Christ Through Me: Brought Out to Be Brought In (Exodus 13:4-5)

Series: Christ Through Me

Sermon: Brought Out to be Brought In

Scripture: Exodus 13:4-5

Date: July 28, 2019

 

LAST WEEK'S WEEKLY GROWTH SUGGESTION: Read chapter 3 in "The Saving Life of Christ" twice this week.  Think about what it means for you to be the glove and the Holy Spirit to be the hand empowering and controlling you.

On this day you are going out, in the month Abib.  And it shall be, when the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, which He swore to your fathers to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey, that you shall keep this service in this month.  (Exodus 13:4-5)

A huge key is our awareness of who Jesus is and how we respond to Him.  What do we believe His intentions are for us?

Part of it is the realization of who you hav in Jesus.  Part of it is stopping way short of diving into a deep and loving relationship with Jesus.

God brought them out to bring them in.

Here are three big problems of coming out without going in:

1. We celebrate the wrong stuff
   • Exodus 16:35, NIV
   • Exodus 16:2, NIV
   • For them it was a land.  For us it is a life.
   • Are you more excited about:
     • your children's sports accomplishments or grades than their salvation?
     • your prosperity or your relationship with Jesus?
     • God's love or your vacation?
     • worship or the latest popular song?
     • your Netflix show more than your Bible?
     • your social media more than your prayer life?
     • your popularity more than your witnessing?
2. We're content with wilderness surviving
   • Surthriving
   • Deuteronomy 12:7-9
   • Let's realize that while God has given us the ability (our free will) to say no to the Spirit's control, we do not have the ability to say no to His control or to experiencing His best for our lives.
   • Ian Thomas will challenge us:  "What have you been doing since your redemption?  Still what is right in your own eyes?  Are you sold out for Jesus Christ?  Do you still claim the right to choose your own career?  You do not have that right!  Do you still claim the right to choose the wife or husband you will marry?  You do not have that right!"
   • Romans 8:14
   • Numbers 16:3
   • They wanted to go back to what God had delivered them from.
   • I would rather look silly for truth than be smug about being lukewarm.
3. We're consumed with wrong self-determination
   • Let's see how they set the wrong course that kept them from going in:
     1. What they thought in the wilderness
        • Numbers 11:5-6
        • "If you do not walk in the power of God the Holy Spirit, if your life is not abandoned to the indwelling sovereignty fo Jesus Christ, then all the promises of victory in the Bible, all the promises of power by the Holy Spirit and of divine vocation will simply be texts, printed on so much paper - impersonal and irrelevant."
     2. What they said in the wilderness
        • Numbers 16:31
        • Revival is where people fall more madly and deeply in love with Jesus Christ, not losing their first love but intensifying it more and more.  Heaven will come to earth, and lives will be changed.

WEEKLY CHALLENGE: Read chapter 4 in "The Saving Life of Christ" twice this week.  Talk to God about bringing you into the fullness of the Spirit.  Ask yourself if you really want God's fullness enough to surrender to His control.