Excuses, Excuses Part 1

Let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. There's something futile about making excuses to people. You know and they know that even the best excuses just don't cut it. Moses found out that excuses never work with God. Today, a look at the attempts Moses made to avoid the inevitable. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, excuses can be very handy when you just don't want to do something. Yes, Dave, you're absolutely right.

And all of us have used excuses, haven't we? What's remarkable about this passage of scripture is that Moses is standing on holy ground arguing with God. You know, back in Egypt, he was saying, I'm ready to go.

Now he is saying no. The desert, however, had done its work and God overruled. It's a marvelous story. And you know, even as you're blessed listening to this message, I need to tell you that I've written a book entitled Getting Closer to God. It basically is these messages in book form. Now you can get a copy of Getting Closer to God for a gift of any amount. Here's what you do. Go to RTWOffer.com.

That's RTWOffer.com or call us at 1-888-218-9337. Ask for the book Getting Closer to God. And as we go through this series, we'll see each day how God brought that about in the life of Moses. Isn't it amazing God speaks to the light, speaks to the darkness, it becomes light. He speaks to the raging sea and it becomes calm. He tells a fish, swallow Jonah and the fish obeys.

But God speaks to us and we dig in our heels and we have the nerve to say no. Exodus chapter 3, that's what Moses does. You have your Bibles, Exodus chapter 3. For 40 years, he was a scholar. For 40 years, he was a shepherd. And now for 40 years, God wanted to make him into a savior of sorts. Moses said no. Text tells us chapter 3, book of Exodus. 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 and 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. And then he said, do not come near, take your sandals off your feet for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Standing on ground is sanctified by divine fire, Moses is going to argue with God and try to say no to what God was asking him to do. The Bible sometimes likens us to sheep and that's a pretty good analogy because in many respects we are like sheep. Bible also hints that sometimes we are like mules. Psalm 32, do not be like the horse or as the mule, stubborn. God is calling, I'm not going. And right here today in a place sanctified by the people of God, sanctified by the prayers and the worship of God's people, someone listening to this message is still predisposed to say no. What were Moses' objections to the divine will and the divine call?

There are five of them and we shall look at them very, very briefly. First of all, he says, I'm not adequate, I'm a nobody, verses 10 and 11. The Lord says in verse 10, come and I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

Who am I? Don't you know I'm the failure. I'm the one who failed back in Egypt and I do not want to go back to the place where I failed. I'm the one who is still angry because when I gave myself to my people, they rejected me and I thought they would understand and they didn't. I'm not going back there.

Let those people rot in Egypt. Who am I that I should go? God, you got the wrong bush and you've got the wrong guy because I am inadequate. I'm a nobody, 40 years in the desert.

Is that the way we sometimes respond to God? You know, I'm not a Calvin, I'm not a Luther, I'm not a Billy Graham. I can't witness to the person who sits next to me in the cubicle next to me at work. Who am I?

They might ask me some questions I don't know the answer to. Who am I? Moses didn't know it but he was asking the philosophical question of the 20th and the 21st century. Who am I? We don't know who we are. Husbands have left their wives to try to find out who they are.

Wives have abandoned their children and husband to try to find out who I really am. We have theories of self-image, many of which are not scriptural. There is a scriptural theory of self-image but there are wrong theories too. I remember reading a Christian writer who said many, many things good but I didn't agree when he said that there was a beautiful Swiss girl who thought she was ugly and she never looked into the mirror and so he held up her chin and helped her open her eyes so that she could see how beautiful she was. That's not a Christian view of self-image. We need a theory of self-image that not only works for beautiful young women but works for ugly old men. We need a theory of self-image that would even work for Phyllis Diller. Remember her? I remember her saying that she was once in a beauty salon for nine hours. Can you believe that?

Nine hours in a beauty salon. And she said that was just for an estimate. I want you to notice how God answers Moses. He doesn't say, now Moses, I'll tell you who you are. You're specifically gifted.

No, no, no, no. You know what the Lord answers and says? He says, verse 12, I will be with you.

I will be with you. That's my answer to your inadequacy, Moses. You see, God doesn't call the equipped. He equips those who are called and God says, God says, I am with you, Moses.

I'm going to stand there. And we think that after that, Moses would say, okay, God, if you're coming with me, include me in. The answer is yes. But he has a deeper problem. He has a deeper problem. So he goes on to a second objection. He says, I don't know enough. In verse 13, then Moses said to God, if I come to the people of Israel and say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you and they ask me, what is his name?

What shall I say? And God said to Moses, I am who I am and say this to the people of Israel. I am has sent you. I am that I am. I am the self existent one. I exist because I exist. I am the infinite and perfect spirit in whom all things have their source, support and end. And I am God and I'm the one calling you and simply say, I am has sent you.

