Introduction
During the winter of 1940 Josephine
Kuntz' husband, a house painter and textile worker, was temporarily unemployed
because of the weather and a seasonal lay-off. It was a difficult time
for the family. They literally had no money. Their eighteen month old daughter,
Rachel, was recovering from pneumonia and wasn't doing well. The doctor
insisted Rachel eat a boiled egg each day, but even that was beyond their
means.
"Why not pray for an egg?" suggested
a young friend. They were a church-going family, but the idea of actually
praying for their needs was something they had never really considered.
Josephine wasted no time. On her knees she prayed that God would provide
an egg each morning for her daughter.
Later that morning Josephine heard
some cackling coming from the hedge fence in front of their home. Among
the bare branches sat a fat red hen. (This is a true story.) She had never
seen this hen before and had no idea where it came from. She just watched
in amazement as the hen laid an egg and then proceeded down the road. In
a moment the hen was gone but an egg sat in her yard.
What do you do under such circumstances
but thank God? The next day Josephine was startled once again to hear cackling
in the hedge. The red hen came by every day for over a week and repeated
this routine. Each day little Rachel had a fresh boiled egg. The little
girl got better, the weather improved, and Josephine's husband went back
to work. "The next morning I waited by the window and watched," Josephine
says, but the red hen did not return. ["The Little Red Hen." Josephine
M. Kuntz, SNOWFLAKES IN SEPTEMBER, (Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 1992),
pp 29-30.]
God takes care of His people, and
though we don't always see it in such striking and noticeable ways, the
Bible promises that He will take care of those who are His.
There is a beautifully graphic
description of God's care for Israel over in the 32nd chapter of Deuteronomy.
I would like to show it to you, then pick out one aspect of it that pictures
how God lovingly brings about change and maturity in the lives of His people.
Please turn in your Bibles to Deuteronomy 32:9-14. (Read and make short
comments)
9 "For the LORD'S portion is
His people; Jacob is the allotment of His inheritance. [Jacob
here, is Israel. He is talking about the nation that came from this one
man.]
10 "He found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of
a wilderness; He encircled him, He cared for him, He guarded him as the
pupil of His eye. [God came to the Israelites while they were in captivity
in Egypt.]
11 "Like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that hovers over
its young, He spread His wings and caught them, He carried them on His
pinions. [God stirred them up and taught them to fly in freedom as
opposed to the the slavery they had known for over 400 years.] 12 "The
LORD alone guided him, and there was no foreign god with him. 13 "He made
him ride on the high places of the earth, and he ate the produce of the
field; and He made him suck honey from the rock, and oil from the flinty
rock, [After God brought Israel out of Egypt, he blessed them and gave
them the land of Canaan, a land "flowing with milk and honey."] 14 Curds
of cows, and milk of the flock, with fat of lambs, and rams, the breed
of Bashan, and goats, with the finest of the wheat-- and of the blood of
grapes you drank wine."
The passage goes on to say that,
in spite of all God did for Israel, they ultimately turned away from Him
and turned to idols. We'll save that part for another day.
What I want to zero in on is verse
11, the statement that pictures God's care being like to the eagle caring
for her young. Let's read it again.
11 "Like an eagle that stirs
up its nest, that hovers over its young, He spread His wings and caught
them, He carried them on His pinions."
What a beautiful picture of how
God deals with his people! A mother eagle training her young to fly. In
the same way the eagle deals with her young, God dealt with Israel and
deals with us today. Let's look more closely at the picture which, in this
message, I'm calling "God's Flight School."
There are at least seven stages
that a young eagle goes through when learning to fly. These stages are
also evident in God's "training" us to live the life of faith. That is
the basis of the comparison. As I describe them to you, listen and see
if you recognize any of them in your life. I'll give them to you first,
then come back and explain each one. The seven stages are:
(1) Demonstration, (2) Discomfort,
(3) Danger, (4) Decision, (5) Direction Change, (6) Doing (7) Deliverance.
