When God Calls You For A Mission!
An Undeniable Experience with God
When God Shows Up!
When God Calls You For A Mission!
Exodus 3:1-9
The entire first message of this short series was an introduction to this series of messages on “An Undeniable Experience with God,” or “When God Shows Up!” In that message, I discussed God’s leading for this series, how I struggled with naming this series and some of the differences between Mediterranean culture and American culture—particularly as it relates to dealing with experiences.
Remember that first-century circum-Mediterranean culture is the time and culture in which Jesus, the Christ, was born, lived, died, buried, and rose again and all of the books of the New Testament were written. We cannot accurately interpret God’s original message to the original people of the Bible without some understanding of the culture in which the texts were written and the contexts were lived out.
In the second message, we began to look at six (6) stories that deal with “undeniable experiences with God” or “six times when God shows up”.
The encounter that we explored in the second message was when God showed up in the life of Abraham. He showed up in the life of Abraham when he passed the God’s test, through obedience!
Today we move to God showing up at a particular point in the life of Moses.
(Please notice with me Exodus 3:1-9. I’ll read this aloud for us, as you follow along silently. Let’s talk first about:)
I. The Expectation.
First-century circum-Mediterranean people had a different perspective concerning events in life. They believed that every event was attributable to some being. They almost always ask,
“Who did this to me?”
Not
“What happened?”
In addition, there was a pantheon or a collective or gods, angels, demons, spirits, ancestors, ghosts, spirits, dead saints, animals, plants, etc that interjected themselves in the people’s lives.
This can be seen in the fact that when Jesus rebuked demons and when He rebuked the raging sea, He used the same words, “Peace, be still!” Why? Because the raging of the sea was believed to be caused by demons.
The point is: “Those who people the pages of the Bible expect the supernatural! Those who people the pages of the Bible expect God to show up!”
One of the points of this series is to highlight the fact that we, i.e. Americans, really don’t expect God to show up! This is because of our Western, Greek, Enlightened mindset.
Furthermore, I want us to begin to see the impact of that lack of expectation. Why? Because we get what we expect! If we want God to show up in our lives, we’re going to have to expect Him to show up!
Job said in
Job 3:25 (NLT), “25 What I always feared has happened to me. What I dreaded has come to be.”
Job’s fear and dread were his expectations and he got what he expected!
A book that I am reading puts this same concept another way: “We get what we focus on!”
· If we focus on God showing up, He’ll show up!
· If we focus on intellectually interacting with the concepts of the Bible, that’s what we’ll get, i.e. intellectual stimulation that is bound by our conception of the Word of God.
Excuse me, but I don’t come to church or get into God’s Word for mere intellectual stimulation! I come to church and get into the Word for an encounter with the King of kings, Lord of lords, and Prince of princes!
(That bring us to:)
II. The Environment (Circumstance).
Moses had attempted to be the “Deliverer of Israel” through his own power. In so doing, he killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew. This became known, so Pharaoh sought to kill Moses. Because of this, Moses fled from the presence of Pharaoh and settled in the land of Midian.
While in Midian, Moses was in spiritual training! His training entailed shepherding the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, on the backside of the desert. Moses was all alone with God…involved in a task that would prepare him to shepherd God’s people!
So,
1) Moses had a passion for bettering the life of his people;
2) Moses tried to fulfill his passion using his own methods and power;
3) Moses was rejected, broken, and in a foreign land;
4) Moses was doing a job that would prepare him for leadership; and
5) Moses was all alone.
Don’t we see here some prerequisites for God showing up in our lives?
1. We need a godly passion.
My passion is to help hurting people through covenant relationship!
2. We need to come to the end of our own methods and power.
3. We need to be rejected, broken, and a long way from home, so that God can get our attention.
4. We need to be preparing ourselves for leadership by blooming where we are planted.
5. We need to be all alone, so that God can have our undivided attention!
(We have touched on the expectation and the environment, so let’s look at:)
III. The Experience.
As Moses was pasturing the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. Horeb is another name for Mount Sinai. At Mount Sinai, the “angel of the Lord” encountered Moses in a burning bush that was not consumed by the fire. The terminology of the “angel of the Lord” is used for Jehovah God. So, Jehovah God encountered Moses! God showed up!
But, how did God show up? God took an ordinary bush and transformed it into a flaming manifestation of Himself! This was an undeniable experience with God!
