Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick.
Speaker 2: I'm the pastor of Elevation Church and this is our podcast.
Speaker 2: I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope
Speaker 2: this inspires you. Hope it builds your faith. Hope it
Speaker 2: gives your perspective to see God is moving in your life.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 3: Oh man, We're so excited that you're here today. Been
Speaker 3: preparing for you and praying for you and asking God
Speaker 3: to speak to you.
Speaker 1: We're about to leave on tour in just a few days.
Speaker 1: Be in prayer for us.
Speaker 3: Elevation Nights is coming to Fort Worth, Texas, Tulsa, Oklahoma, Toronto, Canada.
Speaker 3: Other places too. Newark, New Jersey, Washington, d C. Go
Speaker 3: to Elevation Nights dot Com. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Go there right now, Detroit, Michigan,
Speaker 3: Go there right now, Hartford, Connecticut. I'm getting cold just
Speaker 3: thinking about it. I'm gonna need a heavier jacket than this.
Speaker 3: But come ready, come expectant. Elevation Nights dot Com also
Speaker 3: wanted to celebrate and welcome.
Speaker 1: A few of our e FAM leaders. Where are you
Speaker 1: at in the room? Welcome to these e FAM leaders.
Speaker 3: They came to be with us today from four different countries,
Speaker 3: in fifteen different states.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you made the trip as excited as I
Speaker 1: am about these elevation nights.
Speaker 3: We're not in Pittsburgh today, We're not in Toronto, we're
Speaker 3: not in Detroit today.
Speaker 1: We're right here in Valentine.
Speaker 3: And I am so excited to continue what I began
Speaker 3: to build last week about those times in our lives.
Speaker 3: And we've all had them, whether we responded to them
Speaker 3: or not, where God calls your name, and very specifically,
Speaker 3: I was talking about sometimes in the scripture where God
Speaker 3: called somebody by their name, and he said their name
Speaker 3: not once, but twice. And my point was that sometimes
Speaker 3: you are in a pivotal moment of your life where
Speaker 3: it's your past versus your potential, your past versus your purpose,
Speaker 3: and in those moments, sometimes God will use repetition to
Speaker 3: underscore the urgency of what He has for you to hear.
Speaker 3: I believe there are many of us, maybe not all
Speaker 3: of us, who would find ourselves in a moment like that,
Speaker 3: and so today I want to continue that from Exodus
Speaker 3: chapter three, verses one through eleven, and all the Bible
Speaker 3: school students already know who we're talking about today somebody say, Moses, Moses.
Speaker 1: We grew up singing a song in.
Speaker 3: Church called Pharaoh, Pharaoh, Oh Baby, let my people go,
Speaker 3: And then if you've really got into it, you would
Speaker 3: go uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: It was to the tune of Louis Louis.
Speaker 3: I don't want to get a copyright strike on YouTube,
Speaker 3: so I won't sing it, but we would do that Pharaoh, Pharaoh,
Speaker 3: Oh Baby, let my people go, and then everybody would
Speaker 3: go uh.
Speaker 1: And a quick story.
Speaker 3: One time I was seventeen years old, just getting started
Speaker 3: in ministry, and I was leading that for the youth,
Speaker 3: and one of the parents was really uptight, and she
Speaker 3: walked in and she saw how I had all the
Speaker 3: kids going uh. And she said, don't do that again.
Speaker 3: That's not a holy that's not a holy gesture. I said,
Speaker 3: lady is just a um. But she was really special
Speaker 3: and sanctified and holy.
Speaker 1: In her own way. Exodus chapter three, somebody say, Moses, Moses.
Speaker 3: Now Moses was tending to the flock of jeth throw
Speaker 3: his father in law, the priest of Midian, and he
Speaker 3: led the flock to the far side of the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that.
Speaker 3: Was confirmation on my message okay, the far side of
Speaker 3: the wilderness, and came to horror the mountain of God. There,
Speaker 3: the Angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames
Speaker 3: of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though
Speaker 3: the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.
Speaker 1: So Moses thought, I'll go.
Speaker 3: Over it and see this strange sight. It's crazy why
Speaker 3: the bush does not burn up.
Speaker 1: I gotta figure this out.
Speaker 3: This thing should be down to a stub, but somehow
Speaker 3: it's still standing. This thing should be flickering out, but
Speaker 3: somehow there's still a flame. This thing should be over,
Speaker 3: but somehow it's kept going. And when he thought like that,
Speaker 3: just touch the person next you and say, it doesn't
Speaker 3: make any sense.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make.
Speaker 3: Any sense why I'm still here after all of the
Speaker 3: times that I thought about quitting.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make any.
Speaker 3: Sense why I'm still here after all of the times
Speaker 3: that I tried to push God away, but he wouldn't
Speaker 3: let me.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense why I'm here. And watch this.
Speaker 3: When the Lord verse four, saw that he had gone
Speaker 3: over to look, God called to him from within the bush.
Speaker 1: Moses Moses only.
Speaker 3: One of seven times this happens in the Bible, where
Speaker 3: he said the name twice, and Moses said, here I am, Lord,
Speaker 3: Here I am, and do not come any closer. God said,
Speaker 3: take off your sandals, for the place you are standing
Speaker 3: as holy ground.
Speaker 1: And then he said, I.
Speaker 3: Am the God of your father, the God of Abraham,
Speaker 3: the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. At
Speaker 3: this Moses hid his face because he was afraid to
Speaker 3: look at God. And the Lord said, I have indeed
Speaker 3: seen the misery of my people in Egypt.
Speaker 1: I have heard them crying.
Speaker 3: Out because of their slave drivers. And I am concerned
Speaker 3: about their suffering.
Speaker 4: So I've come down to rescue them from the hand
Speaker 4: of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of
Speaker 4: that land into a good and spacious land.
Speaker 3: This isn't going to be a midland. This is a
Speaker 3: good and spacious land. This isn't gonna be a cramped land.
Speaker 3: This is gonna be a good and spacious land, a
Speaker 3: land flowing. Won't be dry like the desert. It's gonna
Speaker 3: be flowing with milk and honey. The home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amurites, Parizites, Hivites,
Speaker 3: and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has
Speaker 3: reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians
Speaker 3: are oppressing them. So now go, I am sending you
Speaker 3: to Pharaoh, Pharaoh to tell him, uh oh, baby, let
Speaker 3: my people go. But Moses said, that's not very appropriate. God,
Speaker 3: I can't say that to Pharaoh verse eleven. And I'll
Speaker 3: give you my subject for the day. Moses said to God,
Speaker 3: who am I?
Speaker 1: This is what I call the burning question?
Speaker 5: Who am I?
Speaker 1: Not only the burning bush, but the burning question?
Speaker 5: Who am I?
Speaker 1: That I should go.
Speaker 3: To Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt. So
Speaker 3: the Lord gave me a word for your insecurities today
Speaker 3: and for the things that you're dealing with that are
Speaker 3: chapters in your life that feel like it's never going
Speaker 3: to change.
Speaker 1: And this is what the Lord said. Move it to
Speaker 1: the middle.
Speaker 3: Touch your neighbor on your right or your left, you choose,
Speaker 3: and say move it to the middle. Touch your other
Speaker 3: neighbor that feels very, very discouraged by your lack of
Speaker 3: preference for them, and.
