Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Facing a situation in the ministry God has you in, and you feel totally inadequate? Well, Pastor Ed says that's actually not a bad feeling to have, but don't let it become an excuse in your life.

Pastor Ed Taylor: For those of you that feel inadequate, inadequacy is a perfect place and position to serve the Lord, cuz it will cause you to lean on him and not on yourself. So guess what? I just took that excuse away from you. God wants you to serve him, wants you to be a part of what he's doing on the earth today. And of course, we're going to feel inadequate because in many ways in our own strength, we are 100% inadequate.

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks for joining us today for Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. We're making our way through Acts in a series called Be the Church. In your service of the Lord, have you ever felt totally inadequate or maybe due to lack of education you feel like you're unqualified to be in that ministry? Well, today we'll meet a couple of apostles that were uneducated, untrained, but God used them greatly. And people could tell they had been with Jesus. Here's Pastor Ed.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Exodus chapter 3 and Acts chapter 4. Exodus chapter 3, Acts chapter 4, a Bible study that I've entitled They Had Been with Jesus. And you remember here in chapter 4, you have Peter and John on their way to the temple for a prayer meeting. There's a guy there begging. Peter, he senses the Holy Spirit wants to do something great in his life. He pauses, tells him, hey, look at me. I don't have, you know, I what what what you're asking for we don't have. We don't have silver and gold, but what we do have, we're going to give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up, rise up.

And they healed him. And it brought great excitement to the people. But there was a group of people that weren't so excited, and that was the religious rulers. They got very upset. And we learned last time that religion is always an enemy of the gospel. And what I mean by religion is not how we use the word to maybe describe our relationship with God in a real generic way. What I mean by religion is the man-made systems that separate people from God, layer after layer after layer. Like the idea that you you can only come through God through this system, or you can only come to God through a priest, or you can only come to God through a pastor, or you can only come to God through a particular church.

No. No, no. That's an enemy of the gospel. Cuz anyone that's born again have been saved and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, I have the privilege of telling you today, you have direct access to God right now. You don't need to go through a system, you don't need to go through a person. It's not mom and dad that's going to get you there. It's not grandma and grandpa. No system, no barrier. The the veil was torn in two at the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And then by faith in him, there's no one comes to the Father except through Jesus.

And at any time, at any moment, you can choose to come to the Lord. You can you can you can run to the throne room of grace in your time of need. Well, here in Acts chapter 4, Peter and John are standing before the Supreme Court. Those that have their life in their hands. And Peter took the opportunity, remember, to preach the gospel to them. He He shared with them the reality of the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And it got him in big trouble. And we come to verse 13 of Acts chapter 4.

It says when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized they had been with Jesus. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it. Now, maybe you felt this way when you hear the word uneducated and you hear the word untrained, it kind of describes you. Well, were you look at your own life and you say, well, you know, I don't have much education and I don't have much training. And what that does is it wells up in you a sense of inadequacy.

I mean, here you are, you love Jesus with all your heart and you love your church and you love your community and you want to make a difference. So you hear of needs and God impresses something upon your heart and and then there is this overwhelming feeling that you're inadequate, that you don't know enough, that you're not ready. And so that's followed by the feelings of being defeated, maybe even hesitant, perhaps very scared. And you actually talk yourself out of obeying the promptings of the Holy Spirit because you take something spiritual and then you begin to look at it in the physical, untrained, uneducated.

Uh in that, I'm reminded here in Exodus chapter 3 of the life of Moses. We don't have time really to develop at all, but consider Moses as God's calling is upon him. You know, early in his life, I believe he sensed God's hand in his life. I mean, he had his mom taking care of him, and I can't imagine but hearing his mom say you're a miracle child, you're a miracle child. Look what God has done in your life. Look how he's spared your life. And he's hearing of the faithfulness of God in the past, and he's hearing about faithfulness of God in the future.

And then he grows up and begins to see a fight between an Egyptian and a brother. And as he sees them, he goes to break it up. And it says in chapter 2 that he ends up killing the Egyptian. And he takes things into his own hands. I think that was a premature action on his part where he feels like, oh, I've got this sense of God's going to use me to deliver. And there he is. He takes down the Egyptian and he tries in the power of his own flesh and the power of his own wisdom and the power of his own strength.

