Acts Chapter 7:14-34

God wants to change you. God has the power to change you, and will you be yet a spectator, or will you be part of the adventure?

Only you can answer that question. See, God knows what's around the corner for you. He knew what was around the corner for Moses. Do you know what's around the corner for you?

No, you really don't. You may have plans, and plans are good, but you have no idea what God wants to do with your life, really, in detail, but God knows, and even today, God wants to prepare you for that. God wants to prepare you for that. God wants us to grow as we follow Him. He wants us to lead others into a faith in Him. A lot of times we think, well, I get saved and that's it. Well, no, that's the beginning. There's probably a lot of people in here that have asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins. That's awesome. It's a great start.

Let me ask you a real direct pointed question. What are you doing with it? Are you growing in your faith? Are being used by God to reach others? Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. While we are all broken vessels, God still desires to use our life to reach others. Today, Pastor David explains how God wants to use you to reach the lost as he continues in the book of Acts, chapter seven. Now here's David McGee with part four of his teaching, Stephen's Address. Chapter seven finds us discussing Stephen and Stephen was a man who was a deacon, if you will, and he served tables and because he was willing to faithfully serve in those small things, God continued to raise him up and God continued to do more and more wonderful things through him. And then in chapter seven, we find Stephen just giving an incredible teaching in front of the Jewish leadership. So again, we see that model of he who is faithful in the small things will be raised up in ministry.

That's an important thing for us to remember. So we'll pick it up with Acts chapter seven, verse 14, and it's speaking about the life of Joseph and it says, then Joseph sent and called his father Jacob and all his relatives to him, 75 people. So Jacob went down to Egypt and he died, he and our fathers, and they were carried back to Shechem and laid in the tomb that Abraham bought for a sum of money from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, in verse 17. But when the time of the promise drew near, which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and multiplied in Egypt. The verse 18 says, till another king arose who did not know Joseph and this man dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them expose their babies so that they might not live. Verse 20, at this time, Moses was born and was well pleasing to God and he was brought up in his father's house for three months. But when he was set out, Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as her own son. And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was mighty in words and deeds. Now when he was 40 years old, it came into his heart to visit his brethren and the children of Israel and seeing one of them suffer wrong, he defended and avenged them who was oppressed and struck down the Egyptian. Moses, I believe, knew he had been called to deliver the people of Israel.

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

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

God had a plan much better than the plan of Moses. But see, here's the thing. Oh, now see this time after time. In ministry, you can't just depend upon your plan and your abilities as you step out to serve the Lord.

Because if you do it your way, it's not going to go well. Well, let's back up. Even before ministry, what about salvation? What about salvation? Salvation is a free gift from God. By grace, we're saved is what this book tells us.

What does that mean? It's unearned, unmerited favor from God. In order to receive that grace, what do you do? You come to Jesus and say, Jesus, will you forgive me? Jesus says, yes, and he forgives you.

And what do most of us do at that point? Well, then we set out to earn that forgiveness that we were just given. You were just given the forgiveness. That's right. Got to earn it now.

Got to earn it. That's what we do. We start to paint pictures and put parameters and, well, if you're going to keep your forgiveness, you got to do this and this and this and this and this. Or you'll blow that forgiveness that was so freely given to you, you can lose it just like that. That was a problem in the church of Galatians. Here's what Paul said to them in Galatians 3 verse 3. He says, have you lost your senses?

I love the way that starts. After starting your Christian lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort? I know none of us struggle with this.

I just share with you, I'm kind of warming up for the eleven o'clock audience, so you know, no, I'm kidding. No, every one of us can struggle with this. And here's where it can become even more frustrating is when God birthes a vision in you, starts to stir your heart towards accomplishing something, and then immediately you know what we do.

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

That's not the way that it happens. Every one of us is separated from God. So God saves us by his grace. God calls us by his grace. See, we think, okay, now we're saved by grace, but then God chooses us to do certain spiritual things because we're just better, we're good people. See, that's a tendency. I was going to say I was going to step on some toes.

I'm getting ready to dance on toes now. The church often thinks that God saved us because we're good people. And the people that aren't saved yet, well, they're bad people. And that's why they're not saved, you see. Is that true?

No. No, they just don't know. The only difference, if you think about it, the only difference between us and them is that we said a prayer to ask the forgiveness of our sins. That's humbling in it. Now, that leads to other life differences and hopefully our choices are more in line with scripture. But the distinctive difference is we've asked to be forgiven and they haven't. So how can we get to the place where we look down our nose at those folks?

That's really twisted. But that does happen. Not in this church, but other churches that I've read about, that happens. Now, it happens in this church. We've been forgiven through grace. We've been called to serve through grace. We do that with people in the ministry especially.

Do you realize that? We think, oh, they're really spiritual, so God's going to put them in a ministry. Let me tell you something. As a pastor, it's not that I arrived at some spiritual plateau that God said, well, you know, he's deeply spiritual and ingrained in these truths and he's just a good man and so I'm going to use him. That's not what God said. God looked at me in my life and said, you know what? Golly, if I do something in that yahoo, I'm going to get the glory because everybody's going to know it ain't him. That's what God likes to do. The last thing I want to show you is that somehow I've earned a place of ministry.

