Text: Exodus 12:11 (NASB)
Introduction: When you become a Christian, one thing we need to have is readiness. Readiness because the work in you that has been performed means a complete change in venue for your life. You are not the same in any way shape or form. Your plans that you may have laid out for what you were going to be or who you became will change.
Why?
You are moving from a place of slavery and bondage to a place of freedom and destiny. Every child of God who has been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God must realize that He or She is a person of Destiny.
For the Israelites, their destiny was freedom from slavery in Egypt but that is only half of the story. They were also suddenly people of Destiny. Where once they had longed for rights and privileges, now they were people with a plan and purpose.
I believe that God wants you and me to come to be ready to fulfill a great destiny. However, we must be prepared/ready for that destiny. Just as the people of Israel had to eat the Passover Lamb with a certain physical posture about them, so we too must take of the body and blood of Christ Jesus with a certain spiritual posture about us.
Being ready for your Destiny
I. The Israelites first had to have their cloaks tucked in to their belts.
A. You must have your cloak tucked into your belt.
B. What we are talking about is - - - FOCUS***
C. This means that your must be ready to move without being caught and held up by a little tree or thorn or something in the pathway that may grab to your cloak.
D. This symbolizes the Focus you must have as a Christian.
1. You must not let anything take you off your course.
2. Hebrews 12:1 (AMP)
3. We must be ready to run.
4. If you have ever tried to run with a bathrobe on, you know what I am talking about.
5. You cannot run through your house with the bathrobe loose.
6. If you are just getting out of the shower and run to get the door without first tying up that robe around your waist you know that somebody is going to be shocked and surprised by what happens.
7. If you want to be sure to fulfill your destiny in God, make sure you are free from the little things that try to tie you up in knots.
E. Ephesians 6:14 (AMP)
1. The belt of Truth is what keeps us focused on the destiny.
2. What are you focused on?
3. What captures your attention?
F. Are you looking for God in your daily life or looking for other things of this world.
1. As people of Destiny, we must be focused and our focus cannot be random thoughts about God or random philosophies toward God but must be focused thoughts on The Truth of God found in His word!
2. As a Christian, the focus needs to be on the Word.
G. There should never be a day we fall asleep after our day filled with thoughts and dreams and ideas, and we have not taken time to focus in on God with His Word.
1. Psalm 119:105 (NASB)
H. If you want to know where you are going and how to get there, go to the Word of the Almighty God.
1. Psalm 119:9 (NASB)
I. The Word of God must have priority in our minds.
1. Colossians 3:1-4 (NASB)
J. Why is it so important to have focus in the life of A Christian?
1. Because the devil is very crafty.
2. The first sign of unfocused Christianity will lead to sin.
3. In addition, the battle we fight with sin is about our focus.
4. Sin begins in the mind.
5. You cannot sin without first thinking about sin.
6. You cannot stop a bird from landing on your head, but you can stop him from building a nest.
K. Focusing on the word, keeps our mind away from the desires of the flesh.
1. James 1:13-15 (NASB)
2. The Truth – which is God’s Word –is the Belt that keeps us focused and tight, ready to move into our destiny with God and find the fulfillment of His promise of Life and that more abundantly.
II. The people were to eat the Passover with sandals on their feet.
A. One thing must be considered before we get to the meaning of the shoes.
B. Deuteronomy 29:5 (NASB)
1. There is something very significant here because when someone living in this time period wanted to take a long journey through the desert places of those areas, shoes would be carried to prevent them from wearing out.
C. They were to be determined to finish.
1. In what they were about to do, it was imperative that they were determined to finish what God had started in them.
2. Too many times, the Israelites did not look determined.
3. They undermined Moses.
4. They wanted to give up.
5. They did not like the bread.
6. They didn’t like the water
7. They didn’t like the quail
8. They did not like that Moses was the only leader.
9. They did not like the desert sand.
10. They did not like God.
11. They failed to have determination to finish.
12. It is amazing how we can be the exact same way.
13. One thing can come and rob us of our joy, and then we fall into the trap of letting it rob us of our course and we get off track.
14. We see something we don’t like in someone else, someone talks behind our backs, we are tired of where we are and wish God would change His plans so we could be appeased like a Child needing a bottle.
15. Too many Christians are all too ready to give up.
16. Too many are too willing to give up.
D. The Amazing this is – God never gives up!
1. We can throw in the towel, and he keeps on fighting.
2. We can cough up the ball, and God keeps on defending.
3. We can slip and fall in the marathon, and God keeps picking us up.
4. We can allow the crowds to influence us, and God keeps calling our names to the finish line.
E. God NEVER Gives UP on YOU!
1. Can I tell you a secret?
2. When we are faithless, the Bible says, “He remains faithful.”
3. The Bible describes love in a beautiful way.
4. 1st Corinthians 13:4-8 (NASB)
5. In 1st John 4:7the Bible also says that God is LOVE!
6. So to read it again, “God is patient, God is kind. God does not envy, God does not boast. God is not proud. God is not rude. God is not self-seeking. God is not easily angered. God keeps no record of wrongs. God does not delight in evil but God rejoices with the truth. God always trusts. God always hopes, and God always perseveres. Why? Because God never fails!
7. I’ll bring you back to Deuteronomy 29:5, the children of Israel are being reminded of a few things before they enter the land of promise (destiny) and God wants to make sure that even though they were ready to give up a million and one times, he showed Himself faithful in taking care of their clothes, and taking care of their shoes!
8. This is because God is determined to get you to finish!
9. Hebrews 12:2 (AMP)
F. God wants us to be determined to finish!
1. Philippians 1:6 (AMP)
2. I believe it was by this very confidence in God who caries us to the completion that we need that Paul could write the words, “I have finished the race.”
