Tonight, I have a message that I believe builds off of. I didn't hear the two dreams that Mark had shared, but I really believe it builds off of the second dream that Mark shared, of this feeling that many of us, there's these walls that are closing in, and these feelings of pressure, and maybe attacks of the enemy and things like that. How does God want to reveal himself in those moments? So you can open up your Bibles to Deuteronomy 33.
Deuteronomy 33, when I was growing up, I remember when I was a teenager, and there was this day trip that my friends and I had planned. It was very exciting. We are going to go to Denver. I grew up in Colorado Springs, so we're going to go about an hour north to Denver, and we are going to go to this amusement park called Waterworld.
We are going to go to Waterworld. I was very excited, and we were kind of in the entryway with my friends, we're getting ready to go, and I grew up with a Lebanese mama. So my mom is Middle Eastern, and I know I don't look that way, but my grandpa was, his parents came over from Lebanon, they moved to Nebraska of all places, from Lebanon to Nebraska. And so my mom has more melanin in her skin than I do.
And so whenever we were going to the pool when I was growing up, there was always this like, we need to close Josh in SPF 75. So we need to cake that sunscreen onto Josh, and I remember being like 16, 17, I can't remember how old I was, I was old enough that I could drive it again. And I remember my mom just kind of preparing me to go to Waterworld, right? And it's like, you have your sunscreen, and it was this moment.
And she gathered me and my friends into the entryway and gave this disclaimer that was horrifying for me as a young man. And she was going, you know, Josh, he's a weird sunscreen, but then there was also this moment where she said, hey, I want you to know Josh is not a good swimmer. She literally tells my friends, keep an eye out for Josh as you enjoy Waterworld. It's like, especially in the way of pool, just keep an eye out for your friend.
Can you, and I remember just being horrified, I love my mom that she's always thinking because she knew I wasn't a good swimmer. But I'll tell you this, I take swimming very seriously. Very, very seriously. If I get in a pool and you saw me swimming, I am very serious about swimming because it's survival.
It is literally, I get on the other end of the pool, I'm like swimming with my kids, and they're just like good at swimming, you know? And I just, I start at the end and I torpedo under the water, holding my breath, reaching for the other end of the pool, you know? Have you ever, are you, I moved to Minnesota, there's no lakes in Colorado, okay? And there's lakes everywhere.
And there's boats, and then you're with your friends on the boat, and they go, hey, let's jump off the boat. We paused the boat, we paused it. And now we have to, or anchored, whatever. We're idling on the water, the body of water.
And now we jump off the boat, right? And anxiety is just, you mean I have to tread water? And even a couple days ago, we were talking about this. And I'm confident, I'm confident.
If there's like a shipwreck moment, and there's all these people that are like swimming in the ocean, I would be top 5% to go first. I'd be like, no, all you have to do is just lay on your back. We'll not do that ever, ever, ever. I just sink like a rock.
On my back, the waves are gonna, okay, it's just dangerous. It's dangerous. But maybe some of you feel like I feel when I start swimming, where you kind of feel like I am drowning in life. Some of us feel overwhelmed.
Some of us feel like we're trying to just gasp for air. And in those moments in life, when we feel overwhelmed, and things are all closing in on us. And we feel like the sand is shifting, and the temperature is rising, and there's many waters. We feel overwhelmed, and all we need in that moment is help.
And the thing that surfaces in our hearts is, I need a hand to grab. I need someone, when you're sinking, when you're drowning, you need someone to help. And we can make light of it, but it's real that we go through these seasons and these moments that feels like we're drowning. And that's the nation of Israel, what they were feeling in Deuteronomy 33, because for 40 years, they'd been in a wilderness, and they were on the brink of going into the promised land, and they were gonna face their greatest fear.
The fears that had actually kept them in a desert place, full of hopelessness, intimidation, and they were stuck. It was like they were locked up in fear, year after year after year after year. And that's the context of Deuteronomy 33. I wanna even take a step back, and I wanna paint a picture for you of this storyline.
In Genesis 12, everybody say Genesis 12. From Genesis 12 to Acts 10, everybody say, Acts 10, God, through the word, we see the Bible, from Genesis 12 to Acts 10, is all about one family line. So Genesis 12 to Acts 10 is following one, the descendants of one family line. Some of you have been reading the Old Testament, and you're in the book of Judges, and you're confused.
