How God Can Turn Your Mess Into a Message | Put Your Faith on Display

You're listening to A New Beginning with Greg Laurie, a podcast made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God.

Visit our website and learn more about Harvest Partners at harvest.org. See what God can do in and through a man or a woman who is totally committed to him. So, will you say, Here I am, Lord, send me? Or will you say, There they are, Lord, send them? Those friends and associates you're in contact with, they have a word for that group. It's called your circle of influence. The key question is, what kind of influence do you have on your circle of influence? Do you draw them to Christ, or do they wonder what kind of Christian are you?

Or would they be surprised you are a Christian? Today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie helps us put ourselves out there on the front line for the Lord. He invites us to put our faith on display to everyone we meet. Exodus chapter 3, and the title of my message is God's Call and Man's Excuses.

So let me ask you a question. Have you ever wondered if God could use someone like you? You know, when I first became a Christian, it was just overwhelming for me to think that God would allow someone like me to come into a relationship with Him.

That's more than enough. That's all it was, just you come into a relationship with God, that's enough for a lifetime. But then I heard that God wanted to use me, that He wanted to use me to serve Him, that He had given me certain spiritual gifts. And I thought, there is no way God could use someone like me.

I was the guy who was always getting in trouble in school. How could I ever amount to anything? But I was told, no, you should go out and even share your faith.

And I thought, I would surely fail if I tried to do such a thing. And God had a lot of grace on me because the first time I engaged a person in an evangelistic conversation, it was a middle-aged lady that I would probably think of as younger now as a matter of fact. But she was middle-aged then because I was 17. But I shared the gospel with her and she accepted Christ. So of course immediately I thought I was some kind of a super preacher. I was just blessed. That's all it was. If she had asked me one slightly difficult question I would have collapsed like a house of cards.

But thankfully she did not. But I got a taste of how the Lord could use me. And I went out and shared my faith more. And I was talking to people about Christ. And other people were accepting the Lord.

And I thought, this is wonderful. But I had this fear. And my fear was, one of these days I am afraid God is going to call me to preach.

And that is the last thing I want to do. I never want to have to preach publicly. The thought terrified me. And I am not the only one, am I? Because whenever a survey is taken and people are asked what their primary fears are it seems like number one on the list is often the fear of public speaking.

How many of you have the fear of public speaking? Raise your hand. Ok.

I am going to call in a couple of you. See that made your heart jump right there didn't it? Oh no no. No.

Not me. That's how. Well that's how Moses felt. See Moses had a fear of public speaking. Moses had a fear of being used by God. But I am getting a little ahead of myself here.

But you see here is what I want to get to. And that is the simple fact that God wants you to leave your comfort zone. And God wants to use you. And I wonder if you have ever said to the Lord, use me Lord. How many of you have ever prayed a prayer like that? Use me Lord. Raise your hand. Ok. Well that's good.

That's quite a few of you. And I want you to know that if you pray a prayer like that in sincerity God will hear you. He will answer that prayer. And it will open up opportunities for you. The Bible is clear in pointing out that we are all called to glorify God with our lives and get the gospel out. Romans 12 4-6 says just as our bodies have many parts and each part is a special function so it is with the body of Christ. We are all parts of one body and each of us has a different work to do.

And since we are all one body in Christ we belong to each other and each of us needs the other. You know in my body just like in your body I need every part of it working properly. And you really become aware of this when something is not working properly. When you sprain an ankle or you stub a toe. That can be a major thing.

Right. Or you hurt a finger or break a finger or you have an ear infection. Earlier tonight I had something in my eye and I was using some saline solution.

My eye was very irritated. It affects you. And the same is true in the church. When one of us is affected we are all affected. If one is hurting we are all hurting. If one is lifted up we are all being lifted up in a sense.

And we all need to work together. I think a mark of spiritual maturity is when we say, Lord use me. A mark of spiritual maturity is when we come to church and we say, How can I use my gifts to serve others? A mark of spiritual immaturity is when I am a regular in my church attendance. And it is when I do show up I say or at least think something along the lines of, How can you minister to me more?