And it 's interesting to me as you study the life of Moses that in the power of his own flesh, he wasn't capable of even burying one Egyptian. He couldn't even do one. You see, God wanted to bury the whole army of the Egyptians not too long from now as he does in the Red Sea. But that was going to be by his spirit in his timing. And there is that barrier of feeling inadequate. Moses was definitely there, but God was preparing him. After this episode, he runs away for 40 years of training in the desert.

He had a bachelor degree on the backside of the desert is what he had. And he was learning and growing to depend, learning how to grow and depend upon the Lord. And the call of God was clear upon him. And I draw your attention to verse 10 of chapter 3 in Exodus. There's definitely a calling in his life as God is speaking to him. He says, come now. Therefore, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

40 years in the backside of the desert humbled this man. He's different now. He's not taking things into his own hands. It almost It almost seems as if he's overcorrected now. He goes, who am I? Who am I that you could use me? Who am I to go to Pharaoh? Who am I to be the deliverer which is the exact place that God wants you and me? He wants us to approach him. Who am I? Who Who am I exactly? Apart from you, God, I can do nothing. And you'll see notice what the answer to that question who am I is.

In verse 12, God says, I will certainly be with you. So to those of you that think you're inadequate, you look at your own training and education and it 's not what it could be and not what it should be. You have the promise of the Father where he says, I'll be with you. That's all you need. You don't want to cower in fear of that inadequacy because I think to some degree, God is always going to lead us to places where we feel inadequate. I mean, I've been saved now for 31 years. I've been serving God for 30 of those years or so.

And as I've served him over the years, I'm telling you, I am still led into places even now where there's an overwhelming sense of inadequacy. Why? Because God wants me to continue to grow, and not just me, God wants you to continue to grow in your dependence upon him. He doesn't want us leaning on our own understanding. He doesn't want us leaning on our own experience. And he also doesn't want us making excuses about being inadequate. He wants us to turn to him. So I think the summary of our time today could easily be set it this way.

For those of you that feel inadequate, inadequacy is a perfect place and position to serve the Lord cuz it will cause you to lean on him and not on yourself. So guess what? I just took that excuse away from you. God wants you to serve him, wants you to be a part of what he's doing on the earth today. And of course, we're going to feel inadequate because in many ways in our own strength, we are 100% inadequate. But God is able to meet us right where we are, to train us, to develop us. I mean, I'm sure someone listening to me right now, you're in your 40 years on the backside of the desert right now.

God's fashioning you and forming you. He's taking who you thought you were, and he's revealing to you who you really are so that at the end you go, who am I? And the Lord's I'll tell you what, it doesn't matter who you are, I'm with you. And I will be with you. The very things we're afraid of are the very promises of God. Well, what am I going to do? How am I going to do it? What's going to happen? Remember what Jesus told his disciples? He said, they're going to take you and they're going to put you before councils, but I don't want I don't want you to worry about what you're going to say cuz I'm going to be there with you.

Holy Spirit's going to give you the words that you need. And here Peter and John are in that very place living out the promises of God. Now, I'm sure if I asked the question, do you ever feel inadequate? The whole room would say, of course. I know I do. And that's not a bad feeling to have. You just can't let it become an excuse in your life. In 2 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 16, Paul writes to the church. He says, to the one we're an aroma of death leading to death, but to the other we're an aroma of life leading to life.

And then he says at the end, who is sufficient for these things? None of us are. Our sufficiency is from Christ. And I stand back and look at the word the work of God in your lives. And I hear of your testimonies. I look at the work of God through the life of this fellowship family. And you just have to stand back in awe of what God has done and wants to do in us and through us. Despite our failures, despite our weaknesses, you know where the Bible says that even if we are faithless, he remains faithful.

