The Blessing Of Not Belonging - Tim Timberlake

In this powerful message, we journey through Acts 7 as Stephen highlights the life of Moses to reveal a countercultural truth: sometimes the greatest blessing is not belonging. Through rejection, wilderness seasons, and misunderstood obedience, God forms His people before He positions them. This message challenges us to trust God’s timing, embrace the wilderness, and recognize that waiting is not wasted when God is shaping our character for His purpose.

Transcript

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Hey, I'm Tim Timberlake, and I want to thank you so much for listening to the Celebration Church Podcast. I hope this message encouraged you, strengthened your faith, and gave you something you can carry into your week. If you'd like to stay connected, I encourage you to join us live every Sunday at 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. on YouTube. We would love to have you there. And if you're ever in the Jacksonville, Florida area, come see us in person. We have a seat saved for you. Thanks again for being with us. We're so grateful for you. And see you next time. All right, grab your word, stand to your feet. In the overflow, grab your word, stand to your feet. In our other overflow, grab your word, stand to your feet. Online, if you're not driving, grab your word, stand to your feet. If you're driving, keep your hands on the steering wheel, your eyes on the road. Acts chapter 7 is where we're going to be today. I believe God has a word for you. I'm excited to deliver it. Verse number 24 is where we're going to begin. Scripture says 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 brothers. Why do you injure one another? But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, Who made you a ruler and a judge over us? You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you? At this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. For a moment, I want to utilize this text for the subject matter: the blessing of not belonging. The blessing of not belonging. Set your word down. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We ask that you would speak to us. We ask that you would reveal yourself to us in a fresh and new way today. God, as we were just singing, we believe that revival is not coming. We believe that it is here. So we step fully into it and we declare, God, that you are greater than any other thing, any other person, any other plan that we have. And so we surrender and submit to your plan and your purpose in our lives. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Everybody that's glad Jesus is still alive and well, can you shout Amen one time? Let's try it again. Can you shout Amen one time? Amen. You can take your seats in Jesus' name. Want to welcome all of our first-time guests, those that are visiting for the very first time. If you drove in, you flew in, welcome to Celebration Church. We're glad. Want to welcome all of our family that are tuned in via Celebration Everywhere, all of our family that are in one of our overflow rooms. God's spirit is not limited to this room. He is where you are because he dwells in us. Amen. So I don't want you to feel slighted because you're not in this room. You're in the house. And there's no better place to be than in the house of God. As we continue to go through the Acts of the Apostles, we find ourselves in chapter 7, verse 24 through 29. Scripture says, 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 brothers, why do you injure one another? But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, Who made you ruler and judge over us? You do not mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday, do you? And at this remark, Moses fled and became an alien in the land of Midian, where he became the father of two sons. To have context for where we are today, we must understand who's talking and where they're speaking. And Stephan is speaking to the Sanhedrin Council on trial, defending his life, not with his opinion, not with his perspective, but with the word of God. And he takes us in chapter 7 through some of the patriarchs of the Word of God, utilizing Abraham, utilizing Joseph, utilizing Jacob now, utilizing Moses. Moses teaches us that if we operate in justice before formation, we still operate out of alignment with the heart of God. Amen. Most readings focus on the killing of the Egyptian by the hands of Moses. And we look at that and we turn our nose up at Moses. But Stephan, he's teaching us something deeper. He's teaching us that Moses acted before his calling was clarified. So Moses understood that God had anointed him to be a deliverer, but Moses did not understand the timing in which he was supposed to carry it out. That is a lesson for us. You are absolutely called by God. How many of you believe that? How many of you believe that you are chosen by God? But here's the thing: if you don't respond in God's timing, you miss that call and you call someone else, and you act out of your flesh, and you react instead of respond. And so here Moses is having a call, having an assignment, having an anointing, but not the timing, and he acts out of his flesh and he kills this Egyptian man. And now on the second day, he's trying to break up two Hebrew uh guys and they're fighting each other, and one of them that's beating up the other says to him, Who made you ruler and judge over us? We understand Moses knows that he's called because he assumed that they recognized the call on his life as well. How do we know that? Because Scripture says that. Scripture teaches us, did you not suppose that I was the deliverer? And the following day he appeared to them