God Leads Us

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

We are going to be in Exodus 13 today, and I don't know if you've ever had this happen to you. It happens to me somewhat often. You are reading a paragraph in a book, and you stop after you've read that paragraph, and you cannot tell anybody anything about what that paragraph is about. Your eyes went over the words, but your brain was elsewhere. You had lunch with a friend. They're talking to you, and they're on a tear. They're talking about their favorite pet or something. They are going off on something, and then they ask you a question, and you snap back, and you're like, I was not listening to you. I don't even know what you're asking me. You have no idea what they've been saying, because what you did was you maintained eye contact. You maybe even gave verbal cues. You were going to be a ninja at this, but you were not paying attention. You were distracted.

You were distracted by that unfinished chore. You were distracted by that unresolved conversation, maybe even the ceiling fan. You were distracted by something, and you didn't put your attention into what was right in front of you. When we try to do something that is significant without mentally engaging it, you might perform the action, but it is not changing you. Let me say that one more time. When you try to do something without mentally engaging it, without really paying attention, without really making eye contact, without really feeling it in your heart, you might perform an action, but it will not change you. That kind of thinking, it works whenever you're sweeping a floor, you're doing something mindless, but when it bleeds into your family, to your relationships, to your work, or to our spiritual disciplines, what you will find is that you will quickly find

that you are in a rut. You cannot make it through. You cannot figure out what is happening, and you can't fight your way out of it. For some reason, you are locked in a mode where you are doing a religious thing over and over and over again. You don't mean it, and you don't know how to get out of it. It's not a great place to be, but in Exodus 13, we see a little bit of this as we start our new series. Our new series, we are going to be reading about people following God. Follow God is our series, but this story, what we're going to read in Exodus 13 through 19 as we go through our series, it's not a triumphant story. It's not a story of how great people are. In fact, the people in this story often miss the point of what is happening. They often disobey. They often got distracted. And so, this is not like whenever you're listening to a podcast, to people who got it right,

it's not like whenever you're just listening to this, you ever watch a documentary, and you see all these people, and they talk about how great something is, or how much they stuck the landing, or how great this pilot was in World War II. You watch these things, and it's nothing but awesome, after awesome, after awesome. This ain't that. Exodus is not that. Exodus is a lot more like real life. Nobody would be interviewed for a podcast. Maybe a few, but the overwhelming majority blew it. And these are people trying or not trying to follow God. And so, as we read Exodus 13 through 19, my encouragement is for us to allow this to let our confidence grow in God's timing, not in our ability. To fight against our own resistance to God's leadership in our lives. Because make no mistake, God wants to follow, excuse me, God wants to lead us if we follow. God wants to lead us if we follow.

But following requires our whole hearts and nothing less. God will lead us if we follow, but following God requires our whole hearts and nothing less. Today we're going to see kind of a progression in following God, okay? We got three movements. We got remembering, we got sacrificing, and we got discerning. Remembering, sacrificing, and discerning. And before we get into the text, we have to start with something else that is assumed in the text. This is kind of important, so I want to take a second. I want to lay in here for just a second. And I've already alluded to it, but I want to say it specifically, that God will and does want to lead us personally, but we must choose to follow.

God wants to lead us personally, but we must choose to follow. In fact, if you read the Bible, Old and New Testament, God is extremely insistent on this. Last week when we talked about Passover, it was an example of this. God's saying, I'm going to do this. I'm going to pass over, sorry, I'm going to come to every house, and I'm going to kill the firstborn. If you want out of this, then you've got to follow me. If you want out of this, if you want to be exempted from this, if you want to be passed over, then you must choose. You must actually choose a lamb. You must choose to kill that lamb. You must choose to put that lamb's blood on your doorposts. You see this in the Old Testament, Joshua 24, 15, it says, Choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers served in the region beyond the river, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell.

