EXODUS 3 Lesson # 3
THE CALL OF GOD: THE PURPOSE OF THE BURNING BUSH
I. Greetings: Today we are going to look at the famous “burning bush” story. I have had to make many decisions in my life and so have you and so the story of the burning bush is intriguing. Here is what intrigues me: it would be great to have clear cut direction from God. Wouldn’t that be great: “do this or do that.” Lets see what this story is all about. What is the “burning bush” story really about….
II. Introduction: Background
A. The Past.
-Last week in Exodus 2 Moses had tried being a liberator.
Q Can any one tell us the first two attempts he made?
An = 1) He killed an Egyptian for trying to kill an Israelite and then he tried to stop two Israelites from fighting.
Q What did he wind up with for his trouble?
An = He certainly received no gratitude, but rather wound-up fleeing for his life, and becoming a fugitive and a stranger in a strange land. In other words, he was burned for doing good.
B. His Past Was Still His Past.
Q What was his third attempt?
An = He tried to stand up for defenseless women (the justice thing again). But this time he received a wife, a got a good but simple job and two sons. However, Moses feels, no doubt beaten, but …in his past he had done the right thing.
C. The Setting of the Call
Note: Our story does not open with Moses at prayer but at work. He was not in an exciting job, He was herding sheep, not the work of a rocket scientist. However, sometimes the best way to hear God is to be at work (Elisha, David, Peter, to name a few).
III. The Call of God and The Burning Bush: Exodus 3:1-6.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:1-4.
A. God Is The Initiator.
Q Who is the initiator of the encounter between Moses and God?
An = It is God who calls, not us, not our yearning. He initiates the call.
Q When does God decide to speak to Moses according to Exodus 3:4?
An = When Moses turns aside, then God speaks. Some of us will not turn aside, but some of you once tried your hand at doing God’s will, but you got burned. But you did once do it, maybe the fact that you are here is your turning aside.
Q What is the content of God’s opening speech?
An = God’s opening speech is quite instructional, but short. He calls Moses by name. He knows us, by name. He knows who are here. You are not one among many, you have a name. (Compare Genesis 46:2).
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:5-6
Q What is God’s second speech?
An = God’s second speech is also surprising. After God first calls to Moses, initiating contact, He says: “Do not come near”. How strange!! But it is not strange if you read a lot of the Bible. God calls to us. He seeks us, but He comes to us as God. When God approaches there must be reference for true dialogue to occur. We must understand His Holiness. God demands this. God wants you to work for Him, but not on your terms, but only as you understand Him as God.
Q What is Moses’ response at the end of Exodus 3:6?
An = Moses’ response is fear! An intelligent response. When Moses saw that it was God, he was afraid.
Have everyone turn to Proverbs 1:7 and let someone read this verse.”The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:….
Q According to verse 6, how does God reveal Himself, or call Himself?
An = He is the God of Moses’ fathers. He knows Moses and Moses’ parents, grandparents, etc. God is not a concept, a point of view, He is the God of real people in Moses’ past. He is the God of specific people in Moses’ actual history and therefore the God of specific people in our own.
Note: Many of you have parents, grandparents, relatives, friends – older people you knew who really knew God? He is that God. The God of real people. It is this God and now He comes to call you.
C. God’s Program: Exodus 3:7-10.
Note: After God establishes contact He now reveals His intentions. Lets see what they are:
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:7.
Q Of what is God aware in verse 7?
An = In verse 7 says God is aware of our sorrow. God knows us, but He also knows the need of our city, our families, our church. There is a lot hurt and need in this city, this church, in your families and God is aware.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:8-9
Q What is God saying in verse 8?
An = After they give their answers one way you could phrase it is: Verse 8 God has more in mind than we do. We want some relief from the oppressive situations we face or that press in on our loved ones. God wants so much more for us. God does want to deliver our loved ones, but He wants to do more. He plans to come down to deliver, and He wants to give them land: a place of their own, freedom, and more than freedom: dignity.
Q What is being repeated in verse 9?
