Ask for the Mountain

Mark 8:34-38; 1 Corinthians 2:1-5; Numbers 13:26-33

October 22/23, 2011 • Portage First UMC

INTRO VIDEO

Several years ago, I led a mission group out to Sun Valley, Arizona. If you’ve not been there, you might think it’s a resort town. Sun Valley. Arizona in February. Sounds nice, huh? And it was when we landed in Phoenix. Sunny, warm, over 80 degrees, absolutely beautiful! However, Phoenix was not our destination, and Sun Valley lay on the other side of the mountains about four hours north of Phoenix. So we climbed into the vans provided by the mission school and began our journey. As we headed into the mountains, it quickly became evident that the weather in Phoenix was no indicator of the weather in the mountains. 80 degrees in Phoenix, and as we headed farther up into the mountains, it began to snow. And then it snowed harder. And harder. One of our drivers asked the other about taking a different route, and we learned that the other road had already become impassable and was closed. So we went farther into the mountains, and the van got very quiet. We could barely see in front of us, and our van creeped along as we sought to stay on the road. As we topped the summit and began to head down the other side, the snow began to let up and eventually we all relaxed, knowing we were safe. We were going to make it. Now why, you might ask, did we even attempt to go over the mountain? Well, aside from the fact that there was nowhere for us to stop, we all knew that what we had been called to do for the week lay on the other side of the mountain. If we were going to become and do all that God had called us to be and do, we were going to have to go over the mountain. And because we were certain of our call, it was worth tackling the mountain in order to get to what God had for us on the other side.

This evening/morning, as we finish up our series on “The Me I Want to Be,” I have a very simple message for you. I want to challenge you to ask for your own mountain. Over the past few weeks, we’ve been talking about what it’s going to take to become the person God dreamed for us to be when he thought us up. And so we’ve talked about seeing ourselves honestly, about renewing our minds, redeeming our time, and last week Pastor Deb challenged us to deepen our relationships, to connect deeper with God so we can connect deeper with each other. But there’s one more piece to becoming the me we want to be, and that’s to do what we’re called to do, to transform our experiences from the daily grind into something that honors God. And that will take courage and boldness to do.

There’s a story tucked into the 13th chapter of the Old Testament book of Numbers—not a book we read very often. Numbers is part of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible that tell the story of the beginning of the Jewish people, of the descendants of Abraham, and how they ended up in slavery in Egypt, and how a man named Moses was sent by God to rescue them from Egypt and bring them back to what we know today as the land of Israel. It was called Canaan in those days, but God had promised the people that the land was theirs. All they had to do was drive out the people who lived there, and God even promised he would help them with that. So in the beginning of Numbers 13, God tells Moses to send some spies into the land, to check things out. Now, is that because God didn’t know what was there? No, of course not. But God always partners with human beings, and God wanted the people of Israel to take ownership of what was about to happen. “Check out the land, see if it’s everything I have promised you, and learn to rely on me for everything that happens after this” (cf. Goldingay, Numbers & Deuteronomy for Everyone, pg. 36).

And so Moses sends twelve men to spy out the land. They spend forty days doing that, and then they come back and give their report. “It’s a beautiful land,” they say. “It flows with milk and honey!” (13:27). The modern nation of Israel still uses that same image to promote tourism, and I’ve been there twice. I’ve yet to see milk or honey flowing too much, though there are parts of the land, particularly around the Sea of Galilee, that are beautiful. Much of it is a desert, but there are certain things that grow there well, like figs. So when they say “honey,” they’re not referring to bees’ honey like we think of; the word refers to a syrup made of figs, and that syrup is still the main source of sweetness in the Middle East (Goldingay 36). But the land is beautiful, the spies say first. And they even bring back some of the fruit they found there—perhaps some figs.

But…there’s always a “but,” isn’t there? Just when things seem to be all rosy, someone speaks up. “But…the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large” (13:28). The cities are inaccessible (probably mostly built on the tops of hills, for the sake of defense) and impregnable (how could we break those thick walls by ourselves?). This is too much for us. It’s beyond our reach. We can’t do it. It’s too big a task (Allen, “Numbers,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 2, pg. 811).

