But I Am Not Enough

Jeannie Green here comes not from discovering greater things about yourself or tapping into your inner potential confidence comes from seeing how big and how powerful God is discovering his purposes for your life and his commitment to carry them through an interest and swept up in the Bible teaching ministry pastor. Legend. I'm your host Molly minutes lately that lots of people look to self-help methods to boost their confidence. Their list seminars and programs that promise to help you unleash your inner potential. It's quite a business these days. The transcendent life pastor Janie reveals that we can't mean back church can't come from inside of us. This message is titled, but I am not today. I want to show you from Exodus 3 of the universal experience of insecurity, insecurity, I mean that feeling inside of you that you were not enough, not enough to face life's challenges. How about comes from a view of God that is too small.

I told the story of experiencing insecurity one night when I found myself standing face-to-face with a group of convicted felons. Now you say why Bobby experience insecurity about moment to you, but it's probably not what you're thinking I'm referring to a meeting that I had with some of our brothers in the prison ministry. One of them told me in this meeting that he always assumed that as his release.

They approached that he would just be overwhelmed by feelings of excitement and anticipation is getting ready to restart his life. He said he said that you know as this release day approaches is in there to just open the doors and I will be a walk out a free man he so what I'm feeling is not excitement and anticipation what I feel is a feel overwhelmed by fear.

So what if I don't have what it takes to function in the real world anymore. What I did the last time I messed it up. And what if now you know what, 10, 15, 20 years later. What if I don't have what it takes to succeed.

What if I just mess it up again insecurity is that voice inside of you that whispers I am not blanking often you figure out what goes in that blank is ask yourself what most often goes in that like for you. I am not good-looking enough.

I'm not athletic enough. I'm not young enough, smart enough, funny in our spiritual enough.

Maybe you just got hired for a job and now you're not sure you can do it. What's worse is your pretty sure nobody else thinks you can do it either, so you're sure that your pretty sure that when you see other people will gather around the water cooler working there laughing about something you're almost positive that it's you that are laughing about. Or maybe you just embarked on some new phase in your life you just became a mom or maybe it's a new chapter in your career or maybe you're going into retirement and was not sure if you got what it takes to really succeed in this chapter.every parent that I know feels like this because there's nothing that destroys your sense of self competence like having a child I heard a guy told me once on that the only possible way was a mentor buys a JD. The only possible way for you to be happy as a parent is to lower your expectations on everything.

Maybe you just started dating somebody and you're not sure if you measure up to their families. Expectations I once had told me said that every family dinner. I go to feels like a tryout. What I mean. Interview talk at some point you're going up, excuse me from dinner and there'll have a vote is whether or not I get to stay around as a part of the family. Some of you are married, by the way you still feel like that's happening at these family dinners right now. I know one guy told me that a girl broke up with him because she said he was too insecure. 681 am I supposed to do with that. If I was insecure before she breaks up with me because I'm insecure.

What does that leave you now. Maybe you feel like God is called you a ministry that you still utterly incapable for I thought a lot of church planters a lot of her missionaries actually eliciting right now they say that's totally me. I hate you I answer the call and when I got here and felt like I didn't know what to do. I felt like I just felt overwhelmed by the possibilities and impossibilities see all of us at some point experience insecurity back in the age of Instagram and Twitter. I think this problem is a thousand times worse because no matter what I do, there's always somebody out there doing it better. I refuse to go on twitter and Instagram on Valentine's Day because matter what I too for Veronica Mike. I'm happy because I got her a dozen roses and took her to a favorite restaurant or some friend of mine from college that got his girl pony and backpacking through Europe and I'm like oh please let my wife see that. See Exodus 3 opens up with Moses as a pretty insecure man.

He started out like pretty security was a good-looking guy with a lot of confidence. He had a high-paying job. He was Pharaoh's adopted son. But then in his early 20s, or so it felt like God was calling him to do something, namely he thought God was leading him to deliver Israel out of Egypt and so we tried it. Things went bad. The Jewish people mock him and rejected him. Pharaoh's adopted daddy disowned him and then he ended up killing the man, but that's a bad day at work right.

Can we not agree everybody hates you. Your boss fires you. You kill somebody on the way out to the parking lot that's a bad day, Moses flees into the desert where he ends up marrying a nomad girl and spends the next 40 years, tending the sheep of her father about a life fail when you're in your early 60s and your tending your father-in-law sheep and still living in his basement. That is a serious failure to launch Exodus chapter 3 verse one. That's what opens up this chapter. Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law. You should read that and then read in your Bible right life fail right there and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and he came to her Rebbe, the mountain of God. There the angel the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire but didn't burn up.

