Do you ever feel like God can't use you anymore? Like you've screwed up too much, too many times? You don't have to look far in scripture to realize that it's never too late to be used by God. Pastor Bill points us to Aaron today. This is the guy that caused the whole nation of Israel to worship something that was not God. Have you ever done that? Led a whole nation astray? Aaron is still the one God had chosen to lead. God continued to work through Aaron and he can still work through you today.

Aaron's rod is the one that bore fruit. The people were attacking Aaron, saying they should lead instead of him. But Pastor Bill tells us that it was the Lord who defended Aaron. Aaron's rod supernaturally sprouted flowers and grew fruit when it was in the presence of the Lord. We have a choice. We can choose to be like the ones who attacked the leaders—and whose rods remained dead. Or we can follow the example of Aaron. We can allow the fruit of the Spirit to grow in our lives and defend us.

Everything that God has done, he has done so that he can be in fellowship with you. He wants to spend time with you. He wants to hear what's in your heart—not because he doesn't already know. He does. But because he wants that intimacy with you. He cares about you that much. Pastor Bill is going to ask the question today; have you met with God recently? Have you come into his presence just to be with him? The God of the universe wants to know you and he's just waiting for you to take the time.

Pastor Bill says when we complain we are complaining against God. We are essentially saying, “God, you haven't given me what I want or what I need. What you've given me isn't good enough.” Does that thought make you stop in your tracks as it makes me? When we want to complain we need to look instead at all that God has already done for us. If we started making that list, it would never end. There isn't enough room in a notebook or a dictionary to write out everything he has done for you and me.

Moses was called to the people of Israel, but it wasn't an easy calling! They were stubborn and hard-hearted people and he grew angry with them frequently. Who has God called you to love? Are they frustrating to you? Do they make you angry? What are we supposed to do when the people we are called to love are the ones making us angry? Pastor Bill says that we are to respond the same way Moses did—by going to God! God is the one who called us and he is the one who will teach us to love.

What we do in a jam says a lot about who we are and what we truly believe. We are biologically wired to fight, flight, or freeze when we are faced with a threat, but God gives us another option. Just like Moses, we can take our situations to God and fall on our face in front of him. Pastor Bill tells us that that is the most humbling physical position we can be in. We have the choice. We can fight our way out, freeze, and hope it goes away, or we can run away. OR, we can humble ourselves before God.

For as much as we admire Moses, he made some big mistakes that brought serious consequences. Because of his lack of faith and patience, he didn’t get to experience the Promised Land that he was called to lead the Israelites to. Instead, Joshua was blessed with that incredible privilege because of his faith and humility. In today’s message, Pastor Bill will challenge us to seek those characteristics in our own lives. God can do great things in you if you trust in Him and acknowledge your weakness.

God wants great things for you. But He measures greatness by a different scale than man does. We want to experience success with minimal effort or risk. Think about how much money is spent on the lottery every year or think about stock-market millionaires. But to God, success in this life isn’t measured by monetary wealth or physical riches – it’s measured in faith. As Pastor Bill will explain in today’s message, if we grow in our trust in God, stepping out when He calls us, we’ll know real success.

You need to be very careful with your complaining. God can handle any complaint you throw at Him, but as Pastor Bill points out in today’s message, when the Israelites complained to God, despite everything He had done in liberating them from Egypt, God allowed them to wander and die in the wilderness. That’s not what He wanted. He had already secured the Promised Land for them, but they trusted in their own reason and feared the Canaanites more than they trusted in their Deliverer.

All of us have people like that in our lives. People that we just struggle to love. It may just be a personality quirk, or maybe they outright persecute you. But, Jesus called us to love them. When you consider the love He demonstrated for even the people who put Him on the cross, suddenly the love we’re called to may seem much easier. As Pastor Bill will challenge us in today’s message, we can be an instrument of redemption and restoration in the lives of even our worst enemies.