But as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. Look at Deuteronomy 11, 26, See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse. And he lines out the blessing, and then he lines out the curse. What I want to point out in these two verses, and in a lot of places in Scripture, is that the choice is laid before people, and God isn't playing around. God's not offering false choices here. He's not doing, you know, mind-bending stuff. And people might respond to that and say, well, you know, God knows everything, and God controls reality, and God, you know, determines what I'm going to do. Yes, amen. God is all-knowing. God has predestined everything from the beginning of history through the end of time. You can't know the ends and not plan the means. Yeah, I got zero problems saying that. Ephesians 1 will convince you of that if you have a problem with it. And yet, I would say,

we are all under the impression, you and I, the way that we view reality, right? We are under the impression that we are making choices with consequences. We don't wake up in some determinative state where, you know, maybe you woke up at 5.30. I know a couple of parents who woke up at 5.30 this morning. Their kid just woke them right out of bed, and like, okay, I'm awake. Well, did you know that God foreordained that since the beginning of time, that those parents would wake up at 5.30 this morning? That is true. That happened. That is in the counsel and wisdom of God. Yes, and amen. Did that kid choose to wake up her parents at 5.30 this morning? Yes, she did. Did that choice have consequences? Yes, it did. It had lots of consequences, including tired parents this morning. God bless you for coming still if you're tired. So we are all in reality. I don't want to get too, you know, metaphysical here,

but we are all under the impression. We are all kind of in our own mind. We are all making choices with real consequences. That's how we view and interact with reality. And even in that, even in the fact that God knows everything that's going to happen, even though all that's true, God himself still appeals to people to choose. And it's not a joke. It's not some test. God is appealing to people to choose, to make an actual choice. Sometimes we need to be reminded of this, and especially as we're reading Exodus 13 through 19, although we're not going to read all that today, but as we go through that in our series, Exodus 13 today only, we must understand that God is letting them choose. And as he does, as he lets them choose, he's still faithful. He's still revealing his timing, and we still see our own hearts in that process. God is allowing us to choose things.

He still is somehow keeping all of his timing on time, all that's still happening. And in that process of us choosing and God revealing himself and things still happening in the way they need to happen, our hearts are revealed in that process. Okay. That is the assumed thing. Now let's get into the text, okay? This is the progression of following that we find in Exodus 13. If we're going to follow God, we need to begin with remembering. Following God begins with remembering. And there is a surprising amount of time given in these chapters and the chapters that have already happened, and even from the beginning of Exodus to now, there's a surprising amount of time given to memorializing things. We're building lots of statues. We're keeping lots of feasts. We're setting up a calendar, okay? That's what's happening, Exodus 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,

and then here in 13, even whenever God reveals his name to Moses in Exodus 3, 15, he says, this is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. God is insistent here. He's saying I want to memorialize this. Last week we talked about this, God commemorating the Passover with the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and here he's explaining it further in Exodus 13, chapter 13, verse 3. And all of our verses today are going to be up on the screen. I might just casually reference a verse that won't be on the screen, but we're going to try to put most of them on the screen. If you want a Bible to look at, there's one on your phone, and there's some physical Bibles scattered throughout. Exodus 13, 3, Then Moses said to the people, Remember this day in which you came out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, for by a strong hand the Lord brought you out from this place,

no leavened bread shall be eaten. So he's talking about the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Remember here, he's saying, Remember how God used his strength on your behalf. Now, you're not celebrating all the great things you did. You're celebrating how God used his strength on your behalf. And so we see this, memorials help us in a few ways. The first way is they help us recall specific instances of faithfulness in our lives. And I just want you to consider this question right now, just for a second. What's the most recent way God has shown his faithfulness to you? I want you to think about it, really. What's the most recent way God has shown his faithfulness to you? I'll tell you what it is for me. God recently has been reassuring me through a lot of different things, conversations, things that are just kind of oddly placed. He's been reassuring me that my future will be taken care of.

