Hey, everybody, welcome to Valley Creek Church.  I am so glad that you’re here.  If this is your first time with us, welcome.  We’re glad that you are here.  And I want to remind everybody that this Friday is our live worship CD recording.  I really hope you’re going to be here.  It’s going to be great.  Let me just remind you why it’s a big deal for us here at Valley Creek.  A few years ago, we really feel like God invited us to be a worshiping church.  You say like, what does that mean?  Why do we want to be a worshiping church?  Well, the heart that worships Jesus lives free.  When we start worshiping God, we stop worshiping ourselves.  And we believe that the presence of God is the greatest change agent on the face of the earth.  That’s the greatest evangelistic tool that we have that when we worship and praise Him like we did today.  That Jesus himself comes and he meets with us and he changes things in our lives and brings people from death to life.  And we believe when the Bible says, that God inhabits the praises of His people that when you worship and praise and declare His greatness, you are literally in the spiritual realm creating a throne right in the middle of this room with your worship.

And Jesus himself comes and he sits upon it and he takes authority over the circumstances, situations, fear, brokenness in our lives and he is lord overall.  In fact, the times that you least feel like worshiping are the times you need to worship the most.

And so, as a church, we believe that God invites us to sing to Him a new song.  That’s why we want to write new songs and sing new things.  Not old stuff that God has done.  We want to sing new things of what God is doing today.  And so, when our guys write songs, they’re not their songs, they’re our songs.  They’re our family’s songs.  They’re our family anthems if you will of what God has been doing in this place and in our lives.  And so, really, it’s like a prophetic declaration.  We’re declaring who God is and what He has been doing and how He has been moving in this family.  And whether you realize it or not, a whole lot of your theology actually comes from the songs that you sing.

It’s 50 percent of the service.  So, if nothing else, I mean, some of your theology is getting formed in what you sing.  And the songs that you sing are a reflection of who you are.  And so, the songs that we’re writing and singing together, it’s really important because it’s capturing the heartbeat, our family’s anthems.  And so, I hope you’ll be here with us Friday.  Come early, come ready to worship.  We’re going to encounter the presence of Jesus and we’re going to believe that his presence is literally going to get recorded into the CD so that when people are listening to the CD, wherever they are, whatever songs gets clicked on, and the presence of God, just like it comes in here, is going to come into their lives.  I want it to show up in my daughter’s room when every night, she listens to worship music before she goes to bed.  I want the presence of God to invade it.  I want it to show up in people’s cars.  I want it to show up in people’s homes.  I want it to show up in people’s iPods as they’re going for a walk or a run.  And here’s the deal is if you have this CD but you didn’t come to the recording, every time you’ll listen to it, you’ll think I should have gone to the recording.

And I just want to spare you from that.

So, okay?  So, I hope you’ll come on Friday.  It’s a really big deal.  We want to worship and meet Jesus.  And so, because it’s such a big deal, we don’t normally do this.  Can we just pray together?  Can you maybe raise your hand and raise your voice and just pray with me.  Let’s pray for it quick.  Lord, we thank you Jesus that you have invited us to be a worshiping church.  We want to be a group of people that encounter and meet with the living God of the universe.  We thank you that you’ve invited us to write new songs to you, anthems that are our family’s anthems of what you’re teaching us and how you’re moving in our lives.  And so, Jesus, we pray for Friday.  I pray that your name would be lifted high, that you would be raised up through our worship and you would draw all men unto yourselves and that your presence would get recorded into the CD, that as it’s given out into the people of this world, you would come and meet with them and bring the change that only you can bring.  That you would bring dead things to life, through the presence of Jesus that’s going to get captured in these songs.  This Friday, I pray that would draw us to you that you would put it within us the desire to be worshipers because that’s who you’ve created us to be.

