And now that Revelation 15 just happened last week, now we're ready for 16. It doesn't happen that way. It's all over the map. It's just by which John saw the next vision. It doesn't mean that's when it happened. Another thing we learned is he's a pastor to the seven churches, which means he has a pastoral heart.

And so when we read all of Revelation, the focus needs to be on discipleship, not on decipherment. It's not like the National Treasure, where we gotta take a candle, pour some lemon juice on it, and see the secret hidden meaning, and see what happens with the Twin Towers in 2001. None of that. This is, there is a plain message we can read if we're willing to wrestle with the text, and it's to change us.

Lastly, we learn in Revelation 1 that John is a poet. Meaning, we read Revelation literarily, not literally. Meaning it's not like a newspaper. It's more like a political cartoon where you see something like a beast. It's not an actual beast. It's communicating something even bigger and much larger, really.

That's Revelation 1. That was in a minute and a half. We're in trouble. Revelation 2 and 3, he shows us there's these seven letters to these seven churches, and Jesus has this three point sermon. He affirms each church for what they're doing well. He rebukes them for where they're not, and he motivates them to keep pressing on.

We knew. We learned. Those seven letters in chapters two and three are written to the first century church, but hear me, they are for every single century, every church, and we're going to be diving into that in the month of September. When you boil it down, Jesus affirms the type of church who are people of love, who avoid heresy, and endure hardship.

How am I doing on time? Okay, I don't know. Revelation 4 through 5, there is now this image of a scroll and the scroll is being passed around and everybody's saying, Who can open the scroll? And everybody's sad because they're saying no one can open it. This scroll is the purpose of your life, but also the meaning of all of history.

It's the answer. The answer everyone is looking for. Different philosophies, different religions, and it's bound in this scroll. And there is this moment of like, Oh, no, no one knows the answer. And then there's this lion who was a lamb who comes in and says, Oh, brother, I can open the scroll. I'm the one with meaning.

I'm the one with purpose. Come to me. Your life actually does make sense. There is hope. There is a future for you. And so we learned on that day, man, we have hope because of the lamb who was slaughtered because of us, who was slaughtered instead of us. And who was slaughtered for us if any of these things interest you Go to pastor creek church teaching revelation because i'm not going to explain anymore revelation 6 to 18 one week.

We talked about judgment We learned, actually you'll see all throughout Revelations a lot about judgment, but that is a good thing. There is evil going on in this world. There is injustice. We want something to be done about that, or else he wouldn't be a good God. And so these, these judgments are seen in three different sets of images.

Seven seals, seven trumpets, and then seven bowls. We look together specifically at the seals. And we learn that because God is a God of, who is slow to anger and full of compassion, these judgments, hear me, Are purgative they're meant to be purgative meaning they're meant to purge us They're meant to wake us up and go we don't know how to live life without christ We need to run to him or this punishment comes our way So it's meant to be purgative, but eventually it becomes punitive Eventually, it means if you don't come to jesus, you will suffer the punishment of these judgments.

And then we talked about the four horsemen, which are the white horse leading to deception. We see deception in our era today all over the place. The red horse, which is all about violence. Do we not see violence all over the globe? The black horse, which equals famine. We see that everywhere still. And then the pale green horse is sickness leading to death.

We have certainly seen that even within the last few years at a cranked up rate. And we ended that kind of... Passage saying, look, the horsemen ramp up when the church stands up, but we're going to have victory. So we have to keep standing up against these horsemen. Revelation 12 through 13. We then introduce the unholy trinity.

The unholy trinity is the dragon who is the devil. The sea beast who is the state politics, political powers. And then the earth beast is propaganda. And these three conspire to destroy the church. They've already lost against King Jesus on the cross. At least what they can do is to destroy you and me, those who follow the Lamb.

And Michael J. Gorman, he had this great quote about propaganda, which we see every day today. It says, The function of propaganda is to make evil look good, the demonic divine. Violence look like peacemaking. Tyranny and oppression look like liberation. Do we not see that today? Our argument is that you'll see this in every generation.

Sometimes other generations, it ramps up. Other times it seems to settle and then it ramps up again. So you'll see this in every generation. One more thing about the unholy trinity, they want the church to either commit violence against other people, make us against anybody, that's not the way of Jesus.

They want us to silence, not stand up for what is right. Or they want us just compliance, just to look just like Babylon, to do what everybody else is doing because everybody else is already doing it. Now, Pastor Caleb had the joy of... Bring in good news. Revelation 11 and 14 contains a lot of hope. It's about the witnesses.

It's about these three angels. And this whole idea is those three angels promise three things. And we can take hope in this in the midst of really hard times. Number one, the gospel will spread to the ends of the earth. So we should be all about missions because that's the one thing Jesus says it's going to work.

Number two, Babylon, which is the city of man, which is any time, we'll talk about in the next thing, just corruption. That's not gonna last. It will end, even though it doesn't look like it today. Number three, judgment will come and all will be made right. This gives us hope to be patient, to endure in suffering, not to give in to violence, silence, or compliance.

Are you with me? Do I have any time left? Oh, look at this. I'm getting a full head of hair still today. All right next one revelation 17 through 19 We looked at this last week. We kind of taught out of order, which is kind of important because we wanted to teach you It's not chronological 17 through 19 Babylon is the city where the unholy Trinity uses There the city for destruction.

So we talked about last week how Babylon's a prostitute what it's a prostitute do it perverts it deceives It seduces and you and I have to recognize you and I can be seduced by the culture It going against the way of Jesus. The main thrust of what we talked about last week is the prostitute seeks to seduce the church, you and me, by normalizing the sins of Babylon, right?

The things that generations ago used to say was completely wrong. Now even the church says, well, maybe it's not that bad. That is what Babylon does. It seduces us to lower the standard that God's word has put in for us. But here's the good news. This city who seeks to be divine, Always becomes demonic and it self destructs babylon will not prevail But the kingdom of god the city of god will rule and reign forever And that's what revelation 20 through 22 is all about This is how it all ends.

We have a more compelling answer. Hear me revelation. I want us to come away knowing It's not just about if you were to die today, where do you go? Oh, you're going to be sold Floating in a cloud and a harp in heaven for eternity. That's not the full answer. Pastor. Caleb did a great job talking about that It's much more beautiful than that.

The reality is is Jesus is coming back To not destroy the world, but to redeem it, and restore it, and to make it new. There's a new heaven and a new earth. You and I will have resurrected bodies. Our relationships will be reconciled. All these things that we've grown about will one day be made right. We won't have any more tears, any more crying.

Any of these pains that we feel so deeply is now washed. Away

Later, Moses and Aaron went in and said to Pharaoh, this is what the Lord the God of Israel says, let my people go so that they may hold a festival for me in the wilderness. But Farrow responded, who is the Lord that I should obey him by letting Israel go? I don't know the Lord. And besides, I will not let Israel go.

Amen. Let's pray. Father, we just ask that we would be good hearers of your word today, A passage that isn't really culturally something that we would just easy to accept, but may not only we be hears, but God may we be even better doers. Empowered by your spirit, empowered by your grace, gladly welcoming the truth.

God, we love you. We thank you for what you're doing in our lives, and we thank you that you take us for where we're at and we just submit to you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen. Perhaps the greatest boast of our generation is our ability to redefine reality. The creation of machines in the past century has redefined our relationship to work.

It has saved us from sore backs, sweaty brows, and delayed timelines. Not only that, more and more, if you watch YouTube these days, artificial intelligence is taking everything by storm. It is redefined, sadly, how we even study. At the click of a button, it can literally write an essay for you. Teachers are now scrambling to figure out how do we check and make sure a bot didn't write this essay?

