Bible Heroes | Moses Kingdom Culture

He's speaking Egyptian fluently, reading hieroglyphics, and now he's in Midian learning to communicate and function with the Midianites. God is exposing him to multiple cultures so that he can be effective. Some of us don't understand why we find ourselves where we currently find ourselves, but the truth is that God has perfectly placed you so that you can be used in a greater measure tomorrow than you are today. Well, good morning, church. Good morning.

How's everybody doing? Good. Who's ready to go and be changed by the power of the word of God today? You ready to go in this morning? You ready to go in?

Come on. Let's open with prayer. Father, open our spiritual ears that we might hear. Open our spiritual eyes that we may see. Father, I thank you, that we're not just gonna be hearers of the word.

We're gonna be doers of the word. So father, give us clear instruction from your scripture today, and we thank you that it never returns void in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen and amen. Man, welcome to Hope City, everybody. I see some new faces.

Welcome. We're glad you're here. My name's Josh. I'm the senior pastor here. Glad that you're here.

Today, we're gonna continue this series, about heroes. The way this series got started was that, several weeks back, actually, it was a few months back, I was talking about, and, Sunday school. And we were talking about, I believe it was, Noah, and somebody goes They sent me a connection card and they said, who's Noah? And I went, oh, my gosh. What an incredible opportunity we have, to go back through the scripture and teach about the heroes of our faith.

And, how many know it's great that we're reaching people, who have never been to church? Place, kind of catching everybody up on, on a few of the heroes of our faith. Today, we're going to talk about Today, we're going to talk about just man, just a great, great character in the scripture, but not just a character, We're gonna read verse one through 10. Exodus chapter two verse one through 10. This is gonna give us, a preface of Moses's life, to kind of bring you up to speed on Moses.

There's a guy named Joseph in the Bible was sold into slavery by his brothers, was then falsely accused of rape, was put in prison. And while he was in prison, he, basically gives Pharoah the meaning. He interprets a dream that pharaoh has. And because it is so accurate and it's so beneficial to the Egyptian throne, they make Joseph the second in command of all of Egypt. Well, that spurns a time where all the Israelites come to Egypt during a time of famine.

So they have food, and they have adequate land that's nourished by the Nile River. And so we see all of the Israelites sojourn to Egypt and they're there for about four hundred years. During that four hundred years, most of that time, they are slaves. You see what happened is is Pharaoh became very jealous of the Israelites. And so we're gonna see this in just a minute, how he decided to become very harsh toward them.

And where Joseph was celebrated just a few generations later, the Israelites were put into captivity and treated very poorly by the Egyptians. And this is where our story picks up today. Exodus chapter two starting at verse one through 10. The scripture says this, now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman. Remember that.

Last week we started talking about tribes and kinda gave you some insight. All a tribe is is it tells who their great grandfather, great great great grandfather. It's it's, a man named Jacob had 12 sons, and one of those sons' name was Levi. And so if you were a descendant of Levi, the Levi, they said that you are a member of the tribe of Levi. So these were members of Levi's family.

It says, now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. Now, here's the reason why she's hiding him. Pharaoh had gotten so upset with the Israelites and had become so jealous of how fast they could grow. These people were cranking out children.

I'm talking about fast. I mean, they were just multiplying. God was blushing them. And so, Pharoah passed an edict from his throne, and he said every male child that's born will be cast into the Nile River. Moses's mother, knowing this decree, she makes a plan to hide and protect her child.

Watch this. So she hid him for three months. But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Basically spraying a wicker basket with flex seal. Okay?

So then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. Then Pharaoh's daughter went down to the Nile to bathe and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. She opened it and saw the baby.

He was crying and she felt sorry for him. This is one of the Hebrew babies, she said. Then his sister asked Pharaoh's daughter, shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you? Yes. Go, she answered.

So the girl went and got the baby's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, take this baby and nurse him for me and I will pay you. So the woman took the baby and nursed him. And when the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, meaning I drew him out of the water.

If you look at the term Moses in Egyptian terms, he was given that name. It means to be drawn out our story begins there today. Today, I want to teach you about leading counter culturally in our society today. I believe the word of God challenges us to go against the grain of culture and to bring the kingdom of heaven's culture down to earth in a time where the culture of of earth is pressing against the kingdom, we're supposed to press back. Amen.

And use the scripture for the basis of how we move and respond and act. Now, here's what's interesting about this whole story. Again, it says it really fast. It covers a lot of really cool things in that little bit of text we just read. Moses's mom puts him in a baby boat, hides him in the reeds of a river, and and one of the, the handmaidens of Pharaoh's daughter finds him.

