Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 8, 2018 | Game Changing Moves - Game Changing Move In Egypt

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July 8, 2018 | Game Changing Moves - Game Changing Move In Egypt · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, just laying there limp.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that get you a little excited?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: You want to go back to bed?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful morning.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Wake up.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, before I start, can I lead us in a word of prayer?
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know we've prayed for these things already.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: Haiti and Brady, let's bow our heads once more.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Father, I want to call again just to show you, you know, in Luke, you know, you mentioned pray like a nagging woman, and we're gonna nag you about this.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: We think about that group of volunteers who are down in Haiti who've gotten stuck a little bit.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now there's a strike across the country, it's a mess, there's no diesel, they've got to decide whether to stay there or come home.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's just, we pray for that nation.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: We pray for the orphanage, we pray for those people who have the advancement of your kingdom at heart.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: We also pray for an individual, a young leader at this church.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, Lord, I feel a special uh concern for him.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's in my young leader's group.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Brady Sorensen is just, he needs a liver, Lord.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's he's he's gotten a couple before, but he needs one that works now and he's up and he needs it soon, and so we call upon you.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We tug at you the hem of your garment and say, would you please pay attention to this?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And would you also watch over his wife and Jess and the twins that are that are that are inside her that need to stay there long enough.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And um Lord, we uh we entrust ourselves to you this morning.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the ability, the joy of being able to open your word and see how it applies to our lives.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name, amen.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just visiting today our series called Game Changing Moves, and we're spending the summer talking about those moves, those things that you do in your life that change the whole game for you, that change your career, that sort of turn you in a new direction, that affect the lives of those around you.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: And um it's a sort of a sports metaphor that I stole from the title of a book by Chad Parks.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Chad gave the message here two weeks ago, and he'll bring the tenth in this series, wrestling coach out at Shawnee Heights, if you're just visiting.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the fun things for me has been to think through the heroes in the Bible and ask, what was the game-changing move in the life of Abraham or Isaac or Jacob or Joseph or Moses, David, or Paul, or Peter?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: There was a moment in their lives, just as there was in yours, where everything changed for you.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You made a decision, and everything since then has changed.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: There's been more than one moment.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: But so um uh I like to start with a metaphor.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: I like to start with a sports game-changing moment.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry about that.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Actually, I'm not sorry about that.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love sports, and today's uh game-changing moment has nothing to do with the Jayhawks.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: I got a lot of heat for that last week and Mario's miracle.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: This one has to do with the playoffs this January, what's called the Minnesota Miracle.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Minnesota was playing, and the divisional playoff was playing the mighty New Orleans Saints.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Minnesota was uh was seated higher, seated second, so the game was at Minnesota, but they had sort of a backup quarterback named Case Keenum, whereas New Orleans Saints have the all-pro superhero Drew Brees, who once broke my heart and the hearts of all K-State fans in a football game in the playoff.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: So with 10 seconds to go, the Saints are actually ahead 24 to 23.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: With 10 seconds to go, the Vikings have no timeouts.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: The Vikings are 61 yards away from uh from the end zone.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're on their own 39-yard line.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: They have almost no chance.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe if they threw a really quick 25-yard out, they could then try to kick a long field goal to win the game.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: But what actually happens, what unfolded, was this that Case Keenum, just before he was tackled, heaved up the ball.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: It went downfield 30 or 40 yards to Stefan Diggs.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And for some reason, the New Orleans defender fell down or tried to undercut him and never even touched him.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Stefan Diggs turned around and ran the other 60, the rest of the 61 yards into the end zone and immediately became very, very religious.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was so, so happy.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the fans went absolutely crazy, and people in Minnesota are still wearing the t-shirt to bed that says Minnesota Miracle.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're just so thrilled.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It was a game-changing moment when Case Keenum somehow linked up with Stefan Diggs, and Stefan ran for a touchdown with no time left on the clock.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the fourth in my series Game Changing Moves, I would like to introduce you to a game-changing move in Egypt.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, as I've gone through the characters of the Bible, I came across the character of Moses.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked myself, what was Moses' game-changing move?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: The move in Moses' life that changed everything for him.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: For some of you, when you think of Moses, you think of Charlton Heston.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It reveals how old you are.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Others of you perhaps have seen the Moses where Ben Kingsley was the, you know, portrayed Moses.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Not quite as gripping.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think we would all agree, however, that that moment in Moses' life when he went up Mount Sinai and he got the Ten Commandments was a game-changing move for the nation of Israel, but probably not for Moses himself.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: The game-changing move in Moses' life preceded that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: So when would it be?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure I could get some votes.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: For the moment that Moses took the children of Israel down across the Red Sea.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: We know it was a very important moment, a game-changing moment in Israel's career.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: That moment, after that moment, they had somehow separated themselves from the land of Egypt because of crossing the Red Sea, they were now distant from Egypt and they should never look back.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: That was, as you can imagine, a courageous moment for Moses because even though there is a path visible on the seabed, we can imagine.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when the waters roiling up so high on both sides, and climbing down into the seabed, the people were absolutely terrified.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Moses probably too, thinking at any moment those waters could come back over us and we would drown.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And yet Moses led them through the Red Sea and everything changed for them.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was that the game-changing move in Moses' life?
