My Time Management is Improving!

Wow! My time mangement is improving! I managed to post a Year of the Bible reflection and now I'm posting my sermon from this morning too. Just a little side note: we ordained and installed new elders this morning, so my sermon is leading up to that moment. I also used "The Message" version of the Bible.

INTRODUCTION
My seventh grade English teacher came up with a very clever assignment for our class. She was trying to teach us about creative writing—like writing stories. Well, when someone tells you that you HAVE to write a story, suddenly you can’t think of anything to say. Too much pressure.

So, she started out with something easy. She asked us to write excuses for why we didn’t do our homework. Clever, right? You can be VERY creative when you come up with excuses, and it didn’t really feel like you were under a lot of pressure.

I think the best one I came up with was that my mom was warming up some sweet potato baby food in the microwave and it exploded. We were out of paper towels, so she had to use my homework to clean it up.

I was looking for some other excuses you could use to NOT turn in your homework. I found a cartoon of Garfield saying, “I can’t do homework for medical reasons. It makes me sick.” Somebody else suggested, “I made a paper plane out of it and it got hijacked.” One my sister might hear in one of her math classes is this: “I have a solar powered calculator and it was cloudy.” But I think my favorite excuse for not turning in homework is a twist on the old “my dog ate it” line. This one says, “I can’t turn my homework in because my dog ate it. Seriously, look, I brought a stool sample in to show you.”

MOVE #1
But you know, it’s not just kids who come up with good excuses. Grown-ups are pretty good at coming up with excuses too. Take Moses for example. God had a job for Moses—even appeared to him in the burning bush so Moses would have no doubt that it really was God talking to him—but Moses had a million excuses to get out of doing the job.

God says, “I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.” And Moses answers, “But why me? What makes you think that I could ever go to Pharaoh and lead the children of Israel out of Egypt?” Can’t you just hear the whine that must have been in his voice?

God answers his excuse saying, “I’ll be with you. Don’t worry about it.” And once again Moses opens his big mouth and says, “Well, what if they ask who sent me? What should I say then?” And God has answer for that excuse too: “Tell them ‘I Am’ sent you.”

Moses comes up with another excuse saying, “They won’t trust me, Lord. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to a guy like him? Never!’” And God answers this excuse by giving him miraculous signs to do to prove that God is with him.

When that doesn’t work, Moses tries one more time to come up with an excuse that will get him out of the job God has in mind for him: “Master, please, I don’t talk well. I’ve never been good with words, neither before or after you spoke to me. I stutter and stammer. . . . Oh, Master, please! Send somebody else!” At this point God is a little angry and a little tired of all the excuses Moses is coming up with. But once again he gives an answer the last of the excuses from Moses: “Don’t you have a brother, Aaron the Levite? He’s good with words. I know he is. He speaks very well. . . . I’ll be right there with you as you speak and with him as he speaks, teaching you step by step. He will speak to the people for you.”

So, one by one, God answers every excuse Moses can come up with—eight of them in all. There is no changing God’s mind here. This says a lot about God’s character: He is persistent but patient, understanding but firm. He recognizes all the concerns that Moses has but constantly reassures him that he will not be walking this road alone; God will be with him each step of the way.

MOVE #2
God understands that we all have our insecurities and flaws. Probably God knows those things about us too well. He knows how we let our insecurities and flaws get in the way of ministry. God knows we all have our own flimsy excuses for why we, like Moses, can’t do the job God has for us: we’re too young or too old; we’re too busy or we don’t feel well enough; we’re not smart enough or we’re not good enough or we’re not worthy enough or we don’t have enough faith; we can’t pray out loud, we can’t speak in front of people, and we’re afraid we don’t know enough about the Bible. We’re full of excuses about why God should pick someone else for the job.

But deep down inside, we know these are just flimsy excuses we hold on for dear life to because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of what might happen if we let God have his way in our lives.
If we were standing in Moses’ place in front of the burning bush, we would probably try to slip away, hoping God wouldn’t notice. We know God would have an answer for every excuse we could come up with and that would leave us with no choice but to obey.

There comes a time when every Christian finds themselves in front of the burning bush. There comes a time when every Christian finds themselves taking their shoes off and coming face to face with God. God has a particular task in mind for each one of us, and sooner or later, we’re going to have to decide what we want to do about it. It’s a huge moment—it’s a huge decision. At that moment God will strip away all our excuses and say, “I know you’re afraid, but I’ll be with you every step of the way. Do you trust me?” And then it’s time for us to decide.

CONCLUSION
Now, I don’t know how the Nominating Committee feels about being compared to the burning bush, but that’s kind of what they are. God uses the Nominating Committee to help identify leaders for his church. They accepted their task of prayerful discernment and did the job God called them to do. And we are very grateful to them because they did a good job.

So now it is time to recognize some folks who faced the burning bush, who gave God all the excuses they could think of, and who finally decided to let go of their fear and to trust God. Would Patty Ferris, Craig Sinclair, and Larry Zellers please come forward for the Ordination and Installation of Elders?

BENEDICTION
Next time you see a burning bush, don’t walk on by. Stop, look, and listen to what God is calling you to do. Let go of your fear and trust God. He will be with you each step of the way.

Go in peace, to love and serve the Lord, in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen