Sermon Tone Analysis

Prayer

Pray

I.

The Reading

Having read verses 1-12 already in our service of worship, I will now read the remainder of Exodus, Chapter 3, beginning again with verse 10.

This is a reading from Exodus 3:10-22, reading from the English Standard Version translation of the Bible.

This is God’s Word:

[ Scripture Reading ~5 min ]

Say Amen

If you receive this word by faith, as the word of God and not the word of man, would you Say Amen?

Amen!

II.

The Exhortation

I want us to think for a moment about what it means to be rejected.

Rejection.

Repudiation.

The refusal to be followed.

Have you ever been rejected?

Can you remember being rejected?

Rejection often hurts so badly it is never forgotten.

I’m sure you can remember a time you were rejected in vivid detail.

I’m sure you can remember exactly what happened, what was said to you, how it was said, and how it made you feel - Rejection is lingering and powerful.

No one likes to be rejected.

Rejection comes in many forms and it is always a discouragement and disappointment.

No one likes to be rejected, and it is often because of the failure of rejection, or of a fear of rejection, that we simply don’t act or attempt great things - or even obey God.

This man who we have been reading about, Moses, was a man who understood rejection.

His rejection by his own people was a prominent feature included in the short biography of his early life as told in the second chapter of Exodus.

The Hebrews denied Moses as a leader over them, even over one skirmish - Hebrew to Hebrew.

They rejected his deliverance on that day: “You are not a prince, you are not a judge over us...”

But God —

God did not reject Moses.

God later appeared to Moses.

God called to Moses.

God sent this same Moses back to Egypt, as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush (Acts 7:35).

Church -

It is one thing to reject a man.

It is another thing to reject God’s man.

What God would have us to learn in Exodus Chapter 3 — what we would miss if Exodus Chapter 3 were not in the Scriptures — is that this Moses was God’s man, God’s chosen instrument, God’s sent one, God’s vessel for ruling and redeeming God’s people.

We might ask, What did Moses do to earn the position of leadership he would be entrusted with?

The wisdom of the world says “leadership has to be earned.”

What did Moses do to earn this leadership?

Did he birth himself?

Did he make himself a fine child?

Did he hide himself in a basket made of bulrushes?

Did he draw himself up out of the water?

Did he negotiate with Pharaoh’s daughter for a nurse from the Hebrew women which would be his own mother?

Did Moses earn this leadership by killing an Egyptian, being rejected, becoming afraid and fleeing from Pharoah to Midian?

What did Moses do to earn or deserve this calling of God?

Nothing.

God did it all.

God was acting the entire time, behind the scenes, unknown to the people, through midwives fearing God, through a man and woman of faith — to raise up a boy, and preserve alive a boy, who would become a man, and in the appointed time, would become God’s man for a work God had prepared beforehand for Moses to do.

Time would fail us to tell of the numerous examples in human history of men and women who have accomplished much after having been rejected much.

Human rejection does not equate to divine rejection.

Moses experienced meaningful, human rejection, so that he didn’t know what to make of God appeared to him with an assignment for him.

We might say that Moses “rejected” God’s assignment in a way?

And while God could have used someone else, God chose to use Moses, and that’s what Exodus Chapter 3 wants us to see.

Church — we are encouraged to pay attention to God’s calling and commissioning of this rejected man named Moses, for while Moses’ brothers rejected him, God did not reject him.

Instead, God used him mightily.

God’s ways are not our ways.

God’s choices are not to be dismissed.

...

We are to see from this text, that God calls according to God’s purpose, and God’s presence accompanies God’s purpose, and God’s authority accompanies God’s presence, so that God’s choices and God’s callings are not about the people God chooses, but about God!

This calling of Moses is not about Moses, but it is all about GOD!

God says to Moses: “But I will be with you.”

God is with Moses in all of this!

There is no separating God, from God’s calling or assignment.

So let us turn our attention now, not to Moses, not to our leaders, certainly not to ourselves, but to the wondrous workings of God and learn of His ways even for us, the Church, today.

III.

The Teaching

Acts 7:23 tells us that Moses was 40 years old when he struck down the Egyptian.

He fled and became an exile in the land of Midian where he became the father of two sons.

Another forty years then passed (Acts 7:30).

Moses is now 80 years old.

He is a shepherd, tending the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, when the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” (3:4).

“This is the first revelation of the glory of the LORD in the book of Exodus” (Ross, RHG, 158).

Moses responds “Here I am.”

And look at what the Lord said to him, verse 5 —

The ground where Moses was standing is holy — Why?

Because God is there with him, and God is holy.

By taking off his sandals in obedience, Moses is humbling himself in acknowledgement of God’s holy presence in the bush (Ross, RHG, 158).

This is important for understanding Moses’ call.

Moses is not calling himself.

Moses is not strutting into a position of leadership himself.

Moses is not taking something holy for himself.

Whatever Moses will be given by way of leadership, or calling, or assignment is holy, and belongs to holy God.

It is a stewardship.

It is an entrustment.

Moses was told by the LORD — “Do not come near - the place on where you are standing is holy ground.”

And by extension, Moses - you are not holy.

And Moses recognized this!

He hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God (v.6).

Moses calling begins with God.

The glorious God.

The holy God.

The miraculous God!

Think of it!

The God who appears in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush that is not consumed — does not need human vessels to accomplish His purposes!

God does not need Moses!

God is not limited in power to deliver His people!

Which makes the words of verse 10 so mysterious.

Look with me at verse 10.