Light on the Hill

James Kaddis: Today on Light on the Hill. God works supernaturally using the natural. I want you to think about that because if that's true, and it is, and if what I'm saying is important, and it is, then that means if you don't understand that, then you have missed God's desire to do that work in your life every day.

That means that open doors have been open for a long time that you've never walked through. That's going to sound like a very risky thing to say, and it might even sound a bit accusatory, but the one thing that I want you to know is that it's more true than you can possibly imagine or realize.

Singer: I have found the peace only comes from you. I have found the joy only comes from you. Because all I need is you. All I need is you.

Guest (Male): Whether we realize it or not, God shows up on a regular basis. The problem comes when others don't see it or, even worse, refuse to see it. When you do notice it, what happens next? What will you do next? Let's give thoughtful consideration to that now on Light on the Hill with Pastor James Kaddis in Exodus chapter three.

James Kaddis: As we have been going through the book of Exodus, I think it's a fair statement to say that we have learned a lot. This has been a life-changing and life-transforming book. Every single time we open it and we learn, we learn some pretty powerful things.

We've learned a lot already. We've talked about spiritual warfare. We've talked about the tactics of the enemy and how he will do whatever he can to destroy you and to take you away from accomplishing the purposes and the call of God.

I mentioned this to Jack when I was talking to him last week, and that was this picture of what happened with Moses. God called Moses to something spectacular with the nation of Israel. The devil knew it, and the devil tried to kill him before he was even able to breathe within his first four months.

The devil tried to kill him the moment he was born. With that failed attempt, God took it and saved him and did something great with him. We're in the process of reading all about that. It's interesting because the parallels are staggering when you think about the modern day in which we live today.

The spiritual warfare that we're experiencing right now at a level that we've never seen it, the insanity that we're seeing in every corner that we turn, every place that we go, and the culture of death that is being produced is unbelievable right now. It is at a significant place that we have never seen before.

Do you know that some of the news articles that are coming out right now express the grave concern that people are having right now in society because they say our population numbers are dropping? I wonder why. Could it be the fact that we've killed 80 million babies in the last 40 years?

Could that be the reason why the population is dropping? These are the things that people are not necessarily stopping to focus on, converse about, or think through because we are not understanding spiritual warfare as God intended for us to understand it. We learned so much and we've learned a lot about this in the book of Exodus.

The thing that I want to start off with as we go through Exodus chapter three is perhaps the phrase that needs to stick in your head. You cannot walk away from this phrase. Commit it to your memory. Don't ever forget it. It's really important. Here it is: God does supernatural things using natural ways.

Let me say that again. God will do supernatural things in your life using natural means, natural ways. The Bible gives us repeatable stories of how this works and how God does it again and again. What shocks me oftentimes is how people will do this, and I think it's because they're taught to do it.

I think there's a lot of lazy teaching behind the pulpit, but I think people are taught to do this. It's amazing how people will just read through stories and verses and blow through them and not recognize the significance of what's being put in front of them. Then they miss out on all that God wants to communicate.

When you look at the beginning, the first 15 verses of the book of Exodus chapter three, I want to say this. We're only going to stay at 15 verses today because I think you'll understand when we get to the end of this. The first 15 verses of Exodus chapter three provide for us one of the most remarkable pictures of this principle.

How God will use natural things to accomplish supernatural processes. God works supernaturally using the natural. I want you to think about that because if that's true, and it is, and if what I'm saying is important, and it is, then that means if you don't understand that, then you have missed God's desire to do that work in your life every day.

That means that open doors have been open for a long time that you've never walked through. That's going to sound like a very risky thing to say, and it might even sound a bit accusatory, but the one thing that I want you to know is that it's more true than you can possibly imagine or realize.

God is waiting in our midst to do a work that he will not do if we do not allow him to do it. If we do not open up the door to allow him to do what he wants to do. Now, he will accomplish his purposes with or without us. But understand this: if you want to be a part of the great work that God wants to do day in and day out, if you want to live the life that is extraordinary every single day that you live it, you have to understand what we're about to learn together.

