Learning to Follow Part 1

Well, I appreciate that reminder, and certainly we are sheltered in his arms.

Good to see you this morning on this cold — I guess it's kind of like January or something around here — and I'm glad that you're here this morning. I was surprised to have a good early service and I appreciated them being here as early as they were. But I'm glad that you're here for the day. Exodus chapter 13 is where we're going to start in just a few moments here. If you don't have a Bible, we have some pew Bibles in front of you in the chair in front of you if you want to use one of those. It's going to be page 102.

And we're talking about learning to follow — that's what the theme is going to be here. I reminded you last week that one of the first lessons that Jesus usually taught his disciples was simply this: Follow me. I have a question. Do you suppose that he asked some people to follow him that didn't follow? I suppose that's possible. Just like today, there are some people that follow and then they follow for a while and then they stop following and they follow again. And I suppose that's just human nature.

Matthew chapter 9 verse 9. When Jesus came across Levi, the guy that was the tax collector, he called himself Matthew. He didn't want to be identified with Levi. He said, "Follow me." And he arose and followed him. And so, it was that simple — just simple fellowship.

We're going to start this series on learning to follow Jesus. Now, to be a true disciple of Jesus, I'm talking about being past just being a believer. I'll talk about being a true disciple of Jesus. We're going to have to learn to be followers. What does that look like? We're going to start talking about the children of Israel as they were led out of Egypt. It's a familiar story. And they're called children of Israel literally because they are the descendants of Jacob whose name was changed to Israel. So what started this whole thing is Jacob had 12 sons and these sons eventually all ended up in Egypt. Joseph went there first, being sold by his brothers and so forth, but they were there in Egypt. And God had promised Abraham in Genesis chapter 15.

He said, "Your people are going to be in a bondage situation for 400 years. And then after that, they're going to be released and go to the promised land." So God always knows what's going to happen. I love that he already knows what tomorrow holds, and so nothing surprises God. But it is a case where God made that promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and their descendants that they would have those 400 years of bondage and then they would be taken out. By the time we get to this story, we're in 1446 BC. This pharaoh was truly a pharaoh like a leader would be at any country today in Egypt or wherever. We have, of course, Moses — he's going to be the great person here that God had already been working with. And the children of Israel, by the time we get to this story, they were in great oppression. We know what happened. How many have seen the movie Ten Commandments? Probably 99% of the people in this room. I'll say that most of the time it's accurate. There's a couple of times it's like, well, maybe that's not exactly how that went down, but it is interesting. And I was going to show a little clip, but we couldn't do it today because of video rights, and we didn't want to spend $300 and some dollars to have a video be played. But it's a fun movie to see and be reminded of how God's hand was upon these Jewish people to get out of Egypt and head towards the promised land.

Now, God had prepared Moses. Let's think about this. Moses, of course — Jewish little boy. They were trying to kill all the Jewish boys. His mother put him in a basket and placed him in the bulrushes. And then Pharaoh's daughter comes along and she takes him in as her own son. Actually, Moses's mother gets to be the nurse and take care of him. But he's really raised there in Pharaoh's household. And I teach the young people, you know, education is part of your life. If Moses had not been educated where he was, he maybe would have never written the first five books of the Old Testament. I mean, he had to have an education. He had to be not only educated, he had to be equipped. And it's interesting because when he killed the Egyptian soldier — because he felt that soldier was mistreating a Hebrew man — he killed him and then he left town. Basically, he felt like that was not a place that he should stick around.

But what did he do? He went to a place called Midian, and that place is going to be where he is going to direct and guide the people to. We'll see it on the map here in a week or so — where he actually went. So, he was familiar with the world of the Midianites, where he got the Ten Commandments. He was familiar with all of that, and we're going to see another time how God had put that all together. So here we are. God is using miracles to get the Egyptians to be willing to let the people go. And by the time all these miracles — really all these judgments — took place, the last one was the death of the firstborn. If you didn't have the blood on the mantle and the sidepost, then the firstborn was killed. We know what happened — the Jews were prepared that night to leave. They were supposed to be ready to get out of town, and they did.

