Cage of Routine

Mark Batterson

Welcome to everybody at all four of our locations. Thanks for making NCC part of your weekend. I’m excited as we continue the Wild Goose Chase. Last week, we talked about Nehemiah and the cage of responsibility. Next week, we are going to talk about Abraham and the cage of assumptions. This weekend, we are talking about Moses and the cage of routine. If you have a Bible, turn over to Exodus Chapter 3.

A few years ago, I was part of a team of NCCers that went on a mission trip to the Galapagos Islands, and at the end of the trip, we flew back to Ecuador and made a five-hour bus trip through the Andes Mountains from Guia to Cuenca, Ecuador. And as we started our descent, we couldn’t see the top of the mountains because of cloud cover. It was almost as if the clouds formed this ceiling and we really couldn’t see beyond it. And we kept winding our way up to the top of the mountain and it was around 12,000 feet that we finally drove through the clouds and that cloud ceiling became like this celestial carpet and it was one of the most majestic sites I’ve ever seen. It was literally the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I was on top of the world, and I don’t have much of a camera, but I took a picture, and a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is the shot as we looked out and could not see below the cloud cover. I remember getting off the bus and I was so overwhelmed by the majesty of God’s creation that I started clapping because I didn’t know what else to do. I was so overwhelmed by how amazing it was, I felt like the Creator deserved a hand of applause. So I started clapping. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever had one of these moments or been in one of these places but it really defies words. The Celtic Christians had a name for it, they called them thin places. Places where heaven and earth seem to touch, where God seems to hold back the space time curtain and reveal just a little bit more of His glory, or places where, in a sense, the Wild Goose invades the reality of your life and you are never the same.

I think Exodus 3 is one of these moments for Moses. It’s a thin place, if you will. Moses is a fugitive. In his anger, he killed an Egyptian task-master and ends up fleeing Egypt and land in a place called Midian and for 40 years is on the back side of a desert tending sheep, and part of me wonders if Moses at this point feels rather forsaken or rather forgotten by God. 40 years is a long time, back side of the desert, middle of nowhere, and it’s there that we pick up this story in Exodus 3:1: One day, Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian. He went deep into the wilderness, near Sinai, the Mountain of God. Suddenly the angel of the Lord appeared to him as a blazing fire in a bush. Moses was amazed because the bush was engulfed in flames but it didn’t burn up. “Amazing,” Moses said to himself. “Why isn’t that bushing burning up? I must go over and see this.” When the Lord saw that He had caught Moses’ attention (we’ll come back to that phrase later on), God called to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” “Here I am,” Moses replied. “Do not come any closer,” God told him, “Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground.”

I said this last week, I’ll say it again this week, this is a series where I want to give you some homework. We are talking about six stories, or six cages, or six people from Scripture, and there’s no way we can unpack an entire biography in 30 or 35 minutes, so I want to encourage you to read the Bible, and if you have it, read the book. I want to encourage you to live in this during the week, but I want to hit a couple of the high points and make some observations from this story.

Moses has been tending sheep for 40 years. That’s 480 months, 2,080 weeks, or 14,560 days. He has had the same daily routine for 40 years, day in, day out, and I think that Moses must feel like he has been put out to pasture, and part of me wonders if Moses at this point is a little bit disappointed with his life. He has so much potential. For instance, Egypt, and I’ve got to think at this point, he’s gotten feel a little bit like an underachiever. Every day, he stares at the backsides of sheep. Not real exciting. I would suggest that 40 years later, Moses is caught in this cage of routine, but I love the first two words of this chapter, they are such hopeful words to me. One day. One day. I think, to me, it epitomizes what a relationship with Christ is about. When you are in relationship with Christ, all bets are off. You never know what you’re doing to do, where you’re going to go, who you are going to meet. You never know when or where or how God could invade the reality of your life and turn your life inside out and upside down in a single day. He can show up anyplace, anytime, and turn your life into a wild goose chase. For me, that fills me with holy anticipation. How I live my life. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do next. Now, I don’t want to paint a prettier picture than it is, cause I live in that daily routine too and I get caught in that cage, and sometimes life seems pretty monotonous. My days don’t start real glamorous, I get up, I walk Mickey, and I pick up his poop. That’s how my day starts. But I do live with this deep-seeded holy anticipation of what God is going to do because you never know how He can invade the reality of your life.

