Moses - Dreaming of Somebody Else

Cold Open

Good morning church!

There's a story about a group of friends hanging out one afternoon, having a cookout in the park, when on the picnic table a cell phone starts to ring.

The man sitting there picks up the phone, and from the other side a woman’s voice says “Hi honey hope you’re having fun at the cookout, I’m out shopping and I found n absolutely gorgeous new fur coat, it’s going to be winter soon and you know I need a new one and this is actually marked down to $2,000 - is it okay if I buy it?”

And the man thinks for just a moment before responding “Of course, I want you to be happy!”

The voice on that other end continues: “And I know we talked about a more practical car for my next one but I’m going to the Mercedes dealership after this just to look at their new SUVs, I hope you’ll consider it I really really like them and they’re only $98,000!” \

The man pauses for another moment and says “Well, if that’s what you really want, you should buy it today.”

And filled with glee the woman says “Thank you thank you!! I’m so happy! I promise I won’t ever bring up my mother coming to live with us again.”

And the man sighs before replying “No, no, your mother is family she should be welcome in your home”

And the women squeals with delight, and the man hangs up the phone, holds it up and asks of the crowd, “Hey, anyone know whose phone this is?”

The moral of that story, don’t let someone else receive your calling! It may cost you more than you think!

Intro

We are diving head first into our new series today “Like Those Who Dream”, where we are going to look at times in the scripture where the people of God were like those who dream, when they could shout with joy to the Lord and laughed with their brothers and sisters.

When the Lord has done great things for them, and they were glad.

But also, like Bryant talked about last week that these dreams were not without challenges, difficulties, and doubts. And our reading for today is a great example of that.

Turn with me if you would to Exodus, chapter 3, starting in verse 6.

Exodus 3:6–14 ESV

And he said, “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 surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers 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.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’ ”

Moses’ Calling

Our reading today tells the story of Moses’ call. Moses lived during the time that the Israelites were enslaved in Egypt. He was born an Israelite, but was adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter to keep him from being killed. He eventually fleas from Egypt into the wilderness where he meets a girl, get’s married, and settles down far from the troubles of his people back in Egypt until one day God appears to him in a burning bush and calls him back to Egypt to free the Israelites.

But notice Moses’ response to God’s call, what’s the first thing he says in response? He says:

“Who am I that I should go and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

Moses doesn’t start dreaming of freeing his people and the blessings of God being on them, Moses is dreaming of someone else! Of someone else who can take this call because surely Moses couldn’t do it! And it’s easy at this point just to consider Moses to be a big ol’ doubter who doesn’t have faith in God, but if Moses’ life were a movie this moment, this calling would be the point where the camera freezes on his face and we have this flashback sequence to earlier in his life.

Moses’ Baggage

Turn back to Exodus chapter 2 starting in verse 11:

Exodus 2:11–15 ESV

One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.

You see Moses had already tried to stand up for his people. He had struck down an Egyptian who was abusing an Israelite and not only did the Israelites criticize him for trying to help, he had to flea Egypt before the Egyptians found out what he had done and put him to death!

Moses was living in the wilderness, far from the comfort of the home of the Pharaoh’s daughter because he had tried to lessen the suffering of God’s people. He was 0 and 1 and he wasn’t looking to make his record any worse.

So Moses says “God you’ve got the wrong guy! You must be looking for someone else”

Moses’ Excuses

And he continues to list reasons why he can’t be the man for this job, just a little further in Exodus 4.

Moses says even if I go deliver this message they will not believe me! But God says take that staff in your hand and throw it on the ground. And Moses does, and the staff turns into a snake and then God says “Now pick it up by its tail!” And Moses does, and it becomes a staff once again in his hand.

“But,” Moses says, “I am not eloquent I am slow of speech and of tongue!” He’s saying here basically even if I were to try and deliver this message and they would believe it, I can’t speak well! I’m slow of speech, which is a Hebrew idiom for “I have a speech impediment!” Perhaps he had a stutter or slurred his words we don’t know but Moses says God I can’t even speak to you now what makes you think I can carry your message to a whole nation and to Pharaoh!

And God says” Who has made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I?”

But Moses says “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else.”

And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he says oh I’ll send someone else! But you’re going with him here comes your brother Aaron he can be the talker and you give him the message to share now GET.

Which by the way, I don’t know how many of you went through this with your siblings growing up, but in the history of “Ok you can go, but you have to bring our brother with you!” Aaron got the WORST period DEAL period EVER period. Like “Moses why’d you have to open your mouth! God said I gotta take you where?!?! In front of Pharaoh?!?!? AND I HAVE TO DO ALL OF THE TALKING?!?!?!”

Heading our Calling

Have you ever been like Moses?

Maybe, like me, you’ve had someone right in front of you who asks a great question about Jesus or faith or Christianity or the Bible and.. you miss the opportunity.

Or maybe, also like me, you let someone get under your skin, especially on the internet, and you spend this one interaction you’ll EVER have with a person telling them exactly why you’re right and they’re wrong! …and not telling them instead that there’s someone who loves them exactly as they are and has a plan to draw them closer to himself, and that it’ll change their life in the best possible way.

Or maybe it’s different for you, I dunno, I only have my own experiences to go off of, but I think we all have moments like this.

And when I miss an opportunity to live like Christ I often think “oh well that’s okay someone else will tell them there’s a lot us Christians out here we roll deep!”

…but I know in my heart of hearts that God was calling me to that person, and I spent the opportunity dreaming that someone else would do it.

False Starts

But Moses does, thank God, end up answering God’s call and going to Pharaoh and asking him to let the Israelites go into the wilderness for a few days so that they could worship their God. But Pharaoh refuses Moses’ demand, and goes one step further, increasing the workload of the Israelites so they don’t have any spare time to consider silly things like their God, or freedom.

