Take Off Your Sandals || Pastor Adam Mesa

If we continue with what we've been talking about the

past week at the movies, and last week we kind

of and we're jumping through Moses's story. It's not in

chronological order. We're looking at different elements of Moses' life.

Last week we looked at the moment where God gave

Moses the Law of God and he wrote with his finger,

and this week we look at kind of some time

before that where he commissions Moses to go back to

the land of Egypt. And if you have a Bible

and you'd like to turn today and follow along, we'll

be in Exodus chapter three. These are always great weekends

when you can open up your Bible and it's not

hard to turn to that passage because you got Genesis

and an Exodus. So you'll look really good next to

your neighbor when you pull your Bible. Oh yes, Exodus,

just past Genesis and you'll be there. You're not gonna

have to look at the table of contents to find

where we're at. Today. We're in Exodus chapter three. We're

gonna read about fourteen verses, but what I shared already,

we're basically going to read that in scripture because it's

really great to see things on video or hear things explained,

but the powers in the Word of God being read,

and so as we read it, this is where God

will begin to speak to us and transform our hearts.

And so if you're ready, you may also just be

simply following along on screen. We're just going to stand

for a moment to honor God with the reading of

scripture in the house today. Here's what Exodus chapter three,

verses one to fourteen says today. It says that Moses

was now keeping the flock of his father in law, Jethro,

the priest o Midian. And he led his flock to

the west side of the wilderness and came to Horab,

the mountain of God, and the Angel of the Lord

appeared to him in a flame of fire out of

the midst of a bush. He looked and behold, the

bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. There was

no ash, it was not crumbling in any way. When

the Lord saw that, he turned aside to see. God

called to him out of the bush Moses Moses, and

he said, here I am. Then he said, do not

come near. Take your sandals off your feet, for the

place which you are standing on is holy ground, and

he said, I am the God of your father, the

God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God

of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was

afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, I

have seen, surely seen the affliction of my people who

are in Egypt, and I've heard the cry because of

their task maskers. I know they're suffering. And I have

come down to deliver them out of the hand of

the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land

to a good and broad land, a land flowing with

milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites,

the Amorites, the Parazites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now

repeat those places to your neighbor. No, I'm just kidding.

And now behold the cry of the people of Israel

have come to me. And I have also seen the

oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come, I will

send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people,

the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said

to God, who am I, that I should go to

Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt.

He said but I will be with you, and this

shall be a signed for you that I have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you

shall serve God on the mountain. Then Moses said to God,

if I come to the people of Israel and say

to them, the God of your father's has sent me

to you. And they asked me, well, what is his name?

What shall I say to them? And God says to Moses,

I am who I am, And he said, say this

to the people of Israel. I Am has sent you

me to you. Amen, you may be seated. Let's talk

about that a little bit further. You know, there's some

pretty grand context when you look at Moses's life. Moses

spent his friend forty years in Egypt as a prince

of Egypt. You may have grown up and watched at

some point that animated movie of the Prince of Egypt

and seen somewhat of the life of Moses. But that's

a pretty true movie that depicts Moses's life. You have

a young man who was commissioned by Pharaoh that he

wanted the firstborn of all people to be dead in

the of the Israelites, and his mother put him down

a river, and he was adopted by Pharaoh's sister, and

so he was raised in the Egyptian royalty household. And

so Moses, for his first forty years, for all intensive purposes,

was a sellout. He was someone that worked for the oppressor.

He was someone he was a prince of Egypt, and

he was a representative of Pharaoh who was oppressing the Israelites.

So that alone, at the first forty years of life,

the Israelites would not be happy that Moses was chosen

to be a man of God. This is the man,

for his force forty years who oppressed us. This is

a man who carried the signet ring of Pharaoh. But

on his fortieth year, he murdered an Egyptian because of

the way that an Egyptian was treating one of the slaves.

And so then Moses becomes a runaway. And for forty

years he's ran away from Egypt. So now at this

point that he meets God, he's eighty years old. He's

not a young man, and he has had a lot

of pain and a lot of baggage. And he approaches

God and God tells Moses, what I need you to

do is you need to go back to Egypt, and

you need to tell Pharaoh to let my people go,

and I'm gonna send you to deliver the people of

Israel from the Egyptians. Moses's first thought is, who's gonna

believe me? I worked for the guy for forty years,

I participate in his oppression for forty years. And then

on top of that, when I get to Egypt, the

first of all, the Israelites aren't gonna accept me. But

on top of that, the Egyptians are probably gonna kill

me because I killed somebody. So he's asked not only

asking God, how does this work? He's also asking God,

do you know the guy that you're asking to do this?

