Phil Beach Jr. emphasizes the necessity of undergoing spiritual transformation through the metaphor of Moses' life, illustrating how God works to remove unpleasing traits from us, such as stubbornness and impatience, by placing us in challenging situations. He highlights that as children of God, we are under a 'sentence of death' that compels us to rely on God rather than ourselves, ultimately leading us to a deeper relationship with Him. The sermon encourages believers not to settle for anything less than God's highest calling for their lives, urging them to seek a profound understanding of their identity in Christ. Beach draws parallels between Moses' journey and the Christian experience, stressing the importance of looking to God for strength and guidance rather than being distracted by the opinions of others. He concludes with a call to recognize areas in our lives where we may be settling for less than God's best, inviting us to trust in His transformative work.

And in order to work in us those things that are pleasing to Him, He has to work out of us those things that are not pleasing to us. And He does that in various different ways and fashions. He works out of us a stubborn will by crossing it. He works out of us a hard critical heart by bringing into our life someone who we can very easily be critical over. He works out of us impatience by putting us in trials and difficulties. Each and every one of us as children of God, if we are, if the Lord Jesus lives on the inside, must come to grips with a most important truth. And it was touched on through the music, the witness of the Holy Spirit, by the things that were shared by those who spoke. And that is this. I'm going to make a statement and then we're going to go into the Scriptures. Listen carefully, please. This is very, very important for us to remember. As a child of God, you are under a sentence of death. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 9a, 9a. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, 9a. But we had the sentence of death in ourselves. Becoming a Christian is partaking in the sentence of death that God has decreed upon ourselves. That we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead. Now, I would like to illustrate this profound truth by gleaning from the life of Moses. Exodus chapter 2. God captures in the life of Moses a picture of the dealings that he is going to implement in the lives of those whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. Whose hearts are set on God's highest. Whose hearts are fixed on coming into, as Paul desired, being expressed by his own words, that I might know him. That I might lay hold of all that he laid hold of for me. Paul had a heart of no compromise. He refused to settle, young men, for anything less than God's highest for his life. And you and I ought not to settle for anything less than God's highest for your life. Listen, don't settle for less. Don't settle for less than God's highest. Don't buy into the lie that good is good enough. Because good is the enemy of better. And better is the enemy of best. Don't buy into the lie, beloved. Don't coast. Don't accept a plateau. Don't accept a good life when you can have a better one in Christ. And don't accept a better one when God is calling you to the best. If we are going to have this mindset, if we're going to have this determination, and this zeal, as Paul expressed, we've got to come to grips with our destiny. Our destiny as Christians born of God is to know Him by the process, by the processing of God in our life, bringing ourselves to death. Exodus chapter 2. Don't settle for anything less than God's highest intention. Each and every one of us ask ourselves a question right now in your heart. Don't verbalize it out loud. Ask yourself this question. Oh dear God, have I settled for something less than your best? Now, perhaps God immediately revealed it to you, but I suspect most likely that you have a waiting heart now before the Lord. I suspect that that question has not necessarily been fully answered. However, I do expect at the end of this message you will more able know God's answer because this message, the word of God, will address that question that you just asked yourself this morning. God's word is going to address it. So let God speak to you and then let God answer that question in your life this morning. And there went a man of the house of Levi and took a wife, a daughter of Levi, and the woman conceived and bare a son. And when she saw him, that he was a goodly child, she hid him three months. Beloved, listen carefully. We are reading an account of a man and a woman who conceived and bore a son, but they knew that there was a decree in the land that sons were under the sentence of death. Did you know that? Did you know that at this time the king of Egypt was so afraid of the Israelites that he made a decree and said, I want all of the male childs that are born to be thrown into the water. But you can let the girls live. May God open up the eyes of our heart and enable us to see that the very conception of Moses was under the decree of a sentence of death. His destiny, he was born under the sentence of death. And here God vividly, dramatically, speaks to every single heart that has heard His voice and that has apprehended and understood the nature of God's call that we too have been born with the sentence of death hanging over our life. And when she could no longer hide him, she took him for an ark of bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch and put the child therein. And she laid it in the flags by the river's brink. And his sister stood afar off to wit that would be done to him. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river and her maidens walked along by the river's side. And when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maid to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child and behold, the babe wept. And she had compassion on him and said, this is one of the Hebrews' children. This is one of the children that was destined to die. He was destined to die. Beloved, God only apprehends those who are destined to die. God only apprehends. God only gets a hold of those who have the sentence of death upon their lives as a testimony to himself and to the world that if this vessel is going to be any use in the hand of God, it has got to be because God got a hold of it. God changed it. God refashioned it. God put something into it that made it what it is. We need God. Not only does God deliver us out from the judgment that is upon us because of our sin, but once we are saved and once we've been forgiven and once we have known the grace of God, the sentence of death remains upon us. It is the sentence of death to ourselves, to our selfishness, to our own will, our own way, our own desires, the tenacity to do our own thing, to use God for our own purposes. Let me tell you, beloved, we are called to be used for God's purposes, not to use God for our own purposes. We're living in an age when Christianity has taken hold of God and has said, I'm going to use God and the Word to accomplish my own ends. Every one of us must receive a revelation from the Word of God that as Moses was born with the sentence of death upon him and that there was no hope for him, there was no hope for his survival, but then once he was delivered, which we will see, out from the sentence of death and he lived, there was still no hope for him to accomplish God's will unless he continued to walk in the death to Moses. You see, Moses' greatest enemy was not Pharaoh nor the Egyptians that worked for Pharaoh, but Moses' greatest enemy was Moses himself. And your greatest enemy and my greatest enemy is our own selves, as David brought out. We are vulnerable to that which is evil because it reflects what is in sinful flesh. And so we read on in verses 6 through 9 that Moses was taken aside and Pharaoh's daughter said to her, Hebrew woman, that she may nurse him, his mother. And Pharaoh's daughter said to her, verse 9, take this child away and nurse it for me and I will give thee wages. And the woman took the child and nursed him. And the child grew and she brought him to Pharaoh's daughter and he became her son. And she called his name Moses. And she said, because I drew him out of the water. Moses, the name of Moses, means to draw out the water. Water in the Old Testament frequently refers, as in Psalm 22, as in Psalm 91, and as in the account of the flood, water frequently refers to judgment, to death. And it is Moses being drawn out of death that saves his life from the sentence of death that was upon every male child, but it's also Moses being drawn out of himself, Moses being delivered from himself from the death of his own self that qualifies and enables him to become a vessel fit for the Master's use. And so Moses will bear the name Moses all the days of his life because all of the days of his life Moses has got to learn to live by the principle of only as I am drawn out of the judgment, drawn out of death, drawn out of myself, drawn out of what I am in myself, can I know and understand God and be used of God. Moses will carry that name all the days of his life. And may God enable you and I to understand that we bear the same name this morning, spiritually. God drew us out. And now he must continue the process of drawing us out, drawing us out, drawing us out. Now we see Moses was drawn out of the water and it saved his life. But now we're going to see why Moses needed further drawing out, he needed further deliverance the sentence of death was still upon Moses. Though he was alive, the death sentence was upon him. And that is true with every Christian. Though you are alive in Christ and though God has made you to be a child of God through faith in his Son, you are alive but yet the death sentence is upon you and I. We yet need to be delivered out from, we need to be drawn out from under, out from the death of ourselves and the works of ourselves and our own wisdom and our own way and our own dependence and our own trust and the loftiness of our own thinking. Now watch Moses, a very telling, very telling, as we make the transition from being saved and yet alive to being alive but yet needing to die. I was dead but I live, but now that I live I must die. What a paradox, what irony, what glory. And it came to pass those days when Moses was grown. Now he might have been