And you're going, what is this? What is happening? And so much of the character of God is put on the judgment seat in our minds because we don't understand that God is showing himself faithful to one family line from Genesis 12 all the way to Acts 10. He's actually showing himself faithful to that one people group.
That's what the Old Testament is about. It's a storyline, and it starts with Abraham and Sarah. Genesis 12 is where Abraham and Sarah say, God says, hey, I want you to know you're gonna have a baby. And Sarah starts laughing because she's going, I'm infertile.
I can't have barren. I can't have children. And she's like 100 years old. And the Lord's like, hey, you're gonna have a baby.
And I'm promising you, this is what God promises, Abraham and Sarah. He promises them land, a promised land, and he promises them descendants that are more than the stars in the sky. He promises them that, and then the miracle happens. Abraham and Sarah have Isaac.
And then Isaac has Jacob, right? And Jacob has 12 boys. Can you imagine 12 boys? My goodness.
There's some families in our community that have four boys. And that's a lot of boys, okay? Can you imagine 12 boys? Jacob has 12 boys.
And then those 12 boys grow up. They start having kids. They move to Egypt. And then they experience slavery in Egypt for 400 years.
So Abraham and Sarah, great, great, great grandma and grandpa Abraham and Sarah. Their great, great, great grandchildren are in Egypt as slaves. And as they're in Egypt as slaves, they start reproducing even more. And after 400 years, they're a million strong.
Can you imagine Abraham and Sarah, like, I can't have kids and 400 years later, they have more than a million in their family line. And there's over a million of them that are actually set free from slavery in Egypt. And Moses is the one that he remembers what that was like. And they've been in a wilderness for 40 years.
And now it's time to go back to the land that God promised Abraham and Sarah 500 years earlier. Isn't that interesting? God makes a promise 500 years earlier. And now you're on the eve of walking into the very land that God promised.
And God says, hey, Moses, you're not going to go into the promised land. You're the final person to be alive that saw the Exodus, but you're not going into the land that's promised. And what Moses is doing in Exodus 33 is he decides to give a final speech. So Moses knows he's going to die.
And since he knows he's going to die, God said you're going to, even though you're strong, you still have vigor as an old man that's 120 years old, you're going to pass away. And so he knows he's going to pass away. And he prepares a speech for now the 2 million, 2 million plus Israelites. And they're all divided into their little clans and tribes and camps.
So Reuben and Manasseh, remember the 12 boys, the 12 sons? Now they have hundreds of thousands of people in their family line. And Moses gives this prophetic declaration for each group. It's like if we looked at the Twin Cities, and let's say Roosevelt was like Manasseh's descendants.
And it was like the Twin Cities were Israel, let's say. And it's like Manasseh is Roosevelt. Reuben is Blaine. Let's just try to paint a picture for you.
And then Moses is the leader of all of the millions of people. And he says, Manasseh, everyone, I'm speaking this prophetic word over your tribe, over your city. This is who you are. As you move into the next chapter, this is who you are.
And he starts speaking blessing over all of the sons of Israel. And then he says one paragraph over the whole nation. And he says, this is what you need to know as you face your greatest fears, as you feel like you're drowning, as you feel like you're on the very edge, and you don't know how you can have any hope. As you feel like you're getting pressed to your limits, you must know this.
And we pick up in Deuteronomy 33, 26. Deuteronomy 33, 26. Maybe you're like the people of Israel. You feel like you're anticipating what is looming ahead.
Maybe you've got an expectation of bad. Your future is bleak. Maybe you feel overwhelmed like the nation of Israel. Maybe you feel like you're fighting to get your head above the waves and there's storms of life that are on the horizon and the sands are shifting and things are changing and everything is coming to a head and there's pressure increasing and there's conflict and stress and worry and fear.
And then your leader says this. There is no one like God. We're singing about that tonight. And then he says, oh, Jehoshiran, which is this like endearing nickname that God's giving to the people of Israel.
It means upright, beloved one. There is no one like God, beloved. He's the one who rides through the heavens to be your help. Remember that thing that we all have in us?
