Fire - Part 1, Pastor Rob Ketterling
All right. Well, we are starting our summer series a little bit early even though the weather is not agreeing with us. How many know that? It's like out there it was snowing on me the other day when I was mowing the lawn, and I thought, "This is May." I actually, like it was the first time in my life I actually was wishing it was a bird flying over me and not snow. Yeah, you'll get that.
Man, but it is our series. I love that in our summer we do an elongated sermon series. And this will be a six, seven week series. I might have thrown in a bonus week already. But we are going to look at fire in this series, and then we are going to look at prayer the rest of the summer. We are going to talk about dangerous prayers and prayers that are in the Bible that we can pray.
But as we look at fire now, we are going to look at this and look at the stories like Moses and the burning bush; Elijah at Mount Carmel; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego -- a classic. We're going to look at the lake of fire; the Bible talks about that. The scripture, the fire shut up in my bones; tongues of fire; and our works being tried by fire. So there is a little variety there, and all the scriptures will have to do with fire. I just love that we can do this.
Today it is Moses and the burning bush. If you have your Bibles, you can turn with me to Exodus 3, and Acts 7. That's where I'm going to read from. Exodus 3 and Acts 7. And I'm going to read from Acts 7 first.
Now, fire is fascinating. If you are a guy, you probably are fascinated with fire. I don't know what it is, but there is something about guys that when they discover matches and fire, there is just something about fire that just attracts us and sucks us into it.
And, incidentally, I do know that some people have bad memories of fire. I do understand that. And most of our teaching will just deal with the scriptures on that. I know that when my wife was growing up, their house caught on fire and they had to move out a little bit. No one was injured. I know some of you might have more tragic stories or been burned. I understand that. This is just an apology on that. And we understand and we won't dwell too much on that. This opening part we'll probably deal more on that than other times. So just wanted to make sure we are aware.
But there is bonfires and candles and fireplaces and big fire pits, and, man, people will chase fire trucks to see what is going on. Fire just fascinates. And especially, again as boys, I can remember going through my fire phase, all right? And I'm going to share this with you so that parents have hope for their children. Because I shared this in an earlier service, and my mom is like, "You are grounded!" Like, "I didn't know you did that. You are grounded now!" You know, so...but I turned out okay, all right? So it's okay. Okay. But you go through that phase.
And I remember finding out about matches and lighters, and we used to just light everything on fire. As a boy, we are like, "Will that burn? Try that." You know. And I can remember once we were in Eagan, and then we had biked to the McDonald's, and afterwards we were just looking for things to light on fire. And, yeah, it's true. And we lit these things on fire, and the fire started to get a little out of control and we didn't know what to do. And there was no water around, and we are thinking like what do we have, and we'd just bought spray paint, which is a whole other story. And so we are like, "Spray spray paint on there." Do not do that! Don't do that! Because all of a sudden the fires were whoosh, and it spread everywhere. And for about the next 15 minutes we were stomping fire, and I threw those shoes away and told my mom and dad I lost those shoes. Okay, that's true.
We lit Christmas trees on fire. Again, don't do that. They burn fast. Our neighbor's house was all burned up the side from that. Yeah.
And then I won't tell you how we did this, but as a kid we used to light our clothes on fire at night and run down the streets when cars were coming so we'd freak them out, and then run and pat it out.
There is hope for your children! There is hope for your children. Pray for your kids. If you have a child right now, lay your hands on them right now. Pray for them. It's fire. It's fire. I'm glad it was a phase for me, though. You know, I'm glad it was a phase and I got out of it.
Now, in the Bible there is a lot of amazing things. We talk about these stories, but God answers by fire, he brings divine judgment by fire, his holiness is symbolized by fire. As a matter of fact, when Isaiah says, "I'm filthy, I'm undone," God takes a coal from the alter and cleanses his lip. It is like a cleansing that is going on. Fire is seen as a purifier. Fire is seen as a refiner of us and changes us into his image. And in Malachi, chapter 3, it is a chapter we are very familiar with with tithing, but we should be familiar with it about being purified. Malachi, 3:2-3, it says, But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? It is talking about God. For he will be like a refiner's fire or a launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.
