Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Are you ready for the Word of God? You sounded
Speaker 1: about thirty percent as ready as I need you to be.
Speaker 1: Let me ask, y'all, are you all ready for the
Speaker 1: Word of God. Helpy Skinner is coming to preach in
Speaker 1: just a moment. Hang on before he comes. This is
Speaker 1: an epic warrior for Jesus Christ. Larry Bride. Larry and
Speaker 1: Janet were two of the original core team members of
Speaker 1: our church. They've been with me all the way. They
Speaker 1: believed in this church when it was nothing more than
Speaker 1: a sonogram. Janet told me, because she was my dental
Speaker 1: hygienists at the time, I said I'm going to plant
Speaker 1: a church. She said, have fun with that. I would
Speaker 1: never go. Fifteen years later, she's on the front road,
Speaker 1: but I'll get out of the way because I want
Speaker 1: to give him the pulpit. I just wanted to say
Speaker 1: that this ministry would not be possible without this man.
Speaker 1: From the time that he almost rammed the gate with
Speaker 1: his truck at a storage unit to get our equipment
Speaker 1: so we could have church at the Providence High School
Speaker 1: at Trim in the early days, to the day that
Speaker 1: he almost broke the window out of my jeep Cherokee
Speaker 1: so I could have a prop for a sermon illustration.
Speaker 1: As you can see, he's got an anointing of violence
Speaker 1: and I love them for it. He hails from Minnesota.
Speaker 1: He is a former NCAA Division one National Champion wrestler
Speaker 1: or something like that. Maybe not, he wasn't that good,
Speaker 1: but he used to wrestle. And what I want you
Speaker 1: to know about your dad, Corbyn is that he's had
Speaker 1: my back at every turn, no matter what I've asked
Speaker 1: him to do for the ministry Daylan, He's had my
Speaker 1: back at every turn. It's absolutely amazing that whatever we
Speaker 1: asked him to do to serve God, he did it.
Speaker 1: There are pastors and ministry that we're burning out and
Speaker 1: we would always send your dad and we say, if
Speaker 1: we can send him lb, it'll be like a intravenous anointing.
Speaker 1: Thousands of churches around the world would say we would
Speaker 1: not be who we are without him. And I say
Speaker 1: that to you today, Thank you for everything you've sown.
Speaker 1: I want you to welcome to this pulpit today the
Speaker 1: man who has had more job titles at Elevation Church
Speaker 1: than I've had hair styles, the Great Larry Bride, come on,
Speaker 1: help help help me. How are we doing elevation? Oh?
Speaker 1: I said, how are we doing elevation? Woo? It's hard
Speaker 1: to come up after that, Pastor Stephen, I love you.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years ago I said to all that you have
Speaker 1: in mind, know with you heart and soul, my answers Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: whatever question you ask, the answer will always be yes.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you've already said yes to the question
Speaker 1: that's waiting to be asked of you. I wonder what
Speaker 1: would happen of your life if you predetermined the answer
Speaker 1: before you ever asked the questions. Let's not have conditional faith.
Speaker 1: Let's not have a faith it's based upon convenience or
Speaker 1: comfort is simply saying yes, Lord, Yes, Lord. And in
Speaker 1: the past year and a half, all of us have
Speaker 1: experienced this thing called COVID. And I think there's two
Speaker 1: parts of every story that I get into that I
Speaker 1: always hear, and the first one is something like this,
Speaker 1: and then COVID happened. They could be talking about a marriage,
Speaker 1: they could be talking about a funeral, they could be
Speaker 1: talking about school, they could be talking about alone, and
Speaker 1: then COVID happened, and it's real. It happened. It did,
Speaker 1: and it's affected all of our lives. But there's always
Speaker 1: the second part of every story that I'm a part of.
Speaker 1: Anybody who goes to elevation. First part is then COVID happened,
Speaker 1: and the second part is and then Pastor Stephen preached,
Speaker 1: it's real COVID happened, but there's a greater reality in
Speaker 1: the word of God. I'm so glad that we live
Speaker 1: in a house that there's a greater reality. And then
Speaker 1: Pastor Stephen preached, what was it for you? Because he
Speaker 1: preaches sermons every week that'll encourage you. But there's some
Speaker 1: that marked the moment. Maybe it was comfort food, same
Speaker 1: Devil's new levels, built different what you call small unlearn
Speaker 1: your limitations. For me, though, it was it was lonely places.
Speaker 1: That was the sermon that marked COVID for me, because
Speaker 1: COVID affected us. But there's a greater reality, and there
Speaker 1: was thirty people in the room last July when Pastor
Speaker 1: Stephen preached this sermon, and he walked off the stage
Speaker 1: into that entire section here at Balentown, there's nobody in it.
Speaker 1: And he got in the fourth row, one two three, four,
Speaker 1: second seat over and he sat there and he talked
Speaker 1: about the lonely places. And for me, that hit me
Speaker 1: because that lonely place, I wanted to stay as far
Speaker 1: away from it as I could. I stay away from
Speaker 1: it by getting busy just saying how you doing today,
Speaker 1: blessed highly favored brother, Like, I'll do everything I can
Speaker 1: to avoid that lonely place. But Pastor Stephen does this
Speaker 1: thing where he kind of forces you into that seat
Speaker 1: in a loving way, and he forces you to look
Speaker 1: at what you've been hiding from. And today I want
Speaker 1: to talk about what God showed me in that lonely place.
Speaker 1: I watched the sermon eight times that week, and I
Speaker 1: cried every time because God was revealing wave after wave
Speaker 1: after wave of his revelation of the place that I
Speaker 1: didn't want to get to. That I found the blessing
Speaker 1: when I sat in it. And I just want to
Speaker 1: unpack for a few moments with you. What God showed
Speaker 1: me in that lonely place. Maybe this would encourage you
Speaker 1: for anybody's in that lonely place, for anybody who feels
Speaker 1: like they're outcast or overlooked, for anybody who feels like
Speaker 1: they're marginal or push to the periphery of life. This
Speaker 1: is a word for you. God's gonna meet you in
Speaker 1: this place, and it's not just gonna encourage you. It's
Speaker 1: gonna mark the moment. It's gonna mark the moment of
Speaker 1: your life. Help me thank Pastor Stephen every week for
Speaker 1: getting in this pulpit and preach your words that we
Speaker 1: live on. I love me, Pastor Stephen, Thank you, We
Speaker 1: honor you. And the character I want to give you
Speaker 1: a couple verses and then he'll be seated. The character
Speaker 1: that God led me to is Moses. It's in Exodus
Speaker 1: chapter three, just a few verses. This is what I
Speaker 1: learned in that lonely place that maybe you to be
Speaker 1: encouraged with Exodus three, verses one to six. It says
Speaker 1: now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father
Speaker 1: in law, the priest Obmitian. He led the fuck flocked
Speaker 1: to the far side of the wilderness and came to
Speaker 1: horror of the mountain of God. They're an angel of
Speaker 1: the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from
Speaker 1: within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was
Speaker 1: on fire, it did not burn up. So Moses thought,
Speaker 1: I will go over and see this strange sight. Why
Speaker 1: does this bush not burn up? When the Lord saw
Speaker 1: that Moses had gone over to look, he called him
Speaker 1: from within the bush, Moses. Moses. Moses said, here I am.
