Go Up & Possess It

So we departed from Horeb and went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw on the way to the mountains of the Amorites, as the Lord our God had commanded us; and then we came to Kadesh Barnea. And I said to you, "You have come to the mountains of the Amorites, which the Lord our God is giving us. Look, the Lord your God has set the land before you; go up and possess it, as the Lord God of your fathers has spoken to you; do not fear or be discouraged." (Deuteronomy 1:19–21)

At a certain point, God wants His people to move out of comfort and into the blessing He has set before them.

Why Moses Recounts Israel's History

In this section of Deuteronomy, Moses, the leader of Israel some thirty-four hundred years ago, takes time to remind the entire nation of their recent history. They had been brought out of bondage in Egypt, traveled into the wilderness to a place called Mount Sinai or Horeb—sometimes called the mountain of God—and spent two years there. Then they journeyed toward the Promised Land. What should have been an eleven-day trip turned into something far longer; by the time Moses gives this message, it is forty years later.

Why does Moses share this history? Three reasons come to mind. First, many of the people listening weren't around to experience the events Moses describes—they hadn't been born or were too young to remember. Second, Moses understood that a shared history joins people together; a common experience of history is what makes a people a people. Third, knowing where they had come from would help them understand where they were going and how to get there with wisdom.

Our Own Recent History

With that in mind, I want to share a little of our recent history at Cross Connection Church. There are a lot of you here this morning who haven't been part of what God has been doing over the last ten or fifteen years. In the last six years, we've received more than a thousand cards from people indicating they were new to the church. Many of you have only been here three or four years, so there's much God has been doing that you simply don't know about. When we have a shared history, it unites us as the people of God doing the work of God, and it helps us understand our identity and where God is leading us.

To set this up, I'll tell you about a decision I wrestled with. Three and a half years ago, my friend Pastor David Guzik—who has taught here a few times and runs Enduring Word (enduringword.com), with commentaries on the whole Bible—asked me to come evaluate the staff and leadership of Calvary Chapel Santa Barbara. I'm on the board of his ministry, and over several months he'd shared frustrations with me, so Pastor Mark and I put together a survey, interviewed staff, and prepared a report. When we got up there in September 2016 and sat in David's office, David looked at me and said, "Miles, why don't you just move up to Santa Barbara and pastor the church with me?"

A Conflicting Offer

Santa Barbara is kind of like paradise. Andrea and I spent our first anniversary there and have gone up nearly every year since. David and his wife Inga-Lill are good friends, and we've often dreamt out loud about moving there. So when this casual offer came, part of me thought it could be interesting. Then it became more formal: the head elder called in late 2016 and said David had decided to hand the church off to someone else, and my name was on the list—would I let them put me forward as a candidate? To say I was conflicted is an understatement.

It got more complicated. My wife, a nurse in the intensive care unit, happened to sit next to nurses from Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara at a training, and one—the ICU nurse manager—offered her a job if we ever moved up. For weeks through the holidays I wrestled. For a lot of reasons it looked easy: a beautiful area, good friends, and the chance to work with someone who's a good mentor and, in the Christian world, Christian famous. I had always thought that if such an opportunity came, I'd say yes. Yet I just didn't feel I could. One reason ties directly to our text.

God's People Are Almost Never Staying in One Place

This is point one: God's people are almost never staying in one place. It's clear throughout Scripture. In the very first chapter of the Bible, God gave humanity the command to be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it—and filling the earth implies moving out into all that God had made. With Abraham, in Genesis 12, the command was to move from where things were comfortable and secure into a blessing. We see it with Jacob, with Joseph going down to Egypt, with the whole nation coming out of Egypt with Moses and into the land with Joshua.

It's true in the New Testament too. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, taken to Egypt, came up to Galilee and Nazareth, then moved to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and beyond. His ministry was all about being on the move, and when He commissioned His church He said, "Go into all the world." For two thousand years, God's people have been constantly on the move. That's one reason God had a tent in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—He's always on the move, and His expectation is that His people would be ready to move with Him.

The Journey Is Not Without Its Terrible Wilderness

So why, when the door to Santa Barbara opened, did I not walk through it? Look again at the text: "Go up and possess it... do not fear or be discouraged." Underline those words. Have you ever been discouraged? Have you ever feared you wouldn't arrive where you hoped—part way through a degree you had to leave, a business that didn't take off? That's what leads many people to a midlife crisis: they reach their forties and realize they're not where they thought they'd be, and they're devastated.

