The God That Holds Your Future | Travels With ... | Pastor Caleb Baker

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Transcript

Well, welcome to central wherever you're watching from, or if you're here with me in the room, so good to be with you today. If you have a Bible, you turn to Exodus chapter 14, Exodus chapter 14 is where we're gonna be spending our time together today. It's an awesome story, uh, that I'm so excited to jump in with you.

So let me offer up a word of prayer and ask that God would meet us here and, and speak clearly to us. And then we'll, we'll dive in together. God, thank you for, uh, this time now that we have together as a family. Uh, to learn from your word. And I fully believe God that as we've just spent some time worshiping together, that we're just continuing in that, that this is worship too.

And so I pray that you would, uh, meet us. God that you would speak by the power of your holy spirit, that you would open up our ears and our eyes to all the things that you want us to see and hear over these next few moments we have together. And, uh, I know, and we know that we need you to get involved for anything to mean anything.

So will you do that? God, will you be here with us? We love you so much. It's in Jesus name that we pray. Amen Exodus 14 today. Uh, we're gonna read this story and, and this is an unbelievable story. You might be familiar with it. It's a story about Israelite and Egyptians. Th, this is a story in Exodus 14, about a God and his people and a Pharaoh and how they kind of interact with each other.

This is a story about a scared leader that doesn't have anywhere else to turn. Doesn't know where to go and, and, and, and enslaved people group from a few thousand years ago, that's like nine time zones away from where we are. Today. And I believe that this story really happened. I believe that these were real people feeling real feelings, experiencing real hurt and insecurities and fear.

and I believe that the real people that we're gonna read about today had nowhere else to turn in this story. They're stuck between their past and their future. They're stuck between this Egyptian army and this red sea that they can't get across. And all they have to do is to turn to God and hope that he shows.

This is gonna be an awesome story, but I also believe that while I, this story happened and it's true that it's a perfect metaphor for how we make our way across our lives today, right here. And right now that as we read this story, yeah, we're talking about our history. We're talking about this shoulders that we're standing on, but also we're, we're gonna learn prayerfully how to be present in our lives.

How to live each day differently and being present is really hard. Isn't it? I don't know about you, but like, I feel like a lot of my life is spent trying to referee this, this game of tug of war between the guilt and the shame and the what could have been from my past.  and then the scary, unknown. I can't imagine this is gonna work out of my future.

And so much of my time, rather than being present in today is kind of, is kind of spent trying to work out one of these two things. Right. So we can't sleep because we're like, how man, how did I do that? How did I say that? How did I burn that bridge? How did it go that wrong? How did I miss out on X, Y, and Z?

And then we can't sleep because we're scared of what's coming. We're scared of, of what God might want to do and it's unknown. And we feel like we're out of control. And so we're spending all of this time trying to be present, but there's so much of the past and the future that overwhelms us and we're missing out on the beauty and the purpose and the meaning that is being offered to us every single day.

The hard part about the past and the present and the future is that the present only lasts a second.  like right now, see, it's already over. We missed it. Like it's, that's how fast it is. And also the present is all that we'll ever have. So, how do we begin to wrap our minds around this thing that there's all this time, all these years, all these feelings that the past include and that, that past represent, and that takes up so much of our mental space.

And then there's so much of the future and who knows what that even means, who knows how long that's gonna be and who knows what's gonna happen. And so with all of those realities, what are we supposed to do? How do we live now?  when we can't shake the past and we can't see the future. How does God want us to live now?

Let's see if we can't find some guidance from this story in Exodus 14, I'm gonna be starting in verse 10, Exodus 14 in verse 10 says this as Farrow approached, the Israelites looked up and there were the Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and they cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die.

What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians. It would've been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert and Moses response. He answered the people do not be afraid stand firm, and you will see the deliverance.

The Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again, verse 14. The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still. Then the Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.  like, well, thanks a lot, God. Hey, move on. Will ya verse 16, raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israeli lights can go through the sea on dry ground.

I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they will go in after them. And I will gain glory through Farrow in all his army, through his chariots and his horseman. The Egyptians will know that I am the Lord when I gain glory through Farrow, his chariots and his horseman chapter one, the past the past.

Did you see it in there? Just to recap the people of God, the Israelite people were enslaved to the Egyptians and they were like the entire workforce, the majority of the workforce for this Egyptian world power empire. So for hundreds of years, the Israelite were the slaves in Egypt. That's all that they knew.

