SPEAKER_00: This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_00: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, we've come to see you and to get a bigger understanding of the price of our redemption, but also to see the Father's plan unfold.
SPEAKER_01: It unfolds most clearly in the Bible, which is why we open it up every Sunday and we find the courage to say what it says.
SPEAKER_01: And when I say to say what it says, what I mean is to say what you've said.
SPEAKER_01: Your word is a reflection of your nature and your character.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a suggestion, it's a commandment, and it has on it the authority of God because all scripture is breathed out by God.
SPEAKER_01: No prophecy has its origin in the will of man, but men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So we are going to read from your word this morning.
SPEAKER_01: It's better than the Constitution.
SPEAKER_01: This time of year, a lot of people like to chirp about the Constitution.
SPEAKER_01: We have the word of God, the breath of God down on paper.
SPEAKER_01: And so we come this morning to hear it and to submit to it and to watch the plan of your redemption just kind of unfold another chapter.
SPEAKER_01: Do that in our head and in our heart today.
SPEAKER_01: We pray.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: And everyone said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a seat.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to Exodus chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're our guest today, let me say welcome.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Neil.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a member of Grand Park Ray, let me reintroduce myself.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Neil, and I'm your lead pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I got your snarky emails.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, do you work here anymore?
SPEAKER_01: If you're visiting today, you don't know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of the staff, our church is not built around the personality or the gifts of any one person.
SPEAKER_01: And so once a month somebody else preaches, but in July, the whole staff preaches.
SPEAKER_01: They all, Clyde preached, our worship pastor, Aaron, our student pastor, Wade, our missions outreach pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Had a friend of mine in town come and preach.
SPEAKER_01: Just because I want you to hear from different gifts.
SPEAKER_01: I'm working on a deal where I'm going to have an art and ideal.
SPEAKER_01: I'm working to bring in a worship leader who's also a singer-songwriter.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just going to, he's going to lead us in worship about three songs, and he's going to sit here on a stool and just kind of preach through his instrument and through his gifts.
SPEAKER_01: And so that'll be coming in the next couple of months because I want you to hear the word of God through a bunch of different gifts and people and personalities.
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense?
SPEAKER_01: But today you get to hear, you have to hear me, and for that I'm sorry, because I haven't preached in a couple of weeks, and so y'all gonna get it.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: I'm all backed up.
SPEAKER_01: We were on vacation in Boston last week, and my wife's like, Can you just preach to something?
SPEAKER_01: So I preached to the people at Paul Revere's house, and they all rededicated their life.
SPEAKER_01: So anyway, I want to talk to you this morning about the power of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: The power of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: And by that, I'm gonna start reading in Exodus chapter 4, verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: When I say the power of obedience, here's what I mean: that there's a reality that gets unleashed on our culture when you and I simply obey.
SPEAKER_01: But if you and I do not obey, we don't experience that power, and our culture doesn't hear and see how good God is as compared to everything else, and how right God is.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say the power of obedience, I want you to just kind of listen because we're gonna read the passage.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we do we're gonna read the Bible, and then what I'm gonna say today is gonna come right out of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And the Bible's intended to make you think, not just make you feel.
SPEAKER_01: You will feel some things, but it's intended mostly to affect the way you think.
SPEAKER_01: Because as the Bible says, as a man thinketh, so is he.
SPEAKER_01: And so the Bible changes the way we think.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God never goes out and comes back void, but it accomplishes a purpose for which God sent it.
SPEAKER_01: And so that means that you're here for a reason, and God's word's gonna come into your head and your heart for a reason this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Are you ready for that?
SPEAKER_01: Let's read God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 4, verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This, Moses, now God has appeared to Moses and said, Here, I know you're a murderer, you killed a guy, you got you got a you got a pretty bad past.
SPEAKER_01: But God appears to Moses out in the wilderness and says, I haven't given up on you.
SPEAKER_01: My grace is greater than all your sin.
SPEAKER_01: I got a plan for you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I want you to do.
SPEAKER_01: That's where we drop in the story this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Moses is going to go back to his father-in-law and say, Hey, I can't work for you anymore.
SPEAKER_01: God's got a plan for my life.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what it sounds like.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18, Moses went back to Jethro's father-in-law and said to him, Please let me go back to my brothers in Egypt to see whether they are still alive.
SPEAKER_01: And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said to Moses in Midian, Go back to Egypt, for all the men who are seeking your life are dead.
SPEAKER_01: So Moses took his wife and his sons and had them ride on a donkey and went back to the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses took the staff of God in his hand.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go.
SPEAKER_01: Then you shall say to Pharaoh, Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me.
SPEAKER_01: If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.
SPEAKER_01: At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death.
SPEAKER_01: And then Zipprah, Moses' wife.
SPEAKER_01: Zippara took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.
SPEAKER_01: So he let him alone.
SPEAKER_01: It was then that she said, A bridegroom of blood, because of the circumcision.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.
SPEAKER_01: So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.
SPEAKER_01: Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses, and did the signs in the sight of the people.
SPEAKER_01: And the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel, and he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshipped.
SPEAKER_01: When I say the power of obedience, again, let me tell you what I mean.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have time to go into this.
SPEAKER_01: But let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: Just because you've heard from God, and you can't use the will of God to justify treating people badly.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Moses didn't go back and say, I've heard from God, I'm out of here.
SPEAKER_01: This is beneath me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna do this anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I've got a new job, they're gonna pay me more, and they got dental insurance.
SPEAKER_01: No, he's heard from God.
SPEAKER_01: I just I'm just gonna tell you, here's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: If you're the only person that believes what you're fixing to do is God's will, you need to listen carefully.
SPEAKER_01: Because it wasn't just Moses that heard from God.
SPEAKER_01: He goes to his father-in-law, and his father-in-law says, Go in peace.
