Today we are going to continue our series on “In Search of Faith” by looking at the life of Moses.
Over the last few weeks we had stayed on the same theme about how different lives of people that are found in the New Testament were changed forever when they encountered Jesus, His love and His salvation.
And faith has to begin there. Just like it has been said so many times in the Psalms, it begins with saying, “I will”. I will accept You Jesus as my Lord and Saviour. I will worship You. I will humble myself. I will take myself off the throne of my life, I will surrender to you, I will exchange all of my life for all of you, and I will follow you all the days of my life.
And if you haven’t made that decision yet, I encourage you today. It doesn’t matter how long you have been coming to church. It doesn’t matter whether you are born into a Christian family or not, You need to make the decision yourself to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Saviour for yourself. Because if the relationship isn’t right, because if you have not made Christ the Lord of your life, then the rest of my sermon on responding to the call of God on your life is not going help you.
Or if you once made that decision, but somewhere along the way, you have climbed up and took control of your life back and pushed Jesus Christ off as Lord of your life, today, I urge you with all my heart to surrender it to Him again. Salvation is the most amazing free gift that God has given us, but it demands you surrender you life to Him.
Because until you’ve settled who’s in control of your life, the rest of Christianity won’t matter. It won’t matter how many sermons you have heard, or how many hymns you have sung, or how long you have been in church. You need to first make a decision to let go, and let God.
I want everyone to have their eyes closed and heads bowed in this place. Please no one looking around. So if that’s you in this place I want to lead you in a prayer this morning. If that’s you this morning, and you want to make a decision to surrender your life to Him and your Lord and Saviour, I want you raise your hand in a moment in response, and when I see that hand I will lead you in a prayer. So everyone who wants to say, Father I will give you my heart, I will accept You as the Lord of my Life this morning, whether you are making this decision for the first time or not, just begin to lift your hands all over this place.
Thank you, you may put your hands down. I want to lead you in a prayer this morning, and I want the entire church to encourage them by joining them to say this prayer:
Dear Heavenly Father, You are truly mighty to save. You are the author of salvation. Thank you for sending Jesus Christ to die on the cross for my all my sins, past, present and future. I receive your gift of salvation. I am now a child of God. Thank you for taking me as you find me. All my fears and failures. Holy Spirit, fill my life with Your power and Your presence, so I can respond to the call of God on my life. In the mighty Name of Jesus I pray, Amen!
Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!
Okay, that’s it. We can now have the announcements. Just kidding!
On a more serious note, we had a leader’s meeting a week ago to share where the Church was going and to get those involved in ministry to focus on what we are trying to achieve for the next few months. And a grand total of 7 people showed up. And of the 7, 4 were members of this Church’s council and kind of had to be there. So only 3 people who weren’t in the Council participated in the leader’s meeting.
That to me highlighted a very severe problem that we have in FCC. We have an ownership and leadership crisis in FCC. During the meeting, one of the cell group leaders (Stephan) mentioned that he is the only one who is willing to lead the cell group. When he’s not around or away for work, the cell group ceases to meet because no one else wants to lead the meeting. In my cell group with Chee Meng, we have been the same 2 people leading the cell group for the last 2 to 3 years. Some groups for lack of leadership have drifted on or closed down over the years. Outside of the cell groups, many of our ministries are struggling to get off the ground.
So why are so few people in our church coming forward to take ownership and lead the ministries? Why are so few people responding to the call of God on their lives? Why is it that people here are more interested in organizing the next party rather than the next prayer meeting? “I’m too busy! Do you know that I have got my job, my partner, my social life, my gym? I barely have time to keep to do everything I need to do without church and ministry getting in the way.”
You know, it sometimes feels like I should almost be thankful that people actually come to church on Sunday morning, never mind that more than half the congregation only gets here after the service starts.
In fact the first words in the book the Purpose Driven Life say it all. “It is NOT about you”. Make no mistake about it. We are not saved by grace so that we can have a comfortable life. We are saved so that we can respond to the call of God on each of our lives. He has placed a unique assignment in every one of us before the dawn of time. He has given us a unique set of gifts, talents and abilities. For what? To reflect His love and His glory by serving one another and meeting the needs of people in our communities.
