On The Move (Week 1)

I'm thankful this morning as we come in and give ourselves as a uh our bodies out as a sacrifice of praise to the Lord and his team that helps us bring a sacrifice of praise and honor and glory to the Lord through singing and the offerings that we bring through what we give, our time, our talent, and our treasure.

I'm forced to home and lead pastor here at Multiply.

My family, along with a bunch of others, helped to launch this church uh a year and three or four months ago.

And I'm so glad and happy to meet you.

If you're new with us today, welcome.

Um I uh last weekend helped my mother and father-in-law move to their that now will be their retirement home that they have built.

This beautiful home move from Louisville to Shelbyville, where the rest of Emily's family lives now.

This beautiful home that they built for them to retire in.

Uh but we had to go through this long process of months and months and months of helping them to get prepared to move to uh this retirement home that they're moving into.

I don't know about you, but there are a few things that you can do that makes you more tired than moving.

The boxing, the trucks, all the trailers, all the things, it can drain you uh to death.

And uh last weekend was no exception.

Uh moving them that one day on Saturday, I felt like it took me three days to recover, going to sleep early.

Um, and it kind of all culminated, you know, whenever you move, it doesn't always go according to plan.

Never does.

You plan it one way, it takes longer than you want, and something always goes awry.

For us, it was we were riding down 64 from Louisville to Shelbyville with all their stuff, multiple trailers, an open trailer, and uh somehow one of the drawers in the chest of drawers opened, and my mother-in-law's wardrobe was just flying out on the highway.

Um uh so we all pulled over it, and you know, just one of those moments of like, okay, here we are, let's just get this thing done, right?

Um and by the end of it, we were so drained.

Um, and all the stress that they've gone through over the last few months of building this home and all the weight, and I got to go back over there yesterday and see it, and it's almost all set up now.

It's absolutely beautiful, and it's gorgeous.

And you know, when you're on the move, when you're emotion all the time, with the busyness, it's very draining.

But you on the other side of the coin, have you ever gotten drained from just boredom?

Just sitting around, getting uh tired, just uh taking it out of you.

I know as a kid, if my parents ever heard me utter the words, I'm bored.

I was kicked out of the house, go play in the neighborhood, do not come back till dark.

There's no boredom here.

Whenever I'd say, Dad, I'm bored, he'd say, read a book.

Um but you think about for us, and as we're on the move, whether you're moving fast or whether it's a time for uh when you're barely moving, either way, it's easy to get tired and distracted.

You know, when we're in particular, when we are on the move for God, we're tempted to get tired and distracted even more.

The Bible calls this word weary, that we can grow weary.

And it's this weariness that comes about that leads to us getting tired and distracted and sometimes even bored with God.

I'm doing all the things.

I'm in motion, I'm coming to church, I'm in the routine, but I'm just kind of, I just feel like life's drained out of me.

Doing the same thing over and over again, man.

It's just like kind of getting boring.

And there's a true temptation for us as followers of the way and followers of Jesus, that the enemy wants to implant an enemy in your life of being distracted and being weary and being tired.

It's a true villain.

That as you're trying to follow God, see him move powerfully in your life and the people around you in a community through our church, that the enemy wants to implant a villain in your life that you would get tired and distracted, weary and bored.

This is where the people of God found themselves in the passage that we're going to look at today.

This is one of the most famous stories in all of uh Christian history, also Jewish history.

It's the story of the Exodus, Moses and the story of the people of God who were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years.

And if you've seen the movies or you've heard the story, most of it, you've seen one of the movies that has come out, it's in popular culture, the story of Moses, that God chooses Moses, this unlikely character, this murderer, that he chooses him out, and that he would lead his people out of captivity, out of slavery in Egypt, that God would do these miraculous signs.

You've seen some of the movies, The Burning Bush, Parting of the Red Sea, the Pillar of Fire that God led them by night, the cloud that he guided them through the day, and the people of God have been taken out of captivity and liberated for a good plan that God had for them to lead them to a place called the Promised Land.

And after all of that miraculous work that God did, it leads to a portion of the story of what should have just taken them a very short time for them to make it from Egypt to modern-day Israel for the promised land, ended up taking them over 40 years to get there because of how distracted and their disobedience and this long story in the Old Testament of what happened.

But it kind of got to the beginning of this.

Once God has done these miraculous signs, they've gone through the Red Sea.

