Obedience in the Face of Opposition

Transcript

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

So it's already going to be eventful. I ripped the top off the table. Yeah Daniel, Clay, just make sure the guys at the gym know that tomorrow I'd appreciate it. I get a t-shirt or something. Yeah, I know right. So we'll try to make this work here a little differently. Let me stop Siri. All right. There we go. Everyone doing okay today? Awesome. Awesome. If you guys would look in your bulletins, I have a surprise for you. Does everyone just look inside your bulletins or your handouts?

Nice. Do you see it? That's good because I didn't have anything in there. I just wanted you to look. I just wanted you to look. I just want to make sure we're all here. We're all listening and we're all being obedient already. That's sort of what we're going to be talking about today. Kimmy, I have a joke for you. I know I always love story not with jokes. And I loved a few things I learned about Moses as I was preparing for this, but do you know why Moses crossed the Red Sea? To get to the other side. I know. You guys can use it. You can use it. It's not copyrighted. I learned a whole bunch of stuff. I learned what Moses loved to eat, what he loved to drink. I even loved that he loves tea. Do you know how he makes his tea? Hebrews it.

That's true. That's two freebies. That's two freebies. So in case you all didn't know the Hebrews, right? We'll bring the rest of you up. Yeah. Those who got it can explain it to those who didn't. I really feel bad. I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen here. So I was reading the story as we get started and it was about a thief who had broken to a person's home.

And as he was loading this person's stuff into his bag to take, he heard Jesus is watching you. And he ignored it. He just thought maybe he was hallucinating. Maybe he thought that the pressure of what he was doing was just causing him to hear things. So he just went ahead and continued. But then he heard it again. Jesus is watching you. So this time he got a little freaked, got the flashlight out and looked around and in the corner he saw a parrot sitting on a perch and this was kind of humorous, right? So the burglar walked up to the parrot and as he approached the parrot said a little bit of sterner. Jesus is watching you. And the burglar laughed and said what kind of a fool names his parrot Moses? And the parrot replied the same fool that named the Rottweiler Jesus. So Jesus is always watching guys. Jesus is always watching. We're going to be an exodus. The Bible fell here. Let me get and I do apologize for mine.

I did have some PowerPoint for you, but I know computers work on electricity. So when they said it needed to be in JPEG form, I didn't know that that meant outside of PowerPoint. I don't know. I don't know what that actually meant. So it's going to look a little different today. So just bear with me. Bear with me. That's part of the fun of doing all of this. And we're just going to do like I used to do in college. If I'm done, we're just going to drop it. All right, so we're going to be in Exodus chapter 4. Exodus chapter 4 is an amazing start to everything. You can see the entire theme of why this Bible was written in Exodus chapter 4 through the interaction of God and Moses. Okay. We Drew had just the other drew the taller one had just finished last week. The first part of chapter 4. I'm going to kind of finish up the the latter half of chapter 4, but I'm also going to revisit some of the first part of chapter 4 because there are some pivotal things

that we need to keep in our minds as we move out of chapter 4 into chapter 5. Does that make sense? So it may feel like we're jumping around, but we're not going to jump around. I promise you we're all going to be just nice and dandy in chapter 4 of Exodus. Okay, and like I said, those of you that have not been here before that are new, we're just kind of really focusing how God

interacts with people in the Bible. How does his will how is his will accomplished through people in the Bible? Moses has been our focus right through Exodus up until this point. And again, just for those of you that don't know, Moses is man. He's not the perfect guy. I see a lot of myself, well minus the murderer part in Moses, right? Moses to me is the most human, the most realistic example that we have that got of a person that God works through, right? We can look at the 12 disciples. Those guys are man. Those guys are pretty good. They had, I mean, yeah, they got yelled at a few times, but Moses, this guy took 80 years to prepare for this, right? Talk about stubborn, right? Talk about stubborn. 80 years, not only that, but we saw Moses arguing and just coming up with every single excuse as to why he couldn't fulfill God's plan in that first part of chapter 4, right? That reminds me of me, and I'm sure it reminds you

of you as well, right? How many times can we come up with excuses why we're not going to serve God today? All right, and so as we look at Moses, to me, it's more, you know, I'm from the amazing heavenly state of Tennessee and in this amazingly heavenly state, we have a place almost close to heaven called Dollywood, the happiest place on the planet. Forget Disney, right? This is Dolly, Dolly Parton's place. But when you go there, they have these old time stands set up through Dollywood and you can see how they used to make tools for farming or how they used to make weapons or how they used to blow glass. And we, I got to watch how they made a table, a woodwork craftsman, right? And he just took this gigantic, these gigantic pieces of wood and he sanded them and he pressured them with heat, with temperature, right? Well, that's the same thing and water, right? And then he, after he was doing that, he cut and he shaved

