Scripture: 1 Corinthians 10:1-13; Ephesians 4:13-16 Series: 2022
Second sermon in a salvation series, this Lenten message (‘Where are we’) uses 1 Corinthians 10 to locate the congregation within salvation history: like Israel passing through the sea yet still in the wilderness, believers are saved but remain pilgrims and wayfarers, still in a cave the size of the universe. Drawing on the Thai cave rescue documentary and Plato’s allegory of the cave as salvation narratives, Wilson argues that modern conveniences deceive us into thinking we know where we stand. He reframes the ‘way out’ of temptation not as God withholding hardship but as God offering life in the midst of it, while insisting we must honestly admit where we are. The way of the cross is narrow and requires staying together. Closing with Ephesians 4, he urges continual spiritual growth and a Lenten practice of discerning where one stands in faith and sharing it with another.
Illustrations: before-phones-and-gps, shared-location-different-buildings, thai-cave-rescue-the-rescue, seminole-canyon-cave-drawings, platos-allegory-of-the-cave, justin-martyr-plato-and-moses, star-trek-v-flying-to-heaven, lakeway-pd-speeding-ticket, trapped-boys-stayed-together
March 13
Where are we
Brothers and sisters, I want you to be sure of the fact that our ancestors were all under the cloud and they all went through the sea. All were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. They drank from a spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ. However, God was unhappy with most of them, and they were struck down in the wilderness… These things happened to them as an example and were written as a warning for us to whom the end of time has come. So those who think they are standing need to watch out or else they may fall. No temptation has seized you that isn’t common for people. But God is faithful. He won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:1-5, 11-13
Like many, but not all of you, I grew up without cell phones or GPS. I had to find directions. I had to ask directions. I had to look at a map to go to a park. When I was going to meet someone, I had to make sure exactly where the meeting was going to take place because there wasn’t a text message I could send or an emojii or a GIF. Phones are certainly a great convenience. It is great to be able to share my location with another person. I was meeting a guy a few weeks ago to have a conversation and we were at the same establishment, but we didn’t see each other. We were unbenownst in different buildings. And so I shared my location from my phone and we were able to find each other. Before the proliferation of phones, I would have probably just gone home. The ease of phones and the ease of GPS sometimes deceives us into thinking that we know where we are. “Oh yeah, I know where I am. I can always check.” It seems like it is harder to be lost than ever. But phones and tools like GPS, can also deceive us into thinking we really know where we are.
I want to show another clip from the documentary, The Rescue, about the Thai Cave disaster from 2018. Here is a map of the cave system. We are on Day 10 of the attempt to rescue the boys. So far, nobody has made contact them. Here is a map to show a little bit of the complexity of the cave. It is the fourth largest cave system in Thailand, going back as much as 6 kilometers. After the Thai navy seals try to save the boys for a few days, a group of British Cave Divers came to Thailand to help. This clip is going to be from their perspective. And just a warning, when we start, they don’t know what they are going to find and even if the boys are alive.
Play Clip Minute 36:59 - 4:40
Series Intro
Last week, we talked about what salvation is. Today, we’re looking at Where we are. And in that, where we need to be saved from. In the movie, the boys are saved from a cave. Caves have been a part of the human imagination for thousands of years. If you’ve ever have a chance to see some old cave drawings, they are pretty remarkable. There are some caves down near Del Rio at Seminole Canyon State Park that are just unbelievable. You can just go and see these drawings that are 20,000, 30,000 years old. As well, for the last 2,500 years, Western civilization has been influenced by Plato’s Allegory of the cave in The Republic, which is this idea that we are all in a cave watching shadow puppets on the wall. This is an imaginary representation. And these shadow images are what we think reality is. But in order to truly understand reality, we can’t just stare at the wall. We actually have to climb outside of the cave to see what the world is like. This is what philosophy is for. It’s to help us see the truth. Early Christians saw a great connection between this philosophy and the faith. The Gospel of John is filled with language of light. Jesus is the light and in him there is no darkness at all. Justin Martyr, an early Christian writer, even said that Plato and Moses had conversations together. I don’t know if that was true, but there was a desire to make the connection. But then in the 17th and 18th century, the enlightenment Had this idea that the people keeping the world in the caves was the church and the world needs philosophy to help to see things rightly. We see in any of these talks of the cave a form of salvation narrative. It’s a story of salvation. Someone is trapped and lost in one way and they need to be helped in order to be free. The enlightenment desires to free people to reason rightly. Jesus offers to free us for love and eternal life.
