Overcoming Excuses: The Journey of Faith and Obedience - Saved for the Glory of God | Studies in the book of Exodus

Well, if you were here last week, you will know that I wasn't.

And I was attending an evangelism conference.

It was on the Mediterranean.

I'm sorry, I feel I have to apologize for where they said it

was.

But there was over 40 countries of Europe there, and we

were learning and thinking a year on from what we were thinking

about in South Korea, what it means specifically in Europe, and

what it means moving forward in Europe to see the gospel go forth.

One thing I want to say, because I need to pass this on, because

we were asked to, and there was a very small team.

Each country could only bring about five or six people.

And there were six of us here from the island of Ireland, there

were six from gb, but there were three from Ukraine who were

able to make it out and able to get it back, to get back in again.

And they were given a moment on the Saturday evening, quite an

emotional moment for us all, because as we were round the room

of 40 nations, we all acknowledged that as the church we

had been praying for, the church in Ukraine, they asked us

to continue to pray, but before that, they thanked us and

they asked us to pass on to you their thanks as a representation

of the church in Ukraine and their thanks for your prayers.

And they asked us to continue in prayer.

They wanted us to continue to pray with thanksgiving for what God

is doing in Ukraine, because they are seeing the church growing,

not declining.

They also ask us to pray for peace.

Not a political peace, which I think caught us off guard, but a

peace that will last in human hearts, because only when there is

peace in the human heart that ultimately comes from the Lord, then,

yes, we will have political peace, but we will have a hope for

the future.

So I said we would pass this on, and I have done that and ask

you, as our brothers and sisters in Ukraine have asked us

to, to continue to pray for them.

So while we were thinking about all of these things last week,

Ken was here in Exodus, chapter three, focusing on verses

five and six, by the way, which he did ask my permission to

do.

So he's not in trouble.

And of course, he pointed to this image that we have on the pulpit

and on the lectern.

And if you go into any Presbyterian church, you will see

the burning bush.

Now, I don't know if he actually explained why the burning

bush is the logo of the Presbyterian Church, but I'm going

to tell you anyway, because it was by mistake.

The Presbyterian Church in its first 70 years didn't have any emblem

or didn't have anything like that.

And it was only when the Presbyterian Herald, in its first

edition, figured they needed to put something on the front page.

And they put the burning bush.

And under it they said, Arden's said, verns, burning but

evergreen or burning but not consumed.

And of course, that's what we know happened at the burning bush.

Well, in Exodus 4, we simply continue that conversation at the

burning bush.

And we're perhaps familiar with this story because of this very

image that we have presented to us on anything Presbyterian that

goes out.

Well, the burning bush was the moment when Moses was brought before

God and he was commissioned to rescue the children of Israel from

Egypt.

And verse 10 of chapter three gives us this commission.

God says, so now go.

I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites,

out of Egypt.

And with these words, Moses future is presented to us.

He will be God's agent to rescue God's people.

And at first you can see what appears to be humility on the part

of Moses.

He thinks himself too lowly and asks God who he is that he should

go to Pharaoh and rescue the Israelites.

But God wants to very quickly assure Moses.

And so the promise comes that should remove all the fear that Moses

would have in verse 12.

And God said, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to

you that it is I who have sent you.

When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship

God on this mountain.

God gives Moses assurances that he will be with him and that

indeed it will be God who will save his people from slavery in Egypt.

This should be good enough for Moses.

But it isn't.

Because after 40 years of being a shepherd in Midian, he still

has no appetite to return to Egypt.

And his first thought brings him back to the reason why he left

the people of Israel.

Remember, it was an Israelite who had called Moses out for killing

an Egyptian, and that's why he fled.

And now it is God who is asking him to go back and to face

those accusers.

And of course, Moses initial concern is one of being rejected

by the Israelites.

But notice that's not what God has asked him to do.

God has asked him to go to Pharaoh.

God knows the children of Israel will follow Moses lead.

It's Moses who's not so sure.

And so all of a sudden, this account turns around.

And rather than thinking about the king of Egypt, Moses is more

concerned about his own people and their rejection, not Pharaoh's

rejection.

And so, as we get into chapter four, we're going to see that the

arguments that Moses make are a bit of a red herring.

Oh, I'm sure that he was concerned that the people might remember

what he'd done.

But as we see in the three excuses in chapter four, Moses really

doesn't want to go.

And so he makes up various reasons why he is not the man for

the job.

There's one thing Moses has forgotten, though.

What had God said at the end of chapter two?

