Stuck In Borderland
The Life – part two
This is the second week in our new study that we are calling, “The Life,” a ten week series that has the very real potential of radically changing your life in ways you can’t even begin to imagine.
AND – last Sunday as we kicked it off, we said that what you do with your life, what you do with the years between your birth and your death, what you do with your dash matters. Why? First BECAUSE – your life is a gift from God (every breathe, every heart beat is a gift); 2nd because God is returning to settle accounts (and when he does he has no intention of settling for mediocrity – or accepting our excuses for burying our gifts and living life in the chair) and 3rd because God is also returning to reward you… “Well done…”
LAST WEEK – we learned that God has called each of us to live a life of risky partnership with Him.
If you were here last week for the message – let me ask you a question; Have you taken any time out to think about how you are living your dash? (remember that right hand side – the day you die is fast approaching). SO - how are you spending your dash?
The title for today’s message – is “Stuck In Borderland.”
As you all know Last month I went for a 12 day spiritual journey… The reason for this journey was that I felt that I had hit a wall in my walk with God. YOU SEE - I knew that God wants to do greater things here at Central – and I also knew that I was not yet, where I needed to be for that to happen. I was convinced that God wanted to say something to me – so I left to find out just what that something was. And a big part of that something was finding a book called , Your God Is Too Safe.”
After I worshipped at Southland CC in Lexington on Sept 15; I went to their bookstore (it sits above their food court) – YOU SEE - I knew that God had a book that he wanted me to read (he has done this several to me over the last 11 years…)
I saw a book on display right up front, but passed right by it… I began to pray as I searched the shelves for the right book… I pick up a few – one was a book for men called ‘Wild At Heart.’ I just kept praying that God would help me find the right book… After a period of time, I walked back to the front of the store…. Grabbed the book on display reread the title – “Your God Is Too Safe, Rediscovering A God You Can’t Control….” - Immediately I put the other books down because I knew that this was the very book that God wanted to speak to me through…
The very next day as I sat on a pier in Syracuse Indiana, on Lake Wawasee – I wrote these words in my journal;
“Lord the introduction to this book is absolutely amazing – it is just what I needed to hear – it is where I am. God I can see your hand in this journey… From the message Sunday at Southland, the tapes I’ve listened to, The people at the Church of Christ – This retreat center this book – it is so clear that your hand is in this – helping me find you in a deeper way… This journey is only beginning – protect me from the evil one – Give me this day my daily bread and may your kingdom come into my life…”
This is an awesome book! I just finished it this week… And when I read the last page – I was kind of bummed out – it left me wanting more… I have gotten many other people to read this book – Laurie, Lynn, Ryckie, Len, John – and my friend in Florida Simon – who got the book on lunch Tuesday, and by 3 pm left me a voice message about how awesome it was – how it was talking about him.
NOW – the major theme in this book is where I got the title for our message this morning…. “Stuck In Borderland.” But before we talk about ‘borderland,’ I want to share with you the reasons why Buchanan says, he wrote this book…. Maybe you can relate…
“I’m stuck. The impulse behind writing this book: my own affliction with chronic spiritual fatigue; my own dwelling in the doldrums of the heart; my own realization that I was spiritually stalled, held in place by a dead weight of apathy, sloth, doubt and fear…”
Then he goes on to say that he had begun so well and he talks briefly about his conversion. ABOUT - how at first like may of us, he was so fired up for God; working and serving in the church – helping others grow, excited, pumped, enthused, teaching even mentoring people… And then he writes;
“But something, somewhere, went I awry. The zeal fizzled. The fire in bones became only an ache in my joints. My running became plodding. My lightness became heaviness. My joyfulness became jadedness. I joined the marks of murmurers and faultfinders – those who didn’t like the music or the sermon or the azaleas behind the church – and I found their number legion. And I got stuck.”
AND - the place where he got stuck, is called borderland…. AND – that is what we want to talk about today…
Prayer
The first question we want to answer today is;
What Is Borderland?
In a town called Busia – there is a border crossing that takes you from Uganda - Kenya. Busia is a place of crossing. And actually it is a place of double crossing. You just can’t drive your car from one country to the other, because each country has their own customs office.
