Acts Chapter 7:14-24

What do we consider when we think about these four men? Well, one of the things I consider is how all four of them were much better off for having a relationship with the Lord, of walking with the Lord. Now, you could have taken a snapshot, perhaps, of different times of their lives and thought, man, they're not doing too well. You could have taken a snapshot of Joseph in prison and thought, God's not treating him very well. That relationship isn't working out. But in the end, it was an incredible thing. Are you doing those things that the Bible talks about doing, reading your Bible and praying and giving and serving and being committed to a local church?

Or are you not doing any of those things and expecting your thirst to get quenched? Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina.

Also in Kernersville, North Carolina is D.A. Brown, one of David McGee's associate pastors that has been raised up in ministry right here from the congregation. Welcome to the program today, brother. Bob, I'm excited to be here. I'm excited for everyone who listens to this teaching. The Book of Acts, it's real practical how to follow Jesus. And today, if we would just take some time and listen, we could be radically changed forever.

You're exactly right. So, listeners, if you want your life to be something different, then do something different with your life, as David McGee challenges us with this truth as he continues in the Book of Acts, chapter 7 and part 3 of his teaching, Stephen's Address. Chapter 7 finds us discussing Stephen, and Stephen was a man who was a deacon, if you will, and he served tables. And because he was willing to faithfully serve in those small things, God continued to raise him up. And God continued to do more and more wonderful things through him. We see that model of he who is faithful in the small things will be raised up in ministry.

And that's an important thing for us to remember. So we'll pick it up with Acts, chapter 7, verse 14. And it's speaking about the life of Joseph, and it says, Then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, seventy-five people. Now, you may remember the story of Joseph. He was the guy who, you know, in the book of Genesis, his brothers beat him up because he was his father's favorite.

He had this dream about what God was going to do with his life. And, you know, he shared it with his brothers. His brothers hated it. And so they beat him up, and they were going to kill him. And then they said, Well, you know, we kill him, we're done, but we can sell him, and then we can make some money. And so they sold him. He went into Egypt and, you know, then into slavery. He was raised up in Potiphar's house, and then he was unjustly accused of adultery, thrown into prison.

And so, you know, and then after a season, got out of prison, and God raised him up to a very special place to be the second most powerful person in the land of Egypt. And at that point is when Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him. And the reason Stephen is saying this is he's talking about the fact that the brothers of Joseph, who were the heads of the beginnings of the tribes of Israel, didn't recognize Joseph the first time. And Stephen is making the case that the Jewish people, the Jewish leadership, didn't recognize Jesus the first time, but perhaps will the second time.

We're going to see that consistent through here. Now, verse 15 continues. So Jacob went down to Egypt, and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, in verse 17.

But when the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt. Now let's just take a minute, because already in this chapter we've kind of been introduced or perhaps reintroduced to four characters in the Bible, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph. Now these are awesome men, awesome names, awesome legacies. And these guys are, well they're real life heroes. I grew up watching the different superheroes, the Supermans and the Batmans and all these things. And those guys weren't real. I hope I'm not bumming any of you out. Hopefully you already knew that. But I remember I got to meet the real Robin one time, and I was just, disillusioned I guess would be the word that I would use.

Why? Because they weren't real life heroes. They were superheroes that weren't really heroes.

But these guys here, they were and are heroes. Now when we think of them, what do we, what do we think about, what do we consider when we think about these four men? Well one of the things I consider is how all four of them were much better off for having a relationship with the Lord, of walking with the Lord. Now you could have taken a snapshot perhaps of different times of their lives and thought, man, they're not doing too well. You could have taken a snapshot of Joseph in prison and thought, God's not treating him very well, that relationship isn't working out.

But in the end, it was an incredible thing. And what these men did is they stepped out and they trusted God and they served him. And God blessed them.

You know why? Because that is what God does. When a person steps out to serve the Lord, God will bless them.

Sometimes, no, every time. See, we've gotten into this twisted thing that if we step out to serve God, oh boy, it's going to be horrible. And sometimes you hear testimonies that guys go, well, you know, I was a powerful guy on wall street making six figures plus and then I began to serve the Lord and now I really like bologna sandwiches and praise the Lord. And it's like, you know, okay, well you gave up all that death and sin and disease to have freedom in the Lord. And God desires to bless us as we step out and serve him. And the whole thing of, well, you know, be careful about just stepping out to serve the Lord because, you know, I mean, if you don't like cold, he'll send you to Alaska.

