No more excuses
Exodus chapter 4
Good morning everyone, glad to see you this morning.
If you would turn to Exodus chapter 4, we will continue looking at the life of Moses and the call that God put on his life. I have titled the message excuses, excuses… how many excuses have you given the Lord as He was wanting to move you into a new area of your life or a new responsibility?
How many times have you told the Lord to wait?
Remember from last week- Moses is called to lead the nation of Israel out of bondage and away from the Egyptians and Moses is the man that God wanted to use.
Exodus 4:1-13 Read slowly from Bible
Just like most of us, as soon as the Lord asked Moses, He said sure Lord anything you want me to do I will do immediately and without hesitation!
excuses, excuses-
After Moses has the burning bush experience and saw God first hand speak into his life, he again is approaching God with what if they do not believe me or say that the Lord did not appear to you. He adds to the old list…
All of a sudden excuses come flying out of the mouth of Moses
Who I am to do that?
What will I tell them?
What if they do not listen to me?
How will I do it?
Illustration-
In his book, Something Else to Smile About, Zig Ziglar writes about his brother, the late Judge Ziglar, who loved to tell the story of a man who went next door to borrow his neighbor’s lawnmower. The neighbor explained that he could not let him use the mower because all the flights had been canceled from New York to Los Angeles. The borrower asked him, “What do canceled flights from New York to Los Angeles have to do with borrowing your lawnmower.”
“It doesn't have anything to do with it,” the neighbor replied, but if I don't want to let you use my lawnmower, one excuse is as good as another” (Zig Ziglar, Something Else to Smile About, Thomas Nelson. 1999
Excuses are a dime a dozen- they have very little value and very little benefit to anyone that wants to get something done- One time I asked my son if he had cleaned up his room and he gave me excuses of why it was not done. He assured me that he would get right on it and that I could check it out in a little while and I would be happy with the results. I watched him play his video game and take a phone call and go outside and visit with a friend. A little while later, he was back in the house and I asked if his room was cleaned. He said yes…so I walked in the room and saw things were on the floor and looked like nothing was done. I went into the kitchen and I grabbed a garbage bag. I began picking up things off the floor and putting it in the bag. He asked what I was doing, I said that since he was done that everything that was on the floor must be garbage and I was getting rid of it for him. He had a fit and said that he would take another look at the room. I said, one more time, you can clean or I can clean it, the choice was his.
Excuses: they’re not real reasons; they’re just ways of avoiding what we really don’t want to do. (Repeat)
Vance Havner once put it: “An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie.” In other words, it looks like a reason on the outside, but at heart it’s really a lie.
That’s why what Benjamin Franklin said is very true: “He that is good at making excuses is seldom good for anything else.”
So stop making excuses! If you want to be all that God has called you to be, stop coming up with so-called “reasons” why you can’t do what God has asked you to do.
Stop telling Him, “It’s too hard” or “What if…” or “I’m not qualified.” If you want to be used of God to advance His eternal purposes on this planet, then stop trying to justify your inactivity. (Phillip Green Sermon Central)
An observation before the first point is- Don’t make excuses!
Last week- we are 100 % unqualified to do what God has called each of us to do- we need Him to help us. We need to be obedient and respond as needed.
What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, the Lord did not appear to you?
(v2) “What is in your hand?”
What is in your hand
What do you have that the Lord can use? What do you have that is in your hand to help you do what God has called you to do?
Excuses don’t help, they hinder.
The Lord does not call you to something without giving you the tools and the means to be able to do what He called you to do.
What kind of life would you have if the Lord gave you everything you needed exactly when you needed it?
Would you take it for granted? Would you expect it everytime you had a need?
The lesson from the text even before God took them out of Egypt was to trust God with what He puts in our hands.
They couldn’t believe God to come through for them.
Hebrews 3:9 they were delivered from Egypt and they were wandering in the wilderness for 40 years because they still have not learned the lesson the Lord had for them.
“When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.”
The word tempted here is the Greek word “peirazo”- (pair-raz-o) to put to the test. It means to test an object to see if its quality is as good as others have claimed, boasted or advertised.
It is easy to say I trust God when all your ducks are in a row and everything is running smooth and sailing right along without a glitch.
But what about when the waters get a little choppy?
The text, they had trouble believing God to do what He said He would do.
Hebrews as they fled from Egypt, they wandered in the dessert because they didn’t believe God.
Without divine intervention, they would not have survived the situation. They never would have made it out of the wilderness.
The situation had to come up that they had to trust God and believe He would do what He said He would do.
The situation allowed the Nation of Israel the opportunity to test God and see that He is good and faithful.
To allow God to demonstrate who He is and how faithful He is to His people.
HE IS EVRYTHING THAT HE SAYS HE IS!
HE IS EVRYTHING HE DECLARED HIMSELF TO BE!
You can apply the same principal to your life-
What is in your hand? A staff says Moses- (V3-4) “throw it on the ground. Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, reach out your hand and take it by the tail. So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand.”
What is in your hand Moses?
His shepherds hook, in his hands was what he used to lead the sheep. When he threw it on the ground the Lord took it from his staff to the Lord’s staff and it became a snake. It scared Moses and He ran from it.
