The Wilderness - Moses and Our Curiosity

All right, everybody. Hey, my name is Greg, one

of the pastors here at the house. Sometimes I

always say my name in the context of a sermon,

probably down this side of the house. But I also

say my name because I know that my name is not

actually legible on this name tag. That's because

I'm the one that wrote it. And if we've never

met, I would love to meet you. I'd love to actually

maybe buy you a coffee or a soda or something

like that, hear your story. And if you would

like to, I'd love to talk about Jesus. Really,

really. I like talking about Jesus. Happy birthday.

Thanks, Scott. Scott was like, I'm going to start

the slow clap. Who's with me? Thank you. And

to David Korczak, we have the same birthday.

Where's David? Raise your hand, David. All right.

He's in. Oh, and Renee. Very cool. So my joke

with what? 70. There you go. The joke that I

have with David is that David's from Canada.

We not only have the same birthday, we were the

same age. So we were both 48. We both have our

oldest son is named Brennan. And so I joke that

like we're in the Matrix and we're just from

different servers. He's from the Canadian server

and I'm from the U .S. one. Anyhow. We are in

the second week of a series that we are calling

The Wilderness. I don't know how you've been

feeling lately, but a pastor that I know posted

online this last week, he said, the first nine

days of 2026 have been the longest three years

ever. Maybe that is how you feel so far. Maybe

you really are three years into what feels like

a very real wilderness experience of... And I

hope that this series has something for you.

Because God has not lost track of you. You are

not invisible. God is the one who sees. And I

hope that you feel seen. So let's go ahead. We're

going to jump right into the message for the

day by jumping into the scriptures. So grab a

Bible that's close to you or open up a Bible

on your phone. If you don't have a Bible... Take

one of those blue ones home or there's some blue

ones on the bookshelf in the lobby. Those are

free. We're going to be in the book of Exodus.

Exodus is at the beginning of the Bible. It goes

Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus. So if you see any

of those three, you know you're in the right

neighborhood. We're going to be in Exodus chapter

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

3. Now, we have a tradition here at the house

in the context when the scripture is being read

in the context of a sermon. We give it our full

attention. And one of the ways we do that is

by standing together. But only stand as you are

able. Otherwise, just give this your attention

as we read the scriptures. Exodus 3. It's going

to be long passes, starting in verse 1. Moses

was keeping the flock of his father -in -law

Jethro, the priest of Midian. He led his flock

beyond the wilderness and came to Mount Horeb,

the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord

appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush.

He looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was

not consumed. Then Moses said, I must turn aside

and look at this great sight and see why the

bush is not burned up. Verse 4. When the Lord

saw that he had turned aside to see, God called

to him out of the bush, Moses, Moses. And he

said, Here I am. Then he said, Come no closer.

Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place

in which you are standing is holy ground. He

said further, I am the Lord, I am the God of

your 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 at God. Then the Lord

said, I have observed the misery of my people

who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry on account

of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings.

And I have come down to deliver them from the

Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land

to a good and spacious land, to land flowing

with milk and honey to the country of the Canaanites,

the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the

Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites

has now come to me. I have also seen how the

Egyptians oppress them. Now go, I am sending

you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites,

out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, Who am I

that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites

out of Egypt? He said, I will be with you, and

this shall be the sign for you that it is I who

sent you. When you have brought the people out

of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.

But Moses said to God, If I come to the Israelites

and say to them, The God of your ancestors has

sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his

name? What shall I say to them? God said to Moses,

I am who I am. Let us pray. God of every tribe,

every tongue, every color, every nation, we thank

you for your scriptures. We thank you that they

have persisted throughout the millennia, that

we still have them to read and to consider. And

I pray that whatever you have to teach us today,

that it would stick, that it would become a part

of the framework of our faith, as our faith becomes

stronger, as we become more like your son, Jesus.

Amen? Amen. You can all have a seat. Thank you,

everyone. The first thing we ask here is, why

was Moses there? Why was Moses where he was?

It says literally that he was tending to the

flocks of his father -in -law, Jethro. But I

want to go back further. Moses was actually someone

that had grown up. In Egypt, in the house of

the Pharaoh. Before he was born, the scriptures

say that Pharaoh was so intimidated and afraid

of the growing Hebrew population that he ordered

every Hebrew boy to be killed at birth. But Moses'

mother was successful in hiding him for the first

few months of his life. And then she placed him

in a basket, in the reeds, at the edge of the

river where she knew that he could be... found.

