Trust Him

Believing in God is something different than believing God.  We can believe in a God but not believe what God says.  It’s a step of faith to believe God.

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. (Exodus 12:21-23 NIV)

Trusting God, however, requires even more.  It happens when we remove all barriers to our faith and believe that God is going to do what God says He is going to do.

"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.'" Then the people bowed down and worshiped. (Exodus 12:24-27 NIV)

Sometimes trust simply takes time.  We need to see God at work over a period of time before we trust that He is consistently true to His word.

The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron. (Exodus 12:28 NIV)

Some of you are reading this today and saying, “Didn’t we just read these Scriptures yesterday when Pete was talking about believing?”  Yes you did.  But you read the rest of the post anyway because you have built a trust in me any my writing.  This trust came over time.  It came with consistency.  So, you stuck with me.  The same pattern happens with God.  We put our trust in Him builds with time and consistency, as God does what God says He is going to do.

And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. (Exodus 14:31 NIV)

How about you?  Do you trust God?  Did it take a long time for God to build that trust?  Do you still need to trust God more?  What would build your trust in God?

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21 NIV)

Believe God

Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness. (Genesis 15:6 NIV)

Living out our part of a God-sized vision is not about how well we can dream.  It’s about how faithfully we believe.  Every example we have of a God-sized vision in Scripture is revealed by God to His people.  They don’t need to put together project plans with Gantt charts and budgetary constraints.  They simply need to believe what God says and then do what God tells them.  That was the case for Abram.  That was the case for Moses.

Then Moses summoned all the elders of Israel and said to them, "Go at once and select the animals for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter your houses and strike you down. (Exodus 12:21-23 NIV)

The Israelites could have lost over 22,000 firstborn children that night.  The angel of death was coming through the towns of Israel in the same way that it went through the land of Egypt.  Their children couldn’t be protected by swords and spears.  Even modern-day machine gun fire wouldn’t have been enough to keep them safe.  There was only One who was able to keep their children from death.  That One was God.  In order to save their own children, the Israelites needed to believe God…and obey.

"Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance for you and your descendants. When you enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this ceremony. And when your children ask you, 'What does this ceremony mean to you?' then tell them, 'It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.'" Then the people bowed down and worshiped. The Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron. (Exodus 12:24-28 NIV)

They obeyed, so their children lived.

How about you?  Do you take God at His Word?  Do you believe Him?  Do you believe Him enough to obey?

People’s Responses

God-sized visions are not just accomplished by God fulfilling God’s promises.  The way the vision is carried out is directly impacted by people’s responses.  When God said, “I will set my people free,” we know that God was going to set His people free.

Let’s assume, for a moment, a scenario where Moses said yes to God’s call right away, the story may have looked different.  Perhaps Aaron would never have been pulled into the team.  Maybe the tribe of Levi, the priests, and the High Priest in the line of Aaron wouldn’t have been a part of the picture later.  God didn’t promise them that they would have a tabernacle, a temple, priests, etc.  He simply promised, “I will set my people free.” 

When Pharaoh sent his army into the middle of the Red Sea after Israel, they may have lived had they disobeyed orders that day.  God, after all, was showing that Pharaoh was not a god at all.  Embarrassment at his whole army revolting may have done the job just as well as destroying the army in the Sea.  We will never know.

The point is simply this:  God’s plan is brought to fruition through the combination of God’s promises and people’s responses.  The question, then, is never whether God will accomplish His purposes or not.  The question is simply what part you and I will play in that plan.  Will we live lives trusting in and relying on God’s promises or will we be among the ones who keep fighting God and lose.  The choice is ours.

Now the LORD had said to Moses, "I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely. Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold." (The LORD made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh's officials and by the people.) (Exodus 11:1-3 NIV)

Am I the only one who found this command strange?  The people of Israel were getting ready to escape the oppressors in Egypt.  They were packing their bags, having the first Passover meal, and waiting for the orders to get out of town. Before they leave, though, God commands them to talk to their neighbors and ask for articles of silver and gold.  Why in the world do they need silver and gold in the desert?  Not only that, do I really want to be asking the guy who just beat me today for not making bricks of straw fast enough, to give me his silverware and any gold he has?  It’s my choice, though.  God gave a command.  God gave a promise.  What is my response?

The Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and for clothing. The LORD had made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and they gave them what they asked for; so they plundered the Egyptians. (Ex. 12:35-36 NIV)

Israel responded well.  How about you?  How do you respond to God’s promises?  How do you respond to God’s commands?  How does that change the story?  How does it change the way God’s plan comes to fruition?

God’s Promises

God-sized visions are not about coming up with big plans.  God-sized visions happen when we start with God.  God is much bigger than we can possibly imagine and God’s picture is always perfect.  (God doesn’t have any problem seeing how things are and how things are going to be.)  Imagining God’s vision, then, begins with God.

One of the easiest ways to see God’s vision is to pay attention to what God has said.  That’s why we read God’s Word: the Bible.  In Scripture, we find stories of people interacting with God over the course of thousands of years.  People in the past were given the same opportunities to see God’s vision that we are given still today.  Here’s how it works.

God tells people what He is going to do.  He tells them why He is going to do it.  Often times, He even tells them why.  Then God does what He said he was going to do and reminds them why He did it that way.  This may seem like an oversimplification, but it holds true throughout the Old and New Testaments.  When God tells people what He is about to do, He is casting His vision for the future.  He is giving them a promise.  Here are some examples:

So 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, a land flowing with milk and honey--the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. (Exodus 3:8 NIV)

God is giving Moses two promises here:

1. I will set my people free.
2. I will give them the land I promised to their ancestors.

When God makes these promises, He is casting a vision as to what will happen in the future.  In this case, God also makes another promise.  This promise is sandwiched between promises one and two above.  It goes like this:

And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain." (Exodus 3:12 NIV)

When God sets His people free, they will make it as far as Mt. Sinai, where they will worship God for performing this impossible act.  Once they make it to the mountain, this will fulfill two promises God made to Israel.  These two promise-fulfillments, then, are intended to give them the courage to go to step three – entering the promised land.  God gave them reason to believe His promises, because God was true to His Word.

How about you?  Do you see God being faithfully true to His word?  Do you know His word well enough to compare a vision to His Word?  Do you trust God’s promises?

Imagine

Then Moses climbed Mount Nebo from the plains of Moab to the top of Pisgah, across from Jericho. There the LORD showed him the whole land--from Gilead to Dan, all of Naphtali, the territory of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Mediterranean Sea, the Negev and the whole region from the Valley -of Jericho, the City of Palms, as far as Zoar. Then the LORD said to him, "This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said, 'I will give it to your descendants.' I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it." And Moses the servant of the LORD died there in Moab, as the LORD had said. (Deuteronomy 34:1-5 NIV)

Moses did not get to enter the land promised to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and to himself.  It was time to leave this life.  He had finished the race.  But he got to see the promised land before he died.  The rest, he would have to imagine.

Moses had plenty of reasons to believe that God would bring the 2+ million Israelites into the promised land.  He had a front row seat when God brought ten plagues against their Egyptian oppressors (Exodus 5:1-12:51).  Moses watched God provide a pillar of fire and smoke to lead them, and then used that pillar to protect them from the Egyptian army when they prepared to attack and slaughter the Israelites (Exodus 14:19-20). I wonder if Moses was surprised when he lifted the staff over the water and watched the Red Sea divide in front of him, providing an escape route for Israel’s descendants (Exodus 14:21-30).  Moses had every reason to believe that God was going to bring Israel into the promised land.

This series is about imagining what God is going to do in and through His people today.  It is about realizing that the same God who parted the Red Sea is alive and active today – and wants to work through you.  He wants to empower, equip, and encourage one more to walk together with Him and you are one of the people he is sending.  Like Moses, you don’t have any special powers in and of yourself.  Also like Moses, though, the Spirit of God dwells in you who are in Christ Jesus in a special way.  His power is available to you.  He is giving you special gifts to use.  God wants to work in and through you.

So, how about you?  Can you imagine the God who created the heavens and the earth wanting to work through you?  Can you imagine engaging, empowering, equipping, and encouraging one more to walk together with God?  Can you imagine what God can do through you?