Have you ever been told that? Have you ever been told that the task was just too large, that it couldn’t be done? There were some who said that when this church purchased Crossroads. It was too much, it was too big, we’d never be able to pay for it. And yet, in six years, the land was ours, paid in full. Now, I sometimes hear people say our vision’s too big. We can’t build there. We can’t possibly raise the money. We should just sit tight, or maybe even get rid of the land. The vision laid out several years ago is just too big. We can’t do it, they say. We heard that with the launch of PF Hope last spring. As pieces of that began to come together, I was repeatedly asked, “What if it fails?” That’s just another way of saying it’s too big. We can’t do it. My response was, “What if it doesn’t? What if it succeeds?” We look for failure first rather than success. The problem in the book of Numbers is the same problem we have today. It isn’t that the task is too big; it’s that our faith is too small. God had already promised to go with the Israelites and help them conquer the land. He’d already told them that. Their belief that the cities were impossible to defeat, that the people were too big and too strong shows that their faith was in themselves, and not in God. Do we have the same problem? Was author J. B. Phillips talking to us when he wrote a book called Your God is Too Small? Because if all we’re relying on to do the really big things in life is ourselves, we will fail. We can’t do it. That’s why our faith must be in the one who said, “I am the Lord, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:27).

Just because it’s the majority opinion doesn’t make it right. In Number, two men come forward with a minority report. Joshua is one, but in this passage, in the midst of the hubbub that is caused by this frightening report, Caleb steps up and tells them all, literally, to shut up and listen. He has something he wants to say. Now, Caleb’s family were not native Israelites. Though his family has become part of the tribe of Judah, they were sort of grafted in somewhere along the way (cf. Goldingay 36). They’re not biologically Hebrews. And the irony of that is, of course, that this one who is not physically one of the Chosen People can see God’s promises better than those who are. In the face of all the evidence the others have presented, Caleb says, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it” (13:30). Though he doesn’t say it outright, underlying his bold assertion is the belief that since God said they could it, they could. Caleb remembered all the things they had seen up to this point, how God had brought them out of slavery, how God had provided for their every need. If God could do all that, why couldn’t God also defeat their enemies, no matter how big they are? But the ten prevailed. That didn’t make them right; it just means they were louder. They reminded the people how hard it was going to be. The inhabitants of the land were bigger, stronger, bolder, faster, better looking and taller. The Canaanites could not have better P.R. than what was coming from the mouth of the spies. No one was arguing that conquering the land was going to be hard. It was going to take work. It was going to take sacrifice. But what they ten said is, “We just can’t do it.” And the people bought it. And do you remember what happened because of this? In Numbers 14, the people continue to grumble, and so Moses goes to God and prays about the situation. And God tells Moses to turn the people around. Because they refused to believe in God’s ability to keep his promises, they will wander in the desert for forty years—one year for every day the spies were in the land—and none of the people standing there that day would ever enter the promised land except for Joshua and Caleb. Every one of them would die in the wilderness before they get to experience the promise given to them when they left slavery in Egypt. If it’s too hard for you, God says, then I will grow a people like Caleb who won’t be afraid to take on the mountain. God tells Moses, “Because my servant Caleb has a different spirit and follows me wholeheartedly, I will bring him into the land he went to, and his descendants will inherit it” (14:24).

Centuries later, a bold prophet of God came upon the scene. Though his beginnings were in an obscure little town, it wasn’t long after he began preaching that he gained quite a following. His name was Jesus, his hometown was Nazareth, and his message was all about the kingdom of God. People loved to hear that message. They wanted to know about all the blessings and the promises of God. It had been too long since they had had a genuine prophet, a preacher who told good stories and gave sage advice. And you can trace through the Gospels as Jesus gets more and more popular. You can also trace when he begins to lose popularity, and it begins really when his preaching takes a turn, when he starts talking about suffering and death. In fact, in today’s Gospel passage, it’s one of those times. Mark 8 is really a turning point in Jesus’ ministry. It begins with him feeding 4,000 people on a hillside. Then he speaks out against the leadership; everyone likes that. Then he heals a blind man. And then he takes his disciples away on a retreat, and everything changes. Peter, on behalf of the rest of the disciples, says he believes Jesus to the savior of the world, but when Peter says that, he’s picturing a kingdom here on earth. He’s picturing a life of power, wealth and prestige. Instead, Jesus begins talking about death, about suffering, and that’s not what Peter wants to hear. The savior was not supposed to suffer, and certainly not die. When they come back from the retreat, Jesus is just as up front with the crowds who have been following him, the ones who are looking for the nice feelings, the wealth and the prosperity. “Whoever wants to be my disciple,” Jesus says, “must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (8:34).

