In You, Then Through You - The Road Out 2

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It's Mark Carter on, the Pastor of Fierce Church.

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Hey, today I want to talk to you about the timing of God and character development.

The timing of God and how that goes hand in hand with character development.

So I was 17 years old and I'm sitting behind this counter over at Six Flags, great America.

I was one of those guys that waited for eight hours a day while people would come up to the booth and they give me like a buck 20 and I'd give them a ball and they would throw it at some kind of a clown puppet and they would miss, and for eight hours a day I would stand there.

Oh my gosh, i can't wait to get out here Now.

It wasn't just that I didn't really like the job, it's that I was 17 and about to go away to college and this was the longest summer of my life.

I'm waiting.

I'm waiting like hurry up.

This is like a special version of torture to have to wait for my life to start.

Almost That's what it felt like.

I'm waiting for my life to start.

Have you ever felt like that?

You ever felt like you're in a situation and I just can't get past this day.

I'm waiting on somebody, i'm waiting on something and it's not happening yet.

Maybe for you you're waiting on you know the job to get accepted.

Maybe you're waiting you know you've been trying for a baby for a long time, or you've been waiting on adoption for a long time and it's like this thing is never going to start.

Maybe you're watching other people get promoted and you're doing everything you know to do, but you can't seem to like get ahead in the organization and you're wondering how long, much longer do I have to wait?

Can we just hurry this thing up already?

And that, especially, is maybe difficult when we want to be helpful, we want to be an impact, we want to be encouraging to those that we're around.

So maybe we're part of an organization.

We're like how do I do this more?

How do I become more a part of a, like a culture shaper?

How can I be more helpful to those on my team?

How can I like have a better influence on my family?

How, like I see my spouse doing this thing?

How do I like influence them positively?

I feel like God is doing things in me.

Maybe I go to a fierce church and I feel like God is really kind of renovating my heart.

But my spouse, they're still over here.

How do I like bump into them and like, hey, here's what you should do, here's how I get some of that stuff off on you.

How do you do that?

And we got to be honest like there's nothing wrong with wanting to be an influence on others.

That's a totally appropriate things want.

The problem is when we start to go about it the wrong way And many of us know what this is like We start to dip into control.

We try to control people, we try to control situations, we try to manipulate folks, we try to say things just so, or we try to like hint at such and such, or sometimes we just start fuming, we start slamming stuff and marching around and we can't seem to change what it is we want to change.

Or sometimes we're kind of doing that even with our maker.

Sometimes we feel like, well, god could help me.

Why doesn't God help me?

And we start to stomp around and slam cabinets and God, when are you going to help me?

And how do we intentionally partner in such a way that we can see God maybe change some of our circumstances?

That's what we're going to talk about today.

How do we do it and not get into any extra damage?

Because one of the special difficulties about this it seems to take forever and it takes way longer for some of us sometimes than we thought it should have.

When I was in that booth I was like, okay, this is going to go real quick, real fast summer.

But that summer felt like it took forever And sometimes it's not just the fact that I don't seem to be able to have the influence or the impact that I want, it's that it's taking so long, like I was ready to be patient.

I was ready to like, oh, this is going to take a little time, but it is taking so much time.

How much longer do I have to do this until the marriage is any good at all?

How much longer do I have to do this until my kids finally going to pay attention to me?

How much longer do I have to do this until my grown up child will get some sense in their head and behave this way toward their child and give them more discipline and do this thing and spend money this way?

And I don't know why they're even hanging out with that person anyway.

And now I've got an opinion about something.

Should I even have an opinion about this?

I don't know, but however it is, it's taking forever.

So we started last week up brand new series.

It's a series on Exodus And here's what we're talking about.

It's called the road out And it's the road out specifically like for the Israelite people.

Okay, this is in the early part of the Bible.

They're out of, they're coming out of slavery, and it's taken a real long time.

By the way, it's already taken a real long time, but there's also ways that this is about us.

This is about the road out for us.

We're stuck somewhere.

We want to get out.

We want to get past this thing.