as they were fighting together and he tried to reconcile them in peace, saying, Men, you are brothers, why do you injure one another? It says, But the one who was injuring his neighbor pushed him away, saying, Who made you ruler and judge over us? This is the thing that we have to understand about this scripture in context. He understood his identity because he says, I am sent as a deliverer. And they did not understand. But what Moses failed to understand was the method in which God called him to deliver. His delivering method was murder. God's delivering method was the wilderness. If you have an anointing and an assignment given to you by God, but you don't know the method of the vehicle God desires for you to use, stay in the wilderness long enough to get clarity and don't react. Receive the full instructions so you can respond. We don't want to do that though, because we don't like taking time for God to form us. We don't like sitting still long enough for God to give us clarity in the instructions He's placed on us. We don't like sitting and remaining and resting and allowing the word of God to ferment to become powerful on the inside of us because we are so addicted to quick results that if it doesn't happen quickly, we think it's not God. When in fact God does his best work in the waiting. Some of you think you're wasting time. You you think God's not moving because you're you're you're waiting, and the reality is, is God is forming you in the waiting, and waiting time is not wasted time when you wait on the Lord and you be of good courage. Again, I say, wait, there's something supernatural that has when we implement patience. Scripture teaches us that patience has its perfect work. Patience is a gift that produces fruit when we apply it to our lives and not push on and push through and try to make things happen and manufacture seasons and miracles in our own power and spouses in our own ability. And some of you, you are with your girlfriend and your boyfriend, not because God instructed you to be with them, but because you got impatient. Isn't it crazy how impatience can make a three look like a ten? And when your friends talk to you, start making excuses. They say, Well, isn't this your type right here? And you say, Well, he's not that bad. He ain't everything I wanted, but he's good enough. And impatience has a crazy way of changing your goals. Point in case when you go to the gym, you aspire to work out for an hour, but discomfort and pain hits that body, and you get impatient, and that hour workout turns into 15 minutes, and you leave the gym not getting what it was that you needed because you allowed your flesh to dictate the outcome instead of your mind willing your body into submission and telling your body we're gonna stay here the full hour and get what it is that we came for, but patience, it will perfect you if you allow it to, but impatience it will produce bad fruit on the inside of you because you're too impatient to sit there for the stuff that God is developing and pruning out of you. And if you don't stay seated long enough, you won't get instructions from God the way He desires for you to. And a lot of us are running on partial instructions. And we're blaming God and we we say stuff like God said, God ain't say that. But you don't know the difference between God's voice and your voice because you're not patient enough to sit there and get clarity. And the reality is, is your voice sounds a lot like God because you think God wants to give you everything you want. And it's not until you sit down and get told no from the voice of God. See, some of y'all don't want that. That's why you don't pray. Because you've already determined what you want God to say. And we're so impatient as a people that we don't allow God to sit us and prune us and extract out of us us so that he could be revealed in a greater manner in our lives. And so here we find Stephan teaching the Sanhedrin Council a valuable lesson. The valuable lesson that he's teaching the Sanhedrin Council is you say you believe in God, but you're not patient enough to hear from him and see him. Moses is teaching us that you can be rejected outwardly and still be called inwardly. When I read this, I'm presented with attention. The attention I'm presented with is that Moses rejects Egypt outwardly, but Egypt is still operating on the inside of him. The reason we understand Egypt is still operating on the inside of him because it says that Moses murdered a man. This was not instinct happening, this was what he saw happen from other authoritative leaders in Egypt. It was not abnormal for people in leadership to see things happen injustly and murder the person who committed the crime. And so, what Moses is doing is he's carrying out the role and the responsibility of the authority given to him by Pharaoh in Egypt. But he's broken the law of God because he has not operated in the anointing and the assignment that God placed on him. And the reality of this tension that we see in Scripture, you have to be very careful not to follow the instructions of culture and society over the mandate and the assignment that God has placed on you. And although it is culturally and societal norm, it may not be normal in the kingdom of God. At this particular day and age, it was not illegal for him, having the authority and the position that he had to do what he did. That's why scripture does not say, and after he murdered the man, he flee because he committed a crime. It says that these two men asked him, Who made you ruler and judge over us? And because he was rejected, he ran to Midian. Isn't it crazy how rejection, when you get in your feelings, can determine your