labor Day ever arrives. But while you are busy, wait. Wait on God. Seek the leading of God. Watch and pray. You are going to have to do some serious praying for this church, and I hope you will pray for me as well. I need your prayers. Wait on God and he will lead you through the wilderness. As he led the Hebrew people by the pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night, he will lead you. Wait on his leading, trust and obey.