SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you have your Bibles, you can go with me to Deuteronomy chapter one. Deuteronomy chapter one. This book is really in a lot of ways, it's Moses retelling Israel's history. Moses has brought Israel to the edge of the promised land. A new generation is about to enter it. And the goal of the book, Moses is trying to, as this new generation is entering, Moses is trying to remind them of who God is, of what God's done, of what he's asked and what he's commanded. And so Moses begins this retelling of their history and retelling of the commands of God with these words. Deuteronomy 1, starting in verse 6. The Lord our God said to us in Horeb, otherwise known as Sinai, you have stayed long enough at this mountain. Turn and take your journey and go to the hill country of the Amorites, to all their neighbors in the Araba, in the hill country, and in the lowland, and in the Negeb and by the sea coast, the land of the Canaanites in Lebanon, as far as the great river, the river Euphrates. See, I have set the land before you go in and take possession of the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give to them and to their offspring after. This is the command of God to Israel as they're about to set out, but my heart was gripped when I read this passage by the way Moses begins the retelling with that phrase, You have stayed long enough at this mountain. And I began to wonder why would God, why would Moses start here? Why start with the admonishment of God to leave the very mountain where he met them? And it's because Moses understands something. Moses understands before Israel can step into what's in front of them, he must first bring to memory God's command to let go of what was behind them. And I believe the same word is for us today. If we're taking notes, I want to title this morning's message It's Time to Leave This Mountain. It's time to leave this mountain. I think it's it's fitting on this 4th of July weekend that in my time preparing, I kind of found myself unintentionally at a story from in a story from the early explorative years of our nation. This image they're about to show you is of Fort Mandan. Fort Mandan, uh really it's a duplicate of Fort Mandan. The original fort is gone now, but this model sits on the banks of the Missouri River in what's now Washburn, North Dakota. And if you're a history guy like me, you're already locked in. If not, I promise I'll talk to you again in a minute. Okay. But I like this, so this is the replica. Today, the this sits, it's empty, it's quiet, it's a historical duplicate that maybe attracts a couple tourists like me. But in the winters of 1804 and 1805, this fort was one of the most purposeful, helpful alive places on the western front of the American continent. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson commissioned two army officers, maybe you know their names, Merewether Lewis and William Clark, to lead a group of men westward into uncharted territory to map the land and find a route to the Pacific Ocean. And these group of men called themselves the core of discovery. That was their mission to go out and to discover. And by the fall of 1804, months after months of pushing upstream against the harsh Missouri River, they had traveled over 1600 miles from the nearest civilized settlement, and winter started to close in. So they needed a solution, so they stopped in North Dakota and they built Fort Mandan. They spent the winter mapping there in the fort what they knew, preparing for potential outcomes and difficulties, and then building the relationships, gathering knowledge that would make the rest of the expedition possible. They used that moment there so that by the time spring arrived, they would be more prepared and capable for what was ahead. And ahead of them was territory no American had ever mapped, mountains no expedition had ever crossed, but it was time to leave if they were going to get to where they were going to get to. And here's the point I tell you that story. Because staying at Fort Mandan would have already been a crazy accomplishment in and of itself. No one ever expected them to get that far. No one ever expected anyone to push that far west. No one ever expected a lasting settlement to exist in that part of the nation. So staying wouldn't have been wrong. No one would have blamed them. But there is no discovery of the Pacific Ocean without leaving Fort Mandon. Staying wouldn't have been wrong, but it would have caught kept them from everything that was ahead. So the tension for them wasn't between something good and something bad. The tension was between something good and something greater. Which is exactly where we find Israel in Moses' beginning introduction. This is a people who have just experienced something no one thought they could experience. They've gone further than anyone thought they could go. No one before them or after them has had these kind of moments with God. And to understand what God is saying here, you have to understand what He's been doing and where they've been. Because the mountain God is telling Israel to leave is not just any mountain. This is Mount Sinai. And if you know the story, you know God's not asking them to leave a bad or painful place. God's not asking them to leave Egypt here. He's asking them to leave the place of some of the most significant divine encounters in human history. And as Moses is telling the story in the weeks leading up to what happens in Deuteronomy 1, what Moses reminds them of, Israel has watched