In this sermon, the speaker discusses the negative things people say and the obstacles we all face in life. He uses the example of Moses and how he faced criticism and doubt from the people, but God vindicated him by performing miracles through him. The speaker encourages the audience to not quit in the face of challenges, but to believe in God's power. He concludes by inviting those who have not yet started a relationship with Jesus to come forward and experience the victory and joy that comes with it.

I want to talk to you today about the fact that God is greater. Greater than what? Greater than everything. I want to read to you from the book of Exodus, a couple spots in Exodus, but let me set it up this way. In the Old Testament, you don't have the focus so much on the development of God's purpose in individual lives. Since Jesus had not come, the new covenant of faith in Christ had not been revealed. He had not sacrificed himself on the cross. So in the Old Testament, what you have are lives that jump out at you that God puts a focus on. Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, and on and on, some judges. But really, there's what, two, three, four dozen people in the whole Old Testament that stand out. They make mistakes like everyone does. But the focus is more on God's people, Israel possessing land, fighting wars, but not so now in the New Testament. We're not to fight wars to possess any land. The kingdom of God is within us. And it's not for Jew only. It's for Jew, Gentile, everyone on the face of the earth who would put their faith in Christ. And what's focused on in the New Testament is that for every individual believer, like him and her and her, God has a purpose, God has a plan, and God wants to bring blessing to every one of us and has a plan for every one of us. It's a plan to glorify his name through our lives and for us to influence the people around us and for us to enjoy the multitudinous blessings that God has for us as we trust in him. But like with Moses, there are obstacles. There are huge adversarial forces, personal and impersonal, that block, it seems, the purpose of God and the blessing of God. In the life of Moses, we're gonna see that these obstacles were real, but God proved himself greater than the obstacle. In other words, it looks good, but then it looks bad. It's impossible. Then God intervenes and it looks good again, but then it looks bad. And boy, you wanna give up and say, this thing will never happen. God's purpose for Moses will never be accomplished. The blessing of God will not be on Moses. What he was called to do, he'll never get to do it because of A, B, C, D. And I want to apply it to your life because we're all Moses in a way, as I lay this out before you. We're all Moses. We all face obstacles. And the question is, are we gonna trust in God? Are we gonna trust in Jesus and believe that he is greater than those obstacles that are blocking us from the fulfillment of the purpose God has for us, the blessing he has for us? Now, Moses influenced all of the Israelites because he was their leader. It's very interesting. No one voted him in. He was never named king, but he was the undisputed leader of all of Israel as they leave Egypt and go toward the promised land. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself and some of you might not know about Moses, so let's go way back in history and just read a few little sketch verses about Moses' life and see how we can apply them to ourselves. Let's look, Exodus chapter one. Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people. Every Hebrew boy that is born, you must throw into the Nile, but let every girl live. Now, a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, that was the priestly tribe, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, that word in the Hebrew means God-blessed, unusual to behold, to look at. He had like a glow on him or something. When she saw that he was a fine child, a God-favored child, she hid him for three months, but when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile, and his sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. And now, later on in Moses' life, we read this. One day after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and he watched them at their hard labor. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people, looking this way and that, and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hit him in the sand. The next day, he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew? The man said, who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian? Then Moses was afraid and thought, what I did must have become known. When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. And then later on, when Moses is trying to assume leadership of the Israelites, the Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told by the Egyptians, you are not to reduce the number of bricks, required of you for each day. And when they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, and they said, may the Lord look on you and judge