They ne they didn't know what freedom was. They've never experienced it. All that they knew was being slave. And Egypt and God raises up a leader and a, a person to lead his people out of slavery. This man named Moses and Moses was a very complicated person, just like all of us are, but God sent Moses time and time again to ask Pharaoh to let his people go and Farrow.

Didn't love that idea very much. And so he keeps rejecting Moses'. Time and time again. So God starts to send plagues to Egypt, to persuade Pharaoh, to let his people go. And if you could imagine the entire land of Egypt covered in NAS covered in locus covered in frogs and boils and these terrible things like it's brutal.

And he's trying to get fair to go, Hey, this isn't gonna work for you. So Pharaoh finally agrees. He gets fed up and he lets the Israelites go. It worked, God delivered his people out of slavery. Happily ever after roll credits. Let's pray. Just kidding, not quite right, like Moses and the Israelites are making their way out of Egypt and sometime has passed.

And Pharaoh realizes, man, it's much harder to maintain a world power without this entire free workforce. So let's go and get him back. So he gets all of his army to go chase the Israelite people. And these verses that we just read are the moment, the present that the Israelite people see the Egyptians coming back to get them.

Let's read just these first couple of verses again, start in verse 10. As Farrow approached, the Israelites looked up and they were the Egyptians marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?

What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you? In Egypt, leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians. It would've been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert. See for these Israelite people, the oppression and the abuse and the lack of freedom. That they've experienced their entire lives.

As slaves in Egypt is all that they've ever known. They've never felt freedom. They've never felt what it is like to step into anything free these people that we're reading about and their parents and their grandparents and their great grandparents and their, you get the point. Like all they ever knew was this oppression in Egypt.

And so when we read in these verses that they look up and they see the Egyptians coming back to get them, this was their worst nightmare, their past the, the, the reminder of who they have always been the, the reminder of all the pain and the trauma and the baggage of their past is literally chasing after them.

coming to bring them back and I'm sure they were already thinking like, man, this is too good to be true. There's no way this is gonna last. I know Moses said we're free, but probably not what even is freedom. And then their fears are confirmed here, come the Egyptians. And I love their response to Moses.

Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us out here to die. Here's the interesting thing about that statement. Egypt was known for its graves.  the Egyptian people went to extreme length to have the most sophisticated, ornate over the top burial sites in the known world, a commentary that I was reading suggested that almost half of the civilized land in the Egyptian empire was dedicated to burial sites.

I sites and I love sarcasm. So I can appreciate that the Israelite people are like, well, did you have to get us out of the grave capital of the world? Just so that we could die out here.  thanks a lot, man. Appreciate it. Like really? There's no graves in Egypt. They're like we still, to this day, 2,004,000 years later, we can go see some graves in Egypt.

Still. Like this is insane. They're like there weren't enough places to bury dead people. We, you wanted us to die out here. And the more I was thinking about this though, I'm like, man, this, this is exactly how my past feels to me like this ornate, nostalgic over the top, too many details. Burial site of all the things that I've missed out on all the things that I've lost all the times that I've hurt someone or been hurt by someone, all of the stuff that has labeled me and defined me in like a really over the top ornate way, all the potential.

I didn't reach all the relationships that didn't work, all the scars from all of the different things. . And maybe when you think about your past, this sounds all too familiar to you. It feels like an army is chasing. After you trying to pull you back into who you used to be. There was that one relationship that forever changed you.

There was that summer where everything fell apart. There were those names that you recall, those things that were said about you, there was the job that you lost or that you didn't even get. There was the friendship that you lost. There was the marriage that you lost, man. I don't know what it is for you, but I know that it's something and I know that it's heavy and I know that it feels like it'sing after you, maybe it was some battle with an addiction or maybe.

Some abusive relationship or situation, maybe it was a miscarriage or a sibling died or a spouse or a parent died. And, and look at me, you're trying to move on so bad. You're like, I don't want to live like this anymore. I can't carry the weight of this pain and this shame and this grief.  any longer, maybe you feel like the Israelis and you're like, man, I just, I know you say that I'm free, but it doesn't feel like it, the Egyptians are chasing after us.

They're coming right back. Everything's gonna go back to how it was. I know Moses that you said God's gonna make a way somehow, but man, it seems like everything's gonna stay the same. Is that how you feel in your past? Like those things that were said about you are always gonna be true about you.  those things that you went through and experienced, and the pain that you had to wrestle with, you're always gonna experience that.

