Excuses, Excuses...

Intro

Exodus 3:1–15 NIV

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 wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a 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.” When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are 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.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So 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?” 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.” Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘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, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

Pray

[pic of burning bush]

Have you ever been there, minding your own business, when God interrupted you?

I mean, you were just living life, right? You have a job maybe. You have friends, and a routine. Maybe you have kids or a spouse.

No matter what your situation might look like, you had either started to, or had successfully navigated all the hurdles that this life, our society and culture, dictate that you navigate when God drops a bomb on it all.

Think about it, because

We will all be there, if we haven’t been there already.

That is where we find Moses. There in the middle of a life that has gotten pretty grooved into a routine. Moses had gotten married and taken up the family business. And not just any family, but the family of the priest of Midian! So Moses no doubt had influence, and social rank. He also, no doubt, had a pretty easy life! He was a shepherd. He was in high demand, and on top of that, he was a member of the priest’s family, so people tended to think highly of him, and treat him with a little more respect than most.

Oh he had it all.

[pic of us living a good life]

Brief exegete…Moses had made a life for himself…tended sheep…made a living…had influence in his community…had peace…make up a story.

And that can be us too!

Our lives can settle into some pretty comfortable routines at times. Every day, we chase after those things that we think we are supposed to have, and as we do, we become more and more entrenched in our own routines and desires and expectations.

And that feeling, that stability is empowering isn’t it? It really is church. It can be addictive. It can become the very thing that we long for more than anything else!

And that is the very reason why God will, from time to time, blow it up.

[pic of church life]

But this isn’t just our regular lives we are talking about. In fact, I would say that the life lived like that isn’t regular at all, but our lives centered around our faith very much is the life we are intended to live!

And I think we all get that to some extent. That is why we see so many of those same comforts, those same habits and tendencies infiltrating our faith lives, both individually and corporately.

And those habits, once they get in, they start chewing away at us. We struggle with small acts of faith because we are more interested in our own ideas or comfort. We wrestle with minor points of scripture or dogma, completely looking past the central call of our faith, and our Savior!

We get hung up on anything, church, ANYTHING - except the one thing that we should get hung up on. Living like Jesus.

[burning bush]

But it isn’t just us. No. Moses did too. You see in all of his comfort and all of his routine, there was little effort given to know God or find out how he could be more useful to Him.

I say that, because Moses knew the situation in Egypt. I mean, he had just fled to Midian some years before, and knew how bad it was for his people. But he had a life now. He had peace. Everything was as it should be, at least from his point of view! I mean, after all, he had picked himself up by his bootstraps, he was a “self made” man, we might say. So surely, because he had been able to pull himself up and become comfortable, they should pull themselves up too right?

Church, when you feel that comfortable, you need to start looking for a bush on fire, and hope it reignites the fire of Christ in your soul.

You see, when Moses was at his most comfortable God sent into his life this thing - something marvelous and shocking and scary all at once. This bush that burns but doesn’t.

You know, sometimes, in your lives, you will be sent something that draws your attention. Maybe it is a situation, maybe a person, maybe a huge life event, maybe it is just a new friend. But something will happen that stands out like a sore thumb. Something will draw your eye away from your comfort and towards this other thing out there. Something strange. Something fascinating. Something shocking. Something scary.

Your burning bush.

And whatever that thing is, church, it calls to you to abandon your life for just a moment and come investigate. Come look deeply into it. Come give it some attention. Come and stop being distracted by what you are doing, your routine and comforts, and step over here and check this out.

scarfpic?

I have a very dear friend who recently had one of those moments. They were having a hard time, not feeling like they were heading in the right direction, maybe. To be honest they really couldn’t nail the feeling down, they just knew the symptoms.

One of those symptoms was work. They were having trouble there. Felt uncomfortable. And one day, after a long conversation with a pastor friend of theirs, they made their way into work and found a gift there. Someone had made them a scarf. Such a simple gesture of love.

Church, that wasn’t just a nice gift, it was a burning bush.

You see God was showing them that He was there in that moment! It was a moment intended for the same reason God sent that bush for Moses!

