TRUST TO CLIMB
The following was taken from registration sheets and comment cards returned to the staff of the Bridger Wilderness Area in Wyoming in 1996:
1. Trails need to be wider so people can walk holding hands.
2. Trails need to be reconstructed. Please avoid building trails that go uphill.
3. Too many bugs and leeches and spiders and spider webs. Please spray the wilderness to rid the area of these pests.
4. Please pave the trails so they can be plowed of snow during the winter.
5. Chairlifts need to be in some places so that we can get to wonderful views without having to hike to them.
6. The coyotes made too much noise last night and kept me awake. Please eradicate these annoying animals.
7. A small deer came into my camp and stole my jar of pickles. Is there a way I can get reimbursed?
8. Reflectors need to be placed on trees every 50 feet so people can hike at night with flashlights.
9. Escalators would help on steep uphill sections.
10. A McDonald’s would be nice at the trailhead.
11. The places where trails do not exist are not well marked.
A few years back I climbed to Camp Muir which is at the 10,180 ft level of Mt Rainier.
Anyone every been that far from sea level without the benefit of an airplane?
The starting point is Paradise at 5,400 ft.
Climbing to the top of a mountain gives you a different perspective on the mountain and everything around it. For the first little while there are beautiful flowers and greenery. Then it gets a little steeper and rockier. As you go higher on the mountain, the air gets thinner and more attention is necessary to where you’re walking.
For the last couple of thousand feet, you move onto the snowfield. I remember walking in footsteps of the people who have gone before me. Exactly putting my foot in the holes that were made by those who had already made the climb. I remember considering stepping out and making new footprints, but I didn’t have the energy, it was all I could do to take one step at a time.
The same principle applies to our spiritual walk up the mountain of life into God’s holiness.
Psalm 37:1-8, 23-24, 29-31
So, we’re not to fret but Trust God to Ordain our steps.
Trust God in His promises that joy and blessings are at the top of the climb.
You all know that. What I’de like to address tonight is Head knowledge vs. Heart knowledge.
With head knowledge you can intellectualize how big the mountain is (or how Holy and faithful God is), but only by approaching it and putting your feet on the mountain (or walking in God’s ways) do you really experience the size of the mountain and the truth of the scripture.
Head knowledge is a kind of a passive knowledge which doesn’t reach the stage of passion in your life. Heart knowledge is ignited by the truth of experience and faith. Heart knowledge is the passion by which our testimony receives power. Heart knowledge can’t sit still.
Going up requires effort and determination. It’s a glorious journey and the view at the top is breathtaking. Every day we’re presented with choices as to where we will place our next step.
Always choose to step up, the direction of Aliyah (going up).
Have you ever noticed that when people in scripture went to Jerusalem they went "up to Jerusalem"?
Even when coming south, Jesus went "up to Jerusalem." Jerusalem is high in the Judean hills, and just as you never go down to God, you always go up to Jerusalem (His Holy city). Going Up to Jerusalem was given a special name - Aliyah (going up).
This is the term used for Jewish people returning to live in Israel, they are making Aliyah.
Aliyah is also the term used in the Synagogue for coming to the raised platform (Bema) to read from the Torah.
If you’re a born again believer, you’re a child of Abraham and your life is to be an Aliyah. The direction of your life is not east or west, toward money or worldly success. The direction of your life is Aliyah, going up- growing in holiness pleasing to God.
He has not called us to a life on a flat plane, but to a life of highest good and kingdom purposes.
The climb up Rainier got monotonous. The snowfield seemed to go on for miles. That’s called the "long middle".
How do we keep going when there seems to be no foreseeable relief from the "long middle"?
TRUST. Confidence in God’s promises.
The scripture is full of overwhelming evidence of his trustworthiness. You life is full of testimonies of His trustworthiness.
--Vance Havner said:
Occasional high days, answers to prayer now and then & temporary blessings, make an uneven and spasmodic Christian life. But to live day in and out, all kinds of days, in simple dependence on Christ as the branch on the vine, constantly abiding, that is the supreme experience.
Sometimes when we I read the words and stories of those great saints who have been more than conquerors, mighty men and women for God, I feel almost despondent. But they won by simply taking step by step, by faithfulness in the little things. No one knows all the little private steps of obedience and trust these people walked
We only see the accomplishment, but even so, those small steps were taken.