The waters have been parted, God's providing them food from heaven, and the people of God are at the base of Mount Sinai, this mountain where Moses was going to go and going to spend time and commune with God, and God was going to give him instructions, the Ten Commandments, and the people of God are all encamped at the bottom of the mountain, and they're there in the care of Aaron, Moses' older brother, that's helped him all along the way.

Aaron has been a part of all of these miracles and been riding by his side, helping Moses, and Moses is up with the Lord.

He's receiving the instruction from God, and Aaron is down below at the base of the mountain with the people of God.

And this happens.

Exodus 32.

When the people saw how long it was taking Moses to come back down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron.

Come on, they said, make us some gods who can lead us.

We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us from the land of Egypt.

So Aaron said, A bright idea.

Take the gold rings from your ear, from the ears of your wives and sons and daughters and bring them to me.

Verse 3, all the people took the gold rings from their ears and brought them to Aaron.

And then Aaron took the gold and he melted it down and he molded it into the shape of a calf.

When the people saw it, they exclaimed, O Israel, these are the gods who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

Aaron saw how excited the people were, so he built an altar in front of the calf, and then he announced, Tomorrow will be a festival to the Lord.

Try to sprinkle a little bit of God in there.

This brilliant great idea that he's had.

The people got up early the next morning and sacrificed burnt offerings and peace offerings.

After this, they celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.

You can use your imagination.

The Lord told Moses, Quick, go down the mountain.

Your people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

How quickly they have turned away from the way I commanded them to live.

They have melted down gold and made a calf, and they've bowed down and sacrificed to it.

They are saying, These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you out of the land of Egypt.

These Israelites, who have just been liberated from Egypt, where they're constantly surrounded by the worship of false gods in the Egyptian culture, are sitting at the base of the mountain.

Moses is up getting the instructions from him.

And they have this bright idea that Aaron would make for them a God.

Now, not the one true God that has just done miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle, but something that they could create and worship a created thing that they've made.

And God's anger burns against them.

And he tells Moses, go down, go down to your people, for they've corrupted themselves.

And Moses pleads with God to have mercy on them.

And he does.

And what happened to the people of God at the base of the mountain is that they got tired of doing what was right.

They got bored.

Well, where's this Moses fella?

He just went up there some time ago.

What happened to him up there?

Is he did he die up there?

Where'd he go?

We're not waiting around anymore.

We need to take matters into our own hands.

Then in verse 19.

When they came to the camp, Moses saw the calf and the dancing, and he burned with anger, and he threw the stone tablets on the ground, smashing them at the foot of the mountain.

He took the calf that they made and burned it.

And then he ground it into powder and threw it into water and forced the people to drink it.

Finally, he turned to Aaron and demanded, What did these people do to you to make you bring such terrible sin upon them?

Don't get upset, my Lord.

Aaron replied, You yourself know how evil these people are.

This is great.

They said to me, Make us gods who will lead us.

We don't know what happened to this fellow Moses who brought us out of the land of Egypt.

So I told them, Whoever has gold jewelry, take it off.

And when they brought it to me, I simply threw it into the fire and out came this calf.

Idolatry, it's a simple thing.

It's when you take a good thing, you make it a God thing, it becomes a bad thing.

For them, it was this golden calf as an idol.

But an idol into the New Testament, and what we know of what an idol is.

It's anything that you have positioned above God in your life.

That can even be something that is good.

It could be a career, it could be family, it could be a relationship, it could be your ambition.

It could be financial wealth, it could be a number of different things that you place above God and you worship and sacrifice to instead of God, and God is out of proper position in your life.

And what they have done with the people of God is that they have made it a created thing and they have worshipped it.

And we are tempted over and over again for us to do the same.

For us to worship something that is a created thing other than the Creator.

For us to make our affections and our life revolve around things that are here on earth instead of the God above who has done so much for us.

And our hearts are bent towards weariness and even sometimes boredom in the face of what God has called us and asked us to do.

You know, there's sometimes for me when I'm truly being a Moses.

There's other times when I'm being an Aaron.

For the people of God, they chose to worship their jewelry instead of the priceless one.

Some days I'm Aaron, forgetting the very miracles that God has performed in my life and the people around me.

Some days I'm locked in.

But there are times when that enemy, that villain of idolatry can even creep into my mind and heart.

And I go from having a Moses minute to an Aaron afternoon of faithfulness to God versus faithfulness to the world.

Jesus taught this very same thing.

That we should remain faithful, that we shouldn't grow tired of doing what is right and doing what is good.

He taught it through his apostle Paul, he taught it through his own teachings.

