Good morning, and welcome to
Grace Gospel Fellowship. We want to welcome you. We're
doing a live stream, and so we're going to try and be as normal
as possible in these abnormal times. So we're going to start
out by reading some simple scripture, then we'll pray, and then we'll
have Pastor Kent Clark come deliver the word. So let's start with
some simple reading today from the gospel. It'll be in Exodus
3, and we'll be reading from 3.1 through 3.17. So I'll give
you just a minute to find that. It's on page 96 of my Bible. Moses at the burning bush. Three,
one. Now Moses was tending the flock
of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he
led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Horeb,
the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared
to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush. So he looked,
and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not
consumed. Then Moses said, I will now turn
aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn. So
when Moses saw that he had turned aside to look, God called to
him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he
said, here I am. Then he said, do not draw near
this place. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place
where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God
of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God
of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon
God. And the Lord said, I have surely seen the oppression of
my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because
of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I have come
down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to
bring them up from the land to the good and large land, to a
land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites
and the Hittites, the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites
and the Jebusites. Now, therefore, behold, the cry
of the children of Israel has come to me. and I have also seen
the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come
now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may
bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.' But
Moses said to God, Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and that
I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? So he said,
I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you
that I have sent you. When you have brought the people
out of Egypt, you shall serve the God on this mountain. Then
Moses said to God, Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel
and say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and
they say to me, What is his name? What shall I say to them? And
God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, Thus you say to
the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover,
God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel,
The Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my
name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations.
Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, The
Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
appear to me, saying, I have surely visited you and seen what
is done to you in Egypt. And I have said, I will bring
you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites
and the Hittites and the Amorites, the Perizzites and the Hivites
and the Jebusites, to a land flowing with milk and honey.
Let's pray. Alexander McLaren once said,
Christian men and women, you have been made whole. A mighty
hand has lifted you out of the pit of despair and sent you on
a sweet path of hope. Hope is what we have today in
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. These are tumultuous times filled
with uncertainty and anxiety. We rock on pins and needles.
We walk on eggshells. The fear of the unknown has been
our constant companion. Lord, forgive us in our unbelief
and our spiritual unfaithfulness. We are prone to wander, prone
to leave the God we love, trusting in our elected officials and
scientists more than we have in the certainty and truthfulness
of your word. You have promised to never leave us nor forsake
us. Renew our spirits, our faith and trust in you, your everlasting
promises, your eternal steadfastness and declaration of, it is finished.
Heavenly Father, we ask you to bless, pastor, as it brings forth
your holy word. Bless our leaders, our first
responders, and our brave healthcare workers. Keep a hedge about the
church and the mission. Bless the continued and needed
generosity of donors. For what we are not, make us.
What we know not, teach us. And what we have not, you always
provide for us. We ask these things in the name
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And now our head pastor,
Pastor Kent Clark, with the word of God. Thank you, Dr. Christopher. My,
I miss you. Those of you who are not here,
we're in the auditorium of Grace Gospel Fellowship, and it's a
bit difficult, actually, to be able to bring the word of God
without the people of God here. We're grateful to God for the
cameras that he's provided for us and the opportunity to speak
to you in this way. I want to assure you, this is
such uncertain times. And many of you I know are a
bit fearful and anxious about what's going on in our nation,
in our country. I read today that they're expecting
80,000 people to die in the United States from this virus. I don't
know about that. I don't know about tomorrow,
but I know who holds tomorrow. And that's my great hope. I wanna
just give you a few things that are happening here right at the
beginning of the service. God has been so good to us. You
know, I keep telling you that God hasn't brought us this far
to just leave us and desert us. God's in what's taking place
here at Grace Gospel Fellowship and Grace Centers of Hope. You
know, Starbucks gave us a thousand gallons of milk. That's something
I've never seen before. That's literally a miracle. Chick-fil-A gave us over 700
chicken sandwiches. Absolutely awesome. Jimmy John's
gave produce and meat. Subway donated all kinds of produce. We've never had this much food
before, actually. And I realized that that food
can spoil fairly quickly. But thank God for his miracles
in providing for us. The month of March, usually a
pretty tough month. We have over 70% of our March
budget here with about five days left. Sterling Heights, our thrift
store over there, the owner of that building has decreased our
rent for the months ahead. This week, over $57,000 in the
last five days has been donated to Grace Centers of Hope. What
an awesome thing that God is doing here in spite of the many
things that we see that are kind of on the downside of life. I
hope you'll be encouraged. I hope your faith is in the Lord.
