Amen. Amen.
Well, hey guys, welcome at all of our campuses today. What an incredible story of God's faithfulness and incredible difficult circumstances and times. Y'all, that is what our sermon is gonna be about today. This concept of coming up against something that is incredibly fearful, and yet we have what we need in terms of God's presence to take continued steps towards dismantling that fear.
And so our fear, His faithfulness, we're gonna get into that today in Exodus chapter four. But before we do that, I do wanna say this. I wanna circle back to something that Pastor Bobby kind of mentioned a few weeks ago. And we talked about this just when we were launching the Ridge, but we wanna talk about it just a little bit more. Guys, if you're home folks, you know this, over the last couple of years, we were in something called the deeper initiative.
It ended at the end of 2024. And church, we need to celebrate this. In 25 months, you gave $28 million for the kingdom. Can we praise God for that? All right. And it's a big deal.
I know it's a huge deal. Here's why, because in the course of that couple of years, even though what we kind of pitched it as is we're setting a foundation for the future, it wasn't just about the future. God was moving in the present. Over the last couple of years, y'all we've seen over 8,000 people come through the doors and go to our first time guests tent. We saw over 500 people get baptized, over 600 people left to go on short term mission trips. God has been moving like crazy. We wanted to see God move in our ministries.
He has done that. Another reason why giving that money was so important was to get our Ridge campus launched and moved and get away from the regional campus. That was a rented facility that is now owned by the airport. And we just kind of felt like our broadcast facility, our largest campus, we need to get that into a secure place for the future of the church. And so, well, there was some bumps and turns in the road, but we're here. Okay, so we made it to the Ridge. This is such a cool story, y'all. During the months leading up to the Ridge, we had prayer events that were at the Ridge. I know some of you guys are different campuses.
Maybe you got a chance to do that, or maybe you didn't. But we had one family during one of those prayer events. And this stage that I'm standing on right now is littered with names, okay? Because many of us came forward at a prayer event, a couple of prayer events, and we wrote the names of people that we wanted to see come to faith and big prayer requests that we had, that we were praying that God would do through this facility. And they're actually on this stage.
They're just underneath all of this right here. And one of those names was a really faithful family in our church that had a young son, and they wrote his name down. This is months ago. And y'all, we launched the Ridge campus a month ago, and the night after, so that was Sunday, Monday night, that little boy, seven years old, gave his life to Christ. And so his name is on this stage somewhere, and now he has given his life to Christ.
So we're just praising God for being here. And then also the future ministry stuff. Guys, we're able to start a Breaking Barriers ministry that is all about coaching and helping and encouraging other churches. We are literally coaching, encouraging, helping hundreds of other churches grow right now. And that is such a huge thing near and dear to my heart to whom much is given, much is required. We have a lot going on. Wait, man, we're still kind of in that phase of wanting to launch the Worship Academy, the retreat center, which some of you guys have heard about was given, and now that's gonna be something that we're working towards. So guys, the future is bright and there's so many ministry things that are on the horizon. If you're like me, you're like, hey, didn't we set out in 2022, wasn't the goal $30 million?
The goal was $30 million. And here's the deal, this is a great opportunity for us. Okay, with my family, with our church, I'll always try to live this way. Man, we want our goals to be so big that they honor God. God is honored by big prayers. And so we put it before him, $30 million over 25 months, pretty big deal, okay? Man, we didn't quite get all the way there, but guys, now we get a chance to praise God on the back end because it was always in his hands. It was always and forever in his hands. And so we get a chance to praise him for what was given, and we get a chance to continue through, moving through ministry now and see what he's gonna do next, all right?
So really cool, just wanted to celebrate that for a moment. All right, let's dive in. Exodus chapter four is where we're gonna be. Y'all, the book of Exodus parallels the story of the whole Bible. What is God doing in the world? He's bringing a praising people to the promised land. He's taking a people and he's forming them from all tribes and tongues. He's bringing them to the promised land, which is one day gonna be us, if you're a Christian, crossing that forever eternal Jordan and getting into the promised land, which is heaven.
But in this story, what we get to see is him doing that in real time, setting a pattern for what will come later. And we also get to see so many things that we get to learn about God, learn about us, and it helps us in our everyday journey as we're on our way to that great promised land. And here's what we're gonna get into today, just like the story said. In this journey, in this life, we come up against walls that we can't push down. We come up against mountains that are pretty scary. We get into dark seasons, and here's what happens in our life.
