Home for Christmas: God's Promise Fulfilled in Jesus

For you, if you are turning a new chapter, maybe you're going in a new direction, maybe you feel like God's calling you to do something in this season, you need to know when God calls you, he tells you who he is. And this is actually really significant. He really tells you who he is. Because when God calls you to do something, he's going to call you to do something crazy. If it's really a God thing, he's going to call you to do something crazy, a little scary, and most likely something that you can't do yourself. [00:36:49] (31 seconds)  #CalledToTheImpossible

So in this part of the story in Exodus,God's people had been in slavery for 400 years.And it was physical slavery.They were in Egypt, and they were literally slaves day to day.And when you are in a cycle for generations of living in slavery, it's not just physical, but it's mental, right?It's not just physical.It's your whole idea, and your identity is wrapped around this idea of slavery.And I know we can't understand somebody who's in slavery like they were in slavery. [00:37:22] (35 seconds)  #YahwehBreathOfLife

Now, Yahweh in Hebrew in the Old Testament is like God's personal real name.There's no vowels in Hebrew, so it's actually Y-H-W-H.And in fact, they communicate it in a way of like, as you breathe, it's Yahweh.It's this breath of life, but it's also God's personal name.And it's important because it's distinguishing himself from everything else. [00:40:14] (28 seconds)  #CommunionRemembers

When I was in college, I had a nickname.My last name's Dickison.My nickname in college was Dick.My whole life.And what was funny was, my wife called me Brian.I started dating my wife, my second year of college.She would come up to college, and she said, oh yeah, Brian this and Brian that.People wouldn't know who she's talking about because they only knew me as Dick in college.And then what happened is you come back, and they're like, oh, your name's Brian?There's this, they only knew me by my nickname. [00:40:42] (33 seconds)  #FreedomReclaimsIdentity

It's significant when he calls you to do something new.So then Exodus goes on, it says this, I will claim you as my own people and I will be your God.Then you will know that I am the Lord, your God, who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt.I will bring you into the land I swore to you to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.I will give it to you as your very own possession.I am the Lord.Again, he makes sure he says who he is.So when God calls you, you also need to know he promises you a new home. [00:42:00] (32 seconds)  #GodPromisesHome

I can sometimes take for granted the fact that our church Compass City has a home.I distinctly remember the moment we didn't have a home.In fact, I always love to show this picture.This is one of our first services that we had.I mean we had no more than like 60 people in our service.It was really, really scary a lot of the times because I wasn't sure if people would show up to church.There was one Sunday when we went to two and three services that I had three people show up to one service.And I preached to those three poor souls for like 30 minutes.But I knew that God had a promise for our church. [00:43:45] (42 seconds)  #TrustGodsGreaterPlan

I was sitting in my car on Highway 9 southbound.I'm sitting at the light.At the time there was nothing here.There was no building.It was an old property.The only thing we had were two old buildings on the corners.And as I was sitting there the closest I ever heard God's voice I felt like God was saying because there was a for sale sign.I felt like God was saying this is your home.And I just thought though I immediately wrote it off because it's like too expensive.Our church is too small.How could we ever build a new building? [00:44:35] (35 seconds)  #FaithBuiltOurHome

And we started down this process seven years ago sharing with the lead pastor at the time Pastor Dan and talking about what I felt like God was saying and the vision of what I thought could be because I always thought what could happen if we had a building on the corner of a highway?Like how special would that be?Talk about the easiest way to advertise about Jesus is for people to drive by on the way to Costco and see.And so here we are eight years later seven years later I never neglect the fact that having a home is significant.Coming home is significant. [00:45:10] (37 seconds)  #FromWildernessToHome

So I gotta ask you what do you believe that God is calling you to?What's the promise?What's the new home?What's the new chapter?Is it that like Christmas is gonna be different for your family this year?You know is this lifestyle that you're leaving behind or this family thing that you feel like it's been nagging is now no longer who you are?You see our home is not necessarily a physical home.A home can be a new direction.It's a new chapter.It's a new refocus.It's a new commitment focused on who Jesus is. [00:45:48] (31 seconds)  #NewChapterWithJesus

So then verse nine goes on in Exodus it says this.So Moses told the people and this is so important you guys gotta hear this.So Moses told the people of Israel what the Lord had said.So he's saying you guys no longer are you gonna be slaves.God has this amazing blessing for you.But it says this but they refused to listen anymore.They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery. [00:46:22] (24 seconds)  #DontLetDiscouragementWin