YOU SEE – because of an ancient blood feud between these 2 countries – there is really 2 borders with a no man’s land, a patch of ground 3 football fields long and a 1 football field wide, between them…
NOW - this patch of ground – this borderland is claimed by neither country… There are no laws there; it’s a place with all kinds of ‘interesting’ people selling things, begging for things – it’s a place of wild, chaotic, immoral, undisciplined and sometime dangerous living – and the crazy thing about this plot of ground is this - countless people choose to live there… Why? Maybe because it seems easy, comfortable, predictable, routine and does ask or expect much from you.
LISTEN – this borderland is a political and geographical reality. But it is also a metaphor, it’s a picture of another crossing between 2 worlds. YOU SEE – there is another ancient feud, one that divides Christ’s kingdom from this world’s kingdom – and a blood stained cross marks the crossing.
AND SALVATION – is stepping over the border of the old life, it’s leaving the old land – SALVATION – is freedom from the old lands laws, rules and gods. SALVATION – is coming home from the far off country. BUT SANTIFICATION – is the journey into the new land: it’s learning to live with joy in the father’s house… SANTIFICATION - as our 2 theme verses for this series say; is the living the life we have been called to live – is living a life that pleases God..
Take a look at the drawing in your outline….
SO YOU SEE - borderland is the place of in between;
Borderland is that barren but often crowed place between where we were and where we should be
That place between where God brought us from, to where he wants to take us to
The place between our redemption and our sanctification
Between the old life and the new life;
the lost and the found;
AND LISTEN – borderland is the place many believers set up camp and choose to live… NOW they really don’t want to go back to the old land (and it’s old ways at least not all of them) - BUT they no longer care or have the strength or desire to go forward… SO – they stake their claim, the pitch their tent in borderland…the land of in between.
The next question that we want to answer is;
What Is It Like To Live In Borderland?
When I think of borderland living – these words come to mind…
weary – tiring – frustrating – hopeless – joyless – numb – apathetic – comfortable – routine - undisciplined
I’d like to read for you some things from the book, Your God Is To Safe, that kind of describe what it is like - to be stuck, to be living in borderland…to have pitched your tent in that barren land in between the old and the new life…
In borderland;
“We go to church, we sing, we pray, we listen to the Word read and preached. Maybe we take notes. Maybe we even lead some of it. And maybe our slow hearts burn within us. But walking away – just strolling to our car in the church parking lot, 57 steps away – the conviction, “He’s alive!” dribbles down like water held in the hand. Monday morning, it’s still hard to get out of bed.”
QUESTION – do you find it hard to get out of the bed M-F and face the world. Do the awesome truths that he is more than enough, truths that excite you within these walls fail to carry you through the rest of the week? IF SO – you are living in boderland.
LISTEN – To how Buchanan describes how he felt in borderland;
“…I was tired. I was tired of teaching an unruly group of kids who couldn’t seem to care less. I was tired of the mere busyness of the church. I was tired of trying and failing. I was tired of not trying. I was tired of being tired. I was tired of being compliant and yet being defiant. I had chronic spiritual fatigue, and as I looked around, it seemed the condition was epidemic. I was stuck, and though I was often lonely in it, I wasn’t alone.”
Can you relate to this feeling of chronic spiritual fatigue? LET ME TELL YOU - I sure could as I sat on that pier in Indiana the 2nd day of my 12 day journey; here is some of what I wrote;
“Lord, I’m stuck. I’m tired… I’m tired of falling into sin. I’m tired of not doing what I should, of wasting precious time, of trying and failing, of always feeling like I’m falling short of some standard out there. I am too afraid and fear has kept me from reaching out, stepping and from living…”
UNDERSTAND – borderland is not a very inspiring or motivating place to live.
