Wednesday, June 19

Wednesday

I remember an old college football coach of mine saying that “excuses are like noses, everybody’s got one, but some are worse than others.”  The truth is that we live in a culture full of excuses. Americans are especially good at making excuses. 

Sometimes we make excuses to try to keep from hurting someone's feelings. For example, If you were asked out on a date but really didn't want to go, you might want to spare the feelings of the asker and come up with some excuse as to why you had to decline. 

Sometimes we make excuses to avoid responsibility for our actions.. We make excuses for things we did wrong, times we failed, things we don't want to do, situations we don't want to be in.  How many times have you told someone "I forgot" when in reality you just didn't want to do what was asked of you? 

Making excuses is never a good practice and it is especially dangerous when we start making excuses in our spiritual lives.

• We make excuses when we don't want to obey
• We make excuses when we don't want to go where God sends us 
• We make excuses when we don't want to believe what God tells us 

We are not alone in our tendency toward excuse making.  Moses was called by God to go back to Egypt as God’s chosen deliverer for the Israelites, but Moses doesn't want the job and so he gives God his list of excuses, and the first two excuses are really profound questions that we all ask in one way or another. 

Who Am I?

The first excuse that Moses gives is one that we should recognize. Moses suggests that God has the wrong guy for the job.  He feels he's not qualified.  Listen to what he says,

"Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" And God said, "I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.

Moses felt overwhelmed with the responsibility. He didn't feel that he was up to the challenge. That wasn't the case 40 years earlier, but now he feels that this job is just too much for him...

• because of his past failure in jumping the gun and killing an Egyptian
• because of his advanced age
• because of the magnitude of the task
• because of past rejections by the Hebrews
• because of the time that had passed . . . Egypt had changed

God answers Moses with some profound truth, "I will be with you." God doesn't tell Moses that he is wonderfully gifted.  He doesn't tell him that he has more talent than he realizes. He doesn't tell him that his problem is low self-esteem. He tells Him that what Moses lacks, God will supply.

I can't imagine that any of the great servants of God ever felt qualified for what God called them to do. Paul told us in Philippians that he had learned that "he could do all things through Christ who gives him strength." The key was not Paul's ability, but God's.  In fact, God speaks to Moses as if this whole project is a "done deal" He doesn't say, "Moses, if you bring the children of Israel out" . . . it's when you bring them out. 

It doesn't matter what you are facing.  It doesn't matter what God has called you to do or to endure . . . you can do it if you trust His strength!

Who Are You?

Moses said to God, "Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?" God said to Moses, "I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’" God also said to Moses, "Say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, the name by which I am to be remembered from generation to generation.

Moses is really asking about the character and identity of the God who is calling Him.  He wants to know just who this God is and what He is like before he trusts Him. 

God tells Moses that he should tell the Israelites that God's name is: "I am who I am". In other words, tell them that the God who always has been, is, and always will be has sent you.  Sure, it would have been easier if God had just said, "Tell them my name is Clarence."  But God is not like that.  He is not human.  He cannot be confined in that way. He transcends any description of Him that we can muster. 

It would be helpful for you to know that the name "I am that I am" in Hebrew is four letters YHWH. In theological circles this is known as the "Tetragrammaton". In an effort to transliterate (write in an english form) YHWH vowels were added. And from that we get the name Yahweh or Jehovah.  Every time we read about Yahweh or Jehovah in the Bible it reflects back on this particular passage. Every time the word LORD is in your Bible in all capital letters it is referring to this name.  

Let me state it again. It is important for us to understand that in giving Moses (and us) this name, God was revealing His character.  He is the God who is, was, and always shall be.

God answered Moses' question. The problem with the excuse "I don't know enough" is that there will always be something that you don't know or understand. Moses could have continued his protests. What if the people of Israel ask me where you live? What if they ask me about the Trinity?  What if they want an answer to the question, 'Where have you been for the past 400 years?'  If you wait until you have all the answers .. . you will never serve the Lord.

Jeff Frazier