MCC Podcasts
Rediscovering a Life of Adventure - part 2
We're doing this adventure series and we are going to be doing it in, study in some passages in the book of Exodus. And adventure, we defined adventure last week as adventure being, it's one of our core values in our church, which is kind of cool, adventure. And it's adventure because it's out of control. It's something that's adventurous because it's out of control. That's our definition of adventure. It's out of control. And that's what following Jesus is. Because when you follow Jesus by definition, you're a Jesus follower and Jesus goes somewhere and you follow Him and you don't know where you're going and you don't know how it's going to go. You don't know whether you're going to survive the risks that are there, but you get behind Him and you go and you go where we go and Lord, and it's on an adventure. And so we're going to talk about adventure. We're going to talk about adventure for the next few weeks and how that fits into being a Christ follower. I was reminded of a Disneyland the other day, our kids are going to Disneyland in this, like what, two weeks a week, Friday night, they're going to Disneyland Friday. So you get on the bus, you drive all night, am I right? Like all night, like you don't sleep. And then you get off the bus and you go to Disneyland all day. And then you get on the bus and you drive all night and we see you at church. And Ben preaches. Do I have it right? What kind of idiots are you? That will be the funniest sermon we've ever heard, don't you think? So that's next week. But I was thinking about Disneyland because, you know, Disneyland is so funny because it's not really all the rides aren't all that adventurous, right? Because it's Disneyland, right? If you ever go to Disneyland after you grew up a little bit and you're like, well, this is a little boring, you know, it's not the loopy loops and all that kind of stuff. But do you remember Mr. Toad's Wild Ride? Mr. Toad's Wild Ride was a, like Disney's adaptation to The Wind and the Willows. And I guess if it was an animated movie or something, I'm not sure what the deal was with that. But somewhere along the line, Mr. Toad in the story got in his car and all of his breaks went out or whatever. But he went on a wild ride and had all these narrow misses and all that. And Mr. Toad's Wild Ride has sort of become a euphemism with us to mean sort of, you know, the yikes out of control. So I was, I did study the Bible this week, but I also reflected on Mr. Toad while I was preparing for my sermon and was thinking about that a little bit. And you know, by the way, because the internet is, you know, amazing, you know, you can go on YouTube and some nerd has taken a camera on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. I thought about burning it so we could watch it, but I thought, okay, that'd be a colossal waste of time. But Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, what happens in this ride is that you go, you cream through some mansion in Mr. Toad's car and stuff's coming at you and there's all these narrow misses and the fireplace, you go through the fireplace and it explodes and embers and you remember Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and then a train comes, remember that? The train comes at you big light, and when you're five, you're thinking, oh, great. How is this the happiest place on earth? I'm going to die in a train crash and, but, you know, then the last second the car, you know, darts off to the side and everybody's okay. Well, I was thinking about Mr. Toad's Wild Ride because this isn't really all that wild, but it is terrifying if you're five and that's what Disneyland's about. Have you noticed how scary Disneyland is for five-year-olds? Why do we torture our children by taking them there? But I was there on a youth trip and we're on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and my youth pastors, we're all on the lines of 40 of us or whatever getting on the Disneyland ride, my youth pastor is up there ahead somewhere and he kind of, when he gets in the car, he puts the little restrainer in just kind of to hear as opposed to hear so that later he can climb out of the car on Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which he does halfway through the ride when it slowed down enough. He climbed out of the car and he got off on the side of the thing and waited until my car with my friend came by and then he jumped in our laps and tried to get his feet in and slip inside. You know, there's just two people sitting this thing and he tried to sneak himself in to be on Mr. Toad. Well, he couldn't fit in so he had like one leg stuck between ours. He's hanging out and the cardboard things are hitting him in the face as we're going through it. Well, at some point, you know, you can't do that at Disneyland. The Disneyland police know everything. They stop the ride. The lights come on. They come over to our youth pastor. He's got one leg out of our car and one leg in our car and he's looking at him like, "What?" They go, "Dude, what do you get? You're out of here." Rides over. Get out. They escorted