And I think when God calls you to do something you will always be discouraged by something else.It's crazy there's this really important moment you all gotta realize that if you've made a decision for Christ if you've chose to turn a new page or a new chapter when God calls you to do something you will be distracted and discouraged and you're like what the heck I'm doing all the right things like I've I've put God first like why are all of a sudden things not working out as they should work out.Well you need to know God's promises are damaging to the enemy enemy's plans and he's fearful of them and he's scared of them and so when God puts this new promise in your life when God puts this new thing in front of you what he's gonna do is distract you and discourage you. [00:46:48] (59 seconds)  #HeavenIsOurHome

So make sure to apply that to your life I don't know what you're distracted about I don't know what you're discouraged about but you need to know God's got a promise for you and it's so much greater than what we can understand we have to trust him in that moment. [00:50:05] (15 seconds)

Joshua is all the way four books later it's Genesis Exodus Leviticus Numbers Deuteronomy Joshua six books five books from the book or four books from the book we were reading in Exodus the reason why you need to understand this is this now is Moses leads these Israelites out of Egypt he leads them and they end up wandering in the desert for 40 years that's a whole other story then they come out of the desert Moses dies Joshua's leading them Joshua finally takes the land that God has promised them they take it they're successful this is their new home and here's what Joshua says. [00:50:23] (40 seconds)  #KnownByMyName

I have gave you land you've not worked on and I gave you towns you did not build and the towns where you live now you are living and I gave you vineyards and olive groves for food though you did not plant them what he's saying is that when God calls you he always fulfills his promises God always fulfills his promises there's this temporary home that's becoming a permanent home and here's the crazy ending to the story now when Moses tells the Israelites we're leaving Egypt the scholars say it takes them between 50 and 80 years to get to this point in Joshua so God promised him and 80 years later the promise came true. [00:51:36] (53 seconds)  #GodKeepsPromises

God's promises are always fulfilled just not always on our timeline now here's the problem we like our faith to be like a hungry man we like to put that hungry man in the microwave press the three minute number and it comes out and three minutes later you have a hot semi edible meal right so much of our life these days is kind of like the hungry man meal it's quick it's simple it's easy if we need information we go on google or chat gbt and it's there it's instantaneous everything we have is instant and so we expect God's promises to be instant. [00:52:30] (45 seconds)  #TrustGodsTiming

God I prayed this prayer today and I expect it today and worst case scenario tomorrow God I read in the bible and you tell about these promises why aren't they happening how about real talk my marriage is broken and I'm believing for reconciliation why is it not happening now or I hate my job and I feel like God has put me here for a season I gotta trust that you're there see we want instantaneous gratification we treat God that way but you need to know God's promises are always fulfilled when he promises them it's just not always in our timing. [00:53:14] (43 seconds)  #PrayAndTrustGod

How about this Christmas is the fulfillment of a long promise Jesus is Emmanuel which means God with us and the entire Old Testament there was over 300 prophecies of a Messiah thousands of years people were waiting for the Messiah this promise that people forgot about remembered forgot about remembered and then Jesus Emmanuel was born and the promise was fulfilled and Jesus came back to give us the real home that we wanted. [00:54:07] (44 seconds)  #EmmanuelFulfilled

You and I if you're a follower of Jesus today if you're not glad you're here we always say we give you space to process your spirituality if you're not with us that's totally fine you're processing if you're a follower of Jesus this is not your temporary home or this is not your home this is a temporary home in fact you're a temporary citizen of this world and one day when you die we go home and our home is heaven this earth was never meant to be the place where we stay and when Jesus came Emmanuel he fulfilled the great promise that God had for us that no longer are we going to be temporary citizens of this world that we will have an opportunity to go home. [00:54:53] (48 seconds)  #BreadRemembersChrist

You see what happened in the at that time Jesus was in the upper room he was with the disciples he was getting ready to go to death the disciples still didn't figure out they couldn't figure out what was going on but he was laying out he was saying I'm the Messiah I'm the promise being fulfilled that God had and they're sitting and there's a big table of food around and there's bread and he begins to pass the bread around everybody's breaking the bread and taking a piece off and what the bread represents is his body that was broken but essentially what that means is that this body that you have is temporary that we all know one day our body will die it will decompose but our spirit lives on and so he says my body was broken for you and I think it's a promise for us to remember that this is not our home our home is in heaven with our creator. [00:58:58] (64 seconds)  #BloodBoughtOurHome

And then there's the juice the juice he passed around a glass of wine they all sipped out of it and he said this wine is to remember it's the shed it's it's to represent the forgiveness of sin through the shedding of my blood again they didn't put it together yet they will after the fact but for us today it's a reminder that we're only allowed to go home because of what Jesus did by dying on the cross for our brokenness and so when we take this it's to remember that it's because of that promise that we receive his blessing so take this in remembrance of the blood that was shed on the cross for you let's continue to worship [01:00:10] (53 seconds)  #SmallStartBigPromise