Trust in the Inbetween

Eric Tomeo

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Transcript

Handout

Introductory Comments

Website

Our church has officially launched our new website. This has been a labor of love for the past several months, so the staff is super excited to finally get to share it with everybody. As you can see from the video, when they put this site together, they were really focused on equipping all of us with a tool that could help us, you and me, share the good news of Jesus with your friends, family, coworkers and peers. It is designed to tell the gospel story and introduce someone to the church, no matter who happens upon it. We as a church want to love our community and invite them into a life-changing relationship with Jesus because we know, from experience, that with Jesus, better is possible. You have access to a better community through the church. A better life filled with love, joy, peace and rest. And a better purpose, to share that hope with everybody. So we hope that you will go and check it out and share it with a friend.

New People

Maybe some of you are here today for the very first time because someone in this room invited you to this place even without the new website. That is awesome. Maybe you just thought you would give it a try today on your own. Either way, we are excited and humbled that you have chosen to spend this time with us here this morning. So welcome. My name is Eric and I am one of the ministers here and I am part of the teaching team. But, if this is your first time at BCC, I need to fill you in on a little bit of what has happened here in the last few weeks. Just so you can kind of follow along with where we are going today.

New Era- What Now?

We are at the beginning of a new era in BCC. For the last 15 years, Nathan Hardesty served as our sr. minister, but last week was his last week. We had a big party to celebrate Nathan and his family as they go off on this new adventure and all they have done for BCC. Now, I have to give a shout out to Jen Hock, the leader of our Care Ministry. She organized the whole thing. And her and Brian, her husband, and Brigette Hahn were here at the church last Saturday setting it all up. If you were not here last week, it was amazing and you missed out. There were tents. Lots of fried chicken. The kids slid down water slides. It was a great way to turn the page.

Refrain

But at the end of every chapter, after you have celebrated the victories and accomplishments, hard fought battles, even the defeats after the laughter and memories…

after you throw your cap up in the air, after you run past your friends blowing bubbles or throwing rice, after you blow out the candles of another year, after the tears dry on your cheeks as you look at your newborn for the very first time, after you pull away from the college, leaving that precious one to really fend for themselves for the first time, as you see the car pull way and you feel that initial rush of freedom… a question starts to form in your mind.

What now?

The Inbetween

We as a church have just entered what Margaret Feinberg calls the Inbetween. This is how she describes it.

There’s a place between here and there. A piece of ground in the middle of takeoff and landing. A section of the unknown within the beginning and the ending. You probably find yourself there from time to time...

Inbetween is one of the most rugged places in life. You aren’t fully here and you aren’t fully there. Your emotions and hopes are strewn across an endless list of possibilities. Door knobs of wood, brass, and silver line the path, but which will open?… Excitement runs forward and fears hold back. And if you stay long enough you will feel the tremors of your soul [1]

[1] Collier, Deeper Walk.

Fear and Excitement

Known/Unknown

There is something behind you that you knew (good or bad), but ahead of you there is something unknowable.

There is excitement in that. But there is also fear. Fear of the danger or hurt that may be just ahead. Fear that you won’t make it through to the other side.

What now?

Examples

Church

So, for some of us this morning, we are asking that question about the future of this church. What is next? How long will we be in the Inbetween? Could this maybe be an opportunity to revitalize our mission? What if I don’t like the new person when they come on? What direction will the church go? Will I have to find a new church home? How long will it take?

A little excitement. A little fear. What now?

But if you are anything like me, that is not the only thing going on in your life, right? So perhaps you are asking that question about other things.

Politics/Burrow

Maybe you have been obsessively watching the news for the last 6 months, trying to get all the details on the latest court trials and impeachments, checking the polls, watching debates, just trying find out what will happen in the election that is still more than a year away. Maybe you are more concerned with the lackluster performance of the NFL’s highest paid athlete last week… and you are just wondering, What now?

Students

Students, you are just a few weeks into a new school year. And you are asking the question… What now? Will I make new friends? Will I maybe get straight As this year? Will I ever learn how to open my locker?

Job

Maybe for you, you just started a new job and you are just getting your bearings. Or maybe you got a promotion. Maybe you recently retired and find yourself sitting at home with nothing to do. Perhaps you just met your weight goal.