Moses' sister, being, ever present in that moment, she goes, Hey. You want somebody to raise that baby for you? And the girl goes, Yeah. She goes, Let me go get one of the Hebrew women. Let them do all the hard work.

And she goes back to Moses' mother. And she goes, And she goes back to Moses's mother and brings Moses's biological mom into the picture. So I guess what I'm saying is, this heifer got paid to raise her own kid. Come on, somebody. That's a blessing, ain't it?

Come on. How many how many y'all take a paycheck to raise your babies? Come on now. They should have paid me twice for my last one. You hear me?

Should get retirement for that one. So here's another cool thing that we see. The Bible never gives any details without there being purpose. Right? And it starts off by saying that a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman.

He was a thoroughbred Levite, which meant his mama was a Levite, his daddy was a Levite. That means Moses was a Levite. What does that mean to us today? God set the Levites aside as priests. They were spiritual leaders out of all the tribes of Judah or out of the tribes of Jacob and Israel.

The Levites were set aside, consecrated for special purpose to be priests. So keep that in mind, as we read into this next section. So he's a Levite by birth. And now he's being raised in Egypt by pharaoh's daughter in the lap of luxury. Their they were not like ordinary kings.

Whatever they said went. There was no discussion. There was reason to vote or anything, whatever he said goes. And so all of the gold, all of the tax, all of them, it all came to pharaoh. So Moses was raised in a very luxurious justification to what's actually happening to happening to his family.

So his family is being pressed and being treated very poorly as slaves. They're murdering his brothers and, and cousins and throwing him into the river. And so Moses has been set apart. See, some of you in here, here, the people that you used to run-in here, they're dealing with things you're not dealing with, and you don't understand. You need to give God some glory today because you have been set apart.

You've been drawn out for a specific purpose. Some of us don't even know why we're here at this moment. All we know is that we are blessed to be here because God drew us out of what the enemy meant for our harm. Right? Alright.

Stay with me. Stay with me. I'm not gonna preach yet. Exodus chapter two verse 15 through 17. While Moses was in Pharaoh's house, he starts noticing the way the Israelites are being treated.

And one day, he has had enough. And he sees this Egyptian soldier laying into an Israelite and he takes it upon himself to defend the Israelite, but he murders the Egyptian soldier. And this is where Exodus chapter two verse 15 picks up. It says, when Pharaoh heard this of the murder, it says he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian. This is where he sat down by a well.

Now a priest of Midian, this man's name is Jethro, had seven daughters and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock. And some shepherds came along and drove them away. But Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. Notice it said that a priest of Midian, his name's Jethro. He was the high priest of Midian.

Right? Why is that interesting? Moses's biological father, a Levite, a priest, mother, Levite, priest, father-in-law, priest. God had a plan for his life. Are you starting to see the picture?

He was gonna be a spiritual leader whether he wanted to be or not. Even in his running into the wilderness, he's running into more priests. Can I tell you, you can run all you want to? Our God is able to move the earth under your feet to put you where you're supposed to be. Alright?

Now let me also say this. This is a sad point. Moses married a woman named Zipporah. Now cool name, even cooler story. Zipporah had a really good tan.

Now the Israelites had good tans, but Zipporah, she was a sister. Moses liked more than salt and pepper on his chicken. You know what I'm saying? He he need he need a little spice on his on his food. You hear what I'm saying?

And and and and and and and he falls in love with Zipporah, how beautiful God is and how he functions. He's a Israelite. He's learning their culture because he defends it against an Egyptian, but he's raised in an Egyptian home. So now he's speaking not only Israeli and Hebrew tongue and Aramaic, he's speaking Egyptian fluently, reading hieroglyphics, and now he's in Midian learning to communicate and function with the Midianites. God is exposing him to multiple cultures so that he can be effective.

Some of us don't understand why we find ourselves where we currently find ourselves, but the truth is that God has perfectly placed you so that you can be used in a greater measure tomorrow than you are today. Do not despise your current situation. God can use it. So now Moses is, a murderer, fugitive on the run, marries a priest daughter, Midianite. They trust him with their flocks.

So now Moses is in the wilderness with a bunch of sheep. So it went from the lap of luxury, the highest appointment in all of Egypt, to now being in the woods with some goats. More points than I've ever taught, so I gotta teach fast. Moses, has a moment with God. And point number one for you today is this, is one moment with God changes everything.