destiny? Isn't it crazy how rejection can determine your obedience to God when you feel rejected by the people God has called you to serve? In the Old Testament, he would tell the prophets when he would send them to a people, don't look at the faces of the people I sent you to, because oftentimes the very people that God has called you to serve will reject you in your service. We see this happen time and time again. We see this even happen with the life of Jesus. It says one of the saddest verses in all of the Bible, when Jesus goes back to his hometown and says he can only do some miracles there. One of the saddest verses in all of Scripture. What was available to all was only received by a few because they saw him as familiar. And if the hand presenting the miracle looks familiar, you'll reject it because you are too close to what it is that God desires to do. So what happens is after rejection, Moses flees to Midian. Midian becomes the wilderness where God removes Egypt from Moses before using Moses to remove Israel from Egypt. And God often delays deliverance because the deliverer still resembles the system he is called to confront. And so, some of you, you know you're called, you know you're anointed, you know you're assigned, but you still talk like where you're supposed to go back and help people get delivered from. You still walk the same, you still sound the same. And so when people see you go back to the very place that God delivered you from, you blend in instead of stand out. And so God will keep you in the wilderness long enough to get that out of you and allow you to resemble where he delivered you instead of where you came from. See, some of us represent where we come from more than we represent the kingdom of God. So scripture was very clear with how it labeled Moses. It calls him an alien and Midian, and some of us are fighting for earthly identity. Some of us are fighting to be called certain things here on earth, some of us are fighting for affluence and influence, and some of us are fighting to be popular, and some of us are fighting to do certain things here in the earth, and God is saying, listen, if you fight for those things, you miss an opportunity to be used mightily by me because I do my best work in the unseen wildernesses of your life. And some of you are praying that God would deliver you out of the wilderness. You should be praying, God deliver me through the wilderness. Most teaching and most preachers, they preach Moses fleeing as failure. But in the ancient Near Eastern geography, Midian represented a wilderness trade route, nomadic survival, dependence instead of empire. And what God was teaching Moses in this transition from the palace to the wilderness was tent life over Egyptian architecture, was manual labor over political privilege, was tending sheep over commanding armies. And sometimes you want platforms before you want presence. And God will leave you in the wilderness long enough to develop a crater only inside of your soul that cannot be filled by platforms, only his presence, but you won't receive the presence until you stay seated long enough to get what it is that God desires for you to get. But there's something beautiful that happens when we understand we don't belong where we are. Moses is coming to the realization I am not an Egyptian, but God planted me in Egypt to train me and to mold me and to grow me up and for me to be educated in the things of the Egyptians so I know how to deliver God's people out of Egypt. There are routes that he would have never learned if he had not been stationed in Egypt. There are people that he never would have developed relationships with if he was not stationed in Egypt. And sometimes God will leave you stationed in enemy territory long enough to get the tactics of the enemy so you know how to avoid them. And it is in these places where God dismantles every identity layer built by Pharaoh's house. And Stephan is teaching the Sanhedrin Council, the place that looks like exile is often what God uses as apprenticeship. The wilderness is where deliverers lose their resume and discover their voice. So if Stefan highlights this about Moses and the word of God highlights this about Stephan, then we should walk through this verse by verse and see what God has in store for us. In Acts chapter 7, verse 24 says, and when he saw one of them being treated unjustly, the key phrase of this is being treated unjustly. This carries legal language. Stephan frames Moses' action as a response to injustice, not impulsive rage. And so Moses isn't passively observing slavery anymore. He saw. This is loaded biblical language. He saw the spiritual meaning of this is not mere eyesight. He looked behind the person and he saw injustice being done to his brother. Moses would have been educated in Egyptian law, hierarchy, military ethics. And for him to side publicly with a Hebrew was social and political rupture. This is Moses' first visible act of identity alignment, which tells me before leadership happens in my life, identity happens in my life. And if I identify wrong, I lead the wrong people. Deliverance begins the moment my identity is aligned with the plan God has for me. It's the moment where my privileges choose to see suffering as a training ground for the plan and purpose God has for my life. The B portion of verse 24, he defended him and took vengeance for the oppressed by striking down the Egyptian. This language defended, it implies legal advocacy. Took vision, uh vengeance reflects justice language common in the ancient Near East law. This is where rulers enacted order through force. And so Moses acted as an Egyptian would, but he was a Hebrew. And if you're not completely yielded and obedient to the things God called you to do, you will try to implement obedience to a worldly system. And you'll think that acceptance to all is God's love. Acceptance to all. Remaining silent in the face of injustice is not God's love. When you see injustice, God has equipped you through his word to speak the word of God, not your opinion, not your mind, not your politics, not your preference, not even your skin tone. The word of God into injust situations and circumstances so that people see and hear. The mind of Christ, not yours. Which some of us fall into temptation as we begin to declare this is what God said while speaking from our flesh. And so when people hear it that don't believe, they think God is saying it, and it ain't God, it's just you. And so God gets a bad rap, He gets a bad name, He He's represented wrongly because you have not heard from God. You are hearing from your emotions and you're following them and you're pursuing them and you're telling people that God has spoken to you and God has not. Moses acts on his behalf. And he murders an Egyptian. He murders this Egyptian, acting on the injustice that he saw. He has compassion, but his method is still shaped by the system he grew up in. Look at me for a second. And every season, you have to identify two things. How is God moving, and what is the method God is using? Because if God is moving and you use the wrong method, people still won't receive it the way God desires. And if you have the method, but you don't have the presence of God, it does not matter what you try to incorporate or implement anyway. And you have to have your mind made up that when God moves, you won't be married to your method, but you will be married to his presence. Are you listening to me? Because you can get stuck in doing what God did and be numb to what God is doing right now. And if you are numb to what God is doing right now, you always talk about the move of God you used to be a part of and how God used to do these things, and you always talk about what where you used to be instead of where you are right now, and no one gets delivered in your life by the old things God used to do while remaining numb to what God is doing right here, right now. And so Moses acts in a system and in a way that is reflective to his upbringing, but not to his calling. The spiritual layer in this is that zeal without formation still leads to disobedience. The beauty in this is that God often calls people before he refines how they fight. And equipped, prepared, resourced, Moses, he delivers over 2.7 million people. Moses called, but not equipped, resourced, and operating in complete and total obedience is a murderer. And you can have the same assignment, the same anointing, the same call in disobedience, and be utilized the wrong way. You take that call, that anointing, that assignment, and you surrender it and you yield it to God. And God will allow you to do things that you never thought were possible. Verse 25 says, and he supposed that his brethren understood. If you're taking notes, I want you to underline this or put this in your notes. Supposed. This word means Moses assumed. The assumption was shared suffering, shared understanding. The assumption was action must take place. The action that must take place will draw immediate recognition. But calling is not always obvious to the people you're called to help. But you still are called to help them. Isn't it crazy how the very people God has called you to help will reject you when you're trying to help them? There is nothing harder than trying to give someone something that's free. I remember one time I pulled up, it was a homeless man on the corner, and he had a sign. We'll work for food. I had food in my car. I rolled down my window. I said, hey man, I got some food here. I got a bottle of water. You want it? He said, No, I'm good. I said, your sign says you'll work for food. Do you need food? He said, yes. I said, I have food right here in the bag with a bottle of water. Do you want it? He said, nah, man, but I want some money. I said, I got food. That's what your signs say. I got food right here. Do you want it? Nah, man, I want money. So you don't want what your sign says. Because I got exactly what your sign says. You don't even have to work for it. I'm gonna give it to you. Do you want it? Me and Jim, we were on a college campus one time and we were handing out bottled water to people. Do you want water? Yes, we want it. Here it is. No, no, no, I don't want that. We're just blessing people. Do you want a bottle of water? Because it's nothing harder, more difficult than giving people something that they think they did not earn. Try it. See how hard it is. See how difficult it is to give somebody. They are not expecting you to give them something for free. It's difficult. We have to understand it's calling is not always obvious to the people you are called to help. This is where Moses gets it wrong in this passage. He confuses internal revelation with public validation. And some of you are waiting to be validated by men and women to operate in obedience, and God is saying people will reject you before they receive you. I've called you to operate in obedience regardless of what people say, regardless of what people do, regardless of what people acknowledge, regardless of what people expect, regardless of what people anticipate, I've called you to operate in obedience because you have to understand what it feels like to be rejected because I was rejected. And so God will reveal purpose privately long before others can even recognize it. Stefan reveals something that's not stated directly in Exodus about the life of