SPEAKER_01: And so the first thing we see that gets unleashed in the power of obedience, number one, is the power of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: The power of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord said to Moses, When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I put in your power, but I will harden his heart that we not that he will not let the people go.
SPEAKER_01: Now get that for a second.
SPEAKER_01: God gives He gives Moses the power to do miracles.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you wish he gave you that as well?
SPEAKER_01: You ever ask yourself what you'd do with it if you had that?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why God doesn't give me the power to do miracles.
SPEAKER_01: Because when people at a red light, here's how shallow I am.
SPEAKER_01: When people at a red light in front of me don't go and the light turns green, if I had power, boom, they're done right there.
SPEAKER_01: I give them a little friendly honk, and then I'm kind of like, oh Lord, I'm gonna have to call down fire on some fools here that can't pay attention, especially if they're doing this and looking at their phone.
SPEAKER_01: I just pull up beside them and just stare at them.
SPEAKER_01: And my wife, who thinks she has to fix me, kind of says, What do you think that's doing anything?
SPEAKER_01: It feels good to me, hush woman.
SPEAKER_01: But God gives him, I mean, get this.
SPEAKER_01: God gives Moses the power to do these miracles and he goes and does them, but God says this.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm not sending you on fools, Aaron.
SPEAKER_01: I just want you to know you're gonna say, let my people go, and he's not gonna do it because I'm gonna harden his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because God is demonstrating the power of his sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: Now what I mean when I say sovereignty, sovereignty is simply this: it's supreme power or authority.
SPEAKER_01: The people in Exodus, they lived in a day, that the children of Israel back in this time of Exodus, they they they lived in a day when everyone thought of human rulers what they were created to think about God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again, and I'm gonna bring it to the modern day.
SPEAKER_01: People back then thought about human rulers what they were created to think about God, like some of you think Donald Trump is the answer to your problems.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you think Hillary Clinton, I mean, you're in worse shape if you think Hillary Clinton's the answer to your problems.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I don't I don't get into Democrat, Republican, this, that, and the other.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just saying this.
SPEAKER_01: People back in the Bible, let's get back in the Bible where it's safe, okay?
SPEAKER_01: People back in the Bible, not nowadays, okay?
SPEAKER_01: That people back in the Bible believed, oh man, they thought about people the way they were created to think about God.
SPEAKER_01: And so what does God do?
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't get mad, he doesn't get jealous.
SPEAKER_01: God declares himself by establishing what all and who all he has control over.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: God declares himself by establishing what all and who over, who all he has authority over.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone thought that Pharaoh was the most powerful man on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Oh man, don't mess with Pharaoh.
SPEAKER_01: And God says, okay, I'll start with him.
SPEAKER_01: You say, why?
SPEAKER_01: Because God reveals what he's like by revealing the scope of his influence, what he's in charge of, what he has dominion over.
SPEAKER_01: We do the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: You're at a dinner party and people chat with you, and then they say, Oh, tell me about you, Bill, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01: And you tell them what you do, don't you?
SPEAKER_01: That's why I try to think of an intelligent way to tell people I'm a pastor, because then when people find I'm a pastor, they go, oh, and they're thinking, have I said bad words in this conversation?
SPEAKER_01: Uh uh uh so I just say crazy stuff like I'm a relationship consultant.
SPEAKER_01: They go, oh, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01: Uh I consult people on how to develop and maintain the most significant relationship in their life.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so you're like a financial advisor.
SPEAKER_01: No, if that was the most if that was the most important relationship, then the word bankruptcy would have no definition, but it does, so that can't be the most important relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And besides, the relationship I consult people about transcends this life.
SPEAKER_01: And then they're like, I just I just want to stop.
SPEAKER_01: Let's just but God's that way.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you but here's the thing, here's what you don't do.
SPEAKER_01: People ask you, see, we we gotta get out of the habit of trying to describe God and define God to people by telling people just how God feels about them.
SPEAKER_01: The reason some of you in this room don't respect God or the things of God, or you're here because your friends invited you, or your wife nagged you, whatever, is you've been told your whole life God loves you and thinks you're swell.
SPEAKER_01: And God would appreciate your vote.
SPEAKER_01: And somewhere, if you're honest, you're kind of like, I'm not really impressed with that guy.
SPEAKER_01: No one's looked at you and said, Hey, God's doing okay without you, and God will be glorified in your life, or God will be glorified in your death.
SPEAKER_01: But either way, God's gonna get glorified.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be like, Oh, what you're talking about, Willis?
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: See, but that's what God does.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't start, no one says to you, hey, what do you do for a living, Tim?
SPEAKER_01: You go, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: Dude, this just got creepy all of a sudden, okay?
SPEAKER_01: No, you tell them, hey, I'm assistant principal at a high school right up the road, or I teach tenth grade or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And they're like, hey, God says, hey, I want to demonstrate my sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: If you're in chapter four and you want to follow along, turn to the right, to chapter nine of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you something.
SPEAKER_01: I want to show you the extent of God's sovereignty because a lot of times in church, when we talk about God's sovereignty, he sounds like this crusty old curmudgeon, this cold-hearted, and doesn't care about anybody or anything.
SPEAKER_01: That's not true.
SPEAKER_01: So if that's you, just keep your head open, keep your mind open for a minute.
SPEAKER_01: Let me just read from Exodus chapter 9, verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: This is what what we mean when God says, Hey, I you're gonna go tell Pharaoh, let my people go, but he's not, because I'm gonna harden his heart.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: Exodus 9, 13.
SPEAKER_01: Things have already happened.
SPEAKER_01: God has sent six different plagues to introduce himself, to say, hey, this is the realm of which things I have control over.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 13 of Exodus 9.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord said to Moses, Rise up early in the morning and present yourself before Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, let my people go, that they may serve me.