Speaker 1: We would do well to consider the cadence of this text.
Speaker 1: God is present, but his voice is absent, and it's
Speaker 1: easy for us to stand at a distance saying God speak,
Speaker 1: but her feet aren't moving. And the progression of the
Speaker 1: text indicates that as Moses moved, God spoke. And I
Speaker 1: want to celebrate your decision to move towards God today,
Speaker 1: to get out of bed and go to the Orlando campus,
Speaker 1: to get out of bed and go to the Gaston campus,
Speaker 1: to roll over in bed, and to click on the
Speaker 1: Lincoln just to watch those small movements God sees. And
Speaker 1: when you make one small step towards God, he comes
Speaker 1: moving towards you. As some of you fell like God,
Speaker 1: you're at a distance, And I can't hear you. Just
Speaker 1: move towards him and trust that he will speak to you. Today, says,
Speaker 1: do not come any closer. God said, take off your
Speaker 1: sandals for the place where you are standing his holy ground.
Speaker 1: Then he said, I am the God of your the
Speaker 1: God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
Speaker 1: of Jacob. At this Moses hid his face because he
Speaker 1: was afraid to look at God. And for a few
Speaker 1: minutes we have together. I want to considered this subject.
Speaker 1: I need your help announcing the sermon title to your neighbor.
Speaker 1: If you're in a room, maybe you'd say it out
Speaker 1: loud to your cat, it's this. It's look at you.
Speaker 1: Look at your neighbor and say this to him. Say
Speaker 1: let's face it now. Maybe there's somebody else you would
Speaker 1: have preferred to talk to. Look at them and say
Speaker 1: let's face it. Maybe in the comments you would drop
Speaker 1: in like some emojis, type in the title less face
Speaker 1: you guys can be seated here at balance on all
Speaker 1: of our locations. Thank you, worship team. Now. When I
Speaker 1: was in third grade, I loved school. I loved it.
Speaker 1: I would sit for hours in the living room and
Speaker 1: doing my math and doing my science and doing my words.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. I would hear my mom, little Dorothy
Speaker 1: four foot eleven, on a good day. She would be
Speaker 1: yelling from the kitchen like, I'm so proud of you,
Speaker 1: my baby, hur glees, you looked, You're so good. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, my mom is proud of me. I'm smart.
Speaker 1: She's like, you're so smart, You're so smart. And then
Speaker 1: one day at school, my third grade teacher, Missus Rasmus,
Speaker 1: and she gave me a note to take home to
Speaker 1: my mom. It was stapled together, and I thought, oh,
Speaker 1: my gosh, she wants to like throw a party from
Speaker 1: me or something. She's so proud of me. I bet
Speaker 1: I'm gonna win like student of the Month award or
Speaker 1: something like that. So, of course I did what every
Speaker 1: third grader does. I opened the note. I did staple
Speaker 1: didn't mean anything that was insignificant. I opened the note,
Speaker 1: but I tried to read it. But that was the problem.
Speaker 1: I couldn't read very good. And so I can make
Speaker 1: out a couple of words. I can make out one
Speaker 1: of the words like special. I'm like, oh, Missus Rasmussen
Speaker 1: thinks I'm special. Oh, this is amazing. Yes, Missus Rasmus
Speaker 1: is thank you, and then I can make out another
Speaker 1: word like slow. I'm like, obviously she's not seen me.
Speaker 1: In pe like, I am the fastest kid in the school,
Speaker 1: Missus rasmus, and I am very fast, fooking me, she
Speaker 1: must not have seen me. And I came to this
Speaker 1: other word that I tried to read, and I like,
Speaker 1: I asked my buddy Paul, I said what's this word?
Speaker 1: And he said remedial. I said, what's that meaning? He said,
Speaker 1: it means you're stupid. And I can tell you what
Speaker 1: I was wearing. I could tell you where I was standing.
Speaker 1: And that was the first moment in my life. I
Speaker 1: felt shame. I felt it. It was like a clo,
Speaker 1: like a coat you put on me, and I wore it.
Speaker 1: And so I took the note and I folded it
Speaker 1: back up, and I'm trying to figure out in a
Speaker 1: way to give this to my mom. But I'm not
Speaker 1: going to give it to my mom. So I took
Speaker 1: my little Duke's of hazard lunchbox. And on one side
Speaker 1: it opened up and you had the thermis and all
Speaker 1: this stuff and it. But on the other side, if
Speaker 1: it had like a secret compartment, the other lid opened,
Speaker 1: and you would put your napkin in there and your
Speaker 1: soup spoon and all that stuff. So I thought, that's
Speaker 1: where I'm going to put my note. So I hit
Speaker 1: it in that little secret compartment. So when I took
Speaker 1: it home and I gave my mom my lunchbox. The
Speaker 1: next day missus rasmus and said, did you give the
Speaker 1: note to your mom? I'm like, yes, I did. Isn't
Speaker 1: it amazing what shame will cause you to do that's
Speaker 1: inconsistent with your character? Isn't it amazing what shame will
Speaker 1: get you to do? And that day I went home,
Speaker 1: my mom said, are you gonna do your math? I
Speaker 1: remember telling you no, Mom, I'm not very good at it.
Speaker 1: She's what do you mean? I just I'm kind of
Speaker 1: done with that, mom. So I go back to school
Speaker 1: and the next week, teacher's like, will your mom hasn't
Speaker 1: called me because there was no text message back in
Speaker 1: this day, And she goes, here's another note. Take it home.
Speaker 1: So I put it right with the other note in
Speaker 1: my duke's that it has her lunchbox. A couple of
Speaker 1: weeks go by, she finally feels like, I don't think
Speaker 1: your mom's getting these notes. So here's what we're gonna do.
