The Questions of God:
“What Is That In Your Hand?”
Scripture: Exodus 4:1-17
Text: Exodus 4:2
Intro: A week ago today, over a hundred kids and adults from OBF got back from the annual Tennessee Trek camping experience.
Over the course of that week, many of the campers and staff experienced the thrills and spills of Christian community, as one after the other served each other in love and fellowship.
If you listen to the stories of that experience, you’ll hear echoes of the kind of community the early church, as described in the book of Acts, enjoyed- actions and attitudes that can only be fully explained as a work of God’s Spirit.
For example, what would possess two young men like Ben Hogue and Jordan Saas to chase people down in order to win the privilege . . . of washing their dishes?
What would prompt an old dude like Henry Saas to roll out of bed with the sun to take a group of kids “tubing” on the lake at 7 a.m.?
What explains the tireless strumming and singing of John Meaux, Tom Osinkosky, Josh Florio, Tyler Sparks, Aaron Hostetler, Kyle Webb, Nathan Hartley and others, who seemed to be always leading someone or some group in worship?
What makes a man like Grover Brown pray alone, pacing back and forth, for hour upon hour, for the ministry of others?
What would cause Nathan Devore, Andrew Holzworth, Josh Florio, and others to spend hours chopping wood for others until their hands blistered?
What would inspire a normally quiet young woman like Katherine Vincent to step forward and speak up when a “Jesus shout” is called for?
What would prompt young people who’ve never prayed before in front of others or spoken publicly about Jesus to suddenly overcome their reluctance?
What would persuade kids whose parents can’t get ‘em to take the trash out at home to willingly unload supplies, clean port-a-potties, and make somebody else’s lunch?
I believe there is a short answer and a long answer to those questions.
The short answer is: God.
The long answer is this: there is within each of us, a longing to be useful, to be needed, to contribute to the lives of others in a meaningful way, a desire to know that we’ve made a difference to someone, a hunger to be a part of something important,
something worthwhile,
something great.
You’ve felt it, haven’t you?
Maybe you’re even feeling it now.
If you are, then it is my prayer and purpose this morning for God to answer your longings and fill your waiting heart.
For the last several weeks here
at Oxford Bible Fellowship,
we have been examining the questions of God, because, you see,
we know that God knows everything.
So, if God knows everything,
then he never needs to be informed.
And if he never needs to be informed,
then he need not ask any question;
thus, we can be pretty confident that when our all knowing God asks a question,
it is not for his own information
but for ours.
Therefore, whenever God asks a question,
we should give careful attention to why he asks
and to what we answer,
for his question and our answer
will very likely reveal something very important
about him, and about us.
So, three weeks ago, Pastor Dave Smetana
considered God’s question to Adam and Eve,
“Where Are You?”
Two weeks ago, Tolivar Wills treated God’s
question to Abraham and Sarah,
“Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord?”
And last week, Jim Lillibridge discussed the
Lord’s question to Jonah,
“Should I Not be Concerned?”
So, let’s turn to our text for this morning in the second book of the Bible, Exodus chapter 4 . . . Exodus chapter 4 . . . .
where we find God asking another question.
And once you have your Bible open to the fourth chapter of Exodus, let’s pray together.
O God,
who knows all and sees all,
we know and confess that nothing is hidden from you.
You are never surprised,
never caught off guard,
never unaware.
You never need to be informed of anything,
instructed in anything,
or reminded of anything.
I pray, God, that in these moments,
as we look into your Word
and seek to learn from it,
that you will set us on your knee
like little children;
ask what you will
and tell us what you want.
In Jesus name and according to his will,
we ask,
Amen.
Now, before we jump into God’s Word together, let me set the scene for our scripture reading and remind you that as Exodus chapter 4 begins, God has just spoken from a burning bush to Moses, the former prince of Egypt, who as the chapter opens is a lowly shepherd in the desolate desert land of Midian. God has just told Moses that he has been chosen to lead his fellow Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt, and Moses is about as willing as a chicken at a KFC convention.
So with that background in mind, please look at Exodus chapter 4, and follow along in your Bible as I read aloud from the New American Standard version, beginning at the first verse:
Then Moses answered and said, "What if they will not believe me, or listen to what I say? For they may say, ’The LORD has not appeared to you.’"
And the LORD said to him, "What is that in your hand?"
And he said, "A staff."
Then He said, "Throw it on the ground." So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it.
But the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand and grasp [it] by its tail" --so he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand-- "that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you."
Now, that’s as far as I’m going to read right now, though we could go down all the way to the seventeenth verse. And, in fact, if you look down the chapter through verse 14, you’ll see that God actually asks FIVE questions of Moses in that short passage. Do you see them? They are in verses 2, 11, and 14. But we’re going to concentrate on the first question in Exodus 4, and that is the question God first asks when Moses says, in verse one,
"What if they will not believe me, or listen to what I say?”