What more can you do for me? By the way there is nothing wrong with wanting to be ministered to a church. But when you begin to mature you realize I need to get in the game here and help out a little bit. You know sometimes people will go up to our Sunday school and they are impatient with some of our folks that are helping out and they have a lot of demands. Excuse me. These people aren't paid to do what they do. These are volunteers. You should be thanking them.

And you know it is very easy to critique. But the question is are you doing anything? Are you involved? And we all should recognize there is a place for us in the church. And that is when a big church will become a small church is when we discover our gifts and start using them together. Well God is looking for people like this. In Ezekiel 22 30 the Lord says, I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness and guard the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't destroy the land but I found none. Did you hear what God just said? I am searching.

I am looking. He is looking in this room right now for a man, a woman, a boy, a girl that He can use. There was a great evangelist from days gone by named Dwight Lyman Moody.

We often call him D.L. Moody. And one man came up to Moody once and made this statement and it changed Moody's life. He said, Moody the world has yet to see what God can do with and in and through the man who is wholly dedicated to Him. It hit Moody hard. And Moody said to the Lord, I want to be that man Lord.

And in many ways he was that man for his generation. The world has yet to see what God can do in and through a man or a woman who is totally committed to Him. So will you say, here I am Lord. Send me. Or will you say, there they are Lord.

Send them. You know we all have a pulpit to speak from. You might say well I don't have a pulpit Greg and yours actually lights up. I mean you have a fancy pulpit.

Yes it is kind of fancy I know. But you know you have a pulpit too. And your pulpit is whatever platform God has given you in your life.

Your sphere of influence, your neighbors, your friends. I just received a letter and I thought long ago a school teacher wrote our radio program and he said, Dear Pastor Greg I am a high school teacher in a pretty tough area. As a public school teacher I have to find creative ways of witnessing to students and sharing the love of Jesus with them because Jesus is a very foreign concept to many of the students here.

Listen to what this teacher did. So I decided to give the students some extra credit assignment over the weekend. They had to watch the Harvest Crusade online or go to the Crusade in person and then do a one page write up about what they saw and experienced.

I like this guy. He goes on to say I am very happy to report that a few of the students gave their lives to Jesus and several were asking me questions which is an awesome opportunity to plant more seeds. The Crusade got many of the students thinking about things they never hear about in their homes. And my prayer is for those that saw the Crusade and hadn't made their decision for Jesus will make that decision. But no matter what I will keep in contact with those kids and continue to be a witness for Him. See that is a guy who found this pulpit. You have a pulpit.

Believe me. You have influence more than you think you have. And you have to say, Lord how can I leverage that conversation or that relationship for the gospel? But when we think of the Lord using us we come up with excuses.

We will say oh God could or would never use someone like me. I don't have the gift of gab. I don't. What is the gift of gab? I guess it is just people that talk too much. I don't have the gift of gab.

I am not comfortable talking to strangers. I have made too many mistakes. Those are all excuses. What is an excuse? One definition of an excuse is quote the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie end quote. Here is another definition of an excuse. I like this one. An excuse is a lie all dressed up for dinner. So what does it mean? An excuse is effectively a lie.

I say oh I don't want I can't do it but the reality is I don't want to do it. Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. You know when you have walked in the very land where Jesus himself walked you will gain a whole new appreciation for the truth of scripture. Hey everybody Greg Laurie here inviting you to the Harvest Ministries Israel tour April 9 to 19, 2024. This will be an unforgettable journey through biblical sites and a unique opportunity to grow in your own faith.

Listen spots are limited. Be sure to sign up as soon as possible at Israel.Harvest.org. Again it's Israel.Harvest.org.

I hope to see you there. Well we're glad you're along for today's message titled God's Call Man's Excuses and our thanks to our Harvest partners for their support which helped to make today's study possible. Now we're going to look at Moses and we're going to look at some of the excuses that he offered up to the Lord as a part of our series that we're doing on his life that we're calling water fire and stone. Now when we left Moses he was running for his life.

Why? Well he was the prince of Egypt. He was being groomed to be the next Pharaoh.

But he chose to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And he decided to take matters into his own hands. So he went out and he saw an Egyptian taskmaster cruelly treating a Hebrew slave and he thought I've had enough of this. And the Bible says he looked this way and he looked that way and he killed the Egyptian. Well the next day he went out and a couple of Jewish guys were having an argument. He interrupts and says, why are you guys arguing? They say in effect, who dynamite Jew king?