To get their attention.

To break the ice, if you will. To set the stage so that God could then speak to them! Those burning bushes in our lives are intended to cause us to perk up and pay attention, and to know that God is there, and has something for us to hear.

For Moses, it was simple. If you would indulge me to paraphrase, I think it would be helpful, because honestly, the message is the same for us today!

[talk about experiencing God?? We all have a burning bush moment…elaborate on that idea for a bit…bring it back to the text…Tie the burning bush moment to the fact that in that moment God lets Moses know that He sees the trouble…elaborate on how important that is (maybe talk about Dawn?? getting the gift at a place she struggles to be in?) Our burning bush doesn’t have to be scary or life threatening…sometimes it is just something different that catches our attention; that is God trying to show us He is there and He is listening, and that He wants us to give Him our attention.]

This is what I hear when I read this. I hear God saying, “Moses, you have had it pretty easy. But there are people who don’t. Your people. My people. They don’t have what you have. They don’t know peace. They don’t eat every day, they have no good place to sleep. They suffer, waiting for someone to step up and offer themselves to rescue them. They are praying day and night to be rescued.”

“Moses. I need you to go rescue them.”

“I need you to leave this comfort and this routine. I need you to abandon what you think is important. I need you to trust that I will actually do what I say I will do! I am God! I will deliver them if you just do and do what I need you to do!”

Exodus 4:10–13 NIV

Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, 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.” The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.” But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

Ex 4:10-

But Moses, like us, has a hard time leaving routine and comfort.

“I’m not eloquent, not in the past, or since you have spoken to me.” “I’m slow of speech.” “Please God, send someone else.”

Excuses, excuses. That is what I feel God is thinking. More excuses. “Who made your mouth,” God says. “Is it no, I, the Lord? Now go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak.”

What a reminder that is. Church, God calls us every day to come out of our routine. To step from the comfortable known, to the uncomfortable unknown. To trust. To, dare I say, even rely on Him alone! He is passing us the ball every day, but we aren’t taking the shot. We are too afraid we will miss, or too lazy to try.

Listen church, you miss 100% of the shots you never take. When you feel God’s presence, when that burning bush comes into your life, you have to take that shot and follow Jesus!

Michael Jordan, probably the best basketball player of all time, and a Tarheel, once said; “I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty six times I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Church we are just like Moses. When God tugs at our hearts, when His way has been made clear to us, we come up with all manner of excuses to ignore Him, to not take the shot. We are far too comfortable with our situation to actually take the shot and risk losing what we have, things like peace, or comfort, or social status, things that were never really ours to begin with!

But listen, we can’t let those excuses rule our lives and our hearts! Our fear of failure, fear of losing out on things we think we need, fear of living a life that relies completely on Jesus, they are just excuses that we are using to soften the fact that we have heard all about God, we have seen the burning bush in our lives, but we can’t seem to muster the strength to step up and change our lives to be like He wants us to be! CHURCH, HE HAS PASSED US THE BALL, AND IS CALLING OUT, “SHOOT IT! SHOOT IT! JUST TAKE THE SHOT!” BUT OUR LACK OF TRUST AND OUR FEAR STOPS US. BUT LET ME TELL YOU, YOU WILL NEVER SUCCEED AT FOLLOWING HIM UNTIL YOU ARE WILLING TO TAKE THAT SHOT; MAKE OR MISS.

[pic of disciples here]

Listen, our job has been made clear. Our job isn’t to make excuses, it is to make disciples, and that starts with us, making ourselves become disciples and then moves out to how we deal with the world. But understand, that just like Moses there on that mountain, it begins in our own lives and demands every single part of our being.

but our job isn’t to make excuses, it is to make disciples, and that starts with us, making ourselves become disciples and then moves out to how we deal with the world…maybe a section about “THERE IS NO EXCUSE FOR - thenputbadstuffhere...”]

God demands that we give up all that we are so that we can become all that He needs us to be.

In Lukes Gospel, when Jesus sent out His disciples, the bearers of His light and word, into the world around them, He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey—no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no extra shirt.”

