Entering the Land

Entering Into the Land 

Exodus 23:20: “Behold, I send an Angel before you to keep you in the way and to bring you into the place which I have prepared.

·        The Lord has prepared a Land for us just as He did for the children of Israel. It’s the Land of His promises. And if we want to enjoy “the deeper Christian life” we must grasp those promises.

·        The deeper life is experiencing those promises for ourselves, and God has set a path for us into those promises. So let’s look into this.

·        Israel was not going into a Land that they chose; God led them into a place that He chose for them.

·        He chose the destination and He chose the way to get there. They couldn’t even imagine what a wonderful place He had prepared for them as they had been in bondage for so long. It was beyond their comprehension.

·        God is asking His people to trust Him and follow the Angel. They had seen great miracles in being led out of their bondage for 400 years in Egypt; the evidence was there for their trust.

·        And in the same way, He asks us to trust Him because of the things He has already done in our lives. We just need to look at the evidence.

·        How many times has God saved you that you know of? How many times has He saved you that you are not aware of?

·        He’s asking us to just follow the Shepherd, like a sheep. 

John 10:14-15: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. 12 But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. 13 The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know My sheep, and am known by My own. 15 As the Father knows Me, even so I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.

·        Jesus give us more evidence as to why we should trust Him, He lays His life down for us.

·        He’s not like the hireling who taking care of the sheep is just a job for them. You cannot trust the hireling when things get bad, he will run away because he is just doing his job for the money. He just punches the clock. It’s just a job. He’s not an “owner.”

·        The owner of a business is usually the first to work in the morning and the last to leave. He doesn’t punch a time clock. He carries the responsibilities for the success or failure

·        Jesus takes responsibility for us He is the Good Shepherd and He wants to lead us into our Promised Land. We are “His sheep.”

·        We’re like sheep; in our ways… we will never find our Promised Land. Sheep have been known to follow each other off of a cliff.

·        There are wolves out there who want to catch the sheep or scatter the sheep or eat the sheep.

·        The Lord wants to make it easy for us…just follow the Shepherd, one step at a time! 

Exodus 23:22: But if you indeed obey His voice and do all that I speak, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and an adversary to your adversaries.

·        We are going to meet opposition in this world. The world is a place filled with delusions and lies. There are those who want to sell us their snake oil, lead us onto another path, scatter us, and devour us.

·        But if we obey His voice, and follow His path, we are promised protection. Here’s the truth: he wants to fight our battles.

·        Our Shepherd’s rod and his staff comfort me. His rod scatters the wolves and His staff gently leads me back on the right path.

·        God doesn’t ever promise us that there will not be enemies in this Promised Land. Although the land of Canaan was a land of plenty, it was also a land filled with enemies…but He will fight for us.

·        As we follow our Good Shepherd, there’s going to be trials and tribulations, but He also promises He will fight for us.

Exodus 23:24: You shall not bow down to their gods, nor serve them, nor do according to their works; but you shall utterly overthrow them and completely break down their sacred pillars.

·        Our Lord doesn’t leave us to conquer our enemies with wisdom or strength, He tells us how to conquer them; be different from them. We are not to imitate them. We are in this world but we are no longer of this world.

·        Today there are many who think that whether it’s Jesus, Buddha, Krishna, or Mohammed… it’s all the same God just different names.

·        Even many Christians “don’t want call these” other religions and the cults of Christianity like Mormons, Jehovah witnesses, and Christian Science what they are… they are wolves, thieves and robbers.

·        The Lord tells us that are we not to be like them, and we are to be hostile towards their idols.

·        Our battle isn’t against flesh and blood, but  there are idols that we must tear down; there’s the idol of worldly pleasure, the idol of compromise, the idol of mammon (money), the idol of comfort and convenience, and the idol of our culture. Jesus said, “We cannot serve both God and mammon.”

·        Their marching orders were not to conform, but to overthrow these false idols.