Three words, fear, negativity, and excuses. This is what begins to come out of our minds and our hearts. And I think what we learn in this story today in Exodus chapter four is that in every circumstance, you saw it in this video, in every circumstance, the answer to fear, negativity, and excuses is the presence of God, the character of God, truth about God, to learn things about him and bring that in to our lived experience.
So here's the big idea today. The presence of God helps us push through fear and excuses. Y'all, when we come up against something that is hard, I don't know about you, I think there are probably a few truly positive people, I mean, there are some positive patties in the world, okay, that I mean, everything is just positive, positive, and that's really a blessing, honestly. But for a lot of people, for me included, okay, when I come up against something hard, here's what my mind wants to do.
My mind wants to start figuring out every reason why this can't work. My mind wants to start thinking about all of the fear, all of the negativity, and I end up with something that one of the old time kind of self-help people called excusitis. I begin to just excuse, excuse, excuse, excuse, and I don't know if you identify with that at all. When I come up against something hard, it's like my mind almost becomes something that I have to overcome. Our minds can be a factory of negative thought and excuses if we let that happen to us naturally. You know, what we're gonna see today is, God calls a people to live this life, to live this exodus journey, as we're on our way to the promised land, to live it with courage and with grit. And the only way that we're gonna do that is if we're able to overcome supernaturally that thing in our mind that wants to jump to excuses and negative thoughts and fear. And the only way that we're gonna get there, I think from Exodus 4, what we're gonna see is, we don't end up going and retreating further into ourself.
We don't go and try to find and manufacture this courage and this positivity and this optimism. No, what we need to do is realize that our hope, our lives, our faith, it is anchored in a God. And that God, if we understand his character as he reveals himself to us, if we understand his presence, he will become the fear crusher. He will become the optimism instiller into our life. He can become the one who makes our excuses look as absurd as they are. All right, and that's what we gotta tap into.
So let's dive in. This is what happens in Moses' life. Hopefully, we can learn from it today. Exodus 4, here's what he says. Then Moses answered, but behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, the Lord did not appear to you. The Lord said to him, what is in your hand? And he said, a staff. And he said, throw it on the ground. So he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent and Moses ran from it.
Well, yeah, okay. But the Lord said to Moses, put out your hand and catch it by the tail. So he put out his hand and caught it and it became a staff in his hand that they might believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you. Again, the Lord said to him, put your hand inside the cloak. And he put his hand inside the cloak and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. Then God said, put your hand back inside your cloak.
So he put his hand back inside his cloak and when he took it out, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. If they will not believe you, God said, or listen to the first sign, they may believe the latter sign. And if they will not believe even these two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground.
Now, I've dropped you in here and if you haven't been with us the last couple of weeks, you gotta understand a very important part of this story. Moses, who was born with a foot, kind of raised with a foot in both worlds, has ended up, he's 80 years old, he's ended up being a shepherd out in the wilderness, he was supposed to be a prince in Egypt and now God Almighty, through the angel of the Lord, has come and revealed himself to him in a burning bush and he has said what? Go tell Pharaoh to let my people go. It is time for them to, I have heard, I have seen, I have listened to their cry, they've been enslaved and I am gonna remove them and Moses, I have perfectly engineered this, I've called you, I've used all the bumps and turns in your journey and it's time for you to go and to be the one to bring them out and into the promised land. But here's the deal, Moses doesn't wanna take this assignment and what happens in this passage is, we're gonna see three excuses that he brings up, one after another after another.