CHECKOUT – these words from Buchanan about borderland, they are powerful and very sobering;
Most Christian I know are stuck. We feel caught in jobs we barely endure and often despise, in relationships that plunder us and deepen rather than remove our aloneness, in activities that are soul wizening (to become dry, to shrink) in their triviality and yet insatiably addictive. We squander jewels and hoard worthless trinkets. We experience harrowing emotions over mere trifles and can barely muster a dull ache over matter of shattering tragedy. We feel we’ve no time and no energy for the things that we know matter deeply, even eternally, but waste much time in silly diversions. We are impatient with our child’s longing to spend ten minutes with us at bedtime, but then we waste an hour in idle telephone chatter or two hours watching the latest studio-produced pointless video. We gossip even though we’ve made repeated resolves not to. We envy, resent, judge, avenge, sulk and overeat. We read People magazine – maybe even playboy – but not our Bibles. We feel that everyone else’s has more money, longer vacations, newer cars, nicer clothes and fewer things going wrong with their hot water tanks, cars and children than we do. We wonder where the freedom is for which Christ set us free. AND this secret fear haunts us: Is everyone else fulfilled and I’m the only one who’s not? Or even worse: is no fulfilled, and we are all just playing a charade that we are?
I’LL LET – those words sink in for a moment…
In one chapter, Buchanan introduces us to 4 people who live in borderland… perhaps you will be able to relate to them a little…
James has an amazing gift with music. He can play nearly anything—strings, woodwinds, horns, percussion. Music soaks his bones and spills out of his ever agile hands, his rich throat. He can dazzle and delight, even mesmerize. Yet he also has a real passion to lead people into God’s presence—Jesus must become greater, James must become less.
But James also struggles with self-bullying and self-pity. No one, he thinks, really understands me. No one really appreciates me. They snatch up what I give and never say thank you, and if they speak it’s only to complain about what I did wrong. It’s never enough, or it’s always too much; it’s overdone or it’s underdone. That man who doesn’t sing is obviously disapproving. That woman who walked out halfway through is obviously protesting. And why should anyone thank me anyhow? I’m useless, inept, worthless. Who am I kidding thinking I have something to offer anyone? That other musician over there can render these songs with more beauty than I ever could. It must be nice being him.
Or meet Daphne. Daphne is attractive, intelligent, articulate. She is artistic, poetic, funny, fun, compassionate. She paints exquisite pictures. She has a sweet voice and a sweet way. People are easily drawn to her, and not just because of her beauty. She is charming without a hint of coyness.
But Daphne carries, well-hidden beneath the brightness of her smile, the lightness of her ways, a crippling weight of inadequacy. She is haunted, sometimes to the point of paralysis, by fear of rejection. Everything she is or does seems to fall pitifully short of some looming, rigid but undefined standard of approval. Her whole life is lived under the hovering chill shadow of a stamp marked REJECT. At any moment a hand—whose? ---could slam it down hard and score its sharp letters indelibly into her delicate flesh. She wants to offer her artistic gifts to the church, but is afraid that no one would want them. She hears the pastor speak often, too often about not succumbing to the fear of man. Daphne feels like she is congenitally flawed in this area: that the holy courage and conviction the pastor so glibly endorses is, by some jest of God, forever denied to her.
Or meet Jean, who is not pretty and not charming and not gifted. Who resents people like Daphne, and who would laugh, in a bitter, mirthless way, if she ever knew how Daphne really felt. What right does she have to feel sorry for herself? She should try living in my skin for a day. Jean has covered her anger and anguish with a raw jocularity. She acts like she doesn’t care. She makes barbed jokes, most of them about herself, jibes at her own appearance or ability. If you compliment her—and to be honest, few do—she deflects it with self-mockery. Inside, though, she’s dying. The person in the Bible she identifies with most is the man in the parable of the talents, the man who only gets one talent, buries it, plays it safe, and then is punished. That story, she thinks, is not an indictment of the man; it’s an indictment of God. It is a story of God’s stinginess and not really caring. It’s a story about God’s way with her.
Or meet Ben. Ben went to a man’s conference three years ago, and God spoke to him, broke him. He was the man from Laodicea, thinking he had it all. And God revealed his nakedness and poverty, his sickening lukewarmness. Ben repented, in tears. He made firm resolve to be, by God’s grace and strength, better: a better husband, a better father, a better employee, a better neighbor, a better man. In his heart, he scored the earth with a fixed boundary. He stepped over and swore he’d never go back. When the worship team closed with “ I Have Decided to Follow Jesus,” Ben, who’s never been much for all this swooning music in church, sang with such gusto that he thought he might burst his lungs, rupture his throat. The joy in him was physical, a surging, gushing force, cleansing and filling.