SPEAKER_01: That word service, worship, is a better translation.
SPEAKER_01: For this time I will send all my plagues on yourself and on your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me in all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.
SPEAKER_01: But for this purpose I've raised you up to show my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: You are still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.
SPEAKER_01: See, one of the reasons we don't like the sovereignty of God is that we like to think of ourselves as sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: Your issue is not with the people in Africa who's never heard, or the are the really religious person, or the person is not religious, but is a good person.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how does a loving God send that person to hell?
SPEAKER_01: Your issue is not with the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_01: Your issue is that you want to be sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: And my issue is that I want to be sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Pharaoh, he God said, You're still exalting yourself against my people and will not let them go.
SPEAKER_01: You're leading people to think, Pharaoh, that you're in charge of the world.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18, Behold, about this time tomorrow I will cause very heavy hell to fall, such as never been in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.
SPEAKER_01: Now, therefore, send, get your livestock and all that you have in the field into safe shelter.
SPEAKER_01: For every man and beast that is in the field and is not brought home will die when the hail falls on them.
SPEAKER_01: And then whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh, no is that.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible's so subtle.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh, these are these are the Egyptians.
SPEAKER_01: These are people like, but they had this sense of Pharaoh is not the biggest thing in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever feared the word of the Lord among the servants of Pharaoh hurried his slaves and his livestock into the houses.
SPEAKER_01: But whoever did not pay attention to the word of the Lord left his slaves and his livestock in the field.
SPEAKER_01: We'll stop right there.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we read that?
SPEAKER_01: Because I want to give you a fuller dimensional understanding of what we mean when the Bible talks about that God is sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: There's four things to keep in mind about God's sovereignty from this short little story in Exodus 9.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, God's sovereignty is never subjected to our circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: God's sovereignty is never subjected to our circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: Translation, we can't say things didn't go the way I wanted.
SPEAKER_01: God must not be in control.
SPEAKER_01: We're all gonna be faced with that.
SPEAKER_01: There are things that happen in my life that I just kind of think, man, if I was in charge, I'd die.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, how could a good God let this happen?
SPEAKER_01: Are you are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: And and yet the reality is at the core of that, I want to be in charge.
SPEAKER_01: Second thing we take away about sovereignty is God's sovereignty is expressed in what he does and what he doesn't do.
SPEAKER_01: It's expressed in what he does and what he doesn't do.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't here on Tuesday, I was on vacation with my family.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I hear we had a bad storm on Tuesday night.
SPEAKER_01: Was that true?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Would any of you say it was the worst storm you've ever seen in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Did you run in your kids' bedroom, wake your kids up and go, quick, get some gopher wood, build the ark, this is the end.
SPEAKER_01: No, you wouldn't.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I say that?
SPEAKER_01: Because God says to them, and it's very subtle, but he says early on in this section, verse 15, he says, For by now I could have put out my hand and struck you and your people with pestilence, and you would have been cut off from the earth.
SPEAKER_01: See, sovereignty is expressed in what God does, but it's also expressed in what he doesn't do.
SPEAKER_01: Most of you, your beliefs about sovereignty are based on what you know God has done.
SPEAKER_01: What you need to confess today is that the best part of God's sovereignty is in what he doesn't do.
SPEAKER_01: God says to them, Hey, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: I could have stretched out my hand and wiped you off the face of the earth, but I haven't.
SPEAKER_01: And you understand this more than you give yourself credit for.
SPEAKER_01: Allow me to demonstrate.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you in this room have ever gone out and you knew it was wrong before you did it, but you got dressed up and you made plans and you went out and did it anyway, and when you got back, the thought went through your mind, maybe not this raw or this authentic, but somewhere in you, the thought went through your mind, Lord, thank you for not killing me for what I just did.
SPEAKER_01: Can I see your hand?
SPEAKER_01: Hold it up real high, you wretched wicked people.
SPEAKER_01: You understand sovereignty more than you give yourself credit for.
SPEAKER_01: See, God's sovereignty is expressed in what he does, but also in what he doesn't do.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing is God's is sovereign and he's merciful.
SPEAKER_01: He's sovereign, but he's merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say this the attributes of God they exist in harmony with one another.
SPEAKER_01: That God is sovereign doesn't mean he's not loving.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: God says, hey, this time tomorrow I'm gonna send a storm, a hail storm, the which the likes of which you've never seen before.
SPEAKER_01: You have no frame of reference.
SPEAKER_01: You think Tuesday night was bad.
SPEAKER_01: I got so much more than that that I could bring on you, but I'm not here to destroy you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm here to convince you that I am sovereign.
SPEAKER_01: You should feel about me the way you feel about no one else in the world, which is why the first commandment is you shall have no other gods before me, be it Pharaoh or Donald Trump or Ted Cruz or Hillary Clinton or whoever.
SPEAKER_01: Save your highest allegiance for me, God says.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Hey, this is gonna come about this time tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: So get your servants and your animals out of the field, because if you leave them out there, I'm gonna crush them.
SPEAKER_01: He's merciful.
SPEAKER_01: Don't think that God's this cold, unfeeling deity up in the heavens who just kind of gets his jollies by wrecking people's life.
SPEAKER_01: Fourth thing I want you to understand about sovereignty is the purpose of sovereignty is worship.
SPEAKER_01: The purpose of sovereignty is worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God says back in in Exodus chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: When God says, And the Lord said, When you go back to Egypt, see you perform before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power, but I will harden his heart so they will not let the people go.
SPEAKER_01: Over and over in Exodus, Pharaoh hardens his heart, he and his people harden their heart, God hardens his heart.
SPEAKER_01: Why is that?
SPEAKER_01: Because God is weaning his people off of thinking of anybody else what they were created to think about him.
