Essentials Of The Faith / Sunday Morning Sermon Series / Exodus

Exodus 3:11-4:17 11/16/03

Introduction: Excuses? You have probably heard at least one this morning from someone. We are masters of the excuse.

ILL: According to a UPI news service, the Metropolitan Insurance Company received some unusual explanations for accidents from its automobile policyholders. Here are just a few:

-"The other car collided with mine without warning me of its intention."
-"I had been driving my car for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel and had the accident."
-"As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision."
-"I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law, and headed over the embankment."
-"The telephone pole was approaching fast. I attempted to swerve out of its path when it struck my front end."
-"The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."
-"The indirect cause of this accident was a little guy in a small car with a big mouth."
-"The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran over him."

Explanation: Why do we make excuses for what we do or don’t do? What it comes down to, I believe, is self. When we don’t want to look bad, stupid, uncaring, inept…the focus is on us, not the task or the one who gave us the task. This is true in our relationship with God as well.

     If we want to be truly intimate with God,
     If we want to truly be used by God,
     If we want to truly experience what it means  to walk with God,

Then we need to lose the excuses and trust God.

ILL: Someone once said that excuses are the nails used to build the house of failure.

    Now, I don’t believe anyone here this morning wants to fail in their relationship with God.

    I do, however, believe that everyone here,  at one time or another, perhaps regularly, makes excuses to God.

    And I believe the reason for our excuses is a preoccupation with self.

Transition: But, I also believe that we can change our preoccupation with self by becoming preoccupied with God. And that is what I believe God is trying to tell us in our text this morning. God was teaching Moses something  that we all need to learn if we are to have an intimate, growing and vibrant relationship with Him…know God.

Read: Exodus 3:11-12   ‘I’m a nobody’
 
Background: Read Vs 10

Can you imagine the scene. Moses is standing there, his jaw dropped to here.  ‘Say what?’ ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ Moses was stunned. When he finally regained some composure, he replied, ‘Who am I?’

I am sure Moses was thinking. Come on, this is a good excuse. After all
     -I’m a failure
     -I’m a family man now
     -I’m old
     -I’m a shepherd now

I, I, I. I don’t believe these were words of humility, but excuse, based not on God or the job, but on Moses view of himself. And as we will soon see, Moses is a master excuse maker.

Read: Exodus 3: 13-22  ‘I don’t know what to say’

After 400ys in Egypt, Moses had been given the job of announcing that now was the time for the children of Israel to go back to Canaan. This probably wasn’t what they expected to hear. No doubt they wanted to be released from slavery, but they just wanted to be made more comfortable in Egypt, not to uproot their families and go to a land that no one there had ever been to.
No this was not on their agenda and I am sure this went through Moses’ mind. Plus, Pharaoh was not going to just let his slave labor force just go.

 Moses said ‘God, I don’t know what to tell them? I don’t want to make things worse for the Israelites. I don’t know what to say!’

Read: Exodus 4:1-9   ‘I won’t be believed’
 
Again Moses voices an excuse because of his sense of personal inadequacy.  ‘What if they don’t believe me?’ I mean, they didn’t listen to me before. And remember, I ran away from them and their oppression to save my own neck. They won’t believe me.’

Read: Exodus 4:10-12  ‘I can’t speak well’
 
Many commentators believe that Moses stuttered. So it would seem this excuse was at least valid. But this seems not to be the case because Stephen in Acts 7:22 said that Moses was ‘powerful in speech’. What’s more likely is that because Moses had spent the last 40yrs tending and talking to sheep in the dessert, he had lost his confidence in his ability to speak eloquently, as he had when he lived in Pharaoh’s palace. God, I can’t speak well.

Read: Exodus 4:13-17   ‘I won’t go’
 
Moses is no longer making any excuses. Moses had made up his mind. The excuses he had made had convinced him that he was not going to accept the call of God.
     -I’m a nobody
     -I don’t know what to say
     -I won’t be believed
     -I can’t speak well

For Moses, the I’s have it. There is no other choice. There is no way. He just can’t do it. So he tells God, send someone else.

Conclusion

Well, that was my shortest sermon to date. Next week we will see what happens to Moses after he leaves the presence of God at the burning bush.

What? I see a few odd looks on some of your faces. I know I didn’t look at the whole text this morning. It was intentional, just like our decision to be preoccupied with self. I didn’t think it important to look at what God had to say about Moses’ excuses, because truth be told, rarely are we concerned about what God has to say about ours.

