Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Are you growing weary as you consider all that's going on in the world and in your own personal life? Pastor Ed with a suggestion for you: When things get tough, he says, do good. When things get hard, do good. Look for the opportunities. That's how you don't grow weary. You just don't get buried under the weight of difficulty. You don't get buried under the weight of— No, you look for opportunities. Do good. Be good. Let the spirit of God use you. You'll always have those problems. The problems will be with us always.

But the opportunities to do good are always with us as well. And as you step into these opportunities by faith, the Lord will bless you and encourage you and revive you.

Larry: Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado presents Abounding Grace with Ed Taylor. Glad you joined us today as we get right back into our study of Exodus where we left off in Chapter 28. Pastor Ed's about to draw our attention to five very important truths about the priests of that time. And as we do, we'll see why we must worship God correctly.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles to Exodus Chapter 28. We covered it last time, but I want to go back and add a few things that time did not allow us. Exodus Chapter 28. A real big overview. But I've entitled our Bible study: You Must Worship God Correctly. You must worship God correctly. And we see this as God is establishing the priesthood in Exodus 28.

Studying through the book of Exodus, it's a foundational book to the underlying faith of the Old Testament believers. Often they would go back all throughout the Old Testament. You'll find them looking back to this time in the history of Israel. The deliverance of the Red Sea, God's powerful rescue out of Egypt, His faithfulness, His ability to not only promise but also keep His promises. This moment of being set free completely impacted the nations and the believers going forward. And you find it being referenced many times.

God gave them freedom. He met them personally. He showed them miracles. He hears their prayers. He helps them. He delivers them. He leads them. He loves them. And if God could do that then, then God could do that now. In each of the references, they're looking back and saying, "I know what God has done in the past, and I know that God can do it now." In the New Testament, when the writers in the New Testament look back, there are references to the deliverance out of Egypt for sure.

But when the New Testament writers look back, they look back to the cross, to the empty tomb, to that moment when the fulfillment of the promises of God came to pass, and there was a true freedom given to each one that placed their faith in Jesus. When the New Testament writers wanted to give an example of the power of God, they went to the empty tomb because true freedom from sin and death comes through Jesus. And Exodus is such a powerful book.

Going back to our studies far back in the past, you remember Amram and Jochebed. Maybe you've forgotten them, but this is that Hebrew couple that God used and God chose to bring forth a son. And after a miraculous rescue in the river, he becomes the deliverer of the children of Israel. Of course, he becomes the deliverer of the children of Israel after years and years and years of what we would call today discipleship. You could step back and say discipleship may not have been the word used in the Old Testament, then you could use the word training.

He needed to be trained. He started with this great desire to deliver. He felt it and sensed it, but there was still yet preparation that was needed in his life. And a big portion, one-third of his life, was spent in obscurity in the backside of the desert as he embraced this time of just him and God and faithfulness. And that may be exactly where God has you—just you and God and faithfulness. God is going to be faithful in those seasons. The question is how much faithfulness is God going to draw out of you in the circumstance?

In the difficulty, in the trial, in the situation you don't like or you don't want? And after that miraculous rescue from the river, God uses Moses in standing before Pharaoh, even though in the beginning he didn't want to do that. He would rather do anything but go stand before Pharaoh. But after wrestling with God, God wins, and he stands and he declares the Word of God to Pharaoh, watching the plagues come upon Egypt. Finally, he is not only asked to leave, he's told to leave.

He gets up to the Red Sea, God parts the Red Sea, they walk as if on dry ground. We learn about the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night. God's going to lead them and guide them into a new life of faith. Same people, different life. It's so representative of the life of faith in Christ. Same person, different life. I mean, same upbringing, same family, same body, same hair, same name. All of the things, so many that are the same, but then in Christ, you're a new creation and old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

And sometimes that stumbles you because you're still dealing with things in the same physical body. You have the same habits, the same thought patterns that God is renewing our minds and taking us from glory to glory and strength to strength. But we're learning the same thing the children of Israel learned: look, observe, obey, and follow. God wants to be the center. Jesus would put it this way: Seek ye first the kingdom of God. He must be the center.