So we turned aside to go see it.

Moses thought I would look over and see the strengths I why Bush does not burn up and I called him from within the bush, Moses, Moses, Moses said here I am, do not come any closer.

God said take off your sandals for the place for your standing.

Moses 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 hit his face because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, I've indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I've heard them crying out because of their slave drivers and I am concerned about their suffering. So I've come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians are now Moses ago I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt, but Moses said the God who am I who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt to hold on just a second. When did the conversation turn the Moses. Up until that point in the conversation there in verse 11 we been talking about God and what God wanted to do but now Moses very subtly makes himself the point of the conversation.

Commentators say that this reveals the deep insecurities that Moses was carrying around from his previous failures. In fact, commentators point out that that statement who am I is an echo of the very question that the Israelites had thrown back in Moses's face.

The first time Moses had tried to rescue them to go back to chapter 2 verse 14, when Moses had showed up the first time you try to rescue them. The Israelites and said who are you and who do you think you are that you can come in actually pull this off. Moses is repetition of this question shows as their doubts had seeped into his soul. Maybe that's happened to you somebody criticize you for so long that you started to believe those things about yourself. Maybe it was a dad. Maybe it was your dad that that that that with that kind of doubt on you. Maybe it was a teacher or an ex-spouse or maybe an abusive boss, that's what happened.

The Moses verse 12 verse 12 a, God responded to Moses. Moses, I will be with you.

This is really important. Notice how God deals with Moses insecurities you do it the way that we usually do in our day and age you didn't pull Moses on a talk show and reinforce them with positive thoughts are helping discover his inner tiger Moses visualize yourself walking in the pharaohs coordinate and experience the feelings of taking Pharaoh down Malcolm in the mirror again and say I am Moses. None of that God just subtly shifts the narrative back to himself. This is Moses, I will be with you what you talking about you for see.

That's because this Mike is down.

That's because confidence can come from a better assessment of your potential confidence comes from a clear view of God to God and start talking about Moses and say Moses, she does not seem yourself the right ways is Moses right I see her look at me. Moses still didn't get it.

So we keep talking about his deficiencies.

Notice first 13 notices well what if this happens or what if that happens, what should I do what you I do then verse 14 kind of humorous God totally ignores Moses questions. Instead, Modi spent the next nine verses focus entirely on what he God has gotten is doing and plans to do this is Moses. This is not about you having what it takes Moses. This is about me accomplishing my purposes. You got a role in that. Moses, yes, but the power the success in this that belongs to me.

Moses I don't need you to be a better I need you to be a vessel on the Victor I'll work through you told me say it again. Confidence comes not from discovering greater things about yourself or tapping into your inner potential confidence comes from seeing how big and how powerful God is discovering his purposes for your life and his commitment to carry them through an interest in swept up in reminds me of the story I heard one time when I lived in Southeast Asia as a missionary older man who was a neighbor of mine told me a story that he said happened when he was in yellow when he was 10 or 11 years old at some the 1950s.

He said his group of of Southeast Asian fishermen from their country there that were discovered off the coast of of their islands floating hanging onto the wreckage of a ship small ship small fishing vessel and he said that the Coast Guard rescue these guys and be fishermen complained about a towel that attacked them from having and so they just said that they did their version of the Coast Guard was like. Surely this was somehow a drug deal that went bad somehow smuggling something illegal to put these guys in prison and they printed the story in the paper.

Will this older man told me he said about a week later, a group of American servicemen very sheepishly came forward hi there's a base not far from where I lived in Southeast Asia narratives of a runway. I will strip out on one of these islands and these this guy said that these American servicemen said we were header B-52 bomber and we were planning to take off and as we were ambling down the runway towel walked across the runway and we thought hey this callous and appeared along anyone will just take him with us to our destination.

When we get there, will slaughter the cow will have prime rib tonight.

It's going to be a fantastic evening so he said we didn't really have room enough in the cockpit for the cows. We put them in the bomb area answers only cost you 10 15,000 feet or whatever something happened in the cow just lost his mind.

The cow started, you kicked out of his the altitude or what we do know what to do. He said so he was standing right above the bomb doors so we did what you would think that it we just open the bomb doors. Now I have no way of verifying whether or not the story is true because old man from Southeast Asia told me it was true. If it is true.