One moment with God, one encounter with God changes everything. He had a burning bush moment. Moses is out in the desert with some sheep, and all of a sudden, this, I remind people that if you are ever looking at something on fire and it begins to talk, you might want to pay attention. And Moses has a moment with God to where not only is he reconciled to God, but that his future is changed. Because God knew he was a murderer.

God knew he was a fugitive. And God said, I can still use you if you'll trust me. Can I tell you irrelevant of your past, God has a plan for your future? Come home. Amen.

If you'll if you'll give your life to him, he can do something wonderful with it. Amen. Right? So he has this encounter with God, changes everything. Number two, God was ready to use everything from Moses's life to impact the kingdom.

He speak Egyptian, could communicate with the Midianites, understood, the Egyptian culture, had all this cultural understanding. But then as a shepherd, he finds himself with the ability to locate water, shelter, nourishment, all of these things in the desert. Little did he know that he was about to spend forty years in this same desert. And he was probably thinking, man, I went from being all the way up here. I was in the palace, man.

Things were sweet. And now here I am with these goats and God's saying, just relax. You're about to lead more people than Pharaoh. Let me just let me do this thing. Let me set you up.

You see, what the world tells us that we're being set out really is the fact that God is setting us up. We don't see it oftentimes, and here's the reason why we don't see it, because we're selfish and we're self centered. Where Moses thought, man, I've had a demotion. I've been demoted all the way down to a shepherd. I'm out here.

I'm stinking with these goats. There's no hot run of water. This is horrible. God's saying, I'm teaching you something in this season that will be a blessing to millions very soon. So God was taking his entire life and building this beautiful picture.

Probably the most beautiful picture is this. It's one of the greatest things God does for his children is he calls them not just two cultures but out of certain cultures. He told Moses that I have separated you for a reason. I've sanctified you for a reason. You were a priest by birth and the enemy meant to kill you while you were a baby.

And then when that didn't work, they gave you everything your heart could desire. You fell there. When that didn't work, you ran as a fugitive. When that didn't work, I've had you run right into a priest. When that didn't work, his daughter, swooned you back to me.

And now you're here in this place. I'm about to do something great, but you have got to let go of the culture of your past. People had been submitted to that culture and leadership. People of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. This is pharaoh.

He's speaking to his leaders and he's warning them about the strength of the Israelites. And he says, we must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don't and if war breaks out, they'll join our enemies and fight against us, then they'll escape from the country. Why is this in the scripture? Had the Israelites known their own strength, they could have taken Egypt at that very moment.

Had they realized that they had the strength that they had, the Egyptian history would be totally different today. Because from one minute to the next, they'd have been they'd have gone from writing in hieroglyphics to writing in Aramaic. Because the culture would have been completely overthrown. And what we see there is a picture that the enemy never wants you to understand your full strength spiritually. Because if you ever gain true understanding of who you are in Christ Jesus, change is coming.

You are going to make an impact in the things in your life. You are going to start impacting things more than things are impacting you. The devil does not want you to know your authority. In the same way, the pharaoh did not want the Israelites to know their authority. Number four, God wanted his children to follow him, not the pharaohs of Egypt.

He had to get them away from that culture that enslaved them. Remember, Moses's name is drawn out. It literally means to be drawn out. All throughout the scripture, before God can do really big things with people, he has to pull them away from certain cultures, from certain stimuli, from certain environments. We see this in Abraham.

He told Abraham, he said, come out from amongst those people. He told Joseph, he said, you're going to leave your family and I'm going to put you with pharaoh. He told Gideon, you're no longer a farmer. You're a mighty man of valor. He told the disciples, lay down your nets.

I'm gonna make you fishers of men. He told Paul, you're no longer a Pharisee. Now you're my follower. In Egypt, the children of Israel were called slaves. God was calling them to a culture where they would be known as sons and daughters of God.

That picture is a picture that's available to us today. Salvation of Jesus Christ. And the Bible says it's through Jesus Christ that we have been given the ability to be called the sons and daughters of God kind of skipped over this a little bit this morning in first service. You know, first service people, different kind of people. Saying.

Let's talk about culture just for a second. The culture of first service is different than the culture of second service. Y'all come ready. I don't know if it's that you sleep later. I don't know what the situation is.

I just know that y'all come turned up ready to go in and do business, right? First service is very But they're just different. The culture is different. Y'all come in and everything shifts. Some people like to sleep in, some people like to get up, some people like to, you know, shout at a preacher, some people don't.

