The Move-On Type Of Faith

Today we're going to be in Exodus, chapter 14, today. Y'all thought we were just going to be celebrating. No, we're going to be talking about the word of God. It's going to be so good.

I wanted to remind you that we're going to be in the Bible today, cuz I'm going to start with a little.

We call it an opener in the church world. I'm really excited about this opener. What I want to do is I wanted to just celebrate what God's done over the last two years, In fact. In fact, if you, if you came at launch day or before, why don't you stand up for a second February 25th, 2024.

Look at these people.

Where are the rest of them? A little bit of churn over here in this church We got to work on. They're serving, They're serving. That's what my wife told me.

All of a sudden, you're like "Oh, my gosh, what did we do with all of them?

Where'd they go? Oh, I hope they're doing okay. They're out there serving. Praise God for your servant hearts.

But what I want to do now, as we celebrate, is I want to take a romantic look on the last two years, And in order to do that, I utilized AI.

Y'all cool with AI. You can get over it. If you're not cool with AI, I use it as a tool. It is not my treasure.

Bible says: where your treasure is there, your heart will be.

Also, where your heart is, the treasure will be. You know, I get it mixed up- Greek is an inflected language, meaning you can say it either direction and it works. You got to really interpret what the Holy Spirit's telling you sometimes. Hannah, come on, Read your Bible Right, You know?

My treasure is not in AI, but I like to use it as a tool for fun, because everything, in creation is meant for us to have authority over and rule.

That's what God said in Genesis, chapter 1. Get your stuff together So I utilize AI, As you can tell. This dude with the hat here does not look like me, Maybe a better version of me with better dimples. That does not look perfectly like Carz.

That got Ronnie pretty good, to be honest with you.

But we're going to take a romantic look on two years of Orbit Church. But before they jump into the first few slides, I just want to set it up so that you understand it, cuz I told someone and they're like "What's, what's funny about that" And I just want to tell you a romantic look on the last two years is looking at it with rosecolored glasses. I don't know if you know my name. My name is Matt Rose, So we're going to look at it with rosecolored glasses today.

And there were some crazy things that happened over the last 2 years.

Some cool things, some normal things, . But I want to look at those things from a different perspective, And so I'll try to give you a little bit of context for what was happening. I don't know if they're able to show me the picture before it pops up on the screen, but I, I'll try to give you context for what happened. And what we're doing is we're walking through our timeline with rosecolored glasses.

Let me show you the first one.

I'll give you an example. What we're doing, These are headlines. Oh, are we ready for the first picture? All right, cool, 21 days of prayer and fasting helps people drop tons of weight.

Yeah, Fear, control, anger, all these things that we dropped in the name of Jesus, because we were following Jesus.

Also, there's this guy on the left here. He lost physical weight, It's See, that's the point. Like, I try to be creative and clever. If you don't get it up your game a little bit, Come on.

All right, let's go to the second one.

Here's another one. Orbit Church donates equipment to an aspiring DJ. That's a good one, That's. That's so coded and good, It's crazy.

If you didn't know this already, right before we launched a guy- I don't know if it was a guy or a girl, I don't know who it was-, they stole our trailer and it had $50,000 worth of sound equipment in it.

Two like less than a month before launch. We never got. We never got some of it back. We, you know, God, it was our first miracle.

It was amazing, Rosecolored look.

Orbit Church donates equipment to an aspiring DJ. Make sense. Okay, If you get this, you're going to get the rest of it. If you don't, you're going to leave our church.

So just try to really appreciate what this moment is.

Can you guys see I'm going to shut my computer just so you can see it a little bit better and get it out your way? I want people who, who are willing to sit up in the front row and get spit on. I want you to have a good view. All right, let's go to the next one: Buckeye healthier after Orbit Church in feed for 2 years.

Social media: How many, How many of you came here because you saw something on Instagram or Facebook?

Raise your hand, Come on. I know all of you did. How about a billboard? I know you came If someone invited you.

