Exodus: Weakness Amidst a Call

I'm so excited you're here.

We've been going through this book of Exodus.

It's a second book of the Bible.

If you've been with us, you sort of you've maybe been in the past two sermons, but we're into Exodus 3, the end of 3, and into chapter 4.

And Exodus is a story about liberation.

It's a story about God's people being liberated.

So God, He He came into humanity, began to speak to us, humans, humanity, in a tribal world.

That's what was going on at the time.

You always wonder, like, why through the people of Israel?

Why not another people?

Well, it was a tribal world.

And he comes into the tribe of Israel and he says, Through this tribe, I'm going to speak to humanity.

Through this tribe, I'm going to come actually in the person of Jesus centuries and centuries and centuries later.

And this is what's going on.

But in this story in Exodus, so Genesis builds us up to that.

That's the first book of the Bible.

And then in Exodus, what we find is this tribe and this family has ended up in a place they never intended.

They've ended up in slavery.

They've ended up in Egypt.

And so what we've talked about the past two weeks, and I won't repreach the sermon, although I really want to, mind you.

So Moses has been born, and he was a Hebrew, and he's supposed to be thrown in the Nile, and eventually he ends up through a nice, nice good plan by his mama, he ends up being raised in Pharaoh's house.

And so he grows up.

You remember the story perhaps we've been around church.

He grows up, and one day he is out.

He's out walking around and he sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew.

So he sees one of his people that he came from being beaten.

And so he goes and he goes toward the Egyptian, he hits the Egyptian, he beats the Egyptian.

Something snaps in him.

He kills the guy.

He buries the guy.

And maybe he thought, okay, this isn't going to pass over, this is going to work out.

I'm going to be okay.

I'm going to be able to just kind of like keep surviving.

And then he realizes the next day, and no, people sort of know about this.

And he takes off into the desert towards Midian.

He takes off east.

So he's running out of shame.

He's running out of failure.

He's gone.

And so we get this mystical, strange, bizarre.

I don't know if you've ever went to VBS, Vacation Bible School, and we act like it's all normal.

No, this is crazy.

It was a burning bush, right?

Like we just put it up on the flannel graph, and it's like, yeah, bush was burning.

No, like this is crazy.

This is mystical, crazy God intervening into this world and into this guy's life, and he is broken and he's lowly.

He has been a shepherd, and he is, he is out there out of shame.

He's out there out of failure.

And so he's in front of this burning bush, and then this voice comes.

And if you remember where we left off last week, he has his shoes off because the bush has said, God through the bush has said, you know, this is holy ground, and God's revealing himself to be fiercely holy and sweetly gracious.

And so barefoot Moses is in front of this bush, and this conversation continues.

And that's what we're going to look at this morning is this conversation.

Because what God says to him is he says, I want you to go back.

I want you to go back.

And Moses' got to be thinking, oh, like, like I killed a guy.

Like back there, like that's that like that's my shame.

That's my failure.

God's going, oh, I want you to go back.

Like, I want you to go back to that place you made that mistake.

And God calls Moses to go back there, to go to the people of Israel, and to say, hey, hey guys, um, I'm here to, yeah, I, the guy who um murdered the guy and ran off, and I've been living in shame in the desert, yeah, me, you know, strong me.

Um I'm here to lead you out of this situation.

I'm also gonna go to Pharaoh and I'm gonna tell him to let all of you go.

And what we don't get is we don't get a bold, courageous hero.

What we get is we get a whole bunch of insecurity.

And he and you've got to think, he's in front of this incredible sight.

He's in front of this bush that's not disappearing.

It is burning, and yet it's not going anywhere.

And he's hearing an audible voice of God from a bush that is burning.

This is bizarre.

Perhaps this would be enough to go do something.

And he's going, Oh, I I hear I hear you.

God, I hear you, but I I don't have what it takes.

I'm not the person you think I am.

Just find someone else.

And now this calling is certainly a foreshadowing for for I think all Christians of like love thy neighbor.

Go into the world and love your neighbor, go into their mess and speak truth to them, tell them about the rescue of Jesus for the righteousness so that they don't have to work for their own righteousness, like free them from that bondage.

Like, this is definitely a foreshadowing of that call for us.

And often we're we're like that call to like love that person or that child or that parent or that co-worker, we respond the same way, like, uh I think you got the wrong guy.

Like, I'm the guy who like committed murder and I'm on the run.

Like that, I'm the shameful guy, I'm the insecure guy.

That's the guy who I am.

Maybe this is a new story to you.

Fantastic.