So, Jesus, we love you this morning.  In your name we pray, amen.  All right.  If you got your Bible, Exodus chapter 3.  Exodus chapter 3.  We’re in a series called, “Unexpected”.  We’re talking about putting love on display.  And in Exodus chapter 3, this is a familiar story, but I want to look at a different angle of it.  This is the story of Moses.  So, as you’re turning there, let me start reading it to you.  Verse 1, it says, “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Median, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.  There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush.  Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.  So Moses thought, ‘I will go over and see this strange site – why the bush does not burn up.’  When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, ‘Moses, Moses.’  And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’”

“’Do not come any closer,’ God said.  ‘Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’  Then He said, ‘I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.’  At this, Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.”  So, catch this, Moses is a shepherd.  And like he’s done hundreds and thousands of times before his daily routine, he takes his sheep for a walk.  He’s trying to find good pasture for them.  This is his normal daily routine.  And so, as he’s taking the sheep to find pasture, he’s in the mountain.  And over here, he sees a strange site.  He sees a bush that’s on fire but it’s not burning up.  And when he sees it, it says he turns aside to go over and see what’s going on.  It’s amazing what you will experience in your life if you have the courage to turn aside from your routine.  It turns from his routine and he goes over here and he sees this bush that’s on fire.  And God calls to him from the bush by name, “Moses, Moses.”  And Moses has this profound encounter with the living God of the universe that forever changes him.

It changes his destiny.  But here’s the question I want to ask, why Moses and why now?  Like, why does God come to Moses and not somebody else and why now?  Why didn’t he come two years earlier or two years later?  Why Moses?  Why now?  Well, the very next verse tells us.  It says, “The Lord said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt.  I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concern about their suffering.  So, I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  And now, the cry of the Israelites has reached me and I’ve seen the way the Egyptians are pressing them.  So now, go.  I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.’  But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’  And God said, ‘I will be with you.’”  The reason God comes to Moses and the reason he comes now is because He says, “Moses, I have looked upon my people.”

“I have seen their misery, I have heard their cry and I am concerned about their suffering.”  That’s why He comes.  And here’s what I want to tell you today.  Some of you are here and you’re hurting and you’re broken.  And all week as I’m preparing and praying and processing through this message, the Lord has just put this so heavy on my heart.  Some of you that are here that you’re hurting, here’s what you need to hear.  He sees your misery, He hears your cry and He is concerned about your suffering.  Some of you are here and you feel like God has forgotten you.  Like He doesn’t care, like He is not in tune with what’s going on in your life.  Your marriage is falling apart.  Or you got a major issue with one of your kids, or maybe it’s a health crisis that’s in your body or in the body of someone that you love.  Maybe it’s an addiction you can’t break free from.  It’s anxiety that’s hanging upon you, a depression that’s weighing you down.  Maybe you can’t find a spouse, maybe you can’t get pregnant.  Maybe you feel like you’re loosing your faith.

He sees your misery, He hears your cries and He is concerned about your suffering.  And so, He has come.  And Jesus has come to you today.  “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.”  Psalm 34:18.  And so, God says to Moses, “Moses, I’ve seen their misery.  I’ve heard their cry and I’m concerned about their suffering.  So, Moses, now go.  I am sending you.  Moses, you are my answer to their cry.  You are the answer to their prayer.  I’m sending you now, go.”  And the story goes on.  Moses goes and he does the unexpected.  He puts the love of God on display, did some of the greatest miracles in all of human history.  And after 400 years of slavery, he leads 2 million people out of Egyptian bondage into the freedom of the Promise Land.  And when I read that story guys, I think that’s our story.  Like we’re just like Moses.  Like everyday you wake up and you do your routine.

