Pastor Elwin Ahu
July 25, 2004 - W0430

When you go on a trip how many of you do pretty well with a map? How many of you would get lost even with a map? Well, that’s exactly what happened to me. A few years ago my son graduated from college in Los Angeles. So, I scheduled the trip and Joy asked me if we were going alone or on a tour. I answered that we were going alone. Then she asked if I knew how to drive in L.A. or would we just get a taxi. Of course I had a plan -- we would take our own car and find our way around. Joy obviously had her doubts, but I assured her I’d be able to find my way around because I discovered a thing called Mapquest.

It’s a computer program on the Internet in which you plug in a starting point and a destination. The program then gives back line-by-line instructions on how to get to wherever you want to go. I had my map in hand and was certain we weren’t going to get lost.

It was about 4:30am when we arrived in Los Angeles. In the rental car, I pulled out my Mapquest and realized the directions I had was from the airport to the USC campus. Unfortunately we caught a shuttle from the airport to the rental car center, which was about 15 minutes away from the airport! My instructions were a little different. So instead of taking 20 minutes to get to the USC campus, we got there two hours later.

Q. 1: Can you remember a time where you had a map or set of instructions you tried to follow but didn’t end up where you expected or in the time you expected?

That can happen in life, can’t it? Sometimes even following a map and trying to follow it to a “T”, we end up at places we don’t want to be. In fact, let’s take a look at what happened to the Israelites.

The book of Exodus chronicles the Israelites’ journey out of slavery to the Promised Land. The Israelites had been in Egyptian bondage for over 430 years and the Lord finally allowed them the freedom to leave. At one point in their exodus, instead of the Promised Land, they ended up at the banks of the Red Sea that was totally impassable. They were at a place they didn’t want to be, but the Lord had led them there.

Isn’t it true in our lives? When we are finally free to do what we think we want, we end up at a place that is totally impassable. Sometimes however, that’s exactly where God wants us to be. I call those “Red Sea” moments.

Now, the Israelites didn’t have anything like Mapquest.com, but they did have something far more sophisticated:

“And the Lord was going before them in a pillar of cloud by day to lead them on the way, and in a pillar of fire by night to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. He did not take away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people.” (Exodus 13:21-22)

The Israelites had it made. Not only were they freed from bondage, God also led them by a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. All they had to do was play “follow-the-leader”.  Wouldn’t that be neat if I asked God whether or not I should move, then looked out my window and saw pillar of fire begin to move. Or, for those of you dating! Imagine wondering if you’re dating the right person when suddenly your date showed up with a cloud over his/her head!

Well everything was going so smoothly for the Israelites until God commanded them to make a turn. They ended up in a geographical cul-de-sac; a dead end. To the north were massive Egyptian fortresses. To the south was the vast Egyptian desert; there was nowhere to hide. To the west was exactly where they had come from. To the east was the Read Sea. It was a trap and Pharaoh began to chase the Israelites.

The countenance of Israelites changed from followers to complainers against God:

“They said to Moses, "Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?  Didn't we say to you in Egypt, 'Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians'? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!"(Exodus 14:11-12)

See how their hearts changed. They followed the instructions, but then turned on their leader. Aren’t people funny? When things are going good, we follow God. Once things turn the other way, we take our eyes off the “pillar of fire” and start to blame others. It happens all the time. People always settle for second best when things start to go wrong.

Q. 2: Did you ever have a “Red Sea” moment? A season where you have trusted God’s ways but ended up in a rut or dead end? (i.e. in a relationship, finances, career, etc.)

If you haven’t had a season like this, you will. There is, however a way to navigate through that. The first thing to do when you hit those “Red Sea” moments is:

1.     DON’T ALLOW YOUR RED SEA TO BECOME YOUR DEAD SEA.

“But Moses said to the people, ‘Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever. The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.’” (Exodus 14:13-14) A“Red Sea” moment is not intended to be an “end” but a “beginning”. So it is up to us to train our eyes to see what God is doing to position Himself so that life will happen on the other side of the “Red Sea”.

To the Israelites, the Red Sea represented a point of separation for them. On the other hand, it also represented an entrance into a new life. God knew that being enslaved for so long, there was so much of Egypt in them that needed to be washed away. Think about it, if you spend 430 years in any place, no doubt complacency sets in.

God knew Egypt had great influence on the Israelites and it had to be washed away. So here they were -- at a place where they had to rely on God and God alone -- they had to face the “Red Sea”.

“And the angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them. So it came between the camp of Egypt and the camp of Israel; and there was the cloud along with the darkness, yet it gave light at night. Thus the one did not come near the other all night.” (Exodus 14: 19-20)

So God positioned Himself from leading to becoming a barrier that separated the Israelites from the Egyptians. You see, God will do everything possible to create a separation point from our past because He knows there’s something better in our futures. We can be assured that God will never lead us to an end unless He’s also guiding us to a new beginning.

The Lord will never bring us to the shores of a “Red Sea” unless there is a future for us on the other side. Jeremiah 29:11 says: “For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. This is a capstone scripture for this church.