He had heard the cries of his people.

Since Moses left, it's got worse.

And so Moses is going to a very different children of Israel

than when he left.

Now, let's be honest with ourselves.

I think we're all good at making excuses for things that we

don't want to do or for why things didn't happen.

When I taught business studies at a school in Ballymena, I heard

many excuses as to why homework wasn't done.

And yes, there were numerous times that the dog had been sick

or eaten the homework.

Now, this made me greatly concerned for all the pets in Ballymena

because they seemed to have this great attraction to homework.

And then it would cause something to their digestive system

that would either make them barf it up and that that's why the

homework was never presented, or that there was an incident at

home that led to hospitalization of someone, only

to discover that the people in question had indeed been playing

the PlayStation to three o' clock that very morning.

And so of course, the homework wasn't done.

So we know all these excuses.

And by the way, young people, I'm not giving you any examples that

you can use whenever you get back into school after half term,

because trust me, your teachers know no matter what excuse,

whether you have a homework done or not.

But we know as adults, it's not just in school.

These excuses come because there was a person, a business person

that I had dealings with, and he simply wasn't delivering on what

he'd promised.

Phone calls and emails were going unanswered, and when I did

get a message back, I was told that his grandmother was ill and

had died.

And of course I was very sympathetic, only to hear that on

a number of occasions, the grandmother seemed to have been resurrected

because the same excuse was given to similar people over the

next 18 months.

If we're all honest, we can make excuses when we need to, and

that includes myself.

We think that these are ways of getting us out of situations without

confrontation or to see a face.

Moses, however, should have known better.

He was making excuses to the one who knew him better than he knew

himself.

Where Moses Concern was with rejection of the Israelites.

God was telling him to go to the king of Egypt.

Simply go and request a three day journey for the people to leave

Egypt to go into the desert to offer sacrifices to God.

Now, God had already told Moses that the elders of Israel would

support him.

But Moses doesn't believe him.

And that's why we have our first excuse.

In verse one of chapter four, Moses answered, what if they do not

believe me or listen to me and say, the Lord did not appear to you.

So Moses concern is that they will reject him.

But this is going against what God had promised only a few verses

earlier in verse 18 of chapter 3, that they would listen to his

voice.

And so the Lord responds patiently, providing Moses with three

signs to confirm Moses status as the Lord's spokesman for the people.

And that's what the Lord does throughout scripture.

He gives signs to help people understand who he is.

And the first sign involves Moses staff, an item commonly carried

by shepherds.

But it was also carried by leaders.

And here we're getting a foreshadowing of what Moses coming

rule would be.

And so the Lord's question that we read in the text, what's

in your hand?

Draws his attention to the staff and its so ordinary nature.

When Moses throws it down and it turns into a snake, he is surprised

as anyone would and he runs away in fear.

But he did what the Lord told him.

But what comes next perhaps is even more surprising for Moses and

for us, because the Lord's next command is to grab it by the

tail.

Now, I hate snakes.

The thought of going anywhere near a snake would petrify me.

And whenever you.

I'm not a snake catcher, obviously, but whenever you grab

a snake by the tail, where's its head gonna go?

Well, it's gonna swing round.

So don't think that this was an easy thing for Moses to do.

Just like any of us wouldn't want to grab the tail of a snake,

what do snake catchers do?

They have those little pointy things that they grab the head because

they know that's where the danger in most snakes is, the head.

But Moses does it.

Even for him, reaching out to grasp the snake was so unnatural,

it required faith.

And when Moses obeys, the snake turns back into a staff.

And the Lord affirms that this sign will lead the Israelites to

believe that he has appeared to Moses.

But if not, and notice it's the Lord who goes through these,

there is a second sign.

The Lord commands Moses to put his hand inside his cloak or a Better

translation is to rest it on your chest.

And when he pulls it out, well, it's covered by disease and

it's covered in dead and blistered skin, and it flakes off

like snow, like leprosy.

The Lord then commands him to put that diseased hand back in his

cloak on his healthy body.

Now, why would you do that, particularly if you know about leprosy?

Because it's so infectious, if you touch somewhere else, you will

be infected.

So once again, faith is needed for the hand to go back onto the

body.

And another unnatural act requiring faith demonstrates that

that faith is well placed.

Because verse 8 says, as the hand is cleansed, if they do not

believe you or pay attention to the first miraculous sign, they

may believe the second two signs that demand faith.

But the Lord continues, and in case they don't believe the first

two signs, the Lord gives Moses a third.