Speaker 5: Put it in the chat. When you say it, say
Speaker 5: move it to the middle.
Speaker 3: In Jesus' name, you may be seated. Move it to
Speaker 3: the middle. Okay, four points to this message. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to preach them to how the Lord gave it
Speaker 3: to me, like a prophecy. Sometimes you got to prophesy.
Speaker 3: Sometimes you don't need points. Sometimes you need a prophecy
Speaker 3: where the word of the Lord transcends human understanding in
Speaker 3: all rational factual evidence and tells you what God says.
Speaker 1: And that's a shift in perspective that we need to learn.
Speaker 3: First part of this message might hurt a little bit,
Speaker 3: but I'll stitch you up before lunch. But I'll do
Speaker 3: it at my own expense, so maybe that'll make it better.
Speaker 3: We just got back from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. As we're moving
Speaker 3: through the airport, Abby said, I hope there's an update
Speaker 3: in a few years where you can see projected over
Speaker 3: people's heads where they're going. Now, apparently my daughter has
Speaker 3: been sneaking episodes of Black Mirror. Apparently we need more
Speaker 3: parental supervision over our thirteen years. And just about the
Speaker 3: time I told her that's ridiculous, I thought it might
Speaker 3: actually happen. Up on further questioning as to why she
Speaker 3: would want to see where someone was headed, we looked
Speaker 3: around the airport and realized that everybody in the airport
Speaker 3: was carrying and moving in what's commonly culturally called main
Speaker 3: character energy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've heard this phrase.
Speaker 3: Is something that is often encouraged to say, Hey, you
Speaker 3: got to own your story.
Speaker 1: You can't wait for other people to come rescue you.
Speaker 3: You can't wait for somebody else to do it for you.
Speaker 1: You need that main character energy.
Speaker 3: It's often used to speak of people who are very charismatic,
Speaker 3: driven and disposed and biased toward action. They got main
Speaker 3: character energy. Maybe they just seem special or something like that.
Speaker 3: Moses was born with what might have been called main
Speaker 3: character energy if the if the video game had been
Speaker 3: invented by then. You know, it's kind of a video
Speaker 3: game term. Everybody else is just a n PC, and
Speaker 3: you're the main character, and everybody exists to help you
Speaker 3: on your quest. And Moses, when he was born, was
Speaker 3: born in a very difficult circumstance. And I like to
Speaker 3: break his life down into three forty year stages to
Speaker 3: help you understand this message today called move it to
Speaker 3: the Middle.
Speaker 1: The first forty years.
Speaker 3: Of Moses's life were spent being raised as Pharaoh's daughter,
Speaker 3: though he was not Pharaoh's daughter at the time. Moses
Speaker 3: was born as a Hebrew. The Hebrew boys were under
Speaker 3: tremendous threat. Pharaoh had decided that their presence represented a
Speaker 3: threat to him, and so each of the Hebrew firstborn
Speaker 3: boys were to be murdered and thrown into the Nile River.
Speaker 3: The Hebrew women were so vigorous in giving birth the
Speaker 3: midwives could not allow them not to live. They would
Speaker 3: have the baby before the midwife would show up carry
Speaker 3: out the assassination plot. This presented an opportunity for some
Speaker 3: of the children that were born during that time to
Speaker 3: live when they.
Speaker 1: Should have died. Moses was one of them. The Bible says.
Speaker 3: That he was no ordinary child. When his parents saw
Speaker 3: that he was special, they did something kind of cool.
Speaker 3: They made a basket and floated him down the Nile River.
Speaker 3: It just so happened at that point in time that
Speaker 3: Pharaoh's daughter was out there kind of cleaning, you know,
Speaker 3: doing some doing some Nile River activities, and seeing how
Speaker 3: beautiful the baby was, she decided to take him in
Speaker 3: as her own, and needing a nurse for the baby,
Speaker 3: she located the nearest nurse she could find, which happened
Speaker 3: to be Moses's mother. You can see how this presents
Speaker 3: not only a sense of Moses's uniqueness, but perhaps a
Speaker 3: sense of loneliness as well, For as he grows up,
Speaker 3: you could say that he is a Hebrew in nature
Speaker 3: and an Egyptian in nurture.
Speaker 1: He is an.
Speaker 3: Israelite baby in nature in an environment of Egypt in
Speaker 3: which he's being nurtured. The first forty years of his
Speaker 3: life go this way, and one day Moses takes a trip.
Speaker 3: In fact, rather than tell you this, let me just
Speaker 3: read this to you. I think it'd be good if
Speaker 3: we read it for a moment. If you go over
Speaker 3: to Acts chapter seven, we can summarize the life of
Speaker 3: Moses from the speech of Stephen. Now, Stephen was an
Speaker 3: apostle in the New Testament Church who was being stoned,
Speaker 3: not recreationally, but in all seriousness. He was being persecuted
Speaker 3: for his faith in Jesus, and his face shone as
Speaker 3: they stoned him. He was shining something from the inside
Speaker 3: even as he was being killed on the outside.
Speaker 1: And in giving his speech.
Speaker 3: To the people who are stoning him and accusing them
Speaker 3: of missing Jesus the Messiah when he came to save them,
Speaker 3: he goes into a little history lesson about Moses, and
Speaker 3: I thought it would be great for us to pick
Speaker 3: it up.
Speaker 1: Write.
Speaker 3: In verse twenty, he goes back thousands of years and says,
Speaker 3: at that time Moses was born, and he was no
Speaker 3: ordinary child. For three months, he was cared for by
Speaker 3: his family, and when he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter
Speaker 3: took him and brought him up as her own son.
Speaker 3: Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians
Speaker 3: and was powerful in speech and action.
Speaker 1: I wanted to read.
Speaker 3: That verse because often Moses is presented to us as
Speaker 3: being a bumbling, stumbling idiot, because when God called him,
Speaker 3: he was like, I don't talk too good, Lord. So
Speaker 3: we kind of made Moses this bubba who was born
Speaker 3: in a basket, missing the point that he spent the
Speaker 3: first forty years of his life not only as a survivor,
Speaker 3: but a student in the most powerful.
Speaker 1: Position of his day.
Speaker 3: And all that background is going to play into what
Speaker 3: I'm going to tell you in a moment. But move
Speaker 3: down to verse twenty three, because this moves us into
Speaker 3: the second phase of Moses's life. The Bible says when
Speaker 3: Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his
Speaker 3: own people, the Israelites. He saw one of them being
Speaker 3: mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense
Speaker 3: and avenged him by killing the Egyptian.
Speaker 1: Moses thought that.
Speaker 3: His own people would realize that God was using him
Speaker 3: to rescue them, but they did not. He thought that
Speaker 3: he would be helpful, but they hated him for being helpful.
Speaker 3: He thought he was doing something significant, but it ended
Speaker 3: up that what he did that he thought was significant
Speaker 3: actually became the.
Speaker 5: End of his time in Egypt.
Speaker 3: Verse twenty six says the next day, Moses came up
Speaker 3: on two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile
Speaker 3: them by saying, men, you are brothers. Why you want
Speaker 3: to hurt each other? But the man who was mistreating
Speaker 3: the other pushed Moses aside and said, who made you
Speaker 3: ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing
Speaker 3: me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
Speaker 1: Uh oh.
Speaker 3: When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he
Speaker 3: settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
Speaker 1: Verse thirty.
