Key points

1. 1

   1Moses brought his own plan to God instead of asking God about His plan

   Pastor Brian walks through Exodus 2:11-12, where forty-year-old Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and, rightly angered by the injustice, takes matters into his own hands and kills the Egyptian. He notes Moses acted on his own timing, in his own strength, with a misunderstood purpose, and ended up owning the outcome — he brought his plan to God rather than asking God's thoughts on it.

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   Hear it in the message · 31:20Exodus 2:11-12
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   2Four things happen when we bring our own plan to God: we decide the timing, provide the strength, declare the purpose, and own the victory

   Pastor Brian unpacks each of these from Moses's story and parallels them to his own life at age 24, when he tried to start a college ministry into a church plant on his own timeline and in his own strength. He says this pattern is deadly because it leaves no room for God in the equation.

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   Hear it in the message · 33:45
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   3Living by our own plan leads to fear, isolation, and failure, just like it did for Moses

   Reading Exodus 2:13-15, Pastor Brian shows how Moses's plan unraveled — his own people rejected his authority, Pharaoh sought to kill him, and he fled in fear to Midian. He says this is where self-made plans inevitably lead: scared, alone, isolated, filled with fear, because our timing, strength, purpose, and victory can't be trusted.

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   Hear it in the message · 35:38Exodus 2:13-15
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   4A pastor's hard, honest words became the next step Pastor Brian didn't want but needed

   He recounts being asked, twice, 'Do you trust me?' — first when his pastor told him to set aside the college ministry and church-planting dream for youth ministry, and later when he was told to pull back his engagement to Melinda because he was steamrolling her. Both felt like steps backward, but he says he now sees they were preparation, not punishment.

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   Hear it in the message · 38:27

   2 quotes
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   5Forty years later, God met Moses at the burning bush with a step he never could have planned

   In Exodus 3, an 80-year-old Moses, now humbled and reshaped by decades of shepherding, encounters God in the burning bush. Pastor Brian points out that all of Moses's early strength, timing, and purpose had been stripped away, and only then does God say 'take a step.'

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   Hear it in the message · 39:34Exodus 3:1-4

   1 quote
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   6When we take God's next step instead of our own plan, He reveals the timing, becomes our strength, repurposes our weakness, and becomes the victory

   Pastor Brian contrasts this with the earlier four deadly moves: God's timing for Moses at 80 was exactly right, and God's promise 'I will be with you' becomes the pattern fulfilled in Jesus's words in Matthew 28. He says the best leaders are broken and weak people who trust in Jesus rather than their own competence.

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   Hear it in the message · 46:53Exodus 3:10-12
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   7Jesus's promise to be with us to the end of the age is what makes every step possible

   Connecting Exodus 3:12 to Matthew 28:18-20, Pastor Brian shows that the same 'I will be with you' that carried Moses is the same presence Jesus promises His disciples. He testifies that this presence is what carried him through eight years of unwanted youth ministry and now through thirteen years of church planting.

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   Hear it in the message · 48:57Matthew 28:18-20

   2 quotes · 1 story from life

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