In June of 1972 I was standing in the middle of Colesville Road, not far from my home. I was standing safely in the middle of the road because no traffic was coming through. Why not? Hurricane Agnes had done. Remember Agnes? We’ve had a lot of storms around here, but not many that did as much damage as Agnes did.
Our home is not far from the Northwest Branch reservoir. When Agnes dumped incredible amounts of water in the streams, the dam was drowned out. So much water came through so fast that it swamped the bridge. Great hunks of roadway were scoured out. Pieces of the bridge were swept far downstream. The very thing – a bridge – that was designed to get us across the water, had been swamped and torn to pieces.
Bridges can be swamped. But swamps can also be bridged. Our lives can be swamped with too much to handle. But there is one who can make an opportunity out of every difficulty. When you feel swamped and overwhelmed, look for God to make a way where there is no way. Bridges can be swamped; but swamps can also be bridged.
Just about one year ago I came to you with a message I believed God had laid on my mind. On June 27, I brought a message entitled, Of Florida Swamps and Brooklyn Bridges. I chose that title because Florida swamps and Brooklyn bridges represent two of the most ridiculous real estate frauds ever pressed on gullible customers. Florida swamps had been sold to unsuspecting people, years ago, who wanted in on the Florida land craze. They bought property, sight unseen, without knowing that the property was under three feet of water, unusable. Buying land in a Florida swamp was an image of a ridiculous, foolish purchase.
And the same with Brooklyn Bridges. In last June’s message I told you how swindlers would approach naïve immigrants on the street of New York, and give them the “chance” to buy the Brooklyn Bridge for whatever funds they had in their pockets! The fact that the Bridge was not for sale, and that the guy on the street didn’t have the right to sell it anyway, didn’t occur to somebody fresh off the boat. Selling the Brooklyn Bridge was my image for a steal and a swindle, a complete fraud.
But up against those images of Florida swamps and Brooklyn bridges, I pointed you to the prophet Jeremiah, buying a field at Anathoth. In a time of tension, God’s prophet bought property. In a time of uncertainty, he invested all he had. In a time in which Judah could not be sure that their conquered nation would be saved, Jeremiah put his money where his mouth was, and bought the field at Anathoth. In that message, I called us to do the same thing – to go beyond merely talking about the needs of people, and to put in our time and our resources to meet those needs. I called on us to demonstrate the same faith as the prophet Jeremiah – to believe that God would bring a faithful people to victory.
I hope you recall the four things I asked you to invest in. I called you to invest in deepened discipleship; in multiplied ministries; next, in winsome worship; and, finally, in systematic stewardship. I asked you to do what Jeremiah did when he made a real estate deal that looked crazy at the time: to put down your money, your time, your energy, and your very hearts to do these things. Deepened discipleship, multiplied ministries, winsome worship, and systematic stewardship.
A year later I praise God, because you are doing these things. In many ways, you have done exactly what you were asked to do. We have exhibited deepening discipleship, as more people have made serious commitments to know God’s word.
We have multiplied ministries! Something like thirty ministry groups are now in place. Saturday Club and Men’s Fellowship and Spiritual Recovery Force and Caregivers and Debt Retirement Team and on and on – you have demonstrated that that you can hear the Holy Spirit. We have surely multiplied ministries.
As for the call to winsome worship, we have done more with prayer than in any year I can remember. An intercessory prayer group; a time of concentrated prayer for a particular situation this past fall. We have much to do, especially toward starting a new service, but we are working at winsome worship.
And as for the call to systematic stewardship, well, the picture is dramatic. We are building a program to assimilate new members, we are developing a way to identify and use your spiritual gifts, and we are sharing our resources in record-setting amounts. We have not by any means done everything we envisioned a year ago, but we are headed in the right direction. We know where we are going – toward deepened discipleship, multiplied ministries, winsome worship, and systematic stewardship. We really have built some bridges.
But it has also been a year of seeing these bridges swamped. There has been so much to deal with that we have felt as though the floods were about to drown us. We’ve had staff changes; we’ve had problems with our aging building; we’ve found that some programs are hard to get started. And most of all, it has been a year in which many have found things happening in our private lives – with our marriages, with our children, with aging parents, with our own aging –things happening in our private lives have swamped many of us. We were overwhelmed by so much at home that we couldn’t do all that we wanted to do for the Kingdom.
But remember, though bridges to the future can be swamped, God bridges over the swamp. God makes a way where there is no way. Bridges may be swamped; but swamps can be bridged.
And so I come to you today, first to rehearse God’s promise to us, that the gates of hell will not prevail against His church; second, to reaffirm our vision for what we are about; and, third, to lay out an expanding vision for our life as a church. We are certainly not about to fall backward. We are also not going to stand still. We are going to go forward. And there are some things we need to think about together as we do so. Some of our bridges may have been swamped; but this is God’s opportunity to build bridges over the swamps!