(My Thesaurus really got a workout this week!) First, then, we'll consider,
1. The Demonstration
Stage
As the time draws near for a young
eagle to begin flight training, to the mother eagle will frequently push
off from the perch where the nest is and hover above her young. In response,
the eaglets begin to flap their wings wildly in imitation. It's as natural
and instinctive for them as breathing.
That is what verse 11 is referring
to when it says the eagle "hovers" over its young. At this stage
the eaglets don't have enough feathers to fly, but they begin to develop
their wing muscles. The key word here is demonstration. The eagle demonstrates
flying for her young and they imitate her in response.
What a great picture to describe
what God has done for us through Jesus! Jesus came to earth as Immanuel,
"God
with us," the Bible says. He demonstrated the kind of faith and life
we should be leading.
We read in Romans 5:8 that "God
demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us."
In 1 Timothy 1:16 we read, "And
yet for this reason I found mercy, in order that in me as the foremost,
Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience, as an example for
those who would believe in Him for eternal life."
God hasn't left us to figure things
out on our own. He has cared enough about us to give us a living demonstration.
Remember when Jesus said, "If you've seen Me, you've seen the Father"?
Jesus was and is the perfect and indispensable demonstration of how we
should live the life of faith.
You know, among churches of Christ
in the past, we've spent a lot of time in Acts and the Epistles learning
about the structure of the church. That's great. We should do that. I wonder,
though, if we've spent as much time as we should in the gospels, getting
to know Jesus? Do we put forth as much effort in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, as we do in Acts?
Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy
2:8, "Remember Jesus..." We must not forget the One who is the embodiment
and demonstration of all we are called to be!
The next stage in the training
of young eagles, and God training us is what I'm going to call
2. The Discomfort
Stage
In verse 11, it says, "Like
an eagle that stirs up its nest..."
It's one thing for those young
eagles to flap their wings in the security of their down-filled home. It's
quite another for them to move to the edge, look over, and imagine stepping
out on nothing! Naturally, they don't want to do it. So the adult eagle
does something the young eagles won't understand until later. She begins
"stirring up" the nest! She actually begins to poke through the bottom
and tear the nest apart. The young eagles are literally forced to fly.
What often happens to us at this
stage of God's teaching the faith-life is that we begin to be bothered
about something. We recognize that something isn't right. We begin to get
a little worried, a little anxious. There is a growing uneasiness in us.
Something is out of whack and we don't quite know what it is, or if we
do, we are ignoring it. Like Job in Job 30:27, we might say, "My heart
is troubled and restless..."
It can be about anything that is
bothering us. A relationship. An unfulfilled dream. A stress in our lives.
A fear. A weakness. An indulgence. We find ourselves thinking, "One of
these days I'm going to have to start working on that." The trouble is,
like the eaglet is reluctant to get too close the edge of the nest, we,
too, are reluctant to move out of our comfort zone and face whatever it
is.
This is God stirring up our nest.
He's getting us ready for change. He wants us to face something we've not
faced before, so He makes us uncomfortable. Do some of you know what I
mean?
Perhaps He wants us to face our
neglected finances. Maybe it is a relationship he wants us to mend or maybe
even one He wants us to break off. Whatever the case, there is a growing
discomfort and uneasiness in us that is hard to ignore.
You know, the sad thing is that
some people live their entire lives in this stage. They cling to their
nest like terrified eagle chicks, afraid to do anything about their problem.
They'd rather live with discomfort than risk flying. "At least the discomfort
is predictable," they think. "If I were to change, who knows what might
happen?"
When we find ourselves stalled
at the discomfort stage, we might understand why God brings us to the next
stage of our learning. I've called it
3. The Danger
Stage
Eventually, in the case of eagles,
the mother eagle gets all the kids out of the nest. We know that for sure.