Speaker 3: After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses
Speaker 3: in the flames of a burning bush.
Speaker 5: In the desert near Mount Sinai.
Speaker 3: We just read about this in Exodus chapter three, But
Speaker 3: when we read about it in Exodus chapter three, we
Speaker 3: missed a crucial bit of context that I want us
Speaker 3: to come back to.
Speaker 1: For a moment.
Speaker 3: In Exitus chapter three, verse one, it says now Moses
Speaker 3: was tending the flock of Jethro, his father in law,
Speaker 3: the priest of Midian. But in Acts chapter seven, verse thirty,
Speaker 3: we learn after forty years had passed. So what is
Speaker 3: presented in one sentence in Exodus three took four decades
Speaker 3: from Moses's perspective at the time it happened. Everybody in
Speaker 3: your life is in the middle of something. Our tendency
Speaker 3: is to treat people according to where we meet people.
Speaker 3: And this is the part that I told you would
Speaker 3: be challenging some of us. If we meet somebody and
Speaker 3: it seems like they're in a position to help us,
Speaker 3: we are good to those who we think are good
Speaker 3: for us.
Speaker 5: Some of us.
Speaker 3: If we meet people and we see them as a
Speaker 3: liability to our social credibility, or maybe a liability to
Speaker 3: our time or our energy, we have a tendency to
Speaker 3: treat people according to where we meet people. Christian maturity
Speaker 3: does not treat people according to where you meet people.
Speaker 5: Christian maturity.
Speaker 3: Never judges the man by the moment, let me be inclusive,
Speaker 3: never judges.
Speaker 5: The woman by the moment, never.
Speaker 3: Judges the book by the chapter, never judges the potential
Speaker 3: of someone by the problem that they are currently carrying.
Speaker 3: So you find in life two different approaches. Main character energy,
Speaker 3: which is kind of like, I'm focused on what I'm doing,
Speaker 3: I'm focused on what I'm becoming, I'm focused on my goals,
Speaker 3: And sadly a lot of this gets peddled in the
Speaker 3: church as spiritual growth, but it is not sanctification because
Speaker 3: sanctification and self help sometimes are a little different. Self
Speaker 3: help is sometimes about what you can do for you
Speaker 3: to reach the goal that you set without God. Sanctification
Speaker 3: starts with God's goal that he wants to do that
Speaker 3: is much bigger than what you see right now. Moses
Speaker 3: did it his way, he became a murderer. Moses did
Speaker 3: it God's way. He was a messenger. And all I'm
Speaker 3: trying to get you to see is that it's a
Speaker 3: matter of perspective. Tell somebody, move it to the middle.
Speaker 3: Come on, Tell the person on either side of you
Speaker 3: move it to the middle. Tell both of them. In
Speaker 3: case the first one doesn't like it, tell the second one.
Speaker 3: So you got a backup plan. Move it to the middle. Amy,
Speaker 3: I'll never forget something you said to me. We got
Speaker 3: cut off by somebody in traffic. This has been years ago.
Speaker 3: I never forgot it. Amy lives her life with out
Speaker 3: whatever is the opposite of main character energy.
Speaker 1: She lives her.
Speaker 3: Life with christ like nature. I guess that's the opposite
Speaker 3: of main character energy. It's not like she's a side character.
Speaker 3: She's just more christ Like than me.
Speaker 5: And I was.
Speaker 1: Talking about the person who cut us off in traffic.
Speaker 3: There wasn't very mindful of their potential in Christ or
Speaker 3: their value to God. And I said, Amy, how do
Speaker 3: you never get mad when you get cut off in traffic.
Speaker 3: I've never seen you road rage And she said, well,
Speaker 3: I like to play a game. I like to pretend
Speaker 3: that the person in the passenger seat is pregnant and
Speaker 3: the person driving them has to get them to the.
Speaker 1: Hospital because their water just broke.
Speaker 3: I don't know if you remember that, but I never
Speaker 3: forgot it because I also like to play pretend when
Speaker 3: somebody cuts me off in traffic. I like to pretend
Speaker 3: that I'm not a pastor. And I never even met
Speaker 3: Jesus and I never even heard his name. I like
Speaker 3: to pretend like I'm a terrorist. I like to pretend
Speaker 3: like I've been training as an assassin. I like to
Speaker 3: pretend like God sent me to teach you a lesson.
Speaker 3: Can't let you get away with that. I saw it
Speaker 3: as a shift. Here's the picture that the Lord gave me.
Speaker 3: We're gonna work this out on the fly, because honestly,
Speaker 3: I kind of thought of it last minute.
Speaker 1: When we finish singing at the church, usually they bring.
Speaker 3: My pulpit to the stage and they put it in
Speaker 3: the place where it goes, and we do it in
Speaker 3: a way where it just kind of signals a shift
Speaker 3: to say, we've worshiped God with our singing and the melodies.
Speaker 3: Now we are going to worship God through his spoken
Speaker 3: word and his message, and both are worship. So when
Speaker 3: we position the pulpit, the camera shots also change. You
Speaker 3: will notice that you no longer see the drummer very
Speaker 3: much once it's preaching time. You no longer see Scotty
Speaker 3: as handsome as he is and as dignified as he
Speaker 3: look leading the South Carolina State Choir last week.
Speaker 5: I mean, he's got that main character gift.
Speaker 3: But everybody switches positions. Somebody say positions perspective. Okay, now
Speaker 3: that we're in this part of the message, the perspective
Speaker 3: has shifted, not because I'm more important than anybody on
Speaker 3: the stage, but because it is my time to deliver
Speaker 3: the message that God has given me to share with you.
Speaker 5: Therefore, the camera operators have to be instructed.
Speaker 1: At this point.
Speaker 3: You no longer need to show Otis, You no longer
Speaker 3: need to show Scottie. They'll be back when we sing again,
Speaker 3: But for now, this is our focus. Now here's what
Speaker 3: I want you to understand about the way a lot
Speaker 3: of us live our lives if they disobeyed that order
Speaker 3: and just go with me for this picture, because I'm
Speaker 3: gonna show you a lot of why we stay stressed out.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna show you a lot of why.
Speaker 3: We stay resentful, bitter, demotivated, angry. I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 3: why a lot of our passion goes out because people
Speaker 3: hurt our feelings. If at the moment that I take
Speaker 3: this pulpit, the camera operator just decides to rebel and
Speaker 3: go like I think the podium is boring. Now, camera operator,
Speaker 3: do what I'm about to say to illustrate my point.
Speaker 3: We have not worked this out, so I hope it
Speaker 3: goes well. Just put the camera somewhere else that has
Speaker 3: nothing to do with this and show them what I'm
Speaker 3: talking about.
Speaker 1: And again, we did not plan this. I'm just working
Speaker 1: this illustration through with you.
Speaker 3: Wave at the people, and as suave as as as
Speaker 3: deboneir as he is on those drums. It is a
Speaker 3: distraction at this moment to show the drums. Now go
Speaker 3: back to what you're supposed to be shooting. Not because
Speaker 3: I'm better looking, not because of status, not because I'm
Speaker 3: the boss around here, but because of purpose. Purpose determines position.
Speaker 3: Get the picture and then we'll break it down. Purpose
Speaker 3: determines position.
Speaker 5: So show them the otis shot.