Cuz you can literally tell it, write this in a fifth grade level in the voice of Donald Trump and it'll do it. Like what? Right Here is creation, where we're at. Virtual reality is another way we've re. Our mode of escapism. We don't even have to take vacations anymore. We are exa. We are imagining a day where we can just enter into a new world where you don't have to work out, you don't have to sweat, you don't have to go through trials.

You're just immediately the hero and you look really good. We also have redefined reality and many good ways of course, and medical breakthroughs. We've redefined how long we live. Antibiotics, organ transplants, medical imaging is the reason many of us maybe even are here today. And let me be clear, I am very grateful to live in the 21st century.

I am not that romantic type that wants to live in the 15 hundreds. I enjoy air conditioning. I enjoy the computer. I enjoy vehicles. Praise God. I enjoy that. I have a microphone right here, right now, and I don't have to yell. Now. With all these breakthroughs though, we have to recognize it does not come without side effects.

There are many side effects to us redefining our reality. . These breakthroughs have come because of a core value of the modern age. We don't discover reality. We create it, which this is the boast of America, is it not? We don't discover it. We create it, and this works great as long as we live in a peaceful and orderly world, relying on things we don't really recognize until those things are gone.

A k a pandemic, a k, a, you get the worst scare of your life getting a diagnosis, and now your redefinition of reality begins to unravel. A few months into the pandemic, psychologists and counselors were ringing the alarm. They said The only way to happiness is to actually accept reality for what it is.

This was hard for. We are a generation who redefines reality, and now we're told we are happy once we stop trying to redefine it and just simply accept it. But studies have shown the quicker you are to accept your condition, the quicker you are to find hope. And those who bury their head in the sand or run after other conspiracy theories or whatever it is, they actually wind up multiplying their anxiety, which thus multiplies their illnesses, which thus makes life so much worse.

M Scott Peck, he's an American psychology psychiatrist and bestselling author. He actually noted that mental health he has this quote, he says, mental health is dedication to reality at all costs. So in a generation today who is more obsessed with mental health than ever before, but lacking it more than ever before, will not do the one thing it says to do except reality for what it is he actually says in one of his books, if you expect life to be perfect, you will be very depressed and very frustrated.

And I blame my parents cuz the millennial generation, we were told the nineties Disney era life was supposed to be great. And it's not now, but if you expect, here's what's incredible, the paradox of life. When you expect life to be hard, turns out to be full of joy, there's great moments of peace. You're actually really filled with purpose.

See, as Americans, we find ourselves in this tension because redefining reality is one of the hallmarks of our culture. It's one of the hallmarks of our ingenuity and our individuality. But the same time, redefining our reality has turned out to be our Achilles heel. It's the very thing that causes depression because we cannot stand reality for what it is.

So we just keep redefining it. And I don't say this as an innocent bystander at all. As a Christian, I find myself finding passages and trying to redefine it so that it feels better for me, but it leads to more depression. It leads to more heartache. Carl r Truman, in his book, the Rising Triumph of the Modern Self, one of my favorite books I've read in the past five years, he has this scathing critique of the modern age.

He put it this way, the quote should be on the screen. He says, we all live in a world in which it is increasingly easy to imagine that reality is something we can manipulate according to our own will and desires, and not something that we necessarily need to conform ourselves to or passively accept. He goes on to give great illustrations and the farming culture, you are reliant on some sort of higher power to take care of your crops.

Today, we can just manufacture that right example after example. We are making a more and more detached where we feel like. We are not we are not having to submit to nature, but instead nature submits to us. My point is that you and I, we find it really hard to accept reality even as followers of Jesus at times.

And this kind of stubbornness feels unique, but it's not. It's just a little bit of a different flavor. In fact, this stubbornness is as old as the Garden of Eden in Genesis chapter three, and also as old as the pyramids of Egypt, which we read about in the Book of Exodus. So ancient Egypt is the context we've been learning about as we're studying the life of Moses.

Most Sundays what we're doing is looking specifically at Moses, but today I felt led to really look at Pharaoh. Now, ancient Egypt, they made a name for redefining reality. They were really one of the first innovative countries to do all sorts of things. They innovated the way when it came to architecture.

Engineering and writing. They redefined the way people worked, the way things the irrigation system. They developed the first complex irrigation system for farming that we still use based off of that foundation. Today, the list of their genius goes on and on. And you probably learned that in school.

And this is the world Moses and the suffering Israelites find themselves in the book of Exodus, Egypt. They are the powerhouse and they breathe the air of a stubborn spirit. It's the spirit of Pharaoh where Pharaoh believes he is completely in charge and he can define reality however he sees fit.

But God has a word to say about that Exodus chapter. We're looking at a lot of scripture today. Thank you, Lisa, for starting with Exodus five. It's a helpful way for us to see the stubborn spirit of Pharaoh, but now let's look at seven, the first seven verses. We're gonna jump a lot from here all the way to chapter 11.

So bear with me. Verse one, the Lord answered. Moses, see, I have made you like God to Pharaoh and Aaron on your brother and Aaron. Your brother will be your prophet. You must say whatever I command you. Then Aaron, your brother, must declare it to Pharaoh so that he will let the Israelites go from his land.

This is the plan that God has for Moses and his people. Verse three is very interesting, though, he says, but so I have this plan, but I will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and wonders in the lands of Egypt. Pharaoh will not listen to you, but I will put my hand into Egypt and bring the military divisions of my people to Israelites out of the land of Egypt by great acts.

Of judgment. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I stretch out my hand against Egypt and bring out the Israelites from among them. It's pretty fascinating. We will see plagues always hitting Egypt, but Israelites seem to be spared. Verse six. So Moses and Aaron did this. They did just as the Lord commanded them.

Moses was 80 years old and Pharaoh 83 when they spoke to Pharaoh, and now you have the showdown. So Exodus seven through 11 are the 10 plagues, and this brings up a lot of theological truths that quite frankly, we don't have enough time to fully exhaust. And to be honest, most of us theologians have debated for centuries and nobody's really come up with okay, we can all agree this is the answer, but I'm gonna bring it out.

A major point of discussion that we're gonna go so fast through, you're gonna be upset with me, is the hardening of Pharaoh's heart. The questions we have to ask ourselves are two. One did God heart and pharaoh's heart without his free will. Or number two, did Pharaoh already harden his own heart? Okay let's look at the text.

Seven three chapter seven, verse three says, but I, this is God speaking, will harden Pharaoh's heart and multiply my signs and wonders in the lands of Egypt. So what does it look like? It looks like God is in charge and God hardens the heart of Pharaoh. But hold on, look at this next verse, eight 15, chapter eight, verse 15.

But when Pharaoh saw there was relief, he hardened his heart. And when not listened to them as the Lord had said which is it? Does God harden your heart or do you harden your own? I don't know. . Here's the here's what we do. Now what you do does something to you. And the more you say no to God, the harder it will be to say yes to God.

That's good. And this is why in the Book of Acts Peter says, today is the day of salvation. Why? Be careful. The more you reject this message, the harder it will be for you to receive it. And the reality is, every single time, if you grow up in church, if you've ever heard the gospel, you have always responded to the gospel.

Now the question is, did you respond with a yes or with a no? But every week you are responding. John Mark Homer, one of my favorite modern day authors in this book, live, no Lie, such a great book. He has this line. I think it's really helpful. He says, our freedom or this free will right, expands or shrinks with each decision we make.

So we have this ability, when we say yes to the Lord, it actually empowers us to keep saying yes even. But be weary because then the more you say no to him, the easier and easier it is to say no to him, all the more. Now, what I love is that we believe God is a God of grace. We believe there is a part where it seems like his grace is irresistible and it seems like God just comes down into the scene and saves your life.

But there are stories where people are not with God now because they just kept saying no. Which one does it? Is God the one who saves or are we the one who receives? Yes. Was it God who hardened Pharaoh's heart or was it Pharaoh who hardened his own heart? Yes. So now that we've 2000 years of theological debates, we've settled it.