my youth pastor out of the ride, into the deal, to security, out of the park. You're done. You're off. You're done. As Mr. Toad's Wild Ride for you, you're out of the deal. Here's the thing. I think a lot of us think of this journey of adventure, a little like that story, that somewhere along the line, you were on the adventure. You were on this thing. You were doing the darting the narrow, and this is exciting to walk with God. But you did something stupid or you did a series of stupid things, and God flicked on the lights and grabbed you by your shirt collar and said, "You're out of the park." Rides over. I think a lot of us live with this question in our minds of, "This adventure thing is great, but somewhere along the line, I blew the whole plan and rides over for me." God said, "You're off the adventure." When I was thinking about how do we start talking about this adventure and just introducing the concept last week and this first passage in Exodus and thinking about it, I know that there's an unanswered ache in a lot of us who say, "What do I do with all my mistakes, with my choices, with my baggage, with my failures, with my series of mistakes, what do I do with that when you talk about this adventure?" Because it's so exciting to talk about the adventure of following Jesus, and that's all good, but in a couple of key places, and then in multiple, multiple, multiple places through my life, I've gone off on another journey, I've gone off on another way, and I've bailed off of the road where Jesus was. How do I factor that into this adventure? We think maybe it's sort of like, "I'm probably not on it. It's all good for all of you people, but I carry some junk. And somewhere along the line, God turned on the light and said, "Dude, you're out of the park. You're off the ride. Venture's over for you, because you're not doing it right." I want us to face this question, "What do I do with my failures? What do I do?" And I think I titled it, "What if I've already messed up the adventure?" We talk about being on the adventure. What if I've already messed it up? If we think about the idea of a road, if we think about the metaphor of being on a road, there's a fork in the road, and Jesus went that way and goes, "Come on, this is my way. Here's my righteousness. Here's my obedience. Here's the right thing to do. Here's the ethical thing to do. Here's the moral thing to do. This is the way you ought to go. Don't marry this person. Do marry that person. Don't go here. Don't do that." God's has a plan. Here we came to a fork in the road. You ever had been to a fork in your road? And God goes, "Let's go this way." And we, either because we're stupid or disobedient or overly passionate or whatever, went that way. And what do you do now with that picture in your head? It's somewhere along the line. Jesus goes, "Let's go over here and you know you went over here." And then that road forked another time, and you went over that way, and that way, and that way. How do I get my head around living this adventure when I think maybe I've already goofed it up from the beginning? I was going to start my sermon by just saying this, "Do you know that you've totally messed up God's perfect plan?" I thought that was a little bit of a downer, you know, but you know that's true? Think about it. You've messed up God's perfect plan. He had a perfect plan for you. It included no sin, no selfishness, no sideways tract, no, you know, compromise. That was God's perfect plan for you, and you goofed it up. Do some of you live today with the thought? So I don't know if that's true. So I don't know then if I'm even on the adventure anymore. I don't even know. I've got some junk in my life, I've got some vestiges of that stuff, I've got some consequences of that. I went down roads. I don't even know if I'm on the adventure anymore. Maybe a subtotal for our sermon is Moses, mistakes and adventures and the adventure. Moses mistakes the adventures. What do we do with that reality that we've goofed up God's perfect plan now what? How do we live the adventure? Ready to move on? You see where I'm going with this? What do we do with that? No? I'm going to keep going. You want me to do this more introduction? Ready to move on? This is what you do. You go like this and then I move on. Otherwise, I'll just keep talking. I got a lot to say. All right. Oh, we didn't read the text, did we? Is that what you were, let's read the text from chapter two of Exodus. Now, if you've gotten caught up, you know this that in chapter one is the beginning of Moses' story and the Israelites are living in Egypt, this is after Joseph's death. Israelites are living in Egypt. They become so numerous that Pharaoh's like, I don't like how much power you have here. These people are going to rise up, come to war with us, and then create all kinds of havoc. So he puts them into crazy, awful slavery and oppresses them. And then says, and let's kill all the baby boys, Moses gets rescued, remember the basket of reeds? He gets rescued into Pharaoh's household, gets raised in Pharaoh's household. He's raised in as an Egyptian, but he's an Israelite and he knows