Take nothing except me, essentially.

Don’t hold on to those physical or social or emotional security blankets. Let go of those so that you can grab hold of Christ and His will.

Later in that same chapter, Jesus is confronted with three men. Three men who have a burning bush moment. Three men desperate to know Jesus, at least in some way.

But they have baggage. They have stuff that they feel they need to bring to the table as well. They have a life. They have a job, and family, and obligations that this world has pressed on them.

But Jesus didn’t want to hear that. He wasn’t going to let them, or us, believe that following Him follows behind all the other stuff that we want to do. He didn’t want us to think that the excuses we use to not take Him seriously were ever acceptable!

Luke 9:57–62 NIV

As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

[line by line]

In their burning bush moment, God said drop all that you think you are and that you think you need to do and follow me. Be remade there in the presence of God. Just take the shot.

tie in with book....think about it…end with us being on holy ground…walking in the path of the savior of the world…ever step should be taken in view of Christ. Ever decision we make. Every moment when we want to make an excuse we have to remember.......stuffhere......

Jesus was calling them, and is calling us, to leave certainty for uncertainty. To leave behind self-centered thought for selfless service. To ignore this world and it’s ways - a world that promotes self - and crucify ourselves with our Savior!

THIS IS OUR BURNING BUSH CHURCH! WE NEED TO LAY ASIDE THIS IDEA OF AN AMERICAN, WHITE, MIDDLE CLASS JESUS; A JESUS THAT IS OK WITH A LITTLE MATERIALISM BECAUSE AFTER ALL, THEY HAVE IT, SO WHY CAN’T I? WE HAVE TO STOP TRYING TO MOLD THE SON OF GOD INTO OUR OWN IMAGE AND COME TO GRIPS WITH THE FACT THAT, LIKE IT WAS WITH MOSES, THERE ARE PEOPLE AROUND US SUFFERING! THERE ARE PEOPLE THAT NEED US! THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE OPPRESSED, AND HUNGRY, AND HOMELESS THAT NEED THOSE PEOPLE WHO ARE CALLED BY GOD! THOSE WHO PROFESS TO DENY THEMSELVES AND THEIR COMFORT AND THEIR WAYS! THEY NEED THOSE PEOPLE TO LIFT THEM UP AND GIVE THEM THE STRENGTH THAT THEY NEED - WHETHER WE UNDERSTAND THAT NEED OR NOT - BUT GIVE THEM THE STRENGTH THEY NEED TO KNOW JESUS! AND PERHAPS MORE IMPORTANT; WE NEED TO COME TO GRIPS WITH THE FACT THAT WHEN WE IGNORE GOD, AND CONTINUE ON IN OUR COMFORTABLE SHELLS, WE THEN ARE “SETTLING FOR A CHRISTIANITY THAT REVOLVES AROUND CATERING TO OURSELVES, WHEN THE CENTRAL MESSAGE OF [OUR SAVIOR] IS ACTUALLY [ALL] ABOUT ABANDONING OURSELVES!”

After all...

[pic of something here]

Luke

Luke 17:33 NIV

Whoever tries to keep their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life will preserve it.

What have you got to lose by listening? By trying to understand? By helping? By loving your enemy, much less your neighbor and countrymen, in fact any human that lives.

You know the answer. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

But church, when you don’t take the shot to believe Jesus, and love and pray for your enemies, when you don’t give without thought of reward or repayment, when you don’t come together and reason, when you can’t see fit to live out the truth of the Savior of the world, and instead settle for the comfortable faith that has been molded for you by society, they you stand to lose everything!

Church, when God calls, you come running. No excuses. Nothing placed higher than Him.

Church, when God calls, you come running. No excuses. Nothing placed higher than Him.

Nothing.

This life, our faith, and our walk, it is holy ground; here walking in the footsteps of our Savior. It’s high time we lay down all that stuff that we think we need to think, say, do, or have, and just take the shot. Take a shot at taking Jesus seriously.

No more excuses. Just take the shot at following Christ. Be what He made you to be.