Experienced

And today's message is all for the complaining and complaining, right? Those who wait for the ambulance while playing a sad, sad song on the world's smallest violin. It's about not looking at our obstacles, but looking at our opportunities. So I know as a pastor and as we heard Ed share his story. So one of the great joys of being a pastor is that you get to walk with people in the best of times. And the greatest obstacle as a pastor is that you also walk with people in the worst of times. And as a pastor, you sit in the midst of people's trials, and sometimes you're left questioning why God has this happened to them. I wish we had the ability to understand everything, terrible or bad, that happens in our lives, but on this side of eternity, we don't always. But for us this morning, it's an opportunity as we face obstacles together to seek how to overcome rather than change our circumstance, which a lot of times we don't have the ability to do. Maybe we should seek to change the way that we're viewing our circumstance. Paul talked about this in Second Corinthians chapter one, and I think rather than sign up for a life of difficulties, what we would choose if we had the opportunity is to live a life of comfort. But many times it's not the path that God has for us, and viewing our eyes or viewing life through God's eyes is incredibly important to the way that we live our life for a purpose, a greater purpose than just for ourselves Or day to day circumstances.

Because, I've noticed the tendency of people as we experience harm and adversity and pain in our lives rather than begin to look at it from a new perspective and to share our pain with the world in order to encourage, excuse me, encourage other people, we become hurt and isolated and we withdraw. But it's interesting when you read the Bible, what God has called you to is a life of community. I've oftentimes said, as we've conversed with people in our lives that, if the churches I've been a part of and the people who are experiencing pain would just pull back the curtain of their lives and begin to share that pain with each other, we would experience tremendous healing in our lives, in our pain. A lot of times we feel as if we are the only one going through that experience. Come to find out, as I've seen in ministry, it's by far the majority of people, not the minority. So I jokingly say to us as a church family, if you are abnormal, welcome because we fit right in and if you are normal, we need to stand you on stage because you are the example to us. But we know all of us are sinful and therefore make mistakes, and all of us have been marred by sin that's been lived in our lives through through other people, been pressed upon us.

Paul writes in First Corinthians chapter one or second Corinthians, excuse me, chapter one. Rather than rather than viewing our obstacles as opposition to carrying out the plan for God, let's let's look at our obstacles as opportunity. Rather than change our circumstance. Let's just change how we see our circumstance. We have the power to do that. It says in Second Corinthians chapter one and verse three, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our afflictions, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. Can I say, as we start talking about affliction, I think about the life of the Apostle Paul. If one person had the opportunity to live an isolated life and to complain about everything that's happened to him, it was Paul. All he'd ever done is given his life for Jesus, at least from the time of on the on the road that he met the Lord. And Paul is persecuted. Paul is whipped. Paul is thrown in prison. Paul is beaten. Eventually, Paul is beheaded. But rather than complain, Paul says, I'm changing the way I look at my life. He says in verse five, for just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, theirs are those who choose to follow Jesus and suffer for it.

So also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted It's for your comfort and salvation. Or if we are comforted as it is, for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer. Rather than look at the negative things in which Paul's experiencing, Paul's interest in this passage of Scripture is to see it the way God sees it, and to ask God the question in the midst of my adversity, God, how can you use this? Paul saw the adversity that he faced as a way in which God could use him. His life experience was being able to be reflected in the lives of believers and saying, look at the persecution that I'm going through. I'm finding God's comfort in this and in finding God's comfort in this. I'm going to show you how to experience God's comfort through the trials that we face. And so Paul says, rather than, if I'm in affliction, you find the reason to praise God upon it. As I praise God up in it and in my comfort, I find reason to praise God and you find reason to rejoice with me together. Whether it's the good times or the bad. Blessed be the name of the Lord and we find opportunity to praise God in any situation we have.

Important question we ask this morning is, do you look at adversity as an obstacle or as an opportunity to display the glory of God? Can't always answer the question why things happen to us. We can't always change our circumstances, but what we can change is how we see our circumstances and respond to it. Rather than run away from hurt. Maybe in our pain, God has asked us to help others find the joy of the Lord. How do we experience God in our troubles? How can we best use our experiences in our lives to encourage others towards God When we talk about overcoming. We've gone through this four week series together. We've gone through the first couple of lessons of overcoming, overcoming our past, overcoming broken relationships. We focus on the individual, and that's what we tend to do when we're hurt. My feelings and how I'm going to overcome and the way that I feel. But when we talk about overcoming in the light of who God is, God talks about it as a community and family. How are we going to do this together in light of who God is? How can we take our experience like the Apostle Paul shares here in this passage of Scripture, and be and begin to pour that into the lives of other people, to encourage them and their experience with the Lord. It's a question I want to answer today, and if you've brought a Bible with you, turn to Exodus chapter three.

