God’s Servant — Called & Equipped

Today, we'll be studying Exodus chapters 3 and 4, and we titled it God's Servant Called and Equipped. And we're going to talk about how God called Moses, how he equipped him for his calling. And I just kind of want to take a few minutes up front to just give you the essence of the whole lesson today, because it wasn't through education, or information, or Jedi training that God equipped Moses. There was one thing that he told him, and he happened to say it in chapter 3, verse 12. And in chapter 4, verse 12, God said, I will be with you. That was Moses' equipping, that the presence of God would be with him and go with him. And we're going to study the call of Moses, but then later on, we're also going to ask ourselves, when we get to the question, what does this mean to us? And we'll ask about our callings. Because does God call people for specific purposes today, or did God only call important Moses-type people back in the day? If you ask the question, am I called to something, I would say, absolutely. Because the New Testament makes this clear, that if you are born of God, if you are one of God's kids, he has particular things, works planned in advance for you to do. So God calls each one of us. So when we talk about calling and equipping, this is something that is relevant to us as well. Now, what about our lives? How are we equipped for what God calls us to, our special assignment? Is it education? Is it Jedi training? How are we equipped for our job? Well, I read a really short biography on Hudson Taylor this week, and something that he wrote in a publication in his day caught my attention. And I want to share it with you, so I'll put it on the screen so you can read along with me. He said, all God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on his being with them. I wonder if he was considering Moses at the time that he said that, and considering these verses. Because Moses is going to learn, and we should learn, that the important thing in our life is reckoning, God is with me. That is the important thing. And this special promise that God gives to Moses right here is going to carry him through the face of some severe trials in the short term and also in the long term. And he is going to come to a time from Exodus chapter 3, where we are, all the way to Exodus 33, when it's time now to leave Sinai. This message is going to be buried so deep into his heart that when God says, it's time to leave here, Moses is going to say these words to God. He's going to say, Exodus 33, 15, if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. If your presence isn't going to go with me, I'm not going anywhere. So this is the transformation we're going to see in Moses from chapter 3 to chapter 33, that he is going to understand, and he's going to grip this, and he is going to treasure the presence of God. I wonder if one reason that we don't feel very equipped in our special assignment is we have begun to rely on things other than the presence of God. We rely on all kinds of things to do what we perceive God has called us to do. But that's the point of this lesson, is that God will be with us. I want to read it one more time. All God's giants have been weak men or women who did great things for God because they reckoned on his being with them. On to Exodus 3. OK, so since the last chapter, Moses has settled into his new life in Midian. He's a shepherd for his father-in-law. And close to 40 years has gone by. I bet those years have mellowed him quite a bit. And I wonder if he still had thoughts about his former life. I wonder if he had those what-if thoughts, if-only kinds of things. Or I wonder if he forgot all about his life in Egypt. Whether or not he forgot, God never forgets. And God never forgets a face. He never forgets a name, as we say. He knows all of our addresses. He never loses our address. And so he had no trouble finding Moses when he wanted to talk to him. And that's where we start in verse 1.

which we learned in our lesson is another name for Sinai.

And Moses said, I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burning. And so let's pause for just a minute, because we have a few things to talk about. When we see this phrase in scripture, the angel of the Lord, it most often means, and it does mean in this particular case, that it's not just any old angel that God has laying around. The angel of the Lord is God himself. This is what theologians called a theophany. It is the pre-incarnate Christ speaking here. And we also notice that there's a supernatural event going on. This is not natural in the desert for a bush to be burning and not be consumed. Have you ever taken your Christmas tree and thrown it on the back porch? And then in about July, you decide to light it on fire. And it's about 40 seconds, right? It goes up fast. So this is not a natural occurrence that is going on. It is something supernatural that is happening. And Moses notices, and he makes a decision to turn aside. And it is once Moses stops to investigate this unusual thing that God calls to him.

