S2E5: Taking The First Step

Hey church leaders, today we're going be talking about taking the first step, which I know for many of us, if you're in ministry, no doubt you have taken hard and probably difficult first steps. So we're going to talking about it as it relates to our own spiritual and emotional health. ⁓ Specifically for leaders in ministry, whether you're a pastor or whether you direct some other form of ministry, we're going to be looking at this topic today because it's important. And when I started thinking about kind of taking, you know, the first step, a few things came to mind. I oftentimes think about summer, which is kind of the season that we're in right now. When I think about summertime and it's even growing up, taking the first steps for me included ⁓ learning how to water ski for the first time. ⁓ for probably many of us, it meant maybe being away from home for a week if you were younger and you were going to camp. Maybe even for me, because I'm living in Florida, it was like living through multiple hurricanes ⁓ during one summer. So it was a lot of first steps. But as I kind of think back to probably one of the most difficult and traumatic, I think, for my younger years of life, that had to deal with jumping off the diving board for the first time. I think I was probably seven, eight years old. Learning to dive was terrifying. ⁓ I remember just kind of sitting there thinking, like, there's no way I can jump from that high and into the water and live. And I kept thinking, like, that's gonna be a very difficult thing. And so the day came where I decided I made up my mind. And I was going to take that first step to get on the diving board, to jump up on it, and to jump into the water. That was a game plan. And I remember getting up there, I made my mind, I had determined this is what I'm going to do. And I got up there and you know, I kind of waited. I was like, let me just give myself like 30 seconds. 30 seconds turned into a minute, a minute turned into two, two turned into three, so on and so on. It seemed like I was up there probably 10 minutes before I finally jumped in. I finally took that. That first step of jumping up, bouncing from the board, and then into the water. And then the rest was history. I think by the end of my day, you know, I was probably diving probably 25, 30 times, extremely tired and just worn out. I needed a break. I needed food. I needed to re-energize. But man, I was so excited that I took that step because I've been diving into pools ever since. And I think for many of us, we think about ministry. Ministry can be a lot like this. I mean, God presents an opportunity for us to step into, to step into maybe a season or just an opportunity, whether it's your city or to start maybe a church plant or maybe to join an existing church and to maybe take that in a direction that the Lord is leading. But no doubt ministry can be like that. And I think about, you know, the first step to what God has called us to do, that can be difficult. And I think sometimes, you know, we could even sit there and think, like, man, that's that's a hard step to take. But when we Take that first step, we see how rewarding that it is for us in ministry. We we see that being obedient to God really hopefully inspires us to continue to take those steps. But as we take those steps, we also have to make sure that we are doing well, that emotionally and spiritually, we're in a good spot. And so today's lesson is really wrapped around this first step. And for for many of you, maybe you are in a group already or in a cohort. Which is great. You've already taken that step. But this is hopefully a good reminder to keep taking those steps because there's always different seasons in life. But maybe for some of you maybe joining for the first time or watching this for the first time and you've never been a part of a cohort, I would encourage you to strongly consider always taking those steps to make sure that you are healthy from a spiritual and emotional standpoint. Because it's been said The best gift that you can give your family, friends, congregation, ministry is a healthy you. And I think there's a lot to unpack there. Again, we're going specifically look at it in terms of getting connected with other leaders, such such as this, like in a cohort fashion. But today I want to kind of talk about the bottom line, which is we've got to learn to take care of ourselves if we want to experience longevity in ministry. Again, we've talked about these studies. For many of you, you've seen the studies. That if we don't take care of ourselves, we won't last. In fact, there are a lot of studies that show that most pastors won't retire from and really retire while doing ministry. And I think that's probably something that if we put a little bit of time and attention to and really kind of surrounded ourselves with the right people to help us stay in ministry as long as possible. In the sweet spot of God's calling, I think that many of us would would like to retire, so to speak, in ministry, although I don't really think you ever retire. But today I'm gonna look at ⁓ Exodus chapter 33, verses 12 through 14, and we're gonna be looking specifically at this block of scripture. I know there's a lot of places we can turn in the Word of God, but today I want to specifically look ⁓ at this block of scriptures because we're gonna see Moses is seeking assurance. He's he's he's seeking reassurance from God. As he leads the Israelites out of Egypt and eventually in his mind to the promised land, right? Which we all know how that goes. ⁓ and and so we see Moses, who really wasn't, you know, probably in