Mountains God calls us to Climb.
I do believe that there is great benefit in being both real and completely honest about the reality of Pastoral life and all it’s expectations and challenges. All of the events of the last 10 years of ministry, both good and bad, has aided both my own personal walk with God and my spiritual development.
It was the apostle James who said, (Message) “Consider it a sheer gift when tests and trials come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure your faith-life is forced into the open and shows it’s true colours. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do it’s work so you become mature and well developed”.
Why is it pure joy or a sheer gift? Because every trial, difficulty and challenge is an opportunity that helps us to become more like Christ. Speaking for myself this has been the key to my own Pastoral ministry – just a simple longing to be like Christ.
What I want to share with you today I hope will be helpful, encouraging and hopefully a blessing to each of you.
I want to take us on a little bit of a journey in this next hour. I often view both the Christian life and Christian ministry as a journey. All journeys have a destination, we are going somewhere, it is not an aimless stroll in the dark.
I remember once scrambling to the top of Ben Nevis (Scotland), for someone as unfit as I was, it was a challenging climb. I remember as I walked onto the summit thinking what an amazing reward was mine being able to see all around me with no hindrances or obstructions.
The endurance, perseverance and hard work in getting to the peak was brought into perspective only when I reached the top and saw the view. Getting to the peak and seeing the view was pure joy, yet without the hard work, perseverance and endurance there would have been no summit walk that day.! As a leader my desire is to see as clearly as I can so that can lead the people of God in the right direction.
I do believe that before I lead God’s people with clarity there are a number of spiritual mountain peaks that God desires to take all those who would seek to lead God’s people.
These spiritual mountain peaks are not measured by how many come to our church, what size our offerings are or what kind of programmes we run. These peaks are not about what we have done or what we will do, they are about something far more important than that, these peaks are about what you are and who you are becoming.
Mountains God calls us to Climb:
Mt Ararat
Gen 8:1-4 “(v1) God remembered Noah….. (v4) and on the 17th day of the 7th month the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.”
The mountains of Ararat were a place of great hope and refuge for Noah. He had been floating around for 5 months. He seemed lost in a sea that had no end. Noah’s obedience to God and his leadership had brought him into a place of isolation. At this moment he was on his own.
Noah knew that he had found favour in the eyes of God because he and his family were the only ones alive. Yet despite this, Noah, it seemed, had been forgotten, or perhaps this is how he began to think as he drifted on a sea going in no particular direction from one month to the next. He heard nothing from heaven.
God did not tell him how long he would be confined to the ark. God did not tell him when or how he would be released.
Very good men have sometimes been ready to conclude themselves forgotten by God. Perhaps Noah, though a great believer and leader, found the great flood lasting much longer than he thought it would. Maybe he began to think, how long will you forget me Lord? The only thing he had to hang on to was the promise God had given him.
We then find some great words of mercy, “But God remembered Noah”. In my own ministry these words have not just been a blessing, they have been a lifeline that have both sustained me and enabled me to press on.
The important and significant thing about this mountain is that Noah and his family did not climb it, to this mountain they were taken to it by God Himself. It was a place of safety and a place of refuge and a place of Divine Promise. If God had called Noah into the ark and shut him in, then it would be God who would open the door and lead him out.
In our weaknesses and in our times of testing and difficulty it is God who “lifts us out of the pit, out of the mud and mire and sets our feet upon a rock”.
Ararat is God’s safe Place, God’s preservation. This is the mountain that God himself will take us to at certain times during our ministries.
Mt Moriah
Gen 22 “Abraham, take your son, your only son whom you love and go to the mountains of Moriah”.
Moriah, the mountain where we as leaders willingly take all that is dear to us, all that we love and we offer it to God as a sacrifice.
We bring our family, our ministry, our hopes and dreams, we bring our time, energy, desires and pleasures – we bring all that we are.
This is a mountain that God the Father knows all about.
This mountain is a place that I believe all godly men and women, especially those in leadership, must come to.
It is the place where God said to Abraham, “Because you have given to me your most cherished possession, your son, I know how much you love me”.
Moriah is the place of personal sacrifice. It is not a debate room, it is not a place where we consider what God has called and equipped us to do. The Bible clearly tells us that, “you are not your own, you have been bought at a price”.
I have found when it comes to the Word of God and to the Ministry that God is not a Democrat He is an Autocrat. God did not ask Abraham his thoughts concerning the sacrifice of his son Isaac, it wasn’t opened up for a debate.
God did not reveal his plan and purpose to Abraham so that he could consider it, pray about it or have a peace about it. Sometimes it is not a question of whether we have a peace, it is more a question of whether we are going to be obedient to what God has told us to do.
I do not think that Abraham had a lovely warm peace as he held that dagger above Isaac, I think he feared and trusted God. God said sacrifice – so Abraham did.!