Praise the Lord. Let's look at the 10 plagues. Shall we? ? Let's talk about pain. All right, so starting Indus seven. What we see here is God sends 10 plagues to the Egyptian people. And as I starting this week, it's pretty fascinating. The ancient Egyptians, they had about 80 Hear me, 80 major gods and goddesses, right?

So they had a God for everything. And what happened is they took these 80 gods and they have really three main categories. So you have gods that are Gods of the Nile. The Nile River is what made Egypt so unique compared to all the surrounding countries. And it's what they're boast in their pride. This is where they got life.

Then you have the land. And because of the irrigation system and their ingenuity, the land was really fruitful. So it again was something that made them very unique. So they had many Gods contributing to their land. Lastly, you have the sun, or some would even go even larger and say the sky. There are many gods concerning the sun and the sky.

What's amazing is when you look at these plagues, there's 10 of them. Every single plague is directed at one of these three domains. So the first two plagues are actually against the Nile River, against all of the gods of the Nile. If you don't believe that, you're just in denial. I don't know. Denial.

The next four I had to pull in my inner jungle cruise whatever they call that person, skipper. All right, the next four are against the land. . So Nats, the flies, the diseases, livestock, and the boils, they are specifically against the gods of the land. And the final four, including the death of the firstborn son, is actually against the sun and everything associated with the sky.

It's as if God is saying, I'm gonna give you a reality check. You think you know what life's all about. I'll take away everything you've put in your trust in, and then what do you have left? This is what God does. The first plague is blood in the Nile. You see this in chapter seven. For the Egyptians, the Nile was the source of life.

And what does God do through the hand of Moses? He turns it into blood, which now is communicating this source of life is now the source of death. And God goes, what you good do about that? The reality is, what does Pharaoh do? The whole idea, what is Moses trying to get done? Trying to get his people the permission to leave Egypt and to go worship God in the wilderness?

And so you'd think after this terrifying incident, Pharaoh says, wow, your God is more powerful than ours. Go ahead. But he has a stubborn spirit. I wonder how many of us have been given chance after chance, and yet we stick to being stubborn. The second plague is the frogs. I didn't know this, but this week, as I learned for the Egyptians, frogs actually had magical powers and were considered sacred.

Like they would create images of frogs and worship it. And so here's the worst part. You have all of these frogs just consuming everything. Can you imagine all the warts, isn't that not true? Do you get warts from frogs? I've always heard that. And then I heard maybe it's a.

That's good. It's a theory, whatever. So the frogs, here's the worst part about it. This is annoying, but guess what, according to the Egyptian worldview, their religion, the frogs could not be killed. They had to just endure the frogs. Why? Because the frogs were gods, and the last thing they wanna do is kill a God.

And so they just had to deal with it. All right? I would've said, all right, go. I'm out. But third plague is Nats. So here is pretty fascinating for the Egyptians we're now transitioning from the plagues against the Nile, to the plagues against the land. And they actually believe that there was a God called Gbb.

And Gbb was supposed to protect their land from anything such as Nats. But look at, let's look at chapter eight, verses 19, 8 19 says the people, they were overwhelmed by the Nats. Wouldn't you be? They said, and I'm even imagining as they're speaking, It's getting in their mouth. You know what I'm saying?

This is how overwhelming it is, and they're saying this is the finger of God. And the magician said to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh's heart was hard, and he would not listen to them as the Lord had said. So already, the people around Pharaoh after three plagues said, enough's enough. God is in control. We are not.

We are able to fabricate some of these plagues, but not this one. Let's give in. But what does Pharaoh do? He doesn't listen and he hardens his heart even more. But now the Egyptians are thinking, what's up with all the God? How come the frogs are doing this to us? How come Gbb didn't protect us? Then you have plague number four, which is the swarm of flies for the Egyptians.

Many insects were associated with DeeDees, and so they couldn't just kill insects. What they have to do when you had the swarm of flies, they had to simply endure them to kill them with, to go against their faith with to. Ruin, maybe a reincarnated person or a sacred deity, and so they again had to just endure the flies.

The fifth plague is the disease, livestock. As livestock is people's like income in this day. So this was everything for the Egyptians. Also though, the livestock were the incarnation of sacred beings, and so they believed in a bull god and a cow goddess, and they were thinking, how come the bull God couldn't protect all the bulls?

We give and sacrifice to it every day, and yet the bulls are dying. How come the goddess of the cows is not stepping up and healing these cows? They are dying of diseases and now we can't even eat them or use them. What God is slowly doing is he's unraveling the Egyptian's concept of reality, and yet some still stayed stubborn all the more.

Five plagues in. They're not done. Plague number six boils. This one is fascinating. Let's look at chapter nine verses eight through 10. It says, then the Lord said to Moses and Aaron take handfuls of furnace, soot, and Moses is to throw it towards heaven in the sight of Pharaoh. And so verse nine, it will become fine dust over the entire land of Egypt.

It'll become festering boils on people and on animals throughout the land of Egypt. And so they took furnace, hood, and stood before Pharaoh. Moses threw it toward heaven and it became festering boils on people and animals. Now, this is really fascinating. God is playing with them now because this is what I learned this week.

James Montgomery Boy has a really good commentary on this, and he says the following, he says, in the practice of their Egyptian religion, the Egyptians took the ashes of an offering.  and threw the ashes into the air just as Moses was doing right, but wow, as a means of blessing, this was common in their culture.

Look, if ashes fell on individuals, they consider themselves very fortunate. But what had been considered a blessing suddenly became a curse causing boils to break out on the people. See how God is just reversing everything you think You gotta figure it out. This very action that used to bless people, he's saying no.

I am done letting you play your reality game. This is reality. That's not what blesses you. In fact, you keep doing it, it's gonna start cursing you. I wonder how many of us have done this where we practice in something outside of the faith of Jesus, and for a while it blessed us, but in God's grace, he begins to expose it for what it really is.

and the curse is actually meant to send us back to the real blessing. So they were thinking, where were the healing Gods? Egypt was known for their medical innovations. Gods like emote, thought, and sec, those gods are supposed to heal the people and they are powerless in the face of God. Almighty, what Gods are you serving and will you recognize they're powerless in the face of Jesus?

The seventh plague is hail and lightning. This freaks us all out as Arizonans. When it lightnings, we do nothing. We freak out. And deservedly I do too. So I'm, whatever. Let's look at verse 15. Let's look at the story of the hail and the lightning. But by now, I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with the plague, and you would've been obliterated from the earth.

However, I have let you live for this purpose. I love God. He says, to show you my power and to make my name known on the whole earth, you are still acting arrogantly against my people by not letting them go. So tomorrow at this time, I will reign down the worst hail that has ever occurred in Egypt from the day it was founded until now.

So therefore, give orders to bring your livestock and all that you have in the field into shelters. Every person and animal that is in the field and not brought inside will die. Notice all, all, still the compassion of God. I'm giving you a warning. If you go in the shelters and listen to my word, you can be saved.

But so many of us, we hear his commands and we still do the exact opposite. And and Brandon will die when the hail falls on them. Many of them did not believe this. So those among Pharaoh's officials who feared the word of the Lord made their servants in livestock flee to shelter. So Pharaohs stubborn, but his people are putting the dots together.

Saying, it looks like your God is not as powerful as this God. So we're gonna do what this God says, verse 21. But those who didn't take it to heart, didn't take to heart. The Lord's Word left their servants and livestock in the field. Man, as I was reading this, I thought, Lord, do I take your word to heart?

Or am I like the foolish Egyptians daring God to do what only he can do? Verse 22, then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand toward heaven and let there be hail throughout the land of Egypt on people and animals, and every plant of the field in the land of Egypt. So Moses stretch out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail.