I'm going to use this passage of Scripture in Exodus chapter three concerning the life of Moses, to encourage us to use our experience to help the lives of other people How can I use my experience to best help others? The answer to that is I have to first encounter God. How can God best use my experiences to help others? The first answer to that is you have to encounter God. Paul was an individual who lived in Egypt during a period of 400 years of slavery, in which the Israelites were facing under the persecuted hand of the Egyptians. Israel would begin to cry out to God that they would be released from the bondage and experience the joy of knowing the Lord as a nation set apart for themselves. And Moses was a man who experienced much adversity for the first, especially 40 years of his life. And it continued to go on beyond that. He, as a young child, it tells us in the first three months of his life was thrown into the Nile River because the Egyptian leader, the Pharaoh, wanted to kill all young men under the age of two. And so his mother protected him until he was three months old. And once, once he got to three months old, his mother realized he couldn't. She couldn't protect him anymore from the Egyptians. So she put him in a basket and threw him down the river.

Pharaoh's daughter ends up finding Moses in this basket, tells us that she takes Moses in and she names him Moses, which means to draw out. Moses had a very humble name as an individual because it reminded him of where he came from. He was a nobody as a slave, thrown into a river, possibly left to die. And in that humble circumstance he was drawn out. Moses lived his life in Pharaoh's court. Moses eventually ends up killing an Egyptian. He runs for his life, and he lives isolated in the Sinai Peninsula. He went from living the most lavish life in the court of Pharaoh to the most humblest life as a as a shepherd, herding animals on the side of a hill by himself. And then it tells us in Scripture, on an ordinary day, as Moses sat with the animals, tending to them, a common day in which we might find in our own lives, he encountered God. How does God begin to use our experience to encourage others to overcome? It all starts with an encounter with God. And can I just tell you this morning that we're looking at the life of a Moses because it's a prominent story, but in history, as you as you study the Old and New Testament, the common theme throughout the Bible is that God uses an individual who was of the most humble circumstances, who was unworthy of God's mercy and grace in his life, and God turns him into a warrior, or her into a warrior for his kingdom.

God doesn't use rock stars and superstars. God uses the common man to accomplish his purpose in this world and on an ordinary day as a common man. Bible tells us that Moses encounters God. Next is chapter three and verse two. It starts off and says, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush. I can imagine for a moment normal day feeding sheep. You turn to your left, and all of a sudden this bush is on fire. A lot of Israel is similar to or around the nation of Israel, similar to the terrain of Utah. And if a bush catches on fire in Utah, we know we run because everything's going to catch on fire. But Moses notices this bush is on fire. And he looked and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. And then he said, do not come near here. This is God speaking. Remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Confrontations with God usually happen like this. If you encounter the real God in your life by saying you're going to see him in a burning, burning bush. But when his presence is made known in your life, you feel a sense of humbleness and God is telling Moses, Moses, take off the shoes of your feet, because I want you to walk on the very dirt that you created, created from.

There is a distinction between creature and creator and Moses. In these moments, you need to be humbled in my presence. Verse six, he also said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. How can God use me in the midst of my circumstances and experiences, to encourage others closer to the joy of the Lord? First says it always starts with an encounter with God. You know, in life you can never lead anyone further than you yourself have been led. And we're talking about using our experiences to push people in the right direction, in their relationship with God, and understanding the joy of the Lord that they can have and comfort that Paul talks about in this passage of Scripture. Well, it happens in the life of a believer who has come to know the Lord. And as they've been walked through a relationship with God, and they've allowed the Lord to lead them into a relationship with him then and being led, they know how to lead, to use your experience to help others encounter God and the joy in knowing the Lord. It starts with a relationship with God, we think, and maybe the most simplest terms babies really don't lead anyone anywhere.

Think of my young son who just now starts starting to walk. If Stacey and I chose to let him make the decisions of our lives, we would have just noisy toys all through our home. Treats all day. But babies can't lead anywhere. And for us in our relationship with God, it also becomes vital to understand our experiences in light of everything and an and understanding who God is because babies can't lead. It's important for us to grow in our walks with God, to not only see it as vital for our own personal relationship and growth with God, but for those around us as well. And one of the greatest things I love about living in Utah is that I have yet to wake up in Utah and not recognize the importance of a believer living in Utah, to know that I know Jesus and how important that is each and every day. To grow in that relationship with Jesus. Because God can really make me effective in living in this place for Christ to help others encounter God. It starts with my experience with God and then encouraging others through that. I love the thought of Moses as just a common man sitting on the side of the road, tending to his sheep. It tells me that really, an encounter with God can change anyone. I love the way that I look at my own personal life after coming to know Jesus. It really says an encounter with God can change anyone.

