Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace, Moses falls back into the weakness of his fear and flesh. Something many of us can relate to.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Who am I? Who am I? You're the one that God is speaking to personally. That's who you are. You're the one that has an understanding. You're the one that God has just given you all these promises. You're the one that has already done once, even though it didn't turn out the way you thought it would turn out. That wasn't God's point. God's point was for you to hear Him and obey Him. You leave the results to Him. If it's all grace, then you leave the results to Him. You let Him sort it out.

You measure it as a great success, that's under the Lord. You measure it as a great failure, it's under the Lord. Because it's not just your output that matters, it's what God is doing in you through the process.

Guest (Male): Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado presents Abounding Grace with our pastor and teacher, Ed Taylor.

Parents, I'm sure you've heard this a time or two from your kids: "I don't want to do that." It's at that time we need to remind them that they're to obey even when they don't feel like it, right?

As we turn to Exodus chapter 6, Moses is struggling with God's calling on his life. In essence, he's saying, "I don't want to do this, God." It's a good reminder to us why we need to hear and obey the Lord in all things. We'll start off today in Ephesians.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Turn over to Ephesians. I want you to see this. In Ephesians chapter 1, I love this. This is God calling some of you back to your days where you remember what God has done. What God has done.

Some of you know by now that my pastor went home to be with the Lord. I was contacted to put together a little video, just a couple of things to share at his memorial service. Even as I'm thinking about it day after day after day, just thinking about my mind going back to the days—eight years I spent there.

When I walked into that church and when I sat in the back, I didn't want anybody to hug. All the things we laugh about now, but I walked into that church lost as lost could be. I can't help but remember that I had tried to live my life. God said, "Go ahead, Ed. Do whatever you want. Live your life. It's yours to live. You can live apart from me in rebellion or you can live for me. Whatever you want." That's what I did.

It led me to a life of great pain, anguish, difficulty, consequences, and you name it. It was horrific being in bondage to sin. Does anybody say "Amen?" Bondage to sin was horrific. Some of you did things, said things, and were just so lost. How can we not help but remember whatever God uses to bring to your remembrance? How can we not but remember how gracious God was to invade our lives?

It's a response to Him. Notice in Ephesians chapter 1, it was in that church I learned how to read the Bible. I knew how to read, but I didn't know how to read the Bible. It was in that church I learned that I should memorize the Bible. So it reminded me the very first verse I ever memorized was because my pastor told me. I was so eager, just whatever Pastor Jeff said, I did it.

I'm so glad that God brought me to that church and not some whacked-out church because then I would be all whacked-out and then I'd have to be un-whacked-out to get back right. So God brought me to the right place where the Bible was where it needed to be. He just told us, "You should memorize this." "All right. How do you memorize? I don't have any idea how to memorize." "Well, you write it down and you keep repeating it."

Proverbs chapter 3, verses 5 and 6. How would I not know? How would Pastor Jeff know? How would anybody know that would be the verse that I would need to go back to a million times in my walk with the Lord: to trust in the Lord with all my heart and lean not on my own understanding?

No matter how smart I get with the Bible, no matter how many notes are in here or how many highlighted verses or whatever, I need to trust in the Lord. I'm not going to lean on my own understanding because it may be a different application today. I need to acknowledge Him in all my ways and then He'll direct my paths. I'll know where to go as I look to Him and put Him first in my life.

As I surrender my life to the One who searched me out, sent people in my life, knew what church I needed to be in, knew what family I needed to be a part of, knew what pastor was going to speak into my life. He knew. It's His initiation. He's the initiator, we're the responders.

I think I asked you to open somewhere, right? Ephesians chapter 1, verse 3. Look at this. This is Paul overflowing when he's writing to the church in Ephesus. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us," mark this word, "with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will."

Not your will. You and I, we are at our best place when our will is His will and we're walking in unity with Him. Notice in verse 6, "to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He has made us accepted in the Beloved." We've been blessed with every spiritual blessing, church.

Don't let these guys in pulpits that maybe you were in a church that taught like this, or you have some TV evangelist that you follow, or some new gal or guy on YouTube or even on the radio in some of the stations around town. All you hear is "You should, you should, you're not doing enough. You've got to do this. If you do this, then you'll move the hand of God." God's hand has already been moved. It's already happened. You just need to follow His lead.