Help that word help here in this passage is the word, Azer. Everybody say, Azer. Azer first is written in Genesis two. When God tells Adam, hey, I'm going to make for you a helper in Azer.
God gives Eve an original design before she has the name Eve. Her name is Azer. And all throughout the scriptures, I want to give examples of some passages of how this word Azer is used because God is revealed as Azer. It's a name that he gave Eve, but it was actually something that God Yahweh embodies.
He's our Azer. Let me read a couple of verses that bring this to light. Most of the time when we think about helper, we think of someone that's less than us that's just going to help us with some task or something like that. No, no, no, no, no, no.
God, the helper. Let's look. Psalm 3320, our soul waits for the Lord. He is our Azer and our shield.
Psalm 70, verse 5, but I am poor and needy. Hayson to me, O God, you are my Azer and my deliverer. Oh, Lord, do not delay. Psalm 146, blessed is those as he whose Azer is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord.
Psalm 37, verse 40, Yahweh is Azer and he delivers them. He delivers them from the wicked and saves them because they take refuge in him. Isaiah 41, for I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand. It is I who say to you, fear not.
I am the one who is your Azer. In the majority of the passages, there's many more where Azer is used, it's usually used in military aid. God is revealing himself as the strong and mighty shield and deliver and savior, the defender that we all need. And so as we look at Deuteronomy 33, all of the nation of Israel is going into a place where there's enemies, where there's giants in the land, where there's problems.
And there are those problems, those giants are in the land, but it's promised land, right? Deuteronomy 33, verse 26, we're gonna continue. There's none like God, Ope the love of people of God. He is the one who rides through the heavens as your Azer, through the skies in his majesty.
The eternal God, look at that phrase, is your dwelling place. You've got a promised land ahead of you, but God is your home. That's what Moses is saying. You've got a promised land, but what you learned in the wilderness is that he's actually home for you.
Underneath are the everlasting arms, and he thrust out the enemy before you, and he said, destroy. So Israel lived in safety, Jacob lived alone. In other words, there was no enemies in a land of grain and wine whose heavens dropped down due. Like the daily bread that came from heaven for Israel in the wilderness, verse 29.
Happy are you, chosen people of God. Who is like you, people of God? You have been saved by Yahweh. He is your helper, your Azer, your shield, and the sword of your triumph.
Your enemies shall come fawning to you, and you shall tread upon their backs. Moses is saying this because he's the only one that remembers what the parents and grandparents of this new generation that's gonna go into the promised land. He's the only one that remembers what it looked like for the plagues to come on Egypt. He remembers the water turning to blood, the frogs, the lice, the flies, the livestock pestilence, the boils, the hails, the locust, the darkness.
He remembers Passover. He remembers all of their grandparents and parents going and knocking on their Egyptian neighbors' doors and asking for all of their gold and ransacking all of Egypt while they went into the wilderness. My goodness, he remembers the moment when there are a million strong women, children, old and young, and they're walking, and all of a sudden they hear rumbling from behind. And they look back and they see all of the chariots of Egypt coming for them.
He remembers looking, Moses remembers looking at the terror in their eyes as they come up to the Red Sea and see the enemy coming for all one million of them. Can you imagine the moment for the grandparents and the mothers and the fathers in that moment? Moses remembers that moment in their faces, the place of hopelessness. And he also remembers the Lord doing what Deuteronomy 33, 26 says, riding through the heavens as their azer, bringing forth a pillar of fire, a pillar of clouds between them and their enemy.
He remembers the waters parting and all million walking through dry ground. He remembers the pillar of fire leaving and seeing it over his shoulder as he's running and all of the nation is running. And he remembers them all looking back, seeing the pillar of fire disappear and all of the chariots and horses entering into the Red Sea behind them, full steam ahead. He remembers the urgency of survival to escape the enemy.
He remembers what the next generation doesn't because they never saw it, but he remembers the waters swallowing up in a moment one of the greatest military powers in history in a moment. He remembers them getting out on the other side of the Red Sea and celebrating and dancing and singing and joyously saying, look, the horse and the rider have fallen in the sea and the Lord has triumphed gloriously. He remembers it and he's going, hey, I want you to know that the same azer that your mom and dad had, you're saying the same azer that your grandpa and grandma had, he's with you and he's the same azer that's gonna go into this promised land with you. And I wanna speak that over you in your season and your struggle in what's ahead, the Lord is the same azer of the ages, the same defender and shield and sword and protector that was just with the people of Israel just a couple thousand years ago.