he's one of them. And now begins Moses' story. That's chapter one is Moses getting born. Here's chapter two. Now Moses, let's read the chapter two together, starting verse 11. So one day Moses, after he'd grown up, so now he'd grown up and that word grown up means he was a full adult. He's probably 40 years old. He was, he had arrived. Before that, you're a kid, if you're under 40, again, I've reemphasized this. You'd be quiet. You don't know anything if you're under 40. And that was a joke for those of you that are under 40. All those crowds are here like, really? We know everything. No? Okay, you're still stupid. And when you're 40, you've grown up. One day after Moses had grown up, he went to where his own people were and he watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people, glancing this way in that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Okay, this title, this is Moses' mistakes and our adventure. Moses, you know, turned out to be a big, giant hero. You understand that? In the Jewish faith and then leading to God's people, leading to our Messiah, I mean Moses is one of the beginnings and the big pillars of our faith. I mean Moses was the man. You understand this? Moses was the man. Say Moses was the man with me. Did you really say that? That's weird. Okay. You said it. Good, thank you. Moses was the man and his story begins with him killing a guy. You see this? All right. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting and he asked one in the wrong, "Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?" The man said, "Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid and he thought, "What I did must have become known. When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and he went to live in Midian where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came out to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father's flock and some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered the flock. When the girls returned to Ruel, their father, he asked them, "Why have you returned so early today?" They answered an Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock. Where is he? He asked his daughters, "Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat." Now if you have seven daughters, you're pretty much looking for every single guy out there. So Moses agreed to stay with the man who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage and Zipporah gave birth to his son and Moses named him Gersham saying, "I have become a foreigner in a foreign land because Gersham means I have become a foreigner in a foreign land." What do we learn from this story about our adventures, the real adventures? Because God's perfect plan is shattered. I've made mistakes. I've made a series of mistakes. I've made some big mistakes. I live with some big and some little consequences to that. How do we talk about adventure in that reality? A couple of things that I want us to get from this text, number one, for sure, Moses messed up. Again, that reality. Moses messed up God's perfect plan, we've messed up God's perfect plan. Why would God start one of the story about one of the key...he's the man I've heard. He's the man some people told me once. Why would God start one of the biggest, most important stories about the history of God and his involvement in earth and involvement in people's lives with a guy whose first act once he grew up and knew better was that he killed a guy? Seriously, what was God thinking? Starting it with that. He killed a guy. Raise your hand if you've killed a guy. No, I don't want to do that. I'm just kidding. Do you not think God's making a point here? There's something fundamental about us walking in this adventure that has to take into account that we have messed up God's perfect plan. We're done with that. We're done with that, dealing with that reality. If you have not messed up God's perfect plan, then you're one in a gazillion and you're in denial or whatever. We have to start going now, "Okay, if I've goofed up God's perfect plan, then how do I live in this adventure thing? What do I do with all this?" If you look back at verse 11 and 12, it's just the story of Moses killing the guy. Moses knew it was wrong, glancing one way and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian, hit him in the sand. You see the consciences that work. Hello, does anybody resonate with that anywhere along the line that you know the right thing to do? You bail on the right thing to do, you do the wrong thing, you spend time covering it up and you live for the rest of your life going, "I goofed that deal up big time. What do I do with that if I'm supposed to be God's man?" He messed it up. That's a reality we got to get our heads around. He messed up God's perfect plan. That fork in the road came along and we took the other way and now we're gone. Now we're in the wrong place. Now we're way out of the way. Think about it as a literal image of being on a trip and following the map route or the GPS or whatever and it's saying the right way is here and you go that way, you cannot shake the reality that you end up in