Choosing To Live God’s way part 2

Introduction

So now in our second week of January talking about choosing to livd God’s way, we are now going to be taking a look at Moses. Moses struggled with doubt and it affected his ability to live God’s way. We’ll see here that if we let doubt cloud our judgement, we will continue to over and over again try to run away from living the right way because of that fear. So looking down at Exodus 3 starting in verse 1.

1Now Moses was pasturing the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; and he led the flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2Then the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not being consumed. 3So Moses said, “I must turn aside and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burning up!” 4When the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6And He said, “I am the God of your father—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.7And the Lord said, “I have certainly seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their outcry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings. 8So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. 9And now, behold, the cry of the sons of Israel has come to Me; furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10And now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” 12And He said, “Assuredly I will be with you, and this shall be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.”13Then Moses said to God, “Behold, I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?” 14And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM”; and He said, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ” 15God furthermore said to Moses, “This is what you shall say to the sons of Israel: ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is My name forever, and this is the name for all generations to use to call upon Me. 

I. Who is with you 3:1-15

a. See while we might imagine Moses as being like a normal adult man during this meeting with God, he was actually quite old at this point. It’s later stated in the bible that he would have been around 80 years old at this point! So this 80 year old watching over some sheep had his life changed like that. I mean I imagine that when i’m 80 years old if I even make it to that age that i’m going to be done. No more big life changes for me. just relaxing and enjoying retirement i’m sure will be on my mind. But you see here, God had different plans. He had different plans for Moses and you going through your life right now, might think that you’ve figured out that rest of your life. Or maybe you have a good idea of what to do, or even have no clue at all. Whether you have a plan or not, God does. And He is right there to help you through that even when you don’t realize it in the moment. That major moment that change Moses’ life was an encounter with the angel of the LORD appearing to him as a burning bush. Now I can only imagine how that may have looked. Moses was just going about tending the flock and just looks over and sees this bush on fire and he’s like, “huh, that’s not normal.” I mean Moses even said himself, “I must turn aside and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burning up!” But you see right here once Moses realized what was going on he took it seriously. He was on holy ground and when God told him to take his sandal’s off, he did so immediately and Moses was even afraid to look at God. Here’s where God lays out a mission for Moses. God was aware of His people’s sufferings and how much misery they were in because of being in captivity. And God had a plan to get them free and that involved using Moses and sending him to Pharaoh to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. Now at the ripe old age of 80 years old, he was going to lead his people out of captivity and help get them to the Promised land.

Sounds like a pretty scary mission right? well Moses certainly had his doubts. His first objection was “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” You see Moses had self-doubt. to Him he was a nobody. Who was he to be able to lead all of Israel out. God obviously had the wrong guy because Moses was not it. No way could he do that was probably going through his mind. Something that we often forget though is, God can use nobodies. God can use nobodies. And Moses had something that was going to give him the ability to do this. It didn’t matter who he was because he had God. God responded to Moses doubts, And he said, “I, Will, Be, With, You.” And then when Moses asked what God’s name was He responded with, “I AM WHO I AM.” It wasn’t any of the false Egyptian God’s that Moses was with, It was I AM who sent him.

b. You see we get stuck inside our own heads all the time. I can’t do this, I can’t do that, I don’t have the strength, or the wisdom, or the grit, or the courage, or the intelligence or the talent, the resources, or the time to do this. Who am I to do this. We feel this hole where it basically yells out, I’m not your guy Lord, I’m not your girl Lord. I am a nobody and I cannot accomplish your plan. See God has a plan for each and every single one of your lives. God knew how Moses’ life was going to go before even the creation of the entire universe. God had plans with Moses. And us being doubtful, or insecure, or fearful isn’t a surprise to God. He knows how we are going to react and feel when he calls us to do things. But you see pay attention now, God didn’t tell Moses, “No you are perfect Moses, just be more confident! just believe.” No, God told Moses that He would be with Him. Believe or not we are going to be faced with challenges in life that we cannot overcome on our own. We might want to pretend we are the greatest their ever was, but truly we cannot win every battle by ourselves. But just because we cannot win every battle by ourselves, does not mean we have to be by ourselves. We can have the Lord Jesus Christ with us and we don’t have to do things alone. I saw it said that “Being Christian isn’t about being this perfect person, but rather relying on the only perfect Man.” We don’t have to get through the day on our own, we don’t have to go through depression on our own, or anxiety, or financial struggle, or any other hardship. God gave Moses his presence to no matter how afraid Moses was, he didn’t have to be. It was I AM who sent him and God had his back. We can experience that too. A preacher said it like this, “Moses didn’t need self-confidence; he needed God-confidence.

II. 4:1-9

Now jumping down to chapter 4 we have a bit more reading to do. And yes I know it’s quite a bit today but it’s important to see what else happens through this conversation between Moses and God. So look down in verse 1 with me.