Look at verse 2, and you’ll see evidence that God is Jewish, because he answers a question with a question. He says,
"What is that in your hand?"
Do you see that? “What is that in your hand?”
Now, as we’ve said before in each sermon of this
series, God never asks a question for his own
information, but for ours.
And thus it is in this passage, when he asks Moses,
"What is that in your hand?"
God is not blind, of course. He could certainly see the answer to his own question. Yet he asks,
"What is that in your hand?"
Why? Why does he put the question to Moses?
Why does he who never needs to be informed,
instructed,
or reminded of anything,
ask Moses,
"What is that in your hand?"
I believe the answer to that is threefold.
• First, I think God asks it because he desired dialogue with Moses, not just monologue, just as he does with us.
• Secondly, I think God asks that question because it’s a great teaching method, one that has been misnamed the Socratic method, because God thought of it long before Socrates. God used that question to teach Moses something; and
• Thirdly, I think God asked it because it makes for a good sermon topic . . . .
Seriously, I have no trouble believing that God asked that question of Moses also for our benefit, as an example (1 Corinthians 10:11) so that we might learn something from it.
So what is it God wants us to learn? Let me suggest three things,
things which were true of Moses, roughly 3500 years ago,
and things which are true of you today:
I There IS Something in Your Hand
Notice how God phrased his question to Moses. He didn’t ask, “Is there something in your hand?”
He asked, “What is that in your hand?”
Implicit in God’s question is the understanding that there was something in Moses’ hand.
God knew it, and
Moses knew it,
and it is that thing which God used in bringing about his will,
his glory,
and the deliverance of his people.
And you know what? I believe God would say to you--young and old--this morning,
“There is something in your hand,”
“You’ve already got what it takes to serve me,”
“You don’t have to wait,
you don’t have to worry,
you don’t have to wonder,
I’ve already given you what you need,
I’m able to use what’s in your hand.”
And I want you to notice something else, too.
When God asked,
"What is that in your hand?"
Moses answered--what? (Pause) “A staff.”
And, though we didn’t read that far,
after God showed him that he could perform miracles with a plain ol’ stick,
he next showed him (in verses 6-8) that he could work wonders with a hand,
and then in verse 9 he assured him
that he had wonder-working power
even over the dirty waters of the Nile,
a river that was revered as a god by the Egyptians.
And I want to parallel God’s three
assurances of his miraculous power
with three things that are already in your hand,
three things about which I believe God is saying to you this morning,
"What is that in your hand?"
I believe he would ask you that question regarding:
A. Your talents
Moses felt incapable, unqualified to answer God’s call. He was, after all, an 80-year-old murderer and fugitive who smelled like sheep!
But God said, “Not so fast!”
As one Bible preacher has said,
God takes the weakest instruments to accompany his mightiest ends. A rod, a ram’s horn, a cake of barley meal, an earthen pitcher, a shepherd’s sling, anything, in short, when used of God, will do his appointed work. Men imagine that splendid ends can only be reached by splendid means, but such is not God’s way. He can use a crawling worm as well as a scorching sun, a gourd as well as a vehement east wind.
There may be a talent in your hand, so to speak, that God is waiting to use for his service:
Can you cook? Play the piano?
Do math? Hammer a nail?
Strike up a conversation? Organize?
Repair? Cut hair?
Clean? Draw?
Rock a baby? Act?
"What is that in your hand?"
What talents, what natural abilities and propensities do you already have which God is longing to use for his appointed work?
I believe God would also ask you that question this morning regarding:
B. Your resources
In addition to the talents that are in your hand, there are resources that God is waiting for you to use in his service.
Like Tom Osinkosky, who gave his resource of time to go down to Goat Island a week early and reserve the island for Tennessee Trek;
Like Todd and Kathy Smith, who had an air conditioner unit sitting unused in their home and gave of that resource to Doris Sharp, who has put it to good use;
Like Dick and Ruth Pettitt who had the resources to offer Greg Bryan a ride to the Indianapolis airport a month or two ago;
Like Ed Yamauchi, who has the resource of a scholarly library which he shares with others according to their interest.
Like my daughter Aubrey, who has shown me what a ministry resource a driver’s license (and her father’s gasoline credit card) can be!
But what about you?
"What is that in your hand?"
What resources are God waiting for you to use in his service?
"What is that in your hand?"
I also believe God would also ask you that question this morning regarding:
C. Your gifts
There are talents God desires for his use, and resources, and thirdly, there are gifts--spiritual gifts--God is waiting for you to use in his service.
The Bible says, in 1 Corinthians 12:7, that “each one” of us has been given a spiritual gift or gifts to use in the service of God. Each one.
You may not be aware of it,
you may not yet know what your gift is,
you may not be using it,
but you have been given a gift--or gifts--“for the common good,” the Bible says (1 Corinthians 12:7), the benefit of the church, of this church, of the people who belong to you [transparency].