So we're going to go to Exodus chapter 13. Very familiar story, but I want you to see certain parts of it, and we're going to learn how to follow through this story — verse number 17 of chapter 13. The Bible says this: "And it came to pass when Pharaoh had let the people go. God led them not through the way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. And God said, lest perhaps the people repent when they see war, and they return to Egypt." So he knew right then they didn't need to fight the Philistines. There was a path they could have taken and probably won, but if they were in war, they would have maybe wanted to run back — which again they're going to be tempted to run back periodically as well. Verse number 18, but God led the people about through the way of the wilderness, the Red Sea, and the children of Israel went up harnessed out of the land of Egypt. That word doesn't mean that they were bound. It means that they had so much stuff — provisions, all kinds of things that they were taking out of Egypt. Verse 19, he took the bones of Joseph with him. Verse 20, they took their journey from Succoth and encamped at Etham, the edge of the wilderness. And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them in the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light. He took not away the pillar of cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night from before the people.

So I have a little map here. I'd like to have you take a peek at it because it kind of gives an idea of what happened here. The children of Israel were leaving Egypt up here. Rameses would go here. They came down to this area called Succoth. They came down to this area called Pithahiroth. And it's a very tough area — mountainous region. They truly were stuck in a bad place. They got the Egyptian army that's going to come after them in just a few moments. They got the Red Sea in front of them. And they're really concerned — why are we here? It was not the easiest path. It was not the shortest path. It was not the simplest path. But that's where God led them.

Now, although they didn't have to worry about the Philistines, they had a situation where they were going to follow the pillar of fire by night, the cloud by day. Let me ask you a question. Should we follow the clouds today? Should we follow fire today? Should we use horoscopes today? Should we use zodiac signs today? Should we use astrology to lead us? Should we use soulmate signs? I hear too many Christians getting involved with things that you really got to be careful about because that's not how God is going to lead us. It's interesting — when Peter had spent time with Jesus, he saw Jesus transfigured. It was an amazing sight — Peter, James, and John — just this amazing sight seeing Jesus in his transfigured state. He wrote in Second Peter, he said, "But here's the deal. Even though I've seen that unbelievable sign," he said in Second Peter 1:19, "We also have a more sure word of prophecy that you do well, that you take heed as unto a light that shineth in a dark place until the day star arise in your hearts." Peter was referring to the Bible. He's saying we have a more sure word of prophecy. We have the word of God. He went on to say how holy men of God have written the Bible, inspired by the Holy Spirit. So he was referring to the Bible — the best book ever given to man. Over six billion copies made and counting. And I love that Bible sales are up. By the way, if you need a Bible, you could use the Pew Bible and take that with you. We've got some nicer Bibles you can purchase in the bookstore. We sell them at wholesale prices. But we ask that you consider — as a Christian, as a believer in Christ — you ought to have your own personal copy of the word of God and you ought to be reading it on a daily, regular basis. Show me your Bible reading and I'll tell you kind of how your Christianity is going.

If you can't get into the word of God on a regular basis, you're not going to be led very well by the Lord. So open up the Bible some every day. Doesn't have to be a lot. I've never said read the Bible in a year. I want you to read the Bible and get something out of it. Read a verse, get something out of it. Read a chapter, get something out of it. Read five chapters if you need to get something out of it. Try and hold on to that. And then try and live not only by that Bible principle you learned that day, but take all the principles that you've heard in church, learned in Sunday school, and read personally, and let them be the principles that guide you in your daily life. We've all heard it — Psalm 119:105. We memorized it as children. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, a light unto my path." He leads us one step at a time through the Bible.

God also gives us God-given leaders to follow. And that's where Moses was one of those God-given leaders to the children of Israel. He gives us parents to listen to. And again, I emphasize how important it is to be attentive to your parents and to have an accepting spirit — be willing to yield to them and then follow along with action. God also gives us pastors. I'll throw this out. I won't harp on this a lot this year, but I do feel like sometimes the pastor idea has been diminished. God does set up a leader for a church. And there's one clear leader. There's a lot of other staff and helpers, but God puts in the heart of somebody to lead. Hebrews chapter 13:7 — the reminder is, "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God, whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation." So again, you're to follow my faith. And I appreciate all these years now, God's people have followed the leadership of the church here. And I believe that God is blessed in many ways because of that. But you have to have a spirit of openness towards the leader of the church. And I hope that you do have that as well. Who are your leaders? Who are your spiritual leaders? Who are your spiritual resources? Hopefully through our homes and churches and our schools and workplaces, we've got godly people that will speak into us. So they follow God the way that they were asked to go.

