10.28.2012 Moses - Part 1 - How to Achieve Genuine Transformation

Alan: We were in Mexico for a week – serving at 3 different Children’s Homes – 1 was a safe-house for girls who some had been rescued from sex slavery. The second was run by the Salvation Army – and the 3rd was a home for Special Needs kids – one of the most heartbreaking.
One thing that I struggled with – why do we do it? Why take a week’s vacation, fly 2000 miles to string barbed wire and fix toilets? It is important sometimes to take time off for yourself – get away from it all – focus on serving God – and letting others minister to us. We think we go to these third world countries to give to them – but they give so much back.
Yes, it is hard work, but it is not burdensome. The team of 25 ranged in age from a 12 year old girl to a great grandmother and even included 3 pregnant women! When you get tired, you go play with a kid! There are a lot of lighthearted moments. Maybe we can tell you about Dan Price’s version of the Humpty Dumpty song. One of the women on the team brought fake moustaches – and I came out from working one day to find a dozen kids running around with moustaches on. A little girl says to me in a grufff voice, Hola Senor! and I said, Hola Senor to her. They thought it was hilarious.
You will see things that will fill your heart with joy – and others that will break your heart.
Annette – it was really sad- close your eyes – the boy I worked with – Ricardo – is blind and deaf and mute and doesn’t walk – he uses his hands as his feet. He will never stand. He will be part of that institution until they can no longer care for him. I t was heartbreaking. I sat on the floor – and all he could do was feel my hands – I rubbed his back – his temples, his face – his legs. He was so- no, he can’t talk, so when he feels anything – he rocks back and forth. And yells – and yells out because he doesn’t know any other expressions. I rubbed him because I wanted him to feel loved. These kids don’t get touched – they don’t have that opportunity – there are 2 caregivers for 28 children. (Plus a spouse). It was incredible – Alan was able to see me give him the love and attention he needed. I tried to give him as much attention as I could – but when I took a break – and played with another kid who is not growing from the waist down – and who bites himself so he has to have his hands covered in socks – I was playing with Victor – rubbing his belly – and I don’t know how Ricardo knew – but he scooted himself over – and plopped his legs right on top of Victor – he just wanted more attention.
To back up – one of the things we did at the end of the trip – give 3 action steps – 1) Remember. I don’t want to forget.
On the very last day – we had the opportunity to take some boys from the Salvation Army to Deer Island – each person was paired up with a child. Alan was with Roberto – and Roberto grabbed Daniel – and they had so much fun on that island. I can’t describe their smiles – they were so big and endearing. Roberto has bad teeth – up in his gums – but when he smiled – you could see that he was excited to play and relax and eat a LOT of food! They don’t get a lot of food – so any opportunity they have for getting food is important to them. He just stuffed his bag and carried it back with him to the orphanage – just to remember his smile was awesome.
Alan – we could continue all day – Annette – one day came up to me – Guess what I did? How do you respond to that? Annette: I killed a scorpion! A few minutes earlier, one of the guys told me of his experience with a scorpion bite – but I killed it!
Alan – one of the most heart-rending, yet uplifting things – I was up on a ladder stringing barbed wire – there are a lot of break-ins. I see Annette coming down the path with a wheel barrow – sweating – I don’t know what she was thinking – Are you okay? And she flashes me a brilliant smile – to say – I can do anything. I never realized how tough and resilient she was.
I walked into the house later that night and saw her rubbing Ricardo’s feet – lying on the filthy floor – and it broke my heart. How do you show love? Through touch – and that is something you can’t write a check for from here.

SermonAudio

Mike Marette – we are five weeks away from Advent – I know that seems hard to imagine – so for the next five weeks – what I am going to do – take a look at some of the characters of the Bible – and you notice – when you do that – there are specific events that transform people and give them a fresh encounter with God. I want to look at Moses for a few weeks and then Elijah.
As we look inside the story – I want you to picture yourself in that story – and see how what God is doing in you at this moment relates to what God was doing in them.