Speaker 3: This is me focusing on something that is meant to
Speaker 3: be peripheral in the moment.
Speaker 5: Show them the tight shot.
Speaker 3: This is me focusing on what is being spoken from God.
Speaker 3: And if you keep doing this, you're gonna miss this.
Speaker 3: Clap your hands. I thought that turned out pretty good. Now,
Speaker 3: of course, put it back on the drums.
Speaker 1: I could.
Speaker 3: Takes two men to carry this out. Most sundays I
Speaker 3: could do that. I could carry I could carry the
Speaker 3: burden for a little while. I'm pretty strong. I curled
Speaker 3: some fifties yesterday. I could do it for a little while,
Speaker 3: but I don't think I could do it for long.
Speaker 3: So which one's easier, go back to otis which one's
Speaker 3: easier for.
Speaker 5: Me to carry this.
Speaker 1: And move it to the middle.
Speaker 4: Or.
Speaker 5: Stayloadice, stayloaded, stayloadice for them to do.
Speaker 1: This and move it to the middle.
Speaker 5: So God said, what you're trying to do by lifting,
Speaker 5: you do by looking? I divide Moses's life? Can I
Speaker 5: preach this like God gave it to me?
Speaker 3: Come on, I'll behave in fort Worth, I'll behave in
Speaker 3: I promise I'll represent you well. In Detroit, I'll preach polite.
Speaker 3: In Toronto, i'll do it. But this is my church,
Speaker 3: where I can preach it dirty, where I can preach
Speaker 3: the words like a bush coming up out of the desert,
Speaker 3: crownd that won't burn up no matter how long it's
Speaker 3: been burning, that won't give out, no matter how much
Speaker 3: it's gone through.
Speaker 5: That represents the very life of Moses.
Speaker 3: Himself, whose perspective is being shifted from the first forty
Speaker 3: years of his life, which started in a basket, past
Speaker 3: the forty years of his life that he spent in Midian,
Speaker 3: and now this bush ye a basket first forty, a
Speaker 3: bush next forty. But the forty years that we read
Speaker 3: in one sentence is the middle. Now, I guarantee you
Speaker 3: it did not feel like the middle to Moses. I'll
Speaker 3: tell you how I know. The verse I read you
Speaker 3: in Acts chapter seven. Oh, I'm so glad I got
Speaker 3: that New Testament perspective on Moses, because if I would
Speaker 3: have just read he was tending sheep of bush burned,
Speaker 3: we would have thought we're meeting Moses at the beginning
Speaker 3: of this story.
Speaker 5: But Moses. For Moses, it didn't feel like the beginning.
Speaker 5: It felt like the end.
Speaker 3: And the piple says that when Moses heard this, he
Speaker 3: fled Verse twenty nine, Acts chapter seven to Midian.
Speaker 1: Where he's settled.
Speaker 5: He settled, He.
Speaker 3: Wasn't passing through in his mind. He settled in Midian
Speaker 3: and had two sons. That's not something you do on
Speaker 3: a quick trip.
Speaker 5: That's not something you do just passing through. He's in
Speaker 5: a place called Midi, and it feels like the end.
Speaker 5: But to us, it looks like the beginning.
Speaker 3: And I need you to remember so you have Christian
Speaker 3: empathy that everybody you meet is in the middle of something.
Speaker 5: And we could be nicer to people on.
Speaker 3: Road rage if we said they must be in the
Speaker 3: middle of something very important. They must be in the
Speaker 3: middle of giving birth to a child. Maybe that child
Speaker 3: will be the next Moses. That's how Amy does it.
Speaker 3: I'm like, maybe they're gonna die before they get there.
Speaker 3: If they cut me off one more time, that's me
Speaker 3: main character energy, christ Like energy, and ooh, I feel
Speaker 3: as strong. When you realize that everybody you meet is
Speaker 3: in the middle of something, you will be more merciful.
Speaker 3: The middle will make you merciful. The middle will make
Speaker 3: you merciful. It will make me and it will make.
Speaker 1: You more sanctified.
Speaker 3: In order to stop seeing ourselves as the point of
Speaker 3: every pursuit, to stop seeing ourselves with the destination over
Speaker 3: our head, rushing through the airport, trying to get somewhere.
Speaker 3: Here's Moses in a place that seems like a destination,
Speaker 3: feels like a detour. It's not the beginning. It's not
Speaker 3: the end either. Moses doesn't know that yet, and neither
Speaker 3: to you. When you're in it, you know that's the
Speaker 3: thing about it. When you're in it, the middle feels
Speaker 3: like the end. I'm talking about failures, and I'm talking
Speaker 3: about moments of setback, and I'm talking about closed doors,
Speaker 3: and I'm talking about rejection. You know what's interesting to
Speaker 3: me to study about Moses? And I want to give
Speaker 3: you this because I thought it was very psychologically and
Speaker 3: theologically a line so greg The Bible goes on to
Speaker 3: say that he was sent to deliver the children of Israel.
Speaker 3: And he was sent to deliver the children of Israel,
Speaker 3: but the children of Israel resented him. He is sent
Speaker 3: to someone who resents him. He's not all Hebrew in
Speaker 3: their mind. He's not all Egyptian either. He is a
Speaker 3: middle child. When you are in the middle, it can
Speaker 3: be difficult to find where you fit in. Someone told
Speaker 3: me one time my preaching was too black. In fact,
Speaker 3: they said, I used to listen to you on podcasts.
Speaker 3: I was surprised to find out you were white the
Speaker 3: first time I saw you on video. But what they
Speaker 3: said was you might want to consider modulating your preaching
Speaker 3: in order to reach a broader audience. I said, what
Speaker 3: exactly do you mean modulate? They said, sometimes when you
Speaker 3: do the really high preaching and the Oregon starts playing
Speaker 3: it's a little distracting. And I said, it's only distracting
Speaker 3: for you. You because it is different to you.
Speaker 6: And if you think that I preach like I preached
Speaker 6: because I did a market study on ways to incorporate
Speaker 6: different ethnocentric backgrounds into a message so that all people
Speaker 6: will feel included, You're crazy.
Speaker 1: I preach how I.
Speaker 3: Preach because when I was sixteen, Chris Dixon invited me
Speaker 3: to join the Voices of Unity Gospel Choir, where I
Speaker 3: was the only white one in the whole choir. I
Speaker 3: stood in the middle. I didn't sway in rhythm, but
Speaker 3: I stayed in the middle. And because of that, my
Speaker 3: life was informed that there are different styles and the
Speaker 3: same substance. So I don't have to apologize to you
Speaker 3: for any weapon in my arsenal that God gave me
Speaker 3: to get this word across step. Because I'll have to
Speaker 3: preach like I'm white, I'll have to preach. I can
Speaker 3: move it to the middle.
Speaker 5: I can do it either way.
Speaker 3: Send a coastal bath, a costal the Topelian Catholic.
Speaker 5: I can tell Mary, I can take you, Jesus.
Speaker 1: I can do it.
Speaker 5: It comes.
Speaker 3: I could give a tech talk. I could thrink it out.
Speaker 1: He gets this us.
Speaker 5: Because I'm a middle tip.
Speaker 3: Donna layel me shut. The neighbors say, don't let a need.
