The Call of Moses

Commencement service - your training is done, and now you begin to put it to use.

We come now to the commencement service of Moses. There was no audience. There was no orchestra. There was just one student and there was just one faculty member. It involved just Moses and God.

Exodus 3:1 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 desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

It was as Moses was communing with God that he received the call of God. We cannot know God’s will for our lives unless we are spending time alone with him in prayer and the study of His Word. It is in the quiet place that God meets with us and shows us His will.

Exodus 3:2 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.”

There were many bushes in the desert - scrawny, thorn bushes. This was an ordinary bush like all the others except for one thing - it was on fire, because of the presence of the angel of the Lord in it. This ordinary bush became an extraordinary bush because of the presence of God within it. What an illustration of what a child of God is to be!

Christians are just ordinary people, whose lives are made extraordinary because the Lord is living in them.

Now Moses noticed that though the bush was on fire, it did not burn up. It wasn’t consumed. The fire was not harmful to the bush. God was teaching Moses something here. He was demonstrating to Moses the kind of person He wanted Moses to be as a spiritual leader: a man who was on fire, but who wasn’t burned up.

We hear a lot about burn-out these days. Especially among Christian leaders. We hear about pastors who burn out and Christian leaders who burn out. You might be interested to know that being a pastor is one of the most stressful occupations. You know why Christian leaders burn out? Because they are trying to sustain a life of Christian service in the energy of the flesh. They are trying to do God’s work without using God’s power. That’s a perfect prescription for burn out. But it doesn’t just affect pastors and Christian leaders. It affects SS teachers and junior church workers, in fact anyone who is involved in God’s work. Let me give you an example:

Every year in every church in North America, you have the Sunday School begin a new season in September. The teachers are motivated, they’re on fire, they are full of enthusiasm. But then along about February or March, they get discouraged. They’re struggling. They begin to have problems. They begin to feel spiritually dry. It gets harder and harder to prepare lessons each week. They finally conclude that they are just not cut out to be SS teachers. So they resign, giving burn-out as their reason. Why? Because they tried to do God’s work in the energy of the flesh. Instead of using God’s resources, they tried to use their own resources. Instead of burning with God’s fire, they sputtered along with human fire, and that fire eventually went out.

Nowhere in the Bible does God say that He wants us to get busy and do His work for Him. God wants to do His work through us. He just wants us to be channels. We often approach the matter of serving God with the attitude “OK, I’ll do this and I’ll do that for God and I’ll ask God to be on my side when I do it.” But when God called Moses, God wasn’t offering to be at Moses’ side while Moses delivered the people from Egypt. God was saying “Moses, I want you be at My side while I deliver my people.”

The bush was on fire, but it wasn’t consumed, because the fire came from God.

Exodus 3:4 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.

There are two requirements that God needs in any person He is going to use.

1. unshod feet and 2. a hidden face

I don’t know if you know much about the desert, but it sure isn’t a place where you want to walk around with your shoes off. It’s hot. There are sharp rocks and thorns, and snakes and scorpions. But God told Moses to take off his shoes, for he was standing on holy ground. When Moses took off his shoes, he was saying, in effect “I now cannot move unless you tell me to, God. I am immobile. I renounce my own activity, and I’m waiting on your instructions.”

This is what God wants of us. He wants us to take off our shoes of human activity and self-reliance. He wants us to slow down and stop in His presence. He wants us to stand still in our bare feet and wait on Him. When you take off your shoes, spiritually speaking, you are saying to God “I’m waiting on you for my marching orders. I’m only going to go where you want me to go. I’m only going to do what you want me to do. It isn’t safe for me otherwise.”

The other thing God wants is a hidden face. Remember when Moses killed the Egyptian? He looked this way and that way before he did it, because he was concerned for what others thought of him. Forty years before the burning bush, Moses was a man whose face was turned toward others. He was a men-pleaser. Forty years ago, in Egypt’s palace, he was a man whose face was turned toward the limelight. Forty years ago, he offered his leadership to the Hebrews on the basis of his human qualifications, and in his own strength. He didn’t hide his face then, did he?

Now, forty years later, in God’s presence, Moses hid his face. He had learned of his own unworthiness, of his own inadequacy, of his own weakness. He had learned that what others thought of him was nowhere near as important as what God thought of him. And he knew before God that he was weak.

God can only really use people with unshod feet and hidden face.

Exodus 3:7 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.

God’s call is always rooted in God’s concern. I’m sure that during those forty years in the wilderness of Midian, Moses developed a real burden for his people. He was concerned about them. But God didn’t call Moses because Moses was concerned. God called Moses because God was concerned. You see, God’s work always begins with God. Our interests, our burdens, our concerns do not qualify us for God’s work. We must learn to be concerned about what God is concerned about.

God was aware of what His people were going through. There are times when we are tempted to think that God doesn’t know what we are going through. But He does.

And God’s concern led to his coming.

Exodus 3:8 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

This is how God operated then and this is how he operates now. His concern is translated into action. His concern leads to His coming. The Bible tells us that God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. So what did He do about it? He came, in the person of Jesus Christ. The child was called Immanuel, which means “God with us”. And Jesus said

Luke 19:10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.

His concern led to his coming. And his coming led to his commissioning of us.

Matthew 28:19 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, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

When God said to Moses “I am concerned. Therefore, I have come down.” Moses must have been rejoicing! Hallelujah! Go get ‘em Lord! Fix those Egyptians and fix ‘em good! But then God said something that ruined his whole day.

Exodus 3:10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.

Me? Little old me? Yes, Moses, you.

God’s concern led to God’s coming. And God’s coming led to God’s commissioning. The amazing thing about God’s plan of redemption is that it involves us in carrying it through. We cannot sit back in our armchairs and admire God’s work without becoming personally involved in the process. God has come down in the person of Jesus Christ, and now we are to go and make disciples of all nations.

Moses was pretty surprised to hear God say “Go.” He began to raise all sorts of objections, and we’ll look at these more thoroughly in a couple of weeks. But for now, just look at how God equipped him to go.

Exodus 3:12 And God said, “I will be with you.”

Exodus 3:14 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.’

When a new ambassador is sent to a foreign country, the very first thing he does when he arrives is present himself to the government of that country and present his credentials, that is, his authorization from his government to be their representative. In the same way, when God commissioned Moses, he gave him credentials. He said “If they want to know who you are representing, tell them you are representing ‘I AM”. Tell them I AM has sent you. If they want to know whose business you’re on, tell them you are on I AM’s business.”

God was going to reveal himself to the Hebrews and to the Egyptians as the great I AM - the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. And God was going to do by revelation what Moses had failed to do by revolution. He was going to accomplish by faith what Moses had failed to do by force.

We live in a sin-sick world. You probably read in the papers this week that Mayor Dinkins is going to hire 11,000 more police for NYC. That is not going to change a single human heart, and it is the sin in people’s hearts that leads to all the crime and the violence in our city. And we have the answer. We have the message that Jesus saves.

God is concerned for the people of our city. He is so concerned that He came down 2000 years ago to do something about their condition. And he commissioned us to take the message into the neighborhood, into our schools, into our streets, into the workplace. And if people ask us what we’re doing there, he said “Tell them I AM sent you”. When we tell people about Jesus Christ, we have the authority of God’s name to back up our message.

Moses’ communion with God led to God’s call on his life. God’s call was rooted in God’s concern. God’s concern led to God’s coming. God’s coming led to Moses’ commissioning. And in Moses’ commissioning, God gave him God’s credentials.