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Between an Egyptian Army and a Red Sea

From the Series: Non-series
Speaker: Mark Batterson
Date: October 11, 2009

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Transcript

NATIONAL COMMUNITY CHURCH

October 11, 2009

Between an Egyptian Army and a Red Sea

Mark Batterson

How’s everybody doing? Good! Welcome to each of you at all five of our locations. We are thrilled that you would worship with us. We interrupt this regularly scheduled series called ‘Rituals’ for a special message. We will pick back up and talk about communion next weekend.

If you have a Bible, turn to Exodus 14 and we will get there in a moment. It was thirteen years ago that National Community Church was a rag-tag group of about 50 people led by Yours Truly, a very unseasoned pastor. To be perfectly honest, we didn’t really feel like a church, I didn’t really feel like a pastor, and on one particular out-of-town trip, I received a voice mail I’ll never forget. It was a message from the person in charge of leasing DC public schools informing us that the school where we were meeting was being closed because of fire code violations effective immediately. I wish that I could tell you that I reacted in faith, but I still have my journal entry. I wrote, and I quote myself: we’ve been backed into a corner. That’s how I felt. I was so scared, it was so scary because we were on the verge of becoming a homeless church, and I think it was a moment where National Community Church could have ceased to exist and a only a couple dozen people would have known the difference. Honestly, at that point, that could have found a much better church to plug into to. But there are moments when you have to hang in there, and we hung in there, and it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to us because we began to seek the Lord and say, ‘Where are You taking us? What do You want to do?’ And we started looking for meeting space and one day, I’m walking through Union Station and on what I would call a Holy Spirit whim, I walked into the movie theater and I thought, ‘What do we have to lose?’ I’m just going to talk to the theater manager, ask him if he would ever think about leasing to a church on Sunday mornings during non-movie hours and I couldn’t believe it – they loved the idea! The next thing we knew, God opened an amazing door of opportunity at Union Station. I think the thing I remember the most from that experience was that there are moments in life when certain passages of Scripture come alive. They come off the page and get into your spirit and they are more than verses, they become convictions deep within your soul. That’s what happened to Revelation Chapter 3 verse 7. It says

What He opens, no one can shut and what He shuts, no one can open. See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut.

It was like this moment where God was saying, ‘I needed to close the door over here so that you would consider other options. I’m going to open an amazing door of opportunity.’

We walked through that door and began meeting in the movie theater at Union Station. I remember the day I signed the lease, as I walked out of the Station, I picked up a history of Union Station. I love history and I remember the first thing I read, it came off the page and jumped into my heart. It simply said that on February 28^, 1903, that President Theodore Roosevelt signed a Bill of Congress to create Union Station. Here is what it said:

A Bill of Congress to create Union Station and for other purposes.

I remember when I read that, I thought to myself that this is beautiful because Teddy Roosevelt thought he was building a train station, but for the past thirteen years, Union Station has been serving God’s purposes through the ministry of National Community Church. What a joy to see what the Lord has done.

We started out in the smallest theater there. I remember it sat 120 people and I thought to myself, ‘How are we ever going to fill this theater?’ I remember my big dream day one was could we fill half the theater so that it wasn’t just awkwardly empty. That was my big dream. Then the next thing you know, we fill that theater and move into the largest theater and then multiple services and then two locations and now five locations and God has blessed us.

This week, I received a phone call not unlike the phone call that I received thirteen years ago. It was a phone call from the theater manager at Union Station. I asked her how she was doing because her voice seemed a little shaky and she said, “Not good. We just found out from Union Station management that they are going to revoke our lease prematurely and immediately.” And she, along with 30 employees are going to be without a job next week. And this Sunday is our last Sunday at Union Station. I was so shocked when I heard the news, and I can feel the shock now and at our other locations. I don’t have a 30,000-foot perspective on this. This is raw, but this is what we are going to talk about this weekend. I believe the Lord has a Word for us. And I want to tell you that we’ve heard rumors over the last couple of years to this effect. So on one level this isn’t a complete surprise, and those who attend our Union Station location, you know that it is not the cleanest or nicest theater in the metro DC area. We love it because we’ve been there for thirteen years and I have very mixed emotions right now. Literally, this is so fresh. Our team on Wednesday heard the news and we quickly then made phone calls to as many leaders as we could, sent some emails. We know this is going to be a big shock, especially for our Union Station location. So I want to take a few minutes to process this and then I want to look at Scripture because when you don’t know where to turn, you turn to Scripture. When you don’t know where to go, you go to God and when you don’t know what to do, you pray. That’s where we are. I want to tell you this, it’s the right place to be. It’s a good place to be and God is going to do something in us through this that wouldn’t happen any other way.

