WYE 1 - Moses
What's Your Excuse? • Sermon • Submitted
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Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Hello everyone! Thanks for joining us tonight. Tonight we are starting a new series called “What’s Your Excuse?” Talking about a few excuse makers found throughout the Bible.
Who here has ever made an excuse before? Maybe you didn’t have your homework done so you came up with something (maybe true, maybe not) to tell your teacher. Maybe you didn’t do your chores like you were supposed to and you silently think of a way to blame your siblings because it’s totally their fault!
The classic excuse that I hear and have said is “I can’t!”
Generally I find when we reply can’t to a request what we mean is “I don’t want to” or in some cases “I’m not good enough”
Maybe you felt that itching voice in your head telling you to pray for that person at school that always seems to be on their own? Can’t.
Or you know that there is a friend of yours that is struggling with addiction and you know maybe you should tell that person about Christ? Can’t.
I think God may be calling me to step out in faith, out my comfort zone? Can’t.
There’s a bible story that comes to my mind when I think about the word can’t. I think of Moses. Now maybe you know a little bit about Moses and your’re like “But that’s the dude that led all the Israelites out of Egypt and through the desert. The same Moses that split the Red Sea. The same Moses that met with God on a mountain and got the 10 commandments.” And I’d say “Yeah that guy”
Believe it or not he was actually one of the biggest doubters at the start. And he had plenty of excuses. Let’s take a look together.
Main Points
Main Points
Background
Background
Moses was an Israelite, born when Israel was being used for slave labor by the Egyptians. There was a decree from the Pharoah to kill all of the Israelite boys that were born, since they were a lot of them. When Moses was born his mother put him in a basket and let him go down the Nile. He was found by the princess of Egypt (pharaoh's daughter) and he was then raised in the Pharaoh’s house as an Egyptian.
When he grew older he was walking and saw an Egyptian beating an Israelite and Moses killed the Egyptian. He was caught and had to flee Egypt since the Pharoah was now trying to kill Moses. While he was running away, God heard the calls of His people and had a job for Moses
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. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”
When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”
And Moses said, “Here I am.”
Moses was told to take off his shoes to approach and after doing so, God said this . . .
The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”
He had a plan with Moses. God picked him to be the guy. The guy who would save God’s chosen people. Though Moses, wasn’t exactly jumping for joy at this proposal. Moses was filled with excuses.
There were 3 main excuses he used.
His first response, Ex 3:11
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
He responded with a question . . .
“Who Am I?”
“Who Am I?”
This an excuse that all of us have made. I can’t go pray for that person, who am I? I can’t possibly make a difference in my friends life, Who am I?
* Well let me pose the question, who are you? What defines you? What gives you meaning?
You see the world will try to put you in a box. The world will tell you that you are what they say you are. You all know what I am talking about, you’ve probably heard them a thousand times.
“That Zach, I don’t know what we are going to do, He is a troublemaker.”
He is a loser. He is stupid. He’s not good enough. He’s always doing the wrong thing. He’s a mistake.
You hear these things and you start to believe them. You start to believe that you are not meant to be here. Let’s get real, let’s get vulnerable, you hear these things and think maybe the world is better off without you. You begin to internalize the negative and that is all you see of yourself. Someone who is never quite good enough. Who can’t possibly achieve.
Or maybe you’re on the opposite end of the spectrum
You’ve constantly been told how great you are. How perfect you are. How smart, pretty, how funny and all around amazing you are. Though from this there has been this silent fear that has built up.
What if I fail? What if I can’t live up to this?
You spiral or you work yourself so hard that burn out looking for more approval.
So I ask again, who are you?
God responds to Moses in Exodus 3:12
And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”
God tells Moses it isn’t about who he is but about who God is through Him. That God gave Him meaning. That God was going to define who and what Moses was. God wanted to move through Moses.
So who does God say you are? He says that you are a work of art because HE is the perfect artist.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
He says He cares for you because you are valuable! (THAT WAS JESUS)
Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
He says you are chosen!
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
So who are you? You are beautiful creation that is worth so much! How much you may ask, enough for Jesus to come down and give His life for you! But I am getting ahead of myself.
You are valuable because the truth is that you were made by an all loving, all powerful father. You are not a mistake or to broken because God does not make garbage.
But who cares? Who is God. Well that was Moses’ next question
Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
“Who are You?”
“Who are You?”
Listen to God’s reply.
God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”
God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’
“This is my name forever,
the name you shall call me
from generation to generation.
God always has, always is and always will be! God is saying I am the same yesterday, today and forever. I am because I always will be!
An all powerful being with infinite size and intelligence. A God so powerful that He built creation and time itself.
A God that can literally do anything He wants.
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.
This is a God that sent His one and only Son to die for you.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.
A God that came for you even when you didn’t know you needed Him. A God who wants to cry with you when you need Him. A God that want’s to celebrate with you when you succeed.
God told Moses that I will be with you. Why is that significant? Because He is the God of infinity. Infinite power, knowledge and reach.
So Moses said Ex. 4:1
Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”
So then God turned his staff into a snake. Said show them that. God’s miracles point us to Him!
All of that to be said, Moses wasn’t satisfied. Finally we got to the heart of the matter. Moses had 1 more excuse.
Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”
This is it? This is what Moses meant through all of this.
“I’m not good enough, send someone else!”
“I’m not good enough, send someone else!”
God has a plan for your life. God wants to move through and in you. The truth is that you are going to interact with people that I am never going to meet. You are going to go to places that I am never going to go to. No matter where you are, or who you know, they need to know about Jesus. YOU CAN BE THAT LIGHT!
Think about this for a moment. There was not a single Israelite that had the relations to Pharoah that Moses had. Moses was raised there, as Pharaoh's grandchild. God had him in a specific place at this specific time for a specific purpose.
Yet Moses, could only see his shortcomings.
I thought just like Moses
Story of me not wanting to preach
God doesn’t call the equipped He equips the called. God isn’t calling you because you are good enough, He wants to make you good enough through Him.
That fact that I couldn’t publically speak before I knew Jesus is not an indication of His failure. Instead the fact that it has happened is proof of His graciousness and power. I couldn’t and then I could. I went out of my comfort zone which meant that whatever happened from it, was all God. It all pointed to God.
The truth of the matter is, you’re not good enough . . . but that’s the point.
God made you beautifully and wonderfully made so that He can shine through your life. You don’t have to be good enough because He is! You don’t have to have it all figured out because when you walking with Him, He will guide!
Conclusion
Conclusion
Each of you have a notecard. in a second I want you to write at the top
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
And under that I want to pray about a way that you can serve Him this week. A way that you can step out of your comfort zone so that His power shines.
Maybe it’s talk with a friend about Christ. Maybe it’s invite them to youth for the first time. Maybe it’s pray for your family. Maybe it is preach.
Don’t restrict yourself based on your own frees but be free’d by Christ in your life.
Maybe you have never heard about Christ this ways. Let me tell you about Jesus
Share story of Jesus
Take time, fill this out in prayer Go out there in yourself. Don’t stop yourself cause of fear but step out in faith.
Your are beautiful and wonderfully made. God is a perfect God who wants to walk with you.
Alpha Omega (Bryan and Katie Torwalt)