I'm sorry, you can't earn something like that. It's given. God's grace calls us forth in the service. And if I paint a picture that if you arrive at some spiritual plateau, then God can begin to use you, then what you just heard is God can't use you right now until you fix this, that, and the other.

Sorry, that's far from the truth. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience today, specifically Grants Pass, Heinz, John Day, Junction City, Keno, Lakeview, and Medford, Oregon. Lord, we thank you for these cities and the people who are listening now. God, even those who might not be listening, we lift up everyone. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit would draw them into a personal relationship with Jesus, that they would put their faith in him. Father, we pray that they would get plugged into a Bible teaching church. Lord, we pray that you give the pastors in these cities wisdom on how to make disciples and how to encourage everyone that God brings. Lord, we pray for the city leaders, the mayors, Father, the police chief, the fire chief. Lord, we pray that we would be an encouragement to them, recognizing the serious responsibilities that they have.

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

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. In verse 25, Moses supposed that his brethren would have understood that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not understand. And the next day he appeared to two of them as they were fighting and tried to reconcile them, saying, Men, you are brethren.

Why do you wrong one another? Verse 27, But he who did his neighbor wrong pushed him away soon. Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

This is interesting. Let's just stop here for a second. Who made thee a ruler and a judge over us? It's what the King James, the new King James says. Who made you a ruler and a judge over us?

Let me ask you a question. Who had made Moses a ruler and a judge over them? God had. If you're in leadership, let me encourage you with something. Are you headed towards leadership? Moses, who I believe was one of the greatest spiritual leaders of all time, had a lot of trouble leading. People rejected his leadership. So if people rejected the leadership of Moses, why are we ever surprised when people reject leadership in churches or in their jobs? Because here is Moses, again, I believe one of the greatest leaders of all time, and they're going, Hey, who made you a ruler and a judge?

It's an interesting thing, isn't it? Now, Moses saw the injustice. Moses wanted to fix it. That was a good thing, but the way he went about fixing it was wrong. I think there's a lesson for the church in there.

There's a lot of stuff that we see, a lot of social injustices that I do believe the church needs to be involved with, but we need to make sure that we're addressing those situations in the right way. I think Stephen here is making the point to them that, you know what? You didn't really follow Moses. Right here, two Jewish people decided they weren't going to follow Moses. Let's continue verse 28. Do you want to kill me as you did the Egyptian yesterday? So now Moses is busted.

Not officially, but somebody else knows what he did. Verse 29. Then at this scene, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian where he had two sons. And when 40 years had passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. Moses was in the desert for 40 years. It's interesting when you think about it because Moses had thought when he was still in Egypt that he was ready to be the deliverer. I mean, he was educated. He had obvious leadership skills, but was he ready?

Absolutely not. And Moses probably walked around in the desert thinking, man, this is just a waste of time. There's people down there.

They need to be delivered, and here I am. I'm walking around in the desert doing nothing. Perhaps you feel like you've wasted time in your life. Most of us have.

It's a fair assumption to make. Maybe you feel like you've wasted some years and wasted some time. Well, maybe you have.

I know I did. Do you understand God can redeem that? You may academically, mentally understand what I just said, but no, I mean God can redeem that. See, in my life it's kind of an interesting thing, because I can look at music as such an obvious thing that I used for my own good, my own gain, and for the pleasure of the world. But the things that I learned about music, the things that I learned about production and sound and all those things, God now uses for His glory. What's the parallel with Moses?

I don't understand. He wandered around the desert for 40 years. What was he doing for 40 years wandering around the desert? He was looking after livestock. Well, how do you look after livestock? Well, you take them to places where they can graze. You take them to places where they can get water.

Well, how was God going to use that? Where did Moses lead the children of Israel through? He led them through the desert. And as he led them, he probably said, oh, we can go over here because there's a great pasture over here. Oh, and after we go there, I know where there's some water.

We'll go up here and there's some water. He knew all these things. Why? Because he had wasted all that time in the desert. God can take whatever you think of your life in terms of a wasted time or a wasted years, God can redeem that.

But let me suggest something that you don't continue to wait for God to redeem that, that you begin to step out and begin to serve the Lord, and He will begin to use even those wasted days and wasted years. Well, I don't see how God can do that. Well, again, let's look again at who God is using in this story here. Abraham, who often lied about his wife. Jacob, who was always cutting deals and getting ahead of God.

And then Moses, the ex-prince of Egypt, who was a murderer. And God used them. And somehow now we've come to the place of thinking that God only uses the distinguished members of society.

It's really weird if you think about it. But here's the thing, the life lesson. God wants to use you to reach others. God wants to use you to reach others. And again, you know, what is, I'm going to get a little personal, start a little prying, go from preaching to meddling.

