SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the City Covenant Podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We are a warm, welcoming church located in downtown Spokane, dedicated to practicing the way of Jesus in the heart of the city.
SPEAKER_00: Please join us as we dive into the Word of God together.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to City Covenant.
SPEAKER_01: My name's Asher.
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad to meet you guys if you're new here.
SPEAKER_01: We are in the fifth week of a 10-week series right now on the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: And we're in the fifth week of a 10-week series on the book of Exodus, going from Exodus 1 through Exodus 12, right?
SPEAKER_01: From the beginning of Exodus until the Passover.
SPEAKER_01: So if you brought a Bible from home or didn't have one and you have one in front of you in the Pew Bible, turn there to Exodus 5 today.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in the Pew Bible, it's page 51.
SPEAKER_01: We're looking at a people that are a broken people.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we find ourselves this morning.
SPEAKER_01: In in Exodus 5, we're going to look at Exodus 5 and a little bit of the beginning of Exodus 6.
SPEAKER_01: And don't worry, we're not reading all of it.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know some of you guys think scriptural readings get a little too long sometimes, but don't worry.
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at a portion of Exodus 5 and then beginning of Exodus 6.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what you have to know.
SPEAKER_01: These are a deeply broken, hurting people.
SPEAKER_01: These are folks that are barely hanging on, right?
SPEAKER_01: And um and God is calling them to worship Him, right?
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna see what happens.
SPEAKER_01: They really try to do things the right way, but you know what?
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't turn out um the way they hoped, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, this is a lot like the lives of so many of us day in and day out, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is the life of the Christian.
SPEAKER_01: This is the life of the Christian church, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's a life that's full of both celebration and sorrow, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's why Jesus calls us to celebrate with those who celebrate, right?
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the life actually of the Christian, that we actually have both.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and that's what we're gonna see this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I think we're gonna see this morning, um, and we're gonna be equipped to better live out that Christian life, and honestly, better live out the human life being informed here by Exodus 5.
SPEAKER_01: And so let's read.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna look at Exodus 5, 1 through 2, and then 6 through Exodus 5, um, 6 through 14, and then just the first um, just a verse in Exodus 6, Exodus 6, 9.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you want to stick with me, we're gonna start on page 51 of your pew Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus 5.1.
SPEAKER_01: Afterward, Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: Pharaoh said, Who is the Lord that I should obey him and let Israel go?
SPEAKER_01: I do not know the Lord, and I will not let Israel go.
SPEAKER_01: That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and the overseers in charge of the people.
SPEAKER_01: You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks.
SPEAKER_01: Let them go and gather their own straw, but require them to make the same number of bricks as before.
SPEAKER_01: Don't reduce the quota.
SPEAKER_01: They are lazy.
SPEAKER_01: That is why they're crying out, let us go and sacrifice to our God.
SPEAKER_01: Make the work harder for the people, so that they keep working and they pay no attention to lies.
SPEAKER_01: Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, This is what Pharaoh says I will not give you any more straw.
SPEAKER_01: Go and get your own straw, wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.
SPEAKER_01: So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for the straw.
SPEAKER_01: The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, Complete the work required of you each day, just as when you had straw.
SPEAKER_01: And Pharaoh's slave drivers beat the Israelites, uh overseers they had appointed, demanding, why haven't you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today as before?
SPEAKER_01: And going to chapter 9, Moses spoke thus to the people of Israel, but they didn't listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and the harsh slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, this is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Father in heaven, you are our keeper.
SPEAKER_01: You're the one who loves us and supports us.
SPEAKER_01: You're with us in the midst of incredible sorrow, incredible hardness.
SPEAKER_01: And Lord, would you would you help us this morning so we might know that you're with us?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, we might understand Exodus 5 better and understand the whole story that we live in as a result of it.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, and ultimately that it would point us toward Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: It's in and it's in Jesus' strong name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Um, what we're gonna see later, if you stick with us in this series, what we're gonna see later um is this miracle in our own way, right?
SPEAKER_01: Something of this encounter between Pharaoh to show that ultimately the Lord, right, the the God of heaven and earth is to be reckoned with.