I don’t know about you but sometimes I get embarrassed to invite people to FCC. Why? Because I don’t see the will of God being done in this Church. Because I don’t see people responding to the call of God on their lives. We have become just another ineffective church. Little more than a social club with the same small-minded people wanting to have their needs met once a week on Sunday. “It’s all about me!” Well, I’m sorry to tell you this morning that it is not about you.
My Bible tells me that the church should not be peripheral to the world. The world should be peripheral to the church.
Eph 1:20 (The Message)
“The church… is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ's body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.”
Look what Paul is saying here – the church is the body of Christ through which God speaks and acts. So if we don’t figure what the call of God is on our lives and step out in faith and do it, “God’s Will” will not be done. Because it is through you, the body of Christ, that He speaks and acts.
You know, every company and organization has a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to tell various stakeholders like the management or shareholders how it is doing. Whether the company is healthy or not. I look at FCC and compare it to the New Testament Church in Acts and 1 Corinthians. What do I think would be the KPIs in God’s economy? Let’s see.
How many missions have we launched? None.
How many people have heard the gospel through us? How many of our neighbours around us have been shown the love of God and had their needs met? Very, very few.
How many people in the GLBT community have we reached out to? Maybe a few hundred out of the hundreds of thousands of GLBT people in Singapore alone.
How many Christians have we discipled? How many leaders have we developed? And the list goes on. You know what? I think that these are things that matter to God.
Friends, if we think that this FCC is a good and effective church and doing well in God’s economy, we are seriously deluding ourselves.
And a big contributing factor to it is that we have a leadership crisis because people are not taking ownership of this Church and are not responding to the call of God on their lives.
Today I want to share with you some thoughts from the life of Moses that I heard a couple of years ago that has so impacted my life in helping me fulfill the call of God on my life. I believe it too will help you too fulfill the call of God on your life.
Open your Bibles, grab your notepads, and fasten your seat belts. We’re going to turn to Exo 2 and pick up the story from verse 23.
Exo 2:23-25, 3:1-11 (NIV)
“During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.”
Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up."
When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
And Moses said, "Here I am."
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
The LORD said, "I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt."
But Moses said to God, "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?"
I’m sure all of you have heard this story before. Or at least have watched “the Prince of Egypt”. So I’ll quickly sum it up for you so that you understand the context.
The Bible says that during that period, the Israelites have been enslaved by the Egyptians. Moses was in exile. He was a fugitive. He had run away from Egypt because he killed the Egyptian and he was afraid. The King of the Israelites had died and the people of Israel were crying out to God because they were slaves and in bondage. And God hears their cry and gets concerned and wants to do something about the situation. And Moses was God’s answer to that situation. But first He needed to get Moses’ attention.
So here is Moses hiding in the dessert, working for his father in law Jethro tending sheep and all of a sudden, out in the middle of the dessert, the Bible said that a bush just goes “poof” – it catches fire. And starts burning. God was trying desperately to get Moses’ attention.
You know I grew up thinking that there are these characters in the Bible like Moses, they were like the super heros of the Bible. That these guys are so spiritual always connected to God, we can never be like them or relate to them. That’s not me. In my mind, Moses was like way up here.
I mean, he parted the Red Sea, called plagues on Egypt, performed miracles that displayed God’s power, led millions to the promise land. I could never be like him, I could never do what he’s done. I could never be that man of Faith or that leader that Moses was.
But by the end of today I want you to see a bit of a different picture of Moses because I am convinced that if God can use a person like Moses, He can really use anybody.
Really Gary? Why do you say that?
When that bush lit up, we think in our minds that because he’s this great faith-filled Bible super hero, he looked at that bush and said something like:
“Behold the bush burneth. Verily verily I shall go see why this bush burneth”.
But you know what, that was not his reaction at all. Moses was really a regular Joe. No different from any of us. I believe Moses when he saw that bush lit up, he didn’t say “verily verily”. I think his reaction was more “Whoa, freaketh me out! (Still in King James English, because that’s how they talked right?) What is going on out here?!”
And the scripture says that he went over to investigate the bush and as he got closer to the bush, he notices something. The bush was burning, but it wasn’t burning up. The leaves weren’t crinkling, there was no twigs falling to the ground, there wasn’t any ash flying about in the ambers. The bush was on fire, but it didn’t burn up.