The church in Galatia, Paul wrote to them, and he said this in Galatians 6, 7 don't be misled.

You cannot mock the justice of God.

You will always harvest what you plant.

Those who live only to satisfy their sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature.

But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.

So let's not get tired of doing what is good.

At just the right time, everybody say right time.

Turn to your neighbor and say right time.

Turn to your other neighbor and say right time.

At just the right time, we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don't give up, if we don't get weary, don't grow tired.

Some versions say get we don't become weary.

Therefore, whenever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone, especially those in the family of faith.

Don't get tired of doing what is good.

Don't get tired of doing what is right.

Jesus taught an extreme version of this.

Jesus taught an extreme version of this in Luke chapter 6, verse 27, where Jesus said, But for those of you who are willing to listen, I say to you, love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.

Luke 6:27

Don't get weary of doing good.

Don't get tired of doing good, even to those who hate you, who don't like you, who speak bad about you, that talk behind your back, who would try to get you fired, who try to tear down your family, who try to rip up your relationships, even for those people, even for them.

We should do good to them.

And not grow weary, not grow tired of it.

So you're asking me, Forrest, okay, I get you, I hear you.

We're not supposed to grow tired of doing what is good.

I I'm I'm tracking with you.

So how in the world do I do that?

How do I not get tired?

Because I feel like I'm constantly pouring out for my family, my spouse, my wife, my kids, my job, my community, my church.

How in the world do I go about not getting tired of doing what is good?

The first thing you do is that you examine yourself.

The scripture teaches us time and time again that it's good for us to test our motives, for us to look inwardly at our heart and look at the way that we're thinking and examine how we're thinking about God and about what we're doing, and to ask ourselves this question: Am I seeking my own glory instead of God's glory?

Am I doing things in my workplace, in my life, for my family, and I'm doing it just so that it will return back to me, or am I doing it out of a genuine love for God and to see him get glory through my life?

To examine yourself.

Not only that, to examine the good that you're doing, because we know from the scripture that that the world, that not based on God's word, that the world will call what is evil is good and what's good is evil.

And so are we following God and his good on his terms, not our own?

How does God define it?

Because when we begin to stort what is good and what the scripture says about what is good, then we begin to create golden calves.

Things that we say, you know what, maybe maybe this is what God meant by that, and and and and and and even you know, I I don't know if that Bible verse really aligns with modern day thinking.

And so, you know, I I maybe God actually meant this and you sprinkle a little God onto a golden calf.

Examine yourself.

The second thing is that you expect God to move.

You expect him to move.

Think about Jesus' ministry.

If you read the gospels, at every portion of Jesus' ministry, he is facing opposition.

From the religious leaders who hated him and wanted his ministry stopped, from his own family who didn't understand what he was doing, being tempted by the enemy, by Satan, the devil himself.

And even at some times he was being opposed by his own disciples, saying, No, don't Jesus, you don't understand, and Jesus having to look at them and say, get behind me, Satan, because I'm on a mission and I have something to do and I have a calling and I have a purpose, and right now you're trying to distract me, you're trying to pull me away from what the mission is, and you're trying to oppose me in every part during Jesus' ministry, all the way up to him, his arrest, on trumped-up charges, being beaten, mocked, made to carry a cross to Calvary, and to die in our place.

At every single portion of his ministry, Jesus had opposition.

And he tells us to expect opposition as well.

Don't be surprised when you're going through trials of many kinds, but count it as pure joy that you're suffering with Christ alongside him, with him.

He's walking with you, you're expecting God to move because you know what?

The scripture says that God will fight for you.

God will fight for you.

In the midst of opposition, when when you feel the the weariness and the tired that's coming on, and you're thinking about what you're trying to do and live in the right way, and there's opposition from every side, God is with you.

And he's walking with you, and he's helping you, and he's giving you your Holy Spirit.

You know, it's Jesus who said it's impossible to please God without faith.

It's impossible to please God without faith.

That in the face of Of the trials and the tiredness and the weary in the face of all that, that even in that we expect God to move.

The third thing is that we need to experience God's promises, leaning not on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledging Him.

And Him making our path straight.

That we're experiencing the promises, not of our own understanding, but on the unmovable power of God's word.

Not just knowing Christian principles and Christian slogans and ideas, but truly knowing God's word and what is promised to us, that he will never forsake you or leave you.

That he's going to provide for every single one of your needs.

Maybe not all your wants, but your needs.

That in the end you will be rewarded for what he's done.

God's promises to us.