I have a measure of sadness because I’ve had literally thirteen years of flashbacks this week. My first memory was our first Sunday at Union Station. I got up and I put on my suit and my tie because that’s what I used to wear until I figured out that I really didn’t need to do that, in fact, I felt funny doing that meeting in a movie theater. I showed up that weekend and it took a couple of hours to set it up and I was on the production team at that point and I was sweating before I was even preaching and I remember we got there and the two movies showing that weekend right in the little area where we were, one of them was Bootie Call and the movie across the hall was Private Parts. And we quickly learned that if you’re going to do church in a movie theater, by fake trees that you can strategically place in appropriate places!

We started meeting there and God started to bless what we were doing. I think the things I remember most are the way that God miraculously opened that door. If you guys knew how many Jericho walks I’ve done around Union Station, I remember when we first wondered if this could be it, the first thing I did was a prayer walk seven times around Union Station. It is a ways getting around that whole thing! It was kinda dangerous because there isn’t much of a sidewalk and I did so many prayer walks around that place. On Saturday night before I really had an office, I would go almost every Saturday night and sit out on a perch right out in front of Union Station and I would pray. I would pray that people would find God, and listen, that’s what has happened. Hundreds and hundreds of people have found faith in Christ; thousands and thousands of people have grown in a relationship with Christ; and I want to tell you this – this doesn’t change that! So while I have a measure of sadness, I’m also filled with gratitude. Like, what a run!

One of my other memories, I remember when our kids were real young, I think Parker was probably three or four years old, we were driving down D Street by the Senate office buildings and Union Station was off to the left and I just, for some weird reason I remember the moment, Parker from the backseat said, “Look Dad, it’s church!” I’ve always treasured that in my heart.

I’m going to talk about this later, but just a little reminder here, church is not a building, church is people. You can’t technically go to church because you are the church. The church is not about where we meet, but here’s the thing, I think it is tough for many of us because we have so many spiritual memories at that place. When you have a place where God has met you and He has touched your life on so many different occasions, it is really difficult. So here’s the bottom line, I’ve had a few days but I’m not done processing this, and this is going to depend in large part upon where you are. We have people at NCC that have never been to Union Station, you attend one of our other locations, if you’ve never been there, that’s a little bit different for you. Others, you’ve attended for years and it’s probably going to be more difficult to process that. I think part of it is going to be based on personality. Some of us are going to have a real hard time letting go of that and others have that personality like, what’s next! I think all of us need to have the freedom to process this, to grieve it as much as we need to grieve it, I’m not done with that. Then we need to come out the other side with the faith knowing that God is in control.

What I want to do is give us some biblical perspective, and I think it is going to help us not just process this corporately as a church, but I think it will help us process situations like this in our own individual lives. Exodus 14:5

When word reached the king of Egypt that the Israelites had fled, Pharaoh and his officials changed their minds. “What have we done, letting all those Israelite slaves get away?” they asked. So Pharaoh harnessed his chariot and called up his troops. He took with him 600 of Egypt’s best chariots, along with the rest of the chariots of Egypt, each with its commander. The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, so he chased after the people of Israel, who had left with fists raised in defiance.

The Egyptians chased after them with all the forces in Pharaoh’s army—all his horses and chariots, his charioteers, and his troops. The Egyptians caught up with the people of Israel as they were camped beside the shore near Pi-hahiroth, across from Baal-zephon.