He may have given you the gift of prophecy, which means to speak publicly for the strengthening, encouragement and comfort of God’s people;
He may have given you the gift of teaching,
or of leadership,
or of showing mercy,
or of discernment,
or healing,
or one of the other gifts mentioned in Scripture.
But make no mistake, he has given you a spiritual gift, and Ephesians 4:12 says that your gift is for the purpose of
prepar[ing] God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ (Ephesians 4:12, 13).
And I believe God is saying to you,
"What is that in your hand?"
What spiritual gift has he given you for his service, for the building up of his people?
I believe God, who never asks a question for his own information, but for ours, is asking his people today, “What is that in your hand?” What talent,
what resource,
what gift,
is he urging you to use in his service?
But that’s not all there is to learn from God’s Word this morning. I also believe we can glean from that fourth chapter of Exodus, my second point, which is that:
II There is no excuse for not allowing God to use you
It’s significant, I think, that the question of God which we’re considering today followed an excuse.
And I think part of the reason God used a question to communicate to Moses in this instance was to point out to him the vacuity, the emptiness, of his excuse.
Moses said, “Yeah, God, but what if they don’t believe me?”
You can almost hear the whine in his voice, can’t you?
And God’s answer was,
"What is that in your hand?"
Moses was acting like many modern Christians, like many of us, who say,
“I don’t know what I could offer,” or
“Why can’t the pastor do it?” or
“My job’s too demanding,” or
“It’s just not the right time,” or
“I’m too young,” or
“So-and-so would do it better,” or
any one of a number of excuses.
Now, please don’t misunderstand.
I believe firmly that “busyness” and an inability to say no to misplaced priorities is a curse of the western church.
But I also believe firmly that there is no excuse for not allowing God to use you,
your talents,
your resources,
and your gifts
for the benefit and encouragement and growth toward maturity of his people.
There is no excuse.
God gave Moses no “wiggle room,”
he allowed him no way to weasel out.
He simply said,
"What is that in your hand?"
And I believe he is saying the same to you,
no matter what excuses the Enemy of your soul
may be whispering in your ear right now.
But even that is not all I want to glean from our text today. I have one more point to make:
There is something in your hand,
There is no excuse for not allowing God to use you, and, finally,
III There is Pleasure and Power in God’s Service
We don’t get “the rest of the story” in the seventeen verses of today’s Scripture reading, because it took the whole rest of the Pentateuch,
the entirety of the Torah,
to tell “the rest of the story.”
But if Moses had deluded himself into believing that there was nothing in his hand,
or had persuaded himself that a shepherd’s rod was too plain or small to be used of God,
or if God had accepted Moses’ feeble and flimsy excuses,
there would have been no Passover,
no parting of the Red Sea,
no provision in the wilderness,
no pinnacle experience on Mt. Sinai
for Moses.
There may still have been a Promised Land for God’s people, but Moses would have been left behind in Midian!
And the same is true of you.
Christian, God wants to use you.
You already have what it takes.
There is something in your hand.
But if you refuse, you lose.
There will be no Passover,
no parting of the Red Sea,
no provision in the wilderness,
no pinnacle experience
for you.
Because in God’s economy,
the path to pleasure
is not through getting, but through giving;
reward is found
not in being served, but in serving.
If God has given you a talent, some resources, a gift
--and he has--
you won’t know true fulfillment
and victory
and reward
until you let him put it to use
in the service of God and his people.
But when you do,
when you begin to serve wholeheartedly
in response to his gifting and calling,
you will experience the words of the songwriter, who wrote:
O the happiness he gives me
Far outweighs the toil and loss!
Sweetest joy I find in leading
Weary sinners to the cross.
Sore temptations may beset me,
Sorrow on my heart may fall;
But there’s pleasure in his service,
More than all. . . More than all.
When I wore the uniform of a Salvation Army soldier, and then later that of an officer,
I wore two “S’s,” one on each lapel.
People would sometimes ask what those S’s stood for--and anyone who saw me in the lobby of a hotel assumed they stood for “Sheraton,” or “staff,” and would ask me to carry their bags--which I did, because I knew what those two S’s really stood for:
“Saved to Serve.”
Men and women,
that phrase describes God’s call to you this morning.
If you are a follower of Jesus,
you are following him who said of himself,
the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mt 20:28).
We have been saved . . . to serve.
He values your contribution to his kingdom,
to his church,
to this local fellowship of believers.
God is asking you today,
"What is that in your hand?"
Will you ignore that?
Will you answer with excuses?
Or will you surrender,
allow him to use it,
and watch him do miracles with it?
I invite you to do that, as we worship together,
and even to signify your response,
your willingness,
by coming forward and standing or kneeling at the front of this sanctuary to say, “Yes, Lord,”
“I bring what is in my hand;
take it, bless it, break it, use it,
for your glory and the benefit of your people.”
Amen.