They followed Moses to this terrible place, led there by that pillar of fire by night and a pillar of cloud by day. It's speculated that there are over 3 million Jews coming out of Egypt at that time. Now put that in perspective. That's like six times the amount of people that live in the Omaha area. Imagine such a thing — that's hard to even comprehend. How could six times the population of the Omaha area all go and be led? But that's how it worked. When these Jews followed God and Moses, they were willing at that point. Why were they so willing to follow Moses? Why were they so willing to get out of Egypt? Because things were pretty tough. It was not good. It was a tough situation. Pharaoh was treating them very severely. He was very harsh on them, very cruel to them. And it was not a good place to be. So it was a legitimate and welcomed reason to actually follow God and Moses out of Egypt because they didn't really have any other good options. Does that make sense? And so, yes, that happens. You might get in a situation where, I guess I have to follow God because that's the only option I've got.

Or another option is this. Far too many people only follow God when they want help out of their problems. But when things are going okay — God, I'm good. That's not the way it should be. It should be a constant 24/7 thing. We ought to have a desire to follow the Lord 24/7, making it our normal lifestyle. Following him in the tough times, but following him in the good times as well. I'm certainly thankful that when you have decisions to make — like maybe something really good and exciting, maybe you're going to purchase a business or get involved in something good — it's good to ask God to lead you and guide you in those things as well. Not just, "help me out of my problems," but God, I want daily direction. I want daily advice. I want daily clarity. I'm glad that God is our refuge and he is the one to go to.

By the way, we have church members call too. People go through tough times. I understand that. And honestly, let's remind ourselves — the church can't do everything for everybody, but there is a God. A lady called this week and I talked to her and she had a desperate situation. I said, we can help a little bit, but there's a God. You need to go to God. God is the one that you need to go to because he is the ultimate. And I'm glad that he is our refuge. He's our shelter in the time of storm. He should be the first one we run to before anybody else. But I read this morning Proverbs 18:10. It's a great verse: "The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it and is safe." And so, yes, if you're going through tough times, run to the Lord. I'm not trying to diminish that at all. Absolutely do it. People sometimes are embarrassed. They don't know if they can or should. But God welcomes you to come to him at any given time. Run to him. No matter who you are, what you've done, run to him.

But far too commonly, even as believers, we run to other sources first before we run to God. We have our friends that we run to. And I'm for peers and for people speaking into us. We run to doctors, which again, they're a blessing. We're thankful for the medical help that we have. Sometimes I'm a little concerned about spiritual counselors. The Bible reminds us we're not supposed to walk in the counsel of the ungodly. And so with spiritual things, we've got a lot of these counselors and I don't know what direction they're coming from. Be careful where you're getting your advice. I appreciate what the Bible calls a multitude of counselors. I think everybody ought to have godly counselors that are a little further along in life than you are. And when you run into situations, you can go ahead and ask them, "What do you think I should do with this?" and then you make the final decision. You let them weigh in because God will use those people. I call them my Christian cabinet. But I don't want to run to them first. I want to run to God first and then God may use them as spokespeople to give me guidance on what God would want.

But this is all part of a consistent walk with God that we ought to have — having godly counselors, but first running to God, asking him first. So when we're having a good day, we can still say, "God, lead me." No matter what kind of day we're having, can we ask God to help us with those specific decisions? Our daily work life, our children, our spouse, our ministries. We should certainly want God to be part of every aspect of our life — the good, bad, and the ugly.

So I've got a couple of observations here — about four, a few quick points. My first observation in this story is this: God can lead us out of troubles, but desire his leading in every situation. It just obviously should be said — it should be assumed that God can lead us out of troubles. But we ought to desire his leading in every situation daily, in every aspect of our life.