and he molded this wood into whatever he wanted it to look like. It could have been the leg of the table, which is what I got to see. And so it was amazing. But the guy kept saying, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to beat this wood up. I'm going to, I'm going to tear it down and I'm going to refine it. And really, when I looked at that, I know I saw the perfect example. That's how God uses us. And that's how God uses Moses. We think that we're being torn down, but it's not anything harsh. It's a preparation, right? God's preparing. And that's the same thing here. Just as that guy was preparing the wood to be made into a table here, where you see God preparing Moses for 80 years for this particular task, right? We see a murderer get to turn into a liberator. That's pretty amazing. Is it not? Like I know I get goosebumps, right? I mean, wow, just wow. Okay. So we got to see that. We'll revisit some of that as we

kind of go through the first part of chapter four, but we really, I really want to go and hit the last part just to kind of, so we know how it ends, right? We're going to read the end of the book and then we will revisit. All right. So if everybody is in Exodus chapter four, we're going to start with verse 18. Verse 18. Sorry, I'm going to have to, my eyes are old.

So Moses went back to Jethro. Again, Jethro is Moses's father-in-law. And he said to him, please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive. And his father-in-law, Jethro, said to Moses, go in peace. And the Lord said to Moses, in Midian, which is where they are now, go back to Egypt for all the men who were seeking your life are dead. All right. Now, like I said, I'm going to, let me bring up a little bit. Remember, we just saw, and we'll revisit, we just saw Moses literally arguing with God as to why he couldn't be the person that liberates the Jews from Egypt, right? His speech impediment, right? His history. He had so many arguments. What if they don't believe me? What if they don't listen to me? Right? His fear was to the core. Okay. And God showed him through miracles. God showed him through all of this that, hey, it's not really you. I just need you to get

out of the way and let me use you. Right? And so Moses, I think it's like he almost got it, right? He almost got it. And if you think about it, you know, and we've all been there, right? Have we ever been in a situation that we're trying to get out of it and we've done everything we can to try to get out of it, but the person's like, no, no, don't worry about it. No, we'll take care of it. And you're like, Oh, I really don't want to do this. That I think that's where Moses still is. He still isn't quite a hundred percent on board. He just merely feels obligated because God answered all of his questions and quenched all of his fears. Right? He just didn't have an excuse not to go, but he's still a pretty hesitant. So as he's going back, he's talking to his father-in-law. In my mind, he probably was dragging his feet a little bit, right? In Midian. He was probably

taking a little bit of time instead of moving along and kind of being that immediate obedience that God was expecting. But God knows our fears. God knows where we are. God knows what is happening in our hearts and in our minds. And he gives Moses that one last piece of okay, that one last sliver of peace and says, Hey, the people who were looking for you after you murdered that Egyptian are no longer around. I've taken care of that for you. Like you're safe. You're good. I got you. Right? So that's what we see in that little first part of, of 18 to 19. Right? We see Moses asking his father-in-law to leave work. And we see God giving him that one last, Hey, I got you, man. I got you. You can do it. I gotcha. And then verse 20, he continues. So Moses took his wife and his sons and put them on a donkey and they went back to the land of Egypt and Moses took the staff of God in his hand. And now we see God talking to Moses one more time.

And this is pretty amazing. This is the only kind of different part. God is pretty much going to tell Moses exactly what's going to happen. Right? Moses is so faithless at this point. He has to know blow by blow what's going to happen to continue him on this path. How many of us are like that? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm a control freak. Yeah. I love to know exactly what's going to happen when I was in the lab, when I was doing science experiments, I was the guy who for days had the entire thing planned out. And before I got started, I had every step set up so I could just go get it done from one step to another. Like nothing was going to mess with the process. And I had to know everything and all the variables were controlled from here on forward. Like that's, that was me. See, that's why I can, I can, I can feel Moses, right? I'm that guy that God is constantly just slapping on the back of the head, bro. I told you already, bro. I told you

already. So God is going to give him a blow by blow. He really needs Aaron to do this. I mean, pardon me. He really needs Moses to do this. He really needs Moses to head to Egypt. So he says in verse 21, the Lord says to Moses, when you go back to Egypt, see that you do before the Pharaoh and all the miracles that I have put in your power. Right. So again, we see this is not Moses doing anything. This is God that is working through Moses 100%. I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. All right. Now, again, this isn't necessarily God's not going to go just make the Pharaoh harden. He's not going to do that. I mean, that's, that's not how God works, but he's going to create a situation that he knows the Pharaoh is going to lead to a hardened heart. He is going to go. He's going to have his authority challenged and he's going to be able, he's pretty much getting told his entire slave army is going to be leaving.

