Limitless Purpose
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Play Limitless Video Intro
Some of you may have seen the movie, “Limitless,” or maybe you watched the show that came out later, but here’s the premise of the movie. You’ve probably heard before that we only use 10% of our brains. I have no idea if that’s true or not. Honestly, I doubt that its true. But still, you hear that thrown around all the time. Well in the movie, a company creates a pill that allows you to use 100% of your brain, and there Bradley Cooper was seeing the world for the first time using 100% of his brain. All of a sudden, he can figure anything out. The world moves in slow motion. No problem is too big. He goes from being a low life drug addict to a millionaire executive. All because he was able to push past the normal limits.
So this week we are going to be talking about Limitless, but not about how much of our brain we use. Some of you I know are only using 5% anyway. But instead, I think we put limits on God. We serve a limitless God, but we don’t always live in that truth!
Show picture of Mama Marcia
I remember when my grandmother, I call my grandma Mama Marcia. I remember when Mama Marcia first got an iPhone. And in case you are wondering, it was before I ever got a smart phone. Because my grandma is cool. But she had an iPhone, and I was a little confused. Grandparents aren’t supposed to be that up on technology. But we went to visit her, and she was showing it off, and I asked her what she used it for. “Making phone calls.” That’s it? You can make phone calls on any and every cell phone. Why would you get an iPhone? You can text, get on facebook, facetime, read the news, surf the internet, take pretty good pictures, download any other apps to do whatever you want on there, but you’re just using the iPhone to make calls..
The most powerful phone on the market, and at that time it wasn’t even a competition, and you are not even beginning to touch its potential. And that is what we do with God. We have the most powerful, most knowing, most loving God, yet we have placed limits on him. We have placed God in our own boxes that make us comfortable, and we miss out on so much of what God desires to do in us and through us! And just so you know, Mama Marcia now uses her iphone, ipad, and macbook for a whole host of things.
So here’s our journey for the week. We are going to be following the beginnings of a very well known, very important Biblical leader: Moses and the beginning of the Exodus. And we’ll see that we place limits on God’s purpose, God’s passion, and God’s power, which then puts limits on the praise that we give to God.
Show slide of Apple
Read more: Steve's Jobs' Apple vs. Current Apple https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/042315/what-apples-current-mission-statement-and-how-does-it-differ-steve-jobs-original-ideals.asp#ixzz5JkDG2VAy
I’ve been talking about the iPhone, so let me stick with Apple for a second. If you look at Apple’s purpose now, they say that their purpose is to make the best computers, and to continue to revolutionize the phone and music industry. Ok, not a bad purpose. But significantly different than how they began, which I think speaks to why so many other companies have caught up to Apple. Because the purpose of just making a great product isn’t that inspirational, and honestly its not that high of a purpose.
But when Steve Jobs began, his purpose was "To make a contribution to the world by making tools for the mind that advance humankind." Ok. That’s a purpose. It’s not about just making a product that sells and makes a great profit, but its about making a difference. It’s about making a contribution to the world. It’s about advancing humankind. That’s inspiring. And those two purposes, which both included making great computers and phones, are completely different.
For freedom God fights
For freedom God fights
And here’s what I think we’ve done. We’ve taken the great purpose of why God intervened in humanity in the Old Testament and in Jesus, and we have whittled it down to a product. We offer God’s purpose of salvation and his promise of heaven, but we miss and leave out that God says point blank that God has intervened for freedom. He has intervened to free you. His salvation comes from the freedom that only he brings.
For freedom God fights
For freedom God fights
Let’s get into the word. We are starting in tonight, if you want to go ahead and turn there.
Show slide of burning bush
And while you’re turning there, let’s set the scene for where we are. The Israelites are enslaved by the Egyptians. There are too many Israelites, so the Pharaoh declares that all Israelite baby boys are to be killed. Moses’s mom is sneaky, and she saves Moses. She floats Moses down the river in a reed basket, and he is found by the Pharaoh’s daughter. She adopts him, and Moses grows up in the Pharaoh’s house. He knows his heritage, though. And one day out of anger, he kills an Egyptian who was striking an Israelite slave. His crime is discovered, and he he runs away to the desert. He starts working as a shepherd for a man named Jethro, and this is where we find Moses in . He is tending to the sheep when he sees a bush on fire, but it’s not burning. So Moses does what any normal person would do, I need to check this out. Because that’s what you do when you see something weird. You’ve gotta go check it out. And we will pick it up in verse 4.
4 When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called out to him from the bush, “Moses, Moses!” “Here I am,” he answered.
