- Responding to the Call of God
- Just Who Are You?
- Two Final Excuses
- No More Excuses
As a dad, sometimes you do things that your children enjoy just so you can spend time with them. Doing what they like to do gives you something to talk about together. Like watching the TV show “Say Yes to the Dress.” It’s the show where brides go with friends and family to the bridal store and pick out their wedding dress. My daughter loved the show, so I watched it with her, you know, just so we’d have something to talk about. My favorite moment was when a bride, after choosing a rather low-cut dress, said, “I’m saying yes to the dress.” Her unhappy father responded, “You can say yes to the dress, but I can say no to the dough.”
It’s one thing to say yes to the dress, but I’m asking you to ponder this question: Is there any part of your life where you’ve failed to say yes to God?
God has a plan for your life. He’s called you to do things far beyond your capability and, in some cases, outside of your natural desires and goals. How are you responding to that call? Are you all that God wants you to be? Doing all that God wants you to do? Have you said yes to God?
One day years ago, a man named Moses had to decide whether he was going to say yes to God.
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:1-4)
God spoke to Moses that day through a bush that was on fire but didn’t burn up. He may speak to us through the Bible, a sermon, a song, through his Holy Spirit, or in any number of ways. The point is, do we hear his voice and stop long enough to listen?
Keep in mind that Moses has been tending sheep in Midian for forty years. He’s been a shepherd for just as many years as he was an Egyptian prince. Moses had been raised in Egypt in the lap of luxury, but now he was a fugitive, a murderer, and a lowly shepherd, an occupation despised by proper Egyptians. But God is not done with Moses yet.
No matter what your past looks like, and no matter what your present circumstances are, if you’re a believer, he is calling you to follow him in faith and to make your life available to him for whatever purpose he has.
“Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10)
God’s purpose for Moses was no small task. Moses, a former prince who had blown it all and who had become just another old shepherd, was being called by God to stand up to the most powerful man on the planet.
Saying yes to a God-call always requires faith. Moses doesn’t have that kind of faith, at least not yet. He has a lot of excuses why God should get someone else. The same excuses we use with God.
The first excuse of Moses is, “Who am I?”
But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)
Moses says, “Look, God, you’re about 40 years too late. Back then, I could have done this. I was young, full of energy, and had a place of great influence in the kingdom. But now I’m just an old man shepherding a bunch of sheep. Who am I stand up to Pharaoh and ask him for anything?”
Humility is a virtue. But a lack of trust in ourselves is only a good thing when it leads to trust in God. If it doesn’t, we’ll find ourselves paralyzed with fear and doubt and an unwillingness to follow God.
Do you find yourself asking God, “Who am I to do this?” Who am I to speak out about my faith? Who am I to forgive that person? Who am I to change diapers in the church nursery? Who am I to think that I can make any difference in the world?
Who are you? If you’ve accepted Christ, then you’re a child of God. You’re someone who has been gifted and equipped and called to serve your Heavenly Father in whatever way he leads.
You’re also someone who probably feels completely incompetent to do what God calls you to do. That’s because God rarely calls us to do things that we could accomplish without him. God usually calls his children to serve him in ways that are beyond our capabilities, so that we have to depend on his strength, ability, and guidance to be successful.
He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” (Exodus 3:12)
God’s response to the first excuse of Moses is, “I will be with you.”
Moses was a murderer and a fugitive. But God wanted him to know that his sin, guilt, and limitations were not going to limit what Moses could do. God said, “I will be with you every step of the way. I’ll give you my strength and my ability. I’ll provide everything you need, I just need you to be willing.”
Who you are and who you have been is not important when it comes to answering God’s call on your life. God says, “I know all about you, and I’m going to be with you to help you become everything I want you to be and do everything I want you to do — if you’ll just say yes to me!”
When God calls us, our first thought might be, “Who am I?” God says, “I will be with you.”
Which leads to Moses’s next excuse…