The Little Things

[00:00:00] We, we resist doing them in mundane things. But I want the big thing. Yeah, I want to have my new lights. I don't want to be the one in the back making sure the lights actually turn on.

[00:00:13] Well hello again everyone and the seeing God in the everyday world. We hope you're having a great week. We hope you had a great week from last week. Yes. And we are glad to be back two weeks in a row

[00:00:44] everyone. We can do this. So, so we're back and we have a great show today. We are excited about what we're going to be sharing with you but we want to jump right into it and say hi

[00:00:58] Becky how are you? Hey babe I'm great how are you? Good and I'm having a great day. It's been a lot of fun. We've got some things done today. We've got more car problems and stuff like that.

[00:01:07] But you know what that's more car fixes today. That is true. We need car fixes. But at least you know, we're overcomers aren't we? We're overcomers. So we wanted to talk a little bit

[00:01:18] today as we start off our program is we want to kind of give a little bit of a COVID update because in the United States there's a lot of positive things happening. We've said before we live in Florida

[00:01:30] and Florida has kind of been like what I mean we've had some issues but mostly we've been kind of open through the whole thing and it's been a good thing and a bad thing there's been some

[00:01:42] struggles but overall we've been pretty much open and stuff so we seem to be on that nice downward trend now right right now. Right now definitely we're on a downward trend and things are looking good

[00:01:56] people are getting vaccinated we're kind of reaching that almost tipping point for the herd herd immunity or whatever it's called but we still have friends all over the world who are struggling

[00:02:07] and who are going through this. Matter of fact I talked to a good pastor friend of mine today who lives out in the mountain regimen region of Kenya up by Uganda and he said that they are

[00:02:19] having a lot of trouble right now that the COVID at percentage rate is up to 15% and it's kind of interesting because Kenya has kind of been smooth you know they've kind of they dealt with the

[00:02:31] lockdowns and everything else but when it comes to actual people getting COVID it's been pretty low so this is a little concerning for them to start all the sudden to have the rate go up. Right

[00:02:43] and so we're a little concerned about them but we're praying for them and we also wanted to talk a little bit about our friend pastor Steve who is working in these slums and when we say that

[00:02:55] we're not exaggerating. Nairobi Kenya has seven of the largest slums in all of the world and he works right into the middle of that and from the beginning of this thing he had on his heart to feed.

[00:03:10] Small bit of backstory. Yeah. Pastor Steve. Pastor Stephen his wife have been feeding the children in the slums on a weekly basis for years. This is their ministry. Their mission

[00:03:23] is to bring hope and light and Christ into the slums not to pluck people up out of the slums and put them somewhere else in just as bad condition but to literally allow the light of Christ to

[00:03:35] transform this lump so this is not a new work to him but he's a greatly expanded work because of COVID. Right. I have a podcast where I actually did an interview with Pastor Steve back in

[00:03:48] April or May when this whole thing started and they started they went from feeding weekly to feeding daily and they are continuing to do that and they are feeding over a thousand people a day. Right.

[00:04:00] And it's been amazing to watch them, the work they're doing and how they're just their heart and their compassion for the people be out there every day. I mean it's it's amazing to me

[00:04:14] because they get up early they make the food from scratch and they give it all out and they're there they're preaching the gospel he's teaching until the afternoon late afternoon and that night

[00:04:23] they get that you know they have to be in because of curfew and stuff. And on top of all that it's providing jobs for some of the local people and it's it's a beautiful thing to see. Yes it's it's

[00:04:35] fantastic and to see their fearlessness basically in the face of all this and it's been great because they've they've done all the protocols I thought that was one of the most amazing things they've listened to what the government has said they've done all the protocols they've

[00:04:51] been healthy through the whole thing it's just it's just an awesome thing but we want to continue to bring light to even though here in the United States it's getting a little bit better it's

[00:05:00] getting a lot better here in the States other places around the world it's still they're still struggling uh we talked some of our friends and Ecuador who actually one of our past our friends right now

[00:05:10] does have COVID we just talked to him over the weekend and so it's still here with a large percentage of his family so yeah and so it's still here we're still dealing with that we're still

[00:05:22] praying over it and encouraging those who are going through it but we did want to just make a notion that or make a note of that and ask you to join us in prayer for them because it sometimes here in the

[00:05:36] US we do live on a little bit of an island we do we out we have it really just wanted to pass out a lot. So you know those things that you need to do that you never want to do or you just hate doing

[00:06:18] this week I have any of those I love doing all my chores they're wonderful yes well here's one of those ones that so we recently have been we bought a car and I wanted to get the car and clean it