grown physically, but he was a mere infant spiritually. The reason why is because the second phase of his name to be drawn out of death had not yet been fulfilled. Many Christians have known the first phase. I was dead in sins and trespasses, but now I am alive. Yes, amen. We are alive forevermore. We are forgiven sinners. We stand before God, holy and just. Why? Because we come in the merits of Christ, not in our own selves. But there's a second part that we must come to know. And ye have forgotten the word of exhortation that speaketh to you as unto sons. Despise not the chastening of the Lord, neither be weary when thou art corrected. For whom the Lord loveth, He corrects. And every son who He receives, He chastens and scourges. Now that is not a word spoken to sinners who need to be saved. That is a word spoken to saints who need to further undergo the processes of death and dying to self, that they might come into a fuller participation in the life of Christ. Hallelujah to the work of God. Hallelujah to the work of the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah to the man Moses who showed us the way that God will work in our life. Now, he was grown. He went out unto his brethren and looked on their burdens. And he spied an Egyptian smiting in Hebrew one of his brethren. Now this is a very important thing to notice. Verse 12. And he looked this way and that way. And when he saw that there was no man Moses had grown physically, had got a sense of destiny, he had got a feel that this was not right, he was, listen, he was awakening to his call. He was awakening to his God-ordained destiny. He looked and he saw the burdens of the people and he became alone. But his vision was misplaced. Listen, as Moses was approaching in spiritual infancy, the threshold of his ministry, his eyes were on people. He looked this way and he looked that way. Why? Because he was looking to see what man was doing. A telltale sign of spiritual infancy. When our eyes are yet concerned about people and what they might or might not think, or whether they see me or not, how they perceive me, a telltale sign that we are yet in need of the second phase of fulfilling our spiritual name, Moses. And he looked this way and that way. And when he saw there was no man, Beloved, you or I will never be prepared to fulfill our destiny as children of God possessing the treasure of heaven in these earthen vessels called to go forth into this world as bright shining lights. We will never fulfill that destiny as long as we approach the threshold of this ministry because Moses was standing at the threshold of the very ministry that God called him to do. He was going to be used of God to bring Israel out of Egypt. But at the threshold of the ministry, he was still looking at people. Where are your eyes today? Where is your gaze? Now we know the story. The next day, an Egyptian came, verse 13, and said to him that did the wrong, Wherefore smitest thou thy fellow? And he said, Who made thee a prince and judge over us? Intendest thou to kill me? And thou killest the Egyptian. And Moses feared. The inevitable snare that will come upon a soul that has not learned to look to God is that you will fear. You will fear. You will be consumed by fear. The fear of man is a snare to the soul. The Bible says, Fear God, not man. Jesus said, Don't fear those who are able to kill the body but not the soul, but rather fear God who is able both to destroy body and soul in hell. Misplaced fear is a sign of spiritual infancy. Misplaced fear is a sign that we have not yet seen the Lord in the full capacity that we must see if we are to fulfill our destiny. So do we think it's strange that God continue the processes and the dealings in our life? Do we think it's strange? It is God's mercy that moves Him to continue these dealings in our life lest we be destroyed. Now he went into the desert of Midian and there he met Jethro. And during this time of the wilderness, Moses had two sons. The first son was Gershom. Verse 22. It is very significant that Moses had two sons in this wilderness journey. Or rather, let us call this Midian, the desert of Midian experience, phase two of Moses. Phase one of Moses being true to his name, his name meaning a divine principle, being drawn out of the water of judgment. Phase one occurred when he was put into the river and he was snatched out and though he was destined to die by the decree of Pharaoh, he lived because of the decree of God. But now phase two of his name, now that he lived by the decree of God, he was destined by the decree of God to die. It's like, God, can't you make your mind up? I thought you ordained that I walk in life. I thought you ordained that I be delivered from judgment. And now your decree, the God who decreed life, the God who delivered me out, is now decreeing death. God, what's wrong? During this phase two, he has two children. Gershom. Gershom. A foreigner who was banished in exile. A foreigner who was banished in exile. And his second son. Who knows the name of his second son? Eliezer. And do you know what the name of his second son means? That's found in Exodus chapter 18, verse 4. God is my helper. God is my strength. God is the source of power