It's that thought of God just refining us and forming us into his image, and it's something going on with fire. It is a symbol of divine protection. Because when God led his people, the Israelites, out of Egypt, he was a cloud by day to cover them from the sun, and he was a pillar of fire at night to give them heat and be a night light and to protect them. There is something going on there. It is also a symbol of power.
And as we look at all those stories, we are going to see that it is beautiful, that fire in many ways represents just an aspect or a way for us to have a modern day illustration that we can see to understand more about God. And I love that fire, I love that fire is one of those things that kind of explains or helps us to understand who God is. Because how many know you can't contain like fire in your hand? It's there. You can hold what holds the fire, but you can't hold it in your hand. How many know that fire moves around and it changes shape? There is just like a mystical quantity. I know at a bonfire you can just stare at it and it can just kind of take you in. And I'm just telling you there is something about God that he has this mystical part that you just can't figure him out, and he's beautiful and powerful, and there is awe and there is respect, but there is intrigue. And so as we look at fire, I believe we are going to learn a lot about God and lot about ourselves.
So today Moses and the burning bush. I know that many of you have been in church a long time. I understand that. But we have water baptisms here, and you see people are just recently followers of Jesus, and I'm never going to assume that people that are recent followers of Jesus or new to our church know all the story. And there are things that have been driven home to me on this. Years ago DreamWorks did a movie called Prince of Egypt. It was about the life of Moses. So we brought the kids to the movie. And, you know, we are walking out, we're saying, "Pretty good movie, pretty close and pretty good." How many know Christians kind of evaluate it by how close it is, your know. And we're like, "Yeah, pretty good." We are talking. Well, this couple is in front of us walking out of the movie. This is what they said. The one looks at the other one and said, "I heard that's based on a true story." And I was like, "Do you not know, like, that's in the Bible? That's Moses. That really happened. That is based on a true story." And so I will never assume that people in our church know all the story, and so I try to fill it in and bring you up to speed. So the best I can I'm going to bring you up to speed. That's why we are going to look at Acts 7 before we go to Exodus 3.
To fill you in, in Acts 7, Stephen is a deacon, he's a young leader in the church that has been formed by Jesus. And Stephen is going to be persecuted and ultimately he's going to give his life for Jesus Christ. The mob hates that he's following Jesus. So Stephen starts to preach, and he gives basically the history of God's involvement with mankind. And he said God chose Abraham and from Abraham God said he'd bring a promise that would be Jesus. And he said in between Abraham and Jesus here's the story, and he goes in and fills in all the blanks, and he tells the people, and he tells the part of the story that we are going to look at today about the life of Moses. And he says God's people were in Egypt and they were slaves, but God had a plan, and he brings forth Moses.
So we pick it up in Acts 7:17, "As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. Then 'a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.' He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
"At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh's daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.
"When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his own people, the Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?'
"But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?' When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.
"After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. When he saw this, he was amazed at the sight. As he went over to get a closer look, he heard the Lord say: 'I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.' Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look.
"Then the Lord said to him, 'Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their groaning and have come down to set them free. Now come, I will send you back to Egypt.'
So that brings us into the story. And now we'll turn to Exodus 3. If you don't have your Bible, it will be on the screen. It is here for you. Some of this will be a repeat, but, again, now you know how we got here and you're going to hear a little more about the story.
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight--why the bush does not burn up."
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
The Lord said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey--the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites."
And just so you know, anything that is a -site is not usually good in the Bible, all right? Hittites, Jebusites, Perizzites. Not good, none of them, all right?
"And now the cry the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
All right, so according to the Bible in I Corinthians 10:11, all these things are written for our example. There is something in this story for us to grow, to know more about God and know about the story, and to be able to take our walk with God to another level. So we are going to dig into this.