It's just different cultural. This service, you would think you're in a totally different church. It's just different, right? The culture of heaven is different than the culture of earth. I wasn't gonna step on toes, but go and pull them up because here I come.

The problem is is we got people who wanna be Christians, and they got more invested in the culture of Earth than they got invested in the culture of heaven. And they they want the pleasure of earth, but the power of heaven and it don't work out like that. You can't listen. Listen, baby. You can't pay taxes to earth and expect the benefits of heaven.

That's not the way that works. You can't sit now. I'm not telling you not to pay your taxes. What I'm what I'm what I'm telling you is is what kingdom are you going to serve the most? You see oh, Lord help me.

Okay. The culture of earth will tell you there's 73 genders. What? That's what they'll tell you. I looked it up and then there's an asterisk.

73 genders and growing. Have they not seen the scripture? The Bible says male and female he made them. Two. That's all there's ever gonna be.

Why are they saying they're 73? Because they're angry at God. They're raging against what he says. If God said there were 73, they'd say there's two. The culture of heaven is different than the culture of this earth.

So why is it that believers are out here dancing and doing all their living over here in the culture of earth, but then on Sundays, they wanna come play in this culture of heaven? The Bible says wherever your treasure is there, your heart will be also where you're spending your time, your talent, your treasure, you keep it in the earth. That's where you'll reap your harvest. Can I tell you it's time for the children of God to stand up and say they're children of God? They're not of Earth's culture.

They are not from earth. They are, the Bible says you're an alien. That's just traveling through this place. And here's the number one reason why. If people can't tell me and you no different than the people of earth, they don't know who to go to when their life falls apart.

And here's the problem. You got people out here lost, looking for beacons of hope and they can't see it because we're fading in. We're camouflage with the people of Earth. What? What?

Sound like little John. What? Whose culture do you want your treasure to come from? You wanna be blessed for eternity or you just wanna have a good time temporarily? You can't have both.

People out here just straddling the fence. Man, I I I really enjoy doing x y and z Monday through Saturday. I ain't gonna miss church though because I leave there feeling like something's different about me. Can I tell you sweetheart, you can be different seven days a week? God pours out his spirit 20 four seven.

The Bible says there's a time that we'll see where he'll pour out his spirit on all flesh. And for those who are willing to enter in, there'll be a difference about those people. See, what they used to say is stuff like, let the redeemed of the Lord say so. You should be able to see a difference in me. You should be able to stand me here and a nonbeliever right there, and they go, that's the Christian right there.

Why? There's something different about that dude right there. Yeah. Come on. It's something see, y'all I I'm to the point in Arkansas hanging out.

I'm like, I wasn't gonna do it today. Passionate about this kingdom business because I watch it set captives free. And I'm not just talking about the Old Testament. I'm talking about Crestview 2025. People still get set free from the culture of the kingdom of heaven.

Choose you this day whom you will serve. The world will always validate the things God's trying to eradicate. They will always try to validate the things that'll destroy you. If you ain't shaking things up occasionally, you need to kinda check your faith meter. You can be so agreeable that they can't tell nothing different about you.

And let me let me let me go on and put preachers on blast first because it starts with us. We got preachers that don't wanna talk about hell because it's not comfortable. We got preachers that don't wanna talk about gender because then somebody might say something on Facebook. You got preachers that don't wanna get into people and talk about marriage because they're afraid they might step on somebody's toes or puts money in the plate. You got people that don't wanna talk about sin.

I'm talking about preachers that don't wanna go after sin knowing the devastation it causes. Can I can I just tell you? And and for anybody listening to this podcast, if you're a preacher, if you're in this room, you're a preacher. Preach the Bible. Here's what we preach.

We preach Jesus Christ and him crucified, resurrected, and on the throne. We teach freedom in full portion, the manifestation of the power of God. We preach faith and the evidence of faith. We preach the Holy Ghost. We preach those things because the scripture says it, not because I feel like saying it.

You got to choose what culture you're gonna be a part of. Bible says you're a peculiar people. Something different, you've been chosen, you've been set apart. How can you be peculiar if nobody can tell you apart? People are look at you as part of the world and go, You ever seen a dog just, Peculiar.

I don't know what it is. They ain't open their mouth yet, but something different about that person. I was in a elevator in New Orleans a few years ago. I don't like heights. Elevator's not a real good place for me, especially at the Hyatt Regency.

If you ever stayed down there in New Orleans, son, that sucker's tall, and it's glass elevator. And so when I hit the button, I'm like this. I hit the button. I stand right here looking at the button. Right.