We're maybe in some some version of difficulty or mistakes or bondage.

We are stuck, sometimes because of stuff we did, sometimes because of stuff other people did, sometimes because we just are And we can't wait to get out.

And so this whole series about how do we grab God's hand and get out, get to the next place, get to a better place, a place that is better than here Here's what we're going to find in this today's passage in particular.

It's going to require the change of character development.

It's gonna require the change of character development for us to have the impact that we want to on the people around us, on the Organization around us, on the teams around us.

We've got to embrace this long-term thing that takes forever, called character development.

No matter what is gonna happen, no matter what God is gonna ever do in our lives.

You believe God does stuff in your life.

Here's what you're gonna find.

God has to do it in us before he will do it through us.

God has to do it in us before he will do it for us, and it doesn't matter who you are, it doesn't matter if you're just us or if you're Moses himself.

God has to do it in us Before he will do it through us, so let's just go ahead and start.

In Exodus 2, verse one, about this time, a man and a woman from the tribe of Levi got married.

Okay, this is kind of important.

What had just been happening is the Israelites.

They're in trouble, they're in slavery.

Okay, they're.

They're the tether, the workforce, free workforce for Pharaoh in Egypt.

And He's just let them know Hey, i want you to say, hey, you know Egyptian guards, i want you to go throw all their first you know they're, they're their male babies into the river now.

Okay, we need to get rid of a lot of them.

There's too many of them, so let's just kill them all.

While this happens, moses's parents have a baby.

It's Moses.

Here we go.

The woman became pregnant and gave birth to a son.

She saw that he was a special baby And kept him hidden for three months.

He was a special baby.

What you don't see here in a contemporary English version like this is it's not just special baby, he was good, he was tove.

And this good is not just good like oh, that was a good pizza.

This is a special god kind of good.

This is something that god would call good.

In fact, what moses, the writer here, is doing, is he's, he's.

It's a throwback To the book of Genesis, remember when god said oh, the god made the season, it was good.

And god made the land, and it was good.

And god made the light and separated it from the darkness, and it was good.

And god made all these fruit bearing trees, and it was good.

It was a special kind of good.

It was like god's, like there was no problems with this.

This is right.

This is exactly what i want to do And what this gal is noticing about her son, moses.

She's saying he is tove.

He's a special kind of good, like probably most moms thinks, thinks their babies are good-looking And some of them are very wrong.

But this mom, this mom in particular, was like it's not just.

You know, she's got other kids.

She's got Miriam, um and erin.

She's already got others, but she's looking at him.

He's like something different about this guy.

This is a special kind of good, a god kind of good.

It's almost like god's destiny is on this one.

That's just like i don't know what to do.

So she kept him hidden for three months.

Now, that's a long time to keep a baby hidden.

I would think it'd be harder the younger it is, but she keeps him hidden.

But once you could no longer hide him, she got a basket made of papyrus Reeds and waterproofed it with tar in pitch.

But the baby in.

Pushy, put the baby in the basket and laid it among the reeds Along the bank of the Nile River.

Okay so, mom, i'm just taking a step of faith here.

She sees that he's, he's tove, he's good, he's special.

On some level She's like well, i don't know, i feel like maybe there's a destiny on him.

But I can't hide him anymore.

They're coming for them, they're gonna find him and they're gonna kill him.

So I don't want him to die.

He's definitely gonna die if I leave him here.

So I'm gonna take a risk.

I'm gonna put him in this little basket.

I'm gonna send him down the river.

Now, that's a dangerous thing, because there's crocodiles in that river.

So Aren't you just gonna get eaten?

Well, maybe he might get eaten, but at least he's got a shot.

He might go down the river and somebody will find him somewhere away from Egypt and because they're near water.

It's not like she's leaving me in the desert.

He's definitely gonna die there.

She'll put him by the water source.

All civilization is around this water source.

Maybe somebody, maybe somebody will find him.

I don't know what to do, so I step out in faith.

I think God's hand is on this kid.

I'm gonna step out in faith and let go And see what God does.

That's what she does.

