The Big Decision // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 3

A Different Perspective Official Podcast

It’s one thing to have a dream in our heart. It’s one thing to have a sense of God’s calling on our lives. But if we truly believe that God is calling us to something, then at some point, we need to stop dreaming and start doing. And that, let me tell you, is one of the most difficult times of all.

In my experience having a dream to do something, to get out there and be who God made you to be and do what God made you to do, that dreaming bit is the easy bit. It's easy to sit on the sofa and dream but dreams don't come to fruition until you go and do something about them.

There's a powerful spiritual principle that you discover in the Book of Acts chapter 12 where an angel comes to release the Apostle Peter from prison. Have a listen to this, Acts chapter 12 verses 7 to 9:

Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He tapped Peter on the side and woke him up saying, “get up quickly” and the chains fell off his wrists and the angel said to him, “fasten your belt and put on your sandals”, he did so. Then he said to him, “wrap your cloak around you and follow me”. Peter went out and followed him.

The spiritual principle is this - God expects us to do the things that we can do and He expects to do the things that we can't do. There are two parts to that principle, get either part wrong and things just don't happen. If you expect God to do the things that you're capable of doing, hey, nothing is going to happen. If you think you're going to do the things that only God is capable of doing still nothing is going to happen.

The angel told Peter to get up quickly and then God caused the chains to fall off his wrists. The angel told Peter to get dressed and follow him and then God ended up doing the rest by causing the prison gates to swing open. The problem often is that when God taps us on the shoulder and says, "it's time to go", we just don't want to get up that quickly and that's exactly the problem Moses had.

You'll remember if you've been able to join me over the last few days that we've been looking at the life and the times of Moses, possibly after Jesus the most prominent and successful character in the Bible. And when you read some of the pithy accounts of Moses in the New Testament he is after all the most spoken about Old Testament character in the New Testament, you can easily get the idea that he was an overnight success.

But that's not true, after forty years of living in privilege as Pharaoh's adopted son he kills an Egyptian guard who was abusing one of his fellow Hebrews and as a result has to flee into the wilderness where he lives for the next forty years. A place and a time, as we saw, where God was getting him ready to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt towards the Promised Land.

We're going to pick up the story of Moses 'overnight success' at this moment of transition, after forty years as a burnt out old wreck in the wilderness, when God finally comes to him to call him to get up and go and do what God had always made him to do, to lead God's people out of Egypt.

Now you might think at this point that Moses would get up and dust himself off and say, well you know it's about time God, do you realise I've been rotting out here in the wilderness forgotten by you after all those years of privilege in Pharaoh's house? That wasn't exactly how Moses responded to God, Exodus chapter 3 verses 1 to 12:

So Moses was out there keeping the flock of his father in law of Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led his flock beyond the wilderness and came to Horab the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flaming fire out of a bush. He looked and the bush was blazing yet it wasn't consumed.

Then Moses said, “I must turn aside and look at this great sight to see why the bush has not burned up”. When the Lord saw that he had turned aside to see God called him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses” and he said, “here I am”. Then he said, “come no closer, remove the sandals from your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.

And God said further, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” and Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt, I have heard their cry on account of their task masters, indeed I know their sufferings and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land.

A land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has come to me, I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send 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'll be with you and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt you shall worship God on this mountain."

Now the last thing that Moses wanted to do was to go and confront Pharaoh, in fact he had another four excuses on top of that one and eventually God gets so angry with him and shows him a couple of miracles to get him going. See, we all want overnight success but after forty years of rotting in the wilderness, after forty years of self-pity, after forty years of being the victim, well you know you can get comfortable with being a victim.

Get up and go, are you serious God? Do you see the paradox? What I love about Gods Word is that it's as fresh and alive and relevant today as it was thousands of years ago when it was written. And I know that there are just a few people today who need to hear this. Gods call on your life has seriously disrupted your status quo, you've experienced some time cooling your heels in the wilderness, you've got used to it but all of a sudden God comes along and says, quickly, get up, lets go.

If Moses hadn't gone Israel would have perished in slavery. If Peter the Apostle thousands of years later hadn't gone he would have died in prison. What about you, are you ready to go when God calls you? Well, are you?

I remember when I first received the call to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ from God, it was as clear as a bell and then as I've already mentioned in this series, God let me stew in my juices, a bit like Moses but thankfully only for eight years not for forty years. I wanted to go, I wanted to go and follow the calling from day one but when eight years later God was ready I got scared.

See I had a great well paying career as an IT consultant, I worked hard but it was a really comfortable life and then God called me into this ministry which was all but dead. It had been going, Christianityworks, for over half a century but had been so run into the ground that it almost had no supporters, it wasn't producing any radio programs which was and remains our core business. It was at the point of, well you know, ‘last one out turn out the lights’.

It was at that point that God clearly called me to leave my IT consulting career and it's income behind and step into this leaky boat that was steadily sinking, the ministry called Christianityworks. See that step is never easy, it wasn't for Moses, I have to tell you it certainly wasn't for me and if you've been in that place I know it wasn't for you either.

But I also know that there are some people tuned in today who are at this very point in their lives, the starting line, the stepping off point. It's that big decision to step out of your comfort zone because let me tell you, God’s purposes for you always lie outside your comfort zone and get on with it.

So I'll ask you again, are you ready to go when God calls you? Are you ready to step out of your comfort zone? Are you ready to place your life, your future completely in the hands of God? Well, are you?