Well, perhaps we can learn something by paying attention to what God tells Moses in response to his excuses. Let’s see.

Moses:  ‘I’m a nobody’    God: ‘I will be with you’

Moses’ first excuse was that he was a nobody. God replied in a sense ‘you’re right. You are weak and small. But that’s no excuse. Why? Because I will be with you. You see, it wass not about Moses, it wass about the God who would be with him. This promise would sustain Moses and many others after him through difficult seemingly impossible times.

There will come a time when speaking for all Israel, Moses tells God that if his presence doesn’t go with them…they are not moving. That is how important the presence of God was to Moses and the Israelites. That is powerful.
But this is not just OT. John 15:5 reminds us that without God, we can do nothing. God wants you to know, he will be with you.

Moses: ‘I don’t know what to say’             God: ‘I will tell you what to say’

Moses said ‘I don’t know what to say.’ God replied, ‘I will tell you what to say. And He did, very specifically. He told him what to say to the Elders of Israel and to Pharaoh. Moses had no excuse.

Do you? We often don’t witness when God gives us opportunity because we say ‘I don’t know what to say.’ But what does God say to Moses and to you? ‘I will tell you what to say.’ Even have that happen to you? You share your faith with someone and you are amazed at what comes out of your mouth. God wants you to know what John 14 and the book of Acts reminds us,  that the Holy Spirit will tell us what to say when we need to say it.

Moses: ‘I won’t be believed’         God: ‘I will make them believe’

Initially I thought that the three signs God showed to Moses:
         the rod turning into a snake,
         the leprosous hand and
         the water turning to blood

was for Moses’ benefit to convince him. But now I believe it was to show Moses that making the Israelites believe him, was God’s job. Moses couldn’t do those miracles, it was God who did them. Just as it was not Moses’ responsibility to make the Israelites believe him…that was God’s job.

We desperately need to understand that. We can never make anyone believe in Jesus Christ as Savior no matter how convincing our argument is. And we can never make someone not believe because we think we don’t know what to say or that our argument is weak.

Listen..it’s not our job to make people believe. God wants you to know that is his job and his alone.

Moses: ‘I can’t speak well’                 God: ‘I made your mouth’

Besides being a lie, Moses was really doubting God’s ability to work effectively through him. I can’t teach, I can’t share my faith, I can’t show hospitality in my home, I can’t…

God replied…You can’t, BUT I CAN! I created you and your mouth.
     I can enable you to use your mouth  effectively for me.
     I can enable you to teach,
     I can enable you to share your faith,
     I can enable you to show hospitality to those who need comfort and refreshment.

I want you to know, I created you, you can do it when I work through you!

Moses: ‘I won’t go’  God: ‘I will give you help.’

I won’t go. That’s the bottom line for many of God’s people as well. We over rationalize God’s call and our abilities to the point where we, perhaps reluctantly, perhaps with a sigh of relief, just say no.
And we go about our lives, perhaps with some regret, but with our comfort in tact.

But he loves and us and he will forgive us. At least, that is how we justify our preoccupation with self by saying no to God when he calls us to service for him.

Moses gave up the excuses and just told God no. But God didn’t take no for an answer from Moses. Instead, he did what Moses asked…kind of. He said that he would give Moses a helper, his brother Aaron…who just happened to be traveling his way.

God may take your no and pass you over to use someone else and you will miss the great blessing of being used by God. But, God might not take your no and instead send you the help of a friend.
God wants you to know that he cares for you and understands your weaknesses and he will help.

Summary

So many of God’s people are guilty of sitting down and doing nothing while they waste time contemplating their lack of effectiveness in service for God because of their own perceived weaknesses. On that basis, no one will ever be able to be used by God for anything.

This is evidenced by the fact that we get so preoccupied with Moses’ excuses in our text, that we often gloss over God’s responses…which are revelations of who he is.

 God wants us to know him.
 God makes it possible to know him by  revealing himself to us in Jesus Christ.
 And we have the record of God’s self  revelation in Jesus Christ in the Bible.

God, in out text this morning, has revealed himself to Moses and to us as ‘I Am’. This is his personal name, like Bob or Lori or Theresa. He revealed his personal name
     so that we all could get to know him better,  so that we all could trust God,
     so that we all would serve God.

God wants you to know him intimately and personally as well, so you will trust him and serve him. Stop making excuses and start listening to the Lord, Get to know Him. The truly amazing thing is…He wants to be known…by you.