Let me make a 30,000-foot observation. I think we read stories about people in the Bible and because we know how they start and know how they end, we can read them in a matter of minutes, I think it’s easy to assume that they happened the way they were going to happen, but I think we also have to realize that these people have no clue. Like, you can’t tell me that a farmer named Noah had any idea that when he was about 500 that he would build this really big boat. No clue! I don’t think a shepherd named David knew that he would become king. I don’t think an orphan named Esther knew that she would become a queen. I don’t think that Elisha had any idea that he’d become a prophet and I think Moses thought that he would tend sheep until the day he died. I think he literally felt unqualified and disqualified. He had no idea that he would go back and confront Pharaoh and that he would become the human vessel that would reveal the glory of God in these ten miracles and he would be the one, after 400 years of captivity, lead the people of Israel out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land. Ah, but one day, one day. One day, God shows up. By the way, Jewish scholars used to debate why God would reveal Himself in a burning bush on the backside of the desert. I don’t know, it seems like there would be better places or ways to do it, like, ya know, lightning and thunderbolts are more impressive to me, and why not like one of the pyramids, or Pharaoh’s palace, those just seem like logical choices to me. Why a burning bush in the middle of nowhere? And those Jewish scholars came to this consensus; they believed that it was God’s way of showing that no place is devoid of His presence. Not even a bush on the backside of the desert. He can show up any place, any time, and I hope we live with that reality.

Let me try to bring it a little closer to home because Moses lived a long time ago. This week, I got a couple of emails, not from NCCers but from a few people who have begun the wild goose chase via The Book. I want to share their stories, they gave me permission to do it. Here’s one:

My adventure took me from a run for Congress in 1994 to full-time ministry as an administrative pastor from 196 to 2001. And in 2004, I purchased a successful commercial construction company that I never should have been able to buy that is providing more ministry and pastoring opportunities than I ever imagined possible. This move has allowed us to be involved in some foreign ministry opportunities from a Mexican orphanage to now sponsoring and supporting the creation of a village in Nicaragua. In addition, it has enabled us to adopt our fourth child from China. What is amazing is that I always thought I would end up in Congress one day. I even prayed back in 1997 at the same Senate fountain that you referenced in The Book, and there entrusted and committed that dream to the Lord. Where I am today seems a far cry from that, but the adventure is not over either. If you are living the great adventure, than life is full of surprises and incredible opportunities that God is just waiting for us to chase.

I love that because it reminds me again, I dare say, and this is true more for those who are younger than for those that are older, because life does become a little bit more defined, but we have no idea, do we? If you are really chasing the Wild Goose, you have no idea where you might end up.

Not long ago, I was a freshman at the University of Chicago, if you would have told me then that I would be living where I’m living and doing what I’m doing, I would have thought you were crazy. Not even in my consciousness, no idea. And NCC is filled with so many twenty-somethings and I dare say that many of you, you have no idea where you are going to be in ten years. That can be incredibly scary, can’t it? But it also goes by another name called adventure, and that’s where the sovereignty of God comes into play, and you just have to trust that the Wild Goose is going to get you where He wants you to go. That’s His business, it’s what He is good at.

Here’s one more email. It just puts a personal touch on what I was talking about.

I will turn 62 years old in November. I became a born again Christian when I was 16 years old and what a journey it has been. Five years ago, I was doing missionary work in the jungles of Guyana, South America. Now I’m working for the President of the United States. I have experienced what Nehemiah did, I get a desire and God starts a work in me and then opens the door when it is time. I’m excited about God and what He is going to do with me next.

