It’s important to stop and reflect on your
relationship with Jesus regularly. Are you still trying to figure out who Jesus
is, or maybe you believe in Jesus but you’re still trying to figure out what
that means in your life. Have you come to the place where your faith is growing
but you still like having control in your life, so it’s like Jesus is the
passenger in your car while you drive or hopefully your relationship with Jesus
is like in the Carrie Underwood song where Jesus has the wheel and you’re trusting him completely on where
he’s leading you and who he’s calling you to be as his follower. Ask yourself, “Is there anything I would tell Jesus ‘No’ to?” This can give you
some insight into where you’re at with Jesus.
I remember when I was 18 that Pastor Nutma suggested to me that I should consider going into ministry and I laughed. How can God use a high school dropout, a navy vagabond, a pretty rough and coarse guy as a pastor. No way. I didn’t qualify and I didn’t want to, I’d seen how some people treated some of our pastors, so why would I want to experience the same thing. Deep down it was about trusting Jesus. I’d seen a lot of hurt, a lot of rotten things happen, plenty of unfairness and I often couldn’t see or understand where Jesus was or why he would allow unfair stuff to keep on happening.
Moses is kind of in that spot. Moses ran away from Egypt because he had tried to protect on of his people from a brutal slave master, but God hears the groans of the people and their cries for help and is concerned for them. God has just met Moses by grabbing his attention through a burning bush that was burning up. He introduces himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God has been rather quiet the past 400 plus years, but now shows up to tell Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go free and leave. This will not make Pharaoh happy; the Jewish people are his slaves and workforce for all the work the Egyptians didn’t want to do.
Moses isn’t so sure he wants to do this. Look at Moses’ life: he’s put in a small boat in the Nile shortly after birth, taken by an Egyptian princess, raised in the Egyptian palace by Pharaoh’s daughter and yet still feels a connection to his people and probably subtle racism by the Egyptian court, but when he goes to defend a Hebrew slave and kills a guard in order to protect him, the Hebrews want nothing to do with him, so Moses ends up taking care of sheep for 40 years and now God tells him to go back to Pharaoh, probably his former uncle and tell him to let the Hebrews go. Then to top it off, God tells Moses, “I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart so he’ll say no but go and tell him anyway to let my people go.” An impossible task from a God who has been really quiet for over 400 years and where was God while all this other stuff was going on in Moses’ life.
Moses comes up with a bunch of excuses for not accepting this call from God, “What if they don’t listen to me or believe me, what if they say that you never really came to me and think I’m crazy?” Why all the excuses? I think because Moses isn’t sure he really trusts God, he’s not convinced that God is going to show up when things get tough, and Moses has no real desire to put himself in danger for people who probably aren’t going to believe him anyway. God gives Moses 3 signs, turning Moses’ staff into a snake and back into a staff again, tells Moses to put his hand in his cloak and the skin turns leprous and God restores it again, and finally God tells Moses that should the people not believe, to pour water on the ground and God will turn it into blood. But Moses isn’t convinced, “I’ve never been eloquent, I’m slow of speech.” It doesn’t matter if Moses actually has speech issues, it’s basically just an excuse to not do what God is telling him to do.
There are so many people who are crying out in the night, not sure of how they are going to get through the next while. They don’t even know if there is anyone out there who sees or hears them as their chains wrap around them tighter and tighter. Perhaps their families are hurting, or they’re slaves to their desires and addictions, or poverty or illness, or maybe it’s hopelessness that’s filled their lives. God hears their cries, he sees their situations and he calls us to help them find freedom from the chains that hold them, he calls us to go to help them find the freedom that can be found in following Jesus.
What are some of the excuses you’ve used for not paying attention to Jesus’ call to go make disciples? You’ve heard some of mine, I was a high school drop out, navy vagabond. When the call into ministry came back in my early 30s, my excuses changed, “I can’t afford it because I have a family now, my wife married a baker, not a pastor, it will take 8 years of schooling.” But there were also the memories of stressed out pastors leaving, of having roast pastor for Sunday lunch, and my parents would be unhappy because I would be taking away Joyce and the grandkids. But even before being called into ministry, I remember being challenged by Pastor Gerrit to share my faith in Jesus with people in my life and show them what it means to follow Jesus and I came up with excuses like, “I don’t know what to say, what if they have questions I can’t answer, I’m afraid, you never taught me what to say, I don’t want to, it’s not worth the hassle.”
Pastor Gerrit was gentle but firm, he told me I didn’t trust Jesus enough, I was too concerned about myself and not enough about the people Jesus cares for. He told me Jesus will give me what I need to share my faith. The trust comes because of Jesus’ great love for me and the people around me, love that leads him to the cross to make things new, to bring new life into my life and into the lives of the people around me by offering forgiveness and grace and the gift of eternal life with Jesus. Jesus has chosen us to share this great love with the world, and through living out this love, changing our communities into little kingdoms of heaven that keep growing and spreading. Moses was chosen to bring new life for his people, to bring hope by letting the Jews know God hears them and is starting a new work in the world through them, just like Jesus uses us today.
Jesus doesn’t send us without any help. After his resurrection, Jesus returned to heaven to send his Spirit who reminds us of Jesus’ teaching, gives us the words to say, guides us and helps us recognize what Jesus is already doing so we can join him in his work of renewing this world; partnering with us in making new disciples and deeper disciples. We can trust Jesus to give us what we need to continue his work here. When Stephen in Acts 7 testifies before the religious leaders about what God is doing he talks about Moses, “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.” Moses had a hard time trusting, but God comes through, just as Jesus comes through for us. It doesn’t mean everything will go the way we want it to, it doesn’t mean life is always easy when we trust his way for us; it does mean that Jesus can and will do amazing things through us to save and bless others when we trust him completely and place him in the driver’s seat of our lives.
I remember when I was 18 that Pastor Nutma suggested to me that I should consider going into ministry and I laughed. How can God use a high school dropout, a navy vagabond, a pretty rough and coarse guy as a pastor. No way. I didn’t qualify and I didn’t want to, I’d seen how some people treated some of our pastors, so why would I want to experience the same thing. Deep down it was about trusting Jesus. I’d seen a lot of hurt, a lot of rotten things happen, plenty of unfairness and I often couldn’t see or understand where Jesus was or why he would allow unfair stuff to keep on happening.
Moses is kind of in that spot. Moses ran away from Egypt because he had tried to protect on of his people from a brutal slave master, but God hears the groans of the people and their cries for help and is concerned for them. God has just met Moses by grabbing his attention through a burning bush that was burning up. He introduces himself to Moses as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. God has been rather quiet the past 400 plus years, but now shows up to tell Moses to go to Pharaoh and tell Pharaoh to let the Jewish people go free and leave. This will not make Pharaoh happy; the Jewish people are his slaves and workforce for all the work the Egyptians didn’t want to do.
Moses isn’t so sure he wants to do this. Look at Moses’ life: he’s put in a small boat in the Nile shortly after birth, taken by an Egyptian princess, raised in the Egyptian palace by Pharaoh’s daughter and yet still feels a connection to his people and probably subtle racism by the Egyptian court, but when he goes to defend a Hebrew slave and kills a guard in order to protect him, the Hebrews want nothing to do with him, so Moses ends up taking care of sheep for 40 years and now God tells him to go back to Pharaoh, probably his former uncle and tell him to let the Hebrews go. Then to top it off, God tells Moses, “I’m going to harden Pharaoh’s heart so he’ll say no but go and tell him anyway to let my people go.” An impossible task from a God who has been really quiet for over 400 years and where was God while all this other stuff was going on in Moses’ life.
Moses comes up with a bunch of excuses for not accepting this call from God, “What if they don’t listen to me or believe me, what if they say that you never really came to me and think I’m crazy?” Why all the excuses? I think because Moses isn’t sure he really trusts God, he’s not convinced that God is going to show up when things get tough, and Moses has no real desire to put himself in danger for people who probably aren’t going to believe him anyway. God gives Moses 3 signs, turning Moses’ staff into a snake and back into a staff again, tells Moses to put his hand in his cloak and the skin turns leprous and God restores it again, and finally God tells Moses that should the people not believe, to pour water on the ground and God will turn it into blood. But Moses isn’t convinced, “I’ve never been eloquent, I’m slow of speech.” It doesn’t matter if Moses actually has speech issues, it’s basically just an excuse to not do what God is telling him to do.
There are so many people who are crying out in the night, not sure of how they are going to get through the next while. They don’t even know if there is anyone out there who sees or hears them as their chains wrap around them tighter and tighter. Perhaps their families are hurting, or they’re slaves to their desires and addictions, or poverty or illness, or maybe it’s hopelessness that’s filled their lives. God hears their cries, he sees their situations and he calls us to help them find freedom from the chains that hold them, he calls us to go to help them find the freedom that can be found in following Jesus.
What are some of the excuses you’ve used for not paying attention to Jesus’ call to go make disciples? You’ve heard some of mine, I was a high school drop out, navy vagabond. When the call into ministry came back in my early 30s, my excuses changed, “I can’t afford it because I have a family now, my wife married a baker, not a pastor, it will take 8 years of schooling.” But there were also the memories of stressed out pastors leaving, of having roast pastor for Sunday lunch, and my parents would be unhappy because I would be taking away Joyce and the grandkids. But even before being called into ministry, I remember being challenged by Pastor Gerrit to share my faith in Jesus with people in my life and show them what it means to follow Jesus and I came up with excuses like, “I don’t know what to say, what if they have questions I can’t answer, I’m afraid, you never taught me what to say, I don’t want to, it’s not worth the hassle.”
Pastor Gerrit was gentle but firm, he told me I didn’t trust Jesus enough, I was too concerned about myself and not enough about the people Jesus cares for. He told me Jesus will give me what I need to share my faith. The trust comes because of Jesus’ great love for me and the people around me, love that leads him to the cross to make things new, to bring new life into my life and into the lives of the people around me by offering forgiveness and grace and the gift of eternal life with Jesus. Jesus has chosen us to share this great love with the world, and through living out this love, changing our communities into little kingdoms of heaven that keep growing and spreading. Moses was chosen to bring new life for his people, to bring hope by letting the Jews know God hears them and is starting a new work in the world through them, just like Jesus uses us today.
Jesus doesn’t send us without any help. After his resurrection, Jesus returned to heaven to send his Spirit who reminds us of Jesus’ teaching, gives us the words to say, guides us and helps us recognize what Jesus is already doing so we can join him in his work of renewing this world; partnering with us in making new disciples and deeper disciples. We can trust Jesus to give us what we need to continue his work here. When Stephen in Acts 7 testifies before the religious leaders about what God is doing he talks about Moses, “At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for by his family. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.” Moses had a hard time trusting, but God comes through, just as Jesus comes through for us. It doesn’t mean everything will go the way we want it to, it doesn’t mean life is always easy when we trust his way for us; it does mean that Jesus can and will do amazing things through us to save and bless others when we trust him completely and place him in the driver’s seat of our lives.
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