The prophet Isaiah lived on the edge of a time in which the bridges were about to be swamped. He saw that the Kingdom of Judah was going to go through a very difficult time. Isaiah had started out in the good times; he had grown up during the reign of Uzziah, in a time of prosperity and peace. But things had changed now, and life was unsettled. Judah’s sister kingdom to the north, Israel, had already fallen to the Assyrians. Now there was a new threat, Babylon, and it looked as though the Babylonians would soon swamp little Judah.
Isaiah saw that the bridges, so carefully built by kings and prophets and lawgivers before him, were about to be swamped. But Isaiah also saw that God would build new bridges through the swamps. In Isaiah’s triumphant words you and I find what we need in order to take courage for the days ahead.
I
First, notice with me that God wants His people to flourish. God wants His people to live with abundance. God wants to give His people success. Listen to these bountiful images:
The desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly. For waters shall break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert; the burning sand shall become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water.
Where there wasn’t anything, God will bring plenty. Where there was only dry desert, God will create an oasis. Where there was thirst, God will bubble up a spring with plenty of fresh water. God wants His people to flourish. I am especially struck by the next verse:
The haunt of jackals shall become a swamp, the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
Wow, God gives us so much it is like a swamp. We are swamped with gifts! Too much to take in! Paul says that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can even ask or think. God wants His people to flourish. To have enough and more than enough.
When you and I feel swamped with too much to handle, it is God’s way of giving us an opportunity. If we feel overwhelmed by all there is around us, it is God at work, giving us a challenge. If there are hosts of unreached people, so many that their lostness swamps us, then that is God’s gift. That’s what God wants for us, more than we can handle. If there are crowds of people who need help, so many that we feel overwhelmed, that’s God’s gift. He wants us to be swamped. He wants our bridges to be overloaded. He wants us to have more on our plate than we can digest. And if our own lives go haywire, and we cannot fix our marriages, our families, or our finances, even that is the gift of God.
Why? Because God wants us to know how much we need Him. If we could handle all there is to do, we wouldn’t need God! If we could manage everything on our own, we would soon forget God’s power. But we cannot, we are swamped by it all, and that is God’s way of reminding us that first, we are to seek His presence and power. “The haunt of jackals shall become a swamp.” God swamps us, so that we will know that we need Him and that it is by His power that we do anything at all.
God wants us to flourish. That’s first. That’s clear.
II
But God is also involved in building a bridge over the swamps. God is involved in providing a way through the things that overwhelm us.
A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way.
God does not leave us in the middle of everything that needs attention without help. God has built a highway, He has constructed a bridge. We call it that highway the church. The church is not just a club; the church is not just for inspiration and fellowship. The church is not just a mutual admiration society. The church bridges the swamps. The church is for deals with the “too much” of life and brings it all to God.
A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way; the unclean shall not travel on it, but it shall be for God’s people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray … but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Isaiah’s vision is: God is building a bridge over the troubled waters, and on that bridge, on that highway, there will be safety and salvation, joy and excitement. The church is the instrument of God for this. The church is God’s bridge for the last, the least, the lost, and the lonely. The church is a highway that gives guidance, so that no one gets lost. The church is a haven, so that no one need be afraid. The church is the way through the swamps, the bridge over the troubled waters. It is God’s doing.
Do you believe that of your church? Do you believe that Takoma Park Baptist Church is here as a bridge over troubled waters? Can you agree that we are here, swamped with things to do, but by the power of God, we are able to build bridges to the future, highways for the redeemed? Do you believe with me that God has ordained for this church a unique place in the Kingdom, and that His power and His presence can use us? I do. I do. If I did not, I would not stay here another minute. If I did not believe that God has swamped our existing bridges with needs so great that only He can meet them, I would be out of here. I have better things to do than maintain the status quo.
So if it seems sometimes that we are ineffective; if it feels as though we are incredibly slow, it is not that we have too little to do and too small a dream. It is that we have so much to do, so large a dream, that we are swamped by it all. But it is God’s doing, and it is glorious.
On the Thanksgiving weekend, Margaret and I got away for a few days and went down to Hickory, North Carolina. As we fought the traffic on Interstate 81, we had to slow down a number of times, but did well, considering the holiday traffic. However, once we turned off 81 to go down 77 toward Statesville, the picture changed dramatically. Traffic came to a dead stall. The best we could do was to creep along, no faster than ten miles an hour, and sometimes less than that. We wondered what had happened. Was there an accident up ahead? Was there debris on the road? Was there a car on fire? What in the world was holding us up? Ten miles and two hours later we found out; it was very simple, really. A bridge was being rebuilt, and the traffic was down to one lane in each direction. The huge amount of holiday traffic was creeping through slowly, on a bridge that was in place, but it was not large enough to handle all that it needed to handle.