When I feel like the future isn't going to be taken care of, I can kind of fall into despair. That's my sin cycle, right? That's what I do. When I feel like there's no plan, I've got to like hurry up and get a plan going, get something in front of me so I can feel okay, so that the future is taken care of. Some of you are not built like that. God bless you. What a peaceful existence you must have. That's not me. I definitely do that. But God has been faithful in that, to just give me these things that are just like, hey, I've got the future taken care of. What are yours? What are some ways that God is showing his faithfulness to you? Keep reading, verses seven and eight of Exodus 13. On leavened bread shall be eaten for seven days. No leavened bread shall be with you, and no leaven shall be seen with you in all your territory. You shall tell your son on that day.

It is because of what the Lord did for me when I came out of Egypt. Specifically, he says this many different times, but this is just another instance in Exodus 13. Tell your children, tell your sons why you're not eating leavened in your bread. It's because of what the Lord did for me. Look, the most underrated form of discipling people is sharing your testimony. Say it one more time. The most underrated form of discipling people is sharing your testimony. I talk to many of you. You have children. I don't care if they're bitty-bitties or if they're adult children. Listen, here's my encouragement. Parents, share your testimony. You might say, well, it's kind of messy. Okay. Is God less faithful? You don't need to be embarrassed at what God saved you from. You don't need to do that. You might leave some parts out for when they're emotionally ready to hear it,

but start sharing your testimony now. Start telling people about what the Lord has done for you. Tell your children personal stories of God's faithfulness, and not just your children, also your coworkers, your friends, your family, anybody that you have kind of some rapport with, some relationship with. Tell the story of God being faithful to you in a moment whenever you really needed that to happen. Tell the story of whenever you were in despair and you really needed the future spelled out for you, and God did it. Tell the story of going months without feeling like your prayers were going any further than the ceiling, and then God faithfully bringing you out of that. Tell stories of fast faithfulness and slow faithfulness. Tell stories that are mundane and stories that are absolutely wild that nobody would believe. Tell those stories. Because if you don't tell that story, who's going to tell it for you?

Your testimony is powerful. It's not a logical argument. It's an actual thing. It's an actual experience that's happening. And people can say, well, that's good for you, or like, you know, it probably happened in a different way, but you experienced it. That's fine. Let them say whatever they're going to say. Share your testimony. Because at some point, your life is undeniable. The fact that you are there and that you have joy and that you're following the Lord, that can't be argued against. Share your testimony. People need to hear it. Exodus 13:9, And it shall be assigned to you on your hand, and as a memorial between your eyes, what the law of the Lord may be in your mouth, for with the strong hand the Lord has brought you out of Egypt. Look, when we begin with remembering, as we're going to follow the Lord, when we begin with remembering, it sets our hearts before the Lord,

and we are thankful. There's a lot of studies done, I'm not going to, it's a lot of studies done, on how thankfulness and, or gratitude and complaining can't kind of coexist in the same headspace at the same time. That's fine. But I want to tell you, like, when you have it in your heart, when you have it in your mind, that the Lord has been faithful to you and you put that before the Lord, thankfulness is going to erupt. It's not some small thing. It's not just some like, oh, okay, yeah, like, I'm thankful now. I'm thankful. Okay. This isn't just me saying this. There's a lot of research that backs this up. This is all pretty normal. When you stop, and if you're complaining, when you stop and say, what can I be thankful for right now? It really does change your mind. It really helps you do that. The Lord knew that in Exodus 13. The Lord is preparing us for that. So I want to just translate that to right now.

