Wrong Guy, Right God (Exodus 3-4) Series

This week, I found out about an anxiety disorder I had never heard of before. The disorder is called “Imposter Syndrome.” It’s when someone looks at a new job or position and they are overwhelmed with the feeling that they are unqualified or unprepared for it. They’ve got this little voice in their head that’s playing the same song on a continuous loop:

• “I have no clue what I’m doing and everyone is going to realize it.

• I don’t deserve to be here.

• I only got the job because my uncle recommended me and I interview well.

• I feel like a fraud.”

Sound familiar? It isn’t just when you have a new job. It can happen when you start college. You’re there on a scholarship and you’re afraid it was only because your high school was so easy. Or what about the first night home from the hospital after you’ve had your first baby? Is there anyone anywhere that drives away from the hospital going “Yeah… We’ve got this?” No! You look at the nurse after she wheels mom out to the curb and starts to go back inside and say, “Wait… YOUR’RE NOT COMING WITH US?”

If you’ve ever felt this, you aren’t alone. According to the International Journal of Behavioral Science, 70% of people have had these feelings at some point in their lives.

I heard about a guy who went to the doctor and said, “I have imposter syndrome.” And the doctor said, “Nope. I think you’re faking it.”

Lots of websites talk about how to overcome imposter syndrome. They include tips like,

Embrace positivity!

You just have to believe in yourself!

Keep a record of your successes and achievements!

All of that is good stuff, but none of that is God stuff. And so this morning I’d like us to spend some time looking at the first person in history to struggle with imposter syndrome—Moses. And I want us to pay attention to how he overcame it.

If you are physically able, please stand to honor the reading of God’s Word, beginning in verse 1 of chapter 3 [Read to verse 10]

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let’s pray:

[Prayer, be seated]

A little background. Moses’ life had three stages, each lasting about forty years. For the first forty he lived in Pharaoh’s household as the adopted son of Pharaoh’s daughter.

Exodus 2:11 tells us that when he had grown up he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew and so he killed him and buried him in the sand. When he realized he’d been found out, he fled to Midian and spent the next 40 years as a shepherd.

Then God calls him to lead the people out of bondage in Egypt. It will take him the last forty years of his life to do it.

So as Tony Evans put it, Moses was a somebody who became a nobody to prove God can use anybody to impact everybody.

But things don’t start off very well, do they? Imagine the scene from Moses’ point of view. He’s basically been a fugitive for the past forty years. His people have been in slavery for four hundred years. Then God speaks to him from a burning bush. Pay attention to all the pronouns in this passage:

• “I have seen their affliction… and [I] have heard their cry” (v. 7)

• “I know their sufferings” (v. 7)

• “I have come down to deliver them” (v. 8)

• “[and I will] bring them up out of that land” (v. 8)

• “the cry of the people has come to Me” (v. 9)

• “I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them.”

Up to this point, Moses is saying, “Yes! Get ‘em, God! Sic ‘em!” I’ll bet Moses can’t wait to watch God open up a can of whup ‘em on those Egyptians.

But then in verse 10, God makes one more statement of what He is going to do: I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”

Wait, what?

All this time Moses is getting pumped about how God is going to work, only to have everything come crashing down when he realizes God’s plan is to work through Moses.

Then, Moses asks God five questions:

Question 1: Who am I? (Ex. 3:11-12)

Moses may have thought to himself, “God, if you were going to use me, why didn’t you do this forty years ago, when I was a prince of Egypt? Why now, when I’m a fugitive octogenarian?”

God’s answer is not “Moses, you’re awesome! Moses, you can do it!” God doesn’t give Moses a self-esteem pep talk. He simply says, “I will be with you. And here’s how you know that I have sent you. When you’ve brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship Me on this mountain.”