Saved from Uselessness

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Exodus chapter 3. Exodus chapter 3. Now when you have seen my children here at church, there’s one thing that people typically notice about my daughter, about Madeline.

And that would be the stuff she wears in her hair. I think it was fairly subdued last week, but she has a lot of hair accessories that are bigger than her head. Bows and flowers and things.

And at first I thought that was silly when we started collecting all of those things. And then I realized, you know what, you’re the daddy of a little girl. There are going to be a lot of things that you think are silly, but you’re going to do them because they’re important to her and she likes her hair goes.

I can walk into the house and there will be just piles of ribbon and piles of flowers. and it will look like absolute junk to me, just a pile of stuff. Do you ever walk into your house and see a pile of stuff?

And think, who puts this stuff here? We’ll walk in and see just a pile of ribbons. And it seemed like when I lived in Arkansas, and the family would come to visit, they would bring piles of ribbon.

What is all of this for? But I would watch, and as my mother would sit down with this pile of stuff, eventually it would be transformed, and there would be these huge, elaborate bows, and some of them would have flowers on them or under them, and some of them would have jewels on them, some have feathers. My goodness, she looks like the stuff that Kate Middleton wore before she got married to Prince William.

I mean, just elaborate things. And I’m not exaggerating when I say she has a hair accessory made for every outfit that she has. And when we get rid of an outfit, that hair accessory doesn’t go away.

But when we get a new outfit, another hair accessory is made. So we had to buy an old birdcage and clip them on there and use that as a holder just to have somewhere to put them. Anyway, said all that to say this.

Most, if not all, of the hair things she has that you’ve seen, some of them, and they’re elaborate. Most, if not all, of them are handmade. And they came from a pile of stuff.

I can do a lot of things. That’s not anything to be impressed by. I say all the time you’d be amazed at what a poor man can learn to do when you can’t pay somebody else to do it.

I can do a lot of things, but you put me in front of that pile of stuff, ribbons and feathers, It’s going to look like a little girl’s clothing store threw up on the table. You put my mother in front of that same pile of stuff and these absolutely gorgeous accessories that people would probably pay money for. Turnout.

And it’s amazing what can happen with a pile of junk in the hands of somebody who knows what they’re doing. In the hands of somebody who has a plan and the knowledge to see it through. ladies and gentlemen not to make you feel bad about yourselves this morning because I think about myself this way more than I think about you this way but as human beings we are kind of like that pile of junk.

It doesn’t matter how impressive a person is. We all have our flaws. We all have our weaknesses.

We all have our insecurities in spite of those strengths and people can tell you all day long how great you are if that happens. They can tell you how great you are and you might even start to believe it, but there comes a point in time when you’re by yourself and you realize I’m not as great as other people seem to think. I know me.

I tell you this from the pulpit all the time. When I’m preaching about sin, I’m not saying I’m perfect. Guys, I know me.

And we are a lot of times like that pile of junk, but in the hands of somebody who knows what he’s doing. Something incredible can take place. We’re going to take a look at Exodus chapter 3 this morning.

At the story of Moses, who started out, as we talked about two weeks ago, a week before Easter, he started out kind of as, once you get past the whole being set adrift in a basket part of the story, he started out as somebody. He spent 40 years in Pharaoh’s palace. He spent 40 years as a member of the royal family.

Adopted into it, sure, but part of the royal family. And when I say part of the royal family, you know, we hear that phrase in our minds and we think about England. That’s our closest frame of reference to that sort of thing.

And yes, they’re wealthy and yes, they look the part, but they don’t have any real power. That’s not the case here. Pharaoh had absolute power over life and death for all of his subjects, and you’re right there in that inner circle, the family where all of that power is concentrated.

Lived in the royal palace, and for 40 years he was somebody until it came along that he went out to check on his Hebrew brethren. And because they were being oppressed by a taskmaster, he ended up killing that man. I told you before, I told you two weeks ago, I don’t know that it’s the approach I would have taken, But I feel like it was justified.

I don’t see here that he killed the man in cold blood. I see that he was stopping him from beating another man to death. And he had to flee.

Well, we catch up with him between chapter 2 and the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3. We’re almost 40 years later. Now, we don’t know this from this passage.

We don’t know this from Exodus. We know this from other places in the Bible where it talks about Moses. We’re almost 40 years later.

and he is still there in Midian where he fled to 40 years earlier from Pharaoh’s wrath. He’s in Midian and he’s tending the sheep of his father-in-law. Because if you’ll remember, after he was fleeing Egypt, because he killed the Egyptian taskmaster to keep him from beating a man to death, he fled to Midian and there were shepherds there who were oppressing the women, the daughters of Reuel or Jethro, we think it’s the same person, and he stopped them.

And so Jethro said, you can have one of my daughters as your wife, and he gave him Zipporah, and they were married, and they had children, and yet all this time God is still working, God is still hearing what’s going on, the grumblings of Israel in their bondage, and he’s working in Moses’ life to prepare him for what comes next. But what I want you to see here is Moses is not the man that he was 40 years ago. He’s not rich.

He’s not powerful. I don’t know that he’s all that good looking. He’s 40 years on down the road.

And it says in chapter 3, verse 1, Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian. And he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. So he’s there, he’s tending the flocks.

And this week in Bible class, I was teaching my junior high students about Abraham and Lot and about how they had these massive flocks of animals that belonged to them. And these were wealthy men in their day. What we see here is Moses isn’t even wealthy by their standards.

We would look at somebody and say, so what, you have 5,000 sheep. We wouldn’t, in a lot of parts of our country, we wouldn’t look at that and say, well, that’s a rich, powerful man. Although that’s an investment of capital right there in all those animals.

But he’s tending this big flock. But the Bible says it wasn’t even his. It belonged to his father-in-law.

I’m not saying Moses was mooching off of his father-in-law. Because he’s out there working for him. But the fact is Moses is not in a position like where he was.

Where he’s rich and powerful and successful. He’s working for his father-in-law. And living as part of his family.

And so he takes the sheep to the backside of the desert, to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. And he looked and behold, the bush was burned with fire and the bush was not consumed.

Now, anytime you see this phrase, the angel of the Lord in the scriptures, look a little deeper and try to see what you’re actually looking at. Because we take the phrase angel to mean just the creature that we know of as an angel with the wings and as they show in the cartoons with the halo and the harp. There is something that the Bible talks about as cherubim that are created beings.

It talks about Gabriel and it talks about Michael, these archangels, and it talks about the heavenly host. It talks about created beings who were created to serve God and to work for him and to worship him. And yet the word angel itself in scripture just means messenger. And there are times in scripture where we see the angel of the Lord, as scripture calls it, the angel of the Lord doing things that seem out of character for an angel.

We see the angel of the Lord doing things that, hey, I thought only God could do that. And there is a school of thought in theology. Now, we’re not going to get too deep into theology this morning.

Not that there’s anything wrong with theology, but it does get a little irritating when people sit in their ivory towers and argue over tiny little points for ages. But there is a school of thought here that says the messenger of the Lord, the angel of the Lord, sometimes refers to Christ in his pre-incarnate form. That Jesus Christ, God the Son, could have sometimes showed up in the Old Testament as the messenger of God.

And if you’ve never heard that before and you’re thinking, that is completely weird. Is this some kind of heresy? Think about the story that I know we’ve talked about here with the three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace.

When they were thrown in there, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, or as we know them, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. When they were thrown in the furnace, there was some confusion among the Babylonians, wasn’t there? Wait a minute, I thought we threw three guys in there and why didn’t it kill them?

They’re all up walking around and there’s a fourth one in there. And they even said themselves that he looked like the son of God. And traditionally Christians have interpreted that and said that the son of God was in there walking with them.

Now, some people have come along and tried to attack that and said, well, what that means literally in their Babylonian language is that it means a son of the gods. I don’t care if the Babylonians knew what was happening or not. They saw a fourth person walking in there that they didn’t throw in and who shouldn’t have been walking, none of them should have been walking around anyway, and they looked at him and just the very appearance of him was supernatural. Now if it was not God, if it was not God the Son, you tell me just who the fourth man was.

But we see some evidence in the Bible. For example, Jacob wrestling with the angel. There are some parts to that story that I don’t think an angel has the power to grant necessarily the things that he granted to Jacob.

There’s the story of the captain of the Lord’s host who came to Joshua. Right before the battle of Jericho, Joshua said, Are you for us or for our enemies? He said, Neither.

I’m the captain of the Lord’s host with supernatural power. Now, am I saying all of these were Jesus Christ? I don’t know.

But I’m saying it’s a possibility. When you see the phrase, the angel of the Lord, if they don’t name him by name, If they don’t say this was Gabriel, I’m not saying Gabriel and Michael are Jesus either. Then we’re getting into Jehovah’s Witness teaching.

But what I am saying, the word angel, don’t be thrown by that. The word literally means messenger. It can mean the created being.

