Abounding Grace

Larry: When God looked for a deliverer for the children of Israel, an 80-year-old failure caught his eye. Next on Abounding Grace, we'll hear some of the excuses Moses came up with on why he thought he wasn't the man for the job.

Impressive qualifications and a great resume may land you a great job in this world of ours, but when it comes to being used by God, it's really not needed. The Lord can and wants to use each of us, no matter what our background or what our skill set may be. Question is, what has God called you to do and are you doing it?

Today on Abounding Grace, we open our Bibles to Exodus chapter four. God had a calling on Moses's life but rather than accept it right away, he threw out quite a few excuses. Let's hear some of them now as we join Pastor Ed Taylor.

Think about this: if God was only looking for the best or the perfectly qualified, we would look at them and say, "Well, of course they're the ones God uses. Of course, that's the one I would pick too." And you just step back and go, "Well, they're not me and I'm not them, so God will never pick me."

But God can, and God will, and God delights in using knuckleheads in this world. And lest you wonder if that's even true, just look who's standing in the pulpit tonight of what God has chosen to use. I shared with you this weekend you need to share your testimony because you are sitting in there at the table sharing what God has done in your life and you will have no other conclusion but to see the great grace of God.

You could not have arrived where you are today without the grace of God. You could not be even thinking about what God wants to do in your life if it wasn't for His faithfulness. I mean for some of you, God had to so radically rescue you from your sinful life, but He did. He did. And you want to be stirred up yourself.

If God just chose the people we thought, the people that this world might value, then we'd all be bummed out and think we can't be used. But God uses us. Notice chapter four again verses 11 and 12 has posed challenges for people. It is a very difficult passage of scripture often used in a variety of different ways, like God takes some type of responsibility over how people are.

Don't let it stumble you. When you have difficult passages, let's just understand what's being said clearly. Number one, we see God's sovereignty here. Number two, we know that He allows things to happen. Thirdly, we know that He uses them in His plan and His purpose. And God just lays it out. He says, "Look, this is who I am."

Living in the sovereignty of God enables us to face even the hardest, most difficult circumstances. God is in no way taking responsibility for sin, but He recognizes that He is over all things, even the difficult things. And I always like when I come to a passage like this, I always like to remember that God clearly tells us that He works all things together for the good for those that love Him and those that are called according to His purpose.

One more thing we have to understand when it comes to a difficult passage like this: who has made the mouth, the mute, the deaf, the seeing, the blind? Have not I? And by the way, notice He starts with the mouth and then the other things are consequences of sin. So keep that in mind where you have mute, deaf, and blind. Looking at that, He says "the mouth." That's what He starts with.

But I want you to consider that we need to understand that the world we live in is not what God intended. The world has moved on from the perfect mouth because of sin. It's tarnished and it's ravaged by thousands of years worth of amplified sin. Sin has discouraged, but God can lift up. And sin has destroyed, but God can build up.

And sin has brought sickness and death, but God heals. And I've seen people healed. I've watched it, but I've also seen people die. And God is sovereign. We can't manipulate the power of God. We simply choose to follow. Verse 13 now: But he said, "O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send."

And so the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and He said, "Is not Aaron the Levite your brother? I know that he can speak well and look, he is also coming out to meet you. When he sees you, he will be glad in his heart." So pause there for a second. Here's his last and final excuse: Just send someone else. Anyone else but me. I don't want to go.

And this arouses a righteous anger from God toward Moses. God doesn't give up on him. He doesn't take away the calling that He gave him just because Moses is waffling and wavering. God is still working with him. Why? We have a New Testament, we have a New Covenant principle, Romans chapter 11 verse 29: the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

God is going to continue the work that He wants to do. When God calls you and gifts you, He doesn't take them back. He's patient, He waits, He develops, He persists to see us move out. But we see a glimpse into Moses's heart here. He's really resisting the will of God here. He's refusing and resisting. Moses addresses Jehovah as "my Lord," but that's his problem at this point in verse 13.

He's not treating God like his Lord. He's addressing Him as Lord, but he's not living with God as his Lord. Peter was in a similar state in Acts chapter 10, remember? He used that phrase that's an oxymoron; they don't go together. Remember what he said? "Not so, Lord." Well, if Jesus is your Lord, "not so" can't go together.