What is your reason, what is your excuse for not stepping out and serving the Lord? If you don't want to be finding yourself in another place going, wow, I'm really thirsty. I see the water, but I'm really thirsty, but it's probably hard. Change something. Allow God to change you. Because God wants to change you. God has the power to change you.

And will you be yet a spectator or will you be part of the adventure? Only you can answer that question. God wants to use you. Nothing is holding you back except you.

See the sad truth is we are our own worst spiritual enemy. We like to think in terms of people holding us back, well, this person's holding us back and my spouse is holding me back. My parents hold me back. My kids are holding me back.

Person that holds us back the most is sitting in your chair right now. But God has a plan for that. See, God knows what's around the corner for you. He knew what was around the corner for Moses. Do you know what's around the corner for you?

No, you really don't. You may have plans and plans are good, but you have no idea what God wants to do with your life really in detail. But God knows. And even today, God wants to prepare you for that. God wants to prepare you for that. The life lesson here, God wants us to grow as we follow him and he wants us to lead others into a faith in him. God wants us to grow as we follow him. He wants us to lead others into a faith in him. A lot of times we think, well, I get saved and that's it. Well, no, that's the beginning. There's probably a lot of people in here that have asked the Lord to forgive you of your sins. That's awesome. It's a great start. Let me ask you a real direct pointed question.

What are you doing with it? Are you growing in your faith or being used by God to reach others? Theologically speaking, there's justification just about never did something wrong. And that's your sins are forgiven the moment you pray that prayer. But there's an end working called sanctification in the sense of I am being saved. I am being changed. And that's a process that all of us should be in. And then the final process, glorification. I will be completely saved one day.

I will never, I won't struggle with sin anymore, but we are in that sanctification phase. We're to be growing. God's doing something in our life. He's changing us. He desires to change us.

Why? Because he wants to make us an object of his blessing and an object of his glory. You know what people do with jewelry? They polish it up. Why do they do that?

So that people can see how beautiful it is. Exactly. Do you understand? That's what God desires to do with us. Have you ever known a lady that before she puts on a necklace, she goes outside and she smears mud all over it because you know, she's going to wear it to church that Sunday.

No, she cleans it up. Why? To show it off.

Now this is, this is going to be hard to understand, hard to grab. God wants to show you off. It's what he says in his word. He said we are his workmanship, the Greek word poema. That's where we get our word for poem.

Created in Christ Jesus for good works. I show you a picture of something. Little glass rocks. Aren't those interesting? But you actually know what those are. Those are diamonds.

I mean, I'll be honest. If I saw one of those on the ground outside, I don't even know how to stop and pick it up. Think somebody broke a Coke bottle or something. But what happens after that diamond is cut?

Well, it looks like something like that. Somebody takes that stone and sits and works on that stone. And they sit and they cut that stone. And they polish that stone.

And perhaps if that diamond had a mind, I don't think it does, or a soul, I don't think it does. It might sit there and go, oh my goodness, he's got to stop cutting me. Pieces of myself are falling onto the floor. There's a madman that has a hold of me.

Somebody help me. But what's going on really? The jeweler is making that into a beautiful thing.

Far more beautiful than it ever was. Yeah. That's what God's doing in our lives.

And so often we like the diamond to go, oh my goodness, there's pieces of me falling all over the place. God won't let me do this anymore. He won't let me do that.

And I used to like doing that. You can trust Him. He knows what He's doing. And if you allow Him to work in your life, at some point He will present you and say, look, here's my workmanship. Oh, it's not perfect.

Every diamond has a flaw. But look at that thing of beauty and a thing of grace. That's what He desires to do in our lives. The weird thing is we want to fight against that. God who knows us better than we know ourselves wants to do an awesome thing in our lives. And we want to fight it. Don't fight what the Lord wants to do in your life.

Jump out and join Him. Back to verse 30. And when 40 years have passed, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush in the wilderness of Mount Sinai. And when Moses saw it, he marveled at the sight. And as it drew near to observe, the voice of the Lord came to him saying, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses trembled and dared not look. Then the Lord said to him, take your sandals off your feet, for the place where you stand is holy ground. As is an interesting thing.

I'm going to depart for just a minute. The ground we stand is holy. Is the ground that we're standing on now holy?

Well, it kind of is, but probably not for the reason you think it is. It's not because this is a church. It's because if you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you now stand righteous in this site. So everywhere you go, you're standing on holy ground. Verse 34, I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt.

I've heard their groaning and have come down to deliver them. And now come, I will send you to Egypt. It's an awesome verse.

It tells us a lot of things. It tells us God saw his people going through things in Egypt. And I'm sure some of them thought, why is God waiting to deliver us? God was waiting for the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Amalekites, and all these people to come to him patiently waiting.

And after 400 and some years, he said, time's up. I'm going to deliver my people. But he saw their problems and understand God sees your struggles and God knows your fears. Maybe other people don't understand you.

Maybe other people don't understand your struggles. Maybe other people don't understand your fears, but God sees. He sees your loneliness. He sees your pain. Well, does God want to help me with those things? Oh, he wants to do more than that. He wants to take them from you. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

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

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