It can mean as it does in Revelation, the pastors of the seven churches, I believe, as messengers of God. It could mean the Son of God. Take a closer look.

Don’t just assume it’s a creature flying around with wings and a harp. Take a closer look at who’s actually acting here. Because we see where it says, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush.

I did not mean to spend so much time explaining that part. But maybe you’ll leave out of here with a better understanding of what the Bible means by angels. It says, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of the bush.

That sounds great until we get to the part later on where he’s talking to the voice that he hears there. And it’s not things that an angel would say. They’re things that God would say.

The way he identifies himself, he identifies himself as God. An angel would not do that. So he looks over, he sees the bush burning.

That’s not all that unusual. Here in just a couple months, we’ll turn on the news every afternoon and see bushes burning. Not a big deal. And yet the bush was not consumed. We’ll drive up and down the highway.

we’ll see those nasty red cedar plants burnt to a crisp because they’ve burned and been consumed. But for a bush to burn and not be consumed, that was something that stood out to Moses. He stands there and surveys the wilderness and he sees something out of the ordinary.

And Moses said, verse 3, I will now turn aside and see this great sight why the bush is not burnt. I’m going to go check that out. You know what?

God approached Moses in a way that was significant enough to stand out, but not so in your face at this point that Moses ran away screaming. You notice a lot of times when God shows up or his angels, his created angels show up in the Bible, the first thing that they say is don’t be afraid because the form they’ve showed up in is overwhelming to us. This was significant enough for Moses to take notice, but it was subtle enough that he says, I’m just going to go see what’s going on here.

And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the bush, out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. God calls out to him and Moses, he calls him by name.

And I have to wonder, did he look around? Who’s talking to me? Did he hear the voice coming out of the bush and know where it was coming from?

Either way, he answered. And he said, draw not nigh hither. Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.

He said, don’t come any closer and take off your shoes because you’re on holy ground. You’re on ground that is sanctified. You’re in a place of meeting with God.

Does that mean we have to take off our shoes to meet with God? No. But what it meant was, well, in that case, he did.

What it meant was you are meeting with God. You show some respect. Moreover, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. See, he identifies himself as the God of Abraham, the God of Abraham who made all these promises, not just to give Abraham a great number of descendants, but to make them a great nation. And at this point, that promise was in hibernation.

They were great in number, but not so much in stature. They were slaves in a strange land. And yet he identifies himself as the God whom Abraham trusted and believed and who blessed Abraham.

He identifies himself not just as the God of Abraham, but the God of Isaac and Jacob as well. Now that’s important because there are other religions today, ladies and gentlemen, that trace their lineage back to Abraham and say, well, our God is the God of Abraham. The only problem is their God of Abraham is not the same God of Abraham that ours is, and I submit to you, not the same God that Abraham actually worshipped.

He did a whole talk on the differences between the God of the Bible and the Allah of the Koran a few weeks ago, and there are some major differences in the two. So he identifies himself, he gets very specific about who I am. The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.

And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God. Moses knew the stories. Moses knew who God was.

And Moses realized that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, while he loves us, is not someone to be trifled with, is not someone to take lightly. And we see here that God begins to speak. God controls the conversation here.

And the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. I think it’s important that God started out with this because they had been in slavery in Egypt for over 400 years. Yeah, over 400 years.

And on top of that, it had been 40 years, around 40 years, since God had mentioned in the end of chapter 2 that He heard their afflictions, that He had respect to them.

I’m sure it was a point they were to a point in Israel when I say in Israel I don’t mean the country because it didn’t exist yet but I mean among the people of the nation of Israel it was probably to a point where God’s forgotten us if he was going to hear us if he was going to do something surely he would have done something by now Moses probably thought that chapter in his life was closed my brethren are in bondage and nothing’s going to change that it’s been all these years I’m in exile in Midian and there’s nothing that’s going to change that because it’s been all these years and if God was going to do something surely he’d have done it already look at our pitiful state we’re in and so God starts out with the thing I think was precisely on Moses’ mind or would have been on Moses’ mind and on the minds of the people of Israel I have not forgotten you doesn’t matter how low you’ve been brought it doesn’t matter how pitiful a state you’re in I have not forgotten you He says, I have seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters, for I know their songs.

I wonder from time to time if God doesn’t allow us to get to our lowest point, if God doesn’t sometimes allow us to hit rock bottom, not to be cruel, but so we get to that point of realizing there is nothing on earth that will change our situation because we need to be at a point where we realize that there is nothing on earth that changes our situation. so that when we do see him step in and act, there’s no way we can take credit for it or give credit to anyone other than to whom it’s due. He says, I have seen the affliction of my people.

