Red Sea Moments: Embracing Waiting and Trusting God’s Glory

Bill Bundy: Good morning, LCU.
We are really blessed today to have Dallas Jenkins with us,
and we have Steve Nohava with us as well that travels with Dallas.
It's already kind of been a great day for me,
and I get to introduce Dallas to you as he's going to speak to us in chapel.
Dallas told me I could say what I wanted.
Scott McDowell told me to stick to the script.
So I'm going to kind of do a little bit of both.
But the movie trailer that you just saw, about 9 o'clock tonight,
you need to be back here and watch the movie.
It's going to be a great movie after Dallas speaks to us.
But Dallas is the son of left-behind author Jerry Jenkins,
and he first produced an independent feature, "Hometown Legend," at the age of 25.
Got that all the way through by Warner Brothers, and it was distributed by them.
And his 25 years since then, he's directed and produced a dozen feature and short films
for companies such as Universal, Lionsgate, Pure Flix, Hallmark Channel, and Amazon.
His latest, we just saw the trailer of the greatest, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever,
will be in theaters in November.
And I don't know, this might be a first that Lubbock Christian University
actually hosts a premiere of a movie. I don't know.
I'm going to say it is just because I want to, all right?
And nobody's fact-checking.
But it's going to be a fun day. It's going to be great.
I'm glad Dallas is spending some time on the campus with us.
And let's give Mr. Dallas Jenkins a great, warm LCU welcome.
: [applause]
Dallas Jenkins: I want to share with you what it says right here on the podium.
"Please keep at least six inches from mic."
"No, really, back off!"
I just, that's an aggressive welcome.
So, thank you for being here.
I know, I've been in your seat.
I was, when I was a college student, I attended Chapel five times a week, actually,
was our requirement.
I know that sometimes it's an excuse to nod off or to get ahead on homework or something.
I know that you don't always want to be here, but I do appreciate that you're here.
And because of this, because I was asked to speak in Chapel, I thought,
"Okay, what, when I was in Chapel in college, what is something I would have liked to have heard
or something that could have impacted me in some way that I wish I would have known then that I know now?"
And so, just for the next few minutes, I'm going to do my best to get you out of here quickly.
But I do want to share something that reflects some of the last few years of my life
that I think if I would have learned when I was sitting in your seat, I could have avoided a lot of pain.
So, as you may know, I am the creator of the show "The Chosen,"
and about seven years ago is when that show first launched.
It was launched out of failure.
I had failed in a movie that I had made for big Hollywood production companies
and had been distributed all over the country, and it was a huge bomb.
And when I was home alone with my wife, I was really thinking, "This is it. I have missed my calling, apparently."
I thought that I was called to do movies and television.
I thought that impacting culture through media was something that God had called me to do,
and this was such a huge failure, and the opportunities that had been developing for me all went away.
And I thought, "Maybe I missed it, and maybe I'm supposed to be doing something else."
And so I genuinely got to the place where I was willing to not make another movie or show.
And, long story short, some of which I'll be sharing tonight,
"The Chosen" kind of came out of the short film that I did for my church's Christmas Eve service,
and as I stand before you today, it is by all objective measures one of the biggest shows in the world.
And I'm not saying that with any arrogance. I'm actually saying that as a setup for what I want to share with you.
So over the last few years, we've been filming every year, a season every year,
and one would think that because of the success of the show, things have gotten easier.
That my career, my opportunities have made my life much easier and much more stable and secure.
And what's interesting is the opposite has happened, and I want to talk to you about that,
because I think that's going to happen to you probably already now, but also for the rest of your life.
And I want you to learn now what I wish I would have learned.
And so I'm going to put up a picture real quick, if you don't mind.
This is one of the lowest and scariest moments of my experience making "The Chosen."
This happened during season three. That's me with my arms folded. You can see my face.
The back is a gentleman who's one of our set decorators.