And then number two, simply this: don't be surprised if God leads us into predicaments that we didn't sign up for. That's what we're going to see in this story. Here they are, the children of Israel, the ones that have begged God, "Give us deliverance," and now where are they? They're stuck there in a terrible place at the Red Sea, and they're going to have problems coming from behind as well. But don't be surprised, because even Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. So again, you may be led into a situation that you did not ask for, a situation you don't like. Maybe God is working on us during those times. Maybe God is trying to help us have some patience, some Christlikeness. Maybe you're dealing with a problem child or a problem relationship or whatever. Let me just tell you, God has dealt with a lot of problem relationships. God knows all about problem relationships. And so he wants us to begin to be like him. How would God handle these situations? We want to bring glory to God with our life. That should be our ultimate purpose of life.

We're studying the book of Ecclesiastes on Wednesday night, so hopefully you'll be part of that. Understanding the book of Ecclesiastes is a little difficult, but we're trying to navigate through it. But one of the problems that Solomon had was that he looked at everything under the sun. He forgot that our ultimate purpose is to glorify God — all of it. This pen I have in my hand is not here just to be a pretty pen. It's actually to write. And if it doesn't do its job, what's the point of me carrying it around? Again, you have a purpose as well. The purpose of your life, the purpose of my life, saved or not, is to bring glory to God. Now, you will have a hard time bringing glory to God with your life if you did not get saved. So we want to get saved and then bring glory to God with our life. Are you bringing glory to God with your life? It's a good question. Are we a real good testimony at school, at work, wherever we're at, in our neighborhood? Let's bring glory to God with our life.

This is going to be accomplished in a lot of ways. But it's interesting that God often allowed his people to be put in these difficult situations. And these circumstances allowed them to bring glory to God from a different perspective — from a trials and troubles and tragedy perspective in this particular story. We love all the Old Testament stories, even New Testament stories. But you know, if you were there during the time — Job, for example. A lot of people have gotten comfort from Job. That's great. Job, you got through it, man. You lost your 10 kids. Your wife turned against you. Your friends turned their backs on you. But you know, you got through it. You're a blessed man in the end. Yeah, but it wasn't very fun when he lost his wealth and his health and everything at that time. He's scratching his head — my wife doesn't even want me to live anymore. Just, what is going on? We love the story in the end, but you wouldn't want to go through that. But Job did, and we ought to use it as an example — his story has helped many of us through tough times.

Think about Old Testament Joseph. We mentioned that he was sold by his brothers. And once he got there, he was slandered and thrown in jail. He ends up being second in charge. But we love the end of the story. We love how he brings his family there to Egypt. It was all part of God's plan, of course. But if you got slandered and thrown in prison, you'd think, I don't know if God's even a part of this story. None of you have been slandered and thrown in prison — at least not this week that I know of. But my point is simply this: we love these stories when people go through tough times.

They're in a very bad predicament. Daniel, in the Old Testament — here he was a teenager taken away from everything familiar, taken away from his family, taken into a foreign country. He's threatened to be killed. It's interesting — the Lion's Den story. Do you realize that Lion's Den story wasn't until the end of his life? He's like 80 or 90 years old at this point. He's an old man. He should be in Florida on the beach. He should not be worrying about his prayer life at that time, but somebody's still trying to trip him up with his prayer life. And he said, "I guess I'll just do like I've always done. I'm going to go ahead and pray. I don't care what they say." And he did. And we love the story. The lions' mouths were shut. Oh, we love that story. Yeah, but if you'd have been Daniel that night — God, I guess I'll trust you one more time. I don't know what you're going to do. But we know how the story ends.

But all I'm saying is this: follow the cloud. Follow the pillar of fire, which means follow God no matter where it takes us. Our job is simply to do what we're supposed to do. Be where we're supposed to be. Do what we're supposed to be doing. Try to follow the Lord. We'll let God help lead that path. And it may not always be where we want to go. So God instructed Moses to go to this encampment with this entourage. And it was a terrible place. Not ideal by any standard. They got the Red Sea. They've got the army that's going to come after them.