Okay. So this, you know, I mean, that would be a bad day for a leader. So again, his, the Pharaoh's heart is going to become hardened by this news by the fact Moses of all people is the one doing it. Okay. Let me find my spot here. Then you shall say to the Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If he refused to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn. Wow. Okay. That's pretty big. Ready to repaint that picture. We have a guy, a murderer who took 80 years just to give the point that God said, all right, I need you now. And he had to, God had to convince this man through miracles and giving him every single bit of peace and safety. He needed to move to go to a Pharaoh and tell him, Hey, I want you to let your slaves go. And if you don't, your son's going to die. Yeah. How's that for a work assignment? Yeah. Any of those spreadsheets looking like a bad idea

today? Right? Yeah. I think we have it pretty easy. All right. We have it pretty easy. So this is, this is the situation that has just been laid out. But again, we're resting in the fact that God has complete control over the situation and Moses is not doing anything. This is all through the will and through the power of God. Sound good? Yeah. I think that's just amazingly important to keep in mind. We're going to skip chapter or verses 24 through 26. These are some pretty, these are some of the hardest verses in the entire book of Exodus and let alone the entire Bible. So I'm just going to give you the big heads up. Moses did not keep to a covenant law that was set by God in Genesis. And this was discovered in his trip from Midian to Egypt. Right. So we all husbands, we all know the wife was incredibly upset, right? Incredibly upset. She moves in. She does what she needs to do. Pretty much scolds Moses. God said, Hey,

okay, enough said. Right. And then they were allowed to move on. But what we see here, the biggest takeaway is you don't, there is no prerequisite for serving God. There is no resume big enough, bright enough, small enough, or that's needed to serve God. The only thing that is needed is for you to obey his commands. If we are not willing to obey his commands, we will not be effective disciples. True or true? True or true? Wow. Yeah, we got it. It's the, it's the time change. It's the time change. All right. We're going to skip down to verse 27. We got it. All right. The Lord said to Aaron, right? So now we see Aaron come into play. Aaron is Moses's older brother. All right. Moses is older brother. Aaron comes in, go to the wilderness to meet Moses. All right. So again, we have God talking to Aaron again. Aaron's on his way to Midian. Well, Moses is no longer in Midian. So God's going to be like,

Hey, Aaron, sorry. I already kind of kicked him along. He's actually in the wilderness. Here's where he is. All right. So we have Aaron being redirected. And I also want to take into account. Aaron is moving fast. He is booking, right? Which just shows his faithfulness, not only to his brother, but to God's command. Okay. Pretty amazing. So he went and met him at the mountain of God, right? Mount Sinai, which a bunch of stuff's going to happen there later. We'll talk about it later. And he kissed him and embraced him. Right. So we see this reunion of family. Ah, man, isn't it always better to do things in pairs? Right. It's the very reason why in the new Testament, right? Every time the disciples would out there was not just one. How many were there? There were two. Every single time one of those disciples had an understudy, there was two, right? There was always two. There was always at least two

people going out and doing this discipling and do this evangelism. There's no, there's, another reason why that's so pivotal is right here, man, Aaron brings a sense of familiarity and another layer of peace to Moses. Okay. His brother is an immense orator. He can talk. He's older. Okay. So bringing along this particular individual is the literally seals a relationship that takes God's people through the next several books of the Bible. Yeah. Moses and Aaron are going to be the pair that literally bring God's people out of captivity and into the land that was promised to him. That's pretty, that's pretty huge, right? That's pretty huge. So this partnership is an amazing blessing for both Aaron and for Moses. Right. And then Moses and Aaron in verse 29, then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord has spoken to Moses and did

the signs in the sight of the people and the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that they had, and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. Gosh, is that not just amazing? Again, repaint the picture, put yourself into the shoes of who we're talking to. These people have been slaves for over 400 years. There are some of those Israelites that are in slavery that have never known anything but the enslavement that they are in. But here we have a couple of people coming in, performing miracles, giving signs of a promise God made to them over 400 years ago. And the first thing they did is what? They worshiped God, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's pretty humbling. Because then I had to ask myself, do I do that? Right. Do I say, oh, man, God, thank you. No, I don't, right? Man, but something this huge was just so amazing that they couldn't