Now, a lot of times we’ll take that verse and talk about some minor difficulty as being “a cross we have to bear.” You know, these aches and pains are just a cross I have to bear. Or this financial setback is just a cross I have to bear. Or these relatives are just a cross I have to bear. Nothing could be further from what those first century followers would have understood Jesus to mean. Bearing a cross meant you were on your way to death. No one escaped a cross. Once it was put on your back and you began walking toward the place of execution, you were doomed to die painfully. Jesus is calling his followers to die to themselves and begin living the way he wants us to live. “Jesus is not leading us on a pleasant afternoon hike, but on a walk into danger and risk” (Wright, Mark for Everyone, pg. 112). And that’s scary! That’s a huge challenge. To give up the me I prefer to be or the me I have always been and become the me God wants me to be, to become God’s best version of who I am—that’s going to be hard. That might require suffering. That might require pain. That looks like a mountain. All these things we’ve talking about—renewing our mind, redeeming the time, deepening our relationships—it all leads to becoming the person God wants us to be. But taking on that challenge, picking up that cross, taking on that mountain will be hard and painful and maybe even dangerous. But what waits for us on the other side is exactly what God wants for us, exactly what he dreamed for us when he thought us up. Take up your cross, Jesus says. Ask for the mountain.

That means, first, we ask God for what author John Ortberg calls a “glorious burden.” Glorious burden—we don’t like that. We long for a problem-free life, but Ortberg says that’s really just death by boredom. Our culture tells us to despise problems, but in reality problems are an invitation from the Spirit of God to grow, to become more the person we were meant to be. I can look back in my life and see that my greatest times of personal and spiritual growth come out of struggle. A butterfly does not get its wings easily; it has to struggle out of the cocoon. If you open the cocoon for the butterfly, it will never develop the strength to fly. It will fail to flourish. So, Ortberg says, “ask for a task that will keep you yearning and growing and uncomfortable and hungry” (247).

But we don’t like that. We don’t want to face the hard things. Recently, a lot has been made in the news of a TV preacher’s answer to a question from a viewer about a man whose wife had come down with Alzheimer’s. The man wanted to know if it would be okay to divorce his wife and marry someone he was in love with, since his wife was no longer really “there” because of the disease. To everyone’s surprise, the TV preacher agreed it would be okay, since Alzheimer’s, he said, is a “kind of death.” Later, he tried to backtrack, but the damage was done. Such a statement is a denial of the marriage vows (“for better or for worse, in sickness and in health”) and it denies God’s design for husband and wife. Contrast that with Robertson McQuilkin, whose wife Muriel was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after they had been married 42 years. McQuilkin was president of a Bible College at the time, and for a while, he tried to provide care for his wife and keep his schedule, but it became evident he could not do both. And so at the height of his career, Robertson McQuilkin resigned and went home to care for his wife full-time. Of his resignation, he said, “It was only fair. She had after all, cared for me for almost four decades with marvelous devotion; now it was my turn…If I took care of her for 40 years, I would never be out of her debt.” When asked once if she knew him anymore, he said, “No, but I know her.” Caring for his wife was not something he would have planned on doing, but it became his glorious burden and his way of becoming more the “me” God dreamed for him to be. Ask for a glorious burden.

Then, Ortberg says, we need to face our challenge with faith in God. Where is the place in the world you really want to make a difference? And how will you deal with the challenges of that passion? Are you like the ten spies, who come up with a hundred reasons why the challenge couldn’t be met? Or are you like Caleb, who faces it saying, “We can do it”? A study was done a few years ago which found that people who are most optimistic and most faith-filled—the Calebs in the world—live longer. In fact, in the group that was studied, 90 percent of them were still alive at age 85. Of the ones in the group who were negative and pessimistic, only 34 percent of them lived to the age of 85. In another study, faith-filled and optimistic people were found to have better health habits, lower blood pressure and stronger immune systems and tended to live a decade longer than pessimistic people (Ortberg 248). When faced with an adventure, Caleb chose faith; so can we.