That's the best way to show up at church. So I'm glad you're here. That's good, but yeah, they don't look like it. Except for Mon back there.

She got lucky.

I took her in blue hair mode. Y'all remember that. All right, Hey, Buckeye's healthier cuz we've been here. All right, Next one: Orbit Church's annual serve Week.

Orbit Phoenix makes sizable impact on the city of Phoenix.

Here's Phoenix, Here's the impact. Just a couple organizations in Buckeye. See, that was. That was low-key.

All right, come on, Let's continue.

Comedian perform shotgun wedding at church. Christmas party. If you didn't know this, you might not be a volunteer Surf team. We have a surf team Christmas party And at the Christmas party- I'm sorry, Ben, for you being way shorter than your wife in this one, but, he is taller than her.

But hey, I, I take on the persona of a comedian, even though I'm not funny, and so I do a standup bit.

And they asked me: "Hey, would you be willing to marry us". Cuz all of their closest connections were here at the church And I said, "That would be so cool". And so we married them at our Christmas party. But I had to tell them I was like, "But I'm a comedian at the Christmas party.

I can still sign the paper, but I just as long as you're cool with it".

So, yeah, it was a cool moment. It's also really cool because, man, look at our val, like the value that we have as a church, that people would revolve everything in their lives around Jesus. And so when God calls you to get into this position where you're honoring him in every aspect of your life, do it. Do it.

Why not there at a Christmas party with with the pastor? Next one: People take, go forth and multiply, literally as newborns spark new revival. At Orbit Church I was proud of that one. Rita helped me on that one, but I came up with the comment: , we really did have a lot of babies.

How many of y'all had babies in the last year?

They must be in the second service. There was a bunch of them. Just go ask Michelle back in kids. But it's cool: Go forth and multiply.

Let's go.

Next one: One man steps up as mass pandemonium erupts at first ever Easter egg helicopter drop. Now that one is like if you weren't there and you weren't on the serve team, you don't quite get it. I did. He's watching online.

I had to give honor to Eric Sapola.

They moved up to New York, but that was him at the thing and it was hilarious. Anyways, y'all should join the surf team this next year and help us make it safe. That type of fencing is the reason that we got complaints last year, But we got Yo, we got better fencing this year. It's metal.

Try jumping over that metal.

It's not going to work for you All right. Next one- It's the last one, I think- revol revolving door at orbit for those who don't want to revolve everything around. Jesus Carz, that's you, but it doesn't look like you in the back. I know you're not laughing and it seems pretty savage, but if he's watching right now, it's hilarious.

That's Jacob.

Jacob moved out here to be a part of the church and he ended up moving back. It was a really cool thing for him, but we always make fun of him that he left just for fun. We love him to death. He came and visited recently.

He may even come back, I hear that'd be cool.

But here's, here's the bigger point. When you, when you come to any church, I think, but when you come to our church, if it's, if it's something superficial that draws you, or if if you kind of loosely want to connect with God but you don't really want to give him your entire life, there's going to be a point for you where you're frustrated. And I'm just I'm going to be frank and honest with you and this is how I connect it to the message: , our vision is to help people find peace and develop purpose by revolving everything around Jesus, And we have found that when people are led here by God and they keep seeking God rather than seeking something superficial- And I want to be so abundantly clear what superficial might be. Superficial might be the right music.

Superficial might be the right preaching or the right preacher.

Superficial might be the right shephering type pastor. Superficial might be the right looking type pastor. I keep going with pastor for a second, because there's a lot of those that people have expectation of. Superficial might be the right looking people that sit down the row from me.

Superficial, might be something else that I haven't even thought of when I'm standing up here in front of you, but if you seek the Lord, he can be found by you.

And when you seek the Lord, you're going to have this abundance start overflowing in your life And you're going to find that maybe God will call you to a different city one day, Maybe God will call you to a different church one day. But here's something I can. I mean you're not just necessarily going to stay here forever, but here's what I can promise you: If, if you're not following the Lord, you will 100% find yourself dissatisfied once again in life and you will start searching some for something else. It might not even.