SPEAKER_01: Even in Egypt, even though the Pharaoh, just so you know, the Pharaoh thinks that the God of Israel doesn't have any skill or ability in Egypt, because um back then um actually the pagan nations believed that there were all these gods and that um all these different gods across the globe, or they probably didn't call it a globe back then, right?
SPEAKER_01: But whatever they thought of the world, um, they thought that gods were localized.
SPEAKER_01: And so um here you have the God of Israel kind of going outside of um, you know, going outside of his lane, which is only in geographic Israel, and saying, I'm in charge here as well.
SPEAKER_01: And Pharaoh says, No, I'm in charge here.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what we're actually just so you know, that's the background of really what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: Is this a in and we'll get there more in the next few weeks, but this is in some ways this beginning of a battle between Pharaoh, who functions and acts like he's a God, and the true God, uh Yahweh, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um but the thing is, what Pharaoh is doing in this is Pharaoh is just always pushing for more and more and more, always more, always pressuring, always trying to extract everything out of people that he can.
SPEAKER_01: And the thing is, we look at this and we realize at times um this is the the world hasn't necessarily changed all that much, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, even this morning or this week, this might have been your experience, right?
SPEAKER_01: Even before you get out of bed, Ferris already whisper in your in your ear, right?
SPEAKER_01: You've got unread emails, right?
SPEAKER_01: You've got at work maybe performance metrics, right?
SPEAKER_01: You've got on your phone, you've got productivity apps, right?
SPEAKER_01: You've got social comparison, right?
SPEAKER_01: Everything you're supposed to do in life is supposed to get better, improve, move ahead, and always with this insidious little lie from Pharaoh, which is ultimately from the devil, saying, you're not enough.
SPEAKER_01: You're behind everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: Work faster, work harder, be better.
SPEAKER_01: This is the world that we live in.
SPEAKER_01: This is the world that Israel lived in in Egypt thousands of years ago, right?
SPEAKER_01: What happens?
SPEAKER_01: You go to work, you finish a project.
SPEAKER_01: The next one is even harder, shorter deadlines, harsher expectation.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter even if you have it, even if you haven't had this experience at work.
SPEAKER_01: You may have had it somewhere else, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, and and the longer you uh function in the slave state, the harder it is actually to get out of it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Whether it's addiction, slavery, idolatry, when we're when we get used to it, freedom ends up becoming terrifying, right?
SPEAKER_01: And so we what do we do?
SPEAKER_01: We retreat.
SPEAKER_01: And what's happening here is God is speaking and saying, I don't want you to just see yourselves and how you're relating to how much production you can do.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want you looking just at what you can do for work.
SPEAKER_01: And this is our first point is I want you to worship before work.
SPEAKER_01: I want the primacy of your life to be not about what you can, what you can build, right?
SPEAKER_01: But about who you can be.
SPEAKER_01: And you can only do that when you know the author and creator and the finisher of all things, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's what we see here, right?
SPEAKER_01: And what happens is here's what's amazing is you have all of that constant low-level rumble that's causing um you know, causing constant stimulus in our brains that says, I'm I'm never enough, I'm never gonna be able to finish everything that I have to do.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what happens is worship ends up putting that type of anxiety on a diet.
SPEAKER_01: It starves out of calories because all of a sudden you know what things are really about, right?
SPEAKER_01: You re-center and you know, oh, that's right.
SPEAKER_01: The world is ultimately about Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: I thought it was about work, but really ultimately it's about worship.
SPEAKER_01: And so God calls these folks into worship first, right?
SPEAKER_01: And what happens in that is worship starts rewiring their identities.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: When we worship, it rewires who we are, who we understand ourselves to be.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Um, all of a sudden, no longer primarily about work, right?
SPEAKER_01: First here in Exodus 5, they look and say, they're seeing if they're gonna be worshipers of Yahweh, that the one they ultimately serve isn't ultimately Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The one they serve is the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what happens is when you serve the Lord first, you become more like him.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because whatever we worship is what were formed into that image.
SPEAKER_01: We start looking like whatever we worship.
SPEAKER_01: There's these photos I saw, um, I it must have been on like on Instagram or Pinterest or something like this.
SPEAKER_01: And it was all these folks that um it's pictures of them and their dogs.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, it turns out if you spend enough time with an animal, you start looking like this animal, right?
