The Israelites were kept as slaves in Egypt for over 400 years before God had Moses lead them to their new beginning. To the place where they would start to grow. To their Exodus.
When they were fleeing Egypt, there were many among them that were afraid of the new unknowns that they would face. There was a lot of bemoaning the fact that they had left Egypt in the first place. After all, as bad as it was in Egypt, the Israelites were familiar with it and they were used to it. IT WAS THEIR COMFORT ZONE!
Sometimes, as humans, we actually prefer a familiar negative to an unfamiliar positive. Just because we are familiar with it.
EXODUS 14:10-14
“As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!”
Moses answered the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still.”
This scripture tells how the people of Israel were afraid of moving away from Egypt. And, when they encountered difficulties, they began to voice their fear and they began to wish they were back in Egypt. But Moses tells them that God will be with them and that God will protect them. He tells them that all they have to do is relax and have a real and true faith that their problems will be handled by God.
Sometimes, we find it very easy to talk about how much faith we have, but during times of stress it seems that we tend to look for human ways to handle situations and forget that we are supposed to seek God’s guidance and help first. Or, we sometimes decide to not take any action because we do not really have faith that we can succeed.
As when a car is low on gas, we often find ourselves a bit low on faith. It is in those times, it is necessary to go into prayer and get closer to God. The closer we get to our Father, the more we will have a "filling up" of renewed faith. And, we need to rely more on pure faith in God to get us through our times of questions, or times when we encounter our GREAT UNKNOWNS!
MATTHEW 28:19,20
“Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20- and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
That is called the GREAT COMMISSION – it calls us forth to do His work in the field.
We are supposed to go out into the world, befriend people, offering them the knowledge of who Jesus is, baptizing them, teaching them why they should worship Jesus, and even giving them the local church as a place where they can assemble and grow in the Lord.
1. STARTING THE JOURNEY
This service marks the end of an season for our church. We have been called by God to increase our work for Him. We have before us, our Exodus, if you will. Tonight, we have both a happy and a sad victory to live through. But, remember that it is, indeed, a victory for the LORD!
It is happy in that God has provided us with another, and better, location to continue doing His work. It is happy in that we are seeing our prayers to Him being answered – right before our eyes! And, it is happy in that we can experience this upcoming move together, as the family we have worshipped with and have become close to in the last two years.
It is sad, however, that what we have been used to for these two years is coming to an abrupt end. We will no longer have this place to hold on to; to keep us in our "comfort zone." We have been holding all of our services in this rented one room office for our church’s two-year history. We have been diligent in our commitment to missions. We have been diligent in allowing the Holy Spirit to be the central part of our church, and we have dedicated ourselves to prayer. Now, we are seeing God’s blessings and rewards, because He has always known our hearts.
Getting out of our comfort zone and reaching out in faith, or as many have said before, “to step out in faith”, totally being dependent upon God to meet our needs is something that we MUST be willing to do. Not ‘just a little’. Not, ‘mostly’, but all the way – all the time!
JAMES 1:2-4
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance."
Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. And that does not just apply to this church, as a body of believers, as we begin to move from familiar surroundings to new territory, but also MUST apply to each person sitting here today! Each of us must be willing to depend upon God to give us what we need . . . without hesitation.
For, if we have true faith in Him, if we have true dependence upon Him, we shall reap those rewards that will enhance our walk with Him.
God will give us every opportunity to ‘decide’ to follow Him, but He will not force us. What He wants is for each of us to love Him enough to WANT to let Him lead us. He wants us to depend upon Him, just as a small child depends on its mommy or daddy. After all, we say that God is our Father, but do we sometimes have a tendency to act as the rebellious teenager, trying our best to handle things our way, in our time, to our satisfaction rather than to turn it completely over to Him and let Him handle it to His satisfaction?
God will look to see where our hearts are, and if our hearts are truly in line with God, and that means to be reliant upon Him, He will give us the strength we need to persevere.
2 CHRONICLES 16:9a
"For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him….. "
And so, as we contemplate this move before us, let us go into our hearts to make sure that we do, in fact, have our faith set at full strength, and that it is set that way by our own choice.
I like the story of the rich executive who announced to his church one morning that he was going to give up all he owned so that he had to depend on his faith in God for everything he needed. He sold everything, gave it to the poor and moved into a rented home down on the bad side of town. That first night, he prayed that God would furnish him with some food. The next morning, he went outside on the porch and there was no food.
That night, he again prayed for food. The next morning…..nothing.
The 3rd night, he prayed again, saying, “Lord, if you do not feed me, I will surely die of starvation.” The next morning……nothing. Then, in a near panic brought on by hunger, he fell to his knees and cried out, “Lord, I have put my faith in you on the line. Why are you ignoring me like this?”
In the quietness of that rented house, he heard the Lord tell him that his prayers had been answered, but he was not looking at the answer. The Lord told him to go back out on the porch, which he did. Then, the Lord told him to look up! A large sign on the building across the road, in bold letters, said, “WORKERS WANTED – LUNCH WILL BE PROVIDED”
We need to not only have faith that God will provide, but we need to actually listen very closely as to what God is trying to tell us!
Whether we are talking about this church’s move this coming week, or whether we are talking about our own personal line of travel this week, let us look forward to our new beginnings. Let us all work together as a loving family to make this move as easy and smooth for our church as we can. And, in your own new beginnings, let us work together as a loving family to help one another with encouragement and testimony to enhance our personal new beginnings.