When she emailed that to me, I thought, it’s a long way from Guyana to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But the Wild Goose knows how to get you from here to there. He knows how to get you from where you are to where He wants you to be. He knows how to get from Egypt to the Promised Land, He knows how to get from Babylon to Jerusalem, He knows how to get you from where you are to where He wants you to be. Here’s the beautiful thing, when you chase the Wild Goose, it will take you places you never imagined going by paths you never knew existed.

One day. I hope you’ll live with that reality, with that hope that God can invade your life just like Moses. It can change in a moment. Now, here’s the response, I want you to notice what Moses does, he is caught a little off guard. But I love this simple response. Can anybody predict how you would respond if God showed up to you in a burning bush?  I don’t know that we would have a real profound response, but I like Moses’ instinctual response, “Here I am.” Ok, God knows exactly where you are Moses, but thanks for sharing. But it’s more than that, it’s kind of like, here I am, like this cumulative 40 years of, “What am I doing here? What is God doing? I feel so forsaken and forgotten!” Finally, God shows up and Moses says, “Here I am.” Many of you know the story, he puts up some resistance. He second guesses himself, he second guesses God, but I want to suggest that this is where the Wild Goose chase begins, when you say, “Here I am.” I want to be very explicit during this series because I want you to see your history. This is not just about some self-absorbed attempt at adventure; it is so much more than that. 2,000 years ago, Jesus extended an invitation, He said, “Come follow me.” That invitation is still on the table, and the Wild Goose chase begins the moment we put our faith in Christ and decide to follow him. But here’s the mistake I think many of us make, we feel like God just came to save us from our sin. He does that, the moment we put our faith in Christ, when you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive you your sins and cleanse you from all unrighteousness. He takes care of the sin problem, He takes care of the past. But I think some of us live as if that’s it, good to go. But it is so much more than that. God takes care of the past to invite us into the future so that we can truly live the spiritual adventure so that we can realize the God-given potential that He has given to us.

Here’s a slant. I would also suggest that God came to save us from boredom. I mean, look at this story at face value. Moses has got to be bored out of his mind. Maybe occasionally, his flock would get attacked by a wild animal and there would be a little rush of adrenaline and it would be an exciting day for Moses. But the next day, back to staring at the backside of sheep. I think most days, I’m guessing that he was bored silly. Let me suggest, God is the one who created us with an adrenal gland. God is the one who designed us in a way that when we experience something exciting or adventurous, we experience a rush of adrenaline. Call me crazy, but I think it is a stewardship issue. I think we need to be a good steward of adrenaline just like we need to be good stewards of glucose or testosterone or dopamine or any other thing that God has created us with. Everything is a stewardship issue. Now, you know that I define sin as meeting a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. So I think what happens to a lot of us is we are just bored silly with our relationship with God, so we try to get that rush of adrenaline in the wrong way. Moses got a rush of adrenaline when he killed that Egyptian taskmaster, but it was sinful. But I want you to notice what happens. When God begins to redeem us and when we say, “Here I am, I’m going to chase the Wild Goose,” I want you to notice what happens. Do you think that Moses experienced a rush of adrenaline when he walked back in to confront Pharaoh?  I can feel it! What was Moses feeling? What a rush of adrenaline?  What about when he took that staff for the first time and he threw it down and it turned into a snake? What a rush of adrenaline, in a God-ordained way. What about the Egyptian army breathing down his neck, Red Sea right in front of him. What a rush of adrenaline?  Can’t you see the movie scene?  He walks through it! What a rush of adrenaline! It’s a holy rush of adrenaline. I think, I wonder if we have missed that part of the story. It’s the human side, the emotional side, so easy for us just to read it and miss the true dimension of what this story is about. Moses is bored silly and God came to rescue and saved him from his boredom and said, ‘Hey, let me invade the reality of your life and let’s see what happens.’ To me, I want us to live with that reality.