God split the Red Sea in half and walk through on dry ground. They've watched God pour water out from a rock in the middle of a desert, watched God provide for them bread from heaven that literally fell from the sky to feed them every morning. And when they arrived at Sinai, God comes down, God speaks to them, He gives them the law, the commandments, the covenant, the blueprint for how this nation of former slaves was gonna live as the people of God. For the first time in 400 years, Israel is not building someone else's empire. They aren't waking up wondering if today's the day Pharaoh's through with us. Sinai was the longest they had ever stayed anywhere as a free people. This is the best life they've ever known. God's presence, God's provision, community, structure, identity, purpose. For the first time in centuries, a home. And then 11 months later, Deuteronomy 1.6. You've stayed long enough at this mountain. Oh but God, this is our home. You've stayed long enough. Just like that, it's time to move. Remember, this isn't God rescuing them from slavery. This is God telling them to leave the place where he met them. And his word is it's time for you to go. So my question for us this morning is what do you do when God says move, but you don't want to? What do we do? When God says it's time to step out, step up, step into, move, change. But you genuinely love the mountain where he's had you. Because most of us say we will follow him anywhere, and we mean it. But that's an easy promise to make when he's just delivered me out of Egypt and I'm still in the wilderness. It's a much harder one when I've made my home at Horeb. The danger for Israel was that an encounter moment was starting to become their permanent address. That the place where God met them was the place they decided to stay. The problem was they were settling for Sinai when God wanted to give them Canaan. And I think a lot of us do the same thing. A season of blessing or a place that we've really we knew we walked in obedience and we've seen God in a powerful way. And instead of letting that encounter deepen our relationship with Him and our trust in Him and form us into something and prepare us for what's next, we stay at Fort Mandon. We stay right there. Not because we're rebellious or we don't love God. It's just always harder to leave mountains than it is to leave valleys. Nobody's fighting to stay in the desert. We leave those seasons very willingly. But the mountaintop moments of our life, those are often the places that we choose to call home, and sometimes God just meant for it to be a stopping point. And the word of God to Israel, and I believe for some of us today, is very simply it's time to leave this mountain. Because Canaan is waiting. There's always a wilderness between the mountaintop and the promised land. So it just makes me wonder then, like, God, like why would you make us leave? Like, why can't like here's here's I just God, can you just make this the plan? Like, can we change the plan? This feels pretty great to me. Can we just stay here? Why would God make us leave? And to answer that, we need to look and understand a little bit more about what mountains actually meant in the ancient world. In the ancient Near Eastern imagination, mountains were not just geography, they weren't just elevated terrain. Mountains were the place, in their understanding, mountains were the place where heaven and earth collided. Mountaintops were the place where the divine realm reached down and touched the human realm. Mountains were where God showed up. And if you read in your Bible, an overwhelming amount of encounters between God and his people in scripture, major ones that we talk about all the time, significant ones happen on a mountain or in a high place. The first altar that's ever made is when Noah's art comes to rest on Mount Ararat after the flood, and it says that on the side of that mountain as a covenant with God, Moses makes an altar on the mountain. A sacrifice is provided to Abraham in the place of his son Isaac on Mount Moriah. Moses has his encounter with the burning bush on Mount Horeb on the same mountain. Elijah hears God's still small voice in the midst of an overwhelming fire and earthquake and thunder. The law is given to Israel on Mount Sinai. Even Jesus' most famous and kingdom-oriented sermon is literally called the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus reveals his divinity in a unique way to his closest disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration, the greatest act of love in human history, the moment where heaven and earth really do collide in glory and in beauty, when Jesus is crucified on his cross, is on the side of a mountain called Galgotha. Over and over and over again in the biblical imagination, if you want God to move, if you want to find God, if you want to be with God and have an encounter with him, you go up. So when God says, leave this mountain, the question they're asking is if we leave the mountain, if we lose the mountain, doesn't that mean we lose you too? That if I leave the mountain, I'm all alone. Because God, you're up there. This is where we find you. But God makes them a promise in this moment. He says, Exodus 29, 45, he says, No, that's not the point. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought, watch this, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. So God's correcting their understanding. God is saying, I didn't bring you out of Egypt to give you a mountain. I brought you out of Egypt so I could be with you. So when God says, Leave this mountain, I know it feels scary, but He's not asking, He's not withdrawing. He's not ending the relationship, He's not backing down on the promise. He's just moving you on to what's next. In Deuteronomy 1, when God says you've stayed at the mountain long enough, that phrase in Hebrew, long enough, could most closely translate in English. The phrase is rav lachem, and it could most closely translate to some of these things like enough is enough. You've had enough. This is too much for you. So rav means abundant plenty, enough. You've had your fill. He's saying it's time to go, but there's more ahead of you than what's behind you. In other words, you've received everything this mountain has to give you. You've had your full. You won't get anything else here. And it's time for you to go. That's not to say mountaintop moments aren't important in our life. You need mountaintop encounters with God, spiritual moments of encounter, of clarity, where you feel like you're walking in the blessing. We feel like you're walking step in step with him. But God has because God has a purpose for those moments. He has a purpose for Sinai in these moments. God uses mountaintop moments to do because a lot of us we do, we get to good seasons in life with God and we just cruise. And we're just like, this is this is it. This is what following Jesus is all about. Following Jesus is about obedience. Where he goes, I go, what he says, and we we forget. No, no, no, the mountaintop serves a purpose, but it's not the whole goal. Three things God does, important things in our life. God uses mountaintop moments for revelation, formation, and vocation. There is a purpose for them. God uses them for something. At Sinai, what's the first thing God does when Israel gets there? God reveals Himself to them in a way Israel could never forget. He descends on the mountain and fire and smoke and thunder and earthquake. It literally says the mountain trembles before God. That's a pretty insane picture of God's revelation to Israel. A few days later, though, he reveals himself to them in a different way. After their worst mistake at that very mountain, the golden calf incident, he doesn't just descend in glory, he reveals his heart. Israel blows it. And God says, Yes, I know I'm the God you saw on the mountain just a few days ago, but this is also who I am. Exodus 34, 6, the Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. So God's revealing the same God who shook the mountain is slow to anger. The same God who descends in fire abounds in steadfast love. He's revealing all the aspects of who he is to Israel. And while he's revealing himself at this mountain, he's also forming them and giving them a calling and a destiny. He speaks this over them at Mount Sinai. He says, Okay, you're no longer the people you were when I got you. Exodus 19, 5. You shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine, and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. I want to form you. I want to shape you. You're a kingdom of priests, Israel. Priests stand between God and people. They carry God's presence towards those who don't have it. They represent the holy to the broken and the broken. They bring the broken before the holy. So the purpose of Sinai and heads up, the purpose of mountaintop moments in your life is to create such a confidence in you of who God is that then you believe deep in your heart, he must mean what he says about me, that I'm his treasured possession, so that then when it's time to step out, I can be the holy nation, I can be the kingdom, I need who he is, so I know who I am, so then I know what I've got to do. Mountaintop moments aren't just for you to take a breath, you get to, but they're for God to reveal things to you and form things in you. Israel needed this before they were going to become what they were gonna become. Remember, 400 years of slavery shaped the way they thought, the way they understood provision and authority. And on this mountain, God is trying to rewire how they think, reform their understanding of Him, teach them to live and love like free people who belong to a good God. In other words, why'd God bring them to Sinai? Sinai wasn't just about getting Israel out of Egypt, it was also about getting Egypt out of Israel. There were mindsets and ways they approached life that God's like, if you're gonna be all I've got you be. I gotta bring you to this mountain. Why? To transform you, to change you, to show you more of who I am. So God has a purpose for the mountain, revelation of who he is, formation of you, your calling, and it's good and it's necessary. The problem is most of life's just not lived there. Maybe you're one of the blessed ones, and most of life you've been on the mountain. For most of us, the good majority of life is lived in the wilderness. The good majority of life is lived between the mountain of God and the promised land in the ordinary, unglamorous, sometimes confusing middle of following God into what's next. So, in an effort to avoid that feeling and avoid that wilderness, we're gonna we're gonna stay at the fort. We're gonna stay at the camp. We're not gonna follow God into what's next because we build our identity around the mountain and around the things God has done. And when the next thing God asks us to do doesn't feel as good as what he did before or feel scarier or has us a little more on edge, we assume, well, that's not God, he's not in it. But God's the one who said you stayed at this mountain long enough. So the question that we you have to answer, the same question Israel had to answer, standing on the foot of the mountain is simply no matter the cost, no matter what you have to leave behind, no matter what's ahead, will you follow him when he says go? Will you move when he says no? Even if you love what's behind you. A little over seven years ago, Claudia and I were at a different church, we were wrapping up college, and we we were at what felt like honestly one of the best possible places, exciting seasons in our life. We loved the church we were at. We were serving in roles that felt like they were made for us. Surrounded by people like we, like some of our dearest friends, even to this day, we love them deeply. And I had just taken my first full-time job there. I was about to start it. It was maybe maybe a month into that conversation. We were getting ready to get engaged. It was it was a mountaintop moment. It was the mountaintop season for us, and all the way. And he asked if we'd come interview for a position at North Place. And I was I honestly I wasn't sure. I was like, I was I was intrigued, but I loved where we were, felt like we had everything right where we needed to be. I'd just taken the job, but we said we'd at least come and have a conversation. I'll never forget when I got here to the church and I was by our office doors and I put my hand on the handle of the office door. I will never forget one of the clearest I've ever heard the voice of God in my life and in my heart. I felt God say, Whatever He offers you, say yes. And I this is a true story. Out loud, maybe you can relate. Out loud, I said, okay. And then I said, anything but kids. You know what I'm saying? I was just like, that's the like that's I'm out. You know, it was like, as literally what I said, like, okay, God, anything but kids. Lo and behold, the position was to be the kids pastor. Actually, that was what the original job conversation was. Uh and nothing in me wanted to do that job, but I knew that I knew in my heart God was asking me to leave the mountain. And God was asking me to follow him into something I couldn't see yet. So we said yes. That ended up not being the role that I took, but without that initial yes, we would have never gotten here. We would have never gotten to see all the things God wanted us to see. These people, you guys, who become spiritual family, this place that has become home in ways I could have never dreamed. All the amazing things God has done and is going to continue to do. We would have missed all of it if we would have stayed at the mountain. So I want you to look inward for a moment and ask yourself what is your Sinai? What's your mountain? What is it a role? Is it a relationship, a place, a comfort, or a blessing that has slowly kept you? From following in obedience to the voice of God to what he's saying. If we're honest, some of us are still living off the fumes of a word that God spoke years ago. And God's been trying to get your attention. That was for you then. But I have kingdom for you now. God's trying to get some of our attention. And if that's you, if you feel that that's you, I want you to hear me, yes. Leaving the mountain is scary. But the hope God promised Israel is the hope that He promised to us. The one thing you should be most afraid of losing in this journey is the one thing that can never be taken from you. Because God said it himself. Why am I doing all of this? Why am I moving you? Why am I calling you into all these things? Because I I want to dwell among my people. I want to be with them. For no reason. He's brought you out, he's moving you forward so he can be with you. With you wherever you go. And nobody in scripture understood this more deeply than the man who's speaking and writing these words to Israel. Because remember, Deuteronomy 1 is where Moses begins his speech to this new generation. He opens his words to this new, this new group of Israelites who are about to step in. He says, He says, When I was with your fathers, when I was with your ancestors 40 years ago, God spoke to us. You stayed long enough on this mountain. So he reminds them it started with a call to move into what's next. But a lot happens between there and then the moment he's in now talking to this new generation. 40 years between what happened in Deuteronomy 1 and Moses saying these words. 40 years of wilderness. A generation lives and dies without seeing the promised land. Moses himself is told he will not cross the Jordan because of his sinful decisions. The man who led them out of Egypt who heard these words from God, who led them out into the wilderness, who stood on that mountain before God, carried the tablets down, interceded when Israel failed. Moses will die on the eastern side of the river, looking at the land he gave his life to bring people to. So did God fail Moses? 40 years since God spoke to him, leave this mountain, go to the land, move, follow me. And now Moses can't even go in. 40 years they've wandered. Moses, how are you not broken? How are you not angry? How are you not frustrated that the trust you showed him, it didn't look like it panned out the way he told you it would pan? How are you not upset? Because 40 years they've wandered, 40 years they've been waiting for home. 40 years Moses has been leading them to a destination. But his very last words in Deuteronomy 33, the very last chapter before his death, Moses tells him, He says, You think, you think this what you're about to step into is what's gonna solve it for you? You think this was the destination? You think this Moses says in verse 27, no, no, no, Israel. I know you've been wondering, but the eternal God is your dwelling place. 