The Old Testament reading is Exodus 3:1-12. Exodus 3, 1 through 12, this is the inerrant and the infallible word of 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. Then he said, Do not come near. Take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground. And he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Then the Lord said, I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters.

I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppressed them. Come, 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? 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.” 

Keep your place there and turn to 2 Timothy 1:8-12 for our New Testament reading. We’ll go back to Exodus after we hear from 1st Timothy. 1st Timothy 1 verses 8-12. I’m sorry, 2nd Timothy. 2nd Timothy 1, 8-12 is our New Testament reading.

“Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Jesus Christ, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel, for which I was appointed a preacher, an apostle, and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do.

But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.” 

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. 

We’ve all had days in our lives that started out in a very ordinary way, and then something unexpected happened. Something took place that was completely unanticipated, but it’s something that ended up changing our lives forever. Maybe for you, as you think back on days like that, maybe it was something wonderful. Perhaps you can remember the day when you first met your now husband or wife.

Or maybe you can remember the day when you first found out that you were expecting a baby. Or maybe you’ve had days where the unexpected event was not wonderful at all, but something very grievous, and yet it was still just as life-changing Perhaps you suddenly lost a loved one and although the day started out as an ordinary day, suddenly your life has been turned inside out. And so whatever that may be, we’ve all had days like that. You wake up that morning expecting just another Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever day it is, and then all of a sudden your life is turned upside down.

And in our passage this morning, that is the kind of day that Moses had. That is what happens to Moses here. His day started out as just another ordinary day in Midian, tending the sheep. But then he saw a most unusual sight. He saw a bush that was burning, and the fire just kept burning and burning and burning, and the bush was not consumed. And that’s led to a most extraordinary encounter with God. And Moses’ life from that day on was not only changed and his life took a completely different direction, not only that, but this became a pivotal point in the history of God’s working out salvation for his people.

At the beginning of this passage, Moses is living in the land of Midian. And if you remember, he is there because he had to flee from Egypt. Pharaoh wanted to kill him. He was a fugitive because he had killed an Egyptian slave master. While he was a Midian, he married into a shepherding family. His father-in-law was Jethro, the priest of Midian, but he also kept sheep. And so, for those long years of Midian, we know from other scriptures that Moses was there for 40 years, but for those four decades of Midian, Moses was a shepherd, humbly tending the sheep of his father-in-law Jethro.

Now Moses already knew that somehow God had some special task for him. That was already impressed upon him by the events that had taken place earlier in his life. He knew somehow that God had appointed him to be the leader of Israel. Perhaps he even knew that he would be the one who would bring Israel out from their bondage under Pharaoh. But now he had been in Midian for so long, surely he began to wonder about that. Surely he began to wonder, perhaps God had not given up on him after these 40 years. Maybe in the meantime, God had found a better person to lead the Israelites out of Egypt.

After all, Moses was now an old man. He was 80 years old. And instead of leading the people of Israel, instead of preparing an army to take on the Egyptians, he’s out in this faraway place in the wilderness, Midian, tending sheep, following the flock day after day. But then Moses had one of those days in which everything changed, in which his life was turned upside down. In verse one, we read that one day, Moses was leading his father-in-law’s sheep, and in verse one, it tells us that he was, or he led them to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.

Moses had no idea what was happening, but as he was leading the sheep, he was being led. He was being led by the Lord, and he was being led to this specific place, to Horeb, Horeb is called here the Mountain of God this is the same mountain that the Bible calls elsewhere Mount Sinai and of course we’ll read a lot about Mount Sinai as we go on in Exodus Mount Sinai is the place where the Lord descended from heaven where he gave his law to the people of Israel with thunder and darkness and terror and all of that that’s the same mountain so here Moses is at Mount Horeb or Mount Sinai And as he walked about the mountain, a very unusual, really an amazing sight caught his eyes.

He saw a bush on fire, but the bush didn’t burn up. It just kept burning and burning and burning. And because this was such an extraordinary thing, so unusual, Moses did the most natural thing in the world, and that is he walked closer to get a better look, to see this strange thing. And that’s when Moses heard a voice calling to him from out of the bush. The voice was God’s and the message that God had for Moses was this, I am calling you Moses to lead my people out of Egypt. And so this passage is God’s call or his commission to Moses to be the one who would lead the people of Israel out from under Pharaoh out of Egypt.

