Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Exodus

Exodus 3:1-10 11/09/03

Introduction: Lets imagine for a moment that you were God. You are planning to deliver your people from slavery in Egypt and you had all the people in the world from which to choose. Would you have chosen Moses? Probably not. After all

    -He was 80 yrs old (no offense to our senior saints).
    -He was wanted for murder in the very country you were going to send him to.
    -He was well educated, but that was over 40yrs ago.
    -He was well connected to the house of pharaoh but that too was a  long time ago.

Yet when it came time for God to send the right person to deliver Israel, he sent Moses. To the average Joe, this doesn’t make much sense, but God knows a lot we don’t know, about the job, the requirements for the job and about Moses.

While you’re thinking about that this morning, think about this as well. We live in a world, in a community, in a family where many are going to Hell. People are facing an eternity apart from God and they need to know Jesus Christ as Savior. If you were God, who would you send to tell them?

     -Perhaps some really spiritually gifted Christians who have their acts together?
    -Perhaps Pastors and Elders in the church?

Wouldn’t you want the brightest and best to undertake such an important job? Then why does God choose instead to send a bunch of former sinners who were saved by grace to tell others current sinners where to find and experience that grace? In other words, why does God choose you and me to do the work of evangelism? Because God knows a lot that we don’t know about the job, the requirements for the job and about us than we do.

Transition: Open your Bibles to Ex. 3:1. Let’s see God at work.

Exodus 3:1-3    God Gets Moses’ Attention
Read: Ex. 3:1-3

A new day had dawned and everything was about to change for  Moses. When he went out with his sheep that morning he had no idea that he would meet God. He had done this very same thing for the past 40 years and expected nothing out of the ordinary.
 
     Isn’t that how we often start our days? Even if we spend time with God in the morning before we start out, I wonder if we truly expect to encounter God in the everyday, ordinary occurrences of life?

Because of that, I want you to notice that it was God who took the initiative in the meeting. Moses was concerned only about his daily routines and much to his surprise, he encounters God. The text tells us that Moses noticed a bush that was burning, but not being destroyed. To Moses’ credit, he didn’t allow the routine of his day keep him from seeing God.

     Often in the common, routine, everyday occurrences of our lives, God does something extraordinary. He burns a bush, so to speak. Perhaps it is a disruption to our routine, an accident or illness, the visit of a neighbor, co-worker, classmate or relative who usually doesn’t give you the time of day. God often gets our attention by disrupting our daily routine.

     Sadly, we often call them interruptions, but often they are God’s way of tapping us on the shoulder so that we take notice of him and what he is about to do. Things don’t just happen. Throughout our ordinary lives God has extraordinary moments planned in which he is seeking to communicate and cooperate with us.

Transition: But just seeing the burning bush was not enough for an encounter with God, Moses had to respond.

Exodus 3:4-6  God Reveals Himself to Moses
Read: Ex. 3:4-6

I want you to notice that God doesn’t speak to Moses UNTIL he gets Moses’ attention. (When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look)

     It’s sad, but so often God doesn’t speak to us because we refuse to take the time to pay attention to his gentle nudging. I believe that there are burning bushes we are missing in our lives because we  are too busy or to preoccupied with the demands of everyday life, and we miss opportunities to encounter God? Are you noticing when God is trying to get your attention? Are you responding?

When God got Moses’ attention and Moses stopped to take a closer look, God spoke to him.

     How important then is it to stop and listen when God is trying to get our attention, when God wants to speak to us?

Up to this point, God was silent. He was working behind the scenes, unnoticed. But now it was time for God to speak, to make himself known. Notice what he didn’t do. God didn’t call out from the burning bush, ‘Hey, you there, come over here’. What does he do instead? He calls Moses by name. ‘Moses, Moses’.
 
     God knows us intimately and personally. He knows your name.

Moses responded with ‘Here I am’. Notice that after God connects with Moses on a personal, one on one level, he reveals something of himself to Moses. He does this first by telling Moses to take off his sandals because he is standing on holy  ground. What made the ground holy? It certainly wasn’t the sand, or Moses, it was the presence of Almighty God.

