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.
But then you discover that God didn’t call you just for you. God called you because God loves people, and God wants you to love the people that God loves. Not only that God wants you to leave your place of comfort to let others know God cares about them as well.
Here we are in 2016. We believed that God has called us to reach more people for Him, because God wants them to know Jesus. We launched The 500 Campaign in 2015 to average at least 500 in our worship services. We didn’t reach it. Does that mean we give up because we didn’t reach it or we thank God for the year 2016 to continue to march forward.
How many of you remember a team called the Cavaliers who set a goal to win the NBA championship in 2015 but fell short. At the end of the last game, do you think they said, “well we failed to reach our calling so let’s stop playing basketball.” No they started talking about wait until 2016. What God didn’t complete in 2015, will roll over into 2016 if we let it. Between our fascination with God and the completion of God’s work, there is a lot of work in between.
Moses listened quite well to God talk about the suffering of the Hebrews, and how God had enough of the Egyptians, and how it was God’s plan to bring them into a new country with plenty of food. Moses was thinking, well it’s about time. I sure wished you had thought of that about 40 years ago when you and I were on the same page. But then God drops a bomb shell by saying, “I want you to be the one to go and be the leader for me in bringing them out.”
Moses was like, “whoa stop right there” , “why should I be the one to go and do this.” You know God is not going to ask most of us to go lead two million people out of Eygpt in 2016. But he is going to ask us to be the first person in 2016 to take the first step in liberating somebody or some group. What broken relationship do you have in your life right now with someone? God is saying, “I love both of you.” I want to lead you into a good place, will you go for me and let me use you to start the healing process
Some of us are harboring resentment and unforgiveness that keeps us from accepting God’s call on our lives. Don’t you think Moses resented being forced to leave the luxuries of Egypt because the people he tried to help rejected him. Did he carry any unforgiveness toward the Hebrew who told him he was a nobody as far as he was concerned?
We are trying to follow Jesus in 2016, while looking back at things that held us back in 2015. Jesus is telling us, once you choose to follow me, look forward to the call I’m giving you in your life. Moses thinks only of God doing something only for the Hebrews, but in reality God wants to do something in Moses.
God wants a real, personal intimate relationship with Moses. But Moses wants to be content just seeing a burning bush on the side of the mountain. God is inviting us into a deeper relationship with Him, but we become content with a little service here, Sunday morning worship, and being blessed with material goods.
The moment Moses realizes that God is going to ask him to change the plans for his life, he starts to come up with excuses. How many of you know we love excuses when they get us out a jam, but we hate them when others give them to us. What are some of the short excuses that we give?
In chapter 3 and four, Moses comes up with 5 excuses for why He could not possibly be chosen by God for this task. He wanted God to understand, that in order for God’s plan to work, “God needed to choose the right kind of a leader.” That’s like someone who has never played basketball, trying to explain to LeBron, how important it is to have a good shooter on the basketball team.
Excuse number 1. First of all, I am a nobody. I have no connections with anybody in Egypt among the Hebrews or the Egyptians. How many of you know God can’t use you effectively, until you realize you have nothing to offer except a willingness to obey? Jesus says,”you can do nothing without me.” God is never impressed with our worldly accomplishments. More church headaches are caused by people who think God needs them than anyone else.
Excuse number 2. Second I don’t know enough theology. Listen God, if they ask me Your Name, I couldn’t even explain it. They are going to think I am dumb and I will look stupid. How many of you know, God never asked you to memorize the bible and know everything, before telling someone God loves you and wants you to enter the family of God. We are scared to talk to people about God, because we are afraid they might ask us a question we can’t answer. The correct answer to that question is, “I can’t answer that right now” but I can tell you that we all need Jesus in our lives because all of us have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.
Excuse Number 3. I have a bad reputation from the past. Nobody is going to believe that God would come to a murderer or a fugitive from justice. How many of you know that if something from our past disqualifies us from being used by God, all of us would be disqualified? Just because people remember who we were and what we did does not mean God has the same memory.
The word of God tells us, if we confess our sins, God is able to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. We can walk into church one person and leave out another in the eyes of God. Psalm 103 tells us that God loves those who fear him so much that he has removed their sins as far as the east is from the west. God knows how to equip you with what you need to let people know that you are actually from Him.
Jesus specialized in using people with bad reputations. The Samaritan women had been divorced five times and was now living with a man who wasn’t her husband and she got a whole village to come out and here Jesus preach. Revival broke out in the city.
Excuse Number 4: I have a physical limitation. I can’t speak because I stutter when I talk. Now God is listening to Moses stutter as He talks, and Moses is telling God, you can’t chose me because I stutter when I talk to You. Can you imagine how shocked God must have been. I’m sorry Moses, I didn’t realize you were stuttering. How many of you know, God knows all of our physical limitations for more than we do?
I would feel pretty embarrassed looking at the accomplishments of some people who are severely handicapped and what they have done compared to what I have done in the kingdom, except for the fact that God does not call me to compare myself to them. I am to compare myself and what I have done next to what God has called me to do.
My race is against my own obedience to God and so is yours. Jesus is not going to say, look at what John did or what Susie did, but rather look at what I was equipping you to do but you would not accept the call. Your physical limitations are all under the authority and power of God. God can use you, regardless of the physical or mental handicap you may have.
Excuse Number 5: I know better than God. Moses tells God. I know what you said, and I understand what you said, but you need to forgive me and just choose somebody else. Moses thinks he can receive God’s forgiveness while at the same time telling God, “I have no intention of doing what you want me to do. Please send somebody else to do it”.
Moses is pretty bold and finally very honest in saying to God, I don’t want to do it and I don’t intend to do it. Wouldn’t it be great if more of us would be this honest with God in 2016? If we quit making excuses and say, “ God I know there is a need, I know I could help, I know you have called me to do this, but I Just Don’t Want To Do It, So you can choose somebody else.
One of the things about being a part of ECO is that the church is not about you simply saying I want to be a member and then decides if you want to be active or not. We no longer have members. We have covenant partners. Each covenant partner (member) shall strive to be faithful to Christ by participating in the congregation’s worship, fellowship, and service on an ongoing basis.
Faithfulness in Christ involves each covenant partner’s dedication of time and talents for the congregation’s mission and ministry, in accordance to the gifts that God has bestowed upon him or her.
Faithfulness also involves the stewardship of finances. As each covenant partner grows in the grace of giving, financial support of the congregation’s mission and ministry should grow, along with tangible support for other ministries that advance God’s Kingdom. Faithfulness to Christ also involves each covenant partner’s dedication of time and talents for the congregation’s mission and ministry.
There are tragedies of people in the bible who heard God’s call, but made it clear to God and to others that they would not accept the call. I don’t know what Moses experienced when the Scriptures tells us that after Moses’ last excuse, God’s anger burned against Moses. I do know that Moses stopped making excuses at that point and accepted God’s call.
It’s one thing to accept God’s call out of fear, but it is a much greater thing to accept God’s call out of love. Moses excuses kept him looking at himself. He did not recognize the awesome power of the God who was giving him the call. I wonder just what we would attempt if we truly believed that our God is the great I AM which means more than enough for any situation we run into.
May we fully embrace God’s call to fill this place up with people Jesus loves. The 500 Campaign is just the beginning work God wants to do through our church and in the process change our individual lives. It is in saying yes to the Holy Spirit that we see the changes needed in our lives. God is calling each of us. How often do we intend to say “Here am I, send me.” Somebody’s salvation and your spiritual growth is dependent on it.