Make yourself a place where you're right in the middle of His blessing. God's not going to use guilt to move you, to manipulate you, to get something from you. He's already giving you His all because He knows. He knows that in the proper response of all that God has done for you, we will present ourselves living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Him, which is our reasonable service. He knows that.

The true emphasis of the Gospel is what God has done for us. God doesn't come and go, "Okay, you responded to me? Yes, you heard the message? Yes, you heard that traveling evangelist come? Yes. Okay, now you're ready to follow me? Yes. Circumcise yourself." No, no, no. Because God doesn't say that. That got settled in the early church, didn't it? It got settled.

God has already done the circumcision for you. Not of the physical outward, but of your heart. He's cut through your hard heart and given you a heart of flesh. For some of you, it's a very dramatic change that you share with me where all of a sudden now you just have more feelings than you've ever had in your life. That wasn't who you were, that's who you are because God took out your heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh.

Only the Lord can do that. When you really grasp this of how much God loves you, what God has done in sending His Son for you, the sacrifice the Son has made for you, that God has made a way in your life where there is no way. When you really grasp that, not out of guilt but out of grace, what are you going to hold back? What are you going to hold back from God?

Notice, come back to Exodus. That passage in Ephesians sounds a lot like this section of Exodus as God is telling Moses, "You just go tell them. I'm going to take care of them. You tell them I'm God. I'm El Shaddai. I'm Yahweh. I'm Jehovah."

Moses comes to them in verse 9. They're not listening to him because of the anguish of spirit and cruel bondage. Oppression, discouragement, this anguish of spirit, this lack of peace—it has a way of causing you not to hear the Word of God. It has a way of taking you away from hearing His voice.

The way out is by faith. Do you know you can have discouragement and faith at the same time? Where you open God's Word and you trust God's Word by faith until the fog passes, until the anguish of spirit passes, until you find yourself in a place where you're hearing God, trusting Him, responding to His love once again?

This is it. You're not responding to your emotion, you're responding to the love of God. Remember in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 14, it says, "For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died." Paul says it's the love of God that moves us, that compels us.

As you see this, coming back to Moses, you see this New Covenant insight because this is the God that changes. He's the same yesterday, today, and forever. Notice in verse 6, there's the grace of God there where "I'm the Lord and I'm going to bring you out of the burdens. I'm going to rescue you. I'm going to redeem you. I'm going to redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments." We see grace there: "I'm going to bring you out from your burdens."

We see love there: "I'm going to redeem you." We see in verse 7 relationship: "I'm going to take you as my people," God says. We see His commitment in verse 8. He says, "I'm going to bring you into the land. I'm not going to meet you just in Egypt, but I'm going to be with you and I'm going to fulfill this in your life. You will make it into the place I have prepared for you."

What is that to us today? Because some of you doubt whether you're going to make it to heaven or not. That's a real doubt. Among the body of Christ, there are people that doubt their salvation. There are people that doubt whether they're really saved or not.

Let me just share a few things. First of all, if that's a real concern for you, repent and receive the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a real concern. I don't want to give you a false sense of salvation. If you're really not sure, you can be sure today. Admit that you have sinned against God, receive the free gift of salvation, the washing of your sins, the cleansing of your life, and the newness going forward. That's a real deal. We'll give you a chance to do that in a moment.

But for those of you that have been around the church for a while, been around Christianity for a while, you kind of go a little bit and you make some progress and then you fall back and you're not sure—listen, you can be sure of your salvation. You can be sure of your salvation because it is what Jesus has done for you.

Peter would even say, and he knows this because he failed greatly—remember what Peter said in his letter? That you and I, we are what? Kept by the power of God. We are kept by Him. He saved us, He keeps us. So those of you that are worried about whether you're going to make it to heaven or not, in Christ, God promised you you're going to make it.

"Well then, I guess if I've got the promise, I can go live like a sinner." That doesn't sound like a saved person. That sounds like an unsaved person. "If I'm going to make it to heaven, I can do whatever I want." Yeah, but people that are in Christ, whatever they want is what God wants. That's what it looks like. It's not your own deal.

When you're living like the way you want to live, that sounds like you, and you don't save anybody. There's no assurance of heaven for the self-life. There's no assurance of heaven for the selfish life. Only the surrendered life, abiding in Christ, experiencing the power of God.