Speaker 3: I'm a middle time. All the middle children give God
Speaker 3: a pray. I'm a middle child. Holly is a middle child,
Speaker 3: Graham is a middle chop. There's benefits of being a
Speaker 3: middle child. You can watch how the first one did
Speaker 3: it dumb, make some corrections, get right in front of
Speaker 3: the younger one that they're still.
Speaker 5: More busy with, and do what you need to do.
Speaker 3: No less significant, just hidden in the middle, in the middle.
Speaker 3: My legal name is not Stephen Fredick. My legal name
Speaker 3: is Larry.
Speaker 1: That's funny.
Speaker 5: You know you just offended every Larry.
Speaker 3: Watching this sermon online. You are gonna get us canceled
Speaker 3: by the Larry's and the Karens.
Speaker 1: We messed the whole thing up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, little Larry Furdick, because I'm Larry Stevens Ferdick Stevens
Speaker 3: Fredick Junior.
Speaker 1: Why are you Stevens?
Speaker 5: Do you have multiple personalities? Perhaps? And so do you.
Speaker 1: Depends on which moment I meet you in mm hm
Speaker 1: mm hm mm.
Speaker 3: Hmm saying Hallelujah one minute and other multi syllabic words
Speaker 3: the next minute. Never judge a man by the moment,
Speaker 3: Never judge yourself by your lowest moment. Never pride yourself
Speaker 3: in your high moment.
Speaker 4: Come on, talk about it.
Speaker 3: Moses, who was in a murder murderous situation, hid in
Speaker 3: a place called Midian and assumed that these forty years
Speaker 3: would be the end. Forty years is a long time
Speaker 3: to wait for an angel, y'all. I think it's verse thirty.
Speaker 3: Put it up and see if I'm right, it said.
Speaker 3: After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses,
Speaker 3: said Moses, Moses, I guess God was calling him by.
Speaker 1: His middle name, Moses. Moses.
Speaker 3: Moses means to draw out, because he was drawn out
Speaker 3: of the river, and now he was being sent to
Speaker 3: draw out. He was moving from what God had done
Speaker 3: for him to what.
Speaker 1: He was being called to do for others.
Speaker 3: And God said, Moses, Moses, you know, as much as
Speaker 3: my name made you laugh, it could have been a
Speaker 3: lot worse. My mother tells me that there was a
Speaker 3: time when my parents considered naming me different names, and well,
Speaker 3: Larry Stephens Ferdick Jr. It turns out, is not the
Speaker 3: worst one that they rehearsed, she says, and he's in
Speaker 3: heaven now, so he can either confirm or deny that.
Speaker 3: There was a season of time where my dad seriously
Speaker 3: and sincerely wanted to name me Clym.
Speaker 1: His reasoning was solid.
Speaker 3: Don't judge the name till you've heard what creative plans
Speaker 3: he had for it. He said, I wanted to name
Speaker 3: you clem so when I called you, I could say
Speaker 3: clem Son. See my mom, I went to Clemson University,
Speaker 3: and my dad thought it would just be so amazing
Speaker 3: if when he said my name, the next thing that
Speaker 3: came clem Son. Let's all thank God for my mom. See,
Speaker 3: because why I threw my notes away because I knew
Speaker 3: the Lord was going to take us in a few
Speaker 3: directions today.
Speaker 1: It's what came after my name that mattered.
Speaker 3: To him, is what came after my name, clem Son.
Speaker 1: You're my son Son, get it, clem Son.
Speaker 3: And here's God calling Moses, but he doesn't really talk
Speaker 3: about Moses. I want to read it to you from
Speaker 3: Exodus chapter three. Oh, this is going to help you
Speaker 3: so much. And let me give you this principle real quick.
Speaker 3: Selflessness is the most underused tool for stress management. Selflessness.
Speaker 3: I don't mean thinking less of yourself, I mean thinking
Speaker 3: of yourself less. Selflessness is the most underutilized tool for
Speaker 3: stress management. Being at the center is keeping you stressed.
Speaker 3: And I'll show it to you from Moses, and then
Speaker 3: I'll show you why, and then we'll have a big
Speaker 3: party in the place and go home.
Speaker 1: But Moses gets all caught up.
Speaker 3: In main character energy, and we forgive him because look,
Speaker 3: the Lord calls his name and says Moses, Moses, and
Speaker 3: Moses like, that's me here, I am right, I'm here,
Speaker 3: and Midian, do not come any closer. God said, this
Speaker 3: is verse five. Place where you are standing, this holy ground.
Speaker 3: Take your shoes off. You're not going to run from
Speaker 3: this one. Remember Moses ran to Midian, fleeting and hiding,
Speaker 3: and then God is bringing him to this bush, says,
Speaker 3: you're not running away this time. Now that he's standing
Speaker 3: and not running, turning and paying attention to what God
Speaker 3: is doing, the Lord says, the place where you are
Speaker 3: standing is holy ground. And then the next thing God
Speaker 3: said is I am the God of your Father, the
Speaker 3: God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
Speaker 3: of Jacob.
Speaker 1: God's been doing this a long time.
Speaker 3: Y'all, God's miracles didn't start with your mortgage payment. The
Speaker 3: God you pray to has done much tougher stuff than
Speaker 3: what you're asking him to do.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 3: This man led a nation out of slavery. You don't
Speaker 3: think God to show you how to raise those kids?
Speaker 3: Have you lost your mind? You forgot who you're talking to.
Speaker 3: You forgot who called you, You forgot who promised to
Speaker 3: keep you, You Forgod who lives in you. But just
Speaker 3: about the time we get the perspective of who God
Speaker 3: is and what he's come to do verse eight, I've
Speaker 3: come down to rescue my people out of the Egyptian's hands,
Speaker 3: to bring them into the land flowing with milk and honey.
Speaker 1: Verse nine.
Speaker 5: And now the cry has reached me.
Speaker 3: And now in verse ten, so now go, I am
Speaker 3: sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites,
Speaker 3: out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I?
Speaker 3: And this is where I think we miss it. Go
Speaker 3: to the drums, real quick, camera, man, That is the
Speaker 3: total wrong focus. When God is speaking and you shift
Speaker 3: your attention back to you, let me say it this way.
Speaker 3: When the Great I Am is talking and you say,
Speaker 3: who am I You need to shift your attention back
Speaker 3: to me, back to the one who is speaking to you,
Speaker 3: back to the one who puts you in the basket,
Speaker 3: back to the one who floated you down the nile,
Speaker 3: back to the one who made sure you survived. There's
Speaker 3: one thing about it for sure. The enemy has already
Speaker 3: made so many attempts to end your faith journey, to
Speaker 3: end your life, to end your hope, to end your optimism,
Speaker 3: to end your faith, to in your progress, to end
Speaker 3: your sanctification process. The enemy has already tried to end it,
Speaker 3: and he didn't. Why is that because he couldn't Because
Speaker 3: it was what came after what God called Moses Moses,
Speaker 3: Moses that mattered more than what Moses was.
Speaker 5: I'll put it to you this way.
Speaker 3: When Moses got confused and said, who do I say
Speaker 3: sent me to them?
Speaker 5: If they doubt me, God said, tell them I am
Speaker 5: that I am.
Speaker 3: You didn't know this verse, but Exodus chapter three fourteen
Speaker 3: teaches us something very powerful. God's name yahweh is I am.
Speaker 3: He wasn't was, he isn't gonna be he is I am.
Speaker 3: Now I've taught you that before, and I've taught you.