his own, you know, measure, probably the best leader. ⁓ and we've seen probably, you know, different aspects of his character that said, man, he probably wasn't the strongest leader, but he was obedient. We saw God use him in mighty ways. So here in this block of scripture. Moses is seeking kind of reassurance from God as he's leading the Israelites. And Moses talks about the importance of God's presence and asks to see God's glory. If you, for some of you that may be familiar with this, we also see that God reassures Moses by affirming his favor and agreeing to be with him. And so thematically, kind of here in this block of scripture, we see the importance of God's divine presence and favor. And we're also reminded about our own limitations. I don't know about you, but when after you've done ministry probably more ⁓ more than one day, you realize that you have limitations. And I think it's good for us to hit that pause button frequently to remember that we need God's divine presence, favor, and be reminded of our own limitations. But let me read this block of scripture from you starting at verse 12 of Exodus 33. It says, Then Moses said to the Lord, Seed. You say to me, Bring up this people, but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said I know you by name, and you've also found grace in my sight. Going on to verse thirteen, it says, Now therefore I pray, if I have found grace in your sight, show me your way, that I may know you, and that I may find grace in your sight, and consider this nation is your people. And then finally, verse fourteen it says. And he said, This is the Lord speaking, my presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And so here God is assuring Moses that he would go with them. Now I don't know about you, but here Moses is kind of in the midst of doing ministry, right? He's in the midst of doing what God is calling to do. He's having this moment, needing some reassurance, and God says, My presence will go with you and I will give you rest. And so when you think about the presence of God. When think about what that means, hopefully in the heart of a pastor, a ministry leader, God's presence is fuel to our ministry. I mean, it's absolutely necessary. I mean, without it, we're gonna crash and burn. We're not gonna go very far. We may go fast, but we're not gonna go far. And if we want to go far, then we need to have God's presence in our ministry because it is fuel. We notice in that bib that that scripture he says, and I will give you rest. And so when think about God's presence, first he said he would be near. To Moses second, he says, Moses, you're gonna experience some rest. And I don't know about you, but I know there's times, you know, in ministry where we need that rest, where we kind of need to lean into the Lord. And I'm not talking about your Sunday afternoon rest after ministry, although that that's a pretty good rest as well. But when you think about it, we need to know as leaders that that we need God's presence. We need to know as leaders that we need peace and rest. But that only comes from God, and we see this here. In this block of scripture where the Lord is telling Moses, listen, hang out with me, Moses, stay with me. I'm gonna be in your presence, I'm gonna give you rest. And I think sometimes in ministry we kind of forget about these things. So I want to kind of talk through four things that I think about that that we need in our personal ministry. ⁓ you know, when you think about in terms of what we do, so kind of that personal spiritual walk that each one of us has, you know, the ministry to our family, the ministry. To the congregation, the ministry, you know, that kind of flows down. Here's four things I think that starts really at the top. Number one, we need God's presence. I mean, that goes without saying what we're studying this block of scripture. You know, the Lord said, you know, you need my presence. And so God promised to be with Moses. And I think about the application for that. And hopefully for you and I, if God has called you to do something, He's also promised to be there with you, right? And I think I'm I need to remind myself of that each and every day. That is, he's calling me to do something. He's there with me. He's not left me. But I tell you what, the enemy loves to tell us that you're alone. The enemy loves to tell you and I that you're isolated. And so again, when you think about what the Lord is saying, the Lord says, I'm with you. There's a presence there. The enemy says the opposite. And so when you're having those hard times and difficult times, you have to sit back and think you know, who's saying what to you? Because if it's of the Lord, we know. That his presence, we're in his presence. The second thing, as we kind of think through this, is that a call to ministry really is a really a call to walk with the Lord. That as we think about being in the presence of God, being in the presence of God doesn't get us to the launching point to ministry, and then we just kind of launch out and do our own thing. No, we need to continuously walk with the Lord to really enjoy every bit of his presence. Point number two here is that faith in God's guidance. Notice what God says here in the scripture. He says, My presence will go with you. So here, God not only promised to be with Moses, he almost promised to go, he also promised to go with him. And I think, you know, the application for you and I is that God did not call you to something to only abandon you, to be by yourself, right? If he's calling you to do something, he's going to continue to guide you. He's going provide a way to guide you. We often Times