Notice, as we continue in the passage, verse 4, a significant phrase. Moses is tending sheep, sees the bush and when the Lord saw that He has caught Moses’ attention, God called to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” Now, the simple fact that God has to capture Moses’ attention tells me that God has lost Moses’ attention, or Moses had stopped paying attention to God. I think that’s what routine does. If you can stick with me here, I think this is huge, big when it comes to our spiritual potential and growing in a relationship with Christ. Just like responsibility that we talked about last weekend, routine is a good thing. We need routine. Without routine, life is absolutely chaotic. Most of us have a morning routine that involves a shower and toothpaste and deodorant. On behalf of your friends and family, continue with that routine, it’s a good thing. But here’s the catch 22, once a routine becomes a routine, you need to disrupt the routine. Let me put it in physiological terms. If you work out your muscles in the same way every time you go to the gym, eventually your muscles will adapt to the routine and you will stop growing, and what you need to do is confuse your muscles by disrupting the routine, maybe changing the order of the exercises, and your body will begin to respond again and grow again. The same thing is true spiritual routines, we call them spiritual disciplines, things like prayer and fasting and Bible study and fellowship, but it is so easy to learn how and forget why. It is so easy to go through the motions, so what happens is, at some point we stop worshiping God in spirit and in truth and we just go through the motions, like we are lip-syncing the words. Instead of really worshiping from this deep place deep in our soul where we really are thinking about what we are singing.

I read a study that found that after you sing a song 30 times, you no longer think about the lyrics. That has huge ramifications when it comes to worship. Maybe why the Psalmist six times says to sing to the Lord a new song. What happens is this, we start living out of left-brain memory instead of right-brain imagination. We stop creating a future and start repeating the past and our life is just like this empty ritual routine that doesn’t mean anything. God is like, ‘I’m over here!’ and sometimes He has to do something to catch our attention. We all know it happens in lots of different ways. Sometimes it is tragedy, isn’t it? The death of a loved one, or divorce papers, or a diagnosis or something that will shake you up, and sometimes that is what it takes for us to really ask what is going on, what is my life about, is there a God?  But I would like to think that it doesn’t always have to come to that. There are things we can do. This is where I want to get really practical. I want to talk about some ways that we can disrupt the routine. I want to share some things that have helped me, because I wish that pastors didn’t experience spiritual slumps, but we do. In some ways I think we are more susceptible because it is very easy to prepare for a sermon and not really be reading your Bible, to be more focused about what God wants to do through you than what God wants to do in you. I find myself in that ebb and flow all the time. So here are some things that have helped me and some things that I think can help us disrupt the routine. You ready for these? Jot these down. I think if you implement one or two of these, it will help you.

Number one. Try a new translation of the Bible. This is very simple, but different words cause different synapses to fight. It’s a very simple, neurological principle. The problem is that many of us have read the same version of the Bible so many times that we tune out, we don’t think about it because we know exactly how it is going to end. This is real simple, but I found that if I want to rejuvenate my devotional life, sometimes it is a simple as changing the translation.

Second way. Do a 40 day fast. It doesn’t have to be 40 days, but that’s a cool number that is a biblical number. 40 days seems to be significant. I think that fasting is one of these overlooked, under practiced spiritual disciplines that we read about but no one really does it. But we’ve tried at NCC, like with Lent or with other ways of making that part of our practice. I try to do a couple of fasts every year. Sometimes it is a New Years fast, it may be a ten day thing or sometimes Lent, or sometimes as we are getting ready to launch a new location, or sometimes I just use it as a way for God to prepare me for what He wants to do next. I’ve found that fasting is a great way to break a habit or build a habit. So you can fast food, or fast fast food, but you can also do other things, like fasting TV. I never do this during the NFL football season, because I’m not that spiritual, but during the off-season, sometimes I’ll fast TV for 40 days. You can fast different things. It’s a great way to mix up the routine.