So God waited till Moses had gone over to the bush, not when Moses was far away, but had gone over to have a look, a voice speaks to him from inside the bush and calls his name, “Moses, Moses”.
God had to create an extraordinary situation just to get Moses’ attention. He had to witness a bush spontaneously combust, and then it had to be on fire but it’s not burning up, and then from inside that bush a voice comes out calling his name. And you know what? Moses had still no idea that it was God!
Exo 3:5-6 (NIV)
"Do not come any closer," God said. "Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground." Then he said, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob." At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.
God had to tell Moses. This is Holy Ground. And then reveal himself to Moses four times. Four times. Before Moses finally realized that he was having an encounter with God himself, and that it was God who was trying to get his attention. And when he finally realized who he was talking to, Moses hid his face.
The first thing that I want to tell you this morning is that when God is trying to get your attention, pay attention.
Has God been trying to desperately get your attention?
Maybe some of us are like Moses, there are times when events and things happen that you know in your heart that God is trying to get your attention or tell you something, but you start rationalizing and explaining it away as coincidence, your subconscious mind at work or something you can’t explain about nature.
Or you get so busy with stuff, whether it is school, or work, or that new relationship, or even doing church that you’ve ignored all the situations and people in your life that God has been using to get your attention.
In the case of Moses, God needed to get his attention to help him understand his call on his life and to respond to that call.
As we read earlier, the Israelites were captured by the Egyptians. They were in bondage, they were being mistreated. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out for help. And Moses was to be God’s answer. And just like Moses, you are God’s answer to the world that is in need, if you were to pay attention, and understand that thing that God wants you to do, and respond in faith.
And when God finally gets his attention, he says to Moses,
”Moses, I have seen the misery of my people. I have heard their cries of oppression, and I have come down to rescue them.”
I imagine the scene playing out in my mind – Moses was jumping up and down, he had waited so long for this to happen, he had wanted it to happen 40 years before. Moses was so upset at the oppression of the Egyptians. His people who had swollen bellies from malnutrition. His people who were being beaten and abused daily. His people being whipped by the task masters till they die where they work. And now, here is God speaking through the burning bush and God says, “I have seen their oppression, I have seen their misery, I have come down to rescue them.”
That was the best news Moses could have had. That’s why he freaked out and killed the Egyptian which landed him in exile on the edge of the dessert in the first place. God says, “I have come down. I am now here with you Moses.” I can see Moses saying, “Finally, God! You are here! Yes! Deal with the injustice. This is the big moment.”
And then in verse 10, God says to Moses, “So now, YOU go!”
I know what Moses was thinking, what is this “you go” business? Wait a minute. You said, you have seen the oppression and the pain of my generation. You have seen the misery of my friends in chains as slaves and beaten by the task master, and God, you said you have come down to rescue them, what is this “so now you go” business? I thought, You were going to do it?
The thing I want you to get from this is that Moses going WAS God coming down.
You see we keep waiting on God, we keep thinking God’s going to do something about the injustice of our nation and the needs marginalize people, about the children that die each day around the world because of poverty, the people who live squandered lives without the love of Christ, and we keep praying, “O God O God do something!”
But I’ve finally come to the realization that the answer to that dilemma, that need, the problem is YOU. You are God’s answer.
You going is God coming down.
Out of all of creation, out of all of His wisdom, out of all of His power, out of all of His strength, He chooses YOU. To be His hands, His feet, to be His tool. If you are willing to follow what God wants you to do.
The answer to the dilemma in your family is you. The answer to those bound by suffering and shame and guilt and immorality and sin is you. The answer to building an effective church that reaches out into communities is you. God’s answer is you. You are God’s answer and when you go God comes down and if you don’t do anything about those that God has lit a fire in your heart about, God doesn’t do anything about those areas.
Maybe you have a passion for the HIV+ in our community. Or those who are destitute or suffering or have slipped through the cracks of our social welfare system. And you are asking, when is God going to hear your cry and deliver these people? Maybe you have a passion to win the lost to Jesus. And you cry out, when will my friends hear about the love of Jesus Christ for them? Well you need to know today that you going is God coming down.
You know, one time I saw a cartoon with 2 turtles in it. One turtle says to the other, “Sometimes I’d like to ask why God allows poverty, famine and injustice when He can do something about it.” So the other turtle replies with a sigh, “Well, sometimes I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.”