Like, maybe you're the best person in the room.

Like, like we envy your position.

Because so many of us come into this story, we've heard this dialogue so many times, we can just sort of be numb to it.

But either way, I think it's so easy to react to this when we get into this conversation and just feel like Moses is just such a baby.

I mean, you just would be like, quit acting like a child.

Like get your act together.

That's not what we're going to hear this morning because when I read the text this week and I kind of at times I was feeling that way, but at other times I'm going, man, a lot of times I feel like Moses.

And maybe your insecurity doesn't show up on this level of sort of like self-defeatism and pity.

Uh maybe it it's just maybe it isn't your urge to pull up your own boots.

Still Moses.

Still insecurity.

Maybe you feel it.

Maybe you feel insecurity within yourself, like when it gnaws inside of you over that thing you addictively want so badly, and you can't figure out why I would want that and think I need it that badly.

Or when you post that Instagram picture, and you would have thought that would have gotten 54 likes and it got 14.

And you're like, what was wrong with that picture?

And then underneath that, you're thinking, like, what's wrong with me?

Or you replay the conversation you had at work because it was one of the conversations you really needed to have and you needed to nail it, and you went into it prepared, and you come out of it, and you just didn't do well.

And you just replay that thing over and over and over again.

And it's the broken humanity, it's the fragile self, it's what the Bible calls sin inside of us, it's all this insecurity.

So let's look at this conversation.

The conversation picks up.

God's called Moses to go back, and then he responds in Exodus 3, verse 11.

Exodus 3:11

Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children out of Egypt?

Now, here's what's great.

That's what Moses has said.

Here's what's great.

God doesn't argue with them.

He just says in verse 12, I'll be with you.

Moses, who am I?

Like, I'm so insecure.

I've been who am I?

Who can I ever be to do something like that?

And it's kind of like God goes, Well, I'll be with you.

So the remedy for Moses' insecurity is not to flood him with bold courage at like moment one in the confession.

It's actually to promise to be with him.

I'll be with you.

So Moses is thinking this through.

And then he says, this is my paraphrase, he says, okay, so you'll be with me.

Well, when I get there, the people are going to ask this God that you're talking about, what's like what's his name?

That's what people would ask in that time.

They would say, like, what's his name?

Like, what's his story?

This God you're talking about, like we talk about a God, but this God you're talking about, what's his story?

And God says, Well, you tell them I am who I am.

And then God goes on and he says, like, you tell them that the God of your fathers and their fathers has sent you.

Tell them I am who I am.

And God is saying, I am the ever-present, ever active interventionist for good and redemption in the world.

I am at every point of time and space.

That's who I am.

Okay?

And then God says to Moses in verse 18 of chapter 3, and they'll listen to you.

They'll listen.

I'm with you.

You tell them I am who I am.

They'll listen to your voice.

I'm telling you, out of a burning bush that's not disappearing, I'm telling you, they'll listen to you.

And it's almost as if I'm thinking, perhaps, there's like this pause in the conversation.

Like this silence in the air where Moses is sort of considering all of this.

Like, I want you to go back.

That's a big call.

I want you to do this big thing.

I'll be with you.

I am who I am.

And then Moses is considering all of it.

And then Moses speaks again in Exodus 4, 1.

But behold, they will not believe me.

They're not going to believe me.

They're not going to listen to my voice, for they will say the Lord did not appear to you.

And it's almost comical at this point.

It's getting there.

This amount of refusal, this insecurity, this uncertainty, this doubt.

And Moses is just going, you know what?

I hear all of it, God.

I hear all of that.

I just don't buy it.

I hear it.

I'm just not going to rest in it.

I'm just not going to go forth in it.

Like, I'm not going to let that good word of truth that you're speaking to me into the core of my being for me to go forward.

See, the battle here is in this conversation.

We just see this battle going on.

Do we trust God for what he speaks to us?

Do we rest in it?

Like when he says he's really with us.

Like even when we feel like he's not in our mess or our unworthy, hurting selves, when he says he's with us in that, do we really trust him enough to go into and through all of that hurt, all of that mess in a measure of peace?

When he says that the atoning sacrifice of his son, Jesus on the cross, when he says that really is enough for all of your sin?

Like, and you don't have to pay me more and more and more and more like with your good deeds?

Do we really trust that enough not to wake up tomorrow and think that we have to secure our own position with God by our own work?

When he says he loves us, like before we're perfect, before we get a little better, do we really trust that word?

See, Moses has two gods.

He has this God that's speaking to him.

Speaking to him and promising great things, and then he has his pity.