It might not be another church, It might be another person, It might.

It might be another hobby, It might be another job, It might be another city. But if you can't find satisfaction in Christ, you will one day end up dissatisfied and start searching the same way that you did the first half of your life: Where did it get you? It didn't get you where you wanted to be, But I'm believing that those of you in this room are called by God, to be here for this season, but you're called to connect with him at a visceral, fundamental, all-in level, And when you do it, there is happiness and excitement that comes, And so that's our vision, And today I, I, I really want to talk to you about the idea of moving from this intellectual ascent in your faith to an all-in connection with God, And I'll break down what that means over the next few moments. But I find myself increasingly- I don't know if you're a first- time guest today, so I want you to know- we joke around, But, but we just joke around because what we're doing here is so serious- Some of you got to chill out a little bit- but it's so serious what we do.

I have zero desire to create a social club.

I have zero desire, to just gather a group of friends by talking about religion. I have zero desire to do anything other than help you get to the place where you can follow God without me or without somebody else down the road. : We're going to die one day. Isn't that what Rick Ricky Jer says on the Oscars?

A couple, We're all going to die one day and there's no sequel.

He's wrong. There is a sequel. It's called heaven if you trusted in Jesus. But at some point we have got to rely wholly on him.

That's our vision, because you can get to this place where you always need to be surrounded by the people of God.

You got to choose that. But you can get to this place where, regardless of what those people do, you're still solid and deeply rooted in your relationship with God. And I think the way that you do that is by moving from just a little bit of this: I believe God, I believe in Jesus. You know, I, I disagree with any type of politics or any type of people who talk mess about this religion.

I don't really know Jesus, but you know, I believe Jesus.

I want to get out of that. It's like I don't know if this is going to make us a big church one day, but it's going to make us a faithful one, And so I want to get out of. I want to get out of that. I'm not in the business of just, concocting words that enable us to connect with one another and then we all say, kind of the general thing: I don't want just a culture, I'm not into cults, I'm into Christ Jesus, And that's what I want us to focus on And that requires us to take up our cross and follow him daily.

So I'm going to pull you to Exodus, chapter 14, give you a little context, read the Scripture and I will fairly swiftly get us through this message, because I'm really excited about our baptisms today.

In fact, if you're getting baptized today, I want to encourage you. At the end of my message, I'm going to let you know when you can walk out of those doors, if you haven't gotten a shirt yet, you can go to the merch area. They'll give you a shirt. You can go to the bathroom change.

I'll speak some really nice words.

I'll pray over you over there. We're going to come in here during our final worship song and we're going to make our, you're going to make your faith public. That's what you're going to do. I'm really excited about that, .

But in this message, I really want to convince some of you in this room- and I say some of you, cuz some of you might be doing pretty well And, at the same time, some of you- I don't know if you're convincible, but some of you in this room, you are, you're primed and ready for what this message is going to bring to you And I hope, I hope.

I hope it's everyone, but generally it's not. In Exodus, chapter 14, what's happening is God has gone to his people- Well, gone to Moses first, and then Moses goes to his people. Who are in slavery. In what country?

Just so you're tracking Egypt.

They're in Egypt, They're in slavery in Egypt. And God wants Moses to deliver the people out of Egypt into a land of promise. And so you got the 10 plagues. You've got Moses or Pharaoh, not necessarily responding as he should to the power of God through these 10 plagues, But eventually, his firstborn is killed and, Moses starts leading the people.

He- I mean Pharaoh- just kind of lets him go.

He's pretty frustrated about it. And so the Israelites start walking away from Egypt- It's kind of a long walk- and they start walking toward where God would lead them. They don't know exactly where it is. I'm not 100% sure Moses even knows exactly where the Lord's going to lead them, but they're walking in the direction the Lord called them to.

And as they're walking, Pharaoh gets a second wind and decides he wants to send the Egyptian army after the people of Israel.

