Doing The Work
Exodus 3:1-4:13
by S. M. Henriques
There are few things as frustrating and discouraging as being given a job to do, and not knowing how to do it. The more active you are as a person, and as a Christian, the more demands there will be made on your energies, your time and your abilities. Certain things may be expected of us by certain people. Church, family, work, state and country all have their expectations and demands of us.
God expects certain things of us, as well. Have you ever noticed that every time something is done, that somebody did it? Whether that task be relatively simple or extremely difficult, someone did it! It has been said that there are three kinds of people. First, there are those who make things happen. Then there are those who merely watch things happen. And then there are those who don’t know anything is happening. The Christian who makes things happen is the Christian who has discovered that not only does God expect certain things of his followers, but that God also enables us to do what He expects us to do. When God gives us a task or a responsibility, He also gives us the ability and strength necessary to do that task.
Moses couldn’t understand how a sheepherder could be qualified for the job God was giving to him. So he made excuses! They sound almost identical to the excuses we give today! But God answered every excuse Moses had. From the experience Moses had there at the burning bush, we can see four ways God strengthens us so we might obey him.
I. One way God enables us is by giving us His presence, 3:11-12
When Moses was tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, there on Mount Horeb, he saw a bush which burned and yet was not consumed by the fire. That’s a strange sight anywhere you might see it! So Moses stopped. When he did, the Lord God called his name from the bush, "Moses! Moses! Do not come near. Take your shoes off, for you are standing on holy ground. You’re in the presence of the Most High God!" Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
Then God said to Moses, "I have seen the affliction of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings. I have come down to deliver them, and Moses, I am going to use you to do it. I want you, Moses, to go to Pharaoh and tell him to let my people go."
But Moses immediately had an objection: "Who am I that I should do this?" You know, most of our objections and excuses to God arise because we are so busy looking at ourselves that we cannot see God! Moses looked at himself, and his own life and said, "God, I’m just a nobody. I’m just an eighty-year-old sheepherder who’s been out of touch with the world for 40 years! Who am I that I should do something like this?"
Look at the very first thing God said in response. God looked at himself and said, "It’s not who you are that counts, Moses! It’s who I am that matters! And I will be with you." God enables us to do His work by giving us His presence, but so many times we are so busy with our own lives that we are not aware of God’s presence. Moses soon became aware that through this burning bush God was saying something to him. Other people would look and say, "Wow, look, a bush is burning." Moses looked and saw God.
What makes the difference? Does this not say that you and I need to develop a "Christian sixth sense" of the awareness of God? Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, "Earth’s crammed with heaven and every common bush afire with God; But only he who sees, takes off his shoes; The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries." Are you merely plucking blackberries in the presence of God because you don’t recognize that He’s there?
The English poet William Blake stood looking at a sunrise with a London merchant. The poet asked the shopkeeper, "What do you see?" The merchant replied, ’"I see a yellow disk which looks to me like a golden coin. What do you see?" The poet replied, "I see a host of angels, and they are crying, ’Holy, Holy, Lord God almighty, heaven and earth are filled with Thy glory. Glory be to Thee, O God, Most High."
Jane Fader has very reverently said, "I believe holy ground is any place where we stand and become aware of the presence of God in our lives." The presence of God in your life will make a difference--a big difference. For one thing, God’s presence in your life will give you rest: "My Presence will go with you," the Lord said to Moses several years later, "and I will give you rest." (Ex. 33:14) And Jesus said, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." (Mt. 18:20) And God spoke through Isaiah centuries before that, saying, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." (Isaiah 43:2)
If you are aware that God is with you in your trouble, or your joys, or your frustration or in what you attempt to do for Him, you’ll find that the presence of God will give you a buoyancy of life that you could not have any other way. Those Christians who fret and fume and fumble their way through life are those who have not yet recognized the promise of God when He said, "But I will be with you!" And when we are promised the presence of God, why should we ever think about trying to go it alone?
II. A second way that God enables us is by giving us His authority, 3:13-15
Moses had another excuse. He looked at himself and then said, "Whom shall I say sent me?" When I get to Egypt, God, what shall I say? What is Your name? By whose authority am I to do this?
But Moses wanted more than just a name. In the Old Testament, to know someone’s personal name was to know something about his character or his nature. Moses already knew who it was that was speaking to him, but he wanted to understand something of His nature. He wanted to know that the God who spoke to him was worth taking the risk. He could have been thinking to himself, "Okay, so God will be with me. But suppose my people in Egypt do not recognize that God goes with me? They are going to demand to know by whose authority I am doing these things."
So he asked, "Whom shall I say sent me?" God looked at himself and said, "I did." He said, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” The God who gave his authority to Abraham and his descendants is the God who gives his authority to you, Moses!
Many times we are so hesitant to be bold in doing things for God because we are afraid. We are afraid of what other people are going to say. We are afraid that they will say either to us or behind our backs, "Who does he think he is? Does he think he is better than we are?" They probably WILL say those things, and they’ll wonder where we get our authority to tell them they are sinners in need of a Savior, and need to be let go from the spiritual Egypt of bondage to sin. They’ll wonder where we get the authority to speak for God in a sermon or in a choir or in a Sunday School class. And always, the only authority on which we should act should be the authority of God. God gives us his authority---AND THAT IS ENOUGH!!
III. A third way God enables us to do His work is by giving us His power, 4:1-9
So far God had met every excuse Moses had given. He was like many modern-day Christians in that he had more than one excuse up his sleeve! His third excuse went like this: "But what if they do not believe me?" Moses was willing to admit that God was present with him, and that God really was sending him back to Egypt, but then he took a long look at himself, and he saw the shepherd’s staff in one hand, and he saw the sheep nearby, and he smelled the strong smell of sheep in his clothing. He looked at himself and thought, "They’re not going to believe me! There’s nothing so great about me that I should command their attention."
