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What’s In a Name?

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by Pastor Ryan White

Elim Evangelical Free Church derives its name from an oasis in the desert.

In the Old Testament book of Exodus, we catch up with a ragtag group of former slaves as they trek across the sun-scorched wilderness of the Sinai Peninsula. They are on journey of rescue and becoming. Recently liberated from bondage in Egypt and having passed through the waters of the Red Sea, they desperately pursue their divine Deliverer as He leads them forward into newness and life.

We read in Exodus 15:27, “Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.” Stumbling into Elim was an unexpected grace. It provided much-needed refreshment and a haven from the heat. Yet as the road-weary Hebrews settled in for a time of rest and recovery, I wonder if they were struck by the resonant power of that place.

Elim was more than a pleasant watering hole. The landscape thrummed with divine communication. It was an oasis not just for the renewal of thirsty souls, but for the renewal of purpose.

Let me explain. Did you notice the 12 springs of living water? There just happens to be one for each tribe of God’s redeemed family. All will be able to drink their fill from these invigorating wells. Observe, too, the 70 date palms that encircle the springs, brought to life by their flow. Seventy is a symbolically significant number, representative of the 70 nations of the ancient world.

So what’s the message? Elim was intended to remind Israel of their ancestral call, to bring to mind God’s words to Abram in Genesis 12:1-3: “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. . . . And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

The Lord has called us to adventure, to leave what is comfortable and familiar and to journey with Him into a future packed with promise. And yes, He will bless us. We will drink deeply of God’s life-giving presence, but that renewal is not for us alone. It’s a renewal for the nations, for our sun-parched neighbors, friends, and coworkers. We are blessed to be a blessing.

This is an important lesson for us because it is easy to get offtrack living in the oasis of God’s renewal. It is quite easy to think of Elim as all about our restoration and zen. When we do, we’ll want to put up walls around it. “This is my life-sustaining pool. Don’t stick sweaty, dirt-caked feet into these clean waters. Also, get your herd of noisy, spitting camels out of here. You’re disrupting the bliss and magic of this place!”

It is my prayer that we would not miss the invitation of Elim. Yes, the water flows to restore us on our journeys, but it bubbles up so that it might be channeled through us, so that life might bloom in the dry desert of our city. As we emerge from this season of isolation and difficulty, may our church prove to be an oasis for renewal, but may the Lord also renew our purpose: to share His life with a thirsty world.

As Jesus said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).

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Family Chores

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By Dan Amos

Pastor Ryan’s sermon on Sunday on “Learning to Live as Life in the Family of God” didn’t talk about the more mundane aspects of being part of a family. There’s day-to-day stuff to take care of that I’ll call “chores.” Our “home” as a church family is the plot of land at the corner of 94th Ave and 128th Street E. It’s not fancy, but it does catch our neighbors’ eyes, and it takes some care to keep looking sharp. It needs the care of the unskilled, like me, and some with a particular set of skills.

Many Hands—and a Riding Lawn Mower—Make Light Work

The biggest needs are mowing, weeding, and trimming. We have a riding lawn mower and a gas-powered trimmer, but weeding just needs a pair of gloves. Lori Cantu has set up a lawn-mowing sign-up sheet online. You can also email me at Dan@elimefc.org. I’ll get with you to get a key to the shed and walk through the operation of the mower and show you the sprinklers to avoid.

Weeding can be done any time. Our islands and flower beds need adoption. Please keep safety in mind when working with other people at the same time.

Skilled Needs

The rain has been plentiful this week, but as always, we hope for sunny weather to come. When this happens, we need our sprinklers to keep the grass green and the flowers blooming. We have sprinklers for much of the landscaping, but they need some maintenance before we can turn them on. I’d love to help someone that knows what they’re doing and learn from them how to do it in the future. Please let me know if you can help with the sprinklers.

We’ll get the lawn mower to the John Deere dealer for some preventative maintenance, but some of the other equipment could use it too. If you have experience with small engines, this would be another place to serve. There’s a donated pressure washer that I can’t start too.

Lastly, if you have ideas or want to discuss ideas, I’d love to talk to you.

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What Are You Looking At?

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By Larry Short, Elder Chair

Turn your eyes upon Jesus
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of His glory and grace.
(Lyrics & music by Helen Howarth Lemmel, 1863–1961)

I’m currently working my way through Isaiah during my daily reading time. At first it was fun, but along about chapter 10 the prophet begins to pronounce God’s judgment, and it’s not pretty. He singles out arrogant Assyria, Babylon, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Cush, Egypt, Dumah, Arabia, Tyre, Sidon . . . even the holy city of Jerusalem.

And then, in case anyone feels left out, in chapter 24 Isaiah presents God’s judgment against the whole earth:

Behold, the Lord will empty the earth and make it desolate, and he will twist its surface and scatter its inhabitants . . . the earth shall be utterly empty and utterly plundered; for the Lord has spoken this word. (Isaiah 24:1, 3 ESV)

The rest of the chapter goes on to describe in chilling detail the disturbing events that will accompany this “emptying” judgment upon the earth for its sin: “Its transgression lies heavy upon it, and it falls, and will not rise again” (v. 20).

