Thank you guys for having me. Yeah, so I'm going
to start a timer so I don't talk too much. That's
the thing. So a while back, Greg had asked me,
this has been even a couple months ago, about
what we were going to be talking about and about
the journey in the wilderness. And so he said,
you know, we're going to focus on the different
people spending time in the wilderness and that
I would be talking about John the Baptist. So
I was excited about that. I think during this
time of me preparing the message, God's given
me some fun experiences. I didn't have to eat
any locusts, but I have eaten wild honey before.
And I thought, since last week Africa was wearing
a sweatshirt like this, I said, this is so appropriate
for John the Baptist, I have to have this for
today. So thank you, Africa, for hooking me up.
So I wanted to touch base with some of the messages
that we had in the previous weeks, because a
lot of that inspired me in my message. And so
we talked a little bit about Ishmael in Genesis
16. Greg had asked us to think about how we would
name God because of what happened in there. And
so I wrote down in my notes that day that you
are the God who uses my hands for your work.
So I don't know if anybody else remembers what
they thought about that day, but that was mine.
And then Jen talked a little bit about David
hiding in the wilderness, crying out to God in
his dark night of the soul. Another nugget I
got out of some other messages were that God
invites us to be part of the solution. He doesn't
just fix everything for us, but he wants to bring
us alongside of him to do the work with him.
I think that's really cool. Another thought that
stuck with me and was really prevalent in my
brain when I was writing this message is that
it's not always a straight line from oppression
to the promised land. There's usually a wilderness
in between. So I can really relate to this. I
want to pray real quick, though, before I get
into my message, just to make sure I don't screw
this up. Heavenly Father, just thank you so much
for this opportunity to share my experiences
today. I just ask that you use these words to
bless the minds and hearts of all those gathered
here and those who are watching online. God,
just teach us something. As you're teaching me,
I want to share the message with others to teach
them as well. Thank you. Amen. So let me tell
you a little bit about my story. So many years
ago. A month after our child Cal was born, I
lost my job. The timing was terrible. We all
had Isaac, our oldest, two and a half at the
time, and then Cal, a month old. Well, God gave
me a dream the night before I lost my job, so
he kind of prepared me a little bit because I
don't do the whole shock thing really well, so
I need time to prepare. God knows that. So literally
the night before I lost my job, which I got fired.
God gave me a dream. And in the dream, I recognized
that's what was going to happen. And so I was
kind of prepared. And so the guy that I carpooled
with in the morning, I would pick up one of,
I worked in automotive and repair before. And
I was a service manager. And I picked up one
of the salesmen on the carpool in. And I said,
you know, I had a dream last night that I'm going
to get fired today. So maybe you might need to
find another way home. And about 10 o 'clock
that morning, my boss called me into the office
and said, yep, I'm letting you go. I went and
told the salesman, I'm like, well, you're going
to find another right home. He was like. You're
serious? So anyway, so I have dreams like that.
And so I pay attention when God gives me dreams.
So yeah. So the loss of the job was a push that
I needed, though, because I was kind of stuck
in a rut. Unfortunately for my impatient self,
it was a push into the wilderness as well. But
this wilderness was a finding my career and my
purpose. The first thing I remember when I got
home was I just kind of wandered around outside.
Like literally, like I remember vividly being
in my backyard. And just kind of wandering. It's
cold. It was end of October, beginning of November,
because Cal was born October 1st. And so just
kind of wandering around outside, just like in
shock. It was the beginning of a long time of
reflection and hard work on myself. It began
a journey into this wilderness. The good news
was, though, I was not alone. Besides God being
ever present with me, he gifted me with a wonderful
life partner in Bree. Bree prayed for me, encouraged
me. She at that time kind of urged me to take
that time and opportunity that presented itself
to go back to college and get my degree. I'd
never finished my degree. But that was the message
that she gave to me, and I was pondering on that.
But then God's irony and gift of metaphor is
infinite. So while I was applying for every job
I could get my hands on, looking for a way to
get money to get by, he had another plan. He
started this phase of my life with a mission
trip. So my friend Matt, who went to my old church,
called me up and said, hey, I heard you have
a lot of free time on your hands right now. And
he said, we're putting together a team of guys
to go down to New Orleans and help rebuild houses
after Hurricane Katrina. So would you like to
go? I was like, well, that's crazy. So then I
asked Bree. Now, mind you, she has a two and
a half year old and a one month old baby. And
she said, go. So I think she was tired of watching
me mope around in my wilderness. So after I got
back from the trip, which was life -altering,
I started working on completing my education
and getting into the career of law enforcement,
which I had thought about many, many years before.
