Amen. Amen.
Awesome. Y'all, what a cool story. If you're new to Mercy Hill, you got to understand adoption and foster care ministry is near and dear to our heart.
We really believe, man, we want to build families the way God builds his and he chooses people to be in his family. And so this is just a really cool story for a lot of reasons. But one of the reasons that I want to bring it up is because they mentioned something in that in that video that is just so important. And that is that when we talk about while family at Mercy Hill is working towards adoption and God is moving in their life, we have a summer project team, which I'm gonna tell you what that is, of high schoolers that go to the children's home. They make connections with these kids. Now as the adoption is happening, those kids are now coming to our student ministry on Sunday night because they've come into the children's home and they already have friends there because there's this connection that they have through the summer project missionary team.
I mean, God is just moving in all these different ways. And I want to tell you today, listen, if you're a parent of a high schooler, man, really consider this idea of summer project for them. And I would tell you to consider it for this summer. Okay, they are going to get incredibly deep in friendship and get fueled for the mission of God. They're going to learn so much theology and just get grounded in what God is, you know, in who he is, his character, his word.
They're going to be around our staff. We do a ton of leadership principles, physical health stuff. I mean, we do a lot of a lot with this summer project. And if you're like, man, what is that? It's the kids investing a summer in order to see their spiritual walk and growth and, you know, just their impact magnified and multiplied.
And so I would just really push you. And you're like, if you're like, hey, I don't have a high schooler, but if you have kids at all, be footnoting this and put it in. We are so glad. I'm excited that we can offer this as a church that, you know, we have the opportunity for these kids to come in for the whole summer. They do a mission trip. I mean, it's going to radically affect their life.
Okay. And so I know for me, I feel like I'm reading the Times. We need to be raising kids and use any tool we can to keep them firmly planted on the Word of God.
And this is just one of those tools that we get to use. And I hope you're thinking about it now. If you got a high schooler, I hope you'll jump in, you can go to the Connect page. That's going to show you right where you can sign them up and really be thinking about it. You have a lot of time to think about it because the applications are not due until tomorrow night. Okay, so you have time. All right, so that you'll take all the time you need, meaning, you know, the next four or five hours and sign up, right?
No, but in all seriousness, what a cool story. The other way this connects to our sermon today is, guys, Exodus chapter six is where we're going to be. We're going to talk about the idea of our Deliverer. And I want you to imagine these children who are, you know, maybe teenagers, whatever, and then they all of a sudden have this opportunity to come out of the situation they're in, and they come into a Christian home. And there's a lot that goes with that, I understand.
But I'm wondering how children in that situation end up seeing their adoptive parents. And they realize this is where we were, and this is now where we are. This is what our future was, now this is what our future is.
Why? Because our parents chose us, they delivered us, they rescued us. The biggest thing that I want you to see today, okay, today's sermon is layered there's a lot of you got to understand the New Testament, read it back in the Old Testament, I understand all that we're going to get there, okay. But if you want to get all the way to the core of it, do you see God, first and foremost, through the lens of deliverance and redemption? Is he your Redeemer? Is he your rescuer? Is he your Deliverer? That's the big idea today. God is our Deliverer.
That is who he is. All right, for us, the the lens at which we you guys can throw that up on the on the side, God is our Deliverer. That's the main idea of the sermon today.
Okay. And and the idea is, how do we view him? Do we view him as such?
Do we see him through that lens? I understand that we believe in God. I mean, if you're at a church, most people throughout all of history, and almost everybody that lives in the world today believes in theism, they believe there's some kind of God out there.
Okay, if you just look around the world, it's just the reality of it. I'm not asking you, do you believe in God, I'm asking you, do you know him as your Deliverer, as the one who redeems because the story today, God is going to try to show the children of Israel, hey, I'm going to do something in your midst, that forever changes the way that you see me. This is if you ever heard the term gospel centrality, okay, we talked about being a gospel centered church.
This is the core of what it means to be centered on the gospel. We see God as a Redeemer first. It's not that he's not powerful. He is powerful. He's a creator. He's the mighty warrior.
He's a lot of things. But the first thing that we see him as is our Redeemer. God is going to do something for the children of Israel that changes the way they see him. When God gives the children of Israel the Ten Commandments in the book of Exodus chapter 20.