It's not gonna work. And what's the first thing God

tells Moses? And what we read he said this to Moses,

I'm with you, as simple as that. He didn't give

Moses a long sermon. He didn't give Moses along all

Moses said. All God said to Moses was Moses, I'm

with you. What's the first thing he asked Moses to do? Though?

When God came in interaction through this bush with Moses,

first thing he asked Moses to do was take off

his sandals. Why did Moses need to take off his sandals, Well,

his sandals were a buffer between him and God's presence

because God was speaking through the bush and through the

soil of the land. And so what God first told

Moses is what you need to do first, is you

need to take off the things that you've used to

travel through your life. This mask, this buffer that you're wearing,

these sandals that are wearing, that are separating me, and

you take them off, get barefoot in the sand so

that I could see all of you. It's a connection

to the Book of Genesis. The Bible says that when

God created Adam and Eve, he created them naked because

in their innocence, their nakedness was meant to be a

depiction that God sees us without clothes on. But when

Adam and Eve sinned, what was the first thing they did.

They began to make clothes to cover their nakedness. Not

only was that a physical picture of what we do

when we're caught, but that was a supernatural picture of

what we try to do in the presence of God.

Is we try to cover up our shame, We try

to cover up our sin. And what God wants to

do with Moses. He tells, Moses, I know you're past,

but take your sandals off. I know your brokenness. I

know that you are a forty years sellout oppressor. I

know that you are a murderer. I know that you

came and you've moved in, and you've married someone that

was not part of the Israelite descendancy. I know all

of those things. And God says it's fine, because if

you take off your shoes and you get honest with me,

we can do something with that. If you're taking notes today,

I want to just share the first point is this

is holy ground requires the honest you. If you and

I want to encounter the presence of God, then the

first thing we have to do is we have to

get honest with God. That's what he wanted from Moses.

And Moses wore sandals that carried Egypt's dust, sandals that

carried forty years of wilderness shame, sandals that separated him

from the ground God declared holy. And God said to Moses,

take them off. And if we're honest, we got sandals too,

and we got masks that we wear as well. And

for every person that can often be different. Some of

us have the mask of wealth, like the rich young ruler,

which we'll talk about later, who came to Jesus with sincerity,

but he couldn't lay down his possessions, and he walked

away sorrowfully. He was wearing that mass. There's the mask

of image, curating highlight reels online, giving a perception of

ourselves to the outwide outside world while starving for love offline. Wow,

the mask of performance, believing I am only what I achieve.

I will find myself, I will find myself successful, I

will find myself perfect if I perform my way through it.

Or the mask of relig and shining on the outside

while remaining broken on the inside. Timothy Keller says it

like this, to be loved but not known is comforting

but superficial. To be known and not loved is our

greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved

is what we need more than anything. And on God's

holy ground, you are fully known. If you take your

sandals off, if you take your shame off, you take

your mask off, you take those clothes off, and you say, God,

this is who I am. You can experience the love

of God that way. But if Moses kept his sandals on,

he couldn't go anywhere with God because God was saying,

the moment you take your shoes off and you speak

to me bear is the moment I can be with you.

But if you leave here with your sandals on, then

you are taking your covering with you. And God wanted

Moses to be bear so that he could give some

Moses something new. Moses asks God, who do I tell

them that sent me? God responds with, say that I

am sent you. Many of us may know that Hebrew term,

which is yahweh. That's where we get the word from.

But if we know the derivative of that term, yahweh,

it resembles in the Hebrew. If you say it right,

you would say it like this, yeah way, so yeah way.

So it means that in order to say it, you

have to breathe in and you have to breathe out.

So when God says send them, tell them that Yahweh

sent them, what he's telling them is tell them the

one who sustains their very breath has sent me and

sent you to them. Can't say his name without breathing

in and out. And it is meant to resemble an

in hell and an exhale, because God is saying I

am that I am, and you're saying it sounds very confusing. Well,

it's not very confusing when you put it in the

picture that the very breath in our lungs is sustained

by Him, and he's telling Israel, I haven't forgot about

your brokenness, because I'm still giving you breath in your lungs.

