The Burning Bush Series

The Story of Moses: Calling

Exodus 3

Pastor Jefferson M. Williams

Chenoa Baptist Church

03-16–2025

Power of a Second Chance

It was my freshman year of college and emotionally I was a wreck. A break up with my high school girlfriend had sent me into a tailspin. I had an 8:00 class that I didn’t make very often because I was having a hard time sleeping.

When the grades came, I made As and Bs in all my classes but one. In that class, I made an F. I had never made an F in my life. It was devastating.

But it got worse. I was a full academic scholarship and the F had taken my GPA below the threshold needed to keep my scholarship. In other words, I was about to lose my scholarship and my parents were not in a position to pay my bills.

Unknown to me, my mother had called the professor of this class and begged him for a second chance. All I needed was a couple of grace points and I would pass and keep my scholarship.

I was mortified when learned that my mommy had called my professor but it turns out that he did give those grace points and I did keep my scholarship.

My mother told me, “You’ve been given a second chance, make the most of it!”

I retook that class, psychology, and made an A. In fact, I made As in every psychology class for the next four years. By the end of my college career, my name was on a plaque as the psychology student of the year!

Humans don’t often give each other second chances. In fact, we have a proverb in our culture - “Fool me once, it’s your fault. Fool me twice, it’s my fault.”

Aren’t you glad that God isn’t like that? Aren’t you glad that God gives second chances? And third? And fourth?

This morning, we are going to see God give Moses a second chance after forty years in the desert.

Review

Two weeks ago, we watched as Moses attempted to do the right thing in the wrong way.

For nearly 40 years, Moses had lived the life of privilege in the palace but he never forgot where he came from or who he really was.

This was a turning point in Moses’s life. He knew he could lead the people out of Egypt. He was born for such a time as this.

He killed an Egyptian he found beating an Israelite slave and then buried the evidence in the sand.

But…

“The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” (Exodus 2:13)

Moses confronts two Hebrews duking it out. He thought that unity was important. We can’t be turning on each other.

He separated the two and then, like a father, demands answers.

The response of the men absolutely shook him to the core:

“The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” (Exodus 2:14)

Where was the respect he deserved? And how did he know about the Egyptian he had killed? No one saw him and he buried the evidence.

Moses’s heart started beating wildly. If these people know, the palace must have gotten word as well. ?

“When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well.” (Exodus 2:15)

Yes, he was Pharaoh’s adopted grandson but he had killed an Egyptian, proving, deep down, that he was still just a stinking Hebrew.

Moses knew he had to get out of town so he ran to Midian and he sat down beside a well.

We watched as he came to the rescue of seven daughters of a man named Reul. His priestly name was Jethro.

They invited him home for dinner and he stayed with him, married one of the daughters, and had a son, who he named Gershom, which means foreigner.

Remember how D.L Moody described Moses’s life:

“Moses spent 40 years thinking he was somebody; 40 years learning he was nobody, and 40 years discovering what God can do with a nobody”. 

Exodus 3 opens nearly forty years later and we find Moses as a nobody in the middle of nowhere. But God is a God of second chances.

Please turn with me to Exodus 3.

Prayer.

Far Side of the Desert

“Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.” (Exodus 3:1)