In these stories – you will find – these events that happened could be very painful for the person who was in it –
“Unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and DIES…” The transformation takes place in the death.
Also, the stories often reveal the depth of our sinfulness or the sinfulness of the character. They reveal just how deep the trouble goes. In our own lives, transformational events will reveal the STUFF.
Third, they often lead to a fresh encounter with God.
Fourth – they give a new understanding of the person and power of God. IF you can get through the first two – the pain and recognition of what is broken – THEN you can get to the transformation. The transformation is always worth the trouble. And it is the same with us.
Moses had a childhood – we won’t read the story – but what we know – we are all shaped by our upbringing – in good and positive and bad and negative ways. We can often go back to an experience we had – whether real or perceived – we can see how these things affected our lives.
For Moses – I’m sure you have heard the story – either in Veggie Tales or with Charlton Heston in The Ten Commandments. Pharaoh is killing the infants and Moses is put in the river and is raised by Pharaoh’s daughter and grows up in Pharaoh’s household. He is going to have some issues in life – he goes through adoption – both good and bad. He experiences racial tension – growing up in an Egyptian household – but he was an Israelite. He grew up in wealth and privilege. There were high expectations from both sides – from Israel and Egypt. And he was probably confused about his identity – and his life needed to be transformed and it will be.
We have an advantage over Moses
2 Cor. 5: 17 Therefore if any man is in Christ, [he is] a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come
If you believe in Christ – the Bible tells us that something changes at the core of our existence –and that change is kind of like the seed again. You take the seed, you till up the soil – you pull the weeds – you make the row, you cover the seed with dirt, and what do you see? Dirt. And so it is with this seed in side of us – this seed is covered with a lot of dirt – and eventually it springs up and becomes something that bears fruit and there is this entire transformation that takes place because this seed is planted – and that is what happens when you come to faith in Christ.
Our advantage – we have the making of transformation already inside of us – just needing to be nurtured – and if we allow it to have all that – our lives will be changed.
Exodus 2: 11 Now it came about in those days, when Moses had grown up, that he went out to his brethren and looked on their hard labors; and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren. 12 So he looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one [around,] he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.
His transformation begins with great failure. And as you read through the Bible you see a lot of great failure that transforms lives – David, peter, Jacob, Abraham, Noah – just keep going. The heroes of the Bible are shown with all the warts because God is doing the transformation. It has nothing to do with them and nothing to do with you and me – and God is showing that He is the one who does the work and showing it in Moses. Moses somehow knew he was going to be a deliverer. History tells us that Moses had significant military roles – we don’t know for sure – but he understood that God had a plan for his life – to be a deliverer – a seed inside of him – but there was also a ticking time bomb. He knew his calling – but there was also a time bomb, just waiting to go off. Moses’ gifts and callings were at the mercy of unresolved issues in his soul.
Because of that – when he launched out to do what God told him to do – it blew up in his face. Now God is going to take Moses back and work on the unresolved issues – to deal with the fear and insecurity and anger. In Moses’ failure, we should see our own. With Moses and like us, he did not go out to fail. He went out to do justice and deliver and to do good, but in the wake of that good – there was a lot of damage because he didn’t do it God’s way.
Second, we see that failure doesn’t just happen. It doesn’t ‘just happen’ - it is the result of deep personal struggle. It reveals a truth inside of us – and in Moses it reveals some deep truths that he will begin correcting. As a result of this great failure – Moses spends forty years in the desert before running into a bush that is on fire – and great transformation takes place. That is what God wants to do with us – to take the very failure and transform it. He doesn’t set it aside, but takes that very failure to transform and bless.
Anatomy of a Failure
Unaddressed issues – we see that with Moses - - these create pain – and as a result, we listen to
Lies and distortions – because of the unaddressed issues about God and ourselves. Then we become
Emotionally unstable – we develop fear and arrogance – and as a result,
Dysfunctional Behavior – our ticking time bombs go off and injure people – right? Always. You all have ticking time bombs injuring people – we all do. And then – notice at the bottom,
The Failure event.