What are a few different ways that we can remember? Because we're not keeping the Feast of the Unleavened Bread. Okay. Pastor Daniels disappointed in that. He wanted a Feast of Unleavened Bread on the church calendar, and I said, no, man, we can't do that. He said, no, we got to do it. Watch. Now I'm going to get emails from people like, what if we did have it? Okay. Sorry. That's on me. That's on me. Here's a couple of ways. Without Feast of Unleavened Bread. We've already discussed sharing your testimony. That's a really obvious way to share your testimony. Also, scripture memorization. A great way to remember scripture is to remember it. I know. That's controversial. Super controversial. A great way to remember scripture is to remember it. That's memorizing scripture. I'm not saying you got to memorize the first chapter of Genesis. I'm just saying little scriptures here and there that help you remember things that you easily forget.

One that is helpful for me is Philippians 1:6. It better be. Philippians 1:6. I've got to quote something. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody check me. That he who started a good work and you will be faithful to complete until the day of Christ Jesus. That's really helpful for me because I feel I deal with feeling abandoned halfway through things. And the Lord's like, just remember. Right. If I started I'm going to begin it. I'm going to be faithful to finish what I've started in you, Drew. Okay. All right. I can. That kind of gets me through one episode. Right. I have several scriptures that I've memorized and it's really helpful. Not just not to just get a badge or something. You know, like, oh, I know a lot of Bible, but like it really does help. It really helps you. The Holy Spirit wants to help you fight whatever you're kind of dealing with. And when you memorize scripture, you've got tools in the bag.

When you memorize scripture, the Holy Spirit can just be like, remember this? Remember Philippians 1:6. Was it Philippians 1:6? Did anybody check me? Ah, yes. Okay. Scripture memorization. It's good. Journaling is also extremely helpful because you're able to go back and read God's faithfulness to you. Somebody would be like, oh no, I don't like journaling. Fine. Memorize scripture then. Okay. No, don't fight me on this. But when you do journal, it's helpful. When you do journal, you can go back a year. You can go back two years. You can go back several years and read about your perspective. And you gain, it's cool, you gain perspective when you realize this is the same place I was three years ago. And you gain perspective when you realize I'm at a different place I was three years ago. They both work. It's kind of fun. Start journaling today in like three years. It's going to be awesome. Okay.

Man. Okay. Tough crowd. All right. Okay. Whenever we remember, it encourages us in the lean times and it keeps our purpose front and center, even in our success. Even whenever things go well, even when we're riding high, it still helps us remember that we're here for a purpose. It still helps us remember that the Lord is taking us somewhere. Okay. So let's keep reading. If we're going to follow God, we're going to start with remembering what's the next step. Here we go. Exes 13, 1 and 2. Kind of going back here. The Lord said to Moses, consecrate to me all the firstborn. Whatever is the first to open the womb among the people of Israel. Both a man and a beast is mine. It's introduced here in verses 1 and 2. And then we get a lot about the Feast of Unleavened Bread, but it picks it back up in verse 11 and 12. So let's jump to that. Exes 13, 11 and 12. When the Lord brings you into the land of Canaanites,

as he swore to you and your fathers and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord. All the first opens, all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn of your animals that are males shall be the lords. Okay. This can sound very strange to us. You talk about festivals. We're not going to keep. This is one of them. But here's what it meant in that day and I'll kind of translate it for what's now. But here's what it meant in that day. It reflects trust in the Lord. Let's keep reading and then I'll explain more. Verse 15, Exes 13, excuse me, thank you. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb. For if you will not redeem it, you shall break its neck. Every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem. Okay. Dedicating the firstborn displays trust. You see this other places where you are dedicating the first fruits. So the first fruits would be the initial parts of the harvest of whatever you're planting,

like because they were an agrarian society. So your crops were a big deal. Your animals were a big deal. And when you say, Lord, I'm going to give you the first whatever percentage, like 10 percent, the first little bit of this and that's dedicated to you. Well, what we don't often understand or remember in that moment is that the first typically was the best on a crop. You want some bad corn? Get some late season corn. Okay. You want some nice corn? You want some nice pineapple? Okay. Go early in the season. Get it fresh. Get it from ground that doesn't have the nutrients all dried up, all sucked out of it. Okay. Getting that first fruit, it showed a level, a physical display of trust. It's that we are trusting God for the rest by giving him the first. Right. You can say like, oh, I trust you God, but it's a physical display of that trust when you give him the first