After several years of college classes, I was
taking care of the kids at home during the day
when Bree was at work, moonlighting as a mechanic
and a landlord for income at night. I did finally
reluctantly accept a job working at the county
jail. Now, I wanted to use this job as a stepping
stone to become a police officer. That was my
whole goal all along. Well, that didn't happen.
The four years plus I spent working in the jail
was the longest four years of my life. It seemed
like an eternity. I thought I would never escape.
I was grasping at straws. Any kind of opportunity
to present itself to get out of there, I was
looking at. Don't get me wrong. The pay was good.
The benefits were great. I also learned a lot
of life lessons that I could not learn any other
way. But it was most definitely a wilderness.
During this time, I questioned whether or not
I was on the right track or if I'd gotten off.
And then I had wasted years of my life going
and pursuing this education for something that
wasn't going to happen or this career at the
jail that was going to make me miserable. What
am I doing? This has got to be a huge mistake.
I constantly prayed for an instant fix. During
this time, God gave me another dream. In this
dream... I was being the hero. Now, mind you,
God has a crazy imagination, and this is what
my dream was. I'm carrying Bree, and I'm running
through downtown Rock Island to save. I'm going
to be the hero. So I stop at a place called Mellow
Blue Planet. It's a comic book shop downtown
Rock Island that I had spent a lot of time. Here's
the irony and the dream. A shop full of hero's
journeys. All the stories of Superman, Batman,
all that stuff, right? The owner of the place,
his name is Tim. He was the wise sage in my dream,
kind of like a Yoda or a Mr. Miyagi figure. And
so I get there, and I'm like, how do I get to
this path of being the hero and being a policeman
and doing what I'm supposed to be doing? And
he said, there's no shortcut to this destination.
You have to take the long way, but you will get
there. Now, get this. Last night, Brie and I
stopped at Aldi to get groceries for the elote
dip that she made. And who did I bump into but
Tim? God incidents. I have not seen Tim in forever.
So I told him, and he's like, well, I have a
wise thing to say once in a while. And I was
like, no, like. So many years later, now I'm
in my current career. I'm a probation officer.
More specifically, I work with people who deal
with addiction and mental health issues. I was
at a training event we do once a year. We were
at dinner afterwards, and the judge leans over
to me, and he says, Andy, I think you have found
your calling. In many ways, I feel like I am
in the promised land, at least with my career.
But what happened when I was in the wilderness?
I asked for a lot of prayer during that time.
I did a lot of research on career paths. I explored
a few options. I still continue to look for escapes
out. But God didn't put me there to simply escape
unchanged. Remember, this is a quote, not mine,
the wilderness is the place we are meant to meet
God. We learn to follow and reject our cultural
conditioning. We are all alone with God. It had
definitely been me. The way I looked at everything
had been influenced by toxic cultural conditioning
in my previous career. I'd battled some depression
at that time as well, and I'd only recently realized
that I was working on that when this job loss
happened. I knew I wanted out of that career,
but I had felt trapped. God had a bunch of different
things for me, though. I could not even imagine
what I would be doing today. Something else that
I stole from Greg's message before. We undervalue
just how much of finding ourselves is found in
learning how to stay where Jesus stays. Now,
many of you know that I'm a big reader. I've
been fascinated with storytelling for as long
as I've been able to read. In my early years
at community college, I was introduced to an
author named Joseph Campbell. This author is
known for his description of the hero's journey,
and he wrote a book called The Hero with a Thousand
Faces. Campbell has mapped this frequently reoccurring
theme in literature all out. He wrote a whole
book. He broke it all down. He has a circle with
a diagram and everything about the hero's journey.
It also seems to fit the scripture with God's
message over and over again about the journey
of his people. Now, most of you aren't familiar
with Joseph Campbell. I was really hoping Eric
was going to be here, but Eric, listen, if you
watch, listen to this later. Joseph Campbell
inspired this really nerdy guy who wrote a story.
His name is George Lucas. So many of you are
now familiar with the original Star Wars trilogy.
Luke Skywalker's journey to face himself and
his father and become the hero is the epitome
of Joseph Campbell's vision. I researched this
after I was writing the sermon, and I found out
that Joseph Campbell had not met George Lucas,
but right when he was releasing The Return of
the Jedi, their agents contacted each other.
