Bushwacked! Series

On a Saturday in November several years ago (November 5, 2011), University of Tennessee freshman Derrick Brodus was lying on the couch at his fraternity house, waiting for the Tennessee Volunteers football game to start at 7 P.M. Less than an hour before kickoff, Derrick fumbled for his cell phone as it began to ring. The voice on the other end told him a police escort was on its way to take him to the stadium immediately.

“I thought it was a dream,” Derrick said. “I was just lying on my couch relaxing, and I answer my phone, and they just tell me that I need to come to the stadium as soon as possible.”

Just minutes before that call, Tennessee backup kicker Chip Rhome pulled a muscle during pregame warm-ups. Starting kicker Michael Pardy was already out, injured in Thursday's practice. So one hour before kickoff, the Volunteers were out of kickers.

Derrick, a freshman, had tried out as a placekicker when he enrolled at Tennessee, but never made the team. Now, on that particular Saturday, Derrick was the Volunteers' only option.

Minutes after Derrick hung up his phone, the police escort arrived at the fraternity house to rush him to the stadium. The team's trainer stretched him in the locker room while he put on his pads and a jersey that didn't even have his name on the back.

Even so, Derrick made the most of his opportunity. He made all three of his extra point attempts and kicked a 21-yard field goal at the end of the first half. His team won 24-0.

Back in the locker room after the final whistle, the kicker who began the evening lying on the couch with a bag of chips was celebrated as the hero. The team cheered as Coach Dooley gave Derrick the game ball (Graham Watson, “Tennessee grabs last-second kicker off his frat house couch,” Yahoo Sports, 11-8-11; www.PreachingToday.com).

Often, that’s the way God works a believer’s life. He or she is lying around when God calls them to get off the couch and to use their gifts for His kingdom. That’s what happened to Moses. He spent 40 years living the simple life of a shepherd when all of a sudden he gets a call from God.

If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Exodus 3, Exodus 3, where we see God calling Moses from his ordinary life into something extraordinary.

Exodus 3:1-6 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (ESV).

Moses was taking care of his father-in-law’s sheep on the back side of a desert. It was something he had done day in and day out for 14,600 days, when all of a sudden God showed up in his life. God set a bush on fire without consuming the bush, and Moses had to check it out.

It was an ordinary thorn bush, like many in the Midian desert, but God was about to do something extraordinary not only in Moses’ life, but in the lives of his people as well. You see, like a thorn bush on fire, they were in the fire of affliction, but they were not consumed, because God was right there with them. Israel was in slavery in Egypt; and Moses, bred to lead a great nation, was leading a bunch of sheep in the Midian desert. Then all of a sudden, Moses finds this God-forsaken desert a sanctuary, a holy place, because God himself shows up.

Exodus 3:7-9 Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them (ESV).