Every week as we take our places in this gorgeous room, we sit beneath lovely stained glass images of oasis. Our church name, the slogan on our bulletin, newsletter, website and much of our thinking revolve around the simple idea that this church is “an oasis in the city.”
I adore the metaphor. But what does it mean? Originally, the biblical oasis at Elim was just a quiet place mentioned in Exodus 15 and Numbers 33 where the Hebrew people found twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees and rested. It was the second campground the Israelites chose after crossing the Red Sea. The oasis at Elim isn’t mentioned or explained much in Scripture beyond this. My very best Bible dictionary doesn’t even have an article on the place! So how should this simple little reference define us as a church and as followers of Jesus Christ? What does it mean that we call ourselves Elim Church: An Oasis in the City?
I suspect there are as many different types of oasis and as many differing definitions and passionate perspectives on what it means to be oasis as there are people here today. And I’m sure this oasis stuff has been discussed countless times since this church came to be over 120 years ago. But for the next three weeks, I’d still like to give you my humble take on things.
I’m willing to risk this sort of silly preaching redundancy because I believe way too many people in the world are making this church and following Jesus stuff way too complicated. The gorgeous, gracious, oasis faith once entrusted to fishermen, tax collectors, untrained and unlearned people with their humble, sometimes even salty reputations is now often controlled by the same sorts of wise, learned, prideful and religious people with whom Jesus had such difficulty. An oasis is supposed to be a place of rest, refreshment and release. And yet instead of being restful, refreshing and releasing places of oasis, our faith and churches often become dinky, dull and drudgery driven opponents of oasis. We don’t ever want or intend for that bad, depressing, dead religion stuff to happen in our lives or in our churches, but unless we are very intentional about clinging to “the simple oasis things we did at first,” it frequently does happen.
I don’t want to oversimplify the discussion but, as I see it, each and every desert oasis must offer three very obvious things; rest, refreshment and, eventually some sort of meaningful release. This morning I would like to look at the first and most important of those three; rest.
How can we find the glorious salvation rest Jesus promises us in Scripture? And how can we meaningfully offer this soul-satisfying, salvation rest Jesus to the world around us?
Open your Bibles to Matthew 11:25-28. In verses 20-24, in a staggering declaration of His own spiritual importance, Jesus very sadly pronounced woe on three ancient cities refusing to repent and enter into His salvation rest. Then, in chapter 12, immediately following our passage, He directly confronted the religious power structure of the day with His very counter-cultural, challenging perspective on Sabbath rest. Tucked in between these other salvation rest stories is our scripture passage for today; a moment of enormous oasis, resting value. Jesus offers us all rest. Listen carefully and prayerfully to what He said…
At that time Jesus said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things [the enormous oasis value and true power of the kingdom] from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
I believe that final verse, verse 28, gives us almost everything we need to know about finding rest in this world and the next. If we long to find oasis rest ourselves, if we long for this church to become an oasis of rest in this city, then there are three simple things we need to do.
And the first is the most important, the most controversial and yet most simple. We must come only to Jesus. We only find meaningful rest in Jesus. We only offer rest to this city when we offer only Jesus to this city. I know it sounds very intolerant and politically correct, but there is only one person in the universe capable of offering the rest we all seek; Jesus Christ of Nazareth. We must come only to Jesus. We are here to bring others only to Jesus.
My good friend Pat McCurdy started coming here to Elim about the time I started preaching here. We haven’t discussed it directly, but I suspect He came here at least partially because of our friendship. That’s great. He’s been a good friend for many years and I’m glad he’s here. But if that’s the only reason Pat comes here, if that’s the primary reason Pat remains here, I can almost guarantee Pat will not find rest here. Pat is a good friend and I’m trying to be a good pastor, preacher and teacher, but I can’t offer Pat the rest he needs. Only Jesus can. My friend Pat and I will only find rest in this place to the degree we seek only Jesus in this place. Pat and I will only find rest in our lives to the degree we seek only Jesus in our lives.
In your constant quest for rest, are you seeking Jesus or something else? Did you start coming to this church years ago because you were excited to be part of a church willing to give women equal opportunities to lead? That’s great, but that isn’t where rest is found. Are you coming here because you have years of history here; because your friends and family are here? That’s wonderful, but that isn’t where true oasis rest is found. Are you coming here because you deeply believe in a church intentionally committed to staying here; an often messy church committed to being and becoming a truly multigenerational, multiethnic, intentionally diverse urban neighborhood church? That’s fantastic, it really is, but that isn’t where rest is found. Are you sitting in this lovely room because you find the beauty of this old sanctuary, its wood and windows and the skills of its musicians inspirational? Me too, but that isn’t where rest is found.