That is what many Christians today claim when they are called upon to do something, or when they feel the nudgings of the Holy Spirit, urging them to perform a specific work for God’s Kingdom. Our first reaction is to immediately look at ourselves. We look at our education, or lack of it. We look at our popularity, or lack of it. We look at our money, or lack of it. We look at our faith, or lack of it. We look for something in our lives that will naturally command the attention of those people with whom we work and to whom we witness. But when we look at ourselves, we find nothing whatsoever that should qualify us to be spokesmen for God. And we put off God by saying, "But nobody will believe me when I tell them that you have called me, God."
God answers us in the same way he answered Moses. While Moses looked at himself, God was looking at Himself, at His Eternal Power and Might and Majesty, and God replied, "No, you’re right: they won’t believe you, Moses, but they will believe My signs." He was saying, "Moses, if this mission depended on you alone, it would surely fail. But it doesn’t depend on your power, Moses; it depends on My Power!" And then God showed Moses His power by giving him certain signs which would prove to Moses and to the Israelite slaves that this God who was with Moses and who was sending Moses, was also empowering Moses to do His work!
God doesn’t give us the same signs today. He doesn’t give us the power to throw down a walking stick and transform it into a snake. He doesn’t enable us to cause our hands to be leprous and then whole again. He doesn’t give us the power to transform water into blood. Those were signs which spoke to the Egyptian people at that point in time. But God gives us power just the same. He gives us the Holy Spirit to make available to us all the resources of heaven! He gives us access to the very throne of God! We have the power to preach and teach and sing and witness in the Name of Jesus! We have the power to be victorious over personal sin, and to have inner peace in the midst of turmoil. It is God’s power to dispense to us as He will, and He gives us His power to enable us to do His work.
When our personal resources and strength fail, when the burdens of life are just about to push us under, we can know that we don’t have to rely on our own power. God, through his riches in mercy in Christ Jesus, makes available to those who call upon him in faith the mighty, overwhelming, all-inclusive, energetic, Power of God! "For with God nothing shall be impossible." (Luke 1:37)
A few years ago everybody knew that a human being couldn’t run a mile in less than four minutes. They knew it was impossible for a human to run that fast that long. That is, everybody knew it but Roger Bannister, and he went out and ran a mile in three minutes and fifty-nine seconds. And once that seemingly impossible barrier had been broken, in a very short while twenty-six different runners broke the four-minute mile sixty-six times.
Never forget that God has put in us the ability and the power--His power--to do anything He wants done.
IV. A fourth way that God enables us to do His work is by giving us His Message, 4:10-12
Moses was still trying to worm his way out of this task God was giving him. At the last moment, Moses remembered that he was not a speech-maker. He knew enough about this job before him to know that it would involve some speech-making. So he said, “O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.” That was Moses’ reaction when he looked at himself. But then, once again, God looked at Himself and said, "Moses, I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak."
This was something God was to repeat over and over again to his servants throughout history, whenever they were disturbed about not having something to say. To Isaiah he said, "I have put my words in your mouth..." (51:16). To Jeremiah He said, "...I will make my words in your mouth a fire .... " (5:14). Jesus said to his disciples: But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, 20for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. (Mt. 10:19-20) "For I will give you words and wisdom that none of your adversaries will be able to resist or contradict." (Luke 21:15) God enables us to do His work by giving us His message!
Why is it that we will not believe God gives us His message? Why do we think that God no longer works in the way He used to? God never embarrasses one of His servants by sending them to an individual or a group of people, and then not giving them something to say. It may be that His servants have not taken the time to listen to the message. But in every case, when the servants listens, God speaks.
You see, the wonderful thing about this is that in my preaching, I don’t have to try to be clever or cute or inspiring, to simply listen to God! That is hard work, and I must spend hours in study and preparation, but unless God speaks, I have nothing to say! And some of you who are watching your watches may be wishing that God wouldn’t speak for so long a time!
But you can have the same experience in your teaching and witnessing for Christ. You don’t have to know by heart all the Scriptures. You don’t have to have a degree from a seminary or Bible school to be able to preach or teach or witness. But what you do have to have is a message--something to say! And God enables us to do His work by giving us that message. He says to us, just as He said to Moses: "I will be with your mouth, and teach you what you shall speak." In your daily living, as you shop or work or teach or witness or worship or socialize, I will be with your mouth and will teach you what to say.
Moses finally cried out in desperation: "O Lord, please send someone else to do it" --which is what many of us say. But God answered by appointing Aaron to be the right-hand man of Moses. He gave him a helper. Jesus promised us a Helper as well when he promised the Holy Spirit to us: "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak and he will declare to you the things that are to come." (John 16:13)
When it was all over, Moses discovered a great thing. God was with him; He gave Moses His Presence. Secondly, God gave Moses His Authority. Thirdly, God gave Moses His Power, and fourthly, God gave Moses His Message. God never asks us to do anything unless AT THE SAME TIME He gives us all the power and ability -- all the equipment -- necessary to do what He asks. And Jesus did not forget this when he was about to ascend into heaven:
"All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age." (Mt. 28:18-20). Jesus gave us his presence, his authority, his power and his message in order that we might accomplish great things for the Kingdom of God, in order that we might storm the very gates of Hell and demand in Satan’s face and fury, "Let my people go!"
Are you anxious to see God do something? Then let Him do it through you. "Jesus hid in a book/Isn’t worth a second look./Jesus buried in a creed/Is a helpless Christ, indeed./But Jesus in the hearts of men/Shows his saving power again."
God has a job for you to do. Trust him now to give you the ability to do whatever He asks you.
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