So now Moses feels like he really has gone 0 and 2 and every attempt to help Israel has failed and he calls out to God “O Lord, why have you done evil to this people? Why did you ever send me? For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have no delivered your people at all!”

Exodus 6 starts with the Lord’s response, I’ll read starting in the 2nd verse:

Exodus 6:2–8 ESV

God spoke to Moses and said to him, “I am the Lord. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself known to them. I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, the land in which they lived as sojourners. Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. I will bring you into the land that I swore to give to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. I will give it to you for a possession. I am the Lord.’ ”

God basically parallels His initial call to Moses but He goes one step further this time, you see the words “Lord” and “God Almighty” here are translations of “YHWH” and “El Shaddai”.

God says to Moses “I am YHWH, okay? This is my name, and my people have not known me by this name before!” God is doing a new thing, here, with Moses. Because he says “I appeared [to your fathers] as El Shaddai” or “God-most-high” which is a description, not a name. El is the generic Aramaic name for a deity as well as the proper name of the chief of the Canaanite pantheon, and shaddai just means “in the high place” or “in the highest place”, meaning that God was describing Himself previously as “the highest god”.

But now, as Moses is dreaming of someone else, someone else to deal with this crushing disappointment, this pointless task of trying to change Pharaoh’s heart to let the Israelites go, God says “I am YHWH! You now know my name, and I have given you my word that this is what I am going to do now go down to my people and tell them what I have told you!”

Success

And Moses does, and I think we all know the story of the 10 plagues on Egypt culminating in the passover, and Pharaoh finally lets the Israelites go but then he tries to pursue them and his army is crushed in the Red Sea which God had parted to allow the Israelites to escape.

And over a thousand years later, when Stephen the martyr stood before the Jerusalem council who had condemned Jesus to die he explained to them how their entire history, their entire faith, their entire relationship with God had careened through time to this great culminating moment of the incarnation where God became man and was Emmanuel, God with Us, and they had killed Him. Stephen recounted the story of Moses this way in Acts 7 verses 35 to 38

Acts 7:35–38 ESV

“This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, ‘Who made you a ruler and a judge?’—this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush. This man led them out, performing wonders and signs in Egypt and at the Red Sea and in the wilderness for forty years. This is the Moses who said to the Israelites, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.’ This is the one who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the angel who spoke to him at Mount Sinai, and with our fathers. He received living oracles to give to us.

This Moses, who had dreamed of someone else, had led his people out of Egypt by God’s hand and was remembered over a thousand years later as this man God sent.

I think in the end, Moses was glad that God didn’t send someone else.

Power of a Calling

Because what Moses didn’t quite understand at the beginning of his adventure was that God was not calling him for his ability to accomplish the task.

If God only called people based on their ability to accomplish an objective not one person would be called to ministry, not one. Not one person would be called to evangelize or to spread the Gospel or to seek and save the lost.

Because we cannot do these things by our own power. The only way that we can fulfill our Christian calling is by God’s power, and He PROMISES that we will have it.

Turn to Luke, chapter 12. Starting in verse 11 Jesus says

Luke 12:11–12 ESV

And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

We don’t need to be worried about our ability to complete a task, God can do it.

We don’t need to hedge our best in case this whole “church” thing doesn’t have the impact we’re hoping for, God will see to the harvest.

We don’t need to think out the perfect response in every situation before we engage with someone in love, God tells us the Holy Spirit will do that!

We just need to step out in faith, and God will take care of the details.

Why Don’t You Do Something?

I don’t know how many of you have heard of the Christian musician Matthew West, I’m a fan of some of his songs. He’s got a song called “Do Something” .

The intro to this song is a lament where the singer observes pain and fear and hardship, a world scared by sin, OUR world.

And at the end of this lament the singer looks up to God and you can hear his shaking fist in the tone of his voice as he cries “WHY DON’T YOU DO SOMETHING?”

And in the song, the Lord replies “I did! .....I created you”

And I would take it a couple steps further, yes God created YOU! And He died for YOU! And He called you! And He commissioned you! And He sent you out, His church, this church, to seek and save the lost.

So we don’t have TIME for the concerns of this world. I don’t have time to worry about someone’s politics, I don’t have time to worry about who they voted for or what policies they support or what dirty rotten Roll Tide football team they cheer for. I’ve got a JOB to do!

Because all I need to know is that there are people who are hurting, as I have hurt. Who are stuck in cycles of sin, as I have often been. Who are going through life in a fallen world with the heartbreaking belief that this dark, broken world is all there is! That death is the ultimate fate of all people, but we know better!

So if you find yourself in a situation where you’re standing in front of a person and you have the option of showing them that you’re right and they’re wrong, or the option to show them the love of Jesus for them by your own love, remember this!

…if not you, who? God created you, died for you, called you, and commissioned you for such moments as these!!

I want you to sing praises to God like the kingdom has come in it’s fullness and that every living creature cries out in praise alongside you.

But I want you to share the love of Jesus like you’re the only Christian on Earth.

Dreaming of Someone Else

So I want our prayer today, our dream today, to be of someone else.

But not someone else to take our burdens, our calling on themselves.

But someone else that we can love as Christ as loved us. Someone else that we can share the life changing news of the Gospel with.

Maybe you’re here today and you’ve never turned to Christ in repentance and submitted in baptism for the forgiveness of your sins.

Maybe you’re our first someone else, what a joyous answered prayer that would be.

Or maybe you’re one of our members here who has, for too long, hoped that someone else would answer your call. Your call to live a Christian life, or your call to be a messenger of the gospel, and you’d like the prayers of the church.

If anyone has a need like one of those today, won’t you let us know by coming forward, as together we stand, and sing.