When David made that offer in September 2016, a year earlier I had been the most discouraged in ministry I'd ever been. I worried that the moves and changes we'd intentionally made hadn't worked. Compounding it, I heard a pastor and LifeWay researcher say that the most fruitful years for most senior pastors are years five and seven. I was halfway through year seven, and year seven had been the hardest year other than year five.

This is point two: the journey to the promised land is not without its terrible wilderness. Everywhere you go is hard. My wife is finishing her master's to become a nurse practitioner, and not a day goes by that she doesn't ask why she's doing it. Everything like that is hard—if it weren't, there'd be a lot of nurse practitioners, and there aren't. "We went through all that great and terrible wilderness which you saw."

A Crappy Situation

In year five I came to the difficult reality that to move forward we had to let go a couple of staff members—pastors who'd been here twenty years. That is a very hard decision. Letting someone go—laying them off or firing them—is brutally difficult, unless your name is Mark Childers or Ronnie DeBenedictis. Ronnie is my dad; at my son's baseball game I asked how many people he'd fired in fifty years of construction, and he said, "Oh, hundreds"—no big deal. You know you're good at it when you fire your own son; he fired my brother three times. That's why I never went to work for him.

Wrestling with that decision, I did what I often do—went away alone to think, pray, and read Scripture. One Thursday morning in August I went up to Double Peak Park above Cal State San Marcos with my Bible, starting in Ezekiel. Chapter one—nothing. Chapter two—nothing. Chapter three—nothing. Then I came to this strange passage:

Now go and get some wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and emmer wheat, and mix them together... use them to make bread for yourself during the 390 days you will be lying on your side... bake it on a fire using dried human dung as fuel, and eat the bread. (Ezekiel 4:9, paraphrased)

Ezekiel objects: "O Sovereign Lord, must I be defiled by using human dung?" And God answers, "Fine, you may bake your bread with cow dung instead." I read that and had a strong sense—not an audible voice, but a voice in my head—that said: It doesn't matter how you bake it; it's a crappy situation. That's exactly how God spoke to me. I closed my Bible and left the mountaintop. That was year five.

Then came year seven. A women's ministry leader left upset. A staff member we'd helped launch a school left upset. A worship leader we didn't hire left upset. An associate pastor I thought would be with us a long time left. A board member and elder left upset. About 150 people left the church that year. So much for the most fruitful years of ministry—if by fruit you mean watching people leave. That was September 2015. One year later I was sitting in David's office hearing, "How'd you like to move up here and pastor this church?"

Visionaries See Mountaintops, Not Valleys

When they reached Kadesh Barnea, the people asked Moses to send spies—one from each of the twelve tribes. They went into the land and returned after forty days carrying a cluster of grapes so big it took two men. They said the land was wonderful, flowing with milk and honey. But ten of the twelve added the inevitable "however": there are giants in the land, and "we were like grasshoppers in our own eyes" (Numbers 13). They discouraged the people's hearts. Only Joshua and Caleb said, "No—God has told us to go up and possess it."

No one steps out to start something new without a vision of what they expect to happen. When I became pastor of this church in 2008, I had a vision. The church I took over wasn't really this church—it is, but it isn't. For the previous four years it had been in steep decline. Back in 2005, in a leadership meeting about why so many were leaving and why hardly anyone in their twenties was present, someone finally asked me—25 at the time and the only one in my twenties—what I thought. I said, "You won't like my answer, but if I weren't on the leadership team, I wouldn't attend this church."

The challenge with visionaries is that we see as if standing on a mountaintop above the clouds. We can see other distant mountaintops clearly, but we don't see everything below in the fog and the valley. That's probably a good thing—if you saw everything in the valley, you'd never move forward. Israel was on a mountaintop looking into the land; the spies came back and told them everything in the fog that could kill them, and they were discouraged.

Why I Stayed

After 2008, what I thought would happen quickly didn't, because there are so many valleys. So by September 2015, after years five and seven, I was very discouraged. When David asked me a year later, I told him honestly, "If you'd said this to me a year ago, I would have said yes on the spot." That's exactly why it's wise not to make big decisions when you're discouraged or fearful—like everyone who sold all their stock last week. You don't sell when everybody sells.

Here's the longer arc. In August 2002, at 22, I had the strong impression God had called me to pastor this church. In 2003 I began teaching the Saturday night service through the book of Joshua. When we reached Joshua 13—where Joshua is old and preparing to hand off leadership, just as Moses does in our passage—he says, "There remains much land to be possessed." I remember thinking there was so much more God wanted to do here in North County. Five years later, in 2008, He called me to take over. And in 2016, after a lot of wilderness wandering and real battles, I decided to remain—because there remains so much land to be possessed.