And today we’ll take a closer look at the details of this passage. And as we do so, as we consider this encounter that Moses has with the Lord, I want you to think about your own calling from God. Because as a believer in Jesus Christ, God has called you. We read from 2 Timothy about how God has called us with a holy calling. You too have been called by the Lord. You have been called to belong to Jesus Christ, to salvation in Christ, but He has also called you to serve Him, to be His servant, just as Moses is called here to be the servant of the Lord.

Now I’m guessing your calling didn’t come in quite the same dramatic fashion. I don’t think any of you have told me about a burning bush experience like Moses had, but nevertheless, it is the same God, it is the same living Lord that called out to Moses from this burning bush that calls you to Christ for salvation and to be his servants. And as we consider this passage then, in Moses’ calling, there are three truths about God’s call upon you and me that we can learn from this passage. First of all, you are called into the presence of a holy God. Secondly, you are called into the fellowship of a loving God. And thirdly, you are called into the service of a sovereign God. So those will be our three lessons this morning. 

First of all, you are called into the presence of a holy God. Well, let’s begin as we look at this passage by considering this bizarre sight that Moses saw in the wilderness, the burning bush that didn’t burn. It didn’t burn up. As you know from scripture, fire is symbolic of God, of His nature, of His character. God is even called a consuming fire. A fire represents the intense, the blazing majesty of God, His holiness.

It also represents the fact that God is light. So fire is both heat and light. God is holy. He is truth. Fire symbolizes this dangerous holiness or righteousness of God, just as everything that the flame touches, it consumes. So in the same way, the holiness of God, all that comes into contact with it that is not pure, is consumed by that righteousness, that inherent holiness that belongs to God. and the fact that this fire does not burn out represents something about the nature of God and that is that God alone unlike any of us unlike anything in his creation God as the creator he is in himself perfectly self-sufficient and self-sustaining God possesses all life, all power, all energy.

In himself he is the fountainhead of all existence. He exists in himself in a way that none of us do. Fire, of course, depends upon oxygen and fuel to keep burning but here’s a fire that kept burning on its own. The bush was not supplying the fuel but it just kept burning and burning of itself and that represents this nature of God that in himself he is all-sufficient. He is able in himself to possess life and to exist and so that is one attribute of God that is represented here in this burning bush. And I believe that there’s even more in this burning bush that tells us about God.

And that is this, that this revelation that God saw, this appearance of the Lord that Moses encountered in this burning bush, that this was really an appearance of the Son of God. of the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. Notice how in verse 2 it says, it is the angel of the Lord who appears to Moses in the flame. But later in the passage, in verse 6, the angel of the Lord, he calls himself God. He says, I am the God of your father. And in verse 7, it is the Lord. the Lord himself who speaks to Moses.

And so here God reveals himself to Moses on the one hand as someone who is distinct from God, the angel of the Lord, and yet at the same time he reveals himself to Moses as the one who is himself God. He is the Lord. And for this reason the church has long taught and believed that This is not just a theophany, that is, an appearance of God to Moses, but what we have here in this passage is a Christophany, that this is an appearance of the pre-incarnate Son of God. That God the Son, who would take on flesh, who became man in Jesus Christ, before that He appeared here in the burning bush to Moses.

So this is none other than Christ, who made Himself known to Moses in the burning bush. Now, when the Lord saw that Moses drew near to the bush to see what this remarkable sight was all about, he called out to Moses from the midst of the flame. He said, Moses, Moses. And Moses answered the voice he heard. He said, Here I am. Moses knew that this was the voice of the Almighty. And so he presented himself to God as his obedient servant, as his willing servant, “here I am. Here I am, Lord. I am ready to hear your call, to obey your call. I am ready to do your will.” 

And the first thing that the Lord says in response to Moses’ presenting himself, here I am, is not what we might have expected. We might have expected the Lord to say, good, you are my willing servants. Now come nearer, come closer that I may declare to you what I will have you to do. But what the Lord says to Moses in verse five is, do not come near. Moses, stop. Don’t come any closer. Stop right where you are. And the reason why Moses gave this command, or why the Lord gave this command, was for Moses’ own good.