40 years we've been looking for a place to lay our head, and Moses says, You've had it the whole time. 40 years, the eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are his everlasting arms. Not the mountain, not the land, not the encounter, not the feeling, not the season, not the gift, not the promise, but him. Moses spent 40 years and never got the gift. He stood on the mountain and saw Canaan from a distance, knowing he would never step foot in it. And his final word to the people he loved, his last breath of care over a nation he gave everything for wasn't a eulogy about what he missed out on. It was a testimony to the one thing he knew he could never lose: that the eternal God is my home. Moses is saying, I didn't get the land, I never got Canaan, but I got something better. I got something better than Canaan, I got something better than Sinai. I have him. I had him. I got something better than all of that, and he was enough, he is enough. The land, yes, may be a gift where God's leading you. It may be a gift, but he is your home. He is your home, and he is always with you. Because remember, in the biblical imagination, the mountain was the place where the divine came close enough to touch humanity. That's why God showed up on the mountain. Mountains are where heaven and earth meet. Where else do how then how do I take the mountain with me? How do I have this sense of God's presence with me everywhere I go? Where else do heaven and earth meet? Where else do divinity and dirt collide? Not on a mountain, but on a cross, in a person, in Jesus. And this king did not come to die on a mountain. He became the place where for everyone, everywhere, at all times, heaven and earth could meet permanently and completely. Jesus is the new Sinai. Jesus is the true mountain. Jesus is the new Canaan. Jesus is the true promised land. He is the new meeting place with God, the mountain that never disappears, the feeling that never runs dry. He is your dwelling place. He is your home. And if I have him, oh church, he is not, he's not a stop on the journey to what you really want. He's not a timeout station on your way to Canaan. He's not a piece of the pie. He's not one option for you to find your home. He is your all in all. And when he is your all in all, you don't need the mountain. When he is your all in all, you don't need the promised land. When he is your all in all, you stop living for mountains tops and stop chasing feelings and keeping your head in the past. When he is your all in all, everywhere is Sinai. When he is your all in all, everywhere is Canaan and anywhere else is wilderness. So I'll follow you.Anywhere else is broken, anywhere else is empty, anywhere else one's runs dry. So Jesus, I'll follow you. I'll say yes to you. Because you are my dwelling place. You are my home. I'll leave when you tell me to leave. I'll stay when you tell me to stay. I'll move when you tell me to move. Because you're my dwelling place, God. Jesus, you are my home. Would you stand with me across this room? Prayer team, you can begin to make your way forward. I really do believe that there are some of us in this room that as we go today, as we sit maybe and reflect today, that there is something, there's a Sinai, there's something that's been holding us that it's time to move as God is saying, it's time to just trust Jesus. If I have you, I have it all, I have enough, so I'll go where you want me to go and do what you ask me to do. And we need to take a moment today and make that decision before God and step out confidently. I don't even think that's just a word for us as individuals today. I really do believe it's not a coincidence. This is the word God gave me on this weekend, the birthday of our nation. God is saying something to his church, God's saying something to his people, God's saying something to all of us that what got you here will not get you there. It's time to leave this mountain. On this weekend we celebrate. Let's use it as a chance to remember not how great we are. Remember who he is. Remember who we are in him. Remember what he's called us to do, not for ourselves, but for the world around us. And remember, this nation is a gift, but he is our home. He is our home. And our home was never supposed to be in a border or in a flag or in an arrow we're trying to get back to. He is calling us forward to follow him. And wherever he would lead, he'd be our home and our dwelling place. It has always been him. It will forever be him. Anywhere else is empty. So, Jesus, would you move in our hearts? Would you challenge us to let go of what we need to let go of, to release what we need to release, to stand confidently today. To those of us who are in a mountaintop season, God, we are grateful. Would you form us and show us who you are? For those of us who are in the wilderness, Lord, would you give us the confidence that you are with us, that you brought us where you've brought us to dwell amongst us, to be with us, and we can follow you with joy and with confidence and hope today. And as we step out, God, into whatever it may be, into whatever situations face us as we go, as we rejoice or we hope or we pray, God, as we go, would you bless them and keep them? Would you make your face shine down upon them? Would you be gracious to them? Turn your countenance their direction and give them peace in Jesus' name. Amen and amen. These altars are open today. God bless you.