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Stephen Ministry

We are nearing completion of our series on Life in Exodus—a look at the journey of the Israelites in the first Exodus journey and the lessons to be learned from it for our own type of Exodus journey—keeping in mind the general lessons of Exodus: 1) Wherever you live, it’s probably Egypt; 2) there is a better world, a promised land toward which we are journeying; 3) to get to that land you’re going to have to go through the wilderness. Where are you in your Exodus journey? Somewhere along the way you have met, and will meet again, naysayers. That is our specific topic for today—dealing with the naysayers in our life’s journey. And, once again, for our Scripture reading we have left the book of Exodus—which ends with Israel still camped at Mt. Sinai and the rest of the Exodus story to be told in Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy—and will be reading from the book of Numbers. Sounds like an accountant’s dream book, doesn’t it? Actually, the name for the book comes from the Greek name given to it in reference to the census given in chapters 1 and 26. The Hebrew name for the book is a better name, more indicative of the story of the book: bemidbar, which means "in the desert." Numbers, or "Bemidbar" is the story of Israel’s wandering in the desert. And today’s reading is a key story about that wandering. Numbers 13, beginning at verse 26. But first, a bit of background.

Israel, under the leadership of Moses, is in position to move into the promised land of Canaan. They’ve experienced much to this point—the plagues in Egypt; the crossing the Red Sea; a pillar of fire to guide and protect them at night; a pillar of dust to lead them during the day; water from a rock; manna and quail provided for food; smoke and fire and the 10 Commandments at Mt. Sinai. Now, they stand on the verge of entering the Promised Land. But first, Moses sends 12 men, one from each tribe, to scout out the land. Included among the 12 are Joshua and Caleb. The men go, scout out the land, and now return to Moses and the Israelites to file their report. Numbers 13, beginning at verse 26. (Read Numbers 13:26-14:10)

An axiom for life in Exodus (not my favorite axiom, by the way, but an axiom for life nonetheless): Attempt to do something…and there will be naysayers. Do something—and by that I mean an attempt at doing something positive, something good, not something that is a horrible wrong—do something and you will be criticized by some for it.

I have said before that I believe the easiest job in the world is to be a critic. Critics just have to find something to criticize, they don’t have to offer a solution, they don’t have to put their reputations on the line in implementing an alternative. Roger Ebert, for example, to my knowledge has never written, starred or directed a movie. Nothing against Roger Ebert, I like Roger Ebert and often look for what he has to say about a movie I’m interested in seeing, but all Roger Ebert has to do is bring critical analysis to a movie. He’s never had to put his reputation on the line by making his own movie, and that movie being better than one he has panned. Sandy Clough, the long-time Denver area sports commentator, to my knowledge has never had to play a sport, or coach a team, or own a team for that matter and prove he could do it better than the people he criticizes. Nothing against Sandy Clough, I find myself listening to him on the radio when I’m driving in my car. And, like Roger Ebert, they do what they do as good as anyone doing it—which is why they’ve been around doing it for so long! So give them credit for that. But it’s an easy task—criticize something and never have to put your credibility on the line by doing a better job of it than those you are criticizing.

Do something and there will be naysayers, there will be critics.

The classic example in my life is when I came to this church and…now you really don’t think I’m going to tell a juicy tidbit story about someone in this church and his or her criticism of me for trying to do something, do you? Just wanted to dangle that tempting carrot in front of your for a moment. That’s another aspect of criticism—we like to do it and we like to hear about it! For some silly reason, we feel better about ourselves when someone else is being criticized. What I was going to say is that the classic example I think of in my life was several years ago when I worked at the radio station in Greeley—a safe long time ago about which to tell this story! We did a lot of sports reporting at the station, which was the part of my job I enjoyed most. We covered as much as we could of the local high school sports. Two schools—Greeley Central and Greeley West—were the bigger high schools in the area, what was then classified as 3A sports. There are several smaller schools around the Greeley area, in those days classified as 2A sports, twelve of which made up a league called the Weld County League, or Welco League for short. We regularly broadcast the games of Greeley Central or Greeley West. On occasion, we would broadcast a Welco League game. Picking which Welco League game to cover was always a challenge because of the 12 schools involved. But we tried our best to pick the game which was most crucial and, therefore, had the most interest.

One day, shortly after a broadcast of one of those Welco League games, the secretary directed a phone call my way from someone who wanted to talk about our Welco coverage. I picked up the phone and was immediately hit with a barrage of angry criticism directed not at the quality of our broadcast, but at our selection of which game to cover. Why had we picked that game, we were biased against this school and that school whose games we had chosen to not cover…that type of thing. I finally interrupted the guy—yes, it was a "guy" and, I suspect, the father of some athlete on a team whose game we didn’t cover—and asked him a question. "Did you call KYOU (the "other" radio station in town) and complain to them?" I asked. "KYOU?" he said, "Why would I call KYOU? They don’t even broadcast Welco League games!" "Exactly," I said. "You’re calling here to complain about the game we chose to broadcast. At least we’re broadcasting something from the Welco League! Why don’t you call KYOU and complain to them about doing nothing with the Welco League?" And I hung up. It was shortly after that I was taken off all public relations duties.

The point being—do something and you expose yourself to criticism, to naysayers. Stephen Spielberg could rest on his laurels and never receive another critical analysis from Roger Ebert. I suppose Ebert could call out Spielberg for not making another film, but Spielberg wouldn’t run the risk of having his work criticized. Josh McDaniels, who has got to feel like he’s entered into a whirlwind and is wondering what he’s gotten himself into, has taken the risk of accepting the job as head coach of the Denver Broncos. Not so much criticism as the more-behind-the-scenes Offensive Coordinator for the New England Patriots. McDaniels could’ve stayed there and avoided the critics and the naysayers. But, he chose instead to take a risk, to do something, becoming the-buck-stops-here Head Coach of the Denver Broncos and opening himself up to much more criticism and naysaying. Attempt to do something and there will be naysayers.