So, ask God for a glorious burden, face your challenge, and then do something. In fact, do something difficult. Life, surprisingly, is not about our comfort, though we live today like it is. Some filmmakers a few years back speculated on what life would be like if everything were done for us, and here is what they came up with.

VIDEO: Wall-E

Life is not about our comfort. Life is about making a difference, about working with God in redeeming this world. Life is about doing what God has planned for you. The Bible teaches that God has given each and every one us certain gifts and abilities, and he expects us to use those gifts in ministry to others. We are the body of Christ, Paul says (cf. 1 Corinthians 12:27), and when he says that, he’s emphasizing how much we need each other. Each of us have different gifts, different talents, and together—together!—we can make a real difference, bigger, broader and better than any of us can do alone. Life is not about comfort. Life is about becoming the me God wants us to be and serving the world around us.

This morning, out in the Fellowship Hall, we are having a Ministry Fair. This is not just a chance for you to walk around and admire the wonderful displays and feel proud of all the things that are going on around this church. I mean, I hope you’ll do that, but the Ministry Fair is more about you finding your challenge and jumping in to do your part—even if or maybe especially if it’s difficult. I urge you to go have this prayer constantly on your heart: “Lord, what are you calling me to do for you and with you at this time in my life?” You know, sometimes, we get the idea that we’ve done our part. We’ve served our time. It’s time for someone else to step up—and we may be right in a certain area of the church. Maybe you’ve taught that class long enough. Maybe you’ve done those work projects long enough. And if that’s the case, I believe God has something more for you to do. I believe God yet has another challenge for you, another ministry for you. Billy Graham often pointed out that the idea of retirement is nowhere in the Bible, and he would still be out there preaching, I’m convinced, had it not been for the Parkinson’s that took him out of active ministry. My dad retired several years ago, and my brother and I always joked that in retirement Dad wouldn’t be able to sit still, and that he’d get a job as a Wal-Mart greeter just to stay busy. Well, we were right, he couldn’t sit still, and so in his retirement, he has gotten involved with Habitat for Humanity, and when my folks are in Florida for the winter, rather than playing golf or cards or sitting by the lake, Dad is out building houses for people in need. I hope I have half his energy when I’m in my seventies. But Dad knows that retirement, for him, is just another opportunity to serve. Every stage of life offers us unique opportunities to serve God and serve others. What is God calling you to do at this point in your life to serve him and serve others? Maybe you do have health challenges, and maybe you can’t get out there and be terribly active, no matter what your age is. In my last appointment, I had a lady who was 99 years old when she died, and Pauline once lamented to me that she wasn’t able to be out and about anymore, wasn’t able to help at the church like she used to. So I asked her, “Can you still pray?” Well, yes, she could. Then, I told her, you pray for us, and you’ll be doing some of the most important work there is. And she prayed for us, until the day she died. Another gentleman I knew was facing a series of health challenges in his own life, and he wasn’t that old, maybe in his 50’s or so. Then he heard I was having heart surgery, so he told me he would pray for me. And he did. He prayed for me on the day of my surgery as an act of love, and almost as soon as he said “amen,” Ron had a heart attack and died. The last thing on earth he did was serve someone else (me, in this case) in spite of his own challenges. I will never forget Ron’s selfless spirit. What is God calling you to do at this point in your life to serve his kingdom?

I love Caleb’s story. After the land was conquered, it would have been easy for him to sit down and rest and let everyone else take care of things. But that was not Caleb’s nature. When he was eighty-five years old, Caleb came to Joshua as the land was being divided up, and he said this: “I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I’m just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then. Now give me this hill country that the Lord promised me on that day. You yourself heard then that the Anakites were there and their cities were large and fortified, but, the Lord helping me, I will drive them out just as he said” (Joshua 14:11-12). Eighty-five years old. The flat land would be much easier to occupy, but Caleb asks for the hill country, for a place where there were fortified cities to conquer. Eighty-five years old. Don’t you love his spirit? I want to be Caleb. I want to be the me God has dreamed for me to be, and I want, in every stage of my life, to be asking for the mountain because “life is not about comfort. It is about saying, ‘God, give me another mountain’” (Ortberg 251). That’s the life God has dreamed for us, and it’s time we start living it to the full. Ask for the mountain! Amen!