Legacy Church
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My ID: Where's My Identity
Pastor Daniel McCabe
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About Us.
Thank you for joining us this midweek! For more information about Legacy Church please check out or website by clicking the link below.
http://www.legacychurchnm.com
How do I find my identity?
Where or from whom do I get my identity from?
Acts 7:22-30, Acts 7:34-35
Moses was educated in all the learning of the Egyptians, and he was a man of power in words and deeds. But when he was approaching the age of forty, it entered his mind to visit his brethren, the sons of Israel. And when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. And he supposed that his brethren understood that God was granting them deliverance through him, but they did not understand. On the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together, and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, 'Men, you are brethren, why do you injure one another?' But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, 'W HO MADE YOU A RULER AND JUDGE OVER US? Y OU DO NOT MEAN TO KILL ME AS YOU KILLED THE E GYPTIAN YESTERDAY, DO YOU?' At this remark, M OSES FLED AND BECAME AN ALIEN IN THE LAND OF M IDIAN, where he became the father of two sons. "After forty years had passed, AN ANGEL APPEARED TO HIM IN THE WILDERNESS OF M OUNT Sinai, IN THE FLAME OF A BURNING THORN BUSH.
I HAVE CERTAINLY SEEN THE OPPRESSION OF M Y PEOPLE IN E GYPT AND HAVE HEARD THEIR GROANS, AND I HAVE COME DOWN TO RESCUE THEM; COME NOW, AND I WILL SEND YOU TO E GYPT.' "This Moses whom they disowned, saying, 'W HO MADE YOU A RULER AND A JUDGE?' is the one whom God sent to be both a ruler and a deliverer with the help of the angel who appeared to him in the thorn bush.
Exodus 3:1-8, Exodus 3:10, Exodus 3:14-15
Now Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, "I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then He said, "Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said also, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. So I have come down to deliver them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite and the Hittite and the Amorite and the Perizzite and the Hivite and the Jebusite.
Therefore, come now, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt."
God said to Moses, " I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God, furthermore, said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, 'The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.' This is My name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
Maybe God is preparing you for something great when you can’t understand the why.
How do we come before the LORD? Do we show up with familiarity or honor? Yes, God is our friend but He is also our sovereign Lord. Do you just approach him casually?
Where do you try and get your identity?
Popularity – you may have had it, but then it’s gone.
Possessions – “check out what I have” – but that gets old really quick.
Position – you can lose that!
Performance – You may think you are good, but what happens when you fail? Have you ever failed?
Moses gives many excuses why his leadership would not be acceptable: (1) unworthy, (2) ignorant, (3) lacked eloquence, (4) others would not believe him.
Stop hiding behind your inadequacies. Look beyond yourself to all that is available to us and we can allow God to use our unique contributions.
When we know who God is then we can know how God sees us. God has a name – wants a relationship with you; See this in Genesis when dealing with Adam
Exodus 4:1-4
Then Moses said, "What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, 'The LORD has not appeared to you.'" The LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he said, "A staff." Then He said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. But the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail"-so he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand-
Moses only thought about all that could go wrong. God doesn’t ask us to go where He will not give us what we need! Will we give Him what we have?
This staff represented his identity – who was and who he was not.
For all Moses knew, God was telling him to get rid of his rod.
Staff is his identity. He is a shepherd. Now he might never see it again. He is asked to give what is his to God. Moses must have remembered a time when his hands held a scepter instead.
God knew what Moses had in his hand. God was not asking for information. God was asking for obedience.
God was asking Moses to consider what he holds. In Moses’ life, the thing he held onto had a hold on his identity! But when we know who God is then we can know how God sees us.
This stick reminded Moses, “You are nothing but a shepherd keeping another man’s flock!
Staff was used by God in so many ways:
God took that insignificant stick and worked wonders with it.
It was used to confront the Egyptian magicians
It was used to bring about many of the plagues:
turn the waters of Egypt to blood
plague of frogs
plague of lice
plague of thunder and hail
call and east wind that blew in the plague of locusts
It was used to part the Red Sea
It was used to drowning Pharaoh and his army
It was used to for victory against the Amalekites
Exodus 4:17, Exodus 4:20
You shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs."
So Moses took his wife and his sons and mounted them on a donkey, and returned to the land of Egypt. Moses also took the staff of God in his hand.
When we know who God is then we can know how God sees us.
How does He see you?
Isaiah 49:16
"Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; Your walls are continually before Me.
1 Peter 2:9
But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
Ephesians 2:10
For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.
John 15:16
You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.
2 Corinthians 5:17-19
Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
Colossians 3:3
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
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