Why Do We Procrastinate Freedom?

I believe as a now word, a rhema word for today and for the people that God has entrusted to my care as your shepherd. Here's what I'm going to ask you to do. I'm going to ask you as best you can for the next few moments, just to block out any distractions. And I ask you to just stay off of your phones unless you're taking notes. But don't be on TikTok, don't be on Instagram, don't be texting your friends about your lunch plans.

Post on Instagram right after the service. Let people know what God's doing at your church. But here's what I want to ask you. Just for the next few minutes, I want you to really lean in. I want you to open your heart and receive and hear what the spirit of the Lord would desire to say to you today.

I think maybe it's speculation on my part, but I believe that if I were to ask most of you if we could sit down and have a conversation about the problem of procrastination, that the response for most of you would be, that's great. That's a great idea. Can we do that later?

Procrastination, according to Webster's Dictionary, is just simply to put off intentionally and habitually. It's interesting because back in the 70s, only 5% of Americans were considered to be habitual procrastinators. Now that number is like 20%. A broader survey found 42.6% of adults procrastinate often or daily, while 20.5% report it as a daily issue. Studies indicate.

About college students, 75% of them consider themselves procrastinators, while 80 to 95% admit to procrastinating at least occasionally. About 50% of them engage in chronic procrastination. Among adults, 50.7%, almost 51% reported using the Internet as a means of procrastination, spending an average of 2 hours a day procrastinated related online activities. According to a study by Study Mode Student Psyche report, 48% of people consider distraction as the major reason for procrastination, followed by feelings of being overwhelmed. Another study said that it's a more common problem than alcoholism, substance abuse, depression, affecting a significant number of people.

Now listen, I want to make sure you understand this. This is not a message to help motivate you to organize your garage. This is not a message intended to help motivate you to finally clean out that closet that you've been putting off for years. This is much deeper than that. This is a message that's intended to talk about the unwillingness on the part of so many people to deal with the toxic issues of our soul.

I want to talk to you today for the next couple of minutes about sleeping with frogs. Sleeping with frogs. Exodus, chapter eight. If you've got your device or your Bible, and I'm going to ask you to stand as I read these verses this morning, how many of you are ready for the word?

I really pray and hope that you're excited about the word of the Lord. But Exodus, chapter 8. Beginning in verse 1, it says this. And then the Lord said to Moses, go back to Pharaoh and announce to him, this is what the Lord says. Let my people go so they can worship me.

And if you refuse to let them go, I'll send a plague of frogs across your entire land. The Nile river will swarm with frogs. They'll come up out of the river and into your palace, even into your bedroom and onto your bed. They will enter the houses of your officials and your people. They'll even jump into your ovens and your kneading bowls.

Frogs will jump on you, on your people and all your officials. And then the Lord said to Moses, tell Aaron, raise the staff in your hand over all the rivers, canals and ponds of Egypt, and bring up frogs from all over the land. And so Aaron raised his hand over the waters of Egypt, and frogs came up and covered the entire land. But the magicians were able to do the same thing with their magic. We'll talk about that in a moment.

They, too, caused frogs to come up on the land of Egypt. And then watch this. Now Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron, and he begged, plead with the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people. I will let your people go so that they can offer sacrifices to the Lord. Verse 9.

You set the time. Moses replied, tell me when you want me to pray for you, your officials and your people. And then you and your houses will be rid of the frogs. They'll remain only in the nile River. Verse 10.

Do it tomorrow. Pharaoh said, I want to talk to you about sleeping with frogs. Let's make some declarations before we dive into this this morning. Everybody out loud. You ready?

Go.

That I might not sin against God. This word is life to my body and health to my bones. I will be a doer of the word, and I am confident of this, that he who has begun a good work in me will complete it. Amen. You can be seated.

So what we just read is the second plague of the ten plagues. That God would inflict on Egypt in order to move the stubborn heart of Pharaoh to agree to let the Israelites leave Egypt. The first plague was the plague of blood. Now, the Israelites, as many of you know, have been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. You say, how did that happen?