Like you’ve done hundreds and thousands of times before, you get up and you go to work or you go to school or you raise your family.  You have your routine that you just get up everyday and you do it.  And over here, God’s trying to do something amazing to get your attention.  Romans 2:4, “It’s God’s kindness that leads us to repentance.”  He will do something amazing and kind to get you to repent or to literally turn aside from your normal routine that you might experience it’s something amazing.  And when we will walk over here and see what He’s doing, He speaks to us by name.  And we will have a profound encounter with Him and then God will do something like this.  He will say, “You see that person over there?”  We say, “Yeah.”  He says, “I’ve seen their misery, I’ve heard their cry and I’m concerned about their suffering.  Now go, I am sending you.  You are my answer to their cry.  You are the answer to their prayer.  Now, go.”  And He sends us to answer their cry to be at their deliverer, to bring freedom, to bring healing, to bring hope.

You are the answer to their cry.  And if we’re honest, that’s pretty overwhelming.  Anyone want to agree with that?  It’s pretty overwhelming.  Do you want to know why it’s overwhelming?  Because it just is.  I mean, that’s just overwhelming to think that I got to be the answer to someone else’s cry.  And if you’re going to do the unexpected and you’re going to be the answer to someone’s cry, He’s going to force you to be desperate for the presence of God.  That’s why Moses says, “Who am I?  Who am I, God?  I can’t be the answer to 2 million people’s cries.  You got to be kidding me.”  Then God responds by saying, “I will be with you.”  In other words, “Moses, this isn’t about you.  This is about me and I will be with you.”  And Moses understood that he had to be desperate for the presence of God.  That’s why on Exodus 33:15, he says, “Unless your Presence goes with us, do not send us up from here.”  God, I can’t do this by myself, I need your presence.  Don’t send me without you.  Or how about Matthew 28:19-20, The Great Commission, we like this verse, right?  “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and teach them to obey everything I’ve commanded you, and I will be with you always.”

The resurrected Jesus says he’s leaving.  He says, “Now go and make disciples.  Go.  You are the answer to their cry.”  And when the disciples kind of freak out a little bit, he says, “Don’t worry, I will be with you always.”  We say, “Who am I?”  He says, “I will be with you.”  You see, God’s vision for your life is so big that it forces you to be desperate for His presence.  It’s so big that it forces you to be desperate for His presence.  In fact, if you’re not desperate for His presence today, your vision is too small.  That’s what I would say to you.  If you’re not desperate for the presence of God, like right now you think you have all the resources you need, you have all the wisdom you need, you have all the strength that you need, if you’re not desperate for His presence, not only is your vision too small, your life is too small.  God has more for you than that.  We’re part of His redemption plan on this earth.  Your coal laborers, you’re ruling and reigning, you are missionaries, you are ambassadors.

I mean, I think the reason a whole lot of us are bored on this journey with Jesus is because we believe this entire thing is about rules and regulations.  That is about you’ve got to do this, you can’t do that, you have to do this, you can’t do that.  You know what I would say to that?  I would say are you kidding me?  Let’s just keep it through out the series.  I got it working every time.  Are you kidding me?  Ephesians 2:10, “You are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared in advance for you to do.”  You’re anointed by the Holy Spirit to destroy the works of the devil, to bring the rule and reign of God, to bring heaven to earth and there are people all over your life crying out.  Crying out for hope and healing, for comfort and compassion, for provision and friendship, crying out for a hug.  And God says, “You are the answer.”  He has delivered you and now He sends you back in the world to be a deliverer.  That’s why the mission of God is not the great burden of your life, it’s the great privilege of your life.

And He chooses you.  You know what I love about God is that when you read the Bible, you never read stories.  We don’t have a God like this.  You never read a story of God saying to people like, “Sit down and watch what I can do.”  You don’t read that.  You read a whole lot of stories of God saying, “Now, go and watch what I can do through you.”  God is glorified when He does great things through weak people.  He’s glorified when He does great things through weak people.  Think all the glory He can get from us.

If you don’t believe me, just look at your neighbor for two seconds.

And be like, “Woo!  God can get some glory out of you, man.”  I’m just saying, right?  I mean, He didn’t need Moses to free the Israelites.  He didn’t need the Israelites to take the Promise Land.  God didn’t need David to kill Goliath.  He didn’t need the disciples to feed 5,000 people and He doesn’t need you to be the answer to their cry, but He chooses you.