But that was three years ago. Ben came home, made an earnest and honest effort to live out his resolve. But somehow, somewhere, bit by bit, old ways accumulated: salty speech, griping at the office, impatience in traffic, irritation toward his children. And, all in all, an ennui: boredom and frustration, mixed together like water and ash into a thick, musty paste, encrust all his doings. He doesn’t feel very Christian. Worst of all, most of the time he doesn’t care.
NOW THOSE – are some pretty telling examples – BUT do know what I didn’t really need to read about James, Daphne, Jean or Ben to know that many of God’s people get stuck in borderland, get stalled in their spiritual walk… How do I know that?
WELL – because I’ve been stuck, a time or two myself.. AND – I see other people they really appear to be stuck too.
LISTEN – when we still struggle with the same old sin…
when we keep talking about the thing we need to change and the things we need to start doing for the Lord but never do;
when year after year we keep saying we need to step up to the plate – BUT we never make the trip from the on deck circle to the batters box.
When true joy, hope and peace AND God’s presence and power continually elude us we are stuck… we‘ve stalled.
AND LISTEN – When people like Lynn, Ryckie, Len, John, Laurie , John and a youth minister fired in Florida say, “I’m stuck!” THEN – I am reasonably confident that there are few people in this room today who are stuck as well… who are suffering from chronic spiritual fatigue. Who have set up camp in the land of in between – in borderland.
In Luke chapter 24 we see an account that is an awesome illustration… of what it feels like to be living in borderland… It is the account of the 2 disciples on the road to Emmaus. NOW - these 2 guys were leaving Jerusalem and they were majorally bummed out… YOU SEE – they had pinned all of their hopes on this man Jesus – and now he has been arrested – beaten crucified and placed in a tomb… And buried next to Jesus in that tomb were their hopes…
LISTEN - these guys have no idea that Jesus has risen from the dead … They think – it’s all over.. Yeah they’ve heard some talk about an empty tomb but they weren’t really buying it… AND as they walk Jesus walks beside them – but somehow they are kept from recognizing who it was… AND – as Jesus listens to them bellyache about all that happened and hopeless things were now – he say to them; “How foolish you are, and slow of heart to believe all that prophets have spoken.”
Jesus (and remember they do not know who he is) goes on to explain how – what happened to Jesus is exactly what the Scriptures had predicted…. When they arrive at the village Jesus has a meal with them AND as he breaks the bread they recognize who he is and then Jesus disappears…
AND – then they turn and ask each other, “were not our hearts burning within us as he talked with us on the road and opened the Scripture to us?”
QUESTION – Do you see the 2 different ways that Jesus describes these guys hearts? Slow and burning..
UNDERSTAND – this is the heart of those who have set up camp in borderland – slow and burning. LISTEN – borderland dweller’s hearts are slow to see the hand of God; slow to see his presence, slow to believe the truth, the power and the promises of his word (yeah those words may true for some people but not for me) – THEREFORE – they spend most of their time in doubt; despair; discouragement and fear…
BUT ALSO UNDERSTAND – that the heart of borderland dwellers occasionally do burn… YOU SEE - every once in a while the light comes on, the elevator makes it all the way to the top – and they get it… They believe it… Their eyes and hearts open to the reality of who Jesus is – BUT – unfortunately no sooner do they get that glimpse – that it vanishes… “But O, our hearts did burn didn’t they…”
Slow and burning;
sorrow and hope;
awe and self – pity;
wonder and worry;
belief and doubt –
All mixed together in the heart and spirit of those in borderland; sometimes pulling them onward and other times pushing them back…
Buchanan says it like this “the burning heart keeps us on the journey. The slowness of heart makes the journey wearisome. A burning heart inspires us to run. A slow heart discourages us sometimes from even trudging. And sometimes tempts us to run away…
OKAY – that is what it feels like to live in borderland…
The 3rd question we want to answer today is;
What Keeps Us In Borderland?