You got to go all the way back to the time that Joseph had some brothers who were jealous and angry with him and they sold him into slavery. And Joseph ended up in Egypt. And over the next 12 to 14 years, in spite of being falsely accused and imprisoned, the hand of God was on Joseph and he prospered greatly. As a matter of fact, he ended up being promoted to the second highest position in all the land of Egypt as the prime minister of Egypt. Now, the Bible says there was this great famine that affected that entire part of the world.

Joseph's brothers had no idea what had happened to Joseph. They didn't know he had been promoted to this high position in Egypt. They went to Egypt, like many of the surrounding countries, trying to find food. God had given Joseph some dreams that caused him to come up with a strategy to store food that would allow the people of Egypt to have food. The other countries would come and buy food from Egypt.

And so Joseph's brothers go there, and they don't recognize Joseph, but Joseph recognizes them. And you know the story. Joseph doesn't exact revenge on them. As a matter of fact, Joseph reconciles with them and he ends up preparing a place in Egypt called Goshen. And he sends for the entire family, 70 members of the family, to come from Israel and to settle in Goshen where they can be protected, where they can be provided for.

So there they are, living in Egypt. Now, fast forward several decades, and another Pharaoh has now come into a position of rulership. And he knows nothing about Joseph's family. He knows nothing about them coming from Israel because of what Joseph did. All he knows is that they have continued to multiply to the point that now he views them as a threat.

And he begins to devise a plan to get rid of them, to extinguish an entire race of people. Well, in the midst of that, God raises up a deliverer for his people, A man by the name of Moses. Here in our text, what we just read, Moses and his helper Aaron make the second appeal. They go to Pharaoh again, and they had already appealed to him. Let the people go.

And the land was inflicted with a plague of blood, had no impact on Pharaoh's hard heart. So they're standing before him again, pleading with him and say, if you don't let the people of God go, God's going to inflict the land with frogs. We read all that. So now there's three things that I put in your notes. And if you're just taking notes the old fashioned way, three things from our text that I believe are really paramount for us to see and to understand.

The first one is this God's priority for worship. God's priority. We read it in verse one. He says, moses says to Pharaoh, let the people of God go so that they can worship the Lord. That shows us the priority that God gives to worship.

Now listen, let's be clear. God wants us to live in freedom. How many of you believe that God wants us to prosper? He wants us to be free from addiction and free from oppression and free from every form of bondage. How many of you are grateful for that?

But listen to me. The reason that God wants you to live in freedom is so that you can do what you were made to do, which is to worship him.

He wants you to be able to worship him unhindered, like, without any barriers, without any obstacles. Do you understand and realize that worship is the only thing that God cannot give to himself.

You say, how's that so? Because the God who made everything cannot worship. Because in order to worship, there has to be something higher than you. And there's nothing higher than God. Therefore, God cannot worship.

Listen to me. The breath inside of you is not in you, just to keep you alive. Grateful for breath. I'm grateful for life. But let me tell you something.

The breath that God put inside of you is to give you the ability to worship, which then keeps you alive. He put his breath in us so that we could return that breath to him in worship. Now think about this.

Of all the things that God created, Melanie and I had the great opportunity a couple of weeks ago to do something we've wanted to do for years. We went to Yellowstone in Glacier national park, spent a week in both of those places. And I mean, we oohed and awed and just were blown away by the majesty and the beauty of those places. And every five minutes we're taking another picture and saying, oh, this is so beautiful. And I was constantly thinking, as I would see these canyons and as I would see the beauty and see this majestic waterfall and the geysers and all that stuff, I was constantly thinking, God, you spoke one word, boom, and all of a sudden this was done.

Blows my mind. You spoke a word and boom, this was created. But think about this the only thing that God touched when he created it was you and I. The Bible says he bends down on the ground and he takes up the dirt of the ground and he forms mankind. We were the only thing that he touched.