He honestly is probably just afraid, I mean, he came from there, he's a wanted man, he's been living his life out in the wilderness and many commentators have pointed out, it's probably that he is afraid, he doesn't believe that he can do it, he's not sure if God can do it and he doesn't wanna fail and many of us are so afraid of coming up against something that we're not sure what the outcome will be. I don't know if this is gonna work out, I don't know if they're gonna listen to me, I don't know if the power of God is going to be enough and I don't want to fail and that's where Moses is, so he brings up this first excuse, well God, they're not gonna listen to me. I don't know if you've ever been in your life, at a time in your life where you're afraid of failure, I was reading this article, it said that Americans, number two fear in all the world is failure, y'all, number four is death, think about that for a minute, okay, they're more afraid, we're more afraid to fail than we are to die and this is what I, we don't want to be ones who are considered not successful that we have come up against something and failed in it, maybe that's what is going on in his life, he says, God, they're not going to listen to me, so the first problem that he raises is this, okay, now I want you to think about this for a moment, he says the problem is with the children of Israel, they're not going to believe me, they're not going to believe you, the problem is with them, now later he's going to say the problem was with me, I can't talk very well, but first he doesn't start there, he starts right here, the problem is with them, but here's what I want you to see today, you got to really kind of drink this in, okay, when we begin to give excuses, honestly what they are is indictments upon the character and power of God, because here's the deal, if you say God, they won't listen to me, they won't listen to you, do you know what the flip side of that is? The flip side of that is simply saying, God, you don't have the power to convince them, it's the same thing, they won't listen, God, you can't convince them, and this is where we find Moses, Moses is actually speaking something about the power and character and nature of God here, you can say it like this, fear is an indictment on the power of God, the flip side of they won't listen is, God, you could never convince them, and here's what ends up happening today, okay, and this is what we're going to see three different times, the whole sermon, three times, we come up against something hard, we're afraid, fear, negativity, excuses, well, what happens? Does God end up saying, well, no, you can, you can, you can, think about this part of your life, think about this part of your life, no, what God ends up doing is saying, I want you to fix your mind upon the one who is calling you to do this, in other words, what God ends up saying throughout this entire passage is, okay, you have an excuse, you have a negative thought, you have a fear, remember this, you are not going to give them your resume, Moses, you're going to give them mine, and I want you to understand the God that you are dealing with, and so here's what he does, okay, Moses, you don't think I can convince them, well, let me convince you, now, he gave him three things, right, he said, hey, I want you to go in reverse order, right, you're gonna pour out the water, it's gonna turn into blood, you're gonna put your hand in your jacket, it's gonna turn into leprosy, and then he says this one, okay, it's actually a kind of reversal, but the first one he says is this, think about the snake, he says, take that staff and throw it on the ground, he threw it on the ground and it became a serpent, Moses ran from it, but the Lord said to Moses, put your hand and catch it by the tail, so he put his hand out and caught it, because it became, and it became stiff in his hand, and he said this, that they might believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob has appeared to you, don't you understand what God is doing? He's saying, you don't think I have the power to convince them, well watch this.
Let me show you some things in your life, you remember in the video, how Eric, my brother Eric, great friend of mine, kept saying, there are things in my life that I look back to, that I saw God move, and I saw God move, and I saw God move, see we look back through the rear view mirror, we see these things that God is doing, it gives us courage to look through the windshield, that's what he's doing here, God is saying, let me show you how I can be convincing. You know this idea of throwing the snake down, I don't know if you ever caught any snakes, okay? I'm a Florida boy from North Florida, I've caught hundreds of snakes, I've been bitten dozens of times, seriously, okay? And man, it was just the pastime, catching snakes, and you know, we still do it now, on a little farm, they're getting our eggs or whatever. One time at Mercy Hill, this happened a couple years ago, one time at Mercy Hill, people were walking down the sidewalk at the Regional Road Campus, okay, on the backside of the building, and this massive, I mean like four or five foot long, black snake was terrorizing people, okay? He had laid himself across, and they were walking, I mean God's people trying to come in, the serpent, it was like the Book of Revelation, okay? He was trying to get God's people, and somebody came and told me about it, and I was like, no, we're not doing that, so I went over there, caught the snake, okay? I've got the snake, we're at the offices, there's some woods across the parking lot, now this is right between services, all right? And so, I start walking over to dump the snake out in the woods, and as I'm walking out, all the cars for the next service are coming in, and I don't think nothing about it, I'm just walking, I'm just waving at people, you know, they're walking by, and then about halfway through, their eyes are all this big, it dawned on me, I'm like, some of these people are brand new, and they're thinking, what kind of church is this, okay?