Ok, the Israelites, enslaved for hundreds of years, God raises up a man named Moses. Moses had the defining experience at a burning bush and God says, ‘I’m going to set my people free.’ Ten miracles and the Israelites, a family of 70 when they arrived in Egypt to save themselves from starvation, become a nation two million strong and they exited out of Egypt and they are not very far when Pharaoh changes his mind, and he unleashes his army and his chariots to chase after the Israelites and I think this is one of those biblical moments where we already know what’s going to happen next, so we don’t fully appreciate what’s happening right here. I think you would have to hear the hooves of those horses, I think you would have to see the cloud of dust from those chariots. For what it’s worth, two people to a chariot, one driver, typically an archer or a soldier would travel about 30 miles an hour, this was the cutting edge technology weaponry of that day. Here’s the deal, the Israelites are helpless and defenseless. Why? Because of where they are. Let me ask you a question, have you ever felt like God made a mistake? See, on a human level, this seems to be a divine mistake because God has led the people of Israel to Pi-hahiroth and they are camped in a place where they are trapped by the Red Sea. From a military standpoint, this is the last place you would want to be camped. You wouldn’t camp here. I am no general, but I’ve done enough ding-dong ditches to know that before you do something, you identity your escape route. You know going in how you’re going to get out of it. Yet, it specifically says that God led them to a place where they would be defenseless, where they would have no way out, where there would be no way to go forward and no way to go backward. Why would God do this? Why would God lead them to this place? Their questions are so appropriate here. Listen to what it says, verse 10

As Pharaoh approached, the people of Israel looked up and panicked when they saw the Egyptians overtaking them. They cried out to the Lord, and they said to Moses, “Why did you bring us out here to die in the wilderness? Weren’t there enough graves for us in Egypt? What have you done to us? Why did you make us leave Egypt? Didn’t we tell you this would happen while we were still in Egypt? We said, ‘Leave us alone! Let us be slaves to the Egyptians. It’s better to be a slave in Egypt than a corpse in the wilderness!’”

What they are saying here is, ‘We think God made a mistake.’ That’s what it seems like. Have you ever been there? When I was a senior in college, I thought God made a mistake. I played basketball, I love basketball. I wasn’t half bad. I was a first team All-American my senior year. Don’t get overly impressed, it was for the NCCAA, the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association, but I was averaging 20 points a game and I was at a place, I was playing basketball to glorify God, like I would preach behind a pulpit to glorify God because I knew God had given me some gifts and I was playing to use my gifts to glorify Him and it was giving me a platform, and I can honestly say that it was a time spiritually where I was in a good place. One of my dreams was to win a national championship. We were favored to win that year, we had a great team, I led our team in scoring and three weeks before the post-season, I injured my knee and I find out that I’ve torn my interior ligament. If you know anything about sports or anything about medicine or sports medicine, ligaments don’t heal. You’re only option is reconstructive knee surgery, and I’m in a prayer room in our dorm and I’m thinking that God made a mistake. ‘God, I’m trying to glorify You, I’m trying to use these gifts to bring praise to your name! Why? Would You heal my knee?’ I remember laying hands on myself and begging God to heal my knee, but it didn’t happen. I kept saying why. I was in a place where I felt like I was between an Egyptian Army and the Red Sea and I had no place to go and I didn’t know what to do. Here’s what I’ve learned, sometimes God leads us to a place where we have nowhere to turn to but to Him. And it’s often the last place we want to be, but I’m here to tell you this weekend that it’s the best place to be. I hate it and I love it. It’s the worst and it’s the best. I can tell by the looks on our faces that some of us have been there. We could stay here all weekend, I could tell you about some other experiences, I could tell you about ruptured intestines, worse day of my life. I have a 12 inch scar on my abdomen, 2 days on a respirator, I should’ve died, worse day of my life, best day of my life. Why? Because those are the moments when God shows up and reveals Himself. We hate those situations.

