Sunday Sermon: Battling The What If's

Battling Fear in the Face of Uncertainty

Good afternoon. Not morning. Apology of church. If you are watching this, please be in prayer because I forgot my cable for my computer. So hopefully it doesn't die. We should be good. But I am a little nervous.

I did pull up on my phone, so it might be awkward if I have to pull my notes up like this. But one thing I forgot to mention during announcements, it's a bummer. Pastor Jeff and I will be gone next week.

But next Sunday actually marks 11 years to the date for Apology of Church. It's our church anniversary. Yes. Praise God. We are working on scheduling a church picnic. If you guys remember last year, we had to cancel it thanks to COVID.

So we are trying to get that scheduled. It's proven to be easier said than done, but we are working on that. So be watching for that. Hopefully at the end of March, early April, we'll be able to have a church picnic again.

That being said, I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity to preach today as part of our worship service. I'm also excited to deliver this message as it is something that God has placed on my heart and on my mind for the last several months.

I have spent a lot of time in thought and in prayer in developing these thoughts and concepts. I've sought counsel from many godly men that I admire and look up to, as well as listen to several sermons, multiple times even, to help me formulate my thoughts for today.

Along those lines, I need to admit from the beginning that this message has been heavily influenced by our dear friend, Pastor Doug Wilson. The reason for that, and I praise God for this, is that many of his recent podcasts and sermons, I feel like they've been in line with what I've been thinking, or at least validated what I've been thinking.

So I'm thankful for that, but I will be borrowing from some of his recent sermons. So I pray that God will use this message today in your lives corporately, in our church body, and globally within the Bride of Christ to bring himself glory.

I sincerely believe that the church militant needs to hear this. I'm also thrilled to teach on one of my favorite passages in scripture, a passage that I've used a lot in counseling, and one I have even had to rely on when struggling through thoughts of despair.

God Will Fight for You at the Red Sea

So the main verse, verses I should say, that I want to look at are Exodus 14, 13 through 14, they're in the bulletin. And Moses said to the people, fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today.

For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. Quote here from Spurgeon, he said, there are two great certainties about things that shall come to pass.

One is that God knows, and the other is that we do not know. And we can certainly be certain of that. So before going any further, I'd like to spend a moment in prayer, if you could bow your heads with me.

Lord, I thank you again so much for this opportunity to be here today. I thank you for this opportunity to teach today. Lord, I ask that this message would bring you glory, that it would strengthen and encourage our local church body and your church around the world.

Lord, I ask that you would get me out of the way and speak through me and use this and use me for your glory. And we ask this in Christ's name, amen. So the context then of this passage before looking at verses 13 and 14, I want to look again at the context surrounding these verses that kind of sandwich this section together.

More than ever at any point in my life, I feel like I can sympathize with the Israelites in this passage. I believe that most Christians feel the same at this point in our history as we face uncertainty of the future.

What will life be like under the reign of President Biden? The P is silent. Borrowed that from Doug as well. What can we expect from the threat of full-on tyranny? I'm about to experience that next week in Kauai.

I'm not looking forward to that, I should say. I believe that much of the church, at least in our culture, is riddled with fear. And as we see from the Spurgeon quote I just read, we certainly do not know what tomorrow brings, but we can be certain that God does.

So starting in verse 10 of chapter 14, it says, when Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord.

They said to Moses, is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt?

Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians. For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. So who has seen any of the documentaries showing the location that was believed to be where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea?

Anybody seen any of those? A few of you. It's incredible. If you get a chance, go home, look them up on YouTube. There's a few different ones. I highly suggest you watch it. It's really, really cool and fascinating.

But basically, here's what was going on. So if you look and you look at a map, if you watch these videos, essentially the path that the Israelites took to the Red Sea is cut between two mountains. So you have mountains coming down, there's a path, and then it hits the beachhead at the Red Sea and opens up.

So what's happening here at this moment is the Israelites are literally standing at the edge of the Red Sea. Moses is before them. There's this beachhead. There's cliffs right on either side. And behind them are the Egyptians bearing down.

So I can imagine they were probably terrified and they're like, well, it's been real, Moses. Good game, Israel, right? That's what they were thinking. So the Israelites were trapped and they began to complain.

They obviously were not trusting God. They even said to him that they desired to be alive and slaves rather than to be dead. Can you imagine? I'd rather be a slave to the Egyptians, even though God just delivered us miraculously.

I'd rather be alive and a slave to them than dead, than to walk into this sea. So you don't need to raise your hands here, but how many of you feel this way right now? How many of you feel trapped and scared?