This is a snake handling church, no, it's not, but I've caught a lot of snakes in my life, that one included, if you've got any kind of country boy bone in you at all, here's what you know about this story, and you've probably known about this story for a long time, nobody catches a snake by the tail, right? Why, you're gonna get bit if you do that, I've done it, you're gonna get bit if you do that, but here's the thing, there's something that God is showing in all three of these things, and here's what it is, all right, you reach down and grab the snake by the tail, then you see what I'm gonna do, you put your hand in a coat where you can't see it, and then when you pull it out, you'll see what I'm gonna do, you take that water, and you pour it out on the ground before it turns into blood, don't you understand? Many of us wanna see God move before we act, we're like, hey God, if you move, then I'll believe you, and then I'll take action, and what God is constantly doing in terms of building our faith in the Bible is saying, no, no, no, you believe me, then you act, then you see me move, I think about this with the water that he's pouring out, because one day he's gonna do this in front of Pharaoh, and I'm like, okay, you know, for me, if it was me, I'd wanna look down on that water pail and be like, God, please just turn this thing into blood before I dump it out, right? That's not how it works, in our faith, we believe, we take action, we grab the snake, we dump the water out, and then we see God move, and when we see God move, it begins to bolster our faith, it begins to move us in a way that convinces us of what God is trying to convince Moses of here, listen, God is all powerful, God is omnipotent, that is what he's trying to show, Moses, I can convince them and I will, why is it a serpent, why is it leprosy, why is it the Nile River? Y'all, you've seen like the crowns, the serpent was a power of figure, the leprosy was something that even though the Egyptians were the most advanced society in their region, they had no answer for leprosy, it was the scariest thing in the world, the Nile was meant to be God to them, it was a source of all life, and what God is saying is, these are not random things that God is doing, parlor tricks, okay, he's showing him, hey, the things that these people trust in more than anything else, man, I am the God over every single one of them, and I can convince them, and so you and you go show your brothers and sisters that all of these gods of the Egyptian region, man, that I am sovereign over them, I can convince them, Moses, okay, first excuse, excusitis, right, fear, negativity, excuses, they won't believe God is saying, let me show you something about my character, I can convince them, well secondly, here's what we see, but Moses said to the Lord, oh my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant but I am slow of tongue, and I'm slow of speech, then the Lord said to him, who has made man's mouth, I love that question, who has, it's like the book of Job or something, who has made man's mouth, who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind, is it not I, the Lord, now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak, Moses, okay, here's what he's saying, Moses first said, man, they are not gonna listen to you, okay, well let me show you that I can convince them, got it, all right, second problem, excusitis here, second problem, well, God, I can't talk, my mouth is slow, I mean, honestly, the best translation of this is that Moses looks at God and says, I have a heavy mouth, I have a heavy mouth, a slow tongue, I don't talk good is what he's trying to say, they're not gonna listen to me, this idea of a heavy mouth, that's funny to me because I played sports my whole life, maybe some of you guys have played a lot of sports and people will call it having heavy feet, you gotta work on that, if you got heavy feet, why?
Heavy feet means you get tangled up, you could run fast down the line but you get a little bit tangled up in the ladder drills or whatever and what happens in a soccer game or a basketball game or football game, if you got heavy feet, you end up falling down a lot, you get stuck in the mud, you can even end up getting hurt, the idea of heavy feet is I get tangled up and fall, that's the idea of his mouth, he said, I got a heavy mouth, I got a heavy mouth and a slow tongue and I get tangled up with my words and I can't do anything about this God, don't send me, the problem is with me, it's not with them, okay, you can convince them but with me, there's this problem with my mouth and God don't send me to do it and what is God gonna do? Is he gonna point Moses back to Moses's resume? No, he's gonna point Moses back to his resume, again, to God's resume and what does God say to him? I love this, God reveals his character, it crushes fear, instills optimism and shows us the absurdity of our excuses, this is what God says, he says, hey, who has made man's mouth? Basically what he's trying to tell Moses is, Moses, you're telling me you don't talk good, you think I didn't know that?
