October 1, 2014
God’s Call: Our Excuses: God’s Answers
Exodus 3:1-4:31
I The Excuse of Inability
II The Excuse of Inadequacy
III The Excuse of Inferiority
When I was a teenager visiting Dale’s church, ( Racepath Baptist Church in Ellenboro, NC ) which I did every Sunday night,,1.) because that was one of our date nights, and 2.)because that was what was expected of us, 3;)and because I genuinely liked going with Dale to church ( realized Sunday , I’ve enjoyed hearing him sing hymns in my ear for 41 years) and 4.) I liked that church, I wound up joining eventually, but that’s another story for another time….
Anyway, there was a lady there, Carol Dry, the wife of the music pastor, and Nana and Papa’s best friend’s, at the time. (Nana was the piano player and Papa did anything they asked him too, whenever they asked…)
I loved Carol’s voice----it was a rich, robust alto, the voice I wish I had, (that I’m gonna ask the Lord why He didn’t give it to me , when I see Him…)and she sang solo’s a lot. She sang so many wonderful songs from that era…. that when I hear them today, it’s Carol’s voice I hear….and one of the songs that I especially loved and still especially love,
is “Holy Ground”…
God used that song as a way of teaching me early in my life, that He can speak to us anywhere, and He can use any method that He wants to, just like He did with Moses and the burning Bush, to get our attention. The whole world is His anyway, so wherever we go; whatever we’re doing; whomever we’re with; we’re standing on Holy Ground----- and when we least expect it, but right when He’s ready, God will call out our name…and we need to be prepared to answer Him, with the answer He’s looking for….
Holy Ground goes like this…
“When I walked through the doors I sensed His presence
and I knew this was a place where love abounds
for this is a temple, Jehova God abides here
We are standing in His presence on Holy Ground
We are standing on Holy Ground
And I know that there are angels all around
Let us praise Jesus now
For we are standing in His presence, on Holy Ground
In His presence I know there is joy beyond all measure
And at His feet, sweet peace of mind can still be found
For when we have a need He is still the answer
Just reach out and claim it, for we are standing, on Holy Ground
We are standing on Holy Ground
And I know that there are angels all around
Let us praise Jesus now
for we are standing in His presence on Holy Ground”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
That day in the country of Midian, 40 years since his escape from everything Egyptian and everything Hebrew, while he was tending his father-in-law’s sheep, Moses found himself, standing on Holy Ground, face to face, with the God of His heart, the God, his mother Jochebed must have whispered in his ear about, day and night, for the 3 years, he was in her care. (the early years in a child’s life are crucial in so many ways and spiritual development is one of them----parents cannot start too early teaching their children about the love of the Father and the son ….and they need to be intentional about it ----It’s amazing what little children can understand…just this week Mary Kathryn told me that Winnie….).... It had been 80 years since Moses had sat at his mothers knee so he wasn’t prepared for instruction from the Lord---it took him by surprise, and he argued with God, which either took a lot of courage or a lot of ignorance…..I’m not sure which, ….but I do know, that after that encounter with Almighty God, Moses was never the same again, he was a changed man….
Let’s pretend, for just a minute, that one of us could be God---we would be the creator of the universe and would possess all the power that there is, within ourselves. And our chosen people are being held as slaves, and we are tired of it….. and the time has come for them to be delivered from their bondage…..Who would we choose to handle this great work? A brilliant military leader, who has many successful victory’s under his belt? A skilled politician who gives such heart-stirring speeches that hard-hearted men’s emotions, would yield the way to freedom. Or would we choose Moses????
Looking at it from the world’s perspective, if we had the whole population of earth’s people at our fingertips, I doubt seriously that we would choose Moses-----he was 80 years old; he was a fugitive on the run, for murder; and trying to hide it; Egypt, the place he was running from, was the very place he needed to go back to; he was well-educated but that had been 40 years ago; he had been well connected politically, but that had been 40 years ago too…
But that’s why we can’t even pretend to think like God, much less be like Him, because His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts……because, when it came time, to send a deliverer to the Israelites, Moses is the exact person he chose. God had been grooming him for the task, for his entire life----- everything that had happened in Moses’ life, up until that point, and beyond, was allowed by God, for the purpose of preparing him for the task that God needed to call him to…It’s the same for us------there is nothing that comes into our lives, that has not, first been filtered through Jesus’ nail-scarred hands, so that He can use it for some greater purpose, for the kingdom, for our growth spiritually and for His glory… To us it makes no sense, but to God, it’s all a part of His big picture, a part of His plan of redemption and salvation, for His children.