So we see in chapter 14 here. Chapter 14 verse 1: "The Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they turn and encamp before Pi Hahiroth, between Migdol and the sea, over against Baal Zephon. For Pharaoh will say of the children of Israel, They are entangled in the land. The wilderness hath shut them in." So he thinks he's going to win now. But God said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart." Verse 4, at the end of the verse: "That the Egyptians may know that I am the Lord." He's going to say that a couple of times in this passage — that they may know that I am the Lord.

There's a great quiz here. Let's see how well you are with Bible — because in the early service there was an answer right away. What book in the Bible says more about "that they may know that I am the Lord" than any other? There's a book that talks about it all the time. Anybody have a guess? Exodus. It's actually not. That's close, but it's not. A couple more guesses. It's Ezekiel. It's Ezekiel. Bob pays attention. I like it. So Ezekiel — "that they may know that I am the Lord." By the way, that's a big idea to God. He wants the world to know that he's the Lord. We don't talk about him enough, but God is the Lord. And he wants the whole world to know that he is the Lord. Is he going to see that through your life?

Now, they were sitting ducks where they're at. The army's coming after them. We know the story. Verse 7: "He took 600 chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them." The Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel. The children of Israel went out with a high hand, and they pursued them right to that same spot. In verse 10: "Pharaoh drew nigh. The children of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians marched after them, and they were sore afraid. And the children of Israel cried out unto the Lord." Not a bad idea. Again, they were in a pickle of a situation. They cried out to God.

Now, there's always going to be those that are second-guessing the situation — those naysayers, you might say. Look at verse 11: "And they said unto Moses, Because there were no graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die in the wilderness? Wherefore hast thou dealt thus with us, to carry us forth out of Egypt? Is not this the word that we did tell thee in Egypt, saying, Let us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians? For it had been better for us to serve the Egyptians, than that we should die in the wilderness." There's always those super negative, pessimistic people. And they're like, "We should have stayed in Egypt." Did they forget so soon what it was like in Egypt? These people were being treated terribly. And here they are saying, "You are the problem. We shouldn't have come out here. We should have stayed in Egypt." Now, be careful about voices who have an opinion that only shows up when the going gets tough. They know what you should have done. But what was their solution before this? They didn't have a solution before this. Now they know what should have been done.

These people tend to be pessimistic. Now I'm not saying that Christians should live in la-la-land, optimistic all the time, because you've got to live in reality. But we should know that there is a God and maybe God has a plan. And so we see the picture again. They're led right to that spot. Terrible spot. Red Sea. Mountains there. Egyptian army coming after them. A really bad spot. Obviously the Egyptian army had regretted their decision to let the children of Israel go. And so they're chasing after them.

What is the response when you're put in a tough situation? We all get there at some point. What should we do? Verse 13 — Moses said to the people, first of all, "Fear not." What does the Bible say about fear? We learned it quite a bit during COVID. "God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind." What are you afraid of today? Are you afraid of the future? Don't need to go there because God's got a plan. We trust him. We're going to do what we should do. We have action followed by faith. But fear not. Don't live in fear.

Stand still. Sometimes you just have to pause. Doc's still in the hospital. I hate that for him. He's been in there since he had the accident. It's going very slow, up and down. And I hate that for him. And I reminded him of Psalm 46 — "Be still and know that I am God." Sometimes God just puts us still for a while. And we don't like that part of it. But sometimes we have to just slow down and pause a moment.

Then he said, "See the salvation of the Lord." What are you looking for? You're looking for God to provide a way of escape. God has given me a way of escape. Help me look for the way he has given to me. And then verse 4: "The Lord will fight for you." This is what Moses says. You don't have to do all the battle on your own. You don't have to carry it all yourself. God will help you. God's helping you. And then he said in verse 15, last part of the verse: "Go forward." These are what God tells him to do. Go forward. So that's what we see: Fear not. Stand still. See the salvation of the Lord. Allow the Lord to fight for you. And go forward.