you. You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us. Wow, what a circuitous route Moses took to get where God wanted him. Let's look at what was against him and what God proved himself greater than. So as you know, Israel went down at first to Egypt and they were a favored people, because Joseph, one of the sons of Jacob, had great influence, and as the Jews multiplied, as the Hebrews multiplied, as the Israels multiplied, everyone knew Joseph, these are his people, and they were highly favored. But then, you know, time goes on. And Joseph was forgotten. And they were multiplying so quickly, their birth rate was high, and they were multiplying, and then the leaders of Egypt said, wait a minute, these people are a threat to us. So they made them slaves to keep them under. And now they were being ground into the dirt as slaves. They were slaves. And the people began to cry to God, and the Bible says that cry reached God's ear, and now God was gonna raise up this Moses so that he would deliver the people of Israel. God had a purpose for him, a great purpose. God was gonna bless him. God was gonna help him. God was gonna be there for him. But it didn't look so good, because actually Moses was doomed while he was in his mother's womb. They were multiplying so quickly, the Hebrews, that Pharaoh and his leaders said, listen, they're gonna overwhelm us, so let's just expose the children. You know, at the time of Christ, there was a post-birth kind of abortion process where children were just exposed or abandoned. They didn't butcher them, especially if you were looking for boy children, male children, which most families were, they would take unwanted girls and just leave them by the road, leave them out. And that was the way they got rid of children. That's practiced, by the way, still some places in the world. But at the time of Christ in Roman civilization, children were just abandoned, exposed. So we gotta get rid of all the baby boys that are born. And now Moses' mother gets pregnant, and she's carrying this child, but he's doomed. No way God's purpose for him is gonna be fulfilled, because he's born at the wrong time. If he had been born 100 years earlier, or 100 years later, he might have had a shot. But these are negative outside circumstances which Moses has no control over. Moses is just born into a cauldron of hate, prejudice, and murder. And he's targeted while he's still in his mother's womb by these impersonal forces, this mentality of Egypt, kill all the Hebrew little baby boys. So he's born, and they hide him for three months, but they were nervous wrecks, because he could have cried, he could have screamed, somebody could have seen him, somebody could have ratted them out to the Egyptian authorities, and then he's doomed. So now, all of God's purposes, how in the world can God's purposes be fulfilled when the baby is doomed from his birth? But God is greater. And this woman of faith and this man of faith who were Moses' parents, seems like the mother led the way, and she said, no, I can't hide him any longer, but she made a little basket out of reeds, papyrus, and put it on the Nile River, and released it, and when she released that basket, when she let it go, now God could come into play. This boy had no right to live, no way to live, he's doomed, but somebody with faith in God says, no, God, you can be greater than the circumstances around me, and put that baby in there, and as you know, the basket drifts, and then Pharaoh's daughter providentially says, you know what, I need to take a bath. Not smelling so good today, let me just go in the Nile River. If you've ever seen the Nile River, that's the last place you would wanna take a bath. But anyway, she does, and she hears the baby crying, sends a servant to get the basket, they bring it, and she sees the baby, and God knits her heart to the baby. And instead of dying, the baby is now gonna be raised in Pharaoh's palace with the best teachers, best education, best food, because God is greater than outside circumstances. Can we put our hands together and say that? There are circumstances that we all face that you have no control over. You can get bitter about it, you can get angry, you can throw up your hands and say, look at the system, or look at this, or look at that. This is beyond my control. Even the way you were born, and the family you were born into, and who raised you. Maybe you weren't raised properly. Maybe your father was an alcoholic who beat your mother. Maybe you were abandoned and just shipped off to other people because your parents didn't care. Whatever the outside circumstances are, no matter how negative it is, what you face beyond your control, no matter what the opposing forces are, I wanna declare to you today, Jesus Christ is greater than whatever someone else is trying to do to you. Can we say a loud amen to that? Because God's purpose and God's blessing is gonna come despite the circumstance. A lot of people quit in life, a lot of people get angry in life because of, look at this mess. But Moses' mom and dad, instead of saying, what hope do we have for this boy? Look at