And I want you to think about this as well. Instead of speaking life into us, God breathed his own breath and into you and I to give us life. Oh, you got to understand, Church. You were the only thing in all of creation that took his breath away.

And his breath in our lungs, we pour out in praise to him. It's a priority to God, and it should be a priority to you and I when we wake up in the morning to say, God, I worship you today. I thank you for life and for salvation and for your mercy and for a healthy body when we lay down at night. God, thank you for your goodness in my life.

Second thing I want you to understand from our text is that God chose to infest the land with frogs. We read it verses two through four. God chose that.

If you follow the progression of the 10 plagues, you know that they grow in severity, culminating with the plague of death at the end.

But why frogs? Why frogs? Do you find that a little puzzling? I do like a lot of things that I read in scripture. I believe that God inflicted the land of Egypt with frogs for two reasons.

Number one, I believe that God wanted to demonstrate his authority and his power over the polytheism and the idolatry of Egypt. God wanted to challenge those things in Egypt. Listen, there were frogs that were associated with these Egyptian gods. And I'm not making this up. One of the gods was named Hapi, not spelled H O, P, P Y, H A, P, I, no joke.

Like that was one of the Egyptian gods that was associated with frogs named Hapi. The other one was named Hekt. And Hekt symbolized fertility. And the people thought that she was going to be a good luck charm that would ensure fertility in their lives. Second reason I believe that God inflicted the lamb with frogs was to remind them that he's the giver of life.

Now think about this. All of this started when Pharaoh decides these people are a threat to me. And so I'm going to take every Israelite baby boy that's born and we're going to throw them into the Nile river so they'll be eaten by crocodiles. And I believe God said, if you're going to attack the fertility of my people, I'm going to attack the very thing that represents fertility in your land. And I'll show myself to Be the true giver of life.

God, in the midst of what Pharaoh was doing and trying to eliminate a people, raises up a deliverer. How many of you are grateful? God will always have a deliverer. He'll always raise somebody up that'll speak on his behalf and stand in the gap. And I think it's so interesting that God would raise a man by the name of Moses up and he would rescue him from.

From the very thing that was meant to destroy him. His name Moses, means to be drawn out. And Moses was lifted out of the Nile river where Pharaoh intended for him to be killed. I wonder if there's anybody here this morning. Anybody here who was in bondage?

Anybody here who the enemy had a death sentence on your life? Anybody here that the enemy tried to take you out and God lifted you up and. And rescued you, and the very thing that was meant to destroy you became the platform that you stand on to declare the goodness and the glory of God. Somebody ought to shout Amen this morning.

Here's the last thing I want you to see. And then we're going to close. The enemy can duplicate, but he cannot eradicate.

Miss this. The enemy can duplicate, but he cannot eradicate. The Bible says that Pharaoh calls for his magicians in that they duplicate what had happened in the first two plagues. Only the plague of blood and the plague of frogs, that the magicians were able to duplicate that. But it's interesting that the enemy, represented by Pharaoh and by his magicians and our enemy Satan always attempts to do two things.

Number one, the enemy always attempts to match the supremacy of God, that he's as powerful, he's as great, and he's as awesome as God. He magnifies himself in your thinking. He magnifies himself in your circumstances in order to convince you that he has as much power as God. It's the very thing that caused him to be kicked out of heaven.

The second thing that the enemy always tries to do is to multiply sin.

To multiply sin. Listen, a few frogs, not that big of a deal. We don't usually think of frogs as harmful. We don't really think of them as deadly. But when you multiply them, it becomes a real issue.

What concerns me is that there are so many people who view sin the same way. They think, well, it's just a couple of little issues I have in my life, and it's really not a big deal. Like, this is manageable. I can deal with this. And I want you to know that the enemy's goal is to Multiply that stuff in your life to the point that it consumes you, that it destroys your quality of life.

Listen, we read it a moment ago. It's not just a few frogs hopping around in the parks or on the sidewalks. The Bible makes it clear that when Aaron stretches out his rod over the waters, frogs come up. And all of a sudden, everywhere you go, there are frogs. They're in the palaces, they're in the poorhouses, they're in your bedrooms, they're in your bed, they're in your oven.