Getting back to Paul
When we get back to Paul in 1 Corinthians 10, he is showing the church the scope of God’s creation. He shows the depth of salvation history, which is really the history of God’s relationship to creation specifically in a relationship with the people of Israel, the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Paul offers this incredibly beautiful understanding of the Exodus as going through the waters of the red sea, going from slavery to sin and death in Egypt on the other side of the sea. And yet there’s a sense in Paul that the people are still in the wilderness and have not yet reached the promised land. Other Christians have taken this up. What we see in this life is not our final destination, but a foretaste of what it will be like: we are all still pilgrims in this land. We are wayfarers. When we build, it does not last forever. In some ways, then, we are still in a cave. It is a big cave, the size of the planet. It is a cave the size of the universe. In Star Trek 5, Captain Kirk and the Enterprise fly to heaven, but heaven is not a place to which you can fly. It is not a material space like we are in. God is not really big and far away. God is the source in which we live and move and have our being. God saw God’s people lost and wandering. In fact, God saw that all God’s people were lost. All of creation was God’s gift and God did not see fit to leave any of it in brokenness. There can be challenges here, but as Paul says, “God] won’t allow you to be tempted beyond your abilities. Instead, with the temptation, God will also supply a way out so that you will be able to endure it.” Sometimes this verse is paraphrased as “God won’t give you more than you can handle,” but I think that that is missing the point. God doesn’t test you with hardship. God offers life in the midst of hardship and promises we will not be tempted beyond are means. But we still have to admit where we are.
Where are we?
So where are we right now, my brothers and sisters? We are not, thank God, in a cave in Thailand. We are in a lovely church with a great view, overlooking Lake Travis. We are, each of us, in a life that has offered us the opportunity to go to church on a Sunday morning, or to watch or listen to church from a remote location Even still, we are trapped. And there Is nothing we can do about it. We are trapped in a world that thinks everything is figured out or can be figured out. We’re stuck in a world that says might makes right. We are mired in a space where disease and brokenness and death and war and poverty and starvation continue to attack. We’re stuck in a world where the rain falls on the just and the unjust. And even if you do a good turn to another person, you may get pulled over five minutes later by Lakeway PD because you’re going 31 on Lakewood Boulevard. The way of the cross is not a wide way. It’s not a pyramid scheme where if you get enough people on board, as well, and then you’ll start profiting from it. The way of the cross is a narrow road It has some ups and downs. It’s a road so narrow that sometimes it feels like we need to walk in single file. If we even feel like we are walking together, But we have to walk together, we have to stay together. There are a number of amazing things that took place to rescue those boys from the cave in Thailand. Something amazing that took place was the fact that they were able to stay alive in the dark. For so many days, They stayed alive because they stayed together. Even though they were lost, they stayed together.
Conclusion
Friends, in this season of Lent, God is calling you to discern where you are. Visualize Jesus teaching from the mountaintop. How high are you up the mountain? Are you looking at Jesus or looking away? Are you walking towards Jesus or walking away?
(Reflection)
The most amazing thing is that God has not left us here alone. We are not alone. We may not be at our final destination yet, but God has more plans here. As Paul writes in Ephesians
God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ. As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part. Ephesians 4:13b-16.
As I told the kids, you stop growing physically. You never stop growing spiritually. If you think that you have stopped growing spiritually, you don’t know where you are.
Knowing where we are, even if it’s hard, even if it’s far away from where we’d like to be, should not discourage us. We cannot follow the way of the cross if we don’t even know where we are beginning. This week, take some time to discern where you are in your faith, where you are in your life. What do you believe about God? What are you struggling with? What are you afraid to look at? Hopefully you started this morning, but don’t end here. Seek someone with whom you can share that with. Maybe coffee with a friend, maybe a phone call or a text message, maybe a spouse, maybe a golf buddy. Where are you? Where do you find yourself? God has already been there with you and God has drawn others to help you. And God has brought others together that you may help them on their way. The life of faith is not just about transforming your soul, but how now you can be an instrument of God’s love in this world.
Let us pray, Gracious father, help us to see where we are, spiritually and physically. Help us to remember that you will seek us out, no matter where we find ourselves. May we hold close to your promises and mercy. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.