Speaker 1: She staples the note to my shirt. True story. Of course,
Speaker 1: I took it off my shirt and I put it
Speaker 1: right in with the other ones. And a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks go by, and Missus Rasmus is like, make sure
Speaker 1: you give your mom that note so she can call me.
Speaker 1: And I can't even look at her, because you know,
Speaker 1: what shame causes you to do, doesn't even let you
Speaker 1: look anybody in the face. Shame makes you feel so
Speaker 1: unworthy you can't look at anybody. I can't even look
Speaker 1: at Missus Rasmussen. And that little boy who used to
Speaker 1: do all those math things died and he would never
Speaker 1: come alive again. And I'm walking on the way out
Speaker 1: to the school bus and accidentally hit my lunchbox against
Speaker 1: the desk and it opens up and out floats all
Speaker 1: my notes. Missus Rasmussen sees it. She's like, Larry, and
Speaker 1: I hide my face and I just start crying. She
Speaker 1: comes in so gender gently and she says, LB, Larry.
Speaker 1: She says, you've got a learning disability. But I'm with you.
Speaker 1: She said, let's face it. So in the text, when
Speaker 1: Moses hides his face, I identify with that situation. That's
Speaker 1: the lonely space. That's the place where you go to
Speaker 1: where you hide your face because you don't even feel
Speaker 1: worthy to look anybody else in the face. That's that
Speaker 1: lonely space for me. So when God comes to Moses
Speaker 1: in this scene in chapter three of Exodus, I get it.
Speaker 1: God's got a job for him to do, and he's like,
Speaker 1: not me. He gives them all these excuses, not me,
Speaker 1: Send somebody else? Should I tell him? What about all
Speaker 1: these things? And finally he gives this answer. In verse
Speaker 1: ten of chapter four says Moses said to the Lord,
Speaker 1: pardon your servant. Lord, I've never been eloquent, neither in
Speaker 1: the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.
Speaker 1: I am slow of speech and sung. And if you've
Speaker 1: grown up around the church world, you've heard that voice before.
Speaker 1: And every time you hear the character of Moses preach,
Speaker 1: he sounds a little bit like Forrest Gump with a stutter,
Speaker 1: because I can't talk very good. And that's the story
Speaker 1: you've heard your whole life, and you've believed a lie
Speaker 1: because that's not true. This is the part about the
Speaker 1: lonely place and makes you believe lies. That are not real.
Speaker 1: They're not real. Because as I jumped into this lonely
Speaker 1: place and I started to inspect the story of Moses,
Speaker 1: I came to the Book of Acts where it's recorded.
Speaker 1: Luke records this in seven twenty two, and this busted
Speaker 1: the bubble of my perception of Moses. And maybe God
Speaker 1: wants to bust your bubble for how you see yourself today,
Speaker 1: the stereotypes you have labeled yourself with the things you said,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to do math because I'm dumb, because
Speaker 1: in Acts seven twenty two it says this is as
Speaker 1: Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians
Speaker 1: and was powerful is speech and what like. That's got
Speaker 1: to be a typo that doesn't really happen. That's not
Speaker 1: in the Bible. Because I always thought that Moses was
Speaker 1: slow and he was dumb. But what you're telling me
Speaker 1: is in the text. If there's a place where it
Speaker 1: says he was powerful in speech and an action. It's
Speaker 1: the same word the pastor referenced a couple of weeks
Speaker 1: ago when you talked about the Holy Spirit, when it
Speaker 1: comes on you, it will give you power. It's the
Speaker 1: same word that te's talked of Jesus. He says, with him,
Speaker 1: all things are possible. So if the limitless potential of
Speaker 1: God is in this moment, why is Moses responding with
Speaker 1: an inferior answer? And it made me examine myself. Are
Speaker 1: my answers really just excuses rooted in insecurity or are
Speaker 1: they responses grounded in truth? What answers have you been
Speaker 1: giving that are rooted in insecurity? Because it's the story
Speaker 1: you believed when you were in third grade? I'm stupid?
Speaker 1: Where's that at? This is the lonely place for me?
Speaker 1: This is the place when God took me to that
Speaker 1: space I didn't want to look at because I couldn't
Speaker 1: look at myself. But before we impuneis character, it's important
Speaker 1: that we look at the backstory. Never judge the behavior
Speaker 1: without knowing the backstory, and then never never because how
Speaker 1: did he get here? That would be a good question
Speaker 1: for you to type into the comments. How did you
Speaker 1: get here? How did you get to this point? How
Speaker 1: did you get to these beliefs? How did you get
Speaker 1: into the system where that defines through you are? How
Speaker 1: did you get here? And you're just saying, well, I'm
Speaker 1: just not very smart. That's a lie, shut your pie hole.
Speaker 1: That's not true. But Moses believed it. But God simply
Speaker 1: ministered to Moses in the moment. But let's look at
Speaker 1: the backstory. I want to summarize. If you flip a
Speaker 1: chapter over into Exodus chapter two, you could type into
Speaker 1: the comments this would be your additional reading during the week.
Speaker 1: Verses one to ten. Let me just summarize for you.
Speaker 1: Moses is born onto the scene. He's got a mom
Speaker 1: and a dad, am Ram his dad, and Jocobed is mom.
Speaker 1: And at that time an issue, an order had been
Speaker 1: issued among the Israelites from Pharaoh, the king of the Egyptians,
Speaker 1: who said, hey, the firstborn must be thrown into the
Speaker 1: Nile river. The Israelites are getting too big. We can't
Speaker 1: let him overtake us, so we need to exterminate some
Speaker 1: of them. So they have a baby, and the scripture
Speaker 1: says that he was a fine child. It says that
Speaker 1: he was special in the king James. It says goodly.
Speaker 1: It's the same word that when God created he said
Speaker 1: it was very good. The mark of God was on Moses.
Speaker 1: His mom and dad saw it, and they said we
Speaker 1: have to protect it. And so this week, when somebody
Speaker 1: asks you how you doing. Don't let it be just
Speaker 1: a back end comments and I'm good. No, no no, no,
Speaker 1: say say I'm good. I'm good. God made me, God
Speaker 1: formed me, God fashioned me. I'm good. I'm good. And
Speaker 1: Moses mom and dad and they saw it. So they
Speaker 1: hid him for three months. Wait, no, as a grown man,
Speaker 1: he's hiding his face. And his life started at obscurity.