do anything except to worship. So as we go through, I do, like I said, I don't know what slides next since it's, is it the good one? Okay, we can do this one. We'll do this one. It's fun. Adlibbing is fun. It adds to the fun. As we look at this little, this second half of chapter four, all right, we see Moses, he's done chatting. He's out of excuses. He's been given every single ounce of promise, miracles, and somebody to do this task with him. Like there was nothing else that he needs. We see a man move from doubt to action. All right, from doubt to action. And this is super important because there has to become a point where discussion and doubt have to stop and obedience has to begin. As followers of the Lord Jesus Christ and our God, like we are not going to be effective unless we have some point we're done talking. At some point we have to start doing. At some point there's no

amount of Sunday school lessons that you get to have that's going to make you more qualified than you are today, then go out and reach somebody who's lost. That's what we see here, right? And don't tell him, but this is Caperton's statement. He'll make his head all big. But we were talking and right, imperfect actions are better than no actions. When you told me that I actually laughed because what actions are man capable of except for imperfect actions? That's all we got, guys. That's all we got. If you think you have a perfect action, yeah, you're wrong. Those of us that are married, we know. We know. Right? Inperfect action. In action. It's the same thing I used to tell my college students. There's no such thing as a bad decision. The only bad decision is the one you don't make. The only action that you don't make in regards to your calling to God's great commission is the one

that you don't make. We have to move. Move. Pick a direction and go, what if it's the wrong one? Who knows? God's not going to give you a burning bush every time. He's just going to open up a door and you get to go through and be faithful. That's what he expects. And the faithful are the ones that are rewarded. That's what we see here. We also see the importance of shared ministry. This is something that Drew started here and when he first got here, this is something that we practice a lot here at Chisenhall. I almost said the old name. Did you know this is the first time I've been here since we've changed the name? Yeah, I know. I've been gone a while. But shared ministry. Right? And the last time I talked to you, I told you like, man, we are not meant to do this alone. Like this is a group effort. The great commission, the New Testament, everything in the old, like there was no single person that's doing it alone. There was always

at least one to two and they're not doing it without God. This is a shared ministry. You go and lead along with somebody that has a different set of abilities, a different set of talents. To me, that's another slap in the face of God saying, I don't care what you feel. I don't care what you fear. Do it. There was someone in this room that can help you do it. That's why we have testimonies. I love hearing testimonies because if I get to hear somebody's testimony and I'm talking to somebody else, that gives me, Oh, you know what? I know someone you need to talk to. And now what did I just do? I just did what God did. I just took it another layer of an excuse that you're going to have to not act. I'm going to give somebody to you that's going to allow you to go and allow you to perform a ministry that you wouldn't be able to do by yourself. Shared ministry. Okay. It's so pivotal. It's so pivotal. And then we got to see something that again is just

absolutely amazing to me. People always, I hate that when people say the age of miracles is dead. Have you all ever heard that? Yeah. I always tell people if you think the age of miracles is dead, then the age of faithfulness is dead too. Man, every single day is a miracle. Every single day. The day that we stop worshiping, that's a bad day. That's a bad day. The day we stop giving honor to God for what we have and what we don't have. That's the bad day. Are you hearing me? Today isn't your bad day. When you stop giving God the glory, bad day, bad day. The Israelites who were in bondage got their lesson. God fulfilled a promise. Man, that's amazing. That's just amazing to me. So as we come from that, we'll come back and we'll talk about this a little bit more. I do want to go and talk about just a little bit, a different viewpoint of what Drew Caperton talked about the last few weeks is what does or why

does God use broken people? All right. Broken people. It's something that I think we, again, you're supposed to come one at a time. Sorry. Sort of like a word of vomit. But now I know JPEG is a picture. We got this. All right. So the first one we were talking about again, brokenness. What is brokenness? Ooh, what is brokenness? Anybody think about it? Is that weakness? Sure. We'll talk about that here in a second. But brokenness. Ah, brokenness. Nice. This table's broken. Is it useless? No. So I know it's a great analogy. Now that this table's broken, guess what? I have two pieces and I could go do, I can do more things with these two pieces than I could do with just a table as a whole. Yeah. Same thing with you. Man, if you're broken, God can use you in so many ways. Brokenness means you're getting yourself out of the way. Brokenness means you don't leave your knees. I know for the longest time, I just feel like

God kept flicking me in the head and knocking me down. And it took me a long time to realize, yeah, it's because I kept getting up. Being broken is the only place that we can be that God can use us. We see it perfectly through the example of Moses's life, all the way through chapter four. We're going to see it through the rest of the Bible. Okay. So God uses or God uses broken people. Brokenness creates, oh, dependence.