While we think about this, lets think about something else too…right now, we are living in the midst of a world that is being held in slavery to sin---people are perishing daily and they desperately need to be reached with the truth about the Lord Jesus….again, if we were God, who would we send to tell them the message----it would be the brightest minds and the most skilled orators we could find-----it wouldn’t be sinners, saved by grace, I can assure you….but that’s exactly who God calls to the task, he calls those who know about that grace, those who know what they’ve been spared, to explain that grace to those who are lost and hurting…
He has saved each one of us to serve, to be his workers, to be his feet and his hands and his arms-----if that weren’t the truth, then He would have taken us home the minute we were saved….
Moses tried to put God off with 3 excuses, and God, in no uncertain terms let Moses know what He thought about His excuses-----and in spite of himself, God took Moses and made him one of the greatest hero’s of the faith and one of the greatest leaders of all time…
Unfortunately, way too often, when we realize that the Lord’s calling us to a task, we start thinking of every excuse in the book, that would keep us from answering His call… we come up with a myriad of reasons why we can’t possibly be the one He needs for the job…But God handled Moses excuses and He will handle ours too-----we can see in this passage, Exodus, chapters 3 and 4, a wealth of encouragement for any one of God’s children who wants to do God’s will, but doesn’t feel capable….
As we’re wrapping up this lesson, let’s think about how often we find ourselves standing on Holy Ground, using these exact same excuses….we should be afraid, but unfortunately, we act just as bold and brash as Moses did….
The Excuse of Inability:
Moses’ first concern was that he was a “nobody”, which, made him feel like he was unqualified to go to Pharaoh, to demand the release of the Lord’s people.
And there are times that we all feel that same way! We don’t think we’re as qualified as another person might be, we don’t think that we have the credentials or the experience or the words that another person does…….we think we don’t have the ability to get the job done properly… So, in haste, out of fear or trepidation or lack of faith, we give up before we even get started----but when we do this, we’re forgetting one thing----Almighty God is choosing us -----so to say we aren’t able to do the job, is also saying that God doesn’t know what he’s doing----and who are we to say that we know better than God….Job 38:4 says, ”where were you when I laid the foundations of the world….” Where indeed were we!
But God’s response to Moses and to us, was to give a pair of precious promises----first He promised Moses, “I will go with you.” This is the promise of His presence. He never, ever, sends us somewhere alone…He always goes with us…..
and His second promise was, that after Moses had accomplished the task----God would meet him and the Israelites, for fellowship and worship, on the very mountain they were standing on…It was the glorious promise of a certain reunion someday…..for us, that reunion will be in heaven…..and the rest of the promise is, that He will neither leave or nor forsake us, until that day comes…
And with these promises in mind, there is an application that can be made to our lives----the Lord God knows us intimately, He knows every hair on our heads, every thought we think, every heartbeat and every breath----if He calls us to a task, He calls us with full knowledge of our strengths and our weaknesses and our abilities and our inabilities----He will never call us to a task that He won’t equip us for, and He knows that we can accomplish anything, that He calls us to, with His power, which He grants us, right when we need it. (Phil. 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.”) It is true that in and of ourselves, we are incapable of doing anything godly and good, but in and through the power of God, we can do anything!!!
2.)The Excuse of Inadequacy:
After telling God about his inabilities, Moses proceeded to expound upon his inadequacies-----but what I think Moses is really saying is that He really didn’t trust God, because he didn’t know enough about who He was-----he didn’t know Him and His ways---didn’t know enough about His character, or His word, or His faithfulness, to step out to the task He was calling him to…does that sound familiar to us, we just don’t’ know the Lord or His word, well enough, to trust Him with the inadequacies that we know that we have…to get the job done…God’s response to Moses was great!!!! He told Moses all he needed to know….He told him His name!!!............ “I Am”, nothing else needed to be said, God’s name says it all…Moses might have been inadequate and we might be inadequate, but the God who calls and equips us, certainly is not! God calls us to trust Him enough to do what He says, and He will show us more of Himself, as we need him too…
That’s how the Lord works in our lives, He leads us to follow Him, by faith, and we may know very little about Him or His ways, but as each task and each need arises, God proves Himself faithful and adequate to every challenge…..then, His great and wonderful name becomes a statement of fact----and it tells us that God is who we need Him to be at every moment of our lives. There are no surprises with “I Am”, there is no situation that we could ever find ourselves in that He doesn’t hold the solution to. “I Am” is able and He enables us, no matter the task…
Following the Lord, can be scary to us----often when we look at the size of the task, and we compare our finite abilities or skill to it , we see ourselves lacking in the ability, that is needed for success, so we panic and chicken out…..but this is leaving God out of the equation…when the great “I Am” is factored in there is no telling what the answer to 2+2 might turn out to be….
