God Is Calling You-I Just Don't Want To Do It

God is Calling You: Part 1 I Just Don’t Want To Do It

Exodus 3:1-10 Luke 9:57-62 1/3/2016

How many of you have heard someone calling your name and you intentionally did not answer? How many of you have gotten a phone call, and you saw who it was from and you decided “this call is going straight to voice mail.” The reason we give each other names, is so that when somebody calls our name, we will know to respond. Otherwise we can assume they were talking to someone else, when something is asked that we do not want to do.

We are entering our new series entitled “God Is Calling You.” You will often hear people say “ I found Jesus” or “have you found Jesus yet.” Well Jesus has never been lost, and would be surprised to discover that people had found him. The reason there is hope for everybody is that the looking and finding process begins with God. Jesus clearly states, ‘you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit.”

Suppose your phone rang and your caller id said President Obama. Now most of us are going to take that call even if we think it might be a hoax. If we answered and it was the President, and the President said, I need for you to come to the White House I have a job for you to do.

Most of us would find a way to get to the White House. Now if we got there and he gave us a list of people to visit and a list of things to do, but all we did was sat in one of the rooms of the White House day after day talking about how good it was to be in the White House, something is wrong. How many of you know there’s going to be a problem? Yet many people think all that God did was give the a call so that they could get saved and sit in the church on Sundays. No God called you with a particular purpose in mind. Tell your neighbor God is calling you. Now say God is calling me.

Our series is going to deal with four responses that we make in response to God’s Call. The 4 breakdowns are “I Just Don’t Want To Do It”, “I Don’t Have The Experience,” “I Don’t Understand It”, and “I Really Don’t Know “You.”

Moses had an interesting history. He was a Hebrew, that was adopted by an Egyptian whose father was the ruler of the nation of Egypt. The Hebrews were worked hard as slaves. But Moses was raised as an Egyptian in the finest of Egypt. Moses got tired of seeing his people mistreated so he led a one man protest march. He saw this Egyptian cruelly beating a Hebrew to the point of death. Moses grabbed the Egyptian and killed him, and hid him by burying him in the sand.

Moses was hoping the Hebrews would understand that he was trying to get an underground movement to liberate the people from the Egyptians. One day Moses say a Hebrew mistreating another Hebrew and said to him, look. You ought not to abuse your brother. You are both Hebrews. Instead of rallying to his side, the abusing fellow pushed Moses to the side and said, “who died an made you king. You are nothing to me. You have no right to try to tell me what to do or how to live my life.”

At this Moses knew he had to give up all the finer things of life to run for his life before the ruler of Egypt, Pharaoh, found out he had killed an Egyptian over beating a Hebrew. His attempt to deliver the Hebrews failed miserably.

He got as far away from Egypt as possible. He got married, had kids and was ready for retirement after 40 years of working as a shepherd. He is somewhere in his upper seventies when God calls him. Many of the people he once knew are now dead including his birth mom and adopted mom. He’s thinking, “hey I escaped from the Egyptians. Anyone who wanted to leave Egypt could do the same thing if they really wanted to.”

One ordinary day, Moses saw a bush on fire that would not burn up so he goes over to check it out. When God called Moses with the voice coming out of the burning bush, Moses knew God was talking to him. God didn’t say, hey you. God said, “Moses, Moses.” Moses quickly responded, “Here I am.”

In the initial moment, Moses was fascinated with God. How on earth is God doing that thing with the fire and the bush not burning and the voice. It’s easy to get fascinated with God. When you come to Jesus and hear, God loves you despite all that wrong you have died. Jesus has died in your place, so that you don’t have to face hell for your sins. Jesus has risen from the dead, and that’s proof that you can start to have a new life right now. All of that sounds fascinating.