Sacrificial giving means that it costs us something. When Jesus saw the widow give her two copper coins, He said of her, “she gave all that she had”. There three kinds of giving:
A flint, when it is hit or struck against a hard surface gives a spark.
A sponge, when it is squeezed, when pressure is applied, gives it’s contents
A flower that blossoms freely gives it’s perfumed odour. (P)
Both the widow and Abraham freely gave to God all they had. Which one of these ways of giving best describes you and I.?
God did not ask Abraham for material sacrifice, he asked him for his heart, his soul, his whole being. God was jealous for the man, not for what the man could do.
Hasan Pal “All that is not given, is lost”.
Mt Moriah, the place where God doesn’t want the 95% that we have given to him, he wants the 5% we have kept.
Mt Sinai
Exodus 19:17 “Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain”
Sinai is where God and man came face to face. Can you imagine that? I find this so amazing. It was a place of meeting with God Himself.
This is a mountain and a place where God both shapes and moulds, where He creates and hones us, it is the mountain of abandonment to God. At this kind of moment, nothing else matters. Seek first the kingdom of God and everything else follows.
Were the whole realm of nature mine
That were an offering far to small
Love so amazing, so divine,
DEMANDS my soul, my life, my ALL
Isaac Watts understood abandonment to God.
Sinai is the meeting place with God. As leaders we have to be found on this mountain. We meet with Him with no time limits, with no requests, no restrictions - Mt Sinai is a time when we are private with God, it is the secret place.
We lay ourselves bare to Him, it is intimacy, it is divine and like Moses we cry out to God , “Show me your Glory”.
S of S 1:3 “Take me away with you – let us hurry! Let the king bring me into his chambers”. The place of intimacy, a place and a moment not shared by anyone else. It a sacred place, it’s a secret place shared by no one else.
Sinai, the mountain where we share with God our “Song of Songs”.
Mt Pisgah
Deut 3:27 “Go to the top of Mt Pisgah and look west and north and east and south. Look at the land with your own eyes”.
Mt Pisgah is the mountain of dreams, visions and revelation. This mountain top enabled Moses to see the vision of the Israelites inheritance, the promised land flowing with milk and honey.
For Israel it was no longer a dream or something that would happen at some time in the future. It wasn’t still “just around the corner”.
Mt Pisgah is the place where God wanted to clearly show Moses both the next step for the people of Israel and who the new leader should be.
“Look with your own eyes” – I believe as Leaders we cannot simply take hold of new concepts, ideas, principles and keys from other areas or churches. We have to ‘look with our own eyes’.
Countless times God asked the prophets of the OT a question that that I believe is still critical for leaders today. “What do you see”? I think it is very interesting that God did not ask “What do others see”?.
The next step is what are you going to do about what you see? Hebrews 11 talks about the hero’s faith and in verse 32 it says these words:
“And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell you about Gideon, Barak, Samson, David, Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice and GAINED what was promised”.
They gained that which had been promised. Yes God had promised it to them, but it was their choice to go forward and gain it. Victories did not just fall into their laps, they had to fight for it, they had to take it.
I remember a time during my ministry when I asked God the question “When Lord, when are you going to do it”……….Yes Steve, that is a good question, when are you going to do it?
If we take the time to climb Mt Pisgah God will reveal to us his heart. Even when they got to the top of the mountain they could only see a small portion of the land of Canaan. That was just the beginning of a lifetime of gaining what God had promised to them.
It was then up to Joshua, the new generation of leadership to go forward and begin to gain that which had been promised to him and his nation.
On Mt Pisgah, God reveals to us what is ours, yet the responsibility is ours whether we go down to both gain and take possession of it.!
Mt Calvary
Lk 23:33 “When they came to the place called Mt Calvary, there they crucified Him, along with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left”.
Mt Calvary, the mountain we are told to climb every day, that we may take up our cross and follow Him.
We may well be called to be shepherds of God’s flock, but it is on this mountain that we daily remember that we are still sheep following the Good shepherd.
It is on Mt Calvary that we see the ultimate sacrifice of a shepherd dying for the sheep.
He could have spoken out – but he did not.
He could have asserted his own will on the situation – but that was not the way.
He could have called down heavens host – but this would not have helped the lost sheep.
He could have rightly pointed the finger of guilt – but he choose not to.
He looked for an easier way – but he choose to follow the way of a cross.
Acts 20:28 “Keep watch over yourselves and all the flock of which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers. Be Shepherds of the Church of God”.
Mt Ararat – God’s safe place, a place of preservation
Mt Moriah – Personal & costly sacrifice
Mt Sinai – The meeting place with God
Mt Pisgah – The mountain of dreams & vision, where need to gain what God has promised