Philosophy professor Peter John Kreeft once said in an interview with Lee Strobel, “those who have Jesus’ heart toward hurting people need to live out their faith by alleviating suffering where they can, by making a difference, by embodying his love in practical ways.”
You know, if tomorrow all the people in all the churches got organized and got together and looked at the hurt and need and suffering of our world and prayed that God would hear our prayer and got this passion in our hearts for them and went to do something about it, can I tell you that world poverty would be eradicated overnight and the 30,000 children that die each day of hunger wouldn’t have to? But it’s not happening today. When was the last thing that FCC did anything for the community as a church body? When? I think it is an absolute cataclysmal tragedy that we don’t have any burden for those who are lost and hurting. That we have no community action or missions programmes at all. In fact, it isn’t even on the radar.
And it isn’t because God isn’t calling us. I think it is because of what we do when God does call us. You know what I do sometimes? Sometimes I walk faster, or run away.
God told Moses to take his shoes in verse 5 because he was standing on Holy Ground. But you know what, I think God also wanted Moses to get his running away gear off. When God begins calling me, I walk faster. When God calls out to me, I begin to speak a bit louder. I make bargains with God. I give all sorts of reasons to God. I make excuses to God.
And you know what, when God said to Moses, “So now, you go.” Just like us, Moses does the exact same thing. He immediately offers 4 excuses why he cannot do it:
Excuse no. 1 – Look at:
Exo 3:11
“Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”
“Who am I?” In other words, Moses is saying here, “I’m a nobody.” “What makes you think I can do it? I’m just a shepherd, with a crook in my hand, a long white beard and a slight resemblance to Charlton Heston. There’s nothing special about me. I’m a nobody.”
Excuse no. 1. Have you used that excuse with God? “I’m a nobody?” When God prompts you to share Christ with your friends, “God I don’t have enough knowledge. God I never went to Bible school.” When God calls you to live the Christian life, “God I can barely live my own life, let alone a Christian life and I’m always goofing up. I can’t do that too well.”
And listen guys, God’s answer to Moses is the same answer he gives to us today when we give him this excuse. It may surprise you, but God simply says, “I know”.
God says, “I know. I know that you’re a nobody. I created your strengths and I created your weaknesses Moses, I know exactly who you are.” You see, God doesn’t give Moses a spiritual pep talk. Or starts scolding or counseling Moses. God’s reply is simply, “I know.”
“I can’t lead this cell group, I can’t set up a Chinese ministry, I can’t organize a social action programme to help the transgendered community, I can’t share the gospel.” And God’s response is the same – “I know”.
But God doesn’t stop there, look what else He says in the next verse, verse 12, “Go, and I will be with you.”
Don’t look around and see the size of the need or the let the requirements of ministry intimidate you. You will always see people who are more qualified. You will always see people who are more gifted. You will always see people who are more talented. And if you look at that, you’ll keep saying to God, “who am I?” And God’s answer to you is “I will be with you”.
You in God are a team that cannot be beaten. It may sound overused and cliché, but if God is really for you, who can be against you? God is not looking for extraordinary people, God is looking for ordinary people who will trust in an extraordinary God.
You know, I’ve joined FCC since we had our first Sunday service 3 Easters ago. At that time, I had just come out to my previous church and was asked to step down from ministry, where I was happily in the band playing the keyboard. And I felt God was calling me to ministry in FCC, to lead worship and build up the worship team. And my response was the very same as Moses – “who am I?” I have never lead worship. I don’t have music director experience. I’m only grade 4 classical piano. I am not trained vocally. “Who am I”? And His response was the same to me as it was to Moses, “I know. Go and I will be with you.”
Well you know, that did it for me, but not Moses. He throws up Excuse no. 2.
Exo 3:13
Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your fathers has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' Then what shall I tell them?"
Excuse no. 2 – “I don’t know what to say.”
And God booms back, “I will tell you what to say!” And we find from chapter 3 verse 14 to the end of that chapter God gives Moses the exact script of what he was suppose to say to Pharaoh when he stands before Him.