That as we stay faithful to him, that God, no matter what we do, that he will be faithful to us.

That as we have faith and walk with him, as we pour out, we better have the promises of God that are pouring into us as we're pouring out to others.

Through prayer, through knowing his word, through loving him.

And then to exercise patience.

We're trusting the process.

The process that God is building you, that he's molding you, that he's using you for his glory at the appointed time.

At just the right time.

See the people of God, they they were bored, they were tired, they were weary, they wanted to fashion track it, but God was trying to take them through a process and they tried to circumvent it and say, you know what, God, we can't wait on you.

We're gonna create this golden calf.

We're gonna take it our own way.

We're gonna do our own thing, God.

Because you're not showing up right now.

But what God tells us and he promises us is that at just the right time, at just the right time, in due season, we're gonna reap a harvest.

At that just the right time, we don't get to choose it, we don't get to pick it.

At that just the right time, it may be for you, it may be next week, it may be at the your last breath as you enter into heaven.

You don't know what just the right time is, but we know that God is faithful to us and that he loves us.

And he's taking care of us.

And that we don't need to get tired and weary in the process.

You know, this was such an important teaching that the apostle Paul not only told it to the church in Galatia, but he also told it to the Thessalonians as well.

The exact same thing in 2 Thessalonians 3.13, he said, for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good.

Don't get tired of it.

Don't get tired of doing what's right, for pouring out, for loving others, for seeing people discipled, for seeing life change.

Don't get tired of it.

Because we're tempted to do that, to make it about ourselves.

Um I I heard about one time that uh there was a a a member of his church, this uh guy who asked a pastor after a few years being in the church, he asked for a meeting with the pastor, and they sat down to have the meeting, and the guy looked across the table and said to the pastor, well, pastor, uh, I just need to let you know it's time for me to leave the church.

They said, he said, okay, you know what's going on?

Something happened, is something going on, or what's the story here?

And he said, No, here's what I've kind of realized that for me in my walk with God, that about every five years or so as I went to church, I've gotten everything out of that church that I really could.

And and so about every five years, I just pick up my family and we move to another church every five years.

And he looked back at him and he said, Oh, what so what's happened is that at some point in this journey you started to believe that this is about you and not about serving God and serving others.

This somehow is just something that we do in church that I've gotten everything out of the church that I was going to.

I've heard all the sermons.

I've done all the things and the programs, and now it's time for us to pick up and go.

Aren't you glad that that that that for the body of Christ, but for your body that your organs don't get tired and just want to leave?

Aren't you glad that your lungs aren't just like, this guy is not running enough miles to keep me busy?

I just we just need to take a hike and get out of here and find us a new body.

Your kidneys are just like, ah, we're just not being used enough.

We gotta roll.

We're getting bored with this.

Thankfully, our internal organs, they don't just get tired, they can get sick, they can get damaged, they don't just get tired and roll.

You know, um we're coming up on July 4th.

I love it.

Just a few days away now.

I love the fireworks.

I love I love celebrating America.

I love thinking about the rights and the freedoms that we have that were given to us by God, not the government, by the way.

And protected by those who've given their life as the ultimate sacrifice.

It was last year, or maybe the year before, I can't remember, but Emily and I were at one of our friends, they had their wedding on the July 4th weekend, and so we were down in Harrisburg at the wedding, and we were driving up the the uh the 127 corridor there, coming back to Frankfurt, and it was the 4th of July celebration as we were driving down the road, and you all know that stretch.

It's you know just tons of there's farms and neighborhoods and all that's along on either side as you go from Harrisburg, Lawrenceburg to Frankfurt, and so we were driving up the way everywhere the eye could see, we were fireworks going up from people's houses and neighborhoods and farms, and they were going up in the sky and they were exploding, they were beautiful.

We were driving through, and I was like, I'm in a movie right now.

That's what I felt like.

I'm in a movie right now.

It was just it was just such a beautiful moment.

Celebrating.

You know what's interesting?

Jesus doesn't describe the good we do like a firework up in a flash and gone, but he describes it as farming.

Not a firework, not a flash in the pan, not a hair and used up and burned up, but instead the harvest and the work of planting seeds.

Planting seeds that take time.

They take time to grow, they take care.

And then at just the right time.

At just the right time.

Produces whatever the fruit or the vegetable or whatever it's supposed to do, that's been planted.

I think about the serve weed that's coming up here in a couple weeks, and I wonder of the things that we're gonna get to do, and what what what an absolute just testimony to the Lord and to you all that here at just a year and a few months old, that we have all these different organizations that we are able to now come alongside and love and show love and care to and connection with in our community.