You might have your doubts, but God has given you His Word, even as we see in verse 9: anguish of spirit. It's so rough and so hard. Do you know God is going to send Pharaoh a message ten times, very dramatically? He's going to deal with the heart of Pharaoh. He's going to deal with the false worship of Pharaoh. He's going to deal with the pride of Pharaoh.

The thing that we learn with Pharaoh as we study through is that he didn't have to get it ten times. I wonder how many today are listening to me and you're like, "I'm telling you, you don't have to go the hard way, church." You don't have to. God has opened your eyes. You can surrender to Him today.

Notice again in verse 10, the Lord spoke to Moses saying, "Go in and speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he must let the children of Israel go out of his land." Moses spoke before the Lord saying, "The children of Israel not heeded me. How then shall Pharaoh heed me, for I am of uncircumcised lips?"

Oh, don't go there again, Moses. Don't do it. Don't do it. Remember the leprous arm? Remember the staff? What are you doing? But this is real. This is real stuff. Moses is a real man. You've done this before, I've done this before. But oh, Mo, don't go. No, no, no.

Verse 13, then the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron and gave them a command for the children of Israel and for Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to bring the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. Which is so cool to me because we're reading this as Moses falls back a little bit into the weakness of his fear, the weakness of his flesh, the resistance, the pressure of the people, everything.

He's dealing with this like, "I don't want to do this. Didn't I already tell you this, God? I told you I didn't want to do this." He's there, but he's in the right place wrestling with this, right? He's not running away like Elijah into a cave. He's there—for Elijah in a cave, God had to get his attention, give him a still, small voice. At least Moses is with the Lord right now. At least he's getting his direction from the Lord.

But I love this with Moses. The "I wills" that He gave him for the people were for him, too. They actually were first for him. Then he got to deliver them. So they were for him.

You Bible teachers, pastors, leaders, when you're in the Bible, you know you're in the Bible for you, too. Parents, "I've just got to disciple my kids." It's true, God will help you disciple your kids, but you're in the Bible for you. You're not in the Bible for your wife, or your husband, or your kids, or your boss. You're in the Word of God for you first. His Word comes to you first, then it comes through you. It comes through us.

It's amazing how we think of so many others in the middle of a Bible study. If you see what I see up here, you see the little jabs, you see the little laughter, you see the little whispering. I almost want to say, "Stop it! It's for you! Put your elbows away." And if you guys really want to be crafty, bring a mirror and just put it up next to you and say, "That's for you." "No, it's for you." And then ultimately, if you're with somebody, you could say, "It's for us. The Word of God is for us. It's for you, it's for me, it's for us."

You know that as God gives you something for someone else and you're faithful in reaching out to them—you're faithful in texting them, emailing them, calling them—do you know the Lord gave it to you first? Gave it to you. So if you do reach out to ten people in a day, ten quick text messages, it's nothing. Some of you text hundreds of times a day back and forth, then social media hundreds of times a day. It's nothing, reaching out to people ten times. Nothing.

That means you would receive ten words from the Lord first as you're praying for somebody. "Lord, I've got Dave Gorn on my heart. Lord, bless him and encourage him." And then all of a sudden, boom! "Remember what you were reading this morning?" "Yes!" And you go back and you go, "I'm going to send it to him."

As you're sending it to him, you can hear the Holy Spirit: "Good job, daughter. Good job, son. And what was that verse again?" And now you're in dialogue with God. "Well, you know, Lord, I was just reading there in Acts. I was talking about sharing the Word and the amazement of your Word. And you know, God, I haven't really been amazed at your Word lately. Would you just bring amazement back?" And all of a sudden, now you blessed Dave, but you were the one that was blessed because God used His Word in you.

So you come back to God, "I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this." And it's like, "Do you remember what you were reading this morning?" "Yes, Lord. It's so good." I love this. Jot it down, this is a great verse. Joshua chapter 3, verse 9. It says Joshua told the children of Israel, "Listen, come here and hear the words of the Lord your God." It's like the Lord inviting you when you wake up in the morning: "Come here and listen to me, son. Listen to me."

And you know when you hear the Word of God, you know what the next part of it is? Obedience. The more you hear, the more you obey. Just simplify it. You might want to look up a Greek word; obey it first. "I wonder what this word is." Obey it first. Obey it in the English before you look it up. It's like, that's what it says. It says right there: "Hear me." "All right. What was that in the Greek?" No, don't worry about the Greek. Hear the Word of the Lord.

Trust in the Lord. "Yeah, but I wonder what that word means." All right, before you even know what the word means, do it. Trust Him. Step out in faith on Him. Hold Him to His Word. Don't talk yourself out of obedience. Obey quickly. The longer you wait, the more you'll be tempted not to obey. "Oh, that wasn't from the Lord. No, I was just what I was eating. I was in anguish of spirit; it's just my emotion." Yeah, but the Lord spoke to you. Obey it, then sort it out later. You'll be blessed that you did.

The next section, from verses 14 all the way through probably verse 27-ish, is a genealogy. As we come through our studies in the Old Testament, you're going to come across a lot of genealogies. You can see in verse 14 there's Reuben, in verse 15 there's Simeon, in verse 16 there's Levi.

This is the family tree of Moses and Aaron. It's presented as proof that they were truly God's servants, chosen by grace and grace alone. Genealogies are essential. Some are like these validating genealogies for the leadership there. But the genealogies that are most important are the ones that point to the validity of Messiah.

They're important to the Jewish people as they kept track of families and of land allotments and of the priesthood. How God affirmed the reality of generationally handing down the Word of God. God shows off His people by mentioning them by name. This genealogy, I believe, is a reminder that God had divinely prepared Moses and Aaron for this work: from Jacob to Reuben to Simeon to Levi to Moses and Aaron.

In verse 28 it says, "It came to pass on the day when the Lord spoke to Moses in the land of Egypt, that the Lord spoke to Moses saying, 'I am the Lord. Speak to Pharaoh, king of Egypt, all that I say to you.'" But Moses said before the Lord, "Behold, I am uncircumcised lips, and how shall Pharaoh heed me?"

Well, this is a reminder that there are weaknesses of your flesh that follow you. You get victory and then it shows up again. You get victory and it shows up again. This is a man of God used greatly. Victory and it shows up again. Even though with the weakness of his flesh, Moses does do what God told him to do.

It's no excuse because you wrestle with the flesh or a weakness of your flesh. "Who am I? Who am I?" You're the one that God is speaking to personally. That's who you are. You're the one that has an understanding. You're the one that God has just given you all these promises. You're the one that has already done once, even though it didn't turn out the way you thought it would turn out.

That wasn't God's point. God's point was for you to hear Him and obey Him. You leave the results to Him. If it's all grace, then you leave the results to Him. You let Him sort it out. You measure it as a great success, that's under the Lord. You measure it as a great failure, it's under the Lord. Because it's not just your output that matters, it's what God is doing in you through the process.

Especially you guys that have leadership responsibilities. We get so caught up on what the outcome is. And the outcome matters, for sure. Absolutely. There's a measurement of fruit and we can sort that out later. But it's not the primary measurement. The primary measurement is how God has used this situation to make you more Christ-like and make me more Christ-like. Make me more dependent. Make me more pliable.

The more pliable I am, the more I hear the Lord. The more reliable I become in His hands. So Moses is dealing with it. But just get ahead, verse 1 of chapter 7, and the Lord said to Moses, "Oh, never mind, Moses. I know you can't do it. I'll go find someone else. It's no big deal. Go ahead and quit. Don't worry about it."

Isn't that like people's inside voice sometimes? That's not what He says. "I made you as God to Pharaoh. You shall speak," verse 2. God says, "You're going to do it, man. You're going to do it. I'm doing this work in you, and you're going to do it. Your brother's going to do it. And I'm going to..." and He just lays it all out. So read ahead; that will be our next study.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. If you joined us late or would just like to hear this message from Exodus again, turn to aboundinggraceradio.com or you can listen through our app as well. Search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play.

If you take a brief moment to write or call, that would make our day. Let us know the station you're listening to and if today's study was a blessing in your life. We'd also love to pray for you. You can email us through the website at aboundinggraceradio.com then click "Contact."

You know, the new year is a great time to kick-start or breathe new life into your devotional life, and we've got a book that can help. It's titled "Jesus Every Day" from Jim Cymbala. Each day brings its own set of challenges and events that can at times leave us dazed and confused. But in Christ, we can find the grace, strength, and peace to face those days with hope.

Living by God's unshakeable promises will challenge you to consider what your life might look like with Jesus every day. We'll send you a copy with our thanks for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE or visit our e-store at calvaryco.store. And then be sure to join Pastor Ed Taylor next time for more teaching from the book of Exodus right here on Abounding Grace.

Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.