He chooses you because He wants you and He believes in you and says, “You are my answer to their cry.”  You are His great outreach strategy.  I mean, do you remember the story on Mark chapter 2, the story of the paralyzed man?  He spent his entire life on a two foot by six foot mat.  I mean, you want to talk about misery.  You want to talk about crying out.  I want to talk about a life of suffering.  And this guy spent his whole life just begging, just trying to survive.  He’s cried out a whole lot to God.  And one day, Jesus comes to town.  And God starts working in the hearts of four men.  He starts churning something inside them because they were the answer to this man’s cry.  And so, these four men go and they pick up the corner of the mat.  Each of them gets a corner because they knew there was something inside they knew they needed to do something.  And so, they walk through the busy streets and they get to the homework Jesus is teaching but it’s packed.  They can’t get inside.  But the churning is so great that they can’t give up, so they go up on the roof but there’s no sky light.

And so, the churning is still so great that they don’t care.  So, they literally ripped a hole in the roof, they lower the man down and I love what it says.  It says, “When Jesus saw their faith.”  Not the man’s faith, their faith.  The man had no faith.  He was full of misery and suffering and crying out.  He had given up on God because he thought God had given up on him.  He had no faith, but the four friends did.  And it says, “When Jesus saw their faith, he looked at the man and said, ‘Son, take heart; your sins are forgiven.  Now, pick up your mat and walk.’”  And for the first time in his life, he’s not only forgiven, he’s free.  And he walks and he goes running through the town.  And when I read that story, it’s his cry, their faith and Jesus’ power.  They knew they were the answer to his cry, so they we’re going to go through every obstacle, every feeling of inadequacy, fear of men.  They were going to push through because they knew they were the answer to his cry.

And the same is true with us.  It’s their cry, your faith and Jesus’ power.  In fact, every time you feel this thing churning inside like you feel like man, something’s grabbing your attention like it’s pulling you forward, because you’re the answer to the cry.  When you have compassion, when you have a moment where you see a problem that should be resolved.  You see an opportunity of something – it’s churning inside you because God says, “Now, go, you are my answer to that.”  And if we’re honest, when we see those things, here’s what we say.  Let’s just kind of call it like it is.  We say, “Hey, somebody should do something about that.”

Right?  Somebody should do something about that.  And you know what God says?  He says, “You’re right, you should.”  You should.  That’s why I’m drawing your attention to it.  The reason you’re noticing it is because I’m churning in you because you are my answer to that cry.  And we say, “Well, I don’t have that spiritual gift God.”  Okay.  I’ll tell you, servanthood is not a spiritual gift.  It’s a calling for all followers of Jesus.

Romans 14:17, it says, “For the kingdom of heaven is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.”  As followers of Jesus, we show up and we bring righteousness.  We make wrong things right and when wrong things are made right, peace is released.  And when peace is released, the joy is always the result.  That’s what we’re called to do.  That’s who we are.  And the key to the whole thing I think is 2nd Corinthians 5:16, just this little simple verse that says, “From now on, we no longer regard anyone according to a worldly point of view”.  In other words, we don’t judge people by our physical eyes.  Because let’s be honest, when we look at people, we see a problem or have compassion in – for a moment.  There is something in us that we look and we see the problem.  We see the mess or the sin, the failure.  We see the inconvenience or the impossibility.  Sometimes, we look at people and we see, man, that they’ve got it all together, that they’ve got it figured out, that they – they’re happy.

They really don’t need much, but we’re making all these judgments with our physical eyes when what we need to do is look with our spiritual eyes.  I mean, when you think about Moses, when he showed up to the Israelites, they would have been dirty, messy, complaining people.  But if you look the layer deeper, he would have seen a whole bunch of people in bondage, making bricks for Pharaoh, the prince of this world.  People in bondage, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, making bricks for Pharaoh the prince of this world so he could build whatever he wanted with them.  Do you understand when you look at the people in this world?  If you look a little bit deeper, you will see people in bondage making bricks for the prince of this world.  You’ll see people in bondage.  Literally, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, making bricks for the prince of darkness, the prince of this world to build whatever he wants with for his kingdom.