Jesus says, "If you want to follow Me, then deny yourself." Some of you are still stuck there. You don't need to hear anything else. You simply have chosen not to deny yourself. You've taken the name of Christian. You may even be born again. But to follow Christ, or what we might describe as— There's a lot of born-again believers today that live as unbelievers and they don't have a real walk with the Lord, a real ongoing relationship.

And in order to step into that ongoing relationship, you must deny yourself. It is not your way anymore. It's not your deal. I was thinking recently, I was just praying. I was praying for some situations where I'm just like, "Why can't people just follow the Lord?" That was my thought to the Lord. That was my prayer. "Why can't they just obey? Why does it have to be so much drama? I don't understand it. Why do they have to just— if they're going to end up going anyway, why do they go the hard way? Why are they resisting? Why?"

Well, I know why. It's the flesh. And there's a little bit of it in all of us. And Exodus is reminding us of the delivering power of God. You don't need a deliverance ministry. You have a Deliverer, Jesus Christ. That phrase keeps coming up over and over. Got a call on the radio today—deliverance ministry. No, you don't need a deliverance ministry. You don't need some special prayer you read in a book. You have a Jesus. Deny yourself. No, no, it's got to be— No, I need somebody to pray a special prayer. I need to go to a special meeting. I got— No.

Deny yourself. Take up your cross and follow Him. You're delivered. Live that way. You're delivered from sin and death. It's amazing. God has sent His Son Jesus Christ to shed His blood for you, but you think you don't have power over that sin? You really believe the blood of Jesus Christ stops short of the family you were born into, of the past that you lived, of the habits you've developed? You think the blood of Jesus Christ covers all but that? It's your belief.

You need to change your thinking. Not only do you need to change your beliefs, but you also need to begin to behave like you believe. And you have a Deliverer. We've been in this section of Exodus now where God is defining, for the last few studies, His relationship with the nation. They are no longer slaves under taskmasters. They have now become voluntary bondslaves of a good and gracious God. And He wants to define the relationship. And He is—how they'll relate to Him, how they're to worship Him.

You'll remember He says, "I'm going to come and dwell with you. I'm going to meet you." And He gave instructions for this tent structure, the Tabernacle. "This is where I'm going to meet with you," He says, "on the mercy seat on top of the ark of the testimony, the ark of the covenant." The Tabernacle's construction, this temporary tent, was given to Moses and then to the people. I believe it was downloaded into Moses' mind up on Mount Sinai. He could see it all, and then it was given to him detail, piece by piece, how what he was shown is going to be built by men.

It's very similar to the visions that God will give leaders and pastors and dads and moms for their homes and their families. God downloads this vision, but you don't know how it's going to come to pass. You don't know how it's going to happen. It's beyond your ability to comprehend, but you see it and you're excited and you come up and this is what I think the Lord's doing. And the first question from some is, "Well, how?" And you're like, "I don't know, but we're going to discover it together." And God gave it to him detail, piece by piece.

Why? Because we've learned, this is all by way of review, we've learned that God is in the details. God loves things. In the New Testament, we learned He loves things done decently and in order. He loves and is very much into details. And a worshipping people must have a place to meet with God, and that place is this tent of meeting, or the Tabernacle. And what's most inside? What's most important inside? That little section behind the veil, that little spot where the ark of the testimony sits with the golden mercy seat lid where the priests would go in and offer the blood.

Now, last time, we briefly covered the priests. We overviewed more of an overview of the priests. And if you're taking notes, I want to back up a little bit and I want to give you some insight, not only of the priest but also of your own life. And I want to remind us today as a church that we need to worship God the correct way. And you might ask, "Well, what's the correct way?" God prescribes how He's to be worshipped. And we've already seen some of the prescriptions in Exodus 20 in the Ten Commandments.

He goes, "Here's the guardrails. These are the things I want you to watch in your life." In the New Covenant, I'm going to empower you so that when you abide in Me, you'll pass those tests freely because your eyes are on Me. But I want you to see five important truths about the priests, and then we're going to end our time today in a section of the Bible where we have a couple of priests that worshipped God incorrectly. And it'll emphasize how important it is.