And as long as we have breath in our lungs,

God has not forgotten us. Here's the second thought is

holy ground breaks strongholds. Now, this is something important, and

there's something a big picture of what God is trying

to send Moses to do. Because what we have to

recognize is with Moses, whether it was his sandals or

for you and I, whether it's the mask that we wear,

or whether it's the coverings we try to wear to

protect ourselves, to cover ourselves. There's so many times, you know,

I have a seven year old and a four year old,

and oftentimes they just have a closet full of costumes

and they put on Batman, you know, Superman, Miles Morales.

There's all these costumes that my sons wear. I don't

have daughters, so I don't really know what your daughters wear.

They put on dresses, ballerine as their queens or you

know whatever. I have to learn from some of the

dads that have daughters. That's a princess costume or a

Malana costume and stuff like that. For my sons, it's

a Spider Man costume, it's a Superman costume. It's a

Jedi of some sorts. And when they put it on,

I come home and I'm like, oh, hey, Matthias and

Thomas are like, we're not Matthias and Thomas. You know,

I'm Miles Morales or I'm Superman. And I think, oh,

that's so cute. Come here, Superman, or let's file grab

a lightsaber and like, come on, Jedis, let's fight. And

it's cute for them to dress up. It's cute for

them to wear a costume. What would be weird is

as my sons grow, they're like forty years old and

I come home and I'm like, hey, Matthias. He comes

over to my house and he's like, I'm not Matthias,

I'm Miles Morales. I'd be like, son, we gotta have

a conversation. You gotta get out of that phase. You

gotta be Matthias. That's what I need you to be.

You gotta be Thomas. How many times with God when

we try to get in his presence or we come

to God, we have some sort of costume on, we

have some sort of mask on, We're wearing some type

of sand. All this says, Oh God, I don't want

to be known by me. I want you to know

me as someone else, or I want to be something else,

or I want to be someone else. Know you? Are

you fully known by God? He fully sees all things.

The best thing that you could present to God is you.

But what happens when we wear something that's not for us, Well,

it's biblically something that we would call a stronghold. You

may have never heard of a stronghold before and may

be new to church, but strongholds are powerful. And the

New Testament or the Old Testament a stronghold, and we

would all know this is it's basically the wall or

the barricade that surrounds the city. And what happens is

is a city cannot be overtaken unless the stronghold is destroyed.

And so if you know the story of Israel, when

they get into Canaan and they go to Jericho. They

can't get into Jericho unless the stronghold is devoured. They

know that they're not strong enough to devour it. So

what does God tell the Israelites is he says, hey,

you're gonna circle around it seven times for seven days,

and on the seventh day you're gonna shout that same time,

God is going to bring about some type of natural

earth quake and all the stronghold is going to come

crumbling down, and Israel's going to have the city. So

in order to beat a stronghold, something stronger has to

come to break it through. Well, Jesus does something powerful

in the New Testament. He takes something that Israel commonly

knows as a stronghold, and he paints a picture as

a strong man, and he talks about this strong man

in such a way that he connects it to our lives,

and he connects it to Satan. Look at what Matthew

chapter twelve, verse twenty nine says. Jesus says this, how

can anyone enter a strong man's house and carry off

his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man,

then he can plunder his house. So Jesus takes a

picture of a stronghold, and now he brings it to

a strong man, and he talks about if anyone was

able to break into a house. And I know no

one here has experienced with that, but if you were

to break into someone's house and you knew that it

was fortified and they were strong, and that if you

were caught, they could easily stop you, then when you

get inside, your first thought wouldn't be to get the

things that you want. Your first thought would be, I

got to tie up the person who's stronger than me.

That's what I gotta do. And so your priority number

one is when you go to somewhere, is I need

to stop the thing that is stronger with something that

is even more strong. Then I can plunder the house.

Then I can steal all its possessions. Well, what is

Jesus doing when he's talking about this. Here's what Jesus

is saying. He's saying, who's the strong man? He says,

the strong man is Satan. Satan's the strong man. What's

his house? Well, his house is this world under his deception.