the time he's born, look at the day. I mean, God many times does the greatest things in an atmosphere that you say, no way, Jose, there's no way that's gonna happen. God chooses that just to show how great he is. So the very environment that's against you, the very situation, circumstances, negative, adversarial, beyond your control, these circumstances were beyond that little baby's control, God is greater, God is greater. Turn to your neighbor and say, God is greater. Just tell him, God is greater. God is greater than that. And now it's looking good. No, I mean, it's looking good. Because God's purpose is for him to be a leader. And I mean, forget going to Oxford, forget a Rhodes Scholarship, forget MIT, forget all of that, he's in Pharaoh's palace with the best teachers, best tutors, he's Hebrew, but he's Egyptian in another way. He's gonna have influence and be loved. This is gonna, you know what, it's looking good now. Oh, God is good, he's gonna work this out. Greater than those, mm, not so fast. Somewhere along the way, even though Moses is being brought up in Pharaoh's palace, and even though he's, Pharaoh's daughter is his mom, as it were, Moses learned somehow that he's Hebrew, he's an Israelite. It's not clear how that came to him, what that did to him, his consciousness. So here he's dressed and made up like an Egyptian, but he's a Hebrew at heart. But he's got influence, he's raised, he's loved by the people in the palace. They saw him running around as a three, four-year-old. They saw him take his first steps. You know, he'd get his hieroglyphics right and put a little star on top of his test paper. So he was loved. But one day, for some reason, the Bible indicates he wanted to go to his people, the Hebrews, and tell them who he was. Not only who he was, but I have influence. I'm Moses. I'm not some nobody. I'm not some slave. I'm Moses. And he goes out, and as he's there, he sees an Egyptian beating down a Hebrew. And Moses has a temper. And Moses had empathy for his people. And that, combined with his anger problem, he stopped the fight by killing the Egyptian and buried him in the sand. Because even if you're Moses, you can't go around killing people. And he buried him in the sand. The next day, hey, it's covered up. You know, it's covered up. I had a moral failure, but it's covered up. I'm good to go. He sees two Hebrews fighting the next day. And he, you know, he's a peacemaker. He went from murderer to peacemaker. And he goes like, yo, we gotta slow down here. Come on, we're fellow Hebrews, and let's join hands together and sing We Shall Overcome or something. And the one who's beating down the other Hebrew goes, hey, who made you judge and ruler over us? Who made you all that? You ain't all that. You're nobody to me. And by the way, what are you gonna do now? Kill me like you killed the Egyptian yesterday? We saw that. We know where you buried him. So get out of our face. And Moses goes, oh no. They know. And he has to run. Now God's purpose will never be fulfilled. Leader of Israel? Are you kidding? The Bible says Pharaoh now wants to kill him. He's blown all his privilege. He's messed up everything that God preserved by the way he was delivered in the Nile River. He's blown it all. But he can't blame it on impersonal forces. He's to blame. He's had a moral, spiritual breakdown. He's committed what Cain did to Abel. There's no 10 commandments yet, but you're not supposed to kill people. It's over. It was looking good for a while though, you have to admit that. I mean, with the basket and the baby and the Pharaoh's daughter, the whole thing was looking very nice. The education, all the stuff he learned, and now it's all down the drain because he messed up. But I want to declare to you today, Jesus is greater than your mess up. Isn't it amazing? Moses, one of the greatest men in the Old Testament, if not the greatest, some would argue he's the greatest. He began his quote ministry by killing someone. Oh, I am so glad that the God we serve is a God of grace. So here's, listen. God is not only greater than the environment and negative circumstances that you were born into or are facing today, and they're beyond you, I got it. They're beyond me, but God is greater than that. If we trust him, he will fulfill his purpose. The blessing will come. Do I get an amen? The blessing will come. There's no outside force that can block God from accomplishing what he wants to. Yeah, let's clap our hands and say amen. But more personal, more personal and to the point, there's no failure, there's no mess up, there's no sin that disqualifies you if you'll just come to Jesus and say, Lord, have mercy on me. God is not only greater than impersonal negative forces, God is greater than our guilt. God is greater than our mess up. God is the God of the second chance and the 200th chance and for some of us, the two millionth chance. Do I get an amen for that? In other words, if the devil has lied to you and said because of that, you now lose everything. You tell him he's a liar because God's grace is greater. Come on, let's celebrate that. His grace is