And with this sign, Moses is to take Nile water and pour it on

the ground, and it will turn into blood.

And unlike the first two signs, he can't perform this one

in that moment because he's nowhere near the Nile.

But we would guess that having seen the Lord's work in the first

two, Moses has every reason to believe that the third sign is possible

and that thereby the Lord is with him.

Now, if you take this as evidence alone, you will think by

now, surely Moses would respond with the enthusiastic, I'll

go.

But he doesn't.

Now we begin to see tension in this story, if you haven't picked

it up already in the reading, because we see for a fourth time

Moses resistance to God.

This time he draws attention to his inability to speak.

Now, surely this isn't the Moses that we'll come to know about

as the great leader of Israel, who is commended in Hebrews 11:27

Hebrews 11:27

by faith.

He left Egypt not fearing the king's anger.

He persevered because he saw him who is invisible.

In other words, Moses is commended for his deep faith in God.

Well, where's that faith now?

He's now making up excuses about his physicality, what he can

and can't do.

You see, Moses didn't fear the king's anger because he trusted God

more.

Leaving Egypt 40 years before, he was going into the unknown in

Midian.

And the Lord had kept him all these years.

And surely now, with all of these signs that had been given to

convince, that were given to convince the Israelites, they would

also convince Moses.

And in the end, the final excuse is one of a lack of, of persuasive

eloquence.

Moses says in verse 10, O Lord, I have never been eloquent,

neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant.

I am slow of speech and tongue.

From Moses perspective, the Lord is asking him to do something

that he feels unqualified to do.

But the Lord meets Moses weakness with his own strength and

his own presence.

In terms of strength, he is the sovereign God.

He made people's minds so that they can speak.

And he can make people deaf or mute, seeing or blind, as he confirms

in verse 11.

How much more can he do?

Something as simple as enabling Moses to speak well in terms

of presence.

Then he promises to be with them in verse 12.

Now go.

I will help you speak, and I will teach you what to say.

God says that he will be Moses mouth, and he will teach Moses what

he shall speak.

What God requires of his servants, he equips them to do.

Yet Moses continues to refuse to go, and he now resists for a fifth

and final time.

Unlike the first four excuses, this time he gives no excuse.

He simply asks the Lord to send someone else, anyone but him.

His refusal of the Lord's call is now clear to us.

O Lord, please send someone else to do it.

With the other excuses, the Lord responded patiently.

But this time his anger is aroused.

The Lord is abundantly merciful with our weaknesses and

lack of faith.

But there comes a point when he says, enough.

You must take me at my word.

But even here he accommodates Moses fear by providing a support

in the person of his brother Aaron, three years his elder and

able to speak well, as we're told in verse 14.

Then the Lord's anger burned against Moses, and he said, what

about your brother Aaron the Levite?

I know he can speak well.

He is already on his way to meet you, and his heart will be glad

when he sees you.

The mention of Aaron being a Levite here gets us ready for what

his priestly rule is going to be later in the Exodus.

And the mention of Aaron's being glad when he comes assures

Moses that Aaron still loves him after all these years and will

be happy to work with him.

But even here, the Lord re emphasizes his own empowering and

guiding presence, because he affirms in verse 15, I will help

both of you speak and will teach you what to do.

You see, Aaron was going to need God as much as Moses, and God

knows this.

And so he affirms, I will help both of you.

And we want to shout to Moses, wake up and follow the Lord.

You see, in these verses we see that The Lord's help remains

with his people for their ultimate need.

In this case, Aaron will be the one who will speak to the people,

but it will be Moses who will receive the message from God that

is to be communicated.

And as the section closes, there's one final command.

But take this staff in your hand so you can perform miraculous

signs with it.

Now, as we'll see, this staff will be central to many of the signs

that the Lord will perform through Moses.

And the Lord's focus on it here foreshadows the significant

role that it will play.

And with this, the scene is ready to take Moses back to Egypt

and begin the work, God's work, of rescuing the people from

slavery in Egypt.

But, you know, it's taken quite a lot to get to this point.

Moses has been stubborn, or the word we would use around these

parts is he's been thrown.

He's refused to pay attention to the Lord and to trust him.

And before we sit back in our seats, before we fold our arms and

before we declare, Moses should have known better, is that

not the same charge that can be made against us?

Should we too not know better when it comes to the Lord, it turns

out we make excuses all the time when it comes to God and when

it comes to his salvation.

I don't think there is anyone here this morning who would say that

they don't believe in the existence of God.