Because Moses had come into the presence of God. And God is, above all else, a God who is holy. He is holy. And this searing holiness, this overwhelming, overpowering holiness of God would have consumed Moses in an instant if he had come one step closer. And so he stopped in his tracks. The Lord commanded Moses to take off his sandals because he said, the place on which you are standing is holy ground. Was it right for Moses to wear his sandals in the presence of the Lord? He had to be barefoot. And then God said to him in verse six, he says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

Perhaps after all these years, Moses had begun to wonder, not only had the Lord maybe forgotten him, no longer was going to use him, but perhaps the Lord had forgotten his promises to the people of Israel, those covenant promises that he had made to Abraham and to his descendants to be their God and they would be his people. After 40 years, perhaps God had forsaken Israel, but no, the Lord is reminding Moses here that he is still the God of his people. He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of his father.

He has not forgotten his covenant promises. And as we’ll see, the Lord is about to act on those promises because he has seen the suffering and heard the cries of the people of Israel. But notice how Moses responds to what God says to him. Although these are words of encouragement and hope, it says in verse six that after the Lord said these words to Moses, Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look at God. Out of the terror that he felt, the dread that he felt of being in the presence of Almighty God, the Holy One, after hearing the majestic voice of the Lord speak to him from this burning bush, Moses hides his face and that’s exactly what you and I would have done had we been in the place of Moses at the burning bush. We too would have hid our faces in terror before the presence of Almighty God. And that’s because of the holiness of God.

Throughout the scriptures whenever God appears to man, when he makes himself known to man in some sort of appearance or vision, almost always the response on the part of the one to whom God reveals himself is a response of terror, fear, dread. And you know the the classic example of this that is given to us by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 6 when he is in the temple he beholds the glory of the Lord he beholds the Lord himself filling the temple with his glory and he cries out woe is me for I am lost for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips for my eyes have seen the King the Lord of hosts.

 Well, what is it about the holiness of God? What is it about this character of God, the nature of God, that He is infinitely holy? What is it that fills us with such dread? That whenever He appears to someone, it overwhelms them with fear and terror, this holiness. What is it about that? Why did Moses hide his face? Why did he shrink back in fear? Well, first of all, the holiness of God refers to the fact that God is absolutely distinct. He is absolutely separate from all His creation. He is something, or He is one who transcends all that He has created. He is no part of His creation whatsoever. He is wholly distinct from us and from all that He has made. The words of our confession put it this way, He is a most and that in itself is enough to fill us with fear because when we come into the presence of the one who is transcendence, who is infinite in holiness, who is not part of this creation whatsoever, instinctively that fills us with dread because we are creatures. We are creatures in the face or before the face of our creator. So this other worldliness of God, this absolute transcendence of God, this is something that overwhelms us.

The infinite power, the majesty, the authority of God, this is a frightful thing. But the holiness of God also refers to His absolute righteousness and His moral purity. He is not only holy in the sense that He is distinct from us as the creator, as a most pure spirit, but he is holy in the sense that he is perfectly pure, infinitely righteous. There is not even a shadow of sin or impurity with God. Habakkuk says that he has purer eyes than to behold evil. He cannot look at wrong. And this also is why the holiness of God is a terrifying thing for us, because we are not only creatures, but we are also sinners.

And just as Isaiah felt, so surely Moses felt that he too was undone by being in the presence of this holy God, because he too was a man who was unclean. And we would feel the same way if we were in Moses’ place here. And not only this dreadful absolute transcendence and majesty of God would overwhelm us but the fact that He is infinitely righteous, infinitely pure, and we are not. This too would cause us to hide our face before Him. 

And this points to the great dilemma that faces all of us as sinners. This is the question. This is the most important question that each one of us face as those whom God has made and yet we have rebelled against him and that is this, how can I, how can I a sinner, one who is not pure, one who is not righteous, how can I be in the presence of this holy God and not be destroyed? Well the answer of course is the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. that God has provided the way for us to come into his presence that he has given us his son that Jesus, when he died, that curse of death upon the cross, he took upon himself our guilt. He absorbed into himself that wrath that would naturally come upon us for our sin and guilt. And he has taken away our sins. So in Christ, we can come before God. That is the good news of the gospel, that we can have that righteousness of Christ as our own, our sins forgiven. So even with boldness, we can come into the presence of almighty God. Yes, he is still God. There is nothing less about him in his majesty and glory. And yet because of Christ, we can come to him knowing that he receives us. He accepts us. He loves us in Christ. We can even call him Father, Abba Father. 