He's not going to die himself. So you can even come to him faithless and God is ready to use you. Why? So that he might get all the glory. God answers, I'll be with you. I'll take care of you. It's You're not going alone. You have me. And he tells Moses and he tells us he's the same yesterday and forever. He always be the same. It's not who you are, Ed. Doesn't really matter who you are, Moses. I'm with you. I'm the one that works through you. It matters who I am, God would say to us.

Remember, God's ways are not our ways. Isaiah 55 verses 8 and 9. His thoughts are not our thoughts. They're so much higher, so much grander than even what we can think beyond our imagination. And we see this so clearly in the people that God uses. I I look at the ministry of God through my own life, and I can't help but conclude that his word is true. The basis of God's choice is so contrary to human reason. And that's what these religious leaders don't get. You have to understand they're in a position of religious leadership, but they're not saved.

They're not regenerated. And you know, it's a sad thing today, but there are churches around the country, around the world that the pulpits and leadership positions and elder positions are filled with unbelievers. Imagine that. Not even believers leading the church. And that's what you see here with the Sanhedrin. They They have rejected Messiah. They are not regenerated. So then when they see God's work right in front of them, they miss it. They miss it. You have to have spiritual eyes to see spiritual work. It 's the spirit of God that opens up his word to us.

It 's the spirit of God that teaches us. And the basis of God's choice is always contrary to human reason. You need proof? Just look around the room. Look into the person you came with. You know them very well. They're God's choice for the ministry. Look to the pulpit. Who am I? Is a great question to ask. Well, I'll tell you who I am. Turnover to 1 Corinthians chapter 1. 1 Corinthians chapter 1. Not only am I going to tell you who I am, I am going to tell you who you are as well. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, I find no greater reason for God using me in the ministry than this passage of scripture.

And you may want to mark it, put a star next to it and remember it in your own life. Verse 26 chapter 1. It says, for you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh. That's you and that 's me. Not many mighty. Oh, by the way, that's you and that's me. Not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world. Oh Oh, by the way, that 's you. Yeah, you listening on the radio. Yes, you watching online and all throughout this building. We are the foolish things of the world that God has chosen.

Why? To put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world. Oh, by the way, that's you. The weak things of the world. Why? To shame the things that are mighty and the base things. Need I say it again? That's you and me. The things that are despised. You know, we don't use the word despise much. Let me put it into a more modern phrase. God chooses the things that are despised. You know what we would say, how we would describe that today? The people that others have written off. That 's God's choice.

And I wonder how many could say today, you know what, Ed? That was me. I was written off. People gave up hope on me. They just couldn't They couldn't see any way that I could be recovered. Yeah, well, God God didn't give up hope on you. He chose you that despised, the outcasts, the the man, the woman, the child that was written off. You know, some of you grew up unfortunately in a very difficult life in your home because your parents would say, oh, you'll never amount to nothing. God chose you. Oh, you'll never go God chose you.

You know, and and some even to some we've ministered to some that even say their parents would even told you know, you're not even wanted. No, no, no. You are wanted by your Father in heaven. Oh, yes, you are. Not only are you wanted, but you're chosen so that God would use you to bring him glory. I mean, if you look around and you think there's there's people in our lives that maybe we would have never chosen. I mean, think of would you have really knowing what you know about Peter, would you have chosen him?

I mean, he denied the Lord like to his face. He ran away. He He denied him before a servant girl at a fire. Like Like he he was so bold and yet denied the Lord. Would that be somebody you want on your team? I mean, Jonah, would you have chosen Jonah? He gets a call from God and immediately goes the opposite way. Oh, I want that guy on my team. Now, I'm sure you don't. I I mean, would you have chosen Job? You know, Job has this man of righteousness living his life honorably, and then he's struck with great tragedy and he loses his consciousness of God and he's surrounded by all his difficulties, so much so that God would have to come to him and say, Job, where were you?

He had to get his right perspective. Would you have chosen Job? I mean, you can go on and on. And you think of your own life and you know about yourself. And you know, you have to stop with not not knowing the full story, but up to the point where you were just dead in your trespasses and sin, just totally lost, totally rebellious, totally antichrist. Would you have chosen you? God did. And so it's just one of those moments, right, where you can just thank God you're not God. All right? Just say thank God, I'm not God.