If God be for us, who can be against us? We're trucking right
along. So far, no one here at the center or church has the
virus and we praise God for that. He's the great physician. I love
the story of the children of Israel leaving Egyptian bondage. I believe there is many things
that we can learn from their exodus. Dr. Christopher has read
to us these passages of scripture where God called Moses, to lead
the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage. He was just
an ordinary guy, a shepherd keeper on the backside of a desert,
keeping the sheep. And God called him to a burning
bush and said, take off your shoes. You are on holy ground. Anytime you meet up with God,
it's an awesome experience. And indeed, we're on holy ground.
The Lord said to him, I'm the God of thy father, the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid
his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. And the Lord said,
I have surely seen the affliction of my people, which are in Egypt
and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know
their sorrows. For 400 years, The children of
Israel were in Egyptian bondage. And in the book of Exodus, the
passage of scripture says that they were crying out to the Lord
for deliverance under the heavy burden of this slavery. And here's what God said. There's
such a correlation, I believe, with the gospel here. In verse
eight of the third chapter of the book of Exodus, the Lord
said, I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians. And is that not true of our Savior?
That in our bondage, he came down to deliver us from that
bondage. How awesome it is. And here's
what he said to Moses. Moses said unto God, who am I?
And what a question that is. David asked that question too.
Who am I that I should receive the many blessings that you have
bestowed upon me? We all need to be asking that
question. And what it will lead us to in
a biblical sense is I'm only a sinner saved by grace, that
God has made the difference in my life. And that's what I really
wanna talk to you about this morning. Who makes the difference? God said to Moses, it is I. And I certainly will be with
thee. And this shall be a token unto
thee that I have sent thee. When thou hast brought forth
the people out of Egypt, ye shall serve God upon this mountain. And Moses said unto God, behold,
when I come unto the children of Israel, what shall I say? The God of your fathers hath
sent me unto you, and they shall say to me, What is his name? What shall I say? And here's
what God told Moses to say, I am that I am, and he saith, thus
shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent thee. Our God is a sovereign God. He's
promised in Romans 8 that he'll never leave us nor forsake us,
that everything is working for our good and that we cannot be
defeated actually. Nothing can defeat the people
of God or separate us literally from the love of God. We're more
than conquerors. And we must remember that. And
especially, I think in times like these. So I just wanna remind
you again, of God's sovereignty, and especially in regard to you
personally. Here's what God said, I will
bring you out of the affliction of the Egyptians into the land
of Canaan. I will. Do that. I love the I
wills and the I shalls of God. Throughout scripture, you find
God saying things like this, all that the father giveth me
shall come to me. These are kind of times where
many of us are living in uncertainty. But when you know the scriptures
and know the God of the Bible, it's I will and I shall. No man is able to separate us
from the love of God. And what God promises to do,
He will do. I had someone ask me this past
week, well, how come that you feel like that God is simply
on your side? Why do you feel like that God
would take sides with the likes of you? And how do you have such
assurance? Well, I think I know the answer
to that. I wanna read from Exodus chapter
11, and this is kind of the text verse actually, Exodus chapter
11 and verse seven. Literally thousands and thousands
of thousands of people are about to leave Egyptian bondage. And God said, there's something
I want you to know and be assured of. And this is going to be a
sign to you. Verse seven of chapter 11, but
against any of the children of Israel shall not a dog move his
tongue. Now, those of you who are dog
owners, have a love for dogs and have a pet, that's a dog,
you know they like to bark. It's just natural for dogs to
bark and especially if there's commotion. I used to have a dog
named Snowball and Snowball always chased cars. He got run over
at least once a week and I'd find him laying on the highway
and he survived. But anyway, he would always chase
cars and bite at the tires and bark. You think about all of
the children of Israel leaving Egyptian bondage, just as God
promised to Moses. And God said against you, a dog
shall not move his tongue. A dog will not bark. I love the
simple things of God. God said, this is going to be
a sign to you and a comfort to you. That dog shall not bark
against man or beast. that you may know how that the
Lord doth put a difference between the Egyptians and the Israelites. Do you know that for certain?