She steps out in faith.

But there's something else going on here.

Again, this is an illusion.

This is uh.

Without explicitly saying it, moses is saying hey, remember the ark, remember how God made this ark and he put Noah and his family inside and he saved them from destruction Through water to create a new people.

That's what he's saying is happening here with Moses.

See, mama is putting him in a little ark and keeping him from destruction to save him through water In order to begin a new people.

But it's not only that.

It's also pointing to the Exodus, which which the original readers of this would have Known about because they were part of the exodus.

Okay, so it's also pointing the exodus where Moses, to save the people from the destruction as the armies of Egypt bear down on them, goes through water and they're kept and preserved in order to start a new people.

But there's even one more that we get to know about Because we're after the cross.

See, there's one who is greater than moses And he wanted to save his people from destruction.

And that struck.

Destruction was the penalty of sin, it wasn't just like death, it was eternal death in hell.

And that one who was greater than moses wanted to save them, and so, through The blood and water in his body, he saved them and produced a brand new people.

And that's who christ followers are.

And so isn't god cool?

like god's just cool, like that He's.

God is very poetic man.

So that has nothing to do with even the sermon.

I just want you to know how awesome your god is.

Like that's.

And then feral's feral's daughter, okay.

So Ironically, she comes down, she f moses, winds up with her.

She has compassion on the little hebu baby.

She adopts him as her own, takes him into her, into her house.

Now We're gonna fast forward 40 years.

Now moses has grown up, he's 40 years old now And he somehow we know we're gonna find out from scripture later He understands that he himself is a hebu, he's not an egyptian and even though, to be sure, he's got affections toward his mother and his family and he's had great education And so much stuff from his life, he also is he's kind of detached himself from the egyptians and said no, i need to help my people.

And so that's where we pick it up, verse 11 many years later, when moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people to hebrus, and he saw how hard they were forced to work.

During his visit he saw an egyptian beating one of his fellow hebrus.

After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, moses killed the egyptian and hid the body in the sand.

The next day, when moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two hebroumen fighting.

Why are you beating up your friend, moses, said to the one who had started the fight?

the man replied who appointed you to be our prince and judge?

Are you gonna kill me, like you killed the egyptian yesterday?

I got backfired.

Then moses was afraid, thinking everyone knows what I did.

And sure enough, feral Heard what happened and he tried to kill moses.

But moses fled from feral and went to live in the land of midian.

So probably feral started to wonder about this.

Okay, this, this kid is growing up in my house.

He is a hebrou.

Is he ever gonna let go rogue and maybe start to Start a revolt or something like that?

and sure enough, it happens.

And so feral's like I already thought of a plan for this And he's already gonna try to have moses killed.

So moses grabs his stuff.

He probably grabs a little money, because archaeologists tell us that midian was about 700 miles away.

That's a long way to go without a car, without a bike.

Like moses, he's got a long way to go, man.

So he's probably got some money, he's probably got some stuff.

But he splits down and he goes to this place called midian.

Now what I want to do?

We're gonna pause the story and I want us to evaluate moses's actions here, because there's some stuff that he did right.

There's things that were right about what Moses did.

Okay, he cares.

He cares about this Hebrew people.

He sees that there is injustice happening and he wants to do something about it.

And he so wants to do something about it that he actually does something about it.

That's how I'll talk for him.

He's not just posting about it, like he actually goes and does stuff about it.

Well, that's good, but let's learn a little bit more.

In the book of Hebrews we get kind of a little close-up shot of what was going on in Moses' heart.

It was by faith verse 24, that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

He chose to share the oppression of God's people Instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin.

he thought it was better to suffer for the sake of Christ than to own the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking ahead to his great reward.

Here's what's trippy.

Okay.

So Moses didn't really know Jesus' name.

What he knew about was the promise.

He knew the promise that had been made to his ancestor, abraham.

And that promise was I'm going to make a great nation out of you, and out of that nation you're going to bless all the nations of the earth.