It's the same one that is actually with you. He's the helper, he's your home, he's your defense in verse 27 and verse 29, the thing that defines you in verse 29 as the people of God, what makes you unique is not your struggles. So many of you have to think, oh man, I'm so unique, I go through hard things. Listen, every single person in this room goes through hard stuff.
You think here it's like, no, I'm the first sure, the worst. I've for sure got the most difficult life. Let me tell you, there's such a spectrum of difficulty. But my goodness, the thing that doesn't make, it's not unique that you go through difficult things.
The thing that makes you unique is that you have a God who's an azer. In your unique struggle, he's the unique helper and he has a multifaceted way where he goes, all of your problems are unique, but all of my helping characteristics are unique. I've got so many facets to me as your azer that it trumps your unique problem every time because I'm with you. John 14, let's turn to John 14.
John 14, Jesus is in the same place that Moses was in, except it's a little bit of a different setting. What Moses was doing is he was going to die on a mountain, says that Moses goes up onto a mountain and dies. And the mountain that he died on, right before he passes, he looks out and sees the promised land that was promised to Abraham and Sarah. And then he breathes his last on this mountain.
And before he goes to the mountain, he gives the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 sons of Israel, he gives them the message that we just read. Couple thousand years later, Jesus is with not the 12 tribes of Israel, but 12 disciples. And he's in the upper room. And before he goes and he dies on a mountain called Golgotha, he has a message for his people.
And he's on Golgotha and he's not seeing a promised land, but he's seeing a promised people. And there's a joy set before him. The joy set before Moses was a promised land. The joy set before Jesus is a promised people.
And Jesus had a message to deliver his disciples and their hour of greatest tension and anxiety and fear. It's John 13 through 17. And he's speaking directly to all of their fears. Can you, I don't know if you've ever been in a friend group and there's one person that kind of everyone is part of the friend group because of that one person.
They're kind of the glue of the friend group, right? And if that person leaves, what is the friend group anymore? Do you know what I'm talking about? That's exactly what the disciples were struggling with.
Jesus, the one that we all connected to, that we're coming from different backgrounds, nothing. We don't relate very much of anything. He's the only one connecting us. We're part of three years of following his ministry.
And now he's saying that he's gonna die. He's gonna leave. He's not gonna be with us. What was that?
And some of us are going, what was that? When you look at your last season, you're going, what the heck was that then? If this is how this is gonna end, what was that? And you're in this place of tension and confusion, or maybe you're on the edge and you're going, okay, Jesus is number one on Israel's most wanted list.
And as Jesus is talking to his disciples saying that he's gonna die, they're going, okay, well, I'm probably like number two or three on the list after Jesus then. And you start seeing fear and trouble arrest the heart of the disciples. And Jesus knows exactly what they need. Just like Moses knows exactly what the nation of Israel needed on the eve of the promised land and that Jericho moment that Mark talked about.
Jesus in John 14, let's look at what he says to his disciples. John 14, verse 15, he says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another Azer. That word, another in Greek is not a different Azer.
That word, another means the identical, exact, perfect replica Azer. So what that means is the Azer of the Old Testament, Yahweh, is the same Azer that Jesus was in person. And it's the same Azer, Holy Spirit, that Jesus is promising his disciples. What happens in this moment is all of the disciples are going, but how are we gonna know how to pray when you're gone?
And then the disciples are going, how are we gonna know what to do when we don't have you as our teacher? How do we know which direction to go? Because you're our guide. How do we know how to be comforted?
Because you're our comforter. How do we know what who to look to, experience conviction of our righteousness? How do we know? And Jesus is going, I am going to give you an Azer that's perfectly the exact match of who I am.
And this Azer is going to be a teacher, just like me as your Rabbi. And this Azer that I'm giving you, Holy Spirit, is going to guide you into all truth, just like I did the last three years. And this Azer is actually gonna be your comforter, just like I've comforted you in the moments when we've been sitting around the fire and you're dealing with your mom and dad wounds. And this Azer is gonna be the one that's going to bring to remembrance everything that I already taught you.
