God-centered Living

Introduction

Not this last Sunday but the Sunday before we talked about knowing and doing the will of God. Last Sunday we talked about anxiety as one of the major destroyers of peace in our homes and in our lives.

As I thought and prayed through what to share this morning I sensed God drawing me to the amazing conversation between Moses and God in Exodus 3&4.

If you are using a Life journal Bible reading plan then you have been reading through the book of Exodus and you would have read this story. 

This story needs to remind us again this morning that the circumstances, people and events in our lives are not random. It forever needs to impress deep in our souls the revelation that we can know and do the will of God.

It is a story that can speak into the anxiety, fear, dread, worry and tension you feel in your soul because of what may be going on in your life right now or what has taken place in your life in the past. 

And so lets read Exodus 3:1-10

2 truths I want us to take from this passage this morning.

1. When Life goes Sideways God Cares and gives us Reasons and Grounds to be Confident in His Faithfulness.

 The Israelites were slaves in Egypt. 

We can be slaves to fear. Fear confining us to what is safe and routine. 

We can be slaves to dread and worry driven by them to expend our energy over- preparing for everything.

We can be slaves to bitterness and resentment producing in us reactionary, pessimistic attitudes and behaviors. 

You may be here this morning and you have experienced what seems like one loss and disappointment after another. You took one hit, and another hit, and another hit and despite your best efforts against bitterness there is an edge in your response to others at times and a hardness of heart that shows itself in a lack of discipline to seek after God. 

You may feel like Mother Teresa who once said “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish He didn’t trust me so much.” 

The Israelites cried out to God in their slavery. 

God heard…He saw …He was concerned.
Let these truths settle into your mind and soul bringing the right response of trust and worship.
God always hears us…Psalm 55:17 “Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice.”
God always sees us… Psalm 139:2-3 “You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.”
We have to know this. God is not like an absent, uncaring Father, or an unfaithful spouse. Though He is unseen He is not far away. Though we cannot see Him He can see us. 
God heard the Israelites groaning. He saw their misery and He responded because He had compassion on them.
And there is another reason why He rescued them and this gives us a basis for the hope and the expectation even when life is hard that God’s faithfulness continues through all generations and extends to us.
We find this in Exodus 2:24 He remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

God responded in keeping with the covenant He made with Abraham. The covenant was this and is found in Genesis 17: I will make you a great nation; I will give you the whole land of Canaan; 

God was keeping His promise according to the covenant he had made with Abraham.

As one commentator said, “a covenantal-personal relationship is the strongest possible relationship.”

And this is what we often lose sight of: We are in a covenant relationship with God.


In the biblical concept of covenant, as Mike Mason says in his book “The Mystery of Marriage” “…two parties so bind themselves to one another that the simple maintenance of their relationship becomes the most important and central thing in all of life, the basis from which everything else flows.”

And so to be a Christian means we have bound ourselves to God through Jesus Christ and the maintenance of this relationship becomes the most important and central thing in all of life, the basis from which everything else flows.

And when God makes a covenant with us He, in His sovereignty and grace, graciously proposes the terms of the covenant and in grace He has bound Himself to those who have bound themselves to Him through Jesus Christ.

And so, as Christians, we can live putting our hope in the covenantal promise of God in Romans 8:28 that  “all things work together for good for those who love God and who are called according to His purpose.”

The word “good” is referring to God’s eternal plan for us Romans 8:29 “For those God foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of His Son, that He might be the Firstborn among many brothers.”

The promise is to transform us into the image of Jesus Christ. 

God is faithful to His covenant and remember the covenant promises of God: “I will put my law in their minds” “I will write them on their hearts.” “They will know me.”

To think as God thinks, to love as God loves, to be intimately connected to God is to be like Jesus and this is the good that God has promised to work out in us in and through all our failures all our disappointments all our discouragements all experiences, all events, all circumstances and all people in our lives.

The circumstances, people, events in our lives are not random occurrences. 