Faith believes that Jesus Christ is the Author and before the book closes, the Author will make all things clear. On the other hand, faithlessness is like closing the Book before reading the whole story. So keep reading!

Q.3: What is the “Red Sea” in your life? How can this situation honor God?

As you go through these “Red Sea” moments to get to the other side, you’ll realize that you will have to:

2.     LET YOUR RED SEA BECOME THE PROVING GROUNDS OF YOUR FAITH.

God is so interested in accelerating the growth of our faith. He doesn’t ever want to let us remain where we are. So He sometimes presents us with an impassable situation and asks us to trust Him. Yet are we really willing to trust Him and allow Him to move us across those Red Seas even though it seems impossible?

Oftentimes we arrive at “Red Sea” moments and ask for help. Then when God shows up with advice, we look around for other options. And He knows what we tend to hold on to. For although He can control the depth and length of our “Red Seas”, He will never control our choices of response. It’s up to us to trust Him and let go of our understanding, our ways of thinking and our logic.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward. And as for you, lift up your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it, and the sons of Israel shall go through the midst of the sea on dry land.’” (Exodus 14:15-16) There’s an inference that Moses was crying out to God and God was a little disturbed by that. God knew that if Moses’ faith were strong, He would not question the Lord’s leading.

It’s good to pray, read the word, and ask for counsel but sometimes we take a little too long to respond. Sometimes “faith” requires us to just begin to move. See the contrast of Moses’ faith to that of Abraham:

“By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; and he who had received the promises was offering up his only begotten son; it was he to whom it was said,  ‘In Isaac your DESCENDANTS SHALL BE CALLED.’ He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead…” (Hebrews 11:17-19)

Abraham was asked to sacrifice his one and only son because God asked it. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that Abraham questioned that request. Remember, God promised that through Abraham’s only son all the nations of the earth would be descendents. So God’s request sounded almost contradictory. Nevertheless, Abraham was a man of so much faith that he believed that somehow God’s promise would come to pass no matter how impossible it seemed.

Q. 4: If you were to compare your faith to that of Abraham’s, how would you rate on a scale of 1-5 (1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest)?

God is asking us to cross that “Red Sea”. And though we may not know how it’s going to be done, will we be willing to trust Him? If we are, we’ll begin to understand that:

3.     GOD DELIGHTS IN A FAITH THAT REASONS, THEN RESPONDS.

Sometimes we come to church and we get a lot of lessons. We go to Bible studies, we pray, we take advice, but we don’t take the time to reason it through and then respond to it.

With this in mind, in order to get across that “Red Sea” we’re going to have to respond to the things we are given. Moses allowed his fears to overshadow what he knew about God. He was so afraid to take that first step that he let it surpass what he already knew.

Don’t abandon things that you know about God for the things you don’t know about the situation. There will be a lot of questions when we are faced with a “Red Sea” moment and with very few answers in between. However, we also have promises in the word and life lessons of God’s nature…don’t abandon them. In the book of Luke, Jesus exhorts us to reason, to think and “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.”(Luke 12:27)  

Let’s take a look at how Abraham thought things through:

 “And without becoming weak in faith he contemplated his own body, now as good as dead since he was about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah’s womb; yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what He had promised, He was able also to perform. Therefore also it was reckoned to him as righteousness.” (Romans 4:19-22)

Abraham was a man who reasoned and then responded. And in doing so, he probably thought that God’s promise of a son didn’t connect because he and Sarah were so old. Nevertheless, he didn’t waver, but instead responded in faith believing that what was promised would be fulfilled.

People always ask me about my career move from a circuit court judge to ministry as a pastor. That whole move just looks totally unreasonable, it doesn’t make sense. How did I come to the decision? Well, once I knew that it was God calling me into ministry, it was easy, but it was the processing that took a while. I had a lot of questions, especially about finances. Joy and I went through all our finances and the new salary that we’d be getting; we just couldn’t figure out how we were going to make ends meet.

Yet Joy had the faith of Abraham and told me that God told her to prepare herself three months earlier. On top of that, when we told my mom the news, she told me she’d prayed when I was born that God would use me in ministry one day. She already knew.

There was no turning back and we stepped into that “Red Sea”. At the same time, I got an email from a friend on the mainland. He told me he was aware of my transition and said, “Let me help you with your transition.” He contributed the exact sum of money we needed to make ends meet. I knew then we were walking in the right direction. I bring that up because I spent five years on the bench and today marks my 5^th anniversary in ministry.

Q. 5: How does knowing God’s love for you change you into responding to your doubts and questions?

When the Israelites stepped into the Red Sea, they found that it wasn’t even muddy but dry all the way across. I don’t know what “Red Sea” you’re facing or will face in the future, but you need to believe that we have a God who loves us so much that He will never lead us to a dead end. 1) Don’t allow your Red Sea to become a dead sea. God is in the business of growing our faith and you are going to have to trust Him. 2) Let your Red Sea become the proving grounds of your faith. Then, you need to respond because 3) God delights in a faith that reasons and then responds. Watch for His miracles!

In spite of our technical difficulties, here is this week’s summary. Thanks to Liz Texeira, our faithful, determined volunteer writer.