Mortality

Maybe, the question for you has to do with the loss of a job or rising inflation. Or the fact that you feel stuck in your career. Perhaps, for you, it has to do with aging parents. Maybe you have experienced a loved one dying recently. You may be experiencing pain with that. Or even, in some cases, some relief. Or both. Maybe you are just coming to terms with your own mortality and you are asking What now?

Escape or Divert

But we don’t like that question, do we? Whether you are excited or fearful, I have found the inbetween is not a place we like to be. When you are in the Inbetween you want to to get out as quickly as possible.

Fly

That is why people fly. How else could you explain going through all the hassle? We want our journey through the inbetween to be as short as possible. If we could teleport we would. I want to be either home or in the hotel, not on the road for 15 hours.

Diversion

Common sense Media-

Parents spend more than nine hours a day with screen media, and the vast majority of that time is spent with personal screen media.

Control

But I think it also just has something to do with control. Like if I can just get to the other side of this, I will feel like things make sense or like I have some semblance of control over my life. And I think that might bring me some contentment.

And to be sure, when we get there, we generally do experience a moment of peace.

But at the end of every chapter, after you have celebrated the victories and accomplishments, hard fought battles, after the laughter and memories, after that initial rush of freedom, a question starts to form in your mind. What now?

So we are right back where we started.

[1] “Anxious, Adj. Meanings, Etymology and More | Oxford English Dictionary.” [2] Neuroscientist Wendy Suzuki Talks about Her New Book “Good Anxiety.”

The Exodus

Recap

In the Bible there is a story about a journey through the Inbetween, we call it the Exodus. If you were here last week, you heard some of our students do a phenomenal job at telling the end of this story. It starts with the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and ends with them crossing the Jordan River and taking out Jericho. But this week, we are going to stay in the wilderness, the Inbetween. Even if you weren’t here last week, you have probably heard this story before. It is one of the Bible’s Greatest Hits. But let me catch you up real quick.

The story goes that the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. Their main job was to make bricks to build these store cities to hold all of Egypt’s vast wealth. So God went down and found Charlton Heston (picture), I mean Moses, told him to take off his shoes and get Pharoah to release the Israelites so that God could lead them to what was called the Promised Land.

Pharoah is not so fond of that idea. So God sends the ten plagues, Pharoah lets them go, changes his mind, and God parts the Red Sea so the Israelites escape. Is this sounding familiar? When Pharoah’s army goes in after the Israelites, the sea goes back over them and drowns them all. Battle won.

So then the Israelites are like, great! No more slavery! They sang and danced. Literally, the song is in chapter 15 of Exodus.

Refrain

But at the end of every chapter, after you have celebrated the victories and accomplishments, the hard-fought battles, after you feel that initial rush of freedom… a question starts to form in your mind. What now?

Known/Unknown

The Israelites had entered the Inbetween, the wilderness. There was something behind them that they knew (in this case, slavery in Egypt, God’s rescue from Pharoah), but ahead of them there was something unknowable (the journey through the wilderness to the Promised Land).

Bitter Water and No Food

They travel for three days and come to a river, but the water is “bitter” and they can not drink it. So they grumble against Moses. And to some degree I get it. Sure, you just had this amazing experience of being released from SLAVERY. You saw God move a massive body of water out of the way. The plagues. The whole bit.

But you NEED water, right? They have not had water for days!

A little later the Israelites get to a point where they don’t have any food. And they literally talk about how it would be better for them to go BACK INTO SLAVERY! Send us back to where we started!

You see, when we are in the Inbetween all our anxiety wants is resolution. We can become even eager to admit failure, to go back into slavery, because then at least we know we failed and we don’t have to wonder any longer if we will make it to the Promised land.

God is there

We don’t want to live in a world inbetween. It makes us feel powerless and out of control. But one of the things these stories teach us, is that God is there, even in the Inbetween.

When the Israelites called out for water, God gave it to them. When they called out for food, he made food appear on the ground.

The Israelites were probably thinking, How can we survive in the wilderness. We are brick makers, not bear grylls. Well, maybe not. But you get my point. We feel like we can not survive. What now?

But God answers that question. You will survive because I will provide you with what you need to survive. You don’t need to be Bear Grylls. You just need to trust me.

Sabbath

So, when God provides the food, he does something that I have always thought was weird. He tells them to just gather food six days out of seven. This is the first time that God commands His people to practice what is called Sabbath- a day of rest.

Later on in the journey, this command appears again in what we know of today as the Ten Commandments. Now stick with me here.