Here’s a third way. Keep a journal. A gratitude journal, a prayer journal, a dream journal. All of us know people how have been Christians for 25 years but they don’t have 25 years of experience. They have one year of experience repeated 25 times because they aren’t learning the lessons that God is trying to teach them. Why? Because, they never really stop to think about it.

I journal, I’ve always journaled and I’ve found that is it one key to me really trying to process what God is trying to do in my life and it keeps life from becoming routine. Seriously, when I begin my day jotting down three things that I’m grateful for in my gratitude journal, it makes the day anything but routine, because I am noticing what God is doing and I am celebrating His blessing and it makes all the difference in the world.

Number four. Go on a retreat. This one is huge. We’ve got a great opportunity coming up with our Men’s Retreat September 19-20. All the information is in the bulletin. Some of you need to put this message into practice by going on that retreat. I know you have things to do, I know there is a big game that day, but you need to get out of the routine. Brian McLaren, in his book A New Kind of Christian, I love the way Brian captures this. He says:

I look back over my years of ministry and ask what has really helped people change and deepen spiritually. He says retreats among other things. Then he says — odds. We try to make our spiritual formation experience routine, but that maybe guarantees that they become less effective. The more intense and less routine the experience, the greater the impact. More spiritual formation takes place in a weekend retreat than in six months of weekly meetings.

I think that’s true. Guys, come on the retreat.

Number five. Go on a missions trip. This is about the seventh week in a row that we’ve said go on a missions trip. We are going to keep beating that drum.

Number six. Start serving. This one is huge, because let me just talk as a pastor who loves you. Tough love. I’ve found that in my experience, when I went to church, I would always look for a church that could feed me or challenge me, you want something that is going to be good for you, you like the worship and the message, it will help you grow. But if you aren’t careful, church can become all about you. It can actually become a really selfish thing. That’s why we encourage everybody at NCC to plug into a ministry because then it becomes about more than just you, and it makes it a more meaningful experience. We’ve got so many different ministries listed, pick one up at our Connections table. What a great time, coming back from August recess and vacations, get into a new routine of serving. So let me tell you about one opportunity, Convoy of Hope. What a great opportunity next Saturday to get out of our normal routine and serve people. It is going to be huge, this may be the biggest thing we’ve ever done quantitatively. We are expecting about 10,000 people and what we are going to do is very simple. We are going to roll up our sleeves and bless the socks off people and it is going to be awesome, and it won’t just be the people we serve who get blessed, it’ll be the ones who roll up their sleeves. So don’t just let it be another routine Saturday. Come out, serve, get involved and it will change your life.

Number seven. Plug into a small group. This is huge because this is what I want to suggest as a way to create a routine, kind of a weekly routine. I often tell couples, like if I’m doing premarital counseling, and I’m like this wonderful but you aren’t hearing a word I’m saying because you’re in love and you’re about to get married. I know the drill, I got married once. So I say to them that what they need to do after they get married is to plug into a small group, make it a part of that weekly routine so that every week you have this touch point as a couple where you are working on your relationship Whether you are single or a couple, the principle holds true, you need to create that routine in your life.