1Then Moses said, “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say? For they may say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ” 2The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.” 3Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it turned into a serpent; and Moses fled from it. 4But the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out with your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he reached out with his hand and caught it, and it turned into a staff in his hand— 5“so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”6The Lord furthermore said to him, “Now put your hand inside the fold of your robe.” So he put his hand inside the fold, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous like snow. 7Then He said, “Put your hand inside the fold of your robe again.” So he put his hand into the fold again, and when he took it out of the fold, behold, it was restored like the rest of his flesh. 8“So if they will not believe you nor pay attention to the evidence of the first sign, they may believe the evidence of the last sign. 9But if they will not believe even these two signs nor pay attention to what you say, then you shall take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground; and the water which you take from the Nile will turn into blood on the dry ground.”

a. Even though Moses was told that God would be with Him and Moses was told who God was, he still had doubts. He threw out another what if. Another doubt. He couldn’t just let it be and do what God said. Sometimes it can feel like just wanting to shake the person being like just listen to God right? But, come on now, if someone was watching our lives how often would they want to shake us and tell us just to do what God said to do? It would be a lot more often then we would like to admit wouldn’t it? Because Moses had this fear of them not listening to them, God gave him more proof that the Lord had appeared to Moses. Moses now possessed signs that were from God to prove that he had been with God. But as we will see in a second, that still wasn’t enough for Moses.

b. Why is Moses being so difficult. But think to yourself honestly, how difficult are you when it comes to doing God’s will. Do you fight it? Do you try to come up with every excuse in the book to try to get out of it? Or come up with every what if scenario to try to convince yourself that it can’t be done continuing to become more and more afraid of it. But instead of getting in our own heads, just trust God. God was giving Moses more reason to be confident, not only knowing that He would be with Moses, but that he would have signs to go with that as well. We have reason to be confident in God’s plan guys! If you have Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior then you have God literally living within you. You know he keeps his promises, he proves that time and time again in the Bible and you know his thoughts are higher and better so just trust him. Live how he’s telling you to live and everything is going to figure itself out. Just keeping on doing the next right thing right? We can be confident in God’s plan.

Continuing on in verse 10 in chapter 4 though we read another excuse.

III.

10Then Moses said to the Lord, “Please, Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither recently nor in time past, nor since You have spoken to Your servant; for I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.” 11But the Lord said to him, “Who has made the human mouth? Or who makes anyone unable to speak or deaf, or able to see or blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12Now then go, and I Myself will be with your mouth, and instruct you in what you are to say.” 13But he said, “Please, Lord, now send the message by whomever You will.” 14Then the anger of the Lord burned against Moses, and He said, “Is there not your brother Aaron the Levite? I know that he speaks fluently. And moreover, behold, he is coming out to meet you; when he sees you, he will be overjoyed. 15So you are to speak to him and put the words in his mouth; and I Myself will be with your mouth and his mouth, and I will instruct you in what you are to do. 16He shall speak for you to the people; and he will be as a mouth for you and you will be as God to him. 17And you shall take in your hand this staff, with which you shall perform the signs.”

After all the signs and knowing that God was with him, Moses still had doubt. This time the doubt was solely on his ability. His ability to speak. Now we don’t know for sure whether he had a speech impediment, or was just bad at public speaking, or what, but Moses for whatever reason wasn’t a great speaker. That was his next excuse. “I’m just not a good enough speaker God! choose someone else!” But look at God’s response to this. “Who made the human mouth?” God did. God called Moses to lead the Israelites while knowing everything about Moses, including him not being able to speak well. God chose Moses and it didn’t matter how good Moses though he was or if he was good enough. all that doubt didn’t matter. Moses faced a lot of doubt. But it wasn’t all on Moses but God. He said in verse 12, “Now then go, and I Myself will be with your mouth, and instruct you in what you are to say.” And finally Moses fought one more time asking God to choose someone else. Moses didn’t want to go. He didn’t want this. There was too much fear, too much doubt. But Moses needed to to choose to be bold and trust in God, choose his way.

Do you feel a calling? Maybe you are simply being called to Jesus. You’ve been running away for a long time or even haven’t given him much thought at all until now. Moses was all in his head. He kept fighting and fighting giving excuse after excuse as to why he couldn’t do it. He wasn’t a good speaker, he was a nobody, all of these things. But instead of doing all of that he should have just placed his faith in God. You can place that faith in Jesus. No matter the doubt, anxiety, depression, or any other struggle you are going through right now, it can be better, because with Jesus it doesn’t matter what life has in store for you, because He will there with you. You don’t have to clean yourself up first either. He knows you’ve messed up and don’t try to become perfect before deciding to start that relationship with Jesus. You can just come as you are and He’ll be able to change you and help you. And everything that God has planned for you, he took into account all your weaknesses too. He took into account all of your shortcomings and you not being perfect, having doubt, or fear, isn’t going to be too much for God to handle. If you haven’t been right on track with your walk with God, today is the day to do that. Now is the time for you to be like “Alright God, let’s do it your way.” Start living life God’s way instead of the way of this world. Stop running or letting fear keep you from doing that.

Conclusion

This passage of scripture gives a lot of insight into Moses. A lot of times we think of him as this great leader of Israel without even thinking how he was just a man. He had doubts and fears, and God really had to drill it into him before Moses would do what he was told. But even with all of that fighting, and doubt, and the speech problem that Moses had, God still used him to do great things for the kingdom. And in that same way, even with any struggles you have, He can still use you to grow his kingdom and you will get you through those struggles. So start living life God’s way and leave behind living any other way. Let’s pray.