Sermon Central
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God Uses The Ordinary To Do The Extraordinary
Contributed by Anthony Zibolski on May 2, 2008 (message contributor)
Summary: God can use Moses, God can use abraham, and God can use you. A look at moses at the burning bush.
God uses ordinary people to extraordinary things
Intro-
Have you ever sensed God leading you to do something , but hesitated because it would interrupt your everyday life, change your schedule, or cause you to have to do something you don’t want to do? Good Your normal- most of us at times have had selective hearing when it comes to what God wants us to do. Can you picture Jonah as the Lord tells him to go to Nineveh. Go to a foreign land, a large city, a city of pagan worshipers you don’t like and preach a message of repentance. You want me to go to bad people , tell them there bad, and that they must turn from their sins or be destroyed. People , God I really don’t care about.
God calls each of us out of our comfort zones. Maybe not to that extreme, but, I know if we get comfortable, he will shack it up a bit.
This passage is about Moses going through what he thought was going to be an average day and God shows up and shacks up his world.
You may be siting there this morning and saying well, that’s Moses. I’m not Moses and he has never did anything like that.
Illustration-
Sometimes small churches look at themselves and say, “Oh, we can’t do this and we can’t do that because we are too small. We don’t have the resources.” and their vision gets limited by their circumstances and instead of taking steps of faith, they take baby steps. I’m reminded of the story of a man who had done something wonderful and the king called him in and told him he could mark off as much of the kingdom as he wanted and it would be his. The man took his staff and traced a line in the dirt around himself. The king watched as he finished and said, “is that all you want?” Just what is in the circle? The man said, “No, I want everything Outside the circle.” what if we drew a line around this building and said we want to claim all the territory beyond this place for God? Jabez looked beyond where he was and what he could do to where God was and what God could do.
What is yur vision? Where do you fit into God’s plan at Rosedale? In your family? Isaiah says that God’s people perish because of a lack of vision.
Moses has a past
Plot was to kill all baby boys and he ends up by a miracle at the door step of the Pharaoh’s daughter to be rised.
Prince of Egypt becomes a murderer and flees for his life.
Finds home in Median, finds a wife, gets a job tending the sheep of his father in law and thinks that life could not get any better.
Moses was not perfect- he was ordinary, God shows up and wants him to do something extraordinary. Everyone has a past, everyone if you dig deep enough has skeletons in their closet. Instead of being the book of Exodus, it should of been the book of excuses. Moses did everything humanly possible to get God to ask someone else.
I’m too shy
I’m a lousy speaker
Not educated enough
Don’t have the training
My family...
God has heard them all. There is nothing new under the sun that we have not used as excuses.
Now let’s look at Moses-
he was working, tending sheep. God usually calls the busy, did you notice that? Because he knows the job will get done. God get’s his attention in a unique way, off in the distance, he sees a bush burning and not getting burned up or being destroyed . He get’s to the bush and the Lord speaks through the bush, calls him by his name Moses Do not come any closer, take off your shoes, you are on Holy ground.
V6- Moses is afraid for his life and afraid to look at God because he knows from history that would be his death. Remember last week, the Pharisee from the comparison sermon. I fast twice a week. I give a my tithe. I am glad that I am not like the tax collector. But God give’s him his “ I” account. I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cry for help. I am concerned about their suffering. I have come down to rescue them. So now go I am sending you Vision can get distorted when hard times come. We can lose sight of God’s plan in a storm.
What can we learn from Moses and the text. We know that when God gives someone a vision, he empowers and equips us to do it. We know that when God gives a vision, he will be with us and sustain us. We know that we must release control of out lives to God so that his vision is worked out through our lives.