All of their money, all of their activities, all of their possessions, all of the things they do, they’re bricks that they’re making because they’re in bondage for the prince of this world to do what he wants with.  You’d be cranky too, that’s what I’m trying to say.  That’s all you did.  Broken people do broken things.  And so, you got to look a little deeper.  And all of a sudden, see someone made in the image and likeness of God.  See someone that God has a plan and a purpose for.  See an orphan that’s crying out for a father, a person who is created to live in freedom.  I mean every person in your life has a story back here you know nothing about.  A guy at the office you can’t stand, a student in school that bugs you, that neighbor that knocks over your garbage cans, whatever.  There’s a story back here you know nothing about.  When you start looking with your spiritual eyes, all of a sudden you have a different perspective.  Judgment comes when we look with our physical eyes.  Compassion comes when we look with our spiritual eyes.

And he says, from now on, we regard no one, according to worldly point of view, including yourself.  You see, when we preach messages like this, I can watch some of your faces.  You like pull back and you think I can’t do this stuff.  I can’t be the answer anyone else’s cry.  My life is a mess.  I’m a failure, I’m struggling.  I got a story no one knows nothing about.  I can’t.  Okay, but you can’t look at yourself through physical eyes either.  If you’re in Jesus you’re a new creation in Christ, “The old is gone the new has come.”  You have to look at yourself the way He looks at you and he says, “You are the answer to their cry.”  Now, let me try to say it to you like this.  This is something I wish every follower of Jesus could just grasp in their heart.  Church is really a training center, okay?  We’re a family, but this is a training center.  Every time we gather, we’re training your for the mission to seek and save that which is lost.  Ephesians 4:11 and 12 says this.  It says, “It was Jesus who gave some to the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, to prepare – in other translations says ‘equip’ – God’s people for works of service so that the body of Christ maybe built up.”

So, catch this, it’s Jesus who gave church leaders to prepare or equip or train God’s people, you, for the works of service to be the answer to their cries so that the body of Christ may be built up.  That word “prepare” or “equip”, in the original language it literally means to mend or repair.  And it’s talking about like an old-time fishing net that like the disciples would have used, you know, like a cast net.  You throw it over the boat and you pull it in and you catch fish by drawing it back.  Well, from time to time, the net would get a hole in it.  And if you cast out a net to draw it and there’s a hole in it, all the fish will swim out.  So they had to equip it, mend it or repair it.  What we’re doing every time we gather is we’re trying to mend and repair the tares in your soul.  So that you can be tossed back out into the world and catch fish for Jesus and live out your purpose.

So, every time you come, every sermon series, this is training right now.  The reason we want you to be in a small group is because it’s training.  The reason we want you to go to the pathway classes is because we want you to be trained.  Every time we worship, every next step, every encounter, every time you – I challenge you or push on you, every time you’re offended or disagree with something, it’s all training.  It’s training to prepare you.  And you have to remember that the church is a whole lot more like Home Depot than we are like Burger King, okay?  Burger King is “have it your way” not so much for the church.  We’re more like Home Depot “you can do it, we can help”.

That’s the church.  You can do it.  You can do it.  If God believes in you, man, I believe in you.  I’m just telling you, you can do it, we can help.  But you need to be trained.  We’re renewing your mind.  We’re trying to give you a healthy heart and skillful hands.

You’ll never forget that now, I know.  That will be programmed in your brain.  Wherever you go, don’t look for a church that’s a resort, look for a church that’s a training center so you can live your purpose.  Because what we’re trying to do is we want to be ready so that when our commanding officer who is going to and fro throughout that world shows up and says, “Hey,” taps you on the shoulder and he says, “Hey, I’ve seen their misery.  I’m sending you, now go.”  And we say, “But I don’t feel ready.  I don’t know how to do it.”  He’ll say, “I know but you’ve been trained and I will be with you.  Now go and watch what I can do through you.”  That’s what we’re called to do, right.