God is faithful to His covenant.

1. When Life goes Sideways God Cares and gives us Reasons and Grounds to be Confident in His Faithfulness.

2. We must be God-centered and not Self-centered.

The words of God to Moses through the burning bush:

Exodus 3:7 “I have seen the misery of my people….”

Exodus 3:8 “I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land,…”

Exodus 3:10 “So now, go, I am sending you…”

Exodus 3:12 “I will be with you…”

Exodus 3:21 “I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people,…”

Exodus 4:12 “…I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

God was inviting Moses to join Him in what he was about to do.

We have not received a burning bush.

Sometimes we can think: “ I wish God would speak to me that boldly and clearly telling me what He is doing and how I can join Him!

Listen: God has spoken to us today I believe more powerfully and dramatically.

Hebrews 1:1-2 “In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.”

God came down to Moses in the burning bush because He was about to rescue the Israelites.

God has come down and actually lived amongst us in Jesus Christ to rescue humanity from slavery to sin.

God has revealed to us, through Jesus Christ, what He is doing. He is bringing people out of slavery to sin and into a personal covenant relationship with Himself.  

And just as God said to Moses: “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

God has said to us: Matthew 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,…”

God spoke to Moses through the burning bush.

God has spoken to us through Jesus Christ.

Through the burning bush God revealed to Moses what he was about to do and invited Him to join Him.

Through Jesus Christ God has revealed to us what He is doing and he invites us to join Him. 

Now listen to Moses’ response to God’s invitation:

Exodus 3:11 “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt...”

Exodus 4:1 “What if they do not believe me or listen to me…”

Exodus 4:10 “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

Exodus 4:13 “O Lord, please send someone else to do it”

Moses was filled with anxiety, fear, and dread because he was self-centered rather than God-centered.

All he could see was himself and his own inadequacies and weaknesses. 

Jesus says in Matthew 28:19 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,…”
And in verse 20 “…surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

And we so often respond like Moses:

Who am I, that I should go to my neighbors, or friends, or anybody?

“What if they do not believe me or listen to me…”

O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

“O Lord, please send someone else to do it”

Self-centered living is marked with an attitude and belief that says: “Who am I that I could be used by God to play a part in helping people find and follow Jesus.

God-centered living is marked with an attitude and belief that says: “God you are helping people find and follow Jesus and I offer my body to you as an instrument for you to use to accomplish what you are doing in the lives of people.

Moses seemed more concerned about preserving himself than the plight of his own people. A self-centered life is very concerned about remaining within the safely of the status quo and risks very little.

Only a life centered on God will overcome the inertia of fear and the complacency so often present in comfort and prosperity.

A God-centered life will have different priorities, a different lifestyle, and a different focus than the world and this will show itself in how we spend our relational energy, our time, and our money.

2. We must be God-centered and not Self-centered.

Conclusion:

As we transition into communion have you ever heard of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? It’s a basic Scientific Law – right up there with the Law of Gravity. One definition of it says: The entropy (disorder) of a closed system will not decrease for any sustained period of time. (That was the shortest one I found.) To put it simply: everything tends to wear out, run down, or stop working. Things move from order to disorder and from organization to chaos.

According to an author named Mark Mittelberg, there is also a 2nd Law of Spiritual-dynamics. This Law says: If left to themselves, Christians move toward self-centeredness. 

If that is true, then we have to work against the gravitational pull of selfishness. There’s no way a Self-centered Christians will be motivated to spread the Gospel to a dying world.

And so in communion again we remember the covenant God established through the body and blood of Jesus Christ and we take courage in knowing that when life goes sideways God cares and give us reasons and grounds to be confident in His faithfulness.

Every time we take communion we must be challenged to live a God-centered rather than Self-centered life.

And every time we take communion we must be reminded of our invitation to join God in what He is doing. 

Explain communion.

Have a time of worship
When you are ready you come to one of the tables and take some bread and dip it in the chalice. Don’t drink from it, just dip the bread in it.