Speaker 1: Being hidden by his parents. Was his behavior something that
Speaker 1: was created by God or conditioned by man? Was the
Speaker 1: environment that you grew up in? Did it shape you
Speaker 1: to change your decisions for how you expressed yourself as
Speaker 1: an adult? How did you get here? Moses? It wasn't
Speaker 1: the story in that day. It was the story that
Speaker 1: had been unfolding his whole life, and you got to
Speaker 1: peel it back. You will not understand the scene of
Speaker 1: your life unless you rewind the movie a little bit.
Speaker 1: And Moses, he's hidden. And they said when he can
Speaker 1: hide him no longer. They had to put him in
Speaker 1: a basket and toss him out under the Nile River.
Speaker 1: Mama had to abandoned him because she didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do with him. Could it be that God has
Speaker 1: hidden something in your heart and you haven't known what
Speaker 1: to do with it, and you've been staring at the
Speaker 1: situations say it's not gonna happen, So I guess I'll
Speaker 1: just abandon it. I wonder how many abandoned dreams are
Speaker 1: left on the floor of all of our services because
Speaker 1: you have given up on it and you've less settled
Speaker 1: for the lie. I'm just not smart, I'm not good. No,
Speaker 1: that's not true. That's not true. That's not true. So
Speaker 1: she has to abandon this thing. Can you imagine the
Speaker 1: pain of jocobet is She just hands over her son
Speaker 1: onto the Nile River, the very thing that was created
Speaker 1: to destroy him. Now she has to lay him in.
Speaker 1: But say but, but MOS's older sister, Miriam, was watching
Speaker 1: at a distance, and she sees where the basket comes
Speaker 1: against the shore, and it just so happens that it's
Speaker 1: near Pharaoh's daughter where she's coming down. And she's seeing this,
Speaker 1: and God sees you, and you might feel like you've
Speaker 1: been tossed out into the waves of life. But God
Speaker 1: is controlling the current, and he controlled where she landed.
Speaker 1: And she sees Pharaoh's daughter come and get this baby,
Speaker 1: and she just happens. Oh do you want me to
Speaker 1: go get one of the Hebrew mamas to nurse him
Speaker 1: for you. She says yes, So she takes Moses back
Speaker 1: to his mom. Imagine the joy and Jocobed and hearing like,
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, this thing that I gave away come
Speaker 1: back to me. Oh my soul in the story gets
Speaker 1: even better. They're gonna pay me to do it. Oh,
Speaker 1: I declare over you. Whatever the devil has caused you
Speaker 1: to forfeit, God's gonna restore and He's gonna make him
Speaker 1: pay for it. God's gonna make him pay for it.
Speaker 1: And he paid for it, and it comes back to her.
Speaker 1: Oh my God, you brought this back to me. But
Speaker 1: then she hears the other part of the story. But
Speaker 1: you can only have him for a certain time because
Speaker 1: Pharaoh's daughter wants him as her son. What God, this
Speaker 1: is in faith? Or maybe it really is. So now
Speaker 1: Jocobed begins this process of training up a child in
Speaker 1: the way he should go, because she knows she's only
Speaker 1: got a finite time with him. Some theologians it would
Speaker 1: have been only about four years up to about eight
Speaker 1: years because the child would have needed to be weaned.
Speaker 1: But in that time there wasn't a whole lot of
Speaker 1: bread on the Israelite tables, so they would nurse these
Speaker 1: children as long as they can be could because it
Speaker 1: kept more food on the table. So it's a reasonable
Speaker 1: to assume that Jokobed was delaying the process as much
Speaker 1: as she could because she didn't want to hand this
Speaker 1: child over, but she knew she would have to one day.
Speaker 1: So she begins the process of every day looking at
Speaker 1: most and say, Moses, you're special. You're a deliverer. Your
Speaker 1: God is the god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. You're
Speaker 1: a creative for it to be a deliverer of Moses.
Speaker 1: And every day she's speaking over him. She'd speaking over him,
Speaker 1: she'd speaking over and she'd make him repeat it back. Moses,
Speaker 1: you're a deliverer. You are special. God's hand is on
Speaker 1: your left. Your God is the God of Abraham, Isaac
Speaker 1: and Jacob. Because she knows she's got to give him
Speaker 1: over to a household of the Egyptians, and not just
Speaker 1: any household, the household of Pharaoh. Ramsey's the second, the
Speaker 1: one who wanted all the Israelite baby's dead. She's got
Speaker 1: to give her baby too. You imagine the uncertainty of
Speaker 1: the situation, and she's got to hand her son over
Speaker 1: every day. Moses, you can do this, Moses, you can
Speaker 1: do this. Moses. Your God is the God of Abraham,
Speaker 1: Isaac and Jacob. And every day, every day, every day
Speaker 1: training up this child, because she knows he'd end up
Speaker 1: in a household where they did not believe that God
Speaker 1: is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Know they
Speaker 1: had a bunch of other gods. There were polyheistic, they
Speaker 1: worshiped everything, not the true God, not the living God.
Speaker 1: So she's got to hide the word in his heart.
Speaker 1: That's who he can endure that environment when he gets
Speaker 1: handed over. Imagine the pain of jocobt as she holds
Speaker 1: her boy's hand and she's got tears welling up, but
Speaker 1: she can't let him be expressed. He's got to say,
Speaker 1: remember who you are, Moses, Remember who you are, Remember
Speaker 1: who you are. And she's gonna walk this child over
Speaker 1: to be handed over to the Egyptians. Remember Moses, Remember Moses,
Speaker 1: Remember Moses. And I have to believe the sound of
Speaker 1: Mom's voice is ringing in Moses's ears, because now he's
Speaker 1: got to be handed over to the Egyptians, and the
Speaker 1: first thing he hears over here is forget, forget all that.
Speaker 1: Don't let anybody know you're a Hebrew. Don't let anybody know.
Speaker 1: He is trying to be conformed into the image of
Speaker 1: an idol. In the Egyptian household, he would have had
Speaker 1: his clothes changed. Outside the palace, he would have been
Speaker 1: given a completely new haircut, and he was given the
Speaker 1: name Moses. Moses was not his first name. That was
Speaker 1: his second name. We don't even know his first name.
Speaker 1: That was not his Jewish name, that was his Egyptian name.
