Is the LORD among Us or Not?

Exodus 17:1-7

“Is the Lord among us or not?”  That would seem to be a ridiculous question for the Israelites to have asked Moses.  They had seen the Lord smite the land of Egypt with ten plagues.  They saw the LORD part the waters of the Red Sea for them to cross and then drown the armies of Pharaoh in it.  At a place called Marah, which means Bitter, the LORD turned bitter waters to sweet for them to drink.  In the Wilderness of Sin the LORD provided them with quails and manna to eat.  Why would they doubt that the LORD was with them?

But here they were going deeper into the wilderness and god’s can be fickle, you know.  They were about two and a half months into this wandering stuff, a little bit south of just smack dab right in the middle of the Sinai Peninsula, and there they were at Rephidim.  It’s on a dry river bed, the Wadi Feiran, no water, just cliffs of granite.  Looks like this:
Amalekite_Canyon.jpg

It rains maybe once a year there.  When it does, there’s a fierce flood.  You get out of the way.  Had the LORD brought his people all the way out to the middle of nowhere to die of thirst?  We like to fault the ancient Israelites for their complaining while they were wandering in the wilderness, but when you’re thirsty and looking at nothing but granite cliffs “is the LORD among us or not” is a relevant question.

The people who live in that area today, Bedouin’s, are descendants of people who have lived there for thousands of years.  They know the desert well.  Unlike the Ancient Egyptians who had many gods, these people have for generations believed in only one God, the God of life and death.  They know that God has many miraculous means of providing food and water out in the desert.  This is the God who spoke to Moses out of the burning bush which was only about sixty miles from where they were, the God who said he was the God of the Israelite forefathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  This God sent Moses to lead the people out of slavery in Egypt.  But, this Rephidim was just a little too life and death for the Israelites, even more so than slavery in Egypt.

The ancient Israelites didn’t know how to survive in this land.  This was life and death for them.  So, they make their case known to Moses.  Moses, thinking he might get stoned, cries out to the LORD, and we know the rest of the story.  Moses, takes the elders, sees the LORD, parts a rock with the same staff that parted the Red Sea, and water comes forth for the people to drink.  There’s a rock in that vicinity that to this day looks like this. 
Rrphidim_1-787x587.jpg

It’s likely not the actual rock, but it is certainly a reminder of it.

I am inclined to say that on a whole the North American church doesn’t know how to survive in the wilderness it’s in today.  Denominations are shrinking.  Individual congregations are dwindling.  No matter what we try it seems nobody comes to church anymore.  Full-time single point ministers are becoming a thing of the past.  It would be nice to say like we used to say that we are just two funerals away from being able to make necessary changes.  Now so many churches are just two funerals away from having to shut the doors.  “Is the LORD among us or not” is a question that’s not too far from our lips, but we know better than to ask it.  Don’t we?  Regardless, it seems we are thirsty and looking at nothing but granite and, to be frank, where is the LORD in all this? 

Our Rephidim today is smaller churches surviving in this wilderness.  I believe that small churches matter.  I believe it so much that fifteen years ago when I finished at my church in West Virginia I made the career decision to get into small church revitalization rather than to move to a larger pulpit than what I was in.  I don’t have time to give all the reasons other than to say the small church, smaller than fifty people active, looks and acts more like the New Testament church than does the larger program church and certainly more so than the recent phenomenon of the megachurch.

As the church began as small Christian fellowships, I believe that the future of the North American church will arise from healthy small Christian fellowships.  By healthy I mean that they authentically love and thereby actually look and act like Jesus.  They devote themselves to prayer, Bible Study, and eat together often.  They make disciples with the intention of starting new small Christian fellowships rather than simply trying to get more bums in their own pews for the sake of their own survival.  This means equipping small churches to start new small churches rather than augmenting their own.

This is risky.  For, like ancient Israel in the Sinai Wilderness, we don’t know how to survive in the barren land of a de-Christianized and often anti-Christian atmosphere pervading our culture.  We are familiar with how to be the family church that has a program or two in a culture that is more than majoratively Christian.  Today, the two largest categories of church involvement are the ‘None’s” – those who’ve had no and want no involvement in the church – and the “Done’s” – those who are done with church and are not coming back.  Asking small churches to start new small churches in these times, well, that’s about as thirsty and looking at granite graveyard stones as you get in North America, but my gut says that’s where the water in the rock is at.

You know, I don’t get to come to Cornerstone too often, but I really enjoy coming here and not only because Bernice is here and I don’t say that to butter up to the Gowan legacy here.  I say it because Jesus is here and it is evident.  There is Living Water flowing from the Rock here.  You are living proof that small churches can go through a wilderness and do more than just survive.  Lay leadership is strong here.  Your elders and Jim do a fantastic job of pastoral care.  The Word is being soundly taught and proclaimed here.  There are those in your midst who would be absolutely lost without the love of this, their church family.  Jesus ministers through each of you.  Everything I said about healthy small churches pertains here.  The answer to the question “Is the LORD among us or not” is an obvious “Yes!”  I would challenge you folks with a different question: What would you have to do different to gear up to start another fellowship like this one?  Amen.