that you are trusting him for the rest. Okay. And with animals and with crops and all that, that was tough. It was sacrificial. It was your stuff. When it's talking about your sons, your first born sons, that is talking about your future because in this society, all the inheritance, all the family wealth, all the family name, all that went through the first born son. So when he's saying like your first born sons are mine, you need to redeem them. What he's saying is that, that first born son, your lineage, your heritage, everything that you have fought on this earth to amass and to gain in terms of reputation or money or anything, belongs to the Lord. Moses again tells them what to say when their kids ask. This is Exodus 13 and 15. For when Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord killed all the first born in the land of Egypt, both the first born of man and the first born of animals. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord all the males

that first opened the womb, but the first born of my sons, I redeem to follow God. And this gets lost a lot. And so I want to be super clear right now to follow God. We must obey sacrificially. It's going to come out somewhere, some way, somehow. If somebody says, I follow God, but there is no part of their life, no quarter, no nothing that is dedicated to the Lord, not even a percentage. There's no acknowledgement of the Lord in their life. There's nothing like that. I would have a hard time believing that person. Not that I have to, but it would be difficult to understand how they exactly follow the Lord. How do you do that? How does that come out in action? How does that change how you live or work or give your money away? How does that change? God requires a sacrifice of us. You see this in the 12 disciples. You see this in the early church. You see this all over in the Old Testament.

A sacrifice acts as a physical allegiance to the Lord. It is an actual line in the sand. You cross and you say, yeah, I will follow God this way. I will do this. It will be a sacrifice for me to do that, but I will do it. The Lord continually calls us to sacrifice for Him. Consider baptism. Quick example. Consider baptism. In baptism, we've got a whole thing dedicated to it back here. We're really excited about baptism. We do not believe the Bible doesn't preach that baptism saves somebody's soul. The act does not save their soul. Baptism doesn't do it. It doesn't wash away original sand. So what is baptism for? What does it do? Baptism is a demonstration of trust. It's a demonstration of trust. It is putting yourself up there in front of everybody for them to see you and for you to acknowledge, I am following the Lord. I am trusting you with that, with everything that I am.

I'm just going to go through this to show my allegiance. And every once in a while I get somebody who is interested in baptism, but they're not sure they want to be in front of people and all that. Here's what I would say without trying to be insensitive. Okay. Following, dang it, right before the thing. If you are choosing to follow Jesus, then you should do what Jesus did. What was the first thing Jesus did after he started his ministry? He got baptized. Very first thing. So if you're saying, I want to follow Jesus, great. Then do what Jesus did. That's actually following Jesus. It's actually doing what he did. That's the first thing. And so usually the discussion goes, well, I don't know if I want to be baptized in front of everybody. You know, could it just be me and you in a pool? And all I say is, all I say is, listen, I believe the Lord is doing something in your heart. That's good. That's exciting. I'm very pumped about that.

The Lord is going to be calling you to many more sacrifices than this. And so you might as well purpose in your heart right now to do this. This is what it is to trust the Lord. You think it's hard to be in front of people? Then, boy, howdy, you got some things coming. It's only going to get harder. It's only going to get harder to follow the Lord. There's only going to be more on the line, right? You think it's easy when you don't have money and your kids are small? Oh, okay. Just wait till your kids are older and you have more money. It only just wait till you've been entrenched in your job a lot more for whenever the Lord calls you to move to a different place. Go ahead. Let's wait for that. You think that's going to be easy? So what's easier, getting in front of some people

or giving away everything you have, moving to a different place, I don't know, becoming a missionary. Do just something that is going to cost you everything. Following the Lord requires allegiance, sacrifice. And there are two things that people get tripped up on here. I want to be clear. I want to be sensitive, but I want to be clear. And if it's your first Sunday, God bless you. Here we go. The two problems people have, I'm going to say it this way. The church family is the primary channel of sacrifice. Okay. I'm about to back this up, but I just want to say it. I just want to let it sit right there. Church family, local church family is the primary channel for sacrifice. Okay. But like everything in Chisenhall, we don't say it unless we can back it up. So let me back it up. Okay. I'm going to back it up logically first. Oh, one more thing. Sorry, a caveat.