Right here. Everybody said, oh, look at the super dome. I'm good. I'm good. I'm I got 29 buttons right here.

We're good right here. And I just sit there and I watch them buttons. And a lady gets on and I look and I make eye contact where she got the big smile on her face. And I look and she turns and guess what she does? She gets on the elevator and she goes on the other side just like this.

This. Neither one of us stand in the in the glass. I look over and I said, what floor? She goes, 23. I went, oh, Jesus.

She said, what floor are you? I said, 24. She went, oh, lord. Okay. So we're going up, and, people jumping around the elevator, making me nervous.

She felt it vibrates. Oh, lord. People door bing. More people getting in. Uh-uh.

Uh-uh. Kids leaning on the glass in the back. I was, uh-uh, Jesus. Please. Just feeling weak.

I'm feeling weak in my knees. I look over and there's this woman. She's just kinda grinning. She's staring at the wall too. And I asked her.

I said, you scared of heights? She went, real bad. Real bad. And she said, how could you tell? How could I tell?

I said, I see something in you that I see in me. Listen. There's things of this world that should be off putting to us. That when everybody's running to the things of the world, there's just to be some believers on. Hard pass, hard pass.

You can crowd in here with a dangerous stuff if you want to, but it's me and this one over here, we gonna do us. We gonna and everybody, they must be afraid of, no, I'm afraid of sin. I'm afraid of hell, And I love Jesus. There's a difference in me than the rest of the people on the elevator. You're gonna see something different about me, and you may not recognize it at first, but you're gonna come to understand it's a love of Jesus in me that sets me apart.

People just crowd on that dagger elevator. You know what? Stand close the door. I get the first chance to jump out. You might get off, but you ain't gonna get off before me.

I promise you that. You're gonna see six, four, three hundred pounds move quicker than you ever seen that door come. I'm gone quick. Why? Because I feel the danger in there.

They will say, man, you ain't no danger in elevator. Listen, you might mess with sin two, three, four, five, a thousand times. It might have been dangerous to you, but one these days. So I was watching CNN one time. Elevator at the W in Atlanta.

I said, oh my god. I was on that elevator one time. From that day forward, I stood by the door. I'm I'm right here. I'm right here by the door.

Wendy even my own wife laughs at me because I stand by the door. That's fine. You can plummet to your death. I'm getting out of the elevator. See, that's the, that's the, that's the picture of Christianity.

We've seen the possibility of what sin can cause. We don't want, let me be as far away from it. Micah, let me, I'm gonna be right. Me and Micah gonna be right here. We right here.

What floor are you on, Micah? I'm going to your floor. We're gonna be right here. Why? We've seen the devastation.

Amen. We know what that culture brings. I am recovering from the pain of that culture. I don't have to go too far back. See, your boy wasn't always a preacher.

I know what it is to desire the things of the world more than I desire the things of the kingdom. And my life was empty. It was void. When I first married Wendy, I was full of rage and anger. And now, she has a husband that's full of peace and joy.

And I don't want that. People come in, man, they come in for counseling and man lost his mind and cussed out his family. And That's hard to get them pieces back together. I'm so grateful God put this man back together before I had kids. But I still I look back and I think that culture tries to creep its way back in.

And it tries to creep its way back in through what I watch, what I read, what I listen to. And I got to realize it just okay. You wanna go okay. I'm I'm I'm right here. As close to the cross as I can get.

This is what I'm trying to do. Now, I'm gonna love you. Hey, how you doing? Oh, good to see you. Welcome aboard.

But this is me. I But this is me. I'm I'm not moving. Why? Because I don't desire to see nothing else.

I've seen it. Ain't nothing changed. Number five. I gotta hurry. I gotta hurry.

I gotta hurry. God needed a leader who would stand against the culture of the day and he's still looking for those leaders today. You see, the world's culture tells us we have to evolve. God's word says it never changes. The world requires us to fit in when the word of God says to stand firm.

There is a day coming that your faith may cost you some relationships. Do it anyway. Do it anyway. There comes a time where speaking the truth may hurt some people's feelings. Say it anyway.

Why? I'd rather you hate me now more than you hate hell later. Let me speak truth. It's culture carriers are truth speakers. Number six, God was patient with the Egyptians for a season, but he was merciful toward the Israelites.

Let me give you this. The the the Israelites, man, they they they they just hard to manage. God said, you're a stiff necked people. If we put that in Crestview East today, he's saying, boy, you just daggum hard headed. You're hard headed people.