They were trapped there. Now they got the cloud. Interestingly enough, the cloud that was in front of them leading them now goes behind them. That's what the Ten Commandments shows — the fire goes behind them, but actually in the movie it's the cloud. My point is, it went in between the army and the children of Israel. What was the point of that? Verse 19: "The angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed and went behind them, and the pillar of the cloud went before their face and stood behind them." So verse 20: "And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of Israel. It was a cloud of darkness to them, but it gave light by night to these, so that the one came not near the other all night." So you've got this cloud that used to be leading them now quickly went behind them. A representation of God.

Now, God doesn't lead backwards — we're going to see that again. But why did God put that cloud between them and the Egyptian army? I have a couple of points here. First of all, God hid the enemy from seeing the Jews. I think it's wonderful that God can confuse our enemies. I don't know what enemies you might have, but Satan's one of your enemies. And I like it that God protects us from some of our enemies. I like it that God doesn't have us see all of that. God hid the enemy from seeing the Jews. They couldn't see where those Jews were. Where'd they go? What's going on? I think you ought to pray for confusion when you have enemies. That's a biblical prayer. And this was answered.

And then the second thing: God hid the Jews from seeing the enemy. Sometimes God wants to protect us. He wanted to protect them from seeing the enemy, the army. I believe that God protects us from seeing what Satan might want to do to us. It's good on both sides that we don't always see everything.

Next, God was just as close to them as he always had been. Just because he, in the form of the cloud, went behind them doesn't mean that he wasn't still as close as he always has been. They glanced back at that cloud. And again, the cloud was a symbol of following God. But when the cloud just stood there between them and the enemy, they glanced back. And it's a reminder — once in a while it's not a bad idea to glance back to see God. Sometimes you can't see God going forward. But maybe you just glance back once in a while.

Years ago, I was encouraged to start an encouragement file. And so in that encouragement file are certain things that have been an encouragement over the years. It's a good reminder that sometimes when you look back, you realize God has been really good to you. You glance back and see all the goodness of God. Even though it was a tough situation, glancing back once in a while is not a bad idea — just to remind us God's got this thing. He always has. He'll be fine. It's going to work out. So over this last year, what has God done for you in the past? And when you get discouraged, go back and be reminded how God has helped you so much in the past.

And then God told him to go forward. That's what he said. Go forward. God never leads people backwards. He doesn't. I know there are Christians we call backsliding sometimes. And people sometimes they go forward for a while spiritually and then they kind of go back a little bit. I don't think that's a healthy way to live. I think we ought to continually be led forward. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 38, God commented about it. It says, "Now the just shall live by faith, but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him." So God's not interested in quitters. God's not interested in those that are going backwards. Now, he loves you, but get back to where you should be. God doesn't lead us backwards. If you say, "I used to go to church, I used to teach Sunday school, I used to witness to people, I used to tithe" — why are you not doing this stuff now? Why are you not praying and reading your Bible? God didn't lead you backwards. That wasn't God that did that.

We have couples retreats and I encourage couples to sign up. If a lot of people are going to California that week for the tournament and there's a spouse left over, find another spouse and come to the couple's thing and just learn. You pay half price — 40 bucks for the whole weekend. Find somebody to come with. Come by yourself. We don't care. I want you to learn. I want you to get what you can. Take notes and tell them you should have been there. That's a couple's thing coming up on Friday night — February 5th or so. Tim Christensen's coming in. A great meal up at Johnny's. It'll be wonderful. And then Saturday 10:00 to noon, some sessions here at the church, and it'll be wonderful. I hope that you'll take part in those things.

But let's go forward from here. Let's make the best days of our life. Let's go forward from here. I pledge a friend with all my life, through the good times and the bad, through the happy and the sad. Let's go forward from here and make the best days of our life. Let's do it. Let's go forward. Let's stop worrying about what happened last year and let's stop worrying about what happened five years ago. You've got to give forgiveness. You've got to go on. If you're going to go forward, you've got to purpose it. I'm going to go forward from this day forward.