Now there's still quite a ways back, but some people gain the knowledge that Egypt is following them And the Israelite peoples get they. They get really scared, stressed out and they start complaining to Moses: "Man, we were safer back there. I know it was slavery, but where we are now is a significantly worse position than where we were in slavery. We're all about to die because the Egyptian army is following us".

And Moses, in chapter 14, gives them some reassurance.

It's like: "No, like, God has called us and he will provide, He will fight on our behalf". But then Moses, the mediator for the people of Israel at the time, he goes to God himself, Yahweh, the one true God, and he, he, he's communicating to him on behalf of Israel. And as I was reading through this, as I was praying about what I wanted to share with you guys, this text came across to me differently than it ever had. You see, the people of Israel are heading toward the Red Sea, And you all know what happens at the Red Sea.

But the people of Israel did not know what was going to happen at the Red Sea.

They just knew that they were running away from people in a direction that they weren't completely sure of. We know what happened, And so they're headed toward the Red Sea. God's going to split the Red Sea, But behind them is Egypt and in front of them is a barrier, at least in their sight. And so when Moses brings their concerns to God, here's what God says in Exodus 14, verse 15.

And it says this: Then the Lord said to Moses: "Why are you crying out to me?

Tell the Israelites to move on". Now I looked in the Greek Septaggent, which is the Greek version of the Old Testament. I looked in the Maseretic text, which is the Hebrew version of the Old Testament, because I wanted to get the phraseology. Every translation that we have in English kind of says it similarly, and I'm trying to understand the full extent of this passage, and I actually got to a wooden translation of this passage that I think is really helpful when you blend the Greek and the Hebrew here.

So the way I just read it is.

Then the Lord said to Moses: "Why are you crying out to me? Tell the Israelites to move on". Now, when you read Scripture, we tend to read it just as it says and I try to take it for what it says. But when you go a little bit deeper once in a while, you actually see what's actually being said.

And the Lord revealed something to me.

It says: "If, then the Lord said to Moses: why are you talking to me about it? Go talk to them so that they move on". That's actually a more wooden, I think, effective translation. God's literally like: "And I know they're complaining, I know they're scared, I know they're stressed out cuz the Egyptians are following them.

I've told you my plan, You've told them my plan.

So it sounds to me like you need to have a conversation with this group of people rather than with me. Now, I'm not saying he was yelling at him like I kind of yelled at you a second ago, but I think that's kind of the real essence of this text. And now, I am not your mediator. I pray for you, but I'm not your mediator.

Christ Jesus is your mediator.

He died on the cross, rose from the grave, sits at the right hand of the father and intercedes. He mediates on your behalf. I'm not your mediator, I am simply a representative of the one true mediator, Christ Jesus. But I found myself connecting with this passage because every week I get the opportunity to talk to you And often I'll go to the Lord about situations I'm dealing with and I'm like: Lord, they're frustrated about this, Or Lord, they're struggling to apprehend you in this way.

Lord, I've communicated this, but I- I, I'm struggling with how to understand it.

Or, or Lord, I'm not the person. I feel like Moses a lot. I'm not Moses, I'm not a mediator- Christ is your mediator- but I feel that I can connect with them And often I'll go to the Lord And when I read this passage, I was praying for how I- I- I should you know- connect to you about this And I felt the Lord tell me the same thing. Go talk to them about the fact that they need to move on.

I want to tell you there are a lot of fears and concerns you have.

There are a lot of, difficult past scenarios that you might have encountered. There's so many different things that may have happened in your life that could be preventing you from apprehending God's nature in the way that he can be known. Again, just to quote Jeremiah 29:13, not 29:11 as we often do: Seek the Lord where he can be found, and he will be found by you, Like God wants you to know him, He wants you, He wants you to know him, and he's made himself accessible so that you can know him. So the fact that you don't know him is actually not a God problem, like he did about everything he could do to make a connection with him accessible to you.