You're always gonna have to wrestle with that this past can seem so overwhelming for us. There's this constant reminder of all the ways that we have failed. And I love the honesty from these Israeli people in verse 12, they say, didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone. Let us serve the Egyptians. It would've been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die.

And the desert, see, this is what the past can do. It's the representation of all of the ways that we have fallen short and missed.  all the things that I did to screw up all the bridges that I burned. And when you live in that for too long, when you spend too much time fixating on it, what, what happens is we can believe the same lie that the Israelite people believed.

And if this is all I've ever had, don't miss this. If this is all I've ever had, then surely this is all I'll ever have. If this is all that I've ever experienced up to this point. See, cuz when we, when we sit in the past for too long, when we've been enslaved in Egypt for too long and the chains have worn scars on our wrist, we can't even imagine the potential.

We can't imagine the future. We can't imagine that God has anything planned for us because he never has. We've always been over here and then this is all I've ever had. Then surely this is all I'll ever have, but it's even worse than that because we wear it like a name tag. Tattooed on our chest. If this is all I've ever been, then surely this is all I'll ever be.

And it's devastating to live that way. It is so heavy to hold the weight of our past. And I think just like these Israelites, we mean to settle for Egypt. We settle for the past, even if it's traumatic, because at least we know it. At least it's comfortable.  we settle for these nostalgic burial sites, even if they're bad.

I just want to sit in that for a minute. Do you feel that today that your past is just bearing down on you it's chasing after you it's constantly reminding you of all the ways you can't of all the ways that God won't. Of all the stuff that you're not good enough to get pretty enough to get rich enough, to get popular enough, to get like, how is this defining you?

What are you settling for? Luckily, this isn't the end of the message. My God. You're like, oh, woo. Look at Moses's respect, you feel. And I'm like, good Lord. Can someone make a, like a fart noise or something? Anyway. So , um, I was like, let's just sit in this moment for a minute. Then I was too immature to do it.

That's what just happened. Just so that we're clear. Okay. Okay. Let's look at Moses's response to the people's understandable angst. Look at verse 13. Moses answered the people do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance. The Lord will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.

The Lord will fight for you. You need only to be still chapter two is the present. If that's all true about us, if that's been true about us, our whole lives for hundreds of years, even our generations past this is who I've been. This is what I've been handed. Okay. But now what, what do we do here? What do we do today?

How do we actually do this? And the thing I love about how Moses responds to these people is that it's so practical. Like if you just did a couple of these things that we're about to walk through here in a minute, if you just did one this week, if you just did two this week, it would start to change the way that you view your life.

It would start to pull you out of the past that you are allowing to enslave you. It would start to break the chains off so that you could see what God has for your future. Even if you just did one of these things. Let's go through 'em what does he say first? He says don't be afraid. Do not be afraid.

What a bold statement by Moses. Don't be. Don't be afraid. What are you talking about? Like, why wouldn't we be afraid? What reason would we have in this moment to feel okay about any of this? If you notice in the Bible, anytime you hear someone tell someone else don't be afraid. It's never because the circumstances aren't scary.

They almost always are. Like, I love thinking about that scene when the angel and on the Lord of, or the hosts of heaven, meet those shepherds in the field to tell 'em that Jesus was born and they're like, don't be afraid. Guys are like, what? Like, imagine pre-internet, if you saw an angel. Like, we don't even know what a cell phone is, right.

Or like a vehicle, but you're like, oh my Lord. Like with all the eyes and wings, they're like, Hey, don't be afraid. We're good. Like up too late. Right. Like too late. We're good. So don't be afraid. It's not persuading you. That the circumstances aren't scary. Don't miss it. It's persuading you that all the reasons you have.

To be afraid, all the reasons justifiable reasons to go. I think the past is too big for me. I think the past is chasing back after me that surely I'm only gonna be all I've ever been. Moses is persuading. The people, all of those reasons are valid and justifiable. You just have more reasons to put your faith in God.

You just have a better reason. There's more justification to trust that God's going to do something in your future that you can't possibly imagine because you can't get your eyes above your past. All you can see is the Egyptian army chasing you. And Moses is like, I get it, but don't be afraid. How won't we be afraid because God's that big.

Don't be afraid. You have reasons to be scared. I get it. But you have more reasons to put your trust in a good God. He goes on, he says, stand firm and you will see the deliverance. The Lord will bring you today. Stand firm, dig your heels in this word literally means to resolve, to set yourself, to decide this is what I'm doing.