The Hebrew word for holy also means to separate. This is important. God was symbolically letting Moses know that he was separating him from his past…particularly his past failures and fears. God wanted Moses’ undivided attention, and dwelling on the past is an unwanted and unhealthy distraction.

Next, God reveals himself to Moses so that Moses can get to know him better, more completely, so he could trust God when he speaks. He tells Moses he is the God of the past, even his past. He is the God of his fathers. Moses got it. He knew it was truly God speaking to him and he hid his face in utter humility.

    The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is a God of relationship and now God wanted a relationship with Moses. How great is that?  Since we are told in Scripture that God never changes, this is the same God who wants a relationship with you. How great is that?

Transition: God doesn’t stop there. He wants Moses to know even more about him. He wants to show Moses his heart.

Exodus 3:7-8  God Cares
I have seen, I have heard, I know,  I have come
Read: Ex. 3:7-8

I have seen, I have heard, I know, I have come. What a message of God’s grace! Do you understand the significance of this text.
 
    God Knows, right down to the smallest detail of your life. God is aware of what you are going through, and God cares! And He has compassion for you and your situation. Satan wants you to think differently, that God is sleeping and is unaware and unconcerned with what you are going through. Don’t believe it. It’s a lie. God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He sees you, He hears you, He knows you and He is coming to help you. It was true for the ancient Israelites in the bondage to Egyptian slavery and it is true for you today as well.

Another thing you need to see here in the text is that God not only redeems you or takes you out of bondage, to whatever is enslaving you, he redeems you to something….much better. God was going to redeem the Israelites from the bondage of Egyptian slavery and then bring them to a new place, the place he was preparing for them, a place flowing with milk and honey, a really good place is what that all mean.

     And God promises the same thing for you and me. He just doesn’t free us from whatever we are in bondage to…no…he takes us to the place he is preparing for us, not just heaven, but a place now, a really good place.

Jer. 29:11 ‘For I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’

    God always takes us there, to that good place. But we need to so walk with him that we make a daily, intentional choice to stay in the place God leads us and not go slumming back in the place of slavery and bondage. But should we go back, God will be there to deliver us once again…grace!

Transition: God has revealed his heart to Moses, but Moses never expected what God would say next.

Exodus 3:9-10 God Sends…Moses
Read: Ex. 3:9-10

God tells Moses he knows what is going on in Egypt with his people. Moses is perhaps thinking to himself, ‘Great, maybe now you will do something about it.’ Then Moses hears the words that must have stunned him all the way down to his bare feet… ‘I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.’

How did Moses respond? We’ll look at that next time. But there is something I want you to see. God in vs 8 said ‘I have come down to rescue them.’ And now in vs 10 God says ‘So now go, I am sending you.’ Do you see the connection between vs 8 and 10? If God was going to rescue the Israelites, why send Moses. Why not just do it himself?

Because it’s God plan to work with and through people…Moses, the boy David, Saul the Pharisee, you and me, we are workers together with him. The implication here is that whatever God calls us to do, it is something he too is doing. Therefore, he will be with us each step of the way. God is promising his presence to be with Moses, and he promises his presence will be with you as well.

Conclusion

Do you desire to see God do something great in the lives of those around you; your family, neighbors, co-workers, classmates, perhaps even here in this church? But you have some guilt over some mistakes, some blunders, so failure, some sin in the past that is keeping you from moving forward with God?

Do you read about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and think you can never match up. But if you remember our study of the book of Genesis, it revealed that all those men, in fact every person God uses in Scripture had real flaws, failure, sin they had to deal with. Had it not been for the wonderful grace of God, none of them would have amounted to anything.

Isn’t it great that you and I qualify for service for God just as we are, past failure, past sin and all.

God is not just saying ‘I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’ He is also saying ‘I am the God of men and women who have failed. I am the God of ordinary men and women who I used in extraordinary ways.’

So, what burning bushes are you passing by in your life because you are either too busy to stop and look or are focusing so much on your past failures and sin that you feel you are not worthy to stop and look?

Learn from God’s revelation to Moses through the burning bush. You are loved by God and his grace is sufficient for any failure or sin you may have or will ever commit.

When God taps you on the shoulder to get your attention, respond by turning his way and saying ‘Here I am’.