You know, I was happily doing my thing, leading worship, doing my thing about a year after FCC had started, when I felt God calling to build the church and preach the gospel. My immediate response was like Moses, “I don’t know what to say!” Are you kidding me God? I haven’t been to Bible school. I don’t have a Masters in Divinity. I don’t even like public speaking. Put me in front of people and I’m dying, I’m scared to death. I’m shy and introverted, how am I ever going to get people to listen to me? And like it was yesterday, I remember Him saying to my heart at the Hillsong Conference in 2004 these very same words, “I will tell you what to say.”
I know I’m not Billy Graham, not Joyce Meyer, not Kong Hee, Joseph Prince, or whoever the great preachers are. That’s not who He created me to be. But all I know is that if I go, God will give me the right words, for the right situation, for the right time that he has for me to do.
Cell leaders, and those in ministry or thinking of serving in church, don’t let intimidation ever stop you from fulfilling the call of God.
If God promised me, each time I opened my mouth, God would speak through me, that would do it for me.
But not Moses, he comes with Excuse no. 3.
Exo 4:1 (NIV)
Moses answered, "What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, 'The LORD did not appear to you'?"
Excuse no. 3 – “What if they don’t believe me? What if they call me a liar?”
And God looks at him and says these words, “It’s not your job Moses. It is not your job to make them believe.”
You have no idea what a liberating revelation this was for me. It is not my job to convince anybody. It is not my job to convince people of God’s grace. That’s God’s job. It is not my job to make God look good. It’s our job to simply present it. To present His love. His mercy. His grace. You see, if we convince people His love, His mercy, His grace, we’re putting ourselves before God. That’s not ministry, that’s manipulation. And there’s a fine line there that we have to be careful to walk.
I see some of you are looking into your Bibles and going, where is it? I don’t see those words! You are right. God doesn’t say those exact words to Moses. But He it in demonstration. Look what happens in the next few verses.
God asks Moses, “What’s in your hand?”
“This?”
“Yes, Moses.”
“This is my sheep stick. I use it for my work. When the sheep get out of line, I’ll hook them and prod them with it to get them back in line.”
Then God says to Moses, “Throw it down.”
I know I wasn’t there, but I know what I would have thought: “Why? It’s just going to get sandy, and if it breaks I won’t be able to use it to guide the sheep! God why?”
“Moses, throw it down.”
The scripture says that when Moses cast the staff to the ground, it became a snake.
And Moses thought, I didn’t know there was a snake in my staff. But I’ll leave that for another sermon on how to get snakes out of your staff!
How many people here love being around live snakes? Yes, nobody! I can assure you Moses certainly didn’t go, “Verily, verily, behold a snake. What was once deadth is now aliveth.”
He probably screamed like a queen and in Exo 4:3, the Scripture recorded that he ran from that snake as fast as he could.
Then God calls Moses back and tells Moses to pick up that live snake by its tail. I don’t know about you, but I’ve watched enough over the Discovery Channel to know that the worst possible way of picking up a snake is by its tail. You want to pick a snake, dangerous or not, you grab its neck or you will get bitten.
If you were Moses, and God called you to pick up that hissing, slithering serpent by its tail, it would take a step of faith to do it.
And here in lies another principle. Sometimes, we say to God, “you show and I’ll go”. But here God was saying to Moses, “No, you go and I’ll show.” Moses had to take a step of faith and he reached out to pick up that snake knowing full well that he could have been bitten and hurt if God didn’t intervene. But God did, the snake turned back into a staff.
What if they don’t believe? – It’s not your job to convince them!
What if I don’t know what to say? – I’ll tell you what to say.
Who am I? – I know, I’ll go with you.
You know if it were me, after the bush, the voice of God, getting the script of what to say, having access to the miracle power of God, that would have totally done it for me. I would have gone.
But Moses throws up Excuse no. 4.
Exo 4:10 (NIV)
“Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue."
Moses says to God: I’m not capable. I’m slow of speech. Many Bible scholars believed that Moses had a stutter. Like many of us, Moses told God – I don’t have the ability. I’m not talented enough. I’ve got this deficiency. I’ve got a handicap. I can’t do it because I’m not capable!
And God at this point seems to get a little frustrated with Moses and replied in verse 11: “Who gave man his mouth?” Basically God is saying to Moses, “Who made you?”
And God gives us the same response when we tell him, “God I only have passed ‘O’ levels. God I am too old. God I don’t have enough time or money to that. God, I don’t have the ability, I don’t have the aptitude to do what you are calling me to do.”
