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Exodus chapters 3 and 4 detail the call of Moses.
God chose Moses and called him to be the person who would bring the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.
May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!
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Exodus chapters 3 and 4 detail the call of Moses.
God chose Moses and called him to be the person who would bring the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt.
Moses had other ideas.
He offered some pretty good excuses, trying his best to avoid this enormously intimidating task—Who am I? What will I say?
What if they don’t believe me?
I no speak good.
I don’t want to.
God called.
Moses excused himself, or at least tried.
For every excuse Moses could conjure, the LORD Yahweh answered.
He reassured.
He promised His presence, His power, His provision.
The exceedingly patient God remained patient with Moses.
And now, Moses (v.
18) responds positively to God’s call.
We see Moses return to Jethro, his father-in-law, asking for his blessing to return to Egypt.
We see Moses answering God’s call to bring His people out of slavery in Egypt.
And we know that God’s wants to bring His people out of their slavery in Egypt.
But why?
For what reason?
God wants to bring His people out of Egypt and has called Moses to be His representative who will lead the people out of Egypt.
But why?
Why is God doing this?
Does God just really want them to have a good life, their best life now?
Is God looking to bless them so that they can be happy in their new land?
Is this God’s idea of building them up, making them feel better about themselves?
God really just wants to set them free so that they can work easier, better-paying jobs?
This building pyramids, blue-collar work is for the birds; let’s make sure all God’s people have nice, cushy desk jobs with ample vacation and good benefits.
Is God doing this for the sake of the Israelites?
How we answer this is going to reveal if we are culturally-conditioned, new-age thinkers who have selfish reasons for believing in “god”, or if we are genuine, Biblically-minded Christians.
Is God doing this for the sake of the Israelites?
Or is He doing this for His namesake?
The Biblically-minded Christian will affirm immediately that God does everything for His glory; for His name; for His good, pleasing, and perfect will.
You see, what God does for you and in you is not ultimately for your sake.
Whatever it is that God does for you or in you is for His sake.
In every part of the Bible, this truth is clear (I’ve got a print-out of some of the Bible verses if you’d like one).
Chances are, you’ve recited this truth that God does everything for His sake, for His glory (though maybe without realizing it).
This rubs against the ingrained, sinful “me” syndrome.
This comes like a hammer-blow to our man-centered way of looking at the world.
What God does for me is not about me.
This rubs against the ingrained, sinful “me” syndrome.
This comes like a hammer-blow to our man-centered way of looking at the world.
Why is God doing this?
Why is God bringing His people out of Egypt?
He’s doing it for His glory.
He’s doing it for His sake.
He’s doing it so that this people might make His name glorious.
Why is God doing all this?
In a word: WORSHIP.
What is worship?
Worship is God’s Will for His People
We’re going to take the text out of order just a bit, so that we can see the foundation for worship, the why of worship, the reason we worship.
Exodus
Here, and at several points throughout the book of Exodus, we see that this is God’s reason, God’s motivation, God’s clear and eternal purpose for the Exodus and for everything else He does.
Moses is to go to Pharaoh, show Him the staff into snake bit, the leprous hand, and the water into blood.
The Lord, will, however, harden Pharaoh’s heart (something we’ll discuss in-depth when we come to ).
The Lord hardens Pharaoh’s heart, making it so that Pharaoh refuses to let the people of Israel go.
All of this will allow for quite a display of God’s Sovereign power.
Notice the reason Moses is to go to Pharaoh: to let Pharoah know that Israel is the Lord’s firstborn son—God chose Israel, not for anything in them, but to showcase His love.
As God’s firstborn son, their purpose was to worship the Lord: “Let my son go, so he may worship me.”
Over and over, again and again, Moses is instructed by the Lord to go to Pharaoh, to tell Pharaoh, “Pharaoh, Pharaoh, oh-oh, let my people go, HUH!”
Let my people go that they may worship me.
Eventually, even Pharaoh understands that this is Israel’s purpose, that worship is God’s will for His people.
Pharaoh has had it with flies and frogs; he’s fed up with boils and darkness and says,
Exodus
Worship is God’s Will for His People
This is the reason Moses is to return to Egypt.
This is the reason the Lord hardens Pharaoh’s heart.
This is the ultimate reason the Israelites were taken into captivity: so that when they were brought out by the mighty hand of God they would worship Him.
From beginning to end, the entire exodus was the result of God’s sovereign decree.
The whole agonizing and then exhilarating experience of slavery and freedom was part of His perfect will.
It was God’s will to bring his people out of Egypt.
It was also His good pleasure to keep them there as long as He did, which is proved by His hardening of Pharaoh’s heart.
Peter Enns writes, “The deliverance of Israel from Egypt is entirely God’s doing and under His complete control.
The impending Exodus is a play in which God is author, producer, director, and principal actor.”
Even when Pharaoh took his turn on stage, God received all the applause.
Like everything else that God has ever done, the exodus was all for His glory.”
Worship is Expressed by Obedience and Dependence.
Exodus 4:18-20
Worship is Expressed by Obedience and Dependence.
Our text begins with Moses’ post-excuse obedience.
Obedience—finally! Took him long enough.
We always do exactly what we’re supposed to do the minute we’re asked.
We never have any delay there’s no gap between command/commission and obedience.
Ours is always immediate obedience.
Or not.
You see, God called Moses.
And Moses thinks he’s going to wiggle-out of the deal?
“Moses, buddy… you don’t get it.”
God is going to have His way.
Every time.
Without fail.
Why put-off obedience?
It’s only going to serve to make you miserable.
Trust me, I know.
The most miserable I’ve ever been were the years I was avoiding/running from God’s call on my life.
I was being actively disobedient to what I knew God was calling me to do.
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