"Burning Bushes And Second Chances”

SERMON OUTLINE:

(1). A Regular Day (vs 1-2).

(2). A Bush that Burnt (vs 3-6).

(3). A Questionable Ancestry (vs 6).

(4). A Promised Deliverance (vs 7-10)

(5). A Reluctant Response (vs 11-22)

SERMON BODY:

Ill:

• A man made an appointment to see his doctor.

"Doctor," he complained, "everywhere I touch seems to hurt lately.

Am I getting old or just senile?

If I push on my knees here, I hurt.

I push on my stomach, and I hurt!

I press on my head right here by my temple and that hurts too!

What's going on?"

• The doctor called for a full body X-ray.

• An hour passed and after evaluating the X-rays carefully, the doctor returned.

• Stroking his chin, the doctor slowly began,

• "I think I've found the reason why everything you touch hurts."

• The man anxiously replied, "Well, tell me!"

• The doctor pointed to the X-ray, "Your body is fine, but your finger is broken."

• TRANSITION: broken things in a joke are funny,

• But broken things in life are not!

• Moses had been a man of style and sophistication.

• A man used to life's luxuries.

• Quote: We are told in Acts chapter 7 verse 22 that:

"Moses the son of Pharaoh,

Was a man educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,

A man powerful in speech and actions"

• But one day that lifestyle was forever broken!

• The reason being he made a stupid decision,

• In chapter 2 of this book (Exodus),

• Moses saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave,

• He intervened but it all went badly wrong,

• And he ended up killing the Egyptian!

• Moses, the prince of Egypt was forced to flee to Midian,

• Where he became, “a foreigner in a foreign land.”

• He found himself looking after sheep, smelly in a flat barren land.

• Worse still, they were not even his sheep!

• He is a classic case of, ‘how the mighty have fallen’!

Quote: We are told in Acts chapter 7 verse 30:

“Now when forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in a flame of fire in a bush.

• For Moses the next 40 years, don’t miss that, not days or weeks or months, but 40 years,

• He will be living as a shepherd in Midian beyond the Jordan,

• (The Sinai peninsula, and Arabian Petraea).

(1). A Regular Day (vs 1-2).

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up”.

Ill:

• We are use to the term, ‘red-letter day’

• Meaning a day that is pleasantly noteworthy or memorable.

• e.g. a birthday, or an anniversary, or the day you go on holiday.

• TRANSITION: I love the fact God spoke to Moses on an ordinary, regular day.

• No advanced warning! For Moses this day started out like so many others.

Yet on this day, God would call Moses out of his safe lifestyle and into a radical lifestyle.

• Moses was in a safe place.

• He was married, he had children,

• He was enjoying family life.

• He was employed, his job was not taxing but it was regular work that paid the bills.

• He had been working for his father-in-law Jethro for 40 years.

• We might say he has, ‘his roots were not just planted but they were established & deep!’

Ill:

• If you have ever had to push a car to try and get it started,

• You will know it is easier to push when it is moving,

• It is very hard work to actually get it moving!

• TRANSITION: I think most calls of God to his people to ‘do something’

• Probably come to busy people, those already involved in some kind of service,

• And that calling and service kind of snowballs.

• I think (I can’t prove it) but from my experience,

• Most people are not ‘cold called’ into Christian service,

• Most people I know were already serving God in a variety of different ways.

And a danger and temptation for too many Christians is the comfort zone.

• We tie ourselves down with family, mortgage, career, etc,

• That God could not move us on because our life ties are so strong!

• For us to come into all that God has for us may mean,