Exodus 20:1-4

Exodus 20:1–4 ESV

And God spoke all these words, saying, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. “You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Exodus 20:7–10 ESV

“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain. “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates.

1. No other gods

2. No idols

3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain. This is about more than swearing. It means that You bear God’s name, so don’t misrepresent Him. Like don’t do something in God’s name that He would not do.

4. Don’t work one day a week

Why

Why does He tell them to take a day off? Verse 11 explains

Exodus 20:11 ESV

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Deuteronomy repeats the 10 Commandments but reframes the reasoning a bit…

Deuteronomy 5:15 ESV

You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

It is about remembering. When we get to the Inbetween, there are things behind us that we know (good or bad), but ahead of us there is something unknowable. And what I thought was fascinating, is that when we look back to the beginning we can see these commands baked into the creation story.

Distant Past- Who we are

Genesis 1:1 (ESV)

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

One God.

Genesis 1:27 ESV

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

According to John Walton, an expert on the Old Testament, the word image here is not exactly a description of appearance. But it is something that is used in the ancient world to denote a representative. Kind of like an idol was a representative of the gods of the ancient near east[4]. No idols.

Genesis 1:28 ESV

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

So first, we will come back to that word “blessed” so put that in your back pocket. But as representatives of God, as God’s people, we are called to do good work. To represent Him well. To not take His name upon ourselves in vain. We are to step into the good work. God is inviting us to partner with Him. To fill the earth and cultivate it and produce good wherever we go.

Genesis 2:2–3 ESV

And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.

God is telling the Israelites to remember who He is and who they really are. Who they are made to be.

Will not fail

They were not made to be slaves in Egypt. That there is a rescue plan in progress. That He led them into the Inbetween so they could reach the Promised Land.

Us

To remember that if they can just trust Him, He will not fail. If He could get them out of Egypt, if He could get them through the Red Sea, He has the power to get them through the wilderness. They can trust Him. We can trust Him. God is telling them to remember. To base their view of the future on an accurate picture of the past.

The Promise of the Promised Land

But there is more here that I have always missed when I read this story before. They are inbetweeen Egypt and the Promised Land. Why is it called the promised land? Because God promised to give it to the Israelites. But look at the promise.

Bonnie Lies over the Ocean

Genesis 12:1–3 (ESV)

Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

So what is the promise here? Did you notice how many times God says the word bless? Let’s take that word back out of our pockets. At the beginning, in Genesis 1:28 it says God blessed them. The promise of the Promised land isn’t that it is flowing with milk and honey, though that is a bonus. It is the blessing of Eden, of genesis 1:28.. the blessing that we originally walked away from. The Promised Land is the place where God is with His people.

Missed it

And so here God is saying you can rest in the blessing, in the promise because He is there, with His people, even in the Inbetween. God does that repeatedly in Exodus. He does that through the pillars of fire and cloud. He does that through the thunder on the mountain. Through the Tabernacle. Read Exodus and you will see it all over the place. You can enjoy the best benefits of the Promised Land right now in the Inbetween! And they keep missing it. In fact, even when they get to the Promised Land they miss it.

And if we are not careful, we might miss it too.

Gospel

Jesus

You see, whether we are concerned or excited for the future of the church, or something else that is going on in our lives, all of us are in the Great Inbetween and it is not so different a wilderness than the one the Israelites were in.

The Scripture tells us that we were slaves to sin but that God sent Jesus to rescue us and to restore us.

He is called, Immanuel which means God with us. The promise, the blessing. He is with us. He is walking through the wilderness with you, leading you back into the place of Promise. But even here, you can experience the promise of the Promised Land. Jesus offers freedom through his death and resurrection. He broke death for us. He provided a way through the sea for us.

Heaven

But now we are in this weird Inbetween, this strange wilderness. We live in a broken world filled with sin and death, and yet we have the hope of the promised land in front of us. And none of us likes the Inbetween. We want to get through it as quickly as possible. To get out of it. To just get it over with.

But what is interesting to me about this story is that God tells His people to stop, once a week. To rest and to remember. To sit and practice a radical trust that God can and will get them through the wilderness. To remember that God is present even in the Inbetween so that we don’t run back into slavery and oppression.