Guess what he does? He gets he's about to give the Ten Commandments the first thing he says, go back and read it. He says, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt. Bringing you out of Egypt will forever change the way in which you see me. And that is so good for us. Because you and I, y'all, we're not just getting taken out of a physical Egypt, where there is physical slavery and physical oppression. We are getting removed from the slavery and bondage to sin in this world. And then one day, God is going to remove that slavery and sin out of us totally. I mean, we have a spiritual deliverance here because of our true Moses, Jesus, we have our us out of this spiritual bondage and one day, give us heaven as well. I want you to think about this. This world metaphorically is Egypt.
It is broken. Man, it is rot and decay and slavery to sin. Do you know that we have children in this church right now, who when they get to their new foster home will for years hoard food?
Because they remember what it was like to be hungry. You know, that's where we live right now. Man, a world of domestic violence, a world of slavery, a world of sexual abuse, a world of abortion. It's not just stuff out there, though. I mean, think about us.
Man, how many decisions do we make? I mean, how do we hurt each other with our words? Think about the things that are not just out there, but they're in here. Man, Egypt is all around us. It's rot and decay and slavery to sin.
Let me ask you this. What happens in our life when we begin to view God as the one who delivers us from all that? It's not just like God is creator, mighty and awesome.
He is all those things. But when we see him as the one who took us from this rotten world and decay to that land, man, it changes the way we think about him forever. Some of you guys are going to know this song. I don't know how many of you will.
But some of you probably will. Okay, this is an old song, 200 years old. Growing up on Jordan's stormy banks, I stand and cast a wishful eye on Jordan's story banks.
Anybody remember the song? Some of you guys cast a wishful eye to Canaan's fair and happy land where my possessions fly all over those wide, extended plane shines one eternal day there. God, the sun forever rains and scatters night away. I am bound for the promised land when we know there is a God not just that can, but did deliver me. From this to that, it changes the way we view him. It warms our affections.
It makes us want to live the life that he wants us to live. And so let's look at this. Man, let's see how God delivers the people of Israel through Moses' deliver.
And let's think about what that means in our life as he delivers us through the gospel. All right, here we go. We're going to dive into chapter six today. We're only going to look at eight verses. I am going to just kind of stop and talk, stop and talk. There's some things I want you to see along the way.
They're just very practical, but at the heart of it, we're going to get all the way into this idea. A man is seeing God as our deliverer. Here's what it says. Verse one, but the Lord said to Moses, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh. For with a strong hand, he will send them out. I will do something to him, and he will do something to the people of God. You see that I will do something to Pharaoh and Pharaoh will send them out with a strong hand. And with a strong hand, he will drive them out of his land. Now the first thing, that we notice here about the text, is that God is reaffirming to Moses what he's going to do. And what he's going to do is, I'm going to do something to Pharaoh that makes Pharaoh do something to the people of God, which is to send them out.
And he does. And that's the rest of the story of the Exodus, and we're going to continue to walk through this. But I think it's very interesting that God says in verse one, now you shall see what I will do to Pharaoh, and then you're going to see what Pharaoh will do to the people.
And here's the point. The point that I want to make real quick here, I don't want to, we're not going to spend a lot of time on this, but it's very important. Today's message is all about seeing God as a deliverer, a rescuer. We're going to call him our kinsman redeemer.
I know some of us might not know that term yet, you will. This idea of a redeemer, okay? But before that, and what heightens that and deepens that, is that God is also a man of war who is mighty, who does whatever he wants.
And that's important for us to know. God as the tender caller of our hearts and a father who is tender toward us and redeems us and delivers us and cares about us. And for the joy set before him endured the cross because of his great compassion and love toward us. It's also good to see the flip side of that, which is to understand that God is also mighty. You could say it like this, our God is mighty. He is clothed in power and strength. He speaks and worlds are created.
Man, when he decides to do something, he doesn't. And there's nobody, I mean, Pharaoh, this is what I love. Pharaoh is the baddest dude, the wealthiest dude, the biggest army, and for God, his heart is channeled in his hand like water. That's what Proverbs says. Just like water.
It's like, man, Pharaoh is going to do whatever I want Pharaoh to do. It's just like a little kid. You ever taught a little kid how to hit a baseball or softball? Or you ever taught a little kid how to cast a fishing line or anything like that?
What do you do? You put their hand on it. Okay, you put their hand on the bat and they're little, five years old, little hands. They got their little, okay.
And then you come around them, right? And then you put your hands on the bat. Now they hit the ball. Who hit it? It's like, well, I mean, the little kid hit the ball, right?
