And this is the one, how do you leave properly? The first thing that I want
to mention, how to leave properly is, 'Leave with the blessing', like Moses
not silently like Jacob. Both Moses and Jacob needed to go. God told Moses to
leave Jethro and go to Egypt. God told Jacob to leave Laban and go to his father's house.
But I want you to notice what Moses did. Moses asked Jethro for permission, even though he didn't
technically need it. He said, Please let me go. Jethro blessed him. In fact, this relationship
became eventually ,where Jethro came to Moses and gave him wisdom and advice, when Moses needed it.
Jacob and Laban was a different story. God led Jacob to leave and Jacob just packed his
bags and gone. he never told Laban. In fact, he secretly left. It frustrated Laban and I think
it was wrong. Laban actually wanted to harm him and Jacob's wives, you know, one of the
wives stole the idols and it was wrong leaving. So sometimes people leave, making a lot of noise
and some people leave silently, in the sense, they never let anybody know, they don't let the pastor,
they don't let the leadership know, they don't send the letter saying,
Hey I'm moving out of town, I'm transitioning out of this church. FYI, I bless this church
and so you have to receive the blessing, when you transition out of a ministry regardless,
I mean think about, even Moses asked Pharaoh to let that God's people go. Pharaoh was a monster
and still Moses came to Pharaoh and says, Let My people go and it wasn't until Pharaoh let them go,
that's when Israel left and Moses didn't come into Israel and say, Guys we're leaving. Come on,
let's go. We gotta go to the promised land. No, they want to ask Pharaoh, even though Pharaoh
didn't want them to go and so, I would just encourage you, that if it's your time to go,
please don't do it silently please don't make noise. In other words, don't stir up trouble,
don't try to pull other people from that ministry, don't spread gossip about that ministry,
don't destroy that ministry's reputation. If it's your time to go, it's not a time to dump
everything on the ministry say, How terrible they are. If it's really just not your season,
just go and so, and then afterwards just begin to bless that ministry. So leave like Moses,
don't leave like Laban and then one more thing, I will give you just a practical advice.
Shake off the dust, from the ministry, you are leaving before you step into the ministry
that you are going into. Shaking off the dust means, in my mind, don't bring the bad things
and the good things into the next ministry and begin to penalize, the next ministry
for the mistakes of the previous ministry or put expectations on the next ministry to do to you,
in a good sense ,what was done there. It's kind of like this you're working on your on your backyard,
it's dirty, you're working on the lawn, your boots are full of dirt.
That's one environment you're in. You're exiting the backyard and coming into the
living room of your house. What do you usually do? You take off the dirty boots and you leave
them on the outside. Why? Because that's, you shake off, you remove that. If you don't
remove the boots and you walk into a living room from the yard work, you will stain the carpets
because of where you walked in. If you were in one place, it was toxic or maybe it was honestly
really good, you step into a new season and you expect this pastor now to be your best friend
because my other pastors was my best friend. We went out to coffee, every single week.
Except the other church was 50 people and this new church, you're walking in is five thousand.
So you're putting this expectation, that's not healthy and it's you're bringing stuff
from the previous church into this one and you're trying to fit in, the old system into a new place,
new season and it's just not working and guess what begins to happen. You become frustrated
and you can stain the new season of your walk with the Lord, by dragging the old season in.
There are certain lessons that will be lived out throughout your life. But certain things that have
happened there, have to stay there and certain bad things, that have happened there, they have
to stay there. Shake off the dust and just let it go. Don't penalize the next, because of your ex.
Don't drag your ex into your next. Leave your ex in your past. Don't punish your next
by what your ex did to you. Shake off the dust. Step into a new season and don't drag your past
into that new season. Don't drag the suffering, the pain, deal with it with the Lord. Because
you will stain the new season by dragging the garbage from the old season. Come on somebody!