How many of you see only two options before us? One, certain death and dismay from the onslaught of the leftist agenda pressing down upon us. Or option two, certain destruction as we wade out into the uncertain depths of the Red Sea.

How many of you are not trusting God and would rather remain slaves to the Egyptians instead of moving forward in faith, believing God's sovereign promises to his people? You see, there's actually a third option, and that is taking a step of faith forward and hopeful obedience to your creator, not in fear, but with courage, not complaining, but in worship.

The Lord Will Fight for You

Now I want to look specifically at the passage we mentioned earlier, verses 13 through 14. Again, it says, and Moses said to the people, fear not, stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today.

For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent. As I mentioned earlier, this is one of my favorite passages in all of scripture, one that I've used a lot in counseling, and one that I've even had to preach to myself on a number of occasions recently.

I love Moses' response to the Israelites griping. He says, fear not, stand firm, see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. The Lord will fight for you, you have only to be silent.

Or as I like to say from the LBSV, that is the Luke the Bear Standard version, he said, stop being fearful, stand strong, be courageous, the Lord will fight for you. So shut up, shut your mouths, and watch him deliver you.

Once again, without raising your hands and your heart of hearts, how many of you need to hear that today? And the rest of the verses here I want to cover in this chapter, 15 through 18. The Lord said to Moses, why do you cry to me?

Tell the people of Israel to go forward, lift up your staff, stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground. And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, so that they shall go in after them.

And I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his hosts, his chariots and his horsemen. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh, his chariots, and his horsemen.

So again, I love the Lord's response here to Moses. Moses is like, Lord, what do you want me to do? They're mad at me, they're complaining. And God says to him, why do you cry to me? Tell the people of Israel to go forward.

Or again from the LBSV, quit crying and move forward, Moses. Before moving on to my next point, why did God allow this situation to go this way? The answer is so that he alone would get the glory. Just like Gideon's shrunken army in Judges 7, God did the impossible so that no man may boast.

God performed the victorious miracle so that he alone would receive the praise. And now that I have laid the foundation of this message, I want to define some terms for you as we move forward. So there's four terms we're going to look at, and I'm going to briefly describe each of them using Exodus 14, and then we're going to look at them in depth.

The What Was, the What Is, the What Ifs, and the What Oughts

So the four terms, the what was, the what is, the what ifs, and the what ought. So the what was are the things of the past, the good old days. For the Israelites, it was what they had escaped, a life of slavery to the Egyptians.

So that was the what was for them. And the what is are the circumstances we are currently looking at. That's what lies directly before us. For the Israelites, it was moving forward in obedience to God.

And then the what ifs are the uncertainties of what lie ahead. It was speculation of what could happen. For the Israelites, it was the uncertainty of the Red Sea. And then again, the fourth one is the what oughts.

So these are how things could, or I'm sorry, how things should be in the future according to the promises of God. For the Israelites, it was his promise of deliverance. Now that these terms are defined, let's spend some time on each of them, again, discussing what they look like for us currently.

So the what was could be a number of things for us. It could be life before COVID. It could be slavery to the state under the Trump administration. The good old days, right? For those that remember, it could be life under the Reagan administration.

Life prior to the sexual revolution in the 60s. Life when our legislators still worshiped Christ. Life when the culture honored God's word. As a Christian, longing for the what was can become idolatry.

When we grow discontent with our current circumstances, desiring the yesteryear instead of desiring Christ becomes idolatry. When we fall into the snare, we replace our joy in Christ with joy in what once was and shall never be again.

This joy is not only fleeting, but has already fleeted away and becomes a breeding ground for discontentment in Christ. The next point then, the what is, and this is what I want to focus on the most today.

Who has ever heard Doug Wilson's story about raking rocks? Anyone? If you've been counseled by, anybody that just raised their hand has been counseled by me. You see, you see, okay, I'm just kidding. Because I tell this story a lot.

But I've had the pleasure of hearing it from the mouths of both Doug and Nate. And also, again, happens to be one of my favorite stories that I use a lot in counseling. So here's the story. This is basically it.

So the house that Doug and Nancy Wilson live in currently in Moscow, Idaho, he essentially built from the ground up. And the story goes that they built it over a number of years. And for a while, they had just a lot.

They had bought the lot. God bless them with that. They had the lot and that was it. And then one day God will allow them to get gravel. So they dumped gravel on the lot. And so Doug would take Nate on a Saturday.

This happened for a number of Saturdays. They go out there and Doug would give him a rake and they'd be raking rocks. And after a while, Nate was like, dad, why are we still raking rocks? Why do we keep coming here?