If you don't like the heat, he'll send you to Florida. You know, and we get this thing of, oh, it's a scary thing to put ourselves in the hands of the Lord, but it's the best place to put ourselves. Now, we shouldn't put an emphasis on the blessings.

Put the emphasis on God and God will do incredible things. Now, and look at, sometimes we look at Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph and go, well, they were just good men. That's why God blessed them because they were just good men.

No, wait a minute, wait a minute. Abraham was the son of an automaker living in idolatry. Isaac had a step brother and step mother that, I mean, yeah, that didn't really like him. He got Jacob, had a brother, he ripped off and then his brother wanted to kill him.

He had Joseph who's all his brothers beat him up and sold him into slavery. And yet we, how did we go from that to thinking as long as we're good people, God will bless us. That's kind of a twist and it's an unbiblical twist. And if you look at their lives, what you see is the end of their life was much better than some of the beginning things. It reminds me of a verse in Ecclesiastes chapter seven verse eight. It says the end of a thing is better than its beginning. The end of a thing is better than its beginning.

See, the thing is we get in a place in our life and we think, well, this is it. This is where I'm setting up camp and nothing's going to change. Nothing's going to be different. I'm in the middle of this trial, this tribulation, this temptation, and nothing's going to ever change, but nothing could be further from the truth. It is going to change.

One day it's going to change drastically. And as you look at these men, I, you know, when you read the book of Genesis, you're just impressed by the real faith. They weren't just professing faith. They weren't just saying, well, yes, I believe in these things. I will repeat the apostles creed by memory for you.

No, it was a real faith where they stepped out. Let me ask you a question. Are you on an adventure with God right now? Because if you're not, let me tell you some good news. There is a lot of people in this fellowship that are on an adventure with God. What I mean by that is they've stepped out to serve the Lord and the Lord is blessing them and they're watching what the Lord is doing.

And it's just an incredible adventure every week. You know, there are people coming in, Oh, you won't believe what God did this week. You won't believe what God's doing in my family.

God's doing in my marriage. Then there's another group that is standing if you will off on the sidelines, they profess to believe, but are they possessing their belief? Are they just professing?

Are they possessing now? What's the difference? Well, let me put it like this. I have a bottle of water over here and when I'm thirsty, I reach over here and I drink this bottle of water. But imagine if I was sitting here going, man, you know, I'm really thirsty. You know, I don't understand that water is not really doing anything to quench my thirst. I'm sitting here thirsty and I've got water, but this water is really not doing it for me. It's just simply not quenching my thirst. I can't understand. People told me that water would quench my thirst if I had some and here I've got some and I'm still thirsty.

I don't understand. There must be something wrong with the water. See, I'm professing that I have water.

Oh, indeed. It's right beside me, but I hadn't grabbed hold of it. When I grabbed ahold of it and I drink it, then it quenches my thirst. See, and I think a lot of people treat Christianity the same way. They say, well, you know, I go to, I go to church, I do my hour and yet, you know, I still, I still don't have that joy and the peace of the Lord. Well, you're close, but do you have ahold of it? See, cause you can sit beside water all day long.

Not really going to help your thirst, but when you grab that water and when you take a sip of it, then it begins to quench your thirst. So are you professing? Are you possessing? See, these men lived incredible lives because they walked with the Lord and they had a relationship with the Lord and, and you know what, and to a certain degree, they, they weren't willing just to be sidelines, sit and pew potatoes. They wanted to know the Lord. They wanted a vibrant relationship and they had a vibrant relationship.

Why? Because they were willing to take a chance. They were willing to step out. As I was thinking about this, a poem by Robert Frost came back to mind. Maybe you've heard it. It says, I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hints two roads diverged in a road. And I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. The road less traveled by, by Robert Frost. Basically the poem is starting out, there's two roads.

One is well worn and one is kind of overgrown, the less traveled by. And he goes and ends the poem saying, no, I took the one less traveled by and it made all the difference. It reminds me of the verse Matthew chapter seven, verse 14 says, but the gateway to life is small and the road is narrow. And only a few ever find it. It's a great verse.