God looks at us very clearly as he says, “Who made you?”
You know, there is a powerful evangelist in the US who preaches to more than 100,000 people annually. His name is David Ring. He tours the country doing rallies and had shared the love of Christ with many people. But the thing about David Ring is that he has very severe cerebral palsy and can barely speak. When David was born, the tenth and last child in his family, due to birth complications, his brain was deprived of oxygen for 18 minutes, causing permanent brain damage. He lost both his parents to cancer at the age of 14 and was tossed from one foster home to another. But instead of being victimized, he emerged victorious when he began a relationship with Jesus Christ who taught him self-respect and an acceptance of his physical challenges. To most, physical challenges of this magnitude would prove to be a tombstone. For David Ring, his coming of age was and remains a milestone.
And I’m not making fun of David, but if he were here this morning, you would have to listen to every syllable to be able to understand what he was trying to say. And every message he started, he started it this way, “Mah name ith Dhaveed Rhing. And I canth eventh prothnunce the name of Jesus righth. But I’m going toth brag a-bout His name untilth the dhay I dhie.” And he would point his finger at the people listening and say, “I hath cerebral palthee – whath your excuse?”
You can take the story of Moses and replace it with the name of David Ring and it would be the same. You can take the story of Moses and replace it with YOUR name, and it would be the same.
Let me ask you this as we close this morning: What is God calling you to do as a member of this body of Christ?
Some of you know that God has been pursuing you, trying to get your attention for a long time, and you have been ignoring that call. And because of that, this Church is not growing and has not been effective in acting and speaking for God in our community and in our neighbourhood. How will you respond this morning?
You know after that entire episode with God, it says in Exo 4:13 that Moses told God, “God, send someone else.” (Exo 4:13) And the Bible says that, “God got angry.”
Maybe you have been saying to God send someone else, let someone else do it, let somebody else take it, let somebody else step up, when He called you to do it.
Make no mistake about this. You have a call of God on your life. You are God’s answer, you going is God’s coming down. He’s going to use you and today, I don’t know what that call is, what He wants you to do, but He does and for many of you, so do you. Many of you have a burning bush inside you – the Holy Spirit has lit up a ministry inside of you, has lit up a calling, has lit up a situation that you know that you feel passionate about, you’ve got a burning bush about that situation, about that group of people, about that individual in your cell group, about that ministry, my Word to you this morning is no more excuses.
And if you don’t know what your call is, it’s high time you take your shoes off, stop running and start paying attention.
The Body of Christ has multiple parts – each doing different things. If one part fails, the other Church doesn’t work well. When one part decides that it’s not going to do what it was designed to do, the entire system can’t function well. Doing one thing is not better than the other. Today, you need to realize that if He can use a whimpy, whiny person like Moses, He WILL use you. No more excuses.
Stand up with me on your feet, and let’s sing this song together:
The Potter’s Hand
Beautiful Lord, wonderful Savior,
I know for sure all of my days are held in Your hand;
Crafted into Your perfect plan.
You gently call me into Your presence,
Guiding me by Your Holy Spirit; Teach me, dear Lord,
To live all of my life through Your eyes.
I'm captured by Your holy calling,
Set me apart, I know You're drawing me to Yourself;
Lead me, Lord, I pray.
Take me, mold me, use me, fill me;
I give my life to the Potter's hand.
Call me, guide me, lead me, walk beside me;
I give my life to the Potter's hand.
Church, make yourself available. Make yourself a vessel He can touch. Make yourself a vessel He can use. All over this place, just reach up towards heaven and say:
Dear Heavenly Father, today, I surrender myself. No more excuses. I’ve been giving you excuses, I’ve been telling you all my limitations and why I can’t do what you are telling me you can do, in my life, through my life. But today, I die to the excuses and I take my shoes off. I will stop running from you, and start pursuing your purpose, and your passion and your plan for my life. In Jesus name I pray, Amen!
Father, I offer this prayer in the mighty name of Jesus that today, the dream and vision that is on the inside of these people will be realized, that no more excuses God, that we today will hear your word and hear your spirit and we will obey You. Lord I thank you for that, you see every person standing here, and today I pray you will put boldness, determination, faith, wisdom and anointing into their lives as they say, “Here I am Lord, use us. I will go where you want me to go.” In Jesus name we pray, AMEN!
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