I'm gonna plant myself here. No matter what's going on around me. I'm gonna stand firm. When I was a little kid, my parents were youth pastors and they would take like a high school trip, uh, to go canoeing in whatever body of water was in Illinois, which is not much. Uh, and so we'd go on these canoe trips.

And I was like six or seven years old, just a little, I don't think six year olds are this tall, but I don't really know. It doesn't matter. Um, but we would go on these canoe trips and I was just like the little guy and I'm like, so excited. I remember this one of the earliest memories of my life. There were these two high school boys that I thought were like the coolest guys of all time, you know?

And so I'm like, they asked, they wanted to take the pastor's kid in their canoe with them. And, uh, I was like super pumped about it. And so they asked my mom, my mom, like pre scolded them, like you have to do with high school boys sometimes like, okay, you can, but I swear on everything that is good and holy right.

I will be so on pastor's wife, you can't even imagine. And so, and then she told me, she's like, Hey, whatever happens. Just hold on to the canoe. Like, I remember my mom's face. It was like, I was about to launch Apollo 11, right? Like, she's like, if anything happens, I know you're doing what you love. And so.

She's like, just hold onto the canoe no matter what, regardless of what happened, she knew that this was gonna get crazy. So I'm like, got it. Mom. We're set. So we head out on the water, like five minutes in, we crash into a tree. Cuz what else would you do? And the canoe tips over the guys jump out and I'm underwater listening to my mom holding on just, oh mom.

Terrible advice. I can't. And it felt like it was like 10 minutes. I'm sure it was five seconds or something, but I'm just, I have a vivid memory of opening my water or opening my eyes, like in lake water, like mom, this isn't working, this is terrible. And the guys come over and flip the canoe back up and I'm like, just like I saw a ghost, but I love this idea.

Stand. Firm hold onto the canoe, regardless of what is happening around you. Yeah. The circumstances are scary. Yeah. There's stuff that's beyond your control. I know the Egyptian Army's coming. I know the past feels too big for you. I know the future's too scary for you, but if you'll just stand firm and feed the deliverance to the Lord will bring you today.

He doesn't need you to paddle. He doesn't need you to be a good swimmer. He doesn't need you to have great ideas. He needs you to stand firm to hold onto the canoe, regardless of what happens so that he can deliver you.  just because something is unknown to us when we have a God that delivers when we have a God that meets us in it, just because something is unknown to us doesn't mean that it has to be scary.

It might just be new. It might just be new. I know it's I know it's unknown. I know it's not like the past. I know it's different than what you're used to, but man, with a God, this creative and this close range and this loving.  even the unknown stuff we can look at and go, okay, that scares me, but maybe God's just doing something new.

Maybe God's just doing something new in your family. Maybe God's just doing something new in our church. Maybe God's just doing something new in our city that if we're following God, even when we're in this present, that's that's between the fear and the shame of our past and the fear and the unknown of our future.

Maybe we're not lost. We're just. About to learn what it means to have faith stand firm. He goes on, he says, the Egyptians you see today, you will never see again. There's no way any of these Israelite people believed him. But can you imagine what those words would've felt like? The Egyptians you see today, you will never see again.

The Egyptian people who ruled over you and oppressed you and enslaved you and kept you in chains and kicked you when you were down all the pain and the baggage and the hurt in your past because of God's provision because of God's intentionality because of God's heart for you and is power to provide.

You will never see that past again.

For someone that who feels like their past is chasing them a lot. That is like medicine for my soul. You will never see these Egyptians again because of God you get to move on. If you're writing stuff down, write this down. I want you to remember this all week. You are bigger than what used to tie you.

With God on your side with God moving you forward with the things he's calling you into, you are bigger than what used to tie you up. You're bigger than what was in your past. You're bigger than the sins and the struggles and the circumstances that used to hold you, that used to have power over you and God's name because of his loving mercy.

You are bigger than what used to tie you up, who you used to be. You can't compete with who God made you to be. And that's as good of news. As I know how to tell you today, who you used to be, and I don't know who that was. And I don't know the shame that comes with that for you. I know how it comes with it for me, but who you used to be.

Can't compete with all the things that God has made you to be, and he's calling you into something new. He goes on in verse 14.  the Lord will fight for you. This is why we can live without being afraid. This is why we can stand firm. This is what we're watching for. The Lord will fight for you. The Hebrew word for fight that's used here is the word Laham.