The Israelites didn’t want to be here, they thought God made a mistake. But it’s because we are totally focused on, we think that God’s ultimate objective is our comfort! That’s how many of us operate, myself included. But that’s not how He operates, He wants to reveal his glory in us, through us, and that rarely happens in comfortable circumstances. You know when it happens? It happens when you’re between an Egyptian Army and the Red Sea and you have nowhere to turn but to God.

Here’s what I’ve learned, every one of us wants to experience a miracle. We just don’t want to be in a situation that necessitates it. That’s the truth. I don’t want to be where we are right now. I wanted to meet at Union Station until Jesus returns! Maybe even while we were having a service there. By the way, I don’t believe that door is totally closed. I’ll leave that hanging a little bit. I’ll come back to that.

I think there are situations where we think, ‘Oh God, this is not where I want to be,’ but the reason we think it is a mistake is because we are not omniscient, because we don’t have a 360 degree perspective chronologically, philosophically. It is because on a human plane, all you can see is a Red Sea here and an Egyptian Army here and we don’t have that 30,000-foot perspective, and because of that, it is so easy to panic. So what do you do when you find yourself someplace you don’t want to be? That’s a good question to ask and it’s one that we better figure out. We better figure it out biblically and spiritually because we are going to find ourselves in those situations and if we don’t determine it and define what we should do, then I think we will probably do the wrong thing. So what do you do when you are in a situation where you don’t really want to be? What do you do when a loved one dies or you lose a job or you get a bad diagnosis or alcohol controls your life or you lose an election or your home is foreclosed or a relationship ends or you’ve met someplace for 13 years and then the door closes, or you feel like there’s an Egyptian Army on one side and a Red Sea on the other? What do you do when you find yourself in situations you cannot control?

Let me tell you what you do. You do exactly what Moses told the people to do in verse 13

But Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.”

Have you ever played a game of flinch? You know what I’m talking about? One person has to stand still and they have to keep their eyes open and they can’t flinch, they can’t move, and you get as close as you can without injuring them, you know? This is the game of flinch except instead of hands, God is using the Red Sea. He will do this won’t He? But not until the Egyptians are breathing down their necks. See, it is only when you get in situations where you are tempted to flinch that you can really test your faith. Is it real? Is it genuine? What are we going to do in this situation? The second I got the news, it was my day off and I didn’t recognize the number and I usually don’t answer it. We were on our way to a relaxing cup of coffee, it’s our day off tradition. It turned into a little bit of a stressful day off. I get this news, and what are you going to do? Immediately my mind starts thinking, what are we going to do? What’s our strategy? Can I tell you what our strategy is?

Let me tell you how we are going to handle this, what we are going to do. We are going to stand still, we are going to stay calm, and we are going to believe that the Lord is going to fight for us. And it’s so hard because it is one of those situations, where, can you imagine the restraint it took with chariots 30-miles an hour coming at you, everything within them wanted to run the opposite direction at full speed, but Moses says to stand still. I don’t know what their posture was, they were standing still but I think they were flexing, I think they were standing firm, like we are not moving, we are not flinching. Oh, the faith it took for them to stand right there! What a moment!

I think there are moments in life where you have to remind yourself of the faithfulness of God and that’s going to be what gives you faith to go forward. So let’s remind ourselves a little bit. I don’t have time because there have been too many Ebenezer moments hitherto the Lord has helped us, where God has come through. By the way, in the margin of my Bible, I have these initials written throughout, JEJIT, just enough just in time, because as I was reading through the Old Testament years ago and I was like all over the place and it seems like God intervenes right before, just enough just in time. God has done that so many times.