a different place than you were supposed to be and some of us go, "So am I in a different place? What? What does that mean?" Because then I had other choices and I made other bad decisions. I made some good ones too but I made some other bad ones but I start, "Where am I now and where's God? How do I live in that reality?" We want to talk about the adventure, we want to talk about the little backpack and climbing the mountain with God all that stuff but the image is kind of goofed up for me. This is more like the image, not the backpack traveling fast and light up the hill. This is sort of the image for us. We go somewhere along the line, I went down the wrong road and I picked up all kinds of souvenirs along the way and now I have all these consequences to my life. I've broken relationships. I'm a divorced person, I have addictions, I've got attitudes that I'm carrying along, I've got financial difficulties, I'm in a job that I hate. My financial situation is in such a place because I never finished my degree because I goofed up and I mean we have all of these things that we've done. What do we do with our mistakes? Most of us have just gone down those roads and bailed on the adventures. I'm not on the little backpack you follow Jesus, I have made my own way and I am way out there in Gershem somewhere, I mean out in a foreign land and all I'm doing is carrying around the big old baggage with me and you get up front, Jeff and Christians and hey we're on the adventure, we're following Jesus and all I'm doing is dragging this deal everywhere I go. It's no adventure for me, I'm suffering from all those decisions that I made. You resonate with that a little bit? What do we do with this thing when we carry this around? I mean Moses messed up, but here's the news, Moses messed up, we messed up, but God redeems. You know that term? God redeems, Moses messed up but God redeems, Moses messed up, he killed a guy and you go back later in the scriptures, it'll be later on in the story and we'll follow Moses' life a little bit, he became the deliverer of God's people, he became God's man. Somehow along the way, he was still on the adventure, it wasn't lights on, you went down the wrong road and now where are you? Somehow God redeemed the situation, God we mess up but God redeems, this is the good news. We kind of get that a little bit, we get forgiveness don't we? Some of us get forgiveness, you know forgiveness looks like this? Forgiveness looks like, I'm carrying this thing around, but Jesus died for me, loves me and he says he forgives me and so you know what, we, this is our picture. We think we're going to take this burden, we're going to come over here, we're going to give it to Jesus and he's going to take it away and we're going to hide it behind the cross and then I don't have it anymore. And that's kind of our image when we think through this, most of us by the way, can't let it go totally, most of us don't feel forgiveness totally. But I think friends while that is true, this idea of forgiveness is true, I think the idea of redemption is more than this. I don't think that this is just about well we've messed up and God's goofed up is perfect plant, we've messed up God's perfect plant, it isn't just then and now God forgives me with this thing or maybe some of the other, by the way, some of your other images are God forgives me but I have to still carry it around my whole life. You with me? God said he's not so ticked at me anymore but I'm still hauling the junk around. But redemption is more than that friends, you know what redemption means? Redemption means Jesus bought it, Jesus took our stuff and he bought it, he goes oh here's how redemption works, you've messed up God's perfect plant but I will now purchase this from you and I own it, friends you know what this is filled with, death and destruction and crap, it stinks in here and Jesus gave his life to buy it, to go here's the price, I want to buy that, I'm going to give my life and I want your stuff and he comes and he buys this from us, is that not a cool picture? He buys it from us and redemption means that it's just not that he just forgives us, he takes it and he buys it and he brings it over to his cross and again I didn't figure out the metaphor well enough to like stock it with stuff but he takes it and he unzips it and he unpacks it and he takes out what's in there and then ready, he uses that to put in your backpack for the adventure, he redeems it, he goes I purchased it and now I will use it so whatever is in here I am now going to use for your good and for my purposes. I will use it for my glory, he doesn't go woo golly, okay our sins like that, our disobedience is that, we're not saying don't worry about sin, carry sin around, be a sinner, we're not saying that, we don't carry sin but he uses the consequences and the junk that we've now carried along, all those experiences and he uses it for his glory, look with me at Romans chapter eight, you know this verse but we're going to look at a few verses in Romans so I want you to turn to it if you can stick your finger in it for the rest of the sermon. Romans chapter eight, as