Minutes of the Meeting

Most of us have some understanding of the minutes of a meeting

They’re not necessarily a minute by minute—or blow by blow—report of every event; they are “in miniature,” just a brief recap of the critical points and action taken

This passage is just that…it is the short version of the meeting between the great I AM, and Moses

The Participants of the Meeting

Jehovah God

Very clear if you look at the OT account—LORD, the covenant name of God

Moses

Think about all that went into preparing Moses for this meeting

We’ve seen the sequence of events God used to get from Abraham to Moses…and to have him survive

The decree of death to the baby boys—foiled

The adoption of the Pharaoh's daughter…upbringing and education

The need to get out Dodge—a complicated series of events

Chilling his heals for 40 years, tending sheep—what a humbling from the position he’d had

He is now EIGHTY years old!

…and it’s time for a meeting with God

The Agenda for the Meeting

There’s no doubt that the whole thing was God’s plan, Moses had no clue that it was coming

God clearly established the ground rules—maybe call it the “holy-ground” rules of the meeting, Jehovah God was clearly in charge

There may be other things, but there are always introductions, a statement of relationships, and a statement of purpose

All I need to know I learned from The Princess Bride; may not be entirely true, but it has some merit in what is teaches about conducting a meeting

Introduction—my name is Indigo Montoya

Statement of relationship—you killed my father

Purpose—prepare to die

We have the same thing here—without the humor

Introduction--I AM the God of your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

tidbit of note: He IS the God…, proves that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did not merely cease to exist—there is life after death!

Second tidbit: He had not forgotten the promise and had been paying attention to the situation with His people

Statement of relationship--I AM going to deliver them

A continuation of the promise

Statement of purpose--You are the man I will use

Moses wouldn’t have seen that one coming—the OT account discusses his attempts to get out of this

The Outcome of the Meeting

Moses was going back to Egypt

This was a divine commission

We know from the OT account that it was not without some resistance on the part of Moses

We have to see this as a continuation of the process in the divine plan to bring about the promise God had made to Abraham

As Stephen unfolded this account to the Sanhedrin, their well-schooled brains should be ticking off the events in their recorded history—agreeing to the points of history he brought up…but did they see where he was leading them?

With our understanding of what happened, we’ll know that it was not going to be accepted by the council—they saw only what they wanted to see in their history…and Jesus just didn’t fit their plan

WITFM?

We don’t have meetings with God that go quite like this one—no burning bushes in our histories

BUT, when God purposes to use us He does set about a process to bring you to the point of being usable for His purposes

We can look back at Joseph and see a parallel between his experience and Moses’ experience

There was some rough spots, some exaltation, some humility, all of which took times

There was in the case of Moses some resistance to the plan…but God’s plan won out in the end

The encounter Moses had with God was unique

He would have had an understanding of who God was from his connection to his parents and his culture, but he had a face to face meeting that made it personal

Don’t get hung up on the face to face issue—understand it as a person to person meeting

What does a personal meeting look like?

First off, it’s when each of us comes to Christ

Confessing—agreeing with God—that we’re a sinner

Repenting—turning from those sins to follow Him