You open the microwave, they're inside of there. You can't step out of bed in the morning without squishing or on frogs. Like they are completely taking over. They're disrupting the quality of everybody's lives. And at some point they begin to die.

And now they're stinking and you've got frogs piled up everywhere. And that's what happens in our lives if we're not careful. I'm preaching to somebody today because the enemy wants you to think it's just a couple of frogs and they're not harmful, they're not deadly. And then all of a sudden, things begin to multiply and it affects your work and your finances and your marriage and your thought life. And it starts consuming you and stuff starts to die and stuff starts to think and it's taking over everything around you and inside of you.

And nobody is exempt from that. That's what the Bible says. In the palaces and in the poor houses, the nobody is exempt. And I want you to know that although Moses magicians could duplicate this miracle, they could not eradicate it. They could not get rid of the frauds.

They had no solution. Listen to me. There's only one solution for sin. One person who can eradicate sin from our lives. One person's blood who washes it away.

And it's Jesus, my friend. It's Jesus.

I think it's interesting that when Pharaoh was in a jam and his magicians couldn't eradicate the issue that he called on Moses and Aaron. You know what I've discovered in life? And when people are in a mess, when people are in a jam, they're usually not going to call their addicted friend.

They're not going to call their friend who's sleeping around with everybody. They're not going to call their depressed friend now. They're going to reach out to a man or a woman of God who can point them towards Jesus and help them to find a pathway to be free. And that's exactly what happens here. Because The Bible says Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron.

He called for them and invited them to come and meet with him. And then verse eight, he said to them, plead with the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I let your people go so that they can offer sacrifices to the Lord. We're gonna wrap this up. Watch verse nine.

You set the time. Moses replied, tell me when you want me to pray for you. When do you want me to pray for your officials and all of your people? Then you and your houses will be rid of the frogs. They'll remain only in the Nile River.

We'll take care of this.

Tell me when.

Frogs are everywhere. Whole land stinks. People are mad. They're trying to call the exterminators. Nothing's happening.

They're squishing on frog guts everywhere they walk, trying to climb in the bed. Frogs are all under the covers. Open the refrigerator. Frogs all in the fridge. Open the freezer.

Frozen frogs in the freezer. Frogs are everywhere. Their whole quality of life is completely disrupted. And Moses and Aaron say, we'll leave it up to you. You tell us when you want us to pray.

And verse 10 gives maybe the dumbest answer in the entire Bible.

When Pharaoh says, do it tomorrow.

What? Have you lost your mind? That's what I think when I read that. Are you crazy? You got guys standing in front of you who say, we'll take care of this.

You just tell us when. Let's do it tomorrow. Because I kind of enjoy sleeping with frogs. We don't understand his answer. But let me tell you what I don't understand either.

I don't understand why at times in my life and in the lives of so many believers, we've got a deliverer standing in front of us whose name is Jesus. And he says, you want to be free from the addiction. You want to be free from the bondage. You want to be free from the anger. You want to be free from the pride.

You want to be free from the lust. You tell me when and I'll set you free. And we say, oh, that sounds wonderful. That sounds great. God, let's do it tomorrow.

Because I want to keep sleeping with the frogs. I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes.

God, let that not be us. I'm asking you, Holy Spirit, to move across this place. And to those who are watching online, I'm asking you, oh, God, that you would do a deep work inside of our hearts and that we today would not view any issue in our life as not a big deal. But we would say, God, anything in me that would hinder my relationship with you, I want to respond today and say, do it now. Do it now, God.

Not tomorrow, not next week, not in a couple of years. Do it now, God. Lord, I pray every young person, every young adult, any issue in their life, they would say today, do it now, God. Every man, every woman, do it now, God. Father, thank you for the gift of freedom that you offer to us.

And I ask you now, Lord, that we would respond to you. We would allow you to be our deliverer, the one who sets us free in Jesus name.