Speaker 3: Thank you that his name, being I am means he's
Speaker 3: a present help in the time of trouble. But what
Speaker 3: never taught you so clear before is when he said
Speaker 3: I am that I am the place of that is
Speaker 3: meant to represent every place where God will express his
Speaker 3: power in your life. So let's say, in this specific
Speaker 3: season of your life, God wants to accomplish a purpose,
Speaker 3: and in order to accomplish his purpose, he is going
Speaker 3: to have to open a door for you that you
Speaker 3: can't open for yourself, and only.
Speaker 5: God can do that. Well, I am that open door.
Speaker 5: I am.
Speaker 3: Let's say you're in a season in your life where
Speaker 3: it looks like there's no way you're going to be
Speaker 3: able to move through this next month.
Speaker 5: It is so busy, it is so hectic, it is so.
Speaker 3: Overwhelmed, and you need a sustaining power in your life.
Speaker 3: Come on, a sustaining energy over your life. Some of
Speaker 3: you are so tired. Your biggest prayer last week was
Speaker 3: I can't do this. You didn't even have the faith
Speaker 3: left to ask. Every time you thought about it, it
Speaker 3: started twisting up inside of you. But what you didn't
Speaker 3: realize about God's name is that that feeling, that place,
Speaker 3: that need is the place where God wants to express
Speaker 3: his name. So if tired is the place where you
Speaker 3: need God to show up, that is the place where God's.
Speaker 5: Energy will be.
Speaker 3: Wherever it is that He has positioned you, that's where
Speaker 3: it is that He will empower you.
Speaker 1: I'll take it further.
Speaker 3: If there is an insecurity in your life that makes
Speaker 3: you think you can't do it, that's good.
Speaker 5: The insecurity is the insurance.
Speaker 3: Policy that lets you know that when it gets done,
Speaker 3: you won't be tempted to take the credit because you'll know,
Speaker 3: and they'll know, and everybody who knows you will know.
Speaker 3: It had to be God. I've watched them in the basket.
Speaker 3: I saw them make a mistake, but somehow God kept
Speaker 3: drawing them out. And that's what I see in this
Speaker 3: season for your life. You're gonna be drawing from the
Speaker 3: God who drawed you out of the water.
Speaker 5: And you are not.
Speaker 3: Going to run out of resource because you will not
Speaker 3: run out of God. You are not going to run
Speaker 3: out of wisdom because you will not run out of God.
Speaker 5: You will not run out of.
Speaker 3: Meal because you will not run out of God. You
Speaker 3: will not run out of support because you will not
Speaker 3: run out of God. You will not run out of
Speaker 3: end because you will not run out of them. You
Speaker 3: will not run out of it because you will not
Speaker 3: run out of Him. Because I am that I am,
Speaker 3: take your knee and move it to the middle and
Speaker 3: make a great I am sandwich, And God says, I
Speaker 3: am that I am.
Speaker 5: Boy.
Speaker 3: If I'd have planned this better, I'd have brought some
Speaker 3: bologney and so and some and some.
Speaker 1: Pumper nickel bread up here, and I will showed you how.
Speaker 3: To sandwich your situation by the presence and the spoken
Speaker 3: promise of God and move it to the middle. What
Speaker 3: we know that Moses doesn't know. And that's a bold
Speaker 3: statement because the Bible said other prophets have I spoken
Speaker 3: to other ways, but Moses I spoke to face to face.
Speaker 1: Now that's in numbers.
Speaker 3: After they complained to Moses and didn't appreciate him, well,
Speaker 3: I almost.
Speaker 1: Forgot to say this, thank you Lord.
Speaker 3: His hesitancy to do what God called him to do,
Speaker 3: because he argued back and forth with God. His hesitancy
Speaker 3: to do it wasn't rooted in rebellion.
Speaker 1: It was rooted in rejection. Because he tried to do
Speaker 1: this the first time. It didn't work.
Speaker 3: The first time. He tried to fight for his people.
Speaker 3: It cost him forty years in the wilderness. And now
Speaker 3: you understand why you're uncomfortable receiving love from others, and
Speaker 3: when people try to treat you good, you treat them bad,
Speaker 3: just to get things back to the natural habitat that
Speaker 3: you're used to seeking, the lower state, because it's the
Speaker 3: state that you know. He wasn't rebelling against God, that's Jonah.
Speaker 3: He wasn't rebelling against God, that's Jonah. He was rejected
Speaker 3: by them, and the rejection takes root, and it gets
Speaker 3: to the place where you go, I don't really want
Speaker 3: to put it out there like that anymore. I love
Speaker 3: when you all get quiet thinking about those hesitancies in
Speaker 3: your life to trust God because of a root of
Speaker 3: rejection where the first time it didn't work, and after
Speaker 3: forty years you pretty much assume this is it and
Speaker 3: there's not much I can do about it. But Moses
Speaker 3: should have known. He should have known because he was
Speaker 3: no ordinary child that even in those forty years, and
Speaker 3: even with his perceived lack of natural talent to speak
Speaker 3: watch this, he should have known. This can't be the end.
Speaker 3: It's called mid end. This can't be the end, it's Midian. Now,
Speaker 3: a few years ago, I was having my own sort
Speaker 3: of Moses moment. I know, boohoo, wow, wow, tell us
Speaker 3: your therapy session, Pastor Steve, and that's what we came for. No, No,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to relate this because it's one of
Speaker 3: those powerful things that I ever did in my life.
Speaker 1: It helped me so much.
Speaker 3: The story that was going in my mind was a
Speaker 3: little bit like the Moses story in that I had
Speaker 3: had a few things that I tried to do in
Speaker 3: an effort to trust God. And I'm sure I didn't
Speaker 3: do them perfectly, but I was doing them sincerely.
Speaker 1: You ever been there.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I did it exactly right, but I
Speaker 3: meant well, Okay, I meant well. I'm not saying it
Speaker 3: wasn't a mistake, but I meant, well, that's Moses's story.
Speaker 1: That's why he's in Midian.
Speaker 3: I meant well, I was trying to protect in Israelite,
Speaker 3: but I ended up killing an the Egyptian, and maybe
Speaker 3: I shouldn't have got in the.
Speaker 1: Middle of it.
Speaker 3: And so now he's on the far side of the
Speaker 3: desert in a place called Midian.
Speaker 1: And this place will ultimately be the mountain where God
Speaker 1: will give.
Speaker 3: The ten Commandment. It's Mount Sinai, but it's not yet,
Speaker 3: because this is just the middle. Now here's Moses tending
Speaker 3: his sheep. All of a sudden, the burning bush go
Speaker 3: to Otis becomes the focal point, and Moses.
Speaker 1: Moves over in order to see why it doesn't burn up. Okay,
Speaker 1: now go back to the normal camera shop.
Speaker 3: As he's doing this, the voice of the Lord speaks
Speaker 3: to him about the future that God has planned for him,
Speaker 3: which revolves around the purpose that God has created him for. Now,
Speaker 3: that's what this is about in your life, nothing else
Speaker 3: for a few days. Forget about your preference and your
Speaker 3: plan of the way you want this situation to turn out.
Speaker 3: Because I see you going through a valley, and that
Speaker 3: feels like that's all there is, while I was recently
Speaker 3: reminded that it can only be a valley if there
Speaker 3: are mountains on either side of it. So now we've
Speaker 3: got a Moses who spent forty years rough start, he
Speaker 3: went through a dry season, and now God is bringing
Speaker 3: him to an expected end to be the leader that
Speaker 3: God has always.