What God has declared is right and righteous. That was at the point where he received the vision of the animals coming down. "Not so, Lord, I'm not eating. I've never eaten anything like that." No, a Lord-servant relationship means total, complete obedience. But again, God comes low to the spiritual level of Moses and gives him Aaron.

"Hey, Aaron's there." Verse 15: "Now you shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach you what you shall do. So he shall be your spokesman to the people and he himself shall be as a mouth for you and you shall be to him as God. And you shall take this rod in your hand and with which you shall do the signs."

And this was enough. Aaron's going to be your spokesperson. Moses does go, though not so strongly. But this was not God's highest ideal. Those of you that have read the Bible ahead know Aaron is going to cause Moses some problems when he's up on Mount Sinai. He's going to lead the people astray.

This is not the perfect solution. This is not God's best for Moses, but God met him where he was at. And Aaron's going to create more problems. He's going to create difficulties for Moses. And I've just found it, this is something that's happened in the church a lot where so many trust in the word of man over the word of God.

It gives them more faith than to trust God's word because somebody made a commitment to you, somebody said they'd be with you. "I'll go with you." Well, but the Lord called you to go alone. "I'll be with you." Okay, let's go. Instead of just going at God, Moses refuses and Aaron reluctantly goes.

It sounds like it's a good deal, but in a few chapters we're going to see Aaron brings challenges. He becomes a serious stumbling block to the people. And again, we don't have time to develop it today, but God wants to raise you to higher levels, not lower levels. He'll meet you where you are, but He wants to take you from where you are.

He wants you to grow in His grace and His knowledge. He then wants to take you from where you're at and do mighty things. Remember in Second Peter chapter three, we're encouraged to grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And yet what I find too often is we settle for the second and third and fourth thing that comes our way and are satisfied with that.

Then it becomes not even like an issue of resistance, now it's just an issue of complacency. But God has so much more for you. So he heads out in verse 18 and it says: Moses went and returned to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, "Please let me go and return to my brethren who are in Egypt and see whether they're still alive."

And Jethro said to Moses, "Go in peace." What did Jethro need? Nothing. "Hey, I want to go back." "Go ahead. Go for it." He doesn't need anything. And Moses doesn't even tell him about all the things that are going on. Notice the Lord said to Moses in Midian, "Go, return to Egypt," verse 19, "for all the men are dead who sought your life."

And Moses took his wife and his sons and set them on a donkey and returned to the land of Egypt. And Moses took the rod of God in his hand. And the Lord said to Moses, "When you go back to Egypt, see that you do all those wonders before Pharaoh which I have put in your hand, but I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go."

"Then you shall say to Pharaoh, 'Thus says the Lord God: Israel is My son, My firstborn, so I say to you, let My son go that he may serve Me, but if you refuse to let him go, indeed I will kill your son and your firstborn.'" Keep in mind, Moses is 80 years old at this and he's still asking his father-in-law's permission to go.

In that we see the characteristics that God saw in Moses that maybe he couldn't see in himself. That there was some submission inside of him. And there was humility inside of him. And there was respect for his elders inside of him. These are the true keys to spiritual service.

What we notice now at verse 20 that when he took his wife and his sons, notice what he took: he took the rod of God in his hand. It wasn't his anymore. He recognized it belonged to God. God was going to use this. I bet he clutched that thing and never let it go. He probably slept with it.

He's like, "I'm not letting this go because it would be a sign personally to him, before it was a sign to anyone else, of God's faithfulness." And he held on. The rod reminds me of the Word of God. Isn't that what you go to bed with at night, clinging? Some of you are clinging to a promise right now.

You've got the verse, you've memorized it, you say it, it's in your back pocket, it pops up on your screen. It is the rod of God in your hand. It is what gets you to sleep at night and wakes you up in the morning. God's promises to us. God's word is something that we're to hang on to.

We're to hang on to His words, clutching to them, memorizing them, meditating on them. Because there's going to come the word in verse 21: "I'm going to send you to Pharaoh." And notice He's already prepared him: it's going to be hard when you go to Pharaoh because I'm going to harden his heart.

Use human reason and logic here just as if you were Moses. You just had all this big battle with God and your own resistance and now God tells you, you finally say, "Okay, I'll go, I'll get Aaron, okay finally I'll go, I'm going to hold on to this rod like you wouldn't believe. I'm going to hold on to your promises, God."