I didn't say that the church family is the only channel for sacrifice. I said it's the primary one. If you're saying I want to dedicate something to God, I want to do something for God and it has to be kind of out in the woods and there's 10 people, be like, cool. We don't need to sanction that, right? That's not what we're about. We're not trying to like keep everybody under a thumb and whatnot. Like, unless we bless it, it's not to the Lord. That's not how we do. Okay. It's the other way around, right? If you want to do something for the Lord, you're like, man, where? How could I dedicate something to the Lord? Options. Now, what do I do? How do I do that? Okay. If you want to dedicate something to God, just go logic here for just a second. You're going to dedicate something to God, whether it be money, a car, time, doesn't matter, dedicating something to God, then you are relinquishing control of it in some way.

So, example, quick example, if you're giving money away, if you're giving $1,000 to a homeless man, okay, and you're doing it for the Lord, you're like, Lord, bless this homeless man, give him $1,000. I'm not saying you should do that, I'm just using it as an example. When you do that, you are relinquishing control of that $1,000. You are not telling him how to spend that. You're giving it to him, okay, and you're dedicating that to the Lord. You are relinquishing control. The same would work if you took $1,000 and you put it in a big pile and you lit it on fire. That's still relinquishing control. It's just destroying it, okay? So, whenever Israel is literally burning their best lamb, I mean, nobody gets it. It's a lamb that is perfect and tasty, I'm sure, and can get you some wool and do things. It can be productive, it can be useful. What the Lord is saying is take that lamb, that $1,000,

put it in this place, light it on fire, and say praise be to God. You're relinquishing control, okay. So, you're either going to destroy it or you're going to give it away or you're going to let somebody use it, right? Let's just say you want to dedicate this car to the Lord. I know families that have this, they have an extra car that they just lend out for people who need a car, okay? You are using it, you are giving away miles on the car, you're giving away the gas, you're giving away something. You're giving away your liability if they get into rickets on you, okay. You're giving things away, you're giving away control, you're relinquishing control. Okay, I think I've made that case right now. If you are dedicating something to God and you're not destroying it, who gets it? Yes, God gets it. Who physically gets it? That's not true, I appreciate the answer.

It's not true though, because if you're giving, for example, if I'm giving my car away to homeboy, he gets a car, okay. Now, I might say like, hey, I'm giving you a car, you better treat it right, you better whatever. I can try to have those attachments, but I'm giving the car away, okay, that's what I'm doing, right? And yes, I'm giving it to God. If I'm dedicating something to God and I'm not destroying it, somebody gets it. Somebody does. Somebody. There's no answer. I mean, you could leave a car parked in a field, I guess, and just let it rob it. That's the same as destroying it. What I'm trying to do logically is help you go down the road of saying, if you're going to go through the trouble of saying, God, I want to sacrifice this to you, I want to dedicate this to you, I want to dedicate whatever, okay, yes, that's great. It still has to change hands into somebody else or you're destroying it.

Okay, this is why you see all over the Bible in the Old Testament, whenever somebody wanted to bring, dedicate something to God, where'd they bring it? They brought it to the temple. They put it inside the temple. They brought the offerings inside the temple itself. In the New Testament, what you see, you see offerings being brought to church leaders for the church to use. You also see Christians just giving stuff away. That's true too, that happens. But the primary way you see it in the New Testament is through the church family. It's got to be given to somebody.