Has God given you that blessed assurance that you're more than
a conqueror, that you're more than victorious, that this epidemic
is not going to in any way affect your being more than a conqueror?
You think about this. I've thought about this a lot
here of late. if I should get the virus, if
I should, and I really doubt I will. I have no thought about
getting the virus, but if I did, and it took my life. I win, absent
from the body, present with the Lord, because he has made a difference
in my life. I know that for certain. It's
a great thing to understand that you haven't saved yourself, that
God has literally intervened in your life. Some of you are
converted while your brothers and sisters, maybe your mothers
and fathers are not converted. And that many times, that question
mark comes into your mind, why me? The answer to that is amazing
grace. It's the grace of God. Think
what a wonder that is. I know some of you may be having
a bit of a problem with that, but the only other answer you
can give is that you were better than your brother or sister,
your mother or father. And on the basis of your works,
God chose to save you or to bring you out of darkness into light.
I don't think so. You see, the great truth in my
life is this. I know it was not me. It was
not my works. It was not my church affiliation. It was God himself. Against you,
the children of Israel, a dog is not going to bark. And so
even today, I feel that way as we going through this crisis,
we win as the people of God, because God is with us. This
crisis that we're facing in America, that we get up every morning
and see it on the news, and it drags us down. Here's what we
need to know. Our God is a mighty God. He's
a God of shalls and wills, a God who purposes and brings to pass
that which he purposes. How wonderful it is to be able
to know that we've been saved by grace alone. I want to read
a passage of scripture from Romans. This is Romans chapter 3. And
what happens here in the book of Romans chapter 3 is, the apostle
Paul brings 14 indictments against sinful man. And then he closes
this way, in verse 22. He says, well, maybe we'll back
up a little. Their throat is an open supplicator,
in verse 13, with their tongues they have used deceit, the poison
of asp is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and
bitterness, Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and
misery are in their way. In the way of peace they have
not known. There is no fear of God before
their eyes. Now we know that what thing soever
the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law, that every
mouth may be stopped, as far as bragging or boasting is concerned,
and all the world become guilty before God. And then the apostle
in the 22nd verse says this, for there is no difference. For
there is no difference. Some of you out there may feel
yourself to be better than other people, but the truth is there
is no difference. All have sinned and missed the
mark. All have come short of the glory
of God and salvation is of the Lord. the difference between
you and your brothers and sisters or your mother and father or
your kin folks or your best friends. The reason you know the Lord
is because he intervened in your life. He actually made the difference. We call that sovereign grace.