And he may even be thinking all the way back to the secret pronouncement that God made when Adam and Eve first fell, that he said someday I'm going to send somebody And he's going to reverse all this mess, and he is going to though you bite his heel, he's going to smash the head of the devil.

So Moses doesn't know Jesus' name, but he knows something is coming And I'm just deciding I'm going to throw in with my family promise instead of just having what I could have.

I could have all of Egypt, i could have the rest of my life be set and taken care of, but instead I want to throw in my lot with them.

And that's what he did.

He trusted God's purpose.

He trusted that God would reward that.

He just did a lot wrong too, like in his plan, he just did some wrong things.

But I want you to notice here the writer of Hebrews still points out but it was his faith that caused him to do this.

Like the faith part was good.

The other stuff wasn't good, but the faith part was good.

Sometimes we do stuff Maybe we're young, maybe we're immature and we actually have a degree of faith, and the actions we take maybe produce results that we're like oh, that wasn't my best play right there.

But God notices the faith, even though he got the thing wrong.

He notices the faith.

Sometimes, when I was really young, i'd share my faith with people, like I tried to like hey, man, you know, i'm that Jesus, maybe you want to meet him too, and I did so many times I did that And it was just like bro, what are you doing, man?

Like you probably just made it worse.

So if any of you are watching, i'm sorry But it encourages me because God knows we see from the scripture.

I saw the faith, though Yeah, that wasn't good, but I saw the faith And I liked the faith And I took note of it in heaven.

Have you done some things wrong?

Years ago we tried to plant another campus over down the road at CLC, called it the Oasis campus And it was well conceived, like it was a great idea.

We saw people come to faith in Christ there, put the whole thing together.

But the reality was we didn't have the muscle to sustain it.

So after about nine months we're like, hey, this was a great idea, the faith was great, but the execution we didn't plan well enough to have enough volunteers to keep this going And so we had to shut it down.

I felt bad about that at first But you know, i realized, just like Moses, sometimes God has to prepare people.

He's got to get them ready and they got to make mistakes.

But he saw the faith.

Is there anything that you need to maybe accept that?

yeah, you didn't do everything right, but God saw the faith Like, take the consolation.

God saw your faith.

He saw it and it was good And it's just fine, it's all right.

God saw the faith.

But Moses didn't just have faith.

He made some mistakes, specifically the sin of pride, specifically the pride of self-sufficiency.

I mean, think about this with me, moses is operating from Moses' understanding.

Okay, he, like he, doesn't consult anybody, he's just like I.

Pretty much I'm told man, i'm good, i know what to do, i'm just going to go out and do it.

That is a sense of like I don't need other people And today, in our day and age, that is a very prominent idea.

There's almost pushed on us Like you don't need anybody else, you're just fine.

Can I lovingly and gently, you know, take your hands off of that, peel them off a little bit and say actually you are made to be the counterpart of God.

You are made for the Holy Spirit to live within you and help you with literally everything.

The Holy Spirit's name is the helper.

He's supposed to help you.

We need help And it's really just pride, it's human self-sufficiency that would presume I'll probably be fine, i probably don't need any answers, i'll probably just roll in and everything will be good, because I'm so good I'm.

So tov Moses inserts himself right into that situation.

He's like I know my role, here I go.

He was right to see what was wrong, but he was closed-minded.

He just figured I'm good enough, and even like it was Moses's plan, and I'm saying, man, i mean it was kind of a plan, but it wasn't a good plan He just buries the guy in the sand Like Moses, what are you going to do?

There's a whole dog gone, civilization of Egyptians, there's an entire armor.

You're going to bury them all in the sand Like that's not a good plan.

Is that how you're going to do this?

No, moses.

In fact, later on, when you actually do God's plan instead of Moses plan, because God's plan first it's a whole different pharaoh And you're going to go directly to pharaoh.

You're not going to go to the soldiers or the foremen, and you're going to see God do signs and wonders And God's going to take care of the stuff that you only have a slight, you know, sense of.

It was also God's timing.

There was a wasn't God's timing, it was Moses timing instead of God's timing.

Moses was like.