All I can think about is first what was going to be fishermen's minds as they're looking up and are trying to describe is not a towel, dropping to us from the heavens right and then I wonder what was like lastly going to towels on any fishermen you know that in the cows like Unocal, the utter destruction ahead of you know I like this in so I got a milk this analogy for all that is worth but I think if it happen. I don't know the other thing I wonder is anything about the cow poor cow just walking you know to the field eating grass happens to make his way across the runway no idea where he is when all of a sudden he gets swept in forces beyond his comprehension beyond his imagination what Moses is experiencing. In Exodus 3 is a little bit like that because suddenly he is just gonna Myers is minding his business. He gets swept up in the purposes of God. You see, the way this you find confidence in life is not getting God on your side the way you develop confidence in life is you begin to live out the purposes of God, that you discover from Scripture. Many people make a critical mistake in reading the Bible. They assume the Bible is primarily about them that it's a manual of spiritual tips for helping you achieve your spiritual purpose in helping you find the will of God for your life.

The Bible is primarily about God. It's not about you. Page after page, reveals who he is who he is and only when you come toward awareness of who he is and you discover who you are. Only by becoming competent in his purposes are you ever going to be able to become confident in yours. You see many of you have tried to find the will of God entirely in the wrong way you focused on what is the will of God for my life and you put all the emphasis on the word. My you don't discover God's will bike bike narcissistically looking at your life. You discover God's will you discover what he's doing in the world and then you align your life with his purposes. Some of you have approached God try to see how we can help you achieve your purposes gotten it all wrong. We are supposed to approach God surrendering to his purposes, and that's where a real sense of confidence comes from two that's what God is trying to very patiently show Moses he's going to say I've got a purpose and I want to use you in it. The any drives this point home by introducing the Moses named verse 13 Moses said to God, suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, the God of your father sent me to you mastery what is his name what shall I tell them then God said to Moses, I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites.

IM has Sydney to you. The irony of course is that the name the God uses is not really good name. It's a verb in Hebrew. It is high got back is a great Hebrew word its classic Hebrew hi yeah you and say it in my city at all campuses hi yeah I something your karate job and somebody in the person from your he wiped a little something off their neck. If you he's a arrive hi Ya and it literally means I am right means to be cognitive. The verb to be no we write it.

Now we say it is Yahweh or Jehovah. That's how we usually am transliterated what God is saying to Moses is Moses. I don't really have a name because I'm not like anything else you've ever experienced.

I will come from anywhere. I'm not going anywhere I didn't have the beginning.

I'm not good heaven and I don't have needs.

I don't require any help.

I don't get tired.

I have no limits. I am unbounded, unchanging, always and forever the same and that means I'm not intimidated by Pharaoh nor my limited by Egypt's power, the burning bush is supposed to give us a glimpse of God's eternal self-sustaining nature.

The fire that burned in the bush burned continually without burning out the bush was he fires me fuel right and when the fuel is consumed. The fire goes out but the fire that Moses saw was self-sustaining. It did not require any kind of fuel in the same way God the eternal I am, needs no external fuel.

Nothing precedes him. Nothing sustains him. Nothing contains him.

And so God says to Moses if IV eternal. I am the all sustaining one is on your side. Moses, do you really feel like you need anything else. Is there anything else you need besides, I am with you all those places in your life Moses that you feel like you are not. I am you know when you step back and you think about it. Moses actually did have a lot of undiscovered potential you think about it Moses that been uniquely equipped to accomplish this task. I got a call into me think about it for the past 40 years, Moses has led sheet to the very wilderness that God is now going to have the children of Israel escape through. Know that means minis and Moses knew the terrain he knew the trails into the mountain passes into the watering holes plus his or her to receive you something about managing unruly crowds and is a former son of Pharaoh he's learned how to read and write legal documents he's seen firsthand how to set up a government and so forth. My, he's been uniquely equipped for this.

This should have been.

This should have been his three children of the 80s is karate kid Mr. Miyagi moment Brightman that seen Mr. Miyagi's Jeffrey seven euros in the Senate floor and paint the fence and wash the car, you know, easy think she's been wasting his time at all. This time Mr. Miyagi's been teaching in the basic moves he needs to defeat Johnny in the karate tournament by dissident notices Mr. Miyagi moment when you realize all this last 40 years is all been divinely orchestrated to prepare him for this very moment Moses can't see that Moses can see that because he so focused on himself and listen to me when ever you focus on yourself when ever you focus on yourself, you will always find yourself overwhelmed by insecurities because you will always end up finding some obstacle that is greater than what you bring to the table in time. Moses is going to come to see the things that got a gun in his life and he's going to appreciate God's sovereign preparation of into the task.