Now, I’m so proud of you for receiving that, that’s so good.  I said, “Don’t look for a resort,” and you’re like, “Yeah, yeah, all right.”  You’re the only service that I worked that one in.  I wasn’t sure anybody else could handle that.  It was good.

Let me tell you couple of quick stories, there’s a guy in our church.  For years, he’s had chronic hip pain.  It’s been so bad that it’s like a debilitating reality for his life.

I mean, he can – it’s just been this chronic thing.  He’s a full hip replacement.  And unfortunately, they didn’t have the finances to cover the high cost of the surgery and his insurance didn’t cover it.  So, he’s left with this chronic hip pain.  And he’s sitting in service just like this, just like we do every week.  And one week, he was telling me the story.  He said one week he just kind of checked out and he closed his eyes and he bowed his head and he said, “God,” he said, “if you can heal all these other people and you can do it in the Bible and I hear these stories, then you can do it for me.  God, I’m crying out to you, will you heal my hip?”  And you know what happened?  Nothing.  Or so, we thought.  He left service with chronic hip pain.  And he was a little defeated, a little discouraged.  Until a few days later, another family in the church came up to him and said, “Hey, God’s really been moving in our heart and we want to go ahead and pay for whatever the cost is for you to go ahead and get that surgery, so your hip could be replaced.”

They were the answer to his cry.  They did the unexpected and put love on display.  He cried, God heard it and he tapped somebody else on the shoulder and said, “Now, go, I’m sending you to be the answer to their cry.”  What if they wouldn’t have come?  Or how about this story.  A guy this week just sent me an e-mail.  I’m so proud of this.  This is an amazing story.  He said every week he sits in service, just like we do.  And for a long time, he said, “When I hear you talk about next steps, you’re always talking next steps.”  He said, “I kind of sit there and I think I’ve taken all the next steps I need to take.  It’s somebody else’s turn to take the next step.”  I know you’ve never thought that in your life ever about anything we’ve talked about.  And he said – that was kind of his attitude and he said that one day, God just kind of spoke to him and said, “I just want to know, are you in or are you out?” which I love that God talks like that, and it so sounds like God.  “Are you in are you out?”  He’s like, “What are we in on?”  And God said, “No, are you in are you out?”  God rarely gives us the details because He knew if He gave us all the details, we’d say I’m out.

I’m just saying that that’s what it is, I’m out.  Are you in or are you out?  He says, “Okay, God I’m in.”  And so, little next steps, God starts giving them.  And over time, God starts churning this desire with in him, this burning passion for orphans and refugees.  And over a period of time, amount of time, he getting all the details, God start opening up doors that only God could open up, to the point where today he is now bringing practical needs and spiritual truths to orphans who are refugees in Iraq fleeing from ISIS.  Catch this for a second.

Think about this.  There are orphans in Iraq crying out and God sees their misery.  And He comes to a man in Dallas and taps him on the shoulder and says, “Now, go, I am sending you.  You are my answer to their cry.”  He sees your misery, He hears you cries, and He’s concerned about your suffering.  And you say, “Well, man, I can’t go to Iraq.”  Good, God’s not asking you to go to Iraq.  He asked him.  But God is asking you to do something.

You don’t have to cross an ocean, but maybe you’re supposed to just cross your street.  Maybe you’re supposed to cross your office.  Maybe you’re just supposed to cross your living room to somebody else and be the answer to someone else’s cry.  And you say, “Well, man, that’s insignificant.  To go to my neighbor, that’s not like going and helping people in Iraq.”  Are you kidding me?  I should have said it stronger.  Are you kidding me?