Do you see? This isn’t just good theology or pious-sounding babble. It is oasis. It is rest. Only Jesus can possibly offer any of us and this city the rest we all seek. Jesus didn’t tell you and I to come to a certain church, to come to a certain school, to sing certain songs, to read certain books or to maintain certain religious relationships in order to find rest. Jesus arrogantly, intolerantly called us to come to Him; Jesus bids us come only to Him for our rest.
I know it’s a cliché, but we are not maintaining religion here; we are deepening our relationship with Jesus. We must come to Jesus alone or we will find ourselves constantly restless and alone. We aren’t here to listen and evaluate our pastor and his musical buddies this morning; we are here to prayerfully listen for the still, small voice of Jesus through the hopefully Scripture and Spirit-driven, yet often stumbling words of those leading us. We aren’t sitting down to consume and evaluate the show; we prayerfully, passionately come to Jesus.
Folks, please hear me and hear me well; the degree to which all we do in life revolves around Jesus is the degree to which we and the city we love will find rest in this life. Jesus is not a product to be consumed; Jesus is a person to be loved. Unless we understand this, we will never find rest. We will continue to restlessly change churches like we change our socks.
Come to me…and I will give you rest. Only in Jesus can we find rest.
But not only must we come only to Jesus; we must come humbly. This is the second action step we must take if we hope to find rest. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Unless we humbly realize and admit our weariness and the terrible burdens of sin and struggle we’re lugging around, we will never properly come to Jesus. We will never find rest in Jesus until we humbly dump all our stuff on Jesus. We will never find rest in this place until we come here humbly admitting our need for that rest.
Yet all too often, we’re like bratty little kids trying to talk their parents into letting them stay up past bedtime. Our eyes are red and puffy, we’re crabby and irritable, so exhausted we can hardly hold our heads up and yet we continue to fight Mom and Dad. Only those people humble enough to admit their weariness and burdens will ever find rest from those burdens.
Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
In 1992, there was a one-hit wonder rock band called Right Said Fred that did a satirical, silly little song about egotistical, self-absorbed models and the fashion industry entitled, “I’m Too Sexy!” Remember it? It was the kind of song that sticks in your mind like an itchy, annoying fungus. And yet, I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who actually knows all the words to that dumb song. Personally, I think we should put sunglasses and a t-shirt on Rick Dischinger and have him give us his take on the tune. But I digress…
About a month or so ago, Monica and I were out walking yet again. We were on our way downtown one Saturday afternoon continuing our perpetual quest for the perfectly far away lettuce sandwich and bowl of soup. As you all know, my dear wife Monica just hates long, grueling walks, so, on this particular marathon, I was singing to her just to keep her from getting grumpy. And since I take my marital comedian responsibilities seriously, on this particular occasion, I was singing the “I’m Too Sexy” song to her as we walked along, complete with totally excellent, totally whack, totally fat Scandinavian pastor dance moves. And, since I’ve never bothered to ever learn the words to the song, I was just making them up as I went along. I was way too sexy for way too many things that day.
But just as I was truly getting into my 1990’s Right Said Fred creative, comedic groove, just as this Baptist Mack Daddy was truly getting down, an MTC express bus went zooming by, hitting a very large, very slushy puddle on the road beside us and soaking me, head to toe, with icy, brutally cold and very muddy curb water. Suddenly, I was no longer too sexy for much of anything! Strange and perversely, Monica found this moment humorous. Strangely, I sensed in my deeply sensitive, deeply pastoral spirit that God Himself found the moment humorous!
That is me. That is what I am. Don’t for a second be confused by my best efforts to convince you to the contrary. I am that try hard to be sexy and smart guy dripping with curb water from head to toe. I am as soaked, weary and heavy laden as anyone can ever be. And I know that unless I come to Jesus on my knees, unless I come honest and humble about my dripping wet sinfulness, I am not going to find the rest I seek. And I pray you know that too.