And his pity is his pride that's been hurt and it's revealing itself as insecurity.

And yet all week I've just loved this conversation.

For some reason, it's like I don't know if you should love what Moses is saying because he's sort of complaining and that's a sin, and he's doubting, and that's a sin.

And yet I'm loving this conversation.

I think I'm, and I was like, why do I love this so much?

And I think I love it just because he's just so honest.

It's just like, here I am, like, this is it.

Like, I am a broken shepherd out in the middle of nowhere.

And that honesty in some ways just so refreshing.

Probably because a lot of times, I don't know if you're like me, you try to always let yourself on to be just a little bit better than you are.

So just a little bit more put together than you really are.

Alright, so the conversation continues in chapter four, and God's going, okay, how am I gonna work with this guy?

And he says, What do you have?

What do you have?

Moses says, Well, I have a staff.

God says, Great.

I can work with that.

I'll work with whatever you got, I'm gonna work with.

And he says, Here's the deal, throw it on the ground.

He throws it on the ground, it turns into a serpent.

He says, if you grab it by the tail, um, grab it by the tail, and Moses reaches down, grabs by the tail, it turns back into a staff.

Pretty good little trick.

Pretty impressive sign to flash that one out in front of some people.

But for Moses, imagine this.

I mean, this is actually a pretty brave thing to do because you're exposing yourself to be bit by this serpent.

So it's not just like a cool sign, like it's a it's a sign that Moses is trusting him.

So we're gonna have snake handling in the lobby.

It's gonna be snake handling 101.

Brad's gonna lead it, he's been practicing.

Second trick, he said, if that don't work, here's the second trick.

Put your hand in your cloak, okay?

Put it in to your cloak and pull it out.

When he pulls it out, it's all covered with leprosy and it's nasty.

Put it back in, he puts it back in, he pulls it back out, it's all healed, it's back to normal.

Pretty cool little second trick.

He said, if that doesn't work when you get there, go to the Nile.

And now the Nile is the source for Egypt.

It is the source of their vitality in their life.

Like this is this is their God, this is how they live.

He says, You go to the Nile, you get some water, and you come, you pour it on dry ground, it will turn to blood in front of them, and it will scare them to death that your God could have control over their source of life.

Okay, that should be it.

You got some cool signs, you got a voice out of a burning bush.

I mean, you may be insecure, but still, this should sort of be it at this point.

And then Moses says in chapter 4, verse 10 and 11, he says to the Lord, Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant.

He says, Okay, so you hadn't even fixed all my problems right away.

I'm slow of speech and of tongue.

And Moses is just done.

I think he's overwhelmed.

I think he's just overwhelmed.

He's frustrated, he just doesn't believe that this could be for him.

It's just easier to stay in the fear, it's easier to stay in the insecurity, it's easier to stay where he's at.

And then the Lord replies back to him and says in verse 11, who has made man's mouth?

Who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord?

Like God's just trying to get him to see like the bigger picture.

And Moses is just so self-oriented, like so inward.

Like, is there any possibility?

God's just went, hey, do you understand?

Like, I am the source of life.

Like there's more power and more strength in this world than just what you generate.

At this point, I start to get tired of Moses.

This is the point in the story where I was really starting to get tired of Moses.

I mean, just tired.

I want just like, God, God, do something here.

But fear and insecurity are just this strange thing, right?

We know this, how it works.

It pops itself up in one area, and then we think we have a handle on it, and it goes away, and then it goes and it pops itself up somewhere else.

God continues.

His persistent grace, he continues.

Verse 12, I will help you speak.

I'll help you teach.

I'll help you teach what to say.

I'm with you.

He just keeps giving.

And so finally we get verse 13.

And Moses just says, please send someone else.

Like, I'm out.

Just send someone else.

And then we finally see from God this other side of God, this fierce holiness.

And it sort of just peeks out from the bush.

Because in verse 14, it says that the anger of the Lord kindled against Moses.

And this is the holiness of God.

That he is perfect and he is holy, and he is coming up against all this doubt and all this self.

And see, Moses is self-deifying himself.

He's dependent upon his own strength.

He's trying to rescue himself, and it may be in the version of pity, but that's what's going on.

And God finally just has persistent grace, persistent grace, persistent grace, and then this fierce holiness sort of sneaks out.

We just get a little glimpse of it there in verse 14.

But fortunately, this isn't human anger.

But it's like in human anger, when I'm angry at you, there's a division.

And it stops the graciousness.

The graciousness stops because I'm angry.

And these two things that can't, the coexistence of these two things within a human, very, very difficult.

But in God, who is a perfect being and perfectly just and perfectly holy and perfectly loving, he has this anger, and yet it doesn't create a division between holiness and grace toward Moses.

And God, once again, in persistent grace, he goes, Aaron will go with you.

I'll send somebody to go with you.

Tell him what to say, and he'll talk for you.

It's just over and over and over again.

God keeps with him.

Just the more I read this this week and sort of lived in it and contemplated, the more I kept thinking at times I found myself in my ambitious, self-sufficient self, American self.

Just like Moses, come on, man.

Like, maybe like one or two comments about this complaining, but this was ridiculous.

This was a ridiculous conversation.

Like, quit acting like a child.

I mean, and we kept waiting in this story, in this conversation, at least I did.

Like, you keep waiting for God to be done with Moses.

Like, I'm just gonna get someone else.

I'll send Aaron by himself.

I'm done with you.

But he keeps talking, he keeps listening, he keeps helping, and he keeps giving.

Here's my one point.

I had one point.

If you're taking notes, nobody takes notes here, I'll be honest.

I watch you.

But if you were to take notes, if we were a note-taking congregation, this is the one you would write down.

What if all of Moses' insufficiency?

Like all of his acting like a child, what if that's the very thing that moves him forward in his transformation and calling?

Meaning this, what if his weakness is actually the thing that moves him forward?

See, we always think that it's gonna be our our strength that moves us forward.

But we're here we have Moses being honest about his situation.

Yeah, he's complaining about it, and that's not good, right?

But he's honest before the Lord about it.

And in God's grace, God keeps dealing with him.

Like the conversation doesn't end.

The honesty actually allows the conversation to begin and to continue.

And here's what, looking at the story, here's what I learned this week is that when you embrace your sinfulness and the fullness of the sufficiency of God for you, when you embrace that, when you rest there, it experientially doesn't always make you stronger day one, experientially.

A lot of times, experientially, it will make you feel seemingly weaker.

And I say seemingly because um you you are weak the whole time.

It's just finally when we have Jesus for us, we can finally uh become open to the weakness that's in us.

We can finally become open to our sinfulness before God.

And the security of God's work for us.

And Moses is weak and he's complaining, and all of this is not healthy.

Like this is not the route to go.

The best route to go is you go, God, you call me, I'm going.

That's the route to go.

That's what we should do.

Moses doesn't do that.

But in his weakness, he confesses all this through this conversation.

Like, who am I?

He's wrestling out, but he's not going anywhere.

He doesn't walk away.

And God persistently keeps after him.

And he did it here with Moses.

Centuries later, we see it ultimately in the person of Jesus, that God did this once and for all.

Coming after people who are sinners, taking it on the cross.

All this complaining, all this doubt, all this disobedience that we see in the person of Moses here, that is in us, all of this is taken on the cross.

He takes our sin upon himself that we might have his righteousness.

And then there's this call, right?

Like there's this call.

And then it goes back to the fact that this is a foreshadowing of our call to love thy neighbor, to go, and to help free people, and to spread the gospel, the call of what it means to be a Christian.

We have this call, but it's what it looks like to me is that God works out the call by calling us and by persistently being gracious to us to change us so that we will go forward, not just in actions, but actually in heart and actions.

We're not hopelessly dependent upon ourselves just to muster up our own strength.

We have to become dependent upon what the Lord has for us, his word for us, his strength for us, his work for us.

So in every moment, every day, and every emotion and condition, and every insecurity and fear we have, we are secure in what Jesus did for us.

This is the thing that will motivate us and empower us to go back, to go forward in the call.

We're more like Moses than we care to admit, but in Jesus we're more loved by God than we could ever dare to dream.

And our God is fiercely holy, and yet we see in this story and we know in our lives he is unbelievably and sweetly gracious to us.

And he keeps listening and he will keep giving because Jesus absorbed all of our failure, all of our sin.

He will never give up on you.

Let's pray together.

God, we come before you and we so often hear calls that we should be obedient in the very next moment.

And so often we're resistant, and we are so grateful that you don't walk away.

We're so grateful that you don't just take us down in that very moment.

But that you are persistently gracious to us, that you might change us from the inside out.

God forgive us for trying to pretend to be stronger than we are.

Help us have the courage to confess our weakness before you, that we might find strength in you and not in ourselves.

Give us the courage to become more honest before you about who we are, that we might go forward with the call to love our neighbor, love our family and love our friends.

God, we are thankful and dependent, and we rest, and your word spoken to us through the sacrifice of your son, Jesus.

Amen.