I don't want to glorify the sin of my past, but God definitely gets the glory in it. An encounter with God can change anyone. He can take the worst of circumstances in our lives and put them into our hearts. A new perspective to see things the way God sees it. God, I don't understand why this has happened to me. I don't understand why the challenges are here in front of me. But God, let me use this opportunity to praise your name because somewhere there is somebody going through the same heartache that I've experienced in my past. And Lord, use it for your glory. An encounter with God will change anyone. It says in Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 31, yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength. That's strength you've never found before. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They will run and not grow tired. They will walk and not become weary. Because God is their strength. Before God can use you in this world, God has to move you for his glory. As we think about God using our experience this morning for his Kingdom and to help those in need, the starting point for us is that you just kick off your sandals and stand in the presence of God. Number two, God can use my experience to help others if I share a passion with them. If you go and read, you see that God had a heart for the nation of Israel and you find in Scripture, so did Moses.

If you read in Exodus chapter two and verse 11 and 12, you see that Moses understood that God was going to use him one day to lead the nation of Israel out of bondage. In fact, if you if you couple Exodus chapter two and verse 11 and 12 for you Bible readers, you can make a note of this in acts chapter seven and verse 24. I hope everyone's a Bible reader. Acts chapter seven and verse 24 and the rest of the chapter. It describes Exodus chapter two and on. And it says to us that Moses comes before an Egyptian that's beating up the Jewish people. And Moses saw an opportunity to go in and save the Jewish people. And it tells us in Exodus chapter two that when Moses runs in, he strikes down the Egyptian and he kills him. Moses was passionate for his people. God is passionate for the Jewish people. We find out as we read the rest of the passage that in Exodus two, Moses used that passion wrongly. He wasn't following his passion according to the way that God desired, and then killing that individual. Moses's hope, it tells us in acts seven, is that the nation of Israel would Israel realized that Moses was to be the leader that led them out of captivity. But when he killed the individual, all that he found is that the nation of Israel then turned upon him.

And then Pharaoh found out that he had murdered one of his Egyptian soldiers. And so Moses had to flee away and hide what's led to him living in the Sinai Peninsula. All of a sudden finding a burning bush as a common man. God can use our experiences as we share our passions with him, and what Moses had to learn in those years that he spent in the Sinai Peninsula was that though he was passionate for the Jewish people, he wasn't passionate for the Jewish people away the way God was passionate for the Jewish people. If we desire for God to use our experiences to help others, we have to share our passion with him. Question you asked this morning is what do you love that you know God loves? What in your life do you appreciate that you also know God appreciates. Moses shared a similar passion with God, but he expressed his passion without waiting for the hand of the Lord to move him. And so the answer is, when we find a passion that God shares with us as people, that we have to see that perspective as if God sees or as God sees it, to move. When God moves in our hearts to meet the need God takes our passion, unites it with his passion, and uses it for his purpose. So we could ask ourselves, how do we know when we are really passionate about something? The answer is as you make sacrifice for it above and beyond anything else in your life.

We often times call Jesus the week that he that he died on the cross. We call that the Passion Week. Passion really carries a word of suffering with it. We call it the Passion Week because Jesus suffered. He sacrificed for this above and beyond anything else because this was important to him. Jesus died for you and for me. What are you passionate about in your passion? Allow God to change your perspective. A couple of weeks ago we had a friend visit from. He lives a little over an hour away, and when I first saw him a few years ago, he was new in his relationship with God. But man, he was on fire for God. You couldn't stop him from studying his Bible, asking God what he wanted to do in his life. And he came and visited just a couple of weeks ago, and we were talking about how his passion for the Lord has continued to grow. And he carries a passion for God, and he loves people, but he's also a mechanic and he loves cars. And so he decided in that passion that he would he would take his ability to work on cars. And once a month he's going to open up his garage and he's already doing this. He opens up his garage to single mothers who can't afford to fix their car, and he uses his love for people and love for God and his ability and passion as a mechanic to unite all those things to serve the Lord.