An = In verse 9 we have repetition (means something is important) to some degree of verse 7. God repeats that He has heard our city’s cry, our church’s cry. He has seen the oppression of what sinful men can do, what others have done. So He now brings up the whole reason for the conversation, for the bush:
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:10
Q What is the reason for the burning bush?
An = According to verse 10, the reason for the burning bush is found: “I will send you”, so that “you” will bring up Israel from Egypt. God wants to use “us”. God uses humans, frail discouraged us. God wants to commission you whom He has called. This is the reason for the bush: not to advance our career, make us happy, but call us to difficult, dangerous service.
Q Is God’s plan of helping the Israelites on a grander scale than the one Moses attempted earlier in life?
An = Moses was once in the right path, helping one Israelite at a time in Exodus 2. But when God calls, it is always more than we planned and God wants to deliver even more than we planned. God wants to save the whole nation.
IV. Moses’s hesitancy: Exodus 3:11-14.
Note: Remember Moses is like you. He has tried before. He has been burned. He did not succeed. He lost a great deal, He was totally unappreciated by his own people. Moses had been burned, but now God Himself sends a burning into his life. Notice his response:
A. The First Objection: 3:11-12.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:11-12.
Q How does Moses fell about the job of delivering Israel from Egypt?
An = Moses feels he is inadequate. He knows Egypt. He is wanted for murder there. He knows Egypt’s strength. He knows his own inadequacies.
Q What is God’s answer?
An = God’s answer is very direct: “I will be with you”.
>>>> Turn with me to Matthew 28:20 and lets read it. Dr. Hartley, says, this is the greatest promise in the Bible. God will be with us. In Matthew there was eleven scared, discouraged disciples, but they turned they whole world upside down in their life time. If God had not been with them, you would not be here this morning.
Note: Two other things: 1) God patiently will answer Moses’ objections here and He will do it nearly six times more before chapter 6. God not only hears the cry of Israel, but our cry as well. He will hear you, His servants, who are afraid and He will patiently listen. (We too need to listen to the fears of one another who struggle with self doubt.)
>>>> Have someone re-read Exodus 3:12
Q What was the sign that Moses was being truly spoken to by God?
An = The sign He gives to Moses, he will bring the people out of bondage and they will “worship here”. If God has called us, others will be delivered and worship God where we have worshipped and met God.
Q Why do you think God meet Moses through fire?
An = As He met Moses through fire, He will meet all Israel in fire from Mt. Sinai. He will let us know that we are really sent. We often need signs when we agree to take God’s tasks and know some how that we are indeed called. Israel was scared to death when they saw the fire on Mt. Sinai, but Moses was probably smiling. He now knows God has called.
B. The Second Objection: 3:13-22.
Note: Many of those around you, sitting here right now, might be saying: “but it won’t work.” This is indeed true. There will be problems with the very people we seek to help.
>>>> Have someone read Exodus 3:13-14.
Q Why does Moses want the Name?
An = He is searching for some special angle. We need an angle, an approach, we need some way to let others know that what we are saying is from God. Christian work is always seemingly full of “angles”. Moses knows that in that culture, knowing the special, hidden “name” of a deity gives the worshipper power of the deity to call and summon that god for help.
Q What is God’s answer.
An = The answer from God is again so surprising. God often is. His answer is “I Am Who I Am”, or better yet in Hebrew “I Will Be Whom I Will Be”. God says I am present, but I will not be present for you to control me. Let me explain….
Note: Psychologists try to do this for us today. They try to name our fears or mental anguishes because they know that naming something brings some type of control. God is not offering us control. He is offering two things: 1) He offers to be with us. and 2) we are sent. This word of being sent will dominate the rest of the chapter. This is purpose of the bush?
>>>> Lets read together Exodus 3:10; 3:12, 3:14, 3:15. (You read just the parts that speak of His sending Moses.)
Note: God may be calling. His calls always are to come out of our comfort zones. We may not feel like what we are doing is our spiritual home, but it is what we are now comfortable with. But God calls us out of our Midian and back to our Egypt. He cares about your hesitancy. But if He is involved it will work.
Note: Maybe getting to see a burning bush is not such a great idea for those who wish comfort?