And so today I want to say this, I want to be super clear. The Lord demands a sacrifice from you, period. Here's my encouragement. Give things that are of value, which would include your money and your time and your talents. Give those things to a church that is actively ministering. If you don't like us, fine. It's all kingdom anyway. Okay, we're not like racing to heaven. Okay. We're all doing the Lord's work. We have the same God, the same spirit, the same Lord.

Give your money to a church that is actively ministering. Give your time and your talents to that church. Give your money away to people who could use it. And I don't mean $5 to the beggar that's right there on the corner with the sign. Because although that's fine to do, I don't have no opinion on that per se. I'm just trying to help you understand. It's a sacrifice that the Lord is calling you to, not throwing $5 to not see the homeless person.

We're not talking about alleviating your conscience here. We're talking about making a sacrifice to the Lord. Now, at this point, some of you might be squirming in your seat and you're saying, Okay, but I got reasons for like doing how I'm doing it. Okay. Let me just help you. I'm not here to crush you under the weight of what you should be doing for the Lord. I'm here to help you remember what we see in Exodus 13 and what we see throughout the Bible, that the Lord, if we're going to follow Him, calls us to a physical sacrifice in many areas. And they don't get easier with time. They usually get harder to make with time. And I don't ask you this or say this with any other motive. We're not looking for a sweet offering today. Okay. By the way, if you do want to give, that's why we got the QR code on the back and we got the giving box back there. It's what we do. But I am in no way trying to exact any kind of money from you.

I freely say, freely, if you want to give money to any church that's ministering, if you want to give your money away to a ministry that is just killing it, that's doing great work, go right on ahead, man. It's gospel. It's going out. It's discipling people. If they are alleged with the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, then I'm cool. You don't owe me an explanation. I don't need to give any other guardrails. However, I would say humbly, what about us?

We're not doing good enough work here, right? We're hardworking here. We're trying to build a family here. We're doing things. We're going places. And we're not, you know, listen, we don't ever aspire to be a mega church or anything. That's not what we want. We want to be a church planning resource for generations to come. We want to see churches planted all over the area. You know what that takes? Money, time, effort, sacrifice. That's what it takes. That's what we're trying to do. Hopefully you do not hear me begging for money because I'm not doing it. Because to be perfectly frank, we don't need your money. The Lord has a cattle on a thousand hills. If the Lord wants to do what the Lord wants to do, ain't nothing you can do about it. Ain't nothing I can do about it. We don't need your money. But the Lord does call you to a sacrifice. So you should choose.

You should do it well. You should do it with your whole heart. That's the first problem. Second problem. Let's keep reading. Exodus 13:17, when Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them by way of the Philistines, although that was near, for God said, lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt. It's interesting here, right? Interesting because God is not leading them in a way that will discourage them. He's not leading them in a way that's going to make them fear. He's protecting them. Look at verses 21 and 22. And before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people. In these last verses, we see God's heart to be with us. This is why it's important. This is really where we mess up.

And this is what I alluded to at the beginning. The big danger for us is not that we don't give our money away. The big danger for us is that we don't mean it. Whenever we do. The big danger for us whenever we are reading our Bible and praying and doing it, it's not that we're doing it infrequently. That's not the big danger. The big danger is that we do it and don't mean it. That we read through subscription. We couldn't even tell you what we read. What is of the utmost importance is that we are putting our hearts into what we are doing. 1 Corinthians 13, 2 through 3 states it very well. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, let's just stop there. That's a pretty impressive list. If you can do all that, I'm a fan. Okay? You better have some kind of TikTok or Instagram because that's amazing.

You understand all mysteries and all knowledge. You have prophetic powers and you have all faith and you can remove mountains. Okay? I mean, that's demonstrative. That's really impressive. Genuinely. If somebody could actually do it, it's impressive. What does it say? It says, but if I do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. We fall into the trap of believing that our religious exercises are somehow impressive to God and they are not.