Have you ever seen a full grown eagle still perched in the nest of its
parents, peeping like a baby for them to bring him something to eat? No,
you haven't, because one way or the other, he gets booted out of the nest
with nothing between he and the hard ground but air. He either learns to
fly or falls to his death. Eagles weren't meant to be nest-sitters. They
were meant to fly! This danger stage isn't mentioned directly in verse
11, but it is certainly implied.
Now, what does that say to us?
What I think it says is that God often allows a danger or a crisis to come
into our lives that moves the issue we're ignoring off the back burner.
He sends us a wake up call. All of a sudden the pain gets so bad we can't
ignore it anymore. Suddenly we get fired or we have an accident or a serious
illness. Perhaps a spouse threatens to walk out or a creditor starts foreclosure.
Like the eagle's nest, the bottom falls out from under our lives and we
realize we've got to do something - fast!
It has probably happened to all
of us. It happened to King David. In Psalm 119:67, it says, "Before
I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Thy word." It took a
crisis of affliction to show David the need to learn to keep God's word.
If you are in a crisis right now
or have had one recently, could this be the reason? Is there something
you've been ignoring?
Remember, God wants you to fly,
not flutter in the nest. He wants you to grow up!
Well, the danger stage quickly
moves us on to the next stage in our training, whether we like it or not.
I've called it
4. The Decision
Stage
The nature of danger or a crisis
is that it forces us off the fence or, to use our analogy, out of the nest.
We have to decide, "Am I going to move ahead or am I going to retreat?
Am I going to face this or try to run away?
With the nest suddenly gone out
from under him and the ground coming up fast, the young eagle has a choice
to make. He realizes, "I've gotta do something - Now!" So he chooses to
fly or fall - to soar or smash on the rocks below - literally, to live
or die.
God often forces us to that place,
have you noticed? Especially if we are reluctant to grow or pay attention
to the need to grow.
In my own life 23 years ago, I
was faced with a danger. I was going to lose my family - or at least have
to get into a bloody court battle to hang onto part of it. My wife said,
"I'm filing for divorce!" I said, "I'm becoming a Christian!" I knew my
life wasn't right with God, but I was putting off making a decision. Several
Christians had tried to teach me, but I was too comfortable. I was having
too much fun. It took real danger to make me come to a decision.
If you are ignoring what you know
is right like I was, whether you are a Christian or not, what is it going
to take to get you to come to a decision?
Is God dealing with you right now?
Is this the issue? Is it your stubbornness or neglect? When will you decide?
The next stage is so close to the
decision stage that I was tempted to put them both under the same heading,
but there is a difference I need to point out, so I've called the next
stage,
5. The Direction
Change Stage
The young eagle, falling fast,
has decided he must do something. What is it? He must change direction!
He must start going up instead of down.
When we're talking about our response
to God's dealing with us, the decision stage and the direction change stage
are called repentance.
Repentance is a decision to turn
away from evil and turn back to God. It takes place in the mind. In that
way it is a decision, but since it is a decision to change, there will
soon be a direction change that results.
Sometimes we are reluctant to change
direction. Often it is because we haven't really made a decision to change.
Oh, we were sorry things were the way they were. We even cried some real
tears over it. But we never really turned loose. We never really changed
our minds.
Often Christians struggle with
sin. They are sorry for the struggle. They don't like the prospect of the
consequences. They might even come forward in church and let the whole
church know. But there is no direction change as a result.
Paul warned us in 2 Corinthians
7:10, "For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces
a repentance without regret, leading to salvation; but the sorrow of the
world produces death."
According to that verse, you can
have two people side by side who are sorry about their sins. Looking at
them, they both look like candidates for eternal life. Yet, one of them
goes to heaven, the other goes to hell. The difference? One of them had
a sorrow that produced repentance - a change of direction. The other was
just sorry. There was no repentance.