And there's no reason to say it out loud, except it's just fun, you know, but like the, this, I love this word because it's translated as fight in our Bibles, but that's not the full picture. This word can be translated as overcome or even devour, whichever they like that's a little bit more dramatic and I like dramatic stuff.

Sure. God will devour for you. God will overcome for you. I tell you that to tell you, cuz these Hebrew people wouldn't have heard this word like Moses going the Lord will really try his best out there guys. We'll see. God's really gonna give it, give it a whirl. We'll see how it goes. No, it's God will overcome for you.

God will devour for you.

Can I challenge us on something that I'm seeing in our culture.

Can we resist the urge to try to jump into all of the cultural battles that are going on around us? I don't want to give you examples cause I don't wanna get in trouble, but I think you can imagine.  like when I think about growing up in the church, I'm like, man, I was sold this view of Christianity sometimes.

Like God needs us to fight for him. Like I gotta put on my armor and pull my sword out and I just gotta go charge the Hills and make sure everybody knows that I love them. And I don't want 'em to go to hell with a sword.

Can we stop? Can we put our sword away? Can we stop fighting so much? For a couple reasons. One, because God doesn't need us to fight for him. This is the God that devours on our behalf. This is the God that has completely overcome your past and your pain and your sin. He has called you into the freedom that he made you for.

Look at me, and that has nothing to do with how good you are at fighting.

And to be honest, we're just not that good at fighting.  have you noticed  I resonate so much with that story of Peter when Jesus is getting arrested and he cuts that guy's ear off Jesus is like, dude, what? That's not even the right guy. It doesn't matter. Peter, what are you doing? I, I don't know this cuz I wasn't there, but I like to imagine Peter was like trying to swing for Judas and just missed cuz he's bad with the sword like me  cause he is a fisherman, but he is like, I know how to do this.

I was like, dude, stop. Can we stop fighting, man, I get, I get all the old Testament stories of warriors and king David and you betcha. But like we, we turn into the new covenant and Jesus washes a lot of feet. Jesus breaks all the cultural rules to love, poor people, to love sick people. To talk to women who are completely discarded in this culture to stand up for women who are caught in sin.

Like if we wanna fight let's fight like that, let's put our swords away and start washing feet and start standing up for people who are oppressed and start loving poor people and marginalized people. Like why don't we actually. Start stepping into this church that Jesus has made us to be, because if I learn anything from this verse and Exodus 14, it's that God has all the help he needs on his own.

The Lord will devour for you. He does not need a goofy guy with a big head swing and a sword anywhere. All I'm gonna do is cut the wrong ear off. And there's so much temptation to just jump in and here's my 2 cents and say, no, no, no. Just hold on to the canoe. I got you. I will devour for you. I will fight for you.

Put your sword away. Okay. Moses finished this battle cry with the last piece of this challenge, even just to further drive home this point, what look at our role. You need only to be strong or no. Sorry. You need only to be smart. No, you need only to be still just kind of sit over there and don't get in the way, please.

And I think God wants to lovingly tell us, like, let let's let me do the devouring. You do the holding onto the canoe. I'm gonna take you on a journey. I have stuff for you, but I don't really need you swinging swords. Let's read these last few verses starting in verse 15. So the Israelites have, have cried out to Moses.

Moses responds to the Israelites and then God ultimately responds to Moses. Then the Lord said to Moses, why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on.  raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground, chapter three, and finally the future.

I love this. Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on. This sounds pretty harsh from God on the first read. Doesn't it like, man, we've had hundreds of years in slavery in Egypt, all more trauma than you could imagine. More baggage than you could imagine. I mean, it's just it's I don't even know what freedom feels like.

This is so overwhelming and God's like, Ugh, move on.  get over it. Right? Like that's how we read this. And I think so many of us treat our relationship with God. Like he would just be that way, like, God, I'm, I'm going through this this week. Like, okay, move on. Don't care. I got bigger fish to.  it reminds me of that scene in lion king when Simba meets Timone and PBA, and they're like, what's going on kid.

And he's like, my uncle just killed my dad and banished me from the pride lands. And they're like, just, don't worry about it, man. Hakuna, Matata, like the worst therapist ever, you know, No worries, bro. Here's some weird bugs. Let's go eat, right? Like this is. And when I read this, when I read, uh, this verse from, from Exodus 14, it like, it, it can feel like God's being dismissive or like he's being cold hearted.