Speaker 1: And so by the time he gets to the palace,
Speaker 1: he's hearing from his new mom forget all that, don't
Speaker 1: let anybody know, don't let anybody know. But I have
Speaker 1: to believe. In his heart, he still hears mama's voice,
Speaker 1: Mama speaking over my mama said. My mama said, I'm
Speaker 1: a deliverer. My mama said, I am special. My mama said,
Speaker 1: my Goddess, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Because he's
Speaker 1: gonna have to sit in a religion class, because he
Speaker 1: was trained by all the smartest Egyptian minds, and they
Speaker 1: were the leaders in the world at that time. And
Speaker 1: he's got to send in their science classes and their
Speaker 1: religion classes when they hear about the god raw, the
Speaker 1: God of the sun, or the God of the moon,
Speaker 1: or the God of the alligators. They had all these
Speaker 1: gods they worship, And I have to believe he's sitting
Speaker 1: in these classes going, yeah, you get your rah my God.
Speaker 1: He's the god of ava, Isaac and Jacob, and he
Speaker 1: hears Mama's voice, just encouraging him, just encouraging him. Pastor
Speaker 1: Stephen preached it last week. Spiritual growth isn't always learning
Speaker 1: something new, it's remembering something old. I wish I could
Speaker 1: shake every single one and say, do you remember who
Speaker 1: you are? Do you remember who you are? Do you
Speaker 1: remember who you are? Do you remember who you are?
Speaker 1: So Moses gets raised in his household, and then the
Speaker 1: story continues. In Acts chapter seven it says this. In
Speaker 1: Acts seven twenty three, it says when Moses was forty
Speaker 1: years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites.
Speaker 1: Interesting story. I believe that Moses knew who he was,
Speaker 1: He knew whose he was, and he knew his purpose.
Speaker 1: He weathered the storms for forty years of living in
Speaker 1: an Egyptian household, and the moment came. This is the
Speaker 1: moment God, this is what I was created for, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm called to do. I'm ready. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: jump onto the scene, and I'm gonna deliver my people.
Speaker 1: Here we go, God, Here we go God. And because
Speaker 1: verse the next verse that tells us a verse twenty four,
Speaker 1: he saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian,
Speaker 1: so he went to his defense and avenged him by
Speaker 1: killing the Egyptian Verse twenty five. Moses thought that his
Speaker 1: own people would realize God was using him to rescue them,
Speaker 1: but they did not. The whole story hinges on that
Speaker 1: verse right there, But they did not. I shuld Stephen
Speaker 1: Law preached last week. Then they gathered, there's a good
Speaker 1: day and there's a bad day. But they did not
Speaker 1: see Moses. He was prepared to stand against the Egyptian,
Speaker 1: but he wasn't ready to battle the disbelief of his
Speaker 1: own people. He was prepared for the enemy, he wasn't
Speaker 1: prepared for the friend. We teach our kids to fight
Speaker 1: the devil, but will we teach him to endure their friends?
Speaker 1: But they did not. There was someone who's supposed to
Speaker 1: look out for you but they did not. They said
Speaker 1: they would be with you for good or for bad,
Speaker 1: for better or for worse, but they did not. They
Speaker 1: said they were going to care for you, but they
Speaker 1: did not. They said they were going to protect you,
Speaker 1: but they did not. Who is they? Who were the
Speaker 1: ones that were supposed to be there for you that
Speaker 1: they did not? And it's not always the big day.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's you thought it was funny, but they did not.
Speaker 1: You thought they'd be proud of you for going to
Speaker 1: that church, but they did not. And it was the
Speaker 1: rejection of the people he was called to rescue that
Speaker 1: caused him to pause in this moment. The very people
Speaker 1: he was sent to rescue rejected him. Sounds very much
Speaker 1: like Jesus, doesn't it. And the story continues. It says
Speaker 1: the next day, Moses came upon to Israelites who were fighting.
Speaker 1: He tried to reconcile them, but say, men, you are brothers,
Speaker 1: and I'm brother. Why do you want to hurt each other?
Speaker 1: But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses
Speaker 1: aside and said, who made you ruler and judge over us?
Speaker 1: And what you see in this pivot point, this is
Speaker 1: a lynch pin in the story of Moses. This is
Speaker 1: the shift in his life is up until this point,
Speaker 1: He's like, I'm created, I'm ready, here's my moment, this
Speaker 1: is going to happen. But they did not. And the
Speaker 1: voice of his mother saying you're creative for this and
Speaker 1: you can do this, it faded in this moment. He
Speaker 1: could not remember it. Their disbelief caused his doubt. Wow,
Speaker 1: whose disbelief has caused your doubt? But they were supposed
Speaker 1: to be there for you. I just don't think they'd
Speaker 1: be the smartest decision with your life. But they did not.
Speaker 1: Don't let they keep you from knowing who who? Here's
Speaker 1: the question? Who made you rule and judge over us?
Speaker 1: Moses could have appealed at two different levels. He's got
Speaker 1: two nature He's got an Egyptian nature and he's got
Speaker 1: a Jewish nature. He's a Hebrew and he's an Egyptian.
Speaker 1: He's got both of these natures. And he's so conflicted
Speaker 1: because I'm both of these things. I'm both of these things,
Speaker 1: and some of us are living in a world that
Speaker 1: you're so conflicted. I got one hand raised with a
Speaker 1: red solo cup on Saturday night, but I'm raised it
Speaker 1: in a Sunday in worship, and I'm conflicted. I don't
Speaker 1: feel like I belong in either place. I won't make
Speaker 1: it real practical because some of us are straddling the
Speaker 1: fence in different worlds and we don't feel like we
Speaker 1: belong in either. And when you give equal weight to
Speaker 1: competing voices, you'll always be conflicted. You'll always be conflicted.
Speaker 1: But I do believe in my spirit that Moses gave
Speaker 1: greater weight to the voice of his mom and saying,
Speaker 1: you're special your delivery, you're creative for this. And he
Speaker 1: could appeal to either of his natures because that an
Speaker 1: Egyptian nature. He could have said, who made me rule
Speaker 1: and judge over you? You You might have heard of him,
Speaker 1: here's my grandpa Ramsey's the second Pharaoh. Yo, I can
Speaker 1: do whatever I want. I'm the prince of Egypt. He
Speaker 1: had a very natural level that he could have appealed,
Speaker 1: and he would have won that argument. But he did.
Speaker 1: Why did he forfeit his memory in that moment because
Speaker 1: of their disbelief. Their disbelief cost his doubts, and the
Speaker 1: entire direction of his life is shifted because of the doubt.
Speaker 1: Who has solen in on you? Who has busted in
Speaker 1: on you and sold your faith because of their disbelief.