Now God did not just bring Moses near to him, just to overpower him with the sense of his holiness but the Lord revealed himself to Moses in this way because this was part of God’s training, part of his preparation for Moses to prepare him to be the man who would lead the people of Israel out of Egypt. Before Moses could go out and serve the Lord first he had to experience this holiness of God. When Moses beheld the glory of God in all of his perfections and majesty and holiness although it filled him with fear it had a transformative effect on him and we know that it had a transformative effect on him because the scripture tells us that when we behold the glory of the Lord and you and I we behold the glory of the Lord by faith in the face of Jesus Christ, but when we do so, when we look to Christ by faith and see there the majesty, the greatness, the holiness of God revealed in His Son Jesus Christ, it transforms us. It has a transformative effect so that we are changed by that. 

2 Corinthians 3:18 says, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, that is, as we behold the glory of the Lord in the face of Christ. And so this was part of Moses’s preparation by the Lord. He had to come into the presence of a holy God before he would serve him in the way that the Lord had appointed him to serve. And it was not only transformative for Moses, but this knowledge of the majesty of God, the weightiness of God, the glory of God. This is what would enable Moses to carry out the ministry that the Lord called him to carry out as his servant. 

Remember, who is Moses going to confront? Who is Moses going to come before in Egypt? He’s going to come before Pharaoh. the king of Egypt, perhaps the most powerful man in all the world, a man of authority and power and majesty who could destroy whomever he will. And if Moses did not remember that the God he served, the God who called him, the God who was his, if he did not remember that this God was infinitely more mighty, more majestic, more powerful than Pharaoh, He could not have come before Pharaoh. He could not have stood before him. 

And there’s a great truth here for you and me, and that is this. The people who have come to know, people who have come to know the holiness of God, who have felt, by faith in Christ, that weight of his glory, his greatness, who have been impressed by the splendor and the majesty of God, those people become great servants of the Lord. That was true for Isaiah. It was only after he was nearly undone in the temple by this appearance of the Lord in all of his glory that Isaiah would go out then to be the great prophet to preach the words that God gave him to speak to the people of Israel.

The same was true for Peter before Peter could serve Jesus as one of his great apostles, his great servants. Peter first himself had to be undone in the presence of the righteous man, the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in the history of the church, the same was true for Martin Luther. the path that led Luther to truly understand with his heart and to truly love the gospel of free grace in Jesus Christ, the gospel of justification by faith alone. That path took him first through this understanding of the righteousness of Christ, even a fear of Christ and his righteousness.

And the same is true for every servant of Christ who faithfully does God’s will in this world. To be faithful to Christ in this world must begin with a genuine encounter with God and His holiness. And what this means is a deep conviction of the majesty, the glory of God as revealed in Christ, a deep conviction of our own utter sinfulness and unworthiness before this God. But it also means a profound wonder and joy at the grace of God, a joy of knowing that you are forgiven, that by the blood of Christ shed for you, you are covered with the holiness of Christ. And so no one who thinks little of the glory, the holiness, the greatness of God will do much good for Christ in this world. But it’s the one who has been most impressed, the one who has been most convicted of the greatness of the God who calls us to himself. It is that one who does the most good for Christ in the world. And so as a Christian, like Moses, you are called into the presence of a holy God. 

Secondly, you are called into the fellowship of a loving God. At this point in our passage that we’re considering, or actually at this point anytime when An angel of God or the Lord himself appears to someone in the scriptures and that person is shrinking back in fear and dread and being in the presence of this divine majesty.

This is the point at which the angel of the Lord always says to that person, do not fear, do not be afraid. Now, the Lord doesn’t say that to Moses, but he says basically what is the equivalent of that. He says in effect, Moses, I am for you. I am for your people. I have seen their affliction. I have heard their cry. I know their suffering, and I have come to save them. Moses, I have compassion on my people. I love them, and I am about to deliver them as I have promised. And so Moses was not only given a revelation here at the burning bush of the unspeakable majesty of God and his holiness, which caused him to hide his face in fear, but he is also given a revelation of the marvelous depths of the divine love and compassion that God has for his people.

And if the splendor of God’s glory left him hiding his face in fear, then the words of God’s love, his care, must have melted the heart of Moses. This God, he sees his people in distress. He hears their prayers. He cares for his people. He loves his people. He is a holy God at the same time, he is a merciful compassionate Savior and this same wonderful combination of this of the character of God that he is one at the same time of God before whom we come with reverence and awe, a God who is a consuming fire, holy, majestic, but a God who is compassionate, merciful, and gracious, a God of love.