Number one, if you're taking notes, when we look at the priesthood or these men that were used and appointed to lead the children of Israel in worship. Number one: the priests were appointed by God. Remember in Verse 1 of Chapter 28, it says, "Now take Aaron your brother and his sons with him from among the children of Israel that he may minister to me as priest. Aaron and Aaron's sons, Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar." These are appointed by God. This is not something you could take upon yourselves.

God names them, and He dictates what family they're to come from. Appointed by God. This role of priest, nobody could take it upon themselves. You couldn't wake up one morning and say, "I think I want to be a priest." This is something that God did and that God prescribed. He's the one that appoints them. Later, Jesus would emphasize this calling when He contrasted the true shepherd with a hireling. Hold your places here. Turn over to John Chapter 10 with me.

John Chapter 10. This leadership in God's church, just like the priests of the Old Testament, leadership in God's church, you can't take it upon yourself. Now, I have met a lot of men and women that have tried to take it upon themselves, but that's not a true leader. Like the priests of old, God will appoint and ordain the men that He wants to lead His church even today—men and women, as women have a variety of different roles of leadership within the church.

Notice what Jesus says here. There's a great contrast between the men that God has appointed and the men that have appointed themselves. Notice with me Verse 11. It's the contrast between the shepherd and the hireling. Verse 11, Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep. But he who is a hireling and not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.

The hireling," Verse 13, "flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep." There's an insight here about those men that take ministry upon themselves, and that is: they don't care about the sheep. They care about themselves. And unfortunately, now over many, many years, I've seen this time and time again—a greater care for self than for the flock of God. So that the first time difficulty comes or the first time challenges come, there is that test upon a man's heart.

That test upon a woman's heart. And you can tell whether they have a true shepherd or shepherdess's heart by whether they stick around or not. That's what He says. Soon as the wolf comes, the hireling's out of here. What about the sheep? I don't know about the sheep. I just know about myself and I'm out of here. But the shepherd stays on. Jesus gives us the greatest example of the shepherd, the good shepherd that gives, not takes. Gives His life, not exposes the life of the flock.

And this is a reason why so many men strive and complain about the ministry. They complain about how hard it is and complain about how difficult it is, and they have forgotten the good shepherd. Because the good shepherd gives. The good shepherd doesn't complain. The good shepherd gives and dies for the sake of the flock and doesn't run away. I've seen too many take ministry on without a clear calling from the Lord. Maybe it's the prestige—I mean, I could go through a list.

That might be a little pamphlet book I can write one day of all the things I've seen over the years through this little church and my years in our home church much larger than this. Maybe it's the prestige, maybe it's the position, maybe it's the power that draws them. It's certainly pride and taking upon them wanting to take advantage of the flock for their own purposes. But when they find that the ministry's too much for them, often they quit, walk away, find something else to do.

And a hireling soon finds out that there's no prestige in being a shepherd. It's a stinky business. It's a challenging business where sometimes a shepherd's prayer is, "Why so much drama, Lord?" Well, that's what a shepherd's for, to help dissipate the drama and get people's eyes back on the Lord. A hireling, they soon find out there's not a lot to the position because to whom much is given, according to God, much is required. It's not the other way around.

Leadership in the church is not like the world. I'm sure that you have worked in environments before where everyone's trying to climb the corporate ladder. More money, less responsibility. That's not the way of the church. The way of the church is the way up is down. And the greater the servant, the greater the leader. And the greater the leadership, the greater the servant-hood. It's not really prestigious and it's not really the position or as powerful as some might think.

Rather we've taken the position of the doulos, the bondslave, the bondservant, willingly, not against our will. Not like Egypt, but willingly chosen to take the place of a servant before the Lord. And the ministry has a tendency for a man in the flesh to wear them down and wear them out if they're not called. But to the called comes this encouragement—you can jot it down. To those that just know you're supposed to be— like you're just called to teach the kiddos, the Sunday School.