Part of that vision is shared. Years ago a friend and I did youth ministry together; one day, while I was mowing my parents' lawn, I realized Mark Childers lived in the same neighborhood. After asking him three or four times to come work with me, he finally said yes—his first day was April 1st, 2013, probably the most foolish thing he ever did. He came because we both had a vision of what God wanted to do here.

Move From the Border Into Blessing

This is point three: God desires that His people move away from the border and into blessing. Why did you come to this church? A friend invited you, you drove by, someone left a bag with a DVD on your doorstep, you found us online—those aren't really the reason. You're here because God called you here to be part of the work He's doing.

Forgive me for the way I'll say this: here at Cross Connection we do things a little differently because we just don't screw around. There are a lot of people in our culture—coworkers, neighbors, even family—who gave up on church because they're tired of churches that just play around. Invite them, because we do things differently. We had Queen playing on one of our segments—probably the only time you'll hear Queen at church. And I think that's part of why we're seeing what we're seeing here.

We started making changes in 2011 because anything living changes—only rocks and dead things stay the same. From 2007 to 2011 the church grew; then from 2011 through 2018, every single year, average weekly attendance decreased. If you're the pastor implementing those changes, you get discouraged. Through all of it I kept saying, "But God wants us to keep moving forward." 2019 was the first year of positive growth, and over the last twelve months we're up eight and a half percent in weekly attendance. God is doing something here.

Those Who Don't Move Forward Die in the Wilderness

There's a problem: this isn't a purpose-built facility—it's a strip mall. This pad of ground was supposed to be an In-N-Out Burger; we have the plans in Mark's office showing the cash register and everything. For years people in Escondido were upset they didn't get their In-N-Out. Now the church is growing, services are packed, and parking is harder to find. That brings us to a place where we have to move forward—and if we don't, we have a problem.

Point four: they died in the wilderness who do not move forward into blessing. Over the last few years, as many as eight churches have closed their doors in San Marcos. There are many reasons, but one is that they had a hard time moving forward to reach the community. Within ten miles of this building there are nearly a million people. Research by the Southern Baptist Convention shows that only 9.3 percent of them are connected to a church—meaning some 800,000 people have no church connection within ten miles. We, along with North Coast, Emmanuel Faith, Maranatha Chapel, Valley Baptist, Grace Point, Mission Hills, need to reach our culture. Many people have checked out because too many churches are just playing church instead of speaking to the realities of culture and challenging them.

A Call to Pray and to Serve

As we move into Deuteronomy, I believe God wants to speak to that reality for us, but there are things we need to do first. Pray with us this Thursday night at our time of worship and prayer. Pray that God would do exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think; that the leadership would have wisdom to interpret our culture and know how to reach people here; and that the Lord would direct us about whether to move from this facility—where, or to provide land or resources, because it's very hard to grow here. We're contemplating adding a fourth service around Easter at 12:30 because we keep running out of parking. We also have the ability to reach people around the world online through our podcasts and discipleship ideas, but much of that requires finances we'd love help with. If God has gifted you to help in that way, we'd welcome it.

More than anything, we need you to plug in. This is not a spectator sport—get in the game. I've served at this church since I was 11. If we add a fourth service, we need more people in tech, security, ushers and greeters, children's ministry, and hospitality. You can do something easy right now: go to serve.lifeconnection.com, give us your name and email, and we'll be in touch. We need your gifts so we can reach more people. Some people come here every week and drive right by because they can't find a parking spot, or walk in and don't know where to sit because there's no greeter to hand them a bulletin. We need your help, because there remains much more land to be possessed.

There's a man here, Wally Williams, 97 years old, who comes and serves on Sundays. If Wally can serve, the rest of us have no excuse.

Closing Prayer

God, I pray that You would bless this church exceedingly abundantly above all we can ask or think. We want to reach the people in our community—some of them related to us, whose kids used to go to church and now say church is dumb, because there are a lot of dumb churches. Lord, we don't want to be one of those. Give us wisdom and grace to reach our community, and a passion for people, because our culture is in a devastating place and needs a work of Your Spirit and Your Word. It seems out of order, functioning on borrowed wisdom that doesn't make sense. Help us to be a thermostat more than a thermometer—changing the culture, affecting the culture. Once the culture was directed by the church; today the church is a quiet voice in the corner. Help us to speak up. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.