think about really spending time in the Word and praying and being led by the Spirit. Well, that's the Lord guiding us. And so we need to have faith in God's guidance. And when He's, you know, He when you're experiencing those valleys in ministry, those difficult times, or you're experiencing those peaks, those great times, we have to know that God's presence is in both. That his presence is not only for the here and now, but it's also going to be and continue to where he's calling us. And so we got to remember that in in the life of our ministry that we got to have faith in God's guidance that where he's calling you to be, he's going to go with you. Point number three here that I want to make from this block of scripture is God gives us an assurance of rest. And he says, I will give you rest. He's talking to Moses. God assured Moses that he would, you know, not only again provide him his presence, you know, get being you know present with him, Provide guidance, but he would also give him rest. And so again, you think about the practicality of that. Sometimes ministry isn't always, you know, push the pedal all the way down as far as it'll go and go as hard as you can. Sometimes ministry is a period of just resting and listening, right? I think that's a good word for some of us. Sometimes we just need to sit and wait on the Lord. But even in that season, God's assurance of rest, He's going to give us rest. Let's not lean upon ourselves. Let's lean upon what the Lord is saying to us from this block of scripture. So, a couple of points I want to kind of make here about this before we get into some discussion is you might be thinking, how can we apply this block of scripture to our life? Well, number one, I believe we must pause and desire to see God's presence in our day-to-day lives. Sometimes ministry gets very fast-paced, right? I know it's a challenge. I know. You probably have a lot of things going on. And in the life of our ministry, there's a lot of changes that are always happening. But yeah, we've got to put some systems and some rhythms into place that allow us to hit pause so that we can seek and desire God's presence in our day-to-day life. And I think sometimes that's, you know, we have to set those up ourselves, but sometimes we can use other ministry leaders, other friends who are going through the same things, kind of help us. be accountable and to hold us accountable so we can lean into others and onto others that we know and trust to help us stay accountable because that's important. Number two, we need to be reminded of our limitations. If you ever need to be reminded of your limitations, just go outside, ride your bike a hundred miles or go run a marathon, right? You you begin to understand that physically we have limitations. And so it's a good reminder to us that we can sit in the presence of God, that we can enjoy His presence and his goodness and his closeness, understanding he's guiding us as we looked at in that scripture and understand that rest comes from him. But we've got to understand that we have limitations. It's not always go, go, go. Sometimes it might be go, and the next season might be stop and wait and listen. And again, we've got to be aware of that. And that's all about taking those first steps to understand what God may be trying to show you. Number three is we must remember. To experience the goodness of God. I think sometimes we get in a rhythm. I mean, Sunday's coming, right? We always say, hey, Sunday's coming. We got to start thinking about the next thing. But sometimes it's good just to hit pause and to kind of reflect about what God has done in the ministry. What He's done not only in your ministry, but what about even in your own life or the life of your family? I think sometimes we need to remember to experience God's goodness. And I think what that does for me is that encourages me to keep going, even when it's difficult. Don't stop. And more importantly, even when it gets difficult to enjoy the journey, because I'm not by myself, I'm with the Lord, right? That you and I, as we even we go through difficult seasons, that the journey that we're on, we're not by ourselves, we're with the Lord. We're we're in his presence, he's guiding us, and there's an assurance of rest. And then finally, number four, you've got to do whatever it takes. I mean, you've got to do whatever it takes to make sure. The roots of the relationship that you've established with God go deep. And I think sometimes we are called a ministry, and then there's this season where we get extremely busy and we we forget about that first love. We forget about the fact that we as ministers need to be ministered to. And that we can come to our Heavenly Father for that relationship. We can come to other leaders and friends that we have to kind of surround us in prayer to hope hold us accountable. But you gotta do whatever it takes. You gotta take that step. And it's oftentimes a lot like sitting or standing on the edge of that diving board. You're gonna go in, you can do it, God's called you to do it, but you've got to be willing to take that first step. You know what life is like without it. You know what life is like without having community and having that accountability. But let me tell you, when you have that in your life, it puts you in this sweet spot as we see here in the scripture. God's guidance, God's presence, and assurance of rest. I think those are things that all ministry leaders can benefit from. So I pray that you have a great time in your small groups talking through this discussion. And I pray God uses this short study to bring fruit in your lives and in your ministry.