And Joseph Campbell and his wife had dinner with
George Lucas and his wife, and they sat. And
he said, do you want to watch the movies? You
want to do like one a week or one a night? And
Joseph Campbell said, no, let's watch them all
at once. So they had breakfast. They watched
the first one. They had lunch. They watched the
second one. They had dinner. They watched the
third one. And afterwards, he said something.
I didn't put this in my notes. He said something
like, of all the famous artists in the world,
then we think that the art is dead. And he's
like, but it is very much alive today. So I'll
have to find that quote for you. But that's Joseph
Campbell in The Hero's Journey. And so we can
kind of relate to Star Wars. But Joseph Campbell
was not the first one to recognize this journey
in history over and over again told about the
people I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole a little
bit I know Jen likes this because I find something
and I dig down the rabbit hole So Campbell borrowed
his dark night of the soul and the hero's journey
from a 16th century Catholic poet Saint John
of the Cross He wrote this poem somewhere between
1577 and 1579. It's called the dark night of
the soul He wrote a poem, and then he also wrote
the commentary to go along with it. This inner
journey into the wilderness concept has also
been studied all the way up until today, obviously
with Joseph Campbell and George Lucas. But a
psychiatrist named Roberto Assigioli, who was
a contemporary of Maslow, you know, the hierarchy
of needs guy, he remarks that the dark night
of the soul comes just before revelation. When
everything is lost and all seems darkness, then
comes the new life and all that is needed. I
paused while writing this sermon, literally,
because I thought I was maybe getting off track,
and then all of a sudden it slapped me in the
face as I pasted the rest of his quote in. The
darkest nights are followed by the most radiant
dawns, and the soul, perfect at last, enters
into complete, constant, and inseparable communion
with the Spirit. so that it seems to be God himself
and has the same characteristics as him. How
does this tie into the scripture? God's chosen
people were in the dark. For 400 years, the prophets
were silent from the time of the Old Testament
to the time of the New Testament. This is also
like the 400 years God's people were in slavery
in Egypt. When everything is lost and all seems
darkness, then comes the new life and all that
is needed. Comfort, O comfort my people, says
your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry
to her that she has served her term and her penalty
is paid, that she has received from the Lord's
hand a double for all her sins. The voice cries
out in the wilderness, prepare the way of the
Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for
our God. Every valley shall be lifted up and
every mountain shall be made low. Uneven ground
shall become level and the rough places a plain.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
and all flesh shall see it together, for the
mouth of the Lord has spoken. John the Baptist
introduces Jesus, God in the flesh. You don't
have to stand up, I'm just going to read, take
right from Isaiah into Mark, Mark 1 through 8.
The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ
is written in the prophet Isaiah. See, I am sending
a messenger ahead of you who will prepare your
way, the voice of one crying out in the wilderness.
Prepare the way of the Lord and make his path
straight. So John the baptizer appeared in the
wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance
for the forgiveness of sins, and the whole Judean
region and all the people of Jerusalem were going
out to him and were baptized by him in the river
Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed
with camel's hair, he wore a leather belt around
his waist, and he ate wild locusts and wild honey.
He proclaimed, the one who is more powerful than
I is coming after me. I am not worthy to stoop
down and untie the straps of his sandals. I have
baptized you with water, but he will baptize
you in the Holy Spirit. So who was this John
the Baptist guy, and why was he so weird? Hanging
out in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild
honey, dressed in camel's hair. What was he doing?
Why the wilderness? It sure seems like each time
God calls his people, they have been in the wilderness,
wandering and wondering. God loves metaphors,
and I love alliteration. Remember how again that
John the Baptist baptizes Jesus and then the
Holy Spirit descends on him like a dove? And
then what happens after that? Jesus goes into
the wilderness. What is this wilderness business?
Man, God is in the quiet, in the stillness. You
know what's not in the wilderness, in the quiet?
Distraction. Busyness. Facebook. Sensationalized
news. Clickbait. AI generated news, politics,
the Bears blowing the playoff game. Just for
fun, I asked the internet, AI, what is the wilderness
in the story of Elijah? And this is what AI said.
Similar to other biblical deserts, this region
symbolizes a place of testing, preparation, and
profound encounter with God. Ooh, gospel from
a robot. God calls us into the wilderness because
he is there. He asks us to remove all worldly
distractions and spend time listening to him.