And so the Lord- he, he convicted me.

He said: said: "Matt, go talk to them, Tell them to move on". And I was. I was thinking about the type of faith that we have. I've been reading a book with a group of people that I'm I'm walking through some mentorship with, And the book is called The Cost of Disciplehip.

It's by Dietri Bonhofer And it's a really good book.

If you want to read it, you can find it for free online or you can pay for it. You can do whatever you want to do. It's a great book. You might have to read it twice in order to fully track.

He was a German dude way smarter than me, so I had to read it twice in order to fully track.

But when he's writing this book, he contrasts the idea of cheap grace, Cheap salvation, versus costly grace, Costly salvation, And, and what he's really essentially talking about is there's a lot of people who say that they believed in Jesus, but they did nothing about it, And what he's doing is he's trying to fathom or understand, like, what does this mean for people, Because we would never say that you have to do anything to inherit your salvation, Like Christ did all that was necessary. It is by grace. You've been saved, through faith, not that on your own, that no man may boast You didn't do anything for it. You don't have to get dunked in a tank for salvation.

In fact, all you have to do is confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved.

That's all the Bible says that you have to do. At the same time, we see so many people say they confessed, say they believed in their heart, and then we look at their lifestyle and we're like: "Yeah, but it doesn't look like anything happened for you I don't see any changes". And I'm not going to judge you based on the lack of change in your life, because you might have a different journey than me- At the same time, you would think that if you believed, this intellectual idea that the God of the universe came down to earth, died down on the cross, rose from the grave, seated at the right hand of the father, father intercedes on your behalf and gives you a life that's abundant by the power of his Holy Spirit. You would think if you ascent to that belief, then something would change.

This is what Dri Bonhoffer is talking about. It's like man. How can h? How do we, how do we parse this out?

How do we understand somebody who says they believe in Jesus but doesn't do anything about it?

And as we in our little group were talking about it, God gave me a little illustration, because I will never stand up here and say that you have to do anything on your own to have eternity with God. Simply receive the grace of God, as shown us in Jesus Christ. That's it Now. That should entail every aspect of your life, though, .

And so I think for many of us, we live life.

Yeah, You shouldn't have credit cards. Some of you-, I'm just being real, Like this is not permission. Some of y'all judging me because you know what this card is. It's the first metal card I ever got- And, you'll notice that there's a sticker on it, .

Someone tell me what that sticker generally means?

. Hey, what did you say? You said it right. - Activated I?.

I haven't activated it yet, Right? My sticker on it, So that's not always accurate. Oh, okay, .

Some people leave their sticker on. You want to look like a? You want to look like a new believer, even if you seasoned? I got you.

I'm just kidding with you.

Now, this is an older card. We never utilized it because they sent us extra cards. And, and I want to keep paying the fee. This is a, a free card.

I don't know why we have a J C Penney card- We're gonna talk about this later- but I found it.

But, as you can tell, it's okay, We're still good- because it hasn't been-. Activated. It's got a QR code on it. All I have to do to activate it is scan it, but I haven't activated it, So it sits in my drawer.

It does absolutely nothing.

Now let me ask you this: Have I been approved?. Yeah, . Yeah, I got the card. I'm teaching you guys something today: If you don't get approved, you shouldn't be spending nobody's card.

I've got the card And, in fact, with these specific cards, you don't have to activate it to start getting some of the benefits. It's okay, I'm not using it anyways. And I think in our spiritual walk- and again, every metaphor falls apart, So don't don't think too much into this. But it just clicked to me that many of us have intellectually ascended to the information about Jesus, what he did on the cross and what he does currently for us in perpetuity next to the father, And we do kind of believe it, .

But because we failed to actually take a step of faith to activate it, we're still limited on the benefits that we encounter in our walk with God.

We're still limited in the power of the Holy Spirit through us. We're still limited in our ability to hear the conviction of God when his word speaks to us. A and for a lot of us, you believe this about God, but you've never taken a step. And I'm telling you this, and I want to be so careful with the way I say it: Do you have to do anything to get saved?.