What's it to you? You're not our prince. You're not our ruler. Are you going to kill us as you did the Egyptian yesterday? Moses realized that everyone knew and indeed news had gotten back to the palace. The Pharaoh was outraged. He put a contract out on Moses life. So now Moses is running for his life. Here's part of the problem of Moses. He killed this guy.

That was horrible. But then he hid his body in the sand. Not a good place to hide a body by the way.

Especially with the shifting sands of Egypt blowing about. I read a story about some guy who robbed a church. He stole some money. He was trying to climb through the window. But he was a pretty good-sized guy. And he was over six feet tall and quite heavy. And he got stuck in the bathroom window while trying to make off with the loot. It took four cops to get him out. Two pushing and two pulling. Caught in the act.

Ah hi everybody. Yeah that's sort of what happened to Moses. He got caught in the act.

And now he is running. And Moses himself later said in Numbers 32 23, your sin will find you out. And his sin did find him out. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 28 13, if you try to hide your sin you will not prosper. I wonder if there is somebody listening to me right now that has been trying to hide their sin. Maybe some secret sin you think no one knows about.

Trust me. God knows about it. As Alan Redpath used to say, secret sin on earth is open scandal in heaven. The only way to get rid of your sin is to confess it. The Bible promises that we will confess our sin.

He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Well Moses was running because of the consequences of his sin. He once was the prince of Egypt. Now he is the fugitive from Egypt. He lost his home, his position, his people, his power, and his reputation. But fortunately he had not lost his God. He made a mess out of his life. I wonder if somebody listening to me right now has made a mess out of their life. Maybe you like Moses.

Took matters into your own hands. You know sometimes people who are single grow impatient. You know the girl says I never meet any Christian guys at church. The guy says I never meet any Christian girls and I am just hard of waiting. And so they say I am just going to get married. I found someone. They say they love me. They are a nonbeliever. And despite the fact that the Bible says don't be an equally yoked together with nonbelievers I am going to marry them and I am going to lead them to the Lord. Well that does occasionally happen.

I can't rule that out. But unfortunately many times it does not happen. So now you are in a marriage that is filled with friction.

Trust me. Marriage is hard enough ok. Between two Christians. Don't make it even harder by marrying a non-Christian. At least the Christians have the spiritual resources and the Lord to lean on. But man when you are not a believer and then you add other elements to the problems oh it can get really awful.

But anyway so maybe you are having friction in your marriage and you are saying well that was a bad decision. And then at church you met this really good looking godly nice Christian guy. And so you are thinking I think the Lord just spoke to me and said my child dump your heathen husband and marry the cute Christian at church. God isn't saying that to you.

Here is what he is saying. 1 Corinthians 7 13. If a believing woman is a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to stay with her she should not leave him. So now here is your new mission. Seek to win him to the Lord by the way that you live.

The same is true of course of a Christian man with a non-Christian woman. You made the wrong decision. Don't make it even worse.

Listen to this. God is good at cleaning up our messes. Let me say it again. God is good at cleaning up our messes.

And we have our messes don't we. Yep. I mean think of the last miracle of Jesus. What was the last miracle that Christ performed before he went to the cross? The raising of Lazarus from the dead. No that happened much earlier. The healing of a leper.

No. What was it? It was putting a guy's ear back on his head that was cut off by Simon Peter. Kind of an unnoticed miracle.

Maybe an unappreciated miracle. But you remember in the Garden of Gethsemane here comes the temple guard and the Roman soldiers to arrest Christ being led by this Malchus character. And Simon Peter was so frustrated he pulled out his sword and took a wild swing and off comes the guy's ear.

He was probably aiming for his head honestly but he was a fisherman not a swordsman. So off comes the guy's ear. Malchus Van Gogh.

Many people don't know that was his last name. I made that up. If you don't know what I mean google Van Gogh and you'll find the answer with the ear. Anyway he picks the guy's ear up. He puts it back on. Man if I were Jesus it would be like buddy you deserve what you got. No but that was the last miracle of Jesus to cover up the blunder of a disciple. The Lord can turn your mess into a message and He can turn your test into a testimony. So what you need to do is say all right Lord I blew it here. I messed up.