[00:06:33] up and make it really nice and put a nice coat of wax on it and trust me I've not waxed a car in a long time and this car is a little bit bigger than a smaller car that we're not tall people the

[00:06:47] roof is high yeah yeah I had to get on a step stool and stuff like that and so I started doing this and I started scrubbing this down and scrubbing the car down and really cleaning it wipe it and doing

[00:07:00] all the glass and all the plastic scrap just scrubbing it and then putting wax on it and wax it and drying it and all that all those things that you have to do to do it and I realized as I'm

[00:07:13] standing back and looking at it just how nice it was and how nice it was to learn parts of the car that I didn't even know with there you know it's like you buy a car you think you look it over

[00:07:27] but until you get underneath you're on the side of it and you're wiping it down like this you know you go oh wow that's that little plastic piece there that's that's pretty cool I didn't even know

[00:07:37] that was there um I didn't even know that's how the mud flaps were attached on and things like that you know just those silly things it made me start to think about something is that those little

[00:07:49] things we learned so much from doing those little things that again we don't want to do doing those little things that help us see things in a different angle or in a different light

[00:08:03] that helps us actually learn more about the thing we have or the thing we're being asked to do and it made me think about all those times in scripture where God asks people to do the mundane

[00:08:17] the simple things and how many times we resist that we we resist doing the mundane things but I want the big thing yeah I want to have my living lights I don't want to be the one in the back

[00:08:32] making sure the lights actually turn on um and but I think that we miss that a little bit we missed the point of sometimes what God's trying to do with us when we focus on the big things so much

[00:08:47] that we miss out on the little stuff you know one of the things that really came to my mind was was Jesus you know Jesus told the disciples he already tells the seventy to go out and preach

[00:09:00] the gospel and he gives him little things and he says you know go out here and and if they don't receive you you know duster feed off and go to the next one but if they receive you you know stay there

[00:09:10] and teach them and preach to them and let them know and they came back and the thing that they came back with was even the demons even the demons run away from you we have power over them

[00:09:24] and Jesus stops him and says well wait a second wait a second be happy that your name is written in the Lams book of life it's the salvation was the important thing and that you are spreading

[00:09:36] the salvation and you were spreading about the kingdom of heaven not so much making demons run away not so much having dominion over them that was not the important thing the important thing was

[00:09:50] being able to share about the kingdom and the kingdom of heaven so that was kind of my neat testimony this week that I thought was kind of cool and I wanted to share with you because I just I just

[00:10:01] felt like you know what I think all of us get stuck in the mundane things and we get we get exhausted we when doing the everyday things when we actually the everyday things are very important

[00:10:17] the everyday things are the things that God's actually trying to teach us to get us prepared for the next thing and the next thing and the next thing because it's in those little things that we build trust

[00:10:29] we build faith we build endurance we build all those things for when it's time for our name to be in light if that time ever comes we're prepared for it and we're ready for it so just want to

[00:10:45] share that with you this week and want to encourage you seeing God and waxing and washing the car and sweating in Florida because it's it's already hot and 80 what was the 84 degrees I think it was

[00:10:59] okay it was beautiful and it was already nice and warm to go in our our our nice spring day so

[00:11:53] okay so one of the things that excites us so much when we get into Bible study is seeing how the entirety of scripture works together everything in the Old Testament relates to everything

[00:12:05] in the New Testament all of it is the the overarching story of God's redemption of mankind his great love for us and everything in the Old Testament points to Jesus Christ we're coming

[00:12:18] into a season of year now we're we're about to celebrate Passover we're about to celebrate the resurrection we're going to take the next couple of weeks and kind of tie those things together

[00:12:32] show you how the Old Testament ties to the New Testament through the Passover into the crucifixion and the resurrection we're going to show you that repetitive story that God keeps telling us through

[00:12:46] his word of his constant draw of us to himself and we're going to start off looking at the Israelites where they were and how they ended up needing to be saved in the first place

[00:13:01] yeah it's an interesting story you know when you read the Old Testament there is a lot of stuff that kind of bogged down and it kind of gets confusing just a little bit of kiss

[00:13:12] and there are those things though that when you read them you go wow wow you know because there are so many going back to the New wants things the little things there are so many little things

[00:13:28] and little nuggets that's in the Old Testament that helps explain the New Testament and then even explains us and where we're at today and it's just so cool so we do we want to talk about all

