by Pastor Bruce Ball
Senior Pastor
CrossWinds Bible Church
(given while Associate Pastor of Grace Christian Church)
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
10- “As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord.
11- 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? 12- 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!” 13- 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.
14- 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.
LET US OPEN IN PRAYER
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. Like a car 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
19- “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.
1. We are supposed to go out into the world - verse 19
a) The world in this case is our community around
us.
b) People need a central place to worship and
fellowship with the Lord.
2. We are to baptize people - verse 19
a) We would eventually like to have a church with a
baptistery
b) God normally does not give EVERYTHING you desire
in one shot
c) If we prove to be faithful harvesters, I am sure
God will give us that baptistery, no matter
where it may be. It only takes faith!
3. We are to teach people to obey all of God’s holy Word - verse 20
a) And God has given us the place to teach His
Word. Our new church! Our own building!
4. And God will be with us until the very last day - verse 20
a) We need to step out in faith; faith that God
will be the provider for us
b) We need to have explicit faith that God will be
our guide – all the way.
This service marks the end of an season for Grace Christian Church of Mesa, Arizona. 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 committment 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
2- Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
3- because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
4- 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 not force us to follow Him. He 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 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
9- For the eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to Him…..
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.
He said, “Lord, I have put my faith in you on the line. Why are you ignoring me like this?”
In the quiet, he heard the Lord tell him that his prayers had been answered, but he was not paying attention. 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 my tomorrow."
And, as Grace Christian 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 our tomorrow.”
LET US CLOSE IN PRAYER