And the first thing that I want to tell you that I observed from this story is Moses thought he was out of the story. Moses thought he was out of the story. What do I mean by that? He was raised in Egypt with the understanding that God had put him in a little basket. His mom had put him in a basket and floated him down the Nile. Pharaoh's daughter had rescued him. And he's got to be thinking, "God, you put me in the story. You saved me at a time when other kids were being killed. When the Egyptians were killing the Israelite males, you saved me. I must have been saved for a purpose. I must be part of the story. I've been educated in the best. I know trigonometry and geometry, I know science, music, art, I know military." And he's thinking, "I'm in the story." And imagine, he's probably hearing this as he's growing up, and all of a sudden he's realizing, "I think I'm part of this." He gets angry, he kills the Egyptian. He flees for his life, and now he's out in the desert. He's got to be thinking that he's out of the story, that God is done with him, because year after year after year goes by. Nothing. Nothing. Forty years are going by, and he thinks he's out of the story.
As a matter of fact, he's gone from the highest of the high to the lowest of the low, because in Egyptian culture a shepherd was as low as you could go. So he's thinking, "I was in the palace. I had it all and I thought God was going to use me. And this is great, now I have the worst possible job; I am watching sheep." And I'm sure his imagination was running wild thinking like, "I bet you they are making fun of me back in Egypt. I bet parents are disciplining their kids like, 'Don't pull a Moses on me.'" You know. That's the way our minds think. He's probably just thinking, "It is over. I'm nothing but a shepherd."
As a matter of fact, he names his first son Gersha, and that name means driven or thrust out. So you can imagine when he's so depressed, he's so down in his life, he's thanking God that he's alive, but he's depressed to the point he names his kid driven, thrust out.
Can you imagine him meeting another person, you know, like, "Hey, how're you doing?" You know, they are gathering water at the well. And then, "This is my son Driven and Thrust Out."
And the people are like, "Really?"
"Yeah, yeah. You know, I used to be with Egypt. I was like a prince. Now I'm a shepherd. So I named my kid Gersha."
How many know when you're depressed and you think God doesn't know where you live and you think he is not going to use you anymore, you're like, "This is my kid Depression and Dark Days." I mean, that's how it feels, right? It just feels like that. And he had to have been feeling that, that I'm over, I'm done, there's no way. And there is no record of God speaking to Moses before this. There is no record. He knew the story. There is no record, as a matter of fact, of God breaking in and speaking to people in the Bible where this story takes place for four hundred years. So you talk about dark, left out, no hope, wondering where God is. That's what has to be going on in his mind.
And I'm telling you this, if you can identify with this, "I don't feel like God knows where I'm at, I feel like I'm out of the story. I thought he was using me, now he is not. I'm on the bench. I don't know if he even knows where I'm at." He knows where you're at. He knows where you're at. He has his eye on you. He will take care of you. If he can find Moses in the desert, he can find you wherever you're at. You've got to believe that.
You say, "Well, I'm just living a ho-hum, boring, faithful life." That's okay. Be faithful. Keep your attitude positive. Be ready for the moment that God has the one day thing that changes everything. Because he knows where you live. And it's important to never forget that.
I'm going to be very vulnerable to you, just share a story, an illustration to help you understand it in my own life. Had an opportunity to go to Hillsong Conference in Australia, and I was going to do a breakout session for church planting. So I was kind of excited about that. I was a guest. I was there with all the other speakers. And you may not know it, but they have a section of speakers there. There is, you know, a couple hundred people there in this special speaker section because it is a big conference. And I was kind of hoping that I, you know, little pride, I was kind of like, "Man, maybe I'll be up there, you know, by Louie Giglio, Judah Smith, Steven Furtick and all these people in the front."
And they show me my seat, and they are like, "You're back here."
I'm in the last row. I'm like, "Wow, last row, guest of honor, all right, God, thank you, good, all right." And like who's sitting next to me? It was all missionaries. I'm like, "I'm in the missionary section, all right. Praise God. All right."