How can we best use our experience to help others? It starts with coming to grow in our relationship with God, and it's shared in our passion that we have the same passion that God has. God can best use my experience for him. Point number three when I learn God is bigger than my inadequacies. Do you read on the passage of scripture you think what it means to be a common man? Just the average Joe. You really don't feel great at anything, right? You just do everything pretty good, but nothing incredibly well. Just a run of the mill average, average guy. And that's the way Moses felt. It says in Exodus chapter three and verse ten, therefore come now and I will send you to Pharaoh. This is God talking so that you may bring my people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at his mountain.

Moses had one simple question about the ministry that God was calling him to. Who am I? I mean, isn't there somebody better to do the job right? God, don't we in America we just leave those things up to the professionals. And God reminds Moses that it doesn't matter what you're capable of. I am with you. If I've called you, then I will fulfill the calling that I've placed upon you. God doesn't use superstars. He uses the average person to fulfill his needs in this world. Moses was struggling with trust. Question that Moses was asking is God, how big is this obstacle? The question Moses should have been asking is how big is my God? Yeah, think of one of my favorite verses as a pastor. And all of Scripture comes in second Corinthians chapter, chapter 12 and verse nine. When you make a decision to step out and serve the Lord with your life, and to use your experiencing and relationship with God to encourage other people to relationship with God, it's not always an easy step at first, especially when it's a new step, right? Sharing with your extended family that you're going to move across the entire country to come to Utah to start a church. It's crazy. Unless God is really moving in your heart and in your life. I love this verse in Scripture because it reminds me that this verse is here for coward Christians about to do big, big things for God because they've come to a place like this in the Bible and they've answered the question.

It's God, it's not how big my obstacle is, it's how big you are. If you've called me to this task, whatever the ministry is, and Paul and his own ministry, you think of everything that the Apostle Paul has accomplished in all of Christianity, getting the gospel from Jerusalem all the way to Rome in just a few decades, proclaiming the name of Christ and going to jail and seeing churches planted all over the known world at the time. What did this guy say? I mean, he was a professional at this stuff. He knew how to share his faith with people. He knew how to use his experience with people. He was super Christian, right? And Paul makes remarks like this. He said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. Most gladly. Therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. So when God is calling you to use your experience to serve him, God doesn't expect you to feel super powerful. God expects you to just trust in him because he's powerful. Paul says, in all the ministry that I've done as a believer following Jesus, I found the best place to be when I'm serving Christ is when I'm weak. The reason Paul felt best when he was weak is because in those moments, he really knew how much he needed to trust in God to meet the need.

The question isn't how much do you have to meet the needs of people? But how big is your God? Remember Moses and these circumstances, how it all began? It wasn't because he was anything special. He was just a sheepherder on the side of a hill. But God decided he wanted to move in the life of Moses to use him, and his grace would be sufficient to meet the needs. How can God best use my experience for him and for his glory? Or why does God want to best use your experience for Him and His glory? Let me just give you the last point. It's because it makes sense. It makes sense that God would choose to work miracles through people, to meet the lives and the needs and the lives of other people. God uses anyone that's willing. You remember the King David? He was just a shepherd as well. King David became the king of all of Israel, one of the most powerful kings to ever rule the nation under his son Solomon, being the first, most powerful and glorious out of all the kings that Israel had. And it says in first Samuel chapter 13 and verse 14. The reason that God was able to use him as that David was a man after God's own heart. David was an incredible warrior for Jesus. In fact, when Samuel went to find King David because he knew that David was going to be King of Israel, and he was as a prophet was supposed to anoint David for that position.

He went through all the sons of Jesse, all the sons of Jesse, looking for the future leader of Israel, and the last one that he came to because he thought he was least capable of the job was King David. And yet God had chose to work through David because David was a man after God's own heart. Isaiah and his great call as a prophet. It tells us in Isaiah chapter six and verse eight he says, here am I, Lord, send me. If you just see just a few verses in the comments that Isaiah had made before God, before he said, God use me. He says, I am a sinful man, and I deserve death before God and in his sin, and in knowing that he deserves death before before a vengeful God, because of his sin, he says to God, God, just send me, just use me. Peter, Andrew, James and John tells us in Matthew chapter four, When Jesus walked by them, he said, come after me, I will make you fishers of men. Peter, Andrew, James and John were all fishing that day because that was their job, and they dropped everything and just followed after Jesus. The point is that God uses us because it makes sense, and God uses us as we are willing to follow.