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was a courageous move, it's a critical move, important move, but it was, while a game-changing moment in Israel's history, not in Moses' life.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So back up a little bit further.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: How about the moment when Moses led the nation of Israel, the children of Israel, two million strong, perhaps out of the land of Egypt?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was a scary moment when Moses went to a group of people who had been living in the land of Goshen for over 400 years.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And in more recent years, they had been taken slaves.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: They were building these major cities of Python and Ramses, these storehouse cities, and perhaps also Heliopolis.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses goes to them and he says, you know what?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're going.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We're leaving Egypt.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: After all this time, people had to have said, you know, well, Pharaoh really gonna let us go?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he says he will.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you think the army will come after us?
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they might.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: But we're going anyway.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Was that a game-changing moment in the life of the nation of Israel?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Was it a courageous move on the part of Moses?
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: The answer is yes.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Was it the game-changing move in his life?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if we back up, back up a few years, and Moses is uh he's 80 years old, and he is uh way out east in the land of Midian, and he is a shepherd, and he is fine with living out there with his in-law's family and being married to Zipporah and being a shepherd.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you know the story.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, most of you probably have said, as I initially thought, the game-changing move in Moses' life is when he acceded, when he submitted to God saying, Go to Egypt and tell Pharaoh, let my people go.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know the story is that Moses is leading his herds.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: He sees a bush on fire.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: Fire's not consuming the bush.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: He hears a voice out of the bush, which he knows is the voice of God.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You just know.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And the voice says, Moses, I've got a new career for you.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Once you go to Egypt, I want you to deliver my people.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And he could have said, and your people as well, for you're a Hebrew.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses said, You got the wrong guy.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: You don't understand.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not outgoing, not a good public speaker.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're looking for a salesman, you're looking for a front man, you're looking for someone, you're not looking for me.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a little bit shy, I'm a little bit reticent, I'm not this kind of a person.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: God says, I didn't ask you how talented you were.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just asking you, will you do it?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm calling on you to do it.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Moses says, finally, okay.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: A game-changing moment for Moses?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, in a way.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: Certainly a moment of decision and courage, a game-changing moment in Israel's history, but you know what?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Not the game-changing moment for Moses.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you'll be surprised to hear the book of Hebrews tells us that the game-changing moment for Moses took place 40 years before.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: By faith, Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: So let's rewind Moses' life and see exactly what this is talking about, the son of Pharaoh's daughter, and so forth.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Then if you rewind Moses' life to Exodus chapters 1 and 2, you remember that population control was the method that the Egyptian leaders had chosen as a way of dealing with the fact that the Israelites were multi- the Israelites, the Hebrews were multiplying like rabbits.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So they said, you know what, need to go around.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: All boy babies need to be given up to us and killed and thrown into the Nile River for crocodile food.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we're told by Stephen in the book of Acts that even at the moment after he was born, Moses was clearly a remarkable child.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: His parents, Amram and Jacobed, recognized, like every parent does, I suppose, my child is remarkable.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: But perhaps he was standing up and he was singing worship songs and standing on his head or whatever.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he's a remarkable kid.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: He stays in his home, and his mother, Jacobed, is taking care of him for three months, and then they realize he's making too much noise.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: He's quoting the Torah backwards and forwards or whatever, and so we need to get him out of the home.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So they construct an ark, a little uh, you know, a little bassinet, a little something, uh, whatever, and they stick him out in the Nile River.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And his big sister, Miriam, hides in the bulrushes to watch.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in this amazing story, you remember that the daughter of Pharaoh comes out, she sees him, uh, the Lord moves her heart to love this little baby, and uh, and and and her, it says her servants and attendants are there, so she's clearly a person of great importance.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we know from Egyptian history, nobody was called Pharaoh's daughter unless they literally were the daughter of Pharaoh, unless they were royalty.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so she takes him.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: At that moment, Miriam comes out and says, Would you like a little help breastfeeding him?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: And taking care of him, Pharaoh's daughter says, Yes.