Even God's Greatest Made Excuses

Even God’s Greatest Servant’s Made Excuses

Exodus 3: 1-12, 4:1,10-12

I love basketball! I love everything about the game. The excitement of hitting the three-point winning shot at the buzzer. The scream of the crowd as they cheer you on to victory. The adrenaline rush as you dunk for the first time while graciously extending your hand to your opponent’s face and utter the words, “not in my house!” Yes, I love this game. But in my ninth grade year at Oklahoma Bible Academy I can not say that I loved the game of basketball. If you were to ask me then if I loved basketball I would have said yes. If you were to ask me if I loved to play I would have said yes. But if you were to ask me if I had a desire to start on the varsity team I would have said “no”. Why? It’s simple. I was scared. I was scared of what would happen if I were to ever mess up in a game. I constantly questioned if my friends and the fans would still like me? Would the coach still want me on the team? Was I even good enough to play? I saw myself as inferior to other players. When in reality the coach did like me and did call on me more than once to play for him. But instead of looking past my fear of being inferior or rejected I simply gave excuses. I said whatever I had to to stay out of the game. One week I had shin splints and the next I would have a pulled muscle. Even though my coach was constantly giving me positive assurance and promised that he would help me I still feared. Finally my coach came up to me one day and said, “Ryan, if you spend everyday making excuses then you will never get off the bench of life."

TRANSITION: In our own lives I am sure that all of us you have made excuses to try to get away from doing something that we did not want to do. Maybe we made excuses to our parents to get out of cleaning our rooms or from going on a date with someone we did not like. Maybe some of us struggled with God and made excuses as to why we did not want to come to this university and major in ministry.

And maybe even now some of us in this room may be struggling with God and making excuses as to why we should not go into a specific ministry, continue our educational study or even witness to our unsaved roommates.

At some point in our lives we have to stop and ask ourselves why do we make excuses? Do excuses ever really benefit us? How affective can we be when all we do is make excuses?

I am sure if I asked anyone of you if you would like to be fully ready without hesitation to take on any task that God throws at you you would say yes. If I asked if you would like to able to walk up to the poor dirty beggar on the street or the rich millionaire in his limousine or even your unsaved roommate and be able to witness to them without hesitation; with firm confidence in your voice, and with the love of God flowing from your heart you would say yes.

Some of you may be asking, “ That is what I want, but how can I become like that? How can I fully follow God without excuses?” I am glad you asked.

There are many places found in scripture that talk about following God without excuses, but on place I want to look at is found in the 3rd and 4th chapters of Exodus.

But before we do lets look at some of the historical background.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The third and some of the forth chapters, which we will be concentrating on today, takes place forty years after Moses had fled from Egypt to Midian. As we should all know Moses was raised as a Prince of Egypt but ran away to Midian at the age of 40 for killing an Egyptian that was beating a Hebrew slave. In the beginning of the 3rd chapter Moses is seen tending to his flock when an angel of the Lord appears to him in a burning bush. God tells Moses that He has heard the cry of the Jews and he wants to rescue them from the Egyptians and move them to the Promised Land. He calls Moses to return to Egypt, demand the freedom of the Jews in the name of God and to lead them to their Promised Land. To our surprise Moses does not automatically jump at the chance to follow God and do this great work for the Hebrew slaves. Moses becomes scared, and soon begins to make excuses as to why he can not be the one to lead the people. God assures Moses after every excuse that he will be with him and ultimately Moses does God’s will and we all should know how the story turns out.