Speaker 1: Meant for him to be. And he's in a place
Speaker 1: called Midian well, as.
Speaker 3: I was going through some of my self pity in
Speaker 3: moments and specifically the narrative that was playing out is the.
Speaker 1: Best is behind me? Now?
Speaker 3: I think that's one of the lies that the devil
Speaker 3: tells that we don't talk about very much, that we
Speaker 3: all walk around wondering about.
Speaker 1: It's like, is.
Speaker 3: This going to be all there is for my life?
Speaker 1: And it doesn't take a divorced make you feel that way.
Speaker 3: It doesn't take turning forty five to make you feel
Speaker 3: that way, doesn't take having to wear readers to make you.
Speaker 1: Feel that way.
Speaker 3: You can hit a wall in your life where you wonder,
Speaker 3: is this the most joy I'm going to experience? Is
Speaker 3: this the most difference I'm going to make? Is this
Speaker 3: the greatest accomplishment that I'm ever going to accomplish? And
Speaker 3: then you hit a wall, or you hit what you
Speaker 3: call a failure. It may not be a failure. You
Speaker 3: just see it as a failure. And so then the
Speaker 3: enemy says it's the end. The enemy loves to tell
Speaker 3: you where the end is. So does God. And as
Speaker 3: I was sitting with this, I think it had been
Speaker 3: going on a couple of months. I was sitting with
Speaker 3: this feeling that my best work is behind me, my
Speaker 3: best sermons are behind me, my best songs are behind me.
Speaker 5: It was just it was an avalanche.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna come to this side and see if anybody
Speaker 3: has ever felt this way before.
Speaker 5: They are looking at me like they are on a streak, man.
Speaker 5: They are on a roll over here.
Speaker 3: They are winning medals and getting raises and paying no taxes,
Speaker 3: six percent body fat, fifty million dollar net worth going
Speaker 3: on over here? Is there anybody over here who got
Speaker 3: to a certain place now? And it's like this as
Speaker 3: many and I'm tending sheep. I'm very busy, But is
Speaker 3: this the end now? I did not get this idea
Speaker 3: that I'm going to tell you about from David Goggins.
Speaker 3: No offense to brother David Goggins, but his energy just
Speaker 3: gets a little intense for me sometimes you know that
Speaker 3: that kind of like your a piece of crap, get
Speaker 3: up and do something about it.
Speaker 1: Energy.
Speaker 5: I don't really get it. That doesn't really work for
Speaker 5: me very long.
Speaker 1: I already have that voice in my head.
Speaker 5: I don't need an external one.
Speaker 3: I didn't get this piece of advice from like some
Speaker 3: chicken soup for the soul book with an inspirational thought.
Speaker 3: It was almost like the Lord gave me this. I've
Speaker 3: never shared it, even with Holly. And I looked for
Speaker 3: the I looked for the notebook where I wrote it down,
Speaker 3: and I can't find it. But something came over me,
Speaker 3: and I begin to write about the next five years
Speaker 3: of my life as if they had already happened, and
Speaker 3: as if God were with me. And I didn't write
Speaker 3: anything there's a time to do this. I didn't write
Speaker 3: anything about how bad I felt and how down I was,
Speaker 3: how lonely it was, and how being all.
Speaker 1: The fears I had and all self stressed about, and
Speaker 1: all the thing bells.
Speaker 3: I need to pick and all people depend on me,
Speaker 3: because I've done that enough. But I I took what
Speaker 3: felt like the end, and I moved it to the middle,
Speaker 3: and I picked up there and I wrote down two words.
Speaker 3: But he, somebody say, but he and I wrote those words,
Speaker 3: and it was almost like Moses, Moses. It was like
Speaker 3: I saw everything that I had been, everything that I
Speaker 3: I had been through, everything that I was wrestling.
Speaker 1: With, and then that second Moses.
Speaker 5: But he and I begin to write.
Speaker 3: My pin began to move, and I begin to write
Speaker 3: about potential I began to write, but he continued to
Speaker 3: show up and preach, and God helped him and gave
Speaker 3: him messages that went around the world in order.
Speaker 1: To help people with their struggles.
Speaker 3: But he continued to write songs and collaborate with other
Speaker 3: creative individuals who were strong where he was weak, and
Speaker 3: so he was able to continue to be a part
Speaker 3: of making music for the people of God to sing.
Speaker 1: And be ministered to by.
Speaker 3: But he humbled himself and realized that he didn't have
Speaker 3: to be good at everything as long as he was
Speaker 3: in touch with the one who was. But he see
Speaker 3: what happened was I showed you this last week, I
Speaker 3: made a pivot. And in that moment that I made
Speaker 3: a pivot with my pen, something started to come alive
Speaker 3: in the spirit, and I began to see that what
Speaker 3: I was dwelling on as the end. The Lord says,
Speaker 3: I know the plans I have for you, plans to
Speaker 3: give you a hope in the future. After seventy years
Speaker 3: have completed in Babylon, I will come to you. And
Speaker 3: after I've come to you and delivered you, you will
Speaker 3: praise me on this mountain.
Speaker 1: God said to Moses, after you have brought the people
Speaker 1: out of Egypt.
Speaker 3: You will worship God on this mountain. He is taking
Speaker 3: what Moses thinks is the end and moving it to
Speaker 3: the middle. Because I'll tell you something. It can be
Speaker 3: the end if you let it be. If you let
Speaker 3: it into you, it will end you. If you let
Speaker 3: it make you tap, it will end you. If you
Speaker 3: let it define you, it will define you. If you
Speaker 3: let it bury you, it will bury you. But he,
Speaker 3: but he who began a good work in you, Now
Speaker 3: I feel, my preacher, he who began.
Speaker 5: A good work in you, will be faithful to complete it.
Speaker 3: The Bible says that all things work together for the
Speaker 3: good of those who love Him and are called according
Speaker 3: to his purpose. So if it's not good, God's not done.
Speaker 5: He said, I'll bring you to an expected end.
Speaker 3: So if his purpose isn't finished yet, for this situation,
Speaker 3: it is not the end.
Speaker 5: Move it to the middle.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the thing that you've been crying about.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the thing that you've been gossiping about.
Speaker 5: I'm talking about the.
Speaker 3: Thing that has had you so down you can't rejoice.
Speaker 3: I'm talking about the thing that has blurred your vision
Speaker 3: and fogged your faith. I'm talking about the thing that
Speaker 3: has beat you into submission, the thing that's got.
Speaker 5: You tied up in knots. You've been treating it like
Speaker 5: the end, and you need to move in to the middle.
Speaker 3: So when you're telling this story, it is going to
Speaker 3: be a chapter and a scene, not a destiny. That's
Speaker 3: why it's called Midian. You aren't meant to live here.
Speaker 3: You will not die in this wilderness. You will not
Speaker 3: go down in this state. For there is a burning
Speaker 3: bush with your name on it, Moses, Moses. And you
Speaker 3: know what makes the bush significant. It's burning, but it
Speaker 3: won't burn up. It's still burning. After all, it's been through.
Speaker 3: And I'm preaching to somebody today that after all you've
Speaker 3: been through, after every red sea he split, after everything.