I remember when we purchased 201 F Street, which you might not know about that piece of property which is now where Ebenezers Coffee House is, is that it was zoned residential when we purchased it and we knew that it would take a miracle. We knew that the Red Sea would have to part, that we would have to go before the zoning commission, that is scary. That is an Egyptian Army, that is scary. I’ll never forget our first attempt, unsuccessful, tremendous opposition, but we didn’t panic. We could have had a piece of property that we could have done nothing with. This is potentially a terrible scenario. We started praying for favor. By the way, we have this core value, pray like it depends on God but work like it depends on you. That core value, it began to be part of who we are, our DNA during this season because we started working like it depended on us and praying like it depended on God. Here’s what happened, here’s a refresher. It was another out-of-town trip, and I found out that some neighbors were circulating emails and posting some things that were tremendously negative towards us and were begin to get some opposition. Would you like to know my initial reaction? I was ticked. I was thinking to myself, ‘We’re buying a piece of property, we’re turning a former crack house into a coffee house, what is your problem with that?’ How could anyone be against this? We started praying for those who were in opposition and God changed my heart, so that when we showed up in that zoning hearing and they sat on the other side of the aisle, I could look them in the eye and love them. It was the weirdest thing, I had compassion for them. I was so upset at them but then after praying for them, God melted my heart and I loved these people. We prayed for favor, and listen, the favor of God is God doing for you what you can’t do for yourself. I covet the favor of God.

Whatever is next for us, we are going to need the favor of God, and we’re going to get it. He is going to bless us. What did we learn from that situation? We were in one of those impossible situations but you just stand still and the Lord is going to fight for you. Pray like it depends on God, work like it depends on you and guess what? God is going to do a miracle. This story is so beautiful. I don’t have time to go into great depth but here’s what happened.

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the people to get moving. Pick up your staff and raise your hand over the sea. Divide the water so the Israelites can walk through the middle of the sea on dry ground.”

This is that great movie moment, right. That’s our only option my friend, to raise God’s staff and say, “God where are you taking us? You part the seas wherever you want to part them.” Let me tell you what we are going to do on an interim basis. I probably should have shared this up front, but please hear me here.

God is in control. Can I make a simple observation? Once I got out a little of my emotional funk, which I was in for a couple of days, once I got out of that, I realized a couple of things, thank God we have a coffee house one block away from Union Station! Is that not the Lord’s provision? Wow! Thank God that we are a multi-site church! We are ok! We’ve got other locations, we’re going to be alright. Here’s what we are going to do, on an interim basis, as we stand still and try to discern what the Lord is doing, we are going to mobilize. We’ve already had meetings and phone calls, we are turning over every rock and God is going to open an amazing door. But as we stand still, we are going to move our Sunday morning services at Union Station to Ebenezers. Now, it’s a little bit crazy because we don’t have the same space for children’s ministry, so we’ll do nursery and a limited children’s ministry at our 9:00 a.m. service, and it might be a good opportunity for a few of you to check out our other locations. But we will use our performance space, we will use overflow on our café level, so we can accommodate it, we are fine. That’s what we are going to do on a short-term basis. But here's what we are going to do, verse 19

Then the angel of God who had been leading the people of Israel, there’s a pillar of cloud which had been leading them shifts from the front to the back.

Now here’s what’s so exciting to me, there is going to be a moment, I don’t know if it will be weeks or months, but there will be a moment where that pillar of cloud, we’ve always been a church, this was a our metaphor to begin with as we said we are going to meet in movie theaters at metro stops and we’re going to open coffee house, this was our metaphor from the beginning, and I think God might be kinda laughing at us a little bit, like ‘You said you wanted to follow the cloud,’ like, we determined that we don’t have a traditional church building, it’s not who we are, and this is part of what comes with that, and I hope that there’s a little measure of excitement to that. Here’s what’s going to happen, the cloud that we’ve been following which was in front of us is going to get behind us and God is going to open a door and that’s the moment when we need to have the courage to walk through it. We are going to stand still until that cloud moves and we begin to discern God opening the door of opportunity.

I don’t have time to talk at great lengths about the specifics of this, but listen, Union Station management is going to turn that theater into a shell and they are going to look to lease it. There are a lot of other theaters in the metro DC area. We are exploring every option, we are looking. I don’t know where it is going to be, but this I know for sure, Proverbs 16:9

In his heart, a man plans his course, but God orders his footsteps.

Ephesians 2:10

We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works prepared for use in advance.