SPEAKER_01: I I wish, I don't know, Mason, do you have the picture of me and our dog Stout?
SPEAKER_01: No, okay, I'm teasing.
SPEAKER_01: No, I have this horrible black dog named Stout.
SPEAKER_01: He has big black curly hair.
SPEAKER_01: We don't look alike.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm just saying, it was all these photos of people that look like their dogs.
SPEAKER_01: And you're looking, why?
SPEAKER_01: Because their dogs become everything to them.
SPEAKER_01: Somehow their lives are morphed into becoming like their dog, right?
SPEAKER_01: And and here's the thing ultimately we become like whatever's the most important to us.
SPEAKER_01: Please don't become like your dog, right?
SPEAKER_01: Please don't become like Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: Please don't form your image into the thing that is so small.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: God's the only one that's big enough for us to be conformed into his image.
SPEAKER_01: Anything else ends up being crushed under its own weight, right?
SPEAKER_01: Exodus 5 is asking this question.
SPEAKER_01: Who's bigger?
SPEAKER_01: Who's the real God?
SPEAKER_01: Is it Pharaoh or is it Yahweh?
SPEAKER_01: Who's big enough?
SPEAKER_01: Years ago, we got this chance to stay at this um this little Airbnb.
SPEAKER_01: It was in um this rural part of Oahu in this town called Waimanalo, and when our kids were really little, and every day we would go on this pretty secluded beach.
SPEAKER_01: It was a really long beach, but not many people were there.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'd walk a couple blocks, we'd go to the beach, and and in between times of getting stung by a jellyfish, our kids would um go and they would dig, you know, like kids do, you go to a beach, and I don't know why, but there's this um apparently a human need to see how big of a hole you can dig, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is what people do when they go to the ocean.
SPEAKER_01: You either you either dig down or you build up, right?
SPEAKER_01: The beaches are littered with holes and castles.
SPEAKER_01: And so um, you know, inevitably, um, we, along with many other people, if you'd see over the miles of beach, is you'd see these large holes and large sand castles.
SPEAKER_01: Every day, people build them.
SPEAKER_01: They spend all day working to see how much we could do, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like living with Pharaoh, except you're getting a sunburn.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so you're doing all this work in the sand.
SPEAKER_01: And Units Wild is every day without fail.
SPEAKER_01: You'd come back in the morning, and the ocean is so much larger than you.
SPEAKER_01: As it would just come up with the rising tide, the ocean would sweep away anything that you built the day before.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't matter how big the hole was.
SPEAKER_01: It didn't matter how big the castle was.
SPEAKER_01: It was always gone the next day.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because it was so much bigger than us.
SPEAKER_01: The thing is, we need a God that's so much bigger than us.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes we build things that are so big that we think we're big.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Or sometimes we do things and that we dig a hole that's so deep we think we can't get out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And here's our challenge.
SPEAKER_01: Because as we're building these things, often we realize we don't really want to keep them after all.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: We're building these lives maybe that we don't even tell anybody about, right?
SPEAKER_01: There are these things like, you know, hitting other people, hurting others, kicking your dog, right?
SPEAKER_01: Being enslaved to pornography, lying, deceit, not caring about the needs of the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, these are all these things that we confess when we pray our prayer confession, right?
SPEAKER_01: And all these things are the are the things that are the out of the sand of our lives that we're that are being formed.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And rather than building these sand castles of hope and humility, right?
SPEAKER_01: Forming the sand into something beautiful, you and I know that we have oftentimes spent our time, our energy, our focus on building vanity, building monuments to ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: And like Pharaoh, we have kept people oppressed rather than liberated.
SPEAKER_01: And oftentimes we've built, because as humans we build, we we built the wrong things.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why you need a God that's bigger than Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you need a God that's bigger than Trump.
SPEAKER_01: It's why you need a God that's bigger than Obama or the Clintons or anybody, right?
SPEAKER_01: You need a God who's bigger.
SPEAKER_01: Because the God that is so large like the ocean that can wipe away all the sand castles and all the giant sandholes, he's the one who wipes away the dirt and the filth and the grime as this flood of grace rises, right?