The Shepherds hook which was a familiar tool to lead sheep was now a tool unfamiliar to him.
It was now at the command of the Lord he threw down the staff and it became a snake which is a powerful example of Egyptian power and he threw it down and was scared.
The Lord told him to grab it by the tail and pick it up. When he put his trust in the Lord and did what the Lord told him, the snake again went back to the staff.
What do we learn from this?
What is in your hand that is yours is limited to what is familiar and what is of your own strength and resources, but when we allow God into the situation and God into the problem, we find that our limits are taken away and we find that what we thought was impossible now becomes possible.
What we see is that the staff that Moses was carrying becomes a new staff given by God.
The power is not in the staff but in the one who gave you the staff.
Yahweh transformed the shepherding tool into an instrument of divine power.
The sign of the snake turning back into the staff has dual purpose.
Moses did not believe in himself or in the assurance of Yahweh his God.
He attempts to hide it in the fact that he wanted to blame the nation of Israel for the doubts that he himself had in trusting God.
The signs God gave was a sign to Moses and the Nation of Israel.
The sign of the Rod/snake is significant. The rod represents kingly power and authority. The snake represented the evil king’s symbol of death, his sovereignty over the enemies of the land.
Moses picking that snake back up was showing Yahweh the God of all supremacy and all power, all authority.
You see, Moses already had everything he needed to do what God called him to do. He didn’t need newer and better equipment. He didn’t need more money or more of this or that. He just needed the Lord who would use what Moses already had to overcome the forces of evil.
You see, God takes what we have in our hands and uses it to overcome the obstacles if we learn to trust Him.
God gives Moses two more signs to demonstrate His power: An incurable disease, leprosy, is cured, and the very life of Egypt, the Nile River, is turned into blood. When Moses doubts whether or not anybody will listen to him, God gives him miracles to perform. God gives him signs, which demonstrate God’s power to overcome any opposition, whether it’d be Israel’s unbelief, Egypt’s power, or the forces of Satan himself.
Trust in the power of God
Depend on God’s ability to use whatever He places in your hands. Rely on His strength to accomplish through you what He asks you to do.
Illustration-
Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators, a world-wide missions organization, was in Europe for three days in 1948 during the devastating aftermath of World War II. He was meeting with a group of 25 German fellow believers. He talked to them every evening for three hours, challenging them with the Great Commission and the idea that not only did Germany need to hear the gospel, but that Germans themselves needed to obey the Great Commission by sending out missionaries.
Every once in a while a hand would go up. One of them said, “But Mr. Trotman, you don't understand. Some of us right in this room don't even own an Old Testament. We only have a New Testament.” But Trotman pointed out, “When Jesus Christ gave these commands, they didn't have even a New Testament.”
Later another spoke up. “But Mr. Trotman, we have few good evangelical books in this country like you have in America.” Trotman asked, “How many books did the disciples have?”
Scattered through their nine hours together were other protests: “In America you have money.” “You have automobiles; we have bicycles.” “In America you can hear the gospel any day.” Every excuse was brought up and each time Trotman replied, “But the 12 apostles didn't have that either, and Jesus sent them out.”
Finally, near the end, one man who was a little older than the rest, with a bitter expression on his face, said, “Mr.Trotman, you in America have never had an occupation force in your land. You don't know what it is to have soldiers of another country roaming your streets. Our souls are not our own.” Trotman responded by reminding him of the Roman soldiers who occupied Palestine at the time Jesus Christ and his disciples lived.
“Then it dawned on me,” Trotman said, “that when Christ sent out his men, they were in a situation so bad that there could never be a worse one: no printing presses, no automobiles, no radios or television, no telephones, no church buildings. He left them with nothing except a job to do. But with it he said, ‘All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore…’”
(Dawson Trotman, “The Need of the Hour,” Discipleship Journal, Jan/Feb 1982
Trust in God’s instructions
Martin Luther King put it this way: “Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.” So if you want to be all that God has called you to be, stop making excuses and take that step of faith. Trust in God’s power. Trust in God’s plan. Trust in God’s provision.
Rely on God’s directions and do exactly what He tells you to do.
That’s what Moses did. God had given him miracles to perform, a mouth to proclaim, a man to prepare, and now a mandate to pursue. And that’s exactly what Moses does.
Close
Shepherd boy David in 1 Samuel 17:49. A young shepherd boy, armed only with a sling and a stone. Yet, with this simple weapon, David defeated the mighty Goliath. The stone that David used was not a precious gem or a rare artifact. It was a common stone, readily available in the wilderness. But in David's hand, and with God's guidance, it became a weapon of victory.
1 Corinthians 1:27-29. The Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, "But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him." God does not look at our qualifications, our abilities, or our resources. He looks at our hearts. He looks at our willingness to be used by Him. He looks at our faithfulness, our obedience, and our love for Him.
A.W. Tozer, "God is looking for people to use, and if you can get usable, He will wear you out. The most dangerous prayer you can pray is this: 'Use me.'" God is not looking for perfect vessels, but willing ones. He is not looking for people who have it all together, but people who are willing to surrender their lives to Him, to be used for His glory.
Amen.
Prayer-