I kind of get the understanding here that this was almost a first test for Moses. Will he even turn aside? Or is he so concerned with his normal routine of life, the natural things in life, will he even turn aside to pay attention to this? And once he does, God calls him. And look at this. He calls him by his name twice. Moses, Moses. And in scripture, we see that as intimacy. God said that Abraham, Abraham. Samuel, Samuel. On the Damascus Road, he called Saul, Saul. I was sure that there was a Mary. Mary, uh-uh. You know what it is? Martha, Martha. Isn't that sweet? Anyway, verse 5,

I have screenplays going in my mind when I read narrations. And so I have Moses bending down, hiding his face from God, but also quickly taking off his shoes, because that was the instruction. But inside, he's saying to himself, I knew it. I knew there was a song in there that said, Moses, you've been saved in a very special way for a very special purpose. I knew it. I knew that there was an Abraham and an Isaac and a Jacob. It's all true. And so Moses is just excited, but hiding his face from God. And the bush keeps burning. And God goes on to tell him, I'm just going to summarize. God says, I've seen the affliction of your people. I heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings. And I've come down to do something about it. Those were the words we settled on last week, right? God sees, he knows, he hears. And that's what God revealed to Moses. And then verse 10, God goes on. He says, come, I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. And Moses is like, no, no. Right when he says, I will send you, then Moses begins to have, he comes back to reality and he says, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt? Because God's plan suddenly revealed all kinds of fear and insecurity in Moses' heart. And now his memory is really good. Chapter 2, verse 15, Pharaoh sought to kill Moses. Well, he doesn't know if it's the same Pharaoh, if it's a different one. But I don't think he wants to find out. And so there's a lot of fear that goes with it. And so God brings the one answer to him that will satisfy those fears. In verse 12, God says, I will be with you. And this is going to be a sign to you that I've sent you. When you've brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. OK, so God is saying, Moses, asking who am I is the wrong question. It's not about you. It's not about your abilities. This is about me and my intentions to bring my people from their bondage to this place. Here's the important thing, Moses, and it's the same important thing that I said to your ancestor Jacob. The important thing is, I will be with you. Remember, we've brought up Genesis chapter 46 in every lesson so far, when he told Jacob, do not be afraid to go down into Egypt for I will be with you going down and I will bring you back up. So God is saying to him, here's the important thing, is that I will be with you. God wanted his people to know that he would be with them both directions, from Eden into Egypt, from Egypt to Sinai. But can we relate to Moses's insecurities? Have you ever had a tendency to make something all about you rather than all about what God was going to do? Have you ever had fear of failure in something that you needed to do? We can totally empathize with Moses. We totally get it, every one of us, but we're gonna watch Moses be transformed before our eyes through this lesson because he's not gonna stay like that. However, in a few verses it's gonna get worse. So Moses thinks to himself, suppose I actually do what you say. In verse 13 he says, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me what is his name, well then what should I say to them? And God answered him,

And of course, I am means that God is past, present, and future. He is unchanging, just like the bush that he is speaking out of is not changing and is not being consumed, is not burning up. And Jesus himself referenced this passage when he talked to his people in John 8 58.