His ways are not my ways. His thoughts are not my thoughts. So it would do me well to be in the word of God every day and pray every day so I can get his thoughts and I can learn his ways. I can cooperate with what he's doing on the earth today and be open for the foolish things, those things that are despised, those folks that have been written off with the weak things so that at the end he gets all the glory. And the hope Moses brings us is that even if you have failed, God can still use you.

He's the God of the second chance and the third chance and the sixth chance and the hundredth chance. It 's the same salvation and the same God ready to receive you back even today. So Peter and John now in Acts are brought before the Jewish Supreme Court and they're standing there in the confidence and the boldness and the power of the Holy Spirit. What amazes me is the response of these religious men. When they look down at them and they see the boldness cuz it was evident, but then they have these perceptions that they were uneducated and untrained, it says in verse 13, and they marveled.

I mean, their boldness was evident. It was undeniable. Peter and John were not afraid. They were not intimidated. They were living in the freedom that comes by the grace of Jesus. They spoke without hesitation. They spoke effortlessly. They spoke plainly. They spoke clearly. They spoke confidently just like the Psalm we read today, Psalm 27 verse 3 where it says, though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear, and though war should rise against me, in this I will be confident. This is where they're at. And the religious leaders, they make a couple of mistakes here.

And now if you're taking notes, I want you to jot them down. They make a couple significant mistakes on their perception. Number one, they misperceived the education of these two men. They look at them and they look at them and say they're uneducated and untrained. Now, you have to understand there is a contextual there is a contextual definition here when they look at them and they say untrained and uneducated. It It's not unlike our world today. There There is a system of education even in the Christian world that you're either in or out of. You know, in the Christian world it would you you take your bachelors and then you go in the seminary, and then the seminary could give you a masters of divinity, all kinds of masters.

And they can even give you PhDs, and you can be well educated in the Christian system of education. It's the way it was in the 1st century. There was a very precise way of education that you would follow all those steps in order to be accepted within the religious environment. There's a whole world like that in our own day and age that would look at someone like me and say, well, that guy's uneducated and untrained. And And they would be right. And this may shock some of you, uh but I haven't been to seminary. I don't have a bachelor's degree.

I don't have a master's degree. I definitely don't have a PhD or any kind of doctorate. However, I did finally finish about 5 or 6 years ago my associates degree in biblical studies. Yes, it's hanging on my wall. I can prove it to you and take a picture and you can see I 've got a piece of paper on my wall. But do you know a piece of paper doesn't put me in the pulpit? It's God who's placed me in the pulpit. You see my ba I started out backwards. I started out in such a way where I couldn't go to school.

I was such a sinner and I had so many consequences of my sin that by the time I got saved, I'd already had a family. You know, I I I had no opportunity. I just had to work. That's why I just worked, worked, worked to take care of my family. I wanted to go to school, but I couldn't. And so even today if I was to enter into a seminary and say, hey, I'd love to teach here, what's your degrees? I don't have any. I mean, I got that associates that I finished on my couch, but it's you know, it's hanging on my wall and it's uh from an unaccredited school, but but I have the anointing of God on my life, uh but you don't have the degrees.

You're right. And so I wouldn't be able to teach in seminary. I wouldn't have the ability to go from level to level because unfortunately I was outside the system. But I believe the Lord wants you to understand that you don't need to be a part of the system to serve him.

Guest (Male): Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace. Are you interested in hearing this again? If so, drop by aboundinggraceradio.com. Another way to listen to Pastor Ed's teachings is through the Calvary Church app. We're also on oneplace.com. What happens when God's spirit invades the heart of his people? Author Jim Symbola sets out to answer that very question in his book Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire. With over a million copies sold, this book will show you what the Holy Spirit can do when believers get serious about prayer and the gospel. When you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire.

Give us a call at 877-30 Grace. That's 877-30 Grace. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store. You can also make a donation to the ministry online at aboundinggraceradio.com. And thank you in advance for helping us reach people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ here on the radio and online. Join Pastor Ed each day on this station as we continue to learn how to live by God's Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church, Colorado here in Aurora.