SPEAKER_01: As the the as the ocean tide rises over, and he takes all these things that that we built that shouldn't sand, and he pulls them away from us.
SPEAKER_01: And you show up and you look at the sandy and you realize that the sandy in your life, that only one thing is left.
SPEAKER_01: And everything else gets wiped away, and there's only one thing left on the beach that you're looking at.
SPEAKER_01: And it's just this old wooden cross.
SPEAKER_01: There's only one thing that's left.
SPEAKER_01: And he's wiped everything else away.
SPEAKER_01: Everything else is cleansed except the cross, and it and it reminds you of what Jesus did for you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what happens when we worship.
SPEAKER_01: It recenters us.
SPEAKER_01: It recenters us on the God who's a true God.
SPEAKER_01: And these folks they worshiped.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they wanted to do.
SPEAKER_01: They tried to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: And this is our second point.
SPEAKER_01: What happens though is that it gets worse before it gets better.
SPEAKER_01: Like the first one is that they they worship, and they're called to worship before work.
SPEAKER_01: But then it gets worse before it gets better.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you guys a question real fast.
SPEAKER_01: Just like a little check-in.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever just worked on something really, really hard?
SPEAKER_01: It feels like it should all work out, but it didn't.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe if you ever even maybe you take it a step further.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever felt like you did everything right as far as God is concerned?
SPEAKER_01: And you didn't get what you thought you would get?
SPEAKER_01: Has that ever happened to anyone?
SPEAKER_01: It's happened to me, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's probably happened to you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the thing, these folks, they followed all the rules.
SPEAKER_01: And their wheels came off.
SPEAKER_01: You know, years ago, I was in this triathlon down in Oregon, and um, it was right in the Sun River area.
SPEAKER_01: And we did this, the swim was in this kind of not glacial lake, because there's not glaciers there, but it's very, very cold.
SPEAKER_01: And literally, it's like a mile swim.
SPEAKER_01: And every stroke I took is I looked to my right, it was this loop, and for the first half of the swim, the whole every time I would look to my right, I would literally see this snow-covered mountain coming directly into the lake.
SPEAKER_01: And I was already very cold.
SPEAKER_01: And um, even with a wetsuit on, and I'm looking, and every time I, you know, I see my hand go in, and then boom, there's this like snowy mountain coming into the lake, which I will tell you makes you feel colder.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you already weren't feeling pretty chilly in cold water, when you can see a snowy mountain, that makes you feel colder, right?
SPEAKER_01: Get out of the water finally, go on a long bike ride, have literally, it turns out, like the best ride of any race I've ever done.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling amazing.
SPEAKER_01: We get into Sun River, you know, it's a 13-mile run, and and you know what happens?
SPEAKER_01: It turns out they ran out of water and Gatorade on the run.
SPEAKER_01: And the wheels came off.
SPEAKER_01: I did everything I thought I was supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01: Still couldn't fit do it well, right?
SPEAKER_01: I had to almost walk it in, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because I was feeling so horrible.
SPEAKER_01: Because there, you know, I thought I did everything right.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you feel like you do everything right and it still doesn't turn out right.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And you look and say, I thought I thought I did the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: And why is God not doing what he was supposed to do?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Because what religion teaches us is that if if I do my part, the great news is that if I do my part, God will do his part.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You get half the way and God will take it from there.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, that's not the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It sounds like fantastic news when things are going well for you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: When things are going poorly for you, trust me, you do not actually want a faith that says you take it halfway and God will take it the rest of the way.
SPEAKER_01: What you need ultimately is a God who comes in to rescue you as a deliverer, like the book of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Too often we think all the good things we have in life are because of our own hard work.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just tell you, friends, if that's true, if it's true that all of the good things you have, just follow me logically, okay?
SPEAKER_01: If all the good things you have are because of your hard work, then guess what?
SPEAKER_01: All of the bad things you have is because of all the bad things you've done.
SPEAKER_01: That's actually religion.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is a gospel of grace.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the gospel is about a God who gives you unmerited favor, not because of what you can earn, but because of his very um nature, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because of God's personality, because of who God is in his innermost being.
SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: These folks have done everything right in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: Yet it's not working out for them.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually getting worse.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And now God has to pull them out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you have to recognize something is life is getting worse for them.
SPEAKER_01: As Christians, when we expect the easy life, what's happening is maybe we're telling Jesus that we think he's a spiritual piggy bank.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That if we do our stuff, he'll do his stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: In response, Jesus says, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet lose their soul?
SPEAKER_01: Friends, it's not easy to be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: It's not easy to follow the Lord, but it's worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: See, there's an incredible myth in the world that we inhabit, which is that the way to determine one's faithfulness to God is by seeing or perceiving how much God has blessed them.
SPEAKER_01: Yet, look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Why would we think that when we see how poor Jesus is?
SPEAKER_01: His family was poor, his followers were poor.
SPEAKER_01: And even his followers not only were poor, but bad things kept happening to them, right?
SPEAKER_01: Even though they were faithfully following after God.
SPEAKER_01: Paul kept getting whipped, right?
SPEAKER_01: That you know, he people threw rocks at him.
SPEAKER_01: Peter got crucified upside down.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, this is not the prosperity gospel, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: But that that's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: This is the gospel instead of grace, of actually God gives us incredible gifts that we don't actually deserve.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of deep trials.
SPEAKER_01: See the thing is, we have this overarching belief in society that if you work hard enough, you'll get the good things that you deserve.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And this unfortunately, sadly, has infiltrated portions of the church.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There's the prosperity gospel of wealth, right?
SPEAKER_01: That says if you keep following them, if you keep tithing, right, if you if you're honest in business, if you care for the poor, then God will bless you abundantly, financially, overflowing.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the problem sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, in the words of scripture, it's actually the wicked that prosper instead.
SPEAKER_01: How do you reconcile that with the prosperity gospel?
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There's the prosperity gospel of health, right?
SPEAKER_01: The secular version of it, uh, you might start being familiar with, right?
SPEAKER_01: Depending on how much you like to work out, is if you eat right, you take your supplements, you have enough shaker jars worth of creatine and few supergreens, and you do the right workouts while oh while overall reducing your cortisol levels, you live until you're 120.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Or there's like the spiritual Christian version of this, right?
SPEAKER_01: You you name it, you claim your healing.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If you have enough faith, you'll be healed.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Bad news.
SPEAKER_01: If you aren't healed, it was probably probably because of you.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: This solves, here's what it does: it solves the problem, it solves a theological problem.
SPEAKER_01: It solves the problem of God's omnipotence and his benevolence, right?
SPEAKER_01: His love.
SPEAKER_01: It erases the mystery of why sometimes really bad things happen to good people.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that feels like a win.
SPEAKER_01: But you give up everything else with it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Because you know what happens?
SPEAKER_01: Is it doesn't solve the problem of why some folks lived in '99 on a steady diet of like Marlborough's and Miklobultras.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You're like, hold on, I thought God rewarded people who like did the right thing and He's helping them.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: See, the real problem with the prosperity gospel of health is that people just keep on dying no matter how faithful they are.
SPEAKER_01: Every year, more of us die.
SPEAKER_01: This is how it works.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: This is life as a human under the sun.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Or there's like the um the prosperity gospel of purity culture.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, you know, some of you guys remember what I'm talking about here.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It says these incredible speakers.
SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was like a teenager and in my early 20s, these incredible speakers who you know got in front of tens of thousands of people and said, you know, we did it the Lord's way, we did it the right way, you know, and because we, you know, we we waited not only to have sex until we got married, we waited to kiss until the altar, right?
SPEAKER_01: And now God has just given us this incredible blessing of like, now we have an amazing sex life, and we have just the number of children we would like to have.
SPEAKER_01: And it's because we did it the Lord's way.
SPEAKER_01: You know what they're not mentioning in these?
SPEAKER_01: Is there's plenty of people who did it that way.
SPEAKER_01: And that is, that's a great, absolutely, don't have sex until you get married.
SPEAKER_01: That's very clear in the Bible, right?
SPEAKER_01: With that said, that is not a promise that if you do that, God will do this.
SPEAKER_01: You know how many people I know who did it the right way and are now struggling with infertility, who are now struggling with you know all types of sexual um challenges, right?