I feel it, i see it, it must be time.

Have you ever stepped into something that was like this has got to be right And the truth is you were just a little too early man, like they.

Just it really wasn't.

You wanted it to be the time but it wasn't the time.

Check this out.

X7 25 also commenting on this moment.

Moses thought that his own people would realize.

He thought his own people would realize.

Can you imagine?

like what is the arrogance there?

My people will surely realize.

Moses thought his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.

They did not recognize it.

He was out of God's time and they didn't see it.

Moses wasn't ready and the people weren't ready because it was the wrong time.

Anytime we're trying to push our agenda and we're like I could wait, but who cares?

Because I'm Tove, i'm good.

Anytime we're trying to do that, we need to back up because we're really getting into arrogance.

Moses does care.

He cares about these people, but you know he doesn't care about their spirits.

He doesn't care about them like he's going to care about them later.

He cares about getting them out of this situation, but he doesn't care about shepherding them.

In other words, he doesn't yet want to do this for the right reasons.

He only partially wants to do it for the partially right reasons, and so, because of that, what is the experience?

Experience is rejection, and we all know what that's like right, and sometimes, when we try to insert ourselves into a situation too early, wrong plan, wrong time, we experience rejection.

Now, sometimes, truth be told, if you're going to follow Jesus, you're going to experience rejection anyway.

But sometimes that wasn't because you were following Jesus, it's just because you were trying to do it in your own strength, in your own way, in your own mind, and it didn't work.

And it's not time.

See, every one of us is supposed to be a tool in God's hand.

Moses is thinking it's his hand, but it's not Moses' hand, it's God's hand.

I've got a tool right here.

This is a really helpful tool.

This is an umbrella.

This umbrella is great for keeping rain out.

Here's the thing, though When I go to try to use this, when it's not ready, it just kind of falls over.

You know what I'm saying?

Like it didn't really.

I'm like, no, now though we're going to do it, wait, okay, now do it, but it doesn't do it.

I don't know why it doesn't.

Like I don't know what is missing here.

It's supposed to do it this way, but it doesn't.

Now, let's note that actually is an umbrella.

So the problem isn't that it's not the right thing, it is the right thing, it's just the wrong time.

It's not ready, it's not fully opened up and blossomed into what it's supposed to be.

Sometimes we are like, well, that didn't work, so I give up because I'm not the right thing.

I give up because I'm not the right.

I'm going to give up on them because clearly I'm not the right person.

I'm going to give up on that project because clearly, if I was the right one, it would've worked.

Well, maybe, but maybe also you're just going too early.

You are the right thing and you just didn't wait for it to blossom entirely.

Are we hearing this?

See, sometimes God will hold us back in His love, just like He's holding Moses back, just like, even though these Israelites have been praying for years, it's not quite.

It's almost time, but it's not quite time.

Sometimes, when we don't have a skill that we need, we're being held back.

It's not that you're not an umbrella, it's just that you don't have the skill yet.

So sometimes we have to practice, we have to decide.

I'm going to get good at this thing.

Maybe often for couples we see this Couples, they don't really know how to fight well yet, they don't know how to use that helpfully in their marriage, and so they just fight wrong and then they're like why doesn't this move forward?

Well, it might be a skill, it might be.

There's certain things you just don't know how to do well yet.

Maybe on your team at work, you don't really know how to consider other people's ideas And like you think you do, but you don't really And you can't move forward and that won't promote you.

Because they're like well, that person never really listens, it's hard to work with them, you're held back because of lack of skill.

But often I really believe even more of the time it's a lack of character development.

There's something in our character, in our personhood, that is not yet developed, and this one is actually even more dangerous.

Sometimes people will open doors for us or help us because they like us And maybe you're part of them trying to get their thing done, and there's like I don't have time to wait for that, i need somebody.

You go And they kind of tap you and you go, but you don't have the character to keep you there.

When we see people in the body of Christ.

If you've ever seen any of this, sometimes there's great public failures and preachers fall and stuff like that.