Exodus 2: looked this way and that, and when he saw there was no one [around,] he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 And he went out the next day, and behold, two Hebrews were fighting with each other; and he said to the offender, "Why are you striking your companion?" 14 But he said, "Who made you a prince or a judge over us? Are you intending to kill me, as you killed the Egyptian?" Then Moses was afraid, and said, "Surely the matter has become known."
What else we see about failure? You will be found out. You may hide for a while, but you will be found out.
15 When Pharaoh heard of this matter, he tried to kill Moses.
The pain and failure creates more pain and failure. Often, the pain has to increase before the transformation process can even begin – because it is through the struggle where we get prepared and become willing to give God the reigns and the freedom to begin the process inside of me.
Has anyone watched one of those bad reality shows called Gold Rush? There is a group of Christians who lost their jobs during a recession – and they live in Oregon and go to Alaska – and their pastor goes with them – and they are going to dig for gold – the amazing thing is this – they get these machines and put all this dirt in – and they put hundreds of yards of dirt through this machine and get ounces of gold – 100 ounces of gold was ½ year of running dirt non-stop. There is gold in us – that new creation – but a lot of dirt needs to be moved to get to it. And that is what God is doing here – moving Moses’ dirt – and the gold is starting to flicker.
That is the failure side – I’d like to close with the other side – of what it takes for change to take place. We can experience the power of God working in us – through the disciplines of Godliness –
After the failure – when the failure event happens in your life – Embrace Obscurity. You know how it is when you are not doing well – you can be in a crowd and feel totally alone because of what is going on inside of you – and you need to embrace that solitude – that aloneness – because it is in that obscurity that God wants to meet us and encounter us – God will only encounter you when you are alone and there is nothing else to rely on or look to – and He has to do that with us.
Second – in light of that – we need to discover a time and place of solitude – a place where we can be alone to let God work. There are natural alone times to make use of – turn everything off and allow God to have his work in you. Maybe in the drive to work or getting up early.
Then, I encourage you to schedule an hour or two where you go someplace to be alone. Maybe once/month – to let God in. And then – learn to practice the habit of confession.
1 John 1: 7 but if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
You see in Moses’ failure, there was sin involved – there is always sin involved in failure and we need to learn to confess. God gets it. All of His people need to confess. I think we are afraid of confessing – what will He think? He forgives. He is faithful and righteous to forgive. So go to God and confess and He forgives and cleanses. It needs to be a practice – a habit of our lives – to confess to God – and it is not harmful to find a friend to confess to – to share with –
And then – take an FEI
Failure Exit Interview. When you leave a company – they will give you an exit interview – do that with failure. Take an exit interview with yourself.
Psalm 139: 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me and know my anxious thoughts; 24 And see if there be any hurtful way in me, And lead me in the everlasting way.
First - Go back to go forward. You may think – I keep messing up here – Go back to find out why. What is at the root of it all?
Second – Grieve the past that caused it. Take time to sense the sorrow. What happens with us – someone has a problem with perfectionism… where did it come from? Maybe as a child, they grew up in a home where you could never satisfy or please – so you develop coping mechanisms – these are needed to survive as a child – so you decide to just do it right – to keep someone from being angry – so when you are 4,5,6, you learn to do things right or you are in trouble. For a child – that is a good coping mechanism – but for an adult – it is disturbing and damaging. You need to grieve that so you can root it out.
Third – address forgiveness issues –if there is someone to forgive, you need to live a life of forgiveness.
And then – all of this – we need to take into community – and that is what we’ll see with Moses down the road – all the transformation that takes place is not just for Moses, but for him to bring back to the community and we need to do the same – as God does the transformational work – we enter deeper and deeper into relationships – let’s pray.
Lord, thank You – thank You for Annette and Alan and their service and mission to you. It is inspiring to consider what You have done. Help us to know as a community of faith – to serve you in this world. As we look at the life of Moses – may we recognize the transformational power you want to let out. In Your name we pray.