You think I don't already know that? I mean, I am the one who has created you, this is so important, man, please write this down, if you are coming up against something that's hard, listen, you're thinking about starting a business, you're thinking about taking a promotion, you're thinking about a move, you're thinking about something in the church, starting a small group, maybe you're gonna do city project, you're thinking about adopting, you're thinking about fostering and right in front of you is a giant fear and that fear, it meant negativity, excuses and those things are beginning to turn on you, you're seeing it, this will never work out, it won't work, I've got a thousand reasons why it won't work and one of the reasons is you metaphorically, you don't talk good, what you're thinking is there's some problem that I have that is not going to allow God to accomplish his purposes in this moment, then you need to understand what Moses is being taught here, the same God who created you is the God that calls you, it's the same God, he doesn't call people to things that he didn't create them for, God knows every single in and out of your story, of what's going on with you, maybe there's disability, maybe there's things in your past, he knows all of these things, some of us think because of my background, because of my poverty, because of this disability that I have, because of the tragedies that are surrounding my life and don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that God has caused those things, God is light and in him is no darkness at all but he uses every single one of them to bring us to a place of being able to be used, God is saying all of those things are a part of your story, by faith we can all be used by God for his purposes, can you imagine Moses thinking to himself, I'm going out there and I've got to speak for God but I don't talk good and God is saying, you think I don't know that, I know every single thing about you, I've created you and I've called you, I'm the same God, so whatever it is that we're looking for as an excuse, man, let's take some solace and peace in this, that God knows that fear that we have and he's pushing us to his purposes. Anyway, this is very personal to me, so many of you guys aren't gonna know this because you haven't been around long enough but a couple of years ago at the end of 2022, something I never thought would happen in a million years, I had never even considered that something like this could happen, man, I was under a lot of pressure, deeper initiative, had been preaching a million times, our little girl had just been in the hospital and just, I don't know, man, I'm like many of you guys probably just carry this stuff and just keep going and one day at the end of 2022, I stood up to preach a sermon at the regional campus and something came upon me, I had no idea what it was, I felt like I couldn't see, I felt like I couldn't breathe, my heart rate spiked, I felt like I was gonna pass out, it started a two year journey for me that I'm not out of right now, all right, I'm out of the deep end, I praise God for that, I'm not out of the pool, I'm out of the deep end though and basically what I came to find out, I didn't know what was going on, what I came to find out is basically I had a panic attack while I was preaching and listen, this is funny, I'm the type of dude who before that happened to me, if somebody said they had a panic attack, I would have been like, yeah, right, okay, whatever that is, well, I'm coming to tell you, okay, and it started a two year deal, I mean, you talking about the greatest joy in my life preaching, turning into for two years of my life, still not out of the woods, one of my, well, I would call it my greatest fear. Very hard, can you imagine the peace of somebody walking through that, reading in the word and somebody says, well, I'm slow of mouth and God says, who do you think made that mouth? Now, I don't know what it is in your life and that's, you know, mine's kind of a direct tie, mouth speaking, all that, I don't know what it is in your life but whatever it is that you're coming up against, man, I can't do it, there's a thousand reasons why I can't and yet God is pushing you in that direction or God is calling you to something in the church, outside of the church, something in your life, whatever it is, you gotta understand that the same God that created you, called you and he doesn't call us the things that he didn't create us for. Verse 13 says this, final kind of excuse here, okay, this gets to the heart of it, all right, every one of us, if you've been a follower of God for any time, we have all been in this place where he's about to go, okay, he finally just says it plainly but he said, oh my Lord, please send someone else, okay, then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite, I know that he can speak well, behold, he is coming out to meet you and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart, you shall speak to him and put words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach you both what to do, just a side note here, all this when he keeps saying teach, teach, I will instruct, I will teach, the word is very much like the word Torah which is actually what we call the first five books of the Bible, the same one, Moses, who is being talked to here that God is saying, I will teach you, I will teach you, I will teach you, he has taught us when he wrote the beginning of the Bible and it's the same idea, God's instruction to us, he shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be God to him and take in your hand this staff in which you will do all of these signs, y'all, this is the heart of it, isn't it, all right, it's about them, no, it's not really, I don't talk good, well, you know, God kind of, I created your mouth, right, you're gonna be okay, okay, fine, all right, God, fine, you wanna know what the heart of it is, I don't want to, I don't wanna go, I got my life here, it's pretty scary thinking about going back there, I can keep coming up with excuse after excuse but at the very bottom of it, I just don't want to, very much so, this sermon, I mean, this story parallels another story in the scripture of a different time period, the story of Jonah, when you come to write to it, what is Jonah, what does Jonah do?