[00:13:42] the way back we're going to go all the way back to Genesis. Take us back. That's right we're going back we're going back to Genesis first of all I wanted to talk about how it did we even get Israel

[00:13:53] so you have you know Adam Eve so go in all the way back but we're not going to go that far back let's go back to around Genesis chapter 35 and you have Abraham Isaac and Jacob and Jacob is now

[00:14:05] being becoming the main player obviously in what's happening there's a situation in chapter 35 where God is talking to Jacob and he says this in verse 10 he says and God said to him

[00:14:19] your name is Jacob no longer shall be called Jacob that'd be kind of interesting going hey your name it oh no longer it's that but it's gonna be called Israel and Israel shall be your name so he

[00:14:32] called him Israel and then God said I am the God Almighty he tells him to be fruitful multiply a nation of and a company of nations shall come from you and King shall come from your body and

[00:14:45] all these cool awesome things will happen but that's where we get Israel from it's Jacob when God changed Jacob's name to Israel so now we know as we've fast forward just a couple chapters here

[00:15:00] we're going to fast forward to chapter 37 you now have Jacob or Israel who has all these kids and we now have the 12 sons of Israel which we all know now is the 12 tribes out of the 12 tribes

[00:15:18] we have one of them that is called Joseph his name is Joseph now Joseph was very cool because he spoke and he lived his life in technicolor I think that was that was artistic license oh okay

[00:15:34] well Joseph was really loved by his dad and his dad gave him a cool coat and Joseph was blessed by God because he had dreams and visions and one day he kind of told this vision to his brothers

[00:15:46] and it kind of ticked his brothers off because basically Joseph was like oh he was the daddy's boy and now he's like giving this vision that he's gonna rule over all of them and um yeah that didn't

[00:16:00] go over very well yeah you know I can just imagine I mean we have three boys and a girl and I could just imagine 12 um me and yeah no especially if one of them standing up in front of everybody

[00:16:19] and saying hey God gave me a vision that you're all gonna you're gonna be bowing down to me and so needless to say the brothers they're a little bit of jealousy the brothers didn't like that so

[00:16:31] they kind of throw him in a pit and they were like oh what are we gonna do with this kid I mean if we kill him then his blood's on our hands and geez nobody wants that we don't want to deal with that

[00:16:44] plus who's gonna tell dad you know dad's gonna we don't want to be doing that so what they do is they have this great idea this this this this visionary thing ideas and I let's sell them to slavery

[00:16:57] yeah we'll sell them these there's uh people coming by we'll just sell them to them and they'll take them away and then we'll make up a story that is he got attacked and they died and that

[00:17:08] technical adream coat um they cover it with blood and they cover it with blood and they give it to his dad and his dad's like yeah that's that's his coat and yeah that's bad so now Joseph is now an Egypt

[00:17:24] and he's now under the servitude of potter a guy who owns some land and Joseph is kind of helping out with the land well some bad things happen Joseph makes a stand basically for righteousness we're

[00:17:37] not gonna go in the whole story but makes a stand for righteousness and he ends up getting thrown in jail now in jail God's given him these visions still and he's interpreting dreams for people well guess what

[00:17:51] Pharaoh over Egypt has a nightmare has a horrible dream and a guy knows that Joseph and Turford streams and says hey Joseph will interpret your dream and sure enough now Joseph is now elevated

[00:18:06] outside of prison and he's now the right hand man of the Pharaoh and I'm going over a lot of this really fast and really broad regeneresis go through that it's a good story you'll it's not like

[00:18:20] some of the like I said Leviticus and something this is a story that's linear or actually you can follow along very easy but basically Joseph as you go through in Genesis um chapter 41

[00:18:34] is interpreting the Pharaoh's dreams and he gets lifted up out of prison and it becomes basically the right hand man now make a story longer and a longer is that Joseph then has a vision of what's

[00:18:48] happening and what's going to happen and that a great famine is gonna come over land and how Pharaoh needs prepare for the famine well exactly as Joseph said was gonna happen is what happens

[00:19:03] Joseph's brothers are dealing with the famine as well they're hurting and they're looking for food and they go away to second we hear that Egypt has food so let's go to Egypt and find out if we can

[00:19:18] get food so they go to Egypt and they get food when they come back and Israel the father goes wait a second why don't we go again and why don't we have more food while we're just

[00:19:32] buying more food from them since I've got it and what happens is then Joseph actually reveals himself he kind of does a fun thing you need to read it it's hilarious how he kind of teases his brothers

[00:19:46] and they realize oh my goodness the vision you had before we threw you in the pit is now coming true Joseph then allows his brothers to go back and get his father and the entire family comes