Lightning struck the land and the Lord reigned hail on the land of Egypt. Notice this is now the plague of the sky. The hail with lightning flashing through it was so severe. That nothing like it had occurred in the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. So God is a God of his word.

Verse 25, throughout the land of Egypt, the hails struck down everything in the field, both people and animals. Can you imagine this? This is like the movies we create today about the end of the world. The hail beat down every plant of the field and shattered every tree in the field. The only place it didn't hail was in the land of Goshen.

Where's that? That's where the Israelites were. So Pharaoh sent from Moses and Aaron, I have sinned this time. This is a huge deal, right? He admits I have sinned, not just that I'll let you do it. No, I have sinned. He said to them, the Lord is the righteous one. I and my people are the guilty ones, a change of heart.

He says, make an appeal to the Lord. There has been enough of God's thunder in hell. I will let you go and you don't need to stay any longer. So Moses said to him, when I have left the city, I will spread out my hand to the Lord. The thunder will cease and there will be no more hell. So that you may know the earth belongs to the Lord.

Last verse. But as for you and your officials, I know that you still do not fear the Lord God. There is a way to repent because of the consequence versus repenting because of who God is. Many of us have a false comfort that we're saved, that we're okay, but we never actually have surrendered to King Jesus for who he is.

Pharaoh, it almost looks like he had the sinner's prayer. I have sinned. Save me now. I don't say this to bring doubt. I don't say this to, for those struggling with shame and fear. Oh no. Now I don't know if I'm saved. If you're wondering that, I promise you Pharaoh wasn't wondering that. That's already a good sign.

Right this, oh, I want to be with the Lord. Pharaoh did not think that Pharaoh was using this as a game, but be weary just saying a few words without meaning, it doesn't really mean anything. So for the hail enlightening the Egyptians, they served and sacrificed to Gods who protected their fields and preserved their atmosphere.

And now they're thinking, where are those gods now? But Pharaoh still won't accept reality. How often do you and I do the same Next plague, the eighth plague locust, right? Where is Neet? Because nee is the goddess of grain, but the locust completely consumed it. What about the God of men? Am I in the deity of the harvest?

Again, the Egyptians are thinking our whole worldview is crashing. The things we thought gave us security and purpose and understanding of life is crumbling before our eyes. And we tend to be mad at God. When that happens. But we have to see God as opening up their eyes to see what the truth is actually to deliver them.

The ninth plague is darkness. Now, this was the greatest of all Gods, according to the Egyptians. I remember this, in fifth grade we did those Egyptian wax museums. Did anybody else do that? Or is that just my school? It was the coolest thing ever. And then I thought, Lord, are you gonna judge me? Like when I was like in fifth grade, I was like, I'm sorry that I'm this God thing.

Oh no. So I, anyways the Lord's forgave me, but, so this is the greatest of all Gods and his name is raw. Here's the reality during this came because guess what? Pharaoh was considered raw incarnate. So Pharaoh is saying you can do all those things, but my domain is the sun. Egypt, like Arizona can boast that it never rains here, that it never gets dark.

We always have the sun, ironically, on the day that it rained, but you get it , and now darkness has come.  God is slowly humiliating the Pharaoh. Now he is directly humiliating the Pharaoh. You think you are in control of the sun? It's now pitch. Black people also just quickly, they think of the darkness.

I'm reminded when Jesus was crucified, darkness entered the land showing that this plague, all the plagues actually rested on Jesus so that you and I could be saved. The 10th plague was the death of the firstborn sons. This is, you reap what you sow. As we talked about in the first week, pastor Caleb did such a great job.

What do the Egyptians do? 80 years prior to this, they killed all the infant sons of Israel. They killed all the firstborn sons and now their firstborn sons who are gonna be killed. Now you have to ask this question, why would God sin these plagues? Isn't God a god of love?

God is loving enough to rip off the bandaid and expose you to reality for the sake of your soul. Eugene Peterson, I, I can't think of a better way to put it, talking about the plagues in Revelation, but also he was pointing back to Exodus. He says this, he says, however, practice we become at tuning out sounds that we do not want to hear, including the sound of God's displeasure at sin.

God finds new ways to penetrate our defensive deafness. God is actually really gracious for sinning the. . God is causing Egypt and Israel to open their eyes to the destruction of sin and all that it brings. We say this all the time, but what's so evident in this passage, sin is not bad because it is forbidden.

It is forbidden because it is bad. It's not good for you. It's not good for anyone. It's not like it's this great thing and God just is a killjoy. Sin is destructive. It knows no other, let me put it this way. To disobey God is to unleash chaos and disorder in your life and everything around you. God is communicating.

This is the law of. God didn't sense some magical plagues. It's just the things of nature. All of a sudden it began to unravel. So many scholars have actually noted what's happening in the 10 plagues is the undoing of Genesis one and two. In the beginning was chaos. But God takes these elements like man, women, animals, plants, land, water, sky and he turns them into beauty.

He takes it and he makes something in harmony. He puts it all in order. What happens with sin? It begins to take all of creation apart. It begins to make all of these things undone, and what sin does, it makes everything ugly. It's no longer beautiful, it makes it dysfunctional. It's no longer harmonious.

It makes things chaotic. It no longer has. And in this passage, what is sin? Sin a chief form of disobedience in this passage and all throughout scripture in life is what the Bible calls idolatry idols, which is what the Egyptians were famous for, and you and I are famous for. We just don't dress them up.

In statues is trusting in someone or something to bring about peace and order in our life. Sacrificing to it, giving our time, talents, treasures, attention to it, thinking if I do this enough then everything will be okay. If I have that, then my life will have meaning. If I get this, then I will be secure.

And how is that working for you? The reality is outside of the grace of God, you and I are no different than Egyptians. We look to our spouse to guarantee our happiness. Your spouse doesn't deserve that, nor can they do that. We look to our career to guarantee us a sense of significance. The moment we do that, our career winds up killing us.

We look to our finances to guarantee US security. , but our greed takes over and it's never enough. It destroys relationships. It destroys our self-worth. We look to public opinion to give us comfort. Public opinion changes more than the waves, right? It is always different. Sometimes you're in their good favor, and other times you're not.

See, we may think that these idols are actually giving us exactly what they need, what we need. However, here's the reality. I'm so grateful for this reality will not bend its knee to our delusions. Reality will not bend its knee to our delusions. Even culturally. Our attempts to redefine biology today are already producing massive pain, dysfunction, and destruction.

Reality not, is not gonna bend its knee. Our attempts to redefine our sexuality. And if that's you in this room, we are so sympathetic and empathetic to that, and we get that there's a lot of things like identity and abuse and just all sorts of things being misunderstood, not being allowed to share some of your longings, and it got you to this point.

But here's the reality is reality will not bend its knee to your delusion. You can say you are happier and more fulfilled all you want, but it's doing the exact opposite. There is a time where the idol makes you feel, and it does seem like it is succeeding, but God in his grace will begin to make it completely unravel.

Our attempts to redefine truth as relative what's true for you is true for you. What's true for me is true for me is only making us more divisive, more disintegrated, and more anxious, right? So reality is reality. So before we identify with Moses, we need to take a long look at Pharaoh. Do we come to God to discover reality?

Or do we just look to ourselves to define reality? Reality will not bend its need to our delusions. So the question is, will we bend our need to reality? It reminds me of a passage in Philippians, one of my favorite passages of Philippians two verses nine through 11. It says, for this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name.

I want you to even think of Pharaoh here. This is what Pharaoh wanted, but literally it's the exact opposite. And Jesus came as a servant, right? And his name is now above every name. Pharaoh wanted to be exalted, but it was Jesus, so that at the name of Jesus, not at the name of Pharaoh of any other God, at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.