And we are standing in a lake here in Texas. We filmed the show in Texas.
And I live in Texas now. It makes sense because most Texans believe Jesus lived here anyway.
So, and when he comes back, he's coming to Texas first.
But we were filming at a lake here in Texas that's supposed to represent the Sea of Galilee in Israel.
And a couple weeks earlier, before we filmed on this day, the radar was telling us that it was going to be raining all day.
And when it rains all day, you obviously can't film unless rain is part of your filming process.
And it's not for this day, for the scenes that we were going to be shooting.
We had two really long scenes, very challenging.
When you're filming, by the way, the number of pages you film per day usually works out to how many hours it's going to take to film, times two.
So meaning if I have four pages to film that day, it's usually going to take us about eight hours to film.
Each day of filming typically is 12 hours. Those are the rules.
And sometimes you go into overtime. And I'm sharing all this for a reason.
So we had eight pages of filming to do that day, which would typically take us 16 hours, but we only had 12 hours to shoot.
And also you're limited by daylight. You're limited by how long the sun is in the sky.
Once the sun went down, we were done.
And so leading up to this day of filming was very scary because we only had one day.
When you're filming at a public lake like that, it's not like you can just have unlimited access.
And so they were willing to let us have it for one day. We couldn't come back.
And so this was our day to get these two scenes that were supremely important.
And so while I was preparing for that day, very nervous, out of my control.
And my wife, Amanda, said something about a week leading up until filming.
And she said, I have been really praying about the show and praying about the weather this year because it's been challenged a lot of it.
Because I just feel like God is really powerfully putting it on my heart very clearly that you're going to be okay.
This is his project. He has done this many times before. This is another Red Sea moment.
And so I said, well, I hope you're right. I wish you wouldn't have told me that because now my hopes are up.
And I don't want to get my hopes up and then be disappointed.
And who knows if it's actually God putting this on your heart or not.
Sometimes when we think we hear God's voice, sometimes it's our own heads or our own hearts trying to reassure us of something.
Sometimes it's the enemy talking to us. We're not always sure.
And we always try to test it by scripture or by time or by someone in our life who's a mentor.
And you can say, I feel like God's putting this on my heart. What do you think? And let's pray about it.
And so this is one of those cases where my wife, who is typically right about these things, was getting my hopes up.
And she said, I think you're going to be okay.
I think God's putting it on my heart to make sure that you just stay calm and stay focused.
And I have a hard time with that when I'm anticipating something that's going to keep me from doing what I want.
Keep me from doing what it is that I've prepared for.
And you prepare a ton to do a day of filming. And every day of filming costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The axiom time is money truly matters more in movies than anything else.
You've got a crew of 150 people. You've got cast. They're all being paid by the hour.
And on a project like ours, which doesn't have billions of dollars at our disposal from a big studio or network,
we have limited funds. And so every day matters. Every hour matters.
So we get to that day of filming. And the good news is there's no rain.
The bad news is what you saw in that picture was the fog was so thick that we couldn't see 20 feet in front of our faces.
So I'm going to take you back for a second to that phrase I just gave you from my wife when she said it was a Red Sea moment.
So Red Sea moments, that term was devised by my wife a couple of years earlier when we were at one of the 50 per year situations that we are in where God puts us in a spot where there doesn't seem to be a way out.
We're not sure what's next. We don't know how to do it. All of my ideas have not worked.
My plans, my hopes, we get to that point where they are supposed to become reality and they don't.
And so sometimes we've been sitting there just waiting and then with mind numbing regularity with our show, God provides something that allows us to proceed.
And it's always better than what we had thought.
So my wife, one time when we were at this stage where we had no place to film for season two and we were looking for all these properties and everything kept being denied,
and then finally we had this great opportunity and at the last minute they said no and I called my wife and I said, they just said no, we're not going to get this.
I don't know where we're shooting this year.
And she said, no, God had put it on our hearts that we were going to be filming here.
