Sermon Central
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The Journey
Contributed by Bruce Ball on May 13, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: A message detailing the calling of God, and the journey that calling will take us on to pursue God's great will.
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.
“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!
“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.