Why? Because reality. Will not bow to your delusions. Every knee will bow to the reality of Jesus in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So in the end, reality wins. But here's what this passage is telling us. We can either bend the knee with joy and delight or bend the knee with a stubborn spirit and only because we have to at the end of all time.

God is gonna fully reveal himself. And as at that point, those who are not even in heaven will have to at least acknowledge God. You are the God, you are in control. Jesus, you are the Lord over all creation. And yet, as their knees are being bent one theologian says that their knees will break. They will have to bend.

They will still have the spirit of Pharaoh thinking. But I don't want to, or you and I can have the spirit of say Moses, the spirit of Mary, the spirit of Paul, the spirit of these of David these people in the scripture is saying, it's nothing in my hands. I bring simply to Christ. I cling. I don't bring any argument.

I bring no other plea, but that Jesus died and he died for me. I'm here to say, Jesus, you're in control. I am not God. As these plagues are entering my life, may I wake up and recognize this isn't to punish me. In fact, it's to push me back to grace, back to love. To see the reality for what reality really is.

I want us to use this moment as we close to ask ourselves, are we trying to make reality bend to us or do we have the humility to bend to reality And the scriptures say the ultimate person and work of Jesus, that is the reality. Will we submit to him? So I was thinking through and praying and Exodus we finished at Exodus 11, chapter 12 starts to begin to explain what the Passover is.

And so I was thinking through, is there a practice from the way of Jesus that can help us bend our need to Jesus? And it's the practice of communion. See at the Passover mill, which starts in Exodus 12, God is showing us what the mill is actually about in the person of Jesus. What you have in Exodus 12 is they have to sacrifice the lamb and take that blood and put it over the doorpost, and the angel of destruction will pass over that house.

This destruction that honestly, they deserve. The firstborn should have died, was passed over. They were redeemed, they were rescued because of the blood. Jesus, the last Supper says, I am that lamb. I am going to the cross because you need my blood to put over the doorpost of your life. He takes the bread and he takes the cup and he is tell, telling his disciples, as you partake in this, recognize you're partaking in.

The bread is represented of the body, which is being broken on behalf for you. The blood is being spilled out. The cup is my blood and it's being spilled out so that you can be saved. See, we are in shock that the firstborns died, but let us be even more shocked that the firstborn of all creation died for you and for me.

God, in his sovereignty, he ultimately saves us through the death of his own son. And at the cross, Jesus takes all the plagues, all the chaos that sin produces, and he puts it on his shoulders so that you and I can be rescued from oppression and enter into the promised land, no longer defined by sin, no longer defeated by Satan, no longer in destruction because of death.

We have life, and life and abundance, and what I want us to do is to humble ourselves and accept reality. For these next two songs, I almost encourage you to do this right away, to come forward and to partake in the communion here on your left or your right. Take it one at a time, the bread and the cup, and maybe pray as a family or pray on your own, however you came and just say, okay, God, you are God.

And I am not God. I cannot save myself, but Christ, you have rescued me. Maybe before you even go to the communion you wrestle with God and say, God I've had the spirit of Pharaoh. I've heard your warnings. And I keep saying no, but I don't want it to get to the point where now you begin to harden my own heart.

God, I want to soften my heart. I want to come back. I wanna receive the grace that is mine in Christ Jesus. So if we can, I would love for us to allow this to be a holy moment. 

asked God, who am I that I should go to

Pharaoh and that I should bring the Israelites out of Egypt? He answered, I will certainly be with you and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you.

When you bring the people out of, You will all worship God at this mountain. Then Moses asks, God, if I go to the Israelites and I say to them, the God of your ancestors has sent me to you, and they ask me, what is his name? What should I tell them? God replied to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are To say to the Israelites I am has sent me to.

Amen. Thank you Ron so much. If you guys can open your Bibles to that. In Exodus chapter three, we're just doing like a six part series on the life of Moses. And so, and leading up to, uh, when we we're finished, we're gonna be actually in the new place and we have a whole nother series we're really excited about as we start in the junior high.

Uh, but Pastor Caleb, I thought did a phenomenal job last week. We learned, uh, many things, but one of the things in Exodus two is Moses, he did the right thing for all the wrong in all the wrong. , right? And so he was bothered by the oppression of his people. And so we see that he took matters into his own hands.

He struck the Egyptian, hid him under the sand. And I don't, it seems kind of in the text, he wasn't particularly remorseful or guilty until he got caught. Uh, the next day, uh, the, uh, the Israelites were saying you were the one who murdered this Egyptian. And so what he does, kind of what all of us would do, he bottles up that shame and he runs away and he runs to the.

So now we're back into the story where Moses' dreams are dashed. This royalty he was in the house of the Pharaoh, is now a refugee Moses, which actually means to be drawn out by water. This significant imagery of water is now stuck in a dry and barren desert. Everything his life thought was going to be is completely opposite.

Now, what does he do? We actually learned in Acts chapter seven that Moses was in the wilderness here for 40 years, and at the 40 year mark, Moses noticed something out of the ordinary. Look at it mean. Look at it with me. In verse one of chapter three, it says, meanwhile, Moses was shepherding the flock of his father-in-law jet.

The priest of Midian, he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horrib the mountain of God. By the way, later, Horeb is also the same phrase for Sinai, which is where Moses gets the 10 Commandments. We'll probably talk more about that later in a few, uh, messages. Why does he say hob sometimes than Sinai and other, but it's pretty significant.

Verse two, then an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire within a. As Moses looked, he saw that the bush was on fire but was not consumed. We first need to give Moses props for noticing, right? Like most of us, especially today, we are so focused on getting attention that we never give enough space to give attention.

Especially in our economy and our world of attention grabbing with social media. How many of us are even at a spot like Pastor Caleb said to practice last week? Silence and solitude. If Moses wasn't practicing silence and solitude, maybe he would've never seen this bush and maybe this story wouldn't have happened.

Look at verse three. So Moses thought I must go over and look at this remarkable. Why isn't the bush burning up now? Scholars have long debated the significance of the burning bush. Lemme give you a few theories of what people think the bush and the fire represent. Uh, the first one is the bush is Israel and the fire is the oppression of Egypt.

And so bush, uh, what's interesting too about Israel, that it's a very. Israel has always kind of mentioned as just common people. There's nothing particularly amazing about them, just that God chose them, which by the way, amen. Nothing particularly great about you, but God loves you and that's what makes you so great.

All right, so the bush is Israel, and what's interesting here is the fire, which would normally do wet to a bush, completely dissipate it. Instead, the bush is still living. And it's a picture. Some scholars point to the fact that although Israel is in the midst of slavery and oppression with seemingly no way out, they're still strong despite being enslaved, despite them wanting to kill all of the sons, they're still here.

Another example though of the bush. The bush equals God's imminence and the fire equals God's transcendence. These are big theological terms. Let me explain. Imminence simply means that God isn't just high in the sky. He is with us. He's present with his people in the most ordinary of circumstances in the most ordinary of ways.

If you hear Christmas Eve, we talked about how Jesus is fully. Right. He is imminent. He is with us. You would assume God is in this special place up in a high tower, but instead his presence is with us even in the midst of something as common as a bush, but also the transcendence. The transcendence points to the power and holiness of God.

So the fire is something altogether, not like we're used to. God is not someone to be trifled with. He may be in the ordinary, but do not. He is not like us. He is not even just extraordinary. He is holy other than us, which again, kind of points to Jesus. He is fully man. God's imminent with us, but also he is still.

Jesus is fully God worthy of our worship and praise on his holy other than us. One more theory. That. I think, by the way, this is like the main reason why it's the bush and the fire. But one more that I think is really interesting. Uh, pastor Caleb has me in, not really, but getting me into more and more, uh, where is he?