I just think this is God taking you to the edge of the Red Sea so that when the waters part, you know it's him.
This is God taking you to the edge of the Red Sea so that when the waters part, you know it's him.
I'm saying it twice because when that happens, you sometimes wonder why.
Why does this matter?
So we started calling these moments Red Sea moments and this was a Red Sea moment.
I'm sitting in the water, standing in the water in the fog, have no idea when we're going to be able to film.
Three hours go by, we haven't started filming.
Four hours go by, we haven't started filming.
The day is getting shorter and shorter and we have less and less time to film eight pages of filming which would normally take so long.
I'm texting my wife Amanda and I'm going, this is bad, this is bad, we're not filming.
And she's like, I know, I know, Red Sea moment, Red Sea moment.
I'm like, stop saying that because the radar is telling us that the fog is going to last until now two o'clock in the afternoon and then it moved to three o'clock and so we're freaking out.
Well let's talk about that moment, that Red Sea moment when you're at the edge of the Red Sea like I was.
Exodus 14 is the passage of scripture that is about the crossing of the Red Sea.
It's a story that I'm sure you've heard many times.
You've probably seen it in movies or in trailers or whatever.
And we know the story but I don't know that we think often about the moment before the big miracle.
So I'm going to read a couple of parts of Exodus 14 to you.
"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Tell the people of Israel to turn back and encamp in front of,'"
and then a bunch of weird Old Testamenty names, "Pahairoth," between Migdal and the Sea in front of Beal, Zephon.
You should, I don't, learn these in your classes.
"But," says, "you shall encamp facing it by the sea.
For Pharaoh will say of the people of Israel, 'They are wandering in the land. The wilderness has shut them in.'
And I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them."
So God is telling Moses, who's just led the Israelites out of slavery
and they've finally escaped after decades of being stuck in slavery and now they're free.
And God is saying, "Go put them in this spot where there's nowhere to go."
And he uses the word "encamp."
So don't just get there and then hang for a moment and then you'll go around the sea.
He says "encamp," as in like get comfortable, set up camp.
"I will harden Pharaoh's heart and he will pursue them.
And I will get glory," I'm emphasizing that word for a reason, those two words,
"I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host.
And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord." And they did so.
So when Pharaoh was told that the people had fled, his mind changed.
He said, "We're going to go." He sends all of the chariots, 600 chosen chariots,
and all the other chariots of Egypt with officers over all of them.
"The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued the people of Israel.
The Egyptians pursued them, all Pharaoh's horses and chariots and horsemen in his army,
and overtook them, encamped by the sea." So again, they're encamped there.
"When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes.
And behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly,
and now they're upset." Now they're like, "You brought us out here,
out of slavery, and now it's even worse.
Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?
What have you done to us, bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt?
Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? We told you this was going to happen.
We said, just let us be enslaved." They preferred enslavement over freedom,
if freedom meant challenge like this. "Moses said to the people, 'Fear not, stand firm,
see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today.
For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again.'"
I love that phrase, it's so snarky. "The Egyptians whom you see today, you won't be seeing them again.
The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." Isn't that interesting?
Don't do anything, just encamp, just be quiet. "Then the Lord said to Moses, 'Lift up your staff,
stretch out your hand over the sea, and divide it, that the people of Israel may go through the sea on dry ground.
And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians, so that they shall go in after them."
So they're going to follow you into the sea. Then he says it again,
"I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host." He says it again,
"And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord, when I have gotten glory over Pharaoh,
his chariots and his horsemen." "Get glory," he says it three times, in just a few verses.
Just in case you were wondering why I want you to do this.
"Then Moses stretched his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back, so the waters parted.
The Egyptians walked through it." They're looking behind them.
I'm sorry, the Israelites walked through it, the Egyptians are behind them.