Now I’m going to hit this one pretty quick – but I challenge you to chew on this a little during the coming week… AND LISTEN - at the core of each of these (these things that keep us in borderland; is that in borderland we don’t really know the true God; we keep Him distant…
One thing that keeps us in borderland is;
Living On Hearsay
“When the people saw the thunder and the lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, ‘Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” Exodus 2:18-20
CIRCLE; They stayed at a distance; Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us
That’s crazy, I mean these guys could have climbed the mountain themselves and spoke to God – BUT – they choose to stay in the distance – to have someone else do it for them… Moses you go speak to God – we’ll hang here do our own thing and – when you get back tell us what God said…
DO YOU KNOW WHAT – things have not changed that much in 3000+ years – God’s people still settle for – no demand – echoes, rumors, shadows. They want to keep God at a distance. Though they can speak to God themselves they choose to have someone else do it for them….
They live on hearsay about God. They want priests, envoys, some kind of go-between; they want someone else to spend the time, take the risk and make the effort to encounter the living God.
UNDERSTAND – living on hearsay – is one thing that keeps people in borderland. AND LISTEN - besides being crazy hearsay isn’t very fulfilling.. (for example dating someone else do it for you..)
QUESTION – are you living on hearsay… ARE YOU - depending on others to encounter & experience God for you?
A 2nd thing that keeps people in borderland is…
Fear of God
NOW UNDERSTAND – some fear of God is good, in fact it’s foundational (fear of…)
BUT LISTEN – there is a fear of God that causes people to not to want to be around him… Two man in scripture provide a powerful illustration of this… One is from the Old Testament and the other is one from the new…
REMEMBER – Jonah? Why did he want to be far from God? Because he was afraid of what God was going to want him to do?
Like Jonah we keep God at a distance… because we are afraid that if we get too close, we may have to do something we don’t want to do… we may have to go some place we don’t want to go…
Then There is Peter…
There is an account of Peter in Luke 5 – where Peter doesn’t want Jesus around – IN FACT - he actually tells Jesus to get away from him… Why? Because Peter had just caught a ton of fish and Peter knew that if he let Jesus get too close, he’d have to let them go to follow him…
LISTEN - Sometimes we are the same way – when the we have the finances we want, when we have the relationships we want – we don’t want Jesus to close because he may ask us to put them down to follow him…
A 3rd thing that keeps us in borderland is;
Re-making God Into a Safer Image
YOU SEE - in our minds we create a God who is okay with our sin, who is not bothered by our failures, who is understanding of the things in his word we refuse to obey or turn away from..
We created a nice little God who doesn’t expect much – not knowing that a God who doesn’t expect much can not really deliver much either…
A 4th thing that keeps us in borderland is;
The New Life Is An Uncomfortable Fit (at first)
YOU SEE - we are like Mark Twains Huckleberry Finn - the young and wild hillbilly boy – who the widow Douglas took into her home and tried to civilize… Got him to bath, dressed him in nice clothes, sent him to school… Huck can’t take it – so he takes off. Checkout what he says Tom sawyer about life with widow Douglas…
“I’ve tried it and it don’t work Tom. It ain’t for me; I ain’t used to it. The widers’ been good to me and friendly; but I can’t stand them ways… I got to got o church and sweat and sweat – I got to talk to so nice it wasn’t comfortable – I’d go up to the attic and rip out awhile – every day just to get a taste in my mouth, or I’d ‘a’ died, Tom. The widder wouldn’t let me smoke; she wouldn’t let me yell, she wouldn’t let me gape, nor stretch, nor scratch before folks.. And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never seen such a woman! I had to shove Tom – I just had to.”
I don’t work – it ain’t for me… LISTEN – this new life is an uncomfortable fit at first
Can We Leave Borderland?
Do we have to stay there?
Do we have to always live in the land of the in between?
Do we have to forever live in the land of fading dream, dimming hopes
The answer is YES!
LISTEN - God wants us to leave… AND all of us have known people who have left, haven’t we? People who were not stuck… People who passed through the barren land of in between…
In His book Buchanan talks about a few he knew that were not stuck…;
“There was Hazel Coneen, who, many years widowed, lived in a cramped, single-room apartment, a kind of monk’s cell, surrounded by pictures of her children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. Her furniture was sparse and tacky. Hazel had ankles swollen to a stumpy thickness. She often had trouble breathing, her words threadbare from the effort of it. But whenever I asked her how she was, Hazel would exclaim, “Oh mark, I am so wonderful. God’s faithfulness is new every morning. It’s true. It’s really true.