SPEAKER_01: Let me ask you a question to think about before you go to sleep tonight.
SPEAKER_01: Who has a place of prominence in your life that they shouldn't have?
SPEAKER_01: For some of you, it's a person you date right now.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not I'm not a woman, so I don't understand this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not making light of this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a young woman.
SPEAKER_01: I I just see a lot of, you know, 16 to 20 to 25 year olds that are kind of like, oh, my boyfriend broke up with me.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what I'd do.
SPEAKER_01: Party.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you should do.
SPEAKER_01: I just I just don't get giving somebody that much power over your affections.
SPEAKER_01: I don't.
SPEAKER_01: I know I'm an old man.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, hey, dude, you don't understand.
SPEAKER_01: I I I get that, but I just, at some point, your emotions would be better served if you had a good theology of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: That I don't have to put up with this because God made more people and they're all not this stupid.
SPEAKER_01: Let's stand for the benediction.
SPEAKER_01: I think we could be done right there.
SPEAKER_01: See, see, the power of obedience, the first thing that's unleashed is the power of uh of sovereignty.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, the power of sonship.
SPEAKER_01: Look in Exodus chapter 4, verse 22.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: He says, Then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, let my son go, that he may serve me.
SPEAKER_01: If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son.
SPEAKER_01: See, it it this is the heart of Exodus right here.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Exodus doesn't make sense unless you see it through the lens, not of God emancipating slaves, but a father claiming back his son.
SPEAKER_01: See, see, this is the heart of it.
SPEAKER_01: Israel is the son of God's choice.
SPEAKER_01: And the Exodus story is about sonship.
SPEAKER_01: It's about a father's love for his only son.
SPEAKER_01: Again, not the emancipation of slaves, the not emancipation, the release of slaves, but but it's repatriation, the return of a son.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me just get down to where we live.
SPEAKER_01: Uh don't raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're in this room and you've had a kid that's gotten off the reservation as they got a little older, maybe they went off to college uh and and and they just went crazy and you're kind of like, what?
SPEAKER_01: You don't know, you think everything's going well because they call you, hey mom, dad, it's awesome.
SPEAKER_01: How you doing?
SPEAKER_01: Good, good, good.
SPEAKER_01: And then you get that first grade report.
SPEAKER_01: And you're on the phone, you get it in the mail, you're like, clearly, our son's discovered tequila.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on up there?
SPEAKER_01: And so you ring up the phone and you're just kind of like, but if you've ever had a child that's gotten off the reservation, and I'm not making light of this, it breaks your heart.
SPEAKER_01: You're kind of like, are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: And you threaten them and you cut the money off, and you say, if you ever do this again, we're not gonna help you out.
SPEAKER_01: You are on your own, you're old enough to know better.
SPEAKER_01: And two months later, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: They do the same thing again.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what you do?
SPEAKER_01: You bail them out.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you?
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't hear you.
SPEAKER_01: I know you're kind of like, we don't want everybody to know.
SPEAKER_01: You know why you do that?
SPEAKER_01: Because they're your son or daughter.
SPEAKER_01: I had a friend's daughter went to Baylor, and they they're very fluent.
SPEAKER_01: This is back in the back a long time ago.
SPEAKER_01: We wrote these things called checks, little rectangular pieces of paper, and one month she bounced 17 checks.
SPEAKER_01: $35 a whack service fee.
SPEAKER_01: He gave her a stern talking to, and he's like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with her.
SPEAKER_01: And at the time I didn't have kids, and I was just kind of like, child, please cut that kid off.
SPEAKER_01: Two months later, she bounced 15 checks.
SPEAKER_01: He looked at her and he's like, What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Dad, I just like to shop.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't I she never bounced a checkbook in her life.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, I just know my my mom and dad.
SPEAKER_01: This is my favorite part.
SPEAKER_01: My mom and dad have enough money to cover it, so why should I have to figure out how much is in there?
SPEAKER_01: Help me, help you.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking at the guy kind of like, I'll tell you what my kid.
SPEAKER_01: And he just looked up with tears in his eyes and said, You don't have kids, so don't go there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, if you've had kids that go off the reservation, may I be off the reservation right now, you understand the book of Exodus more than the rest of us.
SPEAKER_01: Because it is a father saying, Give me back my son.
SPEAKER_01: Long before Mel Gibson said it in a movie called Ransom.
SPEAKER_01: God says, Give me back my son.
SPEAKER_01: Israel's my firstborn.
SPEAKER_01: And if you fail to see this, then you fail to understand the big picture, the sweeping narrative of the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you miss the Exodus story, then you miss the heart of the gospel story.
SPEAKER_01: What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Because God says, Hey, give it back my son, and then say Israel will go out and sin.
SPEAKER_01: And then God would forgive them.
SPEAKER_01: And they'd say, We're not going to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And then they'd go out and sin, and God would forgive them and take them back.
SPEAKER_01: And then they'd say, We're not going to do it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: We promised, and they'd go out and sin.
SPEAKER_01: I'm about at one point, God's like, I just want to wipe these people out.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sick of these people.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because Israel, God's firstborn son, couldn't live up to their position as the son.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not without accident that shortly after Jesus was born, remember he and his Mary and Joseph went down to Egypt to flee from Herod.
SPEAKER_01: When Herod died, this is what the Bible says.
SPEAKER_01: He says, out of Egypt I'd called my son.
SPEAKER_01: And at this time it wasn't Israel, it was the perfect son, Jesus, who did what Israel never could.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say that, hey, this is the power of sonship.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you see.
SPEAKER_01: If you understand the even now, all the leaders, somebody asked Carly Fiorina in an interview last week, you know, what are you going to do on your first day in the White House if you're elected?