We should never allow a lack of education, lack of money, lack of skill or lack of time, stop us from answering any call that the Lord has for us…All through the Bible….God’s people have been placed alongside obstacles against which they looked and felt inadequate, but with God’s power working through them, they were able to overcome the insurmountable, every time…
Noah probably felt inadequate beside the ark; and David must have felt pretty small beside Goliath; and Shadrach and Meshach and Obednego must have felt the heat of that fiery furnace and Daniel surely could see the size of the Lion’s teeth as he faced their den….but then, each one figured God into the equation and their faith grew exponincially as well as their ability to perform the task… So when you are measuring yourself against a task, always remember to measure the task against the one who flung the stars in the sky and holds the ocean inside its boundaries….and be faithful to obey Him, because He’s called you and placed you in His work….and that’s a privilege and a responsibility for us to answer…
3.)The Excuse of Inferiority:
After the Lord handles Moses’ other excuses, Moses’ comes up with one more….it is that if he tells people that he had a personal conversation with God, that the people would think he was either nuts or lying, he was scared that either way, they wouldn’t believe him….
A lot of believers are scared of the same thing----afraid of the response they will get when they admit a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. Unfortunately, people are scared sometimes, to even explain to a non-believer what having a personal relationship with Jesus is, and they are especially scared to tell them that it is the most important thing that there is, in life or death….…And a lot of believers are really nervous to tell people that they talk to the Lord and that He talks back to them… through His word, through music, through other people, through circumstances, through nature, in our thoughts and even audibly, if He chooses to….
God’s response to Moses was to let him know, that when the Lord got through working in and through him, there would be no doubt in anybody’s mind about the truth of Moses’ story…
And this is true in the life of every one of God’s children----when the Lord comes in saving power, He brings with Him, life-changing power------no life can be touched by salvation that the Lord Jesus offers us, and stay the same---that resurrection power recreates us into His image, never to be the same----that’s not to say that we won’t mess up from time to time, but if there is truly salvation, then that child of God will be unmistakably changed, and the world will know and believe it!!!
When we are saved, we become children of the King,
bought-with-a-price, -children, of the living God. That makes us special, people of greatness; people with ability and skill; people with a story to tell……we need to answer God’s call with obedience so that a lost world can see His power in us and know that He saved our souls, and if He saved ours, then He will save theirs too….
In on last ditch effort, to escape the cumbersome task that God was calling him to, Moses tried to use some kind of speech impediment as his excuse for God to excuse him and call somebody else---could have been a stutter, or just slow speech….we don’t know….but whatever it was Moses tried to use it as permission for not doing the will of God…
A lot of us are like Moses----we look at lack of education, or a physical handicap, or age or illness or socioeconomic differences, or just plain laziness and self absorption, as an excuse for not serving when we’re called…but the truth is, there is no excuse for not serving the Lord, I don’t think it matters whether you’re 5 or 95, the Lord can use us all and He wants to use us all…We just need to yield all that we are, and all that we have, to the Lord and let Him use us any way He wants to….
God’s response to Moses was that He had made his mouth and he had made his mind and that He was able to give him what he needed when he needed it, so he just needed to go and God would do the rest…
But then Moses went to far and He asked God to send someone else-----and this stirred God’s anger…not in a white-hot – I’m-gonna blast -you -to -smithereens -kind –of- way, but in an ok-I’m -gonna give- you -what -you -ask -for -kind -of -way…
So, God promised that Aaron, Moses older brother, who was also a priest, could be his helper and spokesperson---God would instruct Moses, Moses would instruct Aaron and Aaron would instruct the people…(.I know Moses was still blessed by God, but I can’t help but wonder what blessings he missed because of his outright disobedience….)
We have nothing to fear when God calls us, He has given us a helper too, in the person of the Holy Spirit, and He is ever with us and will teach us what we need to know along the way---
And we cannot forget that God is still God, He will always be God, the great I Am, and He can still take our minds and our mouths and use them for His glory and to Praise His glorious name…
(this summer I had an experience that had such a profound impact on me that I will never be the same---I witnessed a life transformed like I never have before and there is no doubt that God did it and everyone can see the truth of it… the story of Noel)