[00:19:57] and stays in Egypt now Israel as God said a nation will be birthed at you you will have children you will be fruitful and multiply and clearly they fruitful didn't multiply because they become a full nation of Egypt and that's where Becky's gonna take over because she's got

[00:20:16] the next part of the story because the rest of the story is what she did say so we've got this great set up already you're already seeing a picture of from slavery to salvation right for both

[00:20:31] Joseph he was sold into slavery and was brought to salvation up into Pharaoh's house and then his entire family was in in famine and want and is now brought to salvation in the house of Egypt

[00:20:45] so after all of this wonderful salvation and we've got a victory here and you know we're going to tie a bow on this story and make it a happy ending right so why do we know all this stuff about

[00:20:56] the Israelites being in slavery in Egypt why did that happen well that happens in Exodus chapter one have you ever had a thing happen where there's a change in administration over you maybe at a

[00:21:10] job or whatever and they have no idea what went before and everything changes and it's worse than it was before this is what happens so the old Pharaoh who knew Joseph and who Joseph meant something to

[00:21:25] died he didn't know Joseph he he didn't care what Joseph had done to rescue the nation all he knew was that Joseph and his family over here was getting really really big yes and that was becoming a real

[00:21:40] threat to his power he decided that the best way to handle people who were growing in power within the borders of his nation was to squash him pretty quick so he ordered that those of Israel's house

[00:21:57] would be brought into slavery and they he set task masters over them harsh task masters and he set them to hard labor and he ordered the midwives that as they were delivering Hebrew babies that

[00:22:11] if those babies were boys that they be killed on the spot so it was a terrible terrible time now one bright spot in that is that those same midwives they feared God because see just because

[00:22:25] the new Pharaoh didn't know Joseph or what his god had done the people who had been living there through all that they knew so these midwives they honored the Hebrew women and they would come back and

[00:22:37] he would go why am I seeing little baby Hebrew boys running around we told you how to take care of this and the midwives were like you just don't know these Hebrew women they give birth so fast I mean

[00:22:46] by the time we get there there's nothing we can do so they were protecting all of these little little babies so the Pharaoh was not pleased with this and so he doubled down on his orders

[00:22:59] and he said okay fine forget it we're we're gonna have every single sign that the Hebrews give birth to every one of them I want him thrown in the Nile I don't care if they make it through the whole birthing process and the midwives can't get to

[00:23:14] them they're born they're male they go in the Nile I'm not gonna have this I'm not going to have my power you know wrestled from me into this it's been a roller coaster ride yeah we've got we've got

[00:23:26] great favor and then we've got being thrown into a pit and then we've got great favor in pottafers house and then we get thrown into jail and then we you know it's been a bit of a roller

[00:23:36] coaster ride with that great favor and now every baby boy is being killed okay Exodus chapter two I love this verse because this is one of those places where you find God using those little

[00:23:52] details remember to and talk about those little details earlier he uses one of those tiny little details to tie the Old Testament story to the New Testament revelation of Christ it says now a man

[00:24:05] from the house of Levi went and took his wife a Levi woman the house of Levi this was the priestly house yes okay any children born to this family are by birthright priests yes okay

[00:24:25] keep that little little nuance in mind the woman conceived and she bore a son and when she saw that he was a fine child she hid him for three months but if any of y'all have had a three-month-old

[00:24:36] child around you know the time for hiding this kid is running out they they squall they squeal three months we're starting to get mobile we're rolling over we're crawling around we're getting out of Mama's hands okay so and louder and get in much louder louder definitely louder okay

[00:24:55] she hid him for three months and when she realized that she could no longer hide him she made a basket for and she did the technical rule of the law right she put him in the Nile oh yeah she just protected

[00:25:09] him really really well before she did it and she put him in this basket and she covered him over and she entrusted him to God and she said him into the river we know the story he drifts down

[00:25:22] river gets caught up in some bull russia's right where the princess is bathing and she has the child brought to her and she knows this is a Hebrew child okay she knows and she says no I'm I'm

[00:25:35] I'm gonna keep this child well this is a princess right any of you daddies have daughters when your daughter wants to bring home the orphaned kitten or puppy dog or whatever she found

[00:25:49] for the gold fish or the gold fish we're not even gonna talk about gold fish y'all we have a five-year-old gold fish that should have died in six months time but that's neither your nor their

[00:25:57] sure she'll corner a little bit so the princess brings this baby home and protects it and goes so far as to go ask for Hebrew nurse to help bring it up and of course God's awesome