I'm not overselling this. You'll understand in just a second. Look at this verse one: "Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb." I want everyone to understand this.

The very first principle that we learn here is a critical one. This is a really important one, and most people will read this verse and blow right through it. But I want you to labor through it with me for a second. Moses is doing something here. What is he doing? He's doing his everyday job.

He's doing his regular everyday job. God created us as creatures of habit. Once we allow ourselves to do something on a regular basis, what we do becomes easier. We become more acclimated to it. It becomes normal because what ends up happening is you develop a rhythm doing it.

You develop a capacity to be able to do it. I was talking about this with a business owner yesterday. One of the business owners was talking about the fact that she has this skill set that she sells to people, and that skill set is undersold by her. In other words, she doesn't charge enough money.

One of the common complaints that she'll oftentimes get is, "You do this so quickly, why are you charging me so much?" My statement to her was very clear. People are not charging you for the time that you're actually spending doing it. They're charging you for the time that it took for you to develop the proficiency in doing it.

Here's the thing that people don't understand about this. When you're a business owner and you're doing something like this, the time that it takes to build the proficiency to do it also builds in another skill set, and that is the ability to detect an anomaly when something goes on so that you can correct it.

Let's just say I hire somebody to install a roof on my house. First of all, the one thing that I do not want to do is I do not want to hire a roofer that's not experienced. I want to hire a guy that knows exactly what he's doing and I want to hire the guy that can do it well.

You want to know why? Because if somebody is putting a new roof on your house and in the process of their working on doing it, they know what they're doing and they've been doing it a long time, they can detect anomalies in that house that nobody would ever be able to see unless somebody who's experienced put their hands to it and is able to help avoid a disaster.

This is a very important principle to understand. You have to recognize that God created us this way. He develops skill sets within us and those skill sets are designed to fall according to a rhythm and a pattern. By the way, our lives are lived that way. Did you know that if you live your life the way God intended for you to live your life, you will learn the pattern and the rhythm of what that life lived looks like?

My point behind this is Moses is going through the desert right now, doing what he's doing. The contention that I will make is this: whatever it is that God has you do from day to day, it doesn't matter what it is. When God has you do it, the one thing you must understand is you must learn to do it well and you must learn to be walking with God as close as you possibly can as you do it.

I don't care if you're a guy that's collecting trash or you're a guy that's an attorney. I don't care what it is that you're doing. All honest work is honorable. Whatever you put your hands to, whatever your routine is, if you are doing the work of a homemaker, it doesn't matter what it is that you're doing.

Whatever you're doing every single day, here's my statement to you: do it while filled with the spirit of God. Be filled with the spirit of God when you do what you do and become the best at what you do. It doesn't matter what you do. But I want you to be people, because God wants you to be people, who are filled with the spirit of God.

As you walk being spirit-filled, you will develop a skill set that very few people are able to develop and understand. The skill set that you will develop will come from you being so entrenched in the ebbs and flows of the way that you live your life that there's a rhythm that is ensued.

When that rhythm is disrupted, you're going to be able to detect the anomaly and you will recognize that anomaly as an opportunity that God is giving you to hear his voice and act on it. This is such an important principle. So Moses, let's just start with this premise.

Moses is doing what he's doing as he is being led by the Lord to do it. He is a man who is listening to the voice of God and loves the voice of God. Let's just say that right off the bat. He's a godly man. He's living his life shepherding the flock. That's what he's doing. He's a shepherd. He's herding animals. That's what he's doing for a living.

But he's doing it as a man who's in tune to the voice of God. Now watch what happens next. This is important. "And the angel of the Lord," which we know obviously is in one way or another a manifestation, it's an appearance of God himself, "appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed."

Look what happens. Two things I want you to pay attention to. Number one, it tells us right away that the Lord came to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. But notice, something anomalous was happening. This might be difficult for people to understand, but it would have been a common thing for Moses to see things on fire in the wilderness.