So the Israelites look behind them, they see the Egyptians coming,
they get to the end of the Red Sea, and now he stretches out his hand again,
and the waters collapse on the Egyptians.
"And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea.
The waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen.
The people of Israel walked out on dry ground through the sea,
the waters being a wall to them on their right and on their left.
The Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians."
That's awesome. "Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians,
so the people feared the Lord."
Alright, encamp at the Red Sea. That's where I'm at.
Out in the water, in the fog.
My wife is saying, "Red Sea moment." This is that moment where God sometimes puts you there.
You're encamped. Well, I'm definitely encamped.
So now we get to noon, six hours into the day, since we started at 6 a.m.
It's lunchtime. Now we're strategizing.
We're not going to get both of these scenes today. Can we cut one of them?
If the fog is still here at 3 or 4, but maybe it will lift just in time and we can shoot something.
Get past lunch, oh my goodness, it's thickening.
The fog won't go away.
And now the radar is telling us it's going to be here until 8 o'clock.
So we call it.
So 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we say, "I think we're going to have to start preparing for tomorrow."
So I talk to the crew.
The crew starts packing up.
The boat that we were going to be on, the little Galilee boat, the first century boat that was out in the water,
we pull that in.
And I go to the trailers to tell the cast we're going to have to cut these scenes.
And they're devastated.
Now it's 3 o'clock after we've all started wrapping up, hoping that something would change and it didn't.
And so I haven't even had time to text my wife and tell her that she was wrong,
because we're just giving the bad news to everybody else.
I get to the trailer to tell the actors, and they're devastated.
They prepared for weeks for this scene.
These are good scenes.
I'm like, "I don't know how we're going to be able to get back here."
And one of them lives in Australia.
We're not going to be able to afford to get you back, and so I think we're going to have to call it.
So they're upset. I'm upset.
As I go to leave the trailer, I look out the window, and I can see the other side of the lake.
And this is the first time all week that I've been able to see the other side of the lake.
Certainly the first time that day.
I'm like, "That's funny. I can see clearly."
And I start hearing yelling.
And walkies going.
People going, "Get back, get back, get back!
The fog's gone, the fog's gone, get back! Everyone go back to the shore!"
I see cars that are leaving the parking lot, turning around and coming back.
I'm like, "What's going on? The radar said the fog..."
I'm looking at the radar.
The fog's still here. It's supposed to be here until 8.
So I rush down to the shore.
The fog has lifted.
And I'm going, "What in the world is going on?"
And one of our crew members was down at the shore.
And he said, "As soon as we were pulling the boat onto the truck..."
I'm not exaggerating when I say this.
The fog literally went...
And in less than 5 minutes, it lifted.
Now, it didn't go away. It lifted.
So now you can look up and you can see this kind of thick layer of fog.
And he's like, "And all the Texans are there..."
Because we don't have much fog where I originally came from.
So I'm like, "All the Texans are going, 'I've never seen this happen before.
It's just gone in less than 5 minutes.
It normally dissipates slowly, if anything, but we can't believe this.
So we're rushing, we're hustling."
And we go, "All right, so we've got now a little less than 4 hours
before the sun goes down to shoot 8 pages.
Clearly, we're not going to be able to do it.
So what we're going to do is this first scene,
we're just going to shoot...
Just get a couple of shots and see if it works,
and then we can go on to the next scene.
And if we get anything, even just one shot,
my director of photography is telling me there's no chance.
We have to just do this right.
So we go ahead and get that first scene, and we're shooting it.
Now, typically, when you're shooting a scene,
you're shooting in multiple directions.
Not at once, but you shoot this direction here,
then you shoot this direction here, and you need a bunch of equipment
to kind of block the sun so that it's even and it looks right
and the sun's moving.
Well, in this case, the fog was covering the sun,
so everything was even already, so we didn't have to do all that stuff.
So we're flying. We get the scene done in like an hour and a half.
It never happened before.
Like, "Well, let's go out in the water. Let's try to...
