God Speaks in the Fire: Understanding Our Trials - Saved for the Glory of God | Studies in the book of Exodus

Shall we pray together?

Father, we thank you for choir and for music group and for the way

in which they enhance and help our worship.

We thank you for your word, which is ever living and is your

means of communicating to us, one of the means of your communicating

to us.

And we pray that as we now turn to that word, you would speak

to us through Jesus Christ.

We pray.

Amen.

When I wrote the sermon, I began with the phrase or the question,

what do you see every Sunday in church?

That because you see it so often, you either almost forget it's

there or you forget its significance.

And then I wrote the children's talk and realized that

that first question wouldn't have the same punch as maybe otherwise.

But isn't it true that you know, if you were maybe stopped by

somebody in the street Monday morning and they said, when you think

of the church, you go to an analogue, what do you think of?

And you might say the pulpit, or you might say the piano, or you

might say the pews.

I wonder.

Many of us would say, well, in our church there's a burning bush

as the symbol of our church.

The burning bush resonated with persecuted Christians in 16th

century France so deeply that the Protestant grouping called the

Huguenots, adopted it as their official symbol during their 12th

National Synod in France, 1583.

So it goes back a very long way in terms of the Protestant Reformation

as a symbol for the church.

It's thought that the Huguenots were influenced by John

Calvin's description of the church and the sufferings it must

endure at being symbolized by the burning bush.

When Presbyterianism was re established In Scotland after 1690,

the Church of Scotland, our mother church, adopted the burning

bush symbol.

This then became a very powerful reminder to Ulster Presbyterians,

who in the 17th and 18th centuries suffered persecution from

the establishment of the Anglican authorities.

And the burning bush was brought forward as a symbol with

the motto that we use, of course, is Ardennes Sedwerins, meaning

burning but flourishing.

It was a reminder that in Christ the church could flourish

even in the fires of persecution.

Now all that, of course, is history, long after the time of Moses.

And so, believe it or not, Moses had no idea of what a Presbyterian

would be.

And when he saw this burning bush, there are some lessons I think

that I felt we could learn to our benefit this morning.

So again, as I said earlier, apologies to David who gave me verse

20, 21 or 22 to do.

I really just felt the Lord saying, let's just stick with the

burning bush and see what we can Learn from that this morning.

And here's the first God appears where we least expect it.

Let me read the first three verses again, if I may.

Now, Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father in law,

the priest of Midian.

And he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to

Horeb, the mountain of God.

There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire

from within the bush.

Moses saw that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up.

So Moses thought, I will go over and see this strange sight,

why the bush does not burn up.

Now, let me fill in a bit of backstory here and apologies, because

I'm sure maybe David has done this before in the last week or two.

But forgive me if I just go through this again.

For 40 years, Moses had been brought up in a palace, rescued from

the infanticidal cruelty of Pharaoh against Hebrew slaves.

Exodus 2:10 tells us that Moses was adopted as the son of Pharaoh's

Exodus 2:10

daughter, who named him Moses.

Thus he was a prince of Egypt, educated, cultured, part of the court

of Pharaoh, used to the finer things of life, living in luxury

and security.

He was living his best life, but he was also an Israelite and

aware of his origins.

And one day, seeing an Israelite mistreated by an Egyptian,

Moses murdered him and buried the body.

But he thought he had got away with it.

But somebody had seen him and news eventually got through to Pharaoh,

who we read in the scriptures, tried to kill Moses.

So he fled from that life of luxury and palace security.

Indeed he fled to Midian, east of the Gulf of Aqaba, across the

Sinai peninsula, probably into what we would call southern Jordan

today.

There he met a lovely lady called Zipporah and then married

and he became a shepherd, looking after the flock of his father

in law, Jethro, What a change.

40 years of fine dining par privilege and enormous wealth to

poverty stricken shepherd caring for somebody else's sheep

in the wilderness of Midian.

And it's one day as Moses was at work as usual, he comes across

something highly unusual.