you're turning, I'll read this verse because it's familiar, you know it, Romans chapter eight says this famous and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose, in all things, in all of our mistakes, in all of our failures, in all of our baggage, God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purposes, God goes I will now purchase that, I'm purchasing that junk and I will now use it, everything you've been through, every disobedient, all the junk, I will unpack this and use it, my friends we think God barely tolerates us and the stuff that we've been carrying around, that he just goes you know what I can probably forgive that but seriously no more is what we think God's saying to us but redemption means that he buys it and owns it and paid for it and now will use it for our good and for his purposes, do you understand that? No matter what it is that you've been through, Moses killed a guy and God used him to be the deliverer, friends, this is the good news of Jesus, this is what we're talking about when we talk about the good news, you know it's, and we go but look at what I'm living with, I had somebody years ago and it's never left me, I had somebody say to me, I had sex in high school with my boyfriend and I got pregnant and this is my little girl and now this is what I've lived with for my whole life, the consequences of my sin, this was her hauling around her disobedience to the Lord, was it disobedient for her to have sex outside a marriage with her boyfriend when she was 17 years old? I'm going to tell you something, that was the wrong road, she messed up God's perfect plan but then you know what happened right? Nine months later God's perfect plan was born and her little girl is her new plan, God's new plan, that's God's reality and that woman and that daughter are not damaged goods my friend, God purchased both of them and all of the junk that sin that came along with it and all the dysfunction that led her to that place, he purchased it and he said new plan, you have a beautiful baby girl that I will show myself to and will give you all the things that we have in Christ, I'm going to give it all to you and you get to glorify me with that reality, friends she did not spend the rest of her life going this is the consequence of my sin, she spent the rest of her life going this is my new plan A, no plan B in my life, there's no plan B in God's people's lives, it's his new plan A, do you understand that? How by the grace of God could we live in a plan B our whole lives, he doesn't do that, we would all be plan B then C then D then F and we'd be done. That's what redemption is because I'm going to buy that and it becomes the new plan A, some of us are still in bondage to our past and to our junk and we have been hauling this around and the marriage that we're in, we shouldn't have got married, it was too young, it's difficult, she wasn't a believer, whatever the story is, I shouldn't have gotten connected with those people, I started doing this and that and the other and now I'm carrying this addiction or this compulsion, I shouldn't have had sex so early, I shouldn't have crossed over those lines and now I'm goofed up in my head, I shouldn't have one time looked at that stuff on the computer and now I can't stay away from it, friends we haul that stuff around like it's the reality but he bought it and he doesn't just forgive you, you dirty filthy, barely tolerable person, he's going to use all that stuff, he's going to use all his experiences and it's his new plan A. Moses messed up but God redeems when we repent and say I don't want to do that stuff anymore, he goes then you go and you sin no more and this path you're on is the A plan, it's the adventure, you're on the plan, now go. Moses messed up but God redeems, secondly Moses checked out then, Moses checked out, what I mean by this, if you look at verses 13 to 15, let's go back to the text, go 13, the one behind it, the next day Moses went out and he saw two Hebrews fighting, remember this experience, he asked one of them, you know, why are you hitting the Hebrew and they said who are you, we know what you did basically is what happened and he goes okay, well this has become known, I've become known, I've been exposed, I know who I am now and they know who I am and I can't hide it anymore, anybody resonate with that a little bit, you get into a small group, you break down once or twice, you just let a few things about your life and you go oh crud, everybody now knows that I'm human, that's an awful experience really to be human, so he goes okay now I've become known, verse 15, next verse, when Pharaoh heard about this he tried to kill Moses so now the consequences are coming down on him and Moses fled from the Pharaoh and he went to live in Midian where he sat down by a well, I just love that thought of him sitting down by a well like what has happened to my life, he just checked out and took off and realized this now is my reality, I'm done, I'm a loser, I'm a God loser, I've goofed up God's plan and so I've checked out of the deal, the damage was done is what he thought, the message came really quickly