SPEAKER_01: And do you know how many people, by God's grace, didn't do it at all God's way, right?
SPEAKER_01: They meet on Tinder, start hooking up immediately, somewhere along the lines, decide to go to church.
SPEAKER_01: God bless them, that's fantastic, right?
SPEAKER_01: Sleep together the whole time, and guess what?
SPEAKER_01: By God's grace and mercy, their lives totally get turned around.
SPEAKER_01: Praise the Lord, and God, out of his mercy, fixes um broken things.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So the reason I tell you all this is because we do the things we know God is calling us to do, not because it's input in, input out.
SPEAKER_01: We do the things we know we ought to do.
SPEAKER_01: We worship God, not because you automatically get something out of it, but because he's worthy.
SPEAKER_01: Amen?
SPEAKER_01: That's why we are have lives devoted to him.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Israelites are called to have lives devoted to him.
SPEAKER_01: And even as their lives are devoted to him, things start getting worse before they start getting better.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like you go to your physical therapist, you start doing the exercises, and you start experiencing a lot more pain before it seems to start getting better.
SPEAKER_01: But the work is being done inside your body, even though you don't realize it, so you keep doing the exercises.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: And these folks, though, they've been walking this road for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: And it says that now they have these broken spirits.
SPEAKER_01: These are folks that are weak and dejected.
SPEAKER_01: They they are not just being pulled out of slavery in Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: God's pulling the slavery out of them.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: There's this kind of exhaustion that people experience when they just they can't even hear words of hope anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Not because they're rebellious, but because they're just depleted, they're exhausted.
SPEAKER_01: You might find yourself there this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Can I ask you something?
SPEAKER_01: If you do, just ask this question.
SPEAKER_01: What is God transforming in you through your broken spirit?
SPEAKER_01: You know, my friend Jerry, we're in this pastoral reading group, and my friend Jerry says that the worst time to write a book on ecclesiology, like how to do church, is when you have a thriving church.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because people who have, you know, thriving churches that are, you know, just kicking butt and taking names.
SPEAKER_01: Just, you know, the folks that are like, you know, coming and talking to the other pastor friends, and the the biggest complaints they have about what's going on at church is we just don't know if we can add a fourth service on Sunday mornings, you know, because we're growing so rapidly.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's so stressful for us, you know.
SPEAKER_01: It's so stressful having another hundred people every Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: It's too much.
SPEAKER_01: You know, those aren't the people who should be writing books on ecclesiology.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he says the challenge is when someone like that writes a book on ecclesiology, what they'll just say is, you should just emulate me, do what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: No, people who the best folks often to write ecclesiology are not writing books on how to do church when their church is at its peak.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Just like the folks, the best folks to write books on parenting are not folks who have three kids under the age of 10 and saying, listen, if you would do what I do, your kids would turn out awesome too.
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes, I'm just telling you guys, I know every person in this room, if you've hung out with people with children, know that the best parenting advice you actually get in life is not from people who have kids at home.
SPEAKER_01: It's people who later reflect and say, oh wow, yeah, I remember those years.
SPEAKER_01: You know, let me empathize with you for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: You know, let me let me walk with you.
SPEAKER_01: Because they've gone through enough, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like the people, I remember I took this um pre- it was like a pre-premarriage class when I was an intern at UPC, um, called Before You Buy the Ring.
SPEAKER_01: And um it wasn't with Mia.
SPEAKER_01: And um and and it was a very successful class because we broke up.
SPEAKER_01: I was 22, I was 22, and there were some mentors in this class.
SPEAKER_01: And these these were very wise.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, these are seasoned people.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, these are very sharp, articulate people who knew a lot about marriage.
SPEAKER_01: They were in their mid-twenties, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And it was so impressive because they knew so much more about life than me, you know.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I love is I love talking to people about marriage that look back on their marriage vows.
SPEAKER_01: And you know who's equipped to give often great marriage advice?
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the people who, when they did their vows, when they talked about sickness and health, have only dealt with health.
SPEAKER_01: It's the folks who've dealt with loss.
SPEAKER_01: It's the folks who have dealt with sickness.
SPEAKER_01: They have a much more sober experience of marriage, and it turns out can help a lot more.