SPEAKER_01: She said, Well, I'm going to call my good friend Benjamin Net and Netanyahu, and I'm going to remind him that we stand with Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And I was sitting in a room with some people, and I'm like, What's the big deal about Israel?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, How much time you got?
SPEAKER_01: And it's not a political thing.
SPEAKER_01: God set his affection on Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not that God hates all the other nations around Israel.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't.
SPEAKER_01: But God said, Hey, you're this little speck of dust on the scales of the world, and I'm going to glorify myself.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not choosing you because you're strong, because you got a good military, all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: You are not a people, but I'm going to make you the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm your father and you're going to be my son.
SPEAKER_01: And what you see all through Exodus is the power of sonship is just kind of borne out over and over and over.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing we see in the passage this morning is the power of the blood.
SPEAKER_01: Now, starting in verse 24, verses 24, 25, and 26, it's one of those sections of the Bible that we preachers never talk about.
SPEAKER_01: You read about it and you just skip down to verse 27 and keep going.
SPEAKER_01: And y'all come up afterwards and kind of go, hey, you skipped that part about that woman taking a flint knife and cutting off her son's foreskin.
SPEAKER_01: What was that about?
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not important.
SPEAKER_01: Just just keep going.
SPEAKER_01: God be with you, go in peace.
SPEAKER_01: Third thing you see is the power of the blood.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met with him and sought to put him to death.
SPEAKER_01: And then Zippara, that's Moses' wife, took a flint, which is a sharp rock, and she cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it and said, Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me.
SPEAKER_01: So he let him alone.
SPEAKER_01: It was then that she said, A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say the power of the blood, to understand this section, you need to get your mind, get in your mind how seriously God takes himself and his commands.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense what I just said?
SPEAKER_01: To understand what just happened, you have to get in your mind how seriously God takes himself.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want to help us understand that.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read you a quote from a man named John Piper.
SPEAKER_01: He was a pastor for years.
SPEAKER_01: He went to one church, stayed there for 20-something years, and then he retired, gave it over to some younger guy.
SPEAKER_01: Now he writes books and leads a seminary.
SPEAKER_01: But John says this: He says the foundation of our justification, our acquittal, our forgiveness is not a flimsy sentimentality in God, nor is it a shallow claim of human worth.
SPEAKER_01: It is a massive rock of God's unswerving commitment to uphold the worth of his own glory, to promote the praise of his holy name, and to vindicate his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: The God-centeredness of God is the foundation of his grace to the ungodly.
SPEAKER_01: If God were not committed first to vindicate the worth of his own glory, there would be no gospel and no hope, for there would be no glorious God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, but because God is glorious and he is going to vindicate his righteousness, he doesn't let Moses slide.
SPEAKER_01: Which, what the Bible tells us, is that while they were on their way, get this in your mind, Moses, the man who God selected to lead the Exodus, to lead his people out of bondage, God comes and God is going to kill Moses because Moses has been living in disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: Moses did not circumcise his son.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, that's a personal matter right there.
SPEAKER_01: Who is God to get in on that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, only except for the fact that circumcision was a sign of the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh you've already said circumcision four times.
SPEAKER_01: Can I say that again?
SPEAKER_01: With a rock.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: You say, what are you saying?
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying that God threatens most.
SPEAKER_01: It was a high, let me own this myself.
SPEAKER_01: It was a high and holy day when I was in college.
SPEAKER_01: I was 20 years old.
SPEAKER_01: I was about sharp enough to stick in the ground and green enough to grow.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know diddly.
SPEAKER_01: And I had a godly old man for an Old Testament class, and he was teaching about this, and he looked at us and said, Men, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: God was prepared to kill Moses for his disobedience, and he'll kill you for yours.
SPEAKER_01: And we were all kind of like, and then he just leaned over his podium and said, So watch what you do with your girlfriends when no one's watching.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh.
SPEAKER_01: No one said a word.
SPEAKER_01: You could hear the hum of the lights and the scene.
SPEAKER_01: Finally, from the back, this guy goes, Well, I don't believe in a God that kills his children.
SPEAKER_01: Then how do you explain the cross, son?
SPEAKER_01: And he flipped over to 1 John, where the Bible clearly says, for the believer, there's a sin unto death.
SPEAKER_01: And this old man who's dead now loved us enough to look at these cocky, arrogant, full of ourselves kids that were preparing for ministry and said, Boys, if you persist in sin, God will kill you and take you home to heaven, then leave you here and let you cause people stumble.
SPEAKER_01: He loves his glory and the fame of his name more than he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: No one had ever told me that in my life.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember looking at him like going, What you just said is so liberating.
SPEAKER_01: I think I need to think about that.
SPEAKER_01: And from the back of the class, one of the guys said, Say that again.
SPEAKER_01: And the professor said, This won't be on the test, but it should be.
SPEAKER_01: And he just kind of took about two minutes to just to talk about how God loves his glory more than anything.
SPEAKER_01: And so years ago, when I was speaking in a state evangelism conference, and a group came out and sang, God loves people more than anything.
SPEAKER_01: God loves people more than anything.
SPEAKER_01: My spirit was grieved.
SPEAKER_01: Because we'd fallen from a really biblical view of who God is and what moves God's heart to a very man-centered view.
SPEAKER_01: I just, this makes no sense unless you understand.
SPEAKER_01: Now stick with me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to I I I I won't read it to you, but Genesis chapter 17, about verses 9 to 14, that's where God says, hey, circumcision is a sign of the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: And those who are not, every male that's not circumcised should be cut off from his people.
SPEAKER_01: God takes what he says seriously.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't walk out of that classroom that day as a college kid and think, man, God's angry.
SPEAKER_01: I walked out of there and I thought, hey, don't sin.
SPEAKER_01: Stop living in sin.
SPEAKER_01: Stop acting like just because nobody knows, or we're considering young adults, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: It matters.