Who casts a fishing line? Well, they cast it. But honestly, you're the one that cast it. You did everything. You moved everything. All the power was yours.
You were guiding them. I want you to understand baddest dude, biggest army, wealthiest person, and his hand is like water. It's like that big. And God is just kind of moving it wherever he wants it to go. I think it's important for us to know, man, some of us are facing some hard things. You're facing a health thing. You're facing a relational thing. You're facing something, a crisis at work or whatever.
I don't know what you're going through, man. We need to just understand God is powerful and mighty. But to our point today, you always got to see him through the lens of deliverance, but also understand, man, that deliverance is something that he, you know, he does it out of a tender call, but he is also powerful.
And mighty. And this is who he is. Now look at verse two.
This is important. God spoke to Moses and said to him, I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God almighty. Now that's a reminding.
Remember, we've already done this a couple of times in this series. I'm connecting the dots back to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. But here's what he says.
But by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. That's very curious. We're gonna have to talk about that. Now he is reminding them, but now he starts reframing for them what the future is going to be.
Okay. So he reminded them in the past in order to set them up for the future. Cause now he's talking about something that's coming. I am the Lord and I will bring you out from the future. From under the burden of the Egyptians. And I will deliver you from slavery to them. And I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment.
Now this is so interesting to me. Okay. God is reminding Moses of some things in order that he can set up the future of what is going to happen.
And I think we need to look at both of those things. Okay. So the first thing to remember here is look at verse two again. I am the Lord. I appear to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am God almighty. Moses of who he is. And if you weren't with us a couple of weeks ago, I got to recap this.
Okay. But this is important. Why does God keep reminding Moses who he is? Because apparently over the hundreds of years of slavery, the people of God have forgotten who he is. They have forgotten the name of God. You say, Well, how do you know they forgot the name of God? Well, at the burning push, Moses pretty much says it.
Who are you? He knows something of God, but he doesn't know God. We also understand Joshua. You know, Joshua tells us at the end of the book of Joshua. Joshua says, I'm urging the people of God to put away the foreign idols that you had from across the river when you were back in Egypt. So we know that the people of God were highly syncretized. That means they're grabbing different idols. I'm not saying they don't know some things about God, but they have forgotten his one true name, Yahweh.
They know him as El Shaddai probably, but they don't know him as Yahweh. They lost generation after generation after generation. And I think it's very important for us to make one, you know, point about this. Y'all, if we lose the gospel in the next generations, it will not be the kids' fault. It'll be our fault.
Does that make sense? I mean, it's not their fault. And here's what we got to understand. If the people of God could forget his name, who in the world do we think we are?
Could we not do the same thing? People have said it like this. One generation gets the gospel. If the next generation assumes the gospel, guess what happens to the third generation? They forget the gospel. It is always one or two generations away from being lost.
And this is my point. We have got to be so diligent to press in and to transfer the truths about God and his character and the gospel to the next generation, lest we forget about who the God of Isaac and Jacob and Abraham was. We have got to remember that this is all one generation away if we were to lose it. And so we've got to continue to pour into this next generation. I know not everybody here's parents.
I don't have a lot of college students at High Point, Clifton, and many of you got some of you guys here too. And some of this parenting stuff, you might say, well, but think about it. If we're not the ones transferring it to them, what's going to happen?
And whose fault is it? I'll tell you, you know, I remember, I remember when I was teaching my little boys how to play baseball. So they were really young, like, like five or six years old. This is t-ball.
Okay. And one of my sons, we had been drilling out in the yard. I mean, we were just, I mean, every day it was just hitting, throwing, hitting, throwing. I wanted them to be ready, you know, and I felt like he was ready.
I feel like he was actually a little bit ahead and I was excited. And we get out there to the first game and then we've been practicing and practicing and we get to that first game. My little man is five years old and he gets up there to bat and they throw that, you know, they do a little soft toss or they throw the ball in a smack. He smacks the ball.
My little man drops the bat and takes off running as fast as he can right to third base. Okay. And it was, you know, kids do stuff like that. You know, it's funny when somebody else's kid does it.
Okay. But, you know, everybody's laughing and it was fine. And I'm kind of even chuckling about it too until I realized that he realized, you know, that he had messed up and he realized, and he's embarrassed. And he gets back to the dugout and he's crying.
He's five or six years old and he's crying. It just, it just really got into me. And I went into the dugout and got right in his face. Okay.
