Sunday, May 12, 2013

A Compelling God in Goshen (Series: Go!)


Pastor Ford’s phone calls to me during inclement weather “carry-on” and how that felt to me. God is calling us to carry on...not in His stead...but with him.

Premise: God’s call to GO! is really a call to come...to Him.
  • God is calling the Church to join Him in changing the world (High Calling)

  • If the people of God merely go to church without becoming the Church and functioning like the Church...it has no power (ability to accomplish a task), authority (the right to exercise the power to accomplish the task) or purpose (true reason for being via acting out of one’s intended design.)

Much of what we call Church today isn’t recognized as Church by Christ!

  • What God offers the true followers of Christ is power. When it isn’t use to liberate and support others it becomes manipulation and control. (Manipulation is when you power serves yourself and/or suppresses others when it within your power to free others.)...Enemy loves victimization because it keeps us drunk & needy. (2 vests)

  • What God offers the church is authority. When it is not used to speak against evil systems and evil deeds, it becomes apathy. (Apathy is when you look the other way when it is within your power to do something to positively change the outcome.).....the needy are mere heart check-ups for the church!!!

  • What God offers the church is purpose. When it isn’t used to further the dreams of God, it becomes perversion. (Perversion is when something isn’t used for it’s intended & productive design and it become harmful and distracting.) Partners

Jesus Appears in John 20:19:
●Walked-thru doors ●Peace! ●Showed hands ●Peace 2x ●Sends them ●Breathes 
☞ “Don’t Hold To Me!”

Goshen (GO!): Laying the Theological Framework of Going with God (Adieu)

(God speaks of Goshen:)Exodus 8:22-23 "'But on that day I will deal differently with the land of Goshen, where my people live; no swarms of flies will be there, so that you will know that I, the Lord, am in this land. 23 I will make a distinction between my people and your people. This miraculous sign will occur tomorrow.'" (NIV)

Goshen Background:

  • Inhabited by Hebrews after Joseph resettled family there
  • N.E. Nile Delta area ~ good place for grazing animals. A working community for those who build storage cities: Rameses and Pithom
  • Rameses II, the most strategic and military might in the world was thwarted by the faith of women.
    • Moses’ mom; the 2 midwives (Shiphrah and Puah); pharaoh’s daughter (foster mom) 

****Application****
  • Was Goshen a staging place when God needed to change people’s mind so that they could embrace their covenantal relationship with God & change the world.
    • One God
    • “God sees and cares for us.”
    • God is really with us and remembers the Covenant!

  • Israel left Egypt from here when they entered the wilderness. When times got hard...they wanted to return to here!!!

  • We can’t get trapped in *Goshen. (Why are churches...and the world...are dying.?)
  • God claimed that he would make a *difference between Israel and Egypt.
  • Goshen is not merely *geographical...Neither is Canaan!
The difference is to let Pharaoh know that God is in the Lord or better translated:
“I am YAHWEH in the midst of the land!” James Buckner

Goshen was the wrong safe house! Only GOing with God is a safe house

  • We have to leave familiar miracles in order to experience God’s fresh ones. We can’t keep returning to the site of the miracle. We have to pursue God’s miraculous purpose in the world.

  • Jesus met them in a familiar place (Galilee) to send them to a very unfamiliar place (World).

  • Christ came that the Glory of God might be revealed
    • We are called to Go! & share that Glory~ carry it.

Why did first century church grow? 

●Compelling community ●Outreach to the world’s outcast ●Sharing God’s reality everywhere they traveled●They served & healed the world’s pain...

The people who wanted to return to Egypt ignored their responsibility to live in a way that produced the Messiah in the world.

Challenge/Next Steps/Application

Our faith will be measured by our “Go!”

Closing:

With the Exodus...God didn’t merely hear their cry. He heard and remembered His covenant. (*God’s promise wasn’t merely to end slavery...it was to end slavery in order to fulfill the Covenant with Abraham)

  • God didn’t save us for ourselves ~ but for something better...Partnership!!

  • When we make Salvation that personal, we’ve idolized and trinketized God’s gift

  • God designed you with Himself and the lost in mind. You are a chosen vessel

 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’“Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and compel [urge & constrain] them to come in, so that my house will be full. ” Luke 14.22-23

Are you compelling witness?

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