from other people, these other guys, oh who do you think you are, the message came from other people and it came very quickly from within him and it comes from within us so quickly from the accuser that jumps on our backs that goes you know who you are, you're a murderer, so why do you think you can be in this adventure, why do you think you can stand and smile, lift your hands and worship the God, why do you think you can be in Bible study, why do you think you can lead Bible study, why do you think you can tell anybody in our world about Jesus, you, you're a loser, you're a murderer, you're an addict, you're selfish, you're financially incompetent, you're emotionally weak and we like Moses just check out and go I guess that's who I am, that's what happens when we get on this adventure, having goofed up God's original plan, we check out, we go I guess this is who I am, anybody honest enough in this room in your heart to go I do that, I've labeled myself, I know who I am, I so hope that God tolerates me a little bit, forgives me some but I've missed the plan and I'm not on the adventure because this is who I am, it's sort of like the old scarlet letter or sins carry us around, we carry around our sins and we hang on to them and they identify us, I've been unfaithful, I'm an adulterer, my marriage didn't work out and so I'm divorced, I've gotten addicted to some stuff on the computer and I can't break it, I'm a lust filled person, I can't change the fact that I alienate everybody around me, I'm self-centered and on and on and on the enemy and our own conscience and the people around us especially all those great looking people around us, they're doing so much better than me, Moses said I'm a murderer and on and on and on the labels come, I'm not a very good father, you know how quickly that message comes, church, you know how easy it is for us to put the labels on ourselves, you know that right? The enemy jumps on our backs and whispers in our ears, how do you think you're a Christ follower, look at who you are, you're a habitual sinner and so we check out and we go I'd like to be on the adventure but I guess I'm not going to be, Moses checked out, Moses messed up but God redeems, Moses checked out, the friends, there's a reality, God redefines. Moses thought he was a murderer, he had the big M on his chest and then a chapter later and we're going to look at this kind of stuff and here, a chapter later, he's just checked out, I guess this is who I am, I'm living in this other land, I'm a foreigner, I've got no purpose, in fact that's what that word means, you know that, gershim, it means I'm a foreigner, a foreign land, you know what the implication is, I'm a foreigner with nothing to live for here, I have no purpose here, it's not my land, I'm an alien, I'm a stranger and I've got no purpose and he just believed it, he just buys it but God you see redefines and a few chapters later, God calls him in a burning bush and goes, you, you get up now and you go and you're going to set my people free and of course Moses goes, I'm so messed up, how would you use me and God says to him, you get up and go, I'm going to be with you, God redefines us, God takes that and redefines us, you look at the Romans passage again, this is what's in the Romans passage verse 31, what then shall we say in response to these things, if God is for us, who can be against us, if God is for us, who can be against us, he who did not spare his son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also along with him graciously give us all things, now listen verse 33, who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen, see God's going to redefine us, the charge comes, the accuser comes, look who you are, just check out, you're not going to be on God's adventure, you wrecked your marriage, you've wrecked your relationships, you've been in prison, you've had these implications, you're living in poverty, that's who you are, that's what you've done, you're not on, you don't have an adventure anymore, the labels come with accuser jumps on our backs but God comes to redefine and says who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen, it is God who justifies who then condemns, no one it says, Jesus Christ died, more than that who was raised to life, he's at the right hand of God and he's interceding for us, who shall separate us from the love of Christ, what's the answer, nobody, he reads redefines us friends and it's not just that he just changes us, goes you know what Moses, you were a murderer and so I got to make you into a totally crazy different person, we think that that's what's supposed to happen and since we're the same us, we think we're still not on the adventure and we're wearing the label, do you hear me on that? Because you're still the same you who carried around all this stuff and has made all these habitual mistakes or some really big ones and you're still you, you think that I can't be on the adventure, because he doesn't re-change you into somebody else, he goes I had a vision for you, you just jacked it up a little bit, the real you still you, if you look at Moses's story, he killed a