Often, whether it's like a Mars Hill situation or a Hillsong situation or many that came before that often what was really wrong is not that these people weren't good at one point.

It's that they didn't have the character to hold them in moments of high stakes.

Okay, let's use Moses's example.

Moses's problem right now, when he's killing this Egyptian, is that in the high stakes moment, moses wouldn't do what God would do For us.

If you get into a high stakes moment but you're not going to do what God would do, your character is not developed yet enough for that, and so God wants to develop the character so that when we get into the moment of truth, the moment of impact, god's like they're going to be good, they're going to be fine, and you know this.

You even know people like this.

You know what they're going to do.

Here's a definition of character that I wrote down.

Character can be defined as a person's moral constitution.

It's an embedded, stable set of values.

I'm sure you can name people in your life right now Good and bad you're like if I bring this to them.

I know what they're gonna say, i know what they're gonna do, and sometimes that's positive.

Other times it's negative, because you know what they're gonna do.

What you're knowing about them is their character, and you might be a little wrong, but a lot of the time you're gonna be right because that's who they've shown themselves to be.

Now, character it doesn't just you can't prey it on, you can't read it in.

Character's developed over a long period of time with a lot of hardship, a lot of crucible, a lot of trials, a lot of difficulty.

That's how character works its way in.

Now you can say, well, i don't like that card.

Yet I hear that.

I know you don't like it, but that's the only way.

See, what God wants us to get to the place is this when we're going through hardship and some of you know about this, you're going through hardship what the place God wants to get us to is, even though it's hard and it does hurt, we're looking forward.

And you say I just so know who God is, that I know he's gonna come through in the end, like he's gonna.

So there's almost you get into a hardship, but there's, even when it's hard, there's a little bit of optimism because you're like I know God's character, i know what he's gonna do.

When you can do that, that's character in you, character's being formed in you because you trusted early.

Now, if you've been walking with Jesus for a long time, you know this.

When you first start out, when I was my early 20s, i was like I believe this, but I haven't actually seen this.

I haven't seen God redeem failures.

I haven't seen God come through when it was the midnight hour and everything was going wrong.

But even when you walk with Jesus for like 30 years, 40 years, you look at trial and it's like, well, i mean I know that's bad, but I know God's gonna come through.

Like I know it's gonna rain soon.

I don't know when, but it's going to rain.

I don't know when, but God is gonna come through.

That's how this whole thing works.

When we can do that, my friends, that's character development.

Is it possible?

Can I ask you this Is it possible that God is using your current circumstances to develop character?

Is that possible?

No matter where you are, no matter what you're doing?

is it possible?

You're actually, you're probably right where God wants you.

You're trying to get out of it.

You're like we're in a hurry.

He's like this is exactly where I want to develop your character.

So, moses, when Moses arrived in Midian, he sat down beside a well.

I just just notices He sat down beside the well.

Arrives in Midian, he's running for his life.

He's just a fugitive 700 miles away.

Sit down beside a well, and the text is showing this.

It doesn't specifically say it.

What you're gonna see here is providence.

You're gonna see, god is himself bringing about Moses' destiny without Moses' plan, without Moses' understanding, without Moses' time.

He's just using natural, everyday occurrences to bring about his will.

Let me just say this real quick There are times when it's really important to we need to pray and get ahold of God's will and understand what he wants us to do, and often that has to do with our character anyway, but a lot of the time, like we don't really have to sweat it, man like God himself is keeping us on our way to our destiny.

You're doing just fine, everybody.

Tell the devil to calm down.

Say calm down, devil.

Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters.

Okay, so this is his name is Ruel or Jethro.

You're gonna hear him referred to several different ways as we go through the book.

Now, the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came as usual to draw water and fill the water troughs for their father's flocks the little shepherdesses.

But some other shepherds came and chased them away.

So Moses, he's sitting here, he's watching this.

Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds.

They drew the water.

Then he drew water for their flocks.

When the girls returned home to Ruel I love this Their father asked why are you back so soon?

today?

An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds.

They answered, and he drew water for us and watered our flocks.

Then where is he?