You're talking about a regionally hot climate, a very dry climate. He would have easily been able to have seen things burning in the wilderness. That would happen a lot, especially on the colder days or on the days where maybe something would have happened where somebody would have burned something for their own warmth and then later on it carries on and fires start.

This was a normal thing. It would happen a lot. So for Moses to see something burning on fire probably wouldn't have been all that big of a deal. But notice what Moses did. Moses saw something that was anomalous about this. He recognized the fact that there was a fire that was burning in that bush and that bush was not consumed.

He saw that. He took the time to stop and see that. But notice what the Bible goes to tell us. The Bible doesn't say that God appeared to Moses in a bush and then the conversation ensued. If the Bible said that, then everything I'm talking about becomes void and null. It doesn't even matter.

But look what happens in the next verse. Look at what Moses does. "And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt." I want you to notice what Moses does. This is critical. Moses is about his everyday job. Remember what I said: God does supernatural things in natural ways.

Moses is walking through doing his regular job. He's filled with the spirit of God. He's doing what God's called him to do. He notices something that is in essence an anomaly. He recognizes it to be an anomaly and then he investigates it. He knows that something is different and he recognizes the need to investigate it. Why?

Because I believe at that very moment he also recognizes that the abnormality that he sees in that very moment may very well be a sign that God is wanting to say something to him. I want to propose something to you that I think is critically important. For those of you that complain that you don't hear the voice of God or those of you that complain that God is not speaking to you as much as you want him to, let me just explain this.

God is probably doing it on a regular basis. The problem is you have not conditioned yourself to recognize the anomaly and investigate the anomaly. Let me give you an example of this. Many years ago, I went through a phase where I was having a very, very difficult time sleeping.

I'd go to bed and I could not close my eyes, which by the way was a huge abnormality for me. When I put my head to the pillow, I would always sleep because I was never not a hard worker and so I would put my head to the pillow and I was out. That's the way it was.

I was struggling with this and finally my mom came to me and she said, "Honey, you have to consider the fact that the reason why you're not sleeping is more significant than just you not being able to get sleep." I'm looking at her really puzzled. She's a little frustrated with me and she says, "Let's go over the story of Samuel."

It reminds me of the story of Samuel. If you remember the story of Samuel, Samuel hears a voice. After hearing the voice, he runs to the other person in the room and he says, "Yeah, what do you need?" And that happens three or four times. The other person in the room says, "It's not me, it's not me."

Finally the other person in the room who's experienced hearing the voice of God tells Samuel, "The next time you hear that voice, say, 'Here am I, Lord. I'm ready to hear what your word is to me.'" Because it's God trying to get your attention. My mom taught me something very important in that moment and that was this.

When those types of anomalies take place, you better recognize them as God doing something because he is trying to communicate something to you. By the way, very interestingly enough, my mom was right on that. During that time where I was not getting a lot of sleep, that was the Lord trying to get my attention on a very critical issue.

It was a remarkably miraculous moment that God was preparing me for. I learned very quickly that if I want to get good at hearing God's voice, I also better act on the things that present themselves to be anomalies because those anomalies are God's way of signaling us.

When we are signaled to do these things and we act on them, wonderful miraculous things happen. By the way, can I just say this? This is a law of nature. God created this in his very creation. The Bible tells us that creation glorifies God, speaks of God. This is one of those universal principles that you can find in creation every day.

Let me give you an example of this. I'm on my way to work here at the church. It's funny when you call church work, but I'm on my way to work. This is Thursday morning. I get here and as I show up, something looks different. It's such a weird thing and I can't tell what it is.

It's bothering me. But I blow it off. I don't really care. So I go into the studios and as I go into the studios, Dale says, "Hey bro, you notice they're cutting that tree over there?" Cutting what tree? Oh. So I get onto my mobility scooter, I show up and I realize they're not cutting a tree.