But then you're there that week where there's 110 kids in a room that fits five and you're like, "What is going on?" Here's the word of the Lord. You ready? Because it happens. There are seasons where it's harder than other times and more challenging. And this is what the Bible... We'll get to this later in our weekend study, but in Galatians Chapter 6, Verse 9, it says, "And let us not grow weary in well doing, for in due season we shall reap if we don't lose heart."

And then we often quote that part of the verse but don't quote the next one. In Verse 10, it says, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." And there's that beautiful opportunity and gift from God that when things get tough, He says do good. When things get hard, do good. Look for the opportunities. That's how you don't grow weary. You just don't get buried under the weight of difficulty.

You don't get buried under the weight of— No, you look for opportunities. Do good. Be good. Let the spirit of God use you. You'll always have those problems. The problems will be with us always. But the opportunities to do good are always with us as well. And as you step into these opportunities by faith, the Lord will bless you and encourage you and revive you. I wanted to spend a little bit of time on there because that's how Chapter 28 opens.

Your ministry is to the Lord. It's not to take advantage of the flock. It's not to be buried under the weight. God did not call you to be buried under the weight of ministry. Can I get an amen for that? He did not call you to be buried under the weight of ministry, but if you're not called, you will be buried. But rather God will give you the strength to accomplish everything that He wants to do through your life. Everything. You will have enough time, you'll have enough resources, you'll have enough strength, you'll have enough wisdom.

And I wanted to spend a few moments on that very important... Number one: priests were appointed by God. Number two: the priests were given special clothing. There was a uniqueness about them. Now, I don't believe this one translates today where pastors have to wear special clothing. They should just be clothed. That's very important. Just put some clothes on. There's not like we're not judging on the outward in terms of what a person wears or doesn't wear.

But you don't want to be in a place where you're stumbling, drawing attention to yourself, men or women. We want to be in a place where we're transparent to others, not drawing out, not stumbling, not drawing out things in people's minds or such that would get their eyes off the Lord. For sure. But for these priests, there was a distinction, and the distinction was in their clothing or their priestly garments. They would visibly be set apart from any other activity.

Today, I think one of the ways that true leaders are visibly set apart in the church is by their servanthood, by their servanthood. What you would expect a person in a position of authority to no longer serve anymore, that's the way of the world. But in God's church, it's the exact opposite than the way of the world because in God's church, those that are responsible serve more, not less.

Larry: Well, we're enjoying a study in Exodus here on Abounding Grace. Pastor Ed Taylor is our teacher on the program, and you can hear these studies again online at aboundinggraceradio.com and then through the Calvary Church app. Well, Pastor Ed, the big takeaway today is we must worship God correctly. And that reminds me of our pick of the month on *Real Worship*. What can you tell us about it?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Well, let me just say, Larry, anyone that is looking for good reading material, anything by Warren Wiersbe is going to bless you and encourage you. He's got a whole commentary covering the entire Bible, and then a lot of books that he wrote on different topics like this one. And on the back of the book, it says, "What is true worship?" And while many books deal with how to worship, they fail to give a definition of true worship.

And that's really the essence of this resource that we want to get in your hands. Whether you support the ministry here or you get it wherever you get books, step into this new area of understanding what real worship is and how your whole life is used by God as you present it to Him. The title of the book is *Real Worship: Playground, Battleground, or Holy Ground* by Warren Wiersbe. It's on our suggested reading list, and I just know the Lord will use it.

We're always grateful when you support the ministry. And you know, even when you get a book through the ministry, we don't charge that much for it. Like that's not the point. We just want to connect with you. And your giving and support of Abounding Grace is such a blessing. But we love to put these books in your hands. We love to see you grow. And once you read it, email me. I'd love to hear your feedback on these resources. Get it and be encouraged.

Larry: That's *Real Worship* by Warren Wiersbe. Ask for your copy today when you give a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. To order it today, call 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also go online to calvaryco.store. If you'd just like to make a donation to the ministry and not interested in the book, you can donate safely and securely at aboundinggraceradio.com.

And we'd love to have you join us for a service here at Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado. To see when and where we meet or to watch our live stream, visit calvaryco.church. Glad to have you with us for today's broadcast. We look forward to continuing the journey through Exodus next time on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed. In the meantime, let's be drawing on God's abounding grace for daily living.