"No More Excuses"

• An excuse is a reason we give for not doing what someone else expects us to do. We not only make excuses for missing church, but for missing work, school, and meetings. We also make excuses for bad behavior and for bad attitudes, and for not getting a job done on time or for not doing homework.

• One of the worst times we make excuses is when we feel God impressing us or calling on us to do something.

• We find all sorts of reasons for not doing what God wants us to do. And there will be things that the Lord will call on you to do. In fact he has probably called on you to do at least one of the following things at some point in your life:

o To share your faith with someone who needs to know about Jesus.

o To help out in an outreach program at church.

o To perform special music in church or to lead a musical group in church.

o To participate in a praise team or band.

o To do something nice for someone.

o To teach a Sunday School Class.

o To lead a Bible Study.

o To go to Bible College or Seminary.

o To be a Christian School teacher.

o To be a missionary.

o To be a pastor.

o To go on a short term missions trip.

o To confront a fellow believer about a sin in his life.

o To be a peacemaker between two believers.

o To teach or lead a Bible study.

o To give more to church or to missions or to a special project.

o To help someone who is having a difficult time.

o To be an officer in the church, a trustee, a deacon, or an elder.

o To be an officer in the Sunday School.

• In some cases you simply did what God called you to do.

• In other cases you simply made excuses for not doing what God called you to do.

• Making excuses is nothing new. Some of God’s choicest servants in the Bible made excuses when God called on them to do something.

• One of the people who made excuses when God called him was Moses. Moses was the little baby that was placed in the bulrushes by the river, when the Egyptian king, Pharaoh, had ordered all male Israeli babies be killed.

• Moses was found by Pharaoh’s daughter and ended up growing up in Pharaoh’s court, receiving all the education of Egypt.

• Moses tried to help his people who were in bondage in Egypt by killing an Egyptian who was beating an Israeli slave. He also tried to make peace between two Israeli’s.

• He discovered that what he had done to the Egyptian was known and he fled for his life. Pharaoh was not happy in the least. Exodus 2:15

• Moses ended up a fugitive in the land of Midian where he became a shepherd taking care of the sheep of the man who became his father in-law, Jethro.

• Moses spent forty years in the wilderness, taking care of sheep. Meanwhile the children of Israel were having a miserable time as slaves in Egypt.

o Exodus 2:23-25: “And it came to pass in process of time, that the king of Egypt died: and the children of Israel sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God by reason of the bondage. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. And God looked upon the children of Israel, and God had respect unto them.”

• God decided that it was time for the children of Israel to be delivered from their bondage in Egypt. God decided that the man who was going to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt was Moses. God appeared to Moses in a burning bush that would not burn up and called Moses to be God’s representative before Pharaoh and to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.

o Exodus 3:9-10: “Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me: and I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. Come now therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people the children of Israel out of Egypt.”

• It is at this point that Moses began to make excuses for not doing what God wanted him to do.

• You and I use the same excuses today when God calls us to do something and we don’t think we should.

• In this passage there are five excuses for not doing what God wants you to do.