He's gonna be the one that's not just with you. He's going to be in you. Look at John 14. And I'll ask the Father, He will give you another helper, another Azer to be with you forever.
Hey, I have to go, but I'm gonna send you an Azer that is gonna be with you, not just for this lifetime, but forever. There's gonna be no end to this Azer being with you. Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it either sees him or knows him, but you know this helper for he dwells with you and he's going to be in you. Jesus says in John 16, seven through nine, this Azer is gonna convict you of your identity and it's gonna protect you from destruction.
That's something that some of us need. In this moment of trial, you actually need an Azer that's gonna go, hey, that's not who you are. You're righteous, what are you doing? You need to actually be like that.
You need to be shaken back and forth going, hey, remember who you are. You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You need to actually be protected from creating destruction in your own life. And it's gonna happen through conviction of your righteousness that I imparted into you.
Some of us need the guide in John 16 through 13, the Azer who's the guide. Some of us need the Azer the teacher who reminds us, but many of us feel like we're in this place of drowning. And the Lord's going, hey, I want you to know that you know that you have helper with you. Some of you are just trying to figure it out by yourself.
Are you like me? You're going, I can do it. I'm just gonna plow. I'm gonna put my head down and I'm just gonna do it.
And then I get burned out and I'm like, man, why can't I do it? Why am I drowning? Why do I feel like everything is falling apart? Why am I feeling like I'm just trying to gas for air?
I need a helper. I need help. I need an Azer. And the Lord's going, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know you do. That's why I promised you beforehand that I was gonna send you helper. I believe that tonight the Lord wants to step in and as an Azer for some of you as business people and the spheres. That there's some of us are going, man, our sales this quarter, the writing's on the wall.
It's not good. Some of you are going, I just don't know if I can show up to this job one more week because of all the problems with my coworkers. Some of you are going, I don't have the strength to actually show up again. I just, I don't know that the band is coming up.
Some of you are going, I've been searching for a job and I've been unemployed for months. Some of you are feeling overwhelmed in your Monday through Friday. And you're going, how is this gonna work? And all you're thinking through is expectation of bad every time you show up to work.
Every time you show up to work, you've got a mindset of negativity. And you feel like you're drowning in your own thought life. As you sit at your computer and you're in your cubicle or you're sitting in those Zoom meetings and you're getting drained over and over and over again and you're hitting your limit and you're drowning when you're getting paid but you don't even care about the pay anymore because it's so miserable. And the Lord's going, do you want help?
He's a gentleman. He's not gonna force himself on you as a helper. But he's open hand, he's going, I'm here if you want help. Some of you are going as singles.
You're going, I'm a single parent. I don't know if I can continue any longer. I don't know how I'm going to navigate single parenting this way, I don't know how long I can last. And the Lord's going, I wanna speak to you and give you literal strategies as a mom or as a single dad.
I'm gonna give you strategies so that you can actually bring forth nurturing as a single dad. As you're a single mom, I'm gonna help you bring forth that masculine part of my heart. And I'm gonna do it through other men. I'm gonna do it through you.
I'm gonna fill in the gap. I'm gonna be your helper. Do you want help? Some of you are going, my marriage is falling apart because there's broken trust.
And I don't know if it's ever gonna get back to where it was in the beginning. You're going, I don't know if there's anything that's going to save this thing. Things just conflict is constant. Feels like there's so much fighting, bickering, unforgiveness, bitterness.
I don't know how we're gonna make it. And there's hopelessness. And it's this expectation of bad. Every single morning.
And the Lord's going, you need a helper. Your child keeps on getting hit with chronic illness. Like man, I didn't think this was gonna happen. You're getting exposed to things that you never thought they'd get exposed to at a young age.
How do I navigate this? You're feeling disconnected from your kids. Some of your kids walked away from the Lord. You're an empty nester and you're going, I don't know once my kid graduates high school, how are marriages gonna look?
Because the glue between us is our child. Just like the disciples are going, the glue between us is Jesus. How are we gonna do it? And the Lord's going, I got a hand for you.
As you're feeling like you're drowning. I am your azer. I'm your helper.