He's like, God, I don't wanna go to Nineveh, I don't wanna share with those people, I don't even like those people, okay, I know you're gonna be gracious to them, I don't want you to be gracious to them, I don't wanna go and what does God do? And this is very similar here, what does God do in the story of Jonah? Many people believe, I think erroneously, okay, we look at the great fish as a punishment in Jonah's life, it's not, the fish is grace, I know some of us maybe have not heard that story but then go back and read it, okay, the grace of God saves Jonah in the belly of the great fish so that he doesn't continue to run headlong in rebellion, I'm gonna tell you, some people look at this story and they think, well, God is punishing Moses by sending him Aaron, so now that Moses is not the sole leader that gets all the praise, recognition or whatever, man, I don't think that's what's going on, I think what's going on is, God is saying, you don't wanna go, I'm going to strengthen you, I'm gonna grace you, I'm not gonna allow you to continue to run headlong in rebellion against me, I'm gonna bring somebody into your life that helps you want to want to do this and I think that's true in our life as well, y'all, we think about this, God has given us a specific calling, Ephesians 2, 10 is one of those things that we go back to at Mercy Hill all the time, that there are works that God has for you to do and in those works, God is sending you help, he actually sends you one that is called the Helper, we're gonna get into that, here's what I wanna call you to do today, trust God's presence and take courageous steps of faith, trust God's presence and take courageous steps of faith, y'all, this is, man, this is the vision for this weekend, the vision for this weekend is that many of us at all of our different campuses across the triad that are facing some decision, we're facing something hard, maybe like Eric and Charlotte, it's a medical decision or maybe it's something financial, it's a business decision, maybe it's something in the church, a mission trip, like I said, fostering, adopting, whatever it is, my vision for this weekend is that we would understand any time we come up against fear, God is there to show us more of himself, what has he chosen this last turn giving Aaron that he is gracious and he will send us help and we will learn of him to take courageous steps, anchor our faith in him and take courageous and bold steps.
I mean, my prayer is that these altars, all of our campuses will be flooded with people who decide things today, decide them, who come forward and say, God, this is, trust, trusting you, I don't know exactly how everything's gonna work out, we never do, okay, but presuming upon your goodness, we're gonna make a decision today and here's why I think that should happen because you know what, Moses ends up going, right, we know that or else it wouldn't be the rest of the story, we're gonna keep walking through this, Moses goes because he ends up trusting God enough to go, these signs, these ways that God gives him, what is it? God gave him signs to convince them, he reminded Moses that, hey, I'm the one who created you and then he gives him a helper and something in those three things convinced Moses to go and here's what I want you to see, you and I, for whatever it is that God is calling us to, we have greater proofs, we have God convincing us in greater ways, you know why? Because we get a chance to live on this side of the cross and we get a chance to see all these shadows and types, we get a chance to see their fullness in what Christ is gonna do, you know, you read the Bible front to back but you interpret the Bible back to front and you and I now on this side of the cross, we can see, wait a minute, think about this, for Moses, seeing the water turned into blood was enough to convince him that God had the power to save, but what about us?
Man, we didn't see the water turned into blood, y'all, Jesus spilled his blood to wash our sin away, to be able to remove our sins as far as the East is from the West. You think about this, you know, Moses is reminded of who created him, what about us? Yes, we know who created us, but who recreates us in the gospel. You and I aren't just born, we are born again if you are a Christian and finally, you think about this, God sends Moses a helper in Aaron, well, what has he sent for us? He has sent us the Holy Spirit to stick closer to us than a brother, to remind us all times and shine a light on God's love for us and to convince us and to bring back the words of Christ and to interact with us and to stick closer to us than a brother. You know, Moses started this whole thing by saying, you know, I don't wanna do this, I mean, honestly, let this cut pass for me, but God was able to convince him by showing him his character. Now, what about us? We have Jesus Christ himself, the actual angel of the Lord from the bush incarnated years later and what does he say in the Garden of Gethsemane?
Let this cut pass for me. Jesus is saying, I don't really wanna do this, but you know what he says? Your will, not mine. I will go to the cross for them and he has done that for us. We have greater proofs, we have greater truths that will help us and propel us forward in what God is calling us to do and so that's what I wanna call you to do today. I want you to look at that fear dead in the eyes, whatever the negativity is, whatever is given, the excusitis in your life and I want you to think about this, wait a minute. What are the things that I need to grab onto about God that apply here?