SPEAKER_01: That type of brokenness, that type of suffering often leads to some type of fruitfulness that we wouldn't expect.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So I I you know a picture I had in my mind was about grapes.
SPEAKER_01: You know, grapes end up getting crushed to be useful.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If you leave a grape on the vine, if you leave a grape on the vine, you know what will happen to it?
SPEAKER_01: In a matter of weeks, if not months, is it'll just rot.
SPEAKER_01: It won't be useful for anything.
SPEAKER_01: But you know what's wild?
SPEAKER_01: Is if you take that same grape and then lots more grapes, and you crush it in a vat, you can expel the juice out of it.
SPEAKER_01: And the juice, right from the beginning, you know, we're gonna have juice in a minute for communion, right?
SPEAKER_01: You get some Welch's grape juice, it's delicious, right?
SPEAKER_01: But if you take that and take it another step and wait and let it go for years and years and years, you have this incredible wine that is something that's so brilliant and almost magical, right?
SPEAKER_01: But it starts with being crushed.
SPEAKER_01: None of us want to get crushed.
SPEAKER_01: But this is the human experience.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what's amazing, guys.
SPEAKER_01: What I don't think what we see in scripture is this explanation, even of why it is that bad things happen to good people.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say, why are why are good people getting crushed?
SPEAKER_01: Why are good people having all these bad things happen to them?
SPEAKER_01: You know what I think's happening in scripture?
SPEAKER_01: Scripture is actually saying Old Testament and New.
SPEAKER_01: It's saying life is crushing.
SPEAKER_01: Life is very, very hard.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to experience these trials and tribulations no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone does.
SPEAKER_01: And what scripture says is I'm just so glad God is with me in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: I could have never done it without Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I could have never done it all out on my own.
SPEAKER_01: That's the hope.
SPEAKER_01: That's the promise.
SPEAKER_01: We don't escape being crushed.
SPEAKER_01: It's just that now being crushed feel is actually we actually realize it's useful.
SPEAKER_01: We realize that God actually makes sense out of it.
SPEAKER_01: We realize that God is redeeming it and restoring it and making something beautiful and amazing out of it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: These folks, it says they have these broken spirits.
SPEAKER_01: You know, depending on where you're at today, you might have a hard time looking toward the future and having a lot of hope.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to tell you right now, I just want to tell you as a pastor for a moment, that God does still have an incredible hope and plan for your future.
SPEAKER_01: I know for some of us that sounds almost almost overly flippant, but I need you to hear me today if that message is for you.
SPEAKER_01: For some of us, it's so deeply overwhelming that we can no longer hope.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's you this morning, I want to tell you that God loves you and that God sees you, and that he knows you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we've been seeing in the book of Exodus, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That's true for you this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I just I need you to know that.
SPEAKER_01: As your friend and as your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Because I think what's been so hard for me sometimes is seeing so many people I know suffer.
SPEAKER_01: And it's so hard to get out of that suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's so hard to make any type of sense of it.
SPEAKER_01: I I can't tell you when the suffering's gonna end, right?
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you what the the redeeming part of it is going to be.
SPEAKER_01: But I do know this.
SPEAKER_01: I know that God is with you in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: And if that is you, this one I want you to know that.
SPEAKER_01: You know what the Bible says is the Bible says Jesus was crushed.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says Jesus was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: They that he didn't try to stop from being crushed.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Jesus went willingly to the cross, knowing that him being crushed would actually be the thing that changes life for all of us sitting here in this room.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: It would change everything for us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel is that we worship him no matter what.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because he's worthy.
SPEAKER_01: Even in the midst of that, sometimes a lot of bad stuff happens to us.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it feels like we're being crushed.
SPEAKER_01: And what we hang on to is we know, hold on, Jesus was crushed too.
SPEAKER_01: And so if I am being crushed, that does not mean God has abandoned me.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm being crushed, I'm being crushed like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Father in heaven, thank you for being with us in the midst of suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for being with Israel in the midst of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Help us, Lord, in our weakness.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ's name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_00: Please join us in person for community worship, the breaking of bread, and prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We are located at 512 South Bernard Street, Spokane, Washington.
SPEAKER_00: 59204.