Speaker 1: But he could have appealed if you had have remembered
Speaker 1: his mama's voice, Who made you ruler and judge over us? Oh? Hey,
Speaker 1: mama said, Mama said, mama, Mama said, Mama, Mama, Mama said, mama.
Speaker 1: Mama said, I'm a deliverer. Mama said, I'm special. Mama said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna lead to Egyptians or the the Israelites out
Speaker 1: of Egyptian slavery. My God is the god of Abraham,
Speaker 1: Isaac and Jacob, So I guess my God made me
Speaker 1: ruler and judge over you. He could have appealed at
Speaker 1: the natural level and at the supernatural level, but he
Speaker 1: forgot both. He forfeited in where in your life? When
Speaker 1: you tell the story, you go back to the backstory,
Speaker 1: and you can come to this pivot point, where did
Speaker 1: your life shift because of someone else's disbelief that caused
Speaker 1: your doubt? They to forget who The story verse twenty
Speaker 1: eight says, are you thinking of killing me as you
Speaker 1: killed the Egyptian yesterday? When Moses heard this, he didn't
Speaker 1: even answer. He just shut it down and he fled
Speaker 1: to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner, and he
Speaker 1: had two sons. He's so intimidated by the situation that
Speaker 1: he ran from it. You'll always be defeated by something
Speaker 1: you're intimidated by. Moses was intimidated by something he did
Speaker 1: not understand, and because he didn't understand it, he was
Speaker 1: intimidated by it. This doesn't make sense. God, I thought
Speaker 1: they were going to receive me, So rather than actually
Speaker 1: sitting in this lonely place, he hides. He was hidden
Speaker 1: for the first three months of his life in Exodus three.
Speaker 1: Read the story where he's hidden. He's hiding his face.
Speaker 1: That's at age eighty. This is at age forty right
Speaker 1: here this scene. So what does he do? He hides
Speaker 1: himself and where does he go? Midian Midian? Can anything
Speaker 1: good happen from Nazareth? It's like Midian Midian. The Egyptians
Speaker 1: would have referenced it as the abomination they would have
Speaker 1: called in the scripture, says those detestable shepherds of Midian.
Speaker 1: So Moses has got to go to the place that
Speaker 1: is detestable in the eyes of the family that he had.
Speaker 1: It's the only place he could go to survive and
Speaker 1: as Moses is heading towards a new place, and everything
Speaker 1: he had is washed away, and he's going to go
Speaker 1: to a place where he's got to learn a whole
Speaker 1: new language, a whole new culture, a whole new family,
Speaker 1: a whole new job. Everything's going to be new. It
Speaker 1: was the second time he would have went through this
Speaker 1: event in his life, because the first time he had
Speaker 1: to do wo and he went to Egypt. But as
Speaker 1: he was going to Egypt, he was heading to Egypt
Speaker 1: on with purpose. But now when he's heading towards Midian,
Speaker 1: he's only moving with pain. It's different this time, isn't
Speaker 1: it say? It's different? This time is different from Moses.
Speaker 1: It's different. So when we see his behavior of hiding
Speaker 1: his face in front of God, we got to rewind
Speaker 1: the scene to forty years earlier when he's like, God,
Speaker 1: I tried it your way. I thought I heard you
Speaker 1: in it. It didn't work. So now he's got to
Speaker 1: go live in Midian. He's going to get a new name.
Speaker 1: This would have been his third name. He's got to
Speaker 1: have a whole new family. All that's forgotten. And it
Speaker 1: says he lived as a foreigner in the land for
Speaker 1: forty years whatever's unfamiliar is always foreign. Man. Talk about
Speaker 1: the last eighteen months of our life in this unfamiliar territory.
Speaker 1: But here's the thing. For Moses, even it became more familiar,
Speaker 1: it was no less foreign because he always felt like
Speaker 1: he didn't belong there. In fact, he named his first
Speaker 1: son Grisham, which means wanderer, foreigner. And so you got Moses.
Speaker 1: He was that God. I thought, I thought, I heard
Speaker 1: you right, I heard Mama's voice, and I did what
Speaker 1: she said and didn't work out. Didn't work out God,
Speaker 1: because we talk about Moses being Egyptian and being Hebrew. Well,
Speaker 1: for the first seven years of his life he was Hebrew.
Speaker 1: Next thirty three years of his life, he was Egyptian.
Speaker 1: For the next forty he's meeting. We don't even talk
Speaker 1: about that part of his life. Isn't it funny how
Speaker 1: you skip over big parts of your life that shaped you,
Speaker 1: and you'd forgot it because you want to forget the
Speaker 1: foreign part of it, and you want to sit in
Speaker 1: a moment, how you doing a blessed and highly favored sister,
Speaker 1: But you're a foreigner and Moses. So when the scene
Speaker 1: in Exodus three gets picked up, it says, Moses went
Speaker 1: to the far side of the wilderness, the far as
Speaker 1: far away from God as you could be, And he
Speaker 1: paints a picture of Moses sitting in this place, and
Speaker 1: it's an image of contentment. There's two competing visions of
Speaker 1: contentment in the scriptures. One of them is from the
Speaker 1: apostle Paul when he pens the book to the Philippian Church.
Speaker 1: I know what it is to be in plenty, and
Speaker 1: I know what it is to be in want. I
Speaker 1: know itice have everything and nothing, he says, and have
Speaker 1: learned the secret of being content. And he says, this
Speaker 1: is all I'll ever be. And it's the highest potential
Speaker 1: possibility for contentment, because it doesn't matter where you put me,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter what happens to me. I know who
Speaker 1: I am. I know and I know whose I am.
Speaker 1: This is all I'll ever be. The pendulum swing of
Speaker 1: contentment now goes way over here to Moses, and he's
Speaker 1: sitting in the desert, far away from the promises, and
Speaker 1: all he has is pain, and he says, this is
Speaker 1: all I'll ever be. A foreigner, a wanderer, this is
Speaker 1: my lot in life. And it's the lowest expression that
Speaker 1: you could have for your faith. I vacillate between these
Speaker 1: different levels of contentment. I like to be like Paul,
Speaker 1: but some days I'm a lot like Moses, and I
Speaker 1: get it. So when God comes to him and Exitdus three,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get it. I get it. And
Speaker 1: he hides his face. He didn't start hiding his face
Speaker 1: in that moment. He started hiding it forty years earlier.