greater. Come on, his grace is greater. His grace is greater. And how is God gonna finally put this all together? Because now it looks totally impossible. It looked bad in the basket in the Nile River. It looked bad when they were killing the little baby boys and Moses was born, that looked bad. But this is worse because you blew your chance. Remember, Satan will always tell you it's over. He's a condemner. He's the master and condemnation. I know what you're like, I know what you did and now you've blown it. And God is saying to no, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He's greater than that. His grace is greater. Where sin abounds, grace even more abounds. And notice, this is God's typical pattern. All the people in the Bible, except for maybe Joseph, not much is mentioned of his shortcomings, but the shortcomings of God's people are written bold in the Bible to show us that God doesn't use perfect people because there are none. He uses people who trust him and who believe that he's greater than their own mistakes. And look, is he not applicable to all of us that we've all messed up in life? And the devil is always wanting to bring that up, a mistake, a rash sentence, a rash act, some besetting sin. God is greater than that. Listen, look at me, I don't care what you did, he's greater. I said, I don't care what you did, he's greater. It doesn't matter how many times you did it. Come on, is he greater? He's greater, his grace is greater. So now, how in the world is God gonna pull this off? Well, 40 years, you know, some people were impatient of waiting, how about 40 years? 40 years later, Moses, been broken, learned a lot of things. Although anger and rash statements were always his problem, even later on. Well, 40 years later, he's taking care of some sheep and God appears to him in a burning bush, speaks to him and says just the wildest thing. Moses, go with your brother Aaron, I'm reducing it down to its main focus here. Go with your brother Aaron and go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh, let my people go. You mean Pharaoh as in Egypt, Pharaoh? As where they were trying to kill me? As where I kill somebody in a very horrible moment? Yeah, that Egypt and go to, it's a different Pharaoh, but go. And as you know, or some of us know, Moses tried to beg off, no, I can't speak, I'm not the one, find someone else. But God says, no, you're to go. You're gonna deliver the people, that's my purpose for you. My purpose is that you're gonna have such influence over the people, you're gonna deliver them out of Egypt and I'm gonna be with you. So it's looking good. It's looking good again. I mean, when God appears to you, speaks out of a burning bush, how many of us have ever had that happen? It's looking good again. He's overcome impersonal negative circumstances out of Moses' control when he was born. He's even overcome now Moses' personal failure. In other words, he's saying, Moses, I'm not done with you yet. I wanna say that to all of you. God is not done with you yet. I said God is not done with you yet. No matter what lie you believe, God is not done with you yet. He can, he's God. So Moses gets his courage together and he goes to Pharaoh and he says, let my people go. And Pharaoh says, what? Say what? I said, let my people go. And he says, get out of here. No, let my people go so they can worship God. Get out of here, I don't wanna hear about you. And you know what? These Hebrews, they must have a lot of spare time on their hands. Don't you have like a workout gym or something? Planet Hollywood or something to go to? No, I'll tell you what, and the people aren't going, get out, get them out of here. You know what? Bring the foremen, bring the leaders. The Hebrews, they got too much time on their hands. They're not making enough bricks. You know what? Idle time. Or you know what, tell them to make bricks but we're not giving them straw anymore. We used to supply straw so they could make the bricks, the brick-making process. They're not gonna have any more straw. So the announcement is made and now the Hebrews are coming to their leaders and saying, what? No, Pharaoh gave orders. Everyone's gotta keep same quota of bricks. Gotta make those bricks. But you gotta get your own straw. So now they're searching all over Egypt trying to find little stuff that they can put for the brick-making process. And this is driving them mad. And guess who they look to, to vent. Yo, Moses. Yo, Aaron, here, now, we need to talk to you. It wasn't bad enough that we were slaves. Now because of your message of faith and deliverance, we are working four times harder than we've ever worked before. You've made us a stench and obnoxious to the leaders of Egypt. Would you please get out of here? Who appointed you to do anything? Get out of here. Because you're not helping us, you're making it worse. And that, for my part, is where the story ends. Not only impersonal forces, negative circumstances against Moses, God is greater. Personal failure, mess up, huge, a murder, bury the guy in the sand, God is greater. But now being misunderstood and opposed