What's in your Hand
Exodus 4:1-4 NASB
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.' " [2] And the Lord said to him, "What is that in your hand?" And he said, "A staff." [3] 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. [4] 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--
An exile from Egypt, Moses had adapted to the life of a nomadic shepherd watching the flock of his father-in-law. When God interrupted his mediocre existence with a special appearance, (a theophany) in a burning bush that burned but was not consumed. I often hear Christians speaking about hearing God or following God's will, but I've never heard anyone with a story like Moses' story.
The King Eternal, God Almighty spoke directly to Moses. God instructed Moses to take off his sandals because he was standing on Holy Ground. Moses listened to the direct word of God and then what did he do? He argued with God. To paraphrase his argument he said, I can't do what you're calling me to do! Though Moses didn't feel he could eloquently convince people he took a shot at arguing with God. What irony.
Have you ever noticed that God often calls us to do things we're not comfortable doing? It is a simple principle–God often wants to stretch us. We saw it on our recent mission trip to Lake Village, Arkansas. God took a stucco man, an engineer, a preacher, two Intel employees, and a couple of teenagers and had us drywall an auditorium. In the kitchen was a master teacher while our teenagers struggled to teach a classroom of unruly children.
Why? God often calls us to do something to see if we trust Him enough to obey Him, even when it doesn't make sense to us. By the way, we taught the children, cooked the meals and did the remodeling and along the way, each of us grew closer to God because we did what He told us to do!
Bottom line, God doesn't need our abilities, but He does demand our availability. He asked Moses a question I want to ask you today, "What is that in your hand?" For Moses, it was his rod. God told him to throw it down and when Moses did, it turned into a snake. Showing good judgment, Moses turned and ran. I hate snakes, don't you?
Then God told Moses to pick the snake up by the tail. Everybody knows you don't pick a snake up by the tail, instead, you grab them just below their jaws so they can't strike you. But God told Moses to grab it by the tail, and Moses followed the command of the Lord. When he did, it turned back into a Rod.
God used Moses and that Rod to get the people out of Egypt.
• With the Rod, Moses struck the Nile river and it turned to blood (7:17),
• brought a plague of frogs out of the waters (8:5),
• struck the dust and turned them into gnats (8:16),
• stretched it toward heaven to bring down fire, thunder, and hail (9:23),
• brought a plague of locust (10:13),
• divided the Red Sea (14:16),
• struck a rock with it and got water (17:6)
• and when he held it high in the air, his warriors prevailed in battle (17:9). And to think that Moses called it JUST "A STAFF!"
So, what do you have in your hand?
All Jochebed had in her hands was some straw, but she wove it into a basket to shelter Moses. So, what do you have in your hand?
All Miriam had in her hand was a tambourine, but she used it to lead the people to celebrate God's faithfulness. So, what do you have in your hand?
Hannah held a small child in her hand, but when she gave him to God, he became a great prophet. So, what do you have in your hand?
All Ruth had was a stalk of grain, but God used it to sustain her family's life and lead her, by His providence to be included in the linage of Jesus. So, what do you have in your hand?
All the little boy had was a sack lunch, but Jesus used it to feed 5000. So, what do you have in your hand?
All the widow had was enough food for one more meal for her and her son, but God used it to feed her family and the prophet throughout the famine. So, what do you have in your hand?
All Jim Knight had in his hand was a wrench, yet God used it to touch the lives of underprivileged families. Jim is a good man–one of the finest I've ever served beside. Early in our relationship, he was telling me what he couldn't do. I asked him what he did for a living. "I work down at a GM dealership working on cars," he replied. During that casual conversation, I challenged him to figure out something he could do for the Lord with what he knew how to do.
A few weeks later he came to see me. "Pastor, why don't we start a ministry one Saturday a month to do light repairs on the cars of our widows and single women?" "Great idea," I said, and soon we were servicing 20+ cars a month. Over the course of a couple of years, the men had even fixed up a couple of junkers and signed the pink slips over to families without transportation. Soon the ministry expanded to include home repair. So, what do you have in your hand?
Gwen Townsend had a book and knew how to read it, so she and other women from the church started a literacy ministry. Once a week they met with people from the community who didn't know how to read, tutored them and became their friends. One afternoon I was over in the educational building as one of Gwen's students stood reading a buletin board. "For G Go God soo Lov ed" she read out loud. My eyes misted as I witnessed a grown woman reading a Bible verse for the very first time. So, what do you have in your hand?
Dave Benton had a guitar and a love for music. He organized a worship team to lead in worship and was helping to grow the church's contemporary service. One afternoon we were talking about the weekly "Farmer's Market" in the community and I asked him a simple question, "So why isn't your Worship Team singing at the Farmer's Market?" He said, "I don't know, but we will!"
Within a few weeks, he'd secured a booth and organized the group to take the PA system and all the equipment downtown every Thursday evening. With the Amplifiers turned up they sang gospel songs to the community as they passed through the Farmer's Market. So, what do you have in your hand?
Just some straw–no problem, God can use it!
Just a child–you've got to be kidding, God can change the world with a child!
Just a stalk of grain, or a sack lunch, or a wrench, or a book, or a guitar–put it in His hand and He will use it!
So, what do you have in your hand?
It strikes me that most of us use what we can't do to keep us from doing what we can do.
What if Moses had our attitude? Or Jochebed, Hannah, Ruth, Jim Knight or the others?
Will you place whatever you have in your hand in God's hand so He can change the world with it? I ask it one more time, "So, what do you have in your hand?"