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So Miriam says, I've got just the woman, runs home, gets Jacobed, Moses' mother, and uh.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But then at that age, when he's two and a half to three, he is taken into the palace.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: He is officially adopted by Pharaoh's daughter.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what becomes really interesting and affects the story.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: It appears to me from my study that Pharaoh's daughter was none other than the famous Queen Hot Shepset, the first great famous woman in world history, in secular records, who uh was also the first female Pharaoh.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: She was the daughter of the great pharaoh, Thutmosis I, uh, whose three sons died.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so she uh, since she was the only true child of his first queen, he had secondary wives, like they all did, she was prime royalty.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So she married uh Tutmosis II, they called him.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: That was the son of Tutmosis I with a secondary wife.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so Tutmosis II, who was weak and passive and not a very good pharaoh, ruled with Hatshepset aside, and because he was sickly, he died, and then Hatshepset actually took the throne.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, her husband had a child, they called Thutmosis III by another woman, and so she was co-regent with Thutmosis III, and for some reason Thomos III grew up and he hated his mother, his stepmother actually, and everything having to do with her.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you go, some of you have gone with me to Egypt, southern Egypt, Hatshepset, this pharaoh who had a had a hand in constructing the temples at Luxor and Karnak, her temple is also down there.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Some remarkable funerary temple with all of these statues, but every every representation of Hatshepsut, her face is is chipped off by her stepson, Thutmosis III.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's no accident, I think, that Moses, who committed murder, remember, and uh had to run from Egypt, that he did that when Hatshepset, his adoptive mother, was still in charge because after she died two years after Moses took off, uh, Thutmosis wanted to kill everything that had to do with his stepmother, and so Moses' life was spared as a result.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm I'm I'm waxing on this is fun for me, it's not fun for you.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what's interesting is Queen Hatshepset is royalty.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And in Acts 7, we learn Pharaoh's daughter took Moses and brought him up as her own son.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and in action.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: So what he would have learned in the royal school, we know, he would have learned hieroglyphics, of course, so he could read uh uh all of those obelisks and so forth.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: But he would also learn foreign languages, and he would have also learned, it was very important to them to know how to write, so it explains why Moses could easily write.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: What we have in our Bible is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, numbers, Deuteronomy, the Pentateuch, because he was educated in all the wisdom of Egypt, and he was powerful in speech and action, though after 40 years in the desert with sheep, he felt like he'd lost those abilities and let God know that.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh the motivation for my sermon came as I was sitting with children at Camp Catapult a couple weeks ago, and I'm watching these movies.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: They're showing this movie, Prince of Egypt, as we're eating lunch.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And as I'm looking at this movie, I'm thinking that's a good title because Moses really was a genuine prince in Egypt.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was raised as royalty.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as he was growing up, I am sure he noticed the millions, you know, Hebrews or whatever, these slaves who the Bible tells us were building these great storehouse cities of Phythom and Ramses and perhaps Heliopolis, and they're doing all of this work.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when you go to Central Park in New York City and you see that great obelisk, which is wrongly called Cleopatra's needle, Cleopatra lived a thousand years later, this is one of those, uh, the obelisk there in the picture on the left is actually Hot Sheps, its own obelisk, which is down there in Egypt.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But these other obelisks that you find, these great ones, there's one in London, one in Paris, two in Rome, one right outside the Vatican, and the one in Central Park, were actually dating from Moses' day and the Hebrew slaves who carved them in one piece out of red granite down south at Aswan.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: So you're actually looking at the work, I believe, of Hebrew slaves.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: So when you see that, that's a reason to go to Central Park and touch that obelisk, which was probably touched by Hebrew slaves.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the question: as Moses is growing up, when does he realize his true identity as a Hebrew?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the movie Prince of Egypt has a really interesting way of deciding that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that he was out wandering at night and he wandered into the Hebrew camp, and he ran into what he did not know was his true sister, Miriam.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to show you the three-minute clip from that.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Those of you who watch this online are not able to see that, check out the movie.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to show I want you to see this really nice picture of Moses discovering his true identity, and then we'll apply that.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we don't know for sure that that was the moment, you know.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, that's uh that's a well-done representation of sometime during when he had come of age, Moses learned of his true identity.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, here he is, his name is Moses, and that's the same name as the Pharaoh.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: Tut Moses, Amos.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now, all of those pharaohs, they have Moses at the end of their name.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: So of course he thought he was royalty, expected he was royalty.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So now he has a game-changing decision.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we read in Hebrews that he refused, came to a distinction, he had this game-changing, life-changing decision.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Notice he moves away and he stands over by his people, the Hebrews, the afflicted, the slaves, and refused any longer to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: Why did he do that?