[00:26:11] in his details and he makes sure that its Moses' mother that gets to come to the palace nurture him raise him and train him as a Hebrew child and in the palace of the Egyptians

[00:26:27] okay so are we seeing a little bit of we're seeing parallels again yeah of of those that rise back up to blessing God is setting up a salvation story here for his people who are being brutalized

[00:26:40] and enslaved so Moses grows up in the palace he knows all of the favor of the palace he also knows the Hebrews he knows he's one of them so things transpire and he kills a an Egyptian for beating a Hebrew slave and then he flees because

[00:27:01] Pharaoh has put up with his presence in the palace to this point in you know in respect for his daughter and and all but now now you've just killed an Egyptian and we're not playing anymore so

[00:27:14] Moses flees and Pharaoh orders his execution and Moses is a grown man at this right he has he has grown up yeah he's not a he's not like a child who made a mistake or whatever

[00:27:26] he he he he he chose this right he's a grown man he sawing injustice and then he acted yes so so Moses is in exile and here's another one of those beautiful little nuances

[00:27:42] over in chapter two verse 16 when when Moses flees he flees to the land of Midian so it says now the priest of Midian had seven daughters and they came and drew water and

[00:27:53] filled the troughs of water for their fathers flock so what kind of family is this again this is a priestly family okay this priestly line is going to be maintained so Moses marries one of the daughters of this house and lives in Midian as an exiled priest

[00:28:14] of the Hebrew nation those little connecting verses chapter three verse 23 it says during those many days okay Moses is serving as a shepherd of his father in laws flocks he's he's raising a family of his own and it says during those many days the king of Egypt died

[00:28:36] and the people of Egypt grown because of their slavery and cried out for help their cry for rescue from slavery came up before God y'all I want you to see this because this

[00:28:52] becomes that perpetual story that God shows us over and over and over again about his heart he hears the cries of his people and it doesn't matter if you're in one of the high parts

[00:29:05] of the story or one of the low parts of the story you are his and he hears you and he is always always always working to bring you back to salvation where we're gonna end we're gonna set up

[00:29:20] the cliff hanger for what happened next week right and everybody loves good cliff hanger in Exodus 3 verses 7 through 10 that's where we all know the story Moses is out there 10 in the

[00:29:33] flocks and an angel of the Lord appears to him in a burning bush and he decides he's gonna go over and check it out okay clearly not a cowardly man okay so he goes over to the bush and the

[00:29:49] voice of the Lord speaks to him the Lord says to him that he has heard the cries of his people and he cares and he's not gonna just leave them in their slavery he has been reminded of his promises

[00:30:08] and he's going to act and you know what Moses from the priestly line who has the birth right to speak on behalf of the Lord I'm gonna send you and I'm gonna use you so in that moment God not

[00:30:26] only sets in motion a plan of salvation for his people but he sets in motion the restoration of Moses to his nation yeah and there's just so much cool stuff that's really it that's in this

[00:30:42] and again like I said if you if you haven't read the Old Testament or really gotten into the Old Testament a lot because you're afraid and a lot of people are afraid of the Old Testament

[00:30:53] this whole section from the midpoint to end of Genesis in Exodus it reads more like a novel it's very you know there's a character development and action and adventure it's like everything

[00:31:09] you would want to see in a movie you're in a good novel I encourage you to read it and so we're gonna leave it there and next week we're gonna pick up we're gonna talk about the plagues and we're

[00:31:21] gonna go in depth of the Passover and what the Passover is and all the cool stuff around the Passover as we are just what a week away from Passover right the Passover is the 27th of this month

[00:31:34] so this is gonna be an awesome time so that's gonna do it this week for seeing God in the every day guys thank you so much we love doing this and we are hoping you're having a good time listening

[00:31:48] and enjoying with us if you're liking what you're hearing and watching please like and subscribe to the podcast or to the video podcasts I guess on YouTube leave us notes leave us

[00:32:04] messages we want to hear from you you know again we're not just doing this just to skew stuff we want to build a community of people who see God in the every day because I think there's

[00:32:14] so much that we miss when we're not looking for him so I want to open that up so that we're looking for God in our everyday and our everyday lives and um and before next week if you want to read ahead

[00:32:27] and get ahead of us pick our back to this yeah you'll get there yeah starting chapter two and uh you'll you'll catch up and be right where we are so guys thank you so much we love you guys

[00:32:39] and um continue continue to look at those things around you to open your eyes and see God in ready day okay I'll bless you guys see you next time bye bye