We spent hours just raking these rocks. And Doug said to Nate, this is what God's given you. This is what he's given us. So we're going to rake those rocks to the glory of God. So that's the story. The point is this.

This is what I want you guys to think about. What rocks has God given you to rake? What circumstances has God sovereignly placed you in? What tasks has he given you to do? In the midst of the chaos that is our current culture, I can tell you exactly what rocks he has sovereignly given us to rake.

After years of planning, he's allowing us an opportunity to end the slaughter of our pre-born neighbors here in Arizona as well as other states in our nation. He's given us a courageous legislator to work with in Walt Blackman.

He's building a grassroots army that is committed to biblical principles right before our very eyes. He's raising up men from apologia as lesser magistrates that will attempt to legislate according to the law of God.

He's allowed us to plan a church on Kauai and, Lord willing, soon in Salt Lake City. He has given us the ability to reach millions of people around the world at the click of a button. People that are looking to us to lead.

And as your pastors, Pastor Jeff, Pastor Zach, Pastor James, and myself, we represent Moses here from Exodus 14. You are looking to us to lead you into the tumultuous waters ahead. God is commanding us, quit crying and move forward.

We are willing to take that step forward in faith. My question is, are you? We desire to lead by example and for you to follow. Just know, I can promise you, that if you become fearful and you come to us complaining about your circumstances, neglecting to trust God's sovereignty in your lives, we will tell you, stop being fearful, stand strong, be courageous, the Lord will fight for you.

So shut up, shut your mouth, and watch him deliver you. So we rake our rocks to the glory of God. We rake those rocks to the best of our ability and we do so joyfully. We rake those rocks as an act of worship to our creator who sovereignly placed them before us.

So as a little side note here, I want to talk about rake theory versus rake cultivation. I do believe there's a disease that plagues the church and our culture and I call it rake theory. It can be defined as the act of gathering around various platforms like social media, chat channels, coffee shops, to discuss the philosophical theory behind raking the rocks that God has given us.

Examples of rake theory discussions include, but are not limited to, proper raking methods, best material for rake handles, best soil type or rock size to rake, etc. These discussions may be very well, they may be good and they may be helpful conversations to hash out.

The problem, however, is that those who are having the debates are not actually doing any raking and that is not what God has commanded us to do. We are to subdue the earth, we are to till the ground through sweat and hard work God created us to cultivate his creation.

Guess what? The words cultivate and culture come from the same root word. Culture originates as a term meaning tilled or place tilled and is nothing more, as our good friend Joe Boot says, it's nothing more than religion externalized.

The word cultivate is simply the verb form of culture. So to cultivate something is to culture it. Let me be frank with you, our culture is what it is because the church has stopped cultivating it. We have become far too comfortable sitting in our easy chairs or behind our computer screens discussing rake theory for days on end instead of getting up off of our rear ends and putting that theory to practice through rake cultivation.

We, the bride of Christ, are to blame for the state of things due to our laziness. So my call to you is to get dirty and to get sweaty, to build up calluses on your hands through blisters and to get to raking.

Battling the What-Ifs

So the next point then again is the what-ifs. This is the title of the sermon, Battling the What-ifs. The what-ifs have become a major hindrance to the work of the gospel and to the advancement of Christ's kingdom.

The what-ifs are what the enemy uses to distract us from the task at hand because they breed a spirit of fear and rob us of our joy. The what-ifs are not what we know to be true but are what could possibly be true in the future.

The what-ifs are what we are battling and what we need to put to death. One of my favorite verses to use in counseling is it's actually the beginning of the golden chain of redemption. We all know it is Romans 8 28 and we know that for those who love God all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose.

This is what we know to be true that no matter what happens God is orchestrating those events for good and his glory. While studying Romans 8 I also noticed a couple of verses earlier in the chapter something that I had previously missed.

Verses 14 through 15 it says for all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba Father.

So here's the point God didn't save you from your sins to be ruled by fear. Focusing on the what-ifs produces fear crippling fear distracting fear and this is not the will of God for your life. As we stand presently at the eight at the edge of the sea of uncertainty the list of what-ifs can become crippling.

I'll be honest recently I've had to literally turn off the what-ifs around me because they have become exhausting and too much to bear. There is no doubt that our current state of things has ramped up the number of new cases of the what-ifs.

Now before you start thinking of others who are battling the sickness examine your own heart. I have a list of what-ifs here. Are you rustling with any of these? What if I never get married? What if I never have kids?