You're not better than anybody. It's not because you're a better
person because you haven't used drugs or this or that. No, there
is no difference until God makes a difference. He is the difference
maker. What he does, he comes to the
Ethiopian eunuch who is reading Isaiah 53. He comes to Saul of
Tarsus on the Damascus road, the Christ hater, the Christ
rejecter, and makes a difference. He goes down into Lodibar to
the dead dog and makes a difference in his life. Now, this is the
crowning verse. The apostle in the Corinthian
letter had this to say, 1 Corinthians chapter 4, For God, who commanded
the light to shine out of darkness, has shined into our hearts to
give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. What a difference it is when
God turns on the light. You see, the reason a lot of
people have no idea about their centership is that the lights
haven't come on. Once the lights come on in that
dungeon where you've been hiding and keeping all of those self-secrets
with regard to your censorship, and you see all the snakes and
the rats and all of those spiders that are crawling around in that
dungeon, where you're dead to God without hope, and then God
comes in and turns on the light. You see your centership only
by the grace of God. You come to know you're a sinner
and your great need of a savior. Here's what the apostle Paul
said in the same Corinthian letter. Who maketh thee to differ from
another? What a great question that is. Who made you to differ
from another? Why would you ever think you're
better than somebody else? Well, you never will. when you
come to know that salvation is totally of the Lord, from first
to last, from alpha to omega, from beginning to end, that it
is God who comes into that dark place where you're living and
quickens you, gives you life where you begin to see your centership
and your great need of a savior. And so today we declare that
message, that God is the one who makes the difference. And
I look here at Grace Gospel Fellowship and Grace Centers of Hope, and
even in this crisis, every day, I say to God, thank you, Lord,
for making the difference. I know you did this. We began
Monday closing our thrift stores and began to ask the question,
how on earth will we make it without those thrift stores being
open? $250,000 a month comes to Grace
Centers of Hope through those thrift stores. And then dollars
began to come in. A lady called and gave $10,000.
on Monday, another person called and gave $10,000 on Tuesday. Yesterday, somebody gave $17,500.
Today, in spite of our mistake that we sent out an email, we
received $19,500 today in gifts. It looks like we may make budget
for March. I say, who is it that makes us
to differ? Why are we on the winning side,
on the living side, on the great side? It's because God's on our
side, but it's not because of anything good about us. You come
to Grace Gospel Fellowship, we are a motley crew, people who
have been converted out of whoredom, streetwalkers, people who've
been caught up in addictions. church entity people who had
believed that their denomination was going to take them to heaven.
We're in a situation now where nobody has the answer, no one.
But we have this answer, against you shall not a dog bark, that
you may know how that I put a difference between you and the rest of the
world. Now, let me clearly say this.
In closing, I am not saying that God has made us to differ because
of any good in us. Let me make that really, really
clear. Actually, the truth is we stand
amazed in the presence of Jesus of Nazarene and wonder that he
could save us, a sinner condemned unclean. Oh, how marvelous, oh,
how wonderful is the Savior's love to me. I'm amazed that God
has made a difference And I want to herald that message, to God
be the glory, great things he has done. I want to say, amazing
grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. To God
be the glory, the honor, and the praise. I wonder today, Have
you heard the message that God makes a difference? And do you
know that truth? That God is the one who made
a difference in your life. God will take care of you. I
want you to rest in that. I would like to comfort you today
by assuring you that he who has begun a good work in you will
perform it. I want you to know that all things
work together for good to them that love the Lord. to them who
are the called according to his purpose. I don't know whether
80,000 people are going to die from this virus, but I do know
this, if God be for me, who can be against me? I do know this,
I'm trusting him and him alone for my salvation, for my life,
for my security, for my nation, for my country, for my church,
how good it is to know that God is making the difference in your
life, and that there is no enemy, death, principalities, powers,
things present, things to come, nor any other creatures can separate
us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus. Those of
you who don't know him, but you felt a twinge today while I was
speaking. You sensed a need of a savior. You saw your censorship and you
saw no hope out there in this world. You look at our scientists
and our doctors and our hospitals. They don't have the answer. I
do know this. God is the answer and he will
take care of his people. I'm glad to get to talk to you.
I hope you'll Trust Christ today that you see your need and you'll
believe on him. And you will go about your life
doing the things that you need to do. Wash your hands many times
during the day. Be very careful of being around
sick people who have the virus, but that your life won't become
mundane. I'm living my life. I'm here
every day over at Grace Centers of Hope and Grace Gospel Fellowship.
Ms. Pam's living her life. We go
on a bicycle ride every night when it's warm enough to get
out, enjoy the fresh air. We are not stammered by this.
We believe that our God is alive and well, and he will take care
of us. God bless.