Well for Jesus to say that, of course they wanted to stone him because they knew he was speaking that revered name of God. But to Moses in this moment, God saying, I am has sent me to you, is answering his former question. His former question was, who am I? And God says, wrong question. It is I am. It is not about who you are, it is about who I am. It's simple. I am has sent me to you. And then the rest of the chapter goes on where God, you've done the lesson, so we'll just go over it. God instructs Moses, how is he supposed to speak to the people? And God says, go and gather the elders of Israel together. What's he supposed to say? That God has observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt and promises to bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt. What the response of Pharaoh will be, the king of Egypt will not let you go. So there you go. It will be a failure at first, but what God's gonna do about that? I will strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it. And final result, 21, you shall not go empty, you will plunder the Egyptians. So this is the conversation that's going on. And remember, the bush is still burning, still burning as we move into chapter 4. And Moses is rolling things over in his mind and he's coming to the conclusion, but they're not gonna listen to me. They're not gonna listen to me and they're not gonna believe that you even gave this message to me. That's what happened in the past. And don't we often use the past as to haunt us that way? You know, that last time he talked to the people, they said, who made you prince and ruler over us? So that's what he's thinking of. But even after these objections, one after another, God displays such kindness, such grace to Moses, such patience. He keeps on talking to him and he says, no, no, it's gonna be okay. We're gonna do this. What do you got there in your hand? Looks like a staff to me. Take that and throw it down. And so Moses did. And what happened? It became a serpent. Moses ran away from it. And then God said, pick it up by the tail. And he does. And it returned once again to his staff. And God says, that's a sign you're gonna take with you that they may believe. That's how they're gonna believe that I sent you. And then God says, put your hand inside your cloak. Moses does it. He pulls it out. It's leprous. What a frightening experience. And God says, put it back. And he puts it back and it's been restored. God says, if they didn't do believe the first sign, they'll believe this one. And just in case they don't believe either one of those in verse 9, if they'll not believe either of those two signs or listen to your voice, you shall take some water from the Nile, pour it onto the dry ground, and the water that you shall take from the Nile will become blood on the dry ground. And so after those incredible miracles, I mean, imagine, imagine this. The bush is still burning, okay? While this is happening. But Moses's sense of ability, his sense of confidence, is still at this point measured by what he sees inside of himself. Not by what he just saw out there. He's measuring it by what he sees inside. And so he says, oh my Lord, I'm not eloquent, either in the past or since you've spoken to your servant, but I'm slow of speech and tongue. And God is gracious again. Look at, God says, who made man's mouth? Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore, go and I will be with your mouth and I will teach you what to speak. I got to thinking about some of the words that we adopt for ourselves. Words like insecure. We all want to be secure, have a sense, but our sense of security becomes corrupted when we look inward and we measure ourselves by what we see in here. I want to prove it to you with our English language, okay? We want to be confident. We want to be secure. We look inward. We become insecure. We want to be enough. We want to be adequate. We look at what we have on the inside. We become inadequate. We want to have abilities to do what God has called us to do. We look inward. We have inability. And God is answering him saying, Moses, look to God. Look to me. I will be with you. God says, don't look in. Look at who made man's mouth. That's my answer to you. Don't look at your mouth. Look at who made man's mouth. I will be with your mouth and I will teach you what you shall speak. You're supposed to focus on me and that'll preach, right? But it's just too hard right there for him. He had too many fears. He already was engaged in too much inward looking. And so Moses says those four words, please send somebody else. We're just like, no, Moses, you can do it. It's disappointing, isn't it? To hear him say, just please send somebody else. Too much. Too much for me to handle. And I want to hit the pause button right here. I want to take a minute to apply this lesson to our lives because I said in the beginning that God calls all of his children to serve him in some way, in some capacity. Good works that he prepared in advance that we should walk in. And so each one of us will face this conversation with the Lord. We either have faced it, we are facing it, we will face it in some way or another. We have to face this concept of our propensity to look in rather than saying God will be with me. Well, I wanted to search and find somebody authoritative that described what people's fears were in general. And I found something good. It's from CNBC and I think it relates more to business than it does life because I don't see the fear of death or the fear of childbirth in here. I think those are two big ones. But this is what CNBC says are the top eight fears of people. Fear of inadequacy, the fear of uncertainty, the fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of change, fear of losing control, fear of being judged, and the fear that something bad will happen. Pretty accurate list. And I think as we go through it we can all really relate. So I want to take what's happening to Moses, apply it to our lives in some examples of ministries that God is calling us to. Eighty-seven percent of women will become mothers either through childbirth or marriage or some way. So that is a ministry calling that God gives many of us and it is a good work that he has prepared for us to walk in. But the fears that go along with that assignment are something that we have to grapple with and say God will be with me. It is enough that God will be with me, right? What about ministries inside the church body? All kinds of ministries that you engage in, teaching Sunday school, teaching classes, hospitality ministries, worship ministries. Is it not a temptation, if you feel that kind of rolling around that God is calling you to do something, serve in administration? It's just like you say, what? Please send someone else. But the answer, what have we learned in this lesson? God will be with you. If God calls you, he equips you by saying, I will be with you. And the point is to take care of those fears that will roll over us in that way. In any calling, God reminds us not to look in where we find insecurities, inadequacies. God simply says, I will be with you. And that is what we wanna look for in our life. The presence of God in our life. The presence of God in my life is one of the most important things that I need to carry with me. Because we're gonna find out next week, things will change, something bad will happen. You may be judged, you will experience