Do you guys catch the music behind that? It’s a little spinoff on I did it my way. Okay. I wanna get after this. We’re, we’re getting into the more of the core of the story of, of Moses, how there’s God’s will, God’s way. But today we’re gonna be looking at God’s will my way. And I wanna start with asking a sobering question. What is the spiritual condition? Of America today. Maybe another way to ask about it. What’s, what’s the biggest threat to faith in America now? Someone might answer, it’s, it’s atheism belief in no God, but I would say that, uh, it might be something else. It’s what researchers are starting to call in Christian America, functional atheism. Here’s what I, uh, two numbers to help illustrate this point, the number 79 and 14. According to a study done this year by the Barner Research Group and the Culture Research Center, 79% of Americans say they believe in a biblical God. Now that sounds good, doesn’t it? 79% until you read the next line. Only 14% say that God actually influences. Their daily decisions. Think about that. Nearly eight out of 10 say they believe in God, but only one in seven live as if he’s real. In that same study, only 9% claim an intimate, interactive relationship with God, and just 16% say they put God first in their lives. You see, we haven’t stopped believing in God. We’ve just politely pushed him to the sidelines. We’re living with God, like he’s an accessory, kinda like a, a charm bracelet we wear on Sundays, but not the compass that needs to direct our lives. Monday through Saturday, digging a little deeper into the same study showed that less than 4%. Of Americans hold to a biblical worldview. There were seven key factors in that, and only 25% in am in of Christians in America believe that there’s absolute moral truth. Only 25% and 71% say they’d rather shape their own beliefs than adopt the teaching of any church or faith Tradition. You see as Christian America, we want God, but only on our terms. We want salvation, but not surrender. We want spiritual inspiration, but not biblical authority. And the result, we have a culture, a generation that claims to know God, but lives as if they themselves are God. And if any of this hits close to home, you’re not alone. In fact, we’re gonna spend a few moments now walking through a story from the Bible in the Old Testament, the book of Exodus, chapter two. If you have your Bibles or devices, you can turn there with me. This is where someone tried to do God’s will his way, and it unraveled right away on him. But we’re also gonna see how God, in his mercy, he doesn’t discard us. When we go our own way, but instead he redeems our story as we surrender to his. So let me read from Exodus two verses 10 through 15. When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses saying I drew him out of the water. One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people looking this way and that, and seeing no one. He killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? The man said to him, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you did the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought what I did must have become known. When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midn, where he sat down by a well. It’s quite the story, isn’t it? This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let me pray as we continue. Lord God, we need you to open up our, our hearts and our minds to see what you’re teaching. Not just Moses but us today in this interesting kind of strange text. So quiet our hearts and then open ’em to hear from you. Today. I ask in Jesus name, amen. Today we’re gonna walk through really a painful detour in the life of Moses, and I pray that we’ll discover though, that even our biggest misfires, just like for Moses, can become grace filled classrooms where God can teach us, or, or reteach us to trust his way, go at his pace and in his strength.

So let’s begin walking through this episode with this first point. God’s will, without God’s Way leads to regret picture Moses. He’s this 30 something powerhouse in Pharaoh’s court. There’s a retelling of this story of Moses in the New Testament book of Acts that adds this insight. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action status. Check influence Czech. But every glance from Moses out the palace windows reopened an old wound for him. The sight of his own people in chains. And in bondage. And then comes this tipping point. One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. And that Hebrew word that gets translated watched, it’s the Hebrew word rah. It’s not some casual look. It’s a soul level. Observation that produces anguish in his own spirit. Moses doesn’t just see slavery, he feels it personally, deeply. And so he crafts his own one man rescue plan, looking this way and that and seeing no one. And can’t you just kind of a, you can picture him seeing no one. He killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Is that what the hero of a Bible does? Well, apparently, so Acts supplies this commentary. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not translation Moses saying, Hey, God, relax. I’ve got this. But the crowd that Moses expected to win over and applaud him responded with crickets and a blank stares. ’cause you see passion without divine permission turned into a corpse, buried in the sand, and a prince sprinting for his life. Martin Luther warned the flesh ever seeks to do the work of the spirit. Moses tried and was instantly enrolled in the school of regret. It’s kinda like me with this mirror when you’re looking at yourself and your own ideas. Ever try to amend a marriage with manipulation to lead a ministry on pure ego because prayer felt too slow. Parent by instinct alone because God seemed impractical. Hey, good goals, wrong tools. The Bible waves this red flag at us. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding in all your ways. Submit to him and he will make your path straight. And more than 700 years after this story of Moses, the Old Testament prophet, Isaiah, writes this truth for my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are your ways. My ways declares the Lord, for as the heavens are higher than the earth. So my ways than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. You see, whenever we hijack God’s timetable. We end up burying the evidence in the sand and then fleeing into obscurity ourselves. And yet for Moses and for us, here’s the gospel twist that even in exile, God can set up a classroom of grace where he can reteach you. To trust him, go at his pace and in his power. But now that flows from surrender and not self will or self-reliance. God’s will without God’s way leads to regret. Second self will dressed in righteousness, still misses the mark. I think sometimes the, maybe the most dangerous mistake we can make, it comes not from bad intentions, but from rushed intentions. This was Moses. The very day after he buried the Egyptian in the sand, he returns to the scene and perhaps you can hear him thinking and hoping. Maybe they’ll rally around me this time. Maybe they’ll understand, Hey, I’ve been sent to help you, but then this happens the next day. He went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? I mean, maybe there’s still hope in his heart, but the response hits him like a slap in the face. The man said, who are you?

Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? Yikes, ouch. Cats out of the bag. And now look how the New Testament remembers this moment. But the man who was mistreating the other, pushed Moses aside, pushed aside. That is what spiritual presumption does. We presume or assume that because hey, we deeply care, then we’re automatically right that because in our own mind, our motives are pure. Well, our methods must be also. But here’s the truth. Self will dressed in righteousness is still self will. As author and pastor Paul David Trip once wrote, you and I will never be righteous enough or strong enough to do God’s work. Our way. So let me ask, have you ever tried to help someone? Only to have it blow up in your face. You step into, in your mind, save the day, but instead end up making it worse. That’s what happens when we try to do God’s work without God’s wisdom. Now the Bible gives us a better way. If any of you lacks wisdom, the Bible says you should ask God who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. It’s what Shar read for us earlier, and the Apostle Paul urges us do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, rather, in humility, value others above yourselves, humility. But that’s kind of in short supply today, isn’t it? Barner research that did that study earlier, did one four years ago, that showed that 44% of Christians in America say they could live a full spiritual life without being a part of any church. Let that sink in. That’s DIY, spirituality on steroids, and in the ditch, it’s a trap. Martin Luther reminds us, the church is the mother that begets and bears every Christian through the word of God. That’s in the Lutheran catechism. In other words, there are no healthy lone ranger Christians in God’s kingdom. We need God’s word. We need God’s people to discern what God is saying and to learn God’s timing. I mean, Moses had the right instinct. He cared about the suffering of his people, but he ended up acting more like a, a military commando and not a surrendered servant. Because of that, he was misunderstood. He mis acted, and he was pushed aside and was forced to flee into the wilderness. God’s will without God’s way leads to regret. Self will dressed in self-righteousness still misses the mark. And third, and finally, and with hope, the desert of disappointment can become a well of grace. Race. When the King of Egypt, Pharaoh got word of what Moses had done. Pharaoh didn’t hesitate. He wanted Moses dead. And so Moses ran, he ran for his life, ran out of the palaces of Egypt, out of his own identity of, of his as a prince, out of the narrative that he had written for himself. And he fled east out of the lush Nile Delta and across a sun scorched Sinai Peninsula in the Midian, a land of deserts of shepherds. Of isolation and silence. And then here’s this quiet phrase. Did you catch it? How our text ended? Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well, just that he sat down by a well. But that’s where everything changes for Moses. I can well imagine, Moses. Thought he’d ruined it all. Thought he’d failed in his calling. Thought it was game over. But the book of Acts reminds us that this was not some happenstance detour. It was God’s design after 40 years had passed and Angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. We’re gonna hear about that coming up in the weeks ahead. But that same wilderness that felt like exile. It actually became God’s classroom and lab. My favorite radio pastor Growing up in college, Chuck Swindall reflects beautifully on this passage and Exodus. When the self life finally sits down the well of new life is near, this is where grace begins. Not in our momentum, but sometimes in our meltdown.