Nice. Brokenness creates dependence. I broke my ankle and tore my Achilles. It was a little painful. And I had to learn dependence. And that was hard because I am an independent guy. I still actually tried it. I actually tried. I tried to carry groceries up on crutches and a gigantic boot up three flights of stairs to my apartment. Yeah. And then I remembered an old lesson. I was taught about gravity. Yeah. Right. Brokenness means that you have to become dependent on somebody else. Those of you that are married, can your marriage work if you guys were not broken together? No. Can any good relationship work if there's not a level of brokenness? No. And it's especially true with when we see a relationship with God. I love second Corinthians. Paul says it beautifully. Second Corinthians chapter 12. I forgot the exact verse, but he says, my strength is made perfect in my weakness. Right.

In my weakness. Again, this is something that took me so long to remember or to to grasp that God's power is made perfect in the weakness. That's why I get to be weak. That's why I need to be weak is because that's the only place God's power is going to take the limelight. That's the only time God's power can actually be utilized if I get myself out of the way. When we acknowledge our limitations, we create a space, I think, for his strength to shine through. And right. The most effective disciples are not those that are the most qualified. They are the most surrendered. We have to get out of the way. Okay. Um, you can't, I don't think you could be an effective disciple or minister if you're not broken. If you are not broken. Why? Because brokenness creates that dependence. But out of that brokenness also creates a compassion. Man, compassion encompasses

everything. Compassion encompasses every single aspect of God's character that we need to set out to be. It encompasses love, forgiveness. Uh oh. You guys forgive daily. I have to forgive every time I get behind the wheel of my truck. I'm such a jerk. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Forgiveness is huge. Humility. Those are all so important. Compassion is a driving force. Um,

if you don't love people, let me, let me make it a little personal for you. Two people die every second in the world. That's a pretty low number, right? Just two. Let's make it bigger. I got this mental math. I did it. Correct me, right? It's about 120. 120 people a minute. 120 people a minute. If you have a 30 minute sermon, that's 4,000 people that died. 4,000 people die in the length of time that I've just been talking. 8,000 have died since you got here today. Do you love those people? Do those people know Jesus as our personal Lord and Savior? Do you love those people? I wish someone loved my dad enough to share before he died. When are we going to be done with our excuses? When can you love people like your dad? When can you love a stranger like your child? That's when you get to love like Jesus loved. I don't know if I'm ever going to get there,

but that's the love that's needed to be a person of compassion. And from there, you will not be able to do God's will without it. Because if people don't matter, God doesn't matter. It's in the Bible. Compassion should lead us to action. Compassion is what helps us get rid of our stupid excuses. I'm too tired. Oh, I have a ball game. Ah, I have to catch up on the pit. What are you filling your time with?

The excuses have... What if Jesus... What if Moses decided to say that? What if Moses said, you know what, I need to get my girl to gymnastics. I won't be able to save the people of Israel today. Do you know what the biggest thing with that would have been? Not that the people would have stayed in slavery. The biggest thing that that would have done is that it would have made God a liar. You have to get out of the way. We have got to learn to love people the way Jesus loved people. And you can't do that unless you are broken, because you have to get out of the way. There are too many imperfections in us to prevent that from happening.

Brokenness leads to redemption. Ooh, don't we love redemption? The good thing is brokenness, or redemption brings glory to God. We saw this at the end of chapter 4, right? We saw this, if you read the last verse, chapter 31, and the people believed, and they heard that the Lord had visited the people, had visited them, and saw their affliction, and they bowed their heads, and they worshiped God. When God takes a failure, a murderer, and makes him a deliverer, the glory of God cannot go to them. It goes to God. Moses and Aaron were not even thanked or mentioned in that. It was all God. When you get out of the way, the guy who matters gets the glory, and that's the only one that's going to be able to save people. That's amazing to me.

Gosh, and that's our redemptive story, right? That's redemptive. Redemption is being made whole. Here we see, and it's a turning point, when we start looking at chapter 5, this was Moses' turning point. This is when this guy realized, man, God still loved him. He was still going to be able to be used, and he became one of the key figures in the entire Bible. And it wasn't because he was anything special. It was because he broke and he surrendered, and he served his God.