And then God says, "I'm going to send you to Pharaoh but I'm going to make it hard for you because I'm going to harden his heart." And you're like, "I don't think I want to go." It's like a test of just where he's been. He's not too far from where he was. Which tells me this: perhaps after the next breath after you're obedient, you'll be tested on the same thing again.

You know how much it took you to make the decision and you made it and it starts all over again. Why? Because God is taking you from glory to glory and strength to strength. He's preparing you for the next one, for the next one. We're just stuck on this one. "I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. Ha, I did it."

Oh no, you're not done. That's just the beginning of something new. That's just one step away from where you were because God has so much for us. But man, if I was Moses I'm like, "I don't know. What do you mean You're going to harden him?" But He tells him in verse 22: "You're going to tell him this is My son, you need to let him go. Israel, you need to go. If you don't, it's going to personally cost you, Pharaoh."

Verse 24: It came to pass on the way at the encampment that the Lord met him and sought to kill him. What? Poor Moses. If you charted this out as you go through, as you're going to learn in our inductive Bible study seminar that's coming, you start charting out the text and you're like, "Wait a minute. What is happening here?"

Notice his wife in verse 25 took a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son and cast it at Moses' feet and said, "Surely you're a husband of blood to me." So He let him go. And then she said, "You are a husband of blood" because of the circumcision. Now let's just step back for a second and let's consider a few things.

God loves His people. No doubt about it. And God is personally interested in this group of people at this time. But before He launches out to pronounce judgment on Egypt, Moses has to face judgment at home. Does that sound familiar? We learn in the Bible that judgment always begins in the house of the Lord. It always begins at home.

Whatever reason in Moses' life in his time in Midian, he never got around to circumcising his son as a part of the covenant. He never did do it. Maybe there were seasons of discouragement, there's a lot of maybes we aren't told why. But whatever the reason, his home was neglected. And that makes sense to our present-day reality.

There's a lot of upside-down homes in our church today. Notice I was careful with my words. I didn't say "the church," I said "our church." There's a lot of upside-down homes with a husband and a wife. There's a lot of upside-down homes with a mom and a dad. There's a lot of upside-down homes with a single man or a single woman.

And before you ever are able to be used mightily of God, you need to get your house in order and just be real with the Lord. Moses almost died because of his failure in his home. He almost lost everything that was before him. We know the full story, we know how it all ends, but Moses doesn't know. Moses doesn't understand what's happening.

He's facing these things, he's overcome. God is working with him and is patient with him. And even in James chapter three verse one, we are learned that "brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive the stricter judgment." And it's not uncommon to find many like Moses in the ministry.

They set out to minister in fixing other people's homes, fixing other people's lives, fixing other people's marriages and they haven't been fully obedient in their own house. It just doesn't work. You need to rule your own house well. In First Timothy chapter three we learn that the characteristics of a leader is that he knows to learn to rule his own house well.

Unfortunately that's been misinterpreted like guys will go home with an iron fist and start bossing everyone around. I don't believe that's the heart of the matter when it comes to First Timothy three. I think what Paul is reminding Timothy, as he is looking for men in leadership, what Paul is telling Timothy is the men that lead in the church must have already demonstrated strong leadership in the home.

Not that they're rulers and dictators. But ministry comes from the home. It doesn't start in the church. And truly no matter how successful you may be, how successful I might be, whatever we measure success in in ministry, if I'm failing in my home, it's truly not a success in the eyes of the Lord.

I know it's hard words for some of you because you're sitting here with a broken home or coming out of a broken home. God is very gracious. He can mend and restore. He can restore to you years that the locust has eaten. You can learn from your mistakes for sure. You can even be blessed like many of us are with a wife that if they see their husband not taking care of business, they take care of business.

And men, that should get your attention because it's not God's will for your wife to lead your home spiritually. It's not. It's God's will for you to lead your home spiritually and then collaboratively and cooperatively you have a home that honors God. Don't forget this. Remember: rule your own house well.

Before you ever step into someone else's family, make sure your family's in order. It doesn't mean your family is perfect. It doesn't mean what we have made it to mean over the years, like well then I need to have a perfect family. None of us have a perfect family.