There was Ernie Brown, stricken with multiple sclerosis in his thirties. Now in his mid-forties, it took him a half hour to eat half a sandwich. His words came out like slag and shrapnel, his speech shattered by his erratic breathing. Sometimes I would have to ask him 4 times to repeat himself. One day I mustered up the courage to ask him what his sickness had taught him about God. Without Hesitating and with utter clearness he said: ‘God is good.’”
LISTEN – God never intended for anyone to live in borderland… God never intended for us to take just one step over from being lost and then never take another step again …
q When Jesus walked this earth and healed the lame – he intended for them to stand, to walk, to run, to dance…
q When he healed blind eyes he did not intend for those people to live in darkness as though they still could not see…
q When Jesus healed the lepers – he intended for those cured to rent a U-haul, get a change of address card and move out of the leper colony…
q Jesus’ intention for those delivered from demon possession – was for them to stop throwing themselves in fires…and put some clothes on ; and His intentions for those women of the night was to go and sin no more and get a day job…
q AND - when God parted the Jordan river – His intention was for Joshua and the people was for them to take possession of this new (a land flowing with milk and honey), not simply to set up camp in the desert by the river.
q AND – when Jesus Christ rescued us from sin and hopelessness – he intended us to be a new creation who lived a new life….
LISTEN – past the borderland (where so many believers are living) is a better land a new land…
A land where;
q Hope is living…
q Joy is unquenchable
q Peace passes understanding
q A land where love; unconditional, unending; and never failing
q A land where mercy covers us like a warm blanket and grace runs through our soul like a cool running river
q A land where trails and hardships become a path to vicotroy and maturity.
A land where;
q Captives are set free
q Bondages are broken
q Chains are forever loosened
We were meant/created/saved for so much more than life in borderland…
In the movie, The Secret Garden, the young boy Colin thinks he’s an invalid. He can’t bear the strong light of day, the clean open air. He believes those things will infect his lungs and snatch his life. he believes he’s destined to be everlastingly bedridden or, in the few struggling moments he spends out of bed, bound lifelong to a wheel chair. He believes that because he’s been told that. He lives a long time this way, kept in that by a conspiracy of adults.
But then his orphaned cousin, Mary comes along and sees through he conspiracy. In what looks like sheer defiance and hard malice she tears the shutters and blinds off Colin’s windows. Bright sunlight pours in through the scrim of dust. Colin shrieks. She throws open the windows and cool, fresh air swirls through the room. Colin howls. She shoos Colin out of the bed. Colin yells. She forces him, sullen and whining, into the outdoors. She scolds and coaxes him from his wheel chair he stands, filled with self-lament.
But he’s standing. He takes one lurching step, then another. Soon Colin walks. Then runs. Then skips. Then dances.
Mary seemed so calloused at first. Bt she is the one who cares most deeply for him. She cares to woo Colin into the secret garden; she loves him enough to bring him to wholeness. You see, she knew all along that his bones were sturdy, his lungs deep, his muscles strong. She knew along he was made for life to the full…
LISTEN – that’s the picture of the life Christ calls us into… He knows how we are made to live. He wants to see us run/skip/dance
NOW – there is one who wants you to stay in the bed – to live in borderland…
Back in the summer of 1979 I was stationed at the Naval Nuclear Power School in Orlando Florida. One bright and sunny day – I headed over to Daytona Beach with a friend (Mark Engleheart) in my 1974 Olds Cutlass Supreme.
I remember riding down the beach – windows down – waves crashing – sea gulls flying – sun shining – wind blowing and the Doobie Brothers cranking on my 8 track… It was awesome. Towards the end of the day Mark wanted to drive my car on the beach… WELL – let’s just say he went a little crazy and as we came to the end of the beach where the pier was he went even crazier and got my car stuck in the soft sand…
This was not where my car was meant to be or needed to be… Stuck in the sand with the waves crashing ever closer… My are was meant to be flying down the beach with the Doobie Brothers or something like Boston playing…
You see - the tide was coming in… All I could picture in my mind was my car floating off into the Atlantic…
I’d didn’t say – “It’s cool – this is how I like – in fact I drove my car all the way up just so it could get stuck in the sand…”
LISTEN – when you are stuck and you know you are not where you are intended to be living. It’s time to admit and get unstuck…