Speaker 1: It's been in motion for forty years, and now you
Speaker 1: just see the expression of it. And so God comes
Speaker 1: to him in the middle of this bush and accent
Speaker 1: it picks up the story here, and I love the
Speaker 1: way that axe unfolds this acts thirty. It says after
Speaker 1: forty years had passed, and the Angel he heard to
Speaker 1: Moses in the flames of the burning bush in the
Speaker 1: desert of Mount Sina. When he saw this, he was amazed.
Speaker 1: At the side. He went over to get a closer look,
Speaker 1: and he heard the Lord say, I am the God
Speaker 1: of your father's, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
Speaker 1: and the God of Jacob. Moses trembled with fear, and
Speaker 1: he dared not look. It brought Moses to the place
Speaker 1: where he's covering his face and I get it. I
Speaker 1: get why he did it in that moment. So I
Speaker 1: so resonate in that moment with Moses as he's because
Speaker 1: in the scripture it says that he called he called
Speaker 1: his name twice, God did Moses, Moses. It's a Hebrew
Speaker 1: term of intimacy, means that God is close, means he's
Speaker 1: whispering because he's he's close. But I also think there's
Speaker 1: a practical reason why he had to say his name
Speaker 1: twice Moses, and Moses like, who I heard that name
Speaker 1: a long time? Who's who's that? And he hears the
Speaker 1: second Moses, Oh, that God died a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I didn't even want to think about him. I just no,
Speaker 1: I can't even go there, Like, don't kick that door
Speaker 1: back up. And he thinks it's just his mama's voice
Speaker 1: in his head. But he pushed that down a long
Speaker 1: time ago. That voice died and that part of him
Speaker 1: was over. But he thinks it's just mama's voice. And
Speaker 1: then he realizes, like, this is mama's voice, This is
Speaker 1: actually the God that my mama spoke about talking to me,
Speaker 1: and he hides his face. I get it. He's given
Speaker 1: up on everything and now the God that he had
Speaker 1: heard about is coming to him, and he's like, I
Speaker 1: can'd no leave me alone, God. And his response to
Speaker 1: God in this moment is amazing, and I think it
Speaker 1: paints a picture for the struggle of the lonely place.
Speaker 1: And Exodus three eleven, it says, but Moses said to God,
Speaker 1: and he says, who am I? Who am I? God?
Speaker 1: I don't know who I am? Am I an Israelite?
Speaker 1: Am I an Egyptian? Am I a Midianite? Am I?
Speaker 1: A slave? Am I A prince? Am I a shepherd?
Speaker 1: Am I A failure? Am I a mistake? Who am I? God?
Speaker 1: I don't know who I am? Leave me alone? Want
Speaker 1: nothing to do with you. I tried to eat your way.
Speaker 1: I stepped out like my mama said, and it didn't work.
Speaker 1: Just leave me alone. And I love the tenderness of
Speaker 1: God in this moment. I love how God just gently
Speaker 1: pushes past of all the excuses that He's given in
Speaker 1: this moment. And I think this is what God is
Speaker 1: speaking over you today as well. I think this is
Speaker 1: what he's telling you because some of you know that
Speaker 1: hiding place you go to, and Moses is saying, God,
Speaker 1: I can't look at you because I can't even look
Speaker 1: at myself. And verse twelve, God said, and God said,
Speaker 1: I will be with you. Because I think God's telling Moses. Moses,
Speaker 1: up until this point, you've only heard about me from
Speaker 1: your mama. It's sen for you to see me for yourself.
Speaker 1: It's some for you to Moses, I'll be with you
Speaker 1: wherever you go. I'm in it with you. And I
Speaker 1: think God is telling him, let's face it together, I'm
Speaker 1: in this thing with you wherever you go. Because in
Speaker 1: the past, all you took with you into Egypt was
Speaker 1: a memory from your mama. Huh no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: God is saying, I'm sending you back to Egypt this time,
Speaker 1: and it's not just a memory from your mammy. It's
Speaker 1: my presence that will go with you. I will be
Speaker 1: with you, Moses. I got you. I'm in this thing
Speaker 1: with you. You don't have to do this on your own.
Speaker 1: And I think some of us are coming to the
Speaker 1: point that maybe God is saying, quit living off of
Speaker 1: mama's faith. Quit living off of mama's faith. It's time
Speaker 1: for you to have your own faith. It's time for
Speaker 1: you to see God face to face. It's time for
Speaker 1: you to embrace God rather than just reject him because
Speaker 1: somebody else rejected you. And I love the tenderness of
Speaker 1: God in this moment, and Moses asked God, like, who
Speaker 1: am I supposed to say? Sent me? Like if I
Speaker 1: go to the Egyptians. In verse fourteen, God said to Moses,
Speaker 1: I am who I am. This is who you are
Speaker 1: to say to what you say to the Israelites. I
Speaker 1: am has sent you. And I think what God was
Speaker 1: speaking to Moses in this moment. He says, you will
Speaker 1: never know who you are if you don't know who
Speaker 1: I am. You've been searching for answers. You've been searching
Speaker 1: for answers in yourself. The real answers will only come
Speaker 1: outside of yourself. It will only come from that space.
Speaker 1: Who am I God? God's saying, I am, I am
Speaker 1: your God. And for forty years up until this point,
Speaker 1: Moses had lived as a foreigner. He had lived as
Speaker 1: a failure, lived as a fraud, a fake, all these things.
Speaker 1: And he's hiding his face because he can't even look
Speaker 1: at himself. And it begins this beautiful relationship that Moses
Speaker 1: gets to have with God. And in Exodus thirty three,
Speaker 1: Levis says the Lord would speak to Moses face to
Speaker 1: face as one speaks with a friend. In this moment,
Speaker 1: what I picture is is God gently grabbing Moses by
Speaker 1: the chin and lifting it up so that he could
Speaker 1: see God's face, and he spoke over him. Friend. You've
Speaker 1: lived as a foreigner, but I call you friend. You
Speaker 1: feel like a failure, but I call you friend. You
Speaker 1: feel like you are such a fraud, but I call
Speaker 1: you friend. God speaks over you. I call you friend,
Speaker 1: and I will go with you. I will be with you.
