Intro
Today I want to share a few quick, but important thoughts about the commissioning of Moses in the book of Exodus. Please turn to Exodus 3 in your Bibles. We will be reading selected portions from chapters 3 & 4.
Objection #1 | Exodus 3:9–12 NKJV
9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.”
11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”
12 So He said, “I will certainly be with you. And this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.”
The first thing that jumps out at me in this section is that it’s recorded that God hears and God sees. God is not unaware of what is happening, He recognizes that action is needed, but God also isn’t going to poorly execute some half-baked plan just to get it done now! We can get rushy-rushy sometimes. And that can come back to burn us later. In fact, we’ll stick that in our pockets because it’ll matter in a little bit.
But before we get to that, this is where we see Moses’ first objection to being sent. He essentially says Pharaoh is too important for me to talk to. You should probably get another head of state to take care of this. I’m probably not your guy, says Moses.
So what was God’s response? The same as his response is today, I am with you. He doesn’t puff Moses up with some nonsense about finding the power inside you or whatever new-age nonsense the world likes to conjure up these days. God says that He is with Moses, and if he’ll trust God, he’ll return to this very mountain with all the Israelites to worship the Lord after they are freed from Egypt!
Objection #2 | Exodus 3:13–14 NKJV
13 Then Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they say to me, ‘What is His name?’ what shall I say to them?”
14 And God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And He said, “Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”
Well, Moses responds, how will the Israelites know which God I am referring to? There are so many. This whole thing is just too confusing. Maybe we should call this off.
God’s reply is so direct and powerful that it still hits hard to this very day. He replies tell them that I AM WHO I AM has sent you. This phrase in the Hebrew is actually tenseless. It means not merely “I Am”, but also “I was” and “I will be”. God it not merely saying that He is the God who is, but the God who was, who is, and who ever will be. Long before these other gods were invented by man, and long after they die with their worshippers, the God who was from eternity past and will be forevermore continues to stand. The One, True, Only God. THAT is who sends you!
Objection #3 | Exodus 4:1–8 NKJV
1 Then Moses answered and said, “But suppose they will not believe me or listen to my voice; suppose they say, ‘The Lord has not appeared to you.’ ”
2 So the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”
He said, “A rod.”
3 And He said, “Cast it on the ground.” So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. 4 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail” (and he reached out his hand and caught it, and it became a rod in his hand), 5 “that they may believe that the Lord God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you.”
6 Furthermore the Lord said to him, “Now put your hand in your bosom.” And he put his hand in his bosom, and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous, like snow. 7 And He said, “Put your hand in your bosom again.” So he put his hand in his bosom again, and drew it out of his bosom, and behold, it was restored like his other flesh. 8 “Then it will be, if they do not believe you, nor heed the message of the first sign, that they may believe the message of the latter sign.
Moses now switches to the Israelites; You know, that sounds great and all… and I totally get it, but they’re not going to buy it. They’re a skeptical people, Lord. Maybe someone with a little more gravitas should tackle this project!
Moses essentially telling God that He might be guessing wrong on this one. Now, it’s easy to point the finger at Moses and say he’s a big, dumb, stupid-head for this, but have you ever felt like God was calling you to do something, only to question if it could really be like He says. Do we ever push back on God saying, well, Lord, did you consider this thing or that thing? We’re not so different from Moses.
And again, how does God respond? A simple question: What do you have in your hand?
A rod. A simple shepherd’s staff. We always think we need something else before we can do what God is calling us into. If we were pressed to say what that thing was we probably couldn’t solidly define it, but we would know for sure that whatever it is, we don’t currently have it. I had a dear brother come to me not so long ago, concerned about a character trait of his, saying that this thing was a hindrance to his effectiveness for the Lord. BALDERDASH! Just because you’re too trusting, or too skeptical, or too emotional, or too emotionless, or whatever that does not mean that the Lord can’t work through you! Maybe He wants to change that trait, or maybe He has equipped you with that because there is a need you will be able to meet that someone else wont. Our God is not so weak that He can only work through perfect vessels! If that was true we would never get to participate in anything!
And that simple shepherd’s staff — by the way — would win over the Israelites, demonstrate God’s power to the Egyptian Royal Court, call down God’s wrath on the Egyptian nation, provide deliverance through the Red Sea for God’s people, bring water from a stone, and preside over military victories for the Israelites. The tool isn’t nearly as important as whose hands it is in!
Objection #4 | Exodus 4:10–12 NKJV
10 Then Moses said to the Lord, “O my Lord, I am not eloquent, neither before nor since You have spoken to Your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”
11 So the Lord said to him, “Who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the mute, the deaf, the seeing, or the blind? Have not I, the Lord? 12 Now therefore, go, and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall say.”
Moses’ next attempt is to say, well, Lord, it occurs to me in this moment that perhaps my eloquence is insufficient to the task at hand and my rhetorical skills are found lacking when compared to the present need. Seriously. Moses tries to tell God that he ain’t so good on words. The same man who Stephen describes like this in Acts 7:22, “Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds”. This, by the way, was 40 YEARS before the events we are now reading about in Exodus 4. Moses must have really lost a step during that span.
But even so, what is God’s response? He says, “I made you and every other person that walks the face of the earth! I made you the way you are, so I know exactly how you work! Besides, even if you were Oscar Wilde, it would only be because I made you that way!”
God made you who you need to be to accomplish what He has called you to. The important part is submission to the commission.
Objection #5 | Exodus 4:13–17 NKJV
13 But he said, “O my Lord, please send by the hand of whomever else You may send.”
14 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. 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. 16 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. 17 And you shall take this rod in your hand, with which you shall do the signs.”
Finally Moses voices his actual objection. Lord… I just don’t want to. We see that Moses was not ruled and let by the Lord, but by fear. Not by the spirit, but by the flesh. But the question is why? He has seen, just in the last several minutes, miracles performed by God. Why the hesitation? Why decline the blessing of God, just because you don’t want the responsibility that comes with it?
Remember we put the the rushy-rushy tendency in our pockets earlier? Let’s bring it back out a we bring this plane in for a landing. When we feel like we can do something under our own power, we often do. We don’t consult God or ask for His help because we’ve got this one.
This is what Moses did. He stepped in to help a fellow Israelite 40 years ago and it lead to the death of an Egyptian man. This led to Moses fleeing Egypt for his life, despite being the son of Pharaoh’s daughter. It’s no wonder he felt gun-shy about going down that road again. But what was the difference? God was not with Him the first time. Moses was out there trying to ‘make it happen’ on his own. We need to be reliant on God and have our plans held loosely, so He can take them from us if that is His desire.
Conclusion
Make no mistake. You are called into places of leadership. Even if it is just within your family. That being the case, what can we learn from this conversation between Moses and God?
There are a great many ways we can feel inadequate. 1) I’m not qualified 2) I’m not authorized 3) People won’t accept me 4) I’m not perfect 5) I’m scared.
But what does God do in each case? Does He slap Moses in the back of the head and kick Him our the door? No, God equips Moses!
1) Not qualified? I’ll equip you! 2) No authorized? I’ve sent you! 3) People won’t accept you? I’ll open the doors! 4) Not perfect? I made you who you are! 5) Scared? I will bring people to support you.
So then, let’s cast our burden unto the Lord and step out into the roles He has called us to full of faith and confidence in the Lord who was, is, and ever will be to carry us through. If you bring your fears and insecurities to God He won’t yell at you, He won’t belittle you, He will equip you for the work ahead. Let God equip you rather than bearing your stuggles and burdens alone! Now I’ll open the floor. Let’s go around and see what hit each of us from today’s passage.