But the way to translate this phrase in the Hebrew is tell the Israelites to move forward. He's not dismissing your pain. He's not dismissing your hurt. He's encouraging you, that you have more future than you think.  that there's more room than you think to take a step forward. And I think Moses would be like, but God, the red sees right here and God's like, I know I have an idea for that too.

I'm providing for you. I'm giving you room to step, tell the Israelis to move forward. And Moses is like, where he's like, okay, just raise your staff and split the red sea in half that there is actually space for you to move. And if we're honest, doesn't our future. Oftentimes feel like this in Exodus 14, like we're just standing on the coast of the red sea and we're looking out and it's just forever.

It's like outer space, just this endless void. And man, we can't imagine how it's gonna work out. We know that we're not in control and it is so overwhelming to think about our future. How do we make sense of this?

How do we make sense of this past? That's chasing us this present that's chaotic and this future that we can't imagine,

are we willing in this moment with all those circumstances, as scary as it is, as shameful as it can feel as unknown as it can feel as intimidating as it can.  are we willing in this moment right now as a church family to say, you know what my job is to hold onto this canoe. My job is to put my trust in the God that will devour on my behalf.

My job is to trust that God's got me this far and he's not stopping now that he's gonna take care of my past. He's gonna break the chains off. And that, even though I'm on the edge of the red sea, he's telling me that there's room to step, even though I can't see it or imagine it. And I'm not even that good of a swimmer, but God's telling me there is room to step.

Tell the Israelites to move forward. I'm providing room for them. And even more than that, I love in verse 16. I want to end here. Let's read it again. God tells Moses, raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water. So the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground. I, I know you probably know this part of this story.

Maybe you've seen this part before in a movie, but I was struck by this verse this week, because I don't know if you know this and I'm not a scientist, but shepherd staffs can't divide water.  that's not what they do.  and just, we just read past this verse, like, oh yeah. Cool. Like Moses, raise your staff and split the red sea and have like, we just read past that.

I just heard that my whole life, but this week as I was writing this sermon and trying to prepare this, I hope, you know, my heart, I would not say this. If I didn't really feel it, I felt like God put an impression on my heart and I wanna share it with you. He said, I'm going to do something new in your life, using what you already have.

I'm gonna do something new in your life. Using what you already have. God doesn't need a new you to do something new in your life. You gotta hear me and there's no past too big or scary to make that offer go away. There's no, there's none of us in here that have that little asterisk by like, oh, J oh, but not, you never mind.

None of us. God's going. No, no, no. I wanna do something new in your family. I wanna do something new in your life. I think he wants to do something new in our church and he wants to use what we already have. God didn't need to call Aquaman in to control the water. Controlling the water was always gonna be up to God.

He's gonna tell the Israelites to move forward. I'm gonna make space for them to literally walk through the red sea. I know it's scary. I know you can't imagine how it's going to work, but wait, I'm gonna split the red sea. What do we have a shepherd. All right. Use your staff. It doesn't really matter.

Whatever you already have. Whatever you're holding. God's going. That's good enough for me to show up and do something unimaginable in your. This is good news for us today. Friends, that God doesn't need you to get new tools. We don't have to get on Amazon. You don't have to go back to school or like lie on your resume.

That that internship was not actually an internship. We get it right? Like you don't have to do that anymore. God's going know what you already have. What you're already holding. Everything I already put in you is gonna be perfect for this new thing that I'm gonna do in your life. And we get to sit. At the edge of the red sea at the edge of our future, with all the past, washed away with all the baggage washed away, we get to sit, we get to hold onto the canoe.

We get to watch God split the sea for us when we can't shake the past and we can't see the future, how do we live? Now? We put our faith in the fact that your past. Is no match for the God that holds your future. In my past is no match for the God that holds my future. Our past is no match for the God that holds our future.

Let me pray for us, God, we're grateful for your mercy and your plan and your ability to use. Just even the things we're holding to do new things in our life. God. And I know just like these Israelite and this story that you've already made a way for us to have freedom. You've already broken the chains off.

You've already invited us in, but God, the difficult part is us believing it, us living into that freedom. And so I pray for all of my friends right now that even right now in this moment that we would feel the freedom that you've already paid for.

God that we would feel the life that you've already bought on the cross right now, in this moment, God, by your holy spirit of power. Thanks for this story. God, I pray that it changes us. We love you. It's in Jesus name. Amen. Thanks guys.