A Greek Orthodox art . Oh, he's fixing his guitar. I call them out the worst time. Yo. Okay, so he has me looking into Greek Orthodox art more, which is weird. Don't do it. But what's pretty fascinating is Mary, there's a picture of Mary and she is painted as if. Fully consumed, not consumed, but surrounded by fire.

And so the bush equals Mary's womb and the fire equals the presence of Jesus. And isn't that amazing like a bush? Mary is just an ordinary woman, but extraordinarily used by God. And in the God of the Old Testament as we read, God is so holy and unlike us, typically, if you encounter God, you die at the spot, and yet God in His grace doesn't consume.

Mary is preserved and Mary is used for the story of God. Anyways, that'll preach, but let's keep going. Verse four, it says, when the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, look at that he noticed. He's responding to Moses's attention. God called out to him from the bush, Moses, Moses. You see this throughout the Bible when they say the phrase multiple times, it's to get someone's attention, but it's also affectionate.

If you see like Jesus, he always says, Peter, Peter, it. It's actually a sign of love and a, it's almost like saying, Hey, look in my eyes. And so Moses replies, here I am. He answered, do not come closer. He said, remove the sandals from your feet for the place where you're standing is holy ground. So then he continued.

I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of. Now you have to recognize this is news to Moses. Moses has been an identity crisis. He was born a Hebrew, but raised in Egyptian. So when a God appears the God and says, Hey, I'm the God of your fathers, he must be thinking, which one?

I don't know who I am the God of Pharaoh. Or the God of Abraham, the, the story of those, uh, of, of that lineage. He doesn't know who his dad really is. And so God here is already giving him an assurance of who he is. No, your father is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And so Moses hit his face because he was afraid to look at God.

This is to insinuate how powerful in the presence of God in this moment was, was overwhelming. So then the Lord said, I ob observed the misery of my people in. And I've heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings, and I've come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land.

A land flowing with milk and honey, the territory of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, parasites, HIEs, and Jes. So because the Israelites cry for help has come to me, and I've also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing. Therefore go, I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites out of Egypt.

So first we have to see this passage says more about God than it does about Moses. First of all, God didn't pick Moses because he's perfect. It's not like Moses all of a sudden because he was in the desert for 40 years as this perfect human being. Instead, we see here that God's just a God of grace, and in his gracious choosing, he chooses Moses.

Also, we see God doesn't have to. God is right for just not intervening because God is God. He doesn't need us. He doesn't owe us anything. And so the fact we even read in the Old Testament that he's calling them my people, that he feels their, their, their cries and, and wants to come down. This is a personal God.

This is a God that nobody had ever heard of, especially in the ancient Near East. No one imagined a God like this who's so extremely personal. But also we have to see here in this text, God doesn't need any of us. He is wholly self. We're about to see in verse 14. He has that phrase, I am. I am who I am, Yahweh, which means this.

In his kindness, God is inviting Moses. Look, verse 10, therefore go. He's inviting Moses to have a part to play, not because he needs Moses, but because in his grace he decides to use him. And that can be the same for you and me. God does not need us, but in his grace, he invites. To be a part of his mission, but I do want to, so there's, I, we can literally talk for eternity about God and his character and what we even see just in this passage.

But I also want us to use this moment to, to what does this mean for the life of Moses now? Now, quickly, it's likely Moses was never expecting a word from God, and there's three reasons why, uh, should be on the screen. Number one, he's a murderer. Right, so God is holy. We are not, and and God in his holiness cannot be approached, especially by someone who as sinned so much that he murdered someone.

So Moses is carrying around this shame, and so he is not imagining God coming and intervening. The second reason is the last time God spoke was 400 years prior. Anybody else noticed the significance of the 400 year gap of silence? Where else did that?  between the old and the New Testament, right? When Jesus was introduced, when, when the angel came down and said, I've become to bring good news, there was a 400 year gap of silence.

We also have it here. And so the last time God spoke to his people was to Jacob to go to Egypt, and that one day they will be rescued and sent to the promised land. But now that's been 400 years. So Moses doesn't know anyone who knows anyone who heard a word from God. So he's not expecting it. And number three, he's in the middle of nowhere.

Midian is a desert in the ancient Near East Place meant something. I actually think we can do a great service to us if we begin to recognize the significance of a place. I think one reason why our souls are so distraught and disconnected is we never stay somewhere long enough. , right? There's something beautiful about planting roots and just being who you are with the people who are around you, whatever those, whoever those neighbors are.

But anyways, he says he names his son in Exodus two. He's, he names his son, gosh. And gosh, literally means I am a foreigner in a foreign land. What's Moses saying here? Saying, I'm lost? My son represents this season of life, and in this season, nobody knows who I am and I don't know where. So he is thinking, God won't speak to me.

He has no home. Moses has no security. Moses has no identity, and by this point he is in a deep identity crisis. In fact, one could argue he just has given up to even figure out who he is. Is Moses like pastor Caleb mentioned last week. Is he an Egyptian or a Hebrew? Is he special? Or is he just a shepherd?

Is he a deliverer or is he just a murderer? Is Moses chosen by God or just forgotten by God? And I imagine you are well acquainted with this type of crisis. And I know , I know I am right, but this crisis is way too important for us to brush off and distract ourselves. And I think that's the grace that Moses had getting to the desert.

He had nothing to distract himself and now he had to encounter God. Now, the world today, we'll call this identity crisis, but here's what the crisis really is. Write this down. The crisis of knowing self and knowing God, these are two equally important crises, that for some of us, it's why we are so disintegrated, so depressed, and so.

There's been a lot of theologians throughout history who have claimed that these two things are the most important tasks to partake in the journey, to partake in, uh, for us to really live out what God has called us to German theologian, a meister I Eckhart, he said the following, he says, no one can know God, who does not first know himself.

Sounds a little new agey, doesn't it? What's going on here? No, we need to know ourself. How about the 15th century Spanish nun, St. Teresa of Avila, where we get a lot of our stage theory of the Christian life from? She says, almost all problems in the spiritual life stem from a lack of self knowledge. Now, let me give you one more person, which may most people, if you, if you're a theology nerd in the room, you would never guess he would say such a thing.

Reform theologian, John Calvin. He said the following, our wisdom consists almost entirely of two parts. The knowledge of God and of ourselves. He actually goes on to say, but as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other.

So in other words, do you try to know yourself first or you try to know God first? And John Calvin says, yes, it is a journey that goes together hand. And so this journey, this process is what I would call is the egoic journey, the journey of the ego, figuring out who you are and what God's called you to.

So there are stages if you, if you're around passion Greek, you know, we love this stuff. But there seems to be throughout the biblical text, throughout just life in general, there seems to be stages of your journey in figuring out who you are. And in so doing, also figuring out who God is. Now, most of us begin here at stage one, which is the conceited.

This is the blessing of being young, by the way, cuz you don't know any better. You're just ignorant and you think you're awesome. , God will fix that. But anyways, concede itself. What happens when you're conceited is a simple reality and it's okay. Life hasn't beat you up enough. And so there's still something in you that says, I can figure it out.

I have the power. Just give me the control. And in God's patie, You'll see throughout the Bible, God uses conceited people for some pretty extraordinary things. Now, he beats out that conceit, but he uses them. Think of the story of Joseph in his arrogance, tells his brothers about how great he is and how they're going to worship and serve him.

One day he's conceited. That was not the point of the vision, but God still used them. Moses in his conceit, saw the Israelites hurting and he thought, I'll take care of this. Let me just kill. Conceited, and this is what happens. And here's what, what. Here's different ways you can figure out if you're conceited.

And it's okay. There's grace in this room. Let me just say quickly. This has been a lot of my life. All right, so the conceit itself finds identity in one of three ways, or possibly all three. First off is performance. So some of us, we think I'm great because of what I do. Right, so you'll see this a lot in the sports world, in the career world, right?