Just go into your prayer closet, ask the Lord for wisdom in your home because God has something great for you up ahead. He doesn't want you stopping along the way. He wants you to go and fulfill what God has called you to do. And if you do need to stop, then let it be.

Through the partnership of Zipporah and Moses, I love this, it just says in verse 26: God let him go. Not only did He call him, not only did He equip him, not only did He meet him where he was at, in the English it's just "He let him go." Go ahead, Moses, all is well.

Well, in verse 27 the Lord said to Aaron, "Go into the wilderness to meet Moses." So he went and met him on the mountain of God and kissed him. And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord who had sent him and all the signs which He had commanded him.

And Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the children of Israel. And Aaron spoke all the words which the Lord had spoken to Moses, then he did the signs in the sight of the people. So the people believed, verse 31, and when they heard that the Lord had visited the children of Israel and that He looked on their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Which is really the summary of the chapter, isn't it? Obedience leads to worship. It's just a great place to be where you can freely worship and freely enjoy because you come through a place of willingness, surrender, and obedience. They gather the elders together, share the good news, the people at this point are excited. Deliverance! Thank you Moses!

This is going to be the best. Sounds like a good start to a long, strong relationship, but not so fast. Read ahead. Read the next few chapters. They're worshiping now, but that worship will soon be replaced with murmuring and complaining.

Which always reminds me I've got to guard my heart and I've got to guard my eyes. I'm not immune to a complaining murmuring spirit myself or seeing what some would call a pessimistic view of life, what I call a realistic view of life. But nonetheless, I want to be optimistic of what God is doing. I want to fulfill First Corinthians 13: love hopes all things. That's what I want to live out of my life. Love believes all things.

Larry: This is Abounding Grace and you're listening to a message from Pastor and Bible teacher Ed Taylor. Simply go online to hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com. Again, we're at aboundinggraceradio.com. If you haven't already downloaded our free app, simply search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play. It's a great way to take in a steady dose of God's word.

Well, Pastor Ed, today's lesson is such a powerful one as I think many of us can relate to Moses, a reluctant servant. We feel inadequate, hesitant, afraid, full of excuses when we're faced with the calling of God. But that's often because we're looking through the wrong lens: our ability or resources instead of God's. Anything you'd like to add to that?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Yes, Larry, I think we can relate to Moses on so many different levels at so many different times in our Christian life, especially when God is leading us to something where we feel like we're in way over our head. And we're often in those places where we can just see it and go, "Man, I'm in way over my head."

But that's the best place to be with the Lord because we're going to depend upon Him and we're going to look to Him. And we're going to pray, and we're going to seek, and we're going to ask, and we're going to knock. If that's you right now, I want to give you four things that you can cultivate, four things to pay attention to in your life when you feel like you're in over your head or you want to offer God an excuse or get out of some assignment that He's given you. Four things, you ready?

The first one is spiritual. Develop your spiritual depth in relationship with the Lord. You could even say that your abiding life, reading your Bible, praying every day, just that depth of spiritual life. It's very, very important. Secondly, faithfulness. Be faithful, especially in the little things.

And next, I want you to make yourself available. Don't side-step, don't provide excuses, but instead be available. And finally, remain teachable. There's always something to learn and God is not only using you for someone else, but He's using someone else for you.

And there's an element of God teaching you and growing you. Let's just choose not to be like Moses and respond to God in faithfulness, availability, teachability, a depth of spiritual character and watch: you'll go farther than you could have ever dreamed.

Larry: Thanks again, Pastor Ed. You know, the new year is a great time to kick start or breathe new life into your devotional life and we've got a book that can help. It's titled Jesus Everyday from Jim Cymbala.

Each day brings its own set of challenges and events that can at times leave us dazed and confused, but in Christ we can find the grace, strength and peace to face those days with hope. Living by God's unshakeable promises will challenge you to consider what your life might look like with Jesus every day.

We'll send you a copy with our thanks for a gift of $25 or more to Abounding Grace. Call 877-30-GRACE or visit our e-store at calvaryco.store. And even if you're not in a position to be able to give to the ministry, we'd still like to hear from you. Pastor Ed loves to read listener emails and letters.

It's easy to connect with us through our website at aboundinggraceradio.com when you click on contact and leave a prayer request or send Pastor Ed a question. That's aboundinggraceradio.com. Don't miss our next study in Exodus here on Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. May God richly bless you with His abounding grace.

Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.