Foolproof Plan to Save the World

Exodus 3:16-22

Big Idea: Our small acts of faithfulness are part of His gigantic plan to save the world. We go and say.

Purpose: To motivate us to play God's part for us in His larger plan.

Closing on the House - A Complicated Fragile Plan

Yesterday, Anna and I closed on our house... our first house here in Colorado. It looks like we are sticking around for awhile.

This closing, we all sit in a room together signing things, was the final culmination of one of the most unnecessarily complicated and fragile undertakings of my life. From the day we decided we liked the house, the plan went into motion. Our realtor, our realtors assistant and their realtor, their realtor's partner, us the buyers, and the sellers. Our lender, her assistant, their underwriter. They had contractors working on stuff, we had inspectors and roofing bids, painting bids, and moving bids. The number of moving parts was incredible...

And every step along the way, we are waiting to find out the snag, the single document or discovery in the inspection, or breakdown in negotiations... any one thing could cause this whole deal to fall apart.

And this is a plan where everyone involved really wanted it to go through! Us, because we love the house, and everyone else because they walk away with a big old check.

Yesterday morning, on my way to the closing, I get a call from our wonderful Realtor that the whole thing may be delayed because all the paperwork was waiting on one copy of a receipt for a recently fixed window.

By the grace of God, this ridiculously complicated and worryingly fragile plan all came through yesterday. Everyone involved had to do a grip of work, and we had to sign a million things... but now we only have to worry about moving and then home ownership... and that's not complicated at all, right?

Escaping from Egypt - A Complicated Ridiculous Plan

Our Scripture today lays out a far more complicated plan. It involves a great deal more people... and most of them do not want the plan to succeed at all.

But what stands out to me is the incredible part that God calls Moses to play.

Exodus 3:16-22

We pick up in Exodus 3:16-22. God is still speaking from the burning bush. He has given this incredible revelation... God's Name "I am." The God who exists, the God who is with us... and the "I AM..." everything you need to fulfill God's plan.

In that context, God then does something remarkable. He sketches out the entire plan of delivering His people from Egypt. Often God only gives the very Next Step, but here he gives the next 20 steps or so to leading the people of Israel free from slavery in Egypt.

I am not going to read the entire Scripture, but I will walk us through God's plan

Moses is supposed to gather the elders of Israel and tell them that THE LORD (Yahweh), the "I AM" God, has appeared, has seen their need and will deliver from Egypt to the promised land.

Miraculously, they will believe you (even though these are the same people that already rejected you 40 years ago) then you go together to the Pharaoh of Egypt, most powerful person in the world. You will ask him for something tiny, a 3-day vacation to worship... but he is going to reject that.

Great plan so far.

Pharaoh will reject you, because he's a jerk, so God will mix it up. He will make stuff happen. He will slap the Egyptians with "miraculous wonder," one after another... and then Pharaoh will let you go.

Not only will get to go free... but all those Egyptians you live with will be filled with sudden love for your people, and recall these are slaves, laborers and housekeepers... they will give you their valuable stuff: silver and gold, jewelry and clothes.

And that's the plan.

Crazy Complicated

Talk about a crazy complicated plan? You will do this, then they will do this, and then Pharaoh, he'll do that, then I'll crack the heavens and do amazing things, then he will change his mind, your nation will go and the nation of Egypt will be so pleased they send gifts with you.

It seems reasonable to us but we have seen the movie. This is a huge plan... and incredibly complicated.

and God left out a whole lot of details. And God could have kept going. In the Promised Land you will become a nation. You will be shaped by my laws, by worship and sacrifice, by disobedience, by prophets and judges and kings, by Exile and by rescue. Among a remnant of a remnant in your nation God will then become the full revelation of the "I AM" God. I am Emmanuel, Jesus, God incarnate as man. I will die for your sins and be raised from the dead and I will rescue all men from slavery... not just from Egypt but from the tyranny of sin and death.

That's the rest of the plan... but too much at once might have broken poor 80-year old Moses the shepherd.

This plan is huge. It is a plan to extract a nation from within another nation. It is a plan to rescue thousands and thousands of people. It is a plan that involves so many unruly human beings acting as predicted and changing their minds and hearts at the right time.

It is like God is the chess-master, seeing 20 moves ahead... except all chess pieces have been given freedom to also see and move and choose on their own.

God's Gigantic Plan

Moses' Part

And yet there is something very remarkable in this plan. As huge as the plan is... Moses' part is very small.

Take a look at the whole plan. God lays it all out, 20 moves ahead... but Moses, even Moses and the people of Israel, are called to 2 things.

Go and say.

Those are the only verbs that apply to them. Ask there at the end... but that's just another way of "saying." Go to the people and say what God has said. Then, go to Pharaoh and say what God has said.