It helps us remember that meaning it is a big deal. And at the same time, the option does not present itself to say, well, you know what? I don't mean it 100% so I'm not going to do anything. I really, I'm not putting my heart into it so I'm just going to stop. Which is Christian-y version of it's getting hard so I don't want to keep doing it. To follow God, this is the thing that we get tripped up on. To follow God, He requires our very heart. He requires the deepest parts of us.

He requires an intimate relationship where we know Him and He knows us. It requires our allegiance, our hopes, our heritage, our lives. It requires all those things of us. And yes, it has to come out in actual decisions, in physical sacrifices. Yes, it has to come out in those things. But those things have to flow from a heart that belongs to the Lord. We need to put that in the correct order. And here's my encouragement. If you are busy doing religious things but you are not giving your heart to the Lord, give your heart to the Lord today. You say, well how do I do that? You just pray. You just pray. You ask the Lord to take your heart. You say, Lord I want to give you my heart. I want to give you everything I have. I want it all to be yours. I want, that's what you do. It's not about earning it. It's not about looking good. It's not about performing religious things.

God desires so much good for you and for others through you. God desires to do all these things that are good and He wants to lead you personally. He wants to lead you like a pillar of cloud by day and like a pillar of fire by night. He wants you to be responsive to the Spirit. But you must choose it. You must choose it. As David and Wesley come back up, I just want to leave you with a few questions. I want to lead you into two or three questions. The first is for this week. This week, how are you going to discern the presence of God? How are you going to make time to listen to Him? Not do religious things, okay? So you might be like, well I'm at church right now. Okay, cool. You're at a church service. This is not what I mean. I mean, how are you going to kind of renew that covenant before the Lord and say, Lord, I want to follow you. I want to make sure that whatever's on my to-do list is connected to my heart.

And the Lord is kind and patient and knows that you're not going to be 100% on all of that. You've got mixed motives. You've got all these things. You've got a soup of weird stuff going on in your heart. God knows that He's not freaking out. He's not worried that your heart's not like 100%. Okay, what He's asking you though is to come before Him and say, Lord, I want to give you my heart. I want you to do with my life what you want. That's my encouragement. This week, find some time to do that. Cut out some time. Cut out 20 minutes. Cut out 10 if you're super busy. It's worth it. 100% of the time, it's worth it. Ask the Lord just to check your heart today. Today. Here's my encouragement for today. That was this week. Here's today. Today, I want you to just practice listening.

I want you to just practice listening today. I don't know if that's just not watching the first part of the game or if that's eating lunch by yourself. I don't know what that is. Right? I'm not trying to prescribe overly too hard right here. I just want you to take time today to just listen to the Lord. Don't, like, I'm not saying don't give the Lord your heart today, but like, don't try to rush to do something to God or with God. Just take a moment today to give before the Lord and just listen.

Stop and listen. Ask Him. Just, hey, Lord, I'm here. What do you want me to do? I want to follow you. Maybe I don't know how. Maybe I'm frustrated. Whatever. Take some time to do that today. And now, right now, I want to lead us in a prayer. I want to encourage you to just kind of just go through this exercise with me. Let's pray together. It's kind of a guided prayer. Lord, we love you very, very imperfectly. We know we don't do it right, but You've called us to live this life of obedience.

Right now, if there's some disobedience in your heart, just put that before the Lord. You can do it quietly. You don't need to stand and talk about what you're dealing with, but just do it before the Lord quietly in your heart. Confess to Him. Now, I want you to, in that same spirit of just kind of opening up before the Lord, I want you to thank Him for one thing. One thing that you are truly grateful for. Something big. Not the sunrise this morning, okay? Something big that you're thankful for.

Lord, You are infinitely wise. You know our hearts. There's no pretense before You. We pray that as we confess, as we thank You, as we worship, You would help us to walk in obedience to following You. That we would do it with our whole hearts. That it would come out in our lives. That's Your name that we pray. Amen.