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: He chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for Caesar.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can see why the inspired writer of Hebrews says this was the turning point, the game-changing move in Moses' life.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: How does that affect us?
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: What difference does that make?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you can see it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why do we fear to admit our identity as believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, as Christians?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this text, Moses' temptation, is our temptation.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: For one reason, we crave pleasure.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: For another, we crave praise.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Remember?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: Moses legitimately has a tough decision.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because after all, to stay as royalty gives him all of the pleasures of having a temple built in his own name, just like uh his sister, who's seven years older than him, Hatshepsit, and uh who adopts him as her child.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: He has all of the money, he can have all of the women he wants, and so this is a major, major decision.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: And the other reason why we hesitate to publicly and primarily identify ourselves truly as believers and followers of Jesus is that we crave praise, human approval.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Many among the believers believed in Jesus, we read in John 12, but because of the Pharisees, they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue, for they loved human praise more than praise from God.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do we?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we sometimes love human praise and prefer it to the praise of God.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's why we have Secret Service Christians, that's why we hide, that's why we don't confess Christ, that's why we perhaps are afraid to pray up in a restaurant.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lacrae, I think, is right.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's LaCrae who said this that if you live for people's acceptance or praise, you'll die from their rejection.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: But that rejection is just a word away, isn't it?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love the story.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, was it?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was Dan Quayle.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: He's a conservative Republican from Indiana, and he'd been vice president, you know, and the story is told that he picked up his daughter, he's back in Indiana, he pulls up to the red light, and the car pulls up beside him, the window rolls down, the guy says, Wow, you are the spitting image of Dan Quayle.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Dan Quayle joking refers, he replies, he says, Wow, who'd want to look like that guy?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy says, Yeah, I know exactly what you mean.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: My friend David Brickner has been here to speak, was saying recently that uh a friend of his, a woman that he knows, a young woman, told her parents that she had just become a believer in Jesus.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know what the response was?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: We'd rather you'd told us you were pregnant or a prostitute.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you confess your true identity, you can lose the praise and the acceptance of men.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: And the Lion King, uh, there's there's some of those.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's some of the great, one of the best things about Lion King is they have some good lines.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: One of the early lines in Lion King, the the old guy, the the dad, is Mustafa, actually James Earl Jones, you know, who looks like a Lion.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and so he's in a bad mood one morning, and this is all extra, but I mean this this one of his attendants goes, Um, what does he say?
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: He says, What's eating him?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And another attendant goes, says, Nothing.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's at the top of the food chain.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And and great, great quick lines, but you know what?
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: I really like the lines.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Mustafa, recognizing his years may be numbered, is saying to his to Simba, you know, the star, young lion, he says, I will always be watching over you.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds very biblical, doesn't it?
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then he says this, then he says this.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, always remember who you are.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the major points I think of the story about Moses and his game-changing move is that you need to go through life remembering and confessing publicly and primarily who you are.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: And that's my message this morning: a game-changing move, publicly declare your identity.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Not saying it's going to be easy, but I'm inspired by the stories of other people who do it and have done it.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm inspired by the story of Professor Ken Elzing, a distinguished professor of economics, University of Virginia, who says it was a Jewish colleague and a very dear friend who early in my career told me I owed it to my students to let them know what made me tick.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: He told me that professors who are avid sailors make that known to their students and ask why should a Christian be exempt from this?