What's his possessions? Satan's possessions are people, People's people are

bound by sin, they're bound by shame, and they're bound

by lies. But who is the stronger man? Remember, Jesus said,

the only way that those possessions can be free if

someone or something stronger comes to break it free. And

Jesus is that stronger man. Yes, what Jesus is saying

is Jesus is saying that he is stronger than the enemy.

And in the same way when God broke the stronghold

in Jericho, Jesus is saying, through his work on the Cross,

through his resurrection, and he is stronger than the enemy,

that he has the authority to defeat sin, and to

defeat shame, and to bring it crumbling down to its knees.

Why is Moses a picture of what Jesus would ultimately

come do. Here's what it is. Because God was sending

Moses to plunder Egypt. If you read Exodus, and we

shared about a little bit last week, is the Israelites

they fled with a lot of Egypt's gold, a lot

of their money. When they fled, they got their payment

from four hundred years of slavery. It says they came

out with Egypt's gold and wealth. Now we know which

we'll see next week. And we talked a little bit

of last week. What they did with it was not

so smart, but it was God's gift to them. So

God said, when Moses was coming and he delivered the Israelites,

they were there to plunder Egypt. And then what happened

was Israel escaped with gold and the power and the

authority to a new land. Y God decimated Egypt with

seven plagues. But here's why this is a picture of Jesus,

because at the Cross, Jesus tied up the strong man.

And now what Jesus is doing is Jesus is plundering

Satan's house. He's setting captives free. Every time a lie breaks,

every time an addiction shatters, every time a person is saved,

it's Jesus raiding Hell's house and taking back what belongs

to him. That's what Jesus is doing. John Owen says,

it like this be killing sin, or it will be

killing you. And here's the good news. The stronger man

is already here. Strongholds fall because Jesus has bound the enemy.

Jesus has authority over sickness and disease. Jesus has authority

over death, Jesus has authority over addiction and things that

bind you and uncome and bring about slavery in your

life is slavery. And Jesus has come to set us free.

So many times in my life, I personally experienced that,

and I know many of us have experienced strongholds in

our life. Some of you may be walking in strongholds today.

I've shared this story before, but for me, it was

a significant moment in my life where God did set

me free of some things. It was about fourteen years ago.

I was in college and I just had a big stronghold.

I had a big stronghold when it came to womanizing.

I had a big stronghold when it came to pornography.

I had a big stronghold around attention from women. And

so anytime I was stressed, anytime I was frustrated, anytime

I felt like that I was invaluable, what I would

do is I would release that stress. It was a stronghold.

Felt free in the moment, but then after that I

went right back to feeling like a slave. So when

I was stressed, it would be okay, I'm gonna go

on the internet. When I was stressed, Okay, I'm gonna

go out to Hollywood. We're gonna go to a club

and I'm gonna drink and I'm gonna try to meet somebody.

Or when I was stressed, I'm okay, what fling is

I somewhat still connected to that I could reach out to.

And it wasn't until one specific day I go with

some friends and we get drunk and we're down in

LA and we decide to go to a club where

women dance. We got younger kids sometimes in service, and

so I won't say anything more than that, but one

of the guys had a decision because we went to

club to club to club and stroke out and stroke

out and stroke out, and we said, okay, well let's

just go pay to not strike out. So we go

to a club where women dance, and I remember I

was so drunk. We just we just we just we

just I kind of just fall in in the moment,

I decide to get a dance and so a girl

is dancing with me, and in the moment I immediately

become sober. I wasn't drunk anymore. Like it's like it's

like one thirty am, and I mean I had like

five to four Loco that day. Yeah, you know. And

if you don't know, God bless you. The Lord has

covered you in many ways, you know. And so I mean,

you know, I can remember anything, but in that moment,

I mean complete sobriety, in that moment, completely sober. And

I opened my eyes and this girl's in front of me,

and she's dancing, and I start weeping in her chest,

and she starts feeling bad. She's like, oh my gosh, sweetie,

are you okay? You know, does your wife not know

you're here. I'm like, no, I'm not married. I'm just stupid,

you know, like I didn't know what to say. She's

feeling all bad. She's like wait, and I'm like no,

I just I gotta get up. And I storm out

and I go and sit on the curb in front

of the club. It's on Hollywood and Highland, not that

any of you would know that I'm on Hollywood and Hyland.