I like that story about the boy and his father who were planning a trip for the next day. The father told his son that they would go on a very exciting and wonderful trip the next day. He did not tell his son where they would go or what they would do. The son was full of child-like excitement all day, contemplating the next day!
He didn’t have much information to go on, but he knew his father would be with him every step of the way; he knew that his father would protect him from anything bad; and he knew his father never lied to him.
That evening as the father was putting his son to bed, the boy hugged his father’s neck and said, "Daddy, thank you for tomorrow."
And, as our church readies for our Exodus, and we now put our past in this wonderful room to sleep, I now want to say, “Father, thank you for giving us our tomorrow.”
But leaving is only the first part of a journey. The other part of the journey is arriving! And now, I want to talk to you about what the Lord has done!
This morning marks the first service in our new church building. In the time since we began as a church plant two years ago, we have faithfully kept our eyes on the Lord, and we have been as diligent as we could to making this a work for Him, not us.
To make sure that it is biblical in all it does, a church must commit to a variety of different areas. In my opinion, among the most important are the five mentioned here:
. . . It must keep vigilant in the duty (and the desire) to pray.
. . . It must devote itself to loving others and sharing God’s Word with them.
. . . It must stay diligent in helping others through missions givings.
. . . It must always be aware of the need to invite the Holy Spirit into the church
. . . And, it must always pursue hard after Jesus and to seek God’s face.
I will expand more on these areas in a few moments. For now, though, I want to say that I truly think God has blessed us by allowing us to move from the office space we held services in, to this wonderful building that He has supplied. We must always remember that we are here for a season. This is the first of many steps that the Lord God will bless us with.
So, if the Lord has loved us enough to bless us with this move, what must we do from this point in time? We are going to be talking about our future in a moment, but first, let us read the main text of today’s sermon. Please turn to LUKE 5:1-11 and read with me.
2. THE STEPS OF A JOURNEY
PRAYER:
The first thing my wife and I noticed when we came to our first service here, was your love of, and dependence upon, praying to God!
When this church felt God leading us to leave our original building we worshiped in, we came together and committed ourselves to staying in prayer. We prayed for God's guidance and protection as we prepared for and made this move. After all, we have been told over and over in scripture to pray.
1 THESSALONIANS 5:17
"Pray continually."
This church does, indeed, believe in the supernatural power of prayer to the Father! We have learned from personal experiences that no matter how much one prays, it is never enough. We just simply cannot pray as much as we should.
FELLOWSHIP:
The second thing we noticed when we first came to this church was its genuine love for others. You went out of your way to really make us feel very welcomed. You made us feel as if we were actually wanted here by each one of you. You truly made us feel as if we had found our ‘home’.
But we need to be very careful when fellowshipping with other Christians. I knew a man at another church who told me that he loved to fellowship with others, but they did not seem to have a desire to fellowship with him. I asked him why, and he said he thought he only had one talent – the talent of criticism.
I told him that the Bible says that the man with only one talent went out and buried his: I told him it might be better for everyone if he did the same.
We have been commanded to love one another in Christian fellowship.
JOHN 15:17
"These things I command you, that ye love one another."
SPREADING THE GOSPEL MESSAGE:
We have kept vigilant in spreading the gospel to others. For two years, this church has committed itself to giving more than 25% of its income to the mission fields, supporting them monthly. In addition, everyone in this church, that I am aware of, has been forthright in telling others around them in their personal lives about the plan of salvation thru Jesus Christ.
We have been commanded to take the Good News of Jesus Christ to others!
MATTHEW 9:37,38
"….the harvest is great, but the workers are so few. So, pray to the Lord, who is in charge of the harvest; ask Him to send out more workers, for His fields.’
And, for two whole years, we have met weekly to share the gospel and and the love of Christ at an assisted-living home here in Mesa, Arizona. That has resulted so far, in at least one person accepting the Lord Jesus as her savior!
3. ARRIVING AT THE DESTINATION
We, like many other churches across this world, now stand at the doorway of our new beginning. This is the visible evidence of God rewarding the faithful in Christ Jesus. We are here, and now we must be diligent in continuing to follow God, and not get all wrapped up in thinking this new building is something we provided or accomplished because of ourselves.
It is from the Lord and it needs to remain for the Lord. It is our faithful plea that we can help in the harvest of more and more souls for the Kingdom of God, here on this earth, as our future unfolds in front of us.
To do this, we need the ongoing help from each of you. You can help by staying in the word of God, by staying in prayer and praise, and by showing the love of Christ to others, including your brothers and sisters in Christ.
If we truly feel love towards others, the true light of Jesus Christ will shine thru us as a beacon of light – as a lighthouse to the unsaved – to help get those that are lost to the shores of safety.
Remember what Jesus said in JOHN 15:1
“This is my command: that you love each other.”
And, as the disciples left everything behind after the miracle of catching the fish in the beginning scripture, just to follow Jesus Christ, let us commit this church, and our own individual hearts to follow our Savior for the singular result of saving those that are lost in this world.
You see, it is not just this church that must be willing to step out in faith to follow Christ, each individual here today MUST also be willing to accept the call. The call to spread the gospel of Good News, in love and fellowship, through prayer. We do that by always inviting the Holy Spirit into our hearts as we walk our many Valley of Decisions, to let Him guide us and comfort us, while we earnestly seek God’s face and guidance.
That requires a decision from each person; a decision to humble your will so that God's will can take center place in your life. Are you willing to make that decision today?
