Inspire Ohio 2012

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Advent HOPE Kettering

Elliot Smith

Does God Have Favorites?

Heard a positive comment here, I shared this with some friends as I was preparing this over the last couple weeks and got some real strong no's, no, God loves everybody the same, He doesn't have favorites.

Well let's break it down a little bit and think, do parents have favorites?

Those of you who have siblings, did your parents have a favorite son or daughter?

Did, if you're a parent, do you have a favorite son or daughter?

It gets a little bit uncomfortable doesn't it?

We're going to confront this because to me the Scripture that was read, and if you have your Bibles please open them back up to Exodus chapter 3, I think we see a little indication here of, if I can be bold enough to say, 1 of God's favorites.

And the reaction that happened is I think a typical reaction not just for Moses in his time but for you and I in our time, how we respond to an encounter with God, a holy God, and how that makes an impact on us and does it change us.

Let's bow our heads and let's pray once more.

Heavenly Father as we open your word and we seek to encounter afresh a new glimpse of you.

I pray, Father, that you would anoint my tongue, that anything spoken here would only be done because it's your truth.

That God, you would purify our hearts and our minds, that we would understand spiritual things, and more so, God, that we would leave this place changed not because of my words but because of you.

Please Lord convict our hearts we ask this in Christ's name, Amen.

As you see this encounter with Moses 1 thing that struck me is that there's something in common with a lot of biblical figures about this idea of does God have favorites.

And I'd just like to put up on the screen some of these individuals or groups and see if you can tell me what they all have in common.

And I'll put the last 1 up there to make it even maybe a little bit more clear.

It actually is something that Chester introduced last night, and I just told him briefly this morning that, boy, God must be really working on something to inspire multiple people to speak on this issue.

If you look at all of these individuals I would present to you this morning, that they did their most work, and in the case of Jesus, He was this all the time, when they embraced humility.

When they embraced their humility and their emptiness is that's the point that God was able to use them all to the greatest impact that they had on this world.

And to me again you think about this, we have a lot of things going on in our world where people want to be counter-cultural, where people want to be revolutionary.

What I present to you today is the most revolutionary thing you can do is to embrace the humility of Christ.

What more of a counter-cultural revolutionary stance could you take?

And it pains me to say this, but even inside the church, to be willing to take on the role of humility.

I'll be honest with you, sometimes I'm convicted as I stand up front, whether it's here or in church, and I feel in my bones that to stand up in front in church many times is fraught with danger because of this issue of humility.

Because we are so prone to lift up people who stand in front of us.

And people who are standing in front are so prone to lift themselves up.

When in reality as I look at a church and I try to look at where do I see the image of Christ, where do I see the humility of Christ?

I'll be honest with you, I see it when I go into the church late at night and I see the volunteer cleaning the bathroom.

When I go in early Sabbath morning and I see the deaconesses getting the potluck food ready when no 1 else is around.

When it's sure that no 1 will get the credit for it, no 1 needs to know, that that's where the humility of Christ shines.

And I would just challenge us all to think about this.

As you read, or as was read in Scripture, Moses has this encounter, this encounter with a holy God.

He's told to take off his shoes because the ground is so holy, right?

And yet what happens following this, and what I'm going to lead you through is even in the face of a holy God, what does Moses do?

Some of you know the story well, what does he start saying to God?

But, but God, I, I, but God I, but no God, no.

And yet I would ask you, do we do the same?

I believe with faith that we have the same encounter with a burning Holy Spirit as Moses had with that burning bush.

And as Chester said last night when that Spirit comes into your heart and convicts you with a fire, how do you respond?

And I'll give you my own 2 cents on this is the response is not tied to your attendance at an event, your response is not tied to your attendance at church, your response is serving through humility, Jesus and the world around you.

That's when I see typified in the life of Christ, that's when I see typified in those other people that God worked powerfully through.

People who not only had the encounter with God, but because of the humility that they embraced had an impact upon the world.

I want you to See this text from 1 Peter 5, verse 5.

He says, Likewise, you younger people, submit yourselves to your elders.

Yes, all of you be submissive to 1 another and be clothed with what?

For God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble.

The pen of inspiration I think also says it, and I like what Ellen White says, she writes, I saw that the strength of the children of God is in their what?

When they are little in their own eyes Jesus will be to them their strength and their righteousness and God will prosper their labors." Does that give anybody else a tingle right now?

To think about through humility it's not just meant so that we are humble people but to basically be the catalyst for what we then go out and do.

I believe that the Christian life looks a little bit like this path, and I don't know if you can see it terribly well, but this is the path of discipleship.

We would sometimes call it the path of sanctification, correct?

And essentially on this path you have 2 sides.

And what I present to you today, this morning, is that on 1 side we have basically the pitfall of arrogance or pride.

Chester talked about this last night, sometimes it falls into self-work, self-salvation.

That's 1 path that we can fall off of, or at least 1 side.

On the other side, you have a side that I think Moses fell off, and we're about to study this, is this path is the path of doubt and fear.

What I'll present to you through this is I believe it really is encapsulated in doubting God.

The lesson from Moses we can learn first is found in Exodus 3, verse 11.

1 of his first excuses as you read this, and I'm putting my own words here, is that Moses essentially tells God, I'm a nobody, Who would listen to me?

Well, I don't know about you, but sometimes the most impactful people in my world are the people with the least amount of authority.

To me, it's amazing to see the impact that strangers have on each other, typically on airplanes, people who have no connection whatsoever, and yet every time I ride an airplane I'm always curious to see the conversations that start around me or maybe with me and someone else.

It's amazing to see the respect that people will give an absolute stranger because of their willingness to share their life just in that brief hour or 30 minutes.

Is that many times we don't understand I believe what Scripture clearly teaches, 2 Corinthians 4, 7 it says, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that what?

The surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

See this is the problem with Moses' excuses and our excuses that were partly true.

In other words Moses was right, he was kind of a nobody, he had lost his prestige because of what he had done, right?

And so he was correct to say, who's going to listen to me?

And yet if you read through this passage you see that it really isn't about who God is calling, But instead it's about what?

In other words the issue here wasn't so that Moses could become the legend of Israel, it was so that Yahweh would become the legend of the world.

So that His name would be the name that would be lifted up to Israel and Egypt and subsequently to the entire world.

Another place in Paul's epistle to the first Corinthian church he says, "'For consider your calling, brothers.

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth, but God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise.

God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God." 1 of the greatest sins I think that we commit in church is when we become boastful.

In other words, when we have a program, when we have an event, when we have something and in any way we give the credit to a person rather than to God.

It's a battle that Moses faced, I believe.

It's a battle that any leader faces of being conscientious to give credit and to give praise to God.

And in the same way to trust that God can use the ordinary things.

That you don't have to wait for the ultimate degreed person.

You don't have to wait for the person who has the most resources and the most talent or the most charm.

That God oftentimes uses what I would consider we would label as the ordinary.

The way I would sum up this lesson is that when God calls you to a task He always goes with you.

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Does God Have Favorites?

Transcript

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

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Confidence in Crisis

Confidence in Crisis - Part 8: Who Moved the Cheese?

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6. Cutting Timothy

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Alistair Huong: Examining Our Motives

Why Am I A Christian?

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His Heart Was Different

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The Call

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Sound Doctrine