Like I do with my boys, right in his eyes. And I said, buddy, you got to understand, this is my fault. This ain't your fault.
If you didn't know which way to run, that's my fault. And I think some of us need a healthy dose of that today. Man, if these kids don't get it at seven or eight or 10 years old, and we certainly can't control what God does the rest of their life. They're going to have agency like anybody else, but a six or seven years old, eight years old, 10 years old, man, do they know the word? Do they know their scripture memories? Do they understand we have family devotions? Are they involved in everything that we do in terms of the life of the church? See if that, if they don't get it in that sense, that's our fault.
That's not their fault. And so I want to call us to think about that. Y'all, we have so many children in this church.
We are so blessed. I mean, I look out there in the car. It's coming in at the ridge campus. And it's either everyone, it's either a huge jacked up truck or a minivan. Okay.
It's one or the other. And so it's like, Hey, this is where we are. We're a church that reaches. Okay. That means you in the home, then are we are we transferring this down and they're going to need it. They need to know it. Don't you understand the times that we are in?
I want to tell you, I wanted to do this as a sermon illustration. It was too scary. And I don't want to get now I decided not to do it. Okay. Because here's what we did. You understand with AI, and all this kind of stuff.
Everything is a deep fake that that world is coming where you have no idea what was said, what wasn't said, what's true, what's not true, in terms of what actually happened. Here's what we did. We told the chat bot, chat GPT, whatever it was, I want you to listen to a few sermons by Pastor Andrew in my voice. And then all I did, all we did was type something into I didn't even utter the words typed in, it goes online, listens to me preach and types in. And here's what it spits out. And this is what I want to do for a sermon illustration. I didn't want the clip to actually get out. Okay, I typed in, I want it to say, um, Jesus is not the only way to heaven.
And of course, you're saved by your works. And when it spit back to you would make your spine tingle. Because it was me saying it, although I didn't. You understand? I mean, it spit it right back out in my voice, you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference just from listening to me preach. That is the world that we are heading towards, where all of those things.
Here's my point. We're heading toward a world where it can make anything say anybody say anything you want it to say, these kids aren't going to need to remember what I said about something, they're going to need to remember what the word says. And if they if they're going to get that, if they're not going to forget the name of Yahweh in the next generation, it's because we made sure that they knew to run the first not the third, because it was on us. So that's the first thing that I want us to see. The second thing, though, and this really gets more to the sermon, okay, in terms of just this idea of deliver.
Y'all, when God tells Moses, who he is this time, in Exodus six, he connects it with what he is going to do. I know that sounds like that. You're like, okay, I'm not there. Please try to hang here. All right. Because this is very important. There is a theological curiosity that happens in Exodus six, I'm about to show you what it is.
All right. The way we understand it frames how I'm talking about this idea of deliverance. Look what it says of the inverse third verse three. This is I mean, a lot of people look at this as a contradiction in Scripture. Look what he says, I appeared to Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty. But by my name, the Lord, I did not make myself known to them. Now, here's the problem with what it was he said, he said, Oh, yeah, I mean, basically, what it's saying is, I gave them one of my names, but the name that I gave you, I didn't give them.
Here's the problem with that. Yes, he did. Go back and read it. Go back and read the book of Genesis. I mean, the name Yahweh shows up all the time in the book, that idea that construction. Okay, so So wait a minute, God is saying I didn't, but but we read it. And we're like, but you did.
So what does this mean? Well, there's two ways to think about it. The first way is that Moses is the one writing this, and Moses is the one who God gave that name to. So he's writing it back in as he reconstructs the history. Okay, so it'd be it'd be sort of an anachronism, you know, when something shows up, which wasn't anachronism. Actually, there, like in a movie or something.
It's like that technology wasn't actually there. That kind of idea that Moses is just writing that name in. Here's what I say to that. That is a massive assumption. I mean, the word says it, and we're gonna say, well, he just wrote it in that to me.
I'm like, man feels like I'm not gonna be able to get there. All right, what I think is going on here. And this is the other way that people have interpreted this is that yes, they had this name, but they didn't understand the depths of what it meant. And now we're getting the depths of what it means. And why this story is so important in Exodus chapter six, y'all is because we're getting at the diamond turned a little bit more for us. So that we understand who this God is, is yes, a creator. Yes, he's mighty.
Yes, he's al Shaddai. But also, he is the one who takes you from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. Remember, the Lord is shedding new light on his name, and his relationship to his people.