I sit there, I just start weeping and I'm crying,

and I'm saying, God, I'm sick of this. I'm tired

of this. I'm tired of giving you part of me

and not all of me. I'm tired of reading my

word and going to church. But a piece of me

knows that I'm bound still by sin. A piece of

me knows that I'm still broken, and I still live

in shame, and I can't do this anymore. And so

I look over to my right and there was a

Mexican cooking bacon rap hot dogs, and I felt like

the Lord spoke in that moment, son, have a snack

and so and so I got up, Hey, it's biblical

Elijah when he was broken, God gave him a snack

and told him to eat. And so this is fully biblical,

the whole story. And so I get a bacon rap

hot dog and I go back to sitting and eating

and crying. My three friends come out and they're like, Adam,

what's wrong. And I'm like, God, I'm I'm done now.

Mind you, we had kind of had those conversations before

and we weren't done, and so we said, well, what

are we gonna do if we're done? This time? We said,

I said it was a Saturday one a well, really

it was a Sunday at one thirty am. I said,

what we're gonna do tomorrow is we're gonna drive to Rancho.

We're gonna go to service, and we're gonna meet with

my dad and we're gonna tell him how far we've

gone from God because we've never confessed. We've kept it internal,

looking out for you. But now we're gonna go public.

So we're gonna go talk to my dad. And my

dad's response, as we shared with him just how much

we needed God and how how how broken we were,

Pastor Diego's response was, well, this is listen, guys, No

not here. No, you can't work that out here. No,

as Pastor Diego does, he took authority in the name

of Jesus. He rebuked the enemy, and we began to pray.

He began to pray deliverance over us. And I'll tell

you what that weekend. That weekend now was my life perfect?

After that? Did I not have any more strong Of

course I did. But that strong man and that stronghold

that Satan had, where that cake he could pass by

and be like, Adam, you want to buy? I was

able now to look at that cake and Saytan, that's

not for me. I'm not here to eat that. I

won't consume that. I know where that leads, I know

where that leaves. That's not me anymore. That stronghold, that

strong man. It was broken. Why because Jesus died and

he resurrected. He has the keys to the kingdom. And

when you speak the name of Jesus over your life,

and you allow Jesus to hold the authority to break

the to break the demonic things over your life, to

break the strongholds of your life, we can walk in freedom.

When God till Moses, I'll be with you. What he

was telling Moses was, you're not doing this on your

own anymore. Moses. You've been doing this on your own

for eighty years. But today that stuffs Why because Moses

took his sandals off, because he stepped on God's holy

ground and he received the mercy of God. That was

not just a moment of God choosing Moses. It was

a moment of God saying, Moses, I recognize I recognize

your shame. I recognize your sin. But he said, I'll

be with you, because when God is with you, then

he'll be against you. When God is with you, you're

more than a conqueror. But when we choose not to

go where God is leading us, then we go alone.

We find ourselves like Moses time and time again, here's

the last thing I want to share with you before

we close today. What happens is if you and I

are willing to take our shoes off and be raw

and honest with God, he will exchange your coverings. The

Bible makes it clear that if you and I would

exchange our brokenness and our sin and our shame, the

Bible says that you will be clothed with God's righteousness,

that God would put a clothing of pure white linen

across your body that will represent Christ's righteousness, not your own.

If you would get naked before God and honest with

God and say, God, this is who I am, this

is the stronghold I'm walking in, this is the pain

that I'm experiencing, this is the sin that I have,

the shame that I have. Well, then God can say, hey,

I can exchange that because my son has gone to

the cross, my son has carried shame, my son has

carried those things. If you're willing to give them to him,

if you're willing to confess your sins, then what God

can do is he can create in you a new heart,

a clean heart, a pure heart. He can clothe you

with his grace. He can clothe you with her righteousness.

But we have to be willing to give up what

it is that binds us. Matthew ten. There's a moment

of exchange, many of you may know, and it's a

rich young ruler. And he says this. Then he said

to him, teach her all these I've kept from my youth.

He's talking about the ten commandments. And Jesus looked at him,

he loved him, and said to him, you lack one thing,

go sell all that you have and give to the poor,

and you will have treasure in heaven, and come follow me.