As I'm sitting there God's like, "Oh, is that going to be your attitude today?" And I'm like, "No! It was going to be my attitude, but I am changing."
And he's like, "It is not about you. Are you here for me? Or are you here for
you?"
I'm like, "I'm here for you."
So I'm sitting there enjoying the conference, I'm like, "God, I'm on the back row. I'm getting to know the missionaries. They are awesome people. I'm going broke supporting them though." And, you know, so this is going on.
And my attitude, I'm just going to tell you, my attitude changed. God had a moment of smack down the pride, and I'm just enjoying the conference. And out of the random, they come up to me, they say, "Hey, Pastor Brian Houston" -- he leads the whole conference -- they said, "He's looking for somebody to interview in the next session, and we thought of you. Just God put you on our heart, and we want to interview you and talk to you. It is going to be on this topic about pastoral relationships. It is going to be Q and A. Are you able to do that?"
I'm like, "Absolutely."
They are like, "All the pastors will be there." I'm like, "Perfect, that's great."
And God goes, "I know what row you're on. I know what row you're on." And so I'm like, "Wow, God, that is so cool."
I'm in this interview. I get in there, and Brian says to me, "You know what God told me? You're supposed to teach. I'm not supposed to do Q and A with you. You're supposed to teach, so go ahead, teach."
And I'm like, "Okay, great." And I had a little bit of notes. I taught and did it. And afterward God was like, "Never, never doubt that I know what row you are on, what city you live in, what state you're in, what country, what continent, what desert. Never doubt. I know where you are. You stay close to me. You keep your attitude right. You stay faithful and I will figure out where to move you."
That's what we have to do. That's what we all have to do. Every one of us.
He told Moses, "You're in the story, you're in the story. You thought you had forty years of nothing. You're in the story." It must have taken forty years to get Moses to a spot where he could finally use him. And he says, "You're in the story." And the interesting thing is he quotes, he says, "I am the God of your father, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob."
And Moses hides his face because he's like, "I'm in the story. Those are the heroes. I'm in the story, God. I can't believe you have put me in the story." It's an amazing thing. You don't have to be perfect to be in the story. We'll get to that in just a second.
The other thing I see from this is God initiates the action. God initiates the action. Moses is just being faithful, and God shows up with the burning bush. And I'm going to tell you this, sometimes we try to force it. Sometimes you try to make it happen. And God is like, "Don't worry. I will initiate it on my time."
And there is something critical that happened. The Pharaoh had died and the people thought, "Hey, there has been a regime change. Maybe there is a chance that God will hear our cry and he'll rescue us." So they start crying out. And it says they cried, God heard them, he remembered his covenant. He looks on them, and he says, "Those are my kids. I'm going to do something." And he says, "I'm breaking in. I'm doing it. I'm initiating it. Who's ready to be used by me?" And God initiates it, and we serve a God that initiates and sends.
And there have been so many things, I will tell you this honestly, people sometimes will say to me like, what's the secret of that in the church, and the secret of that, and the secret of that? And they think that we are brilliant. And I just say, "God breaks in and we say yes. God breaks in and we say yes."
When we bought the building in Apple Valley, we weren't even trying to buy
the building in Apple Valley. The landlord came to us. I believe God initiated it. And people are like, "What a great move!"
And I'm, like, "Yeah, great move! We didn't even know." I mean, it just happens like that. I'm telling you we went multisite because God initiated it. It wasn't part of our long-term strategy. God initiates. We serve a God that he initiates. So don't worry about it; he'll do it.
Another thing is, when he initiates, he allows us to participate, because Moses participated in the story. Now, this is just an honor for all of us. God doesn't need to use us. He chooses to use us. If God could start a bush on fire in the desert and it wasn't burned up, don't you think like he could have lit one of Pharaoh's shrubs on fire? And then Pharaoh is there and God is like, "Let him go or I'll burn your country down." He could have done that. He could have done anything he wanted. Okay, he was so powerful that he brought the plagues and he wanted everyone to know who was God. But he could have done anything he wanted.