SPEAKER_01: Before I graduated, I went back and told that man, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I said, just the way you talked about God and the seriousness with which God takes himself.
SPEAKER_01: That really was a good thing for me.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, you're welcome, son.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say this to you, mom and dad.
SPEAKER_01: Be sure you require of your kids all that God requires of them.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: There's a good chance.
SPEAKER_01: A little Bible history?
SPEAKER_01: You open for that?
SPEAKER_01: Pretty still in here, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Some of y'all are like, Did you say God was here, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: God shows up to kill Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Best we can tell, Moses was not circumcised as a baby.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, they hit him in the little basket in the river.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't circumcise him because he would cry out because it's painful.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That's why they do it when you're little, because if you're older and they do it, you're gonna kill some people.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses probably wasn't circumcised, best we can tell.
SPEAKER_01: But when Pharaoh's daughter found him, took him into Pharaoh's castle.
SPEAKER_01: But the Egyptians had a way of doing it.
SPEAKER_01: It was called partial circumcision.
SPEAKER_01: They just kind of nipped a little bit of the foreskin and said, That's good enough for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so Moses had that experience, and so Moses said, Hey, you know, I'm okay, and it's fine.
SPEAKER_01: Best we can tell, Moses had to get circumcised as an adult before he married Zipporah because her dad was a priest.
SPEAKER_01: Her dad said, You're gonna be a man of the covenant.
SPEAKER_01: You ain't getting my daughter.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is why God comes.
SPEAKER_01: And to kill Moses, because Moses has lived in what I call interpreted obedience.
SPEAKER_01: I know that God says this in Genesis 17, but this was okay for me, and it's okay for my kids.
SPEAKER_01: You don't get to determine what's okay for your kids when it comes to the clear teaching of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: You we don't get to decide for our kids.
SPEAKER_01: Don't give your kids permission that the Bible doesn't, because they will consume that upon their lust and destroy themselves, and you'll live the rest of your life knowing that was your fault.
SPEAKER_01: That don't wash off with soap and water, beloved.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I say the power of the blood, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: Let me bring this down to where you live.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the power of the blood.
SPEAKER_01: The shedding of blood because of an act of obedience by someone else.
SPEAKER_01: In this case, Zippara, Moses' wife, the shedding of blood because of an act of obedience by someone else is the only thing that turns God's wrath away from Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Reminds you of anything?
SPEAKER_01: You see, beloved, the same is true for us.
SPEAKER_01: Except it's the shedding of Christ's blood on the cross, his act of obedience.
SPEAKER_01: If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
SPEAKER_01: But nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done.
SPEAKER_01: The shedding of blood because of an act of obedience by Jesus Christ is the only thing that turns God's wrath away from you and me.
SPEAKER_01: That's the testimony that's unleashed.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power of obedience as you're testifying to the sufficiency of the blood, which is why the book of Revelation says they overcame by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.
SPEAKER_01: Last thing we see in this passage is the power of testimony.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27.
SPEAKER_01: You still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27, the Lord said to Aaron, Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.
SPEAKER_01: So he went and he met him at the mountain of God and kissed him.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses told Aaron all the words that the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do.
SPEAKER_01: And then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the side of the people.
SPEAKER_01: Did you hear what just happened?
SPEAKER_01: See, God told Moses, hey, here's the signs, here's the miracles I want you to perform, and here's the words I want you to say.
SPEAKER_01: What did Moses do?
SPEAKER_01: He went and told Aaron.
SPEAKER_01: And Aaron goes and tells the people.
SPEAKER_01: They don't have to make it up, they just gotta be obedient.
SPEAKER_01: They just gotta open their mouth.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens?
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 31.
SPEAKER_01: And verse 30, Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the side of the people.
SPEAKER_01: And what happens?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 31, and the people believed.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I told you a couple weeks ago that it was like pantheistic and synchristic, they believed, and then this panacea of God.
SPEAKER_01: They had all this array of gods, and they just believed all this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: That's why in the next chapter, chapter five, when Moses goes to Pharaoh and says, Let my people go, and Pharaoh's gonna say, I don't, who is the Lord that I should obey him?
SPEAKER_01: I do not know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: I will not do what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because they had a multitude of gods.
SPEAKER_01: But when when God told Moses, and Moses told Aaron, and Aaron told the people, the people said, We believe that you are the one true God.
SPEAKER_01: And what did they do in response to that?
SPEAKER_01: It says right there, he says, Hey, and the people believed, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and they worshiped.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, do you realize that our city's full of people who just want to know what's worth bowing to?
SPEAKER_01: What's worth paying homage to?
SPEAKER_01: What's worth being uncomfortable?
SPEAKER_01: We're on vacation in uh this past week we went to Boston for a few days, and then we drove down to New Jersey to hang out at the beach with some friends of ours.
SPEAKER_01: And we were in Boston, and our youngest was watching Food Network.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you know, there's a TV network dedicated to food.
SPEAKER_01: God's gonna get us for that, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but in the meantime, the women in my house love it.
SPEAKER_01: My 12-year-old saw a special best thing I ever ate.
SPEAKER_01: And there was about a bakery in Boston called Flour.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Oh, Dad, if we could find a flower, there's three locations.
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to go.
SPEAKER_01: We're driving to our hotel, and she goes, Oh, flour! And I was like, I'm glad I got a Visa card two blocks from the hotel.
SPEAKER_01: And so we'd walk down there every day and have brunch.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Because I like to sleep in on vacation.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and we're sitting there, we get our food, and you're maybe eight blocks from Harvard, and there's all kinds of just liberal zaniness in that in that restaurant.
SPEAKER_01: And we get our food, and I looked at my kids and I said, We're gonna pray to the one true God.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what the girl with pink hair and and half pink and half blue and nose range, I don't care what she thinks.