working in me. So phase two, when God decrees the sentence of death upon us, is intended to work in us the experiential realization that number one, though we live because of Jesus Christ, and though we have been delivered from death because of Christ, and though we stand justified before a holy God through the blood of Jesus Christ, yet we are destined to perceive ourselves to be foreigners and strangers in a foreign land. We are exiled. We are caught in this world of sin. We are encompassed about by a body of death. And there is no good thing that dwells in me. Romans chapter 7 precedes Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8 is the marvelous truth that Christ has set me free from sin. But to get there you have to go through 7. And going through 7 is like phase 2 where you've got to come to grips with the fact that the sentence of death is upon you. Paul said in Romans 7, For I know that there dwells no good thing in me that is in my flesh. Have you come to see that? Have you really come to see that there is no good thing that dwells in your flesh? Have you come to see that you are exiled into a strange land? Your true citizenship is heaven. Your true life is Christ. Your true Father is Heavenly Father. And you are in a world that is perverted and you are encompassed about with a body of death that Paul said is full of corruption. Have you come to where you're learning to distrust every visage and every iota of that which springs out of your own competence and out of that experience was Moses' second son born? Eleazar, God is a helper. God is my helper. God is the source of my strength. God is the source of my power. God is my life. My eyes are upon God. My hope is in God. My life is rooted in God. Though everything be removed round about me, my focus is upon God. I wake up in the morning and I don't think about myself or my plans or my lofty ideas or my dreams or my hopes of what I want to accomplish. I don't think about my schedule and what I have to get done today. I wake up and I say, God, You are my strength today. I look to You. Lord, if You don't sustain me, if You don't strengthen me, if You don't empower me, I'm going to fail today. There's the heart that is learning the lesson that Moses learned in the Midianite desert. There is the heart. We wake up and sigh, Oh, Lord, thank You. Oh, God, help me. We're not quick to arise and go about our day. We're quick to arise and fall before God who alone can make my way successful, who alone can prosper the plans in my heart. Where are we at? Now, remember the question that we asked? Oh, God, am I settling in any area of my life for something less than Your best? Now, very quickly, for a few more moments, Moses, born to die, but God saved him. Alive, being nurtured by His very mother, and yet God decreed that he was delivered from death to life, but now God decreed death. Now we see a man having come through 40 years. Forty is the number of testing in the Bible. It indicates a time of proving. Jesus went on a fast for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses was in the wilderness for 40 years. Israel wandered in the wilderness. Now here's a man who has come to know the desert of Midian. He has come to know his impotence, his incapability. He realizes he's a sojourner. There's nothing on earth that's clean. There's nothing in himself, apart from God, that's clean, that he can hold on to and trust in. And now watch this. Watch. Chapter 3, verse 1. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of the Midian, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Oreb. When you undergo, by the sovereign hand of God, phase two of your spiritual name, Moses, and God starts drawing you out and bringing the sentence of death upon you, it will lead you to the mount of God. It will lead you to where God is. It will lead you to an encounter with God where God will reveal His glory to you. He'll reveal His power to you. He'll reveal His majesty to you. Not before. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush. And he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire. The bush was not consumed. Beloved, listen carefully. Exodus chapter 2. Where was Moses looking when he approached his ministry in spiritual infancy? Where was he looking? He was looking back and forth. His eyes were on men. He was wondering who was seeing him. What would they think? He was earthly. He was earthly minded. Called of God. Rescued from the waters of judgment. Feeling destiny rise up in his heart. Feeling this is not right. There needs to be God to do something. But he was looking at men. Now where's Moses looking? When he saw the bush, did he look around to see who was looking? Did he look around? And Moses said, verse 3, I will now turn aside and see what? This great sight. Beloved, Moses was now looking at the right place. He was looking to God. Before, he wanted to know who was looking. He wanted to know who was seeing him. He wanted to know. But now, verse 4, and when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, oh my God, help us this morning. God is looking to see. Listen what you're looking at. What are you looking at? God's not interested in what you're doing or what