And that's because of you.

That's because of what God has done through you in a very short time here in our church.

But I wonder, I wonder what seeds you will plant that you may not get to see harvested or come to fruition, but that you would know as I'm planting these seeds through what we're doing.

That fresh start Frankfurt, as at the Simon House with Kentucky State, and on and on and on.

Went on to George Robinson and found out what seeds did you plant that at just the right time, God would bring to harvest to fruition through you.

Can you think of it?

Can you imagine it with me for a second?

As we're sowing and planting seeds, it's not just a flash in the pan, not just a quick firework with a lot of pizzazz and a flash, but instead a steadiness.

Not getting tired or weary of doing what is good.

Outside the walls of the church, in the walls of the church, with your volunteer team, with a small group, all those things, all those seeds that you're planting out there, that you are seeing move forward.

All those seeds that you're doing that God at just the right time, in due season, that God is going to bring a reward, that you're gonna receive it on this side of heaven or on the next, that God loves you, that he loves the people that you will plant and put a seed into, and that God is gonna work through you powerfully, and you may not be able to feel it, you may not be able to see it, but we don't live on what we see, we live on what God says.

Right now, you may be in the room today, and you may have come in and you've had a tough week, you're tired, you're weary, you're in that state, you may not be, that's okay.

You will be at some point, you'll be tempted to be in that state.

God loves you, He cares for you, He wants to show you the powerful work that He wants to do in your life and through your life.

You may be here today and you stepped into this church for the first time, or maybe you've been coming for a while, and you haven't yet given your life over to the farmer.

You haven't given your life over to the king of the world, the universe, the Alpha, the Omega, the beginning, the end.

Jesus, who faced opposition for your life and on your behalf to die for you on the cross, and today is your day that you need to accept Jesus and the forgiveness that he died and gave to you by way of the cross so that you can walk with him.

Here's the thing you will reap a reward.

I don't know when that will be for you.

It'll be a life dedicated to him, that you're walking in his presence and power in your life.

But here's the thing: I don't know how many days you have on earth.

I don't know how many days I have on earth.

I'm not sure what how much time that we get, but I know this that if we give our life over to Jesus, that we're gonna receive a reward of being with him in heaven one day.

That right now you've come into the room and you're dead in your sin.

You can't save yourself, you can't do it on your own, but you need to receive the free gift of salvation from Jesus that he bought for you on the cross and that you can move from death to life today.

Not thinking about anything else and all those things that you're distracted to be thinking about, but instead, what is the state of my soul and where will I be headed when I pass?

And today is the day that you can receive Jesus as your Savior and your Lord.

Will you bow your heads and pray with me?

God, I pray over each person who's in the room today, God.

That Lord, unlike the Israelites who got bored and tired and weary, instead, God, I pray right now, Lord, that you would remind of the truth that God, in right time, in due season, Lord, that God, there's gonna be a harvest that's reaped to each one of our lives.

So, Father, I pray that over our whole church.

God, we stand on your word, on your promises, and we thank you for them, God.

And Lord, I pray across the room today, Lord, for anyone who has not received you as Savior and as Lord, that today will be the day, God, that they move from death to life.

That Lord, that they would confess with their mouth that you're Lord and believe in their heart that God, you raise Jesus from the dead, and in doing so they'll be saved.

Today, all across this room, if you ask you today that you need to receive salvation from Jesus, you need to ask Jesus to forgive you and receive Him and give your life to Him.

Just encourage you right now to pray to Him and pray, Jesus, save me.

I believe that you are the Son of God.

I believe that you died on the cross for me.

I give you my life.

You gave your life for me.

Forgive me.

Wash me as white as snow, so I can be with you one day in heaven.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

No heads.

I left all heads bowed and eyes closed.

Today, if you prayed that prayer of salvation for the first time to receive Jesus, I don't want to embarrass you.

I just want to be able to pray for you and come inside you and encourage you.

If today was the day that you received Jesus for the very first time, would you just very quickly let you lift your hands so that I can see you, pray for you?

If today was your day of salvation, yep, see you right there.

Anybody else?

Father, I thank you, Lord.

Salvation has come today in this house.

God thank you, Lord, that you're moving people from death to life.

God thank you, Jesus, for what you do for us on the cross.

We love each other.

We thank you.

Jesus, powerful and holy name.

Let everybody say.

Amen.

Church, where you celebrate together as you stand, worship the Lord as we close.