No, . The answer is no. All you have to do is receive Like God. God put it right there on your front doorstep and all you got to do is open the door and say: "Thank you for this package, Lord, Thank you so much".

And once you receive that like, you have that access to it.

But that doesn't mean you're putting it to the use that he intended, And I think many of us in, specifically, Western culture, United States of America-, we have received the package, We're cool having it on the shelf and we make sure to show people that we have it on our shelf. Yet at the same time, it's gathering dust, It's not operating at the full extent of what it could, And when you don't utilize what God's given you at the level he's intended for you, you still start to feel some of the very things that you fled from. You still feel these fears, this insecurity. You feel a lack of safety.

In fact, it goes so far as you feel a lack of assurance about your own connection with God.

Now, it doesn't mean that you're not connected to God in some eternal way. It doesn't mean you're going to go to hell necessarily. I can't tell you whether you have connected with God. Actually, I can't tell you that That's between you and God.

But I'm saying it doesn't mean, just because you haven't fully utilized it, that you're not connected to God.

But what it does mean is you're not embracing the life he's called you to. And the Israelites are here. They, they KIND OF ACCEPTED THIS PLACE WHERE IT'S OKAY. You said: "Let my people go, enough, I guess we'll go with you.

These plagues aren't good.

We've seen the power of God. We're okay with this. We, we kind of, are tracking with you Moses". But as soon as he starts leading them in a direction and maybe they take a few steps, they're like: "Yo, that's a Red Sea, That's a bunch of Israel- I mean Egyptians- and they've got swords and chariots.

And we're looking at like.

We're looking at Moses and we're looking at God, and we're like: "WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO". And what we do in that moment is: it's not that we man, we're not stepping back into the world. It's not that we've completely disengaged with our creator. We still believe him, but we don't, we don't take enough steps to get to this place where we can see him do what he's capable of doing.

That's, right, .

So in other words, you never obey, And since you never obey, you never see his promise fulfilled in your life. I'm not even talking about heaven, I'm talking about abundance-, That's right, In your life, And I don't want you to live life that way. If we're called to be the fragrant aroma of Christ Jesus in this world, this is second Corinthians, by the way. If we're called to be the fragrant aroma of Christ Jesus, then it makes sense to me that when we walk around, the people around us would notice something substantially different.

That's right, .

And. And I- just I, in this church, I want us to revolve every aspect of our lives around Jesus. And so when I went to the Lord, he says: "What? Talk to them about this, Don't just complain to me about what they're thinking about".

Moses is like: "Won't you turn back around?

We've already talked about this. Tell them so that they move on". And I want to talk to you about a move on type faith, A type of faith that enables you to move beyond basic into a life of abundance. A type of faith that doesn't require certainty but can operate on a conviction, because if let me show you this, it should be on the screen as well.

Behind me here's a wait for type faith.

What a wait for type faith does is you receive the information about God and you might have sent to it- you might be okay with it, might make sense to you- I'll be honest with you- information about Jesus. If it wasn't the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I would not be standing here in front of you today, cuz that stuff doesn't always make logical sense And you might think, yeah, there's proof that he died. It's like, yeah, but let's talk about the Trinity for a second. Then, Father Son, Holy Spirit, homia- same essence, different person- Let's talk about that.

It's crazy stuff If it wasn't the conviction of the Holy Spirit that guided me in that direction to say "Yo, this is crazy, but for some reason I feel like this is the way I need to walk.

If it wasn't for conviction, if I were waiting on certainty, I would never end up where I've ended up. And the Israelites- and you see this in the flesh- they get information and they keep going to Moses looking for certainty. It doesn't stop at the Red Sea And I'm tell, the Red Sea split and they walked across on dry ground. And then they get the refee and they're like: "Oh, we don't have water either, though We don't have food".

So the quail, and also, you know, this whole mana thing, this isn't making sense to us perfectly.