You're stubborn. Right? Now, check this out. Because he Egyptians. He was patient with the Egyptians, but he was merciful with the Israelites.

And and and I was praying. I said, Lord, give me a picture. Yeah. I'm a big picture purr. If I can't see a picture of it, I I often time don't get it.

You ever been on an airplane with a screaming kid? I'm talking about that mug sitting right behind you just howling, just just causing all kind of and you stuck in a tin can with this rascal, And they just acting out, just crashing completely out on you. Right? And then, it goes into high gear because the screaming kid starts kicking the back of your chair. That happened to me one time.

Horrible experience. Horrible experience. Patience is not getting up and whooping that child. Right? Or they're appearing.

That's a good point, Julie. Good point. Mercy is realizing that it's your child, and you love them anyway. Oh, they're kicking my seat. Oh, oh, I wish you would.

Oh, hey, it's Nora. It's okay. Nora, you better wait. Right? He was for a day.

Okay. 10 Remember, pharaoh had dealt harshly, harshly with the Israelites. Matter of fact, he said every male child born go throw them into the Nile Ocean or the Nile River. So he throw them in the Nile River. What was the first plague?

God turned the Nile into blood. He's patient. He says, let me remind you how you have transgressed on my people. You have literally taken what I gave you to feed you. This river was placed here so that your crops would grow and you've used it to murder my sons.

Let me show you what it looks like to me. Boom. Then I'll turn to blood. People say it looked like a plague. No.

It was patience. Matter of fact, it was nine plagues later before he ran out of patience. You see, if he wasn't patient, plague number ten would have been plague number one. He said, give me your first sons, all of them in one night, gone. I don't care if they're 60, I don't care if they're 60 years old, all the firstborn are gone, bang, overnight.

The numbers I've read somewhere around 800,000 based on the size of Egypt in that area at the time. Can you imagine? God was patient. Why? Because he's not willing that any should perish.

But there's something different in his heart for those who are part of the kingdom. You see, don't mistake God's patience for his pacification. You got people out here saying, God, if God don't judge America, I can judge Sodom and Amor. Listen, Bible says he's just, but he's also patient. And don't think that you can just go out here and go run shot in the things of the earth and take in all this sin and not come with a penalty.

That's foolish. The patience will run out. Eventually, you're gonna get what it is you're looking for. But that's for this culture. For those who are part of kingdom culture, it looks a little bit different.

Just And here's the most beautiful thing. I'm gonna be completely transparent with y'all. He's still working on me. I know y'all thought pastors come with perfection. That is a lie.

Wendy would testify if she was in here right now. Shout, run a lap. She'd be the first one to tell you. Alright? What's God working on me with?

My patience. I can be very impatient. I can be very impatient. My temper boy, sometimes my temper, I can just especially in traffic. Anybody relate to that?

Just I wish somebody would cut me off on 85 again. Anybody relate to that? Sure. How real can I get this more? Alright.

Sometimes four letter words come out. We okay? Pastor Josh said, four letter words. Yeah. Yeah.

And it feels real good sometimes to say them. The difference is God's patient. With me, he's merciful. What's the difference? With them, they don't know what his desire is.

They just out here acting a fool doing their thing. But with me, I'm his son. I know his heart. And so instead of just letting me get away with it, every time I mess up, he goes, hey, man. That's that's not us.

That's that's that's not us. Hey. Hey. Hey, Josh. I love you, man.

This is you know, the the the Bible says that blessings and curses can't come out of the same mouth. Did you know that, Josh? Yeah. And I'm like, dad gum. I just read that.

He says, okay. Hey. I love you. Hey. We got three hours of being awake the rest of this day.

Can we go three hours together using our words for blessings? Yeah, dad. We can. Alright. Let's go.

Mercy. Mercy. I'm his son. How might I get to all my points? I'm I'm gonna share this with y'all.

Can I have just five more minutes? Five more minutes? This is a very unique day for our family. Usually, the entire Neil family, including Nora, get here sometime between six and 06:30 in the morning. We normally don't get out here till the afternoon.

Because his nana's at the house. And this joker is gonna take everything in the cabinet. Nana gonna keep giving him medicine. We're gonna get him well. But here's what's interesting.

Friday night, Great. Great genetics. Great. Great. Built for the game.

Friday night. Yeah. It comes by naturally. Good breeding stock. Great.

Great. Built for the game. Friday night. Yeah. And Friday night, my eyes are on him.