guy as his first reaction to seeing people under oppression and under slavery, he was a defender of broken people, of lost people, he was the defender of the underdog, this is what Moses did and we know that because the next day after he killed a guy in passion, shouldn't have killed a guy, good heart, wrong action, the next day he comes to two people fighting and he goes hey, hey, what are you doing, he came to protect one of the Israelites who was fighting with the other guy, do you remember that in the story? And then how did he meet his wife's family, he was hanging out sitting by the well moping, checked out and these women were hassled by some shepherds and he came to their defense. Friends, he had a heart to serve the king, he had a heart to serve God and that's who he was, he was the defender of these things and God instead of going you know what, you screwed up, you're off on the wrong road, this is who you are now, God goes I need a guy like that to set my people free, I need that guy even though he was broken, God redefined who he was, friends, what agreements have you made about who you are? What agreements have you made with the accuser, the enemy, Satan? What agreements have you made with the dark stuff within you that is so discouraged because you goofed up God's original plan and because every day in some cases you're faced with the consequences of one bad or many bad or many little bad decisions? What agreements have you made that identify you as somebody who has just checked out off the adventure because God redefined you, God redefined you, God comes to you and he says no no in all these things we are more than conquerors. And the scripture goes on to say, Paul says, "For I'm convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons nor the present nor the future nor any powers, neither height nor depth nor anything else in all of creation nor divorce, selfishness, lust, adultery, murder, bad parenting, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of Christ, nothing." He redefines us, friends, this is not who you are. Moses messed up but God redeems and Moses just checked out and said, "I guess this is who I am," but God redefines, is it time for you to demolish the lies that you have in your head and your heart about who you really are? Those things don't define you. You are a beloved child of God who's had their stuff purchased by the blood of Jesus, purchased for His glory, He'll use all of it for His glory, and you're on the adventure. Lastly I'll finish with this, Moses messed up but God redeems, Moses checked out but God redefines, Moses settled down then, he settled down, you know, he lived 40 years with these guys, he lived 40 years and thought, well, I guess this is my lot. Not just, I'm a murderer and I'm out, he just settled into, I guess this is how I'll be forever. He just settled into it, but God found him. He went far away from God and goes, "I guess I'll never be with God again," and God came and found him. It's not a great passage. God came and found him, the end of the passage, not the passage that we read, just a little bit at the end of that chapter, that God came and said to Him when He had been there all those years, God said, "I heard all of Israel, I heard what was going on, I heard everybody's cry, I saw Moses, I know where you went and I came and I found you and here's the burning bush, now get up and serve me." It may feel like a long time, you guys, and it may feel like a desolate place, my friends, and you may feel like it has been, it just must be my lot to not be able to serve God, but God finds you. You believe that? He doesn't let you live in your stuff, and sometimes we have to go over there and we got to learn some of those things and we wait and we cultivate a hunger and a thirst for God. I don't know why God doesn't always show up when we want Him to show up, but He will show up. God came and found Him when He had defined Himself as this kind of a person. God came and found Him. He's finding some of you right now, that's the journey that you're on, for you're realizing I've made so many mistakes, I've defined myself in so many ways, and I'm not on this adventure, I'm telling you that this adventure series, these Sunday mornings, this season of life in your walk with God, where it's stirring inside of you, that is God finding you. That is God going, "I have heard your cry, I've seen the oppression of your people, I got a job for you, I'm coming to find you, I pick you to walk with me on this adventure." My friends, some of you are rediscovering that God is coming to find you right now. He's coming after you because you're His child and He's not going to let you live away from Him, settle down in a way. We've thought to ourselves, we've walked so far from Him, and the image is sort of like if this is God over here, this is God, and we think, "Okay, we're with Him on the adventure," and then we do the fork in the road and then we're over here and we know instinctively, "Man, I've kind of moved away from Him." Most of us, that was college, some of us, that was whatever and we're like, "Okay, I'm kind of far away," and then we