He will use that time to prepare us for our next
chapter. Remember my friend Matt that I talked
about that took me on the mission trip? Matt
says the part of Route 84 that goes along the
river from East Moline and you drive up to Port
Byron, he calls that the place that God hangs
out. Eagles, deer, beautiful forest, it's just
quiet and peaceful. The word for that is bucolic.
We have our farmland. That's what I call bucolic.
We have acreage out in the country. We go and
spend time. We have a horse now. We have some
chickens. A lot of trees. The only thing you
hear out there is the sound of the wind. Occasionally
a rooster, but not usually. The only thing that
ruins it for me is if I happen to pull out my
phone and look at something. But usually, I just
pull out my phone and take pictures of something
that I'm going to enjoy later. That's why I ask
about your peaceful place that you go to reach
out, unplug, get away. What wilderness is God
calling you to? What quiet place can you go to
spend time with him? Maybe it's the corner of
the coffee shop. Maybe it's on the couch with
a cat on your lap. There's so much busyness and
overstimulation around us all the time. Maybe
you can't hear God's voice because everything
around you is blasting at an 11. Maybe your wilderness
is not a physical location to retreat to, but
maybe it's a period of dryness in your spiritual
life. Maybe you are impatient about a development
in a health issue, a career change, a relationship
that needs mending. Maybe we can't see the other
side of the wilderness that we're in right now.
But we today have something that the prophets
and the Old Testament people did not have. We
have the knowledge that Jesus did come to earth
and fulfilled what the prophets proclaimed. that
the people needed a sacrifice. We live in a time
after Jesus revealed his glory and fulfilled
at least some of his promises in history. We
know that our Redeemer lives. Abraham and Moses
didn't get to see the fulfillment of the promised
land. Elijah passed his job on to Elisha. Even
John the Baptist was killed before Jesus came
into his glory and fulfilled the promises that
John had been proclaiming about him. He never
got to see the fantastic reality of what he was
opening the door to. I'm not saying that this
means it's easy for us to be in our wilderness,
rather that we can have hope that God is in control.
So why didn't these fathers of our faith see
the fulfillment in God's promises? Maybe because
they sought accountability through the law and
politics, pushing too hard on the system rather
than pushing into the spirit. This is something,
as I was writing this, and immediately after
Greg asked me, that I felt like God was teaching
me right now in this very moment. I've been involved
in pushing for some justice in the community
and finding out that sometimes the politics or
the law isn't the way to go, and God's been telling
me to pull back and recharge my batteries with
him in the wilderness. Recently, over and over
again, we have seen on the news and in our own
city how when we seek restoration through politics,
we are doomed to disappointment. The system is
flawed. People are flawed. God's kingdom, though,
is perfect, and we can bring it with us everywhere
we go. We live in New Testament times. Jesus
said that the least of those who are baptized
into the kingdom of God are even greater than
John the Baptist. Maybe God is asking you to
not be looking for an escape from your current
wilderness. Maybe you need to find out what he
wants you to learn while you're there. Don't
waste an opportunity to grow because you're impatient.
After all, the caterpillar doesn't snap one of
his fingers and become a butterfly. There's always
a slow transformative process that has to do
its work first. Maybe you need to listen for
the still small voice so you can hear how God
wants to transform you. I don't know where you
put that book, Greg. Here we go. So you guys
can peek at this later if you want. But researchers
had recently published this book about the anxious
generation talking about kids and society today.
And you know what they said? Kids need to go
outside and play in nature, experiment with physics
and take chances. The world around them needs
to be discovered. They will learn how to adapt
and change, not zone out on their phones and
flood their brains with all the worries of the
world. If that's what researchers say science
is proving about kids, What does that do to us
as adults? Can't be great. I think there's a
name for that, right? Oh yeah, doom scrolling.
When we are in stillness, we can read scripture,
we can pray, we can write, we can draw, talk,
fellowship, listen, experience, worship, meditate,
center. We simply need to be present with God
in the wilderness. It doesn't have to be a faraway
place. John the Baptist was based right off the
main road to Jerusalem, where people could find
him if they were looking for him. It's kind of
like when Greg is hanging out at one of the local
Starbucks. So I just ask that you would join
me in embracing this time in your life if you're
dwelling in the wilderness. Don't let the wilderness
be wasted. Be present in the waiting, listening.
Then sometime you can share your story with us.