·        There are many today who just want to be passive. Jesus was not crucified for His good works; He was crucified for cleaning out the temple. Jesus was a revolutionary.

·        All the disciples, but one, died a martyr’s death. The cross stands as judgment against the world around us. 

Exodus 23:25: So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 

·        Serving means we are not directing or dictating, but rather submitting to a master. In Hebrew, serving means to work as a “bondservant.”

·        As a slave who has been set free but still willingly serves his master because he loves his master.

·        As I submit myself to Him and His authority, I begin to go in the direction in which He is leading me. God is my owner, and in serving Him I agree to His ownership over my life. 

·        I agree to trust, love and obey—that enriches my relationship to my God.

·        It is important that we learn to obey our God. We want His gifts, and we want Him to give us what we want, but too often we are unwilling to obey Him. The Bible says, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.”

·        I need to choose to obey Him at all costs. Am I willing to turn my back on all things in order to serve Him?

·        I am going to have trouble obeying Him if I do not trust Him.

·        This where we have trouble because we want to know everything about a situation before we can have trust. But God wants us to trust Him even though we don’t know what the next step is.

·        If I can’t trust Him, who should I trust? Government leaders and politicians? How about religious leaders? I need to decide who has my best interests at heart. Is it the government, religious leaders, the Pope? They don’t love us; 

1 John 4:7-9:  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.

·        When we think of love, we should think of God.

·        Unfortunately, our culture has dictated what love looks like through their movies and their music. We need to move away from that and focus on God’s love.

·        It’s only through a growing intimacy with God that we can grow in His love.

·        My love of God is the only way I am going to trust Him.

·        No matter what our obstacles are, or what we are facing, we are to let the whole thing go and fall on my knees in adoring worship. Everything in our lives can flow from our adoring worship and wonder of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Matthew 11:29-30: Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

·        How we see our God will determine who we serve Him. The Pharisees saw Him as hard and loveless, and therefore the way they served Him was grim and severe.

·        Many Christians today have an improper view of God. If we see Him as cold and hard, it will be impossible for us to love Him in truth… and our lives will be filled with fear.

·        They serve God like the elder brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, only doing right without enthusiasm or joy, and unable to celebrate when the prodigals come home.

·        If we see him as kind, understanding and loving, our whole inner life will reflect that kind of God.

·        The truth about God is, He is the most wonderful of all beings and His service is one of unspeakable pleasure. He is love and those who trust Him never need to know anything but that love.

·        He is a just God, but through the blood of our “everlasting covenant”

·        He is able to act to us as if we had never sinned. Our fellowship with Him is delightful beyond our understanding, and is restful and healing to our souls. 

Exodus 23:25: So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.

·        There are benefits we will receive from serving our God.

·        And this will be according to our faith. The more my faith and trust I God develops, the more I will see His benefits.

·        As I travel along His pathway where He is leading the more he will equip me and provide for me. Not only for my provisions, but in the Bread of Life and Living Water… the word and the Spirit!

·        Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.

·        Sickness and poverty are not blessings from God, or teaching us a lesson… they prevent us from serving Him fully.

·        He is a miracle God, and he can and will do miracles in my life if I will believe He will do it for me.

Exodus 23:26:  No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.

·        The loss of our children in the womb is a tragedy. It should be a safe place for our unborn. Abortion is something our nation should repent from and turn back to God, and He would heal our land.

·        There is no premature death in the will of God.

·        A man will live as long as God has work for him to do, and when that work is done, and I have completed what God had for me to do, I will get a promotion from this world into the next.

Psalm 103:2-5:   Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: 3 Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, 4 Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, 5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

·        This is the desire of our God for our lives. Our God is a good God and is worthy of all of our praise. Our Promised Land is filled with wonderful benefits.

·        We should not come short of entering all the way in. He has laid out the way for us, all we have to do is follow Him in and to not be afraid.