Speaker 5: He forgave you off.
Speaker 3: After every ready poured in your lungs, after every percy
Speaker 3: he dropped in your cord, you pass hey Breason to
Speaker 3: raise him. This is just a This is just the middle.
Speaker 3: This is just the middle. Of course, it's messy, it's
Speaker 3: the middle. Of course, it's difficult.
Speaker 5: It's the middle. Of course, it's dry. It's the middle.
Speaker 1: It's always different in the middle. But the Lord said
Speaker 1: for us to take this.
Speaker 3: Thing that we think is going to be the end
Speaker 3: of our testimony, and move it to the middle and
Speaker 3: let it.
Speaker 1: Become who is this for?
Speaker 3: Let it become the part of your story that you say,
Speaker 3: but he after.
Speaker 5: Do I preach about this too much?
Speaker 3: I feel like every week I'm trying to tell you
Speaker 3: not to quit in a different way. I feel like
Speaker 3: every week I'm trying to tell you it is too
Speaker 3: soon for you to sit down and settle in Midian
Speaker 3: when God.
Speaker 1: Called you to be a deliverer. And look what all
Speaker 1: God did through Moses. Oh, this is so personal, and
Speaker 1: he wants to do it for you.
Speaker 3: The Bible says that He called them by name to
Speaker 3: lead them out of Egypt, and look at Acts, chapter seven,
Speaker 3: verse thirty six. He led them out of Egypt, performed
Speaker 3: wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and
Speaker 3: for forty years in the wilderness.
Speaker 1: Now, to me, that's got to be the saddest scripture
Speaker 1: that I've read today, is that God spent.
Speaker 3: The first forty years preparing Moses his basket years where
Speaker 3: he was preserved. You know, God spent the first part
Speaker 3: of your life preparing you. It wasn't easy. It may
Speaker 3: not have been what you chose, but he floated you
Speaker 3: to where you needed to be. Then, after Moses's mistake,
Speaker 3: he spent the next forty years repairing Moses, humbling Moses.
Speaker 3: But after that burning bush, Moses was meant to lead
Speaker 3: the people into the Promised Land. And look what verse
Speaker 3: twenty six says or verse thirty six says. Please, he
Speaker 3: led them out of Egypt, perform wonders and signs in Egypt,
Speaker 3: the Red Sea, and for forty years in the wilderness.
Speaker 3: Now here's the warning. He wasn't supposed to be in
Speaker 3: the wilderness with them forty years.
Speaker 1: Put it back up.
Speaker 3: At the Red Sea, he performed wonders, the sea split.
Speaker 3: In the wilderness, he performed miracles for forty years. But
Speaker 3: the trip through the wilderness was not meant to be
Speaker 3: the end. It was meant to be the middle. To
Speaker 3: get through the wilderness to the Promised Land would have
Speaker 3: taken the Israelites two weeks. Tops. How did they switch
Speaker 3: and make a forty year habitation out of a two
Speaker 3: week transition.
Speaker 1: It's because they treated the middle it was the end.
Speaker 3: And there are some things in your life that God
Speaker 3: is doing right now, and he's providing for you, and
Speaker 3: he's empowering you, and he's enabling you, and he's sustaining you,
Speaker 3: and he's calling you.
Speaker 1: And this for Moses, Moses moment.
Speaker 3: And if you come forward and look and listen, and
Speaker 3: turn aside and say, wonder why this bush isn't burning up.
Speaker 3: Wonder why God left me here. Wonder why cancer didn't
Speaker 3: kill me. Wonder why depression didn't have the last word.
Speaker 3: Wonder why I survived when they did. Wonder why God
Speaker 3: put me at this place in time. Wonder why God
Speaker 3: gave me these experiences. If you move it to the middle,
Speaker 3: it changes everything. So I close with one more illustration. Chris,
Speaker 3: when we were writing the song Gyra, I have no
Speaker 3: idea if you remember this, I would feel sure that
Speaker 3: you do that you know.
Speaker 1: The name Jyrah.
Speaker 3: Comes from one of the other times that Abraham was
Speaker 3: going to sacrifice his son Isaac, and the Lord said, Abraham, Abraham,
Speaker 3: don't lay a hand on the boy.
Speaker 1: I've seen that you trust me.
Speaker 3: I don't want your son as a sacrifice, I want
Speaker 3: your trust as worship.
Speaker 1: And there was a ram in the.
Speaker 3: Bush, and when Abraham saw the place where God provided,
Speaker 3: he called it Jehovah.
Speaker 1: Jirah.
Speaker 3: It doesn't necessarily mean just the Lord provides. It means
Speaker 3: the Lord sees, and he called that place Jehovah Girah.
Speaker 3: The first time that we ever wrote with our friends
Speaker 3: Naomi and Chandler, we sat down and begin to write a.
Speaker 1: Song that ended up being the song Gyra. Have you
Speaker 1: heard it? Do you like it? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Let me tell you a little thing about that song
Speaker 3: that I think will cement this message in your mind
Speaker 3: for everything that you need God to provide.
Speaker 1: When we began to write the chorus, it didn't sound
Speaker 1: very good. It said, I.
Speaker 3: Will be content in every circumstance Jrah, you are enough,
Speaker 3: and you're like, that's how it goes, now, not exactly.
Speaker 3: Listen again, this is how it started. Okay, so let
Speaker 3: me do the verse.
Speaker 7: I'll never be more love then I am, though.
Speaker 3: It was it holding you, so there's nothing I can
Speaker 3: do to let you down.
Speaker 5: Doesn't take a trophy, make you problem.
Speaker 3: I'll never be more love than I am right now.
Speaker 3: And then it went, I will be content in every circumstance. Jierah,
Speaker 3: you are enough.
Speaker 1: I will be content. That's how it went.
Speaker 3: In every circumstance, Jirah, you are.
Speaker 1: Enough, and I looked over and Naomi was yawning.
Speaker 3: I thought, this isn't very good, is it? And then
Speaker 3: Chris said, no, it's good. I said, it doesn't feel
Speaker 3: like a chorus. He said, but what if we took
Speaker 3: I will be content in every circumstance? And instead of
Speaker 3: starting the chorus with that line, what if we moved
Speaker 3: it to the middle. I said, what you're talking about
Speaker 3: singing for me? And he said, you are enough? Put
Speaker 3: that first right, Gyrah, you are enough.
Speaker 7: To say it again, Yah, you are enough, And then
Speaker 7: I will be content in every circumstance.
Speaker 1: And it make a sandwich. J you are enough. Sound
Speaker 1: pretty good? Done that when you move it to the middle.
Speaker 3: When you move it to the middle, you'll always see
Speaker 3: Jehovah Jirah. When you move it to the middle, there
Speaker 3: will always be provisioned. When you focus on what God
Speaker 3: has given you, when you focus on what He's made
Speaker 3: you to do, when you stop comparing and fix your
Speaker 3: eyes on Jesus, the author and finisher of your.
Speaker 1: Faith, it will always be enough. Say it again, Jyrah,
Speaker 1: you are rener. Say that again, j you are reader.
Speaker 1: Now move that line to the middle.
Speaker 7: Say I will be content in tel every circumstance.
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to
Speaker 2: this ministry. Is because of you that this ministry is possible.
Speaker 2: You can click the link in the description to give now,
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Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening. God bless you