I'm sorry and I don't know how to fix it. But I'm asking you Lord to intervene in my life and turn this around somehow for your glory. Cause even this mistake that I've made Lord to be used to bring honor to your name. You just watch what the Lord will do. Well old Moses he runs off into the wilderness. Remember I said to you before he spent 40 years in the Pharaoh's court finding out he was a somebody. 40 years in the wilderness finding out he was a nobody. Now he's about to find out what God can do with a somebody who realizes they're a nobody. He's been in exile in the desert.

He married a lady from a family that he met there. He's been off the grid. No social media.

He shut down his Instagram account, Facebook. No tweets from Moses. No nothing from Moses. Moses probably thought I'm done.

I have nothing left to say. I've ruined my life. I've ruined my testimony and that's it. Well that wasn't it because God was going to turn his mess into a message. Great insight from the life of Moses from Pastor Greg Laurie's new series called Water, Fire, Stone. Glad you're joining us here on A New Beginning as we learn from both Moses' successes and failures. Well Pastor Greg my wife and I saw Johnny Cash, the redemption of an American icon in the theaters some months ago and we both loved it.

There's so much about his life that we didn't know and with so many interviews with those who knew him best, you know other entertainers and family members, we really felt like we knew him after the film. Excellent. I see you have a copy of the new DVD on the table.

I'm hoping you won't notice me walking off with it when the broadcast is over. Yes, well we want everybody listening to walk off with one of these if they want to because for the first time ever we are offering a very exclusive version of the Johnny Cash DVD. It's called Johnny Cash, the redemption of an American icon.

I wrote a book by the same title. This is a major documentary film produced by Lionsgate, the kingdom story company and it's out there. Yes, it's streaming on platforms but I'm offering you this new Johnny Cash DVD for your gift of any size and it also has bonus content. This is really important because you won't find that on the streaming platforms but we filmed a special wrap-up message where I talked about Johnny's life. I brought the gospel into it complete with a presentation of the gospel and how a person can come to Christ and even a prayer. So when you order Johnny Cash, the redemption of an American icon and DVD from us, you will get that bonus content and also you'll get a streaming code.

So what that means is you can download it into your phone, your tablet, your computer and have the DVD which you can keep or gift to someone. Be a great gift especially to someone that does not know the Lord. Seems like everybody loves Johnny Cash. You know he's an iconic figure.

There's not that many icons out there but Johnny's one of them. He was loved by my grandparents generation, that's where I first heard about him, my parents, my generation and the young generation today. It seems as though each new generation discovers the man in black and loves his music. It just transcends time you know to describe his music and say well it's country music. Well it is in that category but in reality it's kind of just Johnny Cash music. There was only one Johnny Cash, only one man that spoke is he spoke and saying is he's saying that familiar boom chicka boom sound you know that he developed and and actually toward the end of his career produced some of his most amazing music and his spiritual life is similar. It's sort of like bookends.

He started strong, had a lot of lapses and he finished strong. So it's an inspirational story. This is not just a music documentary. This is a story of the man. The man who was transformed.

The man in black who was changed by the Lord and it's a story of hope and redemption that I think anyone who watches will be inspired by. So order your copy of Johnny Cash the redemption of an American icon that includes bonus content and a streaming code for your gift of any size. One word about that we have to pay a little bit more for this resource than we would normally pay for something we would offer you so I'm going to ask you all to be very generous and what you send to Harvest Ministries and when you send this gift we will invest it in evangelism and the teaching of the word of God.

So order your copy of Johnny Cash the redemption of an American icon now out on DVD. Yeah that's right and we're eager to get a copy on its way to you. Thanks for your generosity as you partner with us so these daily studies can continue to come your way.

You can call us anytime 24 7 at 1-800-821-3300 again 1-800-821-3300 or write a new beginning box 4000 Riverside California 92514 or go online to harvest.org. Well next time Pastor Greg has good encouragement for the times of challenge in your life. He'll explain how everything we go through is preparation for something bigger. Join us here on A New Beginning with pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie. Hey everybody thanks for listening to this podcast to learn more about Harvest Ministries follow this show and consider supporting it just go to harvest.org and to find out how to know God personally go to harvest.org and click on know God.