And so when the Pharaoh's daughter came down

to the river to bathe, she found him there. It

says that Moses's sister stepped in and asked,

do you want me to go find a Hebrew woman to nurse

this baby that you have found? And Pharaoh's

daughter said yes. And so she went and got Moses's

own mother. While the movies like to make it

sound like Moses had no idea that he was a Hebrew

until he was 40, the reality is that he knew

the entire time. He carried the weight of being

Hebrew and living in the house of the Pharaoh

that was oppressing the Hebrew people. And so

when he was around 40 years old and he saw an

Egyptian beating a Hebrew, it says that he stepped

in. He struck the Egyptian. The Egyptian died

and he buried him. And when it became obvious

that his secret would not stay buried, he ran.

Because even though he was the adopted son of

the Pharaoh's daughter, the Pharaoh was not going

to let this slide. That is why Moses is in the

wilderness. Because he ran. But now, another

40 years has gone by, and the wilderness for

Moses wasn't exactly barren. He got married.

He started a family. He had kids. Life was stable.

He had a good job, at least part of which was

tending to the flocks of his father -in -law.

And the passage says, Moses led his father -in

-law's flock beyond. the wilderness to the mountain

of God. And this is an intentional foreshadowing

by the author about Moses' future. His father

-in -law is a priest. And so Moses led the holy

man's flocks through the wilderness to the mountain

of God. where God met him there. Now he will

lead God's people through and beyond the wilderness

to that same mountain so that they will see that

God still cares. It makes me think that just

because you moved beyond your wilderness doesn't

mean you won't need to go through one again to

help someone else. Just because you have gone

through or beyond your wilderness does not mean

that you will not need to go through one again,

especially to help someone else. This story also

makes me think about how important curiosity

is when it comes to following God. Scripture

tells us that his father -in -law was the priest

of Midian. His name was Jethro. And Jethro was

a polytheistic priest. Polytheistic just means

it's a religion that worships many gods. The

most obvious one modern day to look at would

be Hinduism. There's many gods to look at. They

worship for many different reasons. Because in

many polytheistic religions, everything has its

own god. The weather has a God. The waters has

a God. The moon, the sun, the stars, they all

have separate gods. They all have their own.

And so fire would have had its own God. Moses

almost surely does not approach this bush just

because it's an odd experience. That's possible.

But I think it's more probable. or more likely

that Moses has a spiritual curiosity that has

been instilled by his religious surroundings.

I think that Moses is wondering, is something

spiritual happening over there? Why else would

it look like a bush was burning, but there's

no smoke and it's not being consumed? You also

have to remember that in those days, anything

out of the ordinary must have been the gods.

And then remember that the first 40 years of

Moses' life, he watched as the God of his ethnic

ancestors essentially did nothing. He's probably

not approaching this bush looking for the God

of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When he says, I

am the God, he says that he hides his face. Because

that's not who he was approaching thinking might

be there. If he's looking for something spiritual,

it's more likely... Because of the spiritual

curiosity that he has seen in his new father,

Jethro. He's been taught that there could be

a God involved in any or every element of life.

Now listen, Christians, we're meant to do this

too. To believe that God is active in the world,

present in every moment. But we've also become

so afraid of being tricked that we say things

like, well, I didn't see that healing happen

with my eyes. So I'm not sure that it happened.

God didn't heal the thing that I asked for, so

maybe he doesn't do that anymore. As if my own

personal experiences are enough in totality to

determine the existence of an infinite being.