It makes sense that God relates to people through people. You think about the way we can relate to Jesus. We only relate to Jesus because Jesus has related to us. The reason God calls the Christians to share the gospel, the church to go out into this world, to proclaim the name of Christ, is because you understand how God has saved your life better than anyone else. Who better for that task? The reason that God has called us to go into this world as a church and make disciples. Because you follow after Jesus, it only makes sense that God would call you to minister in this world for his kingdom. God is a God that makes sense. And picking Moses for this job, though he was a humble man, it made sense. Moses was born a Jew and so he could relate to the Jews. Moses grew up in Pharaoh's court, and so he understood the Egyptians and the political culture. Moses ran away into a desert after killing an Egyptian who attacked the Jews. And so we understood that though his passion was wrong, Moses loved what Jesus loved, which was the Jewish people. Not only that, but Moses knew how to live outside of Egypt. He had wandered in the wilderness, the place that the nation of Israel would be called. He knew what it was like to be an outcast from society. He had been humbled through his circumstances.

It made sense that God would use the life of Moses and his experience to lead the nation of Israel to the Promised Land. What made Moses good for this job? He had a heart for the Lord. He loved people and he loved God. He had an intimate knowledge of the Lord. He had encountered him and experienced him. He had kicked off his sandal sandals and just sat at the presence of God. He had experienced that he was willing to use, and in his weakness, though, he felt inadequate. He knew God was strong. Moses didn't think his situation made sense. He said to the Lord in verse ten. God, why in the world are you sending me? But to God? It made perfect sense that he would use people to reach people. Moses had to change his perspective rather than look at his circumstance through his own eyes, and rather than complain about the situation he was placed in. Moses had to look at his experience through God's eyes. I love the way that Peter refers to it in acts chapter three tells us, after Peter preached this incredible sermon and thousands of people come to know the Lord. It tells us that he goes to the temple. And outside of the temple there is an individual who's a beggar, and he's lame and he's and he's asking Peter for money. And Peter says to him, silver and gold, have I not? But that which I do have, I give to you.

Stand up and walk in the name of the Lord. You know that's all God calls us to do. We go into this world, and we may not be able to meet every need, but the needs that we can meet. God calls us to fulfill rather than complain. Why me to God? We should look at a place in our lives where we can say, Lord, how can you use this obstacle as an opportunity? God, rather than play that sad sad song on the smallest violin in the world. How can you receive glory through the situation in which I'm facing? If we could pull back the curtain of our lives and even reveal maybe just some of the pain that we've experienced in our lives, it can be a tremendous encouragement to the lives of other people as we continue to seek the face of God through it. How can we look at our situation and see it the way that God sees it? Do you know for the life of Moses from this point forward, it wasn't going to be easy. God led the nation of Israel out of the land of Egypt for the purpose of going into the Promised Land. But you know, Moses never got to lead the nation of Israel into the Promised Land. For the next 40 years, Moses walked in the desert with these people while they just simply complained. But Moses was faithful to what God had called him to do.

How can God best use my experience to help others overcome the fear starts with knowing God. To know him and to kick off your sandals and just sit at his presence and enjoy the way that God wants to comfort you in your life. That way you may begin to comfort other people. As Paul even wrote in first Corinthians. Second Corinthians. Second is to share your passion with God. I'm not saying share a passion with God, but share your passion with a passion in which you know God has. What do you enjoy doing? It could be. It could be a love for a person. It could be a love for people. It could be a love for cars. Whatever it is, share that passion with God that God may use it for his glory. Know that you're inadequate without God, but trust him to meet your needs. And finally, remember, it makes sense that God would use people to reach people Editor was a man who we saw in the very beginning, faced tremendous challenges in his life. But he was a man in the midst of those challenges who found a way to praise the name of the Lord and to help people draw near to God. And he didn't give up. As a pastor this morning, I got to tell you, these last two messages that we've looked at and overcoming. I've never had this happen to me in my life, but in writing and just thinking about experiences of people that I've been with as a pastor, I would be thinking about this message and just start bawling and have to walk away.

I couldn't even see my page anymore because I know pain in this world is real, and I know our people here and anywhere of ministry. I've just seen people walk through a lot of pain in their lives. And what I'm saying to you this morning is rather than take all that pain and just focus on me. Open your eyes a little bit and see that there is a world that has needs just like you. And you know Jesus. And Jesus has overcome this world. And no matter how bad today may seem, you have a hope of eternity waiting in front of you. And that is not a message that makes us as people have to withdraw or become isolated, but just run into this world in the midst of our pain and just say whether I am going through pain or whether I am going through joy, I'm going to praise the name of the Lord and show you a way to find God in the midst of all this. God has called us to so much more than just focusing on ourselves and our own personal need, and our own personal hurts, but to get with a body of Christ and encourage to God, and to get with people who are broken and encouraged them to God, because God's joy can satisfy.