And I don't think it's taking a wild guess to think that Moses

wasn't expecting an encounter with God that day with 40 years of

shepherding.

And there's no biblical record of anything really unusual happening

to Moses, apart from the normal stuff of life.

He meets the girl, he gets married, he carries on working.

Moses was just doing his daily work.

Maybe in the back of his mind he was thinking, I wonder what zipper

I will have for dinner.

Maybe Lamb chops followed by apple crumble, whatever they ate

in those days.

I don't know, maybe he was wondering about why some of the sheep

had disappeared and where they'd got to.

Maybe he noticed a ewe was a bit lame.

Whatever.

He's just going about his daily everyday existence at work.

And that's exactly where God met him.

Right in the middle of tending his father in law's sheep.

It's like saying that God met you at the kitchen sink or whilst

mowing the grass or doing the milking or driving the car or staring

at a computer screen.

Note that Moses wasn't at worship somewhere.

He wasn't in the middle of a church service.

He wasn't in the middle of doing his daily devotions or whatever

they did in those days.

He wasn't at prayer.

But in the middle of that, in the midst of mundane everyday activity,

God shows up and interrupts with a miracle.

A burning bush that wasn't being consumed.

I remember many years ago talking to a lovely man who came

to our church.

A lovely, glorious, gracious man, not a Christian.

And when I challenged about why he came to church every Sunday,

why he supported the church so well but had not yet given his life

to Jesus, he, he said this.

I'm waiting for God to prove himself in some miraculous way.

You know, Jesus faced the same attitude with people who said, show

us a miracle, Lord, and then we'd believe.

We'll not look it up.

But if you want to reference Matthew 16:1 4, John 6:30, Matthew

Matthew 16:1 John 6:30 Matthew 16:1

16:1 4, John6:30 is a reference for that.

Maybe a lot of us are like that.

We think, oh, you know, I'll become more committed to Christ or

I'll become committed to Christ if God just shows a miracle.

If God just does something spectacular, maybe there's some of

us and we think, you know what?

I'm busy trying to make a living.

And you know, when I get a bit more established, I'll have more

time for Christian things.

Or maybe we think that when we're a bit older and the children

have grown up with less responsibility, we'll take more time

to think, think about Jesus and about our Christian faith.

But here's the thing.

God will show up in the most unexpected places and in the most

unexpected ways.

And I wonder, just as we maybe take the burning bush symbol for

granted in front of me in the pulpit fall, I wonder how many burning

bushes we have walked past in life without taking time to notice

and to draw aside as notice did, and to look and to listen, pay

Attention to what God is saying.

Perhaps we're too busy or too distracted or too unbelieving that

God can speak to us in the everyday stuff of life.

But note the order of verses two and three.

Verse two says, and the angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in

flames of fire from within the bush.

And that Moses saw the bush wasn't being destroyed.

So he sees the miracle first of all.

And then verse three tells us Moses decided to go over and see

this strange sight, why the bush does not burn up.

In other words, the miracle was there, but Moses had to pay attention

and to deliberately go over to the bush, go out of his way to see

what was going on.

So when you're going on the school run or doing the dishes or

milking the cows or cutting the grass or working at the computer

or whatever, and that thought comes into your head or that realization

hits you that you wonder, is God trying to say something to me?

Pay attention, turn aside and do what God called you to do.

It could be a thought.

Have you apologized to that person for the thing you did or said

that you know, was off color?

You know, there's another song that says, I think Elton John, sorry

seemed to be the hardest word.

And I wonder, have we actually actualized the power of apology?

I'm going to make a deviation from the script here and tell you

a story.

I hope I haven't told this before, but when we were going through

our building scheme, we discovered in Orangefield way back

in 2006, that 40% of the congregation voted against it, and

that greatly exercised the elders.

And we began to pray about it.

We began to wonder, what was God saying to us in this?

And the thought came into our heads as an eldership that we had

not let the trumpet blow a certain note.

There was a bit of confusion over the money, the bit of confusion

over some of the aspects of what we were doing.