We have either grown up knowing this, or we simply accept

that the Creator exists.

But for one reason or another, you have ignored Him.

And by ignoring him, you have made excuses of why you won't come

to him for salvation.

It might be that from your perspective, that your good works

and doing nobody any harm will be enough to get you into eternity

in heaven.

But that's not what the Bible says.

If you think that your good works and doing no harm to anybody

is enough, well, you've let yourself believe a lie.

And that lie is a lie of comfort and complacency.

It's a lie that you have become quite cavalier.

In other words, you're showing a lack of proper concern.

And so you've become dismissive of the truth of who God

is and what his salvation means.

You see, we need to stop making the excuses because a day

is coming as a child, like a child stands before a teacher, with

the teacher knowing full well that this excuse is not real and

cannot be justified.

There will come a day where we will not be able to make any excuses

because we will be with the one who knows all.

Just like Moses was Moses shouldn't have tried to take God

on.

He was never going to win.

Because, as I said at the very start, God knew Moses better than

Moses knew himself.

And that still remains the truth for each and every one of us

today.

See, it's Jesus who makes it clear of what we must know and what

we must do.

In John 14:6, it's Jesus who says of himself, I am the way and

John 14:6

the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.

We often talk about Christ's love being displayed on the cross

and through the resurrection.

But here we hear his love spoken to us because why would we

not want to hear the truth of salvation?

That there is no other way but Him, for he is the way, the truth

and the life.

We cannot get into eternity with the Father except through Him.

There's only one way to have assurance of salvation, and it's

not by our own thinking of how we can be good enough, because we

will never be good enough.

Jesus says that he is the only way, the only truth, and the only

life by which we can know salvation.

And maybe your excuses this morning, and I want to be honest

about this, maybe your excuses this morning come from something

that happened long ago.

Perhaps you felt the church did you wrong.

Maybe you thought the church and Christians were judgmental and

hypocritical.

And maybe you've got a wee bit of truth in that.

Well, let me say that I'm sorry for that.

I'm sorry that the church and fellow believers have hurt you and

that that has kept you away for so long.

Because I'm not asking you to trust in a church.

I'm not asking you to trust in any other Christian.

I'm asking you to trust in Jesus.

I'm asking you to look afresh at the Savior as if for the first

time and know his great love, because it is only his great love

that will save.

But you know, the excuses can also often continue as to why Christians

don't go deeper in their faith.

They say I don't have enough time.

I don't like the style of church or simply don't like other

Christians and so don't want to spend time with them.

Christian, you too cannot sit back with your arms folded and think

you'll be fine doing it your way.

You are called to one body, the church, and to worship God with

His people.

And I hear excuses all the time, excuses of waiting.

I'm too young to come to salvation.

I've got something else more important to do on a Sunday morning.

Surely it Comes like what Moses said to the Lord, I just don't

want to do it.

And there's our problem.

We look and make much of ourselves when the one who is calling

us to follow him is the one that we should be looking to.

And as we've done already, make much of Him.

So for each of us this morning, including myself, we must

stop making excuses.

We must draw near to God and deeper fellowship with his people

to trust only in him and live for him for there is an eternity

being made ready.

Only those fully trusting in Jesus will know the security of heaven.

Those who trust in themselves will only know a place of great torment

and sorrow.

Peter assures us that there is a way we can all follow.

It's the verse that the boys and girls are hiding in their hearts

so they will know it as their truth.

It's what Peter says in his great sermon to the Sanhedrin, that

salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name

under heaven given to men, by which we must be saved.

Stop making the excuses.

They're getting you nowhere.

And one of the hymns that I enjoy, or one of the songs, it's

a version of Psalm 130 that I've been listening to a lot at home.

The closing verses say, now he has come to make a way and God Himself

has paid the price so that all who trust in him today find healing

in his sacrifice.

What's the opposite of excuses?

It's this healing in Jesus.

So stop making the excuses.

Come to him in living faith and know him as the Savior, who indeed

will bring you whole as you trust in him today.

Let's pray.

Our Father God, we thank you for your goodness to us.

We thank you for your word that challenges us.

Because this is a challenge we must hear, for it is the challenge

that brings us onto eternal life in Jesus.

And so, Father, as we look to you, may you keep us ever in your

faith, keep us ever in Christ.

Take the excuses away, and may we not allow the evil One to get

a foothold.

For unless we are in Christ, well, then we are in bondage to Him.

So, Father, take us, we pray, and may we respond well.

In Jesus name, amen.