Should I keep reading? I wondered. Could it possibly get any worse than this?

Thankfully, in chapter 25 we find a dramatic turnaround, as the prophet begins to praise God for His ultimate victory over sin—what Isaiah calls “plans formed of old, faithful and sure,” as God “has done wonderful things.” The culmination of victory comes when God “will swallow up death forever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth” (Isaiah 25:8).

It will be said on that day, “Behold, this is our God; we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord; we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.” (Isaiah 25:9)

Encouraged, I continued reading into chapter 26, where this familiar verse jumped out at me:

You keep him in perfect peace
Whose mind is stayed on you,
Because he trusts in you. (Isaiah 26:3)

In the midst of all the turmoil and pain of God’s judgment poured out on a sinful world, it is possible to be “kept in perfect peace!”

When I had awoken this morning, before I read these words, I first checked the news. That’s not always a good idea. Pandemic deaths in the United States have topped 581,000, putting us on track to possibly equal or surpass deaths from the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic. The death rate seems to be slowing, thanks to immunizations and other measures, but of course, as we know, things can change quickly.

If the pandemic news is bad for us, it’s equally bad, if not worse, for millions of others. In India, the pandemic is a terrible disaster right now, with numbers quickly catching up to ours. They’ve just surpassed 400,000 new cases per day, with over 246,000 total deaths. Most sick people can’t even get into a hospital or have access to oxygen, so many are asphyxiating on the streets. A pall of smoke from overworked crematoria hangs over many cities in India.

Other nations also struggle: the virus is ravaging Brazil, France, Russia, and Turkey, among many others. And the global economic damage is almost incalculable. In February alone, the world saw a loss of more than $50 billion in trading revenue.

And there is plenty of other dire news to cause despair, from violence in Jerusalem to a bombing outside an Afghan school that killed dozens of schoolgirls and seriously injured hundreds.

But . . . you keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you!

What does it mean to “stay your mind” on God? I love the instruction in Hebrews 12:1-3 (NIV):

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

As we turn from our sin and the circumstances around us, the first gaze of the eyes of our hearts must be upon the face of our Savior, who has already won the battle that rages all around us. As we turn to Him, we offload the weight of the world around us, even that of our own sin!

We cannot ignore the world around us. Jesus Himself urged His disciples to lift up their eyes because the fields are white for harvest. Upon seeing the need of a hurting world, He had compassion for them, “because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” He responded by going throughout all the cities and villages, “teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.” And he calls His disciples to be co-laborers with Him in these fertile fields (Matthew 9:35-37).

Our Shepherd engaged with the suffering sheep of the world, but that engagement was rooted in “the joy that was set before him” and what was primary to Him, His relationship with His Father. As the compassion of Christ moves us to better reflect the heart of God for suffering people, how can we be the hands and feet of Jesus to a hurting world?

Our Savior, who sweat great drops of blood as He faced the agony of the cross, knew what perfect peace looks like! And He offers that to us, in the midst of all the pain and turmoil, sin and suffering within and around us. Will we start each new day by turning our gaze upon Him?

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Becoming a Fruitful Disciple

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By Beth White

Just before Jesus went meekly to his death, He gave His loved ones this insight: “By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples” (John 15:8).

We tend to struggle with these words. We think, “Ok, fruit is what He wants, so fruit is what I had better get.” But I believe that the Lord is far less concerned with the fruit we bear than with the roots of our tree and what we allow to nourish and water them.

Fruit is the product of something that starts much deeper, something unseen. That’s why bearing fruit proves that we are His disciples; the fruit cannot be borne unless we are connected to the True Vine (John 15:5).

When you and I read Galatians 5:22-23, we may feel convicted that the fruit of the Spirit is not flourishing abundantly in our lives. We may realize that we’re not very patient, for example, so we begin to pray for patience. While that is a good place to start, the fact is that we don’t gain patience by praying for patience. We grow patient by seeking the Lord first and trusting Him to lead us in the way we should go. The same may be said for all of the fruits of the Spirit. We allow the Lord to refine, or prune, our hearts, and the fruit begins to grow.

If we’re not bearing fruit, we don’t need to get fruit. We need to water our roots! Jeremiah 17:7-8 says, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

How do we tap our roots in to that source of everlasting water? Begin with prayer. It is the Lord who does the work; we must ask Him to do it in us. To read our Bibles daily is also essential, because through the Word of God we know God. Then, as we hear His words and do them, abiding in Him, we are conformed more and more to His image—we bear fruit.

It’s spelled out for us in 2 Peter 1:5-8: “Make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Take Him at his Word. There is much to be sacrificed if we are to live in this way, as His disciples, but He has promised that we will bear fruit.

Because our Father is patient, we should be too. Our job is simple obedience; it is His to determine the variety of fruit and its growth. We must say, “Look, Lord! My heart is a fertile garden with soft soil. I will water it with your words of life; grow in it what you will.”

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