Imagine !

This evening I want to start by asking you to imagine – imagine just for a moment that you are God. You are the Creator of the Universe and you possess all power – and it is time for your people, who are being held as slaves, to be rescued. Who would you choose to do this great work? Perhaps you would send a great military leader? Or perhaps a skilled politician? Maybe you would send a great speaker; someone who could give heart-stirring speeches that would inspire people. If you had the population of the world at your disposal, would you have sent Moses? Probably not!

After all, he was 80 years old. He was a fugitive from justice, wanted for murder in Egypt, the very place you wanted to send him! He may have been well educated, but that was over 40 years ago. He may have been well connected in the political circles of the day, but that too had been a long time ago. Yet, when it came time for God to send a deliverer to Israel, this is exactly the person He chose for the job. To us, it may not make much sense, but to God it was all part of a great plan.

And today as we live in a country where people have largely rejected God either openly, or through their indifference, who would you send to reach these people ? Perhaps it would be the Church leaders, perhaps the great evangelists, maybe even with God’s power he may decide to send down a few angels or super Saints to make some sort of difference !… but actually God has chosen us for the task.

When God looked around at who would make a difference, he decided it would be his followers, the people to whom he had already made a difference. But when we realise that that means you and me we so often get a bit scared, and back away, and begin to make excuses. And that’s exactly what Moses did in the reading that we heard from Exodus (3:1-6) this evening.

We are told that Moses after hearing God speaking to him ‘hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.’ Moses didn’t want to hear what God had to say to him. First of all he used the excuse of inability – he didn’t feel he was qualified to do God’s work. He didn’t feel that he knew enough about God and his word.

Secondly he used the excuse of inferiority. He had a fear that people wouldn’t bother listening to him because of who he was. And thirdly Moses used the excuse of not being eloquent enough – he said that he spoke slowly, and wouldn’t be listened to because of that.

These excuses from Moses were not short – they take up nearly two chapters of this book of exodus, and you get the feeling that he really wasn’t looking to answer God’s call. But God had answers to every excuse.

And the same is so often true for us. I think we all know that we are called to do God’s work, but we manage to justify not doing it for many of the same reasons that Moses used – we don’t know enough, we’re not in the right position to be listened to, we are too young or too old, or not quite fit enough, or not intelligent enough and the list can go on and on.

But just as God answered Moses he uses much the same answers to us. Firstly when he calls us to do his work, he does so with the full knowledge of our weaknesses and failings. He knows what we can do and what we can’t do – and when he calls us to do something he does it with the full knowledge that if we approach the task faithfully, then we will be able to do it.

Secondly he promises that we will never be left alone to complete a task. God sends his Holy Spirit to guide and inspire us through anything. He will give us the words, he will provide the opportunities if he are willing to let him. Sadly the problems so often come when we allow our humanity to get in the way and we try to become too dependant on our own abilities and fail to allow the Spirit to work and keep working in our lives.

And thirdly God answers the claim of being inadequate by reminding Moses of his own adequacy. Whilst none of us may be capable or worthy of proclaiming God’s wonderful message, that message by itself is worthy of being proclaimed, and we must not let our own fears or failings get in the way of that. God’s message stands strong by itself.

And so whatever excuses we can come up with for not doing God’s work it seems that God always has an answer. And we return to the basic fact that God wants to use each one of us. He has saved us by His grace, and now he wants to show us off to a lost and dying world. There is no point in lining up excuses, because just as Moses found, God can answer them all – we must recognise that God is able even where we are not. Our desire should be and must be to serve Him at all costs, regardless of what He asks from our lives. After all, He gave His all, and He asks no less from us. AMEN