God is around the corner, He is setting us up. This is going to sound crazy but I’ve come to the place where I am as sure of the fact that God is not oblivious to this door being close as I am sure that He is the One who opened it in the first place. God is in control, He knows what’s going on.

The big issue here, we want to see God glorified. The big issue here is we need to grow through this. The good news is, this is a wonderful opportunity for us to remind ourselves that we are the church and we are going to grow through this. We are right where we need to be. Confession time, how many control freaks are here? Raise your hands? What that really means is that there are two kinds of people here, control freaks who raised their hands and liars who kept their hands down. We hate not being in control but that’s how God grows us and we are going to seek the Lord. We are going to do a prayer meeting on Sunday night at Ebenezers, 7:00-8:00 and do a little Q&A as we begin to pray and process. I want to encourage every NCCer on Friday to fast for favor. That’s what the Lord has put in our hearts, let’s fast for favor on Friday. Set aside a meal that day and devote it to prayer. We are going to begin to do some things and God is going to open up the right door and we are going to be fine. And when that cloud shifts from the front to the back, what we need to do is simply have the courage to walk through it.

So, verse 21

Moses raised his hand over the sea and the Lord opened up a path through the water with a strong east wind. The wind blew all that night turning the sea bed into dry land so the people of Israel walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground with walls of water on each side.

What a moment! We all want a moment like that don’t we, but you can’t have it, unless there is an Egyptian Army on one side and a Red Sea on the other. We are going to get to the other side. We are going to be fine, we are going to be better than fine, we are going to be better for having walked through the dry riverbed. We are going to have occasion to praise the Lord once again because He is going to prove Himself faithful. I don’t know how or when or where, but He is going to do it.

In Chapter 15, this is cool and I’m moving towards a close. Miriam, Moses sister writes a song, this is so cool. Some scholars believe it is the oldest recorded song, it is an entire chapter, you can read it, Exodus 15, I love this and there is one little lyric of this ancient ancient song that is a part of Scripture that needs to get in our hearts, this is so cool. Verse 8

The deep waters congealed in the heart of the sea.

Water doesn’t congeal! Water doesn’t congeal, but it did that day! The water congealed in the heart of the sea. Can you imagine the Israelites two million strong singing this song? I was at the U2 concert two weeks ago, and by the way, I saw about two dozen NCCers there. I lost my hearing, I’m not a big concert guy, this is a little bit embarrassing, the last concert I went to was Brian Duncan at Wheaton College. I couldn’t hear and there was energy but not even their spaceship stage, it was nothing. I want to hear two million people singing their hearts out, singing their voices out, praising God having just walked through congealed water on a dry riverbed. But you can’t sing that song if you weren’t in a situation that necessitated it.

I hope and pray, some of you really needed this message on a personal level, but corporately, here’s what I want to say, I’m processing but there’s this weird holy anticipation as to what God is going to do. I can’t explain it, but it’s the Holy Spirit. It’s Him who walks all things together for good for them who love Him. That’s what it is, and it’s so important that we preach this sermon on this side of the Red Sea, so that we don’t forget it when we get on the other side. What I want to say is this – don’t mark my words, mark his words! Mark his Word! How many times has God delivered on his promises? His Word will not return void. God is still in control.

We are going to grieve a little bit, we are going to celebrate, and we are going to believe that God is going to get us where He wants us to go.

Father we come to You right now, and Oh God we confess how much we need You. Lord, when I got that phone call this week, You know my heart dropped, my heart broke in a few places with sadness and with gratitude, I love what You have done. Lord, thank You that You are bigger than a place, thank You that your plans and purposes always prevail. You don’t make mistakes, You led us to this point. We are right where You want us to be, and God we are going to stand still and we are going to stay calm and we are going to seek your face and You are going to be glorified and we are going to grow as a result of it, and that’s the best thing that could happen to us and for You. God we pray that You would help each one of us to process this and that we would be able to look at this and see your hand at work. God we are believing in You, we are on this side of the Red Sea but our hands are outstretched. We are believing You, we can’t wait to see what You are going to do next. We profess our faith in You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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