This is one of the only times in the New

Testament Jesus ever makes an invitation outside of his twelve

disciples for someone to come and follow him become one

of his disciples. Disheartened by the saying, the young man

went away sorrowfully, for he had great possessions. What this

young man was doing is he was saying, Jesus, I

want to follow you. I've kept all the ten commandments.

What Jesus does is he points to the man and

he shows them you've not kept all the ten commandments

because you have an idol, and your idol is your wealth.

And he says, go and sell your possessions. That's not

a first step to Jesus when someone comes to Jesus,

We're not meant to sell all of our possessions. But

he knows for this man that's an idol in his life,

and he worships his wealth. He worships that idol. It

makes him feel powerful, it makes him feel strong. And

so what Jesus says, he says, get rid of it

and come and follow me. As the young man, he

went away sorrowfully because he had many great possessions, many

great things. And what will, oftentimes God will do is

when you and I encounter God, and if we're honest

and we show him who we are, what God wants

to do is he wants to strip the strongholds off

of our life. He doesn't want to speak to the

performance side of us. He wants to speak to the

practical side of you, the side of you that struggles,

the side of you that is hurting, the sight of

you that is in pain or in sin. And what

God tells Moses is he's telling Moses, you're on holy ground.

And when you're on holy ground, God wants to see

Moses for all that he is, But think about it

for a moment. If you and I woke up one

morning and I came and I text you, or I

knocked on your door and I said, hey, I just

want to let you know today, at twelve, you're gonna

meet God face to face. Our first inclination, oftentimes after

we would settle it, if you know, and be like, oh,

I'm gonna meet God face to face. Okay, Okay, after

you've settled it and you've now come back down to Earth,

one of your first thoughts would be what what do

I wear? What? What? What? What? What? What do you wear

when you meet God? What do I wear? A suit

and tie? Is it like meeting the president? Is it?

I mean? Do I do I go get my best dress?

What do I What do I do? And if we're honest,

what we would begin to do is we'd start to rationalize.

So we'd say this, Okay, I'm gonna meet God and

I'm gonna stand before God on holy ground. And you're like, man,

I got those really nice Jordans. I bought them for

a special occasion. These are my miles moralest Jordans. These

are the ones me and my sons, we all have

matching pairs. These these let in God. He loves family,

he loves kids, he'd be he'd be like, oh, Adam,

you're such a great dad. You have matching Miles, moralest

Jordans with your kids. That's gotta be what he would think.

Or you think to yourself, oh, I got the perfect

boots or heels for this moment. God's he's ooh, man,

I got the perfect shoes. He's gonna he's gonna love

my boots. These are these are some of my favorite boots.

And also it'll show God. They're boots. They're like working boots,

so it show. It'll show God that I'm ready to

get gritty. I'm ready to God. You call me, I'm

gonna go out there and I'm gonna. I'm gonna put

on work. I'm gonna I'm gonna get out there and

grind it out. That God will be impressed by my grittiness,

of my faith and my grit that I'm out there

ready to work. Or you think, oh no, no, no, let

me get out man. I got some dress shoes, some

dress shoes I wear, you know I wear. I wore

them to my wedding, I wear them to all my

best things, and so I'll get my dress shoes and

God will be like, ooh, look at you. Look at

you and those shoes. You look good today, or you

think to yourself, Oh, I know what's good. I'll get

my sandals because following God, it's gotta be like a

resort lifestyle. He got he gonna be doing all the

work and I could just relax and just he said

he's gonna be with me. So man, I keep my

sandals on. It's comfortable. It'll be like I'm at the beach.

It'll be like I'm on vacation. And so that's that's

what God's got to be impressed by. But what God wants,

if you're gonna meet God, what he'll do is he'll

tell you this and don't listen. Don't look at my toes, okay,

don't pull out your phone in zoom or anything like that.

I don't. I don't. If you're weird, don't be weird, okay.

But what God wants you to do isn't He doesn't

care about any of this. He doesn't care about what

you think you ought to look like when you go

before God. He doesn't care that you have nice jordans

He doesn't care that you have lubaton heels, He doesn't

care that you have dress shoes. He doesn't care about

your sandals, because all of those things are fleeting, and

all of those things are fading. The only thing that

lasts is what you came into this world with, which

is you. You came in naked, and we will go naked.