III. The children of Israel were to have their staff in their hand.
A. The staff is representative in the Old Testament journeys as a “pilgrimage.”
B. They were to be pilgrims with a promise.
1. The people of Israel must known for sure by having that staff in their hand they were not about to stop where they were, nor was the desert journey their ending place, but there was a land of promise stored up for them and only them that God has graciously given into their hands.
2. For us the staff in our hand means that if we want to be ready for our destiny, we must have an uneasy sense of being strangers to the world around us.
3. Let me make it relevant to us. (Car Keys)
4. In the times of Moses, and most of the Old Testament, no one went anywhere without a staff.
5. Most of the Old Testament patriarchs usually carried with them a Staff.
6. For a man in those times a staff came in pretty handy.
7. You could lean upon the staff for strength and even guide your flock with your staff.
8. Moses performed miracles with his staff.
9. David was a shepherd boy and when he went to fight Goliath- the Bible says he took five smooth stones, but many don’t realize this, that in 1 Samuel 17:40, it reads, “Then he took his staff in his hand, chose five smooth stones from the steam, put them in the pouch of his shepherd’s bag and, . . . approached the Philistine.”
10. All shepherds had staffs.
11. Staffs usually represented a nomadic people who did not have a settle place to call their home.
12. Abraham had a staff.
13. Jacob had a staff.
14. I will say it again, you could not go anywhere without your staff in your hand.
15. If we were to bring it to date today and relate it to what we know, I would venture to guess that our modern day staff are our CAR KEYS!
16. Car keys are interesting things.
17. If you are anything like me, your day begins with a shower, coffee, getting dressed, and then a frantic search for your car keys.
18. It is amazing how a ring in marriage symbolizes commitment to another human being, but the ring that holds your car keys symbolizes your commitment to everything else.
19. Really – on that ring, you have your car keys – if you do not have the keys to the car, you are not going anywhere.
20. In addition, on that ring are your office or work keys.
21. Also on that ring is the key to your house.
22. Because we must lock our doors in America, if we desire to once again return to the comfort of home, we would do well to remember our keys so that we can open the door to the house.
23. Then there are the miscellaneous keys:
a) Keys to closets
b) Keys to a secondary car
c) Keys to a building
d) Keys to a Post Office Box
e) Keys to an apartment complex
f) Keys to a safe
g) Keys to a shed
h) Keys to the garage
i) Keys to the filing cabinet
j) Keys to the middle drawer in your desk
k) Keys to the vehicle you drive for work
l) Keys to the basement
m) Our lives are dictated by these little metal objects we call keys.
24. In addition, the same truth about a staff in the Old Testament applies to us in today’s world that we are not going anywhere without our keys!
C. You will also agree with me that the more keys you have the more that is demanded of you.
1. When I was seventeen, I had three keys, one key to my truck, one key to my house, and one key to my locker at school.
2. Now that I am a husband and a pastor, I have several more keys on my ring.
3. My commitment level is higher and I have more things going on.
4. In addition, I also believe this.
5. The more keys you have the less comfortable your life is.
D. Now I want us to notice that the people of Israel were to hold their staff in their hand while they ate the Passover lamb.
1. In addition, it is for a reason.
2. Because they were to realize something that for 430 years was about to change in their thinking.
3. They were moving from the realm of destitute to the realm of destiny!
4. They were no more slaves, now they were sojourners.
5. They were no more to be comfortable with their state in life; they were to be uneasily moving toward a greater hope.
6. The people had gotten used to being slaves.
7. I am sure that through all the years of crying out to God, there was in their minds a sort of adjustment to what they had become.
8. For 430 years they were slaves, now they were to be pioneers and conquerors.
9. That drastic change does not happen over night.
10. So it is with us.
E. We are to be people of destiny in God and with that; we must have about us a sense of uneasiness to the things around us.
1. As a Christian, the things in the world should make us uneasy.
2. If they are not making us uneasy, there may be something wrong.
3. Why?
4. Because we are not the people of this world any longer, we are the people of God.
5. 1st Peter 2:11, 12 (AMP)
6. The people of Israel were to hold that staff in their hand while they ate, just as we would hold the keys to our cars in our hand while we eat.
7. Why?
8. Because we are about to change our address.
9. When you come to Christ, your address is changed.
10. Where you once had a permanent residence in hell, you now have a mansion in Heaven, and someday you’re going to live there forever, but until then, there should be a sense of uneasiness in life that this world is NOT MY HOME AND HAS NOTHING FOR ME.
11. I’m on my way to Glory, and the Lord is calling me, and I can see now the lights of heaven shining upon me reminding me that I’m HOMEWARD BOUND, I’m HEAVEN BOUND, God’s going to be my permanent neighbor, I may be living down the street from a gross sinner right now, but someday I will be sharing the streets of gold with Paul the Apostle, Timothy, the disciple, John, the Baptist, Moses the deliverer, and Jesus, my Savior.
12. God has a new home in store for me, so don’t try to sell me on the things of this world, I’ve got a destination in my mind where God shall wipe every tear from my eye, where I’ll hunger no more, nor thirst any more, for my permanent home is HEAVEN and I’m going to be there forever and ever and ever and ever!
F. We are people of destiny.
G. We are people with a purpose.
1. God has a plan in store for you when you come to Christ.
2. Maybe you have forgotten, maybe you’ve never heard it at all.
3. God has a destiny in store for me and for you.
H. Be Focused on the Word of Truth
I. Be Determined To Finish
J. Be a Pilgrim with a Promise