And so as we thought about it, and God implanted this thought in

our hearts, and we thought, as an eldership, we should apologize

to the church.

And so all the elders gathered with me around the communion table.

We had a written statement, and we said that we really appreciated

that there are people against the building scheme, but we really

felt this was of God.

And we apologized that maybe the trumpet hadn't sounded as clear

a note as it should.

And we said we were going to commit ourselves to leadership that

was clear and decisive.

And as we moved on.

Now, I don't know about you, but I have never in my lifetime heard

of a church session apologizing to the congregation and

promising to do better.

But you know what happened?

It brought unity and it brought a sense of moving forward.

And I'll tell you something rather lovely.

The building scheme is all paid off.

They're still owed a million, I think, when I retired eight years

ago.

It's all paid off now.

And you know, one of the lovely things, Many of the people

who have been giving over the last 20 years or so to the building

scheme are continuing to give that money to provide resources for

mission and outreach.

Hence, I think part of that is the church plant in the Titanic quarter,

enabling the church to do more in mission.

And I wonder whether all that would have happened if we hadn't

apologized to the congregation.

Why is it that sorry seems to be the hardest word?

And so when you're doing the dishes or when you're out mowing

the grass, whatever you might be doing, and this thought comes

into your head, maybe I should apologize to so and so.

That's a burning bush moment.

Pay heed and pay attention.

Maybe you are like this.

I remember very much in my pastoral work as minister of congregation

that sometimes I'd be driving past a home and the little thought

would come into my head, call in there.

And I'd maybe be thinking, but I'm going up the road to see so and

so.

And the little thought, call in there.

And I found that when I was attentive to that little burning

bush moment and went into that house unexpectedly and unannounced,

it was so often a God moment.

Something had happened or something was necessary there to

be dealt with as a God moment.

Pay attention to the burning bush moments in your life.

It's wonderful when God speaks through the supernatural and the

spectacular, but how much more commonly does he speak?

In the mundane, everyday activities of life, the key is always

turning aside, paying attention, and acting.

That's the invitation of the burning bush.

Indeed, every Sunday, as you wait for worship to begin, why not

let the symbol of this burning bush be a reminder to you this morning?

Every day I come here to worship, I draw aside and pay attention

to what God will say in worship.

And the second thing I think I want us to learn is that God is with

us in the fire.

Verse 4.

When the Lord saw that Moses had gone over to look, God called

to him from within the bush, Moses, Moses.

And Moses said, here I am.

Now, here's another confession.

Not only am I not doing the whole passage that David gave me

to preach on, I'm not doing a wonderfully good exegesis of this

passage, because I want to make a point here that I'm not sure

that Moses would necessarily have thought of.

He wasn't facing persecution, more he was in danger of prosecution

for the crime he had committed 40 years before.

But I'm drawing on the idea from Calvin that linked this symbol

with persecution.

You see, the mystery that drew Moses to the bush was that whilst

it seemed on fire, it wasn't becoming blackened or charred, it

wasn't being destroyed.

But the survival of the burning bush had nothing to do with

its strength or its natural properties.

Because the deeper truth was God was appearing to Moses in the

fire.

In the fire.

The true miracle wasn't the bush, but the presence of God.

Moses was a murderer.

He was a fugitive from justice.

He was a lowly shepherd with a life of mundane and routine on spectacular

days.

But God wasn't finished with him.

And isn't it significant, in verse four we hear God speaking to

him, repeating his name.

Moses.

Moses.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to hear God speak your

name?

That fantastic thought God speaks to this fugitive from justice,

this murderer, this man who for 40 years has turned away from

the life of luxury in Egypt and been a shepherd in the wilderness.

This man of 80 years of age who maybe thinks he's washed up,

finished, burnt, out of no use for anything or anyone.

And God says, moses, Moses, I know you, I love you.

I'm calling you by name and I am with you because I have a job

for you to do.

Moses was not yet finished with in terms of God's work in his

life.