I'm watching him. And he's not missing a step. The offensive line didn't have a single penalty for Baker Friday night. We played Vernon. Beat him 48 to six.

Just warm. She said, Jesus, it ain't that deep really. But, yeah, it was bad, but, you know, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But here's the beautiful thing. Here's the beautiful thing. I'm watching him do blocks, and I'm having memories of myself looking through a face mask doing those same blocks. I'm watching my son in my image. And I didn't think my heart I thought it was gonna blow out of my chest with pride because I was watching him succeed.

And I was remembering when he was three years old, and I'd lied to get him on a five year old football team. Told you I'm not perfect. I had to coach the team though, so I got paid back. I remember him being three and showing him how you grab a football and how most people throw them forward, but real men pass them backwards. And I remember walking with him and talking with him.

This is what a shotgun snap looks like. Here's your first step. This is why we don't turn our head. This is why we do this. This is why we keep our face mask up.

This is and I'm watching him perform with precision and excellence. And I'm watching the entire offensive line fire off and do things. Can I tell you them Baker Gators gonna be hard to manage this year? They're good, boy. They're doing good.

Coach Bronson doing a fine job with them. And I thought my heart was gonna blow out of my chest. I was so pleased with how well he was doing. He comes home and he's telling me, Dad, I had a chance to help this guy up, man. Patting him on the back.

He said, Those guys from Vernon, he said, They had the best attitude. And he's talking about characters. I mean, it's just the things that we've tried to put in him his whole life now. We're seeing begin to pop and flourish and and and it's just a prideful moment. But now here I find myself Saturday morning a doctor saying there's something in him that's sick.

If I could have taken a syringe from that doctor and pulled strep and pulled COVID out of his veins and put it in mine, I would not have hesitated. Why? Because I desire better for him than I do for myself. And I'm listening. We and the and the the the doctor, she was from Arkansas, had great conversation.

I'm watching Gabe. He's up there. I could tell you he's a little bit upset. And, on the way out, I said, hey, you are? He goes, yeah.

I'm just not feeling good. I said, what can I do? He goes, I don't know. Just I said, tell me what hurts. He said, my throat's hurting.

So we just start going down the medicine. I would bought a little bit of this, a little bit of that, got his prescription filled, just started just grabbing whatever we could. And I was doing anything I could to try to make things better for him. And last night, as I was going through my notes for the last time, God said, that's the difference between mercy and patience. He said, patience, I have to watch people that aren't mine struggle all the time.

And my hands are tied because they're not submitted to me. They're not my children. He said, but for those who are in Christ Jesus who are now the Bible says that he's given us the power to become sons and daughters of God. For those who are saved, we are part of a different culture now. That when sin takes part in our life, he says, this ain't us.

This is not what's best for you. And where I was stuck at the doctor yesterday, not being able to take from my boy that which was making him ill, God looked into the future and he saw sin making me sick and he goes, I've got a solution. I'll send your brother to a cross for you. And what you cannot do for yourself, I will do for you. And so the moments when I fail, the moments when the four letter words slip, the moments where my energy's off, the moments where I'm not carrying the culture the way I should, he says, Son, I've already taken care of that.

You don't have to function according to the culture on the other side. You can function to a culture greater than yourself. You can speak things that aren't as though they were and they shall become. You can live on earth as if you are in heaven expecting the best from your father. Now, I want you to do things differently.

So in closing, Moses, murderer, fugitive, leads 4,000,000 people through the desert and what could have taken eleven days took forty years. If you to this day, if you land in Egypt on an airplane and you walk to Israel, it takes eleven days. Why did it take forty years? Because some people get out of Egypt, but it takes a lot longer to get Egypt out of people. They were set free on day one, but some of them forty years later still wasn't free.

And that process of leaving the culture of earth behind, stepping into heaven's culture, it's a process. And he doesn't just apply patience with us. He applies mercy to us. Are you grateful for mercy today? Now watch this.

So now, not only is he murdered, fugitive on the run, has failed. The people start barking and complaining and they say, Moses, we need more water. So he goes and talks to God. He says, Hey, they need more water. He goes, I want you to speak to this stone and tell it to spit out some water.

Raw. This is going to give you a picture of culture of the kingdom of heaven. Obedience is better than sacrifice. Staff and hit it. You said, well, that doesn't sound like a big deal.

Oh, it's a huge deal. Because now the Israelites start putting faith in Moses instead of faith in God. They put faith in a man more than they did the God of the man. And God says, Moses, I'm sorry, buddy. Different than the culture you're carrying out here.