Would’ve worked better, right?  You realize the same spirit that’s at work in ISIS is the same spirit that’s at work in your neighbor.  Satan only does three things, steal, kill and destroy.  Wherever he is on the earth, that’s all – he’s got the same playbook, steal, kill and destroy.  Same spirit that’s in ISIS is the same spirit that’s here in the world around us, in our city and God says I’m sending you.  Free people, free people.  Delivered people become deliverers.  And so, no, maybe you’re not supposed to go to Iraq, but maybe you’re just supposed to be a father figure to a kid without a dad.  Maybe it’s to bring compassion to somebody that’s hurting.  To give resources to someone that’s in need, to bring healing to someone that’s hurting.

Be a friend to someone that’s lonely.  I don’t know, but I know this.  If you follow Jesus, you are his answer to someone’s cry.  I mean, you remember in Luke 9 and 10, Jesus says to the disciples.  He says okay, guys, it’s time go.  Preach the kingdom, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, heal the lepers, go.  Now, the disciples certainly didn’t feel ready.  I mean they were only with Jesus like nine chapters.  Let’s be honest here.

That’s a big thing.  You’re asking me to raise the dead I’ve only been with you nine chapters.  Can we at least get to 20?  I mean, Jesus says go.  And so, they go and what happens?  They become the answer to people’s cry, heal the sick, they cast out demons, they preach the kingdom and they come back to Jesus.  In Luke 10:17.  And it says, “The 72 returned with joy saying, ‘Jesus even the demon submitted to us in your name.’”  So catch it, they come back with the joy they had never experienced walking in an authority they never had.

Which means if you won’t go be the answer to their cry, if you won’t go make disciples, if you won’t live out your purpose, there is a joy you will never know and an authority you will never walk in.  There’s a joy that you can know and an authority that you can experience when you’re finally willing to say, “Okay, Lord, I will go be your answer to their cry.”  I mean, the greatest miracles you will ever see in your life are in the lives of the people you have yet to meet.  Think about it.  Greatest miracles you ever see.  They’re in the lives of people you have yet to meet, why?  Because they are currently in misery crying out to God.  He sees it and He’s tapping you on the shoulder and He’s saying, “Now, go, you are my answer to their cry and watch what I will do through you.”  I mean, we say, we want to see miracles.  We want to see the supernatural power.  God, we want to watch them work.  And God says, “You want to see miracles?  Awesome.  Now, go and watch me do miracles through your hand.”

The greatest miracles you will ever see are the lives of the people you have yet to meet.  That’s why we got to get past this constant thinking about us.  Like, the reality is a lot of us were like, “I can’t deliver anybody else.  I’m still waiting for someone to deliver me.  I can’t help anybody else.  Someone needs to come help me.”  Okay.  Jesus has already helped you.  Jesus has helped you.  I mean, think about this, Moses was delivered from his shame when he delivered the Israelites from their bondage.  Like, you know that Moses isn’t at a resort in the desert.  He’s hiding in shame.  He killed a guy in Egypt so he’s hiding out in the wilderness in the dessert hiding from the shame that he can’t get free off.  And he gets freed from his shame when he frees the Israelites from their bondage.  That’s how it works with God.  You’ll grow if you help somebody else grow.  When you become the answer to someone else’s prayer, you just positioned yourself to receive the answer to your prayer.  You become a miracle on somebody else’s life.  You’ve just positioned yourself to receive the miracle you’re desperate for in your life.

And it all starts with Moses saying, “Here I am, here I am.”  And if God can take a shepherd and turn them in to a deliverer, then He can take a business man, a construction worker, a stay-at-home mom, a student, an athlete, you name it, he can turn them into a deliverer as well.  What if Moses would have said no?  If Moses would have said no, God would’ve raised someone else’s up because He was going to answer the misery of His people.  He would’ve raised someone else up to be the deliver and Moses would have been stuck in the wilderness.  And I’m convinced a lot of us when we say no to God, he raises someone else up and we get stuck in our own wilderness.  We get stuck in our own dessert.  You say, I’m in a wilderness, I’m in a dessert, I want out.

