HOLY GROUND
Ex 3.1-10
A few weeks ago, in Griffith, a man found a little baby in a garbage dumpster. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It has occurred many times in Chicago and other places. Among all the feelings which flood our minds and hearts when we hear of such things, the thing which I most often think about is the future of the child. The child whose life was worth nothing to its parents, that they would try to get rid of it. Or what would the child think of himself or herself. Would it one day be told that it was found in a garbage can? What kind of self image would that give you? What kind of life would you have?
But it would make all the difference to an abandoned child, who found her and raised her.
You may know the story of Moses in the book of Exodus. His story fills up most of the book, it tells of the greatness that Moses achieved in his lifetime in spite of being abandoned as a baby. Of the great man of God he turned out to be--how he led the Israelites out of slavery in egypt to the Promised land.
But I want to look at the foundational beginning which caused Moses to be the great, godly leader he was. IN exodus 3 we find all the events of Moses’ life coming together in perfect harmony as God calls HIm to do great things.
Let’s read together the first few verses of Exodus 3 and see how an attitude of reverence and humility and honesty in worship opens the door for God to use us for His glory and our blessings.
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We picked up the story when Moses was around 80 years old. But remember how his life started? You’ve heard of rags to riches stories? Well, Moses’ is kind of a rags to riches to rags to riches story which begins in chapter 2. The Israelites, Hebrews were slaves in Egypt, working like dogs. ONe of the commandments given to the Jews by God was be fruitful and multiply. Well, the Jews were multiplying just a little too fast for the Pharaoh’s comfort. He decided that all the new born babies must be killed so that there wouldn’t be so many Jews to outnumber the Egyptians.
Eventually. Pharoah ordered all the newborn Jewish boys to be thrown to the the alligators and piranhas in the Nile river. Well, little Moses is born and his mother, could not do that so she hid him for a couple months and after she could do so no longer, she put him in basket and set him in the Nile river to be found by the Pharoah’s daughter who felt sorry for him and took him in. So Moses, the little jewish boy supposed to be killed came to be the grandson of the Pharoah.
Moses was given the best education and the most lavish life you could imagine, he lived in the palace while his fellow jews where slaving away in the brick yards. Some say he was being groomed to be the next Pharoah--the king of Egypt. From rags to riches. But then back to rags.
ONe day Moses went to see how the rest of his fellow jews were being treated. He didn’t like what he saw. He decided not to wait for God to free the Jews, he decided to take matters into his own hand and he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Jew.
Well Grandpa Pharaoh heard about this and tried to kill Moses, so he escaped to Midian where he eventually married a Jewish named Zipporah and had a family and a job. Life became stable and predictable and comfortable for Moses in MIdian desert.
Meanwhile back in Egypt, things hadn’t gotten any better for the Jewish slaves. Finally, the end of chapter 2 tells us, God had enough, he had heard their groans and cries and decided to do something. "so God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them."
And just then everything in Moses’ life came into focus. His abandonment, his rise to prominence in Egypt. It would take someone who knew Egypt, to get the Jews out of Egypt. Moses about screwed it up, trying to kill all the Egyptians one by one, but God was still in control.
So after Moses was about 80, been in Midian for about 40 years. Working for his father-in-law Jethro tending his flocks, probably looking forward to retirement, taking it easy, probably had a sign on his staff "rather be fishing".
One day, a day just like any other day. He was tending sheep going about his business. He took them to the far side of the desert to a mountain, Mt. Horeb--which meant ’wasteland’. At that place, a place just like any other until now, Moses met the Lord.
Until now he was another shepherd nearing the end of his life. Going about his daily routine and business just as he had for the past 40 some years.
Then he saw something kind of strange, but not so much so that he bothered much about it--it was a burning bush. So he sat and watched it for a bit. Nothing else to do. The sheep were all grazing. So he sits down for probably the most excitement he’d had in a long while--watching a bush burn itself down.
The only thing though was that it didn’t burn up. The fire was there, in the bush, but it didn’t consume the bush. "Well this is strange," he thinks to himself "I’m going to go take a closer look at this thing."