SPEAKER_01: I ain't hating on her, but we're not gonna look around and go, Yeah, looks like we're in the minority, kids.
SPEAKER_01: I might have prayed a little louder, even.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Because our city is full.
SPEAKER_01: That city is full of people that are longing for something to believe.
SPEAKER_01: Tell me about a God that I I can give my life to and not feel intellectually foolish, like I committed intellectual suicide, uh, but but also a God that cares about me, that understands what I'm going through.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, earlier this summer, my wife and I went to Austin for a couple days to get away.
SPEAKER_01: Just to go, hey, one kid's in Costa Rica, one's at medical school camp.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: Walking down the street, I'm at a red light, I cross the street, and then somebody rolls down the back window, and a lady in our church leans her head out and says, What are you doing here?
SPEAKER_01: It's like you church people are everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Hide your beer, honey.
SPEAKER_01: There's church members.
SPEAKER_01: We walk about another block, I go into a store.
SPEAKER_01: You know, Austin's big thing is keep Austin weird.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this is like the kitschy capital.
SPEAKER_01: And I walk in and I'm looking around, and this lady walks up, and she's got the dyed black hair with the cab eye glasses and the tattoos and everything, and got the bangs and kind of gnawed them off with a pair of dull scissors.
SPEAKER_01: And and it's a look in Austin, you gotta see it.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Can I help you?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Yeah, I like to ask random people random questions.
SPEAKER_01: Where were you born?
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, Oh my gosh, uh.
SPEAKER_01: And when she talked, some of you know this.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know that smell that you have after you drink too much whiskey the night before?
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, Wade Collyer, I see your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Are there others?
SPEAKER_01: Mike Coogler, I see your hand.
SPEAKER_01: The bustles await.
SPEAKER_01: Come forward while the pastor prays.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's kind of like this sour mash.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, she was like, and and and and I was just talking and I said, Well, do you prosecute shoplifters?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, What?
SPEAKER_01: I said, You gotta watch me, you never know.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, What do you what do you do for a living?
SPEAKER_01: I said, It's none of your business.
SPEAKER_01: Shut your mouth.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Oh my gosh, now I'm just gonna talk to you.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, please don't.
SPEAKER_01: Your breath is horrible.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't say that part.
SPEAKER_01: What I said was, because he just, hey, it's just find the courage to say.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, Lord, what do I because I was like, what are we doing in the store?
SPEAKER_01: We'd been in the store actually for a little bit before the lady walked over because my wife wanted to look at stuff, which means I want to physically touch everything in the store.
SPEAKER_01: After about 10 minutes, I'm ready to touch my wife around the neck and go, let's go.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just standing there, and the lady's like, Can't help you.
SPEAKER_01: And so I thought, well, why am I in here, Lord?
SPEAKER_01: God says, This is why you're in here.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're just talking, and I said, out of my mouth, what kind of whiskey did you drink last night?
SPEAKER_01: And she went, Oh my gosh, how'd you know that?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Because I'm creskin.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Who's creskin?
SPEAKER_01: I said, before your time, because you're just a kid, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Yeah, I drank bullet whiskey last night, and it's good.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, I'm a pedicab driver, which is like a bicycle with a box on the back, where you drive drunk people around Austin.
SPEAKER_01: It's a great job.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and she said, I'm a pedicab driver.
SPEAKER_01: I do that at night.
SPEAKER_01: I work in a store during the day.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, How's that working for you?
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, So tell me something about yourself.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Do you are in a relationship?
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a dog, a cat, boyfriend, girlfriend, whatever?
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, What do you mean?
SPEAKER_01: I said, This is Austin.
SPEAKER_01: It's weird.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, I'm not really with anybody.
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of recovering from a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: And we're just talking along there.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Why am I just telling you my life story?
SPEAKER_01: I said, Because everybody wants somebody to know them.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, Oh my gosh, what do you do for a living?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Actually, I passed her a church, and she said, Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Are you trying to remember if you said cuss words?
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Yes.
SPEAKER_01: You said three.
SPEAKER_01: And one of them had had like a hyphen in it.
SPEAKER_01: She says, I am so sorry.
SPEAKER_01: And I says, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're talking along there.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, and I said, hey, I don't preach on like you know, Monday afternoons.
SPEAKER_01: But let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: Don't lie to yourself about what's going to satisfy you.
SPEAKER_01: And her eyes filled up with tears.
SPEAKER_01: She said, Oh my gosh, I need to go in the back.
SPEAKER_01: You know, when you're fixing a cry, you get that choppy.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, just I'm not trying to embarrass you, affront you.
SPEAKER_01: Just, and I'm not saying this isn't really you, Betty Bop, or whatever you got going on here.
SPEAKER_01: I just think deep inside there's a little girl that knows what satisfies this woman.
SPEAKER_01: Don't cry because I look abusive.
SPEAKER_01: I can't stand that.
SPEAKER_01: I said, you want to just walk away now like nothing happened?
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01: I said, okay.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: So she walks off, walks to the back of the store, runs into my wife.
SPEAKER_01: My wife starts talking to her.
SPEAKER_01: My wife makes her cry.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes back to the back.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, She went back to the back.
SPEAKER_01: What'd you say?
SPEAKER_01: Nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I was just telling, I'm waiting on my wife, like I always do.
SPEAKER_01: To quote that great theologian Brad Paisley, I'm just waiting on a woman.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I tell you that?
SPEAKER_01: Look at me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to be funny.
SPEAKER_01: All I said to a total stranger was, What kind of whiskey did you drink last night?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you don't need to know more of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Most of you do.
SPEAKER_01: Let's be honest.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not knowing, you know, I need to memorize the book of Leviticus.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01: You need to speak out what you already know to be the truth.
SPEAKER_01: And what if this all today, and I'll be done?
