Exodus: Purpose and Failure
Exodus • Sermon • Submitted
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· 24 viewsOur failures don't change God's purpose, they refine our shape.
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Have you ever experienced that....when everything seemed to be set up just right; you couldn’t fail, but then you did.
Moses was that way. He had everything going for him…but messed it up.
Moses was that way. He had everything going for him…but messed it up.
That’s the lesson for us today from Exodus, Failure is a possibility, but it doesn’t have to be then end of the story. In fact, failure is just the beginning of a faithful life of obedience.
Shaped for a purpose
Failure is a possibility, but it doesn’t have to be then end of the story.
For instance, did you know Thomas Edison failed the light bulb some 10,000 times?
Or
Truth
Moses was born with a special purpose. As we read last week in
When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”
The time was coming for God to deliver his people. He had purposed this from back in .
13 Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated four hundred years.
Along came Moses; He was drawn out…to draw God’s people out. He was truly born to fulfil God’s purpose.
Born to deliver.
Born to deliver.
God’s purpose was certain. As is ours.
You may say, but my name is bill…sue
…and I can’t pay all of mine. Or my name is Sue....and I hate going to court. What ever your name or nickname is, it doesn’t HAVE to be the connected.
We are all called as suredly as we have been created by God he has called us.
The apostle Paul said it this way:
For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesiand 2:10
Moses was born to deliver and the amazing thing is he was shaped for God’s service.
You too have been created for things that were in place before you were even born. So when it feels like you just fit somewhere....that is very true, you were created for it. The need pre-existed you.
That’s where we start today in
If you brought your bibles today, turn over there with me. If you are using the bible on your phone....just scroll on over.
11 Many years later, when Moses had grown up, he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews. 12 After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.
13 The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting. “Why are you beating up your friend?” Moses said to the one who had started the fight.
14 The man replied, “Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?”
Then Moses was afraid, thinking, “Everyone knows what I did.” 15 And sure enough, Pharaoh heard what had happened, and he tried to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in the land of Midian.
When Moses arrived in Midian, he sat down beside a well. 16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came as usual to draw water and fill the water troughs for their father’s flocks. 17 But some other shepherds came and chased them away. So Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds. Then he drew water for their flocks.
18 When the girls returned to Reuel, their father, he asked, “Why are you back so soon today?”
19 “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds,” they answered. “And then he drew water for us and watered our flocks.”
20 “Then where is he?” their father asked. “Why did you leave him there? Invite him to come and eat with us.”
21 Moses accepted the invitation, and he settled there with him. In time, Reuel gave Moses his daughter Zipporah to be his wife. 22 Later she gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, for he explained, “I have been a foreigner in a foreign land.”
Moses was SHAPED for God’s purpose
Moses was SHAPED for God’s purpose
Shaped in the sense that God had spiritually gifted him with leadership. Moses was a leader, he had a position of leadership coming out from the palace, but more than that, he had a God given gift that made him stand out and would enable him to be used by God.
Shaped in the sense that God had gifted him with leadership. Moses was a leader, he had a position of leadership coming out from the palace, but more than that, he had a God given gift that made him stand out and would enable him to be used by God.
Moses was also shaped with a heart for his people, not the Egyptians, but he Hebrews.
His heart for the Hebrews burned because of the compassion he had for people being oppressed. I’m sure this had been encouraged by his Egyptian mom as she told him over and over again how he had been drawn out....hearing his own story had tenderized his heart for people being oppressed.
He was shaped as we see in the text with abilities of a deliverer. Strong, courageous, and able to handle himself and take care of others. Moses was quick to take action and when he did, he knew what to do.
That was his personality. He didn’t like the ‘wait and see’ approach. Moses was a take action sort of guy. HE didn’t think about what to do…he was a shoot then aim sort of guy. That was his personality.
Finally Moses was shaped by his experiences. As we shared his name was “drawn out”. He knew where he was from and that was a long way.
Now the way Moses was shaped for God's service was great, but God wasn’t finished.
Purpose - SHAPE - Action - NO
Purpose - SHAPE - Action - NO
Purpose - SHAPE - CALL - action - YES
Call - SHAPE - Action
and that’s what got him in trouble here.
This sort of thinking has always gotten people into trouble. Our culture today, and I’m sure has always told us that if we go and do things then we will become.
For moses it was GO and Set them free, then I will be God's deliverer.
But what happened when he took action without God's direction?
It led to a murder that he couldn’t hide.
It led to taking authority that he did’t have.
Ultimately it led to his having to leave his home and the only people he had known as his people.
You might call it a failure.
But why did it fail? Everything seemed so perfectly in place.