This was the manifest presence of God, as opposed to His omnipresence! The manifest presence of God is called the Shechinah, which represents the majestic presence or manifestation of God, which descended to ‘dwell’ among men. The Rabbis had two other terms that they used in place of the term ‘God” when anthropomorphic (God being likened to Human attributes) expressions of the Bible were no longer regarded as proper. They were
1) Memra (= ‘word’; ‘logos’). The “Word” of God is the manifest presence of God! And
2) ‘Yekara’ (i.e., ‘Kabod’ = ‘glory’). The glory of God is the manifest presence of God!
“Shechinah” does not occur in Scripture, but was used by later Jews and by Christians to express the visible divine Presence of God, especially when resting between the cherubim over the mercy seat. The word means (literally) residence, i.e. of God.
“Whenever the invisible God took on a visible form, whenever the omnipresence of God became localized, this visible, localized presence was the Shechinah Glory. Throughout most of Old Testament history, the Shechinah Glory took the form of a light, or fire, or cloud, or some combination of these things.”[1]
(All right, back to the story!)
A blaze of deified fire arrested Moses attention! The sight is particularly arresting, because the bush was not consumed!
Fire is one of the recurring symbols of God’s advent or showing up in the Old Testament (Exod 19; Ps 18; cf. Jeremias, Theophanie, 56–66, Kuntz, Self-Revelation, 138–47).[2]
“Fire was a symbol of the Lord’s presence and the instrument of His power, either in the way of approval or of destruction” (New Unger’s Bible Dictionary).
· You could have said whatever you wanted to say to Moses, but he knew what he saw and what he experienced.
· You could have said whatever you wanted to say to Moses, but bushes that burn with fire burn up. They don’t continue as if they are not on fire!
· You could have said whatever you wanted to say to Moses, but he knew that Jehovah did not usually show up in the midst of burning bushes!
This was an undeniable experience with Jehovah God!
Have you had any burning bush experiences! Has God ever shown up in some circumstance or situation that should have been consumed, but somehow you see God in the midst of something that is being sustained by God?
I have, because this could be seen as the picture of the Church; a bush that is on fire with the presence of God and yet not consumed! When God shows up, He ignites things with the fire of His Shechinah Glory! The fire of His glory burns up dross, but it does not burn up the situation, event, thing or person that it ignites!
(It is very important, because of who we are and who Moses was that we understand and learn from His example. So, let’s explore Moses’ response, as our example:)
IV. The Example (Principle).
In these messages, I am trying to show you how people who were encountered by God did more than intellectually dissect the encounter; rather they digested the encounter. When you dissect something it’s already dead or you kill it! To digest something you have to bite off enough of it to ingest it, so that you can assimilate it and it may transform you! You’re not cutting it up to examine; you’re biting into it to eat it! People who were encountered by God fully entered into and fully experienced the encounter!
Certainly Moses responds with some intellectual inquisitiveness, but he responds with so much more of himself than just his intellect. The text says in
Exodus 3:3, “So Moses said, ‘I must turn aside now, and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.’”
He didn’t intellectually examine the bush from a far, he personally and physically moved towards the bush to examine it closely! When he turned aside to see this marvelous sight, his intellectual inquisitiveness brought him to the place of full encounter with God.
If the encounter wasn’t already miraculous enough, now God speaks to Moses out of the midst of the burning bush. God tells Moses to take off his sandals, because the place that he was standing on was holy ground. Isn’t God saying, “This is not just an intellectual lesson Moses, but an encounter and an experience? Take off your shoes, because you’re in a different place, atmosphere, and presence!”
When we come into God’s presence, we ought to take off the shoes of our standing in the world and approach with reverence!
Now, it isn’t stated, but it’s obvious that Moses obeys God. He took off his sandals, in obedience and reverence to God.
If you want to extend an encounter with God, i.e. after God has shown up, then you must respond to God’s presence with reverence and obedience!
Here are two missing elements from our encounters with God! When God shows up, we evidently don’t know that we should or we don’t know how to respond in obedience and reverence towards the God of the encounter!
There is a second tip off that this is an encounter and not a theology lesson: Moses was afraid to do the very thing that he said he wanted to so, i.e. turn aside and see this great sight! He quickly moves from curiosity to fear! He, evidently, realizes that what he was looking at was more than a natural oddity; it was more than a miraculously burning bush; it was the Shechinah or manifest presence of Yahweh! And Moses had probably been taught that anyone who looked into the face of Yahweh would die! So, God had shown up in a big way!
If we come into the presence of the Shechinah, we won’t be worried about our curiosity, our theology, or our American perspectives. We’ll have a sense of reverential fear!
Yet, we are left with an important question, “Why was God showing up like this to Moses?”
· God showed up because He was calling and commissioning Moses to be the worship leader of the Children of Israel.
God says this in
Exodus 3:12 (NASB), “12 And He said, ‘Certainly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain’” (bold type added).