And the only thing we can present to God is

bare feet, bare toes. You may I have the best

looking toes, one toe may go one way and another

toe may go another way. Your spouse may make fun

of your feet or whatever it is, But that is

what God wants. He wants you barefoot because at barefoot

you can feel everything. You can experience everything God has.

You can have everything that God has. You can release

everything that you need to release. But the moment I

start putting something on and I say, oh God, and

then he asks me, how's the sand feel? How's life feeling,

You're like, I don't know, I got a buffer? Why's

the team zooming in? What are you guys doing? What

are you? What are you doing? I'm just kidding you

ever met some of them before and don't look at anyone,

but they go to the beach and they keep sandals

on the whole time, or hey, I don't want to

make funny when you wear socks, you know, like in

the sand like that, that's half the fun. Go and

experience what God created. Take your shoes off, put your

feet in the sand, feel what God has Well. I

don't want people to see my feet. I don't want

people to see my toes. I don't want nobody cares.

You're gonna miss out on feeling God's creation because you're

worried what somebody thinks about your feet and your toes. Now,

catch me, this ain't about feet. This is about our

life that we refuse to give God all of us

because we're concerned with what someone else is gonna think.

We're concerned if someone else is gonna be like, oh,

well you're a hypocrite. Oh if you say you're a

believer of Jesus, why did you do this? Or why

do you do this? We're concerned with going public with

our faith. We're concerned with stepping in the rawness of

God because we're worried about what if someone thinks it's ugly?

What if someone thinks I'm ugly? Who cares? When you

and I stand before God, You're not standing before him

with anyone else but yourself. You're not bringing your best

suit with you. You're not bringing your best stressed with you.

You're not bringing your best shoes with you. You're not

bringing that handbag with you. You're not bringing that watch

with you. That car is staying in the garage or

being sold off to split, whatever it is, it's not

with you. The only thing that's with you is what

you came into this world. And what God is saying

to Moses is he saying to Moses, if you want

me to go with you, then I'm gonna need to

see all of you. I'm gonna need those sandals off.

I'm gonna need you to know that you're stepping on

holy ground. And when you and I encounter a holy God,

what we have to be willing to do spiritually is

to get raw and honest with God. Now saying, God,

you can have a peace of me. God, you can

have a portion of me. It's God, you can have

all of me. And you may say, well, I don't

have the strength to break these strongholds. I don't have

the strength to be able to plunder Hell, Well, you

will never have the strength because it's Christ that has

the power and the authority. It's he that is in you,

that is greater than he that is in the world.

It's Jesus Christ, the redeemer of our lives, that has

the authority. And so simply put, so we bow our

heads and close our eyes. I want to make an

invitation to you. If you've never made Jesus Christ your

lord and savior, then I encourage you today be the

day that you get raw and honest with God. If

you've been looking for strongholds to be broken over your life,

then what you need to do is you need to

appeal to the stronger man, and his name is Jesus.

Fully surrender to Jesus Christ is your Lord and savior,

the one who has defeated death and shame and put

it's in its place. The Bible says that if you

want to be saved and you want to be redeemed,

all you have to do is confess Jesus Christ is

your lord, repent of your sins, and fully surrender to him.

Believe that he rose from the grave in total victory.

Bible says you'll you'll be saved. You can't pay for it.

You can't work for it, you can't even pray for it.

All you have to do is receive it. And So

if you're here today and you're ready to make that

step of faith today and fully surrender to Jesus, I

encourage you all today. Could we say, Dear Lord Jesus,

in this moment, I confess you as my Lord, my Savior.

I believe in my heart that you died on the

cross and you rose from the grave. From this day forward,

I choose to follow you for the rest of my

days in Jesus' name. Amen, If you gave your life

to Jesus today, we celebrate with you. We welcome you

to the family of God. This is just the beginning.

When people give their life to Christ, it often feels

like a funeral. It's the death of something that's true,

but it's also a birth. It's a new birth, that

birth into the Kingdom of God. So, if you said

yes to Jesus today and you want to take next steps,

I encourage you to go to ww dot crow dot Faith.

Our team would love to come and walk alongside of you. Additionally,

if you're here today and you need any prayer at all, anything,

you're going through anyone. You need someone to come in

agreement with you. Our elders, deacons and prayer team. They'll

be up here in the front and they love to

pray for you. God bless you family. We'll see you

next week.