As I got to this very place in my sermon study on Thursday of this week, the time came for me to leave my office to attend my first Northeast Ministerial Association meeting. Since I’d never met any of the other neighborhood pastors, it was my plan to quietly attend the meeting, listen to the clergy interaction and just get through a simple lunch without saying or doing something to embarrass myself. Unfortunately, just after I finished my dainty salad and very polite, little portion of soup, the bottom of the chair I was sitting in fell completely out on the floor. I was dropped instantly and without any warning, straight down onto the floor as if the whole thing had been perfectly planned. And as I sat there on the floor, completely uninjured, staring out across the table at that august gathering of clergy, my nose at the table line and my armpits trapped by the frame of the chair, the only thing I could do was laugh. LORD, you already gave me my humiliating sermon illustration! Enough already! God can be such a joker!
I’m too sexy for this chair, too sexy for this priest, too sexy for my soup…
But I’m not! I’m not anything. I’m dripping wet, on the floor, weary, heavy laden guy crawling toward Jesus because I know I’m not going to find the rest I need anywhere else.
I’m coming only to Jesus and I’m coming humble. I’m coming here today needy…
But I am also coming expectantly. This is the wonderful, third and final oasis rest action step we must take. Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Folks, do we realize the last phrase, the last six words of this verse, are a promise from our Lord Jesus? If we will come exclusively and humbly to Him, He will give us rest. He will meet us precisely at the point of our deepest need. It doesn’t matter how sinful, broken, weary and heavy-laden we might be, Jesus Christ will give us rest. A bruised reed He will not break!
Do you believe that? Did you come here today expecting to find and savor His rest?
I have a theory about this expectations piece of our conversation. It is my theory that we usually receive from God whatever we most expect to receive from God. While Almighty God always loves to surprise us and give us far beyond whatever we expect or imagine, usually we receive from God only what we are willing to receive from Him. We only accept the rest from Jesus we are willing to accept from Him. To be completely honest, I believe Almighty God’s offer of rest is always on the table. It is always everywhere waiting for us to receive it.
Many years ago, when I was pastoring in Waconia, a man approached me after the service with an adamant compliment. He pulled me aside at the door of the sanctuary as I was doing my grip and grin thing, and he said, “You know pastor, we’ve visited 22 churches in this area and this is the first church we’ve found that actually preaches God’s Word!” And even as I tried to be thankful, I thought to myself, “I wonder how long it will take before we become church number 23?” Sure enough, after just a few months, that family left the church. While I don’t know what churches that family visited in the Carver County area and I don’t know what was preached in any those churches, but I would bet my bottom dollar he didn’t go to any of those churches with a genuine sense of coming to Jesus humility or expectation. I don’t know anything about his experiences, but I’ve been to all sorts and sizes of Christian churches over the years and, even in the shallowest spiritual waters I’ve known, I almost always hear Jesus sharing something useful with me. I receive rest from Him because I am fully expecting and wanting to receive rest. I receive rest because I understand I have been promised rest.
And yet some of us are so busy testing this wonderful promise, so busy with our proud judgments and selfish expectations, we make it almost impossible to receive the rest offered us.
In 1982, the Christian rock band Petra included a snippet of back-masked lyrics at the beginning of its song Judas Kiss on the album More Power To Ya. Remember back-masking? Some secular rock bands would record evil demonic messages backwards on albums in order to satanically program impressionable youth into smoking marijuana and cutting classes at school. When a few of my Christian nerd friends and I heard what sounded like back-masking on our new Petra album, we just had to check it out. We found somebody at Bethel with a pricey turntable we could run backwards and discovered we were exactly right. Petra had recorded back-masked lyrics. But do you know what the back-masked message on that song was? We played it over and over again just to be sure. Clear as a bell, we heard the lead singer from Petra asking, “What are you looking for the devil for when you oughta be looking for the Lord?”
I love that!
Folks, while the devil is a truly a nasty, roaring lion looking for whom he may devour, while it is absolutely true we must be spiritually wise and discerning in all we do, we must never allow our proper spiritual wariness to steal away the rest Jesus wants to give us. Whether we approach our Lord Jesus in the quietness of our own home or we come to Him while visiting some friend’s strange church, we must come expecting Him to give us the rest He has promised us. If we aren’t looking for rest, if we aren’t expecting rest, chances are we won’t find rest.
We are Elim Church, sweet oasis in this city, offering rest to anyone willing to humbly and expectantly seek Jesus here with us. May we find rest here! May we offer rest here! May we come to Jesus, come humbly and come expectantly. May we find and offer oasis. Amen.