Do we sometimes argue like that with God? I don't know enough. You know, if I witness to somebody, sure enough, they're going to ask me about the heathen in Africa or they're going to ask me how in the world all the dinosaurs got onto the ark. They're going to ask me something like that.

Who am I, Lord? What if they say this to me or that to me? God says, Moses, I'm giving you the credentials.

I am saying that you need to affirm that I've sent to you. And when you and I are in discussions with other people, the answer is not to think of how much we know or why our opinion is better than somebody else's opinion. We always as New Testament believers take them back to the New Testament. We take them back to Jesus and we always let people argue with him and not with us.

That's the way we do evangelism. And so Moses says, Lord, he says, I don't know enough. And God says, OK, I've now revealed myself to you.

Are you ready to go now? Moses says, no, I'm not because he has a deeper problem. His objection is even deeper. What he says now in chapter four verse one is, I'll be rejected. Chapter four verse one, then Moses answered, behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice for they will say the Lord did not appear to you.

Now this is very interesting. It says in chapter three verse 18, God says they will listen to your voice. Now Moses is saying they won't listen to my voice.

Do you see the disconnect? God is saying one thing and Moses is saying another. And I think Moses has it all wrong because he thinks that he is going to be the deliverer. He doesn't understand that God is the deliverer and he only is the instrument that God is going to use.

It is God who is going to bring the deliverance. It's God that does it. Because when God calls you and me, he actually doesn't call us to a work, to a vocation, to a ministry.

He always calls us to himself first. It's a calling to God. And God says, well, if they won't believe you, I'll give you some signs. Throw down your staff and it'll become a serpent.

Put your hand in your shirt and it will become leprous. Take the water of the Nile, pour it onto the ground and it's going to turn into blood. And so you are going to be given all of these signs and you're going to be able to outdo the magicians of Egypt.

And we're going to be studying that because that's fascinating that these magicians of Egypt were able to do as much as Moses in some instances until they got to a certain point where they could not keep up with him. But God says, I'm going to give you signs because Moses, I want you to know that I am the God of men who have failed. I am the God who are of those who are in the desert. I'm the God of those who don't want to go back to their original calling.

Isn't that amazing? We make God Lord of all. We say Jesus is Lord of all except that he's not Lord of the desert. If you're in a desert today, you say Jesus isn't Lord here. Yes, he's Lord of the desert. So Moses, you go back and I'll give you these signs. We think that by now for certain he would say, of course, Lord, I'll go. So God is saying go and Moses is saying no because his objection actually is deeper.

So there's a fourth one. He says, Lord, he says, I don't have any natural talent. Chapter four, verse 10.

You'll notice that the text says, chapter four, verse 10. Moses said to the Lord, Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am of slow speech and of tongue. The idea is he has an impediment.

Maybe he stuttered. So Moses says, I'm not qualified and he begins to visualize what it would be like going to Pharaoh. Imagine going down those long colonnades that he was acquainted with as a boy when he lived in the palace and you walk all the way down. You finally have an audience with Pharaoh. You're standing in front of him with all of his advisors around him and you open your mouth and nothing comes out and everybody says, speak Moses. It's time for you to talk and all that he can do is to stutter and to stammer and the words aren't coming out and you can imagine the ridicule and the rejection and the fun that would be made of somebody who was in a position of such incredible embarrassment. So he says, I'm not a speaker.

Find somebody who can talk. Aren't you startled with the Lord's answer to Moses? The Lord says, who has made man's mouth or who makes him mute or deaf or seeing or blind?

Is it not I, the Lord? Now therefore go and I will be with your mouth and teach you what you shall speak. Moses, if I had wanted you to be eloquent, I would have created you eloquent.

If I had wanted you to be brilliant in other areas, I would have made you brilliant in other areas. Could I just speak to you heart to heart? Are you content with the way in which God made you? When you look into the mirror, are you content with the raw material that God gave you to work with? Is it okay with you that you're not one of the beautiful people? Is it okay with you that you're not as good looking, that you're not as talented as somebody else because you know who has made man's mouth, who makes someone mute and who gives someone the ability to speak but God? Those of us who are in public ministry, I have to confess to you that oftentimes we struggle in comparing ourselves with others. I remember as a young minister I'd hear somebody speak like Evie Hill and I'd say to myself after hearing Evie Hill, I'm never going to preach another sermon again.

Makes me want to go back to the farm and start up the old John Deere and do something else. What a gift. And then I have to say as I look in the mirror, God you created me this way if you had wanted me to have that kind of eloquence you'd have given it to me. I'm content with who I am and the older I am the more content I am with who I am.

Did that come out right? You understand what I'm saying? I don't have to be anybody else. The real issue is whether or not the self-existent eternal God has called me.

That's really the issue and he gives us a certain amount of talent to work with. Are you envious because God has been so generous to others in their eloquence, in their beauty, in their abilities. God says Moses I created you with that impediment.