Speaker 1: I'll never leave you, I'll never forsake you. I will
Speaker 1: be with you as one speaks with a friend. And
Speaker 1: God is saying to Moses, let's face it together. He
Speaker 1: would see God face to face. And for me sitting
Speaker 1: in that lonely seat over there, this last year has
Speaker 1: stripped a lot away from us. And if I'm really honest,
Speaker 1: one of my biggest struggles in my life is always
Speaker 1: my worth coming from my work. My identity is so
Speaker 1: intertwined into what I do, so that as I lost
Speaker 1: parts of job, it wasn't that I lost parts of
Speaker 1: a job. I lost parts of me. And it made
Speaker 1: me wonder like who am I? And I sat in
Speaker 1: that seat, and I'm so glad Pastor preached on it
Speaker 1: because it was for me. In that lonely place. I
Speaker 1: had asked the question, God, who am I? Because I
Speaker 1: don't know who I am? And if you're in that seat,
Speaker 1: or you struggle with that seat, maybe you would take
Speaker 1: comfort from how God comforted me. He said, it's the
Speaker 1: right question, who am I? He said, it's just the
Speaker 1: wrong perspective, he said. God said He's spoke into my spirit.
Speaker 1: He said, LB, you keep asking me who you are?
Speaker 1: How about you flip it and you hear me ask
Speaker 1: you who am I? He's my beginning in my end.
Speaker 1: He's my bride and morning star. He's my wonderful counselor.
Speaker 1: He's my ever present help in trouble. He is my rock.
Speaker 1: He's my salvation. He's my mighty refuge. He is the gate.
Speaker 1: He is my Jesus. He is my Savior. But the
Speaker 1: only way I saw that was in the lonely place.
Speaker 1: And I said, and I thought about Moses, why did you?
Speaker 1: Why did you faint in the moment? Like I do.
Speaker 1: Pastor preached borrowed confidence. Once you put your confidence in
Speaker 1: determines when it leaves. I think Moses put his confidence
Speaker 1: in what his mama said. I think he put it
Speaker 1: in what the teachers taught him. I think he put
Speaker 1: it in the thought that they would receive him. And
Speaker 1: when that was taken away, he had no confidence. So
Speaker 1: if I put my confidence in what I do, when
Speaker 1: that leaves I come to an identity crisis, you and
Speaker 1: I can have confidence in the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: You and I can have confidence in the salvaffic work
Speaker 1: of Jesus that He's died a substitutionary death for your
Speaker 1: sin and for my sin. Because as Jesus went up
Speaker 1: onto the cross, they didn't nail him, but he put
Speaker 1: himself up there. They didn't take his life, he gave it.
Speaker 1: And as he's on the cross, all the sin that
Speaker 1: should have been laid on you and on me was
Speaker 1: laid on him. And there was a moment that the sin,
Speaker 1: the wrath, the penalty for all the sin, needed to
Speaker 1: be laid on him. And as he stretched on the cross,
Speaker 1: God had to turn his face away from his son
Speaker 1: for a moment, and the sky grows dark and the
Speaker 1: veil is torn in Jesus Christ out in a loud voice,
Speaker 1: my God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Because
Speaker 1: he didn't see his father's face, he didn't feel his presence.
Speaker 1: And for three days it was dark and the enemy
Speaker 1: thought they had won. But after three days God turns
Speaker 1: his face back towards his sun, and he said, let's
Speaker 1: face it. Here's the keys to hell and the grave
Speaker 1: rising victory, and he broke the end out of a
Speaker 1: borrow too when he rose in victory. You and I,
Speaker 1: You and I can have the assurance that God sees
Speaker 1: you face to face. Why because of the finished work
Speaker 1: of Jesus. Because when God looks at me, he doesn't
Speaker 1: see LB. He sees Jesus. And as Jesus ascended, he said,
Speaker 1: I will not leave you as an orphan, but I
Speaker 1: will send my spirit to live in you. And where
Speaker 1: you go, he will go with you. God promises to
Speaker 1: be with you, to never forsake you, to never leave you.
Speaker 1: And he's saying, let's face it together. Whatever's going on
Speaker 1: in your life, let's face it together, because I'm with you.
Speaker 1: If you go to the mountaintops, I'm there. If you
Speaker 1: go to the depths, I'm there. Where can you go
Speaker 1: to escape his love? He is with you. That's the
Speaker 1: assurance you have if you've placed your faith in Jesus.
Speaker 1: And if you haven't placed your faith in Jesus, this
Speaker 1: is the moment that God brought you to. This is
Speaker 1: the moment that will mark you for the rest of
Speaker 1: your life. If you have never placed your faith in Jesus,
Speaker 1: he is asking you to come in, and he says,
Speaker 1: I will be with you and all of our locations.
Speaker 1: Would you buy your heads and close your eyes. Someone
Speaker 1: feels the presence of God in their spirit right now,
Speaker 1: and you feel him calling you back to yourself as
Speaker 1: he ran after Moses, so he's running after you. Forty
Speaker 1: in the Bible means season. The first season of Moses'
Speaker 1: life was marked by man's rejection at age eighty. It
Speaker 1: was marked when he saw God's acceptance. Would you accept
Speaker 1: him today? Would you receive him today? And all of
Speaker 1: our locations, all of our online, our epam. I need
Speaker 1: you to pray with me out loud. Pray this with
Speaker 1: me for the benefit of somebody who's making this decision
Speaker 1: to place your faith in Jesus. I believe that Jesus
Speaker 1: Christ is the son of God who died on the
Speaker 1: cross and rose from the grave to forgive me of
Speaker 1: my sin. I give you my life, I give you
Speaker 1: my sin, I give you my shame. Forgive me, and
Speaker 1: I'll spend my life following you with your head still bouting,
Speaker 1: your eyes still close. If you displace your faith in Jesus,
Speaker 1: I'm going to count to three. When I get there,
Speaker 1: without hesitation, boldly shoot your hand into the air. This
Speaker 1: is your moment. This is the time where you see God. One, two, three,
Speaker 1: shoot your hand up. All of our locations. Come on,
Speaker 1: all of our locations. E Sam, If you just made
Speaker 1: that decision, let us know in the chat. Let us
Speaker 1: know in the chat. Come on, let's celebrate that elevation.
Speaker 1: Come on, no, let's celebrate that elevation. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us. Special thanks to those of you who give
Speaker 1: generously to this ministry. Is because of you that this
Speaker 1: ministry is possible. You can click the link in the
Speaker 1: description to give now, or visit Elevation Org slash podcast
Speaker 1: for more information. And if you enjoyed the podcast, you
Speaker 1: can subscribe. You can share it with your friends. You
Speaker 1: can click the share button, take a screenshot and share
Speaker 1: it on your social stories and tag us at Elevation Church.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you,