The door out of your wilderness is by being the answer to someone else’s cry.  The door out of your dessert, catch me, the door out of your dessert is to be the answer to someone else’s cry.  You will find yourself in freedom when you go and free somebody else, because you’re now living your purpose.  So, here’s what we’re going to do to close this.  We’re going to take communion together.  I guess it’s the best way that we can do it.  So our ushers are going to get up because it really captures the heartbeat of this message.  And here’s what I would ask you to do, can you just set your stuff down for a moment and can you just be still.  And the ushers are going to start passing it out and here’s what I want you to catch.  The reason we can go be the answer to someone else’s cry is because Jesus was the answer to our cry.  The reason you can go and be a deliverer in this world is because you’ve been delivered by Jesus.

He has seen your misery.  He has heard your cry.  He was concerned of your suffering so he came.  And he died so you could be free.  And so, as the plates are coming by, this is for everybody who’s a follower of Jesus.  If you’re here yet and you haven’t put your faith in him, I’m so glad you’re here man, keep coming back.  You’re going to meet Jesus in this place, but we would ask you to pass it for now, because by taking it, what you’re saying in your hand is, Jesus is my deliverer.  That I couldn’t deliver myself.  And so, he came to deliver me.  The broken body and the shed blood of Jesus is proof that God was concerned of your suffering.  And so, as you sit here for a moment, what’s the Holy Spirit want to say to you?

In this moment, in this time, in this day, he is here.  What does he want to say?  He sees the misery of that marriage.  He hears the cry for that child.  He is concerned about the suffering of that addiction.  He has seen the oppression of the anxiety and the fear.  He cares about the sickness in your body.  And he wants to say to you today that he has come, he has come.  In fact, just like Moses, Jesus said here I am.

When the Father looked from heaven and saw your misery and heard your cry and was concerned about your suffering, Jesus stepped up out of his thrown, raised his hand and said, here I am Father, send me.  I will be your answer to their cry.  And he came, he came for you.  And now, because of what he has done, he sends you to do the same.  And so, as you’re holding your deliverance in your hand, who’s he inviting you to deliver?  Where is compassion been churning in your heart?  Where is there a problem that you’ve seen a need for a solution?  Where is there an opportunity that’s been brought to your attention?  That’s God saying, hey, you are my answer to that.

Now go.  Go and watch what I will do through you.  The greatest miracles you’ll ever see are going to come through your hands in the lives of the broken people around you, because the greatest miracle of all came through Jesus’ hands into your life.  On the night, the Lord Jesus was betrayed.  After he had given thanks, he took the bread and he broke it.  He said, this is my body which is going to be broken for you so I’m going to be broken so you can be delivered.  Church, by faith, can you choose to receive the fullness of his deliverance together?  And in the same way after the supper, Jesus took the cup.  He said this represents my blood which is going to be poured out for you.

My blood is going to be spilled so you can be made whole.  Jesus died to take away our diseases.  He died so we can be forgiven of our sins.  He died so that addictions and the bondage could be broken off of our life.  He says, “As you do this, do it in remembrance of me.”  Can we receive the fullness of his deliverance together?  So Jesus, we say to you today, that you are our great deliverer.  We believe that by faith, we live in freedom because of what you have done.  We thank you Jesus, I’m believing that God’s even breaking things off of your life right now that He’s delivering you with the unexpected love of God on display.  And Lord, we choose to say yes.  Maybe even in your own ways, so Jesus I’m in, I’m in.  Send me to be your answer to their cry.  I feel overwhelmed.

I don’t feel like I’m trained enough, I don’t have what it takes.  And He says watch what I will do through you.  I will be with you.  And so, Lord, I’m believing for great miracles, great stories, great reports of what you are going to do as we choose to be your answer to their cry.  We love you Jesus and we celebrate you today.  You are our deliverer.