take another couple of steps in the road and we think to ourselves that ache inside of us, "I'm getting pretty far away from God, I know some of you know what I'm talking about," and whether you walk totally away from God and you're out there doing the sex, drugs, rock and roll, whatever, or whether you and your heart have said, "You not know that I trust Him and you've eased your way away from the presence of God, all of us have this experience," and we've gone a little further, and then another few seasons of life and we go further, and another few seasons of life and further, and then we just go, "You know, I'm over here pretty soon, seriously, I mean I'm not even joking around. This is what we do." We're like, "Where was the deal?" And we get so far in some corner somewhere in our lives, "Do you not believe this?" that you can never come back. We look up one day and we go, "Man, what happened to me? Where's the Lord? I've gotten so far away, we settle into that and go, "It used to work for me and now I'm gone." And that picture that I just gave you is a lie from the pit of hell, because the reality of it is, is that when we took that road and we stepped away, he walked with us, friends, and he heard our cries, and he was there in our struggles, and when we took another step, he was right next to us, and another step, he was there. The picture in Scripture is always, and you see it in the end of this chapter, chapter 2, he heard the groaning in Israel, he saw their suffering, he knew what Moses was going through, he watched him, his eye was always there, in every place that they went, they couldn't go anywhere where God didn't keep them with him. And so when the time came and they realized, "I don't want to live with this stuff anymore," and I realized I've been walking away from God and I've been settling, we say God found us, but what it really happens, we turned around and he was always there and he never left us. He never left us. And some of you this morning need the simple illustration of repentance to say, "I have walked from God, I have jumped in my life, I'm carrying it," and he's so far away, you need right now to picture having turned around and he's standing right there with you. That's how fast he will renew your relationship. Right like that, nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. So it's appropriate in the middle of all this friends that we come to the table. I'm going to have the band to come up. God is finding us as he's redeeming us and as he's redefining us. That's the work that he does, that's what we come here to remember and it is fitting that we come to the table in it because Jesus with his disciples, the last days of his life the night he was betrayed, he took bread, he was in a meal with them and he broke it and he said, "This is my body which is for you." You do this in remembrance of me and after supper he took the cup and he said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, it's a covenant of grace." Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me, for when you eat this bread and you drink this cup you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. You know what that means? You say, "Oh Jesus died for me and his blood covers me. He has purchased my stuff, all my decisions, all my baggage, all the junk I'm carrying around. He bought it and he's going to use it." That's what it means. It also means and he redefines me from being this guy, to being his forgiven and free child on the adventure. He says, "When you eat this bread and you drink this cup you proclaim that. Every time you guys get together you proclaim and you do not forget that. This table, it's Him coming and finding you today. I see you. I see you. I see what you've been through. I hear your groans. I know the pain that you carry. I know the vestiges of it. I know it. I'm finding you today. That's what we do at the table. Just a minute I'm going to have a stand and we're going to worship our way into the next last 15 minutes of our time together. You're going to come whenever you feel at one of the four stations and meet Jesus at the table. But let me ask you this, when you come, some of you need to bring this to the table. There's some big old fatty decision. There's some mistake. Some thing that happened in your life and you have carried it around to this day. You've carried it to this day. I'm a murderer. I'm an adulterer. I'm a flake. I'm a failure. I'm in a bad marriage. Do you bring it to the table today? He has bought it. He bought your junk. When you come to the table, some of you in your mind has got to bring your suitcase. You leave it there. You bring your suitcase. You leave it there and let them repack your bag over the next season of life. Sorry for my emotion. I'm out of this view. When you come to the table, you bring your name tags. How have you been accused? What has the liar said about who you are? He redefines you. When you come and you put that name tag at the table, he's finding you today again. Come, the table, the body and blood of Christ that has made it possible that nothing can separate us from his love and relationship. [MUSIC]