Slowly but surely, we leave. spiritual curiosity

to every other part of the world, to every other

religion, to every other form of spirituality,

and eventually we're just inviting people to

a religion of rules, a religion of singing songs,

just singing, just singing, nothing more than

that, a religion of lectures and limits. Instead

of to a God of the miraculous, to a God that

sees. To a God that can make it look like a bush

is burning but not being consumed. And I wonder

how many burning bushes we have seen but we have

kept walking because we're not looking with spiritually

curious eyes anymore. Let's be honest. If you

saw, if I put it on the screen right now, a picture

of a bush that was burning but not being consumed,

you would all say it was AI. You'd say, oh, that's

CGI. Oh, what app did you use to make that? I

had a friend in Colorado, or rather, I had a

boss that became my friend, and he could not

be to a meeting that he set on time. He'd be

15 minutes late, always, always. And he'd come

in saying, DEI. D -E -I, divine interventions

every day. Oh, D -I -E, D -I -E, divine interventions

every day. It did not matter. He's the one that

set the meeting, and then he'd just come in,

D -I -E, you guys got to die every day. Divine

interventions every day. It drove me nuts because

I'm an on -time person, and I like a meeting

to start on time, especially if I'm the one that

planned it and especially if there's a meeting

that might be coming after it. I think it's true

that we all need a little more D .I .E. We need

more curiosity to make space for the divine to

intervene every day. My pastor back in Colorado

used to say, if you're coming to church without

expecting God to do anything, why are you coming?

I wonder about our ability to have curiosity

in our spirituality, especially when I see what's

happening with the unhoused in our city. When

I see what's happening with immigrants in America

living in fear. And I wonder how often the presence

of God gets ignored because we've lost our curiosity

to see Jesus in them. Hebrews reminds us that...

At any moment, we could be entertaining an angel

unaware. And I think that there's something about

this curiosity that also leads us into holy moments.

As Moses approaches the burning bush, I think

because of a curiosity, it says that God tells

him to take off his sandals, to put his skin

on the ground. I think that if you read the scripture,

it does say, come no closer, take off your sandals

for this is holy ground. So we might look at

that and go, well, God doesn't want to be close

to us. Well, then why would he ask him to take

off his sandals so that his skin could touch

the ground that he had called holy? And if you

look at the whole arc of the relationship that

Moses had with... It says that while this is

where it starts in Exodus 3, by the time you

get to Exodus 33, he's having to wear veils in

front of people because his face is shining for

being in the presence of God. 20 years ago, there

was a movement called See You at the Pole. Anybody?

Raise your hand if you ever went to See You at

the Pole. Okay. I think it still happens. I'm

pretty sure that it still happens. But 20 years

ago, it was a big deal. Like, they made a big

deal out of it. What it was was it was student

-led, and one morning a year in September, students

would get together around the flagpole at their

school, and they would pray for spiritual awakening

in their schools. And here in the Quad Cities,

youth pastors started going, okay, hey, you know

what? We don't want to just encourage our kids

to do that. Why don't we try and get all the

students from all the different churches that

encourage people to do that, all the kids that

gather together and pray. together around their

flagpole. Let's get them all together for one

night of worship, one event together that night.

And 20 years ago, they called it, are you ready

for this? They called it the After the Pole Rally.

So original, right? They had a whole marketing

team on that one. And I was really lucky to have

been asked to lead worship for that event. We

had a thousand kids, junior high through high

school, from all over the Quad Cities in one

room. And I asked them all to take off their

shoes. Yes, it smelled. I said, this is holy

ground. God wants to meet us here. Those were

the days. Dave can attest because somehow Dave

held on to this. Dave still wears sandals as

long as he possibly can year -round. Those were

the days where I always wore sandals, and before

I would lead worship, I would take my shoes off.

It didn't matter whether I was on stage at Heritage

Church in front of a couple thousand people or

if I was in a small room with 12. My feet were

going to be on the ground. Theologically speaking,

there's nothing between us, between us and God.

Our sins are forgiven. There's nothing that any

longer would divide us or separate us or keep

us apart. But God also knows that we are a visual

people and that a physical action, a metaphor,

something that we can do to remove a layer between

our feet and the ground can teach us a spiritual

reality. Curiosity leads us to holy moments.

Curiosity leads us to see Jesus and people that

we might otherwise walk past. And I wonder if

y 'all walked up to a burning bush later today

and God said, this is holy ground, I wonder if

you might say, put down your phones. Last thing

I want to point out is... I don't think that

we can read this passage without acknowledging

that God, the creator of the universe, is asking

human beings to be a part of the solution. People

ask, if God is real, then why doesn't he just

fix this and fix that? Why does he... Whether

it's the stories about Jesus or whether it's

the prophets or if it's this story about Moses,

so often... Throughout the scriptures, God is

asking us to be a part of the solution. Notice

God didn't just speak to Pharaoh from the sky.