And so I couldn't help but think of this association with the

burning bush as a symbol for Presbyterians of persecution.

What is the fire that you're experiencing?

It could be the furnace of debt or unemployment.

It could be the fire of illness or grief or guilt, the furnace

of doubt or of unanswered prayer.

Maybe you're being discriminated against in some way,

maybe you're experiencing rejection, may not be the case, but

maybe you're having to suffer some form of abuse, whatever it might

be.

And Exodus 3 is a reminder.

The presence of God is there in the fire with you.

And there's a promise that the presence of God means you may feel

you are burning, but you will not be consumed.

Later in the Scriptures, the prophet Isaiah put it this way in

lovely words from Isaiah 43.

One, three coming up on screen.

I love these words.

Fear not, for I have redeemed you.

I have summoned you by name.

Moses, Moses, you are mine.

When you Pass through the waters, I will be with you.

When you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over

you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.

The flames will not set you ablaze.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and the fiery furnace.

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

And notice God never says to his people, I will make sure you

don't go through the waters of suffering or the fire, of persecution

or difficulty or problems.

It never says, I will make sure you don't suffer any of these

things.

It's when you pass through the waters, when you walk through the

fire, I will be with you.

So whatever fire you face in life, God has not finished with you.

He certainly won't abandon you.

And surely the reason that the burning bush became a symbol for

so many believers in the Protestant Reformation was the comfort

of the presence of God, even in the face of persecution and trouble.

Indeed, as Moses discovered in verse 4, God called to us from within

the fire.

And our response shouldn't be to run away, but to say, like Moses,

he, here I am, here I am, Lord, wholly available to you to

listen to what you have to say.

So when you hear that little voice inside saying, go and ring

so and so.

Go and call with so and so.

Go and send so and so a bunch of flowers.

Go and send someone an encouraging text or have an encouraging

conversation, Take them out for a coffee.

When you hear that little voice, pay attention, for it may

be a burning bush moment that will bring an amazing joy and wonder.

I won't have time this morning to go into the call of God to Moses

to go to Pharaoh.

I'll make a little reference to it in a few minutes.

But here's the third thing that we learn from this burning bush

story.

The third thing is where you are is holy ground.

Verses 5 and 6.

Do not come any closer.

God said, take off your sandals, for the place where you're

standing is holy ground.

Then he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham,

the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

This Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at

God.

He realized that this was God speaking to him.

See, here's the thing.

Moses was looking at the miracle of the burning bush.

And God says to him, look where you're standing.

That is holy ground.

Maybe Moses felt he had to be somewhere else to beat God and 40

years of exile.

I wonder, did he feel he was wasting his life, that he was in

the wrong place, that he was living out a humdrum nothingness

of life.

And yet God invested new meaning into his desert experience.

This is holy ground, Moses.

This desert, this wilderness, this mundane routine, looking after

sheep, this is holy ground.

And he backs it up with saying, I am the God of your fathers,

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and I have come to meet with you.

Isn't it possible that some of us have the attitude that when we

become more financially stable and secure, we imagine our lives

will have more meaning?

Perhaps we feel unsettled, and we're always thinking the future

will be better for us, spiritually speaking, or in other

ways.

Well, here's the thing.

God doesn't wait for the right time of life.

God doesn't wait for the lush valleys of prosperity to call you.

Where you are is holy ground.

So do you have a difficult family situation?

God says it's holy ground.

Do you have stress and difficulty in work?

God says you're standing on holy ground.

You're going through a period of ill health.

God says it's holy ground.

Do you feel your life is boring in the humdrum routine?

God says it's holy ground.

You see where you and I are right now, exactly in the place where

we are, is where God speaks and says, take off your sandals,

come before me in humility, for that is holy ground that you're

standing on.

And we need to say that we're listening.

We're ready, Lord, to receive what you have for us right now.

Dare I criticize the Reformation, especially in a place

like Anna Long?

Well, if there's a fault of the Reformation, I think it might

be that somehow it began to see a division between what we call

the sacred and the secular.