Here's the problem though. It's amazing what we've done with that verse. Do you know our emphasis on that verse?

Usually the path path is narrow path is hard. How many times have you heard that? Straight is the way nerves are gay. You know, I mean, that's just, people say that over and over. Why do they say that? Well, it's an interesting thing because if you stop to consider it, you know, I like to go to the beach sometimes. And when you asked me how my trip went going to the beach, I won't go, man, that highway is something that boy, it is just, you know, I'm going to be talking about the beach.

Why? The beach was my destination. Follow me? See, because here's what we do. We put the emphasis on the path. Where should the emphasis in that first bay to life? It's not just that the path is narrow.

It's that the path is going somewhere that you want to go. And yes, was it narrow? Yes. Is it hard? Yes.

Sometimes it is. But what would you rather do if I was going to the beach and you said, okay, here's a two lane highway and that goes straight to the beach and it's your best shot, but here's a 10 lane expressway that heads up north. I'm not going to go, wow, that's a nice expressway.

I think I'll just take that because I'm trying to go to the beach and yet some of us treat life like that. Well, I want the smooth ride. I want the 10 lane. If you tell me, okay, if you go up this 10 lane, you're going to run out of gas. You're going to stuck on the, stuck on the side of the highway out of gas, or you can go to this place that's going to take you where you want to go.

What do you think I'm going to choose? I'm going to choose the one that's going to take me where I want to go. Where's that the gateway to life and yet how often do we find ourselves on the 10 lane highway? Well, it's just an easier road. It's not going where you want to go path to life. I mean, how many of us really enjoy flying in a plane? Well, some of you may, I don't know any of us that's ever flown very much. You, you don't enjoy it anymore. I mean, it's a means to an end.

It's, it's a way to get to somewhere. And, and I'm, you know, my, my dad used to fly, he flew in the air force and then he flew for fun after that. And he used to take the boys out on Saturday mornings sometimes and I don't know if it was his air force heritage or something. He didn't really feel like we had flown until somebody in the family threw up.

And so, you know, he would do all these barrel rolls and G's and stalls and all this stuff. All right, somebody puked. We can go back in now. So maybe I'm just twisted about my remembrances of flying, but you know, it's, it's not something necessarily any of us enjoy doing at times, but you know what is cool? You're going to see some interesting things when you fly. You're just get up there in the clouds and stuff. Occasionally you're going to see something that's interesting. Is it hard?

Yeah. Sometimes it's hard going through baggage check, taking longer and all these things, but you know what? You're going somewhere. Remember that when the way gets hard that you're going somewhere and, and see, this is the thing we, sometimes we look at it where I go, well, it'd be hard to drink that water. I'm thirsty, but I'd have to reach out and grab that thing and pick it up.

And it's probably heavy. Now I'll just sit here and talk about how thirsty I am. See, that's what we do in our spiritual life sometimes. Yeah. Occasionally it's going to be hard. Occasionally I may go to grab this water and I may knock it off the table. That's okay.

There's more water down there. You see the parallels. Here's the thing. The life lesson. We should be possessors of faith and not professors of faith. Not that we shouldn't profess our faith, but we should possess our faith. Now, are you a professor or a possessor?

Which are you? Are you holding onto your faith? Are you walking in your faith? Are you doing those things that the Bible talks about doing, reading your Bible and praying and giving and serving and being committed to a local church or are you not doing any of those things and expecting your thirst to get somehow quenched? You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment, but I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for him.

You need someone to present God's word to him. Every day we're presenting God's word to him here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones.

What an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from Associate Pastor DA Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience today, specifically Grants Pass, Heinz, John Day, Junction City, Keno, Lakeview, and Medford, Oregon.

Lord, we thank you for these cities and the people who are listening now. God, even those who might not be listening, we lift up everyone. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would draw them into a personal relationship with Jesus, that they would put their faith in him. Father, we pray that they would get plugged into a Bible teaching church. Lord, we pray that you give the pastors in these cities wisdom on how to make disciples and how to encourage everyone that God brings. Lord, we pray for the city leaders, mayors, Father, the police chief, the fire chief. Lord, we pray that we would be in an encouragement to them, recognizing the serious responsibilities that they have.