What if I get pregnant? What if this disease cripples me? What if I get COVID? What if a loved one dies with COVID? What if they make me wear a mask everywhere I go? What if they mandate vaccines? What if resident Biden tries to take my guns?

Oh my timer's done sorry. What if we're denied the right to free speech? What if we're not allowed to gather for worship? What if YouTube cancels us? What if Google stops my email? What if my bank shuts down my account my accounts?

What if we become Canada? Lord help us. What if we become the UK? Even worse. What if we become China? What if God judges our nation? Guess what? He already is. The answer to all these questions is quite simple.

Then so be it. God is still sovereign and even though we have zero control over these what-ifs, God has total control. God's response to our fear-driven what-ifs is again, stop being fearful, stand strong, be courageous, I will fight for you.

So shut up, shut your mouths, and watch me deliver you. The what-ifs are rocks that are not yet given to us and may never be. That does not mean that we should not wisely plan ahead or that we should allow the what-ifs to take us by surprise.

But this does mean that we do not ignore the pile of rocks set before us while giving all of our time and attention to the potential rocks. So the last one there again was the what-oughts. And the what-oughts should drive us to take the rocks that God has given us and rake them into what God desires for us.

Christ Holds All Things Together

Briefly I'm going to read Colossians 1 15 through 20. This is one of my favorite passages for dealing with the cults. It says, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. We're talking about Christ here.

He says, for by him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, then everything he might be preeminent. For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.

So Christ created all things for himself. He holds all things together and will also reconcile all things to himself. So for us, the what oughts are to reconcile all things to Christ. In other words, we are to take the rocks God has given us and reconcile them to him.

I recently heard Doug give this analogy. I love this analogy and I immediately made a mental note of it because I'm stealing it. God gave us, mankind, a perfect creation that he called good and we crashed it into a tree, the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

So Isaac and I were actually listening to this sermon on the way back from man camp and it was hilarious because like at the exact same time we both kind of looked at each other and were like, Eve was driving the car.

So the obvious conclusion is that women are bad drivers, am I right? It's a joke, it's a joke, I kid. Seriously though, Eve was driving the car but Adam was doing what? He was in the passenger seat giving her bad directions.

He was neglecting his God-given duty to lead his family. So ultimately, Adam is to blame. The point is that the what oughts in this story is to reconcile creation back to the garden to what it ought to be before.

We wrecked it. Also as Doug said, we were not created to foul our own nest. Like the parable of the good steward, we were not created to take what God has given us and let it go to hell. But instead we were created to take the nest he's given us and to beautify it and to multiply it all to his praise and glory.

God Delivers His People at the Right Time

So the next point I want to discuss then is God the deliverer. I had Jerry read Psalm 124, forgiving. I'll go ahead and read it again. It says, starting in verse 1, if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, let Israel now say.

If it had not been the Lord who was on our side when people rose up against us, then they would have swallowed us up alive. When their anger was kindled against us, then the flood would have swept us away.

The torrent would have gone over us. Then over us would have gone the raging waters. Blessed be the Lord who has not given us as prey to their teeth. We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fathers.

The snare is broken and we have escaped. Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. So just as God delivered the Israelites from the teeth of the Egyptians in Exodus 14, so will he deliver his people now according to his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Just like this story, and Gideon's army in Judges 7, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and Daniel in the lion's den, God delivers his people according to a particular pattern again and again in scripture.

God loves to bring his people to the brink of destruction. Why is this? So that he alone gets the glory. Since when does God want us to get the glory? I have a quote here from Doug. He said, You must remember how much God loves cliffhangers.

God delights in last-minute deliverance because there is no joy like the joy that follows a last-minute deliverance. He has done this countless times through history. God delivers right at the right time, like he has done hundreds of times before.

God does this over and over and over again, and he does it this way so that we may learn the lesson that we don't trust in ourselves, as Paul says, but in God who raises the dead. When God delivers us, we don't look like a knight in shining armor, standing tall in victory, but more like a child with pine cone grenades, cowering behind a trash can lid for a shield.

Better yet, maybe a lowly shepherd boy, too small for armor, with a slingshot and five smooth stones. Israel saw Egypt destroyed first, and they thought for sure that they were next. Maybe you're looking at the demise of Europe and Canada and China, and you're fearful we are next, and maybe we are, and maybe we deserve to be.

But God does everything right, and we need to trust him. God will deliver us because he created all things. God delivered Israel from the Egyptians because he created the Egyptians. Looking at Psalm 124, God delivers from flood and fire because he created flood and fire, and he will deliver us from the leftists because he created the leftists.