Is there any other better example that we have that looks like us today? Honestly, look at yourselves. How many people at the end of this sermon are going to go run off and watch TV? How many people are going to forget about the people driving in the car? How far after this sermon is it going to be before you realize that maybe you don't love people? And then how far is it that the world is going to be screaming so loud and it's going to be so distracting that it doesn't become important to you anymore until your next Sunday visit?

Brokenness brings redemption, or the desire for that wholeness. Brokenness exposes weakness. Oh, this is the best part, guys. This is one of my favorite aspects of being broken. Man, if you don't have a weakness, then, man, I'd love to meet you. If you don't have a medical condition, I'd love to meet you. If you don't have emotional issues, I'd love to meet you. If you have zero issues and you are 100% perfect, you are an anomaly. And, man, we should have put a book about you in here. But we are not. We are all some aspect. We have a weakness. We all have something that we really just either aren't good at or something that's just holding us back or that we think is holding us back. If a man with a speech impediment can be used to free an entire nation, to free God's people, what weakness do you have? Do you think God can't use for his glory? It pretty much eliminates any excuse that we can possibly

have. Does it not? Do you see how our lives just look so much like Moses's? We have nothing but excuses. I don't care if you can't talk in front of people. I don't even care if you're scared. If you have a fear in your heart, then you haven't read the Bible because it tells us who is with us and why we shouldn't fear. We have no excuses. The entire book of the Bible gets rid of any excuse that we have not to find and to mimic what God and Jesus look like. There's no excuse that we have that the Bible does not deal with that prevents us from having a compassionate heart to love people and to spread God's word. There is no excuse. It's not your job. If you value your job, if you go to work and you're too tired to go spread the word of God, well then man, I tell you what, you have a problem because you've misunderstood what's being done here and you misunderstood what you've been commanded to do. If you think your mortgage is more important than

saving somebody out there, then you're misunderstanding the point. That means that we're just believing the lives of this world more than we believe in the truths of the word that we were given. I always tell my kids, you need to stop caring what people think. Most people don't. What excuses do we have? God's taking care of all of them. He's answered all of them. Why are we not moving with the speed and with the deliberate nature to save every single person who doesn't know Jesus Christ? I think about my friends, the suitors, every day. They are stuck in a house because of the riots where they are. Man, what difference is their lives from yours? What difference is there isn't? The only thing is here, you have zero problems about getting shot or blown up because you're expressing a love for the Lord God. What excuses do we have? Our lives, every single day,

when we get up, our goal is to spread the word of God. If you have any other goal that is number one, you need to stop, take the day off, and revisit the word because that's not the truth. That's not the truth at all. So are you guys still, are we still arguing with God? Why are we still arguing? Are you still waiting to feel more qualified? Is it that fear? You can go, you can continue. These are just some of the things that really when you look at the story of Moses, the greatest leaders in God's kingdom are not the most talented. They are the most surrendered. And God could care less about your ability and he definitely could care less about your inability. All he really needs is your availability. When you move from a place of doubt to obedience, God goes from preparation and you get to see his power move. Man,

if you haven't experienced that, gosh, it is life altering. And once you experience once, you will never not want to experience. The powerful conclusion that we see in chapter four offers just that lesson that anyone in a ministry, anyone who's looking to disciple, anyone who calls himself a Christian, that God's truth, that if we can communicate it faithfully, courageously, and when it's confirmed by his power, ignites a genuine faith

and true heartfelt worship. The chapter that began with one man's paralyzing doubt, we get to wrap up with a nation on its knees and that is humbling for me. And that's inspirational for me because if God can use Moses, God can use you. Pray with me real quick. Dear Heavenly Father, we just come to you and I just want to be still. And God in this stillness, what I acknowledge that you are my God.

God, you're the God that saves, you're a God that loves. You're a God that hasn't let go. You're a God that has embraced me since the day that I asked you into my heart and you have not let go. You're a God that fulfills promises. You're a God that performs miracles. You're a God that doesn't need us, but a God that wants us. Lord, I'm so thankful for you. I'm thankful for this church. I'm thankful for this congregation. I'm so thankful for this family. But as we move out today, Lord, I just want to give you our excuses. I want to give you our burdens. I want to give you our sin. I want to give you anything that's going to separate me from experiencing your power and spreading your word. God, we love you so much. In your name we pray. Amen.