God spoke to the Pharaoh through a person. And

more than that, God expected that person to lead

his people through and beyond the wilderness

to the mountain of God. The Bible isn't really

a book that just shows what God did. The Bible

is the book that shows how God moved through

humans. This past week, I was meeting with a

local organization that serves the unhoused and

the poor in Rock Island. And they have a daytime

drop -in shelter, but they've essentially run

out of room. And I met them here. I met them

here so that I could show them our lobby and

even our sanctuary. And to say, I wonder if maybe

you could meet here instead. You could use our

building during the day. We can do some stuff

at night, be here on the weekends. Because we

have, just the lobby is almost twice the space

that they have. They asked, what will your church

people think if, let's say, if some of those

people that we serve show up on Sundays or what

happens if they, not when, not if, but when they

break things. Or what if the building smells

like them when you get here? And I had it in

my notes and I took it out, but I'm going to

tell you the truth. I said I don't care. I said,

I don't think I care. Because while this might

not, who knows, we're just offering it. We're

just offering the idea. God knows whether it

will happen or not. But I said, I don't think

that we're meant to have this big, warm building

just to make people feel good for one hour on

a Sunday. And I said, I don't, if this isn't

the kind of thing that God has been leading us

to for the last 12 years, then I'm not sure what

is. It's a happy 12 -year anniversary, everybody.

And I said I don't want to be naive, and I don't

want to be naive in front of you either, because

I know it's an if. It's a big if. If they do

want to eventually move here and maybe even end

up renovating the other end of the building,

and that would just be a temporary solution for

them, we would need to be prepared. When I got

here this morning, there was a guy pacing around

in the parking lot, rapping to himself with a

lot of obscenities, and I knew that he was someone

that was unhoused. He was far enough away. The

general rule is don't approach and bother someone

that isn't asking to be bothered. So I just watched

him as he paced back and forth, frenetically,

just rapping off the top of his head with a lot

of curse words. And I thought, He could be at

church today. And I hope we'll be ready. We'd

also need to be ready to repair things on a regular

basis. There's a reason that a lot of times you

go into hospitals and shelters and things like

that. They don't have yellow walls, y 'all. Because

walls get dirty. And there's certain colors that

just show the dirt a little bit better than others.

We'd have to be ready to repair things, to repaint

things, to fix things, to pay for some things

that we're used to not having to pay for right

now. But I don't want this church, not just this

building. I'm not talking about this building.

I'm talking about you. I don't want this church

to see a burning bush and just walk on by. I

don't want this church. to say we've gone beyond

our wilderness, they will be fine. I don't want

this church to see the presence of God freezing

on the street and assume they'll be okay. If

you really want to know what I think, I need

you to find us half a million dollars so we can

buy this building. And I'm really not joking.

Because this building sits... two -thirds empty

just to get to the other end of the building

up to code without bathrooms in it 60 grand up

to code with bathrooms in it 100 grand to buy

the building 335 000 to do anything with the

upstairs to turn that into a long -term housing

facility for single women or a shelter for the

unhoused, there's 17 ,000 square feet upstairs.

17 ,000 square feet upstairs. And it would cost

millions to renovate up to the level that would

be needed. If you want to know the truth, we

need some money. Because there's some things

that probably need to happen here. Things that

I'm afraid to say out loud because then I don't

want anyone to feel disappointed when it doesn't

happen. Because even I am tempted to become a

part of a religion that's just singing songs

and offering lectures instead of being a spiritual

man that believes in a God of miracles. But I'm

going to be curious. And I hope that you will

be curious too whether you are in the middle

of your wilderness, whether you have already

walked past and beyond your wilderness. You are

not done with the concept of wilderness because

people are stuck in them and need help. People

are stuck. And they need our help. So will you

be curious with me? Will you let the Holy Spirit

swell up this feeling of, it's okay to be a little

afraid about it. It's okay to be a little afraid

about it. But I just think that there is more

for us. as a body of Christ. Amen? Let's pray.

God, I thank you for every wilderness that every

person has walked through in this room. I thank

you for every challenge, every moment of suffering

that we have learned from, that we would count

it all joy. Because of the purpose that you create

from it. Not that it should have happened, but

it did happen. So now what? Now what is that

we look to you? We hear you say, go, be my mouthpiece.

We trust you with the outcomes. Help us be curious.

Help us see you. bushes that are burning but

not being consumed. Help us be willing to go.

Amen.