And that's what this is all about. Moses, I didn't give them what I'm giving you. And what I'm giving you is the ability to see me through the lens by which you will always see me.
Deliverer, Savior, Redeemer. That's the lens that we get a chance to see God through as well. In theology, this is called progressive revelation.
I love how we love to put big words on stuff. All it means is, as you get more light and time, you understand it better. That's really all it means.
Okay. And what he's saying is, there is a progression to how God is revealing himself to the world. And this happens throughout the Bible. And you get to Jesus and it's like, hey, I spoke through the prophets now spoke through my son. You know, this is even greater revelation than what we had before. But this is a progressive revelation.
More light means we understand it better. I don't know if any of you guys have ever sat in a deer blind early, early in the morning. Okay.
I mean, like, you know, five o'clock in the morning, whatever you're sitting out there and 530 in the morning, the sun begins to come up right when that sun begins to come up. I've just happened to me so many times. You're like, you're looking around, you're like, there are 72 deer out here.
Okay. They're everywhere. Everywhere I look, there's a deer.
There's one, there's one, there's one. I mean, and then, and then you get the little bit more light and you're like, okay, that wasn't a deer. That was a tree. Or that wasn't a deer. That was a bush.
Okay. And then finally, when the light is all the way up, if you're anything like me, it went from this is gonna be the greatest of my life to there. Absolutely no deer here.
You know, there's none. It was all trees and bushes and, and whatever. The truth about the situation didn't change. All that changed was I got more light on the situation so I can see it better. I think that's what's happening in Exodus 6.
It's not that he didn't give them the name literally. It's that, hey, I'm giving you a new depth and texture. And now I'm giving you the opportunity to forever link my name with redemption, with deliverance. You were in slavery. Now you're in the promised land.
It's a beautiful thing. Look what it says in verse seven as we round out here. I will take you to be my people. Listen to the covenant language.
I mean, this is almost like a marriage. I will take you to be my people and I will be your God. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
Don't miss that. I will be your God and you will know it. You will always remember that I am the one who brought you out. Who delivered you and you will know it. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give Abraham to Isaac and to Jacob and I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.
I want you to hang with me here. Y'all, this is the lens by which we as the people of God are called to see him. This is how our hearts affections are warmed to him. Is he mighty? Yes. Is he creator? Yes.
Is he law giver? Yes. Did he save me? Yes. Did he deliver me? Yes. Does he have a glorious future in mind where he dwells, where we dwell with him and he's with us?
Yes. This is how we see God and it changes our hearts affections towards him. Y'all, this language, okay, I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.
Every commentator points to the same thing. And I'm gonna raise the story here that some of you guys are gonna know. If you don't know the story, this is not one of those churches where we say, oh, we're really sorry this went over your head. What we say is, okay, let's catch up. Okay, let's do it. Then write it down. Let's go read it tonight. Don't be a victim. Alright, go read it if this doesn't make sense to you.
But here's what I would say every commentary pointed this out. When he says this, I will take you to be my people and I will be your God. That is covenant language of redemption.
You know what story it probably parallels the most? The story of Ruth and Boaz. Where Ruth is this Moabitess that has no part and parcel with the people of God. She's destitute.
She's a widow. She's gonna be in poverty her entire life. And all of a sudden, this man, this redeemer, Boaz, steps in, righteous man, and he pays whatever the cost is to buy her and everything that she owns back so that she would be eligible to marry him. And she marries him and they have children. And I mean, they end up in the lineage of Jesus. And I mean, it's just the most beautiful story that you can imagine. And it's this idea of redemption and deliverance.
Man, I was in poverty, I had nowhere to turn. And this salvific figure brings me in and says, I will be to you, a husband, you'll be to me a wife. It's a concept we call the kinsman redeemer. Let me ask you a question if you know the story of Ruth and Boaz. Knowing what Ruth was going through, and how Boaz steps in for her. How do you think she viewed him? How do you think she viewed him the rest of her life? Man, he was the one that practiced deliverance and redemption. Didn't have to, but did. And loved her tenderly and called her in. And what God is saying is, when you understand what I have done for you, it will change the way you view me.
And guys, this is the deal. We read the Bible front to back, but we interpret the Bible back to front. You and I are not Israelites sitting in Egypt. We are a people who actually have a greater redemption and a greater deliverer.