They've already cut 18 trees around this property. It was bad. Really, really bad. By the way, thank God for the city because the city caught wind of that and immediately put out a cease and desist order and said, "That's illegal. You're not supposed to do that. There's a landscaping plan for this building and you just broke that plan."

Every one of these beautiful trees that were along 29th are cut. On Orange, by the way, and a couple of the trees that are in this area. Now Lord willing they're going to, the building owners who were trying to save money are probably now going to spend three times as much money.

It's funny, by the way, it's really funny when you look at the difference between a Christian building owner and a new building owner that's only concerned about money. But anyway, they were trying to save money. But make a long story short, those trees are going to end up getting replanted.

But here's the thing that was interesting. Had I just stopped for a moment to really assess what it was that I was noticing, what it was that was bothering me, the disturbance in the force as some people would call it, I may have been able to act on it a little bit earlier and prevent some of those from getting cut down.

Guys, this is a natural principle here. It's a natural thing. When God puts us in a position where our rhythm is disrupted, whatever that rhythm is in the things that we do, you need to learn how to stop and say, "Okay, time to investigate it." Because the moment you seek to investigate what is anomalous will be the very moment you begin to discern God speaking in that area and at that point.

The problem is is we always wait until the disaster has happened because the disasters can't be ignored and then that forces us to go to the Lord. Why don't we stop for a moment and learn how to react to the anomalies and allow God to speak in those moments rather than being forced to try to pull out of God something you should have years ago.

Understand what I mean when I say that? So that's what's going on. Moses stops to investigate this thing. Those three verses get blown by everybody. They don't ever really talk about it. But look at the value that we gain from this. Something anomalous happened. Moses recognizes it. He investigates it. Look what happens next.

"And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I." Notice the condition that was laid. God did not call out to Moses the moment that the bush was burning. The bush had been burning and burning and burning.

The only time that God called out to Moses is when Moses recognized the anomaly. He couldn't have recognized the anomaly unless he was living in the rhythm that he was living, walking with God. He recognized the anomaly and it was only when he stopped to investigate the anomaly that God actually spoke to him.

By the way, it's not a coincidence in Exodus 3:4 where the Bible says, "When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see." So if he had ignored the bush, maybe God wouldn't have spoken. Think about that for a second. He paid attention to the bush. He saw what was going on and he stopped to pay attention to what was happening and in the investigation God spoke to him.

By the way, did you notice something that's really interesting? I used a very poor choice of words. I said in the investigation God appeared. Notice this. God had already appeared. But he didn't recognize that God was there until the investigation ensued. I would venture to tell you that God appears on a regular basis to us on a day-to-day basis, but we don't notice because we do not take the time to even discern the anomaly.

When we choose to ignore it, we cannot take the time to investigate, thus we are not open to hear his voice. But if we will take the time to investigate the anomalies that stand before us, we open up the door for God to speak to us. Why? Because our attention is turned towards him. If your mind and your heart is focused on something, you're more inclined to hear it.

You know how many times I've been to a doctor's office where the doctor is going to listen to my heart with the stethoscope and I start talking to him about a bunch of other things and he's like, "Shut up. I need to listen." Why does he hear my heart so well? He hears my heart so well not because he has a set of instruments that allow him to hear my heart.

He hears my heart so well because he's willing to be able to tell everything to stop so that he can investigate the issue he needs to investigate. Think about that for a second. When you stop to investigate the anomaly, what you're also doing is you're opening yourself and your mind and your heart to being conditioned to saying, "God, I want to hear your voice." Because it may very well be that the voice of God is wanting to be spoken to me as a result of the anomaly that God allowed to happen or that God created. The question is this: Do you ever take the time to stop and listen? Because the people that come to me and say all the time, "Man, I don't understand how you can say you hear from God's voice all the time." My same statement to them is, "I hear it all the time because I seek to give opportunity for it to be heard." And the question is this: Are you doing that? Are you allowing God to speak to you?