Did God want his people delivered?
Was Moses SHAPED to be a deliverer?
Had God called him to deliver? NO. In fact, that wouldn’t come for some 40 years
Moses fell in to the trap that many people do.
Go - Do - Be
Go - Do - Be
Thinking that if we go and do what we are know how to do, then everything will work out just right. We will become who we are supposed to be.
For Moses, HE would be God’s deliverer when he went and delivered the people when he became their leader he would become their deliverer.
But that’s not the way God works things out. WE can’t go and do in order to become what God wants to make us. Because it’s not about our actions that we become anything for God.
Even the church. It’s so obvious what we are supposed to do, let’s just go do it.
If we just Go and DO this thing that we are so perfectly created for, we will become the person, family, leader, or church that God purposed us to be here in Rock Hall. It sounds so true…GO DO BE
But that’s not the way scripture works at all. In fact, Scripture teaches us the reverse of this.
But is God calling us to it? How do we know? We spend time listening for God to call.
Scripture teaches us the reverse of this.
it is our BEcoming that results in our going and doing. It actually produces the going and doing. WE can’t work our way into becoming a Christian, but we WORK out our salvation. We are called according to His Purpose to walk in His salvation. and he redirects our life toward his purposes.
You see Moses failed because he attempted to become something by going and doing without God calling him to it first.
You see Moses failed because he attempted to become something by going and doing something without God calling him to it first.
But this is an important lesson for us today,
Failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Moses failure didn’t change God’s purpose though. In fact if anything this failure was another of those experiences that God would actually use to clarify his shape.
Moses failure didn’t change God’s purpose though, no more than our failures frustrate God’s plans. In fact if anything this failure was another of those experiences that God would actually use to clarify his SHAPE.
WE get the idea that we are too messeed up.
We can’t do this or that, too small, or the task is wrong, too big or too silly
As Paul wrote in Romans
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Because God loves us and has a purpose for our lives in Him. God uses our failures to clarify who we are.
That’s what Moses apparently learned to do once he had traveled all the way across the Sinia peninsula to Midian, he sat down…waiting.
But often times, for those who are called and shaped for God, it’s tough to know when to take action.
Call is a certain
Personal…coming to Maryland without seeking God first
In my life, I left my career, my dream to own my own business. I didn’t know what to do but I knew I was called to take Christ to places he was needed. I began teaching school because that’s where lost people were. Without praying about it much, I left the school I was first hired at in order to transfer to a closer, more convenient school. It seemed like the smart thing to do. But it was a mistake. In just a couple of years I had gone from a troubled school with a great leader to a troubled school with no leadership. Not the place to learn to be a teacher.
But God used that failure to put me in a place to be more involved in my church’s youth ministry and eventually become a staff member of my home church which led to my call to ministry. But it began as a failure.
I was full of failure, but God used that for his purpose.
Moses, full of failure, ran away. To get away from Pharaoh, he went all the way across the Sinai peninsula to Midian.
MIDIAN
MIDIAN
He sat down.
By the time Moses had traveled all the way across the Sinai peninsula to Midian, he sat down…waiting.
God gave him another opportunity to deliver.
It would lead to his being rescued again. Only this time he would learn something that he hadn’t learned in his life as an Egyptian…he would learn to wait on God.
Even though he felt like a stranger, he was right where God needed him to be.
Our failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Our failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Think of your life as a tool in the hands of God.
I know we don’t want to think of our selves in such utilitarian terms. But bear with me for a moment. If God created the world and everything in it for His glory and we are the capstone of his creation, in his image to glorify him, then aren’t we tools. We aren’t ornaments that’s for sure. We are here for a purpose....not just to make the world look better....we aren’t just eye candy. WE are here to accomplish God’s desires. IF that’s so, and I believe that scripture teaches us that it is, then God wouldn’t let failure be the end of our story. He’d use it to re-purpose us. His purpose never changes, but how we fit into it, does. And that's OK.
Did you hear that? Failure is OK. Failure is OK. It’s OK to fail when we are failing for God.
Application
Purpose is declared
SHAPEd for God's Service
Spiritual Gifts
Heart
Abilities
Personality
Experiences
Failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
How does your shape fit into God's call to go and make disciples? Our shape is how we bear the image of God. This is who we are spiritually speaking, for God's purpose of bringing about the restoration of God's kingdom.
18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Matt 28:18
Or as we say it, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Or as we say it, to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Inspiration
Failure of Peter at Jesus’s arrest and trial
Our failures don’t change God’s purpose, they clarify our shape.
Leading to him being faithful apostle.
How is God using failure to shape you?
Action