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: I could think of reasons why.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: One is that it's scarier for some of us to concede that we follow Jesus than that we operate a sailboat.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Boating seems like a hobby.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Being a born-again Christian to some seems like insanity.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: The other reason, by the way, he said, is that some people think that it violates separation of church and state.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: If a professor at a university just even mentions that he's a Christian.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, it doesn't.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, years ago when I took a course in astronomy at Washburn, I was just blessed and blown away by the head of the head of physics and astronomy department.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: He started the class, first class, and the last class of the year, confessed publicly, in front of a hundred students.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: He was a Christian and he believed the Bible.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Inspired by that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: Professor Elzinger continues.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, I started telling my classes that I was a Christian, and I began praying about my office hours, that I would see them not as a burden, but as an opportunity, and I began to pray that the Lord would bring to my office that day one student with whom I could share the gospel, either through specific evangelism, witness, or through sharing something of what Jesus means to me, or helping in some special way.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: It would be an exaggeration to say that this has led to hundreds of conversions, but it has led to many conversations, some of which have led to conversions.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: That inspires me.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Here's a person who boldly and publicly confesses his faith.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: But of course, I don't need to tell you that it's harder to publicly witness or to admit, to publicly profess your faith in Jesus Christ.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's harder to do that than to admit other things.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Today, I, you know, read this little excerpt in a well-known British magazine called The Spectator, in which a writer writes, I was telephoned from Australia this week by a friend who for years has been struggling with the question of whether to conceal his homosexuality.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've always urged him not to.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: I've told him, the writer goes on, I've told him that people that you care to impress will always, you know, you know, they won't be bothered by that fact.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: So please be open about it.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: But he had not telephoned from Australia about that.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Matt, he said joyously, I've become a Christian.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm born again.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you immediately.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell everybody.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: And all I could do was mumble.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm pleased for you, Charlie.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Inwardly, I thought, I hope he doesn't feel he has to tell everybody about it.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: It would be pretty embarrassing.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: And out loud to him, I caught myself saying, It's a big step to announce this sort of thing, Charlie.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: You'll lose friends.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: You ought to think twice and maybe keep it to yourself.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: It is hard to publicly and primarily confess your true identity, isn't it?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's inspirational when people do it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite stories about that was a former Kansas City Royal, a utility player.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: He was always just bounced around.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: He played all the positions on the diamond, except for pitcher, until the day that I want to share with you, Jerry Terrell, this utility player.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And the story I want to tell you dates from the late 70s.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: I was here and I like Jerry.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he Royals were playing New York Yankees that day, and they were having about as much luck as they're having this season.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they were down 10 to 1 by the fourth inning, and they were down 16 to 1 by the eighth inning.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Galen Sisko, who was then the pitching coach at the Kansas City Royals, came down to Jerry.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Jerry, you've always been bugging Whitey Herzog and me that you played every position on the diamond except for pitcher.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: You'd like to play pitcher.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've run out of pitchers.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: Will you pitch the ninth inning?
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: Jerry Terrell said, Would I?
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: That'll be great.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so he went down to Whitey Herzog.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, you want me to run down to the bullpen?
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Whitey Herzog says, We're down 16 to 1.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to go down to the bullpen.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if you warm up or not.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: So he took a few throws in the dugout right there.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he put him into the ninth inning.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I went out to the mound.
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: My first practice pitch went 45 feet, bounced 30 feet over John Watham's head.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: John Watham started laughing, and the umpire didn't want to throw the ball back to me.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was afraid I'd hurt him.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: I got through my warm-up pitches, he said, and he said, then John Watham came out to the mound.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And John Wathon says, Well, what would you like to show us, big guy?
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, I said I've got kind of a curve and kind of a slider and kind of a fastball.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And Wathan said, just throw the fastball right down the middle of the plate.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just batting practice.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just go.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, I threw a fastball right down the middle, cut it a little bit, and the guy popped up third base to Clint Hurdle, who's playing third.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Wathan's smiling behind his mask.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Second guy comes up.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I throw the same fastball, the guy pops up to shortstop.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: John Wathan comes out to me.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: He says, That's pretty good.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Two pitches, two owls.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: What would you like to throw the third guy?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, that fastball's working pretty well.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Let's try it again.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So he says he threw the same fastball, cut it a little bit.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: Guy popped it up to Willie Wilson in the center field.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: After the game, it was a slaughtering, but nobody was interviewing the New York Yankees because Jerry Terrell was the first player in history, a non-pitcher who had ever come in and gotten three people out in three pitches.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says they're all around his locker.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: He says, in the middle of interviewing him about how he felt and so forth, one of the reporters says, Jerry, yeah, we know you're a very religious guy.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I said, No, I'm not.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not religious.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: And the guy laughed and said, No, no, no.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh level with us, we know you're a religious guy.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: And Jerry said, No, I told you I'm not religious.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he said, he said, the AP was there, Associated Press, the UPI was there, and so forth.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And they said, uh, excuse me, then what are you?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Jerry Turtle said, I'm a Christian.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: The reporter said, No, that's what we were saying.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: We were saying you're Christian and religious, same thing.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: Jerry said, No, I'm not religious.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Someone from UPI said, excuse me, would you mind telling us what the difference is between being a Christian and being religious?