you're saying or what kind of call you think you have on your life or who you think you are or where you've come from or where you're going or whatever. God is looking at, what are you looking at? And when God saw that he turned aside to see. Now see, God saw in Exodus 2, verse number 12, Moses was looking back and forth at men. But now, God sees Moses looking at the bush, the glowing at God. God called him out of the midst of the bush. You want to hear God call you? He'll call you when your eyes are fixed on him, when you are looking to him. Now you might have a sense of call, but that's not God calling you. You might have a sense of destiny. You might know, God, I know my heart is broken over this or that, whatever it is. But don't mistake an awakening to your destiny to God calling you. Because there is a difference. And too many people are equating a waking up to destiny to the call and they run. And great, great, great tragedy occurs. We see it everywhere in Christianity today. We need a little introduction to God before we run. And here's the introduction as we close. Listen carefully. God didn't give Moses a plan. God didn't give Moses a plan. God didn't give him a plan on how to fulfill his ministry. God didn't give him a plan on how he was going to get people to follow him. God didn't give him a plan. God doesn't give his men plans. God gives his men a revelation of himself. Listen. And God saw that he turned aside. God called to him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, notice he called his name twice. Twice. To reaffirm the fullness of his work in Moses' life. Phase one and phase two. Only when God calls your name twice are you ready. Only when God calls it twice, only when you have a two-fold witness of God's work in your life. Not only can you say, I was blind, but now I see. I was dead in sin, but now I'm forgiven. But you must be able to say, and now that I'm forgiven, I've been devastated. I've been brought down. I am nothing. What did God have to say? And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh here. Slow down, son. Slow down. Do you know who you're dealing with? Slow down. You're nothing. Slow down. You don't got the plan. You're not the man. Slow down. Slow down. Shh. Shh. I don't want to hear your voice. You're not the answer, son. But Moses could hear. Couldn't hear that before. It's got to be Moses, Moses, before we hear God speak that to us. Huh? Is that right, David? Moses, Moses. Draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father. A little introduction to God. Notice God's not talking about anyone but himself. And he tells the man to shush. Get your shoes off, son. You don't have any business talking now. The limelight's on me, God says. I'm the bush. I'm the glory. You just be still now. I want to talk. I am the God of thy father and the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. There it is. Before he was afraid what man would do to him, now he feared God. I was afraid to look upon God. Before, I was worried about what man thought, but now I stand in the presence of God and I fear God. You see the result of phase two? See what God does in us in the backside of the Midian desert? And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my... Who has? Moses? Did Moses see it? Was Moses privy on what was going on? God's the only one that really knows. God saw it. And listen to what God says in verse eight, the most important verse in this whole discourse. Who delivered Israel out of Egypt? Moses? Not so. I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of the land unto a good land and a large unto a land and flowing with milk and honey and perspective to the man who has been stripped and who now fears God, who has now been silenced in the presence of God, who has been told to take his shoes off because it's holy ground, who has been shown that God's got the plan, God's got the words, God's got what it takes. And now he's hiding his face. And if we would read on, we would see that when God brought His man to this place, God made Himself available to accomplish God's end, not the man's end. To accomplish God's purpose, not the man's purpose. And we know the rest of the story. God did a great work and His people praised Him. Moses. Moses. In closing, I want to re-ask the question that I asked earlier. Oh, Lord God, is there any area in my heart where I am settling for something less than Your best? And now in light of God's Word, in light of God's truth, perhaps we can hear a bit more of God speaking to us. Perhaps God is saying, Yes. There is a danger of settling for something less, but fear not, because I, your God, will see to it that you will not, you will not succeed. But I will see to it, as you seek me with all your heart, to bring you out of phase one into phase two. And there, pronounce the sentence of death and work it in you, preparing you for that revelation of my glory. Father, we thank you for your Word. We thank you for the Holy Spirit. We commit this Word into your hands. Please, Father, minister to us. We, by faith, commit ourselves into your hands. Take us on this journey, Lord, and work this in us, I pray, for Jesus' glory. Amen. And amen. Praise the Lord.