by your very closest friends, by your people. It's one thing to have Pharaoh against you, but when the people you're supposed to help turn against you, that's very discouraging. But God is greater. Haven't we all faced that? The Lord has a purpose for our life, the Lord wants to bless us, and sometimes, as Jesus said, your enemies will come from your own household. Negative things people say, gossip, slander, a knife in the back, and they turn it once or twice. But very soon, God vindicated Moses. He went back to Pharaoh, 10 plagues followed at Moses' word, and when they got to the Red Sea, the people were totally, totally indebted to Moses. Not only high-fiving, they were out of Egypt, no longer slaves, but some were saying, give me an M, give me an O, give me an S, give me an E, give me an S. Moses, he's our man, if he can't do it, nobody can. You know why? Because God is greater. These are the obstacles we all face. The question is, do we quit, or do we believe God? In all these things I just mentioned, people drop out like flies. I've seen it. I battled it myself. Forces, circumstances, beyond control, lack of money, lack whatever, born into whatever. Rough childhood, whatever. A lot of people just get bitter, angry, they toss the whole thing away. But God is greater, Jesus is greater. Or personal failure, you mess up, you get so discouraged with yourself, and then you just give up, and there's no sense trusting God. I wanna tell you, his grace is greater. The devil's always in the back of your head, saying, you're this, you're this, you're this, you'll never change, but God is greater than that. God is greater than that, God is greater than that. Lastly, and this is the one that hurts so many people, you get opposition from people who are not even your enemies, they're supposed to be your friends. Moses, yeah, he got opposed by Pharaoh, but he was ready for that. You know what really hurts? Is when the people you love and you trust give it to you. They hurt you, they wound you. I was once playing a game at Providence College, televised throughout all of New England. I was playing basketball for the University of Rhode Island. I was only a sophomore. We were getting beat. They put in their second team. It was a frustrated football player who wanted to play basketball, but he wasn't any good. And he was playing, I didn't know him, but he must have not taken a liking to me. And we were racing for a ball, going out of bounds, and we're both fighting to see who can get there and save it, and he's elbowing me, and I'm elbowing him. And as we're getting to it, I lunged ahead and I knocked the ball off his leg. He got frustrated, I guess, but I didn't know. About a minute later, the ball was down there. We had just scored. He's running back past me. I'm totally relaxed, waiting for the play to come back to my end, and as he runs by me, it wasn't even six, seven inches. I'm totally relaxed, and he goes, and punches me as hard as he can in my stomach. Has anyone here ever had the wind knocked out of you where you thought you would die? Lift your hand if that ever happened to you. I went rolling down on the floor, couldn't talk. The referees, my teammates, are around me. This is on television. I'm rolling like a maniac on the floor of the gym, the arena, and I can't talk. They're saying, what's wrong, what's wrong? And I can't talk. Have you ever got hit that hard where you can't even talk? And no, I couldn't get oxygen. I'm in terrible shape, right? The only guy who saw what he did was his own coach, Coach Joe Mullaney, who coached Providence College, great coach, and while everyone's trying to figure out what happened, because it wasn't where you were looking, the ball was down the other side of the court, and I'm still rolling. And when I got up, a spirit came on me, but it was not the spirit of the Lord. They're huddled, their whole team, seven, they had a seven-footer, a very famous basketball player, famous coach too now. They're all there, and I break free, and I'm running, I'm gonna take them all down, all 14 of them, right? And the referees are trying to hold me, and I'm in a total rage. You know, we all have a button inside of us, if you press it, you can go off real quick. I went Brooklyn, I wasn't even in Brooklyn at the time, I went Brooklyn. And I'm just trying to get to him, and any of them could've just, those seven-footers, 6'10", they could've just thrown me away, no, but I'm gonna go. Oh, that punch hurt me. Oh, when you're totally relaxed, and the guy just delivers it to you hard, the coach threw him out of the game, I got back on the bus at the end of the game, I was sore for a day or two. But you know what, it goes away. But when people close to you hurt you, it can stay for years, decades. I've seen people lose the blessing of God, because they can't get over the opposition of people they thought should support them. Can I tell you something? Jesus is greater than anything anyone ever does to you. Last time, can we put our hands together and say amen to that? Let's close our eyes. If you're here today, and you say, pastor, you