Get over it. Well you'd think that at this point Moses would say of course I'm going but now he has a deeper objection and we finally get to the heart of what's troubling Moses. Moses finally says all right I don't want to go.

Verse 13 of chapter 4 he said oh my Lord please send someone else. I just don't want to go. I've got a wife and children.

I hate Midian. I hate the desert but if I go to Egypt there'll be risk involved. There's the possibility that I could fail. If I fail here in the desert nobody knows about it. Nobody knows whether I'm a good shepherd or a bad shepherd because I'm living here in obscurity and isolation but if I go back to Egypt I will fail big time and I'll be on the front page of the Egyptian newspaper.

Everyone will know about it and I'm not interested in that kind of risk. Moses digs in his heels and he stands there on holy ground arguing with God and God says go and Moses is saying no. How do you feel? God may be calling some of you to a new ministry. God may be taking you out of your nest, out of your sense of security because the desert may be bad but at least you know the desert and and God may be speaking to you about ministry opportunities. Someone will ask you to teach Sunday school and you'll say who am I?

I don't know enough and furthermore I just don't want to do it. Think for a moment of what Moses would have missed if he had said no. Well actually Moses did say no didn't he?

But as I mentioned in the opening God overruled him and God had something very special in store for him and perhaps God has something very special in store for us. I speak to all those of you who are in the desert. You know if you are being encouraged as a result of the ministry of running to win it is because other people just like you have invested in this ministry. Would you consider becoming an endurance partner that's someone who stands with us regularly with their prayers and their gifts.

I have in my hand a letter that says my husband and I live in a tiny village in north central Alaska. There's a tiny church here but it was suspended due to covid so we are so thankful for Pastor Lutzer and his teaching. Running to win goes to more than 20 different countries of the world and you can help us as this ministry goes forth. If you become an endurance partner as I've mentioned you'll be standing with us regularly with your prayers and your gifts and of course you need more info. So write this down go to rtwoffer.com that's rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button. Of course rtwoffer is all one word rtwoffer.com click on the endurance partner button or if you prefer call us at 1-888-218-9337. Because of you we've received testimonies from different countries of the world about this ministry.

Thanks in advance for helping us go to the phone call 1-888-218-9337. It's time now for another chance for you to ask Pastor Lutzer a question about the Bible or the Christian life. We've all heard the term vocation applied to the kind of work we do but many may not realize that the word vocation really means calling. This question is on the front burner for Mike who writes to Pastor Lutzer asking this, what wisdom can you suggest for a 20 year old man who wonders if he's been called to full-time ministry? I'm looking for things related both to determining if one is called as well as to preparation for ministry. Well Mike I think it's wonderful that you as a 20 year old are beginning to think about these things and let me simply say that the call of God that you refer to I think that it has several elements. First of all it has an inward compulsion. There is something within you if you are called to the ministry that tells you that your destiny lies beyond other vocations.

At least I felt that. But along with that this is very critical. It has to be confirmed by the body of Christ. You know there's that old line that says that there are some people called to preach but apparently nobody is called to listen because they simply don't have the gifts for ministry. God did not cut them out for ministry but they want to do ministry and they think that they are called or maybe they want to do ministry because they see it as an opportunity for self-growth and self-aggrandizement. Sometimes ministers get an awful lot of attention and so as a result of that they may not be called at all and yet they're doing ministry. So first of all you have to have that inward sense that God might be leading you in this direction. Secondly it has to be confirmed by the body of Jesus Christ and third it has to be confirmed by his word because when you get to qualifications for ministry character is absolutely essential and so the spiritual leaders around you will help you determine that. But you know Mike one of the things that I've discovered is I've heard testimonies of those who are called to the ministry. The good news is God calls people differently.

Sometimes he calls them in their youth. I felt that way when I was growing up but there are others who perhaps are 20 or 30 or 40 years old and suddenly they have this compulsion, this desire that they are called to preach, that they are called to minister. And God is very creative, speaks to us in different ways, different circumstances but the bottom line is always that growing conviction that this is what we should follow. Finally you also ask about how you can prepare for ministry.

Well there are others who can give you much better counsel about that than I can but make sure that you get a good education, attend a good seminary if God is leading you in that direction and I trust that 10-15 years from now the blessing of God, the benediction and the anointing of God will be upon you. Thank you Mike and thank you Pastor Lutzer. If you'd like to hear your question answered go to our website at rtwoffer.com and click on Ask Pastor Lutzer or call us at 1-888-218-9337.

That's 1-888-218-9337. You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. Today Dr. Erwin Lutzer brought part one of Excuses, Excuses, the second in a series of 12 messages about Moses, a man getting closer to God. And next time on Running to Win we'll hear all about those three signs the Lord gave to Moses to prove to others that God had sent him. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.