I'm just really good at this specific task, and let me just say, it's great to have pride in what you're doing. I think that's totally fine, but you cannot base your worth off of what you're doing. See the difference there. What's hard though is some of us we're so good at what we do. It's a pretty good idol.

You're pretty satisfied for a while because you work hard and you get paid. The second way that the conceit itself finds its identity is in possessions. I'm great. Maybe not for what I do, but I'm great because of what I have. Some of you have won the lottery, like literally, if you have talked to me, we're trying to get a church building.

You know what? But possessions wise, right? You find your hope and satisfaction on the things that you own, right? You actually compare your worth and value by comparing what items you have versus what items they. This is all good and dandy until that no longer works, right? Or the third one is popularity.

I think some of us have actually never graduated from high school, right? All of life is who's at the popular table. So I'm great because of what others think of me. Social media has taken that and cranked it up to a hundred. You can now people say your value is based off how many people follow. Like I have people, I have a YouTube channel, been slaving over it for six years.

I have this, it's a steady amount of subscribers, but oh, the judgment. When I tell people how many subs they have, they go, oh, hmm, okay, and move on. And you're like, no, I'm worth more than what you think. You know, like this is a thing. Popularity, the conceited self runs to this. And the reality is is Moses could actually run to at least several of these popularity.

He was in the Pharaoh's home possessions. He was in the Pharaoh's house. And so this probably helped, you know, boost his ego, but by the grace of God, and here's what happens. If God is so gracious to you, God will meet you at a moment where you have been completely stripped of all your arrogance and conceit.

God does this many different ways. I think one way, God, we as a church went through the Book of Ecclesiastes last year and I, and I think that's a huge way God can grace you with a sense of exhaust. You're just exhausted. Like possessions. Just they, they never satisfy performance. There's always somebody better popularity.

I'm never enough. And so the chase isn't fulfilling, and so if you're here for the Ecclesiastes series, you just kind of say, heaven, it's useless. You have it all and you still need more. Or God can grace you, not with exhaustion, but with embarrassment. There's maybe a moment where you are publicly humili.

You lose everything, someone takes over the spotlight. Or like Moses, you take it a step too far and wind up murdering someone and having to run away. So Moses was the conceit itself, and he ran away embarrassed and ashamed. And after the beat down, if you and I are given the Grace Long enough, what typically happens is we now enter into the desert of the defeat.

Your wounds have stacked up against you. Your opportunities have slipped away from your fingertips. Those relationships were not based on love, but on a contract on performance. And you are now left alone. And if I can be honest, I am much more acquainted with this one in more recent. And as I wrestle with this text and as I've been praying about us getting victory over the defeat itself, I have to acknowledge moving on from here does not happen quickly, nor does it happen easily.

Let me give you some examples. What does it mean to be the defeat itself? Maybe you're in the room thinking, is this who I am? Well, here's how you can know. The defeat itself finds its identities in one of three ways. One is victim. , right? You live your whole life. If others knew how hard I had it, your, your identity is your illness, right?

You just tell everyone how bad you have it, and that's how you find hope. You're defeated. Your hope isn't in victory. It's in being a victim. The second thing is vengeance. The defeated self thinks, okay, if I can just make them feel the pain that they made me feel, then I'll be. So you're living really an operation of defeat.

You're bitter, you're looking to the past, not to the future. And this next one honestly, is a word that I haven't heard until recently and I'm hearing a lot of psychologists, experts, uh, mention. It's, is voyeurism. Voyeurism at its most basic element is just finding pleasure and watching others do what you can never do or what you would never be brave enough to do.

Not, it's worse. Voyeurism can be uh, things like watching things online, but it's also just in being a fan of, of, of a football team. And your whole life is just about that cuz you can't find victory. So you just watch others do victory while you sit on the couch. That's the defeat itself. And to be honest, I know that we get so annoyed with, with young men being so conce.

But I think some of us, we just put them to the defeated realm and we just leave 'em alone. Men, we, we need to have a journey to go towards, right? It's not a victory that many teenagers can't even think of what life could look like, and so many have committed suicide. So many have no future because we have made sure to tell them how terrible this world is, how terrible they are, and then we wonder why we're in the mess.

So, so many men, and I'm speaking to that just cuz I'm a man if you didn't know. Um, voyeurism is a huge, huge thing that men are running to. They've raised their white flag and they just wanna watch somebody else be victorious for them. Now Moses, he, he had a lot of emotions to process in the desert, right?

Victimhood, maybe thinking, man, they don't understand why I did that. Right? I murdered that guy because I wanted to save them, but now they were mad at me, right? Vengeance. Man, I need a man. Look what the Egyptians have done to me. Look what those Israelites have done to me. But they don't know, right? And they're stuck.

And we're honest with ourselves. You and I are well acquainted with this cycle of being conceited and then being defeated and then having enough self illusion we are conceited again, and then we get defeated all the more. And the reality is, is without God, you are either conceded or. But God can step in sometimes in a burning bush moment and flip things around.

What's what's fascinating is today, technically it's on Tuesday, but today is our seven year anniversary as a church.  and, um, it is entirely not gone the way that I planned at all on the five year vision board or the 10, or even the two. And so the ver the first few years and some of you in the room you were there, um, I, I would say I was clearly the conceited self.

And the reality is, is, uh, church planning book I read last year has said that. I think every single church planner is conceited or else they would be too wise to not plant a church. Uh, but we're so arrogant we think, no, we can do it. Okay. The stats are 90% failed. Yeah, but I'm like, the 1%, you know, I'm the greatest, so let's do it.

And so God in his grace somehow does that. And so this journey of planning a church has been humiliating. It has been slow, so slow, way slower than I thought. And um, for the first few years, I would just give myself a pep.  or I go to Disneyland, , and then we would move forward. But eventually that exhaustion and that embarrassment got to me.

And as I look back at my life, like I I, I had this moment where I looked at Jordan and I said, look, the more effort I put in doesn't equal more success. And that's frustrating, right? I try harder, but get almost the very same or even less results. What do I. . So the last few years has really, I know some of you're like, Trey, you, you're too vulnerable.

Whatever. The last few years has like broken me like, um, it's been hard. I think it's hard for all of us. I'm only sharing this because I want to identify with the story, Moses, and hopefully it's helpful to you. But I think what, what I've noticed is I've kind of shifted from conceit itself to defeat itself, and it is very, very hard to lead when you are defeated.

Man. I even think about last year I went from like full of energy to just fighting for any amount of energy. And so I found out about this thing called coffee and I was like, whoa, this is how humans actually exist. This makes sense to me now. And then I found out about monsters and I was like, wow, like how did I get through college without these drugs?

Uh, and so, but I went from. So much energy to like needing substances to push me forward. I went from clarity. You would, if you would ask me ever, like, what's your five year, 10 year plan? What? Oh, I would have all the answers. I went through a season where I was confused. I don't know. I just know my Bible's right, so let's just keep reading it.

One more. The, the biggest thing I found from going conceited to defeated, um,  in the first few years, I, I loved my sermons. Like I would watch him again and go, why aren't more people listening? You know, like, come on. Did you hear that rhyme? You know, And now, like I despise them. And every week I walk down and go, what am I supposed to be?

An artistic, like graphic designer? You know? Like, I'm just like, what is my purpose in life? And, and what's been so helpful, and this all has a purpose besides like making sure you never look at me like a strong leader ever again. But part of this is recognizing this is the journey of the Christian life.

This is a part of. I read Hebrews, uh, 10 through 12 this morning, and in it he says, no. Listen. Listen. God disciplines, those he loves, like God in his mercy actually makes life hard on you because he's teaching you this thing called faith and perseverance and humility. And even like for me, man, two years ago, I would've said a sermon on identity would've made that would've made me.