Now grab this: He invited Moses into the process. And the thing that amazes me about this is Moses wasn't perfect. We are not perfect. He's holy and amazing and yet he uses us. That's where he says, "Take off your shoes; you're on holy ground."
Here is what I want us to do here and at all of our campuses. This is true. I really want you to do this. I want you to kick off your shoes, your sandals, whatever. I'm going to do the same. I want us to do this to acknowledge he is holy, he is amazing and we're not. And it is incredible that he uses us for his glory and in his ministry. So I'm kicking mine off here as well.
Do you know in the culture in that day, in the culture in the day when God tells
Moses to kick off his shoes, to take off his sandals, do you know what that was? That was a confession of unworthiness. It was a confession of him saying, "I'm unworthy, I'm unworthy." And we all with our shoes off right now need to just realize we're unworthy. I can tell you this, you are unworthy.
There is nothing that you could do to ever make God say, "Finally good enough to use."
It is grace. It is grace. And God uses imperfect people. We need to be very gracious and forgiving and understanding and loving, because God chooses to use a bunch of people that are unworthy to advance his cause. Your Lifegroup work leader may be not be perfect, but they are willing to say, "God, I'm taking off my shoes. I'm willing to be used. I'm unworthy, but if you say lead, I'll lead." People are just not perfect, but they are used by God, and it's an incredible thing. And God comes down to us, but in taking off our shoes we are saying, "God, we want to come up to you. We want to be holy. We want to be like you."
Interesting thing, how many know when your shoes are on, you walk without even thinking about it. Got your shoes on, you walk, you don't even think about it. Doesn't matter if there are rocks, whatever, things in the ground. You don't think about it because you have your shoes on. It is kind of a careless walk, if you will. But how many know when your shoes are off you are like, "Ah, ah, ah, don't step there, don't step there." Some of us ought to live that way.
"God, I don't want to step there. I'm taking my shoes off. You're holy. I don't want to step in that anymore. I don't want to do that. I don't want to live careless. I want to live used by you. You're holy. And thank you for using this unholy vessel. But I pledge to be more like you, to be more holy, and I will walk more carefully as you called me to do this."
Man, it's amazing he used Moses. He was a killer with an anger problem.
Think about that. He was a killer with an anger problem, and he used Moses. It's an amazing thing. And we don't have time to develop this, but think about how amazing God is. We are unholy. Every one of us is unholy and unworthy, and God says, "I'm going to come and live inside you. He's a holy God living inside of us by the power of the Holy Spirit only because of what Jesus did. That's what makes it possible. He says, "What I'm going to do is from the inside I'm going to change you."
And I get this picture of almost like our blood cells fighting against other bad things, and the Holy Spirit inside of us fighting against the flesh and things that are bad. And he loves us so much that, as unholy as we are, he places himself within us to give us the power to do everything he asks us to do. God is amazing. God is amazing, and he uses us. So please don't think, "I'm not good enough." You're right, you're not good enough. But God can use you, and he uses unholy people to do amazing things.
Another thing is God assigns the job and providers the power. He assigns the job and provides the power. It scares Moses to death. And here is how, many times, you can know if what God is calling you to is God: It scares you. It scares you. You almost want to excuse your way out of it. You're like, "I don't want to do it."
Because Moses -- and we didn't read it, but it's in the next chapter -- in that chapter in the next one he says, "I'm not qualified." He said, "Who am I? Who am I? I'm just Moses."
And God is like, "I'm with you."
And then Moses is like, "Okay, I'm not authorized. What if they say, like, you know, 'Who sent you? What's your degree? Or whose power are you coming in?' What's the name of who will I say?"
And God says, "You tell them that I Am That I Am sent you." And what does that mean? It means, "You tell them the complete, total, perfect, pure, not limited in any way, unlimited power, God sent you."