· God showed up to call Moses for a Mission.
· God showed up to give Moses a God-sized assignment.
So, if we want God to show up, we need to be ready to accept His call in our lives!
Now don’t get confused, because of American individualism! God’s assignment wasn’t based upon Moses, but upon His character and His people. He said:
· I have seen the affliction (poverty) of my people!
· I have heard their cry, because of their taskmasters!
· I am aware of their sufferings!
God shows up in person or through His servant, when His people are afflicted, crying, and suffering! So, if you are afflicted and suffering and you want God to show up, cry! Yahweh cannot turn a deaf ear to the cry of His people!
If you are not afflicted, crying, or suffering, find some people who are and develop a passion for delivering them from their misery and God will show up to you!
Now God states clearly,
“I have come down to deliver my people from the power of the Egyptians to bring them from the land of affliction and poverty to the Land of Promise!”
God came down! He came down from where? Evidently, He came down from heaven! God showed up to deliver His people from their enemy and to their destiny!
As God’s people, we can expect God to come down and show up to deliver us from the power of the devil to the promise of our destiny!
(I think it’s time for a testimony!)
God has shown up in my life to call me on this mission for your deliverance! Let me share with you some burning bush experiences!
I got saved at the age of eight (8) years old, at a meeting being run by my Mother, at 32 E. Lod Street, under the viaduct. I heard someone say, “If you make one step, He’ll make two!” I didn’t know what that meant, but with childlike faith I began to jump and the power of the Spirit knocked down and I rolled all over that floor and all under those pews and chairs. Why would God encounter me in such a burning bush experience? Because, He knew the God-sized assignment that He had for me.
From the time I was saved and periodically I have a recurring dream and vision. I have seen myself preaching to in a huge building, with a balcony and a sloped floor, with more people than you can count and the Spirit of God moving through that building like a the wave at a football game. Whenever, I have this dream or vision it just goes all through me. Why would God continue to periodically reveal Himself to me in this way and to others about me also, because of the God-sized assignment and mission that God has for me.
An evangelist in the Church of God in Christ, by the name of Sister Shaw, prophesied over me, over 30 years ago, “God is going to do a quick work through you!” meaning God would grow my work rapidly. That prophecy confirmed what God had been showing me through His Word, through dreams, and through other prophecies. Those prophecies became a burning bush in my life. They were words that were set on fire by the Holy Spirit, but not consumed.
After that, while I was working at Babcock and Wilcox, the late Al Spivey, a European brother from the GARBC, prophesied into my life! He would bring me Christian books and encourage me to get into the ministry full-time. One day brother Al came to me and said, “Brother Joey. God has shown me that you are going to have the largest Black church in the city of Akron. His ordinary words became a burning bush that was set on fire by Jehovah God, but not consumed. I have never forgotten those words!
(And God is about to show up more often and more powerfully, because His mission to me and this church is just kicking into high gear. Remember: my mission is going to be deeply intertwined with the mission of this church, because I am her shepherd, pastor, leader, primary vision caster, etc. Those who are called to this church and properly connected to me are going to participate in the divine encounters that I am having. Therefore, I am going to talk in terms of “we”. So, let’s get ready for God to increasingly show up!)
· He is going to increasingly show up, because of our mission to snatch the souls of unsaved people out of the misery of sin, shame, and hell! We are a soul-saving station first in Akron and then in the entire world!
· He is going to increasingly show up, because we are called to provide information and tools to equip leaders and help to relieve their misery. We are called to help saints become Kingdom-driven and secular leaders to be character-driven.
· He is going to increasing show up, because He has called us to produce excellent, Bible-based teaching media for the world!
· He is going to increasingly show up, because we have a passion to provide affordable healthcare services for people in West Akron.
· He is going to increasingly show up, because we want to provide decent, affordable house alternatives for people in West Akron.
· He is going to increasing show up, because we have a passion to help fugitives and law enforcement through the Fugitive Safe Surrender Program.
· He is going to increasing show up, because He wants to call, commission, and empower us for a mission…and you are a part of that mission.
So,
§ Let’s begin to expect God to show up!
§ Let’s begin to exhort God to show up!
§ Let’s begin to praise God, in advance, for showing up!
(Now is the Day of Salvation. Come to Jesus, now!)
Invitation & Call to Discipleship
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[1] Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum, The Logos And The Rabbi, Ariel Ministries, Tustin, California, 2002, p. 3.
[2]Durham, J. I. (2002). Vol. 3: Word Biblical Commentary : Exodus. Word Biblical Commentary (31). Dallas: Word, Incorporated.