The same combination that we see here at the burning bush as God reveals himself to Moses was displayed, and was manifested most perfectly at the cross of Jesus Christ. Because first of all, the death of Jesus shows us like nothing else can show us that He hangs there, not only suffering the indignity, the torture that he received at the hands of men, but even more so, receiving in himself the wrath of God. God having turned his face against him, pouring out the judgment that is due to you and me for our sins. When we see Jesus hanging on the cross, what we must see there is what God thinks of our sin. This is what God thinks of our sin. We take it so lightly, but God does not. This is what your sin and my sin deserve. But at the same time, when we behold Jesus on the cross, we see not only a revelation of the holiness of God and what he must do against sin, but we see a revelation of the indescribable grace and love of God. Because Jesus suffered for us. Jesus was a sacrifice. because God gave him up for us so that we would be set free from that condemnation. And so what an amazing revelation of God’s love for you and me and Jesus Christ.

Just as he had compassion on the Israelites and their bondage to Pharaoh, God has had mercy, he has had compassion on us in our bondage to sin and death. He has given us a son that we might be saved through him. and God continues to have compassion on you. Just as God saw the suffering of his people and heard their cries at this time, when Moses stood before the burning bush, so today the same God, he has a heart of compassion, mercy towards his people. He hears your cries. He sees your suffering. God cares. And just as it must have seemed to the Israelites, after all these years in bondage, century after century, living under the heavy hand of Pharaoh, suffering all of the cruel ways in which he afflicted the people of Israel, it must have seemed to them that God did not care for them, that he had forsaken them, abandoned them to this cruel tyrant.

Where was God? Did he not see? Did he not hear? No, God heard. He saw. But in the same way, you go through affliction, you suffer, and sometimes it seems interminable. It never stops. It keeps going. It is relentless. And you begin to ask, is God there? Does He hear my cries? Does He see my suffering? Does He care? Has He forsaken me? And the answer is no, He has not. He does see you. He does hear your cries to Him. He has compassion, He sees your affliction, and He will save. He will show forth His mercy, His grace in His way and in His timing, not in ours.

But He will bring deliverance to you one way or the other from all that afflicts you in this world. One day, in one way or the other, it could be by bringing you to glory. but he will save you from the affliction of this world. Because he is merciful, he is compassionate, he is a God of love, and so as one who belongs to Christ, you have been called into the fellowship of a loving God. 

Thirdly, and finally, you are called into the service of a sovereign God. We saw how Moses was terrified at the realization that he was in the presence of this holy Lord in the burning bush, but what the Lord said to him in verse 10 must have been as equally terrifying to Moses because Moses says to him in verse 10, come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. And Moses says, I am ready. When can I pack my bags? When can I go? I can’t wait to meet Pharaoh. No, he says, who am I? Who am I? Oh Lord, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt. 

Now some commentators have said that Moses was being humble here. And of course we know from, um, the Scriptures that Moses was the most humble person in the world but I believe that there is not just humility here at work but that on the part of Moses there is some genuine fear and trepidation and not unblameable but out of a lack of faith, out of unbelief he’s fearful to do what God commands him to do here. In other words, his faith falters. To him, God was demanding the impossible. Me? Lord, you want me to go back to Egypt? I’m a fugitive. I’m wanted for murder. Remember, I was the guy whom the Israelites rejected when I tried to help them. You want me to go to Pharaoh, the most powerful man on earth? A man who is not a nice individual? You want me to go to this Pharaoh? I have been tending sheep here in the desert for 40 years. I’m 80 years old. I’m way past the age of retirement. You want me, oh Lord, to go to Pharaoh?

But notice what the Lord says. He doesn’t rebuke Moses for his fear, his lack of faith, his failure to trust in God, but the Lord gives Moses the greatest possible encouragement here. He says to him in verse 12, but I will be with you. I will be with you. If you have a friend who confides in you that he has been given some impossible task, something that he does not feel qualified for, or she is just not ready to do, how would you encourage that person, that friend? You would say to them, you can do this. I know you can do it. You’ve got brains, you’ve got talent. I’ve seen you do things that I have perfect confidence in your abilities to do this job. That’s not what God says to Moses. He doesn’t say, come on Moses, you can do it. You’ve got a great education. You’re smart, you’re experienced. I know you have it in you to lead my people out of Egypt. No, the Lord doesn’t say that at all. He says, I will be with you. I will be with you. And that’s all that Moses needed to know. The presence of the Lord would go with him.