I’ve heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. I know their sorrows. I see and hear and understand.

Think about that. God condescends enough to understand what we’re afflicted with. He says, I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land unto a good land and a large unto a land flowing with milk and honey unto the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites.

So we won’t go into explanation of who all those people are today. But God says, I have come to deliver them. I’m here.

Those are powerful words. Those are powerful words. There was a, there was a, y’all know I’m kind of a political junkie.

There was a man who announced his campaign for president this week. And I won’t, I won’t name names. So I don’t want anybody to think I’m campaigning.

But there was a man who announced his campaign for presidency this week. And whether you agree with him or not, I kept hearing the clip over and over of part of his speech where he says, we are coming to take our country back. whether you agree with him or not those are powerful words they get one one set of people fired up for some reason yeah we’re coming to take our country back and they get another set of people fired up no you can’t do that depending on where you stand on what that candidate’s talking about but it’s the statement that help has arrived help is not just on the way help has arrived we are here God said the same thing only a much more powerful statement.

I don’t care who it is whether it’s my favorite candidate whether it’s my second favorite whether it’s my least favorite candidate no one person is going to is going to rescue our country and yet the God of heaven when he says I am here I am here to rescue you and to set things right that means something because he can do what he says he will do. And I am come down. I am here to deliver them, to rescue them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them to the land that’s flowing with milk and honey.

Now therefore, he says, verse 9, Behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come unto me. And I have also seen the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them. He reminds Moses again, I have heard their cries.

I know what’s going on. I’ve seen what’s been done to them. Come now therefore.

Oh, I’ve seen and I’ve heard and I understand and I’ve come to rescue them. Now let’s talk about the job that you have to do. Really?

I’m just an 80-year-old guy living with my father-in-law and tending sheep in the wilderness. You’re going to use me for this. Come now, therefore, and I will send thee unto Pharaoh.

Wait a minute. The 80-year-old guy living with his father-in-law and tending sheep in the wilderness is going to go get in the face of the most powerful man on earth. Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humor?

Come now therefore and I will send thee unto Pharaoh that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. He said, I’m come to deliver them, to set them free and you’re gonna do some of the talking to see that happen. Now it was God’s work from first to last. Moses couldn’t have walked in and gotten Pharaoh to turn them loose, but God chose to use Moses as a tool to accomplish what he wanted to happen.

and Moses said unto God who am I who am I is right who am I to do what you’ve called what you’re asking me to do who am I that I should go into Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt you know Moses for all of his flaws and we will see some of his flaws this morning the you know the uh the whining whining a little bit about well I’m so inadequate But okay, there comes a point where you cross the line from humility into now you’re just doubting God’s power to use you. But I will say for all of his flaws, Moses did at least have some humility about him. Really, who am I that you should use me?

God, surely there are better people to use. I think that all the time. You ever think that?

God, surely there’s somebody better. Because again, I know me. God, are you sure you don’t want that guy?

that God says it’s not about your qualifications. It’s about what I’ve called you to do. Who am I that I should go into Pharaoh and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And he said, this is God speaking again, certainly I will be with thee. And this shall be a token unto thee that I have sent thee when thou has brought forth the people out of Egypt. Ye shall serve God upon this mountain.

He said, you’re going to go to Pharaoh. I will be with you. I will do the heavy lifting.

and then you’re going to lead them out of Egypt and they’re going to come back here and they’re going to serve me on this mountain. And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you and they shall say unto me, What is his name? What shall I say unto them?

I see a lot of myself in Moses. So I want to know all the details. That’s just the way I’m wired.

I want to have everything laid out. We need to have a plan. You know what?

I’m good if we need to make the plan in pencil so we can erase it and adjust it as we go along. But there needs to be a plan. Or we’re not starting this off.

He wants to know all the details. And he’s got all these questions. Well, what if they say this?

What if they do this? What if they, and I will do that. Somebody asks me to do something at work.

Would you hand these out to the parents? Well, what if they ask me what it is? I don’t understand what this event is for.

And what if they ask me what it is? Just hand it to them. They’ll know.

Okay, well, what if they say this? I have to call parents sometimes. I have to write down what I’m going to.

. . Guys, I’m terrified of using the phone.

I will contact you by text or email or Facebook all day. Or better yet, face-to-face works for me. But if I.

. . I had to get the people in Fayetteville to understand this.

I will come visit you at your home. If you’re sick and don’t want people to come to your home, I will text you, I will email you, but from my time in insurance, I am terrified of using the telephone, talking on the telephone. I have to write out everything I’m going to say.