described some things going down in my life, I do believe that Jesus is the son of God, I believe he's greater than negative circumstances that have tried to just destroy me, squelch me, hold me down. Instead of getting angry, I'm gonna trust him even more. Pastor, I heard what you said. It's not over when you mess up. God is greater than our mess ups, our sins, our rebellions. He is greater. His loving kindness has no end. There's no bottom to it. You can swim down, down, down, you'll never hit the bottom, because there is no bottom. Or maybe you're here today, and you've just been wounded by people close to you, people you thought would help you have just done a number on you. I'm telling you, don't get angry, don't get bitter. Don't be filled with unforgiveness. Give it to Jesus. Jesus is greater than no matter what anyone does to you. Here they wanted to get rid of Moses, and they ended up cheering Moses, and God can turn that around too. He can make your enemies bless you. He's gonna help you. He's gonna help you. My message today is that Jesus is greater. I don't care, fill in the blank. Whatever you name, he's greater than that. Whatever happened to you, no matter what you did to yourself, no matter what people have tried to do, he's greater, he's greater, he's greater, he's greater. He's greater. If you would like me to say a prayer over you, just stand where you are right now, right where you're sitting. Come on, don't have a whole lot of time to do this. Just stand up where you are. Pastor, that was for me. God brought me in to this building today. That was for me. Just stand right where you are. Just stand up right where you are. That's all over the balcony, downstairs, wherever. That was for me. I need Jesus to show himself greater. Give me victory. I want the blessing, the salvation, the pardon, the forgiveness, the grace that he promised. I want that in my life, and I'm not gonna be sidetracked by negative forces or my own failure or what people have tried to do to me. Whatever. Let him do whatever. If God be for us, who can be against us? He gave us Jesus, he's gonna help us. Everybody standing now who is standing, come quickly to the front. Everyone who's standing, come quickly down from the balcony. Come on, you can make it down here in a minute. Don't anyone else move. Everyone standing, come forward. Every eye closed. Listen to me, you here in the front. Some of you are believers, but the enemy's thrown up one obstacle after another. But you're not gonna leave here discouraged, you're not gonna leave here defeated, because there's victory in Jesus Christ. There's victory. Some of you have come forward and you've maybe never really started a relationship with Jesus. You've gone to church, but you don't know what it is to have a personal relationship with Jesus, where sins are gone, peace and joy flood your life. You get a new center, a new beginning, new direction, new mind, new heart. It's amazing. That's what Jesus meant when he said, you must be born again. You, I wanna give special help to. And I'm gonna ask you to linger and we can take your name and help you be baptized or whatever you need. But right now, we're all together because this message is applicable so many ways. Let's pray. Dear God, I thank you for your word to us today that Jesus is greater. Whatever the negative circumstances, whatever the obstacles, whatever the system, whatever the culture, whatever the whatever, Jesus is greater. We thank you also that no matter the sin, no matter the weakness, no matter the failure, we're sincere and put our trust in him. He is greater. Greater. His grace is greater. Where sin abounds, grace even more abounds. We claim that grace, that pardon, that mercy. And Satan, we rebuke you in the name of Jesus Christ. You condemn her, you accuse her. The blood of Jesus is against you. He died for us, he shed his blood for us. Lastly, we thank you, Lord, you're greater than what people try to do to us. You're greater. Whether it's a pharaoh or whether it's our own brethren not understanding us and opposing us like Moses, you're greater. We're not gonna be angry, we release all anger, all frustration, all let me get back at him. We release all of that, all hardness and bitterness, all guilt, all frustration, we release it to you. Because we know the one who's on our side is greater than all. He is Lord of all. Oh, how great is our God. The name above all names. Worthy to be praised. So now bless your people today, Lord. All right, look at me, everyone, please. There's something happening here. I can't quite discern what's going on here, but you know, God is pulling some of you up and lifting you out of whatever pit you had fallen into. I'm telling you, you are out of that pit now. In the name of Jesus, can we say amen? Amen. Come on, let's praise him by clapping our hands and saying hallelujah. It's time to praise the Lord. Time to praise the Lord. Everybody stand, let's give God a standing ovation. Everybody stand and praise him, he's greater. Jesus is greater, God is greater. Turn around and hug somebody. Everybody do it, hug somebody.