Moses. He states Moses already sensed a divine purpose. This is Stefan's interpretive insight to the Sanhedrin Council, telling them spirit-guided commentary on history. You can be called by God and not have clarity from God about the call you have. Moses was called to deliver Hebrews out of Egypt, but Moses was trying to deliver them prematurely. And so he had the call, but he didn't have the timing. And in order to operate in complete and total obedience, you need both. The people's inability to perceive deliverance reflects spiritual blindness born from generations of oppression. And this is what oppression does: it conditions people to survive and not to expect salvation. And some of you are in that place right now. You feel unqualified to receive salvation from Jesus. You feel unqualified to walk in the plans and the purpose that God has for you. You feel like you are labeled by the things that you have done. But I need you to understand this: you are not what you have done, and you can step fully into the plan and the purpose that Jesus has for your life if you receive him completely and totally and fully as your Lord and your Savior. And the beauty of that is he takes your sin and he casts it as far as the east as from the west, and he no longer recognizes you from the things you've done. He calls you son and a daughter of the most high God. Oh, I love that God answers our prayers in packages we don't expect them to arrive in. Sometimes God answers your prayers and it arrives in the form of pain. And that pain has a crazy way of training you for greater purpose. There's things that God can teach you in rejection and pain that he can never teach you in promise and blessing. And the reality is if God gave you the gifts you've been praying for, you would never respond to the giver again. And so he keeps you in the wilderness long enough to develop a dependency on him and not on the things. He keeps you in the wilderness long enough to hear his voice and not just the position given to you by men and women. He keeps you in the wilderness long enough to get Egypt out of you. And it's not that you are out of Egypt, it's that God has to get Egypt out of you. And so some of you are in a different place, thinking the same way in the old place. And you're in a new season, but you're still carrying the same sins from the old season in the new season, and you corrupt the new season God is taking you into because there's still Egypt on the inside of you, because you have not stayed seated long enough for God to get out of you what the enemy placed on the inside of you. Let me get to my notes. I see y'all. I don't like this. Point number one is this sometimes the first people to question your calling are the very people you're calling is meant to free. And people pray for deliverance until deliverance confronts their comfort. People want help until help actually comes and it looks different than how you expected and anticipated. Sometimes help arrives in the form of discipline. Sometimes help arrives in the form of discomfort. Sometimes help arrives in the form of you doing something differently than the way you've been doing it for all these years, but you don't acknowledge it as help because you don't want to receive it if it if it arrives in the form of pain. The greatest seasons of breakthrough, the greatest seasons of God pushing me and propelling me and positioning me came through the gift of pain. I heard his voice clearer in pain. I saw his hand clearer at work in pain and in discomfort. I experienced his presence clearer in pain than I ever had in the seasons of prospering. That is one of the greatest lessons we could ever learn, and that's why Paul he prays three times. God remove this thorn from my flesh, and God says, No, my grace is sufficient for you. Because if there's grace in the thorn, then there's grace to prosper you with the thorn in your flesh. And some of you are trying to remove the thorn, and God is saying, Get your hands off that thorn. I'm doing a good work in that thorn. I'm speaking to you through that thorn, I'm delivering you through that thorn, I'm prospering you, I'm propelling you through that thorn. Don't pray that God would remove the thorn, pray that God will give you wisdom to steward it well. My grace is sufficient for you. Sometimes familiarity can blind you to the hand of God standing right in front of you. And you reject the rescuer because healing would require admitting that you're stuck and you're weak. Instead of carrying on the facade that everything is alright. You know what I wish? I wish that church was real. I wish that we stopped carrying ourselves like we're perfect, and you got to be perfect, and everything is going just according to your plan. And everybody is just liking you and loving you, and you don't got no problems, and all your bills are paid for, and everything you need is being taken care of. I wish we we could have a community of people who would admit and acknowledge, none, my life ain't going the way I thought that it should, but man, God is doing something formative in the season of pain. He's doing something formative in the season of confusion and chaos and all the it's costing me the little identity I gave myself. He's forming me and making me and shaping me and he's transforming me into the person he desires for me to be, but we can't experience that because we want to be who people think we should be instead of who God called us to be. What if we just create an environment for people to actually be real and display their dire need for the Savior who can only save you and redeem you and renew you when you acknowledge I'm weak, therefore, I need the strength of