That's it. Fear, negativity, excuses. What do I need to grab onto about God in the full counsel of God's word? Specifically thinking about the gospel, what he has done for you. Man, what do you need to do? Well, for some of you, we need to get saved today. For some of you, the fear is turning over your life and I would just call you, man, hey, today's the day. Man, give your life over to him. Look that fear in the eye and realize Jesus wouldn't have given his life for you if he didn't have a better life in store for you. Give your life over to him today and make your sin believe in what Christ has done and confess him as the Lord of your life. But for others, I don't know what it is for you but I bet you the Holy Spirit is putting his finger on something in your life. What is that fear and what truth do you need from God's character to help you push through that wall and become a courageous, gritty, optimistic Christian?
Somebody who lives that way. You know, I was just thinking about general fears and I'll close with this but I don't know why there's two snake stories in one sermon but it is what it is. So we were walking back from going to pick blueberries a few years ago and my youngest son was very young, probably three years old or something and just a little toddler guy. Our neighbors got these big blueberry bushes and so we were going to pick them and we were walking back and on the driveway walking back, I see my older son kind of see something out of the corner of his eye, sort of jump, yell snake and I look up and man, there is a copperhead in full flight and my youngest son, my three-year-old has some kind of way miraculously, honestly, it was just God's hand. Three years old, he jumped straight backwards and the snake is in the air, strikes in the air and misses him, I mean, just feet away and man, it scared me to death, they're all screaming, I go running over there, I grab him, I put him down, I'm immediately just peeling clothes off, trying to see if he got bit, it looked like he got bit and man, my son's still freaking out and I'm like, I realize he's probably pretty scared because the snake was like right there and I'm like pulling his clothes off and everything and so I pick him up, we got a long gravel driveway, I take off running all the way up to the house, strip him down, looking all over, he didn't get bit.
Praising God for that, heart rate was up. Hop on the four-wheeler, go back to where the snake was, capture the snake, take him to a PETA-approved sanctuary okay, because, you know, because obviously that's what I would do, right? So next day comes and now it's time for the boys to go out and run around and play in the woods.
Well, what happens? Well, I'm not one of these parents, like I don't like, man, I'm like go run here and have all the here's a machete, BB gun, get on your dirt bike, go, okay? We were scared. I mean, when you come that close to seeing your son, three years old, get bit like in the upper extremities by a copperhead, that's very fearful and it's all of a sudden like, man, I'm like wanting to grab and I'm not wanting to let him go be a kid and here's, this is a generic story, okay, but it applies to all of our lives. There's a fear that is unfounded, can't live like this, we're not gonna live in fear, right? We can't do this, they can't sit in the house all day, we're not that type of family, we can't do that. What do I need to do? The fear, the negativity, the excuses are right in front of my face, what has to happen?
It is very simple. Truths about God, not my resume, His resume, I've got to grab them and apply them to the situation, apply them to my heart, what truths? Well, in that situation is God, you love them more than I do. God, I'm stewarding them, you're truly their father. When I go to sleep, you never sleep.
You're always watching. And if tragedy does strike, which it can because we live in a fallen world, if tragedy does strike, Romans 8 is very clear that in the end, man, you're working all this stuff out to your, it's for our good and your glory. The purpose that you have for us in this life, that's hard, but it's a truth that I need to settle into. Settling into that gives me the ability then to say, hey man, take your BB gun, get on the dirt bike, get on the trampoline, go run barefoot through the woods, like go be a boy, go do it. What in your life is that way?
What in your life? There's a fear, I can't do it. Okay, what do we gotta do?
Grab the truth about God and apply it. Is it starting a small group? Is it starting a business? Man, is there something in your life right now where you're like, dude, I wanna go on that mission trip and I'm scared to death? Hey, some of us, you've been engaged for 10 years, let's get on with it, okay? I don't know what the fear is. Man, a foster care adoption. I mean, so many of us, I hear so many of our young families, we're talking about adoption, talking about adoption, talking about adoption. What if we just decide today we're gonna do it? Then we're gonna push through those fears. That's what I'm asking for today, all right? So we're gonna pray and then we're gonna have a time to come forward to put these things before the Lord. All right, let's pray. Father, you are so good to us, you reveal yourself to us, you give us your character, the truth about you, and it just floods our hearts, helps calm our fears, it helps crush excuses, it gives us optimism. Lord, I pray you'll do that today.
God, I know it's a rainy, nasty day, people might be seeing this online also later today. God, whatever it is, Lord, I pray that you would put your finger on that thing in our hearts, that we need God-given supernatural courage for. Lord, and you allow us to find it because we see things in your character, your power, your presence, that help us get there. That help us get there in Christ, and we pray, amen.