What are we talking about? We're
talking about God teaching us to fly - to live the faith life in a way
that is pleasing to Him and brings us to maturity. He uses these stages
to do it: Demonstration, Discomfort, Danger, Decision, Direction Change.
There are still two more stages
before we will be competent fliers. Bear with me, they're short. The next
is:
6. The Doing Stage
The adult eagle can teach her young
to fly but she cannot fly for them. They must do it. Have you ever seen
two adult eagles flying piggy-back? Neither have I. It doesn't happen.
Flying takes effort on the part of each individual.
The Bible says in Galatians 6:5,
"Each
on shall bear his own load..." In the realm of our learning to walk
the Christian walk, we must put forth effort. The very common "do nothing"
religion around us is false. It is an aberration of the devil. It is a
cheap substitute for the faith of the Bible.
Does this mean that we get to heaven
on our own merits? Not at all! But God wants us to learn to fly.
Consider this: God often gave his
blessings in Scripture while the recipients of the blessings were in the
midst of obedience.
Remember when Israel crossed the
Red Sea? Moses said "Move forward!" The people obeyed. Then when
the feet of the priests touched the water, it divided.
When they crossed the Jordan on
their way to the Promised land it was the same way. They moved forward,
put their feet in the water, and it divided.
When Jesus cleansed the ten lepers,
he told them to go present themselves to the priest. Then, "as they
were going, they were cleansed." (Luke 17:14)
The eagle learns to fly by striving
against the gravity that is pulling him down - in short, by flying.
This sixth step of doing is critical
to the young eagle's learning to fly and it is critical to our growing
up in Christ. We need to get with it when it comes to doing right. It is
also critical to the final step, which I've called:
7. The Deliverance
Stage
This one is beautiful and it's
right in the text. Look again at verse 11: "He spread His wings and
caught them, He carried them on His pinions."
I am told that the adult eagle
will actually swoop down and catch her falling offspring on her back and
carry them back up to the home perch. What a beautiful picture of what
God does for us!
Paul told young Timothy in 2 Timothy
3:11, "What persecutions I endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered
me!"
In Psalm 34:19 we read, "Many
are the afflictions of the righteous; but the Lord delivers him out of
them all."
In 2 Peter 2:9, the Apostle tells
us, "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation..."
You see, God doesn't leave us to
do it on our own. It's just that we must be about the doing in order for
the deliverance to come. The promise of deliverance is there. We must believe
it and move ahead. We must be striving to fly even if we can't quite do
it yet.
Conclusion
Is God teaching you how to fly?
If you are a Christian, there is no doubt about it! How is your personal
"flight school" going? Are you cooperating or copping out?
Have you seen any or all of these
stages of God's flight school in your life? You can be sure they are there
now or will be there soon.
What is your attitude toward them?
Are you focused on the goal of being able to go "solo" or are you clinging
to the comfort of the nest? Be sure that God will stir it up if you are
reluctant.
And maybe, just maybe, you've wondered
what is going on in the midst of all this. Maybe you've had some rough
times recently and haven't been able to figure out why. Perhaps now you
have your answer.
Be sure of these things:
 |
God
does want you to learn to fly. |
|
He
will put you through flight school. |
|
You
can ignore it, but it won't stop the process. |
|
You
can resist it, but it won't stop the process. |
|
You
can cooperate and learn to fly for Him! |
Will you pray with me?
Lord, thank you for being patient
with us. Thank you for not giving up on us even when we have not cooperated
with You. I pray that You will help us see Your hand in our lives - even
in the details. When we can't see those details, I ask that you would strengthen
us to trust You. Father, if there are people here this morning who don't
know You or who have known You but for whatever reason have turned aside,
I pray you would help them to see You clearly now. Draw them near to You
I pray. Use this message, if it pleases You, to draw all of us to you.
Thank You. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
*Dave Redick is editor of The Preacher's
Study. The majority of sermons in the Premium section are his writing.
hit since 10/14/99