So he gets up and takes a couple of steps toward the ordinary bush lying in the ordinary dirt at the ordinary mountain during an ordinary day when God, an angel of God, but God’s presence calls his name from this bush "Moses, Moses!"
Now up to this point, we assume that God has not directly spoken to and appeared before Moses. You would think that Moses would come up with something more clever to say.
"what" he says as he begins to walk closer "here I am."
"Quiting walking over here so fast, take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground," said God "I am the god of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac,and jacob."
Moses finally realized what was going on, and appropriately so he hid his face, afraid to look at God. "now is the time, I have seen the misery of my people, I have heard there groans, I have seen their oppression. The time is now. and you are the one. So go, I am sending you back to egypt to tell Pharoah to let the people go."
Just like that God appears and breaks the boredom of Moses’ life, tells him to go to Pharaoh demanding him to release all the Jewish slaves. Eventually Moses does go, but only after arguing a bit with the Lord. But just look at how God called Moses and how Moses responded that day on the mountain.
It was a great moment of worship when Moses realized he was in the presence of God. And the thing which made it great was Moses’ humility, reverence, and honesty before God.
But don’t you wonder how long God had been trying to get Moses’ attention, trying to get his curiosity, trying to get him to break his dull routine. There’s a sign along a primitive Alaskan Highway which reads "Be careful which rut you choose because you’ll be in it for a hundred miles." We get like that, get used to things, get in a habit. Maybe God had been trying to get Moses’ attention for years in that Midian desert.
I wonder how long He tries to get ours sometime. God makes the first move, He gets our attention, but we have to respond. Finally, Moses’ curiosity led him to God.
There are many things today which act as burning bushes--things which draw people to God, things out of which God speaks to people and gets our attention. Sometimes it’s good fortune which makes people look for God, many times it’s child birth that awakens people to the Creator. Studies show that one of the times people are most open to becoming Christians and attending church is when they have kids.
But more times than not, God has to use tragedy to get our attention. God doesn’t usually send the tragedy, but he uses it to get our attention. God wanted Moses--but Moses was un responsive. But after Moses had been chased out of Egypt and had lived in the desert, chasing sheep around was he open to God. Goes from an Egyptian hot shot to a nothing shepherd and at 80 years old finds himself at a mountain called "wasteland" In the desert, God had him right where he wanted him--totally broken, humbled, and open.
It takes deserts in our lives sometimes to awaken us to our need for God, doesn’t it? Not that there was anything special about that bush it and of itself, but wanted to use it. And if God wants to get your attention, if he wants you to wake up to reality, if he wants you to quit whatever destructive or apathetic path you’re on, any old bush will do.
So Moses goes to the bush. Probably the hardest step we take toward God--the first one. But there’s a problem. You see Moses thinks he can go to God in his way, on his terms. "Moses" "here I am" "STop coming closer". God has to remind Moses to take his sandals off, a very common, usual thing to do in holy places.
ANd this is so important because Moses forgets that God is holy. He forgets that there is a difference between God and himself. That in the Lord’s presence the ground is holy. NOt holy in and of itself, but only because God is there. And in the presence of the holy, we stand completely open and vulnerable before God.
"Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." "I am the Lord" And Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. God was there, there was something to look at. It wasn’t just some disembodied voice like the one speaking to John Denver in the awful movie "Dear God".
But God as verse 8 says "came down" to earth and His glory was right there before Moses.
The entire key to Moses’ greatness lies in the fact that he took his sandals off and that he initially hid his face from God. These are marks of reverence, humility, and honesty--the three things God most requires of us in our lives with HIm.
For you see Moses and we have to deal with a great tension. That God came down to us, to our level in Christ Jesus to make Himself known to us. That he became human to redeem humanity.
On the other hand, that God is Holy and is totally other. That He stands as our judge and we need to have an attitude of awe and wonder toward him. The great tragedy of our time is that we run the risk of losing our reverence toward God in how we live our lives.