Father, we pray that the church globally in these cities would walk in unity. Lord, we thank you for what you're doing. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. Now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 18 says, Till another king arose who did not know Joseph, and this man dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies so that they might not live.

That's interesting. He's talking about Pharaoh. He caused the death of a lot of babies before Moses came forth as the deliverer, which is an interesting parallel because you may remember in the Gospels, another political leader killed babies so that the deliverer might not come forth. And both Moses came forth as a deliverer and Jesus came forth as a deliverer. And over and over in the Bible, you see something interesting. You see how God can take something, an event, and use it for good. Now, have you been in Egypt at that time? You'd have thought, well, how in the world could God use the death of all these babies to work something good?

Well, he did. He used it to raise up a leader, a leader that was going to be used for redemption and freedom. Let's read on verse 20. At this time, Moses was born and was well pleasing to God, and he was brought up in his father's house for three months. But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. God brought Moses to that palace for his purposes. You understand how much of this book is about redemption and freedom? God chose to use Moses to deliver the people out of Egypt, to redeem them and then to free them. And it's another beautiful picture of Jesus Christ, who died for our sins that he might redeem us and set us free. Free to do whatever we wanted?

No. Free to serve him. Freedom to serve him. Now, Moses, it's interesting, in verse 22, it says, And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds. He would have been schooled in how to write Egyptian script, how to write Canaanite script and arithmetic and geometry and music and poetry and astronomy and all these things. And all the while, it was for God's purposes.

You may have in your life been trained in certain ways and this and that and the other. And perhaps you're even going, I don't understand how God could ever use that education or that experience. Let me assure you, God can use those things. God can use those things. But you know what we're going to find?

Moses was willing to walk away from all those things. Can you imagine? I don't think it can really register because we have a different system of government. You know, we elect our presidents. So we can't really understand the monarchy type of government necessarily.

I mean, we can understand it mentally. But Moses was in line perhaps to be Pharaoh, to be ruler over all of Egypt. And he walked away from that. He walked away from it.

It's not a parallel, but it's a small one. I remember when I left secular music and I came back home and was getting right with the Lord and back in fellowship with the Lord. It was interesting talking with other musicians because they really didn't understand.

They said, well, I don't understand. I mean, you were like in the thick of things. You knew people.

Things were happening and you walked away from that. Well, for the next life lesson, I'm going to borrow the words of Jim Elliott. Life lesson here is he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. I love that quote.

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. How much of stuff in your life right now are you going to be able to keep? At the end of your life, what will you be letting go of?

Well, some things are fairly obvious. You'll be letting go of your house. You'll be letting go of your finances.

You'll be letting go of your car unless they bury you in it. Still, you'll be letting go of it, right? You'll be letting go of all those things. So how much of your life should be poured out towards those things?

What will you not be letting go of? The things you did for God. Scripture is very clear, very plain about that, that the things that you do for God will remain forever.

Forever is a long time, isn't it? So where should your focus be on the things you do for God? That's where the focus of Moses was.

Now let's read on. Verse 23. Now when he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren and the children of Israel. And seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged them who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptians. Moses, I believe, knew he had been called to deliver the people of Israel.

I think there was an inkling. I think as he had this burden, I think he knew. And you know what he did? As soon as he felt like he had this burden, he started out doing it. How did he start out doing it?

He killed somebody. He figured he'd take the whole Egyptian army out one by one, I guess, right? That wasn't God's plan.

God had a plan much better than the plan of Moses. But see, here's the thing. In ministry, you can't just depend upon your plan and your abilities as you step out to serve the Lord. Because if you do it your way, it's not going to go well. And here's where it can become even more frustrating is when God burrows a vision in you, starts to stir your heart towards accomplishing something, and then immediately you know what we do.

I've got to start doing it, me, myself, and I. Now most of the stuff that God tells us to do, we can't do. It's like Jesus in the New Testament when he would tell a lame man, hey, get up and walk, or a blind man, hey, look at this. So we have to wait on him. And he empowers us. And that's the way of the Christian life. See, our forgiveness comes because we ask for it, not because we've been so good, not because there's a spark of innate human goodness and God's looking around and going, oh, yeah, that guy's mostly good. I'll save him.

That's not the way that it happens. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven? You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ. Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at PO Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life.

You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge. Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.