Do things directly in front of us look bleak at the moment? You betcha. Does the sea of uncertainty look stormy and dangerous? Sure does. But God. Look, our help is not in Trump, it's not in the Republicans, it's not in the Supreme Court, but it is in the Supreme Being who made heaven and earth.

Our God is the Savior God. He is the God who delivers. Whatever tumultuous what-ifs come our way, we have to trust him. God is good, and God is sovereign all the time. He does not drop things. He doesn't crash creation into trees.

He doesn't mess up things. There are no whoopsie-daisies with God. Just like the proud water from Psalm 124, proud people can also be humbled and tamed, but only by God. God is the one who created something out of nothing.

God is the one who splits seas and shuts the mouths of hungry lions. God is the one who directs stones into the foreheads of giants. God is the one who came to earth to live among his creation as a helpless babe.

God is the one who walks on water and gives sight to the blind and heals the lame. God is the one who raises the dead to life and defeated death itself. God is the one who turned your heart of stone into a heart of flesh and breathed life into your dry and dusty bones.

God is the one who controls the wind and the rain and the thunder and the lightning as well as the spread of COVID. God is the one who holds the heart of kings in his hand like a stream of water directing them wherever he wills.

So Christian, please hear me on this. What do you have to complain about? Is the bread God has provided you from heaven not salty enough? Is the water he's giving you to drink from the rock not cold enough?

Why do you cry out to God? Again, stop being fearful. Stand strong. Be courageous. The Lord will fight for you. So shut up. Shut your mouth and watch him deliver you. Last point then before concluding, I apologize for the kids.

I just heard a kid say, he said, shut up. I'm just repeating what Moses said. So last point before concluding, how then shall we live? We fight for joy. We focus on what we know to be true and put to death what we know to be false.

We take the rocks God has sovereignly given us, no matter the size nor shape, the color nor smell, and we rake them to the glory of God, to the best of our abilities, as an act of worship to our creator.

He will deliver us from the rocks because he created those rocks. We must keep our eyes on what is directly before us. The sea of uncertainty is big and scary and dark and stormy. So we must focus on stepping out into that sea one faithful step at a time.

When we focus on the what ifs, we lose sight of the what is. And when we lose sight of the what is, the what ifs become idolatry. And the what ifs become idolatry because they rob us of our joy. Therefore, we fight for joy.

And the only way we can have lasting joy is by focusing on what we know to be true, the what is. And the what is is Christ. The what is is God's word. The what is are the rocks God has perfectly placed in front of us to rake.

And we rake them to the glory of God, thus bringing us true, sustaining joy. So my next question then is how do we maintain this sustaining joy? And the answer is by proper worship of Christ in all that we do.

We all know the saying, the human heart is an idol factory and is never idle making idols. Everything we've discussed today, the what was, the what is, the what ifs, and the what oughts are circumstances of life.

And they can very easily become idols. Briefly, I'm going to read here from Isaiah chapter 44 verses 9 through 20. Starting verse 9, it says, all who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit.

Their witnesses neither see nor know that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing? Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human.

Let them all assemble. Let them stand forth. They shall be terrified. They shall be put to shame together. In verse 12, the ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm.

He becomes hungry and his strength fails. He drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line. He marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man with the beauty of a man to dwell in a house.

He cuts down cedars or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar, and the rain nourishes it, that it becomes fuel for man. He takes a part of it and warms himself.

He kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also, he makes a god and worships it. He makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats. With meat he roasts it and is satisfied.

Also, he warms himself and says, aha, I am warm. I have seen the fire. And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, deliver me for you are my god.

Verse 18. They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes so that they cannot see, and their hearts so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, half of it I burned in the fire.

I also baked bread on its coals. I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it in an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood? He feeds on ashes. A deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, is there not a lie in my right hand?

So here's what I want us to see from this passage. I believe this very accurately describes the American dream. And please hear me. I am in no way saying that working hard and getting an education and making money and having nice things and kids and cars and all that is necessarily a sinful thing.

In fact, I would say that this is a good and righteous thing, if done to the glory of God. But I am saying that the American dream has become an idol specifically for the Church and our nation. We carefully plant this dream.

We diligently water it, making sure it receives the necessary nourishment so that it successfully grows and produces enough fruit to sustain our needs. It becomes fuel for us. It keeps us warm. And with it, we bake our bread.

But we also begin to worship it, forgetting that it is God who nourishes us and it is God who provides us with life. We take this dream and we fashion an idol out of it. We fall before it and worship it.