III
Bridges can be swamped. But better bridges can be built so that the needs of travelers can be met. Our church is being swamped. But a better church can be built so that the needs of those traveling home to God can be met. I want to challenge you today to dream and pray for a church that will bridge the swamps and deal with the overwhelming needs around us, a church that will receive the opportunities that God has given us.
Will you dream and pray for a church that, because it is swamped with the needs of families, marriages in tension and children in turmoil, will build a bridge, a Center for Family Life, to teach our community principles of marriage and methods of child-raising? A bridge through a swamp.
Will you dream and pray for a church that, because we fear for the safety of our children and youth, will build a bridge into wholesome activities, attractive recreation, and strong programs for the children and youth of the entire community? A bridge through a swamp.
Will you dream and pray for a church that, though it may feel overwhelmed by the negativism and the irreverence and the sexism of the media, will turn that around and build bridges into the arts, into music and dance and drama and painting and sculpture, to the glory of God? Truly a bridge through swampy territory.
Will you dream and pray for a church that, though we feel victimized by a rising crime rate and violence in our neighborhood, will become active and vigilant to work with those who want to enhance our quality of life? Government and business and the police can do many things. But they need the church and the power of God to change this community. Will you dream that bridge?
Will you dream and pray for a church that, though it would be easy to feel swamped by new people – new languages, new faces, new cultures – a church that will warmly embrace all sorts of people? Where would we be today, if in the 60’s the folks of this church had shut out those who were different? We would be on the ash heap of history, a desert and not an oasis, dry dust and not a blossoming flower. We need to dream that dream again, as the neighborhood continues to change. Will you pray for a church that reaches up and out, down and out, all kinds of people?
Will you dream and pray for a church that, even though many of its people consider themselves technologically challenged, will take on the brave new world of the Internet as a way to share the good news? One large church in California has made a commitment to get every one of its families on line so that it can communicate effectively.
Will you dream and pray for a church that may feel swamped and dragged down by the problems of its aging properties, but will see that God has given us space and land that can become wonderful Kingdom assets? By the end of this month, we will have freed up some space that we can use for our ministries. Let’s dream about that.
Will you dream and pray for a church that sees the world as so overwhelmingly large, but which will nevertheless select at least one overseas missions cause and then pursue it with energy and diligence, even sending some of us out to do missions work? A bridge over the great waters to another land.
Will you dream and pray for a church where the fact that we don’t know the Bible doesn’t intimidate us, but challenges us to know more? For a church where every human need claims us, so that we discover in those whom God has given us the gifts to meet those needs? For a church in which no person goes without care, no gift is too small, and no concern is too trivial?
And, most of all, don’t miss this: will you dream about and pray for a church which is so swamped, so overwhelmed, by the plight of men and women without Christ – a church which is so profoundly aware that if there is no spiritual transformation, then nothing else matters – a church which is way beyond just attracting nice people to admire other nice people – will you dream and pray for a church which puts energy, time, heart, and resources into reaching others for Christ? Will you dream and pray for a church that is a highway of holiness, built to take the traveler home? Isaiah speaks of the ransomed and the redeemed who will walk there; helping people find a savior has to be at first place on our agenda. At the very first place.
What a dream! What a prayer! Is it too much? Is it overwhelming? Yes, of course it is. It’s too much. It will swamp us. But God is able. God is able. And while God may have swamped our old bridges, God is able to build new bridges over and through the swamps. God is able. Bridges may be swamped; but swamps may be bridged with new and better bridges.
The old mule had fallen down the well shaft, and was about to drown. His braying caught the attention of the farmer, who quickly decided there was nothing he could do about the poor creature at the bottom. So the farmer called his hands together and ordered them to shovel dirt down the well and bury the poor animal, putting him out of his misery. They began to do this. Shovel after shovel of dirt went into the well, intended to bury a swamped old mule. But when the workers looked into the well, they saw something quite different. Each time a spade full of dirt would fall on the mule’s shoulders, the he would shake it off, and then step up on it. The more they shoveled, the more he would shake it off and step up. Shake it off and step up. Shake it off and step up. Until at last he was able to step up and step out.
They counted Jesus out, you know. They spat on Him and ridiculed Him. They put Him down and led Him to a cross. They pierced His side and tortured His brow. They killed Him there. And thought it was done. They put Him in a tomb and left Him, they thought, forever. But He shook it off and stepped up. He shook it off and stepped out. He is alive! He is victorious! And the very gates of hell shall not prevail against His church! His church may be swamped; but swamps can be bridged.