5 “Do not come closer,” he said. “Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”
6 Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
7 Then the Lord said, “I have observed the misery of my people in Egypt, and have heard them crying out because of their oppressors. I know about their sufferings,
8 and I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and to bring them from that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the territory of the Canaanites, Hethites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
9 So because the Israelites’ cry for help has come to me, and I have also seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them,
10 therefore, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh so that you may lead my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt.”
Let’s start at the beginning of this passage because this has to be the starting point. God tells Moses to take off his shoes because he is standing on holy ground. And then Moses becomes afraid that he is going to die if he looks at the bush because of the holiness of God. God’s purpose is grounded in his character. It is grounded in his holiness. If God is not holy, if God is not good, if God is not loving, if God is not powerful, then everything that comes next would be meaningless.
God’s purpose is grounded in his character
God’s purpose is grounded in his character
Think of it like a parent. Many of you in here have two great parents. When they tell you to do something, you trust them. You know that their ultimate purpose is never to hurt you, so you are willing to listen to them. Because you trust their character, you trust their actions. Others in here, you would not say that you have two great parents. You have one good parent, or maybe none, and you can’t trust their actions or their purpose because you don’t trust their character. And I’m sorry that’s your reality, but know their is a Father who breaks that mold.
When God observes the misery of his people, when he hears them crying out, it stirs him to move. It spurs him to action. If we can’t trust who God is, then we wouldn’t be able to trust his freedom. God hears, and God knows, when we cry out in our suffering. God has seen you in your bondage. God hears of your struggles. God sees what is tying you down. And guess what? He wants to do something about it.
God rescues
God rescues
God’s purpose is bring freedom. He doesn’t just want a better situation. He doesn’t just want better conditions for the enslaved Israelites. He wants freedom. Freedom means the bondage is gone. The chains are gone. Being trapped is gone. Free.
This word that God uses, where he desires to rescue them, has a really fun image behind it. The root of the word means to snatch away. God is saying that I am going to snatch the Israelites away from the Egyptians. I am going to take back what is mine. I’m not about asking nicely. I’m not about hoping they do it. I’m not about making a deal. I’m going to take what is mine. And we’ll see this week that’s exactly what he is going to do.
Now I don’t want you to think that I’m overstating how important freedom is to God. First, this is the seminal moment of the Old Testament. Everywhere in the Old Testament, they always point back to the Exodus. God bringing freedom to the Israelites was the most important thing the Israelites always pointed to. But Jesus speaks along the same lines in Luke.
This is what Jesus preaches in Nazareth, which most people say this is Jesus making a thesis statement, or a topic sentence depending on where you are in school, for his ministry.
18 The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed,
19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Let me read that again. Freedom reigns! Jesus says that he has been sent for that very purpose!
In Galatians Paul says that for freedom Christ has set us free!
1 For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm then and don’t submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Don’t limit God’s purpose to just helping you have an easier life. Don’t limit it to being in a better situation. Making good grades. Getting the starting spot. Making first chair. Getting the scholarship. Having a great boyfriend or girlfriend. Being the big shot on campus. Growing up to be rich! Don’t you dare limit God’s purpose to those things. God has come for freedom. For freeing the slave. For setting the captives free. Jesus didn’t come so the kids in apartments in New Orleans can get out of the apartments, though for most that would be a great thing that God would certainly like, but he came so they could have true freedom!
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God is bringing the Israelites to a new land, but that physical reality is just a shadow of the spiritual reality that we have received. Jesus has fought the battle for our freedom, not of flesh and blood but of the spiritual realities, and once Jesus returns we will see the finality of our freedom spiritually and physically.
Let’s move into the end of God’s first part of this conversation. He says, “therefore, go.”
The rescued rescue
The rescued rescue
I’ve rescued you, Moses, from your fugitive status. Now I’m going to use you to rescue the Israelites. And of course, this therefore, go has to remind us of another therefore, go in the New Testament. When Jesus says therefore go and make disciples of all nations.
The rescued rescue others.
Nobody embodied this more than Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman was a slave who escaped to freedom, but made 19 more trips leading over 300 slaves to freedom through the underground railroad.
“Now I've been free, I know what a dreadful condition slavery is. I have seen hundreds of escaped slaves, but I never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave.” Harriet Tubman
A woman who escaped slavery herself, but she couldn’t rest knowing that so many were still in bondage. Most of you in here, you have escaped slavery. You have been rescued. And I know you aren’t willing to go back. But you can’t rest either. There’s too many still in bondage. There’s too many in bondage that you’ll meet this week. Kids, teens, and parents. God has send you here for a purpose, his purpose, to set the captives free.