Also, there's giants in the land of Canaan, and we want to make sure that we're going to be good before we take any type of step of obedience. And here's the pattern: You get the information, You wait for the certainty. Maybe you're obedient, Maybe I'm. I'm going to be honest with you: I, if you're waiting for certainty, I'll be surprised if you ever end up obedient.

Right, .

There have been very rare occurrences in my life where God fully confirmed everything before I had to take a step in that direction. I say very rare generously. I don't know if it's ever happened. I don't know if, like when we came out here to start this thing to three years ago, is when we moved out here.

I'm going to be honest with you. I know my issues. I know them. It's like: "Lord, are you going to help me with these issues before we go start this church?

Because if I don't work on these issues, then we're not going to do a very good job".

And he's like: "Yeah, we'll figure it out down the road". And I'm like: "But you want me to take a step before we figure out these issues". He's like, "Yep", And it was. It was so difficult to come out here.

And then you start discovering them and you want to scale back, but God continues to call you forward And now I'm finally getting to the place where it's like, okay, I'm on my journey toward God and he's not giving me all the answers, but I'm going to keep trucking forward, moving forward, knowing that it's not certainty that gets me to the promise.

. In fact, certainty, even if you become obedient, just like the Israelites, they landed in the wilderness for 40 years. I'm talking to the person in this room and I know you're faithful, but it takes you like two years, when it could have taken you two seconds of belief and conviction. You know what I'm talking about.

It's like I, I, I'll get baptized when, when I'm better, I'll go to church when my life gets a little more comfortable. Why'd you even say it? You said it because you felt something, But you're so conditioned to move on certainty rather than conviction. I, I, I'll move in this direction.

When God makes it abundantly clear, I, I'll move. This is where obedience rarely happens. I, I'll do it when God gives me a sign. That's why WE PUT UP A BILLBOARD two years ago- Amen, .

And we put up four signs.

One of them got trucked, One of them got stolen. Satan's trying to steal the signs, but we keep putting them up And you keep seeing them and you're like, "Wait, God, give me a sign", Literally right in front of you on your way home, every single time, because you're waiting for certainty, And certainty does not direct you toward obedience to God-, It just doesn't. In fact, certainty causes you to have a wait for type faith. That's not helpful for you And you end up in the wilderness.

Now, the wilderness isn't permanent, because God's so good.

Amen, . He, he, he has a covenant he's trying to fulfill, And if he has called you to be conformed to the image of his son, he's going to figure it out down the road. But don't have to be down the road, does it? You're sitting here right now, And so my encouragement to you is to, to, to be different.

Don't have this wait for type faith, like the Israelite people group or like so many people here in the world today.

Have a move on type faith And to move on to high faith. What happens is you receive the same information, but you actually listen to the conviction you feel within your, within your bones. You're like: I don't know. I don't know.

That's what faith is, my friends.

. Faith is? I don't know, but I really hope and I feel something leading me in that direction. Amen.

I like, oh my gosh, this is like every day for a Christian guys, Every day. But if you want to move from this cheap grace where you ascend intellectually to the knowledge of God but you never step into a life that offers your body as a living sacrifice, you got, you got to. You got to move on. He tells the Israelites to move on before he gives them full clarity on what he's going to do.

Now, to be gracious to the Lord in this, he gave them some. Moses, reassured them. Before this point in the passage He said: "The Lord's going to do something". And the Israelites?

I want to know what he's going to do.

And I'm telling you- I'm not telling you as someone who has tried to tell them what the Lord's already doing- that they're missing. And I'm I'm not frustrated, I just know the life lived with a move on type of faith is way better than a wait for type of faith. If you are waiting for certainty, you will likely never be obedient and you will never see the promise, The pro. I want to be.

So.

The promise was not heaven, It's part of it, but the promise would was that you would be conformed to the image of Jesus. The promise was that you would have a life abundantly in the present. The promise was that you would be eternally connected with God. It's not a get out of hell free card.