Quit struggling. You know, like I would always make fun of people like, you know, the friends who say, I just need to go across the world to find myself. I'm like, that's not gonna help. You know, like, you're right there, you know? But now I'm like, I kinda get it. Like, anybody got a ticket? Let's go to Malaysia.

I don't know, let's figure something out. You know? And this struggle, like the dark fog of the unknown. And, and I hesitate to say this, but I, I really do feel like we're entering into a new season as a church and in my own life, and it's very exciting. And now I, I believe clarity is coming back and opportunity and favor in ways we've never seen before.

But, but what, what I've learned, and I think what Moses is interacting with here, is you cannot skip the desert. The reality is, is God will keep you in the desert as long as he needs because he loves you. Here's the good. God's deliverance is imminent. When you accept, you are limited.

This was the burning bush moment for Moses. God had to wait until Moses was at this beautiful crossroads of knowing. Man, I can't do it all by myself, but man, I still wanna do something good. H, how do I, I need God or else I can't. Well, I need to do something. See, Moses had to get to the end of himself so that he had the eyes to see God.

Look at verse 11. This is how God now introduces himself. So, so he says, Moses, ask God, who am I? Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the Israelites out of? Look how he answers. He says, I will certainly be with you. That's all you need to know that I'm with you, and this will be the sign to you just to comfort him.

I'm the one who sent you. When you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain. You know this mountain? You keep walking around for 40 years. There's a purpose I've been, this feels useless. But this mountain here was always here for the future. You just never understood it until now.

This is the sign, the very fact where you're sitting, standing, I'm gonna give you the 10 commandments in the law, verse 13. Then Moses asked if I go to the Israelites. So he is still kind of like that defeated itself. Like, okay, uh, well what about this? What about that? So now he says, if I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your ancestors will send me to you, and they ask, well, what's his name?

What should I tell them? These are the most two simple questions we always ask. Who am I? And God, who are you? So God, in his grace answers, God replied to him saying, I am who I am. This is what you are to say. The Israelites I am has sent you this. This name means Yahweh. This is He always was. He always is.

He will forever will be. Don't worry, he has this in his hands.  look at the two gifts, even just in 11th through 14 that Moses has given. Number one, Moses is given the gift of a limited self, not conceited, not defeated, just limited. See, God doesn't call him up to be strong and mighty. Again, that's exactly what the conceited self wants to hear.

But also notice God doesn't like cast him out for failing to live up to God's standards. That's what the defeat itself expects to. Instead, he's saying, Moses like, who am I? God is saying, Moses, you're limited, but you're anointed. You're limited, but you have my presence, so it's gonna be good. Other passages say, I am who I am.

Other people translate as I, I will be who I will be. You just watch. You just wait and see. And that's the second thing He, he's given the grace of a covenant God. So who am I? I'm. God, who are you? God's a covenant loving, faithful God. Time and time again, God is saying, I will be with you. Moses says, but what about this?

He says, I am with you. I will go before you. I am your power. I am who you need me to be, but God, who are you? I'm the God of mercy. I'm the God of faithful, never-ending. Love. Love. And this is where the egoic journey eventually leads us to. It eventually leads. These are the two questions I want us as our response time to think about, to pray to meditate, maybe kind of just spend some time with God is this first question, will you accept who you have actually become?

Now to the conceit itself, you're not as great as you think . Just accept who you really are to the defeat itself. Hey, actually, God's doing a lot more in your life than you.

You're just limited. You're one human and that's actually such a grace. I want you to wrestle with that question this week. Will you ex, will you accept who you have actually become? This is especially true for those of us on the back half of life. The saying goes, young people are only nice cuz they keep thinking one day they'll be nice.

Right? They have expectation. They'll actually. Will you accept who you've actually become? Will you get really honest the things that have been done to you? Will you just accept that? Realize this is always, this trauma is a part of my story. James K. Smith, he wrote a book, wait, it's, it wasn't that great, but he had a line in there that I thought was so good, talking about the grace of just recognizing who you are and being okay.

It's not on the screen, but I put it on my notes this afternoon cause I think it's so good. It says, grace is not a time machine. Grace is not a reset button. I think that's what we want. We come to church cuz we don't like who we become. So we want the reset. It says no Grace is something even more unbelievable.

It's restoration. It is reconciliation of, and despite our histories of animos. Grace isn't an undoing, it is overcoming. Isn't that interesting? When Jesus rose again on the third day, he still had the scars. See, when we talk about come to Christ, come to the cross, come to His grace, we're not saying we reset everything that's ever happened in your life.

But the reality is, is there is a resurrection that. The pain is now being resurrected into something beautiful. The brokenness is being resurrected into something powerful. This wandering by Mount Ho for 40 years is now being resurrected to where this is the very place where people will encounter God and the ethics of all of Israel will be set throughout all eternity.

What he does is God isn't looking to reset, to ignore. No. He is taking all your pain and all your hopes and dreams, and what he wants to do is for you to come to the end of your. Clinging to the cross of Christ, receive him, surrender to him, trust him, and in his power. What he does is he takes your history, he takes your pain, he takes your sin, and and the very things he used to struggle with, the things that you hate about yourself now through the resurrection, gives you a grace to be a source of love to those people who you once were.

You now have greater empathy. You now have greater patience and love and purpose and courage. This is all according to his plan. The second question you have to wrestle with, that you have to get honest with is will you surrender to who God actually is?

Man, God is way more personal than you've ever imagined. Look at the text. God is way more holy than you'd ever expect, but God is so much more loving than you could ever hope for. Will you surrender? Will you surrender to him, Phil led, just to kind of just sit there. Will you actually accept who you've actually become and will you surrender to who God actually is?

What we're gonna do this week in your together groups? We're gonna put forth, we're trying to think through what's a practice here that can help you kind of have a burning bush moment And just thinking through the daily examine. It's a, most of this just go on the, on the group guide on the website, but quickly it's an exercise where you just review your day and you say, okay, where's all the bad stuff?

What was all the gracious stuff? And, and just thank God for it. And we wanna do is actually, as you start groups again, this week, pastor Caleb's done a great job of doing a a decade by decade. What, what we wanna invite you to do is to, to look at your life a and and to ask for the spirit's guidance and get honest and accept your past failure, decade by decade.

Writing him down, but then recognizing and accepting God's grace throughout all of that decade by decade and giving thanks to him. I'm really encouraged for us to do that, but again, I want us to, Which question are you wrestling with most? Will you accept who you've actually become? Cuz God doesn't want to work with your idealized self.

He wants to impact and work with your real self. And will you surrender to who God actually is? Way more loving than you'd ever imagined. Way more gracious, personal, holy. And it's that intersection. We can have a burning bush moment that sets. Towards a purpose and mission for the rest of our life.

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9:22 - Great communicators convince early adopters by painting a future worth sacrificing for.
10:22 - Great communicators paint a picture that connects with their culture.

11:40 - Our Heartbeat - why we are here.
12:43 - Our Goals - how we define success.
13:33 - Our Culture - the attitude of our community.
14:18 - Our Patterns - how we practically get involved.

15:47 - In order to steer you have to be clear.
19:20 - Great communicators convince the early majority by celebrating the early adopters.
20:12 - Whatever is celebrated is replicated.
20:07 - Social proof is absolutely necessary.

23:14 - You are not the hero.
24:21 - 1. The Character
25:02 - 2. Has a Problem
25:16 - 3. Meets A Guide
26:00 - We can impress or empower but only one will go sour.
26:52 - If you appear unreachable, you’ll be unable to reach.

27:20 - Great communities reach the late majority by guiding them through the obstacles of life.
28:25 - Great communicators know their job is to give guidance.
29:20 - Great communicators know their job is to bolster confidence.
31:11 - Great communicators know their job is to equip with tools.
31:45 - (the rest of the story brand outline)