I hope those are some very practical ways to maybe disrupt the routine or create a routine. Let me make one last observation from this passage. The last verse says: Take off your sandals. What a fascinating command. Take off your sandals. Let me share one of my fundamental convictions. There are people who would say that they’ve never experienced a miracle. I would suggest that we are surrounded by miracles, that there are miracle all around us all the time. I think a fundamental dimension of spiritual growth is learning to recognize and appreciate the miracles that are all around us all the time. Did you know that right now there are approximately six trillion reactions taking place in every cell of your body every second? Your heart will pump about 100,000 times today without skipping a beat, we will inhale and exhale 23,000 times. A hundred things are happening in your body right now that we pay no attention to, digesting, reproducing new cells, purifying toxins, maintaining hormonal balance, converting stored energy from fat to blood sugar, repairing damaged cells. Those are just a few of the things that are happening in our bodies right now. When we the last time you thanked God for any of that stuff. Think about it. It is the human condition that we tend to take for granted. Things that are constant. The problem with God, I say it that way intentionally, the problem with God is this, He is so constant, He is so good at what He does, unconditional love, mercies new every morning, He is so good, so constant, we take Him for granted. Albert Einstein, pretty smart guy, said, “There are only two ways to live your life, one is as if nothing is a miracle, the other is as if everything is a miracle.” A poet by the name of Elizabeth Barrett Browning said it this way, “Earth is crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes, the rest sit around and pluck blackberries.” The fruit, not the phone. Isn’t that symbolic of walking around doing our blackberry thing and totally miss out on life because we are doing our blackberry.

So here’s the trick. I want to share one passage, one principle, then wrap it up. Deuteronomy 6, I’ll let you really reflect on this and process this, but it is the famous: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. Then it says: These commandments I give you today are to be upon your heart. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up. Hide them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gate. Why does God give such explicit instructions to have visible, tangible reminders?  I think it is because God knows that we tend to remember what we should forget and forget what we should remember. I don’t know if it is cool or cheesy but we are getting new tattoos. It seems like it might be a little bit over the top to bring in a tattoo artist for permanent tattoos but the temporary tattoo might be a little bit of fun because sometimes we need that reminder. It’s the Nazarite vow, the Israelites would take this vow and not cut their hair, not shave, because it was this tangible reminder when they looked in their ancient mirrors. We need those things. What this passage is saying is somehow you have got to bring God into the daily routine of your life. When you are sitting down, going out or coming in or having dinner or tucking your kids into bed. This is the trick. How do we do it? How do we consistently take off our sandals and look around us and say God is here, He is present. What’s absent is our awareness and what we’ve got to do is find ways to get out of that cage of routine and realize that the sun rose this morning and it will set tonight, and that alone is a spectacular miracle, a perpetual miracle. Unbelievable. We’ve got to live in that reality.

Most of us have heard or read this story so many times that the obvious eludes us. Here it is. The holy ground wasn’t the Promised Land. I think many of us live our lives saying, when I get there, you better believe I’m going to take off my sandals. When I get there to the Promised Land. I think God is reminding Moses that it is right here, right now. Take off your sandals. Celebrate who God is, what God is doing.

The Wild Goose chase isn’t just about getting to a particular destination, it is about enjoying the journey, the spiritual adventure that we are on. Living in the moment day in and day out. Seeing the miracles that are all around us all the time. It is about saying to God, “Here I am.” It is about taking off our sandals and worshiping God right here and right now. It is about a moment-by-moment sensitivity to the Holy Spirit that literally turns every day into a spiritual adventure. Let’s pray.

Lord help us. Help us. My guess is that many of us feel like we are a long way away from the spiritual adventure that You ordained for us. God, some of us are just so fixated on how, so focused on what we’ve done wrong in the past, no emotional energy left to even think about adventure or chasing the Wild Goose. God I pray that You would help us, that You would save us from our sins, but save us from our boredom God. Let us be a people that live by faith so that we experience that holy rush of adrenaline that comes from obeying You and living by faith. Lord I pray that You would help us disrupt the routine where it needs to be disrupted, that we would make some small changes in our lives this week that would make a huge difference in our lives. Lord I pray that we would be a people that learn to take off our sandals and see You, your presence. God I pray that You would once again invade the reality of our lives and turn our lives into what You originally intended them to be. Give us patience, let us enjoy the journey and not get too frustrated, too discouraged. For Moses, it was 40 years, that’s a long time. God help us. I believe sometimes Lord the most spiritual thing we can do is just hang in there. Some people here this weekend just need to hang in there, to hang in there, and believe that You are going to come in and make all the difference in the world. We offer ourselves to you, Here I am. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.