God is Bigger, Greater, and Better
This talk was written with a high school and middle school audience in mind. When it was shared it was heavily interactive and personal.
What can you guess about me and about my identity?
If you were to guess things about who I was by how I present myself, I don’t have to be insecure about what you might say. Because, I have freedom in being who God created me to be because of Who He is and what He has done!
Whatever bad I do, God is bigger, whatever good I do God is greater, God is better!
Let’s look at what our life looks like when Christ is our foundation. We are going to do that through looking at an example found in the Old Testament: Moses.
Take a moment and think about all that you know about Moses. How do you think he would have described himself? In contrast, what did God say about Moses?
Whatever Bad We Do, God is Bigger
Moses was dead. Or at least he was about to be, except that God saved him. Through Moses’ mother’s planning and prayers and by the Egyptian princess, Moses is saved from his certain death as a male Israelite baby born in slavery in Egypt. Moses is no hero though, one of the first things we learn about him is that he kills an Egyptian man, and he runs away so that he would not get caught. Not a solid start to his story. You all can safely assume that I am not a murderer, but I am a guilty person. In his letter to the Colossians, Paul says that you are a guilty person if you have any kind of impurity (yep), lust, evil desires and greed (which is really caring about anything more than God). The list also includes, but is not limited to having anger and rage and talking badly about other people or lying (Colossians 3:5-11).
In my life, I try to deal with my guilt with two different approaches. One approach is justifying it saying: “it’s not that bad.”
My boyfriend and I didn’t go all the way, so it’s not that bad. I may be selfish with my time and not want to help my family with chores (which is greedy), but at least I’m not sneaking out and lying to their faces.
Maybe some of you also justify your guilt this way too. Or maybe you take my other approach, which I think is a lot more like Moses’ response to his failings. We let our sin and our shortcomings define us. When God reveals Himself to Moses in the burning bush, He tells Moses that Moses is going to lead the people of Israel out of their slavery into a land of promise and goodness. How does Moses respond?
Exodus 4:10 “Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
Moses lets his weakness define him. His failure has become his identity. Last year, I served as a chaplain for a middle school. My boss one day was clearly frustrated with a mistake that I had made. I went home and told my husband Andrew how upset I was with the whole situation. “I never should have been a distraction during that meeting I’m better than that! I should have acted more like an adult. I always do this! I’m the worst. And I didn’t even apologize well. I’m so prideful that I don’t even know how to repent.” As I cried to Andrew he said to me, “Christine, you sound like you are afraid of your sin.”
Even after God rebukes Moses and says, “I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.” (Exodus 4:11-13)
Moses was afraid of his sin and his shortcomings. God chose to use him anyway. God chooses you as His child in spite of your sin and shortcomings. God isn’t afraid of your sin. God’s love is far greater than all the bad you have ever done.
“Christine, have you forgotten what Jesus did for you?” Andrew asked me. “He died for your sins already. Why would he do that if He wanted you to keep living in fear of them?” If you believe in Jesus, and you believe in the work He has done by dying on the cross for your sins then you need to believe that He is greater than all the bad you could ever do. When you go into the world you can go with the confidence that it is Jesus who lives in you. You are a new creation Paul says in that same chapter of Colossians. Who are you? You are God’s beloved.
Exodus 3:10-12 “So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you…”
And when Moses is still scared:
Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”
If you believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Man, then your foundation is not the bad that you have done, but the good that He is. You go into life as God’s own. I do not have to let the bad things in my heart and in my life define me, I have freedom to be who God created me to be because He is bigger.
Whatever Good We Do, God is Greater
As believers, our identity is Jesus Christ and what He has done, it is not the good that we have done.
Paul says to the church at Ephesus: Ephesians 2:8-10 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
On the days that I am not thinking about my sin and shortcomings, I have a tendency to think that I’m pretty awesome. I have 3 older siblings and there have been moments in my life that my mom has patted me on the back and said, “You’re our nice one.” Or weeks like a few back when I had 4 old students at different times call me crying during a break up, because they knew I would listen and encourage them. It is so easy for me to think my identity is in being the nice one. And other people will affirm that. A boy once told me, “Christine I don’t think of you as the funny one, I think of you as the nice one.”
On a deeper level, I have been in youth ministry since I was 15. Working with teenagers has been my whole personality- to the point where I don’t even really know how to have conversations with adults or people my own age. The past 4 months, I haven’t worked with teenagers and I’ve had to ask myself: who am I? The funny one? The nice one? The youth ministry gal? I can’t let my job, my status, the bad things I’ve done, or even the good I do, define me. They are not my foundation for life. My foundation is Jesus Christ and His love for me.
If I were defined by the good I have done, I would be disappointed because being and doing good gets tiring and frustrating. Moses experienced that. He served faithfully the people of Israel. He led them out of Egypt, He got the law from God and shared it with them. Moses did so much good for the people. But they still complained to the point where in Numbers 11:10-15 it says,
“And Moses was troubled. He asked the Lord, “Why have you brought this trouble on your servant? What have I done to displease you that you put the burden of all these people on me? … I cannot carry all these people by myself; the burden is too heavy for me. If this is how you are going to treat me, please go ahead and kill me—if I have found favor in your eyes—and do not let me face my own ruin.”
Think of all the good Moses did! And yet, he says, I’d rather die than keep going. He forgot that it was God who was doing the good, He forgot that God was with him, enabling him to do all this good. God of course answers Moses by giving him 70 other men to help with his duties.
You will never be able to do enough good for your goodness to make you feel whole, the only thing that will lead to wholeness is letting Jesus be your foundation. You will grow tired of trying to be perfect, if you forget that Jesus was perfection. Being nice isn’t an identity, being God’s child is!
Moses was pretty great, but even he says at the end of his life that he isn’t the main character in the story, he isn’t the hero. He pointed to the One who was to come. When Moses encountered God face to face, Moses’ face starts to shine brightly, like the moon reflecting the sun (Exodus 34:29-35). In fact, it is so bright that for a time quite some time in Moses’ life he literally had to wear a veil so that people weren’t overwhelmed looking at him. Was Moses the source of that light? No, it was God’s light and goodness that Moses was reflecting to the people. I am not the source of the goodness that I do, all the good I do is because I am loved by God and He is greater. I know that no matter how awesome I am, God is even greater! If you are putting your identity in being good, or being nice, let me encourage you with the truth that knowing Jesus is the greatest thing you can ever do. We have freedom to be who God created us to be!
God is Better!
Did Moses lead the Israelites into the promised land? No, at the end of his life he was only able to see what was promised, he wasn’t able to attain it. But after his death it is recorded that,
“Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face, who did all those signs and wonders the Lord sent him to do in Egypt—to Pharaoh and to all his officials and to his whole land. For no one has ever shown the mighty power or performed the awesome deeds that Moses did in the sight of all Israel.” (Deuteronomy 34:10-12).
Moses, through God’s power did so much good! But he wasn’t the true savior. He was merely a reflection. The author of Hebrews says that Moses’ foundation in his life was his Faith in who God was and what God did for His people. Moses’ foundation of faith in the Lord gave him the opportunity to live a life of freedom. He knew the reality which Paul spoke about to the Ephesians 2:1-7,
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
If you believe this reality then your identity is one of God’s child. In order for you to live like your foundation is Jesus Christ, you have to remember:
Whatever bad we do, God is bigger, whatever good we do God is greater, God is better.
May your life look like Moses’: you were dead, enslaved in your sin, but you heard the voice of the Lord, you saw the One who is the I AM, and you chose to follow Him because He is better.
