Exodus 4:1-17

Do you remember the comic strip with Lucy, Charlie Brown and Linus.
They are lying in a field, looking up at the bright, white clouds in the sky.
Lucy asks Linus, "Linus, what do you see?"

Linus replies, "That cloud looks like a profile of Beethoven.
Those clouds look like an outline of the blue Azores.
And those clouds remind me of Saul of Tarsus holding the cloak of Stephen, as he was being stoned."

Then Lucy turns to Charlie Brown and asks, "And Charlie Brown, what do you see?"
And Charlie Brown says, "I was going to say I saw a ducky and a doggy . . . but I've changed my mind."

Feelings of inadequacy and fear of failure haunt us all.
We are aware that people have expectations of us . . .
God has expectations of us.
We have our own expectations, and we don't wish to fail.
All of us need to succeed.
If we don't believe we can succeed in a task, we might try to avoid it.

Our Scripture passage can be helpful to us.
It is about a man who felt inadequate.

Moses was born of Jewish parents who were enslaved in Egypt.
His parents were Amram and Jochabed.
Pharaoh gave the order to kill all male Hebrew babies.

Moses' mother put him in a little basket, and placed it in the Nile river.
The basket was noticed by Pharaoh's daughter, who was there for her daily swim.
Pharaoh's daughter took the baby, Moses, and raised him as her own in the palace.

Then, Pharaoh's daughter hired the mother of Moses to help her raise him.
This is probably how Moses learned of his kinship to the Hebrews.
One day Moses saw a Hebrew being mistreated by an Egyptian, and he struck the Egyptian and killed him.
Moses fled to the wilderness of Midian in order to escape Egyptian justice.
While in Midian, he married the daughter of Jethro.
For the next 40 years, Moses was a shepherd in the wilderness of Sinai.

One day in the desert, he sees a bush that burst into flame.
It continues to burn and is not consumed.
He approached the bush to see this strange sight.
And from out of the bush, God speaks, "Moses, take off your sandals because
you are standing on holy ground."

So, Moses took off his sandals and knelt.
And God said: "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob...
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 -- So now, go.
I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites out of Egypt."

And Moses responded, "Not me, God. I'm the wrong person."
But God persisted.

Moses continued to object: "Lord, I don't have any credibility with those Hebrews.
If I go and announce that I am their deliverer, they won't believe me.
Lord, please get somebody else!"

Then, God was ready to convince Moses.
Moses, "What do you have in your hand?"

"A shepherd's staff."

"Throw it on the ground!"

And when Moses threw it on the ground, it turned into a snake.

Then, God told Moses to take the snake by the tail, and when he did, it turned back into his staff.
Then, God told Moses to put his hand inside his robe.
He did, and when he withdrew it, it was white with leprosy.
Then, God told him to put his hand inside the robe again, and when he withdrew it, it was normal.

Those two miracles should have proven to Moses, that God had power to support his leadership.

But Moses still resisted:
"God, I've been a shepherd in the desert for 40 years.
I'm not eloquent, and besides at 80 years of age, I'm ready for retirement.
God, get somebody else."

Moses was a senior citizen.
He had been away for 40 years.
He was not an eloquent public speaker.
He didn't want the job.
"Lord, please send someone else to do it."

There are some lessons we can learn from this encounter.

God is aware of His people's plight.

God knew everything that had happened to the Jews.
God knew about their slavery.
He was aware of their troubles.
God had not forgotten them.

Remember God's power.
The miracles, God performed for Moses, gave powerful proof that whatever resources
Moses needed God could and would provide.

Remember the unbelief.
Even the miracles of God were not enough to persuade Moses.

Remember the providence of God.
Moses pleaded his lack of eloquence as his excuse not to obey.

God said: "Who gave man his mouth?
Who makes him deaf or mute?
Who gives him sight or makes him blind?
Is it not I, the Lord?
Now go; I will help you speak and I will teach you what to say."

God was telling Moses that He would take care of his limitations.
God was telling Moses that his inadequacy was not an excuse for disobedience.
God gave Moses his brother, Aaron, to speak for him.

God promised them: "I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do and say.
He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth,
and as if you were God to him."

"And Moses, don't forget to take that staff you have in your hand!"

This message is for us!
God's will be with us in our everyday life.
Even though we are aware of the miraculous power of God, many of us continue to grumble and complain.
We know what God would have us do, but we say, "Get someone else."
We can manufacture more excuses than Moses.

This message reminds us that God can use all of us.
We are weak.
We are inadequate. But God can take weak and inadequate people and work miracles.