And Moses is like, "Okay, but what -- I'm not very believable." How many know he keeps giving excuses? "I'm not believable. I mean, I don't know how I'm going to convince them."
And God is like, "Take the staff in your hand, throw it down." It turns into a snake. He says, "Pick it up by the tail," which is not what you do. And so he picks it up by the tail and it turns back into a staff. He said "Take your hand, put it inside your shirt." Takes it out, it's leprosy. Put it back in, it's clean.
God's like, "Okay, do you believe me?"
And he's like, "Okay, God, but you don't understand. I don't speak well."
And in chapter 4, verse 11, God said, "Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say."
And then one of the dumbest scriptures in the whole Bible, but Moses said, "Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else."
After all that! I'm thinking, he's speaking to a burning bush, staff, snake, leprosy, no leprosy. "Send somebody else. I don't know if I can do this."
And showing you the patience of God, it says God was angry, but he still used him. And he said, "All right, I'm going to use your brother, and it's going to be a tag team thing. You and Aaron are going to do this."
I'm going to tell you this: If God assigns you to do the job, he is going to give you the power. He's going to give you the power to do it. You're thinking in your own strength. You're thinking in your own power. And I bet if we could ask Moses, "Why did you say that?" he'd say, "Fear is a terrible thing. Fear is a terrible thing. I had lived in fear and fear had gripped me, and I just didn't know how powerful God was. Fear was so much stronger in my mind. And if I could go back and say it over, I'd do it over."
And I'm telling you what, it is not by might. Zechariah 4:6, says this, 'Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty.' And if he's going to give you the job, he is going to give you the power to get it done.
The last thing, all of this is bigger than Moses. All this was bigger than Moses. Sure, Moses got back into the action, but it wasn't about Moses saving face or being able to go back into the action. It was about God delivering his people who was a bigger story. It was a bigger story. And when God calls you to do something, it's a bigger story than you. It's a bigger story than you. You're like, "Man, I feel the tug to lead a Lifegroup." It's a bigger story than you. Overcome your fear and say yes. When God tells you to go on a Global Team, it's a bigger story than you. Overcome that fear and say yes. When God tells you to give, overcome the fear and realize it's a bigger story than you. God has so much more going on, and you get to be part of it, but don't miss it.
In verse 8, he says, So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
And I'm just praying that God will interrupt our faithful, God will interrupt our normal, and he'll say, "Hey, I've got something bigger than you that is going to advance my kingdom. I want to use you. I know you're not perfect, but I'm going to use you. I know you have excuses. I don't want to hear them. I'm going to use you. I'm going to do this for my glory and for my honor. It is bigger than you. Let me use you."
So, Lord, I just pray right now that you'd help us to all understand that. We all can get different parts of this story. I'm sure there is some that feel like you've forgotten about them. I just even feel right now there are people that maybe were in ministry or parachurch ministry, they were leaders, and they feel like, "I'm just forgotten. I'm just forgotten. Why do you have me here, Lord?" You haven't forgotten them. You haven't forgotten them. You know where they live, you know where they're going, you know the plans that you have for them.
I know there's lots of people, Lord, you're tugging on their heart, and you're saying, "This is what you need to do next." And we just love to give excuses. We love to say fear is bigger. But, God, I pray we wouldn't say fear is bigger. We'd say, "God, if you're calling me, I'm jumping into the story."
And I thank you, God, that when you call us, it is for people that aren't even here yet. It's for people that aren't even here yet. Sometimes we say, "Lord, they don't even need more help." But that's because we're looking at the now and not what's coming. So, God, I pray we realize it is bigger than our now, it is bigger than just us. It is for your glory and your honor.
So wherever we are at in the story, Lord, we thank you that you appeared to Moses in that burning bush, and from this we know more about you, more about ourself, more about how we can be used by you. And we say, "Here we are, God. Send us, use us, use us for your glory and for your honor."
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen, amen.