Non-anxious Presence

One of the things that the Bible says about the rest that God calls His people to, is that it is weird. It is “the sign of the Covenant.” It is something that makes them “holy,” which is not a word for ‘churchy person,’ it is another word for different. If you can wrap your mind and heart around trusting God in the middle of the inbetween that you are in, remembering He is there with you in the middle of the inbetween that all of us are in, you will be weird… in a good way. Mark Sayers calls this being a “non-anxious presence,[8]” in a world filled with anxiety. Who here would love to be a non-anxious presence? Is that possible? Yes. With Jesus, a better life is actually possible. Now, let me be clear, it may look like eating bread from the ground or traveling three days without water. But it is a life of true acceptance and rich grace. A life of love and joy and peace. It is a life of blessing and promise. It is not necessarily easy, but it is better.

And look, the Israelites don’t ever fully get this. So it is not like you put your trust in Jesus and all of a sudden everything is easy. So I always had this question why God told the people of Israel to take a day off. And I think this is why. To experience these things you have to remember to trust God and to step into His work as His representative. And the best way to remember something is to practice it.

What Now? Practice

So today, you may be asking what now? Maybe about the church or something else going on in your life. What now? I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know what will happen in the next fifteen minutes. But in the Inbetween, God calls His people to enter into His work and to enter into His rest. In order to do that we have to practice trusting Him. Here are some ways you can do this.

Practice Sabbath.

Let me be clear, this is not something you have to do. Col 2:16- 17 talks about how God’s institution of the Sabbath and other Jewish festivals were essentially foreshadowing what was fulfilled through Jesus.

But if you are up for trying it out, we will have some resources available to you on the Next page that will help give you some more direction. Here is the important thing. Start where you are, not where you want to be.

Silent Praying

This is something I have started doing every morning. You sit silently before God. You don’t say anything out loud and you try not to say anything in your head. Sometimes it is helpful to kind of picture the thoughts that pop up as balloons that you let go and watch them float away. The goal is to trust God with

Fellowship- Koinonia

We always try to provide plenty of opportunities to do that. I will just name a few.

Students, for you this could be showing up for bcsm at night, at 5:30 tonight. It is 70s night.

Small groups are a great place for this kind of thing.

Campfire Hangout -October 13th. We’ll roast some hot dogs and smores over the open fire and just spend some time just hanging out as a family together.

Just intentionally spending some time with other Jesus followers can remind us that we are not alone on the journey and remind us that God designed us to be in community, in relationship with Him and each other.

All of this to say that the anxiety you are feeling is unfortunately normal. You are not alone. There is a community of people sitting around you that are feeling it too to varying degrees. So one thing we can do is just open up to one another. Be vulnerable and honest about our struggles.

And then lastly, make it a point to notice where God has been faithful. When we needed water he provided it. When we needed food he made it appear. When we needed to be made right with God, He sent His Son to adopt us into His Family. We can trust Him even in the wilderness. He will not fail us now.

Pray

Communion

God is in the habit of establishing practices that remind us of these things. He did that when He instituted Communion. If you have not grabbed a communion packet, they are in the back, go grab one. Last week, I had to do the same thing. So don’t feel bad going to grab one.

But the bread is there to remind us that Jesus provided a way for us when death seemed certain. When we wanted to run back to Egypt. He called us to eat and remember.

The juice reminds us of the blood he spilled to enter into our wilderness, our suffering and our death, so we can enter into His life and abundance, to make it possible to enter the land of Promise later, but also now. He called us to drink and remember.

We do this together to remember we are not alone on this journey. Not only is God with us, but the other people in this room are with us as well.

Benediction

So may we, as a church, or you, individually… May you trust Him as we enter a season of uncertainty and change, one that sits on top of the brokenness that is already a part of our world and culture right now and may we continue to proclaim the good news of Jesus to the community that surrounds us by intentionally resting in the truth of the gospel, becoming a different, holy, non-anxious presence in this restless world.

Let me end with this. I don’t know what is to be, but I am excited, I am confident that God has some amazing things in store for this church, this family, for you. I am excited to see His plans be made real in this church and in our lives. Let us remember that God is in this with us. Let us make Him our foundation, trust in His grace and provision, especially now.

God will not fail.

[1] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ex 20:1–11. [2] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Dt 5:12–15. [3] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 1:27. [4] John Walton, The Lost World of Genesis One. [5] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 1:28. [6] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 1:29–2:3. [7] The Holy Bible: English Standard Version(Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ge 12:1–3. [8] Sayers, A Non-Anxious Presence.