God uses ordinary people to extraordinary things
Exodus 3:1-17
Intro-
Have you ever sensed God leading you to do something , but hesitated because it would interrupt your everyday life, change your schedule, or cause you to have to do something you don’t want to do? Good Your normal- most of us at times have had selective hearing when it comes to what God wants us to do. Can you picture Jonah as the Lord tells him to go to Nineveh. Go to a foreign land, a large city, a city of pagan worshipers you don’t like and preach a message of repentance. You want me to go to bad people , tell them there bad, and that they must turn from their sins or be destroyed. People , God I really don’t care about.
God calls each of us out of our comfort zones. Maybe not to that extreme, but, I know if we get comfortable, he will shack it up a bit.
This passage is about Moses going through what he thought was going to be an average day and God shows up and shacks up his world.
You may be siting there this morning and saying well, that’s Moses. I’m not Moses and he has never did anything like that.
Illustration-
Sometimes small churches look at themselves and say, “Oh, we can’t do this and we can’t do that because we are too small. We don’t have the resources.” and their vision gets limited by their circumstances and instead of taking steps of faith, they take baby steps. I’m reminded of the story of a man who had done something wonderful and the king called him in and told him he could mark off as much of the kingdom as he wanted and it would be his. The man took his staff and traced a line in the dirt around himself. The king watched as he finished and said, “is that all you want?” Just what is in the circle? The man said, “No, I want everything Outside the circle.” what if we drew a line around this building and said we want to claim all the territory beyond this place for God? Jabez looked beyond where he was and what he could do to where God was and what God could do.
What is yur vision? Where do you fit into God’s plan at Rosedale? In your family? Isaiah says that God’s people perish because of a lack of vision.
Moses has a past
Plot was to kill all baby boys and he ends up by a miracle at the door step of the Pharaoh’s daughter to be rised.
Prince of Egypt becomes a murderer and flees for his life.
Finds home in Median, finds a wife, gets a job tending the sheep of his father in law and thinks that life could not get any better.
Moses was not perfect- he was ordinary, God shows up and wants him to do something extraordinary. Everyone has a past, everyone if you dig deep enough has skeletons in their closet. Instead of being the book of Exodus, it should of been the book of excuses. Moses did everything humanly possible to get God to ask someone else.
I’m too shy
I’m a lousy speaker
Not educated enough
Don’t have the training
My family...
God has heard them all. There is nothing new under the sun that we have not used as excuses.
Now let’s look at Moses-
he was working, tending sheep. God usually calls the busy, did you notice that? Because he knows the job will get done. God get’s his attention in a unique way, off in the distance, he sees a bush burning and not getting burned up or being destroyed . He get’s to the bush and the Lord speaks through the bush, calls him by his name Moses Do not come any closer, take off your shoes, you are on Holy ground.
V6- Moses is afraid for his life and afraid to look at God because he knows from history that would be his death. Remember last week, the Pharisee from the comparison sermon. I fast twice a week. I give a my tithe. I am glad that I am not like the tax collector. But God give’s him his “ I” account. I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cry for help. I am concerned about their suffering. I have come down to rescue them. So now go I am sending you Vision can get distorted when hard times come. We can lose sight of God’s plan in a storm.
What can we learn from Moses and the text. We know that when God gives someone a vision, he empowers and equips us to do it. We know that when God gives a vision, he will be with us and sustain us. We know that we must release control of out lives to God so that his vision is worked out through our lives.
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do you remember the story of Ginghamburg United Methodist church in Tipp City, Ohio? In the late 70’s, the church was a small struggling congregation, one day, their pastor, Mike Slaughter, went out into the corn field behind the church . And he said, “Lord , I love you. And I love this church. But I just wanted to let you know that I’m not leaving this corn field until you show me what your plan is Do you want me to stay with this church? And if you do, what do you want me to do to lead it into the next century? And I think he stayed there for like three days. But when he came home, he had a vision for what God wanted him to do. And today, they have 3000 members. It’s totally unheard of for a small church out in the sticks to grow like that. But they did. Thanks to a pastor who prayed and prayed and wouldn’t quit. James 5:16-“the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective” and if you give your dilemmas and your decisions to Christ, he will put peace in your heart. A plan in your mind. And the wisdom to carry it out.
The ordinary became the extraordinary when God shows up.
The usual became unusual.
Our purpose in life, our attitudes change the moment we allow God into our lives.
Maybe you woke today and thought about the day ahead, maybe you jumped out and then realized it was Sunday, either way, you thought today was going to be normal.
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At a Primitive Methodist chapel on Artillery street only a dozen people showed up. When it became apparent that even the pastor would not arrive, a man rose and spoke from Isaiah 45:22- “let the world look to me for salvation. For I am God; there is no other.” Then the crowd dispersed, thinking the day’s service a loss, not realizing that a fifteen year old boy had ducked into the room to escape the snowstorm, and, hearing the sermon, had been converted. Years later, Charles Spurgeon wrote “ Don’t hold back because you cannot preach in St. Paul’s, be content to talk to one or two in the cottage.”
Little pigeons carry the message too.
Small pots cook as well as big ones.
Little dogs can bark at a thief to warn and wake up the owner. We look at the Mose’s, Apostle Paul’s, Billy Grahams, so we feel like God cannot use us or we are uncomfortable to think that he would.
D.L Moody once said that Moses spent 40 years thinking that he was somebody, 40 years learning he was a nobody, and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody. God uses ordinary people to reveal his plan. God used an ordinary bush to get the attention of an ordinary man. God used 12 ordinary men to bring the plan of salvation to the world. This was moses first direct encounter with God. And he responds to God’s mighty presence. Most people do not listen to God and get a vision of what he wants. Society as a whole has a hard time following a vision because they are too self centered. The ordinary was to get moses attention and prepare him for the new experience.
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when my wife Becky and I first met, I was doing evangelistic revivals, filling in for pastors on vacation, filling in for churches without a pastor. I was loving it., drop any message that was laid on my heart, dropping the bomb so to speak when you don’t have to clean up any mess after them. Then one day God showed up during a Sunday night service at Lavelle and gave me a pastors heart. I no longer wanted to just drop the bomb, but now had a heart that wanted to repair what was going on in people’s lives.
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I sat right in that room over there with who are now the associate pastor at Oxford Nazarene church, the youth pastor at Mifflinburg church, pastor Clyde of this church. Never once giving a thought that I would pastor this church 3 years later.
Closing:
Deut. 33:16- “Dweiller of the bush”- I met him and he changed my life
God delights in using the ordinary.
Are you ordinary? Good- he can use you, if you are available.
Henry Blackaby wrote- when God was ready to judge the world with a flood, he came to Noah. To build a nation, he went to Abraham. When he set the Israelites from bondage, he use Moses.
Can he use you today?
Are you willing to hear what he has to say to you?