The father asked Now you gotta see what's happening here.

First of all, it's the ancient Near Eastern, so there's just hospitality.

You would just know.

Okay, invite the dude back.

But Ruel slash Jethro was also like y'all.

I have seven daughters, we are in a desert land And you got a hero boy showing up, driving off villains and then watering your flocks.

Ladies, have I taught you nothing?

There are seven of you.

We gotta start now, okay?

And so he's like what are you doing?

Why did you leave him there?

Invite him to come and eat with us.

Moses has accepted the invitation and he settled there with him.

In time, ruel gave Moses his daughter, zephora, to be his wife.

Later she gave birth to a son and Moses named him Gershom, for, he explained, i've been a foreigner in a foreign land.

This name is important, gershom.

So Moses has this event right.

He's having a child and that can be a special time, sometimes even, like I know.

We named our daughter Amber Hope because we were at a special time in our life, some of the dark times in my wife and my journey.

We're beginning to end and light was beginning to break and just some things were happening for us.

Life was moving forward.

After many years, here's our fourth born, and so we named her Amber Hope because, like, this is kind of right, the time when hope broke in.

Well, moses is doing a similar thing, saying Gershom.

Gershom means it's two words, hebrew words Gare and Shom alien there I was an alien.

There I was meaning I was a foreigner.

I was a foreigner in this foreign land, in Midian.

I was an alien there and that is where God blessed me.

See, now, even though he's lost everything, now he's beginning to get low in his own estimation.

Now he's beginning to realize, you know, i was a prince of Egypt, i could do whatever I wanted, but now, away from everything.

I'm an alien here and yet I'm more blessed here than I was there.

His self perception is evolving.

Is it possible that sometimes maybe our self perception needs to evolve?

Maybe we're thinking a lot like old Moses.

We're thinking about what we deserve, what we wish and what we would like to do.

We're thinking about Egyptian Moses and we maybe need to transition to Midian Moses and say you know what?

I was about pretty low, but that's pretty good.

There's a lot of blessing right here.

I'll tell you if you're normally on a normal Sunday, you're really good at amends.

Yeah, i'm gonna give you a C.

I'm gonna gotta be honest.

I'm giving you a C today.

We'll see.

See if you can pull it back up by the end of the message.

We're getting there, though.

How to cooperate with God's character development process.

Real quick, here's real quick.

This is not long.

How to cooperate with God's character development process.

Number one instead of how can I fix this situation, ask how does God want me to serve these people, instead of how can I fix.

That was Moses's question How can I fix this situation?

And it should have been how can I serve these people?

He means I'm no longer gonna try to tell them what they need.

Some of us are so good at this.

We'll tell people what their problems are.

We'll tell you what their real problem is Like.

We have opinions about other people's problems Instead of just saying what do you think your problems are And how can I be helpful towards solving a problem You think you actually have.

Is there any way I can serve you in that?

And parents and grandparents, i'm gonna talk to you for just a second.

Sometimes you're so you do have insight and you do have wisdom and you have perspective, but sometimes you're so insistent that you know what's best.

It creates relational distance between you and your adult child.

Are you and your grandchild?

Because you're just like well, i know what to do, instead of like asking God, how can I be helpful right now, god?

what do you want me to do to be helpful with these people?

Here's number two Instead of what is the quickest way to go about this, which is what Moses was asking back in Egypt, okay, what's the quickest way?

Kill him and put him in the sand.

Let's start there.

What's the quickest way?

Try what is the godliest way to go about this.

How can I better demonstrate God's character.

You know pretty sure God's way was not to murder Egyptians and put them in the sand, like that wasn't his way.

Even if it was ultimately God's will that all of the Israelites get out of there, it wasn't just to like head them down into the sand.

That wasn't his way.

Sometimes we're trying to do the right thing the wrong way.

We're trying to do it not demonstrating the glory and the character of God.

Now Moses has lost everything and he's watching these girls.

He's beginning to develop this all important thing called empathy.

He's just sitting there by the well And here comes these hooligans that are messing with these ladies.