Matthew Henry says this, “God’s presence puts an honor upon the worthless, wisdom and strength into the weak and foolish, makes the greatest difficulties dwindle to nothing, and is enough to answer all objections.” How is God calling you to serve him in a way that seems impossible.? That you feel like you just can’t do it. It’s not in you. Perhaps it’s some matter of service that he’s calling you to engage in. Perhaps it’s a matter of obedience. You know what the right thing to do is, but you’re afraid because it seems so hard. No matter how daunting, no matter how impossible it seems, your hope is not what’s in you, your inherent abilities or courage or talents, but that promise that the Lord made to Moses, he makes to you as well, that I will be with you.

And he doesn’t call you to anything in any form of service or any matter of obedience in which he does not also promise to be with you in that, to sustain you, to give you grace, to enable you to do what he calls you to do. Maybe you’re afraid of the future. Maybe it’s something like the next level of school. I remember when I was growing up that that was a fearful thing, going to high school. Or maybe it’s a new job. You’re just not sure if you’re going to be able to do that. Or perhaps it’s simply a difficult conversation. A hard conversation you know you’ve got to have with somebody. You’ve got to confront them with something or tell them something you know that will be hard to talk about. Maybe it’s because you’re afraid to say no to your friends. Oh, you want to please others. You want to go along and yet you know that you can’t go along with that. Well, whatever way in which God calls you to obey Him or to serve Him in this world, the task can seem impossible. In this promise that the Lord makes to Moses to be with him, this helps resolve something in this passage that at first may seem a little confusing or perplexing, even maybe paradoxical, because first in verse eight, the Lord declares this. He says, “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land”. 

And so God promises that he will deliver his people. But then in verse 10, he says to Moses, come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel out of Egypt. So who is it that is going to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt? Is it the Lord, or is it Moses, whom the Lord will send?

And of course, the answer is, it is God. It is God and His sovereign power who will deliver His people out of Egypt. But He would do it through his servants. He would use Moses as his instrument in order to accomplish what he alone can do. And so God would receive rightfully all the glory, all the credit, all the praise for the Israelites’ redemption from Egypt, and yet he would accomplish that through this man Moses. A man who was very imperfect, like you and me, very weak. A man whose faith falters, and yet God would use him to accomplish his purposes.

And that is the way in which God works in the world as he carries out his work of salvation through the church, through his people. God uses weak and even sinful people like you and me to be his instruments to accomplish his sovereign will. And this ought to be an encouragement to us. because we feel in ourselves our own inadequacies, our weaknesses, but no matter what weaknesses you may feel that you have or think that you have, no matter how inadequate you think you are, no matter how old you may be or how young you may be or how limited you may be in some way, no matter the fact of how you have failed God in the past, No matter all of that, as a Christian, God, He has called you to serve Him in some way.

And He, through that service, He will accomplish His sovereign purposes in your life and in the lives of others through your service to Him. We can put it this way. God does not need you. God did not need Moses. He wasn’t depending on Moses to free his people from Egypt. God does not depend upon you. He doesn’t even need you. But he uses you. It is his will to use you. To do what he has willed to do for the salvation of his people, for the good of his people. And so you are called into the service of a sovereign God.

Well, as we’ll see, Moses goes on to serve the Lord faithfully. He becomes one of the greatest saints that we have in the Old Testament. I don’t need to remind us that we are no Moses. Moses was one of the great ones. But Moses would have given anything to trade places with you and me. Moses was given this extraordinary revelation at the burning bush. A bush that kept burning, the voice of God, God in the fire, appearing to him. But as wonderful as that revelation that God made to Moses in the wilderness was, it pales in comparison to the revelation that God has given to you and me in His Son, Jesus Christ. He is the image of the invisible God. In Him the fullness of the deity indwells bodily. He is the Word who was with God and who was God who became flesh. To behold the face of Christ is to behold the face of God. And Moses, he did not see that. Not in the fullness that we have seen it with the coming of Christ into the world. And it is through this gospel of Jesus Christ. It is through the gospel, this good news that Christ has come into the world for our salvation. It is through that that God is calling you to himself.

To have an even greater knowledge than Moses had of the Son of God and therefore of God. To have a greater understanding, a greater knowledge of the Savior who has accomplished not just a salvation from slavery and in Egypt, but a salvation from eternal death and judgment. Have you heard the call of God to you in the gospel of Jesus Christ? Have you heard and have you answered that call? Believe in Christ, repent of your sin, turn to Him, commit your life to serving Him, to worshiping Him, And that is how you answer the call of God today.

Let’s pray.

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