Grace begins, not when we are riding high, but when we are sitting down by a well. And Moses, he sat there for 40 years. 40 years of obscurity, 40 years of shepherding, of praying, of waiting. But God didn’t waste those 40 years. Instead, he was forming a servant. Martin Luther wrote, it is certain that man must utterly despair of his own ability before he’s prepared to receive the grace of Christ. So friends, if you’ve ever felt the crush of disappointment, take heart. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. And if you’ve ever wondered whether God could really redeem what feels like a waste for you, the Bible says this, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who’ve been called according to his purpose. See, Moses had to unlearn control. To unlearn performance based living to unlearn the quick fixes of his own heart that he learned in Egypt. And so perhaps do we, because God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips those he calls, but he works only with surrendered hearts. And is that you? Perhaps you feel like you’re in your own Midian. I. Right now, maybe your plans have failed or your passion is run dry, sit down by the well. That’s where Jesus meets us and that’s where Grace gets to work. I wanna share, as I’m getting ready to close a brief story of someone right here in our church. Family who’s discovered what it means to do God’s will, God’s way. He answered God’s call to serve in a ministry of, of presence, compassion, of, of caring, and listening. And let’s hear how God met him at the well and invited him into something creator. Let’s watch this on screen. Hello, I’m Ron Swarovski and I’m one of the new Stephen Ministers here at Victory Lutheran Church. Being a Stephen minister means a great deal because it gives me the opportunity to spread God’s word and to share his gospel with other people. After the death of my wife, my life changed from being very busy with her care to having a lot of idle time. I felt the Lord’s calling to become more involved with the church activities. What was important to me was to not only accept God and Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, but to follow his command to spread the gospel to other people, and that’s what I was looking for an opportunity to do. I began by going to men’s Bible study, reading the Bible, and one phrase seemed to repeat, accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and spread the gospel. After a few weeks of praying, I read in the Bible. Be patient until God gets things in place for what he wants you to do. Shortly after that, it was announced that a Stephen Minister class was planned, and if interested to apply, I knew this was God’s answer to my prayer. My application was accepted, and I began the weeks of training. The training was excellent. We covered every aspect of human behavior and learned how to deal with that and. Answer their questions and to help them with their problems. It’s been very rewarding. It’s such a good feeling to, to be there, to be with these people who need God’s word and his presence. Well, what I would suggest to people is that they attend bible study, uh, attend church services and other activities in the church to, to gain more involvement. It has been so comforting to pray and want to do his will. Which brings me closer to Jesus Christ. I thank God every day for his love and mercy. God bless you all. Hmm. Isn’t that wonderful? So what might this all mean for you? I. Well, certainly it can mean that, that your hope it’s not in trying to do better or try harder or try to get it right the next time.

Your hope is found only and solely in Jesus who has already done everything for you. Where Moses ran ahead, Jesus walked in perfect obedience. Where Moses took justice into his own hands, Jesus placed judgment upon himself for you. Where Moses fled for taking a life Jesus gave his to save yours. The Bible tells us this foundational truth. In Isaiah 53, he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. And then he rose. The tomb is empty. The penalty for all your sin is paid. Death is defeated. Grace is available. This isn’t just good advice. It’s good news. It’s the greatest news. So now what? Well live this way, learn at the well. You don’t have to carry the weight of your past. You don’t have to figure out your future alone because Jesus invites you to trust in him, not just a savior, but a shepherd and guide. To all those who believe in Jesus Christ, we confessed this earlier. He gives you the power to become the children of God and bestows on you the Holy Spirit. God’s spirit is within you and the word of God. It’s your roadmap. The Bible says in Psalm one 19, your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. So stop striving. Sit down by the well, not in defeat, but in expectant faith. And let Jesus meet you, speak to you through his word, and fill you with his spirit. Because God’s will done God’s way. It’s been fully accomplished by Christ Jesus. And now. Through faith in Christ, you are free to walk in God’s grace, to live by faith and be led by the Holy Spirit every day. Join me in prayer, Lord Jesus, when we rush ahead of you, bring us back to the well of your grace. Teach us to trust your timing, to lean on your strength, and to follow your way. And thank you for redeeming even our failures and calling us still by your cross and for your glory. And I pray this, Jesus, in your precious name and for your sake. Amen.