Now, you know, back in Egypt he didn't have to do anything.

He just probably sit there and eat grapes or something like that.

But he gets up.

He's like no, i care, you know, i just care.

I have compassion for what I'm seeing here, standing up and bringing empathy.

Sometimes the Lord has been holding us back and letting us go through lots of difficult stuff because he's trying to produce empathy.

He's trying to get Moses to feel with the people.

Moses doesn't know what it's like to be a slave.

Moses doesn't know what it's like to feel the wit.

Moses doesn't know what it's like to work for anything until he's taken really low at Midian And he has to learn to care about sheep and people and rescuing folks And maybe the thing that he had the wadiest in his life.

His delusion of grandeur slowly begins to lose its hold on his heart And we're gonna see in the next chapter next week.

He's a very different person by the end of this.

He's much more humble.

He's much more like it.

It's probably not me instead of it's probably me.

Here's one last one.

Instead of how do I show these people who I really am?

try, how do I learn who these people really are and what God has been up to among them, moses begins to pay attention.

He begins to develop this humility.

We're gonna see that he becomes one of these shepherds And then he really will understand what the lifestyle of the normal everyday person is not someone in a palace, but someone who gets cut, someone who doesn't have bandages, someone who gets sick and pukes in the middle of the shepherd field, who has to fight off wolves.

You're gonna know exactly what all the real things are like.

Moses, this is impossible.

There are circumstances that you are in right now Where one of the things God is asking you is can you just learn from people for a little while?

Can you just ask them?

If you wanna pray some really bold prayers, try this one.

First, god what am I not seeing about this person or situation?

I've already got an opinion, and maybe there's even things that are right about the opinion, but what am I not seeing?

What else is there?

Here's a little scary one.

It's easy to tell God that.

It's harder to go to a friend and say, hey, you know, i have some level of connection to your life.

What do you feel like I don't?

I just don't understand about you.

No, you're not gonna lose any relational points for telling me something disappointing.

Okay, i won't be passive or regressive, whatever you say.

What do you feel like I don't understand about your life or your situation?

Where do I look?

a little bit ignorant to everybody else.

Help me know that.

And, my friends, you might find that that character is being developed much faster than it was before, because you're growing in humility and empathy.

God has to do it in us before he will do it through us.

Now here's some great news for us.

Psalm 138-8 says the Lord will fulfill His purpose for me.

The Lord will Precious.

The Lord will get you to Midian.

Somehow.

He'll get you there, even if this is a run out of town, running away from Pharaoh hopefully not that way, but he'll get you there.

He will fulfill His purpose for you.

If you will offer, if you will sacrifice, you would just say, hey, god, i'm wide open.

I don't like the fact that I have to wait so long, but I'm open to you.

Shaping me, however, needs to be shaped.

Just help me understand it.

See, when God goes to work after a while, the tool that we felt like man, this won't work on my own, it just doesn't work.

The problem is, maybe it's because you are trying to hold the tool.

Only God can hold you as the tool.

Only God can wield you as the tool.

God knows what to do with your life to make you what you're for.

I hear something awesome about Jesus.

Unlike Moses, jesus never needed redirected.

Jesus always did God's will.

And Jesus knows God's will for you.

He knows what to do.

He's not gonna get it wrong.

You don't have to worry about it.

He will find you, he will know what to do.

So maybe we could end today by just saying God, i'm sorry for the places I was trying to do this in my own wisdom, trying to solve the situation with the family in my own timing, without any empathy, without any humility, and I'm asking for your forgiveness and I'm asking for you to help me stop pushing so much and help me just trust that Jesus is good.

Here's the secret When you focus on Jesus, the character development happens much faster because Jesus has perfect character.

That's what it is.

That's why it's important to be in the Bible.

That's why it's important to be studying Christ here at church.

The character development happens faster when you behold the beauty of Jesus.

Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.

If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out FearsChurch.

We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person.

Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fears Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.

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Don't give up.

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He won't let go of you.

Jesus loves you so much and we love you.

I hope someday we get to meet in person.

Thanks again for listening.