Which is the situation for Moses…and for Caleb and Joshua, the two spies who plead to move forward and take the land because "the Lord is with us." The mantle of leadership has been thrust upon them and with it comes criticism and naysaying…even to the point of the ridiculous and absurd. "It would have been better to die back in Egypt," cries the crowd, "or here in the desert! Take us back to Egypt," they cry. Really? Life as a slave in Egypt would be better? Dying in Egypt or the desert would be better than attempting to take the land God has promised to them? Really? Even if they were to die in the attempt of taking the land at least they died trying to do something! Dying in Egypt or there in the desert would be better? Really?

I recently heard of a pastor who was trying to bring change to his church in an attempt to meet the challenges they were facing. They were a church fairly typical of mainline churches today—a bit of a graying congregation, challenged in their reaching out to younger people in the community. He was running into some opposition in his efforts to bring change to the church. So he decided to hold a meeting to discuss it. In that meeting, he spoke directly to the older population of their church and asked them a question. "How many of you love your grandchildren so much that if their lives were being threatened you would put your very life on the line to protect them?" Every hand of a grandparent went up. Then he asked them this: "And how many of you would be willing to change the worship style of our church in order to reach your grandchildren?" Not one hand went up! Really? REALLY? You love your grandchildren so much you’d be willing to die for them…but you won’t consider changing worship styles in order to reach them. Really? I don’t know the end of that story, but I suspect that pastor won’t be at that church much longer.

Folks, we face a lot of challenges ahead of us. Sometimes, as a person professing faith in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and as a church seeking to proclaim the good news of the gospel, it feels like there are Nephilim out there. People are no longer friendly to the basic proclamations of Christian belief. They are indifferent, skeptical, sometimes downright hostile to the gospel of Christ. Nephilim. They seem so huge and set against us. The shift in society’s attitude toward Christian faith makes the task more difficult. But we are called to reach out to them with the good news of the gospel.

In an attempt to do that, to reach out to the community around us with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are currently engaged in a process seeking to become a more "missional" church. That’s the latest "buzz" word in church circles these days, being a missional church. What does that mean? Well, you’ll be learning more about that as we journey along in that process. Suffice to say for now that a missional church seeks to learn as much as it can about the community around it and then determine ways to appropriately respond to the needs of that community in a manner that communicates the good news of the gospel. A missional church as opposed to an attractional church that says, "here we are, come and join us if you’d like."

We’ll learn more about the missional church process as we go along on this particular portion of our journey in Exodus, but here are some keys to that process, some keys also in facing the naysayers in our lives.

First of all, know what you believe. What are the foundational beliefs of our faith? It’s impossible to communicate our faith to someone if we’re not clear about what it is we believe. It’s impossible to stand up against the criticisms and naysayers if we’re not clear about our beliefs.

Secondly, know why you believe it. What undergirds the foundation of your faith? It’s not just blind faith, something we believe without any evidence or support for what we believe. Why do we believe what we believe? We need to be clear about that as well before the naysayers will ever take us seriously.

Then, thirdly, listen for ways to connect your faith with the lives of the naysayers. The witness of our faith cannot be presented in a vacuum of knowledge about the lives of those who are skeptical, to those who are naysayers. What are the issues pressing in on the naysayers? How can the issues of our faith speak to their issues?

And finally, commit to doing something. Don’t stand idle. Don’t keep your faith a secret so that you don’t run the risk of criticism and naysaying. And please, don’t ask to go back to Egypt! Don’t lament that it would have been better to die back in Egypt…or die right here in the desert. Commit to doing something even at the risk of facing the Nephilim—the critics and the naysayers.

Important first steps in our missional process will be to hear from you. Some of that has already happened with the intitial interviews conducted by the Guide Team. Coming soon will be opportunities for you to respond to a survey about our church and to meet in groups to share your story and hear the stories of others in the church. All of that is a part of the process of getting to know what it is we believe and why we believe it. Then, at some point after that, we’re going to explore what we can know about the community around us and how we might meaningfully engage that community in witnessing to the good news of what we believe. I hope you will commit to being a part of that, to doing something in our efforts to be the church Jesus Christ has called us to be.

There’s a part of me that wants to say to the Israelites in our Biblical story for today, "Come on! Look at all you’ve experienced—the plagues in Egypt, released from bondage in Egypt, all the events surrounding the crossing of the Red Sea, bitter water made sweet to quench your thirst, manna and quail provided to satisfy your hunger! Come on! Don’t you think the Lord will help you in facing the Nephilim, the Amalekites and Hittites…and all the rest? Come on!" Well, that’s true for us as well—as individual followers of Christ and as a church that is part of the body of Christ. "Come on! Look at all that Christ has done for you! Maybe not crossing the Red Sea material…but something like it. People he has brought into your lives. Dangers and perils he has brought you through. Perhaps you didn’t recognize it at the time, but now, looking back, you can clearly see where he brought you through it. Blessings he has bestowed upon you, as a follower of Christ and as a church. Come on! Don’t you know he will be with us on the next steps of the journey? Don’t you know he is bigger than the Nephilim…and any other challenges facing us? So, come on! Let’s risk facing critics and naysayers and do something for the Lord!