God. You're not as good as you think you are, you're not as rich as you think you are. You don't got it together like you think you do. You're broke, you're gonna die in need of Jesus, you're in pain, and the reality is if he doesn't change your life, you're gonna die and you're gonna be stuck exactly where you are. He never called you to be affirmed by people, he never called you to fit in, he called you to stand out, and that is a blessing in not belonging. I don't belong to this world. This is not my home, this is not my resting place, and I'm a pilgrim traveling through Moses. He called himself an alien and many, and I don't belong here, I'm working here, but when I clock on it, I will. I'm going to my mansion, the one my father prepared for me. Because his word says, I go to prepare a place for you. If it were not so, I would not say it. And some of us are so stuck trying to belong here, and unfortunately, we will never belong there. It's a blessing to not belonging. Moses had three identities competing inside of him. He was Hebrew by birth, Egyptian by upbringing, a leader by calling, but not yet formed. And as long as he belonged comfortably somewhere, he could avoid choosing who he truly was. But Midian stripped this away from him. Midian reminds him there is no palace in the wilderness, there is no status in the wilderness, there is no A-Man corner in the wilderness, only identity before God. And oftentimes, God removes you from the environment that you are stuck in to affirm you so he can reveal you, reveal who you are without the applause of men and women. Structural importance to the scripture says on the following day, he appeared to them in verse 26, and they were fighting together. Fighting each other. So day one, he has an enemy versus the Hebrew. Day two, he has a Hebrew fighting a Hebrew. Stefan shows that internal division can be as destructive as external oppression. And if a people continue to fight against each other, we'll lose focus on the enemy that's fighting against us. And that's the enemy's plan. The enemy's plan is to get you so focused on white or black, Hispanic or Asian, red or blue, Republican or Democrat, that you completely turn a blind eye to the enemy infusing himself in the culture and society of everything that we do. We'll sit here and give commentary to a halftime Super Bowl show. Instead of recognizing if Jesus performed at the halftime, we wouldn't be able to understand them either. What are we talking about? What are we talking about? Don't lose focus. The enemy wants you to choose sides. God wants you to take over. What are we doing? We're so distracted on things that will not matter in eternity that we have completely been blinded to the things that matter most. And verse 26 says he tried to reconcile them to peace, but they were so enraged with anger to fight each other that they could not even tell. The person that was sent to deliver us is standing in front of us. Stephan is teaching the Sanhedrin Council. Moses reconciled, tried to reconcile with his brothers, and Jesus tried to reconcile humanity, and you've rejected both of them. I want to point something out to you. In studying, there's something called linguistic notes that we utilize in theology. It ties identity to a person by the name they use. Moses utilized the word brothering, which emphasizes a covenant identity. So when he calls them brothers, he automatically assumes they identify him as a Hebrew and they do not. I remember 10 years ago, you were right here with us, fighting alongside of us, and the very people that God elevates and anointing are the same people we'll try to suppress because we're familiar with them. I pray they do. Deliverance, hear me, isn't merely escaping Egypt. It's learning to live as a family in the wilderness that God has us in. And if all of us are fighting to get back to the place God delivered us from, we'll never see the favor of God the way He desires for us to. Point number two is this. Misunderstood obedience still counts as obedience. I don't care if people understand the assignment. I don't care if people understand the anointing. I don't care if people understand the calling. I don't care if people approve of what it is that God has called you to do. You be obedient, come hella high water. You're not obedient to get affirmed by people. You are obedient because God has already affirmed you. You're not operating in the call of God on your life because people approve the call of God on your life. You're operating in the call of God on your life because God has called you. Amen. But we're so focused on what people think to the left and to the right that we've completely taken our eyes off Jesus and what he's placed in front of us. And so misunderstood obedience still counts as obedience. And just because people misread your motives doesn't mean God misread your heart. Heaven measures faithfulness differently than crowds measure success. How do you measure success? Think about that. How do you measure success? Do you measure it by obedience and surrender to God, or do you measure it by possessions? Because some of you measure success by the car you drive, by the house you walk into, by the business you work at, or the business you started, or the friends you have, and the relationships you got or the money that's in your account. Some of you measure success by the things you will never take with you into eternity when God does not measure success that way. Scripture teaches us that man looks on the outward, but God looks on the inward, and so if God looks on the inward, he judges success by the inside out, not the outside in. Many walk away from their calling. Many resist their