Let's keep going."
So we go out, 5-page scene out in the water.
The actors are all prepared. We get that scene done.
Done, done. Like, we're shooting and shooting and shooting
every angle we can in the sun
because while the sun is going down,
because the fog is up, it's reflecting the sunlight
back down to us, and so the day lasts 2 hours longer
than it normally lasts.
While the sun is going down, we end up in 4 hours
getting everything that we had needed
in all the angles possible
in absolute first.
And so I'm... I literally...
We say, "Cut. The day is done. We got everything that we needed."
And I just burst into tears.
Genuinely, I'm going, "Oh, my goodness. We got it.
I don't understand this," right as we were getting ready to leave.
And so, finally, I text my wife,
who hasn't heard from me in 5 hours,
and I'm like, "Funny story."
[laughter]
Now,
you might be thinking,
"It's a coincidence.
Like, why would God
do all that in the first place?
Why put you in that spot in the first place?"
I had that same question. I'm like, "Why didn't he just have the day go normal?
Why not just
let the fog not be there
in the first place and shoot a normal day?"
Well, this has happened with us
so...
with such regularity,
I've stopped disbelieving it.
Because as The Chosen
has gone from
a short little film that I did
for my church,
some crowdfunded thing that we did for season 1,
and turned into one of the most
viewed shows in the world,
God is repeatedly,
over and over and over again,
saying, "I will
get glory."
And in your life,
right now, as you are a student,
when you graduate,
and you're looking for a job,
when you are getting engaged,
when you're married, when you have children,
I'm telling you, for the rest of your life,
if you can get comfortable
camping at the edge of the Red Sea,
it will be a superpower.
If you can get to the place
where that moment,
where you are waiting, and you don't know
if the Red Sea is going to part
because it's not up to you,
and if you can be comfortable there,
what the Red Sea parting looks like
will be different for everyone in this room.
For me, it was getting a day of filming
and saving our butts while we were in deep trouble.
While God was
consistently reminding me,
"I will get glory. When the waters part,
you will know it's me. When the fog lifts,
you will know it's me.
You are not in control."
And the moment that I forget that,
God will take this stuff away.
The moment that I start to take credit for,
or think that the growth of this show,
or the growth of my life, or anything that I get a chance to do,
is for any other reason than to give Him glory.
He will happily take it away.
He does not need me.
So I implore you now,
as you are at this moment in your lives,
whether you're at the edge of the Red Sea now,
or whether you are going to get to the edge
of the Red Sea sometime soon,
God will call you there. He will tell you to encamp.
And you need to get comfortable waiting.
And you need to get comfortable knowing
that when that Red Sea parts,
or sometimes it doesn't,
sometimes God wants you to stay there longer.
Sometimes He's got a different plan for you.
When you get comfortable in that,
it is a superpower.
And whatever level of success you have
as a student, as a husband, wife,
father, mother,
ministry leader, business owner,
whatever it is that you're doing,
whatever level of success you have,
if it's not for the purpose of giving Him glory,
if you are not living for the point
of giving Him the glory,
and pointing people to Him,
He will take it away.
That's what I implore you
to know that I didn't think about
when I was sitting in your seat.
And I was all too happy to get the glory
and take the blame whenever anything went wrong.
He wants glory.
He said it multiple times.
And He will put you at the edge of the Red Sea
just so that when the waters part,
you know it's Him.
Let's close in prayer.
God, thank you for
everyone who's in this room
and for the fact that you have brought them here
for a reason.
You've brought them to this great
college that
is pouring your word into them.
And I pray
right now that each person in this room
will get comfortable
giving you glory, get comfortable
waiting, get comfortable
following.
Sometimes all we have to do
is be silent.
Thank you for the examples
in my life that you've given me and thank you
in advance for what you're going to do in the lives
of these students and teachers.
We love you.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
You are dismissed!
: [applause]
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