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how the next day he says it all over the world.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: People were reading the difference between what it means to be religious and be a Christian.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's inspirational when someone like Jerry Terrell gets to explain the faith by saying, I am a Christian.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: So the message for this morning, the message from the life of Moses, is rather simple, and that is publicly declare your true identity.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: This last week.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I have this thing called Serious XM or whatever in the car.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a radio station.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can hear a lot of things, and I like listening to the comedy channel sometimes.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm listening to a comedy channel.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: To my surprise, I hear I hear this this week.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'll just try to tell it sort of as I heard it.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: The guy's name is Larry Gilliland, and Larry, or Steve Gilliland.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: And he's talking about, and he starts talking about his Christian mother, and he says this about her.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: He says she just wasn't a normal Christian.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: She was John 3.16, King James Version, born again.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the sweetest name I know.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Tracked passing God's Left Me on Earth to tell everyone I meet about Jesus, Christian.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: He said it would drive me crazy.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a Christian.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: He said, now I am, age 38, I became a Christian.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: He says this.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: I love the fact he says this on the Comedy Channel.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: But he says at that time it would just drive me crazy how she would witness to anybody that we would run into.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was always embarrassed.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I would go, please, Mom, no.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And one time he says, we were going to fly together on Southwest Airlines.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: I like flying southwest.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: I like the open seating.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_00: And my mother couldn't understand the open seating thing.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she was all confused.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Explain it to me one more time.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I said, Mom, don't worry about it.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the first seating group.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: We'll get on the plane.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: We get to choose whatever seat we want to sit in.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: We can sit in any seat we want.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: She said, any seat?
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I said, any seat.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_00: But then going down the jetway, he says, My mother says something that made my blood turn to ice.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I wonder who God has privileged, who God has preassigned to sit by me.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, Mother, he said, I said, Mother, it's open seating.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: There are no assigned seats.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, No, you don't understand.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: There are assigned seats.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord has a blueprint for your life, and he's going to have someone sit beside me who needs to hear the gospel of salvation.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: And Steve says, Oh no.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: So he says, I whispered to her as they're we're in the jetway waiting to get on.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: I said, promise me, you won't embarrass me by talking to the person beside us next to us about Jesus.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: She said, I can't promise you that.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, no, no, no, please.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: For my sake, listen.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: When people ride on a plane, they want to relax, they want to read, they maybe want to do some work.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: They don't want to get evangelized.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: At least promise me, he says, that you won't say anything to the person next to us about Jesus unless they ask you first.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, What?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, just promise me, this person next to you doesn't bring up God religion, the Bible salvation, whatever.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: You won't bring it up.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Oh, come on.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for your sake, okay.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'll promise you, if they don't start it, I won't.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, What are the chances?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: Here comes a big guy down the aisle.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: We're sitting in aisle seven.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Here comes a big guy down the aisle.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: He stops, he looks at the seat next to my mother, and he points at it and he says, Ma'am, is that seat saved?
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: He says, My mother first looked at me with this triumphant look on her face.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: She looked up at him and she says, That seat's not saved, but I sure am.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_00: Great story.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: A woman who was unafraid to publicly declare her identity.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: When I was growing up, when some of you were growing up, remember that chorus, I'll tell the world that I'm a Christian.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not ashamed his name to bear.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell the world that I'm a Christian.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'll take him with me anywhere.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell the world how Jesus saved me and how he gave me a life brand new.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that if you trust him, that all he gave me, he'll give you.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: So my point's really simple today.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, you have to know who you are, your true identity.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a Christian, I'm a believer, I'm a Jesus follower, I'm adopted by God, I'm a new creation, I'm a child of God, I'm a citizen of heaven, I'm a servant of Christ, I'm an enemy of the devil, I am a friend of God.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Game-changing move.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Decide that you will publicly declare your true identity.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bow with me in a word of prayer, and I'll have the band come out.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Enclose us in a song that'll allow us to talk to God.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we're so blessed that you have made us who we are.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: You tell us to remember, always remember who we are.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: We ask that we would not only remember it, but then speak it, stand up for it, make it known.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Not crave pleasure or popularity so much that we flee publicly declaring our true identity.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name we pray.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.