... and ask your neighbors for money, but let's set that part aside.

Go and say.

Moses just has to do this little part...

God's Part

and God does everything else.

Moses is the 1%, 1% of the plan, God is the other 99%. God is the rest of the plan.

God appears and watches, he promises (and remembers his promises) and he delivers on those promises. He compels the hard-hearted, he reaches out and strikes when necessary, he performs the miraculous wonders, the miracles that change even hearts turned against him, and he "makes hearts favorable" to his people.

God is the rest of the plan.

Moses had a small part in a gigantic plan.

He is doing the work, he is carrying out salvation, but he is inviting (commanding) Moses to this act of participation in His divine plan: Go and say.

God Invites Us to Go and Say

At the risk of oversimplification, this seems like something God has made a habit of. This seems like the way God works.

God has a plan for salvation. He invites us to be a part. He commands us to Go and Say.

We have a small part in a gigantic plan.

God's plan is mind-numbingly huge. Not just Moses, but Abraham and Noah and Adam before him. Not just Moses, but Joshua, the Judges, the Kings, the Priests and Prophets... culminating in God himself made flesh. Instead of a burning bush... a blessed baby.

God's plan to save not only Israel but all people. Not only the Promised Land, but the world, the cosmos.

God's plan is gigantic.

No Plan B

At the very crescendo of God's plan, Jesus, after His resurrection, passing along the last vital information before He ascended into heaven. He gave his disciples this command, the very end of the book of Matthew:

Matthew 28:18-20

18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Jesus says "I am with you always," reiterating those words from the burning bush, I AM: Yahweh. And he gave his disciples a command to be part of the plan. To go and to say. To witness, to make disciples, to teach, to obey... all of that: "to go and to say".

Mark 16:15

15 He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. 

To go and to say.

I imagine this next part

Jesus ascends into heaven. The angels are going nuts over the victory, the victory over death and sin, the resurrection. They crowd around Jesus "Remember the look on James' face when he saw you, Jesus?" "Those tomb guards are going to get in trouble..."

Then one angel asked "Hey Jesus, what's the next step in the big plan to save the world?"

Jesus answers, "Didn't you just hear me? I just told them. They are the next step in the plan. They are to go into all the world and preach, tell the good news to all creation."

The angels all look at each other nervously. One finally speaks "Umm... Jesus, have you seen their track record? They are afraid to stand out. They are afraid to speak out. They are afraid to look too different or act too different. They are quick to deny even knowing you. They get it wrong most of the time."

"So... what's the plan B?"

Jesus smiles confidently, looking down at his disciples, and he tells the angel "There is no plan B."

Our part in the plan: Go and say

We can be intimidated by the size of God's plan. We look around us and we see the need. We see people making decisions that hurt themselves and others: sin that darkens and destroys lives. We love those people and so we want them to be better.

We live in a world that moves from sin to sin. We condemn the intolerance and hate of previous generations even as we move ourselves into self-righteous immorality and truth-less-ness.

We see the need, but we know we are not up to the task.

I am not pretending that I am awesome at this, I get intimidated too. I keep quiet when I should speak too. We will see next week, Moses was intimidated... he wanted to keep quiet too. But we need to be faithful to carry out our tiny-but-important part in God's majestic, gigantic plan.

We live in the intersection of God's plan for salvation

We have a tiny part to play in God's gigantic plan: Go and say

Go and preach the gospel. Go and tell your story. Go and say

Around our little acts of faithfulness, God is doing everything else. God is the rest of the plan. God is preparing hearts and minds to hear, God has lived and worked out all the plan of salvation, God is giving you the right words and the heart that cares, God has called you into the lives of neighbors and friends and co-workers...

Maybe God is laying a name on your heart right now.

Go and say. God is the one who saves, He brings His people out of Egypt, out of slavery, out of death and into life. You are called to small acts of faithfulness, but still God invites you to participate in His gigantic plan of salvation.

At one point, when we were signing the papers yesterday, there was one paper amidst all the rest. The title. When the seller signed that paper... really on the rest was window dressing. She signed that paper... and the house was ours (and the bank's). All the rest of the paper-work, all the plan, all the people, it really all came down to that one little moment.

As far as we are concerned, as far as our responsibility in God's plan of salvation, it comes to something that small. On our part, it is a little, continuing, "Yes" to Jesus. Then we go and say. We tell God's story, we tell our story of what God has done for us, we show our story, we live out love, we go and say.

Join with Him, let's save the world. That sounds melodramatic, but that is literally the plan. Save the world, save the cosmos, save the people.

To save the world, that none should perish, my part, your part, our part together, just like Moses:

Go and say