That's right.

The promise is not "Okay, cool, I get to live the way I want now". No, The promise was that you would be connected with God because sin had disconnected you from God. So God's covenant with you that he is going to keep, is that he will figure out how to connect you if you are one that is called to be conformed. But you've still got to have a move on type of faith, And there's some people in this room you're struggling because you want certainty, and I'm bursting bubbles today, on second year anniversary.

You won't get it. You won't. If you have certainty, then God has provided you with a blessing that he never provided me with, But that's not faith anyways. Faith is not certainty.

Faith is assurance.

It's the assurance of things hoped for, And it's that faith that produces, by nature, a response. In other words, if you have faith, that means that you will move on from this current place and become activated in your faith, And I don't know what the step is for you. There's some people in this room. You're wait, you've been waiting on certainty, but you're going to confess with your mouth for the first time, Believe in your heart and say, "I don't know what this will produce, but I'm going, I'm going to make a decision today".

Amen. That's a move on type faith. There's some of you: you've made that decision, but you've never taken that step.

You've got the card, but you never activated it, You haven't scanned any QR codes and you haven't taken the step to make your faith public. And some of you are going to say, "I know, I'm waiting on certainty, I'm waiting to get better, I'm waiting until God proves himself to me. But you know what? I'm going to have a move on type faith today And I'm going to step into that tank, because I have already confessed And I'm believing that one step is going to get me to two steps, It's going to get me to three steps And it's going to get me to the place where, eventually, I'm not stuck in the wilderness but I'm SEEING HIS PROMISES.

I don't know how many steps it is for you, but I keep stepping, hoping that God will continue to reveal himself to me.

What happens in a move on type faith is information, faith, obedience that reveals his promise. Amen, . Here's your big idea. When you move on faith, God will reveal his plan.

When the Israelites move forward, you got to give them credit.

They did. They didn't stop, They moved forward and they got to see what God was going to do. That's right, . And they kept complaining.

We don't like that about them, But they kept complaining.

But then they saw it again and again, and again and again, And over time. At some point you would think that that type of miraculous work of God's promise and covenant fulfillment would start to get you addicted to future action steps. That's what's going to happen, I can promise you. If you keep stepping with that move on type faith, God will reveal something to you that you've been waiting for way too long.

So for those of you in the room, you're ready to receive Jesus.

Maybe you're not, but you're going to take the risk anyways. Let's bow our heads and close our eyes And what you're going to do is you're just committing to God, Say: "Hey, you know what? I don't fully understand it, but I'm going to receive it today, And then I'm going to keep taking steps until you reveal more and more of yourself to me", And you're going to start by this step. So everybody, repeat after me, for the benefit of those who are praying this for the first time: Say "God, I believe" that Jesus is your son.

That Jesus is your son. I believe he died on the cross. Rose from the grave.

. Forgive me of my sin. Make me new.

Make me new. And I will follow you. And I will follow you.

Step after step after step, after step. It's in Jesus's name that we pray, Heads bowed, eyes closed. Here's what I want you to do. We're going to celebrate for you in a moment, .

But if you're one of those who's ready to get baptized, baptism is simply making your faith public.

It's not getting you saved. It is a step that you take after salvation to make your faith public, But this step is a marker of remembrance for you for years to come. So if you're ready to do that, why don't you go ahead and make your way out?. But if you just trusted in Jesus, I want you to do me a favor.

If you just did that and you're taking the risk of faith that many of us in this room have taken make eye contact with me really quickly. No one's paying attention to you except for me. May God, I see you. I see you.

I'm so excited that you weren't waiting for any longer, but that you're moving forward in your faith.

If that's, you, consider what your next step might be. One of them might be to fill out the connection card in your seat to let us know about this decision. The second one might be: there is water and there's nothing preventing you from making your faith public. In fact, that step might actually help you in your walk with God.

So, whatever step you're ready to take, I encourage you to take it.

Can we celebrate those who just trusted in Jesus?