Here's my point. If God is saying, hey to the people of Israel, you watch what I do. Remove you from slavery. If that's gonna turn your hearts toward me, how much should our hearts turn toward him when we realize that Jesus Christ, our greater Moses, went to the cross and died to bring us out of the most horrific Egypt that you can imagine? Man, a world filled with rot, decay, slavery to sin, a hell that we are destined to. And yet because of our deliverer spilling his blood for us on the cross, man, you and I now have been saved spiritually. And we wait for that redemption physically where we have to cross the Jordan, that promised land where the new heavens and the new earth will be where we dwell forever at all eternity. If that is how God has delivered us, then shouldn't our hearts swell towards him with gratitude?
You know, you think about this. He says in verse six, I'll redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I'll redeem you with an outstretched arm. He did that, right? He did that for the children of Israel. But for us in the gospel, Jesus shows this ultimate. He gives us the ultimate expression of the outstretched arm and judgment.
When Jesus stretched out his arms on the cross, he took judgment. He took God's judgment for us for all eternity, for all time. He brought us in to the family of God. He delivered us once and for all.
That was the price of our redemption. He becomes our Boaz. He becomes our kinsman redeemer. And this is something that will light our hearts up for him, for all time, if we will let it.
So here's the application this weekend, all right? Trust God as your eternal savior. And here's what I want to do. I want to mention something to those of us who are, man, we've been Christians for a long time. I'm going to call you to trust God as your eternal savior. See him as your deliverer today. Again, even though you're a Christian.
And then we'll talk about those that maybe need to do that for the first time, all right? Hey, but if you're a believer here, if you're at one of our campuses right now, and you're a believer, you've been a Christian, you've been a Christian for a long time. Here's what I want to tell you today. The core of gospel centrality, okay? What we preach at this church, the teaching that you are under, if that term, you're like, what does it mean? You get it all the way down. Here's what it means. See God as your deliverer first.
You could say it like this. Never get over your salvation. Never get over it. Understand first and foremost that you are more sinful than you ever could have imagined.
And at the same time in Christ, you're more loved than you ever dared hope. This is why we say at Mercy Hill, y'all, the gospel ain't the diving board. It's the pool.
Okay? It's not the ABCs. It's the A through Z. It's not the starting blocks.
It's the whole race. Christians don't grow beyond the gospel message of what Christ has done for them. They grow deeper into it. Because the deeper we go into it, the more we turn that diamond, the more our hearts affections are turned to God. We can't get over it. I can't believe that he would save me, that he would rescue me. Never get over your salvation. I told you guys before this last year, year and a half, we went through and watched all the Duck Dynasty episodes, okay?
Me and my kids. And man, it was all, I think they're doing like a reboot or whatever. And one of my favorite characters is the old guy, the patriarch of the family named Phil. And Phil, if you've ever heard his story, there's a movie about him.
It's called The Blind. But he, man, he wasn't a great, I mean, he's a bad dude. I mean, he was, I mean, domestic violence.
You know, crazy drug abuse, alcoholism like crazy, walked out on the kids multiple times. And you see that and then you're like, man, you watch the show and you're like, how could this be the same human being? And the reality is that he was radically saved by God's grace.
Radically. I mean, he was living every bit in the slavery of Egypt. And Jesus Christ as his deliverer saved him from that. And you can go back and read the story.
But here's the thing. He never got over it. And you see it come out of the show in really funny ways. That any time he gets a chance to talk about who he was then, and then talk about what God has done in his life now.
I mean, his kids say he's probably literally baptized 1000 people in the river behind their house in the last 30 years. Okay, so I mean, it's, it's like he is all in okay. And, and he wants to show that all the time.
But it's funny how it comes out. So the kids are like one episode, the kid, one of the kids got a project or something outside, and they're walking around the woods, and they're trying to find something in the woods. And the kid looks up to her grandpa, and she's like, Papa Phil, I think we're lost. And he immediately says, Oh, I was lost.
Okay, I was lost in all types of drunkenness and smoking and consorting with women. And I mean, he just starts going on kids like eight years old, right. And the whole point is, he always remembers who he was. And another episode, they were, they were like smoking a brisket or a pork butt or something. And they're like, he sees a smoke and he's like, Oh, I've smoked everything you can smoke.
Okay, I've smoked every kind of dope and every kind of. And he's always like going back to this is who I was. This is who I am. This is this is where I was born, you know, destined to be.