And so we've become very used to the idea that following God is

what we learn about in church, and we do things in church and we

go to our church organizations and we live together as God's people.

But when we get to work on Monday morning, it's a very different

thing.

And yet, even if you're the only Christian in your workplace,

God says it's holy ground.

When we think of the community of which we're part, there may be

things that the community want to do and do that we feel is very

anti our faith.

But God says it's holy ground.

Let's not think of this division between sacred and secular,

because all of life, it's to be holy ground, where God says, that

is where I'm calling you to serve me and to worship me.

And so when we begin to understand that the farm or the Classroom,

the office or the neighborhood or the supermarket, or wherever we

find our ourselves is holy ground.

We will begin to learn to listen to God's call to serve him

where we are and with whoever we are associating.

Moses was just looking for grass to feed his sheep.

80 year old fugitive from justice, he may well have thought

he was done, but God told him he was just starting the rest of

Exodus 3.

I haven't time to go into it.

It's the story of God's amazing call to Moses to go back

to Pharaoh and to rescue his fellow Israelites from their slavery.

A wanted murderer going back to the people who had been looking

to take his life and say, hey, by the way, let my people go, says

God.

But the commissioning he received at the burning bush changed

not only his life and the life of Israel, but impacted the world.

And we can see that by the fact that the burning bush is a symbol

of our church even today after these years.

Perhaps as you come here Sunday by Sunday and see the burning

bush symbol on the pulpit fall, you will remember the bush

is still burning.

That God is still saying that where you are right now in life is

holy ground because that is where he has called you to be and

expect you to serve him.

So take off your shoes, turn aside and listen to God, pay attention

to what he says.

And if you hear that little voice saying, apologize to so and

so.

If you hear that little voice saying, give so and so an encouraging

word or bring them a bunch of flowers.

If you hear that little voice saying, speak to that person of Jesus,

obey that voice.

Forgive me if I've told you this story before, but trying to

pay attention to God.

I was visiting a man who was dying of asbestosis.

He knew everything about the gospel.

He knew it all.

All he had to do was to commit his life to Jesus.

And very strangely, I felt that little voice of God saying to

me in my burning bush moment, don't speak to him anymore of me,

just speak to him as a man who's interested in football, who's

interested in various things and speak of those things.

Very strange thing to say to a minister who's trying to prepare

a man for eternity who wasn't prepared.

And so that's what I did, went against my nature and my desire to

evangelize and to lead him to Jesus.

I got a phone call one night.

His wife rang me at 10 past midnight.

She said, he's calling for you.

Would you come around and see him?

So I got dressed and got into the car, drove around about Five

minutes.

And I went upstairs and he was in.

I'll never forget it.

He was in the bed just to the left of the door.

The door opened that way into the room.

He was in the bed on the left.

I went in and he took hold of my left hand.

And as soon as he did that, he said, lord Jesus, into your life

I commit myself.

Be with me as my savior.

He died half an hour later.

And that little voice that seemed so strange, pay attention.

Do what God tells you to do.

Take off your shoes, turn aside, listen to God and pay attention.

And so I want to leave you.

Hopefully it will come up on screen just with three little thoughts

this morning to summarize what I've been saying.

And it's God meets us in everyday life.

God sustains us in the fires of life.

And God calls us to serve him where we are.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we thank you that as Moses never expected on that day,

tending the sheep, that he would meet you and hear your call

to serve him.

Yet you met him in the middle of the desert, not in church, not

in private prayer, not in any kind of religious exercise, but looking

after the sheep, wondering what's going to be for dinner, wondering

what's happened to that lame.

You.

You met him.

And I pray that you would help us, Lord, to recognize those burning

bush moments in our lives when you appear and you speak and you

call us to serve you.

So help us, Lord, to recognize that you meet us in everyday life,

that you sustain us in the fires of life and you call us to

serve you just where we are, with whomever we are.

In Jesus name we pray.

Amen.