“Beating Around the Bush”
Exodus 3:1-14
I remember clearly a time in my life when I had gotten to a point where God was speaking to me about making some major changes in my life and ministry. God was about to do something new in my life and the details were not very clear for me. Can anyone identify with that? This week I had a brief conversation with one of the young men in our church…he said Pastor, pray for me and then he said with a smile I’m about to make the next biggest mistake in my life. All of us can identify with that feeling. I think that perhaps the biggest struggle you and I have in the Christian life is in this area of knowing and then doing God’s will. And many times we are afraid that what we are about to do may be our next big mistake. All of this I believe is built around a myth that we have heard for years and we have built our lives around and it goes something like this.
God’s will is hard to know. God likes to make finding His will as difficult as possible. He wants us to struggle daily with knowing His will and He takes pleasure in making His will a secret.
So we believe that myth and because we believe it so strongly we struggle every single day. We have bought into this idea that the Christian life is supposed to be difficult; that it is hard and that God likes to keep secrets from His children.
Let’s be clear and let me give you a few scriptures that show us what the truth is in this area.
Romans 12:1-2. What does this passage tell us? Clearly it is not only possible to know God’s will; God in fact wants it to be crystal clear. God’s will can actually be proved and known.
Matthew 6:10. This is how we should pray…thy will be done….on earth as it is in heaven. No w we see it is not only possible to know God’s will, it is also possible to do God’s will. How do we know that? Jesus would not have told us to pray for His will to be done if it were not possible for us to actually do it.
We fast forward now and Moses enters on the scene again at the age of 40. He was perhaps one of the most unlikely candidates for leadership that we find in the OT. (1) Moses was what we commonly call a basket case. As a child of only a few months Moses was placed in a basket sealed with tar and placed in the Nile River. Anything could have happened. In reading an article this week about the dangers around the Nile River I was amazed at the number of different kinds of poisonous snakes, scorpions, crocodiles ands more that inhabit that area. When Moses was placed in the water his life was at risk. (2) Pharaoh determined that he would do everything possible to decrease the population of the Hebrew people. So he decided to kill all of the babies who were born that were male. So again Moses life was at risk. (3) We don’t know anything else about his childhood but the first event we read about is this….one day after Moses had grown up he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and it says that glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. Then we read (v. 15) that when Pharaoh heard of this he tried to kill Moses. So again his life was at risk. Not only was it unlikely Moses would ever become a leader—it was actually a miracle he even survived.
Now this is the time when Moses learned an early lesson in leadership and here it is…..never dedicate yourself to God’s will until you have first dedicated yourself to God Himself. It is very possible that we can become so obsessed with knowing His will that we fail to spend time getting to know Him. It is the difference in knowing about God and in getting to know Him personally. And there is a huge difference. When we become more concerned with what God wants us to do than we are with who He wants us to be then we are in real trouble. I believe this is exactly what happened to Moses at this point.
Look at v. 23. And when he paid them a visit he entered a very dangerous time of his life. The question we have to stop and ask at this point is where did this thought come from? Who planted this thought in his mind? At this point I believe that Moses was already convinced that he was the one God would use to bring the Hebrews out of slavery. I believe that he became impatient…anxious…antsy about doing it and he jumped the gun.
Moses saw one of his brethren being beaten and felt compassion for him. It would be very easy to say here that Moses simply snapped but that’s not how the Bible explains it. V. 12 says he looked this way and that. Sounds like something the mafia would do. Nowhere do we read where God said to Moses, go in there and make this situation right! This was a decision Moses made completely on his own. This reminds us of a very critical item when we are following God’s will and it is timing. Timing is everything. The Bible says there is a time and a place for everything. Wisdom and timing always go together. You see, many times we get the crazy idea that God can’t handle His job. That He somehow needs some help. He doesn’t work fast enough for us so we rush in and usually we make matters worse.
That is what happened to Moses. He had to then cover up his mistakes—literally—he had to bury the Egyptian. He hid him in the sand and apparently didn’t do a very good job either. We usually don’t.
Fast forward again and Moses is now 80 years of age. Basically he has suffered a 40 years setback. Now he is ready to listen. Clearly Moses had never experienced anything like this before. Never before this time had there been a burning bush nor in the thousands of years since then has there been one. No other experience of God speaking this way. Why? Because when God speaks He wants our experience with Him to be personal. I am convinced that if Moses had been around today he would have been tempted to write a book and title it “My burning bush experience and how you can have one.” It would immediately be on the NY Times bestseller list and people everywhere would be out trying to find their burning bush. That’s not the point here.
When se search for God’s will all of us wish that God would just send us a letter or perhaps an email and post something on fb for us. Or maybe we could just follow Him on Twitter. Something that would be quick, easy to understand, simple. Then we would do what He says. But the truth is we probably wouldn’t. There are many things already that we are very clear on that we do not follow.
Fortunately our God is the God of a 2nd chance… and a 3rd and a 4th and a 5th. He never gives up on us. Never.
Now I want you to notice 6 quick things about this miracle and I want you to get them glued in your mind today.
(1) When God calls out a leader, it can happen in the normal every day events of life. V. 1. Your life may seem dull at times. Maybe your job seems dull. I can’t imagine a job that would be duller than that of a shepherd. One-two-three. It’s boring. That’s why when you can’t sleep people tell us to count sheep.
God speaks through our daily circumstances.
(2) When God calls out a leader the place where you are standing then becomes holy ground. V. 5. There was nothing different about the ground where Moses was standing. I asked myself a question this week…. I said self, what is it that makes a place…a piece of dirt we are standing on, what makes it holy? What makes one place holy and another one not holy. Well God is what makes the ground holy and He does not need you to move to get to holy ground. He can make the ground right where you are holy ground. This is holy ground where you are today. And God may just call you out to be a leader right here or it may be after the service today in the parking lot. Ground becomes holy when God is there and we are listening. Moses was in the wilderness and you may feel like you are as well. Still the ground can become holy.
(3) When God calls out a leader, the call starts with God, not us. V. 7. Frequently I have people contact me and ask if they come to our church if they can be in a place of leadership. Happened yesterday. It is always someone I have never met. The truth is they probably can. But I need to know that God is calling them and not that they are just promoting themselves.
(4) When God calls out a leader there will be a group ready to follow your leadership. V. 10. God never wants to waste a leader. If God calls you He will provide a following.
(5) We must always remember that God is in charge of the timing, not us. He is always an on-time God. How many times do we become impatient because things don’t happen as quickly as we want them to. God’s timetable is different from ours. One day is like a thousand years. God is rarely early but He is on time.
(6) Be careful not to ask too many questions and never, ever make excuses. Vvs. 11 and 13. Pattern continues in Ex. 4:10.
God does not make a mistake when He calls out a leader. It was as though Moses was saying Lord, are you sure? Are you sure you’ve got the right guy? Then we start in, Lord I can’t do this and I can’t do that! And we are talking to the one who made us, when we do that!!! All we can seem to think of are all the reasons why God shouldn’t call us. All of the reason why we don’t qualify. But listen if you ever feel that way, remember this…. You're in good company . . . .
* Moses stuttered. * Hosea's wife was a prostitute. * David had an affair. * Abraham was very old. * David was too young. * Lazarus was dead. * Naomi was a widow. * Paul was a murderer. * So was Moses. * Thomas was a doubter. * Jeremiah was depressed and even considered suicide.
Listen if God is calling you to do something, He knows what He is doing. It is not our job to ask questions. Our job is to simply listen to Him.