SPEAKER_01: What if all this today, this power of testimony, on the and the one thing that gets a lead?
SPEAKER_01: What if this?
SPEAKER_01: Can we just, but what if this is the question we need to think about.
SPEAKER_01: Can we enter a new school year with this simple kind of faith where we just kind of say, could you say to God this morning, God, I'm gonna say whatever you give me to say, and I'm gonna do whatever you give me to do.
SPEAKER_01: And if you give me some miraculous power, that would be awesome too.
SPEAKER_01: Because I do some crazy stuff.
SPEAKER_01: All for you.
SPEAKER_01: But just because see, everybody wants miraculous power, but no one wants to speak up in the moment.
SPEAKER_01: So that's because when you retell the story, you ever notice you insert all the things you should have said, but didn't?
SPEAKER_01: If she said this, and then I said blah, blah, blah.
SPEAKER_01: And your husband says, Did you say that?
SPEAKER_01: No, but I thought it.
SPEAKER_01: Hey.
SPEAKER_01: People can't believe on the basis of what you just think.
SPEAKER_01: And God told Moses, and Moses told Aaron, and Aaron told the elders and the people of Israel, and they all believed.
SPEAKER_01: That means, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: They came to faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: They all renounced all this other nonsense.
SPEAKER_01: It was salvific.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the Bible says in James that the power of life and death is in the tongue.
SPEAKER_01: You have that power.
SPEAKER_01: Unleash it to the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean go around saying harsh things to people.
SPEAKER_01: My work here's done.
SPEAKER_01: I was walking out.
SPEAKER_01: A lady came out from the back.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's like, I found a purse.
SPEAKER_01: I want to get Amy Ewing for her birthday.
SPEAKER_01: I look at the price tag.
SPEAKER_01: Do we know her that well?
SPEAKER_01: The lady with the tattoos and the piercings comes up to me and looks at me across the store and says, Fight the power.
SPEAKER_01: And I walked out.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't pull out a business card and say, Hey, would you like to listen to my podcast?
SPEAKER_01: I teach the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: But I called some friends that live in Austin and said, Hey, won't you get out of your office, reading your books, and take your little self down there on Congress?
SPEAKER_01: This girl needs a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: That's one question I asked.
SPEAKER_01: I say, Who's your pastor?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what you mean.
SPEAKER_01: Who loves you enough to tell you the truth and walk with you through all that, regardless of what it means for you or them?
SPEAKER_01: Ah.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, who loves you when you reek of whiskey the next day?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: My heart just broke.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're here in this room today, you don't have a pastor, here's my offer to you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to just stand up here and preach to you on Sundays.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mind getting bloody with you.
SPEAKER_01: If you bleed, I'm going to come home with blood on my clothes.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means to have a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: But see, our city is full of people who want to believe, but no one's just opened up their mouth and said, hey.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes it's just a phrase, sometimes it's just a sentence, sometimes it's a figure of, it's just an expression on your face, like, and it turns people's heart.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Take a moment and think about what you've heard today.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're visiting today for the first time, relaxed.
SPEAKER_01: We uh like to teach the Bible and then just think a little bit about what it says.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're just gonna take about a minute, and Clyde's just gonna play.
SPEAKER_01: And all I want you to do is just ask God, God, what's the one thing you want me to walk out of here with today?
SPEAKER_01: For some of you, it's you got to think about your sin because it got it got pretty somber in here when I loved you enough to tell you, hey, God came to kill Moses because Moses was living in disobedience.
SPEAKER_01: And if God would not spare Moses, why should he spare us?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying God's the boogeyman, he's coming to get you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying God takes himself seriously.
SPEAKER_01: He means what he says.
SPEAKER_01: And it is to your good to heed what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you it may have been when I said, Hey, make sure you require of your kids what God requires of them.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you just need to stop beating yourself up about what you don't know and start speaking out what you do know.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you women in here just throttle yourself good for not being a Bible scholar.
SPEAKER_01: But you know things.
SPEAKER_01: There are words on the back of your tongue longing to get out, and you shut your mouth to keep them in because of what these people may think about you.
SPEAKER_01: And they may rise up years from now and call you blessed because you loved them enough to tell them the truth.
SPEAKER_01: What's God saying?
SPEAKER_01: God, the great thing about the Bible is every time we open it up, it speaks loud and with authority.
SPEAKER_01: And invitation and clarity and comfort and consequence and all those things.
SPEAKER_01: And so, Holy Spirit, I pray from a friend there in Austin who just doesn't have a pastor, that doesn't have anybody in her life that says, I love you and you can leave your clothes on.
SPEAKER_01: I care about you.
SPEAKER_01: No one that says, Call your mom.
SPEAKER_01: Call your mom back in Midland, let her know you're okay.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray for my church that we'd be that kind of a caring community.
SPEAKER_01: We'd love each other that way.
SPEAKER_01: That people would see the way we love each other and think, man, I wish somebody loved me like that.
SPEAKER_01: Deliver us, God, from being a bunch of religious, phony people who all get together and sing the same songs and walk out and live different lives.
SPEAKER_01: May we all as one begin to submit our lives to the clear teaching of the Bible and trust you for the results.
SPEAKER_01: That's our prayer today, God.
SPEAKER_01: We pray it in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Stand to your feet, hold your hands out.
SPEAKER_01: When you knew better and did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: When you woke up with whiskey on your breath, he's still your dad.
SPEAKER_01: And you're still his sons and his daughters.
SPEAKER_01: He's not mad at you.
SPEAKER_01: He's not come to kill you, he came to give you life.
SPEAKER_01: Don't ever forget that.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let what you've done keep you from being who you are.
SPEAKER_01: He's not just God in heaven, he's your father and your sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_01: Depart now and remember this in the name of the Father and the Son, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.