This is where I'm going to be. And there's something about that that fuels our affections. My question is, hey, are we dwelling on what God has done for us? Are we dwelling on it daily in the word? Are we dwelling on it in community groups? Are we making priorities of dwelling on it by you hearing preaching? I mean, are we or not? We live in a world that is filled with distractions.
I want you to think about this. Netflix came out with a series a couple years ago called Squid Squid Games. Okay, I never saw Squid Game. Here's the thing. Worldwide, humanity spent 2.1 billion hours watching Squid Game.
Just so you know, that equates to 239,000 years of time. This is what we do. This is what we do. I mean, it's it's just a world of distraction. Can we cut through some of that? And can we say, hey, this is what I need. This is the core of Gospel Centrality. Do you want to grow? Your heart has to swell.
It's not with just rules and seeing God in a fear based model. It's swelling up with gratitude, realizing he saved you. He's your deliverer. The last thing I want to say today is this. This is not for those who have done this a million times.
It's for those of you who need to do it for the first time. Do you know God as the one who delivered you? Do you know him as the one who delivered you? Because that's really the question today, man. We got a lot of people that are interested in God. We got a lot of people that are on the fence. We got a lot of people at different campuses that are kind of coming around and about once every series we try to draw the net. We try to put a line in the sand and we say, hey, where are you at?
Where are you at with this stuff? You know there's a God? I understand that. But do you know him as your deliverer? Because that is the primary lens by which he wants you to see him. I don't know if you know or not.
I hope that you do. It changes the way that you will see him forever. You know a few months after 9-11, stories began to come out as our nation was healing and just thinking, you know, hearing different stories of survival and loss. About six months later, different parts of the country, people began to share the same story and it started to get linked up. Because in that tower, as it was burning and falling down, there was a man that was saving people and he became known as the man in the red bandana. He was a gold named Wells Crowther.
He was an athlete lacrosse player. He was a volunteer firefighter and when the planes hit the tower, he absolutely had the strength and could have been one of the first ones to get out and would be alive to this day. But instead, when the tower was hit by the plane, he ran to a flat where he could get cell phone reception. He called his mom. He told her he loved her.
He'd be okay. He hung the phone up and he took off straight up the stairs and he took charge. He began to shout.
He told people, stand up. You cannot stay here. You have to follow me. Get on your feet.
Let's go. And he started making a way, clearing debris, getting people out. At one point, there was someone who was so injured she couldn't walk at all. He picked her up, put her on his shoulder and carried her 15 flights of stairs down the tower, all the while picking people up along the way and telling them you have to follow me.
You can't stay here. And when he got to the bottom, he put the woman down and got those people to safety and he fell right in line with the firefighters who were heading up. Six months later, in all the rubble, they found the body of Wells Crowther encased all among a bunch of firefighters. Here's what I want you to know. We all know firefighters save people. Many of you do that. We have a lot of you guys that are here.
We're grateful for y'all. But for people like Lynn Young, it's not knowing that a volunteer firefighter is willing to do that because they are. That's what they sign up for.
It's not knowing that they can. For Lynn Young, Wells Crowther is different because he's the one who did. And forever, those 15 people will see him differently and in a different light than any of us could ever imagine because he saved them. Y'all, there is a deliverer.
There is a redeemer. There is a savior. And I pray today that many of you who have been preparing for this and God's been drawing you across our church, you would step over the line today. Would you bow your heads with me and just close your eyes? I'm going to close my sermon in a way that gives you a chance to respond. So here's what we're going to do today.
Just heads bowed and eyes closed. I'm going to go into a prayer. But I just want to give you the opportunity to pray with me today. You have the chance to step over that line, however you want to call it, to become a Christian, to get saved. The point is to see God as your deliverer forever.
To confess him as the Lord of our life. Are you ready? Have you been holding on for too long? Have you been trying it your own way? It's been works.
It's been trying to clean yourself up. No, no. See him as your deliverer today.
Right? You pray this prayer in your heart with me. Father, I know that I'm a sinner.
And I know that I can't work my way into a relationship with you. But I believe that Jesus Christ went to the cross and took the penalty for my sin. Three days later rose from the dead to give me a new life.
And I accept that. I trust that God saved me today. And I commit to follow him.
Follow you all the days of my life. You praying that prayer right now? Man, is God is God saving you right now? Continue to fight distractions. Sit in this moment for a moment. I pray for the people that are praying to receive you right now at our campuses here at the Ridge. Lord, I just pray.