WE think of HIs as the big guy upstairs, the great granddady who’ll not hold us responsible for our actions. God is not someone to be chummy with. And in our effort to make him less offensive to non christians we have domesticated him.
With the result that people think his only business is to do things for us--that he guarantees success and happiness and prosperity regardless of how we live our lives.
And like Moses at first, people think they can come to God and deal with God on their own terms. And when we finally respond to HIm, we go charging at Hims, but he says stop. Remove your shoes for I am holy God and there are a few things you need to understand--you are on Holy Ground because you are in my presence.
Holy Ground for me is at Indiana University under a tree in the lawn of the university president. Because it is there that I finally noticed the burning bush God was using to get my attention. He called to me--I said "Here I am". I had said that before, but this time it was different. THis time, I came to God on HIs terms. I was humbled and honest and open. IN a sense, I took off my shoes, I revealed myself, I laid my heart and my life bare before Him who already knew it all.
It’s the same for all of us. He calls to all of us "take off your shoes, you are in my presence and it is holy." No more games, lay your life bare before me, confess all the sin you’ve been walking through. Fess up to all the dirt on your shoes--the sin and ungodly way you’ve been living or thinking. I already know it says God, but I want you to tell me. I can’t have any dirty shoes, or dirty lives in my presence.
We all know how dirty shoes can get. They pick up everything we walk through. And everywhere we have been and everthing we have done can be found on the bottom of our shoes. It sticks. It’s like stepping on gum on a hot summer day. you can’t get it off, little strings of it just keep following you. Everybody who sees you knows that you stepped in gum.
God knows every sin we’ve ever walked through, and He tells us that if we want to come to HIm, we’ve got to admit it to Him and confess it. Take off your sandals, I don’t care what’s on the bottom of them, just be honest and do it, for I am God."
It’s all about humility and reverence. God knows if we’re just playing games with Him. AT PromiseKeepers a couple summers ago, it was a holy moment in the Hoosier Dome. The speaker was talking about this passage, and concluded his message by asking us all to remove our shoes in worship. ANd that place which had been used for a hundred other things was Holy ground because God was there. and 64,000 men worshipped God by removing their pride and laying their hearts bare before God.
That’s all He wants from us. Some of us are so proud at times that if God told us to remove our sandals, we’d ask HIm why? "BEcause" God wanted to use MOses in a great way, but first Moses had to be broken and humble before the LOrd.
Well some of you may say, "I’ve got stuff, sin, on the bottom of my shoes that will never come off, God will never take me." Well, Moses killed a guy, that’s about the worst thing you could do.
I went golfing a couple months ago. This golf course was a bear. The hardest I had ever played on. I did pretty good though, I only lost about a dozen balls. One shot I hit it into this patch of weeds. I didn’t know if I could get it out so I asked my dad who was a little more familiar with the course what was in the weeds. He advised me that it was dry in there and that I could go in and get my ball.
He was wrong. I stepped nearly ankle deep in mud with both feet. Now I had stepped in a lot of stuff with those shoes, but nothing to compare with that. I though they were ruined. Not only that, but they tracked dirt and mud into our new car, into our house. My dad felt so bad, he bought me a new pair.
Well, when I got home, I took the shoe off, and washed it with a little water. I took a knife and got into the crevices of the sole and pried out the dried, caked dirt. ANd the shoe came clean. I didn’t tell my dad though, I kept the new pair he bought me.
Well there was a man named Jesus Christ, who was God’s son and He claimed to be living water, who cleanses us from every sin. He knows every little crevice in our lives, everywhere sin hides itself. ONly through belief and submission to Christ, can our sins be washed away.
Hebrews 10. 11 says "Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifice, which can never take away ous sins. But when Jesus CHrist had offreed for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to made his footstools, because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."
Like Moses, god requires that we approach him in worship, and prayer and Bible reading with humility and reverence. We come to Him on His terms, we lay our lives bare before Him
Now Gos’s terms are that we would confess our belief in Christ and be baptized for the forgivenss of sins.