I will not let the culture of Egypt infect the culture of Israel. Have for you now. And so he tells Moses, you you can't bring that in here. But he takes Moses, because he loves Moses, up to the top of a mountain, the scripture says. And he says, but I want you to see it because you've been faithful in a lot of things.

And they're the scripture says, Moses and full strength, full wisdom, and perfect vision. 120 years old. Forty years in Egypt, forty years in a million, forty years in the wilderness. 120 years old when he It just Not a whole lot of conjecture about it, but I believe it's because of broken heart. You get that close.

You get that close. I mean, you've been carrying the culture, man, for eighty years. And now God says, Moses, I'm not gonna have any of that culture in in where we're going. So he just passes away. And God raises up a man named Joshua to carry the torch the rest of the way.

And, Moses died. People out of the way. The Bible says God himself buried Moses. But wait, I'm so unqualified. I said, okay, I still got you.

But yeah, even though I've been saved, I'm still making mistake. I But, yeah, even though I've I've been saved, I'm still making mistakes. I got you. But I've had pride even when I was doing right. I forgot a past, but I came out of that and I'm still I got you.

I still love you. God himself buried Moses. And the scripture says to this very day, no one knows where he was buried. Why? So God could go be with Moses alone.

You see, this picture of kingdom is much bigger than what our earthly eyes can take. And my prayer is that Moses and the picture of his life and the heroism and the things that he fought through, which which ironically we're still fighting through today, which is interesting, is that if Moses can be a hero, so can we. A man of mistakes, a murderer, a fugitive. God chose to lead millions. And even after that, It's a great picture of mercy today.

Come out of that culture and come into this culture. You don't want his patience. You want his mercy. For those of us who are saved, for those who have us have accepted. Past.

Anybody else in here join me in that? You got a little past, something you ashamed of? Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely.

If we were really to go put down everything we've struggled with, and even the secret stuff, the private stuff, the ugly stuff, it'd be shocking. But can I tell you this? God still loves you. He really loves you. Take all that doubt, all that fear, and and run to him with it.

Take it to him. And if you want to pray with somebody about that, if you're if you're having a hard time maybe processing some some some some doubt, some guilt, you can come on down. Yeah, brother. Come on down. Come on down.

JJ, start praying with him. If you want to pray, you're a I'm going to release people that don't want to pray. But listen. Listen. Don't don't don't leave here without prayer.

Listen. This God loves you. We love you. We want to see you free. And I just don't want to see you out of Egypt.

I want to see all of Egypt out of you. Because I want you to step into the best that God has for you. Amen? I want you to walk in the fullness of the love of God. And, man, to do that, sometimes you got to You got to face down some sin.

You got to face down some frustration, some hurts, and some pain. Dusty right here. It's my heart for you today. I love each and every one of you. Man, I'm cheering for you.

I've been praying for you all week. And, and as we close in prayer, I just want you to know these altars are open and all week. If you need something, you reach out to us because I want you to walk in freedom. I want you to walk in the fullness of God's love. Amen?

Come on, let's pray. Father, we love you. Father, I just rebuke the spirit of fear. If there's anyone here who needs prayer, Father, just give them boldness. Come on down.

Let us pray with them. Father, I just ask it by the power of your Holy Spirit that you would embolden your people to deal with it, to no longer wrestle with it, but to murder those things which you're trying to murder us, to take control and captive those things, which try to hinder us. Father, I just ask for you to turn the lights on in the very dark recesses and corners of our lives. And, Father, it draws us to trust you with those. And I just thank you, Father.

Your faith Father. You're faithful. I thank you that you're not just patient. You're merciful with us. Thank you that today we can become the sons and daughters of God.

So and final day. I ask that you would bless us and keep us. Be gracious to us and show us your favor. Make your face shine upon us. Make your face shine upon us.

I thank you, Lord, for loving us the way you do. Father, I thank you that no weapon that's formed against us will prosper. I thank you, Lord, that a thousand can fall on our side and 10,000 at our right hand, but no sickness, plague, no disease will come near our dwelling place. Their body that you will heal them and strengthen them. Father, those who may be struggling with doubt, fear, anxiety, depression, that they'd be set free by the power of Jesus name.

Culture. So help us to walk in it today. Bring us back next week with more of your wisdom and more of your word like the way in our heart and we will give you the glory, the honor, and the praise because you alone are worthy. And the honor, and the praise because you alone are worthy. In Jesus mighty and capable name, we pray and everybody said, amen.

God bless you. We love you and we'll see you next week.