But what is most fascinating to me. In this passage is that God, in trying to give Moses confidence point any of those things out even though they were true then say Moses wake up I been preparing you the whole time. You do have what it takes and said all he says is Moses I'm with you Walt forward in confidence knowing that what I have called you to.

I will supply you for and is Moses does that. He starts to see how God had indeed been ever present in his life and had indeed been preparing him all along for the great work that he had for him. My question for you is what if you look at your life with the eyes of faith.

What if you started to believe that literally in everything in the good and the bad be exciting and the disappointing.

The tragedies and the tryouts. There had been a sovereign loving God behind it all. Preparing you for his purposes, just like he said he was in that that same God was now calling you forward, telling you to trust the one that they fully prepared you would also be the one who would faithfully see you through. That is where confidence comes from God does not deal with Moses's insecurities by teaching them anything about himself. Even though Moses had a lot to learn in this moment, God dealt with Moses's insecurities by calling him to focus on who God was, because again, confidence can come from a clear self-assessment. They come from a clear view of God doing Moses's response, which is about to God.

I am not eloquent enough, smart enough, successful enough. God responds I didn't choose you because you are any of those things Moses I got enough about those things for the both of us Moses. It is true you are not, but I am I am God enough.

In fact, throughout Scripture were to learn that God usually doesn't choose the guy that says oh I know exactly what you choose me I was so talented that you had to have me on your team. If you can a guy almost always clogs up the line and when he or she accomplishes something great. They just say finally the world is recognizing my talents God prefers instruments were broken instruments to fill insufficient instruments. You know they have to lean on God instruments who we may accomplish something say I have no idea how it happened. It must've been God at work in me. That's what Paul the book of first Corinthians says is not many mighty, not many noble, not many wives not many strong God chooses the weak and the despised so that the glory will go to him. I would ask a go so far as to say this way feeling inadequate is a prerequisite to being used by God and if you don't feel inadequate is not to choose you.

So Moses says what God I'm not good enough when God says I know I am God.

I'm not skilled enough. I know I am God. I'm not confident enough I am to find your confidence in me. God says Moses, I am the God of very very unpromising material, Moses you may not be but I always am in my in this overcomes you're not in this told you that throughout Israel's history, God would reinvoke this. I am name whenever Israel was in a time of great need and then what God would do is he was attached to that name Jehovah our Yahweh, he would attach to it. Whatever it was that Israel lacked in whatever he plan to supply for Israel in himself that that means Yahweh, Jehovah appears in your Old Testament 6519 times in your Bible in English it's written as L ORD. Whenever you see LORD that's always signified thinning Yahweh or Jehovah in the always attached to it. Whatever is relaxing is like the most beautiful truth of Scripture about the share is the truth in Scripture that's like the whole meal.

This is the gospel that you come back to again and again and again because it satisfies your soul. God's use of the IM name throughout Scripture is the essence of the gospel. So in Exodus, when the people of Israel are wounded and sick because of their sin. God reveals himself to them as Jehovah. I am Roth, which means you are on your healer Leviticus. When Moses lays out the wall law that great description of how to walk uprightly before God and the people say what we say. How could you ever live up to all these things, God says Jehovah I am keen I am your sanctifier. In other words, on the God who will enable you to actually walk with me.

I am going to become the righteousness I'm to be your righteousness when you have no right here in identity from the father and became your help in your salvation when encouraging message from Pastor JD Greer here on Senate life if you join us late today if you like to catch up on previous messages in our current theories. Visit us online@jdgreer.com we make these Bible study resources available free of charge because we want people everywhere to be able to dive deeper into the gospel with tasks that did you know that it's friends like you who make this possible. As a nonprofit ministry. We rely on the financial support of listeners who believe in our mission today when you get to Senate life and excited to introduce for the first time you resource Pastor JD typically want you to have this holiday season. Titled searching for Christmas explores how Christmas offers and all that we truly need this year will send you two copies for a suggested donation of $25 one for you to keep and when free to give away also have the option of receiving five copies of searching for Christmas. I pastor JD Allen Jennings and copies for 100 Arlington Wonderful Way to give the gospel is brand-new donation by calling 335-5220 8665 forgive online JD clear.com I'm only minutes tomorrow at 13 reveals the breathing sure the hearing on the Tuesday edition Senate life 19