Now, I've got another point here, and that's simply this: when it comes to following God, we've got to remember we're not the one leading. I know that we get put in predicaments that we may not like. And I want to remind us that God determines the agenda. When we follow God, God determines the agenda. When we're yielded to him, he determines the path, the pace, the people, the places. God determines those things. And the children of Israel, all they had to do is follow. Now, they were put in a tough place and they didn't know if they liked where they followed the Lord to. But I think it ought to be a little bit comforting to us that you as a Christian don't have to have all of life figured out.

As a man, I know you're strong and you've got ideas and you got all this stuff, but you don't have it figured out. It's good to remind yourself of that. There's a God that does, and you can trust him and lead your family. There are moms and children and teenagers here. You don't know what the future holds, but God does. And he determines the pace and the places and the path. All we have to do is just do what we're supposed to do. Be where you're supposed to be. Do what you're supposed to be doing. Read your Bible. Do right. And God will lead you.

The integrity of the righteous shall direct them, guide them. We don't have to have it all figured out. Make your plans loosely, because I've found out sometimes my best plans didn't work out or they didn't happen. And so what do you do with that? You just allow it to be, because again you want to have acceptance of God's will as we follow him. I love the verses that talk about committing our works and our ways unto the Lord and he'll guide us and lead us. I want to show you a couple of them.

Proverbs 16:3 — a great verse: "Commit thy works unto the Lord and thy thoughts shall be established." So at the beginning of the day and throughout the day, you've got decisions to make. God, I need help with this. God, I want help with this. You commit your works unto the Lord and your thoughts. Now, God will work through your mind and help you to make good decisions. And sometimes you'll wonder, where did that come from? Well, it didn't come from you. It probably came from God. But it's nice that he did that for us. Psalm 37:5 says, "Commit thy way unto the Lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." So again, commit our works unto the Lord. Commit our way unto him, and he'll make sure it all works out like it ought to.

So this trust, of course, includes salvation. I hope that most everybody in this room is saved, but if you're not, the first thing to do is to trust Jesus Christ as your hope of heaven. He died on the cross 2,000 years ago, paid our sin penalty, rose again from the dead, he conquered death, and he offers the gift of eternal life if we will simply accept him as our personal savior. Those that are saved — we are learning to follow the Lord. That's actually what this whole series is going to be: learning to follow.

And I want to remind us — last week I talked about Levi, or Matthew, he said I have to be attentive to God. So we start with that. I have to be willing to yield and trust that he knows the way. There has to be action. Follow what he tells us to do. And this week I want to remind us that God can lead us out of troubles, but don't let that be the only time he leads you. Allow him to lead you in every situation. And then don't be surprised if God leads you into predicaments that you didn't sign up for. And then God never leads us backwards. Always go forward. Sometimes just pause, look back, but go forward. And when it comes to following God, remember — we're not the one leading. God's the one that leads us. And it'll be step by step. The song we used to sing many times at the campfire: "The Lord knows the way through the wilderness. All I have to do is follow."

How does that look? Why is this happening in my life? Why do I have this predicament in my life? Maybe God's got a purpose. Look to see how God can get the glory out of that. And stand still and watch him do something amazing. We don't like predicaments. We don't like being in pickle situations. God will help us through them. And then in the good times, ask him to lead you. Your ways, your works — commit them unto the Lord and he'll make sure it all is taken care of.

Let's bow our heads for a word of prayer. Father, as we think about this theme of follow, we certainly want to have a heart to be receptive to what you're trying to teach us this year. I pray that you'd help us to be very in tune with you and not just to ask you out of problems, but to ask you to guide through even successes. And may you get the glory in our lives. Father, help us to trust you. And there may be somebody here who has never trusted you as their personal savior. I pray that you'd work on that heart, that they'd want to believe on Jesus and accept him as their own personal savior. Speak to those hearts. Father, help us as a church just to have that kind of spirit this year. And help us this week to try and apply it when things don't go like we thought they should. Help us to look for the way that you're going to make a miracle happen, make something really good happen, and actually get glory because of it. And we'll trust you for it. Help us to be that kind of disciple — to learn to follow and to trust you. Thank you for this story. As we look at it the next several weeks, I pray that you'd help us to understand it better, in a clearer light. And I pray you bless now in Jesus' name.