loss, you may be rejected. All of those things that are our fears, yeah, they're part of the journey that we're on. All right, remember, the bush is burning this whole time. And I have a picture in my mind right here of a flare up. Like you throw gasoline, like it got bigger suddenly in this verse 14, then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses. And he said, is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know he can speak well. Behold, he's coming out to meet you. And when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach you both what to say. He will speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him. And take in your hand the staff with which you shall do the signs. And so Moses went and he asked Jethro's permission, hey, I wanna take a trip to Egypt. Is it okay if I take your daughter along with me and my sons and I wanna see how everybody's going. And it says in verse 20, Moses took the staff of God in his hand and this renews our faith in Moses because this is the first sign of him embracing the presence of the Lord. Look, it's the staff of God here. It's no longer his staff. And so I kind of see Moses as embracing this as a symbol of the presence of God. God will go with me and he's taking that staff through which God wants to work these miracles. And somewhere along the way, God adds to the instruction in verse 21. When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I've put in your power, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. And then you shall say to Pharaoh, thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son. And I say to you, let my son go that he may serve me. If you refuse to let him go, behold, I will kill your firstborn son. Okay, this is important. Hold on to this context here of firstborn son. Pharaoh is holding something that belongs to God. The children of Israel, the people of Israel belong to God. They are his firstborn of many who will belong to God over the course of history. Pharaoh is holding them. And so Pharaoh says, Moses, you go tell God, let go of my firstborn. It's time to let go. And if you don't, I'm gonna kill your firstborn. All right, now we have these three verses. At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met him, sought to put him to death, and then Zipporah took a flint, cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me. So he let him alone. It was then that she said a bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision. Weird, what are we supposed to do with those? Normally, I would say, so just go on our website and go to this chapter and see what Paul said about it. Be good, but no, we're gonna do this. You can tell it is so obscure there that we don't have enough information to know. You can read five commentaries and they'll probably say five things. So I thought, okay, I'm always rolling a screenplay. I'll probably just take my shot at it then, too. But this theory is based on the context here of this firstborn because apparently, these sons of Moses weren't circumcised at this point. And so how odd of agreement is it for God's human representative to come to Pharaoh and to say to him, hey, I want you, God wants you to let go of his firstborn sons because they're special to him. In fact, they're in a special covenant with him. And there's a sign of that special covenant, but my firstborn sons don't happen to have that sign. Weird, like that's out of agreement, would you agree? So since I'm doing this screenplay in my mind, this is complete speculation. When we're done, you can write your own screenplay. At this moment, at this lodging place, I would have Zipporah run a flashback in her mind to the time when Gershom was born, maybe like the seventh night of his life. And they're trying to settle down in their tent, and he's fussy, and they're settling the infant down, and Moses says to her, so tomorrow, I'll circumcise him. And she says, what? And Moses said, yeah, tomorrow will be the eighth day of his life, so I'm gonna circumcise him, and in my mind, in my screenplay, Zipporah says to him, no, you're not. No, that's my son. No, I just say no, you're not gonna do that. And Moses says to her in this flashback, well, this is the sign of the covenant of the people of Israel. And she looks around, she said, I don't see any people. What are you talking about your people? You're in Midian now. This is my turf, I'm winning this battle. That's what I'd have her say. And Moses would just have that look like, I don't even know who my people are. I don't know what I'm talking about. Fine, does that ever happen with husbands and wives? Fine, and then I would have her come back into this moment at the lodging place, and I would have her eyes understand everything, that Moses is of the people of Israel, and they are in a covenant with God, and there is a sign of the covenant, and she was wrong when she won that argument. And so I would have her take the flint knife, and I would have her circumcise her son, and place that at Moses' feet, and say, we're in agreement now. You have now become a bridegroom of blood to me. I understand, I get it. That's my screenplay. Who knows? There's not enough information here. But I bring that up because isn't that something that happens in our lives? And I think that there's a good lesson since this is a women's Bible study. All right, remember, God never loses an address. He knows Aaron's address. Verse 27, going to the wilderness to meet Moses, he says to Aaron. So he went and met him at the mountain of God and kissed him and Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. And then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders, the people of Israel, and Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did all the signs in the sight of the people, and the people believed. And when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped. And it's a glorious way for our chapter to end with this night of worship because they came in there and the people believed and they embraced the message and they worshiped God and they were so excited. And this teaches us that this is how simple ministry is. You just go and tell somebody what God has shown you and they will believe you immediately and they will worship and it's gonna be awesome. No, there's a reason our next lesson is called God's Ministry Harder Than Expected. But that's next week, so just for tonight, let's enjoy the worship service because for a moment, they're on board. And that's how we close this chapter. Father, there's a lot in here for us to understand about your character, but Lord, to me, you know, in my heart, the most important thing is to remember that you are with me, your presence will go with me. Lord, there's so many things I'm lacking in my life, but if I have your presence, I know that I can be where you need me to be, I can be who you need me to be and I can do whatever you need me to do, Lord. Even in the difficult things, and Lord, we're gonna see Moses apply this through the next week and I pray that you would help us to apply it through all the difficult challenges that we face, difficult things that you have called us to do. Difficult marriages, difficult relationships, difficult family dynamics. Lord, so much you have called us to that we need your presence. And I pray that for us, Lord, that we would grip this and hold on tightly. Bless us now as we discuss this passage. In Jesus' name, amen.