Feed Your Soul

24:19 Scripture passage comes from Exodus chapter 3 verse 12. Listen for the word of the Lord. God said, I will be with you and this shall be a sign to you that it is I who sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain. this is the word of God for you the people of God Thanks be to God.

24:54 This evening marks the start of our journey through another program year. For many of us, we set out this evening with a sense of confidence, excitement, enthusiasm for everything that comes next. If you're in this group, you've been patiently waiting for this day. You've been waiting all summer for the start of FIA, for your community groups and Bible studies, for Sunday school, and I know many of you have been patiently waiting for the restart of deacon session and trustee meetings launch tonight. You are ready for this.

25:35 Others of us tonight are here with a sense of trepidation. a fear of unworthiness, maybe an uncertainty about our calling. What direction should I go? How will I respond to the unexpected challenges that I face? What if I make a mistake?

25:58 What if I'm not enough? this passage tonight this verse is for you if you're in that second group maybe I should say it this way that this passage is for the part of each of us that feels that way tonight and after all even Moses feels this way this question that precedes this passage Moses poses to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh? so this short verse offers us a reminder that God is offering throughout and across the millennia is that God will be with you full stop period but there's a trick to this sign there's a funky little thing that's going on here it's offered as proof but the sign that God offers to Moses is only visible when the work is finished the only confidence that we receive now is God's word, that God is with us in this task that's set before us, and that God goes with us in our service, in our connections, in the vulnerability that we will display by offering ourselves to be the ones that God sends.

27:34 and trusting God's word in this way is how our faith grows because faith is not a binary it's not on or off it's not something you have or don't have it's like a muscle and uncertainty is part of the experience uncertainty is the weight that we push against to grow. It's like a dumbbell that we lift as we show up again and again in our feelings of inadequacy, and we find that God is meeting us right there. You see, God has one more sign in store in all of this, that our language, English, kind of obscures in this verse that we've read tonight. Every you in this passage, everywhere you see the word you is singular. They're directed at an individual, except for one. The final phrase is probably better read, y'all will worship God on this mountain. God is bringing a community together around you to be your team, to do this work as one. So look around. Seriously, look around in this room. As Reverend Chris said, there's almost a hundred of us in this room, and there are others that are joining from across the United States tonight. This is the community that God has equipped for this program year's work. And together we can have confidence that when we are back in this room, let's say a year from now, we will know with certainty that God has been with us when we come back together to worship on this holy mountain.

29:37 So I say thank you. Thanks for being part of this community, this team. Thanks for being someone that I can look to, a community that I can look to in my doubts and my inadequacy and uncertainty, and know that we are in it together, that we will worship God on this mountain. May God bless you in this year, and may you experience God and each other through the work. Amen. it's now my joy to introduce our clerk of session persis luke who will come up to share a testimony with us