anointing. Because they expected recognition instead of resistance. Expect resistance. If they resisted Jesus, you better believe they're going to resist you when you follow him. Who are we to think that we're better than Jesus? Who are we to think that we can avoid people rejecting us and people turning a blind eye to the things that God has called us to do? That's why God called you to do it. Sometimes the proof of your calling is that nobody understands you yet. Some of you get that when you get home. Sometimes the proof that God actually called you is no one has identified it yet. That way people can't take credit for the doors you walk through. That way people can't take credit for the seasons you walk into. That way nobody can say, ah no, I put him on, I put her on, I did that. No, no, no, no. Sometimes the greatest example that God actually has his hand on you is no one else identifies it yet. Let's continue to move through the text. Point number three is this. We see in scripture an internal conflict between these two Hebrews. Point number three teaches us internal conflict delays external freedom. You will never win battles outside while wounding each other inside. We are the body of Christ. Not a political party. Not a race of people. Thank God this congregation, this church has all types of flavors. All types of ethnicities. Very quickly, if you come from a country or a nation outside of America, stand to your feet. But thank God we do serve the same Savior. How does oppression survive? Oppression survives when unity dies. And oppression will linger amongst the people where there is no unity. Hell doesn't need to destroy a people if it can just keep you distracted with competition and rivalry. Point number four. God will use the wilderness you ran to as the place he shapes you. Some of you are running right now, and you think you're running away from God, and you're running exactly into the plan and the purpose he has for you. Because God will use the wilderness you ran to as the place he shapes you. Your exile may be God's training ground, not your punishment. What feels like failure might actually be divine rerouting by the plan God has in place for your life. God is not intimidated by your missteps. He repurposes them. And he uses everything, the good and the bad, and he makes them work together for the good of those that love the Lord. And so don't rush wilderness seasons. One of the greatest lessons, look at me, I could ever learn in this life, particularly in leadership. Sometimes the blessing is that nobody knows your name while God is shaping your character. If God would have elevated Moses and people would have known his name as a deliverer and he murdered that Egyptian, it would have tarnished his reputation and impact to advance the people of God. And so God kept them in the wilderness tending to sheep long enough to get Egypt out of him, to form him, to shape him, to develop him into the Moses he needed him to be, so that he could go back to the very same place that trained him, educated him, resourced him to deliver his people out of that place. But if God would have allowed him to operate in authority before he formed him, he would have compromised the authority with the lack of character and godly integrity. And so some of you are rushing God's plan, and God is stalling so that you develop integrity and character. Some of you are thirsty and hungry for platforms to perform, but you're not hungry and thirsty for the power of God to change your perspective so that He can form you into the person He desires for you to be. He never called you to fit in, He never called you to just be a part of it, to just blend it. He called you to stand out. Scripture called you a peculiar people. So there's a blessing in not belonging. The discomfort of not belonging is often the sound of destiny stretching you, pain teaching you, the Holy Spirit working in and through you. And if you stay, if you're patient, and if you endure, he says there's a crown of righteousness that awaits for you. Men and women can give you medals, but only one can give you a crown of righteousness. So know where you come from. When I would go places and my parents would find out where I was going, they would stop me at the door and say, son, don't forget where you came from. I'm stopping you at the door today, family, and I'm telling you, don't forget where you came from. You did not come from this world. This is not your home, this is not your final resting place. You're here, you're visiting, you're traveling through, you are an alien of this world. Don't get comfortable here. God says, I'll take you from faith to faith and glory to glory. Because as a blessing and not belonging. By your heads, close your eyes. If you're here today, whether you're in this room or one of our overflows, or maybe you're watching online, you know you've settled in Egypt. You've settled in a place God never called you to get settled in. You want to continue to move into the things He has planned for you: the purpose, the call, the assignment, the anointing, the grace. I want to get your life right with him. I want you to stretch your hands towards heaven right now, all over this room. See those hands. I want everybody under the sound of my voice to repeat this prayer after me. Lord Jesus, I repent for my sins. I ask you to forgive me, cleanse me, wash me, make me new. Right now, I turn from my ways, from my sin, from the decisions I've made, and I turn towards you. In Jesus' name I pray. I confess you are my Lord and my Savior. And I believe within my heart of hearts that you are my master and my key. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen. And amen. Amen.