Well, what if they ask this? I better write that down. I need to know all the details.

And I see Moses being the same way. Okay, so you’re going to send me and you’re going to do this. What if they ask who sent me?

You’ll tell them the God of your fathers. Actually, he’d already been answered that part. So when I tell them the God of my fathers has sent me, what if they ask me about who you are?

Like they didn’t know who the God of their fathers was. What is his name? Because they didn’t know enough about God already.

He needed to know. Who can I tell them again? Who can I tell them?

Is it all right to use your name and say you called or you told me to talk to them? And God said unto Moses, I am that I am. And this is another thing that theologians have debated for centuries.

There are so many facets of meaning in that phrase. I am that I am. If we consider that a lot of times the way things are worded in the Bible, that can be exchanged for who.

I am who I am. Think about it from that perspective. God says I am who I am.

It doesn’t matter what you know or don’t know about me. It doesn’t matter if you know every aspect of my nature. It doesn’t matter if you know every aspect of my plan or my decision-making.

I am who I am, and what you know or don’t know doesn’t change that. There’s also the aspect of that that says I am who I am. Not I was who I was.

Not I will be who I will be, but I am. There’s also the aspect of it of his name Yahweh. That blew some of the little kids’ minds when I told them God’s name in the Bible was Yahweh.

They thought God was his actual name. Hebrew scholars think that one of the meanings of that name is the self-existent one. You know what?

He wasn’t created by anybody else or anything else. He just is. Kids ask, who created God?

You can’t answer that question because there was no who before God. There was nothing before God. He never was created.

He never had a beginning. It’s not that he wasn’t and then was and will be. He just is.

And this defies everything I know and teach about English grammar. He is in the past. He is in the present. And he is in the future.

I am. He just is. He says, you tell them I am that I am.

Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I am hath sent me to you. Who gave you the authority to come and talk to us about this? Who gave you the authority to speak to Pharaoh?

Who gave you the authority to command your brethren? I am sent me. God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob have sent me unto you.

This is my name forever, and this is my memorial unto all generations. Who is he? He’s the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, the Lord your God, the Lord of, excuse me, the Lord God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and Jacob appeared unto me saying, I have surely visited you and seen that which is done to you in Egypt. And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of the Egypt, unto the land of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites, the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey. He says, you go and you tell them, you gather up all the elders of the people and you get them together.

And you tell them that the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has sent you. Yes, lowly, sheep herding Moses, I’ve sent you and that I am going to lead you, that tell them, tell them that I’ve sent you, tell them I’ve seen the affliction, I’ve seen the suffering they’ve undergone and I’m about to lead them to the promised land. And they shall hearken to thy voice.

Thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and you shall say unto him, the Lord God of the Hebrews hath met with us. So he says, the leaders of Israel are going to listen to you. Now there was sometimes grumbling and complaining and sometimes questioning, But by and large, the leaders of Israel, the people of Israel, listened to what Moses had to say.

He said, and then you’re going to go and you’re going to speak to the king of Egypt. You’re going to speak to Pharaoh and tell him, the God of the Hebrews has met with us. That wasn’t going to be real impressive to the Pharaoh, who thought of himself as a God.

Oh, okay, so you had a meeting with the God of the slaves. That’ll get you right in the door. The Lord God of the Hebrews have met with us, And now let us go, we beseech thee, three days journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice unto the Lord thy God.

So you’re going to tell him you’ve met with the God of the Hebrews, and you’re going to ask him to let you go three days journey into the wilderness so that you can sacrifice and worship God. Okay, Moses is probably thinking at this point, okay, he says this will work, maybe this will work. Then we get to verse 19, and God says, And I am sure that the king of Egypt will not let you go.

No, not by a mighty hand. Okay, so God, let me get this straight. You want me to go and ask him to let you go, or let us go, because the God of the slaves said to, and you want me to go ask him this, knowing he’s going to say no. That’s exactly what God wanted him to do.

Now, did God make Pharaoh say no? I don’t believe so. The Bible does say later on that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart.

I don’t think that means God changed his mind, but I think that means God said, okay, if you want to be stubborn, let’s be stubborn. If you’re going to, if this is what, if this is the, as I tell my son all the time, if this is the way you want this to go down, or I told one of the students on Friday, and I had to laugh at this later on because I couldn’t believe I said it. I told one of my students, okay, if you want to be difficult, I can be difficult.

I invented difficult. Okay, if Pharaoh wants to be difficult, then God can play

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