There is no sudden triumph to spiritual maturity.
As I got higher on the mountain, even the little backpack I wore became a burden. I had put stuff in it I didn’t need. Spiritual maturity requires that you put off the “stuff” you don’t need.
As I started my climb up Mt. Rainier from Paradise, it seemed so close, like I’de be at the top in no time. You start and climb for hours thinking that your getting closer to the summit, only to realize that after hours of grueling climbing your still a distance away.
Even from Camp Muir, the summit didn’t look that much closer.
Our salvation is just like that climb up Mt. Rainier. After all our effort, we’re still lost in our sins.
After all our effort, we can’t earn our salvation – it’s a free gift. The only way to get it is to ask for it.
SALVATION CALL -
The more you grow in relationship with God and His righteous standard,
The more we realize that although we’ve gotten closer, the climb to holiness never ends.
The trip down is always faster than the climb up. Coming down does not take as much time, discipline and effort as getting up. The road of sin is like that slippery slope on the ice field.
God has given every believer a mountain to climb. To climb it, we must say Yes God -
God has given every congregation a mountain to climb.
It includes what the Lord has given us as a vision, mission, and purpose. Read bulletin cover
Climbing the mountain (Aliyah) makes you useful.
We’ve begun the climb, and we’ve seen some great and glorious thing by the hand of our God here at CLOJ, but we’re not done because the Lord hasn’t come back yet. Come Lord quickly.
I climbed Mt Rainier with two Brothers in the Lord and going with them was the key to successfully climbing to 10,180 ft. And we had fun along the way!!
In our spiritual Aliah, we need people with a heart knowledge of God to help us climb to the goal.
People to laugh with along the way, people to help, support, and encourage the work of the Lord.
People to share Messiah’s blessings with, and people to build relationships with in the climb.
Someone to enjoy the view and beauty with and someone to rest and refresh yourself along the way with are big parts of successfully completing the climb.
Tim Hansel, in his book Holy Sweat, wrote this:
A close friend of mine was asked back to his forty-year high school reunion. For months he saved to take his wife back to the place and the people he’d left four decades before. The closer the time came for the reunion, the more excited he became, thinking of all the wonderful stories he would hear about the changes and the accomplishments these old friends would tell him.
One night before he left he even pulled out his old yearbooks, read the silly statements and the good wishes for the future that students write to each other. He wondered what ol’ Number 86 from his football team had done. He wondered if any others had encountered this Christ who had changed him so profoundly. He even tried to guess what some of his friends would look like, and what kind of jobs and families some of these special friends had. The day came to leave and I drove them to the airport. Their energy was almost contagious. "I’ll pick you up on Sunday evening, and you can tell me all about it," I said. "Have a great time."
Sunday evening arrived. As I watched them get off the plane, my friend seemed almost despondent. I almost didn’t want to ask, but finally I said, "Well, how was the reunion?" "Tim," the man said, "it was one of the saddest experiences of my life." "Good grief," I said, more than a little surprised. "What happened?" "It wasn’t what happened, but what didn’t happen.
It has been forty years, forty years -- and they haven’t changed. They had simply gained weight, changed clothes, gotten jobs...but they hadn’t really changed. And what I experienced was maybe one of the most tragic things I could ever imagine about life. For reasons I can’t fully understand, it seems as though some people choose not to change."
There was a long silence as we walked back to the car. On the drive home, he turned to me and said, "I never, never want that to be said of me, Tim. Life is too precious, too sacred, too important. If you ever see me go stagnant like that, I hope you give me a quick, swift kick where I need it -- for Christ’s sake. I hope you’ll love me enough to challenge me to keep growing."
Spiritually, as the leader of Congregation Lion of Judah, As I get closer to the top of the mountain, I’m seeing the hugeness of what God is doing. I want you to realize it’s not about us- sure your maturity and life dedicated to the Lord is significant and important to the Lord, and we’re to grow daily in Messiah, but in the "Big Picture", it’s not about you or me or any congregation or denomination.
It’s about Him, and it’s about Kingdom things.
I love my Lord and you too much to not challenge you to keep growing, climbing, making Aliyah-
In your spiritual life.
So, we’re not to fret but Trust God to Ordain our steps.
Trust God in His promises that joy and blessings are at the top of the climb.
Let’s Pray
Alter Call- Keep Growing