Paul complained three times to God about a thorn in his flesh.
Paul felt that it was hindering his ministry for God.
God said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in your weakness."
(2 Cor. 12:9)
Paul answered: "Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses,
so that Christ's power may rest on me." (2 Corinthians 12:9)
When God gives us a job to do, He will provide all we need to do that job.

God can take common people with common ability and do extraordinary things.

J. Edgar Park was seriously ill in Edinburgh, Scotland.
One evening he looked up to see Alexander Whyte, a great man of God, standing at the foot of his bed.
Alexander Whyte closed his eyes and prayed, "O Lord, Thou givest the victory unto the weak!
We give it to the strong and to the talented, but Thou givest it unto the weak. Amen."
Park recovered and those words of Alexander Whyte stayed in the memory of J.Edgar Park
for the rest of his life.

The best service is by those who do not think they are fitted for it.
The best service is done by those who do not think they are adequate for the task.
The person with all the advantages and gifts often will bomb.
He is too glib and too sold on himself.

God may never have made Moses eloquent, but God would have blessed his stammering tongue with power.
That beats eloquence any day.
The best servants of God are often the most unexpected.
In spite of handicaps and adversity, many have accomplished more than anyone ever dreamed.

Beethoven was totally deaf during the last 8 years of his life, but it was during those years
that he wrote his Ninth Symphony, which has been acclaimed as his greatest work.
Yet, he never heard it.

A deformed dwarf-like crippled man, named Charles Steinbeck, was a great electrical genius.
He holds patents to more than 100 inventions.
As a consulting engineer with the General Electric Company, this crippled, little man did most
of his work half standing and half leaning upon a stool.
His indomitable will guided him to accomplishments seldom matched by others in perfect health.

John Milton, one of England's greatest poets, wrote his magnificent epic, Paradise Lost,
after some 10 or 12 years of total blindness.
He was turned tragedy into triumph.
His sonnet on his blindness reveals his feeling of accountability toward God who made him,
and gifted him with such genius:

"When I consider how my light is spent
E're half my days, in this dark world and wide
And that one talent, which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, lest he returning chide:

'Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?'
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, "God doth not need
Either man's work or his own gifts, who best
Bear his mild yoke, they seine him best.
His state is kingly: thousands at his bidding speed,
And post o'er land and ocean without rest:
They also serve who only stand and wait."

A receptionist at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City, reflecting on
the meaning of her life, wrote:

"I don't know how to say it, but somehow it seems to me
That maybe we are stationed where God wants us to be:
That the little place I'm filling is the reason for my birth,
And just to do the work I do, He sent me down to earth.

If God had wanted otherwise, I reckon He'd have made
Me just a little different, of worse or better grade,
And since God knows and understands all things of land and sea,
I fancy that He placed me here, just where He wanted me.

Sometimes I get to thinking, as my labors I review,
That I should like a higher place, with greater things to do;
But I come to the conclusion, when the envying is stilled,
That the post to which God sent me is the post He wanted filled.

So I plod along and struggle in the hope, when day is through,
That I'm really necessary to the things God wants me to do;
And there isn't any service I can give, which I should scorn,
For it may be just the reason God allowed me to be born."

God is adequate for every challenge He calls us to meet, every task He calls us to perform,
every duty He assigns, we would step forward and salute our Command-in-Chief,
and say, "Yes Sir! I'm ready!"

What do you have in your hand?

Are you a parent?
You have children created in the image of God . . .
Children who have eternal souls.
Children who will spend eternity in heaven or hell.
That's what you have in your hand!

Are a nurse?
You have a thermometer, or a syringe, or a bed-pan . . .
You have people who need the love and care that God can give through you.
That kind of love can make an eternal difference in that patient's life.
That's what you have in your hand!

Are a secretary?
You have a pencil, a steno pad, a computer keyboard . . .
You are relating every day to people who are stressed-out.
You can provide a smile or a word of encouragement that can change a person's outlook.
That's what you have in your hand!

Are you a physician?
You have a stethoscope, an X-ray, a scalpel . . .
You have people who are sick and worried.
You can provide healing and hope to the body and the soul. That's what you have in your hand!

Are you a teacher?
You have a textbook, some chalk, and a room full of children. . .
You have untold ability to influence those young lives!
That's what you have in your hand!

Are you a lawyer?
You have legal ability to help people who are seeking justice.
You are dealing with people who feel they have been wronged.
That's what you have in your hand!

Are you a business man?
You have skills to serve your community. . .
You have the opportunity to help people realize their true needs.
That's what you have in your hand!

God is not looking for experts!
God is not looking for supermen and super-women.
God has all power and can do all things!
God is looking for people who will take what they have in their hands, and put it in His hands!
God will do unbelievable things with all of us if we make ourselves available to Him!

Let Him have what is in your hand?

Sermon by Dr. Harold L. White